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markers that guide you to interesting and newsworthy highlights, on the right-hand side of your screen when you hit play on selected videos. this makes it easy to quickly get an idea of what was decided in washington. scroll through and spend a few minutes on points of interest. now, a conversation on u.s. space systems, emerging technology, and national security. we will hear from mike rogers and others in this event. >> let me welcome everyone. i am very excited for the discussion around securing space and addressing the cyber risk. i couldn't ask for a better group of speakers then who we are privileged to have joined us today. before doing that, i direct

critical infrastructure at auburn university. for those who follow our work, it's not new for us but what is new is we collaborated with our wonderful partners at commission 2.0 as well as the foundation for defense and democracy and we are releasing a paper, more on that soon and later, but at the out that, i did want to thank the amazing work by sharon on my staff, kelsey shields, my co-author, mark montgomery, who we will hear from soon, and the amazing staff . without further ado, i want to jump into the conversation. we will have mike rogers with the issues facing our country right now and everyone viewing

i think, nose, mike was a former congressman and chairman of the house select committee on intelligence and is a true leader on national security issues. i think we first got to interact around the early discussions that in the words of mark twain, history doesn't repeat itself, it tends to rhyme . i think we have a lot of similar challenges, today. a former army officer and fbi agent and am really thrilled to have you join us today and your voice, i think, is so important for our country to hear. i will thought that rather than jump right into the discussion, i would love to have you frame the issues, where the communist party of china is in some of

these issues, and more broadly, why are we where we are and what do we need to do to get to where we ought to be? pretty broad question, the. >> thank you and for your great work at auburn. there might be a rogers wing at auburn mainly because my brother put all four of his children through auburn university. i told him, you should have a wing named after you for that. they all got gray educations and are all doing great things, most of them are engineers of one sort or another. space, let's talk about it. the first real wake-up call when i was part of the national security structure in congress and the united states, roughly 2007 the chinese communist party fired a missile and hit a satellite just to prove that they had this anti-satellite capability and we all started

saying, this is a game changer. prior to the early 2000's, the united states was dominant in space, with no other near competitor prior. so we did what we wanted to do in space and built architecture in space based on the fact that we were on threatened and undeterred and that allowed us some immense capability in war fighting capabilities, smart planes, smart chips, smart soldiers, smart bombs, so the chinese communist party for several decades is been saying, we will compete with united states and create a blue water navy, and they looked at okay, what are the strengths of united dates and what are their weaknesses and came to the conclusion that space was a strength and weakness. they invest a lot of money developing capabilities for satellite technology, ground-

based missile, lasers, and antisatellite themselves and again, not to stir up a vision that this is a star wars type fight in space, it's more of a bulldozer, pushing a satellite, sapping fuel, destroying sensors in a small but affect the way is what you'll see in the near term in china has stated in the near term we would like to controls based between earth and the moon. lots of strategic reasons to have that happen. when we started looking at this , it was hard to get people's attention even in the u.s. government about, we have this growing problem and i'm not talking about folks doing the work every day who can see this happening, and talking about the investment it would take. we needed to make an investment that also protects the very expensive things that we were firing up on rocket into space,

expensive operations, are we doing enough to protect those asked that space? how do we protect assets that are up there that don't have new technology that allows them to protect themselves in the case of someone trying to get that satellite out of orbit in any way? are we resilient enough? can we fire up fast and quick so that if someone wants to take out some of our capability in orbit, we would have the capability to quickly create a new architecture and get things to happen at real-time speed? are we ready for that? now you have commercials is integrating with our military and security infrastructure in a way i think is positive but has challenges and hurdles we have to get over because we've inherited this legacy system of space that said hey, we are

unchallenged and undeterred. it seems crazy to me that we may have to have bodyguard satellite, which some people are calling for, which might be a real possibility very soon to be sure that we can maintain capabilities. to go right down the list, the cyber security threat is not necessarily just disruption. certainly, that is a concern, but what happens if the information coming down has been corrupted in some way? your positioning system has you in one place and the folks who were making these decisions are getting information that has that group or ship or some rain in a different place because they've been able to, through cyber attacks, disrupt the information flow and insert pockets that lead to bad decisions. it's a real possibility, unfortunately.

