[House Hearing, 113 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.A.S.C. No. 113-102]
THE 2014 QUADRENNIAL DEFENSE REVIEW
__________
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
HEARING HELD
APRIL 3, 2014
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COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
One Hundred Thirteenth Congress
HOWARD P. ``BUCK'' McKEON, California, Chairman
MAC THORNBERRY, Texas ADAM SMITH, Washington
WALTER B. JONES, North Carolina LORETTA SANCHEZ, California
J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia MIKE McINTYRE, North Carolina
JEFF MILLER, Florida ROBERT A. BRADY, Pennsylvania
JOE WILSON, South Carolina SUSAN A. DAVIS, California
FRANK A. LoBIONDO, New Jersey JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island
ROB BISHOP, Utah RICK LARSEN, Washington
MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio JIM COOPER, Tennessee
JOHN KLINE, Minnesota MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO, Guam
MIKE ROGERS, Alabama JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut
TRENT FRANKS, Arizona DAVID LOEBSACK, Iowa
BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania NIKI TSONGAS, Massachusetts
K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas JOHN GARAMENDI, California
DOUG LAMBORN, Colorado HENRY C. ``HANK'' JOHNSON, Jr.,
ROBERT J. WITTMAN, Virginia Georgia
DUNCAN HUNTER, California COLLEEN W. HANABUSA, Hawaii
JOHN FLEMING, Louisiana JACKIE SPEIER, California
MIKE COFFMAN, Colorado RON BARBER, Arizona
E. SCOTT RIGELL, Virginia ANDREE CARSON, Indiana
CHRISTOPHER P. GIBSON, New York CAROL SHEA-PORTER, New Hampshire
VICKY HARTZLER, Missouri DANIEL B. MAFFEI, New York
JOSEPH J. HECK, Nevada DEREK KILMER, Washington
JON RUNYAN, New Jersey JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas
AUSTIN SCOTT, Georgia TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois
STEVEN M. PALAZZO, Mississippi SCOTT H. PETERS, California
MO BROOKS, Alabama WILLIAM L. ENYART, Illinois
RICHARD B. NUGENT, Florida PETE P. GALLEGO, Texas
KRISTI L. NOEM, South Dakota MARC A. VEASEY, Texas
PAUL COOK, California TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii
JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma
BRAD R. WENSTRUP, Ohio
JACKIE WALORSKI, Indiana
BRADLEY BYRNE, Alabama
Robert L. Simmons II, Staff Director
Kari Bingen, Professional Staff Member
Michael Casey, Professional Staff Member
Aaron Falk, Clerk
C O N T E N T S
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CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS
2014
Page
Hearing:
Thursday, April 3, 2014, The 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review..... 1
Appendix:
Thursday, April 3, 2014.......................................... 37
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THURSDAY, APRIL 3, 2014
THE 2014 QUADRENNIAL DEFENSE REVIEW
STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
McKeon, Hon. Howard P. ``Buck,'' a Representative from
California, Chairman, Committee on Armed Services.............. 1
Smith, Hon. Adam, a Representative from Washington, Ranking
Member, Committee on Armed Services............................ 2
WITNESSES
Winnefeld, ADM James A. ``Sandy,'' Jr., USN, Vice Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, U.S. Department of Defense.............. 5
Wormuth, Christine E., Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for
Strategy, Plans and Force Development, U.S. Department of
Defense........................................................ 4
APPENDIX
Prepared Statements:
McKeon, Hon. Howard P. ``Buck''.............................. 41
Smith, Hon. Adam............................................. 43
Wormuth, Christine E., joint with ADM James A. ``Sandy''
Winnefeld, Jr.............................................. 45
Documents Submitted for the Record:
[There were no Documents submitted.]
Witness Responses to Questions Asked During the Hearing:
Mr. Gibson................................................... 57
Mr. McKeon................................................... 57
Questions Submitted by Members Post Hearing:
Mr. Langevin................................................. 61
THE 2014 QUADRENNIAL DEFENSE REVIEW
----------
House of Representatives,
Committee on Armed Services,
Washington, DC, Thursday, April 3, 2014.
The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:04 a.m., in room
2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Howard P. ``Buck''
McKeon (chairman of the committee) presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. HOWARD P. ``BUCK'' MCKEON, A
REPRESENTATIVE FROM CALIFORNIA, CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON ARMED
SERVICES
The Chairman. The committee will come to order.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Before we begin, I want
to express my condolences to the victims and families of the
Fort Hood shooter. Though we do not yet know the motivation
behind this horrific attack, it is a grim reminder that danger
persists even when our troops come home.
Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their
families from the Fort Hood community, and I would like to ask
each of you if you would join me in a moment of silence for
those families.
Thank you.
The committee meets today to receive testimony on the 2014
Quadrennial Defense Review [QDR]. Joining us today are Admiral
Sandy Winnefeld, Vice Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff, and
Ms. Christine Wormuth, Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for
Strategy, Plans and Force Development.
Thank you both very much for being here today.
I have called the Department to rewrite and resubmit the
QDR report, and I intend to include a provision in the upcoming
NDAA [National Defense Authorization Act] to that effect.
I appreciate the work that has gone into this year's
product, and I understand that past QDRs were less than
perfect. However, I am concerned that these reports have grown
less compliant with the law, and strayed further from the
intent of Congress.
The QDR is meant to be a useful tool for Congress to
understand the longer-term strategic challenges and
opportunities facing the Department. It is meant to inform a
thoughtful debate on our defense strategy and the resources
needed to fulfill it.
We recognize that the QDR also drives a valuable internal
process for the Department. But if it only leads to a
justification of programs in the budget, then both the
Department and Congress have lost a major opportunity to bring
together key national security stakeholders and strategic
thinkers to discuss and debate how we shape the longer-term
direction of our forces, their missions, and their
capabilities.
Instead, what we have before us this year is, in essence, a
5-year outlook of validation of a force structure that the
services admit is driven by budget constraints, and a strategy
that assumes increased risk to the force.
Moreover, we have before us a strategy that has not changed
since the last one was issued in 2012. At the time, General
Dempsey testified that if the military had to absorb more cuts,
and I quote--``we have to adjust our strategy.'' Since then,
the military has absorbed an additional $330 billion in cuts,
not including sequestration that returns in fiscal year 2016.
Yet, the strategy before us remains unchanged. It asks our men
and women in uniform to fulfill all the same missions and
requirements, but with a smaller force, less capabilities, and
ultimately, increased risk to those who would go into harm's
way.
The strategy sizes the force to simultaneously defeat one
regional adversary, and deny another. However, in testimony we
received from the combatant commanders and service chiefs, our
military under the funding profile for defense currently in law
can barely muster enough forces to execute even one major
contingency operation.
While the QDR recognizes the world is growing more
volatile, and in some cases, more threatening to the United
States, it makes no adjustments to reflect that change. For
example, Russia's invasion of Ukraine and its longer-term
intentions should cause us to rethink the current QDR tenet
that suggests cooperation and nuclear reductions will make us
safer.
Strong U.S. leadership and influence must be matched by a
strong military. This was a missed opportunity to communicate
the linkage between strategy and resources, and the inflection
point at which the United States finds itself.
I look forward to your testimony with regard to this issue.
Mr. Smith.
[The prepared statement of Mr. McKeon can be found in the
Appendix on page 41.]
STATEMENT OF HON. ADAM SMITH, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM WASHINGTON,
RANKING MEMBER, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And I join the chairman in acknowledging and wishing the
best for the victims of the shooting in Fort Hood. Our thoughts
and prayers are with them and their families, as regrettably
another child--another tragedy strikes that base. And this
committee will work hard to try understand it better and figure
out what we can do to prevent these in the future.
So, I thank you for the recognition of that and the moment
of silence. And I thank our witnesses for being here today to
talk about the QDR and to talk about our strategy.
And I think, you know, the largest problem with QDR--and I
don't disagree with many of the chairman's comments about the
fact that it is not as informative as it could be. But one of
the biggest problems is, just in general with all QDRs, is the
unpredictability of, gosh, 2, 3 years in the future, much less
15 or 20.
As the chairman and many others have pointed out, when it
comes to predicting future national security threats and where
we are going to have to go to war, we do not have a very good
record. And I think the reason for that is, the world is
unpredictable. Things change. Looking that far out into the
future, the variables significantly outweigh the constants, and
that makes it difficult to accurately predict.
I think this time, however, the QDR face the even greater
challenge of the uncertain budget future. It would be one thing
if we knew for certain that we were going to have 8 years of
sequestration--that this was the budget, this was the number,
and we had to take a step back and look at, okay, what are we
going to do? I will tell you that that picture would be very,
very scary in terms of the blow it would make to our national
security, to our industrial base, and all manner of different
pieces that are incredibly important to this committee. But we
can't be certain.
We were--you know, we had sequestration until we didn't for
2015--for 2014 and 2015. So, if you are putting together a QDR,
you are being asked to, you know, understand what the resources
are, and you don't know what those resources are, that makes it
a very, very difficult process.
And, of course, we have what seems like one of the more
uncertain threat environments that we have had in a long time--
with Iran and North Korea, you know, the metastasization of Al
Qaeda and their ideology, with what Russia is doing in Eastern
Europe. And it is a very uncertain time and it makes it very,
very difficult to predict. So, for the most part, I think any
limitations that the QDR face is simply because of the
uncertainty of all of those factors making it difficult to make
those predictions.
I will say that the one thing that I have always found
unfortunate about the QDR is, it does not prioritize very well.
It does a fairly decent job of weighing out what the threats
are, and lists a whole lot of different things that we ought to
be concerned about. But I have always felt, if you have 20 top
priorities, then you have none. We have to be able to choose
from among all of those things. And one of the things we look
for from the QDR is to give us their best expert assumption as
to out of these multiple different possible threats that we
face, what are the ones we ought to be most worried about, and
how should we respond?
We are not going to hold the folks who put the QDR to that,
and say that you have to be right. We obviously will adjust as
we go forward. But the QDR process would be incredibly useful
if they would take it and say, ``We are going to give you our
best assumption, based on the facts we have, as to how you
should prioritize,'' not just say, ``Here is everything you
ought to be worried about. Go ahead and worry.'' It is better
if we can prioritize and figure out how to manage risk, which,
as, you know, all the folks over at the Pentagon always tell
us, is essentially their job.
You are not going to eliminate risk. You simply have to try
figure out what it is and manage it as best as possible. And
that is more easily done if we make some choices about how to
prioritize the threats and concerns that we face.
With that, I look forward to the testimony. I welcome
Admiral Winnefeld and Mrs. Wormuth here. I look forward to your
expertise and to the questions and answers as we go forward.
I yield back, and I thank the chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Smith can be found in the
Appendix on page 43.]
The Chairman. Who is going first?
Madam Secretary.
STATEMENT OF CHRISTINE E. WORMUTH, DEPUTY UNDER SECRETARY OF
DEFENSE FOR STRATEGY, PLANS AND FORCE DEVELOPMENT, U.S.
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
Ms. Wormuth. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Representative Smith and members of the
committee. It is my pleasure to talk with you this morning
about the Department's 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review. And I
will try to keep my opening statement pretty brief so we can
get to questions.
The 2014 QDR is an evolution of our strategy. The updated
defense strategy builds on the DSG [Defense Strategic Guidance]
that the administration put out in 2012, and outlines what our
joint force needs to be able to accomplish in the next 10 to 20
years.
