[House Hearing, 116 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.A.S.C. No. 116-17]
HEARING
ON
NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT
FOR FISCAL YEAR 2020
AND
OVERSIGHT OF PREVIOUSLY AUTHORIZED PROGRAMS
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
FULL COMMITTEE HEARING
ON
THE FISCAL YEAR 2020 NATIONAL
DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION BUDGET
REQUEST FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
__________
HEARING HELD
MARCH 26, 2019
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
36-878 WASHINGTON : 2019
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
One Hundred Sixteenth Congress
ADAM SMITH, Washington, Chairman
SUSAN A. DAVIS, California WILLIAM M. ``MAC'' THORNBERRY,
JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island Texas
RICK LARSEN, Washington JOE WILSON, South Carolina
JIM COOPER, Tennessee ROB BISHOP, Utah
JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio
JOHN GARAMENDI, California MIKE ROGERS, Alabama
JACKIE SPEIER, California K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas
TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii DOUG LAMBORN, Colorado
DONALD NORCROSS, New Jersey ROBERT J. WITTMAN, Virginia
RUBEN GALLEGO, Arizona VICKY HARTZLER, Missouri
SETH MOULTON, Massachusetts AUSTIN SCOTT, Georgia
SALUD O. CARBAJAL, California MO BROOKS, Alabama
ANTHONY G. BROWN, Maryland, Vice PAUL COOK, California
Chair BRADLEY BYRNE, Alabama
RO KHANNA, California SAM GRAVES, Missouri
WILLIAM R. KEATING, Massachusetts ELISE M. STEFANIK, New York
FILEMON VELA, Texas SCOTT DesJARLAIS, Tennessee
ANDY KIM, New Jersey RALPH LEE ABRAHAM, Louisiana
KENDRA S. HORN, Oklahoma TRENT KELLY, Mississippi
GILBERT RAY CISNEROS, Jr., MIKE GALLAGHER, Wisconsin
California MATT GAETZ, Florida
CHRISSY HOULAHAN, Pennsylvania DON BACON, Nebraska
JASON CROW, Colorado JIM BANKS, Indiana
XOCHITL TORRES SMALL, New Mexico LIZ CHENEY, Wyoming
ELISSA SLOTKIN, Michigan PAUL MITCHELL, Michigan
MIKIE SHERRILL, New Jersey JACK BERGMAN, Michigan
KATIE HILL, California MICHAEL WALTZ, Florida
VERONICA ESCOBAR, Texas
DEBRA A. HAALAND, New Mexico
JARED F. GOLDEN, Maine
LORI TRAHAN, Massachusetts
ELAINE G. LURIA, Virginia
Paul Arcangeli, Staff Director
Katy Quinn, Professional Staff Member
Jason Schmid, Professional Staff Member
Justin Lynch, Clerk
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Smith, Hon. Adam, a Representative from Washington, Chairman,
Committee on Armed Services.................................... 1
Thornberry, Hon. William M. ``Mac,'' a Representative from Texas,
Ranking Member, Committee on Armed Services.................... 5
WITNESSES
Dunford, Gen Joseph F., Jr., USMC, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff....................................................... 8
Shanahan, Hon. Patrick M., Acting Secretary of Defense,
Department of Defense; accompanied by David Norquist,
Comptroller and Chief Financial Officer, and Acting Deputy
Secretary, Department of Defense............................... 6
APPENDIX
Prepared Statements:
Dunford, Gen Joseph F., Jr................................... 100
Shanahan, Hon. Patrick M..................................... 79
Documents Submitted for the Record:
[The information was not available at the time of printing.]
Witness Responses to Questions Asked During the Hearing:
[The information was not available at the time of printing.]
Questions Submitted by Members Post Hearing:
Dr. DesJarlais............................................... 114
Mr. Gallego.................................................. 113
Mr. Garamendi................................................ 112
Mr. Kim...................................................... 114
Mr. Langevin................................................. 112
Mrs. Luria................................................... 116
Ms. Sherrill................................................. 115
Mr. Smith.................................................... 111
Ms. Speier................................................... 113
Ms. Trahan................................................... 117
THE FISCAL YEAR 2020 NATIONAL DEFENSE
AUTHORIZATION BUDGET REQUEST FROM
THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
----------
House of Representatives,
Committee on Armed Services,
Washington, DC, Tuesday, March 26, 2019.
The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:00 a.m., in room
2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Adam Smith (chairman
of the committee) presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. ADAM SMITH, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM
WASHINGTON, CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
The Chairman. Thank you. A couple of process issues to
start. The Secretary has said that he can be here till 3:00,
which calls into question, you know, just how big of a
masochist he is, but we do appreciate the ability to be here
that long. We are going to take a break at 12:15, from 12:15 to
12:30, and then we will resume. We don't have to go to 3
o'clock, but we want to try to give members as much time as
possible, understanding the importance of this hearing.
With that, I call the hearing to order. I want to thank the
Honorable Patrick Shanahan, Acting Secretary of Defense;
General Joseph Dunford, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff;
and the Honorable David Norquist, who is performing the duties
of the Deputy Secretary of Defense.
First note, I believe this will be the last, probably the
last time that General Dunford testifies before our committee.
He has held many roles within the military. And I just want to
say, on a personal note, is that it has been a great pleasure
working with you. You have served your country incredibly well,
do an outstanding job, and we have always had a very open
dialogue. We all know that there are tensions between the
Pentagon and Congress, but you have done an outstanding job of
truly, you know, letting us know you care what we think, you
want to work with us, you want to make this process work. I
really appreciate your leadership.
And Mr. Shanahan and Mr. Norquist, this is both your first
hearings in your current acting roles. As I discussed with the
Secretary yesterday, there is getting to be sort of a Bud Selig
joke here. For those of you who follow baseball, he was made
the baseball chairman and then he was the acting chairman for
life, because he kept in that spot but they never made him
permanent. So we are hoping that doesn't happen in your case as
well, but we appreciate your service and look forward to your
testimony.
These are, as always, very challenging times. As we have
said on this committee for quite a few years now, it is hard to
imagine a time in American history when we have had such a
complex threat environment. Certainly, there have been times in
our history where we have been at greater peril, but here the
dangers come from a multitude of different sources. And it
really takes an incredible amount of work and understanding to
figure out how do we meet all of those threats in a
comprehensive way. We cannot do everything we would like to do.
How do we make sure we do what we have to do? So we have to
meet that threat environment.
And the basic task, as I see it, of the Department of
Defense and our committee is, number one, clearly, meet our
national security objectives, figure out what they are, and
make sure we are meeting them. And one of the biggest there is
to deter our adversaries, and that can come in many forms. At
the moment, it is primarily Russia, China, transnational
terrorist groups, North Korea, and Iran. What are we doing to
deter them from their actions?
And then lastly and most importantly, is to make sure that
the men and women who serve in our military are trained and
equipped and 100 percent prepared to carry out whatever mission
we ask them to do. Those missions will change as the threat
environment changes, as our resources change, but the one thing
we never want to do is create a situation where we are asking
them to go into a fight that they are not prepared for. We are
incredibly well served by the men and women in our military.
Without question, the best, strongest, most capable military in
the history of the world, and it wouldn't happen but for the
people serving. We need to make sure that we give them the
tools they need to do their job.
As I go forward, the greatest challenge to all of this is
somewhat, you know, surprising in that it is the budget and the
uncertainty that comes with it. Ever since the Budget Control
Act in 2011, the entire discretionary budget has gone through a
number of shutdowns. At this point, I forget if it was three or
four, countless other threatened shutdowns, countless
continuing resolutions, and a level of budget uncertainty that
has made it impossible to plan. From one month to the next, you
do not know how much money you are going to have and you don't
know where you are going to be able to spend it. And that
created an enormous number of problems.
Now, we have made progress on that. We also, because of the
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, had a readiness shortfall, which
I know you have worked very hard on and it is getting better.
We look forward to hearing the specifics about how we have
improved on that.
And then also, when we got the budget deal for 2018 and
2019, we finally put in about 18 months of, while certainty is
too strong a word, but predictability. Now, 2018 wasn't
perfect, because you didn't get it until 6 months into the
fiscal year and then had to figure out how to spend that money
in a very short timeframe. But for 2019, on October 1, the
Department of Defense knew what its budget was going to be for
the full year. And I believe that was the first time in 7 years
that that was the case. That is enormously helpful.
Now, unfortunately, as we head towards 2020, we are now at
risk of falling back into the old ways, which is really too
bad. We have 2 years left of the Budget Control Act. And I know
there is bipartisan consensus in the House and the Senate to
get a deal for those last 2 years. Unfortunately, the budget
that was submitted by the President and the Department of
Defense dramatically undercuts our ability to get that deal.
First of all, it sticks--well, it claims to stick to the
Budget Control Act numbers, but it does two things that are
incredibly problematic. One, it cuts all nondefense
discretionary money by 5 percent, and that is by 5 percent
below the Budget Control Act number for 2020. It is an even
greater cut from what we put into those programs last year. And
then it uses the overseas contingency operations [OCO] fund as
a slush fund. It takes that money and says because it is off
budget, we can pump I think it is well over $90 billion into
base budgeting out of the OCO and claim that we have stuck to
the Budget Control Act numbers. That is breathtakingly
irresponsible. And no greater authority on that subject than
current chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said exactly that.
Now, he said it 3 years ago when he was a Member of
Congress and not trying to weasel his way around the budget
problem as a chief of staff. But he made it clear that OCO
should not be a way to sneak around the budget caps, and yet
that is the heart and soul of the budget going forward.
And there are a couple of problems with this, the biggest
one of which that budget is not going to pass. There is
bipartisan opposition to it, and I can assure you the
Democratic-controlled House is not going to pass a budget that
creates $174 billion OCO and guts every other aspect of
funding.
So how do we get back from there? How do we get to the
point where we were, I believe, in November and December where
we were just this close to a budget deal for 2020 and 2021 that
gives us a degree of certainty, that can give us that
predictability and get us to the end of the Budget Control Act.
There is no good reason to do this.
Artificially sticking to those budget caps has almost
nothing to do with fiscal responsibility. I know that is the
thought. Well, gosh, we can say we stuck to the budget caps. We
can claim that we are being fiscally responsible.
The discretionary budget is 25 percent of the overall
budget and has nothing to do with revenue. It is only a tiny
portion of our overall debt and deficit picture. And to
jeopardize all of that to get no particular gain on fiscal
responsibility is, to my mind, incredibly irresponsible.
And the last problem with all of this is we constantly talk
in this committee about a whole-of-government approach. We have
had many people from the Pentagon, most notably and most
articulately, as is often the case, with Secretary Mattis, who
said, if you are going to cut the State Department, you better
give me more ammunition. The State Department gets cut by 25
percent in this budget, Development gets cut by just about the
same, Homeland Security. Every other piece of this whole-of-
government approach gets gutted in this budget, except to make
sure that we can have a 10 percent or 8 percent or whatever it
is increase in military spending.
And I just--I can't have people from the Pentagon come up
here and wax nostalgic about how much they love the State
Department while we gut their budget. You know, a whole-of-
government approach requires that. And we get into a self-
fulfilling prophecy if we don't fund these other tools. And by
the way, the military is not the only way to deter our
adversaries. We can work with partners. We can use diplomacy.
There are a ton of things we can do so that we don't have to
rely on the blunt instrument of the U.S. military. But it will
not work if we gut that budget.
Just two final points I have to make. You know, the comment
that funding a border wall out of the Department of Defense is
also unbelievably irresponsible. And I won't even get into the
debate here about the wisdom of that border wall. We can do
that at another time. But what everyone feels about the border
wall, to look at the Pentagon as sort of a piggybank/slush fund
where you can simply can go in and grab money for something
when you need it really undermines the credibility of the
entire DOD [Department of Defense] budget. Because if you have
got $5- to $10- to $20 billion just lying around at the
Pentagon for any particular purpose, then what does that say
about whether or not you really need the money that you come up
here telling us that you need?
So this committee, and I know there has been bipartisan
expression to this, is unalterably opposed to taking money out
of DOD to fund the border wall. And in particular--well, I will
get into the reprogramming issue in my questions.
But the last point that we want to emphasize: the audit. We
need the Pentagon to start spending the money more wisely than
it has been spending it. And I really want to thank my partner
on this committee, Ranking Member Thornberry, for his work even
before he was chairman of the committee. His understanding of
acquisition and procurement is second to none in this
committee. And he has worked very, very hard to try to put
legislation in to improve the efficiency, to make sure that we
are spending the money wisely. Too much money has been wasted
at the Pentagon. We need the audit. At a minimum, we need to
know where you are spending your money. We don't know that,
there is really no way to get to efficiency. So we are going to
keep pushing on that.
And then we need to get better about the systems that we
fund. The F-35 is unbelievably over budget. We have the
aircraft carrier, even now as it is delivered, it is having
problems with elevators and launch systems. The tanker, you
know, they are finding debris inside of the tanker from when it
was made. There is just a lack of efficiency. And there are
programs throughout the nineties, the Future Combat Program,
that spent billions of dollars towards no particular end. The
expeditionary fighting vehicle where we spend $8 billion before
deciding that we weren't actually going to build it.
I believe that the Pentagon can get by with a lot less
money if we had a full audit and we spent that money better.
And we want to make sure that we are moving in that direction.
With that, I thank you for being here. I look forward to
your testimony, and I yield to the ranking member.
STATEMENT OF HON. WILLIAM M. ``MAC'' THORNBERRY, A
REPRESENTATIVE FROM TEXAS, RANKING MEMBER, COMMITTEE ON ARMED
SERVICES
Mr. Thornberry. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Secretary Shanahan, welcome to the House Armed Services
Committee. You have met with the committee in other places in
other capacities, but this is the first time you have testified
in this way, so welcome.
General Dunford and Mr. Norquist, welcome back.
General Dunford, I am not quite ready to let you go yet, so
just be warned that you may be back in some way or another,
given what the chairman said the complex nature of the threats
and security environment in which we all operate.
Mr. Secretary, you may find yourself the target of a lot of
criticism for decisions that you had nothing to do with today.
I hope that is not the case. I, for example, share the
chairman's view that we should not take Department of Defense
resources and use it for other purposes. I know that that was
not a decision you made, but I hope that most of what we can
talk about today are those things within the purview of the
Department of Defense. Because I agree with much of the
chairman's comments that budget uncertainty, largely because of
Congress and the previous administration, has caused enormous
problems for the Department of Defense and the men and women
who serve. And yet we have started to make some real progress.
We have started--had a good start in improving readiness of
our forces. And all of us who have been on the committee
previously have been concerned about the number of casualties
and other things because of accidents, which were unfortunately
increasing at an alarming rate. It was not just because of the
pace of operations, that certainly contributed, but it was also
because of about a 20 percent cut in defense funding starting
in 2010.
We have started to make progress on improving our position
versus peer competitors. Now, we haven't caught up where we
need to be yet, but--and in key areas, they are still ahead of
us, but we have started to make progress. And we have even
started to make progress in treating our people right.
I think you are going to--for example, this committee is
going to focus on housing issue. There are some spouse
employment issues. There are still a lot of things we need to
do. But when you look back the last few years on pay, health
care, retirement, et cetera, we have started to make progress.
My bottom line is we need to keep making progress. We can't
slide backwards. And I am very conscious of the fact that
repeatedly, Secretary Mattis and you, General Dunford, have
testified that a minimum of 3 to 5 percent real growth in the
defense budget is necessary to continue to make progress, both
on readiness, in holding our own at least with peer
competitors.
I also note that the national strategy commission, which
was composed of an equal number of Republicans and Democrats,
looked at this for some time and they endorsed that 3 to 5
percent real growth. That is exactly what the President's
budget--just about what the President's budget comes in at. I
share the concerns about other parts of the budget. And I
completely agree we are not ever going to pass $174 billion
OCO, but that goes back to decisions that were made somewhere
else other than the Department of Defense.
I appreciate all three of you and the work that you put in.
We need to be your partners to continue to make progress on
readiness, on treating our people right, on the peer competitor
issues that concern us all. So we will get into a lot of those
today.
Thank you all again for being here. I yield back.
The Chairman. Mr. Secretary.
STATEMENT OF HON. PATRICK M. SHANAHAN, ACTING SECRETARY OF
DEFENSE, DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE; ACCOMPANIED BY DAVID NORQUIST,
COMPTROLLER AND CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER, AND ACTING DEPUTY
SECRETARY, DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
Secretary Shanahan. Chairman Smith, Ranking Member
Thornberry, distinguished members of the committee, thank you
for this opportunity to testify in support of the President's
budget request for fiscal year 2020.
I am joined by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
General Joseph Dunford, and the Department's Comptroller and
Chief Financial Officer, Mr. David Norquist.
It has been a great privilege and honor to serve alongside
the men and women of the Department of Defense. And it was a
pleasure to work with Secretary Mattis to craft the 2018
National Defense Strategy.
Released in January 2018, that strategy laid the foundation
for restoring military readiness and modernizing our joint
force for an era of great power competition. I now oversee the
continued execution of that strategy, which is the undisputed
driver of today's budget request.
It was extremely helpful for the Department to receive
authorization and appropriation bills on time and at the
requested top line last year. With 87 percent of Congress in
bipartisan support, last year marked the earliest signing of an
authorization bill in four decades.
The strategy you supported last year is the same strategy
we are asking you to fund this year. The $750 billion top line
for national defense enables DOD to maintain irregular warfare
as a core competency, yet prioritizes modernization and
readiness to compete, deter, and win in any possible high-end
fight of the future.
This budget is critical for the continued execution of our
strategy, and it reflects difficult but necessary decisions
that align finite resources with our strategic priorities.
To highlight some of those decisions, this is the largest
research, development, testing, and evaluation [RDT&E] budget
in 70 years. The budget includes double-digit increases to our
investments in both space and cyber, modernization of our
nuclear triad and missile defense capabilities, and the largest
shipbuilding request in 20 years, when adjusted for inflation.
It also increases our total end strength by roughly 7,700
service members, and provides a 3.1 percent pay increase to our
military, the largest in a decade.
Now to the specifics. The top line slates $718 billion for
the Department of Defense. Of that total, the budget includes
$545 billion for base funding and $164 billion for overseas
contingency operations. Of the overseas contingency operation
funds, $66 billion will go to direct war and enduring
requirements and $98 billion will fund base requirements. To
round out the numbers, $9.2 billion will fund emergency
construction. That includes an estimated $2 billion to rebuild
facilities damaged by Hurricanes Florence and Michael; up to
$3.6 billion to support military construction projects that
will be awarded in fiscal year 2020 instead of fiscal year
2019, so we can resource border barrier projects under
emergency declaration this year; and $3.6 billion in case
additional emergency funding is needed for the border.
Military construction on the border will not come at the
expense of our people, our readiness, or our modernization. To
identify the potential pool of sources of military construction
funds, DOD will apply the following criteria. No military
construction projects that have already been awarded and no
military construction projects with fiscal year 2019 award
dates will be impacted. We are solely looking at projects with
award dates after September 30, 2019. No military housing,
barracks, or dormitory projects will be impacted.
Decisions have not been made concerning which border
barrier projects will be funded through section 2808 authority.
If the Department's fiscal year 2020 budget is enacted on time
as requested, no military construction project use to source
section 2808 projects will be delayed or canceled.
I appreciate the inherent intra-government complexities of
the southwest border situation. I also want to emphasize the
funds requested for the border barrier amount to less than 1
percent of the national defense top line.
As this committee fully understands, no enemy in the field
has done more damage to our military's combat readiness in
years past than sequestration and budget instability. And there
is no question today, our adversaries are not relenting.
The instability of a continuing resolution [CR] would cost
us in three important ways. First, we would be unable to
implement new initiatives like standing up the Space Command or
accelerating our development of hypersonic capabilities and
artificial intelligence. Second, our funding will be in the
wrong accounts. We are requesting significant investments in
RDT&E for cyber, space, and disruptive technologies, and at O&M
[operations and maintenance] for core readiness. Third, the
incremental funding under a CR means we lose buying power. This
translates to higher costs and uncertainty for industry in the
communities where we operate.
We built this budget to implement our National Defense
Strategy, and I look forward to working with you to ensure
predictable funding so our military can remain the most lethal,
adaptable, and resilient fighting force in the world. I
appreciate the critical role Congress plays to ensure our
warfighters can succeed on the battlefield of both today and
tomorrow. And I thank our service members, their families, and
all those in the Department of Defense for maintaining constant
vigilance as they stand, always ready to protect our freedoms.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Secretary Shanahan can be found
in the Appendix on page 79.]
The Chairman. Thank you.
Chairman Dunford.
STATEMENT OF GEN JOSEPH F. DUNFORD, JR., USMC, CHAIRMAN OF THE
JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF
General Dunford. Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Thornberry,
distinguished members of the committee, thank you for the
opportunity to join Secretary Shanahan and Under Secretary
Norquist today. It remains my privilege to represent your
soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines.
While much of our discussion this morning is going to focus
on the challenges we face, it is important I begin by assuring
you that your Armed Forces can deter a nuclear attack, defend
the homeland, meet our alliance commitments, and effectively
respond should deterrence fail.
I believe today we have a competitive advantage over any
potential adversary, defined as the ability to project power
and fight and win at the time and place of our choosing. But as
members of this committee well know, 17 years of continuous
combat and fiscal instability have affected our readiness and
eroded the competitive advantage we enjoyed a decade or more
ago.
As the Secretary highlighted, China and Russia have
capitalized on our distraction and restraints by investing in
capabilities specifically designed to challenge our traditional
sources of strength. After careful study, the developed
capabilities intended to contest our movement across all
domains--sea, air, space, cyberspace, and land--and disrupt our
ability to project power.
With the help of Congress, starting in 2017, we began to
restore that competitive advantage. Recent budgets have allowed
us to build readiness and invest in new capabilities, while
meeting current operational commitments. But we cannot reverse
decades of erosion in just a few years.
This year's budget submission would allow us to continue
restoring our competitive advantage by improving readiness and
developing capabilities to enhance our lethality. It proposes
investments in advanced capabilities across all domain: sea,
air, land, space, and cyberspace.
This year's budget also sustains investments in our nuclear
enterprise to ensure a safe, secure, and effective strategic
deterrent, the highest priority of the Department of Defense.
We have also taken steps to more effectively employ the force
we have today and build a force we need for tomorrow. We have
implemented fundamental changes in our global force management
process to prioritize and allocate resources in accordance with
the National Defense Strategy, while building readiness and the
flexibility to respond to unforeseen contingencies.
We have also refined our process for developing and
designing the future force. A joint concept, threat-informed
approach supported by a wide body of analytic work allows us to
more deliberately evaluate and prioritize warfighting
requirements. This also enables us to pair emerging
technologies with innovative operational concepts.
In closing, I would like to thank the committee for all you
have done to support the men and women in uniform and their
families. Together we have honored the solemn obligation to
never send our sons and daughters into a fair fight. And with
your continued support, we never will.
[The prepared statement of General Dunford can be found in
the Appendix on page 100.]
The Chairman. Thank you both. I appreciate that.
Keeping in mind and acknowledging Ranking Member
Thornberry's point that you don't make the policy necessarily
that you are sent up here to defend, regrettably, neither
President Trump nor Chief of Staff Mulvaney are going to
testify before our committee, so we have to ask you about it
and get your defense/explanation.
And one of the biggest areas in the wall funding that is
problematic for this committee and for the relationship between
the Pentagon and Congress is the reprogramming requests. And it
is, you know, a bit of sort of arcane policy that even I didn't
fully understand. But by and large, the Pentagon is not allowed
to simply move money from one account to another, without
coming back through the full legislative process.
But given the amount money at the Pentagon and given how
much things change, we have given, through the congressional
process, the ability to reprogram, I think it was $4 billion
last year. But one of the sort of gentleman's agreements about
that was if you reprogram money, you will not do it without
first getting the approval of all four relevant committees:
Defense Appropriations in the House and the Senate, and Armed
Services in the House and the Senate.
For the first time since we have done that on the
reprogramming request to help fund the wall, basically you are
shifting money from the MILPERS [military personnel] account
into the drug safety account, whatever it is, drug enforcement
account, so that you can then take it out of the cap and put it
to the wall, and you are not asking for our permission.
Now, you understand the result of that likely is that the
Appropriations Committee in particular will no longer give the
Pentagon reprogramming authority. Now, I think that is
unfortunate, because they need it. And I guess my question is
what was the discussion like about in deciding to break that
rule, and what is your view of the implications for it going
forward in terms of the relationship between the Pentagon and
Congress in general? And specifically, how much is it going to
hamper you to not have reprogramming authority after this year?
Secretary Shanahan. Chairman, what was the second part of
that? What was the----
The Chairman. How is it going to hamper the relationship if
you--I am sorry. How is it going to hamper your ability to do
your job if you don't have any reprogramming authority going
forward?
Secretary Shanahan. Right, yeah. Well, the discussion, I
think--you know, I have also been party to this discussion--is
that by unilaterally reprogramming it was going to affect our
ability long term to be able to do discretionary reprogramming
that we had traditionally done in coordination. It was a very
difficult discussion. And we understand the significant
downsides of losing what amounts to a privilege.
The conversation took place prior to the declaration of a
national emergency. It was part of the consulting that went on.
We said, here are the risks, longer term to the Department, and
those risks were weighed. And then given a legal order from the
Commander in Chief, we are executing on that order. And as we
discussed, the first reprogramming was $1 billion. And I wanted
to do it before we had this committee hearing, because we have
been talking about this for some time. And I have been
deliberately working to be transparent in this process, fully
knowing that there is downsides, which will hamper us.
The Chairman. And ultimately, you asked for--you asked for
$1 billion yesterday. Is it still the plan to ask for $2.4
billion out of the drug enforcement account?
Secretary Shanahan. We haven't made the assessment of
what--consider these increments or tranches, however you want
to phrase them, potentially we could draw $2.5 billion, when we
look at the total general transfer authority. We think beyond
that would be too painful to being able to continue [to]
maintain readiness and operations, but we don't know what that
next increment of funding would look like.
