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Remarks by Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the Euro-Atlantic Security Community Initiative and Keynote Session, Bayerischer Hof, Munich, Germany

2012-02-04T21:30:01Z

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Remarks by Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the Euro-Atlantic Security Community Initiative and Keynote Session, Bayerischer Hof, Munich, Germany

02/04/2012 03:08 PM CST

Presenter: Secretary of Defense Leon E. Panetta and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton

February 04, 2012

Remarks by Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the Euro-Atlantic Security Community Initiative and Keynote Session, Bayerischer Hof, Munich, Germany

AMBASSADOR WOLFGANG ISCHINGER: This is, I think, a very unusual first time at the Munich Security Conference. We've had, of course, a very long tradition of the U.S. secretary of defense speaking in Munich. We've had a very new tradition of the U.S. secretary of state speaking in Munich. That's what happened last year. But unless (inaudible) otherwise, I don't think (inaudible) I don't think that we've ever had both of them here at the same time, simultaneously sitting on the podium.

So a warm welcome to both of you. We understand that by showing up here together you're telling us something, and I think you have decided to do this in the order that you will speak first. So it's my pleasure to welcome for the first time the new secretary of defense of the United States, Leon Panetta.

You have the floor, sir.

SECRETARY OF DEFENSE LEON PANETTA: Thank you very much, Wolfgang. I appreciate the introduction. It is a distinct honor for me to be here in Munich, and to be among so many distinguished leaders from Europe, from the United States and from around the world. As the son of Italian immigrants, I am always honored to come back to my roots in Europe.

I'm particularly pleased to be able to appear alongside Secretary Clinton, who has been on this stage so long and has worked together and tirelessly with our European allies and partners to strengthen our mutual international security.

Today I'd like to discuss how we in the United States see our relationship with Europe evolving in light of the new strategic guidance for defense that was released just this last month by the U.S. Department of Defense. The reason we developed this guidance is clear. We are at a strategic turning point after both a decade of war and a decade in which there has been very substantial growth in the U.S. defense budget. And like most nations on this continent, America faces a fiscal crisis that has resulted in legislatively mandated defense budget reductions of $487 billion over 10 years.

And as difficult and tough as it is to achieve these savings, we view this as an opportunity to shape the U.S. military force, a force we need not just for now but in the future. By implementing this new guidance, we will ensure that the United States military remains the strongest in the world and is fully capable of defending the interests of the United States and the interests of our allies.

We do not want to repeat the mistakes of past drawdowns by cutting across the board and hollowing out the force. And unlike past drawdowns, when threats that we were confronting receded, we still confront a number of serious threats in the world. There is still a war in Afghanistan. We confront the threat of terrorism, nuclear proliferation in North Korea and Iran, turmoil in the Middle East, rising powers, cyber attacks. We designed a strategy to deal with these threats.

Let me summarize the key elements of the new U.S. defense strategy. First, the United States military will be smaller and we will be leaner. That was something, frankly, that was going to happen under any circumstances by virtue of the drawdown that we were involved in. But what we wanted to stress was a force that would be agile, that would be flexible, that would be rapidly deployable, and that would be technologically advanced. It must be a cutting edge force for the future.

Second, we will enhance our presence in Asia Pacific and the Middle East, where we see the greatest challenges and the greatest opportunities in the 21^st century. Third, we will maintain a robust presence in Europe and elsewhere in the world by investing in existing alliances, by helping to make them stronger, by developing new partnerships, and by developing new innovative rotational deployments that will give us the capability to have a presence not only in Europe, but in Africa and Latin America and elsewhere.

Fourth, we will ensure that we can quickly confront and defeat aggression from any adversary, any time, any place. It is essential that we have the capability to deal with more than one adversary at a time, and we believe we have shaped a force that will give us that capability.

And fifth, we will protect and prioritize key investments key investments in technology and new capabilities from special operations forces to cyber and space and unmanned systems, as well as our capacity to surge, adapt and grow as needed. That means we must maintain a strong National Guard and a strong Reserve and a strong economic base.

For Europe, the U.S. defense strategy reaffirms the lasting strategic importance of the transatlantic partnership with the United States. Although it will evolve in light of strategic guidance and the resulting budget decisions, our military footprint in Europe will remain larger than in any other region in the world. That's not only because the peace and prosperity of Europe is critically important to the United States, but because Europe remains our security partner, our security partner of choice for military operations and diplomacy around the world. We saw that in Libya last year and we see it in Afghanistan every day.

Drawing on the lessons of a decade of war, a robust and effective network of alliances and partnerships is absolutely an essential element of this strategy's vision for the future U.S. military. As part of the strategy, we are therefore deeply committed to strengthening transatlantic security partnerships and institutions, including NATO.

Much as changing physical and strategic realities have offered the United States the opportunity to build a force for the future, I believe that today's strategic and fiscal realities offer NATO the opportunity to build the alliance we need for the 21^st century, an alliance that serves as the core of an expanding network of partnerships across the globe in support of common security objectives. But it is an alliance that remains rooted in the strong bonds of transatlantic security cooperation and collective defense.

Let me lay out how we intend to strengthen transatlantic security cooperation by describing what European allies and partners can expect from the United States and our new defense strategy. First, we will focus on the most pressing security challenges by investing in ballistic missile defense capability for Europe in response to the emerging threats beyond Europe.

As part of the European Phased Adaptive Approach and NATO's missile defense capability, we have established a radar system in Turkey. We will be stationing SM-3 missiles in Romania and Poland. And we will deploy four BMD ballistic missile defense-capable ships, Aegis ships to Rota, Spain. President Obama has made clear that the United States is firmly committed to building a missile defense system in Europe. The new defense strategy and our budget priorities reflect that commitment.

Second, we will invest in shared capabilities that will ensure NATO remains the strongest and most capable military alliance on earth. To address intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance shortfalls, some of which the Libya operation exposed, NATO has agreed as of yesterday to fund the new Alliance Ground Surveillance system.

I want to thank the secretary general and all of my fellow defense ministers in NATO for having made that very important decision, that is in many ways the foundation of smart defense. For that reason, we in the United States have protected funding for AGS in our new defense budget.

Safeguarding critical capabilities was a core objective of our budget and strategy review of the United States, and it is important that we send a strong message that we remain committed to this system and bolstering NATO's cutting edge capabilities.

Third, we will employ innovative approaches to strengthen security cooperation, even as we reduce the numbers of U.S. troops and dependents that are permanently stationed in Europe. We will maintain two brigades garrisoned in Europe in addition to moving forward with the missile defense deployments that I've already detailed, establishing an aviation detachment in Poland and taking steps to enhance the responsiveness of special operations forces in the region.

As we reduce the end strength of our land forces overall, we will remove two heavy, fixed brigades that are currently garrisoned in Europe two brigades that, I might point out, have spent most of their time in the war zone and not here. We selected these legacy brigades for transition because they are the least adaptive to the complex challenges we face and we expect to face alongside our European partners.

We made this decision only after ensuring that our force posture adjustments will not weaken our ability to meet our commitment to the security of Europe or our Article 5 responsibilities.

Today, I can announce that the United States will make a new commitment to the security of our NATO partners by reinvigorating our contribution to the NATO Response Force that we value so much. The NRF was designed to be an agile, rapidly deployable, multinational force that can respond to crises when and where necessary. The United States had endorsed the NRF but has not made a tangible contribution due to the demands of the wars until now.

In the coming months, we will identify a U.S.-based brigade from which we will provide the United States land force contribution to the NATO Response Force, and we will rotate a battalion-sized task-force to Germany for exercises and training. Not only will this open up new opportunities for U.S. troops to train and exercise with our European counterparts, it will ensure NATO has the capability to conduct expeditionary operations in defense of our common interests. But to fully realize the goal of a strong and agile NRF, we need the support of other Alliance members.

In all, the steps Europe can expect from the United States amount to a vote of confidence from Washington in the future of the Alliance, especially in a period of fiscal austerity. Let me now suggest the steps that Europe can take in order to cast a similar vote of confidence.

First, we must all continue to invest in national defense and in shared responsibilities and capabilities of NATO in order to best manage the security challenges of the future. Approaches like "Smart Defense" help us spend together sensibly but they cannot be an excuse to cut budgets further. This is the view that I shared with my fellow NATO defense ministers this week, noting that as we move towards the Chicago summit, Smart Defense should be part of a longer-term plan to invest in a NATO force for 2020 that is fully trained and fully equipped to respond to any threat and defend our common interests.

Second, what emerged from a series of meetings with my NATO counterparts this past week was a recommitment to finishing the job in Afghanistan. Our bottom line, as the foreign minister pointed out, is in together, out together. As an Alliance, we are fully committed to the Lisbon framework and transitioning to Afghan control by 2014.

Our discussions included considerations of how ISAF will move from the lead combat role to a support, advise and assist role as Afghan Security Forces move into the lead. We hope Afghan forces will be ready to take the combat lead in all of Afghanistan some time in 2013, as we complete the final tranches of areas that we transition to Afghan control. But, of course, ISAF will continue to be fully combat capable. And we will engage in combat alongside the Afghans as necessary thereafter.

We are making progress in Afghanistan. As General Allen pointed out in a report to my NATO colleagues, violence is down, the insurgents have lost momentum. The transition to Afghan security responsibility has begun. The second tranche of areas that was transferred to Afghan control represents the fact that over 50 percent of the Afghan population is now under Afghan control and security.

The key to the success of this transition rests on a continued commitment by the international community to the long-term development of the Afghan National Security Forces. To sustain sufficient security, the ANSF requires adequate financial support, support that is consistent with our commitments that have been made, commitments made by the international community at the Bonn Conference last December.

I recognize I know that we face intense pressure to reduce the support given the budget constraints that we all face and that all ISAF nations are facing. But even as we will work to find ways to reduce ANSF costs over time, and we will and we have we cannot shortchange our commitments. We cannot shortchange the security that must be provided by the Afghan army now and in the future. We cannot count on other nations to fill the gaps. We must do everything we can to support this force.

Over a decade of war from the mountains of Afghanistan to the shores of Tripoli, this alliance has proven its relevance in the security challenges of the 21^st century. We have in many ways moved closer to realizing a vision for the Atlantic community that was articulated by President John F. Kennedy. He indicated this vision nearly 50 years ago in the same year of the first-ever Munich security conference.

In 1962, President Kennedy envisioned that one day the United States could partner with a revitalized Europe, and I quote, "on a basis of full equality in all the great and burdensome tasks of building and defending a community of free nations," unquote.

We are closer than ever to achieving that vision. But to do that, we must meet the great and necessary tests of the 21^st century together. And we must draw strength from our common values, our common interests and our common purpose to forge a better and a safer world and to give our children a better life. That is our dream. It is also our mission.

Thank you very much.

SECRETARY OF STATE HILLARY CLINTON: Thank you very much. This is a first, with both Secretary Panetta and I here together. But I think that it speaks volumes about the importance that we place on this conference, Wolfgang, and on the significance of the alliance that has grown so strong over the last 50 years. It is also a great personal pleasure for me to be back in Munich with so many colleagues and friends. I wish to thank one of them, my friend, the Foreign Minister, Westerwelle, for his important comments. And I also wish to thank the presentation by Sam Nunn and Igor Ivanov on the Euro-Atlantic Security Initiative that I think holds great promise for us all if we heed the words that it contains.

This gathering, as Leon just said, founded at the height of the Cold War, has become an important symbol of our commitment to stand together as a transatlantic community. And we come to Munich each year, not only to advance our shared values, our shared security, and our shared prosperity, but to take stock of where we stand in the efforts to forge that union between us, and also to lift up our heads and look around the world at the global security situation. That calling is no less powerful today than it was 50 years ago.

Now, I have heard all the talk about where Europe fits in to America's global outlook. And I have heard some of the doubts expressed. But the reality couldn't be clearer. Europe is and remains America's partner of first resort. I have now traveled to Europe 27 times as Secretary of State. President Obama has visited 10 times. And wherever America is working to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, to fight disease, to help nations on the difficult journey from dictatorship to democracy, we are side by side with our friends in Europe.

In fact, I would argue the transatlantic community has never been more closely aligned in confronting the challenges of a complex, dangerous, and fast-changing world. The breadth and depth of our cooperation is remarkable. You know the litany. In Libya, NATO allies came together with Arab and other partners to prevent a catastrophe and to support the Libyan people. In Afghanistan, with nearly 40,000 European troops on the ground alongside our own, we have built and sustained NATO's largest-ever overseas deployment. And we will continue to support the Afghans as they assume full responsibility for their own security by the end of 2014.

As Iran continues to defy its obligations, America, Europe, and other partners have put in place the toughest sanctions yet. And we are also pursuing diplomacy through the E3+3 track, because Europe is vital to both halves of that dual-track strategy. And as a tyrant in Damascus brutalizes his own people, America and Europe stand shoulder to shoulder. We are united, alongside the Arab League, in demanding an end to the bloodshed and a democratic future for Syria. And we are hopeful that at 10:00 a.m. Eastern Standard Time in New York, the Security Council will express the will of the international community.

As Secretary Panetta just made clear, our commitment to European defense is just as deep and durable as our diplomacy. At this year's NATO summit in Chicago, we will update our alliance to keep it strong for the 21st century. So when President Obama says that "Europe remains the cornerstone of our engagement with the world," those aren't just reassuring words. That is the reality.

Today's transatlantic community is not just a defining achievement of the century behind us. It is indispensable to the world we hope to build together in the century ahead. Here in Munich, it is not enough to reaffirm old commitments. The world around us is fast transforming, and America and Europe need a forward-leaning agenda to deal with the challenges we face. Let me just briefly discuss five areas in particular that will require a greater collective effort.

First, we have to finish the business our predecessors started, and build a Europe that is secure, united, and democratic. And we heard the ICI Report that sets forward some very specific steps we could take together. From day one of this Administration, we have worked closely together to transform strategic relations with Russia, while standing firmly behind both our principles and our friends. This approach has yielded results, but we need work to sustain it. And this is not the only place in our community where we need to overcome mistrust. As long as important conflicts remain unresolved in Eastern Europe, the Balkans, the Caucasus, and the Mediterranean, Europe remains incomplete and insecure. Even as we grapple with a wider global agenda, we cannot lose sight of the challenges closer to home.

And let me underscore the word "trust". We heard it from Igor Ivanov, we heard it from Guido Westerwelle, and I think it deserves repeating. We have to do more together to build a sense of trust and to overcome mistrust among us. That will have to be one of our strategic imperatives, if we expect to address successfully the issues ahead.

Second, because the strength of our alliance depends on the health of our economies, security and prosperity are ultimately inseparable. That means we need a common agenda for economic recovery and growth that is every bit as compelling as our global security cooperation. We recognize that Europe's most urgent economic priority is the ongoing financial crisis. As you probably know, we have been dealing with one of our own. And although we get good news from time to time, as we did yesterday with jobs figures and drops in unemployment, we know we have a ways to go, as well. We remain confident that Europe has the will and the means not only to cut your debt and build the necessary firewalls, but also to create growth, to restore liquidity and market confidence.

As Europe emerges from economic crisis, we have to work harder to reinforce each other's recoveries. As deep as our economic relationship is, it has not yet lived up to its potential. I speak often about economic statecraft, because I think we cannot talk about what must be done in the 21st century without recognizing that our economic strength lies at the core of everything we are able to do to advance our values, to protect our interest, to create the security architecture that will sustain stability, going forward. The new U.S.-EU High-Level Working Group on Jobs and Growth created by President Obama and his European counterparts should be at the forefront of our efforts to put our people back to work.

And also, America and Europe can and should be trading more with each other and with the rest of the world. That means we also need to be focused on promoting our economic values. Too often, American and European companies face unfair practices that tilt the playing field against us: favoritism for state-owned enterprises, barriers to trade emerging behind borders, restrictions on investment, rampant theft of intellectual property. Together, America and Europe need to instill that all nations must respect the rules of the road that guarantee fair competition and market access. And above all, we need to remember that our investment in global leadership is not the cause of our fiscal problems. And pulling back from the world will not be the solution.

Third, in a time of tight budgets we need to ensure that our security alliance is agile and efficient, as well as strong. That is what Secretary General Rasmussen calls "smart defense": Joint deployment of missile defenses, the commonly-funded Alliance Ground Surveillance program, Baltic air policing, and a reinvigorated NATO response force. These are practical ways to provide security while minimizing cost to any one nation.

We also need to build our capacity to work with partners such as Sweden, Japan, Australia, members of the Arab League, and many others. And this will be a focus of our efforts in Chicago to ensure that NATO remains the hub of a global security network with a group of willing and able nations working side-by-side with us.

Fourth, our shared values are the bedrock of our community. We need to vigorously promote these together around the world, especially in this time of transformational political change. In the Middle East we have a profound shared stake in promoting successful transitions to stable democracies. We are making the Deauville Partnership a priority during America's G8 presidency this year. And to make good on its promise, we will be putting forward an ambitious agenda to promote political and economic reform, trade, investment, regional integration, and entrepreneurship to help people realize the better future they have risked so much to have.

Just as the impetus behind the Arab Spring has extended beyond the Middle East, so much our work. We have to help consolidate democratic gains in places like Cote d'Ivoire and Kyrgyzstan, and support democratic openings in Burma, and wherever people lack their rights and freedom. At the OSCE, the Community of Democracies, and elsewhere, we need to align all of the tools we have to further our values and goals.

America and Europe have more sophisticated tools than ever to support and reward those who take reforms, and to pressure those who do not. And wherever tyrants deny the legitimate demands of their own people, we need to work together to send a clear message: You cannot hold back the future at the point of a gun.

Of course, it is not credible to preach democracy elsewhere unless we protect and promote it ourselves within our community. The trappings of democracy are not enough. We need a vibrant free press, clean and transparent elections, an independent judiciary, a healthy political opposition, and protection for women, religious, and ethnic minorities. We must protect democratic rights and freedoms wherever they are endangered, including here in Europe.

Fifth and finally, we have to reach out to emerging powers and regions. The world we have worked together to build is changing. There are new centers of wealth and power, and fewer problems can be addressed decisively by America and Europe alone. So we have a challenge to make the most of this critical window of opportunity, to enlist emerging powers as partners, and strengthening a global architecture of cooperation that benefits us all.

I am glad that Europe's engagement in the Asia Pacific is on the agenda here in Munich, because we need to reach out together to regions already playing a growing role in world affairs. Now, a great deal has been said about the importance of a rising Asia Pacific for the United States. But not nearly enough has been said about its importance for Europe. America and Europe need a robust dialogue about the opportunities that lie ahead in the Pacific-Asia region. And we are building one here today. Taken together, all of these elements point to a larger enduring truth: When Americans envision the future, we see Europeans as our essential partners. There is no greater sign of our confidence and commitment than just how much we hope and need to accomplish with you.

We have not sustained the most powerful alliance in history by resting on our laurels. Our predecessors planned for the future together. They acted on the belief that America, Europe, and like-minded nations everywhere are engaged in a single common endeavor to build a more peaceful, prosperous, secure world. That is as true today as it ever was. And in this time of momentous change, let us have that same spirit guide us as we chart our path forward together.

Thank you.

AMBASSADOR ISCHINGER: Thank you, Secretary Clinton. Thank you Secretary Panetta. (Inaudible). I will start this question and answer session, by reading a question from someone you know well, Paul Kaiser, sitting somewhere here, from Harvard. This question is I think it's addressed to the secretary of defense, I imagine -- "Is the U.S. posture during the Libya crisis of, quote, 'leading from behind,' unquote, and relying on allies to assume the main share a pattern likely to remain, question mark. I think that goes to you, Leon.

SEC. PANETTA: Look, in the world that we're dealing with, with the myriad of threats that I outlined, whether it's terrorism, whether it's war in Afghanistan, or whether it's threats from Iran, North Korea, turmoil in the Middle East, I think we need to have a broad and flexible approach to dealing with each of those crises. We can't just rely on one mode to be able to confront the conflicts in today's world. Libya, it worked to have NATO come together. It was effective. It was successful. But it doesn't necessarily mean that that particular model might apply if we had to go to war in North Korea or if we had to confront a threat elsewhere.

I think the most important thing the United States has done in developing our defense strategy is to maintain our capability to be able to engage in a broad way, depending on what crisis is, what the threat is. So if we need land forces to confront land forces, we have to take the lead on that. We have the capability to do that. If we have to deal with someone trying to close the Straits of Hormuz, we have the naval and Air Force capability to be able to do that. We can do that in conjunction with NATO, or we can do it on our own.

We need to maintain a full, flexible, agile, and strong defense in every way, and that means working with NATO, but at the same time, understanding that all of us have to have the capability to deal with threats as they emerge.

AMBASSADOR ISCHINGER: Thank you very much. The next question goes to Secretary Clinton, but I can't read this properly. It comes from Stefan Kornelius Could somebody give a microphone to Stefan over there and we'll invite him to present his question himself.

Q: (Inaudible) Secretary Clinton, a question of Afghanistan and the emerging probable negotiating process with the Taliban, the first steps have been made. Is the administration prepared in a confidence-building measure and think of releasing detainees from Guantanamo as (inaudible).

SEC. CLINTON: Well, I am not going to go into any details about what we are or are not prepared to do, because we are just at the beginning of this process of exploration whether or not there is an opportunity to bring about an end to the conflict through a political solution. But this is, first and foremost, an Afghan-led and Afghan-owned process. We support the Afghan Government in its efforts to work with the representatives of the Taliban and other insurgent groups, to see whether there is common ground on which to build enough trust -- to go back to that word again -- to have a resolution.

There are certain conditions that certainly the United States would look to. We would expect anyone who was engaged in such talks to: renounce violence, to be prepared to lay down arms and enter the political process, if that is what they were to seek, to have their views known within the Afghanistan political system; to renounce all ties with al Qaeda because of the history with the Taliban -- that is a very important issue to the Afghans, to us, to NATO-ISAF; and to agree to abide by the constitution of Afghanistan.

So, there will continue to be all kinds of speculation about what is or is not happening. But I think it is important to say of course we are exploring whether there is a way forward in partnership, and with the lead of the Afghans themselves.

AMBASSADOR ISCHINGER: Thank you. Because we're running out of time, I'll call on two more. If you could, be brief, first one is a member of German Bundestag (inaudible) Stinner and the second is Francois Heisbourg, over there. So we go to (inaudible) Stinner first.

Q: Yes, thank you very much. Because we're short of time, I would like to use English. The question goes to Mr. Panetta, Secretary Panetta. It's about missile defense. This morning, we heard a very interesting presentation by Senator Nunn and I I'm understanding at least (inaudible) from him and from you. I see a difference in tonality. Senator Nunn, to a very large extent (inaudible) the political issue to which we got to come to terms with Russia. You more or less concentrate on the technical aspect of defending ourselves, which is (inaudible) of course.

But would you subscribe to the ideas of Senator Nunn that (inaudible) most political importance to come to terms with Russia and that we have to take into consideration the political and psychological concerns of Russia?

And the last question (inaudible) is Russia fears that the missile defense will undermine their capability to defend themselves. I think it's unjustified as far as it goes from phase one to three. With regards to phase four, operating probably by 2020, I see that this phase four will indeed or eventually indeed undermine Russia (inaudible). To what extent are you willing to subscribe (inaudible) and what do you think about Russia's concerns here? Thank you very much.

SEC. PANETTA: I greatly respect the work that Senator Nunn has done and frankly, I don't see a contradiction here. I think to engage in what Senator Nunn wants to do, to be able to reach out, to develop, to find the communication, relationships that are important to trying to prevent war in the future, I think that's absolutely essential. But I also think that you could do that from a position of strength, not a position of weakness. And therefore, I think we have to continue to build our defenses. We have to continue to be able to deploy that which we think is important to the defense of Europe, and we intend to do that.

Now, we do not view, very frankly, the ballistic defense system that we're trying to develop here as in any way a threat to Russia. We've made that clear time and time again. We'll continue to make it clear to Russia. And we hope that ultimately we can resolve those issues so that we can proceed in a way that represents the defense of Europe, not a threat to Russia, but the defense of Europe.

