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Military

Remarks at Town Hall

Townhall
Rex W. Tillerson
Secretary of State
I. Steven (Steve) Goldstein
Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs
Dean Acheson Auditorium
Washington, DC
December 12, 2017

STAFF: Ladies and Gentlemen, the Secretary of State. (Applause.)

SECRETARY TILLERSON: Good morning. Good morning, all. Please, have a seat. Thanks for joining me this morning and welcome. So I've been here 11 months now, and I thought it'd be timely to do two things. First, maybe take a quick look at the year in review and all that the State Department and USAID has accomplished, because you've actually accomplished a lot and I think it's good to kind of take stock of that. We could wait until the new year, but let's do it now, and then we hit the new year – really hit the ground running. And then the second topic I want to talk about this morning is the redesign; the status of the employee-led work that's been underway now for about five months in reality, and give you a full report out of what they have delivered. And we have some deliverables we want to share with you, and also talk about the way forward and the next steps. It's all about modernizing the State Department, USAID, and making it easier for all of you to deliver on the mission.

But I do want to start with a little bit of a review of the year. And I've done a fair amount of traveling this year, in the first year. I think this slide indicates about 30 countries that we touched this year. And all of these trips were – obviously, they're driven by the issues of the day, the priorities of the President, the priorities of his policies, and where we felt we had to address particular national security threats or to advance policies. And so you can see about 30 countries pretty well spread, but some locations multiple times, again, driven by need. And I think I have a – as you can see, there's a couple areas of that map, though, I didn't make it to this year, but I think it's important nonetheless to note that there was a lot of activity in South America, WHA. We did get to Mexico. And I think significant progress made in Mexico with the creation of our trans-criminal organization dialogue, where we've really tried to elevate how we want to address not just migration and immigration issues, but really address a lot of counternarcotics and human trafficking issues that are going on through Mexico. And they come from a lot of other places.

We had a very successful Central America conference in Miami on security and prosperity that WHA put together, hosted. The Vice President was there. And a significant amount of follow-on work as a result of that conference, and we can – we're going to have a follow-up to the TCO dialogue later this week with Mexico. I think in terms of the rest of WHA we've had a significant effort underway in working with OAS and with other interested parties on the situation in Venezuela – quite a challenging set of issues in Venezuela that're very important to our national interest; obviously, right in our own backyard. And so I know WHA – and I want to thank Paco for his leadership of that bureau this year.

You also see not much blue in Africa, but we did (inaudible) had a number of people that traveled there obviously this year; I just wasn't able to make it there this year. But we also hosted an important Africa ministerial here recently, with participation of the Africa Union and others, and we certainly have had a very active year through USAID and Africa. And so both of those continents are places I'll be going pretty early in the new year, in 2018. And we're going to color Canada blue next week, so we do love our Canadian friends. And we've had a number of engagements with Canada on a broad range of issues that are of mutual importance to both of us, so I'm going up to Ottawa next week. I promised my Canadian friends I would come this year, and I'm going to keep that promise, so we'll be going up there.

But I think in terms of a lot of the policy priorities and, again, really driven by the threats confronting us, the very first week that I arrived, the White House requested that we put in place a policy to deal with North Korea's nuclear weapons development program. I think many of you know that in the transition from the last administration to this one, President Obama highlighted this as probably one of the greatest threats to incoming President Trump, so he immediately put that up as the very first policy work for us to undertake.

And we did develop the policy that was – has been in implementation ever since, which is to put in place the most comprehensive, broad-based, economic and diplomatic sanctions that I think North Korea has ever experienced. Significant participation internationally by countries around the world, and as time has gone by we have continuously increased that pressure. Our policy around North Korea is really simple and straightforward. It is to achieve a denuclearized – verifiable denuclearized Korean Peninsula. That's a policy that's shared by everyone, including the neighbors in the region. So we have a lot of common interest on which to build and that's been the basis for the success of the sanctions. As you know, two very strong UN Security Council Resolutions, which garnered the support of both China and Russia – neighbors to North Korea – because they see the threat similar to the way we see it.

So the effort is to ensure that the regime in Pyongyang knows that there's a penalty to be paid for continuing this program, the development of this program, and that their isolation is only going to grow with time the more they continue to advance the program. All with an intention to have them come to the table and begin a discussion about the future of North Korea, and can we make a different choice about its future, one that doesn't require nuclear weapons or a nuclear weapons program for them to be secure and prosperous. But that campaign, I think, has achieved a level of pressure on North Korea that's never been achieved by previous efforts.

I know a lot of people make the observation that, well, this has been tried before and it didn't work. We've never had this level of extreme sanctions. When fully executed, this is going to deny North Korea about $2.3 billion of their export revenue – complete ban on coal, textiles, export of forced labor; import limitations on fuel and oil; and then a very stringent enforcement of those sanctions, including individual sanctions, as well as sanctions on entities and banks who may be facilitating activities that are in violation of the sanctions themselves.

Obviously, an important partner in this has been China, because China does account for and has been historically North Korea's greatest ally. Very early on – in fact, my first overseas trip was to the region to visit Japan, South Korea, and then Beijing to talk about this policy and how we will – how we wanted to go about executing that policy. China has been very cooperative – again, supportive at the UN Security Council. They are taking steps to enforce the sanctions.

We believe that more can be done and we're asking more be done, particularly with respect to supply of oil. We know that the sanctions are having an impact in North Korea on both the economy and the availability of a number of goods and certainly fuels to their economy. And so it is, again, our intention to maintain this particular pressure campaign and continue to turn that pressure up until we can get an engagement in a meaningful way with North Korea.

Of course, in all diplomacy – and it's not just unique to North Korea – as all of you know, an important part of our diplomatic success is that we have a strong military presence standing behind us, that if North Korea makes bad choices, that we're prepared – militarily we're prepared. Our military is always prepared and they're prepared in this instance as well. That's not the path we want to take, and certainly, at the State Department our role is to create an alternative pathway to address the threat, address the issue, and we're going to continue to work in that regard.

As a follow-on to the DPRK engagement, though, one of the – this really was the beginning of our China engagement. And in some respects, it was a good way to start this new administration's relationship with China because it gave us something of a shared objective from the very beginning to pursue. And they were very open to hearing our approach and have been supportive in that regard.

The China engagement then was really, I think, kicked off with the visit of President Xi to Mar-a-Lago, and many of you had important roles to play in making that presidential visit of President Xi with President Trump – that first engagement successful. As many of you know, we had many, many dialogues underway with China over the last many years. I think we had something like 26 separate dialogues. Most of them occurred at a – kind of a mid-level of contact with – between ministries. We wanted to elevate the dialogue and get closer to the decision-makers, so we needed to have dialogues that are closer to President Xi's visibility and closer to President Trump.

So we agreed with the Chinese that we would put four major dialogues in place and they would be led by very senior cabinet-level people from the United States and very senior Politburo and party people on the Chinese side who have direct access to President Xi. And that's so that as we're talking about issues, we don't have a lot of circuitous pathways to get to decision-makers and get guidance back to inform our dialogues. So we created the Diplomatic and Security Dialogue, which Secretary Mattis and I jointly lead with counterparts in China. We met twice this year. We talked about areas for cooperation, but we also identify areas where we have differences so we can begin to explore those differences. There is an economic and trade dialogue, there is a law enforcement and cyber security dialogue, and there is a social people-to-people dialogue. All four of these high-level dialogues met throughout the year and reported out the status of those discussions and President Trump's recent state visit to Beijing.

Our message to the Chinese in these dialogues was these need to be results-based dialogues, not just meet and talk. We have to produce something that moves this relationship forward. And what is this relationship? Well, the relationship with China has been pretty well defined since the opening of China with Nixon's historic visit over the past many years with the "one China" policy, the commitment to the three communiques, and it did – it has led to a period of calm, prosperity as China's economy has grown, and all of us have benefited globally with China's economic growth. But now, a lot of things have kind of gotten out of balance, as you well know.

And the dialogue we're having with the Chinese today is, okay, that worked for the last 40 to 50 years, but China's in a different place now today. Yes, you are in many respects still a developing nation because you have millions of people that are yet to move out of poverty and to middle class status, but you're not the developing China of the Nixon era. You're in a different place today and we're in a different place, the United States.

So what is the U.S.-China relationship going to be for the next 50 years and how do we define that relationship and how do we achieve China's aspirational goal, which they have articulated to us is cooperation? They would like cooperation. They would like mutual respect. They would like a period – a continued period of no conflict and they would like win-win solutions. Those are great words. I like all those words. The question is: Can we achieve it in this relationship? And do those words mean the same thing to them that they mean to us?