The Chairman. One final question on this piece. You are
getting the money because I believe it is the Army or is it the
Army and the Marine Corps that did not meet their end-strength
goals?
Secretary Shanahan. Let me ask David Norquist.
Mr. Norquist. So the source of the money as you point out
at the beginning is the military personnel account. The Army
was falling short of its recruiting targets by about 9,000,
9,500. And so funds that would have gone to pay those soldiers
had they been on board is no longer needed for that purpose.
That military personnel account is more like a mandatory, in
the sense that if there is no purpose, there is not a lot of
other uses. And so it is available for reprogramming under
those circumstances.
The Chairman. Understood. And so for the fiscal year 2020
budget, does your personnel request reflect that inability to
recruit? Do you sort of factor in, okay, we would like to have
this many, but we are not? Does it make sense to give you the
same amount of money for MILPERS if it is just going to wind up
in the drug enforcement account and then go to building a wall?
Secretary Shanahan. I believe we did that.
Mr. Norquist. Yes. So we went ahead and planned the 2020
budget off of the--the Army revised its expectations for next
year accordingly, and that is the number that is in the 2020
budget, sir.
The Chairman. Okay. Final question. So when it comes to the
budget, overall budget number--and I do have a slight quibble
with the idea that somehow this is all a problem because the
Obama administration cut defense. I think to the extent that we
rely on that political talking point it undercuts the fact that
this all happened because of the battle over the budget. I
mean, the Budget Control Act wasn't passed because the Obama
administration decided they wanted to do it. It was passed
because we were literally 2 days away from not paying our
debts. There was a refusal by the then Republican-controlled
Congress to raise the debt ceiling. And the only deal to be
able to raise the debt ceiling was to agree to sequestration in
the Budget Control Act. It was a bipartisan act of--well, self-
flagellation, if you will, in terms of messing up our budget
for 10 years to come just because we didn't have the political
courage to live with the consequences of the money we had
already spent. And that led to no end of problems, but it was a
bipartisan problem.
And really, it is a bipartisan unwillingness to address the
reality that you can't balance the budget while cutting taxes
and increasing spending. A choice has to be made. We decided
not to make that choice. We decided to punt it into the
artificial Budget Control Act, Sequestration Act. So a little
greater honesty about the budget choices we face is the best
way out of this, not, you know, any fault of the Trump
administration or the Obama administration.
But the question I have--and, General Dunford, take a stab
at this--the President at one point, I don't know, several
months ago said that he felt a $700 billion defense budget made
sense. Several days after that, you know, they had settled on--
well, before that, there was the $733 billion number, which
people had talked about as I think what was reflected in the--
you know, plus inflation, the 5 percent number that a
bipartisan group had come up with. So, you know, it had been
733, the President said, you know, I think we can do 700. And
there was back and forth, a bunch of people talked to him, and
then it became 750. Okay?
And, you know, one of the things on the credibility here is
we always hear from you guys, we absolutely have to have this
money. I think that way one general testified, he said,
anything below 733 creates an unacceptable amount of risk. I
kind of find that hard to believe. Is now the statement
anything below 750 becomes an unacceptable amount of risk?
Where is the rigor in terms of what that number is to make sure
that it is truly funding what our national security needs are,
if that number can move $50 billion in the space of a few
tweets?
General Dunford. Chairman, I can address the specific part
of the budget that talks to joint warfighting capabilities, and
that represents, as Ranking Member Thornberry pointed out,
about a 2.9 percent real growth increase over last year.
In the terms of analysis, going back to 2015, we did a
detailed analysis at the top secret level of all of what we
call competitive areas: space, cyberspace, electronic warfare,
maritime capability, land, and so forth. So we looked at
ourselves and then we looked at what we had in the plan going
out to 2025. And then we worked with the intelligence community
and we did a similar study of China and Russia, the benchmark,
if you, will for our path of capability development. Then we
looked at the trajectory of capability development that Russia
and China were on. And we looked at what should our force look
like in 2025 to make sure that we had a competitive advantage.
Again, that competitive advantage defined as the ability to----
The Chairman. As a result of that process, you came up with
the $733 billion number. Correct?
General Dunford. That number is completely informed by the
analysis we did for the path of capability development. Yes,
Chairman.
The Chairman. Okay. It is just worth noting that the
President's request was for 750, despite all that analysis that
said 733. So that is the type of rigorous analysis I think we
need to get to a number, not just deciding we want to spend
more money for the sake of spending more money. So I appreciate
that.
I want to get to some other people here, so I am going to
yield to Mr. Thornberry.
Mr. Thornberry. Let me just mention that I completely agree
with the chairman, both parties are responsible for the
irresponsible approach we took to funding defense. And I also
agree with the chairman that changing decades of reprogramming
practice is going to have difficult consequences for the whole
government, but especially for the Department of Defense.
Mr. Secretary, you heard me reference testimony that we and
the Senate have repeatedly received from Secretary Mattis and
also from General Dunford about the need for at least 3 to 5
percent real growth through 2023, and that that figure was
endorsed by the bipartisan national strategy commission. I
don't recall that you have ever weighed in on what sort of
topline growth. And there is lots of discussion underneath the
top line. I am just talking about a top number. What sort of
topline level is necessary for us to continue to repair
readiness and also deal with the complex threats posed by
Russia, China and others?
Secretary Shanahan. Thank you, sir. You know, quite often,
people will not kind of pick a number, they will look over time
and say, you know, an aggregate, what should a number be or
what should a trend be. But going back to Chairman Dunford's
comments on rigor and analytics behind the way we have put
together the National Defense Strategy, there are three trends
that are very important that factor into the rate of growth.
This is a real growth rate, so adjusted for inflation.
First, the world continues to get more dangerous, and so
that really manifests itself in troop strength. The second
component is we are still recovering readiness. Those are, you
know, real accounts that we have to restore and sustain. And
probably the biggest driver for our growth is modernization.
With great power competition and a focus on Russia and China,
we haven't modernized in three decades. And the investment
required to do that in parallel with those three other
activities drive 3 to 5 percent real growth, if we want to do
it in a timely manner. This is all about how much risk and how
much time we want to, you know, assume. I don't think we have
enough time to address these issues. That is why you need the
greater growth.
Mr. Thornberry. And so I guess the flip side is without 3
to 5 percent real growth, we are taking increased risk. We
cannot accomplish the three things that you talked about.
Secretary Shanahan. Yeah, I think, you know, it is--
sometimes risk gets too broadly characterized. I look at the
risk really into kind of two elements. You can take operational
risk or risk on modernization. So the difference between the
$700 billion number and the $733 billion was deciding where you
want to take risks. So do we want to invest in modernization
and have a smaller force or do we want to have a larger force
to deal with the threats of the world and forgo some of the
great power competition? I believe we have to do both. And when
I think of the risks, those are the two we have to manage.
Mr. Thornberry. General Dunford, I am not sure that you and
the chairman were exactly communicating. When you talked about
the analysis that y'all performed, did that result in a defense
request--actually, it is national security request of $733
billion? If so, where did the 3 to 5 percent real growth come
from? Because $733 billion is not 3 percent real growth.
General Dunford. Thank you, Ranking Member Thornberry, for
allowing me to clarify. What I was speaking about is inside the
budget, the piece that I provided recommendations on were the
military capabilities inside the budget, those things that will
directly contribute to joint warfighting. And in that area, I
am confident of the analysis that we did, and I am confident
that the budget reflects a 2.9 percent real growth in joint
warfighting capabilities.
Mr. Thornberry. Okay. So do you have any amendments or
change to the testimony that you have given us before that 3
percent real growth is necessary to stay even, 5 percent real
growth is necessary to catch up on China, Russia, and readiness
problems?
General Dunford. I don't have any change to that at all.
That is exactly what our analysis highlights.
Mr. Thornberry. Okay. Thank you. I yield back.
The Chairman. Mrs. Davis.
Mrs. Davis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you to all
of you for joining us today. And particularly to General
Dunford, it has been a privilege and really an honor to work
with you over the years.
I had a visit to the border and to our troops really a few
days ago. And in light of that, I wanted to just address some
of the issues that the chairman just mentioned, because I think
there has been some confusion. And as you are talking about the
need to really, you know, focus more on national security
needs, of course, and readiness, you know, that raises the
question of why we are not trying to really answer the issue
that is in front of us when it comes to the personnel at the
border. Because the situation that we are in right now is just
not sustainable. I think we all acknowledge that.
So having been on the border, we are about 3,000 short in
terms of personnel there. And that makes the situation
difficult, as you can well imagine, in part of what we are
trying to deal with. Can you speak a little more specifically
to what is happening, what just happened in terms of the
transfer of money? And when is that going to be done? Is that
done? Is it still in process?
Secretary Shanahan. David, do you want to give the status
of the reprogramming?
Mr. Norquist. So the reprogramming went to the committee
yesterday. And that is the notification of the intent to move
the money from one account to another. It wouldn't be used
until it was obligated onto a contract. Those, of course, take
some amount of time. We want to make sure the committee is
aware of this, so we are not trying to rush things. We just
want to do it in deliberation. But that will move at the point
when it is necessary to award another contract. We just want to
make sure the committee has the notification that we are moving
it from one to the other, and that----
Mrs. Davis. Could you speak to the nature of those
contracts as well?
Mr. Norquist. Oh, those are construction contracts for
border barriers.
Mrs. Davis. Okay. And, as you said, you haven't started
that process yet?
Mr. Norquist. In terms of?
Do you want to talk about the process or do you want me to?
Okay.
So just to go back through the overall process for 284.
With the authority of the 284, we received a request for
assistance from the Department of Homeland Security. It was
received by the Secretary. He then tasked out to the Department
to do our analysis, Joint Staff, general counsel, comptroller,
and others, and to come back with identifying which of those
construction projects are appropriate.
One of the requirements is interdicting drug corridors.
That analysis has been done. He has identified a set of
projects to use those fundings for. And one of the steps before
we can move the money is to send a notification to the
committee. The date when the money literally changes colors
inside the financial system depends, but it needs to be moved
prior to any contract being awarded.
Mrs. Davis. Okay. And you said that the money is coming
from the unallocated end strength for the Army?
Mr. Norquist. It is coming out of the military personnel
account. It was provided for end-strength recruitment that
didn't happen, and that is why it is available.
Mrs. Davis. And is that something that goes forward? Are
you not worried that that is going to make a difference down
the line?
Mr. Norquist. Well, that money is only available till 30
September. So it is not one of those accounts that would carry
over from one year to the next. So the amount of funding the
Army needs in fiscal year 2020 is a number that is requested in
the fiscal year 2020 budget and this committee would need to
access separately.
Mrs. Davis. But you spoke of making adjustments, though,
down the line since you see that that is--you are not able to
meet those targets.
Mr. Norquist. The Army made adjustments, as the chairman
asked earlier, in its 2020 budget reflecting the fact that it
was not meeting its original 2019 target. So we are not asking
for more money in 2020 that we would not be able to use again.
We made sure we accounted for those concerns.
Mrs. Davis. Okay. But we also know that, basically,
Congress had denied President Trump's request for the dollars
to build the border wall. And here we are. I know you said it
was a difficult decision because it sets precedent. How are we
going to address these issues?
Mr. Norquist. So when we receive the, in this case, the
request from DHS [Department of Homeland Security], we go
through the evaluation process. We understand that there are
other issues going on with the Congress. But this is the
direction we received from the administration regarding the RFA
[request for assistance] and this is how we evaluated and
responded to that request for assistance.
Mrs. Davis. Thank you. I have to say, I mean, I am very
concerned that we are not able to meet our needs on the border
in terms of our Border Patrol agents. But there are reasons for
that, and we can deal with them in our budget and we can deal
with them in a way that we respond to this issue.
The Chairman. The gentlewoman's time has expired.
Mrs. Davis. I am afraid we are not going to get to the
real----
The Chairman. Mr. Turner.
Mr. Turner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Secretary, we are asking the Department of Defense to
do three major things that we don't usually ask them to do all
at once. And the first is, is rebuild the military as a result
of our readiness crisis. The second is to complete the
modernization that is currently on our books. And the third is
to look to the future, to already say that our near-peer
adversaries are beginning to threaten our superiority and to
plan for modernization.
Now, we have given you in fiscal year 2018 and 2019 the
beginnings of rebuilding the military. We are planning, of
course, for 3 to 5 percent real growth. But we have a number of
things to do.
I want to associate my comments with the chairman on a
number of areas in which we have bipartisan support. We have
bipartisan support for the fact that our military budget should
not be cannibalized for our border security needs. However, we
have bipartisan disagreement on how to accomplish that, because
I believe that Congress needs to fund closing the border, and
certainly the House voted last year to do so.
I agree with the chairman with respect to we have
bipartisan support that OCO should not be used. And I
appreciate his comments that hopefully we will have a
bipartisan budget agreement for 2 years to see specs, because I
know it has effects on your operations. And then thirdly, his
statement that bipartisan support for an audit and making
certain that the Department of Defense can effectively tell us
how the funds are being used.
But all those things, managing them, whether it is
bipartisan support of constraints on you still translate to we
need you to be able to effectuate modernization, rebuilding,
and at the same time ending our crisis on operations.
So I am ranking member on the Strategic Forces
Subcommittee. I am going to ask you both, General Dunford and
yourself, issues concerning nukes. We have had on the books
nuclear modernization that is needed, not just because our
adversaries are beginning to bypass us in their own
modernization, but because of the aging inventory or aging
capabilities.
Mr. Secretary, even if Russia and China were not
modernizing, could you please articulate why we have a need to
modernize our nuclear weapons stockpile and that creates a
current threat for our nuclear stockpile to remain an active
deterrent? Mr. Secretary.
Secretary Shanahan. Sure. The first most fundamental issue
is obsolescence. You know, we look at the Minuteman III program
at the end of the decade it simply times out. The bomber
program, capacity and capability to deliver nuclear weapons.
So, you know, first and foremost, this is really about a
nuclear enterprise that has run its course in time. There is
another very critical element to this and that is the nuclear--
the NC3 capability--command, control, and communication--which
is even, you know, more complicated than just replacing the
ballistic missiles.
Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Turner. General Dunford, if I could add as you are
beginning to answer, could you please also add to your answer
the issue of the triad and the issue that we have with the
vulnerability as an effective deterrent? Because, you know,
currently, obviously our subs have some ability to avoid
detection. Tomorrow that could not be the case, and we would be
in a very tough situation if we did not have the triad.
General, could you explain that to us?
General Dunford. Congressman, thanks. First, just to
reinforce what the Secretary said, we use three adjectives to
describe the nuclear enterprise: safe, reliable, and effective.
And so your question was even if Russia and China weren't
modernizing, which they are, we would still have to modernize
to make sure that we had a safe, reliable, and effective
nuclear deterrent. And a particular area of concern, again
notwithstanding what the Chinese and Russians are doing right
now, is the aging nuclear command, control, and communications
system. So we absolutely would have had to get after that.
Your question of triad is somewhat related. We have done
two nuclear posture reviews since I have been the chairman. One
during President Obama's administration, one during President
Trump's administration. In both cases, we looked--people went
into that with an open mind to see do we need to continue to
maintain a triad to have an effective deterrent, and it was
concluded that we needed to do that. Each leg of the triad has
a unique capability, and it also complicates the adversary's
ability to have a technological breakthrough that would
undermine the credibility and the ability of our nuclear triad.
So that is a big piece of it.
You talked about the submarines specifically, so I will
address that. That gives us the most secure, the most safe leg
of the triad, a reliable second strike. If you look at the
bomber, it is an option that can be recalled. And if you look
at the ground-based element of the nuclear deterrent, it is an
element that complicates the adversary's targeting. And so
again, each of those has an operational role but it also, in
the aggregate, prevents a technological breakthrough that would
undermine the credibility of our deterrent.
Mr. Turner. Thank you, General.
Mr. Secretary, do we want Turkey in the F-35 program?
Secretary Shanahan. We absolutely do. We need Turkey to buy
the Patriot.
Mr. Turner. Thank you.
The Chairman. Mr. Langevin.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Secretary, welcome before the committee in your current
capacity. And, gentlemen, thank you all for your service and
the work you are doing.
Mr. Secretary, I am going to start with you, if I could.
The National Defense Strategy focuses on great power
competition and places less emphasis on countering violent
extremist organizations. USSOCOM [U.S. Special Operations
Command] has been primarily focused on counter violent
extremist organization missions since 9/11, and geographic
combatant commanders continue to have an insatiable appetite
for SOF [special operations forces] and CT [counterterrorism]
security cooperation and other missions. So I remain concerned
about the demands placed on U.S. SOF and believe that we need
to rethink our reliance on this force for every mission to
ensure that it doesn't break from overreliance.
So, Mr. Secretary, has the Department considered a major
force restructure review of USSOCOM to underscore and in order
to determine what it needs to look like to fulfill title 10
core mission sets, maintain sustainable counterterrorism
campaign, and also to ensure readiness for future conflict?
Secretary Shanahan. Thank you, Congressman. The focus of
the Department has not been in separate title 10 capability but
in capacity. Do we have sufficient capacity? As you described,
there is constant tension to address a variety of global
missions given the violent extremist organizations that
continue to propagate around the world.
The chairman's role as the global integrator is to
determine what is the risk balance that we need to maintain and
what is the appropriate capacity. So our budget is really
focused on do we have the right capacity, not necessarily the
right structure, which is what I think you were alluding to.
I would just ask the chairman maybe to comment on how he
prepares his global campaign plans into sizing the
counterterrorism effort.
General Dunford. Congressman----
Mr. Langevin. I am primarily concerned about getting----
General Dunford. Yeah. I think we share your perspective
about both the overuse of special operations capability and the
need for special operations capability to be relevant across
the range of military operations. And so with that in mind, 2
years ago, it really is a force management issue. We adjusted
deployment of special operations to be at a more sustainable
rate. That does two things: One is addresses the human factors
associated with overemployment, but the other is it allowed
them then sufficient time to train for some of the high-end
tasks associated with operations in the context of great power
competition.
Mr. Langevin. And how is the Department looking across the
conventional forces to determine what missions and requirements
could be filled by forces such as the Army Security Force
Assistance Brigade versus SOF?
General Dunford. No, Congressman, a great question. And
that is part of what we call the global force management
allocation process. So we look at all the requirements that are
identified by the combatant commander and we try to come up
with the right sourcing solution for the combatant commander's
task. But completely informing specific allocation decisions is
the need for us to get to a sustainable level of operational
deployment.
And again, over the last 2 years, we have pulled back the
throttle, so to speak, to make sure that our forces are being
employed at a more sustainable deployment to dwell rate.
Mr. Langevin. I continue to remain concerned about
overreliance on SOF, and we want to make sure we get that
balance right.
Let me turn to another topic, Mr. Secretary, climate
change. The fiscal year 2018 NDAA [National Defense
Authorization Act] contained a provision that I authored that
was supported by bipartisan majorities in this committee and in
the full House, and instructed each service to assess the top
10 military installations likely to be affected by climate
change over the next 20 years. Unfortunately, the report that
was delivered in January ignored the clear instruction provided
by law, failed to provide a ranking of installations, and not
just looking at CONUS [continental United States] but
worldwide, and lacked the methodological rigor required to
adequately evaluate risks. In response to the concerns I
raised, the Department came back yesterday with what I
considered to be a half-baked rejoinder using the same
methodology, a list of CONUS installations as the initial
report.
Secretary Shanahan, I repeatedly made myself available to
clarify the intent behind the language and the statute. No one
from the Department has taken me up on the offer. Do you agree
that climate change poses a threat to our readiness, to our
ability to achieve military objectives?
The Chairman. And I am sorry, this is going to have to be a
really quick answer because we are about out of time, but go
ahead.
Secretary Shanahan. I believe we need to address resilience
in our operations and our design and how we build out our
facilities.
The Chairman. Thank you. And I should have said this at the
beginning for the purpose of the witnesses. We try to keep it
within 5 minutes, questions and answers, so try not to cut you
off in mid-sentence if we can avoid it, but we want to make
sure we get to as many people as possible.
Mr. Rogers.
Mr. Rogers. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I thank all of
you-all for being here and for your service to our country.
Secretary Shanahan, I appreciate you taking the lead in the
effort you put into the development of a Space Force in the
Department of Defense.
The administration's Space Force proposal is very--the one
that you sent over is very comprehensive. How would you
prioritize the reform efforts within the DOD? Given the choice
between a Space Force, U.S. Space Command, or Space Development
Agency, which one do you think is most importantly pushed
through today?
Secretary Shanahan. I would push for standing up of the
U.S. Space Command, because it is the easiest and most
impactful, followed then by the Space Development Agency.
Mr. Rogers. Excellent. We have heard it argued that
creating a space-centric force is anti-joint, that it flies in
the face of the effort to make things more joint within the
Department over the last 30 years. I would argue that the
fragmented leadership in space has equally existed for the past
30 years. So my question is, how do you reconcile these two
trains of thought? Does creating a Space Force go against the
basic principles of jointness or how do you believe that such a
move can contribute to a more joint-effective lethal
warfighting in future conflicts.
Secretary Shanahan. No, I think it is enormously powerful
to be able to create jointness. Two areas--and the chairman
brought this up particularly around a procurement and
delivering capability. We have 10 different architectures going
on in the Department in a variety of capabilities. Command and
control is one of them. This is an opportunity to have
commonality across the whole of the Department, something we
have never been able to achieve. Space Force is that uniting
construct. And then we also have a chance with the singular
focus to drive much greater integration into the combatant
commands.
Mr. Rogers. Great. And can you elaborate on why you chose
to put the Space Force in the Department of the Air Force as
opposed to SOCOM-type structure?
Secretary Shanahan. The Air Force is where the skill is for
space. So, I mean, most fundamentally as we reshape and
reconstruct, you want to be where the people are that have the
background. This is really more about a structural change. The
SOCOM model, very different, the types of equipment and
capabilities they develop are, I will say, much less complex
than what we put on orbit. Air Force inherently has the skill
set to manage and lead the Space Force.
Mr. Rogers. Great. Thank you.
General Dunford, there has been a lot of debate over the
value of the air, land, and sea legs of our nuclear triad. What
is your best military advice as to how to balance these
priorities?
General Dunford. Congressman, just for clarification,
balance the priorities across the triad or across the
Department's portfolio----
Mr. Rogers. Across the triad.
General Dunford. Across the triad, Congressman, we have
done, as you know, two nuclear posture reviews in the past 8
years; in fact, two since I have been the chairman. And both of
those have indicated the need to modernize the triad. So we
have in the program right now a plan to modernize all three
legs of the triad. And to do that in a way that allows us--and
that will represent, at the peak, 7 percent of the Department's
budget, which means 93 percent of the Department's budget will
be spent on other things other than the most important element
of our Department's mission, which is nuclear deterrence.
Mr. Rogers. Great. And can you tell the committee, in your
best military advice, would you advise the adoption of a no-
first-use policy?
General Dunford. I would not recommend that. I think
anything that simplifies an enemy's decisionmaking calculus
would be a mistake.
I am very comfortable with the policy that we have right
now, which creates a degree of ambiguity. And I thought the way
that it was articulated in our nuclear posture review is
exactly right for the security environment that we find
ourselves in right now.
Mr. Rogers. Excellent. Thank you.
I yield back.
The Chairman. Mr. Larsen.
Mr. Larsen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Dunford, you mentioned, I think perhaps in
response to Chairman Smith's comments, a series of assessments
you developed, in your words, as baselines to determine the
state of what the competitive advantage is of the joint force.
I was curious, though, how we can articulate what a
competitive advantage is by way of the Joint Military Net
Assessment process if we haven't determined what competition is
by way of investments and resourcing. And we have an idea of
who we are competing against, but we don't seem to be
necessarily choosing between all the tools that we can use
versus the ones that won't be as successful in this
competition.
Can you talk a little bit more about the science versus the
art of this competitive advantage and these choices you make in
investment and resourcing?
General Dunford. Oh, I absolutely can, Congressman.
First, in terms of the what we are trying to do, we went
into this to say that Russia and China are the benchmark
against which we measure our capabilities, and against Russia
and China we want to be able to do two fundamental things: One,
we want to move forces into the theater to meet our alliance
commitments and advance our national interests, whether it is
in Eurasia or it is in the Pacific; and then we say we want to
be able to operate freely across all domains--sea, air, land,
space, and cyberspace.
And so I think we actually have a fair degree of analytic
rigor in looking at the challenges currently posed by China and
Russia to our ability to project power and then achieve
superiority in any of those domains at the time and place of
our choosing to accomplish our mission.
And so this is very much benchmarked against campaign
outcomes against those two peer competitors across all domains
in the context of meeting our alliance commitments and
advancing our national security.
So I would be happy to come up and spend more time talking
to you about it. But, actually, I think we have a very clear
target that we are shooting on. I think we have a very clear
assessment of where we are today relative to where we need to
be. And although we will refine the path along which we will
maintain our competitive advantage in the future, I think we
have a pretty clear sight picture of where we think we need to
go over the next 5 to 7 years.
Again, it will be refined by war-gaming and exercises and
so forth, but I think we have a pretty clear vision now of the
cardinal direction that we need to go on to be able to do the
kinds of things we anticipate needing to do.
Mr. Larsen. I think I would like to take you up on that
offer----
General Dunford. Sure.
Mr. Larsen [continuing]. To come up and brief a little more
on that.
I want to poke at this a little bit as well, though,
because we get testimony from the Department on the
advancements in supercomputing and AI [artificial
intelligence]. And so we have set up the JAIC [Joint Artificial
Intelligence Center] and are moving forward.
The RDT&E budget, I understand, is $9 billion more than
last year--is that right?--but most of that increase is
actually not in the base budget, it is in the base OCO budget.
Is that true as well?
Mr. Norquist, do you know that?
