Thanks a lot appreciate it Well, how y'all doing this afternoon? it's always good to be to be back to my alma mater here and You know, it's always a pleasant view coming over the bridge seeing my old Set of quarters there out at Ford Adams. I was at a $20,000 house on a million dollar lot and then the war college is here it's For for your army folks out there. You should rest well at night. I think we were just talking at lunch. I think Four of the armies Currently sitting four star generals or Navy War College graduates to include the chief of staff in the army and the vice chief of staff in the army So as I always say at least well, I know for sure the army values a Navy War College Education greatly as I'm sure the other services do so it's it's great to be able to come back Here and talk to you about Kind of a number of things. I'll cover a broad swath of topics But hopefully have a point of continuity through them and since here at the war colleges We like to focus on strategic Topics and sort of at the strategic level That will also be one of the things that I focus on kind of bringing you back there and how the army is thinking about it Within the joint context what we think some of the challenges are in how we are going about doing that The first thing I'll do those kind of contextual eyes Sort of my role in the army and so you can have an idea of why it is I'm talking about the things I'm talking about and then also maybe to generate questions and so I Tell folks one of the things that leaders do is they contextualize The environment they're operating and they contextualize the environment that their organization operates in And they contextualize the environment of what they want specifically their folks to do in that so I find as I Go around the country and even our army in the world One of the things I have to contextualize is what is training in doctrine command? You know, what is training in doctrine command? What is it for? I always tell folks figure out first what you are for before you decide what you do those are two different things and so Even the folks inside the army because they're familiar with certain parts of trade-off, but maybe not the rest of it I don't have too many slides and since I'm a former armor officer. Most of them are pictures And I really hate to even have a line of block diagram But to sort of give you the clarity of training doctrine command. I do find that That is probably the most useful way to doing it and of course You don't get credit for military briefing unless there was a line of block diagram in it So you all get full credit today. So if you can put up the first slide So this is intuitively obvious here as I say as I go around the world no other army has a training in doctrine command in fact None of the other services do the marines the Navy the Air Force, etc. So so that means one of two things either we're off base and trade-off is nothing but excessive overhead or Maybe it's working right at least for us And all you don't have to answer me at least publicly now whether or not you think your service or your nation has a right Not having a trade-off or whether you are you might be on to something, but Let me kind of talk you through what training and doctrine command does for our army What it's for and then maybe it might be clear. So one of the things Well, let me kind of walk through the big pieces here So we have you know the bloated command group structure up there like every organization does and you know I have myself and this our major and You know drivers and various things like that and then as we sort of come down here There's a couple of major components of it one is Army capabilities integration center they really do the futures work for the army I'm going to come back to that fact I was having a conversation at lunch as we're approaching to the joint aspect I'm trying to get a clear idea of how the Navy and Air Force and Marines do it So I unplugged into them as well as our coalition partners That's under the able leadership of lieutenant general HR McMaster He's an institution even in himself a great asset for the army well-published author And he really does the future work. We have some niche capabilities here asymmetric warfare group and Rapid equipping force to get stuff into the field very quickly These came about because of our IED threat in Iraq initially They used to work for Department of the Army and now they've been moved down to training in doctrine command I'll come back to that Then we have combined arm center. This is out at Fort Leavenworth and really lieutenant general Bob Brown out there A Navy War College graduate by the way What he does is he does a number of things for one things he really owns all of Branch school structure in the army So the intelligence school the aviation Center So he trains all our pilots all our tank drivers our artillery man our cyber people Anything if you are going to school in the United States Army that all results down here These are called centers of excellence and then you can see all the branches aviation air defense armor infantry, etc MPs Chemical they're all underneath the combined arm center They also do our lessons learned and they write all of our doctrine out of the combined arm center as well And then over here we have US Army recruiting command So when you drive around the country and you see armed forces recruiting signs up there and say oh, that's training in doctrine command So trade-off recruits the United States Army US Army cadet command so we run ROTC for the army 300 schools and universities across the country and then US Army Center for initial military training. That's all the basic training advanced individual training basic officer training, etc Like that so that's that's sort of all under the business team Empire of training and doctrine command so a lot of different things that are done by all the other services But they do them in different places and with different people the army has kind of put them All into one big group now right now when you look at it says, you know But it it kind of looks like the island of misfit toys there It's stuff that sort of nobody else wanted it doesn't fit together because you got basic training you have recruiting you have ROTC You have the future of the army you have helicopter pilots you have cyber experts kinds of seem like the island of misfit toys So let me kind of walk you through this how it operates And then it might be clear about why it is we're doing what we're doing with regards our operating concept for the army One of the monikers the trade-off cast is we are the architect of the army, so we designed the future of the US Army and We do that right over here under the able leadership of lieutenant general HR master And what we do is we look out to the future. We're looking out to 2025 to 2040 and we try to describe The environment that we're going to be operating in and then once we describe the environment to 2025 2040 We start coming up with the first-order capabilities That the United States Army has to have as part of the joint force to deal with that future that we're describing and then we write it via a Concept so the United States Army is a concept base doctrine-driven army Not every army is not every services, but the United States Army is a concept base Doctrine-driven Army So what they do is they write the concepts which describes the operating environment They describe the first-order capabilities and then we write in trade-off all of the requirements for the army This is what we want a division to do this what we want a brigade to do This is what we want helicopters to do This is what we want tanks to do and then all of the schools down here at the aviation center Major General Mike Lundy. He is working on the next series of future vertical lift for instance for the US Army If you go down to the maneuver Center of excellence you know the armor and infantry they're designing the next tank or the infantry fighting vehicle or whatever in accordance With the requirements that we have set about out here So what happens is we write the requirements and then we start coming up with a first-order capabilities And they generally are capabilities that these people produce so they start working with that and then we start working with the Army staff To resource those capabilities prioritize them etc like that into the joints process So the first thing we do is we have to do a blueprint for the Army But if you were going to build a house There's a couple of ways to build a house You can go to an architect and get a blueprint Or go to eplans.com and download a blueprint or whatever you got the blueprint and then you could you know You go out and hire a contractor and say okay. I want this. It's three bedroom two-bed house hire a contractor and they start building the house or You can go to a design build firm that some of you may have used to build house It's kind of a turnkey operation you walk in you say I want a three bedroom two-bed house Design build for them one-stop shopping. They go okay. We got it You know we're gonna crank out the design and then we'll build it for you come back in a year We'll give you a key to the front door That's really what trading and doctrine command is for the United States Army. We are a design build firm Okay, so we design the army and then instead of kind of subcontracting it out then actually we start building it So if you are a contractor building a house the first thing you do is you get the blueprints, okay? This is what I need get my Ford F-150 pickup truck I drive down to Home Depot and say I need plywood. I need sheet rock 2x4 Some screws etc like that come up with this whole bill of lading. Well, that's what these folks do here Come up with a blueprint for the army say I need an army this big I need this many soldiers I need this many officers. So these people Start bringing in the raw materials. We go out and recruit the army that We sort of have designed and say okay. This is this is the raw materials. We are a a Soldier-centric force that that is our main weapon system soldiers So they are the main acquisition part of the of the sort of the essence of the army So recruiting command goes out and recruits the soldiers and connect command goes out and gets about 76% of the officer corps and brings them in Boom dumps them on the driveway a trade ox at a had the blueprint. Here's all your soldiers. Here's all your officers What are you gonna do with it? Then what's the next thing we do? We start building it and we start we give it to these folks here And we send it to basic training. We send it to advanced individual training We sent him the basic officer course except and we start building this You know frame of this two bedroom or the three bedroom two bath house We get built out framed etc like that and then we give it to forces command Who makes ready the army in unit sets? Tines for gaze division. So it was general milley's now a chief staff the army now general ab abrams And he makes ready the army and then if the nation calls upon it We give the army to combat commanders and they fight the army they fight the army for a while They go you know what I want to improve the army I want more lessons learned. I want more doctrine. I want more leader development techniques, etc So what happens is they give it back to training doctrine command and what do we do with it? We send it to the captain's career course. We send it to combine or commanding general staff college. We send it Out to the star majors academy we put him back in PME give him more doctrine give him more lessons learned etc like that Boom kick it back out to the force force calm makes ready combat commanders fight it So what trade-off really does is we design the army we acquire the army We build the army and we improve the army force calm makes ready the army and combatant commanders fight the army So if you are a car law, that's a whole semester the army war college right there How the army works so see you guys will get credit for that as well So what trade-off does is we design the army we acquire the army We build the army and then we improve the army and it's done in one So now you start taking a look at this. Okay, it doesn't look quite as much like the island of Misfit toys because it's all in here You have the people that Come up with the capabilities that write the requirements that acquire the requirements that then improve the requirements and write the Doctrine and train the doctrine on it on it on like that It's kind of one-stop shopping so when the chief of staff in the army says I want a new army He can point to one place and say get me one go out and get me one Because of that we spend a lot of our time especially right now thinking about the future What is it that what is the army for? What role does the army play and the joint construct and then what is the US military for? What is our nation going to be doing in the future because you've got to start working on this thing ahead of time And so that's what we're doing right now And so as I said, we're a concept based doctrine driven army So we started off with a concept if you go to the next slide, so this is kind of a pictorial version of it and This is a manually put out Last year in October, you know euphemistically known as trade-off pamphlet 525-3-1. I'm sure you all know that But more accurately described is the army operating concept This is the concept that we put out We put them out whenever we think sort of the world is changing dramatically We put this out last year. It's been out about a year. It's called win in a complex world What we're saying is that the problem that we have to deal with and what this does is it describes the future of the world Doesn't predict it two different things it describes it and then it and then it describes the first order capabilities So we think the army has to have within the joint construct Which then we start working through all the schools and centers and coming up with specific requirements to build the Capability to accomplish what we're trying to do is win in a complex world now Let me walk you through a couple of things is a you know a pictorial representation of You know a 40-page document there, but a couple of things come out in the first thing I'll start with is a tile there win in a complex world so since I'm the Doctrine guy of the army have come to find out that words have meetings and What we like to do in the army since have words have meanings is to take the word and give it a meaning and define it so that we Don't talk pass each other So when I say attack or defeat or defend you all we know what that means So we don't have to get into a long discussion of it. That is the power of doctrine a lot of people think doctrine is overly confining Actually, I think is fairly empowering because we use our doctrine I'll give some examples and that about how you think and talk about War not specifically what you