[Senate Hearing 115-]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE APPROPRIATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR 2019
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TUESDAY, MAY 15, 2018
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met at 10:02 a.m. in room SD-192, Dirksen
Senate Office Building, Hon. Richard C. Shelby (chairman)
presiding.
Present: Senators Shelby, Murkowski, Daines, Moran, Durbin,
Leahy, Murray, Tester, Udall, Schatz, and Baldwin.
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
Department of the Army
Office of the Secretary
STATEMENT OF HON. DR. MARK T. ESPER, SECRETARY
opening statement of senator richard c. shelby
Senator Shelby. The committee will come to order.
I'm pleased to welcome today Secretary Esper and General
Milley to the committee for an update on Army operations and a
review of the 2019 budget request.
The Army is seeking $182.1 billion in its current request,
which is an increase of about $5 billion over amounts
appropriated for 2018. With this budget request, the Army will
continue to build readiness and counter threats posed by near-
peer competitors while modernizing in order to face future
threats. We, here today, acknowledge the challenging assignment
that you face to source an increased demand for forces today
while also modernizing to compete with more technically capable
adversaries. We appreciate your service, and we look forward to
working with you during the appropriation process to meet the
needs of the Army in today's complex strategic environment.
[The statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of Senator Richard C. Shelby
Good morning, the Subcommittee will come to order.
I am pleased to welcome Secretary Esper and General Milley to the
committee for an update on Army operations and a review of the fiscal
year 2019 budget request.
The Army is seeking $182.1 billion in its current request, which is
an increase of about $5 billion over amounts appropriated for fiscal
year 2018. With this budget request, the Army will continue to build
readiness and counter threats posed by near-peer competitors while
modernizing in order to face future threats.
We acknowledge the challenging assignment you face to source an
increasing demand for forces today while also modernizing to compete
with more technically capable adversaries.
Gentlemen, we appreciate your service and look forward to working
with you during the appropriations process to meet the needs of the
Army in today's complex strategic environment.
Now I turn to the Vice Chairman, Senator Durbin, for his opening
remarks. Thank you.
Senator Shelby. I will now turn to Senator Durbin, the Vice
Chairman.
STATEMENT OF SENATOR RICHARD J. DURBIN
Senator Durbin. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. I am pleased to join
you in welcoming the Secretary of the Army, Mark Esper, Chief
of Staff of the Army, General Mark Milley, into our hearing to
review the Army's budget request for the fiscal year 2019.
If you name a hotspot in the world, odds are strong that
the women and men of the United States Army are there. Our
soldiers comprise the majority of the 15,000 troops deployed in
Afghanistan, the 28,000 serving in South Korea, the 7,000 in
Iraq and Syria, and 60,000 stationed in Europe. These soldiers
live every day so close to danger, and we owe them more than
gratitude. Our troops need the tools and training to do their
job, support for their families, who are often far away, and a
commitment to their well-being after deployment. Many times,
the key to following through on these promises start with
responsible management of the funds we devote to our national
defense.
We are now operating under a rare 2-year budget deal. And
I'll emphasize publicly what I've emphasized privately to our
witnesses, and that's how important it is that the Army spend
these budget increases wisely. Between 2017 and 2018, funding
for the Army increased by 17 percent. Any institution would
struggle with responsible management of such a large funding
increase in such a short period of time.
Secretary Esper and General Milley, I know you agree,
because you've told me, that losing funds to waste is a loss
for our troops and the American taxpayer. The question is, How
are you--how are we--going to prevent it? We must remember that
this budget deal will be over before we know it. And the fiscal
year 2020 defense budget faces a dramatic increase, decrease,
certainly uncertainty. We just don't know. So, after 2 years of
dramatic increase, we're not certain what the third year will
look like at all. Simply maintaining the current level of
budget defense is not a guarantee.
In addition to the threat of an unstable world and the
challenge of being good stewards of public funds, the Army is
challenged to modernize faster and faster. The Army has
initiated several new concepts, such as the Army Futures
Command, to help meet these challenges. I look forward to
hearing how these concepts are truly transformational. We have
many other issues to discuss. I look forward to the questions.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Shelby. Senator Leahy, do you have an opening
statement?
Senator Leahy. No, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll have
questions later.
Senator Shelby. Thank you.
We'll now turn to The Honorable Mark Esper, Secretary of
the Army, and then, after him, General Mark Milley, the Chief
of Staff of the Army.
Mr. Secretary, your written testimony--and General, yours,
too--will be made part of the hearing record in its entirety.
You proceed as you wish.
SUMMARY STATEMENT OF HON. DR. MARK T. ESPER
Secretary Esper. Good. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Shelby, Ranking Member Durbin, Senator Leahy, and
other distinguished members of the committee, good morning, and
thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today.
Let me say up front that the Army's readiness across its
formation is improving, and if called upon today, I am
confident we would prevail in any conflict. This is due, in
part, to the increased funding Congress provided last year. And
for this, I would like to say thank you.
The Army's mission to defend the Nation has not changed,
but the strategic environment has. Following 17 years of
sustained combat, we now face a future characterized by the
reemergence of great-power competition and the continued
challenges posed by rogue states and nonstate actors, making
the world ever more complex and dangerous.
To address these challenges, the Army is changing. We have
a comprehensive plan to ensure our long-term dominance. In
fact, General Milley and I will soon publish our Army vision
statement. This vision is fully consistent with the National
Defense Strategy, and one that we believe will ensure success
for years to come. We will achieve this vision through focused
and enduring priorities encompassing several major long-term
lines of effort. But, a vision alone will not make the Army
successful. We must have predictable, adequate, sustained, and
timely funding. Fiscal uncertainty has done a great deal to
erode our readiness and hamper our ability to modernize.
While the Army must be ready to deploy, fight, and win
anytime, anywhere, against any adversary, the National Defense
Strategy has identified China and Russia as the principal
competitors against which we must build sufficient capacity and
capabilities. Both countries are taking a more aggressive role
on the world stage and either possess or are building advanced
capabilities that are specifically designed to reverse the
tactical overmatch we have enjoyed for decades.
In support of the NDS (National Defense Strategy), the Army
is increasing our lethality along three focused priorities:
readiness, modernization, and reform.
Readiness is the top priority, because only a ready total
Army--regular Army, Guard, and Reserve--can deter conflict,
defeat enemies, and enable the joint force to win decisively.
We are focused--we are refocusing training for our soldiers to
be more lethal and more resilient on the high-intensity
battlefield of the future. We are also increasing home-station
training, getting more repetitions for our formations at the
company level and below. We are giving training time back to
commanders by reducing certain self-imposed mandatory training
requirements not tied to increased lethality and by eliminating
excessive reporting. We have maximized the number of Combat
Training Center rotations to 20 per year, four of which are
dedicated to the Reserve component. These rotations are focused
on the high-end conflict, replicating near-peer competitor
capabilities, including increased enemy lethality, degraded
communications, persistent observation, and a contested
environment.
And while the quality, training, and sprit of our soldiers
are what make the U.S. Army the most ready and lethal ground
combat force in history, our superiority is enabled by the best
weapons and equipment that we can provide. As such, our second
priority is modernization, or future readiness. To ensure our
soldiers never enter a fair fight, the Army is now increasing
its investments in modernizing the force. Our modernization
strategy is focused on one goal: making our soldiers and units
far more lethal and effective than any other adversary.
The establishment of the Army Futures Command this summer
is the best example of our commitment to the future lethality
of the force. Army Futures Command will address the key
shortcomings of the current acquisition system, providing unity
of command, effort, and purpose to the modernization process.
The Army has said--has also identified its top six
modernization priorities for the coming years. Each of these
priorities is detailed in my written statement, and each is the
purview of a newly established cross-functional team. The
purpose of these CFTs (Cross-Functional Teams) is to determine
the requirements of needed capabilities to ensure all
stakeholders are at the table from day one and to focus Army
resources on accelerated experimentation, prototyping, and
fielding. In order to ensure battlefield success, our doctrine
must reflect the threat environment we face and remain apace
with our other efforts to modernize our equipment.
Our third priority is reform, freeing up time, money, and
manpower to enhance readiness, accelerate modernization, and
ensure the efficient use of resources provided to us by the
American people. Our reform efforts, particularly within the
acquisition system, are long overdue. While Futures Command is
probably the boldest reform we are pursuing, there are other
acquisition reform initiatives that we are taking. Some of
these reforms include reinvigorating the Army Requirements
Oversight Council, moving major defense acquisition programs
back to the service, and using other transactional authorities
to accelerate fielding in limited situations. Another essential
reform effort is development of a modernized personnel system
based on the principals and practices of talent management that
are found in the private sector, a system much more open,
flexible, and dynamic so that we can better attract, develop,
and retain the best and brightest our Nation has to offer.
A ready and modernized Army is critical to defend the
Nation, but we must not overlook what makes us remarkable. For
this, I have outlined three enduring priorities. First, taking
care of our soldiers, civilians, and their families. Second, a
service-wide recommitment to the Army's values, especially by
leaders, to treat everyone with dignity and respect. And
finally, strengthening our alliances and partnerships by
building stronger ties through a number of initiatives. I look
forward to discussing these with you, as time permits.
With that, let me thank you again for this committee's
continued support of the Army, and specifically the defense
appropriations and funding increases requested in the fiscal
year 2018 and fiscal year 2019 budgets. I look forward to your
questions and appreciate the opportunity to discuss these
important matters with you today.
Thank you.
Senator Shelby. General Milley.
STATEMENT OF GENERAL MARK A. MILLEY, CHIEF OF STAFF
General Milley. Thank you, Chairman Shelby and Ranking
Member Durbin, and thanks also to Vice Chairman Leahy and all
the distinguished members of the committee, for the opportunity
to testify this morning.
I want to start by thanking you and thanking all of
Congress, and this Appropriations Committee, in particular, for
the 2018 bill that was passed. And these appropriations will
continue to increase our current and our future readiness of
our Army, and positively impact the morale of the force. We
recognize that, with this significant budget, comes great
responsibility, and we will work diligently to spend these
dollars in a responsible manner over the last two quarters of
the fiscal year.
Thank you also for the general increases in the defense
caps over 2018 and 2019. And these increases will support our
new National Defense Strategy, as propagated by General Mattis,
or Secretary of Defense Mattis, and advance the Army's
readiness and lethality while allowing our Army to modernize
for the future. These increases have stopped a steep, lengthy
decline. They've stopped the bleeding of the Army. And the Army
is on the mend. And I can report out to you today that, after 2
and a half years as the Chief of Staff of the Army, we are in
significantly better shape than we were just a short time ago,
and that is through the generosity of this Congress and the
American people. It's essential that we maintain these
increases, as returning to BCA (Budget Control Act) caps will
halt our ability to modernize and will reverse our recent gains
in readiness, because a demand for a ready, able, and lethal
Army is not decreasing.
Today, as noted by Senator Durbin, we have over 180,000
soldiers supporting combatant commands around the world,
including ongoing operations in the Middle East, including
deterring adversaries in Europe, and including deterring
adversaries in the Asia-Pacific region. The Army roughly fills
about 50 percent of annual planned demand by any combatant
command, and about 60 percent of all emergent or unplanned
demand by combatant commanders. We have increased the number of
our Combat Training Center rotations, as noted by Secretary
Esper. We've improved our equipment operational readiness
rates, and improved the flow of spare parts. We've replenished
our Army pre-positioned stocks in both Asia and Europe, and we
have improved our munition stocks around the globe. In short,
we've significantly improved our manning shortfalls, filled
holes in overall readiness of our operational and deployable
units, significantly better than just 24 months ago.
We have a better Army today, and we have it because of you
and the American people. However, we cannot be content with
simply being ready for today's global demands. Instead, we have
to continue to focus on readiness, both now and in the future.
The National Defense Strategy calls for us to build a more
lethal force. We face a long-term competition with China and
Russia, a serious regional threat from Iran as well as ongoing
operations against terrorism, and we remain cautiously
optimistic, but we remain vigilant about the situation with
North Korea. We know these great-power competitors, both China
and Russia, have made significant advances in the development
of advanced weapons technologies and the capabilities of their
military forces, and I'll be happy to provide a classified
briefing on those from an Army perspective, if you desire.
We must maintain our overmatch and increase our lethality
as an Army on any future battlefield, but doing so will require
predictable, adequate, sustained, and timely funding. The
Army's fiscal year 2019 budget reflects our priorities, as
Secretary said, to grow and maintain a highly capable force, to
modernize and build our future force, and to take proper care
of our soldiers and family members and Army civilians while
being good stewards of the taxpayer dollars.
What this budget will provide for the taxpayer is an Army
that has increased capacity, an Army that is increasingly
lethal, an Army that is increasingly ready, and an Army that
provides overmatch relative to any possible enemy. It will
assure our allies, it'll deter our enemies, it'll allow us to
compete effectively, and if necessary, it'll allow us to defeat
our enemies on a field of battle. We recognize that the
American taxpayer entrusts us with a significant amount of
money to meet these demands. And we will be diligent stewards
of our resources, and we will enforce accountability to make
effective use of every single dollar. And your support for the
fiscal year 2019 budget will ensure our soldiers remain ready
to fight, not only tonight, but also tomorrow.
So, thank you for the opportunity to testify, and I look
forward to your questions.