AMBASSADOR ISCHINGER: Thank you. And the last question goes to Francois Heibbourg, from Paris.

Q: Yes, Secretary Panetta, in the very substantial changes in the American defense posture, which you announced recently, your starting points are defense budget reductions which do not take into account sequestration. Am I right in assuming that sequestration would (inaudible) would not need to be taken into account if, for example, President Obama were reelected and the balance of the Congress would change, but if one assumes that, does that mean that there would be no further defense cuts beyond those upon which you have based the announcements and the change of defense posture? Because the difference between a world with sequestration and a world without sequestration is about half- a-trillion dollars of defense spending.

SEC. PANETTA: Sequestration, for those of you that are not familiar with that term, is a crazy formula that was developed by some of our colleagues in the Congress that essentially said, if they didn't reach a number of savings to be achieved, and it's done with this committee, the Supercommittee that had been appointed. The committee was to achieve, at least, I think about $1 trillion (inaudible) in savings, and if they did not achieve at least that amount, then automatically a cut across the board would take place of that amount. And for defense, that represents a virtual double of the cuts that we would confront.

As the president has pointed out and I've emphasized, we are not paying attention to sequester. Sequester is crazy. And therefore, you know, I'm going to urge and we strongly urge the Congress to be able to come forward and try to de-trigger that amount because, frankly, it's not only the amount, but it's the way it would be done. The formula is built into sequester. It would cut across the board and, as I said, it would virtually devastate our national defense. And for that reason, we're saying no, we are not planning on sequester taking place. If sequester happened, I'd have to throw the strategy that I just developed, I'd have to throw that out the window. And I think that would be dangerous for America and would be dangerous for the world.

With regards to the future, obviously, we'll continue to work. I think we've developed a very strong strategy for the future. I think the strategy that was developed with the service chiefs I developed it with the service chiefs, with the under secretaries of defense. It was a unified effort to establish a strategy that would give us a defense not only now, but in the future, and make it one that would be agile and flexible for the future.

We think we want to stick to that because it is important for the United States to set a strategy and a consistent strategy so that the world understands where we're going in defense not just now, but in the future.

AMBASSADOR ISCHINGER: Let us all thank our two secretaries (inaudible).

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Air Force Strategic Choices and Budget Priorities Brief at the Pentagon

2012-02-04T00:00:02Z

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Air Force Strategic Choices and Budget Priorities Brief at the Pentagon

02/03/2012 05:41 PM CST

Presenter: Secretary of the Air Force Michael Donley and Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz

February 03, 2012

Air Force Strategic Choices and Budget Priorities Brief at the Pentagon

SECRETARY OF THE AIR FORCE MICHAEL DONLEY: OK. Thanks, Les.

Good afternoon, and thanks for joining us. I wanted to take a few minutes here to outline the Air Force priorities and choices that we made in response to the new strategic guidance, and also in response to the Air Force's pieces of the Budget Control Act, and the work that has been done over the last several months under Secretary Panetta's and Chairman Dempsey's leadership, with a lot of direct input as well from the president along the way.

As you may know, we issued a white paper on Wednesday which summarized this work, so that is available to you. And there's also a longer paper that's been published today that describes the force structure changes made by the Air Force in more detail.

We have made some hard choices to closely align ourselves with the new strategic guidance in our FY '13 budget submission. Our decision for the Air Force was that we were better off, and the best choice -- course of action for us is to become smaller in order to protect a high-quality and ready force that will continue to modernize and grow more capable in the future. So we had to balance force structure, readiness, modernization and certainly our support for Airmen in that mix. And that was the balancing that we did, the choices that we made.

We have taken, along the way, a number of steps to protect the distinctive capabilities that the Air Force brings to the table, consistent with the strategic guidance we received, capabilities that joint and coalition partners have come to depend upon from the Air Force: air and space control in particular, global intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, global mobility, global strike, all enabled by effective C2, and of course recognition of the growing importance of cyber.

Now, we've also protected along the way the bomber force. Our remotely-piloted aircraft plans are now set at 65 CAPs with the capability to surge to 85.

We've resized our mobility forces to match up with the changes in the overall size of the joint force. We've protected space. We've protected cyber capabilities, also nuclear forces along the way.

The president has noted that there is a possibility -- the potential for being able to fulfill our nuclear deterrent mission at smaller numbers. But those issues are still pending at the White House, so we've made no changes in the nuclear forces. We'll let the president decide the way forward in that area later.

Our force structure changes include the reduction of 286 aircraft over the future years' defense plan, including 123 fighters, 133 mobility aircraft, 30 ISR platforms. Our smaller force structure has led us to favor divesting niche fleets, smaller fleets that involved specialized training and sustainment or costly, in some cases, sustainment; retaining and emphasizing multirole capabilities that will provide for operational flexibility across the spectrum of conflict; and for those remaining forces, also additional emphasis on common configurations for remaining fleets, which will again give us operational flexibility.

All of those force structure changes yield a reduction of 9,900 personnel.

That's 3,900 active duty, 5,100 Guard personnel and 900 Reserve personnel.

We've carefully balanced our active and Reserve component changes to make sure that we can meet the demanding and sustainable OPTEMPOs that are part of the strategic environment going forward, so we can meet the surge capabilities in the new strategic guidance and we can also meet the sustained operations at a deployment rate that will not overstress the active force, will not overstress the Reserve components as we go forward.

We're fully committed to our total force capability. We can't do what we do without our Guard and Reserve and active components all working together. So we will get smaller together. But as we get smaller, we will get more integrated together. And the number of associations between the active and the Reserve components will go up from about a hundred to 115. And we expect that number to grow higher as we get into FY '14 and beyond.

In the context of these force structure changes, there are multiple units affected, and just about every state will be affected by the aircraft and/or the manpower adjustments that go with these changes.

In a number of cases, we've taken mitigating action by remissioning units -- from aircraft to remotely piloted aircraft, or ISR missions, for example. We've moved some aircraft from the active forces into the Guard or Reserve. And in some cases unit size will increase in the Reserve component as well.

But, in general, we're getting smaller. So these mitigations and backfills will not cover all units at all locations.

Our intention is to protect readiness at any force level. We're still working through the negative effects of over a decade of sustained high-operational tempo and that's -- and its impact on the force in terms of the aging equipment, lost training opportunities and the stress on our personnel. So we are still working through those issues and recovering through that.

We put the funds where we think they're necessary in our flying hour programs, of course, and weapons systems sustainment, but this bears watching going forward. And we're committed -- I think all the service secretaries, chiefs, the entire Defense leadership is committed not to allow this force to go hollow.

We are slowing modernization, but we are protecting programs that are critical to future Air Force capabilities, and you've heard the deputy secretary address some of those. We've protected the long- range strike family of systems and particularly the bomber program, obviously the tanker program; SBIRS; AEHF, the follow-on GPS; and other programs as well.

As part of a management decision on the F-35 program, we have determined that we are not ready to ramp up to full rate production. So we've depressed the rate of procurement for a few years while we work through the concurrency issues still present in that program. But we remain fully committed to the F-35, as the deputy has outlined, all three variants. This is a "must do" for our armed forces.

It's the future of the fighter force, not only for the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps, but also about 12 other international partners as well.

We continue to support our Airmen in this endeavor, and I won't go into detail on the personnel adjustments. I think the deputy and the vice chairman have already covered those matters adequately at the DOD level.

But we do rely on our ability to recruit and retain a high-quality force, and this is extremely important to the Air Force. Because of the technical nature of the work that our Airmen do, we need an experienced force to do what we do, and we need to remember that they're the ones that bring all this together for us and make it all happen for our Air Force and for our nation's defense.

So, tough choices in the middle of this. This is hard but manageable. There's increased risk, as the chief can better articulate than me. But this is manageable, provided there are no further reductions. And I think the deputy has been articulate, the secretary as well, that further reductions beyond what the department is facing currently and has addressed here, the $487 billion from previously planned levels, would cause us to have to go back and revisit the strategy. We would not be able to execute the new strategic guidance at levels lower than are now programmed.

So with that, let me open up for questions.

Q: Hi. You mentioned this is going to affect all 50 states. Are you worried about hitting resistance in Congress, in the case of Guard and Reserve, state governments? And if so, what are y'all going to do about it?

SEC. DONLEY: Well, we'll certainly work through those issues with each of the affected delegations. The chief and I and -- along with other service secretaries and chiefs, but the Air Force team has been up speaking to congressional staff today. We'll be talking with affected delegations in the weeks ahead.

Today General McKinley and our director of the Air National Guard, General Wyatt, were briefing the state adjutant generals on our plans. So we are being as transparent as we can about all the changes we have made. Our Guard and Reserve partners have been integral to this work. They have helped identify the locations and work through the mitigations and remissioning of units affected by these changes. And we'll all go forward together as one Air Force in this process.

Q: Yeah, so actually, a question for both of you. In terms of the slowdown and how it'll affect the F-35, I notice that you say that you're going to be working on a detailed plan, but you're not -- you know, haven't determined a full-rate production yet. Does that mean that you are coming off of the targeted number that you were planning to buy?

AIR FORCE CHIEF OF STAFF GENERAL NORTON SCHWARTZ: Well, first, we're -- the key thing is we've committed to do service-life extension on about 350 of our multirole F-16s, some structures in the early-block airplanes, and then more extensive structure and avionics improvements on the more modern airplanes and that those will populate both the active-duty and the Reserve and the Guard components.

And the issue with respect to F-35 is that obviously the planes are not delivering as quickly as we originally anticipated, thus the requirement to posture the legacy force to make sure that we retain the capabilities we need until the F-35 delivers in numbers.

With respect to the question of, you know, total inventory, that is -- you know, 1,763 is the program of record. Please recall that, by 2017, we will probably have a delivery of around 160 or 170 F-35s. So that call is well into the future.

Please, and then we'll go to the second row.

Q: Thank you.

General Schwartz, when you talked about how the Air Force plans to trim 10,000 Airmen in fiscal 2013, that's obviously causing a lot of consternation among our readers. I know we're very early in this process, but we owe them an answer as to how these cuts will be made. So I pose the question to you and to the secretary: How do you plan on trimming 10,000 people next year and do you expect involuntary separation measures to be taken?

SEC. DONLEY: I don't think we'll need involuntary separation measures. We -- we're in pretty decent shape now in terms of our active duty force management. We'll see what happens, but right now, we don't anticipate RIFs, if that's the nature of your question.

On the Guard side, there are significant reductions involved here, and we will be asking Congress for legislative authorities for force management tools, like those that we used for the active duty, to help the Guard work through the force shaping that's under way inside the Air National Guard as part of this process.

GEN. SCHWARTZ: Right here, sir.

Q: Good afternoon, gentlemen. Every time the Air Force has faced difficult choices like this, you've whacked the A-10s. And I know you've seen all the arguments, heard all the arguments. There they go again.

As you look at the operational need for close air support, can you explain to us how you're going to bridge this and perhaps tell us why you're not going to have to -- in 18 months, if some other situation pops up, you're not going to have to roll them out again and move folks back into them.

GEN. SCHWARTZ: We're reducing 102 A-10s, and there's still going to be 246 A-10s left in the inventory. And please recall, we are doing close air support with B-52s, with B-1s, certainly with F-16s and F-15Es and AC-130 gunships. The bottom line is, as remarkable an airplane as the A-10 is, it isn't the only machine that does close air support. And the United States Army and the United States Marine Corps and our own battlefield Airmen can rely on having plenty of close air support provided by the United States Air Force from above.

Q: So are PGMs allowing you in part to get around this?

GEN. SCHWARTZ: Certainly. Certainly precision-guided munitions of all varieties, both GPS-guided and otherwise, enable that, without a doubt.

Q: General Schwartz, I wanted to follow up on that A-10 question in regards to close air support.

The A-10s are -- you were -- mentioned the B-2s and the B-1s. The A- 10s are one of the most cost-effective measures in which the Air Force can provide CAS, as well as one of the most effective, just generally. Can you talk a little bit about why you did choose the A-10s, just to go along with that, versus a B-2, which is so much more expensive for the Air Force to employ --

GEN. SCHWARTZ: A B-52?

Q: -- or a B-52, or the B-1s, for example?

GEN. SCHWARTZ: Yeah, just to clarify. The question is how many roles can a weapon system fulfill, depending on what eventualities unfold, what contingencies we might face. And as you get to a smaller force, one of the imperatives, in our view, was to maintain versatility. And in order to do so, that implied -- if you have airplanes with a narrow range of capabilities that you defer toward the more multirole capabilities. And that is what we've done.

I emphasize again that the -- that we're not talking about eliminating A-10 capability. There'll still be over -- well over 200 aircraft in the inventory.

Ma'am.

Q: Thank you. General Schwartz, there's a big emphasis in the paper on the bomber force, protecting the bomber force. Can you elaborate what that means? Does that mean -- how big of a force do you envision for bombers? Does that mean current bombers? And the future bomber, the new one, when will that be started?

GEN. SCHWARTZ: Sure. There are -- in this year, in the '13 proposal, there are -- there's no reduction in bomber force structure. There were minor reductions in '12, but not in '13. There's a recognition in the strategy that as you make the shift from the focus on the Gulf area and Iraq and Afghanistan to a more maritime focus, to Asia-Pacific requirement, that long-range strike in particular, and legs, become increasingly important.

And so the department came to the conclusion that it was best to retain the existing bomber force structure, and emphasized the new program -- the long-range strike -- (inaudible) -- one component of which is a bomber. And you saw, I think, a very compelling commitment to that capability and one that we intend to fulfill and deliver in the mid '20s.

Q: Hi. General Schwartz, if I could just get a quick follow up -- and I'm guessing your aides will probably have to help us with this, but if -- to Andrea's question, could we get a number associated with the cost to get those F-16s up and running and operating for the number of years that you expect them to have to operate to fill that gaps.

And then, on a larger scale, I interviewed General Breedlove a couple of years ago about the 250 aircraft reduction, and he had said back then that they were going from low to moderate risk, to moderate risk of accomplishing certain missions, such as attacking defended enemy airspace, protecting against incursions into U.S. airspace, and close air support, which we discussed. Has that risk scenario changed? Are we increasing the risk from just two years ago, or can you put a little definition of what that risk means?

GEN. SCHWARTZ: Right. I think that the bottom line is -- is that there is some additional risk relative to the 250 aircraft that we retired in 2010. There are also adjustments in the joint force structure broadly that allow you to make some of those reductions. But the -- I think the bottom line is, again, that what we have done is responded to a new strategy.

What Phil Breedlove briefed you on two years ago was a QDR footprint. This is a new Defense Strategic Guidance which gives us a different force-sizing construct and a different set of requirements. And so this -- what we're doing is not without risk, but I would categorize it as appropriate risk.

SEC. DONLEY: If I could add that this -- just to build so there's a sort of a broader sense for this, is the strategy shifts a little bit toward Asia-Pacific. The chief mentioned the long distances, which favor long-range aircraft, bomber-like aircraft, long-range strike capabilities, to be protected; and inside the fighter force structure going forward, the need for more multi- role aircraft as we go forward. So all of these things mix together in helping shape the decisions we made about which kind of aircraft to retire.

Q: So is it still moderate risk, or is it higher than moderate?

GEN. SCHWARTZ: It's marginally higher than it was when we talked.

SEC. DONLEY: But the requirements also changed a bit in the strategy process --

GEN. SCHWARTZ: Yeah. Right, so --

SEC. DONLEY: -- in the strategic guidance.

GEN. SCHWARTZ: We'll go here, and then come back.

Q: Sir, with the short-term reduction in the number of F-35s, does that mean you'll have to delay your IOC? And additionally, are you guys going to be getting F-35s at Eglin flying anytime soon?

GEN. SCHWARTZ: We have six airplanes at Eglin as we speak, and we will undertake a decision to start flying. The appropriate authorities in the Air Force will make that call based on a number of factors, including the status of the test program, the reliability of the platform and so on.

The plan will be to start flying -- not training, but to start flying with test-qualified aviators initially to do what we call local area orientation, local area operations, and we will build to a threshold which will allow the training leadership in the Air Force to declare ready to train with other than test-qualified aviators.

With respect to F-35, again the situation is that we are managing concurrency on this program and we will bring the birds -- we are eager to bring F-35s aboard when they are ready. And clearly the management art in this is hitting the sweet spot which allows you to acquire airplanes, but not so many that you have to go back and modify them because of what you learn in subsequent tests.

(inaudible) -- right here, sir.

Q: Thank you, General.

The C-130 fleet and the AMP program in particular -- in this document, you all describe the cancellation of the AMP program and its replacement with a more limited avionics upgrade. Can you describe what capabilities you'll be giving up in that -- in that new program and how that will affect the smaller RC-130 fleet -- (inaudible)

GEN. SCHWARTZ: Yeah, part of this -- the reality is that the AMP program was a very extensive modification: certainly revamp the cockpit and introduced automation in communications and navigation equipment, so on and so forth. In a different era, it was an attractive approach. But, in a more austere area -- era, rather, and now knowing that many of our European partners have pursued less ambitious, but sufficient cockpit modifications on their C-130s, this simply became an affordability issue for us.

And so we will pursue a modification that does what's absolutely needed, which is communications and navigation such that we can comply with international civil aviation organization requirements.

Q: General, thank you. I wanted to ask you about the Massive Ordnance Penetrator. Secretary Panetta has acknowledged there are shortcomings with this program. I'm curious if you could elaborate on those concerns and tell us if you have the conventional firepower to strike Iran's deeply buried nuclear facilities if needed.

GEN. SCHWARTZ: I'm certainly not going to speculate on hypothetical missions.

Q: OK.

GEN. SCHWARTZ: And again, I don't think it should be a surprise that we seek to have in our weapon inventory capability to defeat buried and -- hardened and deeply buried targets.

Q: Can you tell us why you need 85 million more in this program?

GEN. SCHWARTZ: There are -- you know, take -- for example, take the AIM-120, the AMRAAM. Over time we have had the AMRAAM and have improved it through several versions, C-5, C-7, AIM-120D and so on. This is true even with the JDAM , where we did improvements on the guidance kit over time. This is what I would call, again, achieving the right level of capability such that you can use weapons like this or others; where either technologies become available or techniques to improve their reliability, for example.

So the bottom line is, you know, this is not unlike any other weapon in our inventory.

Q: So you're not willing to tie these upgrades to a need in Iran.

GEN. SCHWARTZ: I don't think I am, you know, to put it bluntly.

Yes.

Q: General, Chairman Dempsey has talked about having the force in such a way that if they guessed wrong, they can rebuild it fairly quickly. Could you -- could both of you please talk about how you would rebuild the Air Force if -- or expand the Air Force if we guessed wrong?

SEC. DONLEY: A couple of areas where we're putting additional focus -- I talked about the importance of the total force going forward. As we go forward, it -- again, we're going to get smaller across all three components. We need to get more closely integrated and to be more ready for the contingencies out in front of us.

I think Libya is an excellent example in terms of readiness, in terms of how quickly requirements for Air Force capabilities can emerge. We did not have months to prepare for that. We really didn't have weeks to prepare for that. It was more like days and hours. We were able to bring the total force together quickly to produce combat capability over Libya within hours and then to generate that capability with our NATO partners as well and sustain that for nine months. You can't do that if you're not ready.

So a smaller force, to us, in this strategic context means we have to be even more integrated and more ready going forward. So the associations that we're developing and continue to push forward between the active and the Reserve component forces is an extremely important part of making sure that we can access and make total, full use of the total force.

Q: Is that harder with -- (off mic) --

DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY OF THE AIR FORCE BRIGADIER GENERAL LES KODLICK: We have time for one more.

GEN. SCHWARTZ: Just a second.

If I can add one thing, Mr. Secretary, with your permission. In a major capital end item-intensive organization like the Air Force or the Navy is, that typically takes a while to deliver those capital end items. It is important to have modernization programs in train that one could expand if you needed to, to serve the notion of reversibility. And that is what the new tanker is for, that's what the F-35 for, and that's what the long-range strike bomber is about.

BRIG. GEN. KODLICK: Chris, why don't we let you take the last question.

Q: I just had a quick question. The Army and Marines have talked a lot about getting back to doing what they do best. How have these budget reductions affected what you had planned to do in terms of the balance between manned and unmanned systems in the Air Force?

SEC. DONLEY: Frankly, we didn't look at this issue of manned-unmanned balance. I mean, we have focused, in the ISR area, for example, on making sure, with the 65 CAP goal that we have established, that DOD has set, our ability to surge to 85 CAPs. That -- our goals in the ISR area have been to consolidate the gains that we have made over the past 10 years or so, not necessarily just by adding more airplanes, but by filling out the training, the education, the sustainment, the communication system that goes with this capability to make sure it will be full and robust going forward as the budgets start to come down. So that's an example of where we had -- we set the force structure, and then we're focused on filling out all the details of the capability underneath to make sure it is healthy going forward.

GEN. SCHWARTZ: We are not going back to the 2001 ISR footprint. The bottom line is if you want to know what we're good at, we're good at air and space control, global ISR, global mobility and global strike, and we will continue to be good at that, you know, in the future, OK?

BRIG. GEN. KODLICK: And -- (inaudible). Ladies and gentleman, thank you.

Q: Thanks a lot.

Updates from the U.S. Department of Defense

Secretary Leon Panetta's troop visit at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, Germany

2012-02-03T23:45:01Z

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Secretary Leon Panetta's troop visit at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, Germany

02/03/2012 05:29 PM CST

Presenter: Secretary of Defense Leon E. Panetta

February 03, 2012

Secretary Leon Panetta's troop visit at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, Germany

MODERATOR: Ladies and gentlemen, we have the honor of having (inaudible) in our (inaudible). (Inaudible) -- as an Army officer, as a representative from the state of California, as the White House chief of staff, as the director of the Central Intelligence Agency and now as our 23^rd secretary of defense. Please join me in welcoming the Honorable Mr. Leon Panetta. Sir.

SECRETARY LEON PANETTA: Thank you very much. Really it's an honor for me to be able to be here and to say thank you for your great service. I wanted to come by and really take the time to look you all in the eye and say what great unsung heroes you are.

I see, you know, the great work that you do. When I go to Bethesda and meet with the wounded warriors there, every one of them remarks about the care that was done here and the fact that in many ways you've helped save their lives (inaudible).

And so there is -- there's very, very little tribute that sometimes is given to all the great work that you do, and I'm here to pay tribute to it, to say thanks, because you guys are really performing God's work here in what you do.

And I -- you know, I have a special feeling for all the nurses in the crowd, because my wife is a nurse. I met her -- I actually met her before she was a nurse. It was when she was going to nursing school. And we got married after she graduated from nursing school. And she's been taking care of me ever since.

And you know (inaudible) I can't tell you how important those skills are, and I know firsthand how important they are. The care -- I mean, you know, you're among the first people that the wounded see, and you're the first eyes they look into. And that amounts to a lot. And if there's some love there and there's some caring there, I can't tell you how that -- how important that is to the healing process, to be able to have that.

And so clearly all of you, in what you do and the care that you provide, you are healers and you know healers going back to the time of Christ are the most respected individuals because you've helped heal those that carry these wounds .

And so again, my thanks to all of you. And also we have an opportunity to celebrate the 111^th anniversary of the Nurse Corps.

Q: Hooah!

SEC. PANETTA: All right. And I know a lot of services are represented here.

Just a few words about kind of generally more apt, this is -- this is a key turning point in terms of where we're at. It's a turning point as we come to the end of 10 years of war. We ended the war in Iraq. We're in the process of bringing down the war in Afghanistan, you know. And obviously just came out of Libya as far as the NATO operation, having brought down Gadhafi. And you know, it isn't, is an important turning point, and when you add to that the fact that we are now facing a tough budget. The Congress passed a bill that required that (inaudible) reduce the defense budget by $487 billion over 10 years. A huge task, a tough challenge.

But one thing we decided -- I mean, there were four things we said in the report. Number one, we want to maintain the strongest military in the world. We run the strongest military and we want to maintain that.

