You are probably the busiest person on the planet. I just wanted to say what an honor it is for us. Secretary esper has been secretary of defense for the past year. He was previously secretary of the army and a very distinguished record of Public Service having served active duty after graduation from west point 10 years and then the reserve for 11 years. We are looking forward to a good conversation. I think you have met the moderator before. He is a mutual friend, dave mccormick, the ceo of bridgewater associates. He also has a distinguished career as undersecretary secretary of the treasury and undersecretary of commerce. Dave and i worked together in the george w. Bush administration in those roles. Dave is also a graduate of west point. Nothing euro secretary esper, but they were at west point at the same point. Dave, i will turn this over to you. Thank you, nick. Secretary esper, thank you for joining us today. It is great to see you. Nick forgot to mention you were born and grew up in western pennsylvania before going to west point where you and i were both born. I know that you have carried that with you throughout your great career. Be ght we were going to i dressed appropriately. I am sorry i am not lined up with you, but we are glad to have you here. I know you prepared remarks that you wanted to start with. Why do i not turn to you and once you have gone through those we can have a conversation . Sure. Thank you, dave and thank you for your kind words. Nick, good to see you again. I am glad to see you both doing well. I would like to say a few things upfront to set the stage and throughout issues for discussion as we go through this. Saying when iy was confirmed a year ago during my confirmation hearing one of the things i made clear was my top priority would be implementing the National Defense strategy. As you and many know that says we are in a era of Great Power Competition, that she competitors are china and russia, in that order, we have secondtier like korea and iran, and the enduring challenge of violent extremist organizations. We have been moving out for 13 months in terms of implementing the nds. Nds says we have three efforts. The first is to bill daley flat and ready force, strengthen our lines and build partners, and effort three is to reform the department and find greater efficiency. I translate that into creating time, money, and manpower to put together toward other parties. What we have done is really flesh out i did this early on with my team. 10 goals that would guide us over the success of months. It is in our Rearview Mirror now. I will list some goals. Review, update, and approve china and russia plans, implement the Immediate Response force and Contingency Response reallocate, reassign, and redeploy forces in the nds, achieve a higher level of sustainable readiness, developing coordinated plan to strengthen allies and build partners, reform and manage the fourth estate, focus the department of defense on china, modernize the force but investing in Game Changing technologies, establish realistic joint wargames and exercises, developed a modern joint fighting concept and doctrine. We have been moving along those 10 objectives. We have made considerable progress. Our goal is to complete many of them by the end of the year and we are on track. One challenge we have faced over the previous seven months is the impact of covid which hit us in january. I have been tracking this since the january. Mid january. The department received its and weitizens from china have implemented this on february 1st. At our high point over 60,000 Service Members and many of the hotspots, particularly the national guard, whether it was medical professionals helping hospitals, to shooting supplies, you name it. I am proud of what the United States military did. During that time i outlined three priorities. Number one, take care of people and families. Number two, and sure can maintain readiness. Number three, support the whole of government effort. We still have medical professionals deployed in texas and california. We also had to deal with civil unrest in the wake of the tragic murder of george floyd. Our Service Members did extremely well in serving their state governors, the guard that is, making sure that americans had the chance to exercise their First Amendment right of freedom of speech and assembly. I have been very proud of our guard in that manner. In the wake of that i pursued three initiatives to address racial discrimination, diversity, and inclusion in the ranks. While the United States military has been a leader dealing with discrimination in the ranks and making sure it is not part and parcel of the force, we are not immune from what is happening. We are taking a number of actions to do that for two reasons. First, it is the right thing to do, but secondly, we need to be able to recruit and retain the best and brightest and make sure they feel respected and have equal opportunities everybody else does. That applies not only for people of color, but for ethnic differences, sex, gender, sexual orientation, you name it. We want to represent the e andcan people we sworn oath to protect. I just want to talk about broader issues and ensure you that while america is focused inward on covid, at the same time we are focused inward and maintaining our National Security capabilities in defending the country and we see that as our top priority. I look forward to a good discussion. Thank you. That covered a lot of waterfront. I thought i might ask you to elaborate on a really defining your political challenge