[Senate Hearing 116-558]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 116-558
NAVY AND MARINE CORPS READINESS
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON READINESS AND
MANAGEMENT SUPPORT
of the
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2020
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Armed Services
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via: http: //www.govinfo.gov
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
56-588 PDF WASHINGTON : 2024
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma, Chairman
ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi JACK REED, Rhode Island
DEB FISCHER, Nebraska JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire
TOM COTTON, Arkansas KIRSTEN E. GILLIBRAND, New York
MIKE ROUNDS, South Dakota RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut
JONI ERNST, Iowa MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii
THOM TILLIS, North Carolina TIM KAINE, Virginia
DAN SULLIVAN, Alaska ANGUS S. KING, Jr., Maine
DAVID PERDUE, Georgia MARTIN HEINRICH, New Mexico
KEVIN CRAMER, North Dakota ELIZABETH WARREN, Massachusetts
MARTHA McSALLY, Arizona GARY C. PETERS, Michigan
RICK SCOTT, Florida JOE MANCHIN III, West Virginia
MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois
JOSH HAWLEY, Missouri DOUG JONES, Alabama
John Bonsell, Staff Director
Elizabeth L. King, Minority Staff Director
___________
Subcommittee on Readiness and Management Support
DAN SULLIVAN, Alaska, Chairman
DEB FISCHER, Nebraska TIM KAINE, Virginia
JONI ERNST, Iowa JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire
DAVID PERDUE, Georgia MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii
MARTHA McSALLY, Arizona TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois
MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee DOUG JONES, Alabama
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
___________
December 2, 2020
Page
Navy and Marine Corps Readiness.................................. 1
Members Statements
Statement of Senator Dan Sullivan................................ 1
Statement of Senator Tim Kaine................................... 5
Witness Statements
Braithwaite, Hon. Kenneth J., Secretary of the Navy.............. 6
Gilday, Admiral Michael M., USN, Chief of Naval Operations....... 11
Berger, General David H., USMC, Commandant of the Marine Corps... 17
Questions for the Record......................................... 53
Appendix A--
GAO--Navy and Marine Corps--Services Continue Efforts to 70
Rebuild Readiness, but Recovery Will Take Years and Sustained
Management Attention.
(iii)
NAVY AND MARINE CORPS READINESS
----------
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2020
United States Senate,
Subcommittee on Readiness
and Management Support,
Committee on Armed Services,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:18 a.m. in
Room SD-G50, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Senator Dan
Sullivan (presiding) Chairman of the Subcommittee.
Subcommittee Members present: Senators Sullivan, Fischer,
Ernst, Blackburn, Kaine, Shaheen, Hirono, Duckworth, and Jones.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR DAN SULLIVAN
Senator Sullivan. Good morning. This hearing of the
Subcommittee on Readiness and Management will come to order.
The Subcommittee meets today to receive testimony on the
current readiness of the United States Navy and the United
States Marine Corps. I want to welcome our three distinguished
witnesses: the Honorable Kenneth Braithwaite, Secretary of the
Navy; General David H. Berger, Commandant of the U.S. Marine
Corps; and Admiral Michael Gilday, Chief of Naval Operations
for the United States Navy.
I would also like to thank Diana Maurer, Director of
Defense Capabilities and Management, and her team at the
Government Accountability Office for submitting the requested
statement for the record for this hearing. The Government
Accountability Office (GAO) is an invaluable resource to our
work on the Committee.
Some of the issues that I would like to address and cover
today are COVID-19 and its impacts on the readiness of the U.S.
Navy and Marine Corps; the Navy and Marine Corps' pivotal role
in countering great power competition, as highlighted in the
National Defense Strategy; the Commandant of the Marine Corps'
bold, new Force Design and planning guidance; a recent
provocation of Russian military exercises, massive Russian
military exercises, in the Arctic, and related to that, the
role of the Navy and Marine Corps as they play an increasingly
important role in protecting our strategic interests in the
Arctic. Let me touch on these briefly.
First, the impact of COVID-19 on Navy and Marine Corps
readiness. Over the last few months, this Committee has
received frequent and productive briefings on COVID-19 and on
its impact on military readiness. As you are all aware, COVID-
19 reduced operations at Navy and Marine Corps depots, canceled
or postponed vital exercises such as RIMPAC 2020, and changed
the way in which we train our sailors and marines. I am looking
forward to an update on these critical issues as it relates to
the readiness of our Marine Corps and Navy team.
Second, I would like to address the 2018 National Defense
Strategy and the Navy's and Marine Corps' role in responding to
the return of great power competition. Released in 2018, the
National Defense Strategy I believe is still very much a
bipartisan document and strategy which prioritizes the return
of great power competition particularly with Russia and China,
with China as the pacing threat. Thus far, in responding to the
NDS' directives, the U.S. Navy and this Committee have
advocated for building a 355-ship Navy and has heavily and
rightfully in my view focused these investments on improving
and expanding our Nation's submarine fleet, a key area of
American strategic advantage.
Third, as part of the Navy team's response to great power
competition, the Marine Corps, under the Commandant's new
planning guidance and his Force Design 2030 construct, has
keenly focused on how to address the NDS' pacing threat: China.
Specifically, General Berger has zeroed in on transforming our
Marine Corps into a slightly leaner but more agile force. The
Commandant's planning guidance calls for revolutionary change
to the Marine Corps, at least in the Department of Defense
(DOD) terms, and I commend him for his efforts on being one of
the services' leading in terms of trying to implement the NDS.
But the Commandant's strategy is not without its critics, and I
would like to give the Secretary and General Berger the
opportunity respond to some of those in this hearing.
I would like to also address a recent incident. I was with
the Secretary in Alaska where we saw a peer exercise of great
power competition, the recent very large military exercises
which took place inside the U.S. exclusive economic zone off
the coast of the great State of Alaska. As some of you may
already know, in late August the Russians conducted a major war
game near Alaska. Over 50 Russian warships, about 40 Russian
aircraft took part in these exercises in the Bering Sea. It
involved multiple practice missile launches, submarines. The
New York Times reported last month in an article I would like
to submit for the record, a headline and byline, ``Are We
Getting Invaded?'' United States boats face Russian aggression
near Alaska. Russia has accelerated its provocative encounters
in the North Pacific harassing American fishing vessels in
United States waters, sending bombers towards Alaska's shores.
I would like to enter this into the record. Without objection.
[The information referred to follows:]
``Are We Getting Invaded?''
U.S. Boats Faced Russian Aggression Near Alaska
russia has escalated its provocative encounters in the north pacific
this year, harassing boats in u.s. fishing waters and sending bombers
toward alaska's shores.
By Mike Baker
ANCHORAGE--The crew of the Bristol Leader was laying out its long
cod-catching line well within U.S. fishing territory in the Bering Sea
when a voice crackled over the VHF radio and began issuing commands:
The ship was in danger, it said, and needed to move.
The warnings, coming in a mixture of Russian and accented English
from a plane buzzing overhead, grew more specific and more urgent.
There was a submarine nearby, the voice said. Missiles were being
fired. Leave the area.
Other U.S. fishing vessels that were scattered over 100 miles of
open sea were getting similar messages. Capt. Steve Elliott stood
dumbfounded on the trawler Vesteraalen as three Russian warships came
barreling through, barking orders of their own. On the ship Blue North,
commands from a Russian plane led Capt. David Anderson to contact the
U.S. Coast Guard, wondering how to protect his crew of 27.
``It was frightening, to say the least,'' Captain Anderson said.
``The Coast Guard's response was: Just do what they say.''
The Russian military operations in August inside the U.S. economic
zone off the coast of Alaska were the latest in a series of escalated
encounters across the North Pacific and the Arctic, where the retreat
of polar ice continues to draw new commercial and military traffic.
This year, the Russian military has driven a new nuclear-powered
icebreaker straight to the North Pole, dropped paratroopers into a
high-Arctic archipelago to perform a mock battle and repeatedly flown
bombers to the edge of U.S. airspace.
As seas warmed by climate change open new opportunities for oil
exploration and trade routes, the U.S. Coast Guard now finds itself
monitoring a range of new activity: cruise ships promising a voyage
through waters few have ever seen, research vessels trying to
understand the changing landscape, tankers carrying new gas riches, and
shipping vessels testing new passageways that sailors of centuries past
could only dream of.
Russia's operations in the Arctic have meant a growing military
presence at America's northern door. Rear Adm. Matthew T. Bell Jr., the
commander of the Coast Guard district that oversees Alaska, said it was
not a surprise to see Russian forces operating in the Bering Sea over
the summer, but ``the surprise was how aggressive they got on our side
of the maritime boundary line.''
In the air, U.S. jets in Alaska typically scramble to intercept
about a half-dozen approaching Russian aircraft a year, outliers on the
long-range nuclear bomber patrols that Russia resumed in 2007. But this
year that number has risen to 14--on pace to set a record since the
Cold War era. In the most recent case, last month, the United States
responded to the approach of two Russian bombers and two Russian
fighters that came within 30 nautical miles of Alaskan shores.
Russians have refurbished and restored dozens of military posts in
the Arctic region, including on Wrangel Island, some 300 miles from the
coast of Alaska, and have laid plans for controlling emerging
navigation routes that would bring traffic through the Bering Strait
between Alaska and Russia.
This summer, Russia's military operated in the Bering Sea, home to
America's largest fishery, where boats haul up pots crawling with red
king crab, and trawlers dump nets filled with 200 tons of pollock onto
their decks. The area is the U.S. pathway to the Arctic waters where
extraction companies have worked for years to capture the billions of
dollars of oil and gas resources trapped under the sea floor.
U.S. territorial waters extend 12 nautical miles from the Nation's
shores, but commercial vessels operate even farther within the U.S.
exclusive economic zone, a territory stretching some 200 miles offshore
in which the country can harvest fish or natural resources without
foreign competition but cannot prohibit the passage of international
vessels.
Russian military leaders have touted the exercises in the Bering
Sea as unlike any they had done before in the region. They said the
goal of the effort was to prepare forces to secure economic development
in the Arctic region, and U.S. officials have acknowledged that the
Russians have a right to transit the waters.
Disputes over activities in exclusive economic zones around the
world are not unusual, especially in the lucrative Arctic region, where
several nations have contested the extent of their rights to dominate
maritime economic activities.
Before a 1990 boundary agreement, the issue was especially
contentious in the Bering Sea, which narrows to just 55 miles between
the coasts of Alaska and Russia in the Bering Strait.
The August exercises occurred well south of the narrow strait, in
an area where the sea is hundreds of miles wide.
Tim Thomas, a U.S. captain on the fishing vessel Northern Jaeger,
encountered the Russian activities on August 26 when his ship was
operating more than 20 nautical miles inside the U.S. economic zone.
After a Russian plane directed Captain Thomas to take his boat out of
the area, he said, he responded that he was within the U.S. zone, not
on the Russian side, and that the Russians could not order them to
leave.
At that point, he said, a Russian military ship joined in and
issued similar orders.
``At this point, I'm going, `What's going on here? Are we getting
invaded?''' Captain Thomas said in an interview.
Captain Thomas said he contacted the Coast Guard, but the officers
there, he said, seemed to be unaware of the Russian operations. They
told him he was responsible for the safety of his crew. But he was
reluctant to leave: They were finding some of the best fishing of the
season, and the Russians had ordered him not to return to those
productive grounds for nine days.
The Russians, who were running a military exercise known as Ocean
Shield that involved some 50 warships and 40 aircraft operating
throughout the Bering Sea, were adamant, and their warnings grew more
intense. U.S. officials have since said that a Russian submarine
launched a cruise missile from the Bering Sea that day.
As he considered the safety of the 130 people on his boat, Captain
Thomas ultimately decided to leave. He estimates the forced departure
cost his company more than $1 million in revenue.
Senator Dan Sullivan of Alaska, a Republican, who has pressed for
years for a stronger U.S. presence in the Arctic and has warned about
increasing Russian activity there, said the fishing boats should not
have been forced to leave U.S. fishing territory. He said he was
surprised by the scale of Russia's recent aggressive actions in the
Bering Sea, noting that during the same exercise in August, fighter
planes from the North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD,
scrambled to respond to three groups of Russian aircraft that
approached Alaska.
``I think they were testing us--flexing their military muscle,''
the senator said.
Coast Guard officials said Russia had notified the U.S. Government
that part of its exercise would include a portion of the fishing zone.
But federal officials did not alert commercial fishing operators to the
planned exercise.
Coast Guard officials said they have been working to make sure
future notifications reached the right people. They have also said that
U.S. fishing vessels were not required to follow any orders from a
foreign entity to depart American fishing grounds. But in a memo last
month to those involved in the North Pacific fishing industry that
outlined what had transpired in the Bering Sea, the Coast Guard also
cautioned that ``safety of life at sea should always be paramount in
managing the safe navigation of any vessel on the high seas, and is the
responsibility of the mariner with firsthand situational awareness.''
As Russia has ramped up its presence in the region, U.S. officials
have accelerated their own efforts. The Coast Guard has long complained
that its lone pair of aging icebreakers are struggling to stay in
service but may now have the opportunity to build six new ones. (Russia
has dozens.) The United States is also discussing a northern deepwater
port, perhaps around Nome. Currently, the nearest strategic port is
1,300 nautical miles away in Anchorage.
Alaska already draws a relatively large portion of U.S. military
spending, with bases serving the Air Force and the Army in or around
both Anchorage and Fairbanks.
Jets in Alaska scrambled repeatedly this year to intercept Russian
aircraft moving toward U.S. airspace. But jets taking off from inland
bases can take more than 90 minutes to reach the coast of Alaska, said
Maj. Gen. Scott Clancy, a Canadian officer who is the director of
operations at NORAD.
General Clancy said the encounters were professional. In the
encounter last month, the four Russian aircraft loitered in the area
for about 90 minutes and never crossed into U.S. airspace. But General
Clancy said it was clear the Russians were both testing the
capabilities of NORAD and demonstrating their own, increasing the
frequency and also the complexity of their approaches.
``This adversary--this competitor, Russia--has advanced on all
fronts,'' he said. ``We find ourselves in another era of great-power
competition. Russia obviously wants to be a competitor in that.''
Lt. Gen. David Krumm, commander of the multi-force Alaskan Command
and also the 11th Air Force, said that while the Arctic used to provide
a natural buffer between the nations of the Far North, the new
possibility of ice-free passage has changed that.
``We're at a pivotal point in the timeline of the Arctic,'' he said
at a recent convention of the Alaska Federation of Natives, many of
whose members reside in remote villages scattered throughout the
northern region.
General Krumm said the United States would need to invest in
operations, equipment and training to prepare for the changing
environment. Alaska, he said, has historically been viewed as a base
from which to project American power elsewhere in the world, but the
mission is changing.
``What we have to do now is be prepared to fight here and defend
here,'' he said.
Senator Sullivan. But I would like, Mr. Secretary, Admiral,
an update on that, particularly the coordination that we need
to improve between the Coast Guard, the Navy, and the Alaskan
fishing fleets that were impacted by this.
Finally, I would like to have a broader discussion today on
the Arctic, as it has become an emerging area of great power
competition, and to better understand the Navy and Marine
Corps' role in protecting the Arctic homeland, safeguarding the
Arctic region's global commons, and as the Navy and Marine
Corps do across every part of the world. In this regard, I am
hopeful to hear some positive news about a new Navy Arctic
strategy, which this Committee has been encouraging all the
services to produce Arctic strategies.
I am hopeful that we could also have a discussion on not
only the support for building six Polar-class icebreakers that
our Nation needs but the discussion that the President started
a couple months ago with his memo to senior national defense
officials on where and how we should be basing Polar-class
security cutters in America's Arctic. Mr. Secretary, you and I
have had a lot of discussion on that.
Finally and perhaps most importantly in this Committee, I
would like a prediction of who is going to win the Army-Navy
football game that takes place in a couple weeks. That is going
to be very important, gentlemen.
Thank you very much. I am looking forward to this hearing.
I would now like to hear from my friend and colleague,
Senator Kaine.
STATEMENT OF SENATOR TIM KAINE
Senator Kaine. Well, thank you, Chairman Sullivan. We find
ourselves in very, very challenging times, and it is good that
this Committee's work has continued and will.
I want to welcome the distinguished witnesses. Thank you
for your service. We are looking forward to the testimony and
opportunities to exchange questions today.
I echo the comments from Chairman Sullivan and offer thanks
to Diana Maurer for her work at the GAO.
I also want to do one other set of thank yous. This is
probably the last opportunity that we will meet either as a
subcommittee or even as a full committee prior to some changes,
and we are losing two colleagues, Senator McSally and Senator
Jones, who have served on the Committee in a wonderful way and
on the Subcommittee as well. They were great public servants
before they got here. They were great public servants while
they were here, and I am sure they have great public service
ahead of them. But I just wanted to acknowledge each of them.
The chairman has done a really good job of putting the
issues kind of up on the board that we need to discuss today:
impacts on readiness from the ongoing pandemic, and lessons
learned along the way that will help us going forward. What
role will the DOD play in vaccine distribution and what plans
are being made within the Navy family--Navy and Marine Corps--
over vaccines and how they will be deployed. Shipyard
modernization plan and the looming threats that our bases face
from the effects of climate change. I will not delve further
into those now, and I will save those topics for my questions.
We want to help the Department address what we need to do to be
ready to operate in this challenging environment and respond
and execute the full range of DOD responsibilities and
missions.
I look forward to your testimony today and thank you.
Senator Sullivan. I would like to begin the testimony. Each
of you will have 5 minutes to give an oral testimony. Your
longer statements can be submitted for the record, if you so
choose. Mr. Secretary, I would like to begin with you, sir.
STATEMENT OF HON. KENNETH J. BRAITHWAITE, SECRETARY OF THE NAVY
Secretary Braithwaite. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Before I begin, I would like to offer the Department of the
Navy's condolences to you, sir, for the loss of your father, a
great veteran of the United States Navy, and our thoughts and
our prayers are with you, sir.
Senator Sullivan. Thank you.
Secretary Braithwaite. In May of 1943, American troops,
aircraft, and ships were sent to the Aleutian Island of Attu to
dislodge the imperial Japanese troops occupying our American
soil. These young Americans were dedicated and brave, but
unprepared and under-equipped. The only thing that prevented
the operation from ending in total catastrophe was the fact
that that landing was unopposed. In short, we, the United
States military, got lucky.
But that should never be accepted as good enough for our
fleets, our force, or for our nation. As Secretary of the Navy,
I am determined to ensure that our sailors and marines are
never again sent into a situation without the right training,
the right equipment, and the right leadership.
Chairman Sullivan, Ranking Member Kaine, distinguished
Members of the Committee, we appreciate your efforts to ensure
funding stability over the past several years. This stability
has enabled a greater focus on readiness across both services
from the Navy's investments in shipyards and aviation
maintenance to the Marine Corps' modernization initiatives
within the Commandant's Force Design 2030. These efforts are
increasing our expeditionary deployment capabilities and fleet
readiness even in the face of this COVID-19 and other global
challenges. More importantly, we are investing in the training,
education, and resilience of our personnel. They and their
families will always be our greatest resource.
As I discussed during my confirmation hearing, I was
concerned about the morale of the force and its underlying
effects on culture across the entire Department. Thankfully, I
found many efforts underway to address these concerns, and in
consistent engagements with our sailors and marines around the
globe, I have discovered our morale is better than I thought it
might be. But it can get better as we direct the resources to
make it better.
We must prepare today for tomorrow, and we must continually
adjust to the threat. Our existing fleet structure operates on
the premise that we still live in a post-9/11 state where the
North Atlantic Treaty Organization's (NATO's) flanks are
secure, the Russian fleet is tied to the pier, and terrorism is
our biggest problem. That is not the world of today. As the
world changes, we must be bold, evolve, and change with it.
Instead of perpetuating a structured design to support
yesterday's joint forces command, we are aligning to today's
threat to meet the unique maritime challenges of the Atlantic
theater, we will rename Fleet Forces Command as the U.S.
Atlantic Fleet and we will refocus our naval forces in this
important region on their original mission, controlling the
maritime approaches to the United States and to those of our
allies. The Atlantic Fleet will confront the re-assertive
Russian navy, which has been deploying closer and closer to our
east coast, with a tailored maritime presence capability and
lethality.
Also, in order to improve our posture in the Indo-Pacific,
we will reconstitute the first fleet assigning it primary
responsibility for the Indo and South Asian region as an
expeditionary fleet back to the capabilities and
unpredictability of an agile, mobile, at-sea command. This will
reassure our allies and partners of our presence and commitment
to this region while ensuring any potential adversary knows we
are committed to global presence to ensure rule of law and
freedom of the seas.
We are determined today to make the bold changes required
to ensure that our forces are prepared to dominate any
potential battlespace and return home safely tomorrow. As the
great navalist, the 26th President of the United States, Teddy
Roosevelt, once said, a strong Navy is not a provocation to war
but the surest guarantor of peace.
We look to you, our Congress, for the strong oversight
partnership that has enabled our maritime strength ever since
Congress authorized the construction of our first six ships,
the mighty American frigates of 1794. So I would like to take
this moment to announce that the next Constellation-class
frigate will be named for one of those original six, a name
selected by our first President, George Washington. The ship
will be USS Congress to honor and recognize the work that you
and your staff do every day to support our sailors, our
marines, and the people of the United States of America.
On behalf of the Department of the Navy, our marines, our
sailors, our civilian workforce, and their families that serve
at their side, thank you for what you do to enhance our
readiness.
I look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Secretary Braithwaite follows:]
Prepared Statement by The Honorable Kenneth J. Braithwaite
In May of 1943, American troops, aircraft and ships were sent to
the Aleutian island of Attu to dislodge the Imperial Japanese troops
occupying our soil. These young Americans were dedicated and brave, but
unprepared and underequipped. Our force was not ready for this type of
fight in Arctic conditions.
The amphibious landing on Attu was marred by embarrassing setbacks,
stemming from a failure to appreciate the impact of cold weather and
rough seas on our operating procedures, equipment, and people. Air
sorties were scattered and unreliable due to poor visibility and high
winds.
Engines on landing craft froze, stranding their crews and the
troops on board. Batteries failed because operators hadn't gained the
experience that would teach them to keep them on trickle charge through
cold water operations. Ice and rough seas threatened to destroy the PT
boats and other small craft as they approached the landing site. Heavy
fog resulted in multiple collisions.
The only thing that prevented the operation from ending in
catastrophe was the fact that the landing was unopposed. Our forces did
not make contact with the enemy immediately, and so they were able to
recover their battle readiness and execute the mission.
In short: we got lucky. But that should never be accepted as good
enough, for our fleet, our force, or our nation. As Secretary of the
Navy I am determined to ensure that our sailors and marines are never
sent into a situation without the right training, the right equipment,
and the right leadership, to dominate the fight and return safely home.
Chairman Sullivan, Ranking Member Kaine, distinguished Members of
the Committee, we cannot be caught unprepared in any clime or place.
The Department of the Navy must always stand ready with the personnel,
platforms, and operational skills necessary to secure vital sea lanes,
stand together with our allies, and protect the American people
wherever and whenever necessary.
The sailors, marines, and civilians of our forward-deployed,
globally maneuverable team, are prepared and equipped to respond, from
the Arctic to the Indo-Pacific to the Gulf. We intend to keep it that
way. In partnership with Admiral Gilday and General Berger, I am
determined to strengthen our people, build on the pride of service, and
develop a ready force for the future.
The reemergence of long-term great power competition, the evolving
character of that competition, and the accelerating advancements in
technology are spurring a period of transformation in the strategic
environment, requiring us to adapt our integrated naval force design
and operating concepts to new realities. As the National Defense
Strategy (NDS) states, ``there can be no complacency--we must make
difficult choices and prioritize what is most important.''
Thus far this century, terrorist groups and rogue states have
dominated our perception of the threat environment. These threats were
lethal, but did not pose an existential threat to our national
security. China and Russia present a different challenge, as each
continues to develop sophisticated military capabilities backed by
sizable economies. Their investments in surface, air, and undersea
platforms have significantly increased the potential for kinetic
conflict, while the
leadership of both nations demonstrate increasing contempt for
international law and the rules-based order that ensures the prosperity
and security of all nations.
A dominant naval force is central to the effective execution of the
NDS in a changing world. We must be ready at all times to execute as
one integrated naval force--Navy and Marine Corps seamlessly linked at
every level--with common logistics, infrastructure, practices and
support networks--executing a fleet-wide emphasis on resilient and
combat ready forces.
To make that happen, the Department of the Navy fiscal year 2021
budget request prioritized recovering the readiness of the platforms
that deliver victory in a major conflict, from amphibious ships and
ground element equipment, to our agile destroyers and cruisers, and the
heavy-hitting aircraft carriers, air wings and attack submarines that
ensure continued freedom of action throughout the global commons.
To meet the forward maneuverable force requirements of the NDS, the
Marine Corps has put into motion an aggressive modernization of the
Service. Force Design 2030 is not simply an improvement on its existing
form and function; it is transformational. With a studied concentration
on the future operating environment, the Marine Corps is reinvigorating
the Fleet Marine Forces within existing resource constraints as an
indispensable element to global maritime operations. We appreciate the
Committee's advocacy for new training venues and opportunities that
simulate the operational complexities of a contested maritime domain.
We greatly appreciate the Committee's efforts to ensure funding
stability and predictability over the past several years. This has
given our force the agility and flexibility needed to address emerging
threats, to invest in critical future capabilities for our integrated
naval force, while shifting away from less beneficial and relevant
spending. This stability has saved money for the American taxpayer and
enabled a greater focus on readiness across the Navy and Marine Corps,
enabling greater long term shipbuilding and maintenance planning, and
fueling the Marine Corps transformation as the Nation's stand-in,
fight-tonight force. These investments mark a commitment to creating
asymmetric advantages across the entire Joint Force.
The Department of the Navy is building on this foundation by
aggressively pursuing better readiness, lethality, and capabilities in
those areas of warfighting technology showing the greatest promise of
delivering non-linear warfighting advantages. Across both services, we
are executing force designs centered on Naval Expeditionary force
deployment, giving us a sustainable edge and a resilient capability to
deliver the integrated all-domain naval power required by the Joint
Force.
Hard experience has shown that this capability cannot be
sustainably achieved through ``can do'' and ``make do'' improvisation.
Our front line personnel may be determined, adaptive, and skillful
enough to get the job done in the face of equipment shortfalls and
intense battle rhythms, but relying on their adaptability is no
substitute for genuine fleet readiness. We owe it to the sailors and
marines out in the fleet to make sure they always have the tools they
need to do the dangerous jobs we ask of them.
