[Senate Hearing 114-216]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 114-216
SUPPORTING THE WARFIGHTER OF TODAY AND TOMORROW
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HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
DECEMBER 3, 2015
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COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
JOHN McCAIN, Arizona, Chairman
JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma JACK REED, Rhode Island
JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama BILL NELSON, Florida
ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi CLAIRE McCASKILL, Missouri
KELLY AYOTTE, New Hampshire JOE MANCHIN III, West Virginia
DEB FISCHER, Nebraska JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire
TOM COTTON, Arkansas KIRSTEN E. GILLIBRAND, New York
MIKE ROUNDS, South Dakota RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut
JONI ERNST, Iowa JOE DONNELLY, Indiana
THOM TILLIS, North Carolina MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii
DAN SULLIVAN, Alaska TIM KAINE, Virginia
MIKE LEE, Utah ANGUS S. KING, JR., Maine
LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina MARTIN HEINRICH, New Mexico
TED CRUZ, Texas
Christian D. Brose, Staff Director
Elizabeth L. King, Minority Staff Director
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
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december 3, 2015
Page
Supporting the Warfighter of Today and Tomorrow.................. 1
Donley, Secretary Michael B., Former Secretary of the Air Force.. 4
Flynn, Lieutenant General Michael T., USA, Retired, Former
Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency.................... 17
Jones, General James L., USMC, Retired, Former National Security
Advisor to the President of the United States; Supreme Allied
Commander, Europe and Commander of U.S. European Command; and
32nd Commandant of the Marine Corps............................ 26
(iii)
SUPPORTING THE WARFIGHTER OF TODAY AND TOMORROW
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THURSDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2015
U.S. Senate
Committee on Armed Services
Washington, D.C.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:31 a.m. in Room
SD-106, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Senator John McCain
(chairman) presiding.
Committee Members Present: Senators McCain, Ayotte,
Fischer, Ernst, Tillis, Sullivan, Reed, McCaskill, Manchin,
Gillibrand, Donnelly, Hirono, and King.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR JOHN McCAIN, CHAIRMAN
Chairman McCain. The Senate Armed Services Committee meets
to continue our series of hearings on defense reform. In our
three previous hearings, we have reviewed the effects of the
Goldwater-Nichols reforms on our defense acquisition,
management, and personnel systems. In today's hearings and the
two that will follow it, we will consider what most view as the
essence of Goldwater-Nichols: the roles and responsibilities of
the Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, the service secretaries and service chiefs, and the
combatant commanders. This morning we seek to understand
whether these civilian and military leadership organizations
can function better to support the warfighters of today and
tomorrow.
We are fortunate to welcome a distinguished panel of
witnesses who have grappled with these challenging issues over
their many years of service to our Nation: the Honorable
Michael B. Donley, former Secretary of the Air Force;
Lieutenant General Michael T. Flynn, former Director of the
Defense Intelligence Agency; and General James Jones, former
National Security Advisor; Supreme Allied Commander and
Commander of U.S. European Command; and Commandant of the
Marine Corps. We welcome you this morning.
30 years ago, Congress passed Goldwater-Nichols in response
to serious concerns about the effectiveness of our military.
The failure of the Iranian hostage rescue mission in 1980 and
poor coordination between the services during the invasion of
Grenada in 1983 were clear signs that something was wrong.
Congress and others concluded that these failures were driven
by a number of factors, including the absence of unity of
command and an inability to operate jointly.
Goldwater-Nichols sought to address these problems by
making the unified commanders explicitly responsible to the
President and the Secretary of Defense for the performance of
missions and preparedness of their commands. Combatant
commanders were given the ability to issue authoritative
direction on all aspects of operations, joint training,
logistics, internal chains of command, and personnel within
their assigned areas of responsibility. Goldwater-Nichols also
removed the Joint Chiefs of Staff from the operational chain of
command and prevented the services from moving forces in and
out of regional commands without approval.
Just 5 years after the passage of Goldwater-Nichols,
America's rapid and stunning victory in the 1991 Gulf War
seemed to suggest that these reforms had worked. However, more
recent experience on the battlefield has led to renewed concern
about the respective roles and responsibilities of the service
chiefs and the combatant commanders as conceived in Goldwater-
Nichols.
A decade and a half of war in Afghanistan and Iraq suggests
that the Department of Defense is not optimally organized for
protracted conflicts. As Secretary Gates recently testified to
this committee, his experience as a wartime secretary led him
to conclude that the Department of Defense is, quote, designed
to plan for war but not to wage war, at least for the long
term. Indeed, whatever one thinks about the circumstances by
which we all went to war in Iraq 12 years ago, it should be
deeply concerning to all of us that our Nation was losing that
war for 3 years, and the strategy that ultimately turned things
around did not emerge from the system, but rather from a small
group of internal insurgents and outside experts working around
the system. That is a compelling indictment of our defense
organization.
For some, including Secretary Gates, Goldwater-Nichols
succeeded all too well by turning the services into force
providers that are perhaps too walled off from operational
responsibilities. With a confined focus on the train and equip
mission, the services have overwhelmingly concentrated more on
delivering long-term programs of record than urgently needed
capabilities in current conflicts.
While this problem raises serious questions, we must be
cautious of the other extreme. If combatant commanders were
fully resourced with everything they believe is necessary for
their theater, the Department of Defense would be totally
sapped of resources to invest in critical technologies needed
to counter future adversaries. I look forward to our witnesses'
views on whether the Department could strike a better balance
between supporting both the warfighters of today and tomorrow
and if so, how.
At the same time, we must also ensure that the operational
organization of our military accurately reflects and responds
to our present and future national security challenges. Our
Nation confronts the most diverse and complex array of crises
since the end of World War II, from ISIL [the Islamic State of
Iraq and the Levant] and Al Qaeda, to North Korea and Iran, to
Russia and China. What all of these threats have in common is
that they are not confined to a single region of the world.
They span multiple regions and domains of military activities.
Our combatant commands are still predominantly geographically.
We must ensure that our defense organization has the regional
and functional flexibility and agility to address cross-cutting
national security missions.
Many of our prior witnesses have observed that combatant
commands no longer directly fight wars, as Goldwater-Nichols
originally envisioned. Instead, that is done by joint task
forces established on an ad hoc basis and tailored to a given
contingency operation. This makes the dramatic growth of the
headquarters staffs at the combatant commands all the more
difficult to justify. I would be eager to hear from our
witnesses whether, 30 years after Goldwater-Nichols, we should
consider re-imagining, reorganizing, or consolidating our
combatant commands.
I thank our witnesses and look forward to their testimony.
Senator Reed?
STATEMENT OF SENATOR JACK REED
Senator Reed. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Let
me join you in thanking the witnesses for not only being here
today but for their extraordinary service to the Nation.
We have been holding a series of hearings that looks at the
organization and processes of the Department of Defense, and
the whole focus is to provide the best possible support for our
warfighters. You gentlemen know more about that than
practically anybody else. So thank you for joining us today.
A constant theme that has emerged in testimony from
previous hearings is that the Department of Defense has a 20th
century organization facing 21st century challenges:
globalization, rapid adoption of new technology and
particularly cyber, free flow of information. These are
developments that have complicated the security environment by
facilitating a rise of near-peer competitors and irregular
threats from transnational terrorist groups. However, I believe
these trends also provide opportunities to improve U.S.
military capabilities which will support the warfighter if they
can be effectively harnessed through updated organizational
structures and processes. As yesterday's hearing made clear,
the men and women who make up the all-volunteer force remain
this committee's top concern. We must ensure they have the
resources they need to complete their mission and return safely
home.
Testifying on these issues earlier this fall--and I will
again like the chairman quote Secretary Gates--he described the
challenges he faced in delivering rapidly needed capabilities
to troops in the field. He indicated that `the only way I could
get significant new or additional equipment to commanders in
the field in weeks or months--not years--was to take control of
the problem myself through special task forces and ad hoc
processes.' He pointed out the MRAP [Mine-Resistant Ambush
Protected Vehicle] as an example of one of those situations.
But he also pointed out that relying on this `intense
personal involvement' by the Secretary of Defense just does not
work. There is not enough time in the day. So we have to, I
think, together with the Department of Defense create
structural changes that enable this rapid deployment and rapid
support of our troops in the field. That is where your advice
comes in very critically.
Goldwater-Nichols was enacted more than 30 years ago, and
the Department continues to face difficulties to provide for
the warfighter. That again is the essence of what we are all
here to do, provide a process, an organizational structure, and
a culture that delivers the support to the troops they need to
protect the country.
Again, let me thank you, gentlemen, not only for your
testimony but for your service.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman McCain. I thank the witnesses and we will begin
with you, Secretary Donley.
STATEMENT OF SECRETARY MICHAEL B. DONLEY, FORMER SECRETARY OF
THE AIR FORCE
Mr. Donley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member
Reed, for holding this series of hearings. It has been a little
over 30 years since I left this committee as a professional
staff member and it is great to back.
While I was here, I did have any opportunity to work on
Goldwater-Nichols and then, following my service here, went to
the National Security Council where I also worked on these
issues. So they are of special interest to me.
The hearings that the committee held in the mid- 1980s on
Goldwater-Nichols were extremely formative in my career in
educating me and I think other staff members of the committee
on the operation of the Department of Defense. It stuck with me
all these years. It has been of great benefit. I hope that one
result of this great series of hearings that you have kicked
off is that it will stimulate a deeper understanding of how our
defense organization works.
My testimony today--by the way, this is a great panel to be
part of, and I am honored to be here with General Flynn and
longtime friend, General Jones, who I think when I was here
before we referred to as Major Jones. It was Captain McCain.
That goes way back, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman McCain. He was much more pleasant in those days.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Donley. My testimony today is focused on the roles and
relationships between the military departments and combatant
commands and how and where these components interact to produce
warfighting capabilities. I offer six recommendations for
reducing resource-intensive military department and combatant
command headquarters and better preparing joint and service
headquarters for the demanding 21st century environment that
you described, Mr. Chairman.
The context for my recommendations is section 346 of the
just-signed fiscal year 2016 National Defense Authorization Act
in which the committees require DOD [Department of Defense] to
report on planned reductions to its major headquarters
activities by March of next year.
The services interact with combatant commands in many ways
on many levels to support joint operations. I would highlight
two, command relationships and resource allocation, as
representative of how services and COCOMs [combatant commands]
interact to support warfighters of today and tomorrow.
Command relationships are at the intersection of how
combatant commands choose to organize their subordinate
commands and how services internally organize and present
forces. In general, regional combatant commands choose to
organize forces in land, maritime, and air domains within their
assigned area, but both the regional and functional combatant
commands also task organize with subunified commands or task
forces for subregions, specific missions, or functions.
The services, of course, have major commands and
subordinate commands such as numbered air forces, fleets,
corps, armies, which are dual-hatted as components of the
combatant commands. The services need to create internal
command arrangements that satisfy both efficiency in their
administrative command and organize train and equip
responsibilities and effectiveness in their presentation of
forces and in satisfying the operational command requirements
as defined by nine combatant commanders. This intersection
between the command relationships of four services and nine
combatant commands is critical to the proper alignment of
service forces under a unified command and it is directly
pertinent to congressional and DOD interests in improving the
efficiency of DOD's major headquarters.
So my first recommendation is that DOD and Congress review
the service and combatant command relationships, but there are
four important caveats here.
First, we should avoid generalizations. These command
relationships are unique to each service and each combatant
command.
Second, we probably should not assume that complex command
arrangements reflect duplicative or unnecessary staff. You have
to look. Dual-hatting, even triple-hatting where allied forces
might be involved, makes good sense.
Also, we should not assume that opportunities for major
savings might result. We need to review and take stock of
previously harvested savings and efficiencies that have been
taken by the services over the past several years.
I do have a predilection that Congress should not legislate
command relationships at this level.
In resource allocation, executing roughly 80 percent of DOD
resources, the services have to balance the size and capacity
of their forces across multiple combat elements with the
readiness of today's forces and investment in future
capabilities. Combatant commands express their needs through
multiple channels in the planning, programming, budgeting, and
execution system, which is DOD's primary resource allocation
process. These include their service components, integrated
priority lists, and through the integrating role of the
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Joint Staff J-8
and the Joint Requirements Council. These responsibilities and
organizational relationships established in DOD's key
management processes ensure there is joint input and review in
service resource allocation and acquisition. They provide
combatant commands the necessary link and voice, but they are
also intended to keep combatant commands focused on their
deterrence, warfighting, planning, and engagement
responsibilities minimizing the need for combatant command
headquarters to have large programming staffs duplicating the
work of their service force providers.
At the same time, the combatant commands need J-8 functions
to interact with the joint staff and the services on matters
related to program evaluation and resource allocation. The size
and scope of combatant command J-8's will vary according to the
command's mission and especially so for the functional
commands, SOCOM [United States Special Operations Command],
STRATCOM [United States Strategic Command], and TRANSCOM
[United States Transportation Command].
In reviews of major headquarters, I recommend that DOD and
Congress review the purpose and size of these combatant command
J-8 functions to ensure they are not duplicating program and
resource activities that are primarily the responsibility of
others.
For reasons outlined in more detail in my testimony, I do
not believe we need to establish more services. In response to
new technologies or the need for new capabilities, I would
observe that creating new staff organizations, agencies, and
command arrangements has thus far proven to be more attractive
and flexible over time.
However, I do believe the existing service headquarters
could be more effective and efficient, and I support the
consolidation of the secretariat and service staffs within each
military department.
Current arrangements have a long history and a benefit of
strong alignment with the existing structure of a separate OSD
[the Office of the Secretary of Defense] with its under
secretaries and joint staff with a common military staff
structure. Nonetheless, the abiding presence of two staffs in
the same headquarters, three in the Department of the Navy, has
periodically been a source of both tension and confusion both
internally within the respective services and externally to
those with whom the services interact. It is duplicative in
several areas and generally inefficient.
Consolidation of military department headquarters staffs
has been in the `good idea but too hard' box for many years and
it will require a careful approach. It has a long history with
great potential for missteps. Congress should take a deliberate
approach, provide time for the services to carefully prepare
legislative proposals and take a close look at the details
before signing up to the concept. As much as possible, Congress
should also provide for uniformity across the military
department headquarters, as was done in Goldwater-Nichols,
while accommodating the special circumstances of two services
in the Department of the Navy.
With respect to combatant commands, I have views on the
current unified command plan but no recommendations for
increasing or decreasing the number or type of commands except
to note that for the past 15 years it appears that DOD has been
self-limiting the total number of such commands at about nine
to ten.
Taking the number and type of combatant commands as roughly
correct, I believe the preferred way to manage them is to
maintain close control over their assigned forces and low-
density/high-demand assets and how well these commands' staffs
are resourced. Congress should expect DOD to carefully review
the size of combatant command headquarters and each of their
staff directorates and make choices on which to staff more or
less robustly according to their mission and current needs.
Sizing decisions for staff directorates need to accommodate
differences in combatant command missions and between the
combatant commands and other components. In addition to the
differences in the J-8 functions that I mentioned, the
combatant command J-1 personnel office, for example, performs a
substantially smaller and more discrete personnel function than
you find in military departments.
Finally, any review of combatant command headquarters
should ensure that all of these commands maintain sufficient
resources to support their core capabilities for planning and
executing joint operations.
Joint intelligence operation centers and regional centers
for security studies such as the Marshall Center in EUCOM
[United States European Command] and the Asia-Pacific Center in
PACOM [United States Pacific Command] also deserve close
attention. These are subordinate components or direct reporting
units, technically not part of the combatant commands'
headquarters, but nonetheless resource-intensive elements
within the commands' scope of responsibilities.
I strongly support the alignment of these intelligence and
security study centers within their respective commands, but
due to their size, I recommend that they be revalidated as
necessary and appropriate in combatant commands.
More important, Mr. Chairman, than how many or what type of
commands DOD has is how well they work together, which is a
matter of increasing urgency given the current security
environment. Today's environment requires us to take joint
commands to new levels of operational competency, including
more coordination and collaboration with U.S. Government
agencies and increasing collaboration with international
partners and allies. We need to move in these directions if
possible without increasing the total number of personnel in
combatant command headquarters.
I recommend that DOD and Congress support the evolution of
combatant command headquarters to accommodate these increasing
requirements.
We also need to recognize that in this environment, cross-
domain, cross-regional, and cross-functional operations put
higher demands on our ability to integrate the work of multiple
combatant commands, further complicating the web of supported
and supporting command relationships. In this context, the U.S.
needs to enhance strategic planning for global operations in
which multiple regional and functional commands will be
operating simultaneously. In the midst of this demanding
environment, we need robust gaming, joint training and
exercises across combatant commands that will facilitate the
test and evaluation of new operating concepts and validate
plans.
In the aftermath of disestablishing JFCOM [Joint Forces
Command], I recommend that Congress ask DOD what it has in
place as the mechanisms and resources for joint
experimentation.
We must also act to ensure the necessary responsibilities,
authorities, and resources are in place for the Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs to effectively integrate the combatant commands'
planning activities on a dynamic and global basis.
I recommend that this committee and DOD work together to
ensure the responsibility for development of strategic
integrated planning across all combatant commands is properly
assigned with the necessary authorities and resources to
support this work.
Mr. Chairman, Congress should partner with DOD in all this
work and choose carefully and jointly to set priorities to
generate mutual confidence and enhance prospects for successful
implementation of any resulting reforms. Not all improvements
require statutory changes, and many opportunities for
improvement fall within DOD's existing authorities.
There will always be a need for greater efficiency in DOD,
and I commend the DOD leadership and Congress for keeping up
this pressure. Transferring the savings from headquarters
efficiencies and other reforms to combat capabilities is a
model we should pursue, but we should also keep in mind that
these savings and efficiencies alone will not close the
business case. To meet the demands of the current strategic
environment and support the warfighters today and tomorrow, DOD
will need more resources and flexibility to sustain and in some
areas increase capacity to rebuild readiness and to modernize
the force.
Mr. Chairman, thank you for this opportunity to present my
views. Again, thank you for this important series of hearings
that you have kicked off. I look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Donley follows:]
Prepared Statement by Michael B. Donley
supporting the warfighter of today and tomorrow
Thank you, Chairman McCain and Ranking Member Reed for holding this
series of hearings. My testimony will focus on the roles and
relationships between Military Departments and the Combatant Commands,
and two areas--command arrangements and resource allocation--where
these components interact to produce warfighting capabilities. I
suggest specific areas for DoD and congressional review and also offer
other recommendations for reducing resource intensive Military
Department and Combatant Command headquarters, and better preparing
joint and Service headquarters for the demanding 21st century security
environment. The context for these recommendations is Section 346 of
the FY16 National Defense Authorization Act, which requires DoD to
report on planned reductions to its major headquarters activities by
March, 2016.
military departments
The role of Military Departments is to recruit, organize, train,
and equip (OT&E) forces for assignment to Combatant Commands. The three
Military Departments, composed of four Services, are organized around
the land, maritime, and aerospace domains. \1\ These are DoD's largest
operating components with the longest history and they serve as the
foundation for the U.S. military--the places from which the full scope
of military capabilities are derived and sustained.
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\1\ For simplicity, this paper will hereafter refer to Military
Departments as ``Services'' and summarize their common functions as
``OT&E'' responsibilities. Descriptions of component responsibilities
are from Title 10, U.S. Code, and DoD Directive 5100.01, Functions of
the Department of Defense and Its Major Components, December 2010.
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In the broader scheme of defense organization, the Services
maintain critical relationships with OSD and the Joint Staff, DoD's two
staff components whose broad purpose is to advise the Secretary of
Defense on strategic direction of the armed forces. The Services must
also maintain relationships with the 28 Defense Agencies and DoD Field
Activities that provide centralized support. \2\ In these
relationships, the Services are both customers of such agencies, and
also providers of uniformed personnel and other resources to those same
agencies. Most importantly, the Services must maintain close
relationships with the warfighters, the nine Combatant Commands that
conduct joint operations with forces assigned by the Secretary of
Defense from the Services.
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\2\ This paper will hereafter refer to these collectively as
``Defense Agencies''.
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Service Strengths and Weaknesses. The Services are the primary and
best sources of expertise on their respective domains of warfare; on
the training and readiness status of their forces; on force and weapon
system capabilities and limitations; and on tactics, techniques, and
procedures for force and weapon system-level employment. They are
essential sources of advice for Combatant Commanders charged with
integrating the best mix of capabilities to fulfill their assigned
missions, and all DoD components depend on the Services' deep
institutional knowledge and technical expertise.
