Designing a Broader National Security Approach: A Conversation With the Commission on the National Defense Strategy

Panelists discuss the findings of the Commission on the National Defense Strategy Report, including the evolving security threats from China and its aligned partners: Russia, Iran, and North Korea. The Commission explores the need for the United States to strengthen its deterrence and response strategies by using all elements of national power, including diplomacy, investment, and commercial strategies, along with the critical role U.S. alliances play in shaping global competition.

The U.S. Congress created the Commission on the National Defense Strategy in the Fiscal Year 2022 National Defense Authorization Act as an independent body charged with assessing the 2022 National Defense Strategy. Its members are non-governmental experts in national security. The Commission released its final report on July 29, 2024. RAND contributed analytic and administrative support.

 

NAWAZ: Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome and thank you for being here. Thank you to all of you. Thank you also to our panelists for joining us for today’s CFR meeting. It’s entitled “Designing a Broader National Security Approach.” 

My name is Amna Nawaz. I’m co-anchor of the PBS NewsHour. I’ll be presiding over today’s discussion. Honored to be with all of you here today. 

In the way of quick introductions, of course you already know our esteemed panelists, but all the way on the end is James Miller, assistant director for policy and analysis at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, and former undersecretary of defense for policy. Also a CFR member. 

Then we’re joined by Ambassador Eric Edelman, vice chair of the Commission on the National Defense Strategy, and a former undersecretary of defense for policy. 

And, of course, Congresswoman Jane Harman, who’s the chair of the Commission on the National Defense Strategy, co-chair on the board of trustees of Freedom House, and former ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, and a CFR member. 

Just in the way of setting the stage here, I’ll be presiding over discussion for about thirty minutes. We’ll then open it up for questions. And that will be our time together today. Thank you all so much for being here.  

EDELMAN: Thank you. 

NAWAZ: So let’s begin with a little bit of the realignment that the report touches on. I’ll get your take on that. Congresswoman, you can kick us off here because we have seen globally this growing realignment between China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran in the years leading up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. We saw that deepening of ties between Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin. And we also saw U.S. officials recently confirming North Korean troops are joining Russia’s war in Ukraine. Your report calls this realignment we’re seeing, quote, “perhaps the most significant strategic development in recent years.” Why, and what are the implications for the U.S. and our allies?  

HARMAN: Well, first, if I might, let me say hello to many good friends. A daunting audience, appropriate to CFR. A lot of you know a lot more about this than I do. But also, to say that I’m very proud to co-chair a CFR Task Force on Space Management Policy. Not the same topic, but it has some overlap. 

On this subject, we were eight people selected by different members of Congress—four Democrats, four Republicans—to take a look at the 2022 National Defense Strategy. There have been prior commissions like this, formally called quadrennial review commissions. Eric served on all of them, going back to 1902. (Laughter.) And I didn’t. But what I am so proud of is eight members, four Democrats, four Republicans, came to a unanimous conclusion that the 2022 NDS, which was to be fair written before Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine and all that’s going on and going on—changing every day in the Middle East, et cetera. Our conclusion was that it was wrong. It is wrong now to frame the threats against us as China is the pacing challenge.  

We agree that China is the pacing challenge, but that there are many other challenges. And we focused exactly on what you’re talking about, which is this alliance among four countries—Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran—that, for example, is now training—causing the training of North Korean troops in Russia. Iran is providing lethal drones through China to Russia. And I think there’s now a drone factory, if I remember this correctly, that Iran has set up in Russia. And this unholy alliance, or call it something—George Bush called a different group the axis of evil. This is just as evil. This group is posing a threat way beyond the threat we imagined from China. And this threat could be anywhere. And that is why we came up with this notion of a—of a multi threat—our multi threat concept.  

But let me just say one more thing about my vice chair, now I’ve outed him for being the oldest person on Earth. (Laughter.) But more seriously, it was such an honor to work with Eric and the other members of the—of the commission, to get to a unanimous report. And our thanks go out to David Grannis, whom I’m looking at, who was the director of the commission, who had to put up with eight of us fussing over language for months. But we did it. Word to the government, this is possible. People can agree. 

NAWAZ: Ambassador Edelman, over to you on this realignment and implications for the U.S., in regards to your report. 

EDELMAN: Well, thank you, Amna. First of all, thank you for presiding at this event, and the Council for allowing us to talk about our report. And I’d like to reciprocate what Jane said. I mean, her leadership was terrific on this commission. And I’m not sure we would have gotten to a unanimous bipartisan outcome without her. It’s also great to see some former bosses, and good friends, and at least no enemies that I know of yet—(laughter)—in the audience. 

So I think one of the things that struck us as we were engaged in our deliberations was viewing in real time a pattern of intensifying cooperation among these four authoritarian regimes. In effect, we have the largest land war in Europe being fought by Russia, as Jane said, a premeditated, unlawful war of aggression, financed essentially by the PRC with the provision of dual-use goods, including precision machine tooling, that’s allowed Russia to go on a three shift a day, 24/7, wartime production level. With drones, as Jane mentioned, from Iran, and a drone factory built by Iran in Russia. And as Jane mentioned, now troops, in addition to at least two million rounds of 152 or 125 artillery ammunition. All of which has allowed Russia to carry forth this war.  

