Esper Discusses Global Security in London

Defense Secretary Dr. Mark T. Esper talks about global security challenges, innovation and modernization with other defense leaders at the Royal United Services Institute in London, September 6, 2019.

Subscribe to Dr. Justin Imel, Sr. by Email

Transcript

Alright. If we can start, and if I can give a very warm welcome to everybody. I’m assuming you can all hear what I’m saying. I’m surrounded by microphones. But thank you very much for being here for this important discussion. Inevitably my first request must be to make sure that electronic devices are silent. I don’t trust myself, but it is silent. So, that’s alright. And then secondly, just to mention that in the hopefully unlikely event of any kind of emergency in the building, the staff from RUSI will direct everyone to the appropriate experts. And thirdly, just a reminder that this event, including our question and answer discussion, is on the record and on camera. Alright, well, I am Sir John Scarlett. I have the privilege to be Vice Chairman here at the Royal United Services Institute, and it’s also my privilege today to be introducing the Secretary for Defense, Dr. Mark Esper. Now I’m going to introduce him now and then he will come in and make his introductory remarks from this lectern, and then we will have a discussion, and then we will leave time for questions. So please think about questions. I’m sure they’ll all be very constructive and precise. Right, well the Honorable Mark Esper is United States Secretary of Defense and he was sworn in as Secretary on the 20th of July, having served as Acting Secretary from the 21st of June to the 15th of July. So he was sworn in on the 23rd of July. He was previously Secretary of the Army from 20th of November from 2017. Secretary Esper is a graduate of the United States Military Academy, commissioned in the infantry. If I could interrupt and welcome the Ambassador of the United States. Mr. Ambassador, welcome. He was commissioned to the infantry having graduated from the United States Military Academy, and he served in the 101st Airborne Division including in the 1990-1991 Gulf War with the Screaming Eagles. Retired finally from the U.S. Army in 2007. Now since leaving active duty, Secretary Esper has served with the Heritage Foundation think tank and as a senior staff member to Senate and House committees in Congress. During the George W. Bush administration, he was Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for negotiations policy. Before being nominated as Secretary for the Army in 2017, Dr. Esper was Vice President for Government Relations at Raytheon. Secretary Esper holds a doctorate in public policy from George Washington University. He and his wife, Leah, have been married for 30 years and have three adult children. Speaking from experience, that is very important point. And I’m going now to invite Secretary Esper, who I think is just about to come, to make his opening remarks from the lectern. So, I’ll stay here to welcome him just in a minute. Good, he’s there. So you can be thinking about your questions. Secretary. Mr. Secretary.

Thank you, Sir John, thank you.

Thank you.

