    [House Hearing, 117 Congress]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

                             [H.A.S.C. No. 117-15]

                           SPECIAL OPERATIONS FORCES

                              CULTURE AND CLIMATE:

                            THE FUTURE OF THE FORCE

                                   __________

                                    HEARING

                                   BEFORE THE

              SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE AND SPECIAL OPERATIONS

                                     OF THE

                          COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES

                            HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                        ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                                 FIRST SESSION

                                   __________

                                  HEARING HELD

                                 MARCH 26, 2021

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                               ______

                 U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
    47-367          WASHINGTON : 2022

              SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE AND SPECIAL OPERATIONS

                        RUBEN GALLEGO, Arizona, Chairman

    RICK LARSEN, Washington              TRENT KELLY, Mississippi
    JIM COOPER, Tennessee                AUSTIN SCOTT, Georgia
    WILLIAM R. KEATING, Massachusetts    SAM GRAVES, Missouri
    FILEMON VELA, Texas                  DON BACON, Nebraska
    MIKIE SHERRILL, New Jersey           LIZ CHENEY, Wyoming
    JIMMY PANETTA, California            MICHAEL WALTZ, Florida
    STEPHANIE N. MURPHY, Florida, Vice   C. SCOTT FRANKLIN, Florida
        Chair

                   Jessica Carroll, Professional Staff Member
                   Patrick Nevins, Professional Staff Member
                               Zach Taylor, Clerk

                                C O N T E N T S

                                  ----------
                                                                       Page

                  STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS

    Gallego. Hon. Ruben, a Representative from Arizona, Chairman,
      Subcommittee on Intelligence and Special Operations............     1
    Kelly, Hon. Trent, a Representative from Mississippi, Ranking
      Member, Subcommittee on Intelligence and Special Operations....     4

                                   WITNESSES

    Germano, Kate, LtCol (Ret.), United States Marine Corps..........    12
    Mitchell, Mark E., Former Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense
      for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict..............     5
    Nagata, LTG Michael K., USA (Ret.), Senior Vice President and
      Strategic Advisor, CACI International, Inc.....................     9
    Robinson, Linda, Director, Center for Middle East Public Policy,
      and Senior International/Defense Researcher, RAND Corporation..     7

                                    APPENDIX

    Prepared Statements:

        Germano, LtCol Kate..........................................    84
        Kelly, Hon. Trent............................................    45
        Mitchell, Mark E.............................................    47
        Nagata, LTG Michael K........................................    75
        Robinson, Linda..............................................    61

    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. Gallego..................................................   101
     SPECIAL OPERATIONS FORCES CULTURE AND CLIMATE: THE FUTURE OF THE FORCE

                                  ----------

                      House of Representatives,
                           Committee on Armed Services,
           Subcommittee on Intelligence and Special Operations,
                                Washington, DC, Friday, March 26, 2021.
        The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 11:02 a.m., via
    Webex, Hon. Ruben Gallego (chairman of the subcommittee)
    presiding.

    OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. RUBEN GALLEGO, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM
      ARIZONA, CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE AND SPECIAL
                               OPERATIONS

        Mr. Gallego. Welcome, everybody. Thank you for being here
    to our Intelligence and Special Operations Subcommittee.
        Before we get going, since we are conducting this over
    Webex, I will have to do a declaration.
        Members who are joining remotely 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 in the
    room and 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.
        How are we doing in terms of our Republicans colleagues
    getting on? Have we got more on yet?
        Staff. Currently right now it looks like we have got
    Ranking Member Kelly and Mr. Waltz's new link going out now.
        Mr. Gallego. Okay. Let me just ask for--oh, we will just do
    UC [unanimous consent] for nonmembers of HASC [House Armed
    Services Committee].
        I ask unanimous consent that noncommittee members, if any,
    be allowed to participate in today's hearing after all
    committee members have had an opportunity to ask questions.
        Is there an objection?
        Mr. Kelly. I just ask that the members who are not signed
    on now that are attending, Austin Scott and Michael Waltz, be
    considered on time for the hearing.
        Mr. Gallego. Absolutely.
        Without objection, noncommittee members will be recognized
    at the appropriate times for 5 minutes.
        Representative Kelly, do you want us just to wait for your
    members or do you want to just get going with my opening
    comments and your opening comments?
        Mr. Kelly. We can go on with opening comments. I just saw
    Scott and Franklin just signed in. So, obviously, I have got
    members signing in. We can start with the opening statements.
        Mr. Gallego. Let's start opening statements from us. And
    then if we don't have a sufficient amount of your members, we
    will wait before we go to our witnesses. Our members don't
    really need to hear from us.
        Excellent.
        Well, thank you, everyone, for being here. I might have a
    little weird lighting. It is actually just morning here in
    Arizona, and my office/front bedroom faces east. So the sun may
    make me look a little weird with some of the shadows. So I
    apologize for that.
        I call to order this hearing of the Intelligence and
    Special Operations Subcommittee on ``Special Operations Forces
    Culture and Climate: The Future of the Force.''
        Our special operations forces [SOF] are built on a history
    rich with ingenuity, agility, and tenacity. The reputation of
    our elite warriors is renowned globally, prioritized for
    partnership, and feared by our adversaries.
        Sustaining the responsibilities delegated by the Department
    of Defense, U.S. Special Operations Command [SOCOM] serves as
    the coordinating authority for three critical missions:
    countering weapons of mass destruction; web-based Military
    Information Support Operations, MISO; and countering violent
    extremist organizations, CVEO.
        Now, after two decades of high operational tempo
    deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan, the Arabian Peninsula, and
    Africa, our special operations forces are at a crossroads. In
    2014, former Preservation of the Force and Family [POTFF]
    Director, U.S. Navy Captain Thomas Chaby, stated, and I quote,
    ``After 13 years of battle, we assess that our force is frayed
    and there is really no end to where we are right now.''
        That was 7 years ago. And even with the looming May 1
    deadline to consider force posture in Afghanistan, we are still
    sending SOF to fight in our longest war. And as SOCOM Commander
    General Clarke stated, SOF will be the last to leave.
        In today's security environment, SOCOM must balance the
    countering violent extremist mission with another clear and
    present danger: the great power competition. Our most creative
    and agile forces are uniquely poised to significantly
    contribute in this fight but must be postured, resourced, and
    balanced to do so.
        Given that SOF units do much to protect us, we must make
    sure that we do right by them as well. We must continue to
    support their force abroad, but, most importantly, at home.
        The toll of high deployment-to-dwell ratio has put
    physical, emotional, and social burdens on our force, which I
    fear we do not yet fully understand. SOCOM's Preservation of
    the Force and Family provides resources for the force to heal
    and grow, but that must be supported by the larger Department
    and Congress.
        Further, as we move to rebalance the force, I firmly
    believe that SOCOM requires a diverse force with an array of
    skills, able to conduct the range of operations involved in
    confronting the great powers.
        Earlier this month, USSOCOM released its first-ever
    strategic plan for diversity and inclusion. This is an
    important step for the command in recognizing the intrinsic
    benefits of a tolerant force replete with diverse thinking,
    problem-solving skills, and unique capabilities.
        Unfortunately, the absence of diversity in SOF is not a new
    issue, as highlighted in a 1999 RAND study on ``Barriers to
    Minority Participation in Special Operations Forces.''
        As ASD [Assistant Secretary of Defense] Maier and General
    Clarke work together on implementation of the diversity and
    inclusion plan, I am interested in the perspectives of this
    group, of our panelists, on how the SOF community can attract
    and retain a diverse workforce amidst such sweeping cultural
    change.
        So today I look forward to hearing from our panel of
    outside experts about their unique experiences and viewpoints
    on the direction and future of our special operations forces.
        Now let me introduce our four witnesses.
        Mr. Mark Mitchell, former Acting Assistant Secretary of
    Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict.
        Ms. Linda Robinson, director for the Center for Middle East
    Policy and senior international/defense researcher for RAND.
        Lieutenant General Mike Nagata, retired, United States
    Army.
        And Lieutenant Colonel Kate Germano--and I apologize if I
    didn't say that correctly--retired, United States Marine Corps.
    Oorah.
        Thanks to such a diverse and thoughtful group of experts.
    We look forward to your commentary.
        I will now turn to Ranking Member Kelly for any opening
    remarks.
        Mr. Kelly. Thank you, Chairman.
        I am trying to multitask here.
        Mr. Gallego. Take your time, Trent. Just take your time. We
    still want some more members, more of your members to log on,
    too.
        Mr. Kelly. Yeah, I was sending Austin the link.

         STATEMENT OF HON. TRENT KELLY, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM
     MISSISSIPPI, RANKING MEMBER, SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE AND
                           SPECIAL OPERATIONS

        Mr. Kelly. Mr. Chairman, thank you for your opening remarks
    today and your leadership in organizing this meeting. It is a
    very important hearing.
        Today we will hear from four experts across the private
    sector for discussion on the culture and climate of our special
    operations forces, also known as SOF.
        We have further broken this topic into three main buckets:
    the state of the force, the health of the force, and the future
    of the force.
        Indeed, there are many challenges that our special
    operators face today and this subcommittee must better
    understand in order to conduct our oversight duties.
        From the integration of women into the force to deploy-and-
    dwell ratios to mental health, this hearing will illuminate
    current challenges and offer recommendations on how to make
    special operations forces more effective.
        I will focus my comments and subsequent questions on the
    third bucket of the hearing, the future of the force.
        Our special operators have done a tremendous job with their
    counterterrorism mission over the last 20-plus years. As we
    continue to hear about China's malign activities and rapid
    military growth, we need to ensure SOF is ready for the future
    fight.
        That includes things like language training and other
    training that directly relate to combating great power
    competition adversaries. Furthermore, it necessitates the
    proper structure and authorities to conduct the SOF mission.
        I will highlight two recent areas of interest from this
    committee.
        A New York Times article on March 3 described a policy
    change by the Biden administration that placed greater
    restrictions on drone strikes and raids conducted outside
    conventional battlefield zones like Iraq, Afghanistan, and
    Syria. Previously authorized by ground commanders, these
    operations now require White House approval.
        I am concerned about the onerous increase in approval
    authority for which these counterterrorism tactics are vital.
    As testament to the effects this policy change has created on
    the use of their strikes and raids, AFRICOM [U.S. Africa
    Command] reported six strikes were conducted from 1 to 19
    January of this year and, to my knowledge, zero have taken
    place since.
        Authorities can be delegated to leaders closer to the fight
    with specific parameters, both in breadth, duration, or
    tactical mission. I completely understand the need to ensure
    appropriate controls are in place for conducting military
    operations, but I worry that this policy restricts special
    oerations' ability to conduct necessary actions in a timely
    manner for the counterterrorism fight.
        On March 3, members of this subcommittee sent a letter to
    Secretary of Defense Austin expressing our concerns about
    potential changes to the Assistant Secretary of Defense's role
    for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict, the ASD(SO/
    LIC) for short.
        The fiscal year 2017 NDAA [National Defense Authorization
    Act] outlined required changes for this position. These changes
    were further substantiated in a memo from then Acting Secretary
    of Defense Chris Miller on November 18 of last year.
        The elevation of ASD(SO/LIC)'s role as a direct report to
    the Secretary of Defense is crucial to ensure that SOF has a
    civilian leader shaping policy and advocating on their behalf.
    Empowering this role with the appropriate authority is a
    priority of this subcommittee.
        I am interested to hear our witnesses' views on the role of
    the ASD(SO/LIC), the use of raids and strikes in areas like
    AFRICOM, and ensuring our SOF community is prepared to fight
    and win in a near-peer global power conflict.
        I think we need to focus on diversity, both cultural and
    sexual, throughout to make sure that our special operators look
    and are able to perform the missions of the future.
        I want to thank our witnesses in advance for their time
    today. I look forward to the continued work with our private
    sector experts in the 117th Congress to ensure we are
    appropriately postured to meet and defeat the myriad of global
    threats.
        Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I yield back.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Kelly can be found in the
    Appendix on page 45.]
        Mr. Gallego. Thank you, Mr. Kelly.
        Do we have a--I just want to make sure we have a
    substantial amount of your members that have logged on and that
    have wanted to log on, too, obviously.
        Staff. At this time we have got Representatives Scott,
    Waltz, and Franklin.
        Mr. Gallego. Trent, what do you feel? Do you want us to
    wait a little longer just to let your----
        Mr. Kelly. We are good, Mr. Chairman.
        Mr. Gallego. Say again?
        Mr. Kelly. We are good, Mr. Chairman.
        Mr. Gallego. You are good? Okay. Great.
        And I now turn to our panelists. I just lost my notes on
    here. I believe we have first was it Mr. Mitchell to speak?
        Shannon, is that right?
        Staff. That is accurate, sir.
        Mr. Gallego. Yes.
        Mr. Mitchell, can you please open with your 5-minute
    statement?

