[House Hearing, 111 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
RISE OF THE DRONES: UNMANNED SYSTEMS AND THE FUTURE OF WAR
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY
AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS
of the
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT
AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
MARCH 23, 2010
__________
Serial No. 111-118
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
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Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov
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COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York, Chairman
PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania DARRELL E. ISSA, California
CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York DAN BURTON, Indiana
ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland JOHN L. MICA, Florida
DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana
JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee
WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio
DIANE E. WATSON, California LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia
STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts PATRICK T. McHENRY, North Carolina
JIM COOPER, Tennessee BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California
GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia JIM JORDAN, Ohio
MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois JEFF FLAKE, Arizona
MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska
ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah
Columbia AARON SCHOCK, Illinois
PATRICK J. KENNEDY, Rhode Island BLAINE LUETKEMEYER, Missouri
DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois ANH ``JOSEPH'' CAO, Louisiana
CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland
HENRY CUELLAR, Texas
PAUL W. HODES, New Hampshire
CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut
PETER WELCH, Vermont
BILL FOSTER, Illinois
JACKIE SPEIER, California
STEVE DRIEHAUS, Ohio
JUDY CHU, California
Ron Stroman, Staff Director
Michael McCarthy, Deputy Staff Director
Carla Hultberg, Chief Clerk
Larry Brady, Minority Staff Director
Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs
JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts, Chairman
CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York JEFF FLAKE, Arizona
PATRICK J. KENNEDY, Rhode Island DAN BURTON, Indiana
CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland JOHN L. MICA, Florida
PAUL W. HODES, New Hampshire JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee
CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio
PETER WELCH, Vermont LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia
BILL FOSTER, Illinois PATRICK T. McHENRY, North Carolina
STEVE DRIEHAUS, Ohio JIM JORDAN, Ohio
STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska
MIKE QUIGELY, Illinois BLAINE LUETKEMEYER, Missouri
JUDY CHU, California
Andrew Wright, Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on March 23, 2010................................... 1
Statement of:
Singer, Peter W., director, 21st Century Defense Initiative,
the Brookings Institution; Ed Barrett, director of
research, Stockdale Center for Ethical Leadership, U.S.
Naval Academy; Kenneth Anderson, professor, Washington
College of Law, American University; John Jackson,
professor of Unmanned Systems, U.S. Naval War College; and
Michael Fagan, chair, Unmanned Aerial Systems Advocacy
Committee, Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems
International.............................................. 6
Anderson, Kenneth........................................ 19
Barrett, Ed.............................................. 13
Fagan, Michael........................................... 53
Jackson, John............................................ 34
Singer, Peter W.......................................... 6
Sullivan, Michael J., Director, Acquisition and Sourcing
Management, U.S. Government Accountability Office; Dyke
Weatherington, Deputy, Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Planning
Taskforce, Office of the Under Secretary for Acquisition,
Technology and Logistics, U.S. Department of Defense; and
Kevin Wolf, Assistant Secretary for Export Administration,
Bureau of Industry and Security, U.S. Department of
Commerce................................................... 77
Sullivan, Michael J...................................... 77
Weatherington, Dyke...................................... 99
Wolf, Kevin.............................................. 113
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Anderson, Kenneth, professor, Washington College of Law,
American University, prepared statement of................. 21
Barrett, Ed, director of research, Stockdale Center for
Ethical Leadership, U.S. Naval Academy, prepared statement
of......................................................... 16
Fagan, Michael, chair, Unmanned Aerial Systems Advocacy
Committee, Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems
International, prepared statement of....................... 55
Jackson, John, professor of Unmanned Systems, U.S. Naval War
College, prepared statement of............................. 37
Singer, Peter W., director, 21st Century Defense Initiative,
the Brookings Institution, prepared statement of........... 9
Sullivan, Michael J., Director, Acquisition and Sourcing
Management, U.S. Government Accountability Office, prepared
statement of............................................... 79
Weatherington, Dyke, Deputy, Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Planning
Taskforce, Office of the Under Secretary for Acquisition,
Technology and Logistics, U.S. Department of Defense,
prepared statement of...................................... 101
Wolf, Kevin, Assistant Secretary for Export Administration,
Bureau of Industry and Security, U.S. Department of
Commerce, prepared statement of............................ 115
RISE OF THE DRONES: UNMANNED SYSTEMS AND THE FUTURE OF WAR
----------
TUESDAY, MARCH 23, 2010
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign
Affairs,
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2 p.m. in room
2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. John F. Tierney
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Tierney, Flake, Foster,
Luetkemeyer, and Quigley.
Staff present: Andy Wright, staff director; Bronwen De
Sena, intern; Talia Dubovi, counsel; Elliot Gillerman, clerk;
Linda Good, deputy clerk; Carla Hultberg, chief clerk; LaToya
King, fellow; Adam Fromm, minority chief clerk and Member
liaison; Tom Alexander, minority senior counsel; Christopher
Bright, minority senior professional staff member; and Renee
Hayes, minority Defense fellow.
Mr. Tierney. A quorum being present, the Subcommittee on
National Security and Foreign Affairs' hearing entitled, ``Rise
of the Drones: Unmanned Systems and the Future of War,'' will
come to order.
I ask unanimous consent that only the chairman and ranking
member of the subcommittee be allowed to make opening
statements.
Without objection, so ordered.
I ask unanimous consent that the hearing record be kept
open for 5 business days so that all members of the
subcommittee be allowed to submit a written statement for the
record.
Without objection, so ordered.
Good afternoon. It is nice to see all of you here. I
apologize that I was a bit late, and Mr. Flake and I didn't
have much time to spend with you before you came, but we think
we will get fully acquainted through your testimony and your
comments on that in the question and answer period. We
certainly hope that is the case.
Our hearing today introduces a new topic to the
subcommittee, the rise of unmanned systems and their
implications for U.S. national security. Over the last decade,
the number of unmanned systems and their applications has grown
rapidly. So, too, has the number of operational, political and
legal questions associated with the technology.
To illustrate the wide variety of unmanned systems and some
of their applications, we wanted to share some short video
clips or unmanned systems ranging from the harmless to the
lethal. The first system is clearly on the harmless side of the
spectrum.
[Video shown.]
Mr. Tierney. I know from first-hand experience that was
made in my district, the I-Robot, of course, not the cat, the
robot is over there. [Laughter.]
Video two shows that other systems provide support to our
warfighters. This particular slide is the Ripsaw MS-1, a remote
gun tank that can travel at speeds of up to 60 miles per hour
and can carry a payload of up to 2,000 pounds. As you will see,
it can also be used to pull vehicles and other items that are
potential security risks.
[Video shown.]
Mr. Tierney. Video three is known as the Big Dog, a four-
legged robot that can walk through sand, snow and ice while
carrying up to 340 pounds on its back and serving as a robotic
pack mule. As you will see, it can retain its balance on uneven
surfaces and can handle rough terrain.
[Video shown.]
Mr. Tierney. Looks like a dance class gone bad. [Laughter.]
And video four is the Raven UAV, used primarily for
surveillance. And as you will see, it is hand-launched and
remote-controlled from the field. The editor of a magazine
recently built a homemade version of the Raven for around
$1,000.
[Video shown.]
Mr. Tierney. That is, of course, what you are seeing from
the Raven's equipment. That isn't the Raven making that buzzing
noise, either. [Laughter.]
It basically means that we are going to have votes in a
short while and what we will do is we will probably finish our
opening remarks and break, hopefully briefly, for a couple of
votes and come back. We apologize. We can probably expect that
to happen a little bit throughout the afternoon.
The last and final clip shows the most lethal side of
unmanned systems. Some of you may be familiar with footage
similar to this. This is unclassified footage from an Army
unmanned aerial vehicle engaging combatants in Iraq.
[Video shown.]
Mr. Tierney. Growing demand for and the reliance on
unmanned systems has serious implications both on and off the
battlefield. As the United States is engaged in two wars
abroad, unmanned systems, particularly unmanned aerial
vehicles, have become a centerpiece of that war effort.
In recent years, the Department of Defense's UAV inventory
has rapidly grown in size, from 167 in 2002 to over 7,000
today. Last year for the first time, the U.S. Air Force trained
more unmanned pilots than traditional fighter pilots.
Some express no doubt that unmanned systems have been a
boost to U.S. war efforts in the Middle East and South Asia.
CIA Director Leon Panetta said last May, ``Drone strikes are
the only game in town in terms of confronting or trying to
disrupt the Al Qaeda leadership.'' Media reports over the last
year indicating that the top two leaders of the Pakistani
Taliban were killed by drone strikes also are used to support
that argument.
But some critics argue that drone strikes are unethical at
best and counterproductive at worst. They point to the
reportedly high rate of civilian casualties, which has been
calculated by the New America Foundation to be around 32
percent, and argue that the strikes do more to stoke anti-
Americanism than they do to weaken our enemies. A quick skim of
any Pakistani newspaper provides some evidence to support this
theory.
This is particularly relevant in the era of
counterinsurgency doctrine, the central tenet of which is first
do no harm. It also may be the case that we are fighting wars
with modern technology under an antiquated set of laws. For
example, if the United States uses unmanned weapons systems,
does that require an official declaration of war or an
authorization for the use of force? Do the Geneva Conventions,
written in 1949, govern the prosecution of an unmanned war? Who
is considered in lawful combat in unmanned war, the Air Force
pilot flying a Predator from thousands of miles away in Nevada?
Or the civilian contractor servicing it on the airstrip in
Afghanistan?
If unmanned systems are changing the way that we train our
military personnel, so too should they change the way that we
respond to the stress of combat. We already know that unmanned
pilots are showing signs of equal or greater stress from combat
compared to traditional pilots. The stress of fighting a war
thousands of miles away then minutes later joining your family
at the dinner table presents mental health challenges that must
be addressed.
On the domestic front, manufacturers have already developed
a number of unmanned commercial products and are likely to find
more applications for this technology in the future. From
vacuum cleaners to crop dusters, traditional items that require
manual operation are rapidly being rendered obsolete by
unmanned technology. UAVs are now being used for environmental
monitoring, particularly in hard to reach places like the North
Pole. Last fall, the University of North Dakota chartered a 4-
year degree program in UAV piloting.
These trends are already forcing us to ask new questions
about domestic air and space regulation. Who is allowed to own
unmanned systems? And where are they allowed to operate?
Additionally, as more law enforcement and border security
services come to use unmanned systems, important questions
continue to emerge about the protection of privacy. As this
technology develops and becomes more commercially available, we
must implement adequate measures to prevent it from falling
into the wrong hands. At least 40 other countries are currently
developing unmanned systems technology, including Iran, Russia
and China.
We already know that during the Israeli-Lebanon war in
2006, Hezbollah deployed three surveillance UAVs that it
acquired from Iran. A recent Air Force study concluded that a
UAV is an ideal platform for a chemical or biological terrorist
attack. As Peter Singer, one of our witnesses today, wrote
recently in Newsweek, ``For less than $50,000, a few amateurs
could shut down Manhattan.''
We have to ensure that the appropriate government agencies
are coordinating their efforts to prevent this technology from
proliferating and falling into the wrong hands, and also to
ensure that we have adequate homeland security measures to
respond to those threats.
And finally, as the new technology continues to develop, we
must ensure that there are adequate measures to prevent waste,
fraud and abuse in the acquisition process. A 2009 study by the
U.S. Government Accountability Office, the author of which we
will hear from today, reported significant cost growth,
schedule delays and performance shortfalls in DOD's UAV
acquisition process. This analysis raises serious concerns and
I look forward to learning more on this from both the
Government Accountability Office and the Department of Defense
witnesses appearing before us.
These are some of the questions that we will begin to
answer at this hearing. Surely, we are not going to have a
conclusion to all of those questions during this afternoon's
single day of conversation. But I hope that this hearing serves
as a thorough introduction to the topic for the purpose of
educating and informing our Members, as well as the American
public.
With that, I would like to defer to Mr. Flake for his
opening remarks.
Mr. Flake. I thank the chairman. I wish we had a couple of
drones that could go and vote for us so we wouldn't have to go
and then come back, but I am afraid we have to do it ourselves.
To many, the increased number of suspected terrorists
killed between 2008 and 2009 indicates that the Obama
administration has used UAV technology with great success. At
the same time, while DOD is carrying out UAV missions, others
in the administration are disputing the legality of their own
tactics and avoiding taking personal responsibility for them.
Such discord within the administration could open the door
to a number of legal questions and perhaps put an entire arm of
our military strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan at risk. I am
hopeful that today's hearing will shed some light on this, and
we can see a way forward.
And I thank the chairman for holding the hearing.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you.
With that, we will recess for probably about a half hour,
if the witnesses want to get a cold drink or something while we
are doing that, and we should be back about quarter to or maybe
just a little bit after that.
Thank you.
[Recess.]
Mr. Tierney. Well, thank you for your patience and your
forbearance. The subcommittee will now receive testimony from
the first panel before us today. I would like to introduce them
across the board before we get started, and then we will go to
the 5-minutes for each.
