[House Hearing, 119 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.A.S.C. No. 119-2]
PROTECTING AMERICAN INTERESTS IN
A CONVERGENT GLOBAL THREAT
ENVIRONMENT
__________
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED NINETEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
HEARING HELD
FEBRUARY 12, 2025
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
61-759 WASHINGTON : 2026
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
One Hundred Nineteenth Congress
MIKE ROGERS, Alabama, Chairman
JOE WILSON, South Carolina ADAM SMITH, Washington
MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut
ROBERT J. WITTMAN, Virginia, Vice JOHN GARAMENDI, California
Chair DONALD NORCROSS, New Jersey
AUSTIN SCOTT, Georgia SETH MOULTON, Massachusetts
SAM GRAVES, Missouri SALUD O. CARBAJAL, California
ELISE M. STEFANIK, New York RO KHANNA, California
SCOTT DesJARLAIS, Tennessee WILLIAM R. KEATING, Massachusetts
TRENT KELLY, Mississippi CHRISSY HOULAHAN, Pennsylvania
DON BACON, Nebraska JASON CROW, Colorado
JACK BERGMAN, Michigan MIKIE SHERRILL, New Jersey
RONNY JACKSON, Texas JARED F. GOLDEN, Maine
PAT FALLON, Texas SARA JACOBS, California
CARLOS A. GIMENEZ, Florida MARILYN STRICKLAND, Washington
NANCY MACE, South Carolina PATRICK RYAN, New York
BRAD FINSTAD, Minnesota GABE VASQUEZ, New Mexico
MORGAN LUTTRELL, Texas CHRISTOPHER R. DELUZIO,
JENNIFER A. KIGGANS, Virginia Pennsylvania
JAMES C. MOYLAN, Guam JILL N. TOKUDA, Hawaii
CORY MILLS, Florida DONALD G. DAVIS, North Carolina
RICHARD McCORMICK, Georgia GILBERT RAY CISNEROS JR.,
LANCE GOODEN, Texas California
CLAY HIGGINS, Louisiana ERIC SORENSEN, Illinois
DERRICK VAN ORDEN, Wisconsin MAGGIE GOODLANDER, New Hampshire
JOHN J. McGUIRE III, Virginia SARAH ELFRETH, Maryland
PAT HARRIGAN, North Carolina GEORGE WHITESIDES, California
MARK B. MESSMER, Indiana DEREK TRAN, California
DEREK SCHMIDT, Kansas EUGENE SIMON VINDMAN, Virginia
JEFF CRANK, Colorado WESLEY BELL, Missouri
ABRAHAM J. HAMADEH, Arizona
Chris Vieson, Staff Director
Mark Morehouse, Professional Staff Member
Spencer Johnson, Professional Staff Member
Logan Whelchel, Research Assistant
C O N T E N T S
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Page
STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Rogers, Hon. Mike, a Representative from Alabama, Chairman,
Committee on Armed Services.................................... 1
Smith, Hon. Adam, a Representative from Washington, Ranking
Member, Committee on Armed Services............................ 2
WITNESSES
Karlin, Dr. Mara E., Professor, John Hopkins School of Advanced
International Studies.......................................... 6
Keane, Gen. John ``Jack'' M., USA, Retired, Chairman, Institute
for the Study of War........................................... 5
APPENDIX
Prepared Statements:
Karlin, Dr. Mara E........................................... 86
Keane, Gen. John ``Jack'' M.................................. 67
Documents Submitted for the Record:
Washington Post Op-Ed by Jack Keane entitled ``America must
continue to arm Ukraine - without U.S.taxpayer dollars''... 107
Witness Responses to Questions Asked During the Hearing:
[There were no Questions submitted during the hearing.]
Questions Submitted by Members Post Hearing:
Ms. Tokuda................................................... 115
Mr. Wilson................................................... 115
PROTECTING AMERICAN INTERESTS IN
A CONVERGENT GLOBAL THREAT
ENVIRONMENT
----------
House of Representatives,
Committee on Armed Services,
Washington, DC, Wednesday, February 12, 2025.
The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:01 a.m., in room
2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Mike Rogers [Chairman
of the Committee] presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MIKE ROGERS, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM
ALABAMA, CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
The Chairman. The committee will come to order.
Welcome to our first hearing of the 119th Congress where we
will examine a hard truth. The United States faces the most
challenging threat environment since World War II. China is
investing heavily in its military and threatening to outpace
the United States.
Russia's military, despite suffering massive casualties in
Ukraine, is rapidly reconstituting. In fact, the Russian army
is larger today than it was before the conflict.
North Korea has doubled down expanding its nuclear
capabilities.
And while Israel has dealt a blow to Iran, the Ayatollah
continues to harbor nuclear ambitions. And with the help of his
terrorist proxies, he's attacking commercial shipping in the
Red Sea and American troops across the Middle East.
Alone, each of these adversaries poses a significant threat
to the United States, but they are no longer acting alone.
They're building an alliance dedicated to countering American
interests.
China, Iran, North Korea are actively supporting Putin's
war machine. Iran is providing Russia with thousands of drones.
North Korea is supplying thousands of artillery shells,
ballistic missiles, and soldiers.
However, it's China that's become Russia's most important
lifeline. In accordance with their "no limits partnership," Xi
is keeping Putin's economy afloat by buying Russian oil and
gas. And without Chinese semiconductors and dual-use
components, Russia's defense industrial base would have already
come to a screeching halt.
This growing cooperation extends well beyond the war in
Ukraine. Putin has expressed public support for Xi's ambitions
to reunify Taiwan. Meanwhile, Russia has helped China expand
its nuclear arsenal, as well as enhance air defense, anti-ship
and submarine capabilities.
In defiance of western sanctions, Russia and China have
funded the Ayatollah's malign agendas by purchasing large
amounts of Iranian oil.
As for North Korea, Russia reportedly intends to share
advanced space and satellite technology to aid Kim's
development of ICBMs [intercontinental ballistic missiles].
This deepening alignment creates the risk that conflict
anywhere could quickly become a multi-front war. We must take
this threat seriously. We must take the --make investments
necessary to deter and, if necessary, defeat this new axis of
aggressors.
Yet, today, the U.S. defense spending as a percentage of
GDP [gross domestic product] is at its lowest level since
before World War II. This is not enough to deter our enemies.
Just look at the consequences of underfunded and un-
credible American deterrence over the last four years:
The Taliban retook Afghanistan; Russia launched a full-
scale invasion of its neighbor; Iran and its proxies
perpetrated the worst attacks on Israel since the Holocaust;
Kim abandoned the pursuit of peaceful reunification and,
instead, put his country on war footing; and China has become
increasingly aggressive, escalating against Taiwan and the
Philippines.
Given these threats, it will take significant investments
to restore peace through strength. We must get our defense
spending back above four percent, at a minimum, of our GDP.
That starts with a reconciliation process that includes robust
defense spending. Our allies and partners must follow suit and
spend more on their own defense as well.
The United States cannot and should not face this
convergence of threats alone.
But just spending more is not the answer. The weapons we
are buying cost too much and take too long to get to the war
fighter. Every dollar has to be spent smarter. As such,
additional investments must come hand in hand with reforms to
field innovation faster, improve efficiency across the DOD
[Department of Defense].
I truly believe we are living through a watershed moment.
The decisions we make in the months ahead could be the
difference between war and peace.
I look forward to hearing from our witnesses on their
assessment of these threats and what advice they have for this
committee on how we deter them.
With that, I yield to my friend, the ranking member, for
any opening comments he may have.
STATEMENT OF HON. ADAM SMITH, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM WASHINGTON,
RANKING MEMBER, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
Mr. Smith. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And thank you
for bringing together this hearing. I think it's a perfect way
to start the committee's work this year, to really analyze the
challenges we face. And I think you laid them out reasonably
well.
We have a group of adversaries that are coming together
with the common purpose, basically, of reducing the influence
of the U.S. in the world. There are certainly a lot of
differences between Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, terrorist
groups like Hamas, and Hezbollah, and ISIS [Islamic State of
Iraq and Syria], but the one thing they all share in common is
they would like the U.S. to have less influence in their part
of the world or the world in general.
And they have found increasingly, as the chairman outlined,
ways to work together, even within their differences, to try to
accomplish that goal. I think that's the frame we need to think
about this in. We face that challenge from these adversaries
because they want to push us out and reduce our influence.
And the second part of the challenge, I think the chairman
also laid out quite well, and that is how Department of Defense
responds to that, and how we get better at acquisition and
procurement.
It takes too long to purchase the systems that we need.
Because the other big way the world has changed is the rapid
pace of changing warfare. And we've seen this in Ukraine.
Drones, counter-drone technology, secure communications,
disrupting those secure communications, it is a constant 3-D
chess game.
If you are in a conflict, you need to update your systems
constantly, quickly, and efficiently. The Pentagon is not built
for that.
Members of this committee who were on here before have
heard me often cite an article on Foreign Affairs from about, I
guess, six months ago now that talked about how the Pentagon
was built to be the 1950s Ford Motor Company. And that is
great, but what they need to be is the 2022 Apple, okay, an
innovative technology company instead of a process-oriented
company.
Improving efficiency and effectiveness at the Pentagon is
absolutely crucial. The chairman is right, more money alone
isn't going to solve the problem. And whenever any group comes
to me and asks for more money, which is just about every single
day, by the way, my response is: What are you doing with the
money you got?
And if you can't answer that question, it doesn't really
bode well for what you are going to do with any more. So, it's
really important that the Pentagon gets to a more efficient and
effective place.
And, you know, the much-talked-about DOGE [Department of
Government Efficiency] could be a positive in this regard. They
could go into the Pentagon and make it more efficient and more
effective. And I would urge members of this committee to make
sure that they do that instead of engaging in personal loyalty
tests for personal vengeance. That is not going to help
anything. We've got work to do.
And then when you look at what the U.S. response should be,
broadly, to this, I have concerns, and I'm really interested to
hear what the witness had to say about that, that we are still
basically on the post-World War II mantra of, "We want to
dominate." Okay? We have all these adversaries. We, the United
States, have to be big enough, strong enough, and powerful
enough, I guess, to bring them to heal.
I don't consider that to be possible in the world we face
right now. China is a peer competitor with us, unlike anything
the Soviet Union had, because they've got a strong economy.
They are also building up their military, but their economy is
strong. Plus, they have got the partners that we laid out.
We are not going to be able to meet this alone. So, the
partnerships are going to be crucial. There has been much
denigration of our allies recently of, you know, we are getting
a bad deal on NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization], we are
getting a bad deal on South Korea. There is a fundamental
misunderstanding that the alliances that were built post-World
War II were, yes, dependent on a disproportionate amount of
U.S. military support. Okay?
But what isn't understood is, we benefitted from that more
than any other country in the world. We have been the most
powerful economy the world has ever seen for 80 years because
of the stability that that brought. Let us not toss those
alliances aside because we think they're not doing enough for
us. We have to figure out how to make those alliances work as
we go forward.
And we also have to have a principle. Because there is
another big part of this, what I like to refer to as the
undecided vote. As we try to exercise our influence, Russia and
China are also trying to spread theirs, the BRICS [Brazil-
Russia-India-China-South Africa] countries, their ability to
try to create an economic alternative to the U.S. level of
dominance.
Their ability to succeed on that is going to be dependent
upon countries like India, and Brazil, and South Africa, and
elsewhere. Are they going to align with them or are they going
to work with us? We have to understand their interests in doing
that.
And one key part of this is the notion that the U.S.
believes in sovereignty. We don't believe that Russia should be
able to take Ukraine. We don't believe that China should be
able to grab territory from a half dozen different countries.
So, it is a problem when the President of the United States
talks about taking Greenland, and Panama, and Gaza. And the
Canada one I still don't fully understand. But when you talk
about that as well, it seems to say, ``Hey, what is the
American message: Might makes right. If you want it, go get
it.''
That is not a message that is going to accrue to our
benefit in the world.
So, I hope we will consider all of that as we try to figure
out how to meet the two huge challenges: one, a world in many
places that is uniting against us; and a Pentagon that is not
up to where it needs to be to build the equipment we need at
the scale and pace that is necessary to put us in the best
position to meet our defense interests.
With that, I look forward to the witnesses' testimony and
to the questions.
Thank you. I yield back.
The Chairman. Thank you, Ranking Member.
I would now like to introduce our witnesses.
First we have General Jack Keane, Chairman of the Board for
the Institute for the Study of War. He is also a former 4-star
general who served as the Army's Vice Chief of Staff.
We welcome Dr. Mara Karlin, is a professor at Johns Hopkins
School of Advanced International Studies. She has served in
numerous senior roles at the DOD, including as Assistant
Secretary of Defense for Strategy, Plans, and Capabilities.
Welcome, both.
General Keane, you are recognized first.
STATEMENT OF GENERAL JOHN ``JACK'' M. KEANE, RETIRED, CHAIRMAN,
INSTITUTE FOR THE STUDY OF WAR
General Keane. Chairman Rogers, Ranking Member Smith,
distinguished members of the committee, thank you for inviting
me back to share some thoughts with you today.
I am very familiar with the work of the committee and your
dedication and tireless effort to provide for the national
defense, and the sustained support you provide for the armed
forces and their families. I am privileged today to be with my
colleague, Dr. Mara Karlin, a highly-respected national
security professional, who has devoted much of her life to help
protecting the American people.
I was honored to participate in the Congressional
Commission that examined the NDS [National Defense Strategy]
2022. We found common ground on the dangers we are facing and
issued a bipartisan, unanimous report. Frankly, we were alarmed
and called for change and urgent action. Your hearing topic
today was central to our report findings and recommendations.
The threats the United States faces are the most serious
and most challenging, as our chairman indicated, since 1945,
and include the potential for near-term major war. The United
States last fought a global conflict during World War II. The
nation last prepared for one, for such a conflict, during the
Cold War. We are not adequately prepared today.
China and Russia's "no limits partnership" has only
deepened and broadened, to include a military and economic
partnership with Iran and North Korea, each of which represents
its own significant threats to U.S. interests. The new axis of
nations opposed to U.S. interests create a real risk, if not a
likelihood, that conflict anywhere could become a multi-theater
or global war.
Clearly, the dominant power in this group is China, which
the NDS 2022 identified as the pacing challenge. However, the
reality is China is outpacing the United States and has largely
negated the U.S. military advantage in the Western Pacific
through 20-plus years of focused military investment.
Meanwhile, the United States military capability eroded due
to the 9/11 wars and underfunding conventional capabilities.
Indeed, China outguns the United States in every military
category: surface ships, offensive and defensive missiles,
anti-ship missiles, regional air power, and ground forces. The
only area, as you know, is submarines, where the United States
maintains an advantage.
The convergence of the four powers led by China and Russia,
while it is not a formal security alliance, their cooperation
has significantly accelerated and increased, given the war in
Ukraine and their desire to help Russia to win. If Russia wins,
so does China, Iran, and North Korea.
Their underlying common interests, as the ranking minority
stated, is to weaken U.S. leadership and the global order the
United States and like-minded democracies have fostered for
almost 80 years. This development cannot be taken lightly and
it is fundamentally altering the geopolitical landscape.
This group has assisted each other in overcoming
international sanctions, have bolstered each other's military
capability, and fostered support to each country's sphere of
influence.
The next National Security Strategy and the subsequent NDS
must address the strategy and resources to effectively deter
these adversaries, with the primary focus on China. And it
certainly should include our allies and partners.
It will not be easy or cheap. We must rebuild the military.
Readiness is down. The Army, Navy, and Air Force are much too
small. We need to restore deterrence by increasing defense
funding.
Since the end of World War II to the present, defense
spending as a share of the federal budget has overall declined.
It is now at 13 percent, which suggests the United States could
spend a much greater share of its budget on defense, as it has
in the past.
The nation spends a smaller share on defense because other
forms of spending have taken a priority. It is that simple.
This is a policy choice, not a fiscal constraint. During the
Cold War, funding peaked at 6.8 percent, with an average around
6 percent for the period.
During the Iraq-Afghanistan it was 4.7 percent.
I agree with Chairman Rogers and Chairman Wicker to
increase defense spending closer to five percent of GDP above
inflation beginning with the next two years. It underscores the
urgency of the crisis we are facing, to restore deterrence,
increase much-needed capabilities, fix the defense industrial
base, and also fix the defense's ossified business practices.
And there is much that can be done to reduce waste and
inefficiency. And let's welcome DOGE if they can help.
Thank you. And I look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of General Keane (retired) can be
found in the Appendix on page 67.]
STATEMENT OF DR. MARA E. KARLIN, PROFESSOR, JOHNS HOPKINS
SCHOOL OF ADVANCED INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
The Chairman. Thank you, General.
The chair now recognizes Dr. Karlin.
Dr. Karlin. Chairman Rogers, Ranking Member Smith,
distinguished members of the committee, thank you for the
opportunity to appear before you today. And I am honored to be
seated next to General Jack Keane, a thoughtful and serious
defense leader.
Today's threats are complex and interconnected. The
plasticity of this period, wherein major regions are being
fundamentally reshaped, contains challenges and opportunities
for U.S. national security interests. An age of comprehensive
conflict has begun.
This is total war in which combatants draw on vast arrays
of resources, mobilize their societies, and attack a broad
variety of targets, reshape their economies to prioritize
warfare over all other state activities.
We see war changing in three ways:
First, the continuum of conflict has collapsed.
You know, in an earlier era, we might have seen the
terrorism and insurgency of Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, as
inhibiting the low end of the spectrum of conflict intensity.
The armies waging conventional warfare in Ukraine as residing
in the middle, and the nuclear threat shaping Russia's war and
China's growing arsenal, is sitting at the high end. Today,
there is no sense of mutual exclusivity.
To put it in cinematic terms, when it comes to war, we see
everything, everywhere, all at once.
Second, the demography of war has expanded.
The post-9/11 wars were defined by the outsized impact of
terrorist groups, proxies, and militias. Today, state
militaries are back, but non-state groups have hardly left the
stage.
And, three, the return of deterrence.
In the post-9/11 era, deterrence was rarely invoked, since
the idea seemed irrelevant against nihilistic non-state actors
like Al Qaeda and ISIS. Now, almost every debate about U.S.
national security boils down to deterrence. These include
deterrence by denial: the act of making it difficult for an
enemy to achieve its intended objective, like we saw with
Iran's conventional military attacks on Israel.
Or deterrence by punishment, which requires credibly
threatening an enemy with severe consequences if it takes
certain actions, like we saw with a coordinated diplomatic
effort paired with credible threats when Putin threatened to
use nuclear weapons.
And the third approach is deterrence by resilience, which
we see through the rationale behind the historic and ongoing
dispersal of U.S. military bases in the Indo-Pacific.
So, given that we have the most turbulent global security
environment in decades, the United States needs to focus on
three things:
First, prioritizing China but not ignoring other threats.
