(gavel bangs)
- The subcommittee will come to order.
This morning, the subcommittee will continue our
series of open defense posture and budget hearings
with our military services.
Today we will hear from the army leadership
on their fiscal year 2019 budget request.
Since 2001, the army has risen to the challenge of fighting
counterinsurgency campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Pardon me.
Even as such conflicts continue, the army must also
prepare for a very different kind of fight,
under the new national defense strategy.
The subcommittee is prepared to help the army modernize
and restore readiness for the full spectrum
of conflict.
Before I introduce our witnesses, I'd like to recognize
our ranking member, Mr. Visclosky.
I'm sorry, for any remarks you'd like to make.
- Gentlemen, I appreciate your service and your
testimony, look forward to it, Joe, want to thank you
very much for holding a hearing.
- Thank you, allow me to introduce our witnesses.
The honorable Dr. Mark T. Esper.
Secretary of the army.
General Mark Milley, chief of staff at the army.
Secretary Esper is making his first formal appearance
before the subcommittee.
Secretary Esper, welcome.
Secretary Esper is appearing alongside the chief of staff,
General Milley, General, thank you for being here today
and all the work that you do.
We look forward to hearing your views.
Please proceed with your opening remarks.
- Chairwoman Granger, ranking member Visclosky,
distinguished members of the committee,
good morning and thank you for the opportunity
to appear before you today.
Let me say upfront that the army's readiness
across its formations is improving
and if called upon today, I am confident
we would prevail in any conflict.
This is due in part to the increased funding
Congress has provided recently.
For this, I would like to say thank you.
However, if we are to continue increasing our readiness
to desired levels and modernize the force,
we require predictable, adequate, sustained
and timely funding.
The army's mission is to defend the nation,
the army's mission to defend the nation has not changed,
but the strategic environment has.
We have returned to an era of great power competition
that makes the world ever more complex and dangerous.
While the army must be ready to deploy, fight
and win any time, anywhere, against any adversary,
the national defense strategy has identified China
and Russia as the principle competitors against which
we must build sufficient capacity and capabilities.
Both countries are playing a more aggressive role
on the world stage and either possess or are building
advanced capabilities that are specifically designed
to reverse the tactical over match we have enjoyed
for decades.
The army has a comprehensive plan, however, to ensure
its longterm dominance.
Fiscal uncertainty, though, has done a great deal
to erode our readiness and hamper our modernization efforts.
Late appropriations challenge the army to execute funding
well, which is why we are seeking increased flexibility
to spend these precious dollars when funding is delayed.
To address the challenges mentioned above,
I've identified three focus priorities for the army,
readiness, modernization, and reform.
Readiness is the top priority because only a ready
total army, regular army, guard and reserve
can deter conflict, defeat enemies and enable the joint
force to win decisively.
And while the quality, training and esprit of our soldiers
are what make the US Army the most ready and lethal
ground combat force in history, this superiority
is enabled by the best weapons and equipment we can
provide them, as such, the second priority is modernization.
For future readiness, to ensure overmatch on future
battlefields, the army's now increasing its investments
in modernizing the force.
We are also laying the groundwork for more increases
in the coming years, the army's modernization strategy
is focused on one goal, make soldiers and units
far more lethal and effective than any adversary
can imagine.
The establishment of the army future command this summer
is the best example of our commitment to the future
lethality of the force.
Army futures command will address the key shortcomings
of the current acquisitions system, providing unity
of command, effort and purpose to the modernization process.
The army has also identified its top six modernization
priorities for the coming years.
Each of these priorities is detailed in our written
statement and is the purview of a newly established
cross functional team.
The purpose of these CFTs is to determine the requirements
and needed capabilities to ensure all stakeholders
are at the table from day one and to focus army resources
on accelerated experimentation, prototyping and fielding.
My third priority is reform, freeing up time, money
and manpower to enhance readiness, accelerate modernization
and ensure the efficient use of the resources
provided to us by the American people.
Our reform efforts, particularly with the acquisitions
system, are long overdue, while futures command
is probably the boldest reform we are pursuing,
other army reform initiatives owe much to
the acquisition authorities delegated to the services
in prior legislation.
With these authorities we are reinvigorating
the army requirements oversight council,
moving major defense acquisition programs back
to the service and using other transactional authorities
to accelerate fielding in limited situations.
Although a ready and modernized army is critical
to defend the nation, we must not overlook
what makes us remarkable.
For this, I have outlined three enduring priorities,
first, taking care of our soldiers, civilians
and their families, second, a service wide recommitment
to the army's values, especially treating everyone
with dignity and respect, and finally strengthening
our allies and partners by building stronger ties.
