[House Hearing, 115 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.A.S.C. No. 115-33]
CONSEQUENCES TO THE MILITARY OF A CONTINUING RESOLUTION
__________
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
HEARING HELD
APRIL 5, 2017
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
25-149 PDF WASHINGTON : 2018
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COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
One Hundred Fifteenth Congress
WILLIAM M. ``MAC'' THORNBERRY, Texas, Chairman
WALTER B. JONES, North Carolina ADAM SMITH, Washington
JOE WILSON, South Carolina ROBERT A. BRADY, Pennsylvania
FRANK A. LoBIONDO, New Jersey SUSAN A. DAVIS, California
ROB BISHOP, Utah JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island
MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio RICK LARSEN, Washington
MIKE ROGERS, Alabama JIM COOPER, Tennessee
TRENT FRANKS, Arizona MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO, Guam
BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut
K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas NIKI TSONGAS, Massachusetts
DOUG LAMBORN, Colorado JOHN GARAMENDI, California
ROBERT J. WITTMAN, Virginia JACKIE SPEIER, California
DUNCAN HUNTER, California MARC A. VEASEY, Texas
MIKE COFFMAN, Colorado TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii
VICKY HARTZLER, Missouri BETO O'ROURKE, Texas
AUSTIN SCOTT, Georgia DONALD NORCROSS, New Jersey
MO BROOKS, Alabama RUBEN GALLEGO, Arizona
PAUL COOK, California SETH MOULTON, Massachusetts
JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma COLLEEN HANABUSA, Hawaii
BRAD R. WENSTRUP, Ohio CAROL SHEA-PORTER, New Hampshire
BRADLEY BYRNE, Alabama JACKY ROSEN, Nevada
SAM GRAVES, Missouri A. DONALD McEACHIN, Virginia
ELISE M. STEFANIK, New York SALUD O. CARBAJAL, California
MARTHA McSALLY, Arizona ANTHONY G. BROWN, Maryland
STEPHEN KNIGHT, California STEPHANIE N. MURPHY, Florida
STEVE RUSSELL, Oklahoma RO KHANNA, California
SCOTT DesJARLAIS, Tennessee TOM O'HALLERAN, Arizona
RALPH LEE ABRAHAM, Louisiana THOMAS R. SUOZZI, New York
TRENT KELLY, Mississippi (Vacancy)
MIKE GALLAGHER, Wisconsin
MATT GAETZ, Florida
DON BACON, Nebraska
JIM BANKS, Indiana
LIZ CHENEY, Wyoming
Robert L. Simmons II, Staff Director
Kari Bingen, Professional Staff Member
William S. Johnson, Counsel
Britton Burkett, Clerk
C O N T E N T S
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Page
STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Smith, Hon. Adam, a Representative from Washington, Ranking
Member, Committee on Armed Services............................ 2
Thornberry, Hon. William M. ``Mac,'' a Representative from Texas,
Chairman, Committee on Armed Services.......................... 1
WITNESSES
Goldfein, Gen David L., USAF, Chief of Staff of the Air Force.... 7
Milley, GEN Mark A., USA, Chief of Staff of the Army............. 4
Neller, Gen Robert B., USMC, Commandant of the Marine Corps...... 10
Richardson, ADM John M., USN, Chief of Naval Operations.......... 5
APPENDIX
Prepared Statements:
Goldfein, Gen David L........................................ 69
Milley, GEN Mark A........................................... 60
Neller, Gen Robert B......................................... 76
Richardson, ADM John M....................................... 65
Smith, Hon. Adam............................................. 58
Thornberry, Hon. William M. ``Mac''.......................... 57
Documents Submitted for the Record:
[There were no Documents submitted.]
Witness Responses to Questions Asked During the Hearing:
[There were no Questions submitted during the hearing.]
Questions Submitted by Members Post Hearing:
Mr. Brooks................................................... 87
CONSEQUENCES TO THE MILITARY OF A CONTINUING RESOLUTION
----------
House of Representatives,
Committee on Armed Services,
Washington, DC, Wednesday, April 5, 2017.
The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:02 a.m., in room
2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. William M. ``Mac''
Thornberry (chairman of the committee) presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. WILLIAM M. ``MAC'' THORNBERRY, A
REPRESENTATIVE FROM TEXAS, CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON ARMED
SERVICES
The Chairman. Committee will come to order.
After having explored the next steps of defense reform in
yesterday's hearing, we now turn to what is needed to repair
and rebuild our military. And I am grateful to each of the
distinguished service chiefs for being with us today.
There is widespread agreement that funding cuts under the
Budget Control Act, plus a series of continuing resolutions,
coupled with the pace of required deployments have damaged the
U.S. military. I believe that damage has gone far deeper than
most of us realize, requiring more time and more money to
repair than is generally expected. There is plenty of
responsibility to go around for the current state of affairs,
with both Congress and the Obama administration, with both
Republicans and Democrats, with both military and civilian
leadership.
Among other problems, defense funding has gotten caught up
in partisan back-and-forth on other issues and has even been
held hostage to other priorities. We need to get back to
evaluating defense needs on their own without regard to any
agreement or disagreement we may have on other issues. The men
and women who serve deserve at least that.
The most important thing now is to repair the damage. We
have the chance to begin doing so by passing a full
appropriation bill for this year, acting favorably upon the
supplemental request, and then enacting adequate authorization
and appropriations for fiscal year 2018.
The immediate issue before us is the expiration of the
current continuing resolution on April 28th. We in the House
passed a full appropriation bill for fiscal year 2017 on March
8th by a vote of 371 to 48. The Senate has not yet acted on it.
As I have said before, I will not vote for a defense continuing
resolution for the rest of fiscal year 2017. It would simply do
too much harm.
Fundamental to fixing a problem is to expose it and
understand it. I understand that we have to be cautious about
exposing our vulnerabilities, but in order to do better for the
military and for the country, we must have the best
professional military judgment our witnesses today can offer on
the current state of our military forces, and on what a CR
[continuing resolution] or inadequate funding would mean for
them. To get on a better track, we all have to be clear and
candid with the American people. And that is exactly the
purpose of today's hearing.
Mr. Smith.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Thornberry can be found in
the Appendix on page 57.]
STATEMENT OF HON. ADAM SMITH, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM WASHINGTON,
RANKING MEMBER, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I agree with much
of what the chairman had to say.
I mean, certainly over the course of the last 6-plus years,
you know, the uncertainty that has accompanied the defense
budget has made it very, very difficult to operate. We have had
one government shutdown, countless threatened government
shutdowns, and numerous CRs. And I think most people don't
appreciate what a CR means; they just say, well, you are just
continuing the budget.
A CR basically means you can't start new programs, you
can't end programs that need to be ended, and as importantly, a
lot of times you are not really sure what qualifies as which.
All of you have to go through a very difficult task when we
don't have a regular appropriations bill of figuring out
exactly what you can and cannot spend money on, and that is a
colossal waste of your time and also very expensive. We should
give you a clear budget, every year, clear appropriations to
give you the freedom to implement that as is necessary. We have
not done that.
And I agree with the chairman, there is plenty of blame to
go around on that front. But the lack of budget clarity has
caused no end of problems. I also agree that the force has been
unquestionably been stressed over the course of the last 15
years, certainly with two major wars in Afghanistan and Iraq
and then the ongoing struggle against extremism all across the
world.
Our military has been given a large number of assignments,
and couple that with the inadequate, well, with the
unpredictable number of resources and you--you have a problem.
I think there is a larger thing that we need to get at, and I
agree with the chairman again that we need an appropriations
bill, and we need to fund the military to meet the mission.
I don't agree that we can somehow pull defense out of the
entire rest of the Federal Government, look at it totally
separately as if all the other money that we spend in the
government doesn't matter. Because unfortunately, we do have
other priorities than just national security, some of which are
really rather important. In fact, some of them have to do with
security--the intelligence budget, the Department of Homeland
Security; but also our infrastructure, which is crumbling at an
alarming rate and it regrettably is a tradeoff.
And I think the budget that President Trump sent up this
year makes that absolutely clear. He plussed up defense by $54
billion and he took the $54 billion out of everything else,
including a 31 percent cut in the State Department. And as the
Secretary of Defense, General Mattis, said, if you are going to
cut the State Department, and if you are going to cut
development aid, then you better give me five more divisions
because I am going to have a lot of wars to fight. It is all of
a piece.
As much as I would love on this committee to be able to
pull defense out and say we can ignore everything else, we
aren't just members of the defense committee--we are Members of
Congress, and we are responsible for all of that. Towards that
end I will make one final point.
As we look at how we put together a defense budget, I agree
with the chairman: we should not give the men and women who
serve in the military tasks and assignments that we do not
equip and train them to do. That is where we are at right now;
that is completely and totally unacceptable.
I do not, however, agree that the answer is to simply
continue to expand what those tasks and responsibilities should
be and kind of hope that we somehow come up with more money to
meet it because the tasks and responsibilities that have been
described by the President and what he says he wants the
military to do. He sent up a $603 billion dollar budget that
doesn't even come close to meeting those tasks and
responsibilities that are outlined. Even the $640 billion that
the chairman here and the chairman of the Senate Armed Services
Committee have talked about doesn't come close to meeting that,
either.
So what we also need to do, in addition to rightly pointing
out the lack of resources and the unpredictability, is come up
with a set of tasks and missions for the Department of Defense,
for the men and women who serve in the armed services, that we
can actually fund.
We cannot continue to say, well, you got to do this, got to
do this. We don't have money, we don't have the money, we
should have the money, we don't have the money, we should have
the money. We know where our budget is at. We know that we are
$20 trillion in debt, that we are running a deficit in excess
of $600 billion, and that there are other needs in our budget.
So I think we also have to be really smart about how we
spend the money in defense and about what missions we decide
our men and women should be ready, trained, and equipped to
serve.
So I hope that is part of the discussion as well this
morning. I look forward to your testimony, and I thank you all
for your service.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Smith can be found in the
Appendix on page 58.]
The Chairman. We are pleased to welcome this morning
General Mark Milley, Chief of Staff of the Army; Admiral John
Richardson, Chief of Naval Operations; General David Goldfein,
Chief of Staff of the Air Force; and General Robert Neller,
Commandant of the Marine Corps.
Without objection, your full written statements will be
made part of the record.
And let me just say, again, how much I appreciate each of
you being here. I know you have a lot of responsibilities on
your shoulders. I know, for example, the Commandant came back a
day early from an overseas trip. But I believe the opportunity
to get funding for the military on a better track deserves all
of our careful attention and discussion. Again, that is the
purpose of today's hearing. Thank you all for being here.
General Milley, we would be pleased to turn to you for any
oral statement you would like to make.
STATEMENT OF GEN MARK A. MILLEY, USA, CHIEF OF STAFF OF THE
ARMY
General Milley. Thanks, Chairman Thornberry and Ranking
Member Smith and all the distinguished members of the
committee, for the opportunity before you today. I appreciate
that, and I know we all do.
The world is becoming a more dangerous place, with
simultaneous challenges to the United States interests from
Russia, China, Iran, a rapidly growing threat from North Korea,
and an ongoing series of wars against terrorists. This is no
time, in my professional view, to increase risk to our national
security. A yearlong CR or return to the BCA [Budget Control
Act] funding will do just that. It will increase risk to the
Nation and will ultimately result in dead Americans on a future
battlefield.
To execute current operations, sustain readiness while
making progress toward a more capable and lethal future, the
United States Army requires, most importantly, predictable and
consistent funding. The lack of fiscal year 2017 appropriations
and no supplemental increase in funding will significantly and
negatively impact readiness and increase risk to our force.
Additionally, a return to budget caps due to BCA
sequestration in fiscal year 2018 forces the Army to reverse
our efforts to improve readiness and will lead to a hollow
Army. In the last 2 years, we have made steady progress in our
core warfighting skills across multiple types of units. But we
have much work to do to achieve full-spectrum readiness
necessary to meet the demands of our National Military Strategy
and the Defense Planning Guidance.
Advances by our adversaries are real, and the cumulative
effect of persistent and destructive budget instability for 8
consecutive years is increasing risk, not only to the Army, but
to the Nation, and will result in unnecessary U.S. casualties.
Readiness to prevent or, if necessary, fight and win wars is a
very, very expensive proposition. But the cost of preparation
is always far less than the cost, the pain, the blood, and the
sacrifice of regret.
Readiness is the Army's number one priority. Our current
readiness funding requirement is submitted in the amendment to
the fiscal year 2017 President's budget is $3 billion above
fiscal year 2016's operations and maintenance levels. Our
planning efforts for fiscal year 2017 request for additional
appropriations centered on filling critical gaps in readiness,
specifically in armor, air defense, field artillery, and
aviation.
If forced to operate under a yearlong CR, this will not
happen and Army current readiness and efforts to close critical
gaps will be severely impacted. Funding under a CR for a year
will result in a dramatic decrease in training starting next
month in May and by 15 July all Army training will cease,
except those units deploying to Afghanistan or Iraq.
Our CTC [Combat Training Center], collective training
exercises, at NTC [National Training Center] and JRTC [Joint
Readiness Training Center] will be significantly degraded and
all efforts to increase Army end strength, as mandated in the
fiscal year 2017 National Defense Authorization Act by you for
the Regular Army, the National Guard, and the Army Reserve will
also cease. The cumulative effect of training shortfalls,
combined with personnel constraints, will result in an Army
that is less ready to meet not only current requirements of
combatant commanders, but limit our ability to assure our
allies, deter our adversaries, now and in the future.
Also, procurement efforts currently on hold will remain on
hold, preventing the Army from immediately addressing known
shortfalls and gaps in combat systems, and importantly in
munitions, electronic warfare, cyber programs, air and missile
defense, long-range fires, protection and mobility programs,
along with several other modernization initiatives. We will
lose our current overmatch.
The current battlefield is already very lethal, and a
future battlefield will likely prove far more lethal than
anything we have recently experienced. Our adversaries have
studied us and are rapidly leveraging available technology
while the Army has yet to fully recover from the effects of the
shutdown in 2013. Time is not our ally. A return to the BCA
caps will damage the Army's ability to build and maintain
readiness at appropriate levels and result in multiple years of
negative impacts on the future of our Army.
While we cannot forecast precisely when and where the next
contingency will arise, it is very likely to require a
significant commitment of U.S. Army ground forces. Sustaining
high levels of performance that your Army has demonstrated in
the face of increasing challenges requires consistent, long-
term, balanced, and predictable funding. A yearlong continuing
resolution or return to BCA funding caps absolutely will result
in a U.S. Army that is outranged, outgunned, and outdated
against potential adversaries.
With your support, however, in passing the fiscal year 2017
budget and the supplemental, the Army will fund readiness at
sufficient levels to meet current demand, build readiness for
contingencies, and invest in the future force.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify, and I look
forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of General Milley can be found in
the Appendix on page 60.]
The Chairman. Admiral Richardson.
STATEMENT OF ADM JOHN M. RICHARDSON, USN, CHIEF OF NAVAL
OPERATIONS
Admiral Richardson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member
Smith, and distinguished members of the committee for the
opportunity to discuss the impacts that another continuing
resolution--in fact, just to leverage General Milley's
statement--continuing uncertain and inadequate funding levels
would do to the Navy.
And two points I just want to clarify and clearly convey
right off the top is that, Mr. Chairman, we need that fiscal
year 2017 bill and the supplemental in order to keep Navy
programs and key investments moving forward, to recover
readiness this year, prevent digging the readiness hole deeper,
and to sustain it into the near future.
There is a growing gap between the missions that we are
asking our Navy to do and the unreliability and shortage of the
resources provided to do those missions, as Ranking Member
Smith highlighted. We got to where we are today because of 15
years of operating at wartime pace. The Eisenhower Strike Group
has deployed five times in the last 7 years.
Contrast that level of effort with 8 years of continuing
resolutions and 5 years of budget restrictions imposed by the
Budget Control Act and the Balanced Budget Acts. This gap
creates years of stress over and above the inherent stress of
deployed operations. And the Navy team, in fact, the joint
service team, the joint force team, sailors, civilians, and
their families, have been absorbing that stress.
And so in the simplest possible terms as I speak to you
today, if we don't get the funding just described, lots of our
aviators will not fly and they can't train. We won't have the
spares to fix their planes; we won't have the gas to fly them.
We may not have the pay to keep our pilots in the services. And
we won't have ready aircraft for tomorrow's pilots.