Mr. Norquist. No, I don't believe that it is predominantly
in the OCO budget. The things that generally moved are like
weapons systems sustainment. I think the R&D--well, it is a
spread account. I think----
Mr. Larsen. Well, I think you are going to have to take a
look--the increase, I think--go back and take a look at that,
that it is in the base OCO as opposed to the base.
So I am wondering, if these things are priorities, how you
make a choice between putting them in the actual base budget
versus this fake base that is in the OCO.
Mr. Norquist. I would not assign any higher or lower
priority to something in the base versus the OCO for base. We
did it in a way----
Mr. Larsen. Well, I would, because I have been here since
the early 2000s and this is exactly the problem with OCO. It
started off as the global war on terrorism, and we could
actually define some things that were specific to GWOT. And
what is happening now is exactly what we thought would happen,
using the OCO budget for something that it is not supposed to
be used for, things that are supposed to be in the base.
So I guess I would disagree with you, although we sit in
different spots in making these decisions. And now we are stuck
with a budget that is not really based on a base. It is based
on shoving things in an OCO budget because it is available, not
because you are supposed to be doing it.
Mr. Norquist. So we built it according, as was mentioned
earlier, to the direction we were given. What we did to try and
make it easier for the staff that we work with is to separate
in the way the budget is submitted those things that we would
think of as traditional OCO--direct war costs, enduring costs.
And those are in the budgets listed separately from the OCO----
Mr. Larsen. That is an OCO budget. That is what it is for.
Mr. Norquist. Understood.
Mr. Larsen. It doesn't seem like it.
Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Larsen.
Mr. Conaway.
Mr. Conaway. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Gentlemen, thank you for your continued emphasis on
auditing the books and records at the Department of Defense. It
is a stunningly difficult task. And I know that the men and
women who are actually trying to do that day in and day out
must feel like Sisyphus each day, but it really is important.
Good progress being made this past year.
Please express to all of them my thanks, officially. I know
I have spoken to some of you about it to continue to do that,
but this is really important work for the men and women in
uniform and the civilians who are trying to get this work done.
Thank you for continuing to budget the requisite resources
necessary in a period where budgeting is really difficult. So I
thank you for that.
Mr. Norquist, thank you for your attention to the notices
of findings and recommendations, actually assigning specific
people to those tasks and then holding them accountable for
getting that done. That will pay dividends moving forward. So
no real comment from you necessary, other than thank you for
keeping up the good work, and we will finally get that done.
The Army end strength was dropped, 480,000, down from
487,500. Is that a reflection of the needs of the Army, or was
that a reflection the Army's inability to recruit to that
higher number? And if that is the case, can you talk to us
about the drivers for why the Army can't meet its end strength
from fiscal 2019?
Secretary Shanahan. I will speak to the total number, the
recruiting challenge, and what the Army is doing to address
that.
So it really is a shortfall in recruiting. The Army has now
gone forth and--what David described earlier was, we did reset
the top line to adjust for lowering the total end strength
because we failed to recruit what we had projected.
The Army has doubled down on changing where they are
recruiting, how they are recruiting, so that they can start to
recover growth in the end strength. It is several thousand in
this budget.
Chairman, I don't know if you have any comments on the
specific recruiting and retention, but what we have seen is----
Mr. Conaway. Are there drivers in the population they are
trying to recruit from? Is it the economy? What is causing the
shortfall?
Secretary Shanahan. Yeah, the fundamental shortfall, it is
a very competitive economy. I mean, we are all in this
worldwide competition for talent. So, you know, fundamentally,
it is a very competitive market. It is a good side of a strong
economy.
General Dunford. Congressman, I would add just one point.
Only about 29 percent of the demographic from which we draw are
physically, mentally, and psychologically capable of service.
To put a finer point on it, just slightly over a quarter of the
population from which we typically recruit are actually
eligible for military service.
That combined with the current environment we find
ourselves now, a pretty competitive economic environment--it is
always tough recruiting. It is particularly tough right now.
And I think the Army's challenges are kind of a bellwether
for the future without some adjustments. And I know all the
service chiefs are looking very carefully at recruiting and
retaining high-quality people as being a core mission for us.
Secretary Shanahan. Of the 7,700 increase in end strength
in this year's budget, 2,000 of those are Army.
Mr. Conaway. Well, from where they wound up, yeah, I
understand. But it is down from where the fiscal 2019 number
was.
Secretary Shanahan. Right.
Mr. Conaway. Well, General Dunford, I know that it is not
your job or the Department of Defense's job to look at why we
have so few men and women who are physically and mentally
capable of doing that, but I think our society does need to
address that issue.
And, then, appropriate attention being given to the impact
the Army has on being short from what they would normally be if
they had to stick with the, you know, the 487,500 that was
authorized in 2019, the impact on the Army's ability to do what
they need to do, I assume somebody is looking at that.
The conversation about OCO. The budget cap is law, and that
is what you are required to go to. Is that distracting, to have
that artificial, unrealistic number in law that has no basis in
any kind of buildup of where we ought to be hanging over your
head? Is that the real driver for trying to adjust the OCO
number to fit what the military needs of $750 billion?
Secretary Shanahan. It hampers the way we budget. So if you
look at how we budgeted last year and how we built the budget
up this year, the underlying process is exactly the same, the
strategy is exactly the same, how we put it together is exactly
the same. How we presented it to you is different.
Mr. Conaway. All right.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
The Chairman. Mr. Cooper.
Mr. Cooper. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thanks to each of
the distinguished witnesses here today.
Acting Secretary of Defense Shanahan, I would like to focus
on you and on the space capabilities that we are anticipating
having, whether you call that a force or a corps.
First of all, I am assuming that the President's budget
proposal is not written in stone. We are a coequal branch of
government, and we, of course, have the right to change that,
right?
Secretary Shanahan. You do.
Mr. Cooper. So if there are certain poison pills in that
proposal, we have the right to remove those poison pills,
right?
Secretary Shanahan. I am not aware of any poison pills.
Mr. Cooper. Well, things we might view as poison pills.
Secretary Shanahan. Okay.
Mr. Cooper. Mr. Secretary, I know that you are very
familiar with the committee's prior work on a space corps and
the fact that this committee had, at one point, a 60-to-1 vote
in favor of a corps.
Secretary Shanahan. Uh-huh.
Mr. Cooper. So I heard your answer in response to my friend
Mr. Rogers that the most important part of your proposal is the
Space Command, that that is what we need to kind of lead the
charge toward enhancing our space capabilities.
Secretary Shanahan. Yeah.
Mr. Cooper. Is that correct?
Secretary Shanahan. Well, I answered the question, of the
three pieces, which is the most important. I assume we are
going to do all of it.
Mr. Cooper. Uh-huh. Well, I would like to do all of it too,
but we have to make sure we can navigate it through Congress.
Secretary Shanahan. Right.
Mr. Cooper. I am not asking you to judge this. I am going
to give you my appraisal.
It seems like that the proposal we received on our space
capabilities is actually much closer to what this committee
passed 2 years ago than it is to what had been mentioned in
other press conferences.
For example, when the Secretary of the Air Force gave a
budget estimate of $13 billion to stand up a space capability,
this proposal is $2 billion, which is much closer to Mr.
Rogers' and my proposal, which was essentially to spend as
little money as possible just to reorganize the Air Force.
Secretary Shanahan. Uh-huh.
Mr. Cooper. So that is my judgment, not yours.
Secretary Shanahan. Uh-huh.
Mr. Cooper. Another key judgment is this: We never called
for a separate military department. We wanted it to be
underneath the Air Force. And that, in fact, is what is in the
latest proposal from the Pentagon. Some people make the Marine
Corps analogy. That is why we called it a corps as opposed to a
force. It is easier for people to understand, like the Marine
Corps.
Secretary Shanahan. Right.
Mr. Cooper. Another key element is that we had already
passed into law the fact that the new Space Command would be a
subunified command, and now that you all are asking that it be
upgraded to a full command. That shouldn't be a problem, it
would seem to me.
Secretary Shanahan. Right.
Mr. Cooper. But in these various ways, both the keeping it
under the Air Force, not spending much money, and in having a
Space Command, we are pretty much in sync on these priorities,
right?
Secretary Shanahan. We are, very much so.
Mr. Cooper. Well, I hope that we can work constructively
together to smooth out any rough edges in the proposal and to
keep things on track not only to pass this House but also pass
the Senate. Because I certainly feel a lot of urgency in
enhancing our space capabilities. And even in your 5-year
transition approach, that is 5 years that we may or may not
have vis-a-vis certain near-peer adversaries.
Secretary Shanahan. Right. I fundamentally think we can go
faster. And I appreciate your leadership, and Representative
Turner was a catalyst to move more quickly.
I think, to your earlier point, the basic elements are in
place. I think the chairman would say we have too much
bureaucracy and too much cost. In the areas where we should be
taking cost out, I am feeling aligned.
The capabilities we have really allow for growth. And if we
had more time to go into how we have put together the proposal,
technically we are aligned with the intelligence community, so
down the road that integration can take place.
We also are provisioned if we wanted to set up a separate
department sometime long term. But the kernels to get this
started are very sound, and I think we have a really good,
strong proposal.
Mr. Cooper. I see my time is about to expire. I thank you,
Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Wittman.
Mr. Wittman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Gentlemen, thanks so much for joining us today, and I
appreciate your service.
Acting Secretary Shanahan, I want to talk to you
specifically about aircraft carriers. As you know, the
President's plan has us retiring CVN 75, the USS Harry S.
Truman, without going through the complex refueling. The Navy
says that they need 12 carriers. Naval warfare doctrine says 12
carriers to generate on station continuously and to surge.
The question is, has there been some change in naval
warfare doctrine that says that now going to nine, where we
won't get back up above that until 2027? Is there a change in
that doctrine? And can we generate carrier presence
continuously and surge capacity with only nine?
Second question is, last Thursday you told Senator Inhofe
that the retirement of the USS Truman was offset by the two-
carrier block buy. We understand that the early retirement
saves $3.4 billion. And while this might be true, you are
losing 25 years of tested and capable presence with that
aircraft carrier by retiring it early. And we have invested a
lot of money in that carrier.
Secretary Shanahan. Right.
Mr. Wittman. You have also already spent $500 million in
purchasing reactor cores to refuel that carrier. Reactor cores
don't work in other submarines. They only work in carriers, and
they are designed specifically for the carrier at hand.
So the question is, does it make sense to retire this
carrier early? And is the $3.4 billion in savings worth the 25
years of loss of presence that we will have by retiring this
carrier early?
Secretary Shanahan. So my answer to your question there is,
I think it is a strategic choice we need to make. And this was
a difficult choice. We spent a year making this decision. And
under no certain terms, aircraft carriers are vital now and
vital into the future.
The Truman decision was made in concert with the two-
carrier buy. We looked at how to increase lethality. There
isn't a drawdown of capacity until mid-2020, so it is not like
this is an irreversible decision, but we took the savings to
invest in the future force. And all of this was very mindful of
the industrial base. So the other consideration here was, how
do we invest in the supply chain, and there is actually growth
in employment.
We can change these decisions, but I think as the Navy
updates its 355-ship strategy and looks at its force structure,
I think we may--back to your original point around doctrine,
let's see what they come back with.
Mr. Wittman. The question still is, does nine allow us to
generate continuously on station and in surge?
Secretary Shanahan. Yeah.
Chairman, I am going to ask you to answer that.
General Dunford. Congressman, it would be difficult to do
that.
Mr. Wittman. Let me follow up on that, Chairman Dunford.
You know, every combatant commander that I talk to indicates
that they are not sufficiently supported by the Navy based on
their plans. And, listen, I understand their plans always
request a lot and that we are able to give a finite amount.
But I know that, in carrier force structure, when it comes
to being able to project power, that is the framework and the
strength of our ability to project forces around the world and
to project presence around the world.
I wanted to know, in your professional judgment, what would
the net operational impact for the Navy be of deactivating CVN
75 and a carrier air wing by fiscal year 2024?
General Dunford. Congressman, an important assumption that
if it doesn't obtain we will come back to that reversibility-
of-the-decision issue--an important assumption is that the
money that was saved by not refueling the Truman would be used
to develop new ways of conducting maritime strike. So when we
look at the carrier, we are looking at it from a maritime
strike capability. And a more diverse way of providing maritime
strike is among the initiatives inside the Department.
So, from a force management perspective and a joint
warfighting perspective, if the path of capability development
for a new way of delivering maritime strike in conjunction with
the carriers that we have in place today and will have in place
in the future, if that assumption doesn't obtain, then we will
have to go back to the Secretary and have a conversation about
reversibility of the decision. Because new programs combined
with the programs of record today won't meet our aggregate
maritime strike capability by the mid-2020s.
Mr. Wittman. And, listen, I am all for those unmanned
systems, but it is a big leap, where we are only with Sea
Hunter in its initial trials, to say we are going to completely
replace a carrier that has that presence without having a
bridge to those unmanned systems.
The Chairman. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Wittman. Thank you.
The Chairman. Mr. Courtney.
Mr. Courtney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And, again, thank
you to the witnesses.
And particularly, General Dunford, you have been a rock-
solid leader straddling two administrations and have really
just done an outstanding job. And, again, thank you for your
amazing service.
Mr. Chairman, you know, based on your conversations
regarding the reprogramming decision yesterday, I would
actually ask that the letter date-stamped March 25 from the
Acting Secretary transferring a billion dollars out of the
Army's account to the Department of Homeland Security be
entered for the record.
The Chairman. Without objection, so ordered.
[The information referred to was not available at the time
of printing.]
Mr. Courtney. Thank you. And I would just note that that
transmittal actually pretty much almost exactly coincided with
the submission to Congress of unfunded priorities from the
Pentagon in terms of the, again, 2020 budget.
Mr. Norquist, could you tell us what is the total amount of
unfunded priorities that came over from the Pentagon?
Mr. Norquist. I don't have the total yet from all of the
services, sir.
Mr. Courtney. Okay. Well, I can help you with that. It
actually was $10.4 billion. And, actually, $2.3 billion came
from the Army.
So, you know, I would just say, you almost get whiplash
around here trying to sort of follow the back-and-forth coming
out of the Department. I mean, exactly at the same time that a
reprogramming decision was made, again, without consultation
from Congress--which, again, as far as I am concerned, is a
Rubicon moment in terms of just the comedy between the two
branches that has operated for decades--we are also hearing
from the Army that they actually, by the way, need an
additional $2.3 billion for the 2020 budget for unfunded
priorities.
And it just, again, really undermines the confidence in
terms of just the messages that are coming over to us, you
know, from the Department of Defense, which, again, are really
now in a brave new world of basically treating the defense
committees as nonexistent in terms of reprogramming decisions.
So, again, just to follow up on Mr. Wittman's questions for
a moment, General Dunford, Admiral Richardson and the Navy are
actually working on an updated force structure assessment [FSA]
for the shipbuilding plan, isn't that correct?
General Dunford. It is correct, Congressman.
Mr. Courtney. Do you know what is going to be in that FSA
regarding the carrier fleet?
General Dunford. I don't know what is going to be in the
FSA.
Mr. Courtney. And as much as we are trying on Seapower to
find out the answer to those kinds of questions, we don't know
either. And it just seems, to me, really premature for the
Department to, again, come forward with a decommissioning or
mothballing of the Truman when we still don't even really know
what the revised force structure assessment looks like.
As my friend from Virginia pointed out, we have already got
about $500 million in sunk costs for the reactors, which,
according to the Navy, are going to be, quote, ``put on a
shelf,'' which, again, is a shelf that we really can't reach up
for for the new Ford-class program. It is a different kind of
reactor.
So the savings that you are projecting in the 2020 budget,
it is $17 million for this year. Is that correct?
Mr. Norquist. Yes, it is $17 million.
Mr. Courtney. Okay. So we are dealing with a decision which
is premature in terms of being out of sequence with the Navy's
updated force structure assessment. We have $500 million in
sunk costs that are already out the door. And we are going to
save $17 million with this request in the 2020 budget. Again,
that really doesn't add up to a very good business case in
terms of, you know, the very tough decisions that we are going
to have to make.
As the chairman points out, you know, the figure, the top-
line number that came over is decoupled from a deal on the
spending caps. I think it is a pretty safe bet that the top
line for defense is going to come down when the two chambers
actually do what should have been done over the last 3 months,
which was to negotiate a sequestration agreement with the
administration. They, as far as I am concerned, completely
abdicated on what everybody realizes must happen if we are
going to move forward with a budget.
And so we have difficult budget choices to make ahead. And,
you know, being left with a business case that just, again,
doesn't help us with getting to that point is just going to be
a very tough sell, let's just say, over at the Seapower
committee.
I don't know how the clock is doing here, but----
The Chairman. You have about 30 seconds left.
Mr. Courtney. Okay.
The Chairman. And there is one clock over here that is
working. They all shut down here.
Mr. Courtney. Okay.
Mr. Shanahan, again, just real quick for the record, your
budget endorses planned procurement of three Virginia-class
submarines in this year's budget. Is that correct?
Secretary Shanahan. That is correct.
Mr. Courtney. Yep. Thank you. I yield back.
The Chairman. Thank you.
We will endeavor to get--well, there we go. The clocks are
working again.
Mrs. Hartzler.
Mrs. Hartzler. Thank you very much.
Thank you, gentlemen, for your service and for your
leadership for our national defense.
I appreciate the focus on strategic competitors in the
National Defense Strategy and specifically China. I want to
start off asking some questions about that, because, as we
know, they have utilized economic, military, and political
influence to extend their reach and shift the balance of power
across the globe.
And Beijing's whole-of-government efforts are particularly
apparent in areas like the Indo-Pacific, but they can be seen
in places like South America, Europe, even the Arctic. So
countering their influence and actions requires a whole-of-
government strategy of our own.
And so my first question is, who is leading the U.S. whole-
of-government response effort, and where does the Defense
Department fit into this plan?
Secretary Shanahan. So I would say, fundamentally, I feel
like the Department of Defense is leading significantly in the
whole of government, but I have strong partnership with the
Secretary of Commerce, Secretary of the Treasury, and Secretary
of State. So we continuously discuss this subject, and we have
activities that are coordinated between our departments. And I
would have to say--and not overlook the Department of Justice
as we work on critical infrastructure.
Mrs. Hartzler. So are you saying, then, you are the main
person in the lead?
Secretary Shanahan. I wouldn't say that, by definition, I
have received some, you know, nomination to that role, but by
virtue of having more resources and capability than a lot of
those other departments, we have been an instigator, if you
will, of collaboration and working across as a whole of
government.
Mrs. Hartzler. Do you get together regularly with your
counterparts and sit down and discuss this, okay, State
Department, why don't you do this, Treasury Department, let's
do this?
Secretary Shanahan. Weekly.
Mrs. Hartzler. Weekly.
Secretary Shanahan. Weekly.
Mrs. Hartzler. Very good. Can you give some more detail
about exactly what the Defense Department's response is to
China in this part of the plan?
Secretary Shanahan. We will let the chairman start, and
then I want to pick up on especially some of the economic,
cyber.
Chairman.
General Dunford. Yeah, Congresswoman, I will just talk
about posture, military posture, for example. And I think as
you know, we have about two-thirds of the United States Air
Force, two-thirds of the Navy, a significant part of the Army
and the Marine Corps that are in the Pacific. We have also
fielded our most modern capabilities in the Pacific--the P-8,
the F-35, the LCS [littoral combat ship], and so forth.
But the real important piece, I think, the most important
military dimension of our strategy out there is developing a
stronger network of allies and partners. And I think our
presence in the region, the deterrence that we bring, our
ability and our physical manifestation of our ability to meet
our alliance commitments are all a really important part of our
achieving a proper balance with China and the Pacific.
Mrs. Hartzler. Very good.
And as I have had opportunity to travel in the Pacific area
and visit recently with the ambassadors from Australia and New
Zealand, I would just continue to say how important it is that
we be very strategic and purposeful in those relationships,
because China is being very purposeful and very aggressive and
very assertive in developing those relationships, and it is
very key.
I want to shift to the fighter force, Secretary. And, in
your written testimony, you have discussed the $57 billion
allocated to increase the procurement and the modernization of
our fighter force. And you have noted that we need a balanced
mix of fourth- and fifth-generation aircraft to effectively
meet the entire spectrum of National Defense Strategy missions,
and the Air Force needs to procure about 72 fighters each year.
So what is the appropriate balance between fourth- and
fifth-generation aircraft? And why do we need to address both
in the requirements of the National Defense Strategy?
Secretary Shanahan. Yes. Thank you for that question.
You know, my role is to make sure that we are developing
responses and a force structure to the right campaigns. That is
why our focus on Russia and China is so important.
Each year, we go through a new evaluation of what the
tactical air mix should be--fourth gen, fifth generation. And
of that mix, there are three parties that really provide an
input. Probably the most significant input comes from the Joint
Staff as they conduct a mission analysis for, particularly,
China and Russia.
And I would ask the chairman to walk us through how they go
about making that recommendation.
General Dunford. Congresswoman, what we did--today, just to
talk about mix, so today we have 20 percent fifth generation,
80 percent fourth generation. That is what is in our inventory
today. If you look at 2040, it will be 80 percent fifth
generation, 20 percent fourth generation.
And so, along the way, we have to achieve the right balance
based on capability. That is the ability to penetrate and the
information capability represented by the F-35----
The Chairman. I am sorry. The gentlelady's time has
expired, and I think we got the gist there.
Mr. Norcross.
Mrs. Hartzler. Thank you.
Mr. Norcross. Thank you, Chairman.
And thank our witnesses for coming today, particularly,
General Dunford, for your years of service.
But I will follow up where my ranking member just left off,
between fourth and fifth generations. We have sat in these
chairs for at least the last 4 years and almost exclusively
heard fifth generation, fifth generation, fifth generation.
The Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in a
recently mandated study concluded the F-15X will not be able to
survive a more contested battle space, i.e., particularly China
and Russia. So we are trying to understand the request that we
are hearing for the new F-15 versus what we have heard up to
this date, that F-35, the fifth generation.
What has changed, General, in the last 9 to 12 months to
reverse what we have heard for the last 4 years?
General Dunford. First, Congressman, with regard to the
primary platform the Department needs being the F-35, nothing
has changed.
We continue to do analysis in war-gaming, and in the most
recent what we call competitive area of studies, we took a look
at what would be the optimal mix of fourth- and fifth-
generation aircraft--fifth generation uniquely able to
penetrate, fourth generation providing some capacity. So we are
balancing that capability/capacity piece.
It is more complicated than just the mix of aircraft with
regard to the F-15. One of the issues is the F-15C is aging
out. And so there was a cost variable in place. There was also
a partner-with-other-nations piece in place with the decision
to get the F-15.
But it is all in the context of the migration from that 20
percent fifth generation today, 80 percent fifth generation
tomorrow, in a path of development along the way that allows us
to have a right mix of aircraft to accomplish the mission
within the top line that we have been given.
And I think what we have seen in our competitive area
studies is that the combination of the fifth-generation
capability with the capacity of the fourth generation was the
right mix. That was agnostic of platforms. And that study was
actually done before the Air Force made the specific F-15
decision, which added those additional variables when they
decided on the F-15EX.
Mr. Norcross. So it is the generation of the fourth
generation, the C model, which is deteriorating faster? That
has happened in the last 9 to 12 months that changed the
decision from the last 4 years?
General Dunford. That is right. When we knew that the C was
going to age out earlier than we would have wanted it to age
out, we had to come up with a replacement. And when we looked
at all of those variables--capability of the platform, capacity
of the force as a whole, cost over time, as well as impacts on
the industrial base as it pertains to us and our partners--that
is how that decision was made.
But I, again, would highlight that there were probably four
or five interdependent variables that led to that specific
material solution.
Mr. Norcross. So you bring up capacity, and our
understanding is that the F-35 would have the capacity, as it
has in this year, to increase its volume this year and future
years to make up for what you talked about, the----
General Dunford. Sure. Capacity is twofold, Congressman.
Thanks. One is ability to carry ordnance, and that is the one
you alluded to. The other issue of capacity is the numbers of
platforms that we have and we are able to field at any given
time. And so it is really the latter with regard to the F-15
that will be sustained, the capacity for aircraft will be
sustained by the F-15 decision.
Mr. Norcross. How much of the operating cost of the F-35
factors into this? Because plane for plane, they are roughly
the equivalent, at least in this year's model.
General Dunford. Yeah, I think if you could buy all F-35s,
you might do that. This, again, was looking out over time at
the resources that will be available. And there is not much
difference in the procurement cost, but there is about a 50
percent difference in the operations and sustainment cost
between the F-15 and the F-35. And the F-15 also has a pretty
significant shelf life available as well.
So, again, it was the combination of the platforms that we
made a decision on.
Mr. Norcross. Are we expecting those operational costs for
the F-35 to decrease?
General Dunford. That has been a singular focus of the
Secretary and the team over the last couple of years, working
with Lockheed Martin. They absolutely have to decrease in order
for us to have a balanced force in the future. And there has
been some progress, but we believe more progress needs to be
made in reducing the operation and sustainment costs of the F-
35. There is no question about it.
Mr. Norcross. Well, we are going to have more discussion of
these. And certainly the impact of Turkey and the missiles that
they are looking to purchase is going to all factor into this.
Thank you for your testimony.
I yield back.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Scott.
Mr. Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And, gentlemen, getting back to--I think it was Stephen
Covey who said ``keeping the main thing the main thing.'' In
just under 6 months past, Hurricane Michael hit the coast.
Obviously, you have a tremendous amount of damage from that
storm, as does my congressional district. Congress has yet to
be able to pass a disaster bill for that region.
And in just over 6 months, Secretary Shanahan, you will be
responsible for executing a Department of Defense at the
sequester caps if there is not some type of agreement made. By
my calculation, that is somewhere around 60 legislative days
between now and then.
So my question is, if you had to execute a budget at the
sequester caps, what would the impact of that be?
