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


                                   
                         [H.A.S.C. No. 117-49]

                                 HEARING

                                   ON

                   NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT

                          FOR FISCAL YEAR 2022

                                  AND

              OVERSIGHT OF PREVIOUSLY AUTHORIZED PROGRAMS

                               BEFORE THE

                      COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES

                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                         FULL COMMITTEE HEARING

                                   ON

                          THE FISCAL YEAR 2022

                     NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION

             BUDGET REQUEST FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY

                               __________

                              HEARING HELD

                             JUNE 29, 2021

                                     
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] 

                               __________

                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
48-552                     WASHINGTON : 2022                     
          
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                     
                      COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
                      
                    One Hundred Seventeenth Congress

                    ADAM SMITH, Washington, Chairman

JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island      MIKE ROGERS, Alabama
RICK LARSEN, Washington              JOE WILSON, South Carolina
JIM COOPER, Tennessee                MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio
JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut            DOUG LAMBORN, Colorado
JOHN GARAMENDI, California           ROBERT J. WITTMAN, Virginia
JACKIE SPEIER, California            VICKY HARTZLER, Missouri
DONALD NORCROSS, New Jersey          AUSTIN SCOTT, Georgia
RUBEN GALLEGO, Arizona               MO BROOKS, Alabama
SETH MOULTON, Massachusetts          SAM GRAVES, Missouri
SALUD O. CARBAJAL, California        ELISE M. STEFANIK, New York
ANTHONY G. BROWN, Maryland,          SCOTT DesJARLAIS, Tennessee
RO KHANNA, California                TRENT KELLY, Mississippi
WILLIAM R. KEATING, Massachusetts    MIKE GALLAGHER, Wisconsin
FILEMON VELA, Texas                  MATT GAETZ, Florida
ANDY KIM, New Jersey                 DON BACON, Nebraska
CHRISSY HOULAHAN, Pennsylvania       JIM BANKS, Indiana
JASON CROW, Colorado                 LIZ CHENEY, Wyoming
ELISSA SLOTKIN, Michigan             JACK BERGMAN, Michigan
MIKIE SHERRILL, New Jersey           MICHAEL WALTZ, Florida
VERONICA ESCOBAR, Texas              MIKE JOHNSON, Louisiana
JARED F. GOLDEN, Maine               MARK E. GREEN, Tennessee
ELAINE G. LURIA, Virginia, Vice      STEPHANIE I. BICE, Oklahoma
    Chair                            C. SCOTT FRANKLIN, Florida
JOSEPH D. MORELLE, New York          LISA C. McCLAIN, Michigan
SARA JACOBS, California              RONNY JACKSON, Texas
KAIALI'I KAHELE, Hawaii              JERRY L. CARL, Alabama
MARILYN STRICKLAND, Washington       BLAKE D. MOORE, Utah
MARC A. VEASEY, Texas                PAT FALLON, Texas
JIMMY PANETTA, California
STEPHANIE N. MURPHY, Florida
STEVEN HORSFORD, Nevada

                     Paul Arcangeli, Staff Director
                 Bill Sutey, Professional Staff Member
                Kelly Repair, Professional Staff Member
                          Emma Morrison, Clerk
                            
                            C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              
                                                                   Page

              STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS

Rogers, Hon. Mike, a Representative from Alabama, Ranking Member, 
  Committee on Armed Services....................................     3
Smith, Hon. Adam, a Representative from Washington, Chairman, 
  Committee on Armed Services....................................     1

                               WITNESSES

McConville, GEN James C., USA, Chief of Staff, U.S. Army.........     6
Wormuth, Hon. Christine E., Secretary of the Army, U.S. Army.....     4

                                APPENDIX

Prepared Statements:

    Wormuth, Hon. Christine E., joint with GEN James C. 
      McConville.................................................    55

Documents Submitted for the Record:

    Letter to Secretary Austin...................................    77

Witness Responses to Questions Asked During the Hearing:

    Mr. Waltz....................................................    85

Questions Submitted by Members Post Hearing:

    Mrs. Bice....................................................    97
    Mr. Brown....................................................    95
    Mr. Carbajal.................................................    92
    Mr. Gaetz....................................................    94
    Mr. Gallagher................................................    93
    Mr. Garamendi................................................    89
    Mrs. Hartzler................................................    89
    Mr. Keating..................................................    94
    Mr. Moulton..................................................    90
    Mr. Veasey...................................................    95
    Mr. Waltz....................................................    95
                 
                 
 
              THE FISCAL YEAR 2022 NATIONAL DEFENSE
      AUTHORIZATION BUDGET REQUEST FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY

                              ----------                              

                          House of Representatives,
                               Committee on Armed Services,
                            Washington, DC, Tuesday, June 29, 2021.
    The committee met, pursuant to call, at 11:00 a.m., in room 
2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Adam Smith (chairman 
of the committee) presiding.

  OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. ADAM SMITH, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM 
       WASHINGTON, CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES

    The Chairman. This morning our full committee hearing is on 
the fiscal year 2022 National Defense Authorization budget 
request for the Department of the Army. And we are joined by 
the Honorable Christine Wormuth, who is the Secretary of the 
Army, not an acting Secretary--this is a momentous day for us, 
so appreciate to have you here and congratulations on your 
confirmation and appointment--and General James McConville, 
Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army.
    We are still doing a hybrid hearing, which means some 
members, as you will see, are participating virtually, and we 
have rules for that. So I will read those rules, and then we 
will get started.
    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 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 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 it if they return. 
Members may use the software platform's chat feature to 
communicate with staff regarding technical or logistical 
support issues only.
    And, 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.
    Thank you.
    And greetings. We are--this is our last of the service 
posture hearing reviews, and there have been some themes that 
have been continuous throughout this. I think the biggest thing 
that I am interested in this morning is the Army's 
modernization effort, starting with the night court and the 
blank slate review. There has been an intense effort--and not 
just by the Army; we have spoken with the other services as 
well--to modernize the force, to recognize changes in 
technology, changes in warfare, and to make sure that we are 
funding the appropriate systems to meet those modernization 
needs and also preparing the force in terms of readiness and 
training to meet those needs, and we would look forward to 
hearing from both of you how that process is going, and then, 
really, the specifics.
    What does that mean? I mean, it all sounds good. You always 
want to do what is new and best, but what does it mean in terms 
of how it is going to change the way we prepare to deter 
adversaries and the way that we would ultimately fight if we 
had to?
    And what is it in terms of where we need to be spending our 
money and not spending our money? Putting meat on those bones I 
think is one of the most important things that our committee is 
trying to wrestle with as we get ready to pass the NDAA 
[National Defense Authorization Act] for this year.
    Second, back focused on the force, the Fort Hood report 
that came out, the continued concerns about sexual assault, 
again, across the Pentagon, not just in the Army; but, in 
particular, you know, Fort Hood was a particular problem that a 
report was filed on, that really examined what is going on with 
how we are treating our soldiers and protecting them.
    As you know, there are a number of proposals, particularly 
specific to sexual assault, that this committee is considering 
in part as a way to address those issues. And I would be very 
curious to hear your comments about how you think we can best 
do that.
    And also this will come up, so I will go ahead and mention 
it, the efforts to deal with systemic racism in issues in the 
force. We know that Secretary Austin has made this a priority. 
This committee has made this a priority. We had a number of 
provisions in last year's bill that were focused on addressing 
equality within the services and some adverse impacts that have 
been discovered in terms of administration of the UCMJ [Uniform 
Code of Military Justice] and also in terms of promotion. So we 
would be curious to hear how you are addressing that issue.
    And to be clear, I think it is an issue that needs to be 
addressed. We have been consumed with the debate over critical 
race theory, but that is not really the point. The point is we 
have systemic racism in this country. How are we going to 
address it? I will be clear, from what I understand about 
critical race theory, that is not the way we should be 
addressing it. It is not the way Secretary Austin is addressing 
it.
    So we need to have that discussion and figure out how best 
to approach that because this is a real problem and a real 
challenge. We are a Nation that is increasingly diverse, where 
communities of color are growing in numbers. That should be 
reflected in the force. In many ways it is, but it should also 
be reflected in promotions. It should be reflected in 
leadership. It should be reflected in opportunities. And it 
certainly should be reflected in a fair and equitable way that 
punishment and rewards are administered within the service, and 
I would be really curious about how we are progressing on that 
and the direction we are taking on those issues.
    And, finally, there is the top line budget. There is a lot 
of controversy on this committee about that. It is my opinion 
that the President's budget is more than adequate to meet our 
national security needs. I have often expressed the opinion 
that sometimes a tighter budget actually gets a better result 
and incentivizes people to find the right answers that they 
need to find in what is always going to be a resource 
constrained environment. I think we are in the right place on 
that. Not everybody agrees. But I would be curious to hear, you 
know, your arguments for why you think this budget is adequate 
for your needs and how you are going to go about doing that.
    And with that, I will turn it over to the ranking member 
for his opening statement.

 STATEMENT OF HON. MIKE ROGERS, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM ALABAMA, 
          RANKING MEMBER, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES

    Mr. Rogers. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I want to thank 
the Secretary and General McConville for being here, and it is 
very helpful, and we appreciate your time and effort.
    This is, as the chairman said, our last posture review 
hearing. Each of these hearings has made one thing very clear: 
The President's defense budget is woefully inadequate. It falls 
far short of providing our warfighters the resources they need 
to carry out their mission.
    We have heard from the leaders of the other services about 
the sacrifices they are being forced to make as a result of 
this budget. Today we will hear the toll it is taking on the 
Army, and it is not pretty.
    The President's top line for defense is forcing the Army 
alone to slash funding by nearly $4 billion. That is in real 
dollars; $7.5 billion when adjusted for inflation. The Army is 
facing cuts of 12 percent in procurement, 10 percent in 
research and development, and 18 percent in MILCON [military 
construction].
    Like the leaders of the other services, Secretary Wormuth 
and General McConville have had to triage their limited budget 
allocation. They have decided to focus it on the Army's highest 
modernization priorities. There is no question that we need to 
make those investments. Doing so ensures that we have the 
capabilities to win conflicts 10 or 20 years from now.
    But it also means it isn't sufficient in the way of funding 
for near-term capabilities. In fact, the Army has nearly $5.5 
billion in unfunded priorities. The budget cuts procurement of 
critical vertical lift and ground vehicle programs. It buys 
fewer missiles and ammunition to replenish our arsenal, and it 
delays the modernization of existing assets such as the Abrams 
tank.
    These cuts worsen current capability gaps, and I am 
concerned it leaves the Army ill-prepared for near-term 
conflict. Frankly, it is unacceptable. History has proven it is 
naive to think we have decades to prepare for the next 
conflict. The fact is the Army must be prepared at all times to 
fight and win a war against China or any other adversary. That 
means our warfighters need the training capability to win the 
fight tonight.
    I am very concerned this budget could leave the Army and 
the rest of the services unprepared to do just that.
    With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    The Chairman. Thank you.
    And before turning to our witnesses, I should remind 
members that we have--for the purpose of this hearing, 
questions will go in reverse order. We will go with the most 
junior member and work our way up from there. We try to do that 
a couple of times. Our committee is so large, we can't get to 
everybody, don't want to be excluding the most junior members 
all the time, so we are going to go from the bottom up today.
    And with that, I will turn it over to Secretary Wormuth for 
her opening remarks.

STATEMENT OF HON. CHRISTINE E. WORMUTH, SECRETARY OF THE ARMY, 
                           U.S. ARMY

    Secretary Wormuth. Thank you.
    Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Rogers, and distinguished 
members of the committee, we very much appreciate your 
continued support for our Army and our people. It is a real 
privilege to appear before you today.
    I would like to take a minute to thank General McConville 
for his lifetime of service to our Army and our Nation. In my 4 
weeks on the job, he has been a great partner, and we are off 
to a running start together.
    I am honored to be serving as the Secretary of the Army and 
to be working with Secretary Austin and Deputy Secretary Hicks 
once again. I thank them for their continued leadership.
    As I have stepped into this role, I am impressed, but not 
surprised, to see the state of our Army and the 
professionalism, hard work, and continued sacrifice of our 
soldiers and leaders that make up the world's greatest land 
fighting force.
    I would like to highlight a few key observations on the 
state of the Army as I see them today. First, the Army must 
continue to heavily invest in the development of its people, 
which are really the core and the heart of our Army. We are 
steadily working to enhance our force structure, build 
inclusive leadership, and invest in quality of life 
initiatives. Like my predecessors, I can assure you that 
character, culture, and climate within our formations at every 
installation will reflect a continued focus on placing people 
first.
    The harmful behaviors of sexual assault and harassment, 
racism and extremism, cannot and will not be tolerated. We will 
purposely work to prevent suicide in our Army. Our 
responsibility is to ensure every soldier and civilian has the 
right leadership, policies, and resources to be safe and 
successful among their teams so that they can continue to be 
successful in our Nation's defense.
    Second, the Army is now a leader in new technology. From 
Army Futures Command, to cross-functional teams, to the Rapid 
Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office, to fielding 
next-generation soldier equipment for individual unit members, 
the Army is prototyping and experimenting with new capabilities 
and concepts. The Army is at the forefront of developing and 
fielding new technology, whether it is counter-unmanned aerial 
systems; directed energy; hypersonic weapons; next-generation 
assured position, navigation, and timing devices; pushing 
software coding to the edge; and in many other areas.
    Third, the Army is opening doors in the Indo-Pacific, 
Europe, and beyond. The Army can be relied upon to engage with 
our allies, foster partnerships, maintain deterrence, and set 
conditions for success prior to or while engaging in conflict. 
Deterrence requires boots on the ground, and the Department 
must be present to succeed in crises. The Army is recognized as 
an enduring, reliable partner that can directly contribute by 
bringing resources, training, and expertise. Our partnerships 
can lay the groundwork for access and cooperation during 
contingencies.
    Fourth, the next conflict will be an all-domain conflict. 
Future conflict will be in, across, all domains with ground 
forces to secure terrain, penetrate defenses, and achieve 
objectives. The Army's transformation is directly aimed at 
supporting the joint warfight, which will depend on the Joint 
All-Domain Command and Control concept, expeditionary joint 
logistics, and joint maneuver across domains.
    As the Army continues to modernize we will maintain our 
overmatch against near-peer adversaries, helping to make future 
conflict less likely by ensuring the cost to our adversaries 
outweigh any benefits they might see.
    Finally, the Army's readiness gains and modernization 
requirements must be prioritized to continue. The Army 
recognized the need to modernize concepts and capabilities to 
sharpen our global competitive edge. Working in close 
cooperation with you, we established a deliberate, achievable 
path to deliver a ready modernized Army. Significant progress 
has been made, but success can only be assured through 
continued transformation.
    The Army has already made and will continue to make tough 
decisions to ensure the best use of resources to adapt to and 
stay ahead of the capabilities of our adversaries, whether they 
are near-peer competitors or newly emergent threats. The Army 
will also successfully compete below the threshold of conflict.
    The President's budget will help us care for our people, 
maintain an enhanced military readiness, and innovate and 
modernize. With your continued support, we will pivot to next-
generation capabilities to ensure we can win now and in the 
future.
    Our Army is in great shape, but we have important work 
ahead. I want to use this window of opportunity in the next few 
years to make certain that the Army will continue to provide 
modernized and ready forces capable of responding globally. I 
join General McConville in striving to ensure to provide the 
Army the resources it needs to succeed. I know General 
McConville is eager to share his thoughts as well.
    So I thank you and look forward to your questions.
    [The joint prepared statement of Secretary Wormuth and 
General McConville can be found in the Appendix on page 55.]
    The Chairman. Thank you.
    General, you are recognized.

