Modernization efforts aimed at improving military readiness. Good afternoon everyone and thank you for coming. I am with the Foreign Policy program and it is my distinct honor to have the secretary of the army, ryan mccarthy, here with us. Of the armys id on modernization of its future force, but first, a brief introduction and i ask you to give him a big welcome. That a few thoughts by him to frame our topic. We will follow up with a little discussion between him and me and then go to your questions. It will be a crisp, quick session. Mister mccarthy is a proud native of chicago, has a bachelors degree in history which seems appropriate given the aura i have around all of the traditions and histories in the country. Then he joined an Operational Army unit, was deployed to afghanistan during his period as a soldier. He saw combat with the rangers. Since that time, he has done all kinds of additional things you would want somebody to do that has the kind of job he has today. He has worked on capitol hill, he has worked as a special assistant to both gates and the undersecretary of defense as well. He has been in the Defense Industry, most recently prior to coming to the pentagon when he was with lockheed martin. Many of you know after his confirmation this past summer, he was the acting secretary of the army in addition to being the undersecretary of the army while we waited for the nomination and confirmation process. He has a lot on his plate, including some very interesting ideas in Army Modernization as i mentioned earlier. Before we start the conversation, please join me in welcoming the undersecretary. [ applause ]over to you my friend. Thank you, doctor hamlin. I really appreciate this opportunity to come sit with your institution. It is a worldclass organization. I had my first brush with this and capitol hill and that the department of defense. That in my job interview, i was looking at his case and there were two butchersamobutu books of to books of the doctors there. A storied history, obviously. Its a real privilege for me to be here, thank you. And thank you for the support you give me. This is our third evolution in the last four months. We have been looking a lot outside of the army to help us sink through this Major Initiative that we have and restructuring the entire department of the army. Thank you for having me, thank you for all of the support at this point. Very quickly, i came into the job back in august, but really it started in the springtime during my interview. Secretary mattis said he would be working on this National Defense strategy and he was published a couple weeks ago i think. About how do we modernize the force to maintain our overmatched position against competitors . The rise of for countries in particular, north korea, iran, china, and russia. The competition most most militarily and economically has received a lot of attention. It is clear the choices they made starting to get closer, closing the gap to our overmatched position. Its kind of like why now . The army has to continue to modernize itself to maintain its position. There is no time like the present. Even though when you look at the challenges that the army faces, over 185,000 troops deployed worldwide. We have challenges with our fiscal position affecting budgets over the last several years. Even with all the challenges, we know we have to evolve. We have an Industrial Age system that was created in 1973. The Major Commands today and the responsibility of how we do Material Development and design, is spread across these demands. The relationships are not as close and this fusing of information of how we develop a requirement, work through the tradeoffs, and go through the process. It was really a my first him a job that i was talking to the general at the time. It was how do we get better . And how do we get faster . We look at where the responsibilities lie in the institution. First and foremost, we had to be specific about what we wanted. What are the priorities we need to put our management and funding against . To get increased capability . It was very simple. And army shoots, moves, and communicates. We looked at the portfolio, the capabilities, and recognize several items span across all fundamentals. Specially communication and protection. If we lock in on these capabilities, then, how are we investing against these capabilities . Move the funding against these six priorities. Upwards of 80 of the budget, lock it in against those six capabilities. We looked at how we look at the process and conduct Material Development. We saw across the enterprise the responsibilities laid against these Major Commands. Rather than just creating a new organization, how do you restructure and put everything under one roof . The talent is where it is in the country. How it works together is what we really focus on. Formalizing relationships between the communitya community. How you do that . It is entirely about people. I give them all the credit. He handpicked the officers we used on his Cross Functional Teams. Officers that lead these teams, that views requirements, acquisitions, testing, one of them is sitting here in the front row. General elliott. What is amazing about this process as they talk about their experiences, if you look at history, whatever we are successful in the department of defense, it really was about people. Who was in charge, who was accountable, and how you generationally change the outcome. They were very successful because they had the right people. Overtime, they worked their career paths to sustain those great algorithms. We have his Cross Functional Teams, i signed out acquisition directives last fall. Authorities granted to us in the authorization act. It put the system in motion. The doctor was confirmed in november, his biggest thing is communication. The