Maps, it seems as if china would never accept a unified korea that was democratic because that would encroach on their projection outward. Also in the future, if you would please say to whom your question is directed. I think theres a consistency in chinas approaches to both south korea and taiwan that is quite evident. Mr. Giarra china doesnt have the kind of claim that it makes regarding taiwan with south korea, but it is quite clear that it will control the Korean Peninsula one way or the other, so i think theres a consistency thats quite evident in chinese policies, actions, capabilities. I think theres a direct relationship and its historic. Mao was convinced not to invade taiwan in 1949 because of a bribe from stalin. A very good bribe, but the goal to take taiwan has remained. And now, north korea has become a nucleararmed proxy for china to influence the actions of the United States, japan, and in my opinion, for china to use to create favorable scenarios that may assist the intimidation or eventual conquest of taiwan. Putting north koreas nuclearized c. B. M. On a chinesemade tell is about as obvious as you can get that china wants north korea to be a threat that it can use to influence the United States, japan, south korea, and to influence the evolution of the strategic balance in aisa. Asia. In the back of the room. My name is ryan pickerel. I am with the new foundation. The president has made the communist party the vanguard of National Security or national sovereignty. Mr. Fisher, do you think the u. S. With the help of taiwan the muster a deterrence that will squelchs chinese resolve . Like, can we muster that level of deterrence . Yes, we can, but working with taiwan to create a continuously effective deterrence that is pursued in coordination with japan, hopefully with the philippines and with an attentive eye to not just the balance of power in asia but also the global balance of power and how the strategic relationship between russia and china is evolving are all components of an effective strategy Going Forward to deter china from military adventurism. Can i answer that . Mr. Fis5her please. Mr. Fisher please. I think its important to think about the difference between deterrence and resolve, or the connection between the two. Mr. Giarra what weve been describing are actions that might and hopefully would deter china. But thats different than diminishing their resolve, and i think the implications of that conclusion, if im right about it, is that were in this for the long haul. I dont think the chinese can afford to back away from this and i dont anticipate that they will, which is why a strong deterrent posture is so important. Its going to have to transcend administrations and may have to transcend generations. As i said, were in this for the long haul. I have a question for the panel, in particular for paul. Since we have Nuclear Escalation dominance, why wouldnt we leverage it over china . Mr. Giarra its encouraging for me to see a young man quote herman khan. [laughter] mr. Giarra where is he when he need him . Um, that seems to me to be tied in with the diminishment of american strategic thinking. The earlier conclusion, i think, proved terribly wrong, that were beyond all of that and dont have to think about deterrence, and now, what seemed to be financiallybased objections to the modernization of the american Strategic Nuclear arsenal, but which are in reality, ideological thrusts at the heart of american deterrence, so i think first and foremost, we have to kind of get back on the horse here and riled ride herman kahn because he and his colleagues, marshall and others, were right about how this has to work and its a terrifying prospect and frankly, i dont see much interest in going back to that because its like going back into the horse of horrors. Who wants to do that . I dont think we have control over escalation dominance. Mr. Fisher russians estimate china has 500 Tactical Nuclear weapons. By some estimates, the United States only has 500 for Global Alliance obligations. The United States has forgone the development of immediate and intermediate range Nuclear Armed medium and intermediate range Nuclear Armed Ballistic Missiles while that is a vigorous and growing concern on the part of the chinese. We need to redress this balance and do it quickly if we are going to have a reasonable chance Going Forward in maintaining control over escalation. But i would also add that the fundamental problem today is not a military problem. The fundamental problem is not the number of chinese weapons or chinese strategy. The fundamental problem is political. Right, we dont have a Treaty Alliance with taiwan. We dont even recognize the republic of china, which is taiwans official name. We dont even recognize it as a real country. Of course it is. Ive lived in china and ive lived in taiwan and i can tell you these are two different governments in two different countries. One is a communist country and the other is a capitalist democratic country. But if we cant recognize that and if we cant figure out how to move our political, our diplomatic relationship with taiwan in a more normal direction, if we cannot even have a vision of even one day having an embassy in taiwan, how can we even start to think about going to nuclear war with this on behalf of this country we dont acknowledge exists. Thats the fundamental problem. Thats the biggest difference between the United States and taiwan, that relationship. No one questions our resolve and willingness to escalate to the Nuclear Level with china if so required. With taiwan, for political reasons, its a very different situation and very complicated and i would argue that if we had , more vision politically about in the would like future, other problems would fall into place as we started to think through this. To belabor the point, thefisher not to belabor point, reports of the Obama Administration considering a new policy of no first use of Nuclear Weapons would, in the asian region, very quickly become destabilizing. The assurance of the American Nuclear deterrent keeps so many corks in the bottle that taking this away, even over some