STATEMENT OF GEN JAMES C. McCONVILLE, USA, CHIEF OF STAFF, U.S. 
                              ARMY

    General McConville. I would like to thank the Secretary for 
25 years plus of government service and for leading the Army at 
this critical time. So thank you, Secretary.
    Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Rogers, distinguished 
members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to be 
here today and for your continued support to the Army and our 
people: our soldiers, our families, our civilians, and our 
soldiers for life, our retirees and veterans.
    The Army currently has 485,000 Active Duty soldiers and a 
little more than 1 million in the total force. That is roughly 
the size Army that we had on 9/11. Army soldiers are presently 
supporting combatant commanders around the world in more than 
140 countries. They form the most lethal and decisive land 
force in the world, and they stand ready to fight and win the 
Nation's wars as part of the joint force. I could not be more 
proud of each and every one of them.
    Since last October the Army's priorities have been people, 
readiness, and modernization, making us well aligned with the 
emerging national security guidance. Putting people first means 
recruiting and retaining the best talent our Nation has to 
offer, maximizing their potential, and taking care of them. We 
are building a culture of cohesive teams that are highly 
trained, disciplined, and fit, where everyone is treated with 
dignity and respect. That is how we prevent the harmful 
behaviors that hurt our soldiers and break trust with the 
American people, these being sexual assault and harassment, 
acts of racism and extremism, and death by suicide.
    All three of my children, two sons and a daughter, plus my 
son-in-law are currently serving in the Army. Providing a safe 
and secure environment for our soldiers is not only my 
responsibility as the Chief of Staff of the Army, it is also a 
deeply held personal commitment. We win through our people. The 
best fighting forces in the world ensure their soldiers and 
units are masters of their craft.
    That is why we are shifting to a foundational readiness 
model that prioritizes training at the company level and below 
first. The Army has rebuilt a high-level readiness with the 
support of Congress, but that readiness level is fragile. We 
must sustain that high level of readiness while continuing our 
most comprehensive transformation and modernization efforts in 
over 40 years. This is the only way we will maintain our 
overmatch against near-peer competitors and would-be 
adversaries.
    This year we are turning our multi-domain operations 
concepts into real doctrine. We are not only developing but we 
are delivering on our six modernization priorities, including 
our 31+4 signature systems. With new doctrine, organizations, 
and equipment, the Army is offering multiple options to 
combatant commanders and multiple dilemmas to competitors and 
adversaries, and we are doing so along our sister services and 
alongside our allies and partners. The U.S. Army never fights 
alone. We are the strongest land force in the world, and a 
great source of that strength comes from our allies and 
partners. As a people-based organization, we uniquely qualify 
to foster these relationships.
    Thank you for your continued support to America's sons and 
daughters in uniform. I look forward to your questions.
    The Chairman. Thank you.
    So what is your key takeaway from the Fort Hood report and 
from what happened there? And I think you mentioned it in your 
opening remarks, what the overall problem is in terms of it is 
not just sexual assault. We have got suicide problems.
    We have got a real problem seemingly relating to the 
service members out there and making sure that they're safe and 
protected. But in terms of action items, what do you think is 
most important to do in response to that, for both of you?
    Madam Secretary, you can go first.
    Secretary Wormuth. Chairman, I would say, first of all, I 
went down to Fort Hood a couple of weeks ago to see for myself 
and to talk to soldiers, and I talked to a small group of 
soldiers privately to hear from them candidly.
    I think the biggest insight for me out of the report is the 
fact that, you know, for the last 20 years the Army has been 
enormously busy. The OPTEMPO [operations tempo] has been very 
high. Our leaders have been--they have had a lot to do. They 
have been focused on deployments and training, and I think it 
has made it harder to then, you know, do what they need to do 
to care for our soldiers.
    So really what we have to do is make sure that our command 
climate at the lowest possible level is healthy, and we have a 
number of initiatives to get after that; but I think 
fundamentally what the Chief and I are trying to emphasize with 
the sergeant major is building cohesive teams and taking care 
of your squad mates.
    And so what we are going to be focusing on is really trying 
to build that kind of a culture so that people are taking care 
of themselves, leaders are taking care of soldiers, and 
soldiers are looking out for each other. But it is going to 
take time I think to make significant progress in this area.
    The Chairman. General.
    General McConville. Yes, Chairman.
    And I agree with the Secretary. One of the things that I 
took away--and I went down and talked to the troops at Fort 
Hood. I served in the 1st Cavalry Division in combat during 
2004 to 2005, as many of the senior leaders in the United 
States Army.
    What I took away was, at the lowest levels it seemed that 
leaders were not spending time to really know their soldiers, 
to find out what was going on in that group of soldiers that 
are 17- to 24-year-olds; and when we study the problems we 
have, most of the problems occur with new soldiers, 17- to 24-
year-olds coming into our organizations, and they live in these 
things we call squads.
    And that is why the Sergeant Major of the Army is going 
after to get squad leaders building what I call a golden 
triangle, where everyone treats everyone else with dignity and 
respect within that squad, where everyone knows their squad 
mates, everyone takes care of each other, and they understand 
the importance of having a cohesive organization that allows 
them to fight and win on the battlefield.
    But one of the things I talked about in my opening 
statement was foundational readiness. We have got to give time 
for junior leaders to spend time with their soldiers and have a 
chance to train them, have a chance to get to know each other 
in a way that we haven't seen.
    And, quite frankly, some of these younger leaders, we have 
to teach them how to care for their soldiers and how to treat--
develop a climate where they are all treated with dignity and 
respect.
    We are going after that; but we are also going after the 
leaders. Leaders are responsible for the culture and climate in 
their organization. We have an assessment program, a commander 
assessment program for battalion commanders and colonel 
commander assessments. That is all part of it. We have got 
multiple other things going on to determine what is the climate 
like, not compliance like how many of these or how many of 
those that you have, but what is going on on those junior 
levels where most of the issues that I see happen in the Army.
    The Chairman. Yes. I think both of your answers are spot 
on, and that is the key is you sort of lost touch. I think 
there is a general feeling of go do your job, you will be fine, 
and there needs to be a far higher level of engagement.
    And, also, this is my fault on the question. I want to make 
sure it wasn't misleading. It is not just Fort Hood. Fort Hood 
got the attention, but you look at some of the statistics, 
there are other major bases that, you know, the numbers are 
really not that different in terms of suicide, sexual assault, 
and problems with personnel. So it is comprehensive, and I 
appreciate your approach on that.
    Mr. Rogers.
    Mr. Rogers. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    General McConville, in your letter accompanying the Army's 
unfunded mandate--unfunded requirement list, you acknowledge 
the President's budget creates, quote, a downturn in the Army's 
purchasing power, close quote. And you also informed us that, 
quote, progress is at risk if you don't have real growth of 3-5 
percent above inflation going forward.
    Can you elaborate on that and tell us, if we pass a budget 
that fails to at a minimum keep pace with inflation, hopefully 
with an increase, what Army capabilities or programs are at 
risk?
    General McConville. Yes. Congressman, what we have done 
within the budget is try to produce the best Army we can within 
the resources we have. That is an Army that is 485,000 end 
strength. We were growing end strength; we are not going to be 
able to grow end strength. So we are basically keeping the end 
strength that we have, which I articulated was at the level of
9/11.
    We are keeping a basic level of readiness. We do not want 
to go back to where we were a couple of years ago where the 
readiness of the Army was of concern. I believe right now the 
Army is ready to fight and win. But most importantly, what I 
think we have to do is we must transform the Army now for the 
next 40 years, and I make the argument every 40 years we 
transform the Army.
    We did in 1940. We did in 1980 when I came in the Army. We 
are in 2020 right now, and so we have done everything we can to 
protect those modernization priorities, those 31+4 systems.
    And you will see it in my UFR [unfunded requirements] list 
there's other things that are not going to get funded that we 
would like to do. We have challenge with barracks. We have 
challenge with what I call enduring systems that we would like 
to bring along in the system, and those are listed in the UFR. 
But make no mistake to those who are listening, the Army can 
fight and win today.
    Mr. Rogers. Yes. And we are all mindful of that, but we 
also know you have got to get ready for the future. So what do 
you need that this budget does not buy you?
    General McConville. Well, I think when we talk about needs, 
the reason you ask us to provide an unfunded requirement 
letter, which we did, that shows some of the requirements that 
were not included in the budget. The only thing I would ask is 
we have a prioritized budget. Everything in the budget is what 
we need. Those are additional priority-type items, and I would 
ask that if there is any--as we look at that, especially when 
it comes to our readiness accounts, we have really gone after 
them hard to make sure they are as efficient and effective as 
we can.
    Mr. Rogers. Yes. As I mentioned in my opening statement, we 
can't lose sight of the fact that this year's budget gives you 
$7.5 billion less in buying power than you had in the previous 
year's budget.
    When you look at China--and we all acknowledge China is a 
peer now that we have to be thoughtful about. As they ramp up 
their defense funding, what do you worry about them outpacing 
you on in the near future?
    General McConville. Well, they have a great economy. They 
have--you know, when we take a look at China itself, it is a 
very, very strong economy. They have a force that is much 
larger than ours. Historically they--especially when we look at 
an Army, they have an active duty army that is probably twice 
the size of ours. And as they modernize it, we need to stay 
ahead of them, and that is what we intend to do. That is why 
our 31+4 modernization priorities are so important. They give 
us the speed, the range, and the convergence to give us 
decision dominance and, quite frankly, overmatch.
    So as we move forward, we are doing everything we can to 
protect those modernization priorities.
    Mr. Rogers. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield 
back.
    The Chairman. Thank you.
    Mr. Horsford is recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Horsford. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and to the 
ranking member, for the courtesy of going in reverse order. And 
I want to thank our witnesses for your service and testimony 
today.
    I was deeply concerned by recent media reporting that at 
least 1,900 weapons, including machine guns and rocket 
launchers, had been lost or stolen from arms rooms over the 
course of the last decade. Some of these weapons went on to be 
used in violent crimes.
    While I am, of course, troubled by the fact that this was 
brought to our attention through media reporting instead of a 
formalized reporting requirement, I am more concerned about the 
broader readiness issues it pretends.
    I firmly believe that arms rooms are the single best 
indicator of the unit's readiness. We can learn nearly 
everything we need about a unit's maintenance systems, 
accountability, and, ultimately, combat readiness through the 
processes implemented in the arms rooms.
    For that reason, I am concerned that the loss of such a 
staggering number of weapons could indicate more systemic 
readiness and accountability issues across the Army.
    Secretary Wormuth and General McConville, first, what steps 
is the Army taking to implement systemic fixes to weapons 
accountability and to modernize inventory control for sensitive 
items?
    And, second, can you please update us on your investigation 
into these reports and any trends the Army has identified in 
units or installations where these weapons have gone missing?
    Secretary Wormuth. Certainly, Congressman. First of all, 
you know, we take weapons accountability in the Army incredibly 
seriously. And soldiers are, you know, trained to be very 
responsible, and anytime there is a lack of accountability or a 
loss of--a potential loss of a weapon, you know, the entire 
unit focuses to find out what has happened and to retrieve it.
    What we have done in terms of trying to better understand 
the situation is we have stood up essentially a task force that 
is led by a three-star general to dig into this, and what we 
found so far is that out of about 1.1 million weapons Army-
wide, we have only been able to identify since 2013 384 
instances of a weapon going missing.
    And to date, I would say it is not apparent to us that 
there is a particular trend that is behind the loss or of 
accountability. For example, I think in 2019, we had 83 weapons 
missing, and last year we had only 10. But we are trying to 
look into it and identify if we have any systemic issues as you 
noted and will take action on that if we find that there are 
systemic issues.
    Mr. Horsford. Thank you. I look forward to hearing more 
about that.
    I would like to move on now to the issue of sexual assault 
and specifically how the Army plans to hold commanders 
accountable for their performance in reducing sexual harassment 
and sexual assault. While I fully support efforts to move 
sexual assault prosecutions outside of the chain of command, 
there is a clear and urgent need to improve accountability 
among senior leaders for their effectiveness in combatting 
sexual assault and assault within their formations.
    Secretary Wormuth, how does the Army intend to collect 
metrics that track the performance of senior leaders at 
implementing effective SHARP [Sexual Harassment/Assault 
Response and Prevention] programs and then hold them 
accountable for their performance during promotion and command 
selection decisions?
    Secretary Wormuth. Congressman, first of all, as you know, 
the Army took the action of suspending or relieving 14 officers 
in the wake of the Fort Hood Independent Review Committee. 
Going forward, we are going to be--again, we are putting 
tremendous emphasis on creating a healthy command climate, and 
it is the responsibility of our leaders in the Army to maintain 
that command climate.
    One of the--we are fundamentally redesigning our SHARP 
program, for example. We are also reorganizing our criminal 
investigative division and will have a civilian leader of that 
division likely with law enforcement background.
    One of the things that we are doing to hold our leaders 
accountable is through our Command Assessment Program. This is 
a new program that the Army has to help us select battalion 
commanders, colonels, sergeant majors, acquisition officials, 
and as part of that 360-degree review performance process, we 
are taking into account past command climate performance. So 
through, again, a series of sort of a multiday screening 
process, we are evaluating future leaders, and part of that 
evaluation rests on how well they are doing in terms of command 
climate.
    And the Chief may want to add to that.
    General McConville. No. I think it is----
    The Chairman. I apologize, I wasn't paying attention. The 
gentleman's time has expired. And I should warn the witnesses 
that we do this even if you are in the middle of a question; we 
try to move on so we can get to as many members as possible.
    Mr. Fallon is recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Fallon. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. I apologize 
for not being there in person, but a virus other than COVID 
[coronavirus disease] has gotten me for a few days.
    Thank you, General McConville and Secretary Wormuth, for 
testifying today and for both of your decades of service to our 
country.
    General McConville, if I can start with you first, I know 
that we share a passion for our soldiers, their safety, and 
their well-being and really their development as well, and I 
want to applaud your track record of emphasizing personnel 
issues. In short, you have a tremendous affection for the 
troops, and that shows through your actions.
    In that vein, I would like to ask and address a current 
situation that the Army finds itself in that could be 
interpreted as, unfortunately, neglecting soldier safety and 
unnecessarily wasting taxpayer money. What I am referring to is 
the Humvee; 150 of our soldiers have been killed in stateside 
accidents, preventable Humvee rollovers during training. I know 
that you find this just as unacceptable and important as I do.
    To address this, the Army has developed a plan to 
simultaneously introduce new Humvees to the fleet while 
upgrading existing vehicles with what the Army already 
considers new or modernized. Additionally, the Army is fielding 
replacements for the Humvee, the JLTV [Joint Light Tactical 
Vehicle], with an anti-rollover technology already installed, 
and I support this overall approach.
    However, I was extremely concerned when I saw the budget 
request with a mere $10 million in funding the upgrades because 
the upgrades are much cheaper, and we can do them quicker. With 
the $10 million, only upgrading 1 percent of the 54,000 vehicle 
fleet and retrofitting and rendering them safe, it is quicker 
and it is cheaper. This gap can't be filled by only new 
vehicles, which really does translate, in my humble opinion, to 
putting soldiers' lives at risk without critical safety 
upgrades. As I mentioned, the cost for fielding a new Humvee is 
about $400,000 and upgrading is $17,000.
    General, with this in mind, why do you think the Army 
appears to be content to pursue what some could say would be a 
less safe path and a more expensive one? And I would really 
like to hear your thoughts on this, sir.
    General McConville. Well, Congressman, I appreciate the 
concern. And as you said, we have a tremendous concern for the 
life, health, and safety of our soldiers. We do have a 
strategy. And, quite frankly, we will take your comments and 
take a look at that strategy. But like you said, that is what 
we are doing. We are taking existing vehicles and putting the 
new braking system on them. We are also purchasing new Humvees. 
And the third is, which we are really trying to get to, is the 
Joint Light Tactical Vehicle within the resources that we have. 
But I will go back and take a look at that. If there is a life, 
health, safety issue, that is something we can get after.
    Mr. Fallon. General, what would need to happen to ensure 
the program could be completed as quickly as possible? Because 
it seems to me retrofitting would be quicker than waiting for 
new Humvees to come on line. I understand if we have very old 
Humvees, it is probably not wise to retrofit them and it would 
just be easier to replace them. But some of the newer ones, the 
ones that have, you know, about half their life left, might 
make it until the JLTV.
    General McConville. I owe you a better answer, Congressman, 
to take a look at that. I mean, the intent--just like you said, 
some of our Humvees are really old. They have been around a 
long time. And, quite frankly, we don't want to invest in them 
because we may be fixing one safety issue, but we may be going 
into another safety issue, and so we owe a look at that. We 
certainly want to make sure that every system our soldiers 
have, especially when it comes to life, health, and safety, we 
are not going to put our soldiers in something that is unsafe, 
and we have just got to figure out the best way to do it. You 
brought up a good point, and we will take a look at it.
    Mr. Fallon. General, thank you.
    Secretary Wormuth, I just want to let you know that in a 
letter dated May 1, me, myself, and 13 of my colleagues wrote a 
letter to then Acting Secretary of the Army Whitley about my 
concerns that I just talked to the general about, and I just 
wanted to make you aware of it as well.
    And then, in closing, and I will yield back, there was a 
comment made earlier about the fact that there is systemic 
racism in this country. And I just want to, for the record, say 
that I respectfully but patently and vociferously disagree; but 
that is a topic and a conversation and a debate for another 
day.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate it. I yield back.
    The Chairman. Thank you.
    Mrs. Murphy is recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mrs. Murphy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you to 
Secretary Wormuth and General McConville for being here with us 
today, as well as for your service.
    I serve as vice chair of the subcommittee that oversees 
U.S. special operations forces, and I wanted to start by asking 
you a bit about that. As with the broader military, our special 
operators have been primarily focused on combatting violent 
extremism since September 11, but they are now rebalancing to 
focus more on great power competition with countries like 
China, Russia, and Iran.
    So could you describe a little bit as to how you are 
adapting recruitment and training to help prepare for this 
mission? And I am particularly interested in your Special 
Forces groups, civil affair units, and psychological operations 
units, which I think all have a pretty important role to play 
when it comes to working with foreign governments, foreign 
militaries, foreign populations, in that context of great power 
competition.
    Secretary Wormuth. Thank you, Congresswoman. I will start, 
and then I am sure the Chief will want to add.
    As you said, our special operators, like special operators 
in other services, have been focused on counterinsurgency and 
counterterrorism for the last 20 years, but we are now shifting 
to strategic competition with China and Russia in particular. 
And I think in that context there is very much still going to 
be a need for the kinds of skills and expertise that our 
Special Forces have to offer.
    One way we will be--you know, first of all, we are 
rethinking our overall strategy for the special operations 
community, and there is an irregular warfare annex to the 
existing National Defense Strategy. What we have started to do 
is to look at the scenarios that we are using and the types of 
exercises that we are using and are changing the elements of 
that to align to the kinds of things we might see in strategic 
competition.
    So I think you will see us, you know, putting an emphasis 
on unconventional warfare, on information operations, as you 
said, you know, psychological operations. Those are all going 
to be things that are relevant to--you know, what some people 
call hybrid warfare or, you know, gray-zone conflict, and those 
are things where our Special Forces are still going to be very 
much needed.
    And I will let the Chief add.
    General McConville. I think you asked a great question.
    I just want to highlight what an incredible job our Special 
Forces operations have done over the last 20 years. They have 
just done an incredible job. And the great thing about our 
Special Forces is they are agile and they are adaptable. They 
clearly understand--I have talked to General Rich Clark, I have 
talked to Fran Beaudette, I have talked to the leadership down 
there.
    You know, counterterrorism is not going away. We are still 
going to have these type issues. We are still going to have 
counterinsurgency type operations. We are still going to have 
irregular warfare. That is not going away.
    But what you are going to see is I think the groups are 
going to shift, and they are going to focus more on the 
combatant region that they are actually operating. Most of them 
have just been rotating in and out of Afghanistan and Iraq and 
have done an incredible job doing that, but the focus is going 
to change because the strength in this area of strategic 
competition comes from having strong allies and partners.
    And our Special Forces are uniquely suited to do that, to 
work with allies and partners to build capacities and also to 
help them build their capacity in the Special Forces arena 
because a lot of these countries have issues with violent 
extremism and, quite frankly, we would rather have them provide 
the security than I do it.
    And I would highlight things like information operations 
are something that we are really going to have to be able to 
work in the future, and I see them having a very strong 
participation in that also. But there is going to be plenty of 
work for Special Forces. They are critical to the future of the 
country.
    Mrs. Murphy. I appreciate you bringing that up actually, 
and maybe we can focus on the INDOPACOM [U.S. Indo-Pacific 
Command] AOR [area of responsibility]. I noticed that the Army 
is requesting an additional $20 million of funds for security 
force assistance brigade activities across the Indo-Pacific.
    Can you talk a little bit more about what these brigades 
have done, have achieved in other regions and how they are 
going to be used in the Indo-Pacific?
    General McConville. Yes, I will take that.
    What we are seeing is, you know, we talk about this 
strategy of peace through strength, and that peace through 
strength comes from a holistic government approach, a strong 
military, and certainly a strong Army, but it also comes 
through strong allies and partners.
    And when I look at the security force assistance brigades, 
they are designed to help improve the capabilities of 
conventional forces with these countries. And if you go--you 
know, a lot of people talk about, well, what is the role of the 
Army in the Indo-Pacific? Well, most of the people out there 
live on land and most of them have armies that need the 
capacity to secure themselves.
    Special Forces also plays a critical role. They provide 
unique skill sets. They are fabulous at developing more high-
end type forces where they are the special operation forces 
that can help them. Some of these countries have problems with 
terrorists. Some have problems with insurgents, and they can 
help develop those----
    The Chairman. I apologize. The gentleman's time has 
expired, so we will leave it there.