Dr. Peter W. Singer is a senior fellow and director of the
21st Century Defense Initiative at the Brookings Institution.
His work there focuses on the future of war, current U.S.
defense needs, and the future of the U.S. defense system. Dr.
Singer has published several books and articles, including most
recently, Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict
in the 21st Century.
And I know it is not exactly getting a recommendation from
Oprah, but I have read it, in the process of reading it, and it
is a good read and well worth doing.
He was recently named by Foreign Policy Magazine as 1 of
the top 100 global thinkers of 2009. Dr. Singer received a B.A.
from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University and a
Ph.D. from Harvard University.
Dr. Edward Barrett is the director of research at the U.S.
Naval Academy's Stockdale Center for Ethical Leadership, and a
professor in the Department of Leadership, Ethics and Law. He
joined the Naval Academy in 2006 after returning from active
duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. He currently serves in the U.S.
Air Force Reserve.
Dr. Barrett holds a B.S. from the University of Notre Dame
and a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago.
Mr. Kenneth Anderson is a professor at the Washington
College of Law at American University and a research fellow at
Stanford University's Hoover Institution. He is an authority on
international human rights, war, armed conflict and terrorism.
Mr. Anderson has previously served on the board of directors of
America's Watch, the precursor to Human Rights Watch, and is
the Founder and former Director of the Human Rights Watch Arms
Division.
He holds a B.A. from UCLA and a J.D. from Harvard
University.
Mr. John Jackson is a professor of Unmanned Systems at the
U.S. Naval War College where he is currently teaching a self-
designed course entitled, ``Case Studies in Technology and
Warfare: Unmanned Systems.'' Mr. Jackson served for 27 years in
the U.S. Navy as a supply and logistics specialists before
retiring with the rank of Captain. An award-winning author, he
has extensively studied history and operational uses of modern
aircraft.
He holds degrees from Providence College and Salve Regina
University, where he is currently a Ph.D. candidate.
And Mr. Michael Fagan is the chair of the Unmanned Systems
Advocacy Committee for the Association for Unmanned Vehicle
Systems International. He served for 26 years in the U.S.
Marine Corps, including time as a Requirements Officer for
Unmanned Aircraft, before retiring as a Colonel and Chief of
Staff of the Defense Airborne Reconnaissance Office. He
currently serves as the chief operating officer of Logos
Technologies.
He holds a B.S. from Indiana University and an M.S. from
the University of Southern California.
Again, I want to thank all of the witnesses for making
themselves available today and sharing with us their expertise.
It is the policy of this subcommittee to swear in the
witnesses before they testify. I ask all of you to please stand
and raise your right hands.
Thank you.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Tierney. The record will please acknowledge that all of
the witnesses answered in the affirmative.
As I think you already know, all of your written testimony
will be entered in the record by unanimous consent. We like to
allocate 5 minutes, if we can, for people to generalize their
testimony so we can get to the question and answer period. The
green light will be on. When there is 1 minute remaining, the
amber light will go on. And when the 5-minutes is up, the red
light will go on, at which point we would like you to try to
wind down if you are not already at that point so we can move
to the other witnesses and then questions.
Dr. Singer, we will start with you, please.
STATEMENTS OF PETER W. SINGER, DIRECTOR, 21ST CENTURY DEFENSE
INITIATIVE, THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION; ED BARRETT, DIRECTOR OF
RESEARCH, STOCKDALE CENTER FOR ETHICAL LEADERSHIP, U.S. NAVAL
ACADEMY; KENNETH ANDERSON, PROFESSOR, WASHINGTON COLLEGE OF
LAW, AMERICAN UNIVERSITY; JOHN JACKSON, PROFESSOR OF UNMANNED
SYSTEMS, U.S. NAVAL WAR COLLEGE; AND MICHAEL FAGAN, CHAIR,
UNMANNED AERIAL SYSTEMS ADVOCACY COMMITTEE, ASSOCIATION FOR
UNMANNED VEHICLE SYSTEMS INTERNATIONAL
STATEMENT OF PETER W. SINGER
Dr. Singer. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and members
of the committee, for the opportunity to testify today. It is
an honor to be part of this important discussion on an issue
that is not only crucial to national security, but often
crucially misunderstood.
As background, I work at the Brookings Institution where I
lead our research and analysis on 21st century defense issues.
Several years ago, I began to be quite interested in the issues
of the greater use of robotics in our human wars. And so I set
out on a journey to interview the variety of actors in this
world, everything from the scientists who were building these
machines to the science fiction authors who advised the
military, to those in the military, everything from the 19 year
old operators who were controlling machines 7,000 miles away,
all the way up to the four star Generals that command them.
I was also interested in the politics of this, so
interviews with, for example, White House advisers and civilian
service secretaries.
Finally, the opposite side of the coin, what do insurgents
think about this? What do news editors around the Middle East
think about all of this? And then finally the right and wrong
and the legal and ethical questions of this, so interviews with
military lawyers, but also people at groups like Human Rights
Watch.
And the book, Wired for War, gathers these stories
together, but I think it also illustrates some of the dilemmas
and questions that are emerging from this field.
And so what I would like to do today is briefly walk
through what I see some of the key issues here.
The first is to pull back in this important domain. When
U.S. forces invaded Iraq in 2003, we had a handful of unmanned
systems in the air. We now have over 7,000. On the ground, the
invasion force had zero. We now have over 12,000 in the U.S.
military inventory.
But we need to remember that while these technologies often
look like science fiction, they are only the first generation.
They are the equivalent of the Model T Ford or the Wright
Brothers Flyer. And the historic parallels that people make to
where we are right now I think are quite instructive. Some
scientists parallel where we are with unmanned systems to where
we were with horseless carriages back in 1909 or 1910. Many in
the military, particularly the Air Force, make the comparison
to the airplane back in 1918. Others in commerce, for example,
Bill Gates of Microsoft, has said we are around where we were
with computers back in 1980. Still others make the comparison
to the atomic bomb in the late 1940's.
The point here is that these are issues. These are all
technologies that had ripple effects on our world, in
everything from our politics to our laws to our commerce to our
ethics. And these were all technologies that created deep
questions for us in the area of the creation of law and
oversight. And that is why I think it is very important for
this committee, that they are dealing with it.
So what do I see as some of the key questions moving
forward? The first is the question of where the unmanned
military is headed. We have gone from barely using robotics to
using thousands of them in a bureaucratic blink of an eye. But
as one U.S. Air Force Captain put it to me out in CENTCOM, the
problem is, ``It is not `let's think this better.' It is `only
give me more'.''
So the sort of issues that we are wrestling with within
this bucket are questions like: What are the proper doctrines
that we should choose? What are the structures and
organizations that we should build around these systems? How do
we maintain competition and experimentation in an emerging
sector in the defense industrial base?
How do we ensure digital systems security so that
insurgents in Iraq can't access our information using $30
software that they bought off the Internet? How do we better
support the men and women who are operating them, who may not
be in the physical war zone, but are experiencing an entirely
new type of combat stress? And finally, what is the division of
warrior and civilian in this space? That is, if this area is
the future of the force, what does it mean that, for example,
75 percent of the maintenance of our Predator fleet has been
outsourced to private companies, while Army systems operating
in Iraq have been described as, government-owned, contractor-
operated?
The second issue area that we have to wrestle with is, are
we engaged in three wars? Our unmanned systems have carried out
119 known air strikes into Pakistan, which is about triple the
number we did with manned bombers in the opening round of the
Kosovo War. But Congress has not had a debate about whether to
authorize or disapprove of it.
And so the question is, why do we not view it as a war? Is
it because the strikes are being carried out by the CIA and not
by the military, and thus not following the same lines of
authority and authorization? Or is it because the impact on the
public is viewed as costless?
And then related to this is the issue of what is the impact
on the broader war of ideas, not just how it is being
interpreted here in the United States, but how is it being
interpreted abroad.
The next issue bucket is the question of law. Can our 20th
century laws of war keep up with our 21st century technologies?
Robotics don't remove the human from decisionmaking, but they
do move that human role geographically and chronologically.
That is, decisions that determine a machine's action in the
here and now may be made by an operator several thousand miles
away or by a designer years ago, but the prevailing laws of war
are from the 1940's.
This also extends to the domestic side. It is not just an
issue of accountability, but the question of regulation. It is
not just the military that is using these systems, but for
example, the Department of Homeland Security. In turn, we have
seen civilian border patrols or vigilante groups operating
their own unmanned systems in the air. Criminals have started
to use them to scout out targets.
So as the FAA debates the opening up of the air space, we
also have broad issues of who can utilize these systems, which
is a legal issue. But it also raises long-term questions that I
remember discussing with a Federal District Court Judge. They
believed it will reach the Supreme Court in terms of issues of
probable cause and privacy.
And the final question area that I would raise is: How can
we keep America from going the way of Commodore Computers? If
this is a growing industry along the lines of computers or
automobiles, why does the United States not have a national
robotics strategy? What does it mean for us moving forward that
43 other nations are also building, buying and utilizing
military robotics? How do we stay ahead in this game?
And then we may even need to think more broadly about this.
And what direction does the state of the American manufacturing
economy, as well as the state of science and mathematics
education in our schools have us headed? Or another way of
putting this is: What does it mean to deploy more and more
soldiers, so to speak, whose hardware increasingly says ``made
in China'' on the back of it, and whose software is
increasingly written by someone sitting in a place like India.
And I would end on this. These questions move us into lots
of different directions, but I think within them we find the
policy answers. That is, we may debate the specifics of the
answers, but almost all of them extend from a gap of some sort
in our policy as the technology races ahead of our
institutions.
And so, for that I thank you for the opportunity to be part
of this discussion today.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Singer follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Tierney. Thank you. That gives us a lot to think about.
Dr. Barrett.
STATEMENT OF ED BARRETT
Dr. Barrett. Mr. Chairman and subcommittee members, thank
you for inviting me to speak today.
Speaking as a civilian academic, I will first offer some
reflections on these systems' ethical advantages and
challenges, and then briefly discuss related educational
initiatives at the Naval Academy.
The goals animating the development and use of unmanned
platforms are ethically commendable. While sometimes excoriated
as merely prudential, effectiveness and efficiency are
fundamentally moral imperatives. Constituted and supported by
its citizen taxpayers, the liberal democratic state is morally
obligated to effectively defend their human rights with their
limited resources.
Additionally, I would argue that unmanned systems are
consistent with a society's duty to avoid unnecessary risks to
its combatants, a duty that sparked a recent controversy over
up-armored vehicles.
But these rights and corresponding duties must be weighed
against other ethical considerations. The venerable just war
criteria that now undergird international law specify both pre-
war and in-war imperatives. To be permissible, war must be the
last resort available to a state intending to pursue a just
cause, and circumstances must indicate a reasonable chance of
succeeding in a proportionate manner.
Once in war, harms must be necessary and proportionate vis-
a-vis uninvolved civilians who maintain their right not to be
harmed. Soldiers incur additional risks to avoid foreseeable
harm to innocents and assign greater weight to this harm.
In this normative context, I will highlight four challenges
generated by unmanned systems. First, they could encourage
unjust wars. War cost reductions, of course, allow states to
more readily pursue just causes. But favorable alterations to
pre-war proportionality calculations could also reduce the
rigor with which nonviolent alternatives are pursued and thus
encourage unnecessary and therefore unjust-wars.
Additionally, an echoing concern about private security
firms and cyber-attack capabilities, these less visible weapons
could facilitate the circumvention of legitimate authority and
pursuit of unjust causes.
While these moral hazards do not require us to maximize war
costs and minimize unmanned systems, they do require efforts to
better inform and monitor national security decisionmakers.
Second, once in war, remote controlled systems are said to
induce unnecessary and disproportionate harm, especially to
civilians. The argument assumes that soldiers engaged in such
virtual warfare are less situationally aware and also less
restrained because of emotional detachment. However,
accumulating data points in the opposite direction, sensor
improvements, lack of fear-induced haste, reduced anger levels
and force protection anxieties, and crystal clarity about
strike damage all combine to actually enhance awareness and
restraint.
If true, this data suggests that it would be unethical not
to use remote-controlled systems unless mitigating factors
pertained.
This qualification brings us to a third ethical
consideration. Reasonable chance of success in
counterinsurgency and stability operations mentioned earlier,
where indigenous perceptions are crucial, requires the
judicious use of unmanned systems. Perceptions that these
weapons are less discriminate or are indicative of flawed
characters or tepid commitments can undermine our efforts
unless accompanied by adjustments to footprints and perceptions
themselves.
Also, ground robots are incapable of developing necessary
personal relationships with local citizens. Again, these
arguments suggest the need for prudent, not unreflective,
limitations.
But the use of autonomous strike systems, my fourth and
final ethical consideration, requires more caution. Again,
effectiveness and efficiency would be important benefits. Truly
robotic air, sea and ground capabilities would sense, decide
and act more quickly than human beings. In an anti-access
environment, a long range system capable of independently
navigating to identifying and striking mobile targets would
bolster conventional extended deterrence. And the need to
merely monitor, not control, these systems would reduce
personnel costs.