do all the time, but how do you think about it? How do you talk about it so that we get a common visualization and we have a common language to discuss it? But contrary to popular belief it is not confining us to specifically The details of what you have to do in most cases, but it focuses on the outcome that we're trying to achieve without that What happens is you end up talking past each other all the time and one of the things you have to do is come up with definitions of words so When in a complex world, let me first talk about the word complex again, we say that We're trying to describe the future and we describe the future is that it's complex We define complex is unknown unpredictable and constantly changing Unknown unpredictable and constantly changing And at first people may say well, that's I'm not sure that's very can't you get to any level of detail beyond that? They'll say because what they'll want is a prediction. Hey, are we what are we gonna do about Iran? What are we gonna do about Syria? What are we gonna do about North Korea? What are you gonna do about China? What about this because they want that level of prediction that quite honestly is not Generally useful because generally we are very bad and predicting the specifics like that what we do is describe What the world is going to look like and what our enemies will do for us? That sometimes is a very difficult thing to get sort of through people's head because they want Predictions they want accuracy of predictions because they want to design in this case an army for a very specific mission To do a very specific thing in a very specific part of the world See now I grew up in that kind of army because I grew up at sort of the height of the Cold War It is an armor officer My first assignment was in Germany Along the inter-german border and they said hey lieutenant Perkins this When when this thing goes down World War 3 starts This is the 1500 meters you're going to and you're gonna take your five tanks And you're gonna dig them in and this is it and here's the road march tables to get there We're gonna rehearse it every year with a redeployment of forces to Germany reforger Every 90 days you're gonna go up there and recon it and then you're gonna get to know the German Unit on your right the British unit on your left and you know We'll constantly run through these rehearsals, etc Because that was dealing with a known enemy in a known part of the world with a known coalition NATO We knew who the coalition was and that coalition didn't change very often It was hard to get in NATO. It was hard to get out of NATO. It's not like well. I'm in NATO Monday I'm leaving on Thursday. I think I'll come back in next Wednesday, etc It was a pretty set Coalition and it had a pretty set decision-making process You could have said it's kind of bureaucratic, but I still have my blue NATO handbook and There was a way to get a decision or an agreement not to make a decision one way or the other And so that's a known world what we're saying the future. We're going into we don't know Who we're gonna fight. We don't know what the coalition is We don't know what the ROE Rules of engagement will be we don't even know what weapon system the enemy is going to have when I was growing up all T72s were bad It was you know all T72s were bad. Okay now we get T72s in NATO So you can't you don't even know what weapon system is a bad weapon system because and that's a completely different kind of world So I tell folks look I Only need to know do you want me to design an army to deal with a known problem or an unknown problem? That's all the level of clarity. I need because those are two different kind of armies If you were building an army to deal with a known problem with a known enemy a known part of the world known coalition You train people differently You develop people differently you buy different kinds of material and you buy things differently Very different if you're if you say you I want to build an army for the unknown You train people completely different you develop it differently you buy different stuff and you buy stuff differently Okay, and I'll get back to that what the impact has From my point of view, that's the only amount of clarity I need do you want an army to deal with a known problem or an unknown problem? Two different kind of armies in a macro sense. I'm looking at the army in general the next word out there is and so I tell folks since I Become the trade-off commander. I get a lot of Feedback and that's good. You know professional organization the army. We want feedback collaboration Sometimes that feedback can be in the form of pushback Which is fine, you know, we'll take constructive criticism well The biggest pushback that I have received and he is a long list of competitors for that honor Since we put this out. What do you think it might be for putting this word in it? For putting that word in it. Okay, because what they'll say is hey Perkins win Define win and especially if I spend time in DC or the Beltway and I go to the think tanks I Sometimes I call them group think tanks because I get a lot of the same questions the same group from different groups And I said what do you mean by that go? Well, you know the army can't define when Definitely the trade-off can't commander can't define when I said what do you mean they go? Well? There's a political aspect to win. There's an economic aspect to it There's a coalition aspect to it. There could be a cultural aspect. There's all kinds of aspects to I said Yeah, that's right. I said I said actually that sounds like a strategic concept win They said exactly I said that's why we put the word in there Because we want you to think about this from the strategic point of view So when because you win and lose at the strategic level of war, that's where you win and lose that the strategic level of war So when I was growing up Lieutenant Perkins known a problem set into German border We had early in battle doctrine some you may have Actually read about it in history books. Maybe some of your old doctor never and the problem there on the first chapter said what are Concept that what there was how to fight outnumbered and win Fight outnumbered in win Okay, so it was a problem because you look at the Soviet Union you look at NATO known problem known enemy known Situation for us add up their stuff add up our stuff. We have less Okay, so we're outnumbered. So how do we fight outnumbered and win? So the in the first chapter of that manual that concept is that the problem the army has to figure out is how to fight out number to win and it also said The early in battle was the army's concept for applying combat power at the tactical and operational level of war Very interesting that in that manual FM hundred dash five few million hundred dash five. It says this is the army's Concept for applying combat power at the tactical and operational level of war in order to fight outnumbered and win It's very interesting I thought when I read it because it's specified the level of war that we were in design the army to be optimized at and So as I tell folks since I've been in trade-off commander, I get a lot of feedback But the feedback I get generally kind of goes like this. Hey Dave You know the future of the army since you're the future guy You're thinking about that the future of the army really is All about laser pointers You just need to buy more laser pointers because see if you go like this it collates all the photons in one area Leadership is about providing light and direction so you can focus people in the right direction and so like that They're expeditionary because they can fit your cargo pocket. You know, they're shiny. Everyone loves shiny objects So the future of the army is laser pointers You just need more as laser pointers and then someone else to come out. No Dave Really the future of the army is bottled water because life is all about hydration if you stay hydrated That you think more clearly you're healthy, etc. Like that. And so what I tell folks a lot of feedback I get Really are focused on small answers small answers by this have one of these This is how many people are an infantry squad You know, you need this many tanks you need this many brigades. Those are actually small answers relatively speaking and so I get a lot of Cottage industry small answers. I you know, I like this. I want more of those. You should be more like this You should be less like this, etc. You know these very anecdotal small answers. I tell folks really What you need to do and what leaders do all those you which is all of you when you leave here You'll be a leader is Ask big questions and don't get consumed by small answers. That's what leaders do is ask big questions and so when I started looking at this and Looking at previous concepts we had fight out numbered and win and that specifically said The army operating concept for the tactical operational level of war and I it caught me by surprise I said actually I had never really thought about opening a manual and that manual specifically said what echelon of war it was for You know, I've never remember opening a manual say in case of tactical level of war Do not use this manual use the next version or something But actually this one said the tactical operational of war. So actually I went and spoke with some of the original authors And I said, well, you know, why did you put that in there? In fact, you know, you might want to rethink it again because we know there's three echelons of war and you left one out You said specifically tactical operation. They said a Perkins. You have to understand a couple things We started writing that concept in 1974 So where was the United States Army in 1974? coming out of Vietnam and They said, you know what we had a lot of challenges in the army back then we had consumed our non-commissioned officer Corps We did not have a culture of training. We didn't have a Modernization plan we had drug problems. We had race problems. We had a lot of challenges in the army And so at the senior army Leader level we had discussions about this and we knew there are three levels of war tactical operational strategic but we said If we can just focus the tactical operational level now and kind of get our house together That will be enough to keep us busy for a couple of weeks. We're gonna eat this elephant a chunk of the time So they specify in the concept. This is for the tactical operational level of war and so I go back and tell folks so Actually, it's very powerful Because when I say leaders do they ask big questions. They don't focus on small answers And back then when they started writing that which really was the Bible I grew up in the army the first question those authors the army leadership addressed is what echelon of war are we going to design the United States Army for? That's a pretty significant question. Isn't it when you say that's an adequately big question What level of war are you going to design the United States Army for?  And then when you get all these small answers, you can't compare them to the initial problem that you're dealing with So That's why in this one we say when in a complex world Complex being defined is unknown unpredictable and constantly changing and when Denoting the strategic level of war. Okay, so we've started to ask those big questions What environment are we going to operate in a known environment or unknown? We said unknown what level of war do you want to design the United States Army for? We're saying tactical operational and strategic level of war now One of the things I always tell folks is Never lose clarity in the search for accuracy never lose clarity in the search for accuracy I'm not I'm not advocating being inaccurate when I'm saying is too much at least in the army We can get consumed with such level of accuracy that we have lost all clarity about what we're trying to do So we're in my office one day and we're working on the operating concept and we had named it or anything I'm I said folks we have to define the problem here. Let's define the problem Before we come up with a solution define the problem I looked at air land battle and they said fight outnumbered and win purely clearly defined problem fight outnumbered and win and therefore they said we're gonna have to come up with a Doctrine that we use our Air Force to fly deep commit, you know attack uncommitted echelons We'll build an M one-tenth it can maneuver through the depth of the enemy formation will build an attack helicopter That can engage and track 16 vehicles once everything we built Was designed to fight outnumbered and win because we had defined the problem fight outnumbered and win So I said that's pretty clear. So I said come back to the problem with me So all the smart folks in trade-off went off and they come back with this four-page Tradition like document and I tell folks traditional like is not always a term of endearment And as four pages that were very very accurate Okay, non-nation state actors with nation-state capability weapons of mass destruction human trafficking Transnational this transnational that apparently nowadays that you put the word transnational in front of something is bad So on and on and on it was four pages a very accurate description of problems That the army and then the United States could get involved with I looked at I said, but this is not very clear No one's going to read four pages. Let alone remember it. I need clarity All right, sir. We got it boom.   First of all never lose clarity in the search for accuracy and to come up with forcing functions So we're going from four pages of accuracy to two pages. I'm like cease work. It's not very clear So give me give me the old Concept hundred dash five fight out number to win. I said it's not very clear So that's clear and I said see how clear it was that to find the problem. We're outnumbered Fight out number to win. We're gonna partner with the Air Force joint combined arms on and on and on and you know to help Just to find what kind of tank we want what kind of Helicopter and so I said so that's the example of clarity. So forcing function Fight out number to win fight out number wins. I said six syllables. You have six syllables to to describe the Problem that the United States Army is going to solve for the next 60 years six syllables They're like sir, come on.  Can't you get better guidance in that? How about seven? No six Win in the complex world Okay, so we're gonna get this thing down to six syllables win in a complex world It is going to define the problem that we're going to design the most powerful land for us The world is ever known for the next 60 years So if you have six syllables to define the problem the most powerful land force the world has ever known Is going to be designed around you've got to squeeze every ounce of blood out of those six syllables, right? You've got to get everything you can out of each syllable. So complex have already defined as Unknown unpredictable and constantly changing. I said, it's not only unknown. It's probably unknowable It's kind of like the Heisenberg principle the fact of measuring something in and of itself changes That's sort of like the future if you know something about the future What are you probably going to do about it?  