Senate Armed Services Committee Meets today to receive testimony on the department of defense acquisition Reform Efforts and we welcome our witnesses, ellen lord undersecretary for acquisition, technology, and logistics. Mark esper, secretary the army. Heather wilson, secretary the air force and james geurts assistant secretary of the navy for acquisition, technology, and logistics acquisition reform is one of the most important and frustrating topics committee addresses. Four years we have been warned that america is losing its technological advantage. I hope you have seen the work on the topic. Thats why the department of defense needs acquisition reform not just for efficiency or to save money, simply put we will not be able to address threats facing this nation with the system of organized irresponsibility that the defense acquisition enterprise has become. I went to witnesses to pay attention. We are still dealing with a trillion dollar after 35 program that continues to operate i
Can we do this better the biggest thing that i iran into. When i was engaging in the larger thinking community and larger academic trinity is this challenge of getting past iran. That we can ironically to go to understand as well as the idea that iran is irrational. What i consider the mad problem is that iran is too crazy and both of these ideas really handicap us. A train and been able to understand what iran is thinking about and how it looks at the us and formulates its foreign policies. Thats the heart of what i am trying to do in this monogram is take the face off that confusion and say you cant understand this and its what im trying to do. Its not so much provide a whole bunch of policies policy prescription with this administration or for future administrations but basically, provide analytic framework and models, if you will, for understanding how iran develops its foreign policies, how iran develops its approaches in particular to Security Issues and how it goes to war, how i
Gentlemen. Thank you so much for coming to the American Enterprise institute. Im fred kagan, the direct of the critical project here at aei. And if it is my great honor and privilege to lead this panel, discussing report which is just been released by my colleagues, matt mcinnis, the future of irans security policy, Available Online at aei. Org and where these beautiful copies as well if anyone would like one of those. We have a Magnificent Panel today. We are thrilled to have Lieutenant General tom trask, Vice Commander of headquarters u. S. Special Operations Command in washington, d. C. , and vice admiral retired mark fox, formerly Deputy Commanding general of the nested Central Command along with matt to talk about the report. Without further ado i will turn it over to matt. Thank you, fred. Thank you, general trask and admiral fox and fred, for frankly every thing here at aei yourself put this event together. As well as all the people behind the scenes for the past two, 2 years th
And weve only just begun as a community to grapple with a world in which even nonstate actors will be able to get anything the internet. Second, the sizes of battlefields will expand. The proliferation of precision munitions and the isr network that supports employment are increasing the effective range of military units. Our adversaries will not only be able to get what they can see but also strike u. S. Forces actually over longer and longer distances. Third, concealing military forces will become more difficult. More actors are developing sophisticated capabilities designed to find and target their adversaries. On future battlefields find the enemy will be much easier than hiding from him. I believe these features are the operating environment, ubiquitous munitions, larger engagement zones a more transparent battlefields are clearly apparent today. For instance, the obvious hesitancy on the administrations part to assert freedom of navigation rights in the South China Sea in my mind
We are getting the organization used to a way of thinking. Its focusing on the security component and the effectiveness of that, defining that mission in a very clear way and looking to see what we are learns as we are studying it. Weve actually learned quite a bit already about system readiness both in the workforce as well as in the technology and its leading to things that we have to do to improve that on both scores, also beginning to point the way we are going to effect iively measure performan. I see this as a very valuable partnership even recognizing that they have to be independent, but they give me valuable information about how my system is working. Let me say this, one of the things that i pushed with the secret service and city police is i want them to create an organization which is the elite of the elite, in other words, a feeling that we are the best and that our standards are high and i believe that when you have when you get there, the people who are caught up in a cu