But exactly what would these autonomous systems sense,
decide and do? Would they adequately distinguish combatants
from illegitimate targets such as bystanding civilians and
surrendering or injured soldiers, a task complicated by
countermeasure requirements? Would they adequately, at least as
well as humans, comply with necessity and proportionality
imperatives?
Discouraging these possible in bello errors would require
the elusive ability to credibly attribute bad results to a
culprit, designers, producers, acquisition personnel,
commanders, users, and perhaps even robots themselves. And if
the notion of robots' responsibility ever becomes meaningful,
would a self-conscious and wilful machine choose its own ends
and even be considered a person with rights?
While robotic personhood is a titillating idea, near-term
possibilities suggest a focus on the first few concerns.
Computer scientist Ron Arkin is working assiduously to develop
adequately discriminating and ethical robots with
responsibility attribution capabilities, and I would not bet
against him.
But even then, I would advise an incremental approach
similar to that used with remote controlled systems:
intelligence missions first, strike missions later. Given the
complexity involved, I would also restrict initial strike
missions to non-lethal weapons and combatant-only areas.
Permission-seeking and override features should also be
included.
One possible exception to this non-lethal recommendation
would involve autonomous systems that target submarines,
systems which only would have to identify friendly combatants,
enemy combatants, and perhaps whales.
In closing, I want to assure the subcommittee that military
educators are preparing military operators and staffers to
think ethically about these and other emerging technologies. At
the Naval Academy, the core ethics course taken by every second
year midshipman covers these issues and their theoretical
foundations. Last year, Dr. Singer delivered an endowed lecture
to the entire second year class.
The Department of Leadership, Ethics and Law offers an
elective dedicated to emerging military technologies, including
robotics. History and engineering courses that address these
issues include history of technology, advanced topics in
robotics, emerging technologies, and systems engineering.
In April, 300 students in this last class will witness a
debate between Ron Arkin and his less sanguine critic, Peter
Asaro. And also in April, the Stockdale Center, for whom I
work, the Academy's ethics and military policy think tank, will
host a 2-day conference on the ethical ramifications of
emerging military technologies attended by instructors from all
U.S. service academies, staff colleges and war colleges, and
perhaps by a few congressional staffers who were invited.
Mr. Chairman and subcommittee members, thank you for the
opportunity to address these issues and I look forward to your
questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Barrett follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Tierney. Thank you. At first, I thought you were going
to have a great debate between yourself on the one hand and on
the other hand, but you rounded it out pretty well at the end,
and I appreciate that.
Now, we have two professors that can audition for talking
to the entire sophomore class at the Academy someday.
Professor Anderson.
STATEMENT OF KENNETH ANDERSON
Mr. Anderson. Thank you. Mr. Chairman and subcommittee
members, thank you very much for having me here with these
other very, very distinguished panelists.
I want to actually speak perhaps more politically and more
practically than would be appropriate. And let me say that my
background in this is legal and ethical. And here is my
problem. We currently have a situation in which the President,
the Vice President, the Director of the CIA, many, many senior
officials from the President on down have stood up and said
quite correctly, in my view, this is a really great thing we
have with drones here. We are managing to take the fight to the
enemy. This is how we attack Al Qaeda. This is how we actually
engage in counter-terrorism directly against the leaders of Al
Qaeda. And we think this is great.
I think that the Vice President is a little bit like a sort
of father looking over his block of Predator chicks. I think
that we are in a situation in which our political leaders and
our policymakers have embraced a strategy, but if you were to
line up their lawyers alongside them and ask their lawyers
about this, I think the answer you would get is, ``Well, we
think it is legal, but we have actually not come to a clear
conclusion, at least not one that we were able to share with
the public.''
Now, if I were the Vice President or the President under
those circumstances, I do not think I would find myself to have
been well served by my lawyers. Lawyers can't be yes men.
Lawyers cannot be in the position of simply saying what their
client wants to hear.
And these are incredibly difficult issues. We are over a
year into the new administration, which has embraced this
policy, and we have yet to find any clear statement by their
lawyers that this program is legal or at least to tell us on
what basis they think that it is legal.
Now, I believe that it is, but there is an increasing
chorus of people in the international legal community and in
other places that believe that it is not. And I think at some
point there is going to be a collision that arises here, and
that question has to be addressed.
So if there is one point on which I would join with the
ACLU, which is now suing the U.S. Government for information on
the legal basis for these programs, it is that I believe at
this point the U.S. Government has to step up and say the basis
on which it thinks it is lawful to do these things.
And that brings me into my second point, which is that most
of the discussion here on this panel and on the subsequent
panel is really directed to the military, and to a large extent
the battlefield use of these weapons systems. That is not
actually what the President and the Vice President are most
thoroughly embracing. When Director Panetta stands up and says,
``This is how we take the fight to the enemy; this is
terrific,'' they are actually not really most of the time
talking about the tactical use of these things in an
Afghanistan battlefield.
They are talking about the ability to target someone in
Pakistan who is well away from any kind of hot battlefield at
that moment. Or we are talking about the ability to take the
fight to people in Yemen or Somalia or potentially other
places.
At that point, 1 millimeter below the surface of this
discussion about technology and drones is actually a discussion
about the proper lawful and ethical role of the CIA and the
covert, or at least clandestine, use of force. I believe that
the Congress needs to be involved in that question. I believe
the answer is that it is lawful under domestic law, certainly,
and I believe it is lawful under international law. But I
believe that question is certainly coming to the fore.
This leads me then to my third point, which is that I
believe that Congress has a role here to play in getting the
administration to do what is in the President's best interest
and getting their lawyers to stand up and articulate the full
extent of the legal defense and the legal rationale that
accounts for the actual use that the President, the Vice
President, the CIA Director and the senior members of
government have embraced.
They have embraced a strategy of using drones that goes
well beyond the battlefield in any sort of active hostile
tactical sense. And if that is the case, then the legal
rationales that the lawyers state had better be adequate to
that task, or else they had better say that it can't be done
and we had better rethink strategy.
I believe that we have not been willing to confront that. I
think the administration, for very understandable political
reasons of many kinds, would prefer not to have that discussion
directly. I also believe that it is one which is going to
happen, whether one likes it or not, and that it would be
better if Congress helped to move that ball forward and move it
in directions that I think would be favorable.
So let me sum up by saying that I think that at the end of
the day, this is actually as much as anything in the area in
which it is truly controversial, and not simply a question
about do we have a better remote standoff platform that isn't
that much different from the jet that has a pilot in it 25
miles away.
When we are talking about this as a genuinely innovative
use at the strategic level, we are no longer so much at this
moment talking about the U.S. military. We are, as much as
anything or more, talking about the CIA and covert action, and
I think that is where the discussion should be.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Members.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Anderson follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Tierney. Thank you.
Professor Jackson.
STATEMENT OF JOHN JACKSON
Mr. Jackson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for this opportunity
to speak on two subjects about which I am passionate: the
education of our dedicated warriors; and the role that unmanned
systems can and should play in future military operations.
I am privileged to currently serve as a professor at the
U.S. Naval War College in Newport, RI. In the fall of 1884,
just over 125 years ago, the College was formed as a place of
original research on all questions relating to war or the
prevention of war. At the time of the College's founding, the
flagship of the U.S. Navy's North Atlantic squadron was USS
Tennessee, a wooden-hulled steamship that also carried 22,000
square feet of sail as backup propulsion system.
The young military officers who comprised the College's
first class spent many long hours considering the ways in which
evolving technologies like wireless communications, electrical
equipment and long range naval guns would change the nature of
warfare at the close of the 19th century.
Now, a century and a quarter later, our students are still
engaged in serious contemplation of the ways in which
technology will alter the battlefield, this time in the form of
a robotics revolution.
To be clear, the Naval War College is not a technical
school and issues of systems design and software architecture
are better suited to the more junior officers attending the
Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA, where innovative
research is being conducted at their Center for Autonomous
Vehicle Research. Rather, the mission of the Naval War College
is to improve the ability of its students to make sound
decisions in highly complex and stressful maritime and joint
environments.
If trends in computer science and robotics engineering
continue, it is conceivable that autonomous systems could soon
be developed that are capable of making life and death
decisions without direct human intervention.
The purpose of the new elective course, Unmanned Systems
and Conflict in the 21st Century, is to provide a forum for the
consideration of the scientific, ethical and operational issues
inherent in the employment of these systems. The course
provides the opportunity for students to study contemporary
cases, trends and issues in the development and use of unmanned
systems. The students study and evaluate these systems from the
tactical, operational and strategic dimensions of war.
In order to provide a more detailed overview of the course,
a copy of the current syllabus has been provided with my
written statement. But in brief, the course looks at the
hardware issues and the land, air and maritime environments,
and provides hands on exposure to state-of-the-art systems. It
then considers the issues of command and control, personnel
management and the legal and ethical issues of employing these
systems in national security situations. Students ultimately
demonstrate their mastery of the subject through research
requiring both written and verbal presentations.
I would like to note that significant support for the
course has been provided by Dr. Peter Singer, the Association
for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International, a number of
manufacturers of unmanned systems, educational institutions
including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, U.S. Army
War College, the Department of Defense, and Navy leaders and
engineers from various program management offices, and the Navy
Undersea Warfare Center.
I have made a number of observations based on my direct
contact with the students who have taken this course and with
other military officers and practitioners I have met at
meetings, symposia and conferences.
These observations: I have found that military officers are
generally well informed about the exponential growth in the use
of unmanned systems throughout the Department of Defense. And
they are highly motivated to probe beyond the headlines and
promotional hype to ascertain the true capabilities and
limitations of current technology.
They have a keen interest in understanding the full range
of research and development activities now underway,
particularly with regard to those systems that could be fielded
in the near term that could impact on their critical
warfighting abilities.
They have an intense desire for knowledge about unmanned
systems, and this is evident across all branches of the Armed
Service, with many government agencies, and it extends to our
international partners and allies.
Students are acutely aware of the ethical and legal issues
associated with the employment of robotic systems in combat. Of
particular concern is the possibility that unmanned robotic
systems could be programmed to make lethal decisions in combat
situations without active human participation in the kill
chain. And they are keenly aware that unmanned and robotic
systems could represent a true revolution in military affairs
that has the potential to alter career fields, training
pipelines and combat tactics. They don't fear the future, but
they are mindful of the need to skillfully manage the impact of
this disruptive technology.
My final observations pertain to the professionalism and
vision of the many people I have encountered while developing
and teaching this course. At Navy headquarters, the Chief of
Naval Operations, Admiral Gary Roughead, has been a strong and
vocal advocate for unmanned systems, about which he has said,
``This is the right way. This is the way we have to go, and it
will make us much, much more effective.''
I believe the message is getting through at all levels of
the Navy, and whenever I have sought information or requested
senior leaders to travel to the College to speak with students
or when I have participated at conferences and symposia, I
received immediate and unqualified support.
Additionally, I have been particularly impressed with the
people I have met from academia, the scientific engineering
communities, and industry, all of whom are working tirelessly
to bring the potential of unmanned systems to fruition.
Finally, I salute our elected officials as represented by
members of this subcommittee who seek to ensure that neither
organizational inertia, nor the tendency to protect the status
quo will keep America from using the drive and genius of her
people to devise and utilize technology as necessary to protect
our citizens, our economy and our Nation.
I am prepared to entertain any questions, and since there
are so many educators on the panel, I will pass out the quiz.
[Laughter.]
[The prepared statement of Mr. Jackson follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Tierney. Thank you very much.
Before we go to Mr. Fagan, just let me tell the folks that
are in the audience here, they are here as the guests of
Congress to participate and listen as citizens to this hearing.
We don't really countenance any disruption, whether that is
speaking out loud in the middle of the hearing or raising signs
or any other kinds of disturbances. So we ask your cooperation
in that regard. If we do that, we will be able to get through
the hearing and hopefully we will all learn something and it
will help us set policy.
Mr. Fagan, your 5 minutes, please.
STATEMENT OF MICHAEL FAGAN
Mr. Fagan. Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee,
thank you for this opportunity to address the subcommittee. My
name is Michael Fagan. I chair the Unmanned Aircraft Systems
Advocacy Committee for the Association for Unmanned Vehicle
Systems International. It is an honor to represent the world's
largest nonprofit organization devoted exclusively to advancing
the unmanned systems community.
While national defense still is the primary use of unmanned
aerial systems, there is much more that these systems can do
and are doing to protect our Nation and its citizens. There are
many technological reasons for the rise in applications of
unmanned systems. I will briefly mention two.
One reason is that detection, surveillance, measurement,
and targeting are more effective when done as close to the
observable as possible. This axiom applies to military systems
as much as it does to everyday life. Small and medium size UAS
put military payloads close to hostile forces for very long
periods of time, while significantly reducing risk to friendly
forces.
Another reason is that size, weight and power [SWAP],
requirements for equivalent data processing and storage
capabilities are decreasing. Last month, for example, the
Office of Naval Research completed the first test flights of
key elements of a 50-pound persistent surveillance imagery
payload for Shadow class UAS. The Shadow's model is the one
closest to me on the table.