    And Mr. Moore is recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Moore. Thank you, Chairman, Ranking Member. I, too, 
love the reverse order, so thank you.
    Secretary and General, I appreciate you being here. I was 
encouraged to see the Army Materiel Command [AMC] earlier this 
year issue the 15-year Army organic industrial base [OIB] 
modernization strategy. I agree with General Daly, AMC 
commander, that now is the time for wholesale change and the 
OIB is an inflection point. How the next 10 to 15 years are 
handled will determine the depots' ability to maintain pace 
with the Army's next-generation weapon systems.
    As cochair of the House Depot Caucus, I have voiced the 
need to expedite other OIB modernization plans across the 
services to fit the objectives of the National Defense 
Strategy.
    Secretary, I will direct my questions to you but, General, 
absolutely welcome any input. Can you provide an update on the 
modernization strategy, the Army OIB modernization strategy and 
how you think it can be accomplished in 15 years?
    Secretary Wormuth. Certainly, Congressman.
    As you said, General Daly and Materiel Command are 
embarking on a 15-year organic industrial base plan. Our hope 
is that that will be completed at about this time next year. 
And really what we are trying to do there is a couple of 
different things. You know, first of all, as we undertake this, 
you know, first in 40 years ambitious modernization program, we 
need to make sure that the industrial base is going to be able 
to support all of those next-generation weapons.
    So part of what we are looking at in the plan is assessing, 
first of all, the current industrial base and whether it will 
be able to meet our needs and then identifying any kinds of 
gaps that we need to fill to be able to, again, make sure that 
we are able to support these new systems over time.
    Another important thread in the 15-year plan is, frankly, 
looking at our supply chain, which I think the pandemic 
experience has shown us is perhaps more fragile than we would 
like it to be. We are trying to identify where we may have 
potential points of failure in the industrial base. We are 
trying to identify where we have foreign suppliers, 
understanding, you know, our confidence level with those 
foreign suppliers, trying to identify if there are foreign 
suppliers that, frankly, we don't want to be purchasing from in 
the future.
    So those are all issues that we are looking at, as well as, 
you know, how we may need to bring in some new manufacturing 
capabilities again into our existing base to support the next-
generation programs.
    Mr. Moore. Excellent. Any particular comment on the 15-
year? Do you feel that there is a chance that could be 
accelerated? Do you feel that that was--you know, any insight 
into 15 years, why it was chosen? Was there enough research and 
thought going into that particular timeline?
    Secretary Wormuth. Well, I would imagine--I mean, having 
not been there when it was originally decided to undertake the 
plan, I think what we are trying to do is move as quickly as we 
can because, obviously, we want to modernize our industrial 
base as quickly as we can, but also do it in a way that, 
frankly, we can support with our resources but are also able to 
support in terms of the kind of analysis and the kind of 
redesigns that may be needed.
    So I think we would look for opportunities to accelerate 
that modernization plan where we can, but we have to look at 
that in the context of our overall resources and other 
objectives that we have, for example, in terms of readiness and 
supporting our people.
    Mr. Moore. And as you have mentioned advanced 
manufacturing, I will add in advanced sensors, robotics, 
computer programming machine types of things. Those are 
expensive. There is always going to be budget constraints. What 
can this committee do to make sure we don't run into similar 
delays or unnecessary delays in this modernization plan?
    Secretary Wormuth. Well, I think, Congressman, again, you 
know, just your continued reliable support for our 
modernization efforts would be very helpful. There may be times 
where we may come to you to ask for additional authorities.
    For example--I mean, right now I don't think that we need 
additional authorities; but, for example, we have been given 
authorities in terms of science and technology hires that have 
been very helpful to us in terms of bringing in civilian 
expertise in computer science and neuroscience. So I can 
imagine that might be a way where you can support us over time; 
but right now I think we have what we need.
    Mr. Moore. Excellent.
    General, anything to add.
    General McConville. I think the importance of the 15-year 
plan is to lay out, you know, the whole problem set. As you 
know, if we just went with a 3- or 4-year plan, the resources 
are not going to be available. But that allows everyone to take 
a look, here's how we see things coming in the future.
    And the other thing that I think is important to encourage 
the depots to modernize. You know, we are going to have new 
systems coming in. We can take a look at here's how these--you 
know, as a future vertical lift comes on board, as our long-
range precision fires, as our next-generation combat weapons 
come, if we are looking out in the future, we can start to 
program them in and get them the equipment that is going to 
keep them effective and efficiently in the future because many 
of our depots and some of our----
    The Chairman. Again, I apologize. The gentleman's time has 
expired.
    Mr. Panetta is recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Panetta. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member 
Rogers. Madam Secretary, General, good morning, and thank you 
for being here. Thank you for your service.
    I am just going to try and hit on three areas: military 
housing, COVID vaccines, and our posture in Africa. In regards 
to military housing, where I represent on the Central Coast of 
California, we have a--our military contracts with private 
contractors in order to have our military families in 
privatized housing. Unfortunately, there are times when that 
housing really is subpar, and the biggest issue, I have got to 
say, is mold and how that can affect not just the military 
member but, of course, the family members and, unfortunately, 
the children as well, amongst other issues too.
    I just wanted to get your take on how the Army is holding 
private contractors responsible, how they are holding them 
accountable for their actions or inactions when it comes to 
providing this subpar military housing. Look, it doesn't happen 
everywhere. We know that. But I believe that one house that has 
mold in it is one too many. So just wondering if there is 
anything else that we can do to ensure to hold these private 
contractors responsible?
    Secretary Wormuth. Thank you, Congressman.
    Absolutely agree with you that we want our soldiers and 
their families to live in housing that we would want to live 
in, and to do that the Army has done a few things.
    First of all, we have put responsibility for the privatized 
housing oversight of that under AMC, and the commander of 
Installations Command meets every single month with the heads 
of all of the companies who do our privatized housing to go 
through household by household the status of, you know, where 
we are making repairs, where we are making renovations.
    We have changed, frankly, you know, how we have been paying 
those companies. We don't pay incentive fees up front anymore. 
We pay them at the end when we are satisfied that they are 
performing. And we have also now implemented all 18 provisions 
of the Tenant Bill of Rights in 37 of the 44 installations 
where we have privatized housing, and we will have the last 7 
done we hope by the end of July.
    Mr. Panetta. Great.
    General.
    General McConville. I think if you are talking Fort Hood, 
that was my first assignment, so it would----
    Mr. Panetta. There were similar houses there at Fort Hood, 
exactly.
    General McConville. But, you know, we need to invest in the 
housing. We have taken a look. We know what housing is good, 
and we have done much better on the work orders. We have been 
much better on those type things, but some of these houses, 
quite frankly, have got to be replaced, and we are working with 
the private contractors to do that. They have raised additional 
money.
    We have got a little over a couple billion dollars now to 
go into that, but we have got to have a long-term program to do 
that, and that is what we are trying to work right now.
    Mr. Panetta. Outstanding. Thanks to both of you for those 
answers.
    Moving on to vaccines, what percentage of the Army 
personnel are fully vaccinated in regards to the COVID vaccine?
    Secretary Wormuth. Congressman, I believe at this point we 
have 63 percent of the Active Component has had at least one 
shot, and I think we are at about 55 percent who are fully 
vaccinated at this time.
    Mr. Panetta. What can we do, what can you do to ensure full 
vaccination going forward or to increase those numbers?
    Secretary Wormuth. I think the most important thing we can 
do, Congressman, is what we have been doing, which is to really 
explain the benefits of the vaccine to our soldiers and their 
families. And when we give them that additional educational 
information, we see more of them getting the shots.
    And, frankly, as their peers have started getting the 
shots, we see more soldiers getting the shots. But part of the 
challenge is, you know, a lot of our soldiers are younger and I 
think, you know, feel a little bit invincible as a result of 
that.
    So we still have work to do because certainly I think it 
would be beneficial to have as much of the force fully 
vaccinated as possible.
    Mr. Panetta. How do you feel about a mandatory vaccine in 
regards to the COVID vaccine? I mean, is that something you 
feel obviously would increase the numbers, but what would that 
do to morale?
    Secretary Wormuth. Congressman, I think--you know, I have 
not looked at this in detail in terms of what the implications 
are, what our legal authorities are; but certainly, you know, 
we have made vaccine mandatory in the past.
    Right now we have an emergency use authorization from FDA 
[U.S. Food and Drug Administration], so we can't do that. But 
over time I would look at that if we didn't continue to see the 
percentage increase; but we are seeing that percentage of our 
force increase.
    Mr. Panetta. General.
    General McConville. I agree with the Secretary. I think, 
you know, right now it is emergency use. I think once it--you 
know, when we see that moving forward, maybe in the next couple 
of months that comes out where it is fully accepted, then we 
can have the discussion on what is the best way to do it.
    But I agree with the Secretary. Now, we think it is in 
everyone's interest that, you know, does not have underlying 
conditions, is part of the team--you know, we are seeing the 
effects right now. I mean, the fact that we are sitting here, 
you know, has a lot to do with folks like General Gus Perna and 
the team that, you know, got these out and did a great job of 
doing that.
    So I think, you know, people worry about the speed of the 
vaccinations, but, again, I am all signed up.
    Mr. Panetta. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    The Chairman. The gentleman's time has expired.
    Mr. Jackson is recognized for 5 minutes.
    Dr. Jackson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member 
Rogers, for holding the hearing today. I also want to thank 
Secretary Wormuth and General McConville for being here. Thank 
you.
    Each branch of the military has testified before this 
committee on the President's budget request, and each has 
explained how the budget cuts are not impacting their service's 
readiness and modernization efforts.
    I don't need to explain to either one of you, obviously, 
that the Army was the hardest hit by President Biden's budget 
cut with a decrease in funding from last fiscal year and a 
decrease in end strength. Not only does this not align with the 
3-5 percent growth called for in the National Defense Strategy 
but it will make it much harder for us to compete with China.
    I appreciate both of your efforts to justify this budget 
cut as acceptable, but I firmly believe that this request from 
President Biden is inadequate.
    Of the countless modernization priorities that we need to 
focus on, I want to spend a little bit of time talking about 
the future vertical lift, one of the Army's six modernization 
priorities. The Future Long Range Assault Aircraft, or the 
FLRAA, will be a medium-lift aircraft that will eventually 
replace the Black Hawk.
    The Future Attack and Reconnaissance Aircraft is the Army's 
third attempt over the past two decades to develop a new attack 
and reconnaissance helicopter.
    Both of these are part of the critical future vertical lift 
modernization effort that will help us compete with China in 
the Indo-Pacific in particular.
    The FLRAA is a modernization program that the Army needs, 
in my opinion. The Army has consistently discussed the need for 
speed and range, as well as survivability when it comes to 
future vertical lift aircraft.
    There are countless reasons as to why we need to provide 
adequate funding for this program, but I want to discuss the 
medevac [medical evacuation] mission in this platform as it 
takes over for the H-60.
    In the theater like the Indo-Pacific, it will be critical 
to have aircraft with speed and range necessary to transport an 
injured soldier. I have been in the combat zone. I have seen 
firsthand how speed and range of medevac aircraft are key 
components of whether or not somebody's life is saved.
    The golden hour is a concept that presumes that some deaths 
are preventable if appropriate care is provided in a timely 
fashion. It is imperative that we not only extend the golden 
hour radius, but the aircraft supporting the medevac mission 
should be able to give injured soldiers the best chance for 
survival in the event of an injury in the combat zone.
    When it comes to medevac, every second obviously matters. 
Future vertical lift and Future Long Range Assault Aircraft 
will provide increased speed, range, and endurance.
    General McConville, I know that you are an aviator. How 
important are speed and range when it comes to a commander's 
ability to medevac an injured soldier? And how critical is that 
exponential jump in capability associated with this new 
platform with regards to medevac and the golden hour and 
specifically when looking at the Indo-Pacific theater?
    General McConville. I think it is absolutely critical, 
Congressman. You know, the point you made, it is absolutely 
critical to be able to medevac our soldiers, and we want to be 
able to do that.
    But what is interesting, as you take a look at what does 
the range allow you to do, with the golden hour, you 
basically--when you are looking about having troops out there, 
we have some leaders right here that have commanded troops in 
combat, and what happens is, if you can only go 100 miles an 
hour, then, quite frankly, you can only have troops out so far 
from that base.
    And from that base, you have to have a forward surgical 
team, you have to protect it. So you are putting a whole bunch 
of your troops on the battlefield just to create that 
capability for medevac, which we want to do.
    By having this capability, you provide much, much more 
options to that ground commander, and I am fully in support of 
making this happen. But more importantly, what I am fully in 
support of is the way industry is aggressively going at that, 
working with us.
    That we are flying before we are buying. We are very 
concerned about being very efficient the way we do this. We 
have got industry teams invested into this capability, and I 
think it is something we need for the future.
    Dr. Jackson. Yes, sir, I agree with you 100 percent. 
Obviously, I think it is a game changer. And I just had some 
data here. Obviously, it increases the speed from 120 knots to 
280 knots. It increases the maximum radius from 109 nautical 
miles to 230 nautical miles, and it decreases the golden hour 
radius from 46 nautical miles, pushes it out to 110 nautical 
miles. So I think it is an absolute game changer.
    I thank you for your response. I look forward to working 
with each of you and my colleagues here on the committee to 
address the evolving threats that we face and to provide our 
young men and women the training, the resources, and everything 
they need to accomplish their mission.
    Thank you.
    With that, I yield back, sir.
    The Chairman. Thank you.
    Mr. Veasey is recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Veasey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the 
reverse order likewise.
    Secretary Wormuth, in your confirmation hearing to the 
Senate Armed Services Committee, you confirmed that the long-
range precision fire [LRPF] is still the Army's number one 
modernization priority, with particularly importance in the 
Indo-Pacific region and Russia.
    My concern is that the Army may not be considering the 
modernization priority for the enabling capabilities required 
to have a successful kill chain. What is the Army doing to 
ensure airborne deep-sensing capabilities that include both 
SIGINT [signals intelligence] and are sufficient to meet the 
LRPF requirement and other demands in the Pacific and in 
Europe?
    Secretary Wormuth. Thank you, Congressman.
    You know, first of all, people like to prioritize, but the 
way I look at our modernization program, we really need to 
comprehensively modernize, and we have sort of six focus areas 
of which long-range precision fires is one. But equally 
important is our network portfolio area, for example, because, 
again, to your point, we have to be able to connect our sensors 
and shooters together.
    We have to be able to defend those systems and our forces 
from aerial and missile defense fires. So, for example, 
integrated air and missile defense is another portfolio area 
that we are emphasizing.
    And in our budget we have put 74 percent of our RDT&E 
[research, development, test, and evaluation] funds towards the 
31+4 modernization, and we have worked very hard to protect the 
whole suite of next-generation capability areas.
    So while the long-range precision fires I think is a very 
important capability both in INDOPACOM and Europe, we 
absolutely need those other areas to be modernized as well to 
be able to be successful and to be able to contribute to the 
joint force.
    Mr. Veasey. Thank you very much.
    General McConville, I was just at Fort Hood on a CODEL 
[congressional delegation] about a month ago, and we were 
talking about the sexual assault and how the Army is trying to 
root out racism, and it occurred to me--I was watching a 
program from 1964, and they were interviewing these people in 
this small southern town to ask them what they thought about 
the 1964 Civil Rights Bill.
    And I thought it was important because these people, they 
weren't in the Klan. They weren't a part of any other hate 
group. They were people that were going to the grocery store. 
They were part of the Baptist Church. They were just everyday 
Americans. And their answer was that Black people already have 
civil rights. I don't understand why we need to talk about 
equality; black people already have equal rights. And they were 
serious. They weren't like, you know, saying it just to be 
saying it. And, again, they were just normal people.
    And so when you hear people today say that there is no 
systemic racism, it is really not a surprise. It is really a 
continuation from people just living their everyday lives and 
not having to experience that themselves.
    So we heard a lot of stories from women and soldiers of 
color. How do you--with that sort of micro aggression, how do 
you root that out?
    How do you work with the generals to make sure that people 
are really taking this seriously? Because there is just going 
to be that resistance. And even though those people in 1964, 
even though it was blatant segregation--it said colored 
bathrooms, White bathrooms--they were very serious when they 
were looking into that camera saying, Black people already have 
equal rights.
    And so when it is that engrained, how do you really get to 
the root of it to make sure that the workplace is good? Because 
one of the things that the soldiers told us when we had off-
the-records with them, when you decide to re-up, if you have a 
commander or a noncommissioned officer that is supportive of 
you, that may be the determining factor in whether or not you 
decide to re-up. If you have somebody that is not going to be 
supportive of you, you are probably not going to re-up.
    General McConville. I think that, Congressman, at least 
what we are trying to do in the Army, and really get down to 
the lowest level, is building a cohesive team where everyone 
treats everyone with dignity and respect and everyone takes 
care of each other.
    Well, how do you do that? I mean, some of it is just having 
a basic conversation about, ``Where you are from? What is your 
story?'' and having those discussions where you build this 
team.
    Because what is really important in the military is you are 
going to fight with your brothers and sisters. And you want 
everyone--I use an example.
    You know you have got cohesion right in your team when 
every single soldier is willing to run through withering fire 
to get you when you are being carried away by the Taliban. That 
is what Sal Giunta did in the 173rd. But that is the type of 
attitude you want inside your organization.
    The Chairman. The gentleman's time has expired. I think 
that is a very important discussion.
    Mrs. McClain.
    Mrs. McClain. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Ranking 
Member Rogers. And thank you both for being here.
    I want to speak on the issue of China and the steps that 
the Army is taking to prepare for any eventualities.
    Madam Secretary, your budget request to this committee has 
requested several cuts in different departments. You request a 
cut in total forces from fiscal year 2021's current projected 
levels and even a cut in the procurement of munitions.
    As China continues to spend billions on building up its 
military, why are we requesting a cut in force strength and 
munition procurements? It seems like they are going this way on 
spending and we are going this way.
    In every hearing that I am in, ``China is our number one 
threat, China is our number one threat.'' Yet, we continue to 
spend less and less money and they continue to spend more and 
more. It is very concerning.
    Secretary Wormuth. Congresswoman, thank you.
    First of all, I am very concerned about China's 
comprehensive modernization and the breadth of its 
modernization over the last 20 years. They have definitely 
taken advantage of the time that we have been in Iraq and 
Afghanistan to build their military up quite a bit.
    I think what I would say is what is most important, in my 
view, in terms of our ability to stay ahead of China--and I 
think it is very important to underscore, as the chairman said, 
I think, last week--we outmatch China today. There is no 
question that our force and that our Army is superior to the 
People's Liberation Army, even with the modernization that they 
have undertaken.
    But it is our next-generation capabilities that are most 
important and will make a difference in us staying ahead of 
China. And that is why in this budget we have worked so hard to 
prioritize the 31+4 programs to make sure that they are 
sufficiently funded.
    That has meant that we have made some reductions to some of 
our older munitions, for example, and we have reduced some of 
the funding for some of our enduring programs. But we are 
protecting investments in the new capabilities.
    Mrs. McClain. But the budget requests also roughly $4 
billion in cuts for the research and development, acquisition 
and procurement budgets. So isn't that a future budget that we 
are also cutting?
    Secretary Wormuth. What we have tried do there, again, is 
74 percent of our RDT&E is focused on our next-generation 
programs. We have, again, to make sure we could protect the 
most important crown jewel modernization programs, we did 
reduce RDT&E in some other areas.
    Mrs. McClain. But research and development is for the 
future, correct?
    Secretary Wormuth. Yes, but--yes. But we have--the most 
important future programs we have fully protected.
    Mrs. McClain. Okay. I am going to switch gears.
    For my final question, I would like to ask you both, Madam 
Secretary and General, to comment on what is next for the 
Abrams tank.
    As China continues to build up its forces, the U.S. Army's 
continued procurement of the modern Abrams tank is essential to 
our readiness, as well as the U.S. industrial base.
    Can you both please give me a sense of what is next for the 
generation of Abrams tank, what it is going to look like, or 
what requirements and technologies do you have in mind for that 
specific tank?
    Secretary Wormuth. Certainly, Congresswoman. And I will let 
the Chief also add.
    I would say, first of all, we are continuing to buy the 
Abrams tank. That is a system we will continue to need. And we 
are making sure that we have funding for it in our budget.
    We are also, however, looking at a new Armored Multi-
Purpose Vehicle. That is one of our six modernization focus 
areas. So we will be, again, sort of keeping our existing 
capability to make sure that we have a bridge until we get to 
the future armored capabilities.
    And I will let General McConville add.
    Mrs. McClain. Is there funding in your request for the new 
generation of Abrams?
    General McConville. Can I?
    Secretary Wormuth. Please.
    General McConville. I mean, first of all, when it comes to 
the Abrams right now, I see that as--people talk about legacy 
and modernization. I have another [inaudible]. I call it 
enduring.
    The Abrams main battle tank is not going anywhere. We are 
continuing to incrementally improve that. We have got the M1A2 
SEP [System Enhancement Package] Version 3. We are fielding 
that right now. There is a modernization program.
    And you will see, based on the resources available, we went 
to three quarters. We were fielding a brigade a year. We are 
going to three quarters of a brigade a year. And that is in my 
unfunded requirement that lays it out.
    Some of the programs that we call enduring, that is like 
the Apache helicopter, that is the Black Hawk, that is the 
Abrams, you will see that fielding slowing down, because we are 
trying to give you the best Army we can within the resources 
that we have.
    Mrs. McClain. Thank you, sir.
    The Chairman. The gentlewoman's time has expired.
    Ms. Strickland is recognized for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Strickland. Thank you, Chairman Smith and Ranking 
Member Rogers.
    And thank you to Secretary Wormuth and General McConville.
    I have the privilege of representing Joint Base Lewis-
McChord and the more than 40,000 service members who call it 
home. Joint Base Lewis-McChord, or JBLM, is the Army's only 
force projection platform west of the Rockies in the 
continental U.S. and has an important role as the Department 
continues to focus on the Indo-Pacific.
    I also recognize that Joint Base Lewis-McChord is one of 
the fasting growing [inaudible] in the entire United States and 