No other country has the will and, increasingly, the
capability to fundamentally reshape the global security order,
an order that has benefitted our national security interests
for 80 years.
The tricky strategic question isn't whether the United
States should prioritize the threat posed by China. The answer
to that is yes. But, instead, how to address the other threats,
like Russia, North Korea, Iran, and terrorism. And this
presents less of a binary choice than previously, given their
cooperation.
The United States has finite resources, of course, but
ignoring threats is shortsighted.
Two, we need to strengthen America's military and other
tools of statecraft.
The defense budget is both at the highest level in U.S.
history and a historic low level as a percentage of GDP. But it
is more important for us to focus on what should and should not
be funded than a top line. Investment should include nuclear
modernization, undersea platforms, uncrewed systems across
domains, resilient space architecture, cyber, artificial
intelligence, munitions, the submarine industrial base, and R&D
[research and development].
We can look at creating a focused deterrence fund to
support our efforts in the Indo-Pacific, which would make it
easier to target resources related to the pacing challenge of
China.
Even with more funding, the military requires cuts to
evolve in line with the security environment. This could
include excess infrastructure, older ships and aircraft, and
compensation costs.
Beyond resources and platforms, it is often said the people
who serve are our military's greatest asset. Having a force
whose members have varied backgrounds and experiences is a
strategic and warfighting advantage vis-a-vis China and Russia.
The Secretary of Defense is required to give all of you an
update this month assessing the National Defense Strategy. I
recommend you request assessments on the wars in Europe and the
Middle East, threats to deterrence in the Indo-Pacific, and the
use of U.S. troops on the border, including the impact on the
military's ability to prioritize China, and the administration
plans to empower the Department of Homeland Security to fulfill
its statutory obligations, rather than relying on the U.S.
military to do so.
Now, of course, relying solely on the U.S. military to
address global threats is a recipe for disaster. The United
States has several tools in its statecraft toolkit, including
diplomacy, development, and economic carrots and sticks.
Underfunding or degrading U.S. soft power means the United
States will rely on hard power. Ultimately, that approach is
not only inefficient but it will cost more, in American
treasure and American lives.
Finally, I would just highlight that America's unparalleled
network of allies and partners sets it apart from every other
great power in history. This is a net positive. It is
ultimately more effective and less pricey.
Thank you. I look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Karlin can be found in the
Appendix on page 86.]
The Chairman. Thank you, Dr. Karlin.
I now recognize myself for five minutes for questions.
General Keane, I appreciate in your opening statement
acknowledging that you believe that the goal of getting to five
percent of defense spending, GDP, five percent of GDP in
defense spending by the end of this President's term should be
the goal.
But I am really interested in your recommendations on how
we could improve the acquisition process and enhance our
defense and organic industrial base to be able to take that
additional money and turn it into capabilities.
General Keane. That is the major challenge--
The Chairman. Your microphone.
General Keane. Excuse me.
Certainly that is a major challenge that we are facing. I
mean, we know we have workforce issues out there. We have got
global supply chain issues.
But, as I think many of you saw, what the Reagan Institute
published, you know, when Ronald Reagan did that much-talked-
about and successful build-up during the Cold War, he was
moving from a capacity that was very different than we have
today.
At that time, we had 51 tier one defense organizations. We
are down to five today. And that collapse took place as a
result of the end of the Cold War back in the early nineties
and the so-called peace dividend. Everybody was for it. And I
am not relitigating those issues. But that consolidation then
collapse, went too far.
And, also, the cut in the military, which was on average
about 40 percent went too far. And we know that because we
found ourselves fighting two wars sequentially in Iraq and
Afghanistan as opposed to the number one superpower being able
to handle both of them at the same time simultaneously. We
couldn't; we didn't have the land forces to do it.
So, here we sit, now, with a major challenge on our hands.
As I indicated, China is outpacing us in just about everything.
And when you look at our ability to catch up to it--and that is
a classified briefing all on its own, and if you haven't seen
it, please take a look at it--we are very challenged to catch
up.
So, the defense industrial base has got to have, in my
view, a number of things:
They need consistent, reliable funding.
Second, they need continuous demand to sustain their
workforce and supply chain flow so it is not uneven, where some
of the suppliers then pull back from them, and then they have
an interruption and it is another year, it is another two
years, before they get that back online.
The requirements process, I am not an expert in all the
services, but based on what I know about a couple of them very
well, it is out of control. And the requirements creep has got
to stop. It is delaying programs and it is increasing cost. We
have got to discipline the services to do that and hold them
accountable.
And I was as guilty as anybody in this in my four-and-a-
half years as the vice chief. But the risks have changed now.
We have got to accept risk in our business practices in the
Pentagon.
This business of avoiding zero tolerance for error has got
to stop. Nobody runs a private business like that out there,
but we do here. And we have got thousands of civilians involved
in this process taking no risk. Everything is about
performance. It is all about schedule.
And we have got to stop over-testing. And that is
fundamental to the preposition that we have to take as much
risk out of this process.
You know as well as I do, Mr. Chairman, multiple
Secretaries have looked at this process. We have got to finally
come to grips with fixing it. And the defense industrial base
is a good place to start our business practices; inside the
Pentagon is, also. It is much needed.
We can't kick this down the road anymore.
And I agree with the comments that have been made. It is
not just about the increase in funding, it is how we spend the
money. Because if we don't fix the process, then we are going
to squander some of the taxpayers' dollars like we have done in
the past. We have got to end it.
And we need your cooperation here, to be frank about it. We
have a generation of continuing resolutions. Gentlemen, ladies,
it has got to stop. That handicaps the services. It means less
money. And it also delays programs.
If the services come to you with a program they need to get
rid of because it is a legacy system that is no longer
relevant, many are relevant but a lot are not, if it is in your
district and in your state, we have got to let it go.
We can't keep fighting the services over it--the risk is
too great. We have got to stop it. We can afford that in
peacetime with no major threats. But the barbarians are at the
gate here. All right? We have got to stop it.
And you got to, you have to open the aperture wider so the
services can go out to the non-defense commercial industry and
buy bulk.
For example, if you leave the Army program of record to
itself, they will get less than a hundred drones this year.
What they need is about 20,000. But they can't go get that
because it is not a program of record. And to get a program of
record like that would likely take a few years.
The Ukrainians built 1.4 million drones inside Ukraine this
year. Next year, they are targeted on four million. Inside
Ukraine. Obviously, with U.S. startups and with European
startups. But if they can do that, we, we have got to find our
process. We have the industry that can support it.
The Chairman. Yes. I can assure you that the ranking member
and I are in complete agreement. This is a top, in fact, the
top priority for this committee. This year's NDAA [National
Defense Authorization Act] is to deal with the acquisition, and
infrastructure, and process, and reform it, as well as getting
defense spending up.
I recognize the ranking member.
Mr. Smith. Thank you.
Well, first of all, I want to do a little Amen and
Hallelujah to requirements tee-offs. Okay. If this committee
does nothing else, we can somehow accomplish passing our
appropriations bills on a regular basis.
Remember, October 1 is the goal. And now we're heading to
the middle of March. I would settle for December 1. Okay. We
just do that, huge accomplishment.
And second, on the requirements, you articulated better
than anyone I have heard. And I get it, we could always do a
little bit more, if you do this. But it has reached just an
absurd point.
I remember when I was touring LCS [littoral combat ship]
awhen they were refurbishing it and talking with the workers on
it, one said that there are 1,200 pages of requirements for how
to paint the portion of that ship that is below the waterline.
Twelve hundred pages of requirements to do that. I mean, just
reading the damn thing is going to cost how many man hours
before you figure out how to do it. So, figuring out how to get
out the requirements is crucial.
Dr. Karlin, I want to ask just a provocative question about
China.
It seems unlikely that we are going to defeat China in any
sort of meaningful sense of the word. They are a global power
and economy. And, yet, that seems to be a lot of the focus of
our efforts. You know, economic, we have got to build our
military strong enough to be able to beat them.
Am I wrong that that is an unrealistic objective? Or if I
am right, what is a more realistic way to look at how we should
confront the challenge that China presents?
Dr. Karlin. Thank you, very much, Ranking Member Smith.
You know, I would agree with you that, unlikely we were
going to defeat China--
The Chairman. I think your microphone needs to be turned
on.
Dr. Karlin. Sorry about that.
I would agree with you, Ranking Member Smith, that it's
unlikely to defeat China. It also isn't necessary; right?
Mr. Smith. Agree.
Dr. Karlin. What makes a lot more sense is to deter China.
Mr. Smith. Yes.
Dr. Karlin. And you had said about ``we''--and I would just
suggest that our ``we'' has a really wide aperture.
Right now, China does not want a war with the United
States. It definitely doesn't want a war with a whole bunch of
our allies around the Indo-Pacific, our allies around Europe
who have gotten increasingly nervous about China's
irresponsible behavior as well.
So, the key is to deter China, to show China today is not
the day; that their approach to upending the international
rules-based security order doesn't work and isn't going to be
profitable.
Mr. Smith. Can I ask one aspect of that, if we are not
going to defeat them, if we are going to deter them, we also
have to figure out how to coexist with them. And what are, what
is some advice in terms of policy approach to diplomatically
figure out how to coexist with China?
Dr. Karlin. You know, when we look at history with
countries that we haven't gotten along with--the Soviet Union
is a great example--we always maintained talks with them. Even
if those talks were folks reading talking points to one
another, that was really important. It helped us understand how
are they seeing threats, where are their, what is their
understanding of escalation. And so, we can't ignore China.
There are areas to cooperate.
The most minimum areas to cooperate, I would suggest, would
be having regular talks with them about how we understand
threats, particularly threats around the Indo-Pacific. China
has a historic modernization and diversification of its nuclear
arsenal. And right now we have exactly zero talks with them on
that.
We should be pressuring them on that. We should be publicly
highlighting that they don't want to have those conversations
because, frankly, that is really dangerous for the world if we
have a, you know, relatively new and incredibly strong nuclear
power not willing to discuss how it is thinking about its
weapons and its doctrine.
Mr. Smith. Okay, absolutely.
And just quickly, because I don't have much time left here,
I am also curious about how we strengthen our partnerships and
alliances and build off of the AUKUS [Australia-United Kingdom-
United States] success. When we talk about everything we need
to build, we can't build it alone. We need to better partner
with people.
And one of the key aspects of AUKUS is trying to get
through some of the restrictions on that cooperation. Just for,
for both of you in the limited time we have left, what else can
we do to strengthen the ability of our partners to help
manufacture the equipment that we all need?
Dr. Karlin. Absolutely.
So, it is in our interests; right? These allies and
partners around regions like Europe and the Indo-Pacific see a
lot of threats similar to us. They have their own funds and
they want to use them in ways that also make sense for us.
So, I think about it in terms of the life cycle of
cooperation: how can we work together on research and
development; how can we work together on using our militaries
collaboratively in terms of force management; and how do we
build our future militaries together?
Look, for countries like the United Kingdom and Australia
it should be very easy for us to cooperate. These countries
have stood by us in just about every war that we fought over
the last 100-plus years. We don't need to kind of have
unnecessary regulations on them.
Mr. Smith. Right. Thanks.
And I am out of time. I apologize, General Keane.
I yield back.
The Chairman. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from
South Carolina, Mr. Wilson.
Mr. Wilson. Thank you very much.
And, General Keane, thank you. You are a champion
understanding that we are in a conflict we did not choose. And
that is dictatorships with rule of gun invading democracies
with rule of law.
It began on February 24, 2022, with the invasion by war
criminal Putin into Ukraine; and October 7th, the regime in
Tehran invading Israel.
Then I am really grateful with your work with the American
Enterprise Institute to put together, indeed, the convergence
of where the dictatorships of war criminal Putin, the regime in
Tehran, the Chinese Communist Party, working together with
North Korea, indeed what a threat this is to world peace and
security.
So, I want to thank you for what you have done.
Also General Keane, what an extraordinary opportunity we
have, and that is that Iran's network of proxy groups are
showing signs of weakness, as we see with the overthrow of the
Assad regime just a month-and-a-half ago, how exciting that was
to see his regime go under.
And also, the success of Israel, Prime Minister Netanyahu,
his success at going after Hamas and Hezbollah.
What can we do to capitalize on the weakness currently of
Iran and support freedom there?
And, also, what is your view about what should be done to
avoid Iran securing a nuclear capability?
General Keane. Yes, thank you, Congressman.
Yeah, what has taken place in the Middle East certainly was
an overreach on the part of Hamas and Iran in that sense in
terms of strategic failure. They obviously had some tactical
success on October the 7th. But give credit to Prime Minister
Netanyahu and his dogged determination to finally do something
about this. Certainly they were surprised and at fault for some
of, some of the things that took place on October the 7th, but
their response has been nothing short of remarkable.
As we have seen, Hamas, militarily as an organization, has
been decimated. There are thousands of fighters there and they
are still in control of Gaza.
What happened to Hezbollah is much the same. They had to
withdraw tens of thousands of Hezbollah out of Syria with the
collapse of the Assad regime.
And we know full well that Iran desperately wanted that
strategic platform if it ever intended to dominate or control
the Middle East. That is why tens of thousands of Hezbollah and
other militias became the ground force to sustain Assad, his
ground military, which was not very effective. That is why
Qasem Soleimani got Russia to come in in 2015 because of the
inadequacy of Assad's air power and sustain that regime when
the opposition forces were gaining ground once again.
This has been a major strategic platform. And they have
lost it. Iran has never been back on its heels as much as it is
today in the 44 years of its history.
And I agree with Prime Minister Netanyahu and where the
President is on this. There is an opportunity here to stop them
once and for all. They want a nuclear weapon. Why? Because of
the regime. It is that simple. And we have the opportunity to
make certain for a fact now that that doesn't happen.
You can use coercive diplomacy and make it clear to them
that an Israeli strike, supported by the United States, is an
alternative. But you can dismantle this program with
verification by the United States and other inspectors, to
include U.N. [United Nations] inspectors, by a date certain. Or
we will dismantle the nuclear enterprise ourselves.
We know that Iran's conventional military is weak, and
their ability to defend the regime against an air attack, they
are extremely vulnerable as a result of the Israelis having
achieved deterrence over Iran.
We cannot pass up this opportunity. It is right in front of
us. The regime is weaker than it has ever been. The people are
frustrated, as you all know. And we have been talking about the
change driven by the people for years. It is all of the
intelligence services are telling us that it is much closer
than it has ever been.
So, we could seize this opportunity and not pass it up. And
we can't get into kind of a diplomatic negotiated effort where
the Iranians pull what they have always pulled: delay, delay,
delay, deny inspections, and the rest of that. There has to be
a date certain, verification or the alternative. They are back
on their heels. We need to finish this once and for all.
Mr. Wilson. Thank you very much. And I am just so grateful
for your service.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. I thank the gentleman.
The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Connecticut,
Mr. Courtney.
Mr. Courtney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you to
both witnesses today for your thoughtful testimony.
Dr. Karlin, again it is great to see you at the table
again. And, again, just want to compliment you for the great
work that you did in terms of the creation and implementation
of AUKUS.
Again, this committee codified in three consecutive
National Defense Authorization Acts in 2023, 2024, and 2025
different provisions that are now in law to execute AUKUS.
So, for example, for the first time in history we are
selling nuclear powered submarines to Australia.
We also implemented long-overdue reform in defense export
controls, which Mr. Smith just referred to.
Also, the execution of a direct financial investment by
Australia into the--of $3 billion into the U.S. submarine
industrial base.
Investment by another country in the U.S. was such a novel
sort of idea that we actually had to pass a law to allow the
Treasury Department to accept payment from Australia. And as a
result of those authorities, we now have joint training at
Groton Submarine School with Aussie sailors and officers. It is
in its second year. They are now serving on board Virginia
Class submarines.
Aussie shipyard workers are doing repair and maintenance
work on U.S. subs in Hawaii and Guam.
And last Friday Richard Marles, the defense minister for
Australia, was in D.C. and formally transmitted a deposit of $5
million out of that $3 billion and had a good meeting with
Defense Secretary Hegseth.
On Sunday Australia got blindsided by the announcement that
they were going to be part of the 25 percent tariffs on steel
and aluminum. And I say blindsided because we have a trade
surplus with Australia. We export more to Australia than they
export to us. And they have been--we have had a free trade
agreement with Australia since 2002. There are no tariffs that
are in place right now.
And at a time when, again, they are making direct financial
commitments into the U.S., the total cost of AUKUS, which they
have kind of budgeted for over the next 10 years, is $360
billion. This is a country whose population is less than the
State of Texas.
So, again, as somebody who, again, was part of this
collaborative effort, and again I would note the Prime Minister
actually had a conversation with President Trump on Tuesday
which both sides described as a good conversation. And the
President said he is going to give serious consideration to
carving out or exempting Australia from the tariffs, again,
primarily because we have a trade surplus with them.
Can you talk about the strategic argument for taking that
action by President Trump?
Dr. Karlin. Thank you very much, Congressman Courtney.
Thank you for your leadership and this committee's leadership
on making AUKUS a reality, which has been progressing pretty
nicely since it was kicked off a couple of years ago.
As you noted, Australia is putting huge amounts of
resources into its military, transforming it, frankly, in line
with the vision that the United States has.
If you are wondering how effective AUKUS is, I would just
note that China hates it. So, that is a really nice piece of
criteria for us to judge it by, particularly because it is
bringing together a close European ally and a close Asian ally
to work together in terms of how we are using our militaries,
practicing that use, and potentially there are contingencies:
one could imagine our militaries cooperating.
Again, it is hard to recall a conflict in which the
Australian military was not standing side by side, next to the
U.S. military as we were waging it.
You highlighted, Congressman, something really important
and historic. We have never before had a country take money and
put it into our industrial base. That creates American jobs,
period, full stop. That is better for the U.S. military,
period, full stop.
And, in fact, I think it could be a model. I would just
note that we are talking about $3 billion or so that Australia
will be, will be giving into our industrial base, again,
resulting in American jobs and a stronger relationship with
countries that is crucial for deterring China.
Mr. Courtney. Thank you, Doctor.
General Keane, again, President Trump did say he was going
to give good consideration to this. And that's quote/unquote
that is there.
And just, again, back in 2017 there was a similar sort of
event that took place. And, again, the U.S. made a decision to
exempt Australia, again partly just on economic and trade
issues. But, again, you understand the strategic importance of
that country right now.
Can you just, you know--
General Keane. No, I would absolutely agree with, with the
exemption. And, hopefully, that, that, that is what is going to
take place here. It makes all the sense in the world.
And let me just say, make a point about allies and
partners.
I think over the last two administrations both have
strengthened the relationships we have had facing these threats
that are so real to us. NATO has obviously been strengthened.
You can make the stress that Putin may have more to do with
that than anybody else. But both administrations played a role
in doing it.
Certainly the Abraham Accords, both administrations have
supported it. President Trump repurposed Quad, and President
Biden strengthened it.