A similar operational payload is 1,000 pounds and needs a
commuter size aircraft with a crew to put it in its necessarily
predictable orbit overhead a hostile target. As reduced SWAP
allows more data processing to move on board the UAS, available
datalink bandwidth can transmit to the ground more products
that are more relevant to more analysts over larger areas
compared with the raw data that we send to the ground today.
Additionally, processing on board the unmanned aircraft
automates intelligence analysis tasks and increasingly permits
the same number of analysts to be effective over a greater
area.
UAS technology will continue to increase in the current
U.S. regulatory environment, but it will more efficiently and
effectively provide benefits to warfighters if UAS
manufacturers can more easily and frequently get access to the
air space that permits the research, development, tests and
evaluation flights. AUVSI is in favor of FAA rulemaking that
will enable increased air space access for UAS manufacturers.
UAS manufacturers also depend significantly on engineers
and scientists with relevant educations. It is therefore
equally important to national security that science and
engineering educational institutions have routine access to
national air space. AUVSI is in favor of FAA rulemaking that
permits educational institutions the air space access that they
need to effectively educate the next generation in autonomous
system technologies.
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have certainly driven
demand for these systems, but many Americans are unaware that a
ScanEagle UAS, which is represented by the second model in on
the table, also aided in the successful recovery of Captain
Phillips of the Maersk Alabama off the coast of Somalia last
year. There are many other useful applications of UAS
technology, some of which we saw on the screen earlier, air,
ground and maritime systems that can protect our Nation. Border
patrol, emergency response, wildfire monitoring, civil unrest,
search and rescue, law enforcement, port security, submarine
detection and underwater mine clearance, bulldozers for
clearing land mines and IEDs, and ground robots used for
explosive ordnance disposal are some examples of actual and
potential robotic system missions for air, ground and maritime
systems.
Unmanned systems have been and will continue to be proven
in war, and it is time to prove their heretofore under-
recognized capabilities for increasing the effectiveness of
civil law enforcement and public safety.
Technologies originally developed for warfare also will be
transitioned to commercial operations. There is a growing
demand from the civil sector for use of UAS for precision
farming, tracking shoals of fish, aerial photography and more.
This demand has the potential to drive a rapid advance of the
technology. The United States has an opportunity to be at the
forefront of the research and development of these advanced
systems if it can address regulatory obstacles.
Our industry growth is adversely affected by International
Traffic in Arms regulations for export of certain UAS
technologies, and by a lengthy license approval process by
Political Military Defense Trade Controls. AUVSI is an advocate
for simplified export control regulations and expedited license
approvals for unmanned system technologies.
Our hope is that today's hearing illuminates some of the
ways that unmanned system technologies are changing and could
change modern warfare, increase the safety of our men and women
in the military, law enforcement and public safety, and
strengthen national security at all levels.
AUVSI's over 6,000 members from industry, government and
academia are committed to fostering and promoting unmanned
systems and related technologies.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify. I am happy to
answer any question from you or other members of the
subcommittee.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Fagan follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Tierney. Thank you, Mr. Fagan.
I thank all of you. I am glad we decided this wasn't going
to be our one and only hearing because there is certainly a lot
of food for thought here. It runs the whole range on that.
And I want to thank Dr. Singer before we start. He spent
some time with us actually a while back, helping us think
through some of the questions that we wanted to present and
have the witnesses discuss with us.
Let me start with Professor Anderson if I could. What is
your legal rationale that you say leads you to the conclusion
that the use of the UAVs is legal in context of sending them
over a country like Sudan or Yemen or Pakistan, as opposed to a
combat area like Afghanistan?
Mr. Anderson. Well, I think that the legal rationale for
their use in regular combat where it is clear that it is part
of traditional hostilities is exactly that as any other weapon.
And so the question really becomes what happens when you move
outside of that zone.
And I believe that the answer that has been given by the
Obama administration, the Clinton administration, the Bush
administration, going really back through the 1990's, has been
that if you were in some kind of conflict with the terrorists
that are transnational, you can chase them anywhere, and
anywhere the combatant is located, you can attack them.
I am sympathetic to that, but don't think it is actually
literally right under the laws of war. That is, there are
treaty thresholds that are actually established for when you
have an armed conflict. And my own view is that is not
unlimited in geographic scope.
That said, the basis for the use of force is not limited
strictly to armed conflicts in the narrow legal sense. We have
always traditionally used force in ways that we describe as
self defense on a broader basis. And self defense is, I
believe, what we meant in the 1980's when Abe Sofer, the then-
legal adviser to State, delivered an address stating that the
policy of the United States was not to allow safe havens; that
if a country was unwilling or unable to keep transnational
terrorists out of its territories, we would feel free to attack
them if we thought that was the prudent thing to do, attack the
terrorists.
That is an exercise of self defense, rather than war in the
full scale overt sense, and I think that it is an important
capability that we have always had because I think that under
many circumstances, it turns out that a smaller and sometimes
covert action is a way of not escalating into a full overt war
that could be very, very costly in every respect.
So I think the answer to that is that it is a broader
doctrine of self defense.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you.
If we accept that, Dr. Singer, for argument's sake on that
basis, then you get to the issue that you raise in your
testimony: who is responsible for making decisions about
whether or not we go there? And second, should we go there, who
is responsible for making the decisions actually controlling
the UAVs or other robotic instruments that are there? And if we
are contracting them out, how appropriate or inappropriate is
it? And at what stage is it a governmental function that ought
not to be contracted out? And how does all that play in? Could
you talk to us a little bit about that?
Dr. Singer. I think there are three important issues that
are raised by that. The first is this technology is one that
has certainly military applications, but it has also allowed a
wider range of actors to utilize it. And there is a question of
appropriateness there.
So for example, my concern with the CIA strikes may be a
little bit shared with Professor Anderson, but a little bit
different in that, first, you have, for example, CIA lawyers
deciding issues of air strikes. The scale of this effort is an
air war. It is on the scale of the Kosovo air war, the opening
rounds of it, but it is not military lawyers who have spent
their years training on those situations. It doesn't mean they
are making bad decisions, but that it is not the background a
JAG office would have, and that is on the authorization side.
Same in terms of the planning side. You have political
appointees and people with an intelligence specialty deciding
aspects of an air war campaign. So that is a question of
appropriateness. And there is a quote in my book that connects
to the seductive effect of it, and they describe how what we
have playing out is like taking LBJ down to the foxhole. That
is, civilians can make tactical level decisions now, utilizing
this technology. It doesn't mean that they should.
The second aspect of this is that Congress has not weighed
in whether to support it or to go against it. And I think that
is a question of legislative-executive branch issues that we
need to look at. And again, it is not a partisan issue. It is
played out before this administration and now during it.
And the third is to the issue of effectiveness. There is a
concern that while we may be taking out terrorist leaders, we
may be sucking ourselves into a game of whack-a-mole, where we
have been very successful at killing terrorist leaders, but are
we also inadvertently aiding their recruiting? And I think the
connection to the contractor issue here goes back to that
question of appropriateness, the ``should'' of who should be
involved.
And it is not just an issue of legality. I think it is a
long-term question of the future of the force. I remember
meeting with an Air Force officer who pointed out an NCO who
worked on maintenance. And they said, they have served 12
years. How do we get to having a future NCO that has worked 12
years on these systems that brings that experience to bear? Or
we have to turn that over to them right now and wait 12 years.
And that is not going to happen if we continue to outsource it.
So if this is the future, we are setting ourselves up for a
hollow capability.
Mr. Tierney. That would match some of our other
capabilities that we have referenced that would outsource that
work, and that would be problematical, I think.
Mr. Flake.
Mr. Flake. Thank you.
Dr. Barrett, you mentioned, I think, that the evidence
shows enhanced awareness and restraint. Is that view shared
among the community? I would like to see from others. Dr.
Singer, do you share that view that unmanned pilots have
enhanced awareness and restraint?
Dr. Barrett. Well, it is contested, I will just put it that
way. But there is this debate going on, and there is empirical
data coming in from various sources. I can get you those
sources, that says exactly this, that especially because of
these sensor improvements and all the other variables I
mentioned, that there actually is more awareness and restraint.
So I think in Dr. Singer's book, you were a little bit more
pessimistic about this issue. It is a debate. I will just leave
it at that.
Mr. Flake. OK. I am glad to hear that. I was just wondering
if that view was shared.
Dr. Singer.
Dr. Singer. I think we need to divide it into two parts. We
do know about the military use of these systems, and I think
they have shown exceptional respect for the laws of war. When
you discuss this with people who are engaged in these
operations, there are a series of checks and balances and
consultation with military lawyers that they have to go through
for authorizing and conducting a strike.
The challenge is the use on the intelligence side. Again,
we don't even acknowledge that we have carried out these
strikes, so I can't answer about the mechanisms that they
follow for that.
I will say one of the other issues is the wide array of
perceptions about, for example, the civilian casualty concern.
You have estimates that range from 2,000 civilian casualties on
the high end, to I believe the smallest I have seen reported is
20. When you backtrack the sources, it is interesting the high
end ones often track back to regional media. One, for example,
was a Pakistani newspaper that was quoting someone from the
ISI. The low end are quoting our own intelligence officials. My
guess is the truth lies somewhere in between.
But there is a broader concern here in terms of a war of
ideas. It is not just the reality that matters. These
perceptions have a power unto themselves. And so a challenge
for us is, how do we deal with that perception and show the
painstaking way that we are going through, and deal with the
fact that it is coming out being viewed on the other side
through a lens of anger?
Mr. Flake. Thank you.
Professor Anderson, how is this being played out, this rise
in these numbers are stark. We have 12,000 in inventory right
now. I think Dr. Singer had mentioned that. How is this being
viewed in terms of the drones, pilotless planes being flown
between the agencies and the military? I would like the same
question answered by Dr. Jackson.
Mr. Anderson. I think that the question at this point is
partly the question of the perception in the region, as Dr.
Singer has suggested. It is also a question of how it is seen
in what we amorphously call the international community,
international actors such as academics and U.N. officials and
tribunals and all sorts of folks out there.
And I think that there is a sense sometimes within the U.S.
Government across many administrations that none of this stuff
really matters because it is just these soft law folks like me,
who can't really impact policy. But I think that if you look at
the track of many different issues, starting with the land
mines campaign, for which I was primarily responsible in the
early 1990's, on through various parts of the War on Terror
debates, perceptions in the international community powerfully
shape U.S. Government responses in ways the U.S. Government
finds very hard to get in front of.
And I think that here, the divide comes probably initially
between the military use of these things on overt battlefields
where they look pretty much like any other standoff weapon with
particular technological characteristics attached, and then the
questions that are raised by the CIA use, where it is not
acknowledged. There is less data.
And those will actually be sort of the fault lines that we
will initially see in terms of the perception.
Mr. Flake. Let me just followup on that. I am sorry, Dr.
Jackson, I will get back to you later.
But in your Weekly Standard piece, you talk about
unqualified success that we have had in terms of the
President's and the Vice President's policy here. Is that view
shared by each branch of government? Does the intel community
see it differently than the military, for example?
Mr. Anderson. I am not an insider to government, but I
guess I would say that my perception from the outside is that
there is concern within the Department of State. There is
concern within some of the departments of government among the
lawyers that they have not settled on what their rationales
are. And I believe that at some point, that ill serves an
administration that is embracing this.
Now, maybe the answer is this is all really terrible and
illegal, and anybody that does it should go off to The Hague.
But if that is the case, then we should not be having the
President say this is the greatest since whatever. That seems
like a bad idea.
Mr. Flake. Thank you.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you.
Mr. Foster, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Foster. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for having this
hearing on a very important subject.
First to whoever wants and feels competent to field it,
what is the approximate ratio of how much we spend on manned
versus unmanned aircraft across our country, roughly? Does
anyone want to respond? All right.
Mr. Tierney. Our next panel will be able to do that, I am
sure.
Mr. Foster. OK. And are there understood and generally
agreed upon advantages of having a man aboard a combat aircraft
at this point for either the ground support or air superiority
purposes? I mean, is there any consensus on any list of
advantages?
Dr. Barrett. Well, a couple that come to mind. First, there
are no bandwidth limitations or vulnerabilities. So with the
unmanned remote controlled systems, you are working with a
satellite and there is potential limitations on the amount of
bandwidth available and then also the vulnerability issue.
So, a mix of, say, air systems that are manned and
unmanned, for that reason would be called for.
Also, there is some data that says that doing combat aerial
support CAS missions. If you are getting on station, the manned
platform can get oriented more quickly. So for those types of
missions, you might want a manned platform in the area if you
need a very quick response and orientation.
Mr. Foster. And then for just general air superiority, is
there any reason why drones won't essentially take over the
business?
Dr. Barrett. I would say that would just be a technical
question. I don't think we are there yet, but it could happen
at some point.
Mr. Foster. OK. We are about to spend apparently a lot of
money on a tanker system. Is that relevant for a future where
drones are really the dominant force in air superiority?
