The council on Foreign Relations hold a discussion on u. S. Defense priorities around the world and the role of military forces including the army, space force, marine corps and air force. They focused on u. S. Preparedness and Nuclear Strategy. The Panel Discussion runs one hour and 15 minutes. Good evening, everybody and welcome. Im president of the council on Foreign Relations and its a great honor and privilege to be here for the robert mccue in and out of serious on military strategy and leadership with the u. S. Service chiefs. We have in addition to this room over 350 members and this Series Features prominent individuals from the military intelligence communities and generous gifts from robert mcewen, founder and president starting in 2008 and the series continues every year. Other friends and family are joining us on zoom so thank you very much to the family. We are really honored tonight to have general randy george chief of staff of the Army Commandant of the marine corps of the u. S. Navy and general david chief of staff at the u. S. Air force, the chief of Space Operations of the u. S. Space force and admiral of the u. S. Coast guard. Id like to thank them for maintaining this tradition and for their support of the council of military fellowship program. Every year we have had five fellows plus the Different Service branches plus our intelligence fellow here at the council for the year of study and professional development. Let me just ask our fellows on the front row here to stand including our intelligence fellow. [applause] this fellowship has established some 50 years ago about 150 fellows good through the program and among them about half have gone on to become generals or admirals including general george. We are also pleased to have the cfr members, so welcome back to the council, all of you. Thank you for being part of this family. Let merhs, start perhaps with general smith if i can. The global situation, the global map is changing a great deal. We have the return of power politics and china, changing relationships among countries with access between russia, iran, north korea. This is a time when the fundamental elements must be under a fair amount of stress. How have these changes affected the ongoing strategy and how many wars do we need to be prepared to fight simultaneously . I would jokingly but not jokingly say one more because russia is an opportunistic aggressor so if the war breaks out with china you can be sure that russia will follow and you can be sure chinah will follow. So they are both opportunistic feeders and aggressors and they will look for the seams in our honor. Not to be flippant, but one more than we think. How does it affect the planning of where youve been involved, how do you plan for that . For us it is designed against the peer competitor of china. They are the pacing threat by the National Defense strategy so it is aimed at deterring china and we still believe that that will include all the lesser includedd offenses such as russa and the dpr k. With its ability to make sense ofen whats happening is usefuln either theater. End of the Nuclear Strategy we see this buildup of the Nuclear Capability at the same time the demise of the traditional armscontrol if we have any that are about to expire, from the air force perspective what is the future of the Nuclear Strategy and do we have to have more in both china and Russia Combined . Its interesting we are in an agreement and i think its interesting because we are definitely in some uncharted territory because the air force doesnt necessarily have a Nuclear Strategy all unto itself. We have two of the three legs but the counterparts have another. I thinknt it is interesting because now we have officially some of the shackles being taken off even though russia was violating them for a long time anyway. We have to look at Nuclear Deterrence into strategic i think a little bit differently because while weve been trying to go back and forth and integrate china into some sort of strategic stability talks, the position is we have to catch up to you first. Fundamentally we have to maintain the capability of a safe and effective, reliable Nuclear Triad so between my navy part and myself, that is costing a good coin but its one of the most foundational things we have to do. I think what is going to be interesting for the nation, the National Security apparatus is to get a grip on what it means to have Strategic Deterrence in a tri polar type world as china starts to approach a parody does the thinking still work. We have to make sure our capabilities are suited to the task and theres quite a bit of that. I would love to have armscontrol play a role. With respect to recapitalization and meeting the threats around the globe the capabilities are required until wel get some strategic. While we stay focused for a moment theres been a lot of evolution in the architecture round of the pacific and the trilateral relationship between korea, japan, the United States and the philippines. How are these alliances evolving in the indo pacific to further allow us to extend security over the region and what does that mean for the navy . When we first pivoted to the pacific the navy began to focus in that area. Its our prayer ready theater and i think the thing that really distinguishes us from any of our potential adversaries as we do have allies and partners all over the world and nowhere is that more important than in the i indo pacific. What ive seen from going to visit my partners that they are excited about the u. S. Leadership. They want to partner with us and i think all of our services are investing heavily in developing interoperability and i think the other exciting piece is you are starting to see some of the european navies also focusing