Transcripts For CSPAN Report On Modernizing The U.S. Army 20240714

I think we will get started here. Thank you so much for joining us at the heritage foundation. I was told we dont necessarily have to talk about silencing cell phones, but i am going to say that 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 the army needs to go down with a look out to a 30 year timeframe. We will follow up with a paper on the air force which is coming up 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. These papers are meant to give an independent perspective, advice and recommendations to the administration, to the military service in particular, leading officials in the Defense Department and hopefully informs deliberations in congress. This one hits the ball out of the park on that. Starting about 18 months ago, the army embarked on a major effort driven by then secretary of Defense James Mattis with a real focus on getting back to an age of peer competitor fights with major opponents such as russia and china. How do you do things other than in regular warfare, which we have been immersed in for the last 18 years. This paper looks at these challenges. Participating in the discussion will be the author, tom spohr, who directs our center for National Defense here at the heritage foundation. Prior to coming here, he has served in the army for 36 years, retired in 2016. Real blessing having them here. Moderating the discussion will be miss jen judson. 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 and the pro defense recipient of the best analytical reporting award in 2014. Named the best young defense journalist in 2018. I dont know how long you get to carry young as a title [laughter] without further ado, we will turn to a great discussion, then open it up for q a. When we get to that point, we will have someone pass around a microphone. Are inidentify who you the organization you are with soda online audience knows who is speaking. We try to keep focused on questions, not personal statements. Jen thank you to everyone in the audience for being here, and for those also watching online. And tom, thank you for your hard work on this report. This has really triggered a decent amount of discussion and debate in the army community, which is obviously a good thing. We will dive deeper into those issues in our conversation. But it is my feeling that it is a good time to be making suggestions to the army, they are in the process of developing the multidomain operation concept, looking at force structure, and they are heading down an ambitious path of modernization. Just to kick things off, if you could talk about the purpose of the report, why you decided to write this report, and how you went about researching. Talk a little bit about how your background applies to what you were doing in the report. Thomas thank you everyone for being here today, and thank you for moderating this discussion. We embarked on this project, we called it rebuilding americas project or ramp two years ago. We did not know what would be happening at the time these papers came out. Yous important, too, as suggested, the armys paper came out. The army is in the process of a major change of leadership, secretary mccarthy has his confirmation hearing next week, the chief of staff changeover, changed over. There was a clean break point where the army could reevaluate where they are in 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 Defense Strategy yet . 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 for us. The bipartisan budget act passed a month or two ago in Congress Gives the ability to the army to focus on their future, versus these nearterm continuing 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 dc that you can actually think about these things. Most of our research at heritage is focused on the nearterm fight, so we write a lot about the Defense Authorization act, the f35 fighter and things on congresss plate. This paper and the two that preceeded this are different for us. Looking out further, and i thought after 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. This was a stretch for me. I had to educate myself on the army before i started writing this paper. I heard the folklore of general sullivan and don starr. And just accepted it as a young army are sir. Army officer. This made me go back and learn it. It was hard, but i liked it. Jen what are some of the areas that you looked at, and what are some of your conclusions . Thomas thanks, jen. I tried to look at all of it. Because i spent a lot of time in the pentagon in particular, and modernization and was a general there, i probably wrote more and more about those problems with which i was most familiar. At equipment modernization, i looked at the Talent Management of general officers, i looked at the concept. I will admit, i am not a conceptual person, so i did my best. I reached out to a lot of people, including some people 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 to better understand that. By and large, my conclusion that i reached fairly early on was that the army was on the right path. And that a wholesale revision of the armys modernization plan was not needed, there was course corrections. I saw some areas where the tapestry was fraying around the edges and they could tighten up their story and tighten up their justifications for things. Some places where i could not frankly understand why they were pursuing a particular Modernization Program to the degree they were, longrange fallsgic canons calls 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 of that is the requirements for the optionally manned fighting vehicle. I did my best to understand them only to find out near the end that they are classified fouo