Mr. Jackson. I think among the designs for the Navy UCAS,
which is the delta wing airplane there, is a tanker version of
it. If you are talking about carrier operations in particular,
you have to provide for the refueling capability. There is no
reason why that refueler could not also be an unmanned vehicle.
So in the design work that is being done now, we are looking at
that aircraft for combat and strike missions, but also as an
air tanker version to refuel those unmanned systems.
Mr. Foster. OK. So the conclusion is, it is not clear that
the tanker we are talking about building really will fit in
very nicely into a predominantly drone system. Is that a
reasonable conclusion or not?
Dr. Singer. The designs of it, it is really not so much the
tanker as opposed to the systems on the other side, the users
of it. You want to make sure that they are interoperable with
it. I think the overall strategic question that you are getting
to is that we want to ensure that we are not making decisions
right now that will paint us into a corner in the future.
So for example, the acquisitions part that you asked at the
start, it is not so much the amount of money that we are
spending on unmanned systems right now, but that we are
purchasing more of them physically than we are manned
platforms.
And so one of the mistakes that first movers have made in
history, why they have fallen behind, is that they commit too
early to one type, one model, and then 20 years out, when we
learn what is the best one, we are in a bad way. The British
with the aircraft carrier would be an example here.
So the issue I think for us is to ensure that we are
continuing to experiment a great deal, and then also making
sure that we are not locking ourselves into a one designer
future, which to me means we need to focus on our acquisitions
system and make sure that we don't have oligopolies emerge, or
monopolies.
Mr. Foster. Is there just a working number for the cost
ratio between a manned and an unmanned aircraft with comparable
capabilities? Is it order of a factor of 10 or a factor of 100?
Dr. Barrett. Close to 10, I think.
Mr. Foster. What I am worried about is we are going to at
some point be asked to defend Taiwan with a set of aircraft
carriers, and we are going to, and then all of a sudden
Chinese-manufactured mass-produced drones will be coming at us
and it will be game over.
Do those sort of things routinely get gamed out, sort of
equal dollar value drone versus manned aircraft fleets? So that
tradeoff is routinely looked at at this point?
Dr. Singer. There are starting to be, at least within the
media reports of war gaming to that effect. The real issue is
one of quantity versus quality moving forward, and I think this
is an issue for our overall acquisitions system. That is, do we
want the capability for a large number? Or will the high cost
of systems lock us into only being able to buy a very few gold-
plated versions?
And a concern I have when I look at the models moving
forward is that we are starting to make decisions right now
that will lead to some of the similar things we have seen play
out with the Joint Strike Fighter or DD(X) or FCS, where we
don't exactly know the future, but we know that the system that
is too big to fail and is so costly that we can only buy a
couple of them, paints ourselves into a corner in a scenario
with, for example, a China or the like, where the amount that
we can buy should not decide the tactics and the strategy that
we take in war. But that is the future that we are headed with,
including in unmanned systems.
Mr. Foster. Thank you.
Dr. Barrett. Could I add one comment? Another reason why
you would want manned is because it keeps the homeland less
involved. If you are fighting a war with only unmanned systems,
there is no one for the enemy to shoot at. There is no option
for even guerilla war. Therefore, you are inviting, I think,
terrorism in the homeland.
So I think for that third reason, you would want a mix. You
don't want to go to just unmanned. Otherwise, they are coming
here.
Mr. Jackson. And Mr. Foster, I might add that the Naval War
College has done a lot of work in terms of the potential future
for integrating unmanned systems into the maritime environment.
The Chief Naval Operations task in 2008, its Strategic Studies
Group, took a look at how you would use these systems. So there
was a year spent in study of how you would integrate these
systems, where you would used manned, where you would use
unmanned systems, and some very fine work was done and brought
out some notions that there has to be a balance between the
two, but the unmanned provides you some unique capabilities in
terms of endurance, in terms of ability to deploy from the
continental United States, and use these systems and what not.
So there has been a fair amount of work done in that. Not a lot
of games per se, but a lot of discussion and thinking about how
they would be employed.
Mr. Tierney. Mr. Fagan----
Ma'am, please, please be quiet and please sit down. I told
you before at the beginning of this hearing, we are having----
[Interruption from audience.]
Mr. Tierney. You are going to have an opportunity to sit
down now or be asked to leave. It is your choice, ma'am. Would
you care to sit down and listen like the rest of us trying to
learn something here? Or would you like to be asked to leave?
Asked to leave. Thank you.
We are going give our guest--officer, we will give our
guest one more chance, but if she speaks out again, we will
have to ask for her to be removed.
Mr. Fagan, what I was going to ask you, obviously there are
so many other uses that are non-military of this kind of
technology. I can think of some in my own district, which is
heavily reliant on the fishing industry, and some of the
underwater technology that could really identify for purposes
of determining catch shares or what fish are over-fished, which
ones aren't, to other land uses, things of that nature.
And when you start talking about that, the real question
becomes: How do we keep the innovation going, internationally,
not just in our country? At the same time, obviously the ideal
is to deprive other countries that might wish us harm from
getting the technology that could do so. Can you possibly do
that?
Mr. Fagan. Mr. Chairman, I believe it is possible that the
commercial market is going to drive requirements for
technology. If there is a commercial demand for fishing and
surveillance related to fishing, I think that sensor systems
and technologies will be developed to support that.
Currently, there need to be some regulations that would
support the operation of aircraft in support of that industry,
and I am pretty confident that technology, I am not well versed
in exactly how shoals of fish are spotted, but let's assume
that it is done optically with optical sensors. There exist
quite high quality optical sensors that I would imagine could
be adopted for that, but we will need, as I said, two things, a
requirement and permission to actually fly the systems in
support of those.
So the technology is cross-cutting. As the market
increases, the demand for these higher quality sensors will
increase and costs will go down and the technology will
improve. I hope that answered your question.
Mr. Tierney. Well, it does a little bit. I may not have
asked it as clearly as I could have, but there comes a point in
time when some people are going to say, look, we can't allow
some of this technology to be exported. We can't allow even
some of this equipment to be exported because we are afraid
others will put it to a devious use.
Is it even possible to draw that kind of a line? Or it is
going to happen anyway?
Mr. Fagan. That is a difficult line, and I am not an expert
on export control regulations. I know that our manufacturers
have voiced their concern that sometimes they are too
complicated and difficult to comply with. But yes, I think it
is possible that if export controls aren't administered
properly, it could end up providing bad people with highly
technical systems that could be used against the United States.
So we are not, AUVSI and me personally, I am not opposed to
export regulations. It is just that we would like to see them
easy to use and administered in an expedited way.
Mr. Tierney. Let me just ask, to survey the rest of the
panel, just quickly. Does anybody think that there is a
possibility of controlling the export of this technology in
such a way that it would not be something that we would have to
be concerned about other countries using against our interest?
Or is that just something that can't be done?
Dr. Singer.
Dr. Singer. No, it would be like trying to control
computers or trying to control automobiles. We already see 43
other countries building, buying and using these systems and a
range of non-state actors for both positive and nefarious
purposes.
I think the bigger question is: How do we maintain our
competitiveness in this? How do we ensure that businesses can
continue to thrive so that we can innovate? And I think a long-
term issue here is ensuring that they have a pipeline of young
scientists, young engineers who can succeed. And that speaks to
the challenges of having a national robotics strategy that
connects to broader science and technology, engineering and
mathematics issues.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you.
Professor Jackson, do you agree?
Mr. Jackson. Just as a point of interest, sir, the
ScanEagle, which was used to support the rescue of Captain
Phillips in the Maersk Alabama situation was originally
developed for the tuna industry. And it was launched from tuna
ships to go out to find where the fish were located and then
they would recover it from the air. And so that was civilian
technology that has been adapted. We now have over 200,000
hours of time used in military applications for surveillance
purposes. So it is certainly a two way street.
Mr. Tierney. I see the others nodding, so I won't bother to
question on that, in agreement. But so what the prospects does
anybody want to offer here for an international treaty that
addresses the use of these, to restrict the military or other
uses of that in any particular circumstances? Is anybody aware
of any negotiations or discussions that have been started
anywhere about this topic?
Professor Anderson.
Mr. Anderson. Probably the closest to this would be the
development by different bodies such as the International
Committee of the Red Cross or several of the scholarly bodies
that put up model codes for the laws of war. There has been
recently released a model air war manual that would address
part of these things, and it specifically has measures talking
about unmanned vehicles, both in a surveillance capacity as
well as a weapons-firing capacity.
The United States has participated through the Department
of Defense in numbers of those discussions. And I would say
that in the case of the air war manual, I would describe
without attributing it, without speaking for the Department of
Defense, I would describe it that the U.S. DOD has participated
very actively in the formulation of the specific black letter
rules that have been developed, but I think was actually quite
stunned by the commentary manual that was developed by several
of the experts that would go along with that and would attempt
to provide sort of authoritative guidance. The United States, I
do not think, will wind up regarding that as authoritative.
Second is also a technical issue in some sense. It is the
International Committee of the Red Cross development of what it
calls interpretive guidance on direct participation in
hostilities, which goes to the question of civilians who may be
taking part in ways that Dr. Singer referenced, or CIA
personnel or terrorists themselves that may not be regarded,
strictly speaking, as combatants, but nonetheless lawful
targets.
Again, the United States had a number of experts who
participated in that process and the ICRC has put that out as
guidance. However, that has been extremely controversial in
parts of its formulations, essentially in saying you can have
part-time participants in hostilities who may not be targeted
between activities that they are carrying out. And the United
States I do not think will come close to signing onto those.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you.
Mr. Flake.
Mr. Flake. Dr. Singer, you mentioned that there are some
criminal uses, and it has been mentioned for nefarious
purposes, as you put it. Can you give some examples of non-
state actors or others that are using it in this way?
Dr. Singer. The examples range from one that was mentioned
of Hezbollah during its war with Israel operating these
systems, to some of the border militia groups utilizing them
too. There were a group of thieves in Taiwan a couple of weeks
ago who used robotic helicopters to scout out targets and
ensure that they were ready to steal from.
What we are seeing here, again, this technology is what you
could describe as the parallel to open source software. It is
not like an aircraft carrier. It is not like an atomic bomb
where you need a huge industrial structure not only to build
it, but to utilize it. And so that means that we have a
flattening effect playing out in terms of who can utilize this
technology.
And the positive side is, again, the range of uses that can
be made, everything from fishery to environmental monitoring.
We used the Global Hawks for response to the humanitarian
disaster in Haiti.
But the opposite is that it lowers the bar for nefarious
actors. The best illustration I can give of that, of the
potential, is during World War II, Hitler's Luftwaffe, Hitler's
air force could not strike the United States. It didn't have
that reach. A couple years ago, a 77 year old blind man
designed his own unmanned system that flew across the Atlantic.
And so what we have to in a sense do is, in my mind, the 9/11
Commission described as part of the cause of the tragedy on
that day was a failure of our own imagination. We need to apply
this to this emerging technology here as well, use imagination
in how we can utilize it for positive ends, but also being
aware that the threat scenarios are widening as well.
Mr. Flake. Thank you.
Mr. Anderson, a U.N. official raised the prospect that
drone attacks are a form of extrajudicial execution, I think is
the way it was put. Have any organs of the United Nations, and
you spoke of it a little in your last colloquy, but are we
likely to see these challenges from international organizations
or states themselves? Where do you think the challenges are
likely to come from, whether it is the Red Cross just looking
for guidelines or is it likely the U.N. through its agencies
that are going to demand some kind of guidelines here?
Mr. Anderson. Well, I think that this is gradually a
developing campaign in which there are various international
actors who are very unhappy with the development of this, both
the technology and, at this moment, by its use in particular by
civilian agencies. And I think that their difficulties with the
technology range all the way back to military use on the active
battlefield.
But the easy place to sort of move in a campaign to peel
that off is with the CIA. And in that regard, then the charge
has been leveled that this is a violation of international
human rights standards. It constitutes extra-judicial execution
without having any charges, without having attempted to arrest
the person.
We respond by saying the person is a terrorist combatant
and can be targeted at any point. We are not obligated to try
and detain them or to capture them. But there are many, many
authorities out there who disagree vehemently with that. And
one of the questions that will arise is, the United States has
never, across many, many decades, agreed to sign onto the
extraterritorial application of the treaties that would make it
possible to characterize these acts as being extra-judicial
execution. It has never agreed to that.
And one of the questions will be whether the
administration, without really sort of thinking about its
impacts on these kinds of areas that are close to its heart,
winds up weakening those restraints or winds up weakening the
U.S. opposition to that, without really taking into account the
effect that it would have on precisely these kinds of things.
The long-term effect of that, given that there are not
necessarily statutes of limitations on these kinds of acts,
could be the problem of CIA officers, or for that matter
military officers or their lawyers being called up in front of
international tribunals or courts of Spain or someplace and
said, you've engaged in extrajudicial execution or simple
murder and we are going to investigate and indict.
Mr. Flake. Thank you.
Mr. Tierney. Mr. Foster.