I look forward to discussing these with you
as time permits, with that, let me thank you again
for this committee's continued support of the army
and specifically the funding increases requested
in FY18 and the FY19 budgets.
I look forward to your questions and appreciate
the opportunity to discuss these important matters
with you today, thank you.
- Chairwoman Granger, I want to thank both you
and ranking member Visclosky and all the distinguished
members of the committee for the opportunity
to testify today and although he's not here right
this minute, I do want to acknowledge and recognize
former chairman Frelinghuysen for his great support
to the United States army over the last couple years
since I've been the chief and for many, many years
of dedicated service to our nation.
As you all know, for the past 17 years, the US Army
has continuously provided trained and ready forces
to both Iraq and Afghanistan and elsewhere
as we simultaneously meet the needs of the combatant
commands around the globe and today,
as it was throughout the year and last year,
we have approximately about 180,000 soldiers serving in
140 countries around the world.
And that represents, broadly speaking, about 50 to 60%
of combatant command demand comes to the army for support.
Congress's support has allowed the army to become
significantly more combat ready today than we were
two and a half years ago when I became the chief of staff
of the army, we've increased the number of combat
training center rotations, we've improved equipment
readiness rates, spare parts, we've replenished
our army prepositioned stocks, and we've increased
our personnel end strength and started to fill some
of the holes in our operating units
and significantly we've improved both our munitions
shortfalls along with some of our critical infrastructure.
We must be ready, though, not only now,
but in the future, and we have to maintain a decisive
overmatch to achieve victory as the secretary said,
against any adversary any time anywhere.
The tyranny of the present has consumed us
for the past 16 years.
While our competitive advantage against peer threats
has eroded and advances by our adversaries are very real.
This is not a classified hearing, but I'll be happy
to illuminate those advances in a classified hearing.
Specifically with respect to Russia and China
as they continue to assert regional influence
in their development of advanced weapons and technology.
Likewise, Iran is attempting to expand its regional
influence and as we all saw last week, in a recent
positive turn of events regarding North Korea,
it's very welcome and I remain cautiously optimistic
as Secretary of Defense Mattis said, but we the army,
we must remain ready, we must remain ready to present
options to the president for his consideration if required
and we will do that.
The current battlefield's already lethal
and the future battlefield is likely to prove more lethal
than anything we have ever recently experienced.
So the time is now for the army to modernize,
to both stay ready today and to build the future force
of our nation.
That's going to require a modern army.
The army needs predictable, adequate, sustained
and timely funding and you know that, and you all agree
with that, the army's FY19 budget request reflects
our priorities, to grow and maintain a highly capable force
today, to modernize and build the future force,
to take proper care of our soldiers, family members
and civilians and all the while being good stewards
for the generous money, the taxpayer money
that Congress has given us.
We recognize the American taxpayer entrusts us
with a significant amount of money to meet these demands
and we will be diligent stewards of our resources
and we will enforce accountability to make effective use
of every single dollar, your support for the FY19 budget
will ensure the soldiers of the United States army
remain ready to fight tonight as we prepare
for any unforeseen conflicts of tomorrow.
Thank you again for the opportunity to testify
and I look forward to your questions.
- Our questions, in the interest of time and fairness
to our witnesses and all the members, we limit
the question including the response to five minutes
per round, trying to have, I think we should be able to,
this morning, have two rounds, but if you watch,
there are green, yellow and red lights,
and red means you're over.
So I'm a former teacher.
I watch them, I hope all of you will
because we really want to hear from you.
This is a very important hearing.
We're going to have questions.
I'm going to call on Mr. Visclosky first.
- Ma'am, sure, I'll defer at this point.
- Mr. Calvert.
- Thank you, chairman, secretary Esper, General Milley,
thank you for being here today and thank you
for your service to our country.
Over 16 years of combat and continuous operations
that compromised the military's readiness to conduct
high end war fighting missions.
The new national defense strategy focuses on
nation state conflict with a peer adversary
which is the army's domain.
All of us here have heard about the readiness shortfalls
in the United States Army.
Only five of 58 brigades are combat ready to fight.
The army's operational tempo has not slowed down
and additional units, equipment, military personnel
have been deployed to eastern Europe to deter and defend
against Russian aggression.
Fiscal year 2019 requests seeks to restore training
and maintenance shortfalls by requesting
additional funds to prioritize readiness across the army.
Can you please detail the army's primary readiness efforts
that will execute as a result of the FY19
president's budget specifically, how many combat teams
are currently rated ready for combat and how many
do you expect will be rated ready for combat
after executing the FY 2019 budget?
Do you expect to increase training rotations
at the national training center at Fort Irwin, California,
the Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Poke, Louisiana
and how do you intend to integrate simulation
and next generation augmented reality into your
traditional deployment readiness exercise
in the coming years?