trusting information now becomes a huge issue. disruption, we understood the ability to lose assets, so now what do you do when it comes to the information you're getting because you had a successful cyber penetration of your network? you start thinking the next layer down. okay, this goes, we know the chinese and russian have designs on trying to take out a lot of our satellite capability early on in any kind of conflict . do we have the supply chain to sustain rapid deployment and resiliency of the architecture we deployed? that's a very hard question for the united dates and one i do not believe we've gotten right, yet. if you take those issues in the order you can see where we have to act faster, we have to deploy faster, we have to have robust cyber defense up front and daring in any conflict and

we have to have a supply chain that does not rely on a single other country if we believe that when that balloon goes up or hopefully not but if it did, that we would have the ability to sustain our space advantage. all of those things are hard. i do not believe the government today is configured for a fast- paced, rapid interoperability between commercial and space and there are a lot of reasons that legacy keeps nipping us in the backside and i don't believe that we have taken seriously enough what happens when we lose key pieces of our satellite architecture, how do we make up for that? what do you do? those are the things i think hopefully we will get a chance to talk about today. i'm not saying it's over and that we haven't done things, but china moves at a very different case. when they show up, the whole

family is there. in the u.s., we don't quite do that. they have the diplomacy on, the economic on, the military arm, intelligence, hand in hand. they skip down the streets together. here, we have to have meetings across different sectors and we have to have some kind of group that meeting to get to where we need to go. we have to change that. i'm not saying we should adopt a communist system been saying we should adopt an american innovation system that allows us to act quicker and faster because the chinese are moving out. they know they have a slight advantage and can rapidly deploy and innovate after theft of intellectual property. we need to be able to move equally as fast to counter that growing threat in space. >> thank you. a sobering thought as well as anyone, you covered this space,

you cover the waterfront in an incredible way and i'm glad you brought up, i think most americans are not aware of just how dependent our way of life, from a military standpoint, economically, from navigation, timing, clocks do run the world, if you can mess with that could be ahead of anyone. we need to invest accordingly. our report does touch on some of the streamlining process is which i think, i'm glad you brought up, as well as harnessing innovation in the commercial sector rather than treating them as the step child, having them as a genuine partner in all of this and that is where i think we can leapfrog anyone, when we put our heart to it and our minds

to it but i would be curious, in terms, i see your book, behind you, when we look at semi conductors and the dependence the whole world has on taiwan in terms of production and obviously, the potential implications of what's going on in the south sea and the like, what should we be doing more around supply chain? if you are a commander-in-chief today, what are the three things you would like to see done? >> well, largely or related to our topic? >> related to the topic. yeah. >> i have three things and just about everything, my wife will tell you.

i'm an eternal optimist, she said that might be a genetic defect in me, but i do believe we can do this if we unleash american intervention -- innovation. the three most important things, we really, we've had some start on the way the government handles cyber risk across the u.s. government enterprise and we have not gotten it right yet. there's been small and important that did not gotten it right yet. i don't think we can wait to have a consolidated effort on cyber defense and remember why this is important. the private sector plays an important role in space. they can protect their networks. the defense department does a pretty good job. you add all of the suppliers and everybody in the chain that helps to build a satellite and now, you are dependent on their cyber protection and resiliency

to keep you safe to avoid getting into your networks later on that the huge challenge. i don't believe we have gotten it right yet. second, i would make sure that we create an architecture using our private sector and commercial enterprise to get low earth orbit architectures so that it makes it unappealing for the chinese or the russians to start taking out low earth satellite. you can get one, but not for long. we need to build bad resiliency and the last part of that is the supply chain piece. we need to build capability, not capacity necessarily, but capability in the united states. we have atrophied ourselves in a way that very hurtful to the ongoing national security protection at united dates, chicks being a part of that. you think those

microprocessors, how important it is, certain types of microprocessors, even the ones that are not very boutique and specialized, those microprocessors, we need the best and the latest capacity and ability in the united states. if this goes up, it will disrupt commerce and transportation and we should always plan for the worst and hope for the best. in that process, we need to make sure that we have that capacity and again, we don't have a cyber workforce that will meet the demand today and i argue we need to change that. it's a very complicated, multilayered effort that we have to go through and i believe that we can do it all at once. the u.s. government has done amazing things when we have a that on the horizon. i can't think of the bigger strategic threat to the economic and national security prosperity of the united dates

in china today and they are telling us that and we ought to listen. >> thank you for your sobering comment , keep working for the best, as you said, keep fighting the good fight and i would be remiss if i didn't mention, the great mike rogers and on my board is admiral mike rogers. >> you can have enough mike rogers in national security. >> our next event is mike rogers , all three of you. you're all incredibly informed. thank you and keep fighting the good fight and we are going to go into a little more depth and is russian on some of this excellent preview and we will with gordon, who i will introduce.

