[Senate Hearing 117-]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE APPROPRIATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR 2023
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TUESDAY, MAY 3, 2022
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations,
Washington, DC.
The committee met at 10 a.m. in room SD-192, Dirksen Senate
Office Building, Hon. Jon Tester (chairman) presiding.
Present: Senators Tester, Durbin, Leahy, Feinstein, Murray,
Schatz, Baldwin, Collins, Murkowski, Graham, Blunt, Hoeven, and
Boozman.
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
Office of the Secretary of Defense
STATEMENT OF HON. LLOYD J. AUSTIN III, SECRETARY OF
DEFENSE
opening statement of senator jon tester
Senator Tester. Let me begin by welcoming our witnesses
Secretary Austin and General Milley. Your presence here today
could not be more timely, and we appreciate your willingness to
meet with us this morning.
This hearing is intended to focus on the President's budget
request for fiscal year 2023, but we would be remiss if we did
not take this opportunity to receive an update on the situation
in Ukraine, especially given your recent trip to Kyiv, Mr.
Secretary.
Last week the Administration submitted a $33 billion
appropriations request for additional assistance to Ukraine,
which includes $16.4 billion for the Department of Defense, and
I'll have a few questions about that.
But with respect to the fiscal year 2023 budget request, I
am first and foremost interested in hearing how this budget
builds on previously enacted appropriations to ensure America's
continued military advantage in light of near-peer competition
from China.
Let me be clear. China continues to be the pacing threat.
They're watching us closely, waiting to see if we can actually
walk and chew gum at the same time. Whether it is Chinese
nuclear force expansion, development of space capabilities, or
cyber activities, they are working hard to catch up to us.
So I am encouraged by the Department's continued commitment
to modernization and development of new technologies. The
budget request before us includes a record high amount for
research and development, $130 billion, which is almost a $10
billion increase over last year's levels. However, your request
for procurement is essentially flat when compared to last year.
So we have to wonder when the investments in modernization are
going to show up as fielded capabilities for our troops.
On the flip side of the equation, this budget also proposes
to retire platforms that are deemed no longer necessary for the
future fight. Some of these proposals are controversial. So we
hope you can provide the strategic and operational context for
these proposals.
Of course, we acknowledge that the world is drastically
different from just 1 year ago. The impact of the pandemic on
global supply chains and workforce in both the Defense and
commercial industrial bases are widely felt.
Further, Russia's brutal invasion of Ukraine has impacted
global supply chains and markets across the board, driving up
fuel prices and creating uncertain markets.
So the affordability of the budget as proposed, in other
words, are you going to be able to afford what you think you
can? As well as the ability of industry to deliver for our
troops in a timely manner are very real questions that this
committee is going to wrestle with.
We cannot afford to waste time or money to ensure that
we're getting our troops what they need to do their jobs at the
right time and at the right cost.
Once again, I want to thank the witnesses for the testimony
they're about to give. I look forward to hearing from you both.
As you can see, Senator Shelby is ill today. So he is not going
to be here.
[The statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of Senator Richard C. Shelby
Thank you Mr. Chairman.
Secretary Austin and General Milley, welcome back to the
Subcommittee.
The Department's request seeks $761 billion, a 4.6 percent increase
over fiscal year 2022 appropriations.
In most years, that sort of increase would be within a range
sufficient to maintain readiness and modernize the force.
Regrettably, we are also experiencing the highest level of
inflation in this country in 40 years.
In a fiscal environment with 8.5 percent inflation, the
Department's budget request equates to a cut to our national defense at
a time of unprecedented security risks.
I have to say that I am a bit confused and more than concerned by
this somewhat anemic request.
Ukraine is entering its third month of repelling the Russian
invasion. Putin's actions have created the largest humanitarian crisis
in modern Europe while his forces attempt to consolidate their
territorial gains in eastern Ukraine.
At the same time, North Korea is testing missiles reportedly
capable of carrying nuclear warheads.
Iran continues its own pursuit of a nuclear weapon, while also
arming radical militia groups across the Middle East.
And let's not forget China as it continues to build military
capability and capacity at an unprecedented pace. Chinese defense
spending rose 7.1 percent in 2022. Their defense budgets have seen as
high as 12 percent annual growth at points over the past decade.
Meanwhile, the Department's budget request seeks to execute a
``divest to invest'' strategy which potentially could shrink our
combat-credible forces by 24 ships and 150 aircraft.While I appreciate
the need to retire certain platforms and modernize our forces for the
2030 fight, we still have a majority of this decade immediately before
us, and I am deeply concerned that we are short-changing near-term
readiness for future modernization.
Given today's increasingly complex security environment, we should
not and cannot sacrifice one for the other.
I have said many times that the primary responsibility of our
Federal government is the defense of the nation.
I am growing increasingly concerned that years and years of
misplaced spending priorities may leave us incapable of meeting both
current and future threats.
Personally, I hope we can pick up in fiscal year 2023 where we left
off in 2022, with an increase--above the President's request--to assure
the adequate defense of our nation.
That will require proper levels of investment to assure our
superiority for generations to come.
I look forward to better understanding how this year's defense
budget sets us on a path to that goal.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Tester. So we'll just go right straight to you,
Secretary Austin.
SUMMARY STATEMENT OF HON. LLOYD J. AUSTIN III
Secretary Austin. Good morning, Chairman Tester and the
Distinguished Members of the Committee,
I thank you for the chance to testify today in support of
the President's budget request for fiscal year 2023.
Mr. Chairman, we're still focused on three key priorities
at the Department of Defense, defending our Nation, taking care
of our people, and succeeding through teamwork, and our budget
request helps us meet each one of those priorities.
Our budget seeks more than $56 billion for air power
platforms and systems and more than $40 billion to maintain our
dominance at sea, including buying nine more battle force
ships, and almost $13 billion to support and modernize our
combat-credible forces on land.
Our budget also funds the modernization of all three legs
of the Nuclear Triad to ensure that we maintain a safe, secure,
and effective strategic deterrent.
Of course, none of these capabilities matter much without
our people and their families. So we're seeking your support
for a 4.6 percent pay raise for our military and civilian
personnel and other special pay and benefits.
We also plan to invest in outstanding and affordable
childcare and the construction of on-base child development
centers and in ensuring that all our families can always put
good and healthy food on the table.
We're also deeply focused on the terrible problem of
suicide in the U.S. military. So we're increasing access to
mental health care, expanding telehealth capacities, and
fighting the tired-old stigmas against seeking help.
With your support, I've just ordered the establishment of
an independent review committee to help us grapple with
suicide, to better understand it, to prevent it, and to treat
the unseen wounds that lead to it.
At the same time, we're working hard to implement the
recommendations of the Independent Review Commission on Sexual
Assault. We know that we have a long way to go to rid ourselves
of this scourge. Our budget seeks nearly $480 million to do
just that.
This is a leadership issue and you have my personal
commitment to keep leading.
You're also seeing how much our leadership matters when it
comes to Ukraine. Just last week I convened the first meeting
of what is now the Contact Group on Ukrainian Security, a group
of defense leaders from around the world committed to
supporting Ukraine after Russia's unprovoked and unjust
invasion.
Now that gathering sent a powerful signal that nations of
goodwill are intensifying their efforts to help Ukraine better
defend itself, and with the help of Congress, the United States
has been able to deliver security assistance to Ukraine with
unprecedented speed and resolve and that has made a huge
difference on the ground.
President Zelensky made that clear when I met him in Kyiv
along with Secretary of State Blinken just over a week ago.
Even before Putin started his war of choice, we provided
Ukraine with a billion dollars' worth of weapons and gear
through presidential drawdown authority and since Russia's
invasion, the United States has committed some $3.7 billion to
Ukraine, but the war is changing and the coming weeks will be
crucial.
Our goal is to help get the Ukrainians the capability that
they need most right now in the Donbas and in the South.
Now as you know, the President has nearly exhausted the
drawdown authority that Congress approved in March. So last
week he submitted to you a $33 billion supplemental request
which will help us continue to meet Ukraine's urgent
requirements without interruption.
Specifically, we are requesting, as you pointed out, Mr.
Chairman, $16 billion for the Department of Defense, which
includes $5 billion of additional drawdown authority, $6
billion more for the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative,
and another $5 billion for critical investments and to help
cover the operational cost of bolstering NATO's (North Atlantic
Treaty Organization) Eastern Flank.
I want to thank you for your strong leadership toward our
shared goal of helping Ukraine defend itself and supporting
NATO. I hope the Congress will quickly approve this
supplemental.
Now let me briefly mention a couple of other major efforts
that the department is focused on. As you know, the
department's pacing challenge remains countering aggression and
bullying from China. So this budget invests some $6 billion in
the Pacific Deterrence Initiative and in keeping with our new
National Defense Strategy, we're going to enhance our force
posture, our infrastructure, our presence, and our readiness in
the Indo-Pacific, including the missile defense of Guam.
At the same time, we must be prepared for threats that pay
no heed to borders from pandemics to climate change and we must
tackle the persistent threats posed by North Korea, Iran, and
global terrorist groups.
So I'm proud that our budget seeks more than a $130 billion
for research, development, testing, and evaluation, the largest
R&D request this department has ever made.
This includes $1 billion for artificial intelligence, $250
million for 5G, nearly $28 billion for space capabilities, and
another $11 billion to protect our networks and develop a
cyber-mission force.
Mr. Chairman, this budget maintains our edge but it does
not take that edge for granted, and for the President's budget
and with the help of this committee, we will continue to defend
this Nation, take care of our people, and support our allies
and partners.
Thank you and I look forward to your questions.
[The statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of Lloyd J. Austin III
Chairman Tester, Vice Chairman Shelby, Chairman Leahy,
distinguished members of the Committee:
Thank you for the opportunity to testify in support of the
President's Department of Defense budget request for fiscal year (FY)
2023.
On behalf of myself, Deputy Secretary Hicks, the leadership of the
Department of Defense, and the men and women of our Department and
their families, let me also thank you for the support that Congress
continues to provide. Thank you also to the Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, General Milley, who is testifying alongside me and is
a critical partner in realizing the Department's priorities.
The President's $773 billion defense budget request would provide
the Department of Defense with the resourcing we need to address the
threats that America faces and to advance the Department's four key
strategic priorities: to defend the homeland, deter strategic attacks,
deter aggression while being prepared to prevail in conflict when
necessary, and build a resilient Joint Force and defense ecosystem. As
always, the Department is determined to match resources to strategy,
strategy to policies, and policies to the will of the American people.
For more than seven decades, American vision and leadership have
been pillars of international peace and prosperity. A strong,
principled, and adaptive U.S. military remains central for U.S.
leadership in the 21st century as we face dramatic geopolitical,
technological, economic, and environmental changes. The Department
stands ready to meet these challenges and seize opportunities with the
confidence, creativity, and commitment that have long characterized our
military and the democracy that it serves.
We face rapidly evolving military capabilities on the part of our
competitors, accelerated by emerging technologies and intensified by
the potential for new threats to strategic stability and the U.S.
homeland. We also face an escalation of our competitors' coercive and
malign activities in the ``gray zone,'' as well as transboundary
challenges that impose new demands on the Joint Force and the Defense
enterprise. Our competitors seek to exploit our perceived
vulnerabilities, including by developing conventional and nuclear
capabilities that pose all-domain threats to the United States and
could jeopardize the U.S. military's ability to project power and
counter aggression.
The People's Republic of China (PRC) is the Department's pacing
challenge due to its coercive and increasingly aggressive efforts to
refashion the Indo-Pacific region and the international system to suit
its interests and preferences. The PRC has expanded and modernized
nearly every aspect of the People's Liberation Army (PLA), including
its conventional forces and nuclear capabilities, with a focus on
offsetting U.S. military advantages. The PRC seeks to fragment U.S.
alliances and security partnerships in the Indo-Pacific region, and the
PRC's leaders hope to leverage their economic influence and the PLA's
growing military strength to coerce China's neighbors and threaten
their vital national interests. The PLA is also rapidly advancing and
integrating its space, counter-space, cyber, electronic, and
information-warfare capabilities to support its holistic approach to
joint warfare.
As we have seen in recent weeks, Russia also remains an acute
threat, requiring close and sustained coordination across the NATO
alliance to prevent further aggression in Europe. Russia's flagrant
attack on its peaceful, sovereign, and democratic neighbor, Ukraine,
poses a huge challenge to transatlantic security. Russia's nuclear
capabilities also pose significant challenges now and in the future.
While the PRC and then Russia pose the greatest challenges to U.S.
security, we must also remain vigilant against other dangers. We face
persistent threats from North Korea, with its nuclear arsenal and
developing missile capability, and Iran, with its nuclear ambitions and
support for proxy groups that threaten the security of our forces and
our allies, partners, and interests in the Middle East.
Meanwhile, other threats persist. We have degraded the capabilities
of global terrorist groups--including al-Qa'ida and ISIS--but some may
be able to reconstitute in short order. The whole world has learned how
deadly and destabilizing a pandemic can be, and we must also be ready
for other transborder challenges, such as cyber attacks and the
existential threat of climate change.
To address these challenges, we have developed a budget that we
believe offers the right mix of capabilities across all domains, while
retiring certain platforms that no longer meet the needs of the Joint
Force. We are grateful for our partnership with Congress as we seek to
ensure that the Department can successfully address present and future
threats.
As we work to defend the nation, the Department will continue to
invest heavily in our people, who are the most important element of our
national defense. Our All-Volunteer Force, with the support of their
families, and our civilian and contractor defense enterprise, work
tirelessly every day to defend the United States.
After decades of leadership and investment, the United States
enjoys an unparalleled network of allies and partners, who together
provide an enormous strategic advantage that our competitors cannot
match. This advantage has been on full display in Europe, where a
galvanized NATO has risen to the moment and shown extraordinary unity
in the face of unprovoked Russian aggression against a democratic
neighbor, Ukraine.
Countries around the world share a vital interest in a free and
open international system. Close cooperation with allies and partners
is foundational to protecting U.S. national security interests and to
our collective ability to address the risk of aggression from the PRC
and Russia, while responsibly managing the full array of other threats
we face. In all cases, we strive to be the partner of choice for our
friends. We will continue to work with our allies and partners to
advance our shared interests and maintain the rules-based international
order that relies on U.S. global leadership.
The President's fiscal year 2023 defense budget request seeks to
address these national security imperatives in three major ways:
integrated deterrence, campaigning, and building enduring advantage.
Integrated deterrence entails working seamlessly across military
domains and the spectrum of conflict, using all instruments of U.S.
national power and our extraordinary network of alliances and
partnerships. It applies a coordinated, multifaceted approach to
reducing competitors' perceptions of the net benefits of aggression
relative to restraint, tailored to specific circumstances. Integrated
deterrence is enabled by combat-credible U.S., allied, and partner
forces, and it is backstopped by a safe, secure, and effective nuclear
deterrent.
Campaigning is the way that we tie together the global, day-to-day
actions of the Joint Force to achieve deterrence. From joint exercises
to military diplomacy, from advanced weapons tests to short-notice
operations with close allies and partners, we campaign to make our
competitors question the efficacy of coercion and aggression. Simply
put, we aim to convince them that today is not the day to challenge the
United States or our friends around the world.
To shore up the foundations for integrated deterrence and
campaigning, we are moving urgently to build enduring advantages across
the defense ecosystem--the Department of Defense, the defense
industrial base, and the array of private-sector and academic
enterprises that spur innovation and support the systems on which our
military depends. We will continue to swiftly modernize the Joint
Force, with a focus on innovation and rapid adjustments to new
strategic demands. We will make our supporting systems more resilient
and agile in the face of any and all threats. And we will cultivate the
talents of our exceptional team, recruiting and training a workforce
with the skills, character, and diversity that our nation needs to
creatively tackle today's national security challenges.
Ultimately, this year's budget request seeks the resources for a
Joint Force that can deter competitors and campaign across the spectrum
of competition and conflict each and every day. But most critically, it
also seeks the resources that the U.S. military needs to fight and win
decisively should deterrence fail.
integrated deterrence
Integrated deterrence aims to bring to bear the right mix of
capabilities to demonstrate beyond doubt that the United States can
respond across domains and the spectrum of conflict, working closely
across the U.S. Government and with our global allies and partners--all
in the manner, time, and place of our choosing.
This requires that the Joint Force maintain our superiority in the
air, on land, at sea, undersea, in space, throughout cyberspace, and
anywhere in the gray zone where our competitors may seek to challenge
us. Integrated deterrence also requires a safe, secure, and effective
nuclear deterrent, which remains the ultimate backstop of our national
security posture. And we will keep our capabilities networked and
ensure that our warfighting concepts are integrated and optimized for a
potential future fight.
To maintain superiority in the air, the Department is focused on
modernizing our global strike capabilities and continuing to provide
rapid global mobility to the Joint Force, so that we can respond to any
conflict or crisis effectively and swiftly. The President's fiscal year
2023 defense budget request invests in our air command-and-control
framework; in our surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities; in our
Next Generation Air Dominance system of systems; in resilient basing,
sustainment, and communications in contested environments; and in long-
range strike and fires capabilities, including the B-21 family of
systems and investments in long-range standoff weapons and hypersonics.
We have also made significant investments in 4th, 5th, and 6th
generation fighters, logistics, and uncrewed aircraft systems.
On land, the fiscal year 2023 budget continues to build a combat-
credible, ready, and lethal force that can tackle challenges around the
world. Our budget request seeks to invest in additional Security Force
Assistance Brigade rotations in the Indo-Pacific region and Europe, and
it works to build capacity and improved capabilities in the Arctic. We
are also focused on developing our long-range hypersonic weapons and
mid-range capability prototypes on land, and we are increasing the
command and control and domain awareness capability in our forces
focused on defending the homeland. This will require unified network
investments to facilitate the Joint All Domain Command and Control
efforts across the Joint Force.
At sea and undersea, we are investing in mobility, self-reliance,
and survivability, and our budget request seeks to produce a balanced
fleet that remains capable of a high level of readiness for power
projection, sea control, maritime security, and sealift. Investments in
this year's budget focus on force design to deliver a ready force now
and in the future, including through investments in ship and aviation
maintenance, training, and facilities. We have also invested in long-
range precision fires and platforms that ensure our future combat
capability, including guided missile destroyers, attack submarines, and
globally responsive, combat-ready naval expeditionary forces in the
maritime littorals. The construction of our new battle force fleet
ships and the incremental construction of Ford-class nuclear-powered
aircraft carriers will ensure we maintain our dominance at sea.
In space and cyberspace, we must continue to build and maintain our
advantages over our competitors. The PRC has made significant
investments in space-based and cyber capabilities. To protect our space
architecture, the President's fiscal year 2023 defense budget proposes
significant investments in space resilience and a more distributed
space architecture. This includes investments in missile warning and
tracking architecture, launch enterprise investments, protected
satellite communications, and the Global Positioning System (GPS)
enterprise.
In cyberspace, our budget will help defend national security
systems, including the Department of Defense Information Network;
enhance the Department's own cybersecurity by implementing Zero Trust;
build more redundancy and resilience into our cyber infrastructure;
organize, train, and equip cyber mission forces; advance our cyber
partnerships with like-minded countries; and reinforce international
norms in cyberspace promoted by the United States.
To defend the homeland, the fiscal year 2023 budget invests in the
development of the Next-Generation Interceptor for Ground-Based
Midcourse Defense, and it extends the service life of the current
Ground-Based Interceptor. The budget also includes significant
investment in the defense of Guam. We also improve our ability to see
over the horizon, with investment in new homeland defense radars. Just
as important is our investment in multi-Service, multi-domain, long-
range fires, including hypersonic capabilities on land, at sea, and in
the air. The budget request would also procure more than 3,500 highly
survivable subsonic weapons for new and existing launch platforms.
We must be able to track, understand, and respond to malign
activities in the gray zone, including the information space, and
maintain a strategic hedge against unexpected, rapidly emerging
threats, including from violent extremist organizations or an
adversary's use of weapons of mass destruction. We also need to sustain
a robust crisis-response capability. This budget invests in theater
integration, including irregular warfare capabilities, Internet-based
military information support operations (MISO), armed overwatch, and
efforts to counter unmanned aerial systems (UAS) before they launch.
Our nuclear triad remains the ultimate backstop of our national
defense. Maintaining global strategic stability--particularly in light
of Russia's significant nuclear capability and China's expanding
nuclear arsenal--requires the United States to maintain a safe, secure,
and effective nuclear capability. The President's fiscal year 2023
defense budget provides for that investment through the modernization
of our nuclear command, control, and communications system. It also
fully funds the Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine; ramps up
production funding for the B-21 bomber; fully funds both the Ground-
Based Strategic Deterrent and the Long-Range Standoff weapon; and funds
the revitalization of science and technology (S&T) research and
development to keep pace with the evolving nuclear threat. The
Department's nuclear modernization investments will ensure our extended
deterrence commitments for years to come.
campaigning
Day after day, the Department will strengthen U.S. deterrence and
increase our advantage against our competitors' coercive measures
through campaigning: the conduct and sequencing of coordinated military
initiatives aimed at advancing well-defined, strategic priorities over
time. The United States will operate forces, synchronize broader
Departmental efforts, and align our activities with other instruments
of national power to counter our competitors' coercion, complicate
their military preparations, and develop our own warfighting
capabilities, along with those of our allies and partners.
In the Indo-Pacific region, campaigning requires thinking, acting,
and operating differently every day, including by re-aligning our
posture toward a more distributed footprint and building and exercising
the preparatory elements needed in crisis and conflict, including
infrastructure, logistics, dispersal and relocation. To that end, the
President's fiscal year 2023 defense budget request makes clear that
China is the Department's pacing challenge, and it makes investments
that robustly support the requirements of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, as
well as the development of capabilities and operational concepts
aligned to those requirements. This includes leveraging existing and
emergent capabilities, posture, and exercises to influence China's
perception of asymmetric, temporal, and geographic advantages.
Specifically, the budget invests in site surveys and the planning
and design for potential future military construction projects, in
achieving initial operating capacity for new missile warning and
tracking architecture, in defense of Guam efforts, in a framework for
multinational information sharing and multi-domain training and
experimentation, and in other security cooperation efforts to improve
allied and partner capability and capacity in the region. The fiscal
year 2023 budget request includes significant investments in the
Pacific Deterrence Initiative, and we remain grateful for congressional
partnership in our efforts to address challenges posed by the PRC.
Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine poses a historic challenge
to transatlantic security. We need to continue robust investments in
all domains relevant to European security. The fiscal year 2023 budget
makes significant investments to support Ukraine's self-defense efforts
through the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative and includes funding
to support security cooperation programs throughout Europe,
strengthening the capability and capacity of our allies and partners in
the region.
The Department was able to swiftly deploy additional forces to the
European theater through our enhanced presence efforts, increasing
readiness, operational flexibility, and interoperability with our
allies. All of this was made possible by sustained investments in the
European Deterrence Initiative (EDI). EDI has been vital to efforts to
improve indications and warning, command and control, and mission
command in Europe. Investments in EDI helped prepare U.S. and allied
forces for the current situation in Europe, for credibly deterring an
attack on alliance territory, and for ensuring we are ready to fight
and win should deterrence fail. The Department is grateful to Congress
for your leadership in the provision of EDI authorities and resources.
Meanwhile, Iran challenges Middle East stability and poses threats
to U.S. forces, our partners, and the free flow of energy. At the same
time, ISIS, al-Qa'ida, and other violent extremist organizations remain
a proximate threat to the security of the United States, our citizens,
and our interests in the Middle East and South Asia. In response, our
forces increasingly need to operate forward with a sustainable military
posture and an operationally ready force capable of deterring security
threats.