And AUKUS was a novel, imaginative program that is going to
pay great dividends for us in the future as has been well-
stated here.
And, certainly, this trilateral engagement, which surprised
me, South Korea, Japan, and the United States working together,
is another step in the right direction. Look it, we are never
going to have a Pacific NATO like we have where homogenous
countries in Europe, with common cultures and the rest of it.
There's different kinds of government, different cultures. But
patching these countries together to work against the common
objective, the last two administrations deserve some credit in
moving us in the right direction here.
The Chairman. The gentleman's time has expires.
The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Virginia, Mr.
Wittman.
Mr. Wittman. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
General Keane and Dr. Karlin, thanks for joining us today.
General Keane, I want to start with you.
We talk about the effort of deterrence. Where I see the
world today is very much where it was in 1938 with building
axes of evil, with China, China being the center of that
universe. And as we look at what China is doing, you know, our
intelligence agencies show that they spend north of $700
billion annually on their, on their defense. They want to be a
world force.
We spend our dollars much more on a worldwide basis than
they do.
China has the largest navy in the world by numbers. I would
argue their ships are much, much more impressive today than
they were a decade ago.
Also, if you look at their total production capacity, they
can build 232 ships for every one ship that we build. If you
take all of our shipyards, put them together on a geographic
footprint, they would not fill the geographic footprint of the
largest of the 13 Chinese shipyards.
If you look at where they are today, they are on track to
have 1,500 nuclear warheads by 2035, with no nuclear arms
limitation treaty in sight.
If you look at where we are today, China wants to dominate
the world. We are not even in a position where we can hope, we
can hope to have any sort of deterrent effect, the disparity is
so big. And disparities in military powers through the ages
have been the emphasis behind aggression by another nation.
When those differences are large, that is, that is really
an antagonistic opportunity for China to be able to, to move.
I want to look at what can we do in the short term to be
that deterrent force. You know, the way that we look at closing
the gap is not, as you talk about, programs of record, years of
writing requirements, years of acquisition, years of putting
these systems in place. Listen, I'm not against exquisite
systems, but you are not going to field exquisite systems any
time soon.
The question is, is how can we take what is an asymmetric
advantage, with us being the best creators and innovators on
the Earth, with us building expendable and attritable systems
at the same pace that we see happening elsewhere in places like
Ukraine, how do we close that gap?
And what we see right now is not anywhere close to being
deterrent. I agree with, I agree with Ranking Member Smith, I
want us to be a deterrent. I want us to be a deterrent. I don't
want war. But this big a gap is provocative.
How do we close that gap so we don't find ourselves in that
situation?
General Keane. Yeah, well, that is a great question,
Congressman.
And let's just state this. I mean, we have been here
before.
When during the Cold War the Soviet Union, when you looked
at its military by comparison to ours--and, obviously, NATO was
involved--they outmanned us and outgunned us in every major
category: 10 to 1 in divisions, thousands and thousands of more
tanks, artillery pieces. You name it, they outgunned us on it.
And we did a couple of things. We had some very imaginative
generals at the time. They came out of the Vietnam War like we
are just coming out of 9/11. They saw that threat. They
experimented with different capabilities. And they determined
what they needed to do.
They knew they could not defeat the Soviet Union, but could
they impose costs on them that would deter them from conducting
an invasion? That is what they concluded. Much as Dr. Karlin
just spoke of, I totally agree, that is kind of where we are
now.
And, so, that led to the development of multiple rocket
launch systems, the Apache helicopter, Abrams tank, Bradley
fighting vehicles, and air defense systems. And they put their
money on that.
And then we did something else, we exercised right in front
of them every two years in something we called Reforger. So, we
achieved credible deterrence.
Why?
One, the capabilities we had were real, and they knew it
would impose costs.
Two, they saw us exercise it. And that not only validated
what we had, but it also validated our intent to use it, that
we were dead serious.
That is credible deterrence. The capability is there. The
adversary sees it and he knows you are willing to use it.
I believe our maritime strategy in the Pacific has been
flawed for years. It lacks imagination. We know our surface
ships are vulnerable to hypersonic swarming weapons. And if we
use them, most of them are going to go away.
And the American people aren't prepared for these kinds of
high capital losses, and to things and to people. We know full
well that our bases in the Pacific are vulnerable to long-range
offensive weapons.
And we have got to change what we are doing there. And,
certainly, as we have seen the character of war changing right
before our eyes, we have to take advantage of it.
We know our submarines work because we can get to the China
coastline close enough to interdict their batteries and their
airfields, and take some of that offensive capability away. But
we cannot take most of it away.
The Chairman. The gentleman's time has expired.
General Keane. We can with autonomous above the sea and
submersibles below sea. We have got to start using our
imagination to take, build operational concepts that really
make some sense.
The Chairman. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from
New Jersey, Mr. Norcross.
Mr. Norcross. Thank you.
First of all, thank you for your opening comments, the
global threats. And it appears by any measurement that there is
certainly agreement on what those threats are, at least on the
high end.
But following up on Ranking Member Smith's conversation of
do we defeat a China, my question is a little bit different on
that.
How do we drive a wedge, how do we keep the convergence or
this axis of aggression from forming even stronger? So, if we
go back five years, it was very different. How do we drive that
wedge from it continuing to progress the way it is?
Why don't we start with you, Dr. Karlin.
Dr. Karlin. Thank you, Congressman.
I think that is exactly the right question to ask because
there are ceilings and limits to these partnerships, and there
are also opportunities in them. Right?
So, General Keane highlighted about how the Russians
weren't able to save Syrian President Bashar al-Assad over the
last year the way they had for many, many years. That turned
out to be a pretty good opportunity for the Middle East, and
particularly for the people of Syria.
I would also say when we look at, you know, how to drive a
wedge and see these limits, who is dying right now for Russia?
As far as I tell it is only some North Koreans. I don't see
Chinese or Iranians dying for them.
That is looking very different than the United States. We
have tens and tens of allies who throughout history, but
especially in the post-9/11 wars, have been willing to do so.
So, I think highlighting those sorts of wedge issues can be
really worthwhile. Showing that, you know, showing the Russians
that, actually, this partnership with China isn't worth all
that they think it is, or this partnership with Iran, that it,
it has some real challenges as well.
Mr. Norcross. General?
General Keane. Yes. The military aspect of this--
The Chairman. Microphone.
General Keane. The military aspect of this we have
discussed. All the elements of national power have got to come
into play here. And, obviously, we are competing with them
economically, diplomatically, technologically, militarily, and
geopolitically.
We are making good progress, I believe, geopolitically with
our allies and partners in the region. But there is more that
we can do there.
Technologically, I have--I believe certainly that our, our
debt credit capitalism can beat their state capitalism, that we
can outthink, outwit, and out-innovate these guys over time.
And we have to unleash our commercial sector here to help us do
just, just that.
We don't have to take a backseat to what is happening
there. We know that they are economically challenged. And when
they are exceeding what we believe is prudent in the region, we
have to deal with that. We have to have a strategy to deal with
their gray zone operations.
You know, they have moved from just four or five years ago
a few hundred interdictions of Taiwan's air defense
identification zone to 1,700 last year, and 3,000 in the past
year. We have to have a counterstrategy to deal with that.
And I grew up with talking to China. And I believe the
President of the United States wants to continue to do what the
previous President did in talking to China. But they have to
clearly know, also, where the prohibitions are. And we should
be very unequivocally clear to them about what those are.
Yes, there is, there is much we can do. And we have to use
all the elements of national power to do that in concert with
our allies.
Mr. Norcross. Thank you.
And I yield back.
The Chairman. The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from
Tennessee, Dr. DesJarlais, for five minutes.
Dr. DesJarlais. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
General Keane, I had a few questions for you on Ukraine.
But first I would like to submit for the record an article
written by our witness General Jack Keane that was in the
Washington Post last month titled ``America Must Continue to
Arm Ukraine without American Tax Dollars.''
The Chairman. Without objection, so ordered.
[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix
on page:]
Dr. DesJarlais. General Keane, in this article you suggest
that Ukraine should transition from an aid recipient to a
defense consumer, potentially leveraging its natural resources
as collateral for U.S. weapons purchases.
Your article seems to have already made an impact here in
Washington, with President Trump offering something similar
last night.
Can you expand on how the U.S. can help facilitate this
transition from recipient to defense consumer?
And what role can American industries play in helping
Ukraine to develop these assets while securing its defense?
General Keane. Yes. Yeah, the basis for that was Mark
Thiessen--you know, he is a brilliant journalist--is watching
the debate that took place in this country for six months over
whether to continue to support Ukraine. While there was some,
some opposition over ideology and not willing to be involved in
something like that in Europe, most of the opposition really
had to do with funding.
And it occurred to us, let's take the American taxpayer out
of this equation.
So, step one is put pressure on the Europeans to release
the Russian frozen assets, most of which are in Belgium and
spread around a few other countries as well. There is some
opposition to that. But I think the administration can put
significant pressure on them to get that to take place.
The second thing certainly had to do with Canada's
geological survey company identifying $26 trillion worth of
minerals and other assets that are in, in Ukraine, and using
that as either an investment or as collateral for loans to be
able to get the Ukraine defense industry stood up. They are
making progress in that.
And that is what they want. I mean, they want to, they want
to break the umbilical cord themselves. They know they need
help from the United States and NATO in the near term, but they
want to be able to sustain their own military capability.
And, believe me, they have built one of the most powerful
militaries in, in Europe today. So, that is where they are.
And you are right, President Trump is talking about making
a deal with Ukraine to repay through investment purposes the
money that we have paid out to Ukraine and the money that we
would likely pay out in the future.
So, yes, there are real opportunities here to do that. And
the Ukrainians are absolutely committed to building their own
defense industry. And it is something that we should assist
them in doing.
And, I mean, the foreign military funding that we do
through the State Department, and we, we have given them $11
billion in loans to Poland; $12 million in loans to Romania; $2
billion in loans to Taiwan, to do what? To help build their own
defense capability.
And certainly we can do that with the Ukrainians. And now
we know for a fact they can pay those loans back.
So, so there is a good news story here, I think. And then,
hopefully, the administration will pursue it aggressively.
Dr. DesJarlais. And in the last one I am going to shift to
Iran for a minute. We have touched on it briefly, but you
previously noted that Iran is very, very vulnerable at the
moment, and they know it.
Given this vulnerability, what specific measures, economic,
militarily, or diplomatically, should the U.S. and its allies
take to exploit these weaknesses?
And on the flipside of that, what risk do you see allowing
Iran's vulnerability to persist without stronger action?
General Keane. Yeah. Well, I think the administration is
moving rapidly to return to imposing sanctions on Iran and
close the loopholes that, you know, clearly exist. China is,
obviously, buying their oil at discounted prices. And we have
never--we were, if my numbers are correct, we had them down to
something like 200,000 barrels. And then they got up to
millions now under loosening up the sanctions on the Iranians.
There is ample opportunity economically to suppress them.
We know that gets their attention.
And we also know the rising dissent that is in the Iranian
society. They are, they are fed up with what has been going on
for four decades. And they have suffered the consequences as a
result of it.
I believe the more pressure we can put on them, and
certainly our allies now should be very willing to join us. You
know, we were doing it singularly when we pulled out of the
nuclear deal back in 2018.
The Chairman. The gentleman's time has expired.
The chair will now recognize the gentleman from
Massachusetts, Mr. Moulton.
Mr. Moulton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
General Keane, I would love to ask you a couple quick
questions as--I'm over here. Thanks.
You're a mentor to General Petraeus, who is one of my
mentors, and appreciate your long history of service to the
country.
I think one of the most important things that you've said
to us this morning speaking to members of the House Committee
on Armed Services in Congress is that we have got to stop
supporting parochial projects for our districts.
There's a long history of that on this committee. You know,
members from Wisconsin reporting the Littoral Combat Ship, a
ship pretty misnamed when it was not certified for combat.
Members of Congress from Arizona supporting the A-10 long
after the Air Force said we need to get rid of it to make more
room for more modern aircraft in our budget.
And untold numbers of carriers and surface ships that, as
you described, will be eviscerated by the Chinese navy in the
Pacific that keep getting supported by members that represent
shipyards around the country.
I'm curious about your take with--you know, I was a Marine
lieutenant. Only made it to the rank of captain. Didn't get
very far up like you did.
But if I were stationed on the beach in Taiwan and I had
two options, a $13 billion brand new aircraft carrier at my
disposal or the number of drones that I could buy for the price
of that aircraft carrier, which if you paid $20,000 would be
about 650,000 drones--if you were that lieutenant which would
you pick?
General Keane. That is such an easy choice, Congressman.
The drones would be the answer. Listen, eventually, like in
every new technology, there will be an effective countermeasure
to drones.
But that countermeasure is not here. I mean, it's being
experimented with. It's microwave, it's directed energy and the
rest of it. But right now drones dominate.
I mean, I just took a briefing. I was in Europe on Ukraine
and Russia and the use of drones. I mean, battalions alone are
using 400 drones in the air at one time.
Mr. Moulton. You can use a $5,000 drone to kill a $5
million tank.
General Keane. You know--
Mr. Moulton. And, yet, we're still selling a lot of $5
million tanks to Poland. It's not just the Pacific, it's
everywhere. We have got to get our allies and partners to catch
up here.
General Keane. The reality is, as I mentioned, the
submarines offer us stealth to get close. Well, so do the
drones--
Mr. Moulton. Right.
General Keane. --above the sea and some below the sea as
well, and I've played multiple war games for dealing with the
most dangerous scenario, the--China's invasion scenario--and to
stop them--we're not talking about defeating them, but to stop
them it takes about a 10 to 15 percent change--excuse me, 15 to
20 percent impact on them.
Those submersibles and autonomous above the sea vehicles
could make that 15 to 20 percent change--
Mr. Moulton. And I'll point this out too, General.
General Keane. --and that's why I'm saying we have to use
our imagination.
Mr. Moulton. If you--you've got 650,000 drones, every
single one of them that you kill doesn't kill an American or
Taiwanese soldier but you take out that one aircraft carrier
and you've got 5,000 souls at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.
How do we get Congress to wake up to the danger they are
causing for our national security by not being willing to put
parochial interests aside and invest in the military
technologies of the future?
General Keane. Well, education, and this committee has been
much closer to the issues than any of the other committees, you
know, in the House side here, obviously, and you have to
educate your peers on this.
Mr. Moulton. Let me ask you another question about
education.
In the Pacific you talked about the importance of allies
and partners. When I go to the Pacific--I was in Vietnam not
too long ago and they talked about what China is doing with
their Belt and Road Initiative, offering to build a whole high-
speed railway for a billion dollars.
We had offered Vietnam one used Coast Guard cutter. What is
the importance of State Department funding, of USAID [United
States Agency for International Development] money going to
these allies and partners to win over their friendship?
General Keane. Well, it's--I think it's pretty critical. I
mean, you know, China does provide economic assistance to gain
geopolitical influence and that's what this is all about, not
only in the Indo-Pacific region but also in the Global South as
well.
Mr. Moulton. And when you strengthen--when you ask our
partners to stand up and stand together as allies, when you
talk about the importance of deterrence and standing by the
nations we want to defend against dictators like Xi Jinping and
Putin, would you ever say that it's unrealistic for Taiwan to
remain sovereign from China?
General Keane. Sovereign in terms of completely
independent?
Mr. Moulton. Would you ever say it's unrealistic for Taiwan
to not be taken over by China?
General Keane. Well, I--
Mr. Moulton. I think the answer is probably obviously no.
General Keane. Right.
Mr. Moulton. So I'm wondering why our Secretary of Defense
is in Europe right now saying it's unrealistic for Ukraine not
to have its territory taken by Russia.
I yield back.
The Chairman. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from
Nebraska, Mr. Bacon.
Mr. Bacon. Thank you. I'm over on the side over here.
I appreciate both of you being here and I respect you both.
My first question is for General Keane. We are spending the
lowest on defense since 1940 as a share of GDP, 2.9 percent. I
think it's inadequate to modernize our triad to help deter
China, Russia, Iran, and do quality of life.
Do you share that sentiment and what do you think the right
percent should be?
General Keane. Yes, I do share that sentiment. I really
believe--I was on the 2018 NDS and we believed the funding
should have been three to five percent. About half of that
commission believed it should have been closer to five percent.
If we had started it back then we'd be in much better shape
today.
Now we have a much greater risk and therefore we need a
much greater sense of urgency to move in the right direction.
So I truly endorse what Chairman Rogers and Chairman Wicker
want to move towards and we have got to move towards it with a
sense of urgency with the parenthetical statement that we have
to fix our business practices and fix the defense industrial
base and how we do business with them and how the Congress does
business as well.
Mr. Bacon. I echo your sentiments on that.
Dr. Karlin, what does Europe look like and Central Asia
look like if Russia prevails in Ukraine, and what will be the
costs to the United States if Russia prevails--the greater cost
in the long run?
Dr. Karlin. Thank you for that question, Congressman.
It looks pretty ugly, right? I mean, right now we have
seen, particularly post-Cold War, a Europe that's largely free,
whole, and at peace, a Europe that, largely, wants to stand
next to the United States, cooperate with us economically.
If you start to see a Europe that is just riddled with fear
that different countries will be the next on the chopping block
with Russia, it's not going to be in our national security
interest.
So this story starts with Ukraine, of course. Right now
Russia occupies about 20 percent or so of Ukraine. But if it
doesn't end there it's going to be problematic.
If I might just note, Congressman, General Keane has
mentioned about reforming business practices a couple of times
and I know this is an important issue for the committee.
I might suggest two things to look at. One, the U.S. Marine
Corps has managed to transform and be the only military service
to pass a clean audit. Why is that? How did they manage to do
that?
Two, the Congress has been--U.S. has given U.S. Special
Operations Command special acquisition authorities so they have
easily been the fastest in making change and being able to
purchase the sorts of capabilities that they need.
To what extent can those capabilities, can those special
authorities be translated across the force? Thank you.
Mr. Bacon. Particularly interested in trying to apply that
to Cyber Command as well. We're trying to model after special
ops command.
My next question is back to General Kane, or Keane. Excuse
me.
Last I checked, under the Biden administration they owed
$10 billion in weapons to Taiwan. We're behind. That's not a
good way to do deterrence. How do we strengthen deterrence in
regards to Taiwan today? How can we do it the fastest?
General Keane. Well, we just discussed one way to do it and
it's not that expensive, and that is to take advantage of the
new drone technology that is out there and put a significant
amount of it into Taiwan.
Look, the problem you mentioned is, you know, obviously
Taiwan can purchase these items, which they have, through
foreign military sales and the backlog there, and that's our
defense industrial base.
The problems we have, you know, providing those systems to
our own services are similar to what the problem that Taiwan is
facing and so that system has got to be fixed.
And we have been talking about that for some time but in
the meantime, there is much that we can do to strengthen their
defensive systems, and I also think we can do considerably more
training than what we have been willing to do and I don't think
we have to do it covertly. We just tell the Chinese we're going
to do this and these are the reasons why we're going to do it.