which is obviously the rise of china and how to think about that from a National Security perspective. In recent weeks a number of your colleagues in the administration have made very significant speeches about chinas role in the world. You have talked about reorienting the department toward this strategic competition. I wondered if you might elaborate on what you mean by that, what are the specific things underway, and how do you see that challenge evolving . First, i have been watching the rise of china for many decades. I was a war planner in the 1990s while still in uniform at the pentagon. My first assignment was focused on that. I have seen this overtime in my various roles whether think tanks or capitol hill. Soerved u. S. Commission china has been on this path for some time. We may have a technical thing on our side. Done is turned the university they should focus 50 of the curriculum on china so Senior Officers have a good idea of how china operates, with the decisionmaking processes are, how the parties organized. I have made china the pacing for Armed Services much like you and i would recall during our days of the cold war. We are understanding Better Chinese order of battle. I want to make sure that is taught in our schools. We are trying to expand our language program, but that will be a challenge. Ano not see china as inevitable threat, but we do have to compete and be more vigorous in all domains whether it is diplomatic, informational, political. I have been speaking out since the early days of my tenure. I gave a major speech at the annual think tank event in germany this year. It is a big challenge and we need to face up with it. Our hope is we can get china on the right trajectory where they share our same values. Where they respect International Rules and do not try to alter them. Where they stop doing what they have done to many of our partners around the globe, particularly in the indonesian region, to get their way and play the hegemony. It is a particular challenge. We need to outreach to them, but also recognize we are in a new era. You have spoken a lot about this and one of your priorities was a very ambitious defense reform agenda. As a former defense planner you know the challenges to allocate resources so you are able to deal with the challenges immediately in front of you while also investing in future capabilities would be more aligned with dealing with the asymmetric threats evolving in china and russia. Talk a little bit about that effort and i also read about on the your efforts resources to make sure you were cutting out the fat with your latenight sessions where you went line by line. Talk big picture and then go granular. It is so much about making privatization. Or need to maintain annual growth to make sure we are as ready as we need to be defaced not only the threats today, but future threats. It is the present versus the future. It is what you need to fight today . We have serious challenges if you look at the mid east with regards to iran, north korea clearly is a challenge, but at the same time i have to be thinking about the future. That is my role in so many ways. It is making those tradeoffs on a daily basis. I came into this job over a year ago and we went through the fourth estate, all the 29 plus defense agencies that make up the backbone of the military and found 5. 7 billion that i could put into these National Defense priorities because we always want to go after fat. Sometimes you have to go over a little muscle too. We began a series of command reviews and got about six underway right now reprioritize resources whether it isis troops, money, four times. That is the fundamental thing. How do i make sure i have sufficient resources to compete with china and deter any type of conflict. Third if those failed, i have to be prepared to fight and win. The china competition is not limited. It is a global competition. Multifaceted and requires tough decisions. We are making those as best we can. I cannot hear you, dave. Part of that you talked about is innovation and i wanted to maybe ask you to go deeper on that. Omb,u walk the basement of you probably see some dust on former transformation reform efforts. Some of which have not come to fruition in the way the originators hoped. What makes this one different in your mind and what are the impediments that you see as the secretary to innovation within the department of defense . That is a great question. Moment. T a pivotal you would recall this as well that we were still living off the buildup of the 1980s. The big weapons system of the apache and the abrams and the patriot were the same systems used and upgraded, but that we are still using. We reached a point it was time to make that change across all services. You see everybody doing this whether it is the air force with , threealth bomber services with the f35, the army is moving into directions to upgrade. But the underlying technologies are clear and we are putting a lot of dollars into this. We have 11 modernization priorities to get there including ai, which i think will be a game changer in terms of our ability to maintain overmatched, coupled with robotics and machine learning. Energy,ic, directed quantum physics, biotechnologies, these areas are Game Changers in the future that we have got to put dollars into and are committing to. When i talk to your previous question about reform it is those types of reforms, ending legacy programs, curtailing activities that have a low roi to free up that money. If we are going to continue to dominate the future and win the