and i couldnt get them. I couldnt fully explore why the army was pursuing that vehicle to the degree it was. I looked at manpower. How big should the army be, how quickly should they grow their force . And i looked at organizations. What kind of organizations do they have now and what should they grow in the future . And i found some areas where i think they should develop some new organizations. Jen diving a little bit more into the modernization side, and using to think they are on track, but this is obviously a complicated thing and they are moving quickly. There is probably a lot of room for error at this point. It sounds like since its early on, course correction could be a good thing. What are some of the future challenges they could be facing in executing modernization plans . Thomas theres lots of challenges. One of the first things i figured out is i looked at the history and luck plays an underappreciated factor. You could have the best thought out and conceived plan, and if the world environment changes in and your army needs to go do something, fight a fight, you are not able to modernize to a degree you need. Maybe you could salvage some aspects of the Modernization Program, but you will not be able to carry out the plan you had envisioned. Looking back, you can see that did not occur in some cases. The army kept driving on, thinking that whatever we were fighting, that is just going to go away and we can continue with our plan. You see that with scs. Army valiantly tried to keep going down the path with the future comeback system fighting counter two counterinsurgency fights. Thats not the first time but it is the most salient example to me. So luck. If your funding gets cut, and whether you like it or not, the armys funding gets cut once every 15 years fairly dramatically. You cannot modernize if you are trying to keep your service alive and keep your nose above water. You do the best you can to survive until you get another influx of funding. You cant protect your service and modernize. It is just too hard. That is something i realized. So, i think the army is doing a good job. And one of the things that was underappreciated to me was the difficulty of facing two threats simultaneously. So we talk about russia and china. Its almost a hyphenated word, russiachina. But when you look one level below that, it is very different type of threat they present. China presenting more of a maritime, 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. Willnse is over time that become harder and harder as these threats diverge, as china becomes more capable. It will be harder to manage that duality of threat while also maintaining your counterinsurgency capability. Jen you talk a lot about successes and failures. You mentioned 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 from those . Thomas yes. I will talk about some of the i dont want to call them failures because its so pejorative, but i Start Talking in the paper about the pentatonic division, which is the reaction to eisenhowers decision to focus on Nuclear Weapons and how the army was in danger of becoming irrelevant. The chief of staff was persuaded to change his entire force to focus on nuclear warfare. So he created the pentatonic division that had essentially five battle groups, large battle groups. The idea was so big a division, so dispersed that it could survive Nuclear Attack and it could also employ Nuclear Weapons. They rushed into this design, and almost immediately, 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 force before they even had the concept figured out. Fastforward. There was a concept called active defense in response to a huge soviet army threat in central europe. How do we actually come up with a concept to fight this . He came up with an idea, brilliant man of fighting in an active defense, and falling back to various positions of strength. The dilemma was he did not share this concept widely with the army. It was a small little staff group down at the headquarters. When he finally uncorked this bottle of wine, if you will, it did not meet with acceptance through the army. Whether you like it or not, acceptance in the army is really a critical aspect of whether a concept will succeed or not. He kept it close and when he brought it out, and because he had not shared it and it had this countercultural preference for the defense over offense, and like it or not, all the military services tend to culturally favor the offense, it so it really 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 really bought into. In terms of successes, those are more fun to talk about. So, i will talk about the stryker brigade combat team. Conceived as the interim force , and fieldedinseki 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, or rather, iraq. Im sorry. Very quickly got that concept out, and it was just an example of how when you set your mind to something and you have cohesive leadership and focus on it, it really can come together. Another example would be task force modularity. In the middle of iraq and afghanistan fights, when the army was presented with the requirement more combat team than it had, it modularized the brigades and created more of them. And they were selfsustaining, had their own alto lori their own artillery, organic to that brigade. It happened in almost 18 to 20 months. So, it was really a quick effort. And the classic example most Army Officers will point to is airland battle. It was codified in the 1982 1005 operations, where he really followed all the precepts of changing the army. He was intellectually prepared, he had a great team, he did the homework, talked to everyone about it. In the end, it was a concept that served the army well for 10 years. Jen i know