of these bottles, will impel some of our alleys to consider very, very seriously their own Nuclear Deterrence and throw up in the air all kinds of calculations. Im trying to be selective here. So that we include everyone from all the rows. Good morning. My name is dennis nielson. Im from Catholic University of america. Im wondering if in order to say that taiwan must be protected, do you think that the vietnamese feel the same way about the chinese because of their historic animosity and that may be vietnam im sorry, im addressing this question to all you gentlemen that vietnam would feel just as strongly about a defensive pact potentially with the United States, despite the fact that its also a communist government, that it possibly has the same thing to fear from china as taiwan does . No state in aisa has a longer asia has a longer record of animosity and yet ongoing practical relations with china than vietnam does. Mr. Giarra and i think youre ordering the real politic implications of better relations, better u. S. Vietnam relations, and i think that the vietnamese are as interested in that relationship as we will let them be. And so far, because of human right issues, we havent let that relationship develop. There has been talks and visits, but some think that continued chinese bad behavior will make the improvement of u. S. Vietnamese relations a walkover and that it will become such an obvious and apparent benefit to all concerned that it will happen. Well see. Well see. I would say yes, as achievable yes, vietnam will pursue advantages that it can derive from the United States, but i dont foresee any major shift towards a formal alliance. It is to hanois credit, however, that they are not relying too much on diplomacy for their security. Theyre investing in their own deterrent and the capabilities that theyre acquiring are quite impressive and do put the chinese on notice. First row . My name is im a member of the reagan foundation. We used to talk about one china policy years and years ago. I have a pretty good idea of that, but i want to hear your comments on that. Its kind of putting our hand in the back, so to speak. So, thank you. I think this would be the key issue for the next administration, that right now our china policy is outdated. ,mr. Fisher we made it in 1978, 1979. A lot as changed in aisa since in asia since that time. Taiwan is now a democracy, for example. At that time, the peoples republic of china was a useful partner in our broader global cold war with the former soviet union that. Threat no longer exists. Its now transformed into something different. So it may be advisable, and i would certainly advise, whoever comes into the white house next year within their first weeks to have a National Securities memorandum focusing on how we can bring the u. S. China policy into line with objective reality into what has transpired in aisa sia because asia looks in our relationship with china and taiwan, looks nothing like it did in 1977. So i think we need to we look at that. I agree entirely with paul that we need a real, legitimate net assessment at the military level but at the political level again, its at the political level where wars are made and wars are prevented and deterred. I think we need to do this. I think we have time for one more question. Here on the first row. Hi, nadia chow with the liberty times. I have a question for ian and richard. Theres only a few months left. I think some people are still expecting the Obama Administration might have another round of arms sells to taiwan. Do you think thats possible . If possible, what type of Weapons Systems capability should the other administration should consider . Not in a dollar amount. Nadia, as you know, of course its possible and of course there are systems that are outstanding. The last announcement came on december 16th of last year. I think the very day that i was last at the hudson institutes and we were talking about this topic, or was it the same day or next day . Mr. Fisher well, that package, which was impressive, and again you can see it in the handout , all that was included after that fouryear, threemonth freeze, it left actually, and ironically, a lot out which , would include seahawk helicopters for hunting submarines, the romeos. It also left out taiwans Outstanding Program for their program managing assistance for its indigenous submarine. It also left out licensing for u. S. Companies to provide taiwan with Technical Support for their indigenous submarine program. They are in mind, we actually promised 15 years ago bare in mind, we actually promised 15 years ago to provide taiwan with diesel submarines. We failed to meet that commit. Ment. Taiwan has now run out of patience. They realize they can wait no longer and now theyre trying to work on an indigenous build and i think we ought to support that. In addition and above all of those there are so many , capabilities we can provide. Abrams tank for the army to new f16s for the air force. The list just goes on. Drone support, for example, for electronic attack systems to suppress chinese systems. New Electronic Warfare abilities. I would defer to rick on these hardware issues but these would be some of the lowhanging fruit, in my opinion. The question, is the political will there . Thats a big question. I would simply add, nadia, that yes, another arms sales package from the Obama Administration would constitute an enormous show of support and confidence for the new side administration. If that is possible, it should be welcomed. Mr. Fisher will it happen . I dont have any inside knowledge that it will. And if it doesnt, that then falls to the next administration to hopefully make a strong statement early in its first term of support for taiwan by offering such a robust package. And what ian has mentioned in terms of what could be on the list is very advisable. And finally addressing the question of support for the submarine program must be addressed. That will be the main judgment level that this next arms package and will be the measure of our seriousness in our willingness to support taiwans selfdefense. I would just like to add the