So these dialogues are serving very important purposes because behind all of these discussions is trying to understand what is going to define the U.S.-China relationship for the next half century. How are we going to live together, two great powers with great peoples that need to be – have needs that need to be served? So that's framing much of the China policy in our engagement, and obviously, there are significant national security issues.

We're working together on North Korea on the one hand. We have very significant differences in the South China Sea on the other. China's continued building of these structures in the South China Sea in territories that are disputed – others lay claim to – and then further militarizing those structures is a very serious issue that we talk about routinely. In our view, China has gone too far in this area. So can we achieve – at least today, can we achieve some kind of a halt? Can we freeze it where it is so we can sort out how we're going to work through this? It's a serious issue that is a concern to many of our allies and trading partners in the Southeast Asia region. So South China Sea is an area of difference that we've got to deal with.

We have trade issues. As I said, we really enjoyed a lot of the economic growth of China over the many years, but things have gotten out of balance and there are big discrepancies in the trading relationship. How do we address those, and how do we address them in a way that supports U.S. interest, obviously, and American workers and our economic interest, but also in the context of recognizing this is a global issue? Because China is a global player in a global economy; we're a global player. So where do we want to go sort these things out, and how do we want to work through that? And that's what the trade and economic teams are working hard at doing.

So with China it is not our intent to contain China's economic growth. They must grow. They still have hundreds of millions of people that need to move out of poverty. But we do pay close attention to their One Belt, One Road policy, which articulates their view of their future of how they're going to grow their economy, and how they're going to protect that economic growth, and perhaps extend some of their own spheres of influence around the world. And how does that impact on our economic growth and our national security interest? As China promotes its One Belt, One Road, I like to use the quote from Secretary Mattis: China has One Belt, One Road; the United States and the global economy has many belts and many roads, and no one country gets to choose the belt or the road. It's part of the global order, the international system of rules and norms. And China can choose to carry out its One Belt, One Road within that system, or it can try to redefine that. And that's what a lot of the discussion between us is about: How are we going to live together? How are both of us going to be prosperous together?

A lot of work on China. And again, I want to thank Susan Thornton. Susan was the first acting assistant secretary I met and worked with, because it was DPRK week one. And I appreciate her leadership of that bureau and all of the hard work of her team over the year. They've had a plateful to work on. They've done a great job supporting our policy development, and importantly, our execution of the policy.

So the next area that got a lot of attention from the President directing us was the Defeat ISIS campaign. As we entered office, obviously the caliphate still controlled enormous territories in Iraq and Syria, and the fighting was going really slow. So the President did two things. He gave the Department of Defense, the Secretary of Defense, new authorities to alter the battlefield tactics, to win on the battlefield. And the military began to execute, and they were being very successful. And I was having one of my weekly breakfast meetings with Secretary Mattis, and we talked about the fact that they were being – they were moving a lot faster than our diplomacy was ready for. And so we recognized suddenly we really had to get our act together on what comes after the defeat of ISIS. Then what? Because it's one thing to defeat them on the battlefield, but if the conditions on the ground are left in a bad way, they're just going to re-emerge, or some other group's going to re-emerge in their place. And we saw that, and learned that lesson in Iraq.

So what could we begin to do from a policy standpoint to catch up to the military success and try to get in front of it? And so the policy efforts in Iraq and Syria with the D-ISIS campaign are built around how do we stabilize areas, how do we create conditions on the ground for people to begin to retake control of their cities and towns that were living under ISIS – ISIS's governing, many have been – fled from the areas, lots of IDPs.

So we worked with the DOD plans and did two things. First, we supported their deconfliction efforts, which supported their success. Because as you know, there are a lot of different interests fighting in Syria and in Iraq. How do we keep from having issues and coming into conflicts with people who are doing the same task but perhaps fighting on a different side? And then how do we create the conditions and mobilize the global community to create stability on the ground once areas are liberated? So that when – then we can create conditions for people to return and retake governing control of their territories. And that's what resulted in the creation of our START teams and our START forward teams. A lot of support from NGOs, USAID, and others to follow in right behind the military liberation efforts and demine areas, start bringing in the ability to restore basic needs – water, electricity, get the hospitals running. No reconstruction; just create conditions where people can begin to get their lives back underway.

And we created through the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS, 74 members of the coalition, a joint effort which gives us the ability to conduct donor campaigns and solicit the funds necessary to support these efforts. But more importantly, the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS has given us a platform in which to engage with countries all over the world who recognize ISIS being a non-state player. As we take the caliphate away from them in Iraq and Syria, they're going to always search for that next territory. And indeed, we see them in Africa in the Sahel, we see them in Libya, we've seen them as far away as the Philippines in Mindanao, and the global coalition has allowed us to quickly communicate, share information, share information about where foreign fighters are moving and relocating to, and to support efforts to counter that on the battlefield, but equally importantly to begin to counter it at the borders with stronger passport controls and information sharing, and begin a process of countering through – countering it through violent extremism messaging in cyberspace as well.

So that coalition remains very active with teams who work together to carry out this campaign to defeat ISIS. It's a long road, and it'll probably be many years before we can declare a final victory. But the result of those policies that the President has taken on to defeat ISIS are quite evident now in Iraq and Syria. And you saw Prime Minister Abadi declare that ISIS has been defeated in Iraq, and we would agree with that conclusion. Now we have to create conditions so that new conflicts don't emerge in their place.

In Syria, the battle is not over. And we're in Syria to defeat ISIS, and we're in Syria to create conditions where ISIS cannot re-emerge. And we'll be there until that task is concluded. And in working with our military partners, create conditions on the ground that create stability so that hopefully Syria then does not re-erupt in new conflicts, civil war conflicts.

And as a result, we've worked closely with others in the region, the neighbors, to create these zones of stabilization – with Jordan – and we – this is our engagement with Russia. An area where we are trying to work cooperatively is to create conditions in Syria that support the Geneva peace process, and that process recently got underway again these past two weeks on the strength of a very important joint statement issued by President Trump and President Putin from Danang, Vietnam, on the margins of the APEC Summit. That statement put both leaders on the record as saying the Geneva process, the UN Security Council Resolution 2254 plan for peace in Syria is the roadmap we will all follow. And we've held the Russians accountable to deliver the regime to that negotiating table. We hold ourselves and our partners in the region to deliver opposition representatives to the table who are ready to engage in putting in place that roadmap for peace – a new constitution, new elections which allow all Syrians, the entire Syrian diaspora, including those who have been displaced, to vote on the future of Syria. And it is our belief that through that process, the Assad regime will no longer be part of that leadership.

So a lot of heavy work on D-ISIS and that part of the world, and it continues. And for those who have been directly engaged, again, we thank them for their efforts. We've got a long way to go still.

On the back of all of this effort to defeat terrorism, the President made his historic visit to Riyadh. You'll remember the Riyadh summit, where two important outcomes, I think, from that summit are notable. One is the President convened all of the leaders of the Muslim nations and said to them this is really a problem you have to solve. We're ready to help you, but we can't solve it. So two things that were identified that we would focus on in the counterterrorism effort out of the Riyadh summit. One is countering violent extremism. That's the messaging. What is on in cyberspace, but also what's going on in the mosque, what's going on in the madrassas, what are the messages that are being delivered, and what are you, the Muslim leaders of the world, going to do about that. And they have agreed to take ownership of that and, indeed, a new center to counter violent extremism has been opened in Saudi Arabia, which is devoted to, one, monitoring what's going on out there and finding ways to counter those messages.

And the second important area the President put in place was the effort to deny terrorist financing, so disrupting terror financing networks. And again, a new center to counter terrorism financing has been opened, again in Riyadh, but we have many agreements in place with others in the region to begin to disrupt the ability of terrorist organizations to raise funds, to transfer funds, and to pay fighters around the world. Both very important fundamental inputs to how to counter terrorism, and they are global in their nature.

So those were two important accomplishments, and again, we, working along with the Treasury Department, continue to engage with both the center for violent extremism and the center to counter terror financing to ensure they continue to move forward and achieve that success that we all want.

In the region, we have other conflicts that we are engaged in – Yemen, which is a tragic situation, and most of our efforts today are on getting the humanitarian channels opened back up, getting the ports opened, getting the airport reopened; USAID very engaged helping us and with the NGOs. We are engaged with the Saudis trying to get those ports reopened so we can get assistance delivered to what is an emerging just tragedy, human tragedy before our very eyes.