future, and win in the sense of preserving the global order as it is consistent with our values so that everybody can live insecurity and prosper much as we have done. One of the things that is related to that you and i have talked about a couple of times over the years before you were in this role was culture. The culture of the military services and what you think about the pace of change. If you believe these emerging technologies and pace of change is accelerating, the question comes to mind about culture and whether the culture of our services is appropriately risktaking, entrepreneurial, to be able to adapt. I know you have spoken a bit about the risk of for fear of it that you have seen. How do you see that playing out and how do you imagine we might evolve it if it is a real issue . This kind of gets to the second part of your last question i did not answer. I will address that now. Culture is dominant. It is what drives so much of our behavior in so many ways. You asked what are the obstacles to modernize the force of success. It is the culture of dod which, first of all, we are heavily bureaucratic. You have people protecting their programs, protecting their activities, protecting their staff, and on top of that is the risk aversion of taking risks that should be taken. The big hurdle is the bureaucracy culture. There are legislative obstacles put in place, things we have to do based on federal policy, but those are not the big issues. The big issues are internal to us and our willingness to overcome bureaucracy and that is something we could talk in detail about. When you get down to the services they have unique cultures. Usually it is really good, there is a diversity of culture, and when it comes to war fighting i do not see a risk aversion. Service are willing to take and manage risk where they understand the mission and are willing to act boldly to accomplish it. I am very encouraged from a fighting perspective we are building the right type of leaders and giving them sufficient guidance and coaching an opportunity to grow and learn. It is everything behind them, bureaucracy, the big agencies where we need to give a difficult trip. That means giving people room to fail. They understand why and taking appropriate action. It does not mean people lose their jobs because they took an appropriate risk. Part of that is changing the leadership culture. Incentives, promotions, fit into that as you and i remember from our days in uniform . There was a clear path to being promoted and that was what directed the choices individuals made. How do you see that playing into your decisionmaking process . Again, there are two different types of systems. You have the civilian system and the military on the other. With the military it is fairly structured in terms of a career path, but what we need to do, and i see Services Taking this on i will speak to the army because we were developing at that and secretary mccarthy and the chief of staff continue to develop it but you have to take the less structured approach and less rigidity. It is not an Industrial Age management policy, but a 21st century Talent Management process. You get the people the room to pursue their interests based on their skills, behaviors, as long as it is consistent with army needs and requirements. You do not penalize them for theff track which atte breadthople have in their experiences, if you allow them the room to kind of maneuver outside a traditional career path and go to advanced civil schooling or take an assignment in another department toother service, we need encourage that type of broadening. Thank you. Topics toshift diversity and inclusion which is obviously on the National Consciousness at the moment in a profound way, but also something you have really made a priority. I was struck by a video that came out earlier this spring of senior enlisted leaders and officers talking about their experiences with prejudice in the military. You start your comments by saying the military has been one of the great institutions of equality, but has room for improvement. I wondered if you might give us your assessment of this state of the military today in terms of race and also how you are dealing with whatever gaps there are in the kind of institution we want. That is a great question. It is a profound issue. As i said i think the murder of george floyd was a wakeup call. It brought americans onto the streets to protest this discrimination that many fellow americans, africanamericans, experience. It was a wakeup call for us as well. Immune to are not what is happening in broader society. It is clear because we bring young men and women into the service from all walks of life, all corners of the country, urban, suburban, rural, black, white, asian american, you name it. Thinkpes and i do not what everybody appreciated me personally at least is the depth of sentiment among our Service Members of color about how much the killing of george floyd and the other incidents that preceded and succeeded it had on them and what they were experiencing in the ranks. Within a week or two of that i started going on the road to check out training. Toid this as part of covid see how our recruiting and Training Base was holding up under the stresses of covid. It eventually turned into a listening session as well. I have gone across the United States and abroad listening to Service Members of various diverse groups and you get a true sense of what they have experienced. And the goodtory news, or maybe the bad news, is it is consistent. Regardless of service or location the