observation that whenever it comes, the next arms package is only going a difference in degree, not in kind. Mr. Giarra and i think what weve tried to make clear here is that we need the change in the whole contexted structure of this relationship because, as ian said so cogently, its not the same taiwan and china when this relationship was recast in the very late 1970s so its time to look at this from the ground up and not concentrate and spend all our energy on as important as they are, the arms packages. Ladies and gentlemen, first of all, thank you, panel. Richard, ian, paul. Excellent presentations, as usual. Thank you, everybody who came out for this event, and i just want to make a point here that in the approach to the president ial election, and then, the time immediately following it, were going to be holding monthly conferences on the u. S. Taiwan relationship, so watch your email spaces and other forms of communication and we hope to see you again soon in the near future and thereafter as well. Thank you. [applause] this morning, the state department issued its annual report on International Religious freedom. We have coverage from the state department coverage at 10 00 a. M. Eastern. On saturday, cspans issue spotlight looks at trade deals, their impact on the economy, jobs, and the president ial election. We will defend american jobs and workers by saying no to bad trade deals like the Transpacific Partnership and unfair trade practices like hashe state of pennsylvania lost one third of their manufacturing jobs since the clintons put china into the wto. It includes a look at nafta. This will weld us together in people, forr our exports, for our markets, and more democracy for our allies. A discussion on how the Founding Fathers viewed trade. Historically, the United States was not a freetrade nation for most of american history. The u. S. Is in fact a tariff protected economy. This goes back to our very constitution. Indepth investigation. Investigated being or its people smaller sister, nafta. More pages of specific roles and regulations. Nothing inevitable here. When these two were being negotiated, the u. S. Had as official advisers, 500 corporate advisors. Issue spotlight on trade deals saturday at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan and www. Cspan. Org. The commandant of the marine corps talked about Maritime Security in an event hosted by the center for strategic and International Studies in washington. Topics include modernizing the military and preparing for conflicts of the 21st century. This is one hour 10 minutes. Kathleen hicks good morning, everyone. Welcome. I direct the interNational Security program here. I am delighted to have you all here for the latest in our maritime dialogue series, today focusing on the marine corps more generally. Before we begin, im going to give you the safety announcement we give at the beginning of all of our event. We feel very safe in our building, but we want to make sure that Everybody Knows where the exits are, directly behind you and behind me. If there is a fire, i will direct you as to where to go. The Maritime Security dialogue is a product of csis in partnership to highlight particular challenges to naval navy, coast guard, naval Concept Development and program design. We are delighted that the sponsor for this theory, Lockheed Martin have been so , kind as to provide support to make this possible and we are focused in particular on expeditionary warfare and the marine corps. And who better to speak about 37tharine corps then its commandant general robert neller. We will have a conversation between the two of us and then open it up to the audience in a bit. Let us start with the security environment overall. Tankland manyk conversations about the challenges posed from china to russia to nonstate actors like isis. From the marine corps perspective, what do you see as the most salient series of challenges that you have on the horizon . Gen. Neller first, thank you for allowing me to be here and senator warner, and other folks here i guess there is not a lot , going on in d. C. On a tuesday morning. [laughter] gen. Neller congress is on recess and the ballgame is not until tonight. Everybody else is on vacation, so i guess i am the best show in town. , which makes me really nervous. [laughter] gen. Neller i mean, when you put it in context, i came to the marine corps in 1975, the end of vietnam, and a country that was the country that was kind of dealing with that were still, ar. The soviet union was a major threat. It was simple. We were going to go fight them. In the marine corps, very engaged in vietnam, continue to have forces in the pacific, then we evolved into a capability to participate it required against the soviet union. It was very simple. A stategoing to fight directed military force. There was going to be a foreign line of engagement and you would be on one side and they would be on the other and we were going to go fight. Electronic warfare and fires, very traditional, the way we like to fight. We like football, lined out, gold at either end refugees , around the field to make sure people play by the rules. We like that, then you stop and call a play and run another play. As in the rest of the world, theres soccer, where there is one referee who does not seem to see anything and guys on around in different directions. They fall down and we think that is bad but everyone says that is part of the game. In military, that is called deception. Fastforward the tape, we go through desert shield, desert storm. The wall comes down. And then 9 11 happens. , we find ourselves in a very different kind of fight, though it starts off traditionally, conventional force on conventional force, two conventional forces. The u. S. Coalition against iraq, and now, we have for the last 15 years, we have done counter insurgencies, and we have trained and developed an organized a force and a way of fighting that worked really well in that environment. So now we fast forward to where , we are today, we are still in that fight, in iraq and afghanistan but not to the degree that we were. But other countries have watched and observed