Ultimately, there will have to be a political solution to Yemen. There is no military victory in sight for anyone. So we are engaged also in the Quint, a group of five countries who are working with the Yemeni Government, the legitimate government that is existing in exile, and the opposition rebels in the country to see if we can get a peace process underway to bring this conflict to some conclusion. And we have a number of our State Department people and the ambassador directly involved.

Similarly, in Libya, we have a conflict that's very chaotic today still. Terrorist organizations continue to operate in parts of Libya. We continue our efforts to counter those terrorist organizations and support the reconciliation process for the Government of Libya as well. Ambassador Bodde has been very directly engaged in a new process led by the new UN representative to see if we can bring the parties together under a new election system in Libya and re-establish that government, begin to restore civil authority to the country. A lot of hard work ahead and many people have been engaged in that.

So in that region of the world, obviously, a heavy, heavy emphasis on counterterrorism. That's really the big threat that we're dealing with there.

Out of that also emerged the new South Asia strategy for Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India. And I think the President took a very bold decision by asserting that we will be in Afghanistan with our military presence and continue to fight terrorism and fight the Taliban on a conditions-based effort. There is no timeline. We're there until this thing is brought to a conclusion. It's not a blank check. It's not a forever. But we're going to stay on the ground and support the Afghan Government. The Afghan Government has to continue to deliver on the needed reforms and create the conditions to have an inclusive government that allows for participation of all the ethnic groups in Afghanistan, including the Taliban. When the Taliban are ready to come to that negotiating table, there will be a place for them to participate in a future Afghan government.

And so the policy there in Afghanistan and in that region is to deny any safe haven to terrorist organizations, because there are a number of terrorist organizations operating in the Afghan-Pakistan region. Our policy is deny them the ability to have a safe haven where they can organize, they can recruit fighters, they can raise money, they can plan and carry out attacks against our allies, our own homeland, as we know they did in the past. So the entire policy in South Asia is to achieve that. And we achieve that by eliminating the safe havens, having some organizations who today have been fighting decide they don't want to fight anymore, they'd rather talk about how to live, and create the conditions for a reconciliation process within Afghanistan and ultimately a peace process.

In our efforts with Pakistan, Pakistan is still an important and valued partner of the United States. Over the last decade, the relationship has drifted, and we've got to bring this relationship back to one of common interest. Today that's just not the case. And so we're engaged in very, very frank discussions with Pakistan over the concerns we have about their own stability and their own future and the threat they're under by allowing terrorist organizations to operate in their territory, and how we can work together to bring stability and peace to the whole region. And again, we've got a great team working in that region as well. A lot of work left to do.

The last area I'll touch on is the relationship with Russia. The President was – has been clear many, many times that two countries like Russia and the U.S. just can't afford to not have some type of a productive relationship. And today that's not the case, and we all know why. Russia chose to invade a sovereign country, Ukraine, illegally take territory. Russia chose through hybrid warfare to interfere with democratic processes here, and they've done so in other countries as well. And so our engagement with Russia has been are there areas that we can find some opportunity for mutual cooperation, and in Syria we have identified some areas. We're not aligned every day; we're aligned on some days. But I think we're both committed to a unified, stable Syria at the end of all of this conflict, and that's what we – we try to find areas where we can align our interest and we can agree this is the way forward. And we'll continue to work with Russia in Syria as long as they're willing to work with us as well towards that objective.

In the case of Ukraine, we've been very clear to the Russians that this issue is the single – probably the single most difficult issue. When left unaddressed, it stands in the way of our ability to re-establish this relationship. And it's important. And we want to re-establish it. But they have to begin to deal with the issue in Ukraine. And so we're engaged in east Ukraine. Many of you know I appointed Ambassador – former NATO Ambassador Volker to lead a one-to-one contact channel between ourselves and the Kremlin to try and break the logjam of Minsk and see if we can get these talks restarted. There's been a lot of effort on introducing UN peacekeepers to east Ukraine to bring the level of violence down. The level of violence in east Ukraine has been up 60 percent this year. There have been more people killed in east Ukraine this year than last year. Clearly things are not going in the right way.

So our first diplomatic efforts are to stop the violence, stop the killing, and then let's see how we move the process forward working with the government in Kyiv, who has a lot of work they need to deliver on; working with Russian counterparts; and working with European partners who have been engaged for some time in the effort.

So there is a lot of activity underway with Russia in Syria, Ukraine, and we're exploring are there other areas where we could have productive engagements, but a very clear understanding that this relationship is going to be very difficult to put back together until we begin to solve the really big issues, and that starts with Ukraine. So we have a lot of work left to do when it comes to Russia.

So as I've gone through this long list, and I'm looking to see who did I miss – I wrote all these notes – I did miss one. I don't know how I could have missed this one, Iran. So when we – we kind of took up our post earlier in the year and we did an assessment of the Iranian relationship and the policy, the policy, in my judgment and I think the judgment of others who worked on this here in the State Department with me, was the Iran policy was pretty narrow. It was very narrowly defined around one thing, the nuclear agreement, the JCPOA agreement, and that so much effort over the last two or three years of the prior administration had been put into that agreement that little attention had been paid to the rest of Iran. And I don't say that as a criticism, I just say it as an observation.

And so the – our approach has been how do we use the nuclear agreement to achieve its objectives, which is to have Iran never acquire a nuclear weapon. And our assessment of the agreement is it has some weaknesses, and those weaknesses need to be addressed. And so our early on policy engagements were with the other parties to the agreement, and it didn't start off great, because we saw it one way, and obviously they were very heavily invested in that agreement because many of them had been involved in the negotiations as well. But it's been through just a very open and honest dialogue with them about how do we use the agreement to achieve the ultimate objective, use it fully, fully enforce it, be very demanding under the agreement. Because the truth of the matter is Iran received significant benefits up front before any compliance had been confirmed. And so there were a number of elements of how the agreement was even implemented that it is what it is. That's water over the dam, as they say; not going to do anything to change that. But it doesn't change the fact that we have concerns about whether that agreement's going to deliver on its objective. But for the time being, we're in the agreement. As you know, the President made a decision to ask the Congress to take a look at this agreement and express their views on it through our domestic law, INARA. And the Congress is examining the agreement to see are there things they'd like to ask us to do – additional requirements – to strengthen the U.S.'s view of this agreement. In the meantime, we're very actively participating in the Joint Commission. Our representatives are there at every meeting, and our representatives are actually leading the effort to be more demanding of Iran under the agreement. And we're getting good support from our European partners.

In the meantime, we have examined all the other elements of the Iran relationship. And the things that worry us most are their ballistic missile programs, their export of weapons that are destabilizing Yemen, their export of weapons to terrorist organizations like Hizballah and Hamas, their export of foreign fighters into Iraq and Syria. Iran is just a destabilizing force in the region and a lot of these conflicts are fomented and they're kept alive because of Iran's involvement. We want, along with partners in the region but also in Europe, to engage Iran on those behaviors and those activities.

So we have taken action unilaterally on our own to impose sanctions on certain Iranian individuals and entities that are responsible for this destabilizing behavior, all the while maintaining our commitments under the JCPOA. You can separate the two. And we're engaged with our European partners now, and they are interested too because they have the same worries about these activities of Iran as we have. We've had a number of engagements with them, most recently last week when I was in Europe. We had a meeting of the Quad – our European counterparts in the JCPOA – to further talk about how do we work together to achieve a more stable situation in the Middle East, and Iran is a big issue that we have to address together. So those activities continue as well with great support from teams here and a high level of engagement with our counterparts around the region.

So I guess, in conclusion on this little walk around the world, I'd say first, thank you. Thank you to all of you who have supported any piece of what I just walked through – and I know I left a lot of things out. And so I think we have had an incredibly active year. Do we have any wins to put on the board? No. That's not the way this works. Diplomacy is not that simple. As I said in response to a reporter's question in Europe, I said you don't solve it with one meeting. These are very complicated issues and everyone has equities that have to be dealt with. That is the nature of diplomacy, though, is that we always are ready to sit and talk and engage with our friends, with our allies, but most importantly, with our adversaries. And that is what we do here at the State Department, and that's what all of you do to support it.

