A discussion with the brookings institution. Topics included operations in afghanistan, military readiness and the importance of emerging defense technologies. This is one hour. John ladies and gentlemen, good morning. It is a sincere pleasure for me to welcome our featured and honored guests today. The chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, general mark a. Milley, United States army. Since becoming the 20th chairman of the joint chiefs in 2019, general milley has worked to realize the u. S National Defense strategy, which prioritizes competition with china and russia in American Defense planning. Chairman milley has worked tirelessly with civilian and uniformed leadership towards developing the u. S. Armed forces into a truly modern armed force capable of deterring and heading off the threats of all types that we may be facing today, including those emanating from nearpeer competitors that have now really pronounced once again the idea of Great Power Competition. He simultaneously kept a close and careful eye on the perennial defense issues associated with iran and north korea and violent extremism in the middle east and elsewhere, and in this way, general milleys tenure has coincided with, and by any standard, could be considered a unique period in American Military history, where in these threats are multifaceted, theyre transnational, and theyre multidomain, and given the realities of domestic politics, questions about preserving the apolitical character of the armed forces. And so on. These are all open for intense debate and conversation, so being a great infantry man, general milley has navigated the sometimes challenging terrain. Now prior to his becoming the chairman, general milley was the 39th chief of staff of the great United States army and served in many of the storied divisions of the United States army, including the 2nd infantry division, 10th Mountain Division, he would be a Deputy Commander of the 101st Airborne Division air assault, he would command the 10th Mountain Division climb to glory, sir would command the third corps, and be the commanding general of the u. S. Army forces command. Theres one accomplishment that is not necessarily in his bio, but ill have to mention it today, and i think its one that hes very proud about. He is the proud son of a marine, and that picture behind me is of the Fourth Division going over the beach at iwo jima, where i think his father was a participant. So, general, were really proud of you, and very proud to have you with us today. We know that a very difficult duty is coming up for you in the very near future, and that is for you to remain neutral at this years armynavy game. I know its tough. Were going to keep our eye on you. Those of us from annapolis have Great Expectations for your neutrality, but thank you for all that you have done for our country, i mean that sincerely, and all that you have done for our allies around the world. Id like to turn it over now to a dear friend a fellow here at brookings, senior fellow, mike ohanlon, of our Foreign Policy program, who will kick off the conversation about the defense challenges that you face and we face as a nation, and then hell conclude with some questions and answers. Now, let me also say that this session is very much on the record today. If you have questions, send them to events brookings. Edu or on twitter futureofdefense. And with that, sir, god bless you, thank you for being with us today, and over to you, mike. Mike thank you, john. Thank you, general milly. And i also want to add my personal gratitude not only for you joining us today and for all youve done for the country, but for all the men and women and the military families and veterans who have worked so tirelessly and sacrificed so much on behalf of the country that you i know are proud to represent and lead. So, thank you, sir. And i thought the best way to begin our conversation today was to sort of take stock of how the military is doing in Broad Perspective in its readiness and the state of its people and its families. There have been a lot of stresses and strains. Obviously, covid being only the latest. And so, id love any update you might have on how the military is handling the covid crisis, but also more generally, since were at this moment, as 2020 winds down. Its been 40 years since you finished up at princeton as an rotc and a hockey player star back in the day, so youve watched the u. S military over four decades, and youve been now in leadership at the chairman position. A year and a half and before that, for four previous years, as the army chief. So i just wondered how you would take stock of the condition of the u. S military today, and then well get into talking more about what youre doing to prepare for the future. But again, thank you for being with us, and over to you. Hey, michael. Thanks for the opportunity. And i want to thank general allen for those kind words. I think his picture was on the screen, and over his shoulder was a painting that i noticed, and it was the assault landing on iwo jima, and that beach looks to me like it was approximately the beach that my dad might have landed on with the fourth marine division. And general allen, i think it was his fatherinlaw may have been the chief of staff of the fourth marine division. An incredible battle the bloodiest battle per square mile in american history. Almost 7000 marines gave their lives in in less than 30 days. So im very humbled my dad passed away, as most of the veterans have now, but im very very humbled to be the son of a world war ii veteran at the beach at iwo jima. And also, i might note, my mother served in the navy at a hospital out in seattle, so very proud of both of their service. Mike, you mentioned, you know, 40 years ago at princeton, i had no idea to make a career of the military, but i didnt want to serve. And 40 years ago, the world was a much, much