one of the more controversial parts of your paper is regarding reordering prioritization. Longrange precision fire you said to keep at the top, but you suggested bumping next generation combat vehicle and down to the bottom, and below that future vertical lift from the number two to number three spots. He also recommended working the network up to number two. Could you talk about the reasoning with those recommendations . Thomas you are right. The moment my paper was published, my inbox lit up with a number of people interested in my reordering of the modernization priorities. So, i dont know how the army established their first round of priorities. They did not share the rationale, but i thought i would use a very simple analytic method in think about in the multidomain concept, how important is this capability to the successful execution of multidomain operations in the year 2030 . Looking forward, reading the concept, accepting it for what it is, how important is this capability in their concept . And looking at the current force we have today, how close is that capability we have today to what we need in 2030 . So for example, if we have a wonderful fleet of soldier lethality weapons in mind, we in my view, we would be already where we need to be to execute multidomain operations in that area. 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 right at the top. And if youre going to employ any of these capabilities, especially in multidomain operations, the network is key. Multidomain operations talks about the rapid and continuous integration in war fighting domains. If you dont have the network to do that, you cannot do those multidomain operations. That came out at number two. Similarly, i went down the line, air and missile defense, we are in pretty poor shape. That is going to be a big thing. It came out number three. And just on down the lane. To make the list of the six modernization priorities, the already needs your thing is importance. In my ranking, future vertical lift came out and number six but that does not mean vertical lift is not important. That is six in a list of dozens upon dozens of army programs. The fact that you made number six should make you feel really good. That was not reflected in the correspondence i got from my friends. [laughter] thomas it was useful for me. I dont presume that the army, as a result of my insightful analysis, will change their modernization priorities. But what i would like is the next time they update them, refresh them, whatever they do, that they also release their rationale for how they came up with that listing, so i could say, oh yeah, that makes perfect sense to me. Because i could not track the pedigree on the multidomain concept of their modernization priorities. Jen i think that is an important point, and something i asked at the defense News Conference a few days ago. What was the rationale for the priorities . And actually did not really get a straight answer, but one thing he did mention was they are adamant that the priorities are not going to change right now. That is important to them making the case to congress to not disrupt the list. Thomas let me add, i did that. I had the job of responding to that, so i have been on the cynical end of this business. And often we would say, where do we have the most money . Where are we most at risk . X billionif we have dollars in aviation, it makes sense that aviation is the number one priority. Money, priorities, it all matches. I got this. Thats the pentagon view of the eers and a budget view of the world. Its not necessarily the correct view. Jen and if funding were to change, priorities could shift. Could you talk a little bit about some of the feedback you did get, without naming names . The counter rationale you got, especially in terms of future vertical lift and next generation combat vehicle. Thomas a lot of the feedback was positive. Including from the chief of staff of the army and the secretary of the army. I met with the chief of staff of the army and we discussed this concept for 90 minutes. I am due to meet with secretary mccarthy later this month. They been receptive to my ideas and appreciate of the second opinion. I dont want to characterize this as the army has circled its wagons. They are not. General murphy, i sent a copy of the draft papers and it was sent to the fourstar contemporaries and army major commands, and it has filtered all throughout the army. Feedback has been good, but i have been asked about my rationale. Aviation being one of them. Most people say, you dont understand. You dont understand why future vertical lift is so important to the future fight. I said i think youre probably right. I think i am one of 10 people who read multidomain operations, the concept, cover to cover 10 times. I have held it to the light trying to interpret it and could not really find an overwhelming argument in favor of the future vertical lift. That was one criticism. I have gotten a little bit of criticism about the priority that i ascribed to nextgeneration combat vehicles. That could be that i just cant see how they establish their requirements. The fact that it must carry this number of soldiers, it asked have a 30 millimeter gun with an option for a 50 millimeter gun, all of those kinds of things, its hard for an outsider to look into the armys rationale and why they are making the requirements they are for that vehicle. Jen i know that you mentioned in 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, ross kauffman, on wednesday 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 you think it is potentially important to maybe back off of that . Autonomy andnk robotically controlled there is a future for that in the military. But our army network, such