Welcome to the hudson institute. I am a senior fellow at hudson and defense in hudson. I am joined by dr. Down pat. I am here we are pleased to welcome the marine corps, general david burger, talking about the future of the marine corps. And future of defenses part of our this fence disruptor syria. Thank you all for being here today. Also thank you to the online audience, we appreciate your attendance. We are going to be having a discussion for about a half hour and then we are going to turn it over to questions from the audience. Both here and virtually. So if you have questions virtually please send those along via the youtube link. And we will work those into the mix for questions. So thank you very much for being here. Thank you for having me. So, to start off with, the current commander of indopacific command recently gave a series of speeches talking about the theater, and the challenges he is facing. He really laid out a case for the need for us to take new approaches and the challenge posed by china and the need for new approaches to deterrence, new ways of structuring and posturing the forest. How, you are also going through a major change that you have been advocating. What are the factors that you see occurring out there in indopacific command that the admiral is highlighting the need for, and the marine corps . Factors. He highlights the pace that is changing. He also highlights the spread that once was pretty close in tight, and more and more spread, out which is bigger and bigger challenges for him. I think the maturation of what some would call the precision strike regime and what does it mean for us, i think on both sides, an acknowledgment that this is not going to be over. This competition is going to go on for a while. We are going to find our way through it long term. What does it mean for the services . We have each service chief has the same challenge of providing the forces that Combatant Commanders need right now. They have to be ready right now for what they need to do today. But also make sure that the forest is ready seven, eight years into the future. That is not new. None of that is new. The new i think is doing it under pressure, in other words with the threat. Especially in the prc. But you can argue, that is not a different level than it was ten or 15 years ago. So what does not cause you to do . I think, i know it is causing us to approach risk in a different way. Managing near term versus long term risk. We could be 100 focused on this week. Or the inverse. Not really worried about this afternoon, im just looking down the road. But too much risk. Part of the challenge and that is our process. Some industry more familiar with terms like global force management. They are designed without all of that in mind. They were not designed with that in mind. A followup to that, you talk about balancing risk. Part of the risk balancing challenges the kinds of situations that you prepare the force to address. A lot of attention gets paid at the pentagon to prepare for the china invasion of taiwan. Which obviously may or may not happen. And we try to bring down the risk on that scenario. And while we probably accept risk in a lot of other scenarios that china could present to us, do you see that is something that we need to kind of reevaluate . Is not maybe wet admiral actually know is getting out when he talks about the need for new approaches to deterrence . Do we need to think about china as a more monthly dimensional way as district lee invasion to taiwan . Yeah. I dont think he would disagree. We also have to parse out deterrents on its Different Levels, and consider them as related to each other, but strategic deterrence, nuclear or not, is different than tactical. They are related. We have to, not just in different domains, but look at deterrence through different lenses and understand actions at one level have affected another level. If done in the worstcase, you can make advances here and actually such yourself back here if you do not, if you are not cognizant of the whole. Deterrence and Different Levels first step. Second step i think is learning, frankly. Just understanding. I think that we have a long history of understanding, to some degrees strategic deterrence, although some of these is relearning. But deterrence of activities, malign activities and what some people right of a gray zone, okay we are not very, we do not have 40 years of thinking about that. We have a few episodes, but not decades. So i think we are learning, we are learning our way through how do you deter malign activity below the threshold of a war. And how do you measure that . Because it is not a win. Measuring the negative and how do we do that . So the title of this series is about defense disrupters, and it is highly appropriate to have you on here, thank you for joining us. And certainly you know, essential destruction here is the marine corps design that at least in my memory, it is seen as one of the more dramatic shifts that the department has had. In making the case for the new Marine Corps Force design, you have cited trends, and the historian stephen makes is as little 80 gets so high, the challenge in conflict is staying alive long enough to have an effect. One approach to deal with that, distribution, and mobility, and resilience. It feels like the marine corps is leaning in this direction of concepts like Expeditionary Advance operations. But it does not come for free. There is a price here. Two key challenges come to mind. One, how do you sustain this distributive forest . And to, how do you coordinate, and harmonize their activities . So they remain a cohesive force. How is the marine corps thinking about working through these challenges . The first part i think, a challenge for the marine corps, for the naval force, for the joined forest. Logistics has not been, i would say, an afterthought is probably an exaggeration. But when your backside is protected, it is not your first thought lets just say. But when you assume that your backside is threatened, now it is in the first part. Most of us grew up early on intelligence to drive operations. But now, bring the logistics into the conversation in the first paragraph, because if we are just focused on intelligence and then a scheme to come up with it, and then we are going to turn to a logisticians