We have tried to lay out our plan to responsibly rebalance
the military, given changes in the security environment and the
fiscal environment. We also tried to explain how the Department
intends to rebalance internally to be more efficient to get
greater buying power for our dollar and to control cost growth
into the future.
The QDR is based on our assessment of the future security
environment, and it is strategy-driven, as a result. We looked
out 20 years, considering potential challenges, threats on the
horizon, and for areas where we can work together with allies
and partners to address common security issues.
We also believe we will continue to face a complex and
uncertain world, one that presents opportunities, but also one
that poses many threats to our interests, our forces, and our
friends and allies around the world.
Based on our assessment of that security environment, the
2014 QDR builds on the priorities articulated in the 2012
Defense Strategic Guidance and incorporates them into a broader
strategic framework.
The Department's updated strategy emphasizes three pillars:
protecting the homeland, building security globally, and
projecting power and winning decisively. These three pillars
are interrelated and interdependent. We need all three of them
to be able to successfully protect and advance our national
interests.
To execute the strategy effectively, the joint force must
be capable of conducting a broad range of activities at any
given time. It is not enough to be capable of defeating an
adversary and denying the objectives of another aggressor if
deterrence fails. Our forces must also be able to protect the
homeland, to assure and deter around the world in multiple
regions, and conduct persistent counterterrorism operations.
Our updated force planning construct in the QDR reflects the
full breadth of these demands.
To ensure that we can execute our QDR strategy and the
force planning construct, we are rebalancing the force, making
tradeoffs among capability, capacity, and readiness.
Because of the readiness challenges we have had in the last
few years, the Department has had to make especially tough
choices balancing between capacity and capabilities.
Key decisions in the President's fiscal year 2015 budget
proposal include reducing capacity in ground forces, reducing
or eliminating capacity in single-mission aviation platforms,
and undertaking some temporary ship layups. We are also
protecting key investments, particularly in the areas of cyber
capability, space, and special operations forces, to name a
few.
Overall, the QDR puts forth an updated national defense
strategy that we believe is right for the country. At the
President's budget level, which does ask for more resources
than if sequestration were to continue, we believe we can
execute the strategy, although with increased risk in certain
areas.
These risks would grow significantly, however, if we return
to sequestration-level cuts in fiscal year 2016, if proposed
reforms in the area of compensation, for example, are not
accepted, or if uncertainty about budget levels continues. And
the QDR report, as you know, outlines these potential risks in
some detail.
Mr. Chairman, I thank you--Representative Smith--for the
opportunity to talk with you today, and for the continued
leadership of this committee. I look forward to your questions.
[The joint prepared statement of Ms. Wormuth and Admiral
Winnefeld can be found in the Appendix on page 45.]
The Chairman. Thank you.
Admiral.
STATEMENT OF ADM JAMES A. ``SANDY'' WINNEFELD, JR., USN, VICE
CHAIRMAN OF THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF
DEFENSE
Admiral Winnefeld. Chairman McKeon, Ranking Member Smith,
distinguished members of the committee, thanks also for the
opportunity to be with you today. I also thank you, sir, for
your sentiments regarding the tragedy of Fort Hood yesterday
afternoon. We are working very hard to take care of the victims
and the families, and we will ultimately get to the bottom of
what went wrong at Fort Hood yesterday. But thank you so much
for your concern.
I would like to set the stage by saying that Chairman
Dempsey and I believe that strategy, including QDR strategy, is
mostly about balancing ends, ways, and means, and then
assessing the resultant risk. We try very hard, the two of us,
to keep this balance in mind.
We believe that the most fundamental ``ends'' of any
national defense strategy boil down to our enduring national
security interests. The chairman has derived those interests
from the President's 2010 National Security Strategy. He has
articulated them in his QDR endorsement. And he has used them
as the structure of the Chairman's Risk Assessment. So, they
are very useful.
It is our duty to protect those interests against the
threats we foresee in the current and future security
environment--threats that become more opaque as we look deeper
into the future, but all of which appear to be accelerating
their employment of new technology.
The ``ways'' of our strategy are how we do our job. They
are what we believe our force needs to be able to do, and that
can be found at the macro level in the QDR's force planning
construct.
Ways are also how we do our job, such as our operational
plans and concepts, and, in fact, the ways we run the
Department.
Regarding ``means,'' Bernard Brodie said that strategy
wears a dollar sign. The means of our strategy are the
resources we are provided by the United States Congress, and
how together, we invest those resources in the capability,
capacity, and readiness of our forces and the structure that
supports those forces.
Now, every strategy--every balanced combination of ends,
ways, and means--lives inside a band of risk. Because assessing
risk is as much art as it is science, it is imprecise,
imperfect, and subjective, and is usually articulated in
adjectives that are hard to describe.
A strategy that falls out of balance implies increased
risk. If we want to retain the same ends, but our means
decrease dramatically, then we have to try to restore strategic
balance by either finding better ways, or trying to obtain more
means, or we have to accept a bit more risk in our ends.
I believe all three are exactly what we are doing in this
QDR. So, a key question is, exactly how much risk are we
accepting? I would say that risk should be considered to a
strategy in two layers.
The first layer is what I would call ends/ways risk.
Whether our ends--our enduring national security interests--are
adequately protected by the ways that we have constructed.
This QDR's ways--the what and how of our efforts in both
peacetime and wartime--are based on the strategic defense
guidance published in 2012. And if properly resourced, we
believe they will protect our national security interest ends
within that moderate risk band. There is always more we can do,
but we believe we have this about right.
The next layer, I would say, is what I would call ways/
means risk. Whether the ways of our strategy are executable
within the means we are provided. During the Strategic Choices
and Management Review last spring, we found that this
strategy's ways are not executable at moderate risk at the
Budget Control Act [BCA] level of funding. We simply won't have
enough modernized and ready stuff in our force to get all the
jobs done, both in the near and the long term. In short, we
will be out of balance.
So, we had a choice. With reduced means, we could have
down-scoped the strategy's ways to align with BCA funding
levels, and accepted a good deal more risk to our ends. But
that really would be a purely budget-driven strategy, and none
of us want that.
Instead, we submitted a QDR that says what we need to do
and what that requires, and a budget request that, if resourced
over the next 5 years, will provide the additional means we
need to execute the ways that will protect our national
security ends, thus keeping the strategy in balance, albeit at
higher aggregate risk than the President's fiscal year 2014
budget request.
Mr. Chairman, as Chairman Dempsey says in his QDR
endorsement, ``If our elected leaders reversed the BCA cap
soon, and if we can execute the promises''--meaning the ways--
``of the QDR, then I believe we can deliver security to the
nation at moderate risk.''
To be candid, I would describe that higher aggregate ways/
means risk as pushing very hard on the high edge of the
moderate band. Certainly higher than in the President's 2014
budget request.
Now, just like my kids have an aggregate grade point
average, but some of their grades are higher or lower than
their average, QDR risk is low in some areas, and in other
areas, it actually exceeds the moderate band.
There are four relevant points here. First, if the higher
areas of risk were against a highly ranked national security
interest--and remember, that is what the ends are--like
protecting our homeland against catastrophic attacks, then we
probably would have assessed the aggregate level of risk as
being outside the moderate band. Fortunately, that is not the
case. And we will soon provide our assessment--the chairman's
assessment of risk--against specific national security
interests in the classified Chairman's Risk Assessment.
Second, readiness risk in the near term is higher than
moderate, because we are still recovering from the effects of
the precipitous drop in funding we experienced last year, due
to sequester, as well as the fact that we need to reset from
two wars.
You have probably heard from our combatant commanders on
this, because the near term is where they live.
The BBA--Budget--or the Bipartisan Budget Act--is simply
not enough in fiscal year 2015 to get us back on track as fast
as we think we should. And the Opportunity, Growth, and
Security Initiative would certainly be helpful in repairing
that. But in the QDR 20-year long term, we believe that we will
eventually be able to match readiness to the eventual size of
our force.
Third, the future risk level associated with our budget
submission depends on Congress approving the combination of
capabilities, capacities, and readiness we have requested, as
well as the important proposals we are making for efficiencies
and compensation. This budget is fragile. As more items are
changed, the impact will ripple through and distort our force,
and could quickly push us out of the QDR moderate risk band.
And fourth, our ability to continue to innovate
technically, tactically, and in our business practices, will be
an important factor that helps keep us inside the moderate
band. This has to occur across many different areas deeply and
quickly, and will require us to be more willing to reward risk-
taking and promote creative leadership.
Finally, I want to mention that one of the most important
themes that I think distinguishes this QDR from others, as the
chairman and I see it, is that of rebalance. And I am not just
talking about rebalance to the Pacific. This is about rebalance
across the entire Department in six key areas, including
rebalancing the wars for which we prepare and how we do that;
rebalancing our efforts regionally; rebalancing capability,
capacity, and readiness within our force, which is out of
balance now; rebalancing tooth and tail; rebalancing Active and
Reserve; and rebalancing compensation.
We are going to need considerable help from Congress to
make these rebalance initiatives happy. And I am happy to
discuss them as need be, either here or in private.
As always, thank you for your enduring support to the men
and women we have serving in uniform. And thank you again for
the opportunity to speak this morning, and I do look forward to
your questions.
Thank you, sir.
[The joint prepared statement of Admiral Winnefeld and Ms.
Wormuth can be found in the Appendix on page 45.]
The Chairman. Thank you very much.
One of the things that has been a little perplexing to me
is when the Secretary and the chairman came up and presented
the budget, they presented it in a way, I think, that leads to
confusion. In other words, they said that if sequestration
kicks back in--no, they said the budget will take us down to
440,000 to 450,000 in the Army, and down to 175,000 the
Marines--or 184,000 the Marines, unless sequestration comes
back. And then in that case, it would go down to 420,000, 400,
and 175,000 for the Marines.
And to me, I think, you know, we deal with this all the
time here, so we kind of understand all the nuances and so
forth, but I don't think the American public gets it. I think
the media ran stories immediately that the Army was going to be
taken down to 440,000 or 450,000.
No. My understanding is, sequestration is the law. As much
as I dislike it, it is the law. And it does kick back in again
in 2016. And unless we face the fact of how dire that will be,
there is very little chance of changing it. And so, when we say
440,000, 450,000, instead of the reality of the 420,000 or the
175,000, and taking down a carrier, taking down cruisers--all
of this--I think we--I don't understand why we don't lay out
the reality, as dire as it is right now, to try to get the
American people to understand how serious this is.
Can you explain to me that strategy?
Admiral Winnefeld. No, I think you are on to something. You
are exactly correct that it is important that the American
people understand the difference between Budget Control Act
levels and the levels at which we submitted. They are
significant. We intentionally crafted this so that we could
point out what that difference is.
I can rattle them off by memory, most of them. The
difference between those two levels is 50,000 to 60,000
ground--Army ground troops, both Active and Reserve. It is
about 7,000 Marines difference. It is a large number of ships
that we will not be able to purchase. It is an additional F-35
squadron. We have to get rid of all the KC-10s in the near
term.
We will lose 10 ISR [intelligence, surveillance, and
reconnaissance] orbits, which is about 30 platforms, to make up
those 10 orbits. We will lose significant amounts of research,
development, and engineering to promote our future force. We
are going to lose a bunch of readiness. And that, taken in the
aggregate, if removed from this submission, will definitely
kick us out of the moderate risk band that this QDR portrays.
So, it is stark. It is real. And, Mr. Chairman, the BCA
level is not enough to execute this strategy. The ways/means
risk that I described falls out of the band.