Sorry for the delay. They were wiring me up back there, so. Well good morning and thank you, Sir John, for that introduction. It is great to be here at what I’m told is the world’s oldest independent think tank on international defense and security, right, 1831? Wonderful, but thanks also for inviting me to speak with you today. I’m looking forward to our discussion. I’ll start by framing the global security environment for everyone through the lens of the United States. To do that, let’s consider the following factors. First, we are in the midst of negotiating a political settlement to what has been the longest war in the history of the United States. Next, trade-offs between defense and domestic spending are leading to intense budget debates in Congress. A generation of service members who have become experts in irregular warfare now have to relearn the skills associated with high-intensity conflict. The military services are reexamining their war-fighting capabilities and doctrine. And the defense industrial base must retool its assembly lines to produce a new generation of aircraft, ships, and fighting vehicles. All this is necessary because there are new threats on the horizon. Strategic competitors have modernized their forces, professionalized their militaries, and are using their military power to intimidate, coerce, and threaten the sovereignty of weaker nations. To counter these growing threats, the United States and its allies must act now. The year I’m talking about of course is 1973. That year represented a strategic inflection point for the United States military, along with many of our allies, who had a stake in the protection of freedom and democracy throughout the world. Visionary leaders of the time recognized the world was changing. The Yom Kippur War demonstrated the lethality of modern anti-armor weapons, much like Russia’s action in Ukraine proved how drones, cyber attacks, and artillery could be used to find, fix, and destroy modern military forces. Moreover, the build-up of Soviet forces along the Western front in the Warsaw Pact presented an extreme threat to our way of life. The Iron Curtain that Winston Churchill had first described over two decades earlier seemed to be solidifying as communism took hold in new parts of the world. In response, the U.S. military adapted by modernizing our formations, equipment, and doctrine across all of the services. And although the long-feared battle of the Fulda Gap never transpired, this new military force demonstrated its battlefield prowess against the Iraqi Army in 1991 by employing a combination of Tomahawk cruise missiles, precision air strikes, and fast-moving ground combat forces to defeat the fourth largest army in the world in less than 100 hours. I fought in that war as a young military officer and the lessons we took away from that important time in our history stick with me to this day. Now, as Mark Twain is reported to have said, quote, “History does not repeat itself but it often rhymes.” Today we find ourselves in a situation very similar to that of 1973. One where the hard-fought battles of the past 18 years have come at the expense of preparing for those of the future. Our strategic competitors, namely Russia and China, have capitalized on this period, also learning lessons from studying U.S. military operations over the past few decades. To counter our traditional advantage, they are investing heavily into military modernization while expanding their capabilities in the space and cyber domains. And while the cumulative power of the NATO Alliance remains unmatched, some of our comparative advantages have diminished. As we look out across the global security environment today we see a landscape that continues to grow in complexity. It is increasingly clear that Russia and China want to disrupt the international order by gaining a veto over other nations’ economic, diplomatic, and security decisions. And as was the case 45 years ago, we cannot stand idly by while authoritarian nations attempt to reshape the global security environment to their favor at the expense of others. Doing so would invite continued aggression and diminish our ability to deter future conflicts. As such, America’s National Defense Strategy makes it clear that great power competition is once again the primary concern of U.S. national security. The United States is facing this challenge head-on. But if we are to preserve the world all of us have created together through decades of shared sacrifice, we must all rise to the occasion. It is imperative that freedom-loving nations recognize the threats to our security and commit to doing their part to keep the world safe. So let’s start by talking about Russia, since that’s the greatest concern of most European nations. Russia’s invasion of Georgia in 2008, its annexation of Crimea in 2014, its continued aggression in Ukraine, and its efforts to serve as a spoiler to peace in Syria, demonstrate Moscow’s unwillingness to be a responsible international actor. Even as far away as Venezuela, we see Russia making allegiances with discredited and failing regimes in an attempt to promote instability. For many years, Russia violated the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty as it continued to build up its inventory of strategic arms. And right here, right here in the UK, you know well of the lethal poisonings that occurred in 2006 and 2018. While Russia lacks the capacity to compete with NATO in conventional terms on a broad regional scale, the threat of a Russian incursion against a neighboring state is one we take very seriously. To put it simply, Russia’s foreign policy continues to disregard international norms. This is why the United States, in consultation with our NATO allies, is expanding our presence in Poland and continuing our close collaboration with the Baltic states. The NATO Alliance remains vigilant and continues to adapt to improve unit readiness, to build a more credible deterrence, and to fight and win if necessary. At the same time we must contend with a rising China. Decades of robust economic growth, enabled by market reforms, have provided Beijing the financial resources to expand its influence well beyond the shores of the mainland. This alone is not a problem. However, what is concerning is how China is using this new-found economic power. Last month, I traveled throughout the Indo-Pacific on my first trip as the United States Secretary of Defense, and I saw first-hand how China’s One Belt, One Road Initiative is manifesting itself throughout the region. What are initially presented as reasonable investments by the PRC to build ports and facilities and other infrastructure, end up coming with some significant strings attached. The more dependent a country becomes on Chinese investment and trade, the more susceptible they are to coercion and retribution when they act outside of Beijing’s wishes. The political and economic leverage China is gaining by carrying out this strategy has begun eroding the sovereignty of many nations. Ultimately this influence trickles down to the security arena and leads countries to make suboptimal defense decisions for fear of upsetting the Chinese Communist Party and being punished through economic measures or political backlash. Additionally, China’s technology theft for military gain is staggering. Indeed every Chinese company has the potential to be an accomplice in Beijing’s state-sponsored theft of other nations’ military and civilian technology. Those companies also pose a risk to the secure and resilient communications infrastructure on which our allies and partners depend for interoperability, intelligence sharing, and mobilization. To quote China’s own cybersecurity law, private companies are required to, quote, “provide technical support and assistance “to public security organs and national security organs,” end quote, whether they want to or not. Governments and businesses around the world should be concerned by Chinese influence that opens them to costly deals, future coercion, loss of technical advantage, or other malicious activity. I would caution my friends in Europe. This is not a problem in some distant land that does not affect you. The PRC’s influence is expanding rapidly as it seeks to pursue new partners well beyond Asia. But for anyone who wonders what a world dominated by Beijing might look like, I would argue all you need to do is look at how they treat their own people, within their own borders. Over a million ethnic minority Uighurs are in reeducation camps in Xinjiang province, basic civil liberties such as freedom of speech and freedom of the press are routinely denied, and we all see what’s happening to those who continue to speak out against the Party’s influence in Hong Kong. I was there for the handover in 1997 when the one country, two systems designation was affirmed. And I would ask you, given what we see in Hong Kong today, has China kept those promises? The United States National Defense Strategy accounts for the realities of today’s environment, with a particular focus on this new era of great power competition. This is not because we are naive about other threats or seek to rekindle another Cold War. Rather, we are aligned in this focus because of the magnitude of the threats Russia and China pose to U.S. national security and prosperity, and the potential for those threats to increase in the future. We wish this was not the case. Deterring potential aggression in the first place prior to the onset of conflict is paramount to our strategy. This is why we are working with our allies and partners to improve our capabilities, capacity, and defense posture throughout our priority regions. With regard to NATO, our top priorities are burden sharing and unit readiness. While we have made great improvements in recent years, we still have a number of allies not meeting the 2% defense committee as agreed to under the 2014 Wales Declaration. President Trump has been very clear, and I will continue to push my counterparts, that all NATO members must live up to this obligation. The strength of our collective response requires that all Alliance members be ready to do their part when called. Building this readiness demands greater investments so that NATO forces remain the most highly trained and best equipped in the world. I want to thank the United Kingdom in particular for your continued strong investments in defense. You are one of the eight, the eight out of 29 NATO members who are meeting this target. Aside from the United States, the UK has the largest defense budget within NATO. And I would encourage the UK, regardless of the outcome of Brexit, to maintain this level of defense spending and to continue demonstrating your commitment to security and the rule of law around the world. I look forward to meeting with my defense counterpart, Secretary Ben Wallace, later today, as we talk about ways to continue strengthening the Alliance in light of the threats I’ve spoken about this morning. In closing, during that same speech in 1946 where Churchill warned us of the Iron Curtain that had descended across the continent, he also spoke of the special relationship that bonded our two nations, one that would serve to prevent war and to preserve the newly created international order. That special relationship remains just as vital today as it was when Churchill first coined the phrase. If we are to preserve the peace and order that our nations sacrificed so much for in the past, we must remain vigilant, committed, and prepared to respond to aggression where it threatens our interests. I’m confident that we will continue to work closely together to maintain the freedoms we worked so hard to secure. I appreciate your time this morning and I look forward to your questions. Thank you all very much. (audience applauding)

