I am the 113th president at the press club. Residence atst in the university of maryland, global campus. We have an Excellent Program ahead. We invite you to listen, watch, or follow along on twitter. Live. The npc for our cspan and public radio viewers and listeners, please be aware in the audience today are members of the general public. Any applause or reaction you may hear is not necessarily from the working press. Lets begin by introducing our head table. We ask that you hold your applause until the head table guests have been announced. Beginning to my far left. John oshea, colonel, retired. And member of American Legion post 20 based here at the National Press club. Wensing. Captain, u. S. Navy, retired. And a member of the Headliners Team. Lolita, National Security reporter. John donnelly, Senior Writer at cq roll call and president of the military reporters and editors association. To my immediate right, the president of d. C. Media strategies. Former National PressClub President and cochair of the npc Headliners Team. We will meet our speaker, ryan mccarthy, secretary of the u. S. Army in a minute. And then, landwere fair reporter at defense news and chair of the board of governors. Anthony reporter at bloomberg news. Look Lieutenant Colonel harris the communications , advisor for the secretary of the United States army. Yasmin, Senior Editor at National Defense magazine. And luke the senior director of , communications and partnerships at the mccain institute. I would also like to knowledge i would also like to acknowledge the members of our Headliners Team responsible for organizing todays luncheon. And leaders, laurie russo once again donald of d. C. Media strategies. As well as lindsay underwood. Susan delbert. Executive director, bill. Our thanks to our head table and the team that put todays lunch together. [applause] the u. S. Army faces myriad challenges here and abroad. In addition to Ongoing Operations in iraq and afghanistan, maintaining security and stability around the world, and keeping pace with adversaries, including russia and china, the army is confronting domestic issues including a high rate of suicide. A merger of military health facilities. Under the Defense Health agency. And quality of life for our military families. President trumps budget request submitted to congress on february 10 left defense spending essentially flat compared with the previous year. Charged with meeting these challenges is secretary of the United StatesArmy Ryan Mccarthy who comes to the job with a distinguished military service background, pentagon duty, and private sector experience. Sec. Mccarthy assumed his current post in september, 2019. He spent two years as the 33rd undersecretary of the army. He has served in the pentagon for both democratic and republican administrations, as a special assistant to then secretary robert gates. Before his return to the pentagon, secretary mccarthy worked for lockheed martin. On Global Security and the f35 jointtractors Strike Fighter program. In recent weeks, secretary mccarthy has spoke about the need to bolster the u. S. Military presence in the Indo Pacific Region as a counter to the chinese presence through its belt and road initiative. And the importance of continuing to test the militarys multidomain operations, a system for feeding an adversary with similar capabilities in all domains. Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming to the National Press club u. S. Army secretary ryan mccarthy. [applause] secretary ryan mccar. [applause] sec. Mccarthy sec. Mccarthy feeling middle aged. Good afternoon, National Press club. Thank you for inviting me to join you for lunch. It is really great for me to get out of the pentagon. It is healthy for the mind and spirit. I can appreciate the pressure, timelines, that journalists live by. No doubt the d. C. Beat is the , crucible of your profession. This is a busy city and country. Progress and innovation are in americas dna. Americans are extremely busy people there for each day, time becomes a math problem. Your work ensures the army story becomes part of that equation. Your work serves as a touch point between the military and the public, highlighting opportunities the army held for americas youth. Coverage conveys the work of our deployed forces. Engaging extremists on a daily basis in iraq and afghanistan in particular. Now totaling two decades of continued combat operations in each. Work preserves our army and your work helps us preserve the accounts of our heroes and mourn our fallen by face and by name and ultimately holds us accountable. It is because of the free press the nation knows our men and women are the last line of defense for the freedoms they enjoyed. Finally, i can commiserate with only being as good as your last story. With that in mind, lets get started. Some people resist change because they focus on what they are going to lose instead of what they are going to gain. Today i would like to highlight , where the army is amidst the transformational change structurally, and what we are going to gain from modernization investments. When the National Defense strategy was published in 2018, it put the Defense Department on a new path, pulling us out of a singular focus on counterterrorism and counterinsurgency operations in the middle east and expanding our priorities toward near peer competitors such as russia and china, and rogue regimes such as north korea. And a run. And iran. What we quickly realized is major changes were needed and if we did not modernize, we would lose deterrence within the next 10 years. We could risk losing the next war. So we changed. We changed our priorities to three clear and distinct categories. Readiness, modernization, and reform. We changed readiness to include deploying any army unit rapidly when