Representatives, as well as representatives from northern command, because of their singular responsibility for pandemic preparedness and department of defense support to civil authorities. As well as a special operations command. They have responsibility as the coordinating authority for wmd related activities. It is not just an osd body. It is very much one that will , we hope, weve not met yet, but will have active participation from the services, from the combatant commands, so that it has that element of hearing from all parts of department, where are the challenges and what is needed to get after them. Im assuming, like most bodies like this, there is lowerlevel working groups that will feed into this on a regular basis and meet more often. Is e that correct . Yeah, why dont i ask richard and brandi to talk to that. Sure. Just briefly say is somebody who also cochaired the Nuclear Posture review, i think my colleagues, and dr. Vann and i served as the daytoday cochairs working group for the bpr. And i think she probably got sick and tired at the end of it when i get making comparisons to the Nuclear Posture review. But as asd rosenblum noted, i think that there were some value there in one of the outcomes in the npr was, as we do npr implementation, a lot of those issues that were identified had a buddy to go back to be the lead for implementation. In many cases it was a Nuclear Weapons council. In other cases it was policy or somewhere else. I think as we were going to the process, we realized number one, just the value of getting this collective group of people and officials into the same room on really weekly basis to have these discussions and dialogue and identify gaps and seems wherever they may be. And so, we kind of recognized, you know, we probably should sustain this in some way, to the point on sustainment. I was laugh. I think people wince when i say this, because it did take us a while to do, but just as with the Nuclear Posture review, i would hope that this would not be the first and the last biodefense posture review. I think that there were need to be a regular review of this, which again is the value of the council existing to determine, you know , im not saying it has to be every president ial term or every administration. E that may be up for the council to decide, but there should be sort of a regular relook at this. Then of course in stride, if issues identified or need to be adjusted, that is ow where the cancel exists. One of the things that we talked about in the charter for the cancel as if a major issue, a pandemic of some sort, how do we mobilize and respond . And i know, i see dr. Friedrichs in the audience who lived through this before i was there, but i know there was a lot of scramble at the beginning of covid to figure out who are the right people, what was the right venue, what was the right body, how to bring all of this together. Well, guess what . We will have a council now that is basically all of those people, right . And allows us working in collaboration with my colleagues in policy that do these kinds of responses to quickly bring folks together and not have to fight the bureaucratics, but then to worry about what is needed to do response, to get funding, et cetera. So i think that they are, frankly, the conduct of doing the bpr in the first place just itself was useful in identifying that we needed this regular kind of battle rhythm th and aunt amongst players. Yeah, so the one where that you left out was in a coordinated way, right . So that is going to be the key of the council whenever there is a response, is a council will have all of the osd elements engaged. The joint staff, combatant commands, and the services. So all of those components that might have, or might play a part in a Global Response or a targeted response will all come together in this Council Moving forward. The other thing that i would like to highlight is you mentioned the working groups, right . So, the cancel recognizes that in order to be able to address these evergreen issues that we are identifying, with the complexity of the environment that dr. George mentioned, the policy challenges, strategy challenges, and then ultimately had we appropriately prioritize some of the efforts that we need to do moving forward. We cant do that by just kind of dropping something on the cancel. So there will be bodies that are either ad hoc or evergreen that will help shape that environment across the department of defense in the enterprise of biodefense within the department. And so thats going to be part of this level of effort. Just by way of example, to take a little deeper dive on this, lets use research, development and acquisition for example. You point out there are many gaps and seems there. Theres a lot of Research Going on in dod for lots of reasons, and protective stuff in centers and biologics. How does the cancel look at that area . How do you decide how, where the gaps are, where the overlaps are . Can you dive a little bit into o that to show us how this works . Yeah, so, you know, first of all, what ill say from the bpr standpoint, we didnt take a, we intentionally did not take a specific view on developing an s t or an rda pipeline or plan. We touch it from a very broad sense to say that these organizations, primarily the chem Biodefense Program in Defense Health program, needs to make sure that we are pivoting to look at not just the current threat, but what is the threat of the future and how do we get after that ultimate resilience protection and understanding the domain of camino, the next 10 to 15 years. And we will continue to have to do that. But we also recognize that multiple of those organizations are developing their own rda strategy for their own S T Development pipeline. So we wanted to highlight all of the amazing work thats done within those