And part of our observation was that in trying to organize the response to Russia’s war in Ukraine, the frailty and fragility of our own defense industrial base has been exposed. And so the prospect now of future conflicts in Europe, in the Middle East, or in the Indo-Pacific, you know, it indicates why this is such a problem for us, because there is really a production gap, I would say, right now. Just today, this morning, the Wall Street Journal has a story about the shortage of missile defense interceptors that the United States faces globally. And so I think that is one reason, and not the only reason but a very important reason, that we saw this as very serious.  

NAWAZ: I want to get to the strategy for response and force structure in a moment. But, Jim, over to you for your reaction to another very sobering line from the report, that basically found the next war could be a, quote, “multi-theater or global war.” Do you agree with that assessment? And if so, what does that even look like?  

MILLER: Amna, first, thank you for hosting us here today, and thanks to CFR as well.  

I want to really say how impressive the results of this commission and its work were, getting bipartisan agreement across the range of issues that you covered. And making not plain vanilla recommendations, but serious, concrete recommendations, including substantial increases in not just military spending but combined national security spending. And being clear that we need to either raise taxes and/or cut entitlements to pay for it. Getting bipartisan consensus on those points is really extraordinary by itself. 

The idea of a global war—if the only issue were China, we would still face a global war, because it would occur in cyberspace, it would occur in outer space and would occur throughout the lines of communication for U.S. maritime forces, for our Navy, and as we think about moving. So the reality is any conflict with major power, with a China or Russia, will start in cyberspace and outer space. So we have to take that into account. And now, even without the cooperation that we’re seeing today, we would also have to expect efforts to interrupt the flow of forces physically, not just through cyberspace, and targeting of our allies and partners globally as well.  

And so to me, the reality that these countries are now explicitly working together just reinforces the requirement that we think in terms of global deterrence, global war fighting, if necessary. And it really reinforces the centrality of allies and partners in our strategy. 

NAWAZ: Jane, I guess one of the questions here is if China continues to be what you’d call the pacing threat, even with this new alliance, why not prioritize efforts against China as that threat, as the one who’s funding a lot of the activities through the other allies? 

HARMAN: Well, we’re not against prioritizing China. We’re just saying that what the 2022 NDS says, which is that China is the pacing challenge, Russia is an active challenge, and we can absorb risk around the world with regard to everything else, is completely—(laughs)—inadequate to the threats we face now. I just want to comment on something Jim said, which is we’re not expecting war in all these places. We’re hoping to deter war in all these places, or most of these places. And maybe there won’t be American boots on the ground in all these places. But what we recommend, and I know you’re going to get to this, is using all elements of national power against a multiplicity of complex threats. This is the most complicated and dangerous world we have faced since 1945. And most of us weren’t around before 1945. I don’t think so, except for Eric. (Laughter.) And so it is really worth contemplating what we have to do to respond.  

And one more comment about CFR. Thank you for making this a public forum, because another recommendation we make is that the public is not aware of how serious this is.  

NAWAZ: We’ll get to that messaging in a moment. Yes, please.  

EDELMAN: Could I just add one thing? Because one of the other findings—I mean, it goes to your initial question about why is this so dangerous and Jim’s comment about cyber and outer space, et cetera. One of the other findings we had which I think is really important is that if we do end up in a conflict, God forbid—and I want to reinforce Jane’s point—everything that all of us on the commission, you know, were writing about is in service of deterrence, not because we’re anxious to fight, you know, wars in any of these theaters, God—you know, much less a global conflict. But if we do get into a conflict, the homeland is not likely to be a sanctuary this time around. And there’s already public testimony by director Wray about the PRC sitting on our critical infrastructure. But I think the American public is not yet aware of the very real threats to their way of life that a future conflict would entail.  

NAWAZ: Let’s get into some of these other elements of national power you mentioned. And I’ll come to you first, Congresswoman, and then over to you, Jim. Because the report does talk about the need to move beyond a DOD-centric approach. So we all understand what a military posture looks like, right? We know what that looks like on the ground. What does a nonmilitary posture look like? What are you recommending here? And how do we get our diplomatic corps, our commercial corps, development corps all on the same page here?  

HARMAN: Well, it’s a big challenge. (Laughs.) We’re not against a military posture. We think that hard power is a crucial element of American deterrence, but only one element. And as we looked at this, we—no surprise to anybody here—the authorities do not align between the Defense Department and the State Department. And yet diplomacy, soft power, is a huge tool in our arsenal, or should be. So should USAID be. So should the Treasury Department and the Commerce Department, which have tools in terms of sanctions and other costs, to use economic tools against countries. So should the tech sector.  

I mean, one of the things that’s very clear in—and I would quote CQ Brown, who said this at Aspen this summer, is—he said, “DOD is not a hardware store.” Well, oops, it kind of is. And what we need to be building are weapons that are software based, that will be much more agile and capable. We went to Ukraine, among other visits we made, to see the industrial base there. And Ukraine is able to produce, at the cost of $350 a copy, drones that are very capable to fight this war against Russian aggression. A lot of them get shot down, but it’s better to lose a $350 drone than a $5,000 drone, just as a comment. And they in the future, hopefully as part of NATO, will be able, I think, to lead in many ways a very agile defense industrial base. So that is part of our point is the tech sector.  

But then add in partners and allies, not just as supporting U.S. bases but as contributing to the effort to deter war. Lots of them are capable to produce and repair equipment of various sorts, and especially capable in the technology challenges we face. So a whole—all elements of national power is this DOD-base projecting forward. And we’re very hopeful that this time, before the NDS is written, the National Security Strategy of the United States, which frames all this, will articulate something much broader than what was dealt with in 2022. 

