Here. You can watch the rest of it online at cspan. Org. We go watch the heritage foundation, where Lieutenant General thomas ford is set to speak on his report on modernizing the u. S. Army. Im told we dont necessarily have to talk about silencing cell phones, but im going to save anyway. We usually have a robust online audience and we want to minimize distractions. Thank you for joining us. We are going to talk about a new report on rebuilding the army. Its actually the third paper out, the first talked about how to think about the future, and we released one in the marine corps. This is a major paper on the army, and how to think about its relationship with National Security strategy and how the world is changing, and some recommendations for the path of with ay needs to go down look out to a 30 year timeframe. We will follow off with a paper follow up with a paper on the air force next month, wrapping up by the end of the year with a paper on the navy so we have all four Services Covered and thinking about preparations for the future. Give ane meant to independent perspective, advice, recommendations to the administration, to the military service in particular, leaving officials in the Defense Department and hopefully informs deliberations in congress. Ago, the armynths embarked on a major effort driven by then secretary of Defense James Mattis with a real focus on getting back to an age of compete peer competitor fights with major opponents such as russia and china. This outside of regular warfare, which is what we have been doing for the past 18 years. Participating in the discussion spohr, the author, tom who directs our center for National Defense here at the heritage foundation. He served in the army for 36 years, retired in 2016. He has been leading the defense efforts. The discussion will be miss johnson. She is a land warfare reporter for the defense news and has covered defense matters in the d. C. Area for about eight years. Previously a reporter at andy recipient of the best analytical reporting reward into award in 2014. And best young a defense journalist in 2000 18. I dont know how long you get to arry young as a title [laughter] we will turn to a great discussion, then open it up for q and a. When we get to that point, we will pass around a microphone, please identify who you are so the online audience knows who is speaking. We try to keep focused on questions, not personal statements. Thank you for being here, and for those watching online. And tom, thank you for your report. This has triggered a decent amount of discussion and debate in the army community, which is a good thing. We will dive deeper into those issues in my in our conversation. It is a good time to be making suggestions to the army, they are in the process of developing them multidomain operation concept, looking at force structure and heading down and ambitious and an ambitious path of modernization. Talk about how you went about researching and how your background applies to what you are doing. Thank you everyone for being here today, and thank you for moderating this discussion. We embarked on this project, we called it rebuilding americas ago. Ct or ramp two years we did not know what would be happening when the papers came out. Suggested, as you suggested, the armies in the process of a major change of leadership, secretary mccarthy has his confirmation hearing next week, the chief of staff it was a clean break point where the army could reevaluate where they are and take a look at things. As the introduction said we have a new National Defense strategy. Even though it was january of 2018, in army terms thats like yesterday. People say why havent the army or department of defense adapted to the new strategy . Its worse than turning an aircraft carrier. It takes years to turn an organization like the army. I think this paper came out a good time. The bipartisan budget act passed a month or two ago in Congress Gives the ability to the army to focus on their future, versus continuingterm resolution, shutdown, how will we get through these months . They now have the luxury, assuming congress does what it needs to do, to think about their future in an intellectual way, which is rare in washington, d. C. Most of our research at heritage is focused on the nearterm fight, we write about the natural Defense Authorization fighter and things on congresss plate. This is different for us, looking out further. And i thought 36 years in the army, i thought i knew a lot about the army, you would think that i did, but it turns out i didnt. Ive never been a futurist, i was always consumed on how do we get the current task done. , i had to stretch educate myself on the army before i started writing this paper. I heard the flow floor the folklore of general sullivan and just accepted it as a young officer. This made me go back and learn it. It was hard, but i liked it. Areast are some of the that you looked at, and what are your conclusions . It ry to look at all of tried to look at all of it. I spent a lot of time in the pentagon in particular, and equipment monitors nation. Monitorization. I wrote about problems that i was familiar, equipment modernization, talent, management, i looked at the concept and i will admit that im not a conceptual person. I reached out to a lot of people, including some in this room for their thoughts. Ive had to go to interviews because i dont live in a conceptual world. Theres a whole group thats almost a career field in the army that thinks about concepts. I was never in that group. So i had to talk to those kinds of people. By and large, my conclusion that i reached fairly early on was that the army was on the right path. A wholesale revision of the armies modernization plan was not needed, there was course correction, i saw some areas where the tapestry was fraying around the edges