So again, to all the bureaus, the various parts of the department that have supported these efforts, whether it be DS working with our DOD counterparts to deliver all of us to where we need to go safely and protect us when we go to some of these places; to all of you who participate in interagency processes that are crucial to developing these policies and these strategies and these tactics; and to many of you who spend a lot of hours traveling on our behalf to deliver these messages and maintain that engagement; I want to thank you. And I particularly want to thank our people at post. Our people at post, they're on the ground, they're where the rubber meets the road, and that's where the mission gets delivered ultimately. And we've got a great set of ambassadors, and in some places where we don't have ambassadors we have charges d'affaires who are doing a fantastic job taking these policies forward, because everyone is dedicated to this mission of ours, and that is to execute on these policies that protect the American people and advance our own prosperity.

So thank all of you for what you've done this year. I appreciate it. I recognize it every day. And the way you go about it, your passion for it, serves every day as an inspiration for me as well. And I couldn't be more pleased to have the partners here in the department that work with me every day.

So with that, let's turn to the second part of the discussion, the one you're probably a lot more interested in – (laughter) – and that's the redesign. So when I came to the State Department, I didn't know any of you. I mean, truthfully, I was trying to think, do I know anybody in the State Department? Sorry. (Laughter.) Not that I could recall. But more importantly, I didn't know anything about your culture, I didn't know anything about what motivates you, I didn't know anything about your work, I didn't know anything about how you get your work done. And so having been in lots of organizations – I've been – I worked for one company, but I was in a lot of organizations and involved in organizations in the nonprofit world as well. One of the things that I have gotten the greatest satisfaction from over my then-41-and-a-half-year career was improving organizational performance. And the reason I get so much satisfaction from it is because it's really about people performance.

And I have long held this view that every one of us has a certain potential that we're given, and that my mission in life as a leader was always to help people achieve that potential, whatever it is. And we don't all have the same potential, and thank goodness we don't all have the same potential because we need people to do very important jobs at all levels throughout our organization, and every task that everyone does is important to our success. So how do we allow people to achieve their potential and how do we allow them to carry out their task in the most efficient, effective way, and importantly to me, with the highest degree of satisfaction? Because when people feel good about their work, they get up the next morning, they're energized, they can't wait to get to their job, and they're constantly looking for what else can I do to contribute. So how do you create those conditions within organizations that are very complex – and organizations are – they're complex – they're complex beasts of their own. But we put a lot of constraints on organizations by trying to control how the work gets done, and that's for good reasons. We can't have chaos. But sometimes, we unintentionally create things that then, over time, they just become greater and greater obstacles.

So when I came to the department, I needed to do a couple of things. First, I needed to understand this place but with a view of how do I unleash the human capital that's here. Because it is the most valuable thing in the State Department, is human capital. I mean, we don't produce widgets, we don't produce sprockets. We produce intellect, we produce ideas, we produce plans, we produce action plans – and then we carry them out. So it is people. People are what we produce, so how do we produce that the best way and have it perform the best way? And so it is all about organizational design.

So the first phase of this redesign – so I said we're going to redesign. We're not going to reorg. Reorg is taking boxes and pushing some of them together this way and pushing some of them together that way and then say we're done. But what I've learned over 41 and a half years is when you do that, if you look behind the box, nothing's changed about the way the work gets done. People are still dealing with the same inefficiencies; they're still dealing with the same frustrations, complexities. You didn't address the work. You just addressed the boxes. And organizations are smarter than that. So you can push the boxes this way or that way, but if you look at how the work's done, they just wire around those boxes. They find a way to get it done because they're motivated to get their work done, but you're making it really hard on them when you do that. So rather than push the boxes together as the starting point, I said let's think about how we get the work done.

Well, since I didn't know, phase one was listening to our people. Thirty-five thousand responses to the surveys – thank you for all of you who responded. Three hundred face-to-face, in-person interviews so we could get a little better understanding of what were the 35,000 responses telling us. And then I've maintained over the year a set of what I call listening lunches. When I'm in town, I try to have lunch with about six to eight Foreign Service, civil servants to allow me to hear more directly what all of the data has been telling us. And it sticks with you when you get someone telling it to you in their terms.

So from May to July – we kicked off the listening tour in May – we had to take all those responses, kind of sort through them, digest them, and extract what are we hearing, and we issued a report then in July to share what the listening tour was telling us. That information was then used to move to phase two, where we put in place – we selected a group of leaders, your colleagues who were passionate about this issue, they wanted to do something. And we created seven teams – all of these are your colleagues, 250 people – who then took a number of things from the listening exercise and they extracted 300 ideas of things that you were telling us that if you could change this, this would make things really work better.

Well, 300 ideas was a little overwhelming, so they took those 300 ideas, though, and they further consolidated it down to 150 identifiable projects. From that work, that gave us the basis to submit to OMB in September the framework for what we have been directed to do under the executive order for the redesign, including working with the budget office – our own internal budget office – assigning some notional values to what we thought we would capture out of this, what would be the value of certain changes that we'd get – we get a payback on efficiencies and whatnot.

Following phase two, then, we moved to phase three in mid-September, where we took teams and asked them to take these ideas further. And out of that, they selected 72 of the top projects that it was assessed were doable. Now, the other ideas are not gone. We got everyone on (inaudible). They're still there. But we had to get down to something that we could eat, get it in our mouths and chew it up and digest it. And we're going to go through some of these, and in particular, out of that came 16 what we're calling keystone projects, and I'm going to talk more about the keystone projects in a minute.

But where we are in this process from kind of early May when we started listening to where we find ourselves today has been carried out through these three phases. And through these phases, we've had an executive committee that's been led by Deputy Secretary Sullivan to try to guide teams and help solve when they get stuck on things so they can keep moving forward.

So I'll talk further about the what's next because I want to talk about some of the outcomes of phase three, but just to give you a little headline of that: So phase three, in many respects, what you're going to hear me say on a subsequent slide here is this kind of wraps up the redesign as we think about the design phase, because now we're going to move to actually implementing, and we'll talk about who's going to implement those and how that's going to be done and over what period of time.

But out of that, we had seven immediate changes that you told us – and these were kind of overwhelming in the feedback – 35,000 – if you could change these things, my life would be so much simpler. Now, these are not transformational, but the important thing is they're going to give you back time, and time is the most valuable thing you have. It's the most valuable thing we have. Because what did I say earlier? What do we produce? Intellectual capacity, that's what we produce. And if I can give you time back to think or to execute on the mission or to think about how to do it better, then that's of huge value to us organizationally and to the American people. Because at the end of it, that's what we want to be doing, is executing – developing and executing on the mission, not spending our time waiting on the computer to respond to me.

So here are some real quick things we're going to do. The team called them the quick wins. I think they're just – they're immediate changes that we're going to begin implementation.

First, and I'll just go up, or left – there's no priority to these – but we are going to move to a cloud-based email and collaboration system, and hope to be there, I think, by the end of next year, is our expectation. This will have to be implemented in a somewhat phased approach, depending on the bureau you're in, the function you're in, the location you're in. But it is our intent to get people to the cloud. This is going to allow you to work from any location. It's going to allow you to share and collaborate from any location, and give you much, much more freedom with which to get your work done in a much more efficient way.

The second is we're going to expand opportunities for eligible family members. We're going to end the hiring freeze in 2018 and return the authority to bureaus and posts to make decisions on what they need for eligible family members. We're also going to – (applause) – we're also going to expand the opportunities by expanding the use of the EPAP program, and we're going to leave this to post to decide. I mean, this is a talent pool that we should be using; we should be mining it more. It's going to make our work easier. It's going to make our work more effective. And so we're going to expand opportunities not just by lifting the hiring freeze, but we also want to expand the availability of opportunities for eligible family members as well, because I think there's two opportunities there.

The next is – this one is done. We're in – I think we've integrated the USAID and State global address lists. That might sound like a small thing, but I realized it wasn't such a small thing when the first time I tried to use the global address list and I sat and watched my computer just go around and around while I kept trying to figure out where in the world is this person. (Laughter.) I could have gone through the New York City phone directory, a paper version, and gotten there faster. And in the end, I didn't get there at all. I finally gave up. I just gave up. I sent an email to my chief of staff and said, "Go get this to somebody." (Laughter.) So I understand the – again, these sound like small deals, but when you take – if you take the size of the department – now, I mean, you can take all 78-, 79,000, or if I just take the roughly 25,000 that work on this system a lot every day, and if you're spending 30 seconds to a minute every time you try to engage with that system, sitting there watching it, and I multiply that times 25,000 people times how many encounters a year, there's a lot of time being wasted – your time that you could be doing other things with.