Number two, it's all about the force. In the past, when we've drawn down, we just cut across the board, and I won't do that here, because when you cut across the board you weaken everything, and that's the wrong way to do it.

Thirdly, and along with everything else on the table; look at all the areas in the defense budget.

And then fourthly, we said we can't break faith with the troops and their families. We've got -- we've got to make sure that those that have been asked to deploy time and time again, those that have been asked to sacrifice time and time again -- that we're -- that we remain true to you and to the benefits that were promised you.

So we met -- the service chiefs. We all came together. We looked at a strategy. Our point was, let's develop a strategy for what we want the U.S. military force to look like not just now but in 2020. And it took some time, but we worked as a team. All the chiefs -- service chiefs worked together. And we basically developed a strategy that emphasized five areas that we thought were important to the future. And then based on that strategy, we made the budget decisions that we came with.

The key points were, number one, we are going to be a smaller and leaner force. We're going to probably draw down (inaudible) as a result of drawing down in these wars. But we knew we were going to have to be leaner and smaller, but we want to be agile, we want to be deployable, we want to be able to be flexible, we want a force that could move quickly and also be on the technological edge, to have a technological advantage -- that was going to be important for the future.

Secondly, we knew we would have to rebalance the forces based on where we thought problems in the world would arise. And for that reason we're going to maintain a key presence in the Pacific, our Pacific power that's a place where obviously problems could develop in the future. And so we're going to have a great forward presence there, with the Navy and with the Army, with the Marine Corps and with other elements, the Air Force as well.

We'll do the same thing in the Middle East, because the Middle East is place where there are potential problems in the future. And so we'll maintain a large presence in the Middle East as well.

We'll also maintain a presence elsewhere. We felt it was important the United States maintain our presence in other key parts of the world. That goes for Europe. Europe is important to us. Even though two of our BCTs are going to be drawn down, the fact was that those two BCTs weren't here in Europe to begin with; they were fighting in Afghanistan.

So we're going to keep two BCTs here in Europe and then we're going to add a third BCT where we'll take the battalions and rotate them in and out of Europe to do exercises and training and to be able to help the mission. So we are going to maintain -- we're going to maintain a very strong presence here in Europe. As a matter of fact, I think the level goes from about 43 or 44,000 to 37,000. That 37,000 represents more soldiers than almost any place else the world. So we're going to -- we're going to maintain a presence here. That's important.

Thirdly, it's important that as we -- as we rebalance, as we focus on troops elsewhere -- and by the way, with regards to Latin America and Africa, we're going to have a rotational presence where we move guys in that are able to train and advise and exercise, and do it on a rotational basis. We do -- we do that with the Marines. We're going to do it with the Marines in Australia. We do it with the Marines elsewhere. We do with it our assault forces, special operations forces. And the Army is going to develop that kind of capability as well. So we'll do that in Africa. We'll do that in Latin America. We'll do that here, as well, in Europe. So we will maintain a presence throughout the world, because we need to do that for our own security, and to develop the kind of partnerships and alliances that are going to be working for our security.

Fourthly, we've got to be able to defeat any enemy, any adversary, anywhere in the world. And we could face more than one adversary at one time: We could be fighting a land war in Korea, and suddenly Iran moves to close the Straits of Hormuz. We've got to have the capability to be able to confront each adversary, to not only deter them, but defeat them. And we can do that with the force that we've put in place.

And the last point that -- is that we have to invest. We can't just -- it isn't just about making the cuts; it's about investing: investing in new technology, investing in special operations, investing in unmanned systems, investing in multi-mission systems, investing in space, investing in cyber, investing in a -- in a capability to mobilize quickly; which means that we need a strong Reserve and a strong National Guard for the future, and we're going to need to maintain our industrial base. So those are all key elements.

And in addition, we have maintained and kept faith with the troops. We need to -- even though, I have to tell you, compensation is an area that's grown by 90 percent in the military over the last 10 years. And so I've got to look at how we can control those costs in the out years because if I don't, they'll eat up our ability to maintain the force structure, and I can't allow that to happen.

So what we did was this: On compensation, we said, no pay cuts for anybody; I'm not going to do any pay cuts. And for two years, we're going to have allot full pay increases. But then, in the out-years, what we're going to do is reduce the level of pay increase, so that we can get some savings and control some of those growth costs in the future.

Secondly, with regards to health care we're not (inaudible) our Wounded Warriors, the health care for you and your families. But with regards to retirees -- not junior retirees, but elderly and more high-ranking retirees -- we're going to charge more for fees, for copays and for other costs; so now we can help cover some of costs in health care. Health care costs me about $50 billion a year in the military right now.

And then lastly, on retirement, we decided we wanted a commission to look at retirement reform, but we've made clear that it would not impact on any benefits of those who are currently serving. You will be grandfathered in; you'll be protected in terms of your benefits. And if anything, it'll affect only those that come in in the future, if there are reforms that are enacted. But in that way, we can try to achieve some savings in that area.

So those -- that, very briefly, is just a quick summary of the budget decisions we have made. The most important thing is that in the end we are unified, we feel very good about the strategy we're putting in place. We think it meets the needs of the future. We're going to have to continue to confront threats in this world. You know, we're fighting a war in Afghanistan; you've got Iran; you've got North Korea; you've got turmoil in the Middle East; you have cyberattacks that take place; we've got powers that are trying to undermine other countries. We have got to confront those threats.

And I am assured that we will maintain the strongest military in the world. Why? Not because of the technology, not because of the weapons, not because of the warship and the tanks and the planes that we have; but because of you. You are all the very best weapons that we have, because you are the men and women in uniform that serve this country. And I can't tell you how proud I am of those that serve. You guys put your lives on the line and, in my book, you're all heroes.

So I thank you for your service. Thank you for being who you are and what you do, because in the end, it is not only about protecting our country; it is about making our country better for our children. And that in the end, is probably the greatest role of all. If we can give our kids a better life, then, dammit, this is all worthwhile. Thank you very much again for your service.

MODERATOR: Sir, thank you. Thank you for being here and thank you for your service, anybody that serves in where are you and where you are going and so thank you very much for taking the time to do that for us.

Sir, every day at Landstuhl is special. This is an especially special day, because we're going to celebrate the 111^th birthday of our Army Nurse Corps.

There are a couple of traditions here at Landstuhl. And when we celebrate anything, we all celebrate. It is the 111^th birthday of the Army Nurse Corps, but we're going to celebrate with all of our nurses: the Army, Navy, Air Force, civilian, our local nationals, and our Red Cross volunteers.

And the other tradition is that the oldest -- well, excuse me, the most senior officer -- senior officer who is Colonel Jeff Ashley who is our deputy commander for nursing, and our most junior Army Nurse Corps officer Lieutenant (inaudible) will join you in the cutting, please.

SEC. PANETTA: All right, great.

MODERATOR: (Inaudible.)

Updates from the U.S. Department of Defense

Town Hall Meeting with Secretary Leon Panetta, Ramstein Air Base, Germany

2012-02-03T23:30:01Z

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Town Hall Meeting with Secretary Leon Panetta, Ramstein Air Base, Germany

02/03/2012 05:02 PM CST

Presenter: Secretary of Defense Leon E. Panetta

February 03, 2012

Town Hall Meeting with Secretary Leon Panetta, Ramstein Air Base, Germany

MODERARTOR: All right, Team Ramstein warriors. It is really a thrill for me to introduce the leader of the world's greatest military, the 23^rd secretary of defense, the honorable Leon Panetta (inaudible).

SECRETARY LEON PANETTA: Thank you very much. I wanted to take this opportunity to be able to come by and thank all of you, thank all of you for the great service that you provide.

You're truly unsung heroes. And you know, I really - I really appreciate the kind of dedicated service that you're involved with, because when you guys do evacuation, you do - you literally - you literally save lives. And I've seen - you know, having gone to Bethesda, had a chance to visit with our wounded warriors there. And when you - when you look into their eyes and when you see that kind of great spirit wanting to get back to duty, wanting to get back to service, wanting to get back to life - you see that spirit, and you know that that would not have happened were it not for you, were it not for your ability to move these warriors, to get them treated and then to move them on. And that's very special. It's a - it's a very special treat.

And I - you know, I know that in addition to that service, the fact is, you know, you help, for many of those that don't make it, give them the dignity and the respect that they need as we return their bodies back to their families. And I appreciate that as well.

So you really do the Lord's work, and I'm here to say thanks, thanks on behalf of the department, but more importantly, thanks on behalf of the American people.

You know, we're at a - we're at a turning point as we come to the end of a decade of war. And we begin to see the opportunity to try to ramp down in some of these areas. And that's good. But at the same time, there's going to continue to be some heavy fighting, and we will continue to have to deal with our wounded warriors. And we will depend on you to continue to do what you do best, which is take these lives and then give them a new life so that they can be with their families. And ultimately, there are those that will return back to duty and be able to serve this country.

So thank you again. I deeply appreciate what all of you do. I can't tell you how proud we are of the service you provide. God bless you, and keep doing what you're doing (inaudible) that you will be there for any of those - and you'll get a chance to come back home and be able to be with your families (inaudible) and will greet you and will say to you, thank you for a job well done.

You've got the secretary of defense. Want to ask some questions? Go ahead and ask some questions. You know, you're not going to have this opportunity for a while.

Q: Sir, with the new proposed budget cuts, what do you foresee the long-term footprint of the Air Force in Europe being?

SEC. PANETTA: We were just at - I just came from a NATO ministerial conference, and I'm going to the Munich conference. And I wanted to make clear to our European and NATO allies that we're still going to be maintaining a significant presence here in Europe.

You know, look, this question (inaudible) we were asked to cut $487 billion over 10 years. That was a requirement from Congress to cut that amount of money. And what we decided from the beginning is that, you know, you take that kind of challenge - and it is a hell of a challenge - and you try to make it an opportunity. And so what we did was we said, rather than we take that money and cut it across the board, which would just frankly hollow out the force - if you cut everything, we'll essentially have a hollowed-out force - we said, let's base it on strategy. What kind of defense do we want not just for today, but in 2020?

And so I really pay tribute to all the service chiefs and their undersecretaries because we basically came together as a team and basically sat there and said, okay, what kind of strategy do we want for the future? What kind of force do we want for the future?

And so there were about five key elements that were part of it. One, we know we're going to be smaller just by virtue of the drawdown that has to take place from the war areas. So we're going to be smaller, we're going to be leaner, but at the same time, we've got to be agile, we've got to be quickly deployable, we have to be flexible, and we've got to be able to move. And that means that not only not only do we have to maintain those services that provide that kind of quick movement, but we also have to (inaudible) a technological edge. We've got to make sure that these troops have the best technology available to them for the future.

Secondly, we had to rebalance our forces, which means, you know, we have to focus on where the many problems of the world are. So you know, we have focused in the Pacific. We're going to maintain our forward presence in the Pacific because that's where some of the problems are that we're going to face in the future. And the same thing is true for the Middle East. We're going to maintain our presence there and in some ways strengthen that as well.

At the same time, we have to maintain - and this is the third element - we have to maintain our presence everywhere. We've got to maintain our presence everywhere. That is very important for our security. And so here in Europe, for example, we are going to have the largest troop presence of anywhere else in the world. We're at about 44,000, right now, soldiers. And we are going to take down some of the BCTs. But most - those two BCTs, frankly, were operating in Afghanistan going on a year. So we're going to take those two down; leave two BCTs here. Plus, we're going to develop a new brigade in the United States, where we're going to have the Italians rotate into Europe to do exercises, and do them twice a year. You train, do exercises and you have that presence. So we're looking at about 37,000 soldiers that will remain here in the European area.

So you'll have a hell of a lot of work; don't worry about it. You're going to be - you know, you'll have to provide that kind of support. And we'll have a rotational presence elsewhere. What we're doing - what Ray Odierno is doing is we're going to develop a rotational presence and our troops are going to go into an area, develop new partnerships, train, advise, assist, exercise, develop those kinds of new alliances. And that will be true in Latin America, it'll be true in Africa, it'll be true elsewhere in the world and, obviously, here in Europe.

The fourth area is we've got to be able to defeat - confront and defeat any enemy, anyplace in the world. And we feel we've got a force that we think is able to do that. For example, if we have to confront a land war in Korea and at the same time the Straits of Hormuz closed in Iran, we've got to be able to confront those kinds of challenges. And we feel confident that we've got the force levels and capability to be able to handle any enemy that tries to come at us.

And the last point I would make to you all is that we've got to invest. We've got to invest in new technologies; we've got to invest in special operations; we've got to invest in cyber; we've got to invest in space; we've got to invest in armored vehicles; we've got to invest in mobilization - if we have to mobilize quickly in order to confront a crisis, we have to do that. That means we maintain a strong Guard and a strong Reserve, and we've got to maintain a strong industrial base as well.

So those are all the key elements, or the strategy. And basically, all the decisions we make are basically to back up that strategy if we can - we can go to the Congress, go to the country and justify what we present. Now, there's some pain here: There are going to be some cutbacks and - you know, but that's the nature of what we have to do. But in the end, I want to maintain the strongest military force in the world. I mean, that's what we do. And that's why you're still going to have a large role to play in the force, not only now, but the force of 2020.

Do you have any questions?

Q: (Inaudible) personal question: When (inaudible) going to grow up, sir?

SEC. PANETTA: (Inaudible). You know, I've had - I've had a great career in public service. I'm - I believe in public service. My parents were immigrants and came to this country, like millions of others. And when we used to sit down at Sunday dinner - as we do - with my brother and I, my parents would make clear that we both owed something back to this country. And so they always built in a sense of public service in both of us.

And, you know, for me, it goes back to being an Army officer in the Intelligence Corps in the Vietnam era, and then after that working in government in different levels: the Senate, to directing the Office of Civil Rights, to legislative aide for the mayor of New York City; got elected to Congress; came back; was chairman of the Budget Committee; became OMB director; chief of staff for the president; went back home with my wife and started a public policy institute in Monterey (inaudible) which was in my district in Monterey (inaudible) university campus there and established a public policy institute; and was asked to come back here by President Obama as director of the CIA - sure as hell didn't expect that - but it was a hell of a challenge at that job. And I consider that one of the achievements that I relish most is the operation to go after bin Laden and deal with him. And then, I was asked to be secretary of defense, and this is, obviously, one of the proudest roles I have played in public service.

So I can't hold a job. I have basically been all over the place in terms of public service. But I love the challenge; I love serving the public. And I - and I do it because, frankly, there is no more important role than what we do to protect the safety of our country. And that is what it's about: We're protecting America. And you - you are able to give our children a better life. And it - you know, my parents would always say this: the reason they came over to this country was because they wanted their kids to have a better life. That's the American dream. That's what we all want for our kids.

And frankly, that's what we're involved with. What you guys do in working here and saving lives and working here and trying to help others, is you're clearly - is making sure that our kids get a better life for the future. And you know what? I've done a lot of jobs, but there is nothing more important than making sure our kids have a better life in this country.

Any more questions?

Q: Hi, sir (inaudible) in regards to what's going on between Israel and Iran, in terms of Israel , at what point would the United States become involved?

SEC. PANETTA: You know, we've made clear that - our concerns with regards to Iran. And this is something that worries us, that, you know, they continue to try to develop a nuclear capability. And we've made very clear that they cannot - they cannot - develop a nuclear weapon. And the world community is unified on that and, you know, the whole international community has said: Don't do it. Don't do it. And - so if they continue to do it, that's the reason they've applied all of these sanctions. And everybody in the world community is unified in applying those sanctions.

They're very tough. They're economic sanctions. They're diplomatic sanctions. And as a result of that, we'll put tremendous amount of pressure on Iran. They've isolated Iran; (inaudible) against the wall by virtue of what we're doing. And we have to continue that kind of pressure.

And I guess my view is that, right now, the most important thing is to keep the international community unified, to keep the international pressure on to try to convince Iran that they shouldn't develop a nuclear weapon and that they should join the international community of nations and that they should operate by the rules that we all operate by. Again, I have to tell you, if they don't, (inaudible) have all options on the table, and we're prepared to be as strong as we have to.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta Press Gaggle

2012-02-03T01:45:02Z

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Defense Secretary Leon Panetta Press Gaggle

02/02/2012 07:11 PM CST

Presenter: Secretary of Defense Leon E. Panetta

February 02, 2012

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta Press Gaggle

STAFF: Secretary has a bit of time before dinner, probably 15 minutes or so. So I'll open the floor to him.

SECRETARY LEON PANETTA: All right. Let me - let me just give a kind of summary of some of the discussions that we've had today, so that we kind of know some of the background as to where we are. First of all, I had a good series of meetings today. I met with the - with the 27 NATO defense ministers. I also had a meeting with Secretary General Rasmussen to talk about the issues involved with - you know, with NATO - a number of issues that we discussed. I also met with my counterparts from Italy, Georgia, Spain and the Baltic states, and talked with them about issues that were important to them and to us.

And then I also met with the 13 key ISAF contributing nations to again discuss the issues involved with Afghanistan. We covered a - as I said, a number of key topics - not only Afghanistan, but we talked about smart defense, and we also talked about NATO reform.

General Allen gave a progress update about the winter operations and where they're at, and the need to keep up the fight in Afghanistan. And I think, as you've seen, we have - we have all agreed on a very clear message here, as the secretary general made clear at his press conference - the elements of the message that all of us are agreed to. And the agreement is largely because this reflects what Lisbon was all about and the strategy that was developed at Lisbon, which all of us believe is being fully implemented.

First, as an alliance, obviously we are fully committed to the Lisbon framework: in together, out together. We're committed to a transition to Afghan control. As the president has said, by 2014, this process of transition will be complete, and the Afghan people will be responsible for their own security. As - and thirdly, as transition is already under way in Afghanistan, our consultations included considerations of how ISAF will evolve from its lead combat role to a support, advise and assist role, in the Afghan security forces, as the Afghan security forces move to the lead in these areas.

Our goal all along has been to help the ANSF take the lead for security, and that's the process we're involved in right now as we speak. As I indicated yesterday and as I stated to our allies today, we hope that the ANSF forces will be ready to take the combat lead in all of Afghanistan sometime in 2013. Obviously, we will have to continue consultation with our allies and our Afghan partners about the best way to accomplish that goal.

The fact that we can discuss this now is a sign of progress, and it's a recognition that our strategy is working. But I want to be clear: Even as Afghans assume the security lead, ISAF will continue to have to be fully combat-ready, and we will engage in combat operations as necessary. We're going to have to have - you know, our troops are going to have to defend themselves. They're going to have to deal with, you know, some special operations. They will have to deal with extremis situations that might develop. But clearly they will have to continue to be combat-ready in that period as I - as I also mentioned yesterday.

We also discussed the need to be - to an ensuring partnership and a presence in post-2014. I think we all acknowledged that this is an area that we have to continue to discuss and to have consultation on as to what that role will be, what missions we have to implement at that time. So that's something that we'll continue to be discussing with our NATO partners as we move towards Chicago. We'll also be discussing 'how do we sustain the ANSF with international support.' You know, funding the size of the ANSF is something that we also felt that we had to continue to discuss and consult on.

There - there's much hard fighting ahead here. We need to keep the momentum up, and we need to keep the enemy on its heels. That - General Allen made clear that we - this is no time to let up on the pressure. We have to continue the pressure on the enemy. These consultations with our allies will continue here tomorrow, and the final plan will be decided obviously by heads of state and by our head of state, President Obama, at Chicago, when we get to Chicago.

I also should mention that I again reaffirm that as part of our strategy, one of the pillars in our strategy is to maintain our strong partnership with NATO and that we will continue to do that. We are, as I mentioned to all of you, in addition to the two brigades that will remain here, are developing a third brigade from which we will have battalions come to Europe and do exercises twice a year. And I think it's fair to say all of all of our NATO allies expressed great thanks for the commitment that we are making with regards to our presence in Europe.

Q: Secretary, on your point earlier about saying that today you did raise the possibility of making a transition from a combat role to a support role sometime in 2013, did you get any - did you get - what sort of agreement or disagreement did you get from other - your counterparts, who suggested to us earlier today by a NATO official that there was a division of opinion on that point?

SEC. PANETTA: There was certainly no division of opinion in any of the meetings that I attended with our ISAF partners or in the main NATO ministerial.

Q: What about 2013?

SEC. PANETTA: Everybody understands that there is going to be a transition here as we move towards Afghan control in these areas, and that as we make that transition, that obviously our role will obviously become one of support. And you know, the Afghans will be in the lead, but we'll continue to provide support for that effort.

There was - there was consensus on this. And I think the reason there was consensus on this is that, you know, going back to Lisbon and the strategy that General Allen developed, this is exactly the way we were looking at being able to implement his campaign plan and get it done. And everybody agrees that we're on the right track with that campaign plan and that we're headed in the right direction. The transitions we've made this year and the fact that these tranches, you know, are working and the security by the Afghans is working there tells us that we're on the right track as we go into 2013 and then 2014 - (inaudible).

Q: And just to be clear you say there was a consensus on that point that you made about -

SECRETARY PANETTA: Yes, indeed.

Q: -- 2013, it'll be disbanded - (inaudible).

SECRETARY PANETTA: Well, everybody understands that there's that - that the final tranche of transition occurs in that year. And for that reason -when the tranche occurs, clearly at that point, the Afghans will be in control of most of those areas.

Q: (Inaudible) - two questions. Can you define "combat lead" and what that means? In other words, what that would look like on the ground?

SECRETARY PANETTA: It's basically that, you know, the Afghans themselves will be in charge of combat operations. Obviously, we'll be there. We'll provide support. But they're going to be the lead in terms of operations.

Q: Will they be sending tactical uh -

SECRETARY PANETTA: They'll - you know, they'll decide - obviously, patrols, tactics, what, you know, enemy targets. You know, again, we'll be there for support. We'll be there for guidance. But they're the ones that are going to be in the lead and conduct the operations.

Q: All the allies - do all the allies agree to continue combat missions in this space of combat support?

SECRETARY PANETTA: Yes.

Q: Yeah. Including the French?

SECRETARY PANETTA: Even the French acknowledge that, you know, there's going to be a need to - in the areas there that continue to be, you know, contested - that there may very well need to be combat operations there by ISAF and U.S. forces.

Q: And the U.S. - the U.S. ground rules for U.S. troops during this period that are there, is it - is it just they are supposed to have a capability to defend themselves? Or are they going to be conducting their own offensive operations? Or they would not conduct any offensive operations of their own?

SECRETARY PANETTA: The Afghans will be in the lead. And obviously, any kind of combat operations that we're involved in will be in a support role. And operations that you know, that involve obviously defending our forces and, you know, operations where we try to work with them in - you know, in going after some enemy targets that, you know, that we may be there, but they're going to be the lead. But clearly, there could be combat in those situations, and we have to be prepared to engage if we have to.

Q: Was there any concern about whether the Afghan security forces would be ready to take that on by the end of - fully by the - if not full responsibility, but lead responsibility by the end of 2013? And were there variations on the timeline, the steps were depending on the conditions?

SECRETARY PANETTA: All right, I think - I mean, I - General Allen made clear that obviously the key to all of this is the ability of the Afghan army and the NSF to be able to take control and secure these areas. And what gives him confidence that this is going to work are the tranches that have already been put in place, and the fact that in those areas, some of which are - you know, weren't the easiest, that the Afghan army has stepped up to it and are doing the job and are providing security.

And so his goal, very frankly, is to make sure that we continue the training, continue to build the ANSF so they have that capability to be able to take over these areas that are going to be involved in the next tranches. There'll be some additional tranches this year, and then obviously the final tranches will take place in 2013. But the key is going to - is clearly going to be a capable and operational ANSF.

STAFF: We have time for probably two more questions. David (unintelligible) -

Q: Mr. Secretary, our colleague David Ignatius reported today a column saying that you believe there is a strong likelihood that Israel will strike Iran in April, May or June. And this is before Iran could enter a zone of immunity to build a nuclear weapon. Is that accurate? And if so, are you becoming increasingly concerned that Israel is, in fact, preparing to take action?