Our fiscal year 2023 investments in support of campaigning
activities across the Middle East and South Asia are focused on
technological advancement, partner engagement and coordination, and
focused military operations. We also continue to bolster integrated air
and missile defense and counter-UAS systems. We are proud to cooperate
with our partners through regional multilateral exercises, MISO,
foreign military sales, and efforts to secure access, basing, and
overflight. And throughout the region, we remain committed to
countering Iran's malign influence and to counterterrorism operations
that degrade groups that have the will and capability to harm the
United States.
In Africa, we face a series of intersecting challenges--from malign
PRC activity, the evolution of violent extremist groups, and
destabilizing transboundary dynamics across the continent. China and
Russia have invested heavily in Africa to challenge U.S. influence and
undermine our partners. In response, our forces in Africa are focused
on day-to-day campaigning to counter violent extremist organization
activity, strengthen the capability of our partners in the region, and
observe, assess, and frustrate Chinese and Russian coercive behavior.
Our military personnel are engaged in campaigning activity
throughout the Western Hemisphere to combat cross-cutting threats.
Intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance solutions offer low-cost
capabilities to compete in the gray zone. Through increased security
cooperation and the sharing of information, our strong, willing
partners in the region have become force multipliers.
In the homeland and the High North, our forces are working to
sustain and strengthen U.S. deterrence to defend the United States and
our allies and partners. The scale and scope of homeland
vulnerabilities have fundamentally changed, and the United States faces
multiple, simultaneous challenges from highly capable and advanced
competitors, including nuclear and conventional missiles. Meanwhile,
strategic competitors, rogue states, and non-state actors seek to
strike institutions and critical infrastructure in the United States
through cyber means to exploit our vulnerabilities, offset our military
advantages, and disrupt our power-projection capabilities. At the same
time, climate change is creating opportunities and vulnerabilities in
the Arctic, requiring that we develop resilient infrastructure to
support Arctic operations and train and equip our Joint Force to
compete in this important region.
A globally integrated, layered defense remains critical to
deterring and thwarting potential attacks against the U.S. homeland.
Our campaigning efforts in the U.S. homeland support homeland defense
by helping our forces gain and maintain domain awareness, information
dominance, and decision superiority. Annual exercises in the Arctic,
including ARCTIC EDGE, ICEX, NORTHERN EDGE, and COLD RESPONSE, provide
valuable experience and lessons-learned for conducting multi-domain
operations while simultaneously demonstrating the U.S. commitment to a
free, peaceful, stable, and open Arctic region.
building enduring advantage
Finally, the Department must maintain our enduring advantage to
continue to field the best joint fighting force in the world. That
means changing and adapting the ways we operate across domains and
within our Joint Force and the Department to ensure that the Joint
Force will deter conflict across all theaters and domains now and in
the future.
To construct a durable foundation for our future military
advantage, the Department--working in concert with other U.S.
departments and agencies, Congress, the private sector, and our valued
allies and partners--will move swiftly in five key ways.
Transform the Foundation of the Future Force. Building the Joint
Force requires modernization of the Department's force development,
design, and business management practices over time. That starts with
establishing a framework for strategic readiness. This framework will
keep the Department's eyes on the horizon, ensuring that the urgent and
competing demands of the present are balanced with preparations for the
future.
This effort requires investments in training, exercises,
sustainment, and mission capability in all Military Services, the
special operations community, and across the Joint Force. The
Department is also updating and advancing its centerpiece joint
training program to support integrated deterrence and campaigning by
demonstrating and exercising our capabilities alongside our allies and
partners.
The fiscal year 2023 budget supports the exercise and engagement
requirements of the 11 combatant commands, increases joint integration
in Military Service exercises, and trains individuals and staffs in key
joint skills. Our Department training efforts will better integrate
major force elements across multiple levels of command and control in
the conduct of Joint All Domain Operations against a strategic
competitor, with live forces, virtual forces, allies, and partners.
Make the Right Technology Investments. The United States'
technological edge has long been key to our military advantage. To keep
that edge razor-sharp, the Department will support the innovation
ecosystem, both at home and in expanded partnerships with our allies
and partners. That is why the fiscal year 2023 budget request includes
the largest research, development, testing, and evaluation (RDT&E)
budget in the Department's history--more than a 9 percent increase over
last year's already historic RDT&E request.
Our investments to build enduring advantages include resources for
science and technology research, the National Defense Education
Program, and the Department's educational and STEM programs, ranging
from K-12 to the postgraduate level and continuing through employment.
The Department will also invest further in the Rapid Development
and Experimentation Reserve (RDER), which brings together the Military
Services and combatant commands to experiment with advanced and
emerging technologies. RDER's continuous, coordinated iteration across
global and virtual exercises moves advanced capabilities into the hands
of warfighters earlier, while developing new operational concepts and
demonstrating our capacity for innovation to our competitors.
In addition, the Department is committed to making the United
States a world leader in 5G by working with the commercial sector and
fielding 5G to the warfighter. We are enhancing the cybersecurity of
the defense industrial base by sharing information and providing tools
and expertise. By fielding resilient GPS and alternative Position,
Navigation, and Timing capabilities to our most critical systems, we
are enabling continuous operations in degraded environments. We are
also prioritizing the Artificial Intelligence and Data Accelerator
initiative to support combatant commands with urgently needed data,
analytics, and AI-enabled capabilities.
Adapt and Fortify Our Defense Ecosystem. The Department will
prioritize joint efforts with the full range of domestic and
international partners in the defense ecosystem. This will help us
fortify the defense industrial base, our logistical systems, and
relevant global supply chains against subversion, compromise, and
theft.
The fiscal year 2023 budget request includes significant investment
in microelectronics, casting and forging, batteries and energy storage,
strategic and critical minerals, and kinetic capabilities. The
Department will also adapt and fortify the defense ecosystem by
fostering supply chain resilience, including by making use of the
Defense Production Act Title III and the Industrial Base Analysis
Sustainment Programs and maximizing Made in America manufacturing and
procurement where appropriate.
The Department's ability to strengthen the defense ecosystem and
project military force is inextricably linked to industry. Our
industrial partners provide critical transportation capacity and the
global networks to meet our day-to-day and wartime requirements. Our
forces in U.S. Transportation Command spend approximately $7 billion
with industry each year in transportation services to execute defense
requirements. Our proactive approach and vibrant relationships with our
commercial partners ensure that we have sufficient military capacity to
satisfy wartime demands at acceptable levels of risk, making use of our
industry emergency preparedness programs, such as the Civil Reserve Air
Fleet, the Voluntary Intermodal Sealift Agreement, and a newly
implemented Voluntary Tanker Agreement. We also maintain a strong
relationship with the National Defense Transportation Association.
Strengthen Resilience and Adaptability. The Department must
maintain our ability to respond quickly and effectively to emerging and
transboundary threats such as climate change and pandemics. To that
end, the budget invests in installation resilience and adaptation,
operational energy and buying power, science and technology, and
contingency preparedness. We will also invest in the Energy Resilience
and the Conservation Investment Program, which allows us to carry out
military construction projects that make our installations more energy
resilient.
To further fight the damage wrought by climate change, the
Department will strengthen resilience on several fronts. Climate change
is a fact of life for Department of Defense installations around the
country and the world that are facing rising sea levels and
increasingly severe storms and droughts. The resilience of our
installations is a critical component of our military readiness.
Further, investing in more fuel-efficient platforms eases the logistics
burden on the Joint Force and can extend the reach of our weapons
systems. Finally, we must move with the commercial market toward
electrification where it makes sense if we are to avoid being left
behind, stuck with old technologies that are expensive and difficult to
sustain.
We must also learn from the current global pandemic and be more
prepared for future outbreaks. Fighting COVID-19 will continue to be a
priority for the Department, and our activities will be informed by the
best science, the most rigorous evidence, and the need to maintain
readiness.
The Department has worked hard to tackle the COVID-19 challenge,
providing urgently needed support across the United States. That has
included vaccinating our force, their families, and Americans around
the country, sending vaccines around the world, and supporting stressed
healthcare systems. Our determined COVID-19 response has also included
procuring personal protective equipment, therapeutics, and tests on
behalf of the Federal Government. Safe and effective vaccines against
COVID-19 help ensure that we remain the best and most ready fighting
force in the world.
Additionally, the fiscal year 2023 budget request supports the
Biological Threat Reduction Program (part of the DoD Cooperative Threat
Reduction Program), which will help strengthen the Department's
capacity to prevent, detect, and respond to global outbreaks of
disease. The program also strengthens partner countries' capacities to
mitigate biological threats--whether deliberate, natural, or
accidental.
Cultivate the Workforce We Need. Strategies mean little without the
right people to execute them. To recruit and retain the most talented
workforce, we must advance our institutional culture and reform the way
we do business. The Department must attract, train, and promote a
workforce with the skills and abilities to tackle national security
challenges creatively and capably in a complex global environment.
Investments included in the fiscal year 2023 budget request aim to
diversify and dynamically shape the mix of skills and expertise among
our workforce to meet the needs of our missions, now and in the future.
The Department must improve its capacity to find, support, and
nurture an innovation-minded workforce to support our warfighters and
encourage innovative best practices throughout the armed forces. The
across-the-board pay raise of 4.6 percent is critical to compete for,
hire, develop, and retain our force. Authorities for incentives,
special pay rates, and workforce-development programs will be vital to
growing our team.
Enhancing diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility is
fundamental to our strategy. Building a talented workforce that
reflects our nation improves our ability to compete, deter, and win in
today's increasingly complex global security environment--and doing so
is a national security imperative.
Taking care of our workforce is also a national security
imperative. Every day, Americans who answer the call to serve need the
Department's support to do their best work to defend our country.
Across the Department, we have implemented initiatives to make sure
that Service members and their families, and our civilian and
contractor employees, can stay safe, be healthy, and thrive.
That includes numerous efforts to combat sexual assault in the
military. Sexual assault is an affront to our values and a threat to
our readiness. Implementing the approved recommendations from the
Independent Review Commission (IRC) on Sexual Assault in the Military
requires a long-term culture change. We will not compromise on the
safety of our teammates, and we will get this right.
In furtherance of these efforts, the fiscal year 2023 budget
request provides significant resources to reform military justice by
putting prosecution decisions for sexual assault and other named
offenses in the hands of trained, experienced attorneys; fielding a
specialized prevention workforce in every Military Service to reduce
sexual assault, suicide, and domestic violence; and providing sexual-
assault response coordinators and victim advocates with independence
and increased expertise needed to foster recovery and to ensure that
victims have the resources they require.
The Department is deeply committed to the health and well-being of
Service members and their families--in body and mind. That is why we
have been clear: mental health is health. We are steadfastly committed
to preventing, identifying, and treating mental health conditions
across the force.
One suicide in the U.S. military is too many. Suicide stems from a
complex interaction of factors, and there is no single fix. We are
addressing the problem of suicide in the military comprehensively to
increase access to mental healthcare, to reduce barriers to getting
support, to combat old stigmas on getting help, and to reach out to
populations at highest risk. Our fiscal year 2023 budget request
expands telehealth, implements programs to end stigma, optimizes use of
mental health providers, embeds mental health providers in units, and
conducts comprehensive mental health screening throughout one's
service.
Serve Military Families. Child care support is essential to many in
our Joint Force, and it is critical to the readiness, efficiency, and
retention of our people. The Department provides high-quality,
affordable child care for children from birth to age 12, through
installation-based Child Development Programs and community-based fee
assistance. To help meet the child care needs of our Service members
and civilian workforce, the Department will invest in the construction
of additional on-base child development centers, expand fee assistance
programs, extend eligibility for fee assistance programs to lower
income Department civilian employees, and support public-private
partnerships to increase child care capacity in high-demand, low-
capacity areas. The fiscal year 2023 budget request also continues a
promising pilot program that provides financial assistance to Service
members to offset the cost of in-home child care.
The economic security of our Service members and military families
is also critical. Military compensation must remain competitive with
private sector pay, and we must address the high stress and demands on
the force, today's tight labor market, and the effects of inflation on
our Service members.
We will work across the Department to enhance support to military
families, increase access to healthy food, improve financial resources,
and increase awareness of available resources. The Department is
focused on the food security of our military families, and we continue
to gather data to better understand the problem of food insecurity. But
we will not wait to take action. This is a multifaceted problem,
without a single solution, and we will pursue several angles to get at
this challenge.
The Department will also continue to improve the environment in and
around our installations. This includes transitioning from the use of
potentially harmful chemicals and cleaning up the soil and groundwater
on and around our bases, to ensure that our military families and the
surrounding communities have access to safe, clean drinking water. The
budget invests in programs and initiatives to ensure that we are
meeting these obligations.
closing
Providing the resources for our strategy requires hard choices,
which are reflected in the President's fiscal year 2023 defense budget
request. We have made some tough but necessary decisions already, such
as shifting our posture, ending the U.S. war in Afghanistan,
transitioning our combat forces in Iraq, and prioritizing modernization
to meet future challenges. The Department undertook a rigorous
analytical process to retire vulnerable systems and programs that no
longer meet mission needs. That included the decommissioning of certain
ships, including some Littoral Combat Ships, and divestment of some A-
10s, E-3s, and KC-135s. Taken together, these savings will enable the
Department to improve the Joint Force's efficiency and to redirect
resources to higher national defense priorities.
We are focused on the most important security challenges facing the
United States, while ensuring that we maintain the capabilities
required to protect our global interests and respond to emerging crises
around the world. We must maintain that discipline to move the
Department forward--and we look forward to Congress's support and
partnership as we build the force of the future.
The United States has advantages that no other country can match.
We have the right strategy, resources, people, and partners around the
globe to do precisely what the Department has always been called upon
to do: defend the nation, protect our national interests, take care of
our outstanding people, and work as a team with those who share our
values. We will continue to help lead the free and open international
system through this tumultuous period to a place of greater peace,
prosperity, and stability.
Ultimately, America's strength stems not just from our military
might but from our democratic values, our Constitution, our open
society, our diversity, our creativity, our hard-fought operational
experience, our unmatched network of allies and partners, our valued
colleagues across the U.S. Government, our civilian and contractor
workforce, and above all, the extraordinary patriots of our All-
Volunteer Force and their stalwart families. We will meet the nation's
security challenges with the vigor to prevail in the near term and the
strategy, resilience, and wisdom to remain strong in the long term.
Senator Tester. Appreciate your testimony, Mr. Secretary.
General Milley, you have the floor.
STATEMENT OF GENERAL MARK A. MILLEY, USA, CHAIRMAN,
JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF
General Milley. Chairman Tester and Members of the
Committee, thank you, and I also want to publicly thank Senator
Shelby, although he's not here today, for his lifelong service
in America's interests.
I am privileged to represent the soldiers, sailors, airmen,
Marines, and guardians of the United States Joint Force, and
our troops, as you all know and with your help, are the best
led, best equipped, best trained, most lethal, and most capable
military force in the world.
Alongside our allies and partners at any given time,
approximately 400,000 of us are currently standing watch in a
155 countries and conducting operations every day to keep
Americans safe.
Currently, we are supporting, as you noted in your opening
comment, Senator Tester, our European allies in guarding NATO's
Eastern Flank in the face of an unnecessary war of aggression
by Russia against the people of Ukraine and the assault on the
democratic institutions and rules-based international order
that have prevented great power war for the last 78 years,
since the end of World War II.
We are now facing two global powers, China and Russia, each
with significant military capabilities, both who intend to
fundamentally change the current rules-based order.
We are entering a world that is becoming more unstable and
the potential for significant international conflict between
great powers is increasing, not decreasing.
The United States military comprises one of the four key
components of national power, diplomatic, economic,
informational, and, of course, military, in order to protect
the homeland and sustain a stable and open international
system.
In coordination with the other elements of power, we
constantly develop a wide range of military options for the
President as Commander in Chief and for this Congress to
consider.
As the U.S. military, we are prepared to deter and, if
necessary, fight and win against anyone who seeks to attack the
United States, our allies, or a significant or vital national
security interest.
The Joint Force appreciates the work that our elected
representatives do to ensure that we have the resources needed
to train, equip, and manage the force in order to be ready.
We thank the Congress for increasing last year's fiscal
level of military spending and we look forward to your support
for this year's budget.
The Joint Force will deliver modernization and readiness to
our Armed Forces and security to the people of the United
States that the fiscal year 2023 budget requests of $773
billion.
This budget will enable the decisions, modernization, and
transformation of the Joint Force in order to set and meet the
conditions of operating environment that we expect to encounter
in 2030 and beyond, the so-called changing character of war
that we have discussed many times in the past.
We will work diligently to ensure the resources the
American people entrust to us are spent prudently in the best
interests of the Nation, in alignment with the National Defense
Strategy and the forthcoming National Military Strategy.
This budget delivers a ready, agile, and capable Joint
Force that will defend the Nation while taking care of our
people and working with our partners and allies.
We are witnessing right now, as we sit here, the greatest
threat to peace and security of Europe and perhaps the world in
my 42 years in uniform. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is
threatening to undermine not only European peace and stability
but global peace and stability that my parents and generations
of Americans fought so hard to defend.
The islands of the Pacific and the beaches of Normandy bore
witness to the incredible tragedy that befalls humanity when
nations seek power through military aggression across sovereign
borders.
Despite this horrific assault on the institutions of
freedom, it is heartening to see the world rally and say never
again to the specter of war in Europe.
Your military stands ready to do whatever is directed in
order to maintain peace and stability on the European
continent, a peace that ensures global stability and an
international order where all nations can prosper in peace.
We are also prepared and need to sustain our capabilities
anywhere else in the globe as well as with our priority effort
being the Asian Pacific against the pacing challenge of the
People's Republic of China, and in defense of our Nation, we
must maintain competitive over-match in all the domains of war,
space, cyber, land, sea, and air. Second place has no room in
the geo-strategic competition between us and our adversaries.
The United States is at a very critical and historic geo-
strategic inflection point. We need to pursue a clear-eyed
strategy of maintaining the peace to the unambiguous capability
of strength relative to China and Russia. This requires that we
simultaneously maintain readiness and modernize for the future.
It's not one or the other.
If we do not do that, then we are risking the security of
future generations, and I believe this budget is a major step
in the right direction to securing the United States.
I look forward to your questions.
[The statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of General Mark A. Milley
I am privileged to represent the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines
and Guardians of the United States Joint Force. Our troops are the best
led, best equipped, best trained, most lethal and capable military
force in the world. Alongside our allies and partners, American
Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Guardians are currently standing
watch in 155 countries and conducting operations every day that keep
Americans safe. We are supporting our NATO allies and guarding the
Eastern flank in the face of the unnecessary war of Russian aggression
against the people of Ukraine and the assault on the democratic
institutions and rules-based international order that have prevented
great power war for 78 years.
The United States military is a key component in the efforts to
sustain a stable and open international system and an important
component of our national power. In cooperation with our diplomatic
corps, economy, and democratic institutions, we are part of the range
of options available to this legislative body and the Commander-in-
Chief. As the U.S. military, we are prepared to fight and win if those
who seek to attack the United States, our allies, and partners are
undeterred.
The Joint Force appreciates the work that our elected
representatives do to ensure that we have the resources needed to
train, equip, and manage the force in order to be ready. This
legislative body increased the level of military funding for the last
fiscal year and with that additional funding we are ensuring that the
future modernization of the armed forces along with funding the
security requirements of today remain on track.
The Joint Force will deliver modernization of our armed forces and
security to the people of the United States at the fiscal year 2023
budget request of $773 billion. This budget will enable the decisions,
modernization, and transformation the Joint Force needs to set the
conditions for the Force of 2030. This budget allows the Joint Force to
remain on a stable glide path toward that future.
The people of the United States through Congress provide the
military the resources we need, and we will work diligently to ensure
it is spent prudently in the best interest of the Nation. In alignment
with the forthcoming National Defense Strategy and National Military
Strategy, this budget delivers a ready, agile, and capable Joint Force
that will defend the Nation, while taking care of our people and
working with our partners and allies.
Strategic Environment
We are witness to the greatest threat to the peace and security of
Europe and perhaps the world in my 42 years of service in uniform. The
Russian invasion of Ukraine is threatening to undermine the global
peace and stability that my parents--and generations of Americans--
fought so hard to defend. The islands of the Pacific and the beaches of
Normandy bore witness to the incredible tragedy that befalls humanity
when nations seek power through military aggression across sovereign
borders. Despite this horrific assault on the institutions of freedom,
it is heartening to see the world rally and say never again to the
specter of war in Europe. Your military stands
ready to do whatever is asked to maintain peace and stability on
the European continent, a peace that ensures global stability and an
international order where all nations can prosper in peace.
The People's Republic of China
The People's Republic of China (PRC) remains our #1 long term geo-
strategic pacing challenge. The PRC continues to challenge the
stability and security in the Pacific and is increasingly exporting
their ability to destabilize countries abroad.
The PRC has and continues to develop significant nuclear, space,
cyber, land, air, and maritime military capabilities, and they are
working every day to close the technology gap with the United States
and our allies. In short, they remain intent on fundamentally revising
the global international order in their favor by midcentury, they
intend to be a military peer of the U.S. by 2035, and they intend to
develop the military capabilities to seize Taiwan by 2027.
Furthermore, they are actively watching the events in Ukraine and
intend to exploit efforts in order to weaken the U.S. and our allies
supporting Ukraine. Where Russia is an acute threat, the PRC is our
long-term, geo-strategic national security pacing challenge. As
President Biden's Interim National Security Strategic Guidance stated,
China is the only country ``capable of combining its economic,
diplomatic, military, and technological power to mount a sustained
challenge to a stable and open international system.''
History is not deterministic; war with the PRC is not inevitable.
The PRC is clearly a strategic competitor, and it continues to improve
its technology and modernization of its armed forces. It is imperative
that we keep our relationship with the PRC a competition and not allow
it to become a conflict.
Integrated Deterrence
Integrated deterrence, as defined in the National Defense Strategy,
is how we will align the Department's policies, investments, and
activities to sustain and strengthen deterrence--tailored to specific
competitors and challenges and coordinated and synchronized to maximum
effect inside and outside the Department. We must act urgently to
develop deterrence approaches--including denial, resilience, and cost
imposition--across domains, theaters, and spectrums of conflict. If we
remain militarily superior to our adversary, then conflict is less
likely. As history has shown, peace through strength is a time-tested
approach and our best approach for a strategic way ahead.
Russia
In recent months, Russia--under the direction of Vladimir Putin--
has taken unprovoked, premeditated actions to violate a sovereign
nation. With the invasion of Ukraine, Putin has created a dangerous,
historical turning point and has invaded a free and democratic nation
and its people without provocation. Shoulder-to-shoulder with our
allies, we have bolstered NATO's Eastern Flank and imposed wide-ranging
costs on Russia, demonstrating our willingness to defend the
international, rules-based order. Russia retains a large and varied
nuclear capability to threaten the United States and our allies and
partners, and we have heard very provocative rhetoric concerning
Russia's nuclear force alert levels from Russian senior leaders. Russia
has repeatedly demonstrated its capability and will to conduct complex
malicious cyber activities targeting American protected digital
infrastructure, both military and commercial.
