You said we comment. So whats the last regulation that you commented on . Guest i actually commented on a Financial Crimes Enforcement Network regulation about antimoney laundering in residential real estate. I just thought it sounded interesting and it was a good way to practice using the bipartisan tools of regulatory analysis to assess these regulations and provide some feedback to the agency that they might not have considered. Host does the agency generally pull back a proposed rule after comments and make changes based on what people say . Or how often do they just say, thanks for the comments, and were going to go ahead with our rule anyway . Guest agencies are required to consider all of the comments that they receive and incorporate them into the final rules so youll see in the preamble of a regulation theres a long beginning of a regulation and it just talks about what the agencys trying to do and in final rules theyll explain the comments they received and what they did to react to the comments. Host so this is regulations. Gov. How does this work . Well show viewers the website. Its literally regulations. Gov. Easy enough to find. If a viewer wants to comment or find out wha well leave this program to go live to discussion u. S. Defense priorities. Around the world. This hosted by the council on foreign relations. Good evening, everybody. Welcome. Thank you for being here. Im president of the council on foreign relations. Its really a great honor and privilege to be here for the robert b. Mckuen endowed series on military strategy and leadership with the u. S. Service chiefs. We have in addition to this full room over 350 members on zoom. This series, mckuen Series Features prominent individuals from the military and intelligence community. Founder and president of the capital started in 2008. The series continues every year. Were delighted that clare mckuen and other friends and family are joining us on zoom. Thank you very much to the mckuen family. Were really honored tonight to have general randy george, chief of staff of the army. General eric smith, marine corps. General david albin. Chief of staff of the u. S. Air force. And admiral linda fagan. I like to thank them for their support of the councils military fellowship program. Every year, weve had five fellows from the Different Service branches plus our intelligence fellow here at the council for a year of study and professional development. Let me ask our fellows who are on the front row here to stand. Including dana, our intelligence [ applause ] the fellowship was established 50 years ago. We have 150 fellows go through the program. Among them, about half have gone on to become generals or admirals including general george and general albin. Were pleased to have admiral francati. Thank you for being part of this family. Let me start, perhaps, with general smith. The global situation, the global map is changing a great deal. We have return of great politics, you got in multidimensional challenge with china. You got changing relationships among countries, theres access between china, russia, iran, north korea. This is a time when fundamental elements of the strategy weve been operating under must be under a fair amount of stress. How have these changes affected ongoing strategy . How many wars do we need to be prepared to fight simultaneously . I would jokingly, not jokingly say one more. Russia is an opportunistic aggressor. If war brokes out with china and you can be sure russia will follow. They are both opportunistic feeders. They will look for scenes in our armor, the kinks in our armor. They will work to exploit those. One more than we think. How does that affect the planning . How do you plan for that . For us, the force design is designed against the competitor of china. They are pacing threat by the National Defense strategy Financial Force design is aimed at deterring china. We still believe that will include all the lesser included defenses such as russia and the dprk. We believe that force design with modernized Weapon System and ability to make sense whats happening is useful in any theater. Good segway to general albin. We see this tremendous build up their Nuclear Capability and demise nuclear arms control. What is the future of our Nuclear Strategy and do we have to have more weapons than both china and Russia Combined . Thanks for having us here. I dont think weve all been together for a while. Its interesting, because we are definitely in some unchartered territory here. The air force doesnt necessarily have a Nuclear Strategy on to itself. Weve got two of the three legs. Counterparts have the other legs. We have the nc3. I think its interesting. Now that we have officially some of the shackles being taken off. Even though russia was violating them for a long time anyway, it means that we have to look at Nuclear Deterrents and strategic deterrents little bit differently. Because, while weve been trying to go backandforth with russia and integrate china into some sort of strategic stability talks, their position all along has been we got to catch up to you guys first. They are in that rapid massive build up. Fundamentally, we have to maintain the capability of a safe, effective reliable nuclear triad. Between my navy partner and myself, thats costing good bit of coin. Its one of those things thats one of the most foundational things that we have to do. I think what can be interesting for the nation, for the National Security apparatus, to get a grip on what it means to have strategic deterrents in a world where china starts to approach some sort of parity. Does the old thinking still work where there was this whether evolving from destruction or capability, you have to consider yourself in a world postexchange or perhaps the one who has been sitting it out now has an unfair advantage over the other two. Understanding strategic deterrents in a tripolar world is fundamentally different. Thats a national situation. But from the