and where needed across the globe which way are calling strategic readiness and change the metrics to achieve it. We change the way we aligned our budget, putting every dollar against our priorities. We made it clear people are the foundation of these priorities in all we do. The army has and always will be a people organization. The fy 21 budget will ensure the army will remain the most lethal Ground Fighting force in the world. Now and in the future. We treat taxpayer dollars like we treat our ammunition. Every bullet counts. I would like to provide an update on two main topics which are the armys approach to strategic competition and our investment portfolio and returns. First, competition. The army plays a key role Building Partnerships with allies worldwide which has an impact on near peer competitors. We are operating in europe, africa, the middle east, and the pacific region. Totaling over 180,000 soldiers committed with our allies and partners to achieve objectives. We are 60 of Combatant Commander requirements worldwide. Yet our budget has remained flat for the past three years. Army operations are providing a huge dividend from our portion of the dod budget, making the army the most Dynamic Force and sound investment in the arsenal. There is no other service that is more relevant than the u. S. Army. In the indo pacific and everywhere else, we are partnered with who it matters most. On land, where people live. There is no one else that has the staying power and the consistency for deterrence as the u. S. Army. No one else in earth. The sun never sets on the u. S. Army. Having the army in the region influences conditions on the ground and ultimately serves as a deterrent by creating dilemmas for potential adversaries. Our presence and influence in the region strengthens americas position in the region. Build confidence with investors. It enables america to compete economically. The armys presence changes decisionmaking. Our Security Cooperation pairs with other institutions that are often the most procedures and other countries. And have leaders with significant influence. In the Indo Pacific Region, over 70 are army officers. This is why the u. S. Army engages every day. Efforts span from training Partner Forces to student exchanges. Security cooperation. Dedicated seats at the u. S. Senior war college. When the army sells equipment, countries dont just get a box of goods and a bill. They get a program, a strong relationship, and a partner they can rely on. Countries receive training from experts, reliable in modern weapons. Assistance developing their doctrine. A proven supply chain of support. The army has close partnerships with poland and lithuania. Where we habitually train together for multiple weeks in the defense of their sovereign nations. Another example, thailand purchased 60 strikers. The army is helping the thai army stand up there first stryker units. They were featured in the kings coronation parade. The army is helping the philippines train infantry battalions as they upgrade equipment and evolve their doctrine. The u. S. Army is a force of choice and committed to remaining so. We build our partners up rather than manipulate them to be able to compete in todays environment. We have to be present and show our commitment. That is why we are emphasizing strategic readiness and adjusting force posture so we can deploy forces in the right place at the right time. The armys ability to mobilize and deploy gives us the advantage over threats of potential adversaries. Strategic readiness will validate our new concepts, exercise our new formations, and provide an understanding of the logistical framework needed to sustain our forces. We will remain operationally dynamic, fast and lethal. Take on new years eve, we deployed soldiers from the 81st airborne division. They were at new years eve gatherings and within hours were on airplanes. They were nine time zones away after that ready to go. We are using exercises such as emergency deployed readiness exercises getting more repetitions and therefore increasing our speed. We deployed soldiers and within days was they were alongside polish counterparts. In fy 20, the army is allocating funding for defender exercises in europe where we will push a divisionsized unit of 20,000 troops and draw on 13,000 pieces of equipment to be ready for forward Contingency Operations at ready to respond to any crisis. Exercises in the indo pacific will further test our power projection through the pacific pathways with our allies and partners. The fy 21 exercises expending in the indo pacific with 300 million devoted towards these exercises will have troops operating in thailand, the philippines, and indonesia to name a few. Our brigades continue to prove their worth as an economy of force. Nothing sends messages like boots on the ground standing sidebyside with Partner Forces. The goal for fy 21 is to have six. Another element of cooperation and deterrence is having a highly lethal combat credible force. This is why we established six modernization Investment Priorities and restructured the Army Enterprise with the futures command which brought the stakeholders of the modernization continuum together and reduced time in decisionmaking. This took years off of the acquisition process and gave us a laser focus on modernizing for the future. The complexity of the battlefield requires we transform our 45yearold fleet so we can stay relevant, retain overmatched, and allow us to win decisively in the next war. Largescale modernization takes time and patience. We have continued to modernize the budget toward signature systems. Squad level weapons, aircraft, and hypersonic missiles. Prototypes that began in fy 18 and 19 are maturing. With real capability nf white when he one and 22. There will be an increase in test shots, demonstrations, and validations of the prototypes. This will be tied together with cloud technology. The cloud will be the foundation of the entire modernization enterprise. Because the clouds importance, we are investing 800 million over the next five fiscal years into cloud architecture and we will migrate other forms of data. We are increasing investments across the modernization portfolios. Increasing by 2. 