The Chairman. It just seemed to me that would have been
less confusing if that were just--if it were just the budget as
it is, because this is something that the House, the Senate,
agreed to. We actually got back to regular order somewhat,
where they had a conference, and they came up with a final
solution, signed it. Sent it to the President. He signed it.
And it is the law going forward. And it gave us 2 years, which
brought a little--a little certainty, and put a little money
back into defense from sequestration levels.
If the budget had just been presented, that this is the way
it is, and it is going to take us down to 420,000--it is going
to take all of those reductions that you have mentioned--I
think people could focus on that. But the way it was presented,
it was just kind of like, this is the way it will be unless we
follow the law. And I just don't think they get those nuances.
And I was a little disappointed in that, and will continue to
try to talk about those differences.
Building just a little on what Ranking Member Smith talked
about--if you have 20 priorities, you know--I think your
statement was, if you have 20, you don't have any priorities.
So, to me, there is one overriding issue that really is
bothering me. I would like to know, as the two of you went
through this process--and, Admiral, you have been doing this
for a long time now. And you look at--if you were to say what
is the greatest risk in potential loss of life, casualties,
that confronts us today, where would you say that is in the
world?
Admiral Winnefeld. That is a good question, Mr. Chairman.
We tend to think in terms, first, of risk to interests. And
then specific areas of the world that affect those interests.
So, clearly, the highest national security interest the
chairman and I believe we have is the survival of our Nation,
followed by prevention of catastrophic attacks--read terrorist
attacks like 9/11, or a nuclear missile coming from a rogue
state, or something like that.
So, in terms of the highest risk to American people that is
out there in the world, it would be one of those two high
national security interests that would be threatened. But we
also feel that the capabilities and the capacities we have in
place and that we have programmed keep that risk very
manageable.
We are working very hard, as you know, on missile defense.
We have a very strong nuclear deterrent that we are
maintaining. We have got some work to do there, as some of the
members are very well familiar with those issues. But I think
we are okay there.
So, you start to work into other areas where we have
interests, such as secure, confident, reliable allies and
partners. There are a lot of places in this world where those
are threatened--where our allies are threatened. We have just
seen it happen with our NATO [North Atlantic Treaty
Organization] allies, who are now nervous about what is going
on in Eastern Europe. There is the constant threat in the
Pacific, and the Korean Peninsula and the like.
So, that is sort of the middle strategic interests for us
that are constantly at risk.
In terms of American lives, though, we have always
prioritized defending the homeland. I think we are in a pretty
good moderate risk band there. I hope that helps.
The Chairman. The thing I am most concerned about right now
is the Korean Peninsula. Because I think--you know, we had the
briefing this week with General Scaparrotti. And I have been to
Korea a few times. And I just--I see the unstableness there.
Plus, how many people, both Koreans and Americans, live very
close to the DMZ [demilitarized zone], and are under--they are
targeted right now by all of their artillery, let alone the
other tools that they have. And if something blew up there, I
would think the loss of life in hours and days would be so
high, compared to any other threat that I see around the world
right now. That is just something that is really bothering me.
Mr. Smith.
Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just a couple comments
on, you know, part of the challenge of what you have put
together there, and, you know, the notion of why didn't you
just budget to sequestration.
Well, two answers to that. First of all, yes, sequestration
from 2016 forward is the law of the land. But sequestration for
2014 and 2015 was the law of the land, as well, until it
wasn't. So, if you budget all that and then you got to reverse
back around--so, you guys are sort of trying to guess as to
what it is that we are going to send you in terms of the
budget, and I don't think you are going to win either way.
Because the other thing that I will point out is the thing that
I have consistently heard from the other side of the aisle in
this committee is harsh criticism of you in the Pentagon for
letting the budget drive your strategy. And, you know, if you
had come out and said, ``Well, sequestration is the law of the
land. Therefore, here is what we are going to do,'' I can only
imagine that the volume of that criticism would be even greater
than it is. You know, ``How dare you put out a budget, you
know, that does not protect our national security,'' and
``Admit that you did it only because that is what the budget
required.''
So, you are kind of damned if you do and damned if you
don't. So, I have a little bit of sympathy for you trying to
figure out which way to go on that front. And, frankly, what
you did, I think, is fairly logical. Which is to say that you
put out a budget that said, ``Okay, this is the amount of money
we have, and we know that. But here is the amount of money that
we feel we need to hit our strategy.'' That was reflected both
in the $28 billion in additional defense spending that was put
into fiscal year--well, it was requested for fiscal year 2015
with offsets, and then also in FYDP [Future Years Defense
Plan]--I think $150 billion--I could be off on the number--over
5 years, saying--you basically were saying, ``Look, we know
that the amount of money that Congress is allowing us means
that we will not be able to meet our strategy. And the budget
will drive it. It is not our decision to have the budget drive
that, it is Congress' decision. And if you want to give us the
amount of money to meet our strategy, here it is.''
Why everyone in the media and everyone is so perplexed by
that is beyond me. I think it is perfectly logical what you did
and why you did it. And we don't know what is going to happen.
You know, the chairman and I and a lot of others are going to
fight very hard and try to make sure that sequestration doesn't
happen for 2016 going forward. And you have to be prepared as
best as you can for those eventualities. And that is part of
what has made the last 4 years so very difficult at the
Pentagon, is from one week to the next, from one month to the
next, you don't have any idea how much money you are going to
have.
So, hopefully, we can get you some consistency on that. But
I think what has come out has--you know, has made sense in what
is a chaotic environment.
The one question I wanted to ask about in terms of the
QDR's vision of the future is dealing with the terrorist
threat, and specifically with the various offshoots of Al
Qaeda. And I think we all, you know, the narrative is pretty
clear now that the good news is Al Qaeda's senior leadership,
some of them are centralized organizations, when we have been
able to successfully target and significantly degrade their
ability to plan transnational terrorist attacks.
And I don't think that should be disputed. The bad news is
that the ideology that they propose has metastasized in a whole
bunch of different places. Certainly in North Africa, you know,
Mali, and Libya is falling apart. We are seeing it in Syria and
Iraq and elsewhere.
And in each one of these areas it is hard to know exactly
what the threat is. We know that there are groups there that
are sympathetic to an ideology that threatens us. We do not in
many cases know how strong they are.
Are they locally focused primarily trying to drive that
ideology to control a given country or a given part of that
country, or are they transnationally focused? We have seen this
come out of Syria. There are all kinds of speculation that the
Al Qaeda affiliated groups or Al Qaeda-like groups in Syria are
potentially planning transnational threats, but we don't know.
How does the QDR reflect what our best strategy is for
confronting that? Because I still believe that is the greatest
threat that we face. I am worried about North Korea. I am
worried about Iran. I am worried about Russia.
But right now there is only one group out there that has
still actively declared war and declared their intention to
bring direct harm to U.S. citizens and our interests, and that
is Al Qaeda and their affiliates.
So what is our best strategy going forward to confront that
metastasizing threat?
Ms. Wormuth. Congressman, I think we very much share the
assessment that you just laid out of the terrorist threat and
the fact that it is spreading and that it is not a one-size-
fits-all challenge in different regions.
We have an approach that has sort of a couple of elements I
would say. First, we will of course continue to have the
capacity, the capabilities to conduct direct action where we
need to. And that is an important part of our strategy. We are
continuing to make investments to ensure our capability to do
that.
It is one of the reasons why we protected and continue to
allow some growth in our special operations forces almost up to
70,000. But another important piece of that is working with
partners in places like Yemen, for example, to try to build up
their own organic capability to do more themselves to fight the
terrorist threat in their country.
So part of what we are doing, and it is I think consistent
with the rebalance theme that the admiral laid out, is to
rebalance a little towards putting more emphasis on building
partnership capacity than we have in the last 10 years.
I also would say part of what Admiral McRaven's vision is,
is as we draw down out of Afghanistan and bring back some of
our special operations forces, we will be able to distribute
them around the world again very much to focus on being able to
again try to draw down the threats in places like North Africa
for example and build partnership capacity with countries.
So that is an important part of our strategy. And Admiral
McRaven works very closely with combatant commanders like
General Rodriguez in AFRICOM [U.S. Africa Command], for
example, to have sort of a comprehensive strategic approach to
that.
Mr. Smith. And for my part, I think that building partner
capacity is perhaps the most important part of this, is finding
allies in regions as we have successfully done in the Horn of
Africa with Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya. They have been very, very
helpful to us. And having a local face on security is obviously
far better than having U.S. presence and is also cost effective
for us as well.
I would say the one piece of that that we really need to
emphasize is building a cooperative model in each of these
countries between--and I think SOCOM [U.S. Special Operations
Command] is going to be the lead in a lot of this. I think the
MLEs [Military Liaison Elements] that they send out there have
the potential--they have been very effective in some places.
I think they have the potential to be even more effective.
The key to that effectiveness is building a meaningful
partnership with the State Department and with intel. And I
have been to a lot--some countries like Yemen, perfect. Well,
perfect is a strong word. It works well. You know, the
ambassadors bought in. The chief of stations bought in and they
are all working together.
I have been to other countries where, you know, the chief
of mission looks at the MLE and the SOCOM presence like, I
don't know who these people are. I don't know what they are
doing in my country and I am not happy about it.
So building a better partnership between those three
elements I think can give us a very low-cost, light footprint,
locally driven way to contain this very significant threat.
Thank you very much. I appreciate your testimony. I yield
back.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Thornberry.
Mr. Thornberry. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Admiral, I have
been around for all the QDRs so far and I have become
increasingly skeptical that there is any value in this
exercise. If we were to have a provision that repealed the
statutory requirement for QDR, what would your advice be about
whether that would be a good or bad thing?
Admiral Winnefeld. Obviously it would create a lot less
work in the Department. But I think, as Chairman McKeon rightly
pointed out, this is a valuable process for the Department. It
is valuable I think for any new administration to go through.
It is a good forcing function for us as a Department to
have to congeal our thinking, our intellectual power into one
place. So I would not want to suggest that you just repeal the
need for a QDR at all. It is a very useful document. And we
have found, I think as you know, we have a saying in the
military. It is not the plan. It is the planning.
The Strategic Choices and Management Review that laid down
so much of the groundwork for this QDR was an incredibly
valuable process. Ash Carter was right and Secretary Hagel was
right to ask us to do that last spring. So I wouldn't encourage
deleting the requirement.
Mr. Thornberry. And you think that planning would not occur
otherwise?
Admiral Winnefeld. I think it would, sir. We go through
this every year in our budget process and that sort of thing.
But it does force us into a little longer look. It is a little
bit more of a joint process. So again, we may at the
committee's and certainly on the other House of Congress look
at ways to improve it. That is a potential project. I don't
have any great thoughts on that, but I do think that it is a
valuable process to do every 4 years.
Mr. Thornberry. The statute says that the QDR has to
identify the budget plan to provide sufficient resources to
execute the full range of missions at a low to moderate level
of risk. And you have said several times that we barely stay
within the moderate range of risk.
I wrote--this phrase was great. Pushing hard on the high
edge of moderate, you said. How is that not just playing word
games to fit within a statute? Because pushing hard on the high
edge of moderate----
Admiral Winnefeld. I think that gets to the definition of
risk. And one of the things I think we can do better as a team
here, Congress and DOD [Department of Defense], is to define
what we mean by risk. Because as I said earlier in my remark,
the words we use, the adjectives we use are ill-defined. They
are hard to understand and hard to articulate.
