Prepare and train for it. He spokes in Salt Lake City to talk to leaders on the international stage. It was hosted by the utah council of kip diplomacy. Its an hour and 10 minutes. As a proud arm brat, its my privilege to introduce general david d perk perkins. Hes responsible for training and educating professionals and designing the future u. S. Army to support National Security. A graduate of the u. S. Military academy at west point in 1980. General perkins held numerous leadership positions over his career. These include special assistant to the speaker of the house, 104th u. S. Congress. Battalion commander in macedonia. Brigades commander, leading over 300,000 personnel during the invasion of iraq, executive assistant to the vicechairman of the joints chief of staff and division commander. The u. S. Forces from iraq in 2010 through 2011. Most recently, some november 2011 to february of to 14, general perkins commanded the u. S. Armys premier education and Leader Development institution at fort levin worth. Developing the training and support and u. S. Army doctrine and synchronizing Leader Development all of which provides elements. He holds a master degree in Mechanical Engineering from university of michigan and masters degree in National Security and strategic studies from the naval war college. Please join me in giving a round of applause and a warm welcome to general perkins. [applaus [applause] thank you. Thanks, appreciate i was told dont get too far forward, youll get feedback and dont need you to leave here with an eardrum injury tonight. My appreciation for folks who helped to pull this off. Folks at westminster, mr. Ambassador, thank you for being a big supporter of this and everyone involved with uccd. Its a great chance for me to get out and talk to you all, the American People, because as a Senior Leader of the United States army. We say you are our board of directors, we are your army so its great to come out to the board of directors and the American People and give you an update of what were doing and a q a and i need to change direction or anything, dont hesitate to tell me. Im looking forward to the q a as much as anything else. I really do commend you all for, as the charter is given to sort of being proactive citizens in our democracy. Our democracy is based on that as ive traveled around the world. Some less than garden spots. When people use the term democracy, they dont realize whats on the average person to pull that off. I appreciate you all internalize that and engage and try to be informed citizens out there as well on this very complex world. Im going to talk about what i was looking as i was coming out here the title of the lecture, developing strategic leaders for the future, et cetera. So i will talk about that, understanding that we in the army, we dont make policy, we execute policy. So, its our job to understand what the policy is and more important for that. I have the Army Training and doctrine command. Most folks dont know what that is. Tra doc is what we refer to it as. Ill kind of highlight some of them so we get a vision of that and queue up questions and make sense of the topics im talking about. Ill hit some of the tips of the iceberg what we do for the erm an and try to pull it altogether on what that means for the future in what were doing about that in the army to prepare for the future in this very challenging world that we find ourselves today in and become more so. One of the things we do for the army is we are called the architects of the army. We designed the army. We are looking out to the years 2025 to 2050, and you may think thats a long ways out, but i have to tell you when youre building an army like ours at 1. 2 Million People, that spans the entire world, thats not far around the corner. What our organization does, we look out 2025, to 2050 and we try to offer any environment, what are the geopolitical situations well face around the world and what are the democratics, what are economics and challenges were going to face. What are the competitors were going to face and what are the things that our adversaries, possible adversaries going to do to us. Once we have that figured out in our crystal balls. As i said in our role as architect of the army, we layout concept what we want our battalions and brigades to do and write out for the next helicopter, tank and we basically put a blueprint together for the army for the next say 30 years. This is what we want it to look like, this is the capabilities that the army has to have and equipment and et cetera like that. Thats one of our responsibilities. Another thing we do, we recruit the army and i spent the day down at the recruiting station and downtown and so when you drive around the United States and you look in the strip malls, armed forces recruiting and training and thats tradoc, i think we have some recruiters out there. The other thing we do, we run cadet command. A couple of cadets in the audience, i spoke to some not long ago, we generate the officer corps in the army. The basic training and our beloved drill sergeants and folks that leave a lasting impression on our soldiers and we run individual training and the army school system, armor, infantry men and helicopter pilots and we teach them in schools and do Lessons Learned and forms the doctrine. So that seems like kind of a wide range of topics. When you link them together, it sort of makes sense because what the army has done is taken one command and they say youre the person that designs the army. Once you design the army you go out and acquire the army, ie, recruit the officers and soldiers. Once you recruit, i want you to build, basic training and flight school, whatever like that and we may fight the army and then i want you to constantly improve the army, Lessons Learned, command, generals, staff college, et cetera and make the army better. We design the army and then go out and