Democratic People's Republic of Korea
The Democratic People's Republic of Korea's (DPRK) continued
weapons testing and development poses real threats to our allies and
partners in the Indo-Pacific as well as the homeland. The DPRK
continues to enhance its ballistic missile capability and possesses the
technical capacity to present a real danger to the US homeland as well
as our allies and partners across the Indo-Pacific. They show no signs
of relenting in their myopic focus on military capability at the
expense of their citizens and peace of the Korean Peninsula as well as
the entire region.
Iran
Iran is likely to remain a significant regional threat to the
United States and our partners and allies. Through its support of
terrorist activities and a proxy army inside the borders of its
neighbors, along with its ballistic missile programs, Iran seeks to
revise the Middle East regional order and balance of power in Iran's
favor. Iran has continued to develop its nuclear program as leverage
towards that end. Furthermore, if not constrained through a new
diplomatic agreement, their continued nuclear program threatens the
emergence of a regional arms race. Additionally, Iran continues to
openly threaten to assassinate current and former members of United
States Government and our military, which is unacceptable.
Violent Extremist Organizations
Following the conclusion of two continuous decades of U.S. presence
in Afghanistan, terrorist organizations such as Al-Qaeda, ISIS, Al
Shabaab, and others continue to export terror, destruction, and
destabilization. Until and unless the root causes of instability that
give rise to these types of groups are resolved, we will continue to
deal with their attacks to undermine legitimate governments worldwide.
The root causes can only be effectively addressed by governments of the
region and we can best influence outcomes with diplomatic, economic,
information and stability efforts along with train, advise, assist and
intelligence sharing combined with an effective counter-terrorism
capability that can find, fix, disrupt, and destroy an emerging
specific terrorist threat. Through coalition efforts in support of
local governments and an aggressive counter-terrorism strategy, we will
continue to ensure they do not possess the capacity and capability to
exert their terror in the U.S. homeland.
Allies & Partners
Our alliances and partnerships are our most significant asymmetric
advantages and are key to maintaining the international rules-based
order that offers the best opportunities for peace and prosperity for
America and the globe. This budget allows us to build our partners and
allies capabilities, foster interoperability, and strengthen
relationships. Doing so allows us, our allies, and partners to counter
the coercion of our strategic competitors, the malign activity of
regional challengers, and meet the varied security challenges state and
non-state actors, terrorism or any other threat that may emerge. We are
stronger when we operate closely with our allies and partners.
Simultaneously, we must be ready for today and prepare for tomorrow.
Readiness and Modernization
Continued modernization is imperative for the Joint Force. We
cannot allow ourselves to create the false trap that we can only either
modernize or focus on today's readiness, we must do both. The United
States has always had the advantage of time to conduct a long build up
prior to the beginning of hostilities, we have the fortunate geography
of having the Atlantic and Pacific oceans as our east and west borders
and having friendly neighbors to our north and south. With advances in
technology, we will no longer have the luxury of a long protected
buildup prior to conflict. Having modernized forces in sufficient size
and readiness that can rapidly respond at scale will be the key to
sustaining deterrence and maintaining the peace, and if deterrence
fails, being able to fight and win.
Our Strategic competitors are modernizing their militaries, weapons
and capability. We will continue to modernize ours to ensure we deter
and, if necessary, defeat adversaries. We will divest legacy systems to
enable the modernization of our forces not only in terms of materiel,
but also in terms of doctrine. In the fall of 2019, the Joint Staff
began to develop the Joint Warfighting Concept (JWC) to address the
changing character of war, fully informed by the future operating
environment and threats we will face. The JWC guides how we organize,
train, and equip the Joint Force. It further guides us in shaping our
strategic environment and future operations. JWC continues to evolve
and is being refined through robust experimentation and war-gaming.
Among the enablers for JWC, Joint all domain command and control
(JADC2) is a warfighting capability to sense, analyze, and act at all
levels and phases of conflict, across all domains, and with partners,
to deliver information advantage to our forces and decision makers at
greater speeds than our adversaries can react. JADC2's data-centric
approach to command and control will dramatically increase the speed of
information sharing and decisionmaking in a contested environment.
Conceptual frameworks like the JWC and JADC2 will ensure capabilities
such as Long Range and Hypersonic Fires, Logistics and Information
Advantage are employed to the full extent. This combination of
operational concepts and technology will enable integrated deterrence.
As important is the education of our military leaders. The Joint
Chiefs of Staff and their senior enlisted advisors unanimously endorsed
two documents: shared visions for both officer and enlisted joint
professional military education. We increased the time our developing
leaders spend studying the changing character of war and a greater
focus on both the PRC as the pacing challenge and Russia as our
immediate threat, which seeks to create leaders fully versed in the
Joint Warfighting Concept. Furthermore, our shift to outcomes based
military education will help us better measure progress and the return
on our investment.
Our staff college and war college curriculum are being streamlined
to focus on the warfighter skills necessary to execute the JWC and
prevail in future conflict. Also underway is the first class of
GATEWAY, the Joint Staff's newest in-person enlisted development course
introducing the Joint Environment to E-6s and E-7s from across the
force. GATEWAY is designed to develop joint enlisted leaders capable of
operating in Joint Interagency, Intergovernmental, and Multinational
(JIIM) organizations. And we, the Joint Force, must also focus on
recruiting the most capable talent so we can develop our leaders of the
future.
We are focused on building a more lethal Joint Force ensuring that
we continue to modernize our concepts, doctrine, training, and military
education. It is imperative that we continue to invest in capabilities
that sustain our advantages, while strengthening alliances and
attracting new partners. Investments in this budget will ensure that
the requirements our nation levees on the Joint Force are executable.
The investments made in this budget will specifically ensure that we
remain a relevant and ready force while ensuring that nuclear
modernization, long range fires, hypersonic technology, shipbuilding,
missile defeat and defense, space and cyber remain at the center of our
funding priorities.
Nuclear Modernization
The nuclear triad is the cornerstone of our strategic deterrent.
Our adversaries are improving their nuclear stockpiles and potential
nuclear threats continue to emerge. While today's nuclear TRIAD is
safe, secure, and effective, most U.S. nuclear deterrent system are
operating beyond their original design life, increasing concerns about
mission effectiveness, reliability, and availability. Replacement
programs are in place, but there is little or no margin between the end
of useful life of existing systems and the fielding of their
replacements. Managing the programmatic risk is a key feature of our
approach going forward, however we must also account for geopolitical,
operational, and technical risks the could pose new deterrence dilemmas
in the future. Risk mitigation in the programs is one aspect, the other
area encompasses the nuclear weapons complex, infrastructure, and the
nuclear command, control, and communications (NC3). All of which remain
a high priority in the Department and the Joint Force.
Long Range Fires
One need look no further than the current conflict in Ukraine to
see the devastating effect that long range fires provide. Ensuring we
have a strike capability without having to also maintain air
superiority is a critical asset. We must field multi-domain, long-range
offensive capabilities that are both cost-effective and cost-imposing
as a means of improving deterrence. By enabling power projection from
standoff ranges, the risk to critical U.S. assets decreases while the
defensive burden imposed upon the enemy increases. The PRC has
thousands of ground- launched theater-range missiles in its arsenal
that would be difficult for the U.S. to counter given its current
inventories. Investments in long range missiles are a cost-effective
strategy that improves our ability to compete with the PRC.
Hypersonic Technology
This technology is going to continue to be developed by our
adversaries and the means and mechanisms for delivery will be varied
and difficult to detect and defeat. At the very core of this technology
is a speed that is almost unbeatable. It is for this reason that we
must invest in this technology. Hypersonics are a suite of capabilities
that provide transformational warfighting capability to our Joint
Force.
Missile Defeat and Defense
Missile Defeat is all whole-of-government activities to counter the
development, acquisitions, proliferation potential, and actual use of
adversary offensive missiles of all types, and to limit damage for such
use. As the scale and complexity of missile capabilities increase, we
must continue to develop, acquire, and maintain credible U.S. missile
defeat capabilities as necessary to protect against possible missile
attacks on the U.S. homeland, allies, and partners. The Ground-Based
Midcourse Defense (GMD) system, and continued modernization and
expansion of it, will remain an important and effective element of our
comprehensive missile defeat approach to defend the homeland from DPRK
long-range missiles.
Optimizing Force Structure
To pace the PRC threat, we can no longer afford to maintain weapons
that are not relevant in the future fight and whose capabilities can be
matched by superior technology. Sustaining such equipment takes needed
defense dollars away from the acquisition of systems that are needed
for modernization. We need to retire aging platforms, and ensure that
every defense dollar is spent on programs and equipment that will be
relevant to the high-end fight in contested environments. We cannot
continue to mortgage our future by being wedded to technology of the
past.
Naval Forces
Strategically, the United States has always been and remains a
maritime Nation, and we cannot have a world class Navy without world
class ships. Manufacturing our warships overseas is simply not in our
national interest. Our shipbuilding and supporting vendor base are a
national security capability that needs support to grow and maintain a
skilled workforce. The fiscal year 2023 President's Budget reflects the
Administration's strong commitment to continued American naval
superiority, including a properly sized and well-positioned industrial
base to meet the demands of our current and future defense needs. The
conclusions from past force structure analyses have been fully
considered and are simple: ship count is an incomplete metric, as it
fails to fully capture the capability, payload capacity, and employment
of ship classes in the fleet. We must have the right ships, with the
right crews, and the right capabilities in the theaters where they
matter. This budget specifically procures warships and submarines with
credible combat power to deter China while continuing remotely operated
ship development and investing in the industrial base to support fleet
modernization and on time delivery of the Columbia class submarine.
Sealift recapitalization is a critical component of our fleet, 90
percent of war material moves by sea and the DoD fleet is reaching its
end of life with an average vessel age of 46 years.
Our overall sealift readiness rate is consistently below our stated
requirements. We must recapitalize our fleet.
Space Forces
More so now than ever, space is essential to our way of life; space
capabilities are essential to our economy, quality of life, our
exploration initiatives, and our ability to wage war. Every day we see
additional commercial space launches and increased competition for low
earth orbit as well as increased reliance on these space assets by
Americans. Adversaries are testing and fielding counterspace weapons
that threaten not just our National interests and advancements in
space, but those of all nations that rely upon space. Russia recently
tested both a ground-based anti-satellite missile and an on-orbit anti-
satellite weapon prototype which will threaten our space capabilities
once fielded. Left unsecured, our capabilities in space will become
strategic vulnerabilities, and if we begin to lose our freedom of
maneuver in space, this impact will be felt by Americans of all walks
of life. This year's budget submission provides a significant
investment in resilient space architectures so U.S. and allied partners
will be able to continue to derive the national security and societal
benefits from space in the face of these threats.
Cyber Forces
Our adversaries are leveraging the open commerce platform that is
the modern cyber environment to further their own nefarious ends. The
PRC consistently uses the cyber domain to collect intelligence from the
U.S. Government and to extract proprietary commercial information from
the private sector. Malign cyberspace actors increasingly exploit
supply chain vulnerabilities, such as commercial software, to gain
network access and conduct cyber operations against U.S. citizens,
organizations, and institutions. The low cost combined with deniability
and the frequency with which non-state actors conduct operations make
this domain a priority focus for adversaries to asymmetrically compete
without escalation in other domains.
Therefore, we must increase our ability to compete in cyberspace
and ensure all elements of informational power are integrated into
operations, activities, and efforts to deter our adversaries and
protect the U.S. homeland. This requires investment in partners and
technology, building and maturing cyber operations and readiness,
reducing risk to weapon systems and critical infrastructure,
strengthening cybersecurity, and improving network resiliency.
Ground Forces
Decision in war is ultimately achieved on land, and maintaining a
capable land force in the United States Army and Marine Corps is key to
our overall deterrence capability and national security. The Army is
rapidly modernizing with innovation, creativity, and entrepreneurship
in the application of combat power. Modern battlefields are
increasingly faster, more lethal, and more distributed. 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. By 2035, the Army aims to realize its
vision of a multi-domain force. Similarly, the Marine Corps is
deliberately transforming its capabilities, capacity, and composition
through its expeditionary advanced base operations to meet future
challenges.
Air Forces
Maintaining the role as the global leader in airpower requires our
Air Force to accelerate change or lose. In an environment of aggressive
global competitors and technology development and diffusion, the Air
Force must have the capabilities to control and exploit the air domain,
while also underwriting national security through nuclear deterrence.
To best address these necessary changes, we must balance risk over
time. The Air Force will develop and field new capabilities
expeditiously while selectively divesting older platforms not relevant
to our pacing challenge-- all while maintaining readiness. The Air
Force must ensure its path continuously drives towards readiness to be
best prepared when called upon by the Nation. Accelerating change means
both getting the direction right and moving as fast as possible.
In last year's budget submission, the Air Force began the process
of making hard decisions to modernize the Force. Last year's budget
highlighted the Air Force needs for 2030 and beyond, and the message
has not changed: the need to modernize is critical to counter strategic
competitors. The Air Force is taking measured risk in the near-term,
while simultaneously prioritizing an affordable, defensible force
structure that grows readiness over time and accelerates investment in
critical capabilities to deter and defeat the advancing threat.
Special Operations Forces (SOF)
SOF's full range of core activities, tailored capabilities, and
enduring partnerships provide critical options for campaigning to
bolster deterrence. The access, placement and influence generated by
SOF long-term commitments to building partner capacity and improving
Ally interoperability provide expanded, low-cost options to gain
awareness and present an adversary with multiple dilemmas, if
necessary. Additionally, SOF remain ideally suited to identify an
adversary's challenge in the ``gray zone'' and counter those malign
activities with firmness while managing escalation. USSOCOM continues
to prioritize its operations, activities and investments in the Indo
Pacific and Europe while maintaining prioritized posture to counter
threats from the Middle East, Africa, and other regions.
SOF continue to optimize our global posture to counter violent
extremists and other non-state actors while sustaining the ability to
respond to crises worldwide. Focused, deliberate campaigning in Eastern
Europe over several years has supported our recent response in
conjunction with critical Allies and Partners. This will enhance their
resistance capabilities if threatened with territorial aggression or
abrogation of sovereign territory.
People First/People and Families
We must take care of our people. Taking care of our people is a
fundamental component of readiness. People are our most important
resource in the Joint Force. We must ensure that we are doing all that
we can do to take care of and guard our most critical resource in order
to attract both our troops and their families and retain the best
talent in the world. Taking care of people decisively impacts unit
cohesion, recruitment, retention, and confidence in leadership.
Just one example in the Budget of taking care of our troops and
families is ensuring that the services increase their childcare
capacity. The DoD childcare system is the gold standard of childcare
with 98 percent of centers being accredited. Funding support from
Congress is vital for fully- staffed military childcare. Childcare is
key to keeping military families serving and ensuring the safety of our
children.
The Joint Force is committed to growing a bench of talent and
ensuring that all who meet the requirements to serve are able to serve.
The Joint Force competes for the talent of America's youth along with
every other business, and organization who seeks our Nation's best and
brightest. The Joint Force's objective is to field the most lethal and
combat effective fighting force in the world. We will continue to
support the accessions of all qualified people to all jobs and
positions within the Joint Force.
Finally, another example of taking care of our people and emerging
realities is the Secretary of Defense's decision to close Red Hill. The
Secretary made the decision to close the Red Hill fuel storage location
earlier this year, and this decision demonstrates that we will ensure
we do all we can to safeguard our most important resource. Closing Red
Hill is not only an opportunity to demonstrate to our people that we
care, but also an opportunity to modernize how we distribute fuel to
our fleet in the Pacific. Moving away from a large legacy bulk storage
system to a distributed system improves our warfighter campaign and
ensures safe water for our troops, their families, and the local
community. Looking for opportunities to take care of our people and
modernize our force and capabilities is something we will continue to
prioritize.
Conclusion
The United States is at a very critical and historic geo-strategic
inflection point. We are entering a world that is becoming more
unstable and the potential for significant international conflict
between great powers is increasing, not decreasing. The United States
needs to pursue a clear- eyed strategy of maintaining the peace through
unambiguous capability of strength relative to the PRC and Russia. This
requires we simultaneously maintain readiness and modernize for the
future. If we do not, then we are risking the security of future
generations. This budget is a major step in the right direction.
It remains imperative that we redouble our efforts to improve
readiness and to modernize so that we remain the most capable and
lethal Force on the planet. Our job as the Joint Force, our contract
with the American people is that we, the United States military will
always be ready to deter our enemies and if deterrence fails then to
fight and win.
Senator Tester. I want to thank you for your statement,
General Milley. I thank you both for being here.
Again, before we get to questions, I want to allow the
Chairman of the Appropriations, to make an opening statement.
STATEMENT OF SENATOR PATRICK LEAHY
Senator Leahy. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I had to use
my duties to open the Senate at 10 o'clock, so that is why I
was not here. I am glad to see both Secretary Austin and
General Milley, both of whom are friends. I am glad to see them
here.
I would note, and I do not need to tell you this, the world
is a lot different today than it was when the Full Committee
heard from the two of you last year. Russia's unprovoked,
unwarranted aggression in Ukraine, which may become even worse,
China's domination in the global marketplace, continued
instability in the Middle East, an enduring pandemic. The
Department of Defense as well as the State Department, all our
agencies have to confront these issues and more. I think the
President's budget looks not just at the current issues but
anticipates what we have to look at first.
But this budget is also the first since the United States
ended its involvement in Afghanistan last year as well as the
first since Russia's unprovoked and senseless all-out assault
on Ukraine. It reflects some of these changes with emphasis on
building on programs the committee has funded for revitalizing
NATO, both our partners capabilities and our ability to stand
side by side with them.
In fact, I hope you do not mind a parochial comment, the
Vermont Air National Guard is on deployment in Europe as part
of that right now. I am particularly appreciative of your
comments, Mr. Secretary, about what you call integrated
deterrence.
I have long believed the military does not act in isolation
from the rest of the government. As the Chairman and Vice
Chairman of this committee have asked your predecessors,
Secretary Mattis, to explain the importance of a budget that
invests in our Nation's military but also in our Nation's
people. I do not think you can separate the two.
The men and women of our Armed Services reflect the United
States, and the programs Congress supports across each and
every appropriations bill yields an economy, a workforce, a
citizenry, an educational system, and more that makes our
Nation stronger and more successful.
So, Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for giving me this
time.
AGREEMENT ON TOPLINE NUMBER
Senator Tester. Chairman Leahy, first of all, we wish you
luck in getting a top line number and hopefully both sides can
put pressure on both Shelby and you to get to that number soon
so we can get a budget out by the end of September, but I
will----
Senator Leahy. As I say, we want it very, very much. I will
not be here next year, but I look at some who will and we will
try to get a clean slate for the committee beginning at noon on
January 3rd.
Senator Tester. I think we're all onboard with that,
especially Senator Collins. You may go proceed with your
questions, if you might, Mr. Chairman.
NON-DEFENSE SPENDING AND RESEARCH
Senator Leahy. Okay. Well, thank you. Secretary Austin, I
have spoken to you privately about this but you know how much I
have appreciated seeing you and Secretary of State Blinken
working hand in hand not only here in the U.S. but in your
trips abroad, including the very important one to Ukraine. I
think your partnership has been a driving force.
A few years ago I wondered if the United States could get
our NATO allies and our other partners to join on the same
page. The two of you, President Biden, you have all worked
very, very hard, to do that, and I think that is so important.
Secretary Austin, do you agree that the investments we make
in non-defense discretionary spending to ensure the fitness,
health, and education of the future force are also essential to
our national security?
Secretary Austin. I do, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Leahy. We are on the cusp of negotiating a final
comprehensive bill that is going to ignite our efforts to be
able to compete with China. The investments made by that
legislation would empower the Department of Commerce to provide
a jolt to the micro-electronics industry in our country,
bringing onshore the development of critical national security
technologies.
We have seen twice in the last 2 days how things have
slowed down considerably in our country, on just solar energy
for one, because of the reliance on China and those countries
they control.
How important are the resources for non-defense research?
Obviously we all agree on the importance of defense research,
but in non-defense research and development to ensure our
Nation's national security, cybersecurity, and economic
independence from foreign manufacturing.
Secretary Austin. Well, I think it's critical, Chairman,
and let me, before I answer in full, let me just again thank
you for your many years of service to our Nation on behalf of
the Department of Defense. We are truly grateful for your
leadership and your support of Defense.
So I believe your question was how important is the
investment in non-defense-related research to us. I would say
it's very important. As you know, over the years we have
benefitted from a number of developments that have taken place
in the civil sector and again it's putting together a number of
capabilities and building capacity in ways that hasn't been
done before that creates tremendous opportunity for us.
So I think it's very, very important to answer your
question, Chairman.
Senator Leahy. Thank you and thank you for the kind
personal comments, too.
STATE PARTNERSHIP PROGRAM
General Milley, I looked at your written remarks. You
discuss the importance of working with our allies and our
partners. Today, and I use this because the example could be
from many States, but the Vermont Air National Guard is doing
that in Europe on deployment. I am a long-time supporter of the
National Guard State Partnership Program. Our State recently
added Austria to its existing partnerships with Nigeria and
North Macedonia.
In light of Russia's aggression in Ukraine, the success we
have had in cementing our NATO partnership, can you speak to
the relationships between State National Guards, not just
Vermont obviously, but National Guards and our international
partners?
General Milley. Thank you, Senator, and I, too, want to
echo the Secretary's comments and thank you for your half
century of public service, deeply appreciated, and I know all
of us in uniform appreciate your leadership.
With respect to the State Partnership Program, you know, to
go from big to small, allies and partners are an asymmetric
advantage for the United States.
Neither China nor Russia have anything close to the allies
and partner network that the United States has. Just as an
example of that, last week I was with Secretary of Defense
Austin in Ramstein and he called a meeting. In 6 days, 42
countries' Ministers of Defense and my counterparts Chiefs of
Defense all showed up in Ramstein to coordinate and synchronize
support to the ongoing struggle in Ukraine.
Russia has nothing comparable to that. They have Belarus,
maybe a couple others. That's about it. China certainly doesn't
have the network around. So allies and partners are critical.
They're a critical component of the national defense of the
United States, and it's one of our asymmetric advantages.
The National Guard from all the different States play a
very important role in that. Each one of our units has State
Partnership Programs. We'll take Ukraine for an example. In
Ukraine, California's aligned with them along with others.
Those have been invaluable in maintaining the connective tissue
between our military.
So it's an important program at the micro-tactical level,
but it also has very great strategic effect.
Senator Leahy. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Tester. Senator Collins.
BUDGET RISK
Senator Collins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you both for your service and thank you, Secretary
Austin, for going to Ukraine. I think that was extremely
important.
Mr. Secretary, for the second year in a row, the
Administration has submitted a budget request that would result
in a real reduction in defense spending when you take inflation
into account.
The 2018 bipartisan National Defense Strategy Commission
recommended an increase in the annual defense budget at a rate
of three to 5 percent above inflation which we know is at a 40-
year high today.
Given the aggressive rate at which China's modernizing its
military and the fact that everywhere we look we see new
threats, including the largest land war in Europe since World
War II, I'm very concerned that this budget would result in
real cuts in defense spending at exactly the wrong time.
If you look at the services and the Combatant Command
Unfunded Priorities Lists they've submitted, they amount to
more than $21 billion.
What are the areas in the budget where the department is
accepting the most risk?
Secretary Austin. Well, thank you, Senator. We built this
budget--first of all, $773 billion is a very substantial
budget. We built the budget, as you know, based on our strategy
which we just released about the same time that we released the
budget.
We believe that it gives us the ability to go after those
capabilities that support our war-fighting concepts, and in
that strategy, Senator, China is listed as our pacing challenge
and Russia is cited as an acute threat, and again we believe
that we're going after the right things to ensure that we
maintain a competitive edge going forward.