Mr. Secretary, thank you very much indeed for those remarks. I mean they’re a bit more than opening introductory remarks and it’s very good and it’s full of content there. And I want to pick them up and, in particular, I want to set the overall context for two or three or four questions, maybe, that I will have by referring back to generally 2018, which was the publication of the National Defense Strategy, which is the foundation document at present for what you were there discussing. And of course, this sets out, and it’s really interesting. Actually the document itself, the strategy itself is 11 pages. I was amazed when I saw that. But oh well, shows progress.

Brevity.

Very good, and just reading it through, the scale of the challenge that the United States faces in this era, in this period of very rapid technological change.

The challenges we face.

The United States face.

We face.

We face.

I’m quoting the National Defense Strategy. (both laughing) Okay, we. And with the scale of the challenge we face, I’ll take my orders there. But when we’re looking at what is required to be achieved in terms of investment in a period of very rapid technological change, which you refer to there, and if the United States in particular is going to maintain its capacity to be, effectively, the most advanced and the most effective power on a global scale, inevitably there’s going to be a choice of priorities when we talk about that. And the Defense Strategy’s very clear about setting out priorities and in particular, of course, famously, it puts forward the concept of the return of great power rivalry. It also set out the five particular challenges, China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and terrorism, non-state actors. It’s quite complicated there. And it also, I think I might say, highlighted the particular priority of the Asia Pacific and Europe. And that’s the sort of context that I’m talking about. Now you mentioned there, quite rightly, Russia as a particular issue, of course, for all European countries. But I would like to start with the great power theme that I must say certainly I took particularly from the Defense Strategy, which is of course the power of China. And just recently being in the region. In terms of the steadily increasing military expenditure and capability of China, now over many years, and particular capability, I’d be interested in your comments on which aspect of this is of most concern to you? And how does the U.S. plan in the longer term to counter the assertion, if you like, of China in East Asia, maybe more generally, but certainly in the region in particular which can be widely defined South Pacific as well. And maybe in particular, if I can just ask a particular question, because it always intrigued me, what do you see as a long-term solution for countering Chinese activity in the South China Sea? There we are, easy, easy start.

So, I’ll start with the last question. I think the best long-term solution is to continue engaging the leadership in Beijing to get back on the right trajectory, the trajectory where they want to actively participate as normal, responsible nations in the world order that we have set up over the past several decades and not to try and reshape it to their own ends. That would be my preference is we engage in that manner. And I think we’ve been trying to do that for the last two decades or so, if not longer. And so to me that’s the best solution. Absent that, we need to compete. So it’s one of those cases where you hope for the best, work for the best, but you prepare for the worst. And that seems to be the track we are on right now. We need to continue to engage, we need to continue to talk to them, and certainly engage their neighbors and the allies and make sure that we’re prepared to compete on the world stage or else we’ll find ourselves, not next year or the year after, but 10, 15, 20, 25 years from now on the wrong end of this ledger, if you will, and we will see this tremendous world order that we shaped in the wake of World War II upended and constructed in a different way that challenges our basic values, our rights, our freedoms, and our fundamental way of life. And that’s our concern.