SEC. PANETTA: Yeah, I - frankly, I'm not going to comment on that.

Q: Why not?

SEC. PANETTA: Because that's something that, you know, is - David Ignatius, you know, can write what he will but, you know, with regards to what I think and what I view, I consider that to be an area that belongs to me and nobody else.

Q: OK. But, I mean, obviously your thoughts carry a great deal of weight in our country. (Laughter.)

SEC. PANETTA: No, I understand.

Q: Are you disputing what he's reporting?

SEC. PANETTA: No, I'm just not commenting.

Q: Can you just give a sense of something general about your concerns about Israel's position right now? I believe someone said - who was it who said -

Q: Barak.

Q: Barak said today that they're stepping up their rhetoric about a strike on Iran. So can you just address what's out in public right now about Israel and its views about Iran?

SEC. PANETTA: Well, I think - I mean, I - there's not - you know, there really isn't that much to add except that, you know, Israel has indicated, you know, that they're considering this and, you know, we have indicated our concerns.

STAFF: And finally, David, did you have a question or -

Q: I wanted just to follow up on Gale's (sp?) question about whether this transition strategy that you discussed - (inaudible) - yesterday and discussed here, is conditioned based. I'm unclear about that.

SEC. PANETTA: Yeah.

Q: Would you say that is going to begin the second half of 2013 - (inaudible)?

SEC. PANETTA: Only thing - I didn't hear that.

(Cross talk.)

Q: (Inaudible) - added the phrase you have not used either yesterday or today, which is which is conditional.

SEC. PANETTA: Well, I think - you know, I think when you're in combat, when you're in war, every step that you take is conditions based.

STAFF: All right. Thank you.

Q: (Inaudible) - comment, just to make sure, when you said Israel has indicated that they're considering this, you mean has indicated to you that they're considering -

SEC. PANETTA: No, they've indicated it publicly.

STAFF: All right. Thank you.

Updates from the U.S. Department of Defense

Media Availability with Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta

2012-02-02T00:30:03Z

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Media Availability with Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta

02/01/2012 06:18 PM CST

Presenter: Secretary of Defense Leon E. Panetta

February 01, 2012

Media Availability with Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta

SECRETARY LEON PANETTA: All right. Everybody set up?

OK. Looking forward, obviously this one's going to be my second ministerial with my NATO ministers, and I'm looking forward to going to that event. And then from there we're going to go to Ramstein and to the Landstuhl Medical Center, which takes care of our wounded coming out of Afghanistan. They've done a terrific job, so we'll stop there and pay tribute to the medical staff as well as visit with some of the wounded warriors.

And then from there we go to the Munich conference and Secretary Clinton and I will make a presentation to basically inform them about our defense strategy plus the budget decisions that have been made and then obviously indicate, you know, our commitments -- our continuing commitments, strong commitments to Europe and to NATO.

At the NATO ministerial, I'm going to brief also on the strategy and the budget decisions. We have been briefing them pretty regularly. So all of the countries are informed about the strategy as well as the budget decisions. We've been doing that on a continuing basis. This is the first time I'll have all of the ministers gathered, and we'll go through the briefing there.

I'll also obviously stress our strong commitment to NATO and what we're doing to back that up and then try to set the stage for Chicago with regards to Afghanistan and, you know, the next steps to be taken by the alliance.

On NATO, in many ways our -- you know, one of our pillars of our strategy is to build on successful partnerships, and NATO is, you know, I think without question, one of the most successful military alliances in history. And they are a force multiplier for us. They are extremely important to confronting crises around the world, from Afghanistan to Libya. And for that reason, it is -- it's very important that the United States maintain a strong commitment to NATO, and we will.

Reality is that even after we take down two of the BCTs, the combat teams that we're going to be taking down, there will be two that will remain in Europe. And in addition to that, we are going to have a brigade in the United States that will be dedicated to NATO, and what they will do is rotate battalions -- battalion task forces to Europe twice a year to conduct exercises in Europe. And you know, just to understand, those two BCTs we're taking -- we're taking out of Europe were not -- had not been there for the last few years because they've been in Afghanistan.

So what we're going to -- what we're to have there is a presence that will represent the largest troop presence of anywhere else in the world. I think we're -- you know, we're -- we'll be going from roughly about 43,000 to 37,000, but those 37,000 soldiers are still the largest presence Army presence anywhere in the world, which indicates obviously, again, the importance of Europe and the importance of our strong commitment to our NATO -- to the NATO alliance.

At the same time, one of the things I want to stress with NATO is the importance of them to also look ahead as to what kind of -- what kind of defense is NATO going to have for 2020. That was kind of -- you know, that was the framework for designing our strategy. In many ways, I think NATO has to go through the same process of looking forward and deciding what kind of force does it want for 2020.

They've got to -- got to look at their capabilities. Obviously one of the issues we'll be discussing is smart defense and trying to make sure that they develop those important capabilities that they need for future missions.

At the same time, my concern is that these countries are through budget constrictions. And what I -- what I don't want to see happen is smart defense used as an excuse for not maintaining core capabilities in defense -- in other words, you know, they'll focus on a particular capability but in terms of their other core military capabilities, that they won't -- you know, they won't make the kind of investments that need to be made. And the danger from that, it seems to me, is that, you know, as we engage in future crises, that if one nation decides to opt out, that nation could take an important capability with it that NATO may need in order to be able to successfully conduct their the -- whatever conflict we're engaged in to be able to have a success in that conflict.

We're going to continue to push on missile defense, and we are making gains there. We've located radar systems in Europe. We've got Aegis being located in Spain and elsewhere. So we're going to continue to push on that. We'll continue to provide arms, obviously, to our European friends. And what I -- what I want to urge is that they really do dedicate some effort at developing core capabilities, so that, you know, we can have a strong NATO alliance and a strong partnership for the future.

On Afghanistan, obviously, the main point I'll make is, you know, sticking -- we've got to stick to the Lisbon strategy. The United States has a very strong commitment to Lisbon and to the strategy that was laid out there. And what we want is for all of our NATO partners to adhere to that strategy. We all went in together and we'll all go out together. But we have to do it on the basis of a strong alliance and a strong commitment that was made in Lisbon.

General Allen -- I had a SVTC with him yesterday, and he strongly feels that things are on track to meet the goals that were laid out by Lisbon. We have weakened the Taliban. We've made good progress in going after them. The level of violence is down. It continues to be down. And you know, admittedly, these are the winter months, but at the same time, as he looked at almost every area in Afghanistan, you know, security is clearly improving in all of those areas. A lot of it is due to the Afghan armed forces, the army. They're doing much better operationally, and we continue to try to train and improve them in that capability.

And the other thing that is important is that we are -- we are transitioning areas to Afghan governance and security. We're involved now in the second tranche. And as I've mentioned to you before, that means that about 50 percent of the population in Afghanistan will now be under Afghan governance and security. That's an important step.

I think I've said this before, but you know, if you kind of stand back and look at where we are, 2011, I think, was very much a kind of turning point in terms of the war in Afghanistan. And probably the most important thing was not only our ability to really go after the Taliban, but it was also the fact that the Afghan army stepped up to the challenge and were involved. You know, we've had indications that the Taliban itself had -- in many ways, you know, their main incentive for continuing this war is to fight foreigners. But when they're fighting Afghans, it becomes very different and it impacts on their -- you know, their desire and their incentive to continue the war. So I think we have made an important turning point in 2011.

And so consolidating those gains is going to be what we have to do in 2012, ensuring that we continue the transitions, ensuring that we continue to improve the Afghan army during this year.

And 2013 becomes an even more critical year, more critical because we'll be going into the final transitions, final tranches, and those'll be some of the most difficult areas. But nevertheless, you know, our goal is to complete all of that transition in 2013 and then, hopefully, by mid- to the latter part of 2013, we'll be able to make -- you know, to make a transition from a combat role to a training, advice and assist role, which is basically fulfilling what Lisbon was all about.

2014 then becomes a year of consolidating the transition and making sure that those gains are in fact held, so that we can move towards a more enduring presence beyond 2014.

As the president has said, we're committed to an enduring presence there. We have the missions we're going to be involved with -- those CT operations. We'll be involved with training, advising and assisting, not only the Afghan forces, but we'll continue to have to provide enabling forces for ISAF as well as Afghanistan. And there'll be a large civilian presence there involved with development. So there clearly is going to be a continuing presence in Afghanistan for the long term, and that's something, you know, we'll want to discuss again at this ministerial.

On the ANSF, the key there is to have a sufficient and sustainable force that can be there for the future. That's the key. And one of the things we'll be discussing are, you know, what the size of that force should be.

But a lot of that is going to be dependent on the funds that are going to be put on the table in order to sustain that force. And that's one of the things, frankly, I'm going to be pushing at this ministerial is, you know, to make sure that funds are provided, sufficient funds are provided by our -- by our allies, and that we also expand the pool for funds to be provided. I think we ought to be looking at others as well that are non-NATO, looking at Arab countries to help provide assistance, looking at Japan, looking at Korea, looking at other countries that can help provide the funding, because in many ways, the funding is going to largely determine what kind of force we can sustain for the future. And that's going to be a principal effort, not only beginning at this ministerial, but we're going to continue to have teams going to different countries to develop those funds.

At Ramstein -- I mentioned what the purpose of that is going to be, and I also mentioned at Munich, what Secretary Clinton and I are going to be doing there as well. And then from there, we all head home to see who the hell wins in the Super Bowl. One thing I know is that the 49ers aren't going to be there. (Laughter.) It won't be them. It won't be them.

MR. : All right -- (off mic) --

Q: Mr. Secretary, I'd like to ask you if you would flesh out a little bit that thought you offered a minute ago about 2013 in Afghanistan. You said it would be an even more critical year, and you said that in the latter part of the year there'd be a transition from combat role to I think what General Allen calls security assistance role. Could you elaborate a bit more? And do you have a particular marker date that's going to be discussed at this meeting, what's been proposed in Chicago? And could you elaborate on that point?

SEC. PANETTA: I think we're -- you know, we will be discussing kind of, you know, what we're looking at over these next few years in terms of making sure we fulfill the Lisbon strategy. And look, the transition I was talking about is in fact the fulfillment of the Lisbon strategy. That's what -- that's what the hope was, that hopefully, we could reach a point in the latter part of 2013 that we could make the same kind of transition we made in Iraq, from a combat role to a train-and-assist role.

Look, it doesn't mean that, you know, we're not -- we're not going to be combat-ready. We will be, because we always have to be in order to defend ourselves. But we are going to be largely transitioning to a support role for the Afghan army as they take over these different areas in the future.

Q: Mr. Secretary, as you know, President Sarkozy last week suggested a speeding-up of the Lisbon schedule that you've described. Could I get your reaction to that, and more broadly, whether it is at all even conceivable that all combat troops, U.S. and allies, could come out of Afghanistan in 2013?

SEC. PANETTA: I think it's really important for all of the nations that are involved, the NATO nations, the ISAF nations, to stand by the Lisbon strategy. And the Lisbon strategy basically said that we ultimately are in a process where we will withdraw our forces by the end of 2014. And I think we ought to stick with that.

With regards to France, I mean, I understand why they made the decision. I called them and expressed our condolences for the loss of life. And at the same time, I was pleased that they did indicate that they're going to maintain a longer-term presence with regard to training and advising. And so my hope is that at this ministerial, we can discuss their decision and hopefully find a way to make sure we bring them back into, you know, the Lisbon strategy so that we can all walk forward together.

Q: Hi. Just to follow up, the -- you said earlier that you talked a lot about progress in Afghanistan, but as you know, there was a National Intelligence Estimate from your old -- you know, from one of your old agencies saying that there was a stalemate in Afghanistan. Can you just briefly tell what your assessment is of that for instance. And I've got another question -- oh, just if you could talk a little bit more about how you envision this transition. If there -- if we're no longer in a combat role, does that mean that you have forces in Helmand and Kandahar, where they're spread out very -- all over the countryside, pulling back to big bases -- what is that going to look like?

SEC. PANETTA: On the -- on the first point, on the NIE -- and you know, we've discussed this with our intelligence colleagues. I mean, a problem with an NIE is that you basically take a picture of a situation at a given time, and sometimes it doesn't take into consideration what's happening at the moment. And so that's part of the problem.

The other thing is that I think their conclusion was based on the fact that we would have no presence beyond 2014, which is not going to be the case. And we've pointed that out as well.

But the bottom line is this, that I think for anybody that's gone to Afghanistan and is seeing the situation on the ground, including myself, there -- without question, there has been significant improvement in the security situation on the ground. The Taliban has not been able to regain any of the lost territory. They haven't conducted a successful operation to regain territory. We continue to weaken them. The -- you know, the effort to target their leadership continues to be robust and effective. And in addition to that, everyone says that the Afghan army is much more effective at engaging in operations.

And also, in these tranches where we've actually transitioned areas, it is the Afghan army that is taking on the security role in providing security to those areas. And you know, again, that's an important step, because ultimately, this is about having an Afghanistan that can govern and secure itself, and that's what it's going to take in order to get there.

With regards to, you know, the transition, it'll -- you know, in many ways, it'll reflect, you know, kind of the transition we made in Iraq, where we'll obviously continue to maintain support forces there; we'll continue to provide enabling support for the Afghan army; we'll be there to help train and advise them on operations; and you know, we'll still be very much engaged in helping them as we move into 2014.

So it's still -- it's still a pretty robust role that we'll be engaged in. It's not going to be kind of the formal combat role that we are now, but it clearly is going to be a role where we are going to be providing a great deal of support and assistance to the Afghan army so that they can succeed. And we're going to do that in conjunction with ISAF. I think that's -- that's our whole goal. And that was the whole goal in Lisbon; let's, you know, be able to reach a point where we can begin to transition that role and then ultimately in 2014 consolidate the ability of the Afghan army to be able to secure the country.

Q: Thank you, Secretary. When we're talking, then, about the transition in 2013, in order to provide that support role and that combat-ready role, do you feel it's safe to drop below the pre-surge level of 68,000, which is the number that we'll be at basically by fall of this year? Do you think that in order to -- since there's going to be a change in the strategy, does that allow for dropping again below that 68(,000), and kind of can you walk us through how this frees up -- you know, frees your hand a bit to continue reducing those numbers?

SEC. PANETTA: No decisions have been made with regards to, you know, the level of force that we'll have in 2013. Obviously, as you know, we're taking down our surge force and that will take place by the end of the fighting season in 2012. But beyond that, you know, frankly, we haven't made any decisions. We know that -- what I can say is that 2013 is a critical year, and therefore will demand that we have a strong presence there in order to make sure that the gains that we've made up to that point are continued.

Q: If I could change subjects, quickly, about Egypt. As you know, there's an Egyptian military delegation that's in the country, and -- your department, as part of the long-standing partnership with that country. At the same time, we have a number of Americans holed up in our embassy from pro-democracy groups, including the son of another Cabinet member. I know you've spoken with Field Marshal Tantawi on this subject a couple of times, but the Egyptians still don't seem to want to let go.

Do you have any concerns in your mind about, on one hand, you asking the Egyptians to take it easy on these pro-democracy groups, and at the same time them not responding, and meeting with folks in the Pentagon and elsewhere?

SEC. PANETTA: I did have -- I did have a discussion with General Tantawi and conveyed to him the concerns that we have with regards to the treatment of these individuals and the whole NGO issue. At the same time, you know, I said, look, we -- you're making progress in Egypt, you've gone through the elections, you've taken off the emergency law, you're on a path towards establishing a democracy there, it's extremely important that we maintain the relationship and continue to work together to provide for your security, but our ability to maintain that relationship is being impacted by how this matter is being handled, and so for that reason urged him to do everything in his power to try to allow these individuals the opportunity to be able to leave the country.

He -- you know, he indicated his concern, that he'll do everything he can to try to help on this issue. He obviously has to deal now with the parliament. He has to deal with what is an independent judiciary. And he indicated that. And I said I have the same -- I said, welcome to democracy, because I have the same responsibility to deal with the Congress, and they're concerned about this issue.

So bottom line is I think they're working this issue. I'm hopeful that hopefully it can be resolved soon.

Q: Have you given any consideration to calling off the talks with the Egyptian delegation? They don't seem to understand that they are moving toward democracy, but the military still calls the shots.

SEC. PANETTA: Yeah. You know, frankly, I'm glad they have a delegation here, because I think they'll hear exactly what I told General Tantawi; and if nothing else, it should make clear to them what a concern it is that this matter is not being quickly resolved.

Q: Mr. Secretary, I want to go back to the question of force levels in Afghanistan in 2013 and make sure that I understand what you're planning and preparing for the Chicago NATO summit. I don't think I've heard from you or U.S. commanders the same stress on seeking to end the combat role late in 2013 and move to advising-training that I've heard today from you and we heard earlier from Ambassador Vershbow. And I -- that sounds new to me. Is it -- is that a new emphasis?

SEC. PANETTA: No, not really. And I think under Lisbon we knew that the goal would be to reach a point where we could make that transition from a combat role to an advise-and-assist role. And we always looked at, you know, what exactly -- what exactly are the pieces we would have to have in place in order to be able to make that transition. And in order to do that, we are going to have to continue to weaken the Taliban. We're going to have to continue to improve the Afghan Army's capabilities and their operations. We're going to continue to have to improve governance in the areas that we transition, and we're going to continue to have to maintain a pretty strong presence there in order to assure that those goals are achieved.

But in the -- in the Lisbon discussions it was always clear that there would -- that there would come a point at which -- at which we would make that transition and then be able to, hopefully, consolidate those gains in 2014. So the bottom line is, no, this isn't a new strategy. It's basically implementing what Lisbon was all about.

Q: (Off mic.)

SEC. PANETTA: Pardon me?

Q: (Off mic.)

SEC. PANETTA: No, I think -- I think it was -- everybody assumed that there would come a time, as we move towards the end of 2014, that we would be transitioning that role. We couldn't just kind of go right to the end, you know, with our combat role; we would have to transition. And that's basically what -- you know, what we did in Iraq. And it's what we're going to try to do in Afghanistan.

STAFF: We probably have time for one or two more questions.

Q: Mr. Secretary, do you envision a continuing presence by U.S. military troops in Afghanistan after 2014? And are there some conditions -- you laid out a lot of what has to happen between now and then to maintain the kind of stability that you expect by the end of 2014. What if that doesn't happen? Is there really realistically -- politically realistically -- an option to change the trajectory at this point?

SEC. PANETTA: Well, you know, I think we always have to be prepared for any contingencies. But right now, I'm confident that the path that General Allen has laid out is one that we can achieve. You know, it's headed in the right direction, it's on the right track. We just have to make sure that we continue -- everyone continues, ISAF as well as United States forces, continue along with the Afghan forces to keep marching in the right direction.

The -- with regards to the enduring presence, I think it was always envisioned that, in terms of an enduring presence, we would maintain military capabilities there. If we're doing CT operations, you're going to need to have that capability. If we're doing training and assist, you're going to need to have military involved there as well. So the answer to your question is that the military will have a presence. The size of that presence is still to be determined, but clearly it'll continue to be there.

STAFF: All right, thanks, everyone. Thank you.

Q: (I have a question ?) -- (inaudible).

STAFF: One last question.

Q: Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Can you elaborate a little bit on what sorts of decisions NATO needs to make about its own future in order -- ahead of the Chicago summit, in order for that to be a success?

SEC. PANETTA: Well, I think -- I think it's very important for NATO to agree that all of us have to strongly support the commitment in Lisbon. And incidentally, even with the French decision, every other ally has made clear that they're going to stand by the Lisbon Agreement in terms of, you know, making sure we all work together as to, you know, at what point we decide to draw down, that we'll do that in conjunction with each other.

The key for NATO is to, I think, make clear -- and I think they will -- that we are -- we are in this together, and that, you know, any success we've had there has been a result of everybody pulling together. If you look at -- if you look at Afghanistan and look at the different areas in Afghanistan, ISAF is playing a very important role in some key areas to establishing security there. And I think, you know, we could not do this -- we could not do this job without the help of NATO, without the help of the ISAF forces.

And so the key -- the key message that I'm going to bring there is: You know, we're on the right track; we've made important gains; we just have to stick with this until, you know, we all can, by the end of 2014, be able to end this mission based on the success of a mission that gives Afghanistan the security it needs for the future.

STAFF: All right. Thanks.

Q: Appreciate it.

Q: Thank you.

Updates from the U.S. Department of Defense

Air Force Strategic Choices and Budget Priorities Brief at the Pentagon

2012-01-27T21:15:02Z

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Air Force Strategic Choices and Budget Priorities Brief at the Pentagon

01/27/2012 02:52 PM CST

Presenter: Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz

January 27, 2012

Air Force Strategic Choices and Budget Priorities Brief at the Pentagon

CAPT. JOHN KIRBY, DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR MEDIA OPERATIONS: Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome back. It's my pleasure to welcome here to the Briefing Room General Norton Schwartz, chief of staff of the United States Air Force. The general has been serving in that capacity since October of 2008, which makes him the longest-serving member of the body of the Joint Chiefs, and would make this his fourth budget season -- so somewhat of a masochist, I think, probably, as well.

Today he's here to provide you some context on the Air Force implications of the Defense Strategic Guidance that, as you know, was released last week, and the budget priorities inside that guidance which the chairman and the secretary discussed with you yesterday.

The general will be making a brief opening statement, and then he'll be taking your questions.

General, over to you, sir.

GENERAL NORTON SCHWARTZ: Thank you so much.

Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. We appreciate your being here today and allowing me to share with you some insight into the Air Force's contributions to the new defense strategy and how we have approached the budget challenges that we face.

Innovation and adaptability are essential strengths of the United States Air Force, and ones we have sharpened during the last two decades of combat operations. We've become ever more integral to the successful operations of the U.S. armed forces, and our joint teammates rely on the Air Force for the core contributions that we provide.

Against a backdrop of fiscal challenge and diminishing resources, the security environment continues to evolve and become ever more complex. That's driving the need for a new Defense Strategic Guidance.

And as the Air Force approaches further reductions consistent with that guidance, our fleets are already smaller and older than at the end of the post-Cold War downsizing.

By trading size for quantity [sic; quality], the Air Force has made the hard choices to support the new strategic guidance in the fiscal year '13 budget submission. And we will be smaller but superb force that maintains our agility, our flexibility and readiness to engage a full range of contingencies and threats.

Throughout this evolution, we remain and shall remain committed to our ongoing responsibilities to provide globally postured, regionally tailorable full-spectrum air power, from nuclear deterrence to air, space and cyber operations, counterterrorism and global intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.

Although smaller, we will sustain global operations through our continuing presence in the Asia-Pacific and the Middle East and by tailoring our presence in Europe.

Air Force capabilities are clearly instrumental to the major priorities of the new Defense Strategic Guidance, such as deterring and defeating aggression, projecting power in anti-access and area denial environments, preventing the spread of weapons of mass destruction, space and cyber operations and, importantly, strategic deterrence.

Through virtually every area, although every area of the Air Force budget faces constrained resources, the Air Force has taken care to protect the critical capabilities on which our joint interagency and coalition partners rely.

In summary, these distinctive and enduring capabilities that Airmen provide every day are air and space control, global intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, rapid global mobility, and global strike. Airmen also maintain the cross-domain command and control necessary to make these capabilities effective across the full spectrum of operations.

Confronted by a more complex and dynamic security environment as well as significant reduction in defense resources, the Air Force determined that the best path forward was to become smaller, emphasizing multi-role systems and common configurations in order to maintain and protect a high-quality force, mitigating risk from reduced capacity while seeking to improve our ability to deal with advancing adversaries over time. To avoid a hollow force, we have and we will protect readiness at any force level and strengthen our integration of the total force team of active, Guard and Reserve Airmen.

We are slowing modernization in some areas, but at the same time we will protect the key programs that are most critical to future Air Force capabilities, for example, the KC-46 tanker, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and the long-range strike bomber.