In programming and executing roughly 80% of DoD's budget, the broad
scope of the Services' OT&E responsibilities and military functions
provides the first level of integration in assessing the appropriate
balance of capabilities and resources. This includes the size and
composition of the force (i.e. multiple military functions and force
elements) and the balance between today's readiness and investments for
the future. Given the resources available, it is the Services that must
balance capacity across military functions, among and between active
duty and reserve components, between personnel and equipment, between
combat and support elements, between training and readiness and quality
of life, and between current operations and acquisition of new
technology for the future. All must be considered, weighed, and
provided for in proper balance.
Despite the central role of the Services in defense organization,
DoD is so large and complex that, institutionally, the Services can be
lacking in joint or defense-wide perspectives. For example, Service
personnel sometimes lack a full appreciation for the role of Defense
Agencies, seeming to overlook that this is where they get their
Intelligence support, fuel to operate their equipment, health care,
education for their children in remote locations, and their paycheck,
among other things.
More importantly, the Services often lack the ability to convince
each other that, as a Service, they can impartially and effectively
lead other Services in joint activities, or perform defense-wide roles
as executive agents for the Secretary of Defense. Goldwater-Nichols'
emphasis on joint education and joint experience as preconditions for
advancement to senior assignments, and over 30 years of combat
experience under joint commands, have done much to strengthen joint
perspectives in the Services, but not so much that effective joint
operations could be assured if there were no Unified Combatant
Commands.
military departments and combatant commands: supporting the warfighter
of today and tomorrow
The role of Combatant Commands is to provide authoritative
direction and exercise command over assigned forces to carry out
assigned missions. This includes authoritative direction over all
aspects of military operations, joint training, and logistics; and
prescribing command relationships, assigning functions to subordinate
commanders, and employing assigned forces. DoD's nine Combatant
Commands include six regional commands (NORTHCOM, SOUTHCOM, PACOM,
EUCOM, CENTCOM, and AFRICOM) and three functional commands (TRANSCOM,
STRATCOM, and SOCOM).
Combatant Commanders are in the operational chain of command, which
runs from the President to the Secretary of Defense, and from the
Secretary of Defense to the Combatant Commanders. The Chairman, JCS,
among other roles, transmits communications to and from the President
and Secretary of Defense to the Combatant Commanders, and vice versa.
The CJCS also oversees the Combatant Commands and serves as their
spokesman, especially on the operational requirements of their
commands.
The Services interact with Combatant Commands in many ways on many
levels to support joint operations. I would highlight two--command
relationships and resource allocation--as representative of how
Services support the warfighters of today and tomorrow.
Command Relationships are at the intersection of how Combatant
Commands choose to organize subordinate commands, and how Services
internally organize and present forces.
In general, regional Combatant Commands choose to organize forces
in Land, Maritime, and Air domains within their assigned area; but both
regional and functional Combatant Commands also task organize, with
sub-unified commands or task forces for sub-regions, specific missions
or functions.
Within the Air Force, Major Commands (MAJCOMs) exercise
administrative command of Service forces in a regional or functional
area, overseeing inter alia assigned units and personnel, training,
logistical support, installations and housing, programming and budget
execution, and administration of military justice. MAJCOMs may also be
designated as component commands of the Combatant Commands, presenting
a single face and administrative command structure through which to
provide forces. For example, AF Special Operations Command is also the
AF component command to SOCOM.
Within the MAJCOMs, Numbered Air Forces (NAFs) provide the
operational level of command that are often designated or assigned
joint operational responsibilities by the Combatant Commander. Within
Pacific Air Forces, for example, the Commander, 5th AF is dual-hatted
as the Commander, United States Forces, Japan. Within AF Space Command,
the Commander, 14th AF is designated by STRATCOM as the Joint
Functional Component Commander for Space.
These ``dual-hatting'' relationships make great sense as an
efficient way to bridge the Service and Combatant Command command
elements. At the same time, they deserve close scrutiny to ensure there
is no unnecessary layering or duplication and, within the Services,
that MAJCOM- and NAF-equivalent responsibilities are well-defined.
Secretary Gates' 2011 mandate for greater efficiencies spurred the
Air Force to re-examine its headquarters overhead at all levels,
including the Secretariat and Air Staff, MAJCOMs, NAFs, and down to the
Wing level.
Numerous reductions and realignments were made in the Secretariat
and Air Staff, and some functions were moved to Field Operating
Activities or assigned to MAJCOMs, with overall net reductions in
personnel.
Personnel management functions at the Wing and MAJCOM levels were
moved and consolidated within the Air Force Personnel Center. MAJCOM
installation support functions, along with separate services,
contracting, and engineering agencies, were moved and consolidated in a
new AF Installation & Mission Support Center attached to Air Force
Materiel Command.
NAFs were restructured, focused in part on situations where MAJCOM
and NAF headquarters were co-located. As a result, PACAF and USAFE
eliminated 13th and 17th AF respectively, realigning their functions
within the MAJCOM headquarters with a net reduction in personnel and
general officer billets. These changes were coordinated with the
respective Combatant Commanders to ensure consistency with the
Commanders' organizational scheme for subordinate commands.
The Air Force also consolidated various ISR units and intelligence
support activities into a new NAF - 25th AF, assigned to Air Combat
Command, providing better, cleaner force presentation to all Combatant
Commands and the Intelligence Community for ISR support.
All these changes resulted in net personnel reductions enabling the
AF to achieve an overall 20% reduction in its major headquarters
activities as one part of the 5-year, $34 billion in AF efficiencies
achieved under Secretary Gates' initiative.
In summary, the intersection of Service and Combatant Command
command relationships is critical to the proper alignment of Service
forces under unified command. The Services need to create internal
command arrangements that satisfy both efficiency in their
administrative command and OT&E responsibilities, and effectiveness in
their presentation of forces and in satisfying the operational command
requirements as defined by the nine Combatant Commanders.
Reviewing this intersection between the command relationships of
four Services and nine Combatant Commands is very pertinent to
Congressional and DoD interest in improving the efficiency of DoD's
major headquarters activities.
Recommendation: DoD and Congress review Service and Combatant
Command command relationships, with four important caveats. 1)
Avoid generalizations: command relationships are unique to each
Service and Combatant Command. 2) Don't assume that complex
command arrangements reflect duplicative or unnecessary staff:
dual-hatting (even triple-hatting where allies are involved)
often makes good sense. 3) Don't assume opportunities for major
savings: review and take stock of previously harvested savings
and efficiencies. 4) Congress should not legislate command
relationships.
Resource Allocation: Balancing Today's Readiness and Tomorrow's
Capabilities. Warfighter needs are expressed through multiple channels
in the Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution (PPBE) system-
DoD's primary resource allocation process. For example, Combatant
Commands express needs through Requests for Forces (RFFs), Integrated
Priority Lists (IPLs), and Joint Urgent Operational Needs (JUONs), and
occasionally in less formal submissions as well. Service component
commanders and staff bring insights into the Combatant Commands' force
and capability requirements from their Service and, in effect, advocate
for the Combatant Commanders' needs in developing the Service's annual
Program Objectives Memorandum (POM).
At the DoD level, the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff is charged
with integrating the Combatant Commanders' needs, serving as their
spokesman; preparing resource constrained strategic plans; advising the
Secretary of Defense on strengths and deficiencies in force
capabilities, force and capability requirements; and (when necessary)
providing the Secretary with alternative program and budget
recommendations that would better conform to Combatant Command needs.
The Chairman does this through various channels, including the Joint
Staff Directorate for Force Structure, Resources, and Assessment (J-8),
a critical link with OSD's Director of Cost Assessment and Program
Evaluation (CAPE) as OSD and the Joint Staff together review Service
program and budget proposals in the PPBE process.
Among the critical resource allocation choices for the Services are
those between the capacity and readiness of today's forces, and
investing in more modern capabilities for the future; and Combatant
Commands are customers for both.
To the extent today's needs are not being met due to shortages
(e.g. Low Density / High Demand (LD/HD) forces), Combatant Commands
favor building more capacity, because more capacity would increase
their prospects for receiving more assigned forces, and for mission
success. Combatant Commanders also expect that forces assigned from the
Services are ready, not lacking in training or sustainability; and that
the Services will fulfill this obligation. Especially in the current
strategic environment, where there are multiple on-going operations and
high demand for forces, sustaining capacity and readiness are urgent
Combatant Command needs.
To the extent Combatant Commands can see and understand the
benefits of future capabilities or technologies, they favor their
development and acquisition. But here, the Combatant Commands are
largely dependent on the connectivity between their Service components,
Service R&D elements, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
(DARPA) to keep them informed of emerging technologies and their
potential benefit to future operational capability. Combatant
Commanders and staffs also understand that the Services and DARPA may
be seeking their endorsement for new programs to gain advantage in the
broader competition for scarce resources. As new technologies mature,
the Joint Requirements Oversight Council (JROC) and its link with the
USD(AT&L) in the acquisition process, provide additional Joint input
during review of Service-proposed procurement programs.
The bottom line, however, is that while Combatant Commands play an
important role in setting demand signals by defining force and
capability requirements, and are consumers of ready forces, strategic
decisions on how to allocate resources and risks ultimately belong to
the Secretary of Defense based on the advice of his OSD principal staff
assistants and military advisors (i.e. the CJCS/JCS/Joint Staff), and
the Services' senior civilian leadership.
Overall, DoD's ability to support the warfighters of today and
tomorrow is dependent on sufficient appropriations from Congress. But
in the context of roles and functions across DoD's major headquarters
activities, these assigned responsibilities and the organizational
relationships established in DoD's key management processes ensure
there is joint input and review in Service resource allocation and
acquisition. They provide Combatant Commands a necessary link and
voice, but are also intended to keep Combatant Commands focused on
their deterrence, warfighting, planning, and engagement
responsibilities, minimizing the need for these headquarters to have
large programming staffs duplicating the work of their Service force
providers.
At the same time, the Combatant Commands need J-8 functions to
interact with the Joint Staff and Services on matters related to
program evaluation and resource allocation. The size and scope of
Combatant Command J-8s will vary according to the command's mission,
and especially so for the functional commands--SOCOM, STRATCOM, and
TRANSCOM.
Recommendation: In review of major headquarters activities,
recommend DoD and Congress review the purpose and size of
Combatant Command J-8 functions to ensure they are not
duplicating program and resource activities that are the
primary responsibilities of others.
other issues concerning military departments and combatant commands
Do We Need to Establish New Services for Space, Cyber, or Special
Operations? Periodically, it is asked whether we need to create new
Services in response to a rapidly changing technology and security
environment. There is no agreed test or threshold for establishing a
new Service, nor is there a clear and consistent history that suggests
when this organizational option is appropriate. In 1947, for example,
the Department of the Air Force was established in response to 40 years
of rapid, astonishing advances in aviation technology and the
progressive growth and evolution of air doctrine, culture, and
organization within the U.S. Army. But there was no new Service created
with the discovery of nuclear fission, or when further advances in
aviation and missile technology opened up the domain of space.
Institutional responses to new threats or technology can take many
forms. Important factors to consider might include:
Maturity of the mission / function / domain and readiness
to assume the full scope of OT&E functions performed by the Services
(e.g. doctrine, training, logistics, infrastructure, R&D, Procurement,
etc.)
Relative size in personnel needs / resources--Does this
exceed the capabilities, or is it overwhelming other military
functions, of the existing Service host(s)? And,
Whether this activity can be separated out of the
Services without disrupting their ability to fulfill other assigned
functions.
Often, the motivation for a new component is more attention and
more money: the belief that a new component out from under its current
host, reporting directly to the Secretary of Defense, would be more
likely to get the management attention and resources perceived by its
advocates as essential to a new, important area.
The arguments in favor of a new Service would be that it requires
dedicated, component-level focus, resources, and leadership for
critical capabilities that would otherwise receive insufficient
attention within a larger component with multiple responsibilities. As
a central feature of DoD's organizational design, however,
establishment of a new Service has been and should remain a very high
threshold, and we should consider all the alternatives.
If the needs related to this activity were oriented toward the
integration of its warfighting elements, then new command arrangements
in the joint system might be a better solution. Alternatively, where
new, emerging needs are focused on supporting capabilities and more
efficient resource management with more business and less military
content, then a Defense Agency might be an appropriate course of
action. Importantly, whatever structural or organizational solution(s)
are considered best, linkages with the roles and responsibilities of
other DoD staffs and components should be identified, de-conflicted,
and made clear.
Given the current management and resource environment, however, I
find the arguments opposing new Services more persuasive. Further sub-
division of the four Services to create another Service would yield
more headquarters, duplicating OT&E and staff functions already
provided for; and each new component further complicates the
coordination required among and across DoD's approximately 45
components. Any new Service would further spread scarce budget
resources across more organizations and weaken integrated decision-
making. This would further complicate the work of DoD leadership,
pushing more resource tradeoffs upwards to the Secretary and Deputy
Secretary of Defense.
In each of the cases at issue (space, cyber, and special
operations), DoD has made reasonable choices focused on the integration
of warfighting capabilities, creating joint command arrangements and
leaving the development of capabilities and OT&E responsibilities to
the four Services.
Creation of a new Service seems a deeper, more expensive, and more
permanent commitment. In recent practice, in response to new
technologies or the need for new capabilities, creating new staff
functions, agencies, and command arrangements has thus far proven to be
more attractive and flexible over time.
Can the Services be operated more effectively and/or efficiently? I
support consolidation of the Secretariat and Service staffs within each
Military Department to promote greater effectiveness and efficiency.
Current arrangements have a long history and the benefit of strong
alignment with the existing structure of a separate OSD and Joint Staff
at the DoD level, with their undersecretaries and a common military
staff structure, respectively. Nonetheless, the abiding presence of two
staffs in the same headquarters (three in the Department of the Navy)
has periodically been a source of both tension and confusion, both
internally within the respective Services, and externally to those with
whom the Services interact. It is duplicative in several areas and,
generally, inefficient.
Various recommendations for reduction or elimination of staff
duplication in the Service headquarters were proposed by the 1960
Symington Committee, the 1970 Blue Ribbon Defense Panel, and the 1978
Ignatius Report. During the consideration of Goldwater-Nichols, House
legislative drafts favored the integration of Service headquarters
while the Senate opposed it; and the final agreement left separate
staffs intact with some changes. The 1995 Commission on Roles and
Missions of the Armed Forces concluded that Service Secretaries and
Chiefs would be better served by a single staff of experienced
civilians and uniformed officers; and the 2004 CSIS Beyond Goldwater-
Nichols Phase 1 Report echoed this recommendation.
Some useful changes have been made without legislation. Indeed,
current law provides some flexibility for Service Secretaries to assign
and/or move functions between the two staffs. Since 2002, the Army has
sought a closer integration of its two headquarters staffs through
General Orders. A recent Air Force decision to move it's A-8
programming function to the Assistant Secretary for Financial
Management was a sensible step that closed a seam between programming
and budgeting databases--providing more coherence and efficiency in
resource allocation and budget execution. However, more fundamental
changes offering greater effectiveness and efficiency will require
changes in law.
Consolidation of the Service headquarters staffs within individual
Military Departments would help eliminate some unnecessary or counter-
productive seams. For example, separation of the Secretariats'
Acquisition functions from Service staffs' Logistics functions runs
counter to sound life-cycle management for weapon systems. In this
instance, staff consolidations could potentially present a single
Service office to interact with the USD(AT&L), and with the Services'
own major commands which perform both acquisition and logistics
functions. Another example is the unnecessary effort to distinguish
policy and oversight in the Secretariats from Service staffs'
management of nearly identical functional areas of responsibility, such
as Assistant Secretaries for Manpower and Reserve Affairs, and Deputy
Chiefs of Staff for Personnel.
Historically, when the subject of consolidation has arisen in the
past, the civilian appointees are concerned the military staff is
trying to eliminate the Secretariat, and the uniformed military is
concerned the presence of civilian appointees in a single staff will
interfere with what they perceive as a clear command chain within the
military Service staff. The results have been strained civil-military
relations and only limited progress toward greater efficiency.
Going forward, once again considering consolidation, Congress could
increase the prospects for success by sustaining the principles of
effective civilian control and independent military advice and ensuring
Service Secretaries and Chiefs of Staff have universal access to all
elements of the single headquarters staff.
The system of civilian Service secretaries and assistant
secretaries should be retained because they are net value added to the
Secretary of Defense and to the Service headquarters. While it is true
that the Secretary of Defense exercises civilian control through
delegated authority to Under Secretaries of Defense and other OSD
officials in various functional areas, none of these Under Secretaries
has the full scope of responsibilities necessary to oversee a Military
Department. Working together in the most optimistic circumstances,
these OSD officials bring many disparate views to the table. In short,
I do not believe the Secretary of Defense can exercise effective
civilian control over Military Departments through the OSD staff alone.
Based on my experience in both OSD and the Air Force, the size and
scope of the Military Departments and the issues that arise within them
warrant a parallel structure of civilian control in OSD and the
Services. Ensuring the Secretary of Defense's direction and intent is
understood and implemented at the Service level, overseeing the
promotion and assignment of senior personnel, overseeing resource
allocation and program execution, and holding senior civilian and
military officials accountable for their performance and conduct are
among the leadership functions that benefit from strong civilian
control within the Military Department headquarters.
Provide the Service Chief unfettered access to any and all Military
Department headquarters staff for the purpose of developing military
advice as a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. This is an essential
element of any Service headquarters consolidation and can be
accomplished through a legislative provision to that effect.
Specifically, it would ensure that the Service chief would have access
to military personnel within any staff function without interference,
regardless of whether such function is led by an Assistant Secretary or
another senior civilian. In practice, this should present no issue
since the Plans and Operations functions on the military staff have no
counterpart in the Service Secretariats and would likely continue to be
led by General/Flag Officers.
Maintain a Mix of Appointees, Uniformed Personnel, and Career
Civilians. In addition, it is important to recognize that creating a
single headquarters staff is not a choice between civilian or military
staffs. The Secretariats include many uniformed officers, including
senior officers in functions designated in law as the sole
responsibility of the Secretary--for example, Acquisition, Financial
Management, Legislative Affairs, and Public Affairs. Likewise, the
military staff contains Senior Executive Service civilians who provide
deep expertise and continuity, compensating for the high personnel
turnover associated with military rotations. Civilian appointees bring
different and useful DoD, congressional, or industry experience and
skill sets, currently atypical in a military career, that complement
those of uniformed leaders and career civilians.
In my experience, the Service Secretary benefits from a strong
partnership with the Service Chief, and the Service Chief benefits from
having a strong civilian partner in the Service Secretary. Overall, the
Service headquarters benefits from this mix of political appointees,
uniformed personnel, and career civilians.
Consolidation of Military Department headquarters staffs has been
in the ``good idea, but too hard'' box for many years and will require
a careful approach. It has a long history and great potential for
missteps. Congress should take a deliberate approach, provide time for
the Services to carefully prepare legislative proposals, and take a
closer look at the details before signing up to the concept. Congress
should, as much as possible, also provide for uniformity across the
Military Department headquarters as was done during Goldwater-Nichols,
while accommodating the special circumstances of two Services in the
Department of the Navy.
Recommendation: Consolidate Military Department headquarters
staffs as proposed to help improve unity of effort,
effectiveness, and efficiency; and present a single Service
headquarters structure to the field. Retain the benefits of
strong civilian alignment with OSD and military alignment with
the Joint Staff and other military staffs.
Does DoD Need More, or Fewer, Combatant Commands? The U.S. military
needs Unified Combatant Commands. Over 60 years of combat experience
has proven that no single service can conduct effective operations
without assistance from others, and more recent experience demonstrates
that 21st century warfare crosses multiple domains and regions.
Moreover, we have tried the alternatives. Experience showed that
``specified'' combatant commands led by a single service (e.g.
Strategic Air Command and Military Airlift Command) did not produce
sufficient integration of effort and, of necessity, needed to evolve to
a higher, unified level. Ad hoc task forces for multi-service
operations did not work as well as joint commands with trained staffs
and a full-time focus on joint force integration (e.g. the evolution
from Rapid Deployment Force to Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force to
CENTCOM).
Current concerns are focused on the number of Combatant Commands
and the size of their headquarters staffs.
