Time, and we all know what a challenging situation it is in the world, so we are fortunate. The secretary is the furry fifth test the 35th under secretary of the army the 35th under secretary of the army. He is the principal advisor on matters related to the management and operation of the army, also the chief management officer for the army. That is one sense, but that is a lot of work right there, holy smokes. Prior to this, mr. Camarillo served as the assistant secretary of the air force, manpower and reserve affairs. He was also with the army. Before entering government service, mr. Camarillos career included significant experience in law, government, National Security, and private industry. Mr. Camarillo received a bachelor of arts in government from Georgetown University and a law degree from stanford university. Please join me in welcoming the under secretary, the honorable dave camarillo. [applause] mr. Camara low i appreciate it. Please start thinking about your questions. I will kick it off and get it started, but what makes this effective is really good, indepth questions. Thanks for joining us at the global force just last week. You gave a great talk. You mentioned the different buying models the army needs to experiment with. Can you dive into that a little more . What are the different buying models . It was a great presentation when you were covering that. What are the different buying models . Mr. Camarillo sure. First, i want to thank you, general brown, for the introduction. I want to thank you guys for hosting me. You gave a lot of opportunities to engage with the teammates and thanks to all of you in the industry for coming. It is important for us to maintain this frequent dialogue, communication, and to hear from all of you and get feedback. There is so much we are focused on in the building, particularly as we get budgets ready and release, and we are reacting to questions that come from congress, so i want to also make sure i touch base with all of you in the audience. Thank you very much. As i spoke with ausa, i think where we are in the story, there was a recognition of the fact that when it comes to modernizing the army, giving us new capabilities, we are having a lot of success and building real momentum on what many have referred to as our signature modernization system. These are developing, for example, a new infantry fighting vehicle, developing longrange fires that are going to be critical in the pacific aor, building a new longrange hypersonic weapon, air and Missile Defense investments. Those are deliberate acquisition programs that we have been able to go fairly quickly for the last several years. We know how to work with industry on those. We are doing well. There is a subset of capabilities the army needs where the current way that we do Business Needs to change. You heard me talk about it a lot. You heard secretary warmath and the chief talk about it pretty frequently, and i think all of us in the department recognize it, and that subset of capabilities are typically very software defined, they have in many cases commercial variants , and what often is happening is you have the Technology Cycles that are far outpacing our buying models. Often, those buying models are driven by the two year appropriation process, and they are also driven by the normal way we do business, which is a much more deliberate process. We have to, in many ways, find a new way to get after that subset of capabilities differently, and the examples i always give, tactical ua s systems are evolving very quickly, counter uas systems are evolving very quickly. Most software that has commercial components to it is evolving quickly. Tactical radios, i have talked about that as an example of having sensitive but unclassified communications. We normally structure a program to define a requirement, develop it over a number of years, and test the capability, then we plan for a procurement cycle that goes into the avenue years. That works great if you are thinking about xm30. But when youre looking at a subsystem of capabilities that do not lend themselves easily to that model, we are figure out another way we have to figure out another way to do it. The reason i talk about a different buying model is you want to incentivize industry to innovate, and they need to understand that there is a revenue stream, that they can make a profit, and that there is some incentive for them to continue to invest their own internal r d, and on the same side, we want to be able to pick it over time so that we can adjust to what vendors in the market will provide in terms of innovation. One last example. A great capability that the Army Developed a program for several years ago. As we started that program, i think the way it was structured did not account for the fact that there would be continuous hardware and software of race Software Upgrades to that capability. We have since restructured it to account for that, but that is a good learning example of where we need to kind of look at the way we do programs in some of these areas to enable us to have that flexibility. Gen. Brown that is a great point. That ageold problem, by the time you have purchased it, it is out of date. That is a challenge. Do you see major changes having to be made to be able to do that, to purchase the software items . Is it more systemic changes . What do you think the biggest challenge is . Mr. Camarillo it is a couple of things. We have to change a lot within the army. The way we define our requirements probably has to evolve. How we structure our programs has to change. People always ask about funding flexibility. That could help in some areas like software, but even in the absence of kind of more liberal authorities about funding, i think it is all about how you structure programs. Do you plan for the tech conversion . You have the ability to pivot from one system