Lots of sailors will not go to sea. We can't afford the
maintenance to fix their ships, can't afford the gas to steam
them. And ships will remain tied up to the pier. In many ways
this is irreversible. You can't get lost training time back; we
will be less proficient when we do go to sea, when we do fly.
Our pilots will be less experienced, which is a daunting fact
when you consider what we are asking them in wartime. Our
sailors will have less time at sea to practice together, to
train together, and to achieve the intricate teamwork needed to
win in modern warfare.
And the stress doesn't stop when they return to homeport.
Current funding without the fiscal year 2017 bill and the
supplemental will only allow for 1-month's notice before they
move their families, placing a huge burden on their families
and especially those with children. And we will continue to ask
our people to work in substandard conditions in over 6,000
buildings in dismal condition awaiting repair, replacement, or
demolition.
At the unit level, we will have to shut down air wings in
the short term. And in the long term, the shortage of airplanes
will get worse. We will delay important upgrades that help us
keep pace with the threat. These delays or cancellations will
put sailors at greater risk from cyberattacks, with the growing
threat of anti-ship missiles in the areas that they routinely
operate. Submarines will lose their certification to dive.
Ships will be at the pier instead of underway.
Failing to maintain our equipment has the same net effect
as cutting force structure; whether we leave a ship tied up to
the pier because it is not repaired or we decide not to build a
new ship, both mean one less ship at sea. Not being able to fly
an existing aircraft or not buying a new aircraft both mean one
less plane in the air. As the general said, this is not a
theoretical debate. While we talk about whether or not to keep
ships in port and aircraft on the ground, our competitors are
making steady progress and gaining on us.
America's risks are getting worse as other nations grow
their fleet and operate them in the Pacific, Atlantic, Indian,
and Arctic Oceans. As they extend their influence over trade
routes that are the lifeblood of the international economy,
including ours.
I just got back from Rota, Spain, where I saw our sailors
in action. We visited the USS Ross who is now in the
increasingly contested waters of the Eastern Mediterranean.
Those sailors know clearly that they are sailing into harm's
way, but they took an oath to support and defend the
Constitution and they live up to that commitment every day,
undaunted by the competition I just described. And their
teammates do this every day all around the world. They are
tough, dedicated, and proud of what they do.
Back here at home, there is less evidence that we get it.
There is tangible lack of urgency; we are not doing what we
should to help them win. In fact, we are here today to discuss
plans, potential plans, that would make their lives harder,
that will further shrink their advantage.
So, Chairman, I urge Congress to pass the fiscal year 2017
bill and give favorable consideration to the supplemental. It
will make us more ready, more competitive, and relieve a lot of
stress that is on our people. Together, we can find ways to
maintain our edge. There is so much at stake.
Thank you for the chance to testify, and I look forward to
your questions.
[The prepared statement of Admiral Richardson can be found
in the Appendix on page 65.]
The Chairman. General Goldfein.
STATEMENT OF GEN DAVID L. GOLDFEIN, USAF, CHIEF OF STAFF OF THE
AIR FORCE
General Goldfein. Thank you, Chairman Thornberry, Ranking
Member Smith, distinguished members of the committee for
hosting this critically important and timely hearing. It is a
privilege to be here with my fellow Joint Chiefs.
Your Air Force is globally engaged both here in the
homeland and deployed to capture and control the high ground as
we provide global vigilance, global reach, and global power for
America and our allies. As the service with the most diverse
portfolio of missions, operating from the outer reaches of
space, to 100 feet below the surface and everywhere in between,
we are involved in some way in every mission the joint force
performs. Put simply, your Air Force is always there.
Our responsibility begins in the nuclear enterprise as we
ensure the bomber and missile legs of the triad remains safe,
secure, and reliable, and on our worst day as a nation we
ensure the Commander in Chief is where he needs to be when he
needs to be there and that he remains connected to our Air
Force and naval nuclear forces who stand watch for America and
our allies.
In space, your airmen fly and maintain 12 constellations
that provide critical intelligence, protected communications,
nuclear command and control, and GPS [Global Positioning
Satellite] for the joint team and for the globe. When China
launched its anti-satellite missile in 2007, creating a debris
field over 300,000 particles, space became both a contested and
a congested place, and it is the responsibility of your Air
Force to organize, train, equip, and present the preponderance
of ready space forces to combatant commanders to fight should a
war either start or extend into space.
In the cyber domain, airmen join their fellow soldiers,
sailors, and Marines to defend the Nation and develop tactics,
techniques, and procedures to produce strategic effects in this
new and critical warfighting domain. Just 16 years ago, we had
a single remotely powered aircraft in test. Today your Air
Force delivers 60 lines of armed reconnaissance along with
high-altitude capabilities that provide an unblinking eye on
our adversaries.
If you heard jet noise this morning driving to the Capitol,
it was likely the F-16s from the 113th Air National Guard Wing
at Andrews who sit on alert to defend this city, just as we do
across the Nation to defend our homeland from attack. And I
learned just walking in this morning that we lost an F-16 from
that wing this morning. And I am proud to say that at least the
news reports are telling us the pilot got out and he is okay.
These are just some of the missions we perform here.
Simultaneously, airmen are operating forward in over 175
locations to assure allies and partners, deter adversaries,
shape the environment, and respond to crises. Job one for our
deployed force is to gain and maintain air superiority, which
we define as freedom from attack and freedom to maneuver.
When a soldier, sailor, airman, Marine, or coastguardsman
hears jet noise, I don't ever want them to look up. I want them
to know it is me. This is sacred duty for an airman. Once we
establish air superiority, your Air Force provides unmatched
global reach with an aircraft taking off or landing every 3
minutes delivering critical personnel or supplies where and
when they are needed. And we sometimes operate out of locations
that are in insecure areas. And it is our special forces, air
commandos, who are trained to secure airfields when and where
we need them in places like Qayyarah West in Iraq.
And when it comes to global precision strike, I call your
attention to the January raid where a pair of B-2 bombers
departed their home base in Missouri for a 32-hour round trip
sortie to Libya. These stealth bomber crews, refueled by 13
different tankers, delivered 85 bombs over 2 terrorist camps,
delivering precise legal effects within 10 seconds. And I
repeat, 32-hour mission, within 10 seconds of their designated
time over target.
And in the counter-ISIS [Islamic State of Iraq and Syria]
fight, Lieutenant General Jeff Herigian, the air component
commander, leads a coalition of 16 nations in the fight to
defeat violent extremism in the Middle East. In the current
fight against ISIS, coalition partners have dropped over 40,000
munitions on our enemy with the vast majority coming from
United States Air Force.
For our enemy, ``always there'' has a different meaning.
General Hap Arnold, who led the air effort during World War II,
stated during the worst days of the daylight bombing campaign,
``The problem with air power is we make it look too easy.'' The
truth is anything but. Today's Air Force is the smallest,
oldest, and least ready in its history. We have and will
continue to fly, fight, and win, but at a cost to our airmen
and their families who remain globally engaged.
Chairman, it is fitting that we are having this hearing on
Gold Star Spouse Day as a reminder of how vital our families
are to our mission. For 26 years of continuous conflict,
starting with Operation Desert Storm through Operations
Northern and Southern Watch, Deliberate and Allied Force in the
Balkans, Odyssey Dawn in Libya, and the current fights in
Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, they have remained faithful to
our cause. So it is unfortunate that we are now discussing the
potential of yet another extended continuing resolution, which,
as has already been said, is the equivalent of a mini
sequestration round which we have already been through before.
You see, in the Air Force we still haven't recovered from round
one.
Failing to pass an appropriations bill will cost the Air
Force $2.8 billion in the remaining 5 months of 2017. Here are
just two of the direct impacts to our most important resource,
our airmen and their families, of failing to pass a budget. We
will stop flying in late June when the money runs out; so only
squadrons in the fight or preparing to go to the fight will
train. By the end of this year, we will be short 1,000 fighter
pilots.
Chairman, it takes approximately 10 years and $10 million
to train a fighter pilot. One thousand short equates to $10
billion of capital investment that walked out the door, and it
will take us 10 years to replace that experience. Of all the
things that we can do to retain pilots, the most important is
to get them airborne. Pilots who don't fly, maintainers who
don't maintain, air traffic controllers that don't control,
leave. And while we will never buy our way out of this
shortage, an extended CR will also negate the pilot bonuses
Congress authorized, which will break faith with the force.
In addition, over 2,000 young men and women have signed up
to serve in the long blue line who will not be allowed to enter
the service until we get an appropriation. They represent the
greatest treasure in our Nation's arsenal. They come from each
of your districts. They have given up jobs, left home, made
plans, all to be told they will have to wait now for months to
pursue their dream. How many of these talented young men and
women won't wait and will choose an alternative path when we
desperately need to grow our force in fiscal year 2017?
As a service chief I have many obligations, but one remains
paramount. Every airman we send into harm's way must be
properly organized, trained and equipped, and led to succeed in
their mission. And we must take care of their families while
they are gone. This is our moral obligation. A yearlong CR
makes meeting this obligation extremely difficult.
Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member, distinguished members of this
committee, the demand for air and space superiority has never
been higher. With it, we win; without it, we lose. We look
forward to working with you in the weeks ahead to pass a budget
and thank you again for holding this critically important
hearing. I look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of General Goldfein can be found in
the Appendix on page 69.]
The Chairman. General Neller.
STATEMENT OF GEN ROBERT B. NELLER, USMC, COMMANDANT OF THE
MARINE CORPS
General Neller. Chairman Thornberry, Ranking Member Smith,
members of the committee, I will be brief so we can get to your
questions.
First, let me fully endorse the comments of my fellow
chiefs. And second, I think it is important to remember that
the readiness of our respective services are inextricably
linked. The fleet doesn't sail, Marines don't get to sea; the
Army can't train, we can't train with them; the Air Force can't
fly, we can't move around the world. So none of us can do
anything by ourselves. So our readiness of our respective
forces are part of that of the joint force.
Marines have a unique perspective on readiness based on the
direction of the Congress as the Nation's force in readiness.
Being ready is central to our identity. So the bottom line is
this: operating under a full-year continuing resolution through
the remainder of this fiscal year will seriously degrade
readiness across the force and have adverse effects on future
readiness.
Specifically, we will cease CONUS [continental United
States]-based flight operations in late July or early August
with the exception of those squadrons getting ready to deploy.
Lack of funding will slow, halt, or potentially reverse hard-
earned material readiness recovery efforts across the force. It
will slow the acquisition of critical systems and delay the
construction of much needed amphibious warships.
The scope and scale of our training will be significantly
reduced, impacting service level pre-deployment training such
as the integrated training exercise at Twentynine Palms, which
is our key event for certification before deployment.
Other events, large multilateral and multinational
exercises such as Bold Alligator at Camp Lejeune or our cold-
weather training in Norway, Cold Response, will also be
degraded. And we will be challenged to recover from these
training gaps, because once you lose a training you can't get
it back. You can't get it back because there is another unit in
the queue ready to go. And if you miss it, you are not going to
get another turn.
As Representative Smith mentioned, the global security
environment drives the requirements which determine our
operational commitments. Your Marines are as busy now as they
were during the height of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Just this morning, I returned from visiting Marines and our
joint and coalition partners forward deployed in the Republic
of Korea and Japan. I assure you that the forward-deployed
force is engaged around the globe in support of not only PACOM
[U.S. Pacific Command], but all combatant commanders and is
ready to go.
Our current operational tempo, combined against fiscal
reductions, the instability of these CRs, and the lasting
impacts of sequestration, continue to make us make hard choices
that prioritize support to the operational forces above many
other resource requirements.
The priority has and will continue to go to deployed and
the next-to-deploy units. But that results in readiness
shortfalls in aviation facilities, sustainment, modernization,
retention of critical skills, and the depth and readiness of
our ready bench. Working with our Congress and our chiefs and
the Department of Defense, and the chairman and the Secretary,
I assure you, the Marine Corps make the most of those resources
we are provided, and that Marines will meet the high standards
of the Congress and the American people, regardless.
I look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of General Neller can be found in
the Appendix on page 76.]
The Chairman. Let me ask each of you to address a
relatively simple question. Why is it different now? As Admiral
Richardson and Mr. Smith mentioned, we have had 8 years of CRs,
5 years of the Budget Control Act. You know, to most people,
they look and say, well, we are still bombing ISIS. You know,
we are getting by. We are doing what needs to be done. And yet,
each of you has painted a pretty dire picture of where we are
and especially where we would be under a CR or without a
supplemental.
So, again, I guess my basic question is, why is it
different now?
General Milley.
General Milley. In my view, it is the cumulative effect. We
have been doing CRs now for 8 years, shutdown in 2013. It is a
cumulative effect on the personnel. We have reduced the Army by
80,000 or 90,000 soldiers in the last 8 years. We have taken
out 17 brigade combat teams. We still have 180,000 soldiers
today deployed in under 40 countries around the world. We are
still actively engaged in terms of OPTEMPO [operational tempo]
and combat operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen,
Libya, Central Africa, West Africa, and several other places.
Roughly speaking, I just got back from the Middle East last
week, 80 percent of those forces that you see on the ground in
those countries are Army forces. It is the cumulative effect of
all of these years.
And, by the way, it is not just fighting in Iraq and
Afghanistan. There are other potential contingencies on the
horizon. We saw that yesterday morning with the launching of a
nuclear missile, or not a nuclear missile, but a missile from
North Korea that landed in the Sea of Japan. I have no idea and
neither does anybody in this room where all that leads. We must
be ready. It is the cumulative effect.
Chairman, if I were to draw an analogy, it would be like
smoking cigarettes. One cigarette is not going to kill you. But
you do that for 8, 10, 20 years, 30 years, you are eventually
going to die of lung cancer. It is the cumulative effect over
time that is really devastating and the seesaw effect of money
in and money out.
And also, we can't invest in modernization because industry
has to have predictable funding and we can't do that. It is a
very--not only is it negative on immediate readiness it is
devastating on future modernization because we can't get out in
front of it and it is much more expensive when you can't do
multiyear contracts--it is very expensive. It is an
inefficient, ineffective way of doing the budget.
The Chairman. Admiral.
Admiral Richardson. Mr. Chairman, I would pile on top of
everything that General Milley said. It is the cumulative
effect of this triple whammy of the operational pace against
fighting violent extremism; contrast that against the
uncertainty of the budget and the budgetary levels.
We always, all of us, strive to send our forces forward,
fully ready into those fights so that they are fully prepared
for any contingency that comes their way, but that has come at
the cost of readiness back home and those reinforcement forces,
those surge forces that would flow into the fight if we had a
major contingency, as the general highlighted.
I would also say that one thing, in my mind, that has
characterized the discussion is it is very internally focused
and it is not just us that have been operating in the world in
the last 10 years. So if we had this conversation 8 years ago,
in the intervening 8 years, China has completely modernized
their fleet and they are operating, not just around their
shores, but around the world now. Russia was actually
considered an ally at that time. We were exercising with
Russia, and now it is a much different picture.
The general mentioned North Korea and Iran. These
competitors have also grown in these last intervening 8 years,
and so the relative balance has shifted. So it is a combination
of our internal effects, the stress of 10 years of combat
operations, 15 years, contrasted against the funding
instability and levels. But it is also our competitors that
have been making significant gains during those 8 years.
The Chairman. General Goldfein.
General Goldfein. Sir, that is really, you know, let me
build on Admiral Richardson's comments because the reality is
the world changed in 2014. If you go back to prior to 2014 and
look at our posture and the collective assumptions we were
making, both within Congress and the executive branch, we were
out of Iraq, we were coming down in Afghanistan and in a single
year the world changed for us. Russia went into Crimea and got
active in Ukraine. China started militarizing islands in the
South China Sea. We had ISIS and we went back into Iraq. And
you may remember we had this thing called Ebola that happened
during 2014.
And while we may now all look back on that as not that big
a deal, as we were going through it, you might recall that we
weren't sure whether we were facing the plague of the 21st
century. All that happened in a single year.
So the world changed. And so the assumptions that we had
made in terms of strategic trades that we make because for, as
service chiefs, you know, what we do is we look at trying to
balancing capability, capacity, and readiness. And we make
strategic trades based on our assumptions of the global
security environment. And so to your question of, what is
different now? The world is different now.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Commandant.
General Neller. Chairman, on 9/11 there were 172,500
Marines and we deployed at a rate of 3:1. We were home for 18
months and we were gone for 6 and the gear we had was the gear
we had from the 1980s buildup; it was only 16, 15, 12 years
old.