to say that i need you to make that work, would you . He is going to say you should have brought me in in the early stages. I cannot make your scheme work. I think logistics in a contested environment, huge challenge for us. Not insurmountable, but we need to acknowledge that we should assume, we are going to do to them, they are going to challenge our sustainment. We have got work to do. How do you get past that . A real look i think it everything from prepositioning of float, to the lift that conventionally has gone across the ocean, you know, through the solid protective pipeline. Delivered in some big port, off you go. That is not how we are going to need to think about it Going Forward. Because i think realistically they are going to challenge us back in our port, or beyond. They are going to try to soar mobilization. They are going to do everything that they can to slowest down, as far back as possible. Sustainment, huge challenge. Fortunately, we have creative people thinking about it, trying different approaches. What do we have to work with . Some people think of allies and partners in terms of who is going to fight alongside of you. I think in terms of yes, also this is your, this is the pantry. This is the story you are going to buy your goods from. And it is all around you. If you just open up your mind a little bit, it does not all need to come from these east coast or west coast of the u. S. The value of allies and partners, if you can get it there, it is also sustainment. It is logistics. It is the distributive framework of keeping things operational, forward, and sustainment of supplies forward. How do we do that Going Forward . So logistics, we have got work to do their. But i am optimistic because the right people are starting to think through an experiment of how we will do that. You have a second part, though. Which is the coordination. The harmonization of activity. Yeah. In a very simple sons, the way that i view it is, the most forward parts of the u. S. Military and a contested environment, before shots are fired, are going to be special operations units, submarines, and marines. Okay, so first step is, of those three are forward persistently 24 7, how do we stitch them together into some sort of framework where they can move information, where they can move supplies, where they can with some overlap, but not too much redundancy cover the Playing Field . This is a place we have not been in a while tested together that tightly. We can, we should. And the last six months going 100 miles an hour to sort through how to do that. It is not as simple as created joint task force that all three of you work for. And you are not suggesting that it is. But clearly command and control forward in a contested environment means not just distributed forces, but are we going to trust the small unit leaders to action execute at speed . Knowing that they may do it a little differently than the command post. The second part i think we are going to let go. The Senior Leaders that we have today, many of them grew up in the last 20, 25 years where this place would have had nothing but plasma screens that gave us a picture of every square inch of territory that we wanted to stare at 24 7. We got comfortable with that, weve got comfortable with making decisions off of thought. That is not how the future is going to be. In other words, the shared common operational picture i think looks different than it did in the middle east. We have got to get used to that. Commanders have to get used to learning about something that happened yesterday. And being okay with that. Followup question. You talked earlier about the changing nature of thinking about deterrence, we talked about some of the consistent forward president s, and standing for, us and how that may be evolved in daytoday activities. There is going to be a stand and force that houses and during, or ongoing rule. How does that change force design, whats a murray needs to be prepared for . If at least sort of my old mental model was there is a contingency, something bad happens and i am there, and i respond post fact. But if i am there today, and i am building the access, the relationships, the placements which are now a part of readiness with allies and partners, what does that, how does not show up in force design . What is the marine doing on a daytoday basis tonight will not . And what does a marine have to be ready for . To answer that question, i would probably go back four years perhaps, three and a half, for years where unintentional shift to a focus on lethality which was needed, i would now fast forward to today. I would say do not let go of lethality but you have got to combine that with the ability to understand what is in front of you and prevent them from doing the same. So the value perhaps of the stand in forest in some ways, it might be the most valuable thing they do is not killing something but actually collecting or preventing an adversary from collecting against us. Or it may be part of a kill web that this node pleased forward is essential. So the value of a standin forces lethality, for sure. Holding targets 24 7 at bay, or not at bay but at risk where you know what targets you are holding and you can engage them either organically or with other assets either way. But part of deterrence, going back to your point, before the fight starts what we need, we want them to know that we are there. We want them to see that we are there. And we want to make sure that they know that there is nothing they can do there that we are not going to see. We are not going to share with the rest of the world. There will not be activity that they can get away with because we will collect against it. That changes how they operate. They have to change how they operate. So it is a long way of saying a very simplistic approach might be everybody has a long range weapons and there are satellites everywhere so we are just going to pull back to these great distances and hold each other at bay. Somebody who buys into that concept does not understand the approach of the adversaries we are talking about. Because us backing up, they will take four steps forward and we will back four steps more, they will take four steps forward. And you know the rest of the story. So staying in tight is exactly where the recourse is very