But yeah, there's much we can do in the near term to help
them. Then--and we have to educate them on the changing
character of war that is really taking place so they can
appreciate the value in the new technology that is available
and what lessons can really be learned.
I know they're watching it but we can help them understand
it and even more how to apply it militarily, so it has some
significant impact.
Mr. Bacon. With 15 seconds left, Mr. Chairman, I'll yield
back.
The Chairman. The gentleman yields back.
The chair now recognizes the gentleman from California Mr.
Carbajal.
Mr. Carbajal. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to
General Keane and Dr. Karlin for being here today.
I bet all my veteran colleagues today wish they were United
States Marines with that clean audit that the Marine Corps just
came forward with, including--especially the Air Force.
As you both established in your remarks, the United States
is facing a threat environment like we have never seen. Both
China and Russia are seeking to increase their influence across
the globe like through China's Belt and Road Initiative.
As we all know, the Trump administration decided to freeze
all foreign assistance and is attempting to gut the USAID
program. Foreign assistance is critical--a critical component
of how the United States has built soft power and goodwill with
other countries.
In fiscal year 2023 with a budget of over $40 billion, less
than one percent of the U.S.--total U.S. budget, USAID provided
assistance to around 130 countries, and in fiscal year 2023
some of the top recipients of USAID assistance were Ukraine,
Ethiopia, Syria, and Afghanistan, countries that Russia and
China want to increase influence, in just to name a few.
Dr. Karlin, can you speak to the importance of soft power
and the role it plays in maintaining U.S. leadership globally
and preventing the influence of near peer adversaries from
growing, and does soft power make hard power more effective?
Dr. Karlin. Thank you very much for that, Congressman.
Let me give you a great example. As this committee knows
well, we have exactly one U.S. military base on the continent
of Africa in Djibouti--excuse me, we have a base that is a
priority in Djibouti and China has one base in--on the
continent of Africa, which is also there.
There's a terrific piece by Bush administration AID
administrator Andrew Natsios today talking about how our soft
power, how our AID assistance helped make that base a reality.
About a year or so ago I was doing negotiations with the
president of Djibouti and he also highlighted that the reason
that that base has been able to stay and to flourish has been
because of our soft power, because of our assistance, what AID
has done and what the State Department has done.
Of course, if we're looking at a map that is really
important in terms of a strategic location. So that's a story
that we can actually take around the globe, especially when
we're looking at places that are particularly precarious.
When we have got folks with a diplomatic background or
development background who are in places like Pakistan or in
places like Yemen we get a much better understanding of that
and ultimately it means that when--hopefully we won't have to
use military force but if we do we'll be a lot more effective.
Mr. Carbajal. Thank you. The Department currently has a
budget of around $840 billion and consistently has programs
running behind schedule and running over cost.
It seems to me that almost every report or study on what
the U.S. needs to do to increase competitiveness with the PRC
[People's Republic of China] is to increase defense spending. I
do not think we can continue to increase the Department's
budget and expect to magically start outpacing the PRC.
This is the point I raised at our September hearing on the
findings of the NDS Commission report.
Dr. Karlin and General Keane, in your view is the DOD
capable of effectively executing a defense budget that is five
percent of GDP, which would be nearly $1.4 trillion?
And do you have recommendations for how the Department can
maximize use of their budgets rather than throwing money at
problems?
General Keane. Well, I wouldn't recommend going to five
percent without making the changes that we need to make and we
have laid out those changes.
We have to fix our business practices in the Pentagon and
we have to hold the Pentagon, you know, responsible and
accountable for that and we certainly have to fix how we do
business with the defense industrial base and also with our own
organic industrial base, and I think the Congress has to take a
tough look at itself in terms of how it does business with the
Pentagon.
And I think if we do those things then, yes, we can move in
the right direction with increased funding but if we don't make
those other changes, I mean, I think we probably have consensus
here we're going to start throwing taxpayers' money away again
and that's just--that is irresponsible. We have got to stop it,
given the threat that we're facing.
Mr. Carbajal. Thank you.
Dr. Karlin?
Dr. Karlin. Thank you, Congressman.
Look, it really depends on what you're going to spend that
money on, right? If we spend it on a whole bunch of Littoral
Combat Ships or A-10s it'll deliver and it won't be terribly
worthwhile.
So, for example, we really need to invest in our nuclear
modernization. During the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan the
Department of Defense took a ton of risk on that for reasons
that made sense at the time but also means that right now all
three legs of the triad have got to be updated.
I think in particular in terms of looking at cost cutting
and how to make investments smartly, the Department of Defense
needs to figure out how to work more collaboratively with
Congress on retiring legacy systems while in a more holistic
way bringing on capabilities that, frankly, deliver for the
military while also being helpful to your district.
The Chairman. The gentleman's time has expired.
The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Florida, Mr.
Gimenez.
Mr. Gimenez. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
With regards to USAID, I believe that USAID does spend
money to advance American interests but I also believe that it
spends money not to advance American interests, and I think
what's going on right now is just an auditing of that, getting
rid of those things that do not advance American interests and
then keeping those things that do advance American interests.
And so there is no agency that is sacrosanct that can't be
looked at. As a matter of fact, as somebody who used to run a
bureaucracy, I know that bureaucracies get out of hand and they
lose sight of their mission, and then you got to bring them
back, okay, and reconstitute them and redirect them to do the
right thing. And so that's my view on USAID.
General Keane, there's--you know, the word regime change,
or the two words regime change, seem to be dirty words. Okay.
People don't want to hear it--we shouldn't be doing that.
I don't share that opinion. As a matter of fact, I believe
that when we can, we should turn enemies into friends and one
of the things that we should be looking at right now is seeing
what we can do with Iran.
If we can turn Iran and we can have regime change that
would be--what would that do to that region and what would that
do for American security interests if we, in fact, were able to
change the regime in Iran?
General Keane. Well, the major destabilizing factor in the
Middle East has been Iran and how they decided to go about
their business, and it was very novel.
They began using proxies in other countries to accomplish
their strategic objectives and they hit the Reagan
administration with that in blowing up our barracks--our
embassy in Lebanon and in our embassy in Kuwait and, you know,
that--
Mr. Gimenez. So, General Keane, I only have five minutes.
Could I--could you say yes, it would be good--it would be for
American--it's in Americans' best interest to have regime
change and--
General Keane. Yeah. And but to do that also we have to
work with our intelligence agencies, the Israelis. What they do
inside of Iran is nothing short of remarkable in the resistance
groups.
Just about every single one of their operations that they
are conducting inside of Iran covertly are done with the
cooperation of resistance groups.
So there's a lot of things that we can do to assist this
inside of Iran as well and that-- the discussion should be, you
know, in a closed-door session with our intelligence services
as to how we can assist that.
But the general pressure that is on Iran and the problems
they're having now they have never had to this degree in the
40-plus years they've been in power.
Mr. Gimenez. Thank you.
Dr. Karlin, do you sense that there is a resistance or a
risk avoidance culture inside the DOD?
Dr. Karlin. I think the Department of Defense gets
concerned about risks not least because it's got to use
American taxpayer money smartly, and when it fails the
consequences are massive.
Mr. Gimenez. Massive in what sense?
Dr. Karlin. Massive in the loss of American lives in wars
potentially lost. It is in many ways a no-fail culture because
unlike so many other parts, whether it's business or
government, when the Department of Defense calls things wrong
people die.
Mr. Gimenez. I'm actually homing in more on defense weapons
systems and development of defense weapons systems. Is there a
risk avoidance there?
Dr. Karlin. I think it probably varies a little bit by
military service, but the Department of Defense would probably
benefit from endorsements, frankly, by this committee that--
Mr. Gimenez. Which is exactly where I was going. Okay.
Dr. Karlin. Yes.
Mr. Gimenez. All right. That actually I could say that
we're the cause of it, that they are so afraid of being--of
having a system fail and come before this body that we were
going to--I don't know if I can say this--ream them, okay, for
doing that.
Dr. Karlin. I think there is--sorry, sir.
Mr. Gimenez. Yeah, okay. That we need to change in here too
and accept the fact that every once in a while something will
fail.
You know, everybody--a lot of people take shots at Elon
Musk but one thing I really admire about Elon Musk, all right,
is that he launches a Starship. It blows up, and he says,
great, we learned a whole bunch of things. Let's launch another
one, alright, until he gets it right.
If that were NASA [National Aeronautics and Space
Administration] we would be investigating the first Starship
launch, right, and we still wouldn't be on the second. And
that's the problem that we have because then, oh my God, you
spent a billion dollars of taxpayer money and it blew up.
How could that happen? And I think that that is a
disservice. Actually it's holding us back in the area of
defense.
Dr. Karlin. It's a team sport, right? And so to the extent
that the Department calls things wrong, which is inevitable,
right, be able to have a serious classified conversation with
the committee, what worked, what didn't work, and why not.
And then, frankly, folks are going to look at precedent and
see the extent to which the Congress is going to be supportive
of folks who are innovative and didn't quite get it right.
Mr. Gimenez. Thank you. My time is up. I yield back.
The Chairman. I thank the gentleman.
The chair now recognizes the gentlelady from Pennsylvania,
Ms. Houlahan.
Ms. Houlahan. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you both for
the conversation and for your service.
The title of this hearing is "Protecting American Interests
in Convergent Global Threat Environments" and the message that
I've taken away from you all is that we need to increase
defense spending to as much as five percent but we also need to
cut inefficiencies and spend less.
We need to be ready tonight. They need to think today is
not the day. These are the headlines of this hearing. I'm going
to start with the DOGE.
The DOGE is supposed to be in charge, in my understanding,
of the latter, and Chairman or a Ranking Member Smith mentioned
that in context, in principle, in concept, it's not a bad idea.
I agree with him on that.
So far the DOGE has visited the OPM--the Personnel
Management Office CMS [Centers for Medicare and Medicaid
Services], the Department of Education, Department of Treasury,
Department of USAID, the Small Business Administration, and the
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and at least publicly
they're saying, appropriately, that their purpose is to reduce
waste and fraud and spending and, again, this I agree with.
It is said that the Pentagon--the DOD--is possibly next. It
is said that as early as next week they will be visiting the
Pentagon.
General, do you think that the DOGE, the 20 to 40 people
whom you're aware of who are part of this organization, is
qualified to do the kinds of things with the DOD that they've
done with the Department of Education or with USAID?
General Keane. I've always wanted people who get assigned
to the Pentagon some of them to have--come from business
backgrounds.
When I was asked to be Secretary of Defense by President
Trump in the first administration I couldn't do it for personal
reasons, and recommended Jim Mattis to him.
But I recommended to them also bring in a business person
who's had--who's done startups, who's done major turnarounds,
who knows how to drive an organization to efficiency.
Ms. Houlahan. And, General, sir, I don't disagree with you.
General Keane. And I think we need that, and if these
people who--I don't know who the DOGE people are.
Ms. Houlahan. Exactly.
General Keane. But if they have business backgrounds and
they can take a look at our business practices here and make
some changes that just make sense to them, I'm all for it.
Ms. Houlahan. And, sir, with the exception of Elon Musk I
believe these to be, largely, 19 to 25-year-olds who, largely,
cannot possibly have extensive business backgrounds yet because
they're just plain not old enough to have those backgrounds.
General Keane. Well, I'm not going to make a judgment based
on their age but I think it's--
Ms. Houlahan. That's richly ironic because in the military
it is all based on time and grade. You know, your ability to
understand and know something is based on how long you've been
there and what you know, and I guess what I'm asking, sir, I
don't disagree with you.
I am a business person and did serve in the military. But
we cannot possibly expect 20 to 40 people to go through our
data--our sensitive Department of Defense data and have any way
of explaining to the American people what is waste and what is
fraud with any sort of accuracy.
And if it's okay, I'm going to move on to my next question,
and this question is for Dr. Karlin.
Doctor, today I believe the news headline said that
Secretary Hegseth has ruled out NATO membership to Ukraine. He
says--and it's interesting, he used the word unrealistic, which
was the same word that he used for other descriptions that the
U.S. is no longer going to prioritize European and Ukrainian
security.
And to your point, in your opening remarks you talked about
sort of the undecided vote, the people who are on the sidelines
who are not necessarily yet deciding which team they are on, so
to speak.
I really am worried, and I wanted to kind of get your
opinion on the larger political threat. Again, the title of
this hearing "Protecting American Interests."
What do you think this message says to those who are our
allies on the continent and those who are our allies abroad,
and also those who are trying to decide whether to be an ally
of ours?
Dr. Karlin. Thank you for that question, Congresswoman.
I also would find those remarks a little bit disturbing,
right. So what we have seen in Russia's war on Ukraine is
approximately 700,000 Russian casualties. That is an order of
magnitude, thank goodness, than anything our country has faced
for a very, very long time.
And in particular, as you note, a whole bunch of countries
across key regions are watching exactly what happens. That's
always how it works, right?
So when there are folks who say just focus on this one
problem in the world and don't worry about it, the challenge is
everyone is watching.
I can assure you that the reason we have a number of Asian
allies supporting Ukraine is partially because of concern out
of Ukraine, right, and partially because of concern about how
irresponsibly Russia acts.
It is also because they see a through line here between how
one deals with a bully like Russia and how one will or will not
deal with a bully like China.
Ms. Houlahan. Thank you. I yield back.
The Chairman. Excellent points.
The chair now recognizes the gentleman from the strategic
territory of Guam, Mr. Moylan.
Mr. Moylan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
General, in your testimony you mentioned that most
Americans are not paying attention to the state of national
security, and I can report that on Guam national security is a
kitchen table issue.
The military footprint directly impacts how much we pay for
utilities, housing, and groceries. Each time North Korea tests
a new missile it makes our local paper.
On Guam, our local agencies must employ capabilities on a
scale of a small municipality to counter the full spectrum of
China's enhanced competition and coercion.
Federal grants help Guam stand up to these threats by
supporting our port infrastructure, cyber security, power grid
resilience, and other targets.
So as a question to both witnesses, how do you see federal
support for local entities on Guam within a wider national
security framework?
General Keane. Well, thanks for the question, Congressman.
You know, Guam is an important part of our military
infrastructure in the Indo-Pacific region and, obviously, we
have to do better at protecting our bases and hardening those
bases and giving them the capability to defend themselves.
We know from playing war games the reality is that those
bases would be under attack from long-range missiles and also
air power, and we have to turn that around in part of our
program of deterrence as we have laid out in the past.
And thank you also for the people of Guam and for their
steadfastness and the support that they have been providing to
the United States military at our bases there and throughout
the region.
It's something we should be proud of, and thank you for
your support as well, Mr. Congressman.
Mr. Moylan. Thank you, General.
Doctor?
Dr. Karlin. Thank you very much.
Sir, the chairman highlighted the strategic location of
Guam and I would just wholeheartedly endorse that. When you
look at the Indo-Pacific, which is the priority region, one
can't help but see just the importance of bases across military
services on Guam.
Efforts in recent years to try to increase dispersal,
resilience, hardening of those bases, have only grown more
important. So I would concur wholeheartedly also with General
Keane's gratitude to the people of Guam and to you, sir.
Mr. Moylan. Thank you, both of you.
Now, as you said, Guam is recognized as a strategic hub in
the INDOPACOM [United States Indo-Pacific Command]. Yet, it has
been threatened, treated as a spoke when it comes to
infrastructure investments.
So to further your statement, do you agree that focusing on
infrastructure improvements will strengthen Guam and should it
be a priority in our national strategy?
General Keane. That's a simple answer. Yes, it should be.
Dr. Karlin. Indeed, and those improvements should really
look at resilience. You know, deterrence by resilience was a
big element in the last National Defense Strategy.
I'm guessing the next National Defense Strategy will spend
a lot of time looking at deterrence as well. So making sure
that if, God forbid, there is some sort of attack on Guam, that
infrastructure, those people, are able to withstand that and
push forward.
Mr. Moylan. I appreciate your testimonies. Thank you very
much.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
The Chairman. The gentleman yields back.
The chair now recognizes Mr. Ryan for five minutes.
Mr. Ryan. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you both for being
here.
I especially want to thank you, General Keane, for
including your lifelong Yankees fandom in your biography. I
share that and appreciate that, amidst all the great things
you've done in your life and career. I just want to note that
to the committee.
On a more serious note and to your credit, General Keane,
you have been a long-time clear, strong voice on the threat
from Iran and the importance of our partnership and alliance
with Israel, especially in the moment that we're in including
today.
Some of the important and powerful quotes that I noted we
have an opportunity to stop them once and for all. They're back
on their heels, and that continuing to highlight, which I
certainly agree with, that Iran is, quote, "a major
destabilizing factor in the region."
And even going back to last year you, I think, rightly
criticize the Biden administration for their hands off approach
to Iran and creating, at a minimum, a lack of clarity about our
resolve and strength.
Given that, I want to raise a concern that I think, I hope,
is a bipartisan concern. The senior appointee of the new
administration for the Middle East--the DASD [Deputy Assistant
Secretary of Defense] for the Middle East--does not share that
opinion, which I think it should be a broadly held American
view.
Mr. DiMino, who was just appointed Deputy Assistant
Secretary of Defense for the Middle East, has said that the
Middle East, quote, ``does not really matter for U.S.
interests,'' has argued that, quote, ``vital or existential
threats in the Middle East are,'' quote, ``best characterized
as minimal to nonexistent.''
He also very concerningly characterized Iran's two missile
attacks--unprecedented direct attacks on Israel--as, quote,
``fairly moderate'' and described our strikes against the
Houthis and our attempts to deter them as, quote, ``futile.''
I'm almost--I'm just speechless. The dissonance there
versus, I think, a common picture that so many of us here on
this committee hold this, I think, ignorant and isolationist
rhetoric appointed--espoused by a senior official is very
concerning to me and I think should be to the committee, given
the opportunity and the risks with Iran.
I'd ask you to speak to that to the degree you're willing,
sir.
General Keane. Yeah, certainly. Well, certainly, I
fundamentally disagree with that position, and the last two
administrations have both stated that we have three
geographical areas where U.S. vital interests are at stake--the
Indo-Pacific region, the Middle East, and Europe.
And I find it hard to believe that the appointed Secretary
of State Marco Rubio would hold that view.
Mr. Ryan. Agree.
General Keane. I find it hard to believe that the National
Security Advisor Michael Waltz would hold that view. The
national security apparatus of any administration has--will
always have people who have differing views and that gentleman
certainly is entitled to that.
But I don't believe that will represent the consensus of
the Trump administration's national security viewpoint. We have
already discussed this.
I mean, the fact there's war in Europe is not an isolated
event and the fact there's war in the Middle East and Iran
operationalized all of its proxies is not an isolated event.
These events are connected, and President Xi is preparing
for war and threatening war and that is not an isolated event.