The changes generated from the Readiness Reform and Oversight
Council (RROC) and other relentless self-examination efforts have
enabled us to improve readiness, training, and maintenance processes at
every level. For example, we've implemented a uniform readiness
assessment and certification process that must be followed before a
ship can be certified to return to the fleet. We have also increased
opportunities for shipboard certification and skills enhancement, while
adjusting manning schedules to maximize safety and improve quality of
life and professional effectiveness for our personnel while underway.
These and many other changes will result in a better prepared, rested,
and equipped force.
We continue to pursue greater readiness in the development and
maintenance of our fleet, particularly in our critical public
shipyards. Through the Navy's Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Plan
(SIOP), the Navy has outlined a 20-year investment plan for the
facilities and tools needed to improve shipyard performance, starting
with shipyard-specific Area Development Plans (ADPs) already underway.
We must stay committed to this objective.
We appreciate the leadership of this Committee to provide direct
hiring authority, which has been instrumental in helping naval
shipyards achieve their accelerated hiring goal of 36,100 personnel--
one full year ahead of schedule. An extension of this authority
granting an exception to the 180-day ``cooldown'' requirement before
hiring retired members of the armed forces would further assist our
shipyards in maintaining acceptable staffing and experience levels.
Finally, the Navy has worked with the shipyards to develop their
workforce by establishing new learning centers that reduced worker
training time by 50 percent or more.
We have also achieved greater aviation readiness for both the Navy
and Marine Corps, including the Naval Aviation Enterprise (NAE) efforts
to meet the Strike Fighter aircraft availability goals for both
services. The NAE is incorporating commercial best practices to improve
performance on targeted production lines. For example, process reforms
have improved organic depot capacity and repair speed, reducing the
turnaround time for F/A-18E/F maintenance from over 100 days to 60
days.
The Department of the Navy appreciates the leadership of this
Committee in helping ensure both aviation and systems readiness across
our force. Towards that end, the Department requests assistance from
the Committee to secure the necessary space to conduct critical combat
training.
Most prominently, expansion of the Navy's training range in Fallon,
Nevada is imperative to maintaining our readiness in the skies and
across every domain. We are concerned that Congress will not act on the
Administration's legislative proposal to expand the Fallon Range
Training Complex (FRTC) to provide the area needed to fully accommodate
modern military training requirements this year. The FRTC is currently
too small to accommodate realistic and safe training with precision-
guided munitions. This modernization is driven by real-world threats
and the need for longer range stand-off release for training with
precision guided munitions. Aircrews and special operations forces
cannot fully exercise tactics and are unable to train in sufficiently-
realistic conditions, which compromises their safety and success in
combat. In many cases, the first time a pilot is able to fully use the
F-35's sensor and weapons systems suite is during combat. Expanding
this range will allow us to send our sailors and marines into combat
fully prepared by providing them with the training they need to win.
Over the past 5 years, the
Navy has worked exhaustively with key stakeholders, including
Members of Congress, federal agencies, tribes, state and local
government, and environmental groups. We need the authority from
Congress not only for modernization, but to follow through on our
promises to these groups.
Unfortunately, Fallon is only one of the challenges we face with
our training spaces. We continue to assess how proposed active offshore
windfarm operations off the coast of California impact our aircraft
navigation, communication, and weapons systems, with an expectation
that other stakeholders are assessing prospective windfarm locations
and impacts beyond the Navy's operating areas. Easements granted by the
Department of the Navy to San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station and San
Diego International Airport are soon expiring; we need to use these
parcels of land for military training. Special use airspace supporting
the Marine Corps ranges at Twenty-nine Palms is surrounded by congested
commercial air routes, causing interruptions to military aircraft and
artillery fire training. This is against a backdrop of historical Navy
range closures and realignments occurring over the past three decades.
If the Navy and Marine Corps are to remain the world's premier Naval
force, this trend cannot continue.
The threats to our Nation are real and as our adversaries close the
technological divide, our greatest strength is our training. We ask
that this and all other relevant Committees seriously consider the
national security impact of any decisions made regarding any
development or land use initiatives that may impact our training areas.
We also recognize that we cannot meet the global challenges our
Nation faces alone. Readiness requires presence and rapid capabilities
in every part of the world, as well as specialized and localized
knowledge to handle evolving and challenging situations. Just as
Canadian troops joined in the operation to retake Kiska in 1943, the
strategic maritime defense partnerships we maintain today with our
partners and allies around the world extend the reach and power of our
force. They underscore the importance of cooperation and coordination
in maintaining the rules-based international order that enables so much
of our global prosperity and security.
Our personnel regularly train and operate alongside their foreign
counterparts, test the interoperability of our systems, and build our
collective readiness on the front lines of great power competition. In
the critical Arctic region, the destroyer USS Thomas Hudner just
completed Operation Nanook alongside our Canadian, French and Danish
allies, as well as our vital partners, the United States Coast Guard.
During my time as our Ambassador to Norway, I was proud to look to our
United States Marines guarding NATO's northern flank alongside
Norwegian soldiers.
Operational exercises, international port calls, joint Marine force
training, and other interactions generate the personal contact that
builds understanding, respect, and trust across national and functional
lines. Our sailors, marines and civilian personnel know that through
their service they are front-line diplomats for our nation. Their
professionalism and dedication promotes the connections that strengthen
our collective security and cultivate shared ideals that send the
message that the United States is a friend worth having.
The Department of the Navy appreciates the dedicated oversight
provided by this Committee following recent events that have potential
impacts on the readiness of our fleet forces. As this Committee is
aware, 2020 has brought its share of challenges and adversity. But
failure in our mission is never an option, and we look forward to
working with each Member of the Committee to ensure the continued
readiness and lethality our nation needs to preserve the forward
maneuverability, lethality, and resilience needed to ensure our
nation's readiness.
The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the strength and agility of
our people, as active duty and reserve servicemembers have responded to
the call for medical, logistics, and security support wherever and
whenever the American people have needed it. At the same time, our
sailors, marines, and civilian teammates have continued to execute the
NDS while maintaining the procedures and safeguards necessary to
prevent the debilitating spread of the pandemic across our platforms
and facilities.
Like all Americans, the Navy and Marine Corps have had to adjust to
this global pandemic, from preventing, mitigating, and recovering from
positive cases detection of positive cases aboard ships, to changing
the recruitment and training of our personnel, to helping our military
families cope with longer separation and other challenges like virtual
learning and social distancing. This pandemic has forced us to rethink
and refine our recruitment, training, and personnel movements
throughout the force, and it has taken a toll on our shipyard
operations and deployment and maintenance schedules.
Both the Navy and Marine Corps are actively implementing Force
Health Protection measures in an effort to protect marines, sailors,
civilians, contractors, and our military families. Across the
department, we've implemented prevention, mitigation, and recovery
guidance from the Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery (BUMED) and the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). We have implemented--
and will continue to evaluate--active testing protocols to detect
asymptomatic COVID-19 positive personnel, contain outbreaks aboard
vessels or elsewhere in the fleet, and conduct surveillance to detect
and treat the disease as early as possible.
Within our shipyards, the Navy took aggressive steps at the start
of the pandemic and continues to implement safety measures to minimize
the spread of this disease and to protect the personnel, civilians,
contractors, and families that power our naval enterprise and protect
our nation. These steps include maximum telework opportunities for
shipyard employees, administrative leave for high-risk individuals
unable to telework, altered shifts to maximize social distancing,
sanitization and hand-washing stations throughout the shipyard, cloth
face coverings and face shields for the workforce, and screening checks
at all workplace entry points.
We're also working closely with our partners and suppliers in the
defense industrial base to ensure the continued viability of the
crucial businesses and infrastructure needed to ensure our ships,
aircraft, and ground equipment are available when needed for the
defense of our nation, both during this current challenge and long into
the future. We must be transparent and honest about the potential
impact this pandemic may have on certain aspects of our readiness. But
we will never fail to maintain the global vigilance and readiness
required to execute our global mission. That mission never abates,
because the demand signal never fades.
Finally, we must never forget that the greatest source of readiness
and strength for our force will always be the men and women who wear
the uniform, who comprise our civilian workforce, and the families that
serve alongside them. We are committed to ensuring our sailors,
marines, and civilians are trained and equipped to execute the mission
and return home safely, and that their families are provided with the
housing, medical attention, and education they need.
Through a combination of non-monetary, quality of life, and
customer service programs, we are increasing our responsiveness to the
needs of the individual warfighter and their family, making continued
service a viable and attractive option. We are increasing avenues for
civilians with prior service through the Targeted Reentry Program, and
expanding opportunities to serve in meaningful roles. We are also
increasing opportunities for our personnel to learn, operate, and
innovate with partners from the private sector, across the joint force,
and alongside our allies.
Our people must be confident that their leadership will look out
for their interests and advocate tirelessly for their safety and well-
being. We remain committed to making sure we assess, monitor, and
remediate issues of concern in all forms of military housing, including
those managed by Public Private Venture (PPV) providers, with quick,
effective, and engaged leadership and reinforced Department-level
oversight.
We are also determined to eliminate the scourges of sexual assault
and sexual harassment from every part of our force. These behaviors are
a betrayal of those who have stepped forward to serve in uniform and
have a direct impact on our readiness. We will continue to work with
this Committee to share best practices and ideas, relentlessly pursuing
a future where no sailor, marine, or civilian teammate ever has to fear
for their own safety while protecting us all.
As leaders we must also do all in our power to ensure that our
people feel respected and valued. In this moment of national reckoning
with longstanding issues of racial injustice, we cannot and will not
tolerate discrimination or racism of any kind. Our readiness, and the
bedrock strength of our core values, depends on the elimination of any
policies or practices seeming to tolerate or promote racial inequity in
any aspect of the Navy and Marine Corps, from recruiting and assignment
practices, to advancement and promotions, to our military justice
system.
As I wrote to the entire fleet in my first month as Secretary of
the Navy, ``We must never forget that equal treatment, equal justice,
and equal opportunity require continual determined effort. `United' is
the most important word in `United States Navy and Marine Corps'.''
Our sailors, marines and civilian teammates will always be our
greatest source of readiness and strength in a challenging and changing
world. On behalf of each of these brave patriots and the families that
serve at their side, I would like to once again thank the leadership
and membership of this Committee for your attention, interest, and
ongoing support.
Senator Sullivan. Thank you very much, Mr. Secretary.
Admiral, would you care to make an opening statement, sir?
STATEMENT OF ADMIRAL MICHAEL M. GILDAY, USN, CHIEF OF NAVAL
OPERATIONS
Admiral Gilday. Yes, sir, I would.
Chairman Sullivan, again my condolences on your family's
loss. Your dad was not only a sailor but a great friend of the
Navy.
Senator Sullivan. Thank you.
Admiral Gilday. Ranking Member Kaine, distinguished Members
of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity appear before
you this morning with the Secretary of the Navy, as well as
Commandant Berger. My wife Linda behind me joins me this
morning.
To be effective, the United States Navy has to be able to
carry out two critical functions. The first is sea control and
the second is power projection. Both of those missions are
timeless. The Navy does not need to reinvent itself. The manner
by which we carry out those functions and the equipment that we
use to do it do change over time, but as Admiral Nimitz said in
front of a joint session of Congress in October of 1945 at the
dawn of the nuclear age, he called those missions timeless.
President John F. Kennedy, in the wake of the Cuban Missile
Crisis, said the same thing, so for me, sea control and the
capability to control the seas and to dominate the oceans is my
primary focus.
With respect to readiness, that covers two areas: readiness
today, which I believe is the focus of this hearing, as well as
our readiness tomorrow. The budget decisions that the Navy
presents to the Secretary of Defense really balance across
three big areas that are aimed at those two functions. That
would be readiness, readiness today and readiness to the
future. That would be lethal capabilities in order to control
the seas and to project power, and the last is capacity, the
size of the United States Navy.
Today in the midst of a global pandemic, we have about 100
ships deployed, and we have about 40,000 sailors at sea. That
ranges from the Arctic Circle to the Cape of Good Hope, from
the Black Sea in the Baltics to the Arabian Sea, the Atlantic
and the Indo-Pacific. Our cyber warriors are standing vigilant
watch right now as we speak. They are joined by our silent
service under the seas that continue their constant patrols.
I would be remiss if I did not talk about the civilian
sailors who support us every single day so that we can control
the seas. Those are our shipyard workers. Those are folks that
work in production lines that keep our spare parts rolling to
the waterfront, to our aviation squadrons, to our submarines,
and to our ships. They are people that provide the Naval
Academy, our academic institutions like the Naval Academy, the
Naval War College, and the Naval Post-Graduate School that
continue to churn out the best and the brightest that this
nation has, and our boot camp which is operating at double its
capacity.
That said, the investments that keep that machine going
every single day are also balanced against investments of the
future. Think about hypersonics and laser energy. We just shot
down an unmanned vehicle (UAV) with laser energy at sea just
last months. We shot down an intercontinental ballistic missile
(ICBM) from a destroyer with a standard missile just 2 weeks
ago, so we are focused on the future and what we need to do to
get there.
Members of the Committee, we are grateful for the support
you provide the United States Navy, our sailors, and our
families.
Again, I thank you for this opportunity this morning, and I
look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Admiral Gilday follows:]
Prepared Statement by Admiral Michael M. Gilday
Chairman Sullivan, Ranking Member Kaine, and distinguished Members
of the Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today on
the Navy's current readiness.
This hearing occurs during a critical time for our country.
Multiple nations are attempting to undermine the existing international
order that has benefited so many for so long. Our rivals are rapidly
modernizing their militaries and eroding our advantages. Emerging
technologies have provided them more ways to attack our shores. A
global pandemic and economic crisis threaten global stability and
security. The maritime environment--a vital source of our prosperity
and protection--has become increasingly contested.
America is a Maritime Nation--Our people depend on freedom of the
seas
Since the end of the Cold War, traffic on the seas has increased
over four fold. Ninety percent of global trade now travels by sea,
facilitating $5.4 trillion in U.S. commerce annually and supporting 31
million American jobs. Ninety-five percent of global internet traffic
travels along undersea cables, fueling our digital economy and
accounting for $10 trillion in financial transactions per day.
Competition for offshore resources such as aquaculture, energy, and
rare-earth minerals is increasing across the globe. There can be no
doubt that our economic vitality relies on free and open conditions at
sea, and now those conditions--and our way of life--are under threat.
Despite benefiting from decades of peace and stability, China and
Russia are now using all elements of their national power to undermine
the international order at sea. Both attempt to unfairly control access
to rich sea-based resources outside their home waters. Both intimidate
their neighbors and enforce unlawful claims with the threat of force.
Both have constructed sophisticated networks of sensors and long-range
missiles to hold important waterways at risk. China, in particular, is
building a Navy to rival our own.
Over the last decade, China has rapidly grown its Navy from 262 to
350 ships that include modern surface combatants, submarines, aircraft
carriers, amphibious assault ships, and polar icebreakers. Expanding
their robust naval force with a multilayered fleet of Coast Guard and
maritime militia vessels, they routinely harass neighbors to exert
pressure at a level below traditional armed conflict. They have
blanketed their regional waters with the world's largest missile forces
in an attempt to intimidate their rivals. They have strengthened all
dimensions of military power to contest us from the seafloor to space
and in the information domain. They are extending their maritime
infrastructure across the globe through aggressive investments,
particularly in ports, to control access to critical waterways. We must
move with urgency to sustain and grow our advantage at sea.
U.S. Navy--Deployed Forward to Defend America and Protect our Way
of Life
The U.S. Navy is responding to this challenge by: demonstrating our
global reach, enforcing common principles, sustaining the conditions
that enable shared prosperity, strengthening our alliances and
partnerships, and modernizing our fleet to control the seas in
contested environments. Today, 39,903 sailors are currently deployed on
nearly 111 ships and submarines to preserve freedom of the seas, deter
conflict, and keep America safe. Together with the United States Marine
Corps, our Navy is delivering Integrated All-Domain Naval Power across
the globe, and we are doing this in the midst of a global pandemic.
With parts of the world shut down in response to COVID-19, our
operational tempo did not decline. Since the last time I appeared
before you in March, the Navy has continued to steam and fly from the
Arctic Circle to the Cape of Good Hope. Our hospital ships provided
relief to American communities; we executed underway training events
for deployment certification; and we conducted exercises alongside the
Joint Force and our allies and partners.
Since the COVID-19 outbreak, we have aggressively worked to keep
our sailors and families safe, while sustaining fleet operations and
supporting the whole-of-government response to the virus. Lessons
learned from the outbreak aboard USS Theodore Roosevelt honed our
COVID-19 Standardized Operational Guidance. Our sailors and their
families adjusted and sacrificed to accomplish the mission. When the
virus threatened the deployed USS Kidd, USS Ronald Reagan, and USS
Makin Island, we quickly stemmed the spread of COVID-19 and the ships
continued their missions, reflective of our strong learning
organization.
We are applying this same kind of adaptive mindset across our
entire Navy. After identifying a potentially dramatic increase in
gapped sea billets for fiscal year 2021 due to COVID-reduced
accessions, we gradually and safely increased recruit training to meet
our goals. All while adhering to strict Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention Guidance to keep our force safe. We also leveraged retention
incentives, such as Advancement-to-Position, to keep sailors in
critical jobs. These measures are improving our ability to fill
operational requirements.
When health protection measures reduced public shipyard
productivity, we took swift action to protect our workers and mitigate
impacts to maintenance. Meanwhile, our dedicated, patriotic shipyard
workforce adapted to our COVID-19 protocols, came to work every day,
and got our ships back to sea. We cannot thank them enough. To stay
connected during the pandemic, our Information Technology workforce
quickly increased network bandwidth, added virtual private network
licenses, and supported the DOD Commercial Virtual Remote (CVR)
environment roll-out. This enabled a large portion of the Navy
workforce to get the mission done from home.
We are aggressively working to mitigate the readiness impacts of
COVID-19 and deliver a more ready fleet.
Building a More Ready Navy
Delivering the decisive naval power needed to maintain America's
advantage at sea requires balanced investments across multiple elements
of naval power. Naval power is not a function of ship numbers alone,
nor is it simply a result of the lethal systems employed from those
ships. It is also about the networks that connect them, the sailors
that bring them to life, the concepts that shape how we fight, and the
means to maintain, train, and equip our forces to win in combat.
Readiness--the investments across the force that bring naval power
to life--is the backbone of our Navy. For the past two decades, the
Navy sustained the same operational tempo seen during the Cold War, but
with a fleet almost half the size. Meeting the security demands of our
nation with a smaller Navy and budget instability had a corrosive
effect on our readiness.
Over the last 3 years the Navy has implemented critical reforms and
improved our readiness in new ways. With sustained funding and our
learning culture, our readiness recovery was on an upward trend before
COVID-19 struck. Measurable improvements were seen across the Navy,
including:
Operational billets filled to highest point in 6 years.
Eighty percent mission capable rates sustained for F/A-
18E/F and EA-18G.
On-time private shipyard surface ship maintenance
availability completion rates improved from 37 percent in fiscal year
2019 to 67 percent in fiscal year 2020.
Public shipyard reduced maintenance delay days by over 80
percent from fiscal year 2019 to fiscal year 2020.
All 111 Strategic Readiness Review and Comprehensive
Review (SRR/CR) Surface force readiness initiatives are implemented.
COVID-19 will undoubtedly impact our continued recovery in fiscal
year 2021--as the need to protect the force will likely cause some
delays in on-time maintenance completion. However, we will continue to
meet any challenge with the same adaptive mindset and learning culture
that has kept our ships sailing throughout this pandemic.
Congress can help support our readiness recovery by swiftly
enacting our requests in the Fiscal Year 2021 President's Budget.
Fiscal Year 2021 President's Budget sustains our trajectory by
increasing funding in our readiness accounts. This means more time
steaming and flying, more ammunition and spare parts, more effective
maintenance, and better infrastructure and training for our sailors.
A larger, more ready, more lethal fleet will need greater
investments to operate and sustain. It also requires an unrelenting
focus on reforms that deliver the force needed to deter and--if
needed--fight and win. With your support and our sailors'
determination, we will continue our momentum--even in the midst of this
pandemic--to build a more ready Navy in the following ways.
To build a more ready Navy, we're more robustly manning and
strengthening the fleet. A lethal fleet depends on our sailors--the
true source of our naval power. As we grow our fleet, we must bring in
more personnel, which is why we are requesting an additional 7,300
sailors in fiscal year 2021. We are grateful to Congress for the
generous pay raises and personnel reforms. The Navy is leveraging
both--alongside our Sailor 2025 initiatives--to better retain our
incredibly talented force. Meanwhile, we continue to transform our
MyNavyHR infrastructure to rapidly deliver services to our sailors at a
reduced cost. This includes the DOD-leading mobile applications that
help with the challenge of military moves and finding childcare or
housing. Our personnel reforms are keeping sailors excited about the
Navy and we are exceeding retention benchmarks.
The strength of our fleet depends on the strength of our sailors.
We are cultivating a Culture of Excellence (COE) across the Fleet,
which strengthens the Navy's enduring standards of
professional competence and personal character. It teaches our
sailors to actively pursue what is right, rather than simply avoiding
what is wrong. We saw COE at work during the tragic fire aboard USS
Bonhomme Richard. Battling 1,200 degree heat, smoke and poor
visibility, and a series of explosions, our sailors exemplified the
initiative, integrity, accountability and resiliency central to our
COE.
We also launched Task Force One Navy in July under the COE
framework to analyze and evaluate issues in our society and military
that detract from Navy cohesiveness and readiness. The Task Force is
hard at work and will release their report to me this month. Respect
and the promise of opportunity are core to our Navy, and we will not
stop until we rid discrimination and other biases from our ranks. This
is a moral and warfighting imperative.
To build a more ready Navy, we're better training the fleet. Our
sailors must be better trained than their Chinese and Russian
counterparts. Maintaining this competitive edge requires sustained
investments in steaming days and flying hours as well as in virtual and
constructive training. The Fiscal Year 2021 President's Budget
increases funding for steaming days and flying hours and invests in
advanced virtual environments. This delivers high quality training to
the waterfront, modernizing our existing training through key programs
like Ready, Relevant Learning which provides sailors the experience to
hone their skills between underway operations.
Maintaining the edge also requires providing the ranges our sailors
need to train for the high-end fight. Currently, our premier Carrier
Air Wing and SEAL training center--the Fallon Range Training Complex
(FRTC)--is too small. Without expansion, our sailors cannot
sufficiently train with longer-range weapons, or practice the tactics
and techniques they will employ against a near-peer threat. We will
continue to work with Congress, the local communities, and key
stakeholders to ensure our aircrew and special operators can train
effectively to win in combat.
We are also fully funding all Surface Force readiness initiatives.
The Navy has now fully implemented all 111 Strategic Readiness Review/
Comprehensive Review recommendations. One thousand four hundred thirty-
two junior officers have now graduated from our new Junior Officer of
the Deck course with training aligned to International Maritime
Organization's standards. We are broadening the use of instructor-led
virtual reality training through the construction of two Mariner Skills
Training Centers and the modernization of our Integrated Navigation
Seamanship and Ship handling Trainers. All of these efforts are
building a COE that prepares our teams to confidently perform under the
most demanding conditions.
The Navy is training and operating in the places that matter most
for great power competition. Together with the Joint Force, we are
providing credible deterrence and sharpening our warfighting advantage
from the South China Sea to the Mediterranean. Additionally, we are
keeping pace with the changing strategic environment by proactively
steaming and flying in the Arctic region. Ice Exercise in the Arctic
Ocean, Exercise Dynamic Mongoose off the coast of Iceland, and multiple
exercises in the Barents Sea demonstrate our commitment to provide
capability and presence in higher latitudes alongside our allies and
partners.
To build a more ready Navy, we're better maintaining the fleet.
Delivering ships and aircraft from maintenance on time is vital to
generating ready forces. Using data driven methods, we are reducing
delays, improving operational availability, and saving taxpayer
dollars. We have seen this type of success in our tactical aviation
community. Eighty percent of our Super Hornets and Growlers remained
mission capable throughout fiscal year 2020, a dramatic improvement
from the 55 percent long-term average. With higher numbers of aircraft
available, our aircrew are more ready to fly and fight than at any
point over the last decade.
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, we were seeing dramatic
improvements in ship maintenance, and the on-time delivery of ships in
private yards continues to improve this year. To sustain improvement of
ship maintenance in private shipyards, we modified contracting
strategies, increased dry dock capacity, and worked to optimize
facility and pier layouts. We also made adjustments to ship maintenance
durations to account for available shipyard capacity and improved
planning and directed maintenance to reduce growth and new work.
Getting the durations right has reduced days of maintenance delay and
increased on-time delivery. We are also leveraging authorities provided
by Congress, such as the 3 year Other Procurement, Navy pilot program,
to increase flexibility and stabilize demand for our shipyard
workforces.
In February of 2020, we were successfully reducing the maintenance
backlog and better predicting the delivery of availabilities when the
impacts of COVID-19 began to manifest. The COVID-19 pandemic and
subsequent decline in our production workforce impacted the trajectory
of further gains and current availabilities in execution. To mitigate
additional impacts to ship maintenance in our private shipyards, we
accelerated awards of contract options and improved the cash positions
of the industrial base. For our public shipyards, we mobilized 1,352
skilled Navy Reserve sailors, increased overtime usage, and rebalanced
future workload and capacity. Still, we have much work to do.
Submarine maintenance, in particular, remains one of our most
pressing challenges. While we have driven submarine idle time down by
50 percent this year, public and private shipyard capacity is still not
adequate to meet requirements. We are aggressively working to modernize
our public yards, reforms which will take many years. In the near term,
we have better aligned work requirements with capacity, hired
additional workers and accelerated their training, and partnered with
private industry to increase capacity. In the longer term, we are
continuing to explore innovative technologies such as hull crawling
robots and cold spray repairs to more efficiently conduct maintenance.
To build a more ready Navy, we're better sustaining the fleet. Our
logistics enterprise and strategic sealift capacity are vital to a
dynamic Joint Force operating forward in support of national interests.
We are accelerating our sealift recapitalization strategy and improving
the readiness of our Surge and Ready Reserve Force (RRF). Fiscal Year
2021 President's Budget increases resources for sealift operations and
maintains service life extensions, while executing the efficient
replacement of the oldest and least ready vessels first.