Despite the many challenges that we have faced, today the Air Force is still, by any objective standard, the world's best. It is our intent -- indeed, it is our obligation -- to the American people and to our Airmen and their families that we remain the world' finest air force in the years and the decades to come.

Ladies and gentlemen, I'd be happy to take your questions.

Yes, ma'am.

Q: Yesterday Secretary Panetta offered numbers for the size of the active-duty Army and Marine Corps. Can you talk at all about the size of the active-duty Air Force over the next 10 years, including what happens to personnel in those six eliminated squadrons?

GEN. SCHWARTZ: The total force of our Air Force will come down in the neighborhood of 10,000 personnel. Importantly, however, that those reductions are tied to force structure going away. So we are not reducing personnel in order to meet budget targets.

This -- these are directly connected with the force structure adjustments that we've undertaken.

Q: General Schwartz, could you explain to us what is meant by using the word "terminate" when you talk about the Block 30 Global Hawk, but "divest" when you talk about the C-27J? Are you mothballing the jets you already have? Are you going to sell them to other forces, give them to other government agencies?

And if you could go into a little bit of detail about the cost assessment that went into play that tipped the scales in favor of extending U-2 service and will it (inaudible).

GEN. SCHWARTZ: The bottom line on your multiple questions -- let me start first with the rationale. It was our expectation, our -- certainly our hope, that the advantages that a Global Hawk-like platform provides would -- which we anticipated both would be cost of operation, on the one hand, and clearly persistence on the other -- would play out in practice.

The reality is that the Global Hawk system has proven not to be less expensive to operate than the U-2. And in many respects, the Global Hawk Block 30 system is not as capable from a sensor point of view, as is the U-2. And so we have made the choice, as the deputy secretary mentioned yesterday -- cancel the Block 30 program.

And the disposition of the aircraft is not yet finalized, but it would be my expectation that we would place these assets into storage, usable storage, for future possibilities, whatever they might be.

Importantly, we will retain the Block 20 and the Block 40 capabilities, and so we will -- we will use the Global Hawk to its best effect. But the bottom line is that the delta between the Global Hawk and the U-2 was not sufficient in order to retain both for the same mission.

Yes, sir.

Q: (Off mic.)

GEN. SCHWARTZ: (Inaudible) -- please.

Q: You mentioned that every aspect of the budget is under constrained resources. Aside from the Block 30, are any ISR platforms getting cut, getting pushed to the -- getting -- (inaudible)? I noticed that the Predator and Reaper CAPs are going up. Is there any sacrifice you're seeing in ISR, aside from the Block 30?

GEN. SCHWARTZ: ISR is one of those areas, clearly, that we maintained at -- and in some areas increased, but generally maintained our levels of investment. There are individual changes. For example, there is a JSTARS platform that was damaged beyond economical repair that we will not repair. But generally speaking, the existing ISR inventories will remain as they are, with the exception of the Block 30 that we answered earlier.

Q: (Inaudible) -- there an increase or decrease in future budgets for R&D on these platforms?

GEN. SCHWARTZ: I would say we -- particularly in the S&T [science & technology] area, this is an area where we'll continue to invest.

Yes, ma'am, and I'll come back up front.

Q: Thank you. General, you talked about the rationale for the Global Hawk 30 being too expensive compared to the U-2. Does the same rationale apply to other UAV programs? Do they have to be cheaper than the manned variants to become justifiable in the budget?

GEN. SCHWARTZ: It is a consideration. I mean, we, in a limited budget circumstance that we face, have to compare what is the best value to the armed forces and obviously to the taxpayer. I would say each circumstance is an individual assessment, but clearly we're going to make calls on what gives us the best capability for the dollar invested. And in this particular instance, the U-2 was the better bet.

Tony.

Q: One follow-up on the Global Hawk. Then I had a separate question on surge. Block 40 -- does your FYDP -- do you buy additional Block 40s in the FYDP, no matter what the quantity is, to show some confidence in the program?

GEN. SCHWARTZ: You will have an opportunity to see the five-year defense program investment profile next week, Tony. I prefer not to go into greater detail at this time, given that we would prefer to give the Congress an opportunity, the courtesy of seeing our program before we open it up at that level of detail.

Q: Reversibility -- how do you reverse surge pilots who have been taken out of these six squadrons if many are the reserves and they haven't flown for a number of years? What's the concept there of surge and reversibility for pilots who haven't flown?

GEN. SCHWARTZ: For us, what we are doing is re-missioning the units. In other words, for example, a unit that was operating manned aircraft might transition to a remotely piloted aircraft mission. And so, their fundamental skills will still be employed, but in a different way.

OK. Thank you.

Q: The Block 40 of Global Hawk -- is it expected to be that much cheaper or that much better than a U-2? Why is it that the Block 40 is not being eliminated and Block 30 is?

GEN. SCHWARTZ: The Block 40 is a ground moving target indicator-based platform that is not a U-2 sensor capability. On the other hand, the Block 30 is the comparable platform to the U-2 in terms of its sensor suite. And it's for that reason that it was a trade.

Q: Just to follow up, all told, what percentage -- will you see an increase in the number of UAVs flown by the Air Force after all this is said and done, or decrease? And if you can put a percentage or a number on that.

GEN. SCHWARTZ: We're at a -- you know, somewhere over 250 remotely piloted aircraft today, and that number will continue to increase through the five-year defense program.

Q: Do you have -- (inaudible) -- number?

GEN. SCHWARTZ: Please.

Q: General, just to shift a little bit, you're getting smaller, you're getting more agile; what is that going to mean for Airmen and their families moving forward? Are they going to deploy more? Are they going to be based in places longer? How does that work for you?

GEN. SCHWARTZ: What we have done is to adjust the mix of forces, active, Reserve and Guard, to recognize the tempo that is inherent in the new Defense Strategic Guidance. And our goals will be to -- as a norm -- to manage the active duty force at a deploy-to-dwell ratio of not less than 1:2, and not less than 1:4 for the Reserve and the Guard, or better, and that we have approached this in that mix in order to attain that predictable level of workload that we think is sustainable for the long term. You can surge, but the sustainable level of effort will be 1:2 and not less than 1:2, not less than 1:4.

Yes, ma'am.

Q: Sir, you mentioned earlier reducing the personnel by 10,000. Over what period would that happen? And also, can you talk about what effect reinstating BRAC, you believe, will have on the Air Force?

GEN. SCHWARTZ: Sure. We will execute those reductions, provided the -- you know, the Congress authorizes those reductions, over the program period.

And with respect to base closure, for the United States Air Force, base closure round 2005 did not close bases. We did a multitude of realignments and so on. And as you may be aware, there are estimates in that era that our infrastructure -- we had excess infrastructure in the neighborhood of 20 percent. Since 2005 our inventory of aircraft, for example, has declined in the neighborhood of 500 aircraft. And so the presumption is -- I think it's a fair presumption -- that there's yet more excess infrastructure. And so indeed, we certainly support the proposal to go through another round of base closure analysis and execution.

Q: But do you -- do you have a number of bases that you think could be closed? Do you see -- do you see any being closed, or just a reduction of the size of the ones that you have?

GEN. SCHWARTZ: I think our expectation is that we would actually close bases in a future base closure round.

Please, Tom (sp).

Q: Thank you, General. In your opening statement, you cited the Air Force's role in strategic deterrence. Yesterday Secretary Carter acknowledged that this budget is basically status quo when it comes to nuclear forces, except delaying by two years the Ohio class.

What kind of analytics are under way in the Air Force today to help the president reach his goal of going lower with the aspiration of getting to zero? And as you look at that, since both the air-breathing and land-based leg of the triad that you own are aging and need to be replaced, do you think it's wise to sustain both in future years or could you see getting rid of one of those?

GEN. SCHWARTZ: I think that -- multiple questions once again, Tom (sp) -- I think first of all, while there are no reductions adjustments in this -- the strategic nuclear force structure for us, intercontinental ballistic missiles and the bombers in the FY '13 program, the important thing you need to appreciate is that we do have new START targets to meet by February of 2018. Those central limits -- just quickly -- address 700 strategic delivery vehicles, deployed delivery vehicles, another 100 not deployed, 800 total, and then 1,550 warheads. And that of course is across the enterprise, including our Navy teammates. The bottom line is that there are still decisions pending on how to go about reaching those new START central targets, and I would expect that that would unfold in the '14 program.

With respect to your question on the mix, it remains our conviction that small -- that especially as you go down in terms of nuclear force structure, that the triad actually becomes more important, the diversity, the variety, the attributes associated with each leg of the triad actually reinforce each other to a greater degree.

So I would certainly expect, and will offer best military advice, recommending that we retain the triad even as we go to lower numbers.

Back here, please.

Q: You mentioned that there's commitment to the next-generation bomber, the F-35 and the next-generation tanker. Do you have concerns about these various programs coming into production at one time? And what effect might that have on resources?

GEN. SCHWARTZ: Well, in --

Q: (Inaudible) -- about the timelines a little bit.

GEN. SCHWARTZ: -- in fact, you know, there is a stagger there. Clearly, the F-35 is currently in low-rate, initial production. The new tanker will begin to deliver in the '15 and '16 period. And of course, we're talking about the bomber post-2020. So, clearly this is a challenge in terms of sequencing this in a way that meets budget targets, but the bottom line is these are important capabilities for the nation and ones that we will make sacrifices elsewhere to sustain.

Over here, sir.

Q: (Inaudible.) The plan unveiled yesterday talks about or points to the retirement of older C-5s and C-130s. How confident are you, given the intense global demand for airlift, that the Air Force can continue to deliver on that front, especially when we're talking about continuing to operate in places like Afghanistan or shifting to the Pacific?

GEN. SCHWARTZ: Sure. The force sizing construct that we're dealing with, which produces lesser number of brigade combat teams, for example, also has implications for the size of the Air Force. And so our assessment is that the strategic airlift force, pegged at the 275 aircraft level -- that is, 223 C-17s and 52 C-5 -- reliability -- re-engine and reliability improvement program modified aircraft -- are sufficient to satisfy the demand for dedicated military airlift, strategic airlift.

And with respect to the C-130s, an inventory of 318 modernized C-130s likewise is sufficient to provide the intratheater support.

So this is an analytically based approach. You asked me if I'm comfortable. I am. And importantly, the other -- the combatant commanders concerned in this instance are as well.

Yes, sir. Back here.

Q: Sir, I want to get back to Tony's (sp) question about reversibility writ large across the program going forward. How is the Air Force going to address that across the board as far as force structure? Are you talking about keeping things in the bone yard, putting capacity with contractors to surge if needed? How is this being dealt with across the whole program?

GEN. SCHWARTZ: Reversibility has a different flavor for the Navy and for the Air Force, perhaps, than it does for the ground forces. Both the Navy and the Air Force are major capital end-item intensive. And so when you think about reversibility, one needs to think about what programs do you have in train that really serve the role of modernization or recapitalization? Because there are long leads associated, obviously, with major end items.

And in each of the major disciplines, I think you will find in this program, and certainly outlined in the defense strategic guidance, commitment to those programs that will allows us to either -- to expand, if necessary, on an established program that would compensate for the unexpected. And I think it's certainly true with the tanker. It is true with the bomber, F-35, space programs similarly, OK?

Yes, sir. Right here.

Q: Sir, by what process did the Air Force determine that it could (inaudible) six fighter squadrons rather than 10 or 12 or however many? And have you identified which squadrons you're talking about and where those are based?

GEN. SCHWARTZ: The basic approach was a -- there was an analytical approach associated with what is known in -- the jargon is case 3 scenario. It's one of the baseline scenarios that the department uses to conduct force sizing analysis and so on. And that assessment, based again on the new strategy -- not the QDR, but the new defense strategic guidance -- and we -- and this addresses your question as well, sir -- came to the conclusion that we had somewhat excess capacity on the fighter side. And that was the driving -- that was the driver for the choices that were made here.

The mix of this was -- again, had to do with emphasizing multi-role over those kinds of aircraft with more niche or less versatility, because in a smaller force I think you can appreciate the mandate, the necessity for maximum versatility.

CAPT KIRBY: We have time for just two more, sir.

Q: Sir, is the decision to probably mothball the Global Hawks a reflection of the drawdowns in Iraq and Afghanistan; that we just don't need as much ISR? Is there a broader lesson?

GEN. SCHWARTZ: I don't think so. In fact, my combatant commander colleagues would probably indicate to you that there has been suppressed demand for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance outside the Central Command area for a number of years. And so it is not our expectation that when combat operations subside, that the demand for ISR generally will come down dramatically. We believe that some substantial proportion of that capacity will be reapplied in other theaters where -- who have been underserved for a significant period of time, OK?

Q: What do you plan to do with the C-27Js that you're getting rid of?

GEN. SCHWARTZ: Disposition is not clear. At -- one option clearly is to put them in type-1,000 or type-2,000 storage at Davis- Monthan Air Force Base at the bone yard. And that will -- that's probably our best option.

Q: What does that mean in layman's terms?

GEN. SCHWARTZ: I'm sorry, forgive me. My fault. Type-1000 storage is essentially recoverable storage. You don't use the airplanes for spare parts. You don't pick and choose and cherry- pick, which type-2000 storage allows you to do. So obviously, type-1000 storage is more expensive. It requires sort of ongoing surveillance and so on. So that -- the disposition is not final-final, but those are the options.

(Cross talk.)

If I -- if I can just conclude, sir, by saying that we have talked about lots of things here today. I would just like to remind that the real power of our Air Force, like our sister services, is our people, our Airmen, in this case, and not only the excellence that they strive to provide, but the commitment that their families offer us on a daily basis.

So again, while we tend to focus on things, I just want to remind that this is really about wonderful people doing the nation's business.

Thanks very much.

Updates from the U.S. Department of Defense

Budget Impact to the Army Briefing at the Pentagon

2012-01-27T20:15:07Z

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Budget Impact to the Army Briefing at the Pentagon

01/27/2012 01:52 PM CST

Presenter: Army Chief of Staff Gen. Raymond T. Odierno

January 27, 2012

Budget Impact to the Army Briefing at the Pentagon

CAPT. JOHN KIRBY, DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR MEDIA OPERATIONS: Well, good morning everybody, and thanks for being here. It's my pleasure to bring back to you in the briefing room General Ray Odierno, the 38th Chief of Staff of the United States Army. General Odierno will be here to speak about the new recently -- the recently released DOD strategic guidance and its impacts on the Army as that service transitions over the next few years.

I'll be moderating the discussion today, so please wait for me to call on you, and if you can limit your follow-ups so we can try to get everybody in as much as we can.

We've got about 30 minutes today. And with that, sir, over to you.

ARMY CHIEF OF STAFF GENERAL RAYMOND T. ODIERNO: I have about an opening statement, about 10 minutes. And then what I want to do is then open it up for any questions that you might have.

First, it's great to see you. Thanks for coming out on this Friday morning.

Over the past 236 years the history of the United States Army has been marked by decisive action in a wide range of missions, including regular/irregular warfare, humanitarian assistance operations, engaging with allies to build partner capacity and support to civil authorities.

Over the last decade our Army has been fully committed to combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Secretary McHugh and I are incredibly proud of the work our soldiers and civilians have accomplished in these two countries and elsewhere. We do remain a nation at war, committed to the mission in Afghanistan.

We also remain an Army that is globally engaged. Currently we have 90,000 soldiers deployed in support of operations and another 96,000 soldiers forward-stationed overseas. Our nation's Army has soldiers located in nearly 150 countries around the world.

Moving forward, our Army remains mindful of our primary purpose: to fight and win our nation's wars. This role is non-negotiable.

War fighting alone, however, is not all that our nation requires of its Army. In today's complex and uncertain strategic environment, it is imperative that our Army remains responsive to the geographic combatant commanders and is a decisive arm of the Joint Force.

The Army provides depth and versatility to the Joint Force through the capabilities embedded in our Active, Guard and Reserve components. Meeting the challenges of an uncertain, complex and interconnected strategic environment requires an Army that is adaptive and innovative, flexible and agile, integrated and synchronized, lethal and discriminate.

With that in mind, our Army must retain the right capacity and diversity to perform a wide range of missions and provide a variety of military options to our national security leaders.

The President and the Secretary of Defense recently provided new defense strategic guidance to focus our efforts. The creation of this strategy was inclusive and comprehensive, and Secretary McHugh and I were deeply involved in this unprecedented and collaborative process.

And the defense strategic guidance was clear: We will strengthen our presence in the Asia-Pacific region; we will remain globally vigilant, especially in the Middle East; and we will continue to build and strengthen critical partnerships and alliances around the globe.

Over the last five years, we grew the Army to meet the requirements associated with large-scale combat and stability operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. With the successful completion of our mission in Iraq, the continued transition of operations to Afghan security forces and the reduction of U.S. presence in Afghanistan, our strategy calls for us to no longer plan for large-scale stability operations.

Accordingly, the time is strategically right to reduce the Army's force structure. Even given a fiscally constrained environment, our Army will accomplish our reductions in a responsible and controlled manner. Secretary McHugh and I are committed to ensuring we walk down this hill at the ready rather than running our nation's Army off a cliff. We will reduce our active force end strength from 570,000 to 490,000, which will include a reduction of at least eight brigade combat teams.

It is important to note, however, that an Army of 490,000 in 2017 will be fundamentally different and more capable than the Army of 482,000 that we had in 2001.

We are an Army that is seasoned by combat. We will continue to increase our investment in special operations forces and the cyber domain. We've drastically improved our command and control capabilities, significantly enhancing mission command. We've modularized our brigade combat teams, making them more capable and lethal. We've increased our aviation assets. Our National Guard and Reserves are truly an operational reserve, giving us increased depth and capacity.

Finally, we will leverage the lessons learned from 10 years of combat as we look into developing what our future force might look at. Going forward, the Army has three principal and interconnected goals: prevent, shape and win.

We prevent conflict. We do this by maintaining credibility based on the Army capacity, its readiness and modernization to prevent miscalculation by potential adversaries.

Moreover, the Army has a critical role in shaping the environment by supporting Combatant Commanders and sustaining strong military relations with allies, building the capacity of partners to maintain internal and regional stability and operating alongside our joint forces to facilitate access around the world.

And we stand ready to win our nation's wars when needed. If all else fails, the Army will always be ready to rapidly apply its combined arms capabilities to dominate any environment and win decisively as part of the Joint Force.

As we look ahead, the Secretary and I have several priorities. Foremost, we will provide trained, equipped and ready forces to win the current fight. Second, we will develop the Army for the future as part of Joint Force 2020, a versatile mix of capabilities, formations and equipment. We must sustain our high-quality, all-volunteer Army.

We will continue to transform the ways we modernize equipment by better aligning requirements, resources and the acquisition process.

We must invest in energy initiatives in order to reduce the cost of energy within our budget. We will adapt leader development to meet our future security challenges. And finally, we will foster continued commitment to the profession of arms, a noble calling founded on the bedrock of trust, which will be key as we move forward and develop our future Army.

We are an Army in transition. While continuing our missions abroad over the next several budget cycles, we'll refine, adjust and adapt as we move the Army towards the future force needed.

Our approach to the current future budget cycles will remain strategy-based and fiscally prudent. Adjustments will come through deliberately balancing three rheostats: the first piece consisting of an end-strength force structure and personnel; second, modernization; and third, readiness.

First, we will continue to meet our commitments in Afghanistan and around the world. The Army will continue to play a large role in the missions identified in this strategic guidance, including counterterrorism, irregular warfare, deter and defeat aggression, projecting power, defending the homeland, providing support to civil authorities, and conducting stability and counterinsurgency operations.

We will increase engagements with allies and new partners in the Asia-Pacific region, home of seven of the 10 largest armies in the world, to enhance our collective security, then promote economic prosperity. We must utilize our depth to sustain relations with our friends and allies to ensure stability by building partner capacity in the Middle East. We will decrease our European footprint by two heavy brigade combat teams, with the first one coming out of Europe in 2013. In order to continue our strong engagements with NATO and other European partners, we will deploy rotational forces to conduct training and readiness exercises with our allies and our new partners.

In Latin America, Africa and elsewhere, we will use innovative, low-cost and small-footprint approaches to conduct engagements, maintain stability and build partner capacity.

End-strength reductions will occur over the next six years. We will follow a drawdown ramp that allows us to take care of soldiers and families while maintaining a ready and capable force to meet any requirements, including our current operations in Afghanistan. We will also continue to look at the optimum design of our brigade combat teams and enable units, leveraging the lessons learned in combat. This analysis is ongoing and we do not expect any decisions for several months, but it could lead to a reduction of additional brigades if we decide to increase the capability of our current brigade combat team structure.

The National Defense Authorization Act and the DOD budget request of 2013 reflects the Army's modernization priorities. That includes the network, a replacement for our infantry fighting vehicle, the joint light tactical vehicle, and our soldier systems.

As force requirements continue to decrease in Afghanistan, we will reshape the Army's force generation model. We will implement a progressive readiness model that meets Combatant Commander requirements and takes advantage of our combat experience in both our Active and Reserve components. This requires continual balancing between force structure, manning, training, equipping and modernization. This will ensure we maintain readiness across the entire force, and avoid tiered readiness. And we will continually revisit the balance over the next several years of transition, to ensure sustained readiness.

As we look to the future, there are efficiencies we need to reduce costs. Secretary McHugh's direction has been clear in this regard.

Energy security requires us to focus on reducing our energy requirements, both in terms of operational fuel usage, but also home station initiatives.

We need to continue to find efficiencies and reduce the cost of doing business as part of a mitigating risk to our strategy. This includes eliminating redundancies and streamlining our headquarters.

In terms of pay and benefits, the Secretary and I agree with the Secretary of Defense's budget request. The All-Volunteer Force is the foundation of our military, but the cost of military personnel has grown at a substantial, unsustainable rate over the last decade. We will not reduce pay, but reductions must occur in the rate of growth in military compensation and other personnel-related costs and benefits. It is imperative that during this transition in end strength reduction, we maintain a commitment to our soldiers and families that is commensurate with their service and sacrifice.

Today, the Army ensures mission accomplishment, guarantees national security interests, compels adversaries, prosecutes military campaigns and forges a positive difference around the world. It is what the American people expect, and what our own freedom demands.

The Secretary and I will continue to assess and make adjustments as necessary to ensure we have the right Army that is agile, flexible and prepared for a full range of operations and threats.

Thank you very much. That ends my prepared comments. And I'd like to open it up for questions.

CAPT. KIRBY: Rita.

Q: All right. General, can you expand just a little bit on the European plans, particularly in light of -- as you take two [brigade combat teams] out? Can you give us also the date they are -- the second one will be coming out? And can you just talk a little bit how you -- how you envision support for NATO allies, how you envision support for some of the smaller allies that have been participating in Afghanistan, for example? And also, are the two heavily armored divisions -- brigades -- that are coming out, do you see them going away, or will they just get moved to a different location?

GEN. ODIERNO: First, the plan is to have one brigade come out in '13 and the second brigade would come out in '14. That's the current plan. They will come out of the force. They will not be re-stationed back in the United States. That's the plan right now as we look at this.

As we look ahead, I really see this as a model of how I see us doing things in the future. What we're going to do is, we'll have a rotational base out of the United States as we do our force generation. We will rotate units -- for example, into our training -- our training complex we have at Hohenfels/Grafenwoehr -- that allow us to train with our NATO partners and also with some of our other partners in Europe. And we'll be able to do that at several levels -- at battalion level, at company level, across several different domains.

And in reality, I think, in the long run, this will benefit all of us. It'll cause more of our units to get involved in working with our NATO partners. It won't just be limited to those stationed in Europe. And I think we'll be able to tailor our engagements based on their needs. So, for example, we want to do a higher headquarters exercise, we send a larger headquarters. If we want to have a light unit go, we can have a light. If we want a Stryker unit to do it -- or heavy unit -- so it'll enable us to really, in my mind, diversify our relationships with our -- with our NATO partners.

So I actually see, if we do this properly -- and I'm focused on this -- we will be able to make this actually an advantage to us as we move forward.

CAPT. KIRBY: Thom.