as it is today, is not sufficient enough to really even do what it is supposed to do today, much less take on the burden of controlling autonomously or robotic controlled vehicles across the battlefield. It just isnt. If you think about what a robotically controlled vehicle will need, multiple video feeds. You are going to want to see in front of your vehicle, presumably you want to see to the side, and maybe to the back. Now you are streaming over your network four or five video feeds and now you want to stream fire control and navigation and driver control back to somebody. Now lets say you have more than one of these vehicles. You start doing the math on megabytes per second required to support a robotic infantry carrier, lets say on a bountiful a battlefield. An extraordinary amount of bandwidth not currently available to army forces. Maybe at some point it will be possible but not today. Today, we cannot make an Autonomous Car that can drive on interstate highways. Now think about, you now want to take this Autonomous Vehicle and drive it across the National Training center in fort irwin, with waddies and 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. I think its useful to have the hookups. Lets say 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 autonomously or robotically should be empty right now. And it should not be contributing to either the cost or the testing requirements of the vehicle because we could feel that today field that today and the army network is years from being robust enough to support that. I have said that to audiences and nobody has said you are wrong. Thats not right. I have said it enough times and maybe when we get to q a someone can tell me im wrong. I have said enough times that i have started to believe that my assessment is correct on this. I believe in Autonomous Vehicles and robotics and saving soldier manpower and perhaps lives. I dont think we are ready now to make it a requirement in our combat vehicle. Jen im going to shift gears and focus on multidomain operations as a concept. It seems every service has a slightly different take on what it means, but also as a singular service, the army really spearheading this. What does your paper say about this . If you could talk a little bit about how the army should potentially move to focusing on this as a joint force concept. Thomas i am very complementary of the multidomain concept. I sat down with the authors and the people that supervise the authors. I am appreciative and i think the thinking and the writing that went into that document was fresh. The prior concept in 2014 was not fresh. It was stuff from the refrigerator. But this is actually fresh thinking. It talks about the problem of layered standoff, the kind of russian surfacetoair missile batteries keeping us out while they are making their attack into latvia, lets say. It talks about how to solve that challenge. The thinking and the writing on that is fresh and good and sound. My questions revolved around, you can read the concept and it uses the word army and joint force interchangeably. And you cant it has to be one or the other. It has to be a joint concept or the armys concept. It cannot be both. They have attempted to be both and its like forcing a function to the joint force, saying hey, you guys need to adopt this. And no one has ever said that to me, but thats kind of the sense i got that this should be the joint force concept. Because the army cannot implement multidomain operations on its own. It just cannot. Like i said, it requires continuous integration of or fighting domains, including the spacenes like cyber and and navy, which the army really has no control and no assets, they are receivers of these war fighting domains. Without the complete integration of the whole joint force, the concept will 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, we have to have all the other services seamlessly on board with this concept. And i said, whats the plan . How do you get to that point . And they are like, not sure yet, we are working it. 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. I think they have hope that when general millie not to take anything away from general dunfield general dunford when general millie becomes the chairman, he may have an urgency on making the next joint operating concept a lot like multidomain operations. I think we are due for that concept. Maybe we are on the cusp of it. Maybe it already talks about multidomain operations. The previous joint concept read like that. I also as i mentioned earlier, i worry about this diverging of the threat, and whether or not one concept, such as it is now, will be sufficient in future years to deal with china and russia, all in the context of one joint operation. Im not sure yet. But i applaud the concept and i think its good. It has the hooks to pull Army Capabilities. You can see where the obvious deficiencies in Army Capabilities that need to be solved if they are going to implement multidomain operations. Jen we have talked a lot about the equipping side of modernization, all the cool technology. But can you talk about what the army needs to do in terms of modernization, to having the right people in the right places for the right amount of time . What you see the army doing now, of what they should be aware and make sure they are doing in the future to stay on first with their modernization plan . Thomas ill talk about management first. I saw a lot of this in the army when i was on the army staff. We tend to put especially army general officers into positions for which they have no experience. Sometimes thats ok. For example, you can put a former Army Brigade Commander in command of an army division, and he knows it. 