[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
.
[H.A.S.C. No. 117-12]
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
ELECTROMAGNETIC SPECTRUM
OPERATIONS: CHALLENGES AND
OPPORTUNITIES IN THE
INVISIBLE BATTLESPACE
__________
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON CYBER, INNOVATIVE
TECHNOLOGIES, AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
HEARING HELD
MARCH 19, 2021
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
44-411 WASHINGTON : 2021
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SUBCOMMITTEE ON CYBER, INNOVATIVE TECHNOLOGIES, AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS
JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island, Chairman
RICK LARSEN, Washington ELISE M. STEFANIK, New York
SETH MOULTON, Massachusetts MO BROOKS, Alabama
RO KHANNA, California MIKE GALLAGHER, Wisconsin
WILLIAM R. KEATING, Massachusetts MATT GAETZ, Florida
ANDY KIM, New Jersey MIKE JOHNSON, Louisiana
CHRISSY HOULAHAN, Pennsylvania, STEPHANIE I. BICE, Oklahoma
Vice Chair C. SCOTT FRANKLIN, Florida
JASON CROW, Colorado BLAKE D. MOORE, Utah
ELISSA SLOTKIN, Michigan PAT FALLON, Texas
VERONICA ESCOBAR, Texas
JOSEPH D. MORELLE, New York
Troy Nienberg, Professional Staff Member
Chris Vieson, Professional Staff Member
Caroline Kehrli, Clerk
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Langevin, Hon. James R., a Representative from Rhode Island,
Chairman, Subcommittee on Cyber, Innovative Technologies, and
Information Systems............................................ 1
Stefanik, Hon. Elise M., a Representative from New York, Ranking
Member, Subcommittee on Cyber, Innovative Technologies, and
Information Systems............................................ 3
WITNESSES
Clark, Bryan, Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute.................... 5
Conley, William ``Bill,'' Former Director for Electronic Warfare,
Office of the Secretary of Defense............................. 7
Kirschbaum, Joseph, Director, Defense Capabilities and Management
Team, Government Accountability Office......................... 9
APPENDIX
Prepared Statements:
Clark, Bryan................................................. 34
Conley, William ``Bill''..................................... 54
Kirschbaum, Joseph........................................... 64
Langevin, Hon. James R....................................... 31
Documents Submitted for the Record:
[There were no Documents submitted.]
Witness Responses to Questions Asked During the Hearing:
[There were no Questions submitted during the hearing.]
Questions Submitted by Members Post Hearing:
Mr. Moulton.................................................. 87
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE ELECTROMAGNETIC
SPECTRUM OPERATIONS: CHALLENGES AND
OPPORTUNITIES IN THE INVISIBLE BATTLESPACE
----------
House of Representatives,
Committee on Armed Services,
Subcommittee on Cyber, Innovative Technologies, and
Information Systems,
Washington, DC, Friday, March 19, 2021.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 3:00 p.m., via
Webex, Hon. James R. Langevin (chairman of the subcommittee)
presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES R. LANGEVIN, A REPRESENTATIVE
FROM RHODE ISLAND, CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE ON CYBER, INNOVATIVE
TECHNOLOGIES, AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS
Mr. Langevin. Good afternoon, everyone. The Subcommittee on
Cyber, Innovative Technologies, and Information Systems will
come to order.
I want to thank our witnesses for being with us today. I am
looking forward to their testimony.
I am going to give an opening statement in just a minute
and then yield to the ranking member for her opening statement,
but before we do, I just have to read some technical
information for members, including myself, who are joining
remotely by video.
So, with that, I would like to welcome the members who are
joining today's remote hearing. Members who are joining must be
visible on screen for the purposes of identity verification,
establishing and maintaining a quorum, participating in the
proceeding, and voting.
Those members must continue to use the software platform's
video function while in attendance unless they experience
connectivity issues or other technical problems that render
them unable to participate on camera. If a member experiences
technical difficulties, they should contact the committee staff
for assistance.
Video of members' participation will be broadcast via the
television internet feeds.
Members participating remotely must seek recognition
verbally, and they are asked to mute their microphones when
they are not speaking.
Members who are participating remotely are reminded to keep
the software platform's video function on the entire time they
attend the proceeding.
Members may leave and rejoin the proceeding. If members
depart for a short while for reasons other than joining a
different proceeding, they should leave the video function on.
If members will be absent for a significant period or depart to
join a different proceeding, they should exit the software
platform entirely and then rejoin if they return.
Members may use the software platform's chat feature to
communicate with staff regarding technical or logistical
support issues only.
Finally, I have designated a committee staff member to, if
necessary, mute unrecognized members' microphones to cancel any
inadvertent background noise that may disrupt the proceeding.
So, with that, I am going to begin my opening statement, as
I said, then yield to the ranking member.
But I want to welcome everyone to our hearing today on the
Department of Defense's electromagnetic spectrum operations. I
want to thank Ranking Member Stefanik for joining me in holding
this hearing today.
And I would like to recognize also my good friend and
colleague on the CITI [Cyber, Innovative Technologies, and
Information Systems] Subcommittee, Representative Larsen, for
his leadership on this issue as co-chair of the Electromagnetic
Warfare Working Group, along with his fellow co-chairs,
Representative Austin Scott and Don Bacon. And I am proud to be
a co-chair with them as well.
I also want to thank our witnesses, of course, for
appearing today. Today we welcome Mr. Bryan Clark, senior
fellow and director of the Center for Defense Concepts and
Technology at the Hudson Institute; also, Dr. William ``Bill''
Conley, former Director for Electronic Warfare in the Office of
the Secretary of Defense; and Dr. Joseph ``Joe'' Kirschbaum,
Director of the Government Accountability Office Defense
Capabilities and Management Team.
Thank you all for appearing today.
The electromagnetic spectrum underpins nearly every aspect
of the modern U.S. military, and, as co-chair of the
Electromagnetic Warfare Working Group, I have long recognized
its importance.
The Department uses the electromagnetic spectrum for
situational awareness, communicating with friendly forces,
identifying enemy capabilities, directing strikes, navigation,
and countless other tasks. In fact, nearly every U.S. military
capability, from airplanes to night vision goggles, satellites,
ships, and radios, depend on the spectrum to function. And they
depend on it today. This isn't just something in the future.
This is something they depend on today.
While previous CITI hearings covered what lies ahead in
defense, again, the military is facing unseen challenges in the
electromagnetic spectrum right now. Many of the United States
most important weapons systems, like the F-35 or Ford-class
aircraft carrier, are at a disadvantage today without
uncompromised access to the electromagnetic spectrum.
So this challenge and the importance of electromagnetic
spectrum operations will only grow as emerging technologies
like autonomous weapons, connected battle networks, artificial
intelligence, and directed energy continue to fundamentally
change warfare. Future combat will be less about the capability
of individual weapons systems and more about how a networked
system of systems communicate and work together through the use
of the electromagnetic spectrum.
Seeing this trend, competitor nations like China and Russia
are developing their own capabilities to dominate this domain
and connect their forces. These governments believe the
electromagnetic spectrum represents a potential critical
vulnerability for the U.S. military which they can exploit to
reduce our advantage and the efficacy of our high-end weapon
systems.
Recent cases in the field speak to this. Russia has
conducted electronic attacks against U.S. coalition forces in
Syria. And, in 2018, then-U.S. Special Operations Command head
General Raymond Thomas called it, and I quote, ``the most
aggressive electronic warfare environment on the planet from
our adversaries,'' end quote.
So we saw similar activity in Ukraine when the Russians
launched surprise artillery strikes using signals emanating
from Ukrainian troops' cell phones. There are also alarming
reports of directed-energy incidents targeting U.S. Government
personnel, producing extremely concerning bio-effects, a
phenomenon known as Havana syndrome.
So Congress and the Department have, therefore, undertaken
significant efforts recently to position and equip the U.S.
military for success. I want to recognize the progress the
Department and the military services have made furthering these
efforts. However, we have more work to do to ensure that the
United States maintains its advantage and closes the gap where
we have lost our edge.
As the Department modernizes its systems and capabilities,
it must ensure that both new and existing platforms are
networked together in a joint environment. To do so, we need to
develop the right management structures, strategy, and
resources at the Department of Defense. And I know our
witnesses will have much insight into how to accomplish these
objectives.
So, with that, I look forward to hearing from our expert
panel, but first I will turn to the ranking member, Ranking
Member Stefanik, for her remarks.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Langevin can be found in the
Appendix on page 31.]