When we built the budget, obviously you have to snap the
chalk line at some point while you're building the budget and
at that point, you know, we factored in what was the
appropriate inflation rate. Of course, again, if we're unable
to buy the things that we think are essential, we'll come back
to the President and ask for more assistance, but we believe
that there's significant capability in this budget.
SHIPBUILDING INVESTMENT
Senator Collins. General Milley, speaking of China, in your
written testimony you noted that China intends to develop the
military capabilities to seize Taiwan by the year 2027.
During that critical window, the Navy's fleet would
actually continue to shrink to 280 ships by 2027 under the
Administration's budget request. That compares to a Chinese
fleet that the Pentagon assesses would be as large as 420 ships
by 2025 and 460 ships by 2030.
Now I appreciate the point that you've made that many of
our ships are more capable than China's, but as virtually
everyone I've ever talked to in the Navy has told me, quantity
has a quality all of its own.
We need to be urgently investing in our shipbuilding
capacity and fleet, not going in the opposite direction.
There's real risk in relying on capabilities that won't be
ready till the 2030s to deter or defeat a Chinese threat that
may materialize in the next 5 years.
From my perspective, our current shipbuilding trajectory is
inconsistent with the Navy's fleet architecture studies done by
both the prior Administrations and this Administration.
Are you concerned that the strategy that this budget is
inconsistent with the multiple assessments saying that we need
a larger fleet?
General Milley. Thank you, Senator. The United States is
fundamentally a maritime nation, have been from the birth of
our Nation, and we rely significantly on the sea lines of
communication for national trade, etcetera, and we have made as
a matter of policy a commitment for over two and a half
centuries freedom of the seas, freedom of navigation, and the
right for, you know, open investments around the world.
That's fundamental. It's part of our DNA. Part and parcel
of that is to have a significant capable fleet and not just in
the Pacific or the Western Pacific but throughout the globe.
So, sure, it would always be nice to have more ships, but
the fact of the matter is the most important thing is to have
the ships that we do have, have them in a readiness status,
have them with the manning, the training, and the equipping,
have them in a very significant readiness status.
So that's important, as well, and I personally don't want
to get hung up on the number of ships of China versus the
United States. Its true quality has a quantity all its own, but
we have allies and partners. China doesn't. The Japanese Navy,
the Australian Navy, other allies and partners that would
probably work with the United States, we exercise routinely
with them. That would make a significant difference.
The other last thing I'd say relative to Taiwan, it is true
that the Chinese, President Xi has set an objective to have his
military prepared capability-wise. That's not the same to say
he's actually going to invade but to have the capability to
seize the island of Taiwan.
That is a very tall order and it remains to be seen whether
the Chinese will actually be able to execute that, the Chinese
military, whether they will have that capability or not, but
that is the target on the wall, 2027. We have to keep that in
mind as we go into the future.
Senator Collins. Thank you.
Senator Tester. Senator Feinstein.
FOOD INSECURITY
Senator Feinstein. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Secretary Austin and General Milley, last year I asked
about military weapons being lost and stolen, and I want to
thank you for your prompt response on that issue, but I have
one more. I'd like to raise your awareness of food insecurity
in the military, to include active Guard and Reserve troops.
The Washington Post has reported on this problem and Jamie
Lutz at the Center for Strategic and International Studies has
also documented that service members face hunger at rates
exceeding the general population.
The Adjutant General in California has likewise indicated
that we have this problem in California. It is most pronounced
among junior enlisted personnel, especially those with
children.
So here's the question. Do you agree that we have this
problem of food insecurity, what is its impact on our
readiness, and what do you believe the military will do about
it?
Secretary Austin. Thank you, Senator. I'll start. Yes, I do
agree that we have an issue with, as you pointed out, our lower
ranking enlisted force, and it is important to me, the health
and welfare of our force, our troops and our families, very,
very important to me, and you have probably heard me talk about
this before, and you heard me mention it in my opening
statement that we want to make sure that people can put food,
good food, healthy food on the table.
That's why I've asked you to support me in providing a 4.6
percent pay raise to the force. Each of the services are making
sure that they're doing things to not only help their lower
ranking enlisted force but also making sure that they're
helping them learn how to manage finances and other things.
So this is a thing that we're focused on at the department
level and I would say that all of our services are focused on
it, as well. Again, it's very, very important to us.
General Milley. And, Senator, I would just add that taking
care of our people is critically important for our entire chain
of command and I know it's of great interest to the Congress.
That pay raise will go a long way to help. We do
acknowledge that that is a real issue. The size and scale and
scope, the Secretary's got some folks out there trying to
determine exactly what the parameters of that are, but it's
real and no soldier, sailor, airman, Marine should struggle to
feed their family. Having good medical care, good education,
safe and secure environment and putting food on the table is
fundamental.
60 percent of our force is married, on average two children
per, relatively young, and we owe it to them if they're going
to put their life on the line for this country, we owe it to
them to make sure they're being taken care of and we intend to
do that.
COMMUNICATION WITH CHINESE COUNTERPART
Senator Feinstein. Thank you for that. Thank you. Secretary
Austin, it was reported last month you spoke with your Chinese
counterpart for the first time since becoming Secretary of
Defense.
I'd like to thank you and commend you for that, and I think
it's very important in order to build trust and to solve
problems.
Could you share with us what you learned from speaking with
your Chinese colleague and where you believe this can go?
Secretary Austin. Well, Senator, this is the first of what
I hope will be many conversations, but again we both recognize
the importance of dialogue and maintaining open channels and we
both want to make sure that we work together to promote
security and stability in the region and so I look forward to
again engaging him in the future, the not-too-distant future.
I'm sure I'll see him at the Shangri-La Dialogue coming up in
June.
Senator Feinstein. Let me just thank you for that. I'm
obviously a Californian and we believe we're in the century of
the Pacific and so these things become very important to the
safety and security of the entire West Coast of this country.
END GAME FOR UKRAINE
One last one. It's imperative that Russia not be allowed to
get away with aggression and land grabs, and it seems that
Ukraine, with the support of the United States, is really
showing considerable strength on the battlefield.
So I wanted to ask a quick question. If you can share with
us what the end game is and what you hope to achieve?
Secretary Austin. Well, the end game will be defined by the
Ukrainian Government, as it, you know, engages with Russia, and
so I won't try to define that for them.
I would just say that we're going to continue to do
everything within our power to make sure that we support
Ukraine in its efforts to defend its sovereign territory. We
hope that at the end of this that Ukraine will be a sovereign
state with a functioning government that can protect its
territory and so that's what we're focused on from now and
going forward.
Senator Feinstein. My time is up. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Tester. Senator Schatz.
RED HILL
Senator Schatz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you both for being here. Secretary Austin, I want to
thank you for your clarity and your leadership on the question
of the future of the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility. I
also want to thank Deputy Secretary Hicks and Admirals Paparo
and Aquilino.
I know up and down the Department and the Department of the
Navy and the rest of the Federal Government was deeply engaged,
and this was a tough decision, but it was the right decision
and I think you know that not just from the standpoint of safe
drinking water for the State of Hawaii and the residents of
Hawaii and your service members, but that it was right for
national security, in your own words, ``centrally-located bulk
fuel storage of this magnitude likely made sense in 1943 but
doesn't make sense for how we operate in the Indo-Pacific
today.''
Can you talk about why this is a better decision from a
national security perspective?
Secretary Austin. Well, Senator, let me thank you and the
entire State delegation for what you did in exercising
leadership on this important issue. We really appreciate it.
You hit the nail on the head when you quoted me regarding
the fact that this was conceived in the 1940s and it served a
specific purpose at that point in time. It doesn't necessarily
support the way that we operate today. We're much further
forward in theater. We operate in a dispersed fashion.
You know, our logistical support ought to mirror that,
ought to enable our operations, and so we thought, I thought, I
felt that it was important to make sure that we had our
reserves positioned appropriately to support our operations
going forward here and that's what drove my decision in
conjunction with the fact that, you know, I'm very concerned
about the health and welfare of our troops, our families, and
the people of Hawaii, as well.
Senator Schatz. Thank you. As you know, we're in the
implementation phase of the decision that you came to. The
third party assessment wrapped up last week. I know it's going
to take some time at the Office of the Secretary and the CAPE
(Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation Office) to kind of come
to some final conclusions.
I have a very specific question pertinent to the Defense
Appropriations Subcommittee, which is that you got the third
party assessment coming in. Now you're in process, sort of
final phases, maybe, you know, 10 yard line, but we need a
number if we're going to not miss a whole fiscal years' worth
of progress and so I'm wondering where you are in that process
and how quickly you can turn that third party assessment into a
requirement so that we can consider it as a subcommittee.
Secretary Austin. Well, thank you, Senator. The Navy's
reviewing that report, all 880 pages of it, and that will
inform their approach to recommending how we should go about
defueling the facility.
So to your point, I'm waiting on the Navy to come back with
its specific plan for defueling and I expect to get that at the
end of the month.
Senator Schatz. Okay. So in time for us to consider a
number?
Secretary Austin. I certainly hope so, Senator.
COMPACT OF FREE ASSOCIATION
Senator Schatz. Okay. Thank you. I want to use my final
minute and a half for the Compact of Free Association
negotiations.
Admiral Aquilino's posture plans for the Indo-Pacific rely
at least in part on maintaining access to Compact States,
Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and Palau.
Can you talk about the importance of these Compact States
to DoD's (Department of Defense) mission in the Pacific?
Secretary Austin. They're very important. We always aim to
be the partner of choice and I think our continued engagement
with them will certainly result in additional capability and
capacity as we go forward.
So I think the Combatant Commander's doing a great job in
terms of continued engagement, but again our goal is to make
sure that we are the partner of choice and so far I'm very
encouraged by what we're seeing.
Senator Schatz. Just a bit about the interagency process
here. You know, as you know, you have the Department of
Interior through the Secretary for Insular Affairs and then you
have the Department of State as sort of lead negotiator, but
DoD is right there, and to a certain extent, although you're a
silent partner in terms of the nuts and bolts of the
negotiation, you're the biggest deal in the negotiations.
So what I'd like you to consider is appointing someone
specifically to be in the room for even the preliminary
negotiations. Again, State's got a lead on this, but having DoD
at the table makes an enormous difference for Compact States in
terms of conveying to these Compact States how important they
are to us.
Secretary Austin. Well, as the Chairman pointed out at the
top of the meeting here, Secretary Blinken and I are great
partners and certainly I'm sure that this will be what he will
want to see, as well, and we will continue to work with the
entire interagency to make sure that we're in the right place
here.
Senator Schatz. Great. Thank you.
Senator Tester. Senator Boozman.
INTEGRATED DETERRENCE
Senator Boozman. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you all so much for all that you do and for you being
here today. Both of your testimonies highlight the importance
of integrated deterrence for aligning department policies,
resources, and activities to strengthen deterrence. An
essential part of this is bolstering of our allies and partners
to better deter our adversaries.
General Milley, as you mentioned in your testimony, the
U.S. must continue to strengthen our relationships by building
our partners' capabilities to deter our adversaries.
Recently, several European allies have stated their intent
to purchase the F-35 fighter jet. Would Poland, Finland, and
Germany having F-35s be helpful to our national security and
deterrence against Russia in Europe, and going further, given
the current situation, in your best military advice, do you
believe we should be assisting our European allies in training
so they can receive the F-35s as soon as possible?
General Milley. I do, and I think, first of all, it's an
excellent capability. Secondly, I think the inter-operability
with our allies is important, and I think the strength of the
alliance is critical to the deterrence of any broader land
conflict on the European continent.
PREPOSITIONED STOCKS
Senator Boozman. Thank you, sir. Preposition stocks are
essential for the rapid mobilization and equipping of units
during time of crisis.
As you know, the Army activated its preposition stocks in
March of this year as the conflict in Ukraine escalated for the
first in an unplanned contingency. I was happy to learn that
these prepositioned stocks allow an armored brigade combat team
to deploy from the U.S. to Eastern Europe faster than Russian
forces advance from Belarus to Kyiv.
I understand that prepositioned stocks require military
construction support and being the Ranking Member on the
Military Construction Subcommittee, does the U.S. have
prepositioned stocks to respond to potential threats in the
Pacific from China outside of Japan and South Korea? Are there
any plans to establish prepositioned stocks?
Secretary Austin. Well, first of all, let me thank you for
what you did several years ago to enable what you just
described in Europe there. The European Defense Initiative
really laid the groundwork for, you know, the prepositioned
stocks and some of the facilities that we use there.
As you'll see in terms of what we're investing in with the
Pacific Deterrent Initiative, we are investing in
infrastructure and a number of other things to ensure that we
have capability further forward in the theater. So that's our
goal to make sure that, you know, we have that ability in the
Indo-Pacific to a greater degree in the future.
MISSILE STOCKPILES
Senator Boozman. Well, to follow up on that, our missile
stockpiles are being stretched thin after years of reducing it
at a minimum rate of sustainment and increased demand resulting
from the U.S. current efforts to bolster our Ukrainian defense
I think are stretching that very, very thin.
I'm hearing from industry some of the challenges they face
with trying to increase production rates while shortening lead
times.
How critical is it to maintain these stockpiles and in what
ways can the committee support you and industry to help ramp up
production efforts to meet the demand and replenish our
stockpiles?
Secretary Austin. Well, it's very critical to make sure
that we maintain what we consider to be our minimum required
stockage levels, and you can rest assured that I will not allow
us to go below that in critical munitions.
We have met with industry, I think you saw us do this
fairly early on, and encourage them to work with us to begin to
open up production lines to increase their production and they
are doing that. They are leaning forward, in some cases a
little bit more difficult to do than others, but industry has
been very supportive, and so we'll continue to work with them.
We'll continue to identify things that we need from you if
a need arises, but to this point, I think we're in pretty good
shape, and industry is responding.
Senator Boozman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Tester. Senator Baldwin.
Senator Boozman. Thank you, guys.
BUY AMERICA
Senator Baldwin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Secretary Austin, welcome. A healthy defense industrial
base is a critical element for our national security, and
President Biden issued an Executive Order in January of 2021 to
strengthen Buy America requirements for all Federal programs.
In July a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking increased the
domestic content requirement from 55 percent to 60 percent with
a phased-in increase to 75 percent. This is a move I strongly
support.
However, I know from the experience with the Navy's new
frigate that if we require 100 percent American-made within a
reasonable timeline, industry can step up and deliver. With the
frigate, this actually resulted in the on-shoring of new U.S.
manufacturing.
So do you support replicating the success for other defense
programs with the goal of hitting 100 percent American-made so
long as the department has reasonable timelines and reasonable
waivers at their disposal?
Secretary Austin. I absolutely support making sure that
where we can we invest in America, that we, make sure that we
have the supply lines available to do the things that you just
described, and so you're right.
The President has an initiative that he launched awhile
back and DoD is a strong partner in that initiative to ensure
that we strengthen our supply lines, that we make sure that we
have the critical materials available to build the types of
munitions and platforms that we think we'll need going forward.
So, yes, I support that position.
UKRAINE SECURITY ASSISTANCE
Senator Baldwin. Thank you. General Milley, I understand
you had a version of this question asked already. So I'm going
to try to take it in a little bit different direction.
But Ukraine has far exceeded most expectations over 2
months into this most recent phase of Putin's war. I support
providing the Ukrainians with the capabilities that they need
to defend their sovereignty and hope that we can quickly pass a
Ukraine supplemental that fulfills President Biden's request.
It's clear that this conflict may extend for some time. As
you talk with Ukrainian counterparts, I know you've been asked
what a realistic end state is for Ukraine. I'd like to ask a
little differently, what does a realistic military success or
end state look like for the United States, and how will our
security assistance need to change at this new phase in order
to support those goals?
General Milley. Thank you, Senator. The end state has been
articulated by the President and the Secretary of Defense,
Secretary Blinken several different times, and what it is, is
maintaining the cohesion of NATO, make sure that Ukraine at the
end of the day ends up as a free sovereign nation with the
territorial integrity intact, no kinetic war between NATO and
the United States and Russia, so no action between our military
forces specifically, and continue to support the Ukrainian
people with what they need to defend themselves.
So that's what we're trying to do and we need to--at the
end of the day, you know, what's it all about? It's all about
the rules-based international order that has been grossly
violated by Russia with an illegal aggressive action by
military forces across a sovereign border. We have had a set of
institutions in place for 78 consecutive years to prevent that
very thing from happening and that's what's at stake.
It's beyond Ukraine is what's at stake and our intent is to
maintain and uphold the rules-based international order by
achieving those specific objectives the President has given us.
RUSSIAN ESCALATION
Senator Baldwin. Thank you. So, Secretary Austin, on this
topic, some analysts believe that the more we assist Ukraine in
degrading Putin's military, the more likely he will be to
escalate to new levels, possibly with chemical, biological, or
even tactical nuclear weapons.
Can you clarify how this might change the calculus that
General Milley was just outlining in terms of use of force from
the U.S. military?
Secretary Austin. There are a number of things that Mr.
Putin could do. You could make the case, by the way, Senator,
that he's already escalated in terms of the types of things
that we see him doing in attacking civilians, destroying
cities, towns, and villages, indiscriminate targeting.
Certainly he has a number of things that he could do. He
could escalate by conducting a cyber-event or, you know,
there's been a lot of talk about the possible employment of
chem-bio. Of course, if he employs a chemical-biological
weapon, I think he will see a reaction from the international
community and because that's a pretty serious step, and, of
course, you know, President Biden's been clear about, you know,
his views on this.
So it's possible that he could do that. I certainly hope
that he chooses to not do that. Again, I think the
international response will be significant, but, you know,
Senator, he could end this war today.
Senator Baldwin. Yes.
Secretary Austin. This is a war of choice. He could choose
to stop fighting and withdraw his forces from Ukraine and again
this is the decision of one man and so I would hope that Mr.
Putin would decide to do something different going forward.
Senator Baldwin. Yes, and I just want to close with should
Putin continue to escalate, is it your expectation that the
Administration would come to Congress requesting an
authorization for use of military force?
Secretary Austin. That's a policy decision that my boss
will make and so I won't get in front of my boss.
Senator Tester. Senator Blunt.
INFLATION
Senator Blunt. Thank you, Chairman, and thanks to both of
you for your current and your long service to the country. I'm
deeply appreciative, as I'm sure we all are.
Secretary Austin, I think McKinsey had a report out last
year that indicated that from 2000 to 2021 the Defense Cost
Index, the inflation index ran about 20 points ahead of the CPI
(Consumer Price Index) during that period of time.
Do you think this budget will reflect the world we're in
now in terms of replenishing our stock and getting ready for
the future? It's about a 5 percent increase in an inflationary
economy. It seems to me we may not be holding our own, let
alone moving forward here.
Secretary Austin. Well, thank you, Senator. Before I answer
that question, let me thank you for your service and, you know,
tremendous service to our country and to the Senate. So thanks
for your support of the military on behalf of the entire
Department of Defense.
As I said earlier, when we crafted this budget, we built
the budget based upon our strategy and at that point you have
to make assumptions about levels of inflation and so we used
the appropriate number, what we believed to be the appropriate
number at that time and things have changed now.
So there is a difference.
JAVELINS AND STINGER MISSILES
Senator Blunt. Well, that's helpful, and I'm sure we're
going to be discussing that more with the Secretaries as they
come in. So it's helpful. I missed your observation about that,
and I think it's helpful to know that that's where you are now.
You know, a number of things have changed and one is we
have an intent to provide our Ukrainian friends with a lot more
things to fight with.
Does this budget at this point anticipate replacing the
Javelins or the Stinger missiles that we have given or will
give to them?
Secretary Austin. It is a substantial budget in my view,
Senator, and it allows us to go after the things that we need
to have to support our war-fighting concepts that are outlined
in our strategy here. Again, China is listed as our pacing
challenge. Russia is listed as an acute threat.
The supplementals that you provided us to this point have
been very helpful in going after the kinds of things that you
mentioned, and again this next supplemental that the President
has asked for your support on will enable us to do what you
just described, replenish stocks and also continue to support
Ukraine, but the supplemental funds are really focused on that.
Senator Blunt. Well, to pursue that just a little bit more,
I think we've roughly provided roughly 5,000 Javelins and 1,400
Stingers. The Javelins, that's about a third of our stockpile
already provided, and the Stingers about 25 percent of our
stockpile.
Is it possible to replace a third of our stockpile or,
let's say, 50 percent before we're done here within a year?
Secretary Austin. It certainly is not only possible but we
will do that. We will never go below our minimum requirement
for our stockpiles. We'll always maintain the capability to
defend this country and support our interests, but this will
help us to not only replenish our stockpiles but also replace
some of the capability that we've asked our partners and allies
to provide. Some of the Eastern Flank countries early on
provided Stingers and other countries provided Javelins upon
our request and so it'll help us do that.
INVESTMENT FOR MODERN WARFARE
Senator Blunt. Well, I know we'll want to work with you on
that.
General Milley, let me get in one more question here. I
know you're a great student of warfare and my guess is we've
all learned a lot in the last 3 months of assumptions prior to
what's happened in Ukraine and what we've seen happen.
In terms of effectiveness of force or the weapons that are
most effective we're seeing in that theater of war, does this
budget yet reflect what you think the next budget should
probably reflect in terms of our transition to be sure we're
keeping up with the lessons we're learning from modern warfare?
General Milley. It does. It moves us in the right direction
for sure. This has got the most research and development of any
budget in NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act) history
actually and it's a very significant movement into the future,
and as we look at what's happening in Ukraine or, for example,
in Mosul or Syria, what we're seeing is some fundamental change
in the character of war that is going to lead into the future.
One of those changes is highly-dense urban area combat. You
saw the Battle of Kyiv, for example, and the Russian failure
there. You're seeing the ubiquitous use of precision munitions.
You're seeing the use of drones, for example, and unmanned
aerial vehicles. You're seeing the very effective use of air
defense systems, both SAMs (Surface-to-Air Missile) and MANPADs
(Man-Portable Air-Defense System), to deny the Russians the air
space, and the most effective weapon they've used so far has
been anti-tank weapons and, of course, Javelin is what we have,
but many of the countries are providing all kinds of NLAWs
(Next Generation Light Anti-Tank Weapon) and Carl Gustafs and
RPGs (Rocket-Propelled Grenade), a wide variety of anti-tank
weapons.
So the combination of all of that together has led the
Russians to not achieve the successes that they thought they
would have and those have direct application and I think this
budget takes that into account, but beyond that, this budget is
also investing in artificial intelligence, robotics, most of
which we're not really seeing in the current battlefield, but
we do expect those to be very, very significant players in a
future battle, you know, 20-30 years from now, something like
that. Those are going to be dominant technologies at that time
and this budget takes us on that path.
Senator Blunt. Thank you. Thank you, Chairman.
Senator Tester. Senator Murray.
EQUIPMENT GIVEN TO UKRAINE
Senator Murray. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank
you to both of you for being here today.
Secretary Austin, I want to commend the work that you have
done so far to get Ukraine the equipment and support they need
to fight back against Russia's unforgivable attack on their
country, and at the same time I'm glad we're starting to
provide more capable systems and I really urge you to increase
those deliveries and provide all the necessary training so
Ukrainian forces do have everything they need.
Now I have heard repeatedly from people on the front lines
and those involved in the logistic system in Ukraine about
equipment that we deliver not reaching front line units that
most need the weapons and ammunition and body armor.
