[House Hearing, 115 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.A.S.C. No. 115-58]
THE ARMY'S TACTICAL NETWORK MODERNIZATION STRATEGY
__________
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON TACTICAL AIR AND LAND FORCES
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
HEARING HELD
SEPTEMBER 27, 2017
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
27-561 WASHINGTON : 2018
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SUBCOMMITTEE ON TACTICAL AIR AND LAND FORCES
MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio, Chairman
FRANK A. LoBIONDO, New Jersey NIKI TSONGAS, Massachusetts
PAUL COOK, California, Vice Chair JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island
SAM GRAVES, Missouri JIM COOPER, Tennessee
MARTHA McSALLY, Arizona MARC A. VEASEY, Texas
STEPHEN KNIGHT, California RUBEN GALLEGO, Arizona
TRENT KELLY, Mississippi JACKY ROSEN, Nevada
MATT GAETZ, Florida SALUD O. CARBAJAL, California
DON BACON, Nebraska ANTHONY G. BROWN, Maryland
JIM BANKS, Indiana TOM O'HALLERAN, Arizona
WALTER B. JONES, North Carolina THOMAS R. SUOZZI, New York
ROB BISHOP, Utah JIMMY PANETTA, California
ROBERT J. WITTMAN, Virginia
MO BROOKS, Alabama
Jesse Tolleson, Professional Staff Member
Doug Bush, Professional Staff Member
Neve Schadler, Clerk
C O N T E N T S
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Page
STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Tsongas, Hon. Niki, a Representative from Massachusetts, Ranking
Member, Subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces........... 2
Turner, Hon. Michael R., a Representative from Ohio, Chairman,
Subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces................... 1
WITNESSES
Crawford, LTG Bruce T., USA, Army Deputy Chief of Staff, G-6; MG
James J. Mingus, USA, Director, Mission Command Center of
Excellence, United States Army Combined Arms Center; and Gary
Martin, Program Executive Officer for Command, Control and
Communications-Tactical, Department of the Army................ 4
APPENDIX
Prepared Statements:
Crawford, LTG Bruce T., joint with MG James J. Mingus and
Gary Martin................................................ 39
Turner, Hon. Michael R....................................... 37
Documents Submitted for the Record:
Statement for the Record from Hon. Joseph P. Kennedy, III, a
Representative from Massachusetts.......................... 55
Witness Responses to Questions Asked During the Hearing:
[There were no Questions submitted during the hearing.]
Questions Submitted by Members Post Hearing:
Mr. Banks.................................................... 63
Mr. Gallego.................................................. 63
Ms. Tsongas.................................................. 62
Mr. Turner................................................... 59
THE ARMY'S TACTICAL NETWORK MODERNIZATION STRATEGY
----------
House of Representatives,
Committee on Armed Services,
Subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces,
Washington, DC, Wednesday, September 27, 2017.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:31 p.m., in
room 2212, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Michael R.
Turner (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MICHAEL R. TURNER, A REPRESENTATIVE
FROM OHIO, CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE ON TACTICAL AIR AND LAND
FORCES
Mr. Turner. Please take a seat. We will call the hearing to
order.
The subcommittee meets today to review the Army's tactical
network modernization strategy. I would like to welcome our
witnesses representing the Army: Lieutenant General Bruce
Crawford, Army Deputy Chief of Staff and Chief Information
Officer; Major General James Mingus, Director, Mission Command,
Center of Excellence, United States Army Combined Arms Center;
Mr. Gary Martin, Program Executive Officer for Command, Control
and Communications-Tactical.
We thank you all for your service and we welcome you to our
hearing today.
We are holding this hearing today because the Army is
proposing a major shift in its tactical network modernization
strategy. To begin funding the strategy, the Army has indicated
that they would like to realign for fiscal year [FY] 2018 over
$554 million, which would be a major change from their fiscal
2018 budget, which we had received just months ago, as well as
the House-passed National Defense Authorization Act [NDAA],
which was passed just months ago, including the request from
the Army.
From an oversight perspective, we have been doing this--we
have been down this road before with the tactical network.
Since 2008, the Army has restructured its network strategy
several times, to date without successful implementation. I
remember in 2014 when the Army began a new modernization effort
for the tactical network to improve communications, called the
Simplified Tactical Army Network, or STARNet, and identified
the network as its number one [modernization] priority.
Over $6 billion has been spent on the Warfighter
Information Tactical Network, WIN-T, as well as many billions
more on tactical radios and mission command network systems to
simplify and improve the network. For at least 5 years, the
Army has come before this committee and defended the need and
resources for your current network strategies and Congress has
supported those requests based upon the Army's stated needs,
goals, and objectives.
Just 5 months ago, you requested over $400 million in
fiscal year 2018 for the WIN-T program and indicated that WIN-T
Increment [Inc.] 2 was the foundation of its network
modernization strategy and mobile mission command. Now, you are
asking us to realign almost half-a-billion dollars from
existing programs with limited details as to your long-term
plan for the network.
Given the Army's previous track record with the network, I
am skeptical on whether this proposed new strategy will work as
intended. And we--I am concerned that we are going to be back 3
years from now discussing another approach and yet still not
have full implementation by the Army for what the Army has
purchased and we have paid for.
I understand the change in strategy appears to be driven by
two reviews, one internal by the Army and one by the Institute
of Defense Analyses [IDA], which had been requested by
Congress. I understand the change in strategy appears to be
driven by--excuse me--and that these reviews identified
significant operational shortfalls in existing tactical network
modernization programs and requirements, given current and
emerging threats.
However, before we agree to anything, we better understand
what it is that you plan long term for your tactical network. I
think we can all agree that our first priority remains the
warfighter. If we are going to send soldiers into harm's way,
their communication devices should never say ``service not
available.'' So clearly, we want to be sure that we are
fielding capability that works and equipment that the soldiers
will use, with an understanding also of what information that
they need to have available.
So just to reiterate two basic questions, which is the
primary purpose of this hearing. Help us understand why what
you are proposing is the right strategy this time, and why it
is necessary to realign fiscal year 2018 funds after three of
the four defense committees have already been on and off the
floor, as opposed to waiting for the FY 2019 budget process.
Before I begin, I would like to turn to my good friend and
colleague from Massachusetts, Niki Tsongas, for her comments.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Turner can be found in the
Appendix on page 37.]
STATEMENT OF HON. NIKI TSONGAS, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM
MASSACHUSETTS, RANKING MEMBER, SUBCOMMITTEE ON TACTICAL AIR AND
LAND FORCES
Ms. Tsongas. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And good afternoon to
our guests, and welcome.
Recently, senior Army leaders reached out to numerous
Members of Congress to notify us of some major changes they are
recommending to the Army's tactical network programs. And I
thank you for that. I understand that these proposed changes
are based in part on the Army's view that it needs to take
better advantage of telecommunications developments in the
private sector and more agilely respond to rapidly changing
peer threats, in particular from Russia and China.
Our witnesses here today have outlined in their prepared
testimony recommendations for significant internal process and
organizational changes. The proposed changes also include a
request for realignment of close to half-a-billion dollars in
Army research and procurement funds for fiscal year 2018, as
well as realignment of billions more in future years.
The Army can, with existing authorities, reorganize itself
to better develop requirements and programs to acquire
equipment to meet those requirements. I would point out that
this is not a new problem, and that internal Army management of
what it calls, quote ``the network'' unquote, has been
challenged for many years by an overly complex and segregated
set of organizations involved in the process. If the internal
Army organizational changes make things work better, I could
support them.
I also support, broadly speaking, the Army adjusting its
plan to adapt to changes in technology and threats. However,
based on the limited information provided by the Army to
Congress thus far on the details of the funding changes for
fiscal year 2018, I have serious reservations about the
funding-related elements of the Army's new plan.
First, I am concerned from a high-level perspective that
the Army is asking Congress to, in effect, quote ``drive in the
dark'' unquote, as it moves forward. The Army is asking
Congress to take funding away from programs that in most cases
have been fully developed over many years, tested thoroughly,
and are now in production. The Army is asking to instead use
those funds for a whole series of initiatives that are not well
defined and in some cases don't even exist yet.
In short, the Army is asking us to take a significant risk
in canceling several major programs; ones, by the way, that the
Army has advocated in favor of for many years, in the hope that
an ill-defined set of new efforts will work as planned, be on
time, and stay on budget.
Second, I have questions about what little specifics have
come over from the Army, particularly with regard to the WIN-T
program. For example, the Army's proposal would cut close to
$144 million in test, support, and management services for the
network. But these programs and services will be needed
regardless of the direction the Army plans to take with regard
to a new network strategy. As a result, I am concerned that
these planned cuts will jeopardize the Army's ability to
swiftly and successfully upgrade its network.
Additionally, the Army claims that it still intends to
upgrade its existing WIN-T Increment 1 equipment and buy
significant amounts of WIN-T Increment 2 equipment for some
units. However, it is not at all clear how the proposed funding
realignment will support that plan in a way that is actually
executable.
In summary, at this point the Army's proposed funding
adjustment looks somewhat half-baked and not fully thought
through. Before Congress agrees to move around half-a-billion
dollars in funding, we need an official budget amendment
proposal from the administration. That proposal should include
full supporting documentation so we can be sure there are no
unintended consequences to shifting around such large sums at
the last minute. I look forward to hearing more during today's
hearing about the Army's new plans, and I yield back.
Mr. Turner. Thank you.
I ask unanimous consent that non-subcommittee members be
allowed to participate in today's briefing, after all
subcommittee members have had an opportunity to ask questions.
Is there any objection?
Without objection, non-members will be recognized at the
appropriate time.
I also ask unanimous consent to include into the record all
member statements and extraneous material. We have a statement
to be offered on behalf of Representative Joe Kennedy.
[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix
on page 55.]
Mr. Turner. If there is no objection, so ordered.
I just want to note, I hope that, in the future, that Mr.
Kennedy will vote for the NDAA, because that will probably have
the greatest support for the program.
General Crawford--I understand he will be giving the
opening remarks for the Army. General Crawford, this is not the
kind of hearing that we like to have. This is where this
committee was told, with full support of the Army, in May, 4
months ago, of the critical need for this program, and now you
are before us in September, and I can't believe that the
information that you are going to be providing us is
information that wasn't known or knowable.
So we have been operating under the information that this
program was critical, and you are going to meet a skeptical
subcommittee and, I think, some difficult questions today. We
look forward to your comments.
STATEMENT OF LTG BRUCE T. CRAWFORD, USA, ARMY DEPUTY CHIEF OF
STAFF, G-6; MG JAMES J. MINGUS, USA, DIRECTOR, MISSION COMMAND
CENTER OF EXCELLENCE, UNITED STATES ARMY COMBINED ARMS CENTER;
AND GARY MARTIN, PROGRAM EXECUTIVE OFFICER FOR COMMAND, CONTROL
AND COMMUNICATIONS-TACTICAL, DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY
General Crawford. Well, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member,
distinguished members of this committee, first and foremost, I
would like to say thank you for allowing us the opportunity to
come before you. Before we begin and move on with our actual
testimony, I would like to take the opportunity to have the
fellow members--panel members introduce themselves, and I will
just start with me and talk very briefly--a little bit about
what I do.
So, as the chief information officer, I am really
responsible for three things for the Army. One is strategy, the
other is driving the policy, and the other actually has to do
with the resourcing in my role--the adviser to the Secretary of
the Army and to the Chief of Staff of the Army.
That said, I will turn it over to General Mingus.
General Mingus. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member, distinguished
members, thank you for the opportunity, also, to appear today
to help tell the story of where we are going with our network
path.
I am here representing Training and Doctrine Command in the
operational force, and as such, the requirements side of this
equation. I very much look forward to your questions. Thank
you.
Mr. Martin. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member, distinguished
members of the committee, my name is Gary Martin. I am here
representing the acquisition community. I am the Program
Executive Officer for Command, Control and Communications-
Tactical. I acquire much of the tactical communications
equipment for the Army.