i think everyone knows, she's led, she's been in leadership positions at the space intelligence agency, central intelligence agency, and served in the highest civilian intelligence officer role, principal deputy national intelligence, it's almost like an ppd, but i mean, i've had the privilege of learning from sue for a number of years and quite honestly, the country is better off with the role you played. i would like for you to unpack a little bit of what mike discussed and maybe, specifically, hone in on how does this all evolve and what

are some of the wildcards? i know you've done some amazing work where you looked at different ways that the intelligence community can work with the private sector to drive solutions and rather than me leading the witness, why don't you just come on in? >> chairman green for having me. clearly i need to pay you more so that i don't have to follow german rogers next time. i love that he talked about advantage. it actually is my favorite way to think about national security because it forces you into a temporal context and if you take this concept of advantage and play it through the history of space, neatly enough, if my personal history, so i've seen it all, early on, you have united states and russia, nationstates, using

space for national security advantages. the united states was super dominant in the capabilities we were able to put in days that gave us the ability to see beyond the horizon and project power for the purpose of deterrence, enablement of mission activities. it was one or two's the of us for almost the whole history we are talking about until really, in the late 90s, when you see china, japan, others, so it was two countries playing at the game of vantage and i think it was disproportionately on the american side. simultaneously, you see the bleed through a technology and the rise of commercial space and you start and you go through what we have now and start to think about societal

advantage and base is an infrastructure that allows human activity in interesting ways, to see the earth from earth observation to communication to communication of speed, communication at reach, to now being able to use it for change detection in interesting ways. nationstate actors, commercial, narrow missions to dominant missions, and if you look at just ukraine, you can now see that the benefit and the advantage of commercial and national systems are clear. the effect of that is that anything that provides the advantage becomes of interest to adversaries and competitors. the threat surface is not just national systems, but the aggregate of systems and it was moving in front of the whole

world over the last year. what is that mean? that this extends to the private sector. we need a way to ensure that that will be protected, but you protect that differently and neatly enough, you can't insert the government so strongly that you slow down what our industry dies, because in fact, that engine is part of the advantage. being technological leaders. what's interesting about this moment is it's a very busy space . it's benefit has been recognized. technology advantage has been really diminished. everyone has access to roughly the same technology. the control extends beyond governmental control and so the security of it, has to be shared between the private

sector, so how do we get awareness and investment in security out returning the innovation that has served us so well? i think it's interesting to think about how you do that effectively and we can talk about the intersection of space and cyber. these are very similar uses, but i think that understanding this moment of what's playing out is key to understanding all the pieces we need to address. >> thank you. going back to your old leadership role, i think you, in many ways, brought that ann donovan was able to work with industry in a less bureaucratic

kind of way and maybe we will table that but i do want to jump into that because i kind of feel like we need that equivalent. you want to jump on that? >> i will be brief and then we will come back to it. this is a leadership, this is a time in aggregate of strategic uncertainty. just, growth without constraint won't do it. you have to have a vision of the outcome you want to have happen but here's the rub. this is not a moment of simplistic outcome. this is not a moment when the outcome thing and protect thing , because that will not ensure that we have something worth protecting. this is a leadership moment. you do need national security leaders to think about how they

pursue the mission they've always had in this environment that is so integrated, so connected, so technologically ubiquitous, how do you do that? the answer is, you do it by partnerships, by the government doing what the government does well, allowing the private sector to do with the private sector does well and recognize that the citizen is the one that is actually the player in this, so we can go into it later but yeah, it's a moment of leadership. >> well said. phil donovan was the founder of oss which ultimately became intelligence. general, for those who don't know, is the ceo of sky corp. incorporated, an amazing service

, rising up the ranks, started as a pilot in desert storm, it has a lot of scar tissue as well as leadership roles inside the air force and what i found amazing is that he grew up in a remote african tribe, so not exactly the experience everyone has had, but i think it's definitely influencing the way he leads. general, sue was talking about the private sector and i thought maybe we could talk a little bit about the space economy, where it is now and how you see it expanding in the future. >> thank you. we spent good time understanding the nature of the problem.

what i would state as the beginning of this is that we have historical examples will be done the same thing because space is not new with regards to the fact that it's interesting, it's never been done before, and it's important to realize that as i went from the national security role in uniform to the commercial private sector as a ceo, it's based on the understanding that all national security is economic and that the government's role is to protect the industrial base to be stronger, more affordable, more agile, and faster than the competition, no matter where that competition comes from and sometimes it's from one state or another. ultimately, this is about stoking the fires, as sue and mike said, of the industrial