Service Chiefs, as members of the JCS, have important roles to play
in weighing the pros and cons of new joint commands and advising the
Secretary of Defense. This is because any new Combatant Command will
need to be staffed by personnel from across the Services. In addition,
the Services act as Executive Agents for Combatant Command headquarters
with responsibility for funding and administration of these activities
on Service installations. \3\ In this sense, the Services act as an
internal brake on unconstrained growth in the joint system.
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\3\ DoD Directive 5100.3, Support of the Headquarters of Combatant
and Subordinate Unified Commands, February 2011.
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Informally, it appears DoD has been limiting its Unified Command
Plan (UCP) to around 9-10 commands. The post 9/11 creation of NORTHCOM
in 2002 was part of a restructuring that disestablished SPACECOM and
assigned space functions to STRATCOM, resulting in no net increase in
the number of commands. Importantly, other 2002 UCP changes included
the assignment of countries previously outside the purview of any
regional command; thus for the first time providing the UCP with global
coverage.
In considering whether to split-off Africa from EUCOM's area of
responsibility and find the resources for a new headquarters, the
creation of AFRICOM in 2008 was `on the cusp'. With continuing
instability in the horn of Africa, the emergence of Al Qaida-affiliated
groups in the Maghreb, a growing war on terrorism, and the need to
develop indigenous African military capabilities, it was clear there
were multiple political-military issues to address in a new command.
But it was also clear that a new AFRICOM would not have assigned forces
(though USSOCOM assets would routinely operate within the region), and
its headquarters would be different from other commands, staffed with
more non-military, interagency personnel.
In 2010, when Secretary Gates' efficiency initiatives included a
review of joint headquarters, it was determined that the UCP could live
without Joint Forces Command. Thus, AFRICOM was last ``in'' and JFCOM
was last ``out''.
In assessing the future of the six regional commands, I would not
recommend any changes. It has taken a long time to achieve global
coverage in a reasonable configuration, which should be considered
important progress; and adjustments on the boundaries can be expected
in the normal course of business. The option of merging NORTHCOM and
SOUTHCOM into an ``Americas'' or ``Western Hemisphere'' command mixes
very different missions and would dilute necessary focus on the
homeland. Given the dynamic strategic environment in Europe, it doesn't
make sense to reverse course and reassign AFRICOM to EUCOM, and the
United States would pay some political price with new African partners
if it did so.
Among the functional commands, CYBERCOM--currently a sub-unified
command within STRATCOM--appears poised to emerge as the tenth
Combatant Command. This long-debated development involves highly
complex relationships between DoD and the Intelligence Community, and
within the UCP itself. Some of the UCP implications are discussed
below.
What changes to the Joint system should be considered? Given this
perspective that the number and type of Combatant Commands is roughly
correct, the preferred way to manage them is to maintain close control
over assigned forces and LD/HD assets, and how well their staffs are
resourced. Congress should expect DoD to carefully review the size of
Combatant Command headquarters and each of their staff directorates,
and make choices on which to staff more or less robustly according to
their mission and need.
I would not recommend DoD change, nor Congress legislate, staff
structure (i.e. J-1 thru J-x). The existing structure provides an
important, common framework across all military staffs and provides
basis for communication and process interaction in both operational and
administrative contexts. Sizing decisions for staff directorates simply
need to accommodate differences in Combatant Command missions, and
between the Combatant Commands and other components. In addition to
differences in the J-8 functions previously discussed, for example, a
Combatant Command J-1 (personnel office) performs a substantially
smaller and more discrete personnel function than is found in Military
Departments. Finally, any such review of Combatant Command headquarters
should ensure all commands maintain sufficient resources to support
their core capabilities for planning and executing joint operations.
Joint Intelligence Operations Centers and the regional centers for
security studies, such as the George C. Marshall Center in EUCOM, and
the Asia-Pacific Center in PACOM, also deserve close attention. These
are subordinate components or direct-reporting units, technically not
part of the Combatant Commands' headquarters but nonetheless resource-
intensive elements within Combatant Commands' scope of
responsibilities. I strongly support the alignment of these
intelligence and security studies centers within their respective
commands. Nonetheless, due to their size, I recommend they be re-
validated as necessary and appropriate for Combatant Commands.
Recommendation: DoD and Congress should review the size and
composition of each Combatant Command headquarters and their
supporting elements.
Just as President Eisenhower noted in 1958, and Goldwater-Nichols
later reinforced, that ``Separate ground, sea, and air warfare is gone
forever . . . '' we should recognize today that single theater warfare
has been rapidly fading in the shadow of trans-national threats and
globalization. In addition, new and more demanding roles for Combatant
Commands have emerged that should be recognized and accommodated.
More important than how many or what type of commands DoD has is
how well they work together--a matter of increasing urgency given the
current security environment.
Hybrid warfare, constant cyber attacks, and terrorists and non-
state actors with global reach crisscross artificial regional command
boundaries and keep CYBERCOM and SOCOM continuously engaged in world-
wide operations. Attacks on the United States could well begin in the
silent domains of space and cyber with effects in NORTHCOM's area of
responsibility. Regional military commands are but one element in a
larger fabric of United States Government and international engagement
and collaboration in meeting contemporary challenges and threats to
international security.
The Combatant Commands' role in ``engagement'' has evolved since
the 1986 enactment of Goldwater-Nichols. They are still responsible for
integrating joint U.S. combat and support capabilities, but now in
addition they are serving as senior U.S. military representatives in
developing international partners and conducting planning for coalition
operations. This role helps extend the international reach of the CJCS
in counterpart relations, providing for more regular interaction with
regional allies and partners at the strategic level, and deeper
military-to-military relationships in critical areas such as missile
defense.
I strongly endorse this role for the Combatant Commanders. Critics
note the U.S. military can become too dominant in regional affairs that
more properly belong to the State Department. Where that may occur, the
answer is not to diminish the military engagement, but to increase
diplomatic and other interagency capabilities and resources necessary
to support the full scope of U.S. interests in the region.
Today's security environment requires us to take joint commands to
new levels of operational competency, including more coordination and
collaboration with other U.S. Government agencies, and increasing
collaboration with international partners and allies. We need to move
in these directions, if possible, without increasing the total number
of personnel in Combatant Command headquarters.
Recommendation: DoD and Congress should support the evolution
of Combatant Command headquarters to accommodate increasing
collaboration with U.S. Government agencies and international
partners.
We also need to recognize that, in the current security
environment, cross-domain, cross-regional, and cross-functional
operations put higher demands on our ability to integrate the work of
multiple Combatant Commands, further complicating the web of
``supported- supporting'' command relationships.
Within the current UCP, STRATCOM, in addition to its foundational
mission of nuclear deterrence, has multiple global missions/
responsibilities to bring to bear, including Space, Global C4ISR,
Cyber, Counter-WMD, Global Missile Defense, and Global Strike. Much-
needed, integrated perspectives on how these domains and missions
should be defended and exploited in today's complex environment are
still in development. Under current arrangements, while the
relationships among STRATCOM's many global missions and their
``supporting-supported'' relationships to other Combatant Commands have
not been developed to their full potential, these global tools have at
least been kept in the same Command bag. Thus, any realignment of
global functions (such as CYBER) away from STRATCOM will create
additional command seams that will need to be addressed.
In this context, the U.S. needs to enhance strategic planning for
global operations in which multiple regional and functional commands
will be operating simultaneously. In the midst of this demanding
environment, we need robust gaming, joint training, and exercises
across Combatant Commands that will facilitate the test and evaluation
of new operating concepts and validate plans.
Recommendation: In the aftermath of disestablishing JFCOM,
Congress should ask whether DoD has in place the mechanisms and
resources for joint experimentation.
The question arises: who has the responsibility for integrating the
Combatant Commands' work and do they have sufficient authority and
resources for this purpose? In my judgment, the Chairman, JCS, in
coordination with the USD(P), has the responsibility and sufficient
authority for this work. The Chairman is responsible for overseeing the
Combatant Commands, for being their spokesman, and for developing
resource constrained strategic plans. The Chairman establishes rules
and procedures for the Joint community, including areas such as the
Joint Strategic Planning System, and Joint Doctrine. The Chairman also
functions within the chain of command and assists the President and
Secretary of Defense in their command functions.
Together, I believe these assigned duties are sufficient for the
Chairman to coordinate and direct the integration of Combatant Command
planning; and if not, sufficient authority is only a short distance
away through a targeted delegation of authority from the Secretary of
Defense. A contrary view, however, is that the Chairman needs to be in
the chain of command--requiring a change in law--to exercise this
authority.
Recommendation: DoD and Congress ensure the responsibility for
development of strategic, integrated planning across all
Combatant Commands is properly assigned with the necessary
authorities and resources to support this work.
conclusion
I support the consolidation of Service headquarters staffs, and
reviews of Service and Combatant Command command arrangements, and
Combatant Command staffs and support components, for greater
efficiencies. \4\ We must also act to ensure the necessary
responsibilities, authorities, and resources are in place within the
joint system to meet the demands of the current security environment.
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\4\ While not considered for this hearing, I also recommend close
review of OSD, Joint Staff, and Defense Agency headquarters.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Congress should partner with DoD in all this work, choose carefully
and jointly to set priorities, generate mutual confidence, and enhance
prospects for successful implementation of any resulting reforms. Not
all improvements require new law, and many opportunities for
improvement fall within DoD's existing authorities.
However, the biggest problems in supporting the warfighter are not
in the headquarters, they are in the corridors of Congress.
Specifically, the inability of Congress to reach consensus on stable
funding for defense sufficient to respond to a rapidly changing threat
environment, improve readiness, and finance badly needed modernization
across the force; and Congressional opposition to base closures and
force structure adjustments recommended by military leaders that would
permit the Services to shift scarce resources to meet changing needs
and accelerate the acquisition of new capabilities.
There will always be a need for greater efficiency in DoD, and I
commend the DoD leadership and Congress for keeping up this pressure.
There will always be shortages: we have never had the resources needed
to do everything that prudent and cautious military leaders think
necessary to do. Transferring the savings from headquarters
efficiencies and other reforms to combat capabilities is a model we
should pursue, but these savings and efficiencies alone will not close
the business case. To meet the demands of the current strategic
environment and support the warfighters of today and tomorrow, DoD will
need more resources and flexibility to sustain and in some areas
increase capacity, to rebuild readiness, and to modernize the force.
Thank you for this opportunity to present my views.
Chairman McCain. General Flynn?
STATEMENT OF LIEUTENANT GENERAL MICHAEL T. FLYNN, USA, RETIRED,
FORMER DIRECTOR OF THE DEFENSE INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
Mr. Flynn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman McCain,
Ranking Member Reed, thanks. Great seeing you again.
I actually was a lieutenant and my first combat experience
was in Grenada in 1983. So it is interesting that I am sitting
here today because it was a mess. It was very confusing.
Thanks for inviting me to participate alongside these other
great patriots.
Chairman McCain. Good thing it was not a formidable
opponent, do you not think?
Mr. Flynn. Yes. I have a few choice words today for the
Cubans.
Anyway, I appreciate sitting aside these two really
unbelievable patriots of our country and longtime servants and
to really just offer some thoughts on this defense reform. I
hope that I offer thoughts that I think that are going to be
consistent with the other themes that you have already heard
from other people that have testified, as well as I think today
maybe I will add a few new ideas.
In the times that we face and we will likely face in this
very complex and unpredictable world, addressing defense reform
is probably the single biggest strategic issue that we must
deal with, and I believe we have to deal with it immediately.
The days of large organizations moving at the speed of an
elephant with bulky, expensive, overly bureaucratic acquisition
programs with little value to our warfighters and even less
value to our national security are forever gone.
Speed is the new big. Innovation is the new norm. The pace
of change is so stunningly fast, and the Defense Department, at
least inside the Pentagon, is not capable of meeting the
demands of future threats.
Rearranging the deck chairs on this Titanic will only make
the chairs slide in a different direction on that deck, but the
ship will still likely sink.
As you said, Chairman, former Secretary Robert Gates stated
it best. I think it was in the fall of 2008 is when he said it,
that the Pentagon is good at planning for war, but on its best
day cannot fight a war. That has been proven in spades over the
past decade and a half with few exceptions.
If the past 14 years of conflict have proven anything, it
has proven Secretary Gates to be spot-on when it came to making
that fateful statement.
Neither our Nation nor the citizens our defense system is
designed to protect and defend can operate in the future the
way we operate today.
I would add that even though a nice glossy and well meaning
report will come out of this committee, there are people inside
the Department--and I am serious about this--that are looking
at your efforts today as a joke and wondering why do you
bother, nothing will ever change. Please, Chairman and members
of this committee, please prove them wrong.
We have forgotten how to win wars because we have lost
sight of what winning looks like. Instead, we plod along,
participating in conflict and allowing an overly bulky and
bureaucratic Department of Defense and a completely broken
interagency process, led by the White House and rightly so,
that has choked itself practically to death. It simply does not
work in support of our warfighting needs today. The President
in his role as commander-in-chief and the Secretary of Defense
in his role as leader of our defense establishment are ill-
served. There is no soft or kind way of saying that. In a giant
organization like the Department of Defense, change is not
easy. Reforms will take time, and I applaud this committee's
efforts to give it your best shot.
At the end of the day, still the budget process and not the
mission is what truly changes anything in our government. We
have to reverse that thinking particularly when it comes to
defense. That is just simply the sad truth. Where the money
goes, things happen. Despite where that money goes, most times
has no bearing on our ability to win wars. If you do not get
any money, you either change or you disappear. If you get
money, you are able to survive another day.
My experience comes serving over 33 years in uniform, 12 in
joint assignments, and nearly 10 of those as a flag officer. I
have also served many years in combat and have suffered from
the lack of many capabilities that we needed to fight our
enemies and found myself fighting the Pentagon as much or more
than our enemies. The bureaucracy of our lethargic system
filled with people who depart for the day from their major
headquarters or from the Pentagon and leave an inbox filled
with actions to await tomorrow while we were sitting in a
combat zone waiting for an answer is not a good way to fight a
war.
I have many personal examples and personal scars and I have
witnessed many examples of this in may days deployed to the
wars primarily in the Middle East and Central Asia. We must and
can do better for our Nation and for those that serve this
Nation.
Today I will highlight a couple of points and provide some
ideas, and hopefully a few of these are new.
First, we will never correctly predict the next war. We can
warn about the many threats that we face, and there are
numerous and very dangerous threats. You mentioned a few in
your remarks, Chairman. ISIS [the Islamic State of Iraq and
Syria] is the latest in a long line of threats to our Nation
that we must do more to contain, defeat, and ultimately
eliminate this radical Islamist ideology. There are many more
threats than this very dangerous enemy.
Second, the connection between people, processes, and
systems is completely broken.
Regarding people, we recruit still using old, outdated
mechanisms and tools, and then we train people with equipment
that is aging, not the most advanced even though we, our
country, has the most advanced technologies available to anyone
in the world. Bottom line in this regard is our recruiting and
training are being done with less than stellar rules, tools,
and advanced capabilities. We can do better.
We force our warriors to fight wars by forcing them to push
joint urgent operational needs or urgent needs statements from
the battlefield up the chain of command. That is no way to
fight a war. It is reality because our people do not have, they
do not train with, they do not go to war with the right tools.
I have seen this numerous times. Essentially they are not
prepared to go to war with the equipment in our current
inventories. We have to do better, and as the best military in
the world, we cannot afford to not look serious to the men and
women that we are supposed to serve. We do not look very
professional in the eyes of our international partners, never
mind our enemies.
Lastly, we must consider retooling our high-tech training.
We must radically move from the information age to the digital
age, and we have to do this quickly. China, for example, has an
organization of 800,000 cyber warriors, and I highlight this in
my statement for the record. 800,000 cyber warriors. I was just
briefed on this about 2 weeks ago at a cyber training event
that happened out at Camp Dawson, West Virginia. A fantastic
capability. These 800,000 cyber warriors in China are
associated with their Department 61398 that we all became
familiar with when the Mandiant report came out. We are
struggling in the Department to recruit I think 6,000 within
our own Department of Defense that Mike Rogers, our great cyber
commander, has highlighted as a need. That number fluctuates.
But this is the problem that we are facing. Again, I will give
you a little bit more information on that number. Something is
wrong with that picture. Any reform must consider retooling for
future jobs and not hold desperately to these 20th century
tools and models that we have.
On processes, the processes that we use are antiquated and
usually one war behind, if not more. I went to war in
Afghanistan the first time based still on airland battle
doctrine, a doctrine designed for the Cold War, originally
written in the early 1980s. That doctrine was still being
trained right up until 2006, 5 years into the war when Generals
Petraeus and Mattis came out with the counterinsurgency manual
or counterinsurgency doctrine. We can and must do better. We
have to either understand the type of war that we are in and
make the decisions upfront to get to where we need to be.
But why did it take us nearly 5 years to change our
doctrine when we were directly engaged in a counterinsurgency
and counterterrorism campaign? Two reasons are--and there are
others. Bureaucracy and service parochial infighting are two of
those. Thank God our superb men, women, soldiers, sailors,
airmen, and marines and those civilians serving in combat
innovate better than any other military in the world. When they
realize that something is broken, they fix it on the
battlefield instead of using the Pentagon's motto of ``if it is
broke, let somebody else fix it.'' We still need the money.
Lastly, the systems we have and the acquisition system that
drives much of how our services and combatant commanders
operate may as well be in separate solar systems, and none of
these, with few exceptions, seem to be anywhere near the
battlefields we operate on today.
It is tempting to sit here and beat up those in the
Pentagon, and that would be unfair. But there are there some in
our system that see a jobs program, some who have never seen a
program of record they did not like, and some who abuse the
system so badly that it makes corrupt governments in the Third
World nations blush.
Additionally, after nearly 14 years of war, conflict, call
it what you will, we are engaged with enemies of our country
and they want to win. I am not certain we have demonstrated the
resilience or the fortitude to do the same, at least not yet.
There are many in the defense system that have yet to
experience that and do not understand the demands of combat,
and there others who avoid it wishing it will go away. It will
not. We, you, Chairman, committee have to fix a number of
things, but one of the most important is the acquisition
system, I think has been highlighted by many who have testified
to this committee. It must be joint and it must include the
warfighter requirements and not simply serve the service
chiefs, secretaries, and their constituents' needs. Secretary
Gates found this, as you highlighted, and fixed it, but to do
so, he had to become the best action officer in the Pentagon.
That said, let me list a couple of ideas to consider as we
go through the rest of this session and as you contemplate what
steps you need to take forward. I will be prepared to address
any of these in Q and A.
Number one, tooth-to-tail ration must change. Reverse it
before we find ourselves not ready to fight, never mind win. We
have way too much overhead and our staffs have become bloated
beyond the nonsense stage.
Number two, related to the above, we have way too many
four-stars, commands and otherwise, around the world and too
many four-star headquarters in each of the services. In terms
of our warfighting that the Secretary mentioned, we have 11
warfighting commands if you count USFK [United States Forces
Korea] as a subcomponent and you count Cyber Command as a
unified component. 11, not to mention the service four- and
three- star positions that could easily be reduced a rank or
cut and the staffs could subsequently be reduced.
Number three, cut the civilian system in half or more
because the growth has just been unbelievable. I saw that in my
own agency looking at 10 years of history before I even took
over the Defense Intelligence Agency. Turn those dollars into
readiness and place more tooth into our warfighting forces. Be
cautious about salami slicing and help the SecDef [the
Secretary of Defense] and the senior civilian and military
leaders make the best decisions based on a unified and
strategic national security vision approved by the President
instead of slicing to benefit some constituency. You must play
a role, but very candidly and over many years, Congress created
much of this mess and now you have an opportunity and I believe
a responsibility to correct it. So thank you for taking this
on.
Number four, we need to seriously look at how we organize
to fight and win in wars. We man, train, and equip as services,
i.e., Title 10. We go to war as a joint force, and in general
Air Force takes the Army, the Marines take the Navy--and again,
I am generalizing there. But we only win as a coalition. We
need to determine--in fact, in here I say please name one time
when we did not fight as a coalition. I mean that, and if you
go back in our history, even to the days of George Washington.
So we need to determine if we are creating a force that is
not only technically qualified but also culturally and
societally understanding and smart. Language training, for
example, is something that we need to place greater emphasis on
for those officers serving in maneuver and operational
assignments. You know, foreign languages are not just for the
intelligence community and attaches. For example, maybe we make
it a prerequisite for combatant commanders to speak a foreign
language before they can even be considered for a combatant
command assignment. Maybe we do that for a majority of our
three- and four-star assignments. That example, that message
would go a long way and reverberate across the entire force,
and it would change the culture all the way down to our ROTC
[Reserve Officer Training Corps] programs, our junior ROTC
programs, and in our service academies. It would take a
generation, but I think we need to think like that.