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 you put him in charge of a Cross Functional Team responsible for managing finance andand the the requirements and the acquisition of a category of equipment, that is a task for which he or she has had no preparation. Yet we throw them into the pool. When i was in sixth grade my swimming teacher through me to threw 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. In the last two commanders of Army Recruiting command, which presumably is a key and essential position for the army, our recruiting is our lifeblood, before they went to that job as a Major General, they had no recruiting experience whatsoever. They were kept in that job for two years and moved on. They were both great officers. I knew them both. But what other organization would put people in command of recruiting operation with no prior preparation . Not even like a school. There is your twoweek school, learn how to recruit. It was just like, hey, youve got this, make it work. We do that in the modernization world. We bring in officers to the army staff that have had no preparation. Good preparation could include being the commandant of a branch school, working as a project in a project 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, maybe three, even better, four years. It takes you a year to figure out whats going on. In that second year, you start to see better ways to do things. In the third year you start hitting triples and home runs. The second year you are in the job, you are hitting doubles at best. In the third year, you are starting to hit triples. Most Army Officers, and some sess never get to the third year. They leave in the second year and tell their successor, i just figured out things. Here is a list of things i would do. Your successor gets this list. I got it, but i need to look around that first year and see if it is really right. And the cycle repeats. We need to train and prepare our officers, and keep them in the position. Keeping the Army Futures Command commander there for at least five years, keeping Cross Functional Team leads in their teams for at least two to three years. We are about almost two years into the Cross Functional Teams and four of the eight have already turned over. Now, maybe thats because this was the initial crop of leads, but they have to keep those people on board otherwise 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 really important, but what we really need is this new pocket mortar or Something Like this cyclee repeat of changing priorities and things like that. Jen one of the themes of your paper revolves around what you call groupthink. Thats a phenomenon when subordinates mirror their opinions and somewhat are afraid to disagree. We are talking about replacing the bradley. You see that happening in the movie. It is quite an accurate depiction of some of the things that have gone on. Have you seen the army doing anything to move away from this cultural issue that they have at this point . It seems like an important time to focus on avoiding that. Thomas theres a wonderful book on groupthink by irving janis, who wrote a book on it. Its not about military but its talking about groupthink in general and how it has contributed to bad thinking, like the orings in the challenger space shuttle. Everybody was saying, there is no way, but nobody wanted to tell the boss that it was out of the question. We dropped in on our enemy and got our guys killed. Groupthink is not a particular thing of the army, but we do it pretty well. [laughter] thomas i use fcs as groupthink because i was in the pentagon at the time. Everybody could kind of tell that fcs had jumped the tracks. We kept changing it every year because we kept getting the money cut, or something was not testing correctly. We could not get this thing to perform and we would alter the program just a little bit. But if you were foolish enough to raise your hand and say why you would bethis, cut off at the knees. Because at that time it was emphasized. I think i was a Brigadier General that said this is an army thing, you dont question fcs, otherwise congress will get wind that theres dissension and the money will be out of fcs. So how do you combat groupthink . Because its insidious. If the chief of staff says the next infantry fighting vehicle will have the ability to be unmanned, everybody is like, hmm, i guess we cant talk about that. That has been put in this category that is like chief of staff guidance. We can talk about if it has an automated turret or not, but we cant 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 about. This is one i dont know about the real current efforts of the army to combat groupthink but i am still worried. I dont see a lot of articles that says this part of the army is screwed up. I see a lot of those articles about the air force, but not the army. And i dont see in Army Magazine i love Army Magazine, by the way. I saw dan come in. But there is not a lot of questioning of current Army Modernization focus, like the long rage longrange strategic canon that can fire projectiles of a thousand kilometers, from here to portland, maine. I can see that is maybe technologically feasible, i just dont know if it is a thing we need. But you dont see articles in the professional journals that talk about what are we doing . Why are we doing this . And 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 little shoots and sprouts can grow, be discussed. In the end, a decision has to be made. It cannot be a democracy where everybody gets a vote, but here are these thoughts. Jen we have not talked about force structure yet. That is obviously something that is very important as the army considers force structure aligning going forward. Talk about some of the