General Crawford. So, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member,
distinguished members of this committee, we come before you on
behalf of our soldiers and the trusted professionals of the
Department of the Army civilian workforce to speak about the
current state of our Army's network and to communicate a path
forward.
It has been articulated in previous testimony by Army
leadership that readiness is the Army's number one priority.
Well, today, we would like to further state that the network is
also a critical enabler to total Army readiness.
After almost a year of careful review, informed by both
internal and external evaluations, and most importantly,
feedback from well-informed operational commanders in the
field, we have come to the conclusion that the network we have
is not the network that we need to fight and win against a peer
threat in a congested or contested environment.
The Army network as a whole is what we need to bring with
us to communicate when we deploy. This includes people, it
includes processes, and it includes technology that make it
work. Our current network does not meet our warfighting needs
now, nor do we believe it will meet the future warfighting
needs of a high-intensity conflict.
Our forces must be able to fight, shoot, move, reliably
communicate, protect, and sustain anywhere, anytime, across all
domains and in any environment. The Army is committed to
delivering a survivable, secure, mobile, and expeditionary
network that provides situational awareness and joint
interoperability to enable warfighters to fight and enable them
to win.
The network also enables the Army to project forces and
power from our bases, posts, camps, and stations to the most
remote locations around the world. The current network was
developed and fielded for the static environments of Iraq and
Afghanistan in the mid- to late-2000s, but does not meet the
warfighting needs of a high-end conflict against peer
adversaries.
As we pivot to a new strategy, we look forward to more, not
less, collaboration with our industry partners in delivering
the network of the future. We owe a debt of gratitude--and I
will say this upfront--we owe a debt of gratitude to our
commercial and defense industry partners for stepping forward
over the past decade to help address many of the capability
gaps and shortfalls resulting in the current network that we
have.
However, we now find ourselves in a new environment, facing
new challenges and emerging threats that reflect the changing
character of warfare our Chief of Staff of the Army, General
Mark Milley, describes in an article about the future of
warfighting.
To quote General Milley, ``We have new insights into the
character of future conflict, and we have had glimpses of what
our Army and its soldiers must be ready to do in the coming
decade. Shifts in the character of war offer an opportunity. If
we can anticipate or at least recognize them, we can adopt
proactively, maintaining or regaining overmatch, and forcing
competitors to react to us.''
The network we have currently fielded in our formation is
neither simple nor intuitive, and one that demands a heavy
reliance on industry-provided field service representatives
that make the system work.
In addition to emerging threats that I have spoken of, we
have also seen a commercial innovation explosion and
exponential growth in technological advances that accelerated
at a rate at which our standard acquisition processes could not
keep pace. Neither current nor future adversaries are inhibited
by the same processes, allowing them to better exploit new
technology to their advantage.
Your Army must win the fight we are in, be ready to fight
tonight against any adversary, and posture ourselves for the
future fight. To improve our ability to counter evolving
threats, we must adapt. Over the past year, our Chief of Staff
General Mark Milley has led an assessment of the Army's entire
network in parallel with the external study on the Army's
tactical network directed by Congress in the National Defense
Authorization Act of 2016.
The findings of both were corroborated by feedback from
Department of Defense [DOD] testing agencies, combat training
center rotations, joint exercises, and most importantly from
operational commanders. These findings documented significant
shortfalls in governance, requirements, acquisition, and
innovation negatively affecting the Army's ability to provide
warfighters with simple, intuitive, resilient, and protected
network-enabled capabilities. Our new path forward will focus
on four priorities: survivability and mobility of our command
posts, tactical network transport resiliency, a unified suite
of mission command assistance, and interoperability.
In order to address the two strategic problems we face,
which are the requirement to be able to fight tonight, and the
need to best posture our Army to win the future fight. In the
written statement we said that ``the Army will.'' What we
intended to say was that the Army intends and has intent to
halt programs that do not remedy operational shortfalls, fix
programs required to fight tonight, and pivot to a new
acquisition strategy of adapt and buy that allows for rapid
insertion of new technologies and capabilities that allows the
Army to best leverage the innovation and the investments of our
commercial industry partners while remaining good stewards of
taxpayer dollars.
This involved changes to Army culture, structure, and
processes to address shortfalls. We will leverage proven joint
solutions in commercial sector innovation, redefining the way
the Army delivers the tactical network.
Our network must enable mission command, not encumber it.
It must also ensure our leaders and soldiers, like my son, who
is currently forward-stationed, along with over 180,000 other
soldiers in over 140 different countries, in support of
combatant command requirements. It ensures that they can out-
think and out-decide any future adversary.
We must posture our Army to rapidly maximize operational
results, align resources, capitalize on technological advances
and influence, shape, and leverage the innovation of the
commercial industry. This new path we believe helps us do
exactly that.
Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member, distinguished members of the
committee, we thank you and look forward to your questions.
[The joint prepared statement of General Crawford, General
Mingus, and Mr. Martin can be found in the Appendix on page
39.]
Mr. Turner. Thank you, General.
General, if you were not a general, if you were a
professor, and you had to give a letter grade to the Army's
performance in this program, what letter grade would you
assign?
General Crawford. Sir, the best grade that I would give,
given where we are, I would give the Army a C, looking at the
overall performance. But I would like to add on to that
question, if I may.
There have been several strategic shifts. And I make no
excuses, sir, in answering this question. If we start back in
2008, and we look at what we were doing during that time, we
actually had the surge that happened in Iraq, in parts of
Afghanistan, so in that part of the world that was ongoing, so
we had to make some strategic shifts there. And again, sir, I
make no excuses.
Later on in the 2011 and 2014 timeframe, we actually had to
shift the focus of where we were spending money on the network
and literally purchase pretty much every capability that we
can, which kind of led to where we are right now, and how we
went about buying that, and get it in the hands of soldiers,
given the capability that they had at the time.
Our focus--and I know this because having been the director
of cyber in Europe during the timeframe--so from about the 2013
timeframe to about now, our strategic focus in terms of the
network--and I am not saying it was right, I am just telling
you what we did--our strategic focus at the time, sir, actually
was focused on infrastructure. And it was focused on the
evolution of threats in cyberspace.
And so to your question, sir, I would give us a C in terms
of how we organize ourselves for this; the fact that we didn't
have an overarching governance structure in place to drive. And
at the time, we didn't have one single integrator in charge of
the overall network. And those are things that we are trying to
fix with the new strategy, sir. Thank you.
Mr. Turner. Thanks a lot. I hope you understand our
skepticism when even you would give yourself a C. And I think
many of us would give you a lower grade overall in what has
been accomplished here.
Now, you gave us 2008 and what you were responding to
there. You told us about your strategy in 2013. But as I was
explaining to you before, I am really concerned about 2017,
which is why I am not happy about having a hearing like this,
because we are not the accounting department. We are not
clerks. We don't just wait for the Army to come and give us
their new paperwork to shift over a program.
We are a committee that provides oversight. And we are
supposed to actually be the partner with the Army in ensuring
that taxpayer dollars are applied appropriately and that the
warfighter gets what they need and deserve.
Now, you said that your request before us for the--that is
coming, I guess--is because of your focus on the warfighter and
because of your concerns for taxpayers' dollars. Was it not
your concern in May when you requested this from us? Were you
not concerned about the warfighter and the taxpayers' dollars
in May? Because we were.
General Crawford. Sir, although this study and this
assessment has been ongoing for almost a year, one of the
things that drove our thinking on this is we have been
receiving different feedback from commanders in the field and
different organizations about our entire network, the actual
ecosystem that makes up our network. But we actually just
received the actual detailed study on IDA in about the March
timeframe.
So you have got a couple of options. You know, I understand
that IDA was only--the IDA study was only one variable in the
equation because we have been collecting data.
Mr. Turner. I have read the study, but, General, you were
participating. I mean, it is not as if the information that
they just went out into a field somewhere and divined it
themselves. I mean, it was a collaborative process that
participated with your information and your knowledge, also. So
it is not as if when the report hit that it was just suddenly
new knowledge to the Army, correct?
General Crawford. Sir, there were different parts of the
Army that was actually participating in the study. But it
wasn't until the late March, early April timeframe that we got
a comprehensive look at the overall study, to be able to divide
the 12 different functional areas and 4 different capability
areas that they outlined, and to measure ourselves against
them.
And to be quite honest with you, sir, the initial briefings
that we received, actually some of the things actually caught
us off-guard because what IDA did is they actually did a deep
dive into the different functions that we use to actually run
the network.
What we had been looking at, sir, although information was
coming from commanders, we had a series of symptoms that we
were trying to piece together, things like the idea of
complexity as we started to get our minds around that. So we
had been studying the threat. We had been going to school on
the threat since about the 2013--in detail. And some of the new
evolutionary capabilities that the threats are developing since
about the 2013, 2014 timeframe.
But what the IDA study did for us, sir, is it forced us to
see ourselves. And to be quite honest with you, I don't believe
that we saw ourselves well in terms of really understanding the
feedback that we were getting from the National Training
Centers, what operational commanders were giving us in terms of
trying to--problems that they were seeing. And so we started to
try and--okay, so let's train our way through this. Let's
increase training to try and solve some of these problems.
What the IDA study gave us, sir, is a little bit more depth
in terms of, listen--and we actually later got this feedback
from operational commanders: You cannot train your way out of
the current state that you are in; increasing the number of
hours that you are training on the system is not going to get
you to a better state. You have some fundamental process
issues; you have some fundamental threat issues that you need
to address, sir.
Mr. Turner. General, you said that there have been
commercial advances, and we certainly are all very aware of
that, and we are aware of the fact that there has been a huge
delta between what service members coming into the military are
familiar with on the use of technology and then what you are
handing them. You indicated that your acquisition processes
have been a problem in your ability to pull forward commercial
advances.
The request that you are going to be placing forward is a
funding request. How are the acquisition processes changing so
that you can solve that problem that you identified?
General Crawford. Sir, a couple of things that we are doing
I mentioned--I alluded to one of them earlier, so I would like
to further articulate. We had to fundamentally change, so there
is the acquisition piece of it. We had to fundamentally change
how we were organized and how were dealing with the problem.
I mentioned one thing, sir. Imagine that we had a process,
and you had no single integrator of all of the different
mission areas of the network. That is the warfighting mission
area. That is the business mission area. That is the
intelligence mission area, and the enterprise mission area that
make up the network.
We did not have up until General Milley and then
Secretary--or Acting Secretary of the Army directed it. We
didn't have one single integrator, and that was a
recommendation that came out of the IDA study, to take charge
of this overall process.
The other piece was, sir, we didn't have one set of
individuals at the top of a governance structure that we are
implementing right now, because we had to make sure we got that
right. But one of the documents that was written and directed--
that was written about a month and a half ago was that the
Under Secretary of the Army and the Vice Chief of Staff of the
Army now be in charge of a horizontally integrated--not just
the vertical integration that we had before--but a horizontally
integrated governance structure that is going to oversee all
strategy, all policy, and all resources for all things network.
And so I believe Mr. Martin may have a couple of comments
that he wants to make, sir, but in terms of actions that we
have taken in the near term to fix ourselves from a structure
perspective, again, this isn't something we can just train our
way through, because that would have increased risks in our
formations. We had some fundamental change. Hence my mentioning
of culture that needed to change inside of our formations and
some physical change.
And so those are just two of the things that we have
recently changed. And I believe Mr. Martin from the acquisition
community may have a couple comments, sir.
Mr. Martin. Mr. Chairman, a couple of points. One, I think
we have learned, particularly over the last 4 or 5 years, that
buying a one-size-fits-all capability for all of the formations
complicates part of our problem.
One of the challenges we have today is many of the
networking components that we are procuring and acquiring don't
fit in our heavy formations, our combat platforms. Many of
those are delayed until the 2020 and beyond timeframe, and much
of that is the complexity of integrating these pieces into
those formations.
We believe that some of the things that Congress has done,
particularly in the NDAA for 2016, will facilitate specifically
in this space, in the IT [information technology] space where
things move rather quickly, a couple things that will be
beneficial to the way we do business, one of which is section
804 in rapid prototyping and fielding. Clearly, in this area,
you have to be able to prototype it, often focused, and field
it much more quickly than the process that we use today.