MILLER: Amna, let me just, first, second everything that Jane had to say, and then add two quick elements. The first is that homeland security and homeland defense are also fundamental to our posture. And we could unpack that in various ways, but it includes missile defense, it includes enhanced cyber resilience. It includes enhanced space resilience as well. Not just for the military, but for our commercial sector as well. So the homeland is nowhere close to a sanctuary from day-to-day intrusions into cyberspace, and in the event of conflict would certainly come under attack from China or Russia in ways they would have to carefully consider because of escalatory risks. But it would come under attack, without question.  

And second, and related to that, and again to pile onto what Jane said, the private sector is fundamental to our posture for homeland security. And that includes working with companies to beef up their cybersecurity and resilience. It includes sharing information more effectively, which we’ve begun to do as a country but have more work to do. It involves enabling them and including work to empower the use of AI that comes from the private sector, not just for homeland security but now also for the Department of Defense. One of the things I think the report does very nicely is emphasize the challenges not just in our acquisition system but in our innovation system in the Department of Defense. And for that, new models of working with the private sector, building on what we have with the Defense Innovation Unit and other entities, are going to be fundamentally important. And we will need to apply those also on the homeland defense and homeland security side as well.  

EDELMAN: Amna, could I just pick up on what Jim said? Because, you know, I think when we talk about whole of government there’s a, you know, tendency to say, oh, they also want not just funding for DOD, but funding for USAID, and the Department of State, and the other kind of national IC, the other intelligence elements, of the U.S. government. And that certainly is one part of what we’re trying to say. But I think it goes well beyond that, because they are clearly, in the current circumstance, things that go beyond just the national—the, you know, national security elements. There are elements here where the Treasury Department, where the Commerce Department and others have a role to play, but also really our society as a whole.  

So one of the things, if you talk to defense industry about what are the long poles in the tent for them to be able to ramp up production and be able to mobilize production if, for instance, we were to get into a protracted conflict in the Indo-Pacific, is lack of adequate trained, highly skilled workforce. We’re short 300,000 welders in the United States. We don’t have enough electricians, plumbers, other, you know, specialized trades that are involved in defense production. And we have to figure out a way to create them, to get them. And so I think that’s a hugely important piece of this as well.  

NAWAZ: And another lever of national power, if I can follow up with you, Eric, is that the report specifically calls out the State Department too. And it says it does lack a holistic diplomatic approach to compete with China and Russia. So specifically on the diplomacy front, what should the State Department be doing right now that they are not? 

EDELMAN: Well, speaking as a lapsed—very lapsed diplomat, having spent thirty-eight years of my life as a foreign service officer, first of all the platform is seriously underfunded. I mean, the disrepair of our diplomatic posts is a scandal. But the thing I would say that jumped out to us, and Jane may want to comment on this, is we met with the commanders of SOUTHCOM and of AFRICOM, for instance. And, you know, what they reported to us was that they travel through these regions, and they see the competition, particularly from the PRC, that we’re facing—the strategic competition. And yet, they are the only element of the U.S. government that really shows up and is able to actually offer anything to these—to these countries. So, you know, development assistance, lots of other, you know, tools that we have are underfunded and underutilized, and need to be revitalized.  

HARMAN: If I could just add to that. First, I don’t know if my eyesight is good, but I think I see a member of our commission in the back. Is that Mara Rudman? There she is. And if anyone else from the commission is here, please identify yourself. But she was a huge contributor to the effort.  

One of the—we’ve left out, and it does relate to the State Department, a place I used to work for a long time, my long service, Congress. And one of the villains here is the United States Congress. Why is that? Well, the partisanship is obvious, but the budget process is completely broken. And we operate this government, to the extent it operates which is not great, by continuing resolution. And for anyone who doesn’t know what a CR is, it funds whatever—it keeps the lights on using the prior year’s budget.  

Which means that any new starts and any innovation is not funded. And that makes it more expensive, if we ever get around to regular order, to fund these new things. Plus, there’s a huge lag. And as Eric’s pointed out, the defense industrial base is, again, enormously challenged, certainly against the defense industrial base of other countries, especially China. So Congress passing budgets on time, passing multiyear funding for various agencies, not thinking about this as a zero-sum game—you give more to defense and then you defund the rest of government—would make a huge difference.  

NAWAZ: Can I ask you, do you see that happening, based on the way the budget fights have been unfolding for the last few years? (Laughter.) 

HARMAN: How much tequila do you have? (Laughter.) Not immediately. I mean, it depends on whether an investment is really made by our next president in helping Congress revive or whether Congress, because it’s easy to do, is ignored and continues not to be a very big player. I mean, Congress is the Article One branch of government. What are we missing here? It’s supposed to pass the laws and appropriate the money. And the executive branch, Article Two, is supposed to carry out the laws and spend the money wisely. And then we have the courts. But we have an Article Two-focused government now, which could get a lot worse.  

NAWAZ: You mentioned the next president. So I have to ask, because this is a bipartisan commission, we’re a week away from—well, maybe a little more—knowing who the next president will be. Do you think that the results of that election will dictate whether or not these recommendations are implemented, or the degree to which they will be implemented? 

EDELMAN: Well, I can tell you that we have briefed both campaigns. And those briefings, I think it’s fair to say, went reasonably well. I think both campaigns found the report useful and interesting. You know, what happens after the election and we get into, you know, actual transition, you know, it’s hard to predict. But we made a point of reaching out to both campaigns and briefing them both.  