So what's probably gonna happen something? We don't know too much about did we ever fight the Soviets in the Central Plains of Europe? No, why well for one reason? We probably knew a lot about them. We've prepared for them except like that. So what happened? Things we didn't know too much about al Qaeda Taliban World Trade Center IEDs things. We didn't know much about Because again, if you know something about it with regards to the future There's probably a good chance that that actually is not going to happen So probably what is going to happen is something you haven't thought about yet So how do you develop a force to do that? So that's complex when means we're going to focus the tactical operational and strategic level of war So a lot of blood out of that, but got to get more they get 60 years of army out of this So now the order of the words is important. So a previous concept was fight outnumbered and win Fight outnumbered and win. So what am I telling you to focus on primarily? Fight right in other words the first thing I want you to think about is how to fight outnumbered and win So the first thing you come to mind is how do I fight? Okay, if the order of the words is important, what am I telling you the first thing you need to think about is? how to win That's different than initially thinking about how to fight now You must I'm not we're not walking away from fighting. Okay, because here's the other part Not only is your of the words, but the sequence is important Fight outnumbered and win. What's the implied? Relationship there in order to win you must fight right fight outnumbered and win to win you must fight here What am I saying? just when You may not have to fight but Safety tip, okay, and it's not even a four-day weekend for you army guys. You're gonna get your safety brief You're gonna be careful when you say oh, so you think you can fight without winning Gonna be very careful Especially if you spend some time in Washington DC like I do and you go across a river this there There's a big hill with a big building on it and you go up there and talk to folks and they say I heard the army's thinking about building army that can Win without fighting. I heard the trade-off commander say the army that can win without fighting I think I'm interested in army that that actually sounds like a pretty cheap army. I Mean really I mean one that doesn't have to fight one that can win without fighting That's probably a cheap army probably mainly like staffs and bands and things right is it okay? Be very careful about this Safety if you want an army or a joint force and you enjoy they can win without fighting First of all that means the only way you can even attempt to have a force that can win without fighting if it if that everybody knows your Current adversaries or your potential adversaries absolutely know Without a doubt that if it comes down to a fight you will kick their ass Unquestion if that is the case then you might have a chance to win without fighting Okay, because you have such a level of deterrence capability that it seems almost suicidal to pick a fight but if there is doubt in people's minds with regards to your capability to Win the fight somebody might pick a fight So if somebody says yeah, I'd like to have the capability to win without fighting generally what I say is break open the checkbook Okay, we're going to start building capability here as we speak now There's a lot more to it because that's at the strategic level which involves the economic the political coalition all that kind of stuff But what we really would like to do is win without fighting So even though it's only six syllables. There's a lot of implied tasks here There we're looking from an army is part of the joint world that we want to win in a complex world We want to build an army as part of the joint force They can win in the tactical operational and strategic level of war in an environment that is constantly unknown and constantly changing and That if possible, we have enough deterrence capability that we never have to fight and always win other than that We're really not asking for too much Okay, so we're saying that's the kind of army we want to build and actually that's sort of enough clarity That's enough clarity for right now now. We got to start writing their forced order capabilities Well, if you want this army's part of the joint force, they're gonna have the ability to win at the strategic level with or without fighting and again remember you the primary Way you can even do it without fighting is that you are par excellence when it comes to fighting. That's a given We're saying there's a number of things that you capabilities that you have to have and this is kind of where we Divert a little bit from the previous way of doing things as well Is that we're focusing on capabilities versus things and I'll come back to that we had discussion of it lunch So these are capabilities. They're not things one of it is when we talk about at the strategic level is As we say the army is a foundation of the joint force not the most important not always in charge or anything like that But we're saying we provide the foundational capability of which we then use all the elements of the joint force in the end to compel activity Because if you're thinking about a strategic resolution to something you are looking at Compelling activity of the enemy One of the ways you compel activity is you must be able to consolidate your gains At the tactical and operational level you can have a series of Exchanging fire fights. Okay, because that's what you do the tactical operational level of war you fight Okay, that's why when the previous army manual said This is focusing in the tactical operational level of war It's understandable why the first word was fight because what do you do the tactical level of war you fight? We're saying this is a strategic level of war. So what is our first word? Win because you win and lose at the strategic level of war The way you win and lose is you take those tactical and operational victories and you Consolidate them in a manner, which is sustainable. They have to be sustainable Sustainable consolidation of gains within the interests of the United States. I mean, let's face it We're not an altruistic force. We exist to further the national security and national policy Decisions and goals of our nation and our coalition partners So one of the ways to win at the strategic level is you must consolidate gains in a sustainable manner Not a temporary manner a sustainable matter a manner that is sustainable Militarily a manner that is sustainable politically a main a manner that is sustainable throughout the coalition Etc like that. How do you do that? One of the ways is you have to integrate partners? That's one of the ways you get to sustainable outcomes. You have to be able to integrate partners now. You notice here I don't know that I'm sure the chief of staffers and call me in for counseling But this is a pictorial diagram because we like pictures of our 40-page manual and you can see a little Temporary activity going on down here. We get the US Navy UNHCR special operations forces space cyber Maritime mega cities laterals etc like that NGOs actually don't have a picture of a tanker soldier up there Okay, this is an inherent joint concept as well as not even joint but multinational So when I say integrate partners, it's not only The Navy Marine Corps and Air Force. In fact, that's the easy part if you are The brigade from the 101st Airborne that is going to Western Africa to deal with Ebola Okay, you need to integrate the World Health Organization doctors without borders Whatever, maybe UNHCR etc like that. Those are part of your partners You've got to integrate them in and That has huge ramifications for the capability of your organization staffs the way you train people Develop them etc. If you're the brigade from the 101st Airborne that's in Western Africa dealing with Ebola and Doctors without borders walks in the back of your operation center. You can't say, okay Here's what we're doing. We're coming up with this big plan. What I need is your resident Command General Staff College graduate that knows how to do the US Army military decision-making process Send that person down here. We're gonna crank out some PowerPoint slides.  Okay, you've got to have those iron majors on the staff train that you know what Doctors without borders. Yeah, we've been expecting folks like you come on in We understand what you do our our military decision-making process has a way to work you in etc like that a by the way How do you communicate with each other? Well, we bought these little things here at Radio Shack And so we're talking back for no problem because they are communication stuff I can just dial you in and we can talk etc like that So when you say integrate partners that's actually a pretty high bar that means you have to intellectually integrate them You've got to integrate them from a planning point of view You've got to end up great them from a logistical logistical communications policy point of view That has a huge ramification for that means you when you're at the command General Staff College of the War College You better you have to train those people differently. They can't just understand the Army They have to understand the world when you buy a communication system. It better have a capability To integrate partners. You can't say well the only way you can talk to me is you have to buy my radio and have my Security Felix or like that. What does that pretty much mean? At best you'll get other Army folks And you wouldn't even get the whole Army sometimes so that has huge ramifications as they capability to integrate partners The other thing we have to think about at the strategic level is how do we present multiple dilemmas to the enemy? Because see that's at the heart of strategy, you know, this is the wrong place to be discussing strategy was my favorite course I was here But what you have to do is present multiple dilemmas to the enemy not a single dilemma Because generally the tactical and operational level of war we present single dilemmas to the enemy Which then eventually the enemy figures out how to mitigate it or deal with it It's sort of like that and then we go on to another single dilemma But see we're not consolidating gains and we're not putting them in a position of relative disadvantage So what we have to do is present multiple dilemmas to the army hence The biggest asymmetric Advantage us military has over any other potential adversary in the world is how we operate jointly Now we're not perfect. We're not perfect But I'm telling you having spent my time like most of you in all kind of parts of the world Nobody does joint like the u.s. Military and we're getting better and better at the interagency piece But it's even got good take it beyond that coalition partners NGOs and all that But we have to present multiple dilemmas to the enemy And many times that's kind of where we come up short Because we haven't thought through how the aren't how the enemy is going to view us and deal with this But see that's what our operating concept does it describes What the enemy will do with regards to the u.s. It doesn't predict who the enemy is it describes him So we what we've done is list some capabilities That the enemy is probably going to try to go after based on studying us everyone studies the u.s For one thing we're very easy to study you get your hands on just about anything we do and it's you know on YouTube or You know CNN or whatever? So let's Think of this scenario say i'm a An isis leader up in mozal In northern iraq you say you know what i'm up here doing the isis thing and i bet After i cut off x number of heads the u.s. Is going to come after me Okay, now what does the u.s. Do better than anybody else in the world? At least at the tactical operational level world We target people okay, we can target people unlike anybody else why Because when we focus the tactical operational level war and we're trying to fight out numbered and win We look at At war as a mathematical problem fight out numbered and win numbers So we look at as a math problem And so what we do is we've come up with very exquisite ways to acquire and service Targets because that's what you do at the tactical operational level of war You reduce the numbers To fight out numbered and when you reduce the numbers and the way you reduce the numbers is to acquire and service targets So war becomes a big mathematical exercise When you think about it from the tactical operational level So our enemies know that they know that they target that we can target just about anybody And so what are they going to do? We kind of say three things one. They will avoid our strengths They will avoid our strengths They will emulate our capabilities or they will use our strengths against us So when I say they're going to avoid our strengths, what do we say our strength is targeting? So what are they going to do? They're going to avoid being a target Because they say that's our strength So what does that mean? They probably will not coalesce in large armored formations in the middle of the desert anymore Okay, they will not coalesce in large formations. They will probably maybe take off uniforms They'll blend into the local population. They'll go subterranean Do you think these people like living underground? Okay No, they do that because we're so good at targeting because they're avoiding our strengths regardless of who it is Do you think it's easier to build the Atomic facility above the ground or under the ground? Why do they build it under the ground? Because we're so good at targeting. I told you so they were going to avoid our strengths Okay, so we always have to think if I'm building a strength someplace How easy is it to avoid? So within or or They'll use our strengths against us Because you know what they know we like to use what we're good at everybody does what you're good at, right? If you're a good baseball player, you don't try out for the soccer team You try out for the baseball team. So if we become very good at something we like to use that And then the enemy knows that they have two options. They'll either avoid us Subterranean blending the population or They'll use it against us. So back to this isis guy in mozo He said i'm cutting off heads here. I'm doing the isis thing I'm gonna I'm gonna play both ends of this off against the united states one is I will try I will try avoid being a target. So the leadership doesn't you know, doesn't uh go to command and staff meetings and have Large open formations everything like that. They're very dispersed. They blend in the population. They have underground stuff and so they're like we're going that line of action and They said, you know what I'm going to I read the us's manual. I'm going to present the us multiple dilemmas So one of my dilemmas is I will avoid their strengths. The other dilemma is I'm going to use their strength against them So I know the us loves to target people the other preeminent target people So what I'm going to do is I'm going to get some suicide bombers here So I'll get some suicide bombers. Therefore not a lot invested in pme health care retirement everything like that They're pretty low overhead I'm going to go on ebay by some cheap while Toyota pickup trucks are bad yet. I'll steal some pickup trucks that the us gave for the irankee forces Now I'm going to put these suicide bombers and pickup trucks. I'm going to start driving around Okay around mozal and then you know what's going to happen We're watching the news or in our operations center watching kill tv and all of a sudden we see an x appear on that pickup truck And we know what's coming next after that x appears on the pickup truck, right? kablam Okay, and so we destroy that pickup truck and there's high fives in the talk everything like that Because of the tactical level of war we won that exchange of firepower Okay, that white Toyota pickup truck did not do anything that at JDM that JDM was on was unscathed So we won that exchange of firepower but At the strategic level as I said strategic level has Not only a firepower part to it, but it's got an economic part So let's talk about the economic exchange equation here.  