Other transaction agreements are also a contractual
mechanism by which we can get access to innovative technology
in commercial marketplace much more quickly than we do today,
and certainly section 851 that offers some accelerated means
for getting commercial products out to the field.
So we believe Congress has given us some tools that we can
take advantage of going forward, and we look forward to
applying those to what we are trying to do, sir.
Mr. Turner. Thank you.
Ms. Tsongas.
Ms. Tsongas. Thank you all.
Obviously, a lot of questions that we have up here. You
have identified a lot of problems. Many of those problems are
not new problems, but I think you have yet to demonstrate or
completely articulate a way forward that gives us the
confidence that you will be able to solve these issues,
especially given the funding constraints that you have asked us
to--and the funding changes you have asked us for.
As you rightly point out in your statement, in your joint
statement, the pace of telecommunications innovation in the
commercial world has outpaced the services' ability to test,
acquire, and field the latest technology. So as you are dealing
with this, how is the service looking to leverage available
technologies and capabilities?
We know the rapid pace of change. But what you have to deal
with is making sure that there is a level of security and
integrity, that maybe is not the case in the commercial world.
So how are you looking at this, so that you are able to be
assured that whatever you take advantage of it will be secure
and maintain its integrity?
General Crawford. So, ma'am, to the first part in how are
we taking advantage of technology, so one of the things that we
have learned is, we need to be able to not only leverage
industries' technology, but we need to posture ourselves to be
able to leverage industries' ideas and their best practices.
And so after the IDA study and we got the results, one of
the things that we have taken on is we have asked IDA to pull
in--and we have had four of these sessions, with industry
partners who are traditional, but we also had sessions with
industry partners who were non-traditional, who don't
traditionally deal with the government.
And so, what did we walk away from with? In order to
improve, to get beyond the requirement, because this process--
this very rigid process is essentially we write the
requirement, we patch it to industry. There is a lot that
happens in there. But what we are trying to get to when I
mention the idea, this idea of putting operators and developers
together--this dev ops [development operations] concept, so
that our industry partners can get beyond just the written,
rigid, in some cases overprescribed requirements, that we have
been giving them in the past.
So when you think about what we are going to do
differently, we are going to put operators and developers
formally together so that our industry partners are not only
looking at a very rigid requirement, but what they are really
able to do is understand how the user interfaces with their
product.
And so, over the years that--since I have been a general
officer and speaking to industry, that has been one of the
things that they have been asking for. They have been asking
us, if you want to leverage our technological investments, the
investments that we are making from a research and development
perspective, you all need to figure out how you are going to
give us more access to operators so that we can study how the
operator actually interfaces with our equipment.
The second piece of that, ma'am, in terms of ideas and how
we are--want to better--or we are going to posture ourself to
better leverage technology actually has to do with this idea of
cross-functional teams, where you will have not only the
operators and the developers working together, but you are
going to have industry to be a part of that team to try and
inform as we look at some of the challenges that we have.
We mentioned satellite, overreliance on satellite and some
of the anti-jam problems that we have. Ma'am, if we could have
fixed these on our own, we probably would have done it by now.
And so by bringing together these cross-functional teams of
industry partners, both traditional and non-traditional,
because there are a lot of very innovative things that we are
seeing out there in commercial industry that we want to bring
them to the table to help inform us. So this is not something--
and I mentioned in my opening remarks--that we look to increase
collaboration with industry, not decrease that.
And so the cross-functional teams and the dev ops concepts
are where we are looking to integrate as a part of this new
modernization approach that we intend to take on. And these are
lessons learned from industry. And I believe General Mingus may
have a couple of thoughts.
Ms. Tsongas. And how do you overlay the security piece?
Because that is an additional requirement that is unique to the
military.
General Crawford. Yes, ma'am. So the primary security--a
couple of security challenges that we have got and how that is
going to be overlaid has do with this idea of Type 1 encryption
versus commercial standard encryption. And so, although we know
that we are tied to Type 1 encryption because of some of the
satellite capabilities and we--you know, it comes with our
package, what we are looking to do is leverage, so there are
many commercial standard encryption capabilities that are out
there.
So our thinking on leveraging industry's ideas and
technology goes beyond just the capability we provide. But in
terms of some of the encryption standards that they have got up
to 256K vice the 128 that we use for Type 1 encryption, those
are capabilities that we are looking to integrate, ma'am, as a
part of the way we do business going forward. And again, some
very innovative solutions that are out there.
It is not just about the technology. It is both the ideas,
but back to the technology point, we have already seen--as a
matter of fact, last night, the 82nd Airborne--a portion of the
82nd Airborne actually jumped in a capability that we became
aware of over the last 3 or 4 months, that has to do with
security. And we got that idea from industry, ma'am.
Ms. Tsongas. And how will you use the innovation
incubators, like the DIUx [Defense Innovation Unit-
Experimental] that exists both out in California and
Massachusetts? How will you look to innovation incubators like
that to help you deal with some of these emerging problems or
newly identified issues in the context of rapid change?
General Crawford. Yes, ma'am. So to the point of talking to
people that we don't normally talk to, the structure of these
cross-functional teams, our intent is to bring in those who are
innovating at a rate which is a lot faster than we are. In
addition to the DIUxs of the world and the DDSs [Defense
Digital Service] which are a--the subcomponent of them, we are
also looking to leverage the agencies.
So there are other three-letter agencies that have some of
the very same problem sets at the enterprise level that we face
on a daily basis. And so, just recently, we were in a
conversation with an industry partner and several of the three-
letter agencies about cloud computing and looking for
alternative solutions to the way we are doing business, which
will save the taxpayers' dollars and eventually make us more
secure.
Ms. Tsongas. Thank you, General. I yield back.
Mr. Turner. Mr. LoBiondo.
Mr. LoBiondo. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
General, it is clear that faster fielding of modernized
capabilities is necessary to keep pace with current threats.
Despite the Army's intention to prioritize network
modernization, programs have continued to be delayed or
canceled, as we are hearing about.
Your proposed significant shifts in the FY 2018 funding,
and did so, as the chairman so eloquently pointed out, 5 months
after you submitted and defended your budget request, and 1
month after three of the defense committees had marked up their
versions of the 2018 request. With that in mind, would it not
be prudent to continue buying new, lighter versions of the WIN-
T Increment 2 until you know what the new programs are?
General Crawford. Sir, the feedback that we have gotten on
the program had, you know, given us some concern. I mentioned
earlier where, what the origin of this feedback is. And so we
have got two fundamental problems that we are trying to solve,
sir.
If we were trying to do any one of these alone, this
wouldn't be an easy problem, but it would be an easier problem.
So, we have a fight tonight responsibility and a fight tonight
requirement. Some of the feedback that we have gotten, some
significant challenges with line-of-sight, some significant
challenges with security of the satellite capability that
exists as a part of WIN-T.
And so as we look at the WIN-T system, and we look at the
two problems we have, a fight tonight, and so that we are not
before you in another 2 or 3 years with the same--a different
version of the same story, we have got to pivot to a new way of
doing business.
Again, any one of these two problems, sir, would be easier
to try and solve. And so as you look at the WIN-T system, the
first thing that I will tell you, sir is the WIN-T system is an
overall--it is a part of the overall ecosystem. It is not the
network in its entirety. It is the transport capability.
And so what you see, you will see it in--you saw it in
2017, and you will see it in 2018. We believe that there are
some purposed capabilities, as WIN-T has five different
components as a system. There are two or three of those
components that we believe, back to the party one, and fight
tonight, while we pivot to an objective system, which WIN-T we
don't believe is because of the things that I outlined earlier.
We believe that there are some purposed capabilities that exist
in WIN-T that we could use to support our fight tonight
requirement.
And so to your question, sir, of why not until there is
something else--essentially what we are doing is we are buying
lighter versions of WIN-T, things that were tested out at the
NIE [Network Integration Evaluation] recently. We are buying
lighter versions, but understanding that that is not our
objective system, based on the attributes and characteristics
that we have aligned, we are looking to fix our fight tonight
with those purposed capabilities, sir.
Mr. LoBiondo. But do we really know what we are pivoting
to?
General Crawford. Sir, so one of the things that we have
been accused of, and rightfully so--it led to the C grade that
we talked about--is industry has given us feedback so you are
overprescribing. So you are telling me exactly--it has got to
fly at 30,000 feet, it has got to be able to operate at the
depths of a submarine, so to speak. You are overprescribing
your requirements.
What about Army? Describe what it is, and then let us, back
to this dev ops and cross-functional teams kinds of concept, if
we know that we have got some significant security
considerations, then why should we stay with the program out
until 2026 knowing that we have got those significant problems?
Let us invest in trying to fix our fight tonight capability,
while we pivot to be ready for the something different.
By doing what--repeating what we have done in the past,
sir, and we have been listening to the industry about
overprescribing requirements--and so our intent is--and it is
only our intent at this point--is to halt the program.
As I mentioned, we had taken the opportunity to describe,
in painstaking detail for us. And it was an awakening for us as
we described the attributes and characteristics of this future
state. But in 2018, halt procurement of WIN-T Increment 2, and
then through FY 2021, sir, field that which we have already
purchased to enable our fight tonight capability.
Mr. LoBiondo. Well, I have got big question marks. But let
me yield to the chairman.
Mr. Turner. Sorry to jump in here, but, General, he asked
you a very pointed question--what are you pivoting to? And what
you described was a process, not a destination, not a system,
not a procurement program. So, and with all due respect, I
believe that the answer is, you don't know, right?
General Crawford. Sir, the answer is we do not have an
objective system. If there were an objective system on the
shelf, sir, we would be trying to go and purchase that
objective system.
What we are trying to do now is to literally fix ourselves
now, leveraging what we call the purposed capabilities.
Mr. Turner. And those are all good words, but they are
processes, right, General? You don't have, to be able to put in
front of us, the answer of what you are going to do instead of
this. You have--what you are putting before us and the answer
to Mr. LoBiondo's question is a process.
General Crawford. We have capabilities, sir, that we have
outlined. It has to be protected. It has to be expeditionary.
It has to be more intuitive. So those----
Mr. Turner. Thank you, General, I am going to move on--Mr.
LoBiondo? Mr. Langevin, sir.
Mr. Langevin. You are in the ballpark, Chairman. Thank you,
Mr. Chairman.
And I want to thank our witnesses for the testimony. I have
got to tell you, this is just a stunning hearing and turn of
events. I mean, I have got to go home and now explain this to
constituents back home, and it just falls into the category of,
you have got to be kidding me.
I mean, this is exactly the type of thing that people back
home get so worked up about when precious taxpayer dollars,
apparently, are squandered, wasted, not applied and used in a
judicious and effective way.
So I am just going to--again, build on Mr. LoBiondo's
questions. So, again, the last several years the Army has
followed a fairly defined trajectory when it comes to our
communication network and modernization efforts. Now that
trajectory appears to have been upended in the middle of
deliberations for the coming fiscal year, leaving policymakers,
I guess, certainly in the lurch. I fear that the Army keeps
abandoning good networks and systems in search for the perfect
system, and the perfect, as we know, is hard to find, if not
impossible, in the telecom world.
So, again, to the point, would it not be more practical to
field the operational WIN-T Increment 2 network while
continuing the R&D [research and development] efforts to
improve it? And what alternatives does the Army have today to
meet the requirement for on-the-move mission command?
General Crawford. Sir, the alternative system for on-the-
move mission command--between now and fiscal year 2022, we have
a system called Joint Battle Command, JBCP, Platform. It is
actually one of the preferred at the maneuver level--systems in
our formations for on-the-move mission command.
Between now--in terms of the alternative--between now and
FY 2022, it is our intent to leverage the resources that we are
asking for to pure-fleet the Army--because we are not pure-
fleeted with that capability between now and fiscal year 2022.
So, to your question, sir, the alternative solution for on-
the-move mission command while we are leveraging the purpose
capabilities of WIN-T to kind of help fix our fight tonight
capability, it is actually Joint Battle Command-Platform that
gives an on-the-move capability and our intent is to field the
entire Army Active Guard and Reserve out to FY 2022, sir.