acquire the army we design and then we build the army we acquire and constantly improve the army we built and that keeps us busy at least until noon on most days. Training and doctrine command is a very large and expansive organization, were in 1,634 locations around the world and if we dont hit every one of them every year, but today we happened to be out here in the utah area doing a number of things with recruiting and training and command and i report back to the board of directors, Senior Leaders of the army. Now that i outlined what tradoc does for the army, how we describe the future and what were doing about it. And that might be of interest to you and maybe generate questions. If you could put up the first slide, please. I only have three slides and most of them are pictures, so, when i was growing up in the army, when i first came in the army and graduated from west point. It was the height of the cold war, okay . I was a young armor officer, tanks, mechanized infantry. I was sent to the german border all officers should be at the height of the cold war and pull duty along the west germaneast german border. If there are some out here shaking their heads, i can remember that. Our whole army was designed and focused primarily on being able to deter any, and the soviet union in the Central Plains of europe. So, this was sort of introduction, in the army in the early 80s, sort of the height of the cold war. And so we focused our army on being able to deter and or defeat the soviet union in the Central Plains of europe. Now, that was a challenge innen of itself, but we designed the army that way and this is a picture right out of the manual that i grew up with fm1005. And this is a picture. I was the one on my desk that i keep it there today since im in charge of writing the followon manual to that and im told thats the Gold Standard so i always refer back to it. A couple of things jump out at you, i tell folks if you were standing in the gap looking east it would look eerily similar to this. These are units in the army, a diagram how we would arrange the army. If youre looking to the future and building an army and military you have to describe the environment its going to operate in. So this describes the environment that i was brought up in it, what it was, we have a known enemy, the soviet union, very wellknown, knew a lot about it, our mission was to know more about something we know a lot about. We knew exactly where we would fight the soviet union on the Central Plains of europe, again, it would look like this. We knew what coalitions we would fight that enemy, it was nato. Okay . In that coalition, it didnt change very often. It wasnt like, well, the country would say, you know, im going in nato and then be out, for weeks. We got in and didnt change who got in and out of nato. When you start thinking about it, what we had in the challenge in the army we built. We had an army focused on the voeft soviet union, a wellknown enemy. We were a part of nato, a wellknown coalition, so we built an army to deal with that. And so, what we did was build an army to deal with a known problem. When you build an organization to deal with a known problem, you build it a certain way, okay . You buy certain kinds of equipment, buy equipment a certain way, train people a certain way. And so, this, lieutenant perkins, a known enemy, a known problem. He said, okay, perkins, take your tanks and dig them in 1500 meters. This is your location, and then the first on the soviet would come on over and second echelon and deal with them as they come at you. The way well train you perkins, every 90 days youre going to go up to this same location we called this the gdp, general defense plan. Youre going to go there and recon it again and again and again so youre going to learn more about something you already know a lot about. Youre going to rehearse it over and over and over and have a little battle book that has maps and youre going to line on it where your routes are and where you would cache ammo and things like that. If the balloon goes up, world war iii, execute the script. Open your battle book and the routes at certain times and execute the script that youve been rehearsing every 90 days. You see, thats how you build an army to deal with a known problem. You completely rehearse over and over and over again a kind of script and thats how you train lieutenant perkins when i came in the army. So, when i became the tradoc commander, they said, dave, i think the world is changing look out to 2015 and build an army for that. Now, what ive come to understand and experience throughout my career is that we are nt arent particularly good at we have a perfect track record of being wrong were actually going to fight. So, a lot of people, as were looking out, we took that into account and when i speak to groups, they say youre the future guy for the army and im like, i guess so. Theyre like, well, they tell me about 2050 what they want me to do is give them a prediction. Well, what are we going to do with the mideast, what are we going to do in the baltics, in the korean peninsula. Really, when i look to the future, its unknown, i dont know. Theyre saying, so thats it . Youre giving up . Im describing the future, unknown. Youre not going to do anything about it . What are you, stupid and lazy . I wont argue that point, but the issue is, actually thats all i need to know because i dont need to predict the future. What i really need to do when you build an army is describe the difference. Predict the future you get to a level of specificity which actually becomes dysfunctional. You become so official youve suboptimized the army for something thats not going to unfold. What were doing is describe the future in a way with enough clarify to put pieces in place for an army pretty much youre sure youre going to need. So i said thats what were going to do and thats what we did with our last