So how much money did that smart munition cost me? How many aircraft did we have up in the air? Servicing that the refuelers the chaotic stuff like that. So it's costing us millions of dollars To take out a four hundred dollar pickup truck So what's the economic exchange ratio of that? In fact, they say, you know what? About in the u.s. Enemy, I might keep this up for a while Because I'm at a very low cost putting them in an economic Disadvantages position Okay, so their strategic economic exchange ratio is a dilemma for the u.s. And I don't think this is sustainable Hence sustainable gains because it's all like gains in a sustainable manner I was at a briefing with all our cyber folks and they're talking about the cyber problem and So and so for into with a cyber problem they go sir don't worry. We got a problem. We got an institute We're going to do this. We're going to do that. We're going to do that Like well, how much is that going to cost? Ah, sir, probably 10 15 million dollars But you know, how long is it going to take to take a year or something? I said, well, how long do you think it took the enemy to develop this thing? Well, I know probably a couple weeks and a couple thousand dollars I said look we can no longer have million dollar solutions to hundred dollar problems If I come up with a million dollar solution to a hundred dollar problem First of all, I'm at a dilemma not the enemy one two. It's not sustainable What I need is a fifty dollar problem to a hundred dollar problem I need a fifty dollar solution to a hundred dollar problem And see that's why you have to think about in the macro level What level of war are you engaging these folks on and what is a dilemma for them? Okay What is the dilemma for them is something they value putting something they value at risk Something that they value not that we would value if they don't value lives Taking lives is not going to compel activity because you haven't got into the economic exchange ratio that is in your favor so And I list a number of sort of other things here We have to maneuver from multiple locations but able to have mutually supporting effect I see some concepts out there that have you that we we have folks at multiple locations um But mutually isolated Well the enemy would like that You've got to have multiple locations about mutually supportive So when you start designing aircraft or ground vehicles or something like that Can you move from one domain to another quickly? Etc. So this goes on and on but this is kind of a macro sense of how we're Thinking about the future differently thinking about the future differently next slide And one of the issues is and go to the next slide Is we're focusing on capabilities And that's actually somewhat of a difficult thing in the army as we transition because Again, if I go around dc and I have this book the first people say, okay, where's the list of things you're going to buy? I said, well, there's no There's no things in here what these are is first order capabilities. In fact, this doesn't talk about force structure It doesn't have an acquisition plan to it. It doesn't talk about how many divisions are in the army or anything And it doesn't say anything about money And like well, how can you even publish a book like that in washington dc? If you don't talk about force structure money and all that I said, that's not the purpose of this The purpose of this is to describe the environment we're going to be in And then what are the first order capabilities and then start prioritizing them? And this is where the army In some ways is a little bit different than some other elements of the joy force out there Not bad not worse etc like that as as I say As we produce the manual the intent must not to be overly parochial just adequately parochial When I say adequately parochial is to describe what the army does By operating primarily in the domain of land As a land power and how that interfaces with the rest of the other domains And the joint force So if you take a look You know it The other areas that we operate in If you take a look at say air and sea To be able to operate In those areas By definition you have to be in a piece of technology Okay, you just do it's kind of the laws of physics You can't be at 30,000 feet unless you are in a piece of technology Okay, you can't be a thousand miles offshore unless you can tread water unless you are in a piece of technology So you generally can't be operating in space unless you are in a piece of technology I mean, that's just a law of physics So to be in those domains Okay, you have you have to be in a piece of technology You have to be surrounded by technology because that's just the way it is Okay, so those domains do tend to focus on technology because you just aren't there unless you're in one And the domain that we operate in and land Most people in the world are there and they're not in anything They're just there So technology while a key enabler to land forces has a different characteristic to it Because it is not essential to operate in that domain Although it is very advantageous So what we focus on on land Is not the technology in and of itself But technology paired with soldiers as part of a formation As part of a capability for the joint force So what we focus on is capabilities Not necessarily technology Because when I go around especially to the appropriators and things like that what they are looking for Are a list of things to buy to fight Things to buy to enable me to fight What I tell folks is I'm not primarily focusing on a list of things to buy to fight I am focusing on how the army builds capability to win Buying things to fight versus capability to win is a very different focus Okay, now there are things involved, but that's not the primary, you know our Plan for the future is not a list of things It's a list of capabilities Okay, and here are some of the capabilities. So what we are doing is every quarter. This is the first year. This has been our year We have we have these war fighting challenges. We do five a quarter. So You know you do the math. There's 20 this year But a couple of things will pop out one as you can see they all kind of start with verbs these aren't things It's a capability. How do I develop situational understanding not let me buy an intel system Develop understanding is different than buying an intel box. Okay Uh develop agile and adaptive leaders conduct entry operations. Okay, that's an inherently a joint construct So we conduct these every quarter we do five of these and we bring in all the army folks We saw on that huge business team empire chart Plus our joint partners plus state folks and things like that because some of these Have a lot more to do even than just the kinetic part of it and what we're saying is Conduct entry operations. Well is probably a navy part of that there's a marine part of that Obviously an army part of that air force. There's all kinds of bits and pieces go to it You know counter wmd counter weapons and mass destruction. There's a huge political aspect to it There is an intel understanding part of it. There are mitigation aspects to it But is what happens is when we start focusing on capabilities Versus things What it does at least for us as an army is it does start to prioritize Eventually what things you need But what we look at is not the things that the person who owns that category prioritizes But we look at the things that provide us the biggest capability across the whole army I'm sure it doesn't happen in the other services But I run every now and then the army we can get a little stove piped Okay, and if I'm An armor guy an infantry guy my priority is I want the best tank Okay, so it's all but and if you it's all about in if I have a problem with tank Then the trades have to come with the tank you want a faster engine than you get a smaller gun tube Or there's you know, you're always trading with amongst yourselves Or if you're the Intel guy you've got your satellite or whatever it is and you've got this amount of money And if you want to do this you take this away smaller antennas, whatever We we would say with the army we have the pegs and like well you got to solve the problem with your own peg But the problem is that's not how wars fought The enemy doesn't just go after one of your things. Well, okay today We're just going after the intel war fighting function And then tomorrow we'll just go after the sustainers. No the enemy goes after The entire capability of the u.s. So we said we ought to and that's how you fight war, right? We don't send one thing out by itself We send out a formation of capabilities now We're saying that's our asymmetric advantage that if you have the right mix of capabilities you can present Multiple dilemmas to the to the enemy Okay, so maybe I don't want the perfect tank as hard it is for me to say is a former armor officer What I want is a tank that is adequately good enough within the formation And that formation has so many dilemmas that can present to the enemy that any given point in time The enemy is at a point of disadvantage. So when the enemy does their risk calculation may say, you know what? There are so many risks here. I can't mitigate them all at once. I think I might not pick a fight Now you've deterred your enemy because not only Are your capabilities so great, but they're so broad and there's so many dilemmas the enemy can't deal with them all simultaneously Okay, and so what we have is a list of capabilities of which and there are things that are cross cutting amongst all of them so we did one last quarter and we had developed situational understanding counter weapons mass destruction So I had the second infantry division commander from career was on, you know, like three in the morning over there conduct entry operations and developed agile adaptive leaders You can see leader development is one of our top capabilities that we need And so you would think well gosh those are completely different things leader development weapons of mass destruction entry operations What we kind of find out when we looked at the capability you started coming up with these common things that would service all of them So the second infantry division career goes, you know what? I've got a huge underground network because the enemy's going to avoid my strengths, which is targeting So they put everything underground So he said in Korea I have a big problem a lot of subterranean operations And there's probably all kinds of wmd and all that But and so if we were to go in there and deal with it, I've got to put WMD expert down every tunnel excel like that. We don't have that capacity in the army I can't build a huge force truck so that every tunnel has their own wmd expert or something like that and So the 82nd airborne division commander He was down to trade arcade cores doing entry operations goes. So you know what? I get I get to go there quick I got to go over there fast I need a small footprint. I can't take you know, I can't zero out the c17 fleet of the united states air force I got to go there quickly. I got to get operational excel like that General brown who owns agile adaptive leaders. He says, you know what? I've got to have training that's complex I've got to hook together multiple training centers. I can't bring everybody to the army together So each one is saying you know what I need is I need reach back Okay, so the second division commander said, you know what if I could have a camera On every infantryman that I put down a tunnel that then can see weapons of master structure Weapons of mass destruction is plugged into fort london wood. We're all our chemical expert in the army I can just have one center of chemical experts and I can feed that information in Then the 82nd airborne division commander said, you know what if I could take a small command and control element forward And I have all my intelligence asset analysis done in the back and all my logistical planning So if I had to reach back to go back there And then general brown goes, you know what if I could connect all our training facilities in the army together network So I can have battalions brigades divisions cores complexity. So if I could reach everything like that So, you know what one of the priorities is in the army now We have to develop a network and our reach back capability that we can link together all of our We call it home station as a docking station That we take all of our home station capability at four brag at four Carson and Fort hood And we instrument it so I can plug in wmd folks. I can Conduct training exercises. I can deploy very small footprints and lead the what we call our main command post back there And what does that mean? I got to get with Lieutenant general Halvorson who's our installation management command He's the guy that sort of runs all our post camps and stations So I got to get with him I got to get with the army g6 cio and say this is the priority for fiber optic etc. So like that so now Out of these capabilities are things but it's not even anything listed there Again, it's an enabling capability to get after multiple capabilities The problem is the army isn't designed to do that Our army is designed from an acquisition role and and resourcing all that is very stole pipe And so now what we have to do is move resources from one thing One stole pipes