Number five, we need to significantly increase the tenure
and stature of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and
the Vice Chairman. Tenures with a minimum of 5 years--my
recommendation--without reconfirmation. It does not mean that
the President cannot lose confidence and you cannot get rid of
that person if they are not doing their job, but I think a
tenure with a minimum of 5 years should be considered. Why 5
years? In order to last longer than the service chiefs and
potentially serve or overlap two Presidents. This maintains the
unbiased responsibility that the Chairman and the Vice with
serving in that role as required has as the principal military
advisor to the President.
Number six, conduct a thorough and comprehensive overhaul
of the defense acquisition system. Look at every single program
of record. Every program not currently meeting its timelines or
budgets should be immediately cut. Now, that is a big
statement, but when you send a message that waste and
substandard performance will no longer be tolerated, that would
send shockwaves through the system and my belief is it would be
nearly impossible to do. It would be the harder right thing to
do. I do not believe necessarily that you could do it, but it
would be interesting to see how many programs in an analysis of
that that are actually up to standard. There are very few
exceptions or very few in my experience and in my judgment
today sitting here.
Number seven, increase the investment in small businesses.
Today I believe the Defense Department policy states a goal of
25 percent investments in small businesses across the
Department. Small businesses are the engine of change in our
country right now, and with the rapid advancement in
technologies across the board from health care to intelligence,
we must seek new, innovative, and disruptive ways to force
fundamental change. Most on this committee would be challenged
to recognize the Fortune 100, never mind Fortune 500. They are
all relatively new and many started as small businesses within
the last decade. As stated, small businesses also innovate.
They have to in order to survive. My strongest suggestion for
consideration at this stage is to increase the small business
investment goals of the Department to as high as 50 percent. I
believe the Department and especially our warfighters would
benefit most and many would benefit overnight. Lastly, small
businesses are the best way to increase our Nation's economic
strength, a drive change in this country. They would help us
retool our Nation for the digital age.
Number eight and the last recommendation is decide who and
where decisions about acquisition reform can be made. The
SecDef cannot make them all. But if a service chief comes in
and says we need this program, cannot live without it, and a
combatant commander comes in and says that program is not
working, then do not let the system decide to keep it and only
fix it on the margins. Get rid of it, or make the necessary
decisions that actually make a difference. If they see
something elsewhere and that is a capability they want,
especially our warfighting commanders, and it can be produced
in the requisite amounts within existing budgets, get it to
them rapidly or allow them to acquire it without going through
the whole morass of bureaucracy.
In this context, the questions that this committee is
considering are in my judgment the correct ones, namely,
whether our Nation's institutions of national defense are
organized, manned, equipped, and managed in ways that can deal
with the security challenges of the 21st century and that
efficiently and effectively spend our Nation's dollars.
The Department is not meeting those challenges today, and
we are not ready to deal with the challenges we, as the global
leader with the premier military capability on the planet,
should be capable of in the future.
Without fundamental and massive reform, as well as some
smart, numerous, and targeted reductions in areas that have
grown bloated, irrelevant, and useless, we could find ourselves
on the losing end of a major war, Chairman, one that sitting
here today we are unable to predict.
If our Nation is proud of being the world's leader, let us
start acting like it and as our very first President, George
Washington, stated, ``To be prepared for war is one of the most
effective means of preserving peace.''
Thank you for this opportunity. I look forward to your
questions. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Flynn follows:]
The prepared statement by LTG Michael T. Flynn (Retired)
Chairman McCain, Senator Reed: Thank you for inviting me to
participate alongside other great patriots of our country to offer some
thoughts about defense reform and hope I offer thoughts consistent with
many other themes you have heard from previous testimony as well as a
few new ideas.
In the times we face and will likely face in this very complex and
unpredictable world, addressing defense reform is probably the single
biggest strategic issue we must deal with (and deal with immediately).
The days of large organizations moving at the speed of an elephant
with bulky, expensive, overly bureaucratic acquisition programs, with
little value to our warfighters and even less value to our national
security are forever gone.
Speed is the new big. Innovation is the norm, the pace of change is
so stunningly fast, and the Defense Department (at least inside the
Pentagon) is not capable of meeting the Demands of the future threats.
Rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic will only make the
chairs slide in a different direction on the deck, but the ship will
still sink.
Former Secretary Robert Gates stated it best when he said that the
Pentagon is good at planning for war, but on its best day cannot fight
a war (that has been proven in spades over the past decade and a half
(with few exceptions).
And if the past fourteen years of conflict have proven anything, it
has proven Secretary Gates to be spot on when it came to making that
fateful statement.
Neither our nation nor the citizens our defense system is designed
to protect and defend can operate in the future the way we operate
today.
I would add that even though a nice glossy and well-meaning report
will come out of this committee, there are people inside the Department
that are looking at your efforts today as a joke and wondering, why do
you bother . . . nothing will ever change.
Please prove them wrong. We have forgotten how to win wars.
Because we have lost sight of what winning looks like, instead we
plod along, participating in conflict and allowing an overly bulky and
bureaucratic Department of Defense and a completely broken interagency
process, led by the White House (and rightly so) that has choked itself
practically to death--it simply doesn't work in support of our
warfighting needs today--the president, in his role as commander-in-
chief and the SecDef in his role as leader of our defense establishment
are ill-served--there is no soft or kind way of saying that.
And in a giant organization like the Department of Defense, change
is not easy, reforms will take time, and I applaud your efforts to give
it your best shot.
At the end of the day, the budget process (and not the mission) is
what truly changes anything in our government. We have to reverse that
thinking.
That is the sad truth.
Where the money goes, things happen.
And despite where that money goes, most times, has no bearing on
our ability to win wars.
If you don't get any money, you either change or you disappear. If
you get money, you are able to survive another day.
My experience comes from serving over thirty three years in
uniform, twelve in joint assignments and nearly ten of those as a flag
officer.
I have also served many years in combat and have suffered from the
lack of many capabilities we needed to fight our enemies and found
myself fighting the Pentagon as much or more than our enemies. The
bureaucracy of our lethargic system filled with people who depart for
the day from their major headquarters or from the Pentagon and leave an
inbox filled with actions to await tomorrow while I was sitting in a
combat zone waiting for an answer . . . not a good way to fight a war.
I have many personal examples and scars and have witnessed many
examples of this in my days deployed to the wars in the Middle East and
Central Asia.
We must and can do better.
Today, I will highlight a couple of points and provide some ideas--
hopefully, a few are new:
First, we will never correctly predict the next war. We can warn
about the many threats we face (and there are numerous and very
dangerous threats--ISIS is the latest in a long line of threats to our
nation that we must do more to contain, defeat and ultimately eliminate
this radical Islamist ideology). And there are many more threats than
this very dangerous enemy.
And second, the connection between people, processes and systems is
completely broken.
Regarding people; we recruit using old outdated mechanisms and
tools and then train people with equipment that is aging, not the most
advanced, even though we (our country) have the most advanced
technologies available to anyone in the world. Bottom line, our
recruiting and training are being done with less than stellar rules,
tools and advanced capabilities.
We force our warriors to fight wars by forcing them to push joint
urgent operational needs or emergency needs statements from the
battlefield up the chain--that is no way to fight a war. It is reality
because our people don't have, don't train, don't go to war with, the
right tools. Essentially, they are not prepared to go to war with the
equipment in our current inventories.
We have to do better, and as the best military in the world, we
can't afford to not look serious to the men and women we are supposed
to serve and we don't look very professional in the eyes of our
international partners (never mind our enemies).
Lastly, we must consider retooling our high tech training. We must
radically move from the information age to the digital age. China has
an organization of 800k cyber warriors* associated with their
Department 61398 and we are struggling to recruit 6k in the Department
(*China has approximately 800k in their Honker Army/Honker Union--this
is a group--some overt, some not, affiliated with the Chinese
government--http:bbs.cnhonker.com/forum.php--take extreme precautions
going to this website). Something is wrong with that picture.
Any reform must consider retooling for future jobs and not hold
desperately to 20th century tools and models.
On processes; the processes we use are antiquated and usually one
war behind. I went to war in Afghanistan the first time based on
AirLand battle doctrine, a doctrine designed for the cold war. That
doctrine was still being trained right up until 2006 (five years into
the war) when Generals Petraeus and Mattis came out with the
counterinsurgency doctrine. We can and must do better.
Why did it take us nearly five years to change our doctrine when we
were directly engaged in a counterinsurgency and counter terrorism
campaign?
Bureaucracy and service parochial infighting are two of the
answers.
Thank God our superb men and women, soldiers, sailors, airmen,
marines and those civilians serving in combat innovate better than any
other military in the world. When they realize that something is
broken, they fix it on the battlefield instead of using the Pentagon's
motto of, ``If it's broke let somebody else fix it--we still need the
money.''
And lastly, the systems we have and the acquisition system that
drives much of how our services and combatant commanders operate may as
well be in separate solar systems and none of these (with few
exceptions) seem to be anywhere near the battlefields we operate on
today.
It is tempting to sit here and beat up those in the Pentagon and
that would be unfair. But there are some in our system that see a jobs
program, some who have never seen a program of record they didn't like,
and some who abuse the system so badly, that it makes corrupt
governments in Third World nations blush.
Additionally, after nearly fourteen years of war, conflict, call it
what you will, we are engaged with enemies of our country and they want
to win. I am not certain we have demonstrated the resilience or
fortitude to do the same (at least not yet).
There are many in the defense system that have yet to experience
that and do not understand the demands of combat and there are others
who avoid it--wishing it will go away. It won't.
We (you) have to fix a number of things, but one of the most
important is the acquisition system.
It must be joint and it must include the warfighter requirements
and not simply serve the service chiefs and their constituent's needs.
Secretary Gates found this and fixed it, but to do so, he had to
become the best action officer in the Pentagon.
That said, let me list a couple of ideas to consider as we go
through the rest of this session and as you contemplate what steps to
take to truly reform our system (all of which I will be ready to
address in the Q&A).
1. Tooth-to-tail ratio must change (reverse it before we find
ourselves not ready to fight never mind win)--we have way too much
overhead and our staffs have become bloated beyond the nonsense stage.
2. Related to above, we have way too many four stars (commands and
otherwise) around the world and too many four star headquarters in each
of the services (11 ``warfighting'' commands alone). The service four
and three star positions could easily be reduced a rank (or cut) and
the staffs could subsequently be reduced.
3. Cut the civilian system in half or more. Turn those dollars
into readiness and place more tooth into our warfighting forces. Be
cautious about salami slicing, and help the SecDef and the senior
civilian and military leaders make the best decisions based on a
unified and strategic national security vision, approved by the
president, instead of slicing to benefit some constituency--you must
play a role but, very candidly, and over many years, congress created
much of this mess and now you have an opportunity and a responsibility
to correct it.
4. We need to seriously look at how we organize to fight and win
in war. We man, train, and equip as services (i.e., Title 10), we go to
war as a joint force (USAF carries the Army, Marines takes the Navy--in
general), but we only win as a coalition--please name one time when we
didn't fight as a coalition. We need to determine if we are creating a
force that is not only technically qualified but also culturally and
societally understanding and smart--language training for example is
something that we need to place greater emphasis on for those officers
serving in maneuver and operational assignments (foreign languages are
not just for the Intelligence Community and attaches). For example,
maybe we make it a prerequisite for combatant commanders to speak a
foreign language before they can be even considered for a combatant
command assignment. Maybe we do that for a majority of our three and
four star assignments (that example would go a long way and reverberate
across the entire force).
5. Significantly increase the tenure and the stature of the
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Vice Chairman. Tenures
with a minimum of five years (without reconfirmation) should be
considered. Why five years? In order to last longer than the service
chiefs and potentially serve or overlap two presidents. This maintains
the unbiased responsibility the CJCS (and the VCJCS when required) has
as the principal military advisor to the POTUS.
6. Conduct a thorough and comprehensive overhaul of the defense
acquisition system. Look at every single program of record. Every
program not currently meeting its timelines or budgets should be
immediately cut. No questions. Send a message that waste and
substandard performance will no longer be tolerated--that would send
shock waves through the system, would be nearly impossible to do--but
it would be the harder right thing to do--I don't believe you could do
it, but it would be interesting to see how many programs are actually
up to standard--very few in my experience and my judgment.
7. Increase the investment in small businesses. Today, I believe
the Defense Department policy states a goal of 25 percent investments
in small businesses across the Department. Small businesses are the
engine of change in our country and with the rapid advancements in
technologies across the board (from healthcare to intelligence), we
must seek new, innovative (and disruptive) ways to force fundamental
change. Most on this committee would be challenged to recognize the
Fortune 100 never mind Fortune 500. They are all relatively new and
many started as small businesses in the last decade. As stated, small
businesses also innovate. They have to, in order to survive. My
strongest suggestion for consideration only at this stage is to
increase the small business investment goals of the Department to fifty
percent. I believe the Department and, especially our warfighters,
would benefit most, and many would benefit overnight. Lastly, small
businesses are the best way to increase our nation's economic strength.
They will help us retool our nation for the digital age.
8. Decide who and where decisions about acquisition reform can be
made. The SecDef cannot make them all. But if a service chief comes in
and says we need this program (can't live without it) and a combatant
commander comes in and says that program isn't working, then don't let
the system decide to keep it and fix it on the margins or edges. Get
rid of it. If they see something elsewhere and that is the capability
they want (especially our warfighting commanders) and it can be
procured in the requisite amounts within existing budgets get it to
them rapidly or allow them to acquire it without going through the
morass of bureaucracy. Secretary Gates experienced this first hand with
ISR, medevac, and MRAPs to name a few. Again, he became the top action
officer in the Pentagon because the people involved and the system
itself were simply too slow, too bureaucratic and we were losing two
wars. Amazing how, at that time, no one but the SecDef inside of the
Pentagon, at senior leader levels, could see that--why?
In this context, the questions this committee is considering are,
in my judgment, the correct ones: namely, whether our nation's
institutions of national defense are organized, manned, equipped, and
managed in ways that can deal with the security challenges of the 21st
century and that efficiently and effectively spend defense dollars.
The Department is not meeting those challenges today. We are not
ready to deal with the challenges we, as the global leader, with the
premier military capability on the planet, should be capable of in the
future.
Without fundamental and massive reform as well as some smart,
numerous, and targeted reductions in areas that have grown bloated,
irrelevant and useless, we could find ourselves on the losing end of a
major war--one that sitting here today we are unable to predict.
If our nation is proud of being the world's leader, let's start
acting like it, and as our very first president stated, ``To be
prepared for war is one of the most effective means of preserving
peace.''
Thank you for this opportunity and I look forward to answering your
questions.
Chairman McCain. Thank you, General.
General Jones?
STATEMENT OF GENERAL JAMES L. JONES, USMC, RETIRED, FORMER
NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED
STATES; SUPREME ALLIED COMMANDER, EUROPE AND COMMANDER OF U.S.
EUROPEAN COMMAND; AND 32ND COMMANDANT OF THE MARINE CORPS
Mr. Jones. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, Senator Reed,
members of the committee. Thank you for inviting me to add to
the expert testimony that you have already received from many
other witnesses. I am honored to be here with my colleagues,
General Flynn and Secretary Donley, to add my own views.
But before I start, may I also thank the committee for
section 1227 of the NDAA [The National Defense Authorization
Act] that was recently passed, which pledges that the United
States will do more to protect the residents of Camp Liberty
who have since my last testimony been attacked and lost over 20
lives and multiple injuries with very little global interest on
their fate. There are 2,000 people sitting there, trapped, and
we need to get them out of there. But I thank the committee
very much for your support.
Mr. Chairman, I too would like to commend the committee for
its leadership in undertaking this Goldwater-Nichols analysis
concerning what changes might be necessary in our security
architecture based on today's new and swiftly evolving
environment.
I have a full statement, but I will summarize it as briefly
as I can.
At the outset, let me say that I wish to identify myself
fully with the testimonies previously offered by Mr. Jim
Locher, Major General Punaro, and Dr. John Hamre and likewise
Secretary Donley here today and General Flynn. Most of the
people I just mentioned were among those who throughout their
distinguished careers contributed significantly to the passage
and implementation of Goldwater-Nichols in 1986. So it is not
my intent to repeat their testimonies phrased in different
words, but rather I hope to be of service to the committee and
its work by focusing on just a few points gathered from the
experience of my serving in senior military positions and as
National Security Advisor.
Until this committee's current efforts, the most
comprehensive review of Goldwater-Nichols and its so-called
unintended consequences across the Department was commissioned
in 1997 by then Secretary of Defense Bill Cohen when I served
as his military assistant. While 18 years old now, in my view
that study still stands in my opinion as the best effort to
date in identifying necessary Goldwater-Nichols impacts and
reforms, and I highly recommend that this committee revisit the
task force's findings as you undertake the task of modernizing
the Defense Department and our military forces to face 21st
century challenges.
In the course of the important work the committee is
undertaking, we should remember distinctly that the Senate
passed the original Goldwater-Nichols Act by a vote of 95 to
nothing. This overwhelming consensus was achieved despite the
strong objections from the Department of Defense civilian and
military leadership of the time. This clearly suggests to me
that any future revision of Goldwater-Nichols should again be
undertaken objectively and externally to the Department of
Defense for three reasons.
One, the Department is consumed with everyday problems
around the globe of increasing complexity.
Two, moreover large bureaucracies have inherent difficulty
in implementing change from within.
Lastly, as we all know, reform challenges and entrenched
interests will fiercely resist many of the recommendations
proposed by our previous witnesses and perhaps my own included.
So my full statement focuses on four areas that I believe
should be part of any effort to produce a Goldwater-Nichols II
to improve our national security.
The first is fixing the overwhelming and unsustainable
``all in'' personnel costs for the all-volunteer force in
addressing the systemic imbalances that endanger the
Department's capacities and capabilities.
Second, to reform the appallingly wasteful and inefficient
DOD business model for operations.
Three, moving towards a new interagency balance centers
around unified commands.
Four, modernizing the roles, missions, and organizations of
the National Security Council. That last point was not in the
original Goldwater-Nichols, but in view of the importance of
the National Security Council, I think that it should be part
of any consideration of a Goldwater-Nichols II.
So with regard to personnel costs, the past three
Secretaries of Defense, Secretaries Gates, Panetta, and Hagel,
have each publicly stated that the cost growth of personnel
expenditures in general is unsustainable. The cost growth in
military pay, quality of life, retired pay, and VA [Veterans
Affairs] and DOD health care costs far exceed both the GDP
[Gross Domestic Product] and the Employment Cost Index.
Interim report of the Military Compensation and Retirement
Modernization Commission stated that there was a $1 trillion
unfunded liability over the next 10 years in military
retirement that is not in any budget.
The current Commandant, General Robert Neller, is
challenged, for example, by the reality of having to spend
approximately 68 percent of his budget on those same costs. By
comparison, 12 years ago when I was in the similar job as
Commandant of the Marine Corps in 2003, my expenditure for
those same costs was approximately 49 percent. So you have a
significant cost growth over 12 years, and left unchanged, 10
years from now or 12 years from now, our budget will be
increasingly consumed by personnel costs. This disturbing trend
will accelerate and will weaken the armed forces' capabilities
to fulfill their roles and missions.
The remedy is to modernize the pay and benefits for the
active duty, reserve, DOD civilian, and retired communities and
reform a system built for a different force in a bygone era
featuring numerous anachronisms, as noted in my full statement.
In fairness for all who served on today's active or reserve
duty, the terms under which they entered active duty service
should be honored before making any reforms that would affect
the total force. I think billions of dollars could be saved by
keeping the faith with our service members and those who enter
service the day after the legislation is passed.
Resources once allocated to recruiting, training, and
equipping front line forces are now being reallocated to
support the increasingly top heavy headquarters components or,
put another way, the tooth-to-tail ratio is spiraling out of
control. The stifling bureaucracy yielded processes and
procedures that are far too complex to perform once simple
tasks. This dynamic has produced a paralyzing environment in
which micro-management and endless consensus building impede
initiative and impede action.
$113 billion to support 240,000 members of OSD, Joint
Staff, and DOD headquarters illustrates the point. In 1958, the
Joint Staff was authorized 400 personnel. Today the Joint Staff
directorates have 4,000. Medical treatment facilities that are
now being used at a 50 percent utilization rate but have a
division's worth of medical administrators are still allocated
$41.7 billion.