Mr. Langevin. So, you stated in your testimony that the
Army seeks to reinvest the savings from realigned dollars in
order to improve survivability of electromagnetic warfare and--
I am sorry--electronic warfare and cyber capabilities. The
mobility of command posts, joint and coalition
interoperability, a simplified network, and resolved
incompatibilities in order to fight tonight.
So, because of the operational landscape changes so
frequently with the advent of new technologies and emerging
capabilities, how are you ensuring that the Army is not chasing
a moving target when it comes to network modernization and is
balancing this future state network with current on-the-ground,
on-the-move requirements we are facing right now?
General Crawford. Sir, in terms of chasing a future state--
and if I got that wrong, please correct me, sir--that is the
thing that we are trying not to do is chase a future state. But
what we have not done well in the past is, we have not done a
good job of describing the future state. And so, as we have
dealt with our industry partners in terms of being able to
leverage the technological advances, what we have done is, sir,
we have limited ourselves.
We have said I want a radio and I want it to have these two
waveforms, and I want it to have these two waveforms only.
Then, when new technologies come along, instead of being able
to integrate a new waveform, we have had to get a new radio.
And so, those are some of the things that we are trying to
put in place to say listen we like to describe the future state
per requests that we have got from industry. We are not going
to overprescribe in terms of our requirements and allow them to
build us to an objective state so that when technology comes
along we are not coming back to you to ask you to literally
allow us to buy new radios.
And so that is just one of the things that we are putting
in place, and I believe General Mingus may have a comment on
that, sir.
General Mingus. Yes, sir. And as we have described that
future state to both the acquisition community and to our
industry partners, it has to start with the ability to provide
command and control and mission command from home station en-
route to an operation, once you have arrived at an operation,
and then in several types of environments once you get there.
And as you treat it as a system of systems from the network
to the physical infrastructure of our command posts, all that
has to be integrated, and those are the things that we have
kind of described to our industry partners and our acquisition
community in terms of where we are trying to go with this
future state.
Mr. Langevin. It is stunning that we are so far into this--
we spent so much money and we are still nowhere, it seems. I
yield back. Thank you.
Mr. Turner. Mr. Kelly.
Mr. Kelly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I get some of the issues. I get that we are fighting
yesterday's war. We have been at war for 16 years in a so-so
environment or something different than the high-intensity
conflict which is near-peer or peer, going back old school
doctrine. But we have to plan better for this stuff.
And so my question is, it sounds like we are trading
acquisition funds for research and development funds because we
don't have a system--and I get the processes and I agree
wholeheartedly that having operated with all these systems--
they are too heavy, they take too long to set up, they are not
dependable or defensible--I get all those things, but that is
not a new problem.
And then who is left hanging without equipment unable to
communicate? Is that the Guard and Reserve who aren't able to
communicate with their Active Duty counterparts if they are
called to war in the same environment? So who is left hanging
without the products to communicate now? Because we can't stop
in the military--it is constant motion. So we can't pause or
take a time-out. We have got to be prepared to fight that war
today with what we have got, whether we need better or not.
So, I guess, going back to the chairman's point, my
suggestion would be is to either ask for part of this money to
do R&D as opposed to acquisition, but not all, to continue
equipping guys with what we have until we get something new, or
to wait until 2017 and say this is the product we have. It
makes us more maneuverable, more defensible, it is easier and
all those things.
So, why are we doing this now instead of waiting until 2017
and why are we trying to shift away from acquisition to
research and development? And either one of you all two
generals can answer that.
General Crawford. So sir, to your--I will address the part
about who is left hanging if I may, sir. So, the answer to that
is the Guard and Reserve will not be left hanging in any way,
form, or fashion. As we are baselining on a common
infrastructure and a common set of standards on Increment 1 of
WIN-T, the Guard and the Reserve is going to have the same
exact equipment as every heavy brigade combat team in the
United States Army.
The second thing that we are looking to do is, I mentioned
that one of the on-the-move tools of choice is JBCP, Joint
Battle Command-Platform. I mentioned that we are going to pure
fleet the entire Army and our requests--our intent would be to
pure fleet the entire Army with these resources between now and
FY 2022. So the Guard and Reserve would not be left hanging,
sir.
They are going to have the same exact equipment that every
heavy brigade combat team is going to have. The only units that
will have any different equipment--and it is backwards and
forwards compatible that the light units, and it will be
different from the way we are configured now because it is--we
had the discussion about WIN-T, the light units actually had
the heavy equipment. And so we are going to take the heavy
equipment and put it with the Stryker Brigades and we are going
to--part of this investment that we are looking for is to get
lighter versions.
And I talk about purposed capabilities that fix their fight
tonight capability--lighter versions of WIN-T, and actually
outfit our light units with light equipment. And I will let Mr.
Martin comment if he wanted to talk about the research and
development piece here, but no one will be left hanging, sir.
Mr. Kelly. Yeah, I--let me--I've got one more question. I
mean--and this is why it is important to know what we are going
to--you have got to have the R&D part. The shot--the shot-out-
to-splash, or the flash-to-bang, that is important, and so it
is a big, big deal, especially when you start talking about--we
call them knuckledraggers like us dumb engineers who are not
smart enough. We are cavemen, you know? We still use a chisel
and stone, but to train to do the new equipment fielding, the
nets, to--just the flat-out installation of that equipment
across the Army to include the Guard and Reserve Components,
that is difficult.
So again, I get back to--we have got to have a process and
we have got to know all those answers. How long does it take to
get from the capability that we have now to the capability we
are seeking? And that is a long time and so--again, I go back
to, why weren't we talking about this in 2016 in developmental
stages that we don't know what we have rather than talking
about in the 2017 NDAA?
General Crawford. Sir, a part of that--and I will let
General Mingus and Mr. Martin jump in here--is this urgency-of-
now discussion. You talked about things like being able to
initialize equipment and get equipment out. So we have got--we
have been assessing in terms of facts that we have been
gathering to help inform our thinking.
One of the feedback mechanisms was from the National
Training Center [NTC], where we had 16 different NTC rotations
of various types of units, where on average it took between 40
and 50 hours just to get the equipment up on the air. Sixteen
different rotations to the National Training Center of all
kinds of different units over several years, and it took on
average between 40 and 50 hours talking about the complexity
challenge piece of this to get the equipment up on the air.
And so we have got an urgency-of-now. When you combine the
complexity problem--and I understand that these may not be new
challenges, but when you look around the world, we have got
some new threats that we have got to address that have been
evolving and leveraging technology in a manner in which we
couldn't. And as I said in my open statement, just because of
some of the processes that we have. Now I will let----
Mr. Kelly. Thank you. No, my time is expired.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Turner. Thank you.
Mr. Carbajal.
Mr. Carbajal. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
And thank you, Mr. Martin, Lieutenant General Crawford, and
Major General Mingus for being here. General Crawford and Mr.
Martin, WIN-T Increment 2 passed operational testing in 2014
and achieved full-rate production in 2015, and since then, has
served our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.
This program has been upgraded since it first entered
production, such that the Increment 2 systems you would procure
today are less complex, lighter, more capable than systems you
bought a couple years ago.
How does the Army plan to transition soldiers on the ground
from the old to new network platform? Does the Army have plans
in place to address any operational disruptions due to this
transition?
And, two, General Crawford, it would appear that a
universal lesson learned from the previous tactical network
modernization strategy to include previous network integration
evaluations was the need to simplify tactical communication
systems so that they would pass the smartphone test, making it
easy for soldiers to operate with minimal training. How does
the new modernization strategy pass the smartphone test?
General Crawford. So, sir, one of the things we are looking
to take on, if you used your--as you use your smartphone at
home, one of the things that you do--so you have got Wi-Fi,
potentially, as a path. And then you have got the broadband
that is provided by one of the commercial services.
And so when you send a text to someone, the last thing that
you are worried about is what cell phone tower you are going to
be off of, or did this message leave my phone and go via Wi-Fi
or did this message actually go over one of the services
provided by one of our commercial vendors?
And so one of the things and one of the lessons that we
learned to this idea of a smartphone test, sir, is we are
looking to integrate and evolve, as a part of the new strategy,
this idea of a universal transport layer. So just like you do
at home, you don't worry about what tower you are off of, you
don't worry about whether your message or your phone call
actually went over Wi-Fi or whether it actually went over
services provided externally that are global. You just wanted
your message to get through.
And so we want to, first, simplify the touch, look, and
feel. Back to this--I talked about getting operators and
developers together, sir, to understand how the user actually
interfaces with equipment. That is something we haven't done
very well over the last few years. And it absolutely is a
lesson learned.
But the second part beyond the getting operators together
to ensure we have got the infrastructure that is moved away
from the operator. The infrastructure needs to sit at the
enterprise instead of with the operator. And if you go and look
at our formations now, almost all the infrastructure they need
to send that same message or something very similar to what you
would send from home, we actually have to take with us.
And so we have got to change the touch, look, and feel by
getting operators and developers together, sir. But we have got
to create a universal transport later so the operator doesn't
care which direction the signal actually lapped and what route
it took to get to the distant end.
And I will offer General Mingus an opportunity----
General Mingus. One other point with that, sir, is that in
the past, when we have written our requirements for most of the
end-user devices that our soldiers use, where you need that
simplicity and that intuitiveness, we have written it in such a
way that it has created the complexity that we have on the
tactical end.
So as we look to the future and as we are re-crafting how
we write those requirements, an example of that would be
instead of after 3 weeks of training, a soldier will retain 80
percent of what he was trained. And flip that and say that with
no training he would be able to pick up a device and execute 80
percent of the tasks on that device before any training. If he
needed to do any kind of advance-level stuff, that is where
that training would occur. And so that is a change in
methodology on the requirements side. When we help, we will get
after that smartphone technology.
Mr. Carbajal. And I guess, just to conclude, do you have
any contingency plans to address the operational disruptions?
General Crawford. Sir, based on our intent--and it is
intent in assuming that there has been no final decision, and
we acknowledge this upfront. Our intent would be, as we--and I
used the example about light equipment, actually going to light
units. That would be the G3 of the Army deciding, just like we
do with all other operations, who should get what equipment
first based on where they are in the rotations, so that we take
a minimalist approach, in terms of the disruption that is
pushed on to our formation.
So we are thinking through that. And when I talked about
who is going to get what equipment and when between now and FY
2021, we actually took some of that into account in terms of
who is on a patch chart to rotate to where in what part of
world, sir.
Mr. Carbajal. Thank you. I am out of time.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Turner. We are going next to Mr. Bacon. But I want to
give the lineup. It is Bacon, Wittman, Brown, Veasey, and then
Mr. Cook and others, but at least you know somewhat of the
order. Mr. Bacon.
Mr. Bacon. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you gentlemen
for being here. I served in the Air Force CIO's [chief
information officer's] office about 12, 13 years ago, and so I
know the complexity of the work you are doing. How much have we
spent on the WIN-T so far? What are the sunk costs, as of now?
Mr. Martin. So far we have spent approximately $6 billion,
sir.
Mr. Bacon. Six billion dollars, that is a very painful
number to hear, unfortunately. Can we afford to start from
scratch to get the capability that we want? Or how many years
is this going to take to recover if we start this process over
with a new system? In other words, what kind of--how many years
gap are we talking to get this back on the rails?
Mr. Martin. Sir, I don't believe we will be starting from
scratch. The WIN-T Increment 1 system that we have fielded
throughout the Army, the WIN-T Increment 2 that we now have in
our light formations and Stryker Brigades, we will retain in
that formation. There are some things we are going to do in the
near term.
One, for increasing the ability to operate in contested
environment, one of our requests for resourcing is for RDT&E
[research, development, test, and evaluation] to provide an
enhanced modem capability that gives the SATCOM [satellite
communication] capabilities some AJ [anti-jam] robustness.
We also have some capabilities that we were planning to
field to the signal--expeditionary signal battalions,
troposcatter equipment modem capability, a new multi-band,
multi-functional line-of-sight radios at the WIN-T level, that
we were fielding not to our combat brigades, but to our
expeditionary signal battalions. We are looking to redistribute
that capability and put it right inside the formation to
thicken the network to offload the protection capabilities that
we are lacking today.