There seems to be a number of logistical and institutional
issues, including some diversion and hoarding, which are
standing in the way.
So I wanted to ask you today what is your assessment of
those issues and how are you working with Ukraine to make
distribution of international assistance more transparent and
effective so the units on the front lines actually get the
equipment that they need.
Secretary Austin. Well, thank you, Senator. This is
something that's very important to us at the Department and to
me and General Milley specifically, and we talk to our
counterparts on a weekly basis and without fail this is a
question that I ask about.
We don't have people on the ground to be able to provide
accurate feedback on how this equipment is moving and whether
or not it's getting to where it's needed most, but the report
that we get back from the senior leadership routinely is that
it's getting to where it needs to go.
But, you know, I won't stop. I'll continue to engage and
make sure that we emphasize that it's important that all the
stuff we're giving them gets to the right place so that they
can be successful, and, in addition to that, you know, when I
engaged the senior leadership in Kyiv last week, I emphasized
the importance of accountability, as well, and they
acknowledged that this is something that's important and
something that they're focused on.
Again, without people on the ground to be able to confirm
or deny, it's very, very difficult to do at this point.
PRIVATIZED HOUSING
Senator Murray. Okay. I appreciate that. Turning to home,
Secretary Austin, in January, I and many of my colleagues sent
you a letter regarding DoD oversight of privatized housing
after Balfour Beatty Communities pled guilty to defrauding the
government. The Department's response provided few meaningful
answers on how oversight is actually going to improve and that
really needs to change.
On top of that, as you probably know, just a few days ago
the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations released a
report showing that after the period covered by the DOJ
(Department of Justice) investigation, Balfour Beatty continued
to fail to remediate mold, failed to make critical repairs, and
falsified information in the database DoD uses to calculate
their incentive fee. That is really outrageous and really
completely unacceptable.
In my home State of Washington, Balfour Beatty continues to
obstruct building sufficient housing at Fairchild and along
with the shortage of housing in the community where BAH (Basic
Allowance for Housing) fails to keep up with rent prices, that
means that military families are left without housing. Some
have been stuck living out of RVs for months now and at Joint
Base Lewis-McChord, dozens of families have sued Lincoln
Military Housing over really deplorable living conditions.
Our service members should have access to the best, or at
least decent housing, not the worst. Now we all want to fix
this as soon as possible. This budget requests almost a $168
million for military housing privatization support. That is $45
million more than last year.
Can you tell me, first, what are our military families
getting out of this funding increase and, secondly, what is
your assessment of the private housing companies' compliance
since the plea agreement, and will you hold them accountable
for such horrendous, abusive conduct?
Secretary Austin. To your last question first, yes, I will
hold them accountable, and I expect the service secretaries to
hold them accountable, as well, and, you know, the health and
welfare of our troops, our families is very, very important to
us, and, we put a great deal of emphasis on this, but,
obviously this is something that we can never take our eyes off
of and we're not there yet.
We put more resources into the budget so we can provide
more and higher quality housing, but we're going to have to
hold the contractors accountable and we intend to do that. I
intend to do that.
Senator Murray. What are the military families getting out
of the funding increases that is being requested?
Secretary Austin. Of course, it's spread out over a number
of different projects, but it will be more and better housing,
high quality housing.
Senator Murray. Okay. Well, we've been told this for a long
time and we're still seeing these deplorable conditions and the
ongoing really substandard housing and the challenges that our
families are having. So this needs a lot of work and oversight
and we have got to stay up on top of it. I want to know that
you're going to be doing that.
Secretary Austin. I will.
Senator Murray. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Tester. Senator Moran.
HYPERSONICS
Senator Moran. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you both for
your service to our Nation.
In your written testimony, you both mentioned that our
adversaries are rapidly developing hypersonic missiles. As
hypersonics become more commonplace, it seems we can't rely
upon nuclear deterrence alone to prevent hypersonic attacks and
once hypersonic interceptors are developed, how do we plan on
deploying these defensive capabilities around the globe to make
certain that our deployed troops are sufficiently protected
from attack, and what shifts do you expect to see in missile
and interceptor investment in future years as the U.S. competes
with China?
Secretary Austin. Well, hypersonics is important to us and
in this budget I think you've seen, Senator, that we're
investing some $7.2 billion in long-range fires, $4.7 billion
of that is focused on hypersonics, and so we continue to
develop capability for ourselves but what's important is that
we need to consider the mix, the range of capabilities, the mix
of capabilities that we're going to bring onboard to support
our war-fighting concepts. So hypersonics is an important
capability, but there are other things that add to this
equation, as well.
In terms of defending ourselves, this is a priority for me
and as soon as we came onboard, I tasked my staff to make sure
that we pull the right elements together to make sure that we
were pressing forward rapidly to increase our efforts in
developing our defenses against the hypersonic threat.
You've seen us engage industry on this issue and we'll
continue to press, but, you know, we've made some progress, but
we have a ways to go yet.
Senator Moran. What concerns do you have about the
hypersonics weapons workforce? What do we need to do to be
training and preparing ourselves? What kind of investment in
our workforce is necessary?
Secretary Austin. In our----
Senator Moran. In our private sector workforce.
Secretary Austin. Well, certainly, you know, we've engaged
industry and asked them to pick up the pace, and in terms of
what they need specifically in their workforce elements, that's
something that we haven't discussed, but again I think the
issue to this point has been, you know, we've not pushed to the
degree that we can push and we've not invested to the degree
that we can invest, and so we invested in this last year, we
invested in it this year, and we're going to continue to press.
SUICIDE PREVENTION
Senator Moran. Thank you. Let me shift the nature of my
question. I had the opportunity to review and sit down with
staff from the Inspector General's Office to discuss their
November 2021 report evaluating the Department's Implementation
of Suicide Prevention: Resources for Transitioning Members.
We know from our work on the Veterans' Committee that the
most vulnerable time for many members of our military is as
they are leaving Active Duty and becoming veterans.
That Inspector General's report demonstrates a lack of
compliance with Executive Order 13822 regarding mental health
screenings and the warm hand-off to mental healthcare for
transitioning service members. It continues to be troubling to
me that this does not seem to receive the attention that it
deserves within our military community.
Can you share with me, either one of you, what progress the
department is making in implementing the Inspector General's
recommendations from that November 2021 report?
Secretary Austin. What I can tell you, Senator, is that
you've heard me say this a number of times that this is
important to me, this is important to our Department, and this
is why we've invested in suicide prevention and mental health
in a major way this year. We invested in it last year, as well.
But this year we're investing $1.4 billion in mental health
efforts. We continue to liaise and engage with our counterparts
in the VA (Veterans Affairs) to ensure that we can close, as
much as possible, the gap as troops transition from active duty
to leaving the service or going in any direction.
So I've also stood up an independent review committee to
address this issue and give us further insights into mental
health issues and also prevention of suicide and so we're
investing in this in a major way.
Senator Moran. I intend to pursue this further in NDAA and
I look forward to your cooperation as we figure out what
language and instructions might be valuable to the Department
to see that that gap that you just described is closed. Thank
you.
Senator Tester. Before I get to Senator Durbin, I just want
to add to Senator Moran's question on the transition. We have
work to do, and I know you guys aren't necessarily in the
position to deal with pushing people out, you want to keep them
in, but it is apparent that this is a pretty massive problem
and it is both active military and VA.
So I want to thank Senator Moran for that line of
questioning.
Senator Durbin.
RUSSIAN MILITARY AND DECLARATION OF WAR
Senator Durbin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you both for
being here, General Milley as well as Secretary Austin. Thank
you for what you're doing today and your years of service to
our country.
And so those of us who've been in the business of military
politics over a period of time are considered to be wise
forecasters of what's going to happen and sometimes we are and
sometimes we aren't.
I can recall the early briefing on what we might expect in
Ukraine when the Russian troops were all poised at the border,
and if I remember it correctly, the prediction was that the
city of Kyiv would fall in a matter of days and that major
parts of Ukraine would fall to the Russians, as well. Then they
would find that the maintenance of order in ``conquered
territory'' would be extremely difficult and they would face a
resistance for a long period of time.
I remember that prediction as we all watched reality
unfold. Kyiv today, thank goodness, is still not in the hands
of the Russians, those under attack, I'm sure, and most of
Ukraine has not been conquered by Russia, thank goodness, and
they are apparently having a difficult time hanging on to what
they currently have and are fighting to extend their reach
every day.
I just wonder. We can assess it in many different ways, but
certainly the courage and resilience of the Ukrainian people,
first and foremost, is the reason for what we see, at least I
think so, and I wonder what we've learned about Russia's
military strength and what we anticipated they would deliver in
the field and what they actually delivered, and I know it's
been asked earlier by Senator Baldwin, but a declaration of
war, what would that mean in terms of Putin's capabilities in
extending his military reach in Ukraine? Secretary Austin.
Secretary Austin. Yes. With your permission, I'll answer
first and if you want the Chairman to respond, as well, sir,
certainly we'd offer that.
We have learned a lot about Russia's leadership at the
lower levels, which I think has been very, very key in their
efforts here. They have modern equipment. They have lots of it.
They have a doctrine that really wasn't followed and so as we
saw things unfold on the ground, we saw them not able to
support themselves logistically. We saw them make some bad
assumptions at the very beginning of this. We saw them fail to
integrate aerial fires with their ground maneuver and just a
number of missteps, and I attribute a lot of that to lack of
leadership at the lower level.
We saw Russia push its senior officers forward as a result
of that and many of those were killed from being forward on the
battlefield. We'll see some of the same mistakes, some of the
same weaknesses as they prosecute the fight in the Donbas and
in the southern part of the country, but they will learn from
what they did in the early stages of this fight, and we'll see
them improve their logistical efforts and we'll see them
improve their massing of fires and that sort of business, but
some things they won't be able to correct.
We've learned a lot about their leadership at the lower
levels and their level of training.
Senator Durbin : I'd like General Milley to respond, but
there was a suggestion that if declaration of war took place,
something would happen automatically under Russian law of a
conscription and that suggests to me as a civilian that a lot
of untrained men in this circumstance might be called into
training and exercises that they aren't prepared for. They
haven't been conditioned for. That doesn't seem like it would
be an immediate boost to their effort.
Secretary Austin. That's exactly right, Senator. He would
be able to mobilize more people but to adequately train those
people to be more effective than what we've seen on the
battlefield thus far, that's questionable.
Senator Durbin. General Milley, if you'd respond to that
question I've asked earlier, and if you'd also add to your
comments since I'm running out of time. I have a particular
concern about Poland and the Baltics and they worry every step
of the way of extension of Russian aggression into their
region. I hope you'll address that in your comments.
General Milley. Very briefly, Senator, declaration of war
does have some implications inside Russian society legally. As
the Secretary said, it would allow them to mobilize additional
forces, but again training, etcetera, how long it would take
for them to get to the front.
In terms of the lessons learned, leadership is clearly the
key from Zelensky on down to the lowest private, and as
Napoleon taught us a long time ago, you know, moral is to the
physical as three is to one.
So they are capable. That is probably the most important
difference right now between the Russians and the Ukrainians is
the leadership throughout the levels. In addition to that, it's
what the Western nations, NATO and particularly the United
States taught their leaders since 2014 about mission command.
The Ukrainians are practicing a decentralized intent-based
set of tactics. The Russians are practicing a top-down very,
very top-heavy directive in nature, sort of the set of orders
coming from the top, which is not necessarily the best thing to
do in a dynamic battlefield.
The second thing is the effective use of anti-tank weapons
has been phenomenal on the part of the Ukrainians. Third is the
denial of the air space, the air supremacy and the air
superiority to the Russians by the Ukrainians and their
effective use of ground air defense systems. Terrain has played
to the Ukrainian favor.
Intelligence is really important. The Ukrainians have a
built-in intelligence system being the people. So the Russians
have walked into an area that is clearly unwelcome to them and
the people have provided a massive amount of intelligence, plus
we have opened up the pipes, which I'm not going to go into
detail here in an open hearing, but there's a significant
amount of intelligence flowing to Ukraine from the United
States. All of that in combination and many, many more are some
of the early lessons learned that have made the difference as
what you've seen.
In terms of predictions, those were our early assessments
and war is a dynamic interaction between competing wills. So
between those predictions that you heard in early February and
January, a lot of things happened on that battlefield in
preparation prior to the invasion on the 24th, not the least of
which is an intelligence flow from the United States and that
made a significant difference in outcomes.
POLAND AND THE BALTICS
Senator Durbin. Poland and the Baltics.
General Milley. Poland and the Baltics. So Poland is----
Senator Durbin. Baltics.
General Milley. Yes. Poland is clearly--you know, these are
all NATO Article 5 allies. As you know, the United States under
the direction of the President and the Secretary of Defense, we
went ahead and directed U.S. troops. So right now you have U.S.
troops in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Hungary,
the entire belt has U.S. troops in there and that was done
immediately in order to reinforce the NATO Article 5 deterrence
posture of the United States and to assure our allies that
they're not going to be left alone.
So that is a critical component, as the President has said
many, many times, as members of Congress have said many, many
times, Article 5 matters. It's a Senate-ratified treaty and the
United States will not give up--will protect every inch of NATO
territory.
Senator Durbin. Thank you.
Senator Tester. Senator Graham.
INFLATION AND DEFENSE BUDGET
Senator Graham. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you both for
coming.
General Austin, this budget request is a 4.4 percent
increase?
Secretary Austin. Yes, from last year's.
Senator Graham. Okay. What's the inflation rate?
Secretary Austin. Current inflation rate is well above
that.
Senator Graham. Okay. So this budget doesn't keep up with
inflation, Number 1. Percentage of GDP (gross domestic product)
spent on defense, what percentage does this budget represent?
Secretary Austin. I think it's 3.1.
Senator Graham. Okay. How many times have we been below 3
percent since World War II?
Secretary Austin. I don't know, Senator.
Senator Graham. Well, you need to look it up. 1940-1999-
2000-2001. In the 10-year window, the fiscal year Defense Plan
in year 10, 2032, what percentage of GDP will be spent on
defense?
Secretary Austin. In the 10-year window?
Senator Graham. Yes. Fiscal year 2032. The trajectory we
are on, where will we be in fiscal year 2032?
Secretary Austin. We should be a bit above where we are
right now.
Senator Graham. Now we're at 2.4 percent if the numbers
I've been given are right. So over time we spend less
historically than we've ever spent and given the 10 years that
I'm looking at, I don't see the real peace dividend out there.
How many current battle warships do we have in the Navy? We
have 296.
Secretary Austin. 293.
Senator Graham. We have 11 aircraft carriers. How many
ships does China have?
Secretary Austin. I think the latest number was around 400.
Senator Graham. Yes. 355. They're going to 422 by the end
of--well, 460 by 2030. Where will we be in terms of ships by
the end of 2032? U.S. ships? It's 280.
So the bottom line is we're on the wrong path here from my
humble opinion. We're spending below inflation. The Chinese are
increasing their Navy. By 2032, if these numbers are right,
we'll have 280 ships, below what we have today. GDP spent on
defense will be at 2.4 percent. I don't know what kind of world
we're looking at out there, but you're seeing a different world
than I am, and I hope we in a bipartisan way can correct this
because I think in really many ways this is dangerous.
AFGHANISTAN
Afghanistan. General Milley, I think you and Secretary
Austin said last year that we could expect in the next 2 to 3
years threats to the American homeland emerge from Afghanistan,
is that still accurate?
General Milley. I still believe that to be a correct
assessment, yes.
Senator Graham. Has it moved one way or the other?
General Milley. We're seeing initial indications, as you
have seen in the media, as well, and you're privy to some of
the intelligence which I won't go over here, but ISIS (Islamic
State of Iraq and Syria) and other groups are trying to put
themselves back together. They have not succeeded yet and they
have not yet presented a threat to the U.S. homeland, but we
are watching that very, very closely, and if they raise their
head and do present a threat, then we'll take appropriate
action.
Senator Graham. Is our over the horizon capability to
monitor Afghanistan sufficient?
General Milley. I think we have room to improve to be sure.
We do have----
Senator Graham. I don't want to do anything----
General Milley [continuing]. The capability.
Senator Graham. Right. We're unclassified here, but ISR
(Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance) presence in
Afghanistan, I think you'll be shocked to know what it is and
where it's headed.
To both of you, you advocated for troops to remain in
Afghanistan, is that correct? It's the President's decision,
but that was the position of both of you, is that correct?
Secretary Austin. That's correct. Let me be clear, Senator.
I support the President's decision.
Senator Graham. I know, but the recommendation you gave, I
want to be clear, was that we'd be better off to have a
residual force, is that accurate?
Secretary Austin. Sir, you know I will never convey what
I----
Senator Graham. Well, the record's replete with the fact
that it was and I just want to compliment you both. I'm trying
to compliment you that I thought that was the right decision,
that pulling everybody out of Afghanistan was a mistake.
Do you believe that our withdrawal from Afghanistan made it
more likely that Putin would invade Ukraine?
General Milley. I think that President Putin made his
decision to invade Ukraine long before we pulled out of
Afghanistan, to be very, very candid.
Senator Graham. Why didn't he do it before?
General Milley. Why didn't he do it before?
Senator Graham. Yes.
General Milley. I think he was preparing the force. Last
year he ran a very, very large exercise and getting the force
ready.
Senator Graham. Why did he invade Crimea when they did?
General Milley. In 2014?
Senator Graham. Yes.
General Milley. I can't answer that question right now.
Senator Graham. Well,----
General Milley. I think it's because----
Senator Graham [continuing]. I've got a theory here----
General Milley. Say again.
Senator Graham [continuing]. That, with all due respect,
that Afghanistan sent the worst possible signal to our
adversaries and our allies.
President Biden and Secretary Blinken have said they have
no regrets regarding our withdrawal from Afghanistan. Secretary
Austin, do you have any regrets?
Secretary Austin. Senator, as I've said, I support the
President's decision----
Senator Graham. Okay.
Secretary Austin [continuing]. And again, you know, I----
Senator Graham. What about you, General Milley?
General Milley. I deeply regret the loss of 11 Marines, one
sailor, and one soldier.
Senator Graham. Yes. I do, too. I regret the loss of
everybody we've lost over there and all the wounded, but do you
have any regrets in terms of our national security that maybe
we made the wrong decision?
General Milley. Senator, I'm a soldier and I execute the
decisions that I'm told to make and I don't think at this point
it's helpful for me to express regret or not.
Senator Graham. Fair enough. So I want to work with you
both. Chairman Durbin's been great on Ukraine. We want to do
more, not less. We want to send a signal we're in it to win it
and I appreciate the robust response. It's getting better every
day. So thank you both.
In terms of the budget, the budget before us is inadequate
to the threats we face and over time it's a disaster and I'd
like to fix it.
Thank you.
Senator Tester. Senator Hoeven.
WEAPONS FOR UKRAINE
Senator Hoeven. Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
Question for both of you. What weapon systems does Ukraine
need the most and need the soonest that they don't have?
Secretary Austin. What they've asked for, Senator, is long-
range fire capability and we're providing that as you've seen
with most recently 90 155 systems and----
Senator Hoeven. And they're capable of using them or do
they need to be trained on them?
Secretary Austin. They're using them now. They're using
them as we speak. As you may know, we took a number of troops
out and trained them up very quickly on 155s, put them back
into action and they are employing those weapon systems now.
They have the ammunition that we're providing them and other
countries are providing them 155 capability, as well.
They've also asked for armor capability, tanks and armored
vehicles, and countries in the region are providing that, and
as we witnessed in our meeting that we held in Ramstein a week
ago, countries like Canada and Germany are stepping up,
providing armored vehicle capability, and so their capability
overall is increasing, and again they put the stuff that we
provided them to very good use, in addition to the UAVs
(Unmanned aerial vehicles) that we're also providing.
Senator Hoeven. General, same question.
General Milley. Yes, same thing, Senator. I talk to my
counterpart literally every other day and we work very, very
hard to get him what he thinks he needs. Long-range fire,
specifically cannon artillery and rocket artillery. They were
used to using the old Soviet Model 152 artillery. Ammunition
became a problem. So we're moving to a NATO standard.
So the United States and many of our allies and partners
are providing him with multiple battalion's worth of 155 cannon
and the ammunition to go with it, plus the radars, plus the
fire direction, the entire package for effective use of fires.
That's the most important thing right now in the current fight.
Secondly is to continue to sustain them on anti-tank
weapons, very effective, anti-aircraft weapons, ground-based,
either SAMs and/or MANPADs. Those are probably the top three
and Number 4 would be his ground maneuver capability of tanks
and mech infantry vehicles which many countries are now helping
to contribute, as well.
So those would be the top four. There's a whole laundry
list below that, but those are the top four.
Senator Hoeven. Looking at what the Ukrainians have done to
the Russian tanks with our Javelins, do we have something that
is going to ensure that the tanks we provide are able to defeat
that same type of shoulder-mounted threat and truly be
effective?
Secretary Austin. The tanks that have been provided to
them, Senator, have been tanks that they are accustomed to
using and that they have the maintenance capabilities to
maintain. So we've seen tanks, a number of tanks being provided
by countries like Poland and others that are in the
neighborhood, and again Russians don't have something that
approaches the Javelin.
UKRAINE SUPPLEMENTAL
Senator Hoeven. All right. So then next question, have we
fully utilized the funds that we've already provided such that
you need this and when do you need this supplemental, and have
we really focused on the lethal aid versus getting other things
in this $33 billion supplemental?
Secretary Austin. We absolutely have focused on the lethal
aid, Senator, and we're at the very end of our drawdown
capability here. So, you know, we're very quickly going to run
out of funds.
Senator Hoeven. Okay. General, did you have anything to add
to that?
General Milley. No. I think it's clear to me that the
monies that the Congress has provided is overwhelmingly in
support of lethal aid. There's no question about it. It's
almost all lethal aid actually.
NUCLEAR TRIAD
Senator Hoeven. Switching gears here, more along the lines
of Senator Graham, are you both--this is a question for both of
you. Are you both fully committed to upgrading, updating, and
modernizing our Nuclear Triad and is the funding in this budget
adequate to do that?
Secretary Austin. $34 billion allocated to that effort in
this budget and, yes, Senator, I am absolutely fully committed
to modernizing the Triad.
General Milley. A hundred percent. It's the number one
priority in this budget and it'll have to be sustained over
time in future budgets, but it helps ensure the protection of
the United States for many, many years, and we need to reinvest
and recapitalize it. It's number one.
Senator Hoeven. Thank you. I appreciate that and agree a
hundred percent.
SKY RANGE
Final question. Are you familiar with Sky Range, for
developing the Sky Range System to test hypersonics as a way
actually do it rather than lining up naval ships and trying to
do it, and do you support it, including using the Global Hawks
for that purpose?
Secretary Austin. I am familiar with it, Senator, and, yes,
I do support it, and again the Air Force will continue to work
to make sure that the right capabilities are in place to
support that effort.
General Milley. Same, same.
Senator Hoeven. Thank you, appreciate it.
Senator Tester. Senator Murkowski.
HYPERSONICS TESTING
Senator Murkowski. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Gentlemen, thank you both for your leadership. We
appreciate it at all times but certainly at these very, very
difficult and challenging times.
I want to just follow on Senator Hoeven's comments about
hypersonics. We are in a unique position, as you know, in
Alaska providing the only location supporting both short- and
long-range hypersonic weapons testing within the country just
because of where we are with our unique geographic location.
You don't have to fly over civilian populations and I know
that this is something that, General Milley, you have spoken a
lot about with regards to China's hypersonic weapons testing
ability.