The enlarging tail is largely responsible for a broken
acquisition system. Examples in each of the services. The Air
Force's F-35 program, the Marine Corps' ill-fated AAAV
[Advanced Amphibious Assault Vehicle] program, the Navy's Ford-
class carrier program, the Army's Future Combat System. May I
thank the committee also for your support in putting service
chiefs back in the acquisition process. I think this is
something that was long overdue and something that was an
incredible frustration during my time as service chief.
Point number two was reforming wasteful, inefficient DOD
business operations. DOD's agencies, once relevant and once
perhaps a good idea--many have outlived their usefulness and
they contribute little to our warfighting capabilities at huge,
enormous expense, as General Flynn just referred to. They have
avoided serious but needed reforms. The DOD agencies themselves
consume 20 percent of the Defense Department's budgets.
As General Punaro testified, DOD's top two clients are DLA
[the Defense Logistics Agency], which consumes $44.1 billion,
and the second is the defense health programs, $41.7 billion.
Number three is Lockheed Martin Corporation, $13.5 billion
behind the top two DOD agencies at $28.2 billion.
I experienced significant frustration in dealing with
agencies as a service chief back in 1999 to 2003, and listed in
my detailed report is the story of how the Marine Corps changed
its combat uniform and modernized it. Essentially I discovered
in negotiating with DLA that my service would be assessed a 22
percent carrying charge for the service of going out and buying
the uniform, and I politely declined, formed a small group of
marines. We went out and did it ourselves at a cost far
cheaper, far quicker, and more efficiently than anything DLA
could do.
One question that I have frequently wondered is why are
flag and general officers running businesses instead of
commanding troops. Business-intensive defense agencies headed
by active duty flag and general officers do not make a lot of
sense to me. We need business experience to ensure fiscal
solvency of agencies. We should staff these agencies with
business executives and return military personnel to
operational ranks to reduce the tooth-to-tail ratio that is
spiraling out of control.
The tenth largest client of the Department of Defense is
the Defense Commissary Agency, which is subsidized to the tune
of $1.4 billion annually. What is the remedy? Outsource it.
Walmart and other agencies like it can compete for the same job
that the Defense Commissary Agencies are doing on our base at
reduced cost to the taxpayer, lower inventory, transportation
costs, without any subsidies, and higher potential savings for
military families. In 2001, I volunteered my service as an
experiment to test this, and it was soundly rejected as a
result of the entrenched bureaucracies and the fact that I ran
out of time as service chief and could not get it done.
Rebalancing the interagency and unified commands to meet
21st century threats is my third point. AFRICOM [United States
Africa Command] is a good example of what I am about to talk
about.
AFRICOM was created out of EUCOM. It was proposed by
General Wald and myself, recognizing that Africa as a continent
had arrived as a 21st century reality that needed to be
recognized. Ironically, although most of Africa except for the
Horn, was tasked to EUCOM, the word `Africa' does not appear in
the EUCOM title. We proposed AFRICOM in order to change that
span of control which was much too big for one commander of
Europe and Africa totaling some 85 countries.
But the value of unified commands fosters military
interoperability, training, common military architectures, and
requisite support to our friends and allies. They are extremely
important. They are a gift of the 20th century. But they need
to be changed to recognize the realities of the 21st century.
In my view, ideally unified commands should be in the
geographical areas they purport to affect and to work in. We
have taken some steps back over the years, but if I could
change any one thing, I would place CENTCOM [United States
Central Command], the Central Command, in its AOR [area of
responsibility] as opposed to just a forward command, and I
would, as I proposed to Secretary Rumsfeld, place AFRICOM in
Africa where it would do the most good.
Absence of military unified commands in the regions creates
vacuums. Vacuums are filled by people who do not have our
interests, and routinely as I travel around the African
continent, I am asked why is the U.S. not here. Why are we not
more involved? Why are we not competing with China more
successfully? We need America. We want America.
The presence of U.S. companies, NGOs [non-governmental
organizations], academic institutions, in a combined unified
command headquarters would send powerful messages to that
continent's 54 countries. The whole-of-government approach to
21st century engagement would show the U.S. as an enduring
partner for all African nations seeking freedom and prosperity.
With your permission, Mr. Chairman, I would like to submit
for the record a study called `All Elements of National Power:
Moving Toward a New Agency Balance for the U.S. Global
Engagement,' prepared under the auspices of the Brent Scowcroft
Center at the Atlantic Council, which I was privileged to
chair.
Chairman McCain. Without objection.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Jones. Thank you, sir.
The last point, the whole-of-government coordination. I
believe that a look at the National Security Council and how it
is resourced and what it does must be included in any
Goldwater-Nichols review. New global challenges require
interagency response not former stovepipe solutions. For
example, early in 2009, we combined the Department of Homeland
Security staff with the National Security staff in recognition
of the fact that security threats are not contained by borders.
But the new National Security staff was awarded an anemic
budget of $4 million to perform the task at hand, which is was
absolutely impossible. We were able to get a modest increase,
but a detailed study in 2010 suggested that $23 million would
be appropriate to create a small NSC [National Security
Council] staff with agency-like functions and expertise to do
the job.
But the overwhelming difficulty with the NSC is one of
management of personnel, not so much the size, although I
recognize that it needs to be reformed. The detailees who are
assigned to the NSC are there for very short periods of time,
and in 2010, because of the lack of funding to pay salaries and
compensation for the entire staff, most of the people at the
NSC were detailees from other agencies and they were allowed to
stay for about a year. So in 2010, 50 percent of the National
Security Council rotated back to their parent agencies and was
replaced. My view is that three-quarters of the people in the
NSC ought to be permanent personnel, and one-fourth ought to be
augmentees from the agencies. Today it is exactly the opposite.
I believe that the National Security Council must be a
policy communicating, disseminating organization, not one that
micromanages implementation, and we should avoid that
micromanagement. But it is a slippery slope that all NSCs
eventually have to confront as they mature in any
administration. It must serve as a coordinating agency to
effectuate the national security policies that require
presidential decisions.
Secretary Gates in his testimony underscored the important
role of the NSC and the National Security staff as a
presidential instrument ensuring proper implementation by the
interagency. Destructive consequences of DOD and national
security interests pertaining to partisan gridlock, budget
impasses, and the recurring threat of government shutdowns was
also emphasized.
Mr. Chairman, Senator Reed, thank you very much for
inviting me to be here today. I firmly believe that your work
is an important work. It will serve the country well for the
next 30 years, and I would recommend use of the original
Goldwater-Nichols architects in the Defense Reform Task Force
to make a major contribution to a new Goldwater-Nichols, as all
are still current on the issues and all are still very
influential and providing wise advice to our government.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Jones follows:]
Prepared Statement by General James L. Jones, USMC (RET)
Chairman McCain, Senator Reed, Members of the Committee, thank you
for inviting me to add to the expert testimony you have already
received from the staff architects of one of the most significant
pieces of legislation affecting America's Armed Forces and their
civilian leadership: The Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense
Reorganization Act (GNA) of 1986.
As you know, the GNA's purpose was to modernize the Department of
Defense to fulfill its national security roles and missions in changing
times. Modernization, of course, is an enduring obligation. It requires
an iterative and ongoing process of examination--one that responds with
agility to national experience and lessons learned, yielding reforms
that meet the unique circumstances and requirements of our time.
So, I commend the Committee for its leadership in undertaking this
analysis of what changes are necessary based on today's new and swiftly
evolving security needs. I hope that some observations from my
experience in and out of uniform will be of service to you in this
task.
From 1979-1984, I was privileged to serve as the Marine Corps
Senate Liaison Officer, under the leadership of then-Captain John
McCain who directed the combined Navy-Marine Corps Liaison Office until
he retired from active duty in 1980. In many ways, my time on Capitol
Hill was among the most educational experiences of my 40-year active-
duty career that culminated in my serving as Commandant of the Marine
Corps (Service Chief function), Commander of the U.S. European Command
(Combatant Commander function), and in NATO as Supreme Allied
Commander, Europe (Command of NATO's 26 nation, multinational force).
After I retired from active duty in 2007, I served as Special Envoy for
Middle East Regional Security until 2008. From 2009 -2010, I was
privileged to serve as National Security Advisor.
The first days of my Capitol Hill assignment coincided with the
advent of GNA, the early days of the creation of the All-Volunteer
Force (AVF), and the transition to joint force concepts. Over the next
five years, I had the good fortune of working with and knowing many
Members of Congress and their staff, as well as the principal
architects of the GNA legislation, some of whom have already testified
on the subject at hand. Many of these relationships blossomed into
lifelong friendships that I continue to treasure to this day.
With regard to my appearance before the committee today, I wish to
identify myself with the testimony offered by Mr. James R Locher lll,
Major General Arnold L Punaro USMCR (Ret), and Dr. John J Hamre.
Likewise, Secretary Michael Donley, here today, was among those who,
throughout his distinguished career, contributed significantly to the
passage and implementation of Goldwater-Nichols. Though many Members
and staff participated in the development of Goldwater-Nichols, the
contribution and expertise of these former members of the SASC Staff to
this legislation is beyond question. Each of them continues to offer
wise counsel to current leadership of the Department of Defense today.
I agree fully with the testimony of these experts. It is not my
intent to repeat the content of their valuable contribution, phrased in
different words. Rather, I would hope to be helpful to the Committee
in making a few points gathered from the experience of serving in
the senior military positions I previously mentioned.
time for reform
The Goldwater-Nichols Act reformed a Department of Defense that
operated for nearly 40 years under the mandate of the National Security
Act of 1947. In the nearly 30 years that have elapsed since GNA's
passage, America's Armed Forces have been asked to do much in a world
that has changed significantly, and with it the national security
threats we face and requirements to combat them.
Until this Committee's current efforts, the most comprehensive
review of GNA and its ``unintended consequences'' across the Department
was commissioned in 1997 by then-Secretary of Defense William Cohen,
when I served as his Senior Military Assistant.
MajGen Punaro's testimony earlier this month recounts the team that
was assembled--the Defense Reform Task Force--and its work at Secretary
Cohen's behest. While 18 years old that study still stands, in my
opinion, as the best effort to date in identifying Goldwater-Nichols
impacts and reforms. I highly recommend that this Committee revisit the
Task Force's findings as you undertake the task of modernizing the
Department and our military forces to face 21st century challenges.
In the course of this work we should remember very distinctly that
the Senate passed the GNA by a vote of 95-0. This overwhelming
consensus was achieved despite strong objections from Department of
Defense civilian and military leadership of the time. This clearly
suggests that any future revision of Goldwater-Nichols should again be
undertaken objectively and externally to the Department of Defense for
several reasons.
First, the Department is consumed with everyday problems around the
globe; they are mounting in complexity and frequency, suggesting that
there isn't enough time for a study of this magnitude to be
accomplished ``inside'' the Pentagon. However, the Pentagon should very
much be invited to participate fully and in complete transparency in
any notional ``Goldwater-Nichols ll'' effort. Second, large
bureaucracies have inherent difficulty in implementing ``change'' from
within. Our senior leaders rotate out of their positions frequently,
leaving behind the entrenched middle-level management which, normally,
will always attempt to hold the line against truly significant reform.
Third, some of the necessary remaining reforms pertaining to the
original legislation will challenge entrenched interests who will
fiercely resist many of the recommendations proposed by previous
witnesses, including my own.
four critical focus areas in need of urgent examinaion
In order to not duplicate the previous testimonies with which I
largely agree, I would like to focus my input on four areas requiring
urgent examination and consideration for reform in any effort to
produce ``Goldwater-Nichols ll'' legislation aimed at improving the
ability to provide for the nation's security.
One, the overwhelming and unsustainable ``all in'' personnel costs
associated with the All-Volunteer Force and the dangers that systemic
imbalances pose to the Department's capacities and capabilities.
Two, the wasteful and inefficient manner that the Department of
Defense conducts its ``business,'' requiring that we reevaluate the
utility of the Defense Department's own agencies as currently tasked
and organized.
Three, the compelling need to move toward a new interagency balance
centered around reformed ``Unified Commands,'' now titled Combatant
Commands.
Four, the requirement to modernize the role, mission, and
organization of the National Security Council (NSC). Though not
specifically addressed in the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986, the
critical role played by the NSC in the formulation of national security
policy should be considered as a necessary part of any ``Goldwater-
Nichols ll'' effort.
1) Unsustainable ``All In'' Personnel Costs Threaten the Efficacy
of the All-Volunteer Force
The past three Secretaries of Defense (Gates, Panetta, and Hagel),
have each publicly stated that the cost growth of personnel
expenditures, in general, is unsustainable. As noted in MajGen Punaro's
testimony, their conclusions are based on the ``comparison of the 1998
to 2014 cost growth in military pay, quality of life, retired pay, and
VA and DOD health care which far exceeded both the GDP and the
Employment Cost Index.''
The problem in my view is more serious than commonly recognized. I
would submit that the results of the Military Compensation and
Retirement Modernization Commission's Interim Report have been, in
part, overlooked as it pertains to the actual cost of programs. These
costs are reflected in a well-documented chart showing that ``the
actual costs for pay, benefits, health care, and retirement, was over
$400 billion a year, and that there is a $1 trillion unfunded liability
over the next ten years in a military retirement fund that is not in
any budget.'' Given the current fiscal strains in a time requiring
greater national security resources, these are sobering facts.
By way of example, when I served as Commandant of the Marine Corps
from 1999-2003, I recall that almost 50 percent of the Marine Corps'
annual budget was consumed by the aforementioned ``personnel costs.''
At the time I worried about the long-term trend of such costs as it was
evident that they were destined to climb rapidly, most likely at the
expense of the core competency of the Marine Corps' most urgent
mission, that of producing an unrivaled fighting force to meet the
future needs of the nation. Today, our current Commandant, General
Robert B. Neller, is challenged by the reality of having to spend 68
percent of his budget on those same costs. This means that in the 13
years since I left that office ``all in'' personnel costs have
increased by approximately 18 percent. It also means that Gen Neller
has 18 percent less resources to spend on the requisite training and
equipping of today's Marine Corps. If left unchecked, this disturbing
trend will accelerate, weakening the Marine Corps' capabilities to
fulfill its roles and missions.
Dr. Hamre, MajGen Punaro, and Mr. Locher have provided accurate and
valuable insights into the situation and the catastrophic consequences
of failing to address the calamitous growth in personnel costs.
Fortunately, there are several remedies which warrant serious
examination. Among these are the need to modernize the pay and benefits
for the active duty, reserve, DOD civilian, and retired communities.
Serious work has already been done towards better understanding the
urgency of the current situation.
The body of evidence strongly points to the folly of superimposing
the All-Volunteer Force on what was essentially a conscripted system.
In retrospect this was probably short-sighted given that today we are
harnessed with a raft of requirements developed for a different kind of
force in a bygone era, including guaranteeing equal pay regardless of
quality of work, a retirement system based only on 20 and 30 years of
service, and a health care system that benefitted personnel serving on
active duty, and those having achieved ``retired eligibility'' status.
The eligibility qualifications in all three areas have been enhanced,
but remain essentially unchanged despite the increase in the numbers of
eligible recipients who are also living much longer than the GNA ever
anticipated.
FUNDING DOD'S ``TAIL'' AT THE EXPENSE OF THE ``TOOTH''
While I do not want to belabor points this committee has heard in
previous testimony, the monumental impact of the Department's
ballooning all-in costs of personnel can't be overstated. The problem
stands as among the greatest threats to the Department's ability to
maintain a balanced ``tooth-to-tail'' ratio between the war fighting
forces and the support establishment. The status quo threatens the
Department's ability to maintain U.S. national security and it demands
urgent attention.
The significant increase of the Department's headquarters' staff--
``the tail''--including civilians, military, and contractors has
created a stifling bureaucracy, yielded processes and procedures that
are far too complex to perform once simple tasks. The dynamic has
produced a paralyzing environment in which micro-management and endless
consensus building impede initiative and impede action. Moreover the
``tail'' is soaking up resources needed by the ``teeth'' of our armed
forces.
Resources once allocated to recruiting, training, and equipping
front line forces are now being reallocated to support the increasingly
top-heavy headquarters' components. When considering total personnel in
the support establishment associated with the Office of the Secretary
of Defense, the Joint Staff, the Combatant Commands and the Defense
Agencies, the Department of Defense spends $113 billion to support
240,000 people. Referencing once again MajGen Punaro's previous
testimony to further illustrate my point, in 1958, the size of the
Joint Staff was authorized for and limited to 400 personnel. Today, we
support upwards of 4,000 across the J-directorates. At the height of
the military build-up under President Ronald Reagan, $600 billion was
spent in support of 2.2 million active duty service members. Today, in
constant dollars, $600 billion supports only 1.2 million troops.
Funding the military health care system is one of the Department of
Defense's largest annual expenditures. When we consider the fact that
medical treatment facilities are operating only at 50 percent
utilization rate, but have on staff a division's worth of medical
administrators, one has to question the justification of more than
$41.7 billion budget allocated each year to the Defense Health Program.
Addressing the inequities in our military compensation and benefits
system is now necessary and overdue, and I note that some much needed
efforts are already underway to address this important issue.
Consideration should be given to the relationship between active duty
pay and entitlements and any earned retirement benefits that are
representative of a more modern system.
It is important to be very clear about one fact: I feel very
strongly that, in fairness, all who serve today on active or reserve
duty should remain eligible for retirement benefits under the terms
currently in force. Studies have shown that even with this stipulation,
billions of dollars could be saved by implementing a new program for
all future service members who enter the Armed Services ``tomorrow.''
Across the Department of Defense, we are spending far more
resources on the ``tail'' and far too little on the ``tooth''. In any
event, the spiraling ``ALL IN'' personnel costs need to be considered
as a single entity, and not as unrelated stovepipes, which has been the
tradition for the past several decades.
MANDATE ACQUISITION REFORM
Acquisition reform is another area which is in need of urgent
reform. While there are many ways to address this issue, starting with
the costs and the length of time it takes to produce the next
generation of ground, sea, and air weapons systems, culminating with
the layered bureaucracy that manages the business end of procurement in
the Pentagon, simple logic and observation suggests that our
acquisition process as a whole is either dysfunctional, broken, or
both. One need only to look at the Air Force F-35 program, the Marine
Corps' ill-fated AAAV program, the Navy's Ford Class Carrier program,
and the Army's Future Combat Systems program to recognize that there is
unsustainable enormous waste and inefficiency in the costs and length
of time it takes to travel the road from concept to operational
delivery of many of our major programs. This process can and must be
fixed.
As a former service chief, I can tell the Committee first hand that
my inability to influence the acquisition of major war-fighting end
items was easily the most frustrating aspect of my tenure as
Commandant. In fact, even though I was prohibited from any
participation in the acquisition process by congressional fiat, I was
nonetheless summoned on several occasions to testify about the costs,
progress, and difficulties within our major programs, an acquisition
responsibility I did not have at the time.
This committee has already taken a necessary step forward in this
year's National Defense Authorization Act by reinstating Service Chiefs
into the acquisition process and by placing upon them the complete
responsibility for their service programs. As Dr. Hamre highlighted in
his testimony recently, ``DOD often courts trouble when there are
confused or bifurcated responsibilities for functions and activities.
It made no sense to have the Service Chiefs responsible for training,
equipping and housing their respective forces, but not be accountable
for acquisition.''
2) THE PENTAGON'S BUSINESS PRACTICES ARE ANTIQUATED
Several of our Defense Support Agencies, perhaps created to satisfy
relevant needs of the time, have outlived their usefulness. At almost
every turn, we have avoided the serious reforms that are urgently
needed and could, if enacted, produce huge savings. ``Today, DOD
Agencies' expenditures are in excess of 20 percent of the entire
defense budget'', according to MajGen Punaro's testimony, ``and have a
cumulative headcount of over 400,000 active duty military, defense
civilians, and contractors.''
My most defining experience with such defense support agencies
occurred in 2002, specifically with the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA),
when the Marine Corps became the first service since the Vietnam War to
modernize the field uniform, which had become too expensive to produce
and maintain.