Sustaining the fleet for long-term competition also means making
targeted investments in critical infrastructure like our public
shipyards and aviation depots. Our Shipyard Infrastructure and
Optimization Program (SIOP) takes a deliberate approach to refurbishing
these vital national assets. Beginning with building virtual models of
each shipyard, we are leveraging 21st century technology to improve
productivity, safety, and quality-of-life for our talented workforce.
Over the next year, we will use these models to drive investment
decisions for major dry dock, facility, and equipment upgrades. We have
already broke ground on a perimeter floodwall at Norfolk Naval Shipyard
and are building a new lock system at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. These
and many other investments will be important in keeping our Navy
competitive for years to come.
We are also optimizing and recapitalizing our aviation depot
infrastructure, the Fleet Readiness Centers (FRCs). Through a Naval
Aviation Infrastructure Optimization Plan (IOP), we are developing a
10-year Master Plan that provides our organic depots the capacity to
sustain and modernize our aircraft, engines, components, and support
equipment. Funding $3.5 billion over the next 10 years will ensure the
Navy's ability to conduct maintenance on next generation aircraft while
sustaining current aviation readiness gains. Additionally, Fiscal Year
2021 President's Budget requests the largest funding for shore
readiness in the past 4 years. These funds cover a range of critical
needs, such as increased oversight of public-private venture housing to
better serve Navy families and cyber infrastructure protection for our
ashore and deployed units.
To build a more ready Navy, we're better connecting the fleet.
Maintaining readiness ashore and at sea requires strengthening our
digital fleet. We are modernizing and transforming our Navy enterprise
shore network infrastructure into a secure, resilient digital platform
which includes a $1 billion investment across our Future Years Defense
Budget. We are also laser-focused on delivering a resilient operational
architecture for Distributed Maritime Operations (DMO). The Naval
Operational Architecture (NOA) serves as the digital backbone of our
future fleet by connecting our sensors, platforms, and command and
control nodes with the Joint Force. As we incorporate more unmanned
systems into the fleet, the NOA will become even more vital to
delivering the naval power we need to deter, fight, and win.
Protecting our networked fleet also requires building cyber
security and resilience into our platforms. To meet this end, Fiscal
Year 2021 President's Budget requests over $1 billion to protect our
forces from intrusions and will ensure that we can fight through and
recover from cyber-attacks. Critical to the resiliency of our networked
fleet is the ability to assure our capabilities in positioning,
navigation, and timing (PNT). We are investing in alternate sources of
PNT, like the Automated Celestial Navigation System, to ensure our Navy
can fight and win in Global Positioning System (GPS) denied or degraded
environments.
To build a more ready Navy, we're better arming the Fleet. To fight
and win at sea against a near-peer threat, we must arm the fleet with
distributed payloads of increasing range and speed such as: the
Maritime Strike Tomahawk, Joint Standoff Weapon Extended Range, the
Long Range Anti-Ship Missile, and the Standard Missile-6. When coupled
with enhanced Air-to-Air and Air-to-Surface missiles along with MK-48
torpedoes, our platforms will have the advantage they need against
near-peer threats under, on, and above the seas.
Concurrently, we are rigorously developing hypersonic and directed
energy weapons to increase the lethality and defensive capability of
the fleet. Hypersonic missiles change the risk calculus for our
competitors by providing conventional sea-based prompt, global strike
capability. Our Navy Laser Family of Weapons are also continuing to
mature. The recent demonstration onboard USS Portland showed how we can
disable an unmanned aerial vehicle using directed energy. We will
continue to invest in laser technology and non-kinetic defensive
systems to increase fleet survivability and free magazine space for our
offensive missiles.
conclusion
Let there be no doubt--America is a maritime nation--our security
and prosperity are inextricably linked to the seas. For 245 years--in
both calm and rough waters, your Navy has stood the watch to protect
our homeland, preserve the freedom of the seas, and defend our way of
life.
Our competitors are increasing their naval power every day, and
their malign behavior and growing presence on the waters places an
enormous demand on our forces. Our global forward posture--necessary to
deter conflict and meet our national objectives--requires a relentless
focus on readiness to keep our ships and sailors strong. Sustaining our
readiness recovery has never been more vital to our nation's future.
Yet, it is important to remember readiness only partly delivers the
maritime power our nation needs. Maintaining our advantage at sea also
demands growing the fleet with manned and unmanned systems; developing
weapons of greater lethality; connecting our fleet with resilient
battle networks; mastering all-domain, fleet-level warfare; and
empowering our sailors with intellectual overmatch to outfight our
rivals.
Without sustained funding that comprehensively grows U.S. naval
power, we will lose the military advantage at sea on which our nation's
prosperity and security depend.
Our Navy remains the finest maritime fighting force in the world
and our sailors--active and reserve, uniformed and civilian--are
committed to keeping it that way. But we need your help.
I am grateful to this Subcommittee for your support in this crucial
work. I look forward to working with you as we ensure our nation's
advantage at sea.
Senator Sullivan. Thank you, Admiral.
General Berger?
STATEMENT OF GENERAL DAVID H. BERGER, USMC, COMMANDANT OF THE
MARINE CORPS
General Berger. Chairman, thanks for the opportunity for us
to appear this morning.
From one marine to another, as we talked last night, just
know that if one marine hurts, all of us hurt. So we are all
thinking about you and your family.
For the Ranking Member Kaine and the rest of the Members,
this is a good opportunity and timely for us to be here this
morning to talk about readiness.
I am in the same spot as the CNO. I think readiness is job
one for a service secretary. But it is also a balance, as he
highlighted, of today's readiness, what we have to provide
combatant commanders now, this afternoon, balanced against the
force that we have to prepare for the future. The cold, hard
truth of it is if you are a service chief that every dollar you
spend on a legacy piece of equipment or on trying to prepare
something for this afternoon is a dollar that you have to
consider for the future. This is the tension that every service
chief has always been challenged with.
That said, I think you should be very confident--this
Subcommittee should be very confident that all your Navy and
Marine units that are deployed around the world are ready this
afternoon. They are ready for any crisis, any contingency, and
we are working very hard to make sure that we are going to stay
in front. There is no adversary that is going to overtake us.
The readiness. I will just offer you I probably will break
precedent in my view of readiness, how I view it. I do not view
readiness as availability only. It is more than just having a
platform, a ship, an aircraft, a piece of equipment available.
I think you expect us to be ready in terms of are you manned,
are you trained, are you equipped, are you ready for the
threat. When we think of readiness, we are talking about
readiness in terms of ready for what, ready when.
I am also grateful for all the support this Committee has
given us because 5, 6 years ago, we were in a tough spot
readiness-wise. We had rode the force hard and we needed the
resources to build our readiness back. We are back where we
need to be thanks to the support of the Members on this
Subcommittee and the Congress writ large. I am very grateful
for that.
Lastly, I would just touch on the same thing I think that
Admiral Gilday mentioned, which is our readiness in a sort of
unconventional way, and that is cyber readiness. Of course,
that is offensive and defensive. I would just highlight that
because those threats clearly are not going down. In fact, they
are increasing. But you would be very proud of the cyber
mission force that every day is tackling the challenges that
you wanted to tackle. On the defensive side, I think we have
all the means, the resources in terms of the training and the
people and the equipment to prepare all our networks for the
challenges that another adversary is going to pose. In both
cases, I think we are very focused on it, and that is going to
be an enduring task for all of us.
Chairman, I would yield the rest of my time to the topics
that you want to focus on, sir.
[The prepared statement of General Berger follows:]
Prepared Statement by General David H. Berger
introduction
Chairman Sullivan, Ranking Member Kaine, and distinguished Members
of this Subcommittee, thank you for the invitation and opportunity to
address what many defense professionals conclude is job one for a
service chief--operational readiness. In an era of great-power
competition, this requires establishing the appropriate service culture
necessary to generate and sustain readiness not only for the demands of
the present, but also for the uncertainty of the future. Therefore,
generating a ready force, and not simply an available force, remains my
priority.
Your invitation clearly articulated five specific items of interest
for the Subcommittee, and I intend to address each with as much detail
and precision as possible. However, before turning to those individual
topics, I should acknowledge that my understanding of the term
``readiness'' may break somewhat with precedent. For the record, I do
not think availability is synonymous with readiness. Today's readiness
does not assure future readiness or ensure operational advantage. Every
dollar consumed by the current force to make existing and in some cases
legacy capabilities ready via their availability comes at the expense
of future readiness and investments in to the creation of a modern
force. Legacy forces with antiquated capabilities can be maintained at
high rates of availability, yet that does not mean they are ready. This
readiness schema was most famously articulated in Dr. Richard Betts'
seminal work--Military Readiness in 1995. As the Members of this
Subcommittee know, Dr. Betts' articulated a model to determine
readiness based on three simple questions: a) For what, b) For when,
and c) Of what. I will address the topics you identified in your
invitation letter using this paradigm.
readiness iaw national defense strategy and force design 2030
I have commented publicly on numerous occasions over the past year
that the Marine Corps is not optimized today to meet the demands of the
2018 National Defense Strategy. The exploitation of maritime gray zone
operations by the People's Liberation Army Navy and the Peoples Armed
Force Maritime Militia, coupled with their increasingly aggressive
pursuit of conventional and hybrid capabilities, have fundamentally
transformed the environment in which the U.S. military will operate for
the foreseeable future. Add to this the continuing threat posed by
Russia, by rogue regimes such as Iran and DPRK, as well as by non-state
actors and we have a complex problem set that answers the first of Dr.
Betts' questions--ready for what?
The Marine Corps is prepared to respond rapidly to any crisis or
planned contingency related to China or Russia with naval expeditionary
forces from Marine Expeditionary Units to Marine Expeditionary Forces,
with capabilities such as 4th or 5th GEN aviation squadrons or with any
other combined arms formation desired by fleet commanders and
Geographic Combatant Commanders, and in accordance with established
timelines. This answers Dr. Betts' second question--for when.
Our forward deployed units in the Pacific, whether shore-based or
afloat, are prepared to immediately respond to any crisis, and have a
demonstrable record of success. However, successful response is not the
acme of skill or triumph. We must modernize our force in accordance
with our Force Design 2030 report and in the process make our
adversaries respond to our competitive capability advantages as well as
the advantages achieved through innovative concepts such as the
existing Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations Concept and soon to be
released Competition Concept. While this may sound ambitious, it is
well within our ability and resources. As with our record of success
responding to crises, the Marine Corps and the Naval Service as a whole
have a record of success driving change as evidenced by Chinese and
Russian modernization efforts focused on overcoming the advantages
created by our traditional power projection and forcible entry
capabilities. Our adversaries responded to our obvious military
advantages, and adapted their operational and strategic approaches as
well as their anti-access and area denial capabilities to counter us,
and now it is time for us to respond and counter those advantages in
order to restore our competitive advantages per the NDS. Making legacy
platforms better will not force our near peer adversaries to change
course.
As noted in my Force Design 2030 Report, we will transition our
ground fires capabilities from a short-range cannon-based force to one
oriented on long-range precision rocket fires--to include an anti-ship
missile capability. These long-range fires will provide our traditional
ground formations and naval expeditionary units with the modern
capabilities required for any contingency against Russian Battle Task
Groups or Peoples Liberation Army Navy--Marine Corps units, whether in
Europe, Asia, or elsewhere globally. Those modernization efforts will
further enable the forward deployment of a new capability--the Marine
Littoral Regiment. These units, once augmented with anti-ship missiles,
a light amphibious warship for mobility and sustainment, air defense
capabilities, Group 5 UAS, and fully trained for expeditionary advance
based operations will provide our joint force and fleet commanders with
forces prepared to deter adversary aggression by denial and by
detection, as well as a counter-gray zone competition maritime force.
While EABO discussions have increasingly focused on application in the
Indo-Pacific, we should not forget their efficacy in the high north in
support of larger Navy Anti-Submarine Warfare efforts, or in contested
littoral environments elsewhere around the world.
To be clear, our naval expeditionary forces and FMF in general will
be uniquely capable of EABO--but not solely defined as an EABO force.
Our Marine Expeditionary Units will remain capable of the full range of
crisis response functions. In fact, once enhanced with unmanned surface
and undersea vehicles, anti-ship missiles, amphibious combat vehicles,
long-range unmanned ISR capability, and 5th GEN STOVL aircraft, we will
provide our fleet and theater commanders with a distinct all-domain
capability for use in traditional conflict as well as day-to-day
competition. Since the technologies enabling the anti-access strategies
pursued by Russia and China are also steadily proliferating in the
arsenals of lesser powers--notably including Iran and some of her non-
state proxies--these capabilities will increasingly be needed for the
effective execution of naval expeditionary operations in a widening
range of crises and contingencies.
Based on lessons learned from Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria, as well
as from the experiences of the Israeli Defense Forces in Gaza and
Lebanon, coalition forces in eastern Ukraine, and the experiences of
allies and partners in Mali, Libya, and across the East and South China
Seas, we are modernizing our infantry battalions and traditional
reconnaissance units to create more distributable formations with much
greater organic lethality in accordance with units traditionally
associated with special forces and commando units. To support such a
transition, we will need to fill our ranks with the highest-caliber
individuals capable of out-thinking sophisticated enemies. Our current
manpower system was designed in the industrial era to produce mass. War
still has a physical component, and all marines need to be screened and
ready to fight. However, we have not adapted to the needs of the
current battlefield.
With this in mind, I am glad to bring to the Committee's attention
two initiatives designed to address this evolving manpower landscape.
The first is the planning direction I gave to our new Deputy Commandant
for Manpower & Reserve Affairs. The essential element of that guidance
is to transition the Marine Corps' approach to human resources from an
industrial age manpower approach to a modern talent management system.
This effort is just beginning. As we learn more, I look forward to
updating you and your colleagues across Congress.
The second initiative involves how we approach training and
education. Here we face a requirement to reform and re-invigorate our
approaches to learning. The Marine Corps has always prided itself on
producing innovative and adaptable thinkers, planners, and warfighters.
This does not occur automatically or by chance, however. Rather, it
results from regular re-evaluation and reform of training and education
institutions, personnel, and curricula to ensure they remain at the
cutting edge of military thought and learning technique. We have
recently published our first top-level doctrinal publication since
1995, and not coincidentally, it is about Learning. Based on the
thinking contained in this document we are taking a hard look at the
selection and standards governing entry into our professional military
education schools, the quality and qualifications of the faculty who
teach there, the curriculum they teach, and the learning approaches
they use. A major emphasis of this review focuses on the expansion of
active adult learning techniques and the provision of as many
opportunities as possible for students to make tactical and operational
decisions in environments that realistically approximate those they may
face in today's rapidly changing world. Among other elements, this
approach implies a greatly increased focused on the use of wargames and
other decision-forcing tools in the classroom. In our service-level
training events, a similar focus on requiring marines at all levels to
make decisions in the face of thinking enemies in conditions as close
to those of combat as we can safely manage. We have been running these
large force-on-force exercises for over a year now with great success,
and are considering options for broadening them further, to include
integration with existing Joint exercise and training programs.
These major initiatives merely scratch the surface of the changes
we will need to make in our training programs--all of these changes
will generally point in the direction of producing more highly
qualified individual marines with a range of more diverse skillsets.
From the skills our infantrymen will need to ensure their lethality and
survivability on a more distributed battlefield, through the expanded
capabilities for information operations our force design demands at a
number of levels, to the entirely new (for us) skillsets associated
with the employment of anti-ship missiles and other forces in seamless
integration with the ships and aircraft of the Navy, our training
institutions will need to branch out and step up in a number of very
critical and consequential areas. My recent decision to elevate our
Training and Education Command to three-star level, making its
commanding general a full peer to my Deputy Commandants overseeing
other critical functions within the Service headquarters, is by no
means a full solution to the challenges of change in training and
education, but it does symbolize my determination to effect that change
and place the immediate authority and responsibility for it in the
hands of an officer I know will rise to the challenge.
Finally, let me address Dr. Betts' third question--of what. While I
have already commented on the current and future readiness of our naval
expeditionary forces, we must not forget the total force--specifically
the readiness of our reserve component forces. Discussions on the
readiness of the Marine Corps are incomplete without a conversation
about our reserves--a force we utilize as both an operational and
strategic reserve. As with the rest of our force,we are in the process
of reconceiving and redesigning the reserve portion of our total force.
This process is ongoing, and has not yet matured to a point where I
could provide significant detail to the Subcommittee; however, I remain
committed to doing so once the latest force design planning is
complete.
logistics, infrastructure, and training range readiness
As has been documented via a series of war games over the last few
years, the operational logistics system, both ground and aviation is
insufficient to meet the challenges posed by peer/near-peer conflict
especially in the Indo-Pacific where significant distances complicate
sustainment of a deployed force.
While we are making some gains in maintaining legacy equipment and
aircraft readiness, it is clear to me that this will lead us on a road
to irrelevancy against peer/near peer threats. Readiness is not about
availability of equipment; rather, it is about our ability to persist
and prevail against peer/near peer threats. The readiness assessments
of today are more about our ability to source forces against Combatant
Commander requirements. This is an argument about what we can do vice
what we should do. Vice the linear path of today, we must develop new
readiness metrics that incorporate numerous additional factors to
facilitate assessing the service's readiness glide slope into the
future. To those who say we must focus on our ability to fight tonight
vice an uncertain future, I say you are presenting a false dichotomy.
We must focus on and assess our ability to fight tonight, every night,
in perpetuity.
Many across the joint force are working to overcome these
challenges; however, there is much to be done and time is not on our
side. While that is ongoing, my focus is on how to most effectively
connect the Fleet Marine Force with my partners in the Navy to the
evolving Joint Logistics Enterprise. The distributed battlefields of
today strain our systems to the limits. This will only get worse
considering the dynamic, evolving threats that could be arrayed against
us unless we take action. I can assure you this has my highest
priority.
At present our installations are more of an indication of where we
have been as a service than where we are headed. Just as the Fleet
Marine Force (FMF) is evolving, we must challenge our assumptions
concerning how we deliver installation management and support. We
execute these critical tasks as part of a complex network of local,
state and national governments not to mention our partners in the Navy
and the remainder of the Joint Force. The more we understand our place
in that system and how we can influence the important players, the
better our regions, bases and stations will be positioned to facilitate
the readiness of the FMF both now and into the future. As there is no
one size fits all option, we will have to be comfortable adapting
enterprise solutions to local conditions. As a result of the rising
peer and near peer threats that have several of our bases and stations
inside the Weapons Engagement Zone, the service's efforts to protect
the force will be far more significant than they have been in the past,
requiring greater partnerships with the Navy and the Joint Force.
Based on anticipated funding levels and the additional budget
uncertainty introduced by the COVID-19 response, there will be no risk
free options. Our force design efforts for the future provide the
necessary context to make the difficult choices about the present for
our installations as well as help us to prioritize installation related
funding for the future. We can no longer accept the inefficiencies
inherent in antiquated legacy bureaucratic processes nor accept
incremental improvements in our regions, bases and stations. In order
for our installations to change effectively, we must more fully
understand the implications that Force Design 2030 will have on the FMF
across multiple time horizons so our future installations can be
resourced to meet those objectives. In coordination with partners both
inside and outside the service, we will evolve our regions, bases and
stations to meet the readiness requirements in the air, on land and at
sea of the future force while continuing to provide world-class support
to the force today.
posture
While some use the word posture simply to describe geographic
location, it is more helpful if understood in the broader context of
forces, footprints, and agreements. At present, we are in operationally
suitable locations across the Indo-Pacific. Okinawa, Guam, Hawaii and
Australia provide our forward deployed forces with a competitive
advantage, and our forces afloat are capable of global response.
However, the success of our future force will be measured in part by
its ability to remain mobile in the face of contested operating spaces.
While this capability is certainly relevant across multiple scenarios,
it assumes a particular sense of urgency in the littoral regions of the
Indo-Pacific and in an era of precision-strike missiles, sensing
technology, counter reconnaissance capabilities, and the proliferation
of unmanned systems. This makes it imperative that we redouble our
engagement with capable allies such as the Japan Self-Defense Force and
the Australian Defence Force, to refine how and where we work together
to confront the shared security threats posed by China, Russia, DPRK,
and others. Similarly, we remain committed to a rotational presence in
places like Alaska even as we continue to explore opportunities to
establish a more permanent forward presence such as with a potential
active or reserve component Group 5 UAS DET. Meanwhile, extensive
training and exercises will continue in Norway and with other European
partners.
resources and resource shortfalls
As I have previously discussed with each of you and stated publicly
in my Force Design 2030 Report, I think I have sufficient resources
available to generate the ready forces required by the NDS, the Fleet
Commanders, the Combatant Commanders, and as expected by our partners
and allies. This will require continued Congressional support and
ultimately Congressional authorization to re-scope existing programs-
of-record in accordance with our new force structure. I choose the word
``think'' vice ``know'' simply because our infrastructure, training,
and education requirements may require additional funding, but I am not
prepared to speak with precision regarding those resource needs at this
time. Additional funding for experimentation would accelerate the
development of our future force, and allow for accelerated wargaming,
experimentation, and learning. The future Marine Corps requires heavy-
lift helicopters, protected mobility, and 5th generation aircraft--but
we need the flexibility to adjust programs of record to match the
design of our future force. As two of these programs fall within the
category of ``blue dollars,'' savings reaped from those could
potentially be applied to existing and anticipated shortfalls within
the SCN account to fund the procurement of new light amphibious
warships and unmanned systems or to fund MQ-9B maritime Group 5
capabilities--all of which have the Secretary's and CNO's support.
technology and innovation
We face tremendous challenges in fielding new capabilities quickly
and at scale; I would like to partner with Congress to identify the
resources necessary to make serious investments to rapidly close the
military-technological gap. To be clear, it is not just a matter of a
straight budget plus up. It is about creating the multi-dimensional
structures, the cross-functional partnerships, and the innovative
culture that can leverage the new technologies to transform how the
marines operate. We just need to be smarter about how we invest the
money we have. We need to be able to procure an adequate number of new
systems to enable robust field experimentation, which supports further
concept development, and allows for further refinement of requirements
before moving to full-scale production/employment. Our existing
institutions dedicated to these functions, to include the wargaming and
analysis capacity that precedes and guides any effective
experimentation, may not be adequate to the demands of rapid and
thoroughgoing change that we now face. They are an essential
contributor to readiness as I have defined it here, and increasing
their capability and capacity will not be without cost.
We risk readiness when we follow antiquated processes that do not
keep pace with the compressed timeframe of the operating space created
by today's technology. To be most effective, the MLR must be built
around human-machine teaming, leveraging AI and unmanned systems to the
maximum extent possible. We have prioritized the related concept
development and wargaming to stay on track to deploy three MLR by 2027.
That being said, far more analysis and experimentation at scale will be
required so that this new, novel operational concept can be analyzed
and tested in realistic scenarios. We will need the support of Congress
to make adjustments to the MLR in stride as we incorporate lessons
learned, to include from the perspective of how the MLR supports the
Joint Force as well as its integration with allies and partners, such
as Japan's Amphibious Rapid Deployment Brigade.
How do we balance innovation and readiness? Precisely by developing
a clear sight picture, by collapsing the operating space between them
and by creating continuous on-ramp opportunities. To be competitive we
must be opportunistic, and to be opportunistic we must be agile enough
to course correct with speed and agility.
conclusion
While Force Design 2030 will continue to inform our divestment and
investment decisions going forward, we should view it as the first step
in a longer journey to address the evolving threats posed by near-peer
competitors, rogue regimes, and non-state actors. Risk is inherent when
you employ strategic shaping to implement priorities as described by
the NDS. Yet, through continued collaboration with your Committee and
with Congress as a whole, as well as with the other services and with
stakeholders from industry to academia, the marines are well positioned
to carry out a generational transformation. Over the next 2 years, I
intend to focus on Phase III of Force Design 2030--Experimentation.
Specifically, I will prioritize efforts to analyze, test, and stress
the systems, structures, and platforms required for Force Design 2030
implementation; to reform training and education to support the 21st
Century warfighter; and to overhaul our outdated personnel and
retention model to ensure we attract--and keep--the best marines our
nation has to offer.
In conclusion, the Members of this Subcommittee should remain
confident that their Marine Corps and Fleet Marine Forces remain ready
to respond to crisis globally or deploy in accordance with pre-planned
contingency timelines--today, and in response to any threat whether
from China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, or any other state or non-state
actor. In order to counter adversary maritime gray zone activities and
deter aggression by denial and detection, the Marine Corps must
modernize. This will require no additional top-line increase, but will
require authorization to modify current requirements and established
programs-of-record. I understand that this is not a small ask, and that
any such change could be perceived as ``a loss'' or signal a potential
decrease in funds or jobs in some of the states you represent. I
understand that I am asking you to potentially support a position
contrary to self-interest, and am prepared to do everything possible to
minimize the impacts of those required changes. While I have testified
specifically to Marine Corps readiness, we should not forget that your
Fleet Marine Forces remain part of a larger joint force; thus, any
discussion of readiness must be understood as a subset of that larger
readiness discussion. The Marine Corps and Navy are a team--and one
cannot be completely ready without the other.
Senator Sullivan. Well, thank you, General.
I will just begin. I appreciate the comments about my dad.
You know, I come from a family with a long tradition of naval
service. My dad accomplished a lot in his life, but his
proudest accomplishment, no doubt, was his service in the U.S.
Navy. His cousin, Bruce Wilhelm--he was a naval aviator, an
academy grad who won the distinguished Flying Cross during the
Cuban Missile Crisis. You can read about that. He was actually
highlighted in a movie. He was later killed in a training
accident. Finally, my dad's uncle, Tom Sullivan, was a
lieutenant in the Navy. He did three Murmansk runs during World
War II, some of the most dangerous service in the U.S. Navy
during the war.
I mention the Murmansk runs, and, General, as you know, it
is the 70th anniversary of the Chosin Reservoir battle right
now. A lot of Americans do not know a lot about that battle.
But I mention that because those are very important cold
weather operations that our Navy and Marine Corps did quite
well at a critical moment in history.
Mr. Secretary, perhaps you can begin by talking about the
Navy's upcoming Arctic strategy to get back to the roots
whether Murmansk operations or Chosin Reservoir type operations
were--we have a Navy and Marine Corps that can operate well and
protect America's strategic interests in some of the coldest
places in the world that are now increasingly becoming the
places where great power competition are going to be taking
place in the future.
Secretary Braithwaite. Mr. Chairman, I would be happy to.
As you know, I am a student of the Arctic, an advocate for
the Arctic. I first went to your great State as a U.S. Navy
pilot stationed in Adak, Alaska at the Naval Air Station and
flew anti-submarine warfare (ASW) missions throughout the
Arctic Circle.