Secretary Shanahan. Well, then it would be very difficult
to modernize, because we are not going to walk away from our
operations. So, you know, essentially, the impact is to
modernization. I mean, in the most simple, generalized terms, I
mean, if you had to trade for one thing. We are not going to,
you know, drop our commitment to operations, so we forgo our
future. I mean, that is the big risk.
Mr. Scott. General Dunford, from an operational standpoint,
what is the difference in us adopting an appropriation measure
for you, say, September 1 instead of October 1?
General Dunford. To make sure I understand the question,
Congressman, you are saying if we did not go into the fiscal
year with a budget?
Mr. Scott. My question--yes, sir.
General Dunford. Oh, I see what you are saying. If we have
the agreement in place.
Mr. Scott. If we can give you your budget 30 days prior to
the beginning of the fiscal year so that you know what you have
to execute with, what would happen with the efficiency of the
operations at the Department?
General Dunford. You know, Congressman, I am glad you asked
the question. So, going back to my days as the Assistant
Commandant, I have been in and out of this now for more than a
decade dealing with this issue. And I would tell you that, for
us, collectively, one of the most inefficient things we do is
have late budgets. It doesn't allow for the proper planning and
being good stewards of the government's resources.
So, in order for us to really deliver capability and, at
the end of the day, campaign outcome within the top line we
have been given, it requires us to prioritize and allocate
resources very deliberately. And budget instability and
unpredictability don't allow us to do that optimally. And it
wastes the government--it wastes taxpayer dollars.
Mr. Scott. I am concerned about what it does to morale, as
well, for the families and men and women that are actually in
combat. It gives the impression that we in Congress do not
care.
So I would just hope that over the next couple of weeks
that we are able to come to some type of a caps agreement
between the House, the Senate, and the Presidency--obviously,
it requires a bipartisan agreement--so that we are able to
build a National Defense Authorization Act to whatever the
agreement is and get the appropriation measures done sooner
rather than later.
I have one specific question for Secretary Shanahan.
Army end strength, the request is 7,500 lower than the
fiscal year 2019 authorization, but the funding request is
increased by almost $1.3 billion. Can you explain this
difference?
Secretary Shanahan. I believe the fundamental difference is
the 3.1 percent pay raise.
Mr. Scott. Did the Department request the pay raise at that
level, the 3.1 percent?
Secretary Shanahan. Yes, we did. Yes, we did.
Mr. Scott. You did request that at that level. Okay.
Gentlemen, thank you for your service. I hope that over the
next couple of weeks we are able to get to some type of
agreement so that we are able to get an appropriation measure
passed for you prior to the beginning of the fiscal year.
Secretary Shanahan. Great. Thank you.
Mr. Scott. With that, I yield the remainder of my time.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Gallego.
Mr. Gallego. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Acting Secretary Shanahan, a number of officials have
appeared before this committee and have said the decision on
reprimands and awards related to the Niger raid debacle rests
with you.
When Secretary Mattis resigned late last year, we
understood that he was furious at the initial recommendation to
place blame on junior officers, allowing more senior officers
to escape responsibility.
When will you make a decision about these reprimands and
awards?
Secretary Shanahan. Congressman, when I came into this
role----
Mr. Gallego. Just answer the question. When will you make
the decision? That is a simple----
Secretary Shanahan. Soon.
Mr. Gallego. What is ``soon''?
Secretary Shanahan. I have----
Mr. Gallego. What is ``soon''? What do you define as
``soon''?
Secretary Shanahan. I was going to explain.
Mr. Gallego. Okay. Go ahead.
Secretary Shanahan. Okay. When I came into this role, the
recommendation was brought to me that Secretary Mattis had--he
had convened a review, and that recommendation was brought to
me. I did not find that sufficient, so I have convened my own
review so I can ensure, from top to bottom, there is the
appropriate accountability.
I do not know when that will be complete, but I have to
assume that much of the work that has been done to date can be
used. So by saying ``soon,'' I am not trying to mislead you----
Mr. Gallego. Okay. So just to be clear, you will be issuing
a report. I want to--or you will be issuing it out. And part of
that is, we are going to assure that it is not just going to be
placing blame on junior officers. Because what it seems to me
is that we are going to place blame on junior officers, and we
are letting colonels and general officers just get off the
hook----
Secretary Shanahan. Right.
Mr. Gallego [continuing]. For this debacle.
Secretary Shanahan. Right.
Mr. Gallego. I hope that is going to be part of this.
Secretary Shanahan. That is the reason--the fundamental
reason that I have done this is for every person between the
boots on the ground to the most senior position I want a direct
accounting.
Mr. Gallego. Okay. And just to kind of put a more fine
point to this, last year, the NDAA required a report containing
a list of all recommendations implemented following the raid.
It hasn't been done. It is overdue.
When will I receive that? When will this committee receive
that?
Secretary Shanahan. I will take that for the record.
[The information referred to was not available at the time
of printing.]
Mr. Gallego. Okay. And just, you know, more for the record,
because it does concern me that if I don't ask these questions
we don't get any answers. You know, we consistently have this
problem where I am asking about Niger, what happened there,
what should be the lessons we learn from it. This committee has
not used subpoena power in quite some time, but if this
continues to be the case, that we are having to go back and
forth, that I have to keep asking you for the information, I
will be pushing for that.
These families, the American public deserve to know exactly
what happened. And the junior officers that are being
reprimanded right now should know that there is going to be
equal reprimands especially for general officers, should they
have done anything wrong.
Moving on, last night, the committee received a copy of
your letter to DHS Secretary Nielsen approving support of up to
$1 billion in projects at Yuma and El Paso. In your letter, you
say the DHS request meets the statutory requirements of 10
U.S.C. 284, noting DHS has identified each project area as a
drug smuggling corridor.
Okay, question: Did you just take DHS at its words that
these areas met such criteria, or did you actually do research
or your staff do research to actually meet that criteria?
Secretary Shanahan. We did research, but, in addition,
after the national emergency was declared, Chairman Dunford and
I went down to El Paso and walked the areas where the 284 money
will be applied and spoke with CBP [Customs and Border Patrol]
personnel like Aaron Hull, who is the sector chief--I think
that is Sector 9.
Mr. Gallego. Great. And what kind of information or
documentation did they provide for you to support this
conclusion?
Secretary Shanahan. David, do you want to answer that?
Yeah, we will have to----
Mr. Gallego. Okay. No problem.
Secretary Shanahan. Yeah.
Mr. Gallego. Did you or the DOD do any analysis or
verification of this information?
Secretary Shanahan. Chairman.
General Dunford. Congressman, we went physically--just to
make sure we are not talking past each other, we went
physically to the areas where the infrastructure is proposed to
see the need----
Mr. Gallego. Well, General, I am glad that you went and
physically saw it, but, you know, there also needs to be other
conclusive study that you could do besides just physically
seeing. I am from a border State. I go to the border all the
time. But there should actually be other information that is
gathered.
General Dunford. Well, there is. There is.
Mr. Gallego. Okay. So that was--you used that to make this
determination.
General Dunford. We went down--we had the information from
Department of Homeland Security on the challenges they face in
the specific areas wherein those challenges occur.
Mr. Gallego. Great.
General Dunford. And then the infrastructure is tailored to
the specific geographic area and the threat that exists within
that geographic area.
We had that information before we went down to physically
see what we had read about before we went down to the border.
Mr. Gallego. Great. I really appreciate that we have that
information--that you have that information. And, also, I would
like for you to share that information and all the analysis and
all the detail with this committee so we could see where the
basis of this argument came from.
With that, I yield back my time.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Byrne.
Mr. Byrne. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
General Dunford, let me just join with the other people who
have said that we are very grateful to you for your service to
your country. And I want to thank you particularly for your
service as chairman. You have been a great partner with those
of us on the committee, and I deeply appreciate what you have
done in conjunction with us.
I would like to go back to your colloquy with Mr.
Thornberry to clarify one point. You mentioned the detailed
analysis behind your assessment of the 3 to 5 percent real
growth requirement and that this budget represents 2.9 percent
growth.
Now, as to 3 to 5 percent, is that the minimum amount the
force needs to accomplish the missions we ask of them?
Secretary Shanahan. It is. It is, Congressman. When we say
3 to 5 percent, that is to maintain the current competitive
advantage--again, the margin has eroded over time--slightly
increase our competitive advantage over time.
Obviously, more resources would result in a more decisive
competitive advantage, but we actually identified that as the
minimum necessary to make sure we could do what must be done by
2025.
Mr. Byrne. The reason I wanted that clarification is, when
we get into budget discussions, a lot of times, we start
talking about wants and needs. And we are just trying to make
sure, when we tell our colleagues that this is a need, that
this is not a want. You are telling us this is the minimum.
General Dunford. Congressman, I am.
And, again, I think it is important for the members of the
committee to know when we say ``competitive advantage'' what we
mean. So I am talking about our ability to project power in the
context of the threat posed by either Russia or China in Europe
or the Pacific, as the case may be. And I am also talking about
our ability to do what must be done on land, air, sea, space,
and cyberspace.
So when we looked at the aggregate capabilities of both
Russia and China and we looked at the capabilities we needed to
develop over time, we based the figure not on math, we based
the figure on the capabilities we needed in the projection of
what investment would be necessary in order for us to field
those capabilities.
Mr. Byrne. All right. Thank you for that clarification.
Mr. Secretary, I wanted to thank you for all the support
you have given to the space-based aspects of missile defense.
That is vitally important not only to ballistic missile defense
but also to hypersonic defense, which all of us are becoming
more concerned about.
I am confused, though, by the fact that Congress added more
money last year for the space sensor layer to help MDA [Missile
Defense Agency] meet their hypersonic defense requirements, yet
the proposed budget zeroes that out.
Apparently, part of the space sensor layer will be housed
in the new Space Development Agency that was established 3
weeks ago, but it doesn't have a dedicated funding line for
this project. That seems to run counter to congressional intent
but, more importantly, displays a lack of priority to a program
that most of us feel we desperately need to be able to defend
against Russian and Chinese hypersonics.
Maybe I have misunderstood this, so if you would please
explain the reasoning behind the budget request.
Secretary Shanahan. I will have to go back and look at
where the funding line is, but Dr. Griffin and I have made
funding of the space layer for tracking of hypersonics a
priority.
So, David, I don't know if you know where that funding----
Mr. Byrne. Yeah, if Mr. Norquist can answer, that would be
helpful.
Mr. Norquist. Well, to answer at the level you need, we
will take that for the record.
But there are things related to missile defense that are,
as you point out, are now going to be part of the Space
Development Agency. The one you are talking about is one of
them. It may not be broken out in a way that makes it as clear,
so let's take that for the record and make sure we get you a
complete answer, sir.
Mr. Byrne. If you would, please. And once you make a
determination about that, would you let the committee know?
Mr. Norquist. Yes, sir.
[The information referred to was not available at the time
of printing.]
Mr. Byrne. That would be very helpful. Thank you.
Mr. Secretary, the mission of the Space Development Agency
[SDA] is to collaborate with the joint warfighter to define the
next-generation space architecture, foster growth in the space
industrial base, and leverage commercial allied space
technology.
I support all those priorities, but they seem like
acquisition authorities. Why is housing SDA under research and
engineering the right place?
Secretary Shanahan. It is a temporary home. So, as the
Space Force proposal evolves--you know, part of that was to get
leadership of Dr. Griffin engaged. Dr. Griffin has a
significant track record in space, and----
Mr. Byrne. I am a big supporter of Dr. Griffin.
Secretary Shanahan. Right. Right.
Mr. Byrne. He is superb for that position.
Secretary Shanahan. Right. Right.
So, you know, a couple things. Not only does he have
significant experience in space, but his work initially with
SDIO [Strategic Defense Initiative Organization] in how the
Missile Defense Agency was stood up so they had the right
acquisition authorities and the ability to do development--this
is not about doing acquisition. This is really about
development. So think of him as overseeing the creation of the
right structure.
This is really about the balance of putting appropriate
authorities in place. If we get the wrong mix, it is just going
to slow us down. So we are really relying on his experience and
judgment to help us put the right pieces in place. That is how
I look at it.
Mr. Byrne. Thank you.
I yield back.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Moulton.
Mr. Moulton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
It is getting to be a familiar tune, but I want to thank
all of you for your service and especially Chairman Dunford. I
am honored to have you there, as a fellow Marine, and we are
very lucky as a country that you continue to serve. And I, too,
share the hope, a bipartisan hope, on this committee that you
would find some way to continue that service past your due
time.
Mr. Acting Secretary, I would like to start with you. China
and Russia have made major advancements in their conventional
capability since the Cold War and significant investments in
emerging technologies like hypersonics, AI, and cyber. It is
one of the things I really like about your budget, that you are
investing in these things as well.
Where do we have the strongest advantage against our
competitors right now?
Secretary Shanahan. I think probably at the most basic
level I would say undersea.
Mr. Moulton. And so what are we doing to ensure we maintain
that advantage?
Secretary Shanahan. Well, we continue to invest. You know,
a lot of the things that are very unique and special we won't
be able to talk about in here, but we are investing in very
significant capabilities.
I think where, you know, I would go with the critical
capabilities that we need to make in terms of really
leveraging--you know, the chairman talks about our competitive
advantage. Space, cyber, and missiles are where we can enable a
significant gain, not just in terms of capability but
deterrence.
Mr. Moulton. Right. So I take your point, Mr. Acting
Secretary, which is that it is really these traditional places
like undersea capabilities where we have our advantage today,
and that is why we need to make these new investments.
So, as we think about making these new investments in
things like cyber and AI and hypersonics, what new arms control
regimes that incorporate these emerging technologies could be
in our strategic interest moving forward?
Secretary Shanahan. Yeah. This is where we need to do, in
my view, the most significant work. You know, we will address
the INF [Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty] and New
START [Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty], but things like New
START don't contemplate artificial intelligence or these new
weapons like hypersonics that have been created.
Mr. Moulton. So you think it is critical that we
incorporate these types of weapons systems into new arms
control agreements.
Secretary Shanahan. We need to really think, what does
machine-on-machine mean, as we take humans out of the loop? And
these are arms control agreements that we need to have with
people that we don't have arms control agreements with.
Mr. Moulton. Right. Right. There is also a lot of debate on
this committee about the nuclear modernization. How much money
could we save in nuclear modernization if we were able to
negotiate a bilateral reduction in ICBMs [intercontinental
ballistic missiles] with Russia?
Secretary Shanahan. I don't know where to start in terms of
calculating that.
Mr. Moulton. Would it be significant?
Secretary Shanahan. I mean, if all nuclear weapons went
away in the world, would there----
Mr. Moulton. Well, not all, but if we were able to
negotiate a reduction.
Secretary Shanahan. It always depends on which, right? I
mean, the basic answer is, if you don't have to develop
something, you save money. I mean, arms control agreements have
value if you can avoid having to develop something you don't
need.
Mr. Moulton. Sure. Sure.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to also take this discussion to
alliances, not just arms control but alliances that we have
around the globe. I strongly believe--and I suspect you agree--
in a strategy built on strong alliances and growing
partnerships.
Despite massive investments in advanced weaponry, ships,
and aircraft in the fiscal year 2020 proposal, what investments
are we making to counter Chinese influence globally? And how is
that reflected in the administration's budget request?
General Dunford. Congressman, I think you answered the
question. And when you look at the European Defense Initiative,
as an example, or you look at the exercise program, our foreign
military sales assistance, and so forth, it is all designed to
reinforce that network of allies and partners. And that is, as
you have identified, in my view, the critical strategic
advantage that we have over China, if we talk just China
specifically, is our network of allies and partners.
Mr. Moulton. So what are we doing--as China has their One
Belt, One Road proposal that they are pursuing aggressively
with significant investments, what are we doing to counter that
growing influence in Asia, in Africa, in other places where
they are making Marshall Plan-sized investments in potential
allies?
Mr. Chairman, could you take that?
General Dunford. I can talk to the military dimension of
it, Congressman, because I think what you are highlighting is a
broader gap in our overall political and economic approach that
is still being worked. There is a strategic approach, but we
have a lot of work to do to keep pace with the One Belt, One
Road in terms of a comprehensive political, economic, and
security package.
In the security space, it is the work that we are doing
with allies and partners. And I would argue that I certainly
spend probably 60 percent of my time, without an exaggeration,
doing that. And I think the Secretary is probably pretty close
to half his time, as well, in dealing with our allies and
partners and building those relationships, building that
interoperability.
And, certainly, you know, I have, I think, 22 liaison
officers on my staff from other countries right now. And all of
our exercise design and so forth is all now to incorporate
coalition capabilities into our exercises.
So, from a military perspective, we are very mindful of the
need to broaden and deepen these allies and partners, and
everything that we do is actually informed by that.
Mr. Moulton. I am out of time, but, Mr. Shanahan, if you
could just take that question for the record as well.
[The information referred to was not available at the time
of printing.]
The Chairman. I am sorry. The gentleman's time has expired,
so if there are any other questions, they will have to be taken
for the record.
We will go to Ms. Stefanik.
Ms. Stefanik. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
General Dunford, thank you for your tremendous leadership
and service to our Nation. You will be sorely missed on this
committee. It has been a privilege to work with you.
My question is for Secretary Shanahan. I wanted to follow
up on Mr. Moulton.
With nearly a decade of China making significant
investments in AI, quantum, and other emerging technologies,
why is our top-line number so important to ensure that in the
long term we are able to fight and win against near-peer
adversaries like China?
Secretary Shanahan. Thank you for that question.
Modernization is the most important thing we can do to
maintain deterrence, create military capability, but that is
also what enables us economically. So they really all tie
together.
And I think, going back to the Congressman's question, what
I think you would find in the Department of Defense as we are
doing great power competition is it is not just about
conducting military exercises. How do we work with partners in
the regions where we are providing security to unlock economic
capability and develop economic relationships? The
relationships we form through the Department really can unlock
some of those other diplomatic or economic benefits.
So we are strictly--I mean, we are not looking at these
great power competitions as the military is the solution. The
military is an enabler to unlocking diplomatic and new
relationships. But that top line in these critical areas,
particularly cyber, are fundamental.
Ms. Stefanik. Thank you.
My next question is on a different subject. For the past 5
years, there has been broad bipartisan and bicameral support
for the designation of an east coast missile defense site, yet
the Department has not made any such designation available to
this committee.
The environmental impact study [EIS] has been completed,
and the threat to our homeland from rogue nations' ICBMs
continues to evolve. And the requirements for increasing the
engagement envelope and allowing for a shoot-look-shoot CONOPS
[concept of operations] is more imperative than ever.
Congressional intent in the last NDAA was that the site
designation after the EIS would be released. So I expect the
Department will indeed respect that congressional intent and
share this designation with the committee. Can I count on that?
Secretary Shanahan. You can.
Ms. Stefanik. And my last question--give me 1 second here.
So I also wanted to get you on record. Do you agree that
any addition of a CONUS intercepter site must enhance current
capabilities to protect the entire continental U.S. by
expanding the battle space and projecting power on the east
coast? The key question is----
Secretary Shanahan. Yeah.
Ms. Stefanik [continuing]. Any third site must protect the
entire continental U.S. Do you agree with that?
Secretary Shanahan. Let me take that one for the record.
Ms. Stefanik. Okay. I believe that is incredibly important,
that as we are----
Secretary Shanahan. Right. No.
Ms. Stefanik [continuing]. Considering any potential
location, that it should protect the entire continental U.S.
Secretary Shanahan. No, I understand. And my hesitancy is
when you look at coverages and what threat we are protecting
against. It is more a refinement of the answer that you are
requesting.
You know, I would just make a plug for the success the
Missile Defense Agency had yesterday in probably one of their
more complex tests of the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense
System, of which that would probably be an important baseline.
But I will get back to you with that answer.
[The information referred to was not available at the time
of printing.]
Ms. Stefanik. Okay. Thank you for that.
I yield back.
The Chairman. Mr. Garamendi.
Mr. Garamendi. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
We recently returned from a trip to Jordan, Iraq,
Kyrgyzstan, and Kuwait.
In Jordan, we observed and looked at and talked with the
Jordanians about a $350 million investment that the Defense
Threat Reduction Agency made to create a virtual 21st-century
border wall along the 300-plus miles of the Jordanian-Syrian
border to keep out drug smugglers, armament smugglers, as well
as ISIS [Islamic State of Iraq and Syria]. By all accounts, the
utilization of electronic surveillance equipment, command and
control, and rapid-reaction capabilities proved to be
extraordinarily effective.
Now, we are in the process of transferring some $8 billion
from the Department of Defense to build less than 300 miles of
border wall. So my questions to you really are about the wall.
It is our understanding that last night the Department of
Defense sent a notification of its intent to reprogram funds
and use from 10 U.S.C. 284 to construct portions of a border
wall. We also understand that the Department of Defense may
start awarding contracts using funding pursuant to 10 U.S.C.
2808 as early as May.
Can you, therefore, explain in more detail the status of
your plans to build a border wall pursuant to 2808?
Specifically, have you made any determination that the supposed
national emergency requires the use of Armed Forces, Mr.
Secretary? If so, why?
Secretary Shanahan. So the status of 2808 is I have
received a request from the Department of Homeland Security,
and part of the process for me to make a determination is I
have tasked the chairman to do an analysis of that request. He
will come back to me and provide a military recommendation.
Chairman.
Mr. Garamendi. Okay. Have you made any determinations that
a border wall is necessary to support the use of troops at the
border?
Mr. Dunford--Chairman--or, excuse me, General.
General Dunford. Congressman, just to make sure I am
answering the question directly, so we are responding to the
President's direction to reinforce Department of Homeland
Security because they have capability and capacity shortfalls.
So, to that extent, we have responded to requests for
assistance for U.S. military personnel. So we have determined
that U.S. personnel can appropriately backfill the capability
gaps and capacity/size gaps that Homeland Security has.
Mr. Garamendi. My question is somewhat different. It is
have you made any determination that the border wall is
necessary to support those troops?
General Dunford. Oh. No, that is exactly what the Secretary
has tasked me to do now, Congressman, is to look at the
legislation, which I did yesterday, and determine whether the
projects that have been identified by Department of Homeland
Security would be enhancing the Department of Defense's
mission.
Mr. Garamendi. Next, have you or anyone else at the
Department had any discussions or made any comments about
needing to send or keep troops at the border in order to
justify using section 2808 to build a border wall?
Secretary Shanahan. I certainly haven't, Congressman.
Mr. Garamendi. Very good. Next, what border wall projects
will be built with section 2808 funds? I.e., where along the
border will the wall be built with these funds? Are these
sections of the border wall military installations? If so, why?
General Dunford. Congressman, we have--to tell you what we
are in the process, so we have a list of projects identified by
Department of Homeland Security, but the Secretary has not yet
identified which of those aggregate projects that DHS has
identified would be funded by 2808.
Mr. Garamendi. And I will go back to where I started this
conversation. We observed 350 or 340 miles of virtual border
wall that is successful between Jordan and Syria in what is,
without doubt, one of the most dangerous places in the world
successfully operating at a cost of $340 million. Something for
all of us to think about.
Finally, I would just observe that the United States
Constitution is extraordinarily clear about who has the power
of appropriation. It is not the President. And the President is
usurping the power, and you are part of that usurping of power.
With that, I yield back.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Gallagher.
Mr. Gallagher. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Secretary Shanahan,
Chairman Dunford, thank you both for your testimony this
afternoon.
Chairman Dunford, to the maximum extent you are able to in
this setting--and I recognize there are limitations--can you
explain the espionage threat posed by Huawei and ZTE on the
transfer of U.S. data and voice communications over their
networks?
General Dunford. I can, Congressman. If you think about the
implications--are you talking in the future with 5G in
particular?
Mr. Gallagher. Yeah.
General Dunford. So if you think about the implications of
5G, the Internet of Things, as well as the primary means that
we will use to share information and intelligence with our
allies and partners, one of critical aspects of 5G has to be
assurance that it is a secure network. If not, we will have
vulnerabilities in capabilities that we field in the future
that will leverage 5G.
And probably as importantly, a foundational element of an
alliance is the ability to share securely information and
intelligence. And it will be much more difficult for us to have
those kinds of assurances to facilitate exchange of information
given the trends with China's influence.
Mr. Gallagher. So it would be fair, then, to say that there
are military operational processes that you are worried about
as you look forward to operating with partners and allies that
may be using Huawei systems.
General Dunford. Congressman, yes. And this is a broad,
fundamental national security issue, and there needs to be a
fulsome debate on exactly where we are headed. I do believe
that the vulnerabilities are acute.
Mr. Gallagher. And what steps has the DOD undertaken
already or could you possibly undertake to mitigate these
threats?
Secretary Shanahan. Maybe I will pick up on this. Maybe if
I could just add to the chairman's comments, so if we look at
5G and then the environment that those systems are developed
and where they come from, you are talking about a country that
has a clear history of cyber espionage. We are talking about a
country with predatory economics. We are talking about, you
know, looking at--people having to have a social credit, that
part of doing business over there is you have to share data.
With that as the backdrop and then not having the
understanding of how you could trust the network, that is our
concern with 5G, from a Department of Defense standpoint.
So in the absence of being able to verify that hardware or
a provider is trustworthy, the things that we are going to have
to do is have secure networks that keep that equipment off of
that. But the real risk is we have to operate in environments
where he don't know how secure that network is.
And this is where we get into discussions with our NATO
[North Atlantic Treaty Organization] partners and other
countries. As they pursue economic advantages of purchasing
low-cost equipment, they are forgoing security. And that is, I
think, our biggest.
Mr. Gallagher. Sure. And in light of those concerns, would
you recommend that American technology companies sell critical
enabling components to firms like Huawei and ZTE?
Secretary Shanahan. Well, I am always for America selling
the right equipment. I think the real work we have to do here
is, we were as a country the leaders with 4G. We should be the
leaders with 5G. I mean, it is not only in our security
interest but it is in our economic interest to be able to have
that kind of capability.