After significant research, we found that new textile products
would allow us to produce a new field uniform that was both cheaper for
the Marine Corps and less costly for Marines to maintain. Initially, in
accordance with the Department's standard operating procedure, I
approached DLA for support. Upon asking DLA for a cost estimate for
production of a new uniform, we discovered that DLA's ``carrying
charge'' for this service would be 22%. This was the ``surcharge'' to
each service for the ``privilege'' of doing our business for us. A
simple check of ``industry wide standards'' for similar middle-man
services revealed that the costs should have been approximately 6%. I
made the decision to produce the new uniform within the Marine Corps
itself, with a very small group of Marines, which we did, and at a
significantly lower cost to the Service itself than the old uniform,
and at a substantial savings in maintenance cost for all Marines.
A second memorable experience from my time as Service Chief relates
to the role and functions of the Department of Defense's own agencies,
many of which have long since outlived their usefulness and currently
contribute little to the war-fighting capabilities of our Armed Forces.
Consider, as MajGen Punaro testified, that ``Defense Agencies are Big
Business''. Five of the Department of Defense's top ten clients are its
own agencies, and its top two clients are the DLA and the Defense
Health Programs (DHP). Lockheed Martin Corporation occupies the third
spot on DOD's top ten clients.
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MajGen Punaro goes on to inform us that the ``DLA does over $44
billion a year of business with DOD while Lockheed Martin is a distant
third at $28 billion.''
He further states that ``most of the Department's defense agencies
would rate in the Fortune 250 and several are in the Fortune 50. They
are not managed as businesses . . . even though one is, in fact, a
grocery business. Another is a worldwide communications provider, and
another on is the world's largest and most expensive health care system
(DHP).''
FLAG AND GENERAL OFFICERS SHOULD COMMAND TROOPS, NOT RUN ``BUSINESSES''
A question worth asking is this: Why is it that our largest and
most business intensive defense agencies are headed by active duty flag
and general officers? It would seem that leadership, direction, and
fiscal solvency of such agencies would be greatly enhanced by having in
the agencies' most senior positions leaders who actually have the
experience of successfully managing large businesses. They would
benefit significantly by the accountability and continuity of stable
leadership than the current difficulties associated with transient
military personnel who move in and out of such leadership assignments
very rapidly. Excess military personnel derived from such reforms would
be identified and returned to the operational ranks of their respective
service, further enhancing the ``tooth-to-tail'' ratio.
Overall, however, we should ask the hard questions as to why
several agencies remain operational at all. For example, the 10th
largest client of DOD, the Defense Commissary Agency (DCA) operates as
a subsidized entity at a cost to the taxpayer of $1.4 billion,
annually. Why would we not ``outsource'' our military on-base ``grocery
stores'' to a major grocery chain that could run the operation without
a subsidy, at reduced cost, and with more savings for military
families. As Commandant of the Marine Corps, I volunteered my service
to experiment with the concept of outsourcing our commissaries in 2001.
However, the offer was not accepted, largely because of entrenched
interests opposed to this idea, coupled with limited time I had
remaining as a Service Chief in early 2003.
How the Department of Defense does its business is very much worthy
of review in any effort to construct a meaningful revision to GNA.
3) REBALANCING THE INTERAGENCY AND THE UNIFIED COMMANDS TO MEET
21ST CENTURY THREATS
Dr. Hamre's testimony identified some interesting ideas concerning
the Combatant Commands and their evolution since GNA was adopted. I
would like submit for consideration several suggestions on transforming
our Unified Commands to better reflect the realities of their missions
and the deployment of national assets to enhance the global engagement
effectiveness of the United States in the 21st century.
From 2003-2007, I was privileged to serve as NATO's Supreme Allied
Commander (SACEUR) and as Commander United States European Command
(EUCOM). All totaled, this responsibility included in excess of 80
countries. What is not as well known is that this assignment also
included the entire African continent, but excluded the countries
comprising the Horn of Africa. Interestingly, at the time of my
command, the word ``Africa'' did not appear in the title ``U.S.
European Command''. The Deputy Commander of this command, for most of
my tenure, was Gen. Charles Wald, USAF. His leadership and commitment
to our entire geographical area of responsibility, including Africa,
was critical to the transformation of the command in supporting the
war-fighting efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as the eventual
creation of the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM). Gen. Wald's insistence
that the African continent's emergence on the world stage as an
enormous reality that the United States could no longer ignore was the
catalyst to an American awakening to this reality. Future
administrations will have to recognize this as one of the most urgent
geo-strategic imperatives of the future. Africa has ``arrived,'' and
its potential is enormous; this should be good news for the United
States, as well as an increasingly urgent challenge.
The idea for AFRICOM, which was devised by EUCOM, was based on a
simple premise. Gen Wald and I concluded that EUCOM's mission at the
time was too vast, especially if we were to devote the required
attention to the growing terrorist threats that were surfacing in
different regions in Africa. We proposed to Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
the idea for creating AFRICOM. Coupled with this idea was the
recommendation that if created, AFRICOM should be located on the
African continent. We also recommended that we should not call it a
``Combatant Command,'' as this title alone would make it more difficult
to find a ``home'' in Africa. We proposed referring to it by what I
strongly feel is the correct title for all such geographical commands:
a Unified Command. Today, AFRICOM has a home in Stuttgart, Germany
alongside EUCOM. This is not ideal from a geographically strategic
standpoint. All geographical commands are still referred to a
``Combatant Commands,'' inaccurately in my view. With your permission I
will hereinafter refer to such commands as ``Unified Commands.''
The presence of our six geographical Unified Commands on several
different continents is a gift of the 20th century, a privilege no
other country in the world enjoys. The Unified Command structure
emerged after the end of World War ll, when confidence in the United
States as a country to be admired and associated with was at its
zenith. For its values, its refusal to permanently occupy defeated
adversaries, and democratic principles that celebrated the potential of
each individual fortunate to be called ``American,'' America became the
global model for the future.
Today, our Unified Commands remain uniquely valuable assets that
continue to foster military interoperability and training, common
military architectures, and requisite support to our friends and
allies. For these commands to be able to achieve their maximum
potential effectiveness, I believe they should be geographically
located in the regions they hope to affect.
In the past years, we have witnessed the transition of the United
States Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) from Panama to Florida, and the
United States Central Command (CENTCOM) operating only a forward
headquarters element in Qatar with the predominance of its forces
operating in Tampa, Florida. Today, only USEUCOM (Stuttgart, Germany),
and the United States Pacific Command (Hawaii) are the two unified
commands that can claim to be located in the geographical regions of
their responsibility. I recognize the inherent difficulty in reversing
decisions already taken, but I would highly recommend that, if
possible, CENTCOM and AFRICOM find homes in their respective regions of
responsibility as a matter of urgency.
In the Middle East, the influence and reputation of the United
States has suffered in the eyes of our friends and allies in the
region. Generally speaking, it is the widespread view that the Unites
States has rebalanced its priorities to the Pacific at the expense of
what many feel is the most dangerous region on Earth, the Middle East.
It is true that the home of the United States Navy's Fifth Fleet is
still Bahrain, and that CENTCOM still maintains a forward headquarters
in Qatar. We have smaller task forces sprinkled in several countries in
the region, but the absence of CENTCOM itself in the region has created
a vacuum. This calls into question our national resolve to play a
constructive role in a crisis-torn part of the world with enormous
security challenges now and in the future.
The regional decline in confidence in the United States has opened
up the previously unthinkable possibility that our historical friends
and allies are actually seeking assistance from, and closer relations
with, Russia, China, and several European countries. In Africa, we
surrendered in 1990 the top trading position we used to enjoy to China.
Today, the oft-repeated refrain from many African leaders to their
American counterparts is ``Where are you? Why aren't you in my country?
We need America in Africa!''
Much has been done in the preceding two administrations towards
reversing this negative trend, but much more needs to be done. I am not
just speaking about United States military presence or stepping up the
activities of our foreign and civil services in Africa, but the
presence of our companies, NGOs, and academic institutions. As part of
this overall effort, successfully placing AFRICOM in Africa would send
a very powerful message to the continent's 54 countries, that we are
``present for duty'' as a whole-of-government; and that we intend to be
an enduring partner for all African nations seeking freedom and
prosperity--objectives which we know depend on the mutually reinforcing
pillars of security, economic development, and good governance/rule of
law. I would also like to submit for the record a paper I wrote for
under the auspices of the Atlantic Council on the need to modernize
U.S. global engagement based on these three pillars: security, whole -
of-government enterprise, and greater public-private sector
cooperation.
Moreover, in July 2014, I chaired as study conducted by the
Atlantic Council's Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security
entitled ``All Elements of National Power; Moving Toward a New
Interagency Balance for U.S. Global Engagement.'' I commend it to this
Committee's review. What follows is the executive summary of this
study, which suggests that a transformation of our Unified Commands is
worthy of consideration in any review of GNA. I request that the full
report of the Atlantic Council's study be included as part of my
testimony. Copies of the study have been made available to Members and
staff of this Committee.
[Questions for the record with answers supplied follow:]
``All Elements of Power; Moving Toward a New Interagency
Balance for U.S. Global Engagement'' Executive Summary
To deal effectively with long-range global trends and near term
securities challenges, the United States requires a broader
application of all elements of national power or risks
continued disjointed efforts in U.S. global engagement. A
transformed interagency balance is a hedge against uncertainty
in a dramatically changing world.
As the U.S. National Intelligence Council suggested in its
landmark 2012 report, Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds,
tectonic shifts in several theaters will have significant
potential to cause global and regional insecurity in the coming
decades. American overseas presence in key regions is and will
remain integral to meeting the dynamic regional security
challenges and specific military threats. The United States
faces increased risks and missed opportunities to advance U.S.
interests, however, if it continues to focus on the military as
the primary government instrument working with allies and
partners on a regional scale. The U.S. government currently has
only one structure, the geographic combatant command, to
execute foreign and defense policy in key regions of the world.
At present, there is no mechanism in place to integrate
activities of all U.S. government departments and agencies in
key regions.
As a result, U.S. gov't regional actions often are
uncoordinated and disconnected. To this end, recent geographic
combatant commanders have recognized the need for greater
interagency coordination and experimented with strengthening
the role and relevance of the interagency within their
commands. The intent of this report is to go further and make
interagency components the key integrator of elements of
national power to better manage foreign and defense policy
execution. This report discusses how the United States can
resource and restructure for a more balanced, forward-deployed
regional approach essential in improving the integration of
national Instruments of power--diplomatic, informational,
military, economic, and others--to advance U.S. interests at
the regional level. This task force initially focused solely on
restructuring the geographic combatant commands, but it quickly
became apparent that higher-priority, untapped points of
leverage existed that, if properly resourced, could greatly
strengthen U.S. efforts at the regional level. Although these
general recommendations are Department of Defense- and
Department of State-centric, we recognize the importance for
all of us government agencies and departments to play a role in
a true ``whole-of-government'' approach. Initial discussion
focuses primarily on security issues with the goal of bringing
in the full range of economic, political, and other issues and
agencies as changes progress. Many of the recommendations could
be implemented in the near- to mid-term under the current
structures of the Department of State and the Department of
Defense. The following general recommendations were developed
toward that end:
Interagency synchronization
The United States should rebalance national Instruments
of power by providing enhanced Department of State capacity in key
regions. Unbalanced resourcing and manpower between the Department of
Defense and the Department of State creates significant roadblocks to
enhancing interagency presence in the region. A more balanced approach
would strengthen U.S. engagement more broadly.
Department of State regional assistant secretaries should
be further empowered to set and coordinate foreign policy within the
regions. Currently, assistant secretaries have an explicit requirement
to be responsible, but they lack sufficient resources and authority to
be effective. Regional assistant secretaries should have the authority
to integrate the full range of foreign and security policy as well as
diplomatic resources to execute foreign policy on a regional scale.
There should be an ambassador-level civilian deputy in
each geographic combatant command with deep regional experience and
expertise. Absent crisis or war, the civilian deputy would, on behalf
of the commander, oversee and integrate security cooperation efforts
with allies and partners. The civilian deputy could also act as the
senior political adviser (POLAD) who would have direct liaison with the
Department of State regional assistant secretary. Likewise, the senior
political-military advisers in the Department of State regional bureaus
should have direct ``reach-forward'' access to applicable geographic
combatant command leadership as well as a direct link to civilian
deputies/senior POLADs in the geographic combatant commands. If the
civilian deputy and senior POLAD are two different positions (depending
on combatant command structure), then the civilian deputy would serve
as the senior-most civilian representative within the combatant command
and the primary link to the Department of State. The senior POLAD would
act as the policy adviser to the combatant commander.
To reach the fullest potential and ensure sustained,
effective change, interagency legislation to support these changes
would be essential, entailing provisions that would direct departments
and agencies to adopt a whole-of-government approach. Legislation could
use the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of
1986 as a model.
Organizational transformation
Geographic combatant commands should be renamed to
signify the importance of a whole-of-government approach. A name change
to ``unified regional commands'' would reinforce efforts to coordinate
and integrate instruments of foreign and defense policy execution and
would represent broader capabilities and engagement efforts than
strictly a war-fighting approach.
Allies and partners could play a more significant role in
geographic combatant commands; international involvement could
strengthen allied/partner nation support for U.S. policies and improve
prepositioning and posture opportunities.
Geographic combatant commanders should be assigned for
sufficient time (at least three or four years versus two or three years
at present) to gain a deeper understanding of the region and help
fortify relations with regional counterparts.
Divergence of regional boundaries among the Department of
Defense, Department of State, and National Security Council causes
friction and confusion; a common ``map'' would enhance a whole-of-
government approach.
Efficiencies
Certain regional prepositioned supplies and equipment
should be managed in a more coordinated manner by departments and
agencies. Integrated prepositioning would save money and manpower,
eliminate redundancies, and provide for a synchronized approach to
crisis response resulting in quicker reaction times.
Major efficiencies can be gained by returning ``back
office'' functions from the geographic combatant commands and their
service component commands to the Services and the Joint Staff, thereby
streamlining geographic combatant command headquarters' staffs. The
Secretary of Defense and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff should
request a qualified outside group to assess details in report back in
60 to 90 days.
The task force also evaluated three specific restructuring options
that would help move U.S. regional presence toward a more effective
interagency balance. Although these restructuring options require
legislative and organizational changes and a move away from long-
standing institutional norms, they are worthy of discussion and should
be evaluated based on emerging 21st century strategic and fiscal
realities. The following restructuring options should be explored:
1. An unconventional end-state would be the creation of an
``Interagency Regional Center'' that would act as a regional
interagency headquarters for foreign and defense policy. This new
organization would result in the unification of the Department of
Defense and the Department of State (as well as other agencies and
departments) at the regional level. The Interagency Regional Center
(IRC) would be led by an ``interagency regional director'' with
regional experience and expertise who would report directly to the
President or Vice President of the United States. The president
develops the grand strategy and establishes national security strategy,
while the regional directors would implement that strategy that the
regional level. The regional directors would advise and participate in
the National Security Council, as requested. Regional directors would
also convene to discuss cross-regional issues and activities. The IRCs
would ensure long-lasting integration of all instruments of national
power.
The interagency regional director would have a military and
civilian deputy. The military deputy would focus on defense issues
while the civilian deputy would focus on diplomacy, development, and
other critical nonmilitary issues. The civilian deputy would also act
as a regional ambassador-at-large who would have coordination authority
for country ambassadors and other civilian-led organizations such as
Treasury, Justice, and Commerce. Country ambassadors would still
formally report directly to the Secretary of State through the IRC. The
civilian deputy would be in charge of coordinating all nonmilitary
agencies and organizations at the regional level. During wartime, the
military commander will report directly to the President through the
Secretary of Defense as in the current combatant command structure,
while the director and civilian deputy would focus on nation-building
and post-conflict operations. During peacetime, the military would
report through the IRC for engagement. For this approach to be
successful, peacetime and wartime responsibilities would need to be
clearly delineated and understood.
2. An intermediate approach would collocate the Department of
State regional bureaus with the geographic combatant commands. These
locations would be ideal to strengthen the authority of regional
bureaus and allow the bureaus to operate more nimbly. Colocation of the
regional assistant secretary (or alternatively, a deputy assistant
secretary) in his/her staff with the geographic combatant command would
allow for regional-level integration with a more unified approach and
presence. Colocation of other departments and agencies, such as Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) regional offices, should also be considered.
3. An alternative intermediate approach would be for the
geographic combatant command civilian deputy to act also as a regional
ambassador-at-large who would have coordination authority for country
ambassadors and other civilian-led organizations in the region. His/her
mission under this authority would be to coordinate U.S. actions,
issues, and initiatives within the region and bordering regions. The
civilian deputy would have the authority to require consultation
between regional organizations, but would not have the authority to
compel agreement. This coordination authority would be a consultation
relationship, not an authority through which chain of command would be
exercised. This approach works under the current structure, but adds
integration by bringing together all agencies operating within the
region to coordinate regional activities.
It is critical that the United States think about how to adapt
to emerging 21st century realities, both strategic and fiscal,
particularly as the United State transitions from a decade of war.
Long-range global trends and near-term security challenges demand a
broader use of instruments of national power. The United States must
take advantage of its strategic assets, and resource and restructure
for a better balanced, forward-deployed approach. The Secretary of
Defense, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Secretary of State,
and the National Security Advisor should commission a detailed follow-
on study to this report to further evaluate key insights and execution
of suggested recommendations.
whole-of-government coordination
The importance of the National Security Council (NSC) as an
instrument of coordination in the foreign policy and national security
direction of the Executive Branch belongs in any discussion pertaining
to a possible ``Goldwater-Nichols Act ll.'' In an increasingly
multipolar world, it is evident that a whole-of-government approach is
needed to respond to an increasingly wider array of threats, as well as
a dramatic increase in their sheer numbers. My experience in the NSC
from 2009-2010 convinced me that strategic policy coordination by the
NSC is its prime responsibility and is the best service it can provide
the President. Gone are the days when a single department can be given
the single responsibility to take on, by itself, any of the major
challenges of our times. New challenges, such as cybersecurity, energy
and climate security, economic security, and the rise of non-state
actors indicate that the proper national interagency response spans
across the traditional ``stove-piped'' menu to which we grew accustomed
in the past century. Assuming that this is correct, it follows that
there needs to be a ``coordinating agency'' tasked to effectuate the
national security policies that require presidential decision making.
I presume that today's NSC remains afflicted by the same
organizational challenges that I faced in January 2009 when I first
assumed the role as National Security Advisor. The main challenges
facing the NSCs of this era are resources, manpower allocation, and
increasing span of activity.
One of the first decisions regarding the NSC in 2009 was to combine
the NSC and Homeland Security staffs, a move that was widely applauded
and which has proven itself to be extremely useful. Our security does
not start or stop at our borders, and our efforts to respond to the
multiple security challenges we face must be coordinated in a combined
NSC staff. That task has largely been accomplished.
In 2009, as I recall, the NSC operated on an ``anemic budget'' of
$4 million. In combining the two staffs, as previously discussed, it
became obvious that an increase in resources was necessary. After
conducting a detailed study, it was determined that $23 million was
necessary to conduct the NSC's important work, which also included the
funding to hire the requisite expertise to appropriately staff the NSC.
This request was rejected as being out-of-line in relation to the
funding of other West Wing entities. As I recall, however, we did
receive an increase of $8 million, adding to the $4 million previously
allocated, for a total of annual budget of $12 million. Even
considering that modest increase in funding allocation, I continue to
feel that the NSC has been consistently underfunded for the tasks it is
asked to perform and perhaps more importantly, those that it is
expected to perform.
The size of the NSC has come under criticism recently. Critics
would do well to recall that in combining the Homeland Security Council
(HSC) and the NSC in 2009, significant personnel efficiencies were
achieved. Actually, the number of assigned personnel to the NSC is not
the main problem; the main problem lies in how personnel are assigned
to the NSC. The majority of personnel ``detailed'' to the NSC are ``on
temporary loan'' from other government agencies. Parent agencies select
the ``detailees,'' pay their salaries, and place strict controls on how
long they can be ``away from home.'' This system causes significant
personnel annual turnover rates within the NSC. As I recall, almost
half of the NSC staff turned over in 2010, just one year after the
administration took office. This situation exists for several reasons.
One is that agencies themselves benefit from having more NSC-
experienced staff, not realizing that frequent rotations impact
continuity of NSC efforts. Another is that the NSC itself is not
resourced to pay the salaries of the amount of personnel needed to
accomplish its mission. The result of frequent personnel turnover is a
detrimental effect to the experience level, efficiency, and consistency
needed in the NSC itself. My view of an adequate NSC staffing
composition is 3/4 ``permanent personnel'' and 1/4 ``detailees.'' The
length of service for ``detailees'' to the NSC can be easily determined
by it and the respective agencies, and certainly the reforms I suggest
could reduce the overall number of ``detailees,'' which would benefit
the various agencies.