now on the indo pacific so a meeting of all of the carrier navies in france, and we all talked about the importance of the Aircraft Carrier strike group and the navies of italy, france and the uk all planned to n do the indo pacific deploymens in the coming years. So as we leverage our relationships that we already have and we continue to build new ones in the indo pacific we will continueco to develop the capabilities to detour any other adversary inro the indo pacificr around the world. Then we have the problem of the shift building capacity and it far outweighs something all of our shipbuilding capacities have done by one site in china. How confident are you that we can build the ships necessary to exercise that kind of influence in the region in the context of China Building out this very significant presence . Its important to look at this in two ways. Every study has said that we do need a larger navy. But i would offer two things first of all we have a navy and a lot of other navies that are going to partner with us to do whater it is we need to do to determine the line of behavior and respond to aggression if necessary. Its not just about a number of shifts. This is about the ecosystem and we are going to be able to put together the shifts, aircraft, submarines and the joint force partners whetherd its the army, the marine force weve got the space for us and the air force and our coastt guard partners operate extensively. We think about it has a joint were fighting ecosystem and we workingexperienced with with each other and working with allies and partners and i think that gives us the winning edge every time. You served on our only icebreaker fourstar a much younger version of me served on that ship in the 80s and getting it done for the nation primarily focused around the breakout and the support of the southd pole station. Operating in thedu arctic nothig up through the Northwest Passage and circumnavigated the continent and plans to do that again. They are definitely paying attention when we are up there with our Service Assets and operating those ships. The nation needs more icebreakingac capacity. We are in arctic nation. This is our National Sovereignty as it pertains to our exclusive Economic Zones also off the coast of alaska and we have a critical need to build the polar security. For that size and complexity theres still some challenges in front of us with regards to the budget indicating that ship fielded. I want to go to allies and partners. F i was recently in norway and all the members of the forum are now nato members, to see how quickly things have changed geopolitically with regards to the commitment from our allies and partners and of those are important partnerships in the arctic. They are equally as critical in the indo pacific. We talked about navy work in the indo pacific. Let me give you a scene set on the coast guard. My budget is 12. 3 billion a year. 1. 4 of the dod for the defense budget. If you look at the navy and nato it is the Third Largest in the nato about 55,000 people yet we take the ships and everything from the National Security to smaller patrol boats and go to nations to meet them where they are partnering and helping them create their own capacity to build their own sovereignty and this is our nations competitive advantage. We took them to help and force them on fisheries, their own fisheries. We helped them get out and a 40 some chinese Fishing Vessels in their exclusive economic zone. Its about for some alignment and targeted ships and people we can have some Significant Impact whether its in the arctic or the indo pacific. Nato is stronger than ever and we have two new Members Meeting their commitment but theres rumblings within nato aboutt european strategic economy. Do you think they can develop its own foreign defense identity and its own Defense Industrial base . I will tell you i think all of us haveds to work towards improving that. You look at one of the things we talking about his magazine depth and i think nato has incredible weapons systems. We are seeing that play out certainly with the systems but if you dont have magazine depth oror bullets for all those thin, that is a problem. I think there is a clear recognition that theres things we need to doe to make sure tht we are improving the capability. Thats when i think across nato and the other the battlefield is changing very rapidly. Its changing more in the last couple of years than ive ever seen it and i think that we are all also going to have to transform our formations, and that is a big thing that we are focused on inside of the army and theres no place you can hide anymore on the battlefield with spacebased assets. Phones, the internet of things and i think we have to change that. I think that we all need to be working towards that. Everybody here has talked a lot about how important our partnerships are and we are 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 partt of that, but i think that there is a clear recognition that theres areas we need to improve. Do you have a sense that if they were not making that contribution the europeans would be able to step up on their own . Theres a lot of countries that are stepping up and doing that and have recognized that and have given lots of examples. I will be in europe next month and you look at what poland has purchased with tanks and a lot of countries i was over in the uk and its the same thing so i think again theres a recognition of what we need to do. The challenge is can we make the changes as quickly as we need to, can we get out in front of i go out and tell everybody the real problem isnt necessarily Product Innovation but its process innovation. You cant talk about being able to we often talk about 20, 30 and beyond. A lot ofca that is