Prepared Statement of Hon. Mark T. Esper and General Mark A. Milley
America's Army is lethal and effective. Our lethality provides the
assured capability to defeat enemy ground forces through sustained land
campaigns in defense of our vital national interests. To maintain our
land power dominance, we will concentrate our efforts on our
priorities--Readiness, Modernization, and Reform--to ensure America's
Army is always ready, now and in the future. We also live by enduring
priorities to take care of our Soldiers, Civilians, and their Families;
to re-commit to the Army values and warrior ethos that guide us; and to
strengthen relationships with allies and partners.
We thank Congress for its strong support, which has enabled the
Army to halt the decline in our warfighting readiness. Importantly
though, the Army needs timely, predictable, adequate, and sustained
funding to preserve these readiness gains now and in the future. The
Army's fiscal year 2019 budget prioritizes our resources based on the
President's guidance, and our strategy is consistent with the National
Defense Strategy. This year's budget allows us to continue to build
readiness for high intensity conflict and begin building our future
force through key modernization efforts. It also enables us to continue
to take care of our people and institute reforms across the Army to
free up time, money, and manpower. Army leadership, with congressional
support, is committed to ensuring America's Army is ready now and
modernizing for the future.
strategic environment
Our Army faces a complex and demanding strategic environment. This
will require the Army to remain ready for a wide range of missions to
defend American interests. We must build readiness for high-intensity
conflict and modernize our forces to ensure overmatch against near-peer
competitors, while sustaining irregular warfare as a core competency.
Our competitors are seeking to alter global strategic realities for
their own benefit, often at the expense of U.S. interests and those of
our allies and partners. Russia and China continue to assert themselves
in an effort to gain dominance in key regions, and are developing
advanced weapons to achieve parity both strategically and in close
combat. North Korea has pursued nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles
for decades with significant advances over the last year. Iran is
attempting to expand its regional influence by developing more advanced
ballistic missiles and supporting insurgent groups against U.S. allies
in the region. Additionally, these state actors use a range of actions
short of armed conflict, from cyber-attacks to irregular warfare
through proxies that destabilize regions without attribution. Finally,
terrorist groups continue to threaten the U.S. homeland, U.S. citizens,
U.S. interests abroad, and our allies and partners.
Soldiers directly contribute to our Nation's efforts to counter
these challenges by serving combatant commanders worldwide with over
178,000 Soldiers operating across a wide array of missions. The Army is
committed to maintaining peace, stability, and security in the Asia-
Pacific with nearly 80,000 Soldiers assigned, deployed, and forward-
stationed throughout the region. 24,000 Soldiers continue to deter
North Korean aggression, with the Army focused on building readiness to
respond to any contingency, including potential conflict. In Europe,
the Army has over 30,000 forward stationed and rotational forces. In
the Middle East, the troop increase in Afghanistan has already begun to
advance the train, advise, and assist mission at the tactical level. In
support of homeland defense, the Army provides over 15,000 Soldiers as
well as a Global Response Force of 9,500 personnel, capable of
deploying anywhere in the world within 96 hours. Over the last year,
Army forces were critical in disaster relief efforts in Puerto Rico and
the U.S. Virgin Islands resulting from Hurricanes Maria and Irma, the
California wild fires and mud slides, and widespread flooding in the
central United States.
The Army's competitive advantage is our Soldiers' ability to
rapidly deploy when and where required, gain and maintain overmatch,
and achieve decisive victory against any adversary. This produces a
combat-credible deterrent against potential adversaries who are hostile
to our Nation's interests. Sustained, predictable, adequate, and timely
funding will secure the Army's ability to continue to defend our
Nation's interests.
the army's budget request
The Army's total fiscal year 2019 budget request totals $182.1
billion which consists of $148.4 billion in the base budget and $33.7
billion for Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO). This represents an 8
percent increase over our total fiscal year 2018 President's Budget
plus amendments. Our request reflects the Army's priorities: grow and
maintain a ready high-end force; build our future force through key
modernization efforts; continue to take care of our people; and
institute reforms that lead the Army to be even better stewards of
taxpayer dollars.
readiness to fight tonight
Ready forces ensure that the Army can compete against our
adversaries, deter conflict, and win decisively. fiscal year 2017 and
fiscal year 2018 authorizations and fiscal year 2017 appropriations
provided critical support to fill manning requirements, fund important
gains to training such as increasing combat training center rotations,
increasing equipment operational readiness rates, building and
modernizing Army Prepositioned Stocks, and beginning to address
munitions shortfalls. Barring a significant increase in demand for land
forces, the Army will attain our Total Force readiness recovery goals
in 2022. To ensure that we meet this goal, we need predictable,
adequate, sustained, timely funding, enabling us to sufficiently
organize, man, train, and equip our formations.
We are growing the Army by both recruiting and retaining physically
fit, mentally tough Soldiers without lowering standards. Increased end
strength has enabled the Army to fill manning shortfalls in key
formations. Soldiers within the ranks are also increasingly deployable,
with a 4 percent decrease in Regular Army non-deployable rates over the
past year, and an overall goal of a 5 percent non-deployable rate by
fiscal year 2021. Contributing to this is increased holistic fitness,
improved medical tracking, unit injury prevention and physical therapy
programs, and leveraging end strength increases to raise operational
unit manning levels. These are accompanied by new policies intended to
rebuild a culture of deployability across the force. As a result, the
number of brigade combat teams (BCTs) in the highest state of personnel
readiness has more than doubled.
Tough, realistic training is key to maintaining our competitive
advantage in the current security environment. In order to increase
Soldiers' opportunity to conduct training focused on lethality, we have
reduced, and will continue to reduce, ancillary mandatory training,
requirements, and distractions at home station. We are also using
virtual simulations to increase training repetitions for small units,
creating greater proficiency at unit collective tasks. Leaders across
the Army are taking steps to ensure a predictable training management
cycle, and returning our training focus to preparation for a high-end
fight validated at combat training centers. However, these units can
only remain ready if they remain together, so we must also find
innovative ways to meet combatant command demand without breaking apart
our baseline combat formations.
An important part of the Army's effort to maintain the readiness of
the Army's BCTs for major combat operations is the security force
assistance brigade (SFAB). The SFAB will provide combatant commanders
with a skilled advisory force to team with our security partners
worldwide. Previously, we assigned BCTs to conduct advisory missions,
breaking those formations apart. The first SFAB deployed to Afghanistan
in the spring of 2018. We request congressional support to man, train,
and equip six SFABs: five in the Regular Army and one in the Army
National Guard.
In addition to improved training, our Army must have sufficient
equipment. We are modernizing our equipment, refining our supply
distribution systems, and enhancing our Prepositioned Stocks to balance
our capabilities across multiple threats and theaters. However, we
continue to have shortages of some critical preferred munitions. As a
result, Holston Army Ammunition Plant in Tennessee is expanding
production capacity, and Pine Bluff Arsenal in Arkansas and McAlester
Army Ammunition Plant in Oklahoma are beginning repair and upgrade
programs. We request congressional support as we continue to reform and
align requirements and resources within the Organic Industrial Base.
modernization: ready for the future fight
Over the past decade, the Army made necessary but difficult choices
to defer modernization in order to support combat operations. We
upgraded current weapons systems rather than acquire new or next
generation technologies. However, we can no longer afford to delay
modernization without risking overmatch on future battlefields. Thanks
to congressional support, the Army now has the means to modestly
increase investments towards modernization and lay the groundwork for
increased funding in the coming years. To improve modernization we will
focus on three things. First, we will establish the Army Futures
Command to reform our acquisition process through unity of command,
unity of effort, and increased accountability. Second, through the
efforts of eight cross functional teams, we will focus these additional
resources towards six modernization priorities to ensure future
overmatch. Third, Army leadership will strengthen our relationship with
industry, our allies, and the top intellectual and innovative talent
our Nation has to offer. Collectively, these improvements and others
will help ensure our lethality and future readiness.
The Army must adapt quicker than our adversaries to maintain our
competitive advantage. This is the rationale for the Army Futures
Command. The formal establishment of Army Futures Command in the summer
of 2018 will represent the most significant organizational change to
the Army's structure since 1973. The new command will consolidate the
Acquisition process under one organization with a mission to deliver
integrated solutions for increased lethality and capabilities to the
Soldier when and where they are needed.
The fiscal year 2019 budget coupled with our reforms will enable
the Army to accelerate upgrades to critical capabilities, managing
current risk while we innovate and prototype with a goal to begin
fielding the next generation of combat vehicles, aerial platforms, and
weapons systems by 2028. These vehicles and weapons must be better than
anything our adversaries will deploy in the future. We will focus
modernization, science and technology, and research and development
efforts on six modernization priorities, managed and assessed by eight
cross functional teams:
--Long Range Precision Fires--modernize a cannon for extended range,
volume, and increased missile capabilities to restore Army
dominance in range. Systems like the Extended Range Cannon
Artillery, which has been accelerated to fiscal year 2023, and
the Long Range Precision Fires Missile, accelerated to fiscal
year 2021 protect and ensure freedom of maneuver to forces in
contact with the enemy in deep, close, and rear operations. The
Army has included $73.7 million for Long Range Precision Fires
in the fiscal year 2018 Enhancement Request, with $22 million
in additional requested funds in the fiscal year 2019
President's Budget.
--Next Generation of Combat Vehicles--develop prototypes that lead to
the replacement of our current fleet of infantry fighting
vehicles, and later tanks, in manned, unmanned, and optionally
manned variants. A next generation vehicle is needed to enhance
Soldier protection, increase mobility, and make our forces more
lethal. Prototypes for both manned and robotic vehicles will
arrive in fiscal year 2021, with $13.1 million requested in the
fiscal year 2018 Enhancement, and $84 million in the fiscal
year 2019 President's Budget.
--Future Vertical Lift--incorporate manned, unmanned, and optionally
manned variant vertical lift platforms that provide superior
speed, range, endurance, altitude, and payload capabilities.
These include the Future Unmanned Aircraft System, which is
undergoing experimentation and will be prototyped in fiscal
year 2024, and the Modular Open System Approach, a software
prototype that has been accelerated from fiscal year 2028 to
fiscal year 2026. $25.1 million is included in the fiscal year
2018 Enhancement Request for Future Vertical Lift, with
additional funds included in the fiscal year 2019 President's
Budget.
--Network--develop expeditionary infrastructure solutions to fight
reliably on the move in any environment. The Army Network
should incorporate electronic warfare; resilient, secure, and
interoperable hardware; software and information systems;
assured position, navigation, and timing; and low signature
networks. $180 million is included in the fiscal year 2018
Enhancement Request to conduct Network related experimentation
next fiscal year, including an Infantry Brigade at the Joint
Readiness Training Center this summer, and a Stryker Brigade by
early 2019.
--Air and Missile Defense--ensure our future combat formations are
protected from modern and advanced air and missile delivered
fires, including drones. We are focusing on capabilities that
include Mobile Short-Range Air Defense with directed energy and
advanced energetics. We are also accelerating the fielding of
existing air defense capabilities over the coming years.
--Soldier Lethality--develop the next generation of individual and
squad weapons; improve body armor, sensors, and radios; and
develop a synthetic training environment that simulates the
modern battlefield, allowing our Soldiers multiple iterations
before they ever deploy. The fiscal year 2018 Enhancement
Request includes $81 million to experiment and procure Enhanced
Night Vision Goggles by fiscal year 2021.
These modernization priorities illustrate how our Army will adapt
to future threats. The cross functional teams are the driving force for
the modernization priorities. Each cross functional team uses technical
experimentation and demonstrations, in conjunction with increased
engagement with industry and commercial sector partners, to inform
prototype development and reduce the requirement process.
The Army remains concerned about preserving key skills and
capabilities for our original equipment manufacturers and their key
supplier bases. Collaboration with our private sector partners early in
the process helps reduce risk. Efforts such as the Army Manufacturing
Technology Program have provided affordable and timely manufacturing
solutions that assist our industry partners to address manufacturing
risks. Collectively, congressional support for the Army Futures
Command, implementation of the future recommendations of the cross
functional teams, and a strong relationship with the commercial base
has one simple goal: make Soldiers more lethal and ready for the
future.
reform
To achieve these objectives, we are assessing everything we do
across the Army, looking for ways to free up time, money, and manpower
for our top priorities. In support of DoD reform efforts, we have
placed increased emphasis on a number of business reforms and
stewardship initiatives. Specifically, we are instituting Army-wide
programs that address Acquisition Reform; Contract Management; Budget
Execution; divestiture and consolidation of legacy information
technology systems; and auditability of our resources.
The Army's Acquisition Reform Initiative shortens the development
timeline and approval process of capabilities requirements. This reform
initiative directs the consolidation of two oversight groups into one
and provides Army leadership with access to decisions earlier in the
decision cycle. The Army is creating strategic enterprise metrics
through policies and procedures intended to drive significant savings
from the reform of contracted services per year from 2020 to 2024. We
are also monitoring de-obligating funds through the Command
Accountability and Execution Review to increase Army annual buying
power. Additionally, we are improving our auditability. This year, we
plan to complete an independent audit that will further enable the Army
to improve our business practices and management of our resources.
