Meeting

A Conversation With General CQ Brown, Jr.

Monday, September 23, 2024
REUTERS/Heiko Becker
Speaker

Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff; CFR Member

Presider

President, Council on Foreign Relations

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General CQ Brown, Jr. reflects on his first year as chairman and discusses his vision for the joint forces over the coming years. 

The David A. Morse Lecture was inaugurated in 1994 and supports an annual meeting with a distinguished speaker. It honors the memory of David A. Morse, an active Council on Foreign Relations member for nearly thirty years.

 

FROMAN: Well, good evening, everybody. Welcome. Delighted to see everybody here in the room, plus we have about—over 200 people who are following us online.

I’m Mike Froman. I’m president of the Council on Foreign Relations. I’m delighted to preside over today’s discussion.

And this is the David A. Morse Lecture, which honors the memory of a lawyer, public servant, and internationalist, David A. Morse, who was an active CFR member. And we’re very grateful to his family for all their—all their support.

It’s a great honor to welcome the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Brown, to the Council. General Brown is known for being intellectually curious. I’ve had the pleasure of being at his home with his lovely wife, Sharene, and—where they’ve gathered together experts to have broad-ranging discussions, and really always looking out to get more input from the outside world into what the military is doing. So thank you for that.

Let me start, if I may. When you were Air Force chief of staff, you wrote what was—what became a very well-known memo called “Accelerate, Change, or Lose.” And you called for a blueprint of a culture of innovation, streamlining bureaucracy, deploying new technologies, addressing costs. Now you’re the big boss. How is it going? (Laughter.)

BROWN: Well, Mike, first of all, it’s a real honor and a real pleasure to be here at Council on Foreign Relations. And you know, I think it’s gone fairly well, but there’s always room for improvement.

And so when I wrote “Accelerate, Change, or Lose,” it was partly because of I had spent a lot of time not in Washington, D.C. All my time as a general officer had been spent outside of Washington, D.C. in warfighting type jobs, whether it’s a combatant command’s air components, you know, as a deputy commander at United States Central Command, as well as air component commander for Central Command and then for INDOPACOM. And what I really was looking at was the ability to—knowing that—where the threat was going, particularly as you look at the Indo-Pacific and the PRC, and what are our National Security and National Defense Strategy laying out. I thought that we needed to move and start to drive some change ahead of any type of crisis.

And so we have made some changes. I think our ability now to engage with the aspect of bringing in additional technology, bringing in the innovation, but we’ve also got to be able to scale it. And that’s the other part of, you know, looking at our defense industrial base, to be able to bring in that capability and then put it into the hands of our servicemembers as quickly as possible. Because the goal is to ensure, if we ever—you know, never—you know, goal is not to get to a conflict. And so, based on our ability as a nation to come together, to be able to deter. But if we do, I want to make sure it’s an unfair fight. I want to make sure that we have all of the capabilities and all the tools in the resources from our nation to come together.

Bureaucracy was one of those things that I think we’ve all dealt with. There’s some value in it, but I also believe there’s some things that we can always improve upon to knock down barriers, to make it easier for us to work with the tech sector, work with industry, work with our allies and partners. And it’s been—I’ve always been frustrated with some levels of bureaucracy, and it’s one of those things I will continue to work on. And I will say we are making some progress there as well.

FROMAN: You mentioned the defense industrial base. Let’s talk a little bit about that, if we can.

One hears two lines of concern about our current defense industrial base. One is the one you alluded to, how can it integrate innovative technology at scale to really take advantage of innovations that are coming from the private sector. I mean, it’s sort of a different dynamic going on now where it’s the private sector innovating in AI and other means, and the Defense Department figuring out how to integrate it, versus the Defense Department driving it through its own sort of programs and budgets in the past. That’s one line of concern.

The other line of concern is when it comes to good old-fashioned production of artillery shells that we just can’t seem to get up to the scale that we need to get to to support Ukraine or other places, replenish our stocks, replenish our allies’ stocks.

Share with us some of your frustrations, or maybe—maybe those concerns are wrong. But share with us some of your views on, one, how to integrate new technology better into our defense procurement; and, two, what’s the problem with our defense industrial base that we can’t produce even basic artillery at scale the way we need to.

BROWN: Well, part of the—I do think about the innovation aspect to this. And it’s not so much that I would consider that part as part of the defense industrial base; it is the innovation within our nation in the industrial base of the things they do in an innovative way for all of us.

The challenge I think we have sometimes is how do we, you know, integrate that and adopt that into the Department of Defense. And part of that conversation is, you know, instead of us building out a requirement and asking for a very specific capability that sometimes may be—by the time we write out the requirement and get it, it is a one-off from everything else that’s happened innovation-wise. We’ve got to be able to be willing to take some things I wouldn’t say completely off the shelf, but be able to bring in some things that are already being developed that have great application that could be used in a military context. Because those are already being scaled, and it’s just a matter of how do we integrate that. And that, to me, sometimes can be the challenge.

I think it’s a cultural shift for the department. It’s different than how we might do our contracts. And so that is an aspect that we’ve got to continue to work on, to be able to break down those kinds of barriers. And it’s a cultural shift, you know, from how we’ve done things in the past and how we need to be able to do things in the future. And I think it’s, you know, the value of us engaging with the tech sector and some of these startup companies. And the more we can integrate and just sit across the table from each other in some areas, I mean, that seems very simple, but it’s the aspect of being able to—you know, to work across those seams and figure how best to bring them in.

On the flipside—and you mentioned artillery as a good example—you know, we, you know, typically don’t build a lot of munitions. We build enough munitions to have some on the shelf. But when you go to a conflict—or in this case when we’re supporting a conflict, like we’re doing with Ukraine—the key part you got to be able to do is there’s things I think about—you have to have a consistent demand signal. And so we haven’t had a consistent demand signal for 155 artillery or some other weapons systems. You got to have consistent resourcing. And so you got to make sure—you know, that’s why I always comment on getting a budget on time and avoiding continuing resolutions. What that helps is you can write contracts, you can provide predictability in the aspect of we—in the NDAA for FY ’24, we do multiyear procurement. So you have a consistent demand signal to industry, so that way they can build out their workforce, they can build out their supply chain, they can build out their facilities, and they’re not hedging because they’re not sure what you’re going to do, which means they’re not going to do anything until they’ve—you get—you have a commitment, then you’re going to spin up.