STATEMENT OF HON. ELISE M. STEFANIK, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM NEW
YORK, RANKING MEMBER, SUBCOMMITTEE ON CYBER, INNOVATIVE
TECHNOLOGIES, AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS
Ms. Stefanik. Thank you, Chairman Langevin. And thank you
to our witnesses today.
The electromagnetic spectrum is, quote, ``the invisible
battlefield,'' end quote, and a domain in which the U.S.
military's success depends. However, our dominance in this
domain is no longer secure. The Department of Defense's
Electromagnetic Spectrum Superiority Strategy lays out a path
to reassert our overmatch within the electromagnetic operating
environment while also recognizing the important evolution of
private-sector spectrum use.
As the Department's strategy points out, this new dynamic
in the spectrum environment will present opportunities as well
as challenges. However, the strategy is clear in its goal:
``freedom of action in the electromagnetic spectrum at the
time, place, and parameters of our choosing.'' This is a
requirement for the continuation of our operations in any
domain.
It is difficult to understate the importance and range of
spectrum operations undertaken by the Department. From critical
command, control, and communications to electronic warfare and
weapons guidance, the ability to operate in spectrum is an
existential capability for our Armed Forces.
Yet spectrum is a finite resource that has become a
congested, constrained, and contested environment. Actions by
other countries and their militaries, the private sector and
their operations, and various regulations all restrict our
military's ability to operate within spectrum.
It is within this framework that Congress and the
Department must take concentrated steps to stay ahead of our
adversaries and innovate new technologies to achieve the goals
of the strategy.
One of the most concerning threats is our adversaries'
decades of studying our reliance on spectrum to conduct every
aspect of military operations. China and Russia, specifically,
are testing and developing offensive and defensive capabilities
to be used against our systems. All the while, we have failed
to transform our own capabilities to stay ahead of these near-
peer competitors.
Russia's employment of spectrum operations in 2014 to
disrupt their adversary's capabilities in Ukraine and rapidly
capture Ukrainian territory should serve as a stark warning of
our adversaries' evolving spectrum capabilities.
However, I am encouraged by the Department recognizing this
problem, and Congress must be willing to support efforts to
boost our competitive advantage as quickly as possible.
We must also find solutions to balance DOD's [Department of
Defense's] need to access certain bands of spectrum with the
private sector and rural communities' critical need to develop
spectrum for modern communications and 5G capabilities.
Our Nation's private sector and civilian access to spectrum
correlates directly with our economic competitiveness and, by
extension, our national security as well. Our adversaries,
especially China, recognize the inextricable link between
spectrum development and national power.
Going forward, we will have to determine how to most
efficiently and effectively allocate spectrum to ensure both
economic prosperity and military superiority. The benefits of
correctly balancing these priorities are profound, while the
consequences of getting this balance wrong could be disastrous.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I look forward to hearing from our
witnesses, and I yield back.
Chairman, I think you are muted.
Mr. Langevin. I am. Thank you very much, Elise.
And I want to thank the ranking member for her remarks, and
we will now receive testimony from Mr. Bryan Clark.
Mr. Clark is a senior fellow and director for the Center
for Defense Concepts and Technology at the Hudson Institute. He
was also the primary author of a review mandated by the 2019
NDAA [National Defense Authorization Act] entitled ``Winning
the Invisible War,'' which I am sure we will hear about today.
Mr. Clark, you are now recognized to summarize your
testimony for 5 minutes, and we welcome you before the
subcommittee today.
STATEMENT OF BRYAN CLARK, SENIOR FELLOW, HUDSON INSTITUTE
Mr. Clark. Thank you very much, Chairman.
Chairman Langevin, Ranking Member Stefanik, and
distinguished members of the committee, thank you for this
opportunity to talk about the challenges and opportunities
facing U.S. military operations in the electromagnetic
spectrum.
As you have noted, the spectrum is arguably the most
important environment to modern warfare. It connects nearly
every one of our forces together across multiple domains. It is
also the mechanism by which almost all of our sensing,
navigation, and communication technologies work.
It is also, in a lot of ways, the most unheralded
warfighting space, at least within the U.S. defense community.
Although we experience the spectrum every day through our
smartphones and our mobile computers and the vehicle collision
avoidance systems in our cars, in a lot of ways it is a
forgotten domain, because we can't feel it like the land or
really experience it every time we get on the computer like
cyberspace.
So, despite its invisibility, though, access to the
electromagnetic spectrum is critical for U.S. forces, who
without it wouldn't be able to do the combined arms warfare
that they have perfected in a lot of ways over the last century
of integrating forces from multiple domains.
America's adversaries, particularly Russia and China,
recognize this importance of the spectrum, and, as you noted,
they have been aggressively pursuing mechanisms to deny the
spectrum to U.S. forces so they can take apart the ability of
the battle networks the U.S. military uses to conduct
operations, successful operations like we have done in Iraq and
Afghanistan or even in Kosovo.
Unfortunately, during the two decades that followed the
Cold War, the U.S. largely sat on its hands and let its rivals
get a leg up on them in the electromagnetic spectrum. We didn't
do a lot of advancements in technologies or operational
concepts, and we let them get ahead of us in many ways. So
multiple assessments have now argued that the U.S. military in
a lot ways is behind its rivals in the electromagnetic spectrum
and electromagnetic spectrum technologies, particularly China.
And, at this point, given the timeframe we are looking at--
Admiral Davidson just recently talked about there being less
than a decade for us to deter China--and our fiscal
constraints, we are not going to be able to go and, system
versus system, try to match the Russian and Chinese and rest of
world's electromagnetic spectrum capabilities. We are going to
have to, instead, mount some different kind of efforts to use
different operational concepts and different technologies to
get a spectrum advantage.
Keeping us back from that, unfortunately, is that, today,
about 40 percent of the Pentagon's electromagnetic-warfare-
related procurement and research development funding goes to
about 10 platform-centric programs that largely perpetuate the
Cold War operational approaches that we relied on from 30 years
ago, such as using manned jamming aircraft to confuse sensors
that enemies use for air defenses so that we can get a manned
bomber in to go attack a target. We still use those tactics
even though 30 years ago that was the state of the art; now it
may not be.
So we are going to need to have leap-ahead concepts and
technologies that can move away from these old concepts and try
to mount new approaches that allow us to get an advantage in
the spectrum.
So Congress can help in this effort. According to GAO
[Government Accountability Office], a series of recent
governance changes that were directed by Congress haven't
really yielded the benefits in electromagnetic spectrum
superiority that we desired. And so, instead of maybe further
governance and process changes, Congress should focus now on
making sure that DOD pursues the operational concept and
technology changes that are going to help it gain an advantage
in the spectrum competition with adversaries like Russia and
China.
The new Electromagnetic Spectrum Superiority Strategy is a
very good part of that. It highlights technology such as
adaptable systems, agile network, electromagnetic warfare, and
then virtualized training and testing, as well as open
architecture systems. All of those are going to be very
important to the new operational concepts and technologies that
we need to gain an advantage. Section 152 of last year's NDAA
also highlighted some of these technologies.
Making those technologies come into fruition, though, is
going to require detailed work on the part of Department of
Defense, such as is reflected in the implementation plan for
the new Electromagnetic Spectrum Superiority Strategy. That
implementation plan, though, is going through the Pentagon
staffing process and may eventually come out of it and be acted
upon, but it needs to be managed by an organization that is
able to really make direction and decisions regarding
resourcing and operational concept development, such as the
JROC [Joint Requirements Oversight Council], as opposed to
being staffed out and turned into another Pentagon staffing
exercise that doesn't result in real change.
And before I close, I just want to highlight a couple of
technology areas that we are going need to focus on.
Adaptability is going to be very important, and we can talk
about that during the hearing. And then, also, technologies
that allow us to be able to maneuver in the spectrum in real
time and using AI [artificial intelligence] and cognitive
systems to manage that maneuver are going to be very important,
which involves electromagnetic battle management and involves
the use of new decision support systems for operators.
So we are going have to make a shift in how we manage our
operations within the spectrum and move away from traditional
methods of controlling the spectrum towards new approaches. If
we don't do that, we are going to have our capabilities erode,
and we are going to face a situation where our adversaries are
going to be able to control the destiny of their warfighting
operations and we won't be able to protect our allies or our
own interests.
Thank you for your time, and I look forward to your
questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Clark can be found in the
Appendix on page 34.]