        STATEMENT OF MARK E. MITCHELL, FORMER ACTING ASSISTANT
     SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR SPECIAL OPERATIONS AND LOW-INTENSITY
                                CONFLICT

        Mr. Mitchell. Yes. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Ranking
    Member Kelly, and distinguished members of the subcommittee.
    Thanks for the opportunity to participate in this hearing
    today.
        I want to start off by recognizing the extraordinary
    contributions and sacrifices of our special operations forces,
    especially over the last 20 years. They are without question
    the best in the world.
        Day in, day out they carry burdens that few will ever know
    about, much less fully understand. And, importantly, the vast
    majority of them carry out those difficult missions with
    profound humility, discipline, and integrity.
        And for their service, their valor, their professionalism,
    and the burdens borne by their families, we have much for which
    we can and should be grateful.
        And I also want to take the opportunity to thank this
    committee and Congress as a whole for their continued support
    of the POTFF initiative and hope that will be sustained.
        Nevertheless, if our SOF are to be employed successfully in
    global competition with China, significant changes will need to
    be made. The world is changing rapidly, and the challenges that
    we face today and tomorrow are substantially different from the
    challenges that SOF has effectively tackled over the last two
    decades.
        Our SOF are today a force optimized for direct action, in
    support of counterterrorism and counterinsurgency. While these
    threats are not going away, direct action capabilities are of
    limited use in areas of competition short of armed conflict
    where by definition lethal military force is not authorized.
        To be clear, the United States must be able to fight and
    win a war with any adversary. That is the reason that we have
    the Department of Defense.
        But deterrence and competition are not synonymous. The
    former is about our adversaries' assessment of our
    capabilities, will, and intent, and the latter is about a third
    party's evaluation of the advantages and strength of a
    relationship with us in comparison to a competitor like China.
        Ultimately, this competition is about relationships
    developed and sustained through voluntary affinity and mutual
    benefit, rather than economic, political, or military coercion.
        And an excessive focus on deterrence or high-end conflict
    and lethality miss the equally important requirement for
    competition. In my humble opinion, it represents a failure to
    understand the totality of the CCP's [Chinese Communist
    Party's] unrestricted warfare and a deficit of strategic
    thinking in the Department.
        Irregular warfare conducted in support of broader, whole-
    of-government political warfare strategy is indispensable for
    competition, and SOF provides an effective and extremely
    economical tool for it, especially when well-integrated with
    other elements of national power.
        But to do so, we must better capitalize on the full
    potential of human capital present in these United States, and
    this demands changes in the structure and culture of our SOF.
        The leadership in the SOF enterprise, both civilian and
    military, must question their assumptions about missions, force
    structure, modernization, and concept of operation.
        In simple terms, they must be as daring and creative at the
    strategic level as our small units are at the tactical level.
        The first SOF truth is that ``Humans are more important
    than hardware.'' To prepare for tomorrow's challenges, SOCOM
    must be willing to challenge and adapt the commando culture
    that currently dominates in the force.
        Their recently published diversity and inclusion strategy
    is an important first step, but it is not enough. I would also
    note that it was not signed by ASD(SO/LIC).
        So I think, first and foremost, SOCOM and its components
    need to consider adding new military occupation specialties to
    ensure the right advanced technical skills are resident in the
    force.
        Secondly, they must create more and better opportunities
    for women to contribute, opportunities as fully fledged
    operators, but those which do not require them to be commandos.
        Thirdly, SOCOM must undertake a concerted and well-
    resourced effort to recruit first- and second-generation
    Americans with native language and cultural sensitivities.
        Our history is replete with extraordinary contributions by
    immigrants. And to the degree which we fail to recognize and
    welcome others like them with open arms, we are failing
    ourselves and our Nation.
        Finally, SOCOM must recommit to an experimental force to
    test new organizations and employment concepts for irregular
    warfare.
        Sadly, I am not confident these changes will happen without
    strong and empowered civilian control and leadership from
    ASD(SO/LIC), and that won't happen if ASD(SO/LIC) is returned
    to serfdom in OSD [Office of the Secretary of Defense] Policy
    or if Secretary Austin does not empower ASD(SO/LIC).
        I listened yesterday with great interest to your Senate
    colleagues' hearing with ASD(SO/LIC) Chris Maier and General
    Clarke. It was informative but troubling. I was dismayed to
    once again hear a SOCOM commander emphasize his status as a
    combatant commander, while reducing ASD(SO/LIC)'s role to that
    of an advocate for SOCOM.
        To me, this represents a rejection of the administrative
    chain of command defined in title 10. I can't for the life of
    me ever recall hearing the CNO [Chief of Naval Operations]
    stating that a key role for the Secretary of the Navy is to be
    an advocate.
        An advocate is many things--a backer, a booster, a
    champion--but that is a fundamentally different relationship--
    in fact, an inverted relationship--from the concept of a chain
    of command, even an administrative one.
        Mere advocacy is a cheap and ineffective substitute for
    authority, direction, and control, especially regarding the
    strategy for the future of this vital national capability.
        When it comes to the legislation passed and signed into law
    regarding civilian control and oversight, accept no
    substitutes, insist on full implementation, and please do not
    accept anything less.
        Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Mitchell can be found in the
    Appendix on page 47.]
        Mr. Gallego. And thank you, Mr. Mitchell.
        Ms. Robinson, you are on for 5 minutes.

     STATEMENT OF LINDA ROBINSON, DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR MIDDLE EAST
      PUBLIC POLICY, AND SENIOR INTERNATIONAL/DEFENSE RESEARCHER,
                            RAND CORPORATION

        Ms. Robinson. Thank you. Chairman Gallego, Ranking Member
    Kelly, and members, thank you for the opportunity to share my
    views on the state of special operations forces. I am honored
    to be here with friends and colleagues.
        I have devoted much of the last 21 years to research and
    analysis on this topic, including years of field work with SOF
    on five continents, in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, the
    Philippines, Latin America, and Europe.
        I have served in government as Chair of the Army War
    College Board and on the National Defense University Board to
    advise on professional military education and leader
    development.
        I will summarize briefly my written statement for the
    record.
        Special operations forces are unique, valuable, and a
    scarce asset for the Nation's security. It is vital, given
    their small numbers, to think carefully about their development
    and employment.
        We are at an inflection point as the strategic environment
    has changed. Efforts to rebalance the force for new missions
    and reset from 20 years of intensive counterterrorism are
    ongoing.
        Systemic issues require urgent attention, primary among
    them the need to expand diversity and inclusion.
        Strengthening civilian oversight, as Congress has mandated,
    can help with all of these issues.
        To ensure the health of the force and the highest ethical
    culture, it is imperative to meet the deployment-to-dwell ratio
    as soon as possible and to address all incidents of misconduct
    and criminal behavior in accordance with the Uniform Code of
    Military Justice.
        Fifteen months ago, SOCOM Commander General Clarke issued a
    comprehensive review. The review found that the high
    operational tempo was responsible for some of these failings
    and attributed them, in part, to a culture that emphasized
    deployment and operational prowess.
        As I recommended in a 2013 report, SOCOM itself must
    prioritize institutional over operational matters. SOCOM is a
    functional combatant command, but its primary responsibility is
    to organize, train, and equip the force, which is then employed
    by the geographic combatant commands.
        I will be happy to say more about the rebalancing of SOF
    roles and missions in our dialogue. I offer here two
    overarching points.
        Continued effort to rightsize the counterterrorism mission
    is required to free up the force for use in more strategic
    ways. Counterterrorism strategy itself should evolve to
    prioritize greater reliance on allies and partners and to
    address the pipeline into extremism, as decapitation and
    network suppression have, at best, temporary effect.
        I note the ranking member's comments about the guidance for
    strikes and will be happy to offer my views in our dialogue.
        Second, great power competition requires SOF to work more
    closely with the rest of the joint force and with the
    interagency partners. SOF has important roles, given the extent
    to which adversaries are using irregular and gray zone tactics.
        To play those roles, SOF requires new capabilities to
    communicate, detect, and respond to cyber and electronic
    attack, as well as greater effort and investment in information
    operations.
        Diversity and inclusion have rightly become a focus for the
    entire joint force. It is integral to SOF mission success to
    have a diverse force with the skills and knowledge to work
    among the world's populations.
        RAND, as noted, documented the shortfalls and barriers in a
    1999 study. Improvements have been marginal since then.
        I would add that, in 2001, the commanding general of
    Special Forces stressed to me the importance of having women in
    the force. Today there are three women who have earned the
    Green Beret, two of them still in language training.
        This is not where the force should be. Women have been
    selected and promoted in Air Force Special Operations, in
    Psychological Operations, and Civil Affairs. But significant
    barriers and cultural resistance remain.
        A 2016 study found that 85 percent of special operators
    surveyed were opposed to letting women into their specialties,
    and 71 percent opposed having women in their units.
        I would be happy to offer my thoughts about remedial
    measures for recruitment, selection, and promotion. I note that
    U.S. Special Operations Command issued a plan in March, and I
    would urge that the command develop specific metrics and
    targets for progress and for promotions to be tied to
    performance in meeting them.
        I would like to finish by addressing the issue of civilian
    oversight, which Congress again strengthened in the latest NDAA
    in section 901 in order to enable the Assistant Secretary of
    Defense to perform its statutory roles, overseeing both policy
    and resources.
        This is an important step to ensure civilian control over
    the force and the complex issues it involves. The legislation
    requires a direct report status for the Assistant Secretary to
    the Secretary of Defense for the purpose of fulfilling the
    service-like roles. That has now been done.
        It is not enough for SO/LIC to be, quote, ``in the room.''
    With the Secretary's support, SO/LIC should ensure SOF
    requirements are identified and met.
        Regarding the statutory role for oversight of policy, which
    includes formulation of strategy for the employment of the
    force, this needs to be closely orchestrated with the Under
    Secretary of Defense for Policy, in my view, precisely because
    more than ever SOF needs to work as part of the whole.
        Thank you very much. I welcome your questions.
        [The prepared statement of Ms. Robinson can be found in the
    Appendix on page 61.]
        Mr. Gallego. Thank you, Ms. Robinson.
        And now I would like to turn to Mr. Nagata.

      STATEMENT OF LTG MICHAEL K. NAGATA, USA (RET.), SENIOR VICE
       PRESIDENT AND STRATEGIC ADVISOR, CACI INTERNATIONAL, INC.

        General Nagata. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Good morning to all of you. I am honored to participate in
    today's hearing. My remarks today predictably are based on my
    more than three decades of service in special operations
    forces.
        On the topic of diversity and inclusion as they relate to
    special operations, my perspective is based on having been one
    of the very few Asian-American officers to rise to flag rank
    during a special operations career. I wish to provide two
    suggestions.
        First, over my own career I was responsible for the
    recruiting, assessment, selection, and training of future SOF
    personnel on two occasions, once as the commander of the Army
    Special Forces Qualification Course and, second, as a commander
    of a special mission unit. I learned from those experiences the
    difficulty we had and probably still have in attracting a more
    diverse volunteer population.
        Perhaps counterintuitively for some observers, I recall
    that our greatest challenge was not the pass/fail rate among
    diverse volunteers, but rather identifying larger numbers of
    suitable diverse candidates that either wanted or could be
    persuaded to volunteer.
        In my view, there is a significant shortage of scientific
    research into the question of whether there are important
    differences between what attracts a more diverse population to
    volunteer for the grueling experience of SOF assessment and
    selection, compared to what attracts our traditional
    demographic mix.
        Said more simply, in 1984, when First Lieutenant Mike
    Nagata began the Special Forces Qualification Course, I
    remember being only one of two Asian-American volunteers.
    Today, I still do not know why.
        Second, I often hear discussions over the need for more SOF
    personnel that are conversant with the cultures and languages
    of our near-peer adversaries, one recent example being a lament
    I heard over why, in an era where our greatest challenge is
    China, we do not have more SOF that can speak Chinese.
        While I certainly consider that an important question, I
    believe it is too narrow. We must remember that much of today's
    great power competition is essentially a contest between the
    United States and countries like China or Russia over strategic
    influence with other nations, communities, ethnic groups, and
    the like, that are neither Russian, Chinese, or American.
        In such cases, SOF's success will have less to do with
    understanding Russian, Chinese, or any other near-peer
    competitor's culture or language and far more to do with SOF's
    ability to have deep understanding and language compatibility
    with African, Middle Eastern, South Asian, Pacific Island and
    Archipelago, or European and even Western Hemisphere cultures
    and countries that we are today competing to preserve or
    strengthen our influence with against our foes.
        Regarding the health of SOF, I wish to emphasize two
    related realities.
        First, SOF's well-being and durability requires a constant
    balancing act between antagonistic impulses. Said differently,
    the maintenance of the health of this force is a lot like
    trying to balance an egg on one end. Only constant effort and
    attention will prevent it from falling in any particular
    direction.
        By way of personal example, during my own career, I was
    repetitively deployed for many months, even years at a time,
    typically in harm's way. The strain on me personally and, just
    as importantly, the strain this created for my family has left
    scars that I still live with.
        But, on the other hand, I and thousands like me volunteered
    for SOF and remained for a career in SOF because I yearned to
    do these very things. The strains and stresses of those
    missions not only made me stronger, better, and more effective
    than I could have ever been otherwise, they created friendships
    and outlooks that have enriched and continue to enrich every
    day of my life.
        Do I regret the costs and damage that my long absences
    created? Yes, I do. But if I could turn back the hands of time
    and could significantly alter my trajectory, would I?
    Paradoxically, the answer is mostly no, and I might have
    decided to pursue a different career path if that trajectory
    had been different.
        Second, there is an important problem that undermines the
    search for ways to ensure the health of SOF. It may surprise
    you, but here also is a profound absence of real empirical,
    long-term research on what the effects of deployments,
    prolonged combat, exposure to blast and trauma, family
    separation, and so on are for SOF.
        I know many would argue there is substantial research on
    all these topics for the U.S. military broadly, but I believe
    almost none of that is significant to the experience of SOF and
    therefore cannot take into account the very different aspects
    of SOF culture, the nature of our deployments and operating
    environments, and the consequences of physical and
    psychological stresses amidst these differences.
        If I am correct on this assertion, then we are probably
    today in a classic logic trap--that one cannot solve a problem
    if one is unable to understand that problem.
        Finally, on the future of SOF, I frequently hear in
    Washington, DC, these days how SOF must, quote, ``pivot,''
    unquote, away from counterterrorism in the interest of doing
    more in the arena of great power competition. I understand the
    impulse that drives such assertions, but I think they are at
    best misleading and at worst possibly wrong.
        The main reason is because we are witnessing a growing
    convergence between our near-peer adversaries and organizations
    that can be characterized as terrorists or extremists or at
    least non-state but increasingly powerful and militarily
    capability actors.
        I will give you one example. A few years ago in the Ukraine
    and Crimea, Russian ethnic separatists demonstrated the ability
    to employ First World military and intelligence technology,
    sophisticated air defense systems, and highly effective cyber
    operations in cooperation and in concert with the Russian
    Government's efforts, including the ``little green men'' we all
    know today were Russian military forces.
        Proxy warfare is as old as mankind because it has always
    been convenient for nations or kingdoms to have someone else do
    their bleeding and dying for them. In today's world of rapidly
    advancing technologies whose costs are falling so quickly that
    anyone with a credit card may have them, the attractiveness of
    such non-state or terrorist actors as proxy tools is proving
    irresistible.
        Consequently, America should expect that challenging a
    near-peer competitor will also bring us into confrontations
    with those proxies, including terrorists and extremists, that
    will again require many of the skills that SOF developed in the
    counterterrorism arena.
        In closing, I wish to say thank you for allowing me the
    chance to contribute to today's hearing. I look forward to your
    questions.
        [The prepared statement of General Nagata can be found in
    the Appendix on page 75.]
        Mr. Gallego. Thank you, Mr. Nagata.
        And next we have Lieutenant Colonel Germano.

