Gentlemen. Thank you so much for coming to the American Enterprise institute. Im fred kagan, the direct of the critical project here at aei. And if it is my great honor and privilege to lead this panel, discussing report which is just been released by my colleagues, matt mcinnis, the future of irans security policy, Available Online at aei. Org and where these beautiful copies as well if anyone would like one of those. We have a Magnificent Panel today. We are thrilled to have Lieutenant General tom trask, Vice Commander of headquarters u. S. Special Operations Command in washington, d. C. , and vice admiral retired mark fox, formerly Deputy Commanding general of the nested Central Command along with matt to talk about the report. Without further ado i will turn it over to matt. Thank you, fred. Thank you, general trask and admiral fox and fred, for frankly every thing here at aei yourself put this event together. As well as all the people behind the scenes for the past two, 2 years that a been working with me on this research. This has been a labor of love for many years and inspired not only by my work here at the institute but, frankly, im a number of years working inside the government from my time in the department of defense, and taking my time at u. S. Central command, serving with these two fine gentleman as well as under general petraeus and john allen and particularly under jim maddox where we struggled with these issues of how to understand iran and its behavior, how we can better anticipate what iran will be able to do this is what really pushed me when i came out and i to think about how can we do better. And i think the biggest thing that i ran into when i was engaging in the larger think Tank Community and the larger Academic Community is the challenge of getting past iran as opaque. That iran is too difficult to understand, as well as the idea that iran is irrational. What i consider that mad mullah problem that iran is, the iranian leadership is too crazy. I think both these ideas really handicap us in being able to understand what tehran is thinking about, how it looks at the u. S. , how it formulates its foreign policies, security policies. Naturally the heart of what im trying to do in this monograph is take the face off that confusion and say no, you cant understand this. You can learn about it. What im trying to do is not so much provided whole bunch of policies, policy prescriptions for this administration or for future administrations, but basically provide analytic framework, models if you will, for understand how iran develops its foreign policies, how iran develops its approaches in particular security issues, how it goes to war, how it looks at the u. S. , how it looks it is your come out at its rivals in the persian gulf, out looks at threats such as isis, and in particular how it develops concepts about military doctrine, how would approaches its Defense Budget. These big questions, and this is what i want to provide for the Larger Community here in washington and around the world about ideas of toolkits. Things you can use to develop better policy, so you understand the variables that go into how iran approaches warfare or how iran approaches its foreignpolicy decisions. As things, for example, as the status of irans perspective as the saudi threat increases from their viewpoint, or decreases. Or as gdp increases or decreases. At that point affects their defense spending on how thats going to affect their approach to investing in certain capabilities. This isnt what i want to be able to do with this type of work and provide a Better Foundation for that. What are some of the key findings that we did get from this work, is that fundamentally threat perceptions really does drive irans behavior more than anything else. Once they are on a path they really tend to stick with it. Threat perceptions, and requires a change in threat perceptions to push them off that path. Fundamentally, the u. S. Tries of more than anything else. After that, israel, and then perhaps an extremist groups like isis, after that maybe the saudis and other gulf rivals. Of course more than anything else they could own people and internal instability. Ideology still matters. This of course is a point of contention at times when people wonder is the revolution still alive, does it still matter . I think it does. I think what well see that ideology still an important point in key aspects of their foreignpolicy. It tries what i call geopolitical irrationalities in places like its policy toward israel, its overinvestment in places like the leblanc but in other places it behaves more like a normal state. Especially things like what Islamic Revolution regard core does and its proxy groups like hezbollah, she militia groups, yet understand the interaction of the ideology plus the more normal geopolitical actors. From a conventional military standpoint, iran still is very much disoriented. This is what becomes frustrating at times for people to deal with this very aggressive destabilizing iranian foreignpolicy that we have to its proxy. Combined with a very weak conventional military that is still find my deterred by the u. S. And its reminder the degree of leverage that we have. 201 2016 also appears to be a fundamental Inflection Point where iran is looking at potentially shifting to a more offensive conventional military. Thats being driven i believe my words in syria and iraq where iran is looking to what needs to potentially build a different type of military. Also when i look at in digging into irans Defense Budget and its approach to acquisition and research and development, what i consider the discretionary defense spending and investment is actually somewhat rational. Especially when youre looking at investments that are not tied to existential fights like what you have going on in syria right now. I think this is an important tool for policymakers when theyre looking at how we are going to respond to iran longterm after the implementation