and they could tighten up the story and justifications for things. Some places where i could not frankly understand why they were pursuing particular modernization programs to the degree they were, longrange strategic canons fall in that category. I did my best to understand, but there could be things that are classified and they were not able to share with me. Another example is the requirement for the optionally manned fighting vehicle. I did my best to understand them only to find out that they are o and i cannot get them. Thei cannot understand why army was pursuing that vehicle. I looked at manpower, how big should the army be, how cliche they grow their force how quickly should they grow their force . And i found some areas where i think they should develop some new organizations. Diving into the modernization they are seem to think on track. But this is obviously complicated and they are moving quickly. Theres a lot of room for error at this point. It sounds like since its early on, course correction could be good. What are some of the future challenges they could be facing in modernization plans . , luckooked at the history plays an underappreciated factor. You could have the best conceived plan, and if the world environment changes in your army needs to go do something, fight a fight, you are not able to modernize to a degree. Maybe you could salvage some aspect of the program, but you will not be able to carry out the plan you had envisioned. That did not occur in some cases. The army kept driving on, thinking that whatever we were fighting was going to go away, and we could continue with our plan. You see that with scs. They tried to go down the path system,uture comeback in the end, the counterinsurgency fight won. Thats not the first time but it was the most salient example to me. So luck. Not,hether you like it or the armys funding once every 15 years. Yourenot monitor if trying to keep your service alive. Until the best you can you get an influx of funding. Your serviceotect and modernize. Its too hard. That was something i realized. I think the army is doing a good job. In one of the things that was underappreciated to me was the difficulty of facing two threats simultaneously. We talk about russia and china. Its almost a high sit a hyphenated word, russiachina. One level below that they represent different threats. China representing a maritime and air threats, russia more of a conventional ground threat. For the time being, they are using the same concept and same types of equipment to address both threats. My senses, over time, that will be harder as the threats diverge and china becomes more capable. It will be harder to manage that duality of threat while also maintaining a counterinsurgency capability. You talk a lot about successes and failures. You mention fcs, can you dive deeper into the successes and failures that we have seen in the past . Do you think the army is applying Lessons Learned . Yes. I dont like calling them failures because its so pejorative, but i Start Talking about the pentatonic division, which is the focus on Nuclear Weapons under eisenhower and how the army was in danger of becoming irrelevant. The chief of staff was persuaded to change his entire force and focus on nuclear warfare. So he created the pentatonic division which had five large battle groups. The idea was so big a division, so dispersed that it could survive Nuclear Attack and employ Nuclear Weapons. They rushed into this design, maybe before it was fielded, people figured out this was not what the army needed to be. It was an example of where they rushed into a design, started designing a fourspeed or they had the concept designing a force before they had the concept figured out. Traderward to pew and dock. There was a concept called active defense in response to a huge soviet army threat in central europe. How do we come up with a concept to fight this . Of the up with an idea fighting in an active defense, and falling back to various positions of strength. The dilemma was that he did not share the concept widely with the army. Just a small staff group at the headquarters. When he finally uncorked this bottle of wine, if you will, it was not met with acceptance. Acceptance in the army is really a critical aspect of whether a concept will succeed. He kept it close and when he brought it out, and because he had not shared it and it had this countercultural preference for defense over offense, all of the military services tend to culturally favor the offense, it did not catch on. I was not in the army at the time, but i could sense that the moment i came into the army how we had this concept that nobody bought into. In terms of successes, those are more fun to talk about. I will talk about the stryker brigade combat team. Conceived as an interim force by , andal shin czechia fielded in a record amount of time. It was the idea that we wanted an interim force with stryker brigade combat teams maneuvering in the area of kandahar, rather, iraq. We got that concept up and it was an example of how when you set your mind to something and you have cohesive leadership and locus focus, it can come together. Another example is task force modularity. In the middle of iraq and afghanistan fights, when the army was scented with the requirement more combat team than it had, it modularized the brigades and made more of them. They were self raining, org selfsustaining, all activities were organic to that brigade. It happened in almost 18 to 20 months. It was really a quick effort. And the classic example most. 2 iscers went to airland battle. To is air land battle. Precepts were followed in changing the army. They werent likely paired, a great team, they did the homework, they spoke to everyone. In the end it was a concept that serve the army well for 10 years. The more controversial parts of the