to an upgraded system more quickly . That is going to be different for industry, and that is why i talked about providing incentive. Whether we do that in terms of smaller byes more frequently, or whether we look at Service Models where you guaranteed to a vendor a revenue stream over time but then they bury responsibility for some of that hardware and Software Upgrades, weve got to just think about, how do we allocate the incentives in the right way to get the army what it means . Gen. Brown that makes a lot of sense. Thanks, mr. Secretary. Very smart. Ukraine supplementals, a lot of talk about that. We are all hoping for sure that it passes, but lets say it does not. What is the impact on the army, in particular the area of not just the impact on the army, but how it affects the Defense Industrial base modernization, and also how it would impact critical munitions that are needed both in ukraine or for us elsewhere . Mr. Camarillo thanks for bringing it up. We always say that the need to pass the supplemental is crucial, not just because we are supporting ukraine and his vital we support ukraine in its conflict against russia, not passing the supplemental would have devastating effects to the United States army. Let me explain why. As i have said, many Current Operations costs that we are currently undertaking in the army, for example, all of our support mission to nato and deployments to europe, that cost has been, up until december of 2022, paid for by supplementals. Since december of 2022, we have been cash flowing im sorry, december of 2023, we have been cash flowing a lot of those costs with our own internal army funding. Until the supplemental has passed, we have a running tally, and i am looking at general mark bennett from the army budget office, it is around the nature of north of 500 million at this point that we have been essentially cash flowing to date for these operations costs. We need that supplements or reimburse us, because that is essentially operations funds that we cannot reimburse for other things we had planned to do. That impacts things like exercises that we had planned in europe and the pacific. It affects operations activities at the unit level that they want to do. Other areas where we have to take risks because we are cash flowing these costs. The second example is the area of procurement that is in the supplemental, all through the replenishment funding. We had sent very clearly, the need for 155 artillery, to be able to produce it had a need of 100,000 rounds per month by the end of 2025. We can only get there if two things happen in the supplemental. First of all, if we get some of the investments first facilities for facilities in that bill, and they goes to domestic sources like Army Ammunition plant in scranton and holston and some of our vendor base. The other thing we need are the procurement of critical munitions, which is part of the supplemental. It is vital to the Industrial Base. It generates jobs in the United States. It supports our ally in ukraine. It definitely reflects our commitment to that cause. It is vital for the army that we get that supplemental passed. Gen. Brown that is an even bigger impact than i realized. That is critical. In the 2025 budget, there is a whole bunch of counter grown capabilities, which makes sense. Can you explain in more detail how this will impact this threat that is worldwide now, these particularly small, Unmanned Aerial Systems . How will that, if fy 25 we get that, how will that impact that . Mr. Camarillo that is a great question. I am frequent he asked, what are the Lessons Learned from ukraine . Frequently asked, what are the Lessons Learned from ukraine . We see it not just in europe, but around the world. The nature of warfare is constantly evolving, but the threat of uavs, small uavs in particular, is here to stay. I think we have seen that consistently over the last few years. This is an area that the technology continues to become lowercost, more accessible, and it is proliferating. The cost factor for us to be able to defeat these threats can be very expensive if we use traditional approaches that are really based on air and Missile Defense principles. As we look ahead, and certainly what is in our budget, it is, how do we make sure first and foremost we protect our soldiers . That is Mission Number one. But also, how do we make sure we are making the right types of investments to grow our counter you have capabilities in a way that enables us to have more options . We are investing in our programs of record. We are investing in more interceptors, like coyote and others. We are looking at r d on the directed energy side. That is in the fy 2025 budget. That includes highenergy lasers, highpowered microwave systems. In addition to that, there is a significant investment as well in the ability to make sure all of these work within a command system that can be easily used by our operators. There is a great deal of investment in the budget in this area, but it is when i want to continue to focus in on over the next couple of years. Gen. Brown that seems incredibly smart. Will we ever have air superiority again, per se . So cheap and the technology increasing. Thats great. Thanks for that summary. Finally, you recently were at project convergence, which has been a combined joint experiment a program. Can you give an update on what you saw . Are you encouraged with what you saw from project convergence, or did we discover more issues than we thought . How was your visit there . Mr. Camarillo i want to first to my hat to Army Futures Command for putting on the capstone of that for project convergence. It is now in its fourth iteration, and they had two different experiments. The first was at Camp Pendleton about a month ago. I was not able to leave to go to that. The chief and secretary were there. I went to the second one, at the National