Okay and is there anything else you particularly want to say about what it is that makes you most anxious, if you like, or worries you about Chinese activity?

Well, I think when you step back, you just gotta look at the size and potential of China.

Yeah.

I mean the size of the population, the immenseness of the economy and how they are leveraging it very well. You know for many years, many years, double-digit growth in their economy and even today if you believe their reporting, what, five, six, seven, eight percent growth annually. You’re looking at intellectual property theft, as I’ve described as the greatest in known human history. And at the same time, given their form of government, they can focus resources on certain industries and sectors with the aim of dominating them by undermining the market system, if you will. And we see this presently in technology. So, those are the big threats that we face today that in many ways we didn’t face with regard to the Soviet Union over the long, long years of the Cold War.

Indeed. Thank you very much, that’s very clear. Now, turning to the theme, or coming back to Europe, really, and returning to the theme of NATO, which you mentioned in very clear terms there, and the special relationship with the United Kingdom. And if I can ask two or three quick questions in that context, and then you take them. I mean, first of all, any additional comments you want to make about what you see as the most valuable contribution that the UK brings, apart from the size of our defense expenditure, to NATO? You mentioned, of course, the issue of burden sharing and the eight countries at the moment out of 29 that are meeting the 2% target. And some of them are still quite a few years to go before they get there. How confident and hopeful are you that that progress will continue, and we really will get to a better burden sharing picture? And then finally, and I’m bound to say, that of course there has been some uncertainty, including public uncertainty within various parts of NATO, about the nature and the solidity of the long-term United States commitment to NATO, which at the end of the day, fundamentally means Article Five. And so, three easy questions, yes.

I’ll try and remember the three questions.

I’ll help you if you forget.

I may selectively forget a few of them.

It’s an old trick.

So, look in addition to the capabilities that the UK brings, I think maybe the most important is leadership. I think the leadership we’ve seen from London over many, many years is tremendous and essential, and that needs to continue. And that’s what I would say in addition to, again, the capability and capacity you bring to that. You know with regard to probably your third question, the United States is committed to NATO. We’ve said that, the President has said that, but that means that NATO must be ready. We must live up to the expectations. So, while we may be committed to Article Five, everybody else needs to be committed to Article Three. There is an article that says you have to live up to your commitments and provide capabilities. And when only eight of 29 countries are presently meeting 2%, and by the way, to me, 2% should not be the goal, that should be the floor. Our defense budget should reflect the challenges and threats we face and I would argue the challenges and threats we face are much greater than 2%. So, the United States is well over 3% at this point. And by the way, I referenced 1973 in the opening remarks of my speech, and my staff did a little research. You know, and this is measured now in GNP not GDP, but at the time in 1973, NATO on average was 5.3%, 5.3, Europe was over 4% alone. So you can see how far we’ve come in terms of commitment to spending on defense, and it’s unfortunate that the peace dividend didn’t last longer than, what, a decade or so. But we are where we are and we have to realize that the new threats are upon us, and it requires us to up our spending. So the commitment from the United States is there, but we need to see commitment from our allies and partners to get at, if not above, 2%. So that’s kind of the message I’ve been saying. Now you asked about, Sir, what’s my confidence? President Trump, I think, and Secretary General Stoltenberg, who I had a chance to meet with the other night, who’s a great Secretary General.

He is.

I think, between President Trump’s leadership and messaging, and the Secretary General’s support, as well, we’ve now encouraged countries, we should see $100 billion plus increase over the next year or so. We hope to see within the next two years, maybe 17 countries get up to the 2% mark. But I would be a fool to say that I’m confident that all 29, 28 will be there by 2024, which is a requirement. Because look, if you’re committed, if you recognize the challenges we face, you gotta make the changes now. They can be programmed in. 2024 is five years away. There’s no reason why the countries, particularly wealthy countries like Germany, cannot meet that spending level, if we’re truly committed to our collective self-defense.

Well that’s, and you have covered all three points, thank you very much.

Oh good, okay. I’ll save my neglect for another one.

That is clear. But in a way, the rather complex and inevitably open-ended point about the confidence in the fundamental commitment to NATO, including right to the Article Five point, is there. And is there anything else that can be done just to sort of remove that uncertainty that one hears when he travels around Europe and so on?

In terms of our commitment?

Yeah.