what we have done and they have continued to develop their capabilities they , have recapitalized a lot of the force through aviation, strategic forces, undersea forces, and now we have four potential threats and one ongoing. So how does the marine corps fit , into that . I still believe that there is a great opportunity to deter adversaries by having deployed forces. In line with the strategy that we want to build partner capacity with our partners, and we can do that using maneuver space, not having to violate the sovereignty of nations, a huge advantage. You have flexibility, and then none of the games we play hopefully, that we will not be , playing a home game. We dont want to play a fun game. All of our games are away games. You have the ability to be expeditionary. That means is that when you show up, you have to be able to bring with you all of the things you need to sustain yourself for a certain period of time before you can get a chain to support your efforts. So i think part of the naval force, and ive talked about this a lot, i think the challenges and things we might face in the future are things but we have done before, an things we have not done recently. We are committed to developing a capability that allows combat and commander to provide forces for Forcible Entry and noncombatant evacuation and mandatory assistance, built d capacity and do whatever we need to do. Kathleen the marine corps is really known for being that Crisis Response force, the 911, ever ready, and general dempsey used to call it the new normal. I think we can call it normal now. Do you worry about the marine corpss ability to sustain its readiness in the ever crisis free response mode . Ms. Hicks to having a responsibility to respond to crises from embassies, etc. , is it distressing to the marine as it is currently constructed . Gen. Neller if you talk to the people out in the Operational Forces that are currently do ing it, they would tell you it is as high today as it was when we had large numbers of forces in iraq and afghanistan. The commitments have not gone down. There is stress. At 9 11, we were 172,500 marines , and we deployed at a rate of 31, normally gone six months and back for 18. Since then, we grew the forced to 21 because we wanted to get back to the 31. At 182,000 marines, which we will probably reach in the next couple of months, we are at 21 force, and that is kind of the red line for us as a service. There are some capability sets that concern me, mostly about the stress on the force and the individuals and on the limit. On the equipment. But marines do not join to sit. They want to train but they want to go somewhere and do something. And so, i think if we can stay , at 21, and maintain a level of readiness through the depth of the force, we do not tier readiness, even when we know there will be a degradation, we expect that you will be ready to go. Reduce resources or funding or we do not reduce resources or funding or training opportunities for units when they come back, they get a certain period of time we reset , them and they are back in the mix getting ready to go. If you can stay at 21, i think we will be able to sustain that. I watch it very closely, i watch the surveys we do with marines and their families, you know is , this too much . But i believe we can find and recruit the right kind of people, our center of gravity, those who will say they want to be a United States marine, i think we will be fine. But it is something we will watch all the time. Ms. Hicks staying on readiness. What parts of the marine corps are you most closely monitoring . Which parts are you worried about most in terms of readiness . We all know it is a lagging indicator, but you are likely to see it earlier than most of the public. Where do you see the stress is coming . Gen. Neller if you track readiness over time, before , right toward the end of afghanistan after we left iraq in 2010, 2011, and we left afghanistan in 2013 . End of 2013 . Colonel fairfield used to work for me so he knows the answers. If anyone has any questions ask , the gentleman right there in that nice suit and tie. Looking good. [laughter] gen. Neller there was a periods time where there never has been and never will be when the forces are fully deployed and ready to go and have the best year and can do the mission. Best gear and can do the mission. There was an increasing number of forces at the bottom meant that were staying at a lower level of readiness longer. That started to turn. Those numbers have gone down in the people in the middle has gotten larger. That is really what we want. We do not want anyone at the bottom. We want them to stay for a short lifetime. They deploy the highest levels of readiness. So, theres kind of three groups, the groups on the ground side which deploy as battalions. There readiness is in a good place. The congress was good enough to obligate 5 billion to reset our ground equipment. We are about 75 through that. So, the ground readiness, particularly infantry battalions, our pacing item is , really good. There are a number of ground units that deploy detachments or pieces of the unit. They are in a good place. Sometimes the way we do the all the rhythm or policy for how they write that they might show , their readiness to slow but if butre the i created if they were reaggregated together, they are low because pieces of them are gone. On the aviation side, we are in a more difficult place. Ive talked about this in testimony. The general talked about it. We have flown our airplanes for a long time. We are in the middle of recapitalization of every model type and theories. Model type and series. Were trying to reset to the legacy aircraft we have, and we still have everyone is a little bit different. F 35 will replace three model type series. We thought we would get the airplane a little bit earlier. But we did not. Now, we stood up our second squadron, and we are going to start to see that airplane to hear overseas, the first of the year. There are still some problems with f18s because the harrier took longer than we thought and we had some issues. We are starting to see now, slow , steady