types of new units that you think the army needs, and how you address the force structure. Thomas great question. One of the things that you find in competition against great power, china, russia, is that brigades are no longer going to be it. That was our thought as recently 10, seven years ago. Brigade and divisions exist to tell brigades what to do and all combat capabilities have been pushed down to the brigade level and any capability 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 going to be enough. You need people that are thinking about the deep fight, the further back fight, that the Brigade Commander cannot focus on. We have to reinvigorate, which we nearly all did away with, the 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 fights, that they have the intelligence and requisite assets where he brigade where the Brigade Commander does not and cannot. They have to rebuild that. Its funny because we nearly did away with all of that and we put that ship in reverse. The army has not talked much about that, but they are in the process now of reimagining what capability should be at the division level, the core, and even bringing back field armies that even have capability. I see the need. I think a lot of people do, for the army to have formations which could employ antiship missiles, ballistic missiles, that type of thing outside of the normal Brigade Division construct. If we need an antiaccess or antiship missile capability, we to have to deploy a brigade. We want to grab that capability, maybe its a battalion, and send it to the philippines, vietnam, Something Like that. That does not exist now. I know they are thinking about those kinds of capabilities, especially when they think about where do they nest their strike missile. Im guessing they will announce that someday. But how do they intend to 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. Jen hopefully that will be soon. You also suggested growing the army. Thomas i neglected to mention, this is one of the elements of controversy that i got. A lot of people surreptitiously sent me that we agree about the size of the army but if we increase the size of the army we wont have money to do these wonderful Modernization Programs. I said, i got that, thats a problem, but im calling the shots 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, counter china, and actually cover other hotspots, about 50 bcts is the number that we think is about right. We did that based on a little historical analysis. We look at past conflicts and 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, some amount of presence in 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. It gets need 50 bcts 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. Luckily, i dont have to figure those things out. I am just saying what i think the army needs under the National Defense strategy. We can either grow to that number or we should change National Defense strategy. But we should not live in this limbo where to execute the National Defense strategy is highrisk with the army we have. 00 in the regular army. Jen have you considered when you look through the lens of what we potentially would see in terms of capability equipment, weapon systems, do you think that we potentially need that same level of manpower . Its somewhat 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. Thomas great question. For example, if we can make an automated turret. If we can make an autoloader for our artillery, 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 there, but there are not a lot. An infantry about brigade combat team, if you want it to have a sector, you need soldiers. You need soldiers to cover their 10 meters. Robotics is not going to save us a lot. It will get us a tank crew of two or a selfpropelled howitzer crew, less, but it wont be much. The other thing we need to account for is the enemy is also modernizing. They are bringing on capabilities. The russian armada tank already has an autoloader. Its not like we are advancing technologically and everyone is standing still. We are in a world where everyone is racing ahead. Jen i am going to ask one more question then we will open up to the audience. What are the key signs that will indicate the army succeeding or failing in its modernization plans . And what are some of the biggest risks . Thomas one thing i am looking forward to im not looking forward to this, i hope it never happens but one 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 . Do they embrace that failure . We have always talked about innovation. You embrace early failure, how that type of thing. 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 . Congress has shown some early signs that they may not be completely supportive of all of the armys moves that they have made in the famous night court. They unfunded i forget what mccarthy said killed 90 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 20 are not that big compared to what will happen in 2021 and beyond. If congress cannot support these money moves, the minor one took place in 2020, 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. That is an aberration. That has not been the case. Army leaders in the past, i have seen working on Modernization Programs as someone elses problem. This modernization that the army is on now, it is going to have 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. Jen i think one of the fears is that the dream team has broken up. Unfortunately, there is some cotton enmity moving up, but what happens after this team of leaders that work so well together are not there anymore . Thomas i remember going to the front office, the evening of the pentagon,ring of the 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. They