     STATEMENT OF KATE GERMANO, LTCOL (RET.), UNITED STATES MARINE
                                 CORPS

        Colonel Germano. Thank you, Chairman Gallego, Ranking
    Member Kelly, and members of the subcommittee, for inviting me
    to testify.
        I am honored to be with you today to discuss diversity,
    equity, and inclusion in special operations and our military
    writ large.
        Diversity, equity, and inclusion represent a really
    interesting paradox for the military. For as much as the
    programs are reviled by the average servicemen, they are
    perhaps the very concepts and practices that could enable the
    force to succeed in meeting the complex challenges of the 21st
    century.
        But as General C.Q. Brown, the first African American to
    lead the U.S. Air Force, recently told CBS News, when it comes
    to advancement in the military, including selection for special
    operations roles, ``ducks pick ducks.''
        Now, I never thought I would use the phrase ``ducks pick
    ducks'' while testifying to Congress, but it neatly sums up how
    the human brain influences both the preference for sameness in
    our ranks and resistance to change.
        Today, the military is experiencing a critical shortage of
    qualified young men for enlistment and commissioning. At the
    very same time, public trust in the military is on the decline
    for the first time in decades, down from 70 percent in 2018 to
    just 56 percent today, according to a recent poll by the Ronald
    Reagan Institute.
        Negative stories about racism and discrimination, sexual
    harassment and assault, and retaliation against those who
    report wrongdoing are prominent in news coverage of the
    military. These stories have no doubt impacted public
    perception and the willingness of young men and women to join
    the services.
        Because of their strategic implications for recruiting and
    retention, these are not issues that can continue to fester
    below the surface. The culture of the military and its approach
    to diversity, equity, and inclusion must change.
        As one expert notes about why organizations fail, ``Active
    inertia is an organization's tendency to follow established
    patterns of behavior, even in response to dramatic
    environmental shifts.'' Think the definition of insanity.
        The transition of our military from two decades of
    counterinsurgency operations to preparing for great powers
    conflict, while also responding to nation-state threats,
    represents just such a dramatic environmental shift.
        If winning wars is what we expect of our military leaders,
    increasing diversity, equity, and inclusion among the ranks and
    branches of service must be viewed as a leadership function and
    not a ``nice to have'' or check in the block.
        Meeting these complex challenges will require not only
    cognitive diversity, but also the unique talents, experiences,
    and abilities of men and women from different backgrounds,
    ethnicities, and cultures at every level of the military,
    including Special Operations Command.
        There are three diversity and health of the force issues
    military leaders must face head on to increase the public
    trust, build a sustainable force, and meet the imperatives the
    Secretary of Defense established in his recent message to the
    force.
        First, military leaders must acknowledge that expanding
    minority membership at all levels of the military has both
    strategic and emotional implications, and they must tailor
    diversity, equity, and inclusion strategy, education, and
    training efforts accordingly.
        Military leaders must understand facts don't drive human
    behavior. Emotions do. Neuroscience research demonstrates that
    making diversity a compliance issue triggers a threat state in
    the brain, activates bias, and potentially increases
    discrimination, harassment, and retaliation.
        Diversity strategies and education must therefore be
    grounded in an understanding of the brain science of change and
    the feelings of grief, loss, skepticism, and anger many
    servicemen have as a result of our emphasis on diversity,
    equity, and inclusion.
        Make no mistake, this is a highly emotional issue for many
    servicemen today, particularly in the more insular cultures
    like the Special Forces and Marine Corps.
        Leaders should not only acknowledge the emotions involved,
    but emphasize that becoming a more diverse, inclusive, and
    equitable force actually brings the military closer to the idea
    of being a meritocracy, which today is something the
    organization can only aspire to.
        Second, the Department of Defense should invest in
    independent, comprehensive military and special operations
    specific research to clearly identify how diversity contributes
    to a more lethal and capable force.
        Up to this point the military has relied primarily on case
    studies from private industry, like the tech and financial
    sectors, to provide rationale on how diversity makes the force
    stronger, and it has not convinced the average serviceman.
        Little, if any, independent research has been conducted to
    quantify how diversity makes for a more lethal force or
    enhances the ability of the force to achieve success in global
    operations.
        This is a critical issue. Without military-specific case
    studies laying out the operational advantages women and other
    minorities bring to the fight, it will be difficult to reduce
    skepticism and instill faith in the hearts and minds of those
    who serve that becoming a more diverse, equitable, and
    inclusive force is not only fair, but essential to our
    abilities to win future battles.
        Finally, senior leaders must resolve existing gaps in
    strategic plans to overcome diversity inertia. Notably, the
    plan for Special Operations Command lacks any mention of the
    word ``equity.'' And since equity is about leveling the playing
    field for everyone through the identification and removal of
    systemic barriers to service--whether policies, equipment,
    practices, or behaviors--equity must be included as a bedrock
    pillar of all military diversity plans.
        Additionally, strategic diversity and recruiting plans must
    include actual diversity targets based on war plan requirements
    and projected operational needs, as well as clear direction on
    who is responsible for achieving them.
        It is time to give diversity, equity, and inclusion in the
    military more than lip service. Our failure to do so will no
    doubt mean that ducks will continue to pick ducks for
    opportunity and advancement and potentially jeopardize our
    national defense in the future.
        Thank you again for the opportunity to testify today, and I
    would be happy to take your questions.
        [The prepared statement of Colonel Germano can be found in
    the Appendix on page 84.]
        Mr. Gallego. Great. Thank you.
        Thank you for all of our witnesses.
        Now we are going to move into the question portion of the
    testimony. And just a reminder. We will limit our questions to
    5 minutes per person. And then we will move in alternating
    manner from Republican member to Democratic member.
        Give me one second, please. I am trying to catch up with my
    own notes here, and I have a crying baby in the background.
        Start with Mr. Mitchell.
        Mr. Mitchell, given your former position as ASD(SO/LIC), in
    what ways can civilian oversight positively impact the future
    of special operations forces?
        Mr. Mitchell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        I think, first of all, resourcing is the number one area
    that it can positively impact it. But I think also it goes to
    strategy. And as I noted in my opening remarks, the strategy
    that was signed on diversity and inclusion did not include
    ASD(SO/LIC) and there are a number of other areas that belong
    in civilian control.
        I would note also yesterday that General Clarke, when he
    was asked about some of the changes that he had made and what
    his priorities were, he said more ISR [intelligence,
    surveillance, and reconnaissance] and lethality. And I felt
    like, okay, I don't necessarily know that that is the right--I
    would differ with him on whether that is the right answer
    moving forward for SO/LIC.
        So I think that control over the resources is an important
    part of that civilian leadership. The staff at SO/LIC doesn't
    have the resources. The Secretary for Special Operations is
    about 40 people, whereas SOCOM has about 2,000 people on its
    staff. It is just a huge mismatch.
        Thank you.
        Mr. Gallego. Thank you, Mr. Mitchell.
        Ms. Robinson, what do you believe are the greatest
    operational imperatives for SOF as the Department and
    government focus on strategic competitions? Do you believe
    there is an undue focus on capabilities rather than building
    critical skills and tradecraft of the force?
        Ms. Robinson. Thank you, Chairman.
        I believe that we have to focus, as has been mentioned, on
    the critical language and cultural skills. They require a great
    investment of time. And they are necessary not just for the new
    missions of great power competition, but legacy missions. And
    we have been very focused in the Middle East/South Asia region
    operationally for the last 20 years.
        As I mentioned, I think there is a huge requirement to give
    more thought, as well as more investment, to what the SOF role
    is in information operations.
        I would note that even though USSOCOM has stood up the
    Joint MISO WebOps Center, it only has five Active Duty civil--
    PSYOP [psychological operations] officers assigned to it. And
    this is the kind of shortfall of material and human capability
    that I think indicates, as Mark said, a continued focus on the
    kinetic rather than the nonkinetic attributes and contributions
    that SOF can make.
        Our study, ``Modern Political Warfare,'' showed a huge
    panoply of adversary tactics that need to be met not
    kinetically, but nonkinetically, and together with other
    elements of national power, State Department and others.
        So I think this for me is really the focus, because great
    power competition encompasses the irregular warfare spectrum.
        That is not to say SOF doesn't need to be prepared to
    conduct high-end conflict, and there are specific technical
    deficits that our last 2 years of work have shown, particularly
    in the EW [electronic warfare] and cyber field. There are
    notable requirements there. But I would just emphasize the
    nonkinetic as a real area for focus.
        Thank you.
        Mr. Gallego. Thank you, Ms. Robinson.
        Lieutenant General Nagata, while I appreciate your
    perspectives regarding CT [counterterrorism] forces and their
    use, I do want to hear your expanded thoughts on how we
    continue to hear that counterterrorism is synonymous with great
    power competition. Do you think that is an accurate assertion?
    Why or why not? And do you think the force is culturally
    postured to support this strategic competition?
        General Nagata. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        I would not say that they are synonymous, but I do believe
    they strongly overlap. And for those commentators or policy
    officials that believe SOF or SOCOM need to do less in the
    counterterrorism arena, I think that reality will disabuse them
    of that notion because terrorists simply will not be ignored.
        But getting back to your question. The overlap is, as I
    tried to say in my prepared remarks, the arena of influence.
    Our near-peer adversaries are using everything from cyber
    operations to irregular warfare activities to extremist
    activities to economic activities and beyond to shape what
    countries and populations around the world believe in ways that
    are antagonistic to the interests of the United States.
        In fact, in my view, the United States is currently losing
    the strategic contest for influence globally against too many
    of our near-peer adversaries.
        The proper role of special operations forces harkens all
    the way back to the foundation, the founding of most of the
    special operations forces that are in existence today.
        I particularly come from the Army Special Forces or Green
    Beret community. We were created in the 1960s for this very
    purpose of assisting local populations with a threat that
    threatened to overwhelm them. And this is as much a challenge
    of influence activity as it is a challenge of military
    conflict.
        So that is the overlap. And in my opinion--I want to
    associate myself with some of the remarks of Mr. Mitchell
    earlier--the overemphasis that I believe we are placing right
    now on being prepared for a high-intensity conflict with these
    near-peer adversaries--and I certainly vote we be ready for
    that--but I think there is so much emphasis on that, we are
    inadequately preparing ourselves--and this would include
    special operations forces--for the contest over strategic
    influence, which I personally believe will define the next
    generation of national security challenges of the United
    States.
        Mr. Gallego. Thank you, Lieutenant General.
        I now move to Ranking Member Kelly.
        Mr. Kelly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        I want to go back to--and, General Nagata, this is for you,
    because I think you understand probably command relationships
    better than anybody in the room from a military perspective,
    which is what I understand it as.
        I see ASD(SO/LIC) as being a dotted line, not a direct
    line. I think we are talking about control. Control is not a
    dotted line. Control is advise. They are reported to. They help
    make decisions.
        And I noticed Mr. Mitchell used the Secretary of the Navy
    and, let's say, the PACOM [U.S. Indo-Pacific Command]
    commander. Well, the PACOM commander does not answer to the
    Secretary of the Navy. He may be in his rating chain in some
    form, but he is administrative control [ADCON].
        Listen, ASD Maier is a great guy, doing a great job, and I
    think he gets it. But it does not need to be a direct command
    relationship. It needs to be ADCON or general support or
    general support reinforcing. It does not need to be TACON
    [tactical] control or OPCON [operational] control of our
    special operators.
        That SOCOM commander needs to be direct to the Department
    of Defense, the Secretary of Defense.
        Do you agree with that, General Nagata?
        General Nagata. Sir, I agree with much of it. On the other
    parts of what you just said, I don't think I so much disagree
    as I think that I have a somewhat different take. But let me
    try to be a little more specific.
        First of all, in my view, when ASD(SO/LIC) was originally
    created as a part of the Nunn-Cohen Amendment many years ago
    that I am sure you and your fellow members are very familiar
    with, no one at the time envisioned what would have happened to
    USSOCOM as a command or SOF as a community in the ensuing
    decades.
        The size, the prominence, the capabilities, the strategic
    importance and the relevance of special operations forces are
    far beyond anything I think the original authors of the Nunn-
    Cohen Amendment ever imagined.
        On the one hand, SOCOM and the SOF community have grown
    commensurate with that rise in prominence and importance. ASD
    (SO/LIC) has remained essentially static.
        So the ability of ASD(SO/LIC), in my judgment--I did two
    tours in the Pentagon, one for the Office of the Under
    Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and, second, as the
    Deputy Director for Special Operations and Counterterrorism on
    the Joint Staff--what I believe I saw was a growing inability
    of people like Chris Maier--who is a personal friend of mine
    and, I totally agree with you, is a fantastic officer--but the
    growing inability of people like him to keep pace with the
    growing prominence and importance of special operations and,
    most importantly, this is my view, the two single most
    important functions of ASD(SO/LIC), which I personally believe
    they cannot do today in the way they are either configured,
    staffed, or given authority: effective DOD [Department of
    Defense] policy oversight of U.S. special operations forces and
    effective U.S. DOD policy support for USSOCOM and special
    operations forces.
        But it is that growing mismatch of how SOF has changed and
    ASD(SO/LIC) has not.
        Sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt you.
        Mr. Kelly. No, no. I want to get to another question, and I
    want to talk about the drone strikes and where that capability
    is.
        I am an engineer also by trade. So I understand when we had
    FASCAM [Family of Scatterable Mines], okay, you didn't delegate
    that authority down to platoon leaders. You didn't even
    delegate it down many times to brigade level. You had
    restrictions on when you could do that.
        Do you think it is a great policy to maintain that, all
    that at the highest level, or to use strategic ways to make
    sure that we delegate the proper authorities to the proper
    level of command in the use of those strikes based on area of
    operation, tactical threat, the personal leadership abilities
    of the commander in that area? Do you think that is a way to
    control that?
        And please be short on the answer because I have one more
    question.
        General Nagata. Certainly.
        The short answer is, just like Mr. Mitchell, I am sure he
    is thinking about this, I have seen this movie before where
    there is a desire to constrain kinetic and lethal operations
    abroad, and so the decision to elevate the decisionmaking
    authority ensues.
        Two, actually three things, in my judgment, always flow
    from this.