improvement. I am not going to spike the ball because we have got to get more airplanes on the ramp. So that our aircrews can fly more the secondmost challenge hours. Is probably the we were going to 53. Buy a new 53. It is an test. It is doing very well. But we have got to get what we have back in the pope. I think we have made a mistake. Back in depo. I think we have made a mistake. I have told everybody this. When we were in iraq and afghanistan, we do not bring them back after redeployment we left them there and set up an intermediate maintenance thing. Looking at that now, i would recommend to my successors to never do that again. The money was there to fly the airplanes back, put them through the depo, and we should have done that and they would have been in a better state than they are now. Now, we are having to do that, but it will take some time. We are still filling the Acquisition Program record, 360, 287, replacing the cobra and that is happening. Understand every time you take a squadron and transition it to a new airplane, you have to stand them down for 18 to 24 months and they have to train and the mechanics have to be trained. So, the rest of the force has to pick up that tempo. We will work through all of this. I track it very closely. It is not something you could watch on a daily basis. First of all, it would drive your staff crazy and you would not really see anything. But on monthly basis, we are starting to see gradual, steady. Ncreases the metric is how many airplanes are on the ramp that we can fly. That is the metric. Ready basic aircraft. Rba, that is the term. The number of rbas going up, not as fast as we would like but it is going up. We are on a course and we will keep grinding on this. It is a combination of putting legacy aircraft in the depo getting them out, Getting Better , parts on board and were racing the airplanes when the old airplane. Kathleen you mentioned early on the threats or challenges posed by increasingly capable adversaries. The stillcontinued environment we have operated but now also an environment potential concerns for the marine corps in terms of being able to operate. Can you talk a little bit about how your thinking in terms of requirements in the marine corps what marine , are the innovations you are looking at to be able to operate in that kind of environment and how you balance that against everything you just talked about, a marine corps that is dgaged and eployed . Gen. Neller we were in the process of looking at the overall structure we have. Trying to project what the force will look like in 2020. I think we have got a good idea based on what we have learned since 9 11. What we observed with other potential competitors, what we have seen in other fights going on the world, in eastern europe, and even stuff going on in syria or iraq and afghan in and around , or around the world. We realize there is a certain set of capabilities for any sort of near peer fight that we have not had to deal with, which we do not have the capability, and you have got to have the right people who understand how to do this. So, whether those capability sets that we think we need involve more cyber, more ps, moreion o Electronic Warfare, how much counter mobility or counter id do we need to retain . Do we have enough air defense, is that balanced against intelligence collection, so how do you make this all fit . Were in the process of doing that. In one of the assumptions we have is that we are not going to get any more people. Whatever these capabilities are, i kind of listed them the , question is how much of that do you need and what will you take away, what are you going to divest yourself of what marines mission, andype of what will that cost you to give up . Everybody has got great ideas about what we need but there is not a lot of people at their not a wholere lot of people out there offering up stuff. So that kind of falls on me. Were in the process. We brought in a couple hundred marines, the first of the year, they came up, we had kind of the old persons and the young a bunch ofne by captains and majors and they , were somewhat similar but also somewhat different and then we kind of push those into a hybrid and now we are trying to figure out how to make it work. It would be great if we have the resources to have 190,000 marines but we are not assuming , that. That is a decision that is not in my job jar. We will operate on the assumption we will have 182,000 marines because that is what we are resourced for peer we will that isource for, and a decision we will figure out how to reshape the marine corps and we are going to reshape it here and one thing we will not do is we will not stake that were the same. I do not think we can. Capabilities out there are changing too fast. We have to be able to survive on the modern battlefield in the last 15 years. Kathleen sticking with the leadership and training aspects, you have been vocal about your concern, a tongueincheek way of putting it, marines getting familiar with a paper map again. Can you talk a little bit about that aspect of leadership and training qualities you want to make sure the marine corps to deal with a denied information environment, spectrum challenges, at the same time you are building up your of capabilities in that area . Gen. Neller we have got a whole generation, everybody who came into the record after tonight 11th have grown up in an environment very different than what i grew up in, where you are operating on Single Channel radio. It worked 50 of the time and you were ecstatically happy. They walk into the Operations Center and they have got big screen tvs with picture, they know exactly where all of their people are, they have tracker, they can see the airplanes, they have perfect com, multiple means digitally to chatter or to text, let alone voice. They do not have to worry about adversary that might have had uavs, it did not happen. Now, here we are today, and we have developed a system of war fighting that is very dependent upon the internet, that network, and space. Looking at potential adversaries, do we think that that is going to be there that , network will be there if we