Well, look, I’m here. I’ve been to NATO. I’ve expressed this when I was Acting Secretary in June about our commitment to NATO. You see United States forces deployed throughout Europe and in some cases putting more capabilities into Europe. So it is obvious, and what we’d like to see is the same from our other allies in terms of making those contributions and commitments, and it has to be contributions and commitments to real capability. One of the things that we put forward was the NATO Readiness Initiative, which says that we would have 30 squadrons, 30 mechanized battalions, and 30 naval combatants, capable of being ready within 30 days. That is a clear metric of readiness, and we need to get to that point because that’s how you report, and then you measure, and then you test readiness. And we’ve never done that as an Alliance, or at least not in recent years. And I served in NATO when I was a young officer here in Europe, or there in Europe, however you look at it. (audience laughing) (cross-talk)

Well there’s that Europe, too. So we need to get that, we need to be ready. And not because we’re looking for a fight, but because we’re trying to deter a fight. We’re not looking for conflict. We wanna make sure that the world remains safe and secure so we can all prosper and continue our way of life and raise our families and do all those things that we wanna do.

[Sir Scarlett] Good, thank you. Thank you very much. Now, of course, you refer to the challenge from new technologies in relation to warfare, and that is relevant across a whole range of activity, some of it sort of recognizable, some of it quite hard to understand and to recognize. But I particularly want to mention the issue of hypersonic weapons, missiles. And certainly when you read some of the detail about the potential capabilities of such missiles which have been highlighted in a rather sort of forceful way by President Putin, last year, you know it is quite mind-concentrating. And I’d be very interested in your comments on that, the nature of the challenge that they are likely to represent, and to what extent that is realistic within quite a short timescale. And, of course, the plans that NATO, but that therefore, or if you don’t mind me saying, the United States, has to develop capability and deterrents and potential negotiating capability to control this very dramatic new area of activity?

Sure, well hypersonics is one of a handful of advanced technologies that we are pursuing aggressively. For those who don’t know, hypersonics are weapons, if you will, that can travel at five times if not much greater the speed of sound, they have a degree of maneuverability, and can hit ranges well over 1,000 miles, and so they are a very incredible capability that are hard to defeat with traditional air defense systems. And that’s why any number of countries are seeking to develop them. They includes Russia and the United States and China, as well. And so I think this is an area that we held a lead for many years, and then stepped back some, and we’re now getting back and reinvesting in these technologies because it just gives us, again, the capability to deter bad behavior and to kind of offset our adversaries. In any fight, you want stand-off, right? You want your reach to be greater than their reach, and just that’s the capability we’re trying to build up. Obviously, Russia’s pursuing the same. So we just gotta see where this plays out, but we don’t see, I’m not aiming to have an arm’s race over hypersonics. I am looking to have another tool in our quiver, another arrow in our quiver, so we have another capability to deter, again, aggressive behavior.

And with Russia there, of course as we indicated earlier on, there is a difference between China and China’s basic power and growth and Russia, but it is the other great power which is picked out in the Defense Strategy. And progress and focus and concentration by Russia in that area of really highly developed new technology, in particular hypersonic missiles, that is they’re competing at the first order there. How sort of confident are you that we really understand what progress they’re making or not making? And what sort of long-term change does that represent?

Well, there’s obviously open-source information about it, and there’s intelligence and obviously I’m not going to discuss the latter. But we need to build our own capabilities in terms of both the capability to have our own systems, but then the capability to defeat them. So in Brussels in June, when we met at the Defense Ministerial, the issue at that time was the Russian development of intermediate-range nuclear missiles, which had been fielded, by the way they’re out there. Possibly, probably nuclear-tipped, right now pointed at Europe. And so the question that NATO is weighing, and that we’re working on is how do you defeat those? Because we don’t need that threat hanging over the continent or here over the UK. And so that’s just another thing we have to deter. That we shouldn’t have to, right? We shouldn’t be in this position, but unfortunately President Putin has taken Russia in a different direction.

Yes, it’s worth saying there that Jens Stoltenberg, excellent Secretary General, who I heard recently was very, very clear in his support of that analysis of INF.

Yeah, all the NATO allies. It wasn’t just us but all allies.

The leadership, yeah. I was very clear. Now if I can move on maybe to one last question, a rather different one, but it’s a national security question and possibly, I’m not sure where the Department of Defense comes into this, but of course a big issue when we’re talking about new technology, has been the way that’s used for political purposes and political interference.

Right.

And the role of not just of cyber, purely, but also of course social media in that area in terms of election interference, and I think that has had some issue in the United States, and elsewhere, one has to say, which is sometimes forgotten. How sort of confident are you that that’s an area where real progress is being made in sort of getting the vulnerabilities under control?

Sure. It’s a very important issue. The Department of Defense is a major contributor in what we call, of course, a whole-of-government approach that is led by the Department of Homeland Security. And I will tell you, we made a lot of efforts after the 2016 elections under President Trump. We built capabilities and we changed authorities. President Trump approved that.

Yeah.

