00:00So today, we are leveraging a unique source of American advantage, one our adversaries do not have.
00:06Our innovators, our senior leaders, and our technologists.
00:11Big thinkers and doers who will forecast the creative solution for tomorrow's conflicts.
00:17And that's why today, at my direction, I'm announcing Project Meridian,
00:23an effort led by America's best minds to study the future of warfare.
00:29Under the leadership of the department's chief technology officer, Emil Michael,
00:34Project Meridian will be co-led by three of our nation's best minds.
00:40Elon Musk, Palmer Luckey, and Newt Gingrich, all of whom are up in the audience with us today.
00:49Please stand, if you would.
01:05Those three great Americans are going to be joined by a team of senior leaders, hand-picked private sector leaders,
01:12and subject matter experts from across our nation's unmatched innovation, academic, and policy ecosystems.
01:19Project Meridian, the future of warfare, is not about developing new strategies or new policies.
01:25We already do that.
01:27Rather, its purpose is to creatively look to the future and identify the domains that we must conquer
01:34and capabilities we must master.
01:37We should have been thinking about autonomous warfare command 10 years ago.
01:41We need to be looking forward into the future to achieve technological and military dominance on the battlefield for decades
01:48to come.
01:49It is futuristic on purpose.
01:52Their work will be focused on discovering, developing, and fielding the weapons and systems that our children and our grandchildren
02:00will need in their lifetimes without any creative limitations or restrictions.
02:06On any future battlefield, from under the earth to beyond the moon, our American warriors will be armed with absolute
02:16technological superiority because we will have the foresight to prepare today for tomorrow.
02:23And we're going to do so rapidly.
02:25That's why I'm directing Project Meridian's findings to be completed and submitted within 120 days, culminating in a full public
02:34rollout, of course, a classified annex,
02:36to ensure this is not just another endless Pentagon study that is outdated before it is finished.
02:43In fact, our first meeting with those three great Americans and a small group of us is happening in a
02:48skiff about 200 yards away right after this speech.
02:51We are going to hit the ground running.
02:54And in that time, Project Meridian will ruthlessly map the trajectory of war's domains and technologies to ensure this war
03:02department, your war department, dominates the future.
03:07Now, the future is where we will fight, but there we need to maintain what we have as well in
03:15the process and make it impenetrable.
03:18For decades, we built the most powerful military in the world, and then we quietly, we made it, and regrettably,
03:25made it dependent.
03:27Dependent on foreign mines for rare earths, on overseas factories for microchips, on foreign supply chains for weapons, and on
03:36a civilian power grid to keep the lights on at our bases.
03:41Well, that ends today with my third announcement.
03:44Today at my direction, we are launching Fortress America, a national insurance policy for the American homeland.
03:52Now, Fortress stands for Federal Operations for Resilience, Troop Resources, Energy, Supply, and Survivability.
04:02And here's what Fortress calls for.
04:05Every major military installation in America is going to generate its own power.