same type of stories, same experiences. We took ourselves we took it upon ourselves that we had to do better. Leadinghad a history of on these issues and it was time to step up, to really capture this moment. I laid out three initiatives. Number one was to come up with quick action items that we can do now to make a difference and get things moving. I signed that july 14th. July 15th we stood up a defense board for inclusion led by the secretary of the air force. She was joined by the senior listed advisor. A very diverse team and not just in terms of having persons of color and ethnicity, but we also want to get people in different ranks. We have young officers, midgrade officers, because we knew they would own the future. They had to help us and we wanted to be part of that. She is doing a sixmonth sprint to bring me back recommendations in december. The third and longer piece is the Defense Advisory Committee on diversity and inclusion. We will be standing that up probably the end of november, but that will be the enduring, dependent body that will look over time and help us see ourselves and help us make progress on issues of diversity, inclusion, and equal opportunity. It is critical because it is the right thing to do, but secondly, it is important to readiness. If we are going to deploy a ready force, we need americans of all walks and colors, ethnicity, etc. Feel like part of the team and be part of the team. You may the point that covid has heightened our awareness of the challenges around diversity and inclusion. How has it affected, through your eyes, the readiness of the force . What are the strains and stresses it has created . How do you see that playing out over time . It hit early on and we could see it coming. This is back to january if you will and it took time to see the full effect by april. I was concerned about our personnel and you cannot afford to lose a part of your force and perform your mission. We were very careful in terms of issuing i think at this. 13 letters on how to protect the force. We made that job number one and it has helped pretty well. I will rates of infection are lower than the populations we serve. Every death is a tragedy and particularly in the military. Thank goodness we have only lost one active duty member to covid. With the measures we took in place, as a result the force has been able to perform Security Missions and set the country and outside as well. The areas i became most concerned were one, the recruiting and bringing young recruits in. We made some adjustments to do that. We could talk about that, but the services took slightly different approaches and were able to manage that well. I think we are going to hit our strength this year for the most part. The marines may follow little bit short, but that has been managed well. You could create a hole in the system that would take years to work through. The other which is more challenging is the Defense Industrial base. Why do i say that . Unlike the military where we have a young, healthy population that can withstand covid better than most, the defense base is populationess fit that i am more concerned about. Obviously it is your most report resource, your people, the ability to fight, but they need that technology to do their jobs. That is where i have been concerned and remain concerned. A lot of credit to the team that handle acquisitions and sustainment. They have done great things to keep the Defense Industrial base of float, to help them with cash payments, progress payments, anything to keep them healthy. Particularly when you get into the third and fourth tier suppliers they cannot afford to take a month off. They cannot lose a contract without going out of business. That was and remains my principal concern. Linings that we found. Silver linings that we found. We can talk about that as well. Yes, please. What are the Silver Linings . When i went to see the marines they took into a practice where they brought a man in for two weeks and socially distance him in a separate area. It was very successful in limiting the spread of covid, but what eventually found was not only did it reduce covid cases dramatically, we also saw fewer cases of other types of otheratory illnesses and things that afflict young people. Of younggher rates recruits showing up for duty on a daily basis. Another example was instead of giving young recruits a week plus break in between basic training and extended training, by only limiting them to a long weekend or three days, they came prepared for the second training. They were more fit because they did not take the week off, they were not getting in trouble at home, they were more ready for the training. We are seeing benefits in different ways and i could talk to each of the services and show you how we found Silver Linings. Again, aarmy said, different type of training where they allowed recruits for the first 14 days to do a little bit more bonding under far less duress than they would normally have on day one. What they found as a result was by giving them 14 days to get to know one another, once they hit that traditional day one, drill sergeant in type of situation, we are seeing lower rates of attrition because they can lean on one another. It is having a much improved impact on our ability to get larger numbers of folks through the pipeline. That is interesting. One of the things you mentioned earlier that related to covid is there is a math problem that we as a country are facing. If you think of our economic might underwriting National Security, as a result of covid we have significantly