of things to another stole pipes of things so I can build capability So I can win at the strategic level in a world that's unpredictable So see why it's important to go through this as a mentor of mine says the intellectual leads the physical The intellectual leads the physical if you haven't thought through the problem If you haven't answered if you haven't asked the big questions Before you start smoke focusing on small answers You're going to get into a problem because if you haven't done the intellectual homework first You're going to come up to a solution that is actually not your problem Okay, so that's what our army operating concept is does is try to Ask the big question and define the problem from a strategic point of view Next slide so In the army we say we come up with a dot mill pf solution to this dot mill pf solution to a capability The first D is for doctrine doctrine organization training development material etc like that So This is our leadership doctrine and again the army is a doctrine Driven organization and this is 80 p6 oh our mission command, which is our command philosophy and our war fighting function When I first came into trade-off we had large field manuals and I was talking to the person in charge of doctrine The army I said well, how much doctrine are they go sir? We have like 500 field manuals And they're from one to 300 pages. I'm like, whoa, I probably haven't read them all That's where doctrine gives a bad name very confining etc So well, don't worry, sir, you know, we're going to update it all etc like that Well, we have And we've got it down. See this is the advantage of having a former omber officer as a trade-off commander Some of it does not have command of a lot of words. You get short doctrine. So now we're down to 15 books Okay, the guidance was each one had to be 10 pages This one is 12 because everything's possible in the army with a waiver, but um So there's only 15 books and the good thing about it again if in case you're pressed for time The first page is uh, almost a picture. It's a logic diagram So this is the logic diagram out of this book 80p 60 And what it is Is our doctrinal approach To how are you going to win in a complex world because what I say intellectual leads physical So we kind of have hey, we've got to win at the tactical operational strategic level of war I have to preside multiple dilemmas. I always have to be in a position relative advantage I got to sustain gains and I have to have gains sustained in there, you know, or sustainable manner, etc like that So we started to write this out now So the first thing is The good thing about these logic maps. So this is the book right here mission command philosophy is a command philosophy and war fighting function and Unified land operations is our war fighting capstone document 80p 60 the 30 And what we say what the army is for what is the army for? Is to seize retain and exploit the initiative Seize retain exploit the initiative. You notice it doesn't say seize the high ground Retain the bridge crossing or anything like that seize retain and exploit the initiative To get to a position of relative advantage Okay Now there's a couple of things in that because a lot of people say why wouldn't you say absolute advantage? And I said well because I told you complex is defined is unknown unknowable and constantly changing so everything's relative And so you always be have to be at a position of relative advantage.  I'm going to retain this I'm going to dig in overhead cover more bottled water laser pointers everything I need I'm digging in I'm going to retain this position of advantage See that works in a known world The world I grew up in if you retain the full of the gap you were going to be probably okay Okay, because we knew the Germans and the Brits and all those folks weren't going to change sides So you in a known world retaining the initiative is probably okay In an unknown world. It's not okay Because what you know will change constantly So if you're in this piece of high ground here and the enemy's down here But if overnight the enemy signs a coalition treaty with the folks up here And the sun comes up. Where are you now? You're at a position of disadvantage. Was it because anything that you did? No It's because the world changed and you didn't keep up with it So what we're saying in this world that is unknown unknowable and constantly changing You have to seize retain and exploit the initiative if you are not always exploiting the initiative To constantly get to a better position of relative advantage It's just a matter of time until your current position becomes a position of disadvantage Even if you don't change because what we're saying is the world is going to change The world is changing so quickly That it does not take long till the enemy avoids your strengths And so you cannot be Comfortable with only one dilemma to present the enemy So that's why we say well, then you've got to have a command philosophy that does that You have to be able to seize retain and exploit the initiative You always got to be one step ahead You've always got to be thinking through this because as I tell folks war is a series of temporary conditions War is just a series of temporary conditions. It really everyone I want an exit strategy Or how do we finish war? You really never finish it. It just moves to another level to another Phase of it really. I mean so, you know, we won the colvor. We're still dealing with russia We're still in the poon. It's just another phase. It's it's it has another characteristic not another nature The continuity of the nature war but a different characteristic. Why did we all where we always think I got to keep I have to keep exploiting this I get to exploit this get to another position there's another position advantage Or did we allow ourselves to get to a position of disadvantage? Because we thought it was over because we thought the competition of power was over because we forgot about the Continuity is a minute nature of war which is constant struggle of power okay So how do you do that? Part of it is how do you train and develop leaders? So all of our doctrine It's good to say since I'm in a joint facility like this is completely nested with joint doctrine except for one except for one The sixth war fighting function and joint doctrine is command and control the sixth war fighting function and army doctrine Is mission command? Now two things people go to me and say Dave Why why did you change command? Why did you do away with command and control? It's the same thing as mission command. What do you need? Just a OER sport form bullet so you can get MSM or something I said, well, I could use a bullet but It's actually two things one. We did not do away with command and control. It's in the book underlined in bold, okay So it's in the mission command book. It's underlined in bold. So for any of you army folks out there They say hey, you did away with command and control says no. I saw the trade out commander's book It's in there and it's underlined in bold It's just that it's not a war fighting function It is supported to the war fighting function because in a known world Command and control was defined as command. I issue a command control. I ensure compliance Command I tell you what to do control. I ensure compliance of what I told you what to do command and control What we're saying an army doctrine mission command is not focusing on control to assure compliance But it's balancing command and control balancing command and control to empower the initiative You don't control initiative. You empower initiative. It doesn't mean you are absent Command and control. It's just the function of command and control the purpose is no longer to ensure compliance but rather the empowerment Of exploitation of the initiative It's dramatically different Versus controlling compliance because see in a known world with a known enemy and a known problem set you focus on compliance Okay, in an unknown world with an unknown enemy with an unknown problem set You focus on exploiting the initiative to always be at a position of relative advantage Constantly changing three-dimensional economic advantage political advantage, etc like that You train people very differently You train people very differently. Okay, so it's not just a nuance discussion of definitions Because see when this lieutenant perkins joined the army A known problem set the soviet union central planes you have they say you're going to take your five m 60 Non-arised non passive tanks and you're going to dig them in. This is your 1500 meters This is it. I have 1500 meters Here's your road march tables in every 90 days You're going to go up there in your jeep and recon where your tanks are going and at the end of and if The germans put up a high power attention line figure out how you're going to take it down So you can fire the total missiles that they put a bridge can handle a tank find out where your pre Chambered shape charge is going to go again get to know the germans on your right that brits on the left We want you to know better something that you already know a lot about Just know it more and more and more and recon it in a battle book So when I was kind of clear I had a battle book in my safe You pull it out maps overlay grease pencil and when the big one came the intent was execute the script Just go through this go here Don't be late to the bridge crossing because you'll hold up fifth core if you're early you'll be in front of seventh core Execute everything as planned get there perkins 1500 meters dig in and just wait for it to happen That's how you train leaders to deal with the known world is you rehearse the similar scenario over and over and over again You rehearse and you recon it because you're expecting them basically to execute the script In an unknown world that doesn't work. And so lieutenant Perkins nowadays of which there is a lieutenant Perkins We say, you know, I I can't give you 1500 meters of where you're going. I have no idea who the enemy is I have no idea who the roe is. I don't know who's to your right I don't know who's to your left. The only thing I do know is you will not recon it every 90 days As a matter of fact the first time you will probably ever see that place is when you are there showing up for the fight And then you will have an roe which will probably change constantly You will have a coalition which will probably change constantly You will have caveats which probably change constantly and whatever is the position of advantage today could very well be a position of disadvantage tomorrow So don't focus on holding the full the gap only if that's advantageous So now how do you develop that lieutenant Perkins? You develop that lieutenant Perkins very different than you develop this lieutenant Perkins Because what did we do as an army with this lieutenant Perkins? We commanded him where to go And we controlled his movement there Don't be early. Don't be late be on time And this is exactly where you're going Are there any questions Perkins and just to make sure you're going to prove this every 90 days that you've got it down for me See that doesn't work in today's world. See that's why all I need to know is do you want me to build an army to deal with a known problem Or a not known problem because when you give me lieutenant Perkins He's either going to be trained this way or i'm going to train him this way I'm going to buy this material or i'm going to buy that material I'm going to buy this material this way and that material this way Very very different and how do you do this? Right here I say so if you're a commander or a leader you only have to do three things so I talk to the pre-command course Every month so I say look You only have to do three things as a brigade commander It's not like when I was a brigade commander when you really had to do a lot and know what you're doing Very simple only three things and I put them in a box and put a period in front of each one So I don't want to hear a complaint about how how difficult in the burden of responsibility of command is Only have to do three things the first one is drive the operations process as compared to attend it I've worked for some commanders that attended the process. I'm not sure really whether if they drove the process Drive the process through Understand visualize describe direct lead and assess What we're saying is you need to understand the environment Understand the players understand the caveats. It doesn't mean a lot of people think mission command means absence of restrictions Oh, it only works in war if you can do whatever you want. No, it doesn't it just means you have to understand those You have to understand the caveats Understand that the coalition could change every day understand your are we you need to understand Do you understand the world the doctors without borders folks? Do you understand their culture? Do you understand sort of their Their reason for being here their purpose. Do you understand that? Then once you completely understand the environment you're in all the players all their caveats What everybody's end state is which may not be the same as yours Understand why the coalition partners here once you understand that Then visualize visualize how you're going to take all of your Elements of combat power and array them in time and space to accomplish your mission Then once you based on a common understanding visualize the solution Describe it to people subordinates peers and superiors alike coalition partners describe it to them in a way that Results in the same visualization to them You notice it's not understand visualize tell In the army we can kind of get into the tell mode. Hey, you're gonna do this do this do this Do you think if i'm talking to uh folks in a prt That work for the state department do you think i'm going to describe what i'm doing differently than when i'm talking to third platoon? Very differently their frame of reference is completely different their end stays differently So it's not understand visualize tell it's understand visualize describe you have not described it until they have the right visualization Not you until they have the right visualization leading to a common understanding Then direct lead assess But you don't start directing until you have this common visualization based on a common understanding Command and control is tell Command i tell you to do this control. I ensure compliance That's why command and control is inadequate. We think for the future Because you can't just tell people to do stuff and control them You have to describe your visualization and then empower the exploitation of the initiative That's the only way you can always be in a position of relative advantage compared to a world that's constantly changing Then directly in assess but the assess part is different Because in the world i grew up with command and control command I tell you what to do control and sure compliance and then when i assess you i assess compliance with the command I assess compliance with the command So i was a division commander in iraq and i go down my operation center and plasma screens everywhere tiered seating And there's always an assessment center, of course.  