paper is regarding reordering prioritization. You said longrange precision fire should be kept at the top but you suggested bumping next generation combat vehicle and future vertical lift from the number to zen three spots. And working the network up to number two. Could you talk about the reasoning with those recommendations. The moment my paper was withshed, my inbox lit up a number of people interested in my reordering of the modernization priorities. I dont how the army established their first round of priorities they did not share the rationale, but i use a simple , in the method multidomain concept, how important is this capability to the successful execution of multidomain operations in the year 2030 . Looking forward, reading the concept and accepting it for what it is, how important is this capability in this concept, and looking at the current force we have today, how close is that capability we have today to what we need in 2030 . Fleet ofe a wonderful soldier lethality weapons in mind, we are already where we need to be to execute multidomain operations. I took that very simple matrix and applied it to the six modernization areas. In multidomain operations, longrange precision fires are critical, and we are in poor shape today. Longrange precision fires came out of the top. And if youre going to employ any of these capabilities, especially in multidomain operations, the network is key. Talksdomain operations about the rapid and continuous integrations in fighting domains. If you dont have the network to do that, you cannot do those operations. Down the line,nt air and missile defense, we are in poor defense poor shape. It came out number three. And just on down the lane. To make the list of the six modernization priorities, the main thing is importance. Future vertical lift came out and number six but that does not mean its not important. That is six in a list of dozens upon dozens of army programs. That you may number six should make you feel really good. That was not respect reflected in the correspondence i got from my friends. It was useful for me. Army,t presume that the as a result of my insightful analysis, will change their modernization priorities. But the next time they update them, if theyh could release their rationale for how they came up with that listing, so i could say yes, that makes thence makes sense. Track thecould not on the multidomain concept of their modernization priorities. Its an important point, and something i asked a few days ago , what was the rationale for the priorities . And i did not really get a straight answer, but one thing mention was that the adam to see that the priorities are not going to change the adamancy that the prioritys are not going to change. Of respondingob to that, i have been on the cynical end of this business, and often we would say where do we have the most money and where we most at risk . If we have billion dollars in it makesmy aviation, sense that aviation is the number one priority. The pentagon view of the world, a budgeteers view of the world, its not necessarily the correct view. And defunding were to change, priorities could shift and if funding were to change, priorities could shift. Could you present some of the counter rationale, especially in future vertical lift and x generation combat vehicle. A lot of the feedback was positive. Including from the chief of staff of the army and the secretary of the army. I ask met with the chief of staff of the army and we discussed this concept for 90 minutes. I was do to meet with secretary mccarthy later this month. They been receptive to my ideas and appreciative of an outside opinion. I dont want to characterize this as the army circling its wagons. They are not. I sent a copy of the draft papers and it was sent to the fourstar contemporaries and army major commands, and it has filter now throughout the out the army throughout the army. But i have been asked about my rationale, aviation being one of them. Most people say you dont understand why future vertical lift is so important to the future of the fight. I said i think youre probably right. I think im one of 10 people who read multidomain operations cover to cover 10 times. I have held it to the light trying to interpret it and could not find an overwhelming argument in favor of the future vertical lift. That was one criticism. Ive gotten some criticism about the priority that i ascribed to nextgeneration combat vehicles. It could be that i just cant see how they establish their requirements. That it must carry this number of soldiers, have a 30 millimeter gun with an option for a 50 millimeter gun, all of those things. Its hard for an outsider to look into the armys rationale and why they are making the requirements they are for that vehicle. Mentioned int you the next generation combat vehicle bucket that it would be an optional command fighting vehicle to replace the bradley, that the army back off the initial requirement to have the vehicle be optionally manned, or autonomous. Talk about why you feel like that should be dropped . I was able to ask the next generation combat vehicles director about that and he argued that if we dont put it in the requirements now, and we think about it too late, it will be more costly to incorporate later. Talk about why its potentially important to back off of that . I think autonomy and robotically controlled theres a future for that in the military. Such as ity network, is today, is not sufficient enough to do what is supposed to do today, much less take on the burden of controlling autonomously or robotically controlled vehicles across the battlefield. It just isnt. If you think about what a robotically controlled vehicle will need, multiple video feeds. You will want to see in front of your vehicle, presumably to the side and did the back and in the back. Now your streaming