Another key area of reform is in Army institutions. We are
undertaking efforts to optimize non-divisional two-star headquarters
and above to enable faster decisionmaking. We are beginning by
optimizing key essential tasks at the Army Secretariat, Army Staff, and
Army Commands to address manning requirement needs at the division
level and below. Next, revised experimentation and war gaming will
accelerate new Army warfighting doctrine, providing a comprehensive
framework to underpin how we train and how we fight. And finally, a new
talent management based personnel system will optimize individuals'
effectiveness and professional development, and ensure we develop and
retain exceptional Leaders and Soldiers of unmatched lethality.
soldiers, civilians, and families: our greatest asset
The United States Army is composed of Regular Army, Army National
Guard, and Army Reserve Soldiers, Civilians, and Family members serving
the Nation at home and abroad. The quality of Soldiers the Army
attracts and retains is extremely high. Quality metrics for Army
recruits are at their highest point, exceeding every DoD-mandated
education and aptitude threshold for the eighth year in a row. Waivers
for recruits are down nearly 8 percent over the past decade. The Army's
long term success depends on developing smart, innovative leaders of
character who bring a wide range of skills and experiences to our
ranks. We will remain a standards-based organization and maintain the
values that we have established for those who enter and serve the Army
and for those Soldiers who remain for a career. We will not lower
standards to meet our end strength goals.
The Army is committed to taking care of our Soldiers, Civilians,
and their Families by maintaining opportunities for promotions and
schooling, providing attractive career options, and continuing quality
of life programs. We ensure the well-being of our people through world-
class medical services, quality facilities to live and work, and child
care and youth services. New civilian hiring initiatives for spouses
promise to accelerate work opportunities on Army installations, while
other reforms may allow them to sustain careers by reducing the
frequency of moves. The cumulative effect of these programs is to
increase retention through increased satisfaction with Army life.
We also take care of individual Soldiers and strengthen teams
through Sexual Harassment/Assault Prevention and Response initiatives,
active Suicide Prevention measures, Army Warrior Care, and transition
assistance through our Soldier for Life program. In particular, a new
task force is addressing suicide reduction in the Army National Guard
and Army Reserve. Taking care of our people ensures Soldiers and
Families have the support they need to focus on preparing to deploy,
fight, and win our Nation's wars.
conclusion
On behalf of the entire Army, we thank Congress for their support
that allows us to continue to improve readiness and make an increased
investment in our future Army. Our current security environment
continues to have numerous challenges, and they are growing. With
predictable, adequate, sustained, and timely funding, we will increase
capacity, train advisory forces, close critical munitions gaps, improve
modernization, and take care of our Soldiers, Civilians, and their
Families. We are a standards-based organization accountable to Congress
and the American people. We know that the only acceptable result of our
efforts is a lethal Army, ready now, and prepared for the future.
Senator Shelby. Thank you, General.
RESEARCH FUNDING REALIGNMENT
I'll direct my first question to you, Mr. Secretary. The
2019 budget request that this committee is currently
considering here proposes to realign around 80 percent of the
Army's science and technology funding to its six modernization
priorities, about $1.1 billion, I think. How is the Army
ensuring, Mr. Secretary, that it isn't walking away from
previous investments in basic research? And can you describe to
the committee today how the Army will incorporate changes in
modernization needs in the future in this area?
Secretary Esper. Yes, sir. We have preserved the funding
for basic research. The--what we did align, though, is the
research beyond that that is in the S&T (Science and
Technology) budget. And you're correct, over a billion dollars.
The purpose was, as you noted, to make sure it was aligned with
our six modernization priorities, that we were maximizing every
single dollar that the taxpayer gave us for these types of
accounts to ensure that we get what we're looking for, in terms
of those capabilities we need in the coming years to fulfill
the National Defense Strategy.
UPDATE ON MODERNIZATION PRIORITIES
Senator Shelby. Mr. Secretary, could you update the
committee on the progress--of efforts, that is, on the Army
modernization strategy with the new Army Futures Command
centered on six modernization priorities and eight cross-
functional teams, as I understand? Can you do that?
Secretary Esper. Yes, sir. We set up a modernization
strategy report a couple of weeks ago that was due to Congress.
The committee should have a copy of that. The key aspect of
that is, it talks about the future strategic environment that
we face, that operational environment, as guided by the
National Defense Strategy. What it aims to do is to rebuild our
capabilities and capacity in those six modernization areas--
priority areas--beginning with long-range precision fires
through next-generation combat vehicle, future vertical lift,
the network, air missile defense, and then, finally, soldier
lethality. With those six priorities and the eight cross-
functional teams aligned to them, we believe our efforts will
focus on those lines and allow us a greater--a faster path to
deliver to the soldiers those tools and capabilities they need
to fight and win in future battlefields.
Senator Shelby. Mr. Secretary, last spring, it's my
understanding that the Army brought out a new strategy to
modernize its tactical network in an effort to meet operational
needs in today's congested and contested environment. Can you
speak on that for a few minutes?
Secretary Esper. Yes, sir, I can. And I'm sure the Chief of
Staff may want to elaborate on it.
My understanding is, at the time, coming out of what we saw
in Ukraine, with the Ukrainians versus the Russians, then
followed by a report by the Institute for Defense Analysis, we
determined that the network that was built for the Army in the
2000s and beyond focused on Iraq and Afghanistan, worked for
fixed sites, but was not capable of holding up in future
conflict that saw much more--much greater need for maneuver,
saw us against a threat that had electronic warfare
capabilities that could interrupt our networks, et cetera. And
so, the need was to move to a strategy that was--that we have
dubbed ``halt, fix, and pivot.'' So, we halted those pieces of
that system that would not survive beyond a fixed-site type of
location against a low-intensity conflict. We are aiming to fix
the capabilities that we think we can harvest and use for the
future fight. And then, right now, for the pivot, we are
exploring commercial technologies. We believe that's largely
the path we need to go to ensure that we continue to upgrade
our networks and can sustain the capabilities at the pace of
commercial technology development.
Senator Shelby. General, do you want to comment on that?
General Milley. The Secretary covered it adequately. I
would just add that the current network--and it's not just an
Army issue, it's a broader U.S. military issue--but the current
network does have a series of vulnerabilities associated with
it because of the nature of what it was built for. And given a
shift to great-power competition against the likes of China or
Russia, we definitely need to--significant improvement in that
capability. So, on a classified level, Senator, I'd be happy to
give excruciating levels of detail on what those
vulnerabilities are, if necessary or asked for.
UPDATE ON AFGHANISTAN OPERATIONS
Senator Shelby. General, the Army's first security force
assistance brigade recently deployed to Afghanistan to advise
and to assist Afghan National Security Forces. In view of this
deployment and others, could you provide for the committee here
an update on our Afghanistan operations and on the Department's
new South Asia strategy? What you can talk about here.
General Milley. Certainly, Senator. A brief note on the
security force assistance brigade. The first one deployed, as
you noted. The second one is being formed currently at Fort
Bragg. Secretary is going to make a decision here shortly on
the stationing of the other SFABs (Security Force Assistance
Brigades). There's going to be five in the Active component,
one in the National Guard. And their purpose is to provide a
significantly enhanced capability of advisors to host-nation
partners in order to coach, teach, mentor, train, advise,
assist, and enable as part of a broader strategy to work by,
with, and through our indigenous partners.
With respect to South Asia and Afghanistan, our current
strategy is--as you know, is the four Rs plus S. And that is to
regionalize the issue of Afghanistan, to realign our efforts
there, to reinforce with additional capabilities, which is
being done, and to reconcile with the Taliban and others. On
that--the last one is led by the Government of Afghanistan. And
then to sustain that level of effort. At the end of the day,
the effort in Afghanistan, it's my opinion, will come to
conclusion with reconciliation between the various insurgent
groups and the Government of Afghanistan. And we're there to
support them in order to prevent future attacks on the homeland
of the United States.
STRYKER DOUBLE-V HULL
Senator Shelby. General, I'm going to get into the Stryker
double-V hull. After the 2019 budget was submitted, the Army
reassessed its priorities, as I understand it, for the Stryker
vehicle, including modernization requirements for--of the
Stryker brigade combat teams. Could you give us an interview--
an overview of the benefits of converting all Army flat-
bottomed Stryker vehicles to the double-V hull, the A-1
variant, and describe how the Army will resource the new
requirement?
General Milley. The--as you know, Senator, over the last
16, 17 years of continuous combat, we've had a lot of lessons
learned. And one of those lessons learned is the vulnerability
to IEDs, improvised explosive devices that detonate underneath
the vehicle and come up through the bottom of the hull. So, we
also learned that making a V cut in the bottom of the hull
disperses the energy from the explosive and provides much
greater--increased survivability to the crew inside. So,
double-V hull----
Senator Shelby. What is the survivability rate with the V
hull compared to the other?
General Milley. It's significantly better. I don't know the
exact specific numbers----
Senator Shelby. But, a lot.
General Milley [continuing]. But I would put it up in the
80- to 90-percent----
Senator Shelby. Can you furnish that for the record?
General Milley. Absolutely. I'll get you the actual
numbers, but it's 80 to 90 percent better, easy money.
[The information follows:]
The U.S. Army Test and Evaluation Command conducted underbelly
blast testing on Flat Bottom Hull and Double-V Hull Strykers. Analysis
of those test results indicates the Stryker Double V-Hull is over 85
percent more survivable than flat bottom Strykers against underbelly
blasts.
Senator Shelby. Thank you.
General Milley. And I would much--personally, prefer having
my soldiers driving a double-V hull than a flat-bottom. Your
chance of survival is----
Senator Shelby. Thank you.
General Milley [continuing]. Significantly better.
Thank you.
Senator Shelby. Senator Durbin.
Senator Durbin. Thank you very much.
COMPARATIVE DEFENSE SPENDING
And I'm going to ask you all a townhall question. It's the
kind of thing we might run into in any town in America.
``Senator, you tell us that one of our biggest threats,
greatest enemies, is Russia. Turns out, we read recently, that
Russia spends about $80 billion a year on its military budget--
$80 billion. Senator, aren't you increasing the Department of
Defense budget by that amount this year and maybe again next
year? So, let me get this straight. We're spending $600-$700
billion dollars against an enemy that's spending $80 billion.
Why is this even a contest?''
General Milley. I'd just make one comment. I've seen
comparative numbers of U.S. defense budget versus China, U.S.
defense budget versus Russia, or any other numbers of
countries. What is not often commented is the cost of labor.
And everybody who takes Econ 101 knows cost of labor is your
bigger--biggest factor of production. U.S. cost of soldiers
is--we're the best-paid military in the world, by a longshot.
Easily 50 percent--actually, it's a little bit more--is in the
MILPERS account. The cost of Russian soldiers or Chinese
soldiers is a tiny fraction. So, we would have to normalize the
data in order to compare apples to apples and oranges to
oranges. We'd have to normalize the data, take out the MILPERS
accounts for both the Chinese, Russians, and/or the U.S., and
then compare the investment costs. And I think you'll find that
Chinese and Russian investments--modernization, new weapon
system systems, et cetera, their R&D, which is all government-
owned and also is much cheaper--I think you'd find a much
closer comparison, Senator.
Secretary Esper. Senator, I would also add that, unlike
Russia or China, we have global responsibilities, we have
commitments, of course, with our NATO (North Atlantic Treaty
Organization) partners that we have to maintain. We have
bilateral defense agreements with several countries in Asia.
And you can't look at one, you have to look at the sum of
things. And I would argue, as well, what I would say is the--
while the price of deterrence and maintaining peace is high,
the cost of fighting a war is much greater, and the cost of
fighting a war and losing it is even greater than that.
RESOURCE/FUNDING ALLOCATIONS
Senator Durbin. The other thing I've discussed with
Secretary Mattis and others--we've discussed this--is the fact
that we readily concede that, under current situations, we can
do better, in terms of procurement. There's money that's being
wasted, money that should be more carefully spent. And I take
it from what you've described as your goals--readiness,
modernization, and reform--that the last goal is one that
really speaks to that, particularly. There are a couple of
things we've done, that I'm familiar with personally--digital
manufacturing, which is a Department of Defense initiative to
create new ways of producing things that are more efficient and
most cost-efficient. The Army Research Lab is trying to reach
out into universities. We have ongoing effort, like--such as
this, in the City of Chicago, so that we can link--in the State
of Illinois--and link up the best university research resources
with the needs of the modern Army so that we're not only coming
up with the right requirements of what we want to achieve, but
we're also coming off with the best innovation and budgeting
and processes that bring those savings home.
Can you tell us what you're hoping to achieve with the Army
Futures Command when it comes to that?
Secretary Esper. Yes, sir. First of all, we are pursuing a
number of initiatives across the board to free up time, money,
and manpower, mainly for the reasons that you mentioned in your
opening remarks. We don't know what fiscal year 2020 will look
like, or 2021 or 2022, so we want to free up time, money, and
manpower as much as possible to have more control over our
destiny in those out years.
That said, Army Futures Command gets a lot of the
attention, for good reasons. It'll be the biggest reform of the
Army in 45 years. One of the key aspects of it is to make sure
that it presents a different face toward the private sector so
that we--what we do is reach out and invite more--not just the
traditional defense vendors, but also nontraditional defense
suppliers--small business, the entrepreneurs. We reach out to
academia. We tap into that talent, wherever it may be, to make
sure that we maximize every dollar we get to put it back into
our soldiers. Because, as you said, rightly, we've squandered--
we've--the Army acquisition has had a mixed record in the past;
and certainly on some programs, we've squandered billions and
we've left the soldiers without the equipment they need. We're
trying to fundamentally reform that. And one aspect of that
that Army Futures Command promises is the greater outreach to
those centers of innovation that are out there in either
academia or the private sector.