- Thanks, Congressman, for the question.
What I can do is provide a very detailed classified
briefing on the complete readiness.
In this session, let me say this.
When I became chief two and a half years ago,
there were two brigades combat ready.
Today we are significantly more combat ready
and I need to provide you an update on the actual
numbers 'cause the numbers that you mentioned
have been improved since those numbers were given to you.
And I can assure you that the United States Army
has sufficient readiness to take on whatever adversary
that the United States meets today or tomorrow.
And I'm very confident of that.
I wasn't confident of that two and a half years ago.
I am very confident of that today.
That is not to say we're where we need to be.
The objectives we set out, the unclassified objectives
for readiness is we want to obtain 66%, 2/3, roughly
of all of our brigade combat teams in the regular army,
in the active arm at the highest level of readiness.
And for the reserve component and the National Guard,
we want to obtain a readiness level of 33%.
That is what this budget, FY19 is built around,
is those two metrics of success and we are not at
those numbers today, but we are on a glide path to
achieve them, couple of challenges.
First challenge is time.
Units aren't built just over time and their readiness
is not built overnight as you well know,
so it takes time and it takes repetition.
It takes a lot of reps on a sled to get units
to a level in order to fight the high end fight
against near peer threats or regional threats.
The second thing is you mentioned, the demand.
Now there is a global demand that's significant
and a lot of that demand is met by
the United States Army.
Right now, for example, we've got several brigades
involved in train advise assist missions inside
the Middle East.
And we need to recoup those brigades and get them trained
for what their organizational design is to do.
So demand plays a big role in that.
I expect that demand will hopefully stay steady or come
down slightly and we'll recoup some of that.
And the last and most important thing in terms of
readiness and you've been more than generous in your
giving it to us is a budget
and that's really significant, so time, demand and money
are what's key to readiness.
You ask for when we think we would achieve the readiness
levels, what we're saying in our analysis,
if the international environment stays the way it is
right this minute, we think on the glide path we're on,
we'll achieve the readiness objectives complete
by somewhere around the 2021, 2022 timeframe.
- And if I can, I'll answer too the specific questions
you raised, Mr. Calvert, the FY19 budget allows us
to maximize throughput through the three training centers.
At NTC, JRMC in Europe and the JRTC, and we'll be doing
that with a combination of active and guard, so 16
active units will go through and then four guard.
So it's exceptional training.
I've been to two of those training sites in the three
plus months I've been on the job, and they're doing
a high-end training against likely threats,
we would anticipate consistent with the national defense
strategy, on your question with regard to synthetic
training, virtual training, it is an initiative
that is captured on one of our soldier lethality
cross functional teams.
It's an important endeavor because what it promises
to give soldiers, many many repetitions at home station
before they actually go into deployment
so that they're not engaging the enemy for the first time,
if you will, on a real deployment, but actually
can rehearse over and over again at home station.
So it's a very important initiative to us.
And we're putting money into that cross functional team
as provided in the FY19 funding.
- [Calvert] Okay, thank you, thank you, General.
- Thank you, Mr. Rupisberger.
(man speaks indistinctly)
- Thank you, sir.
(man speaks indistinctly)
- That was good for land forces.
The army relies upon the army research laboratory
to provide the credible length between science
and war fighter, and today the army research laboratory
helps the army to understand the implications
of technology on doctrine and future capabilities
and translates these applicable science and technologies
in ways to ensure army dominance.
That being said, I've been following the army's intent
to stand up futures command with great interest
and I'm very interested in how its creation will impact
the army research laboratory and I guess, Secretary,
either one, how do you envision the army research laboratory
contributing to this new modernization initiative?
- Yes sir, well, thank you for that question.
First of all, our science and technology base is
absolutely critical to the modernization of the force.
And so in the last several months what we have done
is aligned 80% of our S&T funding actually toward
the six priorities that have been outlined,
so that's everything from long range precision fires
through next generation combat vehicles all the way
through soldier lethality.
We are looking to move over a billion dollars
as well over the fit up to do the same.
And so clearly the...
The S&T, the army research labs that are part and parcel
of that, are critical to the future.
Now the other piece of that, with regard to army
futures command that will continue the transformation
if you will of the acquisition process,
what we envision is that we would achieve,
what we call unity of effort and unity of command
by having a single senior officer, a general officer
in charge of the entire acquisition, big A acquisition
process, all the way from concept through requirements
through the acquisition and testing process.
What that would mean for labs is that we'd most likely
just rewire the boxes differently so that they are
reporting into the army futures command.
We don't anticipate any...
Changes in locations or changes of jobs at this point
but really how do we rewire the boxes because currently
they are all over the army, so that we achieve
that unity of command, unity of effort that promises
us to be able to deliver to soldiers the tools, weapons
and equipment they need when they need 'em
and at the best price for the taxpayer?