comfortable would be. It makes them uncomfortable. It seems like if we are, and it seems like if you are going to hold your adversary at risk, and make him uncomfortable, and create uncertainty, you have got to be able to close that kill chain. So just watching him and make sure that you know that hes watching him you will have to potentially act on that information. So you are looking to equip the stand in force with weapons and i guess that it will work with other elements of the force to create this kill web possibility. So is that, is this part of the campaigning effort, we should be doing day today to undermine the confidence that the planners might have been there were plans, or their plan operations . Yeah. You pick a piece of real estate around the world through a military lens, the planners are going to look for what is the key terrain in that area . You do not necessarily have to be there, but you have to be able to control it. If you take that approach in the literal environment, then what can the marine corps contribute there . If we want to hold a key piece of literal terrain open, or deny the adversary the ability to sit there and control it, what does that take . And it is not about sinking their ships, to your point. Control, what does that mean . Or denial, what does that mean . And what is our role there as part of combined joint force . First step, back to first step. Can you collect, can you see, can you make sense of what is in front of you . Can you do that . Frankly, i think we wont have much problem getting there, but the paradigm of Counter Insurgency targeting Engagement Authority that is held by an admiral laurier general somewhere back there, that is not going to be applicable idol. Right. And you are going to need to equip the local commanders with the type of tools they may need. Decision supporters to help them think through what are the different courses of action that are available to me, because i do not have a staff anymore. Absolutely, yes. From the Hardware Software of would computing do we need at the edge for a sergeant, for a lieutenant, for a captain, what at the edge do they need the ability, in their hands, what do they need there . Both processing wise, and data wise. And then what do they need access to, to your point. The tools that you mentioned, and here we have to separate Artificial Intelligence from machine learning, but the end result meaning they are not handling all of the volume of information manually, north sifting through possible out comes that are being distilled down to a handful to which they can operate faster, not just faster, but better decisions. It seems like we are arguing distended unforced, the other elements of the force are trying to get it decisionmaking advantage over their chinese counterparts. Even if no shells are being fired, there is this constant game of chess going on in terms of how you are positioning yourself, or what is being held at risk, and what is not being held at risk. In that decisionmaking competition, it seems like ideally you would want more options available to you than what you are going to have available to you, which i think gets to the question you wanted to ask about. Yes. We can pivot to metrics. One of the things you engaged, or drawn public attention to is this conversation on readiness. With general brown, through washington post, and we talked about readiness. There is this thing that comes up which is, you know, often today conversation readiness focuses on the availability. It might misses the fact that even if i have available forces, available units, they might not be well prepared for the particular problem that i face now. But at the same time, there is so much around how we use these metrics that it seems very difficult to change. So the questions to you are wondering your attention to focus on metrics to drive institutional change, in particular readiness, what was your motivation for thinking about it . And you really think that you can change the behavior of the institution. What drove me there i think primarily was a frustration that the metrics that we were using, and the way that graphically and charge wise, whatever you want, the information we were given, the secretary of defense to make decisions with is incomplete, misleading to some degree, incomplete in terms of how it did not get the whole context. We have seven of them, how many of them can go today . That was the extent of that is not good enough for him to make decisions with. So my frustration was not with him, it was with us. We have to get to a different framework that gives him the right information. That is accurate, and the context of that he can say lets do that. Our frustration is living with this for the past decade, which probably served us well before. It is not going to service well Going Forward. Though it is not the quality of his decision or anything like that, it is the metrics were wrong, are not going to be what we need in the future, readiness wise to make the right decisions, frankly. That was it. It seems like the way you are describing the operation of the future forest, at least from this perspective is that its utility is going to be based in part of its availability. But it is also based on is it relevant to the operation at hand . So does it help me get more options relative to what i had before, does it give me options that are useful against these targets that i am not faced with in the situation i am encountering today . Which is a different way of measuring readiness beyond just availability, and did it certify is training, or complete its tasks. That is certainly one aspect, absolutely yes. Does that capability give you clearly. The second part which general brown and i are trying to communicate is, at the cost of wood in terms of down the road, modernization, whatever if i do this and readiness, lets say, is not just about this afternoon. But readiness is bigger than that. What is the risk we are assuming if we are doing that . We dont have a way to describe this. If you do this, using a framework that they are familiar with. If i stand can it do that . Yes, it can. That would be the end of the conversation. Lets do that. It makes all the sense in the world. But he doesnt see, when we can show him is a year for now, the scheduled maintenance for that sh