Senator Durbin. I think an example we've talked about is
the WIN-T program. I don't know how many years ago, the Army
sat down and said, ``We've got to modernize battlefield
communications. And let's draw up a list of requirements of
what we want to achieve.'' It was years ago that that list was
produced. And in that period of time since that list was
produced, to the modern time, the way we communicate as
individuals, with our cellphones and other means, has just
changed dramatically.
Secretary Esper. That's right.
Senator Durbin. The pace of change is much faster than even
the vision of those who were talking about battlefield
communications in the next 10 years. We've got to find a way to
tap into that innovation, to make that part of our own effort
to modernize and protect our troops. I'm sure you agree with
that, because we've talked about that repeatedly.
Secretary Esper. Yes, sir. I mean, the ``halt, fix, and
pivot'' piece of the--of our network strategy, focusing on the
pivot piece, as I described in response to the Chairman, is, we
know that the commercial technology is moving at a much quicker
pace than we could ever keep up with, even if we tried. So, how
do we tap into that? I will tell you that, in some of the new
systems that I've seen so far--and I had a demonstration given
to me a few months ago at Fort Myer--we've taken what used to
be a stack of servers that were as high as a refrigerator, and
reduced it down to one box the size of a VCR (videocassette
recorder). And that, alone, in terms of dollars and space,
gives us tremendous savings. I saw the same thing in a Stryker
vehicle, where we took what used to be a series of pieces of
equipment that occupied an entire seat or section of a Stryker,
completely freed up by putting in a small box that was adapted
from the commercial sector.
So, that's what I think you'll see. As compared to us
buying into a--having a lengthy set of requirements and buying
into a piece of hardware that will last many, many years, what
we'll probably buy is a commercial piece of hardware, more
likely, and then update the software as we go. And you'll see
us buy different pieces as we go along, just to keep up with
technology that's happening in the private sector.
SOUTHERN BORDER
Senator Durbin. I was going to get into the southern border
update. My time is expired, though. But, I--perhaps one of my
colleagues will ask, or I'll come back.
Thank you.
Secretary Esper. Yes, sir.
Senator Shelby. Senator Leahy.
Senator Leahy. Thank you, Chairman. Thank you, Senator
Durbin.
It's interesting, Doctor, your conversation with Senator
Durbin. And I think of the evolution. I remember the very
frightening time when President Reagan was shot, and Vice
President Bush was out of town, but coming back and trying to
communicate with the White House and all. And we talked about
it later. The communication gear he had on Air Force 2, similar
to what was on Air Force 1, was years behind what private
planes had, commercial companies that owned, and all that. I
said, ``Why don't you go to that or''--and then, around that
time, we had somebody testify how we had to prepare for nuclear
war and they needed $50,000 Xerox machines, if you remember
what those were, and $50,000 being lead--or they be special--
they wouldn't be hurt by radioactivity so they could send
communications back and forth. Well, why don't you just--I
said, ``Why don't you just buy a couple of these things and
copy machines--$100,000 copy machine, just buy a couple of
normal ones, stick them in a lead box, and if you ever need
them, bring them out?'' Hadn't thought of that. Well, small
things, but I think we have to--I was dying to hear your answer
to Senator Durbin.
EXPANSION OF PILOT PROGRAM TO KEEP ACTIVE/RESERVE UNITS TOGETHER
General Milley, you started a pilot program 3 years ago to
associate the Active Duty and Reserve component units with each
other. We've discussed this. They'd wear the same patch, be in
the same readiness requirements, and make sure they deploy
together. Your old unit, the 10th Mountain Division, it was a
storied unit. Senator Dole served in that. Vermont's 86th
Brigade Combat Team make up one of the--I'm very proud of them.
This year, the Georgia National Guard, the 3rd Infantry
Division, are at the Joint Readiness Training Center, preparing
for an upcoming deployment.
I think these kind of associations should be permanent and
expanded throughout the Army. How do you feel about it?
General Milley. The entire effort, we started 2 and a half
years ago, Senator. Today, we've got seven divisions
participating in it--seven Active divisions, one Guard
division, and so eight out of 18 divisions. And the whole idea
is to give meaning to the word ``total Army.'' As you know, the
Army's got the regular Army, the Active Duty Army, the National
Guard, and the Army Reserve. And in the Army Reserve and the
National Guard, they don't wear ``U.S. National Guard'' on
their uniform. It says ``U.S. Army.'' So, we want to give real
meaning to the idea of total Army. So, we want to integrate
National Guard units with our Active-component units. So, we've
done that with seven divisions. We've got three separate
brigades involved. And we've got a few other units throughout--
and you mentioned 10th Mountain and the Vermont Guard. It's a
very effective program. Units are actually swapping patches. We
think it's increased the readiness of the National Guard units
associated with it, but also we've increased the readiness of
the regular Army units that are doing it.
But, it's very, very important program, and we want to
continue it and expand it as we go down through the years.
Senator Leahy. And you see these associations becoming
permanent?
General Milley. Absolutely. I mean, they're--by law and--to
make it permanent--let me caveat that--to make that permanent
is--can be somewhat difficult, only in the sense of--the
National Guard comes under the statutory responsibility of the
Governors----
Senator Leahy. Sure.
General Milley [continuing]. Until they're Federalized.
But, that's why we call them ``associated units,'' as opposed
to permanently assigned to the divisions. But, associating them
on a permanent or a habitual basis----
Senator Leahy. The training----
General Milley [continuing]. Is something that we're trying
to do.
Senator Leahy [continuing]. And all the rest.
General Milley. The training, the readiness. We want to do
that on a continuous and permanent basis.
ARMY MOUNTAIN WARFARE SCHOOL
Senator Leahy. Okay. And speak of--both of you, and
beginning with you, Mr. Secretary--we met a few days ago, and
we talked about the Army Mountain Warfare School that's located
in Jericho, Vermont. And I want to publicly thank you for the
call you made to our adjutant general after the avalanche in
March injured six soldiers. I'm grateful they're not worse, but
they--showed your concern and General Milley's concern. What's
the value of a mountaineering school?
Secretary Esper. Well, first of all, thank you for your
comment, Senator. And I am looking forward to visit the
Mountain Warfare School next winter to really spend some time
with them and fully understand. But, by reputation, which says
a lot for them, they are renowned for their expertise in
climbing and mountaineering, mountain warfare. And I think
that's a specialty that is important for an Army that needs to
be prepared to fight anytime, anywhere.
Senator Leahy. My wife and I climbed to our mountain trails
at our home with the snowshoes they've developed. They're a lot
better than the old style. And----
Secretary Esper. Yes, sir.
Senator Leahy [continuing]. Appreciate that. And the Army
JLTV (Joint Light Tactical Vehicle) development and
procurement's been highly successful, but we are still fielding
Humvees, at least until around 2050, by most estimates. We
have--I'm told we have more efficient power management systems,
band sensors, monitored torque vehicle held monitoring kits
through to remotely pilot the vehicles. Now, you've been
testing kits through remotely controlled Humvees. What's the
value of doing that?
Secretary Esper. Of--I'm sorry--doing which part, Senator?
Senator Leahy. Remotely controlling Humvees.
BENEFITS OF REMOTELY CONTROLLED COMBAT VEHICLES
Secretary Esper. Yes, sir. I think part of the vision that
the Chief and I are outlining is a future Army, where we have
a--where we have vehicles--combat vehicles that can be both
manned and unmanned. What that does is give us a great deal of
flexibility, in terms of how we employ them on the battlefield.
In cases where you could see, much as we saw during the Iraq
war, exposed convoys of soldiers moving supplies from, let's
say, Kuwait to Baghdad, if you had unmanned vehicles that could
make that--traverse that difficult road unmanned, then they
would--it would reduce the vulnerability of our soldiers. So,
that's an example of why we want to pursue unmanned combat
vehicles or capabilities in our combat fleet.
General Milley. Let me make a quick comment, Senator, if I
could. And I know you're out of time, but----
The character of war is changing fundamentally. We've
talked that at length. One of those is robotics. And the
probability is--my personal estimation is that robots will play
a significant role in ground combat inside of a decade, decade
and a half, in that range. Our adversaries, our competitors--
China, Russia, and others--are investing heavily and very
quickly in the use of robotic vehicles in all the domains--air,
maritime, and on the ground. And we are doing the same now. So,
under our priorities, all vehicles that the Army procures in
the out years, we want them to be dual- or actually triple-
purposed so that the vehicle has the--the command has the
option of it being manned, the commander has the option of it
being unmanned or robotic, or the commander has the option of
making it semi-autonomous, where it's controlled by a human,
depending on the tactical situation at the moment in time.
Senator Leahy. Good. Thank you very much, Secretary and
General.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
TECHNOLOGICAL COMPETITION
Senator Shelby. Before I recognize the next Senator.
Mr. Secretary, you have a--I want to touch on something
that Senator Leahy brought up, and that is that you--the Army
and the Air Force and the Navy, our Marines, everything, you
can't let the market run ahead of you, technologically. You
know, you, Mr. Secretary, come from the Army, West Point, but
you all come from the private sector in recent years, back to
the Secretary of the Army. You have a unique perspective on
this. But, Senator Leahy touched on something very important,
because of the technological revolution we're going through.
We've basically led it, but we've got some potential
adversaries that are nipping at our heels. How important is
that for us to know what's going on in the marketplace?
Secretary Esper. Senator, it's critically important. I
mean, the velocity at which technology's changing is just
enormous. So, if we don't reform how we--our acquisition
process----
Senator Shelby. We should never be behind the market,
should we?
Secretary Esper. Or at least right on its tail.
Senator Shelby. Right on.
Secretary Esper. In the past, one of the things we have to
fundamentally reform, which is the promise of our cross-
functional teams and Army Futures Command, is to reduce the
requirements process from what used to be 5 to 7 years down to
12 to 18 months. If not, by the time you determine the
requirements----
Senator Shelby. Yes.
Dr. Esper [continuing]. And build something, the
technology has changed again. So, we--that's why, particularly
with the network, we have to stay right on the edge of
technology with regard to communications. We're just there, or
just behind it, but we can't be--afford to be 3, 4, 5, 10 years
behind. We just won't have the capabilities we need.
Senator Shelby. I thought that was a very important point
that he brought up.
Secretary Esper. Yes, sir.
Senator Shelby. Senator Tester. Thank you for your
indulgence.
Senator Tester. You bet. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And I want to thank you, Dr. Esper and General Milley, for
your service and the people you represent. Thank you very, very
much.
The new National Defense Strategy focuses heavily on
preparing for the possibility of a near-peer threat. And I
think the President's budget request reflects that priority.
The Army National Guard is designating specific units as
focused readiness, and the Army Reserve has ready force X to
prepare for the near-peer possibility.
PERSONNEL IMPACT OF NEAR-PEER THREAT PREP
As the requirements of ongoing contingency operations stack
up with training and readiness for near-peer threats, what is
the impact on individual guardsmen or reservists? Is it more
training days? More deployments? Or anything else?
General Milley. Well, the initiative that we want to do is
increase the overall readiness of the National Guard.
Senator Tester. Yes.
General Milley. In order to do that, given the speed at
which a conflict could unfold, the current timelines of
mobilization and deployment are not small, and we want to
reduce the amount of time. So selected units in the Guard--the
National Guard Bureau has designated some of them as focused
readiness units along with the Army Forces Command. And so, we
do want to want to increase the amount of training days
associated with those particular units in order to ensure that
they are prepared and ready to go into ground combat.
Senator Tester. All right. And would more deployments
necessarily follow that?
General Milley. Well, after they're up to a certain level,
we would consider using them on a deployment if there was a
requirement from a combatant commander.
INCENTIVES FOR TIME AWAY FROM FAMILIES
Senator Tester. Okay. Is anything being done to take care
of the time away from families, which would--this would
require? Is anything being done, maybe TRICARE for units with
high operation tempos, retention bonuses in Santa Fe? Is
anything done in that line at all?
General Milley. Well, they would get the--once they're
brought on Active Duty, they get to same--they have access to--
--
Senator Tester. Okay. But, not for----
General Milley [continuing]. The same benefits as any other
soldier on Active Duty.
Senator Tester. But, the Active Duty doesn't necessarily
follow the additional training days, correct?
General Milley. Well, they're on Active Duty while they're
in the training day.
Senator Tester. Okay. All right.
Secretary Esper. And, Senator, I would add, you know, I was
in the Guard, myself. So, as a guardsman, I appreciate the
particular impacts that are unique to the Guard with regard to,
you know, time away from home, and particularly the challenges
for the employer. So, one of the things we have to be conscious
of, careful of, is employer fatigue with regard to multiple
training and deployments.
Senator Tester. Yes. I appreciate that.
Secretary Esper, thank you for the conversation we had last
Thursday. Appreciate you making time for that. And we talked a
little bit about the National Governors Association letter that
you and other Secretaries wrote on military families--spouses,
in particular. And I have got a call in to Governor Bullock to
take that up with him.
ARMY ASSISTANCE IN SPOUSAL DEVELOPMENT/EMPLOYMENT
Is there anything--any additional light you can shed on
what the Army's doing to assist military spouses with
professional development and seeking employment?