If you’re able to have that consistency, for me, I think it drives a greater trust between the department and industry. They’ll do the resourcing on their side to get the workforce, supply chain, and facilities. That will drive down costs and increase the speed of delivery times. And so we’ve got to pick—you know, we’ve had six munitions on the—in the NDAA for ’24. I think we need to continue to broaden that and look for opportunities where we have levels of consistency so we can, you know, build that trust of the defense industrial base and they can build out as well.

FROMAN: I mean, Congress has a lot to say about that. They’ve been part of the challenge, I guess, when it comes to defense procurement. Do you feel like they’re coming onboard with this kind of multiyear commitment in advance to allow the big companies to invest on the capital side what they need to produce?

BROWN: I mean, there is, and I think part of it because we got the six munitions. And we—I think we asked for seven and we got six.

The thing we got to think about is what we’re—what we’re trying to achieve here. Because when we were doing this—and I was still the Air Force chief of staff, transitioning to be the chairman; we were working the National Defense Authorization Act for ’24. And some of the feedback we got was, well, it’s not saving money. And I go, it’s not about saving money; it’s about buying down risk. Because you’ll save money in the long term, but you’re not going to save money in a one-year budget cycle to do multiyear procurement. You’ve got to figure out how we’re going to—it sets ourselves up better for the future in buying down risk by doing this. And I think, you know, the fact that we’ve been able to do these six, and in the same time you look at what’s happened in—as we’re supporting Ukraine and others, we see the importance of why this—you know, why you have to be able to lay out these multiyear procurements. So I think there’s opportunity to continue to be able to do that more.

FROMAN: Well, let’s talk about Ukraine. I was recently there, about a week ago or so. The Ukrainians are desperate for U.S. permission to use the weapons that we’re already providing them, and that they want us to continue to provide them, for long-range strikes into Russia at military targets from which the Russians are launching attacks on them, their civilians and on their infrastructure. That’s their short-run demand. The longer-run demand is they don’t see any long-term solution to their problem with Russia that doesn’t include NATO membership and a pretty well-defined short-term path towards NATO membership. Where do you stand on those two issues, long-range strikes and NATO membership? And how do you see this coming to an end?

BROWN: Well, those are both policy decisions and I’m not a policymaker. (Laughter.)

FROMAN: Well, you can have a personal thing. (Laughter.)

BROWN: But—no, but—(laughs)—

FROMAN: We won’t tell anybody. (Laughter.)

BROWN: There’s a couple things I do think about; is, you know, how do we continue not just what the United States provides but what, you know, the fifty nations that are part of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, the capabilities they provide. I also think about the capabilities that Ukraine’s being able to produce with their one-way attack drones, and they’ve been pretty effective with those this week much further than the range of the ATACMS that they’ve asked about.

And so how do we make them as effective as possible? And I—you know, I balance that with how we look at the future. And you asked a question about NATO. You know, again, that’s a policy decision. But in order to get to a better future, it’s—you’re going to have to get to some type of diplomatic solution—I’m not sure what that’s going to be—but also some security guarantees because we don’t want this to repeat several years into the future. If you back to 2014—I mean, this all started in 2014, you know, with the Little Green Men going into Crimea. And just there’s low-level conflict that wasn’t really, you know, getting a lot of visibility, and it picked up again in February of 2022.

FROMAN: Do you think a series of bilateral security guarantees by the U.S. and other nations will be a sufficient deterrent against Russia coming back in after some sort of agreement?

BROWN: Well, I do think what you’re—I mean, as you do these bilateral agreements, I think there’s a line of the bilateral agreements that will be effective. An analogy I would use is we have a—as part of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, we have capability coalitions. There’s eight capability coalitions that are all tied to, you know, air force coalition or armor coalition, artillery, demining, IT, and a couple more that I—maritime is another one. What we’ve been able to do with those is not only look at near-term capabilities in those—in those areas, but also longer-term capabilities, and bringing together those capability coalition leads to, you know, align their various capabilities so they’re able to move forward. Again, not being a policymaker, but I think any alignment we can do with these bilateral agreements, you know, there’s strength in numbers if there are, you know, greater alignment with these agreements as well.

FROMAN: Let’s shift to the Middle East. Back in April, Iran sent 300 missiles/other projectiles towards Israel. Quite a remarkable coalition came together under CENTCOM with, as I understand it, the U.K., France, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Jordan all working together to, basically, defend Israel, ultimately, from this attack, although they may justify it in other—in other ways. What is the future of that kind of cooperation? You’ve been a—you’ve been a deputy commander of CENTCOM and the Air Force there. How do you see that defense relationship and partnership working in the region?

BROWN: Well, first, let me comment on the work that was done on the night of 13-14 April. Tremendous work by our servicemembers with many of our allies and partners in the region, just like you described. And I mean, I couldn’t be prouder of the work they were able to do. I had a chance to, you know, talk to some of them via video teleconference shortly thereafter. You know, one of the units actually arrived within less than—it was really about twenty-four hours before everything happened. And so that tells you how—the readiness of our force and the tremendous work done by our servicemembers.

More broadly, I am focused on allies and partners, and our partnerships, and the things that we need to do. And part of that is the dialogue, that I think is hugely important, and the ability for us to continue to work together. It’s interoperability based on the weapons systems that we use together. It’s our—it’s our command and control, our tactics, techniques, and procedures that we train to as well, and the exercises that we do.

And you know, I’ve been in this job just short of a year. I’m about a week away from being in the job a year. I’ve spent a lot of time engaging with my allies and partners. I was just in the Middle East at the end of last month. I’ve engaged with about 300 different engagements with allies and partners over the course of the year, and so I’m—whether it’s thirty-one of them at a NATO event or individual office calls or telephone calls. But it’s that kind of engagement to help us talk about the security interests that we all share and how we can work together.

