China has done in space im newsed initiatives in the 1990s. And i read them in the 1990s but wasnt until a few years ago people started saying, this is new. No, its not. They have an Economic Strategy thatdates back to 1979. A military strategy that dates back to mid1990 and have been going on a consistent approach and the world will be different and many cases thats not good. And we have to deal with that. So that consistent strategy is hugely powerful in term of achieving the objectives they stated way back as long as 41 years ago. China is a powerful economy. Lets look at another powerful economy. I put that in big quotes. North korea. North korea is 115th most powerful economy in the world. 115 out of 192. One of the poorest countries in the world. But somehow over the last few years, north korea has developed a Ballistic Missile program that can then neighbores and the out and Nuclear Program that can then the neighbors and the United States, and theyve done that and change the entire structure of the world with 115th most powerful economy the world. What been different but north korea . You want to know whats different . They learn how to go fast. You look back at look at kim jongun and then look rat his father at his father in grandfather. Some significant differences. When his father and his grandfather they didnt launch missiles. The grandfather launched nine, his father launched 22 during their entire tenure. Kim jongun has launched 67. Launched over a dozen in 2016, 2017 and 2019. Didnt launch anything in 2018. His father and his grandfather, when they were failures in he Missile Program, lets just say the engineers and scientists that fail were not treated well. Kim jongun realized that was not the way to go fast. The way to go fast in the Missile Program ive been around rockets and missiles my entire life mitchell dad worked on saturn v. I know how they work and test. Ive been working that business since the beginning of time. You want to go fast . In the missile business . You need to test fast, fly fast, learn fast. Look at spacex. Some pretty spectacular failures. Did they stop . No. The instrumented the heck out of their captainabilities and learn from thrill fair ours and launched raply again. Changed systems and subsystems go in completely different direction. What is was north korea has been doing and theyve been building new missile, enough capabilities, new weapons, as fast as anybody on the planet. With 115th most powerful economy in the world. Speed itself is efficiency. Speed builds capability and savings into your programs. But you have to be able to accept failure. And if the dictator of north korea has learned how to accept failure, why cant the United States learn how to accept failure . We need to understand what failure and is learn from those failures. Move quickly from those mistakes. I look back at hypersonics and hyperson yankees were now in a significant competition with a number of competitors around the world. We were ahead in hypersonic aztec okayed we had two flights, and they didnt quite work. What do we do after they failed . We instituted multiyear studies into the failure process, and then cancelled the programs. Thats not how you go fast. Every time we have a failure in the launch business its not a good thing. We stopped for years at a time. To recover. Now, if theres human life involved, thats essential. If you have the tragedy of the challenger columbia, you have to bus you cant risk human life. But if you dont have human life involved, you have to figure out how to go fast, how to adjust, launch quickly, we have to do that across the entire enterprise and were not doing that. Thats why we need speed back in our processes, we have to learn how to take risks. When you look at our nation today, and you look at our stature in the world in terms of competitive environment, there are so many places where our country is the leading Technology Engine of the world. In the Information Tech nothing area in the Information Application area, we are the leading. Why is that . Because we go faster than everybody. We turn faster than others can get started. The defense secretarior, thats in the the case. But hayes to be the case which means we have to do something. Back in the 1980s when i started in the Space Business, and im a thats my my background the Space Business was a government only business there was no commercial sector leverage. In he late 1990s a commercial explosion and we decided to leverage everything into the commercial side and everyone would be good and it didnt happen. We said we have to do everything ourselves and win back and put everything back on our ourselves and went back into long structured risk averse programs and this is how we are going to do, and while that it was going on the commercial sector did develop, and the commercial sector now is starting to lead the world in many, many areas and were starting to embrace that, but we havent fully embraced itity. We have to embrace the elements of the country that are going fast, that know how to do things. Have you watched how the United States of america builds software . Its just amazing. When you into into the commercial sector, its so fast. You look at google or facebook or Amazon Web Services or any of the small startups in came beige and sill don valley and seattle and here in washington. Its amazing. Ever walk interest a defense contractor, watch us build software . Its a nightmare across the board. Why . Because the United States doesnt know how to build software . Were the leading Software Nation net world but havent translated that into the department of defense and theres aie rock, requirements process that has to be changed in order to allow that kind of thing and theres statutory requirements that drive the j rock but the j rock is an Industrial Age model, not an Information Age model we have toning the structure, change how we do business across the lines. That will translate into the acquisition business. That will translate and the biggest thing we have to do in acquisition is