because the process and i think we need to moveer much quicker. It seems like one of the challenges that many of you face are being attacked by relatively chief weapons. Its muchem more expensive to shoot them down then to build new ones and a fire them. Its kind of asymmetric warfare. How do you think about that in the context of whats going on right now and elsewhere and how we possibly keep up with that. Theres two parts of that. We are sending everything that we have with hundreds r d we are sending it to the middle east and i amr a believer that if yu put users with developers and testers altogether thats not how we normally do things. We have sent over for example directed energy or highpowered microwavero all of the kinetic d nonkinetic so there is a process of innovation i think we have to be a little bit different. We can have a 10,000dollar munition that might be an extensive one but the shooting it down with 150,000 one milliondollar missiles, so we have to get on the right side of that and move at a different pace. What constitutes a victory in Ukraine Military victory what would you hope to see with of this new package finally approved . What do you think the endgame is militarily . The consumption of ukraine which is a nonstarter with a reestablishment of the National Borders with ukraine and russia. Our will has been ironclad that wewe have to get re stabilized. We cant have russia consuming ukraine. Thats a nonstarter so i think by continuing to support ukraine with munitions we are hoping that mr. Putin will think about how much to invest in retaking ukraine and i hope he will you l decide correctly for his own sake. Are you surprised its turned out to look a lot like a world war i trench warfare battle . I wouldnt say im surprised. Im not pleased that that is. In the end it is inevitable and thats why we have to produce and provide technology to ukraine. I think we are doing that and we have proven successful this far in doing that. Its a 50 Year Anniversary of space bars. Everyone is quite intrigued. We are in the process of launching a task force on space policy on low earth orbit and rules of the road for the activity. What wouldld you see the accomplishments of the space for spaceports are so far . In a word im sitting here among these teammates. Elevating space to a Service Level is a huge step forward. You are here in a tank session you b should be proud of it. Theseha are exactly the discussions that go on for the first design, prioritization, posture around the globe, friction points those are the discussions that play out among the Service Chiefs across the board every friday. Second i will wrap it together because i feel like the elevation of the space force service has given us an opportunity to think about first a continuation under contested circumstances if the capabilities that weve provided to the joint forcece for years, decades even. Missile warning, position navigation and timing, satellite communications. These are enablers that we cant take out of the joint force. Fo the joint force has been boiled around those capabilities and the reason you have a space force is because there are competitors who realize those advantages and want to take them away and or investing heavily encounters satellite capabilities designed to deny the advantage but probably even more concerning the prc has built a longrange kill chain that is a space enabled the targeting a system. It is robust and accurate and deadly and if we can somehow disrupt and deny and degraded that in all of the domains to be the military objectives and so i think what youre hearing is a commitment to partnership because we know that is the only way to succeed. Each are inadequate to global tasks that weve been presented and if we cant Work Together both technically, operationally i think that is what we are committed to and that includes commercial partners and allies and its all part of the formula that will make us successful. Let me go back to something you raised about procurement and being agile. The pentagon gets often criticized for having these long leader cycles focusing on hardware systems and technology continues to leap ahead. What can the services do to more quickly adopt the technology and deploy it at a scale or the bureaucratic end of the congressional obstacles so great that despite these efforts nothing is going to get done, and you are welcome to comment on this. There was a long study on it but if you look at what is happening and there are several examples around the world what is happening for example in ukraine is things are changing between three weeks and three months and five months and they are adapting that quick so some of this is how we build things to make sure we have modular open System Architecture and we can update very quickly. Its a lot of Small Companies out there doing things so one of theot things weve been talkinga lot about is we would have the ability and the flexibility to buy what is the best on the market and move quickly from research and development to actually buying systems. Thats also very important to us because we had for six, seven months we had a continuing resolution. We couldnt do new starts or by anything else. That was a time that we were going through counter eumaeus so i do think we need some process change along that. Theres probably other examples that we do but i think that that would help us get started. To piggyback on that, making sure we are reaching out into the Innovation Base and helping them understand what our problems are and how they can help solve them we stood up a couple of years ago on the Unmanned Task force in the middle east able to bring a lot of differentnt commercial companies and test them out in that environment working sidebyside with our operators