Mr. Langevin. Very good. Thank you, Mr. Clark. I appreciate
your testimony and for being here today.
We will now hear from Dr. Bill Conley. Dr. Conley is
appearing in his personal capacity today, though he was
previously the Director of Electronic Warfare in the Office of
the Secretary of Defense. He is now a senior vice president and
chief technology officer of Mercury Systems.
Dr. Conley, thank you for being here. I appreciate your
work in this area for many years, and, again, thank you for
being here. You are now recognized for 5 minutes to summarize
your testimony.
STATEMENT OF WILLIAM ``BILL'' CONLEY, FORMER DIRECTOR FOR
ELECTRONIC WARFARE, OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE
Dr. Conley. Chairman Langevin, Ranking Member Stefanik,
distinguished members of the committee, I thank you for the
opportunity to appear today in a personal capacity. This is my
first appearance as an individual expert, having departed the
Pentagon in 2019. I request that my written statement be
included in the record.
Two years ago, I performed an analysis between the Chinese
state and the United States, particularly comparing the gross
domestic products of the economy, of defense spending, and of
research and development using a purchase-power ratio
comparison. What I found in that is that the Chinese state
economy, their gross domestic product, is already 10 percent
larger than ours. Fortunately, their R&D [research and
development] spending is only 80 percent that of the United
States and their military spending is only 60 percent.
Unfortunately, as the size of their economy continues to
grow, we should expect their R&D as well as their defense
budgets will continue to increase. This is a very different
strategic situation than we faced during the Cold War against
the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union's economy never approached
parity with that that we had in the United States.
I believe the strategic question we are faced with today is
this: How do we want to compete?
The United States has largely leveraged our manufacturing
capacity as a proxy for military strength. Globally, however,
we have transitioned into the information age, in which global
leadership is defined by innovation, technology development,
and technology adoption as well as integration. Our strategy
must reflect this transformation.
Back in 2015, China formed their Strategic Support Force,
an equal mix of electronic warfare, cyberspace operations, and
space operations. The Chinese Strategic Support Force reports
directly to their central military commission as a peer of
their Army, Navy, Air Force, as well as their Strategic Rocket
Force headquarters. In comparison, the United States has
maintained electromagnetic warfare as well as spectrum
management as capabilities to achieve a tactical outcome.
Strategy: I would like to spend a couple minutes talking
about strategy.
Electromagnetic battle management--the dynamic
reconfiguration of our sensors, of our networks, as well as our
electromagnetic attacks in real time--may become the preferred
way to achieve power projection when compared to the defensive
utilization of the electromagnetic spectrum.
As a nation, the United States strategy should be based in
innovation and our technology development and our adoption of
these innovations for national defense and in the full
integration of these innovations into military tactics and
operations. Just inventing it is not adequate today. This is a
dramatic departure from our platform- and program-centric
legacy investment strategy that we have pursued. Instead of
viewing capability gaps and shortfalls, EMSO [electromagnetic
spectrum operations] can actually create opportunities for us.
Innovation: Where does it come from, what does it mean, and
how do we access it?
The National Science Foundation reports that across the
United States Government, in totality, accounts for
approximately a quarter of our economic investment into
research and development. The other three-quarters comes from
the private sector. The government should seek to maximum the
value of this investment from the commercial sector.
For discussion today, I offer six major recommendations,
the first of which is to incentivize R&D investment by
commercial companies, particularly for defense applications.
Second, to develop a strategic framework for innovation by
both traditional defense contractors as well as nontraditional
commercial companies; one size does not fit all in this regard.
Third, to develop policies to share data broadly across our
national innovation base, government-furnished information
really needs to be available to the entirety of the supply
chain to generate the maximum return.
Fourth, any insight, report, or deliverable generated on a
government contract or by a government thought leader should be
broadly available to those with the need to know to improve our
national competitiveness.
Fifth, ensuring a realistic EMSO environment and threat
capability--that is, in budgeting, in testing, as well as in
training.
Sixth, to establish a strategic offensive EMSO service core
function to create an enduring advantage in this space.
In closing, while organization and authority are important,
the greatest risk I see today is continuing to apply a legacy
strategy to the strategic realities of today.
I again thank you for the opportunity to testify and look
forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Conley can be found in the
Appendix on page 54.]
Mr. Langevin. Very good, Dr. Conley. Thank you very much.
We will now receive testimony from Dr. Joe Kirschbaum. Dr.
Kirschbaum is the Director of the Government Accountability
Office Defense Capabilities and Management Team. He was the
primary author of a review mandated by the 2020 NDAA entitled
``Electromagnetic Spectrum Operations: DOD Needs to Address
Governance and Oversight Issues to Help Ensure Superiority.''
Mr. Kirschbaum, thank you for being here. You are now
recognized to summarize your testimony for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF JOSEPH KIRSCHBAUM, DIRECTOR, DEFENSE CAPABILITIES
AND MANAGEMENT TEAM, GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE
Dr. Kirschbaum. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Langevin, Ranking Member Stefanik, and members of
the subcommittee, I am pleased to be here today to discuss the
vital role the electromagnetic, or EM, spectrum plays in the
Department of Defense's military operations.
My testimony today is based on that report that we issued
in December 2020 on DOD electromagnetic spectrum operations. It
provides information on the EM spectrum's importance to
military operations, adversaries' advantages and advances in
spectrum capabilities, and the extent to which the DOD is
positioned to ensure spectrum superiority.
Now, as my colleagues have pointed out, the EM spectrum is
the range of all electromagnetic radiation frequencies. And
many technologies, in fact most, that are used on the
battlefield use these frequency bands to operate. DOD is
dependent on the EM spectrum across all warfighting domains:
air, land, sea, space, and cyberspace.
Where warfare from ancient times through much of the
industrial age involved strictly line-of-sight operations and
weapons, warfare in the information age involves the use and
the denial of use of the EM spectrum at all levels of
operation. This includes communications, signals intelligence,
information systems, command and control, identifying friendly
and adversarial forces, targeting support, and implementing
self-protection countermeasures.
It is not an exaggeration to say that the ability of our
forces to successfully operate anywhere depends on success in
the EM spectrum.
It is also important to appreciate that the EM spectrum
operations take place in the broader context of the information
environment. In this context, cyberspace EMS operations,
information operations, and similar activities are all
interconnected. This is true in actual war, and it is also true
in activities that fall short of the threshold of armed
conflict, which is where our primary adversaries seek to
operate today.
While the United States focused on counterterrorism
operations over the last 20-plus years, China and Russia were
working to advance their peer-to-peer military capabilities,
and that includes the EM spectrum operations.
Among the advances we have seen in either Russian or
Chinese capabilities are the deployment of old and new
systems--jammers, small UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles], et
cetera--at the company level; incorporation of other
information-related capabilities, such as cyber, psychological
warfare; and demonstration that EMS operations have been
integrated into a combined arms doctrine and practice.
As part of our work, in addition to interviewing a wide
range of defense officials and reviewing original source
documents, we reviewed some 43 studies about defense
electromagnetic spectrum issues.
There was remarkable agreement among those studies on the
challenges to DOD's EM spectrum capabilities. These challenges
included outdated capabilities themselves, lengthy and
disjointed acquisition process, increased spectrum competition
and congestion, and gaps in experienced staff and training,
realistic training. Many of these studies also agreed with DOD
officials that among the chief causes for lack of progress in
many of these areas was governance.
DOD issued department-wide electromagnetic spectrum
strategies in 2013 and 2017 and published a third strategy in
October 2020. We found that DOD had not fully implemented
either the 2013 or 2017 strategies. This was not because they
were bad strategies--quite the opposite--but, rather, because
of bureaucratic and organizational hindrances.
Specifically, DOD did not take action to develop detailed
implementation plans, focus leadership on offices and
individuals with authority to execute, or create processes to
review progress and assess results to ensure that they achieved
intended outcomes. Rather than do these things, DOD re-sought
and remade each successive strategy. We think this pattern
threatens potential success for the 2020 strategy.
In our December report, we made recommendations in each of
these areas. DOD generally agreed with our recommendations and
told us the Department planned to address many of them in the
implementation plan for the 2020 strategy.
In just under 2 weeks, DOD will reach its own 180-day
deadline for issuing that implementation plan. We have not yet
seen it, but we do look forward to seeing the extent to which
DOD takes the kind of actions we identified in December 2020.
In conclusion, DOD's response to our December report shows
that officials are well aware of the challenges and
opportunities affecting military use of the EM spectrum.