And in this case, you know, it was the attack against Israel, but it was also to prevent a broader conflict in the region. And those are the kinds of things that we’re able to do by working together to, you know, increase security and decrease the security challenges to the best of our ability with our allies and partners.

FROMAN: Well, let’s talk about that expansion of the—of the conflict. Certainly, the Middle East is top of mind, what’s going on between Israel and Hezbollah north of Israel, southern Lebanon. How worried are you about this becoming an even broader regional war? And what are we and our allies doing to try and prevent or deter this from becoming an even—an even more significant conflict?

BROWN: Well, you know, part of that is my—you know, my engagements with my counterpart. And I know, you know, other parts of our government, including Secretary Austin, is engaged with his counterpart, the continuous conversation about the goal of not broadening the conflict. And that was one of the objectives going back to October of last year, is not to have a broader conflict. It gets more and more complicated as the—this continues to go on. And, as you highlight, there’s a bit of increased activity over the course of the past several days between Hezbollah and Israel. And, you know, the parties continue to engage.

But the concern, you know, I think all of us have is, you know, neither—I don’t think either side really wants to have a major war, but how well they understand, you know, where those lines are before they get crossed? And that’s an area that, you know, we continue to look at from our side, as well as we engage with our Israeli counterparts. And then there’s also, you know, diplomatic work that’s being done—or, at least, engagements that’s being done by those from our U.S. government, but also from some of the other countries that have an interest in Lebanon as well.

FROMAN: You’ve got a carrier strike force in the region, as I understand it, maybe more. What role do you see that playing in either deterring or being involved?

BROWN: Well, there’s several things by bringing our forces into the region, I would say, not just into the Middle East, but any part of the world. There’s a level of insurance to our allies and partners, a level of deterrence to those that might want to challenge our security interests. But it’s also to protect our forces. And, you know, with the carrier in the—in the region now, just like all the other capabilities—and we tend to gravitate and talk about the carrier, but there’s a number of capabilities that we have in the region, from all of our services. And all those are used to help deter, but also assure. And the deterrence piece plays a role in the, you know, our moving in—and capability in and out of the region. But, again, really, all around the world. It’s designed to do that.

FROMAN: Let’s shift, if we can, to China. The military talks about China as being the pacing challenge, that if we prepare for everything we need to deter China or to ultimately win over China, that we’ll have what we need more generally, you know, as a military—as a military force. How is that process going? And when we’re bogged down in the Middle East, or trying to provide support for Ukraine through NATO and otherwise, do we have the capability of moving to the Indo-Pacific the resources we need to effectively deter China?

BROWN: Well, that’s what we’re doing right now. I mean, the resources we have in the Indo-Pacific and the capabilities that we move in and out of the area is—helps us with that deterrence. But it’s not just what we do from a military aspect. It’s also what the rest of our government does as well, and how they engage. There’s an economic aspect of this. And I’ve had a chance to sit down with Secretary Raimondo, Secretary Yellen, both of them as well. It’s something I think about, how do we use all of our capabilities as a nation to ensure we’re able to deter any type of a conflict? I do not see a conflict with the—with the PRC that’s imminent or inevitable. But we’re going to make sure that we continue to produce our capabilities, you know, and put as much of the capability into the hands of our servicemembers.

FROMAN: How confident are you that we can deter attack—an attack on Taiwan, if China’s determined to do that?

BROWN: Well, I mean, that’s what we’re doing right now. And I have pretty good confidence that we can deter. But we got to continue—we cannot rest on our laurels. We got to continue to provide additional capability and use all the tools to help deter. What I would say, regardless of what, you know, happens with Taiwan, we still have to worry and deal with the PRC over the long term. And that’s the part that, you know, I’m not only looking at any potential conflict, but how do we as a nation, how do we, with allies and partners, look at the PRC? I would say the same thing with Russia and Ukraine. If you get to some level of—some stability or some type of ceasefire there, that’s a long-term challenge as well that we’re going to have to pay attention. Both of those are outlined in our National Security and National Defense Strategy.

FROMAN: One of the issues that’s come up in the China context is their rapid buildup of nuclear forces, and what seems to be a determination to match us, ultimately, in our number of nuclear weapons. Do we have a need for some new nuclear strategy? That having built a strategy that was mostly focused on the Soviet Union and then Russia, now we have Russia and China coordinating or cooperating with each other more than they have in the past. Do we have a three-body problem here, where we need to build up our own nuclear forces to deal with two hostile nuclear forces?

BROWN: Well, it has become a three-body problem, in some aspects. But, you know, it’s not just the nuclear capability. It’s all of our capabilities—you know, credible combat power that actually helps in deterrence. So, you know, nuclear does play a role in this, but it’s also the other capabilities. I’d also say, what we’re able to do with our allies and partners. And I share that partly because what I’ve seen is, you know, European nations interested in what’s happening in the Indo-Pacific, and Indo-Pacific nations interested in what’s happening in Europe. Matter of fact, you know, Germany just did a Taiwan Strait transit. First time in about twenty-two years. There’s been an Italian carrier in the Indo-Pacific here recently. And so there’s areas that we can definitely work together. And it goes beyond just our nuclear capabilities, you know, outside the United States as well.

FROMAN: So you’re confident that our existing current nuclear force, nuclear strategy, is sufficient to deter both China and Russia?

BROWN: I think it is. But here’s the other part of this too, is we’re in the middle of upgrading our—modernizing our triad. This is a generational—you know, we’ve only done this once in a generation. It’s something that will—again, why I’m so focused on ensuring get budgets on time, or as close to on time as possible, to ensure we are putting money into these weapons systems to help deter.

FROMAN: I’m sure Congress would pass it, no doubt, right? (Laughter.) There you are. Russia and China raise the issue of this new axis. What do you call it, the axis of the autocracies, axis of the aggrieved? I think Niall Ferguson calls it the axis of ill will. Whatever it’s called, this new combination of countries—Russia, China, Iran, North Korea—how does that affect your view of sort of the changing geopolitics and strategy around the world? And to what degree can they really challenge U.S. interests?