Mr. Gallagher. And then, Chairman Dunford, you talked about
sort of the concerns that we would have if we are working with
allies, even close allies, that have technology from Huawei and
ZTE. I think the Aussies, who are one of our closest allies--we
celebrated 100 years of mateship last year--have been at the
lead in sort of disallowing China from competing in Australia
for 5G technology. My understanding is New Zealand may follow
suit.
Talk to me about where the Five Eyes alliance is on this
critical question. Because it is my theory that we should start
there and then build outwards to our NATO allies.
General Dunford. Sure, Congressman. In fact, Sunday night
at my home, I will have my Five Eyes counterparts, and we are
talking about--I won't talk too much in detail here, but we
have been having this conversation for the last 18 months to
understand where we are as a group in terms of our ability to
manage this challenge and many other challenges associated with
our competitive advantage.
Mr. Gallagher. I appreciate that. And I know you guys are
tracking on this issue, which I view to be, I mean, perhaps the
most important one we face right now. So thank you for your
attention to it, and thank you for being here today.
General Dunford. Absolutely. Thank you.
Mr. Gallagher. And I yield the balance of my time.
The Chairman. Mr. Carbajal.
Mr. Carbajal. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Chairman Dunford, let me, too, add my thanks for your
service. I think your exodus is going to be greatly--we are
going to greatly miss you. And I do hope, as was said earlier,
that we find some way to keep you engaged, as I think that will
be important for our national security.
Acting Secretary Shanahan, military construction [MILCON]
is defined in the law as any construction, development,
conversion, or extension of any kind carried out with respect
to a military installation necessary to produce a complete and
usable facility.
I imagine it is pretty rigorous of a selective process and
must prove to be important to the well-being and readiness of
service members. As the law states, the purpose of these funds
are to produce usable facilities for our military.
Correct me if I am wrong, but getting a project selected to
receive MILCON funding is pretty difficult, and, in most
situations, it takes years before installation commanders
actually get MILCON projects funded and included in their
budgets.
Diverting MILCON funding hampers the Department's and
Congress' ability to sustain what you all have been stressing
is readiness, and as the Commandant of the Marine Corps has
alluded to.
Congress did its job by authorizing and appropriating funds
from MILCON projects that the Department and Members of
Congress saw as vital to the safety and readiness of our
service members. And what we are being told is that this
funding is not going to be used where the law clearly states it
should be used.
Secretary Shanahan, you are asking this body to authorize
$3.6 billion to backfill projects we already authorized and
appropriated. In addition, you are requesting another $3.6
billion to build a wall.
How did the Department of Defense get into the business of
funding a physical wall for what you all consider is a
nonmilitary emergency?
That was a rhetorical question.
Moving on to Venezuela. Is the use of military assets to
deliver humanitarian aid and services being used to send a
signal to Russia and other foreign entities of this
administration's intent to solve the crisis in Venezuela
militarily, one?
And, two, does the DOD have any plans or intentions of
sending additional support other than humanitarian aid
supported by USAID [United States Agency for International
Development]?
And, three, has the DOD been given any requirements for
assistance to fulfill from other agencies?
Secretary Shanahan. So the use of the military for
humanitarian assistance is vital. And I think one of the
reasons that we were drawn in by the State Department was
because we could do this so quickly.
To your question regarding, you know, other plans and
activities as they relate to supporting Venezuela, the chairman
and I have been in discussion for the last several weeks, you
know, how do we put a more regional face on our humanitarian
efforts.
I will be going down to Southern Command to meet with
Admiral Faller to have further discussions around, what are the
things that can we do to provide support to the people of
Venezuela.
Chairman, do you have any comments?
General Dunford. The only thing I would say, Congressman,
is that your first question about was it designed to signal, we
got the request, and it was generated by USAID. It went to the
State Department, and they asked us to meet a capacity
shortfall. And as the Secretary said, it was our ability to
deliver a large volume over a short period of time in support
of USAID which drove that initial humanitarian assistance
request.
Mr. Carbajal. Let me finish with the time I have left. Is
it this administration's intent to use a military resolution on
this issue--to achieve a military resolution?
Secretary Shanahan. That is not my understanding.
Mr. Carbajal. Thank you.
I yield back my time.
The Chairman. Okay. One, we have five people left to ask
questions here who have not yet spoken. I am going to press on.
There is the possibility that others are going to come back,
and we will deal with that as it comes, but we will try to
press on. I think we can conceivably get done in the next 45
minutes or so, so I will try and do that.
Mr. Waltz.
Mr. Waltz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Gentlemen, thank you for your service, and thank you for
being here today.
I want to talk to you a moment about space. Russia and
China have weaponized space. They have done so; they are in the
process of doing so. And they explicitly, in their national
security strategy, seek to dominate the United States in space.
They are prepared for war, and, in my opinion, we are not.
So with the flip of a switch, China can track, they can
dazzle, they can destroy our assets in space. In 2018, China
conducted more space launches than any other country in the
world.
Why does this matter? I think, as leaders, we need to help
Americans understand that our entire modern way of life is
dependent on space now--our navigation, our supply chain, our
banking, how we communicate. Space Foundation says over $400
billion of our economy is now dependent on space.
Yet, in the Pentagon, our various components for
warfighting in that domain are all over the place. GAO
[Government Accountability Office] estimated we have over 60
stakeholders involved in this organization in terms of
acquisition, oversight, and the Air Force has 11 different
parts.
I personally believe we are with space where we were in the
1940s with the Air Force, where it had to be split off from the
Air Corps for all kinds of reasons that are now obvious.
I have introduced legislation that cleans up some past
legislation in terms of making it a fully unified command
versus the subordinate command. I would encourage my colleagues
to support me in that.
Bottom line, gentlemen--and I will go with you, Mr.
Secretary--are we prepared? Are you confident that we could win
a conflict in space today if we had to do so?
Secretary Shanahan. I am fully confident we could win a
conflict in space today.
Mr. Waltz. Without the current budget trajectory, for
example, if we had to go to a continuing resolution, are you
confident that we could win in space in the next 5 to 10 years
given Chinese investments?
Secretary Shanahan. We just don't need to take that risk. I
mean, this is really about--we have a $19 trillion economy that
runs on space. That is why the CR would be so painful. We have
put a plan in place. The 3 to 5 percent real growth that we
need allows us to even go faster. But it is vital that we get
that top line.
Mr. Waltz. Mr. Secretary, have you made a decision on where
the new U.S. Space Command will be located? There is reporting
in the press that it will be in Colorado and that there has
been a nomination.
Secretary Shanahan. Yeah, no, there is----
Mr. Waltz. I would submit to you space is in Florida's DNA
and to strongly----
Secretary Shanahan. Right.
Mr. Waltz [continuing]. Consider Florida as you move
forward with that decision.
Break, break. Separate topic, on counterterrorism,
capacity-building, soft power. I would just submit to you--and
I am concerned in hearing testimony across the board from
across the services. I understand where we are going with the
National Defense Strategy. I think that is the right thing to
do, in terms of reinvesting in our technological superiority.
However, we cannot do what we did in the 1980s post-Vietnam and
flush those lessons, those counterinsurgency, those
counterterrorism lessons down the tubes.
General Dunford, do you believe ISIS is defeated as a
military organization?
General Dunford. ISIS maintains global capability,
Congressman. So while it had been cleared of the ground in
Syria and Iraq, it remains a threat.
Mr. Waltz. Do you believe that al-Qaida is defeated?
General Dunford. No, I don't, Congressman.
Mr. Waltz. Do you believe that, in your military advice,
that the Taliban--forget their political will--that they have
the military capability to deny al-Qaida use of Afghanistan?
And particularly military capability, that 300,000-man Afghan
army and a coalition of the most powerful Western armies in the
world have struggled to do in 18 years, and I have certainly
participated in, and I know you have as well. Do you believe
the Taliban have that capability if we bought into the fact
that they desire to do so?
General Dunford. Congressman, I am not pushing back on your
question, but it is hard for me to imagine having a
conversation about the Taliban fighting al-Qaida given how
close they are as organizations right now.
Mr. Waltz. Right. I 100 percent agree. First, we have to
get over do we buy they have the will to deny al-Qaida
Afghanistan as a launching pad back into the United States.
Then we have to look at what is their enforcement mechanism,
what is their capability.
Gentlemen, just with the time I have remaining, I am glad
that you touched on the fact that if we had to go to a national
emergency today from a recruiting standpoint, 75 percent of
young people couldn't serve in the military. That is why I am
pushing for us to go back to national service--that is not a
draft; that is national service--as a means to prepare our
young people to serve in all types of capacities. And I look
forward to working with you in that regard.
Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Crow.
Mr. Crow. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and to all of you for
your testimony today.
And I will reiterate my colleague's comments, General
Dunford, on your lifetime of service. I thank you for your
professionalism.
And with all due respect to my colleague from Florida,
Colorado is a mile closer to space than Florida is and a great
place for space assets.
Let me begin with General Dunford.
In my three combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan doing
counterterrorism/counterinsurgency operations, you know, it
became abundantly clear to me that involvement of humanitarian
and diplomatic efforts and resources were instrumental to our
ability to get the job done and to secure our forces and our
allies as well.
So, in that context, is it your professional judgment and
in your experience that if the proposed cuts to the State
Department would occur, would that have a negative impact on
our stability and support operations and our national security?
General Dunford. Congressman, first, with regard to the
first part of your question, I couldn't agree with you more,
and my experience is very similar to yours.
I am not familiar enough to know how Secretary Pompeo--how
his budget is constructed and what the direct impact is of the
cuts to the State Department to be able to judge whether that
will have a direct impact on our operations.
Mr. Crow. Well, if we have fewer diplomats or fewer
resources to supplement our forces and to provide capacity-
building to our allies and our local partners, does that
jeopardize our ability to perform our missions overseas?
General Dunford. That particular shortfall would. There is
no question.
Mr. Crow. And also to you, General Dunford, I am
particularly concerned about the long-term security of our
Kurdish allies, particularly the Syrian Democratic Forces in
Syria. Are you satisfied that, as of today, there are
sufficient long-term plans in place to ensure the protection of
the Kurds and our allies, in particular the SDF forces?
General Dunford. Thanks, Congressman. In Syria
specifically, you know, we are seeking campaign continuity, and
that campaign continuity includes the partnership with the SDF
to complete the task against ISIS.
We are also working to assure Turkey that its security
interests are addressed along the border.
And so, right now, our near-term plan with the President's
decision for residual force includes continued train, advise,
assist for our Kurdish partners on the ground as well as a
framework that will prevent any challenges or threats then.
Mr. Crow. So it sounds like we are working on it but we are
not there yet.
General Dunford. Congressman, I would tell you, if I come
here 6 months from now, I will tell you we are still working on
it. This is a journey, not a destination. I mean, we continue
to make refinements to the plan. It is a very--as you know
personally, it is a very complicated situation. And I think we
make progress every day, but I suspect we will continue to work
this for months to come, keeping in mind the thesis of your
opening line, which was, at the end of the day, this is about a
political solution, which is very much still in the works.
Mr. Crow. Well, I will just posit that I think our moral
credibility as well as our security will be tied up with our
ability to protect those forces and that population.
And, Acting Secretary Shanahan, you know, I am deeply
concerned about mission creep and the use of the AUMF
[Authorization for the Use of Military Force] over the last 18
years. And, obviously, Congress has authority to declare war
and oversight authority of the Department of Defense and
military operations.
It is my understanding that execute orders, or EXORDs,
which outline operational authorities delegated by the
Secretary to commanders or components, have previously have not
been made accessible to committee staff. And we can't do our
oversight role unless committee staff has that information. So
will you commit to be able to provide those timely to committee
staff?
Secretary Shanahan. Congressman, I have been working over
the past 6 weeks to come up with a process so that we can share
that information, and I am going to be prepared next month to
come share that and work with the committee staff.
Mr. Crow. So next month is the goal?
Secretary Shanahan. Yes, that is the goal.
Mr. Crow. Okay. And why has the Department not fulfilled
its obligation and submitted the congressionally mandated
report on advise, assist, and accompany missions?
Secretary Shanahan. I will have to take that for the
record.
[The information referred to was not available at the time
of printing.]
Mr. Crow. And that is section 1212 of the fiscal year 2019
NDAA, just to be clear.
Secretary Shanahan. Good. Thank you.
Mr. Crow. Thank you.
I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you.
I see we do have some folks coming back. So we are going to
go with Mr. Bergman, and then when he is done, we are going to
take a 10- to 15-minute break, give the witnesses a chance to
stretch and relax for a moment. And then we will reconvene at
12:45 and go from there.
With that, Mr. Bergman.
Mr. Bergman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And, General Dunford, I know you have heard it from
everyone, but thank you for being the embodiment of servant
leadership. Thoughtful, pragmatic, mission-focused. You have
set an example that we all can follow on a daily basis. Thanks.
Mr. Shanahan, the subject in advance here as I work through
the question is PFAS [perfluorooctanesulfonic acid]
contamination. In my district in Michigan--Alpena, Grayling,
Marquette, Escanaba--we have areas of confirmed and potential
PFAS contamination, some including BRAC'ed [base realignment
and closure] bases which closed decades ago but also at State-
owned National Guard facilities.
As you already know, the Army and the Air National Guard
don't have access to the Department's environmental restoration
funds the same way the Active Component bases do.
Given that the work of our National Guard--that what it
does is directly related to overall readiness of our Armed
Forces, I believe that the DOD does have a role to play in
mitigating PFAS contamination. Do you agree, Secretary
Shanahan, that we must find ways to address PFAS contamination
not just at Active Duty bases but also at National Guard
facilities?
Secretary Shanahan. Sir, I think that we need to address
the issue of PFAS/PFOA [perfluorooctanoic acid] contamination
writ large in all of our communities. This is a significant
health and environmental risk.
Mr. Bergman. Can you give me any examples of how DOD is
currently working with other agencies to address the issue?
Secretary Shanahan. I know the Department is working with
the Environmental Protection Agency to harmonize some of the
standards.
Our focus has been to substitute. So when you think about
the fire retardant, how do we, you know, just eliminate the
contamination so we no longer test, we no longer train, and we
no longer do research with those chemicals.
Mr. Bergman. I understand. And is there anything--because
Congress is a partner in this. Is this anything that you would
suggest--and you can take this for the record if you would
like--what Congress can do to further support DOD in ensuring
that you have the ability to work with all of those other
agencies to eliminate this problem?
Secretary Shanahan. No, I will take that for the record,
but it is one of these--we truly need to get a harmonization of
the environmental mitigation plans. I mean, we need to be able
to address it. But I will take that for the record.
[The information referred to was not available at the time
of printing.]
Mr. Bergman. Thank you.
General Dunford, you know, it is clear that the National
Defense Strategy has influenced this budget, as it does with
every budget. But what is less clear is how the joint force
plans to operate differently.
Can you explain in an unclassified way some of the concepts
that are being developed to operationalize the strategy, you
know, update the OPLANs [operational plans], combining with
budget?
General Dunford. Sure. Probably, since you talk about
OPLANs, probably one of the more fundamental changes that we
made is the shift from an OPLAN basis method of planning to
campaign plans that incorporate the whole problem set.
So, in the past, we might have developed a plan for a
specific contingency in a specific geographic area, a fairly
narrow view of the threat. When we think about Russia, China,
Iran, North Korea now, our planning is we develop global plans
so that we talk about a specific contingency but we talk about
it in the context of what the entire joint force will be doing
globally at any given point in time.
I will just very quickly give you an example. So when we
have done recently a readiness review for our preparedness for
Korea, we not only looked at Korea, we looked at what we were
doing across the region in the Pacific, what we were doing to
defend the homeland, and what each of the combatant commanders
would be doing outside of the theater either in direct support
of that contingency or as that contingency goes on to mitigate
the risk of opportunism and other risk.
Mr. Bergman. Thank you.
And I guess I am the only one standing between us and a
break, so I yield back.
The Chairman. Okay.
We are going to take a brief recess in a moment. We will
reconvene at--do you guys need 10, 15 minutes?
Ten. Okay. We will reconvene at 12:40. Mr. Brown is going
to be in the chair. I have something I have to do, but I will
be back. And Mr. Brown is first up, so he is not really just
putting himself in charge and then calling on himself; he
actually is next.
So we are in recess for 10 minutes. Thank you.
[Recess.]
Mr. Brown [presiding]. If we could all start to take our
seats, and we will reconvene the second portion of this hearing
of the House Armed Services Committee.
And I certainly appreciate the patience of the members, as
well as the endurance of our witnesses. General Dunford, Mr.
Shanahan, Mr. Norquist, thank you very much. And we will go
ahead and pick up where we left off. As the chairman mentioned,
I was next in order, so I will begin with my line of questions.
Let me just start by saying that I think--you know, I
recognize that as, you know, members of the Armed Services
Committee, our responsibility is to look at authorizations for
underlying supporting the National Defense Strategy, and that
the National Defense Strategy really implements one of the four
pillars of the National Security Strategy. That is peace
through strength with a focus on building a more lethal force.
As we as Members of Congress more broadly are looking at
how do we ensure that we authorize and appropriate for the
entire National Security Strategy, which includes defending the
homeland, a lot of defense and nondefense spending that is in
there, American prosperity, a lot of nondefense spending in
there and projecting American values. In fact, if you look it
the National Security Strategy, it talks about vocational
training, it talks about diversifying the energy portfolio, it
talks about a forward presence of a diplomatic corps, and our
development activities throughout the world.
So let me turn, though, to the focus of this, you know,
committee, the National Defense Strategy and the underlying
budget. This year, the President's budget request is for $750
billion, $718 [billion] to the Pentagon, and which is the
highest adjusted for inflation since the height of the Iraq
war. An overseas contingency, it includes an OCO funding of
$174 billion, $164 billion to the Pentagon, which is the
absolute highest that we have seen since the height of the Iraq
surge in 2007 and 2008. And this is occurring at the same time
that the National Defense Strategy, it is talking about a pivot
away from the counterterrorism fight, not abandoning that
fight, but pivoting away as we focus more on great power
competition with China and Russia.
I think it is important for Congress that, you know, we are
open and transparent to the American public and that the
Department of Defense is as well, so when we have
appropriations categories and authorization accounts, that we
can demonstrate to the American people that we are faithful to
the original design and intent. So I just want to ask you about
a few items, just to shine some light on what we are actually
doing here, what is being requested in the President's budget
request.
I am reading $8 billion for ship depot-level maintenance
has been moved from the Navy base budget to the OCO account.
And to my knowledge, there is not a single dollar for depot-
level maintenance in the base budget. Is that accurate?
Mr. Norquist. I believe that sounds correct.
Mr. Brown. Okay. $1.2 billion for Trident II nuclear
missiles in the overseas contingency operation funds. Is that
correct?
Mr. Norquist. It is. It would be in the OCO for base,
correct.
Mr. Brown. It is in the OCO, overseas contingency
allowance, Trident missiles.
Five hundred thirty-three B61 low- to medium-yield nuclear
bombs are in the OCO portion of the budget. Is that accurate?
Mr. Norquist. I don't know that one off the top of my head.
Mr. Brown. Yeah, that is accurate. I will answer that one.
There is $1 billion for the Patriot missile system in the
OCO budget. The Patriot, as you know, is to defend against
advanced enemy fighters. We are talking about in an overseas
contingency operation fund. Does that sound accurate?
Mr. Norquist. That may be right. The Patriot is also used
in terms of defensive facilities in bases against missiles.
Mr. Brown. And then finally, I want to point out the
European Deterrence Initiative [EDI], $500 million remains in
OCO budget. I understand that it has been done that way in
previous years. But again, we are talking about reassuring our
NATO allies about a long-term commitment, yet a substantial
portion of our funding commitment is in an OCO account, which
is not long-term budgeting. It is better than a CR, but it is
not long-term funding. Is that accurate?
Mr. Norquist. Yes. The EDI has historically been funded
through that OCO account, and it was last year and in prior
years as well.
Mr. Brown. So is this sound budgeting practice for the DOD
and supporting a defense budget?
Mr. Norquist. So the use of the OCO is divided into two
parts. As I talked earlier, there is the traditional one and we
have broken it out in budget----
Mr. Brown. I get that. I guess my question is this. Putting
in some of these sort of, you know, modernization programs,
long-term programs that are not exclusively for current or
anticipated overseas contingency allowances; putting, for
example, 533 nuclear bombs in OCO, is that sound budgeting or
accounting practices?
Mr. Norquist. It is not how we have presented it the
previous year.
Mr. Brown. Okay. Let me just shift with the remaining time
we have, because we haven't asked about the transgender policy.
I think that budgets are an important reflection of our
priorities and our values. Would you agree with that, Secretary
Shanahan, that a budget reflects our values and our priorities?
Secretary Shanahan. Yes.
Mr. Brown. So, you know, when President Truman desegregated
the Armed Forces, he stated: ``It is essential that there be
maintained in the armed services of the United States the
highest standards of democracy, with a quality of treatment and
opportunity for all those who serve in our country's defense.''
Would you agree with that, Secretary Shanahan?
Secretary Shanahan. Yes, I would.
Mr. Brown. Are you aware that--and you have heard it
today--the Army, as of September 30, failed to recruit enough
soldiers to meet its projections for the last fiscal year?
Secretary Shanahan. Yes.
Mr. Brown. And you have also heard that 71 percent of young
Americans between age 17 and 24 are ineligible to serve in the
military?
Secretary Shanahan. That is correct.
Mr. Brown. Would you agree that a manpower shortage in the
United States Armed Forces directly compromises national
security?
Secretary Shanahan. Yes, it does.
Mr. Brown. Are you aware that there are transgender
soldiers serving in today's military who are meeting and even
exceeding standards in every criterion that we use to measure
performance in the military?
Secretary Shanahan. I don't have the specific----
Mr. Brown. Okay. Because they testified in front of this
committee about 3 weeks ago.
And are you aware of the fact that many of these
transgender soldiers have successfully transitioned to their
gender of preference?
Secretary Shanahan. I don't know that, but I----
Mr. Brown. Yeah, because this is an important policy
change. This isn't change in sort of like the Army green to the
Army green and pink. This is a personnel policy that will
exclude a certain category of Americans from serving. So I am
just trying to inquire what you do know about it.
Are you aware that the Chief of Naval Operations, the
Marine Commandant, the Army Chief, and the current Air Force
Chief all testified publicly in their own words that
transgenders serving in the military won't affect readiness,
doesn't affect military discipline, has not been disruptive to
the military service, nor has affected unit cohesion? Are you
aware of that?
Secretary Shanahan. I am aware of their testimony, yes.
Mr. Brown. And you know that in July of 2017, President
Trump said that he consulted his generals and experts when he
decided not to accept transgender individuals to serve in the
military.
General Dunford, as the then senior military adviser to the
President, is it accurate that within days of President Trump's
ban on transgender service, that you stated: ``I would just
probably say that I believe any individual who meets the
physical and mental standards and is worldwide deployable and
is currently serving should be afforded the opportunity to
continue to serve?'' Did you say that?
General Dunford. I did say that, Congressman.
Mr. Brown. Has your opinion changed on that?
General Dunford. It has not, Congressman.
Mr. Brown. I will now turn to--thank you very much for your
responses to my line of questions.
Mr. Thornberry. Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Brown. Yes.
Mr. Thornberry. General, I think since we have gone down
that road at some length over time, it is important now to put
on the record a bit more about the process that Secretary
Mattis used in reevaluating the prior administration's policy
in this regard and a little bit more fulsome about the factors
that were looked at, how the decisions came to be made that he
issued during his time. And I don't know either--I don't know
which of you is better to do that, because you were both there,
but I think it would be important to discuss that a bit.
General Dunford. I will take a first stab at it and then
see if the Secretary wants to add.
So we did use the words physically, mentally,
psychologically capable of being worldwide deployable without
special accommodations. And then the Secretary engaged the
leadership across the Department, but that also included
medical experts from across the Department.
And so what the Secretary did was, based on the
definitions, and I think you are sensitive as well, Ranking
Member Thornberry, that some of this is still in litigation. So
what I am trying to do is be as forthright right now as I can
be without getting into that issue. But the Secretary included
the leadership and then medical experts. And so then based on
the definition of physically, mentally, psychologically capable
of deploying, performing in our occupational fields, with the
caveat without special accommodation, he proposed a revision to
the 2017 policy. That was the process that was used to be able
to do that.
Mr. Thornberry. Secretary Shanahan, you have anything you
want to add?
Secretary Shanahan. No, I think the 2018 policy really just
applies standards uniformly.
Mr. Thornberry. I think there is a misunderstanding that
the policy was changed on the whim of a tweet. And that is part
of the reason I think it is helpful for members to know that
there was a deeper, longer process that was involved that
resulted in the Mattis policy. Now, as y'all may know, we are
going to have a Sense of Congress resolution on the floor this
week, which is part of the reason that this is coming up right
now. I don't think probably it is appropriate for us to debate
that now, but as you point out, there is litigation underway. I
suspect there will be more conversations about these various
considerations, and that may well involve the Department and
the service chiefs in looking at these issues.
I yield back.
Mr. Brown. And we will now go to Mr. Banks.
Mr. Banks. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Secretary Shanahan, have you ever had a conversation or any
engagement with Secretary DeVos about sensitive research on
college campuses and tools of Chinese espionage like Huawei,
Confucius Institutes, et cetera?
Secretary Shanahan. I have not with Secretary DeVos, but I
have with the FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigation].
Mr. Banks. Okay. Do you believe that there is more that we
can do to restrict Chinese nationals who are students on
college campuses from being involved in DOD-funded sensitive
research?
Secretary Shanahan. I think there are.
Mr. Banks. Are there good reasons for to us do that?
Secretary Shanahan. Yes, there are.
Mr. Banks. Okay, good. I will move on. Secretary Shanahan,
on September 26 of last year, Secretary Mattis and VA
[Department of Veterans Affairs] Secretary Wilkie issued a
joint statement promising a new and improved joint governance
structure to manage MHS [Military Health System] GENESIS and
the VA EHR [electronic health record] modernization. I have
asked the VA officials multiple times to share the thought
process, and zero information had has been forthcoming.
