 Welcome to Brookings. I'm Michael Hanlon with the Foreign Policy Program, and it's my distinct honor today to welcome General Eric Smith, the 39th Commandant of the Marine Corps, to Brookings for a discussion on the state of the Marine Corps and the process of defense transformation in this important time under a national defense strategy of the Biden administration that, like that of the preceding Trump administration, is trying to reorient the U.S. Department of Defense for great power competition and specifically deterrence of China and the Pacific, as well as handling the ongoing crisis with Russia.