organizations , and let them do that work. From a Biodefense Council perspective, though , the council will help to integrate and make sure that those organizations doing research and development , or doing s t are communicating effectively and collaborating in a way thate is a force multiplier for the department. And then also working with our interagency partners to understand what is the broader biodefense portfolios look like, so that we can be additive to the work rather than trying to duplicate. We are a little, go ahead, go ahead. Go ahead. Just quickly to foot stomp because i think its a good example, is one of the things, and brandi spoke a little bit about this, but one of the things that the bio posture review did look at was where are those teams. So yes, there is rda, research and Development Done in variousr parts of the department. By the deputy secretary asked us, please make sure in this review that we can say discreetly the chem Biodefense Program does ask, whereas, you know, the Defense Health agency does y, and while no one, and while there will at times may be beatings that are relevant, we want to make sure, and particularly for our discussions with congress, they knew what was being funded where, and what the Mission Space was for the discrete areas. And coming out of the bio posture review, i believe that the department has a much clearer picture on whos doing what , for what reason. And that supports your budget request very well. S, correct. We are running a little low on time. We have a lot of very interested in very capable people in the audience. We like to give you a chance to ask any questions you may have. Theres microphones in the back if youd like to bring something up. If you go to the microphone, identify yourself. Hi, i am jeff sturchio. I am a senior associate here at csis. This is been a fascinating discussion. Obviously the work that the bio posture review did in the Biodefense Council will do is a highly complex process and about a lot of different living parts within the Defense Department. What im interested in is to what extent will the biodefense cancel be able to draw on the insights and expertise of allies and partners, and of a other stakeholders within American Society outside of the Defense Department . You know, there are academics who are experts in this area. There are obviously many stakeholders who have an interest in biodefense. So, to what extent will you be able to draw on those kinds of perspectives as well in the ongoing work . Yeah, thank you for the question. You know, we hope that it will continue, and now being even more, based on our understanding of who is doing what throughout the department. I think this goes back to your question on is the Biodefense Council supported by the regular work thats underway at the department. The answer to that is yes. And so through all of the standing responsibilities that are there in the department of defense, those do not change. So work with allies, work with academia, work with industry, all of that will continue and remain the same. What is exciting for us, from a Biodefense Council perspective , is we can then share those insights with Senior Leadership within the department of defense. Say, coming out of this workingo group that was with the uk, was with, you know, think tanks, et cetera, this is what the global experts are saying about these issues. It becomes a way to inform Senior Leadership that they currently do not have today, and that knowledge is very stovepipes. I am Gigi Gronvall from the Johns HopkinsBloomberg School of Public Health center for health security. I have two quick questions. When i was really well, first of all congratulations. Second , i was really heartened to hear about partnerships, real partnerships with families and working to boost biosafety and bio security. The problem is traditionally that has been very hard to measure. As a result, it is much easier to measure stuff like pieces of equipment that ended up getting piled in, that are broken and nd left in laboratories and under so east parts of the world. So, how are you going to be able to provide real supportive partnerships internationally like that . Ns and the second question is are you going to be tapping for, theres a lot of work to be done looking this over. Are you going to be tapping, like, defense Science Board and other kinds of sources for expertise . Ua thank you. Maybe i will start and welcome others to chime in. You are right. I mean, all of these things are little bit difficult to quantify. I do think, and will use as an example the ctr program, which is not the only program, but we now have 30 years plus experience doing this. As i mentioned earlier, one of the things we really focus on is not just the provision of, you know, helping to build a lab, helping to enhance security, helping to do training, but the sustainment element of that, and it is something that we talk about constantly. For example, a lot of the programs that we do with training or not just training, they are training the trainers. For example when i was in kenya recently, the folks that talked about how they are just training kenyan officials, but they are training officials while event of an parts of the region and in fact all of the continent. That is the kind of sort of force multiplier to use that overused term that we want to see. I also think that we have some existing dialogues and bodies where frankly we can bring in some of the knowledge and expertise that weve learned from the bpr and apply those to some of our Alliance Partnerships and relationships. There is ace pacific body at 80, for example, that i attend regularly, which should be the oversight body for the new nato c brn defense policy. We work closely with the Nato International staff to build and implementation staff plan that says okay coming of a