Most recently, I was the United States Ambassador at the
Kingdom of Norway, and I spent most of my time above the Arctic
Circle right near Murmansk.
I have seen with my own eyes how the Arctic has changed in
those 35 years. Today it is navigable 365, and there are other
nations in the world that have recognized its importance to us.
It should be an alarm to all of Americans as an Arctic nation
that we should have a more formidable presence to ensure rule
of law and freedom of the seas in that part of the world.
Most recently the USS John McCain was doing just that, a
freedom of navigation exercise, near the Bay of Peter the Great
and was engaged by a more assertive Russian navy.
The United States Navy, the United States Marine Corps has
had a recommitment to the Arctic. We operate in the Arctic
today much more than we have historically although, as you
know, the Navy has operated consistently in the Arctic since
the inception of our submarine force. It is just that you
cannot see our vessels. Today we need that visible presence. As
the Chief of Naval Operations talked about just a few moments
ago, power projection, sea control, and the ability to ensure
to our partners and allies and to our own people that we, the
United States Navy, have that first and foremost in our minds.
We are about to release an Arctic strategy that you and I
talked about during our recent trip to Alaska and the
importance of how that blueprint will recommit ourselves in a
much more visible way to activities in the Arctic.
But we must recognize that if we do not step forward
quickly, those who have challenged us on the stage of great
power competition are there. I have seen it. Russia has re-
militarized the Arctic. China has recommitted itself to build
icebreakers to be able to move its product from its homeland to
Western markets in half the amount of time that it has
historically had to.
The United States Navy, the United States Marine Corps,
Senator, is committed to being present in the Arctic in a much
more visible way than we have historically been.
Senator Sullivan. Can I ask just two quick follow-ups maybe
for you and Admiral Gilday? The Russian exercise that I
mentioned--it did catch our fishing fleet by surprise. I know
that there has been an after-action. But you know, our fishing
fleet was ordered out of the exclusive economic zone (EEZ),
which of course is our EEZ where they fish. They should not be
ordered out of that by Russians. They were buzzed. They were
harassed.
What are we doing in terms of an after-action to make sure
that that does not happen again? Our fishing fleet--you know,
my State is what I call the super power of seafood. Actually
over 60 percent of all seafood harvested in America comes from
Alaska's waters. What are we doing to make sure that that does
not happen again?
Mr. Secretary, do you have any follow-up on the President's
memorandum on icebreakers and home-porting those in different
parts of the Arctic?
Secretary Braithwaite. Well, again, as I mentioned, the USS
John McCain was just recently in the Arctic to ensure freedom
of navigation, and I would invite the Chief of Naval Operations
to go into a little more detail.
Some of it, of course, is classified as you and I have
discussed, and the CNO and I would be happy to talk with you
privately at any time that would be convenient to you, Mr.
Chairman.
You may know that I recently went to Finland to see the
icebreakers in question that the President has directed us to
purchase. We are looking within the Department of the Navy of
how we can facilitate that. Part of commissioning those ships
means that they become United States naval vessels, and there
are requirements that we have to have U.S. naval personnel in
command of those vessels. So I have asked the CNO to look into
the process by which we can facilitate that.
You and I agree we need to build icebreakers. We cannot
build them as quickly as we need them. Today the Coast Guard
maintains two icebreakers, and that is all that we have.
Senator Sullivan. One is broken.
Secretary Braithwaite. Yes, sir. One is broken. We do need
icebreakers, and the Navy recognizes--it is not a mission that
is central to the United States Navy, but it is one that we
rely on the Coast Guard to provide. In this instance, per the
executive order, we are looking at ways to procure those.
CNO, do you have any thoughts you would like to offer?
Admiral Gilday. Thanks, Mr. Secretary.
Sir, in terms of the Navy's presence in the Arctic--the
Navy and the Marine Corps--I would say that over the past year,
we have done some 20 exercises in the high north. That ranges
from unilateral, joint exercises that the U.S. conducts alone,
some of it in the training range in Alaska, to bilateral
exercises with some of our closest allies and partners to
multilateral exercises. Now our operations above--in the high
north are not extraordinary, but they are beginning to become
part of our day-to-day business. I think that is directly tied
to the National Defense Strategy, the Chairman's role as the
global integrator to posture the globe against those primary
competitors, namely in this case, China and Russia that would
include the Arctic.
With respect to the incident that happened in late August,
I share your concern, Senator. I actually meet with the U.S.
Northern Command (NORTHCOM) Commander later on this week. I
know they are looking at what potentially happened with
communication breakdowns potentially to our fishermen, perhaps
miscommunication between agencies in the U.S. Government. But
U.S. fishermen should not feel threatened by another nation in
our own EEZ in terms of fishing. I think our continued presence
up there will have some blunting effect to that, but I think
perhaps more needs to be done, including through the Arctic
Council, to have honest discussions about it.
Senator Sullivan. Thank you, Admiral.
Senator Kaine?
Senator Kaine. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Secretary Braithwaite, I want to talk to you about the
announcements you have made today about the 1st Fleet and the
Atlantic Fleet. I will spend 1 minute on the 1st Fleet and then
minutes on the Atlantic Fleet.
The 1st Fleet, as I understand your announcement--it will
take the sizable real estate that is now covered by the Seventh
Fleet out of Japan and divide it into two fleets because of
increased activity at the seam between the Pacific and the
Indian Oceans. Do I understand that correctly?
Secretary Braithwaite. Yes, sir. That is exactly right.
Senator Kaine. This is something that you have worked out
with U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM), with the 7th Fleet, and you
are still making decisions about manpower, but it will likely
be an expeditionary fleet without, at least at the start, a
land-based headquarters (HQ). Is that correct?
Secretary Braithwaite. That is correct. Yes, Senator.
Senator Kaine. Thank you, and that is to emphasize the
growing importance of this region and the strategic alliances
that the United States has with nations like India and others
in the Quad in that part of the world.
Secretary Braithwaite. That is exactly right, Senator.
As you know--and you have traveled in that region--it is
vast, and for the 7th Fleet, which is home-ported in Japan,
although it is also a sea base, it has formidable challenges to
move all the way through the Western Pacific down through the
approaches of the Indian Ocean all the way over to the Northern
Arabian Gulf.
Senator Kaine. Let me move to the Atlantic Fleet question,
which affects Virginia significantly.
The Atlantic Fleet was the fleet headquartered in Norfolk
until I believe Secretary Rumsfeld during the war on terror
reconstituted the Atlantic Fleet as the Fleet Forces Command,
and it was not just a name change. There were some different
areas of focus.
Right before I came to the Senate in 2011, the 2nd Fleet,
which was based in Norfolk and provided coverage in the
Atlantic, was decommissioned because the United States
perceived that Russia would no longer be a naval threat.
Well, not so fast. In 2018, during my service on the
Committee, the Navy recommissioned the 2nd Fleet in Norfolk
because of the increased Russian threat in the Atlantic.
Your proposal today to reconstitute the Fleet Forces
Command, which was focused on the war on terror to the Atlantic
Fleet, as I understand it, is to recognize the reality of this
increased Russian presence and the fact that the great power
competition is now sort of the dominant concern of the National
Defense Strategy. Is that correct?
Secretary Braithwaite. That is correct, Senator.
Senator Kaine. Let me ask this. My folks in Hampton Roads
will wonder whether reconstituting Fleet Forces Command as the
Atlantic Fleet will cause them either to lose jobs or personnel
or investment levels in that region. Should they be worried
about that?
Secretary Braithwaite. No, Senator. There are no loss of
jobs. There is no loss of revenue to the Tidewater region.
Senator Kaine. I understand that you will be going to the
region to have discussions with folks in the area about this
proposal that you have announced today.
Secretary Braithwaite. I will. That is correct, Senator.
Senator Kaine. That is very helpful.
If I understand now with the structure that you are putting
on the table, the Pacific Fleet would have the 1st, 3rd, and
7th Fleets reporting through it. Correct?
Secretary Braithwaite. That is correct. Yes, sir.
Senator Kaine. You are contemplating that the 5th Fleet
would still report through CENTCOM?
Secretary Braithwaite. That is correct.
Senator Kaine. The Atlantic Fleet would have the 2nd and
4th Fleets reporting through it. Is that correct?
Secretary Braithwaite. That is correct, although we still
have----
Senator Kaine. You would suggest the 6th Fleet would be
reporting through United States Forces Europe?
Secretary Braithwaite. That is correct. Yes, Senator.
Senator Kaine. Because that fleet does so much in tandem
with NATO allies in that theater.
Secretary Braithwaite. That is correct.
Senator Kaine. Okay.
Let me ask now--I will move to one other topic and I will
save the others for a second round. Vaccine deployment.
Secretary Braithwaite. Yes.
Senator Kaine. We are grappling with a lot of vaccine
deployment issues nationally, but also it is very, very
critical that vaccine--thank goodness it is being developed
rapidly--that the vaccine be deployed rapidly in a way that
will keep our military forces active and healthy.
Talk a little bit about the DOD discussions about vaccine
deployment issues and how you are approaching it. Did you learn
things with respect to how you did testing, wide testing,
through the DOD family that have given you lessons about how to
do vaccine deployment and how to phase the deployment of
vaccines throughout the Navy and Marines?
Secretary Braithwaite. Yes, sir, Senator. I am extremely
proud of the Department of the Navy. Both the Marine Corps and
our Navy have done a phenomenal job in the aftermath of the
lessons we learned from USS Teddy Roosevelt. We are applying
some of those lessons in the testing, as you mentioned, to what
our rollout strategy will be around the vaccine. Of course,
some of those discussions are still going on with the Office of
the Secretary of Defense (OSD) team as we determine how quickly
we will get those vaccines, how quickly we will roll those out.
I know the CNO is in discussions with our Surgeon General to
how we will do that for the Navy, as well as the Commandant for
the Marine Corps.
I would invite the CNO if he had any thoughts on this
specifically to comment.
Admiral Gilday. Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
Sir, there are two related but separate plans that are in
development right now very closely with the the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The first one deals with
the distribution of vaccines, and so there are two that DOD is
looking at. One is Moderna and the other is Pfizer. As you
probably know, the Pfizer requires--Pfizer's are going to be
shipped in GPS-tracked coolers----
Senator Kaine. Separate refrigeration, yes.
Admiral Gilday. Right, and once it is thawed, it is good
for about 5 days.
The Pfizer medicine will be distributed here in CONUS at 10
different locations across the DOD. Every medical treatment
facility in the military will receive that vaccine. Then we
will also have three or four out-CONUS overseas locations that
will receive the Moderna vaccine, which is allowed to be
refrigerated for up to 30 days, and so you have a little bit
more flexibility.
The second piece of this is the vaccination plan itself.
And it is kind of tied to lessons learned from testing. We
actually developed a prioritization for testing. We were
building the airplane as we were flying it, as we were trying
to get testing capability out.
This time we have a better sense of what that
prioritization structure ought to look like. At the top are
health care workers and then emergency and safety personnel at
our installations, those people who are likely to come in
contact with people that are infected, and then our strategic
forces. I think maybe your cyber mission forces, the crews on
strategic missile submarines, and then the forces that will
deploy within the next 3 months.
We have a good count of what those numbers are, and if
there is anything we are really good at, it is mass
immunization in the U.S. military. We feel pretty confident,
sir, that once we get the vaccine distributed, that the
vaccination piece, now that we have the prioritization well
thought out, will happen pretty quickly.
Senator Kaine. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Senator Sullivan. Senator Shaheen?
Senator Shaheen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you to each of you for being here this morning
and for your service.
Secretary Braithwaite, I want to follow up on the
conversation you and Senator Sullivan were having about the
importance of being able to operate in cold climates and the
importance of the Arctic going forward because in New
Hampshire, we have the U.S. Army's Cold Regions Research and
Engineering Lab. They do amazing research, and I wondered to
what extent you share that kind of research across branches. Do
you get information from the Army about research that is being
done at CRREL that would be helpful to the Navy?
Secretary Braithwaite. We do. Of course, under a new joint
approach, the service secretaries and I--we talk. The service
chiefs talk all the time. Our respective research arms have
exchange and interplay as well.
Senator Shaheen. Admiral Gilday, I appreciated your
comments on the importance of our civilian workers especially
at our shipyards. We have had the opportunity to visit the
Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, and everyone appreciated that.
I am very interested in ensuring that the shipyard
optimization plan goes forward as envisioned. Are you
comfortable that the resources are going to be there to keep
that plan on time? What has been the impact, if any, of COVID-
19?
Admiral Gilday. With respect to the plan, ma'am, it has
been a priority of the Department and certainly the Secretary
since he has been in the seat.
I will tell you, in terms of putting our money where our
mouth is, right now across the four public yards, we have nine
MILCON projects that are underway, so four of those are up at
Portsmouth. There is a couple in Puget Sound and a couple more
in Hawaii and so forth. But those are progressing on track and
funded.
Across the FYDP, we have outlaid $3.5 billion, which is not
a trivial amount given the fact that--this is for Shipyard
Infrastructure and Optimization Program (SIOP)--given the fact
that our typical MILCON budget a year is about a billion. So
$3.5 billion over the Future Year Defense Program (FYDP), and
that is progressing pretty well with respect to the work and
the planning associated with it. There is a big project in
Hawaii that we just made congressional notification on a week
ago. I am confident that we are heading in the right direction,
that is, the right degree of prioritization and resources
against the plan, ma'am.
With respect to workforce itself, so the workforce, as you
know, is an older workforce. We were very conservative,
particularly in the spring, and we wanted to make sure that
safety was our number one priority. And so we did see probably
with respect to production--we saw a dip in our production
capability at the public yards with respect to the work that
was being done. It went down to the 70s with respect to 70
percent of the workforce on the job every day. That is now back
at 90 percent.
When we look at lost man-days with respect to that time
period, it is about 2 percent of the man-days across the four
yards that we would expect to complete a year.
We have mitigation efforts in place. That includes
overtime, which buys us back 2 or 3 percent. Contracting, so
going to local contractors outside of those public yards that
can do some of that work for us. Also, we have mobilized about
1,300 reservists that have unique skill sets that we could
bring into the yard.
The mitigation plan, again safety first, and right now we
are watching it very closely. But I think that we are stable
right now. I would describe our repair efforts in the public
yards as stable. I am very comfortable with where we are.
Senator Shaheen. Do you expect to be delayed in terms of
where we had hoped to be with the optimization plan as the
result of COVID?
Admiral Gilday. I have not seen any delays to military
construction (MILCON) projects as a result of COVID. I am sure
there have been some slight delays but nothing that has popped
a red flag at my level to raise significant concern.
Senator Shaheen. Good. Thank you.
Also, this is I think both for you, Admiral, and for the
Secretary. One of the challenges that we have is our shrinking
industrial base as we look at the needs going forward. I assume
that COVID is going to have an impact on that. I know we have
small businesses in New Hampshire that are part of our defense
industrial base in the State that are facing real challenges as
the result of this pandemic.
Are you concerned about the impact of the pandemic on more
of those businesses that we are going to rely on for our
industrial base? Do you have any thoughts about how we can do
more to ensure that we have the support that we need through
the industrial base?
Secretary Braithwaite. Senator, as I mentioned to you, you
know, I am a product of Philadelphia and the shipyard closure
there and what a negative impact that it has had not just on
the greater Philadelphia region but on our industrial base writ
large across our country. We need to protect every shipyard we
have. The Chinese, ma'am, have 25 shipyards to our one, and I
am a student of history. When you go back and you see the
element that kept the United States capable during World War
II, it was our industrial might. It was our ability to build
back the ships that we were losing. We need to maintain the
sacred industrial base that we have today.
I would give kudos to our Assistant Secretary of Defense,
Jim Geurts, who has done an incredible job of crafting a plan
to look to those second and third tier suppliers to ensure that
there is consistency in getting the product into the yards. As
the CNO has indicated, our shipyard workers, both in our public
yards and in our private yards, have done an amazing job of
continuing to be there engaged through the fact that they are
dealing with antiquated systems, they are dealing with older
ships that require more work, and especially in the midst of a
global pandemic. They have done a phenomenal job. As the CNO
has indicated, we really have not missed a beat. We will have
some slowdowns I am sure, and the CNO can go into some more
detail on that. But overall I believe that the Department of
the Navy has a great record under the leadership of Jim Geurts
of doing the work to ensure that we have consistency to those
yards.
Admiral Gilday. Thank you, sir.
Just a couple of comments to amplify some things that the
Secretary said.
I think that the apprenticeship programs that we have that
are associated with each of our shipyards and local community
colleges, whether it is Hawaii or Washington or New Hampshire
or Virginia, have been phenomenal. Those 4-year programs that
produce some of the best and brightest in the yards that
hopefully we can keep around for 30 years, because it is a
family business in many cases--it is eye-watering to meet those
young people. Actually they are not just young people. They are
people from all walks of life, and some of them are middle-aged
that just have decided that they want to give more back to the
country.
But that program collectively produces about 1,000 workers
a year, and over the past 3 years, we have increased the number
of shipyard workers from about 33,000 to almost 37,000. We have
been on the increase, and we are changing that demographic. As
you know, there are either young people in the shipyard or
there is older people in the shipyard, but we missed a
generation, and so we are trying to rebuild.
I am very optimistic about where we are headed with the
workforce. When you visit those shipyards--and I know that you
do--it is an uplifting experience when you meet those people,
salt of the earth, and they love what they are doing.
With respect to the supply chain, that remains a concern
for us. Senator Kaine mentioned this during his opening
remarks. With respect to opportunities that we have seen during
COVID, the relationship that we have, the opaqueness that has
dissolved with vendors during COVID, has been something that I
have not seen in my career. Again, as the Secretary said,
Assistant Secretary Geurts can speak to this in more detail.
But we have our eye on more than a quarter of a million parts,
and you know, it only takes one to take down a ship or an
aircraft or a submarine. But we have our eye on those vendors
that are struggling and other vendors that have stepped up to
fill the gap in places. We have seen a bit of both. We have
seen some failures that have been troubling. We have also seen
some great innovation.
Senator Shaheen. Well, thank you. Certainly ensuring that
those businesses get paid as expeditiously as possible is
really important right now. I know that that has been a focus
of DOD, so thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Sullivan. Gentlemen, I am going to have to step out
for a brief minute. Senator Kaine will be taking over, but I am
sure we are going to have a number of additional questions. We
have a number of Senators on the line as well. I am going to
next call on Senator Hirono.
Senator Hirono. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and before you
leave, I would like to also extend my condolences to you for
the loss of your dad.
Senator Sullivan. Thank you.
Senator Hirono. Mr. Secretary, you were talking a bit about
the Arctic. This will be a yes or no question. Is it time for
the United States to ratify or the Senate to ratify United
Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), Mr.
Secretary?
Secretary Braithwaite. Senator, I think we need to do some
more work to make sure that it is the right time, to be very
honest with you.
Senator Hirono. UNCLOS has been hanging around for decades,
and I would say it is the right time, especially as I think our
country is disadvantaged by not being part of UNCLOS especially
as the Arctic is seeing a lot more activity, shall we say. I
think one of the reasons that the Arctic has become navigable
is because of global warming.
For General Berger, I would like to offer my condolences,
General, for the eight marines and one sailor who tragically
perished in an amphibious assault vehicle (AAV) accident at the
end of July. I realize that the investigation is occurring. Can
you tell me when the investigation into this accident will be
completed?
General Berger. The initial portion of the investigation is
done, ma'am. I think probably within 30 days the endorsement
chain will be complete.
Senator Hirono. Since the initial phase has been done, can
you tell us what led to this accident very briefly?
General Berger. I cannot, ma'am, because I have not seen
the investigation. As long as it remains in the endorsement
chain, in respect of the due process, I do not poke into that.
As you are well aware, ma'am, we took initial measures
within the first 30 days, but as far as the final
recommendations, the final opinions and recommendations, I have
not seen them yet.
Senator Hirono. I know the vehicle that was involved in the
accident is to be replaced by the amphibious combat vehicle
(ACV). We probably would need to get some kind of an update on
how all of that is going.
Mr. Secretary, I do not want to get into a long discussion
with you, but it came as news to me that I thought I heard you
say that you are taking some ships from the 7th Fleet based in
Japan to be located in the Indian Ocean. Is that what you said?
This is a proposal or is it already being implemented?
Secretary Braithwaite. No, Senator. That is not what I
said.
We are going to re-commission the 1st Fleet, which like the
7th Fleet would operate in the greater Pacific region under the
command and control of the United States Pacific Fleet
headquartered in Hawaii. It would not necessarily take ships
from the 7th Fleet or from the 3rd Fleet. It would be a
sharing. That is how our numbered fleets operate predicated on
the demand and the threat that emanates in the part of the
ocean in which those respective fleets operate.
The 1st Fleet would be expeditionary. We are still
determining from where that fleet would operate from. But its
major focus would be on the Western Pacific and the Eastern
Indian Ocean.
Senator Hirono. Mr. Secretary, is this the proposal or has
the decision already been made to do this?
Secretary Braithwaite. The decision has been made, yes,
under my Title----
Senator Hirono. Did I hear you say that this was in
consultation with INDOPACOM people?
Secretary Braithwaite. It is in consultation with INDOPACOM
through the Chairman's office and the Office of the Secretary
of Defense.
Senator Hirono. Thank you.
Now, you were asked some questions about the importance of
the continuation of the modernization program at the shipyards,
and so I just want to reiterate my support of the importance of
going ahead with those plans even though I know with COVID we
have had delays, et cetera because of manpower issues relating
to COVID.
Let me turn to you once again. You visited Palau which was
I think--I think that was very important. You were the first, I
believe, Secretary of the Navy to visit Palau in October. You
emphasized the importance of United States military presence in
the Indo-Pacific as, of course, China continues its
destabilizing activities in the area. So the recent activation
of the Marine Corps? Camp Blaz in Guam is also an important
part of the military's force laydown in this region.
I wanted to ask you, can you provide some insight into how
the U.S. and Palau can build on our partnership with Palau
through joint use facilities in the Pacific? Because I believe
the new President of Palau has written to us saying that he
would welcome that kind of effort.
Secretary Braithwaite. Yes, Senator. Thank you for the
question.
I had never been to Palau before.
Senator Hirono. Oh, I am sorry.
Secretary Braithwaite. No, no. I went as Secretary of the
Navy. It is a beautiful country. I had never been there before.
I was a Navy pilot and I flew extensively throughout the
Western Pacific, but I had never been to the beautiful islands
of Palau, and what a gorgeous country it is.
The thing that struck me--I went in the wake of Secretary
Esper. He and I had discussed the opportunity to not only
reassure those who are partners and allies like Palau, who is
on the cutting edge, the tip of the spear of Chinese aggression
in that part of the world----
Senator Hirono. Yes.
Mr. Braithwaite.--that we are with them.
I personally went with members of my team to look at the
infrastructure there to see how we could support U.S. naval
vessels operating periodically from there.
During my trip, I also visited Guam, Senator, and the same
reasons to see how we could ensure a more forward presence of
naval forces and enhance our presence there.
That process is ongoing. Palau continues, as you have said,
to be receptive to receiving more U.S. naval vessels. While I
was there, we had some operating in the region. I was able to
interact with them, and the support that they received was
again indicative of Pacific island nations.
Also, as I think through the uniqueness of Palau, they are
COVID-free, Senator, and one of the things that we are dealing
with now is our sailors, our marines have been deployed on
ships without any port visits. You know, it was kind of one of
those additional bonuses of my trip by Palau where we have
forces operating at sea who are COVID-free. It would be almost
bubble to bubble to be able to see our ships go into Palau.
All of those things indicate that Palau is a nation that we
need to continue to support and recognize their partnerships,
their friendships with us and how we can enhance that.
Senator Hirono. Yes. I hope that we can do more with all of
our compact nations. That would include Palau, the Marshall
Islands, and the Commonwealth of Micronesia.
So yes? Is my time being called?
Senator Kaine [presiding]. I need to move to Senator
Duckworth, Senator.
Senator Hirono. Okay. Thank you so much.
Senator Kaine. Thank you, Senator Hirono.
Senator Hirono. I will submit other questions for the
record.
Senator Kaine. Senator Duckworth I believe is with us via
Webex.
Senator Duckworth. Yes. Thank you so much, Senator Kaine.
I want to open by acknowledging the Department of the
Navy's leadership in removing the Confederate flag from Navy
and Marine Corps installations. Commandant Berger, you
specifically led the way for other military services in a move
that I felt displayed great concern for all of your marines and
sailors and great personal moral courage. Your expectation that
the marines and sailors assist you in rooting out symbols that
cause division in the ranks sets a clear standard of
leadership, and this is a readiness issue and I think you have
made that very clear.
Additionally, your recognition that the Confederate arm's
battle flag can cause feelings of--and I quote--pain and
rejection clearly states a truth that other senior leaders have
failed to acknowledge for so long. The Confederate flag was
carried by those who took up arms against the United States to
keep black Americans in chains. It is imperative that all of
our servicemembers feel welcomed and valued. Banning displays
of the Confederate flag shows respect for black servicemembers
who already face well documented barriers to service in the
military and inclusion in the ranks.
Commandant, your actions represent one of the many
important steps that our armed services can take to improve the
inclusion of all servicemembers, as well as discipline and unit
cohesion. I applaud your leadership.
I also applaud you, Admiral Gilday, for your subsequent
call for a Navy order banning the display of the Confederate
flag from public spaces aboard Navy installations.
Now that we get into my question, I actually want to focus
on a region that is personally important to me, Southeast Asia
in particular. The National Defense Strategy, the NDS, focuses
significant attention on countering the rise of China and our
own readiness to operate in this large, geographically diverse,
distributed and maritime region is absolutely key to executing
the vision that is laid out in the NDS.
General Berger, I was pleased to see your acknowledgement
in your written statement that our operational logistics
system, both ground and aviation, is insufficient to meet the
challenges posed by peer and near-peer conflict especially in
the Indo-Pacific. I am very concerned about our ability to
sustain our troops while they execute the vision of warfighting
that is laid out in the NDS, but the logistics function of
warfighting receives far less attention than fires and
maneuver. Your admission that the Marine Corps has work to do
when it comes to logistics gives me greater confidence that you
are thinking realistically about this problem set.
I think that your recognition of readiness, particularly in
the Indo-Pacific, implies more than simply maintaining legacy
equipment is a really important one. Our services plan to
operate in smaller and more distributed formation across a
large and geopolitically complex region, perhaps with limited
COMs, it is clear that the military services will have to
rethink the way they sustain warfighters in theater.