- Madam Chairman, school teacher, I yield back.
- Madam Chairwoman, thank you very much, gentlemen,
a privilege to have you here.
First, let me applaud the army on the plan to acquire
the ground mobility vehicles.
I'm actually really happy to hear that you're levering
the experience of the SOCOM vehicles to get this critical
equipment out to the force as soon as possible.
Madam Chairwoman, in Florida I was lucky enough to drive
one of these vehicles which are incredible versatile
and actually, I kind of want one after I drove it,
I tell you, but so again, I want to commend the army
for setting an example for a smart and fast acquisition
decision, saving taxpayers money, and so again,
I saw that firsthand.
Let me talk to you a little bit about the...
Next generation vertical lift.
So I've read some conflicting reports.
On the status of this program.
The defense news suggests that the future vertical lift
program appears to have, they said, slow rolled.
Now I also know that Undersecretary McCarthy recently said
that the program is on track and so...
I do understand that it is included into your 19 budget,
which is great, but I'm hoping to get some clarification
on the army's intentions and support for the program,
since again, I've read conflicting reports.
- Thanks, Congressman.
I didn't read the particular article that you're
referring to, first of all, it's a joint program,
it's a DOD program, because it's army, marine, equity,
army has a heavy equity in it, so the decisions
are actually not the secretary of the army or the army's,
it's actually a DOD thing.
Secondly is the request for proposals
and all of that's gonna be decided some time in the early
fall, so it's on track to meet those timelines.
Third thing is what do we want out of future vertical lift?
What do we want, tactically, what do we want out of
this thing?
The helicopters we have today, the Apache, the UH60,
the 47, the 47's been around a long, long time, since
Vietnam, they're great helicopters, they're good helicopters
They're capable, the guts have been all redone
and we're gonna continue to invest in those in the
foreseeable future, but the future operating environment
is going to be significantly different, we think,
especially if it's against a near peer competitor
than the current operating environment,
so we need an aircraft that can first survive.
We also need an aircraft that's dual purpose that can both
be manned and possibly autonomous and unmanned,
a robotic helicopter.
We need an aircraft that can fly faster and further
than any existing rotor wing aircraft today
and we need an aircraft that is agile, both while
in flight to avoid enemy air defense and at what we call
at the X or at the landing zone in order to evade
and survive any of the intense ground fire that will be
coming on a hot LZ, those are pretty stiff requirements.
So the discussion with industry is ongoing right now.
And there's a variety of possibilities out there
from a technological standpoint.
We'll know more throughout the summer
and as we get into the fall to make some hard decisions,
but there is no intent
and the secretary and I are not gonna stand for delays.
This is an urgent need, we need to get it.
It's the third, we have six priorities in the army,
six modernization priorities, this is the number three.
If you think about what an army does, an army fights
and wins in ground combat and the first thing you gotta
be able to do is shoot long range precision fires
and then you gotta be able to move.
And we move by the ground and we move by the air,
so this is a very important priority for the army.
We're committed to it, and we're gonna try to keep this
thing on track. - Thank you, General.
- And I would just add that building upon what
the chief just said, what we're doing right now
reflects the different approach to acquisition
that we're taking, in this case we have two demonstrators,
one has flown, I think one will be flying later.
Both are largely funded by industry as prototypes
with some federal dollars and so it just reflects
a whole new approach where we prototype, we test,
we fail, we learn, we prototype and we repeat
until we narrow the requirements and we get on
a much quicker trajectory to get to the end state
that we want.
- I appreciate the very clear answer, thank you,
Madam Chairwoman.
- Thank you, Mr. Goyer.
- Thank you, Madam Chair.
Mr. Secretary and again, General, thank you for your
service and your time, just one question.
The Department of Defense is...
Currently going through this financial statement audit,
as you know, verified count, location, condition
of military equipment, real property, inventory,
test and security, volatilities, and our business systems,
validating the accuracy of personnel records.
It's gonna take a while to get this hopefully clean audit.
The financial statement audit will help drive, we hope,
improvements and standardized business and process
and basically know what we have because as you know,
half of the discretionary funding goes into
Department of Defense, Mr. Secretary and, I guess,
for both of you, but especially you, Mr. Secretary,
tell us your experiences and the views of this
Department of Defense audit, and tell us, even though
this is an initial review, if any actions have been
taken by the Department has helped the Department
of the army.
- Yes sir, completion of the audit is a top priority
for me, having been through audits in the private sector,
I recognize the value of them.
In terms of what they teach you, what you can learn
from them, how they can help you think better in terms of
how you employ your resources and manage your resources
to accomplish your mission, in this case, it's readiness
and future readiness and so the army is off to a good start.