real simple. We have to allow people take risks and delegate the responsibles to people executing programs. We dont train people how to buy things anymore. We train people how to get programs through the pentagon and the congress. He dont know how to i buy stuff anymore. Secretary lord and doctor griffin and the department of defense are starting to do. That we have push things down into the services and its good. Now we have to align the rest of the department to those initiatives and take advantage of it. I tell you i could go on and on but that structure. Actually just think back for a second. On where china has been in the last 40 years. And the constancy of purpose and the ability to move fast. Of you think but north korea and that they have done in the last few years. And then you think about the potential of the United States of america. We should be able to defend ourselves against any threat. We should be able to deter any adversary from taking action against us. With the 700 billion Defense Budget we should be able to create the environment of peace in the world across the board. In order to do that, we have to look at the world, compete in the world and that mean wed have to go fast again. So im going to stop there and open it up for questions but i thank you for your attention and for your time and i look forward to the questions and answers as we good forward. [applause] so thank you, general hyten, he knew the themes you would touch on, this is musician to my ears. Ill talk about ask you questions on the first and third point and focus on the speed piece which is one i want to dig inch lets talk but the advice people with the most recent example of iran. There is sort of this discussion out in the public sphere about how the military is doing in terms of generating clear options for the president , being forthright but share risks and i want to get your you as the main adviser, the vice to the chairman, can you help us understand the quality of the advice that you think the military is giving today and the thoroughness of the process. That is the way that the process works. Through the president of the United States. My independent unitary thoughts when asked. I knew that. We had very interesting conversations. Very interesting conversations in the oval office. I can tell you from my experience, he gets the detailed options. We have those arguments. They are arguments as i would expect it to be. These are very difficult decisions. The discussions are open, thorough and i will say well supported. Once we are done, get through those pieces and the president of the United States makes decisions that say chief we will execute on where the president wants to go. It worked. It really does work. I have been very impressed by the job. About how well it works with the United States. More frequent than i thought it would be, to be be honest with you. I did not understand how much time would be spent on those discussions. When the chairman is out of town thats okay. Wanting to hear from his advisors. Using the secretary of defense. We are asked to give advice when we do and it is listen to. Sometimes it is counter. We have those discussions back and forth. Since ive been here, i feel like we have made very good decision. Lets talk a little bit about the people. This is what all leaders rightfully say. You pointed out an organization in your office to help you think through that. How do we manifest that more fully beyond what your thoughts are broader to this. Helping you think through an agenda. Who do you think will come out top on that agenda beyond the rhetoric . Ive been asked that question a lot over the last year. As a commander, as i was going to the appropriation to be the vicechairman, we compare people and then i look at the numbers. I have been involved in the military and all the programs. All the programs we put in place some of those programs have been really good. Some of those programs have been not so good. Whether they are good or not so good, at some point, about 12 months, months, maybe 24. What this means is all of those programs are a problem. If you have something seriously wrong, it does not fix the problem. I think we have to get there right from the beginning of entry in the military service. I think we have to start right at the very beginning. Starting to move that into basic training. Understand the culture, understand the care. We have to do that right from the beginning and not try to abandon 10 or 15 years of service because that does not work. The other thing is, how we look at the federal help. There is a number of things in the news recently that have been examples of that. We have tried to make a point. We, the the leaders have tried to make a point about issues like that. No different than any other. No different than any other injury. Well, not quite the way we treat it. We still make it so that people do not know youre going to see mental health. Putting people in a place where we dont want people to know. We will set up a sign. It is different. There is a stigma. There is a stigma. We have to somehow remove that the. What people if they are injured, go see a doctor. A doctor could be physical Health Provider mental Health Provider. We will get after that. That is when bad things are going to happen. Starting early and making the future provides the right kind of care. That will be difficult. Going to break in. Is not an expert in any one of those areas but doesnt work in those areas for an entire career. A leader. Understand how to look with a set of eyes that are completely different. All of us have lived in the department of defense for years and years and decades and decades. Whether its in the chain of command or outside of it. I am open to everything in that discussion. The one thing that i know, no problem has ever been solved in the military. It has to be part of the solution. There is no doubt. I am willing to look at everything related. I, again, really appreciate that you came into this discussion. Are you at a point we should completely blow it