Here's the good news Uh, we're going to be we're supposed to be an objective a by friday, but the good news is we're going to be there by thursday So our assessment of the compliance with the plan is green We're ahead of schedule. We're supposed to be objective a by friday, and we're going to be there by thursday But under mission command What I really need is an assessment of the adequacy of the understanding of the problem Not an assessment of the compliance with the plan what I really needed that day was my s2 or Operations officers get up and say sir the bad news is yeah, we will be an objective a by thursday instead of friday The problem is the enemy moved from a to b on tuesday So what we really are we're ahead of schedule of an irrelevant plan Okay, so we need to spend more time assessing our adequacy of our understanding of the problem Than assessing compliance with the plan So I've combated a multiple levels before and I guess I always left But it would have been the most important part of the brief when the guy was throwing up the chart I should have had the plans officer saying so we're going to do this We're going to do this to this and here are the indications that this plan is a piece of crap Here they are right here when you start seeing these things this plan is worthless And you need to direct me to rip it up and start again I apparently always left before that slide was brief But it really would be the most important slide for them to tell me because it's their assessment Of our understanding of the problem And guess what and the known world you really are focusing on assessment With your ability to control compliance with what's going on because in a known world The soviets are always the enemy. Okay, they're always trying to get to the full of the gap But in a known world all kinds of stuff's going on political discussions economic issues something like that And what may be a position of advantage today may not be a position of advantage tomorrow So developing leaders and training staffs and creating organizations that bring in Understanding versus measures of compliance. That's a very different kind of army That's very very different. So when people say well perk is what you've given up trying to predict the future I mean when you wrote up, we told you it was a soviets union since the planes of Europe What are you giving up trying to predict the future? I go. Yes. I have.  Well, we could argue that point But the issue is that that's not the future of the world that that's not that is an inadequate kind of army I think for the kind of world we're going to deal with in the future We have to have an army as part of a joint force They can always be in a position of relative advantage the tactical operational strategic level of war We're constantly assessing our understanding of the problem constantly integrating partners And coming up with a plan of which we can consolidate our gains in a way that is sustainable to us Um, and that means we're changing many things that we're doing the army our acquisition processes How we train people how we develop people what we teach at war college. What what we teach at basic training What we teach at basic training when they come off that bus and meet Their friend the drill sergeant with the you know smoky the bear hat We've changed a lot of things in basic training trying to build in critical thinking Understanding the bigger picture or something like that. Can't wait till you get the war college and say well I'm going to take the critical thinking elective Too late now Okay, what I'd like to do now is uh pause here and open up for questions recommendations big questions small answers Whatever So it's kind of you know trade arc army operating concept the army In one little, you know our brief or whatever like that So questions got to be questions Yes back there Sir, let's come in and Michael scarce us navy. Thank you for coming and talking to us today 2013 I graduated from cgsc And while I was there as a part of the curriculum after next yeah, I was wondering what you thought of it and Has anything been implemented? Yeah, actually Great effort there A couple of things that actually have come out come out of it And uh, it's cgsc in general and then specifically from that, you know the constant I don't know if you all get to hear the constant um Criticism we got I don't know if you agree with this is excess amount of contact hours So folks can have a don't have you know don't have time to think it sort of like that So we are looking at reducing contact hours to get to that aspect of it One of the challenges we have a cgsc I'd be very interested in how you all do it here at your What do you call it intermediate leader of course or whatever whatever your Cgsc is as we bring folks in across the army and this is one of the challenges we have As we sort of run our army processes You end up with a non homogenous group of people So if you get a thousand people to come up to see your sea They're non homogenous both of all I mean we have you know doctors and lawyers and infantrymen and low justitions and everything there So you don't have a homogenous background of folks So their understanding of tactical operational issues is not common So you've got to do some training to get to this because they're like is this a training institution or an education institution? I say yes So because you've got to get a base level of training so that people can talk Similarly and then then you start educating people on how to think critically how to analyze and all that So you it's a balance constantly between them Which is I think is the dynamic that we have a command and general staff college But one of the big things is there are a couple of things one excuse me is um We are reducing contact hours. The other thing we're doing across the army Hey guys, do you have the army university slide? Actually, this would be great. Well, we're here Another partner I can get so We took a look across training and doctrine command the army said we have a lot Of capability out there, but it's not always focused And it's not always synchronized So across trade off we have over a hundred schools and centers etc like that We had 48 different libraries All had their own contract and knowledge management systems etc like that So we built a contract called army university Where what we've done is take all the training and education capability Most of it's in trade off and partnered with the army war college Yeah So now we have the army university And so we have all of the schools and centers and educational capability Whether it's dli a defense language institute, whether it's Aviation center of excellence, etc like that command general staff college Star majors academy us army war college west point we have out there working together with us And we're saying what we're going to do is try to leverage all this capability Connect command without 300 schools universities To say hey, can we do a better job number one of producing a better product But number two in developing our instructors and then leveraging all the capacity we have and then three Partnering with outside organizations So the way this goes is I'm sort of the chancellor of the army university system here And then the chief and the secretary up here sort of the board of regents or whatever And what we have found by putting all of these under one and we try not to do without creating excessive overhead But saying you know what if we can coordinate what we do internally into the army So that you move from one level of p.m. E to the next more seamlessly number one And then two we're finding it's much easier first to partner with outside organizations because if I say hey Go to princeton or berkeley or even a university system at tex or something Say I want you to partner with a center of excellence. They're like, what's the center of excellence? What's that? It doesn't resonate with them if I say hey, I want you to partner or have an exchange Professor with army university. They're like, well, I know I know a university system. I know how that works So what we found now is university systems throughout the country are very interested in partnering with us Like university system of texas university is california or virginia Where one thing we have a lot of army bases in those states But the other thing is they're saying and we want to exchange faculty because what we're finding is to get Be able to integrate partners in critical thinking. I need people that don't think just like the army things And so if I can get professors from other universities industry is partnering with this because they're like Hey, some of the rnd you do but specifically with leader development all that we would like that in our and so a lot of corporations have their own Education processes bowing has a leader development campus. I've been to and all that they said We would like to partner with you Can you send some of your folks to our place and send some folks to yours? So we think this is a great construct for us to partner with other educational Facilities with other businesses and other people that are sort of in the intellectual leads the physical realm So that we get different ways of seeing the problem we can Develop our ability to be critical thinkers and put our students Which is why it's great to see so many soldiers out here in an environment Where people don't think like them and look at problems differently So those are a couple of the big things that we've attempted to get after with that But it is a work in progress and it's kind of like those things We always have to exploit the initiative and always beat a position of relative advantage So there's not an end state, but those are the couple of the big things we're tracking So I'd love to partner with the navy war college my alma mater here And get folks in I know we have instructors here other questions Yes Good afternoon, sir commander microwave. Thank you for your time this afternoon The current issue of the economist included a pretty includes a pretty sobering assessment of military recruiting focused Pretty heavily on the army. Yeah, and talking about the the sort of portion of the population that is simply not recruitable I wonder how you reconcile that with what appears to be an increasing demand of Cognitive capability as evidenced by things like mission command Developing agile and adaptive leaders and so forth Yeah, that's a great question. In fact, I was just exchanging emails this morning With the chief staff of the army about recruiting. So I really had not been involved for the recruiting command till I got here So this is a broadening experience for me And it's really fascinating In fact, when your folks are just going to command one of our brigades Recruiting command in a couple of things jump out and this is about contextualizing the world One of the things when I talk about the United States army when I started to go around the world and talk to other folks is The first thing I have to contextualize is scale The scale that we do things at because a lot of people come to me with good ideas small answers Dave do this do that etc So I was at a fortune 50 company recently and talking about how they do leader development and things They say, you know the ceo is really involved in in fact He tries to interview everybody we hire Interview personally talk to them make sure we get a round peg and a round hole etc like that and how we talk about it I go, that's very interesting. That's commitment leader development Do you know how many people the united states army recruits every year active duty guard or reserve? 120,000 people we recruit 10,000 people a month into the army So I said wow the chief of staff of the army is going to interview everybody we hire And he better get on it and if he takes a month off, that's 20,000 next year So with regards to that one if somebody says hey, this is a good idea If I can't do it 10,000 times a month Then it's it's an idea So but to your point there one of the challenges we have really when I back up because I'm always interested in backing up an IV line and really looking at the talent of the problem We kind of have an industrial age process for recruiting summits by law But also for how we look at the strength in the army And how many people recruit etc like that because we have an attrition based model And so So then now this is part of the the benefit of the cheap being able to put the tag on one thing I say well Sir, I'm just I'm recruiting great folks It's just that basic training is all screwed up and they're not doing well there Or when they get there because like well, hey parkins fix it So so I own basic training. So we have our attrition rate of about 12 to 14 percent through basic training And so that accounts for a you know, so in other words, we have to recruit over That amount because you have to you assume I'm going to lose 12 15 percent So when I have to deliver the force this amount and then by the end of the first term Again, we can in other words Completing their first term of enlistment is like over 33 percent attrition So that's a lot of attrition Okay, that in other words we built that into all all our algorithms for our personnel people like We're going to treat this many people out that don't complete their first term of enlistment So you've got to recruit this many people So I get this many people through basic training. So I get this many people that finish their first term of enlistment Well, when you work it all the way back, we have this called contact to contract ratio So my recruiters can tell you wherever they are in the country On average, how many people they have to contact, you know, go out to high schools or sit down at mom and dad or whatever to contact What's the ratio between how many people they contact to how many people sign a contract in the army? So what happens is you contact X amount of people Then we contract them they convince them that this is the best thing to do with their life And then some of them don't pass the physical beyond that and then they, you know A treat out of basic training everything like that. So based on those attrition models I just gave you for the scale of this For we recruit about 120,000 every year in the army about 70,000. Those are active force etc like that We want X amount To be there at the end of the first term Do you know how many people every year I have to contact to contract that many 17 million? So last year I had to contact 17 million people to get my 60,000 people to on and on and on like that Well, that is a very labor intensive process And so what we are looking at and so the problem is this based on this