Q: Thank you. General, thank you for your time this morning. I wanted to talk about the balance between end strength and the national strategy. At AUSA [Association of the United States Army annual meeting] last year you led us through a very thoughtful discussion about how before 9/11, at 480[,000], the Army was supposed to implement was supposed to implement a two-war strategy. Gosh, there just wasn't enough there.

GEN. ODIERNO: Yeah.

Q: You say you're comfortable dropping to 490[,000]. Share with us, sir, if you would, what about the new strategy is different enough to give you that comfort level?

GEN. ODIERNO: Well, the fundamental principle in the strategy says that we aren't going to do long-term stability operations. And that's what drove the increase in our end strength, the fact that we were engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan for eight and 10 years.

And so the thought process is we might do -- we'll still do stability, but it would be at a much smaller scale, and we'll rely more on other partners to assist us as we do stability operations.

So, we know we have a lot of uncertainty out there. So if, in fact, we end up having to do a large-scale stability operation, we will depend on our ability to reverse and expand, which would be highly dependent on the Reserve component initially in order for them to help us to meet our initial requirements, which would then buy us time to potentially look at re-expanding the Army again. And that's the thought process behind it. And I feel comfortable with that strategy.

Q: I'd like to follow up on Tom's question about troop strength. We keep hearing that one of the things that you're concerned about is not hollowing out the force. And yet we're going back to a figure that pre-9/11 that was essentially considered a hollowed-out number. So you're talking about expanding. You're -- in terms of where the United States goes and the missions it conducts itself in. Why was that number considered a hollowed-out force number 10 years ago, and now as you talk about more missions, it's not?

And also, could you give us any more details about restarting BRAC and where that would be?

GEN. ODIERNO: Yeah, sure. First, I don't think -- I didn't believe the force was hollow back pre-9/11. I think we had some problems in the late '90s when we came down a significant number, almost over 300,000 in the Army and the way we did that. And I think we recovered from that.

But I will say as I look at the 490,000 number, it's about how that matches up with the force structure. And what hollowness means is if you have structure in there that is not ready. So in other words, you can have a lot of structure, but if you don't have the money to sustain training, to ensure they're equipped properly or to ensure we have it manned properly, then you have a hollow force.

I believe, with how we are right now, we will be able to do that at the 490,000 level, and that's the thought process behind it.

In terms of BRAC, I think they're going to ask two more BRAC rounds. Not sure when that will be. We still have to obviously work that with Congress. And that'll be something we -- so we expect -- we're going to request that we go through two more BRAC rounds. And so we'll have to wait to see -- we have to work that with Congress, and we'll see what their thoughts are on that.

I don't see -- the one thing -- you know, we -- the Army went through a very significant BRAC here not too long ago. And we did a fairly significant consolidation within the Army. So for the Army, I believe a follow-on BRAC would be -- would not have as much impact on the Army because we've pretty much done what we want to. We'll have to do some minor things, I think, probably, as we go through BRAC. They'll find some things that we have to -- but I think, for the most part, we have established our installations.

What you'll see around the Army -- except for some for the overseas places that we'll close, but in the -- in the continental United States and Alaska and Hawaii, you might see a reduction in the installations. But I don't think that you see a big installation being asked to close as we -- (inaudible). We think we have the right footprint. But we'll see; we'll work our way through those as we go forward.

Q: With regard to your aviation assets, there was mention in the white paper yesterday about delaying some modernization for helicopters. Can you add some granularity to that?

GEN. ODIERNO: Well --

Q: And also, if you don't mind, does that affect AAS [Armed Aerial Scout]? And then I'd also like to ask you about the Air Force's decision to terminate C-27J. That's been a controversial issue between the two services. Do you plan to sign the MOU [Memorandum of Understanding] that's being drawn up to provide direct support without that C-27J?

GEN. ODIERNO: Yeah, first, with the aviation, we have all the modernization in the program that we need. We've slowed it down a bit, but we're very comfortable with that because of the reset that we're doing with all our aviation assets as it comes out of the war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan. So we're still doing reset, we are still continue to modernize our fleet, but it'll be at a bit of a slower pace and we're fairly comfortable with that.

In terms of the C-27 -- I signed the MOU this morning, actually, before I came down here -- we've been working this for a few months. It's important to us that we have direct support to our units out in Afghanistan and wherever we might deploy. It's a concept actually we tested while I was the commander in Iraq, and I thought it was a very successful test. So it's -- I think it's -- I'm comfortable with that. So we'll mitigate the loss of the C-27. I'm not sure we'll be able to completely mitigate it, but that will help at least, as we're deployed, to mitigate that problem.

Q: OK, then -- (off mic) -- is that part of the delay of the helicopter -- (inaudible)?

Q: General, do you feel that the Army is shouldering the bulk of the burden of this -- these defense budget cuts? When we look on paper it sure looks like you're taking the biggest hit.

GEN. ODIERNO: Sure.

Q: And also, how did you come up with the number 490? Is that budget-based or what were the considerations?

GEN. ODIERNO: Sure. First, the -- I really -- I want to be very clear. This is not about winners and losers. This is about coming up with the right Joint Force.

I believe the Army grew over -- more than anybody else over the last five or six years, as we got involved in Iraq and Afghanistan, and that growth was very specific. Because we were worried about the op tempo of our soldiers in our units, we grew the Army in order to meet our commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan. So I think it's -- I'm comfortable now that, in fact, our -- we're done with Iraq, our commitments are coming down in Afghanistan -- that we can now do this. So I don't see it as we're bearing the burden of it; I -- I'm saying we're making a correction based on what we see out there as a potential threat.

Now, in terms of strategy, what I look at is, what does 490,000 get me? So what we're doing is we're increasing our special operations forces. We're going to go to 35,000 total special operations forces in the Army. And I think it's important to understand that this is significant growth. We've been doing this over the last three or four years. And I want to re-emphasize the incredible missions and roles that they play and what they're been doing over the last 10 years in Iraq, Afghanistan, around the world. And we want to continue that. We think that's the way of the future.

And I also -- it is now the relationship that's been built between our special operations and conventional forces. The synchronization and integration that we've gained in Iraq and Afghanistan we will now carry forward as we continue to conduct our other missions around the world, and I see that as a factor moving forward.

Then I look at the number of brigade combat teams and I feel comfortable -- although, as I mentioned, right now we're planning on reducing -- we're looking at a reorganization, that could potentially make it reduce further, but the capability that we would have behind would allow us to execute the strategy that we're talking about. So I feel comfortable with where we're headed, and that's how we got to that number 490,000.

Q: And you mentioned in Asia that seven of the top 10 armies are -- the largest armies -- are in Asia.

GEN. ODIERNO: Right.

Q: And you also mentioned the deterrent effect of having a large -- you're worried -- are you worried that you're sending a signal that you're reducing the size of the Army yet just as they're pivoting towards Asia, where there are these larger armies?

GEN. ODIERNO: Yeah, I'm convinced that with the Army that we have left behind, the number of division and brigade combat teams in fact, and I didn't mention, we've also increased our aviation capacity -- and our special ops force capacity gives us enough to deter and to -- (inaudible) -- to know that we are capable of moving this army anywhere in the world, being more capable of moving quicker, being more responsive, that will allow us to answer those -- those issues.

Q: Sir, can you explain the purpose and goals of these low-cost operations in Africa and Latin America?

GEN. ODIERNO: Well, first off, it's about -- it's about continuing to stay engaged and continuing to build partner capacity and build relationships with the leaderships -- leadership within all of these nations.

And we can do that across several ways. We can do it, first, with special operations forces. We can do it with unique forces such as engineers, medical. We can do it with aviation. So they would be more niche forces, which would help them to build capacity that they don't have. So it's those kind of things that I think we'll do more of in Africa and in South America, for example.

And I think we have the capacity and capability to do it. That's what the depth that the Army brings to the Joint Force is, that we have the ability to bring other capabilities to these nations that not all the other services can. And I think that's our strength.

And so although we will be more focused on the Asia-Pacific and Middle East, we will have the capacity in order to do these small- scale events, whether they be training events or building partner capacity or bilateral events that will allow us to continue to establish these relationships. So it's really the relationships that are the most important.

CAPT. KIRBY: Tony, in the back.

Q: Sir, the 490[,000] cut, roughly what's the savings there over this future defense plan? Of the $259 billion, what's the Army's contribution to that figure?

GEN. ODIERNO: Yeah, Tony, you know, I keep wanting to be able to give a number to this, but it's so complex and convoluted because -- the reason I say that is it's not only just people reductions; it's not only benefit reductions. It'll be the reduction in equipment that we have that goes out. It's the reduction of training dollars. It's -- and so we'll work our way through this number. But in the end, it'll be -- it'll be upwards of -- you know, it'll be a fairly significant number.

But I don't want to put a number on it, because I don't think I'll be accurate if I give it to you, frankly.

Q: All right. But what system -- the ground -- your combat ground system -- you know, it was -- yesterday it was listed in this -- the cuts or reductions. It's -- the GAO cleared a protest recently, so I thought the program was going forward.

GEN. ODIERNO: It is. It is.

Q: What the -- can you --

GEN. ODIERNO: The reduction is $1.7 billion, and it's because of the -- it was because of the challenge. We had to delay it because of the challenge, and so we couldn't spend the $1.7 billion. So we reduced that. So we -- what happens is, the program's now moved a year.

Q: OK.

GEN. ODIERNO: So $1.7 billion was taken out because of the protest. Now the protest is done. We're moving forward with the Ground Combat Vehicle. And we're comfortable with the program.

CAPT. KIRBY: We got time for just two more.

Q: General, historically, when there have been major security challenges and it's involved partners, a coalition of partners, I think I'm right in saying that the partners have always relied on America to provide the boots on the ground and they've latched on -- few thousand here, a few thousand there.

Are you now saying to your -- particularly your European partners, 'sorry, we're not going to provide the biggest force anymore; you're going to have to provide a hell of a lot more?' And is that realistic, seeing how the Europeans are cutting back too?

GEN. ODIERNO: Yeah, I don't think that's what we're saying. I mean, I still think we're going to have plenty of capacity to lead, if asked to lead, with boots on the ground, depending on the operation. I think we have the capacity to do that. We'll continue to have that.

We certainly are going to need our partners to move along with us as we do this, but I don't think there's any greater expectation that they would provide more. I think what we want to do is continue to do what we have been doing, and we have built strong partnerships as we address challenges around the world.

CAPT. KIRBY: This will be the last one.

Q: It's a very short one, so maybe another.

Which of the four brigades in Europe -- I mean, which are the two brigades you would reserve from Europe?

GEN. ODIERNO: Yeah, we're still -- we're still working our way through that. It'll probably be another couple of weeks, and we'll announce which two they are.

Q: But can you say any more than -- (cross talk) -- with all due respect, there's only two heavy brigades in Europe, so we can do the math ourselves.

GEN. ODIERNO: We'll announce in a couple of weeks, Thom.

CAPT. KIRBY: This will really be the last one.

Q: Following on Michael's question, have any of your counterparts in Europe, or specifically in Germany, expressed specific concern about not just withdrawing the Army, but then all the families? And their economies are tough there, too. And then, specifically about the drawing down, the 80,000. When will that start? Is that going to begin before the war in Afghanistan is going to end -- (inaudible) 2014?

GEN. ODIERNO: First, we have been working very closely with Jim -- Admiral Stavridis, Jim Stavridis, who's been working this with them. And we have been talking about this for several months, how we would mitigate this. And I think, actually, that they're somewhat pleased with the mitigation strategies we have in place. Now, we'll still have some capability over in Europe, so I think we will be able to work through that.

The thing I would tell you about the drawdown is, there's two things I was concerned about as we started to have this discussion; first with the number as 490[,000], but how we get to 490[,000], and that was the most important thing to me. And we'll start this year, actually. Because if you remember, we had already committed to going down to 520[,000], and so we're starting this year to take some structure out. But we've been able to move it out across a six-year period, from '12 to '17. So by doing that, it's spread evenly. It allows us to downsize, to take care of soldiers and families. We hope to do it mostly by attrition. There might be some things we have to -- other things we have to do, but we're trying to do most of it by attrition.

And it also accounts for our commitments in Afghanistan. And so we're going to be able to sustain our commitments in Afghanistan and get it to the right tempo, OPTEMPO [operational tempo], that we need in order to provide enough dwell time for our -- for our soldiers and families. So that was part of this.

And to me, as important as the 490[,000] number was the fact that we were able to do this over a six-year period.

Q: And will it be evenly split over the six years?

GEN. ODIERNO: It's not exactly even. It -- because we do it based on -- it's based on what we call cohorts that come in. So for example, three or four years ago we were bringing in large cohorts. So it's easier to -- we might reduce those a little bit more than we do the ones that we do in '15 or '16. But we have worked this very carefully against our requirements, and so we've been very thoughtful in doing this. This was really very important to me as we walk through this -- work through this process.

CAPT. KIRBY: Thanks, everybody.

GEN. ODIERNO: Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

Updates from the U.S. Department of Defense

Major Budget Decisions Media Roundtable at the Pentagon

2012-01-27T01:15:02Z

You are subscribed to News Transcripts for U.S. Department of Defense.

This information has recently been updated, and is now available.

Major Budget Decisions Media Roundtable at the Pentagon

01/26/2012 06:46 PM CST

Presenter: Deputy Secretary of Defense Ashton B. Carter and Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. James A. Winnefeld Jr.

January 26, 2012

Major Budget Decisions Media Roundtable at the Pentagon

Note: This event immediately followed a Major Budget Decisions Briefing presented by Defense Secretary Panetta and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dempsey.

DEPUTY SECRETARY OF DEFENSE ASHTON CARTER: OK, well, welcome again.

I'm not going to try to repeat everything that's been said before. We're really here to answer your questions. I hope you all have a copy of the white paper here which describes the key decisions we've made in connection with the '13 budget and their connection to the strategic guidance, which we released a few -- a few weeks ago.

I'll just comment on one of the questions that was already asked. The -- I -- oh, I should say, by the way, that this is a pretty complete description of the many tens of individual decisions we've made. There's many, many items -- individual items in here. We're happy to answer questions about any of the items that are in the white paper.

We won't be releasing the full budget until the president releases the full budget, and we won't be going into detail on all of these items until we've had a chance to confer with Congress, which will begin next week.

But fundamentally, this -- the detail in here describes the enormity of the adjustments that we were required to make. I think the secretary described it very well. The base budget is not decreasing over the years ahead, but neither is it continuing to rise in real terms as it has over the past few years and as we planned before the Budget Control Act was enacted.

So the difference between the amount that we planned to have and the amount last year and that we now amount to have -- now plan to have, that's where the famous $487 billion comes from. It's that difference over 10 years, $259 billion over five years, so an adjustment of about 7 (percent) to -- or 8 (percent) to 9 percent overall, which is a very substantial amount by any measure. And if you add to that the reduction in overseas contingency operations or OCO spending and consider the entire defense budget, you can see that we needed to make the most consequential adjustments that this department has had to make budgetarily in more than a decade. So it is very large.

These decisions were steered by the strategic guidance as the secretary and the chairman said -- that came directly from President Obama and from them -- and this sequence of strategy, then budget is obviously critical to us. No part of the budget was unexamined; no part was sacrosanct. You see everything in here. I think we looked at everything.

So there are a lot of tough decisions in there. Some parts of the budget were protected or even in increased, and inevitably that meant that -- because of their importance to the country and to the future, inevitably that meant that other areas took more cuts. The result -- and the secretary made this point, I just want to emphasize -- re-emphasize it -- is a carefully balanced package. It just can't be looked at or modified piece by piece since a change in one area inevitably requires offsetting changes elsewhere, right, on balancing the overall package. So it is a package.

The paper describes it in three parts. First, our continued effort to make more disciplined use of the taxpayers' money.

That was alluded to in one of the questions. Second, we made investments in force structure and investment, in accordance with the strategic guidance. And third, we made modest but important adjustments in personnel costs. Because of the value we place on the people of the all-volunteer force, who are what make it the world's greatest force, there are lesser cuts in this category. But the senior leadership, including the Joint Chiefs of Staff, believes strongly that this category needed to be included in the overall package.

So these are three parts of the package described in the white paper. Admiral Winnefeld and I are pleased to answer your questions.

Q: Thank you very much. On the nuclear arsenal, President Obama has given his pledge to the aspirational goal of going to zero. In the documents we were given to review before this briefing, there's no cuts at all, except for slowing one Ohio class submarine by a couple of years.

Does this imply that there will be no reductions in the nuclear arsenal absent negotiations with the Russians and that there's no pressure to cut the nuke force, even if it makes sense financially and at no risk to our country in the current environment?

MR. CARTER: No. There are no cuts made in the nuclear force in this budget. The White House -- and we're obviously working under their direction -- are considering the size and shape of the nuclear arsenal in the future. So when those decisions come, we'll factor them into our budget.

I'll make a couple of comments about what is in this budget that does bear upon the nuclear triad. One you mentioned, which is a slip by two years in the development of the Ohio class replacement submarine. This is not a strategic decision; this is a managerial decision made partly for budgetary reasons but mostly because that puts the Ohio class replacement on a more predictable and stable schedule.

Second thing I'll note is we did protect the bomber force in its entirety in this budget. Again, that's not just a nuclear bomber force, that's a conventional bomber force. It's part of our capability. And as we consider our force as it applies to the Asia-Pacific region and to the Middle East, bombers play important role in there. That's the reason for protecting the bomber force.

And then, of course, we're beginning a new stealthy long-range strike platform, and we did protect that. We're continuing with that. We started that last year. So there are some things that bear on it, but no decisions that are strategic in nature reflected in the budget.

Yes.

Q: Mr. Secretary, the Pentagon has said it's committed to Joint Strike Fighter. Secretary Panetta lifted the probation on the B. But at the same time, there's a slowing to production to allow for some more development to take place before you go into full-rate production. Amid all that, the Marine Corps has expressed an urgency to get as many Bs in the fleet as possible to declare IOC as soon as possible and get those Harriers out of the fleet.

Do you expect that while the numbers of produced vehicles will be going down, that the numbers of Bs produced will be going up to accommodate the Marine Corps?

And then secondly, can you address whether or not any of the developmental requirements for JSF are going to address if there were any changes made as a result of some of the concerns we have over cyber warfare and its potential vulnerability to that?

MR. CARTER: You asked several questions embedded in there, so I'll take a few and then ask Admiral Winnefeld to add whatever I leave out.

With respect to the Joint Strike Fighter, the secretary said it right. We want the airplane. We want all three variants of the airplane. We got some good news this year with respect to STOVL. Secretary Panetta took the STOVL variant off what Secretary Gates called probation a year ago.

That was the result of some good engineering work done in the last year, gratified that that occurred. And that means that all three variants can go forward.

At the same time, the issue with the Joint Strike Fighter of cost and the performance of the program in this difficult position when we -- part of the program when we're transitioning and trying to reach full-rate production -- that's still a concern to us. All of those associated with the management of the program, our industry partners, ourselves, are working our way through that. And we'll ride up that curve to full-rate production as and when it's economically and managerially prudent to do it.

As far as the STOVL variant specifically is concerned, I think that with STOVL probation behind us, all three variants are now in a more or less equal footing in terms of their engineering readiness to go forward. And so it becomes to a decision for all of us and also for the Marine Corps of the rate of which they procure. Let me see if I have the -- (inaudible) --

VICE CHAIRMAN OF THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF ADMIRAL JAMES WINNEFELD: I don't want to add too much more to what Dr. Carter said. It's just -- the JSFs all three variants -- a terrific airplane. We're very committed to it, and it does represent the future of tactical aviation for this country and a lot of our partners. We just need the manufacturability of this thing to catch up so we can start buying it. And we're very anxious to get it into the fleet.

Q: What about the cyber piece of that question? What -- is any of the development being adjusted or directed to address any cyber vulnerabilities that might be in the aircraft?

ADM. WINNEFELD: Not that I'm aware of. Are you?

MR. CARTER: There are -- we are very attentive, I'll just say as a general matter, to cyber vulnerabilities in weapon systems, ours and those of others. It's part of the modern world. It's a highly computerized airplane; like all our other computer systems, we have to be attentive it.

Yeah.

Q: I know you guys don't want us to pick apart individual items, but I'm going to also and ask about the carrier and the decision to not cut at least one, as was talked about a lot. Specifically, why, other than we need it? You know, why not -- and why not any of the big-ticket items? There's no F-22 or amphibious -- there's no giant, you know, cancellation here like we've come to expect in this town for finding quick savings.

MR. CARTER: Let me ask Admiral Winnefeld, who, after all, was -- commanded an aircraft carrier -- to speak to aircraft carriers in general.

I think if you open this paper, just to get to the last little thing you added at the end of your question, there are 50 or 60 things listed in there that we're not able to do because of the reductions in our planned budget from the Budget Control Act. So I think if you go in here, you'll find plenty of things that we had planned to do that we're not going to be able to do.

Now, you're right, they're not the things that are most important to our strategy and to our future. That's precisely -- it's the things that are most important to our strategy and our future that we've protected.

Sandy, over to you for the aircraft carrier.

ADM. WINNEFELD: Specifically, as far as the carrier goes, I think it's well-documented -- and we carefully examined inside the department and in fact consulted with the White House, and everybody is in agreement that the capability, the flexibility, the independent capability of a carrier from basing, the applicability of that ship in an anti-access environment and its particularly useful role in the Middle East and the Pacific, which is where we have emphasized most of the regional strategic focus here, just makes it a particularly adept platform for the type of things we want to do strategically in the future. And we saw it just didn't -- made no sense to take out any carrier force structure, and so we're going to stick with 11 carriers and 10 air wings.

Q: Could I follow up on that real quick?

On the Navy, the strategy prioritizes the forward posture and talks about, especially, in the Western Pacific. Yet the secretary talks about getting rid of logistical ships and fleet support ships, and also getting rid of what I presume to be the Ticonderoga class cruisers as well, without replacement. How does that square with the posture of being forward deployed, especially in the Western Pacific, with those ships leaving the fleet?

ADM. WINNEFELD: Well, a couple of things. First of all, one of the things we all have to remember about the strategy is in many cases it's a lot -- it's a lot more about where you're going to cut rather than where you're going to add. And there are much fewer reductions, I would say, in the things that are focused on the Pacific, to include naval forces. And if you look at the Navy's plan -- and this gets to the chairman's point -- this is really a budget that has to look out to 2020 for some of these particular decisions, and particularly Navy-type things because they are big muscle movements.

You're going to find a gradual shift in the Navy's force structure from east to west, and so -- in terms of aircraft carriers, submarines, logistic ships and the like. You'll see that gradually flowing over there. And I'll leave it to the Navy to articulate that over the coming week or so.

MR. CARTER: You also -- I should -- I would just add, looking at what we're doing with Australia, the possibility of berthing littoral combat ships in Singapore, what we're doing on Guam -- there's quite a bit that represents a movement into the Asia-Pacific and around to Southeast Asia and the -- and the Indian Ocean. So you have to look at the whole picture.

Q: On ground forces, the secretary emphasized that you want to keep mid-grade officers, NCOs, people who, you know, have gotten a lot of experience from Iraq and Afghanistan. Given that a lot of this budget and the strategy diminishes in some ways the institutional role of the Army in national strategy and cuts the Army's end strength, envisions some minimal roles for them, what do you say to someone in that situation, who's also going to be adjusting to a peacetime Army, which may not be as fulfilling as what they joined up for, for why they should stay?

MR. CARTER: I want to say something about that first and then ask Admiral Winnefeld.

I want to dispute the premise of your question there about the institutional Army. The Army's in the midst of a transition -- a strategic transition. It has, as all of our services have, but the Army particularly, of necessity been very riveted on counterinsurgency operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and is now returning to full- spectrum training and full-spectrum capability. So it -- and -- so it will be the -- still the army that can dominate any other army anywhere, and so it's trying to build forward into that post-Iraq and, eventually, post-Afghanistan Army. So it's got a very important role in the strategy, it has a very important role in the Asia-Pacific area, it has a really vital role in the Middle East.