BROWN: Well, one of the things that I have—and I’ve talked about this in other venues—is inside of our National Security and National Defense Strategy there’s five challenges outlined—People’s Republic of China, Russia, Iran, North Korean and violent extremists. They’re all active right now. And, as you just highlighted, they are, in some cases, working together. But their work together is not the same as the work we do with our allies and partners. And how much of this is a matter of convenience or a matter of pushing against the West in some regards. What I do see is that, you know, when I met with a number of chiefs of defense a week ago today, we walked around the world. We talked about what was going on in Europe, we talked about what was going on in the Middle East, and we talked about what was going on in the Indo-Pacific. We have representations from, you know, North America, Europe, and the Indo-Pacific. And so we all see these somewhat interrelated.

And last fall—and I’d only been in a job for a couple months—I really start thinking more deeply about this, of all these things and how they’re interconnected in some form or fashion. And, you know, what happens in one part of the world impacts other parts of the world. And we’ve got to make sure we’re able to make those connections, so we don’t get surprised at a later date because we’re only focused on one area. And it’s easy for us to focus on one area and one topic, where I’m just trying to step back from this as the chairman and look at this more globally and see how things are interconnected. And how, you know, we don’t solve one problem and create, you know, a couple more someplace else, or we miss a problem someplace else because we’re focused in one area. And I think that’s my role as the chairman. I believe I have that responsibility. And, I mean, we walk around the world every day in my updates with my—you know, my office’s operational and intel briefs, to highlight all the things that are going on.

FROMAN: Yeah, it’s a long—it’s come a long way since we were working with Russia and China to constrain North Korea, constrain Iran. Now the alignments have changed. How worried are you that the quid pro quo for Iran and North Korea supplying Russia is that Russia is going to help them develop further their nuclear programs?

FROMAN: Well, that’s, as you just highlighted, it’s something we are paying attention to, and ensuring that it’s—there is potential for them to not only—as the weapons are transferred to Russia, you know, technology transfer or other areas of help may come about as well.

FROMAN: Let’s move to the final frontier, space. (Laughter.) Space Force, five years old, spun out of the—out of the Air Force. How’s it going? How’s the multidomain approach working? And are you satisfied with the progress that Space Force is making? I’ll put a plug in, we have a Council on Foreign Relations task force on space policy right now, including low earth orbit and the various activities there. How satisfied are you with the progress of Space Force?

BROWN: I’ve been, well, pretty satisfied. And a couple of reasons. One, you know, I came in as the Air Force chief of staff just inside of a year before the Space Force had its first birthday. The first chief of space operations is a friend of mine. Jay Raymond and I were in the Air Command Staff College class in 1997, and so we’ve known each other since we were majors, and worked together pretty closely. I think the real value of the Space Force standing up, and I can say this having been the Air Force chief, is before that I would have been responsible for both air power and space power. It helped take some things off my plate, but it also gave great focus on an area that, you know, we looked at, but it wasn’t a war fighting domain. Matter of fact, we wouldn’t even call it a war fighting domain for a number of years.

That’s much different now. And because of what the Space Force has been able to do, you have experts that are focused on this domain. It’s also helped bring down the level of classification in certain areas. And so we can talk about some of those things. And still in classified forms in some cases, but just the aspect of being able to integrate space into what we’re doing for operational reasons. And as you highlight with the space policy piece, the more we have an appreciation of how space is being used by our adversaries, helps us change and drive our policy to make sure that our policy stays ahead of—and our ability to respond, should any of those nations do something that’s outside the norms of behavior, you know, in space. And so that’s—it’s also helping shape how things—we would operate in space, not only for us but also for other nations as well.

FROMAN: To bring it down to Earth, maybe we could talk a little bit about recruitment, which has been a challenge for, I think, all the services, to meet their recruitment goals. Evidently, only 23 percent of Americans of the right age are eligible, either because of fitness or drug use. The military has, in some ways, become a family business. Your father and grandfather both served. Are any of your children in the?

BROWN: No.

FROMAN: OK, so the chain is broken. (Laughter.) But how do we ensure that, while it’s great that it’s a family business in many respects, it tends to limit the exposure of the American society to the military more broadly. How do you make the military more attractive for people to join, and ensure that we can recruit the number of people that we need to recruit?

BROWN: Well, here’s—the first thing I would highlight is our recruiting numbers are on an upward trend. The pandemic challenged us a bit to have that personal contact with young people. The thing I do think about, and I do think about this quite deeply, is how do we inspire the next generation to serve, whether it’s in uniform or someplace else? Young people only aspire to be something they see or know about. So if they don’t know about the military, they don’t see it as an opportunity. And so I believe there’s things that those of us in uniform, those of us that are influencers that know those in the military, to talk about the opportunities that the military provides.

And, you know, we are—you know, as the wall came down, we’re much smaller. So we—and we closed bases, and after 9/11 we make it very difficult to get on our bases. We got to reconnect with our communities. One of the things that—when I came in as a chairman, I wrote one of my expectations, that trust is the foundation our profession. And that trust starts with, you know, how do we take care of our servicemen and their families. It’s how we work with our elected leadership. But most importantly, how we connect with the American public as an all-volunteer force, and the things that we do to help inspire those that come in behind us and talk about the opportunities. Whether you served four years or forty, because I was going to do four years and get out. That was my plan. My dad, when I was in high school, said, quote, “four years in the military will not hurt you.” (Laughter.)

FROMAN: And forty’s done pretty well by you.

BROWN: And I’m almost at forty. But I’ve had so many opportunities that I never would have imagined. And I guarantee you, those that come in and serve in our—in uniform will step away as a veteran a better person. I mean, I can almost guarantee it. And I can guarantee—you know, just based on my own experience. And so part of this is how do we, you know, provide those opportunities to young people and expose them to what may be available for them if they join our service—one of our services.

FROMAN: I’m going to ask you one more question, and then open it up to our members here and online. So please be ready with your questions.