So I think we got that one fixed. They tell me it's completed.

Moving down to the bottom, the next row, then, we're going to increase flexibility for employees who are on medical evacuations so that when people are required to leave post for medical reasons, whether it's maternity reasons or they have to return home, we're going to allow them to telework so that they do not have to use – and if they want to; it'll be their choice – but if they want to, then they're not having to burn up their leave or they're not having to go on unpaid leave because they were required to leave post for medical reasons. So we'll be implementing that policy. (Applause.)

We're going to streamline the security clearance process. I know this is a great frustration. (Applause.) It was frustrating for me, I can tell you, but – (laughter) – but the amount of time this has taken is – it's keeping people away. We need them at their posts. We need them doing their job. We need them contributing. So we have a process underway. Part of this is going to be enabled by getting to a cloud-based system that allows the case management to be done much more efficiently and effectively, and in particular – so this is going to help Foreign Service officers, civil servants, EFMs. But we're also going to make a change to how we handle interns, and we're going to allow them to work on interim clearances so they can get to work faster as well. (Applause.)

We're going to simplify the permanent change of station travel process. I think today there are, like, 11 different portals that between State and USAID people go to if they're having to make a change of station, and we heard – I heard lots of horror stories around these luncheons about people's experience, and in particular their poor spouses' experience, because they were trying to manage this while their working spouse was trying to get the job done. We're going to consolidate this to one single portal so you'll have one place you go to have all the needs met, and hopefully that will improve your experience when you are required to change a station.

And then finally, we're going to improve TDY travel to – and the options and experiences that are available to you, just to take some of this frustration out that you're going through every time you have to – you're trying to get to where you need to go, and we just make it too hard. So we're going to improve that as well.

So these are seven immediate changes that your employee-led teams came up with, and they didn't just come up with the ideas. They got together and they're solving these. So some of these are done; some of these are coming very quickly; some of them will take us kind of through 2018 to get them fully operational, but teams are actively working them. And if you want to know a little bit more about the details, I think there's information on both the State and USAID website, and you can go there and read a little bit more about the details of those.

But I do want to at this point ask everyone who's worked on any of the three phases – I know many of the people that are here that have worked on these efforts – if you'd stand, because I want to recognize you. (Applause.)

Thank you. I also want to recognize – because we have a lot of people that are at post that have been working on this exercise as well – to the people at post: I wish you'd been here to stand and receive the applause of your colleagues as well. You deserve it and I want to thank you for doing this also. All of these folks – (applause).

All of these folks have been working on this while they have their day jobs to take care of, too. And I think the important message there is people in this department care. They care about each other, they care about the frustrations, they want to make it easier, we want to work more closely together, and we want to work as a team together. And one of the things I learned out of watching these teams work was that, that people are passionate about improving the way we get things done around here. And so here are some quick ones.

Now let's talk about the not-so-easy ones. But these are the keystone projects. And this – these are really keys now to modernizing for the future. And we've put the keystone projects into basically three areas, project areas. And these are the 16 that I mentioned on the previous slide.

The first is the information technology and human resources platforms. The systems – many of the systems and processes we're dealing with today were put in place before some of you were born. And so we've really got to modernize and get ourselves – get the State Department into the 21st century. The people we deal with around the world – (applause) – both our friends, our allies, but our adversaries – they're working with better things, better systems and processes than we have. And we need to modernize ourselves.

So we are – we're going to undertake an upgrading and integration of a single platform for IT systems and HR. The two don't talk to one another today. This is going to be a long-term effort, and it's going to require some investment in dollars and in time, and it's going to be something that's going to take us probably two or three years to get fully completed. It is not an easy undertaking, and I have done this in another organization, and it's no small task.

So in the meantime, we're going to the take the platforms we're using and do everything we can to make them perform better, ensure that we're getting the most out of the platforms we have. Where we can find ways to make them more integrated, we will, but we're not going to invest a lot of money into that. We'll try to do things that we can fix, because we really want to put our money into the platform for the future. A new IT system, a new HR system.

One of the important outcomes of that is it's going to allow us to manage, again, the most important asset we have well, and that's people, through the HR system. We're going to be able to understand better what people's performance is, what they need to be prepared for the next opportunity, their training needs, how we want to manage career development, how we want to ensure people have an opportunity to express what they want their future career to be, how you engage with a system for postings, how do you know what's even available so that we have a more interactive process underway with you so that you get to manage the career that you would like to pursue. And we enable that by ensuring you're getting the experiences, you're getting the training, and you're getting it when you need it, and that you're prepared to go into that next assignment ready to succeed, grow, and get ready for the next one after that.

Part of what we'll also get out of this is we will create data analytics capability that we just simply do not have today. We – there is so much, as many of you know, that we can be doing to inform our policies, to inform how we deliver on mission, to inform how we make decisions through data analytics. And we're not tapping into that capability today because our systems simply don't have the ability to allow us to do that. So that's another important deliverable that will come from the projects under the IT and human resources platform.

The second area of keystone projects we've titled "Global Presence and Policy." And I'm going to start with the bottom bullet first, and that is to modernize and streamline our policy development and execution. And we've begun some work in this area already through the policy planning office in my office. The policy planning director, Brian Hook, has put in place a process which engages bureaus early, from the beginning of our policy development, so that it is developed collaboratively with all the stakeholders. The policies are then pulled together and brought up eventually to my attention for decision. And we have – we created a big bullpen space back behind my inner office where I'm able to meet with these Policy Planning teams and really hear from them as to the issues that we're – that we need to consider when we're putting policy together.

One of the things that this process does is it allows differences of views to emerge all the way to my attention. So it doesn't – these don't get weeded out at a lower level. So it's not unusual that I'll get a policy action memo and there are two different views. The bureau may have a view that this is what we should decide; another bureau may have a different view; Policy Planning may have a view. What's important is that I get full visibility to all of that so that then when I make the decision, I've got a fully informed decision. But the important deliverable from that process is the State Department has one view. Once we decide that's the (inaudible) to the interagency process, that's the view we represent to our partners (inaudible) interagency process, and we advocate for that. And when policy is decided, we're executing against that one policy. And the bureaus understand it because they've been engaged in how we got to the decision, and they can help our missions, our embassies, and others who are delivering on the ground understand it better, and we should get more effective delivery on mission. That's important, because what ultimately determines what do we need where are these policies, strategies, and tactics – what do we need to deliver on that.

So we are going to undertake an assessment of our global footprint around the world and ensure it aligns with our policy priorities. And so there's – I know there's – it's been interesting. I've heard through back channels that people are worried we're going to shut down embassies. We have no plans to shut down any embassies, shut down any offices anywhere. What we are going to look at is how are they staffed, and do we have the right capability to deliver on the mission that's important in that location. So, quite frankly, I know London's a great location, and I know Paris is a great location, and Rome is a great location. I'm not sure we need the footprints we have there because we don't have the same issues of urgency, necessarily, that we have in other parts of the world where we really need talent deployed.

So this is really a deployment question. More than anything else it's we've got great talent. Do we have it in the right places at the right time for the issues we're dealing with? And if we need to come down in one location a little bit so we can take talent and redeploy it over here, we should be nimble enough to do that. And if circumstances change, we'll redeploy to other locations. But what's the process by which we can do that, and how do we come to those decisions, and then how do we action them? So there's work to be done there.

And then the third area of the keystone project is operational efficiencies, and it's pretty straightforward as to what it means. A lot of duplication was identified out of those original 300 ideas. We want to eliminate the duplication. We want to consolidate like functions. Operations support: There's no reason we should have two of the same thing going on in two different places when we could service everyone's need if we put it all in one location, and then it gets delivered the same way, the same time, every time. So we want to consolidate where opportunities provide themselves, certain operation support functions, and we want to modernize delivery on systems and processes. So some of this is building services systems. Some of it is security systems. It's just how do we modernize how we deliver what the organization needs to, again, affect its mission?

So all of these keystone projects now have been identified by the teams who just completed phase three. So the way we will now move from the end of phase three going forward is some of these projects are very specific to a bureau, and they'll be handed to the bureau for the bureau to implement. So your bureau, if you've got a keystone project, it's going to be up to you to decide how you should best implement that. Some of the projects involve multiple stakeholders and cut across multiple bureaus, and in those cases we're going to put together tiger teams to work together to develop the execution plan for that keystone project.