Ultimately, by addressing the gaps and challenges noted in our
report, DOD would improve its ability to innovate and expand in
the way that Mr. Clark and Dr. Conley have mentioned and
operate in the spectrum. This is important to achieve the
Department's vision of spectrum superiority.
I look forward to continuing to work with you and the
Department to help address spectrum challenges and to make the
most of its opportunities.
Chairman Langevin, Ranking Member Stefanik, members of the
subcommittee, this completes my prepared statement, and I am
happy to address any questions you may have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Kirschbaum can be found in
the Appendix on page 64.]
Mr. Langevin. Very good, Dr. Kirschbaum. Thank you very
much for your testimony.
And to the panel, greatly appreciate your being here today.
I am anxious to get to questions. I am going to defer and go
last in the questions. We will get members in who are going to
get flights.
And, with that, I am going to yield time first to Mr.
Larsen for 5 minutes.
Mr. Larsen. Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate that
very much. I have to get out to Dulles Airport, so I appreciate
that.
Dr. Kirschbaum, in 2006, 15 years ago, the Electronic
Warfare Working Group, at the time it was named, issued a
report on EW in the Pentagon that concluded that what needed to
happen for focus was that we needed to have leadership, we
needed to have a pipeline of training on EW, and we needed to
have the research and development budgets that resulted in
capabilities.
Can you explain to me how, if I came back, if I was here 15
years from now, that your report, which largely mirrors a
report that we wrote 15 years ago, won't say the same thing?
Dr. Kirschbaum. That is a great question. I am hopeful that
it won't, for a number of reasons, the first of which is the
amount of attention that is paid to this critical issue by you,
Chairman Langevin, Ranking Member Stefanik, and people like us,
whereas it was much more specialized in those days.
Now, what we see when we interview the people in the
Pentagon that are responsible for putting the strategies
together, they get it. They understand the critical issues.
They understand the impact and the way the operational doctrine
needs to change, the way that needs to flow into training, the
way that needs to drive innovation.
What happens is, as I alluded to, once those strategies are
put out and everyone signs off on them, they go into the normal
process. And that normal process is governed by the services,
who are responsible for training and equipping forces.
Mr. Larsen. Right.
Dr. Kirschbaum. They have their priorities. And even though
you have broad agreement about that things like EM spectrum cut
across all those efforts, when push comes to shove and the
dollars get spent, they are not going to achieve----
Mr. Larsen. Can I stop you there? Because this is a great
segue for a question for Mr. Conley, who pointed out the PLA's
[People's Liberation Army's] Strategic--or the--yeah, the
Strategic Support Force, the SSF. It is actually organized so
that cyber and space are on par with the other services, and
points out that we don't have that when it comes to EMSO.
So, Mr. Conley, can you address how we can get there and if
we can get there? Or do your recommendations even help us get
there?
Dr. Conley. Right. So what I would offer is, in my opinion,
the part that China, with their Strategic Support Force, did in
a way that I think is really insightful and could be valuable
for us is, first off, the blending of electronic warfare,
cyberspace, and space operations as peers and, secondarily,
that elevation to say, this is strategically important and we
are going to use it to achieve a strategic outcome.
It is the combination of both of those things that I think
are really important for operationally what they have been able
to do. There is a governance conversation, there is a structure
conversation, there is a resourcing conversation. But what they
have achieved operationally, I think, is really pretty darn
impressive.
Mr. Larsen. Well, we should find out more about that.
And I want to ask Mr. Clark in my remaining time: I have
NAS [Naval Air Station] Whidbey Island in my district. We have
the Growlers; we have the jamming pods on those. These are the
expensive platforms that you were talking about that maybe have
a--well, they certainly do have a critical function in certain
areas but not in other areas.
How should we think about balancing resources that we give
to EMSO largely, you know, whether it is a platform like a
plane or a platform like a motherboard?
Mr. Clark. Right. So I think there are a lot of
opportunities. There is a lot of great work that has been going
on in terms of research and development over the last decade to
develop small-form-factor electronic warfare/electromagnetic
warfare systems that can go onto UAVs and also the networking
to allow networked electronic warfare.
And so what I would see in the future is that the Growler,
Prowler now--or Prowler, now Growler----
Mr. Larsen. Right.
Mr. Clark [continuing]. Is going to be the quarterback,
right? It will be the quarterback for electromagnetic warfare
operations.
So it may not be doing a mod [modified] escort jamming
operation, where it is going to get in relatively close and jam
an air defense radar so that a bomber can go hit a target. It
may stand back and be coordinating the actions by both itself
and then some expendable UAVs that will go in closer. And some
of those are being developed by DOD right now.
But what that means is some of that investment is going to
have to shift away from the platform to these other systems.
Mr. Larsen. All right. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for yielding me your time
at the beginning so I can get to the airport. I very much
appreciate that. And I don't yield back, because I have no time
to yield back, so I won't be pretentious and say I am going to
yield back anything. Thanks a lot.
Mr. Langevin. Very good. And I appreciate your leadership
in this area. I know that you take great pride in the work that
you have done in working to try to solve this problem. So thank
you for your leadership and your expertise that you bring to
the table too.
Mr. Larsen. Thank you.
Mr. Langevin. So thank you. Thank you very much.
I would now recognize the ranking member for 5 minutes.
Ms. Stefanik. Sir, I will yield to Mr. Moore, who looks
like he is in an airport right now.
Blake, do you want to take my 5 minutes for questions?
Mr. Moore. You know, I am good for another 40 minutes. I am
not in any immediate rush. So I am actually okay, if you want
to give your opening statements. Thank you, though. I
appreciate that. But, yes, I am at the airport, but I am okay
for the next 45 minutes.
Ms. Stefanik. Okay. So I will take back that time if you
will yield it back to me.
Mr. Moore. Yield back.
Ms. Stefanik. My question is: Mr. Clark, in your report,
``The Invisible Battlefield,'' you and your colleagues provide
extensive analysis of China's strategy, operational concepts,
and their four stages to achieve electromagnetic spectrum
superiority: number one, meticulous planning; number two,
multilevel integration; number three, precise release of
energy; and, number four, demonstrating effects.
In which of those stages do you believe that China is most
effective and which of those stages is the U.S. most
vulnerable? And then what are your overall thoughts on China's
ability to effectively execute these steps to superiority?
Mr. Clark. Well, thank you for the question.
So they are very well-positioned to be able to execute
these steps. I would say that the ones where they have the most
efficacy are the meticulous planning--they have analyzed our
battle networks to an exquisite degree of detail, both through
clandestine means and because they just look and see what we
have available on the open web, to figure out how we are going
to put our pieces together to be able to create a set of forces
that are going to conduct an operation.
And then they have also done very well at building the
specific systems necessary to release the precise energy that
is going to disconnect the parts of our battle network away
from each other, so to jam our communications, to deceive our
sensors. So they have identified what those key nodes are in
the force packages that we are going to send downrange so that
they can prevent them from being effective.
So they have done very well with those two steps, I would
say, in particular, the planning and the release of energy.
The demonstrating of effects I see less from them. I mean,
the goal there is to try to deter us by showing that they not
only have planned this out but they have figured out how to
release the energy in specific ways that can defeat our battle
networks.
So they are working on that, and, obviously, we have seen
indications of that in the intel world. But they have not done
as much of that as I thought they might, given the gray-zone
operations they have been pursuing.
Ms. Stefanik. Thank you.
I will yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Langevin. Very good.
Next, Ms. Escobar, if you are still there, I will recognize
you for 5 minutes.
Ms. Escobar. I am. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman, not
just for this hearing but also for the accommodation that you
are making on a Friday fly-home day, especially for those of us
who live further away.
And to our panel, thank you so much for your work, your
expertise, and your testimonies, which are really informative
and helpful.
My questions are for Dr. Conley. And, actually, I really
appreciate Dr. Clark's focus on the need to be adaptable and,
Dr. Conley, your emphasis on innovation.
One of the many goals of the 2020 electromagnetic spectrum
operations strategy under the Defense Department has been to
develop new EMS capabilities.
In my home district of El Paso, Texas, the University of
Texas at El Paso, or UTEP, has been a leading force in the
worldwide revolution of 3D printing. In 2000, the Keck Center
and UTEP's College of Engineering made strategic investments in
additive manufacturing technologies in order to assist
manufacturers in prototyping parts before investing in costly
manufacturing tools needed for production.
Most recently, in 2018, UTEP became the North American base
of operations for one of the world's emerging technology
leaders in the production of 3D printing equipment.