are like, now . Can you do it in 20 minutes . No, i really cant. That was the end of the conversation. I never got my hour. Youve got to devote time to this thing to make it work. Jen i think we will open up for questions in the audience. I think there is a mic going around. Munitions industrial tax force. Is generatedestion from the very short timeframe to deploy and field Hypersonic Missile systems. I want to go back to your comments in the beginning of your paper about groupthink and critical thinking. It seems a paradox. If you go to the National Training center and sit through an aar, its critical thinking, and its an attitude where you do not worry what you say. You say what you think. It does not exist in modernization, im thinking specifically of a system like crusader, where we deny this brittlementbrittl 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 performance, get the unit fielded. How do we get i know you started addressing it, but that same thing that happens at the National Training center into the Modernization Program. Thomas that is a great question. In my paper i talk about hypersonics. Again, it is not a topic im an expert on, but you read the multidomain Operations Concept and it does not put a hook. I have talked about there are lots of hooks in it. I dont see a hook for hypersonics. Sometimes i worry. In this town, youd be astonished to learn that we get in a frenzy about things. One of the things we currently are in a frenzy about 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 how would we use such a weapon . What problem does a Hypersonic Missile solve . What would we shoot it at . If we hit it, what would that 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 guam. That makes sense. What do our Hypersonic Missiles do . Maybe that is all written down somewhere and i just cannot see it and 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 tested in 2021 for Something Like that. Jen next year. Thomas next year. Ok. I dont doubt if you put enough Energy Behind that, and general thurgood is a brilliant officer, then we could do that. Now what . What is its problem said . The armys it reside in echelon, and what is its problem set . What do we use it for . Exploring those kind of 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 on these kinds of things so that we can get that discussion going. Thank you. I am a reporter from voice of america. I have two questions. The first is regarding north korea. In your paper you said its butitionally less equipped, with vast size. North korea introduced their new technology, a counter type missile, which is much better at avoiding missile defense. Many experts are concerned about the dual capability. And is not only the north Nuclear Weapons, but chemical weapons. Regarding that, how do you think the army should address this issue . And second is, you talked about leaning much more on army size. I think if you look at a real combat situation, its about joint operation with the allies. Auth korea is also going for modernization process. They are cutting the size of their army to 0. 1 million. Because of the environment of the peninsula, it is short range, and some have to defend against the mass size of north korea. How do you think the modernization and ally structure would affect the overall strategy . Thomas great questions. You are probably right. What i typically find when i look deep into north korean Modernization Programs is that they will announce to great fanfare the feeling of a new system. But then you look, and in some cases like the russians, you find that they have only fielded one or two, or battalions worth, so they have not achieved a decisive combat capability. So yes, 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 clearly we need to take seriously, but i dont think even the extraordinary economic question they are under that they will be able to modernize their army. Aty are probably thirdgeneration aircraft. Most of the world is at fourth, some fifth. Their aircraft pose no threat. Their Nuclear Weapons pose a threat. They are in some cases russia. They are a time distance problem. They are close and they have positioned many indirect fire systems close to the border. They are a time distance problem for south korea and the United States. And i did not get your second part. The size. Of the allies. Thomas im worried about the south koreans cutting the size of their military. I am not an expert on it. I am worried they are cutting the size of the military not because of the strategy related reason, but because they have and that is about all i know about that. Didnt broker, the United States army. How does the u. S. , based on what you wrote, how should it be expanded . And the army is modernizing virtually everything and updating its concepts and trying to accelerate them at an unprecedented rate. If we expand the scope to get beyond that penetration problem, what does that do . Will that cause the army to diffuse its efforts and fix to much . And fix too much . We have had operational concepts in the past that were too diffuse. I like that part about it. But as i was looking for more hooks to talk about the future force, there is not much in there about beating the adversaries. We have cracked the antiaxis shield, now what . Andalks about penetrating integrate with a hyphen in there. I would like to see more discussion about how the is supposed to do. About how that is supposed to go. Is not wellt covered in the concept. I take your point and i dont fighting concept to become a big think that covers every element of the army it will he. I think it is useful to focus. This is an area where i confess i have not precisely defined the solution. I just think i see a