A Technology Perspective is an incubator to continue. Particularly for the sorts of technologies that are can be sized for special operations, special operations units. But at some point i think to the extent the growth of special operations will whether it continues or not, i think that has much more to do probably with the evolution in the future security environment as anything and that the more those sorts of forces are seen as the optimal sort of instrument to deploy in a particular conflict the more likely we are to see them grow but i suspect the rest we might see some growth in the rest of the world. Since jerrys right that the russians arent only using precision strike reflects their interests, and when they use force might be slightly different than the United States in some cases. But mimicry certainly happens and to the extent that the countries in a military sense sometimes do wish to emulate the american model, i think you do see a little bit of that in the growth of special operations forces. I would jump on that, too. Point out that essentially with the advent of the Nuclear Weapon and Strategic Deterrence that goes along with that, the middle ground has been vacated in that even though we like to size our large land forces for the big ig battle or maneuvers in the desert and so on, fact of the matter is both vietnam, as well as the our last 11 years 14 years of experience have really been counterinsurgents softlike operations. So that occupation with the strategic sense that going big in war ends up in places we dont like to talk about has driven us towards this. Despite those very long experiences in vietnam as well as in iraq and afghanistan, its seeming as soon as we get ourselves out of that, we want to get our force back toward large maneuvering combat elements and that is unwise. I would say one of the things that struck me is that naval forces tend to think more almost softlike in a sense that were always out, were always deployed, were always in the neighborhood. We get to know people, the local actors, and we tend to interact on a more consistent basis which is more in line with soft doctrine than perhaps the land battle doctrine. Yes, maam. Okay. Strategic deterrence in a new era. I wonder if the new era is possibly a little ahead of what weve been describing here, and thats been reaction to iraq, the russians, the ukraine, that kind of thing. If youve been listening to ted koppell, if youve been hearing about the homegrown, now being called terrorist attacks on the home front, that was not just the recent one, it was also boston, there seems to be a great possibility, as i see it, for just a tremendous upheaval over something that doesnt seem to be getting a lot of attention in terms of deterrence. My confusion is, is there a line . Is there a specialty between home front security to protect us from this versus the military, and how do we look at it . If im reading things correctly, the new era is in these Little Pockets that can just cause havoc if our grid, our electric grid, our transportation grid goes under, it can paralyze the whole country here. Im curious to get some response on that, please. Look, were dealing with a multifacetted security environment, threats coming from a number of vectors. This is apropos of these forces, were probably going to deal with several categories of challenges one of which is radical islam and the terrorist threat, including weapons of mass destruction, mass effect, including potential Cyber Capabilities if theyre able to be used at that scale, but also more traditional weapons of mass destruction. But at the same time, were going to be dealing with great Power Dynamics in a more geopolitical environment. I think the possibility of an attack by radical islamic terrorists or other terrorists is probably a lot higher, but the scale of a full the potential cost of a major war between the United States and russia or the United States and china dwarfs the median kind of threat from a radical islamic source. I think the bottom line is well have to do both, and my sense is that we should focus our capabilities on maintaining our conventional and our strategic advantages where possible to continue to sustain what we used to call the free world from attack or coercion which is high end conventional forces, nuclear forces, aerospace dominance, et cetera, and at the same time invest in forces, department ship building, designed to both deter, negate, eliminate, et cetera, threats from radical sources that are likely to persist for the foreseeable future, unfortunately. So were going to have to degrade and destroy where we can and contain where we cant. I think the bottom line, though, is were going to have to i think what were talking about here is a subject that in these kinds of quarters gets a hearing, but in the broader political conversation, it tends to be drowned out, surprisingly to some degree legitimately by these concerns about islam and these very seriously need and require very focused and serious attention. But on the other hand when were thinking about our national strategy, it doesnt quite make the news on a day to day basis may actually be more consequential in certain ways in terms of our budgetary decisions, in terms of our policy and the most risky and costly outcomes. Yes, sir. Right here in front. Last question. You have the honor of being our last question. Lucky me. In the late 70s, early 80s, as our conventional forces improved in their capabilities, that was seen as contributing to a more stable deterrent capability. So my question for the panel is, if we are going to improve our conventional forces, is that stabilizing or does it have a risk associated with it . Very interesting question. You know, i think stability is something ive thought about a lot, and the notion behind strategic stability and stability of all kinds is the two powers that are in some degree of hostile relationship can find