As you strategically evaluate opportunities to strengthen
our EMS capabilities, to what extent would you say there are
components and applications of EMS that can be potentially
involved with additive manufacturing?
Dr. Conley. So I really appreciate that question. As an
engineer myself, this is a fascinating and great time to be a
practicing engineer in any way, shape, or form. And the reason
for saying that is really based around what is happening with
the digital transformation and the ability to do a digital
design to rapidly prototype--additive manufacturing being
exactly one of those capabilities--and the ability to actually
not have to prototype and go and exhaustively test it, to then
redesign, to then build the actual thing that you want, but to
actually take that 3D piece and go and immediately start using
it.
And so what I think is really exciting about additive
manufacturing are all of the different places it allows us to
more rapidly integrate a capability onto a platform and do
really well there.
There is one part, though, that I think is really core to
our electronic warfare, our electromagnetic warfare, and our
EMSO capabilities, which is the microelectronics which underpin
them. And for where we are today, additive manufacturing won't
solve that part of the problem, but it will solve substantial
parts of the problem that we have and, I think, will allow us
to go faster more affordably and generate more value.
Ms. Escobar. And, Dr. Conley, just in the time that I have
left, just a couple minutes, how do we best utilize that
talent, that skill set, that brain power in academia, in these
young minds, and connect them to the work that we need to do to
innovate and to lead and to demonstrate superiority?
Dr. Conley. So one of the things that I mentioned in my
opening statement was that ability to broadly and
democratically share information and insights that we have. And
so I think, in many cases, we have challenges and problems that
we actually can expose to the academic community, to students,
prior to them joining the workforce, prior to worrying about
things like security clearances, and we can actually get them
working on problems that really matter.
When you look underneath the hood of our EMSO capabilities
today, the vast majority of them are really defined by
software-defined radio technology. And these are things that
you actually can go ahead and, you know, play with on a college
campus and work with the entirety of your time while you are in
school and immediately bring that knowledge into being a
technology developer in support of our EMSO capabilities and
ultimately our national defense with strategic implications.
Ms. Escobar. Thank you so much, Dr. Conley. This is, I
think, an exciting area of opportunity for us, one that we
definitely need to exploit.
Mr. Chairman, again, thank you so much for accommodating me
before I run to the airport. I yield back.
Mr. Langevin. You are very welcome. Glad you got your
questions in, and have a safe flight home.
Ms. Escobar. Thank you.
Mr. Langevin. I don't have the list in front of me. I think
we are going to go with Mr. Moore next. I am not sure. I don't
have the seniority list. They have not sent me that list quite
just yet, so I apologize to my colleagues if I am going out of
order.
But, Mr. Moore, I will recognize you for 5 minutes.
No? He may be offline.
Ms. Stefanik. Bice.
Mr. Langevin. Okay. Mrs. Bice is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mrs. Bice. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you to the witnesses for being here. As a
freshman, I am still learning a lot about this particular
issue, and so I appreciate you all kind of bringing some
historical context to what you have done in the past.
My question is really a twofold question. Mr. Clark and Dr.
Conley, you really talked about making a shift in how we manage
the spectrum and then also research and development and
investment in the future.
Can you talk a little bit or flesh a little bit more out,
how do we incentivize young people to want to look at this
particular issue? Because it is, in some ways, sort of
abstract, right? You can't see it, feel it, touch it. How do
you, sort of, explain and understand--or explain and incite
someone that may be looking at this to get involved?
And then what do you see on the research front? What do we
need? What is the long-term vision for us, trying to figure out
what is next on the horizon past electromagnetic spectrum?
Mr. Clark. Well, I can start, because I think Dr. Conley is
going to have a lot more to say on this subject than I do.
But I will say, I think one of the most important things is
to make an area, a technology area, exciting for people to want
to go into. Today, electrical engineering in a lot of cases
means computer engineering, and back when I was in college, it
meant actually dealing with, you know, circuits and wires and
stuff.
So I think that part of it is shifting people's focus to
think of this as an exciting area of research. And one of the
ways to do that is this focus on adaptable, cognitive systems
that are AI-enabled--basically, taking advantage of the
virtualization that is happening in machines to begin to use
our electromagnetic spectrum systems more like virtualized
computer-type systems, where they are able to adapt in real
time to an adversary's emission, create new techniques and new
waveforms in real time to be able to defeat those jamming
effects or to create a new communications link with another
platform.
So that kind of merging of the software and the hardware
worlds, if you will, I think, could be very exciting for people
to go into.
And it deals with the problem that I just talked with
Member Stefanik about, which is the advent of the Chinese
approach to warfare, where they plan meticulously, develop a
way to defeat our forces. But then, if we present them
something that is much less predictable, because we are using
these cognitive and AI-enabled electromagnetic systems, it
might defeat that attempt on their part to take apart our
battle networks.
So I will turn it over to Dr. Conley.
Mrs. Bice. Thank you.
Dr. Conley. Thank you, Mr. Clark.
What I would add is, in my--my own story. I studied
nanotechnology when I did my Ph.D. And so nanotechnology
intrinsically is, well, nano, something small and therefore
something invisible. And so, personally, it was a very easy
journey for me into this EMSO community, because I was already
used to studying and working on things that, candidly, I
couldn't see without using specialized tools. The
electromagnetic spectrum, in many ways, is no different.
And building on, you know, Mr. Clark's comments there on
the AI side, that ability to expose someone to the most
pressing national security challenges for them to understand
the impact of what that meant--in my case, it was a radio-
controlled improvised explosive device on a roadside in Iraq or
Afghanistan and the ability to say, ``If we figure out how to
defeat this thing, we can save lives,'' that is motivation to
get up and get to go to work in a way that nearly nothing else
is.
And so I think there is a lot there that we actually can
get, you know, young kids really excited about as soon as they
finish college. And so I think there is a great opportunity
there.
The second thing that I will offer and one of the really
unique things about EMSO is that the rate of technology
adoption and the critical nature of it is profound for the
implications it has. Bryan and I previously have chatted about
this exact topic.
The rate of the innovation of new radar and radar warning
receivers during World War II for the identification of German
U-boats in the Bay of Biscay, it was a standard period of time
of 4 months. And that was seven decades ago now. And it was 4
months from measure to countermeasure. Today, we should expect
it to be even faster. You can't do that with a large aircraft,
but you can with a software-defined radio capability and
implementing EMSO holistically.
Mrs. Bice. And what about the research and development
piece? What do you see as far as needs for DOD to invest in
this? I think the need is there, but how do you sort of push
that to the forefront? And what are we looking at?
Dr. Conley. Yep. What I would offer is, it is a mix of what
is happening with microelectronics with the ability to use them
in a defense application. It is very different when you put a
chip in an air-conditioned, climate-controlled environment
versus on a military aircraft that shakes when it flies. And so
we have to get that part right. There is a lot about the
thermal there that is really critical.
And then the other side is, it is really easy to get
excited about the digital, but, in reality, there are a lot of
really hard analog problems on the radio frequency side--
filters, mixers, components that have to go in--to really be
able to get that performance at a level that we want. And every
time you start talking about advanced technologies, price
almost immediately shows up. And so how do we generate that at
a value that we can do in low quantity for defense applications
while we get that necessary value out of it?
And so, if I was to offer a couple suggestions for really
important problems to work on, I think those would be my top
couple.
Mrs. Bice. Great.
Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. Langevin. Very good. Thank you, Mrs. Bice.
I think that I am next, unless there is another member on
the Democratic side who is on who hasn't been recognized.
But let me start with this. And I know we have touched on
this a bit already, but let me just jump into it again and
expand on it.
To Mr. Clark or Dr. Conley, I wanted to know, you know,
again, further discuss, you know: Is DOD adequately leveraging
spectrum to enable future concepts like Multi-Domain
Operations, Distributed Maritime Operations, and Joint All-
Domain Command and Control? And how will those concepts
contribute to future U.S. military operations?
In addition, how do we ensure that both legacy and future
capabilities and systems are networked and interoperable among
military services?
We can start with Mr. Clark and then go to Dr. Conley.
Mr. Clark. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
So, on Joint All-Domain Command and Control, one of the
things we are finding in the work that we are doing there is
that, in the future, our communication networks are going to
not be able to necessarily provide us the command and control
relationships we always want. We want to have this very
hierarchical command and control team, with somebody in a
distant headquarters controlling forces way out in the field.