2 billion dollars in fy 2021, which is a 26 increase. With stable budgets and stabilized requirements, we are signaling to industry we are committed to modernization. The demand for army forces paired against a flat budget has forced tough fiscal decisions. We implemented reform. To build and maintain readiness and support realworld operations, the army conducted reviews now known as night courts. Npv 21, we have identified programs for reduction or elimination and generated 7. 4 billion for investment and army priorities. I would like to highlight some of our investments out of the 31 systems. Longrange precision fires is our number one priority. In fy 21, we are investing over 800 million and hypersonics alone to support development, testing, fielding and training to deliver our first operational unit, ready to deploy by fy 23. With regards to future vertical lift, our longrange assault aircraft, the blackhawk replacements, demonstrations have multiple competitors with flight hours logged already. 160 hours and over 70 hours respectively. Industry is meeting us at the table. In this case, the companies are investing 41. Future attack reconnaissance aircraft, this is the successor of the kiowa. My teammate, the chief staff member of the army, likes to say we are going to fly it before we buy it. We are down selecting to two competitors next month. We are moving toward real capability. We can see it, we can touch it, and we can test it. For soldiers individual kit, we are developing an augmented system. A system that will serve as the nerve center for the integrated squad combat system. Linking multiple shooters with multiple sensors. This allows the soldier to understand the threat picture in real time. Reduce computation time down to seconds. The armys transformational modernization efforts continue to build priorities and a ruthlessly aligned budget. We are committed to our modernization priorities and 31 signature systems, which will be the next generation of weapon tree for the army to win decisively in future fights. When pairing with industry, setbacks, prototype shortcomings, and failure are an inevitable part of innovation. We are committed toward making critical decisions early. This is the case with our man fighting vehicle, the bradley replacement vehicle. This is a capability the army requires. We are taking Lessons Learned in terms of requirements, cautionary, with industry informs timelines. The army is incredibly busy responding to a wide array of contingencies. We respond to National Natural disasters like earthquakes and hurricanes. This is in addition to our current operations, with 27,500 soldiers deployed in the middle east. The army will stay on a trajectory of modest growth by fy 26 for the active component. In closing, the army remains steadfast in its priorities. We have aligned our investments and budgets against the same. People are the foundation across all of our efforts. I would like to wrap up formal remarks and take questions from the audience because i know better than to filibuster journalists because you why ink by the barrel. Again, thank you for having me and i look forward to our discussion. [applause] thank you very much. Secretary mccarthy. We have a number of questions as you indicated. Why dont we get to them. Lets begin with some breaking news. A senior u. S. Official announced today that the u. S. And the taliban have reached a truce agreement. What do you expect will happen in the coming days . What can you tell us about the terms of the truce and its impact on the army and what can you tell us about plans for foreign troop withdrawal including u. S. Troops from that region . Sec. Mccarthy this is the first step in a process to reach a political solution. It is going to take several weeks for this to unfold but it is encouraging we are heading down the path to a political solution. The president of the philippines says he has decided to end u. S. Military access to his country. How will that affect your operations . Sec. Mccarthy i was actually the philippines about two weeks ago. A long history, we have worked very hard together. This is the sort of thing where in discussions we have about 175 days to work through this diplomatically. I think we can drive towards an end state that will work out for all of us. Budget issues. The procurement accounts appear to have taken hits across the Current Fleet in several areas, from vehicles to aircraft. The blackhawks saw a cut, as did several Vehicle Programs from bradley some are due to manufacturing issues. Others are not explained. Is this the beginning of the armys efforts to move funding away from current and legacy swings toward Future Systems . Can we expect a heavier swing . Sec. Mccarthy we are in the third year of transforming the modernization accounts. If you go back to fy 1819, we moved s and t dollars. The first major night courts effort was fy 20. We are starting to shift dollars toward the new capabilities we are investing in. With respect to the blackhawk, we are doing the multiyear there. The abrams, that is our third year in a row. We put over 6 billion in investment over the last four years. We are still maintaining upgrades with the Current Fleet. Over time youre starting to see us make the progression toward the new capabilities as you get further into this you will see about 55 to 60 of the modernization accounts being investe