Secretary Esper. Yes, sir. It's one of--a top priority for
me. It's something that I discuss with spouses at nearly every
post I visit.
Senator Tester. Yes.
Secretary Esper. It is unacceptably high. And so, what
we're looking at is, I've--I'm--I have undertaken a series of
initiatives that I can control, myself, within the Army to
reduce the hiring time. The hiring time, right now, on average,
is around 140 days, which is unacceptable. So, I'm taking a
number of initiatives at my level to reduce that. There are
some things that I will eventually elevate to DOD (Department
of Defense). And then there are some things that I cannot fix,
because it's resident in OPM (Office of Personnel Management)
and how OPM does it.
Senator Tester. Okay.
Secretary Esper. So, if it were possible to move that
hiring authority either to DOD or DO---or to the Department of
the Army, we'd be able to really accelerate the--our ability to
hire spouses and civilians, writ large.
Senator Tester. Okay. And----
General Milley. Sir, if I could make a quick----
Senator Tester. Yes, go ahead.
General Milley [continuing]. Comment. One of the key things
for spouse employment for the Army, unique to the Army--I
suppose, is to--is long-term stabilization of soldier
assignments. That's a challenge for the Army, but that is
probably the biggest impediment to stabilizing a spousal--
spouse employment in a local area. The constant churn of 2-, 3-
year reassignments works against spouse employment. It's----
Senator Tester. So, what----
General Milley [continuing]. More difficult.
Senator Tester. What's going to be your goal on
reassignments? How many years?
General Milley. Well, the enlisted force, we think we can
probably achieve longer than 3-year assignments. The officers,
it's significantly more challenging because of career
development opportunities that we want for our officers. So,
we're looking at that. We're examining it. But, that--the two
things that I've mentioned to Secretary Esper is stabilization
of assignments and the vetting--streamlining the vetting
process for on-base employment. Those two things--if we do
those two things we should significantly improve employment
opportunities for spouses.
Senator Tester. Good.
MENTAL HEALTHCARE SERVICES
The last thing deals with mental health, it deals with
suicides. Guard and Reserve are suffering higher rates than
Active military. You guys know that. Guardsmen and reservists
have almost no access to VA mental health services if they
aren't deployed. They also lose the DOD healthcare services if
they're outside the deployment window. Does the Army have any
plans, for either one of you, to provide additional mental
healthcare resources to the Reserve components outside the
deployment window?
Secretary Esper. Senator, we currently require an annual
mental health assessment for all of our Reserve-component
soldiers. And then, of course, prior to, during, and post
deployment, we require three additional mental health
assessments, as well. And so, the key thing is to make sure
that at--as part of that, we provide those types of behavior
health services. And we do provide those. But, you're right,
the challenges that--while we have access to our soldiers on
Active Duty 24/7, in the Guard--and again, my own personal
experience is, you see your colleagues for 2 days, and then you
don't see each other for another 28.
Senator Tester. Yes.
Secretary Esper. And then it's back again. So, it's
particularly challenging to identify that. And we know that, if
you had that type of closer interaction on a daily basis, you
could help spot these problems--issues before they become a big
problem.
Senator Tester. So, are you working on any plans--I mean,
this is--I mean, it's a bad enough problem, period, but it's
even worse, like I said, with guards and reservists--are you
working on any plans to try to figure out a contingency to deal
with this issue?
Secretary Esper. I do have the--our behavior health and our
suicide prevention teams coming back to brief me on new
initiatives, a new strategy to lower our rate further. I think
one of the most important things we're emphasizing--and even
talking to the soldiers and leaders, it proves it out--is, the
chain of command has to get more involved with their soldiers
particularly during off-duty hours.
Senator Tester. Yes.
Secretary Esper. And that applies to the Guard and Reserve
the same. It could be a phone call, it could be visiting them.
But, we find that type of continued touchpoints in intervention
gives you a better sense of what's going on in your----
Senator Tester. I'd just----
Secretary Esper [continuing]. Soldiers' lives.
Senator Tester [continuing]. Offer a suggestion. And I'm
not a doctor, but--and you might already be doing this--but, I
think the spouses also play a critical role on this. And having
them trained up for what they see, and having points of contact
that they can get a hold of when they're out in the sticks and
not in the deployment window.
Secretary Esper. Yes, sir. Great point.
Senator Tester. Thank you very much.
General Milley. Senator, if I could just make a comment, I
think the chains of command in the Guard and the Reserve are
doing an excellent job of being engaged with their soldiers.
The data to date--this is for this year, 2018--for the Guard,
they're down significantly, in terms of their suicides, as well
as Reserves. So, 30 percent in the Guard, and 12 or 13 percent,
or something like that, in the Reserves. So, that's a credit to
the chains of command, in my view.
Senator Tester. Good. Thank you.
Senator Shelby. Senator Moran.
Senator Moran. Mr. Chairman, I would yield to the Senator
from Hawaii, who looked so disappointed when I walked in the
room.
[Laughter.]
Senator Moran. And I'm happy to take time, following him.
Senator Shelby. Senator from Hawaii.
Senator Schatz. Thanks, to the Senator from Kansas. And I
am never disappointed to see you in the room.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
HAWAII INFRASTRUCTURE READINESS INITIATIVE
Secretary Esper, I wanted to talk to you about the Hawaii
Infrastructure Readiness Initiative, which, as you know, is a
long-term plan to make sure Schofield, Wheeler, Shafter, PTA,
our jungle training areas, are the--help us to implement our
strategy in the Asia-Pacific region. Can you talk about the
Army in the Pacific over the next 10 to 20 years, and how HIRI
helps us to implement that?
Secretary Esper. Yes, sir. Well, the--of course, the
Pacific will continue to be important to the Army, to the
military, writ large--Asia, because of--again, we're informed
by the National Defense Strategy that China will be a--is a
long-term strategic competitor. So, with regard to Hawaii, that
it's imperative that we maintain that as a deployment platform
and that the forces we have stationed there are ready to go to
meet those threats.
And you're right, with regard to what we're currently
POMing, '22 to '24, the Hawaii--and readiness initiative has
over $300 million currently planned in there to do all those
things that you talk about. I saw some of those in--necessary
improvements during my trip to Hawaii in January, and it's
important that we maintain all of our platforms for readiness
and deployment, as well.
ARMY'S ROLE IN THE PACIFIC
Senator Schatz. So, a bigger-picture question about the
Pacific, the conflicts that the Army is currently involved in
in South Asia are just different, demographically,
topographically, geographically, and I'm wondering how you see
the Army's role in the Pacific as different, in terms of our
operations, in terms of the capabilities that we need. How does
the Army need to adjust to the possibility of a conflict in the
Pacific, given that a lot of the activity that our soldiers are
seeing, that the Army itself is seeing, is in South Asia, which
is just vastly different? Can you talk to that?
Secretary Esper. Yes, sir. I'll just--I'll speak briefly
and then maybe let the Chief answer.
Clearly, the Army has a role in the Pacific, not just in
terms of land warfare, where it may be necessary, but, I think,
as we evolve the concept of multidomain operations, it means
also supporting our sister services, whether it's with the Air
Force providing, through long-range artillery, cannon support,
rocket fires, the suppression of enemy air defenses to help
them with airspace, or it could be with the Navy, to help clear
sea lines of communication by, again, holding at bay enemy
forces through, again, long-range fires, whatnot.
Senator Schatz. General Milley.
General Milley. Just a little context of--probably the
three greatest land wars the United States has fought in the
last 100 years has been in the Pacific--World War II Pacific,
the Pacific portion of that, and then, obviously, Korea and
Vietnam. The Army and ground forces, in general--Army and
Marines--play a very, very significant role in operations in
the Pacific. And the defense strategy has shifted with the
priority to the Pacific, the pivot to the Pacific. And I would
argue that, 100 years from now, some historian looking
backwards, I would say that the theme or the story of this
century that we're currently in at the beginning will be the
story of the United States and China and how we related to each
other in the Pacific, from a security standpoint. So, I think
the Army has a very, very fundamental and significant role in
the Pacific, along with other ground forces--Marines, in
particular--in assuring our allies that we'll be there and that
we are a stabilizing force in deterring any aggression from any
potential enemy.
Senator Schatz. Thank you.
ENERGY ASSURANCE
Secretary Esper, I want to talk to you a little bit about
energy assurance, both forward and back home. The different
service branches have different initiatives around energy
assurance. And the first thing that I'd like you to talk to is
what the Army, in particular, is doing around energy assurance.
Again, the bases and installations back home and then forward.
But, secondly, I have a broader concern, which is that, to the
extent that any service branch learns anything in their energy
assurance research or pilot implementation, I'm not sure what
the mechanism is for it to be shared across all service
branches. And I get that your operational needs are different,
but sometimes you're talking about pretty basic stuff, like
base power, like fuel. That's not that different across service
branches. So, if you could answer both of those questions.
Secretary Esper. Yes, sir. Briefly, and then I may need to
come back to you with a more robust answer.
We--energy assurance, efficiency, affordability,
availability, all that is important to the Army. We have
metrics on that. And I--I'm faintly aware of the policy we have
on that, but I'd have to get back to you to give you a more
fleshed-out account of what that policy is in those specific
initiatives.
[The information follows:]
The Army has long recognized that energy assurance is vital for
mission success, for both deployed operational assets as well as fixed
and forward installation requirements. Energy resilience enables Army
readiness and is a key enabler and force multiplier. Energy resilience
enables the Army to anticipate, prepare for, and adapt to changing
conditions and withstand, respond to, and recover rapidly from
disruptions in the availability of energy and water resources; this is
Army Energy Security & Sustainability Strategy. The Army encourages all
installation leadership to incorporate energy resilience planning and
considerations into infrastructure requirements definition, project
scoping, and master planning.
An excellent, innovative example of incorporating energy resilience
planning is at U.S. Army Garrison Hawaii, on Schofield Barracks. The
U.S. Army's Office of Energy Initiatives, soon to be renamed the Office
of Energy Resilience, recently partnered with Hawaiian Electric Co.
utilizing third party financing to construct and operationalize a new
50-megawatt electric power production plant that uses a combination of
biofuels and conventional fuels to provide flexible and efficient power
generation that increases energy resilience, reliability, and diversity
to the U.S. Army Garrison-Hawaii and the O`ahu electrical grid. In the
event of a grid emergency, the facility can directly feed Army
facilities in Central Oahu, including Schofield Barracks, Wheeler Army
Airfield, and Field Station Kunia, serving as a back-up power
capability for all critical and non-critical power needs for 30-days.
Additionally, this is the only power generation asset located on O`ahu,
above the Tsunami zone.
The military services routinely work together to capitalize on each
other's experiences and abilities. One example is the Army Office of
Energy Initiatives and Air Force Office of Energy Assurance established
a formal agreement to share support staff, business processes, and best
practices to increase energy security and resiliency on installations.
They are working together and leveraging experiences by streamlining
processes, reducing costs, and negotiating favorable pricing on goods
and services, resulting in greater economic benefit and higher
economies of scale, in finding and developing energy resilience
improvements on military installations, and utilizing private funding
and third-party financing where possible.
All of our efforts support the emphasis placed in Section 2831 of
the National Defense Authorization Act of 2018, which asks the
Secretary of Defense to ensure the readiness of the armed forces for
their military missions by pursuing energy security and energy
resilience. Further, if the Army learns something new or important in
our energy assurance efforts, or in research, or study and analysis, we
collaborate and share the findings across service branches. The
OASD(EI&E) leads an Energy Resilience Working Group (ERWG), established
in December 2012, that includes representation from the Defense
Components who work together to better understand energy resilience
required to enhance mission assurance on our installations. If a
service branch learns something new in their energy assurance research
or pilot implementation, they share the findings across all service
branches through the ERWG.
Senator Schatz. Okay. Let's begin a dialogue about this.
We're, especially in Hawaii, working with the Navy and the Air
Force in the energy-assurance space. They've had great success,
and they're now starting to share information. Again, this is
not science-fair stuff, this is so you can implement right
away, especially forward, but especially even, when you think
about Hawaii, which is on the commercial grid, and you've got a
lot of other bases and installations which depend on commercial
power. We may have to relook at, say, the MILCON restrictions
related to outside of the fence, inside of the fence. So,
there's some work that we need to do to think through our
energy security, especially back home.
PACIFIC PATHWAYS
And my final question is, Pacific Pathways and what the
Army is learning through Pacific Pathways, and how important it
is, in terms of projecting power. And General Milley, you know
I am a fan of the program, you know the feedback that I get on
the ground in Hawaii, and even when I'm in Seoul, is that they
just love how it projects power for relatively little money.
So, if you could talk to that program.
General Milley. Pacific Pathways, Senator, is a combination
of a series of exercises that is important, again, to assure
our allies and deter our enemies, and it allows us
interoperability. As you know, within Admiral Harris's Pacific
area of operations, there's 80,000 U.S. Army soldiers, many
more that could rapidly deploy to the Pacific with soldiers
arrayed and participating in Pathways, arrayed out of Alaska,
Hawaii, Guam, U.S. Force Japan, and of course, on the Peninsula
Korea. And it's a whole series of exercises that go from
Southeast Asia, Northeast Asia, and Micronesia. And it's very,
very important to continue that interoperability, building our
allies, and assuring our allies while deterring our enemies.
And ensuring that we continue engagement with our allies is one
of Secretary Mattis's key National Defense Strategy priorities.
So, it's very important in that regard.