I understand that a study of various options was completed
in February. When can we expect such an announcement on the new
her organization?
Secretary Shanahan. I will take that one for the record.
[The information referred to was not available at the time
of printing.]
Mr. Banks. Okay. And even better yet, before the
announcement, would it be possible for some of us who are
involved in this subject to receive a briefing of some sort?
Secretary Shanahan. Yeah.
Mr. Banks. And is the line of thinking where are the
synergies or the benefits being captured based on this unity of
effort?
Secretary Shanahan. Yes.
Mr. Banks. Thank you.
Moving on to another issue. Secretary Shanahan, in your
opening testimony, you stated, quote: ``We are applying maximum
pressure to ISIS-K [Islamic State of Iraq and Syria-Khorasan
Province] and other terrorist groups in Afghanistan to stymie
any threats to the U.S. homeland.''
Can you elaborate on this military campaign, and how would
a quick withdrawal impact the longevity of ISIS-K in
Afghanistan?
Secretary Shanahan. Well, my reference there is to the work
of General Miller and the special forces, and their work also
with the Afghan Special Forces. As you are very well familiar
with General Miller's SOF background, he is--at this point in
time, this anchors back to our South Asia strategy. So he is
really bringing a concentrated effect, the SOF presence, and a
more muscular effect, not just to al-Qaida and ISIS, but to the
Taliban.
Mr. Banks. Okay. General Dunford, can you state--you state
the importance of the, quote, ``Afghan-owned peace process.''
Do you think our current negotiations exemplify that?
General Dunford. Congressman, you know, what we need to do
is start reconciliation. So what I am optimistic about is that
Ambassador Khalilzad has at least opened up a dialogue. And
after 17 years, I am encouraged to see that.
The intent, the clear intent that is outlined by the
Secretary of State and is in the terms of reference is that
this process include legitimate representatives of the Afghan
Government and the Afghan people. So that is the direction we
are headed in. I think to look at the negotiations at any point
in time would not be probably a full-sight picture.
Mr. Banks. On that same subject, General, what conditions
would you expect from the Taliban before the U.S. is safely
able to withdraw from their country?
General Dunford. Beyond the Taliban, when I make a
recommendation to the Secretary and the President about our
future presence in Afghanistan, it will be based on our
national interest in the fact that Afghanistan is not a
sanctuary from which terrorists can attack the American people
and the American homeland.
Mr. Bacon. Secretary, back to you. We have had some
discussion already about the size and strength of the United
States Navy. Even if every Congressman and the President agreed
on the goal of a 355-ship fleet for decades to come, we still
won't reach that desired goal for at least 40 years. What do
you expect the balance of forces between the U.S. and China to
be by the time we achieve a 355-fleet Navy?
Secretary Shanahan. Well, let me just speak to the time. I
think it is 2034 in which we reach the 355-ship Navy. The
discussion, you know, it is the future force structure won't
necessarily be defined by our traditional measures of 355
ships. I mean, the real work that we are undergoing right now
is what is the right mix. This goes back to, you know,
autonomy, semi-autonomous, surface, subsurface mix. I don't
think the course that the Chinese are on is the same course
that these naval battles we fought on in the future.
The warfighting doctrine is going to change dramatically.
That doesn't mean that we divorce ourselves from our current
infrastructure, but I really think that this transition to
future forces: space, cyber, missiles will have a profound
impact on the type of Navy we have and the size of those
vessels and the composition.
Mr. Banks. Thank you.
Mr. Brown. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Kim.
Mr. Kim. Thank you so much for coming. I actually want to
be able to continue on the great line of questioning that my
colleague was just going through.
I think it is incredibly important that we think about what
the American people are worried about, how they are
understanding the issues that we are dealing with the military
and with the security. And what I will tell you is that,
oftentimes, the conversations that I have back in the district
in New Jersey are different than the conversations we will have
here in this room. We just heard some great line of questioning
about Afghanistan. I think that is key, because that is
something that is always on the minds of the American people in
my district when they are thinking about security.
And while these other issues we have talked about are
important, in this discussion here as we are thinking about our
priorities and our budget, I think it is important for us to be
able to make sure we are always being proactive about
explaining to the American people what we are doing in
Afghanistan and what our next steps are. So I just always
encourage the three of you and others at the Pentagon and
elsewhere to be thinking about how it is that we can raise
those issues and continue to show the American people that
these are not issues that we are sweeping under the rug, that
we are going to stay engaged, especially after we know that
there are people who are eligible to serve out in Afghanistan
now who were in diapers on September 11. You know, that is just
a core reality we need to comprehend here.
So I want to just bring a question back from the district
to you, which is, you know, as we are going through this, what
are those circumstances that we need to be able to understand
when we will no longer require U.S. military personnel in
Afghanistan? I know that it is going to be dependent in part on
the peace process and the discussion there. I understand that.
I also understand that the South Asia strategy also talks a lot
about how the regional countries are engaged in this.
But when I think about the train, advise, and assist
mission, I see a lot of parallels between where we are at right
now in Afghanistan and also in Iraq with these being core
elements. But what I don't have a sense of is when do we no
longer need to have U.S. personnel on the ground to be able to
help support with train, advise, and assist or other
capabilities there? General.
General Dunford. Congressman, I will take a stab at it, and
then you can come back at me with additional questions. I mean,
what I would tell your constituents back in the district is
that when there is no longer a threat of terrorism in South
Asia that would affect the homeland or the American people,
then the mission can end. And until that point, you know, we--
if we end the mission before that condition is achieved, then
we will be managing risk of an attack on the homeland from
South Asia.
And I would just say, today, given the almost 20 groups
that operate in that area and certainly the intent, if not
today, the capability of al-Qaida and ISIS-Khorasan, it is my
judgment, my military judgment that continued pressure on those
threats is directly and inextricably linked to the security of
the American people.
Mr. Kim. Thank you for that. When we are making that
assessment of the threats, especially to the homeland, I agree
with you. That should be the measure by which we understand our
involvement. What can you tell me that reassures me that the
Afghan defense forces are ones that are being able to develop
to be able to do that on their own? Even if we were to get to a
point where you or some other general as a commander can be
able to make that determination, if we were to then not have
the Afghan forces have the capabilities where they can do that
on their own, then obviously we may fall back into a situation
again, as we have seen over the last couple of years in Iraq.
So on the Afghan security forces side, what circumstances,
what conditions do they need, what proficiencies do you need to
see in their forces to give you confidence that they would be
able to handle this on their own?
General Dunford. Sure. And, Congressman, it is beyond just
a military issue, right, so it is the capability of the Afghan
National Defense Security Forces. It is also the capability of
the Afghan Government to sustain those particular forces. And
when would that happen? I guess what I would tell you is if you
went back to 2013, we had 100,000 Americans on the ground, a
total of 140,000 NATO forces, and that was the size force that
was necessary for us to advance our national interests at that
time. Today, we have about 13,000 Americans in Afghanistan as
opposed to 100,000 Americans back in 2013.
So I know this isn't moving as fast as the American people,
in particular your constituents, would want it to be, but what
we have tried to do is make sure that the level of effort that
we had in Afghanistan was consistent with the threat and
consistent with the capabilities of the Afghans to deal with
that threat on their own. And it is our judgment today that,
particularly with regard to combat-enabling capability and
high-end special operations capability, the kind of support we
are providing today continues to be necessary. I would add
there are 39 other nations that are with us in supporting the
Afghans right now.
Mr. Kim. Thank you for that. I think that is incredibly
important.
I yield back.
Mr. Brown. Mr. Gaetz.
Mr. Gaetz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
My questions relate to the zero-sum decisions we seem to be
making relative to our fifth-generation and fourth-gen fighter
aircraft. My first question is whether or not the manufacturing
base has been a consideration in the decision to upgrade the F-
15.
Mr. Norquist. Sir, I think when we looked at the factors
that we talked about there is you want to maintain a
competitive industrial base. You also want to make sure you
have weapon systems with the right mix of capacity and
capability and there is a mix between them.
Mr. Gaetz. Yeah, we are going to go through the capability.
But specifically as to the manufacturing base, is it your view
that this decision to make the F-15 upgrades is essential in
that the manufacturing base justifies that decision?
Mr. Norquist. I don't know if it justifies it by itself. I
just think that it is a factor that needs to be considered.
Mr. Gaetz. How many F-35As can we build in fiscal year
2020?
Mr. Norquist. I need to get you that number. Was their
production rates----
Mr. Gaetz. Yeah. What is our manufacturing capacity for the
aircraft that we have spent the better part of several decades
getting ready to launch into the skies?
Mr. Norquist. We have got 78 in the budget. I don't know
what their capacity is per year.
Mr. Gaetz. Procurement costs has been another justification
for the decision to purchase few F-35s and to have the F-15X
options that have been laid out. When you finish the F-15
upgrades with the full complement of targeting pods and sensors
and jammers, what is the flyaway cost?
Mr. Norquist. I don't have the specifics on flyaway costs.
The life--the maintenance and operating cost of them will still
be lower.
Mr. Gaetz. We can get to that. First procurement cost. Was
it an assumption we made that the procurement cost of the F-15
upgrades would be less than buying more F-35As?
Mr. Norquist. I believe the main driver was in the
maintenance and the sustainment costs. The procurement costs
were different, but they were not as dramatically different as
the others.
Mr. Gaetz. The procurement cost of which is lower? How
about that?
Mr. Norquist. Of the--fourth generation is lower.
Mr. Gaetz. So what you are telling me is it is cheaper to
buy an upgrade--a fourth-gen F-15X than it is with the flyaway
costs of an F-35A?
Mr. Norquist. I believe so. I can get you those, because I
know we put those numbers together for the committees.
Mr. Gaetz. I am looking at an $80 million flyaway cost on
the 35A, and then once you lash the necessary, you know,
electronic weapons pod, and other tech to the F-15X, you are
looking at a $90- to $100 million flyaway cost. Does that sound
right?
Mr. Norquist. I am not sure what other additional things
you are attaching to it. It depends on the mission you are
asking it to perform.
Mr. Gaetz. I would only--the mission set that we would
assume when we made these budgetary decisions. If you could
provide for the record for me the detailed breakdown on, not
maintenance costs, procurement costs on these two weapons
systems, that would be most helpful.
Mr. Norquist. Sure.
[The information referred to was not available at the time
of printing.]
Mr. Gaetz. Operational costs, you were making a point about
that as well. What is the basis for the view that the F-15X
will have a lower operational costs?
Mr. Norquist. So the analysis that was done by our CAPE
[Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation] organization that went
through and compared the set of them. Because you talk about
this, the purchase cost, the maintenance cost, and basically
the lifecycle cost when you think of how long the aircraft
lasts. And it also compares it for the different missions we
need them to perform. If you are operating in a permissive
environment, where you are looking at the capacity of the
ability of the plane to do strike versus----
Mr. Gaetz. If you look at a melded rate, what is our--on
the F-15X, what does it cost per hour to fly it?
Mr. Norquist. I don't have those. I know that they are
available, but I didn't bring them with me today.
Mr. Gaetz. So as you guys provide for the record for me the
procurement cost breakdown on the X versus the 35A, it would
really be helpful to have the melded rate on hourly costs to
fly the 35A and the F-15X. Because I am looking at some data
that says that by 2025, we are going to drive down that cost on
a 35A to $25,000 per flying hour with a melded--understanding
there are different missions, but as a melded rate, and that is
a year after the budget says we would have the first
operational 15Xs. So presumably, that would be a number
consistent with the data that showed that to be $27,000 to
$30,000 per flying hour. So if you could break that down for
me.
Mr. Norquist. We would be happy to. That is one of the
things we would actually be able to assemble, because following
the briefing on the mix, these were some of the common
questions that we wanted to is get every one of the committees
the exact same set of data so that they understood the data----
[The information referred to was not available at the time
of printing.]
Mr. Gaetz. Yeah. I am a little surprised you don't have it,
you know, because there seems to be a pretty deliberate
decision to lean into that F-15X. And so I would have thought
that that would be really relevant information for a budget
discussion.
I want to take my final moments to just ask, Secretary
Shanahan, can you explain the ways in which these budget
priorities recognize the changing environment in the Western
Hemisphere, Venezuela, and how we are going to make sure we
support SOUTHCOM [U.S. Southern Command] effectively?
Secretary Shanahan. Yeah. So one of the fundamental
assumptions that we have been building into the force mix and
the force design----
Mr. Brown. If you can do that in 30 seconds, that will
work. Okay?
Secretary Shanahan. Yeah, I know. I will do it even more
quickly.
We have designed this, and the chairman's been
extraordinarily helpful here, dynamic force employment, so we
can move forces quickly and reconstitute them in areas where
there is demand and to increase interoperability. That
flexibility allows us then to surge in the case of SOCOM when
they have a different mission or they need to surge for a short
period of time, but not to fundamentally change their
footprint.
Mr. Gaetz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. Brown. Thank you.
Ms. Horn.
Ms. Horn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you, General
Dunford, Secretary Shanahan, and Mr. Norquist. I really
appreciate your testimony.
I want to--I know we have had a few rounds of questions,
but I want to dig little bit further into space realignment and
priorities, which I believe are really important, and to Mr.
Kim's point earlier about making sure that the public
understands them. And I am going to direct my first questions
to General Dunford because I would like to hear from you about
this.
Is it safe to say that space assets exist across all of the
branches and all of the functions of our Armed Forces today?
General Dunford. Space capabilities exist across three of
the four services, all the services leverage space.
Ms. Horn. So space is a critical component of our
warfighters' ability and our overall national security
architecture?
General Dunford. Absolutely critical for everything from
navigation, to communications, to targeting.
Ms. Horn. Okay. Also safe to say that developing space
assets and capabilities is not an easy endeavor?
General Dunford. That is accurate.
Ms. Horn. Okay. So looking at this space question, and
also, I wear another hat as the chair of the Space and
Aeronautics Subcommittee, in the civilian space arena and
knowing that we have a number of additional players in space, I
want to dig into a little bit of what this looks like. Because
I think it is important for us to understand both the needs,
the capabilities, and the future development of this. It
certainly would be my intention, and I think I have heard that
from many of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, that we
make the best decisions in the best interest of our overall
national security. It is not a partisan issue. It is about our
current and future capabilities, understanding that this
architecture is important.
So across the different programs across the different
services, do you think that it is possible that right now, and
we have also talked about acquisition and cost and audits, that
there may be programs or different capabilities being developed
right now that are potentially duplicative or could be more
efficiently utilized across a common architecture?
General Dunford. I think it is entirely possible that we
could be more effective and efficient in developing space
capabilities, and that really is the foundational argument for
the Space Development Agency.
Ms. Horn. So following on with that, in the interest of not
only protecting our national security, but understanding that
with additional players, then hundreds of thousands of pieces
of space debris, and not only our national security interests,
but also commercial and our just general lives day to day
depending on it, what, General Dunford--because we heard from
you earlier, Secretary Shanahan. I appreciate that. What do you
think about the model and the potential pathway forward? Does
it need to be a separate force or could it be more of a corps
model? What is your opinion on that?
General Dunford. In my view, Congresswoman, there is really
two issues, right? There is the how do we best integrate joint
capabilities today, and so that has been heretofore described
as a subunified command moving through a unified command for
Space Command. That takes the force we have today.
With regard to the specific organizational construct, I am
satisfied with the one that we have laid out, and I am
confident that over the next several years, it will be refined.
It will be refined. I think the important thing is, in the
current organizational construct we have today within the
Department of the Air Force and within the joint warfighting
force with a Space Command, gives us the ability to first train
the right people, identify and train the right people, develop
the right capabilities. And then when those capabilities are
developed, field those capabilities in the most effective way
for the warfighter.
So I think we have all the pieces in place. And I think,
like every organization, it will grow over time. But we ought
not to seek perfection before we start to step out and change
the way we are doing business, given the importance of space.
That would be my own thoughts on this.
Ms. Horn. Okay. And just to go back one more piece of this.
I appreciate your answers. In the proposal, one thing that
caused me to raise my eyebrows, there are some changes and some
exemptions for employment practices and procedures that are
within this proposal, and it provides broad exemptions to
current law. I understand the need to realign as something else
is being stood up. But I don't understand, and I will leave
this to either one of you, can you explain to me the
justification behind these broad exemptions?
Mr. Norquist. So there are two types. One was set up on
personnel, and that was modeled after the personnel authorities
of the National Reconnaissance Office. And then there was
another one that was modeled after how the Air Force did its
transition to being a separate service. So those authorities
are designed to be similar to other organizations, either stand
up or space. It is one of the areas----
Mr. Smith [presiding]. I am sorry, the gentlelady's time
has expired.
I believe Mr. Lamborn is next. Go ahead.
Mr. Lamborn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
First a statement and then a question, first for the
Secretary and then for the chairman. You stated earlier, Mr.
Shanahan, that--Secretary Shanahan, that if forced to
prioritize between Space Force, Space Command, and the Space
Development Agency, Space Command would be your first priority.
I would like to point out that the Space Command did exist in
Colorado Springs from 1985 to 2002, and currently, Air Force
Space Command and the National Space Defense Center are located
at Peterson and Schriever, both in Colorado Springs.
So if the threat is as urgent as you suggest, and I believe
it is, and if time is of the essence, I would highly recommend
that Colorado Springs be the best location, given, in addition
to those considerations, the massive number of space
warfighters and infrastructure already in place. So I will just
go on record as making that point.
My question is this: Can you describe why this
administration and the Department of Defense have exhibited
such a sense of urgency regarding the reformation of our
military space enterprise? Is it because the threat is so
dangerous and so imminent?
Secretary Shanahan. I would just say, fundamentally it is
now a contested environment, and a $19 trillion economy and the
world's most powerful military runs off space. And in that
contested domain, if we don't protect it, we are all at risk.
So it is really--I mean, the urgency is the threat that so much
of what we depend on, you know, our, you know, maps in our
cars, you know, the ability to, you know, target our weapons is
vulnerable.
Mr. Lamborn. Well, then what would you say to someone who
says, okay, I see a threat----
Secretary Shanahan. Yeah.
Mr. Lamborn [continuing]. But can't we attack that problem
within the existing structure? I know the Air Force, to their
great credit, has come up with some reform proposals, but is
that enough or do we need to go beyond?
Secretary Shanahan. Well, I think we need to go beyond.
That is what the proposal represents and really the Space
Development Agency. And I just--this is the part I would
emphasize. Ignore the agency piece. You could call it space
development organization. It is about development. It is not
about acquisition.
You know, this is what, you know, General Schriever did.
This is what was done in SDIO. We need to marry up the right
programmatic skills so that we can go more quickly and leverage
off of the innovation investment in commercial space.
Our acquisition rules can't accommodate that. And that is
the restructure that we are proposing here, so we can go more
quickly and use the technology that already exists. So, you
know, to me, waiting to tailor our current environment will
just take too long.
Mr. Lamborn. Okay. Thank you.
Chairman Dunford, in your professional military opinion,
especially given your career as a Marine in the Department of
the Navy and the importance of culture in the services, can you
explain the benefits that a separate military service focused
on space will provide, whether as a space force or space corps,
however it is denominated in whatever the final details are,
which would not be gained by simply reforming military space
within the existing structures?
General Dunford. Sure, Congressman. And in my experience,
an organization that has a singular focus, has responsibility
for identifying people, training people, equipping people, and
then delivering them to the warfighter for integration has a
much better chance, particularly given the importance of space.
It is one of only five domains.
We have a much better chance with an organization that has
that singular focus, as well as making sure that, with regard
to prioritization and allocation of resources, that we don't
drain away resources that might have been used for space for
other reasons.
And I know being part of large organizations there is
always going to be that temptation. And so I think having the
opportunity, and frankly, from an oversight perspective, I
would see the appeal from Congress as well, to make sure you
have the oversight that you need to have that those resources
that are necessary for us to be competitive in space are
actually managed properly.
Mr. Lamborn. And I know some have expressed concern about
adding bureaucracy, quote/unquote, or additional flag officers.
On the positive side, does that give more of a seat at the
table, so to speak, to the folks in space, which is important?
General Dunford. Well, I think a senior leader who does sit
at the table obviously has more influence. And someone asked me
earlier, you know, should this member--should this person be a
member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. And, of course, if they
are a service, then, by definition, I think that would be a
reasonable thing to do.
What I have seen personally now over the last couple of
years, particularly as a result of General Hyten being in the
room, that when he has been around, given his experience in
space, the dialogue quickly shifts and we think of things that
we wouldn't have otherwise thought about without him in the
room.
Mr. Lamborn. Thank you.
The Chairman. The gentleman's time has expired.
Just for everyone's understanding in terms of the order
here, there is one confusing aspect of this. Basically, you are
in the order that you are in when the gavel falls. If you
leave, you know, you are still in order. What happens--what has
been happening a lot is people come back literally in the 2 to
3 minutes before they would be next. Under the rules, that
person is then next.
Now, that is inconvenient, because I know a lot of members
are anticipating, okay, he is next, then I am next. But even if
you think you are next, if somebody walks in who was there at
the gavel and who is in front of you, that person is next.
Personally, I am rethinking that rule because, you know, it
is a little bit unfair to the people who are sort of planning
on what is here. But that is just the way it is. So if you
think you are next and I wind up calling on somebody else, that
will be because somebody else who was in front of you walked
back in. And that is going to happen right now.
Ms. Houlahan, you are up.
Ms. Houlahan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I have a number of questions. And thank you very much for
your testimony today, gentlemen, Mr. Shanahan and General
Dunford and Mr. Norquist. I am going to focus my questions
today on the impact of the fiscal year 2020 budget on our
defense industrial base and our investment specifically in
cybersecurity across the DOD enterprise.
But before I did that, I wanted to start by echoing some of
my colleagues who have gone before me in their frustration with
the Department's interactions with Congress over the funding
for the President's planned border wall, what you referred to
in your remarks as the border situation.
I led a letter from my colleagues from Pennsylvania, sir,
Mr. Shanahan, to you asking if you could provide a list of
unawarded MILCON projects in Pennsylvania that would be
imperiled. And I also asked for that list to contain an
assessment as well of the impact if those items were canceled
or delayed as a result of the border wall or the border
situation.
And I was really glad to receive the list of Pennsylvania
projects, but I still haven't seen any sort of assessment on
the impact of those projects if they were not to come to
fruition in this timeframe, nor have I seen any questions for
the record from this committee's first meeting back in January
where I asked for an assessment of the impact on border
deployment on our service members' readiness, and I serve on
the Readiness Subcommittee as well.
And I would certainly have hoped that the Department would
have conducted an impact assessment and briefed it to the
President before anyone started talking about moving this money
around. And I definitely would have hoped that this information
would be more readily available now coming up on 3 months from
when we initially asked for it.
There are four projects in Pennsylvania, as it turns out,
that are at risk if this plan moves toward. And I wanted to,
just for the sake of my time, highlight only one. Last year's
appropriations bill included $71 million for the construction
of a new facility in Philadelphia where we manufacture the
propulser systems for the Virginia- and Columbia-class
submarines.
The Naval Foundry and Propeller Center is essential for the
design, manufacturing, and repair of propellers for the U.S.
Navy. A new facility is needed to accommodate the increase in
personnel and equipment that comes from the push to manufacture
these new submarines. And so simply put, even though this is a
propeller, we can't meet the administration's goals of a new
submarine fleet without this.
Last week, the Commandant of the Marine Corps wrote that
supporting the, quote, unplanned and unbudgeted southern border
deployment was an exacerbation of an already challenging budget
year for the Marine Corps.
So I will move on to my questions soon, but I just wanted
to say for the record that the ill-advised plan really has
significant readiness ramifications. And the American people,
particularly Pennsylvanians, really deserve to know what they
are, not just the list of the projects that are possible on the
chopping block.
And this administration has been very vocal about its
frustration with Congress and its struggles to provide
appropriate appropriations on time. And I think that, frankly,
the criticism is very fair. But now that I am also learning a
little bit more about the referenced kind of department
reprogramming, I think it is also fair to say that that burden
is not just shared by the Congress, but also by the fact that
we are re-appropriating money and that causes, certainly,
uncertainty amongst the supply chain.
I have heard from companies across Pennsylvania that they
are struggling to hire, to train, and to retain staff, as well
as to make capital investments. And so now I guess my questions
to you are, did the Department actually assess the impact on
the defense supply chain, especially on small businesses,
before deciding to move ahead with proposing these cuts and
delays? And if not, why not? And if so, what were those
assessments?
Secretary Shanahan. And you are referring to the military--
--
Ms. Houlahan. The case in study of the four Pennsylvanian
projects and what their impact would be, you know, on the
supply chain if we were to pull back on those for small
businesses and suppliers in my community particularly.
Secretary Shanahan. Right. I can't speak to the total
assessment. I will let David Norquist comment. But I believe
the project that you are referring to on the propeller capacity
is to be awarded in July, so that would not be one of the
projects that would be----
Ms. Houlahan. Sir, it was provided to us as one of the
possibilities.
Mr. Norquist. Which, if I could clarify, what was provided
to the Congress was a list of projects that had not been
awarded since January of this year. And so that was the full
vision of what is in the pipeline.
What the Secretary has directed is to not affect any of
those projects that were scheduled to be awarded before 1
October, 30 December. The reason for that is that in the budget
there was a request for military construction funding in order
to backfill those, so those projects would be.
I know that the chairman has views on that, but I
understand the Department's intent was to make sure there
wasn't an effect on the industrial base or on those facilities
by ensuring that, by the time you got to the next year, when
the scheduled--projects were scheduled to be awarded, there
would be additional MILCON to keep them going.
But my understanding is the project you specifically
mentioned would not be affected under either circumstance.
Ms. Houlahan. It just seems----
The Chairman. Thank you. But the gentlelady's time has
expired.
Ms. Houlahan. Oh, I am sorry. I didn't notice that. Sorry,
sir.
The Chairman. And, Mr. Bacon, you are up.