When we're done – somewhere along the way as we're implementing these, there will likely come some outputs that say, as a result of – now we've – now we're ready to execute this keystone project in a bureau or in one of these tiger teams, and it does say we've got the wrong organization structure for this now that we're changing it. That's when it's time to move the boxes around. It's informed by this work, not the other way around.

So whether organizational boxes change or not will depend on what comes out of the execution of these keystone projects. If there's a consolidation that supports what these projects are trying to achieve in efficiency, elimination of duplication, moving the mission forward, then we will take those steps to consolidate. But we're not going to consolidate just for the sake of consolidating. It'll be driven by this.

Next step that's important is obviously congressional touchpoints, interagency coordination. I have pretty routine breakfast meetings with members from the Hill, Senate and House, both from our Foreign Relations Committees, our Appropriations, the authorizers, and so they have heard a little bit of this, but they've never heard all the details. I think I've got four Hill briefings that I'll be doing between this week and early next week now to share a lot of these details with them. We are going to need their support. Some of these changes that your teams have told us we need to make are going to require some congressional authorization. As you know better than I, a lot of what drives how you do things are what congressional authorities have put in place or what appropriators have put in place. But I've been consistently telling them for the last several months, "We're going to need you to help us. We're going to need you to enable us to do some things. You're going to have to give us some flexibility. If you really want us to change the way the State Department gets its work done and be more efficient, more effective, we're going to need you to give us some freedom of movement."

But we owe it to them to explain what that means and how they can hold us accountable. And they should hold us accountable for delivery. If we're going to make a change, then we have to be accountable for that. And clearly, there are interagency coordination issues because many of these processes touch other agencies that are important to us. So we'll be having to manage those interfaces as well.

And then finally a real, obviously, key to the success of this whole effort is going to be strong leadership. And we are early next year going to begin a process of examining how do we deliver leadership training to people, how do we measure how effective that has been, and how do we help people continue this lifelong journey of leadership development. Because one of the things I know that – and a lot of times I used to speak on a lot of campuses, and they would ask me the question: Are there born leaders? And I'd tell them no. No, there are not. There are leadership qualities, in my experience, in every individual. Are they the same? No. That gets back to this potential issue. But there are leadership qualities in everyone, but they have to be developed, they have to be trained. You have to learn leadership. You have to learn it, then you have to go practice it, and you have to make mistakes, and you have to fail, and you have to step back and learn from it. But leadership development is lifelong.

I got my first supervisory job when I was 27-years old. I'll be 66 in a few months; I'm still developing as a leader. I haven't figured it out. It's something that you learn and work on forever. If you are devoted to being a good leader, you know you are always a work in progress. So how do we put our leadership development programs in place that allow people to continue to always develop as a leader in those leadership skills? So we're going to be looking at a fairly comprehensive examination of how we deliver leadership training currently. I'm sure some of it's great. But how do we measure that, and how do we improve it and make it more effective, because at the end of the day, that's what's required to be successful not just in these initiatives, but on our day-to-day missions as well. So these are the next steps that are in front of us.

So what are – what does this mean? We think about it this way – actually, your teams thought about it this way and I kind of liked it. (Laughter.) Leadership plus modernization is going to allow us greater mission impact. And that – at the end of the day, that's what it's about. That's what we owe the American people, is to deliver on our mission every day on their behalf as effectively as we can. And if things are getting in the way of our ability to deliver on that mission, we need to fix those things that are getting in the way. Leadership plus modernization, which was all those things your teams came up with, that's going to help us deliver on our mission.

So next slide. So what is the mission? Well, first, let's talk about a vision. And again, this comes with a lot of input from your colleagues. What's the vision? On behalf of the American people, we promote and demonstrate democratic values and advance a free, peaceful, and prosperous world. Our vision is for a free, peaceful, and prosperous world. That's why you're here. That's why I'm here. A free, peaceful, and prosperous world. That is the art of diplomacy. That is our vision. That's when we know we have succeeded. How do we do that? We do it with the mission. For the State Department, we advance the interests of the American people, their safety, and economic prosperity by leading America's foreign policy through diplomacy, through advocacy, and where needed, through assistance.

So that's the how we do it. How do we achieve a free, peaceful, and prosperous world? We do it by leading America's foreign policy through diplomacy, through advocacy, and through assistance where needed. And USAID, important partner of ours under the auspices of the State Department, the U.S. Agency for International Development supports America's foreign policy by leading the U.S. Government's international development and humanitarian efforts through partnerships and investments that save lives, reduce poverty, and help people progress beyond assistance. They support our foreign policy objectives through international development and humanitarian efforts, projection of America's values, through working with others, by investing in lives to reduce poverty, to basically work themselves out of a job.

USAID hopes to create conditions in countries that no longer need our help. Director Mark Green made me very aware of that. His objective is to work USAID out of a job in certain countries. Now, regrettably, there's a lot of countries. He's got a long way to go. But we're there. We're there to help him get there. And this enables that, and that's what binds us together. So we got a vision that we all share: a free, peaceful, and prosperous world. And we know what we have to do to deliver that. And the only question is how do we get better at delivering on that, and that's all that redesign work that people have been working on for so long.

At the end of this, I'll come back to where I started: It is all about our greatest asset, you, the people. How do we develop the talent that resides inside of you, the capability inside of you, and then how do we enable you to put it to work on behalf of the American people? That's what the redesign's about, nothing more, nothing less. Out of that, we're going to get great returns to the American people, and you're going to get, I think, a much more fulfilling and rewarding career. And that's what I hope to deliver out of this for you.

So with that, I'm going to stop, and I think we have some time for questions. And – (applause) – so I welcome your questions. I think we're going to do a couple of icebreakers here, so go ahead, Steve.

UNDER SECRETARY GOLDSTEIN: Thank you very much. I'm Steve Goldstein. I'm the new under secretary for public diplomacy and public affairs, and it's a great honor to be here today. (Applause.) We asked for questions around the world, and why don't we start with the first one we received: "Mr. Secretary, are you satisfied with the progress that we've made on DPRK's nuclear program?"

SECRETARY TILLERSON: Well, actually, I am. I'm quite satisfied. And this kind of gets back to people's expectations of how quickly daunting challenges like this can actually be solved. But if you think about where we started with this effort – and it really was articulated back in March – we had our first engagements with our two most important trilateral allies, Japan and South Korea, and then with the leadership in Beijing to articulate to them, here's our policy. Here's what we intend to do. Can we cooperate on this? Can you support this? Is it in your interest? And we expressed our view to them as to why it should be in their interest, and they, I think, agreed, and certainly have indicated so.

And then it takes some time to build this international understanding. And so through a lot of hard diplomacy, again, by many of you and many people at post, because we put out messages that we ask ambassadors and charges around the world to deliver to the host governments there, and then through a lot of hard work at the UN to achieve these two very important, very stringent resolutions around sanctions in response to these ongoing provocations from North Korea – it takes time to build that. We – I think we are really – we sense and we see we're kind of reaching the zenith of all of that effort. We have had countries around the world step forward and take actions they didn't have to, but because we engaged with them, explained to them why this was in their interest.

And we've had little countries that might not have a lot of economic activity with North Korea, but what did they do? They sent their diplomats home. Peru sent the North Korean ambassador home – Peru. You can say ah, what's the big deal in that? Well, I can tell you, when 20 – I think we now have 23 countries that have done that, and the regime in North Korea notices that their Peruvian ambassador is not in Peru anymore, he's back here. And that sends them a message: You're becoming disconnected from the world. And that's part of asking every country who agrees with this threat and wants to do something – we're going to give you an opportunity to do something to support it.

And I think the recognition internationally broadly and the actions that have been taken as a result have put us in a place that we've never been before in terms of a unified international message to North Korea: We do not accept your nuclear weapons program. We want you to make a different choice. And when you can amplify that message through as many countries as we've been able to amplify it, and then begin to actually put in place actions that are denying them significant revenue streams, that's to get their attention, to say you're really alone on this one and let's talk about this.

So I'm satisfied with where we've been able to move this pressure – I call it the peaceful pressure campaign – to this stage. Is it going to produce the result we want? We can only do our part of this, and the regime in Pyongyang is going to have to come to some decision about their future. We want them to make the right choice, which is to stop. Let's sit down and talk about it. Because if they keep going, they can cross a point at which there's nothing left for us in the diplomatic community to do – we've done everything we can do – and we don't want to get to that point. And I've said to my partner, Secretary Mattis, many times, if we get there, I've failed. I've failed. And I don't want to fail.