My lasting conclusion with regard to the NSC's ``span of activity''
is that it should, first and foremost, be a very small ``agency-like''
organization with all the entitlements of larger agencies, such as
funding for protocol, media, congressional relations, travel, etc. This
is a simple resource allocation problem, but it has never been fixed.
Second, the NSC should be a ``policy communicating/disseminating''
organization and needs to be the principal coordinating vortex for
major national and international security issues. The number of Cabinet
rank advisors who gather in the Situation Room to give advice to the
President on the most important issues has increased significantly in
the past few years. It is critical that the NSC staff be organized,
resourced, and adequately staffed in order to do what is needed to
coordinate interagency activities.
Lastly, the NSC should not and cannot be a policy ``implementing''
organization. NSC's have had a historical tendency to travel down the
``slippery slope'' of micromanagement as their tenure in an
administration evolves. This is where the major criticism usually
occurs; it is easy to lose the sense of balance between what is a
primary function and what becomes an ``urge'' to manage the
implementation of policy, something that vastly exceeds the mission of
the NSC. It is, in my view, the responsibility of the National Security
Advisor to create the environment that lends itself to partnerships and
trust among Cabinet-rank officials who play an increasing role in the
wider national security community.
In his testimony before the Committee, former Secretary of Defense
Bob Gates expressed doubt about the efficacy of an interagency
Goldwater-Nichols. He makes valid points that must be considered
carefully. I would submit that the practical difficulties he points out
underscore the important role of the of the NSC and the NSS--as a
presidential instrument--can and must play a role in ensuring that
decisions taken by the President and his national security team are
duly and properly implemented by the interagency. I believe that the
NSC's ability to help perform this essential function would be greatly
advanced by the personnel and structural reforms I proposed.
Secretary Gates also testified about the Congress' vital role in
setting the conditions for an efficiently run national security
establishment. He noted the destructive consequences to the Department
of Defense and our national security interests of perpetual partisan
gridlock, budget impasses, and the recurring threat of government
shutdowns. I would like to associate myself with his remarks on the
need for Congress to be a part of national security reform, not only by
how it funds and directs the DOD to operate, but how it conducts its
legislative and oversight responsibilities.
concluding observations
Mr. Chairman, Senator Reed, Members of the Committee, I thank you
for allowing me to offer this testimony. I am of the opinion that the
landmark legislation of Goldwater-Nichols Defense Reorganization Act of
1986, which was informed, in part, by many of the findings included in
the Packard Commission Report of 1986, provided the framework for the
United States Armed Forces that our country enjoys and admires today, a
force that is unequalled and unrivaled anywhere. It is now time to look
to the future by modernizing those areas of the legislation that are in
most need of reform. Previous witnesses have provided a long and wide
ranging commentary on the need for a ``Goldwater-Nichols ll.''
We are fortunate that many of the framers of the original
legislation are still ``current'' on security issues, and are still
providing advice to the leadership of our government and the Department
of Defense. I recommend that additional use of this distinguished group
be considered in any effort involving a proposed ``Goldwater-Nichols
ll.'' They are truly national assets and collectively they represent
decades of unparalleled experience. It could well be that the Committee
might benefit from such a group to gather once again, as they did in
1997, for the purpose of recommending the most important areas, on
which there is universal agreement, for urgent reform. I hope my
contribution has been useful and I look forward to helping you in any
way possible in the important ongoing work of reform that serves the
nation's interests.
Chairman McCain. Thank you, and I thank the witnesses.
I would just add it is my understanding, General, that
under Henry Kissinger, the NSC staff was 50 people. I
understand now it is 400. I might argue that in the days of
Kissinger, we were more successful than we are today. It is not
clear to me that increasing sizes of the staffs is necessarily
the answer.
I guess one of the fundamental questions I think that we
are trying to confront here, that we have the COCOMs, but every
time that there is a major contingency or emergency or some
challenge, that we form up a joint task force, and they address
it rather than the COCOMs themselves. In addition to that,
obviously, we do not know the number of people on these staffs
because we have never had a full accounting for not only the
military personnel but the contract personnel and the civilian
personnel that are all assigned to them as well. So some argue
that the COCOMs should be reduced significantly in size and
number because these standing task forces seem to be the
vehicle for addressing the national emergencies.
I guess we can begin with you, General Jones.
Mr. Jones. Well, I think, first of all, the term `combatant
command' is one that was coined during Secretary Rumsfeld's
tenure. In my view the correct title for these commands is
`unified command.' One of the reasons that AFRICOM wound up in
Stuttgart, Germany was that we refused to change the title
`combatant command,' and no African leader was going to welcome
a combatant command of the United States in their country. So
Germany has a long history with us. They understood what we
were trying to do, and they extended the invitation to put it
in Stuttgart, Germany.
The overall functions of the 21st century unified command
in my view are, number one, warfighting but also, number two,
to by their presence, which is I think a gift of enormous value
to the United States, be molded I think, as this report
suggests, into a much more useful instrument of American
engagement in foreign policy. I would advocate that there could
be a structure where senior elements of the interagency could
also be present. They would be working in the same time zone as
their colleagues. It would bring a regional focus to our
strategic thinking that would be extremely important. Right now
in the State Department, the strategic and the operational
level of involvement is located here in Washington, and as a
result, we have a soda straw mentality approaching each country
country by country when the world is much easier to understand
if you did it by regions.
So modernizing and transforming these unified commands into
a more cogent expression of our national capabilities I think
makes a lot of sense and should be seriously considered for the
future.
Chairman McCain. General Flynn?
Mr. Flynn. Thanks, Chairman.
So I am going to be a little bit hypothetical here. You
asked about sort of re-imagining. You used the word `re-
imagining.' To specifically answer your question, the fighting
forces inside of our combatant commands are not resourced the
way you believe they are. So Army components, Marine
components, naval components within a combatant command in some
cases AFRICOM, parts of EUCOM--they do not exist or they do not
exist in the capacity and capability to be able to actually
combine themselves together with joint forces or coalition
forces to do the job.
So that said, imagine only two geographic combatant
commands--only two--an east and a west. You would have to have
specific other commands like STRATCOM, which I believe is
necessary because we do have a nuclear responsibility for this
Nation for this century; Cyber Command because this is
definitely a new world as I highlighted in some of the things I
said. So if that is all you had, you just had an east and a
west four-star that did a lot of things--they would take on a
lot of things. What we have to figure out is how do we flesh
out the resources, the warfighting resources, the ready
capabilities that we need from all these other places that have
been highlighted by the testimony that you have heard today and
others and get that stuff out of the tail of the Department of
Defense and get it down into the warfighting forces that we
need because otherwise we are going to--you know, we have
Ebola, we have some problem somewhere around the world. It is
like, okay, give me some bits and pieces and we throw it
together. It really has nothing to do with coming out of that
combatant command.
So could you get to that? Could you get to an east and a
west geographic combatant command? You know, they do not need
to be services. They are headquarters. Would they be relatively
large? I am not so sure if they need to be much larger than
what they are doing. If you look at like a PACOM, you look at--
I mean, when we talk about EUCOM, AFRICOM, CENTCOM, I mean
those are interesting. Could you bring something together that
commanded all those? Then what you do is you drive down the
size of these headquarters, starting with the building across
the river here, and the resources that they need, as well as
the agencies and activities of the Department of Defense. I
tell you the one that I led is way over. It is overpriced and
there are too many people in it. When you look at 9/11 to the
size of it today, just in that example--and I think General
Jones--he nailed it when we talk about some of what these
agencies and activities are doing and how bloated they are.
So could we get to that? Could we get to an east and a
west? Could we drive down the number of four-stars and three-
stars that we have? I mean, when I look around the world, there
are not a lot of four-stars out there. There is a few when we
are talking about colleagues and we talk about what exists out
there. It does not mean that we get rid of every one of them,
but it means that we really take a hard look and do sort of a
red team analysis of what it is that I am imagining here in
this hypothetical, which I actually think that it is practical.
Now, could it be achieved in 4 years? It would take some time
and it would certainly take a lot of effort.
Is it possible? It is possible. Can you imagine it? I can
imagine it because when I look at how we fight today and how we
have been fighting and how I think we will fight for at least
the next 10 years, we are going to continue down this road that
you have already recognized. We are stealing--so CENTCOM--I am
pulling people on the battlefield. I am pulling people from
PACOM, USFK, EUCOM, AFRICOM to fight a war in Iraq. From the
intelligence perspective, we are pulling people from all over
the place. They had no rhyme or reason to any kind of
structured system that we had in place. So all those combatant
commands had to pile on. It just made no sense.
It is almost like take the whiteboard, wipe it clean, and
then have some effort, some analytical effort, that takes a
really hard look at sort of what I would just call a team B
approach to what I am addressing.
Chairman McCain. Senator Reed?
Senator Reed. Well, let me start with Secretary Donley. If
you want to make a comment, that would be appropriate,
Secretary. But there is one point in your testimony that I
thought was interesting because we are going to have a huge
process here of reform, and you have to start off with some
tangible first steps. One step you suggested was integrating
the staffs of the services. Currently the uniformed staff is
there and then the civilian sector staff is here.
Can you just for a moment sort of comment on that proposal?
Then I will ask General Flynn and General Jones for their
perspective since they have served in different areas. Mr.
Secretary, please.
Mr. Donley. Sir, I will turn to that just quickly in answer
to Senator McCain's question about COCOMs, a couple of points
real quick.
The committee's effort to redefine management headquarters
and to get the Department to rebaseline all that work will be
very important I think in getting a new updated baseline of the
COCOM headquarters, the service component headquarters, et
cetera. That is very important as you consider the way forward.
That is why I focused on that area.
Second, I do think having global coverage is important
across the regional combatant commands. We actually did not
have global coverage until the early 2000s. We had several
countries that were, quote/unquote, unassigned. So it has taken
us a long time to get to the global configuration we have. You
can expect changes at the margins as commanders talk about the
seams and they get adjusted. But I think trying to collapse the
regional structure at this point would be a step backwards.
Third point quickly on how COCOMs task organize. It makes a
lot of sense to assign regional responsibilities to subunified
commands or to component commanders. COCOM headquarters are not
capable of doing everything themselves on their headquarters
staff. One prominent example that is out there right now is the
need to develop missile defense architectures. We are doing
that in at least three places that I am aware of. We are doing
that in the Gulf. We are doing that in Europe, including the
eastern Med, and we are doing that in Asia. We need the
technical expertise of the service components, air and land, to
work that together, and they are doing it with allies at the
operational level. So these are things that COCOM headquarters
cannot do by themselves. It makes a lot of sense to task those.
On the military department headquarters, so this has a very
long history. As provided for in Title 10 coming out of
Goldwater-Nichols, it sort of cements these two staffs in the
same headquarters. But there are functions on both sides that
in some cases are almost the same function. The assistant
secretaries and the services, for example, for manpower and
reserve affairs, have functional responsibilities for policy
and oversight that look a lot like the deputy chiefs of staff
for personnel on the military side. So they are compelled to
work together, but they are organizationally separated.
Depending on who is assigned there, the personalities and the
guidance they get from their chief or their secretary,
sometimes offices such as these and these two staff do not
always work well together. If you are in the field, sometimes
there is confusion about where you go in the headquarters. Do
you go to the secretariat for this or do you go to the deputy
chief of staff for this?
Other parts of the staff that are separated actually ought
to come together. Acquisition and logistics is one of those. As
the committee knows, there is a long history of trying to work
lifecycle management and put acquisition and logistics
functions together. AT&L [the Office of the Under Secretary of
Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics] does that
at the OSD level, but in the services those are still
separated.
So there is a lot of potential here to get to a single
staff. It will be hard work, but it is I think worth doing.
Senator Reed. Very quickly because my time is expiring.
General Flynn, any comments? General Jones, any comments?
Mr. Jones. I do. I am sorry, Mike. Go ahead.
Mr. Flynn. I would just say briefly having witnessed this
integration between services and the department level, I think
that is the right approach. I do think that there has to be
more--you know, the recognition of our civilian leadership has
got to be very clear. But military officers to be able to work
in there because it gets into what General Jones talked about
is the interagency roles. You do not have to duplicate staff.
So I think that that is a good idea.
Senator Reed. Thank you.
General Jones, please.
Mr. Jones. Senator, I believe that we should consider all
kinds of ideas, and I think we should not probably pick any one
as being the best way to do it. I think that is the value of
studying things.
But just for information, the civilian-to-active duty
ratios of the Department right now, with the Air Force is 1 to
1.7, civilian to military. In the Navy, it is 1 to 1.8. In the
Army, it is 1 to 2.3, and in the Marine Corps, it is 1 to 8.3.
So we clearly have inflated numbers in our bureaucracy both
military and civilian. We need to become more efficient. We
need to do things quicker. We cannot continue to take 15 years
to produce a major end item, important system for the
warfighter. We just have to be leaner and really reduce the
size of military staffs in headquarters just across the board.
How you do the civilian secretariats and the military staff
I think is something worthy of study. I do not have a clear
view on how that would work. But it is certainly something we
should consider.
Senator Reed. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman McCain. Senator Ernst?
Senator Ernst. Thank you, gentlemen, for joining us today,
and thank you, Mr. Chair, for your very kind words on the floor
yesterday. I certainly appreciated that.
General Flynn, I am very concerned about the military
intelligence force structure and the support actually going out
to the warfighter. For example, AFRICOM. Despite ISIS surging
in Libya and many of the other threats on the continent, the
Army has stated there is likely going to be about a 2-year
delay in getting an Army theater intelligence brigade
established for support in that area.
General Breedlove has also stated that in Europe the
current levels of MI [military intelligence] support are very
inadequate. They are lacking considering the threat that we
have coming from Russia and other transnational threats and
terrorism. Not much is being done to provide EUCOM with MI
support.
So we have INSCOM [United States Army Intelligence and
Security Command] at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, and it is this
Army senior intelligence integrator. It equips, trains, and
mans the Army intelligence units all around the globe. You have
spent 30 years in MI. If you could please tell us in your
experience if INSCOM could be better reformed to support the
warfighter and how we can achieve that.
Mr. Flynn. Okay, and this really gets to the chairman's
question about what we have been talking about with combatant
commands' ability to organize, to fight.
So INSCOM was a creation of the Soviet Union Cold War
system that we fought at least 25 years ago now. So it is a--I
am going to be very candid here. It is a bloated, almost
irrelevant headquarters. We have Army component commanders
underneath every geographic combatant command, actually
underneath all of them. So we have an Army service component
underneath EUCOM. You have one underneath CENTCOM. They are
three-stars. I think in Europe it is still a four-star. But
those are senior officers. The Army intelligence forces are
aligned back to INSCOM. It just does not make any sense. Talk
about more headquarters that you do not need.
So I think that there is a fundamental need to take a real
laser focus at what you are addressing and decide whether or
not INSCOM can be dissolved. You take resources and you push
them out to those theater intelligence brigades which are
necessary, and they function very well and they do actually
work for those commanders. But the way that we have them
aligned--I know the size of INSCOM's headquarters, and I
honestly do not know--I cannot sit here today and tell you that
I have served 5 years in combat in the last decade, and I am
not sure what that particular headquarters did for me. I know
what the intelligence brigades did, and I would work it through
the warfighting command system.
So I think part of this reform--it is like agencies and
activities and some of these other headquarters that have
grown. This is one that goes back to the Cold War, and it is
time to take another look at whether or not that is necessary.
Senator Ernst. That is great. Thank you for the input,
General Flynn.
General Jones, in January of 2013, former Secretary of
Defense Leon Panetta signed a memorandum eliminating the direct
ground combat definition and assignment rule which directed the
services to open the direct ground combat specialties
previously closed to women by the first of January 2016 or to
request an exception to policy for any direct ground combat
specialties they determined should remain closed.
In your experience as the former Commandant of the Marine
Corps, what would your best military advice or recommendation
for the Marine Corps have been to the Secretary of Defense for
1 January? If you could expound on that please.
Mr. Jones. Well, thank you, Senator. I would like to think
that my time as Commandant was one that advocated for more
billets being opened for women and broader integration. I was
in the Marine Corps long enough to see the separateness become
one Marine Corps where we had two separate organizations for a
long time and they were brought together in the 1970s I think.
So I have been a staunch advocate for making as many billets as
possible available to women.
The one exception that I feel strongly about is combining
genders at the rifle squad, platoon, and company level simply
because of the physiological differences between men and women.
Overwhelmingly, that is my objection. I have served in combat
as a platoon commander and a company commander in Vietnam. I
have been a battalion commander. I do not see that as something
that would enhance the combat warfighting capability of our
units. When you look at professional sports and the National
Football League, the National Hockey League, the National
Basketball Association, professional tennis, professional golf,
they make a distinction between men and women in terms of
putting them on the same teams at the same time. I think that
that analogy applies to women serving in line outfits at the
very, very--at the warfighting level, as I said, at the rifle
squad, platoon, and company level where I would be very careful
about mandating 100 percent inclusion because I actually think
that would decrease our combat capability.
Senator Ernst. Thank you. I respect your opinion very much.
Mr. Jones. Thank you.
Senator Ernst. Thank you, gentlemen.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Chairman McCain. Senator McCaskill?
Senator McCaskill. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you all for your service to our country and thank you
for being here today.
I am going to start with you, Secretary Donley. I am aware
of the pressures that have been put on the Air Force as it
relates to drone operators because of the incredibly capable
unit that we have in Missouri at Whiteman. I know that the Air
Force is working on this problem.
But it seems to me that this is something that we did not
see coming because now I have learned that the Air Force is
actually considering using contractors in order to ease the
burden on these drone operators.
At large, I think the issue of contractors versus active
military is something that we are struggling with in our
military. Certainly there is a role for contractors. Certainly
we all acknowledge there is a role for contractors. Hopefully
contracts that have been well scoped and competed and that are
not cost-plus and that are overseen with capability and
confidence as opposed to what we saw with CORS [Contracting
Officer's Representatives] when I first arrived in Washington
in connection with what we were spending in Iraq on
particularly logistic support, LOGCAP [the Logistics Civil
Augmentation Program].
So I guess my question for you, Secretary Donley, is are
you comfortable that we are at a position that we are hiring
contractors to do the drone work, which in fact our
warfighters--the reason they are under such stress right now is
because they are being asked to target and kill the enemy
during the day and going home to dinner with their families. It
is a new kind of warfighting. It just appears that we were not
really ready to support these warfighters. I am uncomfortable
that the answer is to hire civilians.
Mr. Donley. Senator, I cannot speak to the current state of
readiness or personnel pressures on the RPA [remotely piloted
aircraft] operator force, but it certainly was significant and
has been for quite some time.
The demand for this capability has been off the charts, and
the Air Force had discussions with Secretary Gates and his
staff about what the upper limit would be. We always had
difficulty. Working with my colleague, General Flynn, I
remember when he was in Afghanistan. We were working these
issues. The Department set targets for the Air Force to grow
the number of orbits. Each time the Air Force met that goal,
the goalposts were moved.
Senator McCaskill. Right.
Mr. Donley. This happened two or three times in a 2- or 3-
year period. So the Air Force was playing catch-up.
These aircraft take a special training, obviously, and the
mission integrating these aircraft with the intelligence system
and providing that instantaneous sort of sensor-to- shooter
capability netted into the entire intelligence network through
the DCGS [Distributed Common Ground System] has been a
tremendous capability for our country. But it has also been
manpower intensive, and the Air Force has been behind the power
curve in doing this.
It seemed much easier and frankly the focus had been in the
Congress and in the Department to just continue to buy more
aircraft, which made sense. But what the Air Force was doing
behind the scenes, at a time when the Air Force budget was
stagnant and the Air Force was actually decreasing in size, is
we had to man this force. We had to create a new job series and
invent the career force for RPA operators, and we had to set up
the schoolhouses. There was so much pressure on operations that
it was difficult to keep up because they were also robbing from
the schoolhouses.
So your point is well taken. The force has been
tremendously stressed.
I am uncomfortable with having civilian contractors
performing military missions. That does not sound right to me,
and we need to take a close look at that interface between what
is an appropriate civilian activity and what is an appropriate
military activity in the sensor-to-shooter kill chain.
Senator McCaskill. Correct.