You go to Camp Lejeune or Camp Pendleton today, you drive
around, that is the same stuff we are driving today. It has
been modified, been re-engineered. It has been through the
depot. Still flying the same F-18s; we got one squadron F-35s.
We replaced CH-46s with MV-22s. We are flying the same 53s [CH-
53s]. We are starting to get at replacing the Hueys and Cobras.
The force now deploys at a rate of 2:1. I mean, we have to
recapitalize this force.
We fought a fight against an insurgent and
counterinsurgency stability op. And as my fellow chief said,
the game has changed. We weren't talking about ``four plus
one'' even 5, 6 years ago. And all their stuff is new.
And we need to have our stuff modernized. And we have to change
our training. And we can do all that. We can do all that. And
we are in the process of doing that.
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Reference to the primary security challenges for the
United States being Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, plus terrorism.
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But we need to have the stability of a known funding stream
so that we can get the best price for modern gear, that we can
plan our training, that we know we are going to go, and we know
we are going to get a ride either on an airplane or a ship. And
our allies know they are going to be able to show up and we are
going to be there to train with them. And this potentially puts
all that at risk.
The Chairman. Mr. Smith.
Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I actually have no
questions. I have had the opportunity to speak with these
gentlemen on a number of occasions, so I will let Mrs. Davis
take the first questions for our side.
The Chairman. Mrs. Davis.
Mrs. Davis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you all very much for your service and for being
here today.
You know, you make a very good case, and I think we are all
with you in understanding the difficulties, the challenges that
you face. But I am also wondering, you know, here we are. It is
April; we haven't passed last year's budget yet. In many ways,
as you say, we are dealing with a continuing CR, which, in many
ways, is almost the norm. And so, what is it that we should be
looking at doing? Are there different metrics when it comes to
readiness and setting priorities that suggest that we actually
have to adapt to this kind of situation and still accomplish
the mission?
What do you think needs to be done differently at all if
this is the new normal?
General Milley. I don't accept that----
Mrs. Davis. I am not suggesting that I like the new norm.
General Milley. I don't accept it as a new normal,
Congresswoman. I think, candidly, failure to pass a budget, in
my view, as both an American citizen and the Chief of Staff of
United States Army, constitutes professional malpractice. I
don't think we should accept it as the new normal.
I think we should pass it and pass the supplemental with it
and get on with it. The world is a dangerous place and is
becoming more dangerous by the day. Pass the budget.
Admiral Richardson. Ma'am, here is what this new normal
would mean. It would mean trying to run a mile race and giving
the competition a lap head start. You have got to run very fast
if you are going to win that race and we are just not fast. So,
I mean, that is what you buy into if you accept this as a new
normal. I couldn't agree with the chief more.
General Goldfein. Ma'am, I will just use this as an
opportunity just to remind us in terms of what I think you
expect from us as Joint Chiefs. And that is, I think you need
from us our best military advice on what we think we need to be
able to perform the missions that we are being given. And until
those missions change, what we will continue to tell you is
what the force requires.
So the resistance you are getting from us relative to
setting some kind of a new normal is that the missions haven't
changed. And so what you won't hear from us is anything but
here is what is required to do those missions which we have
been given to defend this Nation and to do those missions as
required both here in the homeland and abroad.
General Neller. I think we have adapted, otherwise we
wouldn't be able to do the things that we do every day. That
doesn't mean we like it. I mean, we are not perfect, we make
mistakes, but I think we are adaptable because of the men and
women that serve in our services are really smart and they are
mission oriented and they figure out a way to get it done and
everybody is, you know, hedging or whatever they are doing, but
the bill is in the back end.
And the people we are contesting right now, they don't have
armored forces, they don't have electronic warfare, they don't
have an Air Force, they don't have long-range artillery, they
don't have the ability to jam space and deny our networks. That
is who is out there potentially in the wings and that is what
we are trying to get at.
And, you know, the force, we are a volunteer force. Or
maybe more accurately, we are an all-recruited force, and it is
expensive. And in order to continue to recruit, you have to
have the capability that they think they can have the
opportunity to be successful against these other threats. And
we can assume that it may or may not happen; that is not my
job. My job is to manage risk and provide best military advice.
So we need stability, we need to be able to plan, we need
to know, whatever the number is, whatever the number is, and
then we will go forward. But the force has to have confidence
that they are going to have a continued resource stream for the
capabilities they need to train and to be operational and for
their families and for all those things you have to have with
an All-Volunteer Force.
Mrs. Davis. Thank you.
Right now we actually have a hiring freeze, a Federal
hiring freeze. And is that contributing to degraded readiness?
And in what way?
General Neller. I would say, I will just go up and go back
the other way, but we have had pretty good luck because of the
parameters and the guidance that was given as far as we could
get a waiver for those jobs on the civilian side that were
directly affected, affecting readiness, maintainers, people
that are involved in certain things. It is not perfect and it
has caused some problems, particularly in the non-appropriated
side. And sadly, the people that were mostly hurt by that were
a lot of family members who worked in those organizations where
we couldn't get a waiver.
But we have worked through it, and we have got good
reaction from Secretary Stackley and Secretary Mattis and the
Department to fill those jobs. But it was just another thing
because, as you know, ma'am, it takes time to fill those jobs,
particularly if they involve a security clearance.
The Chairman. If the others of you have comments, if you
would submit them in writing, too, we will try to keep as close
as we can to the 5-minute rule because of the number of
members.
Mr. Wilson.
Mr. Wilson. Thank you, Chairman Thornberry, for your
coordinating this important hearing today on urgent issues to
American families.
I appreciate each of you for your extraordinary dedicated
service to our Nation.
I would prefer that we were under better circumstances, but
unfortunately budget uncertainty is an issue that needs to be
understood by the American people. Your clarity today is very
much appreciated.
In South Carolina, I represent over 48,000 enlisted
soldiers who annually graduate and are stationed at Fort
Jackson along with the nearby base at Fort Gordon, and the
nearby airmen at Shaw Air Force Base, the Marines of Parris
Island, Beaufort Naval Hospital, Beaufort Marine Corps Air
Station, and the Guard members at McEntire Joint Airbase. South
Carolina knows and loves our military.
Your leadership provides young people opportunities for
meaningful and fulfilling lives while protecting American
families. Additionally, as a veteran, son of a veteran, I am
grateful I have four sons that have served overseas in the
military, along with a nephew in the Air Force who has served
in Iraq.
It is for this reason that I am particularly concerned
about the negative impacts a continuing resolution would have
on military families, such as deferred reenlistment bonuses,
delayed family moves from summer to the school year,
reprogrammed military equipment upgrades with limited training.
How would each of you describe the real-life consequences
to military families that a continuing resolution poses on our
soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines? How would this affect
service member morale, recruitment, and retention? And
additionally, could each of you provide one specific impact
that stands apart from the rest?
General Milley.
General Milley. Thanks, Congressman, appreciate the
comment. And in South Carolina, as you mentioned, you got Fort
Jackson. At Fort Jackson alone on an annual basis we train, we
recruit, and bring into basic combat training the equivalent of
the British Army, every year.
Mr. Wilson. Wow.
General Milley. At Fort Bragg, North Carolina, or Fort
Hood, Texas, if you combine both those bases, that is the
equivalent of the Australian and Canadian armies put together.
What will happen in your State, in South Carolina, and many
other States that have basic training, Missouri and Georgia and
elsewhere? That basic training is going to stop in July. We are
going to run out of money next month. And then over the
following 60 days we are going to not have the gasoline, the
fuel, the ammunition, et cetera. And basic training is going to
stop.
And what that will mean is we can't take those basic
trainees that are already there and then onward deploy them or
PCS [permanent change of station] them to operational units.
And we will have to keep them right there at the fort. They
won't be doing anything, they won't be training, they won't be
doing anything of substantive value. And then we won't be able
to recruit and bring in more trainees.
So if we don't get this budget passed, we don't get the
supplemental passed, Fort Jackson, and many other forts, for
all intents and purposes, will be coming to a screeching halt
for all of the activities and training that goes on there. The
impact on families will be significant.
We already cut back on several services throughout the
Army. And we will continue to have to cut back on more services
for families, family members. You are going to have to stop PCS
moves; you are going to have to cancel bonuses. And bottom line
is you are going to significantly and radically increase stress
on the force that Admiral Richardson talked about. That is
going to be throughout all the services. It will be very
dramatic. It will be very significant, and it is something that
should and must be avoided, in my view.
Mr. Wilson. Admiral.
Admiral Richardson. Sir, before I begin I also have to
thank you for hosting our nuclear power school down there in
South Carolina as well.
Mr. Wilson. Well, that is a bit out of the region so I was
just trying to include ones nearby.
Admiral Richardson. Okay, all right. It is not too far.
Mr. Wilson. No. And see, I would have included Charleston
Air Force Base too, but I was trying just to stay with the
immediate region.
Admiral Richardson. Roger, sir. Well, I only highlight that
because that is some of these areas----
Mr. Wilson. We are proud, yes.
Admiral Richardson [continuing]. Are where some of our most
skilled operators, our nuclear trainers, our combat aviators,
you know, those are the folks that will be, you know, they will
be the first to leave. This is where we talk about competition.
Competition is everywhere I look. Competition is certainly in
the security environment around the world.
But I will tell you, I am competing every day for people. I
am competing with the public sector, and the pool of qualified
people to do those skills is small to start with and gets
smaller every time somebody gets hired by another place.
And when we talk about 1-month notice to move your family
and children from Norfolk to Guam in the middle of the school
year, that is a huge detractor. And that talent will leave, and
I will lose that fight for people. And it will be the highest
skilled, smartest, those folks will leave first.
Mr. Wilson. Thank you very much. And the rest, if you could
respond in writing, thank you very much.
[The information referred to was not available at the time
of printing.]
The Chairman. Mr. Langevin.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And gentlemen, I want to thank you all for your testimony,
but most especially for your service to the Nation. So like all
of you, I am very concerned about the impact of a CR across the
board, especially when it comes to something like cyber. So can
you discuss the potential impacts upon cyber programs,
particularly those that might be a new start this year, such as
the persistent training environment [PTE]?
General Milley, I am going to start with you, as PTE is an
Army program. But then I would ask the other services to add
their thoughts.
Next, for all of our witnesses, also, I remain also
concerned about recruiting and retaining highly trained cyber
warriors, especially as U.S. Cyber Command [CYBERCOM] is
provided personnel from each of the services rather than
raising their own forces. So the critical role the CYBERCOM
plays in defending national interests against cyberattacks and
providing support to military operations is an imperative that
we obviously cannot afford to lose.
And how will a CR and other budget gimmickry hamper your
ability to recruit and retain the best of the best?
General Milley. Thanks, Congressman. As you rightly point
out, cyber is a relatively new domain of war, as we refer to
it, and it is critically important, and significant damage can
be done to adversaries through the use of cyber. So it is
really important that we as a military, and the Army is playing
its role, develop both offensive and defensive cyber
capabilities.
For the most part, for the Army operational units, they
focus on protection of the networks and protection of the
forces, the defensive cyber capabilities. The impact of the
continuing resolution means that we are not going to be able to
finish the facilities at Fort Gordon, which is the Cyber School
Center of Excellence. It means that the National Guard is not
going to be able to field their cyber protection teams, their
defense teams for the National Guard. And we will not be able
to continue the level of training that we need to do for the
teams that are already formed in the Regular Army.
In addition to that, the CR will likely have a negative
effect on the recruitment of the best talent that we can get
out there to become cyber warriors. It is a new branch in the
Army. Thus far we have had great success. We need to continue
that momentum. A continuing resolution or return to BCA funding
is going to stop that momentum right in its tracks.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you, General.
Admiral.
Admiral Richardson. Sir, I will just again pile on. We have
been organizing for cyber for some time now. And that
organization includes people, the talented people that General
Milley referred to. And so we have a requirement for 40 cyber
mission teams that constitute a cyber mission force throughout
the joint force. And then there is the engineering. We need to
do the work to engineer our systems to make them more resilient
against a cyberattack.
Our latest development in that is to stand up the Digital
Warfare Office this year on my staff that will work with the
fleets to enhance our agility in the information domain across
the board. And it is a very comprehensive program; I would love
to come and talk to you about it in more detail. But that will
stop without this funding.
And also, many of those upgrades, those modernizations that
I talked about are to enhance our resilience against
cyberattack, which, you know, as the chief said, the critical
vulnerabilities. The first shots in the next war, in fact the
war that is going on right now, is in the cyber domain. The war
is on there. We need to keep that funding in place.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you, Admiral.
General.
General Goldfein. Sir, I will just offer you some thoughts
on what this is doing to Admiral Rogers as the combatant
commander who has been entrusted with the mission of defending
the Nation in cyber, defending the defense networks, and
ensuring that we have the talent to be able to do his mission.
All of us contribute to those cyber mission teams. And
while we can't go into operational details, this extended CR
will have an impact on all of our ability to be able to put
those teams in place and allow him to accomplish the mission
that he has been given at the very national level.
General Neller. Sir, I was up at Fort Meade talking to
Marines at MARFORCYBER [Marine Forces Cyberspace Command]. And
a sergeant stuck his hand up and goes, ``Hey, Commandant, how
are you going to afford to keep me?'' I said I don't know if I
can afford to keep you. What is it going to cost me?
I don't know if there is enough money out there. We got
people up there getting offered six figures-plus to leave and
go work in the civilian side. So we have already made the--we
close down, we are going to have to treat cyber like special
operations; once you are in, you are in, because the investment
is too high to get them trained, they got to stay. But then I
got to figure out how to pay them or get a contract out of them
long enough to get a return.
Obviously, if we are at a CR level, any money for bonuses
or anything like that, there is a tradeoff for something else.
I mean, you will find the money, but what are you going to take
it away from? There are no good choices.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you all.
The Chairman. Mr. LoBiondo.
Mr. LoBiondo. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you all for being here, and thank you for your very
candid and sobering explanation of what we are facing. Been on
this committee for a while, and I can remember in years past
when witnesses came in and just danced around the edges about
what the consequences would be if we didn't do our
responsibility the right way. And unfortunately we are seeing
the results of it now. But understanding in clear and uncertain
[sic] terms of what it means to each of the branches and to the
country overall I think is the sobering information we need.
With that in mind, I want to talk about the potential
strains on the military and tie in with what you have been
saying to highlight what I think our most important resource,
our men and women. So we need the weapon systems. We need the
modernization. But without the men and women, as you have been
saying, we have got a real problem.
Specifically the 177th Fighter Wing in my district
experienced a CONUS COLA [cost of living allowance] drop of 7
percent in 2017, compared to 2016. It was cutting paychecks
this year. While the fiscal year 2017 supplemental funds a 2.1
percent pay raise for troops, as authorized in the 2017 NDAA
[National Defense Authorization Act], and by law DOD
[Department of Defense] must provide this pay raise, unless the
supplemental is passed, DOD will likely have to realign funds
from military personnel accounts.
So, first for General Goldfein, what is the effect on
service members' pay if a fiscal year 2017 supplemental is not
passed? Exacerbating the strains they have already experienced
with such CONUS COLA cuts, how could this affect service
members' morale, recruitment, and retention? I know it is not
good, but I would like to hear it in your words. And what other
personnel issues concern you if we are stuck in a yearlong CR?
General Goldfein. No, thanks, sir. You know, I will
piggyback on what General Neller said. You know, when it comes
to meeting our obligations to our airmen when it comes to pay,
we are going to meet those obligations. The issue is we are
going to have to go somewhere in that military personnel
account to find that money. So it is the tradeoffs that will be
the issue.
For example, under a continuing resolution, we have talked
about PCS moves, right? Moves, change of station. For the Air
Force, for 5 months of a CR, there will be 13,000 families that
now will have to be delayed in their moves. Of those families
that now have children in school, think of all of the issues
that will go on now to have to delay all of those moves into
the fall cycle after they have started school. That puts a
stress on our families that actually can't be quantified.
When it comes to the last part of your question, which is
one of my biggest concerns relative to a long CR, quite
frankly, it is breaking faith with our airmen and their
families. They have been at this for 26 years now. They will
stay with us if they believe they can count on us to ensure
that we take care of them and their families as they deploy.
They will stay with us if they believe they are given the
resources to be the very best they can be.
And so I go back to my point. Pilots who don't fly,
maintainers who don't maintain, air traffic controllers who
don't control will not stay with us. So that is why you are
hearing all of us talk about readiness as our top priority. And
being able to fund them to be able to get them in the air is a
key priority for the United States Air Force.