Training center. The first was focused on air and Missile Defense from a joint perspective and what they were able to sex fully do was show that successfully do was show that we could pass target tracks for multiple joint sensors to different 20 factors within an architecture that was truly combined in a way that we had never done before. I was really encouraged from when i saw secondhand on that front. When i went to the ntc at fort or when, it was a different emphasis, focused on experimentation, primarily on the area of integration of human machine teams. It was primarily in the area of experimentation on things like robotic combat vehicles, support vehicles, ground robots, drones, a whole manner of things that were put into a battalion sized demonstration. What we were able to witness was the first live fire ever doneges in the life i is great. Mr. Camarillo obviously i think every service, to include the army, is recognizing it is time to get very serious about Robotics Systems and autonomy and how we incorporate them and how we aurburn how we operate. You can see the navy doing the same thing in undersea unmanned formation and we are doing the same on this side. The partnership with industry was key. For many years we talked about it but i think understanding c theons, how the industry can tailor its r d to match that. Thats where the cycle has to get quicker and i give general rainey a lot of credit, the way hes going about the experimentation will help us a lot. Gen. Brown the discussion at global force, First Contact be a robot, not a human being, which makes a lot of sense when using about it. Lets go to the audience, we want easy questions, i think we said. Softballs. Good morning. This is a softball question. Based on what you were talking about the advance of technology and innovation and Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence and automation, the talent pool of soldiers that would be required to do this are the same talent pool microsoft is looking for, apple is looking for. How does the army go about attracting the servicemembers required for the next wave of innovation the army has to have to stay competitive on the battlefield . Mr. Camarillo . Thats a great question that is a great question. I think we are all competing for similar talent pools for different objectives. Thats a concern i have. I will say in the area of skill sets regarding software, ai, Machine Learning, its a little different. I think the allocation of skill sets between the army and Industry Needs to be rightly understood. Here is what i mean by that. We rely on the Industrial Base to generate those capabilities and provide us with cuttingedge technology. I think what the army, especially those soldiers in uniform, primarily have to do is rely on integrated and incorporated with the Mission Objectives they have. Thats a different skill set. One area where they converge is the exchange of information into the understanding of each others needs. Thats why it talked about shifting some of the models earlier and how important that is but i think one area where it can help is if theres a little bit more exchange of information if you will between the two sides the last two years, weve put in a lot of emphasis on soldier centered design. I think the industry has made a great deal of investment in terms of understanding our problem cases. I think there are some enterprise things the army has to do that is separate from all of it. For us to leverage Machine Learning we got to get our data right and that is an institutional challenge for the army, where data resides in many different pockets in very different states of utility. Part of our hard work is to get that to the point where it can be used by our soldiers, made accessible, trusted, verified and secure. I took the question in a different direction but i think it is important. Good morning, to see you this week. So many of you last week in huntsville was great. I was going to ask you this after the keynote but we ran out of time. The organic Industrial Base to the tactical ledge and Security Assistance to allied partners, can you help us highlight the importance of compliance to combat power. Readiness and mediation and how we connect the Balance Sheet to the battlefield . Mr. Camarillo absolutely, this is an area place a lot of emphasis on as undersecretary. Its critical to Mission Effectiveness for a couple different reasons. Congress has passed a requirement that the department has to be auditable by fy 28, so calendar year 27. We are going to meet that mandate by congress, and i think its import we show we are investing a significant amount of taxpayer dollars in capabilities for the department and army and think its important just intrinsically on that basis. Heres the other reason why its important. What the audit compliance process is helping us do is understand how to track our inventory, get it to a point of need, understand where we have efficiencies, inefficiencies, where our Financial Systems and poverty accountability systems need to be upgraded, all to help us be more effective at our mission. It is causing a lot of change in the army to get to this compliance. Some of it are system changes that need to be done. We are converting our enterprise systems into a new erp capability we will bring online the next couple of years. Another example is understanding, for example, some of our policies. How do you adapt to ensure we are able to track our property, ensure we have the best data on operational readiness of weapons systems, and we can do what we need to do on a regular basis in a much more effective manner. It is very important for us. Thank you for being here. I just wanted to clear up some confusion i think some people were critical of our involvement with ukraine, as one of them is how we provide munitions ukrainians need while at the same time being a