attrition model So understand understand the problem visualize how you're going to solve it. So mission command is not just combat It's everything we do And we said, you know, what if what if I could reduce attrition kind of getting to your point? What if I reduced attrition? Through this process so that I didn't have to recruit as many people and then therefore don't have to contact as many So I can reduce the size of recruiting command Everybody that washes out of basic training costs me about 82,000 dollars. Okay, so that's an 82,000 dollar cost that I've just incurred there So what if I can reduce attrition? So then I take a look at what are the things now it's about Understand the problem to find the problem before you come up with a solution So we start taking a look at what are the things that people Wash out of basic training for our first term enlistment etc like that and this gets I think to the economist model I know it's a long question short answer, but it's actually something that's Actually a great application of mission command people think it's only going to war. No understand visualize describe exploit the initiative etc What do you think the number one? Issue is why people a trip out of basic training you probably the articles that don't tell them Yeah, medical musculoskeletal issues musculoskeletal issues is our number one problem Why people don't complete basic training in fact The problem we're getting is because so many people grow up sitting on a couch doing this, you know Their whole lives is we get them in basic training and they literally are snapping in half Okay, their hips are snapping in half. We put a rucksack on them and we break and once you snap somebody in half Guess what you now own the medical reparation for that for the rest of their life So what we're saying is hey, can I scream people better? Before I get them in the army that maybe so everyone's talking about cognition I'm telling that it's all about defining the problem. The big problem is the physical aspect That's the vast majority of the people that don't complete out of basic training is musculoskeletal issues Can I screen them better? and then Can I prepare them better? So what we've done is we started a pilot come up with the visualization how you do it down at Fort Benning We're all our infantry and armor soldiers go and it's called eye prep And they have two and we screen people coming in and then we take two extra weeks We're sort of having to consume this out of hide with jill star and something like that And we put them through we work with our surgeon general a very progressive medically sound physiological process to improve everything from bone density giving them special vitamins etc like that Types of exercise that do not lead to repetitive injury kind of things etc like that And what we're finding is the folks that as we screen them initially had the lowest potential say physically To complete basic training once we put them through this preparation phase And and really apply a little bit of silent science to them They're graduating at a rate 75 higher Than the folks that screened out higher initially when they came in the army So what we're saying is you know what I think I'd like to do This extra two weeks of preparation time here that I was just giving to people that screened out lower What if I could give it to everybody in the army it increased my graduation rate Reduce the amount of people that I'm snapping in half or breaking And therefore reduce the overall number of people that I have to recruit in the army Therefore reduce the size recruiting command therefore recruit the number of people reduce the size of people that go in the va etc etc like that And so when I lay this out, then I go to my Friends up in the army staff the vice chief and the chief staff of the army I say but there are costs with this, you know, that's two more weeks of basic training So I need more drill sergeants. I think I had it up till I need like Four more battalions of basic training because everything is you know in scale of the army In other words, there's initial costs, but again understanding the problem now Lay this out and say but in the end I could save the cost down the road Multiple years, but here's the deal this kind of gets back to capabilities versus things When you focus on things you bend costs in budgets by things And then what happens is you don't really know how much things cost Because nobody pays for the whole capability. You only pay for part of it So I'm saying I need more money for basic training like just like perkins always asking for more. That's his problem I say yeah, but but you know surge in general. This is going to save you money 10 years or no Hey, look, I'm not going to be certain. I'm 10 years actually petty or oh, it's a great support of this But I'm saying we've got to back off folks stop looking at things like this look much longer term So back to this recruiting issue In a macro sense what I would like to do is screen better screen further to the left Before we get them in the pipeline And then be able to actually have access to them before they sign on the dotted line There's legal issues with that and medical liability But we think we can then get at psychological testing Which has a lot of hip hop privacy issues like that But but I'm a big fan of screening more and screening earlier and providing preparation Because one of the problems we're finding is the delta between society In the army in the military in general the delta between the physical requirements the emotional requirements the psychological requirements The values the delta is getting larger and larger and larger And as we bring people out of society and bring them into the army That gap we have to close between their physical capability They're emotional they're psychological that that gap is becoming more and more difficult to deal with because of just Unfortunately some dysfunctional aspects in our society And so I'm looking at it holistically that I think there are better ways for us to go about that So the article is exactly on it and we are we are trying to get after it and quite honestly I'm getting great support from the leadership of the army because they see this as well because the demographics It's not getting any better. So I've got to really I have to reduce attrition and better prepare soldiers Great question Yes General, uh, lieutenant commander rob hamilton, uh, my question is specific to the mission command you discussed earlier My question is this you spoke early on about the importance of a common understanding and common terminology Joint force So how do you bridge those gaps when you make a change to something so foundational as command and control? Yeah, uh to create a common understanding Uh for the joint force going forward So, um when we put out the army operating concept The first place is he went is at that time chief staff the army's general odiano general odiano And I personally went to see the cno and the navy staff And laid out our armor operating concept and what it was and what it meant everything Then we went and saw general walsh and he and the air force staff and talked through him General dumpford when he was a commander of the marine corps came down to trade ock And spent a whole day there as we kind of talked through it Went in brief general demsey when he's the chairman of the time and the j7 and he's in general demsey He's a big fan of it and now he's a former trade ock commander. So, you know, I'm sure there's a little, you know prokulism there And and then we briefed secretary carter right after he became The secretary and so the first people we reached out to were the joints The joint community and talked through and and none of the Joint chiefs of staff had any pushback on it what they all want to know was okay How can we partner with you? What are the forms we have to kind of move this forward? So that before we even published it we went to every joint chief personally Myself and the chief of staff of the army including the secretary defense and the chairman and And described our visualization Of what we were trying to do and why we wanted to do it and Described our understanding of the future and said so if you don't think the if you think the future is not going to change If you think the rate of change is going to slow down Then maybe we ought to stay with command and control Okay, because I will tell you if you have a known future With a known enemy with a slow rate of change. This ain't the book for you This is the wrong doctrine. This is the wrong concept to deal with a steady state world It just is it is not optimized for that But we're kind of banking that the world is going to change quicker and quicker and quicker And it's going to be harder and harder and harder to try to predict which way it's going to go So that's what we're banking on. That's the risk We're taking that the rate of change is going to continue to increase quicker and quicker And the ability to foresee what's going to happen is going to get less and less and less And that's what this is for so we kind of laid that out To all the joint chiefs and quite honestly did not get any pushback So we are working actually very Intently at that level This is just one of the areas quite honestly that the army felt So passionate about it and we think in many ways It affects the human dimension of war so significantly because we're not kind of a thing-centric force That it probably maybe affects us at least as much as anybody else So we've decided to seize retain and exploit the initiative Okay But great question Yeah, other question Yeah, right here Sir randy white, I was wondering if you could talk about how the reduction in the size of the army has impacted your ability to build the army And how the size of the force goes with the capabilities to your concepts, etc Yeah, so that comes up a lot Hey, do you guys have the slide that has air land battle on the army operating concept side by side? Maybe you could throw that up So I get that a lot resourcing and in fact provost iron was just talking about you know rumors of budget deals and various like that So it's always on our tips of our mind So this was on a hundred dash five. This is the manual I grew up with hundred dash five air land battle I said if you were standing in the full the gap looking east it would look eerily similar to this So when I breathe this to folks and I'm sort of comparing a known problem set to an unknown problem set I get this question resources. Wow perkings. You know what that looks a hell of a lot more expensive than that Are you going to be able to afford that? When I tell them is there's a difference between capability and capacity What we're saying is we are if we are down to one platoon in the army even if we are down to one platoon, which I think is unlikely But whatever size the army is we're going to say it's going to have the capability to do that It's going to do that the issue is How often can it do it over what area can it do it in one city block? In one continent multiple continents once every year once every other year three times of simultaneously etc like that It's very much. I think analogous to sort of a carrier analogy You know, you have an aircraft carrier, which has capabilities How many you have then gets you into your capacity, but you don't you know Each one is designed a certain way to be a launch planes etc like that Irrespective of how many other ones you're not like well, we don't have enough money So none of them are going to be able to retrieve planes. They're just all going to launch planes No, what we're saying is even if we get down to one unit in the army It's going to have the capability to do that the capacity issue Then becomes a resourcing issue, you know how and then this gets back to the larger strategy our national military strategy or security strategy Okay, how often do you want to do this? How much risk do you want to take in the end? It's all about risk How much risk are you willing to take? Where are you going to take it and then how do you mitigate it? I mean that that's what Senior leaders get paid to do that's really all we do. I find as I continue to get promoted in the army Besides people questioning the effectiveness of our promotion system. They I find that I just get asked to take more and more risk When I was a second lieutenant, they're like hey Perkins, Dr. Lee, you're supposed to have 1500 meters. You have 1500 meters So let's have five tanks. You have five tanks. So let's have four person taking out four In other words, we've given you everything you need Perkins We're just telling you you I'm going to tell you what to do. I control your compliance. You just do it I'm not really asking you to take a lot of risk from then on it was like, you know what? You're supposed to have this but you only have this The guy before you had to control this much space. You have to control this much space The only difference is you have less people on and on and on and on and they're saying look Perkins We're just asking you take risk you have to understand the risk visualize how you can mitigate it describe to me How you're going to mitigate it and then direct people to do that And so that's what four structure does is determines how much risk you want to take and what's your overall capacity But the capability we're the capability if you go to the the one blow-up slide with some of those first order principles We're saying we're going to have that capability in the army no matter how big the army is It is very important for us To delineate that because otherwise people say well, you're only going to pick a couple Unless I get more money and I said no, we're we're designing the army to do this It's just a matter of how often and how many times we can do it And quite honestly, you know what our mitigation strategy is the joint force So when we sit down and do that say, you know what I don't think the army has Capability we don't have capacity for this. Let's give the Marines. Let's give the navy. Let's give the air force We have to do much better job of that. I had a great discussion with general Dunford We're still the commandant we're like, look, we can't we can't have like an army gl tv and a marine gl tv and all that Look, we're just going to have one and then we're just going to figure out It's not perfect for any one person, but then there's risk one way the other How do you mitigate it etc because again our asymmetric capability is our joint force And so we're and we work very hard to make sure we're not looking at this Is an army only problem because generally how we look at mitigating the risks out there are via our joint capabilities Because that does give us multiple options for the commander and multiple dilemmas for the enemy Questions, yes So air sea battle Is a great discussion of a tactical exchange of firepower. Okay, it's a battle Okay, so I don't have any disagreement with any of the