We are looking at what needs we need to make so,
over the previous few years, we have made a number
of changes to improve our audit ability,
whether it's better documentation control,
improving our IT systems, capturing data better,
so we are proceeding along, I get updated on this
monthly, and at every meeting, I ask what do you need
from me, what support do you need from me
to make sure that we complete our audit on time?
And again, as you rightly said, I don't anticipate
we'll get a clean opinion this year.
I think it's a process, but I'm confident we will
continue to learn.
At the end of the day, we need to be able to account
for everything that we have and what we do,
and I'm fully committed to that.
- And you said it right, you've been in the private sector
so this is key and we got to do the same thing
for government.
- Yes sir, and part of it is making sure the attitude,
it's a learning event, not a grading event, per se,
because there's a lot that can be learned from an audit
that helps leaders really manage all of your resources
better, whether it's people, equipment, dollars,
obviously, it's important that we complete this.
- Well, following the question, you ask your folks
every time you meet with them, anything we can do
to help you? (laughs)
- The Congress has been more than generous with the FY 18
and FY19 marks so I think we really appreciate the funding
at this point, as we go, we will be sure to keep
the Congress apprised if anything comes up
with regard to the audit piece, so thank you, sir.
- Back to balancing my time.
- Judge Carter.
- Thank you, Madam Chairman, Secretary Esper.
General Milley, thank you for being here.
I think you make a great team and taking care
of our army, and I appreciate you very much.
I'd like to, we're talking about a new national defense
strategy, it raises a new whole section of thinking on
warfare with the army and we're looking at dealing
with near peer aggression and our potential aggression
and how we would face it while continuing
an insurgency war which we've been fighting now
for 16 or 18 years.
It takes a whole new outlook, and it takes evaluation
of our near peer enemies in what we're gonna do.
So my question is, give us an overview if you could
about the changes in the army relative
to the near peer enemies
and then as we continue how will we continue
to deal with insurgency and that issue too
and one of the things I'm very interested in is because,
at Fort Hood, we have a lot of Abrams tanks
and a lot of Bradleys, and they've done a great job for us
and great for our army, but they are old, they are old
vehicles, and it's my understanding from some of my reading
that our potential enemies have looked at how we fight
and have made improvements.
I'd like for you to also talk about equipment
improvements as you look down the road for this dual task
we're gonna have, it's kind of a big question,
but if you could outline it quickly, give us some kind of
idea where you are, I think it's important
that everybody understand it.
- I'll take first stab at it, and I'm sure the chief
will have a lot to contribute as well.
As you rightly outline, Mr. Carter,
with what the NDS presents, we have to now deal not only
with the high end, very complex threats, strategic
competitors of Russia and China, we still have to be
prepared to deal with the Irans and North Koreas,
and at the same time deal with irregular warfare,
so unlike maybe what have happened in the post Vietnam era
when I entered the service, we don't have the luxury
of just focusing on one threat, so instead we have to now
maintain that core competency.
At the same time, as we open up our aperture to deal with
the high end threats, there are a number of things
that we are doing to make sure we are ready.
So we talked earlier about fully maximizing the throughput
of units to the combat training centers, that's number one.
Second, relevant to today's discussion about the budget,
we are converting an armor brigade combat team.
We have by the end of 19 building another combat armor
brigade combat team, again, to deal with the high end
threat, we are upgrading our...
Strikers, Bradleys and vehicles, Bradleys and Abrams,
making them more lethal, making them more survivable.
We're investing in our aviation fleet.
So all these things we are doing to deal with the high end
and then of course we mentioned several times
our six priority areas for modernization.
It begins with long range precision fires, making sure
we have the ability to reach out and touch the enemy
at greater distance so that we can help the Air Force,
for example, with the suppression of air defenses,
all the way down through as you mentioned,
building the next generation combat vehicles.
Because we're reaching the point in time, certainly
with the Bradleys, where we are out of power, if you will.
They're getting too heavy to do some certain things
so that's why next generation combat vehicles are
another one of our priorities.
- Thanks, Congressman, I would just add that, you know,
you rightly point out the national defense strategy,
solid document, by the way, you know, I don't know how many
know the background of it, but that is very much
Secretary Mattis's document, his voice is in it,
he penned it, he pretty much singly authored that document.
We the joint chiefs of staff have had a lot of input
to it, many of the staffers have had, we think
it's a solid document and accurately outlines
the way ahead for not only Department of defense
but extrapolate to the army.
Specifically, the reintroduction, I suppose, of great
power competition at both levels below outright war
and then potentially in conflict, so we've got to
shift gears as a Department of Defense
and a Department of the Army, and we intend to do that.