Mr. Bacon. What is the combat impact if we don't field
Increment 2 versus fielding the Increment 2 with its
deficiencies? If you could just give that analysis, I would be
grateful.
Mr. Martin. I will defer that to our requirements folks.
General Mingus. We don't believe any operational impact.
Because of the baselining of Inc. 1 across the entire Army, and
then select formations, the Inc. 2 that are programmed for the
next 2 years, the interoperability across all of the formations
will still be there.
In the adapt and buy kind of construct that are part of
this approach, if you think about WIN-T and its basic
components, its satellite dishes, its routing switches, its net
operations and server stacks. And it is WIN-T--that
architecture is going to be with us for many, many years. But
we want all of industry to be able to come back in 2 years,
say, or 3 years and say, we have got a new, small, better,
faster satellite dish. So we can take advantage of all of it
that is out there----
Mr. Bacon. Right.
General Mingus. Same thing with all the other components.
So the architecture writ large will stay with us for quite some
time.
Mr. Bacon. So if we say that we spent $6 billion, that is
on Increment 1, as well, right? So in other words, that is not
lost costs. So how much have we invested that we are going to
lose if we stop the Increment 2? What kind of money was
invested?
General Mingus. I think the answer is the same--is there is
no lost costs.
Mr. Bacon. okay.
General Mingus. Because we will be baselined either at Inc.
1 or Inc. 2 across the Army. And that will stay as the baseline
architecture until----
Mr. Bacon. Okay.
General Mingus [continuing]. Some of these more innovative
things come online.
Mr. Bacon. Okay, thank you very much. I yield the balance
of my time.
Mr. Turner. Mr. Wittman.
Mr. Wittman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Martin, I want to follow up on General Bacon's
question. And in proposing this major shift in network
strategy, the Army has relied upon some of the congressionally
mandated findings that were in the Institute of Defense
Analyses on the network.
And the report made a number of significant recommendations
regarding tactical radio programs. However, the report didn't
say a whole lot about WIN-T or that program specifically. And
looking at those report findings, can you let me know--let us
know--what led you to the conclusion that accelerating the
tactical radio procurement was the right way to go and halting
the WIN-T program was, based on those findings, the proper
decision?
Mr. Martin. One of the capabilities that we have not
delivered on in the last few years is fielding tactical radio
capability to our lower formations, specifically battalion and
below. We have been very prescriptive in the past of what
capabilities we expected. We prescribed the waveform software
capability that we were expecting to use, which was limited to
only a few folks in industry. In fact, we actually provided
them source code for them to actually port onto the radios.
What we have found, and particularly as we engage with
other activities, SOCOM [U.S. Special Operations Command] in
particular, there are innovative capabilities that have been
developed in the commercial marketplace that have done a much
better job than we have at adapting it. And they are far more
resilient. They significantly reduced the complexity that
soldiers have in managing the capability and very consistent
with what the IDA report recommended we do.
Mr. Wittman. The Army has begun to embrace the non-
developmental item initiative, so essentially, going to off-
the-shelf or commercial technology in that acquisition model,
where you have the industry invest its own money, develop
technology, look at how that can be applied to meet the
warfighter's needs. Can you tell me how you envision utilizing
this model to support Army network modernization and
communications conduits, as well as hardware?
Mr. Martin. Many of the components across the entire
network are, in fact, commercial offerings that we adopt,
particularly in the tactical radio community. One of the things
that we have recently done, we released the request for
proposals for a two-channel leader radio. Previously, we would
have very much prescribed the capability wanted at a minimum
capability and that was the only thing industry had to bid
with.
What we did this time is we offered industry the ability to
propose to us some objective capabilities, some of which we
identified in terms of things we would like to see, and also
offered them the ability to bring forward any capability that
they have developed, or have access to, and offer that above-
baseline capability to the Army. Pretty much what SOCOM does, I
think they have been very successful along those paths and we
are looking to implement a very similar approach.
Mr. Wittman. It just seemed like there is a tremendous
amount of capability out there----
Mr. Martin. There is.
Mr. Wittman. And for the Army to be able to take that off
the shelf, to be able to operationalize it much more quickly,
yet also have it upgradable and modular in its components, I
think is absolutely critical. So to be able to look at that
model, I think, is key.
Lieutenant General Crawford, do you have any--or Major
General Mingus?
General Mingus. Yes, sir. I was just going to offer that in
the adapt-to-buy approach, it is getting after that very thing
that you described, the non-developmental. We in this analysis
determined that we cannot keep pace with commercial industry
when it comes to information technology.
And so, as we identify a gap, we do the market research, we
find something that is close. We try it. It may work, it may
not. If it works, then there is an adaptation process so that
it works in the military environment. And then, if that works,
then we move forward.
Mr. Wittman. Very good.
General Crawford, it is my understanding, based on the
Army's new strategy and looking at capitalizing, again, on
industry innovation, looking at technology that is out there,
and existing special operations and joint solutions that are
going on wherever possible. So looking at integrating all those
different ideas, could you elaborate maybe on some of the
lessons learned from the commercial sector in how you plan to
utilize this cutting-edge technology and industry innovation as
you look to not only create the network capability today, but
what the Army will be looking at in capability in years to
come?
As you talked about, technology changes almost on a daily
basis. And I know from my days of having to carry an
authentication book with me, as an old RTO [radio transmission
operator], and authenticate, we have come a long ways from
there.
General Crawford. Sir, in terms of lessons learned from
industry, the biggest one has to be governance. I mentioned
earlier that it wasn't that we didn't have governance, sir. It
is that we had multiple governing bodies all attempting to
oversee the resourcing and strategy of different aspects of the
network.
The other thing we have learned from both industry and our
special operations teammates in the joint community, Special
Operations Command does buy, try, decide, vice the risk-averse
mindset that we have had in terms of--instead of taking
advantage of industries, fail early and often--or fail fast
kind of mindset, we have taken a very risk-averse mindset in
terms of adapting to change.
And so, those are the two, the governance and that it needs
to be horizontally integrated. And then this buy, try, decide
kind of mentality, in small increments and spiraling into our
formations, is the best posture that allows us and the greatest
lessons we have learned in terms of being able to integrate
technology and leveraging innovation of industry vice reacting
to it, sir.
Mr. Wittman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. Turner. Mr. Brown.
Mr. Brown. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me just start by
saying that--I mean, I think disappointed is just an
understatement for me. I have been on this committee for 9
months and senior service component leaders come in to the
committee with a great deal of confidence and say, we are ready
to fight tonight, and with a great degree of confidence, lay
out visions and ideas and plans about what it takes in terms of
R&D and modernization, so that we will be ready to fight
tomorrow night, and the night after, and 20 years down the
road.
Six billion dollars, that is the number I heard, $544
million that you came in and requested, and we said, sure, here
you go, which represents--and maybe my numbers are not
particularly accurate--more than 3 percent of the Army's
budget. And you come in and say, we want to halt the program;
we want to pivot because the confidence that we exuded was a
little bit misplaced, and we have got new information.
It is concerning, I can tell you. We have a responsibility
in Congress to make sure that we appropriate the money that you
need, and we are wrestling with our responsibility, and we have
fallen short. But as I've said before, you have a
responsibility to manage those funds that we appropriate.
I appreciate what you are doing. I really do. I know it is
complicated, it is complex. But in the context of billions of
dollars, we have got to do better.
So I think my question is maybe a follow-up to Mr.
LoBiondo's and Mr. Bacon's, and--but I just want to clarify.
This pivot--are we going to be able to build on existing
technologies? We spend a lot of time and funding and energy on
research and development. Are we going to turn the existing
technologies into something useful? Or when you say ``pivot,''
that technology, the equipment and everything that $6 billion
represents, are we leaving that in the dust?
General Crawford. Sir, to your comment that we have to do
better, sir, our promise to you is we will do better. To your
question about leaving technology, and so absolutely, sir, we
will not be abandoning technology.
As we look at the challenges, and I won't go through those
again. We--you heard me mention those. The resources that we
are asking for is to fix the problems that we have identified
so that we can fight tonight or tomorrow. We believe that,
based on what Mr. Martin said about our line-of-sight
capability, what he talked about in terms of our overreliance--
and that is what we have become, overly reliant on satellite
capability--he mentioned the anti-jam type problems that we
have got.
We are looking to reinvest these dollars to buy the
commercial modem that Mr. Martin talked about, which is not the
end-state fix, because there are some other things that have to
be done, working with our Air Force teammates in terms of space
for more protected communications capability.
But we are going to be leveraging the technology that we
currently have, sir. We will baseline the entire Army. As I
said, we are asking to halt in FY 2018, but we will be fielding
WIN-T out through FY 2021. It will be the baseline on which we
build for the future.
What we are asking, sir, is that we be allowed to describe
an objective state because we know--we believe based on
feedback that we have got, and we won't go through all the
different feedbacks--we do not believe this is the objective
state in its current configuration.
General Dynamics, the company that makes WIN-T, sir, has
been since I have been a signal officer for 31 years, they have
been one of the lead integrators in this space. And I would be
very surprised if in the future, this company and others who
have been teammates with us integrating this technology won't
be involved in this. And----
Mr. Brown. Let me jump to one other thing.
General Crawford. Yes, sir.
Mr. Brown. Let me jump to one other thing, the Manpack
radio program. And can you confirm that the Army is still
committed to going forward with the Manpack program?
Mr. Martin. Yes, sir. We are currently in competition with
the Manpack. We have two vendors. That is our primary mechanism
that we are going to provide support for the mobile user
objective system. The satellite goes operational after the OT
[operational threshold] in 2019. So that will be our primary
Manpack and vehicular radio.
Mr. Brown. All right. Thanks.
And, Mr. Chairman, let me say in concluding, Mr. Martin is
a familiar face. We worked together at Aberdeen. Nice to see
you here today.
Mr. Martin. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Turner. Thank you.
Mr. Cook, and then to Mr. Veasey, Mr. Panetta, and Mr.
O'Halleran.
Mr. Cook. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
This is tough to hear this committee very, very upset. The
timing couldn't be worse right now. There are a lot of us that
are trying to get this budget passed and then we have this
happen, particularly with the amount of money.
And, you know, Congressman Kelly talked about his being a--
was a knuckledragger. He was an engineer. He was a rocket
scientist. I am, you know, infantry; real, real basic some of
the terms you are talking about. I only have--it is like the
same language we use around here, you know, with acronyms and
this and that.
And I am saying to myself, and no offense, generals and
everybody else, I want like 20 troops out there, 20 soldiers
that have worked with this. And I am going to say, what do you
think of this system? And I have been there going back a long
while, and they would say, ``Well, it is not worth a crap.''
And then I would say, ``Why?''
Give it to me in grunt terms that even Paul Cook, who is
not very bright, and I am not in your league at all, nor--I
will never, you know, get there--but I think that we should
have been asking those people over and over and over again,
because I know this is painful for you guys to come in here and
testify at this critical time and say, oh, by the way, it costs
this much and this much, and we are not sure if we are going to
get this, and it is going to be--what, 2026--I don't know the
dates, I am going to be long dead. I just don't want my
grandkids being in a convalescent home by the time we get this
straightened out.
And the reason I am so angry right now is the same thing
was happening when I was a second lieutenant, different
service. It is still the DOD, same country, I think. But here
we go again, rolling out something like this, and you know, it
gets down to the field and the troops say, ``This thing is just
a mess, it doesn't work for the following reasons.''
So I obviously am venting, upset, and I don't have the
technical questions, because I am last on the point--second-to-
last. So all the good questions have been used up, by the way,
and which were one- and two-syllable words. But what I am
saying is we have got to track that with the people that use
that. And then it has got to come back, and not at this time.
Now, I am going to support it--I always support the Army.
By the way, yeah, I am growling, but General Milley, there is
no one more convinced of the fact that readiness is the name of
the game. And my fear is that this is going to affect readiness
levels of certain units. They are not going to be C1 or 2, or
C1 or C2. They are going to be C3 or C4. And he has talked
about that enough.