base, the commercial sector, the private sector, and allow the government to put its thumb on the scale enough to help and when we were deciding whether we should have the navy or not and our founding fathers wrote in the federalist papers for years, arguing that point, we decided we needed one because of the commerce of the open oceans and the need to be able to protect our economy. when airplanes were invented, the open skies economy of transportation and logistics transform the world and what did the government do? they stoked the shipbuilding industry in the fueling stations in the pacific and atlantic and the navigation and all the technologies in that layered approach to dominating the open oceans for the commerce and the benefit of all countries, to include america, when the

airplane was invented, look at what the american congress did to stoke the aviation and aircraft building industry. so many examples, the boeing 707, all of these examples and both of those were like space, where there are multiple technologies that were groundbreaking. in space, we have artificial intelligence and we have things like quantum and things like laser communications and all these new wants technologies. the journey ahead can be simplified by the government partnering with private companies and industry to stoke the industrial base and our young engineers and scientists will knock the ball out of the park with these inventions that bypass the architecture we have because the architecture we

have right now was never were designed to be fast, affordable, or resilient. think about that. it was never designed to be fast, to be resilient, and to be affordable. the internet was never designed to be secure, it was designed to be open and then evil people started using it for bad things . the same is true of space. we can't try to double down on the current architecture and make something secure, fast, and affordable that was never designed that way. we need to let the industrial base bring us clever solutions that only business people will think of, only young engineers, rocket scientist, they are the ones that can bring the capabilities faster, cheaper, and more resilient to the government to include rapid access to space so you can have a fulfillment center where if

you need a new satellite, it's developed in an hour and not months or years, which is the current pace of space. i will stop there, but the economic foundation is key because without a strong economy, no competition can be successful with any other country. the american way of thinking about war is this decisive battle and win and go home. that's not consistent with human nature, it's not consistent with history. struggles between value, different worldviews, different cultures, is a slugfest of economic power and if you can't do it cheaper and for longer than your competition, you will eventually lose because humans are stubborn and china is not going to change their mind-set and america should not change its mind-set where we value every human being, no matter where they were born, what they believe, as long as they

respect other's. this is the game changer in the history of mankind and its debts of our constitution and that is what space is fighting for. space is the saving grace for american culture and it grows the economic pie as we watch global slowdown, it grows the pie, so that industrial base in space can bring unlimited information, energy, and resources to people on earth and people in space. that's the promise we're talking about and it's that simple. don't overreach. put your thumb on the scale like you did the panama canal, shipbuilding, aviation. that's the key. >> general, you dropped a lot of knowledge and one question is , how you ended, i want to pick up that discussion with others as well. technology changes and human

nature remains consistent and the reality is when we look at these issues, it dangerous to look at them summarily that we don't appreciate the bitter struggle and that's honestly, democratic regimes versus autocratic regimes and i hope that we can pick up on that discussion, but when you started , and air force officer was espousing the greatness of navy, and shipping, which is a perfect segue to our next speaker, rear admiral mark montgomery. mark and i have known each other too long. we worked in cyber since before it was cool and he not only directs, he directs, as executive director.

mark, you got the tough job and you know i have opinions on this, but to unpack a little bit , i thought would start specifically getting a sense of what are the three big things that the executive branch should do to get us closer to the goal? >> thank you, it's great to be with you and my friends, now i will say, i always rely on him for a strong espousal of why we are a maritime nation. i think the first thing i would say is the finding we had, which is that we needed to strengthen the space system, name it the u.s. national, and in doing so, we would close the gaps that the united states is

committed to resilience and security. we also defined what space systems were. we looked at the ecosystem, sensors and signals, data and payloads, and the critical technologies, economic opportunity, and supply chain. it's a big issue and to unpack that, the key point was that it needed to be designated and to give background on that, those are detailed in presidential policy which is a 10 year old obama administration directive that should have been updated three years ago, seven years ago . it was meant to be consistently updated. three administrations in a row failed to do that. there is a way to designate

critical sectors on the fly. you know, there are three things , national security, economic involvement or involvement in public health safety and we clearly need that so the first and foremost thing i would say is we need to designate space systems. i do not think we should wait for what the biden administration is promised and there are good people working hard. my answer is, which september? we can do this. the secretary of homeland security, they are requesting

this. the first thing we have to do is that in part of that is, which federal agency is going to be the lead? that's a key element. there were a lot of ideas but we looked at it hard and i think the area we landed is the right one, that you need a sector agency, nasa, which i think is uniquely positioned. they get into economic, to all the different elements for public health and safety and i do recognize that like transport, energy, there needs to be a department of defense sector. that subsector, and

then i think we need a subsector for communication because the fcc has a strong relationship, there. with that, i think you can do and if i could say one other thing the government has to do, they have to set up the supporting literature around that. they sound boring and bureaucratic and they are, but they are critical. the sectors that are run well, the department energy sector, have great gcc's where the participant or the ceos, the chairman, were deeply involved with government and brought a commitment, and in my mind,