Mr. Foster. Yes. Dr. Singer, you have mentioned a couple
times a national robotics strategy wherein education is crucial
to keeping our lead in this area, if such a lead exists. And
there are a number of things like the U.S.'s FIRST Robotics
Competition. There is the Fab Lab where they have rapid
prototype equipment that are distributed.
Do you have any favorites here or ideas of what the best
strategy is going to be going forward, besides just dumping a
bunch of money into it?
Dr. Singer. I am not going to pick favorites in terms of
competitions, but it is interesting that a number of the other
states that are succeeding and thriving in this realm, like for
example South Korea, do have these sorts of strategies and it
would be interesting for us to learn from them.
I think you mentioned some of the aspects of what a
strategy might look like. Some of the elements of it include,
for example, not just the sort of isolated islands of
excellence in terms of robotics labs or robotics competitions.
How could we expand upon those so that you are engaging youth
in a greater way, but also that you are allowing the best
design to win?
Can we support greater graduate scholarships in this realm?
Is there the possibility of creating public-private
partnerships along the lines of special geographic zones the
way that we have seen with Research Triangle in North Carolina
or Silicon Valley. Is there the potential for something like
that in robotics?
But again, part of this should also be having it go hand in
hand with discussions about the impact of what they are doing
in the lab on the world beyond, the kind of ethics discussions
that the professors here are leading. And I think that element
has been missing, as well, to a prior question that was asked
of debates about regulation.
We have to start within the robotics field of robotocists,
what kind of research should they engage in and what should
they not; should there be arms control, sort of the early nodes
of the land mines treaty when it comes to the issue of autonomy
moving forward. But for example, if you were a young
robotocist, you don't have a code of ethics right now to turn
to the way if you were a young medical scientist.
And I think that part of this strategy has to be not only
what do we do to maintain national competitiveness, but also
how do we wrestle with the issue beyond.
Mr. Foster. OK.
Professor Anderson, or anyone who wants to field it, is
there a moral, legal or political distinction between a
decapitation strike and just a strike against the normal
military hierarchy that you see, and when you are deliberately
going after the political leadership of an organization
compared to just the chain of command?
Mr. Anderson. If one is talking about a non-state actor
group which has been characterized with legal reasons as being
a terrorist group, then there is not really going to be a
distinction--I mean, they are targets in that sense. There are
other kinds of legal issues that arise if one goes after a
purely decapitation strategy with regards to a regime. Again,
it is lawful, in my view, but the legal rationales are
different because it is a state versus a non-state.
And so the legal questions that arise here about going
after leadership targets in terrorist organizations, in part
there the kinds of strategic and prudential arguments that Dr.
Singer has raised about sort of whack-a-mole questions and
those things. But I don't think that there is legal questions
about the question of the lawfulness of targeting the people
that are involved.
Mr. Foster. Another thing that I am sure occurs to everyone
is whether we are in danger of gradually lowering the threshold
for a declared war. During the cold war, there were all these
games of chicken played over the Arctic continuously. And if we
had drones, we just perhaps would have escalated that into
actually destroying hardware. And when the hardware becomes
nuclear-capable hardware, you are talking about a really scary
line that is in danger of being crossed.
And I was just wondering what the thinking is in terms of,
is it possible to implement a hard line that says, this is an
act of war and this is not an act of war, when there are
unmanned vehicles only in the battle.
Dr. Singer. The way I visualize this is that the barriers
to war are dropping both socially, and politically, but also
now technologically. But at the same time, our definition of
war is changing. And we can see this in terms set-aside from
robotics. This body hasn't declared war since 1941. We don't
have a draft or conscription anymore. We don't pay war bonds or
higher taxes for war.
And now we have a technology that allows us to carry out
what we would have previously termed act of war, without having
to have a political debate about it. I mean, literally it is
not a theoretic issue. We have carried out at least 119 air
strikes, and this body hasn't had a debate about it, either to
support or to go against.
And so the way I see it, again, was that the barriers to
war were already lowering. The technology perhaps allows these
barriers to hit the ground. And what was interesting is that
when I went around interviewing people, that was the concern
that was shared. For example, I remember an interview with
someone at Human Rights Watch who raised that, but also an
interview with a special operations officer within the U.S.
military as one of their big concerns here.
Mr. Anderson. If I could just add to that. If the
administration's lawyers were here in front of you today, they
would say that this is all covered by the AUMF in so far as we
are targeting people who are in some way connected either with
Al Qaeda or with the authors of 9/11 and that is true whether
or not one is talking about the strikes in Pakistan or even the
strikes in Yemen or any other place.
I believe that where this question that you raise becomes
most important is that not all the enemies that the United
States will face in the decades into the future are going to
turn out to be Al Qaeda, nor will they be connected to 9/11.
And the question that this body, the Congress, has to address
is, as the thresholds that Dr. Singer described get lowered,
then the question of the controls on the use of force will
depend on, first of all, whether you assign those functions
directly to the military and to no other force, or allow the
CIA and covert operations to partake of that, which I believe
is hugely important for avoiding overt wars.
There is a reason why the CIA has been tasked in Pakistan
to do what it does, rather than having the undeniable presence
of the U.S. military there. I think that is the right decision.
But as this moves into the future, the lines drawn with respect
to the CIA have to be drawn and I believe that, as the
threshold for what constitutes the use of force is lowered, the
responsibility of this body will not lie in issuing things like
more AUMFs unless there is another 9/11 or something similar,
but will lie in the way in which this body exercises its
oversight functions and strengthens its oversight functions to
require much greater reporting, much more detailed reporting.
But at the same time, the concomitant part of that is this
body is going to have to learn to be a whole lot more effective
at keeping the secrets that are involved.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you. I just want to let you know that
you have our gratitude for that and we may at some time want to
call you back either for a formal hearing or just for a
discussion to educate us more on the issue. We are going to go
for about a half hour and then we will come back, probably less
than a half hour, for 20 minutes or so, and come back with our
second panel.
I again thank all of you on this panel.
We will take a recess now.
[Recess.]
Mr. Tierney. We appreciate your staying with us and
testifying. If we were more thoughtful on this, we probably
would have scheduled this for another day instead of running
you here this late. But I get the feeling that you may be back
again at some point convenient to everybody. This looks like an
area we will want to explore in some more depth at some point.
Let me just introduce the panel first for the record, if I
could. Mr. Michael J. Sullivan serves as the Director of
Acquisition and Sourcing Management at the U.S. Government
Accountability Office. His team is responsible for examining
the effectiveness of agency acquisition and procurement
practices, and meeting the mission performance objectives and
requirements. He also manages a body of work designed to help
the Department of Defense apply best commercial practices to
better develop advanced weapons systems. Mr. Sullivan holds
both a B.A. and an MPA from Indiana University.
Mr. Dyke Weatherington is the Deputy Director for Unmanned
Warfare and Portfolio Systems Acquisition in the Office of the
Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology,
Logistics in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense
for Acquisitions. You must have quite the business card.
A retired Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Air Force, he is
responsible for acquisition oversight for unmanned aircraft
systems and associated subsystems. He is also the functional
lead for the Deputy Secretary of Defense-directed UAS Task
Force.
He holds a B.S. from the U.S. Air Force Academy and an M.A.
from California State University.
And the Honorable Kevin Wolf serves as the Assistant
Secretary for Export Administration at the U.S. Department of
Commerce. Prior to his, he was a partner at Bryan Cave, LLP,
where he worked on export administration regulations,
international traffic in arms regulations and sanctions
administered by the Office of Foreign Assets Control.
He holds a B.A. from the University of Missouri and an M.A.
and J.D. from the University of Minnesota.
Thank you again, all of you, for being here and sharing
your substantial expertise with us. It is our policy to swear
in the witnesses, so if you would please rise and raise your
hands.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Tierney. Thank you.
The record will please reflect that all of the witnesses
have answered in the affirmative.
I remind you of what I think you already know, that all of
your written testimony will be placed on the record in its
entirety. We would just ask you if you could summarize that in
about 5 minutes each, and we will do some question and answer
after that. And thank you.
We will start with you, Mr. Sullivan.
STATEMENTS OF MICHAEL J. SULLIVAN, DIRECTOR, ACQUISITION AND
SOURCING MANAGEMENT, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE;
DYKE WEATHERINGTON, DEPUTY, UNMANNED AERIAL VEHICLE PLANNING
TASKFORCE, OFFICE OF THE UNDER SECRETARY FOR ACQUISITION,
TECHNOLOGY AND LOGISTICS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE; AND KEVIN
WOLF, ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR EXPORT ADMINISTRATION, BUREAU OF
INDUSTRY AND SECURITY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
STATEMENT OF MICHAEL J. SULLIVAN
Mr. Sullivan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Congressman
Flake. Thanks for this opportunity to discuss GAO's report on
the Department's unmanned aircraft systems acquisition efforts
from July of last year.
My statement today focuses on acquisition outcomes, the
extent of collaboration among the services on those
acquisitions, and recent investment decisions related to
unmanned aircraft acquisitions.
As has been stated earlier in the hearing, from 2002 to
2008, the number of unmanned aircraft in DOD's inventory has
grown from about 167 to more than 7,000 as a result of growing
demand from the field. Once fielded, these aircraft have proven
to be quite valuable to our warfighters.
However, there have been growing pains along the way. We
assessed the 10 largest unmanned aircraft programs, eight air
systems and two payload systems, for the report that we did
last July, and found that their development costs had grown by
$3 billion or 37 percent on average. Procurement funding has
increased for most of those programs, but this was mostly due
to increases in the number of aircraft being procured, which is
a good thing. Nonetheless, procurement unit costs have grown by
12 percent on average.
Our assessment found varying degrees of collaboration among
the services. For example, the Marine Corps was able to avoid
the cost of initial system development and a lot of duplication
of capabilities and was also able to deliver needed capability
to its Marines very quickly by simply choosing to procure
existing Shadow aircraft from the existing Army program.
In another case, the Navy is expecting to save time and
money on its broad area maritime surveillance system by using
the existing Air Force Global Hawk air frame. However, it is
developing a lot of its own unique subsystems, rather than
joining the Air Force in some of those procurements.
In contrast to those examples, the Army and the Air Force
did not effectively collaborate on their Predator and Sky
Warrior Programs despite strong direction from the Department
to do so. We don't really have any estimates of the costs that
might have occurred because of the duplicative efforts there,
but we do know that the Army had to stand up a program office
and had a development effort of over a half billion dollars. So
that probably is some costs that they didn't need.
Much greater commonality could have been achieved as each
of those weapons systems are being developed by the same
contractor. One is a variant of the other.
Service-centric requirements and an unwillingness to
collaborate were key factors in limiting commonality across
these programs. Despite the Department's efforts to emphasize
jointness and encourage commonality, the services continued to
establish unique requirements, some of which have raised
concerns about unnecessary duplication, such as the Sky Warrior
and the Predator.
Since our report was issued, the Department has made an
investment decision to increase development of unmanned
aircraft and procure larger numbers, which we think is a good
thing. It also recognizes that this important investment must
be leveraged effectively.
One of the major goals of the UAS road map is to foster the
development and practice of policies, standards and procedures
for operating unmanned aircraft and to promote the enforcement
of government, international and commercial standards for the
design, manufacture, testing and operation of unmanned systems.
The road map has recognized the potential for unprecedented
levels of collaboration to gain capabilities at reduced
acquisition costs. And we have reported in the past that one
key to increased collaboration and commonality is the use of
open systems across product lines, across air frames,
subsystems and even down to the component level.
Unmanned systems are critical to the Department's mission
and will continue to grow in numbers and in effectiveness. In
order to acquire them most efficiently in today's environment
of constrained resources, the Department should follow through
on its stated goals and continue to force joint standardized
weapons systems wherever it makes sense.
Mr. Chairman, that completes my statement.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Sullivan follows:]
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Mr. Tierney. Thank you very much. We appreciate your
statement.
Mr. Weatherington.
STATEMENT OF DYKE WEATHERINGTON
Mr. Weatherington. Mr. Chairman, Congressman Flake, thank
you for the opportunity to appear today before you to discuss
the Department of Defense's unmanned aircraft systems
acquisition programs, specifically Department initiatives to
achieve greater commonality and efficiencies.
My testimony will address the full spectrum of DOD UAS
systems. This distinction is important because we have pursued
opportunities for commonality and efficiency successfully
across the full range of DOD unmanned aircraft systems,
including small unmanned aircraft systems.
Table one in the provided testimony is included to identify
the broad diversity of unmanned aircraft systems supporting a
broad range of warfighter needs, and you have examples of each
of the groups of those systems on the table in front of you.
The GAO report, Defense Acquisitions: Opportunities Exist
to Achieve Greater Commonality and Efficiency Among Aircraft
Systems, was released last July and reviewed the DOD UAS
program groups three through five. GAO had five
recommendations. The Department partially concurred with the
recommendation to conduct rigorous, comprehensive analysis of
requirements for current UAS and to develop a strategy for
making systems and subsystems among these programs more common.
At the time of the review, the UAS Task Force, with support
from the Joint Requirements Oversight Council, had already
completed a comprehensive analysis of the potential for
commonality between the current Air Force Predator Program and
the Army's Extended Range Multi-Purpose Program.