were to engage with the folks . I would say i dont know. I do not think you can assume that. In fact, i would think our Friendly Center of gravity is that we have to protect the network. If we lose that, we are fact back to paper maps and hf radio that we remember from back in the day when we were underneath the poncho at night with a flashlight in our mouth trying to read the map and , figure out where the hell we were and hoping a sergeant could tell us. [laughter] gen. Neller so there is a balance. We have to leverage the technology we have, but it makes training even harder here you have to be prepared for when it is not there. I believe we are building that into our requirements and our training. I will tell you, we have started to train more force on force at the nine palms, and we have given our adversaries uavs. Marines are in a builtup area and they are walking down the street, they look up in the sky copterre is this small uav and they are like, what is that . Theyve never seen that before. Those who have been deployed in the middle east are starting to see that more and more. But theyve never seen that before. I mean, that is the same quadcop ter you can get on groupon or sams club and by for 400. Dont fly around here because it will be a federal offense and you will be arrested. You cannot fly it in the district of columbia. But it is simple stuff like that, like jamming the radio or saying, gps does not work. It does not work. So what does that do . The whole network, the server just crashed. Look what happened with delta yesterday. They built an entire system a of reservations and flight management based on the network. And it fails. Because of a power surge. What if someone actually wanted to do that . The fight that we used to think of in air, land, and under the sea has now expanded to space, cyber, and information domain. I have no doubt in my mind our force will figure out they are much smarter and more capable and more adaptive and we ever were because they have grown into this and they will adjust but we have got to put them in , situations where they have to do with it. You are trained based on what you think will happen in the environment. I was talking to a commander on is thet coast and she Headquarters Group commander, and they are going to go on the field. They actually did something a very smart. They set up the entire Headquarters Group, a very large thing, and they reloaded all the remoted all the Communications Gear and put up camouflage netting which used to , be a very common thing. In the last 15 years, there was not a whole lot of camouflage netting because there was no need. The enemy did not have airplanes. So we did not do it. They netted up certain things, and they got on google earth and took a picture of it. And it looked good. It blended in with the terrain. Then they be like they put concertina wire around certain important facilities and the light from the sun reflected off wire, and there was a big circle off one thing and anyone walked, would say, what is that, there is something outside the circle. Well, that was where the intel people were. So what will be do about that . There is a fix. It has already been fixed. Im giving away state secret. You have got to look at yourself i do not think im giving away state secrets. You got to look at yourself, you have got to change the way you are thinking that an adversary can see us just as we can see them, so how do we keep from being seen and still see them, and how do we protect ourselves and put them at a disadvantage . Ms. Hicks i will ask one more question and turn it over to the audience. I want to talk about it to be i want to talk about amphibious capability. This is an area where those of us who observed can see the evolution of thinking with regard to the challenges of being able to aggregate capability for wartime needs and the challenges of managing Crisis Response and more routine engagement. The marine corps has become very creative, frankly in how you , have addressed that challenge in terms of moving to these landbased approaches, and mphibious approaches. I wonder if you could talk about where you think they need to go in terms of managing the amphibious he this spectrum of challenges you are facing. Gen. Neller one of the effects of the last 14 years being involved in a landbased insurgency is the number of marines, unless you are assigned the unit, the time to get on ship was less and less. It was admiral harvey in 2010 or 2011, he started to say, we need to get back to amphibious things. He started an exercise program that at first was just kind of sitting around and people getting themselves recommitted and reunderstanding, a better understanding, getting back into anks we have to conduct amphibious landing. That will be assimilation this year. The reason is we did not want to it with a phone number of ships. We wanted to continue to grow and increase complexity. We have done it every year. It has also been added on the west coast. Blitz. Alled don we have done it recently. Then we did a very large exercise. Every fall in korea, there is a thing where they aggregate with our marine partners. We do a landing on the peninsula. We are writing to continue to not just ourselves, and with the navy. We want to get a strike group because there is no way an Amphibious Force will get a landing unless conditions are set, and they have to be set to the fleet. Capital ships and submarines will set the condition so you can put that force ashore. Were also working hard with our allies this last fall and the largest amphibious exercise in many years called triton juncture, where you had u. S. , spanish, british, portuguese, ships the italians were , going to anticipate but they were tied up with another mission. About 35,000 individuals, u. K. S. Marines on u. K. Ships, you can marines on it u. S. Ships and spanish ships and vice versa. We continue to do that to develop a coalition capability. The same thing happened every the same thing happened, so, we trying to get our own skill set built back up and we are on path to do that and we are working more more with Coalition Partners and using every opportunity