So we're going to keep it up. We're going to keep working with partners. And again, we have great support around the world on this issue. So I am satisfied with what our team has been able to put in place to this point, but we have no victory in hand.

UNDER SECRETARY GOLDSTEIN: Okay. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Before I ask the next question, after this we're going to open it up to questions from the audience, so if you could stand up – whoever wants to ask a question. Anything you'd like to ask, just stand at the microphone. I'll get to you soon, so we can get as many questions in as possible. The Secretary does need to leave around 11:30, 11:35.

So the second question, and this is from Calvin Clessas from the new office buildings branch, the Bureau of Diplomatic Security: "What challenges do you foresee as a result of the move of the United States diplomatic mission from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem?"

SECRETARY TILLERSON: Well, first, it's not going to be anything that happens right away, but the President has been very clear in his direction to me and to the State Department that with this decision, and by the law – by the law of the 1995 law, as many of you are familiar with – we will begin taking the actions necessary to move the embassy. But we've got to secure a site that's suitable. We've got to develop building plans that gives us the footprint that we believe we need to carry out the full complements of a mission in Israel, in Jerusalem. And then we have to build the building, and then we make the move.

So as I – I think I've answered the questions a couple of times when I was in Europe. There's nothing going to happen in the next couple of years because it'll take us that time to get to a stage that we can begin to actually implement the building itself. So it's probably no earlier than three years out, and that's pretty ambitious as it is, but the President has said move ahead. And we do expect that authorizers will support the move. It's in the law. They have reaffirmed their support for that law many times. So we expect that there won't be any issues other than our ability to just execute on as swift a schedule as we can and do it well to ensure that we have (inaudible) fully represent all of the needs of the United States.

UNDER SECRETARY GOLDSTEIN: Okay, thank you very much. I only see one person standing in line, so we definitely need to get some more people up here. This is your opportunity. You can ask whatever question you'd like.

Ma'am, if you could tell me your name first.

QUESTION: My name is Tommye Grant, and since I'm the only person standing --

UNDER SECRETARY GOLDSTEIN: Can you go to the microphone, Tommye?

SECRETARY TILLERSON: Yes, ma'am. (Laughter.)

QUESTION: I want you to remember this, Civil Service.

SECRETARY TILLERSON: Thank you.

UNDER SECRETARY GOLDSTEIN: Tommye presented the Secretary a pin.

SECRETARY TILLERSON: I have a pin from the Civil Service Association.

UNDER SECRETARY GOLDSTEIN: From the Civil Service Association. (Applause.)

SECRETARY TILLERSON: Thank you.

QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, on behalf of --

SECRETARY TILLERSON: Can we shake hands?

QUESTION: Yes.

SECRETARY TILLERSON: Have I shook your hand yet?

QUESTION: This is an opportunity. Where's the photographer?

SECRETARY TILLERSON: Have I shook your hand yet?

QUESTION: Here we are. (Laughter and applause.)

UNDER SECRETARY GOLDSTEIN: There we go.

QUESTION: Thank you, sir.

SECRETARY TILLERSON: Thank you. Now, some of you will remember the first day I got here --

UNDER SECRETARY GOLDSTEIN: Okay, Tommye, what's your question, Tommye?

QUESTION: I don't want to steal the thunder from Secretary Sullivan because we are going to be meeting. I am the president of the Civil Service Association and here's my short question.

SECRETARY TILLERSON: Sure.

QUESTION: I love the fact that you were candid about the culture here, and because you are, here's my short question: Where do you see us civil servants in your Tillerson Department of State?

SECRETARY TILLERSON: Where do I see civil servants? Well, civil servants are a vital component of the organizational capacity to deliver on the mission. I think what's important – and if you go back to the first day I arrived in the building, I said there were some things that were important to me, and one of which I said was honesty and integrity. I said we need to care about one another's safety and security, and I pledged to you we would. But we needed to put a great deal of emphasis on honesty, integrity, and accountability. And then the third was respect – respect for one another. Everyone in this organization has a vital role to play to deliver on that mission. They may not be the one at the table talking to or negotiating with a counterpart in another government, but a part of what they did got you there, put you at that table, and allowed you to be successful. And I think it's important that all of us first recognize every member of this organization is a valued talent resource, and we respect the individual roles of everyone in the organization. And there is, in my view – and this has been my view throughout my entire professional life – there is no distinction and there should be no distinction about the valuable role that each individual plays. Just because you hold a certain title or you're in a certain role that may give you a lot of visibility and you get mentioned in the news and whatnot, don't think you're special. (Laughter and applause.)

And I don't say that to diminish the importance of it, but don't forget there's a lot of people over here that are special too, and you got there because they did their job. (Applause.)

UNDER SECRETARY GOLDSTEIN: Thank you very much. Sir, tell me your name.

QUESTION: Is this even on?

UNDER SECRETARY GOLDSTEIN: It should be on.

QUESTION: It's --

UNDER SECRETARY GOLDSTEIN: Oh, okay.

SECRETARY TILLERSON: It's on now.

UNDER SECRETARY GOLDSTEIN: There you go.

QUESTION: I'll just step back. Hi there. I'm – thank you, Mr. Secretary, for taking the time for this. My name is Andrew Feinberg. I'm an intern at the Foreign Service Institute.

SECRETARY TILLERSON: Welcome.

QUESTION: And it's just been a pleasure to be here, and I really am hoping to go on. I've applied for the Foreign – I applied through the – for the Foreign Service. And as you may have heard, the numbers for the Foreign Service officer exam have fallen in the past year because a lot of people who are applying for the Foreign Service don't know if there will be a job at the end of the process. And I'd like to just get your word on what people who are applying for the Foreign Service should expect. What is your message to them?

SECRETARY TILLERSON: Well, first, I hope the walk around the world – if it told you anything, but nothing less – we haven't solved all the problems. We're going to need very talented Foreign Service officers to help us solve those problems in the future.

If you look at the actual numbers of Foreign Service officers in the State Department, it's essentially the same as it was in October of 2016. I think we have 10 fewer out of a 1,080-something. We have hired 300 new Foreign Service officers this year. The number of people taking the Foreign Service officer exam – I looked at a 10, 10 or 15-year history. I asked them to give me some historical perspective. We've been at these levels before, and so these are – this is not unprecedented.

And I do – but I do take the point, and I think what's really behind your question is people had a lot of uncertainty. They were feeling uncertain about the future of the department, and I hope we've begun to clarify some of that today. We wanted to wait until the teams had an opportunity to really get their thinking solidified so we knew exactly where we were going, but we're going to continue to need talent for many years to come. We want the best, we want the brightest, and we want to increase the diversity of our talent pool as well. So we're going to be working on all of those aspects of our talent management system.

So what I would tell you is study hard – (laughter) – study hard, score high, and good luck to you. And I – and we're pleased you're with us this summer. I'm glad you're having a great experience.

QUESTION: Thank you so much. (Applause.)

UNDER SECRETARY GOLDSTEIN: Thank you. And for those who are looking for a very talented Foreign Service officer when he passes the exam, it's Andrew Feinberg, F-E-I-N-B-E-R-G. (Laughter.) Now, how about the gentleman on the right side? If you can tell me your name, please.

QUESTION: Hi. My name is Timothy Savage. I'm a Foreign Service officer, currently in the IO bureau.

SECRETARY TILLERSON: Hi, Timothy.

QUESTION: If there's one thing that Foreign Service officers universally complain about, it's the bidding process. But I noticed that when you went through your list of projects, bidding wasn't mentioned. So I'm wondering, are there any plans to update or reform the bidding process for Foreign Service?

SECRETARY TILLERSON: The bidding?

QUESTION: Yeah.

SECRETARY TILLERSON: It is – I touched on it only – you might not have heard. I did touch on it only briefly in one of the keystone projects, which is around HR tools and systems, to make it easier for people to first know what the opportunities are, what the requirements and elements of that opportunity is, how do they learn more and how do they interface with the system itself. I've heard this from – I think I've heard from just about every Foreign Service officer at my luncheons as well, that this is a real frustration – frustration, but also something that has a certain opaqueness to it, and people are not quite sure how this process works. It shouldn't be opaque. It should be very transparent to people. So that is one of the issues that was identified by the teams to be dealt with as part of our HR re-exam as well.

UNDER SECRETARY GOLDSTEIN: Okay. Thank you very much. Sir, here on the left.

QUESTION: Good morning. My name is Paul Kervin. I work in IRM as a WAE. Mr. Tillerson, looking at your frequent flier miles, the results of your redesign effort, and the enthusiasm in your voice, is it fair to ask and say do you enjoy your job as Secretary of State? (Laughter.)