At the same time we have to sustain the levels of effort
fighting counterinsurgency and a counter terrorist fight
against a very aggressive, nihilistic enemy
that wants to destroy Americans and our interest.
So we have to be able to do both simultaneously
and we think that this budget helps us to do that
and in order to do that, we have to improve our readiness,
improve for today's fight and we have to modernize
for tomorrow's and we think that this strategy is balanced.
It's in the 19 proposals and we think we can get there
in pretty good shape, barring unforeseen events
in the international environment.
- Thank you, yield back.
- Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you gentlemen,
for being here today and your service to our nation.
I'd like to get your thought on a few things.
We've been talking a lot about the new national security
strategy and that also includes the guard and the reserve
and I would like to dig in a little more about
the army's aviation modernization program and how that...
All fits together.
So we know with the increased global requirements
and high operating tempo that it's put a strain on
readiness and modernization efforts, especially with
respect to aviation and some of the questions have related
to that, and part of that has been past funding
by this Congress and timely budgets which we're beginning
to address, so I'd like to know as you describe,
what's in the FY19 budget
for the army aviation modernization.
How the army plans to go forward in the decade,
especially now that we're going to have the funding
hopefully, at least for the next two years,
better in place.
There's been concern from reserve components
that the army's direction here may leave them
without the funding needed to complete
the modernization efforts for the UH60 Black Hawks
and I also, from the Army Times, November 9th, 2017,
was concerned when I read that the army's goal
for training flights per hour per crew is 14.5 hours
to reach collective readiness at the battalion level
but the service's active component is only getting 10.8
hours, while the National Guard is getting 6.4
and the reserve is getting 7.8, so could you gentlemen
tell me with the increased funding and how we're moving
forward, how the active component will, you know,
as it continues to rely and rely heavily on the reserves
and guards as an operational force, how are you going to...
Ensure that they also see the full benefits
of this modernization program?
- Thanks, ma'am, for the question, on aviation.
The last couple of years Congress has been very generous
to us and we've put a lot of money into aviation.
So in the, both in 17 and 18.
And for 19, for this request, we're asking for money to
remanufacture I think it's another 48 Apaches
to buy 12 additional new Apaches, we're asking
for additional moneys to procure additional UH60s
and to modernize the UH60 fleet as well as
the CH47 fleet.
Aviation is the biggest and most expensive,
outside of MILPR, outside of the payroll,
it's the most expensive part of the army budget
and we think that we're putting an adequate amount
of money into aviation for both the active and the reserve
and guard in order to make sure that they're properly
equipped with the best, this is barring future
vertical lift, this is the current system.
The second piece you mentioned about the training,
the flight hour program, we think, historically,
that 15, 14, 15 hours is about what is necessary
to maintain the highest level of combat readiness
for rotary wing aviator.
That would apply, those numbers would apply to active
component because that's where you want to get them
to what we call C1, so we want them at the highest level
of readiness, the National Guard and reserve are not
resourced nor are they planned to be at C1 prior to
mobilization day.
They are by design planned to be at a lesser level
of readiness prior to mobilization day and then upon
mobilization, there's a period of time for each unit
and we have it by unit, we have a period of time for them
then to reach C1 prior to them deploying into combat.
- Madam Chair, because my time's running,
I would like to see that breakdown because I'm very
concerned about with the op tempo, sometimes
the shortness in deployment and especially
with the equipment that they're operating with
so if you could provide that to our staff,
I'd appreciate that, thank you very much, gentlemen,
thank you, madam.
- Korea.
We have some 24,000 troops on the peninsula,
including 15,000 active army.
In view of the unusual activities of the last few months,
IE North Korea, what changes have you made, if any,
in preparation for what may come?
Mr. Secretary?
- I'll take a first stab at this, but the chief in his
joint chief role is probably gonna be more fluent on this.
I can tell you that with regard to Korea, we hope
for the best but prepare for the worst
and so one of my first trips on the job was to Korea
where I spent about two days on the peninsula meeting
with our commanders all the way from Seoul down to the
Southern end of the peninsula to get a good feel for
our readiness and I can tell you that everybody's
working hard to ensure that we are ready,
that we are doing what's necessary to strengthen the hands
of our state Department, our diplomats, if you will
and to make sure that we have all options available
for our decision makers.
- General?
- Congressman...
I don't want to do a cop out, but I would like to actually
come by and brief you in a classified session
on the details of what we're doing.
The headlines, I suppose, or the brief version,
an unclassified, we continue to do and we will continue
to do a significant amount of training for contingency
operations on the Korean peninsula, both on the peninsula
itself with the units that are stationed there,
but also the units in the region, we've got, roughly
speaking, 70,000 army soldiers in the PACOM AOR
and another 30,000 depending on exercise schedules
so training is key and then in the continental
United States, about, I guess was a year, 18 months ago,
we gave out guidance to our units...