General Berger, from your perspective what are the biggest
challenges to reforming the Marine Corps' current operational
logistics [inaudible] to meet the needs of distributed
[inaudible]? Sorry for the long [inaudible].
General Berger. I think I understand the question, Senator.
We have a big challenge because of two factors I think. One
is the distances, which you highlighted. The second is that we
have enjoyed a protected back side in terms of our logistics
chains for 70 years. We have not been challenged. We are now.
We have to assume that any adversary is going to contest our
logistics supply chains.
In terms of what do we have to do about it, I will offer
just two or three thoughts.
First of all, we got to be able to distribute laterally at
the tactical to operational level, sustainment, supplies,
equipment, people in a way we have not been challenged to do in
the past, and we got to do it, again, in a contested
environment. By contested, I mean in a region where an
adversary can see us and can interdict you. We have to have
everything from the surface craft to the aircraft and probably
in the future I would suspect a fair portion of that would be
in unmanned. We have to have better distribution mechanisms
than we have right now.
From the operational to strategic, we have enjoyed a secure
line all the way back to the continental United States (CONUS),
as you pointed out for years. It has not been challenged. That
is now becoming a problem. From the strategic to the
operational, we got to push the supplies forward, and then
operationally at the tactical laterally, we are going to need
different means to move supplies and equipment and people
laterally within the second or first island chain or within
Europe or within U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM).
Senator Duckworth. Well, thank you.
Are there policies or programs that my colleagues and I
should be considering at our level to address these challenges
and better adapt to an environment and style of warfighting
that is very different from what we have seen in Afghanistan
and Iraq? So what can we do here at our level here in the
Senate in terms of particular programs that will help you
basically bring your readiness level in those logistical
networks, especially when you are talking about doing it
horizontally in a contested environment? What can we do to
support you? Are there particular programs that you would
emphasize?
General Berger. There are, ma'am. I think the combination
of oversight and resourcing for our unmanned surface and aerial
systems is probably the biggest area. I am sure there are
others. But you asked me here, I would say that one comes to
mind. We have to move very quickly to develop and field the
unmanned surface vessels and unmanned aerial systems that will
move those supplies because we will never get there if we rely
only on manned systems.
We have a lot of learning to do there. We have a lot of
experimentation to do there. But if there is one area I would
ask for support there, that would be it.
Senator Duckworth. Thank you.
Admiral Gilday. As the CNO, can I add----
Senator Kaine. Admiral Gilday, do you want to weigh in?
Admiral Gilday, you can weigh in and then I will move to
Senator Jones, if that is okay, Senator Duckworth.
Senator Duckworth. Yes. My next question was actually going
to be to ask Admiral Gilday for his input. Thank you.
Admiral Gilday. Thank you, ma'am. I appreciate the
opportunity to amplify on what General Berger so eloquently
spoke to.
We have a legislative proposal right now in consideration
by--in conference with the National Defense Authorization Act
(NDAA) that would allow the Navy to buy used sealift vessels
instead of investing in new sealift vessels to increase the
number of used vessels that we can buy. As you know, that is a
growing capability gap for us, as you highlighted, and we need
to close it quickly. We can do so at a tenth of the cost by--we
have already done the market analysis. We know which ships we
would go after at a tenth of the cost of buying new. For $30
million instead of $300 million with a minor upgrade in a U.S.
shipyard, we will have the sealift that we need to move ground
forces where they need to be in order to bring effects to bear.
The other thing I would mention is the Future Naval Force
Study Assessment that was completed recently and will be
briefed to staff up here on the Hill tomorrow. One of the big
takeaways I think are logistics vessels, and the numbers
increase significantly with respect to the requirement. I think
it is noteworthy and something that we at the Department need
to put a higher priority on with respect to procurement.
Thank you, ma'am.
Senator Duckworth. Thank you. [Inaudible] we do not have
enough hulls in the water nor heavy lift capabilities, and that
is it. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Kaine. Senator Jones?
Senator Jones. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Let me first--I want to echo Senator Duckworth's comments
about the removal of the Confederate battle flag and those
symbols. In my career, I have seen, especially coming from a
State like Alabama, words matter. Symbols matter. They can have
deadly consequences on occasion, so I appreciate your efforts
without an act of Congress to remove those symbols.
I want to talk just a moment about readiness in a different
way, not from adversaries attacking or whatever, but from
security on our own installations here in the United States on
our soil. One year ago this coming Sunday, there was a shooter,
a terrorist attack at the Naval Air Station in Pensacola,
Florida. I met a few months ago with Ben Watson and his son
Adam to talk about their terrorist attack.
Ben's son, Ensign Kaleb Watson, was the officer on deck
that morning and was one of the first people the shooter
encountered. Though he had been a captain of the rifle team at
the Naval Academy, per installation rules Kaleb did not have a
weapon that day. He and two other young men, Airman Mo Haitham
from Florida and Airman Apprentice Cameron Walters of Georgia,
died that day. Ben and his wife Sheila wanted to be here today
but were unable to because of COVID restrictions, but they are
watching in Alabama. I believe and Kaleb's family believes that
things could have been different that day in December of 2019.
Things should have been different.
Secretary Braithwaite, you and I have talked about this
some. For one thing, the law enforcement officer who drove
Kaleb to the hospital with his injuries got lost on the base.
That just should not happen.
Now, my office has been asking the Navy since April 6th
about its investigation report. We finally got that last week,
a week and a half ago, a redacted version. And one of the
things that was clear, even before the report came out, is this
has happened too many times on our military installations. Too
many American troops have lost their lives to shooters on U.S.
military bases on U.S. soil. As someone in the Senate like
Senator Kaine and others who send folks to the academies and
they are going to be on these bases, as someone who encourages
our young men and women to join the armed forces to serve their
country, that is disturbing that we are putting them in harm's
way at a place where they should be most secure.
There have been investigation reports about all of those
instances and shootings, and there have been recommendations.
What we see from the Pensacola report is that many of those are
just not being followed, especially with regard to planning,
training, and assessment of response plans for situations just
like this. I for one believe that is inexcusable.
Ben and Sheila Watson are watching today from Alabama, and
they have made it their mission to do everything they can to
prevent losing more of our sons and daughters. I tried to help
in my time here on the Armed Services Committee.
I asked for the Committee to include in the Senate version
of the NDAA language that would require the Secretary of
Defense to implement within 90 days of all applicable
security--emergency response recommendations to protect
military installations and language requiring the Secretary of
Defense to ensure that each installation conducts or develops a
plan to conduct live emergency response training with first
responders. I very much hope that those requirements make it
into the final bill that we are going to see shortly.
I am going to ask each of you today--and this is just brief
answers because I have got a couple more I would like to ask--
can you tell me that it is currently a priority--currently a
priority--to make absolutely certain that on every Navy and
Marine Corps installation, that all applicable security
recommendations and regulations have or will be implemented and
followed? If that is not a priority, would you commit to making
one? Secretary Braithwaite?
Secretary Braithwaite. Senator, first and foremost, Kaleb
is a hero. I was in Pensacola 2 weeks ago with the leadership
there, and I was in the very place where Kaleb was shot. I
cannot imagine the anguish that his family, being a father
myself, must feel.
In 31 years in uniform of our country as a naval officer,
every time I went aboard a base, I always felt safer because I
presented my identification card. Although there is no easy
answer to this, we are committed to ensuring that we get to the
root problem of all of these. In some instances, it is because
people do have guns on our installations. In other instances,
it is because people do not have weapons on our installations.
We are working diligently to figure out the right approach
to this so a hero like Kaleb Watson never loses his life.
Senator Jones. I will come back to the other two real
quick, but I want to follow up on the comment about the
weapons.
One of the recommendations is that there be a uniform
policy with regard to weapons on there. Is that something that
you intend to try to follow to develop a uniform policy of
weapons on base?
Secretary Braithwaite. Well, the uniform policy--I mean, we
are one Department of the Navy, and it should be uniform. But
remember, the shooting in Pearl Harbor was just the opposite.
It is because the individual who was on duty had a weapon and
used that weapon to attack others with it. Again, there is not
an easy answer to say one or the other.
What we are committed to is ensuring that those people who
are armed are appropriately trained, that there is the cross-
integration both on base and off base so what happened in
Escambia County does not happen again on any other base. That
is what we are committed to do.
Senator Jones. Mr. Chairman, if you could bear with me, I
would like to just get a quick answer from Admiral Gilday and
General Berger on the question about a commitment to the
security of those installations and following those
recommendations. Admiral?
Senator Sullivan [presiding]. Sure.
Admiral Gilday. First of all, Senator, I completely agree
with you that the incident was inexcusable.
Secondly, taking a deeper look at this, besides as you
mentioned the memorandums of understanding (MOUs) that we are
looking at and the training that we are doing with first
responders at all our installations now that we had not been
doing to the degree we should have been doing is underway
regardless of whether any legislation comes out.
The third thing is I commit to you, sir, that this is a
priority for the Navy.
Senator Jones. Thank you.
General Berger?
General Berger. Senator, I can affirm the same. It is a
priority right now. It will remain a priority.
Senator Jones. Thank you all.
Mr. Chairman, let me say, first of all, it has been an
honor serving on this Committee for the last 2 years with both
of you and all the other Members of this Subcommittee, as well
as the general committee. I will miss it, but I know the work
is in good hands.
Mr. Chairman, let me say to you specifically, let me also
offer my condolences. I lost my dad about 11 months ago. He was
also a Navy guy, so I feel the pain and I feel the loss, and it
can never be replaced.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Sullivan. Thank you, Senator Jones. Thanks for your
kind words.
Thanks for your great service on this Committee. You know,
I think the witnesses know there are certain Senators who dig
into these issues, really care. The issues of civilian
oversight for our military are critical, and you certainly have
been one of those and we appreciate your service. We know that
you have a lot left in terms of giving to your country and your
State. Thanks very much for your great service on this
Committee.
Gentlemen, I would like to continue with a second round of
questioning. General Berger, I would like to dive in a little
bit more with regard to the Force Design 2030 plans that you
have put forward that I highlighted in my opening remarks. To
be respectful and also to give you an opportunity, as you
know--and I think this happens anytime someone is trying to
break glass in terms of a broad-based strategy that recognizes
challenges that are new and very significant. I happen to agree
wholeheartedly with the National Defense Strategy and the
National Security Strategy of this administration. I think one
of the unwritten stories in the media is how bipartisan the
support is for that strategy. But then the services now have to
start implementing it, and I think that is always a difficult
challenge.
I think the Marine Corps, under your leadership, has really
taken that to heart, and I happen to appreciate it. But it is
not, as I mentioned in my opening remarks, without its critics.
I am going to read just a couple lines from a detailed piece in
``the National Interest'' from former Secretary of the Navy Jim
Webb, who has a lot of respect in the Marine Corps, of course,
as a combat veteran from Vietnam. But he says a couple things
in his piece. Quote: After the centuries it took to establish
the Marine Corps as a fully separate military service, this new
strategy could reduce its present role by making it again
subordinate to the funding and operational requirements of the
U.S. Navy. That is one criticism.
Another, he talks about the plan to dramatically alter the
entire force structure of the Corps to focus on China, ignores
the unpredictability of war. He also says there is no greater
danger in military strategy than shaping a nation's force
structure to respond to one specific set of contingencies,
giving an adversary the ability to adjust and adapt beforehand.
Do you want to comment on those comments? I know there are
some other former commandants who have also been critical, and
I want to offer this as an opportunity for you to make the case
of what you are trying to do with the 2030 Force Design.
Secretary Braithwaite. Mr. Chairman, if I may----
Senator Sullivan. Sure, Mr. Secretary. As the Secretary of
the Navy, you certainly--both of you--I would welcome really
all three of you. Former Secretary Webb obviously incorporates
the Navy in general. So I would welcome--actually it is a good
point, Mr. Secretary--all three of you to respond.
Secretary Braithwaite. Mr. Chairman, I would just like to
say first and foremost, Secretary Webb is an incredible patriot
and a great American.
Senator Sullivan. He is, no doubt.
Mr. Braithwaite.--and an individual I hold in extremely
high regard.
Senator Sullivan. He is a former Member of this Committee.
Secretary Braithwaite. Yes, sir, and an incredible
accomplished marine, a graduate from the U.S. Naval Academy
where I was fortunate to follow in his wake, and a gentleman
who I consider a friend and somebody that I have had
discussions with.
But I would say that General Berger is a visionary, and I
could not say this during my confirmation hearing because I was
told to throttle back a little bit. But I generally do not
throttle back, Senator. I lean in pretty heavy when I know and
believe in my heart and in my head something is right. Dave
Berger is the visionary that the Department of the Navy needs
today. It is his vision and his humble leadership of going up
against all of the challenges that he has now encountered to
see something come to fruition that is long overdue.
The world has changed in the last 20, 40, 60 years, but
what has been proven is the concept that a combined Navy/Marine
Corps team, not one subordinate to the other. The Marine Corps
and the Navy in the Commandant's vision are one equal paired
together. His vision gives a combatant commander another tool
in the toolbox in order to fight the fight if you have to do
that, that takes the Marine Corps from being land-centric to
being a capable amphibious force again. His vision is
predicated on those of Commandant Russell and Commandant Fuller
who, through the fleet marine force concepts of the 1930s,
created the success of the amphibious marine oriented combat
capabilities, coupled with the United States Navy, and being
able to take the fight to the Japanese and win World War II.
So I wanted to be on record to say as the Secretary of the
Navy, I am proud to be with our Commandant whose vision is the
one that we need for the challenges that we see emerging in
great power competition.
Senator Sullivan. Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
Senator Kaine, if you are okay with it, I am going to go a
little long for General Berger and Admiral Gilday to be able to
respond and add to what the Secretary said.
You know the criticisms, General. If you can take this
opportunity to address what former Secretary Webb and others
have been saying and how you, Admiral, view this new force
design for the Marine Corps.
General Berger. Chairman, I think the feedback--my view--
the feedback from Secretary Webb and others is helpful. This is
elevating the discussion. This is an ongoing debate that will
continue for years. So it is not hurtful. It is actually
helpful.
I met with Secretary Webb, as I have with the others who
want to provide feedback. I met with him in Arlington, and we
talked for probably 2 hours. I did not know him that well, but
it was a great discussion. I know him now, did not know him
that well before.
We talked in three broad areas. First of all, does the
Marine Corps need to change? Second, if it does, does it need
to change now? The third part was the changes that we are
considering right now, the direction we are headed--are those
the right changes? So in basic order kind of marine-like, we
broke it down into three categories.
I did not see any daylight between us on do we need to
change. To the point you made earlier, we have to change.
Now, do we need to change now or can we wait to change in a
year or 2 when things are a bit clearer? This is as much a
judgment call as anything, but my assessment is we cannot wait.
We have adversaries that are moving quickly. If we wait a year
or 2 for a clear, 90 percent picture, we will not catch up. In
my opinion, we cannot wait.
So then it came down to the changes themselves, which you
highlighted. Here there are going to be differences of opinion.
But what I emphasized to him is this is just--where we are
right now is on the front end not the back end. We have a lot
of experimentation, a lot of learning to do. We cannot wait to
move out.
We had a great, healthy discussion, and I take all the
input from everybody else not in a negative sense but in a
positive sense. It elevates the discussion. But in my
assessment, my professional opinion, we have to change. We have
to move out now, and we have to preserve enough to learn in the
future over the coming years to make sure we get it right.
Senator Sullivan. Thank you. General.
Admiral, would you care to comment?
Admiral Gilday. Thank you, Senator.
I go back to what I said in my opening statement, sea
control and power projection, and so Nimitz said it was
timeless. President Kennedy said it is timeless. If you look at
the missions of the NDS today, they require those functions
from the Navy and Marine Corps team.
What General Berger is doing is giving us another, as the
Secretary said, tool in the toolkit so what changes today is
not only what we fight with but how we are going to fight. We
have to look at that fight in every domain from the seabed to
space. The Marine Corps brings a terrestrial capability to the
problem of sea control, a function that we still value.
If the nation believes that we need a United States Navy
and a United States Marine Corps forward so that the fight
stays forward and not in this country, then that is an
investment that you want to double down on because what General
Berger is bringing is an asymmetric advantage to that
particular function, something that the enemy is going to be--
it is going to be difficult to find, difficult to pin down, and
difficult to take on. It gives us many more options. It
presents more options, as the Secretary said, to a combatant
commander to confuse an enemy and to come at him with multiple
vectors, with multiple tools in the toolkit.
So it goes without saying, Senator, I am a huge supporter.
I think we are headed in the right direction. That is not to
say that there still will not be friction within the Department
of the Navy in terms of where we put our next dollar with
respect to capabilities, and you will be asking the same
question on whether a capability for the Marine Corps with
respect to sea control is worth it or whether you get more
flexibility, more maneuverability, better effects through
another investment. I think we have to be open-minded about
that, and I think we have to look at, at the end of day, the
capability gaps you have to close in order to give you sea
control.
Senator Sullivan. Great, and your point, General, I think
is a really good one, that all of this, whether it is from
former Secretary Webb, former Senator Webb as well, and former
commandants, it does elevate the discussion. I think the
discussion also needs to be here which is why I have
highlighted it in terms of the Armed Services Committee's
civilian oversight responsibilities, and I think it is going to
continue. I appreciate--this really is kind of the beginning of
an important discussion at the highest levels of our government
because it is a really important undertaking that the Navy and
Marine Corps are advancing right now as part of our National
Defense Strategy, and I commend all three of you for the
seriousness with which you have undertaken this at this moment.
Senator Kaine?
Senator Kaine. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am glad you took
extra time on this question because I think it is a very, very
important one.
General Berger, I want to echo comments made by Senators
Duckworth and Jones about your courage in taking the stance you
took last spring with respect to display of the Confederate
battle flag on Marine installations. Because you have such
family ties to Virginia, this was not a decision taken by an
outsider or imposed by somebody who does not deeply understand
the dimensions of this issue. Frankly, your ties to Virginia I
think are such that the decision that you made and the way you
articulated it maximized the acceptability of it within your
ranks, and so I want to echo those comments.
Your willingness to take courageous stands when you need to
bears upon this last question as well. Change is needed. Should
change happen now or can we wait on it? I think the answers to
those first two questions--I think you have answered them
correctly. Exactly the dimensions of all the change that is
needed, that is a profitable area for a lot of discussion now
and in the future. But your willingness to take big steps
forward is one of the reasons that you are in the position that
you are in and that we have confidence in your leadership.
A few questions. The Navy has developed a shipyard
infrastructure optimization plan, and that was to deal with
this lack of capacity at shipyards. The original plan was
estimated as a $21 billion investment over 20 years. The GAO
suggests that is likely an underestimate because a number of
costs were probably not included in the original estimate.
I guess, Admiral Gilday, what I would like to ask you, is
the SIOP still on track with respect to both time and funding?
If so, why are we not seeing it in budgetary requests to
Congress?
Admiral Gilday. Sir, I would argue that we are. I mean, as
I talked about the investments in nine MILCON projects underway
right now, $3.5 billion in MILCON at the four shipyards
themselves invested over the FYDP, typically we are spending a
billion a year on MILCON. I think relatively speaking we are,
sir, making it a high priority.
We understand the importance of it. These dry docks on
average, as you know, are over 100 years old, and we have
neglected them for too long. This is a strategic decision by
the Department to make this a priority and put the money where
we need to or we cannot sustain the fleet of the future. As you
know, we are challenged to sustain the fleet that we have now.
Senator Kaine. Thank you, Admiral.
Mr. Secretary, the fiscal year 2020 NDAA required the
Department to submit military installation resilience plans to
help our bases prepare for extreme weather events, whether it
is sea level rise in Hampton Roads or whether it is drought or
wildfire conditions in other parts of the country. In the wake
of destruction observed over the last several years at Camp
Lejeune, China Lake, and elsewhere, has the Department
completed any military installation resilience plans, and when
can we on the Committee expect to see them?
Secretary Braithwaite. Senator, thank you for that
question. You and I spoke about this in detail both during my
confirmation hearing and in meetings between now and then.
Our Department has looked into this. I mean, the
devastating destruction of Hurricane Florence on Camp Lejeune
or the earthquake at Naval Air Station China Lake--you all have
been wonderful to help offset our losses there so that we can
rebuild some of those structures. As you know, Senator, a lot
of those structures on our military bases are old. They are
antiquated. They were built before there were codes in place to
ensure that our buildings could withstand a hurricane of a
certain severity or an earthquake.
We are in the process of developing the plans. Our
installations are working on those. I do not know if the CNO
has any specific thoughts on this or the Commandant, but it is
important to us as we look forward because we cannot be a ready
force unless we ensure that we are operating from bases that
are resilient and those homes on those bases where our
dependents live, which of course have a personal impact on our
readiness, have the ability to sustain damage as well.
Senator Kaine. Can I ask either Admiral Gilday or General
Berger? Do you know when any of these plans are likely to be
done so that we can review them on the Committee?
Admiral Gilday. Sir, I do not. I am not satisfied right
now, where we are, the pace that we are acting on these plans.
There are discrete projects that we have ongoing, one down in
Norfolk Naval Shipyard right now in terms of dealing with the
rising water tables in the vicinity of the dry docks as an
example, others at the Naval Academy where we are seeing rising
water levels. So we are reactive and not proactive.
I owe you a better answer for the Navy, and I owe the
Secretary a better answer as well in terms of when we can
present those plans to both him and you.
Senator Kaine. General Berger?
General Berger. Sir, some of them are complete, not all,
and we prioritized the ones that we had to do first, which is
Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, where we had to rebuild. So every
contract in the last 18 months that you all have resourced to
rebuild Camp Lejeune is to the new regulations for resiliency.
They are prioritized. We will provide you the detailed
breakdown, sir.
Senator Kaine. That would be helpful. I think this is a
serious matter for the Committee because the resilience plans
will enable us not just to exercise oversight on are you trying
to be resilient, but it will help us prioritize investments. We
would hate to rebuild something in a way that is substandard
and does not really meet the conditions that are likely to be
there in 10 or 20 years. Rebuilding one off or being reactive
one off to dangers or emergencies is not the same as having a
forward-looking plan that is likely to involve a more efficient
use of the dollars that are so competitively sought. I would
like follow-up on that from both the Navy and the Marines.
[Please see Appendix A on page 70]
Here is the last question I would like to ask. I am over,
Mr. Chair, but with an indulgence, and I would like each of you
to address it. It is sort of like a lessons learned during
COVID question.
COVID and the pandemic has been horrible. The death toll,
the economic effect--it has been horrible. Nevertheless, even
in a horrible time you learn some lessons. Americans are doing
much more telehealth than they did before, and that has
actually had some significant benefits for people who might
have a hard time accessing health care institutions because
they live so far away. We have been able to do some Committee
work virtually. So there have been some lessons learned that we
would not want to just snap back to the status quo ante when
this public health emergency is over.
In each of your spaces, I would love you to talk about
maybe some lessons learned since the beginning of March as we
have dealt with COVID that you think could be--that could lead
to sort of continuous improvement or changes you have had to
make that you will not want to undo when we are over this
public health emergency. If you could each address that
question, that is the last question that I have.
Secretary Braithwaite. Senator, thank you. I will answer
the question first because I will tell you that I believe the
Department of the Navy, both the Marine Corps and the United
States Navy, have done an incredible job.
You know, this caught the Department off guard, as it did
the entire world, The Navy, in particular, struggled through
some of the early weeks of this because the close proximity in
which our sailors live aboard ship made this a real threat to
our ability to operate at sea. That was even more important
aboard--or more challenging aboard our submarines.
Admiral Gilday has done an incredible job to lead the
effort to not only identify ways to mitigate the risk but to
keep our ships operating. We have over 100 ships today that are
at sea deployed, and there are cases of COVID aboard some of
those ships. But he and the leadership of the Navy have done an
incredible job. It is an amazing story of resiliency to be able
to address the issue, to isolate the issue through contact
tracing, through all of the protocols that the CDC and the
National Institutes of Health (NIH) have put out through social
distancing, masks. When I go aboard a ship, everybody is masked
up. I will let the CNO talk to more of the details. But we are
today a better force prepared for nuclear, biological, chemical
warfare in the future because of the lessons we have learned
from this pandemic.
As you and I talked about, you know, carbon footprints and
the ability to have our workforce telework, that is another
great--we have finally busted through the fact, as a former
military guy, you got to form up in front of the flagpole every
morning to get credit for actually being on the job. I think we
have thought beyond that now to a point where we are more
realistic in the fact that we can do work from afar, we can be
productive.
But I would invite the CNO who, believe me, is an
incredible leader who has done an incredible job on this. I am
very proud to be his wingman.
Admiral Gilday. Thanks, sir.
Sir, a couple things. One of the things that strikes me the
most aboard ship right now is just the change in behaviors. It
is almost like cultural change onboard ships because, as the
Secretary said, you are operating in such close quarters, and
your success or failure comes down to individual
responsibility. That means that every sailor now understands
that as a leader at whatever level they are at on a ship, that
they have a responsibility to their shipmates that is tangible.
They also have a responsibility to hold other people
accountable if they are not following the protocols and the
standards that they should be. So with respect to the culture
of excellence that we want to have in the Navy and the kind of
leadership that we want people to exhibit, I think that has
been a positive.
There have been a lot of second order effects to
telecommuting. So excess capacity with respect to leased spaces
where we can recoup over $100 million a year in spaces that we
just do not need. So another byproduct has been a realization
of--I think a better realization of what is core and what is
non-core in terms of what we really need to be focused on and
working on and how we use that teleworking force.
Another is an acceleration of information technology (IT)
capabilities. I do not want to say the specific company, but
capabilities that would have taken us--you can imagine--years
to field that have been accelerated by the Secretary of Defense
to weeks and months that have put us in a much better place.
I will also mention real briefly training at sea. Because
now we operate in COVID bubbles, we have said, well, gee, why
are we just in kind of a single production line with ships to
get ships trained and qualified. Why can I not do that with six
ships at once, get a lot more out of the trainers, become a lot
more efficient, and actually increase the numbers of ships that
I am generating for the Secretary to present to the Secretary
of Defense to use out there at sea? I think overall it has
caused everybody to think a little bit more innovatively and to
be a little bit more efficient in terms of how they think about
using their time.
Senator Kaine. General Berger?
General Berger. Sir, I will be pretty short.
This is a virus, not the first virus that your military has
operated in. The pandemic is once every 100 years, but this is
not an operating environment that is new. You would expect us,
in other words, not to take a knee but to operate through it,
and that is what has happened.