different place. If we roll the clock back a little bit, we should recall that, you know, 1979, the russians rolled into afghanistan as part of an attempt to quell what they thought was a breakaway portion of what they considered their near abroad. You had the iranian revolution in that year, you had the assaults on mecca and medina, and the assaults in saudi arabia, and there were several other critical events that happened in that year, which was my senior year at princeton right before graduation. And we, the military, were utterly committed in in the middle of what we thought was almost a neverending cold war with the soviet union. And literally, we know a decade later, the wall would come down or begin to come down in between the intergerman border. But the 19791980 time frame, when i got commissioned 40 years ago, is a fundamentally a different geopolitical world. If you look at things like technology, you know, 1971, i think, or the 19721973 time frame, early 70s, i think is your first email ever. I think if you go flash forward, call it 20 years, to the 19901991 time frame, thats where you start getting the first websites, then coming forward another almost two decades to 2008, and you get the iphone comes out with steve jobs, so youve had an absolute explosion in Information Technology that did not really exist when i was commissioned. You had all kinds of different radio systems, different munitions, and so on and so forth, and you had a different geopolitical environment. So a lot has has changed, as you well know. As far as you mentioned, taking stock in the military today, the United States military is a very powerful military, and no one should ever mistake it for anything other than that. Adversaries, friends, foes, the United States military is extraordinarily capable. We are very, very powerful, were powerful in all domains, whether its the traditional domains of air, land, and sea, whether its space and cyber, but whats also important to know and recognize as a fact is the gaps between us and potential adversaries, say, china or russia, for example. Those have shortened and closed a little bit over the last 10, 15, 20 years. The United States has been heavily engaged in Counter Insurgency warfare in the middle east that were all very familiar with. At the same time, the chinese, for example, they took stock in our operations worldwide, and they decided they would modernize. And it goes back to Deng Xiaoping in 1979, another critical event from that fateful year, and he modernized his he decided to reform the society of china, modernized their economy, and they had a run of about 10 for quite a while in their gdp growth. And today, theyve slowed down to call it 6 , 7 , something in that range, but thats still extraordinary growth for an economy. So for 40 years now, 41, the chinese economy has really gone on a roll, extraordinarily powerful, and in its wake has come a modernized, reformed, very, very capable Chinese Military. So where the soviet military was the pacing threat, if you will, back in the 70s and 80s sort of thing, and when i was commissioned. Today, i would argue that the Chinese Military and the challenge from a rising china, if you will, that is really the pacing threat of today, so a lot of geostrategic changes, a lot of changes in the environment in terms of technology. Urbanization is rapidly approaching almost 80 of the worlds population by midcentury. So theres a lot of change thats occurred at paces that are much more rapid than any time period weve ever seen in history. So theres been a lot of change, but thanks for the opportunity to comment on it. As far as our military goes, i dont want anybody to mistake, our military is very, very capable, and were ready for whatever comes our way. Were determined to defend the constitution of the United States, and we will protect the American People in our way of life. No one should doubt that. So if i could bear down a little bit on a couple of specific areas within that realm of broader u. S military capability today, and these are areas where sometimes those of us who are defense wonks track the data, and i know you do, too, on readiness, recruiting, retention, condition of equipment, condition of military pay and benefits. I wondered if you had any broad observations on those sorts of readiness trends in todays force. I mean, some people have said todays force is, of course, very tired. Its been doing so much for 20 years in the broader middle east. Other people say, well, but the burdens less than it used to be, we dont have any big deployments in iraq or afghanistan anymore, and we sort of stabilized the budget environment, the Trump Administration has, with the congressional support of both parties, managed to increase the budget a bit, and maybe were in better shape now. I just wondered if you could put some of these, you know, trends of readiness in perspective, compared to the last few years, and compared to where you would like them to be. Let me try to answer that. Let me try to answer it this way. Approximately, the marines, the navy, the air force, etc. , about a third of the forces at the highest levels of readiness at a moment and done. And that is about right, because we would have a certain amount of the force in training, refitting from previous deployment, and about a third of the forces ready to go at a moments notice, at a high level of readiness. Some organizations and units are at a higher level of readiness, others, not so much. But the broad metric for you and others in an unclassified format i would say about a third. Its factually correct. Some units higher, some units less. In terms of recruiting, we are doing pretty well. There are some areas of concern. Pilots and higher tech skills, such a cyber specialists that are in high demand in civil society. Those are very difficult to retain. But recruiting and retention across the board is