They really see an opportunity here for themselves to
collectively take advantage of the United States and like-
minded democracies I think as we all pretty much agree with
here.
Mr. Ryan. No, and--
General Keane. And it runs totally against that viewpoint.
I had not heard that viewpoint but I disagree with it.
Mr. Ryan. No, I appreciate that, and I just--I agree and
have heard very different things from other, as you mentioned,
senior leaders. So I just think it's important we have clarity,
especially given the importance of clarity and credibility when
it comes to deterrence.
Limited time. I more just want to introduce this idea and
build on one of my colleague's, Ms. Houlahan's, point. We have
talked about acquisition reform. We have talked about
streamlining the Pentagon.
I think there--we all agree there are many areas of focus,
big programs of record. I would also note some small things
like, for example, the new Secretary of Defense spending
$137,000 to paint his home while we have soldiers across our
force with floors caving in and roofs caving in, which was very
disappointing to me.
Separating that aside, if we're going to go in and do this
streamlining I think it's critical we address the security
concerns of those junior staffers that Ms. Houlahan mentioned
from DOGE and the potential conflicts of interest of Mr. Musk,
which I don't have time to go into, but are billions of dollars
of contracts directly tied to his programs.
I yield back, Mr. Chair. Thank you.
The Chairman. I thank the gentleman from New York. The
chair now recognizes the gentleman from Virginia, Mr. McGuire,
for five minutes.
Mr. McGuire. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
You know, I served in our Navy for 10 years in special
operations and I know there's some talk here today about
streamlining process, and the good thing about Special Ops is
we can open purchase and we can get things quicker, often
cheaper, and we can buy a lot of things off the shelf right
now.
There's talk of programs that we have to pay for 15 years
because we had a contract for 15 years, but they're outdated.
So I would totally agree that we need to make some decisions.
Now, I agree with the chairman when he said that our
weapons cost too much, it takes us too long to get them. But we
are spending 2.7 percent of our GDP right now, which is less
than we spent all the way back to before World War II, and if
China has more ships than us, more airplanes than us, and
everything else except submarines, there's no other way to
catch up unless we increase percentage of GDP.
And so I would ask you, what are some things that we do,
whether it be Congress, whether it be the President, to help us
speed up the process of new technologies and getting them to
the troops?
And that would be for General Keane.
General Keane. Yeah. Well, one of the things I think that
would be very helpful is to let the Defense Department have
considerably more access to the non-defense commercial sector.
I was just at an exercise in Europe watching the Army deal
with the realities of the lessons learned from the war in
Ukraine. So there was an opposing force there using Russian
tactics and technology, a lot of electronic warfare, and U.S.
using lots of drones and other technologies.
The great thing that was there reminded me of what you just
referenced, Mr. Congressman, is all the contractors
representing these technologies were there listening to the
troops talk to them about what needs to be done, approve this,
this one is no good, et cetera.
And it reminds me--iterative process that Special Ops has
gone through for a number of years with the close association
it has. So there's much we can do now.
We don't have to wait five years to start changing
capabilities. There's capability out there that we can get in
to our--into our ranks and start making changes and the
Congress can help do that.
I know the Chief of Staff of the Army has been talking to
many members about doing this thing and opening the aperture so
he can go out and make these purchases and not have to wait for
years in terms of a program of record.
That changes how we do business but it also recognizes the
sense of urgency that we need to have to deal with this problem
and start solving it in the near term.
Mr. McGuire. So the second question.
We talk about China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and their
various sub factions during these proxy wars. They're kind of
united right now.
So I think that we have these hot spots all over the world
so I that we have these hot spots all over the world so we are
definitely under more threat today than we have been in a long
time, and so we have got to be prepared.
I remember Ronald Reagan talked about American
exceptionalism. He talked about building a 600-ship Navy and he
inspired me to join the Navy and be part of that, be part of
something bigger than myself.
I don't know what the number is. We're somewhere under 300
ships now and, you know, again, ships aren't always the answer
but, you know, we can't compete with our enemies.
I want to know--I have a question for both Dr. Karlin and
General Keane. If somehow Iran were to get a nuclear weapon,
how would that impact the region? You know, I guess I'll start
with Dr. Karlin, and we don't have much time but--
Dr. Karlin. It would be a catastrophe. It would be a
catastrophe because I don't think any of us should really trust
the decision making of the Iranian regime.
It would be a catastrophe because a number of countries
around the region, such as Saudi Arabia, will now feel as
though they need to get nuclear weapons to protect themselves
and the more countries that have nuclear weapons the more
dangerous it will be. We'll now be relying on having
responsible--
Mr. McGuire. Okay. Because of time, General Keane?
General Keane. A nuclear arms race in the Middle East is
the answer. What would take place as a result of that? And it's
a recipe for disaster.
When Henry Kissinger was alive he believed the most
dangerous thing facing the world today was a nuclear arms race
in the Middle East because it would likely result in an
exchange of nuclear weapons for the first time.
Mr. McGuire. So I'm very much in strong support of limited
federal government. But if the government should do anything it
should be able to keep the homeland, keep the American people
safe at home and abroad.
And, okay, this is the best committee I could possibly be
on is Armed Services Committee and so I've got a lot to learn.
I'm glad to be part of it.
But I would ask you if we knew we got actionable
intelligence that they are going to have a nuclear weapon
tomorrow, and as much as you can say in this purview, what
should Israel do? What should the United States do?
And I'll start with General Keane.
General Keane. Well, we have the means and the capability
to stop that from happening and we should do that. If it
required that degree of urgency, that means a military
operation, and we have the capability to do it and also not to
hurt innocent civilians in doing it.
Mr. McGuire. [Off mic.]
The Chairman. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from
California, Mr. Cisneros.
Mr. Cisneros. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
General Jim Mattis, former Secretary of Defense during the
first Trump administration, once said if you don't fund the
State Department fully that I need to buy more ammunition,
ultimately.
So I don't think it's a cost benefit ratio. The more we put
into the State Department's diplomacy, hopefully, the less we
have to put into the military budget as we deal with the
outcome of approval of American withdrawal from the
international scene.
This hearing is about the convergence of global threats. My
colleagues have discussed the importance of combating those
threats posed by our competitors and adversaries including the
PRC, Iran, Russia and North Korea.
We have also discussed the ways in which those competitors
and adversaries work together and advance their interests at
the expense of ours. But we need to discuss how a U.S. pursuit
of isolationism would help adversaries undermine U.S. national
security.
So, Dr. Karlin, how does removing the mission of USAID and
possibly a reduced State Department budget like in the first
Trump administration put our national security at risk?
Dr. Karlin. Thank you for that question, Congressman.
Look, the more that we have fragile countries,
underdeveloped countries, the more likely in many places that
the folks in those communities are going to make decisions that
will not work in our national security interests, right?
If folks are going to be mired in poverty, if they're going
to be in situations where their governments aren't taking care
of them and no one else is, they could turn to alternatives
like terrorism which, ultimately, could hurt our national
security interests.
I would also note a big theme of this hearing has been that
we are in a big competition with China. The Chinese are quite
enthusiastic about the announced cuts to USAID and to U.S.
diplomacy because they see this as an opportunity for them to
come on in.
And as we all know, when we look at conflicts in the past,
the Cold War being a great example, you don't always win those
just on the battlefield.
You win those by taking a holistic approach using all the
tools in your tool kit so, hopefully, fewer members of your
country--fewer members of your military end up having to die.
Mr. Cisneros. General Keane, care to comment?
General Keane. Well, foreign aid, certainly, and support to
other countries is literally part of the elements of national
power. It's important.
I think we have all been horrified by some of the examples
of the spending of USAID. I think that a prudent measure has
been taken.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who enjoys quite an amount
of support in the Senate and in the House of Representatives
here--bipartisan support and respect for him--he's taken this
program under his wing and I think he'll make prudent decisions
in what we should continue to fund.
Let's not throw the baby out with the bath water, so to
speak, and, obviously, eliminate the programs that are indeed
wasteful and certainly horrified many of us looking at that
list.
So I think we can move forward here in a positive way to
continue to support activities that make sense to U.S. national
interest.
Mr. Cisneros. But you agree it is important to fund these
international interests like the--funding the State Department
is a key to our national security in order to ensure that we
don't have to put troops on the ground in order to do that?
General Keane. Oh, absolutely, and, you know--and the State
Department at times, you know, they have been underfunded.
They were underfunded when I was Vice Chief of Staff of the
Army and they just didn't--they're not organized the way the
Pentagon is to deal with all of you either. I mean, we almost
have a small army in the Pentagon to--how to work Congress and
have relationships, et cetera.
I was stunned by the difference. But yes, the State
Department is an important national instrument of our national
power and, obviously, should be funded.
Mr. Cisneros. Thank you.
Dr. Karlin, I know you worked very hard on these at the
Pentagon. When you were there you were working very hard on
these alliances and partnerships that we helped build there
through Department of Defense.
But if we continue on President Trump's path to
isolationism by, let's say, removing ourselves from defense
alliances like NATO or intelligence alliances like Five Eyes,
is there a cost to our national security?
Dr. Karlin. Thank you, Congressman.
There actually is a pretty big cost to our national
security. So as you know what happens when a crisis or a
challenge or an opportunity emerging a number of countries call
up Washington and say, here's how we understand what's
happening--how do you assess it and how can we collaboratively
plan the way forward?
That's collaboratively, right? It means that they're going
to be giving their own resources. Their militaries may be
involved--their diplomats.
Ultimately, that ends up actually being a lot more
efficient for us and it ends up being less costly as well. So
if we don't have countries cooperating with us in terms of
intelligence sharing, if we don't have countries looking at the
threats posed by countries like Russia and China and saying how
do we work together to counter this, I worry a lot about us
standing on our own.
Mr. Cisneros. With that, thank you. I yield back.
The Chairman. The gentleman yields back.
The chair now recognizes the gentleman from North Carolina,
Mr. Harrigan, for five minutes.
Mr. Harrigan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you,
Ranking Member Smith, and thanks to both of our witnesses today
for your testimony. I really appreciate the thoroughness and
thoughtfulness of your remarks.
I've become a very big believer that we can either invest
in the military that we have today or we can invest in the
military that we need in order to defeat China tomorrow, and I
do not think that we can do both of those things.
And I think that I identify very strong, General Keane,
with some of your statements earlier that challenged myself and
my colleagues here that we have a number of legacy systems in
our military that are no longer relevant to the future fight
that America could be forced to face one day.
And I don't want to press you but would you be willing to
share what some of those systems are across our different
services, in your opinion?
General Keane. Yes. Well, certainly, you know, bringing the
service chiefs in here and letting them deal with that they all
have, you know, their own list of what that really means.
But some of these systems that we have today are just--in
terms of their capabilities are not relevant to, you know, the
war that we would be involved in if we do go to war with China.
So the reality is is that when it comes to legacy systems
we have old bombers and, obviously, we have a new bomber that's
coming but it's going to take so long to get there.
I think we have to take a hard look at our surface fleet.
I'm not a naval expert but I do know how vulnerable that
surface fleet is.
We need a certain amount of ships, obviously, as a global
power to make certain that the navigation routes that help
sustain a global economy through peaceful engagement, we need a
number of ships to be able to do that.
The Navy believes they're about 70 short in doing that. But
also we have to take a hard look at ships we do have in terms
of the quality of those ships and how relevant are they for the
future.
I think all the services owe you a rundown on exactly the
question that you just asked and with some degree of
specificity about those systems. There's always a reluctance to
deal with this in a public forum because then for sure
something is going to happen that's negative to them and the
money will never go to the area that they want it to go to.
The United--the Army itself--land forces--we have seen the
Marines make some fundamental changes and I know the Army is
attempting to make fundamental changes to help deal with the
war in China, and they're developing multi-domain organizations
that have offensive and defensive missiles associated with
them.
There's a recognition that--when we look at the Indo-
Pacific and think of it as an air and maritime theater much of
the land that surrounds the navigation routes are actually key
terrain, and our World War II leaders understood that
dramatically and used it as such.
And we have to recognize that we can take advantage of that
key terrain which accesses the navigation routes that the
Chinese would be using and we have to change the capabilities
out there as well.
We, obviously, don't need tanks out there because that kind
of war is not going to be fought. It's an air and maritime
theater enabled by land power as war in Europe is a land power
theater enabled by air power.
But we have to make those kinds of fundamental changes in
the Pacific region by land forces to assist in the air and
maritime theater. But the best answer, I think, would come from
the chiefs themselves in terms of what specific programs that
they really have on their chopping block and seek your support
to make the kind of changes that they need to do.
I mean, they're all underwater when it comes to the budget-
-you know, have major readiness issues. The Army hasn't been at
the size it's at since prior to World War II.
The Air Force is sitting at a 40-year low and I already
mentioned the Navy is about 70 ships short. So they need to
increase in size as well as capability to be able to meet the
objectives that they have in dealing with the threat.
The Chairman. The gentleman's time has expired.
And the chair now moves to another North Carolinian, Mr.
Davis, for five minutes.
Mr. Davis. Thank you so much, Mr. Chair, and to the ranking
member for convening us today and, importantly, to our
witnesses, thank you both for being here.
Since coming to Congress, for me, I've fought to make sure
Ukraine, in particular, had the resources it needed to protect
itself against Russia's unprovoked invasion.
And, Dr. Karlin, thank you so much for your earlier
testimony. My question to you specifically is as we're moving
forth now, what support does Ukraine need from allies like the
United States to put itself in the strongest possible
negotiating position and does that include, if you can speak
specifically--we know F-16s are making their way to Ukraine.
Can you speak towards that? And also training--pilot
training.
Dr. Karlin. Thank you very much, Congressman, and that's
exactly the right way to think about this, right--how to make
sure that Ukraine's military is as capable as possible because
wars end in negotiations generally and that's how one can
expect this will come together.
In terms of continued support, as you know so well,
Congressman, a lot of it comes from the United States and a lot
of it comes from a number of other countries--50-plus countries
or so that are actually meeting this week with the Ukraine
Defense Consultative Group and that has traditionally been
convened by the Secretary of Defense. For the first time it
will actually be convened this week by the Brits.
So making sure that Ukraine has the continued support for
its military is really important. The Ukrainians have a good
idea of how the battlefield is changing and what can be most
useful. I think in particular what we're seeing is the utility
of, like, uncrewed systems.
Frankly, I would also say U.S. advising has been worthwhile
as well. The U.S. Army has used artificial intelligence to
really support the Ukrainian military.
Their efforts in the sky are increasing--you know, will
increasingly start to make progress in terms of the F-16 front.
It just takes a while, right, in terms of that training,
getting those pilots ready and capable to do so.
So I would strongly recommend the United States should
enthusiastically continue to participate in the UDCG [Ukraine
Defense Contact Group], continue its assistance and work
closely with Ukraine to figure out not just what are the
platforms that it needs but what kind of training, what kind of
advising, because oftentimes that can be the secret sauce for
their military, not just the stuff.
Mr. Davis. Absolutely. Thank you.
In the most recent National Defense Strategy analysts
reference the significance of pacing change or the pacing
challenges--I'm sorry--that the People's Republic of China
poses.
General, a question for you today. When we think in terms
of Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, moving are they moving quick
enough to encounter any potential acceleration of a buildup
that may come from the PRC, especially in the Taiwan Strait?
General Keane. Yes. I think some of that's been quite
remarkable, Japan, certainly, the case in point. I mean,
they've turned their entire defense budget around and
completely committed to it.
You know, the trilateral arrangement that the Biden
administration sought with the United States, Japan, and South
Korea I think is historic in every sense of the word, you know,
that South Korea and Japan coming together because of a common
enemy.
Obviously, South Korea does have challenges in terms of its
present government internally but their commitment that they
have made to return to robust training with the United States
and also recognizing, you know, how Kim Jong-un has changed any
thought of reunification with South Korea and is claiming the
Peninsula in terms of their own sovereignty, and aligning with
the other three countries in terms of the Peninsula being their
sphere of influence is a fundamental change and South Korea
certainly is standing up against all of that.
And Taiwan, I think there's more that they can do and
Congressman Moulton was all over this in terms of some of the
innovation of changes that they can make that could strengthen
their defenses while they're waiting for the major industrial
items that they're owed as a result of their $11 million
purchases.
So yes, we're moving in the right direction but there's
more that can be done.
The Chairman. The gentleman's time has expired.
The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Indiana, Mr.
Messmer, for five minutes.
Mr. Messmer. [Off mic.]
Voice. Is the microphone on?
Mr. Messmer. Is it now on? There we go.
All right. Start over. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'd like to
thank the witnesses for being here today.
The threats that the U.S. is facing today are more
challenging and serious than ever and now is the time for the
U.S. to focus on increasing defense spending.
General Keane, currently China has the world's leading
hypersonic missile arsenal and they continue to develop
conventional and nuclear-armed hypersonic missiles while the
DOD has continued to experience setbacks.
Because of this, the DOD established a hypersonic flight
test bed called MACH-TB [Multi-Service Advanced Capability
Hypersonic Test Bed], a program that is designed to increase
the cadence and decrease the cost of developing hypersonics.
This program is leveraging commercial practices to rapidly
scale flight testing of hypersonic technology. Could you talk
about the value of having a robust testing program that would
increase the cadence and decrease the cost of hypersonics like
MACH-TB to support the technology maturation process for
hypersonics?
General Keane. Certainly, China has the lead on hypersonic
weapons. They have deployed these weapons so they're currently
in their arsenal, and we are catching up here.
But look, this is the United States and I'm convinced we're
going to get there with our own capability. And hypersonic
weapons, as we all know, they are difficult to track, difficult
to intercept.
It's a new reality of war itself, and as they are going to
use--an intimidating aspect of it is back in '21 when China
launched a fractional orbital bombardment system and
circumnavigated the globe and we could not track that nor would
we be able to intercept it, and it would have the capability
also to carry a nuclear weapon.
So, yeah, this is advanced technology. We're behind, but
I'm convinced we're absolutely committed to get these weapons
and get them deployed as quickly as possible.
Mr. Messmer. Okay. As a follow-up to that, over the past
four years the Biden administration missile defense priorities
of the DOD were put on the back burner. It's great to see the
Trump administration has already signaled it will reprioritize
missile defense systems.
General Keane, as I alluded in my last question, our
adversaries are producing hypersonics systems at an
unprecedented rate.
How important is it for the Glide Phase Interceptor
program, which is supposed to provide America's first defense
against hypersonic vehicles and--a program that Biden delayed
until 2035 against the directives from Congress be
reprioritized for the DOD?
General Keane. Well, as Secretary of Defense Hegseth has
said, this is now a major priority for DOD. I mean, obviously
this committee will have to see the details of what that means
as a part of the National Defense Strategy, which certainly
they'll be crafting, and what are the specific capabilities
that need to be there.
But I think it's an absolute step in the right direction.
Mr. Messmer. Okay.