We do have definitions for those terms, and I do believe we
are at the edge of moderate risk, but we are in moderate risk
right now. It is not going to take too much. Certainly going
down to the BCA level of funding would kick us out of that band
fairly quickly.
Mr. Thornberry. I think the point about we use the word
risk a lot and it is kind of a vague term that doesn't have
much meaning is exactly right. Would you say that we took
some--what level of risk would you say we took as far as Russia
returning to a more aggressive policy in invading one of its
neighbors?
Admiral Winnefeld. It is hard to define that. We do have
the rebalance that we have talked about where we maintain our
emphasis in the Middle East and shift a little bit more
intellectual and force posture emphasis to the Pacific. But
remember, we are calling that a rebalance, not a pivot. I very
pointedly want to make sure we call it a rebalance.
Pivot implies turning your back on your former partner,
what have you. We have a strong partnership in NATO. It is a
good alliance. There is a lot of good military capability in
that alliance. We are still very much committed to that
alliance. And as you I am sure know, we have paid very close
attention to the situation in Ukraine and what it means for all
of Europe.
So yes, I think it fits in the strategy. It was a surprise.
It is something that has caused us to think hard about this,
but we are still committed in the long term. Again, a 20-year
term that you look through a QDR lens at. Russia is relatively
weak economically and demographically and other ways. There
are--you know, China on the other hand in the Pacific is rising
economically and in other ways. And so I think in that long-
term lens we are still in the right place.
Mr. Thornberry. Well, you may have just answered my last
question. My question is would you expect that we would have
written--you all would have written this QDR differently if the
Russian invasion of Crimea had happened sooner?
Admiral Winnefeld. I think it would be disingenuous to say
nothing would have changed in the QDR. I think global current
events clearly shape the words that we put into a QDR. I would
not deny that. I don't know that it would change anything
fundamentally in the QDR, but it might change some of the tone.
I would leave that to one of the principal authors to elaborate
on. But I think we generally have that right, but it was
certainly an unwelcome event at the time we were publishing
this document.
Mr. Thornberry. Thank you, Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Mrs. Davis.
Mrs. Davis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you both for
being here. And Ms. Wormuth, why don't I let you follow up on
that quickly in terms of the piece with Russia and the extent
to which we--we certainly weren't looking at Europe as an area
of crisis as much as a link with NATO and other allies.
Ms. Wormuth. Thank you, Congresswoman. I would agree with
Admiral Winnefeld that while we probably would have added some
additional sentences to talk more pointedly about the situation
with Russia, fundamentally I don't think we would have changed
the strategy. And I would argue that our strategy is cast in a
way that allows us to be able to deal with the emerging
situation in Europe.
We do talk in the QDR about the importance of the Europeans
and NATO, the alliance, as one of our fundamental partners in
global security, and we talk about our bedrock commitment to
Euro-Atlantic stability.
And I think, you know, as we monitor the situation and make
decisions about what steps we may need to take going forward,
we are able to do that I think within the framework that we
have outlined in the QDR. And I think it is very important to
underscore that we do talk about our strategic approach to Asia
as a rebalance because we are not taking our eye off the ball.
As a global power, we can't afford to focus solely on one area.
Mrs. Davis. Thank you. And actually Admiral, I wanted to
follow up with the rebalance. And I understand that--the
difference between that and pivot, but I also think--and if we
think about a rebalance to the Pacific, you raise a certain
amount of expectations. And my sense is that in many ways we
may not have been--we may not always be able to follow up on
what that expectation is.
And the rebalance itself suggests to those in the region
that maybe they have to do something different, that we are--
so, could you talk a little bit more specifically about that?
Because sometimes I think we may be signaling without
necessarily wanting to create a counterpoint.
Admiral Winnefeld. Sure, there----
Mrs. Davis. China, obviously thinks so.
Admiral Winnefeld. A whole host of thoughts come to mind
when you ask that very good question. One of the things we hear
from our ASEAN [Association of Southeast Asian Nations]
friends, and I have dinner with their ambassadors on a
quarterly basis, just because it is kind of a special project,
is we really like having you there. Just don't start anything.
And they really--the whole region really values American
presence and integrity, as it were, in the western Pacific,
because it does bring stability to that region. I even think
the Chinese value having us there to a certain degree.
You know, they don't want us too close, but they--I think
they, to a certain degree, value having the United States in
that region.
Nothing that I know of in our budget submission is changing
our commitment to the rebalance to the Pacific. We still have a
lot of projects going on there, and we are still committed to
our allies in the region. And that is why Secretary Hagel is in
Hawaii right now, talking to the ASEAN ministers. The President
is traveling in the region twice this year.
So I think that intellectual and posture commitment is
still there.
Mrs. Davis. Okay. Well, I would encourage sometimes,
perhaps--I don't know if there is a another way of talking
about that, but sometimes it feels like we can be perceived
differently if we are not able to follow through with our
commitments.
Going back to the QDR for a second, and the cost savings,
because we are obviously very concerned about personnel issues
here. BRAC [Base Closure and Realignment] is important. And I
know that there are assumptions in the QDR about those issues
moving forward to some degree, and whatever that may be.
So where do they really address the deficiencies that you
would like to see in terms of resources? Can you be more
specific about how that comes together and where--you know,
where does that--if those assumptions are not met, where does
the risk grow?
Ms. Wormuth. Congresswoman, I think that is a great
question.
For example, built into the President's budget over the
FYDP, over the 5-year period, are about $30 billion in
compensation savings, for example. And there is about--while
there are upfront costs associated with BRAC, if Congress gives
us that authority, eventually we will save about $2 billion
annually with the base closure process.
So if we are not able to gain support for either the
package of compensation reforms or to get BRAC authority, we
would then have to find those savings elsewhere because they
are built into the budget.
And essentially that would mean we would either have to go
back into readiness, which, again, I think is something we are
very much trying to protect; capacity, further reducing the
size of the joint force beyond what we have already put forward
in the President's budget; or in terms of our capabilities, our
modernization programs, our investments to try to counter anti-
access/area denial to us, for example.
So we are very concerned. And I think Admiral Winnefeld
mentioned that in his opening statement, that this is sort of a
delicate package we have put together and if we don't get all
of the pieces, we will have to go in and start moving things
around, which will have ripple effects that are negative.
Mrs. Davis. Great. Thank you.
My time is up.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Forbes.
Mr. Forbes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Madam Secretary, thank you for being here. We know that you
are one of the principal authors of this QDR and we appreciate
your insight.
Help me understand what in the world this document is,
because the Secretary of Defense, in his letter that he sends
to us on this says it was to help the military to prepare for
the strategic challenges and opportunities we face in the years
ahead.
My question, is that what it is? Or is it to prepare for
the strategic challenges and opportunities we face in the years
ahead the best we can, based on the BCA and sequestration, the
current law?
Or is it to prepare for the strategic challenges and
opportunities we face in the years ahead the best we can, based
on the President's proposed budget?
Which of those three is it?
Ms. Wormuth. Congressman, I would say we were trying to put
forward in the QDR, first and foremost, a strategy-driven
assessment of what we need. And that is----
Mr. Forbes [continuing]. Then you were not in the QDR
limiting it based on either the BCA and sequestration or based
on the President's budget?
Ms. Wormuth. I would say it was strategy driven, but
resource informed.
So what we tried to do was look out, completely--you know,
just look at the security environment and what we saw there,
and then look at our national interests and what objectives,
what ends we are trying to achieve.
Our assessment was that to meet the strategy that we think
is appropriate for us as a global leader and a global power, we
needed to have more resources than what we would have under the
BCA. And that is why, at the President's budget level, which is
$115 billion above the BCA, we think that at that level we
could execute the strategy. We----
Mr. Forbes. So you feel that the President's budget would
help you implement the strategy you think would be best for
this country to meet its challenges and the opportunities we
face in the years ahead?
Ms. Wormuth. Yes.
Mr. Forbes. Okay.
Now, Admiral, here is my question to you: You read a
statement from Chairman Dempsey about the QDR, but I know you
didn't have time to read the first paragraph. And this is what
the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs says about this QDR.
He says, it is gonna give us a smaller, less-capable
military, which makes meeting these obligations more difficult.
Most of our platforms and equipment will be older. Our
advantages in some of the domains will have eroded. Our loss of
depth across the force could reduce our ability to intimidate
opponents from escalating conflicts.
Nations and nonstate actors who have become accustomed to
our presence could begin to act differently, often in harmful
ways. Many of our most capable allies will lose key
capabilities.
The situation will be exasperated given our current
readiness concerns, which will worsen over the next 3 to 4
years.
How in the world, given that assessment by the Chairman of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff, can we say this QDR is the best we
can have to meet the strategic challenges and opportunities we
face as a nation?
Admiral Winnefeld. For the--there is a difference between
ends, ways, and means, as I mentioned earlier, and----
Mr. Forbes. Yes, but that is not what the Secretary just
said. She said that this is supposed to be the document that
tells us our strategy.
Admiral Winnefeld. Right.
Mr. Forbes. If it is constrained simply by the BCA and
sequestration, tell us that. If it is constrained by the
President, tell us that.
But that is not what she just said. She said this is the
document that is primarily designed to address the strategic
challenges and opportunities we face in the years ahead, how to
meet it.
So tell me how we can ever say that is the right QDR, given
that conclusion by the chairman of our Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Admiral Winnefeld. Right. So the QDR strategy, the ends,
ways, and means,--the ends and ways we talked about--were
carefully looked at. We looked at them during the Strategic
Choices and Management Review last spring. And we came to the
very clear conclusion that at the BCA level, it wasn't going to
work.
Mr. Forbes. I understand that. The President had an--he had
a chalkboard he could write anything he wanted on.
Admiral Winnefeld. Yes. And so, what happened was, that is
what really drove that assessment. The QDR strategy is here.
The ends and ways of the strategy are here----
Mr. Forbes. So you are saying----
Admiral Winnefeld. We don't have enough money to do it.
Mr. Forbes. So you are saying the BCA and sequestration
drove this strategy?
Admiral Winnefeld. I am saying that the strategy actually
drove the amount of money that we are submitting in this
budget.
Mr. Forbes. Well, if it did that, Admiral, why didn't the
President include the 11th carrier in there? He had an
opportunity to do that, because he wasn't restrained on his
budget. That is the law. Every single contingency operation
plan we have calls for that. Why didn't he put a carrier in
there?
Admiral Winnefeld. The carrier is intended to--we are gonna
fix that, basically, on the next budget----
Mr. Forbes [continuing]. Admiral, how do you fix that----
Admiral Winnefeld. Sir, when we came to this conclusion, it
was a fairly end-game thing when we said, you know, we are just
not gonna be able to get this done at the BCA level and we
decided----
Mr. Forbes. Admiral, I am not talking about the BCA--I am
talking about the President's budget. Why didn't he include it
in his budget?
He had no constraints. And he not only didn't include it,
he took it out of the FYDP. He took it out of the money that
had been allocated and appropriated. And he didn't even give
the materials to do it this year.
Why, when he was unrestrained?
Admiral Winnefeld. Because it was an end-game problem, and
moving all that money around in the end-game of all the line
items it affected, and I would have to go to the Comptroller's
to get you the best answer on that, but the bottom line,
Congressman, is if we are funded to the President's budget
level this year, that carrier will be back in in the 2016
budget.
Mr. Forbes. Admiral, that is not true, because he didn't
include it in his budget.
Admiral Winnefeld. It will be in the----
Mr. Forbes. With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Enyart.