that creates challenges with housing [inaudible] and 
encroachment concerns. I am committed to working with JBLM and 
all parties to address these issues and maintain JBLM's 
readiness.
    Secretary Wormuth, I want to discuss several issues that 
are very important to my district.
    One of my priorities in entering office is to facilitate a 
productive and positive relationship between JBLM and the 
Nisqually Tribe [inaudible]. As the Nisqually Tribe tries to 
meet these growth needs it has been constrained by JBLM on 
three sides. The Nisqually are seeking to transfer 112 acres of 
unused land from JBLM to the Nisqually.
    While negotiations over this transfer have been progressing 
for the last year and a half, it is my expectation that all 
parties will ensure that the negotiations maintain 
prioritization and that negotiations are finalized in a manner 
that is equitable and timely.
    So, Secretary, will you please commit to working with me to 
help resolve this issue in a way that provides equitable 
benefits to all parties by fiscal year 2023? My staff and I 
stand at the ready.
    Secretary Wormuth. Thank you, Congresswoman.
    I certainly commit to you to work on this issue with you. I 
am actually going to be going out to see JBLM in August, I 
believe, and would be happy to, frankly, learn more about the 
situation there, and would be again happy to work with you to 
make sure that we are being inclusive in terms of the 
negotiations that are ongoing.
    Ms. Strickland. Well, thank you. We look forward to your 
visit. And thank you for that commitment.
    I want to talk a bit now about JBLM's role in ensuring a 
free and open Indo-Pacific. It is strategically vital and we 
know it is important to maintaining a free and open Indo-
Pacific.
    The Army plans to have three Multi-Domain Task Forces, 
MDTFs, one in Europe and two in the Indo-Pacific. Joint Base 
Lewis-McChord was proud to host the pilot program.
    As you consider requirements in the Indo-Pacific, will you 
commit to keeping one of the task forces at JBLM?
    Secretary Wormuth. Congresswoman, we are also very proud of 
the first Multi-Domain Task Force and are very pleased that it 
is already being part of our ability to experiment with new 
concepts and new operational approaches.
    Certainly, it is going to be very important to be able to 
have a West Coast orientation for our MDTFs. I think we will 
want to look overall at our strategy, particularly as this 
administration is developing a revised National Defense 
Strategy. So we will want to look at the entirety of our global 
posture and where we put our new capabilities.
    But we are very pleased with the work that MDTF is doing 
already, and I think it is in a good place right now.
    Ms. Strickland. Right. And then one quick issue that one of 
my colleagues raised is the issue of housing.
    As one of the fastest growing markets in the country, I 
hear from service members coming [inaudible] and their spouses 
that housing is hard to find. And it is expensive here because 
the supply is constrained.
    In many cases, we have a baseline for housing that just 
doesn't keep up with the cost of housing in our market. And 
spouses are often required to work so that they can meet their 
basic needs and put food on the table.
    So will you please work with me to find creative solutions 
to addressing the housing affordability and supply crisis 
affecting our service members? For example, there are over 700 
households on the waiting list right now to get housing on post 
at JBLM, but we know that 70 percent of those who serve live 
off base.
    Thank you.
    Secretary Wormuth. Yes, Congresswoman. I will certainly 
work with you to try to address these kinds of challenges. We 
see costs, frankly, also rising, and in Austin, Texas, where we 
have Army Futures Command. And we know that is a challenge, 
particularly for some of our younger soldiers and families. So 
we will do our best to work with you in this area.
    Ms. Strickland. Alright. Thank you very much for answering 
those questions.
    I yield back my time, Mr. Chair.
    The Chairman. Thank you.
    Mr. Franklin is recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Franklin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Ranking 
Member Rogers.
    And I appreciate our witnesses being here today. I know you 
all are very busy, so thank you for carving time out of your 
days for us.
    Mrs. McClain mentioned before and I wanted to touch on some 
more, General, the matter of munitions, specifically precision-
guided munitions. In the testimony it was discussed that there 
are a limited number of suppliers for key components of those 
precision-guided munitions. Those are critical assets, they are 
in high demand.
    What are we doing to ensure that we are going to keep these 
suppliers alive when it looks like our munitions budget is 
being cut by about 25 percent? Is that a concern for you? And 
what do we address and how are we addressing that going 
forward?
    General McConville. I think it is a concern. I mean, we 
learned a lot about supply chain.
    And as you said, some of these precision munitions take a 
long--they have some long lead type items that you have to 
purchase. And that is part of our equation we take a look at.
    So we may be buying long lead, not necessarily--we always 
have to be a little more finesse in these type systems. If we 
can't afford the entire munition, we may buy the long range up 
front, the long lead type items, and go ahead and do that.
    But we are taking a close look at that and trying to do the 
best we can within the budget we have.
    Mr. Franklin. Well, and I know for a lot of these suppliers 
predictability and consistency from one year to the next. We 
budget in this 12-month cycle, but they need to look out long 
term, so that they need to know that we are going to be there 
consistently buying, for them to keep their processes in place.
    I want to touch a little bit more on this issue we have 
talked a little bit regarding discrimination. A couple of 
members have brought it up. In his opening remarks, Chairman 
Smith had addressed the issue of discrimination in the ranks 
and the services issues to eradicate it. I think we can all 
agree that that is--it is very important.
    Secretary Wormuth, you spoke about the importance of 
building cohesive teams--General, you did as well--and talking 
about the need for dignity and respect.
    In my experience, whether it is sports teams, military 
units, businesses, really the foundation of that cohesiveness I 
think fundamentally comes down to trust. And that trust is 
really built on a matter of character and competence. And 
certainly if there is discrimination in the ranks, that is 
going to erode at that character element.
    I have been surprised. I have had a number of constituents 
who were on Active Duty--a lot of veterans, but I am placing 
more stock currently in the Active Duty folks--reach out to me, 
which is kind surprising. I never in my 26 years in the Navy 
would have ever dreamed of going outside the chain of command 
to reach out to someone in Congress, but there is a lot of 
concern.
    One in particular, I thought so much about it I called this 
gentleman up, spoke to him at length. He is an Army senior 
noncommissioned officer. His concern is that we are sowing--
potentially sowing distrust among the troops and that we are 
kind of telling these people, in a military that has civilian 
oversight, that your leaders basically can't be trusted. 
Whether they know it or not, inherently they have got bias in 
everything they do and every decision they make is viewed 
through a lens of race that they can't help. I don't know that 
I necessarily agree with that.
    But, General, what--well, and he went on to say that, ``I 
am teaching these guys, these folks''--and he is in a 
leadership position or a training capacity. These are folks 
that are going to have to give orders in combat. They are going 
to have to give them and receive them.
    And his concern is, are we creating a climate of mistrust 
where when someone makes a decision that is a life or death 
moment, and it may involve the death of soldiers, is someone 
going to stop to think, ``Now, is that decision, is that order 
being given through a lens of race?''
    What measures have you taken to help ensure that your 
commanders' intent isn't being distorted by the time it reaches 
the deckplate levels?
    General McConville. I think what is really important is our 
approach to all these what some people call harmful behaviors. 
How do you get after sexual harassment, sexual assault? How do 
you get after extremism, racism if there is in your 
organizations?
    And I argue that is why it starts with building cohesive 
teams where you treat everyone with dignity and respect. And 
you bring them together.
    We have done a lot of--it is interesting. We had a--I know 
we don't have a long answer--but you go to someone that does 
this for a living, that wrote ``The Tribe,'' and how you build 
cohesive teams for civilians.
    Well, you get a small group together. You take them on a 
long hike. You have them stay out overnight. And that is really 
good for building cohesive teams.
    That is exactly what we do in the Army, is we have got to 
build cohesive teams, we have got to trust commanders. We have 
got to make sure as we change anything that--commanders are the 
ones that are going to make this happen. Leaders are the ones 
that are going to make things happen in the Army. We should 
never forget that.
    Mr. Franklin. I thank the gentleman. And I yield back
    The Chairman. Thank you.
    Mr. Kahele is recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Kahele. Mahalo, Mr. Chair, Ranking Member Rogers.
    And Aloha, Madam Secretary and General McConville.
    In your joint written testimony you stated, ``Strategic 
readiness involves installation capabilities to mobilize, 
train, and deploy formations, and then sustain them from the 
homeland.''
    I would like to ask a question regarding the Hawaii 
Infrastructure Readiness Initiative [HIRI], which the Army has 
committed to a 10-year, $1 billion program to invest in the 
Army infrastructure in Hawaii.
    This will be roughly $100 million per year. It is mostly 
MILCON. The funds are essential in repairing, renovating, and 
constructing facilities that USARPAC [U.S. Army Pacific] has 
identified as critical to meeting the DOD [U.S. Department of 
Defense] strategic plans for the Indo-Pacific region.
    By the Army's own admission in 2019, approximately 45 
percent of all Army infrastructure in Hawaii is failing, 
putting efforts to meet operational needs at risk. The total 
cost to repair that infrastructure is $1.1 billion and the cost 
to address the deficit of that infrastructure is $3 billion.
    HIRI addresses several major facility and infrastructure 
deficiencies, including aviation maintenance facilities; 
operations facilities; tactical equipment maintenance 
facilities; the Pohakuloa Training Area; and a vital MILCON 
project, the West Loch ammunition storage facility.
    Recently, competing demands within the Army have caused the 
delay of HIRI projects. Additionally, there is a perceived cap 
of $100 million for HIRI projects within the Army that is 
causing several projects to be broken up into several smaller 
projects to meet this arbitrary cap. And as a result, many 
projects are now more expensive than if executed as a single 
project.
    So my question, Madam Secretary, is how can we accelerate 
the timeline of HIRI and help the Army save money by allowing 
projects to be executed as a whole instead of a piecemeal 
development strategy?
    Secretary Wormuth. Thank you, Congressman, for that 
question.
    First of all, our footprint in Hawaii is very, very 
important, particularly as we look to the Indo-Pacific theater, 
and we remain committed to the Hawaii Infrastructure Readiness 
Initiative.
    We are, as you know, making--we are balancing our people, 
taking care of our people. We are balancing readiness. We are 
balancing modernization. So we are having to make some hard 
choices.
    I think what I would like to do is look into the issues 
that you raise in more detail, particularly the issue of 
potentially the fact that we are breaking up larger projects 
into smaller projects, to see what we might be able to do to 
accelerate things.
    But, again, part of this is we are balancing and we have an 
overall facilities improvement plan that we use to guide what 
we are doing. But we are committed to the infrastructure in 
Hawaii, so I will look into that and get back to you.
    Mr. Kahele. Okay. Thank you.
    Sticking with the Indo-Pacific, and my colleague from Ohio 
raised this earlier. And I am also concerned that just in the 
last hour and 20 minutes of this hearing we have talked about 
China multiple times. We always talk about China in this 
committee. And I am concerned that some of the talking points 
that have come out of the Pentagon are not reflected in the 
sense of urgency to respond to China.
    And in reviewing the Army's budget and its fiscal year 2022 
budget request, I am concerned we are not dedicating enough 
funding to the Pacific and INDOPACOM. In the Army's Pacific 
Deterrence Initiative request of about $1.8 billion, that is 
$1.5 billion less than the Army's request for EDI [European 
Deterrence Initiative], which is $3.43 billion.
    As we pivot to the Pacific and China and their rapidly 
advancing military, sir, General, does this budget meet, in 
your opinion, the future needs of the Army to fight, to win in 
the Pacific, to deter China from taking any more territory in 
the region, to support and keep our forces in the first island 
chain, to add more troop rotations, more exercises that can 
prepare us for China and for potential conflicts in the Western 
Pacific?
    General McConville. I think that what is in the budget, it 
does, Congressman, as far as setting it. But there is some 
long-term--there is a strategic posture review that is going on 
right now that is going to inform what type of investments 
should be made. We certainly have contingencies for that. We 
are taking a look at that.
    And just going back to the 25th in Schofield Barracks, 
where I had a chance to serve, those barracks are something we 
really want to get after. Really concerned about the soldiers 
living there. They do an incredible job, and we want to get 
after them as soon as we get the resources to make that happen.
    Mr. Kahele. All right. Thank you.
    Thirty seconds, Madam Secretary. Anything in regards to the 
Pentagon's budget and PDI [Pacific Deterrence Initiative]?
    Secretary Wormuth. Again, I know that we are looking, 
again, Department-wide at PDI to make sure that we are 
reflecting congressional intent. But I think we have 69,000 
troops aligned with the INDOPACOM with USARPAC, and the focus 
of our modernization is really to get after the China threat.
    Mr. Kahele. Okay. Mahalo.
    Mahalo, Mr. Chairman. I yield the remainder of my time.
    The Chairman. Thank you.
    Mrs. Bice is recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mrs. Bice. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Madam Secretary and General McConville, thank you for being 
with us today.
    And, General, thank you for your service and the service of 
your children.
    My home State of Oklahoma is proud of the tens of thousands 
of soldiers who are stationed at Fort Sill. The Fort Sill and 
Lawton, Oklahoma, communities work hand in hand to support the 
mission of the United States Army and to support the military 
personnel and families stationed there.
    My first question focuses on the Paladin Integrated 
Management program, which is assembled in Elgin, Oklahoma. The 
Army identified an unfunded requirement of $149.5 million for 
the Paladin program.
    When coupled with the Army's fiscal year 2022 budget 
request, this would procure up to 36 sets of the equipment. 
However, that is still only half of the full rate of production 
volume specified in the DOD-approved acquisition program 
baseline of 60 sets per year.
    I am concerned that this level of volume will cause 
significant growth in the cost of each unit and could lead to 
adverse impacts on the highly skilled workforce in my State.
    General, what analysis did the Army use to determine the 
unfunded requirement for that $149.5 million?
    General McConville. With the analysis that we used, 
Congresswoman, we can come back and give you some detailed 
analysis. But it is basically looking about the resources 
available. It is looking at what the manufacturer can actually 
complete within the time. And then, within the prioritization, 
taking a look at what resources are available and making those 
type calls.
    Mrs. Bice. I believe the 36 sets is actually less than that 
required, that allotment of able production in that timeframe.
    What do you believe the impact on fielding to soldiers and 
the industrial base by moving away from the current volumes of 
the 44 to 48 sets per year?
    General McConville. Well, they are not going to modernize 
as fast as we would like them to.
    Mrs. Bice. Madam Secretary.
    Secretary Wormuth. I would agree with what the Chief said. 
As I am learning in real-time, we have a very detailed process 
that goes underneath how we build the budgets. And we look at 
equipping. We look at sustaining. We look at training. And we 
look in tremendous depth.
    But given available resources, we are not always able to 
fund all of those priorities in all of those program elements 
to the 100 percent level. But we do try to be very, very 
thoughtful and careful about where we accept risk, for example.
    Mrs. Bice. Do you believe that this is a critical component 
for Army readiness?
    Secretary Wormuth. Certainly the Paladin program is an 
enduring program for us. Again, as you have pointed out, we 
have reduced the funding somewhat to be able to balance other 
requirements, but it continues to be an important capability 
for us.
    Mrs. Bice. Thank you.
    My second question touches on the Extended Range Cannon 
Artillery [ERCA] program, which is also assembled at Elgin.
    The Army program manager in charge of the range--excuse me 
for just a second--recently identified a two-part acquisition 
strategy for the program, which includes a competition to build 
and assemble kits for ERCA and a separate competition to 
integrate those kits into the Paladin.
    Can you verify that this is the ERCA acquisition strategy? 
Do you have any perspective on that?
    Secretary Wormuth. Congresswoman, while the ERCA program is 
an important part of our long-range precision fires, it is not 
a program I have had the opportunity yet to dive into deeply. 
So I will yield to my chief to take that one.
    General McConville. Yeah. We will come back to you on the 
programmatics. I mean, I know what we are doing with the 
Extended Range Cannon is something we want to do. We are very 
pleased with the result so far, the ranges we are getting.
    As we talk about deterrence in great power competition, the 
ability to have speed and range, there were other people that 
came before committees like this and said we are outranged or 
outgunned, we don't see that in the future. And that is what we 
are trying to make sure we can produce.
    Mrs. Bice. Do you think that we will be able to meet the 
goal to field a battalion in 2023 and another in 2024 based on 
the requirements? And you may not be able to answer that 
given----
    General McConville. That is our intent.
    Mrs. Bice. Okay.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
    The Chairman. Thank you.
    Ms. Jacobs is recognized for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Jacobs. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    And thank you, Secretary Wormuth and General McConville, 
for being here with us.
    I want to start with you, Secretary Wormuth.
    The Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle [OMFV] is the first 
of several vehicle modernization programs the Army is 
developing.
    What lessons were learned from last year's cancelation of 
the initial solicitation, specifically with the requirements 
process? And how can we do better with requirements early in 
these programs?
    Secretary Wormuth. Thank you, Congresswoman.
    I think the Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle is a good 
example of how, as I have come into this role, how the Army is 
approaching modernization and its acquisition efforts 
differently than we have in the past.
    So unlike the Future Combat System, for example, where we 
loaded up a lot of requirements very early in the process and 
were perhaps somewhat unrealistic about what was 
technologically possible, with OMFV we are trying to do it in a 
much more incremental, iterative way.
    So, first, we went out and we did market research to 
understand what might be possible, what kinds of producers 
might be out there. We then engaged in conversation with 
industry about what kinds of characteristics we are looking for 
in the Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle. We then moved 
incrementally to looking at potentially what designs will be 
out there.
    And we are going to, again, continue to pursue this 
iterative approach which, first of all, gives more opportunity 
for more companies in the private sector to compete, but also 
will give us a better sense of what is actually possible and 
achievable before we down-select.
    So I think actually we have learned a lot and feel good 
about the path that we are on right now with OMFV.
    Ms. Jacobs. Thank you.
    General McConville, anything to add before I move on to the 
next topic?
    General McConville. When we talk about transformation, we 
are transforming the way we actually buy weapon systems. And 
what we are finding is, by going to characteristics vice 
requirements early on in the process, we encourage innovation, 
we get other people to participate in the process. And as we 
move forward we actually get the ``drive before we buy'' or 
``fly before we buy,'' which we think is a much better 
approach.
    Ms. Jacobs. Thank you.
    I would now like to discuss the long-range precision fires. 
I know we have talked about it a few times already and it was 
in your written testimony. But I wanted to drill down a bit 
further.
    How do you see these nonstrategic hypersonic weapons 
playing a role in the battlefield of the future?
    Specifically, their long-range nature will completely 
change the way the Army needs to collect targeting information.
    And has the Army adequately thought about the way sensors 
will need to be connected to shooters in order to make these 
weapons effective?
    Secretary Wormuth. Congresswoman, a couple comments on 
that.
    First of all, I think long-range precision fires are really 
essential for the Army--but, frankly, for the entire joint 
force--in terms of helping us address the anti-access/area 
denial challenges that both China and Russia present to us.
    And I think it is important to not forget about the 
European theater and about the challenges we face from Russia. 
There is a lot of appropriate emphasis on China, but we need to 
remember the European theater as well.
    And the programs that we are pursuing here, whether it is 
Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon or PrSM [Precision Strike Missile] 
or the Extended Range Cannon, those are all weapon systems that 
will allow us to hit targets from much longer standoff 
distances.
    And in terms to your very important point about connecting 
sensors to shooters, we are trying to use our Project 
Convergence initiative, which is sort of our campaign of 
learning, to try to help us understand how we can use these 
capabilities, how we can work with the other services to use 
our sensors to connect to the best shooters for a particular 
target.
    And we have a joint board of directors for our Project 
Convergence initiative that allows us to bring in all of the 
services to our efforts so that we can explore those issues.
    And the Chief may want to add something.
    General McConville. Yeah. I think the Secretary laid it 
out.
    The only thing I would add, long-range precision fires 
require long-range targeting and precision targeting, and we 
are certainly developing the capabilities to do that within the 
joint force. And that is what we are having the discussion 
about: Who is actually going to do that targeting and what is 
the best way to do that?
    Ms. Jacobs. Well, thank you.
    And in my final 20 seconds, I will just echo my colleagues' 
encouragement to make sure we are addressing housing and 
continuing to execute the Army Housing Campaign Plan.
    And I, too, was on the CODEL to Fort Hood and encourage you 
to continue working on sexual assault.
    And, Mr. Chair, I yield back.
    The Chairman. Thank you.
    Mr. Green is recognized for 5 minutes.
    Dr. Green. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member.
    Thanks to our witnesses for being here. I have known 
General McConville for many, many years. And to my members, 
fellow members, his service is venerable.
    Thank you, sir.
    And, Madam Secretary, it is great to meet you.
    As I flip through the budget, I know I am digging into the 
weeds here, General McConville, but seems like the Army is 
getting tasked fairly significantly, in fact it looked like 
more than any other service branch, for the INDOPACOM. And I 
just wondered if you wouldn't elaborate on that a little bit 
and kind of tell us what kind of missions they are getting 
tasked to do out there.
    General McConville. Yeah. I think it is interesting, a lot 
of people want to look at the Indo-Pacific and they see a lot 
of blue water out there and they say it is a maritime theater 
and it is an air theater. And I would say certainly that is 
very, very important.
    But we have key allies and partners out there. I can run 
the whole list. But I have spent a lot of time with the chiefs 
of staffs out there.
    And so the question becomes, what does a combatant 
commander want from the Army? What do our allies and partners 
want?
    They certainly want our Multi-Domain Task Force capability, 
which has the ability to provide long-range precision effects 
and long-range precision fires for deterrence.
    Our security force assistance brigades right now are being 
used in many countries out there because they are building 
partner capabilities and capacity. Special Forces is in high 
demand out there for the same type reasons.
    We are doing multiple exercises with our allies and 
partners, not only in the theater. They have actually come to 
our Joint Readiness Training Center because they want to get 
that type of training. We think that is extremely important.
    When it comes to logistics, the Army does logistics. If you 
have got a vaccination, you know a little about Army logistics.
    And so the Army has a critical role out there, and we just 
need to be postured to provide that.
    Dr. Green. Well, good. Thanks for elaborating on that.
    My office is getting, Madam Secretary, I would say pictures 
texted to us about once a month at a minimum about the barracks 
at 1st Brigade.
    And I keep pushing this issue. As I have been told, I can't 
do an appropriation on it unless you guys, MILCON, puts it on 
its list. And I understand there is a 21 percent increase in 
the budget for MILCON.
    But I would like to ask you to take a look at what those 
barracks look like and ask yourself, 1st Brigade, the 101st 
Airborne Division, if you would want your son or daughter in 