While we're talking about missile defense, what do you see
as the long-term trajectory for the Iron Dome for America
executive order by President Trump?
General Keane. Well, I think we need to take a deeper dive
in this to understand what are we really talking about here.
I mean, obviously we're not going to deploy defense
missiles all over the United States. This has a lot to do with
space-based technology and how do we track and how do we defend
using space in a way that we're not using it today.
So more work needs to be done in terms of the
conceptualization of this. But in terms of the objective and
better able to protect our homeland, given the advance that
hypersonic missiles and sophisticated cruise missiles that
Russia at least has aspirations of that can circumnavigate the
globe, these are fundamentally objectives that are worthy of
conceptual study and also deployment and we need to find out
more about how we best can get at this and I think we're in the
very early stages of it right now.
Mr. Messmer. Okay. Thank you. That kind of leads into my
next question. Do you think a space-based interceptor system is
needed to protect against hypersonics?
General Keane. Yes, and the previous administration felt
the same way about that. I mean, we have to make advances in
space to be able to identify, to be able to track, and then
also to be able to intercept and we don't have that capability
today.
Remember, all of our systems are designed to track ICBMs
that are coming in the Northern Hemisphere from the east or the
west, and with the development of these hypersonic glide
vehicles that can circumnavigate the globe they can come from
any direction and we have got to be able to identify, track,
and intercept that we don't have that capability today.
Mr. Messmer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. McGuire. [Presiding.] Representative Crow of Colorado,
you have five minutes.
Mr. Crow. Thank you, Chairman.
General, I just wanted to start with you and respond to
something that you said in the opening, which I agree with--
there is near consensus on a bipartisan basis in this committee
that our procurement and contracting systems are badly broken,
that we are wasting tens of billions of dollars on systems that
are not effective, that are not efficient, they're not being
fielded quick enough.
That is not in the interests of our constituents and
taxpayers, that we need drastic reform, and it's one of our
biggest national security issues.
Again, near consensus on that issue and I liked your
analogy about talking about DOD from the business frame, right-
-that no business would operate that way.
I struggle, though, with squaring that with the constant
asks for more money, right, because how can we say that it
should operate more efficiently and more like a business if--
and if it's wasting tens of billions of dollars and inefficient
and DOD hasn't passed an audit ever, and then we should just
pump tens of billions of dollars more and increase the top
line.
Because the DOD is a rational organization, actually, and
rational organizations respond to incentives, and if the
incentive structure is broken then you have to change that
incentive structure.
So I would just posit to my fellow members that if we want
to change the incentive structure and make this big change then
we have to tie increases to the top line and increases to
additional funding to that reform--that bifurcating those
actually will make no sense.
And because we have been debating this as long as I've been
in Congress--reform, reform, reform, efficiency--six plus
years, and virtually nothing has changed. So we have to connect
the two and I'd love to work with anybody who would be willing
to do that.
Dr. Karlin, to go to you, I am deeply concerned with the
lack of capturing lessons learned in the Ukraine-Russia war,
right. There is--this is the most brutal war since World War
II, massive amounts of casualties, massive amounts of
destruction, and both the Ukrainians and the Russians are
actually learning quickly and they're adapting quickly.
But what I'm hearing from our own people, both our
intelligence agencies and our DOD, is that we're not. We were
not both putting those lessons to the COCOMs [combatant
commands] and we're not putting them into the schoolhouse to
adapt our battle drills, to adapt our TTPs [tactics,
techniques, and procedures], to do new things. It's just not
happening.
So can you talk to me, has that been your experience as
well and how do we tackle that?
Dr. Karlin. Thanks for highlighting that, Congressman. As
you know also it's often easier to learn the lessons of others
than ourselves and to do that introspection.
We saw that with the U.S. Army, which really studied the
1970 Arab-Israeli war or the 2014 Russian invasion of Crimea,
arguably, probably a lot more than they studied, say, their
role in the U.S. war in Vietnam.
So learning from others is really important. It's a lot
easier, lower costs. My understanding was that the Department
of Defense actually has been doing a lot of that.
When I was still there throughout 2023 we sponsored a
massive effort that got briefed to the most senior levels of
the Department of Defense that took, gosh, probably almost a
year or so to try to get at a number of different lessons
learned, tactical operations--
Mr. Crow. Is that housed in CALL, in the Center for Army
Lessons Learned? Is that where it's housed?
Dr. Karlin. This was actually the Office of the Secretary
of Defense that sponsored that.
Mr. Crow. OSD [Office of the Secretary of Defense].
Dr. Karlin. Indeed, and we did it in collaboration with the
Joint Staff. But because we saw it was just so important we
wanted it done at headquarters, frankly, with a whole bunch of
smart operators so that it could get into the budget and the
strategy process as well.
So I'm familiar with that. I'm sorry I can't speak as well
to the educational systems and how professional military
education can be, although I have found that in visits recently
to both West Point and the Army War College the questions on
these topics are boundless.
Mr. Crow. I'd love General Keane to weigh in on this issue
and give me your perspective. Obviously, ISW [Institute for the
Study of War] does a lot in this front. So what is your view of
those lessons learned?
General Keane. Well, the Army has now institutionalized it,
and you mentioned it. I just took a classified briefing a
couple of weeks ago on lessons learned and, you know, and we
have done this--it's one of the services that does this very
robustly and then proliferates it through its education system.
Not only did I take the briefing on the lessons learned but
what was its implications. The purpose of the briefing is,
well, here's what is happening--what is the implications for
the United States Army in terms of the changes we'll make, and
the exercise I saw was in play demonstrating those new
capabilities and the changes that the Army had to make based
solely on those lessons learned.
I can't speak to whether they're being transported to the
COCOMs. I'm assuming the Indo-Pacific commander and others are
all over this. I would imagine their staffs are doing it.
But institutionalized is the important thing here because
that's how you change the education system and the operational
capabilities of the forces.
Mr. Crow. Thank you.
Mr. McGuire. The gentleman's time has expired.
Representative Crank, Colorado, you have five minutes.
Mr. Crank. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you for your insight today and your testimony. I
appreciate that.
General Keane, you talked earlier about the way that we're
buying drones, for instance, right now that we've got maybe--
you know, we can buy a hundred drones when we need 20,000
drones.
And I guess I think of this--and my colleagues have talked
about this a little bit--but the threat of lower cost, easily
attainable weapons like drones or cyber warfare that many of
our adversaries are using, how do we become--how do we prevent
becoming Goliath in the David versus Goliath with the rock that
hits us in the head when we're really thinking that we're
invincible in other areas?
I guess I'd ask your thoughts on that for both of you.
General, or whoever would like to go first.
Dr. Karlin. Sure. Thank you for that question, Congressman.
I mean, you're exactly right, that this is becoming more of
a challenge and we have seen this in particular against our
troops in places like Iraq and Syria.
And so the U.S. military has had to worry about how to deal
with this problem in terms of platforms, to be sure, but also
in terms of tactics, techniques, and procedures and I think
that may be part of the secret sauce for how to deal with a
counter uncrewed autonomous system challenge.
General Keane. Yeah. Well, the changing character of war
has been really quite dramatic. We have not seen anything quite
like it.
When you look at what is happening in the war in Ukraine,
so this is a land-based war, obviously, where that's the focus.
Ukraine doesn't really have an air force but they obviously--
they have what's called the drone corps.
They've had to form this because they recognize that to
maximize the capability of surveillance and killer drones, it's
much better to have it in a separate organization where you
have all that innovation together as opposed to being in a tank
battalion or an infantry battalion, per se.
And when you look at the battlefield itself where the where
the Russians and the Ukrainians are closing, the casualties are
enormous. But the reality is that drones are influencing those
casualties more than anything else. Artillery still does more
casualty producing as a weapon system than anything else.
Drones are second, but the drones are the--give the
proponent the ability to see the battlefield and detect
movement and capture that movement, so much so that you can put
a killing system on it in a matter of seconds.
So warfare as we know it has dramatically changed and how
best you integrate this capability is really the--what has
taken place right before our eyes. The Russians still have huge
tactical problems in terms of their leadership, the willingness
of their force to fight, and the skill sets that they have.
The Ukrainians are outnumbered but they have a huge amount
of creativity and innovation and they have the will to fight.
They're fighting for their families. They're fighting for the
preservation of their way of life.
But yeah, that the technological changes on the battlefield
are quite dramatic. Combined arms maneuver, which is what we
were seeing a little bit of last year, is hardly taking place
at all because if you move you get killed.
If you are identified you get killed, and it's really quite
remarkable how this change is impacting ground warfare. I've
not seen anything like it in some time.
Mr. Crank. Well, and maybe I would ask this question. I
probably don't have time to get much of an answer.
But on Iran, very quickly, how do we break this Iranian
regime? You know, I remember back during the Obama
administration we had a student uprising and I think we lost an
opportunity there to get rid of this Iranian regime.
Are we at a moment here where they're broken and we could
finally push that over the edge and bring freedom and liberty,
perhaps, to the people of Iran?
General Keane. You know, I remember that very well and that
was the summer of 2009, you know, where the people are actually
saying, where are you, you know, President Obama, similar to
comparing it to Reagan and Poland, you know, in supporting the
factory workers.
All I can tell you for a fact is that they are in the
weakest position they've been in since the regime was formed
and the hostility inside the country is significant.
And you know how they solve this. I mean, if the people
take to the streets again by the tens of thousands, by the
hundreds of thousands, they will go out there and kill as many
of them as they possibly can to get them off the streets. Their
security services, you know, will unleash themselves on those
people.
Mr. McGuire. The gentleman's time has expired.
General Keane. I don't know what it's going to take
specifically for that kind of implosion to take place. But
based on the information I'm receiving they are much closer to
it than they have ever been. I don't know whether we're weeks
away or months away. I just don't have those kind of facts.
Mr. McGuire. The gentleman's time has expired.
Representative Tokuda, Hawaii, you have five minutes.
Ms. Tokuda. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
And, you know, I know a number of questions have been asked
to date, but to echo on to the sentiments of my colleagues I
agree with what former Secretary Mattis told the Senate Armed
Services Committee, that if you don't fund the State Department
fully then I need to buy more ammunition.
He was clear that our international affairs budget and our
defense budget are inextricably linked in terms of our
advancing of our national interest, but that ultimately the
State Department and its programs needed to come first and be
backed up, second, by our military. If not we will trade this
soft power diplomacy for our boys and girls on the front line.
I also want to echo the alarm expressed by many members of
this committee and in countries across the world with the
administration's freeze on foreign assistance and attempted
shutdown of USAID.
No matter how long these policies last they have sent a
shocking and harmful signal to our partners, allies, and, yes,
our adversaries about our commitment--now questionable
commitment--to our shared values and interests across the
globe.
General Keane, Dr. Karlin, for the record, just a yes or no
will suffice. Has the attempted shutdown of USAID and the
freeze on U.S. foreign assistance alarmed our allies and
partners and emboldened and abdicated our soft power leadership
role to our adversaries including China and Russia.
A simple yes or no will do.
Dr. Karlin. Yes,
Ms. Tokuda. General Keane?
General Keane. Well, listen, the problems we have seen the
USAID had in terms of what they are funding--
Ms. Tokuda. The loss of this funding, billions of dollars
of funding, yes or no, are we abdicating our role as a soft
power leader throughout the globe, emboldening our adversaries
like China and Russia?
Does it give them a leg up, yes or no?
General Keane. I believe we need to continue to fund the
State Department in terms of programs that make sense, that add
value, and add to our national security, period.
Ms. Tokuda. Okay. So I would take that as a cautious yes.
I want to focus specifically on our State Department then.
Funding for nonprofit organizations that work on China-related
issues from outside of China--they track protests, monitor
state censorship, and document ongoing human rights abuse
including those related to the Uyghur genocide. Since the
funding freeze, many of these organizations are in crisis,
forced to abruptly suspend their work and lay off staff.
This is a critical blow, we know, to the already limited
information flow outside of China and it puts us and the global
community at an extreme disadvantage in terms of holding the
Chinese Communist Party accountable.
General Keane, Dr. Karlin, from your perspective as former
Pentagon leaders, how important is this kind of information on
China to the types of decisions we have to make at the
Pentagon, especially in terms of shaping the information
environment around China?
General Keane. Well, certainly it's important and it's
vital to have that kind of understanding, going forward.
But as I said before, we need all the elements of national
power applied in dealing with the threat of the Chinese
Communist Party and its intent to dominate the region and
replace the United States as the world's global power. All the
elements of national power integrated together have to be
applied in concert with our allies and partners.
Ms. Tokuda. But we're literally robbing ourselves of one
tool from the toolbox.
Thank you. Dr. Karlin?
Dr. Karlin. Congressman, I would absolutely agree with what
you've heard from General Keane.
Look, we can always turn to the Department of Defense to
solve problems. The challenge with that is they're not always
good at solving certain problems, right? Development experts,
diplomats, are often going to be better in circumstances.
Moreover, there's going to be an opportunity cost, and so
if we're having the Department of Defense do things that maybe
are more expensive or are not on the priority list, that will
cause a problem.
Just one example, right, to the extent we have pilots from
the U.S. Air Force that are flying migrants elsewhere that's
actually a lot more expensive than using chartered aircraft,
for instance.
It also means those pilots aren't spending that time
thinking about what I think much of this committee concurs
with, which is the primary challenge of China.
Ms. Tokuda. Absolutely. I think you also agree that when it
comes to being able to gather intelligence and information we
should not be limiting ourself.
But to your point, Dr. Karlin, dollar for dollar many of
these nonprofit organizations that we have funded had amongst
the most effective in giving us the intel we need from places
like China.
Lastly, I--time up, I want to raise the Pacific Islands
that are so geostrategically important to the Indo-Pacific
region.
For years China has been making major inroads in this
region, peeling away Taiwan's diplomatic allies and deepening
security relations that pose a major risk to our posture and
operations.
Last year China regained its place as the second largest
bilateral donor to the Pacific, surpassing the U.S. just again.
Just this week the Cook Islands are expected to sign a
partnership agreement with China.
Do you both, familiar with this area, believe that when we
are shutting down and suspending support to these foreign
assistance programs that we are basically abdicating and giving
away the Pacific Island region, critically important to our
adversary China?
Mr. McGuire. The time has expired.
Ms. Tokuda. Thank you. If I can request that that question
be sent out and responded to? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. McGuire. Briefly. Real brief.
Representative Hamadeh, Arizona, you have five minutes.
Mr. Hamadeh. Thank you.
General Keane warns that the threats we face today are the
most serious since 1945 and, yet, as Dr. Karlin's testimony
describes, we confront adversaries operating beyond the
traditional boundaries of conflict across a highly integrated
battlefield that spans from cyber-attacks on our home front
infrastructure to nuclear brinkmanship abroad from the leading
state sponsor of terror, Iran.
The central challenge is this unprecedented convergence of
threats where rising revisionist powers are deep in cooperation
to undermine American interests worldwide while rogue regimes
collude to blunt our countermeasures.
Nowhere is this more apparent than the no limits
partnership between Russia and China, who support each other's
territorial ambitions while enabling weapons development that
jeopardizes our over match.
Meanwhile, North Korea and Iran trade ballistic missile
technologies that threaten our greatest allies and shipping
lanes like the Houthis have been doing in the Red Sea.
Congress must assess this net assessment of allied defense
spending, industrial base output, force readiness and
modernization timelines against our adversaries rapidly
fielding advanced combined capabilities.
America must lead in developing the most lethal forces to
deter this axis of aggression before it spirals into a global
conflict.
Now, my first question is for General Keane.
General, do our current capabilities match our adversaries'
rapid fielding of hypersonics and AI-enabled technologies?
My district has all the Taiwanese semiconductors coming
into it so I know the semiconductor space is really critical to
this.
But I'm just wondering do our current capabilities match
our adversaries' currently?
General Keane. Well, in terms of hypersonic capabilities
assisted by AI, no, they do not. The reality is that, you know,
as we mentioned China is ahead of us on this. They have their
assets deployed and we're still testing ours.
Other capabilities we obviously, you know, have advances
that they don't have, particularly in submarine warfare. But we
have a ways to go here and that's the reality of it.
It's not just--what China has managed to do is not just
numbers in terms of quantity. The quality that they are
producing in terms of their platforms is quite sophisticated
and it's grown in quality through the years.
That's the reality of what we're--our systems are excellent
as well. I'm not suggesting that they're not. But there is a
difference and, as I pointed out, when you get about a thousand
miles from the coast of China the advantage moves decisively to
China in terms of a military advantage that they have.
Mr. Hamadeh. Thank you, General.
And this question is for both of you but let's start out
with Dr. Karlin. What are the most critical reforms Congress
should prioritize to ensure the defense industrial base can
sustain high-intensity conflicts across multiple theaters?
Dr. Karlin. Thank you, Congressman.
I would just note, by the way, that in addition to looking
at Chinese capabilities it's important to look at experience of
which they have virtually none.
The last war they fought was nearly 50 years ago and it
didn't go so terribly well for them. In terms of what Congress
can do regarding the defense industrial base, two things jump
out.
One is on time appropriations that gives them and, of
course, the Department of Defense some sort of predictability
that when we put out a strategy going to align the resources
appropriately.
And then I think, secondly, Congress can have some
important and hard conversations with the defense industry
about them delivering the things they have committed to
delivering in a timely manner and then trying to figure out
when things aren't looking the way that they should and need
some real change, what needs to happen.
Congress' leadership on the submarine industrial base is a
really good example here.
Mr. Hamadeh. And if I can go back--do you think foreign
military sales also is combined with this with our defense
industrial base?
Because I've been hearing that some of our allies have been
reducing their American military equipment and weapons and
shifting to other places because they're not able to get a lot
of the equipment on time.
Dr. Karlin. I'm not familiar with them reducing and I
actually used to oversee all of our foreign military sales
throughout most of the Biden administration.
That process has gone much faster than it used to go, the
technical aspects of that process, not least that thanks to
lessons learned from Ukraine and then from assisting Israel
post the October 7 attacks.
So usually folks want U.S. military platforms. They're
oftentimes the best. I think one challenge can just be there
are so many customers it becomes an issue of prioritization.
Mr. Hamadeh. All right. I yield back.
Mr. McGuire. Representative Tran from California, you have
five minutes.
Mr. Tran. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I welcome and thank the
witnesses for being here.
Dr. Karlin, I am a big proponent that our military's
greatest asset is its people. Additional funding, weapon
platforms, and equipment and even the most sophisticated
capabilities are meaningless without a robust and cohesive
fighting force.
Each of the military services are facing recruiting
challenges amid a disinterested recruiting market and other
factors. My question to you is what solution would you offer to
overcome the current recruiting challenges facing our military
today?
Dr. Karlin. Thank you for that, Congressman, and I
wholeheartedly agree with you. Our people are our secret sauce,
absolutely.
So there have been these recruiting challenges over the
last few years. We saw last year or so that those are starting
to turn a corner, for example, with the Army, and I think the
Army is a really interesting model here.