Mr. LoBiondo. We only have little more than a minute, but
General Milley, you want to comment on that as well?
General Milley. Thanks, Congressman. Just very briefly, I
concur and endorse everything that General Goldfein said. By
law, we are supposed to do a 2.4 percent pay raise, you know,
ECI [employment cost index] is how they calculate it, to keep
pace with inflation, 2.1 percent is built into it. If we go to
a CR or go to BCA funding, that is going to kill any pay raise.
Right now, our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines, we
are reasonably well-paid by global standards. But I want you to
consider something, that in World War II only 10 percent of the
United States military was married; today 60 percent of us are
married and on average there are two children. So you are
talking about families of four here. If you are a specialist or
corporal with a family of four earns just slightly above the
poverty level. There are thousands of soldiers, sailors,
airmen, and Marines today that still use food stamps. That
should really get people's attention. And if we don't pass the
budget with the supplemental, it is going to hurt their pay, it
is going to hurt other forms of benefits, it is going to hurt
services, and it is going to crush morale, it will be very
devastating to morale.
So, again, I can't highlight enough yellow ink here to get
the budget and the supplemental passed, because to do otherwise
is going to have significant negative impact.
Mr. LoBiondo. Thank you, I yield back.
The Chairman. Mr. Courtney.
Mr. Courtney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you to all
witnesses for your testimony.
We have 5 legislative days, not counting today, to get this
done, so obviously the urgency of your message is, you know,
very important and, again, we appreciate it.
Admiral Richardson, I wanted to just drill down a little
bit on the maintenance availabilities impact of a CR. But
before I do, I would just like to clarify a point that was
raised yesterday when General Hyten of Strategic Command
testified over in the Senate regarding the knife-edge timeline
the Navy faces to sustain the SSBN [ballistic missile
submarine] fleet. As he correctly stated, Ohio SSBNs will be
coming offline starting in 2027 at a rate of one per year,
which you have testified about many times.
In order to avoid dipping below 10 SSBNs while the new
Columbia class comes into service, last December CR we included
a yearlong $773 million anomaly to keep Columbia moving forward
with detail design and production this year. Just again, for
clarification's sake, is that $773 million plus-up that we,
again, made as a yearlong anomaly adequate to keep Columbia on
track this year?
Admiral Richardson. Sir, I appreciate you highlighting the
forced march that we are on to get that submarine on patrol in
2031. And this is a program [that has] zero margin and so we
need every dollar of that for the year to keep that on track.
There is good news there. The team up at Electric Boat has
regained track, so our designs are on pace, and I will tell you
there is no margin in that. And even the fact you highlighted
going down to 10, that requires pretty much error-free
operation to maintain the requirements at that.
Mr. Courtney. Right. So that will be adequate for this
year, but stable, continuous funding to keep that on track.
Great, thank you, appreciate that.
Admiral Malloy, when he was over here earlier this year,
stated that a yearlong CR would drive the Navy to cancel some
14 or more ship availabilities. You know, you are dealing with
a phenomenon over the last couple years of carrier gaps.
Obviously that would kind of spread into other areas of the
fleet in terms of performance gaps. And I was wondering if you
could just kind of highlight that little critical point.
Admiral Richardson. Yes, sir. I mean, certainly we don't
just fix the ships just to fix them. We maintain and upgrade
those ships so they can go forward and do the Nation's
business, but we need to send them forward fully ready,
maintained, ready to go, just like your car would be. You just
wouldn't drive your car without doing the maintenance on it,
without giving it the gas. And so this will translate
downstream, the maintenance thing writ large.
You know, when you can't fly an air wing because the
aircraft aren't maintained, that just will result in, you know,
we are not going to send them forward untrained. We are not
going to send them forward unable to defend themselves because
of poor maintenance. And so this will result in a smaller Navy
around the world, longer tethers, less presence, gaps, if you
will.
And so, you know, it is a domino effect as well when those
maintenance availabilities get canceled. Well, all of our,
particularly the private shipyards, have to adapt to that as
well. So their workforce is going to have to be cut and those
people necessarily do not come back. They will find new jobs.
And so you can see this downward spiral that results.
Mr. Courtney. And just to follow up the chairman's question
about what is different this time, again Admiral Malloy seemed
to suggest that, you know, this is going to happen pretty much
immediately if the CR is the final outcome.
Admiral Richardson. Sir, our fleet commanders and
maintainers are hanging out with their fingernails right now.
They wanted to take action before because they are at risk.
Right? There are laws in place here in terms of spending more
money than you have. And if we don't pass this, it will be
abrupt. They have extended this as long as they can.
Mr. Courtney. Thank you. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Mr. Turner.
Mr. Turner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
General Milley, thank you for your incredible answer to
Susan Davis concerning the prospects of continuing CRs. Your
statement that it is malpractice and unprofessional is
incredibly important, and everyone in Congress needs to hear
it. We know certainly that members of this committee not only
understand it, but are the advocates to the rest of Congress to
try to ensure that it doesn't happen.
When the last CR came forward, many of you are aware that
members of this committee refused to vote for the CR unless we
received a promise from the Speaker that DOD approps
[appropriations] would move from the House. It did. There is no
reason, as we look forward to the prospects of a CR, that DOD
funding should be an exception. There is no reason it should
not be an exception because we have already passed the DOD
approps, we have already passed the NDAA. They should
absolutely just be stapled to whatever is moving forward for
funding and we certainly are to be advocating that it does.
But I want to drill down for a minute on what the effects
of sequestration and a possible CR, General Milley, would be,
specifically on the Army. Last year, Chris Gibson and I
introduced the POSTURE [Protecting Our Security Through
Utilizing Right-Sized End-Strength] Act. The bill recognized
the importance of ground forces in current and future conflicts
and, most importantly, implemented a strategic pause in the
Obama administration's proposed reductions to land force end
strength level, given future and current threats. It began the
process of reversing the harmful effects of downsizing our land
forces as a result of the Budget Control Act.
Under Chairman Thornberry's leadership, we successfully
incorporated these end strength increases as part of the NDAA
for fiscal year 2017. The NDAA provided full funding for
manning, training, and equipping for these increases. These end
strength authorizations associated with the fiscal year 2017
NDAA will allow the Army to begin the process of mitigating
some of the strategic risks imposed by the Budget Control Act.
However, we recently heard testimony from the Vice Chief of
Staff of the Army, and he stated that at today's end strength,
the Army risks consuming readiness as fast as we build it. This
leads me to believe that we need to continue to look at ways to
reasonably continue to grow the Army to minimize the risks
associated with the current and future operational demands. So,
a few questions in that regard.
First, we now know that the President has proposed a
spending level of $603 [billion] for fiscal year 2018. As you
know, our chairman has proposed $640 [billion]. Could you
please tell me what the effects of a $603 [billion] funding
level in the aggregate would be on rebuilding our military? And
what is the impact on Army end strength under a yearlong CR? As
we have continued to try to rebuild, what would the effect of
the CR be? So those two questions.
General Milley. There will be lots of impacts. Probably the
most significant, we have been authorized to move out for the
Regular Army to reverse the downward trend in end strength and
to move out to 476 [thousand] by 1 October of this year. For
the National Guard, we want to stabilize that force and bring
them to 343,000 by 1 October. And for the U.S. Army Reserve, we
would like to bring them back to about 197,000 by 1 October.
A yearlong CR will stop all of that, it will stop the
recruiting. As I mentioned earlier, it will stop the basic
training and we will essentially resume a downward trend. What
does that mean? Operationally, it means that units are going to
go to the field at less than optimal strength for training. We
already have units in the field for training in the 60 to 70
percentile versus what is required of 90 to 95 percent present
for training. That is a significant degradation in capability
over time.
We are going to end up having to, if it is a yearlong CR,
we will end up having to cancel the National Training Center
rotations out in California and we will end up canceling JRTC
rotations. We will also end up canceling significant collective
training for home-station training for all of the Active units.
And for the Guard, they are going to have to cancel four of
their, what we call, XCTC [eXportable Combat Training
Capability], or significant training events. So training across
the board, beginning shortly after we run out of money in May,
looking at June or July, training will be reduced to individual
squad training.
Individuals and squads an Army does not make. You have to
train at the company, the battalion, the brigade, and higher
levels in order to have an effective force for full-spectrum
warfare against the type of enemies that are possible out
there. So it will be very significant across the board,
Congressman.
Mr. Turner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Mr. Garamendi.
Mr. Garamendi. Gentlemen, thank you for your impassioned
plea for money. We know where it is coming from, it is coming
from all the other things the American public would like us to
do and, frankly, we need to do.
Our ranking member spoke to the 30 percent decrease in the
State Department and what that means. The $5 billion decrease
in the National Institute of Health research programs for
everything from cancer to Alzheimer's and the like. So we are
going to make some choices here.
You have been told to develop a war plan for ISIS, where is
that plan?
General Milley, where is the war plan for ISIS? You were
supposed to have it done in 30 days.
General Milley. Yeah, Congressman, appreciate that. I am
not going to discuss classified operational matters, but I will
be happy to do that----
Mr. Garamendi. But just tell me generally, where is the
plan? Not what it is, where it is?
General Milley. It has been submitted, and it has been
looked at and reviewed, and it has been submitted.
Mr. Garamendi. By this committee?
General Milley. I don't know that we submit it to this
committee.
Mr. Garamendi. No, I don't believe you have.
General Milley. We submit it to the chain of command
through the Chairman, through the Secretary of Defense.
Mr. Garamendi. You got $5 billion dollars, in your
supplemental you have $5 billion for a war plan that has never
been submitted to us. You expect us to approve something that
you have not submitted to us?
General Milley. Congressman, I am not going to get into a
discussion of classified operational plan.
Mr. Garamendi. No, my question was very direct, sir.
General Milley. I am sorry?
Mr. Garamendi. Do you expect us to give you $5 billion on a
war plan that you have not submitted to us?
General Milley. I would ask that you refer that to the
Secretary of Defense or the President. We work through the
chain of command on war plans.
Mr. Garamendi. That is not an answer to my question, but I
guess the answer is that you would expect us to approve a plan
that has not been submitted. Where the money would be spent,
how it would be spent, where it would be spent. Okay, fair
enough. That is $5 billion of the $30 billion supplemental.
You said in this testimony that pay will be reduced unless
you have the supplemental. But yet in the base bill there is a
2.1 percent pay increase. How does that work?
General Goldfein, apparently you would like to answer.
General Goldfein. Yes, sir. And what we said was that we
will find the money within our budget to pay that 2 percent pay
raise. The issue is we will have to make choices and trades
within the military personnel account to do that. So we will--
--
Mr. Garamendi. And I think the budget, if I might, sir, the
budget that we put out, the 2017 appropriation had 2.1 percent
built into it for the forces that presumably you have, all of
you have. Are you suggesting that that is not the way we----
General Neller. No, sir. We are not suggesting that at all.
The appropriations that came from this body had a growth, for
example, of 3,000 Marines in a 2.1 percent pay. What we were
brought here today to talk about would be the impact if we had
the continuing resolution went through the whole year.
Mr. Garamendi. And you have spent a good deal of your time
talking about the supplemental. All four of you did.
General Neller. No, I believe we have spent most of our
time talking about the effect of the CR, but I take your point,
sir.
Mr. Garamendi. Then we are debating the word ``good deal of
your time.'' Let us not get into too much detail about how much
time you spent on the supplemental, but each one of you
advocated for the supplemental. And we, at least I, have never
seen how you would want that supplemental to be spent in
certain key areas. That is not to say it may not be necessary,
but we are going to have to make some tough choices. And we are
going to need some detail in order to make those choices.
General Goldfein, you and I have spent a lot of time
talking about, do we really need to replace all of our ground-
based strategic missiles in the near term? You know, that is
about $50 billion. Do we need to do it right now? Or we are
saying can that be delayed and we can do some of these other
things that you would like to have us do?
General Goldfein. Sir, I would submit to you that all three
legs of the triad, the missile leg, the bomber leg, and the
submarine leg, the three legs of the triad, were all built to
build into a specific attribute we were looking for. The
missile leg gives us the most responsive leg of the triad. The
bomber leg gives us the most flexible leg. And the submarine is
the most survivable leg of the triad. And my best military
advice to you, sir, is that we need all three of those legs to
be able to do the mission that we have been asked to.
Mr. Garamendi. I have got 10 seconds. I am not debating
whether we need it or not, my question is, when do we need it?
We have to make some tough choices.
General Goldfein. Absolutely.
Mr. Garamendi. And in making those tough choices, some
things may get delayed. We have got to figure out what needs to
be delayed.
With that, I am out of time. Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
The Chairman. Mr. Lamborn.
Mr. Lamborn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Let me just try to clarify one thing here. I don't think
there is anything in any legislation where a plan has to be
devised and given to this committee. I think your
responsibility is to the Secretary of Defense, his
responsibility is to the President. And at some point we are
interested in what that plan is, but I don't think that is
written in stone that we have to be given that plan at point X.
General Milley. That is correct. We normally do not submit
an operation plan for full review to the United States
Congress.
Mr. Lamborn. Okay, well, thank you for that clarification.
General Milley I do want to ask you about a readiness and
modernization issue. Currently, Fort Carson, which is in my
district, has a brigade combat team [BCT] deployed to Europe in
support of our allies to deter Russian aggression. To get the
BCT ready to deploy, they obviously require reliable, modern
equipment and training.
So my two-part question is, if we had a CR, will the next
brigade combat team out of Fort Carson be able to deploy with
reliable equipment and necessary training? And secondly, would
the next Stryker brigade out of Fort Carson be able to go to
the National Training Center to get critical training before
deploying?
General Milley. Congressman, the Stryker brigade you are
referring to, that is one of the rotations that would be
canceled, so if there is a yearlong CR that unit rotation would
likely be canceled. For the deployment to Europe, we plan on
fully funding and resourcing units that are deploying into
Iraq, Afghanistan, and other areas of combat.
However, the unit that goes to Europe, for example, on a
rotational basis that you are referring to, they would not get
their full suite of home-station training prior to deploying
because of the personnel strength issue that was previously
discussed, the end strength issue. They would likely not deploy
at full operational readiness standards that we would like them
to deploy at. So there would be a negative impact on that
particular brigade deploying.
Mr. Lamborn. Thank you. That is very sobering and, to me,
has national implications and certainly has community
implications back in Colorado Springs.
General Goldfein, I would like to ask you a question about
space. In your written statement, you say that the JICSpOC
[Joint Interagency Combined Space Operations Center], recently
renamed the National Space Defense Center, will face critical
acquisition delays. You also mentioned delays in the new GPS
ground infrastructure and GPS III. So my question is this: With
so many military and civilian systems relying on assured access
to space, and even just GPS is critical for navigation, for
financial transactions, 2 billion out of our 7 billion people
use GPS every day one way or another on the surface of the
earth; what does this mean for security in space and access to
our space-based resources?
General Goldfein. Yes, sir. You know, we have been the
stewards of space since 1954 and we continue to take that
priority seriously. As we look at the GPS constellation, moving
forward with GPS III, with the ground-based stations and with
all of the integration that needs to occur is a priority. And
so we are managing that very closely.
The part that we actually haven't discussed here, I think
General Milley may have referred to it earlier, and that is the
impact on the industrial base if we don't have a resolution.
This is an incredibly sophisticated workforce that you keep on
the books if you are industry to be able to do the business of
space.
And so as we jockey the throttle between a CR, a budget, no
budget, an annual appropriation or not, these industries that
we rely on to be able to bring that kind of sophisticated
workforce have got to figure out what they do with them when we
tell them, well, we are not going to be able to use the
workforce for next year, but we are hoping we can do the year
after that. So it has incredible impact on the industrial base
for CEOs [chief executive officers] out there who are trying to
manage their businesses. And I will tell you, as the service
that is working the preponderance of space, that is a
significant impact.
Mr. Lamborn. Okay. I want to thank you all for your
service. And, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
The Chairman. Ms. Hanabusa.
Ms. Hanabusa. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you, gentlemen, for being here. Thank you for
your service. A special shout out, of course, to Admiral
Richardson for the time you spent in Pearl and on the USS
Honolulu. Thank you very much.
I represent the congressional district that is home to
PACOM [U.S. Pacific Command]. And we all know PACOM is the
largest AOR [area of responsibility] among all of you, you all
know that. And, of course, the concerns, like this morning with
North Korea, in protest maybe of what is going on in Mar-a-
Lago, they shot off missiles. And we also saw this morning's
news as to what is going on in Syria.