Just very briefly are you looking at the Aleutians for this
in terms of opportunity for testing----
General Milley. Yes.
Senator Murkowski [continuing]. In conjunction with our
Space Port there in Kodiak?
General Milley. The short answer is yes, and the
hypersonics are an important weapon in an entire array of
weapon systems.
As you know, the Russians have already fired hypersonic
weapons in Ukraine. I do want to caveat that, though, but the
key to it is in its name. It is very, very fast and there's no
effective defensive weapon against it per se to shoot it down.
So the key, as Senator Moran had asked earlier, the key is to
shoot the archer, not the arrow, and to get at the system at
its launch sites.
The other key from protection standpoint is not only the
integrated air missile ballistic defense system but it's also
the tactics of the units. So the units are going to have to be
as we move into this changing character of war in the future,
units and organizations and equipment are going to have to be
smaller, faster, much more hidden in the sense of not quite
totally invisible, probably never get there, but we need to be
very, very difficult to find on the battlefield, a constant
state of moving and motion, invisible to the extent that it's
possible, smaller in general, and speed will matter on future
battlefields because so far what we see with hypersonics is
they're very effective against fixed targets, much more
difficult against moving targets.
JAVELINS AND TRAINING FOR UKRAINE
Senator Murkowski. Let me ask about the Javelins here, I
was just speaking about that with Senator Hoeven, Mr.
Secretary. We've been working with a constituent of mine. He's
an Army Special Forces vet. He's been in Ukraine training
ground forces for the past couple months. He has facilitated
several requirements letters from the Ukrainian Ministry of
Defense verifying the need for Javelin training kits, including
one from the Head of Ukrainian Defense Intelligence.
[The information follows:]
Senator Murkowski. I understand these documents have been
pushed to your office. Obviously the Javelins have the ability
to significantly help Ukrainian forces, but what we are hearing
is that the new Ukrainian troops are not provided adequate
training to operate these $200,000 weapons systems. I was just
looking at an article that came out a week ago with regards to
the training aspect of it.
So the question to you is whether or not they have enough
Javelins, but also what are we doing to help facilitate
training so that they can most effectively deploy these
weapons, and what is DoD telling the Ukrainian Ministry of
Defense in response to their ask for more trainers? How are we
doing on that side?
Secretary Austin. First of all, thank you, Senator. I would
highlight that we have taken at this point several hundred
troops out of Ukraine, trained them in other countries on
artillery, operation of UAVs, and other things, and they've
been reintroduced into the fight.
So training is something that we're doing, but the issue is
that in my engagements with the Minister of Defense, and I
think also with the Chief of Defense and the Chairman, the
specific issue of training on Javelins has never come up, but
if they raise that issue certainly we stand ready to train
them. If it is a requirement and since you brought it up, no
doubt it is, we'll go back and check with them again and the
people that they need to train, we stand ready to train them
and we're pushing training kits into country, as well.
ARCTIC OPERATIONS
Senator Murkowski. I will be happy to follow up and provide
you with the information that we have on this and I thank you
for that.
Then just very lastly, and this doesn't require a response,
but this is with regards to Arctic operations. You'd be
disappointed if I didn't raise it with you, but I am thankful
that you have stressed the importance of supporting Arctic
operations, the training, and equipment for our Joint Forces in
this important region.
I know you've made good progress with regards to the Ted
Stevens Arctic Securities Studies Center in Alaska and the
first Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Arctic Affairs.
You've got NORTHCOM tasked with an Arctic Security Assessment.
So there's a lot coming on in this regard.
I understand there's a report due soon. We look forward to
reviewing that and being there to support you in all those
efforts, but I truly appreciate the heightened level of
engagement in this very important part of our responsibility.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
DEFENSE BUDGET AND DIVESTMENT
Senator Tester. Thank you, Senator Murkowski.
I'm going to take my question time now. Fellows, we've been
at this for about an hour and 37 minutes, which is a little
longer than I had anticipated, but it's a big budget and it's
worth every question to be asked, and I would just want to
start by thanking you guys for what you're doing.
I mean, the truth is, it is $773 billion, you're going to
have people come in saying it's too much, you're going to have
people coming in saying it's too little. As you've already
pointed out, Secretary, you have to snap the chalk line
somewhere. That's a good analogy.
I just appreciate the work that you've done because anybody
can pick holes in it--anybody can pick holes it--and to talk
about where we're going to be in the next decade, 10 years from
now, is pretty interesting because you have to have people
around you nimble enough to know whether we're even going to
need ships or tanks, or if it's going to be fought in outer
space, or if it's going to be fought in the cyber realm,
wherever it's going to be fought, and the truth is if you screw
up, we're all going to have opinions and we're going to beat
the crap out of you and so you've got to do what's best for
this country and best for the people who serve under you and I
just want to thank you for that.
Talking about the area of decommissioning, divesting, it's
always a challenge. You've always got people in the Senate that
don't want to see certain things go away, but I want to talk
about a proposal to get rid of ships that, quite frankly, we
just put into service. In fact, some of them aren't even
totally put into service yet, the Littoral Combat Ships.
How much confidence do you have in the analysis that these
things just aren't fit for the fight?
Secretary Austin. I'm very confident, Chairman. Again, I
think you hit the nail on the head there. We're looking to
acquire capabilities that are relevant in the future fight and
survivable.
The earlier variants of the ship that you mentioned did not
live up to expectations. It's very expensive to maintain and so
we've made the decision that it would be better to decommission
those ships and invest those resources in acquiring
capabilities that are more agile and more relevant to the
future fight, more survivable.
Senator Tester. Those ships have been on the books for--
like I said, I think there's still some in process, but they
were designed what, 20 years ago, 15 years ago? Do you know
offhand?
Secretary Austin. I think it was about 20 years ago,
Senator.
Senator Tester. About 20 years ago, and it's already
changed in 20 years and pretty dramatically, I might add.
ACCOUNTABILITY FOR UKRAINE
I want to talk a little bit about something that's already
been visited and that's accountability. There's been $3.7
billion spent on a supplemental so far. That's a lot of money
and there's another $16.4 projected to go out.
You had said with earlier questions that you're reasonably
confident that the weaponry is getting to the Ukrainians and I
get it, you don't have people on the ground there to be able to
monitor everything, but the question is, are we making sure
that, Number 1, none of these weapons are falling into the
wrong hands? Is there any way to do that? And then, Number 2,
are we making sure that the taxpayer dollars that are being
spent are actually making a difference? I'm talking about a
significant difference.
Secretary Austin. Well, first of all, I think they are
making a difference, Chairman, and, you know, just looking at
the battlefield today versus what we were looking at a couple
of weeks ago, we see that the Ukrainians have defeated the
Russians around Kyiv and they've moved back. They're focused on
the South and East now and we expect that to be a bit of a
different flavor of fight that employs more long-range fires, a
bit more maneuver, and the Ukrainians have asked for what they
believe is relevant in that fight, and the department and the
Joint Staff under the Chairman's leadership there have really
hustled to get the capabilities to them as quickly as possible,
and we've engaged other countries to do the same, to provide
additional capability.
But in terms of accountability, we have to depend on the
Ukrainians at this point to do the right thing and make sure
that they are prudent and careful about how they issue these
weapons out and account for these weapons. Again, I engage the
very senior leadership in the country on this issue and they
assure me that this is something that's important and that
they'll continue to focus on.
WEAPONS PRODUCTION
Senator Tester. For resupplying, there's a lot of stories
about cold production lines, about the fact that we have supply
chain issues when it comes to replacing everything that we're
shipping into Ukraine and our allies are shipping into Ukraine
too.
You said you thought--and don't let me put words in your
mouth--that the weaponry could be replaced within the next year
with this budget.
Secretary Austin. All of it won't be replaced within a
year. We'll see production lines operate at different speeds
just based upon what they are. We're optimistic about the
Javelin being industry being able to increase the production
rate in a very meaningful way, and there are decisions to be
made on the Stinger going forward.
But in every case, you know, industry has leaned into this
and is willing to work with us to increase production as much
as possible.
Senator Tester. And the dollars in this budget will
accomplish getting those production lines up and it
accomplishes getting what we need to replace what's being
utilized?
Secretary Austin. And the supplemental that we've asked you
for, right, Senator.
R&D AND PROTOTYPES
Senator Tester. Okay. In the opening statement, and this is
for you, General Milley, I believe you're asking for a $130
billion in R&D spending. That's $10 billion over 2022, $12
billion over the previous year. Procurement, conversely, is
flat at about a $144 billion. For years R&D has been used to
mature and prototype technologies, like AI, like hypersonics,
which are important if we're going to compete, particularly
with China.
When will they become real programs and widely fielded? My
concern is that we're prototyping everything to death and it
never gets to the field. Is this a concern you have number one,
General, and, number two, can you give me any sort of
expectations on when we might see some of this stuff come to
reality?
General Milley. I think the time window, and again I agree
with your comment about predicting 10-15 years out, but we do
know the broad outlines or at least we think we know the broad
outlines of the future operating environment in this changing
character of war, and these programs will need to be online,
fielded, in the hands of the force, in the hands of the Joint
Force inside of 10 years if we are going to have an opportunity
to be superior to our adversaries, specifically China.
The programs I'm specifically talking about are artificial
intelligence, robotics, hypersonics. There's a wide variety of
these technologies that are coming online, but, in addition to
that, it's more than just the technologies, the Joint
Warfighter Concept, we have to get that on the street. We've
got to make sure that our organizations, our doctrines, and our
talent management are all adjusted.
We've got to shift this military from its current state
that we're in and we have to bias the future. We have to make
some predictions, as risky as that can be, as to what warfare
will look like in the 2030s and 2040s and we've got to move
this organization in that direction. If we fail to do that,
we'll be condemning generations to come to be on the losing
side of a war.
We can do it. We're capable of doing it. This budget puts
us on that path.
NATIONAL DEFENSE STRATEGY
Senator Tester. Okay. And so that's good to know. That's
good enough.
One last question and then I'll let you guys go. Mr.
Secretary, the 2022 National Defense Strategy does continue to
highlight China as our most consequential strategic competitor
and pacing challenge.
Has the Russian invasion of Ukraine caused you to rethink
the department's priorities laid out in the NDS (National
Defense Strategy) and will that have budget implications if the
answer is yes?
Secretary Austin. It has not, Chairman. As you look at the
strategy, you see we characterize Russia as an acute threat and
the capabilities that we're going after to support our
competition with China are very, very relevant to what we're
seeing and potentially will have to do in an extreme case with
respect to Russia, and, you know, we're part of the strongest
alliance in the world with NATO. It's not only our capability
that's relevant there but it's also the capability of all of
our allies. So what we're going after is relevant to both areas
of competition.
Senator Tester. Thank you both. I just want to acknowledge
that Senator Shelby's statement will be a part of the record
and let him know that we missed him here today and we look
forward to him returning very, very soon.
Everybody has theories, everybody has 20/20 hindsight, and
I can tell you, just as a statement for the record, some can
say that the pull out of Afghanistan was a mistake. I think it
was a decision that had to be made that, quite frankly, can be
questioned either way. If we left troops there, it would have
been questioned. If we had pulled out troops, it could be
questioned, but to say that Putin invaded Ukraine because of
the pull-out of Afghanistan is the most bizarre thing I've ever
heard. It was just his theory. So I got mine. I think the
reason Putin invaded Ukraine is because President Trump
empowered him to do such. I don't expect a response from you
guys on that, but that was absolutely ridiculous.
ADDITIONAL COMMITTEE QUESTIONS
I want to once again appreciate your guys' testimony here
today. Senators may submit additional written questions and we
ask that you respond to them in a reasonable period of time. In
other words, as quickly as you can.
[The following questions were not asked at the hearing, but
were submitted to the Department for response subsequent to the
hearing:]
Questions Submitted to Hon. Lloyd J. Austin III
Questions Submitted by Senator Jon Tester
Question. The 2022 National Defense Strategy continues to highlight
the People's Republic of China as our most consequential strategic
competitor and pacing challenge.
Is the Russian invasion of Ukraine causing you to rethink the
Department's priorities as laid out in the NDS?
Answer. The NDS continues to guide the Department's approach. The
NDS recognizes the acute threat that Russia poses, while maintaining
that the People's Republic of China (PRC) is the overall pacing
challenge for the Department.
Question. Will you request adjustments to your fiscal year 23
budget request as a result?
Answer. The Department does not plan to change the President's
Budget request for fiscal year 2023. We will work closely with Congress
and appreciate Congressional support for the significant military
assistance we are providing to Ukraine, and for our urgent efforts to
replenish U.S. military stocks.
Question. Competition within the Defense Industrial Base is vital
to ensuring national security. When markets are competitive, the Nation
reaps the benefits through improved cost, schedule, and performance for
the products and services needed to support national defense.
Unfortunately, cost and schedule performance on some major defense
programs continues to degrade despite the continued growing financial
health of the aerospace and defense prime contractors. In other words,
DoD is spending record amounts of money, contractors are reaping the
benefits, and the taxpayer is left holding the bag when programs are
over budget. At some point, this is going to impact the affordability
of existing and future defense programs.
How do you plan to address this? What is the Department doing to
instill better industry practices, and hold contractors accountable for
cost over-runs and schedule delays?
Answer. Every defense contractor should live up to its contractual
responsibilities. The Department has found that selecting the
appropriate contract type is the best way to manage the risk of cost
overruns or schedule delays. Under fixed price contracts, contractors
assume cost risk and are motivated to save money to minimize the risk
of losses related to cost overruns. Contractors earn profits on fixed
price contracts when they manage costs appropriately. Federal
Acquisition Regulations prescribe the use of cost type contracts when a
reasonable basis for firm pricing does not exist, either because
circumstances do not allow the agency to define its requirements
sufficiently to allow for a fixed-price type contract or uncertainties
involved in contract performance do not permit costs to be estimated
with sufficient accuracy to use any type of fixed-price contract. Cost-
reimbursement contracts and their risk of cost overruns are necessary
to equitably distribute risk between contractor and government where
the requirement to be performed is inherently risky.
Question. Last year, Congress established a Commission to review
the Department's budget process and make recommendations to speed up
the process of getting stuff to the warfighter. Often, these
Commissions point the finger at Congress (in some cases, rightfully
so!) without addressing barriers inside the Department that you could
fix yourself.
Where do you feel the primary pitfalls are in the current budget
process, and what is the Department doing internally to improve its
processes?
Answer. The Department continues to work to rapidly transition new
or emerging concepts or technologies to functional products to address
warfighter needs. Some ongoing initiatives focused on improving the
Department's agility include:
--Joint Warfighting Concept (JWC) Campaign of Learning--The Campaign
of Learning is a series of learning activities in a deliberate
and repeatable framework that is focused on the challenges of
great power competition, crisis, and conflict. It enables the
future Joint Force to be the most prepared to support and
defend national interests well into the future. JWC is driving
future research and development and acquisition, together with
integrating combatant command reviews and service plans. As
such, the concept's development is a critical DoD priority.
--The Rapid Defense Experimentation Reserve (RDER)--RDER is a
continuous campaign of joint iterative experimentation to close
joint warfighting capability gaps. It is a collaborative effort
across the Department including the Joint Staff, Combatant
Commanders, Services, as well as our allies and partners to
formulate a series of joint experiments in a highly contested
environment to accelerate the transition of new capabilities to
the warfighter.
--Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Officer (CDAO)--The CDAO
is a Deputy Secretary of Defense effort to promote and better
align robust authoritative data and artificial intelligence
resources across the DoD to accelerate development of priority
initiatives such as Responsible Artificial Intelligence.
Elevating these programs better aligns them in a strategic
effort to improve our existing capabilities and quickly develop
novel and innovative implementation of digital and artificial
intelligence across the DoD.
--The Artificial Intelligence Data Accelerator (ADA)--ADA takes
lessons learned in Artificial Intelligence implementation and
expands those capabilities to the Combatant Commands, allowing
for more rapid deployment of joint capabilities to the
warfighter.
--Innovation Steering Group--The Innovation Steering Group was
established to improve the Department's ability to transition
innovative technologies into programs of record. The Steering
Group will serve as the principal forum to drive systemic
strategy, policy, programmatic, cultural and budgetary changes.
--Capability Acquisition Pathfinders (CAPs)--The establishment of
CAPs is an Office of the Secretary of Defense initiative to
accelerate the establishment of programs of record in critical
mission areas and promote timely development and fielding of
joint capabilities to secure military advantage. CAPs are
intended to improve the speed to deliver capabilities while
informing scalable reforms and aligning systems across the
defense acquisition enterprise, ensuring the required
capabilities transition from initial concept to warfighter.
They have the highest attention from leaders across the
Department.
--Program Budget Review (PBR) Reform--The Department is making
significant reforms to the Program and Budget Review (PBR)
process to better align strategy with resourcing decisions. We
are accomplishing this by defining PBR's scope from the top
down using NDS-derived strategic guidance while ensuring that
bottom up issues of importance to components will continue to
receive consideration by the enterprise at the appropriate
level. The additional benefit of this process is that the
Department's senior leaders will better be able to focus on
those issues that are most critical to the future joint force.
Question. Congress has already provided authorities to reduce
paperwork and speed up acquisitions. Yet we continue to hear about
internal roadblocks, such as long contracting times. How are you
addressing this?
Answer. Delivering state-of-the-art capabilities at speed and scale
is critical to secure our enduring military advantage. Protracted
timelines to acquire these capabilities harm the Department's ability
to timely access technological advancements.
Section 886 of the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal
year 2018 required the Department to adopt a standard definition of
Procurement Administrative Lead Time (PALT) and make PALT reporting
data available for DoD contracts and orders valued above the Simplified
Acquisition Threshold. The Department implemented these requirements by
defining PALT, collecting data in the Federal Procurement Data System
Next Generation and making the data publically available via SAM.gov.
The Department is addressing contracting times by leveraging
positive authorities it sought and received in enabling legislation to
streamline the procurement process, such as the Commercial Solutions
Opening process and Other Transaction Agreements.
Question. Space debris causes significant risk to on-orbit
satellites for all nations operating in space. The recent announcement
by the administration to fore-go destructive anti-satellite weapons
tests sets the stage for discussions with other nations on a
collaborative policy to help mitigate the impacts of these tests in
creating hazardous space debris. This policy announcement comes at an
important time, given the recent direct ascent anti-satellite tests by
Russia that illustrated to the world, the harm that one nation, acting
recklessly, can have on our collective ability to operate in space.
Have you spoken to your peers about this policy change, encouraging
them to follow our lead?
Answer. When Vice President Kamala Harris announced that the United
States commits not to conduct destructive direct-ascent anti-satellite
(DA-ASAT) missile testing, she called on other nations to make similar
commitments and to work together in establishing this as an
international norm.
In close partnership with the Department of State, the Department
communicated the commitment to close allies and to many United Nations
Member States prior to, and after, the Vice President's public
announcement. During the first meeting of the United Nations Open-Ended
Working Group on ``Reducing space threats through norms, rules and
principles of responsible behaviors,'' which began in May, the
Department called for other nations to assess their commitments, and to
contribute their voices in identifying this as an emerging norm. We
were pleased to see Canada and New Zealand announce commitments to
refrain from the same type of destructive testing, and many nations
have expressed support for the U.S. announcement.
In the coming months, we intend to continue consultations with our
allies, partners, and other United Nations Member States to encourage
similar commitments and to determine the next steps to achieve further
multilateral support for this commitment.
Question. You are not requesting any new Multi-Year Procurement
contracts this year, but the military services are requesting similar
contract authorities that don't require a certification of savings.
Is there a disconnect between DoD leadership and the military
services about how we buy things in bulk most efficiently?
Answer. The Department remains grateful to the Congress for the
flexible acquisition authorities it has provided over the years,
including multi-year procurement (MYP). This has been an effective way
for the Department to save billions of taxpayer dollars when procuring
major defense acquisition programs that have stable requirements and
design. The independent certification element of the savings associated
with each MYP is an important part of ensuring that those MYPs are
providing value for the Department.
The Department pursues MYP and block buy proposals where they meet
our strategic goals. For example, the fiscal year 2023 President's
defense budget included a block buy request for DDG-class ships. We
will continue to make use of the contracting authorities provided by
Congress, where appropriate, in support of our enduring goal to make
the most effective and efficient use of taxpayer funds in support of
national defense.
Question. The extreme consolidation of the defense industrial base
over the last couple of decades has severely limited competition and
increased national security risks as a result.
What is the Department doing to lower barriers for small business
and new entrants to be able to compete for defense contracts?
Answer. The Department is finalizing a new Small Business Strategy
to increase small business participation in the Defense Industrial
Base. One of the core focus areas of this strategy is increasing
engagement and support of small businesses. The Department has active
engagement and training programs for small businesses and consistently
seeks to reduce barriers. The Department has revised the Office of
Small Business Programs (OSBP) website to streamline entry points to
the portfolio of small business programs to encourage broader
participation.
The Department also has several small business-focused programs
that support and invest in research, development, and manufacturing
capabilities and innovation in key technology sectors. The Department
is working across these programs and others such as the Mentor Protege
Program (MPP) and Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business
Technology Transfer (SBIR/STTR) to ensure that awards and investments
are made to small business firms across the underserved communities,
including by establishing small business participation or assistance
baselines.
Question. The Administration has recently stated that the DoD needs
to take steps to ensure resilience in the supply chain for five
priority sectors: casting and forgings, missiles and munitions, energy
storage and batteries, strategic and critical materials, and
microelectronics.
What strategies are you planning to implement to improve these
supply chain priorities and what can this Committee do to support these
strategies?
Answer. Over the past year, the Department has taken proactive
steps to strengthen these supply chains as outlined in the report we
released in response to EO 14017 entitled ``Securing Defense-Critical
Supply Chains.'' That report outlines 64 recommendations that the
Department is working through, which includes close collaboration with
interagency and international partners. To complement these
recommendations, the President's fiscal year 2023 budget request
included $2.1 billion to expand production, improve manufacturing
processes, update standards, and on-shore specific capabilities. I
would appreciate the support of Congress to fund these efforts as
important steps to strengthen these supply chains.
______
Questions Submitted by Senator Patrick Leahy
Inflation and the Pay Raise for Members of the Military
Question. How does your proposed 4.6 percent pay raise for members
of the military take into account the current inflation rate?
Answer. The proposed basic pay increase, which the Department set
based on national economic conditions when the budget was developed
late last year, is informed by growth in private-sector wages as
measured by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' Economic Cost Index.
The Department uses that index in setting the annual military pay raise
because it allows DoD to keep pace with the wide range of employers
with whom we compete for talent.
Question. Will members of the military, specifically junior
enlisted and junior officers, have sufficient pay to overcome the
impact of inflation on food insecurity?
Answer. The Department is committed to strengthening economic
security in the force, including addressing the problem of food
insecurity, which recent data has shown is most common among the junior
ranks.
For reference, an entry-level military member at the start of
service currently earns $43,500 per year. In addition to their basic
pay, active duty members also receive tax-free allowances for housing
and subsistence. Annual rate increases for these allowances are based
on surveys of local rental housing costs and the U.S. Department of
Agriculture's food index, which allows them to be closely aligned with
inflation in these critical cost areas. Currently, basic allowance for
subsistence for enlisted members is $406.98 per month, and basic
allowance for housing averages more than $2,000 per month.
The Department will be implementing a Basic Needs Allowance,
consistent with congressional direction, in January 2023. This
additional compensation will supplement members pay up to 130 percent
of Federal poverty guidelines for military households whose income
falls below that threshold.