They've set up some different ways for folks to join where
they've been able to get some of that training, get some of
that education, so then they are--kind of have those
capabilities that are needed to really be successful soldiers.
So I think that's one important piece.
Another broader piece, frankly, is trying to bridge the gap
between those who serve in the military and the American
public, right. This is a gap that has really grown into a
gorge.
It's not least because one half of 1 percent of Americans
serve in the military and folks who serve are often going to be
on these kind of big, sprawling bases rather than spread out
around the country.
So really kind of upping the recruitment effort in spots
where folks don't have a lot of interaction with folks in
uniform and trying to incentivize that interaction to just
lower those barriers so all Americans understand here's what it
means to join the military.
Here's what a day in the life of someone who serves looks
like and here's why you might want to consider it.
General Keane. Congressman, can I add to that?
Mr. Tran. Sure.
General Keane. First of all, in '24 all services met their
recruiting objectives, so they have figured out what the issues
are and much of it had to do with improving their own programs,
and I think the Army had a pretty innovative program in dealing
with people who couldn't pass the Armed Forces test.
And they didn't teach the test to them. What they wound up
doing is teaching arithmetic, I call it, right, and reading to
people because they're coming out of education systems in the
United States that are wanting.
The second thing, to get to your point about people, our
retention--all services' retentions are almost at record
levels, which tells you that the people who are serving are
getting a meaningful and purposeful experience that they value
and the degree of satisfaction is high.
My concern about it, having spent 20 months looking at the
National Defense Strategy and the services applying that
strategy, is we're so much smaller than what we should be.
We're asking--but the requirements are going up given the
threats we have been discussing here today. We're asking more
of them. That's the concern I have.
If we don't grow them, then that retention will go down
because life balance is going to change with their families.
It's not happening. Their morale is good and they feel
purposeful of what they're doing. I totally agree with you our
people are our most important resource.
Mr. Tran. Thank you, General.
My next question before I start that is as a veteran
myself, I chose to serve because of the distinct privilege to
give back to my country and my community.
Yet, recent actions by this administration to attack
members of the military and undermine efforts to be more
inclusive are harming the sanctity of service and threaten the
allure of service for potential recruits.
What impacts do you believe President Trump's recent
actions to abolish DEI [diversity, equity, and inclusion]
efforts within DOD will have on our ability to adequately
recruit and retain new talent?Dr. Karlin?
Dr. Karlin. Our military, as you know, Congressman, is
stronger when we have different types of folks serving in it,
right. Folks with different backgrounds, different experiences,
from different parts of the country and where they feel like
this is an environment where they can thrive. We have a ton of
evidence that that is the case.
I'll just give you one data point, which is about 20
percent or so of our active-duty force is women. They are
playing critical roles throughout the U.S. military.
And so when we have an environment where folks maybe feel
like not everyone has those opportunities it ends up inhibiting
the terrific kind of capabilities that is the U.S. military.
That, again, sets the U.S. military apart from our competitors
like China and like Russia.
Mr. Tran. Thank you so much, Dr. Karlin.
I, for one, am deeply concerned that the President's
attacks on the service members will have a chilling effect on
recruitment.
Later today, I will be sending a letter with some of my
colleagues on HASC [House Committee on Armed Services]
challenging the decision to disband certain cadet clubs--
(Simultaneous speaking.)
--at West Point.
Mr. Van Orden [presiding]. The gentleman's time has
expired. The chair now recognizes himself for five minutes.
I wanted to really talk about naval policy, sir, but I got
to clear up some things.
First and foremost, I want to welcome the vast majority of
my Democrat colleagues to the DOGE Caucus because they want to
streamline the acquisition process. So you're all welcome. We
get together twice a week.
Ma'am, I understand your experience in Djibouti. I lived
there and I served there, and my experiences there are
remarkably different than your testimony, and USAID is
essentially paying tribute around the world like we did to the
Barbary pirates and that's why they need to be completely
defunded and rebuilt from the ground up.
So Thomas Jefferson did not want to get us involved in
foreign conflicts but he did on purpose because he didn't want
to pay tribute anymore, and the Barbary pirates were taking our
citizens and allies hostage and selling them into slavery. So
let's just remember that.
And also, ma'am, I would ask you, Dr. Karlin, have you ever
been sitting down in a wadi somewhere and surrounded by the
Taliban and have an A-10 come over and rip off some 30
millimeters and save you and your friends' lives?
I'm going to guess the answer is no. So when we're talking
about these legacy systems we have to understand that A-10
platform has saved countless of my Navy SEAL [Sea, Air, and
Land] brothers, Special Operations forces around the world, and
general purpose forces. So let's not just throw that out.
General Keane, I want to personally welcome you home from
Vietnam. Your service is remarkable, and if no one's told you
that I'm going to tell you that now.
And our experiences were very similar. My generation fought
Afghanistan. I fought in Afghanistan and Iraq and in the Horn
of Africa.
Bosnia-Herzegovina is my first conflict. And we just have
to acknowledge the fact that we have the most highly educated
and powerful military in the history of the planet and we have
not won a war in 80 years.
That's what you and I have in common, sir, and part of the
problem is--and, Ms. Karlin, you're representing academia,
essentially, here--is that. There's a great book. If you
haven't read it, it's called "Best and Brightest." It was
published in 1972.
We haven't learned. We simply have not learned. We didn't
learn from Vietnam. We didn't learn from Afghanistan. We didn't
learn from Iraq, and I'm very, very concerned that we're
stumbling our way back into another one of these conflicts by
not focusing on the most important thing we can and it's the
first self-truth, that humans are more important than hardware.
And when we focus--and a lot of these systems are
critically important. But we have to understand at the end of
the day we have to have a group of people that are willing to
go into a room and shoot somebody in the face, and that's what
wins a war. I just wanted to frame that.
So, General Keane, I understand that you're not a naval
expert. But looking at the de-evolution of my Navy I don't
think we have a naval expert at this point.
We have given the Red Sea over to the Houthis and I don't
understand that. The Straits of Malacca--what are we doing?
So, General Keane, if we remember that humans are more
important than hardware what do you think you, as a recognized
expert for decades in military leadership, what can we do to
reshape the most important piece of this puzzle and that's the
human?
General Keane. Well, using the example that you're
describing, I mean, it's our unwillingness to confront the
adversary that permits this, you know, disaster going on in the
Red Sea and the Suez Canal.
I mean, just think about this. We have had anti-ship
ballistic missiles fired at Navy warships. When's the last time
that's happened? That's never happened.
Mr. Van Orden. It's never happened.
General Keane. And it has happened recently and what did we
do about that? Not much of anything.
Mr. Van Orden. So, General, I--
General Keane. And we were in seconds--there were 300
people on that ship. We were in seconds of that ship exploding.
Mr. Van Orden. Correct.
So, General Keane, I'm sorry. I don't mean to interrupt but
I just have a very limited time.
My colleague Mr. Gimenez asked you a question, Ms. Karlin,
about risk aversion and what he was referring to is our naval
officers and many of our military officers are--have become
careerists, and I'd say that's why we lost Vietnam, that's why
we lost Afghanistan, that's why we lost Iraq.
So when our general officers and our field grade officers
are focused more on their career than they are accomplishing
the mission, which is protecting our citizens and our allies,
we lose and until that changes we'll never win another conflict
again.
My time has expired. Mr. Sorensen from the great city of
Illinois is recognized for five minutes.
Mr. Sorensen. Thank you to the gentleman, Mr. Chairman from
Wisconsin.
Good morning all. Welcome to our witnesses.
General, thank you for your great service to our nation.
Dr. Karlin, thank you so much for giving your insight and
speaking truth.
As my first hearing as an Armed Services member, let me
tell you what an honor it is to be sitting in this chair today.
My district is central and northwestern Illinois. It's home to
the Rock Island Arsenal, our Army's first army Headquarters.
Also, the 182nd airlift wing at Peoria.
I'm proud to represent the men and women at these entities
both uniformed and civilian, and the work that they do to
support our national defense interests at home and abroad.
In your written testimony, you both discussed the
importance of our defense industrial base and how critical it
is to counter Russia and China's growing influence and
aggression.
Before diving into my questions I'd like to touch briefly
on the importance of our organic industrial base and the work
at the Rock Island Arsenal.
Having played a key role in every conflict going back to
the 1830s, generations of Illinoisans in my district have
worked at the arsenal, building the equipment that keeps our
men and women safe.
In 1832 the Rock Island Arsenal began a story of American
innovation, leading the world in cutting-edge technologies and
advanced manufacturing.
The labor of those in our region is the story of the
heartland that we would ever think about putting an arsenal on
an island in the middle of the Mississippi River--hard workers,
good neighbors, serving their communities every day and our
nation by providing the resources needed to uphold our values
here and around the world.
It's, therefore, mission critical to the United States'
readiness that we have the tools to equip the arsenal and the
organic industrial base to meet the demands of the 21st
century.
Dr. Karlin, I'll begin my questions with you. In this era
of complex and interconnected global threats can you speak to
the importance of focusing not just on the weapons systems but
on the infrastructure and the men and women who build and
maintain the systems we need?
Dr. Karlin. Thank you, Congressman.
Absolutely. You know, in 2018 General Keane and I both
worked on a National Defense Strategy commission and in that we
assessed that we really had to focus on the defense industrial
base.
We were worried about the state of it, worried, in
particular, about the state of our munitions. Well, lo and
behold, a couple years ago those concerns become spectacular as
we see the impact of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Now, the good news is folks have all gotten to learn the
lesson while not being engaged directly in a war with American
service members. So the progress that has been made with the
defense industrial base over the last two and a half, three
years or so has been crucial.
I would also really commend Congress because your
leadership, especially on the munitions piece, like with multi-
year procurement authority, has been incredibly important.
I mean, frankly, as you know well, having the people is
absolutely important. They've also got to have the stuff.
Mr. Sorensen. Thank you, Doctor.
General Keane, you spoke on the importance of consistent
funding for the industrial base and the investments that we
have made over the past several years in particular to update
our facilities.
Can you elaborate a little bit more on the importance of
continuing to ensure modernization is prioritized in the
budget?
General Keane. Yeah. This is very important. The organic
industrial base, which is the Department of Defense owns
themselves, is absolutely critical, separated from the
commercial part of the defense industrial base.
And starting with the second half of the Trump
administration, major funding began and it continued right
through the Biden administration, and the war in Ukraine
certainly elevated the significance of that, particularly as it
came to ammunition plants and the like.
So we went literally from $200 million to $800 million to
$1 billion a year and then this committee supported a $4
billion supplemental in terms of funding for artillery
ammunition, and we managed to build our first new small arms
plant since 1941 in a place called Lake City, Missouri.
This is 50-caliber and below. So the war in Ukraine has
truly emphasized that many of our facilities are outdated and
some of them actually are not as safe as they should be because
of the processes that they're using.
We have got to fix it and we have got to continue the
funding that has begun by two administrations, the Trump
administration and the Biden administration.
Mr. Van Orden. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Sorensen. Thank you, General. I look forward to meeting
the--
(Simultaneous speaking.)
Mr. Van Orden. The chair now recognizes Madam Goodlander
from the small yet mighty state of New Hampshire.
Ms. Goodlander. Thank you, Mr. Van Orden, and thank you to
our witnesses for your service to our country and for being
here today for this hearing.
It's an important one for me because it's my first hearing
as a member of the House Committee on Armed Services. It's
truly the honor of my lifetime to represent the state I love so
much--small but mighty, indeed, the state of New Hampshire--in
the people's House, and at a time of great division in our
country I am so excited to be serving on this committee and
proud to be doing so because we don't agree on a lot a lot of
the time but today we have agreed on several core things and
how refreshing and hopeful is that.
One of the things--one of the through lines in the work
that you've both done in your many years of service to our
country and in our conversation this morning has been the
imperative of a defense industrial base that is prepared to
meet the moment, an American defense industrial base that is
innovative, that is nimble, responsive, and competitive, and
you've pointed us to some important things that we can do here
in Congress, including on time appropriations and a return to
normal order, which is a huge priority for me.
But you've also both pointed to a really important fact,
that in 1991 we had 51 primes. Today we have five. We have seen
incredible consolidation in our defense industrial base just
like we have seen consolidation in industries across the
American economy.
General Keane, you wrote in your written testimony
something I couldn't agree with more, that American democratic
capitalism can outwork, outwit, and out-innovate China's state
capitalism. It's so true.
But capitalism without competition isn't the kind of
capitalism that the American people deserve. So I want to ask
both of you, starting with you, Dr. Karlin, how has
consolidation in the defense industrial base undermined
American military readiness?
Dr. Karlin. Thank you very much, Congresswoman, and I
wholeheartedly agree with all those points you highlighted.
Look, consolidation at the end of the Cold War might have
made sense for that moment in time, but as you note it was
really dramatic, right--an order of magnitude change in our
defense industry.
And that meant not only are you not having folks kind of
producing the material, you don't have the same number of folks
innovating and thinking about what the next thing should be
that we should be investing in.
Now, we saw about, frankly, three decades or so that
consolidation being problematic. What we have seen,
interestingly, in the last few years is other types of
companies start to come into this space, right.
Other types of companies we might not naturally think of as
doing defense starting to do defense and getting more
comfortable with that and playing more of a role in our
national security interests.
So while I've been quite concerned about that
consolidation, I am hopeful that, in particular, given the
efforts over the last few years, particularly by this
committee, to work with the defense industry and the
involvement of other types of companies that we can start to
see those shifts that we need through serious focus.
Thank you.
Ms. Goodlander. So I want to open it up to you, General
Keane, but I want to ask you also, we talked about the stuff
and we have talked about the people, and you've both said it--
the men and women of our joint force are our secret sauce. They
are our most important resource.
I want to ask you both what is the single most important
thing you think that Congress can do to make sure that our
recruitment and retention numbers keep us in a place to be the
most powerful military force the world has ever known.
General Keane. Well, from my perspective, we're too small
and our requirements are growing, so we have to authorize our
services to grow to meet those requirements because that will
eventually impact, you know, people's life balance.
Look, war breaks out, the mission comes first and families
are a distant second. That's just the way it is. But when we're
at peace, services, families, are trying to find some kind of
life balance and the force I see out there is being stressed
because the requirements are climbing.
So we have got to grow that force so there's--the life
balance truly is there for them. I don't want to be negative
about how that force today feels about themselves. They feel
very good about themselves.
Their sense of satisfaction about what they're doing is
high, and the number-one indicator of morale in the service is
retention rates and ours are almost record-breaking.
So we should feel good about that and this committee should
feel good about some of the funding that's taken place to help
that. More needs to be done, as we have stated.
Ms. Goodlander. In my final three seconds, I think
something we all agree on also, should the Pentagon be
subjected to a full audit?
Dr. Karlin. The Pentagon, all parts of our government,
should be able to go through an audit and pass an audit. It's
responsible to American taxpayers.
Mr. Van Orden. The gentlelady's time has expired.
The chair now recognizes Mr. Vindman from Virginia for five
minutes.
The chair now recognizes Mr. Fallon from the great state of
Texas for five minutes.
Mr. Fallon. Thank you to our very experienced chairman.
Thank you. Appreciate it. You got to give him a little grief,
General. He's a Navy SEAL. You know, I'm an Air Force guy--
Army.
General, Omar Bradley said, and I'm sure you've heard,
tactics are for amateurs and logistics are for professionals,
and I think we, given the daunting task of World War II, did a
pretty good job with logistics on the fly for those almost four
years, and then we seem to have kind of lost the lessons
learned in Korea.
And so I wanted to just ask you, obviously, contested
logistics in the INDOPACOM AOR [area of responsibility] is a
topic of great debate. In your view, what has the U.S. done or
should do to secure and expand the access in the region?
General Keane. Well, the reality is a number of changes I
think need to be made, certainly. On World War II bases, which
we're pretty much relying on, they are all vulnerable to
China's attack, long-range weapons, air power.
We have to harden them but we have to--and the Air Force is
moving in this direction in terms of establishing expeditionary
bases that they can set up in a number of days.
We need to present that kind of a problem to the Chinese.
In other words, it complicates their problem, and expeditionary
bases we have to--and then we have to make certain that those
bases are also defensible.
So yes, what the Chinese are trying to do is deny us
access, and the other thing that we know if we move our surface
ships and if there's validity in war games, and I think there
are some validities, I don't think war games are an end in
themselves.
What I get out of it is not so much who wins and loses but
what do you learn about your own capabilities--what works and
what doesn't work--and our surface ships are very vulnerable.
That is the reality and it's not going to change in the near
term.
But our submarines are absolutely very effective and we can
use submersibles and above-the-sea autonomous vehicles as well,
not by the hundreds but by the thousands, to make certain that
we're imposing cost, and that gives us access.
One of the problems we have if you play a war game China is
going to take down the major bases that we intend to fly our
air power into. So we find out--we find ourselves using air
power from as far away as Australia or from as far away as
Alaska, and that's not nearly what we need to have.
So yes, there--deny access is the asymmetric warfare that
China is imposing on us. But given the technology that exists,
given the willingness to change the strategy and the
operational concept, I believe with some imagination, we can
break down that denial of access that we have and begin the
kind of penetration.
What we're not talking about--we're not talking about
defeating China here. We're talking about imposing enough cost
on them to deter them from taking offensive actions against us,
much as we did with the Soviet Union.
They outnumbered us significantly, I mentioned before, and
the reality is we put together an imaginative operational
strategy that imposed cost on them and it effectively deterred
them from conducting that invasion that they truly wanted to
do.
And that is where we need to be, and we need to exercise it
also right in front of them, which we did every two years in
front of the Soviet Union, and we don't do enough of that
operationally.
We do individual exercise with--bilateral with a country or
one or two with others, but we don't really put together an
operational plan and exercise that plan, and I think a mistake
and, hopefully, we'll make changes to get on with doing that.
It is about convincing your adversary that the cost that we
can impose on them is too significant for them to take the
operational risk to start that conflict.
Mr. Fallon. General, real quick, do you think, given the
changing realities of warfare, that we should focus maybe more
and lean in on subs and UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicle]?
General Keane. Yeah, absolutely, and I know Dr. Karlin
would agree with us--would agree with me. I mean, our
submarines have a decisive advantage. We just don't have enough
of them.
Mr. Van Orden. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Fallon. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Van Orden. The chair now recognizes--yes sir.
The chair now recognizes Mr. Vindman from Virginia for five
minutes.
Mr. Vindman. Thank you, General Keane, Dr. Karlin.
I'm excited to join this committee at a critical time in
our nation's history to make sure that the next generation of
warfighters serving today is equipped for the next fight
including many of whom are stationed on the three installations
I represent in my district.
Without regard to political party or ideology, national
security and support to our uniformed services must be
bipartisan while also ensuring accountability, effectiveness,
and efficiency.