pretty good. Discipline, excellent. Morale, theres always comments about the force is tired. Its been at war for 20 years. Thats true, but to a certain extent thats true. But most of your younger part of the force has not actually deployed. And if there is one common theme that i get as i talk to troops around the world is they would like to deploy. And its not that they are deploying too much. Its that they have not at all. They are training, and its all important work, but they would actually like to deploy somewhere. And we do have forces that are deployed in a wide variety of situations. Some in combat, some not. One of the things that we started to do is a holistic review of our global footprint and a holistic review of the disposition of the force and the tasks and purposes of all of the forces worldwide. Theres a very strong argument to be made, that we may have forces in places that they shouldnt be, and we may have forces that are needed in places that theyre not right now, and that we need to adjust our global footprint. In some cases, theres an argument we have too many troops overseas and in too many countries. Broadly speaking, i would say the normal traditional readiness indicators of recruiting, retention, standard classified data, etc. , we are in good shape. I wonder if you could speak specifically to the future. You already have mentioned china and the National Defense strategy and innovation and modernization. But before we get to that, if you could add a word on covid and how the force is holding up at this late juncture late in 2020 after almost a year of the pandemic. I know that early in 2020, there were specific problems with certain naval forces that Teddy Roosevelt there had been concerns there was a need, i believe, to suspend basic training for a while back in the spring. But overall, it appeared to me through the spring and summer that the force was holding up pretty well in the face of covid, and mercifully, there werent that many fatalities within the u. S armed forces from covid, either. Could you give us a snapshot here, as we near the end of the calendar year, about how the military is holding up in the face of this terrible pandemic . We are unique, but we have a hierarchal structure. We have discipline. We issue orders, and people follow them. We took some pretty stringent measures early on to protect the force. The reason we wanted to do that, we recognize that our job as a military is to protect the American People. And we cant compass that task and protect the American People and the constitution if we are all sick. We recognize the need to protect the force early on. And we did that. We pulled off the shell for our Global Pandemic op order that has been in existence. We tweaked it a little bit, and we started doing certain conditions on our own force. We learned a lot of lessons from the tr as was known and we started doing isolation and screening prior to getting on ships or any closed operating environment, like a bomber or a fighter jet. So we imposed a whole series of pretty stringent restrictions on ourselves that seems to have made some contribution, but i think one of the biggest contributions to why the u. S. Military has fared fairly well and not perfect, we have had deaths, and those are tragic, we have had troops that are sick, etc. , but relative to the whole, the number of deaths and sicknesses within the military and the force has been relatively small. Probably the biggest contributing factor to that is our demographic. Our demographic is not the same as in civil society. Our demographic, to no ones surprise, is mostly young people who are highly fit, and they tend to fare reasonably well, if infected. Through a combination of our demographic and the control measures that we put on ourselves early on, we have done fairly well overall, and i think we are at least equal to or better than any of the militaries in the world, as it dealt with this particular virus. Second part of that, though, is our contribution to the americans, to helping the American People through the covid crisis. And we deployed at the peak about 60,000 troops in support of covid to support troop ships. The mercy. You saw hospitals sprung up in various cities. We still have today about 23,000 committed to the Covid Operations across the country. We continue to do that. And then, our contribution to operation warp speed is significant. General, gus perna, is one of the senior logisticians, a great human being. Hes out there banging away, and hes going to make sure that we distribute the covid vaccines nationwide here in a very short order. I think next week, or two, or three, they will start the distribution of those. So the militarys made a contribution to protecting the society, and also, weve protected ourselves in the process. I think weve done reasonably well, as a military. Id like to now turn to the future, and youve already teed up some of the big issues in mentioning china and the current and future Global Security environment. Its been almost three years since secretary mattis, with you and others, as part of a team, wrote the National Defense strategy under President Trump that built on initiatives that occurred in the latter obama years, when you first became army chief, like the third offset, as it was called. The armies had its multidomain operations. You helped create the futures command when you were chief. I wondered if you would want to offer some broad commentary on where we stand with this greater effort, in terms of preparing for Great Power Competition hopefully not great power war, but nonetheless, reinvigoration of great power deterrence, and just where you see us at this juncture at the end of 2020. A couple of things. The nds is a very good document. That will be one of the significant contributions that general mattis has made over the years. That document, i think, is rigorous. It was well thought o