over your feedsk four or five video and 90 want to stream fire control and navigation and driver can troll to somebody control to somebody. He started doing the math on megabytes per second required if you start doing the math on megabytes per second on a otic tree care to her robotic infantry carrier maybe at some point it will be possible but not today. Today, we cannot make an Autonomous Car that can drive on interstate highways. And now you want to take this Autonomous Vehicle and drive it across the National Training center in fort irwin, in ditches, at night, with all of those complications, its an extraordinary requirement for a vehicle to operate like that. Especially a combat vehicle, where you have to be certain that when you push that button that you are pointed at an enemy versus a friendly. Its useful to have the hookups. You want the wires in the chassis already, so if you want to drive this vehicle at some point robotically, that the wiring is in there and the connections are there. But the place where the box would go that would control the vehicle robotically should be empty right now. And it should not be contributing to either the cost or testing requirements of the vehicle because we could field it today and the army network is years from being robust enough to support that. I have said that audiences and nobody has said you are wrong. I have said it enough times and maybe when we get to q a someone can tell me im wrong. But i believe my assessment is correct on this. I believe in Autonomous Vehicles, robotics, saving manpower and perhaps lives, but i dont think were ready to make it a requirement we are ready to make it a requirement. Im going to shift gears and focus on multidomain operations. It seems every service has a different take on what it means, and the army is really spearheading this. What does your paper say about this . Theou could talk about how army should potentially move to focusing on this as a joint force concept. I am complementary of the multidomain concept. I sat down with the authors and the people that supervise the authors. Thinking in the writing that went into that document. Concept in 2014 was not fresh. But this is actually fresh thinking. It talks about the problem of ofered standoff, the kind Russian Service missile batteries keeping us out while attacke making their into latvia, lets say. It talks about how to solve that challenge. The writing on that is good and sound. My questions revolved around, you can read the concept and it uses the word army and joint force interchangeably. It has to be one or the other. Anher a joint concept or army concept, it cannot be both. They have attempted to be both and its like forcing a function to the joint force, saying hey, you need to adopt this. Nobody has said that to me but thats the sense i got. This should be the joint force concept because the army cannot implement multidomain operations. Like i said, it requires continuous integration of or fighting domains, including the hard ones like cyber, based, and navy, which the army has no control and no assets, they are s. Ceivers of these domain without complete integration of the joint force, the concept does not work. And they know that. When i had that discussion they were like yes, we got it, we had to have chairman joint chiefs of staff with the other services seamlessly on board with this concept. And i said whats the plan . And they said we are not sure yet, we are talking to the air force, the air force may be the closest to the army, maybe the marine corps is second in the navy furthest. That wheney have hope general millie becomes the urgency, he may have an on making the next joint operating concept a lot like multidomain operations. Thatnk we are due for concept, maybe we are on the cusp of it. Maybe it already talks about it. The previous joint concept read like that. And i worry about this diverging of the threat, and whether or not one concept, such as it is now, will be sufficient in china years to deal with and russia. Im not sure. But i applaud the concept and i think its good. To pull armyoks capabilities, you can see where there are obvious deficiencies in Army Capabilities that need to be solved if they are going to implement multidomain operations. We talked about the equipping side of modernization, the cool technology. Can you talk about what the army needs to do in terms of modernization, in terms of having the right people in the right places for the right amount of time. What you see the army doing now, and what they should be doing in the future to stay on horse on course . Ill talk about management first. I saw a lot of this in the army when i was on the army staff. Army generalt officers into positions for which they have no experience. Sometimes thats ok. You can put a former Army Brigade Commander in command of an army division, hes got it. He has watched his boss operate, he knows how the movie ends. If you take a former Army Brigade Commander and you make him in charge of Army Modernization, or in charge of a Cross Functional Team responsible for managing the theing, the finance, and requirements, and the acquisition of a category of equipment, that the task for which they have had no preparation. But we throw them into the pool. In sixth grade my swimming teacher through me to the deep end of the pool. They figured i would figure it out. Thats what we do with our army general officers. Its not related to modernization, but i will give you an example. The last two commanders of Army Recruiting command, which is an essential position for the army, before they went to that job as a major general, they had no recruiting experience whatsoever. They were kept in a job for two years and moved on. They were both great officers and i knew them both, but what other organization would put people in command of recruiting