Having said all of that, we understand and I, in
particular, are very empathetic to the fact that you are on a
CR, but the fact remains. I think, Admiral Richardson, you in
particular pointed out in your written statement that we are 6
months into the CR, and irrespective of what happens between
now and 5 days from now, chances are it may not be anything
that you want to see.
The House, I think, has done, as the chairman says, its
job. It has sent over basically the defense budget or defense
approps. But having done that, we are in a situation where you
will be potentially faced with it and historically you have
been faced with it.
And, General, I agree with you, it may border on
malpractice if it were in a civilian situation. But the fact
remains that is what happens.
Yesterday where Admiral Richardson sits, we had Under
Secretary Flournoy. And former Under Secretary made a statement
that one of the things that she thought was necessary was a
flexibility in your individual abilities or defense's abilities
to move funds.
So my question to each and every one of you is, we can all
agree we don't like it, we don't like the situation you are in,
but the fact is you are in that situation. I would like to
understand what you all do to make things work. I mean, I am
envisioning someone in the back room with a little pencil
saying it is another month, Admiral, or another month, General,
so we are going to have to move money here and there if we are
going to do X. I assume you have the ability to do that. And if
you don't have the ability to do that, I would like to know
what will make it better so that you compensate for that.
And like I said, we all can see CR is not good, but we are
6 months into it. And even if you were to get what you want,
you still have 6 months that you had to have done something and
made it work. So with that, whoever wants to take a stab.
Admiral Richardson. Ma'am, I will lead off. The first part
of the deal was that everything that we have requested,
particularly in the supplemental, would be executable in the
remaining time. So, you know, the 6-month period of time is
that.
And, as I mentioned earlier, we--we have been doing all of
that adjustments that revisit and re-revisit to a tremendous
waste of time and energy by our leadership as we navigate
through the shoal waters of just continuing budget
unpredictability, instability, and insufficient levels. But for
this year, we are out of creative space.
Our fleet commanders, Admiral Swift out there in Pearl
Harbor as well who runs the fleet for Admiral Harris at PACOM,
he and his colleague, Admiral Davidson in Norfolk, they are out
of options. They have stretched it to the breaking point on the
faith that we will be able to do something to be able to fund
the rest of the year.
And so I share that faith that they have. This is not a
fait accompli, we can do the right thing, get your military out
so we can defend the Nation, can provide the flexibility and
protection for all the other things to happen. I am just not
ready to concede that this is the new normal.
General Goldfein. Ma'am, if I could add that so here is the
sandbox for a service chief: capability, capacity, readiness
and we make strategic trades. And so I mentioned earlier that
part of 2014, the world was different. And so as we were making
trades, I can tell you in the Air Force we actually traded
capacity and readiness to get capability, to modernize for the
future. Then the world changed. And so we have to relook at
that balance and make different kinds of trades.
When we are then limited or restricted congressionally or
legislatively to be able to work within that box to be able to
make those trades, it makes our job even harder because what we
owe you is the best Air Force, Navy, Army, Marine Corps that we
can give you for the money that we are given. And so that is
what happens.
I will give you one quick example. So we got additional
acquisition authorities, we have used those acquisition
authorities to be able to look at a weapon system that we can
procure at a faster rate. We get in a CR, anything that falls
in the new start category we are going to be stopped. So
modernization is future readiness, and so that is one example
of when we get legislative restrictions of our ability to move
within that sandbox, it is hurtful.
Ms. Hanabusa. Mr. Chair, I am out of time. Could we ask
that it be submitted for the record? Thank you.
The Chairman. If the other witnesses have other comments,
absolutely.
Mr. Wittman.
Mr. Wittman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Gentlemen, thanks so much for joining us, thanks for your
leadership.
I think it is unfortunate we find ourselves in a situation
where we hear this familiar refrain and that is the uncertainty
of resources coming forward. And what you all have done to
accommodate that leaves you at a place where you have no
flexibility to do the job that we ask you to do. Whether it is
the OPLANS [operation plans], whether it is the national
defense strategy, we are now stretched to the limit. We are
there at this point, I think, that begs the question, what is
the collective impact of this line of CRs or the sequester? I
talked earlier about time is now one of our adversaries because
we lose time with these things. When we have a CR and the
things that we can't do and we redirect dollars, as you should,
to training, to developing readiness, but that takes away money
from programs where we are trying to modernize, we are trying
to keep up with our adversaries. And then there are additional
costs. So when you try to catch up later, you never catch up
timewise and it is more expensive to do that later.
Admiral Richardson, give me your perspective on the impacts
of this roller-coaster ride of uncertainty and where it leaves
you, whether it is postponed ship availabilities, whether it is
lack of training for pilots, where does that leave you? And
what is the overall long-term impact both of time that we lose
and of additional costs to regenerate that in the future?
Admiral Richardson. Sir, if I could, how about if I phrase
my answer in the positive and talk about what could be done if
we pass this budget with its supplemental. I will run down as
quickly as I can a fairly extensive list.
First, we will keep the USS Ponce forward deployed, on
station in the Middle East. We will retain five cruisers
deployable, we will buy repair parts, ship spares, consumables,
we will fill those coffers. We will fund the 14 availabilities
for submarines and surface ships that were talked about
earlier. We will fund 14,000 flying hours for tactical
squadrons and we will fund 27,000 flying hours for student
pilots. Our aviation spares, which have been a big contributor
to the reduced readiness of aviation, will be funded.
We will upgrade our afloat and ashore networks to improve
their cybersecurity. We will add 15,000 moves and increase the
lead time for those moves to 2 months or more, from 2 months to
4 months. We will do material improvements to six airfields,
five piers, three hangars, a communications center, and other
facilities. We will do security improvements, physical security
improvements to our bases. We will buy more Tomahawk missiles,
more rolling airframe missiles, more ship-to-shore connectors.
We will complete the--the fiscal year 2016 DDG [guided-
missile destroyer]. We will keep on track the aircraft carriers
CVN-80. We will keep on track two aircraft carrier overhauls.
We will keep on track LHA-8 [amphibious assault ship], the
TAO(X) [new replenishment oiler] program. We will complete a
destroyer, four LCSs [littoral combat ships], LPD [amphibious
transport dock] and other expeditionary ships. The list goes on
and on. This is what we can do if we pass that budget with its
supplemental.
What a list that is. And this is just the Navy. The joint
force, each of my comrades here, my colleagues, has a list just
like that. And so you flip the coin on its other side and all
of those things will not get done. And that divot will be felt
for decades in the United States Navy.
Mr. Wittman. Very good.
General Milley. Let me make a brief comment.
Mr. Wittman. General Milley, yes.
General Milley. You know, for two-and-a-half centuries, our
country has got a long, cyclic history of unreadiness for the
next conflict. When they fired the first shot at Lexington,
they had no idea they were entering into an 8- or 9-year war
with the greatest power of the day. We weren't ready for the
Civil War. Lincoln thought he was going into a 90-day conflict
to put down a local rebellion.
And we sent guys off with wool uniforms to Cuba or into the
tropics. World War I, which we are in the 100th anniversary of
World War I right now, that army was fighting a Pancho Villa on
the Mexican border 2 years after the war started. And we
entered into it in 1917, Pershing takes those soldiers over
there, they are in a state of unreadiness when they get there.
And he has to train them for 6 or 8 months in France before he
commits them to the ground combat. World War II, it is well
known, right after Pearl Harbor, 1942. Go look at the history
of 1942.
Mr. Wittman. Yes.
General Milley. Look at Guadalcanal, Tarawa, look at the
naval battles in the South Pacific. My father fought in the
central Pacific, 1942 was a disaster for the United States
military in the Pacific. And it was a disaster in North Africa
at Kasserine Pass. Look at June 1950, Korea, yet again where we
were completely in a state of unreadiness, where Task Force
Smith deploys with two squads out of a platoon, two platoons
out of a company. Maintenance and equipment that didn't work,
soldiers that weren't adequately trained.
The ultimate impact of all of this stuff is cumulative and
it results in failed battles, lost battles, and dead soldiers,
sailors, airmen, and Marines on the battlefield. That is what
this ultimately results in.
Mr. Wittman. Very good. Thank you, General.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
The Chairman. Mr. Brown.
Mr. Brown. Thank you, Mr Chairman.
I want to thank General Goldfein for bringing attention to
the downed F-16 at Joint Base Andrews; it is in my district.
Glad to hear that no life-threatening injuries to the pilot, no
reported injuries on the ground. Obviously it is early.
Investigation will reveal the cause. But I am confident that
with greater resources we do reduce the number of aircraft
incidents that are related to either human error, training, or
maintenance.
So this is yet just another example of the need to continue
to invest in readiness, modernization, and in the men and women
to do the difficult work that we ask them to do.
Look, I was on the USS Nimitz last weekend and I looked at
those sailors, average age is 23, we ask them to do things that
few Americans want to do today. It is dangerous, it is
important, they are excited about it. A big majority of those
sailors, first deployment and the first time that they were
working with one another, but they are confident that they are
going to be able to do the job that we ask them to do.
And I said to them and I wanted to reassure them that
Congress recognizes that we are a great nation because of the
work that they do. We are the most prosperous nation in the
world, not just economically, culturally, our democracy, our
religious tolerance, because of the work that men and women in
uniform do. So we owe it to them to invest in the work that
they do, but we also owe it to the country to ensure that we
continue to be prosperous by investing in good schools, safe
neighborhoods, a clean environment, and health care and there
was no debate on that. And Admiral Byrne, who is doing a great
job on the USS Nimitz and that strike group, he gets that as
well.
So you are doing a great job, I appreciate what you are
doing. Here is my question and it has to do with BRAC [base
realignment and closure]. Because as we are looking, you know,
for all different ways to resource what we need to do, to find
the resources, the assets, the equity, the funding, here is my
question. The acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for Energy,
Installations, and Environment testified about a few years ago
that a future base realignment and closure round will cost
about $6 billion to implement and result in $6 billion in
initial savings and then $2 billion per year.
The Army and the Air Force in particular have been arguing
that maintaining excess basing capacity diverts scarce
resources from maintaining readiness and mission capability to
maintain an unneeded infrastructure. If a new round were to be
authorized, how would you reduce excess infrastructure and
balance of force? And given the potentially significant upfront
cost to implement a BRAC round, what other ways, if any, exists
that would permit you to dispose of excess capacity at a
potentially lower cost?
General Milley. For the Army, we do have excess capacity to
the tune of about half a billion to a billion dollars that we
would gladly try to shed if we could. And at the same time, we
have failed and failing infrastructure out there, about 22
percent, 33,000 facilities across the entire Army throughout
the world that are in really bad shape that need work.
A continuing resolution or a return to BCA funding is going
to stop the progress we are trying to make against that 22
percent of our facilities that are in bad shape. And obviously,
it is going to prevent any sort of BRAC, which we would
encourage, so we can get rid of the half a billion to about a
billion dollars worth of unneeded infrastructure that we have.
General Goldfein. Sir, I will just add that, you know, when
we talk BRAC we tend to focus on the C and we don't spend
enough on the R, the C being closure, the R being realignment.
And quite frankly, for the Air Force, it is as important for us
to have the flexibility to realign as it is to talk about
closure. And quite frankly, to General Milley's point, you
know, when I look through this lens, I look more at the
infrastructure I have right now and ensuring that we have a
budget that allows us the MILCON [military construction]
dollars to be able to improve what we need, not only to bring
on new mission, but to fix dorms, you know, that are World War
II era, to get the facilities that we need, to be able to
demolish those things that we don't need and bring our
footprint in, so we are not having to spend these precious
dollars on keeping large installations not only open, but
keeping all of those buildings continually be run, right, when
I don't actually need them given the size of the force.
So for us, you know, this starts with why we are here,
which is to talk about, first and foremost, getting a budget so
we can get into our military construction projects and our
modernization that we need and our restoration that we need.
That, to me, is far more important than a discussion about a
future BRAC.
The Chairman. Mr. Scott.
Mr. Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
General Goldfein, good to see you again.
Most Americans would be surprised to learn that the average
age of an aircraft in the Air Force today is 27 years old and
that some fleets like the JSTARS [Joint Surveillance Target
Attack Radar System] are nearly 50 years old. How would a
yearlong continuing resolution affect the Air Force's ability
to recapitalize these 50-year-old JSTARS aircraft?
General Goldfein. Hey, sir, thank you. And, you know, you
are right. About 48 years average that these JSTARS aircraft
are being used. And as the air component commander deployed
forward, working in CENTCOM [U.S. Central Command], you know,
we often talk about what we do with these aircraft relative to
the ground fight. But I will tell you, they are as equally
important to the maritime domain and what we do for Admiral
Richardson and his forces as well. So these are critical
aircraft.
Right now, a 5-month continuing resolution would delay the
contract vehicle that we are working on, the risk reduction on
the radar to be able to move that forward. And it is not a
linear. We don't just pick it up again because, again, back to
industry, if we go back to industry, they are going to have to
manage that workforce and that workforce may walk. And so when
we pick it up again, there is no telling what the long-term
impact of delaying our ability to recapitalize that critical
weapons system.
Mr. Scott. General, I am also concerned about the loss of
the weapons system when they go in for, I mean, they are going
to be overdue for major depot overhauls and then they are not
going to be in the air flying. And it certainly seems to me
better to put that money into new aircraft with new technology
than to rebuild 50-year-old planes.
General Goldfein. Sir, that is what we are trying to do.
And you made a point about the maintenance. The civilian
workforce----
Mr. Scott. Yes, sir.
General Goldfein [continuing]. Who are the ones that are at
our depots who keep these much older aircraft flying are the
ones that are impacted the most personnel-wise from a CR. And
so you lose literally hundreds of man-hours of being about to
get the depot maintenance on these older aircraft to keep them
airborne.
Mr. Scott. Yes, sir. And I hope that you all maintain that
position that you do not want a CR.
General Milley, congratulations on the pistol, long
overdue. That is the first time I have seen you laugh.
You state in your testimony that over 80 percent of the
U.S. military forces in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan are U.S.
Army soldiers. Building on what General Goldfein has stated
today about the impact of the continuing resolution on the Air
Force, how would the constraint on heavy lift and combat
support aircraft impact your piece of the fight against ISIS?
General Milley. Well, frankly, the Army is dependent and we
are all dependent on each other, as General Neller said
earlier. With respect to heavy lift, I mean, the Army can't get
to the fight without the Navy or the Air Force. Just can't get
there. Our people and equipment doesn't arrive at the point of
decision without the transport capabilities of the Navy and the
Air Force. So it will be significant if the Air Force doesn't
have that kind of capability. So we are a big advocate. We in
the Army are a huge advocate for the Navy, the Air Force, and
the Marines who are on the ground with us. It is a joint fight.
And I as a soldier, I want the most unbelievable Air Force
the world has ever known because a soldier's best friend is
when a fixed-wing Air Force pilot is showing up in his aircraft
when we are in contact. And that is the first call we all make
is to the United States Air Force or Navy or Marines, whatever
aircraft is flying around there, or an Army attack helicopter,
to come to us to make sure it is an uneven fight on the ground.
So I want the best Navy, the best Air Force, the best Marine
Corps as the Chief of Staff of the Army. It is a single joint
fight.
Mr. Scott. Could you reiterate the impact, if we don't get
the $5 billion for the urgent operational requirements for
Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan to counter ISIS and the additional
intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, could you
reiterate your points on the consequences to our deployed
forces in those areas and our operational mission if the
supplemental is not passed?
General Milley. Candidly, Congressman, I would like to do
that, but I would like to do that in a classified session to
talk about specific operational impacts. What I would say just
here is it would be negative.
Mr. Scott. Yes, sir.
General Milley. And it would be unhelpful to the ongoing
efforts.
Mr. Scott. Gentlemen, I want to thank you all for your
service, and I hope that you will continue to maintain the
position of no CR. This has gone on way too long. Thank you,
and God bless you.
I yield back.
The Chairman. Ms. Rosen.
Ms. Rosen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Smith.
And I thank all of you for your testimony today and being
here and we know how detrimental the continuing resolution is
to everyone's ability to plan, prepare, and do long-range
strategic planning, not just in our military, but in every area
of our Nation. That affects all of us in the country,
worldwide.
But I want to ask General Goldfein a question. Of course, I
represent Nevada's Third District. Nellis Air Force Base is
just a few miles outside my district, and, of course, it is one
of our main combat training exercises, the Red Flag, right
there, very important to us, very important to you. And so we
are designed to provide our pilots with their first 10 combat
missions prior to actually flying in combat there. So is Red
Flag going to be included in the stand-down under a continuing
resolution this time?