So I don't know how you can correct it. I don't think
that--I obviously don't think this is all industry's fault. I
think this is--we have got to go back because this is not the
first time. And I am not going to bore you with systems that
have been terrible. I only know the Marine Corps ones, boy the
billions that were spent on some of them. The crap that was put
out there in the field that didn't work is unpardonable. It is
one thing for us to be upset, but when some soldiers--when some
Marine, sailor, airman, whatever--if they die because they
don't have the best equipment, then that is on us.
So I would like to make sure that we evaluate that, not
from--I want to go back to the troop level, soldiers, what have
you, because usually they will give you the straight scoop. And
if you ask them the questions with a case of beer, you will
probably get a straight answer. I don't know where you can do
that, but you know what I am saying.
So let's get it fixed, and never violate the--one of my
main principles, and that is the doctrine of surprises, because
you surprised me today and it is not good for me and it is not
good for you.
Thank you.
Mr. Turner. Mr. Veasey.
Mr. Veasey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. General Crawford, I
wanted to ask you if you could describe the improvements to
WIN-T Increment 2, over the initial Increment 1 that the Army
or the manufacturer have made?
General Crawford. Sir, one of the improvements that they
have made is, there have been some steps taken, over the last
couple of years, and most recently, in terms of a lighter
version, two components of WIN-T. So I mentioned one of the
problems that we had initially is, we gave the initial
instantiation to WIN-T Increment 2, to light units.
The only problem with that is, on the back of a very large
vehicle--so you had situations like in the Pacific, a unit,
literally, as they were deploying, went out and purchased, on
their own, some equipment because their heavier version of WIN-
T, it was too big to take with them.
And so, recently, at the NIE, one of the things that has
occurred, and this is a good news story--they developed a
lighter version of two components. It is called a NOSC and a
TCN, a Tactical Communications Node, and a Network Operations
Center, that we intend, as a part of this fixing our fight
tonight problem, when I talked about the purpose capabilities,
sir, that we believe had value in the future, between now and
FY 2021 that we would like to field, we would like to field
these lighter versions of these two components of WIN-T to fix
our fight tonight capability, and actually give them to our
light units who can actually use them, vice the heavy equipment
that they have now.
And so, of the fixes, and Mr. Martin may have a couple of
comments to make, but the one that goes to the very front of
the line has to do with lighter versions of the capabilities,
so that we can actually give our light formations light
equipment vice the heavier equipment that slows them down and
impacts readiness, sir.
Mr. Martin. If I understood your question, sir, you are
looking at what are the two differences between Inc. 1 and Inc.
2. Predominantly, the communications capability are
interoperable and compatible, but what Inc. 2 does is it
actually puts that capability onto mobile platforms. It has a
satellite on the move capability and a directional line-of-
sight capability, so it allows the commander to be mobile,
rather than at the command post.
Mr. Veasey. And also I wanted to ask you another question,
as well. Given the Army's track record on modernization
programs over the last two decades, including the multiple
iterations of the network modernization strategy, what can you
tell us that can help convince us that this is the best course
of action?
Mr. Martin. Sir, I have been in and out of this environment
for most of my career, so I have had a role to play in
acquisition of components of what we have done. The first thing
that I would say is, in my experience, 34 years in
acquisitions, this is the first time that we have taken the
entirety of this on as a major thrust. And in my 34 years, I
have not seen a Chief of Staff personally engaged to the degree
that he has to ensure that the requirements, the acquisition
across the entire community that we are part of this endeavor.
Two, I think we have realized--and we should have realized
this a long time ago--that we have been way too prescriptive in
trying to tell industry what to deliver as opposed to asking
industry how to meet the capabilities that we need.
We still have elements of the Joint Tactical Radio System,
which were, essentially, capabilities that are no longer
modern. These are 10-year-old capabilities that we were trying
to make work in this environment. Those are the things that we
are trying to halt. The MNVR, the maneuver radio, the core of
that radio is capability that was developed in the early 2000s.
It is not applicable. Industry has moved on. And so, we
have taken a step back, we have taken a hard look at what
others have done to fix some of these problems to include, as
the ranking member mentioned earlier, security is a big issue.
But we have treated security as a one size fits all.
And so, things like platoon and below, where dismounted
soldiers can deal with a different level of security and open
their options to a significantly greater set of tools and
capabilities is something we are looking at very heavily right
now. And this is what our SOCOM friends have really brought to
us.
Mr. Veasey. Thank you very much. And one more quick
question, General Crawford. What led you--or what were the
factors of you conducting the review now?
General Crawford. Sir, it was realization of the threat. It
was understanding and developing and understanding over the
last 24 to 18 months of the second- and third-order effects of
things like a near-peer adversary who not only has an
electronic warfare capability, who not only has a cyber
capability, but what they have been able to do is combine
electronic warfare, information operations, and cyber and
leverage that against our forces.
When you think about some of the SATCOM vulnerabilities
that we talked about and some of the line-of-sight
vulnerabilities, you have got a near-peer adversary that is
developing the ability to disrupt our forces. You combine what
I just explained, talked about, sir, with information ops,
cyber and electronic warfare capability, with some of the
indirect fire capabilities, where our TOCs [tactical operations
centers] are now needing to move every 30 minutes, every hour,
you combine all those capabilities, sir, that is a pretty
significant adversary.
And so it was actually understanding and developing a
deeper level of understanding of the threat that really got our
attention. That, combined with feedback from operational
commanders with--as I mentioned earlier, sir--symptoms,
initially, they were symptoms--complexity, training issues, et
cetera, that were brought to us.
And then we actually got a study that said, here is what we
think your root cause issues are. So the urgency-of-now, sir,
is connected to our deeper level of understanding of what the
threat is and the need to enable our fight tonight
capabilities, sir.
Mr. Turner. Gentlemen, we need to move on.
Mr. Panetta.
Mr. Panetta. Mr. Chairman, thank you for this opportunity.
Gentlemen, Mr. Martin, Generals Crawford and Mingus, thanks
for being here and obviously thanks for your service. I am a
new member to the Armed Services. I have only been here a
month, so I wasn't here back in May when you had your report.
And so, therefore, I am not necessarily disappointed. I am
very surprised, though, to hear about this and the developments
that you have talked about today.
Most of the questions have been asked and so--you know, I
am just going to go off the cuff here, and just bear with me. I
am from the central coast of California. Just north of us is
Silicon Valley, obviously DIUx is there, but also many of the
companies in the industry that you talked about, General.
Clearly, it seems to me, based on this limited information
that I have received before and during this hearing, is that
part of the problem is trying to keep up with the technology
that is constantly thrown at, basically, all of us, and seeing
that there are better ways to do things. We see it every day as
civilians, and it is good to know that you are seeing it in the
military services.
But what--talk to me about some of the industries, some of
the companies that you have been or plan to reach out to in
order to help you keep up with the speed of technology?
General Crawford. Sir, I know Mr. Martin and General Mingus
will have some commentary here, and I will try to be short and
leave time for them. But the satellite industry, a specific
company--so I mentioned, sir, that we have hosted four industry
forums to try and help inform our thinking.
We have taken our problems to industry and said, tell us we
are wrong. In terms--when I talked about processes, sir, it is
not just a technology, but we are trying to leverage their
ideas on how to get to the technology, how to best posture
ourselves to be able to leverage the exponential growth in
investments that they are making.
And so we--these industry forums that I talked about are
where we took--literally took our problems, and everything you
heard today, essentially we had a conversation with them. And
so, without getting into a laundry list of different companies,
we have gone to virtually every sector of the commercial IT
technology portion of industry to say help us, help us think
through this particular problem set.
And I can tell you that the response has been tremendous in
terms of helping us fix our problems.
And I will turn to General Mingus to add a little bit more,
sir.
General Mingus. Thank you, sir. Since you mentioned DIUx, I
will give you a vignette of what we have done recently with
them. It is not foreign to anybody here that it is a tremendous
human endeavor to digest the amount of data that is out there.
And it is no different in a military application and the
speed in which that data is available. And so it is our belief
that as we try and--and General Crawford mentioned this in his
opening statement--how do we get better, faster, smarter than
the enemy.
And so as you look at the artificial intelligence, machine
learning, big data kind of stuff that is coming online, DIUx
has the greatest feel, inside of our organization in terms of
who in industry is working this problem.
And so we recently reached out to them to set up a couple
of forums framing the problem of how the military is trying to
solve that problem, allow them to go out to the leaders in that
industry and bring them together in a forum so we can have a
dialogue and begin to figure out how to solve this for the
future.
Mr. Panetta. Mr. Martin.
Mr. Martin. If I could add, we will continue to use a large
portion of the commercial IT technology. I mean, routers and
switches and those kinds of things are always going to be
something we use.
One of the things that is most complicated in our network
is the services on the backend. So we talk about the iPhone-
like approach to simplifying the network to the user. One of
the toughest things we have in a tactical space today is we
have to bring our infrastructure, the people who initialize,
operate, and maintain the networks, the towers that you--that
service cell phones today, we bring that structure with us.
We try to develop and build our own management tools, net
ops [operations] tools to actually coordinate, manage, and so
forth. Service providers--Verizon, AT&T--have recently met with
us and they are looking at how to automate what we currently
require soldiers to spend an inordinate amount of energy trying
to manage and execute this network, and to try to automate it
with software-defined networking technology, and things that
they have applied onto the enterprise that you and I use every
day at home.
Mr. Panetta. Great. Thank you, gentlemen. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. Turner. Mr. O'Halleran.
Mr. O'Halleran. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you,
gentlemen, for being here today, General Crawford, General
Mingus, and Mr. Martin.
Like Mr. Panetta, I have a bunch of notes. Most of my
questions have been either answered to my satisfaction or not.
But thank you for coming into what you knew was going to be a
difficult environment, and I appreciate that.
I don't--my problem is I don't see a plan. I don't know
where you are really going. I see a concept. I see some ideas.
But it is concerning to me when I also hear the words
consistently ``we believe,'' ``I think''--all those types of
words that were said over and over again today.
And, General Crawford, you had mentioned earlier about when
this all started, it was a static environment. We never have a
static environment anywhere. You plan for the entire breadth, I
would think, of the environment that we are in and potentially
going to be in.
So I--the question was before to convince us that this is
the right course of action. I don't know that it is. I know I
am not convinced. I am concerned that this may be the third or
fourth change the Army has proposed for its network
modernization program. How do we know you won't just change the
network strategy again next year and the year after that?
The changing technology aspect of this process--there is
really no end line, I don't think. And so we don't know when
the next deployment of the communications equipment will really
take place. And so to stop one program and start another one,
understanding that the base is there, but we don't know
anything about what the rest of it is going to look like.
And I understand that, but it is really concerning that we
have gone down $6 billion-plus, probably, and gotten to this
level.
So, General, I want to give you the ability to once more
try to convince us that this is the right direction. And when
can you have a real plan to us so that we can identify and
analyze, that that is the way you are going to go?
General Crawford. Sir, thank you very much for the
opportunity to follow up. And so this idea of developing a real
plan, sir, when we look at when we started, to develop the
concept, what we owe back to you and to the chairman and to the
ranking member is the details of an execution plan. What we
have laid out for you to date, sir, is the recognition that we
have got a real problem in our formations in our Army today.
And so one of the things that General Milley has challenged
us with is you have got to ground yourselves in fact. And so
the discussion and the points that I made about we believe,
what we have done is we have actually gone back to pull
together the facts. What I mentioned about the combat training
center, sir, that is a real thing that we have been collecting
data on over the last couple of years.
And so, to the point, sir--and I appreciate the opportunity
to follow up to convince you that this is the way ahead, and
the right way ahead. We have got a near-term fight tonight
problem that we can't get past and so we have got to fix that,
sir.
To the future of it, it is literally being informed and it
has been informed over the last 90 days by our realization that
we have got some internal processes that we needed to fix.
Governance, we think we have put something in place for that.
Putting an integrator in charge? We have done that; that is
directed by our former Acting Secretary of the Army.