Since the report was released, the UAS Task Force, in
coordination with Joint Staff, has conducted a rigorous review
of the Navy's BAMS Program and the Air Force Global Hawk
Program to evaluate opportunities for achieving greater
commonality and joint efficiencies. We have completed that
analysis, along with one addressing signals intelligence or
SIGINT payload commonality.
The Department concurred with the remaining four GAO
recommendations in that report. Since the GAO has released its
report, the Department has completed its 2010 Quadrennial
Defense Review and the President has submitted his fiscal year
2011 budget. The QDR highlights the continuing warfighter need
for increased intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance,
and force protection capabilities provided by unmanned aircraft
systems and the budget reflects the Department's increased
investment needs in these areas.
This investment is consistent with the acquisition reform
goal and DOD's high priority performance goals presented in the
analytical perspective volumes of the President's fiscal year
2011 budget.
The Department's investment and operation in UAS continues
to increase as demand for a wide range of UAS capabilities
expands, as was discussed in the first panel. DOD's annual
budget for development and procurement of UAS has increased
from about $1.7 billion in fiscal year 2006 to over $4.2
billion in fiscal year 2010. During that same period, DOD UAS
operations have grown from about 165,000 hours to over 550,000
hours annually, and there is a graphic in the testimony.
Unmanned aircraft system inventory has increased from less than
3,000 to over 6,500 aircraft, as has been mentioned previously.
The Department is making significant investments in
unmanned aircraft systems and that is projected to grow
significantly over the next 5 years. Achieving commonality,
interoperability and joint efficiencies in development,
production, and operation and support is critical to
controlling costs and delivering interoperable, reliable
systems to the warfighter with capabilities they need to win.
We will continue to improve the defense acquisition system
and have formed the UAS Task Force jointly to address critical
UAS technology and acquisition issues to enhance operation,
enable interdependencies, commonalities and other efficiencies.
Just a quick update on our current DOD UAS programs. This
year, the Department made the commitment to grow Air Force
Predator and Reaper combat air patrols [CAPs], to 50 by 2011,
and the Air Force is on track to achieve this goal and will
continue to expand the force structure to support up to 65 CAPs
by fiscal year 2013.
The Army is also expanding many classes of UAS, including
accelerated production of the Predator Class ER/MP and also
upgrading Shadow. In addition to the quick reaction capability
of eight ER/MP aircraft already fielded in Iraq, the Army will
field a second quick reaction capability to Afghanistan this
year.
The Army also plans to field 13 ER/MP systems of 12
aircraft each to each of the combat aviation brigades starting
in fiscal year 2011. Navy is in engineering and manufacturing
development phase for its BAMS UAS Program and is introducing
sea-based unmanned aircraft systems with its vertical takeoff,
unmanned aerial vehicle, and its small tactical unmanned
aircraft system. Navy plans to award the STUAS contract later
this year.
Finally, all the military departments and Special
Operations Command are operating the hand-launched Raven with
over 4,700 aircraft delivered to the warfighter.
In closing, Mr. Chairman, the Department's investment in
UAS is projected to continue to grow. We recognize achieving
commonality, interoperability and joint efficiencies in
development, production, operations and support is critical to
controlling costs and delivering interoperable, reliable
systems to the warfighters.
Thank you for this opportunity to testify.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Weatherington follows:]
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Mr. Tierney. Thank you for your testimony.
Mr. Wolf, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF KEVIN WOLF
Mr. Wolf. Thank you, Chairman Tierney, Congressman Flake,
members of the committee, professional staff. Thank you for the
opportunity to testify before your committee on the Department
of Commerce's role in export controls of unmanned aerial
vehicles, related components and technology.
The Bureau of Industry and Security [BIS], within the
Department of Commerce administers the controls on the export,
re-export, and in-country transit of a range of dual use items,
commodities, software, technology, that have both civilian and
military uses.
In doing so, BIS works closely with a number of departments
and agencies, including the Departments of Defense, State, and
Energy, the Central Intelligence Agency, Department of Homeland
Security, and its Bureau of Immigration and Customs
Enforcement, and the Department of Justice.
The dual use export control system is an important tool to
protect the national security of the United States against
diverse threats that our Nation faces. State and non-state
actors seek to acquire weapons of mass destruction and the
means to deliver them, as well as conventional arms and other
items that could be used for terrorist purposes. BIS implements
the dual use control system through the export administration
regulations.
Under the EAR, BIS regulates the export of certain UAVs and
related items based on multilateral control lists and other
items that could be used in or for UAVs through unilateral
controls on end uses and end users. What I mean by that is that
the dual use regulations administered by the Bureau of Industry
and Security are one part of a greater scheme.
You have multilateral controls, principally the missile
technology control regime, sometimes called the MTCR, and the
Wassenaar Arrangement, which are arrangements between,
depending upon the regime, 34 to 40-plus member countries which
have agreed to establish lists of items and technologies that
should be controlled for export and re-export outside of the
member countries. And these lists that are agreed to and worked
on and revised regularly by various committees in which the
Commerce Department and other U.S. departments participate, are
updated to take into account current threats and current
issues.
These lists that the MTCR creates and the other
multilateral regimes' work are the basis for the list of items
that the U.S. Government controls for export and re-export or
in-country transit. The Commerce Department regulations, the
dual use regulations, again even within the domestic regime,
are only one part of that.
The other part is what are called the International Traffic
in Arms regulations which are the regulations administered and
implemented by the State Department's Directorate of Defense
Trade Controls. And principally, what those regulations govern
in terms of the export and re-export are defense articles such
as UAVs that are specifically designed or modified for military
application or parts or components for those UAVs that are
specifically designed or modified for military UAVs, rather,
and all technical data and services that are directly related
to the UAVs and to those parts and components. And for those
items and for services related to those items, it is a
worldwide licensing requirement except for Canada in some
limited circumstances.
A subset of that are the dual use controls. So anything
that is military is not controlled by us. It is those UAVs and
related parts, components, accessories and technology or
software for their production or development that are
controlled for worldwide export. That is, if you were in the
United States and you had one of these items or an accessory
that was specially designed for a dual use UAV, a license would
be required from the U.S. Government before it is exported.
Similarly, if it is an item that is of U.S. origin or
otherwise subject to these regulations, a license would be
required to re-export it from one destination to another
destination.
And then behind these rules is a vigorous set of
enforcement authorities, both civil and criminal penalties that
are available to the U.S. Government for those individuals and
companies that violate these regulations, export something from
the United States or re-export it if it is otherwise controlled
without a license.
There is a series, as our testimony, my written testimony
has, of enforcement actions against companies, both civil and
criminal, for people trying to export and re-export things
directly or indirectly related to UAV manufacture, production
or use outside the United States in violation of these rules.
So with that general summary of U.S. export control law and
UAVs, I would be happy to answer any specific questions you
might have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Wolf follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Tierney. So Mr. Wolf, not the first time you have given
that rap, right?
Mr. Wolf. Excuse me?
Mr. Tierney. Not the first time you have given that rap.
Mr. Wolf. No, indeed. [Laughter.]
Mr. Tierney. We understand that.
But look, we just finished a panel. I think you were here
for at least part of it, if not all of it, where the witnesses
on that panel told us there is no way you can get this back in
the box. We have Hezbollah out there with UAVs. We have Russia,
China, other people on that.
So how successful is our export regime?
Mr. Wolf. Well, it is very successful. There is an active,
robust enforcement action. And with respect to the comment that
he was making, one thing that I failed to mention but should
have, is even with respect to parts and components that aren't
specifically listed in either set of regulations or that are
not specially designed for use in a UAV, both the MTCR
countries and certainly the United States have controls on
exports of just about anything to certain end users.
So for example, if a coffee cup or something that is going
to be used in developing a UAV were destined for, or from the
United States, rather, or a U.S.-origin item re-exported from a
third country, if it were destined to a prohibited end user,
things that are called either denied entities, which are the
list of companies that have participated, many of them, in UAV
or other proliferation-related activities that we don't like,
or what the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets
Control maintains are called specially designated nationals.
If somebody were exporting something to one of those
entities or individuals, that would be prohibited without U.S.
Government authorization, which of course would be denied.
Similarly, even if not to an entity or an end-user that has
been listed by the U.S. Government, our regulations, the
Commerce regulations have what are called general prohibitions
on exporting just about anything that is subject to the EAR, to
anyone and a certain group of countries if it is with respect
to certain types of UAVs, or to just about anyone in most
countries if there is knowledge or reason to believe, it is a
fairly broad standard, that it is destined for a UAV
production-related or for a weapons of mass destruction-related
end use.
So what he was referring to is that there are some things
that are so common that they just simply can't be controlled. I
understand the point, but what it failed to take into account
are the very broad controls, the catch-all controls over
prohibited end uses and prohibited end users.
Mr. Tierney. So I guess that leaves us then with a question
of who are the member participants in the missile technology
control regime and other similar protocols and who is not?
Mr. Wolf. Well, it is funny you should ask, because I can
leave this for you, if you like. It is, I think, about 34
members.
Mr. Tierney. I would like it, if you have it there. We
would certainly like to put that on the record.
Mr. Wolf. I will enter it into the record, of who the
members are.
Mr. Tierney. Now you can tell us, is Iran in the group?
Mr. Wolf. Well, no, no. With respect to Iran and four other
countries----
Mr. Tierney. Russia, China.
Mr. Wolf. No, China is not a member of the MTCR.
Mr. Tierney. Pakistan?
Mr. Wolf. Pakistan is not a member of the MTCR. But a
couple of things. With respect to Iran and Sudan and Syria and
Cuba and North Korea, there is an absolute embargo on all items
that are of U.S. origin or which would capture and control
anything, whether it is for a UAV or not.
Mr. Tierney. But no cap on China selling them similar
technology or Pakistan selling similar technology or whatever.
So we have it coming out of this country back and forth, but no
international agreement to which they are a member that might
stop them from doing that.
Mr. Wolf. I don't know the scope of China's efforts or not
in an open session to sell UAV-related technology to Iran,
Pakistan or any of the other countries. But I can, with respect
to China in particular, to the extent that U.S.-origin items
would be used in an activity, there is something called the
China rule, informally, or a China catch-all, depending on who
you speak to, but really it is a requirement that for even
items that aren't specific to UAVs, like general purpose
avionics, if the exporter or re-exporter knows or has reason to
believe, again, a very open standard, that the item is destined
to China and destined for a military end use, again even if
something that otherwise wouldn't require a license for export
to China, a license is required from the U.S. Government before
exporting it.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you.
And very quickly, Mr. Weatherington, you say the problems
that Mr. Sullivan pointed out in terms of compatibility are
solved. He got the message. It is already done.
Mr. Weatherington. Sir, we are working on those challenges.
As Mr. Sullivan pointed out, there has been very rapid growth
in this technology area. And to provide the warfighter the
capabilities he needed in many cases, and some that were talked
about in the first panel, DOD procured capabilities we
currently had. Those, in some cases, did not achieve the full
interoperability and commonality that the Department would like
to have so we are working on those.
My written testimony has many examples of areas where OSD,
working with Joint Staff and the services, are working hard to
improve our interoperability and commonality. But today, we do
have systems that aren't fully integrated into the manner that
we would like them to be.
Mr. Tierney. OK. I will get back to Mr. Sullivan and ask
him his opinion on that in a second.
Mr. Flake.
Mr. Flake. I just wanted to followup on that.
Mr. Weatherington, it is just a little baffling that, if we
are talking about old systems that have been around a long
time, and after 9/11 obviously the effort we spent a lot of
money at Department of Homeland Security for interoperability,
whether it is firemen being able to communicate with whomever
or whatever.
But you would think with relatively new technology like
this that ought to be the least of the problems; that if we are
acquiring and procuring these, that ought to be assumed, I
guess, that there would be interoperability. So it just
surprises me that is still a problem. Do you want to elaborate
on that?
Mr. Weatherington. Sure, sir. For example, the Air Force
began procuring Predator manned aircraft systems in 1994. At
the time we were procuring those systems, the Department did
not have a fully interoperable data link for that class of
system. So what was procured was a commercial C-band datalink
that met the specific requirements of Predator but was not
fully integrated into the DOD force structure.
Congress has weighed in on that and provided direction to
the Department that all the services should migrate to a common
standard, which we call a common datalink [CDL]. We are in the
process of doing that. That datalink has many advantages. One
of the advantages is it is a fully digitized link. It also
provides full encryption for the data being pushed over that
datalink.
The limitation was at the time we were buying Predator, a
datalink with that capability did not exist in a form factor
that we could get on Predator. And so the decision was made the
Department would take some risk in some areas, datalinks being
one of them, to provide the warfighter with the immediate
requirement we had.
At the same time, the Department is working very hard to go
back and upgrade those systems, define interoperability
interfaces where they don't exist, require those interfaces
where they do exist across the services.
Mr. Flake. Mr. Sullivan, do you have anything to add to
that?