So I'll let Sandy answer your question, but I just wanted to -- the premise is not right.

ADM. WINNEFELD: I would say, you know, all four services are absolutely critical in this strategy and to try to single one service out as being less critical than the other is really not -- doesn't really get the point of the whole strategy. And I sort of have summed up privately in my own mind that if the military itself were a stock right now, I'd be buying it. And I would be applying that to the Army equally as well to the Air Force, the Navy and the Marine Corps.

The Army's got a critical role in this strategy. Just because we're drawing it down to reduce some of the capacity we've built up in a counterinsurgency environment tends to ignore the fact that they have a tremendous potential role in Asia -- and particularly on the Korean Peninsula, if North Korea should ever become foolish enough to be aggressive there -- and all the way through the spectrum of missions that the Army can execute, to include what we saw just this week in Somalia -- it's probably lost on a few people that the helicopters that pulled those hostages out of that camp were Army helicopters -- so across the full spectrum of operations to include a very important role that the Army is going to assume in regional engagement when they come out of Afghanistan.

So I'm big on the Army right now. They've got an important role in the strategy.

DOUG WILSON, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR PUBLIC AFFAIRS: Ken, you had a follow-up?

Q: So you don't think there's a problem of retention with some people who might be mid-grade officers who might really want to, you know, ask themselves why they should stay?

ADM. WINNEFELD: We've got terrific leadership in the Army. They have a terrific mission. And I don't think we're going to have any trouble keeping those people at all.

Q: Sir, can you talk a little bit about the future of the Global Hawk program? A defense industry consultant put out a briefing the other day implying that the program has been canceled, terminated, will be mothballed. And yet I look at your material here -- you're basically truncating the buy of the third generation model called the Block 30.

And for Admiral Winnefeld, what Army helicopters were used, Black Hawks or Chinooks?

MR. CARTER: OK. For -- let me start with the Global Hawk Block 30.

Q: Yeah.

MR. CARTER: I'm sorry this is a little tedious, but the -- because there are several different versions of the Block 30.

Q: (Off mic.)

MR. CARTER: But it's a good example and actually we highlighted it in the white paper because it's an example of the way that we need to pay attention to cost performance with a budget like the one we have. Block 30 was supposed to replace the U-2 for taking pictures from the air, and that was the idea, to do it with a UAV.

There are other forms of Global Hawk, three other kinds, for those of you who know -- the Block 40; BAMS, which is a Navy version; and Allied Ground Surveillance, which is a version for the allies. They're -- those are not affected by this. But the Block 30 priced itself out of the niche of -for - taking pictures in the air.

So we will continue to use the U-2. That's a disappointment to us. We had hoped to replace the U-2 with the Global Hawk, but the Global Hawk became expensive. And that's the fate of things that become too expensive in a resource-constrained environment.

Q: But you're not cancelling Global Hawk, though. You're still using --

MR. CARTER: No. This variant -- this one of the four, the Block 30, is cancelled.

Q: (Off mic.)

ADM. WINNEFELD: First, I would just say that Admiral Bill McRaven, the commander of SOCOM, is a very, very good friend of mine, but he's also a tough guy, and I don't think I want to get at cross- purposes with him by revealing capabilities of his units. What I will say is that was a really impressive operation. That was a joint operation. We had Air Force aircraft, Army aircraft, Navy SEALs, and it was very, very well executed.

Q: Just a question on sequestration. I know nobody likes to talk about it, but I'm curious. Has the department done any war- gaming, if you will, on what it would do to this strategy if Congress does not change the current -- (inaudible)? I mean, it would seem to me, as good stewards of the taxpayers' dollars, it would make sense to at least think about it, given that the political environment in this country is one in which people are doubtful that Congress will agree to do anything this year.

MR. CARTER: I'll just make a couple of comments on that. This budget is based upon the fiscal guidance that we got from the Office of Management and Budget. The work of the supercommittee failed sometime in mid-November. We were well on the way to putting this budget together at that time. We said repeatedly -- the secretary said it, the chairman's said it -- that both in the manner that sequestration would occur and the magnitude of the cuts, that would be disastrous for us. The strategy we gave you two, three weeks ago, we'd have to start over again with sequestration.

So the secretary said it all right at the end of his sentence, which is that Congress needs to do its work here. Sequestration is no way to do business.

Q: Just to follow up --

ADM. WINNEFELD: If I can add -- if I can add just a moment to that, we've just been through a very healthy process in this department of developing this budget. It's something that I've never seen before in my 33 1/2 years in doing this sort of work. And we did strategy, and then we allowed strategy to guide budget decisions -- very refreshing.

If we get into a sequestration position, that turns that entire process on its ear. It basically takes a chainsaw to a budget that's developed, and out of the ashes of that budget, we're going to have to write a new strategy. And that's not the way we want to do business.

MR. CARTER: Yes.

Q: Mr. Secretary, some of the programs in -- on the list are being delayed or reduced in quantities. We're always told that when you do that, the unit cost goes up. So are you creating further problems down the line when you won't be able to afford these programs?

MR. CARTER: We're very attentive to that. In some cases, that will occur, but the managers of those programs are trying to mitigate exactly that effect if you're -- when you're both slipping and reducing the size of the buy.

Q: Could I ask a question about regional missile defense, the reduction in deployable regional missile defense? Where do you expect that to have the most effect? And how much capacity do the regional allies have to absorb what you're saying, more responsibility on their shoulders?

MR. CARTER: Well, I'm just suggesting --

ADM. WINNEFELD: I would -- I would say, first of all, we're -- we remain very committed to the European phased adaptive approach. That's on track, and we intend to keep it on track.

For the other regions, I wouldn't -- you know, we're not going to decrease anything that we've done so far. It may just grow as much -- many other things in this budget are going to find themselves in a situation that it's going to grow a little bit slower. And so we're going to have to work a little closely with our partners to ask them to invest in some of this capability as we invest in it as well.

So I think in several regions of the world is where you'll see that phenomenon occur, but we're still committed to working closely with our partners to defend them against missile attacks from rogue nations.

Q: So reduced spending doesn't mean -- it just means slowing growth in spending.

ADM. WINNEFELD: Yeah.

Q: Secretary Carter -- (inaudible) -- to retire some of the older C-5s in the Air Force fleet. That would put the Air Force below the strategic airlift floor that Congress has set for that capability. Have you -- has the department discussed with Congress moving that floor even lower than it was -- (inaudible)?

MR. CARTER: We will be obviously discussing that and all the other changes that we're proposing, because after all, it is the president's budget proposed to the Congress. With the Congress, I'll just say, for the airlift, this is capacity that is excess to need, and in this budget environment, we can't justify retaining capacity that is excess to need.

Q: Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Could you please elaborate the reasons to emphasize the Asia-Pacific? What will be the biggest challenge and threat for the United States in this region? And secondly, the Philippines today is negotiating with the U.S. to allow more U.S. military presence in the Philippines. What will be the implication for U.S.-China relations in the context of South China Sea dispute?

MR. CARTER: Well, I mean, the fundamental answer to your question is, this is a -- this is a very dynamic region. It's going to be a central region to the world going forward. The United States has played a pivotal role in the Asia-Pacific region for decades. It's that peace and prosperity, in part brought by the American pivotal military role there, that has allowed the prosperity of all countries there, to include China -- you mentioned China. And that is -- that pivotal role is something we intend to maintain and sustain. So that's fundamentally the reason for being there.

There are a number of issues and areas. And it's a very vast region, and we intend to keep our pivotal role there.

You mentioned the Philippines. We have a good relation with --relationship with the Philippines, including a good security relationship, and we intend and wish to build on that in the future.

MR. WILSON: We have time for --

Q: (Off mic) -- (Mr. ?) Secretary -- (off mic) --

MR. WILSON: We have time for two more questions.

Q: (Inaudible) -- follow, Mr. Secretary, please?

MR. WILSON: Two more questions.

ADM. WINNEFELD: OK, this gentleman --

Q: Will the combat operations bear some of the risks that Secretary Panetta mentioned, the risks that come with a smaller force?

ADM. WINNEFELD: I would say that we are constantly -- we are cognizant of that, and we do not plan on loading any of the risk in this strategy on our forces that are currently in combat. We're very committed to taking care of those troopers and making sure that they have the resources that they need to get the job done.

So the short answer to your question is that no, we are not putting a risk on current combat operations.

Q: Mr. Secretary, on the Ohio class replacement, how is the delayed schedule more predictable? How are you doing on cost control? And how concerned are you that that program will basically eat the entire shipbuilding account in the future?

MR. CARTER: OK, well the third -- the second and third are related.

With respect to the schedule, the schedule as it was, was an aggressive one, maybe even verging on optimistic. So I -- all I'm saying is this is a safer schedule; we're sure we can make this schedule. So it's a little more secure; so, from a managerial point of view, a better place to be.

In terms of cost control, you know that on the Ohio class replacement, the initial cost estimates for the Ohio class replacement came in quite high, unacceptably high, so high that they did have precisely -- they did present exactly the concern that you've mentioned, namely that they would, in the decade 2020 to 2030, consume a disproportionate share of the Navy shipbuilding budget.

For that reason, the Navy worked very aggressively on the requirements.

And I should mention, by the way, that Admiral Winnefeld is doing that as a more general rule in the requirements process here in the building. We worked very hard on the requirements, saying, do we really need this; do we really need that, and to get the design -- to amend the design, look at the drivers of cost in the design and manage the cost down. And that was done from a figure well in excess of 6 billion per boat to the neighborhood of 5 billion per boat. That's the goal.

And by the way, that's something we're going to need to do with all of our programs going forward. We're going to have to ask ourselves, in this kind of budgetary environment, how much is good enough? Is the 80 percent solution sufficient? And that's what was done with the Ohio class replacement. And that, I think, is going to be successful, and that's the reason why it will be affordable.

And with that, I thank you.

MR. WILSON: Mr. Secretary and Mr. Vice Chairman, we thank you.

Just for our friends in the press, if you have any additional questions regarding context of particular decisions that have been taken, please do connect with our press operations, [Capt.] Jane Campbell, [Lt. Col.] Beth Robbins and others. We do have a team of folks who have been involved in these decisions standing by to be able to respond to more of your questions.

Thank you very much.

Updates from the U.S. Department of Defense

Major Budget Decisions Briefing from the Pentagon

2012-01-27T01:00:02Z

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Major Budget Decisions Briefing from the Pentagon

01/26/2012 06:38 PM CST

Presenter: Secretary of Defense Leon E. Panetta and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin E. Dempsey

January 26, 2012

Major Budget Decisions Briefing from the Pentagon

SECRETARY OF DEFENSE LEON PANETTA: Good afternoon, everybody.

As all of you know, this department has undertaken a very fundamental review of its defense strategy and of our spending priorities.

The reasons for the review are clear. First of all, we are at a strategic turning point after a decade of war and after a very substantial growth in the defense budget. And second, the Congress of the United States, through the passage of the Budget Control Act, has required that the defense budget be reduced by $487 billion over 10 years.

To accomplish this effort, we decided that it was important to make this an opportunity to develop a new defense strategy for the United States and for the U.S. military force that we wanted for the future.

That strategy has guided us in making a series of tough budget choices and establishing a new set of defense priorities.

The ongoing process reached an important milestone earlier this month with the release of the new strategic guidance and the priorities for a 21st century defense. And it will be reflected in the decisions that have been made and will be presented in the President's budget.

When I announced the new guidance, I highlighted five key elements of the strategy and five key elements of the vision that we have for a military force of the future. And let me just summarize each of those.

First, the military will be smaller and leaner, but it will be agile, flexible, rapidly deployable and technologically advanced. It will be a cutting-edge force.

Second, we will rebalance our global posture and presence to emphasize where we think the potential problems will be in the world. And that means emphasizing Asia-Pacific and the Middle East.

Third, we will maintain our presence elsewhere in the world and will do that by building innovative partnerships and strengthening our key alliances and develop new partnerships elsewhere in the world: in Europe, in Africa and Latin America and elsewhere.

Fourth, we will ensure that we can quickly confront and defeat aggression from any adversary anytime, anyplace.

And fifth, we will protect and prioritize some very important and key investments in technology and new capabilities as well as our capacity to grow, adapt, to mobilize, to surge as needed.

Given the significant fiscal constraints that have been imposed on the department, our approach was to develop this force for the future with some pretty important guidelines. We wanted to maintain the strongest military in the world. We committed ourselves not to hollow out the force, as has been done in the past in these kinds of drawdowns, to take a balanced approach to our budget by putting everything on the table and to not break faith with the troops and their families.

I want to thank the entire leadership of this department, military and civilian alike, for their participation and support in this effort. This has truly been a team effort, and I am deeply appreciative for their cooperation.

And we are united in the belief that this strategy and the resulting budget decisions followed the right approach to meet the country's most pressing security challenges and to preserve the strongest military in the world and at the same time meet our fiscal responsibilities.

Today I'd like to offer a preview of the decisions that we made to help build the department's budget request for fiscal year 2013 and the future years' defense plan.

Consistent with the Budget Control Act, this plan reduces spending over the 10 years, obviously, by $487 billion. But in the five-year budget that will be presented by the President, we reduce the defense budget by 259 billion over the next five years.

Specifically, the department will request for its base budget $525 billion in its base budget for fiscal year FY13. And our -- by the way, that compares to 531 billion in fiscal year 2012 -- and our hope and plan here is to try to rise to 567 billion by fiscal 2017. I would just point out that the projected growth before we had to do this was to reach about 622 billion by that year of 2017.

In fiscal 13, we will also ask for an additional $88.4 billion for overseas contingency operations, so-called OCO funds. That compares to about 115 billion that we receive in fiscal year 12, all of that obviously to maintain support for our troops in combat.

We believe this is a balanced and complete package that follows the five key elements of the strategy and vision that I've described. You have the specifics in the package you've been provided. And I know that Ash Carter, the deputy, and Sandy Winnefeld, the vice chair, will fill you in on any additional specifics that you're interested in.

But what I wanted to do is to kind of summarize some of the key decisions for you.

First of all, with regards to the area of developing a smaller and leaner but agile and flexible and technologically advanced force, we knew that coming out of the wars and dealing with budget reductions of this magnitude, the military would be smaller. But the key -- as tough as it was to make the decisions with regards to drawing these down -- the key is to fashion an agile and flexible military force that we need in the future.

What that means for the services is that we will have an adaptable and battle-tested Army that is our nation's force for decisive action, capable of defeating any adversary on land. Let me say that again: capable of defeating any adversary on land. We will have a significant land force presence in places like Korea and in the Middle East. But at the same time, we will emphasize special operations forces. And we will also emphasize a rotational presence so that we can establish the kind of partnerships that I discussed and provide training and advice in other parts of the world.

We will have a Navy that maintains a forward presence and is able to penetrate enemy defenses. The Navy essentially has agility built into its force because it can move and deploy anywhere throughout the world.

The Air Force is the same. It will be an Air Force that dominates air and space and provides rapid mobility, global strike and persistent ISR, and it will provide unmanned capabilities through their operators as well.

A Marine Corps that is a middleweight expeditionary force with reinvigorated amphibious capabilities. And a National Guard and Reserve component that is ready and prepared for operations, all of this networked into a highly capable joint force for the future.

To ensure an agile and ready force, we made a conscious choice not to maintain more force structure than we could afford to properly train and equip. The budget also seeks to retain the most flexible, versatile and technologically advanced platforms that we will need for the future. That involves unmanned systems, satellites, submarines, helicopters, aircraft carriers and fifth-generation aircraft. What we're looking at are multi-mission weaponry and technology that can support that kind of agile force.

Striking the right balance between force structure and readiness is critical to our efforts to avoid a hollow force, and we'll continue to focus on this area to ensure that we make the right choices.

In this budget, we plan to gradually resize the active Army to 490,000. That's down from present force level of 562,000. And the active Marine Corps will go to 182,000. That's down from 202,000. That transition will take place over the five years. We won't reach those numbers until 2017.

This plan maintains, as I said, a very significant Army and Marine force. Both services are at larger levels than they were at prior to 9/11.

They will be fundamentally reshaped by a decade of war. They will be far more lethal, battle hardened and ready.

The changes to the size of our ground forces allowed us to examine the Air Force's airlift fleet. Our intensive review determined that we could reduce, streamline and standardize our air fleet with minimal risk. So, as you'll see, we are retiring some aging C-5As and C-130s, but we will maintain a very healthy airlift capability.

We were also able to identify excess capabilities in tactical air forces. We currently have 60 Air Force tactical air squadrons, and the review determined that we could eliminate six of the 60 as well as one training squadron. None of that will impact our ability to dominate the skies.

The Navy is protecting our highest-priority and most flexible ships, such as the Arleigh Burke destroyers and the littoral combat ships. It will retire lower-priority cruisers that have not been upgraded with ballistic missile defense capability or that require significant maintenance as well as some combat logistics and fleet support ships.

As we build this leaner and more agile force, we frankly need to also look at a department that is leaner and more agile as well. And for that reason, this budget seeks to reduce excess overhead, eliminate west -- waste in this department, and improve business practices across the department. We've identified about $60 billion in savings over five years on top of the substantial efficiency efforts that are already under way.

This will involve areas such as aggressive and competitive contracting practices, better use of information technology, streamlining the staff, reductions in contract services and better inventory management.

As a result of all this, we will also need to look at facilities infrastructure, balancing overseas forward presence requirements with basing requirements back home. In this budget environment, we simply cannot -- we simply cannot sustain the infrastructure that is beyond our needs or ability to maintain. Therefore, the President will request the Congress to authorize to use of the base realignment and closure process -- so-called BRAC process -- with the goal of identifying additional savings and implementing them as soon as possible.

The second area: rebalancing our global posture and presence to emphasize the Asia-Pacific and Middle East areas. The budget protects and in some cases increases our investments in these critical areas. That requires an Air Force that is able to penetrate sophisticated enemy defenses and strike over long distances. So we will be funding the next-generation bomber, and we will be sustaining the current bomber fleet. We are also moving ahead with our next-generation aerial refueling tanker.

The strategy also envisions a Navy and Marine Corps that is postured forward, bringing a stabilizing presence and combat power as needed, with an emphasis on these critical regions.

The Marines will sustain their level of presence in the Pacific and the budget supports an enhanced presence and partnering opportunities with Australia and others, such as the Philippines. And in all of these cases, obviously we'll do this in a way that respects the sovereignty of the nations that we will be working with. It also provides the resources to forward station littoral combat ships in Singapore and a patrol craft in Bahrain.

As I announced last weekend, sustaining our ability to project power in these regions will require maintaining the aircraft carrier fleet at 11 ships, with 10 air wings, and maintaining our big-deck amphibious fleet. Modernizing our submarine fleet will also be critical to our efforts to maintain maritime access in these vital regions of the world. In this budget, the Navy will invest in a design that will allow new Virginia class submarines to be modified to carry more cruise missiles and develop an undersea conventional prompt strike option.

Across the force, we will invest in upgraded sensors for aircraft, ships and missiles, and the most advanced electronic warfare and communications capabilities. Meanwhile, the strategy requires the Army to return to a full-spectrum training, developing a versatile mix of capabilities, developing a versatile mix of formations and equipment to succeed on land, including in environments where access will be contested. The Army will maintain its significant force structure in the Pacific, including on the Korean Peninsula, and will maintain an operationally responsive peacetime presence in the Middle East as well.

The third area: in building innovative partnerships and strengthening our alliances throughout the world. This strategy envisions an Army that develops innovative approaches to presence and a partnership development that will ensure our continued engagement with allies and partners across the globe. For example, in Europe, while we're taking down two brigades, we will maintain two brigades and, in addition, align a brigade combat team with each regional command, and we will increase our rotational deployments on the continent so that our forces have more opportunities to train and operate with their European counterparts.

More broadly, the United States will continue to invest in our shared capabilities and responsibilities with NATO, responding to the alliance's most critical needs such as increased ISR and ballistic missile defense capabilities.

Elsewhere in the world, the gradual drawdown of the post-9/11 wars will provide more opportunities for special operations forces to assist and advise our partners in other regions, and we prioritize the most important programs for building partnership capacity.

Fourth: we will ensure that we can quickly confront and defeat aggression from any adversary anytime, anywhere. The strategic guidance reaffirmed that the United States must have the capability to fight more than one conflict at the same time. Still, the changing nature of conflict demands greater flexibility to shift and deploy forces to be able to fight and defeat any enemy anywhere.

The strategic guidance recognizes that we're dealing with the changing realities of the world that we live in in the 21st century. We're not just facing conventional threats. We're also facing technological threats. And we have to be prepared to be able to leap ahead technologically in order to be able to confront those kinds of adversaries.

This requires that we have the capability to defeat the enemy across a broad horizon of different conflicts. And the budget leverages, as a result of that, new concepts of operations and advances in space, cyberspace, special operations, long-range precision strike capabilities and other capabilities as well to ensure that we can still confront and defeat multiple adversaries.

The budget also affirms the importance of strategic deterrence and provides for all three legs of the nuclear triad: bombers, intercontinental ballistic missiles and ballistic missile submarines. However, our review determined that we could achieve better cost control by delaying the next-generation ballistic missile submarine for two years without harming the survivability of our nuclear deterrent. We are fully committed to a safe, secure and effective deterrent to achieve national security objectives.

And lastly, with regards to the key investments in technology and new capabilities, we have to retain a decisive technological edge.

We have to retain the kind of leverage the lessons of recent conflicts have given us. And we need to stay ahead of the most lethal and disruptive threats that we're going to face in the future.

That meant protecting or increasing investments in cyber capabilities, the ability to project power in denied areas, special operations forces -- the kind that we saw that conducted the bin Laden raid and the hostage rescue operation -- homeland missile defense, and countering weapons of mass destruction. In order to protect vital investments for the future, we protected science and technology programs as well.

At the same time, the strategic guidance recognizes the need to prioritize and distinguish urgent modernization needs from those that can be delayed, particularly in light of schedule and cost problems. We've made reasonable adjustments to a number of programs. Let me briefly mention the change with regards to the Joint Strike Fighter.

It's a program that remains essential for the future of our superiority. We have to develop the next generation fighter, and we will. The department remains committed to the JSF program of record. But in this budget, what we've done is slowed the procurement to be able to complete more testing and allow for developmental changes before we buy in significant quantities. We want to make sure before we go into full production that we are ready.

The force structure shifts I've outlined today entail some risks to be sure. But to manage that risk we will ensure that we can mobilize, surge and adapt our force to meet the requirements of an uncertain future.

To that end, the Army will retain more mid-level, mid-grade officers and NCOs. These are the guys who have the experience. And they will maintain them even as their overall strength decreases to ensure that we have the structure and experienced leaders necessary to re-grow the force quickly if we have to.

Another part of ensuring the ability to mobilize quickly will be retaining a capable, ready and operational Reserve Component, leveraging 10 years of experience in war. Consequently, we are maintaining a strong Army Reserve and National Guard. There will be no reductions in the Marine Corps Reserve. The Air Force will make balanced reductions in the Air National Guard consistent with reductions in both the Active Component and Air Force Reserve.

And finally, the budget recognizes that a critical part of our ability to mobilize is a healthy industrial base. Maintaining the vitality of the industrial base and avoiding imposing unacceptable costs or risks on our critical suppliers will guide many of the decisions that we have made.

Now let me turn to the quality of our All-Volunteer Force. The most fundamental element in our strategy and in our decision-making process is our people. This budget recognizes that they, far more than any weapon system, far more than any technology, are the great strength of the United States military. For that reason, we focus first on every other area of the defense enterprise for savings in order to minimize any impact on the quality of the troops and their families.

As a result, we were able to sustain or enhance critical support programs while reforming and reorganizing others to be more effective and responsive to the needs of their troops and their families.

Yet in order to build the force needed to defend the country under existing budget constraints, the escalating growth in personnel costs must be confronted. This is an area of the budget that has grown by nearly 90 percent since 2001.