of the nuclear deal. That you can understand if you know where irans gdp growth is going to be, if you have a sense of where oil prices are going into understand where irans threat perceptions are, whether its looking at mainly fighting the u. S. And israel or it is mainly looking at regional wars against rivals like saudi arabia or others, or manually at nonstate actors like isis or al qaeda as its main threats, that if you understand the basic variables you can anticipate where iran may be needing to put most of its money. When it comes to is it going to buy new airplanes or ships . Is a going to be investing more in its Missile Program . Is a going to be buying stuff from russia are trying to build that stuff indigenously. Easily the question of where to put all those millions at the nuclear deal, which is of course an important issue for us right now. I think you can understand those broad patterns. From my own Research Iran tends to spend its money in a fairly rational manner when its not tied to what i consider existential fights like we have in syria. And then finally i would say the u. S. Has an overwhelming influence on a rant strategic decisionmaking. I think this is something i cant drive home enough, and i think that with the u. S. As we are looking at what to do, i think we have to remember that iran have chosen to make us the number one enemy. This is not something that we necessarily, we did not create the situation from our perspective. They chose the 1979 revolution, and ideological standpoint to make us there any. They have created from their Strategic Thinking, they build their military first and foremost not only to protect their own regime, to protect them from counterrevolution from your own people, but to protect themselves from us. We still have that degree of influence over their threat perception. Any type of war that we go to with iran, we control escalation and we have to remember that. We can shape the resources that go into their defense industry. Theres a whole spectrum of capacity that we have any think this is something that in many ways should give us greater confidence in approaching iran and that we should not look at i write as ten tall and recognize that iran poses a very significant threat to stability in the region, but we can approach things i think with greater confidence and with greater strategy and, frankly, in a smarter way that we had in the past. Thanks, matt. General trask. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Fred, thanks so much for inviting me to be a to represent so. This is an extremely important topic. I wish that when you and i were working these problems six, seven years ago someone had written this monograph then for us to use as a tool because obviously im no iran expert or middle eastern expert but in a military planner. So from my perspective tools we can use to understand our adversaries are critically important to us as we try to provide options for our government and for our secretary going forward. And i think thats what this product does. Anytime you have an opportunity to get into the minds of your adversary and try to understand decisionmaking processes on their side, it allows you to prioritize your planning in a a way that you couldnt otherwise. In particular with iran, thats particularly important. I took a few specific things away from this as takeaways from a socom perspective and a remind everybody that socom has in a support position to centcom for iran planning. Within the department of defense, centcom is in the process of going through another drill at this time on what our way head needs to be from a dod perspective on iran and socom contributes to one of the things would bring from socom perspective as a global perspective on several issues. The reach of Iranian Networks is certainly one of them and thats one of the ways that our analysts and our planners can help centcom in that regard. Couple things that jumped out at me as important take away. You can if it right off the bat. Probably the most important one, that is if you understand the mindset of this particular adversary, their activities are going to be predictable, and most of the time youre going to be able to look at this. There is enough by of evidence since revolution of 79 to prove i think that as you point out in the monograph that their actions are going to be predictable. The fact they dont match up to a rational that we easily understand in the west doesnt mean they are not predictable if you spend enough time understanding the mindset, what the important aspects are to the regime, what they will do anything to fight for and what are as you call conflicts of opportunity versus ones that are conflicts of survival in their minds. That allows us as planners to develop a list of options for our leadership that are focused on that. The second big take away that i had this kind related to that end its the idea of proportionality. No something that we struggle with a lot when you and i worked together because it didnt seem proportional and that may have been asymmetric, iranian irene e to whatever the issue was. But at least in their minds that it was proportional most of the time to i think thats important thing that we can use anderson had the United States actions will affect iranian activities going forward. So thats probably even more important element as far as planners. Now is the way we have to plan for as many eventualities as possible as military planners pick thats going to be standard to anything that we do. And socom had to prioritize our Planning Efforts were going to continue to plan primarily against that network of proxies and Unconventional Warfare that iran pushes out a way to create that buffer for the regime that you described in the paper very well, and thats going to be the focus. I know theres been a lot of discussion on whether increased Defense Budgets in iran are going to lead to a greater emphasis on conventional military capability. I think you hit