increased our deficits, our debt. Even under the most optimistic scenario there is a much andnt fiscal outlook we are not done spending yet much more difficult than it was three month ago or january. How do you think about that as a National Leader with your point to 5 . E 3 the first spending package was 3 trillion plus and we will see what the next will be. We are cognizant of the fact that it adds to the debt and deficit which inevitably puts on the federal government and dod. I said upfront in order to sustain the great progress we have made over the last three years, President Trump has increased our budget which has resulted in increases in readiness and investment accounts. Expect thatnue to type of generosity from the american taxpayer when we see Discretionary Spending rise we had to be much more aware of what is happening over time as well. We were talking about this yesterday on how you grow the force . Conscious of the cost it will put on the system. That is why i continue to beat the drum that we have to be much more cost aware, costefficient. We have to make the hard choices and get rid of legacy systems. So many programs are important, but frankly, some are more important than others. If it is not delivering a hard announcer announcer roi, it is not realistic. The one thing i can control is how we spend our dollars. Thank you. I am going to pivot to a new set of questions. For those in the audience, i encourage you to put questions in the q a section. Allies,e might turn to alliances, and partners. Yes. I know that has been a significant your travel schedule is indicative of the priority place on that. I hope you might give us context and background on the repositioning of the troops in germany. What is the thinking and reaction with the nato and how does that advance the National Defense strategy you described . Allies and partners are critical. Advantageasymmetric we have over china and russia hands down. Something consistent with the National Defense strategy that we have to strengthen the allies and grow new partners. I have spent a lot of time on , well overaveling 200 or so meetings with foreign partners just in the past week alone. India, australia, the u. K. , the nato secretarygeneral, etc. We do this through diplomacy, arms sales, training and exercises, everything that make us a strategic force. In all those cases we have to look for ways, as i said earlier, free of time and resources to apply to our priority theater. I have six underway presently. One of those that we began was the european command one. I had given general walters instructions how do you look at your command, how do we reposition . How to give me more flex ability and yourself more operational flex ability . I said we have got to meet the president s objective. I want you to follow these five principles. Allies, strengthen the alliance, give me greater , take careossibility of servicemembers and their families. I think they did a good job. The number was to pull 11,900 out of germany leaving over 24,000 still in germany. Still the largest country hosting u. S. Forces, but what we did in the process and will be underway is the way by which we made the alliance more capable. I will speak to that in strategic terms. What we end up doing is move forces further east. Following the trail of our newest members of the alliance we see footing more Rotational Forces into the black sea region. My aspiration is also to put more forces up into the northeastern flank as well in the baltics and poland and we announced we would have 1000 troops deployed there. Some of the things he came up with were things that had been talked about for many years. That byan deny the fact aligning his headquarters is an efficiency that will allow greater operability between staff. Reuniting units that have been separated for years. Moving the elements of the Airborne Brigade from jim rooney down to italy from germany down to italy makes sense. One of the things we are doing with the 11,900, 6000 striker units will come back to the u. S. That gives me great strategic flexibility. Our ambition is to bring them back, but put them back on the road. Whereas in the past we may have deployed training one as i said to general walters, if you think you need an armor brigade we can do that. Whatever it takes to meet those principles. We can talk about the air force. One of the things that has been talked about for years when i first came on board was keeping the airmen we have a refueling squadron and special squadron in england keeping them there. It made strategic sense so we are keeping 2500 airmen there. Moves make a lot of sense when you put into context those five principles. I know it is a long answer. The feedback i have gone from my team, that i have personally heard from allies, has generally been positive for most of them. Germany to their credit, i spoke to my counterpart a week and a half ago and disappointed with regards to losing forces, but recognizing the important thing was strengthening the alliance. Day weat the end of the will make adjustments over time. We have got to be deliberate. You will see these things pan out just as i laid them out to you. I thinkas you suggested it is important to note, historically, there has been a number of ebbs and flows as people in your position and military leaders have looked at the rice force posture. This continues that to some degree. Mentioning this issue about allies paying their fair share. I have gone back either reading my predecessors books or spoken to many of them, the obama ,dministration, to their