operation with no prior preparation . Not even a two week school of learning how to recruit, just hey, youve got this, make it work. We do that in the modernization world. We bring in the officers, the army staff that have had no preparation. Could includeon being the commandant of a branch projectworking as a Managers Office or in the requirements world, we often dont do that. And once we get someone in those jobs they need to stay there for two to four years. It takes you a year to figure out whats going on. In the second year you see better ways to do things. In the 30 year you start hitting triples and home runs in the third year you start hitting triples and home runs. Ses army officers, and some s never get to the third year. They leave and say i just figured out things, and your successor gets this list. And they spend the first year looking to see if this is really right and the cycle repeats. We need to train and prepare our officers and keep them in the position. Keeping the futures command commander there for at least five years, cross functional for atads in their teams least two to three years. Into themost two years Cross Functional Teams and four of the eight have already turned over. Maybe thats because this was the initial crop of leads, but they have to keep those people on board or they are going to reinvent the wheel and the next soldier team will come in and say i know my predecessor thought that this was important, but what we really need is this new pocket mortar or Something Like that and they repeat the cycle of changing priorities. Youre of the themes of paper revolves around what you call groupthink, thats a phenomenon when supporting an smear their superiors opinions their superior mirror theirubordinates mirror superiors opinions. Seen the army doing at this to look cultural issue that they have at this point . It seems like an important time to focus on avoiding that. Theres a wonderful book on janis, itsy irving not about military but its talking about groupthink in general, like with the andger space shuttle, nobody wanted to tell the process that it was out of the boss that it was out of the question. Group think is not a particular thing of the army, but we do it pretty well. As groupthink because i was in the pentagon at the time. Everyone could tell that it had jumped the tracks. We kept changing it every year because we kept getting the noty cut, or something was testing correctly. We could not get this thing to perform and we would alter the program a little bit. If you were foolish enough to raise your hand and say why are we doing this, you would be cut off at the knees. Because at that time it was emphasized. And i think it was a Brigadier General that said this is an army thing, you dont question fcs, or congress will get wind that theres dissension and the money will be out. Groupthink . U combat because its insidious. If the chief of the the chief next infantrythe fighting vehicle will be , then it goes huh, i guess can talk about this. Thats chief of staff guidance. We can talk about if it has an automated tourist, but we can talk about that. You have to be careful as a leader in the army of putting something in the category that cannot be talked about. It is sacrosanct. And im not in the army and i cant see everything they are doing now, and ive always been critical of general officers to get out of the army and talk about the things they dont know. And i dont know about the current efforts of the army to combat groupthink that i am worried but i am worried. I dont see a lot of articles that said this part of the army screwed up in the war in iraq. I see a lot of those articles about the air force, but not the army. In, but in the magazine there is not a lot of question of current Army Modernization focus like the longrange strategic canon that of aire projectiles thousand kilometers, from here to portland, maine. I could see that its technologically feasible, but i dont know if its a thing we need. You dont see articles in the professional journals that talk about what are we doing . Written by captains or sergeants or majors. Maybe its happening and im not seeing it. But the Senior Leadership needs to be careful to make sure these canle shoots and sprouts grow and be discussed. In the end decision has to be made, it cannot be a democracy where everybody gets a vote, but here the thoughts. We have not talked about force structure yet. Which is very important because the army considers force goingure and aligning forward. Talk about the types of new units that you think the army needs, and how you address the force structure. One of the things that you find in competition against great power, china, russia, is that gaetz brigades will no longer be it. That was our thoughts 10 years ago. The brigade is it and divisions exist to tell brigades what to do and all combat capabilities have been pushed down to the brigade level and any capability buyers fires had been deemphasized. We did away with our core artillery, things like that. We gave all of the assets to brigades. When you are fighting russia, thats not enough. You need people that are thinking about the deep fight, the further back fight, that the Brigade Commander cannot focus on. Theave to reinvigorate echelons of the army. Getting divisions, cores, field armies, tasks that are appropriate to their level so they have the ability to deal with it and prosecute that fight. That they have the intelligence and requisite assets where he Brigade Commander does not and cannot. They have to rebuild that. Its funny because we nearly did away with all of that and we have to put the ship in reverse. The army has not talked much about that, but they are in the process of reimagining what capability should be at the division level, the core, and bringing back field armies to even the capability. I see