there. My son happens to be. Mold and issues like that need to 
be addressed in those buildings.
    General McConville, on the issue of aviation, I noticed a 
combat aviation request of $2.8 billion, a $1.3 billion 
decrease from 2021.
    And as we talk about the Army's use in INDOPACOM and the 
commander wanting to see you guys out there more, wouldn't 
there need to be an increase in the aviation budget as opposed 
to a decrease? And if so, is there some risk we are taking? And 
can you talk about that risk.
    General McConville. Well, we are certainly concerned about 
making sure that our pilots get the flying hours that they need 
to do. And what you will find is, if we don't invest in flying 
hours, whether it is flight school or flying hours in the 
units, we see a lack of proficiency, and that tends to come 
back in accidents.
    So we are concerned about that. We are trying to make sure 
that we get the right amount of money that is needed. And I 
would say that the money that we have in readiness right now 
needs to stay there. We have done some very stringent, I want 
to say, uses of readiness. There is not room when we put in 
UFRs----
    Dr. Green. You can't cut it any more, is what you are 
saying.
    General McConville. I can't cut it any more. We need to 
keep that readiness because it has been very efficiently 
managed, I guess is the way I want to say it.
    Dr. Green. That is a very good way to say it, I guess.
    And I echo what the ranking member said earlier. We are 
concerned that the budget that the administration has handed 
you or asked you to live under is probably less than what you 
need.
    But one thing in the final minute that I have. I mentioned 
this with General Milley just a few weeks ago. And that is the 
CTC [Combat Training Center] rotations.
    And I went back and did my homework, and I was right, they 
were set for 26 in 2021 and it looks like 17 in 2022. That is a 
big concern as we think about China and Russia, these pacing 
threats, large-scale ground operations.
    Can you elaborate a little bit on that cut? And is 17 
enough?
    General McConville. Well, Congressman, I probably need to 
brief you offline, because I just have--I have the numbers in 
front of me. It is a little different.
    Dr. Green. Sure.
    General McConville. We have got 20.
    I think what is interesting is, if you take the 22, we have 
22 rotations scheduled, 8 in NTC [National Training Center], 8 
in JRTC [Joint Readiness Training Center].
    Now, two of those, we are doing something different now. We 
are going to actually do the rotations, probably one in Alaska 
and one in Hawaii, which is a little--so if you are talking to 
the folks at the CTCs, they are going to go, ``Hey, wait a 
minute. We used to have this many.''
    And the other thing we are doing----
    The Chairman. The gentleman's time has expired.
    Mrs. Luria is recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mrs. Luria. Thank you.
    And, General McConville, I want to go back to something 
General Milley said during his testimony last week. He said: 
``Decisive outcomes in war are ultimately achieved on land.''
    Do you agree with this statement?
    General McConville. Absolutely.
    Mrs. Luria. So in your opening statement you write: The 
Army remains prepared to fight and win the Nation's wars.
    Can you briefly describe what it would mean from the Army's 
perspective to win in a war with China or, as General Milley 
put it, to achieve a decisive outcome?
    General McConville. Yeah. I would say winning with China is 
not fighting China. I think the way I would describe it is to 
have the ability that we have overmatch.
    And, again, I kind of believe in a philosophy of peace 
through strength. And that strength comes from a whole-of-
government effort where you have a very strong military, you 
have a very strong Army, so people do not want to take the 
risks of doing certain things.
    And you also have strong allies and partners who share the 
same vision of the world order and they are going to stand side 
by side and not allow some of these things to happen.
    Mrs. Luria. So then focusing on the Army's component on 
that, a ground component such as the Army, what would the Army 
provide towards this decisive outcome, which I think we would 
all agree we would like to not fight ultimately that war?
    General McConville. Well, it is going to provide the 
capabilities. It is going to provide long-range precision 
fires. It is going to provide maneuver vehicles that can--the 
only way to compel people is on the ground to stop those type 
things from happening.
    And what we want to have is a very lethal and agile Army. 
And we think we get that through having speed, range, and 
convergence that gives us decision dominance, and having the 
appropriate amount of capability within the joint force to be 
able to deter them from taking on those type actions.
    Mrs. Luria. Okay. So, as you know and you referred to 
earlier, that many strategists have said that the conflict in 
the Western Pacific is primarily a naval and an air campaign. 
And it seems that, based on this discussion, you see a role for 
ground forces and a role for the Army in a conflict in the 
Western Pacific.
    Recently, the head of Air Force Global Strike Command said 
that your effort, the Army's effort to base long-range missiles 
in the Pacific, was expensive, duplicative, and stupid, and the 
number one priority for PACOM [U.S. Pacific Command] in the 
Pacific Deterrent Initiative is missile defense. Yet, that is 
your number six modernization priority behind long-range 
precision fires, next-generation combat vehicle, vertical lift, 
and others in your budget submission.
    Can you briefly explain why the Army is pursuing long-range 
fires in the Pacific, including shore-based anti-ship missiles, 
when, one, there are no basing agreements to house these 
weapons in the first island chain; two, the Marine Corps is 
developing the same but a more mobile capability; and three, 
the cost of delivering this capability far exceeds the Navy and 
Air Force capabilities?
    General McConville. Yeah. I think, Congresswoman, that we 
absolutely need long-range precision fires. I think it provides 
multiple options for the combatant commander.
    If you take a look at what the Secretary was talking about, 
and you have to take a look at anti-access/area denial, and I 
would recommend get a classified brief on what those 
capabilities they have, because our adversaries have 
sophisticated integrated air and missile defense, they have 
sophisticated----
    Mrs. Luria. I am not trying to argue against long-range 
fires, but just the role of the Army in that when the Navy and 
the Air Force already--Marine Corps and Air Force are already 
developing those capabilities at potentially a lower cost.
    And just pivoting on that as well, so the Army has a good 
and soon to be improved ground-based missile defense capability 
if the Low Tier Air and Missile Defense system works. But the 
Navy operates Aegis Ashore Missile Defense System.
    Why doesn't the Army take over the Aegis Ashore, which is 
what the PACOM commander asked for in Guam, instead of building 
a new multibillion dollar radar?
    General McConville. Well, we are going to take a look at 
what is the best way to do integrated air and missile defense. 
We have got an IFPC [Indirect Fire Protection Capability] 
capability and Iron Dome capability.
    Where the Army is going right now is on an Integrated Air 
and Missile Defense Battle Command System that will take 
advantage of convergence using multiple sensors to multiple 
different shooters. And that is where we are going as far as 
that process.
    The Aegis right now we do not have people--it is not a 
matter of just taking over. We would have to train a whole 
cohort of----
    Mrs. Luria. I understand that. But my whole point is that 
there is duplicity, like, we are duplicating things amongst the 
services. When at the same time you and other service chiefs 
will talk a lot about jointness, it seems like there is excess 
redundancy and funds in this budget that go to things that are 
significantly overlapping amongst the services.
    And I am sorry, my time has expired.
    General McConville. Okay. Thank you.
    The Chairman. Before we move on to the next person, two 
programming notes. We are going to stop at 2 o'clock and there 
are votes between here and there. Again, as I did last time, I 
am going to try to keep going and have members coming so we can 
maximize the time, make sure someone is here to ask a question. 
So just be prepared for that.
    Mr. Johnson, you are recognized.
    Mr. Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Secretary Wormuth and General McConville, thank you both 
for being here today.
    And thank you, General, for your commitment to maintaining 
peace through strength. I appreciate how you articulated that a 
few moments ago.
    Last week, I asked Secretary Austin and General Milley, who 
were here, about Army readiness. And General Milley had what I 
thought was a memorable quote. He said: ``Wars are often 
started from afar, from long-range weapon systems. They are 
always ended, however, somewhere on the ground. And the last 
bullet of a war is usually fired by a Marine or Army 
infantryman.''
    So it is critical to maintain the readiness of the United 
States Army.
    Our training centers, both at Fort Irwin and Fort Polk, as 
well as in Germany, are going to be critically important moving 
forward to maintain our current ground force capabilities. I 
represent Fort Polk, it is in my district, proudly.
    How would you say the President's budget request for the 
Army accounts for those considerations, namely Army readiness 
and getting rotations through our training centers? I know you 
were addressing that briefly with Congressman Green a few 
moments ago. Maybe I will go to the Secretary first.
    Secretary Wormuth. Sure, Congressman.
    First of all, readiness is incredibly important. It is one 
of our--I think of--I sort of think of the overall Army program 
as a three-legged stool. You have modernization, you have 
readiness, and you have force structure.
    So we, as the Chief said, we have funded 20 rotations, CTC 
rotations, in our budget because the Army has worked very hard 
in the last several years to dig itself out of a readiness 
trough that was substantially a result of sequestration and the 
Budget Control Act.
    And maintaining that readiness to be able to fight tonight 
is very important. So we have tried to emphasize that and don't 
feel that there is really any head space in that area, if you 
will.
    I don't know, General McConville, if you want to add to 
that.
    General McConville. I think our Combat Training Centers are 
really the gold standard of how we train battalion and brigade 
units. And so, they are absolutely critical for what we are 
trying to do.
    With the budget, and, again, as we take a look at--we are 
trying to most efficiently use the resources we have. So if you 
take a look at the 20 rotations, currently we are doing 8 out 
at the Combat Training Center at NTC. That is kind of armor, 
large-scale type ground combat operations. And most of the 
units are fairly close to that, so they are able to do that.
    For the Joint Readiness Training Center we are doing a 
couple of things. One is we are going to move them actually 
maybe to Alaska, the cadre, to run a CTC-like rotation in 
Alaska under the conditions. Because if you are going to be an 
Arctic warrior, it might be better to be trained in that 
environment, and the same thing out in the jungle. So we are 
taking a look at that.
    And the same thing for units going to Europe. To cut down 
the OPTEMPO, we have a CTC there. So what we would like to do 
is run them through a Combat Training Center as part of their 
deployment, rather than having them get to a deployment and 
taking a look at the OPTEMPO.
    So we are trying to balance everything within resources. 
And one of resources is time. So how do we best use their time?
    And if we have to bring a unit's equipment all the way from 
Hawaii, put it on a boat, by the time it gets to Fort Polk, and 
then put it on a boat and send it back, they are away from 
their equipment for a couple months.
    So we are trying to figure out the best way to do this 
within the resources that we have.
    Mr. Johnson. Just a parenthetical note that Fort Polk can 
mimic the conditions of anywhere except the Arctic.
    General McConville. No, I know. That is right. I spent some 
good quality time there.
    Mr. Johnson. Yes, sir. I am sure you have.
    The new Global Defender exercise is funded in the budget 
request and described by the Army as additive and designed to 
showcase Army modernization priorities and, quote, ``key 
Department of Defense and congressional audiences,'' unquote. 
Yet, the large-scale theater-level Defender-Europe exercise 
that was previously scheduled for fiscal year 2022 is not 
funded in the budget request.
    First of all, what are the goals of the Global Defender 
exercise? And what does the Army mean by that in terms of the 
audiences who it is focused for?
    Secretary Wormuth. Why don't I let, given how new I am, why 
don't I let the Chief talk about that one?
    General McConville. Defenders have really been running 
across three kind of scenarios. One is certainly Defender-
Europe, which was a large amount of forces going that was 
impacted by COVID, but we still were able to accomplish a lot 
of goals. And those will continue, but the focal point was 
that. The same thing with 21 Indo-Pacific. That was a major 
exercise.
    The intent of this exercise is just to take a look at, as 
we look at the future, what is the global impact of being 
contested all the way from home to one of the theaters we are 
going to have to go to?
    So, you know, we see the change in environment. We are 
seeing little effects of that from cyber and some other things, 
that people can basically impact the United States in ways that 
we have never seen before.
    And so we need to be aware of that. We need to be able to 
mobilize our forces. We need to be able to get them through the 
various centers. And we need to make sure the infrastructure is 
going to support us deploying in a contested environment.
    Mr. Johnson. Thank you both.
    I am out of time. I yield back.
    The Chairman. Ms. Escobar is recognized for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Escobar. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman.
    And, Secretary Wormuth and General McConville, thank you so 
much for being here today. Really appreciate your service to 
our country and your time before our committee this morning.
    And, Madam Secretary, I look forward to at some point 
welcoming you to El Paso and to Fort Bliss.
    And, General McConville, I look forward to our visit coming 
up soon.
    I have the honor and privilege of representing El Paso, 
Texas, home to Fort Bliss, America's second largest military 
installation, largest Joint Mobilization Force Generation 
Installation in the Army, and the 1st Armored Division, 
America's only armored tank division.
    And I have had the privilege of spending some time visiting 
with soldiers, not just on base and off base, not just in my 
district, but outside of my district.
    And with regard to women in particular, I can tell you, I 
really appreciate your leaning into addressing sexual 
harassment and sexual assault, because on many fronts we 
really, truly have failed women and we have to do better.
    The same thing goes for suicides. And we had a conversation 
yesterday about the most recent suicide at Fort Bliss and the 
tragedy surrounding that suicide. But also this is the second 
death in just several months. Two young women soldiers.
    And it is--I know that this is a terrible and difficult 
issue to address. But what is it?
    In looking back, I appreciate that we now understand very 
clearly where the chronic issue is and who needs to be provided 
resources and reinforcement, so to speak.
    But what, in your view, is happening? What is going on here 
where we have not done well enough? And what are the first 
steps to doing better?
    Secretary Wormuth. Congresswoman, a couple of things.
    On suicide, we are certainly very concerned about that. And 
we have a historically high rate of suicide in the Army right 
now, which is very concerning.
    Often suicides come about with behavioral health issues, 
often relationship problems, sometimes financial issues. But I 
think what we are trying to do through the ``This is My Squad'' 
initiative, through working on improving our command climate 
down to the lowest level, working on trying to introduce 
evidence-based suicide prevention programs, we are trying--some 
of the things we are doing I think will help us get after a 
range of harmful behaviors, whether it is sexual harassment or 
whether it is trying to prevent suicide.
    A lot of it is trying to make sure, as General McConville 
said, that we have got that golden triangle of, do our soldiers 
feel connected to their families, connected to their squad 
mates, and connected to their leaders?
    And if they have those connections, we have a better 
opportunity to get ahead of any potential problems.
    But this is something I think we are just going to have to 
continue working on. And it is going to take, I think, 
consistent, year after year focus and effort.
    Ms. Escobar. And I appreciate that.
    One thing that I would add, obviously we are not the first 
institution to deal with this, and with this particular age 
group, as was mentioned, with the vulnerability of this 
population.
    Are we looking essentially outside the box and outside of 
the DOD for best practices and for advice and support?
    I appreciate the DOD's response, the Army's response, et 
cetera. But there are institutions outside of the U.S. military 
who have had to grapple with this as well. And are we looking, 
leaning on them at all?
    Secretary Wormuth. Yes. I think we are, as I said, trying 
to really look outside the Department for evidence-based 
suicide prevention programs and to learn from other 
institutions.
    We have a pilot program running at a couple of major 
installations that is focused on the suicide challenge in 
particular.
    But we absolutely should be looking to every possible 
source of good ideas outside of the Army and the Department of 
Defense.
    Ms. Escobar. And in my last 30 seconds, the last thing I 
will add, we have had this conversation about infrastructure on 
Fort Bliss, the barracks, the railhead.
    And I really look forward to exploring with you and would 
seek your commitment to really taking a long, hard look at the 
cost-benefit analysis there, especially for the railhead, the 
lack of investment in that, and what it is costing us in the 
long term the longer we wait.
    But also the barracks. Clearly it is a chronic issue. I 
have heard it from other colleagues as well on this committee. 
But really would love for you to see those barracks on Fort 
Bliss. They are in desperate need of investment.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
    The Chairman. The gentlelady's time has expired.
    Mr. Waltz is recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Waltz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Good to see you, Chief, Madam Secretary.
    General McConville, in your Senate testimony you described 
2020 as the Year of the National Guard. And I couldn't agree 
more, between COVID response, national unrest, vaccine 
deployment, record hurricane season, record firefighting 
season, plus the overseas missions that they have to be ready 
to deploy.
    The problem is these domestic missions are 
disproportionately affecting our various States where the 
Guard's force structure is aligned.
    Mr. Chairman, I would like to submit for the record a 
letter signed by 55 of my colleagues from Texas, Florida, and 
California addressing this issue. If I could ask consent.
    The Chairman. Hearing no objection, so ordered.
    [The letter referred to can be found in the Appendix on 
page 77.]
    Mr. Waltz. Thank you.
    It is addressing this issue that these States per capita 
have the smallest National Guard force structure. So they 
actually rank 52, 53, and 54, I think somewhat surprisingly.
    You overlay with that, they are most prone to natural 
disasters, certainly in California, Texas, and Florida in 
particular.
    So I want to be clear. I am not asking or suggesting that 
States should lose force structure. What I am asking your 
support to work with us on is that as some of these States 
voluntarily shed, because they can't recruit or for other 
reasons, that we take those population factors into account.
    This domestic mission is critical. And would you--I would 
think you would agree that the strain on the force from 
domestic missions is impacting the Federal operational mission 
in recruiting, in retention. Every time you have to go to that 
employer and say, ``I am leaving,'' that really has an impact.
    Will you work with us on that and work with NGB [National 
Guard Bureau] on this?
    General McConville. No, absolutely. And one thing I would 
add, Congressman, is we need to take a look as we move in the 
future, and I have talked to General Hokanson and General 
Jensen, and really we want the input from the Guard on--as you 
know, certain States want to have certain type units. Some can 
raise special forces or can raise this type organization.
    Mr. Waltz. Right.
    General McConville. And some have talent in cyber and 
different type things.
    And so we want to work with the States and lay out, ``Hey, 
can you do this, can you put more here,'' and do it in a 
collaborative way.
    Mr. Waltz. And all of those factors absolutely should be 
factored in. But you can't have a tank unit there if you don't 
have the ranges, right?
    General McConville. That is right.
    Mr. Waltz. That should be all factored in.
    But population, particularly as they are shifting, and that 
domestic mission, which I know isn't your number one priority, 
but it impacts you.
    And further, I think we need to look at what we are calling 
homeland defense, right? Our adversaries have made it clear 
with Colonial Pipeline and others that they can hit us here and 
will hit us here. When it impacts whole regions, I would put 
that squarely in your bucket and not in the Governors' buckets 
necessarily.
    So that line is getting very blurry. And I would just ask 
your support in working with us on that.
    Shifting to the budget, I do think there is a narrative out 
there that as we shift to the Indo-Pacific that is primarily an 
Air Force and Navy fight. And I know that there are a quarter 
million soldiers assigned just to Indo-Pacific COCOM [combatant 
command]. There are 60 percent of COCOM requirements are on 
your shoulders, or on the Army's shoulders.
    But as we have little recap investments from the Middle 
East, the R&D [research and development] budget is down, our 
O&M [operations and maintenance] is stretched, the munitions 
budget is cut, increased demand on the Guard, as I mentioned, 
Madam Secretary, I am having a hard time believing you have a 
sufficient budget.
    Are you testifying that you have a sufficient budget for 
all of those needs?
    Secretary Wormuth. Yes, Congressman. I think the budget 
that we have now is adequate to provide us the resources that 
we need to both maintain our readiness, make sure that we can 
fulfill current operational demands from the combatant 
commanders, and prepare for the future.
    Mr. Waltz. Thank you for that.
    Chief, do you have enough money? I will just note that your 
predecessors were always here demanding more and fighting for 
more. Chief, you testify that you have enough?
    General McConville. What I am testifying to, Congressman, 
is you have my unfinanced requirements. I can tell you my 
priority when it comes to the budget. And we are giving you the 
best Army we can with the budget that we received.
    Mr. Waltz. Thank you, Chief.
    In the few seconds I have remaining, I just want to go to 
the physical requirements of combat.
    I applaud the move to a branch-specific, it makes sense, to 
a branch-specific physical requirement. And it makes sense. 
Infantry and artillery requires more than cyber or dentist.
    Madam Secretary, could you submit for the record your plans 
to maintain gender-neutral physical requirements or what you 
are looking at shifting?
    The Chairman. It has got to be yes or no.
    Mr. Waltz. For the record. For the record.
    Secretary Wormuth. We can certainly brief you on where we 
are with APFT [Army Physical Fitness Test] now.
    [The information referred to can be found in the Appendix 
on page 85.]
    The Chairman. The gentleman's has expired.
    Mr. Waltz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    The Chairman. Mr. Bergman is recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Bergman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Secretary Wormuth, you previously stated that the Army 
National Guard may not be able to fund training for the 
remainder of the fiscal year if supplemental funding is not 
provided to offset the cost of the Capitol security response.
    The Air National Guard is also in is a similar position.
    Secretary Wormuth and General McConville, with just a 
simple yes or no answer, if supplemental funding isn't 
immediately approved, will Guard readiness suffer? That is, 
will it be reduced?
    Secretary Wormuth. Yes, Congressman, it will. We will have 
to cut training for August and September.
    General McConville. Yes. And I would add, Guard morale will 
also be affected, because there are going to be guardsmen that 
are not going to get credit for this year's service if they 
don't get a chance to make the 39 days.
    Mr. Bergman. And that is a great point to dive into, 
because not only do you affect the readiness, you affect the 
morale. And to restate it, those who have committed to 20-plus 
years in the Guard, a sat [satisfactory] year with the 50 
points that enables them to have another qualifying year.
    This is a big deal. So there should be no delay.
    Thank you for your response.
    Secretary Wormuth, in your view, what are the differences 
between command climate in garrison--example, a base like Fort 
Hood--and command climate in a forward-deployed unit engaged in 
kinetic activity, that is, combat?
    Secretary Wormuth. Well, Congressman, I would say, for 
starters, I think to some extent--and I have learned this in 
discussions with commanders in our Army and in previous years 
of working in the Pentagon--often when you are there in combat 
or forward deployed, potentially being ready for combat, there 
is a crucible there where the command climate is often quite 
positive because commanders are right there with their 
soldiers. They know their soldiers. There is a shared sense of 
purpose and objective.
    I think at garrison, sometimes that can be more 
challenging. I mean, first of all, there is----
    Mr. Bergman. And you are on point. My question is, you 
know, unit commanders are selected, not elected. They are 
selected because they went through rigorous training, years of 
experience, and they are tasked with leadership, both life and 
death of their units, whether it be in garrison or whether it 
be in the fight.
    And we talked earlier about, General, as you mentioned, in 
the last 20 years, a lots of our unit commanders, especially at 
the younger levels, when they have come back from deployment, 
have forgotten that they are still in charge of young soldiers 