And at the 2018 midterm elections, what nine or 10 months ago now or so, we didn’t have any problems and that’s a good thing. But this is likely not going away, so we have to continue to develop the capabilities to deter bad behavior from Russia and from other countries, because there’s probably nothing more important than the integrity of our elections and the credibility of our democracy, and so we have to preserve that. That’s the fundamental, the essence of a democracy is having confidence that who you voted for was the ones that were elected, and the information that led to that vote was real. So we are fully committed to that, the Department of Defense is, and we’re gonna keep working it, and our goal, our ambition, and I’m confident we will achieve it, is to have a influence-free, if you will, 2020 election. So I think that’s something all nations have to be concerned about, ’cause we’ve seen it not just in the United States but in other parts of the world.

Yes, I think it is fair to say, final comment, that long-established liberal democracies do have to keep on thinking about their electoral systems.

Sure.

That’s certainly true. Right, well now thank you very much indeed for responding to those questions. And I would like to invite questions from the audience or from the people who are here. And I’m very much wanting to concentrate on, this our think tank, this is an academic and intellectual atmosphere. And so keep up that atmosphere in the questions and the answers, and yes please, and could you, when, can you introduce yourself by name, and also by, well I’m not quite sure how to call it: function, employment, association, membership?

Yeah.

Okay, good morning Mr. Secretary. Caroline Flynn-MacLeod, Terrington Management, in which I’m a partner. And we work with a lot of defense and security companies. You alluded to but did not mention the Huawei word. – Huawei.

Huawei, yes. And I’m just wondering, our National Cybersecurity Center has a slightly different view of the issue than you in the States, and I wondered, given that you’ve reinforced the whole special relationship and how important the UK is to the United States and particularly with respect to intelligence sharing, what message you’ll be giving to Secretary of State Wallace today with respect to any actions the UK might take with respect to Huawei and the use of that technology, and whether you will be almost sort of, to what extent you will be prepared to withdraw some of the Five Eyes intelligence sharing?

So that will be a topic of my discussions today. It has been already this morning because on the telecommunications front, clearly the 5G Huawei issue is right there. And our view is that Huawei is the means by which China would get into our networks and our systems, and either attempt to extract information or to corrupt it, or to undermine what we’re trying to do. So our message has been, and it was the message I carried to NATO in June, was that we need to be alert to this and not buy into the attractiveness of Huawei technology that is subsidized by the Chinese government and is being offered out there, because at some point depending on how they leverage that technology, it may constrain our ability to share intelligence, share technology, share plans, etc., so, it’s probably premature at this point to say what we’re gonna cut off or not cut off, but it’s something we’re watching closely, and we’ve tried to communicate that to our allies. At the end of the day, you have to make your own decision, right? But I think it’s incumbent upon us to speak to the threats, share with you all our concerns and discuss other options. And that’s one of the things I’m gonna discuss too. What are some other options, right? We need to find other providers other than Huawei to do this. But one of the things that China’s done is to push others out of the market, so that’s a challenge.

Okay, please, microphone.

Rabi Al-Fahid, from Mosul Foundation and International Friends of Mosul. Having got rid of the horror of Isis, Mosul has discovered it has changed hands from one militia to another. The donation by militias backed by Iran and the Government of the life in Mosul is in full swing. This includes security, economy, state, education, religion, and agriculture. The once-vibrant urban center is today clinically dead. The indigenous population, feeling unsafe and strange in their home, in their own city, are selling their homes and leaving. A fragile society is being born, in the place as a result, which is hithertofore extremism. These militias are multiplying, wrecking urban centers in the Middle East one after another.

Okay, keep it as a question.

Yeah.

The talents of this great city want to restore it to its status, recover its culture, build its economy. And ultimately instigate a reverse-migration of its sons and daughters. How would you make their mission possible, thank you?

Well look, we’re in Iraq presently, after many years, at the invitation of the Iraqi government, and I think we’re gonna continue to engage the Iraqi government as they address all these issues you discussed, but I’m not gonna get in the middle of Iraqi politics anymore than I’m gonna get in the middle of British politics, or American politics, as best I can, so, those are all issues we need to work out. I have great respect for our Kurdish partners over the many years, and we just gotta work through these issues. I’m sorry, I can’t elaborate any more on that.

Right, here we go. Microphone and then pick it up.

Thank you, I’m (mumbles), I’m Head of Political and Counter-Terrorism Department at the Embassy of the Republic of Iraq.

You wanna answer his question? (audience laughing)

Quite right.

By the way, I like your tie, it’s very nice. There have been calls for a regional security conference, as this could be an amicable approach, to dealing with the tension in the region. How can the U.S. pursue this? Thank you.