A couple of things to highlight. You asked for lessons
learned. There is not an exercise or training event that we do
in the military we do not take away nine days to Sunday
afterwards. We do after-action reports like nobody else, and we
have a long list. I will just mention one or two.
Recruit training. We had to continue recruit training, but
we cannot be taken to our knees. What we learned that we were
going to continue, to your question, Senator, is spread out the
racks in the squad base, put washstands outside the chow hall,
take specific measures that we are going to keep in place
afterwards because normally, typically every officer candidate
class, every recruit training class gets some kind of crud in
the first 2 weeks and it shuts them down. We have not had that
problem. Why? Because we are basically quarantining them for 2
weeks before the first day of training. Why would we not
consider continuing that later on so that when training starts,
everybody can train instead of half the squad being sick? To
your point, some of these measures we need to keep in place
afterwards.
I will just finish with I would echo the same as Admiral
Gilday. This Committee, this Subcommittee would be very proud
of the small unit leaders. This is where discipline matters. We
have not had large outbreaks because we are a disciplined
force. We follow orders. We very much trust our leaders, and
they have not let us down.
Senator Kaine. Mr. Chair, I am so glad I asked that
question.
Senator Sullivan. Yes, a great question.
Senator Kaine. That is really important.
One of the first visits that I did when we were in our kind
of initial months of COVID and when we were home during April
and the Senate was closed was I went to the Department of
Veterans Affairs (VA) hospital in Richmond, the McGuire VA,
which is dealing with a lot of these issues. It did not really
strike me until I walked into that massive facility that there
was not a single thing that they did that they did not have to
rethink. I mean, touching an elevator button, the arrangement
of tables in the cafeteria, how do you check in if you are a
patient coming in. Every last thing that is done in that
facility, which is tens of thousands of square feet--it is
massive--they have had to rethink, and onboard a ship or a sub,
close quarters, people working in such close proximity to each
other, that is even magnified.
But I just think it is really important for us in this
Committee and across the board that we do the lessons learned.
It would be foolish if we went back to the status quo ante. One
of the things we did, for example, is we used to, as a Federal
Government, reimburse telehealth visits at a lower
reimbursement rate than office visits. We made an emergency
change to allow an equalization of reimbursement rates for such
visits, and that has dramatically advanced telehealth. It would
be foolish to go back to the status quo ante when this is done
because then we would sacrifice all that learning and slide
back to a second best.
There is going to be a lot of need for us to look at the
changes that have been forced upon us and say, hey, this needs
to be the going-forward norm. There are some things we will be
glad to let go, but there is also, as you point out, General
Berger, why would you not have a 14-day quarantine period now
forever to avoid just the common kinds of infectious viruses or
whatever that can take down a recruiting class early in their
time in. So we are going to really need to do this, and you
guys have offered some great examples that can, I think,
inspire that work. So I really appreciate it. Thank you.
Senator Sullivan. Yes, a great question and great answers.
General Berger, I mentioned I did see I think it was a New
York Times article or something that talked about the changes
to Marine Corps recruit training, how it is still working, and
in my view some of the best recruit training anywhere in the
world. So kudos to the Marine Corps and the rest of the
Department of the Navy for doing such great work.
I am going to end here with just a couple additional
questions. I appreciate the patience of the three of you
gentlemen.
General, I wanted just one additional question on the Force
Design. You speak in your testimony of modernizing Marine Corps
infantry and reconnaissance units. As an infantry and
reconnaissance officer myself and I am a United States Marine
Corps Forces Special Operations Command (MARSOC) marine officer
currently, I am interested in what you stated in your testimony
that we are modernizing our infantry battalions and traditional
reconnaissance units to create a more distributable formation
with much greater organic lethality in accordance with units
traditionally associated with special forces and commando
units.
Can you unpack that a little bit more in terms of, again,
your Force Design and what Marine infantry and reconnaissance
units can anticipate in MARSOC as well?
General Berger. Senator, like you, I have the same
background.
Senator Sullivan. Yours is a little bit more distinguished
actually--a hell of a lot more distinguished.
General Berger. We have common ground.
I believe if we are going to compete and we are going to
deter, first of all, then much of who has an advantage is
decided in the reconnaissance/counter-reconnaissance sort of
effort that both sides in any competition are going to do. I
think we were relying more and more and more on your forward
expeditionary forces to paint a picture of what is happening in
front of them because deterrence is really the foundational
element of the strategy. To do that effectively, you have got
to have good reconnaissance forward to understand what is
happening in front of you to give decision-makers the space,
the situational awareness to make good calls.
As we reshape the Marine Corps, we will reshape our
reconnaissance effort and our reconnaissance units and infantry
units as well. Infantry training will be longer. The product of
infantry training on the enlisted side will be at a higher
level than we are producing right now. Right now, in other
words, you complete basic training and you go through infantry
training. You join your first unit. The rest of the way is on
the backs of the platoon sergeant in that first platoon. We
need to take that marine to a higher level so that the whole
platoon, the whole battalion can get to a higher level. We need
to get to that higher level because they are going to be more
distributed. We are going to rely on them to make higher level
decisions.
As you know, sir, from your service, we ask captains to
make decisions now that lieutenant colonels, battalion
commanders made a decade ago. Why? Because they have the
capabilities now. We have to get them to a higher training
level now.
Infantry training both on the officer and enlisted side,
more extensive, longer. Reconnaissance forces, better
capabilities, a deeper reach, and the ability to commit to
communicate, to sense, and to distribute what they are sensing
back and laterally to the rest of the force. I think you are
going to see a lot of our investments in ground, aerial, and
surface reconnaissance so that we can give the combatant
commander, the fleet commander a better picture of what is in
front of us.
Senator Sullivan. Great. Thank you for that.
Mr. Secretary, we talked briefly on the Arctic and
icebreakers. I wanted to dive in a little bit more.
You know, I authored language in the NDAA a couple of years
ago that Congress put forward the authorization to build 6
Polar-class icebreakers between the Coast Guard and the Navy.
As I mentioned, the President put forward a memo a couple
months ago on how we operationalize that, what ways we look at
that, and then importantly from my perspective, where you would
want to home-port some of these Polar-class icebreakers that in
my view should have much more than just icebreaking capability,
should have intelligence capability, should have weapons
capability, the way the Russians are certainly viewing their
massive icebreaking fleet. I think the latest number is 56, and
as you mentioned, we have two. One is broken, so we have a long
way to catch up.
But on this issue, to me it is a no-brainer that you would
at least home-port some of these icebreakers that we are
building in the Arctic of America.
You and I had a great visit when you came up to Alaska. I
really, really appreciated that. I know my fellow Alaskans
certainly enjoyed meeting you in Ketchikan and Adak and Kodiak
and Anchorage.
But do you have a view on this? The President has actually
asked his national security team. I have talked to you, the
Secretary of Defense (SECDEF), National Security Advisor, the
Commandant of the Marine Corps--or I am sorry--Commandant of
the Coast Guard. I am a little bit biased, but I think it makes
strategic sense for America. If you are going to have
icebreakers, you need to base them in the place where the
action is and that is the Arctic not in Florida or other places
where there is no ice. Do you have a view on where we should be
basing these? I know the President has asked that in the memo.
Secretary Braithwaite. Mr. Chairman, I always have an
opinion. You know that.
Senator Sullivan. Good. Love to hear it especially if it is
the right answer.
[Laughter.]
Secretary Braithwaite. However, as you and I also
discussed, the United States Coast Guard does not fall under
the command and control of the Department of the Navy.
Senator Sullivan. I am asking you in your personal opinion.
Secretary Braithwaite. Of course, we could change that. You
could change that and I would be happy to incorporate the Coast
Guard as part of the Department of the Navy----
Senator Sullivan. I am not committing to that right now.
Mr. Braithwaite.--as a sister maritime service. I think
that would be wonderful. It does not take anything away from
Homeland Security, but I love the Coast Guard. They are
incredible partners, and we would like to see them get all the
resources they need.
I have seen some of the efforts in the shipbuilding when I
have been down to Huntington-Ingalls and building a new
national security cutter.
You know, as far as home-porting those ships, if they fell
under the control of the United States Navy, of course, we
would home-port them closer to where they would be required to
fulfill their mission. But I am not in a position, Mr.
Chairman, to make a determination for the Coast Guard on where
they should put those icebreakers.
If we are the ones who end up operating those icebreakers,
I think as the executive order has indicated, that is something
that we, the Department of the Navy, would come back and work
with you, Mr. Chairman, on figuring out the best placement
where we would have the kind of support--I know going into
Kodiak, I was extremely impressed with the Coast Guard facility
there, meeting with the station commander, again a phenomenal
base with the infrastructure to support additional ships being
home-ported there.
Again, there are a lot of options here, but there is a lot
of work to be done. Unfortunately, it is not an A to Z quick
answer.
Senator Sullivan. I am going to press you a little bit. Do
you have a personal opinion on this issue of where you would
home-port icebreakers----
Secretary Braithwaite. So, Mr. Chairman----
Senator Sullivan.--to defend America's interest in the
Arctic?
Secretary Braithwaite. You and I both served. You still
serve in the uniform of our nation. For 31 years, I wore the
cloth of the U.S. naval officer very proudly, and in my role as
now the Secretary of the Navy, I still fall under the command
and control of the President of the United States and I have to
follow the lawful orders of those appointed over me. Again, as
the Secretary of the Navy, I have personal opinions and I have
professional requirements of how I conduct myself each and
every day.
In this case, the Coast Guard has the authority to operate
those vessels, and I think they are the ones who would have to
determine where they wanted to home-port them.
Senator Sullivan. Let me turn to--Senator Kaine, I just
have a couple more questions.
Mr. Secretary, on the USS Bonhomme Richard, I guess the
Navy made the decision just a few days ago that this is going
to be a ship that is decommissioned. Can you just give us a
little quick understanding of what actually happened--it is
obviously an issue that this Committee has a lot of interest
in--and then why you made that decision recently on the
decommissioning and what that does to our capability both from
a Navy and Marine Corps perspective? That is quite an important
ship.
Secretary Braithwaite. Absolutely, Senator. First of all,
the investigation is ongoing, and our Naval Criminal
Investigative Service (NCIS) have done a remarkable job in
working through all the details of something that is not
straightforward. There was such extensive damage on that ship.
Both the Chief of Naval Operations and I went out to visit the
ship shortly after the incident. The amazing performance of the
crew to save that ship--what they did is just remarkable and a
testament to the training that they receive in damage control
and firefighting.
I am a businessman, Mr. Chairman, and at the end of the
day, there is a return on investment, and the return on
investment of what it would have taken to rebuild that ship,
working very closely with the Secretary of Defense, Dr. Esper
wanted to see that ship come back and for all the right reasons
to send the right message to say, you know, we do not give up
our ships very easily. We have a battle flag that hangs in
Memorial Hall at the Naval Academy that says don't give up the
ship. But using logic and looking at what it would have
required to put that ship back together, it would have been a
foolish investment of our American taxpayer dollars to invest
in a ship that was over 20 years old instead of looking at the
options of building another ship in the future that would have
more relative capabilities embracing the technologies that are
emerging.
I would invite the CNO to go into some of the particulars
of what we have determined. The ship was not to deploy until
2022. Talking with the Commandant about how we can ensure that
we have the right assets to come in in the deployment plan and
to offset the loss of the ship, we are working all those now.
But, CNO, do you have any thoughts about the Bonhomme Richard?
Admiral Gilday. Thanks, sir. Just a couple.
Sir, the ship is 22 years old. About 60 percent of it was
so heavily damaged it would have to be replaced. If we try to
rebuild the ship into a Landing Helicopter Dock (LHD), return
it to its original state, it would take 5 to 7 years. It would
be straining the industrial base. We think there is one
shipyard on the Gulf coast who could do that kind of work, and
it would cost almost as much as a brand new ship.
If we took a look at other options like repurposing it,
could it be a command and control ship, could it be a hospital
ship, could it be a sealift vessel, it costs us less money to
buy one new than it would be to restore or to repurpose
Bonhomme Richard to another function.
For those reasons, sir, the $30 million to decommission was
the best decision I think. The Secretary has all the
consequential decisions come to his desk, and I supported that
recommendation that we decommission her.
In terms of near-term impacts operationally, we have
mitigated those. I think longer term--let us say out to 3 to 5
years--we are taking a look at what those other options could
be. Do we accelerate the production of a big deck vessel? What
would that mean with respect to the amphibious force that we
are building for the future? You know, what are the priorities
that we want to take a look at within the Department? What is
the demand signal from the Secretary of Defense and the
combatant commanders for those vessels. So that is work to be
done that is ongoing right now, but in the near term, there
will not be any operational impact. We have mitigated that with
moving some other deployment schedules around.
Senator Sullivan. Great. Thank you for that answer, and we
are going to look forward to the report when it is done, both
if it is classified or unclassified, on what happened and some
of the actions. I know there were a lot of sailors that
undertook very heroic actions to save that--tried to save that
ship.
Let me ask another for all three of you gentlemen. As you
know, here in the Senate we have got a number of important
bills that we are trying to finish up prior to the end of this
Congress, both the COVID relief bill and the NDAA and a final
appropriations bill. Importantly, that is going to have
military appropriations, but it is not for sure we are going to
be able to get there. There is a lot of work that is being done
to try to get a compromised bipartisan bill. If we do not get
there and we have to settle for a continuing resolution, which
is certainly not ideal--it is better than a government
shutdown, but it is not ideal--I would like the three of you to
weigh in on what you think the impacts of a CR would be on Navy
and Marine Corps operations. I think sometimes it is not well
understood that even though it is continued funding, it is
very, very disruptive for our military operations and
readiness, which is the whole point of the oversight of this
Subcommittee.
Mr. Secretary, we will start with you.
Secretary Braithwaite. Absolutely, Mr. Chairman, and
really, thank you for this question.
When I worked on the Hill, we rarely ever had a CR. I
worked for Senator Arlen Specter. Passing our appropriations
bills, our authorizing bills is extremely important especially
to an organization like the Department of the Navy. So this
does impact us.
We are looking at ways now that if in fact we do have a CR,
how we minimize the impact. But it will affect readiness. We
asked for an anomaly, and it appears that we have received that
to continue to build the Columbia-class, our follow-on
ballistic missile submarines (SSBN), to replace the Ohio-class.
Without that anomaly, we would not be able to replace the
Ohios, which are 35-40 years old. On behalf of the Department,
we would like to thank Congress very much for that relief.
But the particulars of this--I mean, the way that we
operate our fleet, steaming hours, flying hours, all that will
be impacted. Pay to our sailors, to our marines--there will be
significant impact, you know, in the hazardous and special pay
spaces.
I would invite the Commandant or the CNO to talk to some of
the more specifics of what they see is the operational leads
for their respective services.
Senator Sullivan. Admiral?
Admiral Gilday. Yes, sir, so as the Secretary mentioned,
across a number of accounts, you begin to see the effects
accumulate over time. So with a 72-day CR, it is about $1
billion. It primarily affects our operations and maintenance
accounts. So think steaming hours, flying hours. You want to
keep these people, in the era of great power competition, on
the cutting edge and the best that they can be, and you cannot
when you are dealing with fiscal year 2020 levels of spending.
You see that begin to manifest itself more acutely at the
6-month point where we have decisions to make with respect to
moving money around with the next steps with the USS Gerald R.
Ford, an aircraft carrier that we want to get operational in
fiscal year 2022, as fast as we can, or with the ongoing
overhaul on George Washington, a refueling overhaul, or a new
start overhaul on the John C. Stennis, a carrier that is
waiting to go into maintenance. Military personnel (MILPERS).
You begin to see the effects more acutely in those accounts as
well where you cannot hire the people you want to hire in
numbers to get to where you want to be at the end of the fiscal
year.
A 12-month CR--the impact of that is in the order of about
$18 billion for the United States Navy across a number of
accounts. Over time you begin to see significant impact with
respect to both near-term readiness and investments that we are
trying to make in the future.
Senator Sullivan. General, do you have anything to add to
that? That is a really staggering number you mentioned, $18
billion.
General Berger. Chairman, I think if you asked any leader
who has anything to do with executing the budget if you could
have one thing, what would you ask for, they would say stable,
predictable funding. They would not ask for a dollar amount.
They would just say some predictability, some stable,
predictable funding.
I would boil it down in the same two buckets as the CNO:
readiness and modernization. We will get by. We have gotten by
so far on this CR on readiness without any negative impacts. It
will begin to impact going into the next few months. The CNO
just really accurately highlighted those areas. They are
similar to ours.
My bigger concern, frankly, or my major concern is
modernization. We are turning our ship to make a Marine Corps
that we will need 10 years from now. That involves new starts.
If we do not have the appropriations bill on time, you are
going to delay the modernization in the Marine Corps and to the
detriment of our readiness. It is going to be for us sort of a
double whammy. Not a good picture.
Senator Sullivan. Thank you. I appreciate it.
I have one final question, gentlemen. Again, I appreciate
the comments about my father. One of the favorite things I got
to do with him every year was go to the Army-Navy game. As a
member of the Board of Visitors of the Naval Academy, I was
honored to be appointed by that by the former chairman of this
Committee, Senator McCain. So it looks like the game is going
to continue, which is great, and I would appreciate a
prediction. If you cannot make it in your professional
capacity, Mr. Secretary, maybe your personal view on who is
going to win that game. It is a very important question for the
Nation. If the other two uniformed leaders, the Admiral and
General, also have a view, I would welcome that.
Secretary Braithwaite. Mr. Chairman, as a proud member of
the United States Naval Academy class of 1984, my personal and
professional opinion on this one converge. We will beat Army at
West Point. We have a record of playing there three times. The
first Army game in 1890, the Navy won, and we played it at West
Point. We went back to Army during World War II when we were
under some of the same pressures as we are today with COVID.
When Secretary Ryan McCarthy and I talked about where we
should play the game, we were committed to ensuring that every
cadet and every midshipman would get to attend that game. Being
a Philadelphian, I live about an hour outside the city, it is
always great to go back to Philadelphia, but Philadelphia would
not allow us to go beyond 7,500, which does not cover all of
the corps cadets or the brigade of midshipmen. Secretary
McCarthy and I, working with the CNO and the Army Chief of
Staff and the respective superintendents of both the United
States Military Academy and the United States Naval Academy,
determined that we will play the game even if we have to play
it in a parking lot outside the Meadowlands. This is an
uninterrupted tradition that has gone on since 1890 in the
midst of the Spanish influenza, World War I, World War II, and
we are not stopping now.
Navy will beat Army on December 12th once again for the
fourth time that we play at West Point, Army's home team. That
is why we went to West Point. Go Navy. Beat Army.
Senator Sullivan. Are there any dissenting opinions from
the Admiral and General on that view?
Admiral Gilday. No, sir.
Senator Sullivan. I did not think so.
Well, listen, gentlemen, I appreciate very much your time
and your professionalism and your service to our nation. This
has been a very, very informative hearing. I know that there
will be additional questions for the record. We will keep the
record of this hearing open for 2 more weeks for additional
questions, and the Committee asks respectfully if you get
questions for the record, if you could try to get them back to
the Committee in short order, again we appreciate it, and thank
you for your service.
This hearing is now adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:17 a.m., the Committee adjourned.]
[Questions for the record with answers supplied follow:]
Questions Submitted by Senator Dan Sullivan
nds and the navy and marine corps role in great power competition--
initial usmc force design
1. Senator Sullivan. Admiral Gilday, in your personal opinion, what
specific capabilities do you believe would be most effective in a
potential 1st Fleet to help counter China and to reassure our allies in
region?
Admiral Gilday. In order to improve our posture in the Indo-
Pacific, we will reconstitute the first fleet, assigning it primary
responsibility for the Indo and South Asian region as an expeditionary
fleet back to the capabilities and unpredictability of an agile,
mobile, at sea command. This will reassure our allies and partners of
our presence and commitment to this region, while ensuring any
potential adversary knows we are committed to global presence to ensure
rule of law and freedom of the seas. The first fleet will share
resources and capabilities with Seventh Fleet and Third Fleet to
posture against primary competitors (Russia and China) by delivering
sea control and projecting power from the sea across all domains. The
Navy continues to review our organizational structure and force
posture, in coordination with combatant commanders and our allies and
partners, to ensure we can most effectively meet the maritime
challenges we face around the world.
usmc force design 2030
2. Senator Sullivan. General Berger, in your testimony you talk
about two new operating concepts, the ``Expeditionary Advanced Base
Operations Concept and soon to be released Competition Concept.'' Can
you describe both of these concepts in a bit more detail, specifically
the ``Competition Concept?''
General Berger. ``Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations'' (EABO),
which was co signed by the Chief of Naval Operations and Commandant of
the Marine Corps in March 2019, originated as a classified naval
concept to directly support the Navy's Distributed Maritime Operations.
EABO involves the employment of mobile, low-signature, and persistent
naval expeditionary forces from austere, temporary locations within
contested or potentially contested areas. EABO is a method by which
marines temporarily utilize an area, always with the intent to return
to the sea. The purpose of EABO is to support allied and partner
nations in competition to counter malign behavior and, if necessary,
deny enemy actions. Since the publication of the concept, the Navy and
Marine Corps have aggressively evaluated and developed the concept
through wargaming, while incorporating what we have learned into a
predominantly unclassified tentative manual to drive further
experimentation.
With respect to drafting a concept for competition, the Marine
Corps issued Marine Corps Doctrinal Publication 1-4, ``Competing'' in
December 2020. It explains that Western nations and other political
actors often use binary ``war'' or ``peace'' labels to describe
interactions. Instead, most actors use means other than violence in
their competitive interactions to achieve their goals.
The publication, ``Competing,'' explains to marines where they fit
in this competition continuum. Marines are an integral part of the
Nation's strategic competition with other actors. Indeed, marines are
always competing, even when they are not fighting in combat.
Additionally, understanding unleashes creativity, and as marines
understand the nature of competition, their innovative spirit will lead
to the development of new thinking and techniques to gain competitive
advantages. Competing means that marines impose costs on adversaries,
while simultaneously reassuring allies on a daily basis as a means to
make conflict less likely.
3. Senator Sullivan. General Berger, in your testimony you talk
about creating a new ``Marine Littoral Regimen,'' which will be
``augmented with anti-ship missiles, a light amphibious warship for
mobility and sustainment, air defense capabilities, Group 5 UAS, and
fully trained for expeditionary advance based operations'' and designed
to ``deter adversary aggression by denial and by detection, as well as
a counter-gray zone competition maritime force.'' Can you give a
potential real world situation where you believe this new capability
would be especially useful? How do you envision its use?
General Berger. I envision Marine Littoral Regiments (MLRs) being
task-organized and dispersed across key maritime terrain in the Indo-
Pacific region. The MLR capabilities will augment and reinforce a host
nation's ability to monitor, expose, and challenge malign behavior, but
the MLRs will be fully capable of operating without host-nation support
if required. Many potential scenarios exist throughout the competition
continuum in which MLRs might be employed and task-organized with
additional naval, joint and coalition capabilities.
As an example, the People's Republic of China (PRC) uses its
Maritime Militia and Coast Guard vessels to intimidate and harass
United States allies and partners in their Exclusive Economic Zones
(EEZ). The MLR is designed to conduct activities during gray zone
competition to disrupt, channel, and restrict enemy activity by
identifying and exposing malign behavior, reinforcing partnered
nations, holding key maritime terrain, and holding adversary assets at
risk, ultimately encouraging de-escalation. These capabilities
contribute to safeguarding territorial waters and supporting economic
sovereignty of our allies and partners, while maintaining a free and
open Indo-Pacific region.
Additionally, the MLR provides persistent capabilities to deter
further malign activity, aggression or escalation beyond gray-zone
competition. The MLRs will be highly mobile, constantly changing their
positioning and posture to increase ambiguity and increase the
adversary's challenge of monitoring and targeting MLR units, thus
reducing an adversary's confidence and encouraging off-ramps from
conflict.
readiness and covid-19--training
4. Senator Sullivan. Secretary Braithwaite, Admiral Gilday, and
General Berger, what joint training exercises involving Naval and
Marine forces have been postponed or canceled as a result of COVID-19
and what plans are in place to mitigate the lost opportunities from
these canceled or delayed training events?
Secretary Braithwaite* and Admiral Gilday. Although COVID-19 did
force some cancellations/postponements of our joint and mult-national
exercises this last year, many were able to be de-scoped (e.g.
cancelling port visits) or modified thru the use of virtual means and
other physical barriers to still enable the critical interaction/
collaboration required in strengthening our alliances and partnerships.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
* These responses were received on June 9, 2021, Secretary Thomas
W. Harker assumed the position of Acting Secretary of the Navy on
January 21, 2021.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
General Berger. Although the force initially experienced impacts
early in the pandemic, training has resumed and the Service continues
to deploy Global Force Management units without delay through the
implementation of risk mitigation and force health protection measures.
Despite initial cancellations, adjustments to the planned exercises
allowed the Marine Corps to close the gap and maintain a trained and
ready force to support current tasking.
Provided below are exercises impacted by COVID-19 along with their
adapted accomplishments:
Service Level Training exercises Weapons and Tactics
Instructor Course 20-2, Integrated Training Exercise (ITX) 3-20,
Mountain Warfare Exercise (MWX) 3-20, and Adversary Force Exercise
(AFX) 3-20 were canceled due to COVID-19 from March to May 2020.
o ITX 5-20, MWX 5-20, and AFX 5-20 were re-scoped to capture the
lost training from June to July 2020.
Task Force Ellis, a I Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF)
task-organized force, under Operational Control of the Pacific Fleet
and embarked aboard the USS Comstock deployed from July to November
2020.
o The deployment started 90 days after the scheduled departure
in April and many objectives were significantly re-scoped due to the
host countries of Fiji and the Federated States of Micronesia
cancelling the medical and humanitarian support.
o The Task Force supported Exercise Valiant Shield in Guam and
was able to gain valuable training and familiarization with Mark VI
patrol boats.
Korean Marine Exercise Program 20.3 (KMEP), a continuing
and annual series of exercises to advance interoperability between the
Republic of Korea Marine Corps and USMC were temporarily suspended from
July to August 2020.
o KMEP 21.1 resumed in Sep 2020 and has continued without COVID
impacts.
Rim of the Pacific, a Pacific Fleet national exercise
scheduled to take place from July to August 2020 was modified to an at-
sea exercise only, which cancelled the amphibious portion for the
service.
o Marine Forces Indo-Pacific Command found alternate means to
support the exercise with an F/A-18 airpower demonstration and assault
support lift with MV-22s.