credit everybody agreed to meet the 2 target. Getting the European Partners to pay more, we said the fair share is 2 , but i think it should be more than that depending on how wealthy a country as. I have come to the point where i have put that standard out for all partners whether it is asia or elsewhere. If we are going to Work Together, commit to collective security in order to protect the International Rules and norms, in order to push back against countries that want to infringe upon individual rights or another countrys sovereignty, we have got to Work Together and understand what that means. That means we all have a certain minimum level of commitment to get there to deter that behavior. If we cannot deter it, we have to be ready to fight and win. Can you spend a minute on asia . The importance of the quad. The Prime Minister of australia was on yesterday and they have taken a different defense posture based on the rise of china. How do you see our alliances and that part of the world and comment on the quad in particular. That gets back to the first question about china. With regard to what has happened as part ofven months covid if you will, we have seen china become more aggressive, tragedy ofse the covid to their advantage for propaganda purposes. I think they overplayed their hand. We have seen them trying to exercise this muscle in the south china sea. They sank a vietnamese fishing vessel a couple of months ago. They twist to the arms of others. They deployed troops along the border in india. They are acting out and consistent with International Norms if you will. Many allies and partners are reacting as well. I give credit to the australians and the brits as well whether it is pushing while way out or the wei out. Ans hua another silverlining of covid is because we have not been able to travel, we have done more online. Meetings,en doing trilateral meetings, and what many of my counterparts have agreed to is we need to do more of them in multilateral lies them. S inany of the relationship asia are bilateral. U. S. Philippines, u. S. Australia, we need to multilateralize them so we talk more as a group. That is the best way to push back against china. I see that is another positive outcome of us being able to travel. We found new ways to communicate it and do so in a multilateral way. I could not agree more. I want to dry question from our audience from drew about the alliance. E is a west point grad it is related to what we talked about. Army futures command has many ambitious modernization programs including the virtual vertical lift. Bewhat extent should we Engaging International Partners to enable them to keep pace with our own . Early and often. One of the things we did as part of the nds strategy, my policy team has done a superb job of this, we had the first global outreach. We are doing expanding over the next five years. Returnou cannot beat the on investment. That is International Military training. Yes, we should be reaching out to partners whether it is advanced aviation, the army. We are trying to restore not just missiles, but directed energy. Are trying to get longerrange artillery. What they are doing in places like arizona is remarkable. They will give us range of precision we never had. We should be working closely with allies and partners and i know we are. It is important to sustain that for all services. That is how we further develop the advantage we have over the russians and chinese. I would like to draw on another question from ambassador sanders. It is a question regarding russia asking you to elaborate a how you see the strategic competition. I know part of the repositioning you described was the move with the troops in germany. A second part to that question is some of the terrorist activities in africa which is supported by the russians. If you could comment on both i would appreciate that. On the first one, under putin, russia has taken on a more aggressive posture. We have seen a move into the middle east. They are playing multiple hands in various parts of the world. We see them in libya, africa, and we know the invasion of georgia, the annexation of crimea, occupying part of ukraine, they are stirring things up in the baltics. It has focused the attention of nato. It is unfortunate we are in the situation, but we have to stand up and deter them. We have to stand up to them. That means committing funding, committing troops, committing more capabilities to deterring russian bad behavior. So we can continue to defend the democracies we count as our allies and that is my commitment. I served as young officer in italy as part of nato. I know the value of the alliance and i know the value is greater than some of the parts when you Work Together. Russia has given us the focus and we need to address them whenever we see them playing. One of the areas is africa. Of africathe head and he is doing a great job. We need to focus on the counter in africa. Afric announcer we have to distinguish those that are regional and those threaten the homeland. He is focused on that. What i put at the top of his list is focus on Great Power Competition and africa. Where do we need to be in order address what china and russia may be doing . I said i am going to deploy Security Assistance which is a new organization in the army which is geared toward doing that type of assistance for other countrys militaries. He is moving out on that front. Part of the discussion we had is other places we may address power competition, but i tried to give him a prioritization list and he is working on that. I think we