putting nasa in charge with defense and intelligence and then really, getting the gcc, the government coordination right, with the s.e.c. , if we can do that we will put ourselves in a good spot and we don't have time, it's not like oh, next administration, this is a this year thing so that we can get moving. >> mark, just to underscore, this is not an academic exercise, this has real implications and prioritization , not only signaling to industry, which i think has to be integral to the way forward, but to our allies and adversaries will be are putting markers in the sand. >> exactly. of being creating a

critical structure. it's a signaling industry that we're serious your industry is asking for this sort. you're not asking for an aca or dod or fcc they're asking for engagement and they're asking for the the government to be more involved in. i'll tell i love that the space council, i'm glad we create the national space. i'm glad we created it. but you know, i worked at the nsc for three years. were there in the white house, you know, that you could coordinate things from the white house. you can't do the blocking and tackling of leading. that's done by agencies. > you know that they coordinate things from the white house. the blocking and tackling is done by agencies. the dni or the secretary of defense. that is who gets things done.

the white house is, in theory, a streamlined organization. it is an agile streamlined organization. they have to get the president's intent transmitted to those federal agencies. they are sitting at the white house. they have to communicate that. the leading has to come from the center agency. the gcc and sec. nasa can do this. there are some things we have to do. we will talk about that. for me, that is the critical part. >> thank you, mark. i want to pull sue and steve in on this discussion. then i want to follow the thread on steve's points. autocratic or democratic. i know that is something. before we go to that question, you know, when i came into this study, i thought of title x. i

thought this had to be dod. the reality is we got great input from some of the top subject matter experts. i want to thank them in terms of the folks that we interview across the board on some of these issues. but where i ended up was, yes. title 10, title 50. the national security mission is critical. the department of defense should play a clear role in all of that. space is much broader. sue and steve -- sue, we will start with you. i'm curious about your thoughts on that. i ended up in a very different place. i normally know what i want to write before we jump into something, but in this case, i visited. i'm curious. we all pivoted. all of us. so sue and steve, what would

you think on this? >> i will start. steve, you fix it and make it better. let's see. in 2023, national security includes economic security. right? it includes the systems for producing the commercial systems, how you protect, how you usher, how you create advantage -- it is not the same as it was in 1947 or 1963 or 1996 or any of those years. how you use your national security now must go through economic security. it must involve participation with the commercial sector. it cannot be controlled in the way that you control purely governmental assets.

and so i think you are right that we have benefited from defense and intel leadership over all these years, but they have a particular view of how you maintain an advantage. we need to include what commerce is doing, what transportation is doing, what nasa is doing, how we protect companies. i think you are right, but it cannot just be left to the department or the national security community , as narrowly defined, in order to ensure that we have advantage in this space. i think your instinct to try to come up with a way to do that is good. i think you have done that by this consortium approach. it isn't the strong suit of the government. what i would hope is that this

consortium recognizes the imperative and does a little bit of what the sec did back in the 30s, when it said, we are going to set the imperatives and standards, but we are going to allow the private sector to input how we achieve that. and so you will get this benefit of the government setting the framework, and the standard, and the private sector saying, this is how we can meet that. i think you are on the right track, but it has to go beyond just a governmental solution. it has to include them. >> well said. we have been long on nouns and short on verbs for a lot of these issues. private sector needs a front row seat at the table, hand in glove but i don't think we get that far. general, i would be curious for your thoughts on this. >> for me, this really starts with the recognition by the

executive branch and the legislative branch that we are in an economic competition with other great powers that want their values to be the dominant predicate for the economic global enterprise. all of us on this panel have lived through leading change. this disruptive reality -- new things from old models of business and governance. regulatory and statutory. things need to change. nobody likes change. for me, the three things we all need to focus on if we want to do this is, one, the recognition that we have a competition on her hands that could threaten our ability to protect our society, our economy, and our government. the second is the leadership. when you look at historical

examples where we had to insert capability that was going to be disruptive to a certain component of our government or economy, you need to pick leaders that know how to lead change. and large bureaucracies, you need to have the money protected by the top level of the executive and legislative branches, so it is not swept away by an appropriations act at the last minute. and you need the person to be protected. you need the leader to be protected. when we were trying to usher in the triad to combat the fact that russia had built a nuclear bomb and was building rockets to launch those, and intercontinental ballistic missiles, general shaver was put in charge of building those rockets for america. the first 13 rockets blew up. the reason that didn't get stolen from him was because he played golf with president eisenhower.