tenants of it You just have to understand what I say the first thing that I have to do is ask big questions Okay, that that is a tactical answer to a tactical problem But then the next question is okay at the strategic level How do I win? How do I consolidate gains in a sustainable manner? And how do I always stay in a position of relative advantage? So I I think air sea battle is a great intellectual way to take Think about a tactical exchange of firepower and how you're going to do it What I'm saying is it just doesn't end there. Okay, you know the most two Disconcerting words in the English language are kind of like now what? You know, I mean now what? okay believe me I The rack war I was at the very beginning of the rack war and I was at the very end of the rack war I was in the middle of it somewhere and you know what the easiest thing was to invade the country I mean I lost some great americans and great heroic action But invading a country it was a lot easier especially intellectually than getting out of a rack getting in a rack was actually you know a tactical and operational exercise and Did that getting out of a rack? That's now another question because you want to get out in a way that you can sustain your gains, right? So air sea battle is a great way to get into a fight Other questions. Yes Captain mary bethneal, um, united states navy medicine. Thank you for your presentation I'm wondering if you had to assign a grade from your perspective at trade oc And how well we incorporate lessons learned into informing doctrine and You know future capabilities. How are we doing and how can we improve? How was trade oc doing? Yes trade oc and then if you could parlay that to the joint force. Yeah, uh, well, I'll say we're 11 worth b Okay, we're 11 with b Here's where we're not doing as well at Our systems do tend to be very focused tactically and operationally Lessons learned of counter ied etc because rightly so we We were losing great americans So everyone kind of focused on that and so it's how do we deal with tactical and operational issues? And so We're doing probably pretty well on that The strategic area that now that's very difficult in and quite honestly as jiff com went away there I think there was a little bit of a Excuse me avoid in that area So I think there's a challenge with regards to how we're organized because you know The army really shouldn't be doing like its own strategic lessons. I mean that clearly is all elements of national power So we're not really organized to do that We really really don't have an organization as it is a coalition of the willing And the second thing is strategic lessons learned You got to be careful before you jump to conclusions because those signs take those things take a long time to run out An ied that's pretty much immediate feedback Okay, did I defeat the ied or not? I pretty much know right away whether it went off or not So tactical operational lessons learned have a little excuse upon shorter flash to bank time So I can I can determine whether or not It really was a lesson learned or a lesson noted because I can see sort of immediate effects The strategic aspect obviously has a longer flash to bank time. So that's a difficult problem The other issue is there are so many players in that that we don't really have a paradigm to get after I'll tell you the one that I am focusing on inside a trade-off in the army That really never got looked at and we looked at Excuse me the operational lessons learned, you know afghanistan, iraq said like that And then here's our new doctrine to approve them. What I'm really interested in is institutional lessons learned What are we not doing well in trade-off in basic training? What are we not doing well at the war college or command general staff college? Are we increasing our rate of innovation is my POI updating quick enough to deal with the problems that I have we never we don't do those lessons So I mean or we hadn't done them sustain Systemically so we have the army war fighting assessment that we do every six months out of fort blitz We're now starting an iwa institutional army war fighting assessment We're doing a war fighting assessment at how good the institution does to the united states army Which pretty much I is trade-off. How well are we adapting and innovating to keep up with the emerging threats and looking at it holistically so tactical operational level Probably that's a strength Because we are very good at looking at exchanging firepower etc strategic level very difficult because there's not really a good paradigm for it And then the one that we're putting a lot of effort on because really hadn't got looked at much at all inside the army Is the institutional ability to adapt and innovate? Hey folks, what I'm gonna do. I know I'm running out of time What I want to do is wrap up with one last thing and we were talking before and I understand because I Try to do an ipb here and say what would students ask a lot about what's our hot button issues or something like that And there wasn't just one hot button issue, which I guess is pretty good thing That means you're curious and asking lots of different questions and keep the staff and faculty on their toes Um, but one thing they told me is that you're focusing a lot on ethics profession things like that And the army has been on this for a couple years now We have cape which is part of trade-off center for army profession and ethics And we put out a manual recently on like we do on everything ADP and ADRP 1o called the army profession if you can put that up there and um It talks about the army profession is really It is The secret sauce of the glue of the united states army and I think of the joint construct of the joint construct So I said we're not interested in a list of things to buy to fight I mean we will buy something. So if you're an army guy in the acquisition world, don't worry We will buy something eventually but that's not a primary focus that things a list of things to buy It is building the capability to win and you saw some of those main capabilities WMD Situational understanding early entry etc like that But the number one capability that we are focusing on it is that capability of the leader Leader development is our number one capability that we're focusing on because we think that is our hedge against an unchange A constantly changing future is that we have well trained well disciplined units and leaders because again If you don't have a well trained and well disciplined army, what do you do to that army? You control it Okay, if if you have an ill disciplined organization, you will not empower it So if you want to empower organization, you better make sure it's well trained and well disciplined and well led And since our aim is to empower the exploitation initiative We said the first thing we have to do is make sure we have a professional force So we want to be able to win in a complex world win at the strategic level of world that's unknown constantly changing And unpredictable to do that we exercise mission command to seize retain exploit the initiative to always get to position a relative advantage through the process of understand visualize describe direct lead assess to exercise mission command You must have a professional army or a professional military because if you do not You cannot exercise mission command and if you cannot exercise mission command Then you cannot exploit the initiative the best you can do is control compliance and this was pointed out to be Very emphatically by somebody who's not even in the u.s army. In fact, somebody who's not even a u.s citizen. So I was You know in a bad part of the world where a lot of us have been and You know it was an infantry division commander at the time and going around Doing what we do with my counterpart who are ranked me In this country and we're trying to do various things like that I'm like, hey, we had to do combined arms this and this and so you know typical sort of eight type personality of You know American officers. We're gonna do this is good. And we're at lunchtime and apparently I had reached the good idea cut off point And he said okay stop stop stop Perkins says, you know, I've been watching you command this division here for a while looks like that and You know, I've come to the conclusion that you take being a general in the United States army for granted I said what I said You're questioning the effectiveness of a promotion system that would select somebody like me to be a general officer Get in line. No. No. No. That's not what I'm saying He says I've seen how you operate and you take being a general in the u.s army for granted I said, what do you mean by that? He says well because you get your fancy helicopter And you fly off to first brigade and you tell them to do this and you don't worry that when you leave they're going to start a coup Okay, and you go down a third brigade and you give them new m-wraps and you don't worry that they're going to Sell them on the black market and you tell the command star major to get all the nco's to do this You don't worry about that. He's going to call us huzz that his cousin and mod and get your relieved or something like that He says you just trust everybody He says you are very naive you naively trust everybody that what you tell them to do they're going to do it You trust their motivation He says In fact, I don't really see you in his mind. I don't see you controlling very much at all You know, you might be commanding, but you're not really controlling And he said the other thing is as I go around your unit it seems to kind of be on autopilot It's self-policing Because I watch your other brigades and then this unit does something And if there's a lieutenant not no not doing the right thing the company commander kind of corrects them Or if there's a sergeant not headed in the right direction The batu sergeant steps out etc like that and you weren't even there In other words, there were things going on that weren't right in your unit And then I saw other leaders in that unit kind of get it going in the right direction And you were in there. So what he was saying is perkins. I don't know what you really do I don't really know what you do as a division commander.  You assume they're not going to turn on you all kinds of stuff's going on and you are nowhere near What he was saying is perkins. You're not really that good You're not really that good because see you have a big problem You have a big problem You have a you have a substance abuse problem in that if you don't get your daily fix of this You can't command your division. Okay, you have a crutch The only way perkins that you could even attempt to do what you do is division commander Is if you have a professional army and what he was saying is I don't I don't have a professional army. I don't have an army that I can blindly trust everyone or that is self synchronizing So what he was saying is perkins stop lecturing me because see the thing is you are taking it for granted You take the fact that you're a general officer In the united states military and that you can blindly trust everyone and that they will be self correcting and oh by the way I've seen your division in combat and you know what? They do have a sense of something larger than themselves They have a sense that they don't want to let their unit down or they don't want to let the people to the left and right About them and it's nothing to do with their pay or anything like that again I told you in the army We have a definition for everything a spree to core while it is manifested by company ronson t-shirts and all that We define a spree to core is a jealous regard for the honor of your unit The army definition for a spree to core is a jealous regard for the honor of your unit Are you acting in a way? That you are displaying not just a somewhat whimsical regard a jealous regard for the honor of your unit Do you understand that people are looking at you and they are judging your unit? Based on how you operate and are you doing so that you don't want to let that unit down the honor of that unit down And when I say unit, I mean this unit This unit and this unit Because when you are out there, what we're telling our soldiers is you need to act is if what you do Delivers a shows a jealous regard for the honor of the unit and those that you represent And he said the other thing is and did happen to be our tiller unit says I was up in the north and your soldiers were conducting counter insurgency One day and the next day they're firing artillery for dismounted infantry attack They're firing artillery live artillery rounds over dismounted infantrymen And they just went from one complex operation counter insurgency to firing artillery And again perkins you were nowhere to be found. In fact, there wasn't even an officer there was not commissioned officers and soldiers He said so they all they all know what they're doing they're experts at what they're doing But the thing he said that amazed him the most and says, where do you find These servicemen and women That are willing to travel thousands of miles away from home And if possible give their lives for people they don't even know when I can't even get my own army to defend its own country So what he was saying is perkins. You're not that good I don't need your lectures anymore about this or that because see you have a huge crutch perkins In other words, you know anybody could command an american infantry division if they had one of these This is the key to success. I've been watching the american army. And this is your secret sauce. Okay It's not any of your things It's not your things It's the capability that a group of professionals have when they come together And they are stewards of the profession.  We bought your rifles. We bought your humvees. You know what they don't do anything They just sit there and rust Because see you didn't sell us this You didn't sell us this we bought your things What we failed to understand is that what we really needed were not things to fight but a capability to win And you don't get a capability to win unless you have professional Soldiers sailors airmen and marine that you can pair with things in formation To actually get the job done. And so it took somebody else not even in the u.s. Army But not even a u.s. Citizen to say you know what I've figured out what makes the army so good the u.s. Military so good You're building capability. You're not buying things. We thought the answer was to buy things because you know what most of those people the first Interface they had with the u.s. Military was on the receiving end of our thing And they said you know what that's a pretty powerful thing. I think I want one of those what they didn't realize It's the capability of the u.s. Military not our things So as part of the whole joint force folks, thanks for having a little bit of your time this afternoon And thanks for being part of the capability to win. Thanks