four of us in the marshall corridor have to be constantly interacting and engaging in leadership and industry. Matches the traditional Defense Industry across the country. So much so that foreign partners are potential to work with as well. Okay we said were going to sit down and we are not changing our priorities. [ laughter ]you have to communicate and put your money where your mouth is. So, we hit our stride very quickly since he came on in november. We are now approaching the 120 day mark that i laid in less fall for task force which is looking at restructuring. Its heating up the courses of action we need to look at and hopefully make a decision on how we move some of these rules and responsibilities into this organization that we call the Army Committee ideally looking at an end of march time for him to make an announcement. And have operating capability by the summer of this calendar year about some context. Fantastic. How about some context . Fantastic. I will take a different slant and start back further in history. We know the u. S. Army had a tremendous Success Story in the Ronald Reagan period with the socalled big five abrams tank and great helicopters, a good Missile System that kept Getting Better. Did well in operation desert storm, too. Then we saw war getting more complicated. Even a couple years after that in somalia. We also started to see the army having trouble. It had success in problems. The gun systems, future combat systems, we all know the list. It was all sort of 1990s and early 2000s. Those programs lived up to what was hoped for. The army has done a lot of great stuff, even during that period. I think the present sensors predecessors did a lot of an event of things. But the big programs were less successful. On top of that, and maybe more importantly, we have also seen the pace of innovation pick up, not only here, not only in the United States military, but in foreign militaries as the National Defense strategy has been underscored, unveiling a strategy two weeks ago. And we have this tremendous Technological Base in our country, a rapid innovation. The department of defense is not well placed to keep pace with. To benefit from the type of time cycles that really modern Silicon Valley and other parts of our Technology Base are capable of generating new capability. If i understand right, both because of past and past problems and mistakes like legacy issues, but even more because of the rise of china and russia and the pace of innovation around the world. You decided you needed to do things differently. If i understand, there are at least two big things you are, pushing, aspiring to accomplish. You said to create Cross Functional Teams in six major areas of Army Technology that involves technology, fighters, acquisition experts all talking as a team in real time. Then secondly, you may have to go to congress and you may have to change within the department of defense itself, how fast you make certain kinds of decisions, what kinds of authorities you have two reallocate funds to move quickly. How much of that story did i get right . And please feel free to correct me when i am wrong. Keep going. I think it is great. Absolutely. The nature of the Cross Functional Teams is to really type that operation, past operational concept with the acquisition program. We did not, we, we change the concept midstream. Whether you got it right or not or if the events altered the thinking of the objectives you wanted to achieve with the system. Its that discipline, along with getting it right in the first place making it survive in the first place, the first contact. Those technical requirements communities is the foundational element of the Cross Functional Teams. Which we describe, if you look at these Cross Functional Teams , and the army command and getting it to the secretary and staff, we are trying to reduce the number of layers. By the reduction of layers it brings accountability into the system. Speedy decisionmaking. That is where the challenge and frustration of congress has been for a long time. Program fails, who is accountable . It really does start with the people in the hallway of the marshall corridor in the pentagon. Secretary, myself, and the chief advisor. We are trying to bring that into the fold that we have to sit on top and provide access and get decisions brought faster so we can move money and provide the authority necessary. It is the heart of what we are trying to achieve. So your six categories, if i can summarize, longrange fires, so artillery and missile strikes where we realize we have been falling behind, its defenses against those same technologies being used by the enemy against us, so missile and air defense. Ground vehicles is third, future lift is fourth, and then the networks, would be the fifth, and then the soldier is of course the sixth, not sixth in priority, just the way i listed. Is there any one of those that you feel is most in need of this reform . That will benefit the most above all others from a new concept. Not to sidestep, but we fight is a formation. The choices we make within those portfolios effect the others. So, wherever the Technology Comes forward, we make those choices. When i have described this before two leaders, you provide us a portfolio capability. Like a hedge fund manager. How are you going to be able to help us deal with a variety of threats, but how does it literally integrate against your teammates . When these choices come through, we can mitigate if the technology is there based off an investment of one of the other portfolios. So we kind of sit back with the six knobs and have to turn them just right. The teams have been in place for about three months and are bringing recommendations to the program. An interesting 75 days ahead of us, right pete . That is how we are approaching the