Mr. Enyart. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Good morning, Admiral, Madam Secretary. Good to see you all
this morning.
You know, we have seen, over the last several decades, a
drawdown in our forces in Europe of about 85 percent. I think
that was a good thing. Saved us a lot of money. And it really
reflected a reduction in tensions in Europe and, indeed,
worldwide, with the collapse of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet
Union.
We have seen a reduction and a drawdown of our forces in
Korea of about 80 percent. And I think it is probably due to
greater capability and that sort of thing.
You know, it is--but what concerns me is that what we--with
what we have seen in Crimea and the Ukraine over the last
several months and when I was training the Polish military and
worked with NATO folks, my mantra was that when there is peace
in Central Europe, there is peace in the world.
So with the drawdown that we have seen, do we currently
have the capacity, the ability, to rapidly move folks back in
and equipment back into Europe if that need would arise?
Admiral Winnefeld. We do have the capacity to move forces
back into Europe. The challenge we are facing at the moment is
a readiness challenge. And that is because of the sequester
last year, a really precipitous drop in funding. The Army is
certainly digging out from that right now. It is gonna be a
multiyear challenge for them to recover that readiness as they
also come down in size.
But, you know, if we had to do it, and we have a pretty
good understanding, particularly sharpened by the most recent
crisis, of what it would take to move our forces, requisite
forces, back to Europe if we needed to.
Mr. Enyart. Well, I think this last crisis brings another
maxim--I was glad to hear you cite the maxim that it is not the
plan, it is the planning. And, again, when I was training young
officers, when I was training foreign military personnel, they
would get wrapped up in the plan. And it is really not about
the plan, it is about the planning.
And so, I think that is what we in Congress need to
remember is that it is really the process of planning, so that
we understand that process. But I think particularly what this
last crisis has shown us is that our opponent gets a vote. And
sometimes we have to respond very rapidly to contingencies that
certainly weren't in the plan.
Can you tell me, Admiral, or Madam Secretary, to what
extent and in what ways have our interests or the global
strategic environment changed in the last 2 years and to have
modified the plan or that we need to be looking at?
Admiral Winnefeld. I will give you a little bit of an
opening structure, then I am going to turn it over to Under
Secretary. We think that a lot of the glue has come undone in
the last few years. You know, this is a transition QDR. The
last QDR was our war fight. And you know, were in the middle of
two tough war fights in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is a
transition QDR. The geopolitical environment has changed
significantly. The ways wars are fought is changing every day,
and it is accelerating and the fiscal environment is changing.
So everything is different in the ends, ways, and means
equation for us. But I would turn it over to Christine for some
more specifics.
Ms. Wormuth. Thank you. And I would just say I am not yet
under secretary--still deputy under secretary. A couple of
things I would highlight, I think, in terms of changes in the
strategic environment. I think, one, obviously, the Arab
awakening and the ongoing political transitions in the Middle
East are developments that are fairly significant in the last
couple of years. The fact that we are working and getting close
to the transition of security responsibility in Afghanistan.
And then I think on the technology front, there have been
some significant developments in terms of the growing
investments in anti-access and area denial capabilities that we
see both in the Asia-Pacific, but also in the Middle East, and
just the sort of continuing implements of the proliferation of
advanced technologies and the spread of information
technologies are some of the things that I would highlight that
we saw as changing. We also obviously were seeing changes in
terms of the fiscal environment that were significant that the
Department had to take a look at.
Mr. Enyart. I see that my time has expired, and I will
yield back.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Wilson.
Mr. Wilson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And Admiral,
Secretary, thank you very much for being here today and on
these very important issues. Given the changes in the global
security landscape and fiscal realities, how would the
integration of Active and Reserve Components and the balance of
roles and responsibilities further evolve? For example, the
planned changes in aircraft between Active and Guard and
Reserve. What are the most important criteria in considering
the refining of the total force mix, in order to ensure that
the Active and Reserve Components best complement each other in
support of the defense strategy? And I, as a former Guard
member myself, I am really so pleased. And I have seen
extraordinary success of where the Guard and Reserve are
virtually interchangeable with Active Duty. It has just been
very positive. And for each of you, if you could respond.
Ms. Wormuth. Sure. Congressman, I would say I am very aware
and have worked for a while on National Guard and Reserve
Component issues. And I think, you know, it has been remarkable
the experience that we have had with the Reserve Component in
the last decade. And we have just seen the Reserve Component,
the National Guard and the Reserves, play a very important
operational role. And we couldn't have done what we have done
in both Iraq and Afghanistan without the contributions of our
Reserve Component.
And I think going forward, we continue to see the role of
the Reserve Component [RC] as being very important, being a
complement to the Active Component, being a source of trained
personnel and units that we can draw on to augment the Active
forces when we need them. There are also obviously very
specialized skills that we see in both the Guard and Reserves
that we can make use of.
And I think particularly for more predictable deployments
around the world, that is another place where, again, where we
can predict out and be able to give our civilian soldiers some
predictability for their employers and be able to sort of allow
them to plan for deployments. That is, I think, one of the
criteria that we think about in terms of how to use the RC. But
we see them continuing to be an important part of what we are
doing.
And in terms of the--just going to the aviation
restructure, you know, that has been an opportunity to both
gain some efficiency in terms of going from five types of
helicopters to three. But we see the restructure that the Army
has proposed as being beneficial, because we will be able to
allow more Black Hawks to go into the Guard. And those
helicopters, in particular, have a very important role to play
for Governors in terms of supporting civil authorities in the
event of natural disasters and things like that. We think the
plan makes sense.
Mr. Wilson. Admiral.
Admiral Winnefeld. Sir, I think that when you consider the
three pillars of the strategy, the Guard and Reserve play an
essential--absolutely essential role in each one of them. And I
don't even need to talk about homeland defense or homeland
security. That is obvious. When you look at building security
across the globe, I can point to the State Partnership Program,
for example, as being one of the most effective and high-
leverage programs that we have in the entire government for
building those kinds of partnerships. And it goes without
saying that when we get into winning decisively in combat, that
the Reserves play an absolutely essential role.
So that is why, if you go all the way back to pre-9/11
days, the amount of decrease that we are going to see across
the Active and Reserve is about--proportionally about the same.
If you go from the wartime high of particularly the Army, it is
very disproportionate in how much the Active is coming down,
compared to the Guard, and understandably so.
But I think what is lost in all those numbers is the
tremendous help we got from the Congress in bringing the Guard
up in its capability and readiness across this last decade, and
we want it to stay that way. And I think General Odierno and
General Welsh, in particular, are committed to doing that and
that is involved in some of this calculus. And I will give you
some time back for another question, if that works.
Mr. Wilson. Well, this is really important. And as a
military family, I am very grateful. And all the credit to my
wife, we have had four sons serve, two in Iraq, another in
Egypt with Bright Star, and then our youngest son just returned
from serving in Afghanistan. And so I know the Guard and
Reserve members themselves and their families are just so
grateful for the privilege and opportunity of serving.
And Admiral, you touched on the problem that we have. The
QDR states--experience gaps in training and maintenance are a
problem, in terms of readiness challenge. How is that going to
be addressed?
Admiral Winnefeld. The gaps in training and maintenance?
Mr. Wilson. Yes.
Admiral Winnefeld. We are going to recover our readiness
gradually. And that is as good as it gets right now, with the
funding levels that we are seeing. The Army and Marine Corps,
in particular, have tremendous work to just absorb the
equipment management that they are going to have to do with the
end of the war in Afghanistan. That is going to take tremendous
amount of resources and it is going to take time to resolve.
We are going to have to continue to recruit, train, and
retain the best possible people we can from this country, in
order to do the wrench-turning and the maintenance and getting
these forces ready for combat. So it is a multi-dimensional,
multi-disciplinary problem, that I have a lot of faith in the
leadership in the Army and the Marine Corps, in particular,
that are mostly affected by this, in getting it right. But it
is a real challenge for them, under the readiness funding that
we have got right now.
Mr. Wilson. Thank you very much.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Kilmer.
Mr. Kilmer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My first question is
for Ms. Wormuth. A respected military strategist once wrote,
``no major proposal required for war can be worked out of
ignorance of political factors.'' I think the QDR briefing that
is provided to the committee, included a statement that said
sequestration-level cuts in fiscal year 2016 or beyond would
leave us unable to adjust the force in the balanced way
envisioned in the strategy. I wasn't here for the passage of
the Budget Control Act. I think sequestration is a Latin word
for stupid. But it is the law we have now and it is what we
have to work with.
And on top of that, the fiscal year 2015 authorization and
appropriations cycle is going to be the last time in the
foreseeable future that we have money to make strategic
investments. So given that, given this burden and the fact the
Department is already gearing up for the fiscal year 2016 POM
[program objective memorandum] cycle, how are we going to meet
that challenge? How is this QDR putting us on a glide path that
we need to maximize our investments in a realistic way, given
our budget situation?
Ms. Wormuth. Thank you, Congressman. I think what we are
trying to do in this QDR is do the best job we can to try to
make clear why we need those additional resources that we have
asked for in the President's budget. I think what we are
essentially trying to say is if we want to remain a global
leader, if we want to do what we think we need to do around the
world, through our defense strategy and its three pillars, we
need to have additional resources. And a lot of what we tried
to do in the QDR was to spell out in some detail that if we
aren't able to gain those additional resources, we are trying
to make clear the real effects that would have on our ability
to execute our strategy and on our ability to do what we need
to do. So I think we are trying to make our case as effectively
as possible for what we need and to work with Congress to try
to gain those resources.
I think if we don't do that, we will be looking at a
substantial amount of risk to our strategy.
Mr. Kilmer. My second question, Admiral, the fiscal year
2014 QDR highlights the need for innovation and reform and
advocates for rebalancing the DOD enterprise in order to
control internal cost growth. Could you help me understand how
we simultaneously maintain the strength of our All-Volunteer
Force, while reducing compensation costs? From a budgeting
perspective, I understand the math. However, I am interested in
knowing how the Department studied the potential impact of
implementing personnel pay and benefit reductions, and what, if
any, differences such a study demonstrated on both the officer
and enlisted populations of both the Active and Reserve forces?
Admiral Winnefeld. Thank you, because we spent a tremendous
amount of time on this particular question. We really wanted to
understand with our service leadership, our service and
enlisted leadership. And some of the considerable expertise
that the Department has grown over the years for modeling and
understanding the challenge of both recruiting, training, and
retaining the best possible young men and women this country
has to offer. At the same time, we get the best value for the
American taxpayer in terms of capability, capacity, and
readiness of our force.
And so there are a number of models we use. One of the ones
that we pay attention to that don't rely exclusively on is the
percentile of compensation, the equivalent of a similarly
educated, experienced person in the military would receive out
in the civilian workforce. Previous studies have said we ought
to be at the about the 70 percentile which would mean every
single person in that, you know, same ilk in the military would
be paid at the 70 percentile of the rest of the workforce in
the country. We are actually up around 90 right now, 90 percent
for some of our--for most of our disciplines. That is probably
a little too high, but I think 70 is a little too low. So,
where--we pay attention to that as we design this, but it is
really, what does it take to train and recruit and retain the
best possible people we can?
We believe that in the 1990s, our force was grossly
underpaid, and we saw the effects of that in all manner of
different metrics that you can use.