HARMAN: And, you know, if I add to that—maybe Jim wants to too—I used—my one of my deathless sound bites back in the day was that terrorists aren’t going to check our party registration before they blow us up. And I’m just outing a member over here, Jerry Bremer, who chaired, from 1999 to 2000, a commission that I served on, the National Commission on Terrorism. We predicted a major attack on U.S. soil. And on 9/10/2001, we were having lunch near the Capitol, saying, why is no one paying attention? Well, hello, people. It’s not just the transition teams. It’s the United States public that has to start paying attention, because the goal is not to get into a more serious, horrible mess than we were in on 9/11, but to deter that and to put together the will to finance a larger budget and pay for it that involves all elements of national power, so we don’t get into that mess.  

NAWAZ: Jim, did you want to weigh in on the election impact? 

MILLER: Yeah, Amna. Thank you. I would just add that if you look at the full range of the commission’s report, some of them, I think, are going to be more attractive to a Trump administration than to a Harris administration, and vice versa. That on the—take, for example, 3 to 5 percent real increase in military spending per year. On the other hand, working closely with allies and partners. Those each would—may appeal differently to the—to the two camps. This comes back to the combination of having not a bipartisan compromise, but a bipartisan agreement within the commission, people who studied it, and the important role of Congress in working to implement these recommendations. Whether it’s a Harris or a Trump presidency, Congress is going to have a vital role.  

And as much as a president might call for more defense spending, it needs congressional support. A president can do more in foreign affairs, obviously, in building or breaking relationships with allies and partners. But ultimately, for example, when I—when I had the opportunity and honor to work on the Australia-U.S.-U.K. submarine deal and advanced technology deal, Congress passed some very important relaxations of export control so we were able to do more with U.K. and Australia than we were before, without going through all the costly and timely time-consuming transactions. So more of that could be—would be very helpful as well. And congressional support is needed for that.  

NAWAZ: I’d love to get each of you to weigh in briefly on this one last issue, and then we will open it up for questions. But you’ve now—I think each of you have mentioned this idea about the American public not understanding the threats that we face, the homeland, not being a sanctuary. And the report really goes out of its way to talk about that, the extent to which the United States has lost its military edge and people don’t get that. Why do you think that gap of understanding is there? And then, to follow that up, in this age of misinformation, noisy and messy information landscape, how do you recommend that that message gets delivered to the American people in a way that they will accept it and trust it? 

HARMAN: Well—I don’t know why I’m starting on this, but here I am. (Laughter.) I think the goal is not to scare the American people, but to prepare the American people. As much money as we may have to spend to shore up our defenses—and, again, not all hard power defenses. As much money as we have to spend there, it’s a lot cheaper than World War III. And I think Eric has pointed out, he will tell you, and I may be wrong, that our defense budget during World War II was 40 percent of our budget. 

EDELMAN: Forty percent of GDP. 

HARMAN: Forty percent of the GDP during World War II. Focus on that, right? At the moment it’s an anemic under 3 percent. And we certainly think more money has to be spent, but spent smarter. We’re not talking about just, you know, putting coats of lacquer on the hardware. We’re talking about reinventing what we design as part of a focus on all elements of national power. And so we will spend more, we will spend smarter, and we will pay for it. That is a really important point that was made. The goal being to raise the revenues necessary—I mean, within a responsible budget context—and to reform entitlements and other forms of nondiscretionary spending, because did you know that we pay more in interest on the debt than we pay for our defense budget? 

EDLEMAN: I would just say, I think that our political class needs to treat the American people like adults and actually discuss these issues and explain them to them. I think there’s been a deficiency on both sides of the aisle since the end of the Cold War about discussing national security in a kind of serious way with the public. And I think we’re at the point where that is, you know, not going to be acceptable anymore. I think people have to, you know, just explain to the public, you know, what is going on. And that’s in the executive branch. It’s in the Congress.  

I mean, in the Congress, I think Jane would agree with this, we found, when we testified in front of the Senate and House Armed Services Committee, that the leadership on both sides of the aisle of both committees was very supportive of this report and what we—and the work that we did. And what they both, all four of them, bemoaned was the fact that too few of their colleagues in the larger body had any idea about any of this, which is a change from when I first showed up here in 1980, when I think you had broader understanding in the Congress of what was at stake with regard to national security. 

NAWAZ: And you heard that from both Democrats and Republicans?  

EDELMAN: Yes. 

NAWAZ: Yeah. Interesting. 

Jim, did you—yeah. 

MILLER: Yeah, I just—I would add some historical context. And I go back to George Kennan’s long telegram, The X Article. And I was not there at the time, but— 

EDELMAN: Nor was I, just to—(laughter)— 

HARMAN: Only Eric was. Only Eric. 

EDLEMAN: I did want to make that point. 

MILLER: Sorry, Eric. I was tempted to pile on, I have to admit. But toward the toward the end of it—the front part’s about Soviet Union, Russian history and Soviet Union, and the middle part is about strategy. Toward the end, both the article and the telegram emphasized the importance of showing what democracy looks like when it works well. That that’s the most important thing that we can do in our long-term competition with the Soviet Union. I believe that’s still true today.  