The Department is committed to the health and welfare of our Force
and their families. As part of the President's budget, the Department
has asked for a 4.6 percent pay raise for our Service members.
Suicide Rates in the Military
Question. During the hearing, you discussed the high suicide rates
within the ranks of the military and among veteran populations, which
remain high, despite decades of promises to reduce them and the stigma
around seeking help. You testified that you have ordered an Independent
Review Committee to investigate the high suicide rates and have
requested over $400 million for suicide prevention programs.
Will your review committee consider incorporating behavioral health
more closely into overall fitness for military personnel in order to
begin prevention well before suicidal ideations as well as improve the
health of those who do not experience ideations? The National Center
for PTSD has documented extensive research showing rates of PTSD and
suicidal ideation can be high in populations not associated with
traditional suicide prevention and preventative mental health programs,
such as drone operators.
Answer. The Suicide Prevention and Response Independent Review
Committee (SPRIRC) is an independent body that is considering a range
of issues related to suicide prevention and response, and is charged
with developing recommendations for the Department to apply across the
enterprise. I look forward to reviewing their recommendations on a
range of issues, including on behavioral health. As I have said many
times: mental health is health--period. We can and must improve our
efforts to prevent and respond to suicide--and better support our
Service members and their families.
Question. What steps has the Department taken to support the mental
health of service members especially with roles not popularly
associated with stresser events, such as drone operators, and how will
you improve your resources using the funding requested in your fiscal
year 2023 budget?
Answer. The Department is committed to supporting and expanding
mental health support for service members. The fiscal year 2023 budget
request includes $1.4 billion for mental health. Our efforts are
focused on improving primary care, behavioral health, expanding
telehealth, and strengthening preventative measures for Service members
and their families across all services and career fields.
______
Questions Submitted by Senator Jeanne Shaheen
Question. President Duterte of the Philippines cited the Biden
administration's delivery of more than 3 million COVID-19 vaccines as a
reason to renew the Visiting Forces Agreement with the U.S. after
almost 2 years of uncertainty.
How important are soft power tools like vaccine diplomacy in
supporting U.S. national security objectives?
Answer. The use of soft power tools like vaccine sharing not only
fulfills our humanitarian obligations, but can advance U.S. national
security objectives and our strategic competition efforts. The United
States, with its scientific and economic preeminence, is able to
effectively use a range of soft power tools to support its partners and
allies.
Soft power tools not only benefit the global community, but also
benefit the American people. In today's globally connected world,
infectious diseases easily transcend borders, and the investment in
vaccinations overseas aids in minimizing the spread of these diseases
to the United States. Toward this end, the U.S. Government has pledged
to share 1.2 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses, established a Global
Vaccine initiative to enhance readiness, and has consistently
maintained a ``no-strings attached'' vaccine sharing policy.
Our approach will help low and lower-middle income countries save
lives, accelerate the end of the acute phase of the COVID-19 pandemic,
protect Americans from new variants, and demonstrate to the world the
goodwill of the American people and the value of having the United
States as a partner.
Vaccine sharing also strengthens bio-preparedness, global health
security systems, and global health. Vaccine sharing solidifies
existing relations, creates opportunities, provides economic benefits,
and serves to enhance the long-term influence and credibility of the
United States internationally--all of which benefits U.S. national
security.
Question. How harmful to our global interests is the recent
decision in Congress to strip international COVID funding from the
forthcoming COVID-19 supplemental?
Answer. The Administration has been clear in its support for
international pandemic response funding to be included in COVID-19
supplemental funding bills. It is in our national interest to curb the
COVID-19 pandemic at home and abroad as quickly as possible and funding
for international efforts to combat COVID-19 supports that critical
objective.
Question. Please provide an update as to the Department's efforts
to comply with the Anomalous Health Incident (AHI) provisions in the
NDAA, including the designation of an Agency Coordination Lead and the
establishment of the cross functional team.
Answer. On February 14, 2022, I directed the establishment of the
Anomalous Health Incident (AHI) cross-functional team (CFT), and
designated the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy (USD(P)) as the
senior designated official of the CFT. As directed, on March 22, 2022,
the USD(P) selected the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland
Defense and Hemispheric Affairs (ASD(HD/HA)) to act as the Department's
Agency Coordination Lead. In this capacity, the ASD(HD/HA) represents
the Department in interagency and National Security Council
engagements, coordinates directly with the Lead Interagency
Coordinator, has conducted a site visit to the National Intrepid Center
of Excellence, and provides senior leadership support to the CFT's
establishment.
Question. How is General Wolff, as the newly appointed Ukraine
Security Assistance Coordinator, working with the Department of Defense
on security assistance issues to ensure we are swiftly delivering the
materials our Ukrainian friends urgently need to defend their country?
Answer. The Department works extremely closely with the White
House, including the Ukraine Security Assistance Coordinator, to
coordinate security assistance with our Allies and partners, including
efforts to secure donations on key systems to aid the Ukrainians in
their defense.
______
Questions Submitted by Senator Richard C. Shelby
Question. Russia's unprovoked war in Ukraine has entered its third
month. I think you will agree that the battle raging in the Donbas
could prove decisive in how this war ends. General Milley testified to
Congress that the war in Ukraine will be measured in years. I'm
concerned that replenishment of weapons stocks--particularly Javelins
and Stinger missiles--is happening too slowly, and that we risk losing
the capacity to address other inevitable emerging threats.
Secretary Austin, how is the Department addressing this challenge?
Answer. The Department is laser focused on ensuring that we have
what we need to defend the nation--and to strengthen our defense
industrial base.
The Department has awarded Javelin and Stinger replenishment
contracts to re-supply these critical, battle-proven capabilities and
components for our forces, allies, and partners, with funding
appropriated under the Ukraine Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2022.
The remaining funds provided under this Act will enable replenishment
of defense articles that have been transferred to the government of
Ukraine from U.S. stocks.
Funds appropriated under the Additional Ukraine Supplemental
Appropriations Act, 2022 will be used for additional replenishment
tranches to replace DoD stocks provided to the government of Ukraine.
In most cases, the Services will use these funds to backfill
equipment through existing contracts, which will expedite
replenishment, as new contract competitions or negotiations will not be
necessary.
Question. Please explain the steps you have taken to ensure
industry has a clear understanding of what the Department needs and the
funding and direction to execute quickly.
Answer. In April 2022, my Deputy Secretary of Defense and members
of my senior leadership team met with the Chief Executive Officers of
the Department's eight largest prime contractors to discuss strategies
on how to accelerate the production and fielding of systems critical to
the Department's ongoing security assistance to Ukraine. The Department
continues to engage our industry partners emphasizing the need to
deliver critical capabilities to Ukraine; enhance U.S. force
preparedness, and support our Allies and partners in bolstering their
defense capabilities. Concurrently, the Department continues to work
urgently with sub-tier suppliers to identify long lead items and
obsolescence issues and mitigations for these issues.
Question. The Administration's decision to remove U.S. forces from
Afghanistan was predicated on our ability to neutralize terrorist
threats from ``over the horizon.'' I understand that the U.S. has not
executed a single over the horizon strike against ISIS-K or Al Qaeda
since last August. I am concerned that without a credible threat, these
terrorist organizations will reconsolidate, grow in strength, and once
again threaten the homeland.
Secretary Austin, why hasn't the Department used its over the
horizon capability?
Answer. We maintain the ability to strike anywhere in the world, as
required. Our over the horizon capability helps us monitor and track
any threats to the United States and our interests. USCENTCOM employs a
range of capabilities to build and maintain an understanding of
terrorist threat networks in Afghanistan. These efforts monitor whether
these networks are undertaking activities that could lead to conducting
external operations against the United States. We are postured to
conduct lethal operations, and are working in partnership with other
agencies to advance our interests in the region.
Question. I am concerned about the impact inflation is having on
the Department, specifically, your ability to maintain readiness and to
modernize for the future fight. The current inflation rate of 8.5
percent must significantly cut into the Department's buying power.
Secretary Austin, please explain how the Department accounts for
inflation in its budgeting process and how it impacted this year's
budget. For example, did you fully account for all foreseeable
inflationary pressures for fiscal year 2023?
Answer. As part of the Department's Planning, Programming,
Budgeting and Execution (PPBE) process, the Department uses changes in
the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) price index as determined by the
Council of Economic Advisors and the Office of Management and Budget
and, as prescribed by the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control
Act (BBEDCA) to project the inflation impact on new and existing
programs and make the necessary budget adjustments prior to submitting
the President's Budget to the Congress.
In formulating the fiscal year 2023 President's Budget, based on
the increases in GDP price index and personnel costs seen over the last
year, the Department worked closely with the OMB and the White House to
add $20 billion per year in additional funding to protect the
Department's buying power and account for increased compensation
expenses. However, the world kept changing after the budget was
finished, and Russia's invasion of Ukraine spiked energy prices and
rattled the global markets. While no one knows for certain at this
point if these conditions, such as high fuel prices, will persist into
fiscal year 2023, we recognize that these global economic conditions
can impact our buying power. We are working closely with OMB, and with
relevant committees, to ensure the Department has the buying power it
needs to deliver capabilities and take care of the Force.
Question. The Department's budget request seeks to execute a
`divest to invest' strategy which potentially could shrink our combat-
credible forces by 24 ships and 150 aircraft. While I appreciate the
need to retire certain platforms and modernize our forces for the 2030
fight, we still have a majority of this decade immediately before us,
and I am deeply concerned that we are short-changing near-term
readiness for future modernization.
Secretary Austin, give a detailed assessment of the near-term risks
associated with the divestments proposed in the Department's budget
request. In particular, which near-term capabilities did the Department
take the greatest risk to fund modernization? How do you intend to
mitigate this risk?
Answer. The Department's President's Budget request for fiscal year
2023 re-prioritizes funds for systems that are no longer optimized for
military need due to changing mission and operational requirements (for
example, the ability to operate in a highly-denied environment against
a peer threat); made obsolete by more capable, less expensive, or more
efficient replacements; or whose support costs have become
unaffordable.
Question. Do you assess that the Department is capable of deterring
Chinese aggression today and through this decade?
Answer. The Department mitigates risk to mission and force, today
and in the future, by re-prioritizing funds to invest in capabilities
that are lethal, resilient, sustainable, survivable, agile, and
responsive against the pacing challenge of the People's Republic of
China (PRC).
______
Questions Submitted by Senator Mitch McConnell
Support for Servicemembers in Kentucky
Question. What is the Department of Defense's plan to keep its
commitment to serving the health needs of our servicemembers and their
families at both Fort Campbell and Fort Knox? Please include any plans
for increasing capacity at the Fort Knox Ireland Army Health Clinic,
addressing manpower concerns at the clinic, which is experiencing a
workforce shortage, and improving timely access to care at health
facilities in the surrounding community.
Answer. The Department is committed to ensuring access to quality
care for Active Duty Service members (ADSMs), their families and other
beneficiaries at all military medical treatment facilities (MTFs),
including those at Fort Campbell and Fort Knox. The Department is
implementing a standard manpower model, which is scaled to the size and
scope of individual MTFs, to optimize our ability to meet demand for
care in MTFs. The Department fully funds government civilian employee
and contactor personnel positions, which are not filled by uniformed
medical personnel. Currently, there are no manpower concerns at either
Fort Campbell, Blanchfield Army Community Hospital (ACH) or Ireland
Army Health Clinic (AHC).
The Department also supports Blanchfield ACH and Ireland AHC
centrally with virtual health support, including through virtual
readiness and primary care exams. The Department plans for Blanchfield
ACH to be integrated into the Tele-Critical Care (TCC) system, which
will allow for Intensive Care Unit inpatients at Blanchfield ACH to be
monitored 24 hours a day by critical care intensivists at one of the
Department's three TCC nodes, located at Brooke Army Medical Center in
San Antonio, TX, Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in
Bethesda, MD, and Naval Medical Center San Diego in San Diego, CA.
When healthcare services are not available in a MTF or when access
is not available within Military Health System (MHS) standards, MTFs
refer care to the local TRICARE network. The Department closely
monitors access to care in the network to identify and resolve access
challenges.
Question. Kentucky's defense installations are currently working on
long-term projects to renovate and replace outdated housing on their
installations, particularly the VOLAR barracks at Fort Campbell and the
privatized housing at both Fort Campbell and Fort Knox. However, the
installations often do not receive the resources necessary to make
these renovations until after existing housing is outdated and unsafe,
particularly for enlisted servicemembers and their families. What steps
are you taking to increase the pace at which Kentucky's installations
can provide quality housing options for their servicemembers?
Answer. The Department recognizes that the environment in which our
service members live impacts their quality of life, their ability to do
their job, and the Department's ability to recruit and retain. We are
committed to ensuring that all our on-base housing meets life, health
and safety requirements and provides a quality living experience for
military personnel and their families. In keeping with this commitment,
the Army has numerous projects planned in their long range master plan
(thru 2030) to repair or replace unaccompanied housing at Fort Knox and
Fort Campbell. These include three VOLAR repair projects at Fort
Campbell that were pulled forward for award in fiscal year (FY) 2022
due to the additional $73 million provided in the Consolidated
Appropriations Act, 2022. The Army looks to accelerate all barracks
renovation and construction projects to the greatest extent possible.
In addition, the Army's Military Housing Privatization Initiative
(MHPI) provider (LendLease), with the consent from Army, is planning
significant recapitalization of family housing at Forts Knox and
Campbell over the next 5 years. Over the next 5 years, LendLease plans
to fund and construct four (4) new homes, renovate more than 1,600
homes, and replace more than 500 roofs at its Fort Knox MHPI project,
and will demolish 250 older homes, construct 680 new homes, and
renovate more than 450 homes at its Fort Campbell MHPI project.
Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternatives (ACWA) Program
Question. I have worked for decades to provide the resources needed
to safely destroy the remaining U.S. stockpile of lethal chemical
agents and munitions stored at the Blue Grass Army Depot. Please
provide an update on ACWA's progress toward the complete destruction of
all chemical weapons by the statutory deadline of December 31, 2023.
Are there any risks to the program that would result in a failure meet
this deadline?
Answer. The Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternatives (ACWA) program
is making swift progress towards completing the destruction mission by
the September 30, 2023 Chemical Weapons Convention commitment and the
December 31, 2023 congressionally-mandated deadline. As of May 13,
2022, the ACWA program has destroyed 80.28 percent of the chemical
agent tonnage and 78.89 percent of the munitions in the chemical
weapons stockpiles located at the U.S. Army Pueblo Chemical Depot in
Colorado and the Blue Grass Army Depot in Kentucky.
The Colorado site began destroying the final chemical munitions
campaign, which is the mustard-filled 4.2-inch mortars, in February
2022.The Kentucky site is scheduled to begin the final campaign, which
is the GB (Sarin) nerve-agent filled M55 rockets, in July 2022. The
Program Executive Office for ACWA continues to proactively address and
mitigate risks to increase confidence in completing the destruction
mission.
The primary risk to the ACWA program is the condition of the
remaining chemical weapons stockpile; specifically, at the Blue Grass
Army Depot. PEO ACWA is implementing lessons learned from the previous
destruction sites, as well as taking other actions, to address the
concerns with the condition of the stockpile.
Question. While the chemical weapons destruction activities are
expected to conclude by 2023, work on closure operations will continue
for a number of years. What is the plan for maintaining this highly-
skilled workforce through the end of closure operations, including any
efforts to help transition these workers to other jobs at the Depot or
surrounding area after closure?
Answer. Closure includes a managed drawdown of government and
contract personnel as sites transition from operations into closure
and, ultimately, mission completion. This drawdown will occur in
planned, coordinated and communicated actions. A well-defined process
exists for government personnel that may include transitioning to other
positions within the Federal Government. Each contractor will utilize
their own corporate specific policies regarding employee draw down and
transition. The Department will follow Federal regulations) regarding
advance notification of closure to employees, where applicable
The Department's Office of Local Defense Community Cooperation
provided a grant to the Blue Grass Area Development District, enabling
this group of local government agencies to award a contract for
development of an economic resiliency plan designed to be a roadmap for
the employees transitioning out of the chemical weapons destruction
mission. This ongoing study is expected to formalize long-term planning
for economic development and job creation though new industries and
opportunities.
Subterranean Training
Question. U.S. and allied forces are likely to face a range of
subterranean threats if engaged in a future conflict with near-peer
adversaries. What advantages does a Category 3 subterranean (SUB-T)
training facility have over Category 1 and Category 2 facilities in
preparing our servicemembers to face these threats?
Answer. Category 3 underground facilities are designed and built to
serve as command and control, operations, storage, production, and
protection facilities that provide some of the most challenging
tactical environments friendly forces can expect to encounter. A
Category 3 SUB-T training facility would provide the training community
the most realistic representation of a military purposed, hardened, and
deeply buried threat environment.
Question. It is my understanding that the Department's Joint
Operational Training Infrastructure (JOTI) Strategy requires both
conventional and special operations forces to prepare for SUB-T
operations. What is the Department's plan for maintaining joint force
access to a Category 3 SUB-T training facility east of the Mississippi
River? What are the benefits of assigning responsibility to the Army
for management of a joint force Category 3 SUB-T training facility?
Answer. The Department recently renewed its access to train in a
limestone mine in Crestwood, Kentucky. This renewed access is an
interim approach while the Department assesses the best option for a
high-end SUB-T training facility. A Category 3 SUB-T facility provides
realistic and relevant high-end training. There are additional
advantages that can be provided in a classified response upon request.
______
Questions Submitted by Senator Susan M. Collins
Question. I am concerned that DoD has not adequately addressed the
need to acquire rapid containment solutions to manage surges during
infectious pandemics or biological attacks. In 2021, I wrote the
Department urging the evaluation of DoD's need for commercial-off-the-
shelf modular negative air pressure room containment systems as part of
the review of DoD pandemic preparedness required by Sec. 732 of the
fiscal year 2021 NDAA. When does DoD expect to complete this review and
submit the required report to Congress?
The Department is working to prepare a thorough response to Section
732 and will provide the report to Congress as soon as possible.
Has DoD or DHA analyzed the need for additional modular negative
air pressure containment systems for use in expanding military medical
treatment facilities during pandemics or in response to biological
threats?
Answer. The Defense Health Agency has not conducted an overall
review of medical treatment facilities (MTFs) to evaluate requirements
for additional negative pressure units. However, every Commanding
Officer of an MTF can analyze their own command and can initiate a
request for a negative pressure unit if they identify an outstanding
requirement.
Question. The Pentagon's Comptroller last week noted that fuel
costs to DoD are currently expected to cost $1.8 billion more than
anticipated for the rest of the year, an amount in addition to the $1.5
billion Congress added to the fiscal year 2022 omnibus to address
rising fuel costs. Are there other accounts in the Department where
inflation is expected to result in costs well-above what was provided
in fiscal year 2022?
As you noted, Congress provided additional funding in the fiscal
year 2022 omnibus above the fiscal year 2022 President's Budget
request. The Department will continue to use various reprogrammings
using available sources for the remainder of fiscal year 2022, as
necessary, to address any funding shortfalls.
What parts of the fiscal year 2023 budget present the greatest risk
that may need to be reevaluated as likely to come in above the budget
request we received in March?
Answer. The Department recognizes that the economic picture will
continue to evolve. Today's data offers us only limited insight into
future economic conditions. However, unless global energy prices, which
spiked following Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, return to
pre-invasion levels, inflation and rising fuel costs will likely be
issues the Department will need to manage.
In the short-term, we expect that many DoD programs will be
insulated from market pressures because of existing long-term and fixed
price purchase agreements between DoD and its prime and subcontractors
and suppliers. In fiscal year 2023 and beyond, DoD anticipates that
inflationary impacts could manifest through increased costs under new
and renegotiated contracts. DoD is also closely monitoring the impact
of inflation on housing costs and healthcare services, which directly
impact service members and their families.
Question. Last month a Russian general claimed that Russia intended
not only to seize southern Ukraine but also link up with the Russian-
speaking Transnistria region of Moldova. There have been several
bombings there in recent days which may be a Russian pretext for
widening the war. How is the U.S. and NATO preparing for the prospect
of the war in Ukraine spreading to neighboring Moldova?
Answer. As we continue to support Ukraine's brave fight against
Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, the United States has
reaffirmed our support for the territorial integrity and sovereignty of
Moldova. The United States and NATO are closely following wider
developments in the region, particularly any possible escalation or
expansion of Russia's aggression. The Department remains committed to
our bilateral defense relationship with Moldova and supports its
efforts to further develop its internal defense capabilities.
Question. I know you were in Ukraine about a week ago and met with
President Zelensky, Ukraine's minister of defense, and many others.
Shortly after that, the Administration submitted a new $33.6 billion
request for further assistance for Ukraine, including $6 billion for
the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative and $4 billion for Foreign
Military Financing. What did you learn during your visit with respect
to what types of weapons and capabilities Ukraine most urgently needs
to fight Russia in this current phase of the war in Eastern and
Southern Ukraine?
I understand that Ukrainian soldiers will be training on certain
equipment outside of the country, such as on howitzer artillery systems
that the United States is providing. We have also done a little bit of
training on the Switchblade drones that we have provided Ukraine, which
I was happy to see the United States provide given Ukraine's effective
use of Turkish drones. Over the past 2 months, the training
requirements to use certain weapons systems that are currently
unfamiliar to the Ukrainians has been often cited by American and
European officials as a reason for not supplying those systems to
Ukraine. As this war drags on, are there other weapons systems where it
now makes sense for the U.S. or NATO partners to provide Ukrainians
with the specialized training needed to operate them and provide those
weapons to the Ukrainian military?
Answer. During the initial phase of the fighting in and around Kyiv
and other cities across Ukraine, the Ukrainians urgently needed air
defense and anti-tank systems, most notably Stingers and Javelins. The
Department relied on Presidential Drawdown authority to pull these
systems from U.S. stocks so they could be fielded quickly. These are
systems the Ukrainians were familiar with and had trained on.
As the battlefield changed, the Department's security assistance
changed with it. During the latest stage of the conflict, we tailored
our assistance to focus on artillery, such as 155mm Howitzers, and to
provide Switchblade Tactical Unmanned Aerial Systems. These systems are
now assisting the Ukrainians as they confront the Russians in the east
and in the south.
As the battlefield continues to change, we will continue to adapt
our approach, and part of this adaption will be supplying Ukraine with
what it needs to build its enduring strength. We are also providing
Ukraine with security assistance that is effective on the battlefield
and will also help the Ukrainian Armed Forces move away from a
dependency on Russian equipment. The Department remains in close
contact with the Ukrainian Government and continually adapts the
assistance being provided to respond to Ukraine's needs, including the
required training for new systems provided and maintenance packages to
sustain those systems in the long-term.
______
Questions Submitted by Senator Lisa Murkowski
Question. President Biden invoked the Defense Production Act to
give the government more avenues to provide support for the mining,
processing and recycling of critical materials such as lithium,
graphite, nickel, and cobalt that are used to make large-capacity
batteries. Yet, except for a small handful of mines and facilities,
they are almost exclusively produced outside of the United States.
How will DoD use this DPA determination to revamp and strengthen
our supply chains of critical minerals?
Answer. The Presidential Determination (PD) on Large Capacity
Batteries is intended to stimulate domestic mining, beneficiation, and
value-added processing of the strategic and critical materials
necessary to produce batteries needed for the automotive, e-mobility,
and stationary storage sectors. The PD authorizes the Department to
fund a wide range of actions, including feasibility studies, co-
production of battery materials, and productivity improvements.