1991. You’re flying an F-16 in Florida. Have a little problem. Have to eject. Ended up in the swamp.

BROWN: That’s correct.

FROMAN: Earned the nickname Swamp Thing. (Laughter.) How many people actually still call you Swamp Thing? Or how many people dare to call you Swamp Thing now? (Laughter.)

BROWN: Well, a handful of those that know me. But it was a—struck by lightning, caught on fire, and ejected over the Everglades, and spent fifteen minutes in Everglades. (Laughter.) My wife says I came out with a knife in my teeth and alligator purses and—(laughter)—instead, I was covered—I was covered in swamp mud. (Laughter.) But it was not what I expected.

FROMAN: You’ve overcome that.

BROWN: I’ve overcome it.

FROMAN: OK. All right. Let’s open it up to—open it up with questions. Fred.

Q: Fred Hochberg.

FROMAN: By the way, just all the normal rules apply. This is on the record. Please stand, identify yourself, and we’ll go from there.

Q: Fred Hochberg.

Your predecessor had to testify in front of Congress about DEI initiatives at the Department of Defense. And Congress was quite critical. Companies have pulled back. How is those efforts going, particularly in light of Mike’s question about recruitment, where you really need to get every able-bodied person eligible?

BROWN: Yeah, so to your point about every able-bodied person eligible, we want to bring people in no matter their background, you know, no matter their demographic, no matter where they grew up. We want to provide them an opportunity. They just got to be qualified for that opportunity. And I’ll just say, for my own personal career, I never wanted to be advantaged or disadvantaged because of my background. I just wanted an opportunity. And I’ll tell you, when I go out and meet with our young—our servicemembers, they don’t talk about all the stuff that was happening in those kind of conversations. They’re more focused on, you know, war fighting and getting the job done.

And so the key part here is ensure that we don’t put—you know, have barriers within the service to bringing people in or advancement because of their—you know, because of their background. And that’s been my focus as a—you know, throughout my career, and for me personally, but for those that—others. Because when we go to conflict—and I—you know, I did a commercial about this. It wasn’t designed to be the commercial we did, but it’s true, because I did an interview when I was a captain back in the early ’90s. When I put my helmet on, and putting that visor down, and get in that F-16, you don’t know who I am. You don’t really care. You just want to make sure I’m getting the job done. And that’s what we believe about bringing people into our service. Thanks.

FROMAN: Great. Bob Hormats.

Q: Thank you very much, General, for a very thoughtful presentation.

You talked about the future and looking ahead. I wonder if you could share with us your thoughts on what the military of the future will look like, say, five years or ten years out, compared to what it is today. Now, we’ve got more adversaries. Technology is moving at a more rapid rate. We have budget issues that are going to be getting worse given the budget deficits and the debt that’s piling up in Washington. When you—when you pull those three together, what does the military look like five or ten years from now? And how do we plan for that, as opposed to focusing on the more immediate challenges that, of course, are quite compelling as well?

BROWN: Right. So I’ll tell you what I hope it looks like. I can’t tell you what it might look like.

Q: That will be good enough.

BROWN: No, no. No, I really believe that, as we look at the aspect of what we’re seeing in Ukraine and the Middle East, the use of uncrewed capability, so one-way attack drones. OK, and I see that that’s going to be an aspect that we’re going to see more of. I know the Air Force, as I was leaving the Air Force to become the chairman, we were looking at a collaborative combat aircraft that can actually be controlled from another aircraft or a ground station, but can carry—you know, be uncrewed, but carry weapons, be a jammer, or be a sensor. I think we’re going to see more of that. I think there’s going to be aspects of technology—we talked about artificial intelligence. How is that going to be used within our military? Will we have more individuals that have cyber expertise and coding expertise than what we have today?

And so I—one of the things I was working on as the Air Force chief, because we—you know, you organize, train, and equip. The question I asked, and this is rhetorical, but I asked our staff: What are the career fields we have today that we won’t have a decade from now? What are the career fields we don’t even have, that we should have? And so, you know, data science. If we’re going to do artificial intelligence, we need to have—we don’t have a career field necessarily for data science. I mean, we have people that do some of this, but not a lot of people. Those are the kinds of things that we’re going to have to shift to. And then I think the other part is the ability to rapidly innovate, not only—it doesn’t actually have to be in DOD, but just a different approach of how we would do acquisition of capabilities outside of DOD and being able to make this connection with our innovation sector. And how do we break those barriers down, which will provide us greater opportunities and capabilities and flexibility as we go forward.

Q: So outside data?

BROWN: Outside data, but also, you know, the thing I also think about, will we have major weapon systems that, you know, take X amount of time to build, very complex. I think we have to have a mix of the higher-end capability, but also some lower-end capability that is attritable. But if the technology is not there because the threat’s gone a different way, you don’t feel like you’ve—you know, you got to keep it—keep it going and keep the capability. It’s the aspect of, hey, we can actually modify that, or it’s more modular, modify it, or move away from it and go in a different path. So it’s a matter of talent but it’s also, you know, capabilities that I think about for both.

Q: Thank you.

BROWN: Thanks.

FROMAN: Rita Hauser.

Q: I just wanted—

FROMAN: One second. Just one second, for the microphone, so people online can hear you.

Q: I just want to go back a little bit on the recruitment. Have you made special efforts to recruit women and accommodate their needs the same way that industry has? And how have women, in general, been doing in the military?

BROWN: Yes, we have. And there’s a number of different things we’ve done to, like, for example, this is a number of years ago, but opened up all the—pretty much all of our career fields to women. But also, you know, looking at different things. You know, we changed our hair standards for women, which was—it was a pretty big deal, for somebody who has no hair. (Laughter.) But, you know, really being thoughtful about—as we look at demographics. And what—the thing I also look at is we have very talented people, then we got to look across the board and make sure we don’t—you know, don’t—you know, out of sight, out of mind.