That we would...
We would designated selected units to increase
their readiness training, specifically oriented
towards high end combined arms warfare.
Not specific necessarily to Korea, although it would be
applicable to Korea, and we've been running those units
pretty hard, getting them to a much higher level of
readiness that I can explain in some detail to you.
In terms of equipment, we've ensured that all of
the prepositioned stocks are full up.
We have worked hard at replenishing munitions.
I can give you the details of those in
a classified session as well.
And then we've made sure that we've increased
the personnel fill for the units that are both there
and the units that are expected to first respond,
but we the army have done
a tremendous amount in coordination
with the US army Pacific, with Deb Mojares in PACOM
and General Brooks who's a commander on the peninsula,
and we've done a tremendous amount over the last 12
to 18 months or so in preparation for any possible
contingency, so that the president has the widest latitude
for options if needed.
- How would you rate the current state of our military
relationship with South Korea?
- It's very good, with the ROK army, our mil to mil
relationship with the Republic of Korea is excellent.
And I go over there probably every four, five moths.
We've had a longterm, 70 year relationship with
the ROK army, and we are very very solid.
We are shoulder to shoulder with the Republic of Korea.
- And I've had the chance to meet, when I was there,
with the Minister of Defense and with the ROK generals
and my assessment was the same and it was the assessment
also given to me by our commander there, General Brooks.
- In closing, and quickly, I noticed that...
You're requesting a huge increase
in 155 millimeter artillery shells.
That's 018, with 16,500,
the request now is 148,000.
I'm an old 155 artillery guy on the Kentucky guard
so I've got an affinity for 155 shells, but...
What's going on here?
- Well, as I survey, as Chief of Staff, as I survey
the world situation and there are lead times
to procurements, I want to make sure that the United States
army has sufficient ammunition stocks, not just 155,
but the other types of preferred munitions, precision guided
munitions, et cetera, but 155 in particular because
the United States army is,
has been and still is a fires based army
in order to create opportunities for maneuver and movement.
So artillery is fundamental to our ability to do that
and in the vent of a contingency, artillery munition
consumption rates would be really high, so I want to make
sure that the ammunition stockpiles are significant enough
to withstand any contingency, hence the significant amount
of 155.
- Yeah, it's 10 times what you did in 18, I yield back.
- [General] That's correct, Congressman.
- Thank you, before we call on Mr. Wilmack,
we'll be calling your office
to set up a classified briefing.
Everyone on the subcommittee will be invited
because I know we all have questions that you're very
respectfully need to be in a classified briefing, so.
Mr. Wilmack.
- Thank you, Madam Chair and my thanks to the Secretary
and to the Chief who are doing remarkable work
and of course, I'm kind of partial to the army, so.
I like what they're doing and congratulations,
by the way, on bringing the commander in chief's trophy
back to the army side, I know my navy friends
are probably, and even my Air Force friends probably
a little bit chagrined about that, but it was about time.
So, and I know it was particularly important to...
The secretary.
I want to talk about manning for just a minute.
Even though we've got a lot of technology, a lot of
really cool stuff that we use, that the war fighters
are able to take advantage of, and more on the way,
we're still a people business, and...
My concerns have always been about the amount of money
that we spend, let's just say invest in our people
from entry level to some of these mid grades and then
how we lose them in the retention battle.
And my concern is even enhanced a little more
now that we've got a Tax Cuts and Jobs Act bill passed
and there's clearly a movement in the economy
to bring more jobs back home and that's gonna put pressure
on wages, wages are gonna go higher, I believe, strongly
and that's gonna be an incentive for people who might be
predisposed to joining our military to take a job
in the civilian sector, so Mr. Secretary, if you would,
just kind of let me know what your thoughts are on these
issues and if my concerns are founded.
- Yes, sir, it's a very good question.
And I like your choice of words, invest,
it's how we need to think about how we access
soldiers and officers into our force.
I think on the first part, with regard to our enlisted
ranks, as you know, this bill will help us grow
end strength, which is critical to meet the demands
out there, but one of the challenges we have
which are wildly reported, is that we have anywhere between
only 25 to 30% of America's youth could be eligible to serve
and less than 5% probably are eligible and have
an inclination, proclivity to serve, and so.
That makes things more challengeable, which makes it
all the more important that once we get them
into the service, that we do our darn best to retain them.
And so there are a number of things we need to do,
of course, invest in our professional development.
We need to be sure to take care of their families
which is why one of the priorities we've highlighted
is taking care of their families.
But another part of this and I think you and I
may have spoken about it previously is,
I've stood up what I call a talent management task force.