So, in terms of the details of this, sir, we owe you the
actual execution plan for this and we look forward to the
opportunity, sir, to come back and lay out the execution plan.
Because I know that is what you want to see--we are talking
concept for what we are asking for--I understand the risks
associated with it--but we would owe you an actual execution
plan in how we plan to accomplish this, sir.
Mr. O'Halleran. I would appreciate that, General, but I
also would appreciate the structure in which you made the
decision to move this in a written form or a more formal form.
But we all share the same issue here, I mean, to ensure the
safety of our service people. And I look forward to continuing
this discussion, but I think that we need much more information
before we should go down the road of which way to go. Thank
you.
Mr. Turner. Thank you.
General, just a couple of issues I want to clarify. The
WIN-T 1 and 2--they work, right? I mean we want to make sure
certain that you have accepted these things, they have been
delivered to you, they were tested--there was not a failure of
a test. Your issues that you are raising are those in the IDA
report, which I have read also that go to the issues of
vulnerabilities, near-peer flexibility issues, technology. It
is not an issue that this doesn't work, correct?
General Crawford. Sir, to the question of does it work,
based on the requirements that we wrote, it meets the
requirements.
Mr. Turner. Great. Next, speaking of those requirements,
you said they had bigger--I wrote it down as you were saying
it--meaning that in WIN-T 2, that the mobile vehicle was bigger
and heavier. Wasn't that a result of the Army's requirements?
Because you said they now have smaller or lighter--but isn't
that a result of the Army working with respect to the
requirements of the ability to withstand a blast, what the
requirements were of the first WIN-T 2 mobile unit that was
delivered?
General Crawford. Sir, a part of it actually had to do with
the availability of the weapons system platform to actually
place it on. So that is factual, sir.
Mr. Turner. So it was the Army's issue of it being bigger
and heavier and now it is lighter and smaller?
General Crawford. Sir, that is the entirety of the problem
set wasn't just about the platform. There have been some
additional modifications made to the systems that are well
documented over the last couple of years.
Mr. Turner. I am aware of that.
General Crawford. Yes, sir.
Mr. Turner. I have seen both.
General Crawford. Yes, sir.
Mr. Turner. Thank you.
Ms. Tsongas.
Ms. Tsongas. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you for your testimony here today. You have all
talked about how--registered all your concerns with the WIN-T
program, essentially its many shortcomings. And yet you have
also said WIN-T will be the baseline of the future. So in
essence there is an inherent contradiction and as we are at the
end of this hearing it is just something I would like to put
out there.
So I do believe it is clear the complexity of the challenge
is real and not so easily fixed. Even after testimony today, I
still feel that your way forward is half-baked, not fully
developed, and overly optimistic. My father used to have the
saying, ``You may not be right, but you are positive.'' And in
essence, I think you are being very positive, but it is not
clear that the way forward is actually right.
So I think there is real risk in abruptly moving to a new
network strategy, and like Mr. O'Halleran, I think we just have
to have a much clearer way forward before I know I could
support the funding changes you are proposing.
With that, I yield back.
Mr. Turner. Thank you.
Gentlemen, when I began this hearing, I said I don't like
having hearings like this because it is an abrupt change, it is
months after we were told with firm conviction from the Army in
what direction you were going and now an undefined, unclear,
new direction.
This hearing could have been a positive hearing. It could
have been a result of the IDA study. It could have been the
focus that Congress had placed on it, the focus that you are
placing on it, and what your strategy was going to be going
forward in 2019 instead of the abrupt--we have asked you for
one thing now we are going to ask you for another in mere
months.
So I can tell you that this is a very skeptical
subcommittee, and I, too, find that the information you
provided us today does not justify the abrupt shift. It
certainly justifies the assessment that we requested and that
you are looking at what you are going to do in the future.
In technology, you should always be looking at what you are
doing in the future. It shouldn't take every 10 years or every
5 years for you to decide what the future is going to be in
technology.
But this has been very disappointing, and I know that just
every member of this subcommittee has registered that with you.
So, with that, we will be adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:09 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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A P P E N D I X
September 27, 2017
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PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
September 27, 2017
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DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
September 27, 2017
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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING
September 27, 2017
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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. TURNER
Mr. Turner. What alternatives does the Army have today to meet the
requirement for on-the-move mission command?
General Crawford. In our tactical formations, the Army currently
relies on the Nett Warrior program to provide dismounted mission
command on-the-move capability, the Joint Battle Command-Platform
program for mounted mission command on-the-move capability, and secure
voice communications through tactical radios to support dismounted and
on-the-move elements. The current plan will accelerate fielding of
Joint Battle Command-Platform, pure fleeting all Army elements no later
than FY22.
Mr. Turner. This may be the third or fourth change the Army has
proposed for its network modernization strategy. How do we know you
won't just change the network strategy again next year or the year
after that?
General Crawford. The Army is not only proposing a new way forward
for the network, but also proposing a new process whereby it can
acquire emerging technologies without having to once again change its
strategy. Recent announcements by the Acting Secretary of the Army and
the Chief of Staff of the Army have directed policy to drive this
change. The Army is proactively taking steps to streamline its
governance requirements through the establishment of an Information
Technology Oversight Council and the consolidation of requirements
through one center of excellence. This is the first time in many years
that network reform policies have been supported by the highest levels
of the Department of the Army and the Department of Defense and will
result in not only changes to policy, but also institutional and
cultural change. The change we are proposing at this time is absolutely
necessary because the Army requires a network that can adapt to the
changing character of war and a business practice that leverages the
speed and innovation already resident within the IT industry. In order
to avoid having to face this situation again next year or the year
after that, the Army will pursue a proven industry practice of
incorporating developmental operations (DEVOPS) that allow the network
to evolve at the pace of commercial innovation.
Mr. Turner. Does the Army keep abandoning ``good'' networks systems
in the search for a ``perfect'' system? ``Perfect'' is hard to find in
the telecom world, would it not be more practical to field the
operational ready WIN-T Inc 2 network while continuing the R&D efforts
to make it a more perfect system.
General Crawford. The Army acknowledges that there is no such thing
as a ``perfect'' solution in a complex, dynamic world. Pursuit of
perfection is not the driver for the Army's decision to change course;
rather, it is the determination to equip the warfighter with the
ability to communicate on the battlefield with the goal of fighting and
winning America's wars. Feedback from the Network Integration
Evaluation and operational units has indicated that the system is too
complex in terms of planning, maintenance, training and initialization,
and the complexity is impeding the mission. The line-of-sight systems
are not effective in sustaining the network in a Satellite
communications denied environment. Reports have shown that in its
current form, WIN-T is not optimized against current EW and Cyber
threats, nor will it be prepared to meet future more complex ones. The
Army has taken steps to improve WIN-T simplicity with software and
hardware enhancements, while also reducing the size, weight and power
of key components and hardening the system against threats. We will
continue to cascade these improvements into units that currently have
WIN-T Inc2, while also fielding out the remaining regular component
Stryker and Infantry Brigade Combat Teams with WIN-T Inc2 to bring
these units to a standard baseline. For those aspects of the system
that cannot be fixed, and for those units where platform integration is
infeasible, the Army will invest in programs that incorporate the
flexibility to apply funds to alternative solutions.
Mr. Turner. The Army's written statement states that the Army wants
to halt the WIN-T Inc 2 program. However, the Army has also stated that
they will take some attributes or capabilities from WIN-T Inc 2 and
integrate it with WIN-T Inc 1b. Please further explain this approach
and what makes this a ``halt'' instead of a modification or restructure
to WIN-T Inc 2? Why would you need to realign funding out of the WIN-T
Inc 2 budget line item to continue to procure these capabilities?
General Crawford. The urgency of now will not allow Army to wait
and continue on its current path with WIN-T (fielding WIN-T Inc 2
through FY32, or accelerate the fielding in order to complete fielding
in FY26) given the systems' vulnerabilities and existing threats. The
Army intends to halt procurement of WIN-T Increment (Inc) 2 at the end
of FY 18 and continue fielding that which we have already purchased
until complete in FY21 to the Active Component Infantry and Stryker
Brigade Combat Teams. WIN-T Inc2 will then enter sustainment in FY21.
We will cascade purposed capability improvements into select
formations. This means the heavy variants of WIN-T Inc 2 will align
with our Active Component Stryker Brigades and the light variants will
be fielded with Infantry Brigades. This will enable the Army to fix
other portions of the entire network ecosystem required to fight
tonight. The ``halt'' is associated with halting long-term procurement
of additional WIN-T Inc2 capability for Armored Brigade Combat Teams
and Army National Guard units. Armored Brigade Combat Teams and Army
National Guard units will remain on WIN-T Inc1b and transition to
sustainment of the Inc1b once fielding is complete. Under the new
modernization strategy, the Army will leverage a Modernization-in-
Service budget line giving the Army the flexibility to improve its
tactical network, to include WIN-T and all of the other systems that
comprise the Army's tactical network.
Mr. Turner. We all realize the threat environment has changed and
peer competitors have increasing electronic warfare capability. The
Army presently has a heavy reliance on satellite communications. I'm
concerned that soldiers may be limited to communicate in a satellite
denied environment. The Mid-Tier Vehicular Radio program was originally
designed to be the Army's line-of-sight alternative to satellites.
However, this new proposed strategy appears to terminate this program.
So, what's the alternative to this program, and what actions are you
taking that will improve soldiers abilities to operate in a satellite
denied environment?
General Crawford. The Mid-tier Networking Vehicular Radio (MNVR)
has not demonstrated itself to be an effective line-of-sight
alternative to satellites during operational testing at several Network
Integration Evaluation (NIE) events. Nor does it provide effective air-
ground integration, which is an important aspect of multi-domain
battle. The Army is looking to leverage the mounted Manpack radio with
an improved LOS waveform for wideband Line of sight (LOS) communication
as an interim solution. Longer term solutions to mitigate the threat of
a satellite denied environment include: (1) a more robust integration
of upper and lower tiers to obviate the need for an explicit mid-tier
network, (2) resilient satellite strategies, and (3) the pursuit of
technologies that reduce the amount of power required with LOS systems.
The Army intends to redirect MNVR funding to fulfill urgent capability
gaps that the MNVR radio did not prove sufficient to address,
including: Air/ground integration, Joint interoperability, and a LOS
waveform with reliable connectivity at operationally relevant ranges.
Mr. Turner. It's my understanding the Army has a requirement to
field approximately 282,000 radios, but to date the Army has procured
less than 10 percent of your goal. That's not good. First, why is
taking so long to procure and field these radios. Second, I'm assuming
you're familiar with some of IDA's recommendations and findings
regarding tactical radio modernization. What actions are you currently
taking to accelerate fielding of improved tactical radios and will
these actions incorporate some of the IDA recommendations?
General Crawford. Requirements changes, testing requirements and
changes to basis of issue slowed the procurement and fielding of the
tactical radio modernization. The Army intends to revise its
requirements by reducing the heavily prescriptive targeted requirements
which will allow industry more opportunity to demonstrate the value of
off-the shelf available solutions, and eliminate barriers to
procurement. The Army is also considering how it can leverage the
success of technology acquisition by Special Operations Forces and
Joint Forces, instead of trying to develop, procure, and then field
Army-unique solution. Tried and true capabilities exist, particularly
in the area of tactical radios. Testing reciprocity between acquiring
Department of Defense organizations is also essential to avoid
unnecessary re-evaluation of proven technology, reduce test schedule
and burdens, and expedite acquisition.
Mr. Turner. How did the Army's review of the tactical network cover
Signal Modernization programs?
General Crawford. The Signal Modernization programs turned out to
be good news for the Army. These capabilities are covered in the
Transmission Capability Production Document and were reviewed and
selected to be accelerated to the Brigade Combat Teams/Divisions/CORPs.
These programs are part of the near term strategy to help offset
satellite reliance, to improve mobility of the command posts and to
greatly enhance convergence and coalition interoperability. These
programs are also part the Army's pivot to bring in commercial
offerings to mitigate current gaps in both the WIN-T Increment (Inc) 1
and 2 equipped units.