So when you think about, wait a second, these folks are asking for a 3 to 5 percent real increase per year in defense spending, other increases as well, and then making hard choices, part of that package has to be making progress domestically as well, improving our education system, and making the types of investments that Eisenhower made to create the interstate system and others have made over the years. It’s part of national security as well. And I think it’s important to emphasize that. It will help—I think, Jane, it will help, possibly, with the politics of it, you could speak to that far better, on the Hill. But it is actually the right step from a strategy perspective as well. 

HARMAN: Two enthusiastic comments about what you just said. First of all, our strongest weapon is our values. Think about it. I mean, who’s lining up at some embassy to get a visa to go to China? They’re not. Who’s even trying to cross our borders, sometimes without legal status? They want to come here. What is so wonderful about America is almost 250 years of the longest written constitution and the things we have stood for. Not perfectly, but we’re forming a more perfect union. So that’s point one. 

Point two, about education and an informed public, they go together. Some of us, that would be me, discovered—I should have known this—Jim Petri, that—Tom Petri, right there, former member of Congress in front here. I should have known this, but Pell Grants are available for vocational training. So we could be recruiting people, young people, for the jobs they need as welders or other things to build the equipment that’s needed to deter or fight a war. And I guess I think I’d make one more point, a political point.  

When you’re a member of Congress and you represent an aerospace-dependent district, as I did in Los Angeles for nine terms, you worry about jobs. And if you are canceling some legacy program designed to fight some prior war, that’s really not useful for a future war—if you’re canceling that program, you have to have a transition strategy for workers. And that transition strategy has to include education, re-education. It also has to include thinking about the location of better jobs to produce the software and other equipment that’s going to be needed.  

NAWAZ: I want to keep everyone on schedule here, and so at this time I’d like to open it up to our CFR members for questions. And just a reminder, the meeting is on the record.  

Let’s begin down in front here. 

Q: Thank you. Steve Charnovitz from George Washington University. 

The commission has made a recommendation for increased funding, very persuasively. But I’m wondering how much increased funding. I see a chart in the report of spending as a percent of GDP. And I wonder why that comparison is the one you would use. There are a lot of factors that determine GDP. The other chart I saw was the DOD chart that was just mentioned, of the 3 to 5 percent real increase, that had been recommended. And how do we know that’s enough? 

NAWAZ: Thank you. 

MILLER: I’ll jump in just real quickly on the 3 to 5 percent. As you look at increasing the budget in real terms, 3 to 5 percent, right, in addition to that you’d want to be improving, continuing to improve the acquisition system, and continue to improve efficiency, and continuing to make hard choices. So the net effect could be a delta of possibly 10 percent of the—of the budget or program per year. That’s as much, and it may even be a slight bit more than the Department of Defense can absorb in a given year. Now, if you do—if you do 5 percent per year for fifteen years, you’ve doubled in real terms. So one of the questions for this group is, you got to flatten that out at some point or you’re going to—you’re going to eat up the entire GDP. 

NAWAZ: Anything you’d like to add? 

EDELMAN: You know, so the percentage of GDP is always, you know, a point that people raise saying it’s really arbitrary—4 percent, 5 percent, you know, 40 percent during World War II. We use 2 percent as a measuring stick for our allies. And we do it for a reason. And in my view, what sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander? If we’re going to be leading an alliance of democracies to withstand what is an assault, I believe, from these authoritarian regimes, we need to show that we are going to lead, and have to have some skin in the game. And, you know, as a rough approximation, we—you know, if you asked the eight of us on the commission what we individually thought the top line should be, we would have had eight different answers, I’m sure. But what we all agreed on was that, given the scale of this challenge, we ought to be making a level of effort that’s commensurate with the kind of effort we had in the Cold War. 

NAWAZ: Thank you for that question.  

Yes, over there. 

Q: Good afternoon. Balaji Narain, general counsel with the Congressional Biotech Commission. Thank you so much.  

As you went about your work and you were addressing a whole slate of problems, and you make your recommendations, could you talk a little bit about what were your thought process in terms of how did you determine what are the priority problems in terms of what you need—what needs to be addressed first? What is most urgent to act on, whether it’s something for Congress to act on or for the executive branch to act on? Thank you. 

HARMAN: Well, it didn’t fall out of the sky. Remember, our mission was to critique the 2022 NDS. It wasn’t to reinvent the Congress, although it could take some, et cetera. And so as we looked at that, we started with what are the deficiencies? And we decided that China as the pacing challenge standing alone was not an adequate description of the modern world. Then we got to these four countries, this axis of something, and then we got to a multiple threat concept. And then we got to how to face that, all elements of national power, then how to pay for it, and then what is a crucial problem, which is a clueless public. So that kind of is, at least to me, what our progression was.  

EDELMAN: I mean, the only thing I would add to what Jane just said is that, you know, reality has a way of imposing itself on you when you’re serving on one of these commissions. (Laughter.) And as we were, you know, watching the efforts that the U.S. government was making, particularly that Bill LaPlante, the undersecretary for acquisition, was making to try and get, just as an example, production of 155 rounds up from 14,000 a month to 100,000 a month, the weakness and frailty of the defense industrial base became, I think, an obviously important concern. 

NAWAZ: Thank you for that question.  

Yes, back up here. 

Q: Thank you. Massimo Calabresi from Time magazine. 

Thank you for the report. Thank you for the presentation. It seems, if you don’t mind my saying, completely out of step with the political reality in America right now. So congratulations on being willing to step up and do that. But with regard to your comment on the clueless public, Jane, as I said in another forum, one of the reasons the public doesn’t support increased spending and a robust foreign presence overseas is because of your, the Council’s, our in the media record going into Iraq. Assertions were made about the strategic urgency, weapons of mass destruction. The public, clueless or maybe not, doesn’t trust broad assertions of strategic urgency. So I’m asking you to address that point largely by describing in your process how much of your conclusions are based on analysis, how much are based on specific intelligence, and do you have recommendations for sharing that intelligence with the public to make a case? 