Senator Schatz. Thank you, to you both.
Senator Shelby. Senator Moran.
Senator Moran. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much.
Secretary Esper and General Milley, thank you for your
presence. More importantly, I thank you both for having
conversations with me. You, Secretary, at the Pentagon.
General, yesterday in our office. Both of you have visited Fort
Riley with me. Both of you have been to Fort Leavenworth. And I
appreciate those--that understanding of our Army's military
presence in our State.
And you, General Milley, I want to again publicly now thank
you for your time you spent with a young Kansan who is
struggling with his health, a young man named Seth Cummings,
from Topeka. And you were very gracious and caring about him
and his future. Thank you very much.
MILITARY VALUE ANALYSIS
I want to talk to the--to you as with--about what you would
expect. Every time we've had conversations, I've raised the
issue of Military Value Analysis. I have concerns that the
Army's stationing process and its objectivity with that
analysis--I'm not convinced that it's either transparent or
objective. And we've--my staff and I have been engaged in
meetings with the Army on this topic each month, monthly since
January, and a significant number of our questions remain
unanswered.
I feel that the Army is prioritizing a near-term cheap-and-
fast solution versus consideration of long-term factors that
would reduce costs for the Army and the taxpayers over a longer
period of time. What I have indicated to you is total lifetime
costs. This includes energy and utility expenses, local
construction costs, cost of living and housing for soldiers and
families, and operating costs for the entire installation. When
you compare installations, when the Army compares
installations, this long-term cost can translate into
significant cost savings and cost avoidance.
Secretary Esper, you previously agreed with me that total
lifetime costs should be considered in your stationing
decisions. However, the Military Value Analysis does not do so,
and I am looking for you to tell me this morning that you not
only, again, believe it should be, but that it will be.
Secretary Esper. Yes, sir. Thank you. And by the way, thank
you for hosting me at Fort Riley. I had a great visit and
really----
Senator Moran. Thank you.
Mr. Esper [continuing]. Appreciate the post and the people
of the adjacent communities coming out, as well. So, thank you
for that.
Yes, following up on our conversation, we are committed to
looking at, for example, what other services may do with regard
to their version of MVA (Military Value Analysis). We do have
a--what we believe is an objective process that looks at a
number of criteria to make an assessment about a particular
post or basing decision. And as I talked to the staff following
our meeting, I asked that we also take a look at the long-term
cost to make sure that we have a good understanding of what it
may play out over 20, 30, 40 years to--again, because it's a
long-term decision. And specifically, we're talking about the
conversion of an IBCT (Infantry Brigade Combat Teams) to an
ABCT (Armored Brigade Combat Team). So, we--the Chief and I
want to get the--going to get the--make the right decision, and
want to get the right answer. And so, we're committed to doing
those two things.
MVA TRAINING PROCEDURES
Senator Moran. Chief, you indicated in our--I think in our
conversation yesterday, you seemed to indicate that
noncontiguous training area and training area on post should
not be treated identically, that one has more value than the
other. Again, the MVA does not treat it that way. And would you
agree--first of all, would you confirm that you agree that they
should be treated differently? And would you commit to having
the MVA include that kind of analysis?
General Milley. A couple of things. First, on Seth. Thank
you much for the follow-up. And he's near and dear in all of
our hearts, and he has our thoughts and prayers with him from--
behalf of the whole Army.
Senator Moran. Thank you for your humane reaction.
General Milley. Thanks for bringing that to our attention.
On the MVA, first, transparency. Both the Secretary and I
commit to you transparency. So, whatever questions your staff
asked and haven't been answered, I would ask that, right
afterwards, you just hand them to me, and I will get you an
answer within 72 hours on every single question that you have
unanswered. And that's my commitment to you.
[The information follows:]
``The Army is working directly with Sen. Moran's office to address
all outstanding questions concerning the Military Value Analysis.''
General Milley. I wasn't tracking unanswered questions.
Senator Moran. Thank you, sir.
General Milley. You specifically asked about contiguous,
noncontiguous. Within the Military Value Analysis--I'll have to
look into the actual calculations, but it's my belief that they
are rated differently. I owe you a confirmed answer, because it
seems to pass a commonsense test that if the training area is
contiguous, you have less travel time between your motor pool
and the training area, you use less fuel, it's less expensive,
and so on and so forth. That should be an add or a plus in the
puts and takes of military value analysis, versus a
noncontiguous training area that may be an hour or two by
either railhead and/or convoy, which is consuming dollars and
money and resources.
So, I believe that they are rated differently, but I might
be wrong, so I need to get you a confirmed answer, once I take
a hard look at that. And I'll get you that answer within a day.
[The information follows:]
The MVA model objectively assess the training area's attributes,
such as usable acreage. We are currently reviewing the treatment of
non-contiguous areas in the model, and will provide the outcome of that
review when completed. As part of the quantitative analysis, we do look
at the added cost of using non-contiguous training areas. We can
confirm that when comparing installations with non-contiguous training
areas, we will ensure the Army continues to consider the additive cost
of training there as part of the total lifecycle cost of stationing a
unit at the installation.
QUALITY OF LIFE ANALYSIS
Senator Moran. The final question--perhaps the final
question at--assuming the clock doesn't run out, there may be a
follow-up--but, the analysis of quality of life for soldiers
and their families, I don't think is comprehensively included
in the MVA. I want you to consider quality State, local,
community investments in infrastructure, like housing and
schools and transportation, tax credits for spouses, local
incentives for military families, cost-free associate degrees
for spouses. We say that the Army recruits soldiers, but
retains families. And again, I want your analysis, as you look
at this decision about basing locations, to consider how
expensive it is, how stationing decisions can help in the long-
term health of the Army. And I assume that both of you would
agree that that will be a factor in that--in those discussions
and conclusions.
General Milley. Absolutely.
Secretary Esper. Yes, sir.
Senator Moran. Good. Thank you.
Secretary Esper. I'm assuming we can get the data that we
can get hard facts, objective data that would be important to
know.
Senator Moran. Secretary and Chief, thank you very much for
taking my interest in this seriously. We'll follow up and make
certain that what you committed to, Chief, the conversation
occurs so that we can get the information we've been seeking.
And what I--my conclusion is that--I want to make sure that
we have those facts and the analysis in advance of the decision
being made so that we have an opportunity to have a discussion
again, should we continue to disagree about the value of the
MVA. Is that satisfactory with both of you?
General Milley. Absolutely.
Secretary Esper. Yes, sir.
General Milley. Yes.
Senator Moran. Thank you both.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Shelby. Thank you.
Senator Murray.
Senator Murray. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
General Milley, good to see you again. Thank you.
CAREER LICENSING AND CREDENTIALS
As we continue to look for ways to improve the transition
process, one of the most important considerations is helping
servicemembers get the licenses and credentials that they need
for careers outside the military. At JBLM (Joint Base Lewis-
McChord), I have seen firsthand how important these programs
can be for a soldier's future. Those opportunities, also an
important recruiting tool and I've heard, from Sergeant Major
Dailey, actually improve retention, as well. With the help of
Congress, the Army has made great strides in recent years in
expanding access to these credentialing programs. But, I
understand the Army believes more needs to be done to allow
soldiers to benefit from these opportunities. I wanted to ask
you, what is preventing interested soldiers from taking
advantage of current programs and opportunities?
General Milley. Well, first of all, thanks, Senator, for
the question. And it's--I think it's critical that--you know,
not everybody stays in the Army for a career, so one of the
great things I think the Army, but also the Navy, the Air
Force, Marines, do is, we return to the Nation a quality
citizen who believes in the values of the country and returns
to the Nation someone who has certain skills. And one of the
key initiatives that Sergeant Major of the Army Dailey has
undertaken and--with a lot of other people--is the
credentialing. So, we want to make sure that every soldier who
exits the Army, who wants to, is credentialed in the variety of
skills that they learned while in the military. And I believe,
for the most part, soldiers can take advantage of that and get
credentialed prior to departure.
Some of the--you asked about impediments--some of the
impediments are training schedules and deployment rotations.
And those--the mission always comes first, but we do--180 days
prior to exiting the Army, we do want to provide the
opportunity for all those soldiers who want to be credentialed
to get credentialed.
Senator Murray. Are you doing anything earlier in their
career as a soldier, talking to them about how they should be
aware of these programs when--so when they get to 180 days,
it's not too late?
General Milley. We do that through the chain of command,
through the command sergeant majors and the first sergeants,
through the career counselors and the reenlistment NCOs (Non-
Commissioned Officers), along with their normal chain of
command, the company commanders, battalion commanders, is to
provide situational awareness and understanding of the various
options and programs that are out there to each soldier.
Senator Murray. Okay. And I wanted to ask you about
credentialing oversight, as well. I want to emphasize, I'm
really supportive of the effort on this, but I have some real
concerns about making sure we have strong, quality guardrails
in place. Too many times, we've seen some for-profit
institutions aggressively prey on our servicemembers or
veterans and cause them real harm and just get access to their
benefits. A servicemember may think they're getting a
credential that will help them, but it turns out to be just a
piece of paper.
So, if we expand funding for this and access for these
programs, what additional steps will you take to make sure
there is strict oversight of the entities that participate in
the program?
General Milley. The oversight that we have currently, and
the one that I would propose to expand in oversight, is what we
call Army University, which is led by the commanding general,
three-star general, lieutenant general, at Fort Leavenworth.
And that's an initiative to bring together all the different,
not only officer, but enlisted schools, and they have the lead
for the credentialing of our soldiers, as well. So, that would
be the mechanism of the venue by which we would want to expand
oversight on the credentialing process.
Senator Murray. Okay. I think we really need to keep track
of that so we don't end up, down the road, with a bunch of
people that have--don't have papers worth anything. So, it's
something I'll be watching.
General Milley. Great.
Senator Murray Following.
General Milley. Thank you, Senator.
SPOUSE EMPLOYMENT
Senator Murray. Secretary Esper, I'm concerned about spouse
employment. The opportunities for military spouses are often
rare. And I've heard from a lot of families in my home State of
Washington. And I don't think we should ever be in a position
where military spouses can't find work. Or worse, as I've
heard, they feel they have to hide their military affiliation
because employers-- private employers won't give them a chance.
It's not just a DOD issue. But, we need communities and the
private sector to really step up and meet their part of this
obligation. I know one part of the issue is uncertainty about
relocation, but what other barriers--or, more importantly, what
proposed solutions have you heard from employers, themselves,
as we talk about this?
Secretary Esper. Yes, ma'am. I could not agree with you
more. This is a top priority for me. I've--in the 6 months I've
been on the job, everywhere I travel I meet with spouses, and
this issue comes up over and over again. And I will tell you,
personally, when I was on Active Duty, my wife was
discriminated against for--in--for work because they knew I was
rotating. And so, this is personal, as well.
Currently, it takes around 140 days to hire somebody in the
services--in the Army, civilian, but particularly spouse. And
as you right note, many spouses either just want to work or
they need to work. And so, what we're doing is--it's a three-
pronged problem. It involves the Army, DOD, and then OPM. I'm--
I've got about--at least a half-dozen initiatives right now
that we're decreasing the timeline, that 140 days, down by
going with direct hiring authority, by doing--allowing them to
temporarily work.
Senator Murray. That's within the military.
Secretary Esper. Yes, ma'am, within the Army. And then,
next is some proposed changes to the DOD regulations. But, the
bigger problem that I cannot deal with is the OPM process it's
clunky, and it's inefficient, and to the degree that we could
either reform that or move it to DOD or the--or let the Army
hire direct, would really give us a greater advantage, in terms
of reducing that 140-day average down to about 30 days, is what
it should be. Because what happens is, spouses become
frustrated, and they give up searching for a job, or they
become underemployed doing something that doesn't fit their
skills or their credentials, let alone their aspirations.
Senator Murray. Yes. And there's not enough jobs on bases,
either. So, a lot of the spouses I talk to are looking outside
the base, and that's where private employers don't return their
calls.
Secretary Esper. Yes, ma'am. That's also where Congress has
helped, I think, with Federal credentialing, so that if you
have a CPA or a teacher's license, it's recognized by the State
to which you are moving. Helps greatly, as well. So you don't
have to go through a recertification process every time you
move.
Senator Murray. Okay. Well, I'm looking at ways that we can
engage the private sector to have them become more responsible
citizens. I had one spouse tell me that she sent out a number
of resumes, didn't hear anything back, so she sent to the same
people and didn't put on a military spouse affiliation on her
resume, and heard back. That's just wrong. So----
Secretary Esper. I couldn't agree more.
Senator Murray. Yes. So, we need to--I think we really need
to look at the--with the private sector, too. And look forward
to working with you on that.
Secretary Esper. Yes, ma'am.
ARMY FUTURES COMMAND HEADQUARTERS
Senator Murray. And, Secretary Esper, while you're here, I
just wanted to say, as you go through your process to decide
the location for the new Army Futures Command Headquarters, I
just want to remind you that the Seattle area has a large joint
military presence. We have world-class universities, cutting-
edge businesses. They want to work with you. So, there's no
doubt from me the Seattle area is a great place to look, and I
appreciate your consideration.
Secretary Esper. Will do. Thank you, ma'am.
Senator Murray. Thank you.
Senator Shelby. Senator Daines.
Senator Daines. Chairman Shelby, thank you.
Gentlemen, thank you for appearing before this committee
this morning.