SECRETARY TILLERSON: Well, I'm smiling. (Applause.) I am learning to enjoy it. (Laughter.)

Look, it's – this is a hard job. I mean – I mean, it's difficult because of the issues, the complexity of the issues that you deal with. You wake up every morning, and the team that works closely with me in my front office know, because I say this many times to them, I start every morning with the thought, "How can I keep someone from being killed today?" I never had to start my mornings with that thought for 41 and a half years. I did worry about people's safety in my old career, because there were a lot of risks, and we did lose people, regrettably, due to operation problems. But this is a different – I didn't have to spend a lot of time worrying about civilians being killed, children being killed, people's rights, their dignity being violated in unimaginable ways. So I start every day with that simple question: What can I do today to keep someone from being killed? And I've had a – I've had to really struggle with getting used to that, because I take it very seriously.

When I say I'm learning to enjoy it, I am. I'm learning to enjoy it because I'm getting to know all of you better. And one of the things that you get enjoyment from are the people that you have the privilege to work with every day, and that was true for 41 and a half years of my life. And so coming to a place where I didn't know anybody and I don't know much about you, that's why I say I'm learning to enjoy it. Because now, having gone through everything I just described to you and have had great colleagues of yours supporting me and helping me through this year, I am enjoying it more. I enjoy the people. I enjoy you. And that's why – when you say, "Do you enjoy it?" The actual task at hand of dealing with North Korea? I don't enjoy that. I mean – (laughter) – but I enjoy working with Susan Thornton on it. Dealing with Pakistan – I don't enjoy that. But I enjoy dealing with Alice Wells and Ambassador Hale on it. You're great people, and I'm – because I'm now making more and more acquaintances and connections, and I have more time with people, I'm beginning to understand them – I enjoy that. That's what I enjoy, is I enjoy you. And we'll get some things done. (Applause.)

UNDER SECRETARY GOLDSTEIN: Thank you very much. It's 11:30; let's go for five more minutes. Ma'am on the right?

QUESTION: Thank you, sir. Abigail Rockwell, Presidential Management Fellowship, Civil Service, Office of Global Food Security.

SECRETARY TILLERSON: That's a long title. (Laughter.) See, this is why I have so much trouble. (Laughter.)

QUESTION: So our question was that many of our developing country partners are also areas of key concern for U.S. national security. And could you please detail sort of your approach to addressing both development – for example, education, food security, women's empowerment – and U.S. national security interest, and the role you see for sustainable development initiatives in advancing U.S. national security? Thank you.

SECRETARY TILLERSON: No, happy to. It's a great question. The priorities that we carry in to any particular country are going to be different given the circumstances in that country. And as I just shared with you, I start every day with how do I keep people from getting killed first. Now, that's not applicable to every country; I don't have to worry about that in certain countries, but I do in others. And so how we position things like sustainable development, full participation in the workforce, how people of different ethnicities, beliefs, orientations, how they're treated – all of those are what I have characterized many times to people as part of our value system. They are American values. They're expressed in the way we have worked through these issues, for our own civil society, and we then carry them with us. On every mission in every part of the world, they're part of the mission.

How – I think the question you're really getting to is: How do we action them, though? And I think there's – that's where my view is we look at a situation in a country or a region, and is it – is this the priority to them, or is saving lives the priority? My chief of staff handed me a copy of the Declaration of Independence this morning to look at, and three words were underlined: the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness. And that's kind of how I think about priorities. First, we've got to save lives. If we can do that, then we can create conditions for liberty. And if we can create the conditions for liberty, we create the conditions for equal participation, for how people are treated, for their dignity.

And if you think about the American journey on these issues – and we haven't completed our journey; we're still working on it, we're still a work in progress – that's kind of the way we had to go through it. Life, liberty, then happiness.

So these are values. It's: How do you action the values? And they retain their same prominence in every foreign policy mission objective we have. The question is: Are the conditions conducive to allow us to action them, or do we have to address some other things first? And sometimes we have to make other choices as being first. It didn't mean the values are gone, it didn't mean we're not going to get to those, but we have to deal with these other things first. Having said that, we have great international partners in all these arenas. We have great nongovernmental organizations that are important to our success. We should not just maintain those connections, but strengthen those connections and identify where are our best opportunities to deliver a result. Advocacy is important. It was in that mission statement. Advocacy is part of our mission.

I'm a results guy, though. I want to see results. And if we're pushing into a situation where we can't get a result because we got other priorities that are going to always be in the way, let's deal with those. Because I can't get to the – these values if I can't solve that. So we solve this and then we move to this.

But in other parts of the world, we should be all in because the conditions are there. There's no excuse. We should be leaning forward on it.

UNDER SECRETARY GOLDSTEIN: Okay. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Let's do one final question here on the left. I know you've been waiting for a while.

QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, thank you so much for doing this Town Hall today. My name is Nicole Otallah. I'm a career development officer in HR. You've spoken admirably about the need to increase diversity within the Department of State, already mentioning plans to increase diversity and recruitment. Do you or the redesign team perhaps have specific plans to increase diversity within the assignment or the promotion process, specifically at the entry, mid, and senior levels within the Foreign Service? And also, any plans for the Civil Service?

SECRETARY TILLERSON: Yes, we do. (Applause.) Diversity is an issue that you have to actively manage it. It's not going to just happen because you say it's a goal, it's an objective. You have to actively manage it, and you have to actively manage it in all of your processes.

One of the things that I asked the D committees to do when bringing forward ambassadorial candidates or certain positions is I've said I want to see the best diverse candidate we have for that position. Now, they may not be – maybe they're not yet ready because we didn't give them the right training or we hadn't given them the experience, but I want to see those names because then I want to say, "Well, what are you going to do to get them ready?" That's the real issue: What are you going to do to get these people ready so that we have not just a workforce, but importantly, as we deploy around the world – because we say – we say this to ourselves and I say it to every mission: You are the face of America. When you deploy overseas, this is what the rest of the world sees. This is America. Well, those faces should represent the diversity of America. It should look like America. That's one element of it.

The second element is I have learned over many, many years the value of different people's experiences – their growing-up experiences, their educational experiences, their thoughts. Bringing those on to the table for consideration strengthens our decisions, it strengthens our results, it strengthens our outcomes. And what I've also learned is it enriches your professional experience. You will live a more enriched life having benefited from the colleagues that bring those diverse perspectives into our processes of working and decision-making.

We have some work to do, and I touched on this in an earlier speech I gave in this room. And my intention is to actively manage this. And it's not just – obviously, you've got to have the right talent pool coming in, but where I see one of the most urgent needs is to address how we are developing the talent pool once we have them. (Applause.)

UNDER SECRETARY GOLDSTEIN: Let me – let me ask you, Mr. Secretary, one final question: Are you going to go to Texas for the holidays? And if you do go to Texas for the holidays and you're with your buddies who were in the oil field, and they say, "Rex, what do you do?" how are you going answer that question? (Laughter.)

SECRETARY TILLERSON: I am going to go to Texas for the holidays. I'm not sure I'm going to see very many of my buddies from the oil field. (Laughter.) I hope I'm going to see most of my cowboys on the ranch. Those are the guys I like to hang out with. I'm a great fan of the Western culture that's a rich part of the history of America. And I love the Western culture because I believe in the Code of the West. And the Code of the West had basically one tenet: Your word is your bond. We don't need a written contract, we don't need a bunch of lawyers to figure it out. We're going to shake hands on it and that's good enough for me if it's good enough for you.

And I've carried that philosophy throughout 41 and a half years of global diplomacy in the private sector, that before I ever concluded any deal – and of course, the lawyers and everybody – the contract writers – they had it all, but I would go to that country and meet that decision-maker, that head of state and look him in the eye and say, "Look, the only thing I need to know is you're going to live up to your side of this deal, and I promise you I'll live up to my side. Because the day is going to come when we're going to have some disagreements over this agreement, and I want to know that you and I are going to work this out. And we'll shake hands on it, and that's all I need to know." That's served me well for many, many years, and it serves me well today.

So I look forward to being back in Texas to be with people who have that value shared with me. And I'm going to saddle my favorite pony, Blue, up and I'm going to go out and check on some cows. (Laughter.) You all have a great holiday. Happy Hanukkah. Thank you.

UNDER SECRETARY GOLDSTEIN: Thank you all very much. Thank you for coming. (Applause.)



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