NAWAZ: Thanks, Massimo. Jane. 

HARMAN: Thanks a lot, Massimo. Same to you. (Laughter.) Well, I am for strategically declassifying intelligence. And I think, by the way, that was a great tool that we hadn’t used before and did use very effectively in Ukraine. On the rest of us—the rest of it. You started with Iraq. I was in Congress. I voted for authorizing the use of—authorizing the use of military force in Iraq. I have said I was wrong, and the basis of my decision was wrong. And we won’t—I don’t think we need to rehearse that. But I would also say another thing that adds to mistrust, or whatever, is the way we left Afghanistan. I was for changing the mission. I was no longer in Congress. But I think, sadly, that we set ourselves back by the way we left.  

But my bigger point is those were things offshore. We’ve just been talking about the threat to the homeland. And if you didn’t like the hurricane movie in North Carolina, you’ll really not like a movie if China engages in a national cyberattack against our critical infrastructure. So I guess I think that the possibility of an attack here makes this much more real for Americans. And the fact that we were unprepared, should have been prepared but were underprepared, for 9/11. And obviously for climate disasters as well. So I think this is a different moment. I think it should be—I think we should be candid about mistakes we’ve made, but I think it’s a different moment.  

And I’d just add one more thing. Sorry to take so long. And that is the rise of populism and the rise of isolationism is reminiscent of a period where I wasn’t born, I don’t even think Eric was, the 1930s. And look what that led to. And I think it is pernicious. And both parties—more in the Republican Party—but both parties have isolationists within them. I don’t think there’s a wall, whether it’s, you know, metaphorical or actual, we can build high enough to keep the threats outside the U.S. And as someone pointed out, the threats are not just from land wars, but there’s space, there’s cyberspace, there’s, you know, weaponized AI in—possibly in satellites. There’s a whole series of things that that would be very different now. And I just think we can’t—we can’t think that way. And more people need to read the new cover of Time magazine, which will describe how brilliant this report is and why they should be paying attention. (Laughter.) 

Q: (Off mic.) 

NAWAZ: This is the reform for that, that’s right.  

MILLER: Hey, I’d just— 

NAWAZ: Well, also to Massimo’s question, if you can answer this when you pick this up, Eric, on specific intelligence feeding this report?  

EDELMAN: Well, we did have access and did get a lot of classified briefings as we were doing our work. The Congress actually gave us the opportunity to do a classified report or classified annex to our report. We chose not to. We chose to do a fully unclassified report. What I can say is that the classified material that we saw, if anything, I think, highlighted the urgency for all of us about dealing with this. But there’s plenty in the public domain that, you know, supports the conclusions that we reached.  

We were housed at RAND. And there is a RAND publication called Inflection Point that came out about a year and a half ago that looks at a lot of the military balance issues that I think, in an unclassified form, provides plenty of information for those who want to find out. And just to—on Massimo’s point, there is a difference, I think, between the question of—you know, I don’t want to relitigate Iraq either—but this is a different challenge, dealing with Russia and China, that, as Jane pointed out, is much more akin to, you know, what the United States was facing in the late 1930s than dealing with a lesser challenge that was Iraq.  

NAWAZ: Jim, please. 

MILLER: I want to pick up on Jane’s phrase that clueless public can either throw her a lifeline or help her dig the hole deeper. I think it’s the former. (Laughter.)  

HARMAN: Thank you. 

MILLER: And that is, to the degree that is true, it’s a failure of leadership. It’s not—I don’t put it on the—on the public of the United States, on my—on my children and their colleagues, or the other people that grew up in Iowa, when I go to—go back to see them. And that relates to the way our political system has been operating. But to flip that, the reality that eight individuals representing the Democratic and—or, nominated by the Democratic and Republican parties came to this agreement suggests to me that if we can make—if we can make the case with—at least with the leadership on the Hill in the next administration, and we can then take that to town halls, take it to the public in various ways, that many of the steps, including the prioritization of resources—and I do agree, increased resources—have a have a chance to work. Ultimately, the government has got to show sustained competence for the—for the people to trust it. And that is something that that all of us have something to say about and some work to do.  

NAWAZ: Let’s go back out for another question. Yes, right here in the middle. 

Q: Yeah. Tom Miller. I’m a retired diplomat. 

Eric, this is mainly for you, but all three of you please comment. Eric and I have one thing—we have many things in common, but one of our former bosses was Don Rumsfeld. And I remember when Rumsfeld was appointed secretary of defense in the Bush administration, W. He told me that his passion—that his main priority was transformation. He didn’t get to do it, really, when he was secretary of defense under President Ford, but now he felt that twenty-five years later that he knew the Pentagon a bit better, and he was going to tackle this. Obviously, 9/11, Iraq intervened. Never happened. You were undersecretary under him. How difficult is this? And I’m talking about real transformation, the military-industrial complex, all the players. I’d appreciate all three of you, maybe Eric starting off, commenting on this.  

EDELMAN: Well, Jim will have things to say too, since he’s my successor once removed as undersecretary for policy. (Laughs.) 

MILLER: I was—when you say once removed, I’d like to ask you to clarify that. (Laughter.) 