        Number one, the policymaker ends up being disappointing,
    because what the combatant commands that are trying to chase
    these dangerous targets will do is simply go find more
    intelligence to justify the operation and inevitably it will be
    conducted anyways.
        Number two, it does create an enormous work burden for both
    the combatant command, that desires SOF to do the strike, and
    for the special operators that have to find and fix the target.
    So they do a lot more work for basically the same activity that
    they will end up doing anyways.
        And, thirdly, this is a psychological issue. I believe one
    of the unintended negative consequences of these decisions is
    it inadvertently conveys a lack of confidence and trust in the
    judgment of the four-star combatant command, his component
    commanders, and the SOF commander on the ground or on the
    field.
        Over.
        Mr. Kelly. I agree. Targets of opportunity do not re-
    present themselves. They are a one-time deal and timeliness is
    effective. And I think we have to have [inaudible].
        Finally, I want to talk a little bit about a great unit
    that trained at Camp Shelby, Mississippi, the 442nd Regimental
    Combat Team, Japanese Americans, the most decorated unit in
    American history, who faced many of the challenges that our
    special operations community.
        We didn't want to include them in our military. Their
    families were in internment camps. And we wouldn't send them to
    Japan, to the Pacific to fight, we sent them to Europe. And
    they showed us their love for this country by being the most
    decorated history in the history of all of our annals.
        I think we have to do not like that. What I think we have
    to do is very targeted, to target for recruitment women,
    minorities. I think our SOCOM, and I think this is where
    ASD(SO/LIC).
        What do we need to accomplish the missions of this great
    Nation? What does that framework need to look like? Does that
    need to be men, women, Asians, African? It doesn't matter, the
    areas that are most important. And then I think we have to
    recruit very hard to do that.
        But I also think that takes time. It does not happen
    overnight. Because if we rush it, what we do is put unqualified
    people who fail.
        And what I want to do is have gates, recruitment gates,
    qualification gates, that are tracked over a long period of
    time to make sure that we have a force that leads to a lethal
    force that we need, which includes diversity, and that is
    culture and women.
        Do you agree with that, General Nagata?
        General Nagata. I do. I will be very quick since I know we
    need to move on to other speakers here.
        But, number one, I had two uncles in the 442nd Regimental
    Combat Team, and both of them told me personally the reason
    they joined was they felt they were determined to prove the
    loyalty of Japanese-American citizens because that loyalty was
    in considerable public doubt at the time.
        Getting to this question of today's recruiting challenges,
    as I said in my prepared remarks, I don't think we understand
    right now, because there has really been no adequate research
    about what causes someone from a diverse background or culture
    to volunteer to serve in special operations forces.
        Lots of opinion and anecdote on this, but opinions aren't
    research. We need research on this question: What motivates or
    fails to motivate someone to volunteer for SOF?
        And I will say, finally, I have learned this from someone
    who used to run an assessment selection program for me, there
    are, like, 10 things that have to happen, 10 gates that
    somebody has to get through and the organization has to get
    through for someone to serve successfully in SOF.
        And he said--I was a colonel at the time--he said,
    ``Colonel Nagata, of these 12 steps, 11 of them, if we screw up
    any of them, I can recover from that. There is one thing I
    cannot recover from: bad recruiting.''
        So I will leave that for your consideration.
        Mr. Kelly. Thank you, General Nagata.
        And I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
        Mr. Gallego. Thank you, Ranking Member Kelly.
        Who do we have first? [Inaudible] Larsen?
        Mr. Larsen. Yeah, thanks, Chair.
        So I want to begin with a question for General Nagata and
    then to Ms. Germano.
        Ms. Germano, just quickly, is that the title you prefer for
    this hearing, or should I call you colonel?
        Colonel Germano. Sure. Ms. Germano is fine.
        Mr. Larsen. Ms. Germano. Great. Thank you.
        So, General Nagata, back to the ranking member's question
    about not wanting to, like, recruit too quickly or change too
    quickly.
        I agree. So why didn't we start in 1984, when you,
    yourself, recognized you were one of two Asian Americans and we
    could have had a 37-year runway to fix this problem? And now do
    we have to wait another 37 years, because we recognize it as a
    problem again?
        It seems to me like the opposite of moving too quickly is
    moving way too slowly, which is exactly what we are doing.
        Can you, General, in two sentences tell me why not in 1984?
        General Nagata. In 1984, SOF was declining. In fact, when I
    reported in for the qualification course, I was warned that I
    was joining a special forces community that was going to be
    disbanded by the Department of Defense. So I don't think
    anybody cared, frankly.
        Mr. Larsen. Okay. So kind of somewhat unique.
        So let me move now to 2021, Ms. Germano, and refer back to
    General Nagata's point, a really good one. We have opinion. We
    have thoughts. We don't have the research to identify
    necessarily why we can't get a more diverse force.
        So what do you know? What can you help us understand? What
    are the first steps we need to take to move towards that?
        Colonel Germano. Well, thank you for the question,
    Representative.
        I think, first and foremost, I had two tours on duty with
    recruiters, once on the executive operations officer side, and
    then on the other tour I was actually in charge of one of the
    largest recruiting stations in the Nation. And so I know
    firsthand what it takes for these Marines to go out and find
    young kids who not only have the propensity to join, but who
    believe there is a place for them in the service.
        And I think one of the problems that we experience in
    recruiting is that on the officer side we tend to track
    diversity much more closely. When officer recruiting missions
    are assigned on a monthly basis, they are actually broken out
    by gender and they are actually broken out by racial
    categories.
        On the enlisted side, while we track that data in terms of
    when people join the service and that data gets computed into
    the system, we don't actually have missions that are actually
    broken out by diversity.
        So there is a big challenge in saying, well, we need to
    increase the diversity of the force for innovation and agility
    and other reasons, and yet we don't have any mechanisms to hold
    people accountable for making that happen.
        So I really think that that is part of the broader problem
    when it comes to this issue of increasing diversity in the
    force.
        And then the other part is, part of the reason that we
    don't see larger numbers of diverse kids being recruited is
    partly because of the makeup of the force that we have now. If
    the force is predominantly White and male, we are going to see
    a lag in other groups joining the service because kids look at
    the recruiter and they are like, ``Well, I don't know if there
    is a place for me.''
        So I would say it is compounded by not only what the kids
    read in the media, it is compounded by what the force looks
    like today. And then it is also compounded by the fact that we
    don't track who is coming in when it's not mentioned.
        Mr. Larsen. Okay.
        Mr. Chair, I don't see a clock anywhere, and I don't know
    how much time I have left. Do you have an estimate of my time,
    Mr. Chair?
        Mr. Gallego. Shannon?
        Staff. Sir, you have got about a minute and a half left.
        Mr. Larsen. Okay. Thanks.
        My next question is for Mr. Mitchell, and this gets into--
    this actually relates to diversity and recruitment. And Ms.
    Robinson addressed this a little bit. It has to do with the
    structure of SOF forces, the teams that are put together.
        And I know you have some ideas about how the nature of--the
    composition of those teams should change in order to address
    some of these issues about new capabilities.
        And I wrote down a term, and I don't know if SOF is guilty
    of this, but I wrote down ``capability lock.'' They are locked
    in their current set of abilities and not able to make changes
    organizationally to add additional capabilities.
        I wonder if you can kind of relate those two issues.
        Mr. Mitchell. Yes, sir. Thanks for that question.
        I would associate myself with my good friend, General
    Nagata, on this, is that there is a static approach to it, and
    I think all bureaucracies kind of have a hard time changing.
        And as I mentioned in my opening remarks, USSOCOM, General
    Thomas had committed to an experimental force. That was quietly
    shelved by General Clarke.
        And I think a rigorous experimentation, looking at not only
    new technologies but new personnel skills. The 2lst century
    economy has created all kinds of new skills. And I think it is
    important for us to bring in people with new skills and figure
    out how we incorporate them on the battlefield.
        And it is not simply enough to say, well, we have got some
    people here at headquarters, that we can reach back. We need to
    be able to put these people at the tactical edge, out there on
    the missions.
        And we are not going to get there unless we do that
    fundamental reassessment of our missions and what we expect of
    our force and are willing to take creative risks, and we can do
    that with an experimentation force.
        Mr. Larsen. That is probably my minute and a half. I would
    just probably note, if we were able to do that, we might be
    able to broaden the attractiveness in recruitment.
        Thank you.
        Thank you, Mr. Chair.
        Mr. Gallego. Thank you, Representative Larsen.
        Now we will move to Representative Scott.
        Mr. Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        I just want to mention this, first and foremost. I mean,
    all of us that are Members are responsible for making
    recommendations to the academy [inaudible] graduating class for
    the academies, that is probably what the leadership is going to
    look like in the military within the next--in the next 20
    years.
        And so interested in any comments on how we get more
    minority participation at the academy level, because, candidly,
    that is where the leadership is going to come from for the most
    part.
        I know, General Nagata, you went to Georgia State, which is
    in my home State. Great school.
        But I have several people that are of Indian heritage and
    Asian heritage, but I have very little minority participation
    when it comes to requesting a slot into the academies.
        So any thoughts on that particular issue and how we fix
    that? Because that is what our force structure is going to look
    like in the future at the command level.
        General Nagata, you want to take that?
        General Nagata. Yes, sir. Thank you.
        I completely agree that there needs to be more emphasis on
    all three of the forms of commissioning. So that would be the
    military academies, ROTC [Reserve Officers' Training Corps],
    and then every service has its own version of what I went to. I
    went to Officer Candidate School. It is the smallest producer
    of commissioned officers in the Army, but it is still
    significant.
        So all three need greater emphasis, but the nature of the
    emphasis is what matters. People will chase what they believe
    has an incentive that they want.
        And that is just not--I am not just talking about the
    recruits themselves. I am talking about the mechanism that Kate
    Germano used to serve within, the mechanisms the services have
    to identify and recruit more diverse populations.
        When is the last time--I am asking this rhetorically--when
    is the last time a recruiting official inside the Department of
    Defense was promoted because they successfully recruited a more
    diverse population? And when was the last time somebody was not
    promoted because they failed to recruit a more diverse
    population?
        That is only one example of the incentives I am talking
    about; people will do what they believe is in their best
    interest. If more people in DOD believe it is in their best
    interest to recruit more and bring in more diverse officers or
    enlisted personnel, it will absolutely happen. Right now that
    is not the case.
        Mr. Scott. Well, I guess my follow-up would be, I can't
    nominate somebody that doesn't apply for the nomination. And
    that is where--I mean, even when we have gone to principals and
    said, ``Hey, I need minorities who are good athletes, who have
    A's, and we have got scholarships for them.''
        And to be candid with you, the people in the school system
    just freeze up, and there is nothing--if you are targeting
    someone to help them, it is different than targeting somebody
    to hurt them, and we have just got to be able to have some more
    candid conversation, I think, around these issues in the public
    if we are going to get there.
        So for Mark Mitchell----
        General Nagata. Could I respond?
        Mr. Scott. Yes, sir.
        General Nagata. I will be very brief.
        I am going to repeat something I said in my prepared
    remarks. I think if you go looking for how much actual research
    there is on why or why not diverse candidates apply for
    military service, I think you will be as shocked as I was how
    little actual research there is.
        This topic is loaded with personal opinion, but that is not
    the same thing as research.
        Mr. Scott. That is right. That is right.
        Mr. Mitchell, in your testimony you suggest adding new
    military occupational specialties to ensure the right technical
    skills are resident in the SOF forces.
        Could you identify which specific occupational specialties
    you recommend adding and how they are essential to great power
    competition?
        Mr. Mitchell. Sure. Thank you for your question.
        I first want to just say my daughter is a senior at West
    Point getting ready to graduate this year. And I think the
    opportunities come, maybe think about going around the schools
    and going directly to the communities and the diasporas and
    making a pitch to them.
        On the issue of the SOF skills, I don't have a list, but I
    know there are things like artificial intelligence and machine
    learning that are important in the environment today, and it is
    not sufficient to take somebody who has not been through a
    rigorous assessment, selection, and training and to bolt them
    onto a team, because I think that adds undue risk.
        So I would look for USSOCOM and its components to create
    technical specialties for these operators, again, whether it is
    cyber, a SOF cyber operator who can be at the edge of the
    battlefield and it is not an additional duty on top of his
    weapons training in Army Special Forces, or something else;
    somebody who is specifically trained to do those kind of
    technical skills at the edge of the battlefield.
        Mr. Gallego. Thank you, Mr. Scott.
        Mr. Scott. Thank you, Chairman.
        Mr. Gallego. Not a problem.
        The next round of questions goes to Representative Keating.
        Mr. Keating. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        I would like to thank the witnesses.
        I have two questions. Number one to Mr. Nagata.
        I was interested if you could go a little further on
    developing your opening remarks. I thought they were quite
    telling when you were talking about the importance of diversity
    and culture when it comes not just to our adversaries but where
    you deploy, the environment around where you are deployed, and
    how important that is to our success overall. If you could
    expand on that, I would appreciate it.
        General Nagata. Thank you, sir. I will try to come at this
    in two ways, but very briefly.
        First of all--and this does connect with the strain and
    stress on the force, but I am going to say it anyways because
    it is so important.
        The exposure in complex foreign environments is vital to
    developing the skills necessary for the kinds of contests of
    influence that permeate great power competition. This entire
    thing is a tug of war of U.S. influence versus our adversaries'
    influence over the countries, the nations, the populations that
    each of us are vying for the affection of. The more special
    operations forces can live and operate within those
    environments, the more effective they will be.
        It is one thing to learn a language at a language training
    lab in the United States. It is quite another thing to learn
    that language in the neighborhood where that is what everybody
    speaks.
        Now, of course, as soon as I say that, people say, ``Oh,
    more family separation.'' Well, here is the question that I
    don't think we have adequately wrestled with. Why, at least for
    noncombat deployments, why can't families go? Why can't
    families go to incentivize special operations personnel staying
    longer in these environments, to become more culturally
    linguistically capable, and thereby become better competitors
    against Russian, Chinese, or other actors that probably won't
    do that? That is one example.
        The second one--and, again, I will be brief for the sake of