we can to get marines on alternative platforms, whether it be a highspeed vessels or mobile landing platforms or just normal black hulled ships where you have a flight deck where you can put marines onboard or they can use the sea again to position themselves to accomplish a mission. That is what we do, that is the mission. Secure naval bases that is our , job. That has been the law. We can do a lot of things, but what we really do is provide a Naval Infantry capability as part of a fleet. Ms. Hicks ok. We have microphones that will come around. I need you to, when i call on you give your name and one,iliation if you have one question, not a statement, or a monologue of any variety. Lets begin right here in the third row. Thank you. [indiscernible] i wanted to ask about the for okinawa. Im trying hard to beef up the capabilities for amphibious open our island. Okinawa island. Using this improvement will lead to reshape of the marine corps kinawa . The state of the marine corps . Thank you. Great, thanks. Gen. Neller the Japanese Ground selfdefense force is working very hard to develop an Amphibious Brigade capability. We are happy and proud to be partners in the process to provide any expertise and training that we can with them and to train with them. Your naval selfdefense force has built some really nice ships and we certified our ability to ospreys on those ships, and we have marines on those ships. We will continue to train with the Japanese Ground selfdefense force as they continue to grow this capability. Whether that will affect the defense posture in okinawa, or in the pacific, i think that is too early to say. A number of them on mental and political going on that are acting the current plan to put forced down in the proper position. It is too early to say that but for sure, we are totally committed to helping the Japanese Ground selfdefense force, just like they have come into the west coast. I know it is expensive for them and we would like to find another place to do that. We will work with them and continue to be good partners to try to achieve the goal. I think that is a great capability, whether it is hadr or any other requirement that might exist to work with allies. Ms. Hicks great. Ok. We have one right here in the front. Thank you. General, you talked about how the marine corps is look at it s force structure. I know that is ongoing. Can you say what your current thoughts are about what would anp and infantry unit infantry unit . How many rifleman . Gen. Neller in the past when we change the force, we kind of left what was in the flag the same. The difference this time, we are going to stay at 24 what is inside will not fundamentally different. I am not ready to say exactly what it will look like because we do not know yet. A number of different models and options we are looking at. We want to look at and we want we want to make sure we maintain the capability and that any changes to that, first, do no harm. Right . So, but it will be different. One thing were looking at now is providing every infantry squadron a leader. And the reason is he would be the marine that would fly the squads uavs. In helping the leader manage the information, because the commands, we will find out, third battalion murray is is a unit were using for experimentations. They are still doing the deployment as part of the normal workout to the plate. I met one of the squad leaders out there and he had a tablet that folded in and out of his battle rig and he had the ability to do messaging, has call for fire, have google earth map, talk to his higher headquarters, if the network works. He had a 25yearold guy was shown me the stuff that i would probably break if i touched but to him, he was like, i can do this and this and i am like, that is very cool. My job is to make sure that works when you need it. So there are going to be changes but i am not sure what it will all look like in the end. Kathleen second row here. The microphone is coming. Sorry. With military. Com. I am very interested in your thoughts about making Ground Forces more analog, making them able to function with very little technology. By contrast, the marine corps is about to get fifthgeneration fighters that function on this very complex and custommade network. Im curious if you are looking at working around and functionality technology. Gen. Neller it is a great question. We can always go back to way the audience the way weve alwasys done it. The pilot comes back and files a report and we try to rapidly disseminate that information. That is an inherent thing we do. F35 has a huge capability to gather information and disseminate it to the white where we have figure out if we can observe all of that. It is not that we will go back analog. We have to be prepared when it happens. We have to be able to continue to function. We have the idea of maneuver warfare, where there will be friction and is certainty and the commander has to deliver what they believe is their intent so in the absence of communication, that they have some idea what theyre supposed to do even if they are not able to communicate. It is almost counterintuitive. We have got a system where were trying to develop as much certainty as we can and yet based on our experiences, we know to some degree it will never work in 100 . If it does, great. We still have to have marines out there who understand they have to use their best judgment, the commander has to understand what theyre trying to do, that they cannot stop and wait for something might not worth. Might not work. We have got to find people who have the aggressiveness and the intelligence to understand what they have to do in the absence of certainty. Theres never certainty in war. Though we might try to achieve it, there is always something out there that you are never sure about. Kathleen do you have concerns about building the cap the skill sets you think you need . Gen. Neller we have had recruiting problems before and we are right now. Our recruiters are out there working really hard and we have to turn over and recruit about 34,000 people a year. 60 of the marine corps is under the age of 25. That is a huge