problem. Thank you. Johnson. I am interested in you digging more into how you create not breaking groupthink but how do you create the ability to have dissent. Book by an interesting a british brigadier who said the problem with the army is it is engineering by edict and engineers have no rank. When the chief says something or someone else, it is contests that will be offlimits. I think we are in a place where the ability can the army do that in turn early or tax internally or do people outside have to do it . I would like to think that the army can do it internally because there are not enough people externally. You could have a con death you could have a small Conference Room filled with people inside the army. You have to reward those that are mavericks. Even if you do not agree with their thinking, if they have come up with an idea that is counterculture, the rest of the army needs to see them be a plotted and awarded and given better and bigger jobs. I remember h. R. Mcmaster when he i am trying to think of a nice word. [laughter] he was opinionated. Not let anyone silence his opinions. There was some question about whether this was the end of him and he progressed beyond anyones wildest dreams. Probably his too. But how do you make sure that h. R. Mcmasters keep getting promoted and do not get beaten down. Writing contests may not be the right answer. Other leaders have to be patting those people on the back. I read war on the rocks and agree with Something Like 30 but i loved it when the anonymous guy and the air force kept writing letters saying the way the air force is managing its people is wrong. General one day, the got on to war on the rocks and said, i would love for you to come work for me. A thint he did not have skin. That has not happened in the army. I am picking on war on the rocks what it is an exemplar for me of where people write openly. Dave johnson and maybe bob scales not many people in the army right on war on the rocks. We will take one more question. Hello, my name is Lieutenant Colonel kerry mcewan. You talked about a couple of ngs in terms of management and training and a longer time in a job to learn the craft. It seems like those are tweaks on the current system. What about a new system that takes into account the authorities that the services were granted last year . What are your thoughts on how the army should proceed . Use data andd we analytics to bring talent into the army . Thanks for what you are doing. I have watched the army and it has changed even in the three years that i have left it. There are a simon modules where managers of assignments post the open jobs they have and officers can say i would like that job. And then the units say yes, that is the right person for me. That is huge. And a huge step in the right direction. Authoritiesew nda that have been granted to the services. I am not a big fan of the purple haired Cyber Warriors we would induct directly and make them Lieutenant Colonels. I hope i am not crushing your feelings on that. Bring in talent from the outside or a reserve component that can meet and army meet, that is wonderful. I want them to meet our physical fitness and other standards. And we cannot diffuse the person we just commence commissioned as Lieutenant Colonel with someone that has spent at the last 18 years on active duty. They are not the same. Ant like you would not put army doctor in charge of an infantry battalion, youd not want to take someone like that and put them in charge. Talk i remember talking to general siemens about it and he was excited. I have probably not answered your question very well. I will say this the army has traditionally focused on preparing officers for the next rank. If you are a Brigadier General, i need you to be the deputy general of the next level so you can be a to start. That was the idea behind career progression for a Brigadier General. And that probably succeeds in getting he or her to the next level. But that does not guarantee getting good outcomes from that Brigadier General. They are moving so fast they are dizzy. They have been pushed through a division in 12 months maybe heere given common. Of got to be Major General and the Infantry School suffered and the division suffered. Tofelt it was imperative push him or her so quickly. I know the army sees that but i do not know if they have reconciled themselves on how to fix that. Thank you. So much for taking the time this afternoon to go over your report with us. Thank you, everyone for coming. [applause] jen, that was wonderful. [indiscernible chatter] cspans washington journal live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. Morning, we will preview todays New Hampshire Democratic Party convention and the 2020 president ial race with New Hampshire Democratic Party chair Raymond Buckley and with Concord Monitor political reporter john steinhauser. Watch this morning at seven at 7 00 eastern and be sure to connect with us during the program with your phone calls and facebook questions and starting monday, with our new texting feature. Washington journal mugs are available at cspans new online store. Go to cspan store. Org. Check out the washington journal mugs and see all of the cspan products. Next Committee Debate on the legal responsibility social Media Companies should have under the id 96 communications with decency act. Considering the content that users post on platforms. This is about an hour and a half and was hosted by the American Enterprise institute. This fantastic, event you have chosen to attend, watch online or view on cspan should reinformed section 230. I want to start with an interpretive reading of section 230. It is not a long section. It is a brief but important and it states as follows. User ofder or