military side, we have to make sure that our capabilities are suited to the task. Thats why quite a bit of our budget is going to that. Do you see any role for arms control in the future . I would love for arms control to play a role. Its doing a lot of things that the air force and navy would like to be paying attention to with respect to recapitalization and meeting the threats around the globe. Right now, the capabilities that were developing are required until we get a strategic stability. Lets stay focused on china and indopacific for a moment. Theres an a lot of architecture around the indopacific. The caucus, the quad, the trilateral relationship between korea, japan, United States. Now between japan, United States and the philippines. You talked distributed fleet architecture. How are these alliances evolving in the indopacific to further allow us to extend security over the region . What does that mean for the navy . Thank you. To echo dave, thank you very much for having us here today. You know, long time ago when we first pivoted to the pacific, the navy really began to focus in that area. It is our priority theater. I think the thing that really distinguishes us from any of our policy adversaries, we do have allies and partners all over the world. Nowhere than more important in the indo pacific. They are really excited about u. S. Leadership there. They want to partner with us. I think all of our services are really investing heavily in developing interoperability with those partners. Youre starting to see some of the european navys focusing on the indopacific. I was at a meeting all the carrier navies in france. We all talked about the importance of the Aircraft Carrier strike group and the navys of italy, france and the u. K. All plan to do indopacific deployment in the coming here. As we leverage our relationship that we already have and we continue to build new ones in the indopacific, we will continue develop the capabilities to deter china or any other adversary in the indopacific around the world. Dont we have a problem that china got shipbuilding capacity far outweighs ours . All of our capacity is done by one site in china alone. How confident are you that we can build the ships necessary to exercise that kind of influence in the region and the conflicts of China Building out this very significant naval presence . I think its important to look at this in two ways. Every study since 2016 said we do need a allergy we do need a larger navy. Ewe have a lot of navies that will partner with us to deter adversaries to deter malign behavior and really respond to aggression. I think the other thing is, its not just about a number of shifts. This is about a war fighting ecosystem. We are going to be able to put together the shippings, aircraft and submarines. We got space force. Our coast guard partners operate in the indopacific. You think about it as a joint war fighting ecosystem. We are all experienced with working with each other. Were all experienced with working with allies and partners. I think that give us the winning edge every time. Were talking about ships. Go to the coast guard. You served on only icebreaker in the arctic, polar star. The polar star is the nations only heavy iceberg commissioned in 1976. Much younger version of me served on that ship in the 80s. She is still getting it done for the nation primarily focused around the breakout in our support in antarctica south pole station. We do have a second icebreaker. The healing, conducting science operations was up through the Northwest Passage this past summer. Circumnavigated the north American Continent and plans to do that again. The russians are definitely paying attention when were operating those ships. The nation needs more ice breaking capacity. Were an arctic nation. This is our national sovereignty, our rights as it pertains to our Economic Zone off the coast of alaska. Weve got a critical need to build the polar security cutter. Theres been a number of changeouts, mississippi is the yard that will build that for us. Were working to get to the level design maturity thats necessary to begin cutting steel. Im confident well do that this year. Budget requirements for ship of that size and complexity, theres still challenges in regards to budget and getting that ship fielded. I want to go to allies and partners. I was recently in norway for the arctic conclude forum. All the members of that forum are now nato members. See how quickly things have changed. Geopolitically with regard to commitment from our allies and partners. Those are important partnerships in the arctic. They are equally as critical in the indopacific. Talked about navy work in the indopacific. Let me give you a scene set on the coast guard. My budget, about 12. 3 billion a year, 1. 4 of the dod, the defense budget. If you look at the navys in nato, its the Third Largest navy in nato. About 55,000 people, yet, we take those ships and everything from the National Security to smaller patrol boats and go to nations. Meet them where they are in that competitive phase short of conflict. Exercising fisheries agreements, Law Enforcement agreements and again partnering and helping a nation create their own capacity to build their own sovereignty. This is our nations competitive advantage. Not only through the nations welcome us, were partners of choice. The town was buzzing because there was a white ship. We took ship riders to help them and force their own fisheries. They had nothing in almost five years. Ewe helped them get out. Board some chinese shipping vessels. We can have some Significant Impact whether in the arctic or indopacific. I want to go to nato. Thanks to vladimir putin, nato is stronger than ever. We got two new members. 