The current threat environment demands a bipartisan,
nimble, and rapid approach to countering both today's and
tomorrow's adversaries using all elements of national power
including diplomatic, information, military and economic.
General Keane, you talked about this axis of adversaries
that has loosely formed with Iran, North Korea, China, and
Russia. I call it an axis of autocrats.
We have recently seen Iran weakened as a result of Israel's
military actions. Russia is also under strain after three years
of war in Ukraine. Since this is a team sport and looking at
U.S. and its partners versus the axis of autocrats
holistically, we want our strength to be greater than theirs.
In the short term, next year or 18 months or so, the Russia
dimension of this axis is actually the one that we can
influence the most dramatically and at a relatively low cost
compared to our budget. In military jargon, sort of an economy
of force operation.
We can and must do this while acknowledging that China is
the pacing threat that we need to be gearing up for. Do you
agree with this assessment? And that's both for you and Dr.
Karlin.
General Keane. Yeah. Certainly, Russia obviously thought
they were going to be able to take Ukraine in a matter of days
if not weeks.
They overestimated their own capabilities and
underestimated the Ukrainians', and now--I mean, in the last
two months they've taken 48,000 casualties and each month
they've advanced X number of miles across the front line of
troops--40 to 50 miles in the course of a year.
They truly have their challenges, but in their minds they
are winning, and that is why Putin is so resistant to actually
come to the negotiating table. He will probably want
concessions to get there.
I think we're on a pathway here if we stay committed and
stay committed to Ukraine, that it is possible to put enough
pressure on Russia to force them to the negotiating table. But
that means you're going to have to add more to Ukraine than
what we are currently doing.
Mr. Vindman. I agree, General Keane, and I appreciate that
assessment.
Dr. Karlin?
Dr. Karlin. Thank you, Congressman.
I would agree with what you highlighted and, frankly, if
one is worried about China, which I think seems to be the
overwhelming kind of consensus of this committee, one has to
care about European security.
What happens in Ukraine is being watched much, much more
than just across Europe but across the Indo-Pacific as well.
Mr. Vindman. Thank you. So you mentioned that your op-ed--
you talked about rare earths. 60 percent of those rare earths
are in occupied regions.
Forty percent are in Ukraine, and so I posit that it's
better that Ukraine, a U.S.-EU aligned country, control these
assets that are critical to manufacturing all kinds of things,
including weapons, than Russia and its axis of autocrats.
General Keane, let's sort of drill down from the strategic
to the operational/tactical. We have already talked about
drones and the utility of drones and how important they are to
the next battlefield.
And I agree with you that we probably need to rebalance
these capital assets that we have with drones. It is probably
not an either/or. It's a both, and just what amounts.
So in your testimony you said services need congressional
relief to purchase large quantities of drones from the non-
defense commercial sector that are outside of a program of
record.
Are you familiar with prior examples where Congress has
provided this authorization? And 20 seconds or less because I
want to give each of you a chance.
General Keane. No, I'm not aware of it. I mean, my
information comes from the Army service chief and his desire to
do just that, and that kind of permission in the bulk that he's
looking for hasn't been given him as of recently. I may be off
a little bit but--
Mr. Vindman. Thanks, General. I think that's our job and so
we need to focus on that.
Dr. Karlin?
General Keane. I totally agree.
Dr. Karlin. I would just add that it really is worth
looking at U.S. Special Operations Command special authorities
for acquisition because they have managed to, in many examples,
move much more quickly, more deftly, more innovatively.
Mr. Van Orden. The gentleman's time has expired.
The chair now recognizes Mr. Higgins for five minutes.
Mr. Higgins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, China's sea power capabilities and
shipbuilding progress has been fascinating and startling to
observe.
General Keane, you stated in your testimony that autonomous
above water vessels and below water submersibles begin to close
the gap between where we are as the defender of the free world
and the responsibility of this committee to provide the
Pentagon with what it needs to prevent and dominate any looming
military conflict, particularly regarding autonomous vessels
for the Navy.
It seems to me, as an American who loves his country, I'm
watching what happens and the system doesn't seem to be
functioning very well. You know, the amount of money that we're
spending versus the product that we're actually deploying for
our war fighters, there seems to be quite a gap.
One of my colleagues across the aisle earlier mentioned
that--the gentlelady stated that young Americans studying DOD
books can't possibly be counted on to explain DOD expenditures.
Well, let me say the DOD has failed seven audits. Seemed
like us old guys are not doing too well either. Perhaps we
should give an opportunity to the new administration to examine
these books and track this money and as a Congress we have to
do a much better job on communicating very well with the with
the Pentagon's frontline requirements.
And to that, General Keane, I will ask you to address the
autonomous vessel requirements. How do you envision our
immediate response? You stated that U.S. leaders experimented
with new technology to determine what worked best and produced
those quickly during the Cold War.
What can we do? How would you speak to that, how Congress
can move to encourage the Pentagon and the existing process to
embrace a new paradigm of what we face?
General Keane. Yes. Well, the Pentagon is very much aware
of the lessons that have been learned in the changing character
of war as a result of Russia and Ukraine on the battlefield and
applying those not just to land warfare but the sea warfare.
The Indo-Pacific commander, Admiral Paparo, is moving in
this direction and he is breaking from the past and moving in a
direction of what I just described as more autonomous vehicles
both above and below the surface and that makes all the sense
because that is how you overcome the asymmetric successful
strategy that China has been applying to deny us access to
their military capabilities that are on their mainland and that
is how we deter them, if we put those military capabilities
into practice.
Mr. Higgins. Precisely. I concur.
In my remaining time I'd like to get--I'd like to get your
thoughts on--you said something I felt was quite courageous
earlier.
You said you would not recommend going to five percent of
GDP expenditures without reform with the current process that
we're talking about right now--the way we spend money and how
does that tie into it.
It seems to me that we could immediately, quickly move into
autonomous production but for land vessels, sea vessels,
undersea vessels, and aircraft to help us close the gap and
that it would be far more affordable.
We could, like, make the corrections of the way we're
spending American treasure and how--what the lethality level of
our military forces are, what power we can project worldwide.
It seemed like the bang for the buck right now is in autonomous
vessels. Would you concur and agree with that?
General Keane. I absolutely concur and there are service
chiefs that are right on top of this. The combatant commander
in the Pacific is.
Yes, you can get a lot of capability for considerably less
funding than what it takes to build a major platform and--but
we got to get on with the reform as well.
And look, if we're going to open our books to young
business guys as opposed to old business guys, as mentioned by
one of the Congress people who had objected to it, I mean, what
are we intimidated by?
Mr. Higgins. Right.
General Keane. Let's have someone look at this thing.
Mr. Higgins. It may be true.
General Keane. We have been looking at it for years and we
don't have very good answers.
Mr. Higgins. May be true. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, my time has expired. I yield.
Mr. Van Orden. The gentleman yields back.
The chair now recognizes Mr. Bell and simultaneously offers
my deepest condolences for your Kansas City Chiefs, sir.
Mr. Bell. Thank you, Mr. Chair, Ranking Member, and also
Vice Ranking Member Davis. I believe this is your first hearing
in this role.
Congratulations, and it's also my first hearing on this
committee, which I'm very proud to serve not only in this
committee but also my district back home in St. Louis.
In a time where political influence is increasing worldwide
from adversaries like China, Russia and others, the United
States must utilize all of its resources to ensure we remain a
global force and counter these threats.
Countering our adversaries and protecting our national
security will require a multi-pronged approach that also
focuses on our defense intelligence capabilities.
This includes the work of support agencies within DOD that
aid in our security efforts. The National Geospatial
Intelligence Agency West, which is located in my district in
St. Louis, is one of those agencies.
And just for time's sake quickly, Dr. Karlin and General
Keane, can you talk about NGA's [National Geospatial
Intelligence Agency] important role in supporting our forces
everywhere in the globe?
Dr. Karlin. Thank you, Congressman.
Simply put, it's critical, right. NGA has consistently
helped as I've worked for six Secretaries of Defense. I'm
guessing General Keane will say something quite similar in
helping us understand what the threats are on the horizon, what
the threats are that we are countering today, and how we can
best counter them.
General Keane. I associate myself completely with Dr.
Karlin's comments.
Mr. Bell. General Keane, for any future fight in the
Pacific we're going to have to heavily rely on Air Mobility
Command, which is headquartered just outside my district, to
move goods and forces around the fight.
Can you talk about their importance in the Pacific both in
peacetime and wartime?
General Keane. Well, yeah, absolutely. I mean, the
challenge the United States has always had as a global power
is--and we're oceans away usually from where the threat is, and
so Air Mobility Command is absolutely crucial in getting us to
the theater.
What has changed is the power projection that we have done
in the past and the last major one was in Iraq in 2003. The
next one we have to do, if it is to the Indo-Pacific region, it
will be contested. In other words, they will cyberattack the
deployment of it and they will kinetically attack it as well.
So a strategic deployment being made that is uncontested if
the foe is China is not going to happen. It will be
dramatically different than anything we have experienced in the
past, going all the way back to World War II when our
deployments were contested. So Air Mobility Command is vital in
being able to do that.
Mr. Bell. And my last question is also for you, General
Keane. In your written testimony you mentioned the size of the
force being too small. With recent attacks on service members'
quality of life from health care and other angles, are you
concerned this will actually hinder the growing--hinder growing
the force?
General Keane. No. I still am convinced once we get the
message out, and the services have done a good job in relooking
themselves in how they talk to the American people, how they
talk to young people, how they talk to influencers, and they've
all proved it.
It's getting the fact out there that there's value added by
service in the military, you're going to grow as a human being.
We're going to strengthen the values that your family or your
religion has given you, and you're going to have a meaningful
experience.
You don't necessarily have to make a career out of it but
you're going to have an experience that will help you as you
move along the pathway in your journey in life. We have done a
better job at communicating with the American people. The
Congress has helped us with compensation, which is also very
important, and we need help also how we take care of our
families. Put that package together, I'm optimistic.
Mr. Bell. Thank you. And it's a privilege to yield my time
back to the vice ranking member.
Mr. Van Orden. The chair now recognizes Mr. Davis.
Mr. Davis. Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.
I want to thank our witnesses today.
Mr. Van Orden. [Off mic.]
Mr. Davis. Okay. We'll yield. We'll yield.
Mr. Van Orden. That's two today.
The chair now recognizes my great friend Mr. Mills from the
state of Florida.
Mr. Mills. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It's good to see you
actually sitting up there. It's good to see one of the oldest
members and the least attractive sitting there as chair. It
makes my heart warm.
Mr. Van Orden. Thank you.
Mr. Mills. General Keane, thanks so much for being here.
Ms. Karlin, thank you so much.
As we look at the lessons learned during the last few years
of warfare, from Ukraine to Yemen, it is clear that rapid
innovations in technology and driving rapid innovations and
tactics small businesses are driving that innovation here in
the private sector, and in the commercial sector especially
every single day they face both high barriers to entry into the
defense sector.
Dr. Karlin, there is a wide divide between the agility of
offices like the DIU and service innovation labs. What
recommendations do you have to export those innovations to the
conventional acquisition frameworks?
Dr. Karlin. Thank you, Congressman.
Absolutely there are these barriers to entry and we see
that not least because of this massive consolidation that
happened with our defense industry base.
So a couple companies got really, really good at figuring
out how to crack the code of the Department of Defense. A whole
bunch of others, as you know, have not been able to.
I think we have started to see some good change over the
last few years. In particular, you highlight DIU [Defense
Innovation Unit] as one really good case study. We're starting
to see players come into the defense business who wouldn't
naturally be there and who are more comfortable being there as
well.
I think one of the things really to look hard at is how to
lower those barriers to entry through rapid acquisition
systems, right--having these authorities where folks are able
to participate in Department of Defense contracts but not have
to throw all of their kind of focus towards it.
And, of course, on-time appropriations plays an important
role for particularly the small businesses.
Mr. Mills. And as we know, unfortunately, the State
Department director of defense trade controls other, whether
it's DSP-5 export approval, DSP-83s to actually engage in the
activities of trying to work with other developing nations and
also allies have been completely hamstrung and it's been a very
delayed process to include we need real procurement reform when
it comes to the overall process, updating the DFAR [Defense
Federal Acquisition Regulation], but also just becoming more
competitive in the market. And so I think that's really
important as we look at our economic challenges.
General Keane, thank you so much for the decades and
decades of service that you've given this nation. You know, one
of my growing concerns right now when we look at our armed
forces is the declining recruitment numbers.
When we talk of the 42,000 deficit, when we talk about the
8,600 who was, in my personal opinion, unconstitutionally
purged, do you see that these recruitment challenges could pose
greater threats for us from a national security perspective,
moving forward?
General Keane. No, I don't, to be quite frank about it. All
the services have made their recruiting objectives this year. I
think they figured out how to better communicate effectively to
the American people and to young people who may consider a
service opportunity and they've, you know, relooked themselves
as well.
So the changes have been made and we did this about 20
years ago when we had a recruiting problem and within a couple
of years we solved it.
Certainly, the economy always impacts it, but it was more
internal than anything else, and the services are there. I know
for a fact the Army will likely exceed rather significantly its
recruiting objective coming in 2025. I don't--can't speak to
the other services.
Mr. Mills. Well, I agree with that.
General Keane. I think we're overstating the recruiting
problem. We did have it for two years plus. I think it's
essentially--are we still going to have some challenges?
Of course. We got to work hard at it. But I think all the
services have learned the lesson the Marine Corps taught us.
They put their best people in it.
Mr. Mills. Well, I would just add to that--I would just add
to that, General Keane, that while I respect what you're having
to say, I disagree that recruitment deficits are not a
potential national security threat as we move forward if our
retention levels do not maintain, and especially when you think
about quality of life improvements in MILCON-VA [military
construction-veterans affairs] that needs to be guaranteed for
our soldiers and for their spouses, to say things like not just
giving you childcare twice a week but five times a week so that
the spouse can have another career, a pathway to transition,
but also the idea that you shouldn't work at Chick-Fil-A full
time 40 hours a week and make more than a service member
risking his life.
I think that those are also the recruitment challenges but
also the things like DEI which was actually causing people to
be more concerned because it wasn't about diversity, equity and
inclusion.
It needs to be about increased lethality, readiness, and
being properly equipped, the way it was when I was in the Army
when it was be all you can be--when it was when I was in the
military and looking at the service groups when it was years in
Iraq, years in Afghanistan that I served, in Kosovo, in other
locations.
That, in my opinion--while I agree with you on one thing
that you definitely said which is that the 2025 recruitment
numbers I believe will be very strong but that's because of the
incoming administration and because of the Secretary of Defense
who's prioritizing the war fighter.
With that, I yield.
Mr. Van Orden. The gentleman yields back.
The chair now actually recognizes Mr. Davis, my friend from
North Carolina.
Mr. Davis. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
To the witnesses, thank you so much for being with us today
as we're kicking off the 119th.
Dr. Karlin and General Keane, we really appreciate it. And
to the chair, thank you. You made it to the finish line,
obviously, with some amazing staff.
Mr. Van Orden. Well, thank you very much. The gentleman
yields back.
I too would like to thank you very much for your very
thoughtful testimony. I think we agree on a lot and we disagree
on some, and that's okay as long as we continue to understand
that the priority of the Department of Defense must remain
lethality and readiness, we can move on from there.
So, again, with that, this hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 1:12 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]
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A P P E N D I X
February 12, 2025
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February 12, 2025
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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING
February 12, 2024
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RESPONSE TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. WILSON
Mr. Wilson. In 2012, the U.S. and Japan made an agreement to move
9,000 Marines from Okinawa, 4,000 of whom which will probably end up
being stationed in Guam. In December of last year, the first batch of
one hundred Marines began the move to Camp Blaz. Last month, the Marine
Corps Commandant Gen. Eric Smith stated this move is moving us in the
wrong direction.
With the current environment in the region, do you share the same
assessment that the move from Okinawa to Guam impacts our readiness to
combat a threat in the Indo-Pacific?
General Keane. I most certainly do agree with Gen Smith that with
the growing PRC threat in the Pacific this movement of Marines no
longer serves U.S. security interests.
Mr. Wilson. In your testimony you stated the importance for
investment in critical areas such as nuclear modernization. I'm happy
to represent the Savannah River Site where they're working around the
clock to bring the Savannah River Plutonium Production Facility online
as close to 2030 as possible.
If the United States fails to invest in its nuclear arsenal, can
you explain the impact this would have on our national security?
Dr. Karlin. America's nuclear weapons capability is vital to its
national security and defense. Modernizing these weapons is crucial for
safety reasons and for maintaining a credible deterrent.
Mr. Wilson. In recent years we have seen Russia, China, North
Korea, and Iran have built closer ties. Iran and China are assisting.
Do you believe that if China were to attempt an invasion of Taiwan,
other members of the ``Axis of Evil'' would provide support? Ex.
Military, economical, technological.
Dr. Karlin. The relationship between and among Russia, China, Iran,
and North Korea has shapeshifted in recent years. All three countries
have supported Russia to some extent in its war on Ukraine. The limits
and ceilings of these relationships are not clear, although notably,
only North Korean troops have been sent to fight on the battlefield in
support of Russia. Given these increasingly tight relationships, it is
indeed conceivable that one-or more-of these countries could support
China in a potential invasion of Taiwan. The next National Defense
Strategy should explore this question by examining what each country
might have to offer China and that capital's willingness to provide
that support.
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RESPONSE TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MS. TOKUDA
Ms. Tokuda. For years, China has been making major inroads in this
region, peeling away Taiwan's diplomatic allies and deepening security
relationships that pose major risks to our posture and operations. Last
year, China regained its place as the second-largest bilateral donor to
the Pacific Islands, surpassing the United States yet again. Just this
week, the Cook Islands is expected to sign a partnership agreement with
China. What are some of the military risks of suspending and possibly
even shutting down our foreign assistance programs in the Pacific
Islands that help drive our relationships in this region? Do you see
similar problems playing out in other parts of the world?
General Keane. Outreach to allies and partners in the Pacific is
key to deterring the PRC's aggression. Reducing this outreach to the
Pacific Islands due to a lack of funding is a strategic mistake that
must be corrected.
Ms. Tokuda. For years, China has been making major inroads in this
region, peeling away Taiwan's diplomatic allies and deepening security
relationships that pose major risks to our posture and operations. Last
year, China regained its place as the second-largest bilateral donor to
the Pacific Islands, surpassing the United States yet again. Just this
week, the Cook Islands is expected to sign a partnership agreement with
China. What are some of the military risks of suspending and possibly
even shutting down our foreign assistance programs in the Pacific
Islands that help drive our relationships in this region? Do you see
similar problems playing out in other parts of the world?
Dr. Karlin. If the United States does not fill vacuums in strategic
locations like the Pacific Islands, then China very much may choose to
do so. These relationships could begin with development or economic
assistance and increase to military basing rights, which would present
an increasingly dangerous and threatening operating environment in the
Indo-Pacific for the U.S. military.
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