    time--is that this is going to require special operations
    forces to invest more heavily in things that have nothing to do
    with weapons training. And I am going to use language training
    specifically.
        Whether it is abroad or at home, I think it is long past
    time for language proficiency to be a promotion requirement,
    not a ``nice to have.'' If you are going to get promoted, you
    have to demonstrate proficiency in a foreign language.
        Thank you.
        Mr. Keating. I think that the example you gave with Crimea
    and Ukraine demonstrates that as well.
        And thank you for your service.
        And I think this is an important issue. We are severely at
    a deficiency in that regard.
        A quick question, Ms. Germano, if I may.
        In terms of an issue that I have been dealing with for a
    number of years, as well as members of this committee have been
    dealing with, in terms of inclusion, could you comment on the
    status of women's health resources and how that can be
    problematic in the SOF environment?
        Colonel Germano. Thank you for the question.
        I think that that is actually related to both inclusion and
    equity.
        So we still find that there are barriers to women's service
    because of the equipment that they have to wear. And this is
    really the first year that we are seeing combat equipment be
    tailored to the female form. So I would say that it is maybe
    less of an inclusion issue and more of a long-term issue
    related to equity there.
        There is still a lot of work that needs to be done. I mean,
    I just heard a horror story about a woman who was actually
    jumping out of an aircraft with her breast pump so that she
    could immediately go to a vehicle and prepare for a meal for
    her child.
        So these are still issues both from a cultural perspective
    and then also [inaudible] perspective. We need to understand
    that these are just physiological medical issues. They are
    related to the health of the force, not specifically to the
    health of women.
        Thank you.
        Mr. Keating. I agree. Thank you so much for that.
        Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
        Thank you for your service, ma'am.
        Colonel Germano. Thank you.
        Mr. Gallego. Thank you, Mr. Keating.
        Our next person up is Mr. Waltz for 5 minutes.
        Mr. Waltz. Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        First, I just want to start with a comment. I want to
    associate myself with the comments from General Nagata,
    particularly in the language training. As an Army Special
    Forces officer, that is critical to what we do.
        I would be interested in his thoughts, but perhaps at
    another time, in expanding that training, at least through the
    SOF force, because the Navy, Air Force, and others do not have
    that training.
        I do want to make a broader point, and before I get into my
    questions, really for my colleagues. But also, Linda, it is
    great to see you again.
        I am hearing a lot of kind of zero-sum discussion on
    counterterrorism versus great power competition, the shift of
    the force, realigning the force, rightsizing the force.
        And I feel very strongly that participating in
    counterterrorism is often allowing us access and placement for
    great power competition. We have seen that in the Philippines
    where we have an ongoing counterterrorism force and Philippine
    officials are repeatedly telling us that the only reason that
    we still have a foothold in the Philippines at all, where
    obviously great power competition is at its height, is because
    of the counterterrorism assistance we are providing them.
        We have seen it in Kenya. We just saw it, actually a great
    example, in Mozambique, where the government first went to the
    Chinese, then went to the Russians, went to the Wagner Group,
    and a mercenary group.
        None of that worked. And now they are working with our
    Green Berets, who now have access and placement to understand
    what the Chinese and Russians are doing there, but it is
    because of that counterterrorism mission.
        So I think we need to be very careful about that kind of
    zero-sum mentality.
        Linda, my first question is for you. I keyed in on a
    statement where you said three women have received a Green
    Beret, but it is not where the force should be.
        So my first question, do you agree with the Army's move
    towards gender-neutral physical standards where they, I think--
    and I will just tell you where I am--very rightly said to be a
    Green Beret or a Ranger or an infantryman requires a different
    level of physicality than to be a supply clerk or to be a pilot
    or to be a cyber warrior, and did away with gender standards,
    male and female, and made it more tailored towards the
    standards that the job required.
        And I will tell you, from my perspective, for me this
    discussion is about standards, not gender, race, religion, or
    creed, because that is what combat requires. I pushed for
    female engagement teams because there was a need on the
    battlefield. I pushed--actually just passed legislation helping
    with maternity uniforms. I think that was just discussed.
        But my concern is that, on the one hand, we make all of
    these areas accessible--and I think that is absolutely right--
    but then a few years later we start questioning, well, why do
    we only have certain numbers in the force?
        So, one, do you agree with the gender-neutral standard
    physicality? And then my next question is, how many women have
    applied through the Special Forces course?
        Ms. Robinson. Thank you very much, Mike. Representative
    Waltz, it is great to see you, and I appreciate the question.
        And I do believe gender-neutral standards are important,
    and standards need to be high, because that is the essence of
    what special operations forces require. And people have
    mentioned the 1999 RAND study, which I did not participate in,
    but it is notable that there were a number of barriers
    identified regarding test scores, swimming requirements, and
    lack of role models.
        And I think there are a lot of subtle barriers that remain
    that can be addressed without lowering standards, which was one
    of the concerns expressed by those in the 2016 study, as well
    as effect on unit cohesion.
        But I think training and socialization to prepare
    candidates to be successful can help more candidates meet those
    standards.
        And then----
        Mr. Waltz. Linda?
        Ms. Robinson. Yes.
        Mr. Waltz. So you disagree with the decision then that the
    Army just made where they are now reversing course and going
    back to male and female physical standards?
        And one of the reasons was because they said, well, in the
    combat arms, obviously, that affects your ability to promote
    and your ability to rise and your ability to have access. And
    now they are getting a lot of pressure that having one standard
    is now discriminatory.
        So it seems to me some groups are talking out of both sides
    of their mouth here. On the one hand, allow full access and the
    standards matter, they shouldn't be lowered, we shouldn't have
    tokenism; but when we don't have a certain number to get
    through, then we are having to--you know, there is a lot of
    pressure on the Army to now reverse course, and they have
    actually just made the decision to reverse course.
        So now we are going to have male and female standards for
    the infantry, for Special Forces, for artillery, and last I
    checked, enemies' bullets don't care. Carrying that guy to the
    helicopter doesn't care. The artillery round doesn't care. It
    is a standard.
        Mr. Gallego. Mr. Waltz----
        Mr. Waltz. So do you agree with that move then?
        Mr. Gallego. We have to cut that short. If you want to do a
    yes/no answer or a maybe.
        Ms. Robinson. Yes. And I would be happy to follow up. Thank
    you.
        Mr. Gallego. We will also conduct a second round of
    questions for those members that have further questions.
        Mr. Waltz. Great. Thanks.
        Mr. Gallego. Thank you, Mr. Waltz. Appreciate it.
        Next we are turning this over to Representative--Vice
    Chair, I should say--Stephanie Murphy.
        Mrs. Murphy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        And thank you to our witnesses today.
        I wanted to kind of pull the thread a little bit on what
    General Nagata said around the idea that a lot of the conflict
    is in the gray zone, and even looking at what SOCOM has done in
    setting up info ops, sort of a fusion center for that, and
    elevating those capabilities.
        I used to work in OSD Policy in SO/LIC, SOCT [Special
    Operations and Combating Terrorism], and then I was out at the
    Pacific Command in the J3 [Operations Directorate]. And at that
    time there was this sort of distinction between white SOF and
    black SOF. And white SOF tends to have the skill set that we
    are talking about in the info ops space, in that kind of--you
    know, it is our MISOs. It is our folks who are trained that
    way.
        But back in the early 2000s there was quite a bit of
    discrimination, maybe, or prejudice, that white SOF wasn't
    really SOF.
        One, can you talk to me a bit about whether that culture
    has changed around that? And if it hasn't, does it impact your
    ability to grow that capability? And how can we change that
    cultural lens in order to encourage recruitment and retainment
    in that area?
        General Nagata. Thank you very much. This is such an
    enormous topic, but I will try to be brief.
        A little unusual. If you take my career in special
    operations, cut it literally in half, half of my time was in--I
    actually don't like these terms, but I will use them--black
    SOF, the other in white SOF. So I have seen it from both sides.
        I would argue that right after 9/11, not just special
    operations, but the whole U.S. military's obvious priority was
    capturing and killing terrorists. We then learned over time
    that capturing and killing terrorists is great if we are trying
    to save people's lives, but it actually doesn't do a thing to
    reduce the volume of terrorism that we are having to deal with.
        And so over time I watched the SOF community suddenly start
    remembering, oh, yeah, these other skills we have, in
    psychological operations, in information operations, in local
    capacity building, in being better at interacting with other
    departments and agencies of the U.S. Government, like USAID
    [United States Agency for International Development], like
    State Department, the intelligence community, those are just as
    important as our ability to kill or capture terrorists.
        So it reminds me of what Churchill said about Americans: We
    will always do the right thing after we exhaust every other
    alternative.
        So I think there has been a reawakening in the SOF
    community, now that we are in great power competition, now that
    increasingly we are seeing this as a war of influence, where
    occasionally we will need to use bullets and bombs, but more
    frequently we will have to solve very complex problems that do
    not involve the use of physical force.
        So things like the WebOpsCenter, things like our
    psychological operations organizations, other things that we
    can train our SOF operators on will become increasingly
    important that have nothing to do with using physical force.
        But, frankly, is there still a tug of war between the
    kinetic and nonkinetic sides of SOF? Sure, there is, and
    perhaps there always will be. But the bias clearly needs to be
    on anything that helps us engage in a war of influence.
        Mrs. Murphy. And so to follow on to that, a lot of the way
    in which you can drive the Department and the services into
    making certain missions priorities is through appropriations
    and resources.
        Do you feel like the allocation of resources is appropriate
    for the direction in which the special ops should be going in?
        General Nagata. No. And I will give you two reasons why.
    One is an example. This is specific to counterterrorism, but it
    is pretty much true for everything.
        My last position, I was the Director of Strategy at the
    National Counterterrorism Center. I did an annual review of
    what we euphemistically called the counterterrorism budget of
    the United States. There really is no such thing, as I am sure
    you are aware. But we did the best we could at analyzing where
    money went when it came to counterterrorism.
        I doubt you will be surprised to know that well over 90
    percent of all annual appropriations for counterterrorism
    activities go towards the use of physical force against
    terrorists and 1 percent or less goes to anything that might
    relate to nonkinetic approaches to counterterrorism.
        And that is not the same thing as great power competition,
    but I will bet any empirical analysis of where money is going
    for great power competition would probably show you a very
    similar disproportionate distribution.
        Finally, so long as documents, very important documents,
    like the National Defense Strategy, and just rhetoric coming
    out of U.S. Government and DOD policymakers emphasize words
    like ``get more lethal,'' they are inadvertently undermining
    investments that don't involve bombs and bullets.
        Mrs. Murphy. Thank you.
        Mr. Gallego. Thank you, Representative Murphy.
        Now moving on to Representative Franklin.
        Mr. Franklin. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Thank you. I really appreciate the testimony of the
    witnesses this morning. As a new member of the committee, this
    is really helping me expand my understanding, particularly
    around the area of ASD(SO/LIC).
        And I guess my first question will be for Mr. Mitchell.
        Regarding ASD(SO/LIC), since you have held this role, what
    should this committee be considering in the form of oversight
    regarding the structures and authorities for that role going
    forward? You have talked about this a little bit, but I would
    love for you to expand on that a little bit more.
        Mr. Mitchell. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Franklin, for that.
        I think the committee should focus on, first of all, the
    relationship that ASD(SO/LIC) actually does have with the
    Secretary in enforcing the law, that it cannot be interfered
    with and there's administrative duties as opposed to the
    operational role.
        And I think the other piece is the resourcing of ASD(SO/
    LIC). As I mentioned earlier, they have only got a staff of
    about 40. They are growing it.
        But over time, they need to add the specialists that can
    help them address all of the core civilian functions that they
    deal with. And that is acquisition, auditing, the Comptroller,
    information management, the Inspector General, leg
    [legislative] affairs, public affairs, research and
    development.
        Those are all inherently civilian-led functions that
    currently, if truth be told, are controlled by the SOCOM
    commander in this enterprise and really need to be transferred
    to the direct control of ASD(SO/LIC).
        Mr. Franklin. Okay. Thank you.
        General Nagata, you had mentioned that our special
    operations forces are inadequately preparing for great power
    competition. You cited a couple of ways we could be doing
    things better, such as language training, recruitment policies
    and procedures.
        Could you expand on that a little more? Are there areas,
    other areas, that you think we could be doing a better job of
    preparing for great power competition?
        General Nagata. Thank you.
        I did not intend to convey that SOF is unprepared. I do
    think it could be better prepared.
        Part of this is inhibited by what I have already talked
    about. There is so much emphasis on getting ready for a high-
    end conflict in the Department of Defense that it inadvertently
    reduces the incentive for SOCOM and special operations forces
    to either sustain or increase their investments in nonkinetic
    solutions, capacity building, things that don't involve direct
    combat, because the noise that is drumming in everybody's ears
    is get more lethal.
        But perhaps more practically, I think it is time for
    another review of the authorities by which combatant commanders
    and the SOCOM commander can deploy forces abroad. In the last
    20 years, most of the new authorities have been exclusively for
    counterterrorism purposes, and there is nothing wrong with
    that, because counterterrorism was such a priority at the time.
    Some of that is fungible for the kinds of deployments that are
    needed now.
        But it begs the question, if we need to send special
    operations personnel to a part of the world where there is no
    declared terrorist threat, but there is an enormous struggle
    over American influence in that part of the world that we may
    not be winning--in many cases we are not winning those
    contests--are there existing authorities, is there existing
    funding to undergird the deployment and the operations and the
    maintenance of a substantial special operations effort in that
    part of the world?
        I would argue in large measure I think it would require all
    of the DOD lawyers to go scrambling to figure out how they
    could take legacy counterterrorism authorities and somehow
    twist them to comport with great power competition. I think it
    is time to look for perhaps a new batch of authorities.
        Mr. Franklin. Thank you.
        You had mentioned--when we were talking about the stress
    and strain on the force, that had me thinking down a different
    line. And there may not be enough time to fully dive into this,
    and I can submit it later for a deeper response from everyone