Mr. Turner. Please address what impact this decision has on the
National Guard. How will National Guard brigades be able to communicate
with their associated Active Component brigades?
General Crawford. National Guard brigades will have the same exact
equipment as every Active Component heavy armored brigade combat team.
General Milley is committed to ensuring Active, Reserve and National
Guard units are able to effectively communicate and operate with their
associated Active Component brigade combat team counter parts. The
National Guard will be equipped with WIN-Inc1b, the Army's baseline
upper tactical network, which is fully interoperable with WIN-T Inc2.
All of the associated Active Component units are equipped with one of
these Increments. At lower echelons, the Army is addressing
interoperability between units by planning a pure-fleeting of the Joint
Battle Command-Platform system across the total Army and placing
mission command information systems on the same software baseline.
Mr. Turner. You have proposed a collection of new network programs
that are not defined and don't appear to have formal requirements. For
instance, the Army's proposal references a new initiative called
Situational Information Transport? What is the acquisition strategy for
this new program?
General Crawford. Our approach going forward is to modernize the
network architecture with carefully targeted modifications, rather than
attempting to modernize large, monolithic programs of record. The
Situational Information Transport funding line is not a new program. It
is where the Army has aligned procurement dollars to purchase
capabilities that support the final procurement and fielding of
purposed components of WIN-T Increment 2 (Inc2) specifically, Tactical
Command Node-Light and Network Operations Security Center-Light.
Funding for this effort will be terminated following FY21. Future
upgrades to the tactical network will be funded through the Tactical
Network Modernization in Service line.
Mr. Turner. How is the Army redefining tactical network
requirements to better reflect the type of tactical network that is
needed for future conflicts given emerging and current threats?
General Crawford. The Army's Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC)
is synchronizing all tactical network requirements from across all of
the Centers of Excellence through the Mission Command Center of
Excellence in order to streamline and focus requirements, align
resources and enable the acquisition community to procure capabilities
to meet operational need. The Army is updating capability criteria in
existing requirements documents so as not to exclude viable options
from Joint, Special Operations, and Industry. The new capability
criteria intends to avoid overly prescriptive technical system
performance requirements and focus on the operational requirements, in
accordance with IDA recommendations. The four priorities of effort of
the Army's network modernization plan are designed to provide the
network needed for future conflicts given emerging and current threats
include: transport, command post mobility and survivability, mission
command application suite and Joint/Coalition interoperability. All
operational requirements are intended to enable formations rather than
hinder them, allowing more effective mission command in the congested
and contested environments we envision for multi-domain battle.
Mr. Turner. When developing these new network requirements, how are
you considering platform integration challenges with respect to size,
weight, and power?
General Crawford. The guiding principle is to provide new
capabilities at minimum size, weight, power, cooling, and cost. For new
platforms, the network providers and the platform program managers have
created a unified design. The Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) and
the Armored Multi-Purposed Vehicle (AMPV) are examples of platforms
which are being optimized for network system integration. The Army will
collaborate with the Research & Development (R&D) community on
universal installation kits. In the case of older vehicles, plans are
in place to increase the power generation capability to accommodate
additional systems beyond their original baseline. New networking
systems and platform upgrade schedules are synchronized and aligned to
provide upgraded capability as fast as possible to the Soldier.
Additionally, the Army Science & Technology (S&T) community is working
across network and platform program offices and industry to assess and
provide a future common hardware and software environment in which
radios, computing, storage, and electronic warfare components can exist
on separate electronic cards within a common chassis. If implemented
this effort could greatly reduce the size and power requirements of
network and computer systems onboard combat and tactical vehicles. The
Army demonstrated a prototype of this environment in an S&T version of
a Stryker in October 2017 and will continue prototype work to define a
universal solution to better integrate interoperability at the
hardware, software, and network layers.
Mr. Turner. How can we be assured the changes you are recommending
to the Army's tactical network strategy will allow you to operate in a
contested environment?
General Crawford. Based on what we now know of the threat and we
acknowledge that we cannot assume one hundred percent mitigation, we do
know that the current path does not address the issues we face but
induces increased risk. By pivoting from the ACAT 1 Programs of Record
to a modernization-in-service approach the Army will gain resource
flexibility to quickly integrate cutting edge technologies into the
network to rapidly address evolving threats. Cross Functional Teams as
described in the new modernization strategy outlined by the Chief of
Staff and Acting Secretary of the Army during AUSA will leverage
operational lessons learned, Science and Technology, Research and
Development as well as Industry Research and Development to quickly
develop, demonstrate and experiment cutting edge technologies to
counter emerging threats. For example, if a given waveform is no longer
effective or compromised we can work with our industry partners to
leverage a new commercial waveform and replace that waveform, instead
of replacing the entire network.
Mr. Turner. How will this new tactical network modernization
strategy change or modify the Army's current acquisition strategy to
competitively procure advanced networking radios?
General Crawford. Past radio acquisition efforts have been heavily
prescriptive in terms of targeted requirements in some cases limiting
competition and dis-incentivizing industry innovation. The Army is
moving towards a competitive `best value' approach to procuring radios
vice specifying detailed technical requirements that may overlook
industry innovations from consideration. The Army intends to compete
radio delivery orders to incentivize and on-ramp state of the art
capabilities as they become mature and available. These competitions
can be as frequent as annual but frequency will be driven by technology
and industry conditions. The Army will harness industry innovation and
adapt/leverage existing solutions wherever possible instead of trying
to develop, procure, and then field our own unique solutions. Testing
reciprocity with partner organizations including SOF/Joint and industry
is essential to avoid unnecessary re-evaluation of proven technology.
______
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MS. TSONGAS
Ms. Tsongas. What impact will the Army's request for realignment
have on the telecommunications defense industrial base? What will the
immediate and long-term impacts be on the supplier base? What is the
Army doing to mitigate disruptions that could have lasting impacts on
our nation's ability to acquire and field next generation
telecommunications systems that meet the unique requirements of our
military?
General Crawford. If the realignments are approved, the Army will
continue to rely on industry and the telecommunications industrial base
to innovate and procure new capabilities, sustain previously fielded
capabilities/investments, make required upgrades, modernize and
simplify the network, and increase resiliency. The Army has no reason
to believe the actions we are taking to develop a new path forward for
the network to meet emerging requirements will negatively impact the
defense supplier base nor the organic industrial base. In the near
term, the Army will begin to procure systems in FY18 to immediately
address operational shortfalls to fight tonight and begin
experimentation to determine how to best integrate efforts such as
radio gateways and mobile command posts for adaption into the army
network to address shortcomings. Concurrently, the Army intends to
revise our requirements documents as recommended by the Institute of
Defense Analyses NDAA 2016 study that address operational needs but
written less prescriptively to industry. The Army will fully embrace
competition where possible to allow industry to come forward with
innovative ideas. To mitigate disruptions, we will evaluate industry-
developed solutions while leveraging industry's Research and
Development efforts for further improvements in the Army network
simplification that could reduce network complexity, increase
protection and improve interoperability further. Through the
establishment of the Tactical Network Modernization in Service funding
line, the Army will have greater resource flexibility to work with the
industrial base to more rapidly procure items to upgrade our networks.
Finally, we will harness the industry innovations that have led to
working SOF/Joint solutions wherever possible instead of trying to
develop, procure and then field our own unique solutions.
______
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. GALLEGO
Mr. Gallego. In April, I sent a letter to GEN Milley along with 177
other House Members encouraging the production and fielding of WIN-T.
The House-passed NDAA also included funding for WIN-T, with the then-
recommendation of the Army. Now we understand that GEN Milley would
zero out WIN-T funding for FY2018. What is the reason for this late
change of tune, and why are we making massive decisions about these
critical communications systems on the Congressional version of a ``no-
notice'' timeline?
General Crawford. The urgency for change is based on the detailed
and Congressionally-mandated National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA)
2016 analysis conducted by the Institute of Defense Analyses, along
with the study conducted internally by the Army that validated those
findings. These studies identified critical vulnerabilities within the
tactical network, to include WIN-T. Recent conflicts in Ukraine and
Syria highlighted how these critical vulnerabilities can be exploited.
The Army must adapt our Network modernization approach to mitigate
current and emerging threats and address critical gaps and
vulnerabilities that the current Network modernization strategy does
not account for. The Army intends to halt procurement of WIN-T Inc 2 at
the end of FY 18, and with remaining funds continue to field purposed
components of the WIN-T Inc 2 program already purchased to the Active
Infantry and Stryker Brigade Combat Teams through 2021.
Mr. Gallego. WIN-T Increment 2, the dismounted generation of the
system, was intended to provide Soldiers with the ability to
communicate effectively in the field. As early as this spring, the Army
was, or seemed to be, content with the progress of this program and was
prepared to expand its fielding. With the reassignment of FY2018 funds
that GEN Milley now recommends, that assessment has changed. Is he
suggesting that we have squandered the billions of dollars that we have
put into the program over the past decade?
General Crawford. The Army began fielding WIN-T 16 years ago to
address the challenges the Army faced in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the
capability gaps of its predecessor, the Mobile Subscriber Equipment
(MSE) system. The Army has assessed that future conflicts will not be
the same the conditions encountered in those theaters, and has a
responsibility to the warfighter and to the American people to do
everything possible to keep pace with the threat and changes to the way
we must fight. In this case, meeting the emerging threat has forced the
Army to come to terms with the urgency of modernizing its tactical
network. Regarding past investment, funds have not been squandered. The
WIN-T Inc1 program established the baseline for the high bandwidth
network supporting battalion and above, and remains the foundation upon
which future modernization will occur. Furthermore, critical components
developed within the WIN-T Inc2 program will be inserted into the
baseline to increase satellite communications on-the-move capability
for the warfighter.
Mr. Gallego. Please explain why GEN Milley believes that the
reassignment of funds should occur after virtually all of the
Congressional committees that have jurisdiction have already completed
their normal budgetary business for the year. The proposed timeline
does not allow Congress to proceed on this decision via regular order,
so to change course we need an ironclad justification. Can you provide
one?
General Crawford. The Army acknowledges that the FY18 submission
for a realignment of funds is ill-timed but necessary to put the proper
equipment in the hands of the warfighter as quickly as possible.
Current tensions around the world have drawn focus on operational
readiness concerns involving our most pressing Operational Plans. The
Army's increased self-awareness was bolstered by the findings of the
Institute of Defense Analyses' congressionally mandated study, which
identified the alarming state of its tactical network and demanded an
urgent decision for change. While a realignment of funds in the FY19
budget submission, would have better lined up with the normal budgetary
business timeline, the Army could not responsibly wait a full budget
year to implement critical capabilities improvements, while continuing
to fund solutions that do not meet the immediate needs of our
warfighters.
______
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. BANKS
Mr. Banks. General Crawford, in the hearing you stated that the
National Guard and Heavy Brigade Combat Teams would be equipped with
the same version of WIN-T but active duty, LIGHT Infantry Brigade
Combat Teams would receive something different.
However, in Indiana one of our National Guard battalions is paired
with a light Brigade Combat Team (2 BCT 25 ID) under the Army's
``Associated Unit'' pilot program.
How will ``Associated Units'' be equipped to ensure they are able
to effectively communicate and operate with their light BCT
counterparts to fully meet General Milley's ``One Army'' philosophy?
General Crawford. General Milley is committed to ensuring
associated units are able to effectively communicate and operate with
their light brigade combat team counter parts, and that is one of the
very reasons why he has determined that the network challenges must be
addressed immediately. Currently, the network is extremely complex, and
that complexity is impeding effective communication between units. The
changes the Army is planning to make are, among other things, directly
targeting General Milley's objective to fight as ``One Army.'' The
Army's upper tactical network is baselined with WIN-T Increment 1b
which is fully interoperable with WIN-T Inc2. All of the associated
units are equipped with one of these Increments. At battalion and
below, the Army is addressing interoperability between units by
planning a pure-fleeting of the Joint Battle Command-Platform (JBC-P)
system. JBC-P provides on the move mission command applications,
situational awareness, chat and other communications features across
the force and placing mission command information systems on the same
software baseline.
[all]