Our networks aren't going to be able to do that against a
capable adversary like China.
So, instead, we are going to have to think about adjusting
our command and control relationships to accommodate our
communications availability, which means we are going to have
to be ready to shift the command node to different places at
different times depending on what communications are available.
So that is going to reinforce this idea of, we need
interoperable forces that are able to quickly mix and match
their forces to be able to create force packages that can
deliver the right effects at the time. So interoperability will
be really important.
And, also, the network flexibility will be very important.
So, to get that network flexibility, we need systems that are
agile and can move across the spectrum to avoid enemy jamming
and then can be able to communicate with one another where they
are so they can reconnect their networks in a mesh sort of
framework.
So that requires systems that are able to work across a
wide range of frequencies and adjust their bandwidth and power
levels to minimize their chances of being detected. So agility
both in power and in beam width and beam direction and in
frequency are going to be necessary.
And then we are going to need to be able to cause those
forces to interoperate. So, inside of trying to use gateways to
connect a force that uses a Link 16 to a guy who is using a
MADL [multifunction advanced datalink] to a guy who using a
SADL [situation awareness datalink]--three different
communication protocols--we are going to have to use software-
defined toolkits, like STITCHES [System-of-Systems Technology
Integration Tool Chain for Heterogeneous Electronic Systems],
which is a program that DARPA [Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency] developed which builds an interoperable
connection between those two networks on the fly. So, instead
of having to build a hardware gateway between the two, it will
write software in real time to accommodate that connection.
So those are----
Mr. Langevin. Can I----
Mr. Clark [continuing]. Some of the things they----
Mr. Langevin. Is that something that is exquisite
technology that will be DOD, or are there commercial off-the-
shelf options that we can adopt and get into the field more
quickly?
Mr. Clark. So the STITCHES and similar programs are DOD
systems today. There are some commercial versions of those. We
talked about software-defined radios. There is a new version--
the new radio that is part of the 5G infrastructure is a
software-defined radio that can reprogram its waveforms in real
time, if programmed correctly to do that. So there are
commercial systems that allow you to reprogram a radio to use a
different waveform in real time that could allow a radio to
talk to another radio that maybe it wasn't originally designed
to work with.
So there are commercial versions of----
Mr. Langevin. Okay.
Mr. Clark [continuing]. This, because, of course,
interoperability is a thing in the commercial world as well.
Mr. Langevin. Great. Thank you.
Dr. Conley.
Dr. Conley. Yeah. The one thing that I would add on top of
what Mr. Clark said is, with electromagnetic battle management,
the integration of that with the multidomain operation, Joint
All-Domain Command and Control, the ability to maneuver in and
through the electromagnetic spectrum is something that every
time that you turn the dial on your radio you actually are
doing. You are maneuvering in the electromagnetic spectrum when
you do that in the same way that you can move to a different
lane on the highway. Your cell phone does that automatically
today with all of the different adjustments that are happening
underneath the hood.
But for a military commander, the ability to go ahead and
not only physically maneuver an aircraft, a ship, a ground
unit, but also maneuver in the electromagnetic spectrum in a
coordinated scheme is actually what I alluded to in my opening
statement: It may be one of the best strategic offensive
advantages that we can actually have that will be enduring in a
way that I think is really powerful for us. And so that is an
area that I personally am really excited about.
Mr. Langevin. Very good. Thank you.
And, Dr. Conley, again, elaborating on this, because I
think you touched on this earlier, but, you know, the
perspective you can provide on the speed at which DOD adapts
and moves to address challenges versus what you have seen in
the private sector thus far. How do you think DOD can better
incorporate private-sector innovation and talent at scale and
speed up its ability to innovate to confront emerging threats
and take advantage of opportunities?
Dr. Conley. So there are two dramatically different
directions I could take the answer. And so, one of which that
has been suggested many times is, how do we shorten the
planning cycle and how do we allow a new program to start at a
faster rate? I am not going to touch on that because I think
that that has been discussed substantially by others, but it
definitely is one viable option.
The other option is, how can you attract commercial capital
into our Nation's defense problems, and how can you go ahead
and generate a rate of return that will attract that capital to
come into the ecosystem? And I think that we actually can plan
that in a way that is much more familiar to those of us that
are used to the Federal budgeting process, but we can actually
go ahead and set up an ecosystem that allows that to occur.
And so that is what I touched on earlier with that making
sure, for both traditional defense contractors as well as
nontraditional commercial companies that want to service the
defense ecosystem, how do we get the appropriate expectation
for the income statement, for the balance sheet, for the cash-
flow side to actually make our national security problems an
area that they want to work in with a business model that
closes.
Mr. Langevin. Very good. I will hold there. Hopefully we
will have time for a second round, but I will hold there for
now. Thank you for those answers.
Mr. Moore is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Moore. Thank you, Chairman.
I would like to continue a little bit with what we were
discussing a few questions ago. I was intrigued by the concept
of how we encourage students and new professionals to get into
this.
Workforce development has been something that I continually
harp on, and am very frustrated that in my role in Congress I
don't know how to fix it, but it is something that I definitely
want to be involved with.
Could you speak to anything that can be specifically done
to encourage, whether it be on the commercial side, whether it
be potential, you know, jobs within the Federal Government,
within the DOD, to--what changes will we need to make to our
educational institutions to get them so they would be equipped
in addressing some of this need and being able to, you know,
prepare and produce enough talent that we can, you know, answer
the call for the future on this particular issue?
I speak with the--my district is Hill Air Force Base in the
First District of Utah, and, you know, they talk to me all the
time about how they could hire as many electrical engineers or
any type of engineers as would graduate in Utah and still have
a need.
What specifics would you foresee--and this question, I will
throw it to all of you; thank you for being here. What shift
does education need to do to produce this? And is there
anything we can do, even as a committee, to encourage or
incentivize potential employers for providing the necessary
credentialing or certifications that would be needed?
I will pause there.
Dr. Conley. So the first part that I would offer--and there
are a lot of facets of this. Unfortunately, it is a complex
problem, as you pointed out.
The first part that I would go ahead and emphasize is
making sure that we are attracting graduate students and
undergraduate students to our universities who ultimately stand
a decent chance of going on to work in defense.
When we look at, kind of, where is the biggest segmentation
of the pipeline of the total available talent versus those that
are interested, I think that is an area that we definitely
should consider what would be required to help there. And so I
offer that as a data point to you.
The secondary part of it that I would offer is making sure
that we are bringing in people with the right skills, the right
education, the right background for what type of problem it is
that we need. As someone with a Doctor of Philosophy degree,
not every problem in the electronic warfare community that I
have been able to work on over the years requires a Ph.D.,
right?
And so, with that in mind, it is, how do we make sure that
people are broadly aware of these problems but we get the right
problem to the right person's desk for them to work on? And so
I think there is a lot that we can do there. As we say, what is
the role of industry? What is the role of government? And what
type of skill sets do we want, in which different places, to
make sure that we do the right thing?
The third part that I would offer--I had a peer in the
Pentagon. He and his wife had three children, all of whom went
on to work in, basically, the high-tech side of industry on
advanced AI, advanced robotics. Despite the fact that he is a
Naval Academy grad, none of his three kids are working on
defense programs. He and his wife met in the Navy.
And so that is a little bit of a unique opportunity, I
think, to say, what is there that culturally we want to do to
make sure that we make these types of problems accessible, but
what do we also want to do on the business side to attract that
kind of talent?
A young graduate that is excited and passionate is looking
for a company where they get equity today. If you look at
Federal acquisition regulations and you say, ``Hey, I would
like to go ahead and give a 22-year-old engineer a share of
this company,'' that is not a cost that you actually can go
ahead and pass on.
And so I think the question is, how do we get the right
business model to drive things to create a culture both in the
private and the public sector that really attracts what we want
to achieve?
Mr. Clark. I----
Mr. Moore. Let me--please, go ahead.
Mr. Clark. I would add, one of the things we have looked at
in the work we have been doing inside the Pentagon has been
professionalizing the electromagnetic spectrum operations
community, which is not just the military side--so, you know,
trying to get the professional development for the military
side such that folks in that world feel like they are
developing as technicians or as supervisors and leaders--but
also on the civilian side.
And we have done not a great job in the DOD of
professionalizing the folks that work in the electromagnetic
spectrum operations community on the engineering and the
program management side. They feel like they are just kind of a
cog in the overall organization, they could be easily
interchanged out with somebody else, when, in fact, that is not
really true.