I am almost out of time, but I wanted to briefly, General
Jones--any of you. If you want to respond to this on the
record. But I am still looking for some kind of data that would
support the morphing that occurred during Iraq and Afghanistan
from the military with CERP [Commander's Emergency Response
Program] to building highways and how we got to the point that
there was a lack of accountability because it was never clear
whether AID [United States Agency for International
Development] was doing infrastructure and development or
whether it was the active military. Obviously, there were
security concerns. We had highways that probably should not
ever have been built and were built under the aegis of this is
fighting counterinsurgency by winning the hearts and minds, but
in reality, it was probably more about our supply chain and
reliability of our supply chain. This all got very murky. I
have yet to see data that shows a direct relationship between
the money we spent, which began with fixing the storefront
broken window to the billions that were spent on vacant health
centers, power plants that do not work. I could sit here and
list dozens and dozens of projects.
We have got to figure this out because just because we
decided using this money in fighting counterinsurgency was a
good idea does not mean it necessarily was. Somebody has got to
show me that it worked. I do not think anybody has been able to
show that yet, and I do not want us to go down that road again
until somebody produces the data that showed it had an impact.
Mr. Jones. Senator, I think that is a great question. My
recollection of those days leading up to the invasion of Iraq
was that the Defense Department was specifically informed that
we would not do nation building. Therefore, there was no nation
building plan. My recollection of the plan basically saw a
military force go to Baghdad, pull down Saddam Hussein's
statue, and they said, okay, we are going home. That was not
the case. Everything that happened after that was very, very ad
hoc and not well done. The lessons I think of that mission I
think should stay with us for quite a while because I think
engagement--if you are going to engage at that level in this
21st century, you need to have the operational plan to bring
about the security that you need, but you also need an economic
plan and you also need--if you are going to change the
government, you need to make sure you have governance and rule
of law in what is going to happen afterwards. The Central
Command of that time did not have that plan.
Senator McCaskill. I want to make sure those lessons get to
Leavenworth.
Mr. Jones. Exactly.
Senator McCaskill. Thank you.
Chairman McCain. I might point out that the latest example
of that is Libya, completely walking away, and many of us
warned that the outcome now seems to be a new base for Al
Qaeda.
Senator Ayotte, the Democrats have a gathering and if it is
okay with you, I would like to recognize Senator King to go, if
you do not mind. I know you do not mind.
Senator Ayotte. Of course, absolutely.
Chairman McCain. Thank you.
Senator King. Thank you, Senator.
We are talking about supporting the warfighter. I think one
of the most dramatic examples of the failure to do so and then
eventually turning it around and doing so was the MRAP program.
General Jones, what have we learned from that and the fact
that Secretary Gates had to move heaven and earth to make that
happen? What have we learned from that experience in order to
be more nimble in terms of dealing with threats on the
battlefield?
Mr. Jones. Senator, this is one of the largest problems
that we have in the current construct of the Defense
Department. I might even say that even presidential directives
are ignored. I will give you an example of a meeting between
the President of Algeria, President Bouteflika, and President
Bush in which the President of Algeria asked the American
President for night vision goggles for his air force, pretty
standard stuff. The President said let us do that, and he said
we will do that. To this day, the Algerian air force have never
received them. It is simply because in the bureaucracy that we
built, there are too many people that can say no and too many
areas in which it can be blocked. I can give you chapter and
verse of other examples in dealing with foreign countries who
really want to have a relationship with the United States and
really want to buy United States products and eventually just
throw up their hands and go buy French or Israeli or another
country simply because it is just too hard and too slow. As I
said, there are examples of presidential directives being
consumed by the bureaucracy and its inertia.
Senator King. But we have got to try to figure this out
because lives are at stake. American lives are at stake if we
cannot do an MRAP, if takes 2 years instead of 2 months, and
there was a clear need. Not necessarily in this setting but
perhaps following up in writing, you could give us some
suggestions about how to deal with this bureaucratic issue.
There has got to be some kind of expedited path. Are lives at
stake? Yes. Then it goes in a different direction.
Mr. Jones. Absolutely. But my opinion is you have got to
reduce the bureaucracy. There are simply too many people that
can say no and too many people that can block it. If we cannot
do it for our own troops, let alone the troops of our allies
and our friends, we are at risk I think in terms of, as you
said, Senator, costing more lives because of our inefficiency.
That is something that I think Goldwater-Nichols II could
really take a look at and trim the bureaucracy so that there
are fewer people who can say no.
Senator King. It seems to me we have parallel bureaucracies
now. We have the Secretary of Defense with all that that
entails, and then we have the Joint Staff. We have got sort of
two very large entities. Would that be where you would start?
Mr. Jones. I think those are two very large bureaucracies.
I noticed on the Secretary of Defense's staff, we have 70 flag
and general officers. On the Secretary of Defense staff, 70
flag and general officers working today. So this is enormous
and contributes to the inversion that we have created with huge
headquarters and their survival, and the amount of resource
they consumes comes at the direct expense of the fighting
forces, our fighting capabilities.
Mr. Flynn. If I can just make one quick comment.
Senator King. Yes, Secretary Donley, please.
Mr. Flynn. In my last deployment, I spent almost 18 months
in Afghanistan. The first office that I went back to the
Pentagon and thanked--I purposely did this--was the Rapid
Fielding Office, which was a creation of the inertia that was
required on the battlefield because just literally the dozens
of urgent need statements that were coming from the
battlefield. So this rapid needs office was stood up, a bunch
of really great Americans, and they were rapidly turning as
fast as they could those kinds of things. The Secretary, both
Rumsfeld and Gates, really turned it on. They were able to move
things faster. But even then, they had to work around all this
mess that we have all highlighted here. I just think that we
have got to figure out how we can speed up the process when we
go to war. We have to.
I will leave one other comment. Secretary Rumsfeld came out
to visit us in Balad, Iraq early as in the 2004 time frame. I
will never forget the conversation. A small group. We told him.
We told him if you told us that we were going to go to war and
we were not going to come home until we won, we would fight
this war differently. But when you tell me that I am on a 9-
month deployment, I am on a 6-month deployment, I am on a year
deployment, what you have just told is I am going to
participate in this conflict. I am going to return forever. If
you told me, Flynn--and we were looking right at him. If you
told me, Flynn, you are not going to come home until we win,
how would you fight this war differently. Trust me, Senator. We
would have fought it differently, much differently.
Senator King. Well, I appreciate this.
Mr. Chairman, I think this is one of the areas we really
have to look at, the whole issue of bureaucracy because it is
one thing how long it takes to get socks through the process,
but if we are talking about an MRAP or ammunition or lifesaving
equipment and we are in a battle space that is changing so fast
that you just cannot fight the last war. So I hope you fellows
can help us think this through because the tendency of any
bureaucracy--and these are not bad people, by the way, but the
tendency of any bureaucracy is, A, to say no and, B, to grow. I
think it is something we are going to have to--this is the
purpose of these hearings is to help us to address these
questions. But this puts a very fine point on the necessity, it
seems to me.
Thank you very much, gentlemen.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman McCain. 70 flag and general officers that work for
the Secretary of Defense?
Mr. Jones. That is correct.
Senator King. I wonder how many there were in all of World
War II.
Chairman McCain. There was a PACCOM [Pacific Ocean Areas
Command] and there was a European Command.
Senator Ayotte?
Senator Ayotte. Thank you, Chairman.
I want to thank all of you for your distinguished records
of service to the country.
General Flynn, I wanted to ask--really have all of you
comment on something--your comments where you said I have also
served many years in combat and have suffered from the lack of
many capabilities we needed to fight our enemies and found
myself fighting the Pentagon is much more than our enemies.
The one thing that I have noticed in my first term in the
Senate here is that when we get feedback from the ground and we
get feedback from the soldiers, the airmen, the sailors, and
they tell us about something, it becomes almost retributive in
terms of when they are telling us something and what happens to
them to give us the honest opinion of what they need from the
ground and what they think. I feel like I have a responsibility
to get that opinion, not just to hear from the service chief
but to hear from the people who are really affected. The
experience that I have seen around here is that, listen, you
got to do it secretly. You got to do it quietly, and if they
find you out, they will root you out.
So how do we change that culture? You know there is a law
that says if a Member of Congress--you legally can talk to a
Member of Congress about your opinion. So how do we change that
cultural problem that seems to be, in my view, something that I
have been shocked by.
Mr. Flynn. I could spend all day, and I will try to be
very, very brief. I once wrote and sent in an urgent needs
statement because we were actually using the equipment. So it
was an off-the-shelf buy that we did and we are using it and it
is working. Our operational guys going and doing raids in
houses were using it. We pieced it together, and we said, okay,
this is something that we want to go to our larger joint task
force. So I wrote it, sent it up through the channels. I did
all my back channel stuff to all my buddies because we were
trying to move at a different speed. When it made it through
the system, it got into the Army, in this case--but not always
the Army is the bad guy. Folks on the Army staff said that is
not what they need. He does not need that. Who does he think he
is?
Now, at the time, I was a colonel. These senior guys come
out and they say, Flynn, if one of you ever need anything, call
me. So I called up the boss, in this case the Deputy Secretary
of Defense. I was calling from combat. So they took the call.
Good enough, the DepSecDef said let me look into it and we were
able to get the capability.
Now, that is about as bold as you can get because you know
what? I was, in this case, in Iraq and I was like, okay, what
the hell are they going to do. We need this capability. I am
finding a system that just could not, did not respond.
Senator Ayotte. What worries me is that you were able to do
that. I can assure you that that has happened, and the person
who tried to do that in your shoes, instead of getting what
they need, got punished in some way. That is what worries me.
Am I wrong about this?
Mr. Flynn. No. I think you are right. I see it right now. I
actually see it happening right now because I have a lot of
friends that are still serving, especially in the intelligence
community where they feel so--it is not just about this
assessment stuff. It is actually about other things that are
going on, and it is like they feel encumbered, limited,
constrained to say something because particularly with systems,
there is some equipment out there that is just flat not
working.
We are getting ready to send some more forces to combat
here. The Secretary of Defense was in here the other day
talking to you about it. I know down at the troop level because
I see it, they are asking for a particular piece of equipment
and their headquarters are saying do not ask for that piece of
equipment. In fact, in one case, one headquarters has said I do
not want to see any more urgent needs coming through this
headquarters. Now, for a commander to say that, it is--I guess
I am not surprised, Senator, but----
Senator Ayotte. What can we do to empower that, I mean, to
empower that people can speak freely? What more can we do?
Mr. Jones. I think it is, first and foremost, a leadership
problem, and I think service chiefs owe it to put out guidance
to their forces that this is our system. This is what happens.
You are going to be--in the course of your career, you are
going to talk to Members of Congress. You are going to talk to
staff. The only thing we would ask is that what you tell them
you have told us so that everybody is on the same sheet of
music. You do not, on the one hand, keep your mouth shut while
you are talking to your commander and then unload on your
commander behind closed doors.
So I think that we can do a lot more in the leadership
department to try to educate our men and women in uniform
exactly why this is part of the system. The other thing is
positive leadership means that you do not take retribution out
on people for speaking honestly about what they feel. So I
think there is a way to do it. I just think it takes more focus
and it takes positive leadership and guidance to make sure that
people in the respective service understand that this is the
policy. That still will not stamp it out, but it will help.
Mr. Donley. I would associate myself 100 percent with
General Jones' remarks. This is a leadership issue. As Members
of Congress, I encourage you to keep those channels open and
exercise your prerogative to talk to anybody you feel you need
to talk to, to mix it up with our men and women in uniform.
At the same time, as a service leader, we tell our forces,
our civilians, our military personnel, use the chain of
command. I would ask if something gets into a congressional
channel, I am asking why is it not coming to me or the chief.
Why is it not coming up through the leadership channels? So it
is a leadership issue, and we should be encouraging our people
to be straight with their chain of command and with anybody who
asks from the outside.
Senator Ayotte. So I appreciate all your comments on this.
I think people would be straight with their chain of command if
they felt that they were not going to get punished for doing
so. So that is my big concern.
Mr. Jones. Senator, I think you probably had this
experience as well too that in units that are well led, you do
not have that problem.
Senator Ayotte. Right.
Mr. Jones. Units that demonstrate that trait, that negative
trait, are generally led by people who are somewhat insecure
and cannot tolerate that just psychologically.
Senator Ayotte. Right, because the leader will take
feedback of all forms and be able to address it.
Mr. Jones. You can overcome that.
Senator Ayotte [presiding]: Thank you.
It looks like I am here. So I am going to call on Senator
Sullivan.
Senator Sullivan. Well, I appreciate everybody's testimony
and again your service, gentlemen.
I want to dig in again. I think you might be seeing here
maybe a little bit of consensus on the committee on the issue.
General Jones, you wrote about it very articulately in your
testimony, and all of you have been speaking to it on the
tooth-to-tail ratio issue.
I know this is a big question, but why do you think it has
exploded so much? Is it just the normal kind of desire of
bureaucracies to always grow whether it is at DOD or NATO
[North Atlantic Treaty Organization] or the EPA [Environmental
Protection Agency]? I mean, why do you think it exploded?
Because I think that can help us get to some of the answers.
Then on this issue of just 77 flag officers, do you think
it would make sense for us, as opposed to try and reposition
each flag officer position, say, in the Secretary's Office, to
just pass a law saying, hey, you will have no more than 25 flag
officers. You figure out what they should be doing?
Why do you think it has grown, and then how do you think we
can get a handle on it?
I will ask one final question. General Milley has been
really focusing on this issue because the Army has been
required to undertake a lot of cutbacks, at least for now. I
think he is looking at the wisdom of these cutbacks and to what
degree the tooth-to-tail ratio is out of whack. What advice
would you give him, who is really real-time struggling with
this issue? But I think it is an important one that you could
see some consensus building here in the committee. I know I
threw a lot at you, but feel free to, any of you, take a crack
at any of those questions. Thank you.
Mr. Donley. Senator, I will take a first cut at it. First
of all, I think it is the nature of bureaucracies to grow over
time. So this issue of regularly addressing the need for
greater efficiencies is an extremely important one. DOD's
bureaucracy is no different than any other. It needs to be
pruned.
Senator Sullivan. Do you think we are only entity that can
really do that effectively?
Mr. Donley. I think Congress has a very strong role to play
because this is your role to oversee the Department in this
kind of a context.
I do think Congress has effective tools that it can use. At
times in the past, Congress has put ceilings on headquarters
activities in the Department down to the service level, and the
Congress currently has limits on general officers at each
grade. So you do have tools available.
The one aspect that I would ask you to think about--and it
is a little bit new from our decades' old experience--is the
rise of the contractor workforce. I think the Department needs
to get a handle on that and is in the process of doing that and
trying to figure out how many contractors are supporting its
headquarters activities. So the way I advised Secretary Hagel
on this, when we did the OSD review a couple of years ago--you
will recall that he had given direction for 20 percent
reductions in all management headquarters in the Department,
including OSD.
Senator Sullivan. Did that happen? You hear that everybody
does that. The bureaucracies grow. So it does not look like it
always works.
Mr. Donley. No. I think it is underway, and it has been
underway for a couple of years. Secretary Gates started this in
his efficiencies work in 2011. It got reinforced by Secretary
Hagel. Now it is getting reinforced again by Congress. Actually
one of the complexities the Department is going through now is
to how to unite all those efficiencies that had been set in
motion that are now piled on each other sort of in three
different time frames over the last 3 or 4 years. So I think
the work is underway, and what the committee has directed the
Department to do in this management headquarters review will
help set a new baseline for that.
But getting back to the contractors, you have to not just
control the authorizations, but you have to control the money
because if you allow the headquarters to have more money to
work with, then they will buy contractor support with those
resources. So getting a handle on how many contractors are
supporting the headquarters and in what contexts is an
important part of reestablishing a good baseline over these
headquarters activities.
Senator Sullivan. General Jones, General Flynn, any
comments?
Mr. Flynn. Just really quick because I am not sure you were
here, Senator, when General Jones talked about civilian-to-
military ratios.
Senator Sullivan. No. I did hear that.
Mr. Flynn. Of everything I have heard today, that is a
really, really important set of data to really hone in on and
take a look at because it addresses a bigger issue than what
you are talking about. So when we are really looking at reform,
I think that is super important.
The other is the flag officer ratio within the military. If
you look at historical ratios, you know, how many flag officers
per how many troops, as far back in time as you want to go, I
would recommend that you go take a look at that because we
actually have more flag officers per fighting unit than we did
when we were doing really, really big things. So it is worth
taking a look at as part of this effort.
Mr. Jones. I do not have the figures, but I do have the
active duty-to-enlisted ratios in the militaries. In the Air
Force, it is 1 officer for every 4.1 enlisted. In the Navy, it
is 1 officer for every 4.9; in the Army, 1 officer for 4.1; and
in the Marine Corps, 1 officer for every 7.8 enlisted. That is
the officer-to-enlisted ratios. That has been fairly consistent
over time.
With regard to your question about how do we get here, I
completely agree with my colleagues. As a matter of fact, I
noticed, when I was in the Pentagon, that everybody is for
change as long as the change is done to somebody else. That is
just the inherent personality of a bureaucracy. I believe
honestly to enact the kind of change that we critically need
here, it is going to take an external effort. I do not mean
this pejoratively or critically of my former colleagues in the
Pentagon. They are working like crazy trying to keep up with
this very difficult world. But it is going to take an outside--
and they should participate in it, but it is going to take a
focused, separate outside organization much like the Defense
Reform Task Force of 1997 to really think this through and how
to do it.
Senator Sullivan. Thank you, gentlemen.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Senator Ayotte. Thank you.
General Jones, it sounds like you are signing up for duty--
I like that--with this outside task force.
So since the chairman left me to close out this hearing, I
cannot help myself since I have such a great panel here of
incredible experts on national security issues. I have to ask
you about something that has just been developing, which is
yesterday the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] issued
its report on the prior military dimensions of Iran's nuclear
program. Have you had a chance to take a look at that?
One of the pieces of it talks about the fact we know that
Iran--we have had serious concerns about the Parchin facility
and what they have done there in terms of conducting
experiments related to the design of the core of a nuclear
bomb. We also know that they took activities even during the
negotiations process to demolish and change things at that
facility.
So the IAEA report--one of the pieces of it concerns me
because the IAEA concluded that the extensive activities
undertaken by Iran at that facility since February of 2012 have
seriously undermined the agency's ability to conduct effective
verification.
So I just wanted to ask you sort of post-agreement here--
the IAEA report issued yesterday. So I am not going to ask you
to render an opinion on it. You have not seen it yet. But I
think it raises some verification concerns. We had the testing
of the long-range missile in October, which I have not seen a
response yet from our administration on, that is in violation
of existing U.N. [United Nations] resolutions, and many of us
have long been concerned about their missile program because
you do not need an ICBM [intercontinental ballistic missile]
unless you are interested in delivering a nuclear weapon to the
United States.
So I just wanted to get your opinions, especially General
Flynn and Jones, on where we are with Iran and where we are
post-agreement, if you have concerns, what they are and what we
should be doing.
Mr. Jones. I have just spent some time in the Gulf region
talking to various leaders of our friends and allies. The word
that most came up in conversations is the word `existential
threat.' Most of our friends and allies in the Gulf, quite
apart from the agreement that was reached with Iran, still
consider Iran to be an existential threat for the foreseeable
future. As a matter of fact, one of the leaders said this
agreement may paper over our concerns for a few years, but make
no mistake about it. We are going to be fighting Iran for 25
years or 30 years. This is not going away.
So I think time will tell whether Iran is going to be
trusted. My personal view is they are not going to be.
Senator Ayotte. I think even just even in the immediate
aftermath of the agreement----
Mr. Jones. You would think.
Senator Ayotte.--things are not going exactly how you would
think they would.
Mr. Jones. Yes. You would think.
But we entered into this agreement not just in isolation
but with our P5 Plus 1 partners, and they are bright people,
intelligent, and trying to do the right thing.
But I just think Iran has yet to prove itself that it is
ready to join the family of nations in the way of doing trade,
in the way of normalized relations, and do not worry about
Hezbollah, do not worry about Hamas, do not worry about the
fact that they are supporting a war in Yemen, and all the other
things that they are doing. So until there is really a
behavioral change at the leadership level in Iran, we should be
very, very careful about what we buy into with them. I have
seen no evidence that they are trustworthy.
Chairman McCain [presiding]: I thank the witnesses and I
thank you for your service, and I thank you for helping us in
this very significantly difficult challenge. The more we talk,
the greater the challenge becomes. So I thank you. It has been
extremely helpful, and we will be calling on you in the future.
Thank you.
This hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:30 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
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