we don't need to play golf with the president. but we need that recognition. and congress. he had allies in congress. without congress and the white house on board, and without a personal, protective ideology where they pick the right leader and protect that leader to achieve success, without those components, no matter how you put this, it will fail. we need to move fast. the only way to move fast is the right leader, the right money, and the individual leader protected by the legislative and executive branches. >> thank you, steve. mike, i want to bring you inbred i know you have a hard stop soon. steve brought up the cultural sets of issues. i always grew up thinking the american way, the democratic

process, is the only way. i still believe it is. you started an organization called lead, which is very much behind that philosophy, which is leadership to ensure the american dream. when you really get down to it, the secret sauce, the ingredients that make the american dream so unique, it is not just the traditional hard edge of power, but all the other innovative components that led us lead. is this hyperbole? and my hyperventilating over here? technology is a double-edged sword. we can't take for granted that our democratic norms will drive

the way forward. i would be curious what your thoughts are on that. then we can bring in the panel and go further into it. before we lose you, i wanted to make sure we give you an opportunity to share some thoughts. >> thanks, frank. i don't think we have two or four years to dawdle on this problem set. we have never really faced a strategic competitor like china. think of the soviet union, only with money. what china was very successful doing that the soviet union was not was the soviet union was more brute force. they used that brute force to what people up -- lock people up. they are using the economic power that they have to isolate resources -- national -- natural resources around the world, to secure their future

in a way that the united states doesn't have a consistent policy between economic security and energy security. it is equally as important. it is as important as all of those elements. we haven't put that all together. if we are going to compete and win, which we can, we are going to have to start putting things together across the government. one of the things that admiral mark was talking about sent a chill down my spine. we are better at this if we have a coordinating body. and a gcc body that coordinates with another gcc body. i don't think we have time for that. i would have one person in charge of making this happen. you would have to eliminate the red cards. everyone gets red cards. we need more green card holders in the government to make sure

that we are advancing at the pace we have to. that means coordinating resources. that means you are going to take something out of somebody's sandbox. there is going to be screaming that you will here in california from washington, d.c. if we don't do this and we don't do it soon, we will not be able to keep pace with china's investment in the next generation of technology. i tell people here, i don't quite get it. we are good with technology. they are good with technology. but you talked about this, frank. you talked about this clash of values. china wants to be data dominant by 2025. what are they doing with the data they are extorting from their citizens? they created a social credit system. you get a score as a chinese citizen. if you don't do well enough with that social credit score, they can deny access to bus tickets, train tickets, plane tickets, the right to travel in

their country. there are millions of chinese who have fallen victim to this. maybe it is a tweet that says that president g is not all he is cracked up to be. if you think about what they are trying to do, it is not just in china. it is going to be international. if you want to do business and they are the largest supplier, guess what? if you don't hit their social credit score, you're not going to get an opportunity to compete in that space. that is how serious this is. that is a class of its own. that is a clash of values. they are already doing this. they are making investments to beat us in space. their navy surpassed the number of ships of the united states navy. as they say in the military, quantity is a quality all of its own. the fact that they are using their economics -- france is a

great example. they are using their economic power that they lash up with their intelligence part of the government. that is all about contracts in the future. china is saying, there are good things that can happen with french companies in china, or bad things that can happen with french technology in china. he stumbled around on the national stage, wondering if the united states was the right bet. we should take away this notion that you should bet against the united states any day of the week, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 12 months of the year. it will always be a bad bet. what does that mean for us? we have to get our act together. we have to stop spending so much money. we can't afford the interest on our national debt. china is having eighth-graders learn quantum mechanics.

last year, 69% of eighth graders across the united states could not read at the eighth grade level. we are in a crisis mode here across our value system in the united states. china knows who they are and are moving out. i suggest we have to do the same. i would go through the government here. this is important for all of us. if you ask the admiral, do you want all these coordinating bodies -- if you have to have five meetings to get a decision, we lose. we need to streamline government, as you said, frank, early on, in this oss model. congress needs to say, this is what we need to happen. they can do that in conjunction with folks that are smarter in defense and intelligence decisions. have them guide that decision. give them resources and say, come back in six months and tell us how we are doing. this notion that we have to spread it around and half the battle of the inboxes is really

costing us in a way that is hard to visualize for the rest of the world. if you are in that system you talk to folks that are doing it, they are pulling their hair out. let's get back to doing creative, innovative things. that happens in space and cyber and our air force. we need decision-makers getting these things done. after we win this battle, if they want to go back to the battle of the inboxes, which is a very american trait, let them have at it. until then, we have got to get her act together. we don't have a lot of time. >> thank you for your leadership. in fairness, i think what mark was proposing is actually streamlined. it is taking the spaghetti chart and streamlining the process. one thing i wanted to mention -- and this is -- i wish we