Question. What additional resources are needed to meet the
requirements and goals of the Presidential Determination pursuant to
Section 303 of the Defense Production Act that was signed on March 30?
Answer. As President Biden has made clear, a robust, resilient, and
sustainable domestic industrial base to meet the requirements of the
clean energy economy is essential to our national security. In support
of this goal, the Department delivered a detailed cost estimate for
implementation of the Presidential Determination to congressional
defense committees in May 2022. Projects to be undertaken with these
funds include: minerals feasibility studies, expansion of by- and co-
product extraction, productivity improvement programs, recycling and
reclamation, and aggregate expansion of supply.
The Administration has also submitted two legislative proposals
that would improve the nation's ability to fulfill the goals of this
Presidential Determination: ``Reform of the Strategic and Critical
Materials Stock Piling Act'' and ``Posturing the Defense Production Act
to Respond to Increasing Requirements.'' The Department urges adoption
of these legislative proposals, which would give the Department the
authorities and agility necessary to compete with China, and others, in
the development of secure sources of critical and strategic materials.
Question. How does the President's budget adequately address our
nation's need to, as the President said, ``end our long-term reliance
on China and other countries for inputs that will power the future?''
Answer. The President's budget will help ensure the U.S. is less
reliant on China and other foreign sources for key future energy and
mobility technologies by recapitalizing the National Defense Stockpile
(PB23: $253 million requested), expanding industrial base investment
programs under Title III of the Defense Production Act (PB23: $660
million requested), and Industrial Base Analysis and Sustainment
programs (PB23: $588 million requested). These funds will be invested
in critical materials necessary for national defense as well as future
energy technologies, such as rare earth elements, metals, and magnets.
The Additional Ukraine Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2022
appropriated $600 million to, in part, expand the domestic capacity for
strategic and critical minerals.
Question. I am concerned the DoD has not prioritized and expedited
clean-up of harmful substances, notably lead, copper and PFAS remaining
on U.S. Government military owned and abandoned property, and on land
that has been transferred to Alaska Natives pursuant to the Alaska
Native Claims Settlement Act. As evidenced by recent Federal Government
reports, these substances present a severe public health threat,
particularly in remote Alaskan communities, where drinking water
resources are scarce.
How does the budget request address this issue?
Answer. The Department has requested $227 million for the Formerly
Used Defense Sites Program, which addresses hazardous substances,
pollutants, and contaminants (e.g., lead, copper, and per- and
polyfluoroalkyl substances), released by the Department during the time
of possession. Many of these include locations in Alaska, some of which
are on Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) land.
In addition, the Department has requested $12 million for the
Native American Lands Environmental Mitigation Program (NALEMP). The
purpose of NALEMP is to mitigate impacts to Indian lands and on other
locations where the Department, and Indian tribe, and the current land
owner agree that such mitigation is appropriate. Approximately 60
percent of the NALEMP cooperative agreement funding available is
directed to Alaska tribes for mitigation projects. NALEMP has worked
with 37 tribes in Alaska and awarded 224 cooperative agreements with a
total value of $98 million. There are currently 19 open cooperative
agreements in Alaska and the Department is considering eleven
cooperative agreements in Alaska for fiscal year 2023.
Question. How is the Department of Defense working with Alaskan
communities to expedite clean-up of these lands?
Answer. The Department has two main programs that work with Alaskan
communities related to cleanup activities: the Native American Lands
Environmental Mitigation Program and the Formerly Used Defense Sites
Program. During the execution of both programs, the Department
coordinates with stakeholders, including Alaska communities and tribes,
regarding prioritization of our mitigation or cleanup efforts, and
especially where cleanup actions may be needed on Indian lands.
Additionally, standing Departmental guidance requires DoD Components to
consult with Indian tribes on proposed actions, plans, and ongoing
activities that may have the potential to significantly affect
protected tribal resources, tribal rights, or Indian lands.
Installations work directly with Tribes, seeking permission to access
tribal land to carry out Department of Defense cleanup actions. The
foundation of tribal consultation is built on respect for tribal
sovereign nation status through recurring and meaningful consultation.
Question. Can I get your commitment to work with the EPA and
Department of the Interior as they develop a plan to address
contamination on Native lands?
Answer. Yes, the Department will work with the Environmental
Protection Agency and the Department of the Interior on these efforts.
______
Questions Submitted by Senator John Boozman
Question. Science, biology, and common sense expose the unfair
advantage biological male athletes possess when pitted against female
athletes in competition. Physiological distinctions between the sexes
matter in protecting equal opportunity. The Defense Department is
currently seeking recommendations on accommodating ``non-binary''
service members.
How will you ensure that women have a fair playing field in
military sports programs? How will you ensure the preservation of sex-
specific programming and scholarships at military academies?
Answer. The Military Service Academies abide by National Collegiate
Athletic Association (NCAA) rules. The NCAA policy on transgender
student athlete participation is currently based on whether or not the
athlete is being treated with hormone therapy. According to NCAA rules,
a transmale (female to male) athlete taking testosterone for gender
transition may compete on a men's team but may not compete on a women's
team; a transfemale (male to female) athlete taking testosterone
suppression medication for gender transition may compete on a men's
team, but may not compete on a women's team until completing one
calendar year of testosterone suppression.
Gender is not a criterion for appointment to the Military Service
Academies.
______
Questions Submitted to General Mark A. Milley
Questions Submitted by Senator Jon Tester
Question. The 2022 National Defense Strategy continues to highlight
the People's Republic of China as our most consequential strategic
competitor and pacing challenge.
Which capabilities that we are currently developing to counter
China translate to address the acute threats presented by Russia?
Answer. To prevail against a near-peer adversary in our next war,
the Joint Force must employ a variety of new technologies across
multiple domains. To that end, the Department has identified 14
critical technology areas vital to national security. The Joint Force
will continue to evolve our Joint Warfighting Concept and deliver these
technologies as warfighting capability as the ever-changing threat from
our adversaries `demand.
The Department's 14 critical technology areas are:
1. Seed Areas of Emerging Opportunity
--Biotechnology
--Quantum Science
--Future Generation Wireless Technology (FutureG)
--Advanced Materials
2. Effective Adoption Areas--where there is existing vibrant
commercial sector activity
--Trusted AI and Autonomy
--Integrated Network Systems-of-Systems
--Microelectronics
--Space Technology
--Renewable Energy Generation and Storage
--Advanced Computing and Software
--Human-Machine Interfaces
3. Defense-Specific Areas
--Directed Energy
-- Hypersonics
--Integrated Sensing and Cyber
Question. Last year, Congress established a Commission to review
the Department's budget process and make recommendations to speed up
the process of getting stuff to the warfighter. Often, these
Commissions point the finger at Congress (in some cases, rightfully
so!) without addressing barriers inside the Department that you could
fix yourself.
Do you feel that the warfighter is getting a fair shake in
articulating their needs during the budget process?
Answer. Delivering combat capability to the warfighter is at the
forefront throughout the budgeting process. The Department's Budget
Review process allows Combatant Command (CCMD) Issue Nominations to
advocate for changes in funding from the what was presented in the
Services' POMs. Further, the CCMDs are active participants throughout
Program and Budget Review and are represented at both the 3-star and 4-
star forums making recommendations directly to the Vice Chairman and
Deputy Secretary of Defense.
Question. Last year, the Committee included funding to push AI
capabilities out to the combatant commands so that our warfighters at
the tactical edge can integrate best-in-breed technology. This appears
timely given that we heard recently from the NORTHCOM Commander that he
does not have sufficient AI capabilities.
What is the Department doing to ensure that AI is not only
incorporated in high-end acquisition programs, but also supporting the
day-to-day work of the warfighter?
Answer. PB23 invests $1.1B in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and
Machine Learning (AI/ML) to expand mission capabilities, transition
those capabilities to the warfighter, and to maintain a department-wide
advantage by rapidly deploying capabilities to decision makers and the
warfighters.
The Department is investing $135 million to accelerate the
operationalization of AI/ML tools at each Combatant Command, ultimately
providing data supremacy and decision overmatch. The President's Budget
funds DOT&E's effort to integrate AI-enabled cyber assessments of
warfighting systems by decreasing vulnerabilities and increasing our
resilience in a complex warfighting domain.
The Department stood up the Chief Digital and Artificial
Intelligence Office (CDAO). This senior office is responsible for the
acceleration of the Department's adoption of data, analytics, and AI to
generate decision advantage across the battlefield. In February 2022,
the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC), Defense Digital
Services (DDS), the Chief Data Officer, and the enterprise platform
Advana were combined to stand up CDAO. The CDAO will perform several
critical functions in close coordination with the Services, the Joint
Staff, OSD's Chief Information Officer (CIO), Under Secretary of
Defense (R&E), and other digital leaders.
Question. Space debris causes significant risk to on-orbit
satellites for all nations operating in space. The recent announcement
by the administration to fore-go destructive anti-satellite weapons
tests sets the stage for discussions with other nations on a
collaborative policy to help mitigate the impacts of these tests in
creating hazardous space debris. This policy announcement comes at an
important time, given the recent direct ascent anti-satellite tests by
Russia that illustrated to the world, the harm that one nation, acting
recklessly, can have on our collective ability to operate in space.
How will this policy affect our current military operations? Are we
taking options off the table for the Commander-in-Chief to execute in
times of emergency?
Answer. The U.S. commitment to not conduct destructive direct-
ascent anti- satellite missile testing does not affect any of our
current military options, nor does it take options off the table for
the Commander-in-Chief. The United States is not ceding a right to act
in self-defense to protect U.S. interests, or those of our allies and
partners, which is inherent under international law. This is a non-
legally binding commitment related to the destructive testing of
certain capabilities, and was designed to promoted sustainability and
advance the security of space.
______
Questions Submitted by Senator Patrick Leahy
Inflation and the Pay Raise for Members of the Military
Question. How does your proposed 4.6 percent pay raise for members
of the military take into account the current inflation rate?
Answer. The 2023 President's Budget request proposes a 4.6-percent
pay raise for all pay grades. This proposal equals the Employment Cost
Index (ECI), which complies with Section 1009 of Title 37. ECI is based
upon the wages and salaries of private industry workers. Setting the
pay raise equal to the ECI ensures Service Member compensation remains
competitive and does not lag private industry growth. Our lethality as
a Joint Force depends on our talented and professional Service Members.
This 4.6-percent across-the-board pay raise is critical to retaining
the best talent of today's Joint Force, recruiting the best and
brightest for tomorrow's Joint Force, and reinforcing Secretary
Austin's priority to ``take care of our people.''
Question. Will members of the military, specifically junior
enlisted and junior officers, have sufficient pay to overcome the
impact of inflation on food insecurity?
Answer. The Department is working to implement a Basic Needs
Allowance, with a target start date in January 2023, that will provide
a supplemental allowance to those with the greatest need. The
Department has also created a strategic plan to specifically get after
this issue and I am confident these efforts will help improve food
security.
The Department regularly reviews military compensation through the
Quadrennial Review of Military Compensation, to ensure it is at
appropriate levels. We recognize the hardships the current economic
climate creates for military families. Food insecurity is a complex
problem with no singular cause. This means we need to take a multi-
faceted approach by addressing military spouse unemployment, child care
affordability, and improving financial readiness, for example.
The Effect of Non-Defense Spending on Military Recruitment and
Readiness
Question. In your statement, you referred to the need to recruit
``the most capable talent so we can develop our leaders of the
future.'' The Reserve Officers Training Corps is one example of a
recruitment program that draws in capable talent and develops leaders,
as I know you are personally aware. In Vermont, many of our colleges
and universities have active ROTC programs, such as University of
Vermont, our largest public University, and Norwich University, the
birthplace of ROTC.
What are the benefits ROTC cadets bring to the Joint Force from
their time utilizing civilian education systems supported by domestic
non-defense appropriations?
Answer. ROTC programs train officer candidates in a civilian
educational environment. This allows students to experience and
appreciate the experiences of both military and civilian cultures and
challenges. ROTC graduates also maintain ties to their civilian
educational institutions, often mentoring the next generation of
officers and government civil service employees. Along with the Service
Academies and Officer Training School (OTS), the Reserve Officer
Training Corps (ROTC) program provides highly qualified graduates to
fill the Joint Force's officer corps. The Joint Force makes no
distinction between officers of any commissioning source. ROTC, OTS,
and Service Academy graduates are eligible for the same careers and
duty locations. Additionally, commissioning graduates from a large
network of civilian academic institutions gives the Joint Force access
to a broad applicant pool. With their unique personal and academic
backgrounds, ROTC graduates provide the Joint Force with diverse
perspectives and problem solving approaches.
Question. Apart from ROTC, how do investments in domestic non-
defense programs, such as education and healthcare, improve your
ability to recruit quality service members and increase readiness of
the U.S. Armed Forces in all ranks and from all backgrounds?
Answer. Feedback from recent U.S. youth surveys suggest 16-21 year
olds are motivated to join the military for non-defense related
programs and incentives to include: pay, funding future education,
travel, health and medical benefits, as well as gaining experiences/
work skills.
The Climate Crisis' Effect on Military Readiness
Question. The Department and you and the other Joint Chiefs have
been clear about the security threats climate change poses to the
United States and partners, releasing studies and strategies to cope
with the challenges it imposes.
How has the threat of climate change changed the requirements of
defense acquisition, training, and facilities management programs?
Answer. The threat of climate change requires additional resilience
to prevent degradation of warfighting capacity and to build enduring
advantages over our competitors. In line with the Department of Defense
Climate Adaptation Plan and recently published National Defense
Strategy, we are analyzing the effects climate change has on the Joint
Force through modeling, simulation, and wargaming. The Department uses
these results to make informed decisions on training and acquisitions
to prepare and equip a climate-ready force. The Department has also
developed a comprehensive set of policies, directives, and plans to
manage the effects of climate change on its facilities. These include
updates to the Unified Facilities Criteria for facility planning and
operations to ensure our infrastructure is available for mission
preparedness, military readiness, and operational success in changing
conditions.
Question. In what ways has your fiscal year 23 budget modified
assumptions in prior FYDPs due to the changing environment brought
about by the climate crisis?
Answer. The Department's fiscal year 2023 budget prioritizes
climate investments that enhance operational capability, mission
resilience, and readiness. The funding is designed to improve
installation energy and physical resilience, to increase operational
energy efficiency and resiliency, to develop new capabilities keeping
the U.S. military at the cutting edge of technology, and to reduce
future operational costs.
PB23 leverages private sector investments to increase our
resiliency and decrease our dependence on fossil fuels by transitioning
to electric vehicle fleets.
______
Questions Submitted by Senator Richard C. Shelby
Question. While the war in Ukraine has the world's attention, the
Department's recently released National Defense Strategy ranks China as
our primary challenge and pacing threat.
General Milley, what lessons should the United States take from the
war in Ukraine to apply in the Indo-Pacific region, in particular
regarding the defense of Taiwan?
Answer. The Joint Force is aggressively capturing lessons learned
from Ukraine and using them to inform future requirements. Specific to
Taiwan, I assess the most relevant lessons to be further examined are
the importance of strong international partnerships, effective
asymmetric defense capabilities, the impact of information warfare on
influencing world opinion, sufficient stocks of critical munitions, and
the criticality of a resilient society.
Question. In your opinion, what lessons is China taking from
Russia's performance on the battlefield?
Answer. Beijing is seeking to gain insight from Russia's military
failures in Ukraine to improve its own military capabilities--the PLA
closely studies U.S. and Russian military operations for lessons
learned. The PRC likely perceives that Russia failed to use sufficient
force early in the conflict to decisively defeat Ukraine, which gave
Kyiv time to establish an effective defense. Beijing likely will stress
the importance of conducting a rapid, decisive and lethal military
campaign, supported by effective planning, preparation, and logistical
support. For Beijing the conflict likely has also underscored the
challenges of conducting complex joint military operations, including
effective command and control. The Ukraine conflict is likely also
influence PRC assumptions about a defender's will to fight and mobilize
for a ``people's war.'' Finally, Beijing probably views Russia's
difficulties in conducting urban combat operations and maintaining
security in rear areas as requiring further assessment. However, there
is no evidence that Russia's failed invasion has changed Beijing's
willingness to use force against Taiwan--instead, the PLA may
incorporate these lessons into its own planning and training for a
Taiwan invasion or other regional military conflict.
Question. The Department's budget request seeks to execute a
`divest to invest' strategy which potentially could shrink our combat-
credible forces by 24 ships and 150 aircraft. While I appreciate the
need to retire certain platforms and modernize our forces for the 2030
fight, we still have a majority of this decade immediately before us,
and I am deeply concerned that we are short-changing near-term
readiness for future modernization.
General Milley, give your best military assessment of the near-term
risks associated with the divestments proposed in the Department's
budget request. In particular, which near- term capabilities is the
Joint Force taking the greatest risk today to fund modernization? How
do you intend to mitigate this risk?
Answer. PB23 balances capacity risk in the near term with our
modernization goals as we transition the Joint Force to meet the
threats of tomorrow. The budget is aligned with the National Defense
Strategy and provides for the defense of the Nation today, while
preparing for the future.
Retiring legacy platforms with less relevant warfighting capability
enables the Joint Force to invest in modernization and ensures the
readiness of our most lethal platforms to deter and, if necessary,
defeat any strategic threat.
We routinely assess what we need today versus what we need in the
future to maximize Joint Force lethality against evolving threat
environment.
Question. Do you assess that the Joint Force is capable of
deterring Chinese aggression today and through this decade?
Answer. Yes, the Joint Force will continue to deter Chinese
aggression with support to the greater Department of Defense approach
of Integrated Deterrence--bringing in allies and partners; working
across the conventional, nuclear, space, and informational domains;
drawing on our reinforcing strengths in economics, in technology, and
in diplomacy. We are shifting our military investments away from
platforms that were designed for the conflicts of the 20th century
toward asymmetric systems that are longer-range, harder to find, and
easier to move. We developed the Joint Warfighting Concept 2.0 and will
transition to doctrine in 2023. And we're diversifying our force
posture and global footprint, fortifying our networks, critical
civilian infrastructure, and space-based capabilities. This also
involves assisting our allies and partners in the region with their own
asymmetric capabilities.
______
Questions Submitted by Senator Susan M. Collins
Question. For years, the Army have been procuring Expeditionary
Shelter Protection Systems (ESPS), which are lightweight and easily
erected ballistic protection systems for use against mortars and other
indirect fires. ESPS's effectiveness was previously demonstrated when
it protected the occupants of the US Consulate in Herat, Afghanistan in
2013.
Congress has invested significant sums to establish advanced
prepositioned stocks (APS) of needed equipment in Europe--is there a
value in ensuring this type of system is prepositioned in Europe for
quick and ready use by American forces and NATO allies in the case of a
conflict with Russia?
Answer. The ESPS does provide for quick and easily erected
ballistic protection. The ESPS has not been added to the Army
Prepositioned Stock (APS) Program yet. The Army is assessing the
requirement for ESPS and its applicability within APS--worldwide.
The military services maintain pre-positioned war reserve materiel
and stocks in many locations worldwide. It enhances the responsiveness
and military capability of our Combatant Commands during the initial
phase of operations. These assets also provide initial sustainment
capability until the establishment of sustainable and enduring
logistical lines of communications.
Question. Fighting in Ukraine has demonstrated there may be a need
for ESPS to protect Ukrainian fighters against indirect fires- has DoD
given any consideration to providing this type of system to help the
Ukrainian's protect their troops and positions from Russian indirect
fire?
Answer. DoD is exploring all options to help Ukrainian forces
defend against Russian aggression. Improved protection against indirect
Russian fires is one of the many capabilities that could be included in
upcoming security assistance packages for Ukraine. DoD--in close
coordination with the Interagency--bases final decisions about specific
systems on numerous factors, foremost among these are Ukrainian
priorities and requests, USEUCOM recommendations, and the commitments
made by our other Allies and partners.
Question. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has long
supported terrorist groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and
militias in Iraq and Syria. Do you believe that Iran's IRGC continues
to engage in terrorism and other malign activities throughout the
Middle East?
Answer. Yes, Iran continues to provide close partners and proxies
in the region with advanced weapons, direction, and UAVs, which gives
Tehran a deniable means to attack the U.S. and our allies.
Additionally, Iranian officials continue to perceive that they have not
sufficiently retaliated for the death of former IRGC-QF Commander Qasem
Soleimani, and probably are planning covert actions against U.S.
officials in retribution in a manner that would maintain plausibly
deniability and minimize escalation.
Question. If the IRGC were to receive an increase of funding due to
sanctions relief on Iran, do you believe some portion of that funding
would likely be used to support terrorism against the U.S. or our
allies?
Answer. I assess that new funding would be used to support
terrorism against the U.S. or our allies. Iran has continued its
regional activities despite the U.S. re-imposing sanctions in 2018.
These sanctions have impeded Tehran's access to traditional government
funding streams, including oil and exports.
Question. As the world's attention is understandably on what Russia
is doing in Ukraine, it is important to maintain a strategic focus on
the threat posed by China. What lessons are you taking away from
Russia's war in Ukraine with respect to how the United States and
Taiwan can deter, or defeat if necessary, a Chinese invasion of Taiwan?
Answer. The Joint Force is aggressively capturing lessons learned
from Ukraine and using them to inform future requirements. Specific to
Taiwan, I assess the most relevant lessons to be further examined are
the importance of strong international partnerships, effective
asymmetric defense capabilities, the impact of information warfare on
influencing world opinion, sufficient stocks of critical munitions, and
the criticality of a resilient society.
Question. Should the United States be considering more aggressive
efforts to ensure Taiwan has the arms necessary to deny a potential
Chinese invasion?
Answer. The United States, in accordance with the Taiwan Relations
Act and Six Assurances, will continue to explore all options and
authorities to provide for Taiwan's defense.
Question. You noted in your written testimony the importance of a
properly sized and well positioned shipbuilding industrial base, and
the Navy's shipbuilding plan correctly states that sustained and
growing the shipbuilding industrial base is a national security
imperative.
One way the Pentagon can help support stability and capacity in our
industrial base is the use of multiyear procurement contracts. I
strongly support the need for Congress to authorize a new multiyear
contract for fifteen DDG-51 Flight III destroyers, as well as the need
for additional industrial base support for our shipbuilders, which will
ensure we can maintain the capacity to build the ships we need to
counter China.
Answer. The Joint Force supports smart acquisition strategies and
is committed to achieving the best value possible. This includes using
multi-year and multi-ship procurements when those acquisition
strategies support the National Defense Strategy and warfighting
requirements. The Department uses block buys, multi-ship, or multi-year
procurements when allowed by Title 10 to aid in delivering cost-
effective capacity and to provide predictability to the industrial
base.
Question. Can you elaborate on the importance of our shipbuilding
industrial base in accomplishing the National Defense Strategy and
competing with China?
Answer. America's maritime superiority guarantees security and
prosperity across the world's oceans, and ensures global commerce
remains protected. Our nation's maritime superiority is fundamental to
implementing the National Defense Strategy, and the shipbuilding
industrial base is vital to providing credible naval forces to preserve
our national interests and prevail in combat.
SUBCOMMITTEE RECESS
Senator Tester. This Defense Subcommittee will reconvene on
Tuesday, May 10, at 10 a.m. to hear from Secretary of the Army
and the Army Chief of Staff.
This committee stands in recess.
[Whereupon, at 11:49 a.m., Tuesday, May 3, the subcommittee
was recessed, to reconvene at 10 a.m., Tuesday, May 10.]