plan now, what are you going to do with it. The other thing that i think is important for us to do and that we are doing more and more, as you go through with allies and partners and to actually do what you might call tabletop exercises or scenariobased discussions, because sometimes these things are very hard to distill into a 90 minute panel or even a paper, but when you actually go through what would happen in various scenarios, whether its accidental, whether its deliberate, whether its naturally occurring, that helps to eliminate sometimes for allies and partners who may not have thought as much about this what they will need to be able to do in this regard. So, i do think that there are some things and this is where i will turn to my colleagues, because they do this more than i do that we can maybe track more, you know, numerically, if its ppe or things like that. There are other things that we are going to have to do through these kinds of dialogues and regular exercising, if you will. I think training and exercising is important not just for u. S. Forces for the total force, but for allies and partners. And doing that in an integrated way when we do joint exercises, whether at nato, whether its with south korea, japan, australia, et cetera. I have a request him actually, that your question made me think about. This does not relate to the allies, but very truly in terms of partnerships. We were greatly helped, as i mentioned, and it was certainly not a throwaway comment by the consultations that we had before we started the bpr, be they hear, with Johns Hopkins. And they, you know, you all very nicely pulled together a range of experts. You know, brandi and i went up to boston to talk with some of the Biotech Companies up there. You know , so my request is please dont wait for us to reach out and ask. Help us with that. We get completely inundated in daytoday inboxes, to our detriment. And so if there is interesting work that you all are doing, please dont wait until its published. Please dont wait until the volumes come out. Please just call us up, and i promise you i will meet with you. Having come from, you know, nti and the think tank world and the ngos, i know the brits, the depth, and the very, very valuable work that is being done. And so im hungry for that, and i know our team is as well. So my request back is, help us with that to keep us current, to tell us whats on your mind. What are you worrying about . What are things that are foremost in your mind . You guys are closer to the labs then we necessarily are in osd, so you know , please help us with that. So that is a plea there. Yeah. I think the last thing i want to say is, you know, and our chapter talking backward nation and collaboration, we, as the Biodefense Council reps that are here today, we recognize and it was discussed broadly that the dod, as amazing as we are in logistics, and r d, and all of the other areas of expertise , we cannot and should not do this on our own, right . We have to collaborate with our interagency partners, whether allies globally, but also with industry and academia. We dont own the supply chains. We dont own the manufacturing. For the most part, you know, we are not doing the lions share of research and development and s t work, right . So we have to coordinate and collaborate, and expand the conversation beyond the walls of the department and beyond the silos that we have now broken down more internally. Now its about coordinating and collaborating more broadly. So i will echo that plea, we are looking and we are hungry for those engagements and opportunities where we can have those conversations. This is been a very broad, wideranging, and rich discussion, and we will continue this at an off the record lunch in a little bit. But second terry rosenblum, thank you very much. You have any closing comments youd like to make before we go here . Yeah, no, again, thank you very much to csis. One of the things that we have touched on a little bit in terms of investments and whatnot is that, you know , again to reinforce a Critical Congress and the professional staff have been in helping us to get to this point, both in terms of talking through where weve asked specifically for money, but you know, congress has been asking the department of defense for years now, how are you organized around this . How is it going . How can you be more effective . And then covid hit, of course, then we came back, rightly, and said, can we hold off on answering some of these questions until we can complete the bio posture review . But thats a partner in this theme of partnerships where we certainly owe a debt of gratitude not just for the support financially but also for this perspectives from the u Armed Services committees, from the appropriators, and that whole piece. So i just wanted to make sure we touched on that as well. Thank you. Please join me in thinking dr. Asha george , brandi vann, richard johnson, and secretary Deborah Rosenblum for coming here today and enlightening us. Thank you very much for a great discussion. Listening to programs on c span through cspan radio just got easier. Tell your Smart Speaker play c span radio, and listen to washington journal, important congressional hearings and other Public Affairs events throughout the days when weekdays at 5 00 p. M. And 9 00 p. M. Eastern, catch washington today for a fast paced report on the stories of today. Listen to cspan anytime. Just tell your Smart Speaker play cspan radio. Cspan, powered by cable. Next to look at chinas economy and its impact on Global Markets and supply chains, from a discussion hosted by the u. S. China economic and security review commission. Our seco okay, panel two. Our second panel will examine evolving trade and supply trade challenges in the u. S. China relationship. We will start with a former executive an