I mean a regional security conference, if we can get, the more you can get people together and talking the better, right? And so to just to address all these issues. I’d step back and say that if there was such a regional security conference, I think the key issue that needs to be addressed is the malign influence of Iran throughout the region. Iran is supporting the Houthi rebels in Yemen, and the Houthis everyday are shooting missiles North into Saudi Arabia and the UAE, etc., causing a lot of destruction and turbulence. They are funding militias throughout Iraq and into Syria and of course all the way across into Lebanon, and so and then we can go broader than that too, so I think the fundamental challenge for the region is Iran, and Iran not behaving like a normal country, if you will, not abiding by the rules of international law or norms of behavior, so I think if such a conference was to be held, I think one of the things that needs to be discussed is how do we work to get Iran back on the arc of– I shouldn’t say back on, I’m just not sure they’ve ever been on since the Revolution, but get them on the path of being a normal country, and away from what they’ve been doing for many years now.

Okay, over here.

Thank you. Mr. Secretary, I’m Aniseh Bassiri, I’m a Research Fellow here, working on the Middle East at RUSI. I was wondering whether we could transition nicely to this issue about Iran, and whether you could, yes? What I was interested more was to know a little bit about the assessment from the U.S. point of view, about the maximum pressure campaign, its current success, but also the coordination, the level and nature of coordination with the European partners. I’m referring particularly about France, on the nuclear issue, and the deal that is being discussed, but also about the UK and the issue of the tankers and the recent reward for justice program that has been announced by the State Department, as well, thank you.

Okay, I’ll try and answer as much as I can there. Let’s go back to the root of the issue, right. There’s obviously a difference of views between some European countries and the United States and other countries. We tend to forget, not everybody agreed that the JIPOE was a good deal. Go talk to the Middle East partners, with regard to it. So we had a different view on the JIPOE and what we thought it was gonna achieve. So that is kind of where we’re divided right now. Our view is to use the maximum pressure campaign to bring Iran back to the negotiating table, so that we can find a new path forward to a new JIPOE, one that really ensures that Iran doesn’t pursue nor acquire a nuclear weapon, not just in 10 or 15 years, but forever, and that we look at other things such as missile technology and then this malign behavior that they’re instigating throughout the region is just terrible to all these countries and the peoples of the region. So that’s the path we’re on. We believe the maximum pressure campaign is working. We see the impacts on their economy, on their currency, etc., and as we’ve said very clearly, the President has said this as well, is we’re willing to meet with Iranian leaders, any time, without precondition, and to sit down and discuss a way forward that avoids conflict but gets us to a better deal than what was negotiated under the JIPOE, so we will continue to apply the pressure. It seems in some ways that Iran is inching toward that place where we could have talks, and hopefully it’ll play out that way, but that’s our goal is to get them to the table.

[Sir Scarlett] Good, thank you. Now here, questions beyond Iraq and Iran also welcome.

[Niall] Niall Hegemichael, a member of RUSI and I will be able to go in that direction. Secretary, thank you for your candid and robust words. You mentioned a threshold of 2%. You also had a vision of both commitment burden, and capability. I’m thinking of the Five Eyes community. Would it not be the case that economic, technological, and civil society partnership of a more stronger and a more in-your-face way might be an ability to help those partners raise and consolidate their contribution at a time when China’s outreach and soft power is very prevalent, and of course Russia is playing its world game.

So I’d say, if I understood your question properly, I think it’s both, right? You have to have both a defensive capability to deter, but at the same time, sure to the degree that we have an approach that looks at technology, a concerted, coordinated approach, all the better. And the present example is Huawei, right? That’s what we’re trying to get to, but I don’t think we can let countries off the hook, whether it’s NATO allies or our allies in the Indo-Pacific region. You can’t simply substitute and say, well, my 2%’s gonna go toward technology, or I’m gonna build infrastructure. I can’t deter a Russian brigade with a road. We need real capability, and that’s why I think the NRI, the NATO Readiness Initiative is key, and the same capabilities we’re trying to build in the Indo-Pacific. Again, I think that’s the floor, the minimum. I think other than that we need to look beyond what we need, to again, deter conflict, but the other part is critical too, is what aspects can we bring to what we call competition. And competition is everything from, you know like you said, technology, industrial, educational, cultural, all those other parts where we, these countries who are on the fence, and there are countries on the fence depending on where you position yourself, geographically, that we need to make sure we keep on our side, if you will. And I hate to kind of draw the line like that. It should not be us and them, but it seems to be shaping up that way unless we can otherwise change the arc.

[Sir Scarlett] Good.

[Audience member] Mr. Secretary, could I ask do you climate change as a threat to the national security of the United States, and how does it figure in your thinking as you look to the challenges in the future? – Climate change is certainly presenting DOD challenges because we see how it affects our installations, whether it’s the rising waters in Norfolk, Virginia, or desertification for Army bases in the West. So it’s something we have to plan for and prepare, and we do in our plan, so it is the nature of things, no pun intended, but we have to deal with it and we are attempting to deal with it.

[Sir Scarlett] Right, Kevin, yes, in the back.