And part of how do we develop our talent to make sure, you know, no matter your background—and with women as well—that they have an opportunity in certain positions, particularly if you’re—you know, it’s a very small number in a particular career field. We got to make sure we’re paying attention, because what’s going to happen is if you don’t pay attention and don’t give them upward mobility—or at least an opportunity based on their qualifications—then you’re going to lose that individual. The other thing, I think, for our force, you know, our young people want to look up and see somebody looks like them. They do. They want to go, I can do—I can do that, because I can see somebody looks like me in a position of leadership at a higher level. And I think that’s important as well.

FROMAN: We’re going to take the next question from our online audience.

OPERATOR: We’ll take our next question from Oriana Skylar Mastro.

Q: Hi. Thank you, General Brown, for coming to meet with us today. It’s good to see you again.

I’m actually calling you from your Joint Staff College out in Norfolk, Virginia. So I have a question about, sort of, joint operations. You know, during this course, and obviously the years I’ve been in the military, one of the things that’s really stood out is, besides tech innovation which you’ve already spoken to, really organizational change and also innovation operational concepts is what has allowed the United States to out-compete its enemies. I’m curious, since you alluded to some of the challenges of the bureaucracy, in the back of your mind do we have any sort of organizational changes on the horizon? Or, if you had a wish list, you know, what is the next Goldwater-Nichols that is going to allow the military to really take its strategic effectiveness to the next level? Thank you.

BROWN: Yeah. I think, you know, one of the areas that we’ve done some wargaming and exercising on is do—as we look at how we’re functioning and organized for war fighting, we have a joint forces air component commander, a maritime commander, land component commander. Is that the right way to do it? Or if you’re going to do multidomain, do you have several multidomain commanders that actually can do a little bit of everything? And that, of course, come against some organizational friction. But in order to do that, you got to look at how we develop our force, so that if you’re going to be a multidomain commander you’ve actually had to spend some time working with the other domains. And if, you know, you spend all your time in your one domain, then you’re not going to be very good as a multidomain commander.

Where Goldwater-Nichols actually forced us to spend more time in joint positions, that helps us get down that path. And so, I mean, that is one example of how we—how we’ve looked at it. You know, we’ve talked about, you know, how—our combatant command structure, and the fact that we have eleven of them. And particularly as you start to look at, and the way I think about it, the threat and the challenge we have do not care about which four-star’s in charge of that part of the world. And so it’s not so much whether we organize differently, but it’s also how we work differently, more closely together, and having commanders solving problems together. And we’re seeing that already. And we’ve got some steps, without even making any organizational changes, but approaches—changing approaches in how we do our strategic planning as a forcing function to bring them together earlier in the process. And so that part has been helpful as well.

FROMAN: OK. Let’s go somewhere in the—in the back. This woman right there. Yep, waving her finger.

Q: Sarah Leah Whitson, from DAWN.

Wanted to ask you two quick questions. Under what authority is the United States currently carrying out military operations in Syria and in Yemen, given the expiry or redaction of the AUMF for Iraq and the inapplicability of the AUMF for al-Qaida? And, second, how do you feel about the United States putting American servicemen and -women’s lives at risk in order to defend an autocratic dictatorship, like Saudi Arabia, which the Biden administration is currently proposing?

BROWN: Well, let me just say—tell you real broadly, you know, part of our operations in the Middle East are, you know, tied to the defeat ISIS campaign, but also to freedom of navigation as well. And, you know, the other part I would highlight, as we, you know, work with Saudi Arabia, you know, there’s aspects of working defense and stability within a region. And I’ll defer to the policymakers about, you know, how they decide what we do. You know, I help execute what the—what the policymakers decide.

FROMAN: OK. Yes, this gentleman there.

Q: Hi. Sherman Baldwin from LCR Capital Partners. Thank you, General, for being with us.

China controls about 90-plus percent of the world’s rare earth and critical minerals. In your role as chairman, thinking about how the DOD needs to interact with private companies and industry, what do you think and how important is it for the U.S. to secure a domestic supply of rare earth and critical minerals?

BROWN: Well, actually, it’s a—I’ve been in New York City all day long today. And part of that was a conversation—I had a very similar conversation on this particular topic earlier today. You know, as a—as a warfighter, I’m—you know, I realize that the rare earth minerals are important. I don’t know what all of them—you know, all of them that are important. And this is why we got to take a look at the list of commodities that are important to the nation, making sure that we’re moving forward on this. And so as Mike highlighted, some of my engagements are to help me raise my awareness in some of these things so I can actually advocate to go: These things are important. We need to make sure that we, as a nation, with our allies and partners, are taking them seriously and paying attention to them, so that the PRC does not corner the market and put us in a very difficult situation for military capability in the future.

FROMAN: Can I just add that I had the honor—the chairman invited me to participate in the exercise he had. And I was talking to a number of the commanders there. And to hear a bunch of commanders talking about supply chains—you know, as a trade person, you know, it warmed my heart—(laughter)—because they were—as we try and learn more about the defense sector and the military, they were trying to learn more about trade and supply chain. So there’s a real convergence here of people understanding how just significant—how significant this is.

We’re going to go to the next question online.

OPERATOR: We’ll take the next question from Nathan Dial.

Q: General Brown, how you doing? This is Major Nathan Dial, active duty ISR pilot based out of Offutt Air Force Base.

Sir, my question is, one of your accelerate change or lose initiatives that you started when you were the chief of staff of the Air Force was a substantial organizational and financial investment in officers obtaining advanced degrees like Ph.D.s, and then finding roles for them to use their operational and academic experiences in meaningful ways. Now, as the chairman, how do you feel about programs like that in the DOD? And then how do you see those types of officers operating in the future of conflict?

BROWN: I think it’s just as important, you know, now as the chairman as I was as the Air Force chief. It’s interesting, when I when I became the Air Force chief and I asked the office that runs our Ph.D. program, give me some background on it. And what they gave me was a list of schools people had attended. When I was really interested in was, what were they studying? Because that’s important to me. That’s more important than where they went to school, in some cases, because what I didn’t want to do is have a bunch of Ph.D.s in things that don’t make any sense for us moving forward.

FROMAN: I think art history is really important. (Laughter.)