General Goldfein. Yes, ma'am. I think what you have already
heard from us is that one of the first things that will go, as
we look at where we have to go for the money, like for the Air
Force. Where do I find $2.8 billion? One of the first places I
have to go is to cancel exercises. So I have got airmen right
now that are actually scheduled to deploy, that are scheduled
to come to Nellis to do their first 10 combat missions in that
unmatched training environment, that will not go do that
training.
They are still going to deploy, we don't stop the
deployment because that is what the Nation calls on us to do,
we just go less ready. So we are all going to end up canceling
rotations at National Training Center, at Fallon, at Camp
Lejeune, and clearly at Nellis.
Ms. Rosen. So you would say the impact of a continuing
resolution impacts human lives, obviously, the lives of our
soldiers and it will impact the lives of their families because
we are not able to pass a budget?
General Goldfein. Ma'am, I will share a very personal
story. So, you know, Captain Goldfein, day one, Desert Storm,
never been into combat, we had one guy in the whole formation
that had been into combat in Vietnam, and we all went across
the line. And I remember the first time I heard triple-A, you
know, anti-aircraft [artillery], right, 2:00.
Ms. Rosen. Right.
General Goldfein. And we all looked and then I remember
hearing, you know, SA-2, left, 10:00, and we all saw our first
surface-to-air missile. And then I remember hearing splash,
MiG-29, and I was in the formation, and I saw a MiG-29 hit the
ground. And I remember that moment in my cockpit. And I
remember the confidence that came over my cockpit because I
realized I have seen this before, I have heard these radio
calls. I have actually seen Smokey Sam simulators simulating
triple-A and surface-to-air missiles.
Never seen an airplane hit the ground before, but I have
heard this, I have been in this environment before. And you
can't imagine the confidence that came over my cockpit and all
of those that were flying that day that said we have been here,
we can do this mission, and we went in and we crushed it.
So what Nellis provides is confidence in the air and
confidence under fire, and so it concerns me that we are not
going to give that training to our young men and women.
Ms. Rosen. Well, I think we know that from everything we
do, the more training you have, the more muscle memory you
have, the better able you are to execute your job, no matter
what it is.
Admiral Richardson. Ma'am, if I could also just pile on.
There is a great responsibility we have to do things different
and better as well. We can't just do--keep doing the same
things for the same cost and expect to be effective.
Ms. Rosen. Right.
Admiral Richardson. And Nellis and Fallon and our training
ranges, that is where that development is done, that is where
we experiment, that is where we learn the new ways to fight,
more effective ways to fight, more efficient ways to fight. And
so it is not just, you know, going out and doing sets and reps,
this is learning how to fight in the future. It is extremely
important.
Ms. Rosen. Well, I thank you for your service and I, for
one, don't want to send one more service member into battle
unprepared. Thank you.
The Chairman. Dr. Wenstrup.
Dr. Wenstrup. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you,
gentlemen, for being with us today.
You know, in budgeting decisions, we don't get to decide
ourselves here in this committee, it is beyond us. And I just
don't know how many of our members sometimes really dwell on or
understand the details and the difficulty that goes into
running an efficient and effective military. And when we are in
this discussion today, it is probably the most grave I have
heard since I have been here and rightfully so.
And I know that each of you look at your troops as part of
your family and that is what makes this even tougher to think
the environment that you are being asked to be put in and your
family members being asked to be put in. We have touched a
little bit about what happens to those next to deploy; they may
deploy, but they are not going to be as ready as they should
be.
And I also would like to hear from you, if we could, on the
consequences of those that are currently deployed in Iraq,
Syria, Afghanistan, and what is going through your mind if we
find ourselves in the situation that may happen, which we do
not want.
And I will start with you, General Neller.
General Neller. As we have all said, we will make trades. I
mean, I think we are pretty flexible, we are all in learning
organizations and as much as we don't like the fiscal situation
we have been in, you know, we are mission oriented and we
figured it out. But I think, at this point, what you are seeing
is those that are forward deployed have got the best gear, they
got the best part support, they got the best training we can
give them. The next ones out the door, then, and it goes down
from there.
But because of the security environment that we see, the
folks that just came back, if you would, the people on deck, or
actually in the hole in the dugout getting ready to run out on
the field, those are the ones that are going to end up getting
the shorter end of the stick.
I mean, there is normal level and rhythm of a force and how
you train it. But if we have to make cuts, for example if we
had a CR as opposed to the budget that you have all passed,
that is an $800 million delta for the Marine Corps, $500
million on the ground side, $300 million on the air side. So
those that are in the dugout, in the hole, if you will, they
are the ones that are going to take the hit.
And then when they get on deck, you will be chasing
yourself, to try to catch up, to get the reps and sets you need
and the time is not there. We just don't have the time that we
used to have. So that is the risk, that is the risk. And that
is just in today's fight.
If you go to one of the other adversaries that we have all
talked about and we continue to maintain the current ops, those
are the ones that are going to have to go there, or you are
going to have to shift the force. So that is the risk that we
have all talked about.
General Goldfein. Sir, I would also add that, you know, we
have all had a lot of time deployed forward and a lot of time
deployed together. And when we would do our battlefield
circulation and talk to our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and
Marines, we would always most of us get the same question,
okay, exactly what are we doing here? And we could all give
that speech.
The hardest question to answer was, why isn't anybody
talking about it back home? Why are we all completely focused
about it here forward, but nobody is focused on it back home?
That was the hardest question to answer as a commander in the
field.
So my concern, in terms of those who are deployed forward
right now and for their families, is they are going to ask the
question, are we serious about this or not? Is their risk going
forward worth it or not? And I am not sure, if we don't even
pass a budget, we can look them in the eye and tell them that
what they are doing forward is on the minds of this Congress.
Dr. Wenstrup. I appreciate that, General.
Admiral.
Admiral Richardson. Sir, I will just--one word is
munitions. That is how the forward force will be affected.
Every one of my strike group commanders that comes back is
coming back on fumes when it comes to munitions. And this is
the good stuff, if you will, the precision munitions, the ones
that we are using for a very good reason. And so I know that
General Milley feels that same shortage and that is an
absolutely critical part of this recovery is the restock of our
magazines with the munitions we need to prevail.
General Milley. Congressman, for those that are deploying,
we try to ensure that they get the maximum equipment and
training. It is really the bench, as General Neller said. And
then as Admiral Richardson said about munitions, we are
critically short, and I am not going to go into it publicly and
happy to do it in classified sessions, but a discussion of
munitions is important.
And for the Army, we actually, I didn't realize this before
becoming the chief, but we actually make the bombs for the
aircraft that the Navy, Air Force, and Marines fly. They had
all the precision stuff, but we make the basic bombs at our
joint munitions facility for which we are responsible for. And
next month, we are not going to be able to ship those bombs to
our sister services for training.
Operational things will be taken care of, but at Nellis, at
the different Red Flags, they are not going to have bombs to
drop. They are not going to have that practice that ``Fingers''
just talked about, that General Goldfein just talked about. So
munitions is critical and the shipping of those training
munitions is going to cease here in the next month or two.
And the other thing that we talk about is leader
development. Missed training, missed opportunities. Say we miss
6 months of training, that is an entire generation of
lieutenants and captains that are going to miss training that
is never going to be made up, sergeants and so on.
The other piece is, like this summer, we are not going to
be able to run ROTC [Reserve Officer Training Corps] summer
camp, or military academy summer camp at West Point. We are
going to have 74 percent of second lieutenants in the United
States Army won't get commissioned in fiscal year 2018 because
they won't be qualified because their summer camp is going to
be missed this summer.
So there is enormous amount of consequence in all kinds of
areas if we go with the continuing resolution or return to BCA
and we don't get this budget and supplemental passed and
quickly.
Dr. Wenstrup. Thank you, General.
The Chairman. Mr. Carbajal.
Mr. Carbajal. Thank you, Chairman Thornberry and Ranking
Member Smith.
And thank you all for coming and addressing us today and
thank you for your service. Even with a Budget Control Act
repeal, we would not have a blank check and must prioritize as
intelligently as possible. While some estimates put costs at an
additional $1.2 billion per 10,000 uniformed personnel, how do
you reconcile the need to train and equip the current force
with a desire to increase end strength?
General Milley. For the Army, they are interlinked, the
idea of the readiness of the force, the size, the capacity and
capability of the force. Obviously, what we want for this
budget, for 2017, is we want to fill holes. There are already
holes existing in the forces; not increasing the force
structure, the increased end strength is not to make the Army
bigger in terms of number of brigades and divisions and so on.
It is to make the units that do exist, whole. To make them
capable of doing adequate levels of training.
Training a unit at 65 or 70 percent strength is inadequate.
You take 10 percent casualties in combat, maybe 15 percent, you
are going to be a combat-ineffective unit. Yet we are training
on a routine basis units at 65, 70, 75 percent strength at the
training centers for the high-end collective training.
So this increase in end strength, I want to be careful that
it is not mischaracterized as an increase in the Army. It is
not. It is a filling of the holes in the existing force
structure, and I think that is an important piece of it, and
that is how I would reconcile it. We are not increasing the
brigades and divisions or any of that. We are just filling
holes in the existing units.
General Goldfein. And I add, because it is the exact same
thing in the Air Force. We are filling formations to do the
mission that we have been given.
I will also tell you that you need those forces to actually
achieve the training, to be able to build the time you need and
the forces you need to support the training we have been
talking about. And here is how sometimes this gets masked. So
when I was a younger pilot, and I would show up at the
aircraft, I would meet my crew chief, the dedicated crew chief
and the assistant, and we walk around the airplane, and then I
taxi to the end of the runway and a different crew would be
there to meet me, and they would pull the pins and arm the
aircraft and I would take off, and I would go to another
destination, and a third crew would be there to meet me.
Here is what often happens when you get to the shortfalls
that we are seeing right now. Your taxi is slow because the
same single crew chief has got to get to the end of the runway,
because it is the same individual that is pulling your pins and
arming you. And then you have to fly slow because that guy has
got to get on a C-17 and fly to the next location to be able to
meet you. That is a vignette of some of the ways that we are
managing the smaller force.
So to General Milley's point, this is not about growing the
Air Force or the Army. This is about filling holes.
General Neller. I would say for us it is a little bit
different. This body authorized an increase in 3,000 Marines.
And those Marines are going to do different missions than the
183,000, 184,000 are doing today because we have a requirement
to develop different capabilities that we think we need for the
future fight. So if that money is not there and we can't grow
the force, we are going to develop those capabilities, but it
is going to come out of that 182,000 base. So 3,000 Marines
that are doing something today are going to do something
different. And that is going to reduce our capability in those
particular areas.
So we have got to grow these new capabilities. Yeah, there
is going to be some filling of shortfalls in maintenance and
other places, but ours is different. We have got to build a
force that is ready to fight what we think we are going to face
in 2025.
Mr. Carbajal. Thank you very much. Mr. Chairman, I yield
back.
The Chairman. Ms. Stefanik.
Ms. Stefanik. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you to our witnesses for your leadership and for
your service.
In my district, which is New York's 21st District, I
represent two of our Nation's premier career military
installations: Fort Drum, which is home of the 10th Mountain
Division, and Kesselring, which is a naval nuclear training
facility.
My first question is for General Milley, and it is
regarding Army's aviation readiness.
The 10th Mountain Combat Aviation Brigade is currently
supporting Operation Atlantic Resolve throughout EUCOM [U.S.
European Command], and I have serious concerns that the CR
could limit future aviation capabilities and training
opportunities, like the ongoing deployment of the 10th
Mountain. Could you describe how a CR would impact the Army's
aviation readiness, specifically its training, and, on top of
that, the pilot shortage that the Army is already experiencing?
General Milley. Thanks, Congresswoman. I appreciate that
and ``climb to glory'' for the mighty 10th Mountain Division, a
shout-out to the north country. A continuing resolution or a
return to BCA would have a significant, negative effect on Army
rotary-wing aviation.
We are already short 741 pilots, which we are trying, if we
can get the budget passed with the supplemental, we are trying
to make that up. But if we don't get the budget passed with the
supplemental, we are not going to make that up and that is
going to increase several hundred more. And that is across the
entire total Army with the Active, the National Guard, and the
U.S. Army Reserve.
For the National Guard specifically, there are about 1,300
pilot seats available in a given year that won't be available
in the following year as a result of a continuing resolution.
Those would be National Guard and Reserve seats. There are
about another 1,000 seats that might not be available for the
Regular Army.
We are going to try to preserve and fence the flying hour
program, those already qualified pilots that are in units,
although I must mention that the standard is about 14 hours, 15
hours a month of rotary-wing flying. We have reduced that over
the last 8 years, so the new normal, if you will, is something
around the 12 or 13 hours, but we are going to preserve the 12
or 13 hours.
We don't like the new normal, but the flying hours program
will try to fence that. For units that are deploying, we will
make sure that they get the appropriate levels of training to
deploy into combat.
And the last piece is upgrading the fleet. The continuing
resolution or a BCA is going to prevent us from putting active
protection systems for missile defense on the aircraft. We will
not be able to upgrade some of the modernization efforts that
we have inside the cockpits. We are going to be short on the
munitions and Hellfires, et cetera, for the Apaches. And most
importantly, we are not going to be able to buy the additional
Apaches we need to fill the holes in the existing force
structure, for both the Regular Army and the National Guard. It
will be a significant negative impact on Army aviation.
Ms. Stefanik. Thank you, General Milley.
And my second question is for Admiral Richardson. I
understand the second moored training ship [MTS] requires a new
start and full funding this year to provide training for
nuclear operators, and I am asking this question in context of
Kesselring.
What is the current status of the second MTS and how would
a CR create challenges for the Navy if it is not funded and
allowed to start in fiscal year 2017?
Admiral Richardson. Ma'am, great question, and thanks for
your support of Kesselring and everything that they do up
there.
There has been a fair amount of talk about a balanced
approach and that everything that has to do with national
health and particularly national security doesn't all reside in
defense. And Kesselring is a great example of that, where a lot
of that site is supported by the Department of Energy and the
NNSA [National Nuclear Security Administration]. And so it is
critical that we understand those relationships.
And if we are not training operators and developing new
nuclear technologies up there, we are training them at our
moored training ships. And the second moored training ship is
the next generation. Right now, we are using ships that were
built in the 1960s to do that. They are the oldest operating
nuclear power plants I think in the country, and it is time to
recapitalize those.
This is a new start. There has been a lot of talk about
funding flexibility. The continuing resolution is the opposite
of funding flexibility. It is absolute funding rigidity. You
have to continue to do the things you would like to stop, you
can't do the things you would like to start. One of the things
I would like to start is the second moored training ship, and I
can't do it with a CR.
Ms. Stefanik. Thank you. I yield back.
The Chairman. Mr. Suozzi.
Mr. Suozzi. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
First, let me say I am very sobered and humbled by the
responsibility that we have listening to your testimony. It is
really incredible the vocation that you have made with your
lives and how dedicated you are to this mission that you have.
I am new to this job. I am formerly a mayor and a county
executive of a large county with a $2.8 billion budget. I am a
freshman in the minority and don't have as much influence as I
would like to have, obviously. But I know that there is an
important mission that the Congress has, and I really want you
to know that I am going to do the best I can to communicate
that we are dealing with people's lives here, the people that
work for you. And what we do has a tremendous impact on their
lives. And as you pointed out so eloquently, on their morale
and on their effectiveness.
I want to just look at some big picture things. The overall
budget in 2016 was about $580 billion, and personnel made up 24
percent of that overall budget, and O&M [operations and
maintenance] made up 42 percent of that budget. So that is a
big number, 42 percent of the budget for O&M, and 20 percent
went to procurement and 13 percent went for other. And it is
going to be different for each of your services.
You know, the Army, they might not be procuring as much in
equipment, for example. But you are all spending about this 40
percent in O&M. I just want to ask you from a big picture
perspective, does that make sense that we are spending as much
as we are on O&M, on operation and maintenance, or should that
be something over time that we are trying to change?
So, go ahead.
General Neller. Well, we are a little bit different. I
mean, our people account is about 65 percent of our budget, at
least the green Marine Corps budget is about 65 percent. Our
O&M, probably about 15 percent. Acquisition and then the
facilities make up the rest.
Mr. Suozzi. Now, a lot of your equipment is in the Navy
though, right?
General Neller. No, our aviation is naval aviation, but all
our ground equipment, we own our ground equipment. So, you
know, we are a small percentage of the overall force. But most
of our cost is people.
