KBS Group

The St. Louis region's nearly $180B in GDP and 2.3M people are an economic driver for the nation. Our diverse and substantive economic industries help feed the nation, protect the nation, finance the nation, transport the nation and keep the nation healthy! Agree with this piece that it's time to engage a national marketing campaign to get out the full story contrary to the national media's doom loop narrative that only underscores crime and decline.

What better way to wrap up an incredible 2023 Reagan National Defense Forum than with this incredible sunset as seen from the Reagan Presidential Library! Congratulations to the Reagan Institute and all of our nation's military and national security leaders who made this a thoughtful and inspiring event. Reagan's "Peace Through Strength" Legacy and Doctrine are alive and well.

#RNDF2023 PANEL BUILDING AT SCALE: INDUSTRIAL CAPACITY AND BUDGET RESOURCES TO MEET STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES Panelists: ? Rep. Joe Courtney, U.S. House of Representatives, Connecticut ? Mr. H. Lawrence Culp, Jr., Chairman and CEO, GE ? Hon. William LaPlante, U.S. Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment ? Sen. Roger Wicker, Ranking Member, Senate Armed Services Committee Moderator: Mr. Marcus Weisgerber, Defense One Covid retirements took so much experience out of Defense industry base....however, we have an opportunity to rebuild, retrain and recapitalize future industrial base We need to make this important work more attractive, demonstrate the good wages and higher-tech manufacturing centers, not dated perceptions of dirty old factories. HS Training program in Moss Point, MS starts training students junior year for guaranteed, well-paying job at shipyard upon graduation. Report about needing a third, private shipyard to meet with the demands Steel forging is now taking place at shipyard in Mississippi, looking at other locations We are at 1.47/year attack subs per year up from 1.2/year several months ago and absolutely at least need to be at 2/year minimum. We don't have the capacity, which is why it is so vital to get the $3.4B requested in the supplemental for sub industry base before we ratify Australia United Kingdom U.S. AUKUS pact A lot has been talked about Replicator efforts...where is it going??? -It will serve as a pilot for other programs -Numbers matter and ability to produce them matters, and be able to change them -Need high volume fires when you think about the number of targets in IndoPacom We need to move as many of the UAS efforts in RDT&E into production, production, production Lots of co-production with other allied Defense Industrial Bases (DIBs); India, Australia, Japan and big announcement coming on Ukraine DIB ....this is where we need to go Looking at expanding DPA Title III funding eligibility to include Australia and UK (Canada already covered) and described the particular need for doing this to open up important, critical mineral development and processing?in countries like Australia and U.K.

CELEBRATING AND ENCOURAGING SERVICE: HOW TO BOOST RECRUITMENT AND ENSURE READINESS Panelists: ? Hon. Gabe Camarillo, Under Secretary, U.S. Army ? Sen. Kevin Cramer, U.S. Senator, North Dakota ? Gen. Daniel R. Hokanson, Chief, U.S. National Guard Bureau ? Mr. Karl Rove, Former Special Advisor and Deputy Chief of Staff, President George W. Bush Moderator: Mr. Ben Kesling, The Wall Street Journal Army missed its recruiting goal last year by more than 10,000…..What does that means for the service? Army Under Secretary: ? Recruiting is an existential challenge for our war fighters and for the army particularly because if we have to bring in the right talent to do the missions. Recruitment is a long-term challenge, but once you join, you tend to stay and retention has been historically high. HS grads are about 50% of new recruits and that pool has shrunk with more going to college....need to expand recruiting pool to include those with some college We know that we are in a very tight labor market, an adverse impact of COVID and test scores for high school graduates, rising obesity rates, but there are some longer-term challenges we’ve started to confront like: declining propensity to serve over the last couple of decades; lack of familiarity with what a military career is all about and the opportunities it offers America's youth. Survey data from those on why they don't want to pursue army include; fear of being injured or killed; too far from family/home; joining will put their life/career on hold instead of an addition What allows the Guard to had more success and make its recruitment goals? ? NGB Chief Gen. Hokanson In the Guard you're a citizen and a soldier at the same time and so you can serve your nation and you can also have a civilian career. Young people like the opportunity to respond to their communities in time of need. You can live in the community you serve The Guard is in 2800 other communities, BUT we also are trained and equipped to fight the nation's wars. We need more encouragement to feel part of the country and to serve it...I joined the military during the Reagan era when we wanted to be "the good guys"...Reagan talked about the military in an attractive/positive way. 78% of those that decide to serve are connected to a family member that also serves Karl Rove We are in a period of huge polarization....other points of similar polarization; 1998 with Clinton impeachment.... and 1988 with Iran Contra...there is still high confidence in the military compared to other institutions.

#RNDF2023 PANEL INVESTING IN AI: FIELDING AND OPERATIONALIZING AUTONOMY IN OUR NATIONAL DEFENSE Panelists: ? Rep. Mike Gallagher, Chair, House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party ? Hon. Frank Kendall, Secretary, U.S. Air Force ? Mr. Brian Schimpf, Co-Founder and CEO, Anduril Industries ? Hon. Heidi Shyu, U.S. Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering ? Mr. Jason Zander, Executive Vice President, Microsoft Moderator: Ms. Missy Ryan, The Washington Post "Humans will always be in the primary decision-making loop." -We enforce laws against humans not machines....we need to hold human beings accountable for actions of AI to ensure appropriate use of AI. "AI needs to be about acceleration of decisions....not making the ultimate decisions." -We need to be prepared for the near future when AI decisions WILL BE BETTER than human decisions, we just need to ensure we manage the accountability of the human.?Complex?AI decisions on the battlefield will be made in split seconds Cong. Gallagher:? We need flexible funding formulas and multi-year?procurement....and?appropriations from congress and nontraditional contracting to stay ahead on AI.... China has no good intent for the use of AI, as they are a genocidal Communist regime. "AI is software that works"?? AI can have immense benefits on the battlefield to increase precision and massively enhanced situational awareness.?We have to figure out how to build, scale and deploy AI. Under Secretary of R&D Shyu 70% of the cost of a weapon system is in sustainment....so AI has great potential in helping to provide predictive maintenance data generated by AI....this will be huge. AI- "We went from something interesting 10 years ago with software, to machine learning to predictive learning to something that can now pass a bar exam... It is is moving so rapidly." DOD proposing to invest $1.8B in AI and machine learning capabilities. SBIR 1/3 of all SBIRs/awards to small business last year was in AI/machine learning. Allies and partners are critical in this effort....everyone of our allies consider the U.S. their most important partner However, how do you coordinate command and control across thousands of platforms in large scale combat operations?? Secretary of the Air Force: The CCA (Combined Collaborative Aircraft) program is a good example for what can be done with replication in autonomy and the replicator initiatives. The NGAD platform is going to cost 1/3 of current platforms by utilizing other autonomous "wingmen" force multipliers. We cannot lose more time and cannot afford to cede development time for this CCA capability by not passing FY 24 budget or subsequent others....China as an adversary has done a very good job in keeping up with us.?There is currently $500M in the FYDP....we will be fielding this by the end of the FYDP.