Kathleen Hicks, PhD, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and Thomas Mahnken, PhD, of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments — who served on the National Defense Strategy Commission — discuss US defense strategy, making hard tradeoffs and importance of rhetoric in great power competition with Defense & Aerospace Report Editor Vago Muradian. The interview was conducted on the sidelines of the West Coast Aerospace Forum at the Rand Corporation’s headquarters in Santa Monica, Calif. The forum is sponsored by Rand, The Aerospace Corporation, CSIS and the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.