Mr. Sullivan. Yes. I would bring up between the Army's Sky
Warrior and the Air Force's Predator Program is probably the
most blatant experience that we had with the ability to look at
requirements for the warfighter in two different services and
come to some common agreement, and it just didn't happen.
And that was, if you refer to my written statement there,
we tracked the history of the ability of the Office of the
Secretary of Defense and the Under Secretary for Acquisition,
Technology and Logistics, to try to force that. As I stated in
my oral statement, at least a half billion dollars were spent
to start an Army program office and a separate development
program when the Army was looking for basically the same
characteristics and the same capabilities that the Air Force
had with the Predator. So that is one example.
There is another example with the Fire Scout, where the
Navy and the Army basically could have bought the same system,
but the Army decided that they wanted a datalink that would be
compatible with the future combat systems, which as we know now
has been terminated. And in fact, the Army's version of Fire
Scout has been terminated, too. That established two separate
programs because they couldn't get together on the datalink.
It is things like that. There is a high-performance kind of
a parochial culture across the services that I think a lot of
people understand, but in today's environment where every
dollar counts, and in addition to that we have an opportunity
with this new technology to be more standard and common, it is
just our belief that the services should try harder to find
these commonalities, especially when the Department itself is
pointing it out to them and requesting that they work harder to
do that.
Mr. Flake. Thank you. That is helpful.
Mr. Wolf, it would seem that in terms of export controls,
as the chairman said, this is pretty much off the shelf stuff
when it comes to the units themselves, whatever we are talking
about. It is the communications side of it, the software, I
guess it is. Is that where most of your focus really is? Or if
not, why not? Because it would seem that the ability of others
to get a hold of the software and I guess, some hardware to
interfere with communications here would be the problem that we
ought to worry about.
Mr. Wolf. Going to the question of what the focus is, it
depends on what you are talking about with respect to
particular export-related transaction. If it is an off the
shelf item, for example, that wasn't specially designed or
modified for a UAV and isn't otherwise captured or listed on
what is called the Commerce Control List, and wasn't somehow
specifically designed or modified for a military application,
then you are right, it wouldn't be a listed item. It would be
an otherwise commercial off the shelf item with multiple
applications.
Mr. Flake. I guess, in some way, the datalink stuff, that
is all proprietary within the military anyway. Is that correct?
Mr. Wolf. I don't know the technology well enough to be
able to comment, but if for some reason it was directly related
to a military application or otherwise specifically modified
for a military end item, then it would be controlled under the
other set of regulations.
Mr. Flake. Thank you.
Mr. Tierney. Thanks.
So Mr. Weatherington, let me get this right. I read your
title as Deputy Director, Unmanned Warfare Portfolio Systems
Acquisition in the Office of Under Secretary of Defense for
Acquisition, Technology and Logistics in the Office of the
Assistant Secretary of Defense for Acquisition.
You are responsible for the acquisition oversight for
Department of Defense unmanned aerial systems and associated
subsystems, including sensors and communication links within
all of that alphabet soup I just read on that.
So you are the guy. So how is it, were you not there yet or
was it under your watch that the Army and the Air Force ignored
the directive to work cooperatively and have some commonality?
Mr. Weatherington. Sir, I was there. And we had oversight
over that acquisition that grew out of the requirements
process. The Army ER/MP Program came through the JCIDS process.
And that process first----
Mr. Tierney. Could you spell that out for the record,
JCIDS?
Mr. Weatherington. J-C-I-D-S.
Mr. Tierney. You are not going to get off that easy.
Mr. Weatherington. And it is Joint Service----
Mr. Tierney. The temptation is there, though, isn't it?
[Laughter.]
Mr. Weatherington. It is joint capability requirements
process.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you.
Mr. Weatherington. When the Army requirement for ER/MP came
in, the Department's position is that we always look to current
solutions to meet those warfighter requirements. So the Army's
requirement was looked at against the Air Force Predator
Program and the JCIDS process, including up to the vice
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, determined that Air
Force solution did not meet the Army requirements.
Now, the Army fully competed that program, which was core
to the AT&L goals of maximum competition where we can get it.
The competitor who won that program was the same competitor who
built the Air Force Predator Program. And I would characterize
that the Army took a good Air Force design and made it better.
Mr. Sullivan has identified that there were unique
requirements between the two systems that did not afford
identical subsystem capabilities and the datalink happens to be
one of those. The Army has a relay requirement that the Air
Force does not have, and OSD and Joint staff spent a lot of
time at the subsystem level doing analysis to determine what
subsystems could be common.
There is direction, both out of AT&L and out of Joint staff
for the two services to buy a common video system, video ball,
for those two programs, which is in my written testimony. We
are undergoing a review to look at SIGINT capability on those
two platforms that will come over in a congressional report
very soon.
But as to the Army simply buying the Air Force Predator
system to meet their requirement, the Department's process
looked at that and determined that was not sufficient to meet
the Army requirement.
Mr. Tierney. Was the Army requirement sufficient to meet
the Air Force requirement?
Mr. Weatherington. Well, sir, that is somewhat overcome by
events because the Air Force has decided to terminate
procurement of Predator in lieu of the larger Reaper system
that they are procuring today.
Mr. Tierney. So here is what I think, or what I see as a
potential problem here or whatever, too many cooks in the
kitchen. If we are talking about unmanned aerial vehicles and
we have a number of different services, obviously, but we have
one Department of Defense, and we continue to let each
department, each service go off and do its own thing, as if
they were all in the different military in their own right and
working for some other government.
I don't know, but my understanding of having the Department
of Defense and having a Joint Chiefs of Staff's operation here
was to get some uniformity across the way and have somebody
make some decisions with some discipline at the top that would
say, ``all right, you tell me what you want; you tell me what
you want, but we are going to get one for the two or three or
four of you or whatever that works best for everybody, and then
maybe we could do little subsets off of it. We are not going to
do eight or nine because yours isn't exactly like yours is.''
That gets tremendously expensive. We don't have unlimited
amounts of money. We just don't have it. You know that from
your own work. So why don't we see a better structure with more
discipline and somebody stand up to the different services and
say, this can't go on?
That is what I think your role at DOD is. I am not putting
this on you. I understand you are the Deputy Director and
deputies only get to do so much, whatever, but isn't somebody
there thinking along those lines and saying, ``look, this just
doesn't make sense. We haven't got an unlimited pocketbook
here?''
Mr. Weatherington. Mr. Chairman, that is a very fair
question and I would articulate that the Department is doing a
very good job of that. Again, in my written testimony, there
are several examples of where, through OSD and Joint Staff
encouragement, we have gotten all the services to procure
identical or virtually identical systems.
Mr. Sullivan commented on the Marine Corps decision to buy
the Army Shadow system. They are buying that.
Mr. Tierney. Well, it sounds like it sometimes works and
sometimes doesn't.
Mr. Sullivan, what do you say to my question?
Mr. Sullivan. Well, I would agree with that. As we
understand the position of the Under Secretary of Defense for
Acquisitions, Technology and Logistics, that is the position
that should be making these decisions, and we don't see that.
Mr. Tierney. Instead, each of the services is making the
decision.
Mr. Sullivan. We don't see that happening. The services,
and there is enough that you are getting into here that could
be a whole different hearing on acquisitions.
Mr. Tierney. Well, I suspect we might. I mean, somebody is
going to set priorities here, and sometimes you have to say no.
And so maybe this service's request isn't as important as
somebody else's and one has to be delayed a little and the
other has to be expedited.
Mr. Sullivan. Yes.
Mr. Tierney. That is, I would think, the referee's job here
at the Department of Defense and that acquisition group on
that.
Mr. Sullivan. And certainly----
Mr. Tierney. Maybe that is important, I think, for another
hearing some day.
Mr. Sullivan. Certainly, Mr. Weatherington, like you
stated, I mean, this isn't the only place that this happens.
This is all over.
Mr. Tierney. Yes, this is not a blame game thing. You guys
are all working as hard as you can and we appreciate that, but
I guess it is our job, sitting where we are sitting, to start
helping people focus a little bit here and thinking of
different ways to do it. Prioritization would be one thing on
that. Putting some central management and discipline into it
would be another way to go about it.
And the other part that we haven't got into today but will
probably be part of any future hearing that we do on this, we
continue right across all acquisitions to see too few really
qualified managers, too few qualified schedulers. So that even
when we try to have oversight, we have just been hollowed out a
little bit. We don't find that we have the resources.
We have talked about this with the people in various
aspects of that agency on that. And we are going to have to
find out what the Department of Defense's plan is to get people
in. I know it is competitive financially. Some people get a
better job going off to the private sector and it is hard to
entice people. So what is our plan to turn that around? What is
our plan so that when we go to production with something we
have good schedulers who keep us on line, good product managers
to keep us on line, and somebody to say, no, we are not going
to change this 15 times along the path here, which helps
escalate the costs all the way up. So we probably will get into
that at a little bit more.
Mr. Flake, do you have any additional questions you want to
ask on that?
I do think that this is going to probably require us to
talk a little bit about the subsystems and the commonality
between those uniqueness needs and things of that nature. We
want to talk with the idea of how do we not stifle innovation
while we are doing that and all of those things at another
point.
Let me give each of you the opportunity to tell me what we
should have asked you or should have explored here that we
should bring up at the next meeting if we can.
Mr. Sullivan.
Mr. Sullivan. Well, I think I just would say that it is an
exciting area to be in. And we were just kind of going through
all the problems with the acquisition process, and certainly
this isn't immune to it, but what I see with unmanned systems
is an opportunity to really capitalize on standardization and
plug and play kind of thing.
And I would also say that the road map that Mr.
Weatherington's office has published has goals in it that I
think are goals and priorities that are pretty sound, but
somebody has to listen to them. And a lot of them drive toward
commonality standardization as a way to reduce duplication and
save money in the acquisition process.
Mr. Tierney. When would be an appropriate time, Mr.
Sullivan, for us to ask GAO to take a look at the performance
of the Department in meeting those goals, giving them time to
get them up and running before we start trying to critique
them?
Mr. Sullivan. That might be something that--well, the
latest road map was, when was that issued?
Mr. Weatherington. Late last year.
Mr. Tierney. Mr. Weatherington, what do you think is a fair
time for us to ask Mr. Sullivan's group to take a look and see
how close you are adhering to that?
Mr. Weatherington. Sir, that is really on your timeline.
Mr. Tierney. Well, it is, but I am asking for a
recommendation from you. I could ask for it tomorrow and it
would seem unfair to you because you just passed the darn
things.
Mr. Weatherington. Yes, sir.
Mr. Sullivan. We can probably discuss that with your staff
and figure out a way where----
Mr. Tierney. Well, let's keep Mr. Weatherington in the loop
here so that he doesn't feel like he has an unfair assessment
on that. I want it to be constructive. This isn't about, as I
said earlier, playing tag with people or anything like that. We
want to be able to look at it a little bit out and say it is
working or it is not working, how are we doing on these things.
Mr. Weatherington, anything else that we should add?
Mr. Weatherington. No, sir.
Mr. Tierney. OK.
Mr. Wolf.
Mr. Wolf. Just one followup on your China question about
exports from China, for example. I forgot to mention that there
are various statutes that give the U.S. Government the ability
to impose sanctions against foreign companies that are engaged
in proliferation-related activities, which would include the
export of UAVs and other MTCR-controlled items to Iran and
other sanctioned countries.
Those statutes are largely administered by the State
Department, but that is another avenue that the U.S. Government
has in terms of trying to effect and prevent the flow of non-
U.S. origin exports from third countries.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you. Thank you.
Let me just leave you with this. Why don't combatant
commands' sense of warfighting requirements drive the
procurement requirements since we do fight jointly, rather than
as individual services?
Mr. Sullivan. The combatant commands should have more say
in what the requirements are for the weapons systems, I agree.
Goldwater-Nichols was a major piece of legislation passed a
long time ago that was trying to matrix all that. And if you
look at it, I think we did it very well on the operations side,
but on the acquisition side it didn't take too well.
Mr. Tierney. Do your goals, Mr. Weatherington, sort of get
us back in that direction at all, do you feel?
Mr. Weatherington. Sir, actually one of the goals
specifically talked to meeting specific urgent warfighter
requirements. And I would articulate that it is difficult to
find any other technology in the Department of Defense that in
a single decade has made such a tremendous impact on the
warfighting capability of the Department.
That is not to say that we have done everything perfectly,
because in many cases we had to react very, very quickly. But I
believe the process we have today, with the formal acquisition
process and the opportunity for warfighters to send in urgent
warfighter requirements get equal weight in our acquisition
process.
Mr. Tierney. Yes, and as I say, these oversight hearings
are about getting things perfect in the future more so than
beating people up over the past. So the idea is how can we help
you. How can our oversight process help you meet the goals, if
they are reasonable goals, of getting there so that we do do it
in that way. And what is what we will strive for.
We are all set. Thank you all very, very much. Sorry that
it went so late because of the votes and things of that nature,
but you have been extremely helpful, and I suspect we may be
getting you back to take advantage of your expertise sometime
in the future as well.
The meeting is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 5:26 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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