the need, i think a lot of people do, for the army to have formations which could employ ballisticissiles, missiles, that type of thing outside of the normal Brigade Division construct. Antiaccess or antiship mason will missile capability, we dont want to deploy a ship, we want to grab that capability, maybe its a battalion, and send it to the philippines, vietnam, Something Like that. I know they are thinking about those capabilities, especially when they think about where do they nest their strike missile. Im guessing they will announce that someday. Where are they going to put that capability . Where will it live . Who will control it . That kind of thing. Great people are thinking about those kinds of things and we have just not seen a lot yet. Hopefully that will be soon. You also suggested growing. Mention, this to is one of the elements of controversy. A lot of people sent me surreptitiously that we agree about the size of the army but if we increase the size of the army we have money to do these wonderful modernization programs. And i got that, thats a problem, but im calling the shot like it is. The army needs to be bigger if its going to do all of the things it says it needs to do. If its going to counter russia, china, and cover other hotspots, about 50 bcts is the number that we think is right, we did that based on some historical analysis. Andook at past conflicts about 20 bcts was what the army needed per major conflict to counter things going on. If you want to do two, thats 40. If you want enough to have some meager amount of rotation, presence and other places that you dont want to go to complete hell, like korea, then you need about 50. General millie has said words to that effect, i look at studies that said similar things. Whichou need 50 bcts gets you to a regular army of about 540,000 soldiers. Can the army recruit that number . I dont know. Can the army afford that number . I dont know . But i dont have to figure those things out. Im saying what the army needs under the National Defense strategy. We can grow to that number or we should change National Defense strategy. But we should not live in this limbo were to execute the National Defense data g is highrisk with the army we have National Defense strategy is highrisk with the army we have. Have you loose with the lens of what we have seen in terms of capability, and weapon systems . Do you think we need that same level of manpower . Its hard to tell when we are talking about autonomy and robotics and things like that, whether we need to think about manpower the same way. If we can make an automated tourette turret. If we can reduce the crew on a tank to two by having an autoloader, we could get a smidge more out of the force and maybe a bct does not need to be 3700 soldiers. Maybe it could be less. There are opportunities, but not a lot. If you think about it contrary Infantry Brigade combat teams, if you want it to have a sector, you need soldiers. You need soldiers to cover their 10 meters. Robotics is knocking to save us a lot. It will get us a tank crew of two or a selfpropelled howitzer crew, but it wont be much. And the enemy is also modernizing. They are bringing on capabilities. The russian armada tank already has an autoloader. Advancingike we are technologically and everyone else is standing still. We are in a world where everyone is racing ahead. Im going to ask one more question before we open up to the audience. What are the key signs that will indicate the army succeeding or failing in its modernization plans . Im not looking forward to this, but one of these 32 modernization programs the army has championed is going to fail. Its going to not succeed. How does the army deal with that . Failure . Mbrace that we talk about innovation, you embrace early failure, how did they deal with that situation . Because they have put a lot of their reputation on the fact that they now believe they are executing correctly. What does congress do. They have sons on some early signs that they may not be completely supportive of all of the armys moves that they have made in the night court. Killed 90unded programs, cut 90 Something Like that. Congress has shown early signs they may not be 100 on board. It only gets harder. The moves the army made in 20 are not that big compared to what will happen in 21 and beyond. If congress cannot support these money moves, the minor one took place in 20, then they will not be able to fully execute their modernization strategy. I worry about continuity and tenure. Right now we have great leaders in the army. We always have, but the leaders now in the army are focused on modernization. Thats an aberration, that has not been the case. Past, i havein the seen work on modernization programs as someone elses problem. This modernization at the army it will go to multiple successors. They will have to continue to keep paying attention to this. If they allow it to drift off target, it will not succeed. I think one of the fears is that the dream team has broken up. There is some continuity moving up, but what happens after this team of leaders that work so well together i remember going to the front office, the evening of the pentagon, talking to the scheduler for a senior Army Official and saying i need an hour of soandsos time to talk about the Army Modernization program. Now, can you do it in 20 minutes . And no, i really cant. And i never got my hour. You have to devote time to this to make it work. I think we will open up for questions and the audience in the audience. If there is a microphone going around. My question is generated from the very short timeframe to deploy and field Hypersonic Missile systems. I want to go back to your comment in the beginning of your paper about groupthink and cripple thinking critical thinking. It seems a paradox, if you go to the National Training center