Thanks to the Congress and help from this body, we
dramatically increased the trajectory of that compensation
glide slope upward in order to correct that redress. And we
have done that. And, in fact, we probably overshot a little bit
in the early years of this century, but we were in the middle
of a war, so we didn't mess with that. It is probably the time
now to lower that trajectory back down, to adjust it to what we
think is the right sustainable level for the military, again,
in the interest of getting the best value for the taxpayer.
So, it is sensible, it is gradual, it is compassionate, and
the impact is not that great. And I look forward to being able
to discuss that with the committee at some point.
Mr. Kilmer. Thank you, Admiral.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Rogers.
Mr. Rogers. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I will thank the
witnesses for being here and their preparation.
Admiral Winnefeld, in the fiscal year 2014 budget cycle,
the Nuclear Weapons Council, including then-acting
Administrator Neil Miller, agreed to a multi-year, multi-
billion-dollar set of efficiencies at the NNSA [National
Nuclear Security Agency], in order to make these savings
available for modernization efforts.
As a member of that council, did you review those proposed
efficiencies, and did you support them in the fiscal year 2014
budget request and in the out-year plan?
Admiral Winnefeld. We did review those in close
coordination on the Nuclear Weapons Council with NNSA. We did
support them. We did say, as the Nuclear Weapons Council, I
think, in our certification letter that there was some risk
associated with those efficiencies as to whether they were
executable or not, but we were definitely hoping we would get
them.
Mr. Rogers. And why is that?
Admiral Winnefeld. It was going to help NNSA manage its
resources to help us both with the life extension programs
[LEPs] for our nuclear weapons, and also for some vital work on
their infrastructure.
Mr. Rogers. What is the status of those efficiencies?
Admiral Winnefeld. Most of those efficiencies were not
realized. We are still working with NNSA to see if we can't
gain some of those efficiencies back.
Mr. Rogers. Why do you think they weren't realized?
Admiral Winnefeld. Again, part of them were higher-risk
efficiencies that the NNSA just did not feel comfortable
implementing. So, I would have to defer to the actual Energy
Department in terms of a precise answer of why they did not
actually implement them. We were a little disappointed. And we
will continue to work with the NNSA to try to get as much
efficiency in there because we are a stakeholder here.
As you know, DOD provides money each year on top of the
NNSA program to take care of our LEPs and the like, so we do
have an interest in this.
Mr. Rogers. Well, my perspective is, they didn't try. I
don't think they were really motivated. And they need some help
in that department. But that is just my opinion.
Ms. Wormuth, in the QDR, it states, quote--``We, the U.S.,
will pursue further negotiated reductions with Russia.'' Given
Russia's illegal annexation of Crimea, and the massing forces
on the Ukrainian borders, do you support today new negotiations
with Russia to reduce nuclear forces?
Ms. Wormuth. Oh, pardon me.
Congressman, I would say Russia has not, frankly, indicated
interest in pursuing further reductions in the last couple of
years, so I think at this point, we are not actively in
discussion with them, and don't see that happening in the
foreseeable future.
Mr. Rogers. So, this language was in there--just put in
months ago, and nobody just bothered to take it out?
Ms. Wormuth. Congressman, I don't have the language at my
fingertips, but I think what we were saying was that we would
like to, at some point, be able to pursue further reductions,
and we would do that only in concert with Russia. However, they
have not demonstrated interest in it, so----
Mr. Rogers. In fact, to the contrary, they have said flatly
they have no interest in doing anything beyond New START
[Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty]. Vladimir Putin's words
exactly. So, I don't think we ought to even be considering it.
It is also in public knowledge that State Department has
confronted Russia about likely violations of the INF
[Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces] Treaty. This morning, the
New York Times reports that General Breedlove described
Russia's violation as, quote--``a military significant
development,'' close quote. And the media reports indicate the
U.S. has known about the likely violations for years, and
didn't even tell our NATO allies. Did this factor into these
statements in the QDR about negotiations with Russia's--for
treaties with Russia?
Ms. Wormuth. I think, Congressman, if the Russians were
interested in pursuing further reductions, we would look at
that because we think that it would be in, potentially, in our
national interest to have lower levels of nuclear weapons in
both parties. We are aware of the potential violation of the
INF Treaty and are very concerned about it, and have made that
concern very plain to the Russians, and continue to address
that with them.
Mr. Rogers. Okay. Do you believe that they should be in
complete confirmable compliance with all existing treaties
before we negotiate any further reductions?
Ms. Wormuth. We would like to see them be in compliance----
Mr. Rogers. That is a yes or no question----
Ms. Wormuth [continuing]. With the INF Treaty.
Mr. Rogers [continuing]. Whether they should be in
compliance or not. I think anybody--a reasonable person would
agree that before we agree to negotiate further reductions, the
party should be in compliance with existing treaties.
Ms. Wormuth. I think we would look very seriously at that,
if we were actively considering further reductions.
Mr. Rogers. That is a lawyerly response.
With that, I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Langevin.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank our
witnesses for your testimony today.
And, Admiral Winnefeld, I will start with you. And first of
all, I want to thank you for the attention that you paid to
cyber. You and I have had the opportunity to talk about this
issue in the past. And on that point, the QDR notes that
deterrence in cyberspace requires a strong coalition across the
whole-of-government and the private sector. But the very
concept of deterrence in cyberspace is tenuous at best, even if
you assume a nation-state aggressor, and even more so when
defense is dependent on a network of actors who may or may not
even have authorities to act.
So, there are any number of variables at play, most of
which I would say are outside of DOD's control. So, my question
is, do we have a clear enough, articulable enough vision of
what deterrence looks like in cyberspace? And does that even
matter for the Department's purposes?
Admiral Winnefeld. That is a very, very good lead-in. I
think we do have a good sense for deterrence. If you look at
deterrence in classical terms, one where you are trying to deny
an adversary's objectives, another where you would impose costs
on them for potential aggressive action, and the third where
you make yourself as resilient as possible--it is almost a
mirror image of nuclear deterrence in cyberspace.
So, we are working very hard to be able to--for the
latter--to be as resilient as we can possibly be in our
networks if something untoward happens to them. To certainly
deny an adversary's objectives is a principal function of what
CYBERCOM [U.S. Cyber Command] is about, is to deny an
adversary's ability to penetrate, exploit our own DOD networks,
and to assist civil authorities in the same for civil networks.
And then, of course, we retain the ability to impose costs
on an adversary, whether it be in cyberspace, or some other
method, for something that they might--that adversary might do
to us.
Mr. Langevin. Do you feel our adversaries, at this point,
understand what those red lines are? Have we, as a country yet,
done a sufficient job of conveying to potential adversaries
what those red lines would be, and what our response would look
like?
Admiral Winnefeld. I think they have a general
understanding, if not a fear, of what they feel we can do to
both prevent and potentially impose costs for an untoward
action in cyberspace. Is it clear? Is it very, very clear to
them what would happen? I would say probably not. And I think
there may be some benefit in ambiguity in terms--in an
adversary's mind as to exactly what you would do to retaliate.
But as long as they know we have the capability to do some
major work either in cyberspace or outside cyberspace, I think
that would serve as a deterrent.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you. Thank you.
On another subject, Admiral, the QDR highlights the
importance of a safe and secure deterrent. And I have been
disturbed to read press reports that the Department may not
comply with provisions in the omnibus spending bill and the
fiscal year 2014 NDAA that allow the Department to use funds
and the bill to--and I quote--``prepare for such reductions
needed to implement the New START Arms Reduction Treaty.'' In
this case, the environmental assessment to assess the cost and
feasibility of reducing the number of ICBM [intercontinental
ballistic missile] silos.
I, for one, would feel much better knowing that decisions
made regarding what constitutes a safe, secure, and effective
deterrent triad is informed by the best judgment of our
uniformed leaders about how to balance a deterrent, rather than
shaping the Nation's nuclear force based on parochial
interests.
So, my question is, what would your recommendation be on
what reductions should be made to comply with the New START
Treaty and maintain an optimal nuclear deterrent, including
maintaining the survivability and flexibility you need? And can
you describe for us the follow-on effects of any restrictions
on your ability to assess options for reductions to one leg of
the triad versus another?
Admiral Winnefeld. We have looked at this problem very,
very hard over the last year, Congressman. It is a vexing
challenge to look at all of the factors involved and the
relative advantages and disadvantages of decreasing ICBM silos
and decreasing SLBM [submarine-launched ballistic missile]
tubes on submarines.
We are close, as a Department, to providing our
recommendation on the new START force structure. I am not able
to reveal that in this hearing, unfortunately, today. It has
been a spirited discussion. We would like to have been able to
conduct environmental assessments on the ICBM silos, if not for
this decision, for future decisions, just so that we have the
information in hand. But we may not be able to do that because
of the law.
But in any case, I believe the Secretary will very soon be
making a recommendation to the President on what the New START
force structure would look like. And I would look forward to
that becoming available to the committee as soon as possible
thereafter.
The Chairman. Thank you very much.
Mr. Wittman.
Mr. Wittman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Admiral Winnefeld,
Ms. Wormuth, thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you
for your service to our Nation.
Admiral Winnefeld, in looking at the QDR, it identifies, as
you pointed out, a near-term budget constraint force structure.
And the QDR defines the planned end strength in force structure
through 2019. The law, though, says that QDR should define
force structure and end strength for a 20-year period of time.
Can you tell us what the projection is past 2019, and maybe
why it was left out of the QDR?
Admiral Winnefeld. I don't--in terms of why it was left out
of the QDR, it may be a matter of language in there. Most of--
as we said, you are looking through a glass darkly 20 years
out. We have no idea what the budget environment is going to be
like or the geopolitical environment.
But my sense is that in the force structure that we would
have at the end of a 10-year period is essentially--would
essentially remain constant across the following 10-year
period.
Now, we know that is not going to be completely true. There
are going to be changes in technologies and threats, and even
our operational plans, that would--you know, new ideas come up,
that sort of thing, where we would change that force structure.
But, knowing what we know right now, this year, the
following 10 years would look a lot like what we see out at the
end of that first 10-year period.
Mr. Wittman. Very good.
Secretary Wormuth.
Ms. Wormuth. I would just add and say I think the QDR
process allows us to be more precise in the near- to mid-term.
And certainly, as you know, the Department programs--plans and
programs for a 5-year period to have the most precision in
terms of how we are able to see our force structure at the end
of the FYDP.
We do in the QDR, however, look out 20 years, both in terms
of the security environment, but also in terms of trying to
think about what kinds of capabilities, what kinds of
investments we need for that 20-year period.
And I think in terms of those broad capabilities and the
broad directions, we try to look out 20 years. And I think it
acknowledged that some of the capabilities that may go onto--
the platforms may still be in place, but some of the
capabilities may be new.
And we talk about certainly in terms of things like
unmanned undersea vehicles, for example, or other technologies
of that sort.
I think we try to point to those, but the far term is more
aspirational, and, hence doesn't have the same level----
Mr. Wittman. No, remember my comment was specifically about
end-strength and force structures. So that is where I was
really focusing.
Admiral Winnefeld, let me go back to you.
And in the QDR risk assessment, Chairman Dempsey stated
that ``the chiefs and I are working with the Secretary of
Defense to refine and prioritize U.S. military objectives to
align with the size and capabilities of our programmed force.''
Can you tell me, how are U.S. military objectives currently
misaligned and as it relates to our current size and
capabilities of the programmed force in the QDR?
So that alludes to there being a misalignment. Can you
define what that is?
Admiral Winnefeld. I can give you an example, because it is
a really good question.