and Marines and airmen. They are not bad people. They are 
tired. And we know that when you are in command, you are in 
command day on, stay on, 24/7, 30 days a month until 
appropriately relieved of your command by someone else.
    I guess when I consider how we train and prepare our 
commanders, our officers, and senior enlisted for command, we 
are walking down a very unique road here, and not a good one, 
when we start separating things out of the command authority, 
because you are either all in command of everything or you are 
in command of nothing. And I believe the road we are walking 
down here, as we start separating out, an example, sexual 
assault, then what is next.
    So I would ask you to consider that as we move forward to 
make sure our troops are, number one, ready to fight and, 
number two, ready to care for each other, whether it be in 
garrison or in the fight.
    I yield back.
    The Chairman. Thank you.
    Ms. Speier is recognized for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Speier. Mr. Chairman, thank you.
    Thank you both for your service. I will commend you, Ms. 
Wormuth, for your ability in very short order to have a very 
commanding understanding of the issues that confront you.
    Let me start with what I am convinced is the next epidemic 
in the military, and that is suicide. I just got word that the 
11th, count it, the 11th suicide has taken place now in Alaska. 
We have got to get a handle on this.
    So my first question is, will you please provide me with 
the number of suicides at each of our bases around the world?
    Secretary Wormuth. Yes, Congresswoman, we will. And I agree 
with you, we have to get after this. I have been in the job 4 
weeks and I get emails every week, more than once, telling me 
that one of our soldiers has committed suicide, and it is 
extremely disheartening and tragic, and we need to focus on it 
more.
    Ms. Speier. So, General McConville, the crushing, 
unsustainable OPTEMPO I think is a major factor, not just in 
suicide. I think it was a major factor in the toxic climate at 
Fort Hood, and I am concerned that this problem extends to 
other bases and to the rest of the Army.
    Last week General Milley testified before the committee, 
and he says the OPTEMPO is too high. So what are you doing 
within the Army to address the OPTEMPO and make it more 
manageable?
    General McConville. I absolutely agree with General Milley. 
I think one of the things that we learned from Fort Hood, when 
people look at Fort Hood, is the amount of deployments that 
they did, and part of resources--we often talk about money 
here--is time.
    It is time for leaders to spend with their soldiers. It is 
time to get to know their soldiers. In many cases some of the 
soldiers that are having challenges are going to be left behind 
because the unit is going forward with them or without them, 
but building these cohesive teams--and I use the motto of the 
golden triangle--where squad leaders know their soldiers and 
every soldier has a buddy, and they know the families because 
when we look at these suicides--and I have been looking at this 
for a long time, it breaks my heart to lose people to suicide.
    It breaks my heart to lose any soldiers, but there is 
always something there about why did this soldier not, you 
know, have the will to live, what would make them to be in that 
position where they no longer want to live.
    And we have behavioral health--my daughter does that. She 
is a behavioral health officer in the Army right now trying to 
help these young men and women. But there is something to do 
with connecting them, making them feel connected----
    Ms. Speier. Okay. General, I am going to stop you there, 
unfortunately, because I have to ask a couple more questions.
    General McConville. Okay.
    Ms. Speier. But I appreciate your recognition that we have 
to address it.
    We have an unacceptable condition in many of our barracks 
and housing across the military. You have heard from a number 
of members talk about housing in their various districts.
    At Fort Hood, in my number of visits there, the barracks 
were--some are being restored; some are not. The members of the 
committee that were on the CODEL that were previously in the 
service were appalled at the condition of the barracks at Fort 
Hood.
    Now, there is a 10-year, $10 billion plan to modernize the 
barracks within the Army. There has only been a request for 
$262 million for fiscal year 2022. At this rate, you are never 
going to do $10 billion in 10 years. So it suggests that there 
isn't the commitment to making this a priority.
    So, Secretary, would you please comment on that? How--you 
need to do a billion dollars a year to be able to make that 
commitment that you made of $10 billion over 10 years.
    Secretary Wormuth. Thank you, Congresswoman.
    I have been--when I was at Fort Hood, I also had the 
opportunity to see the barracks, and I saw good barracks, 
modernized barracks, but I also saw bad barracks.
    What I would commit to you is, you know, we are--we do have 
the $10 billion over 10-year plan. What I would like to say to 
you is I will look carefully at that plan because I, myself, 
you know, particularly hearing all of the concerns that we are 
hearing about barracks, would like to dig into that and make 
sure that I feel satisfied that it is going after modernizing 
barracks in a way that I feel comfortable with. And I have not 
looked at the 10-year plan in detail, so I will commit to do 
that and come back to you.
    Ms. Speier. All right. One last point. There is $485 
million that is being spent on housing, family housing at Fort 
Hood, but it is not a decision that the commander has any 
authority over based on the contracts that we have----
    The Chairman. The gentlelady's time has expired.
    I am going to recognize Mr. Gaetz for the purposes of a UC 
[unanimous consent] request.
    Mr. Gaetz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    I ask for unanimous consent for all committee members to 
have 5 legislative days within which to submit documents for 
the committee record.
    The Chairman. Hearing no objection, so ordered.
    Ms. Cheney is recognized.
    Ms. Cheney. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank 
you to both of our witnesses for being here today.
    I wanted to talk in a little bit more detail about what we 
are seeing in terms of our adversaries' capabilities. We have 
had multiple testimonies over the course of our posture 
hearings this year, as we have in previous years; but this year 
in particular comments like the breathtaking speed with which 
we are watching the Chinese, for example, modernize.
    In the context that we are seeing adversary capabilities 
increase, the Biden administration defense budget is woefully 
insufficient, inadequate to maintain our own capabilities. In 
your joint testimony, you said, ``While America's Army 
maintains a tenuous overmatch, it is fleeting.''
    And I would like to ask you first, General McConville, we 
have heard this again year after year, this notion that we have 
still got overmatch but just barely. Could you explain exactly 
what you mean by tenuous overmatch and on what basis--I 
understand in this setting it may be with less specificity, but 
on what basis you feel confident to say we still maintain 
tenuous overmatch?
    General McConville. Yes, Congresswoman. What I would say is 
we are at an inflection point right now. So the systems that we 
basically developed in the 1980s, you know, the Big Five weapon 
systems, the Abrams and all of those type systems, the doctrine 
that we developed, the training, all of those things we 
developed, we have incrementally improved over the last 40 
years.
    I think we are at a point right now where we must transform 
the Army to put us on a path to keep us at the overmatch we 
need. So what I am talking about, it is not just the six 
modernization priorities, which is the 31+4 systems. It is new 
doctrine. It is joint all-domain operations of how we are going 
to fight as a joint service. And I add a ``C'' to ``combined 
all-domain operations'' because we are going to fight with our 
allies and partners. It is new organizations we are building, 
like the Multi-Domain Task Force. It is going to give us long-
range precision effects, long-range precision fires, that we 
need to have to penetrate this anti-access/area denial 
capabilities developing. It is new ways we train. It is new 
ways that we bring things on board.
    And, more importantly, it is a 21st Century Talent 
Management System where we manage people and compete for people 
very differently.
    All of those things need to be done. And as we discuss 
this, people are going to say, well, the barracks aren't this 
or this. You know, we are trying to take the money we have and 
apply it so we are postured the best we can with the money we 
have been given for the future.
    Ms. Cheney. Well, I appreciate that, and I think that is a 
key point for the American people to understand, that you are 
doing the best you can, but at this moment our adversaries are 
not facing the same constraints.
    In a contested environment, General, today, do you think 
that the joint force would have dominance across the entire 
spectrum?
    General McConville. I do.
    Ms. Cheney. Because 2 years ago, in 2018, as the Army began 
to change the doctrine, there was testimony at that time that, 
in fact, then we would not have. But do you think that we have 
now increased our capacities and our capabilities, that they 
have improved since 2018?
    General McConville. I think we have. I think we are on a 
good path right now. I feel comfortable with the Army we have. 
I spent a lot of time talking to allies and partners and moving 
around, and I have fought with this Army, and I feel pretty 
comfortable that we are on the right path with the Army we 
have. And, again, I think where we are going is going to give 
us not the tenuous overmatch. I think it is going to give us 
significant overmatch that we need for the future.
    Ms. Cheney. Well, I would also just urge that we can't get 
to that significant overmatch if we don't have the resources, 
and time is not on our side.
    And I appreciated your comments about whole of government, 
but, again, I come back to the notion that the deterrence 
fundamentally requires that our adversaries understand we have 
the capability and the will, and that is the military 
capability and the will.
    And so, Secretary Wormuth, could you explain how you are 
thinking about deterrence in new ways? Because it seems pretty 
clear that being able to depend upon overmatch, being able to 
depend upon dominance across every domain isn't where we are 
headed with this budget. So what are the new ways that you are 
thinking about effective deterrence in that world?
    Secretary Wormuth. Congresswoman, I would say a couple of 
things. First of all, I think one, you know, area of overmatch 
that we have is our relationships with allies and partners.
    And, you know, I firmly believe that part of our deterrent 
is going to be signaling clearly that we have friends that 
China doesn't have in the theater, for example, who would be 
willing to be with us. And the Army has put a lot of emphasis 
and I think is well positioned to strengthen and thicken that 
network of relationships of allies and partners.
    I think another area that we need to work on and that we 
are working on with things like our artificial intelligence 
integration----
    Ms. Cheney. My time has expired, Secretary. I look forward 
to continuing that discussion. I think that there are no amount 
of allies that can substitute if we allow our adversaries to 
get ahead of us from a capability standpoint.
    The Chairman. The gentlelady's time has expired.
    Mr. Morelle is recognized for 5 minutes.
    I think you are still muted, Mr. Morelle. Could you try and 
unmute yourself?
    All right. Mr. Kim is recognized for 5 minutes.
    We will try and get back to Mr. Morelle.
    Mr. Kim. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to the two of 
you for coming on. It is great to see the both of you again.
    I wanted to start with you, Secretary Wormuth. About a week 
ago, a little over a week ago, there was an article in The 
Washington Post about hunger concerns in our military, 
particularly with regard to reservists saying that, you know, 
there are increasing data showing that there is hunger and food 
insecurity amongst our service members and their families.
    In that same article there was a spokesperson for the Guard 
that said that he was skeptical about the food insecurity 
census data and that he had not encountered service members who 
have complained of household hunger.
    So I guess I just wanted to kind of get a sense of how the 
Department of Defense and how you see this. Is this a problem 
that you are aware of or do you feel like it is something that 
is under control?
    Secretary Wormuth. Thank you, Congressman. And it is good 
to see you.
    I think, you know, this is not an area that I have been 
able to dig in extensively in terms of having a lot of 
analytical data, but certainly I have heard anecdotally some 
expressions of concern about food insecurity. And I think if 
you look at the--you know, our military families have suffered 
a lot of hardships during this past year with COVID, as have 
millions of Americans, and so it is entirely possible to me 
that there may be families, you know, with spouses who have 
lost their jobs, for example, that may be contributing to this.
    I think what we are trying to do for starters certainly is 
to make sure that we are providing educational resources to our 
soldiers and their families to help them with things like 
financial planning to make sure that they know what resources 
are available, to help them with food insecurity if they are 
struggling.
    Mr. Kim. Well, I appreciate your response and the way that 
you approached it because I think that this is something that 
clearly we all need to look into more and try and figure out 
what it is that we can understand. I mean, I look at the 
priorities, and your testimony is saying that your top 
priorities are about investing in people and sustaining 
readiness.
    And certainly I think, you know, investing in people and 
sustaining readiness, you know, starts with making sure that we 
have our service members and their families being able to have 
what they need to be able to be healthy.
    So I was a little alarmed by just the skepticism that was 
kind of laid out by that one spokesperson. So I would love to 
be able to continue to work on this because I can tell you from 
my end, we have indications and we have reports in my district 
of community service organizations needing to provide food 
assistance to dozens of service member families in my district 
and it has been getting worse.
    So this is something that I have been worried about for 
quite a few months, and I just feel like this is something that 
we need to address. I think we can all agree that no one in 
uniform should go hungry. I mean, I would love to say no one in 
America should go hungry. I think that is something as well 
that we recognize, but those that protect us.
    In that same vein, another thing that I would like to just 
get on your radar, may not be something you are tracking right 
at the forefront, but, you know, there is a piece of 
legislation that I am trying to work forward with my colleague, 
Trent Kelly, called The Healthcare for Our Troops Act, and if 
you don't mind, kind of take a look at this, but it is the same 
kind of approach.
    It is saying that right now we have over 120,000, if not 
more, Guard and reservists wearing a uniform that don't have 
healthcare, and that seems like a huge problem. That seems like 
a readiness issue.
    That seems like a problem in terms of just treating people 
with decency and especially those that are there to try and 
protect us. So I just wanted to get it on your radar and would 
love to be able to follow up with you.
    But I think you would agree, Secretary, that, again, anyone 
that wears a uniform should be able to have the food that they 
need, to be able to provide for their family, and certainly, 
when they are certainly putting themselves in harm's way, 
should have the healthcare that they need, too. Is that 
correct?
    Secretary Wormuth. Yes, Congressman. And as you know, you 
know, when our guardsmen, soldiers, men or women, are 
mobilized, you know, particularly for a length of time beyond 
30 days, I believe, they do qualify for healthcare insurance in 
that phase; but there are certainly some who, you know, if they 
don't have civilian employer coverage, healthcare can be a 
challenge. So that is certainly something I would like to look 
into with you.
    Mr. Kim. I think that is something that we can deliver for 
them and especially given what they have done. We look at what 
Guard and reservists have done over the last year, all the 
different mission sets we have been pushing them towards, so I 
would love to be able to work with you on that.
    Thank you so much.
    Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    The Chairman. Thank you.
    Votes have been called. Mr. Kim, could you do me a favor 
and stick around for like 5 minutes? I hate to do this 
publicly, but I have got to run and vote and come back. We need 
someone to run the committee. I will go and do that.
    Mr. Bacon, you are recognized for 5 minutes. I will be 
right back.
    Mr. Bacon. Thank you, Chairman, and thank you, Ranking 
Member. Madam Secretary and General McConville, you are both 
doing a great job today, so I appreciate your leadership.
    Most of my questions are directed to the general. First, on 
long-range fires, there is a need. China has an asymmetrical 
advantage. But I am a big believer, proponent for the B-21 and 
the Navy long-range fires. That is not to say there is not a 
place for the Army version here. My concern is housing and 
basing.
    Are we confident we can find countries in the INDOPACOM 
region that will take these weapon systems?
    General McConville. I think, Congressman, if we take a look 
around the world--and I don't want to get ahead of certain 
countries because their politics may not be such, but I know 
one country that a lot of people thought that we couldn't get 
troops into, and at one time, based on interests, we were 
500,000 troops there.
    So I think things can change, and what we are looking at is 
providing that option. There are some places where we certainly 
can get that capability as set, and then as far as the ability 
to actually base that, that is a discussion that we will have 
to have. But I don't want to get in front of some of our allies 
and partners, especially in this environment.
    Mr. Bacon. Well, I see a need, but I hate to see it 
undercut two other long-range capabilities that we know we can 
find basing for. But I just think that is the long pole in the 
tent and----
    General McConville. I would be glad to discuss it as part 
of another venue. I think it would be worthwhile to have that 
discussion.
    Mr. Bacon. Okay.
    General McConville. Because it is certainly worthy of 
discussion. And I think from a military standpoint, we should 
not limit ourselves to some of the options, especially when we 
are taking a look at what we see the future threat, at least 
from where I sit.
    Mr. Bacon. Well, I think multiple angles of attacking 
capability are needed, so I would be sympathetic.
    When it comes to Taiwan, what more can we do to improve 
deterrence there? Because day one of China attacking is a day 
too late. What we do now is deterrence.
    General McConville. Well, I think from a Taiwan standpoint, 
you know, them having the appropriate capabilities and 
capacities, it is a fairly large country. But, I mean, when you 
think about what--if I was to give them advice, anti-access/
area denial, how do you get that? You get that with an 
integrated air and missile defense capability, and you get that 
with some type of anti-amphibious capability, and I would make 
sure they had that.
    Mr. Bacon. I am totally with you, absolutely, and I think 
we have to work now to ensure they have access to these 
capabilities.
    Also, I just want to say I agree with your concerns about 
removing commanders' case disposition authority. I think--I am 
a five-time commander in the Air Force myself--having two chain 
of commands would create friction and concerns, I believe. I 
think it undermines the cohesion of a squadron. But if we are 
going to do it, we should limit it to Article 120 offenses. So 
can you elaborate on your proposal to make changes on a 3-day 
trial basis and why this would be beneficial to the force?
    General McConville. Three-day, I am not sure--are you 
talking about to the Secretary, Inhofe letter? Is that the one 
that you are----
    Mr. Bacon. Correct. Thank you.
    General McConville. I guess I am a believer in commanders. 
This certainly had an opportunity to give best military advice 
both to you all and to the Secretary of Defense, and there is 
going to be a position coming forward. I trust commanders.
    Commanders are going to implement these type of things. And 
at the same time there is going to be a decision made on what 
is the best way to get after that, and once that decision is 
made, since I have had my chance to give my best military 
advice, I will follow that decision.
    Mr. Bacon. Thank you. And I appreciate your position on it. 
As a five-time commander, I agree with you.
    Right now we are involved with Poland with the Enhanced 
Forward Presence mission there. I worry about the Baltics. I am 
the chairman of the Baltic Security Caucus. I think that is the 
most vulnerable area when it comes to NATO [North Atlantic 
Treaty Organization] and Russia. What more can we do to also 
improve deterrence from the Baltic states?
    Secretary Wormuth. Congressman, one thing I think we can 
do--and the Chief I think alluded to this a little bit in his 
discussion earlier about Special Forces--is really provide--you 
know, I think there is--we want the Baltics to present a 
deterrent to Russia, and I think part of what we can do in the 
Army is have our special operations forces work with the Baltic 
militaries to help them in terms of, you know, frankly, 
developing kind of potentially resistance, what I would call 
resistance capabilities.
    And I think the Balts can do that relatively inexpensively, 
but they would benefit I think quite a bit from our expertise 
and, you know, deep knowledge base with our Special Forces.
    Mr. Bacon. Let me just close and say we have rotating units 
going in and out of the Baltics.
    I would sure like to see a more permanent presence, if they 
are amenable to it, because I think it makes deterrence more 
assured if you are coming from the perspective of the Russians.
    But I am out of time, so I have to yield back.
    Thank you.
    Mr. Kim [presiding]. The gentleman yields back.
    We are going to turn it over to Mr. Morelle. Mr. Morelle, 
over to you.
    Mr. Morelle. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to 
the Secretary and general for being here, for your testimony, 
for your service to our country.
    Secretary Wormuth, I wanted to go back and follow up a 
little bit on a line of questioning my colleague, 
Representative Horsford, began with some time ago regarding 
weapons accountability. And having read some of the articles on 
this question, gun safety is critically important to all of us 
as Americans, and given the recent spike in violence, much of 
it with illegal weapons, I wanted to just follow up on the task 
force that you said the Army set up, and I look forward to 
tracking the progress and the recommended changes.
    It was a little concerning to me, I think there was a 
significant discrepancy in the number of missing weapons 
reported in the Associated Press articles versus what the task 
force has found. It was about a discrepancy of maybe 500 or 
more weapons. And I wondered if looking--first of all, just 
figure out whether the task force is going to look at that 
discrepancy and try to understand what has caused it and to 
look at the trends of the lost weapons, is the task force also 
addressing how to make sure that reported losses in the future 
are accurate?
    Secretary Wormuth. Thank you, Congressman.
    Yes, you are right. There is a discrepancy between the 
figure that the Associated Press has reported and what we are--
what we have found to date based on the documentation that the 
Army has available to it, and certainly we will look into that 
to understand the nature of that discrepancy. I am not 
intimately familiar with the records, if you will, that the 
Associated Press based its reporting on.
    But we will look into that, and we are certainly trying to, 
you know, use the most authoritative documentation that is 
available to the Army to keep track of this. And if there are 
systemic issues that arise, we will absolutely develop 
recommendations to address them, and I would be happy to 
discuss that with you at that time.
    Mr. Morelle. I appreciate that. And I would say that I 
think that the report suggests that they feel like the number 
that they have made may be undercounted, and it is certainly 
not just the Army. They acknowledge the other services as well.
    I appreciated hearing you say how trained soldiers are to 
be responsible and that the entire unit focuses on retrieval. 
The fact that the weapons are going missing, I am sure to you 
and to me and to most people who read the articles, is 
concerning. Is the task force considering changes in training 
to ensure greater accountability and reduced loss on the part 
of soldiers?
    Secretary Wormuth. Congressman, I don't think the task 
force has yet, you know, come to conclusions about what the key 
shortfalls are or, you know, areas that are problematic; but if 
our work reveals that we need to change or increase our 
training to make sure we have got accountability, we will do 
that.
    Mr. Morelle. Great.
    And I would just leave you with this, and I appreciate your 
candor and I recognize you are probably just getting into 
looking at the subject; but I am just hoping that we will 
certainly have accurate reporting, that there will be 
transparency.
    And, lastly, given the number of reported violent incidents 
around the country, some of them involving weapons that are 
being obtained from the military, I would certainly hope that 
we will have continued communication between the Army and the 
Congress about just the nature of the problem, what is being 
done, and whether or not we are able to make some inroads in 
addressing it.
    So thank you for your testimony, for all your good work. 
And I yield back to the chair.
    Mr. Kim. Next we are going to call on, if he is available, 
Representative Scott.
    Well, thank you so much.
    Right now, as you know, we are in the middle of votes, so 
we are certainly having a few members kind of scrounge around 
so--but I wanted to thank the two of you for coming here and 
for us to be able to have this conversation. It is so 
incredibly important as we are thinking through here some of 
our next steps and to make sure that we are giving our military 
the resources that they need to be as strong as they are.
    So appreciate your service there, and we are going to gavel 
out on this hearing.
    Thank you so very much.
    [Whereupon, at 1:28 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]     
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              WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING

                              THE HEARING

                             June 29, 2021

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              RESPONSE TO QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MR. WALTZ

    Secretary Wormuth. The Army has currently established gender-
neutral grading standards on the Army Combat Fitness Test (ACFT). The 
required number of repetitions or time limits for each event is exactly 
the same for men and women. Prior to considering other modifications, 
and before the final decision to fully implement the ACFT, we are 
accumulating further data across the Army, in all three components. The 
Army is collecting this data while awaiting a congressionally directed 
independent study as well.   [See page 41.]
      
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              QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING

                             June 29, 2021

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                  QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MR. GARAMENDI

    Mr. Garamendi. Secretary Wormuth and General McConville, I am 
concerned that the Army does not know when it is dependent on China for 
critical and irreplaceable components and materials. In particular, 
PCBs and other microelectronics are often sourced from China, or even 
assembled into components in China, without any need to report that 
fact to the Army or DOD. Are you comfortable with this situation, where 
3rd, 4th, or 5th tier subcontractors are making critical electronic 
components that enable next-generation Army systems, like IVAS and 
JADC2? Would you agree that understanding the extent of the problem is 
a key need for the Army in determining how resilient its systems are 
against foreign infiltration or disruption?
    Secretary Wormuth and General McConville. With regard to security 
risk, the Army has program protection plans in place to ensure that 
components are reviewed and tested prior to their inclusion in Army 
equipment, including electronic equipment. However, in addition to such 
efforts, we must continuously work to understand and assess the risk in 
our supply chain in order to further reduce risk. The microelectronics 
supply chain has become global in nature, driven by market forces to 
lower cost. The Department of Defense is less than 1% of the 
microelectronics demand and has therefore limited leverage to influence 
suppliers. To manage this risk, the Army is working with the Office of 
the Secretary of Defense to support the Interagency Defense 
Microelectronics Cross-Functional Team (DMCFT), which will address 
these issues in microelectronics. By using a whole of government 
approach, DMCFT will address the key microelectronics challenges to 
deliver capabilities for current and future missions. As an example, 
DMCFT will seek to ensure access to domestic fabrication, packaging, 
and testing facilities and the development of tools and capabilities 
for advanced supply chain analysis and integrity. It is also the 
intention of the DMCFT to understand current part usage, the risks 
associated with legacy components, and to develop digital engineering 
techniques to aid in the modernization of these legacy parts.
                                 ______
                                 
                  QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MRS. HARTZLER
    Mrs. Hartzler. Secretary Wormuth and General McConville, I am 
deeply concerned about the budget request for the procurement of Army 
ammunition, specifically the small and medium caliber account. The FY22 
President's Budget request reflects severe reductions in the budget 
request for the 5.56MM, 7.62MM, and .50 Caliber ammunition. The 
reductions from the FY21 enacted levels equate to reductions of 26%, 
28%, and 49% respectively, for an overall reduction of approximately 
30% in the small arms ammunition account.
    This is concerning to me because last year's FY22 FYDP reflected an 
increase for each of these accounts. I am concerned that these severe 
reductions will affect the overall readiness of our ground forces and 
severely handicap their ability to train and to fight. Additionally, 
the severity of these reductions will have an impact on the ability to 
sustain a workforce at the Lake City Ammunition Plant, the location 
where the Army plans to produce the 6.8mm ammunition for the Next 
Generation Squad Weapon. With these proposed cuts, the Army is risking 
losing an experienced workforce, which could take nine months to a year 
to restore.
    Why is the Army requesting such a large reduction from what was 
previous planned for small arms ammunition? What solutions are being 
considered within the Pentagon to mitigate risks to the health and 
resiliency of America's critical defense industrial support base?
    Secretary Wormuth and General McConville. The Army ammunition 
enterprise completed an extensive analysis determining our current 
levels of ammunition globally for small and medium caliber ammunition 
required to support the national strategy. In this process, the Army 
munitions requirements process identifies war reserve, training, and 
test munitions requirements as part of the Total Munitions 
Requirements. The Center for Army Analysis conducted modeling and 
simulation of the Combatant Command war plans to ensure their munitions 
needs are met. At this time, there is sufficient inventory of small and 
medium caliber ammunition to support COCOM requirements. Based on a 
comparison of the munitions requirement to the current and projected 
inventory, the Army was able to determine the funding levels necessary 
to maintain sufficient inventory to meet current requirements as well 
as the necessary funding required to replenish small and medium caliber 
consumption to meet future requirements. This process also took into 
consideration the organic industrial base by ensuring that the funding 
reductions to small and medium caliber ammunition maintained minimum 
sustainment rates, which will protect the critical production 
capabilities at the Lake City Ammunition Plant and other facilities.
                                 ______
                                 
                   QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. MOULTON
    Mr. Moulton. In the Department's budget justification documents, it 
clearly states that ``the Department is prioritizing China as the 
number one pacing challenge and has included the Pacific Deterrence 
Initiative to . . . bolster deterrence and maintain our competitive 
advantage.'' The Pacific Deterrence Initiative is a clear demonstration 
of the Department's commitment to matching and surpassing the threat of 
China. And if you look through the initiative, there are funding lines 
going to the Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, Missile Defense Agency, and 
others . . . but zero funding lines directly for the Army.
    Secretary Wormuth and General McConville, I think it's interesting 
that in one of the Department's most prominent initiatives for 
countering China, it did not see any role for the Army. Why should 
Congress continue to fund the Army at a steady rate when we all agree 
we need to focus on China, and the Department doesn't seem to think the 
Army plays a big role in that fight?
    Secretary Wormuth and General McConville. The Secretary of Defense, 
the Army, and the entire Department of Defense are committed to 
prioritizing China as the number one pacing threat. The FY 2022 Pacific 
Deterrence Initiative (PDI) justification book features a $5.1 billion 
subset of the Department's FY 2022 budget request in targeted 
investments for the Indo-Pacific region. Although Army investments and 
activities were not included in this PDI amount, DOD did approve $1.9 
billion within the Army top-line for continuing and expanding the Army 
commitment in the Indo-Pacific.
    The Army has had, and continues to play, a critical role in 
deterring Chinese aggression and in opening doors in the Indo-Pacific 
for both diplomatic and military-to-military engagement. Given the full 
scope of the challenges in the Indo-Pacific, the Army views the 
development of advanced, asymmetric capabilities and organizational 
capacity designed to operate in an anti-access/area denial environment 
as centrally important to Pacific deterrence. To expand and enhance the 
Army's commitment to the Indo-Pacific security environment, the Army 
has undergone a multi-year effort to develop the necessary structure to 
rapidly move forces into competition or conflict. The Army maintains a 
persistent presence with allies and partners through Security Force 
Assistance Brigade (SFAB) and Multi-Domain Task Force (MDTF) 
deployments, as well as through the establishment of a theater 
processing, exploitation, and dissemination center that improves 
critical intelligence and targeting capabilities. These Army formations 
and initiatives directly contribute to sustaining and deepening our 
alliances and partnerships in the Indo-Pacific, advancing the U.S. 
vision for a free and open, rules-based Indo-Pacific order and enabling 
collective responses to common challenges that undermine security and 
stability. Furthermore, the Army continues to provide forces that are 
resilient, ready, and postured to respond quickly and effectively 
against aggression in the region.
    Maintaining military readiness and promoting experimentation and 
innovation is a critical element of deterring aggression and preventing 
conflict. The Army actively executes theater-level joint exercises to 
do so, including two exercises this year as part of Defender Pacific 
2021. The first, Forager 21, a U.S. Army Pacific (USARPAC) exercise, 
tested the ability to flow land power forces into occupied territory 
through combined Army and Japanese Ground Self Defense Force airborne 
operations; integrated Army, Air Force, and Coast Guard elements; and 
experimented employment of the Army's Multi-Domain Task Force. The 
second exercise, Talisman Sabre 21, took place in the summer of 2021. 
Talisman Sabre is the largest bilateral combined training activity 
between the Australian Defense Force and the United States military. It 
exercised combined operations between the U.S., Australia, South Korea, 
Canada, Japan, New Zealand, and the UK. As part of this exercise the 
U.S. Army launched the first Patriot Interceptor from Australia. These 
activities, which are enabled by the Army's budget request, signal and 
emphasize the Army's commitment to the Indo-Pacific security 
environment and support to our allies and partners in the region.
    In addition to exercises, the Army's FY 2022 request supports 
increased readiness with requested funds for the Joint Pacific 
Multinational Readiness Center (JPMRC), an exportable Combat Training 
Center (CTC) system. This will enable USARPAC to ensure the readiness 
of two Brigade Combat Teams, as well as numerous other brigade-sized 
elements at home station in Alaska and Hawaii who must train, operate, 
and fight in either tropical jungle/archipelagic conditions or extreme 
cold/mountainous conditions. This capability is adapting how the Army 
generates, postures, trains and equips its forces for the Indo-Pacific 
and Arctic, while seeking smart efficiencies.
    Equally vital for the Indo-Pacific environment are Army theater 
support capabilities and a forward force posture that ensures 
resiliency. The funding requested allows the Army to expand the number 
of Army prepositioned stock locations in the theater, reducing 
strategic lift requirements and enabling rapid Army delivery of vital 
theater opening/port opening capabilities, logistics, munitions and 
medical sustainment stocks to the Joint Force from dispersed locations. 
Additionally, the Army will optimize Army Watercraft Systems (AWS)--
that facilitate joint operations in the INDOPACOM theater--in three 
ways: (1) increasing the ability to deliver supplies to remote island 
locations; (2) refurbishing and expanding AWS assets in the western 
Pacific, to include posting the Army's two newest Koruda Class 
Logistics Support Vessels (LSVs) in Japan; and (3) fielding new units 
in Japan and other strategic positions to pair transportation, ship-to-
shore connector vessels, and austere port management throughout the 
Indo-Pacific.
    To win in an Indo-Pacific theater contingency, the DOD must sustain 
and grow a lethal and resilient force able to protect the interests of 
the United States as well as our allies and partners. Continuing to 
modernize Army formations and capabilities while improving key theater 
support elements, ensures the Joint Force is best equipped, trained, 
and positioned to accomplish this in competition or conflict. The 
Army's FY 2022 budget, specifically the $1.9 billion tied to the Indo-
Pacific, supports Pacific Area of Responsibility training and 
operations, experimentation and innovation within the Army's signature 
modernization efforts, enhances interoperability, and enables 
sustainment and logistical support to key theater enabling units. To 
meet emerging challenges, the Army is transforming to provide the Joint 
Force with the speed, range, and convergence of cutting edge 
technologies that will generate the decision dominance and overmatch 
required to win the next fight; achievable with Congressional support 
through timely, adequate, predictable, and sustained funding.
    Mr. Moulton. Secretary Wormuth, I appreciated your opening 
statement and its emphasis on modernization for the Army. But it isn't 
enough to just buy new equipment: we also need to train our forces to 
use that equipment effectively with future warfighting environments in 
mind. We can buy all the unmanned ground and air vehicles we want, but 
it won't do us any good if deployed units don't know how to use them 
and haven't integrated them into their concepts of operation. Has the 
Army updated its training for enlisted ranks and officers to integrate 
new technologies that they will have to use in the future, like drones 
and AI-augmented equipment? Has the Army updated its education 
curriculums for officers to shape their decision-making in a way that 
accounts for new technologies like AI that will change the speed and 
complexity of their operating environments?
    Secretary Wormuth. Yes, the Army continuously updates training and 
professional military education to account for changes in technology 
and to prepare Soldiers and leaders to operate in complex environments. 
The Army is supporting the development and fielding of capabilities 
needed to train and educate the Army for Multi-Domain Operations (MDO). 
Emerging capabilities, such as cyber, space, and electronic warfare, 
are integrated into both home station training and training rotations 
at our Combat Training Centers (CTCs). To support the larger warfighter 
exercises used to train and develop leaders at the division, corps, and 
theater Army headquarters levels, the simulation capabilities are 
continually updated and includes cyber, electronic warfare, and space 
capabilities.
    Additionally, the Army is identifying those camps, posts, and 
stations that must be modernized for our Soldiers to maximize the 
employment of new technologies. These improvements include: (1) MDO and 
Mobile Protected Firepower capable range complexes, (2) upgraded CTC 
OPFOR capabilities that will not only test maneuver and fires, but also 
our ability to fight against electronic warfare, cyber, and degraded 
space operational environments, and (3) the implementation of the 
Synthetic Training Environment.
    Regarding improvements to the Army's professional military 
education (PME) program, the Command and General Staff College (CGSC) 
incorporates artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies 
into the curriculum, including during the capstone division-level 
tabletop exercise. Additionally, the newly developed Information 
Advantage Scholars program offers electives that explore AI, cyber, and 
other emerging technologies in greater depth. At the School for 
Advanced Military Studies (SAMS), students receive one lesson specific 
to AI, and they consider AI and other emerging technologies in general 
within their ``Future Operational Environment'' block of instruction. 
Additionally, conceptual and soon-to-be-fielded capabilities are 
inherent to the tabletop exercise design, so graduates can successfully 
employ the capabilities they will soon see within the force. Lastly, 
while company grade PME does not specifically address new technologies 
or AI, it does develop the fundamental critical and creative thinking 
skills required to effectively employ decision-making processes and 
includes content regarding the military implications of rapidly 
changing technology and an increasingly complex environment.
    Mr. Moulton. General McConville, as we hopefully reach the tail-end 
of COVID, it seems appropriate to think about its impact on the force 
and how we can be better prepared for the next biological threat. It's 
clear that COVID took a toll on operational readiness, and it seems 
unlikely that this is the last biothreat the force will face. I'm aware 
of various efforts, ranging from mass surveillance testing to biothreat 
detection equipment, that might improve future responses, but I'm 
concerned that DOD will neglect these potential solutions now that the 
immediate threat of COVID has passed. How does this year's budget 
prepare the Army for future biothreats, whether they come from 
unintentional or malicious sources?
    General McConville. The Army will continue to include biological 
threats (both naturally occurring and manmade) as a part of Army 
modernization. The FY22 Army budget request includes investment into 
vaccines, therapeutics, and drugs to close gaps where the Army cannot 
close them by other means. The Army has also recently published an Army 
Biological Defense Strategy (ABDS) to help focus Army efforts to 
maintain the Army's capability and capacity to accomplish its mission 
and ensure readiness in the face of biological hazards and threats. The 
Army recently added the considerations in the ABDS into the Army 
Modernization Strategy. The Army will continue to work closely with 
Defense-wide efforts to ensure that biological defense is prioritized 
in such a way to ensure that the capabilities are available to meet 
emerging threats.
                                 ______
                                 