Montana's the proud home of nearly 2,600 Army National
Guard and 700 Army Reserve citizen soldiers who have carried
our Nation's flag literally all over the world. In particular,
I want to recognize those soldiers from the 1st 189th General
Aviation Support Battalion of Helena who are currently forward
deployed, providing medical evacuation support to operations in
Southwest Asia. We certainly look forward to welcoming these
heroes home soon.
Following our discussion last year on the readiness gaps in
our force, I am pleased to hear that we've made progress and
the Army is better positioned to ``fight tonight.'' As the
service focuses more of its efforts toward modernization, I
want to ensure that the resources Congress provides will
strengthen the total force.
WHEN WILL NATIONAL GUARD SEE TANK EQUIPMENT IMPROVEMENTS
General Milley, I am glad to see that your budget request
will provide active protection systems for a full brigade's
worth of tanks. My question is, when will tank units in the
National Guard, such as the Charlie Company of the 163rd in
Great Falls, see those same improvements?
General Milley. So, what we did was--first of all, active
protective systems are manufactured only in two countries--
actually, three right now, the third being the United States--
but Russia, which we're not going to get them from, Israel, and
the United States. And the companies in the United States,
they're not ready yet for full rate of production. So, we
determined that we had a need for active protection systems,
and we wanted to prioritize those in our early-deploying first-
responder sort of units. So, we picked four brigades-- heavy
brigades--to purchase those systems for. We have not yet worked
out the schedule, but the intent, once the U.S. companies come
online with the full system, the intent is to outfit the entire
heavy force, all of our vehicles, all the ground vehicles, the
Bradleys, the tanks, any future combat vehicles, with active
protective systems, but also with some aircraft. We haven't
worked out the aircraft piece. We don't yet have a schedule for
the Guard or the rest of the regular Army, but our intent is to
outfit the total force, the total Army, with active protective
systems in the years ahead.
Senator Daines. Yes. I'm very glad to hear that. You
mentioned the Bradleys, General. Regarding active protection
systems, do you have any sense of when the Bradley fighting
vehicle might begin fielding that technology?
General Milley. We're hoping to do that, here, in the next
24 months. The issue is adapting--these systems were built for
country-specific vehicles, so we're taking these systems and
we're adapting them right now, as we speak, to our vehicles.
And there's some testing and prototyping and safety testing
that has to be done with these before they are ready for
operational use in the four brigades that we selected. But, we
hope to have that done within 24 months.
Senator Daines. Thank you, General.
As the DOD continues maturing its cyber mission forces, the
Army has taken a leading role in both training as well as
operations. Earlier this month, one of the Army's top officers,
in fact, was chosen to lead our Nation's premier cyberspace
operations activities, U.S. Cyber Command. Last year, Congress
provided several new authorities and additional resources to
continue growing a robust cyberspace capability.
CYBERSPACE DEFENSE
General Milley, could you provide an update on the status
of the Army's effort in cyberspace, and specifically how it is
leveraging the total force to defend against the full range of
threats that are facing our Nation?
General Milley. Absolutely. The--what the Army did a few
years ago, and what we continue to do, is build out the force
structure within Army cyber, which is the component command of
CYBERCOM, which you just noted. General Nakasone most recently
took command of, and we're very proud of his efforts. So, what
we have is 62 total teams, cyber protection teams, as they're
called; 41 of those are Active component, 11 in the Guard, and
10, I think, is in the Reserve. My thought or my estimate at
this time is that this is sort of a growth-industry kind of
thing. I expect that, in the out years, we're going to
increase, not decrease, the number of cyber warriors that are
required.
So, one is the force structure, the cyber protection team.
Second is the Cyber Center of Excellence that we have
established. Third is, we've established it as a branch for
commissioning for lieutenants coming into to the Army, and they
can go into the traditional branches of infantry, armored
cavalry, and aviation, but they can--now can also have the
choice of going into cyber. We've essentially normalized cyber
as a domain within the force structure, the career development,
the talent management, and the professional development of our
officers, noncommissioned officers, and junior soldiers. It's a
very important initiative. There's space operations, there's
cyber domain--space domain, cyber domain, maritime, air, and
ground. Cyber is relatively new, and it's a critical component,
both on the offense and the defense, relative to any adversary.
As the National Defense Strategy talks about great-power
competition with China, Russia specifically mentioned, those
two countries amongst many others--North Korea, Iran, and
others--have very significant cyber capabilities. So, this is
not only critical to the Army, it's critical to the Nation to
have a very, very capable cyber force. And we intend to be part
of that.
Senator Daines. General Milley, thank you for that very
thorough answer. It's appreciated. I think the asymmetric
threats that we face certainly will be the fight our kids and
grandkids will be taking, here, as we look at the threats
around the world.
The last question, while the budget deal reached in 2017
was positive for national defense, it was shortsighted, in that
it once again deferred savings mandated by the Budget Control
Act. Some within the Department have noted that Congress's
repeated deferments may pose a substantial risk to
modernization in the next 1 to 2 years.
ADDRESSING MODERNIZATION SHORTFALLS
Secretary Esper, given Congress's track record on
delivering stable, predictable funding, how is the Department
planning to overcome modernization shortfalls beyond fiscal
year 2019?
Secretary Esper. Yes, sir. A great question. First of all,
thanks for the funding in 2017 and 2018, in particular, and if
the budget agreement holds for 2019, as well. I will tell that
you--for example, continuing resolutions are very harmful to
our readiness. It impacts us because you're not allowed to do
new starts and additional production. So, it's--it is very
harmful, in terms of what we've seen in the past years, and has
affected us, in terms of our readiness, and has prevented us,
in many ways, in terms of modernizing.
That said, there's obvious uncertainty with regard to
fiscal year 2020 and beyond. And so, that--so, the Chief and I
are undertaking a number of reform initiatives within the
service by which we look to free up time, money, and manpower
to gain a little bit more control over our own destiny if those
dollars don't continue on a healthy pace. And--because what we
need to do is to put those dollars into our six modernization
priorities to make that transition to the next generation of
long-range fires, of combat vehicles, of future vertical lift.
If we don't do that, we'll find ourselves further behind and
not able to achieve that overmatch we need in the future, as
called for by the National Defense Strategy.
Senator Daines. Thank you, Secretary. And I'm grateful for
Chairman Shelby's leadership, as he, I know, will be working
hard to bring together bipartisan cooperation to get out of
this, frankly, nonsense of CRs. Sometimes I wonder if perhaps
we ought to have members down there on the witness table, and
have the men and women who wear the uniform behind the dais,
questioning us around why we can't get the job done up here on
Capitol Hill.
Thank you.
Secretary Esper. Thank you, sir.
Senator Shelby. Senator Udall.
Senator Udall. Thank you, Senator--Chairman Shelby.
And let me just say, I think there's good bipartisan
support, and Senator Shelby's trying to proceed in the
direction so we don't have any more of these CRs and we do our
bills on time. And that's what we're working towards.
Thank you both for your service. I had a very good visit
yesterday with General Milley. You've got a very thoughtful
Chief of Staff there, Mr. Secretary. He's thought about a lot
of the big issues, I think, over the years. So, it's a--he's a
good one to have, I think.
Secretary Esper. Yes, sir.
WHITE SANDS MISSILE RANGE
Senator Udall. I wanted to talk a little bit about White
Sands Missile Range. It's the largest overland military
installation in the country. It's larger than the State of
Rhode Island. While it's primarily an Army post, it also
provides support for all the military branches, as you all
know. Yet, it is currently an Army post with a relatively
nonexistent Army presence because the engineering battalion
that previously made it home cased their colors and left the
base. They left behind empty barracks and other facilities,
such as 17,750-square-foot headquarters building with 23
offices, six company headquarters, and one 65,000-square-foot
building, battalion-level dining room, a vehicle maintenance
shop, and one parade field, and a segregated parking lot.
Mr. Secretary, you've stated that an important part of the
Army's effort to maintain the readiness of the Army's BCTs for
major combat operations is the security force assistance
brigade, or the SFAB, and you've requested congressional
support to man, train, and equip six SFABs, five in the regular
Army and one in the Army National Guard. Can you provide an
update on the Army's request to consider White Sands Missile
Range as a basing location for a security force assistance
brigade?
Secretary Esper. Yes, sir. As you noted, we plan on
fielding six SFABs, five in the Active component; two already
exist, one at Fort Benning, one in Fort Bragg, and we will make
a decision very soon on the remaining three. And we use a
process by which to do that called the Military Value Analysis
Model with regard to looking at objective criteria by which we
would make that decision, with some other criteria as well,
given that the SFABs are unique.
But, I will tell you that I had a chance to visit White
Sands a couple of months ago. I had a very good visit, had a
chance to not only talk to the folks about their mission there
with regard to testing, but to also take a look around those
facilities that you described. And they are very good
facilities. And it brought to mind the importance of keeping
that in mind as we consider not just SFABs, but anything else
out there in the Army, because it is space that is available.
So, again, we'll make a decision, here, fairly soon with
regard to the basing of these SFABs, the locations.
Senator Udall. Great. And thank you very much. And I hope
the Army puts these facilities to good use and finds a mission
at White Sands soon.
How will increased emphasis on research and development in
the overall budget impact White Sands Missile Range? Do you
envision an increase in tasks or other activities at the range?
How does the Army intend to keep the range's facilities up to
date and in good working order to facilitate R&D, defense wide?
Secretary Esper. Senator, I will tell that the six
modernization priorities, what comes to mind immediately are,
number one, which is long-range precision fires, and then
probably our other one, which is air missile defenses.
Certainly, on the first one, we'll demand a lot of testing.
One of the strategic systems we hope to build is a cannon that
can shoot hundreds of miles, either with a traditional type of
round or a hypersonic. And I imagine--I'm speculating right
now--that White Sands would be the place where we would do a
good deal of that testing. The same would be true as we
continue to develop air missile defense platforms that can be--
that are mobile, that can keep up with our maneuver forces.
Senator Udall. General Milley, did you have any----
General Milley. Yes, exactly. The Secretary had it. Long-
range precision fires, there's also opportunities for--to do
some of the range firing for future vertical lift, when that
comes online. And then ballistic missile defense.
As you're aware, Senator, you know, the combination of Fort
Bliss and its adjacent White Sands Missile Range, that's the
largest training area for military forces in the world. And you
can fire every ordnance in the United States inventory, short
of nuclear weapons, at that facility. So, it's a great
facility, it's a great testing ground, and we will maximize its
use as we develop our modernization program and those pieces of
equipment and kick it into the testing phase.
Senator Udall. Yes. Thank you for that answer.
The Air Force and the Navy are both looking at how the
proliferation of new technologies will impact their dominance
in the air and sea, respectively, especially regarding
artificial intelligence. How is the Army addressing artificial
intelligence? How will AI change how the Army does business or
impact the balance of power if, for example, China acquires AI
technologies first? And address it to either one of you.
General Milley. I've mentioned and have spoken several
times on the changing character of war. And that can be driven
by a variety of things--demographics, social change, doctrines,
et cetera. But, technology is often one of those things that
drives changing character of war and how armies fight.
And I've used the term ``the mother of all technologies''
in referring to artificial intelligence. We are investing--we,
the Army, are investing monies into artificial intelligence, as
well as the Navy and Air Forces, along with the broader DOD.
It's a critical technology that has a lot of moral, ethical,
and legal implications that need to be thought through. But,
the artificial intelligence, in combination with robotics,
could represent a very, very, very fundamental change in the
conduct of warfare. And I believe--my estimation is that those
technologies are likely to see widespread use by military
forces in the not-too-distant future, defined as 10, 15, 20
years, something like that. Some technologists would argue that
it's much closer in time, others would say much further in
time. But, my personal estimation, it's in that range--10, 15,
20 years, we're going to see widespread use of artificial
intelligence, machine learning, in combination with robotics on
the battlefields of the future.
Senator Udall. Great.
Secretary Esper. Senator, I would just add it's----
Senator Udall. Oh, please.
Secretary Esper. Part of our modernization strategy that we
sent up a couple of weeks back speaks to the vision of fielding
our future combat vehicles, our next generation of combat
vehicles that are either fully autonomous, semi-autonomous, or
fully manned, as they are now. And what does is give us a--
could give us a lot greater capabilities, flexibility on the
battlefield, it could leave our--make our soldiers less
vulnerable, depending on how you employ them. They could speed
the--our decisionmaking. So, there is a great deal of promise,
as the Chief has outlined, and it could--the character of
warfare.
Senator Udall. Great. We really appreciate those answers.
And I know Senator--my Chairman is here, so I'm going to submit
the rest of my questions for the record.
Thank you.
Senator Shelby. Thank you, Senator Udall.
Senator Murkowski.
Senator Murkowski. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And gentlemen, thank you for being here. Thank you for your
leadership.
ARCTIC TRAINING
I want to talk about training in the Arctic. We've had an
opportunity for a conversation on this. And General Milley,
you're certainly familiar with Alaska's advantages to the Army.
Secretary Esper, hopefully we'll have the opportunity to
showcase some of what we have going on up there what--within
the Joint Pacific Alaska Range Complex and the Northern Warfare
Training Center, two really strong Arctic training assets that
are critical to our national security, particularly as we're
seeing more emphasis being placed within the region.