The current force as we have it is sized and shaped to
fight a counterinsurgency operation in Afghanistan and, you
know, not too long ago, it was Iraq and Afghanistan.
That causes the Army to grow considerably in size. And, in
fact, a lot of that force structure growth was in OCO, in
overseas contingency operations funding, because we knew it was
going to be temporary.
And so, realigning that force back into a shape that is in
adherence with the strategic precepts of the QDR is, I think,
what they are really talking about in that statement.
So what is the kind of force that we need to have
configured to fight all fights that we can't see yet, but that
we can anticipate, as opposed to the one that we have been in
for the last 10 years.
Mr. Wittman. One of my concerns is that if we are talking
about a misalignment and trying to bring it back to what we
project as the threats may be, just as you pointed out, that is
a very dynamic environment.
The concern is, if you are doing a realignment, is you
realign too conservatively and then cut our force structure
back to where you don't have the ability to respond to a major
contingency operation, if one were to break out.
So I have a deep concern about that.
Let me ask a question about readiness. It is point out in
the QDR, too, it says we will continue to experience gaps in
training and maintenance over the near term. Very significantly
concerning to me.
What is the Department's assessment, then, on the longer
term? If the projection is that we are gonna try to close those
readiness gaps in the short term, what is the projection in the
longer term as far as meeting these readiness needs, as far as
training and maintenance?
And, as you know, today, there is significant gaps in the
short term, and we can't just press the button and get
readiness back a year from now or 2 years from now.
Admiral Winnefeld. And you are exactly correct.
When you have a very precipitous drop, such as we had in
the last year or two, you have to grab cash wherever you can.
That is what Ash Carter said.
And it is hard to get that cash out of force structure,
because we just can't get people out fast enough. There are
things we have to do in order to shape and to be fair to our
young men and women and that sort of thing.
So the place you grab cash quickest is readiness. The
second place you can grab it quickest is in modernization. Just
cancel programs or cut back on the size of programs.
And readiness is obviously a ripe target there. I have a
saying that readiness has no constituency. If you have an F-15
squadron in your district, you know, it is I want that F-15
squadron, and I don't care if it is flying or not.
And so, what time allows us to do is to gradually bring the
force back down to where it needs to be and to gradually
recover its readiness so that you are taking less of the hit
out of the readiness money and you are able to more
thoughtfully shape the profile of capability, capacity, and
readiness.
So that is why we think we will recover readiness over the
long term, once we get the force size under control. But it is
gonna take some time. You are exactly correct.
The Chairman. Thank you very much.
Mr. Nugent.
Mr. Nugent. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And I want to thank Madam Secretary and the Admiral for
being here today.
You heard Congressman Wilson talk about his family.
Obviously, we are kind of vested in the same way. I have three
sons that currently serve this Nation and are proud to do that.
But when we talk about the Army, and there has obviously
been a lot of discussion about the right way to rightsize the
Army. And, you know, there is one idea floating around, and I
would like to get your input on it, but it is really about to
establish an independent commission, similar to what the Air
Force recently did, to evaluate the needs and mission of the
Army and to make recommendations on appropriate force structure
for all three components.
Over the span of the QDR, why shouldn't we take the 9 to 12
months to conduct a comprehensive study of the proper AC/RC
[Active Component/Reserve Component] force mix and how the
structure would be best tailored to fulfill the mission
requirements that are consistent with the available resources
that we have?
I would like to hear from both of you on that.
Admiral Winnefeld. I don't necessarily personally believe
we should do a new commission. I think we have the analytical
power and wherewithal inside the Department, and then certainly
in working with the committee, to come up with reasonable
answers to the problems that we face, in terms of sizing and
shaping all of the services, including the Army.
I worry that a commission can be a way of kicking the
problem down the road a little bit, when we actually have the
information we need in order to make these decisions.
So we are not overly supportive, frankly, of a new
commission.
If the legislation is, then we will obey the law, and we
will support the commission. But we don't think we need one
right now, sir.
Mr. Nugent. Okay.
Madam Secretary.
Ms. Wormuth. The only thing I would add is that I think
both during the Strategic Choices and Management Review and
also during the QDR process, I was impressed, frankly, with the
quality and intensity of the dialogue, particularly inside of
the Army.
You know, General Odierno, General Grass, the head of the
Army Reserve, had very extensive, I think direct and honest
discussions.
And, in addition I think to having a lot of internal
analytic capability, I think the professionalism and level of
the dialogue has been very, very good. And the Army has
struggled with some difficult issues and some difficult trade-
offs, but I think has done that with a lot of integrity.
Mr. Nugent. Well, I know that some of the--there were some
other recommendations made, particularly by the National Guard
Bureau in regards to how to restructure, as it relates to the
National Guard. And I was--it just seems like their
recommendations were kind of overlooked, I think, as a way to
continue to do what they need to do and also work within the
budgetary considerations that are forced on them.
I worry about, obviously, from the National Guard
perspective from the State of Florida, you know, we are looking
at restructuring the National Guard with the loss of lift
capabilities by--we don't have Apaches, but we have--we do have
Black Hawks, and that we are being told that we are gonna lose
some of those Black Hawks to--I guess to backfill other areas
within this force restructuring.
That is going to put, you know, Floridians at risk,
particularly during, you know, a time of emergency, and we do
tend to live on a peninsula which is exposed to those types of
things with hurricanes.
So I guess, so, you know, from my perspective, I don't have
any military bases in my district. I do have some National
Guard assets. But end of the day, I worry about the State of
Florida and having the availability of those lift capabilities
that are going to be reduced, at least what we are being told
in the State of Florida.
How do we reconcile that? How do we--we are taking
resources away from a State that is dependent upon that for a
recovery.
Ms. Wormuth. Congressman, I am not aware of the specific
decisions or conversations about which States may be losing or
gaining helicopters, for example, so I just want to be clear
that while I am not aware of the specifics, I do know that the
Department has been working closely with States and the Guard
Bureau to try to look at force structure on a State-by-State
basis in terms of how it relates to the ability of States to
meet their civil support needs.
So I know we have been trying to look at that. We have done
some studies that have been looking at sort of historical
disaster patterns and how that relates to the type of
structure.
So I think, as we go forward, to try to evaluate where we
may be making some adjustments, we will certainly try to inform
those decisions with that analysis that looks at specifically
the kinds of natural disaster needs that coastal States, like
Florida, have.
Mr. Nugent. You know, I am just hearing from our National
Guard----
The Chairman. The gentleman's time expired.
Mr. Nugent. I am sorry. I yield back.
Thank you very much.
The Chairman. Mr. Franks.
Mr. Franks. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank all of you for being here.
Admiral, I always want to make a special statement of
gratitude to people like you who have worn the uniform for so
long and have made it more possible to walk in the light of
freedom some day. And I really am grateful to you.
And I was especially impressed by the tone and tenor and
the substance of your opening statement. I think it certainly
points out the failure on our part related to this sequester.
And, if it means anything to you, I apologize. I mean, some
of us didn't support it, as you know, but it was something that
I think we have really put the military and those who give
everything for us in a very bad situation.
And I know you are doing the best you can. But it is a
difficult situation.
So, with that, Ms. Wormuth, thank you for being here as
well.
And, I guess, let me begin by suggesting to you that events
in the world began to overtake some of our thoughts. And more
and more we see what looks to be like increasing danger in the
world.
North Korea is not only now able to have a nuclear weapons
capability, but their missile technology is advancing in a very
ominous way. And with Iran on the potential phase of a
breakout, if they wanted to be, over time, I think it is a very
sobering time.
With that in mind, the only thing that this administration
had to really dissuade the Iranians early on was this third
site in Poland, as far as devaluing any nuclear weapons program
or missile program they might have. And they canceled that.
And, if the QDR recognizes that the top of our three
pillars is to protect the homeland, and that is certainly
fundamental, then how did that strategy bring this
administration to a budget that has the smallest level of
missile defense funding since we have had--since the Clinton
administration?
How did that happen?
And I direct the question to you, Ms. Wormuth.
Ms. Wormuth. Thank you, Congressman.
I think we share the concerns that you have about North
Korea and about Iran, that is part of the reason why we put
such an emphasis on protecting the homeland in the strategy,
and it is part of the reason why we put such an emphasis on
making sure that we are keeping pace with the missile threats
posed by those countries.
Mr. Franks. Forgive me, Ms. Wormuth, I have got to start
here again. I mean, then how does that translate to the lowest
missile defense budget since the Clinton administration?
Ms. Wormuth. What we have tried to do, Congressman, is to
make sure that we are applying money to the parts--to our
missile defense program where it makes sense and where it
works.
So that is why we added the 14 additional GBIs [ground-
based interceptors], for example. It is why we----
Mr. Franks. Forgive me--forgive me. You didn't add them.
They were taken out, and you put them back at a much higher
cost. And I mean, I am just trying to--you are in a bad
situation, because you have to defend, in my judgment, what is
an indefensible position.
Unfortunately, you are the only one in front of me. So
there is nothing personal here, but the fundamental proof of
the administration's commitment to homeland protection has to
be at least a strong emphasis on missile defense.
And the lowest missile defense budget since the Clinton
administration? That doesn't translate. And it really concerns
me. It is not--I realize it is a partisan election year, but
this is something that some of us have been raving about since
we have been in diapers, and it gets more and more concerning.
So I am hoping--I know your guy is gonna give you a note
here. So I will let him give you a chance to--let you, give you
a chance to reflect what he might say.
Go ahead.
Ms. Wormuth. I would just say, Congressman, we are
obviously having to make difficult choices inside of the
Defense Department between capacity, capability, and readiness.
That said, we are funding the missile defense system in a
way that we think gives us the protection we need. In addition
to, again, putting more towards the GBIs, we are also putting
money and looking at a redesign of the kill vehicle. We are
putting more money into the sensor system, into the
discrimination for the radar system.
So we are making investments to make sure that we have a
system that can give us the protection we need.
Mr. Franks. Well, fundamentally I have to respectfully
disagree that the emphasis is as it should be. And Admiral, I
will give you a chance if you want to try to clean this up for
me a little bit.
Admiral Winnefeld. One of the things I would like to do is
sit down and talk, if we can, about the European Phased
Adaptive Approach, because my predecessor----
Mr. Franks. I am very familiar with it. So I know what you
are saying. And I understand.
Admiral Winnefeld [continuing]. He did some good work on
that. And the other thing I would say is, a good chunk of the
money that has come out of the budget is in regional missile
defense, where we are gonna expect our partners to do more. We
are gonna expect them to buy systems from us to help themselves
while we maintain our focus on the homeland with the potential
East Coast site, sensor improvements, and the like----
Mr. Franks. Well, we all know that a nuclear missile can
ruin our whole day, so I hope we keep that in mind. Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Gibson.
Mr. Gibson. Well, thanks, Mr. Chairman.
I thank the panelists for being here as well.
I apologize for being late, coming from the Ag
[Agriculture] Committee, but the first question is really just
a point of clarification. And that is, at one point there was
discussion of establishing a base in Australia.
I guess, ostensibly, it was part of the pivot to the
Pacific, and some kind of counter to China. And I am just
looking for clarification, consequent to the QDR, is that still
the plan?
Ms. Wormuth. Yes, Congressman, we are continuing our plan
to put Marines at Darwin, eventually building up to 2,500. So
we are on track to do that and are in discussions right now
with Australia about some adjustments we would like to make to
our access agreement to support that.