So by professionalizing the track, you know, for people
coming in to work at the labs, people who come to work at the
warfare centers, and they feel like they are entering a
professional community that is going to have their back and is
going to develop them over time--that is something that DOD has
been trying to do and has failed to really pull together. But
on the civilian side, if we could do that, it would make the
DOD a much more attractive employer to young engineers coming
out and looking, potentially, for a long-term--or at least a
career for a while.
Mr. Moore. Let me quickly add in there, this technology is
going to change rapidly, in my opinion, almost exponentially.
Are we equipped at the DOD level to be able to reskill and
upskill our current workforce so they can continually meet the
challenge? Or does this have to then--once they have been in
the industry 5 years, do they have to go back, do they have to
go dig deep into the education world and bring out the new
pieces? Are we going to be able to adjust on the fly is my
question.
Dr. Conley. Absolutely----
Mr. Clark. I think we could rapidly reskill people. And I
will let Bill answer.
Dr. Conley. I would offer, I think that we can definitely
upskill. And there is a lot of the analog side of the problem,
in particular, which is a little bit like art, and it is art
meets a lot of science. But you need that artisan that
understands the history of why we do things today. And so I
think there is a lot that we can do with upskilling the current
workforce.
Mr. Moore. I appreciate it.
Thank you, Chairman. I apologize. I yield back.
Mr. Langevin. No worries. Thank you, Mr. Moore.
Elise, I only had one or two more questions. Are you okay
if we go for a second round?
Ms. Stefanik. Uh-huh. Yes.
Mr. Langevin. Okay. Great.
Dr. Kirschbaum, I know we have kind of talked about this as
well, but DOD is now in its third electromagnetic spectrum
strategy in 7 years. Based on what the GAO is seeing, is this
strategy different from the prior two, and should we expect a
different result? What steps can Congress take to ensure
positive momentum and implementation?
I know we kind of talked on this at the end of Mr. Larsen's
line of questions, but if you want to elaborate.
Dr. Kirschbaum. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I think, you know, you hit on it rather well--and, first of
all, as I said in my opening statement, we are concerned about
the direction for the implementation of 2020, because, so far,
we have seen a pattern before. So we are concerned about it.
The strategies themselves have definitely recognized a lot
of the concepts that my colleagues and I have hit on: the idea
that you need to innovate and not just catch up with
technology, you need to think of bigger concepts. These
strategies themselves have taken aboard some of those ideas.
The idea of how we appreciate and understand electromagnetic
spectrum and operations today is different than it was just a
few years ago, and these strategies incorporate those ideas.
There is also a lot of consideration right now for ideas
that are going to make some of the connections, hopefully, in
the operational side--how you tie these things together into
battle management, how you achieve some of those broader
effects. Those kinds of things are going to be critical to glom
on to for future. Whether it is the education and motivating
people for education we just talked about or whether it is
system development, those are all critical to do that.
In order to get there, we have to put the right Department
emphasis on achieving those things and making sure that what we
are doing, what we are testing, what we are breaking apart,
what we are learning lessons from, what we are then going back
into experiment with, that is the rhythm and that is the
accepted rhythm and that is what we are doing. That is what
really needs to be done, and that is what we are looking
forward to.
Mr. Langevin. Very good.
If I could, too, given the organizational challenges that
you have highlighted today and how these issues impact so many
issues across the information environment, including
electromagnetic spectrum issues, cybersecurity, cyberspace
operations, and information operations, what organizational
change or changes would you recommend the subcommittee and/or
DOD consider to address these broader issues?
Dr. Kirschbaum. So I would say that, if you look at the
balance of our recommendations that we made at the end of 2020
on this, we are very specific that it needs to be
organizational responsibility to execute the strategy. So that
needs to be offices and/or people who have the authority and
responsibility to do so.
It is the next best thing to say, we don't care who that is
except those conditions need to be achieved. It needs to be
someone who has the authority to execute, backed up by a
process to assess what actions are taken and assess whether or
not those actions met the intent of the vision.
Those things are going to help the Department get over the
hump, as it were, that we have seen in other areas. So, for
example, you are well aware, sir, that we have worked with you
and Ranking Member Stefanik on things like the DOD Cyber
Strategy implementation, and we have seen the difference. In
those cases where you have someone with authority and a process
to back it up, you have seen some progress. And your committee,
in particular, has been vital in ensuring that success.
We have seen it in other areas, like with the nuclear
enterprise, nuclear deterrence reform efforts, where it has got
the attention and that helps push things along in terms of
where we need to go on innovation.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you very much, Dr. Kirschbaum.
Ranking Member Stefanik, you are recognized.
Ms. Stefanik. I have no further comments or questions, Jim,
so I will yield back for the next Republican.
Mr. Langevin. Okay. Thank you.
Mrs. Bice.
Mrs. Bice. I don't have any additional questions either,
Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Langevin. Okay. Thank you very much.
Then Mr. Moore.
Mr. Moore. No additional. Well, if you could summarize--in
fact, let me just be very, very brief.
If you could summarize, like, as we just kind of wrap this
up, what would you say, compared to some of our key
adversaries, where are we? Where is our biggest deficient area
that we need to focus on?
And then, if we want to say Russia and China, that is
great, or if you feel like there are other adversaries that
could be targeting. But what areas are we most vulnerable? I
would love to just get your candid thoughts. That is not
scripted or anything like that. And I will pause there.
Mr. Clark. So I would say our biggest vulnerability is our
reliance on active sensors and wide-area high-power networks.
When we have to operate inside the near abroad of China or
Russia, you know, we are on their turf. You know, they are the
home team. They have their sensor networks out there; they are
able to listen for any of our emissions. So the fact that our
ships and our airplanes have to rely, to a great degree, on
active radars to be able to do missile defense or active radars
to find targets and then on these wide-area networks, like Link
16, to communicate makes us, you know, very detectable, and it
makes it easy for them to figure out what we are doing and
attack us.
That is our biggest vulnerability, I think, is this home-
team advantage that the Chinese and Russians have and the fact
that we need to develop new technologies and tactics to be able
to still operate in those contested areas using passive sensors
and multistatic sensors and LPI--Low Probability of Intercept/
Low Probability of Detection sensors.
So it is a different approach that we need to mount, which
is uncomfortable, in a lot of ways, for the military forces of
today.
Dr. Conley. From my perspective, I would offer, we have to
ensure that we train as we intend to fight. In many cases, I
think we actually have an adequate understanding of adversary
capabilities, but when you look at the operational level and we
bring operational units together to train before a deployment,
we want to make sure that we exercise our command and control
network in a way that demonstrates that we have command and
control over those forces and we are able to execute everything
we want. That is exactly what either China or Russia would
attempt to fight us in. And it is an area, when we prepare, we
have to make sure we get right. At the operational level, I
would offer that.
At the strategic level, the other thing I would offer is: I
believe, from the three different testimonies that this
subcommittee has received so far this year, for this session of
Congress, this is the first one that does not have a former
Deputy Secretary of Defense, either acting or confirmed in the
role, who is appearing. And so making sure that, at the
strategic level, the investment that we are making is aligned
with where we want the strategy to go and making sure there is
that senior-leader buy-in from the budgeting side.
Dr. Kirschbaum. I would say it is kind of a melding of
those two--two things.
The first is, from that strategic level, the appreciation
of where and how vital EM spectrum operations are to that
entire information environment, as I mentioned--its importance
to everything from strategic messaging, information operations,
cyber. That incorporation and appreciation from the strategic,
operational, and tactical level is crucial, and we are not
quite there.
The other one is much more of, kind of, a pace, that
technology, doctrine, learning pace.
One of the dangers of inviting a historian to testify is
you are going to get examples from a long time ago. So, in
1914, armies marched off to war with the appreciation that the
machine gun was an awesome weapon. They had the machine gun set
up in separate units that--you kind of used them where you
needed them. Well, it didn't take long to figure out that that
was the wrong way to use them. And the Army that figured out
first that machine guns needed to be deployed in numbers
throughout specific units to support actual operations, they
had an advantage right away. And that was--the German Army did
that.
Right now, we are kind of marching off in the 1914. We
think of these kind of spectrum operations as enablers for
existing operation, and in a lot of ways we still treat them
that way. They are not as integrated as they need to be
throughout the force. A lot of the work we saw characterized
that. So that is the hump we need to get over.
Mr. Moore. Thank you.
And I yield back. Appreciate the perspective there. Thank
you, Chairman.
Mr. Langevin. Very good. Thank you, Mr. Moore.