wrote this report. the australian strategic policy institute did a study looking at 44 key areas of technology. 37 of those, china is leading the united states. that is the first empirically based study i have seen -- and all in the areas we are discussing right now. it is not leading in basket weaving. it is leading in key technology areas that we cannot afford to leave behind. mark, i'm going to let you jump in quickly. i know that there is more there. sue, i want to get your thoughts on this, as well. mark, jump on in, please. >> it is embarrassing that we have fallen. i may not have made it clear. our goal is to put one agency

in charge. it happens to be nasa. that is probably the private sector. what is different is that it was a government owning all the tools of research and developments. nowadays, i think the private sector is in a better position to provide guidance, advice, and counsel. [ indiscernible - muffled ] we have seen this in energy. he helps implement the advice in the industry. even when it is not exactly what he wanted, we do a pretty

good job of that. i think that is the one area where the government during the cold war didn't need to consult the industry as much. but in the competition with china, some of our front-line soldiers are in the private sector. right now, they don't have a place -- without us putting nasa in charge and saying you are it does we don't have the government. making. i'm glad you brought that up, mark, because that is, i think, the differentiator is the private sector role in all of this. they need strong input from the private sector on that decision- making. >> i'm glad that you brought that up for it i think that is the differentiator, the private sector.

this would be a ceo lead thing. not to go back to world war ii analogies, but it started with ways that the government could lean on the best thinkers and minds and resources that the country had, and the truth is, we need the same. sue, i know we have had some discussions on this. do you want to weigh in here? >> yeah. mike, i'm just like you. i always have three things. i will say three things on this topic. i think one of the areas where the government does need to get involved in ways that it hasn't, and that we have been loath to do is to get involved with the standards bodies. we have been philosophically loath to do that because we

wanted the industry to drive what those are. but as we moved to the area where you have more platform technologies and absolute technologies, our adversaries and competitors are controlling those standards bodies. so i think standard-setting is something the government might need to look at. the second thing is we need to look at our whole ecosystem. it is involved in technological superiority. that is everything from investment in research to students in schools to foundational education to the labs, just to make sure that it is all tuned and not fighting against each other, with different rules and imperatives. you see this when it comes to students. and what are we doing with immigration? you can't exclude foreign

students from the united states. that would be antithetical to the advantage that we have had historically. we want to attract the best talent. you can't simultaneously drive them out of the country. we have to tune the ecosystem for technological advantage. and then the third thing that i think i will and on is, you heard me mention that this is a time where every technology is available to everyone. that means the person that can put it to clever use the fastest is the one that wins. one of the things that is going on right now is we don't have a technology problem. we have a use problem. we weren't using it as much as we need to. whether that is the defense department figuring out a way to use this emergent commercial space market, or whether some of these new technologies are getting deployed in the field to transform how we engage, i think focusing not just on the

technologies, but getting them into use will be an important part of the advantage. and then i lied. i have a fourth. i think we will get to cyber at some point. i will say that cyber attacks are really an assault on trust. right? erosion of trust disproportionately hurts free and open societies. as you have space, you have to make sure that is protected. it is an important part of this discussion we've been having about systems and success, not just individual performance success. >> sue, thank you. i'm really glad that you brought up how application of technology -- i mean, even in

war fighting -- if you go back in history, it is the application and use of technology that changed the game. not so much what was invented. it was how it was applied. you can go all the way back to attila the hun. he was able to use different technologies to achieve his objectives. i'm really glad that you brought that up. that often gets lost in the discussion. i think that is part of the secret sauce. that is in the dna of the united states, where we do better than the rest of the world, because we are not trying to control the outcome. i don't mean to be too blunt on that, but that is a scenario where i think, if we harness it right, i think we can have big rewards.

when you look at space, it is very much like cyber. it is its own domain, whether it is war fighting or economic -- you name it. it is its own domain, but it transcends all the others. in space, it transcends air, land, sea, and cyber. mark, i would like to get back to the paper. i know we are running out of time here. what are some of the congressional priorities that you think are worth sharing today? >> thanks. congress has the -- done a good job laying this out. once nasa or whoever is designated later, it will tell them what to do. here is congress's number one goal -- they have to address this. the way this will fail is if

you tell any federal agency, do this thing on the side, and we won't give you resources -- they will figure out how to do whatever you ask with a minimum amount of money. [ indiscernible - muffled ] we put a number down. we set the first year needs to be $50 million. we can build it up. that is how much it costs to manage a center. you have to be out and working with the private center -- sector. you have to look at the different supply chain issues. you have to investigate. this space systems needs money.