Can you--and this is to both of you, if you would--speak to
whether or not the Army is planning to do more, when it comes
to taking advantage of the cold-weather training and the
training assets that we have in the north, and perhaps
expanding on that, given that we have a little more budget
certainty out there, any interest in growth in the Army
presence, insofar as improvements in facilities or capabilities
in Alaska?
General Milley. Well, I think, Senator, the biggest and
most significant change we've witnessed in the last 24 months
was the stabilization of 4th Brigade 25th Division, and keeping
it in Alaska, which is a recognition, I think, of the strategic
importance of the Arctic and some of the challenges that are
being posed in the Arctic by both Russia and now China, as
well. So, Alaska and the U.S. Army forces and broadly speaking,
the U.S. military forces are a strategic component of our
overall global campaigns, and it's very, very important to us.
As far as the Northern Warfare Training Center, Senator
Leahy asked, earlier, a question about the Vermont Mountain
School. You know, we teach--in the U.S. military, there's three
mountain schools. One is run by the Marines, in California. The
other one, up in Alaska, at the Northern Warfare Training
Center. And the other one, in Vermont. All three are critical,
all three emphasize not only mountain warfare, but cold-weather
training and survival. We are suboptimized, as an Army, to
fight in the mountains and in the jungles. We're optimized to
fight in deserts and generally open, rolling terrain. As we go
forward into the future, we'll probably have to optimize for
highly dense urban areas, and we will continue having to have--
retain the capabilities of operating in cold weather, northern
climates, Arctic conditions, and mountain warfare, as well as
jungles and deserts. So, we will continue to invest and
continue to have units train at the Northern Warfare Training
Center. And we appreciate the support of you and the entire
congressional delegation for that effort up there.
Senator Murkowski. Thank you for that.
Secretary.
Secretary Esper. Senator, I would just add that I am
planning a trip up there this summer to meet with the forces,
to visit the training area, and of course, you know, talk to
folks at the garrisons up there. So, I'm anxious to see--to
visit the training area and see how we can maximize its
utilization.
Senator Murkowski. Yes. I think you get a little better
taste of it if you go up in the winter, but we will take you at
any time and----
Secretary Esper. I'll put that down for a future trip.
Senator Murkowski. Yes, yes, yes. No, I appreciate that.
ARMY INSTALLATION--SEXUAL ASSAULT CASES
Let me change the conversation, here, to something that,
unfortunately, we don't want to talk about but we have to
address, and that is the issue of sexual assault. And a couple
of things. There was a media report, just very recently,
regarding a spate of a--child-on-child sexual assaults at our
Army installations. And initially, the Criminal Investigation
Command released a list of 223 juvenile cases worldwide,
beginning since 2007. We didn't see any in Alaska. But, then
State authorities tallied five at Alaska Army installations,
and then, after a challenge of the Army's data, the
investigators released a total of eight cases at Alaska
installations, five of them reportedly at Fort Wainwright. So,
of course, this certainly gets your attention, here.
So, Secretary Esper, before I ask you about the status of
the investigations, which you may or may not be able to
discuss, I just want you to know how alarmed we--you're always
alarmed when there's any issues as they relate to sexual abuse,
but, again, when you recognize that we're talking about
children, here--so, the question is what steps the Army is
doing to prevent and deter these sorts of incidents, making
sure that the investigations are conducted with a timely
manner. And then, I'd also--well, why don't you go ahead and
address that----
Secretary Esper. Yes, ma'am. I--it's troubling for both of
us when we--when you hear about these things, when we've heard
about it, not just as parents, but also as parents of kids who
were in the military. Mine, for a brief while. And the Chief's,
obviously, for longer. But, it's very troubling. And there's
going to be no toleration for that type of activity.
You know, we need to get accurate reports, data to
understand what's been substantiated, what's alleged, what's
been investigated but not found, and we'll work through that.
But, the challenge is--as my legal folks tell me--is, we do not
have the authority to prosecute that once we investigate it by
the CID. So, in most cases, what happens is, the Army Criminal
Investigation Division, our--if we have sexual assault experts,
will immediately investigate, we will provide services for the
victims, we will provide help for the family. But, we also
refer the case, depending on the agreements, to local, State,
or Federal authorities to involve them early on in the process,
but also local agencies, as well, to help with the victims, as
case may be, because our first priority is them.
The challenge once we investigate--and sometimes we
investigate, and sometime local authorities investigate--what
we then have to do is hand that off to others for prosecution.
We have some authority, but it's mainly administrative. So,
what we can do is, we could bar that kid from being on post, or
we could remove the family from the post. But, beyond that, the
authorities really reside outside the military to do that. And
I think that's something we need to take a look at.
Senator Murkowski. Well, that's interesting and I think,
important to recognize. And then, when you put that into
context--and this was going to be the second question that I
had for you--is--there are--there's good work that is going on,
on the initiatives to look further into sexual harassment and
assault prevention. We are seeing numbers go up. We don't know
if it's more incidents or better reporting. But, the need for
victim services clearly is rising. And it's my understanding
that right now we have 52 special victims' counsel in the Army.
Last year there were 2,706 victims reported in the Army, an
average of 52 victims for counsel. It's recommended that you
not have--that a special victims' counsel handle no more than
25 concurrent cases. So, you know, we've got an issue, here,
that you have raised with--very specific to the jurisdictional
aspect, but it would seem to me that we need to look to
bringing on more that can help on the victims' side with these
special victims' counsels.
Secretary Esper. Yes, ma'am. I'll take a look at those
numbers. We do need to make sure we have adequate support,
whether it's counsels or advocates or prosecutors, to make sure
that we are fully covered to deal with the problem. It's--
again, there's zero tolerance for that in the service, and it's
fratricide when it happens between soldiers, and there's--
again, we're pursuing a number of initiatives to make sure we
can tamp that down and get rid of it from the ranks, because it
just does not help with the readiness, it does not help with
our soldiers. So, we're looking at a number of things to do, to
do better in that regard.
Senator Murkowski. Appreciate that.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Shelby. Senator Baldwin.
Senator Baldwin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
IRAN THREAT
General Milley, I agree with you about the threat posed by
Iran's malign regional behavior, including its development of
advanced ballistic missiles and support for insurgent groups,
terrorist organizations, and rogue regimes, like Assad's, in
Syria. In short, Iran poses a diverse problem set for the U.S.
military. Does this get more challenging--in other words, more
dangerous to the United States and our allies--if Iran acquires
a nuclear weapon?
General Milley. I think there's no question that, if Iran
had a nuclear weapon, it would be much more challenging than it
currently is. Although I don't want to underplay or downplay
how challenging Iran already is.
Senator Baldwin. Right.
General Milley. And you've cited the many, many reasons.
But, yes, if Iran had a nuclear weapon that would not be good.
Senator Baldwin. I agree. And note that, under the Joint
Comprehensive Plan of Action, U.S. military and intelligence
leaders consistently concluded that Iran was complying with its
obligations to stop and to dismantle its nuclear program. In
fact, in July of last year, General Dunford said, ``Militarily,
the JCPOA remains the most durable means of preventing Iran
from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability. If the United
States scraps the deal, Iran could respond by restarting its
quest for nuclear weapons.''
General Milley, do you believe that Iran is more or less
likely to restart its nuclear program now that the United
States has pulled out from the deal?
General Milley. Senator, I appreciate the question. I would
like to refrain from speculation at this point, in open
hearing. I'd--happy to give you a classified view of what my
thoughts are and what the intelligence community is telling us
now, if I could.
Senator Baldwin. Well, let me try another.
General Milley. Right.
Senator Baldwin. At the--final follow-up on this--last
week, Secretary Mattis told me that the decision to walk away
from the agreement was the result of rigorous interagency
debate. Did you provide your military advice as part of this
debate? And was that advice to pull out of the agreement?
General Milley. As a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
we have frequent meetings on a wide variety of topics. And as a
matter of routine, our best military advice is provided by our
spokesman, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in the
interagency process.
Senator Baldwin. Well, I would be interested in following
up on a conversation if it needs to be in a classified setting.
Secretary Esper, as we discussed in my office, I'm
concerned by low levels of funding in the Army's future budget
plans for the modernization of medium and heavy trucks like the
FMTV, the PLS, and the HEMTT, despite known requirements across
the Active, Reserve, and Guard. This doesn't seem to support
the Army's modernization strategy or its readiness needs. And
the volatility in funding can exert significant pressure on the
industrial base. The industrial base relies on long-term
agreements with hundreds of suppliers for specialized parts, as
you well know. What can you tell me about the Army's tactical
wheeled vehicle modernization strategy, including how the Army
will ensure that its funding requests meet its requirements?
Secretary Esper. Yes, ma'am. I do owe you a more detailed
report on those specific systems. On one of them, PLS, the
initial report was that, for the next year or so, we have met
the requirements. But, backing up a little bit more broadly, I
would say--and we discussed this some--you know, the JLTV, for
example, has moved through testing. We'll probably consider a
production--full-rate production or--decision later this year,
in terms of that, between us and the Marine Corps.
But, again, it's all couched in terms of the six
modernization priorities that we've teased out, beginning with
long-range precision fires all the way through soldier
lethality. And we have to fill those buckets first, and then we
look at everything else on the table. But, clearly, we need to
have the means by which to move soldiers around the
battlefield, or supplies, whatever the case may be.
So, I owe you a more detailed answer on the specific
systems that you've asked about.
[The information follows:]
The tactical wheeled vehicle (TWV) modernization strategy procures
new and recapitalizes existing vehicles. The Joint Light Tactical
Vehicle, one of the Army's largest procurement programs, is the
centerpiece of the TWV modernization strategy, but new procurement also
includes High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle ambulances, Family
of Medium Tactical Vehicles, trailers, and vehicle armor kits.
Recapitalization of tactical wheeled vehicles, such as the Palletized
Load System and the Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck, also
continues at Army depots. In terms of resourcing TWV modernization, the
Army is focused today on readiness and our six Modernization
priorities. The Army plans to procure as many tactical wheeled vehicles
as necessary to ensure an appropriate level of modernization continues
and operational requirements are met.
ENVIRONMENTAL CLEANUP
Senator Baldwin. Okay. I'll look forward to that.
Secretary Esper, we also discussed, at our meeting last
week, the former Badger Army Ammunition Plant in Wisconsin,
which was once the largest ammunition plant in the world. After
20 years, we've finally made progress in cleaning up much of
the land and returning it to local control. But, a few years
ago, I was alarmed by the Army's reversal of previously
approved plans to construct and operate municipal drinking
water system as part of its groundwater cleanup remedy. And I
was disappointed in the Army's lack of transparency and public
communication.
Now, the Army is currently conducting a human health risk
assessment before moving forward with a new remediation plan,
and has significantly improved relations with local
stakeholders. I want to urge you to continue to incorporate
local concerns and preferred remedies into the ultimate cleanup
plan. And you may know that directive report language to that
effect was included in the fiscal year 2018 omnibus bill. So, I
would like your commitment that the Army will comply with that
language and uphold its responsibility for full environmental
remediation at the site, including the provision of safe
drinking water.
Secretary Esper. Yes, ma'am. I--as I told you privately, we
will certainly look into that and do the right thing, here,
with regard to the water contamination issue that you've talked
about.
Senator Baldwin. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Shelby. We appreciate both of yours appearance
before the committee today, your willingness to answer all
these questions.
ADDITIONAL SUBCOMMITTEE QUESTIONS
I will have a number of written questions to submit for the
record. Other people will, too, Mr. Secretary, probably. And
we'd ask you to respond to them within 30 days.
[The following questions were not asked at the hearing, but
were submitted to the Department for response subsequent to the
hearing:]
Question Submitted to Hon. Mark T. Esper
Question Submitted by Senator Patrick J. Leahy
humvee modernization
Question. Secretary Esper, in the course of the hearing you and
General Milley addressed some of the Army's interest in remotely
controlled or autonomous vehicles as an example of one area of Humvee
improvement. Please describe any benefits to the force to fielding more
efficient power management systems, advanced torque monitoring systems,
and vehicle health monitoring for the Humvee.
Answer. In its current configuration, the High Mobility
Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV) no longer meets the original
performance requirements due in part to the weight of adding armor, and
it is incapable of incorporating autonomous technologies. Incorporating
more efficient power management systems, advanced torque monitoring
systems, and vehicle health monitoring in future HMMWV recapitalization
efforts would be necessary to restore original performance
characteristics and allow for the incorporation of others technologies
which enable autonomous operations.
As specific examples, efficient power management systems and
advanced torque management would increase vehicle safety and allow a
HMMWV to carry higher payloads efficiently, while detecting and
reacting to traction loss and rollover conditions during both manned
and autonomous operations. Effective vehicle health monitoring is vital
in autonomous systems where operators are not physically present to
observe warnings or detect physical signs of imminent failure. The
Joint Light Tactical Vehicle includes these technologies.
Currently, the Army is exploring options (that may include some or
all of these technologies) for modernizing the HMMWV fleet and will
make a decision later this year on the feasibility and affordability of
a HMMWV recapitalization program.
SUBCOMMITTEE RECESS
Senator Shelby. The Defense Subcommittee will reconvene on
Thursday, May the 17th, at 10:00 a.m., to receive testimony
from the Air Force.
Until then, the subcommittee stands in recess.
[Whereupon, at 11:41 a.m., Tuesday, May 15, the
subcommittee was recessed, to reconvene at 10:00 a.m.,
Thursday, May 17.]