I guess I have one last one. I guess maybe this might be
for Mr. Kirschbaum, but also Dr. Conley might want to weigh in.
Who or what entity within DOD is responsible for ensuring
new and existing systems can connect to one another? You know,
who is responsible for that plan and process? Especially
systems owned by different services.
Dr. Kirschbaum. So I would love Dr. Conley to help with
this, because I know he is going to have some very good
opinions on it.
Right now, the answer is: Everyone. Obviously, the CIO
[Department of Defense Chief Information Officer] is
responsible for that communications side and interoperability,
but for systems development, the responsibility also lies in
other places.
And that is actually one of the issues we have seen over
time with this and other areas, where the responsibility to
ensure that these systems are developed in an integrated
fashion falls second, third, and fourth order of priority,
versus individual service area development, so you don't get
the connectivity.
Mr. Langevin. Yeah. That is a bit troubling, obviously, to
say the least.
So, Dr. Conley.
Dr. Conley. Yeah. So completely agree with CIO owning the
strategy and the policy around that.
The other thing that I would add is, obviously, the
services at the program officer level, the PEO [program
executive office] level, obviously have a lot of
responsibility, obviously, on the acquisition piece.
I think the only part that we didn't touch on yet is the
JROC and the requirements process and ensuring, whenever we
can, we articulate which links we want to make sure have to be
able to talk with each other or how we set that expectation
into a requirement that ultimately is testable so we can make
sure that we are meeting that strategic objective that you
mentioned.
Mr. Langevin. Very good. Thank you.
I have no further questions. I would just ask the ranking
member if you had anything?
Okay. Very good.
Well, this has been an excellent hearing. I want to thank
you all for your time today, your incredibly valuable insights.
You have given us a lot to think about and to work on. We look
forward to staying in touch.
Members may have additional questions that they may want to
submit for the record. If you could help in responding to
those, we would appreciate that.
So, with that, again, excellent hearing. Thank you all for
being here today and what you have had to say. It has been
very, very helpful.
With that, this hearing stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:15 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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A P P E N D I X
March 19, 2021
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PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
March 19, 2021
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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING
March 19, 2021
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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. MOULTON
Mr. Moulton. Mr. Clark, in addition to defending our spectrum use
against adversaries, we must also share spectrum overseas with allies.
In your view, how can we best ensure that we successfully work with our
allies in this ``domain''? Should we focus on improving international
standards of spectrum use? Should we focus on building interoperable
systems that leverage complementary parts of the spectrum? Are there
other courses of action we can pursue?
Mr. Clark. Interoperability is one of the most significant
challenges facing U.S. and allied forces in countering the threats
posed by adversaries such as China and Russia. Although other opponents
like Iran and transnational insurgents will contest allies' use of the
spectrum, China and Russia can comprehensively attack multiple allied
sensor and communication systems while also presenting challenges in
other domains that increase the allies' reliance on a contested
electromagnetic spectrum (EMS).
To counter Chinese and Russian EMS threats, the U.S. military is
pursuing more sophisticated electromagnetic warfare (EW), radar, and
communication systems that incorporate artificial intelligence-enabled
controls, adaptive algorithms, and wideband apertures. In addition to
circumventing enemy countermeasures or detection, these systems would
enable U.S. forces to dynamically share spectrum with other users such
as 5G mobile communications. However, more agile U.S. EMS capabilities
could be less interoperable with legacy systems employed by allies.
One approach to sustain EMS interoperability among U.S. allies
would be for DOD to share its EMS technologies and tactics, which may
present security risks outside of the Five Eyes countries or fail to
succeed if allies are unable to implement equivalent capabilities in
their own forces. A more feasible approach would be to share new
spectrum control and management technologies that improve systems
already shared among allies, such as new algorithms for protecting
Link-16 from jamming and interception.
For systems that are not already shared, such as ALQ-249 Next
Generation Jammer or F-15 Eagle Passive Active Warning Survivability
System (EPAWSS), U.S. and allied forces could focus on deconflicting
operations with allies procedurally. Allied forces could geographically
or spectrally separate their EMS activities by assigning zones where
different allied force would conduct sensing or jamming operations.
This approach may work in geographically dispersed regions like the
Western Pacific, where U.S. forces may be operating forward with allied
forces protecting mid and rear areas. In Eastern Europe, procedural
deconfliction may be infeasible due to the constrained geography and
fast operational tempo. Another approach would be near real-time
deconfliction. Allied forces could use electromagnetic battle
management (EMBM) systems such as the Army electronic warfare planning
and management tool (EWPMT) or Navy Real-Time Spectrum Operations
(RTSO) systems to plan EMS operations and communicate those plans to
other allied forces shortly before they are executed. Allied units
could coordinate their plans electronically using EMBM tools or use
them to prevent interfering with one another's operations. This
approach may the most promising because EMBM tools are already being
employed in the U.S. military and could be adopted by U.S. allies with
minimal disruption to their current EMS systems.
Whether done by sharing technology and tactics, procedure, or using
communications, the DOD and its allied counterparts need to begin
developing processes and systems that promote EMS interoperability.
Otherwise, the U.S. military risks leaving behind allies that are not
yet able to field the highly-adaptive and cognitive EMS capabilities
being pursued by U.S. forces.
Mr. Moulton. Dr. Kirschbaum, China has consistently and
aggressively engaged with international bodies like the ITU to shape
global spectrum operations in a way that benefits Chinese companies and
government. What can we do to counter these efforts and ensure that our
interests and values are better represented in global spectrum
standards?
Dr. Kirschbaum. In short, in order to be more effective in
international bodies, we need to do a better job of collaborating
between the federal government and the private sector and between
military and civilian interests on all spectrum-related matters. We've
talked during this hearing about the level of civil-military fusion the
Chinese enjoy in comparison to our own approach. This allows the
Chinese to think about and operationalize broader strategic approaches
to EM spectrum operations--both in the normal military operational
construct and in the ``gray zone'' below the level of armed conflict.
It also allows them to combine efforts in international bodies. Whereas
Western public and private concerns tend to approach matters according
to their own interests and vote separately, Chinese members tend to
vote as a bloc. We have long recommended that the federal government
better coordinate its own efforts in spectrum management. This involves
much more than sharing separate points of view. It involves serious
policy discussion to avoid conflicts and ensure progress. It also
involves collaboration on technical and technological matters and
opportunities for innovation that may help us better arrive at and
communicate spectrum sharing practices and influence international
standards. The recent National Strategy to Secure 5G provides a good
example of vision and direction to collaborate and coordinate within
the federal government, between public and private sectors, and for
coordinated effort in international standard setting bodies. DOD's own
recent strategies recognize the need to be more involved with its
government and civil partners along these lines.
Mr. Moulton. Dr. Kirschbaum, can you speak a little more about the
future of secure spectrum use? We know that the Department of Defense
is already investing in capabilities like millimeter wave spectrum use
to mitigate communications interception. In your view, is that the
appropriate use of Department resources to fight spectrum interference
or interception? What, if any, alternative methods exist to help our
warfighters operate on the EM spectrum without interference or
interception?
Dr. Kirschbaum. With respect to use of the EM spectrum, obviously,
the military has different interests from other civil government bodies
and from the private sector. In many cases, these interests have been
in direct opposition. The military would prefer to secure unfettered
access to portions of the spectrum that the civil sector deem vital for
new technologies. That constriction of the spectrum is a common theme
in the many studies we reviewed for our work and in discussions with
defense officials. 5G is a good recent example. The military views the
millimeter wavelength bands as crucial for operations. But these are
among the very frequencies required for commercial success of 5G. So
some sort of collaboration and accommodation will need to be achieved.
One of the encouraging things we found in our work that is reflected
more and more in DOD's strategies and thinking is the appreciation of
the need for DOD to be a much fuller partner with federal government
and commercial stakeholders on all spectrum related issues. This
includes the traditional policy and governance considerations of
spectrum use. It also includes a deeper commitment to exploring and
collaborating on innovation and ways to use and adapt new technologies
to the problem. For example, DOD's emerging Joint Operating Environment
anticipates the central role artificial intelligence and quantum
computing will play in managing spectrum use in general and in the
future success of offensive and defensive EM spectrum capabilities. The
concept of Dynamic Spectrum Sharing is one such idea DOD is committed
to in order to ease sharing of the spectrum rather than attempting to
wall off portions solely for military use when that might not be
practical, especially in an overseas operational environment.
[all]