BROWN: Maybe so.

FROMAN: Personally.

BROWN: But, you know, that really just helps us, you know, as leaders, to be able to think more deeply, engage. And I think the other value you find, just I met with the fellows here at CFR today, is the relationships you built outside of DOD that help us be strong as a nation. And I think there’s value in not only the educational experience, but also the relationships that get built outside of—outside the military.

FROMAN: Great. This woman right here, the second—third row, hand up. There you go.

Q: Cynthia Roberts.

Apropos the last comment, I’m a former Council fellow at the Joint Staff, as a tenured international relations scholar back in 2019, one of your predecessors. So thank you for that. And thank the Council. It was a great experience in STS nuclear deterrence shop.

So my question, somewhat related to that, is, now you’re the top gun. And you do some political-military work as well, even though you said repeatedly you’re not a policymaker. One of the things you do do is have mil-to-mil exchanges with not just our allies, but also our adversaries. And I realize these conversations are off the record, for good reason. But in your experience since you’ve been chairman, have you found them useful, revealing? Ways of mitigating misperceptions or evidence that misperceptions are rife? What can you share with us about mil-to-mil exchanges, especially with the Russians and Chinese? Thank you.

BROWN: Well, I’ve had—many of my engagements, I do gain perceptions. And I really believe, as I engage with my counterparts, I learn a lot by listening. I probably learn more by listening. You know, I’ll ask questions, but I really try to soak in what they’re—what they have to have to say. I’ve had few engagements with my counterparts that are adversaries. But even when I do have those, I do learn something. I learn something based on the—you know, the topics they bring up, the depth that they go into on these topics. And I actually spend time thinking about the differences in culture because when you think about deterrence, deterrence is all up here. And deterring decision makers. If you don’t understand their culture, you may be sending a message, and that message you’re sending may not be received. They may be sending you a message that you may not receive.

I’ll go back to two examples that I can share with you based on past experience, not in this job. When I was the commander of Pacific Air Force, I met with my—the Air Force counterpart for the northern theater of the People’s Liberation Army Air Forces. And I had—my interpreter was very good. And what she was able to do was tell me not just what he said, but after the fact came back—because he used a Confucius idiom with me that essentially went over my head, because I didn’t know what he was saying, what message he was trying to say. Well, she grew up in Beijing. And so she sat down and explained it to me in a—after the fact. And that was very helpful. And then she came to work for the Air Force at some point. (Laughter.)

And then the same when I was the air component commander during the defeat ISIS campaign, when the Russians came into Syria. And the way we were communicating with them was we had a Gmail account and an unclassified phone line. (Laughter.) Now, I didn’t do the talking to them, but I had a colonel who did. But I could also tell what was on their mind based on the questions they asked. And when they asked the same question several days in a row, that was an indicator. And so, again, it’s a part of being able to listen and get a sense of what’s on their—on their mind. And, you know, that that’s why I really appreciate my ability to engage with many of our allies and partners, because I learn a lot when I talk to them, because they grew up in the region, they know the history better than I do, and they’re going to share some things with me that I probably wouldn’t pick up otherwise.

FROMAN: Yes. This gentleman here, with glasses, hands up. Yeah. I’m sorry, the one behind you. Sorry. I’ll give you the next one. (Laughter.) Sorry. Two guys with glasses. Sorry.

Q: General Brown, first of all, thank you for your service. And you’re an inspiration to all of us.

My question is about polarization, because obviously our country is so polarized. And we even see former generals at the highest levels of command now taking very extreme positions in the country. So how are you all dealing with polarization in the military and the spread of disinformation through social media?

BROWN: Well, you know, again, I mentioned a little bit earlier, but when I—when I came in as the as the chairman, it was my first full day in the office, the second of October. And when I laid out my expectations of the joint force, I had three expectations. First, honing our war fighting skill. That has primacy in all we do. We need to modernize aggressively with the new approaches and concepts. And trust is the foundation of our profession. And that trust is for us to stay focused on warfighting. That’s what we—that’s why we exist. And we want to be so good at what we do that we never get to conflict. And if we do, we want to make sure it’s an unfair fight. But that trust aspect is, you know, how do we stay nonpartisan? And what I find when I go out and engage with our servicemembers, they’re not talking much about all this. Now, you know, maybe on social media, but I’m not seeing it. When you do see some of this stuff, it’s maybe some of those who are no longer in uniform. But I’m not seeing that for those that are in uniform.

FROMAN: I promised the other gentleman with glasses—(laughter)—the next. There’s a microphone heading to you.

Q: Thank you. General, thank you very much. Elliot Waldman, Point72.

In the aftermath of January 6, there were some reports that emerged, some from within the military itself, about connections to the military from people who participated in the insurrection. Curious if you could talk a little bit about a few years later what’s been done to address the problem of extremism in the military? What work remains to be done, especially as we approach an election that a lot of people think could get ugly again? Thank you.

BROWN: Yeah. So, you know, one of the things that we’ve really focused on is why you serve and why you take the oath. And that’s been the, you know, what we focused on back after—shortly after January 6, but also—to also talk about the type of behaviors expected for those of us in uniform, and the things that you do and say, and how you should carry yourself. And that’s where our focus has been. And, you know, is there more work to be done? We really—again, you know, our servicemembers, by and large, you know, stay true to their oath. And that’s what I see when I get a chance to go out and engage with them. And I’m extremely proud to be a part of them and watch how they operate day-in and day-out.

FROMAN: I’ll take the next one from online question.

OPERATOR: We’ll take our next question from Bonny Lin.

Q: Thank you. Bonny Lin, CSIS.

General Brown, thank you so much for sharing your perspective. I wanted to go back to topic that you mentioned earlier, which is China’s relationship with Russia. As you’re looking at the increase in military exercise between the two countries and the recent news that Russia is willing to even share submarine technology with China, what worries you the most when it comes to defense ties between these two countries in military cooperation? And I know a lot of the discussion about China-Russia is looking at what’s happening between the two countries now, but as you look out, say, ten years in the future, are you very worried about deepening military ties and military cooperation? Thank you.