EDELMAN: There was somebody in between us, who may be secretary of defense depending on what happens next Tuesday. We’ll see. 

Look, I don’t think any of us, Tom, underestimate the challenge of changing the Department of Defense. I mean, I think what we found in our deliberations is that we’ve got a department that is, in its acquisition processes optimized, through a requirements process in which everybody can add a requirement, but nobody can really remove or veto one, to build exquisite, expensive, vulnerable and, you know, platforms that we don’t want to lose in a—in a fight, that therefore imposes certain restrictions on how we even think about fighting. And this exists at the same time that we’re in real time watching developments in Ukraine and in the Middle East that highlight that the character of war is moving in the direction of essentially long-range fires, missiles, the requirement for integrated air and missile defense as a result of that, uncrewed unmanned systems, whether in the air, on the sea, or under the sea, that can be—the barriers to entry for which are very low, and proliferation of which is happening in astonishing numbers.  

So, you know, we watched the department try and deal with all this. Jim mentioned it, you know, there are—it’s not that the leadership of the department defense doesn’t get this and isn’t trying very hard. It’s that this is very large bureaucracy, that is does not at all levels share the sense of urgency and is locked into processes that make it very difficult to move at the speed of relevance here. So, for instance, you know, the department will tell you, and we applaud it, that it’s moving very rapidly to, you know, get more attritable unmanned systems, you know, into the mix through the Replicator Initiative. Which is great. And we applaud Deputy Secretary Hicks for her role in leading that. It’s going to, you know, at the best, put 10,000 of these systems into the mix. When we watch in Ukraine that the Ukrainians and Russians are fielding literally millions of these things. So there’s a question how do we move this innovation, you know, at speed and scale that’s appropriate to the level of the challenge? 

What’s very striking, I think, and I think Jim will agree with this, he was mentioning DIU, the Strategic Capabilities Office, the Strategic Investment Office, other things that the Congress has, you know, imposed, like the European Deterrence Initiative or the Pacific Security Initiative, that have been created in order to enhance the deterrent posture that we have. All of these things are workarounds to the actual system that we have, which is an extremely telling commentary on how inadequate this is. Now, having said all that, going back to the Packard Commission, so many people have broken their pick trying to fix this thing, you know, that we—you know, I don’t think we have the hubris to say that we have all the answers. But until we have a national leadership that’s focused on this, we’re not going to be able to even, you know, remotely address this problem, in my view.  

And I do see some—you know, some changes that I applaud, that I think are moving in the right direction. General George’s effort to develop the Army transition in contact—or, Transformation in Contact I think is a healthy sign, a helpful sign. And I know the chairman and all of the leadership in the Joint Staff is also seized with all of this.  

NAWAZ: Jim— 

MILLER: Yeah, I would—agree with everything Eric said. I would just add that the valley of death between research and development or innovation in general and acquisition remains very significant, and that few programs have been able to jump. So we need to get more resources into helping to cross that valley of death. And then we need to scale those systems once they’ve crossed. That requires both additional resources overall and hard choices. To me, it means a preference for long-range error over shorter-range error. It means boosting our missile and munitions inventory dramatically, a number of other steps.  

And I just want to add, as we think about this production capability that we want, it should also mean working with our allies and partners. The Australians have stepped up on guided weapons. Others have begun to propose to have production capacity that would serve them, but also serve the United States. We need to open up that aperture as well, and be willing to share what we would in past decades of thought is very sensitive technology with our closest allies, to help not—just help them do better themselves, but help them help us. 

NAWAZ: Jane, over to you. And then we’ll probably have time for one more question.  

HARMAN: I’ll pass.  

NAWAZ: Oh. 

HARMAN: I agree with them. 

NAWAZ: Right through it. (Laughs.) That hand went up pretty fast. One over here. 

Q: Hi. Tao Tan, Fanatics.  

Thank you for this report. It gives very clear recommendations on what to do in case of open or clear conflict. My question is about gray zone conflict. Increasingly assertive air defense identification zones, phishing, militia harassment, trolling in cyberspace, the list goes on and on and on. Love to get your thinking on what are the mechanisms we have for response or for preparation as those types of tactics begin to take more and more space.  

HARMAN: Well, let me just make one comment, and Eric will, I’m sure, be much more technical about this. But I think the rise of mis- and disinformation is terrifying. And I think the chances that all of this stuff could be misunderstood by the other side, provoking a reaction that is unfortunate or inappropriate, are huge. And I—you know, something we haven’t even talked about are the nuclear threat, which we didn’t address. There was a different commission. I’m looking at Rob Litwak, who does great work at the Wilson Center on this. But we didn’t address it. But think about misunderstanding of somebody’s nuclear intentions. So it’s a huge area to probe. And Eric will now explain in perfect detail what we’re going to do about it. (Laughter.) 

EDELMAN: So, you know, in the gray zone, I mean, you highlighted the sort of physical gray zone which is very serious, and what we see go on in the South China Sea, obviously very troubling, worrisome. But it highlights the fact that, you know, we talk about strategic competition with the PRC and with Russia. One’s a pacing challenge, the other is an acute challenge. I think on our commission, we thought it’s really a chronic challenge that we’re going to have to face for a long time. We’re not just in competition with them. We’re actually in conflict every day, particularly if you think about the gray zone not just in physical space but in cyber, outer space, and these other areas. And, again, this goes to the fact that the American public I don’t think is sufficiently aware of some of these challenges, including in the physical gray zone in the South China Sea.  