and itsrough an aar, critical thinking, and its an attitude of not worrying what you say. You say what you think. It does not exist in modernization, im thinking specifically of the system like crusader, where we deny this being a problem until the senate sent a staffer down with two engineering degrees. And suddenly there was an alternate propellant that started. We have smart people in the army that we could have listened to, and i worry about that same thing happening. The army is going to be focused on cost schedule and performance to get the unit fielded. I know you started addressing it, but that same thing that happens at the National Training center into the modernization program. Its a great question. In my paper i talk about hypersonics created not a topic im an expert on, but you read the multidomain Operations Concept and it does not put a hook. There are lots of books in it but it i dont see a hook for hypersonics. I worry in this town, youd be astonished to learn that we get in a frenzy about things. One of the things we are in a frenzy about his hypersonics is hypersonics. And the driving force is the fact that the chinese and the russians are working on hypersonic weapons. What you dont read about or see much discussion about is how we use such a weapon . What problem does a Hypersonic Missile solve . . Hat would we shoot it at what would get us. I could see it from the chinese side, the u. S. Has robust missile defenses, maybe they want to take out a battery on wall on guam. That makes sense. What do our Hypersonic Missiles do . Maybe im not smart enough to understand it, but your point is well taken. The army has said we are going to have a Hypersonic Missile 21 next year. Ok. I dont doubt if you put enough Energy Behind that, and general thurgood is a brilliant officer, we could do that. Now what. Where does it reside in the army . What is its problem set . What do we use it for . Exploring those problems is something you dont see written in any kind of professional journals right now and i think we need more of that. I would like to see army leaders sponsoring writing contests, telling the war college to get people to write on these issues so that we can get that discussion going. Thank you. Voice ofporter from america. I have two questions, regarding north korea, and your paper you said its traditionally less equipped. North korea introduced their new betterogy, which is much at avoiding missile defense. Many experts are concerned about the new capability, not only has a Nuclear Weapon but for chemical weapons. Regarding that, how do you think the army should address this issue . About leaning more on army size. I think if you look at a real combat situation, its about good operation. South korea is also going three modernization process, cutting the size of their army to 0. 1 million. And because of the environment of the peninsula, it is short range, and some have to defend against the size of north korea. How do you think the modernization and ally structure would affect the overall strategy . Great questions. You are probably correct. What i typically find when i look deep into north korean modernization programs is that they are announced to great fanfare the feeling of a new system. But when you look at some cases like the russians, they have only fielded one or two, or battalions worth, they have not achieved a decisive combat capability. They have proven they can develop the most advanced technologies like icbms and Nuclear Weapons. I would be surprised if they were able to get a capability of these weapons. It is something we need to take seriously, but i dont think, given the extraordinary economic question they are under, that they will be able to modernize their army. They are probably at their generation aircraft, some in fifth. Weapons their Nuclear Weapons pose a threat. Haveare close and they positioned many indirect fire systems close to the border. They are problem for south korea and the United States. And i did not get your second part. The size. Im worried about the south koreans cutting the size of their military. I am not an expert on it. I am worried they will cut the size of the military not because of the strategy related reason, but because they have challenges recruiting. Thats about all i know. From the association of the United States army, its a great report. How does the u. S. , based on what you wrote, we talked about should be expanded beyond overcoming the antiaccess area denial problem. The armys modernizing virtually everything and updating its concepts, trying to accelerate them into doctrine at unprecedented rates. If we expand the scope to get beyond that penetration problem, what does that do . Will that cause the army to defuse its efforts and try to fix too much as opposed to two little . Too little . I struggle with this point because we have had operational concepts that were to diffuse. This is exquisitely focused on defeating layered standoff and i like that part. As i was looking for more folks to talk about the future force, theres not much in there about defeating the adversary. We have cracked their antiaccess shields, now watch. It talks about their penetrate and dissintegrate. Its almost an afterthought in the concept. I would have liked to see more discussion about how that would go. That would maybe put the hooks in for the next generation combat vehicle. Which right now is still not well covered in the concept. I take your point, and i dont want this war fighting concept to be a bigequally. Confessan area where i ive not precisely defined the solution. I just think i see a problem. Thank you. Dave johnson. In you digging into the question of how you create not breaking how you create the ability to have dissent. There is an interesting bar british printer in world war ii and he said the head of detroit said the