challenge. How can you mitigate or increase capability . You have to look at the other weapon system. Is it fair, you described a couple of things you are hoping to a compass. One is improved speed. May be more to the point, you talked about these cross functional themes and the accommodation of talent. To make the distance between the visionaries and the doctrine writers, make that really day today. It strikes me that the speed benefit is perhaps the most notable in the network area where you got as we were discussing earlier, you know, pace of modern Electronics Innovation is so fast. We need to be able to react. Whereas, the benefit of having the technologists talk to the visionaries, is that you maybe avoid the problem we have with future combat systems hopefully. Where he concept sounded great, you know, in a seminar, maybe was not as readily deployable. Partly because you had visionaries here in one command, technologist and another, and they did not see themselves as part of a day today team. Is that way to look at potential benefits . Let me jump in. We have general gallagher here in the front row. He was the director for the network. Thank you mister secretary. It is an honor to be here today. One of the things we have learned, we have to move with speed and precision. We have to stay ahead of our adversaries. We have not been able to do that because we have a very Large Program that has taken us years to build. Based on how the money is allocated to actually field those programs. We took a good hard look at the network, we really realized we need to cut bait on a few programs that might not deliver in the future. Fix the ability to fight by adapting and buying new solutions readily available at four record teammates that we could use with our soldiers immediately to improve our ability to fight tonight. Then we are pivoting to whats next . What will allow us to explore the art of the possible . And insert technology. What we have been trying to do, relatively quickly, is get associated with units focused on the Global Response force in our most pressing plan. Get capability in the hands of soldiers as quickly as we can. Get feedback, make adjustments, and learn as we go. As the secretary and i have talked about how we want to fail early, fail cheap, but when something is working and ready we want to test the scalability and get it out there as quickly as we can. We need to move at a much more rapid page especially in it. We and the network, we are crosscutting, okay . Longrange precision fires, we need a networked a network enabled. Integrated missile and air defense, it needs to be trustworthy. We need to make sure what we are shooting at, were going to hit the target we need to hit. Our vehicles, our platforms, everything needs to be an ecosystem. The secretary mentioned it before, all of the Cross Functional Teams, the horizontal integration day in and day out, make sure we have shared understanding of what the priorities are and what we are focused on has really been, i think pretty significant. I have had the privilege to do this for the last 75 days. We have taken a good hard look at some areas we probably were not looking up for. That is our silence and technology portfolio. What are we investing in in the network that is going to deliver capability . And what is Industry Research and development, what are they investing in that we may not need to worry about . What are other Companies Investing in . Darpa, others, where are they investing . Since the past 75 days, we found out who was doing what, where are the investments going to deliver capability, and how do we explore that and exploit that as quickly as we can by getting it in the hands of the soldiers and making sound recommendations to Senior Leaders on how to move the money to get the best possible capability we can so we can fight and win. That is really what this is all about. Fighting and winning. Maybe it is unfair because it is too broad of a question, too many technologies you are trying to buy, but how much faster do you want to get them . There was a program that historically takes us 510 years, you know, use whatever example youd like, how much faster can we realistically become in the network . I would say in the network, in my opinion, there is Technology Today we can put in pretty quickly. Where we have been hampered is Large Programs that have taken years to fill. Many cases, you know, because of budgets, we have filled a couple brigade combat the year, we have a fielding schedule, a big box and a solution said. The day after tomorrow, the day before yesterday in many cases, its not what we will need to fight an adversary. There are things where we are working with industry to identify, what are the quick wins and how can we get in there quickly . It is about moving money. Making sure we have freedom of action with certain technology and scale as we need to. But i think we can move pretty fast. I think there are some long come over the horizon technologies we do not know about yet. Really good after the next generation, you know, artificial intelligence, so things are much more intuitive and simpler so we can simplify what the soldier and leader has to on the edge so they are not worried about Configuration Management and all that stuff. That is done in the sanctuary and then machinery does all the work. There is technology evolving, we just need to keep pace. In the space in particular, utilization of authority granted its critical. Getting things out there as quickly as possible. These programs are challenging. We the jurisdiction to get the authority to move the money around. That will always be a challenge. We have to move quickly and articulate. We need requirements down to two years or less for hardware and equipment. Taking 57 years, its just too long. And it becomes, it is just a mo