The budget will contain a road map to try to address the costs of military pay, health care and retirement in ways that we believe are fair, transparent and consistent with our fundamental commitments to our people. We recognize through this process that we can never repay our service members or their families for all their sacrifices.

On compensation for service members, we've created sufficient room in the budget to allow full pay raises in 2013 and 2014 that keep pace with increases in private-sector pay. In addition, let me make clear: nobody's pay will be cut. Nobody's pay will be cut.

With regards to pay raises, however, in order to achieve cost savings, we will provide more limited pay raises, beginning in 2015. That will give troops and their families fair notice and lead time before these proposed changes go into effect.

On health care, another area of tremendous cost growth in the department, we've avoided changes that negatively impact active-duty troops or their families. We've protected health care services for these troops, for our wounded warriors.

But we decided that to help control the growth of health care costs, which is now almost $50 billion in this department, we are recommending increases in health care fees, co-pays and deductibles for retirees. They'll be phased in over five years. But let me clear that even after these increases, the cost borne by military retirees will remain below levels in most comparable private sector plans, as they should be.

We also feel that the fair way to address military retirement costs is to ask Congress to establish a commission with authority to conduct a comprehensive review of military retirement. But the President and the Department have made clear that the retirement benefits of those who currently serve will be protected by grandfathering their benefits. There will be, for those who serve today, no changes in retirement benefits.

Finally, let me just conclude. Putting together this kind of budget that maintains the quality of an all-volunteer force and implements significant mandated savings has been a difficult undertaking. This has been tough work. And at the same time, we have viewed it as an important opportunity to try to shape the force we need for the future.

I believe we've developed a very complete package aligned to achieve our strategic aims. The bottom line is that there is little room here for a significant modification if we want to preserve the force and the capabilities that we believe we need in order to protect the country and the fully assigned missions that we have to deal with.

Ultimately, we will need the support and the partnership of Congress to implement the vision that we have for a future military, and we look forward to working with the Congress in this effort. After all, it was a bi-partisan Congress that mandated that we reduce the defense budget by 487 billion over 10 years. So we look forward to their partnership in this effort.

Make no mistake: the savings that we are proposing will impact on all 50 states and many districts, congressional districts, across America. This will be a test, a test of whether reducing the deficit is about talk or about action.

I understand how tough these kinds of issues can be, and I understand also that this is the beginning and not the end of this process. But my hope is that when members understand the sacrifice involved in reducing the defense budget by almost a half a trillion dollars that it will convince Congress of the important responsibility they have to make sure that we avoid sequestration.

That would be a doubling of the cuts, another $500 billion in additional cuts that would be required to take place through a meat- axe approach, and that we are convinced would hollow out the force and would inflict severe damage to our national defense for generations.

So the leadership of this department, both military and civilian, we are united behind the strategy that we have presented. And we look forward to working closely with the leaders of the Hill to do what the American people expect of all of their leaders: to be fiscally responsible at a time of record deficits and a record national debt; to use this opportunity to develop the force we need for the future, a force that can effectively defend this country, a force that can support our men and women in uniform and their families, and a force that is, and always will be, the strongest military power in the world.

CHAIRMAN OF THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF GENERAL MARTIN E. DEMPSEY: Thank you, Mr. Secretary.

Just a few weeks ago, we released a new defense strategy. It's a strategy that keeps America safe. It represents clear strategic choices in the context of a persistently dangerous and increasingly competitive security environment. These choices are reflected in the President's proposed defense budget for the next fiscal year.

As with the strategy, the Joint Chiefs and I worked closely with the President, with Secretary Panetta, the Service Secretaries and, importantly, our senior enlisted advisers. And throughout, we made sure that the unique strengths of each service were recognized.

At the same time, we put national security above parochial interests -- exactly what the American people should expect from us.

In the end, we prepared a budget that strikes an appropriate and necessary balance between succeeding in today's conflicts and preparing for tomorrow's. This balance accounts for real risks and real fiscal constraints. It represents responsible investment in our national security.

But make no mistake, the trade-offs were tough. The choices were complex. The difficult decisions represented here produce $259 billion in savings over the next five years, and this is just the first installment on our way to half a trillion dollars in defense savings.

Even with these reductions, the budget still makes a $614 billion investment in our nation's security. It maintains our military's decisive edge and helps sustain America's global leadership. And it keeps faith with the true source of our military strength and that, of course, is our people.

Much will be said and written about the individual decisions underlying this budget. Some may be tempted to view them through the prism of a zero-sum game, parsing through each cut, each change, to look for a winner and a loser. That's actually the least productive way to assess this budget.

Instead the merits of our choices should be viewed in the context of an evolving security environment and a longer-term plan for the Joint Force. This budget is the first step; it's a down payment as we transition from an emphasis on today's wars to preparing for tomorrow's.

Allow me to make just a few additional and brief points about what this budget means for the Joint Force of 2020. First, capability is more important than size. Yes, the strategy and budget reduce force size; we get leaner. But this budget does not lead to a military in decline. Rather, it builds a force that matches capabilities to needs. It leads to a Joint Force that is global and networked, that is versatile and innovative, that is ably led and that is always ready.

It's a force that's prepared to secure global access and respond to global contingencies. It's a military that can win any conflict, anywhere.

Second is the issue of compensation reform. I want to make clear that cuts in spending will not fall on the shoulders of our troops. There are no proposed freezes or reductions in pay. There is no change to the high quality of health care our active duty members and medically retired and wounded warriors receive. But we cannot -- we cannot -- ignore some hard realities.

Pay and benefits are now roughly one-third of the defense spending, so pay will need to grow more slowly in the future. And as the secretary mentioned, the budget proposes modest increases in health care fees, co-pays and deductibles for retirees. And we also need to look at retirement, but we'll take that, we'll take the time to determine how to enact any retirement reforms over the next year.

Last is risk. The primary risks lie not in what we can do but in how much we can do and how fast we can do it. The risks, therefore, are in terms of time and capacity. And we've fully considered these risks. I'm convinced we can properly manage them by ensuring we keep the force in balance, investing in new capabilities and preserving a strong Reserve Component. And as I've said before, we will face greater risks if we don't change the way we've been doing things.

Three weeks ago I noted that we have a real strategy that reflects real choices. The President's forthcoming budget proposal embodies these realities. I'm confident it meets our Nation's needs in our current fights and for our future.

Thank you.

DOUG WILSON, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR PUBLIC AFFAIRS: We have time for a few questions, and I'll turn it over to Lita.

Q: Mr. Secretary, you touched a little bit on this, but over the next 10 years, do you see any other year than this year where the actual spending will go down from year to year?

And just to the American public more broadly, how do you explain what appears to be contradictory as you talk about, repeatedly, this $500 billion in cuts in a Defense Department budget that is actually going to be increasing over time?

And then just quickly for Mr. Chairman, can you address specifically the 490,000 as far as the size of the Army? Is it the right number, and what are the actual risks in that?

SEC. PANETTA: Yeah, I think the simplest way to say this is that under the budget that was submitted in the past, we had a projected growth level for the defense budget, and that growth would have provided for almost $500 billion in growth. And we had obviously dedicated that to a number of plans and projects that we would have.

That's got to be cut, and that's a real cut in terms of what our projected growth would be. So the reason you're seeing the tough decisions that are being presented to you in the implementation of the strategy is because we had to achieve savings that would meet the requirement that Congress gave us. And that is tough, it's real, and it's something that obviously will cause some pain. But at the same time, we recognize that Defense has to play a role in dealing with the national deficit.

GEN. DEMPSEY: In terms of the size of the Army, briefly, it's, I'm confident that 490[,000] -- active, by the way -- is the, is the right number for 2017. It may not be the right number for 2020. I've always said that the Army -- when I was the Army chief -- that the Army needs to be adaptable enough to provide the greatest number of options given the security environment we face.

So we grew the Army to confront a particular kind of conflict, to conduct the stability operations, counterinsurgency strategies that we were asked to execute. Those demands are going down. I think it's perfectly reasonable that the force structure of the active Army would go down as well.

STAFF: Brian.

Q: Mr. Secretary, you talked about the additional requests for war spending. I believe you said 88.4 billion --

SEC. PANETTA: Right.

Q: -- versus 115 [billion dollars]. Given that a year ago we had sizable numbers of troops in Iraq, the numbers in Afghanistan are coming down, why still so high? I mean, it doesn't seem like it's that much of a reduction. Can you just give us some sense of what that's for, that 88.4 billion ?

SEC. PANETTA: Well, obviously we still are maintaining a significant force in Afghanistan to conduct the war there, and the costs associated with that effort are pretty significant. As we try to deal with the supplying of our troops, this is not, you know, it's not as easy as Iraq in terms of our ability to provide the supplies and needs that our troops need.

So that plus obviously maintaining -- even as we draw down the surge -- the reality is that we will continue to maintain, you know, a fairly large number of troops that will be present in Afghanistan. To support them, to give them the best supplies, to give them the best weaponry that they need in order to meet this mission, is going to continue to require support and funding under the OCO.

GEN. DEMPSEY: Yeah, could I add, please, there's two -- there's two people who -- two groups that put demands on OCO. One is the combatant commander for the -- for the operation and the other is the service chiefs. For recapitalization, for reconstitution, we've always said that it would take years following the end of the conflict to recapitalize the force. And some of the OCO costs are caught up in that.

MR. WILSON: Tony.

Q: For Mr. Secretary and for General Dempsey. Mr. Secretary, are you seriously considering asking the President to ask Congress for another round of base closures? Your civilians are still trying to deal with the 2005 base closure with that Shangri-La known as the Mark Center.

And for General Dempsey, there is a line in here -- you want to restart the undersea conventional strike capability. The Bush administration tried that, and it spooked Congress, our allies and a lot of the arms control community. You, the Obama administration has resurrected it, but what has changed in the last few years to prevent an adversary or the rest of the world from confusing one of these conventional missiles as a nuke?

GEN. DEMPSEY: I'll go first. The technology and therefore the trajectory that would be required to deliver it, there's the speed at which these delivery systems can move. And therefore you can lower the -- you can lower the trajectory and therefore avoid the confusion you're talking about in terms of it being mistaken for an ICBM with a nuclear warhead. But, you know, there's issues beyond that, but fundamentally that's it.

Q: (Off mic.)

GEN. DEMPSEY: Technologies change, yeah.

Q: (Off mic.)

SEC. PANETTA: Yeah. It's a -- you know, it's a -- it's a fundamental problem we have to confront. As we -- as we draw down the force, we've got to take a look at the infrastructure that's supporting the remaining force. And the reality is that we are going to have to be able to reduce that infrastructure.

The best approach to reducing that infrastructure politically on Capitol Hill has been to work it through the BRAC process and to develop an approach whereby, you know, we would submit recommendations, the commission would look at those recommendations and then make a complete presentation to the Congress, and it would be voted up or down with one vote. So obviously, the BRAC process provides that kind of process.

I've been through BRAC. I know its weaknesses and its failings. Obviously we will -- we will continue to work to make sure that it's done effectively and that we achieve the savings that we hope to achieve from the process. But I have to tell you there is -- there is no more effective process to make it happen than using the BRAC process.

Q: There's no savings embedded in the 259 [billion dollars] right?

SEC. PANETTA: Yeah, we did not -- we did not want to tie any savings to it because, very frankly, we need the Congress to authorize it before we decide to put -- when -- you know, if we -- if we had put numbers in there and then Congress didn't do it, it would have -- it would have undermined our whole budget. So we just thought, let's go with the BRAC process, and then we'll -- then we'll submit recommendations once it's put in place.

MR. WILSON: Elizabeth?

Q: Speaking of numbers, $60 billion you say for projected savings for efficiency. That's always kind of a fuzzy area. You know, better use of information technology. How detailed is this savings actually that you've projected -- (inaudible). --

SEC. PANETTA: It's -- yeah, it's actually pretty detailed and, you know, we'll let our briefers go into specifics because I -- you know, I've asked the same question having dealt with efficiencies in the past --

Q: Right.

SEC. PANETTA: -- that we -- you got to obviously have some meat on the bone. As you know, Secretary Gates began that process, and we have gone back and said, OK, what have we've done to try to meet the goals that were assigned by Secretary Gates?

Q: What have you done?

SEC. PANETTA: We have. There's actually some very good progress that's been made with regards to those efficiencies. And that's what encouraged us that we could do another $60 billion on top of that.

Q: Are you talking about civilian layoffs or pay cuts it looks like here? (Inaudible) -- reductions, yeah -- (off mic).

SEC. PANETTA: All -- yeah, all of that will be included, but more importantly going after duplication, going after overhead, going after waste, going after the kind of tightening up on systems here. This is a very big bureaucracy --

Q: -- (inaudible) --

SEC. PANETTA: -- and it can use a lot of efficiency.

Q: Are you talking about civilian layoffs, sir?

SEC. PANETTA: No, no, we're -- we are -- well, we're talking about civilian pay savings as well. That's built into the President's budget.

MR. WILSON: Larry?

Q: General Dempsey, I wanted to ask you about special operations. The budget calls for protecting that investment. I believe there's an increase for that. But considering how much special operations work has increased over past years, do you believe that the funding is increasing enough to support their added role in this department?

And Mr. Secretary, you say you hope Congress will see the sense in this budget and pass it. But as a former congressman, can you give us a reality check? What do you think the chances are of this getting through Congress relatively unmolested?

GEN. DEMPSEY: On the special operations, you may have heard me say before, when you say, what's new over the last 10 years, I would say notably three things: the capability and role of special operating forces, ISR and cyber. And I'm confident that each of those three new and emerging and more important capabilities are adequately funded in this budget. But in balance, you know, we have to -- we -- the special operating forces can only be, quote/unquote special if there's a conventional force that allows them to conduct their operations and shape the environment. So we got to do this all in balance. And I am confident we've done that.

MR. WILSON: Sophie.

SEC. PANETTA: This is -- look, this is -- this is a -- this is going to be tough. This is a tough challenge, and nobody ought to underestimate just how difficult it will be. That's, you know, one of the problems with dealing with the whole issue of deficit reduction is it's very easy to talk about deficit reduction; it's very tough to do something that in fact reduces the deficit.

This -- what we're presenting here in this strategy -- does something about reducing the deficit and achieving the savings.

Now, it's going to impact on members, it's going to impact on districts, it's going to impact on constituents. I understand that. When I was in the Congress, I went through this process, and I understand what it means. But it's also an opportunity for members to show the kind of leadership that the country expects of them when it comes to dealing with this challenge.

I think we've presented a great blueprint for the kind of defense we need for the future, and it does it in a way that achieves the savings that are necessary but does not weaken our national defense, maintains a strong military force for the future.

I -- to your point, you know, we briefed members of the committees that are responsible for the defense budget last night, and I'm very confident that these leaders understand the challenge we face and that they want to work with us to try to see if we can achieve what we've presented to the Congress.

MR. WILSON: (Off mic.)

Q: Mr. Secretary, General Dempsey, I wanted to ask -- hope you can help me better understand. You talk about hard choices, you talk about accepting some measure of risk, but you also point out the ground forces will still be higher than after 9/11, there will still be the Joint Strike Fighter, there will still be aircraft carriers roughly at the same level. Given that, where is the risk, and what are the hard choices?

SEC. PANETTA: Want me to do it?

GEN. DEMPSEY: Yes, sir. Please.

SEC. PANETTA: Look, the risks come with the fact that, you know, we will have a smaller force. As we said, it's larger than we had prior to 9/11. But obviously, it will be a smaller force, and when you have a smaller force, there are risks associated with that in terms of our capability to respond. We think we've dealt with those risks because the combination of the forces we have in place and the ability, if we have to, to mobilize quickly will give us the capability to deal with any threat.

But nevertheless, there's a risk there.

There's a risk, frankly, in the -- you know, the technological area. We're depending a great deal on being at the technological edge of the future. And as I've said, I think we even have to leap forward. If we're going to deal with the kind of challenges we're going to face, we've got to be smart enough, innovative enough, creative enough to be able to leap forward. Can we do that? Can we develop the kind of technology we're going to need to confront the future? You know, I'm confident we can. But there are risks associated with that.

So, it's -- the risks we're going to be facing obviously come with some of the areas where, you know, we've had to reduce the budget. But what we've done is to try to develop the kind of agility and capability so that we can respond to the threats that we're going to face in the 21st century.

And I think -- I think this is the force for the future. You know, are there risks going -- associated with it? You bet. Can we deal with those risks and make them acceptable? You bet.

GEN. DEMPSEY: If I could just elaborate in 30 seconds, the greater risk would be had we decided that we would just wish away any particular capability or any particular form of conflict -- so say, no, we're never going to -- we're just never going to do that. So what you're expressing here is the recognition that we are retaining our full-spectrum capability, and that we -- that we didn't take any risk with that.

MR. WILSON: We have time for one more question here.

Q: Thanks. Mike Evans, from The Times. Mr. Secretary, in terms of security challenges and security threats, what is worrying you most, in particular for the next 12 months?

SEC. PANETTA: (Chuckles.) That's a set-up. (Laughter.)

Look, the one thing we had to do, obviously, in developing the strategy and the one thing that frankly distinguishes this from past drawdowns, as I've said before, is that in past drawdowns usually we've, you know, we've come to the end of a particular threat that we confronted and we could move on.

The reality is that as we draw down from Iraq and Afghanistan, we still face a number of very important threats in the world. Obviously we're continuing to fight a war in Afghanistan.

We continue to face the threat of terrorism. As successful as we've been in confronting that, we continue to see that challenge, whether it's in the FATA[Federally Administered Tribal Areas, Pakistan] or whether it's in Yemen or whether it's in Somalia and elsewhere. So we're going to have to continue to confront the threat of terrorism.

We see the threats coming from Iran and a nuclear-capable Iran represents a threat to us and to the world. The weapons of mass destruction and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction are a concern. North Korea is a concern because they too are developing a nuclear capability.

Add to that the turmoil in the Middle East that we have to confront. Add to that the whole cyber threat and the potential for cyber warfare. You can see the vast array of threats that we have to confront with the force that -- you know, that we've designed here. So it's all of those that are my concern for the future.

Q: Two quick comments --

MR. WILSON: Ladies and gentlemen, I'm sorry. That has to be the last question. But we have the Deputy and the Vice Chairman now about to come forward. So thank you very much.

Updates from the U.S. Department of Defense

The Secretary General’s Annual Report 2011

2012-01-26T12:30:02Z

The Secretary General’s Annual Report 2011

On 26 January, Anders Fogh Rasmussen launched the first ever ‘Annual Report’, which gives a brief overview of NATO’s principal achievements and challenges in 2011. This assessment of Alliance activities focuses on four areas: NATO operations, emerging security challenges, the modernization of NATO – its structures and capabilities - as well as NATO’s growing partnerships. These areas are examined against the backdrop of the financial crisis and are preceded by a foreword from the Secretary General.

In 2011, NATO operations continued across three continents. In Afghanistan, greater stability and the beginning of transition characterized 2011. Although Afghanistan constitutes the Alliance’s most significant operational commitment to date, 2011 was marked by the Alliance’s Operation Unified Protector in Libya, which mobilized NATO forces for seven months to protect civilians from attack. Progress in Kosovo was marred by peaks of violence in the north, whereas counter-piracy efforts off the Horn of Africa and in the Gulf of Aden helped to reduce the pirate attack success rate in 2011. And NATO’s training mission in Iraq was terminated on 31 December 2011 after eight years of operation.

The report highlights the key measures taken by NATO to tackle cyber attacks, to respond to the growing number of countries acquiring ballistic missiles and to counter terrorism. These are among the emerging security challenges that directly threaten the security of NATO’s almost 900 million citizens.

In parallel, the effects of the global financial crisis have accelerated a deep NATO-wide reform process that reflects austerity measures taken in member countries and seeks to modernize the Alliance, making it more efficient and effective. Major institutional reforms of the military command structure, NATO Agencies and NATO Headquarters were actively pursued; while the notion of “smart defence” has been introduced to prioritize NATO’s most pressing capability needs, set targets for forces and assess how and where Allies use their resources to help them ensure maximum value for money.

2011 also saw significant changes in NATO’s partnerships. Consultation and cooperation went beyond traditional formats. The Libya operation included direct partner involvement in decision making for NATO-led military operations and saw consultation and cooperation with the United Nations and the League of Arab States, as well as with Libya and other countries in the region.

Links:

Rapport annuel 2011 du secrétaire général

Le 26 janvier, M. Anders Fogh Rasmussen a publié pour la toute première fois un « rapport annuel », qui donne un bref aperçu des principales réalisations de l’OTAN, ainsi que des grands défis auxquels elle a été confrontée en 2011. Ce bilan des activités de l’Alliance met l’accent sur quatre domaines : les opérations de l’OTAN, les défis de sécurité émergents, la modernisation de l’Alliance – de ses structures comme de ses capacités – et le développement de ses partenariats. Un avant-propos du secrétaire général introduit ce bilan, qui décrit ces diverses activités sur fond de crise financière.

L’OTAN a continué de mener des opérations sur trois continents en 2011. En Afghanistan, l’année a été marquée par une stabilité accrue et par le début de la transition. Bien qu’il s’agisse là de l’engagement opérationnel le plus important de l’histoire de l’OTAN, l’année écoulée aura été dominée par l’opération Unified Protector menée en Libye, qui a vu les forces de l’OTAN se mobiliser pendant sept mois afin de protéger les populations civiles menacées d’attaques. Les progrès enregistrés au Kosovo ont été contrecarrés par des pics de violence dans le nord, tandis que les activités de lutte contre la piraterie au large de la Corne de l’Afrique et dans le golfe d’Aden ont contribué à réduire le taux de réussite des attaques de pirates. Enfin, au terme de huit années d’activité, la mission de formation de l’OTAN en Iraq s’est achevée le 31décembre.

Le rapport décrit les mesures cruciales prises par l’OTAN pour se prémunir contre les cyberattaques, pour faire face à l’acquisition de missiles balistiques par un nombre croissant de pays et pour lutter contre le terrorisme. Il s’agit là de quelques-uns des défis de sécurité émergents qui menacent directement la sécurité des quelque 900 millions de citoyens de l’Alliance.

Parallèlement, la crise financière mondiale a eu pour effet de donner un coup d’accélérateur à une réforme en profondeur de l’OTAN, un processus qui s’inscrit dans la logique des mesures d’austérité prises dans les États membres et qui vise à moderniser l’Alliance de façon à la rendre plus efficace et financièrement performante. La structure de commandement militaire, de même que les agences et le siège de l’OTAN, ont fait l’objet de réformes institutionnelles de grande ampleur ; par ailleurs, on a introduit la notion de « défense intelligente » afin de traiter en priorité les urgences capacitaires de l’OTAN, de fixer des objectifs pour les forces, et d’analyser la manière dont les Alliés utilisent leurs ressources pour les aider à rentabiliser au mieux leurs investissements.

L’année 2011 a également été synonyme de grands changements dans les partenariats de l’OTAN. La consultation et la coopération ont transcendé les cadres traditionnels. À l’occasion de l’opération en Libye, des partenaires ont été directement associés à la prise de décisions concernant des opérations militaires dirigées par l’OTAN, et la consultation et la coopération ont englobé l’ONU et la Ligue des États arabes, ainsi que la Libye et d’autres pays de la région.

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[MILITARY REPORTS]

Remarks by Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the Euro-Atlantic Security Community Initiative and Keynote Session, Bayerischer Hof, Munich, Germany

Air Force Strategic Choices and Budget Priorities Brief at the Pentagon

Secretary Leon Panetta's troop visit at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, Germany

Town Hall Meeting with Secretary Leon Panetta, Ramstein Air Base, Germany

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta Press Gaggle

Media Availability with Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta

Air Force Strategic Choices and Budget Priorities Brief at the Pentagon

Budget Impact to the Army Briefing at the Pentagon

Major Budget Decisions Media Roundtable at the Pentagon

Major Budget Decisions Briefing from the Pentagon

The Secretary General’s Annual Report 2011

Thursday, 26 January 2012

The Secretary General’s Annual Report 2011

Rapport annuel 2011 du secrétaire général