BROWN: Well, yes. I mean, that’s an area that, as you go back to—even when they did the 2018 National Defense Strategy, the goal was not to push the two of them together. OK, so they’re working together. And the concern there is that they can work more closely together over time. This is something that we collectively need to pay attention to. And, you know, a thing I do think about as the—as the chairman is how well that we collectively, you know, the U.S. public, other publics from our allies and partners, appreciate and see what is happening between the PRC and Russia, and the fact that—you know, the potential for that relationship to grow and create greater security challenges for us and our allies and partners.

FROMAN: Great. Yes, here in the third round.

Q: Good evening. Alison Sullivan. Thank you also for your service as a military family member.

And my question is about military family members, and how we can better use the ways in which we’re evolving and innovating on the operational war fighting front to protect the health and wellbeing of our servicemembers—especially upon their return home. So curious as—and any insights that you would share in terms of evolving and innovating our support services to military servicemembers and their families. And also any initiatives that you’re most excited about or proud of that have been accomplished yet today.

BROWN: I was going to invite my wife up here to—(laughter)—no, and let me highlight something she’s working on. Let me—but first, let me—before I do that, for our servicemembers, we’re looking at kind of a total force fitness piece of how we take care of our servicemembers. And, you know, I’m focused on this, but the one person I have that’s really focused on it that has a lead is our senior enlisted advisor to the chairman, Troy Black. And so he’s been working on this. And, matter of fact, he’s on the road right now. So am I. But I will see him. We have lunch on Friday and an opportunity to talk about where we’re making progress.

You know, what we’ve talked about is all the services have programs, but how well aligned are they so to make sure we’re all moving same way, same day, and we can take the best of breed from across the services to be able to ensure we’re taking care of our servicemembers. But just importantly—just as importantly, we’ve got to take care of their families. And Sharene is a(n) advocate for military families, and she—when I was Air Force, she started something entitled Five & Thrive. It was a grassroots effort with other military spouses to highlight the five things that impact military families—childcare, education, housing, health care, and spouse employment. And doesn’t matter what service you are, those are impacts to military families.

There’s things we can do internal to the department, but 70 percent of our families do not live on a military installation. They live in our communities. And so how do we work with our communities to not only support our military families, those five areas are also important to those that just live in the community. And anything we can do to raise that in a community not only helps our military families, it helps the families within that community. And so it’s how we engage in those areas to highlight particularly—you know, and we’re much more transient as a nation.

You know, as a military kid that always was a new kid at school, well, now there’s all kind of kids that are new kids at school because of us being more transient. And how do we make sure we can take care of not only that family in those areas with housing, healthcare, education, and spouse employment, but as you have dual income careers, you have more of that. And so how do—you know, and so all those things that I just highlighted are somewhat universal outside of DOD as well, but those are focus areas for us. And I tell you, she’s as busy as I am. And she gets invited to speaking engagements, just like I do, to talk about what we’re doing for military families. Thank you.

FROMAN: That’s great. Yes, right here. This will be our last question, so make it good. (Laughter.)

Q: Thanks, General. Tao Tan, Fanatics.

We used to make trading cards of chairman of joint chiefs of staff. I have one of General Powell. (Laughter.) My question is about time horizons. So in our decision making calculus as a country, we think of the next news cycle, the next election, the next budget cycle. Our adversaries think in terms of decades. You know, Chairman Xi muses about what happens in 2049. The question is, what can we do as a military to be able to match our decision making processes to a much longer cycle of time?

BROWN: I’m glad you asked, because that’s exactly one of the things I’m focused on. Because it’s not only how we take a look at what we have to do today, but what we need to be able to do in the future. And this goes based on experience of having worked in combat and commands and being—you know, war fighting, but also being a service chief where you’re looking at how do you set the service up for the next ten to fifteen years? What I’ve been focused on in one area is, you know, how do we balance risk over time, and how do we—how do we look beyond, you know, the current crisis of the day, or the current crisis of the next couple years, to go and see where we need to be in the future? It goes back to the question that was asked earlier, what do we need to look like ten to fifteen years from now? If we don’t start looking further out and building out some of these thought processes, we will look, you know, potentially exactly the way we look today, and the threat has evolved.

And so, you know, I do spend quite a bit of time sitting down, as Mike described, trying to just gain insights. And then as a forcing function, I’m driving, you know, tabletop exercises and various wargames to have us look a bit further out into the future so we can actually be thinking more deeply. Because it’s easier for us to get—gravitate to what the crisis of the day. And so I’m really spending time with our J7, who does many of our wargames and tabletop exercises, draws out kind of our future scenarios, so we can actually apply what type of military capabilities we’re going to need in the future.

We just did a wargame, globally integrated wargame, back in the—in the spring. We also brought industry in as part of the wargame so they can see the things we’re thinking through, so they can also be part of the solution because they have a role in our national security, just like we do. And I think it’s valuable that we bring different industries together and start really thinking about the future, because we can’t wait, you know, to think about it once we’re there. We need to be doing some things now to make sure we’re better prepared for the future. Thanks.

FROMAN: We are so fortunate to have such a thoughtful, dedicated public servant leading our military. Please join me in thanking the chairman. (Applause.) Thank you.

(END)

This is an uncorrected transcript.

Top Stories on CFR

Election 2024

The fracking boom has transformed the United States into the world’s leading producer of oil and gas. With presidential candidates Harris and Trump clashing on climate and energy policy, the practice is once again in the spotlight.

Ukraine

Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump offer sharply different approaches on U.S. policy toward Ukraine’s war with Russia, reflecting broader disagreement toward NATO and U.S. alliances.

Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Steven A. Cook, Eni Enrico Mattei senior fellow for Middle East and Africa studies at CFR, and Amy Hawthorne, independent consultant on the Middle East, sit down with James M. Lindsay to discuss the widening war in the Middle East and the challenges it poses for the United States. This episode is the fourth in a special TPI series on the U.S. 2024 presidential election and is supported by the Carnegie Corporation of New York.