[Kevin] Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Kevin Massey with Equinoise. A corollary to the question that was just asked. We’ve heard from the Trump administration the concept of energy dominance, and I wonder if you can reflect on the role of energy, and U.S. energy, in the U.S. national security posture, and strategic capability set, as the U.S. continues to become an increasing energy production superpower?

Yeah, certainly the energy has changed the politics in the Middle East and our own greater self-reliance, but for me my focus in terms of DOD is how do I reduce the tether of energy to operational forces so that we can operate over longer distances for greater amounts of time. So we’re putting a lot of effort into what I would call operational energy, if you will, and then of course we consume a lot of energy on our bases in installations and to the degree if the energy costs us money, that’s money that’s not available for other things. So building capability, or providing adequate housing for our soldiers, sailors, admiral marines, so it is a focus of ours, and to the degree we can make it more efficient and conserve it and find alternative sources that address those challenges, all the better.

[Sir Scarlett] Good, that’s very clear. Charlie in the back?

[Charlie] Charlie Parton here at RUSI studying China. At the very start, you began by talking about the need to prepare for future wars rather than the last ones. I was reassured by a senior officer in the MAD behind the other day that the UK at 2% can’t afford to build up its traditional forces, and to deal with new threats, new types of hybrid warfare. So if it is indeed a binary choice for the UK, it’s probably going to be a binary choice for the other 29 members other than the U.S., so which do you advise us to go down? Do we build up our traditional forces, or do we look to build up the capability to deal with new hybrid threats?

It’s neither, it’s gotta be both. I mean it’s just the world we live in. When I was in the Service in the eighties, and noughties, we operated in three domains: air, land, and sea, and now we’re in what we call multi-domain warfare, so it’s air, land, sea, cyber space, and cyber’s also information warfare, so we gotta be able to fight and win, or compete first, and then fight and win in all of them, and you can’t disaggregate responsibilities or capabilities because any commander on any battlefield will find himself or herself fighting across all those domains, so I don’t think it’s, it’s too easy to say pick one. We have to be able to bring capability to all of those, because my belief is that the first shots of the next war, and again God forbid we get in one, will be in either cyber space, well cyber space and space, if not both. It won’t be a traditional exchange of volleys by naval combatants or something like that. It’s gonna be in those two areas. And then it will evolve from there, right? Into your traditional domains. So that’s why I think if we wanna deter conflict, we gotta be able to deter conflict across all those domains.

[Sir Scarlett] Right, I’ve got time for one more question if I may. Okay, up there.

[Dominic] Dominic Dudley, I’m a freelance journalist and member of RUSI. You recently had a meeting with the Deputy Defense Minister of Saudi Arabia and I was wondering if what you said in that meeting and with other conversations with Gulf allies about the split in the GCC and to what extent that is hampering the U.S. ability to push its interests in the Gulf? And on a related point, what should we read into the return of U.S. forces to Prince Sultan Air Base near Riyadh over the summer, and what does that mean, if anything, for your presence in Abu Dhabi and Qatar?

Sure, so I have a general rule of thumb. I don’t talk about my private meetings with folks. So I’ll stick to that. But more broadly, our point to the GCC countries would be that they need to resolve this quickly. It’s gone on too long, because the bigger challenge in the region is Iran, for the reasons I addressed earlier. Iran is rampart in terms of its malicious, malign behaviors throughout the region, and they are undermining governments, any number of governments, and so that’s the big challenge that those countries and we all face in the Middle East, I believe. There’s terrorism as well, but in many cases, Iran is supporting, inspiring, directing much of that terrorism that’s happening also. So that’s it. The deployment of forces to Prince Sultan Air Base, to the region I should say, was just a make sure that we can maintain a deterrence posture at the time, when Iranian forces were clearly going after shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and elsewhere, and obviously the UK knows that well. So the point was to make sure that we were positioned to deter if not defend against the Iranians, not as a deployment seeking conflict but simply for those two reasons.

Good, well, as I’ve said, I think that has to be the last question, Mr. Secretary. First of all I thank you very much indeed for answering those questions directly. I’m not gonna try and sum up what you’ve said, sorry. I wouldn’t remember let alone three questions so I wouldn’t remember all of them. But the message which comes out, quite clearly, I think may be very interesting in your response to the question about binary choice, is that actually it isn’t in the conditions we’re talking about that binary choice concept is not really there. And that’s the message I’m taking away, and it’s of course intimately linked to the changes that we’re talking about across cyber space, across space, you know high and low and so on. A technology change, which is very difficult to keep up with. And so I think if we take that key message away as a starting point, I hope you agree that that’s fair enough.

Fair enough.

And I do, again please want to thank you for your relaxed approach to this conversation.

Thank you, Sir.

Thank you. (audience applauding)

If you can just stay here while I escort the Secretary out, and then it’s a free country and you can leave.

Share with Friends:

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.