operational advantage. Being young is an advantage and we have to take advantage of their youth and enthusiasm and their fitness and then get to get them to grow up pretty fast here they have done a great job. It is incredible. At the same time, it takes a little bit longer to do this. It used to be you can take someone out of training, they know how to fire a right lender refit and they can carry and function. I think we are beyond that. The complexity at that level let alone the other levels, takes a certain level of intelligence and ability to be trained and we are there. I do worry about the time it will take, the additional time it might take, and being able to retain enough of these who become sergeants and staff sergeants, because these are capable and qualified people and there are opportunities out there. We will train someone to work on a cyber domain, we invest in them and they get to the end of their enlistment, they are going to have a huge number of opportunities, so how do we convince them in the same for the air force, how do we convince them to stick around and wear a uniform and do that in some of your companies are out there offering two or three times as much money, and they get to sleep in their own bed at night and no one is trying to kill them . Think about that for a minute. So far, enough of them take pride and are willing to accept a challenge, but i worry about that. As the force becomes more technical and more capable, they have more options. Kathleen we will go right here in front. Thank you. John harper with National Defense magazine. As you look at the future and prepare to fight more advanced adversaries come a what kinds of technologies are you looking for in terms of maneuverability or things like that . Gen. Neller i did not talk about recapitalization of the ground force, but there are two programs in particular, tactical vehicle and the combat vehicle where we will replace some number of humvees and we will replace some number of our vehicle. Both of those vehicles have better traffic ability and better survivability. They still can be beaten. You can always have a bigger weapon or bomb, but there are other technologies out there, we cannot keep hanging more armor on the vehicles and trying to have heavier transmission pair there are vehicle Protection Systems that are out there. There are electronic means to protect the vehicles and obviously if there are later means to armor them and give them better defense, the first thing i am trying to give is the individual body armor. When you pick up the gear, the body armor, the water and the ammo, without even talking you add some sort of tablet or radios were anything else you have got to carry. Youre pushing 6280 pounds. 60 to 80 pounds. That is before you put your pack on. So we are really looking hard for ways to lighten the load it anyway possible. Carry something that can make clean water, so we do not have to carry as much clean water, even to the point where even if we could find this to do something that is not metal and this consumable, that would reduce the weight of the bullet by 25 . Every pound counts. I used to do that for a living and now i am just an old fat man. But i remember what it was like and i am committed, along with the general, we have talked about this. We are all committed to figuring out everywhere possible to increase the survivability and light in the load of everybody carrying their stuff across the battlefield on the back. The vehicle Protection Systems, there is a active Protection Systems out there. We will look at a couple of those. They are not really late but if you build it into the vehicle, that certainly gives an advantage where you do not have to just keep hanging armor. We talked about one of the areas we still need to work harder on is in the craft landing zone. And the clearance of mines. We are still pretty much like we are with iuds, down to farm tools. We have got to do better. More survivable. There are two ways to find iuds or mines. Mines. Ind ieds or the right way and then there is the wrong way. I prefer the first. Kathleen i have a question way the back over here. Defense news. The unit construct has been around for a long time. But almost never they train as a unit but almost never do they operate as a unit once they are fully deployed. Is that a construct that needs to be changed or can we reevaluate the continuance of that today. What else can we do . Gen. Neller because the method of employment, i think the only survivable Forcible Entry capability would have at the bottom, it is true, they train together and operate as one but they also trained to operate separate. Right now, we have more capabilities. So we end up being a multiple places sometimes supporting at one time. I would not ever support unless there was a specific thing, unless we had excess capacity. We have done single deployers in the pacific. Every year, there is a Training Exercise combined with assistance training was Something Like that. They sail around the pacific and they do Security Cooperation and build capacity with allies. We do ship sometimes down and south america. It is now called something else. The three ship, the real discussion is duly buys by design, do we automatically by design, not just by happenstance, distribute ourselves across the battle space. We have got to be able to come back together because one way we are able to create a larger Landing Force is to bring multiple ships, coming from other units together and aggregate them into a whole. They have got to be able to function together. They cannot come together and figure it out at that time. They have got to understand the entire landing plan. I do not see us, in order to meet our requirements, deploying from the continental United States, one or two ships by themselves. They will continue to go as a group. Kathleen one way in the back over here. Good morning. General, my question is about special Purpose Marine Task force. Honduras, american forces, it starts in a couple of months or right now actually. My question is, already there for two months, future, thank you
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