some basis for stability, for a tolerable equilibrium that is somewhat plastic enough to adapt to geopolitical conditions. In practice, both sides are seeking confidence, so on. In the70s and 1980s i think its worth remembering that it was assumed well into the 1980s that the soviets could be in the English Channel in the course of about three weeks. So a lot of what the conventional return and practice was aimed at was refreshing. Maybe there was a vision in the 1990s and 2000s, they could make defeat the pack in outward conflict, assuming the pack just didnt dissolve on contact. But i dont think anyone ever thought airline battle was still kind of a series of charts in the mid80s. Falling on forced attack. But it was successful in a sense. If it freaked the soviets. In that sense it was stabilizing in the way that today things will be stabilizing because it was intended to plug a hole, and the hole deputy secretary work recognizes or pointed to was parity, and nato would be the one that would say, if you cross the germany border, well blow up the world. Its not a very credible strategy when they have a retaliatory capability. The proof in the retaliatory capability stabilized the situation by making it much less attractive. I think today we face a situation where the russians are nowhere near the red army but nato is nowhere near where nato was. There was an article, i think general scales put it in the journal that even u. S. Forces in nato dont have basic air defense capabilities. They have tmd kind of capabilities but they lack shorter range air defense capabilities. Americans forces are not fought with air superior since korea or world war ii. This is a situation in which the russians have very formidable air defenses and strike capabilities of their own. Meanwhile, the germans are practicing doing military exercises with broomsticks. Its an unfair story but theres also a lot of truth in it. What i worry, and i sometimes think i talk about the baltics too much, but then i think, wait a minute, the russians could be there very quickly, and the americans in order to fight back would have to suppress enemies on russian territory, would have to blow a lot of things up, would have to do a lot of nasty stuff and would take us a lot of time. So i think the stabilizing thing is to plug, if not fully plug, make that hole a lot less attractive. I think its stabilizing. Im sure the russians have a different view, but im sure im right. Its kind of interesting, history being 20 20, we look back at the late 1970s, early 1980s as a period of stabilizing. As probably the only person on the stage that can remember that time frame, you know, it was a time of a lot of instability. In fact, we know from looking at the soviet archives that antropov was convinced reagan was going to come in 1938 and we were going to get allout war at that time. It was a destabilizing era because of the rapid growth of our buildup. And i think its interesting that if we take the defsecs snap of the chauling line as 20132014 as kind of a turning point, keep in account that the detainment era was never as clear to those who were participating in its formulation as what it appears to us now in hindsight. And so as we feel our way through, not into a Great Power Competition between us and the soviet union, but actually at least a threelegged stool right now between us, china and russia, if europe can manage to get its game together and step it up above 2 of gdp, then maybe they can play in this, too. Then i think that were still trying to figure out what the new equilibrium point is going to be. As we go through some sort of a buildup that buildup may be in hightech, that may be built up in broader forces. We dont know how to build that up yet. I appreciate the Leadership Division that the def sec work, thats coming, and i do hope that essentially since he asked today, whoever the next Administration Takes up this initiative and continues to move it forward, i think its the only responsible thing to do from a bipartisan standpoint that we need to move forward with some of these initiatives. I think the hole now is the risk of selfdeterrence, because we risk that others are catching up in a way that thus makes the u. S. Less comfortable deploying certain assets with potential areas in the pacific being with the carrier and chinas developing an antiballistic missile being an example of this. So the development of new conventional military technologies, i think, is unlikely to be destabilizing, except insofar as the adversary would rather they didnt have great military tech, of course, but it will be stabilizing insofar as it fixes genuine capabilities hole that seems to be developing that could make it a lot harder for the United States to execute its strategy and project power around the world. Well, i know there were a number of other questions, and i apologize we werent able to get to all of them, but im afraid our time is up. Thank you very much for joining us, and please do stay with us for the preview of citizen soldier. [ applause ] we need to know how many people are reading us, we need to know how theyre coming to us. For example, if theyre not coming directly to our website, if coming through facebook, twitter, snapchat or any of the other venues, we should know that. Sunday night on q 13 a, the Washington Post executive editor marty barron talks about the changes since he took over in 2013. He discusses depikds of his work as editor in chief of the boston globe in the movie spotlight. I think its quite faithful to the broad outline of how the investigation unfolded. It important to keep in mind, its a movie, not a documentary. You had to compress within two hours sevenmonth plus investigation, including things that happened afterwards. And you had to introduce a lot of characters and had to introduce the important themes that emerged over the course of the investigation. Sunday at 8 00 eastern, on q