                  QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. CARBAJAL
    Mr. Carbajal. Secretary Wormuth, the science and technology 
directorate is critical for the Army's ability to develop 
groundbreaking capabilities for the next generation of warfighting. 
However, I have concerns that the Army is willing to sacrifice 
investments in S&T in order to resource near-term investments and 
modernization priorities. The Army's University Affiliated Research 
Center, the Institute for Collaborate Biotechnologies, is located in my 
district at UCSB. The ICB conducts 6.1 basic research projects and used 
to receive funding for 6.2 applied research funding until FY2019. How 
will the Department further utilize Army UARCs for applied research 
projects? And more generally, how is this budget balancing needed 
research that will support long-term projects for short-term 
modernization projects?
    Secretary Wormuth. The Army maintains a science and technology 
(S&T) portfolio balanced between investment in near- and mid-term 
research aligned to the Army Modernization Priorities and investment in 
mid- and far-term research in technologies that will enable the next 
generation of military capability. Army funding for far-term basic 
research investments remains steady. Total Army S&T funding in the 
President's Budget Request (PBR) for Fiscal Year 2022 (FY22) is $2.7 
billion, approximately $100 million above PBR FY21. In the PBR for 
FY22, the Army specifically realigns 6.2 and 6.3 resources from near-
term research aligned to the 6 Modernization Priorities to mid- and 
far-term research into enabling technologies to lay the technological 
foundation for the future force. The Army's University Affiliated 
Research Centers (UARCs), including the Institute for Collaborative 
Biotechnologies (ICB), conduct innovative basic research aligned to the 
Army's Priority Research Areas. The Army is actively seeking 
opportunities to transition innovations from the UARCs into our 6.2 
applied research programs. Recent transition successes highlighted by 
the ICB include the large-scale Army production of protein-based 
materials emerging from basic research at the ICB, and transfer of 
biological additive manufacturing technologies and materials from the 
ICB to Army labs.
    Mr. Carbajal. General McConville, as the Space Force is being stood 
up, the services invested in the space domain are having to adjust. How 
is the Army working through reassignment of personnel and programs to 
the Space Force? What efforts do you envision remaining Army core 
competencies when it comes to the Space domain?
    General McConville. The Army is fully supporting the establishment 
of the Space Force. Currently, the Army is planning and executing the 
transfer of two critical space-related capabilities. The first is the 
wideband communications satellite payload planning and control 
function. The Army is conducting deliberate planning for the phased 
transfer of responsibility for this function. At transfer, the U.S. 
Space Force will assume responsibility for organization, training, and 
equipping this function, as well as presenting it to the U.S. Space 
Command for employment. Our priority and focus is to ensure the timely 
transfer of this capability without disrupting this important mission. 
The second transfer will be the theater missile warning and battlespace 
characterization function with its associated military authorizations. 
This is currently in the initial planning phase. Additionally, the Army 
assigned and detailed 21 officers and two civilians to the Office of 
the Chief of Space Operations to assist in creating and establishing 
the Space Force service headquarters and operational structure. The 
Army also developed and published an InterService Transfer Policy for 
Regular Army Enlisted Service Members to transfer to the Space Force, 
to help provide manning support, as required, from all ranks and 
specialties. The Army and the Chief of Space Operations have agreed 
that the Army will retain groundbased space control capabilities, which 
are essential for success in Multi-Domain Operations. The Army will 
retain its core space expertise in our Space Cadre, consisting 
primarily of Army Space Operations Officers, which is a career field 
that Army officers can choose after initial assignments in other basic 
branches. The Army will continue research, development, testing, and 
experimentation with space-enabled capabilities focused specifically on 
supporting Army requirements.
                                 ______
                                 
                  QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. GALLAGHER
    Mr. Gallagher. Secretary Wormuth, during your confirmation hearing, 
you called out long-range precision fires as your #1 modernization 
priority. How do the Army's Mobile Medium Range Missile and Precision 
Strike Missile contribute to the Army's plan in light of threats from 
China and Russia, and what would be the consequence if these programs 
went unfunded?
    Secretary Wormuth. After a detailed analysis of our peer 
competitors across the globe against our existing capability gaps, we 
have identified Long Range Precision Fires as a vital modernization 
priority. To alleviate those gaps and in coordination with the Navy and 
Air Force, the Army determined the need for hypersonic weapons, mid-
range capable weapons, and a deep strike missile. The Army's Mid-Range 
Capability (MRC) and Precision Strike Missile (PrsM) contributes to the 
joint fight by providing the Combatant Commander with a maritime strike 
and deep fires capability. The MRC complements the Long Range 
Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW) and provides the Joint Force commander 
additional capability against maritime and littoral targets. The PrSM 
first complements, then ultimately replaces, the Army Tactical Missile 
(ATACMS), providing theater and corps commanders the ability to shape 
the deep fight in large scale combat operations. The PrSM will evolve 
to have a maritime strike capability, enabling the Army's ability to 
deny opponents access to the sea lanes. The loss of program funding for 
these weapons will impact the Army's ability to compete, and win, in 
multiple theaters including the Pacific.
    Mr. Gallagher. General McConville, I am concerned by the Army's 
decision to terminate out the Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck 
Extended Service Program (HEMTT ESP) modernization program in the face 
of significant requirements across all three components of the Army for 
this essential combat enabling program. Given the important role these 
vehicles play for our National Guard and Reserve forces, and that we 
may have to rely on the Guard and Reserve more in the future, I have a 
hard time understanding the program termination. General McConville, do 
you agree that the HEMTT A4 fleet is an important enabler to support 
Brigade Combat Team formations?
    General McConville. The Army fully recognizes the important role 
that the Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck plays in Brigade Combat 
Team formations. Currently, the Army has 100% of its HEMTT requirement 
on-hand and over 70% of the HEMTT fleet has been modernized to the A4 
configuration. Earlier this year, we started a comprehensive study of 
our tactical wheeled vehicle fleet in support of Multi-Domain 
Operations. The results of that study will inform future HEMTT 
modernization requirements.
    Mr. Gallagher. General, I am also concerned about the Army's 
failure to maintain a stable industrial base for tactical wheeled 
vehicles. The rapid shifts in funding for programs like the JLTV and 
others make it hard for the small businesses that support this 
industrial base to stay in business. Given the importance of a strong, 
stable industrial base in that can surge capacity in the event of war, 
how does the Army determine the breaking point of an industrial base 
that could be called upon at any minute to ramp up production or 
restart from a production break?
    General McConville. The Army's Tactical Wheeled Vehicle (TWV) fleet 
is a critical enabler for the Army's employment of lethal and non-
lethal capabilities in all formations. Funding requests are balanced 
against the Army's modernization efforts, aligned with the National 
Defense Strategy. The Army monitors the TWV industrial base through 
periodic engagements with industry partners, industrial base 
assessments, and other methods. The Army mitigates risk by maintaining 
a warm TWV industrial base to support ongoing modernization and 
readiness.
                                 ______
                                 
                   QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. KEATING
    Mr. Keating. General McConville mentioned the importance of allies 
and partners. Secretary Wormuth mentioned supply chain issues that the 
Covid pandemic highlighted.
    What plans beyond our domestic supply chain does the Army have for 
a second ring for an allied supply chain network?
    Secretary Wormuth and General McConville. The challenges of global 
supply chains require the Army to actively work with our allies to 
mitigate risks in the availability and cost of items. Leveraging of our 
National Technology and Industrial Base partners (Australia, Canada, 
and the United Kingdom) and other close allies allows us to broaden our 
access to components and spread the demand over a large base to ensure 
ready production capacity. This approach ensures that the U.S. has 
access to the best technology while strengthening our relationship with 
partner nations.
    Mr. Keating. Regarding the changes to Defender Europe's scheduled 
exercises, how have our allies reacted to this change? What 
modifications have occurred in our training procedures?
    Secretary Wormuth and General McConville. During the onset of 
COVID, impacts to allies and partner nations supporting DEFENDER 22 
varied based on their internal COVID-19 control measures. However, our 
allies and partner nations are now able to participate in the scheduled 
exercises. DEFENDER 22 will employ Army, Joint Forces, allies, and 
partner forces to exercise the Persistent Training Environment in 
Europe (PTE-E); all exercise and training objectives will be met.
                                 ______
                                 
                    QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. GAETZ
    Mr. Gaetz. Given the difficulty of supporting large civilian 
populations with comparatively small NG force structure in certain 
States/territories, why does NGB refuse to consider guardsmen-to-
citizen ratios when allocating new, or re-allocating existing, force 
structure?
    Secretary Wormuth and General McConville. The National Guard Bureau 
follows Department of Defense, Army, and Air Force guidance and 
processes in determining force structure size, mix, and allocation. The 
National Guard Bureau does not explicitly consider the size of a 
state's population in determining where to allocate force structure; 
however, it does consider the ability to recruit and the propensity to 
serve, which indirectly accounts for population size. A metric 
considering strict population size without consideration of potential 
for recruitment could result in a force structure that could not be 
sustained in the state.
    Mr. Gaetz. Given the fact that some States/territories are forced 
to use their NG troops for domestic response year after year much more 
than others, why doesn't NGB consider historical domestic operations 
tempo data when deciding on force structure apportionment to help 
``disaster-prone'' States relieve this strain?
    Secretary Wormuth and General McConville. The primary consideration 
for National Guard capabilities is its federal mission as the combat 
reserve for the Army. The Army National Guard allocates its portion of 
the total Army force structure based on demographics, supportability, 
and suitability, as well as the need to balance the allocation of 
capabilities by echelon across the 54 states, territories, and the 
District of Columbia. Disaster-prone states also have the option to 
raise state militias to focus solely on the Governor's domestic 
response needs in order to relieve strain on the Army National Guard 
formations.
                                 ______
                                 
                    QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. WALTZ
    Mr. Waltz. As States voluntarily divest force structure, will the 
National Guard Bureau, amongst its criteria for force structure 
rebalance decisions, consider domestic up-tempo missions and population 
growth, to relieve the strain on recruitment and retention on State 
Guard formations?
    Secretary Wormuth and General McConville. If states should 
voluntarily divest force structure, the Army National Guard will 
allocate force structure based on demographics, supportability, 
suitability, and a balanced allocation of capabilities by echelon 
across the 54 states, territories, and the District of Columbia. These 
considerations are driven by the National Guard's primary purpose as 
the combat reserve of the Army. Governors also have the option to raise 
state militias to focus solely on the domestic response needs to 
relieve strain on the Army National Guard formations.
    Mr. Waltz. The Colonial Pipeline incident demonstrated how 
adversaries can hit the homeland and affecting entire regions. The 
lines between Federal and State missions are becoming increasingly 
blurry. How can the National Guard Bureau better define ``Homeland 
Defense'' when it comes the Federal and State response missions?
    Secretary Wormuth and General McConville. The lines between federal 
and state missions are becoming increasingly blurred, especially within 
the competition environment that is short of conflict. The National 
Guard Bureau has a critical role within the Department of Defense to 
address incidents that straddle federal and state jurisdiction. The 
National Guard Bureau will coordinate with the Department of Defense to 
better define the term ``Homeland Defense,'' and its relationship to 
state response missions.
                                 ______
                                 
                   QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. VEASEY
    Mr. Veasey. The Army has repeatedly stated that long range 
precision fires (LRPF) is the number one modernization priority. 
However, the necessary sensing platforms are not properly funded or 
prioritized right now. In order to execute the LRPF mission, an 
airborne deep sensing capability that will carry both radar and signals 
intelligence and will have the range to meet the global requirements 
while operating a minimal fleet size must also be funded and 
prioritized. This platform is the High Altitude Detection and 
Exploitation System or HADES. Funding was provided in FY21 in the 
EMARRS line with the intent to fund this capability as HADES and 
additional funding is still being put against platforms that cannot 
meet the requirements for global range and multi intelligence. What are 
you doing to accelerate HADES as the solution to meet the requirement 
for deep sensing to support long range precision fires?
    Secretary Wormuth. The Army is pursuing a robust approach that will 
accelerate the fielding of HADES and drive-down the programmatic and 
operational risks associated with multi-intelligence Army ISR 
capability development. In August 2020, the Army Requirements Oversight 
Council approved the abbreviated requirements document for HADES. 
However, the Army's Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance 
(ISR) Task Force is currently utilizing contractor-owned prototypes to 
conduct a variety of technology demonstrations and Soldier touchpoints 
in the Pacific and European theaters. Additionally, we continue to 
exercise these surrogate systems in Army Futures Command-led 
experiments, such as EDGE-21, Global Defender, and Project Convergence. 
In FY22, the Army will expand on these essential experimental efforts 
to refine the final HADES capability requirements, maximize competition 
in the industrial-base, and reduce cost escalation for the follow-on 
program of record. We are working with our joint partners to ensure the 
Army's future investments in sensing platforms are fully aligned with 
the strategic aims of the Joint Warfighting Concept and responsive to 
the specific collection requirements levied by forward-deployed Army 
and Joint Commanders.
                                 ______
                                 
                    QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. BROWN
    Mr. Brown. The Future Vertical Lift aircraft are an important 
component of the Army's modernization strategy and will bring needed 
speed, range, and maneuverability when it is fielded. While the 
aircraft capabilities are vital, the aircraft alone does not constitute 
a weapons system and does not provide overmatch capability against a 
peer-threat and we must have an acquisition plan for the associated 
sensors as well. What is the Army's timeline to plan to fund, develop, 
and procure advanced mission sensors to integrate into rotorcraft 
weapon systems? Additionally, FLRAA is the most expensive program in 
the portfolio and is a few months from a final RFP release. How will 
the Army's Final FLRAA RFP address the total weapon system needed to 
fight and win in the peer near-peer conflict?
    Secretary Wormuth. The FY22 Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft 
(FLRAA) competitive contract award to a single vendor will encompass 
the development, prototyping, flight test, and fielding of the FLRAA 
weapons system, not just the air vehicle. The Future Attack 
Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA) and FLRAA programs are working in 
conjunction to maximize mission equipment commonality, while optimizing 
performance for each aircraft's unique mission and design. Both 
programs utilize the Future Vertical Lift (FVL) architecture framework 
of standards and interfaces, enabling future mission systems 
commonality and adaptability. The FVL architecture provides the basis 
for rapid hardware and software upgrades as the threat evolves.
    To address the total FLRAA weapon system cost, the Request for 
Proposals (RFP) maximizes competition, which allows the Army to 
negotiate for competitively priced options and critical intellectual 
property. In constructing the RFP, the Army consistently communicated 
FLRAA's requirements to both Bell and Sikorsky-Boeing, incorporating 
their feedback to improve the final RFP. The final FLRAA RFP was 
released on 6 July 2021. The Army believes the resulting contract will 
produce a weapon system that will contribute heavily in competition and 
potential conflict.
    Mr. Brown. The FARA and FLRAA mission equipment strategies have 
taken two different approaches, even though their schedules are very 
close. How is the Army creating synergies between the two platforms and 
assessing ways to maximize the benefits of commonality in mission 
systems? What is the projected budget required for the mission systems 
for FARA and FLRAA over what would have been the FYDP if it was 
delivered?
    Secretary Wormuth. The FARA and FLRAA programs are working in 
conjunction to maximize mission equipment commonality, while optimizing 
performance for each aircraft's unique mission and design. Both 
programs utilize the Future Vertical Lift (FVL) architecture framework 
of standards and interfaces, enabling future mission systems 
commonality and adaptability. The FVL architecture provides the basis 
for rapid hardware and software upgrades as the threat evolves. 
Further, the FVL ecosystem includes the use of a Modular Open Systems 
Approach (MOSA). MOSA ensures that the design of each aircraft is 
modular, specifies key/critical interfaces, and utilizes consensus 
based upon standards. MOSA increases industry's business opportunities 
and reduces the Government's dependence on single sources for numerous 
hardware and software components. Lastly, the Army is pursuing ``leap-
ahead'' technologies for FVL through a disciplined approach. Achievable 
and affordable technologies inform all FVL requirements documents. 
Recent Congressional Budget Office and Center for Strategic and 
International Studies reports provide indication that the Army's 
timeline and plans for FARA and FLRAA are affordable.
    FARA and FLRAA analyses, demonstrations, risk reduction, and 
prototyping efforts will inform future budgets. The Army is committed 
to keeping Congress updated on these efforts. Procurement requirements 
will initially align to support the Army's First Unit Equipped target 
of FY 2030 and will be informed by the vendors' performance throughout 
developmental testing. The Army remains committed to the long-term 
affordability of both FARA and FLRAA. This commitment includes goals 
and caps on Average Procurement Unit Cost and Operations and 
Sustainment costs, which really serve as the long-term measures of 
affordability. The Army is committed to transparency regarding the FARA 
and FLRAA programs, and will provide further information at appropriate 
junctures, understanding the current Administration's ongoing efforts 
regarding National Security and Defense Strategies.
    Mr. Brown. Secretary Wormuth, what is the sensor architecture for 
Long Range Precision Fires (LRPF) and how is this capability being 
integrated into the modernization effort? How does organic ISR 
capability within the Army affect the operational effectiveness of 
LRPF?
    Secretary Wormuth. The sensor architecture for Army Long Range 
Precision Fires (LRPF) is one portion of the joint sensor architecture. 
The Army's Tactical Intelligence Targeting Access Node (TITAN) will 
receive intelligence data from surface, air, and space sensors from 
multiple systems operating in all Services. TITAN will then quickly 
produce actionable target information and relay that information to 
command and control systems that will generate and transmit the Fire 
Mission to a specific shooter. The Army is focusing on this 
architecture in our Project Convergence series, reducing total response 
time from target identification to fires launch from minutes to 
seconds. The network is the critical element of the Army's fires 
architecture. Organic ISR capabilities within Army forces enrich the 
joint force's intelligence picture and reduce the potential for single 
points of failure within the joint force. All elements of the joint 
force, not just Army forces, benefit from Army organic ISR 
capabilities, just as Army forces benefit from other Service, and even 
multinational, ISR capabilities. Organic ISR forces also enable Army 
forces to find and neutralize critical targets that may not be 
supportable by limited national-level or other Service ISR 
capabilities.
    Mr. Brown. General McConville, it's critical that the Army is 
equipped with the platforms and capabilities it needs to meet the 
pacing threats of China and Russia. Investing in Army modernization 
priorities will not only deter these competitors but also ensure 
overmatch in potential future conflicts. What capabilities does the 
Army need in the Indo-Pacific that are similar to the capabilities it 
has in Europe, and how are they different? What are the Army's 
projected force structure requirements for airborne deep sensing ISR 
capabilities and how are you balancing the competing demands of near 
peer/A2AD conflict in the two separate theaters of the IndoPacific and 
in Europe?
    General McConville. The Army requires Multi-Domain Operations 
(MDO)-enabled capabilities, including at the division level, in Brigade 
Combat Teams (BCTs), and with enablers. In addition, the Army requires 
MDO enabled long range fires, cyber, and air defense capabilities in 
both theaters. Looking ahead at projected force structure, the Army is 
studying layered, multiintelligence, cross-service options for the 
optimal mix of manned and unmanned systems arrayed at echelon from 
Theater (MDTF) to the Tactical (BCT) hosting a variety of MDOaligned 
aerial and non-aerial ISR capabilities. The Army is balancing competing 
demands of near peer/A2AD conflict in separate theaters by prioritizing 
investments in capabilities suitable for use against multiple threats, 
including long range fires, air defense, cyber, electronic warfare, 
network, and Soldier lethality.
                                 ______
                                 
                    QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MRS. BICE
    Mrs. Bice. I understand that the Army is not assembling the 
Extended Range Cannon Artillery at Elgin, OK, but instead the program 
is currently utilizing Army organic depots/arsenals for assembly of the 
early prototypes. Earlier this spring, the Program Manager in an on-
line forum (Michigan Defense Exposition) identified that that ERCA will 
be a two-part acquisition approach beyond these initial prototypes with 
the first competition to validate the US Army designed/built prototypes 
and the 2nd competition to select a vendor to build/assemble and 
integrate ERCA kits onto a recently built M109A7 PIM howitzer. I 
understand that the first part of that strategy (validate design) was 
recently published by the Army as a Market Survey.
    Could you please verify whether this is in fact the approved Army 
acquisition strategy?
    If so, how does this two-part acquisition strategy support GEN 
McConville's testimony to field a battalion set in 2023 and the second 
battalion set in 2024 in light of the Government Accounting Office 
(GAO) May 2021 report that identified an 8 month schedule slip to the 
ERCA program ``due to COVID, technology risks and technology immaturity 
of 6 of the 8 key technologies for ERCA success''?
    How does this acquisition plan, tied to the PIM production 
reductions in this budget request affect expected work at Elgin, OK?
    Secretary Wormuth and General McConville. The Extended Range Cannon 
Artillery (ERCA) rapid prototyping strategy is a direct reflection of 
the Army's intent to field a battalion set in 2023 by providing 18 ERCA 
prototypes (one battalion) at the end of Fiscal Year 2023 (FY23) for a 
one-year operational assessment throughout FY24. This timeline already 
accounts for COVID-19 impacts and technology maturity issues. The 
organic industrial base is building the rapid prototype systems and 
commercial vendors are supplying some of the prototype components. For 
the final production configuration, ERCA will transition from a rapid 
prototyping effort to a traditional acquisition program. The production 
strategy is in development to support fielding the first production 
vehicles to the operational test unit in FY25 and will not affect the 
ongoing Self-Propelled Howitzer Paladin Integrated Management (PIM) 
production. The risk of impacts to the BAE facility at Elgin, Oklahoma 
due to decreased funding for base PIM production is being assessed.

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