18 members are meeting their 2 commitment or higher. Theres the rumblings within nato about european strategic autonomy. Do you feel like europe can develop its own foreign defense identity and its own Defense Industrial . I will tell you, i think that all of us have to work towards improving that. You look at one of the things ive been over to europe, you Start Talking about magazine depth. Nato has incredible Weapon Systems. Were seeing that play out with the u. S. Weapon systems over there. If you dont have magazine depth, bullets for all of those things, thats a problem. Theres a clear recognition that theres things we need to do to make sure that were improving our capability. Thats one i think across nato. The other is the battlefield is changing very rapidly. Its changing more in the last couple of years than ive ever seen it. I think that were also going to have to transform our formations. I know theres a big thing were focused on inside the army. Theres really no place you can hide anymore on the battlefield. Mainly because of the stuff to talk about for a long time. With space assets, phones, the internet of things. I think that were going to have to change that too. I think that we all need to be working towards that. I think everybody up here talked a lot about how important our partnerships are and were exercising a whole bunch with our partners that are over there. I do think that the u. S. Is a key contributor to that and being a part of that over there. I think theres a clear recognition that theres areas that we need to improve. Do you have a sense that the u. S. Wasnt making that kind of contribution, the europeans will be able to step up on their own . I think theres a lot of countries over there that are stepping up and doing that have recognized that and give several examples. You look at what poland has purchased with high mars and tanks. A lot of countries i was just over in u. K. , its the same thing. I think, again, theres a recognition what we need to do. I think the challenge and some of this challenge as well, can we make the changes as quick as we need to . Can we get out in front of when i go over there, i tell everybody the real problem, i think the real problem for us is not necessarily Product Innovation but its process innovation. You cant talk about being able to have we often talk about 20, 30 or beyond. A lot of that is because of our process. I think that we need to move much quicker. I want to come back to that. Seems like one of the challenges that many of you all face is were being attacked by relatively cheap weapons, drones, manned, certain missiles. Its much more expensive to shoot them down than to build new ones and fire them. Its kind of asymmetric warfare. How do you think about that in the context whats going on in ukraine and elsewhere . How do we keep up with that . I think theres two parts to that. One is, what were doing with counter uas, were senting everything that we have whether its r d, were sending it out to the middle east. Im a believer if you put users with developers and testers all together, thats not how we normally to things. You can spend a lot quicker. Weve sent other, for example, director of energy, or high power microwave. All the kinetic and nonkinetic. Thats a process innovation. I think we have to little bit different in our process. I think by doing that, what youre talking about, we often refer to as cost curve. We have to get after the cost curve. We cant have 10,000 emissions, that might be an expensive one. Shooting it down with 150,000, one Million Dollar missiles. We got to get on the right side of that. Thats back to what i said earlier. I think were going to have to move at a different pace to get after that. General smith, as look at ukraine, lets go down there, what constitutes victory in ukraine over the next year . Military victory . What would you hope to see with this new package that Congress Finally approved plus the european support. What do you think the end game is there militarily . The end game for mr. Putin is the consumption of ukraine. Which is a nonstarter. The end game for us is and reestablished of the International Border with ukraine and russia. So, our will has been ironclad. Our commitment has been ironclad. We have to get restabilized russia ukraine. We cant have russia consuming the ukraine. Thats a nonstarter. I think by continuing to support ukraine, continuing to support them with munitions and information. We hope that mr. Putin will think again about how much he wants to invest in retaking ukraine. I hope hell decide correctly for his own sake. Are you surprise it turned out to look like a world war i battle . I wouldnt say im surprised. Im not pleased that it is. If big russia fights a little russia, then the end is inevitable. Thats why we have to produce the technology and provide the technology to ukraine to out whit russia. I think were doing that. I think we proven successful thus far in doing that. Fifth Year Anniversary of space force. Everyone quite intrigued. Weve just launched, were in the process of launching a task force on space and setting rules of the road. What would you say the major accomplishments of space force so far . In a word, its that im sitting here amongst these teammates. [ laughter ] elevating space to a Service Level is a huge step forward. Let me add that you guys are hearing tank session. You should be proud of that. Im telling you, these are exactly the discussions that go on in the tank, forced design, prioritization, posture around the globe, friction point created where you dont have enough resources. Those are are the discussions that play out amongst the Service Chiefs acrosstheboard. Every friday. First, be proud of that. Second i will wrap it together. I feel like the elevation of the space force to a service has given us an opportunity to think about, first, a continuation under contested circumstances of the capabilities that weve provided to the joint force for years. Decades even. This is a warning, position navigation and timing. Satellite communications. Those are enablers that we really cant take out of the joint force. The joint force has been built. The entire force design has been