a. A Senate Committee recently examined issues concerning u. S. Strategy in afghanistan. Witnesses include richard olson, a former u. S. Ambassador to pakistan, and now the state Department Special representative for the region. This Senate ForeignRelations Committee hearing is about 2 1 2 hours. Foreign Relations Committee will come to order. We want to thank our witnesses for being here and certainly all of our committee members. I think in lieu of reading my normal Opening Statement, i just want to make a general statement. And that is that yesterday we had a classified briefing. What we hear in classified briefings about the direction and signals and all the things that are occurring in afghanistan directly contradict some of the rosy public statements that are made about what is happening within the country. I think its actually alarming to go to a classified session and then to hear reports about those discussions in the Armed Services committee itself. So, with that backdrop, i just want to say to each of you, all of us obviously want our nation to be successful. In its efforts in afghanistan. I know theres been a debate about the numbers of troops on the ground. Theres been some arbitrary numbers that have been thrown out. I know today we have 9,800 troops there. And yet from what i can tell were continuing to lose territory, lose momentum. The status in afghanistan is today were moving in a very negative direction on the ground. So, obviously thats concerning. We know that the president , we know he has a vast amount of experience. Know hes somewhat of a technocrat. Knows there are issues that need to be dealt with appropriately within the country, but when you look at all of these Security Issues that are being dealt with, certainly it takes away from his ability to implement those. So, were concerned about security. I think were concerned about any type of reconciliation thats taking place. We understand the concerns that exist relative to pakistan. And lets face it, to a degree hedging their bets. But from the outside, as you watch whats happening there, the taliban is gaining ground. And that is just a fact. So, i hope this hearing today, which will be obviously the first public hearing weve had in some time on this topic, will help us be illuminated. We thank you both of you very, very much for your service and for being here and we thank you for your willingness to help us with understandings as to what is actually happening there on the ground. With that, ill turn to senator cardin. Thank you, mr. Chairman. And thank you for calling this hearing, and i want to thank our witnesses for being here. I just im going to follow the example of the chairman and just lay out some basic concerns i think that came out as a result not just of yesterdays briefing but as weve seen of late, and that is that how we doing on the security front in afghanistan. It seems like were losing ground. What happened was a major concern. It showed real shortcomings in the Afghan National defense and Security Forces to provide security to a region. What have we learned from that and how are we Going Forward. Secondly, the reconciliation process, whether there can be a stable government in afghanistan representing all the interests of the country and the role that pakistan is playing in that regard. Are they are they a sincere partner in peace or are they just trying to protect their interests in its relationship in that region. Third, the Development Progress in afghanistan since 2001, the resources that weve put into afghanistan, theres certainly been a question. Their economy is not performing anywhere near at a level that would be acceptable for sustainability and progress. And then today or yesterday the New York Times an article that raises a question as to whether the taliban is key to u. S. Aid projects, which i would hike to get some answers on as to what is the shortterm, longterm gains and whether our investments of u. S. Taxpayer dollars are really being beneficial in afghans future. Then lastly, the anticorruption efforts. We know the president made very strong commitments for anticorruption and yet we see virtually no progress in dealing with the corruption issues in afghanistan. So, what i hope we will do, weve been there for a while, whats gone right. Build on that. Weve done a lot of good things in afghanistan. I think we all acknowledge that. This is not the country it was in 2001 and thats a positive note. But things have gone wrong. And have we learned from whats gone wrong so that we can take appropriate adjustments to make sure that we have an effective policy for afghans future and u. S. Policy interests. I look forward to hearing from our witnesses. Thank you, sir. Well now turn to our witnesses on the first panel well hear from two administration witnesses representing the state department and usaid whose portfolios include both afghanistan and pakistan. The second Panel Includes three informed experts on afghanistan and the region. We thank them for being here. So our first witness is the respected Ambassador Richard olson, the United States special representative for afghanistan and pakistan, and recently returned as our ambassador from islamabad. We thank you very much for a career in Public Service and Foreign Service and for being here today. Our second witness is donald l. Sampler, jr. Assistant to the administrator for pakistan and afghanistan at usaid. We thank you for what you your cohorts do around the world to further our u. S. Interests, so with that, ambassador olson, if you would begin, we appreciate it. I will just say, as a courtesy to my fellow panelists here, the deadline for a couple issues is 21 minutes relative to the other thing were working on. I may step in and out a little bit, and miss a little bit, not out of disrespect. Thank you. Chairman corker, Ranking Member cardin, members of the committee, its an honor to appear before you today to