Part of the issue there is the—a lot of the gray zone activity is not purely the remit of the Department of Defense or the National Defense Strategy. And it’s one reason why we highlighted the whole-of-government issue. There’s a very big role there for the Department of State, for instance, in and how we think about using— 

HARMAN: And the intelligence community. 

EDELMAN: And the intelligence community, how we think about both using intelligence and how we think about using the international organizations in which the United States is a member in a more aggressive way to try and highlight some of this activity.  

NAWAZ: Jim, anything to add?  

MILLER: Yeah, I would just—thank you. I would just add very quickly that as you look at the motivations, particularly of Russia and China, for their gray zone activity—Iran and North Korea have their own specific motivations—both believe that we are a weak and declining power. And to the degree that we allow their disinformation/misinformation campaigns to contribute to that, you understand where that part of the gray zone comes from.  

Another element of it is them asserting themselves for regional hegemony, but also to undermine our credibility with allies and partners. So as we think about where we go on the hard power of military investment and capabilities—and just want to, again, just conclude, I guess, with, from my perspective, the case working closely with allies, partners and taking steps—concrete steps. And I think that that this administration has taken a number of them to begin to invest, including, first, the submarine industrial base is just one example, to strengthen ourselves, our industrial capability, and our—and it’s a long-term campaign. But I guess I drank the Kool-Aid when I was a kid, this is what the country is about, that we stand for something and that we show that in how we—in how we act internally as well.  

NAWAZ: If we keep it brief, we probably have time for one more question. Is there anyone who has a good closing thought? Yes, please. Last question. Thank you. 

Q: Good afternoon. My name is Sangmin Lee. I’m reporter from the Radio Free Asia.  

I have a question about North Korean troops in Russia. So what implication do you think this has, especially in East Asia, including Korean Peninsula? And also, how do you think the United States respond to this issue? 

EDELMAN: Well, I mean, first of all, it—to me, and this is not part of our commission work so I’m just speaking personally here. This is a very serious escalation. I think it’s also, though, an admission of weakness on Putin’s part. I mean, the most likely outcome here is for these North Korean soldiers to be used essentially as cannon fodder in the so-called meat attacks that Russia has used in in the Donbas, and will now be using in Kursk, to try and push the Ukrainians out of the salient that they’ve occupied in Russia proper.  

The reason he was doing that, I believe, is because he does not want to have another mobilization in European Russia, in particular in Saint Petersburg and in Moscow. You know, press reports suggest that these North Korean soldiers are being, quote, unquote, “disguised” as Buryats, one of the ethnic minorities that have already borne a lot of the brunt of these—of these attacks. And I think the United States needs to, you know, at this point, remove the restrictions on Ukraine, on its ability to hit, you know, legitimate military targets in Russia with U.S.-supplied equipment. 

HARMAN: I agree with that. I think our whole commission actually agreed with that. I don’t want to speak for Mara. Raise your hand if you disagreed with that. She’s OK. She’s OK. (Laughter.) But a couple other comments. And one is that—how they will be deployed matters. If they’re defending, or whatever, reclaiming the Kursk, the city that Ukraine, I think properly, attacked and is occupying at the moment, then they’re still, arguably, in Russia. If they move into Ukraine, it’s a—it’s a foreign government invading Ukraine. And how that’s going to play out is unclear. Also, Russia has lost, according to reports, 500,000 people. That’s a major number of people. I think this information is about to reach the Russian people who, you know, they’re taking people out of prisons wherever they can find them to throw them into this war. I think it will reach them. And I—you know, I don’t know how long this kind of war can be—can be prolonged by Russia.  

It’s also true in Ukraine. There is war fatigue, having just been there. They’re enormously brave. The Ukrainian heart is their strongest weapon, according to me. Plus, they’re very agile in terms of producing weapons inexpensively in their industrial base. But it is—it is a tragedy. And it’s another war that we really have to put on our calculus. If Russia isn’t stopped, if Russia moves into NATO countries, if Article Five is invoked, we’re at war. So we better, again, prepare not scare the American people.  

EDELMAN: I’ll just add, it may also turn out to be a miscalculation by both Putin and Kim Jong-un, because the South Korean government is already now talking about potentially providing more military assistance to Ukraine. And with its production capability, that could actually be extremely helpful. So it might turn out to be yet—you know, yet another strategic misstep by Putin. 

NAWAZ: Jim, you get the last thought here.  

MILLER: OK. I would just add that I think this step by Putin shows the degree to which he is desperate for personnel, and the degree to which he wants to show China and Iran, along with North Korea, that they’re now part of a new axis of upheaval. But what it indicates though is that if the United States and Western countries will sustain their support for a limited amount of time—I’m not going to say one more fighting season or one more year—but the conditions for Russia to be prepared to at least accept a piece that has them back off of where they are, I’m not going to—are close to being present. On the other hand if we pull the plug, it will be not just catastrophic to Ukraine, but incredibly damaging to NATO, and to the—and to the broader international community that we’ve worked since World War II to try to build. 

NAWAZ: I’d love to reconvene in another seven- or ten-days’ time and have this conversation again. (Laughter.) 

 Undersecretary Jim Miller, Ambassador Eric Edelman, Congresswoman Jane Harman, thank you so much. (Applause.) Thank you, to all of you. And just a reminder that the video and transcript of this session will be posted to the CFR website. Thank you all for being here. 

(END)