operating concept. And so i grew up with the battle, which is this one. And when we published in last october, we did the same thing when we did this, im told thats the Gold Standard. We did exactly the same thing and we came up with exactly the same product only its completely different. Its exactly the same only completely different. But its exactly the same, but completely different. So when in a complex world, its the Army Operating concept created known, 2531, you all know that, its written by tradoc and the problem were trying to solve is when in a complex world. This is the concept i grew up with, the one i wrote, its completely the same only completely different. Clarify, in case any of you are Naval Academy graduates, the first difference is, this is in color and this is black and white. Now, thats more than just a silly marketing ploy, but so i describe this one here, i said, so the first thing operating concepts have to do is describe the environment that youre going to operate in the future. And we describe this here with this word complex. Complex you define as unknown, unknowable and constantly changing. Unknown, unknowable, constantly changing, you physics majors, something in and of itself changes it. In the future as well. If you nothing something about it, its almost certainly not going to happen. If you know about it, you do something and its not going to happen. Do we ever fight the soviet union on the Central Plains of europe. No, i would argue we know a lot about it so it never happened. So when i tell folks the future, i say, i just just describe the future so it is this. Leave it exactly the same thing and a completely different answer. We told you this was what, the soviet union, Central Plains of europe. Nato. Its unknown, unknowable and constantly changing. Both of these describe the future. In general terms. This was describing a known problem. This is describing an unknown problem. So i tell folks, the guy that designs the army, i only have to know one thing about the future. Is it a known future or unknown future. Thats describing, not predicting what can happen in the middle east. All i have to do is know if its known or unknown. If the future is known you design a kind of army, you write a kind of dock doctorate. You train people differently. I get asked this question a lot. We went to a venue once and i was sort of token land sky. Way i was an army there. And we had a navy add rat and air force officer talking about the future and kind of going down the panel, as it works out i was the last guy so they aukd talked to the air force general. They said tell us about the future of the air force and he explained well have stealth fighters and technical stuff well have. Im reassured because i want to be in a country that has that air force. It sounded, you know, very good, well thought out and then to the navy admiral. Were going to have undersea this and south seas kind of things and very specific what theyre going to do. Wow, thats good i want a country with that kind of navy. I like what the air force guy and navy guy says. Okay, perkins, youre the future guy with the army. Tell us about the future. And what they really wanted me to do is what . Predict the future and they said, you know, sometimes you army guys are kind of shortsighted we want you to look out 50 years. Look out 50 years and basically predict the future of whats going to happen. So i pause for a while and i one of my previous assignments in the army did some stuff with media and things and they teach you with the interviewer, somebody asks you a question or its a tough question, you know, just respond with another question. As we asked the question, okay, perkins, i want you to predict the future 50 years from now. And a pause for dramatic event i say, look, is that really the question to be asked here tonight . Buy me a little bit of time. Lets think about that. I dont think thats really possible. I dont think thats very useful. Lets assume i was here 50 years ago when you asked me that question. Youre asking me to predict 50 years out with a level of specificity that i dont think is useful, but you keep pushing me on it so lets assume this was 50 years ago and you were asking me this question. I said, my answer might go Something Like this. And i said, remember, 50 years ago, the World Trade Center wasnt even built. So i said, what if went Something Like this, well, 50 years from now. Whats going to happen . I dont know, and like ten years from now, but were going to build two Tall Buildings to the tip of manhattan and they will become the Financial Center of the world and im sure why is this army guy talking about this, whatever, let them go. And say, yeah, so were going to as im predicting the future. Very specific. Ten years from now build two Tall Buildings, they dont exist now, but were going to build two Tall Buildings and then whats going to happen, a very large attack on the continental United States and the result of that attack will be such that it causes more deaths than pearl harbor, more casualties than pearl harbor. They will be thinking what is this guy talking about . And one of the other results of that attack is that two Tall Buildings that dont exist now, and were going to build ten years from now, 30 years from now theyre going to tumble down. And looking longterm, we dont have buildings yet. We are requesting to build buildings. 30 years after theyre built, the United States will be under attack, more deaths than pearl harbor and one of those the two buildings that dont exist now will be crumbling down. Im sure that they think where is he going . General, youre saying the United States will undergo an attack more deaths than pearl harbor. Right. What is the enemy going to be armed with thats going to cause thousands of people to die on continental United States . Death rays, neutron bombs, laser guns . What is it . What kind of futuristi