Mr. Bacon. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I have to apologize right upfront. I lost my voice last
week, so I will try my best. But first, I want to thank you all
for being here and appreciate your leadership. Thanks for
stepping forward and doing this. Our country needs people to
step forward and lead.
My first question revolves around readiness and
modernization. You know, 26 months ago when President Trump
came in, our readiness levels were the worst seen since 1977.
We had 58 combat brigades, 3 could--in the Army, only 3 could
deploy that were ready to fight tonight. Half the Navy aircraft
couldn't fly. Air Force pilots are getting about half the
flying time that they needed in training. I thought it was
negligent for Congress to let us get to this spot. And we dug a
modernization hole as well with some of the oldest aircraft,
ships, and tanks in the history of our country when you look at
the average age. So since 2010 till 2 years ago, we cut the
military budget 18 percent. And the last 2 years, we have added
60 percent of those cuts back in.
General Dunford, Chairman, could you tell us what has been
the impact of this increase on our readiness and modernization,
and what happens if we don't sustain it? Thank you.
General Dunford. Sure. Congressman, I mean, it really is
very simple. Number one, we are better able to meet the
requirements that we have day to day. You know, I manage the
force for the Secretary to make recommendations for him on
deployment of the force. And so if you think about the
inventory of forces that are available for day-to-day
operations, there are more forces available.
Perhaps more importantly, we benchmark very carefully our
ability to respond in the event deterrence fails in places like
Korea or in Europe and so forth. And our ability to respond to
a major contingency today is significantly greater than it was
before.
So there is a lot below that, right. I mean, the Air Force
fixing maintainers, numbers of airplanes that are available,
modernization efforts that are ongoing and so forth. But at the
end of the day, it is about the deliverable. It is about
meeting today's requirements and then meeting our overall
requirements to respond to a contingency if deterrence fails.
And in both of those areas, the progress is measurable.
Mr. Bacon. Mr. Shanahan, I want to ask you a question about
the triad. As you know, there is proposals to take us to a
dyad. How just important is it to maintain the triad that we
have had for 60 years? What does it do to nuclear deterrence to
do away with our ICBMs? Thank you.
Secretary Shanahan. I think, you know, maybe two comments.
If something has worked well for 70 years and the environment
hasn't fundamentally changed, why would we change it? The
obsolescence is a fundamental issue we have to address. But
more importantly, I think it comes down to why would we
unilaterally disarm when our competitors are arming themselves?
Mr. Bacon. As part of that, could you tell us how important
nuclear command, control, and communications upgrades or
modernization is also needed?
Secretary Shanahan. Yeah. Well, the obsolescence of the
triad, it is clear that we need to make those investments. And
this was a little bit of the discussion we were having earlier
around 5G. The nuclear command and control communication system
is so fundamentally vital. And when we think about spoofing or
we think about systems being compromised, and as we invest in a
new space architecture, new terrestrial architecture, we need
to have total confidence in that the information that is being
provided to our commanders and Commanders in Chief is
completely trusted. And, you know, this is a new world in terms
of cyber, so that is probably one of the most, you know,
critical modernization programs that we have before the
Department.
Mr. Bacon. I agree.
Chairman, I have got to follow up on a question on
electronic warfare. You know, we have five domains. We don't
consider the electronic magnetic spectrum as a separate domain,
though it is a physical domain. All of our radio messaging goes
through that. Radar uses it. But our doctrine doesn't identify
the electronic magnetic spectrum domain as that, and I think it
should.
But I would be curious for your military professional
opinion. Should we make the electronic magnetic spectrum a
separate domain? Because we want to own it and prevent the
enemy from using it.
General Dunford. Congressman, let me start by agreeing with
you, we want to own it. And frankly, in the recommendation I
made to the Secretary for this year's program recommendations,
the electromagnetic spectrum was among the areas we
highlighted. And as we do competitive area studies, that area
comes back.
There are a lot of critical functions inside of our
warfighting capabilities that aren't in and of themselves
domains. And so I right now am comfortable with the
electromagnetic spectrum being something we look at through the
lens of a function.
Mr. Bacon. Mr. Chairman, I yield back. But I thank you for
your testimony and your time.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Cisneros.
Mr. Cisneros. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Secretary, General, Mr. Norquist, I want to thank you
all for taking your time. It has been a long day for you
already, and thank you for being here.
I want to talk to you about a specific issue dealing with
California. There is a fight--a contract has been awarded for a
flight simulator for the 146th Airlift Wing of California's Air
National Guard located at Naval Air Station Point Mugu. In
November of last year, the installation had to be evacuated due
to wildfires, and it so happened the 146th Airlift Wing also
has been critical to combatting the wildfires with its C-130J
aircraft.
Now, you had said earlier in your testimony that any
contract that was going to be awarded after September 30, 2019,
the funding was going to be pulled. You know, which this
specific simulator, the contract has been awarded, was going to
be awarded after the date that you had mentioned. Any delay of
the critical flight simulator programming for the 146th Airlift
Wing would undermine readiness and impede training for pilots
combatting wildfire and conducting search and rescue.
I know this is a big issue for being a Californian. I know
it is a big issue for Congresswoman Julia Brownley, who this is
specifically in her district, and all Members of Congress in
California. Why would we cut funding for this critical flight
simulator when it is so strategic to the training that these
pilots need in order to support this critical mission here in
California?
Mr. Norquist. So the intention is not to cut funding for
any of those projects. I think there is two things. First of
all, just being in the pool doesn't mean that those projects
are going to be selected. The Secretary hasn't made a decision
yet on the use of 2808 or the authorities.
The others that we have requested money in order to ensure
those projects continue, and so our hope would be that those
fundings would be included in any enacted bill and allow us to
ensure those essential projects go forward.
Mr. Cisneros. You know, Secretary Shanahan, I also notice
in your written testimony you wrote, our responsibility is to
remain responsible stewards of your trust and the American
taxpayers' hard-earned tax dollars.
Congress has already funded these programs. Why would we
fund them again, and how is that being responsible in watching
the taxpayers' tax dollars?
Secretary Shanahan. We are going to be responsible managing
the taxpayers' money, absolutely. I mean, that is my role, and
you have my assurance that we are going to, in this department,
take care of our people, maintain readiness, and modernize to
fight future threats.
Mr. Cisneros. But would you say making them pay for the
same thing twice is being responsible with the taxpayers'
dollars? You wouldn't go and buy a vehicle and then have the
car dealer take it away and say, you know what, I gave it to
somebody else, you are going to have to pay for it again. Why
would we do that to the American taxpayer?
Secretary Shanahan. Yeah. We haven't paid for it once yet,
you know. This is the process that we are stepping through. And
I think that was the place where we started this discussion. It
is a complicated situation, and it is tied to a new budget. We
are really buying time so we can backfill these projects.
Mr. Cisneros. All right. But if you are taking money away
from a project that has already been funded and then you are
asking to fund that project again, it is being paid for twice.
But I am going to change topics here real quick.
General, the Commandant of the Marine Corps, you know,
recently made a statement about deployments down to the border
and having to, you know, fund transfers under the President's
emergency declaration, among other unexpected demands, have
posed unacceptable risk to the Marine Corps combat readiness
and solvency. He said they haven't been able to fund other
training that had been planned.
Do you agree with his assessment that sending troops,
Marines down to the border is hurting Marine Corps readiness?
General Dunford. Congressman, I would like to put that
letter in full context. What the Commandant of the Marine Corps
did--and I read the letter and spoke to this--spoke to him, as
well as the Secretary of the Navy about it--he listed a number
of unanticipated bills that the Marine Corps was confronted
with in this fiscal year, one of which was the southwest
border. Those bills in the aggregate created difficulties for
him in funding other priorities, and that really was what it
was about.
It wasn't a letter--this particular letter wasn't a letter
about the southwest border and didn't single out the southwest
border deployment as being the issue. It identified the
southwest border as one of the unfunded--one of the
unanticipated bills.
The Chairman. Thank you. And the gentleman's time has
expired.
Votes are coming up, they are estimating sometime between
now and the top of the hour. We will go until 10 minutes after
the votes are called at the most and then we will be done.
Mr. DesJarlais.
Dr. DesJarlais. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you all
for being here today.
Secretary Shanahan and Chairman Dunford, many of your
predecessors have touted our nuclear enterprise as a, if not
the, top priority within the Department of Defense. Do you
agree with this?
Secretary Shanahan. It is our singular most important
mission.
General Dunford. I am on record saying the same many times.
Dr. DesJarlais. Yes, sir. Thank you. Chairman Dunford, do
you also believe, then, it is important to advance our low-
yield nuclear weapons systems?
General Dunford. I do, Congressman, and I can explain that
if you want me to explain the reason why.
Dr. DesJarlais. Maybe just--yes, please.
General Dunford. It would probably be hard to do it in----
Dr. DesJarlais. Oh, okay.
General Dunford. But I would be happy to answer that
question when the time--you know, for the record or whatever,
because I do feel like that low-yield option is critical for
deterrence.
Dr. DesJarlais. Okay. What does this budget do to
accelerate U.S. development of hypersonic weapons?
Secretary Shanahan. Let me get you the number. We have
accelerated the hypersonic testing and deployment several years
with this budget. It is an extra $2.6 billion in this year's
top line.
Dr. DesJarlais. Okay. And do you think that it is on an
appropriate and comfortable pace considering our adversaries'
advancements?
Secretary Shanahan. Well, I would like to be a bit further
along, but this is a much faster pace than we have had in the
last couple years.
Dr. DesJarlais. Okay. Chairman Dunford, many of the
Department of Energy's nuclear weapon support facilities are
over 40 years old and are in need of refurbishment. How
important is a modern Department of Energy nuclear weapons
development capability to your ability to provide a credible
nuclear deterrence?
General Dunford. They are inextricably linked, Congressman.
Dr. DesJarlais. Okay. Secretary Shanahan, what do you
foresee the National Guard's role being in the Space Force?
Secretary Shanahan. That is a good one, yeah. We have had a
lot of debate, and General Lengyel has been at the center of
that debate. There is some complexities about how those
resources align and how their training and support is conducted
today. But as they do in so many other elements of the total
force, they will play a critical role. The question today more
is around how do we organize them than it is the importance of
their role.
Dr. DesJarlais. Okay. And I am going to give 2 minutes
back, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. Thank you.
The Chairman. Ms. Torres Small.
Ms. Torres Small. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for
taking the time to be here today. Thank you also for your
service, what you do for the men and women in uniform as well
as for the entire country. Thank you.
As we discuss the $750 billion national defense budget, I
speak for many of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle when
I express my deep concern regarding the Department of Defense's
failure to proactively address PFAS contaminants on and around
military establishments.
I deeply appreciate Congressman Bergman bringing this up.
And your comments that, Acting Secretary Shanahan, that the EPA
[Environmental Protection Agency] is working to address those
standards, meanwhile you are merely working to eliminate use of
PFAS, underscores that this response is wholly insufficient.
I sincerely hope that the Department hears the concerns of
my colleagues and stops hiding behind bureaucratic and
regulatory red tape to avoid helping communities clean up PFAS
contaminants.
To that end, Acting Secretary Shanahan, 2 weeks ago when
you testified before SASC [Senate Armed Services Committee],
Senator Heinrich asked if you read a New York Times article
titled, ``Pentagon Pushes for Weaker Standards on Chemicals
Contaminating Drinking Water.'' Have you had the opportunity to
read that article?
Secretary Shanahan. Yes, I have.
Ms. Torres Small. Thank you. Can you please speak on
Senator Heinrich's second question as well? Is the article
accurate and is the Pentagon pushing the Trump administration
to adopt weaker standards for ground water pollution caused by
PFAS and other chemicals?
Secretary Shanahan. The article is not accurate, and the
Department of Defense is not asking for the standard to be
lowered.
Ms. Torres Small. Thank you. I hope that your actions will
also reflect the importance of this issue. Thank you.
I want to close by reiterating what Senator Heinrich said
to you: I know there is a right way to do this. It is to follow
the science. The right way to do this is not to set a standard
that is based on trying to limit liability.
I yield the remainder of my time.
The Chairman. Ms. Hill.
Ms. Hill. Acting Secretary Shanahan, the President's fiscal
year 2020 budget request has a $600 million decline in funding
for the European Defense Initiative, yet in your testimony
today, you noted that Russia last year conducted its largest
military exercise in almost 40 years and is escalating
intimidation efforts.
What is the rationale for reducing this funding when there
is an increasingly hostile actor next door and our own National
Defense Strategy says that Russia is one of our two biggest
concerns?
Secretary Shanahan. I will ask the comptroller to walk you
through the numbers. But fundamentally, what it represents is
that the standing up of the initiative, so think of it as
either the setup costs or the nonrecurring costs, are complete,
and now it is really about sustaining the level of effort and
conducting more exercises and actually deploying more troops.
David.
Mr. Norquist. Correct. So the amount we are investing in
presence and putting folks is up $170 million. The amount we
are spending on training is up $300 million. What is down is
the prepositioning of equipment, because once the equipment has
been moved into place, you don't need to keep paying for it. So
while the cost is coming down, the actual level of activity is
going up.
Ms. Hill. Okay. Thank you. So do we have--does this have
anything to do with the fact that European countries are
filling some of those gaps, or do you have any sense that this
will affect our position in any way?
Secretary Shanahan. Well, I think they are filling gaps and
they will fill more gaps, particularly with the, you know,
initiative to have, you know, more battalions, you know, more
battleships to be able to deploy more quickly the 430s
initiative. We also are conducting, you know, more exercises
with NATO. So I think what you are seeing is just more of the
front-end flow of money, especially from NATO, starting to get
to the front line.
This is--you know, for NATO, what I think we will see with
their uptick in investment is more capability and capacity
coming online. What you are seeing with the European Defense
Initiative is the United States leading the integration and
conducting higher level exercises.
Ms. Hill. Thank you. So can you give some specific examples
of where the--where NATO is filling those gaps or increasing?
Secretary Shanahan. I will take that for the record, but,
you know, I have seen some of those plans. I have seen some of
the contributions that they are making to increase capability,
as well as the exercises that we have organized so that--we are
conducting more sophisticated exercises like Trident Juncture.
But let me take that for the record and provide you an update.
[The information referred to was not available at the time
of printing.]
Ms. Hill. Thank you. Do you have any concerns about the
signals this might send to our allies and partners in Europe,
considering the comments that are coming from this
administration and our President, the ridicule for NATO and
the, you know, the proposed cuts that--the signals that might
send to Putin and to our partners and allies?
Secretary Shanahan. I have had probably, since I have been
in this position, maybe 50 conversations with my counterparts
in NATO, and it has really been the opposite. They are more
engaged. They have a strong sense of leaning forward into these
exercises, and I think they are more encouraged by our
participation and presence in Europe today.
Ms. Hill. Well, I had different conversations when I was in
Europe for the Munich Conference, and it seemed like the tone
was a bit more insecure. But I am curious why you feel like
that is the case.
Secretary Shanahan. Well, this is--so I think about the
defense ministers. I am not--I don't know who you were speaking
with, but this was the defense ministers as we are doing the
planning. And it wasn't just in terms of the NATO exercises
there. This also had to do with our activity in Afghanistan.
But in particular around NATO, and I think the best
evidence of support was their unanimous support to our
withdrawal from the INF. It was writ large in terms of
supporting our position. But the side conversations to the
person is thank you for pushing us. We look forward to the
exercises, because the exercises that we have been conducting
have been very successful.
Ms. Hill. General Dunford, do you have any comments on
this?
General Dunford. The only thing I would say, Congresswoman,
is, you know, other nations are contributing more, but no
nation has increased its commitment to NATO more than the
United States since 2015. So the European Defense Initiative,
the addition of the second fleet down at Norfolk to ensure the
transatlantic link, the increased intelligence people we
provided to the SOCOM hub and so forth. I would just tell you,
my peers understand that the United States of America is still
the most significant contributor to NATO and the most
significant contributor to the deterrence and the defense that
NATO provides.
Ms. Hill. Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you, Ms. Hill.
Ms. Haaland. Ms. Haaland will be last because we have
votes.
Ms. Haaland. Thank you, Chairman. Thank you.
Thank you, gentlemen, for being here today. I appreciate
your time immensely.
I would like to just sort of continue the comments of my
esteemed colleague from New Mexico in a different way, I guess.
I will ask a few different questions, but it is concerning the
contamination of military installations.
The fiscal year 2020 budget request contains $1.1 billion
for environmental restoration, down from the fiscal year 2019
enacted amount of $1.24 billion. In my district, the fuel spill
on Kirtland Air Force Base, which resulted in 24 million
gallons of jet fuel contaminating our ground soil and
threatening Albuquerque's clean drinking water, has yet to be
properly cleaned. At other bases in New Mexico, in many other
DOD installations throughout the country, dangerous levels of
PFAS have been found in drinking water, and this contamination
seeks to ruin people's lives.
Given the scale of these and other environmental issues at
DOD installations, please explain how the DOD's environmental
restoration efforts will address public and environmental
health and safety and your rationale for the decreased budget
request.
And I will add that you testified earlier about the money
you essentially saved on not having to spend it on military
personnel, which is, you know--which you--which everybody wants
to, you know, see go toward the wall. And I am asking, why not
spend money on cleaning up contamination that the military has
caused?
Mr. Norquist. So let me make sure I have the--right here is
for the environmental restoration we have--I am not able to
follow that.
So let me double check the environmental. My understanding
was that the program was relatively flat, but I will double-
check. There is--sometimes we get congressional adds that raise
the 2019 enacted, so even when we are the same number from year
to year, you can see that trend.
I think when it comes to the contamination concerns you
raised about--you know, we have three priorities. First is to
protect and make sure people are drinking safe water; the
second one is our responsibility to remediate those that are
related to the defense establishment and our operations; and
the third is to research alternatives. The Secretary talked
about this in his comments, which is finding alternatives to be
able to reduce our use of those contaminants as well at the
same time we are doing the cleanup.
Ms. Haaland. And so you feel that by spending less money on
environmental restoration you can essentially achieve those
ends? Is that what you are saying?
Mr. Norquist. I don't think we are looking to reduce our
investment in this area.
Ms. Haaland. Okay. Thank you.
Last, I am going to switch gears over to transgender
troops. Do you agree with me that the United States is stronger
and safer when our military reflects our Nation's diversity and
upholds the constitutional belief that all people are created
equal? General? Secretary?
General Dunford. Congresswoman, I couldn't agree more.
Ms. Haaland. Okay.
Secretary Shanahan. I agree.
Ms. Haaland. Okay. Do you agree with me that the
administration's current policy of obstructing transgender
individuals' freedom to serve in the United States military
essentially makes a mockery of this commitment?
General Dunford. Congresswoman, just to be clear, the
current policy that is in place that was signed in 2017 allows
transgenders to serve in the U.S. military.
Ms. Haaland. So they can serve freely right now?
General Dunford. Today they can.
Ms. Haaland. Okay. Very good.
And I have heard that--I mean, an argument is put forth
that, you know, spending is a concern, that they--that we don't
want taxpayer money spent on gender dysphoria issues, such as
psychotherapy, prescriptions, surgeries, and so forth. And I
just want you to know that we realize that that portion of the
budget is minuscule in comparison to other things like, for
example, erectile dysfunction, which took $84 million out of
the DOD budget.
So I just want you to know that I support wholeheartedly
every single American who wants to serve in our military, that
they have an opportunity to do so. And that with respect to
budgets, knowing that it is a minuscule amount that is spent on
transgender troops, I don't think that is anything that should
dissuade them or us from their service.
And I yield my time, Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you.
If I could just follow up on that just briefly. It is a
bit--the policy that was just announced by the administration
through the DOD is a bit more complicated. The Secretary and I
talked about this a little bit yesterday. And I don't think it
is the correct policy.
It is not a blanket ban on people who are transgender from
serving in the military. It does, however, make it very
difficult for people, depending on where they are at, in terms
are they in the service, are they trying to join, have they had
transition surgery, all of those things have really, really
complicated the ability of transgender people to serve in the
military.
And I also feel that the policy, as announced, does not
accurately reflect the--well, the medical facts, but we will be
dealing with that later. And I understand you have struggled to
try and get the right policy there. But it is considerably more
complicated than even I thought at first glance.
But I don't think right now the policy meets the standards
that Ms. Haaland was hoping to have in terms of allowing
diverse people to serve, assuming that they are qualified,
assuming that they can meet the qualifications for whatever job
it is they are supposed to do in the military.
Mr. Thornberry, do you have anything, quickly?
Mr. Thornberry. I do, Mr. Chairman.
In the presence of the Secretary and chairman and the
comptroller, I just want to note that while we have been
meeting today, Andy Marshall has passed away. He ran the Office
of Net Assessment from the Nixon administration to the Obama
administration. I can think of fewer people who have had a
bigger impact on focusing our defense efforts, our national
security in the right direction than Mr. Marshall.
And we talked about a lot of stuff today, but I think as
General Dunford started out, it is about people. Some of them
are not even in uniform. But it is a remarkable life. He has
been before our committee I don't know how many times over the
years. So I wanted to note that that passing and--but also to
honor his memory because he made such a difference.
The Chairman. And I think that is a very appropriate note
to end on. We are adjourned. I thank you, gentlemen.
[Whereupon, at 1:52 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]
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A P P E N D I X
March 26, 2019
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PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
March 26, 2019
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[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING
March 26, 2019
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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. SMITH
Mr. Smith. Directive report language from the Carl Levin and Howard
P. ``Buck'' McKeon National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year
2015, Pub. L. 113-291, recommended the Department of Defense, to the
extent practicable, model their policies and checklists on the policy
and checklist relating to services contract approval then used by the
Department of the Army. Section 852 of the National Defense
Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018, P.L. 115-91 encouraged the use
of ``standard guidelines . . . . for the evaluation of requirements for
services contracts'' as part of the improved planning and budgeting
processes for services contracts enacted that year. The Department of
the Army Checklist was a comprehensive compilation of the statutory
prohibitions against contracting work performed by Federal Government
employees.
How has the Department and each of the Military Departments and
Defense Components complied with these requirements beyond issuing the
Handbook for Contract Functions Checklists issued on May 2018?
What steps has the Department taken to ensure they are meeting the
expressed ``purpose [of Section 851 and the prior directive report
language] of standardizing the requirements evaluation required by
section 2329 of title 10''?
What steps are being taken to ensure greater consistency in
understanding and complying with the statutory requirements that had
been addressed in the Army checklist and currently addressed in your
Handbook for Contract Functions Checklists?
Is your Handbook directive in nature or can Defense Components make
exceptions in how they apply it? Is the Army checklist still in use?
Secretary Shanahan. The military departments and Defense components
have collaborated extensively on the revision of the Department of
Defense Instruction (DODI) 5000.74 Defense Acquisition of Services that
incorporates 10 United States Code section 2329 provisions and further
improvements needed to modernize services acquisitions since the DODI
was published on January 5, 2016. The revised DODI 5000.74 is
undergoing pre-publication review; however, in the revision the
Services Requirement Review Boards (SRRBs) the revision does address
the requirements review process to include consideration of total force
management and policies and procedures and available resources. Once
this issuance is published, the evaluation of requirements for services
contracts will be further detailed in the Defense Acquisition
Guidebook, Chapter 10, (https://www.dau.mil/tools/dag) and its content
incorporated in DAU training courses in Services Acquisition. The
Office of the Under Secretary for Acquisition and Sustainment
(OUSD(A&S)) has provided for standardized training on the subject of
SRRBs and requirements evaluation at Department of Defense (DOD)-wide
Services Acquisition conferences; in December 2015, June 2016, March,
June and August of 2017, in June 2018, and February 2019. In attendance
were the military component senior services managers, their senior
staff, and other requirements and contract managers. Additionally, the
OUSD(A&S) staff has presented and/or participated in mock SRRB panels
at component conferences. To also address standardized training, in
July 2017, the Director of Defense Pricing and Contracting (DPC),
formerly Defense Procurement and Acquisition Policy, published the DOD
Handbook for the Training and Development of the Services Acquisition
Workforce, to address the training and development of the DOD workforce
engaged in the procurement of services, including personnel not
designated as members of the defense acquisition workforce. Once
published, the revised issuance provides for functional services
managers training in accordance with this memorandum. In May 2018, DPC
published the DOD Handbook of Contract Function Checklists for Services
Acquisition which provides recommendations for contract function
checklist questions. The Handbook is not directive in nature; rather it
provides recommended contract function checklist questions that may be
used in conjunction with military departments and Defense component
workload analyses, contract services documents, training materials,
data, and inventories. DOD components may issue additional guidance and
implementing instructions to meet their unique contract function needs
associated with services acquisitions. The Army is still using their
checklist today. Components are encouraged to recommend changes/
improvements to the DOD Handbook.
______
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. LANGEVIN
Mr. Langevin. Secretary Shanahan, as we have discussed, I am
concerned about the security of DOD data on contractor networks,
particularly ``tier three and four suppliers'' as you've described
them. Which office within DOD is best situated to issue definitive
guidance about contractor data security? Which is best situated to
ensure compliance with any such guidance? What additional resources can
we provide to subcontractors to secure their networks, and who should
have the responsibility to do so?
Secretary Shanahan. This is one of the highest priorities within
the entire Department of Defense (DOD). The Office of the Under the
Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment (OUSD (A&S)) is
the best situated to provide guidance and compliance for contractors,
and they currently have many efforts underway. One of these efforts
lines right up with security of the DOD data on contractor networks it
is called the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC).
Currently, we are working with Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab (APL)
and Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute (SEI), with our
industry partners such as the Defense Industrial Base (DIB) Sector
Coordinating Council (DIB SCC), Aerospace Industries Association (AIA)
and others to combine various cybersecurity standards (such as NIST 171
& 53, ISO 27001 & 32, AIA NAS9933) and others into one unified standard
for cybersecurity known as the CMMC. The CMMC will create requirements
for security and allow third-party audits and certifications of the
security of contractor networks and processes.