So I take your point, but if we have people costs or we
have to increase the size of the force, or the force gets more
senior or the pay raise that is voted upon, then those bills
where we have to make those trades and the trades are in those
other areas, in operation and maintenance and procurement
modernization or in facilities. And so then you start to build
up a deficit in those areas.
And you have got a force that is--that's what a hollow
force is, is a large force. So there are trades. We can reduce
the size of the force, we can reduce acquisitions. So those are
the puts and takes that always go on as we manage the budget,
but we are probably not a good example of what you are looking
at as far as a large amount of O&M.
General Goldfein. Actually, no mystery for an Air Force.
Older aircraft are more expensive to fly, period. And so what
happens with us is you get an average aircraft age of 27 years.
And when I go out and talk to airmen, you know, every once in a
while I will find somebody who has been driving a 27-year-old
car, not many. But when you find something like that, one of
the things they know is they know that that company stopped
building parts for that car 11 years after.
So when you are 27 years old, right, there was a Fox News
special that maybe you saw that had B-1 maintainers that were
actually cruising museums to find parts to keep those B-1s
flying. That is what it takes to keep older aircraft flying. So
when you look at our O&M costs going up, it is because that is
a direct result of aircraft age.
And so as we try to procure and try to get that aircraft
age going down, what comes along with that, quite frankly, is a
bigger bill than the procurement cost is the sustainment costs
over the life cycle of that weapon system. So we drive that
down as much as we possibly can.
Mr. Suozzi. Admiral.
Admiral Richardson. Sir, I will just say I think General
Goldfein and I share that we are a pretty capital-intensive
force, right? So we operate a lot of stuff and we have to fuel
it, maintain it, that sort of thing. And so we have got about
between 25 and 30 percent of our budget in the Navy is
operations, and I think the general captured it very well.
Newer things don't require so much maintenance, and so this
renewal of the force at the end of the day, it helps us do our
business for less operating and maintenance costs.
Mr. Suozzi. So for the two of you, as a general rule, you
know, if you could have the Congress work with you effectively
and you could get your way over time, would you like to see
your O&M be a lower percentage of your budget? And where would
you rather see an increase, in procurement or in personnel?
Admiral Richardson. I think that both for operations and
for procurement, stable, adequate funding. That is the way I
would like to partner with Congress the most.
Mr. Suozzi. General.
General Milley. For the Army, we committed about just a
little bit less than 50 percent for personnel costs, which is,
you know, no surprise. Cost of labor is Economics 101, and that
is going to be your expensive factor of production.
For us, O&M accounts, as you said, just under, in our case,
just under 40 percent. So what is operation maintenance for the
Army? It is ammunition, it is fuel or POL [petroleum, oil,
lubricants] products for the vehicles, flight hours for
aviation, and, importantly, parts.
So our O&M costs have gone up in the last couple of years.
Why? Because we are trying to intensify our levels of readiness
and training for combined arms operations against a near-peer
threat. We have been fighting for 16 consecutive years against
guerrillas and terrorists in tennis shoes with IEDs [improvised
explosive devices] and AKs [AK-47 rifles] in desert terrain in
the Middle East. We don't know, no one knows, where the next
conflict will occur.
We don't want to be preparing for the last war for the next
one. So we don't know. We have to keep all the cards on the
table for the U.S. military to be able to fight a wide range of
threats. So we have reemphasized combined arms, higher end
combat, unless you are specifically deploying. That training is
having a positive effect over the last couple of years, about
24 to 36 months or so. We are seeing improvements, slightly, in
our readiness in that regard.
If we don't pass the budget with the supplemental and we
continue with the CR or we go to BCA funding, that level of
training is going to come to a halt and that readiness
improvement is going to stop. So we need to continue funding
O&M in order to do that for current day readiness.
For procurement, in the Army's case, what we have done, we
have biased current readiness, today's fight and, you know, the
next couple of years' readiness. And we are really mortgaging
the future, in terms of our procurement. We only put 20 percent
of our money into research, development, science, technology.
Mr. Suozzi. Yes, I saw that.
General Milley. And we need to improve that.
Mr. Suozzi. Okay, well, thank you very much, General.
And again, I know that our mission is to do our jobs to try
to help you do your jobs. So thank you.
The Chairman. Mr. Russell.
Mr. Russell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thanks to all of
you for being here today.
This body historically has wrestled with these issues since
we have been wearing tri-corner hats. I am mindful of the Joint
Committee on the Conduct of the War after Bull Run. The
congressional investigation of the sinking of the USS Maine and
how did we let that happen? The Joint Committee on the
Investigation of the Aerial Attack on Pearl Harbor and what
went wrong, or the one on the communist attack on South Korea
and how did we get so surprised.
These are but a few of the examples, but the story is
familiar. Service chiefs, given shifting, declining budgets
that makes the dollars that did arrive less flexible and less
valuable; endless questions by people like me, in previous
lives, wondering why so much treasure must be spent when there
are domestic priorities that demand immediate action, and we
can eke out savings that will realize all of our dreams.
Whatever saving that has been realized by this American bad
habit of unpreparedness, it has been more than horrifically
compensated for by scores more in spending and thousands more
of American dead. I don't know, Mr. Chairman, what the next
committee will be named, but I already know what its
recommendations will be.
Mr. Chairman, I don't want to waste any more of these
warriors' time. We need to give them what they ask for, and I
yield back.
The Chairman. Ms. Shea-Porter.
Ms. Shea-Porter. Thank you. And I thank you all for being
here.
And I have had 6 years on this committee, and I think this
is about the grimmest it has gotten. And so clearly, we are not
addressing these really crucial issues.
I want to put a little bit of a change in the direction of
the questioning. I understand, you know, that we are falling
behind in equipment, et cetera. But I am looking out at the
world now as they look in on us.
And I think I agree with you, General Goldfein, that when
you were talking about people wondering, you know, are they
talking about it at home? I don't think we are talking about it
enough right here. I think that what happens is these
committees are like silos. And everybody is incredibly busy. I
just ran from another committee hearing, but we have to somehow
or another address this. So I recognize the urgency, and I
thank you.
So what I am looking at right now is, what about the rest
of the world? Is the conversation going around, you know, in
your profession? Are friends worried that we are not going to
be able to keep our commitments or we lack the will to keep our
commitments? And are our enemies hopeful that we are going to
just, you know, get so bogged down in this, in our budget
issues, that we are not going to properly fund?
And I would appreciate hearing from each one of you on
that.
General Neller. I will go first. I think the simple answer
is yes. Our allies--our strategy is based on our ability to
build partner capacity and that they are going to be there with
us if we have to face any of the future challenges. In order to
do that, we have to be able to show up for exercises, work
interoperability, do things with them, have them procure
equipment that is interoperable with us, ideally made by the
same manufacturers, by American manufacturers.
We need to make it a little bit easier to be our partner
across all areas, intel sharing, acquisition, foreign military
sales. But I think they look to us and they have looked to us
since the end of World War II when this world was created where
the United States was the guarantor of peace and stability in
the world. And whether it be NATO [North Atlantic Treaty
Organization] or ASEAN [Association of Southeast Asian Nations]
or any other security apparatus, or the United Nations, they
look to the United States.
And so it is important that we as military members go out
there in the profession of arms, not as Department of State or
ministry of foreign affairs, we maintain these relationships,
and that we have to be able to go to our partners and say we
are going to be there for you. And then they can pass that back
onto their political leaders, because we occupy a very
interesting space out there in the international world.
Ms. Shea-Porter. Thank you.
General Goldfein. Ma'am, you know, technology changes over
time, but the fundamentals of deterrence, I would argue, have
not changed. It is capability times will. And the times is
important because if either side of those is zero it equals
zero.
And so what I will tell you is that we have the luxury, not
only as Joint Chiefs but throughout our career, of having
developed relationships of trust and confidence with our
counterparts around the world. And I can't tell you how
important those relationships are. We call them mil-to-mil or
military-to-military. And I think we could all give you
examples of where sometimes diplomatically we may not have had
agreements with a country, but our relationships with fellow
airmen, soldiers, sailors, or Marines are vital.
And so we keep those long. And very often, to what General
Neller was talking about, our commitment that brings that
capability and brings that will is to the relationships that we
build. You know, this is one of those questions where it would
be inappropriate to do a big, broad brush over, you know,
general concerns, because the reality is it is a bit mixed bag
as you go around the world.
But I can just tell you that we are committed to making
sure that we keep those relationships alive and well.
Ms. Shea-Porter. Thank you.
Admiral Richardson. Ma'am, thanks for a great question. I
would say that, and I appreciate you looking around the world
and directing our attention there as well. You know, in the
very short term we are in a very unstable environment right
now. There are a lot of governments coming into place,
elections, the world is shifting in many ways, including our
administration as, you know, they settle in, we settle in.
And in times of great uncertainty, there also is the
opportunity, I think, for a great miscalculation. And it is
even more important, in my mind, that during these times of
uncertainty we minimize that possibility of miscalculation by
making sure we operate from a position of strength.
And this strength will assure our allies that we will be
there and not contribute to that uncertainty, not contribute to
that instability. And it will also deter our enemies, so that
even though a period of transition, they will wake up every
morning and say not today, this is not the day to start
something.
And so in the very near term and then I would say in the
long term, and we can have a different conversation through the
2020s, we have got to ensure that we operate from a position of
strength for assurance and deterrence.
Ms. Shea-Porter. Right. And I will add to that that this
committee knows our responsibility and we are active in seeking
the answers and recognizing that we have got to properly fund
if we want you to do what we need you to do. So thank you.
General Milley. I would echo my teammates here. Assuring
allies is critical and we do that through presence, exercises,
exchanges. Interoperability is important to readiness and
capability overall with our allies. The United States has a
great set of allies and partners and friends around the world.
I believe that is still strong, but we have to continue to make
it strong.
And virtual presence is actual absence, so we need to be
there with them in the air, on the sea, and on the ground. And
that will help reassure and stabilize various situations around
the world.
With respect to adversaries or enemies, you know,
``Fingers'' hit it on the head. It is capability plus will. The
capability has to be real. It has to be seen. It has to be
demonstrated. It has to be sensed. And your opponent needs to
know that you have the will to use it. If you do that, then you
will have peace through strength because you will definitely
deter any rational actor on the other side.
Ms. Shea-Porter. Thank you.
Thank you, Chairman, for the extra time. I yield back.
The Chairman. Dr. Abraham.
Dr. Abraham. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, gentlemen,
for being here.
As vitally critical as our schools, our infrastructure, and
certainly cures for cancer are--I am a physician and have
certainly lost my, unfortunately, share of good people to that
horrific disease--as important as all those are, I think we are
all smart enough to understand that that makes no difference if
we don't have a country and national security. So certainly we
want to, I want to give you what you ask to protect our
country.
And, General Milley, when you reminded us that our men and
women in uniform unfortunately have to still rely on food
stamps to feed their family, that is both a moral and ethical
tragedy that I hope makes everyone angry. And we need to fix
that problem.
General Goldfein, I want to thank you for--I am a mission
pilot for the Civil Air Patrol, the Air Force auxiliary, and I
fly for the Green Flag Program, which you had the foresight to
actually start, which has been a phenomenal success, giving
real-time training to our men and women on the ground.
Last week, we heard from the vice chiefs. We were talking
about the pilot shortage that you have referenced already, and
the intellectual property and the institutional knowledge that
these pilots, you said it takes at least 10 years to train that
great pilot, and that is certainly true, that with this CR,
retaining that pilot with what the airlines are now offering on
the civilian side is almost an impossible task.
My question is, what other areas of the DOD do any of you
see where we are losing this intellectual property, this
institutional knowledge, because of the CR?
And I will start with you, General Goldfein.
General Goldfein. Yes, sir. You know, the reality of the
pilot shortage is it is actually not a military problem, it is
a national challenge that we have all got to face. And
Chairman, this is something that I think we need to work
together, because here are the basics. We in the United States
Air Force produce about 1,200 pilots per year. The airlines,
based on their projections, need 4,500 every year for the next
decade. We are not going to buy our way out of that challenge.
This is a supply-demand mismatch nationally to be able to
produce the pilots we need, to service the commercial, the
business, the private, and the military aviation needs of the
Nation.
So first and foremost, we have to have a national approach
to this that looks at, what are the incentives we can put in
place to increase the supply going up for the pilots that we
need to service all of these bins? And then what we need to do
across the military, I would offer, is to approach it from a
combination of quality of life and quality of service.
Quality of life we tend to focus on, which is the financial
piece and taking that financial burden off of the family. And
that is important. But I would argue that quality of service is
equally, if not more important.
That we have got to ensure that our pilots, our maintainers
that are getting the resources they need to train, that they
feel like they can be competitive and the best that they can
be. That they are part of a unit, that they are part of
something that is better than themselves. That they know that
they are in an organization where they are valued, that we take
care of their families.
All of the cultural things that go along with wearing these
uniforms, that is as important as anything we do financially.
And I would just offer that this is something we have to work
together, because it is a national crisis.
Dr. Abraham. Admiral.
Admiral Richardson. Sir, I will just add on, other areas
that are under stress just from this competition for people
that I described earlier, certainly pilots, as we have
mentioned, our cyber forces are very much under stress. Our
nuclear-trained sailors are under stress. And our special
forces have been extremely busy in this war and they are also
under stress.
I will tell you, just as we have said, none of these, we
can't compete in money. And you know what? They didn't join for
money. I mean, we need to give them adequate resources to live.
And I think with this bill and supplemental, we will be meeting
that responsibility.
But these folks, they joined to sail and fly and operate at
the high end, become the most lethal force on the earth to
protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. And
that is all we have to do is keep that covenant with them and
they will keep coming. If they start to doubt that, they are
going to go to where the money is.
Dr. Abraham. Thank you. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Mr. Banks.
Mr. Banks. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, gentlemen,
for being here and for your service.
I am rather unique on the committee. I don't serve a
district that has an Active Duty military base. However, in my
district in northeast Indiana, we are the proud home of
Indiana's Air National Guard 122nd Fighter Wing. The men and
women of the 122nd serve our country with distinction and often
go into harm's way in service to our Nation, just as our Active
Duty troops do as well. Yet I am concerned that the prospect of
a CR will have an even greater impact on our National Guard and
Reserve forces than the Active Component.
General Goldfein, while I am dismayed at the prospect of
yet another CR, can we have some sort of commitment from you or
what kind of commitment can you make on behalf of your branch
that a continuing resolution will not have a disproportionate
impact on our National Guard or Reserve forces?
General Goldfein. Sir, I can tell you this. I can't do the
mission without the Air National Guard, period. You go into a
cockpit of a C-17 today and ask the crew that is in the front
of that cockpit, okay, who is Active, who is Guard, and who is
Reserve? I can't tell you the number of times that I have flown
in C-17s and all three hands go up. You actually can't tell us
apart. So we, first and foremost, we can't do the mission
without the Air National Guard.
So my commitment to you is that this is one Air Force and I
am their chief. And so I am going to make sure that the Air
National Guard has everything it needs commensurate with the
force because we are one Air Force to accomplish the mission we
are given.
Mr. Banks. I appreciate that strong statement and
commitment. Another frequent concern that I hear related to the
supply chain and spares account that are required to keep our
A-10s flying is related to the suppliers that are no longer in
the A-10 business. So can you speak a little bit to how the
continuing resolution would affect or impact the supply chain
of the A-10 specifically?
General Goldfein. Sir, it is not so much that it will have
that much impact on the supply chain. It will have more of an
impact in terms of our ability to take those A-10s and put them
in depot maintenance because that depot maintenance line will
stop. And it will stop because the civilian hiring freeze and a
combination of other things.
I am going to have to figure out, you know, we are each
going to have to figure out how to pay the bill. Okay? So for
the Air Force, it is $2.8 billion. To find $2.8 billion, one of
the things I am going to have to do is stop a lot of depot
maintenance lines. And the A-10 will be directly affected.
And it is not linear, meaning at the end of that timeframe
when we get appropriations, it is not like you just start the
line back up immediately. Because all those workers have left,
we haven't been able to hire their backfill, and they have lost
their qualifications. And so there is going to be a spin-up
time at the end when we get an appropriation to get those lines
back up and running.
So what you have in the middle is a number of aircraft.
And, oh, by the way, the aircraft that have been flying in the
fight are coming due for their maintenance, and so it continues
that backlog over time and what you end up doing is grounding
aircraft.