    on the panel. I would really love your opinions.
        But I was a 26-year operator, not Special Forces, but a
    naval aviator, and it is just part of the military culture and
    ethos that you just suck it up and get things done. I mean,
    that is part of what makes it such a special job.
        And sometimes we are our own worst enemies, that we don't
    push back when probably we should, and that is part of the
    bravado culture. But I am also tired of burying friends of
    mine, as I have had a number of friends who have committed
    suicide after leaving their service.
        I agree with you that this is not going to be a pivot
    situation. It is not a CT ``or'' great power competition. It is
    going to be an ``and.'' And the burden is going to be on the
    troops to suck it up and get the job done.
        What can we be doing from an oversight role to help our
    Active Duty forces help themselves? When it comes to support
    for mental counseling, I liked your--the thought was an
    interesting one about having families deploy in a noncombat
    situation. But I would love to get yours' and others' thoughts
    on how we can be better supporting our Active Duty forces in
    that regard.
        General Nagata. Sir, I will be very brief. Two suggestions.
        One, I think we should examine the distribution and the
    density of psychological professional support inside special
    operations forces. In the community I grew up, there was lots
    of psychological support in some units; in others very little.
        The entire force needs more psychological professional
    support so that the commanders, as they are making hard choices
    about when to deploy people, how long to deploy people, there
    is a psychological professional at their side giving them
    advice about the intangible nonphysical stress on the force,
    which, in my judgment, is in many ways more dangerous than the
    physical strain on the force.
        The second one is about how at the policy level, at the
    policy level, and this I think dovetails nicely into the
    conversations about ASD(SO/LIC) and the things it needs to be
    able to do that it can't----
        Mr. Gallego. General Nagata, please wrap up.
        General Nagata. ASD(SO/LIC) needs to be able to fund
    research.
        Mr. Gallego. There you go. That is a good one.
        Okay. Perfect.
        Thank you, General Nagata.
        Thank you, Representative Franklin.
        We are going to move now to Representative Bacon.
        Mr. Bacon. Thank you. I appreciate that, Mr. Chair.
        And I thank our panelists.
        I have just got a couple of comments because most of my
    questions were already asked. But this debate a little bit on
    how much should Special Forces be focusing on near-peer
    competitors [audio malfunction] National Defense Strategy, I
    think is right with the near-peer competitor focus.
        Our Special Forces needs to be the champion or the premier
    capability against counterterror. We are still going to need
    that capability. And so they should be the experts on that, in
    my view.
        Secondly, when we are talking about culture, we have got to
    be careful we don't throw the baby out with the bathwater here.
    We want warrior culture. We want people with indomitable
    spirit. Not to say we can't have refinements, not to say people
    don't need to seek support after continuous deployments.
        But the fact is we want warriors. We want people who have a
    high confidence they are going to win on the battlefield there.
        And I say that as someone, I have had two different
    deployments with the Special Forces, though I was on the
    conventional side, and I also did information operations. But I
    was so impressed with the team.
        My one area of question is, there is no doubt that the
    OPSTEMPO [operations tempo] and the continuous combat
    deployments have a strain. Are we seeing this OPSTEMPO get
    better? Is it starting to go down? My sense is that it is, but
    I am not sure that is really the case.
        And I will just yield to anybody who may have some
    information on that.
        Thank you.
        Ms. Robinson. I can address that.
        The OPTEMPO has indeed improved. Fifteen percent decline in
    deployments was the official SOCOM figure, but they have not
    yet reached the desired deployment-to-dwell ratio of 1:2, much
    less to 1:3. So there is, I think, demonstrable evidence that
    the force is still being overdeployed.
        And I just want to take this moment to acknowledge, I in no
    way would disagree that counterterrorism is a critical and core
    mission for SOF. It is simply the rebalance, in my view, is not
    sufficient.
        And I also think throughout the last 20 years we have
    overemphasized the tactical direct action aspect rather than
    trying to affect the pipeline and trying to affect the long
    term. And some of our signal successes have been, I will note,
    building the counterterrorism service in Iraq, which actually
    fought most of the counter-ISIS [Islamic State of Iraq and
    Syria] fight.
        So I am an advocate for strategic use of our force and
    finding allies and partners and building them to take on much
    of these lesser roles.
        Thank you.
        Mr. Bacon. I would have to agree with you on that one. We
    can train our allies to do many of these missions. That is a
    force multiplier. So you have got my vote on that one.
        Anybody else?
        Mr. Mitchell. Good morning, Representative Bacon.
        I would just like to add here, I had a long discussion with
    a good friend of mine in 5th [Special Forces] Group the other
    day. And first of all, their POTFF, the way they have
    integrated all of their abilities there, I think is a great
    model. I would encourage the committee to go take a look at
    that.
        And on the issue of deployability, General Nagata touched
    on this, and I think it is important to remember, men and women
    go into our communities, in the SOF community, because they
    want to be actively engaged.
        So my own experience as a commander in the community and
    then as ASD(SO/LIC) is that a 1:2 is probably about right. I
    think when we get to 1:3, we really start to kind of lose our
    edge of what we need to stay engaged downrange.
        So I think there is no denying it has gotten better. People
    are looking for predictability and sustainability.
        Thank you.
        Mr. Bacon. I thank you.
        I yield back, Mr. Chair.
        Mr. Gallego. Next to Chairman Takano.
        Mr. Takano. Thank you. Thank you, Chairman Gallego, for
    inviting me to this hearing. And as chairman of the House
    Veterans' Affairs Committee, I believe we really do have to
    work together to support all veterans who have worn the uniform
    of our great Nation, including women, racial and ethnic
    minorities, Native Americans, and members of the LGBT [lesbian,
    gay, bisexual, transgender] community.
        Today's service members are tomorrow's veterans, and in the
    case of the Reserve and National Guard, some are both.
        Now, understanding today's challenges will help us support
    the veterans community in years to come.
        My first questions are for General Nagata.
        In your testimony, your testimony notes that there is a
    shortage of longitudinal research on the specific impacts of
    the effects of deployments, prolonged combat exposure to blasts
    and trauma, family separation, and so on, as related to SOF.
        My first question. Mental health and suicide prevention are
    among my top priorities, and based on your observation in 30
    years in the SOF community, how would you characterize the
    impact of high operational tempo in the mental health of SOF
    operators and enablers?
        General Nagata. Thank you, sir.
        Obviously, not being an expert in this field, all I can
    tell you is that I am convinced that the strain and stresses of
    particularly the last two decades have had lasting, in some
    cases devastating, mental health and psychological impacts on
    too many of my brethren over the last 20 years.
        I, myself, have some psychological issues because of some
    of the strains and stresses in my career. I have learned to
    live with them.
        Number one, I should have been more aggressive in seeking
    help, and, frankly, there should have been more help available.
    A lot of that has gotten better over the years, but I still
    don't think it is where it needs to be.
        But, much more importantly, going back to your reference to
    my prepared remarks, there are a lot of people who believe that
    because there is a fair amount of research about the U.S.
    military broadly and the impact of war, that special operations
    forces are, therefore, covered. They are not covered.
        Special operations forces operate differently. We have a
    different culture. As a general rule, we have a higher
    deployment rate. We get involved in situations that nobody else
    in the Department gets involved in.
        So I will just reiterate my original argument. There needs
    to be SOF-specific research on the impact of everything from
    deployment tempo to the effects of blast and trauma and
    everything in between if we are to be more effective in helping
    people like I once was.
        Mr. Takano. Sir, General, do you think that there are
    additional factors, such as the threat or experience of
    military sexual trauma, that also might be of concern for women
    who served in SOF?
        General Nagata. Yes, there are, because there are females
    that serve in special operations commands around the world.
    They are just as vulnerable to the kinds of misbehavior and
    mistreatment that females can be vulnerable to anywhere else in
    the force.
        I am unaware of any studies or scientific research into
    whether it is disproportionate in SOF, but I have personally
    witnessed females being mistreated in special operations
    forces. I have had to take Uniform Code of Military Justice
    action against such perpetrators.
        Mr. Takano. Can you tell me how you think the Department of
    Veterans Affairs might be leveraged to assist with the
    longitudinal research that you have alluded to?
        General Nagata. Two ways.
        One is, I suspect, I am not familiar with the data holdings
    of the Veterans Affairs Administration, but I would imagine
    they have abundant data that could contribute to such research.
        But secondly, frankly, sir, over the course of my career,
    the number of times I had reason to care about what the
    Veterans Administration was doing for myself and my operators
    was almost zero, and it shouldn't be that way.
        Perhaps that was partially my fault. Maybe I should have
    been conducting greater outreach. But I cannot actually ever
    remember a conversation in my career where the Veterans
    Administration's roles, missions, or contributions figured
    prominently, and it shouldn't be that way.
        Mr. Takano. Well, thank you for that.
        Lieutenant Colonel Germano, your testimony highlights the
    impact of emotions, not facts, on resistance to the integration
    of women into SOF elements. Even though women like Virginia
    Hall were part of SOF in its earlier days, when it was known as
    the Office of Strategic Services, the inertia remains.
        How can that resistance contribute to gender-based
    violence, such as sexual harassment and assault? And how can
    that resistance be overcome?
        Colonel Germano. Thank you for the question. And I
    appreciate your mentioning the historical figure there.
        I think that that is a really interesting point in that the
    individual that you brought up is a pioneer, and virtually
    every other woman who has followed her into the special
    operations community has been a pioneer. So there is a lack of
    density in the community when it comes to how we are bringing
    individuals who are not of the majority group.
        So I think that part of this issue is about solving the
    recruiting problem, and then part of this issue is about the
    culture in and of itself.
        When we think of resistance to change, it is all emotion
    driven. And so there is a lot of anger. There is a lot of
    skepticism. There are a lot of feelings of perceived loss if we
    broaden the aperture for bringing in people who don't fit the
    dominant group.
        We have to be willing to address those emotions first on,
    first by normalizing them and saying it is understandable that
    you may feel these things. And then there needs to be some
    semblance of justification to not only why it is important to
    make the change, but also how bringing in additional people who
    don't look like the majority group will actually make the group
    stronger.
        And that goes to my point about needing tangible studies
    that demonstrate why bringing in nondominant-group members make
    the force more lethal and more operationally competent.
        I hope that answered that question.
        Mr. Takano. Thank you so much.
        Mr. Mitchell, while you were at the Pentagon, how did the
    Preservation of the Force----
        Mr. Gallego. I apologize, Chair Takano, your 5 minutes are
    up. But we are going to do second rounds. And so if you stick
    around, I am sure not everyone is going to have a second
    question and you could continue with any questions you want.
        Mr. Takano. Sure. Thank you, Chairman Gallego. And if I can
    come back, I will do that. Otherwise, I will submit it for the
    record.
        Mr. Gallego. Okay. Thank you, Chairman. I really appreciate
    it.
        So we are going to go to second rounds, and I am going to
    start the rotation again.
        I think I would like in general to have a general question
    to the panel of what is the advantage of a more diverse SOF
    that is more reflective of America in race, ethnicity, and
    gender, and why is this important and what we gain from this in
    the global fight.
        And the reason I am asking this is because what I want to
    make sure people understand is we want diversity because we
    think that makes us more effective, not for the sake of
    diversity.
        And I think that is something that we need to communicate
    out there because I think there is a lot of misinformation
    where somehow we are asking for diversity because we somehow
    want to be more progressive.
        Can I start with Germano? Could you start and give us your
    opinion?
        Colonel Germano. Yes. And I appreciate you making the
    distinction.
        And I want to start off by saying that is really where a
    lot of the resistance comes from, this general perception by
    the majority of the military public that we are just doing this
    to check the block.
        And so this idea that we don't have any real studies that
    quantify how minorities make us a stronger force is a real
    linchpin to the potential success of not only the force in the
    future, but also diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.
        The only way to reduce doubt and skepticism is by
    addressing the doubts and skepticism, that's the emotional
    aspect, but then also being able to provide facts, saying,
    look, these are the individuals who have these skills that are
    then contributing to the operational mission.
        And right now we don't have that. We are trying to take
    civilian studies and case studies from the finance and tech
    sectors, for example, and apply what makes them successful to
    the military, and it is comparing apples to oranges.
        So I hope that helped.
        Mr. Gallego. Thank you.
        Mr. Mitchell.
        Mr. Mitchell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        I would harken back to General Nagata's comments earlier
    and my own remarks. This is a global competition that we are
    in.
        And populations are also mobile. In the Middle East, you
    find large populations from Asia, from the Philippines, from
    Sri Lanka, from Bangladesh. And that is all over the world.
        We have this great human capital here. And in the
    furtherance of operational effectiveness, looking at global
    competition and building influence, that is why we need these
    men and women with native cultural and language skills.
        Mr. Gallego. Thank you.
        Ms. Robinson.
        Ms. Robinson. I would just note that women make up half the
    population, yes, so we really need to ensure their ability to
    connect. And we saw with the use of the FETs [female engagement
    teams] as mentioned, these cultural support teams, having women
    in the formation were of great value.
        And just simply the language and cultural understanding to
    operate across the world is just a direct requirement for a
    more diverse force.
        And I would like to say I think the issue of standards can
    really be something of a shibboleth. We need to address the
    barriers that have been identified, and recruitment and
    retention should be part of special operations forces'
    priority.
        So once you get a more diverse force, you need to work to
    keep it and to promote it.
        Mr. Gallego. Great.
        And, General Nagata.
        General Nagata. Thank you, sir.
        I mentioned in my prepared remarks I have been responsible
    for two different assessment selection courses in SOF, and in
    both instances the maxim that we held to was our job was not to
    produce the world's greatest door kickers, although door
    kicking is involved.
        Our highest responsibility was to develop the world's
    greatest problem solvers. And there is no more wicked problem
    today than great power competition, and a lot of it will not
    involve shooting anybody, but it will require outcompeting
    everybody.
        So one of the oldest truths about problem solving is the
    more homogeneous your team is for solving the problem, the less
    likely you are to find the solution. The more heterogeneous
    your team is, the more likely you are to solve the problem.