i have to give a big shout out to the private sector. they created a great system without the government being involved. that tells you how clear the need for the government to step up and play its role is. the private sector has done many of the things that i wish other sectors did. it is more advanced than many others. the problem in space is you have to integrate this effort with what is a good effort by the u.s. the prompt of defense to grow and nurture the space force and space command. we are going to be involved with that. you can build that at the speed

that is necessary. we have to get involved now. it has to happen this fiscal year. the budget being reviewed right now, they need that. you have to get it there. >> mark, thank you. all things said and done, it is marrying authority with resources and leadership. that is the case we want to make. the tyranny of time requires that i be a little bit of a tyrant. i'm going to let everyone say their last words. steve, since we haven't heard

from you in the last discussion, let's start with you, then go to mark, and then sue. let me turn to you, steve. when we discussed the economy, i know that there is a whole lot going on there. i know i'm asking for parting thoughts. in our interview, you are really thoughtful in terms of explaining minerals in space. it is not just the traditional industries we are looking at. there will be new industries that are massive. i would like for you to touch on that and say your closing words. then we will go to mark and sue. >> i will be very brief. most average citizens in any country in the world do not realize how much the universe is filled with resources at our fingertips. a shorter journey than a ship going to africa. all of those resources at our fingertips, with current technology today. it is profound and whether it

is mining that, turning it into 3-d printing material that can be 3-d printed in space or on earth, space can benefit the human race with unlimited resources, unlimited information, and unlimited energy. that is the reality. that is what we are tapping into. i will leave it at that. i want your listeners to leave this conversation with a tremendous lightning bolt of excitement and hope. i will use the fact that i grew up in a different paradigm and a different culture. i never really knew the american culture other than my parents. i was running around. my dad was a cultural anthropologist and missionary. my mom was in medical, helping the women of the tribe. when i came to america and i saw free society and this constitution, this is why i joined the national security arena. having traveled the world and

having lived around the world, having been a student of history, and human nature, everybody else in the world fears america. if we want to get out of this, we build on our strength. why they fear us is because we can innovate our way out of any problem, economic, military, informational. you name it. we are the most innovative culture on the planet because we believe that the respect for every human being is in their brain and heart, not in their money, or their status. and we don't pick winners and losers based on what we think. we base it on the performance of the idea. this is why we are going to do well. i'm in the private sector now and the commercial sector. software engineers and hardware engineers that work for us -- they are young. they understand. they believe in the human spirit. they believe in the protection of people.

they are agnostic of culture, but they believe in the values. they will find a way around all these things. we need to be careful not to pick winners and losers with the government. let our youngsters free. they will find a way. business leaders will find a way. governments will not. that is an important distinction between the roles of government and the private sector. thank you for letting me encourage everybody that we are going to win this race. it is just a matter of time and urgency. the urgency is now, like mark said. we have to do it this year, or we are going to be in trouble. thanks. >> steve, thank you for a very optimistic view. i would add a third. brain, heart, and hands. at the end of the day, it is that application piece that i think is so important. i don't want to get on a soapbox and talk about how

academia has to be more applied, but at the end of the day, it is those three criteria. thank you for that. thank you for that optimistic message. mark, anything on the paper you want to close with? any parting thoughts here? >> we talked about leadership authority and resources. it requires good partnerships. they will have a demanding task. nasa can do this. you alluded to something like this. having a policy without resources is rhetoric. so we have to get a policy now. get resources to the agencies now. stand back and let them work. >> awesome. thank you, mark. sue, any last thoughts?

>> all threats and opportunities are going through and to space. it is worth advancing and assuring -- and because it is now shared between public and private sectors, this is a great time for the government to do what it does really well, which is to look for the horizon. use its deep pockets and eliminate sand in the gears. let the private sector do what it does better than anyone else. we'll be on our way. >> sue, thank you. mark, thank you. steve, thank you. i know we had to lose mike rogers earlier. there is so much to unpack here. the bottom line is, with this

event, with the paper, they are all meant to tee up and elevate issues that if we don't take them seriously, we are in trouble. if we take them seriously, we will get out in front of our adversaries. we will get back to the cultural principles of what is underneath that. thank you for all those listening in. we had big numbers. thank you for those tuning in on c-span. for those that are interested in the paper, it can be downloaded at the csc 2.0 website , as well as the mccrary institute website. yankee. onward and upward. that's a wrap. thank you all.

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