Exercise UNITAS (latin for unity), a fully integrated,
multi-national amphibious exercise in South America focused on
humanitarian assistance and sea basing was delayed 30 days from Sep to
Oct 2020 and modified to an at-sea exercise only.
o Marine Forces Southern Command adjusted to the changes and
hosted partnered nation representatives from Honduras, El Salvador, and
Dominican Republic in Camp Lejeune, NC for amphibious tabletop
exercises.
Overall readiness and service-level training exercises are key
areas where the Service continues to fight through the COVID
environment, adapt to rapidly changing conditions and deploy ready
forces worldwide.
balancing readiness and covid--successes stories
5. Senator Sullivan. Secretary Braithwaite, Admiral Gilday, and
General Berger, it's important to keep our forces the best trained in
the world and the pandemic made extremely difficult. Can you highlight
how you are balancing the need to keep the force ready with the desire
to also keep the force healthy?
Secretary Braithwaite* and Admiral Gilday. Since the COVID-19
outbreak, we have aggressively worked to keep our sailors and families
safe, while sustaining fleet operations and supporting the whole-of-
government response to the virus. Lessons learned from the outbreak
aboard USS Theodore Roosevelt honed our COVID-19 Standardized
Operational Guidance. Our sailors and their families adjusted and
sacrificed to accomplish the mission. When the virus threatened the
deployed USS Kidd, USS Ronald Reagan, and USS Makin Island, we quickly
stemmed the spread of COVID-19 and the ships continued their missions,
reflective of our strong learning organization. We are applying this
same kind of adaptive mindset across our entire Navy. We continue to
aggressively work to mitigate the readiness impacts of COVID-19 and
deliver a more ready fleet.
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* These responses were received on June 9, 2021, Secretary Thomas
W. Harker assumed the position of Acting Secretary of the Navy on
January 21, 2021.
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General Berger. The Marine Corps continues to balance risk to force
versus risk to mission. Initially, policy was heavily weighted toward
protecting the force due to the unknown risks/threats. As our
understanding of the pandemic has matured, policy is being refined to
delicately strike a balance within the risk calculus. Through rigorous
protocol testing, contact tracing and persistent mitigation measures,
the Marine Corps has been able to maintain a low infection rate while
accomplishing readiness objectives.
The COVID impact to readiness in the Defense Readiness Reporting
System (DRRS) remains low and Force Health Protection (FHP) measures
continue to be effective. Units are adapting their pre-deployment,
deployment, post-deployment and training procedures to the additional
FHP measures. The Marine Corps' efforts are shifting to meet FHP
conditions while responsibly expanding our ability to train and deploy.
The service has taken a proactive stance toward risk to force
through discovery learning, effectively balancing disease risk-
mitigation protocols while creating maneuver space through policy,
autonomy, and risk-based assessments and decisions.
Using effective, aggressive contact tracing and testing protocols,
the Marine Corps rapidly contains and mitigates against further spreads
along with the dissemination of lessons learned from localized upticks
in cases. In light of the number of cases spanning the last 10 months
worldwide, active mil cases remain steady around .5 percent,
hospitalizations represent less than 1 percent of active cases and
recovery rate exceeds 99.99 percent. Due to the extremely limited
impacts of COVID-19 to training, overall readiness and deployment
cycles, the Marine Corps continues to be the nation's force in
readiness.
6. Senator Sullivan. Secretary Braithwaite, Admiral Gilday, and
General Berger, are there any specific challenges or success stories
that you would like share with the Committee?
Secretary Braithwaite* and Admiral Gilday. Yes, I can share two
recent challenges and how the Navy has dealt with them. First, after
identifying a potentially dramatic increase in gapped sea billets for
fiscal year 2021 due to COVID-reduced accessions, we gradually and
safely increased recruit training to meet our goals. All while adhering
to strict Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Guidance to keep
our force safe. We also leveraged retention incentives, such as
Advancement-to-Position, to keep sailors in critical jobs. These
measures are improving our ability to fill operational requirements.
Second, when health protection measures reduced public shipyard
productivity, we took swift action to protect our workers and mitigate
impacts to maintenance. Meanwhile, our dedicated, patriotic shipyard
workforce adapted to our COVID-19 protocols, came to work every day,
and got our ships back to sea. We cannot thank them enough. To stay
connected during the pandemic, our Information Technology workforce
quickly increased network bandwidth, added virtual private network
licenses, and supported the DOD Commercial Virtual Remote (CVR)
environment roll-out. This enabled a large portion of the Navy
workforce to get the mission done from home.
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* These responses were received on June 9, 2021, Secretary Thomas
W. Harker assumed the position of Acting Secretary of the Navy on
January 21, 2021.
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General Berger. The Marine Corps was able to quickly adapt to the
COVID-19 environment and ensure the entry level training continued to
deliver fully trained new Marines to the Fleet Marine Force despite the
challenges presented by the pandemic. At the onset of the COVID-19
pandemic, both Marine Corps Recruit Depots (MCRDs) postponed shipping
new recruits in order to implement mitigation measures. The
postponement only lasted two weeks, and both MCRDs began receiving and
training new recruits under new COVID-19 protocols. The combination of
implementing off-site Restriction of Movement (ROM) facilities and
practices, adjusting the shipping schedule to allow for smaller
platoons to enable social distancing, and introducing COVID-19
mitigation measures within the recruit training environment resulted in
the both MCRDs training a combined total of over 30,000 new marines in
Fiscal Year 2020.
In addition to the mitigation measures taken at recruit training,
the postponement of leave following recruit training (known as ``Boot
Leave'') and the introduction of the Minimum Exposure Movement Plan
reduced the chance of exposure to COVID-19 for newly graduated marines
by allowing them to travel from recruit training to Marine Combat
Training and their Military Occupational Specialty schools in a
controlled environment. This precaution enabled the training pipeline
to continue without disruption.
The Marine Corps' Training and Education Command also utilized the
Council on Recruit Basic Training to instantiate a weekly COVID-19
synchronization meeting with key leadership from each Service's entry-
level training Commands to discuss issues brought on by the pandemic.
The weekly meeting has driven readiness across the services due to the
sharing of information and lessons learned.
continuing resolution
7. Senator Sullivan. Secretary Braithwaite, Admiral Gilday, and
General Berger, what are the potential adverse impacts on the U.S. Navy
and Marine Corps if a continuing resolution is passes instead of a
defense budget this year? What are the impacts on Navy and Marine Corps
readiness? What are the other impacts, to include modernization
efforts?
Secretary Braithwaite* and Admiral Gilday. I am very grateful to
Congress for passing the fiscal year 2021 Appropriations Omnibus in
December 2020, which prevented more serious impacts from an extended
continuing resolution (CR). During CRs, new starts and rates of
operations are constrained, which delays critical investments required
to deliver a more ready, more lethal, resilient, and rapidly innovative
force. CRs are disruptive and result in lost time as well as increased
administrative workload with non-value added work that detracts from
the business of the Department, including oversight and management, and
slows investing in the Navy force. The longer a CR lasts, the greater
the impact on Navy programs and people. CRs erode, and in some cases
reverse, the Navy's readiness recovery effort that began in fiscal year
2017. I appreciate Congress providing the much-needed funding stability
by passing the fiscal year 2021 Appropriations Omnibus.
General Berger. The fiscal year 2021 budget request reflects
significant changes in priorities of Marine Corps investments toward
future capabilities and increased readiness. As CRs persist through the
fiscal year, they constrain our ability to balance operational
readiness with building a more ready, lethal force to compete with a
peer threat.
Continuing resolutions generally allow for funding at approximately
the prior year's level. That is going to significantly hamper the
Marine Corps this year and over the next few years because we are
significantly ramping up our research and development as well as our
procurement.
8. Senator Sullivan. General Berger, what the impact of a
continuing resolution on your Force Design 2030 implementation plans?
General Berger. Under a CR, where we must spend at the prior year's
level, we cannot increase our investment spending and pursue our
newest, most high priority programs at the level we budgeted for.
Under a CR, we cannot begin ``new starts.'' One example of a new
start in this year's budget is the Light Amphibious Warship. This new
class of warship will provide the needed maritime maneuver and
logistics in the INDOPACOM region. We need it for our marines to get to
the fight and maneuver once there. However, under a CR, we cannot begin
that ``new start'' program, and the program is delayed until we receive
our budget. That equates to real consequences for countering the peer
threat.
Moreover, we cannot begin our MILCON projects under a CR. In fiscal
year 2021, the Marine Corps is investing approximately $500 million in
projects on Guam as we rebalance our forces in the Pacific.
defense posture review initiative (dpri)
9. Senator Sullivan. General Berger, to the extent possible, can
you inform the Committee of any recent status updates Fiscal Year 2020
NDAA requiring a review of the current DPRI plan on this effort?
General Berger. OSD Policy has the lead on responding to the
reporting requirement, which has been delayed due to COVID manning
restrictions. OSD Policy expects to provide the report to the
Committees early next year.
don arctic surface capabilities--ice-hardened navy ships
10. Senator Sullivan. Secretary Braithwaite, former Secretary of
the Navy Richard Spencer said in visiting Alaska last year, ``We need
to have an on-sea presence now that we have a blue water Arctic more
times than not.'' Do you believe that the U.S. Navy can have the
sustainable and credible Arctic presence we currently and will need
without ice-hardened vessels?
Secretary Braithwaite*. U.S. naval forces currently participate in
a wide variety of surface exercises in the Arctic region and we will
continue to expand our participation, as needed. The Navy Department is
restoring skills and knowledge of cold-weather surface ship operations
through research, by participating in training events, and by planning
and executing exercises in the high latitudes of the Alaskan Arctic and
the North Atlantic Arctic with other services and with our allies and
partners. The Department will evaluate and modernize existing and
future forces to provide manned and unmanned operational presence and
patrol options in cold weather and ice-diminished Arctic waters. We
will improve hydrographic surveys and sensors to support the fleet. In
a Blue Arctic, the Department must have a more credible presence in
Arctic waters. This means ensuring that Arctic operations are
considered in our design and modernization plans, and that our defense
industrial base can build and sustain forces for the Arctic. We will
build upon these efforts to maintain enhanced presence, strengthen
cooperative partnerships, and build more capable naval forces for the
Arctic Region.
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* These responses were received on June 9, 2021, Secretary Thomas
W. Harker assumed the position of Acting Secretary of the Navy on
January 21, 2021.
arctic--need for icebreakers and homeporting in alaska
11. Senator Sullivan. Secretary Braithwaite, given that Alaska is
America's Arctic, in your personal opinion, does it not make the most
sense to homeport at least some of the nation's icebreakers in Alaska?
Secretary Braithwaite*. The Department of Homeland Security
submitted their report on ``Safeguarding U.S. National Interests in the
Arctic and Antarctic Regions''--which includes an analysis on
homeporting options for Coast Guard icebreakers. The USCG has the lead
in assessing homeporting requirements for icebreakers. Where
applicable, the DOD will continue supporting the DHS in its studies.
12. Senator Sullivan. Secretary Braithwaite, I understand that the
Department of Homeland Security submitted a report on leasing
icebreakers and that report specifically discusses leasing
opportunities. Recognizing that this is a priority of the President,
how can the Navy best streamline the process of leasing one or more
icebreakers within the next 12 months? In this regard, do you commit to
making the Navy move faster on federal acquisition and sole source
procurement through the public interest exception in the federal
acquisition regulations (FAR)?
Secretary Braithwaite*. The Navy and Coast Guard have chartered an
icebreaker study team that is examining the authorities available
related to vessel leasing and any required modifications and associated
acquisition means. The study team is maturing courses of action
associated with the acquisition strategy in the most expeditious means
possible in accordance with all applicable laws and regulations.
strategic arctic port
13. Senator Sullivan. Secretary Braithwaite, as you know well, the
Arctic has the need for some type of port infrastructure. The nearest
DOD Strategic Seaport is the Port of Anchorage, 1500nm away from the
Arctic Circle. That's like asking Boston to cover Miami. Given this
disparity, why is it important--from a capability, capacity, and
strategic messaging standpoint--for our nation to have a Strategic
Arctic Port?
Secretary Braithwaite*. As you are aware, DOD is currently
finalizing the study on this very issue, per Section 1752 of the Fiscal
Year 2020 NDAA, ``Department of Defense Designation of Strategic Arctic
Ports.'' The Section 1752 study will inform the Department's overall
evaluation of Arctic infrastructure and capability needs, in the
context of global mission demands and defense priorities. I can relay
that we are considering all options in terms of how to best ensure our
security interests in the region, and the SECDEF-level decision is
forthcoming. Along with the greater DOD, the Department of the Navy
remains committed to working closely with you on this issue.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
* These responses were received on June 9, 2021, Secretary Thomas
W. Harker assumed the position of Acting Secretary of the Navy on
January 21, 2021.
14. Senator Sullivan. Secretary Braithwaite, what is DOD's status
on designating a strategic Arctic port pursuant to the National Defense
Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020?
Secretary Braithwaite*. As mentioned, DOD is finalizing the study,
per Section 1752 of the Fiscal Year 2020 NDAA, ``Department of Defense
Designation of Strategic Arctic Ports.'' Despite the continued COVID-19
limitations on the workforce, the Department of Defense has made
significant progress on completing its requirements under Section 1752
and will deliver its report as soon as it is approved by DOD
leadership. The Section 1752 study will inform the Department's overall
evaluation of Arctic infrastructure and capability needs, in the
context of global mission demands and defense priorities. I can relay
that we are considering all options in terms of how to best ensure our
security interests in the region, and the SECDEF-level decision is
forthcoming. Along with the greater DOD, the Department of the Navy
remains committed to working closely with you on this issue.
15. Senator Sullivan. Secretary Braithwaite, Admiral Gilday, and
General Berger, a provision in the Senate-passed Fiscal Year 2020 NDAA
allows the Secretary of Defense to designate sites for a Strategic
Arctic Port. Have the Navy and Marine Corps given input into this
report? If so, what was that input?
Secretary Braithwaite*. Yes, while considering the provisions
within Section 1752 of the Fiscal Year 2020 NDAA, the Department of the
Navy provided analysis to inform the overarching DOD report.
Admiral Gilday. The Navy provided input. Navy's inputs will be
reflected within the impending DOD report.
General Berger. The Marine Corps' input to the report is as
follows:
The Marine Corps, as an expeditionary force, is prepared to operate
``in every clime or place.'' This includes providing Marine Air Ground
Task Forces (MAGTF's) to serve with the Navy for the full range
of operations in the Arctic region. The marines routinely conduct cold
weather training in the continental United States (Marine Corps
Mountain Warfare Training Center, Bridgeport, CA) and overseas in
cooperation with partner nations (e.g., exercise COLD RESPONSE with
Norway) utilizing a prepositioned equipment set in Norway.
Additionally, the marines deploy to Alaska when training opportunities
arise that will enhance USMC capabilities and readiness.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
MAGTF--The Marine Corps' principal organization for
conducting missions across the range of military operations. MAGTFs
provide combatant commanders with scalable, versatile expeditionary
forces able to respond to a broad range of crisis and conflict
situations. They are balanced combined-arms force packages containing
organic command, ground, aviation, and sustainment elements.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
strategic competition in the arctic, arctic fonops, and cost imposition
on our adversaries
16. Senator Sullivan. Secretary Braithwaite, in your nomination
APQs you included three separate iterations of your experiences in
Norway with you witnessing first hand ``great power competition'' in
the Arctic. Can you talk about these experiences and why--as you have
said--the U.S. needs to do FONOPs in the Arctic?
Secretary Braithwaite*. The United States is an Arctic nation, and
developments in the complex Arctic security environment have direct
implications for U.S. national security interests. The Arctic is
strategic terrain and is a potential corridor between the Indo-Pacific
region, Europe, and the United States Homeland. The United States,
working with allies and partners, must deter strategic competitors from
seeking to change the existing rules-based order unilaterally.
Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONOPs) demonstrate that the
United States does not acquiesce in excessive maritime claims across
the globe. These challenges help preserve the balance of rights and
freedoms reflected in the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea and thus
the global mobility of U.S. Forces. As a matter of principle, the
United States should fly, sail, and operate wherever international law
allows, including in the Arctic domain, which encompasses international
straits, territorial waters, and high seas, and the rights and freedoms
associated with each under international law.
17. Senator Sullivan. Secretary Braithwaite, the NDS references
``expanding the competitive space'' with regard to increased work with
interagency. Shouldn't this also be taken literally in terms of Russia
and the Arctic, especially with the importance they place on the
region?
Secretary Braithwaite*. The Department of the Navy recognizes
effectively expanding the competitive space requires the combined
actions of the interagency to employ all dimensions of national power.
The integration of naval power with the joint forces, interagency
teammates, allies, and partners is key to the preservation of peace and
protection of the northern maritime crossroads and gateway to our
shores. We will work in concert with interagency efforts to identify
opportunities and build partnerships that promote transparency and
integration. While we focus on cooperation, we must also ensure we are
prepared to compete effectively and efficiently to maintain favorable
regional balances of power. Naval forces will operate across the Arctic
Region to prevail in day-to-day competition and deter coercive behavior
and conventional aggression.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
* These responses were received on June 9, 2021, Secretary Thomas
W. Harker assumed the position of Acting Secretary of the Navy on
January 21, 2021.
18. Senator Sullivan. Secretary Braithwaite, given the great
importance of the Arctic to both Russia and China--and the high cost of
construction, couldn't the United States use investments in the Arctic
to force our adversaries to react and impose great costs on them? While
peaceful and legal under international law, what effect might U.S.
FONOPs have in this regard?
Secretary Braithwaite*. Consistent with the National Defense
Strategy and our Strategic Blueprint for the Arctic, we will work
closely with our joint and interagency partners along with regional
allies and partners to reduce transit times, preserve mobility, and
meet logistical demands. The Department of the Navy will ensure any
investments correlate with future operational needs. The underlying
principles of Freedom of Navigation Operations to challenge excessive
maritime claims are unchanged by this approach.
u.s. navy use of commercial shipyards for repairs (seward and
ketchikan)
19. Senator Sullivan. Secretary Braithwaite, given the growing
maintenance backlog, doesn't it make sense for the Navy to try and look
at additional shipyards for more minimal maintenance issues--especially
small commercial ones like JAG Alaska in Seward or the Ketchikan
Shipyard that we saw--to help reduce the Navy's large backlog?
Secretary Braithwaite*. In fiscal year 2020, the Navy's non-nuclear
surface ship maintenance backlog, as measured by Days of Maintenance
Delay (DMD), was reduced by 84 percent. The Navy is dedicated to drive
improvement by executing a variety of initiatives aimed at improving
maintenance outcomes from planning to execution, including sustaining
and increasing the ship maintenance and repair industrial base.
While improving shipyard capacity is only one factor that
influences on-time delivery from maintenance availabilities, Navy has
been focused on identifying and working with potential industry
partners outside of homeports. Non-homeport shipyards have recently
been utilized to augment the capacity of a ships homeport private
sector capacity. These non-homeport shipyards are helpful in providing
surge capacity to meet maintenance demands when schedules and
capacities otherwise limit flexibility in meeting Navy requirements.
The Navy has comprehensive processes in place to assess, certify
and then contract for the execution of non-nuclear surface ship
maintenance and modernization. These processes begin with the
assessment of capacity, capability, and facilities through the Master
Ship Repair Agreement (MSRA) and Agreement for Boat Repair (ABR)
certifications. The Navy regularly engages with companies, including
those outside of homeports, to aid in these certification processes.
Ultimately, while the execution of maintenance availabilities outside
of Navy homeports can be beneficial it must always be weighed against
the impact to crew, family, and oversight costs.
20. Senator Sullivan. Secretary Braithwaite, does the Navy and
Marine Corps have any current plans to utilize small, largely
commercial shipyards for needed repair work in order to help reduce the
backlog? If so, would you be able to provide a Subcommittee a plan to
do this?''
Secretary Braithwaite*. Sustaining and increasing the U.S. ship
maintenance and repair industrial base is among the Navy's top
priorities. The utilization of non-homeport firms to provide increased
capacity and meet surge requirements above homeport capacity is the
optimal use of non-homeport shipyards.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
* These responses were received on June 9, 2021, Secretary Thomas
W. Harker assumed the position of Acting Secretary of the Navy on
January 21, 2021.
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Due to the costs and impacts on the crew associated with the
execution of availabilities outside of a ship's homeport, the preferred
option is to grow the homeport industrial base through steady and
predictable workload. However, due to the nature of maintenance work,
operational schedules and emergent requirements will at times require
mitigation. The utilization of non-homeport ``surge'' capacity for the
execution of this scope, which cannot be satisfactorily absorbed within
a ship's homeport, is a desirable option for the Navy.
air combat live virtual constructive capability
21. Senator Sullivan. Secretary Braithwaite and Admiral Gilday,
given the emphasis on readiness for the near-peer fight (China-Russia),
does the Navy have a requirement for Live, Virtual Constructive (LVC)
Synthetic Inject to Live (SITL) to replicate the Near Peer threat
capability and density in the air combat domain? If no, why not?
Secretary Braithwaite* and Admiral Gilday. The Navy has Live
Virtual Constructive (LVC) requirements for the air combat domain as
well as a vision for the larger LVC construct which includes all
applicable warfare domains in which the Navy shares a role. The Navy
established the Fleet Training Wholeness Committee following a USFF
training analysis in 2016 and began making investments towards LVC and
training wholeness in PB18 and subsequent budgets. The Committee's
strategy, roadmap, and investment decisions are guided by Fleet and
TYCOM requirements in order to not only replicate the threat capability
and density in the air combat domain, but also mitigate OPSEC
vulnerabilities, geographic/airspace constraints, and opposing force
gaps.
22. Senator Sullivan. Secretary Braithwaite and Admiral Gilday, a
LVC-SITL capability was demonstrated by ``SLATE'' (Secure LVC Air
Training Environment) to the Navy just over 2 years. What acquisition
process is being used to consider the range of alternatives and when
will the Navy or OSD CAPE conduct an Analysis of Alternatives (AoA)
specifically to address adding SITL-LVC capability to the Fleet?
Secretary Braithwaite* and Admiral Gilday. The Navy conducted an
Analysis of Alternatives to include applying encryption technology to
the TCTS I/P5 system and new systems development. The findings were
used in the development Scope of Work for TCTS II that provides a
design solution addressing both Navy and Air Force Air Combat
Maneuvering Instrumentation (ACMI) requirements and provide a pathway
to LVC. The TCTS II contract was awarded following a full and open
competition, and the TCTS II open architecture, government data rights,
and technical data packages enable future competition of production
systems and capability upgrades. TCTS II delivers initial Synthetic
Inject to Live (SITL) capabilities allowing mission operators to inject
constructive threats into the secure, advanced training environment.
TCTS II's architecture enables affordable incorporation of additional
LVC capabilities, as they become available, and as DoN requirements,
infrastructures and investments support.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
* These responses were received on June 9, 2021, Secretary Thomas
W. Harker assumed the position of Acting Secretary of the Navy on
January 21, 2021.
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acv
23. Senator Sullivan. General Berger, now the Marine Corps is
testing and, finally, close to fielding the ``Amphibious Combat
Vehicle'' or ACV. Can you tell me about how important this capability
is to the Marine Corps, the status of the program, and how it fits into
your force design?
General Berger. The capability provided by the Amphibious Combat
Vehicle (ACV) is aligned with the National Defense Strategy (NDS),
Defense Planning Guidance (DPG), and Commandant's Planning Guidance
(CPG) as a power projection enabler and key source of protected
mobility for ground combat formations of the Fleet Marine Force. The
ACV can self-deploy from amphibious ships in situations where
connectors are not optimal to deliver intact combat units to a point of
decision without the requirement for arrival and assembly and provide
the offshore flexibility for rapid penetration, raids, and
redeployment. In December 2020, the Assistant Secretary of the Navy for
Research, Development, and Acquisition (ASN RDA) approved the ACV for
Full-Rate Production.
24. Senator Sullivan. General Berger, how will the ACV acquisition
enhance the operational capabilities and effectiveness of the Corps'
Fleet Marines, especially when compared to the Amphibious Assault
Vehicle (AAV)?
General Berger. The ACV is a modern, fully amphibious armored
personnel carrier that will provide otherwise dismounted ground combat
formations with a greater range of maneuver options in the littoral
operating environment, along with significantly improved lethality,
protection, and command and control when compared to the AAV.
usmc rotary wing and tritons (uavs)
25. Senator Sullivan. General Berger, you have previously
identified the need for more analysis before reducing the F-35 fleet,
has a similar pause been extended to the proposed divestment of rotary
wing systems at this time? If not, can you commit to pausing any rotary
wing divestment actions until this Committee has the chance to review
the complete aforementioned study or similar information you can
provide at an earlier date?
General Berger. As stated in my ``Force Design 2030'' report,
issued in March 2020, I am confident in the divestment of three heavy
helicopter squadrons, three medium-lift tiltrotor squadrons and at
least two light attack helicopter squadrons. The redesign of the Marine
Corps, across all elements of the force remains our imperative if the
Nation expects the Marine Corps to respond globally to crisis in an
advanced adversary threat environment. To accomplish that end, within
available resources, requires choices, carefully considered and
balanced across all elements of the Marine Air-Ground Task Force
(MAGTF). Studies will continue to inform our progress, but to delay
will offer competitors an advantage in gaining and maintaining a
qualitative edge over our expeditionary forces. I will ensure that you
receive a briefing on the study outcomes, which will offer me one
perspective on appropriate force size.
26. Senator Sullivan. Secretary Braithwaite, the current RQ-4C
Triton Program of Record calls for 68 aircraft. Following the planned
Air Force divestment from the RQ-4 Global Hawk, has this outlook
changed? Can you describe how decisions related to the Global Hawk,
which we know is substantially similar to the Triton, could impact
supply chain readiness and costs? Even if your acquisition plans remain
unchanged, how might divestment of the Global Hawk impact Triton
readiness over the short- and the long-term?
