Guten morgen to everybody. One, General Brown, thank you for everything that you have done in AUSA. This is your vision to do this. Now we're at the right time, at the right place. To Alan, who, by the way, is a great, great partner of all of us here, of everything that we do in Germany, thank you for setting us up for the exact moment of what we have to talk about. To all of our allies and partners that are out there - we have allies and partners from Asia, Africa, South America, obviously Europe - thank you all for being here. As you look at our panels, we will have panels from-- and this really goes back to what Alan was discussing. All of our panels have allies and partners from other locations. Ukraine will be here, and they will talk to us from their panels. I think you'll find what they have to say will only further your desire for where we have to land. So as I look across this audience, really, all I see is opportunity. The first opportunity from our leadership is clear. Alan highlighted it. Five percent commitment. Now, what I want to talk about is, really, what is our role? As the military, what do we have to produce? The first thing is especially for the US military, but also for the 32 members of NATO, South Korea, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand. And you'll see many of these other four countries from Asia here as well. If you were to go across to SAG-U and NSATU, you see them there. Why? Because we understand the global threat.
So what is our role here? So as the LANDCOM commander for NATO and as the United States Army Europe Africa commander, our previous bosses, General Walters, General Cavoli, and now General George in particular, is we drive what we have to do out here. And what is that specifically? So as we talk about all these things that everybody talks about. What is the specificity required to truly make that change? Well, the first thing is those previous leaders have converged all the plans so that we have unity of effort and unity of exactly what we have to do. And they're called the regional plans. Within those regional plans, we started in the Baltics to try to get to how do you actually make it so that industry and the nations know exactly what the requirements are. Ultimately, that is now known as the Eastern Flank Deterrence Line. The Eastern Flank Deterrence Line is the capability that hinges all these regional plans together. So as we all talk about these things that are so important, the use of data, you actually can use data. So whenever we talk about how are we going to use these new forms of mass, the unmanned systems, well, how do you build that to a standard that you can actually fight it throughout an alliance? But as important, because this is global, how do you use it in the Middle East? How do you use it in the Pacific?
So all these standards have to be. And that's what the Eastern Flank Deterrence Line will bring to all of us here. And then, specifically, we've started in the Baltics, and we know exactly what we have to develop. And the use case that we're using is, is you have to from the ground. And if you now look at everything that is happening throughout the world, the land domain is not becoming less important. Rather, it's becoming more important. You can now take down A2AD bubbles from the ground. You can now take over C from the ground. All of those things you're watching happen in Ukraine. But as important for us, how do we put that into these regional plans, into the Eastern Flank Deterrence Line? If you look at Kaliningrad, that is-- you can argue back and forth, but it's about 47 miles wide, surrounded by NATO on all sides. There's absolutely no reason why that A2AD bubble, to deter Russia, we cannot take that down from the ground in a time frame that is unheard of and faster than we've ever been able to do. We've already planned that. We've already developed it. The mass and momentum problem that Russia poses to us, a problem that we could get faced anywhere else in the world. We've developed the capability to make sure that we can stop that mass and momentum problem, approximately 22 divisions worth of capability. And then, of course, all of us have to make sure that we have offensive capability, probably the most difficult.
So those three things we have developed. And we're ready to-- and we just had the Conference of European Armies over the last two days where we went over this entire concept with each of the chiefs. Many of the Chads have already seen this. So we know the exact use case that we have. So everybody can talk about how we need to use data and all these other things. So what we've done with this is we've talked about the system. NATO has already procured the system. We already know exactly what we have to do with cloud, and we know exactly the type of actual unmanned systems, brigades, and everything else that we need. So if you're industry, we can tell you exactly what we need. And then for industry, you'll also sit there and say, "Okay, well, can you help us out with a little bit more specificity?" Absolutely. So for industry, very specifically, what we would like you to start to look at is that anything that we develop, it has to be interoperable. But I want to talk a little bit more about the specificity of interoperability. The first thing that we always talk about is data. We need industry to mitigate the risk that every nation sees in data. So if we talk about cloud, you as industry have to come in and talk about how we can share data without that nation being concerned about where that data is going to be. We know that we can solve this every day.
Whenever we look at modular systems and we talk about what we need with modular systems-- and this is what the Army Transformation Initiative and Secretary Driscoll and General George are trying to push. And this is exactly what our allies are looking for as well. And I'll just give you-- everyone loves to talk about long-range fires and air defense. So, specifically, what we want to develop is a common launcher, a common launcher that is both offensive and defensive capable. We want a common fire control system so that any nation can use that fire control system. Right now, there are many nations that if they buy a platform and another nation buys that platform, they're not interoperable because of that lack of common operating system. It's trust. That's all that is. We can solve it. And then obviously, we want everything to be optionally manned. So if we look out for a air defense system or a long-range fire system, we want it to be one system optionally manned, and we want tp be able to take munitions from any country and shoot through that. That's just one example of many. And then we know that there's also a bureaucracy involved in this. And the United States has taken on reform of foreign military sales, and you're already seeing the changes that are coming. We already know that we're now having actual things that we're being allowed to move at a higher rate of speed and getting approved faster.
But the problem is, is we cannot buy things if they do not exist. And this is where we need industry. We have sent a clear demand signal to you of exactly what we need. And throughout these next two days, you will be able to talk to us, and we'll be able to tell you anything that we require. Some of the other key things that we have to have, if you sell us something, it has to be interoperable. You have to share the API. The cost has to go down. As a general rule, whatever you're shooting at, whatever weapon system or munition you shoot at another adversary's capability, it should be cheaper than what you're shooting down. The cost curve has to go down. Again, interoperability. As you talk to our allies, other than the fact of the timeliness of getting capability, the ability to be interoperable is their number one concern. And we have to solve that, especially in this alliance, if we're going to get to where we actually need to. I look forward to seeing many of you out here throughout the next two days. We know exactly what we have to do, and we look forward to working with all of you on it. Thank you very much. [applause]
See video of Gen. Donahue's remarks here.
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