Another effort is out of the Office of the Under Secretary of
Defense for Intelligence (OUSD(I)), which is leading a supply chain
illumination pilot program to enhance information sharing with cleared
defense contractors. The pilot program utilizes unclassified, open
source data available for a variety of Major Defense Acquisition
Programs (MDAPs). The open source findings will be ingested into a
classified database to create an all-source product to be shared for
the purpose of ensuring the security or integrity of supply chain of
these military programs. DOD is expanding protections over Controlled
Unclassified Information (CUI) within private industry. The OUSD(I) has
been actively engaged with the CUI Executive Agent at the Information
Security Oversight Office (ISOO), the DOD Components, and other
agencies in the Executive Branch to develop a viable plan and policy to
implement appropriate safeguards for both Federal and non-Federal
systems. These initiatives will support primes and the subcontractors
to better secure their networks and assist the Department in ensuring
the security of the supply chain. We are giving the industry the tools
to secure not only DOD data but their own.
______
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. GARAMENDI
Mr. Garamendi. You've noted that Russia is modernizing nuclear
capabilities outside of the New START Treaty, yet the vast majority of
Russia's strategic nuclear arsenal is still deployed on ICBMs, SLBMs,
and heavy bombers--all types of weapons limited by New START. Is New
START in the U.S. national security interest?
General Dunford. The Department supports the pursuit of an arms
control agenda, which manages the risk of miscalculation and escalation
among nuclear powers.
Mr. Garamendi. The 2018 Nuclear Posture Review states that Russia
has an ``escalate to deescalate'' policy regarding the potential use of
nuclear weapons if they were losing a conventional conflict. Recently,
Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov publicly denied
that the Russians have such a doctrine. To the best of your knowledge,
have you or any of your counterparts in the Administration ever asked
their Russian counterpart about whether or not they have an ``escalate
to de-escalate'' policy? If so, what was the response?
General Dunford. As the Nuclear Posture Review describes, we assess
``Moscow threatens and exercises limited nuclear first use, suggesting
a mistaken expectation that coercive nuclear threats or limited first
use could paralyze the United States and NATO and thereby end a
conflict on terms favorable to Russia.'' Additional detail can be made
available in a classified forum. I have met with my Russian
counterpart, General Valery Gerasimov, several times--most recently in
March 2019. During our meetings, we exchanged views on the state of
U.S.-Russia military relations and discussed effort to improve
strategic stability between the U.S. and Russia. Conversations over
doctrine are an important aspect of military dialogue and
confidentiality is essential to the fidelity of our continued
communications.
Mr. Garamendi. In your conversations with General Gerasimov, Chief
of the Russian General Staff, has the New START Treaty been discussed?
If so, how many times? Has the Russian military expressed interest in
extending New START?
General Dunford. I have met several times with my Russian
counterpart, General Valery Gerasimov, most recently in March 2019.
During our meetings we exchanged views on the state of U.S.-Russia
military relations and discussed a range of potential options all of
which require the full compliance of both sides to the treaty.
______
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MS. SPEIER
Ms. Speier. You noted in your testimony that arms control has value
``if you can avoid having to develop something you don't need.'' What
systems were you referring to? What systems might the United States
avoid developing should we reach agreement with Russia? Is the
Department currently evaluating options for any reductions in nuclear
systems through arms control?
Secretary Shanahan. Arms control can contribute to U.S., allied,
and partner security by helping to manage strategic competition among
states. In my testimony, I did not have any specific systems in mind,
but today we face an evolving and uncertain international security
environment that includes an unprecedented range and mix of threats,
including in the conventional, nuclear, space, and cyber domains. The
United States remains willing to engage in a prudent arms control
agenda, and we remain open to future negotiations as conditions permit
and where the potential outcome improves the security of the United
States, our allies and partners.
______
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. GALLEGO
Mr. Gallego. Following collisions involving USS Fitzgerald and USS
John S. McCain, the Navy took comprehensive action including assessing
problems related to crew fatigue, implementing changes to watch
rotations and workload, but also firing the 7th Fleet Commander. Why
should flag officers be punished for the systematic failings that led
to those collisions but general officers escape punishment for the
systematic failings that contributed to the Niger ambush disaster?
Secretary Shanahan. I am committed to ensuring that a fair,
thorough, and accurate review is conducted to inform the process of
determining whether any additional administrative accountability
measures should be imposed. That's why I have initiated a new, narrowly
scoped review of the accountability measures that have been imposed
related to the events in Niger on October 4, 2017. The review will be
led by a four-star officer. The reviewing official will analyze the
investigation reports on the incident and provide me with a
recommendation regarding the appropriateness of accountability measures
taken thus far and whether any additional administrative accountability
measures should be imposed.
Mr. Gallego. In your verbal testimony, you indicated that
discipline and commendation decisions regarding the Niger ambush would
be made ``soon.'' Do you intend to allow officials or officers who may
be responsible for failings that led to the disaster to retire rather
than face reprimand?
Secretary Shanahan. It would be inappropriate to speculate about
the nature and timing of any additional administrative accountability
measures while the review is ongoing.
Mr. Gallego. I understand that DOD has decided that it will not
pull money from housing, dorms, or other living facilities, or any
projects awarded in FY2019. I understand this decision from a public
relations perspective, but not from an operational perspective. In
other words, if there really is a national emergency at the border, why
are we going into a scrap for money while saying ``this dorm is off
limits, or that account is off limits''? If this were a bona fide
national emergency, wouldn't everything be on the table?
Secretary Shanahan. The Department applied the following criteria
to identify the potential pool of sources of military construction
funds:
No military construction projects that already have been
awarded, and no military construction projects with FY 2019 award dates
will be impacted.
No military housing, barracks, or dormitory projects will
be impacted.
The pool of potential military construction projects from
which funding could be reallocated to support the construction of
border barrier are solely projects with award dates after September 30,
2019.
Since housing infrastructure is fundamental to maintaining quality
of life for service members and is an integral component of readiness,
no military housing, barracks, or dormitory projects will be
considered.
Mr. Gallego. The committee was told last week that you will be
providing your judgment over which military construction projects at
the border ``are necessary to support such use of the armed forces.''
General O'Shaughnessy told the SASC last month that there is no
military threat at the southern border. With that lack of a threat and
with DOD personnel in a supportive role, how would a wall be necessary
to support the use of the armed forces in any way?
General Dunford. On February 15, 2019, in accordance with the
National Emergencies Act, the President issued a Proclamation declaring
his determination that the crisis at the southern border is a national
emergency that requires the use of the armed forces. This declaration
made available the authority in 10 U.S.C. 2808, which authorizes the
Secretary of Defense to undertake military construction projects to
support the use of the armed forces in connection with the national
emergency. My preliminary assessment, which was provided to the Acting
Secretary of Defense on February 11, 2019, is that military
construction projects can reasonably be expected to support the use of
the armed forces, including by enabling the more efficient use of DOD
personnel, and ultimately reduce the demand for military support over
time.
______
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY DR. DESJARLAIS
Dr. DesJarlais. Currently, the Guard has 16 space units operating
in 8 states with more than 1,200 Guardsmen, fulfilling a vital role in
the space mission. With that said, can you elaborate on the
complexities that you're referring to and what they mean for the
Guard's role in the Space Force? Can you definitively say that the
Guard will be in the Space Force? If so, what role do you foresee the
Guard's playing?
Secretary Shanahan. Today, the National Guard units provide
strategic depth for U.S. space operations and their role in space will
continue. The Department is currently conducting the detailed planning
to determine the best organizational structure for the Space Total
Force and will provide a legislative proposal for consideration with
the FY 2021 National Defense Authorization Act.
______
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. KIM
Mr. Kim. We've heard in numerous hearings about the importance of a
whole-of-government approach to stabilizing the Middle East region and
defeating ISIS. Can you share what State and USAID are doing in Syria?
How many State and USAID personnel are on the ground in northwest Syria
and Iraq?
Secretary Shanahan. The State Department and U.S. Agency for
International Development (USAID) are engaged in diplomatic and
stabilization activities in northeast Syria to consolidate military
gains against ISIS and support local, representative governance
structures. These stabilization activities include helping restore
essential services (water, power, waste management, health, and
education), and removing rubble and explosive hazards of war to enable
the safe and voluntary return of Syrians to their homes. The activities
are managed by State and USAID's Syria staff, who continue to perform
their assistance oversight responsibilities from their permanent posts
in Turkey and Jordan. The Department of Defense is strongly supportive
of these activities. There were up to 10 State Department and USAID
personnel forward deployed in northeast Syria until December 2018 when
they were temporarily relocated. For any further details, I refer you
to the State Department and USAID. State and USAID have not deployed
staff to northwest Syria since the start of the conflict.
Mr. Kim. Fourteen former regional combatant commanders recently
said ``[d]iplomacy and development are essential to combating threats
before they reach our shores.'' In your opinion, are State and USAID
stabilization operations sufficiently manned and resourced to combat
those threats? How much funding was provided through the State and
USAID budgets? Has that amount decreased since FY2018? Why?
Secretary Shanahan. The Department of Defense strongly agrees that
diplomacy and development are essential to stabilize fragile areas and
to prevent conflict. The Stabilization Assistance Review, published in
May 2018 and endorsed by the Secretary of State, the Secretary of
Defense, and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)
Administrator, clarified that the Department of State is the lead
Federal agency for stabilization activities. The Department of Defense
has been working continuously with the Department of State and USAID to
ensure that we have planned ahead to have the right mix of the ``three
D'' community--Diplomacy, Development, and Defense--in place to
stabilize fragile and conflict-affected areas. I refer you to the State
Department to comment on the amount of overall funding in the State
Department and USAID budgets and if those amounts have increased or
decreased.
Mr. Kim. How were State and USAID enabled to be forward in the
field? Was there an MOA with the Department to accomplish this? Can an
MOA be used elsewhere if necessary?
What will happen to that State/USAID presence as you execute a
drawdown of forces?
If the areas they support are allowed to devolve security-wise, who
would provide security?
Secretary Shanahan. State Department and U.S. Agency for
International Development (USAID) personnel were co-deployed in
northeast Syria after an exchange of memoranda that specified the
support the Department of Defense (DOD) would provide to State
Department and USAID personnel. This support largely included local
force protection, housing, medical care, life support, and
transportation. The Stabilization Assistance Review, published in May
2018 and endorsed by the Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, and
the USAID Administrator, recommended that a Global Memorandum of
Agreement on co-deployment of State and USAID personnel with DOD be
signed to expedite deployments in future stabilization situations
globally. The President has directed that DOD leave a reduced U.S.
force presence in Syria to prevent the resurgence of ISIS. Even as we
draw down forces in Syria, DOD is postured to support a State
Department and USAID presence to execute diplomatic, stabilization, and
humanitarian assistance work. I refer you to the State Department and
USAID for comment on the status of their future presence. Security for
areas in northeast Syria is currently provided by Syrian Democratic
Forces.
______
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MS. SHERRILL
Ms. Sherrill. The Improved Turbine Engine Program (ITEP) remains
the Army's #1 Aviation Modernization priority program that will save a
combined $1 billion per year in reduced fuel, maintenance and operating
costs while increasing the capability of today's Black Hawk and Apache
helicopters and provide engines for the Future Vertical Lift (FVL)
program. On February 1st, the U.S. Army awarded an Engineering and
Manufacturing Design (EMD) contract for the ITEP program to the General
Electric Company. On February 19th the Advanced Turbine Engine Company
(ATEC) a 50/50 joint venture between Honeywell and Pratt & Whitney,
filed a protest with the General Accountability Office (GAO) on the
award.
I understand DOD cannot comment on the award due to the protest,
but I request clarification on ITEP specifically: 1) What is the
purpose of the Improved Turbine Engine Program (ITEP)? 2) To what
extent does ITEP improve the overall performance of the Army's Apache
and Black Hawk fleets? 3) How does ITEP factor into the Army's Future
Vertical Lift? 4) Were engine power, engine growth, specific fuel
consumption, reliability, and maintenance key elements for ITEP? Were
there any other key elements? How were these elements prioritized? 5)
What is the status of the Army's turbine engine-manufacturing
industrial base and specifically combat helicopters? How does a robust
industrial base impact innovation and cost? Do we have a sufficiently
robust industrial base to meet future turbine engine requirements in
the future? 6) How does the prioritization of price over performance or
capabilities during our acquisition process affect long-term risk to
the warfighter?
Secretary Shanahan. 1) The purpose of the ITEP is to deliver the
next generation turbo-shaft engine for the Black Hawk (H-60), Apache
(AH-64E), and in the future the Army's Future Vertical Lift Future
Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA). Compared to the current H-60 and
AH-64 engine, the Improved Turbine Engine will increase operational
reach and lethality and provides increased power, fuel efficiency and
reliability while fitting in the current engine bays of the Black Hawk
and Apache aircraft.
2) The ITEP will improve the overall performance of the Army's
Apache and Black Hawk fleets by regaining lost capability due to
aircraft weight growth and significantly increasing aircraft range,
payload, and endurance over the current engine.
3) The requirement is for FARA to include the ITEP Engine when both
program efforts mature.
4) Engine power, engine growth, specific fuel consumption,
reliability, and maintenance were all considered for ITEP. All
technical requirements/key elements were included in the System
Requirements Document (SRD) which was attached to the ITEP EMD Request
for Proposal (RFP) and thoroughly evaluated by the Army. Were there any
other key elements? All technical requirements/key elements were
included in the SRD. How were these elements prioritized? The EMD
contract award is currently under a protest with the Government
Accountability Office. Until this is resolved, specifics regarding
evaluation criteria cannot be provided. However, engine power, future
engine improvements, fuel consumption, reliability, and maintenance
were all considered for ITEP. All technical requirements/key elements
were included in the SRD which was attached to the ITEP EMD Request for
Proposal and thoroughly evaluated by the Army.
5) The commercial and military rotorcraft turboshaft engine
industrial bases are healthy with no identified lower tier supply chain
risks that are of significant substance to program execution risk. All
identified supply chain risks are being managed and/or mitigated
through normal Industrial Base surveillance and risk mitigation
techniques. How does a robust industrial base impact innovation and
cost? Combat helicopter turboshaft engine innovation and cost are
driven by DOD requirements (e.g., better fuel efficiency, power, etc.)
and the industrial base's ability to meet those requirements. The
commercial sector continuously utilizes advanced manufacturing
techniques and processes, such as additive manufactured parts, ceramic
matrix composites, and other advance materials, to achieve key
performance requirements. While cost is impacted by many factors, the
key innovation items mentioned above will reduce piece part count,
streamline manufacturing, and improve performance and reliability,
which will have direct impacts on production and operations and
sustainment costs. Do we have a sufficiently robust industrial base to
meet future turbine engine requirements in the future? The combat
helicopter turbine engine industrial base was examined in-depth in
2012, 2016, and twice in 2018 with focus on support of the ITEP program
and the Future Vertical Lift (FVL). Commercial and military engines are
usually very similar in configuration, which leads to a stronger
industrial base since a manufacturer will be supporting both users at
the same time. These examinations consistently determined that this
industrial base segment is vital, healthy and prepared to support
upcoming and emerging Army aircraft programs.
6) For ITEP, the Army's EMD competition used the best value
approach to manage long term risk to the Warfighter, and appropriately
weighted price and non-price evaluation factors.
______
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MRS. LURIA
Mrs. Luria. The 2018 National Defense Authorization Act required
your department to submit a report on the vulnerabilities to military
installations and combatant commander requirements resulting from
climate change over the next 20 years including a list of the ten most
vulnerable military installations within each service and to include an
overview of mitigations that may be necessary and the cost of such
mitigations. Instead your department submitted a report that only
provides a list of military bases it characterizes as mission assurance
priority bases and somehow omits the Marine Corps entirely even though
the damage caused at Camp Lejeune is expected to cost $3.6B. It also
doesn't address substantial mitigations or any cost associated with
these mitigations. Why did your department not comply with the
direction of Congress?
Secretary Shanahan. Using the existing list of installations based
on the importance of their operational roles (i.e., the Mission
Assurance Priority installation list) ensured that climate
considerations were connected to continued operational viability and
resilience requirements. This Mission Assurance focus also allowed the
report to avoid installations, like coastal recreation facilities, that
may be proximate to potential flooding but are not mission-critical.
Marine Corps installations were considered but ultimately not included
in the Mission Assurance Priority Installation list; we are happy to
discuss additional details about this list in a secure environment. We
have since sent over a top ten list (transmitted to HASC on March 22,
2019) for each Military Department derived from the original list of 79
Mission Assurance Priority Installations. This list includes scoring
and weighting of the five climate-related hazards (recurrent flooding,
wildfire, drought, desertification, and permafrost thaw) based on
immediacy of the threat. The report did not include the costs of
climate mitigation because climate resilience is a cross-cutting
consideration that spans all levels and lines of effort and is not
framed as a separate program, precluding a discrete identification of
costs.
Mrs. Luria. Frequently, coastal flooding causes several of the
gates entering Naval Station Norfolk to be impassible and one of the
main access roads to Oceana becomes impassible with even modest
rainfall. In reviewing the budget submission, I could only find one
entry for Defense Access Road improvements at Fort Bliss, which is not
even one of the 79 installations listed in your report. Why did you not
include additional funding for defense access roads at the
installations most affected by climate change?
Secretary Shanahan. The Defense Access Road (DAR) program is
designed to mitigate sudden or unusual defense impacts, such as a large
growth in on-base population resulting from a new mission, by allowing
the Department of Defense (DOD) to pay a share of the cost of public
highway improvements made necessary by those impacts. This program only
applies to public roads that have been certified as important to
national defense per 23 U.S.C. Sec. 210. As such, not every public
roadway that provides access to a military reservation is classified as
a defense access road. To date, the military departments have indicated
that they do not currently have any flood-prone locations creating a
national security risk to transportation access for military
installations. In many instances, DOD has several access points to its
installations, and the impact of flooding that prevents access to one
part of an installation would be mitigated by rerouting traffic to the
other access points. State and local highway authorities are
responsible for developing and maintaining public highways to all
permanent traffic generators, including defense installations. It is
the responsibility of Federal, State, and local Department of
Transportation officials to monitor public roadways and address any
impacts, including flooding, in the planning of their State and local
transportation improvement plans. Requiring DOD to fund infrastructure
improvements that are not deemed critical to national defense in local
municipalities due to flooding or other climate events would redirect
much-needed readiness funding to responsibilities that should be
shouldered by the State and local governments.
Mrs. Luria. Your own report stated ``The effects of a changing
climate are a national security issue with potential impacts to
Department of Defense (DOD or the Department) missions, operational
plans, and installations,'' yet your department does not appear to be
taking this national security issue seriously given your lack of
investment in existing infrastructure and research and development. How
much funding is allocated in your R&D budget to the study of the effect
of climate change on DOD installations?
Secretary Shanahan. The Strategic Environmental Research and
Development Program includes the Resource Conservation and Resiliency
Program Area. This program area contains a research and development
line that develops tools and models for climate change impact and
vulnerability assessment and adaptation strategies for Department of
Defense installations. In Fiscal Year 2019, this program is funded at
$8 million. For Fiscal Year 2020 the Department is planning on
allocating $5.4 million, as a number of projects were initiated four to
five years ago and will be completed in the near future. More broadly,
the Department considers resilience in the installation planning and
basing processes, to include impacts on built and natural
infrastructure. The Department is incorporating climate resilience as a
cross-cutting consideration for planning and decision-making processes,
and continues to be proactive in developing comprehensive policy,
guidance, and tools to ensure installations are resilient in the face
of a variety of threats and conditions--weather, climate, natural
events, disruptions to energy or water supplies, and direct physical or
cyber attacks.
______
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MS. TRAHAN
Ms. Trahan. If the transgender ban proceeds as planned, I have
several questions about how it will be implemented: 1. Will the
Pentagon exempt those who are currently in the enlistment process or in
a service academy or a commissioning program? 2. The grandfather clause
applies to current service-members. However, will it continue to apply
to those who plan to re-enlist? 3. Will their grandfathered status
carry over or will they be re-evaluated?
Secretary Shanahan. 1. Current policy does not represent a ban on
transgender service, but rather accession and retention policies
concerning the medical condition of ``gender dysphoria.'' The policy
specifically provides that persons will not be denied accession or
retention solely on their gender identity, to include prohibiting
administrative separation based solely on gender identity. Individuals
who prior to April 12, 2019, were either contracted for enlistment or
selected for entrance into an officer commissioning program through a
selection board or similar process and were medically qualified for
military service in their preferred gender are considered exempt from
the new policy. Similarly, contracted ROTC and military service academy
cadets/midshipmen with a diagnosis of gender dysphoria confirmed by a
military medical provider prior to April 12, 2019, are exempt and may
transition.
2. Per the April 12, 2019 policy, a service member who is exempt
from the new policy may be retained without a waiver. An exempt service
member is considered from that point forward to be exempt and may not
have their exempt status revoked.
3. Under the new policy, a service member's exemption status cannot
be revoked, and the member cannot be separated, discharged, or denied
reenlistment or continuation of service solely on the basis of his or
her gender identity or gender transition.
Ms. Trahan. The DOD budget request for the Space Force initially
estimates a $72.4 Million cost in FY2020 ramping up to a full
operational capability cost in FY24 of $500 Million, or 0.01 percent of
the DOD budget overall, comprising up to 15,000 personnel. 1. The
Pentagon's Space Force legislative proposal--Section 1707--states that
civilian employees may be transferred ``on a voluntary or involuntary
basis'' in your ``sole and exclusive discretion''? That sounds like a
blank check. Why does the Pentagon need authority to transfer
potentially an unlimited number of civilian personnel to stand up the
Space Force?
2. Are you concerned by the disruptive impacts on other important
missions of the Department by transferring potentially thousands of
personnel from the services to stand up the Space Force?
Secretary Shanahan. The Department would like to work with Congress
on the right personnel authorities to meet the needs for personnel. The
transfer authorities included in the Space Force proposal were modeled
after the establishment of the Air Force in 1947. The Department
proposed a phased approach to standing up the Space Force to minimize
risk: establish the headquarters first to prepare for mission transfer
and then transfer Air Force, Army, and Navy forces and missions. Our
goal is to create a lean Space Force with minimal bureaucratic
overhead. Almost all of the military and civilian personnel who would
be transferred to the Space Force are performing space missions today
in the existing military services. Unifying those personnel into a
single branch of the armed forces dedicated to space would allow the
limited space personnel we have today to focus on building the space
doctrine, expertise, and capabilities we need for a warfighting domain.
Ms. Trahan. I'm interested in the levels of work being delegated
from CYBERCOM to its Reserve units. To my understanding, the Guard and
Reserve Components play a central role in DOD cybersecurity.
1. Do the National Guard and Reserve Components benefit from the
same training standards and resources as Active Duty teams to fill
these roles? a. Are these teams meeting CYBERCOM's readiness standards?
2. A niche job like cybersecurity requires niche recruiting. How is
the Department revamping recruiting efforts for developing a skilled
cyber workforce?
Secretary Shanahan. 1. All Cyber Mission Force (CMF) aligned
Reserve Component (RC) forces are required to train to, and meet, the
same joint standard, as active duty teams, as established by U.S. Cyber
Command (USCYBERCOM). The long Cyber Mission Force training pipeline
does challenge the ability of RC members to complete all of their
training. In response, the Navy and Army are utilizing Mobile Training
Teams for portions of the training pipeline. Additionally, Army Cyber
Command, USCYBERCOM, and the Army National Guard successfully granted
constructive credit for the Intermediate Cyber Common Core for over 60
Soldiers. At present time, the Air National Guard is the only Guard or
RC organization performing national missions that require additional
specialized training.
1a. All RC CMF forces meet Military Service established readiness
standards. Combatant Commands do not establish readiness standards.
2. Each Military Service is best positioned to determine how to
meet its recruiting mission. As the recruiting environment has become
more challenging, each Military Service has experimented with
innovative recruiting techniques, including niche recruiting, to
maximize recruiting production. Furthermore, use of lateral entry and
constructive credit have enabled the Military Services, including the
National Guard and Reserves, to recruit individuals with experience or
strong academic foundations in computer science and other technical
degrees at a level more competitive with civilian employers. Ongoing
collaboration with industry leaders to further the skill sets of these
officers, also provides an incentive for individuals to consider
military service. For the enlisted force, the Military Services,
including the National Guard and Reserve, primarily select individuals
without specific qualifications and train them to meet CMF
requirements. These individuals normally are required to achieve high
scores on the Armed Service Vocational Aptitude Battery, and may be
administered additional testing to identify the best candidates for
cyber occupations.
Ms. Trahan. I'm interested in the levels of work being delegated
from CYBERCOM to its Reserve units. To my understanding, the Guard and
Reserve Components play a central role in DOD cybersecurity.
1. Do the National Guard and Reserve Components benefit from the
same training standards and resources as Active Duty teams to fill
these roles? a. Are these teams meeting CYBERCOM's readiness standards?
2. A niche job like cybersecurity requires niche recruiting. How is
the Department revamping recruiting efforts for developing a skilled
cyber workforce?
General Dunford. 1. Yes, training requirements and standards for
National Guard and Reserve cyber personnel match those required of the
active duty components. Guard and Reserve members are fully capable of
meeting DOD global cyber mission requirements due to the uniformity
with respect to active duty training standards. a. Yes, National Guard
and Reserve cyber personnel, particularly those with private sector
expertise, are fully integrated into the Cyber Mission Force and form a
critical component of the Defense Cyber Workforce. National Guard and
Reserve cyber personnel are able to meet current readiness standards
and will mirror the Active Component personnel in making organize,
train and equip adjustments required to incorporate USCYBERCOM's
evolving readiness standards, which focus on enhancing capability and
capacity.
2. The Department has leveraged direct appointment and constructive
credit appointments to bring highly qualified, trained, and experienced
personnel into our workforce. Additionally, we have rolled out the
cyber expected service personnel system to make our hiring actions more
competitive with private industry.
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