Secretary Braithwaite*. Divestiture of U.S. Air Force RQ-4 air-
vehicles/support will likely lead to rate impacts at all levels of the
common supply chain. In turn, this will likely increase Department of
the Navy (DoN) Triton costs for production, spares/repair parts, and
sustainment/depot support. The Triton program has already realized
increased costs for shared/common services at the Northrup-Grumman (N-
G) Operations Support Center, Mission Systems Lab Services, and SIPR
infrastructure at N-G Rancho Bernardo, CA facilities. Loss of
additional core air-vehicles/support systems is anticipated to drive
higher (TBD) costs to the DoN. Additionally, Triton would likely incur
a higher share of common engine sustainment recurring costs through the
Oklahoma City and Rolls Royce facilities.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
* These responses were received on June 9, 2021, Secretary Thomas
W. Harker assumed the position of Acting Secretary of the Navy on
January 21, 2021.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Regarding supply-chain readiness, the planned shared investment by
both programs in establishing organic repair capability for common
subsystems such as landing gear, brakes, flight controls, and
electrical distribution has already been delayed due to budget
reductions to both programs. With Global Hawk divestment, and the
existing Service resource challenges for the planned investment in
organic repair capability, the Triton will likely need to rely on
commercial suppliers for repair/sustainment. While the risk to Triton
short-term readiness is low, it is not yet fully clear how USAF Global
Hawk divestment and the reliance on commercial suppliers will impact
the mid/long-term event horizon.
The DoN will continue to assess these impacts in context to the
current MQ-4C program. This assessment will look at the overall force
structure and long-term readiness/sustainment to balance overall DoN
ISR requirements/priorities, appropriated resources, and any updates to
the National Defense Strategy.
__________
Questions Submitted by Senator David Perdue
marine corps high mobility engineer excavator
27. Senator Perdue. General Berger, in 2019, the Marine Corps
validated a formal requirement to procure and maintain 120 High
Mobility Engineer Excavators (HMEE) to replace its aging, trailer
transported Backhoe Loader (BHL). As you know, the HMEE is a self-
deployable multi-mission system that can travel at over 55 mph, be up-
armored and ford over 30 inches of water. It is ideally suited to
support the full spectrum of Marine Corps missions with survivability,
mobility, counter-mobility and humanitarian/disaster relief
capabilities. Given its importance, Congress included and additional
$10.2 million in the Fiscal Year 2019 Defense Appropriations Bill to
help accelerate fielding of the HMEE.
Can you please describe the ways that the HMEE fully supports the
Marine Corps' new operating concepts of Expeditionary Advance Base
Operations (EABO) and Littoral Operations in a Contested Environment
(LOCE)?
General Berger. Combat Engineer formations will employ the HMEE to
support assured mobility while operating ashore within a contested
maritime environment. Tasks include route reconnaissance, obstacle and
debris removal, and limited material handling utilizing the front
bucket, rear ditching bucket, forklift attachment, and associated hand
tools. The HMEE's self-mobility will provide a valuable material
handling and construction tool at a smaller total footprint. While
specific future engineer formations and mission sets are still being
developed through the Force Design process, we expect HMEE will help us
balance the requirements of assured mobility against maintaining a
light footprint in contested littoral spaces.
28. Senator Perdue. General Berger, in what ways does the HMME
support security cooperation and humanitarian/disaster relief missions
the Marine Corps is often called upon to support?
General Berger. The HMEE is one of several Engineer Equipment
resources the Marine Corps can use to support security cooperation and
humanitarian assistance and disaster response (HA/DR) missions.
Traditionally, the Marine Corps utilizes Engineer Equipment to clear
debris, deliver supplies, perform emergency earthmoving operations such
as constructing berms and dikes, and even rescue stranded civilians.
Our response forces employ tailor made equipment sets for each mission,
dependent upon the situation.
29. Senator Perdue. General Berger, given this formal requirement
was validated after the release of the 2018 National Defense Strategy,
please further describe why the HMEE is important to Marine Corps units
for future mission success.
General Berger. The HMEE will be an important tool for future
Engineer formations that are divesting of large equipment in favor of
lighter, more agile equipment sets. The HMEE bridges the gap between
our current small and large excavators, while also adding self-
deployment, limited forklift capabilities, and pneumatic hand tools to
emplace and clear obstacles. As the Marine Corps develops its future
Engineer capabilities, the HMEE will continue to play an important role
in the Combat Engineer, Littoral Combat, and Engineer Support
Battalions
__________
Questions Submitted by Senator Mazie K. Hirono
amphibious assault vehicle program
30. Senator Hirono. General Berger, do you foresee any issues with
maintaining the safety of the current AAV program until it is replaced
with the next generation Amphibious Combat Vehicle?
General Berger. While we wait for the Amphibious Combat Vehicle to
be fully fielded, we will continue to support AAV readiness through an
enduring AAV Sustainment Working Group. The Marine Corps is prudently
addressing maintenance for the AAV and its sub-systems, tracking supply
chain issues, and carefully monitoring the supportability of the AAV
repair parts supply chain with the Defense Logistics Agency.
Additionally, we have conducted a thorough review of our operator and
maintainer manuals.
31. Senator Hirono. General Berger, to what extent have AAV
operations resumed?
General Berger. AAV waterborne operations have only resumed for
mission essential MOS qualifications at the Assault Amphibian School
(AAS) and testing by the Amphibious Vehicle Test Branch. All other AAV
waterborne operations have remained suspended pending the results of
on-going investigations. All other AAV non-waterborne operations
remains in effect.
Specifically, AAS has resumed AAV water operations on five separate
occasions since the mishap, each time to train entry-level marine
students and only after a deliberate review of required safety
measures. Fleet Marine Force units, Training and Education Command, and
Headquarters Marine Corps stakeholders have clarified and improved
safety requirements for swim qualification, egress training, life
preserver use, and vehicle safety checklists. AAS has reinforced these
requirements through expanded implementation of emergency breathing
devices, safety boats, and certification of instructor personnel.
32. Senator Hirono. General Berger, how has July's accident
affected maintenance and training for AAVs?
General Berger. A thorough and detailed review of all training,
operator, and maintenance manuals and references has been directed
which has resulted in a more comprehensive, detailed inspection process
and maintenance actions that address the aging of our fleet of AAV's. A
more inclusive, thorough analysis of training and doctrine has led to
improved training standards and requirements for the AAV and training
systems such as the Submerged Vehicle Egress Trainer. These actions
have been implemented across the Fleet Marine Force and Supporting
Establishment and all reference materials are being updated.
AAV waterborne training remains focused on the essential
occupational and licensing actions necessary to complete initial
training at the AAS and all other AAV non-waterborne training remains
in effect. Service-wide efforts addressing AAV maintenance remains on-
going to action our AAV materiel maintenance way ahead.
climate change
33. Senator Hirono. Secretary Braithwaite, Admiral Gilday, and
General Berger, can you provide a comprehensive list of the domestic
and overseas installations that are likely to be affected by rising sea
levels and extreme weather events over the coming decades and if not,
can you provide a timeline for when such a list can be made available?
Secretary Braithwaite* and Admiral Gilday. We are seeing extreme
weather events, droughts and sea level rise. Super storm Sandy caused
$50 million in damage at Naval Weapons Station Earle. More recently,
Hurricane Irma severely impacted Naval Air Station Key West in 2017,
Hurricane Florence caused $3.6 billion in damage at Camp Lejeune in
2018, and Hurricane Sally caused $521 million in damage at NAS
Pensacola.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
* These responses were received on June 9, 2021, Secretary Thomas
W. Harker assumed the position of Acting Secretary of the Navy on
January 21, 2021.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wildfires in 2018 forced the evacuation of Naval Air Station Point
Mugu, and burned approximately 1,200 acres at Camp Pendleton.
Droughts can have broad implications for base infrastructure,
impair testing activities, increase the number of black flag day
prohibitions for testing and training, and contribute to heat-related
illnesses.
Naval Station Norfolk is experiencing sea level rise averaging
4.6mm per year, with a 5.1mm increase in 2017. Sea level rise, land
subsidence, and changing ocean currents have resulted in more frequent
nuisance flooding and increased vulnerability to coastal storms.
The ten most vulnerable Marine Corps installations (in no
particular order) are:
Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, CA
Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, NC
Marine Corps Base Camp Butler, Okinawa, Japan
Marine Corps Base Hawaii, HI
Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, SC
Marine Corps Support Facility Blount Island, FL
Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort, SC
Marine Corps Base Quantico, VA
Marine Corps Reserve Forces, New Orleans, LA
Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego, CA
The sixteen most vulnerable Navy installations (in no particular
order) are:
Naval Air Station Key West, FL
Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay, GA
Naval Base Guam, Guam
Joint Base Pearl Harbor Hickam, HI
Wahiawa Annex, HI
Naval Magazine Indian Island, WA
Naval Base Coronado, CA
Naval Base San Diego, CA
Joint Base Anacostia Bolling, DC (Transferred to the
Air Force in fiscal year 2020)
Washington Navy Yard, DC
Andersen Air Force Base, Guam
Naval Support Facility Indian Head, MD
General Berger. In the Report to Congress entitled ``Climate
Impacts on Installation Resiliency'' from December 2020, installations
were identified as susceptible to either flooding or hurricanes as
detailed in the tables below. These tables include the Plant
Replacement Value (PRV) for each installation, which is the cost to
construct a replacement facility aboard that installation using current
building codes, design criteria, and materials. PRV is calculated based
on the size of the current facility, published DOD unit costs for that
type of facility, the local area cost factor, design, contingency, and
Supervision, Inspection, and Overhead (SIOH).
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Exposure Marine Corps Installation State PRV
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Flooding MCAS YUMA AZ ARIZONA $1,751,321
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Flooding MARCORPRCUITDEP SAN DIEGO CA CALIFORNIA $11,993
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Flooding MCB CAMP PENDLETON CA CALIFORNIA $4,196,785
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Flooding MCSF BLOUNT ISLAND FLORIDA $806,429
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Flooding MCB HAWAII KANEOHE HAWAII $
217,016,749
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Flooding HDQTRS 4TH MARDIV NEW ORLEANS LOUISIANA $1,399,334
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Flooding MCAS CHERRY POINT NC NORTH CAROLINA $501,785,35
4
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Flooding MCB CAMP LEJEUNE NC NORTH CAROLINA $208,326,61
3
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Flooding MCRD/BEAUFORT PI SC SOUTH CAROLINA $1,403,525,
324
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Flooding MARINE CORPS BASE QUANTICO VA VIRGINIA $10,115,032
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
................................................ TOTAL $2,348,934,
934
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Exposure Marine Corps Installation State PRV
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hurricane MCSF BLOUNT ISLAND FLORIDA $26,825,049
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hurricane MCLB ALBANY GA GEORGIA $6,669,957
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hurricane MCB HAWAII KANEOHE HAWAII $49,953,534
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hurricane HDQTRS 4TH MARDIV NEW ORLEANS LOUISIANA $10,936
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hurricane HDQTRS 4TH MAW NEW ORLEANS LA LOUISIANA $412,821
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hurricane MARCORRESFOR NEW ORLEANS LA LOUISIANA $7,839,283
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hurricane MCAS CHERRY POINT NC NORTH CAROLINA $3,671,715
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hurricane MCB CAMP LEJEUNE NC NORTH CAROLINA $339,774,30
6
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hurricane MCAS BEAUFORT SC SOUTH CAROLINA $997,334
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hurricane MCRD/BEAUFORT PI SC SOUTH CAROLINA $23,952,391
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hurricane MARINE CORPS BASE QUANTICO VA VIRGINIA $3,568,912
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
................................................ TOTAL $463,676,23
8
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The difference in PRV values between each table is due to the fact
that facilities aboard each installation would be affected differently,
depending on exposure type (either flooding or hurricane). To identify
installations susceptible to flooding exposure, fiscal year 2019 end of
year data from the internet Navy Facility Assets Data Store (iNFADS)
was correlated with a geospatial data query for buildings in the United
States and Territories where buildings are located within 100 year USA
Flood Hazard Areas set by FEMA. Of note, this FEMA data only considers
locations in the United States, so overseas locations are not
represented. Hurricane exposure was assessed for all buildings within
the hurricane-prone region, as identified by UFC 3-301-01, Structural
Engineering, with a Facility Condition Index below sixty. An assessment
could be made of the flooding risk for overseas Marine Corps
installations with the appropriate authorization and funding.
34. Senator Hirono. Secretary Braithwaite, Admiral Gilday, and
General Berger, given how long it can take to properly execute military
construction projects, what actions are being taken now to mitigate
future effects of climate change on domestic installations and
installations overseas?
Secretary Braithwaite* and Admiral Gilday. The DON mitigates the
risk of environmental impacts through a combination of historical
information, design criteria and statutory requirements to design
facilities and plan installations. 10 USC 2864 requires all major
military installations to have a Master Plan. Unified Facilities
Criteria (UFC) 2-100-01, Installation Master Planning, is issued under
the authority of DODI 4165.70, Real Property Management, implementing
the requirement for Installation Master Plans. In accordance with the
Fiscal Year 2020 NDAA, the UFC was changed to specifically incorporate
planning for the effects of climate change. Design and construction
utilize the latest code requirements and ultimately result in delivery
of more resilient facilities better capable of withstanding future
events; therefore, every installation has prescribed mitigations to
combat climate change. Depending on the size of the mitigation and the
severity of the consequence if the project is not completed, the
installations can use either their local controls or compete for
centralized or line item appropriated funds.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
* These responses were received on June 9, 2021, Secretary Thomas
W. Harker assumed the position of Acting Secretary of the Navy on
January 21, 2021.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
General Berger. Installations apply a variety of mitigation
measures to maintain continuity of operations, ranging from exercising
emergency action plans to evacuating personnel and weapons platforms
during floods, to long-term design adaptations and facility development
which reinforces and raises building above the historic mean-high water
of the 100-year flood plain.
When new facilities are planned, facilities are sited outside of
the 100-years floodplains whenever possible. Where it is not possible
to avoid a floodplain due to mission requirements, the Department of
the Navy designs new facilities in accordance with the requirements in
UFC 3-21-01, Civil Engineering, and the Navy and Marine Corps include
floodplain mitigation measures in the facility design.
35. Senator Hirono. Secretary Braithwaite, Admiral Gilday, and
General Berger, how will domestic and overseas ports, airfields, and
other logistics nodes be impacted by climate change in the coming
decades?
Secretary Braithwaite* and Admiral Gilday. If our current sea level
rise models hold true then some ports will be subject to increased
flooding, requiring prioritized investment (to overcome impacts to
operations). Similarly, logistics functions will need risk evaluations
for decisions about additional protection or relocation to other
installations. The Navy will attempt to minimize impact, maintain
logistics capabilities, and ensure individual missions are not
compromised (based on threat) to deliver maximum lethality.
Consequence Management at Naval installations around the world is
predicated upon risk posed by all hazards, not just climate change.
Each installation (port, airfield, logistics node or base) has
evaluated risk based on impact to their mission. If a risk presents a
negative impact to the mission, mitigation measures are evaluated and
an optimized solution is pursued, either through construction funding
or other means to provide a deterrent to the threat. Therefore, on an
annual basis every installation performs this consequence management
evaluation to ensure appropriate mitigation measures are applied
judiciously. Climate Change is just one threat that the Navy addresses
and is evaluated based on impact to the mission.
General Berger. The Department of the Navy views the effects of
climate change as a significant installation resilience issue which
impacts readiness, and incorporates climate resilience as a cross-
cutting consideration for planning and decision-making processes, not
necessarily as a separate program or specific set of actions. The
Marine Corps uses programs within the DOD Office of Local Defense
Community Cooperation (OLDCC), formerly the Office of Economic
Adjustment, to ensure installation resiliency through collaboration
with surrounding states and communities. Specially, the recently
authorized Installation Resiliency Authority will enable the Marine
Corps to provide technical and financial assistance through OLDCC to
defense communities to analyze and implement action that enhance the
resiliency of essential transportation, logistical, or other necessary
resources outside of the military installation that are required in
order to maintain, improve, or rapidly reestablish installation mission
assurance and mission-essential functions.
strategic fuel
36. Senator Hirono. Secretary Braithwaite, the ability to
effectively resupply disparate small units is critical to operations in
the Indo-Pacific. A recently release INDOPACOM study, conducted by IDA,
highlights our adversaries' increasing ability to threaten the supply
chains that provide fuel. Do you agree with the conclusion that
posturing fuel in theater closer to the point of need is required?
Secretary Braithwaite*. The assessment of the IDA study as it
applies to the entire Indo-Pacific Theater is best answered by
USINDOPACOM. However, from the Navy perspective, it reinforces studies
and war games that my own staff, the CNO, and the Commandant have also
conducted. It is true that posturing fuel in theater is a part of the
needed solution. However, it is only part of the solution because
forward staged fuel is static and vulnerable to interdiction.
Distributed Logistics envisions intra-theater networks to deliver to
point-of-need. Potential solutions that the Naval team are working on
include a more effective, and smaller tactical distribution capability
that accounts for the contested environment that we need to be capable
of operating in. Examples of this include but are not limited to the
``Stingray'' (MQ-25) aerial refueling drone and the Next Generation
Logistics Ship.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
* These responses were received on June 9, 2021, Secretary Thomas
W. Harker assumed the position of Acting Secretary of the Navy on
January 21, 2021.
37. Senator Hirono. Secretary Braithwaite, what steps are being
taken to protect the integrity of our fuel supply chains?
Secretary Braithwaite*. From an end-to-end supply chain perspective
this question is best answered by the Joint Staff with input from the
Services and various DOD Agencies, to include DLA-Energy. The Navy is
working closely with the Defense Logistics Agency, the Joint Staff, and
the Office of the Secretary of Defense to address challenges of
supporting the Navy and Marine Corps in peacetime as well as in
contested environments. The Navy Petroleum Office focuses on these
issues on a daily basis. The Navy is also developing new capabilities
that enable Naval operations as mentioned above, as well as developing
advanced capabilities supporting ship -to-shore fuel movement and more.
__________
Questions Submitted by Senator Doug Jones
installation security
38. Senator Jones. Admiral Gilday, is it your understanding that
once the short started firing in Pensacola, everything went according
to plan from the Navy's perspective?
Admiral Gilday. From a security response perspective, installation
security forces at Naval Air Station Pensacola followed standard
operating procedures and pre-planned responses for an active shooter
situation in accordance with Navy Tactics, Techniques and Procedures.
The Naval Air Station Pensacola security response was immediate and
first responders were in the building within five to seven minutes
after the shooting began. Responding Navy Security Force units
established a perimeter and engaged the threat using their government-
issued weapons. Escambia County Sheriff Deputies quickly arrived on
scene and supported Navy Security Forces. The Navy and county first
responders followed their training and did everything they could to
mitigate injuries and loss of life.
39. Senator Jones. Admiral Gilday, can you answer as to whether
anything about installation security and emergency response procedure
at NAS Pensacola has changed since December 6, 2019?
Admiral Gilday. Standard installation security and emergency
response procedures at Naval Air Station Pensacola have not changed as
a result of the shooting. However, the Department of the Navy's
investigation into the shooting is complete, and we are in the process
of implementing the report's recommendations for physical security and
force protection at Naval Air Station Pensacola and all Navy
installations worldwide.
40. Senator Jones. Secretary Braithwaite, Admiral Gilday, and
General Berger, the NASP shooting investigation report recommends
requiring that installation Naval Security Forces qualify as Category
III/IV weapons qualified personnel. What does that mean and how will
that help prevent or mitigate attacks?
Secretary Braithwaite* and Admiral Gilday. Navy personnel who are
authorized to be issued a military weapon are assigned within one of
four categories. The category defines the weapon qualification criteria
based on the type of armed mission an individual is assigned. The
categories with examples are as follows:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
* These responses were received on June 9, 2021, Secretary Thomas
W. Harker assumed the position of Acting Secretary of the Navy on
January 21, 2021.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Category I. Personnel who are issued a military weapon primarily
for personal protection. This category includes most officers, chief
petty officers, officer accession personnel, enlisted accession
personnel, aircrews, shipboard armed watch standers, and Military
Sealift Command (MSC) personnel who are armed in the course of their
duties. Personnel/units in this category are those non-security
personnel/units whose mission exposes them to potential hostile fire,
thus requiring them to be armed for self-defense.
Category II. Personnel who are issued weapons primarily to maintain
security of Department of Defense (DOD) assets. This category includes
law enforcement, non-expeditionary security forces, contract security
forces, armed watch standers, rovers and security reaction force
personnel.
Category III. Personnel who are issued weapons for combat support
and expeditionary operations. These units are attached to, or in direct
support of, ground combat elements. This category includes, but is not
limited to, Navy Expeditionary Combat Command.
Category IV. Personnel who are issued weapons for special missions.
This category includes, but is not limited to: explosive ordnance
disposal teams in support of special operations forces; convoy support
personnel; F-18 aircraft squadrons attached to a Marine wing;
designated marksmen; visit, board, search and seizure personnel; and
nuclear weapons security for shore facilities.
At this time, there is no intent to change the weapons
qualification criteria for our Navy Security Forces. Our Navy Security
Forces, who are category II personnel, are armed, qualified and highly
trained to respond quickly to a variety of emergency situations. As
stated, categories III and IV are designated for specialized weapons
training for combat support in expeditionary operations.
General Berger. In accordance with DOD and Service policy, Category
III weapons include missiles, rockets, grenade launchers, and mortars.
Category IV weapons include semi-automatic or non-automatic shoulder-
fired weapons, handguns, and recoilless rifles. The aforementioned
weapon categories are appropriate for base defense operations for
Marine forces performing security functions in a deployed/hostile
environment, with primarily Category IV weapons maintained at our
installations supporting installation defense. For law enforcement (LE)
and security functions aboard Marine Corps installations, Category III
weapons include grenade launchers capable of deploying non-lethal
munitions, and Category IV weapons including the service pistol and
shotgun. The shotgun is also capable of employing non-lethal munitions.
Category II weapons include crew-served weapons systems, and automatic
and semi-automatic small arms used by Marine Corps LE personnel, such
as the M4/M16 service rifle. Marine Corps LE personnel, which includes
Marine Military Police, 0083 civilian Police Officers, and 1811
Investigators, assigned to Marine Corps Provost Marshal Offices (PMO)/
Marine Corps Police Departments (MCPD) as gate sentries, patrol units,
and Special Reaction Team personnel, are qualified on the weapons
appropriate for LE and security functions specific to each PMO/MCPD
mission aboard the installation on which they are assigned. The primary
being the service pistol, service rifle, and shotgun. Marine Corps LE
personnel are further required to train and qualify with the assigned
weapons carried on their person and maintained while on duty. Marine LE
personnel also receive training on these categories of weapons during
entry-level training, sustainment training, and pre-deployment
training. The weapons issued to our Marine Corps LE personnel providing
LE and security aboard Marine Corps installations provides an immediate
and sustained response to an active threat aboard Marine Corps
installations, acting a deterrent against those planning an attack.
Installation commanders and tenant unit commanders exercise discretion
through authorities granted by DOD and Service policies for selectively
arming personnel with the appropriate weapons system to serve other
security functions outside of what is provided by Marine Corps LE
personnel aboard Marine Corps installations.
41. Senator Jones. Secretary Braithwaite, we use an app called HERO
911 in Alabama with our schools, and I'd like to see the Defense
Department consider something similar. The intent is to get the closest
first responders to the scene of an attack ASAP, in order to neutralize
the shooter and minimize casualties. The NASP report recommends
requiring regional and installation commanders to coordinate with
civilian authorities to integrate geographically bounded Wireless
Emergency Alert notifications into a Standard Operating Procedure for
crisis response. Would you be willing to investigate and, if
practicable, implement an app that automatically summons all verified,
registered law enforcement with a certain radius of a base during an
active shooter event?
Secretary Braithwaite*. The Navy has been in coordination with DOD
and other Services on the Next Generation 911 (NG911) requirements and
standards defined by the National Emergency Number Association (NENA).
Significant infrastructure upgrades are required to align the
telecommunications framework to complement existing information
technology modernization initiatives.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
* These responses were received on June 9, 2021, Secretary Thomas
W. Harker assumed the position of Acting Secretary of the Navy on
January 21, 2021.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
My staff is continuously looking for new technologies to reduce
response times to an active shooter incident. The Navy currently has
great working relationships with the local law enforcement agencies
surrounding our Navy installations.
42. Senator Jones. Secretary Braithwaite*, do you have the
authorities and resources to look into such an application, or will you
need to work with the Armed Services Committees to achieve this?
Secretary Braithwaite*. The Navy has the authorities to review
existing technologies. At this time, there is no need for additional
support from the Armed Services Committees.
43. Senator Jones. Secretary Braithwaite, Admiral Gilday, and
General Berger, the NASP investigation report recommends that the Chief
of Naval Operations (CNO) develop a uniform policy ``to arm qualified
NSF personnel and other individuals for personal protection not related
to performance of an official duty or status.'' Can you state what you
believe this policy should be?
Secretary Braithwaite* and Admiral Gilday. The safety and security
of our military and civilian personnel, family members and base
visitors is our top priority. Current Navy policy provides guidance
regarding personal firearms safety, control and accountability. The
policy further provides a process for the registration, accountability,
storage, and transportation of personal firearms, when approved by the
Navy Installation Commanding Officer. The current policy does not allow
the transportation of loaded or concealed handguns, shotguns, or rifles
on Navy installations except by duly authorized law enforcement
personnel or by military personnel in the performance of their official
duties. Individual state licenses or permits that authorize individuals
to carry concealed handguns are not recognized or valid on Navy
installations. Navy Installation Commanders have the authority to
approve privately owned firearms on their respective installations for
use at MWR recreational locations (i.e. hunting, target practice,
etc.).
Our Navy Security Forces, comprised of military active duty and
reservist, and civilian personnel are trained and equipped to protect
our personnel within our Navy installations, ships, and facilities.
Navy Security Forces are armed, qualified and highly trained to respond
quickly to a variety of emergency situations.
Consistent with the recommendations from the NASP investigation,
the Navy's policy is under revision and will be consistent with
guidance provided in DOD policies. At this time, I do not intend to
authorize the carrying of personal firearms for personal protection.
General Berger. The Marine Corps published Marine Corps
Administrative Message 719/19 on 31 December 2019 that authorizes
qualified Marine Corps law enforcement (LE) personnel (58XX Military
Police, 0083 Police Officers, and 1811 Investigators) possessing 18
U.S.C. Sec. 926 billion credentials under the LE Officer Safety Act, to
carry a privately owned firearm (POF) for personal protection not
related to the performance of official duties while aboard Marine Corps
property. A draft Marine Corps Bulletin (MCBUL) is also being staffed
that supports existing Service efforts to provide this capability to
Marine Corps personnel that are not designated as LE personnel. The
MCBUL would authorize the broader Marine Corps population (non-LE
personnel) among the total force meeting DOD, DON, Service, and
statutory requirements for the concealed carry of a POF for personal
protection not related to the performance of official duties while
aboard Marine Corps property.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
* These responses were received on June 9, 2021, Secretary Thomas
W. Harker assumed the position of Acting Secretary of the Navy on
January 21, 2021.
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