problem with the army is its engineering by edict. And engineers have no rank. So when a cheap says something or some of the else, it is a writing contest that will be offlimits. I think were in a place where the ability can the army do that internally or do people outside have to do it . I would like to think the army can do it internally because there is not enough people externally stuff you could have a conference of people that think about the future of the army and you could fill a small Conference Room and that would be about it. You have to reward those that are mavericks, that think even if you dont agree with their thinking, if they have come up with some kind of idea which is counterculture, the rest of the army needs to see them being applauded and rewarded. And somehow given better jobs in bigger jobs. I remember h. R. Mcmaster when he was a one star. Im trying to think of a nice word. He was opinionated. Would not let anyone silence his opinion. There was some question about is this the end of hr. How do you make sure h. R. Mcmasters keep getting promoted and how do they not get hammered down . Contests, youre right, might not be the right answer. Just a system that rewards those kinds of people, the chief of staff, of their leaders have to be padding those people on the back. Other leaders have to be patching those people on the back. I agree with 30 or so of the iraq war but i loved when the sky in the air force who was anonymous kept writing letters saying, hey, the way the air force manages its people is wrong. Finally, one day, the general said, hey, i want you to come work for me. I love that part because it and wase had thick skin not taking offense. That has not happened in the army. You just dont see any articles. Im picking on the war in iraqs, but it is exemplar for me were people write freely. There is not much of a presence on war in iraq except dave johnson. A couple of others, bob scales maybe. Not many people in the army right on war in iraq. We will take one more question. Hello, sir. Army Intelligence Task force. You talked about challenge management Talent Management and one was training and one was longer time in their jobs to learn their craft. Tweaks on thee current system. The task force is looking at how to design a new system that takes into account the indian Authorities Services that were granted like opt out promotion, direct commissioning, just to name a few. What are your thoughts on how the army should proceed with using information and Data Analytics tool formed the way we bring talent into the army, how we may be branch officers, and then just marketplace for assignment, how we select people, and things like that . Thank you for what youre doing. I watch the army and it has changed even in the three years i left it. Now there are these assignment modules where managers of assignments host the open jobs they have an officers can say, i would like that job in the units say, yeah, that is the right person for me. Hugeis huge i think in a step in the right direction. I love the new nda authorities that have been great to do ,ervices, taking a sabbatical direct entry. Im not a big fan of the purple haired Cyber Warriors that we would induct directly and make them lieutenant colonels. I hope im not crushing your feelings on that. Talent froming in the outside or a reserve component, you can directly meet an army need, i think that is wonderful. I want them to meet our physical fitness and other standards. It we cant confuse that person we just commission, lieutenant colonel, with some other person activent 18 years on duty or regular army. They are not the same. They are different. Just like you would not put an army doctor in charge of an infantry battalion, he would not want to take someone like that and give them responsibilities of not been prepared full. I think it is wonderful flexibility. A remember talking to general siemens about it. He was excited. I probably did not answer very well. I will say this, the army has traditionally focused on preparing officers for service at the next rank. That is been the fundamental if you are a Brigadier General, i need to get you to be the Deputy Commander of a division so that you can be selected at the next to star board. That is been kind of our that is the idea behind crew progression of a Brigadier General. That probably succeeds in getting him or her promoted to major general, but what it does not do is get good outcomes and whiles from that officer they are Brigadier General. Theyre moving around so fast, they been pushed through the division in 12 months or Something Like that, maybe given a comment on for another 12 minute 12 months, and now they are a major general. He got to be his major general. The Infantry School suffered. That division suffered because we felt this imperative to push him or her through so quickly. I know the army sees that, but i dont know they have reconciled themselves on how theyre going to fix that. Thank you. Thank you so much for taking the time this afternoon to go over your report with us. Thank you for coming. Thanks, everybody. [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2019] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] looks the new jobs report released today shows the Unemployment Rate stays at 3. 7 last month, near the lowest level in five decades. U. S. Employers added 130,000 jobs in august. Joint chiefs of staff chair general Joseph Dunford discussed u. S. Defense strategy at the council of foreign relations. In a conversation with david sanger of the new york times, general dunford talked about the strategy has changed since his tenure as the joint chiefs of staff chair. This is one hour. T chiefs of staff chair. This is one hour. [applause] thank you, richard. Thanks to all of you for coming out. Thanks, richard for your nice memories