up. Are you part of a reform in both mindsets . Where i am right now is, a gathering. If you look back to when i was a two star, working with me. Basin and acquisition and pentagon. Since i had not done it for 20 years, i decided i would go in and read. I pulled three documents up. A fine night of reading. The federal acquisition regulation. Which i pulled out. The chairman described. The interesting thing that i found is that wanting to go fast all of the authorities are right there. Written down and there are a lot sometimes you have to go to Congress Since i guess i can do this. Its right there for you to do. However, the structure over the years. We have set up very craddick structure to do that. There is a right way to go through the process to achieve success without failing at the end. That is how we train people to get through. In almost every case, those answers are very small. They have risk. It is actually very flexible. A very flexible document. Not congress fault. Our own fault. If we do it right, we have to take advantage. This is what were going to do. I can tell you, one thing i know is 21st century capabilities all dependent on software. The current process that we have for Billing Software is horrible we will change that. I talked to the secretary. She is trying to do the same thing on the acquisition side did helping the requirement side i dont know what to call it. My working term is offense requirement. We write requirements for a product. Build that. I want it delivered in 10 years. I want it perfectly cyber secure. I want everything delivered in 10 years. If you do that, here is the thread at the beginning. Give me that capability. Beat the threat 10 years ago. In cyber, as soon as you hit that thing, not five years from now. Tomorrow. I think that you have to basically go back to a threat taste view of the world. You have to monitor that threat. Then you build the prospect that allows it. That is a kind of structure that we need as we go forward. What rolled a joint concept play in that . A joint for fighting. Looking at force development. There has to be this thing that describes the broadbased capabilities and attributions. That is not those are capabilities of what we try to do in the past. Building it into the joint concept. What we are trying to do now as a joint staff the office of secretary of state, building concepts. A number of different things. Capabilities. Also like commander control. Things that orphaned and the process. Falling under a single service. Figuring out how to build those capabilities as well. Our job is to find the capabilities that we need without when you read the joint requirements. Understand why. We have to make sure we focus. Thank you for taking risks. Some of the approaches that you are thinking about using. I have had some interesting discussions. Encouraging through law. Moving stuff out of the service. I told the members of congress there is actually a metric to evaluate if you want that to be successful. All you have to do is go out to any program manager. Take their calendar for the last three months. Add up the number of days in washington, d. C. Count the number of days and then construct your plan. The number of days they have been in the country, the number that exceeds washington, d. C. , that is the equation. It is really that simple. This has to be put down to that level. That air force colonel, that army colonel has to have the authority to make those decisions and move quickly. I go back to when i was a young engineer. I was in los angeles as a young space engineer. The person i wanted to grow up and be was the colonel who was the program manager. I did not want to be the general. That was like nightmare. They had the budget. The failure of a Major Program in los angeles in the late 80s and the firing of the person that was in charge. It was ugly. Also remember that there were like 10 kernels lined up to say i can do it. Give me the authority. Put me in, coach. I am ready to go. That is just not today. The authority, if you want to see a military person go fast, all you have to do is give them the authority and responsibility. When they fail, well, you have to fire them and go find somebody else. Isnt that the way america works. Why does that sound so strange . I remember senator mccain, god rest his soul, i really do miss senator mccain, by the way, if you go back and watch some interactions i had with him, man, he beat this not out of me. I share that. I remember him screaming at me one time about a major Acquisition Program that was not doing well. He screamed to are you holding accountable. Who are you going to fire. I said, senator, the problem is its a comedian and the pentagon i will not fire the colonel. It is not his or her fault. That would be wrong. If that person had the authority and responsibility, they would get fired. It is really that simple. Because of congressional law, things are being pushed down. Theyre pushing things down. Now, we have to transition to start training our people again to go buy things. We have been training our people not to buy things. Not to enter into good contracts. I am going on and on. This is an important subject. I remember as a young engineer, negotiating a big contract for what was in the f15 satellite program. I was a software engineer. I remember sitting outside the door waiting to go in and negotiate on my particular issue for days. When i went in, i knew my issues acord then forwards. All the other engineers that were outside new those issues. We would negotiate to get to a good contract and hold the contract responsible to that. I watch how we negotiate contracts today. It is not that way. It is not that structure. The engineers we have need to know as much about the system as the contractors do. It is not that way. We train them on process to get programs done. Not on how to buy things. We cannot just say you have the authority and responsibility, but we have not trained you how to buy things. One of the greatest things that happened to me as a young officer, my boss made me go