it right off the bat what you said that iranians are going to be driven by what they perceive as the threat. More than anything else, probably more than budgetary opportunities or limitations. And so thats the piece that we can still manage the same way, even if they chose to put more money in their defense spending and particularly on the conventional side. Right now i think for us in particular i think your paper supports the idea that for socom perspective where going to stay focused on those proxies and networks, and the reach iran as well past syria and yemen fighting to africa and into south america and into europe as well. And again tha thats part of the nature of my commands charge to look at these problems from a global perspective. I think thats going to be one of the key takeaways. The last point i make and has to do with the last section of your paper on developing an Industrial Base of whether or not its even possible for them to really significantly increase the capability of their conventional force internally, and how much can they depend on getting from others like russia. Ill tell you, in the last few years i worked in a socom area on our budget on how we develop our decisionmaking process and on what we buy, that takes a long time to change. Youve got to really build a significant infrastructure. And right now i tend to agree with your conclusion that thats unlikely to happen. Even though its possible, and as i said as military planners wiggling to make sure that secretary mattis and the president have options in either case. But our focus right now is going to be with an expectation that they will continue to push and if anything increased defense dollars and iran are likely to go toward increasing that network, looking for ways to expand it. Weve already seen evidence of them taking units and officers out of the conventional side that are working with the irgc in syria, and that need be an indication that youre looking to push on that side with the defensive nature of their conventional forces we dont see that being a major change anytime soon. Anyway, i thought a as a tool, e paper is extremely useful. We will make it mandatory reading with our planners down in tampa going forward, and as a set i wish we had it a few years ago. I look forward to the discussion and your questions. Mark . So i approached the iranian question, first of all, thank you for having me here today. From a former fleet commanders perspective, i spent a year in baghdad back in 20062007 timeframe and penetrator network and the malign activities that were going on were striking to me at the time. In thing in my most recent militant islam as the Deputy Commander at Central Command, and theres a consistent theme. In fact, for those of us who have studied this and watched it closely over, since the 79 revolution, weve seen these spasms increased tension with decreased tension, kind of an ebb and flow, and from a western mindset it seems like its a very difficult thing to eat anticipate or protect. From a Navy Perspective they are very much focus on the asymmetric. They like minds, they like small boats, they like a lot of different small submarines. And so the main thing in my mind as a former fleet command is how to prevent miscalculation . Nobody wants to go to war with iran. Nobody wants to have a miscalculation. How do you prevent that, at the same time not taking the first strike . And so when i was a strike group commit a few years when as in the gulf, but then fifth fleet commander said i dont want you to take the first punch i dont want you to start a war. So somewhere in this spectrum of potential activities, or people would ask me how frequently do you interact with iranians . It would be on a daily basis. There is a marked difference between irgc and the without iri in render honors before the u. S. Navy vessels pics of theres entire spectrum and thus merger of her interactions quite frankly has been routine and professional. Then you will hear, refer to it as not routine or unprofessional or aggressive or that sort of thing. In the big spectrum of activities, we watch it closely but youll see contradictions in the midst of the runup to and subsequent to the nuclear deal, as click the escalations and some of the activities, some of the malign activities have increased. Theres been interdiction of force and flow into yemen, for example. Nursing a lot of the coastal cruise missiles. So i ran has very much devoted to proxies and to asymmetry. And they are the masters at keeping it just at or just below the boiling point. So its a home game for them, and we have Rotational Forces that come through. So its always very important that you get your Commanding Officers and the action officers on board ships and aircraft to make sure they understand how to handle this situation and to always be in place where you are prepared. As was briefly mentioned we have a very, we have a dominating ability to escalate and to control a situation but at the same time these are International Waters and there are International Airspace and in the case of the navy, and so they are every bit as much right to be at sea as we do. And so this is something that you watch very carefully. General mattis, when i was fifth fleet, always you to challenge me about our uv boiled frog . Are you the guy whos been in this hot water long enough where its now the norm . So its something that you come you make sure that youre not completely cooked, but at the same time its something that requires thought and reflection on everyday. I thought your piece was really well done and i, too, would add to toms comments but it wouldve been will useful to have had some of these thoughts before. The longer you study the iranian psychology, i guess is a way to put it, over the last 5000 years its only been the last 500 that the west has somehow been they think of themselves as a powerful people, the heirs of the persian empire. Thanks for having here today. Look forward to the discussion.