Admiral Winnefeld. And I would just add, if I could, that
we aren't technically calling that a base. We are calling them
rotational deployments out of respect for the Australians and
their sovereignty concerns. And we have an extremely good
relationship, obviously, on the defense side with Australia,
but it is a rotational presence.
Mr. Gibson. In the QDR discussions, did it ever surface or
become a point of analysis and discussion that, you know, at
the same time that we are establishing a new base, that we are
gonna request authority to reduce the number of bases here in
the United States and, you know, how from a rationale
perspective that could be defended. Did that point ever come
up?
Admiral Winnefeld. I don't know that we are expending a
great deal of military construction funding to support a
rotational presence. We would probably help the Australians a
little bit, and we can take that for the record to give you the
exact numbers.
[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix
on page 57.]
Admiral Winnefeld. But, this was a very high leverage thing
for us to be able to cooperate with our Australian partners, to
have Marines further out, away from the United States, closer
to potential problems, and the opportunity to train in
wonderful training space with a tremendous partner.
So I think it really wasn't a great consideration that we
would be--because we are not building a base there. I think
there are other places in the world where that is more a
factor.
Mr. Gibson. So the second question has to do with your
deliberations and conclusions as relates to anti-access,
strategic maneuver, and ultimately where we are now in terms of
the Global Response Force.
Admiral Winnefeld. In terms of the status of the Global
Response Force?
Mr. Gibson. Yes, how it now fits in to how we are gonna
proceed over the next 10, 20 years. Talk to me in terms of what
the analysis was, and where we are now in terms of commitment
to the Global Response Force, in relation to the challenges.
Admiral Winnefeld. Sure. We are gonna maintain the Global
Response Force. It is a very robust force. Currently the 82nd
Airborne is the Army element attached to that, but it is a
very--you know, a lot of different forces that are part of
that. And we have used it in the past. We used it in Haiti, for
example, when we needed to deploy a headquarters and some folks
on the ground there very quickly and they were very responsive
and did a great job.
So we have to be agile as a force. So I would argue not
only should we maintain a Global Response Force, but we need to
look across our force at ways that we can move more quickly,
because events unfold more quickly in this world than they ever
have before and we have gotta be able to get there fast.
Mr. Gibson. Appreciate the comments, Admiral, and agree
with you on that. I was actually the 82nd Commander for that
operation. That was my last deployment before I retired. And I
agree, I think our service men and women really did a fabulous
job.
I did come away from it and certainly am understanding of
the larger picture in terms of our commitments to Afghanistan
and other places, but it was my perception that, you know, the
Global Response Force in early 2010 was at very high risk in
terms of the way that we had capabilities that we could--and
resources that we could bring to bear.
I am still realistic, to this day, obviously, about what we
can do at the moment, but one of the suggestions I have is that
when it--as it relates to the war plans, and as it relates to
resourcing and the QDR being a piece of this, that my sense is
we need to do more modeling and simulation to understand not
only the vertical task list, but then when you turn it
horizontal, what that means in terms of sequencing forces,
where the gaps are in terms of resources are, and that, you
know, that is one way of measuring risk.
And I suspect that we do have pretty high risk, which I am
not sure that my colleagues fully understand. And I think that
we could do more on that score because it is a joint
requirement and everything in terms of jamming, fighter bomber
escort, C-17 accompaniment, and the concept of how you do
vertical or amphibious envelopment that brings on early
arriving forces, campaign forces, and behind it, command and
control, sustainment, all of this and then post-hostilities.
I don't sense that we have a full understanding of where we
are. We don't see ourselves very well in terms of where we are
in terms of that CONOP [concept of operations] if you will, and
then for my colleagues to understand the risk associated with
that.
Ms. Wormuth. Congressman, I would just add that I think
during the QDR process and frankly, sort of just on a regular
basis, we do try to look at all of those types of issues, we
use scenarios, we use modeling, to try to get at all of those
different types of things. We look at a real breadth of
scenarios to try to understand where we have risks, where we
may have gaps, to try to help guide our force development
efforts in the future.
So, that is certainly not a perfect process, but we do have
a fairly robust set of analysis that we conduct in support of
reviews like the QDR to try to get at that.
Mr. Gibson. Well, and my time is up. I am going to have to
yield back in a second. I certainly look forward to, and I will
have my staff reach out to you. I would like to learn more
about all that process. And, you know, we certainly did a lot
of on the ground--we did actual training, but we would have to
complement that with modeling and simulation.
And I yield back. Thank you for your patience, Mr.
Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you very much. There are just a couple
more things that the force planning construct is used to size
the force. And the QDR still talks about being able to fight a
major contingency and then--and hold on another one. I thought
we had backed off from that, is that where we are right now?
Admiral Winnefeld. We are not using the term ``hold'' as a
term of art anymore. It is a different----
The Chairman. We used to say----
Admiral Winnefeld. ``Win, hold, win,'' or whatever it was?
The Chairman. First two were, fight, then fight. We can do
two majors. We pulled back from that to where we would fight
and hold. Now, I think the wording in the QDR is defeat and
deny, which I guess would be the same as fight and hold.
Admiral Winnefeld. We had--there was a seminal meeting we
had where we were talking about this a couple years ago. And
Ash Carter and I were sitting at the end of the table, and the
discussion was about how far apart do you have to pry two big
contingencies in order to be able to do them?
And we sort of turned and looked at each other and said,
you know this is, you know, this is not the right way to look
at this because the adversary has a vote.
And you might find yourself doing something simultaneously.
And so we really need to ask ourselves, What can we do
simultaneously? What should we be able to do simultaneously?
With the understanding that you might be fortunate and that
they would be spread apart by some amount of time that we don't
control. So we decided that----
The Chairman. Without getting too down into the two,
because there is still two in the QDR, but we have testimony
from General Odierno, from General Amos, as we finish these
posture hearings, that they were going to be very hard-pressed
to fight one, and that is why I wonder why we still have two in
the QDR.
Let me just--you know, in listening to all of the questions
and all of the testimony, and all of the work that has gone
into this, all of these models, and all of these people putting
in all of this time, do you have any idea what--how long it
took to put the QDR together?
Ms. Wormuth. Congressman, this time, this was a shorter QDR
than past QDRs. We had about 6 months. We really kicked it off
in September.
The Chairman. So, 6 months to do this.
Ms. Wormuth. But I would add we build--we had a good,
strong basis in the work that was done.
The Chairman. Any idea of--as to cost?
Ms. Wormuth. I don't have a precise cost figure for you,
sir. I think we can take that for the record and work on it.
[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix
on page 57.]
The Chairman. Within hundreds of thousands or million?
Ms. Wormuth. Well, it is primarily--it is really man-hours
that is the largest cost.
The Chairman. But that is cost, right?
I mean, if they are working on this, they are not working
on something else.
Ms. Wormuth. That is correct. And there are a large number
of folks in the Pentagon, in OSD, in the----
The Chairman. As I have been listening here, I go back to
Mr. Thornberry's question and I am--I know that there is nobody
that does more planning than the military.
I know you have plans for every contingency on contingency,
and this is just to my way of thinking after going through this
process and seeing it now for a number of years, we have had
more discussion about the process or about why you didn't do
this or didn't do this in the planning than what we have
actually talked about as to what your recommendations or things
were, and how it differed from what the budget was.
So, I think this is something we are going to have to look
at going forward if this is one of the things that we do in
setting up bureaucracy is put more and more effort on the
bureaucracy and build up bureaucracy instead of putting that
time then, to actually getting something done that we probably
would get more benefit out of.
Anyway, a lot of work. I appreciate your efforts,
appreciate the things that you have done. Appreciate you being
here today and your patience as we have gone through this.
Thank you very much.
This committee stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:51 a.m., the committee was adjourned.]
=======================================================================
A P P E N D I X
April 3, 2014
=======================================================================
PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
April 3, 2014
=======================================================================
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
=======================================================================
WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING
THE HEARING
April 3, 2014
=======================================================================
RESPONSE TO QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MR. MCKEON
Ms. Wormuth. Estimating precise costs to complete the 2014 QDR is
difficult. The Department conducted the 2014 QDR over a shorter time
period than prior QDRs, roughly from late August 2013 to early March
2014. During this intensive Review, OSD, the Joint Staff, Services, and
Combatant Commands incurred staffing costs and commissioned studies to
provide analytical support. In all, our best estimate is that the QDR
cost almost $16 million. Approximately 80 percent of this was
manpower--over 140,000 hours--which is also largely an opportunity cost
for the Department. Analytic studies comprised less than 20% of the
total cost of the 2014 QDR. The Department also obligated $1.5 million
in support of the National Defense Panel. [See page 35.]
______
RESPONSE TO QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MR. GIBSON
Admiral Winnefeld. The United States is not building bases in
Australia. The goal remains to establish a USMC and USAF rotational
presence in Australia as jointly announced by the President of the
United States and the Prime Minister of Australia on November 16, 2011.
We are currently involved in negotiations with the Government of
Australia on a legally binding government-to-government agreement that
will form the foundation necessary to fully mature these force posture
initiatives. The agreement is intended to establish access and use of
mutually determined facilities, as well as equitable cost-sharing
principles. Detailed cost estimates will not be made until after
negotiations are completed and specific facilities have been
identified. The Department of State is the lead for negotiations, with
support from the Department of Defense. [See page 33.]
?
=======================================================================
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING
April 3, 2014
=======================================================================
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. LANGEVIN
Mr. Langevin. General Dempsey states that his ``greatest concern is
that we will not innovate quickly enough or deeply enough to be
prepared for the future, for the world we will face two decades from
now.'' I could not agree more. The question for you, then, is what more
can DOD do to ensure innovation and the acquisition of technologies
that will provide a decisive advantage in warfare in the 2020s and
2030s? Do we have enough investment in R&D and are we applying that
investment properly?
Admiral Winnefeld. Given the pace of advances in technology, and in
a fiscally constrained environment, we have to ensure we focus our
investments to maintain our battlefield edge. We must seek technologies
that enable our forces to be more agile and embrace new ways of
operating, even if they depart from the familiar.
The FY 2015 President's Budget puts us on this path. It provides
stability for research and development, maintaining a healthy Science
and Technology (S&T) program of $11.5 billion to invest in future
technologies, and an overall Research, Development, Test and Evaluation
(RDT&E) Portfolio of $63.5 billion, an increase of $0.7 billion over
the FY 2014 enacted levels. The procurement portfolio of $90.4 billion,
a decrease of $2.0 billion from FY 2014 enacted levels, reflects the
hard choices that were necessary in the current fiscal climate but
continues to fund the critical weapons systems needed to enhance our
highest priority warfighting capabilities.
I am confident that the investment levels and the placement of
those investments in the FY 2015 President's Budget are sufficient to
meet the needs of our forces. However, if sequestration-level funding
returns in FY 2016, the risks inherent within the Department's approach
to satisfy our strategy will grow significantly. The reductions would
affect all appropriations, including RDT&E, severely curtailing the
Department's ability to develop new technologies. Compared to the FY
2015 President's Budget, investment (Procurement and RDT&E) would grow
at a slower rate under sequestration-level funding. Moreover,
investment would account for nearly 60 percent of the total reduction
at sequestration-level funding, further eroding the Department's
ability to modernize and improve our joint force.
I also believe the Department should be given more latitude, and
some associated funding, to pursue rapid acquisition of capabilities
based on emerging opportunities or needs, which tend to not fit
conveniently inside our budget cycle. We tend to not submit these in
our budget because, unfortunately, they are so vulnerable to marks.
[all]