        Mr. Gallego. Thank you, Mr. Nagata.
        And now I will turn to Ranking Member Kelly for a second
    round of questions.
        Mr. Kelly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        And I want to start with--and I am going to use a new
    movie, ``The Liberator,'' which I watched, about the
    Thunderbird Division at Anzio and other places.
        But in one part at the end of the movie, Felix Sparks is
    talking to General Patton, and General Patton gives his 40
    years of experience and all of the theaters and wars that he
    has been involved in, and he says, ``My days in actual combat
    are less than yours.'' And Felix Sparks' were consecutive.
        General Nagata, you understand what I am talking about.
    Psychological teams at the point nearest to the actual action
    is required and necessary. I know that from personal
    experience, whether you want it as a combat soldier or not.
        And I will tell you, all combat experiences are not the
    same. And I would say the professional operators and the amount
    and intensity of the conflicts that they are involved is much
    different.
        So I agree that we need psychological warriors in the
    formation with them at all times, and I also think that we need
    to research them specifically.
        I want to go to my next point, and some of these you may
    have to take for the record. But we have the Tuskegee Airmen,
    we have the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, we have African
    Americans which were segregated in World War II and World War
    I, which led to now the integration of the forces. But that is
    not the right solution, so I am not saying that.
        But what ideas or what ways can we do it the right way this
    time when we are inclusive of women or people who are different
    and diverse? How can we as a DOD, how can we specially address
    this problem?
        And then the second question is, is what tools and metrics
    and gates can we use to have truly measurable results on the
    impact that these things are having in changing the force?
        And I teach this to kids all the time, our young soldiers
    or young staffers, and I tell them, ``Choose your mentors
    well.''
        But I think we need to have a program where our mentors are
    focused and forced to choose their proteges well, and they need
    to be diverse to make sure that they have ownership in their
    successes.
        And if you guys can answer that.
        And, Ruben, just cut me off when time is up.
        Mr. Gallego. You got it.
        You want to start? Why don't we start with Ms. Robinson.
        Ms. Robinson. Yes. Thank you.
        I think this is a critically important point. And I think
    that while SOF recruits primarily from the services, it also
    has direct accession as well. And I think it is critically
    important that SOF do more in partnership with the services to
    recruit a diverse candidate pool.
        Retired members of the community from diverse backgrounds
    should be engaged to help with this recruitment. More funding
    for recruitment at Historically Black Colleges and Universities
    can help encourage people, thus recruited, to branch into SOF
    fields.
        So it is a panoply of efforts across the recruitment
    spectrum.
        And then, as I mentioned, I think it is very important for
    senior leaders to be vocal and visible on this front and send a
    clear message that diversity is a priority; and, similarly,
    responding to incidences of bias or hazing.
        This has to require a swift and uniform response, and I
    think it has been--there is still a cultural bias, as I
    mentioned, mentioning the statistics earlier, and the
    leadership of the SOF community has to embrace this as the top
    priority.
        And I would note, I think that having the Secretary of
    Defense in the leadership role on this, he has been very clear,
    and he, himself, is modeling some of the needed behaviors.
        Thank you.
        Mr. Kelly. Hey, Ruben, if I can reclaim? I have one more I
    would like.
        Mr. Gallego. Yes.
        Mr. Kelly. And, really, guys, I really want you to submit
    for the record ideas on this.
        But my second thing is, are we measuring the right
    attributes for our special forces warriors or our warriors in
    general, regardless of which service they are in? You know, the
    CT test or armed combat physical test, are we measuring the
    things that really matter?
        Because, let me tell you, a 110-pound person cannot drag me
    off the battlefield. I weigh 220 pounds. So I don't care
    whether they are male, female, Asian, it does not matter, the
    physical impossibility.
        But are we measuring the right things to make sure that we
    have combat effectiveness? And are we using the right tools?
        I think we are using an antiquated system of what it means
    to be a warrior in order. Because let me tell you what it
    takes. It takes physical endurance. It takes mental toughness.
    It takes stamina. It takes the ability not to quit. Those
    things are not measurable in push-ups or sit-ups or a 2-mile
    run, but all those things also go into measurement.
        So I would also be interested in what units of measurement
    should we be able to use right now to truly test the combat
    readiness of our warriors?
        Mr. Gallego. We are about less than a minute for that.
        Who would you like that question to go to, Representative
    Kelly?
        Mr. Kelly. General Nagata, because I think from his thing
    he may have the best answer on that.
        Mr. Gallego. Okay. General Nagata.
        General Nagata. Thank you.
        This is going to sound like a biased answer because I come
    from the special operations community. But my personal opinion
    is if there is any force in the Department of Defense who gets
    it more right than wrong when it comes to what are we trying to
    select for, what are we looking for, it is the special
    operations community.
        In my view, the two most important examples of this are--
    one I have already mentioned. Much of our development program
    is based on giving people a problem that actually can't be
    solved, there is no right answer, but they never quit. As long
    as they never quit, they are the right cut of cloth for us. It
    is when they start quitting that we realize, nope, you can't be
    a special operator.
        The second one is a desire, a natural propensity for being
    in complexity. Most people, if given a choice between being in
    a simple environment or a complex environment, will always
    choose the simple environment. The best people we select in
    SOF, they go the other way: Oh, that is more complex, let me in
    there.
        Mr. Gallego. Thank you, Mr. Nagata.
        Now we will move on to Representative Larsen.
        Mr. Larsen. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
        And my next set of questions are first for Ms. Germano on
    this issue that Ranking Member Kelly brought up about combat
    effectiveness. And this can apply to anyone, but I want Ms.
    Germano to answer it first because it seems that the definition
    of combat is changing as well. It is very different than it was
    20 years ago when we were literally kicking down doors in
    Afghanistan and Iraq.
        So if it is changing, how can that be put into the
    organization so that the training and standards match what kind
    of combat we are going to expect from SOF?
        And then next, does that not open the aperture for any
    number of other kinds of folks to be interested in being part
    of SOF?
        So a very loaded question. There is only one answer, but go
    ahead and answer it.
        Colonel Germano. Yes or no, yes or no, yes or no.
        It is an interesting predicament because we can't predict
    what is going to happen in the future, but what we can do is we
    can take past data and past types of conflict to assess what
    skills are most needed.
        And I think that one of the areas where we have missed the
    boat in terms of recruiting efforts, specifically for Special
    Forces, but also largely for the military in general, is that
    we don't take operational plans and the risks that we are
    assessing as potential imminent conflicts, we don't translate
    those down into recruiting goals and metrics.
        So I think that there is a lot of work to be done to
    connect the dots between the two, because, as was mentioned
    earlier, there is a really long tooth to tail to get kids in
    the pipeline and actually qualified to speak a language and do
    all those other things.
        So I think really this idea about predicting which
    conflicts are going to happen and then what skills people will
    need to be successful, that has to be connected back to
    recruiting, and there has to be growth in terms of how our
    recruiting force in general looks at who the best candidates
    are to fit those needs.
        There are a lot of assumptions, there are a lot of
    assumptions that go into recruiting kids, and there are a lot
    of stereotypes that are in the minds of the recruiters who are
    approaching kids to join the service.
        So when we think about propensity to serve, that is not
    really a scientific term, and it is loaded because that is all
    influenced by the stereotypes and biases that the recruiting
    force has. So we need to work on that as well.
        Mr. Larsen. As a follow-up, let's fast forward 10 years,
    let's say 10 years, and instead of two or three women in the
    Green Berets, it is a much larger number, and many more women
    across all of the special operators.
        Today, would they have the support network to even serve?
    And what kind of changes do we need to make to personnel
    policy, to family leave, to childcare within the military to
    actually be supportive?
        Because I am sure that we have done the same thing for all
    the men in the special operations forces over the last 40
    years. That is, address some of the needs. Not all of them.
    Clearly, that is why we have POTFF.
        But we would need to make those changes, but those don't
    even--those don't exist now at all. I mean, we are not doing
    anything to support this. Even if we were able to recruit, we
    are not doing much of anything to help support inclusion. And
    we ought to, it seems.
        Colonel Germano. As I mentioned a little bit earlier, this
    goes back to not only how we are bringing people into the
    pipeline, but how we look at diversity as an actual force
    multiplier.
        When I was in the Marine Corps, for example, I can't tell
    you the number of times I would have--obviously, the smallest
    service with the fewest women--I would have male Marines send
    me their female Marines to talk about things like uniform
    regulations and conduct in the barracks.
        We need to rethink how we think about inclusion. Those are
    leadership issues. They are not leadership by a woman to a
    woman issue. I would never have turned away a male Marine to
    talk about leadership or any other type of disciplinary or
    good-of-the-force issue.
        So we really need to get past this idea of we need to have
    a certain number of women in a unit before we can assign more
    women there. We need to understand the value that diverse
    members bring to these organizations, and we need to embrace
    that.
        And then we need to hold people accountable for doing the
    leadership things rather than thinking we can ship people off
    to other women so that they can deal with the women's issues.
        I hope that touched on that question.
        Mr. Larsen. It does, and that is fine.
        And I would yield back to the chairman, but he is probably
    taking his dog for a walk.
        Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
        Mr. Gallego. Thank you.
        Now let's go to Representative Scott.
        Mr. Scott. I want to say one thing, Chairman Takano
    mentioned this, on the veteran suicide. And I hope everybody on
    this committee will recognize how the Tax Code works against
    our people that are hurt in combat.
        And I did not realize this until a few years ago when I was
    taking a young man, who had lost both of his legs to an IED
    [improvised explosive device], hunting.
        And he said, ``Yeah, I tried to go back to work, but if I
    work more than X number of hours, I lose my Social Security
    benefits. So I actually have more money if I don't work.''
        And our special operators, whether it is black or white
    operations, are high-performance individuals. And when you take
    somebody like that and you force them to sit at home because of
    the Tax Code, not having a way to take care of their family,
    that is a problem. And I think that is where some of the
    suicides come from.
        And so maybe we can work together with the Ways and Means
    Committee to try to fix some of those problems so our people
    who are combat-wounded total and permanent [disability] can go
    to work without having less money at the end of the month.
        One of the things that was mentioned--and I think it was
    Ms. Germano that mentioned the perception of the United States
    military and how our faithful rating has come down over the
    last several years.
        And my question gets to what we see in the media with
    regard to the military. And when I say ``media,'' I don't just
    mean the news, I mean the entertainment industry as well, and
    then what we see from other countries in the gray area of
    warfare, the social misinformation that is out there on the
    internet.
        What role do you think the entertainment industry is having
    on the perception of the United States military? And what role
    do you think our foreign adversaries with social media are
    having?
        Colonel Germano. That is a really interesting question. I
    will tell you, just if I were to Google the number of movies
    about combat women, women in the services who are combat
    veterans, I could probably think of three and find three.
        The majority of coverage related to women and women
    veterans has to do with sexual assault. And so I think--I am
    not downplaying the issue. It is a significant issue for both
    men and women. But I think the way women are portrayed in the
    media can lend itself to a viewpoint that women are not
    warriors, and nothing could be further from the truth.
        Misinformation plays a role in how our service members
    think about women and other minorities in the military. They
    are reading this stuff on Facebook. They are seeing photos and
    memes.
        So they are just as influenced and susceptible as the
    average American in terms of our adversaries exploiting the
    issues, the negative issues, related to having disciplinary
    issues or, for example, sexual assault.
        Our service men and women are active on social media. They
    are seeing that stuff. They are influenced by it. It is a
    problem.
        Mr. Scott. I had a general suggest to me that I watch the
    documentary ``Social Dilemma'' and it was pretty eye-opening.
    And I think that it is a problem not just in our troops or
    younger people, I think it is a problem all over the United
    States with how much screen time people get.
        And I guess what I was getting at, ma'am, I consider Ebola
    one of the greatest things, the stamping out of it. That was
    the United States military that we sent to another country to
    stamp out Ebola. You don't ever see anything about that on the
    news. I guess it is not entertaining for the entertainment
    industry.
        But basically if you are watching something that comes out
    of Hollywood, it is basically a group of special operators
    kicking down a door. And for the most part--and I don't know
    how to say this other than to say it--for the most part it is
    White men kicking down a door and killing people that are from
    the Middle East.
        And that is not the perception that we want of the United
    States military. But if that is what Hollywood puts out over
    and over and over again, then it becomes significantly harder
    for us to overcome that as the perception of the United States
    military.
        But I appreciate all of you, and I hope you will pay
    attention to what I said on the Tax Code with regard to
    military suicide because that is a very serious problem for our
    people that are combat-wounded total and permanent.
        Thank you.
        Mr. Gallego. Thank you, Representative Scott.
        Now Representative Brown.
        Representative Brown? I thought we had him on earlier.
        Representative Larsen then. Do you have more questions?
        Mr. Larsen. I have no further questions, Mr. Chair.
        Mr. Gallego. Representative Murphy.
        Sorry about putting people on the spot. Feel free to say
    no
        Okay. Let's go to Representative Takano.
        I think you had a follow-up that you wanted to finish.
        Alrighty then. I am striking out here. And that is fine. I
    feel like we are getting a lot done.
        What about Representative Franklin? Do you have any follow-
    ups?
        As we say in the Marine Corps, any last rounds?
        Okay.
        And I see that Takano is back on.
        Chairman Takano, did you have a follow-up question?
        Not sure he can hear us.
        Okay. Well, pretty sure then I am going to close this
    hearing.
        Thank you, everyone, for your time. I apologize that I was
    getting attacked by a black bear here this whole time and a
    little distracting. But I really feel this was a really great
    opportunity for us to learn.
        And I hope you will submit some suggestions for the record.
    I think Ranking Member Kelly and myself and the members are
    always looking to see how we can improve, and especially with
    the NDAA coming up, seeing if we can do anything there.
        So thank you again.
        Ms. Robinson. Thank you so much for the opportunity.
        [Whereupon, at 1:09 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