And so while I could buy all the parts in the world, if I
chose to be able to do that within my flexibility, those parts
will sit on the shelf because I don't have the workforce I need
to put those parts in the airplane.
Mr. Banks. I appreciate the insight. I yield back.
The Chairman. Ms. McSally.
Ms. McSally. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, gentlemen, for your testimony and your service
and your leadership and your candor about the impact on the men
and women in uniform who are putting their lives on the line to
protect our freedoms. And I really appreciate it. And I hope
there are a lot of people out there listening and there will be
a lot of stories about what you said today.
Admiral Richardson, I want to start off with a story that
troubled me about a hundred pilots that are essentially
refusing to fly. Having been a pilot myself, to get to the
point where you don't trust your equipment and you think your
life and your student's life is in danger is pretty severe. And
now, some of that is because of the aging fleet and the
resource implications that have been discussed today. But it
sounds like some of it is also a leadership issue.
So can you please comment on what the Navy is doing to
address this issue? That is going to be impacting, obviously,
our readiness, our pipeline, morale, and the lives of the men
and women.
Admiral Richardson. Certainly. Thank you for the question.
And as has been said before, this is the top safety priority
for naval aviation. It is a vexing problem. And this is not a
resource-constrained thing. This is an area where we are
applying every bit of resources we need. Cost is not an issue
as we approach this problem.
It, as you said, is directly related to crew safety. And it
has got the full attention of all leadership in the naval
aviation----
Ms. McSally. You are aware that, some of the quotes by
instructors, that is not how they felt, right?
Admiral Richardson. Right. Well, so, let me just continue
my answer.
Ms. McSally. Yes.
Admiral Richardson. To address this, we have established a
dedicated team. And I am going to take a little bit of time to
step through it because it is complicated. And that team will
stay on this from a technical standpoint until it is fixed. But
as I said, it is a complex problem and it requires a
multidimensional solution.
First and foremost is the human dimension. And
communication is a big part of that. And so when we heard about
the concerns of our instructor pilots in our training wings, we
sent, you know, a team down there to make sure that we fully
understood their concerns and they fully understood what we
were doing.
I think what we had there, more than anything else, was a
breakdown in communication. And those teams are on-site now.
They are working through each of the training wings. And they
are resolving their differences in perspective and differences
in communication.
And so, in addition, you know, from the human perspective,
you know, the crew and their awareness is going to be the most
important thing towards minimizing risk here. And so we have
improved training to make sure they recognize the symptoms of
hypoxia and related effects.
We have improved their training on emergency procedures.
That includes training in simulators where they actually feel
those effects and go through those procedures. And as I said,
we are making sure that we are listening and they all feel like
they can be talking to leadership so we understand where their
anxiety and concerns are.
Ms. McSally. Great.
Admiral Richardson. It is a constant effort.
Ms. McSally. I appreciate that. I would like to follow up
more with you maybe after the hearing. I appreciate it and
would like to stay in touch on the impacts on that side.
Admiral Richardson. I will make sure we do that.
Ms. McSally. Thank you, I appreciate it.
General Goldfein, you have eloquently expressed the
challenges of a CR and how it is going to impact flying
operations, saying squadrons will be grounded in June. I don't
know if everybody who is listening fully understands what that
means. So even to just localize it for Davis-Monthan, so the
Bulldogs that I commanded are over shwacking bad guys right
now, when they come home in the summer they are going to be
grounded, like, no flying, no upgrades, no training. They are
done, right?
General Goldfein. So, ma'am, what I would tell you is that
if you don't have a unit on your base that is either preparing
to go, that is directly preparing to go into conflict, you will
have the equivalent of a no-fly zone over your base.
Ms. McSally. Yeah, this is unprecedented. I know it
happened for a little while a few years ago. But this is
unprecedented in the impact it is going to have. They need to
be ready to go anywhere in the world on 24 hours' notice, as
you know.
Similarly, the EC-130s, they are only the capability in the
world, and the cross-decking, the training and everything, same
thing, right? They are done?
General Goldfein. Yes, ma'am. And so, Congress gave us
acquisition authorities and told us to use those authorities to
speed up acquisition. There is no better example than Compass
Call, electronic warfare asset in high demand in this fight and
it is going to be a central asset in any fight. So we took
those authorities and we looked at how could we rapidly take
the exact same equipment that is on the current EC-130 and
cross-deck it.
Ms. McSally. Right. But with a CR?
General Goldfein. It stops.
Ms. McSally. It stops, okay.
General Goldfein. That contract going forward stops.
Ms. McSally. Red Flags, we talked about Air Warriors, Angel
Thunder, same thing. Those that are going to deploy to rescue
Americans in harm's way, their training is done as well.
General Goldfein. No, ma'am, be very clear, there will be
no degradation to folks that we are preparing to go into the
fight.
Ms. McSally. Okay, I hear you.
General Goldfein. Everyone is trained to go.
Ms. McSally. But as you know, that is just-in-time
training.
General Goldfein. That is right.
Ms. McSally. But the cumulative effect of missing out
training throughout the year does have a degradation, is that
fair?
General Goldfein. Absolutely.
Ms. McSally. And we have got a thousand fighter pilots
short and you are grounding pilots. And we are expecting them
to stay? That is insane. You agree?
General Goldfein. Yes, ma'am.
Ms. McSally. All right, thank you. I yield back. Thanks.
The Chairman. Mr. Hunter.
Mr. Hunter. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Gentlemen, great to
see you.
I guess let me ask my first question is, how do you
mitigate the risk of not fighting? And let me give an example.
Haven't had a naval battle in a long time. I mean, ships
shooting at ships with cannons, right? We haven't had air-to-
air combat in quite a long time. The places we are at right
now, we have air superiority. We know how to set up FOBs
[forward operating bases], we know how to do life support with
the best expeditionary military since the Romans. I mean, it is
amazing what all of you do and what our services can do. How do
you mitigate the risk of atrophy when it comes to facing peer
competitor countries?
And I am looking for one word.
General Milley. Training.
Mr. Hunter. Training.
General Milley. That is it.
Mr. Hunter. All right.
General Milley. What it is all about.
Mr. Hunter. That was my question. So it is training.
General Milley. To follow on Ms. McSally, it is not just
airplanes that are shutting down training in July. The entire
Army's training is shutting down except those guys that are
deploying. Navy, same thing in the Navy and the Marines as
well. It is across the board. And training is the answer. That
is how you mitigate it.
Mr. Hunter. How does training get slammed by the CR?
General Milley. It stops.
Mr. Hunter. It stops, right?
General Milley. Right.
Mr. Hunter. Yes, what happened with the units?
General Milley. That is with the OPTEMPO. What happens is
the OPTEMPO money, the gas, the parts, the ammunition, that
ceases. And so people still get paid, but there is no training
going on. So what ends up happening is, is if called upon, this
is for the bench now, if called upon for some unknown
contingency that no one can predict right this moment, but if
it happens, people are going to be going out the door with
equipment that is less than optimally maintained, units that
are not properly trained, and we are going to be putting young
men and women into harm's way that are not ready for that level
of combat. That is what is going to happen with the lack of
training.
Admiral Richardson. Sir, I would just add that also there
is a lot of that contained in that supplemental.
General Milley. That is right.
Admiral Richardson. And so it is the combination of both
that we need favorable attention to, not only the fiscal year
2017 budget, but there is a lot of training, operating money in
that supplemental.
Mr. Hunter. You both probably have the same answer.
Mr. Chairman, I just want to thank you for your leadership
on this. You came out very publicly and said you are not going
to vote for a CR that is for defense. I just want to just say
thanks for your leadership on this. We are behind you.
Thank you, gentlemen. I yield back the balance my time.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Ms. Cheney.
Ms. Cheney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I would like to
start by thanking all of you very much for your service, for
being here today.
Associate myself also with the comments of Mr. Hunter and
the chairman; I will not support a CR either, in terms of the
damage that it will do to the Defense Department.
We are engaged, as you all know, in a whole range of
crucial issues here on the Hill, issues that affect the Nation
domestically, health care, tax reform. I would argue that none
of those is as important as this issue we face today. And if we
get this wrong, none of those matter either.
That we are in a situation today, as you have all laid out
during this hearing, that we have got to make sure that not
only do we fill the gaps, but that we begin to rebuild our
superiority. And in that regard, General Keane testified last
year about the extent to which we are running the risk now of
not prevailing in a fight in some circumstances.
And I would like to ask each of you to talk about the
shortfalls that we face, which you have detailed very
effectively today, but talk about it in the context of the
overall threat and as we see our own capabilities decline in
too many instances, it seems to me we have seen the
capabilities of our adversaries increasing and advancing.
And so whether we are talking about ISIS, North Korea,
China, Russia, Iran, if you could just talk for a little bit
about the extent to which our declining capabilities have just
created a gap which may be a gap of historic proportions in
terms of where our adversaries are.
General Neller, I will start with you.
General Neller. I think we have all watched this over the
last 5 to 6 years as we have been continually involved in the
daily grind of the counterterrorism fight. We have seen the
growth of the capabilities of the Chinese, the Russians, the
Iranians, the North Koreans. On the countering to that is our
OPTEMPO has stayed high because of what is going on fiscally,
our ability to modernize and start to train to face that type
of a threat and develop the capabilities through equipment and
training and leverage technology. We have made a move. We
started to do that. It is not like we have been sitting here
ignoring it, but to get to that point, while at the same time
do what we do on a day-to-day basis.
It is the equivalent of rebuilding the airplane or the
vehicle as you are driving down the road moving toward the day-
to-day efforts. You are trying to rebuild the thing in motion,
which is difficult enough, but if you don't have the resources
to do that, and fifth-generation stuff is expensive. It is. And
we all want to drive down the costs, we all want to get it
faster, but to do that we need to have adequate resourcing, and
it has got to be stable.
We are not going to get a good price point on any of this
stuff if we can't tell the vendor, okay, we are in for 3, 4, 5,
6 years because we know we can buy five for the price of three-
and-a-half, or whatever it is, if we can get the money to get
the long-term contract. So, that is the dilemma we face.
It would be great if we could stop and get a time-out.
People talk about, you know, the interwar period; we have had
no interwar period. We have been since 9/11 at war, and I don't
see there being an interwar period, which makes it difficult,
but it also makes it necessary that the resources are there to
maintain the current fight, but to build up the capability for
the fight that we hope doesn't come. And if we are ready and we
have the capability, the probability that it will come goes
down, but we can't assume that it won't.
Ms. Cheney. Thank you.
General Goldfein, could you also talk, I know we are
focused on the CR, but the Budget Control Act and
sequestration, as a whole, and whether we really can do what we
need to do before we repeal those.
General Goldfein. Yes, ma'am, and I would just tell you
that one of the things that you have heard from us here is that
when called to go, we go. We have heard all the impacts of a
CR. We are going to cancel exercises, we are going to cancel
training. But let no one question for a second that when the
United States militaries are called upon, we go.
And when you take the combined military might, although
none of us, as Joint Chiefs, are happy with our current level
of readiness, for those that may be listening ought to have no
question in their mind that if they take us on they lose.
I will give you just one example. You know, if Mr. Putin
makes a bad choice, he will face the combined economic and
military might of 28 nations in the most powerful alliance we
have ever been part of, and that spells his loss.
So we are going to work with you on ensuring that we can
manage this to the best of our ability. We have been through
sequestration before, and I think we would all tell you we
still haven't recovered from that. And one of the worst things
we did during that entire period when we shut down the
government was we broke faith with our civilian workforce, and
especially our young civilian workforce that don't have the
luxury of 4 to 5 months of pay, you know, in the bank that can
cover them while they are out of work.
And we had so many civilian workers, young civilian
workers, that left the government service because they couldn't
pay the bills. Or those that didn't pay the bills then had
security challenge issues because one of the things we look at
are their financial reports. And they left government service,
talented young men and women, and never came back. We can't go
through that again.
Ms. Cheney. My time has expired, thank you very much. I
appreciate it. I yield back.
The Chairman. Thank you all for your time, your testimony,
and your service.
You know, the earlier conversation General Milley had, Mr.
Russell referenced to some historical parallels, reminds me
that tomorrow, April 6th, is the 100th anniversary of our entry
into World War I.
You know, we tend to think about World War II and Patton's
dash across Europe, Iwo Jima, those incredible battles, but the
thing about World War I is nobody ever thought it would happen.
They all traded with each other, the rulers were related to one
another, and they thought they could out-bluff each other, that
there might be a skirmish, and yet a whole generation of
European men were wiped out in World War I. It just, I think,
should be a sober reminder to all of us about the stakes of
what we are talking about here. They are incredibly high.
And I appreciate you all's testimony; as you have heard
many times, I think it has been sobering.
The bottom line is we have to do better than that, than
CRs, than not passing a supplemental, than sequestration. We
have to do better than that.
The hearing stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:43 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]
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A P P E N D I X
April 5, 2017
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PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
April 5, 2017
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[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING
April 5, 2017
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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. BROOKS
Mr. Brooks. If a high priority is being placed on the fastest
schedule to field five Airborne IBCTs and particularly the three IBCTs
with the 82nd Airborne Division who have the Global Response Force
Mission, why wouldn't leveraging the 70 DAGORs already in the 82nd
along with the OEM available inventory and production be the most
expeditious and cost effective way to accomplish this especially given
it has been certified for Air Drop and Sling Loaded by the National
Mission Force?
General Milley. The DAGORs were bought specifically to support the
Global Response Force requirement in an Operational Needs Statement
(ONS) submitted by the 82nd Airborne Division. No other ONS exists for
the remaining Airborne IBCTs. An additional purchase of the same
vehicle without a validated ONS is prohibited based on regulatory and
statutory limitations.
To quickly field this capability, we will procure a limited
quantity of 295 GMV1.1 vehicles under a directed requirement for the
Airborne IBCTs thru an existing, competitively-awarded Special
Operations Command (SOCOM) contract. The SOCOM's Joint Capabilities
Integration and Development System-approved requirement for GMV1.1
meets the Army's current requirement as well. This plan accelerates
delivery of this critical capability by two years--from Fiscal Year
2020 to Fiscal Year 2018. It allows us to fill an immediate need while
refining the requirement to support full and open competition for the
remaining IBCTs.
This approach is consistent with Congressional intent to find ways
to accelerate the delivery of equipment to our Soldiers.
Mr. Brooks. Why is the Army taking on the significantly higher
vehicle costs and the cost risk for an unknown final unit price with a
guidance of $260,000.00 Average Unit Manufacturing Cost (AUMC)?
General Milley. Speed of delivery is our highest priority. The Army
is willing to pay a higher cost of up to $260,000 to provide the
initial capability of 295 vehicles to support our Soldiers' as quickly
as possible. The Army benefits from purchasing the GMV1.1 because the
vehicle has already gone through testing and logistics development and
shares the same repair parts system in the Army, all of which save
time. The remaining 1,700 GMVs will be procured through a full and
open competition, once the requirement has been refined, which should
reduce cost.
Mr. Brooks. Explain the rationale for how the SOCOM GMV 1.1
requirement can meet the critical parameters of the Airborne IBCT GMV;
e.g. 9 infantry soldiers and their gear, air droppable, sling load
capable and 250 miles range or more on vehicle organic fuel tank?
General Milley. The approved SOCOM GMV 1.1 Capability Production
Document supports all of the critical capabilities for the Airborne
IBCTs, except for the 9-seat capacity. The SOCOM program office is
supporting a contract modification that allows for production of a 9-
seat variant within the scope of the existing production contract.
Based on test results, the GMV 1.1 is transportable by CH-47 internally
and externally with 250 mile operational range. The SOCOM program plans
to complete the air drop test by the first quarter of Fiscal Year 2018.
Mr. Brooks. Is there a material difference between the Sustainment
and Maintenance support of the SOCOM GMV 1.1 solution and the
commercial alternative currently being used by the 82nd?
General Milley. Yes, there is a material difference. The Army
benefits from purchasing the SOCOM GMV1.1 because under the contract
the vehicle shares the same sustainment and maintenance system with
SOCOM. The DAGOR's were commercially purchased for the specific purpose
of filling an Operational Needs Statement for the 82nd Airborne
Division. Because the vehicles are not centrally managed they must be
maintained by the unit without support from the Army logistics system
or any additional funding to maintain them. There is also no long term
sustainment support for DAGOR. The unit must continue to use unit
training funds to purchase maintenance and sustainment requirements
directly from a commercial vendor. Ultimately the vehicles will be
replaced by the GMV which will provide the parts system to support the
unit.
[all]