will continue to make Good Progress when it comes to moving forward on the National Defense strategy. We have had a number of people raise a question about i do not know if you are able to speak about beirut is that something where you are still getting information . Still getting information on what happened. Most believe it was an accident as reported. Be on that i have nothing further to report. It is obviously a tragedy. Dozens if nothe hundreds killed and thousands hurt. Lebanon is struggling right now in a number of ways and it is a shame to see it happen. When you see the video it is just devastating. It could have been much worse, but we want to help. I spoke to secretary pompeo. We are reaching out to the lebanese government, have reached out, and positioning ourselves to provide them whatever assistance we can, humanitarian aid, medical supplies, to assist the people. It is the right thing to do in the wake of this tragedy. Got it. Prior to your session we had brian hook interviewed and there was a lot of talk about iran and the iran deal. I wondered if you could talk about that through the eyes of dod and how you think about that threat and think about dod strategy and National Defense strategy and being prepared to respond. Sure. We absolutely support the maximum pressure campaign. Iran has been a bad actor the spreading,in 1979 malign activities. All the way across africa into afghanistan, stirring up problems, controlling, influencing governments, and it has been really bad. You have that aspect. The pursuit of longrange weapons missiles and to top it off the pursuit of a Nuclear Weapon which we cannot allow. Continuing tois strengthen the allies in the region whether it is israel or saudi arabia and other countries. Reassure them, make sure we can deter iranian bad behavior wherever it happens whether it is on land in places across the Arabian Peninsula or even into africa. Certainly deter bad behavior in the maritimes. They were stopping ships, sabotaging ships, doing things that would disrupt commerce and freedom of navigation. That is one of the key principles the United States whether it is the persian gulf the south china enforce. Ies to gulfer it is the persian or the south china sea. We are getting them to stand on their feet in a challenging neighborhood. We are there as guests of the government to help them ensure the defeat of isis, but we do not want to see them captured by iran. We want to see iraq stand up for itself. We are standing there to support and deter behavior. If that fails, we are prepared to act. Thank you. I am going to give you a final question which draws on what the audience has set, but also something i am interested in. One, what it is like going to west point and serving as a. Ombat officer give us whatever thoughts you have on that . Also related to that, you have traveled around the world. You have met the men and women in uniform. We talked about this right when you took the Army Secretary job. The thing that comes out, just as today, when i talk to you is this admiration, love, respect, feeling of absolute commitment to the men and women in the armed forces. E current one commitment and as we close out. And then to implement the agenda. And with the policies of t and to know what will happen in the world with the Counterterrorism Operations but nobody a year ago would be facing a global pandemic. You never know what the world will throw what you. And with the chairman of the joint chief of staff together previously great in civilian secretaries and combatant commander. So to be flexible and adaptable so to break down the silos that we had at the time or the Service Secretaries would meet one meeting and then a different meeting and the joint chiefs of staff with another meeting and then you go to a format where we all sit together twice a day on a monday. So with those Combatant Commanders and how to deal with russia and china and that enables us to deal with covid much more effectively. But who knows what will happen tomorrow. Weve had a good day compared to what would happen has happened. Nothing more than going out on the road to spend time with the soldiers. And what the aspirations are and learn about their careers. And with the swearingin ceremonies. So those that are willing to raise the right hand and swear no to the constitution give their life and sacrifice themselves for their fellow americans in defense of an idea and the ideals that we are all free with inherent rights that guarantee and the constitution and gender and you name it we are all around the notion of the constitution and what it means and to commit you just cant help but be inspired and every time we go out there and we news your faith in the future and the next generation. On the Early Morning in july raise their right hand to swear the oath for the first time and all aspirations and then you just get inspired the next generation will carry the torch to be we committed to defending the country and all that we believe in. Mr. Secretary thank you. Thank you for what you just said that was stirring in thank you for your Public Service. Thank you for defending all of us. I enjoyed our time and i hope we can do it again announcer at 2 00, antivirus programs for police. Live coverage this afternoon on cspan. Can also watch both prop both programs live on cspan dog or cspan. Org. Announcer this week for contenders looks at the lives of the men who looked at karen for the presidency and loss. Watch this week at it 00 p. M. Eastern. Turning tonight, 1844 president ial candidate henry clay. Starting tonight