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                                 March 26, 2021

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                  QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING

                                 March 26, 2021

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                       QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. GALLEGO

        Mr. Gallego. While you were at the Pentagon, how did the
    Preservation of the Force and Family program extend to those who were
    no longer in the special operations community, such as SOF enablers who
    had returned to the conventional force, or veterans?
        Mr. Mitchell. [No answer was available at the time of printing.]
        Mr. Gallego. The House Veterans Affairs Committee is currently
    conducting an investigation into the prevalence of white supremacy in
    the veteran community. What questions should we specifically be asking
    regarding current and former members of the special operations
    community?
        Mr. Mitchell. [No answer was available at the time of printing.]
        Mr. Gallego. The House Veterans Affairs Committee is currently
    conducting an investigation into the prevalence of white supremacy in
    the veteran community. What questions should we specifically be asking
    regarding current and former members of the special operations
    community?
        Ms. Robinson. [No answer was available at the time of printing.]
        Mr. Gallego. I recently introduced the ``Commission on LGBTQ
    Servicemembers and Veterans Act'', which would establish a commission
    to investigate the historic and ongoing impacts of discriminatory
    military policies and practices on LGBTQ service members and veterans.
    For Dr. Robinson--what obstacles do you believe exist for LGBTQ SOF
    operators and enablers?
        Ms. Robinson. [No answer was available at the time of printing.]
        Mr. Gallego. The House Veterans Affairs Committee is currently
    conducting an investigation into the prevalence of white supremacy in
    the veteran community. What questions should we specifically be asking
    regarding current and former members of the special operations
    community?
        General Nagata. Regrettably, I am compelled to reply that the
    formulation of effective questions to illuminate the scope, nature, and
    volume of ``white supremacy'' in the US Military is directly inhibited
    by the absence of a common or consensus definition across the US
    Government over how to define this form of ethnic/racial supremacy.
    Without a commonly agreed upon definition, I believe the formulation of
    effective and reliable questions is today not achievable. During my
    three years as the Director for Strategic Operational Planning at the
    National Counterterrorism Center, I focused heavily on seeking to
    understand the growing problem of domestic violent extremism in
    American society. Violent white supremacy was always prominent within
    such efforts, but I was also struck by the absence of consensus, among
    Federal, State, and Local leaders, as well as among our Citizens,
    regarding what constitutes ``white supremacy''? And if we cannot
    commonly define it, I do not believe it possible to sufficiently
    understand its origins or trajectory. Most importantly, I doubt we can
    substantially reduce this phenomenon without this common/consensus
    understanding. Also, though Armed Services do not consistently succeed
    in recruiting adequately across all elements of American society, it is
    still reasonable to assume that, given domestic extremism increases in
    the US general population for several decades, it has also grown within
    DOD, and this probably applies US Special Operations Forces. However,
    there is also a large strategic deficit of genuine scholarship or
    empirical research devoted to illuminating the exact nature, volume,
    incidence, or trends of such extremism within DOD, above and beyond
    whether we have a consensus definition of a movement such as ``white
    supremacy''. I urge the Subcommittee to consider how best to resource
    and foster the scholarship and research necessary to address the
    foregoing. Also, as the Congress and DOD work to improve the military's
    ability to identify those that are unacceptable for service in our
    Military because of association with violent extremism, I recommend
    this Subcommittee also ensure that DOD develops, and is adequately
    resourced for, new forms of Training and Education designed to prevent
    a recurrence of this problem in the future.
        Mr. Gallego. The House Veterans Affairs Committee is currently
    conducting an investigation into the prevalence of white supremacy in
    the veteran community. What questions should we specifically be asking
    regarding current and former members of the special operations
    community?
        Ms. Germano. Thank you for your question, Chairman. The issue of
    white supremacy and extremism in the military is concerning, but I have
    faith in Secretary Austin's leadership and ability to address this
    issue since the Department of Defense is a known and definable
    ecosystem with multiple layers of leadership and a system of
    accountability (e.g. Uniform Code of Military Justice). The veteran
    community is an entirely different matter. At +18 million strong,
    geographically distributed, and unaccountable, extremism in the veteran
    community is a much larger and more challenging problem to address. To
    answer your specific question, I'd recommend addressing the issue
    beginning with the 48 large, legacy, membership-based 501.c.19 veteran
    service organizations and the 14 large other veteran service
    organizations and military associations and ask them the following
    questions:
         1.  As a Congressionally-chartered Veteran Service Organization or
    other veteran service organization or military association, what was
    your organization's public response to the January 6, 2001
    insurrection?
         2.  What action strategies has your organization deployed since
    January 6 to communicate with your members about the event?
         3.  In light of the rise of extremism and anti-democracy efforts
    in America, what expectations has your organization communicated to
    your members about their duties to support the Constitution as engaged
    citizens?
         4.  What expectations does your organization have for members in
    terms of their duties as engaged citizens following their military
    service?
         5.  Have any of your members been arrested in connection with the
    January 6 attack on the Capitol of the United States?
         6.  If so, how many?
         7.  If so, what action has your organization taken?
         8.  What is your organization doing to support Department of
    Defense efforts to address extremism in the military?
         9  What is your organization doing to address extremism or
    extremist views within your membership?
        10.  What is your organization doing to address extremist views
    within the broader veteran community?
        11.  What should Congressionally chartered 501.c.19 veteran service
    organizations be doing to counter extremist and anti-democracy views in
    American society?
        12.  What is your organization doing to help veterans--especially
    recently transitioned veterans--understand their continued duty to
    support the Constitution as engaged citizens?
        13.  What is your organization doing to promote civic literacy--
    especially with children in grades K-12?
        While the number of veterans arrested in connection with the
    January 6 insurrection is regressing to the norm, the fact that any
    veterans participated is cause for concern. I believe the discussion
    around how many veterans participated or how many per capita
    participated is a red herring. It only takes one Timothy McVeigh or one
    Lee Harvey Oswald to change the course of American history in a
    negative way. I strongly recommend the committee engage with the
    standing VSOs, ensure their public positions on extremism are made
    clear and on the record, and partner with them to improve norms and
    expectations within the veteran community nation-wide.