To really look at how do we manage people differently
in the 21st century, so rather than the typical
up and out type of system we have now,
how do we manage people based on their knowledge,
skills and behaviors, marry it up with their preferences
and make sure we look at them more as individuals
as we manage them through their career
so that we can retain them longer, particularly in
that critical period between the six and eight year mark
where at least for mid curve officers, they may think
about getting out because they're looking for
other opportunities, or like you said, the job market
is better, so we have to be more flexible on that side
as well in terms of allowing lateral movement
in and out of the service, maybe to the guard and reserve
and thinking about different career path options.
This is most specifically outlined when we talk about
the cyber force, so a number of things we could do,
but you've hit the nail on the head.
We have to think about people as investments.
- General Milley, on that same subject,
we have been engaged in a type of conflict that has been
driven primarily by the small unit leader, which has been
really good for the development of our small unit leaders.
Now a lot of these leaders are matriculating up
through their field grade and on into general officer
positions and I would just kind of throw the same question
out to you, do you ever get concerned about losing
some of this great talent that has been so vital
in the war fight so far that we could lose them to
private sector opportunities?
- I'm always concerned about that, Congressman.
We want to retain the best and the brightest of talent.
And you're correct, that there's a tremendous amount
of institutional experience now at the small unit level
and in combat fighting, so the short answer's yes,
always concerned about it, we monitor it very closely.
So what we've seen so far is we do not in the...
- I really just want to get your feedback a little bit
on the security force assistance brigades,
one of which the first brigade is housed in Benning,
in Georgia and no doubt that advising and assisting
our allies is a key part of the mission.
Can you just share with us a little bit about
what you've learned and what you expect
and what you hope to see in the future in using
these various brigades?
- Chief?
- Thank you, Chief.
- Thanks, Congressman, for that.
It's our assessment...
That we're gonna be in the train advise assist
of indigenous partner nations' militaries
for some time to come.
We've been doing it pretty regularly as a nation
for well over a century.
If you think back at the big ones, the ROK army,
the South Korean army, the army of South Vietnam.
And many many other armies around the world have been
advised by the American army over the years,
so it's always been a fundamental mission
of the United States army, many times it's defaulted
to the United States army Special Forces because they have
excellent expertise in foreign internal development
and advisory, but in today's world, we think
that the mission profile of train advise assist
exceeds the capacity of Special Forces.
They're running at a very, very high op tempo,
so Special Forces is primarily now not exclusively,
but primarily involved in training and advising
host nation Special Forces.
And we need to fill the gap to advise the host nation
conventional forces, and what we determined,
what we've been doing for 16 years is ripping apart
our regular army or National Guard brigade combat teams
that are designed for combined arms maneuvers,
we've been ripping them apart to feed an advisory mission,
so for example, today we've got five brigades
in the Middle East doing that, we've got five preparing
and you've got five just coming home, so about 15
out of you know, 30 brigades in the active
or 50 brigades in total are wrapped up in that
mission profile, we need those brigades to train on
their designed missions, so what we decided to do
is we wanted to produce a better product of adviser
rather than just sort of an ad hoc approach to it
by ripping units apart, create a professional advisory
unit, and we're calling it an SFAB
and there are, it's all about the people.
They're individuals how are highly vetted,
they're meeting the same entry requirements
that you have to meet to get into the Ranger regiment,
they're getting full background checks
and significantly, they've already served
in the duty position they're serving as an advisor,
so they're on their second company command,
their second battalion command, their second brigade
command, second time as a first Sergeant and so on.
They're not coming, we're not ripping 'em out
of the units, this is after they've competed
their assignment in a regular unit.
So you're getting a high quality product
and I think we'll see over time, for the indigenous
conventional forces, a better advisory capability
and we'll recoup the readiness value of bringing
the current brigades back home to get them trained
for their organizational design mission.
And a third big strategic benefit of these security
force assistance brigades is that they are built upon...
The inherent chain of command of an infantry brigade
without all of the soldiers, so they're E6s and above.
They're all NCOs and officers, and they are designed
to look like the chain of command of a brigade.
So in a national emergency, if the United States
needed to rapidly expand, we're creating five of these
in the regular army, one in the guard.
If we needed to rapidly expand by, say, six brigades,
five or six brigades, we would take soldiers
to basic training and AIT, shove 'em underneath there
and you'll have a brigade in relatively short order,
about 1/3 of the time it would take to create
a normal brigade, so you get these three big strategic
benefits from these outfits.
The first one as you noted stood up at Benning.
It deployed a few, last week or 10 days ago or so.
They're in the midst right now of getting into
their battle space and the second one is gonna stand up
at Bragg, we haven't determined yet the stationing
for the third, fourth and fifth and so on,
but we think it's a good idea, it's a good program.
We think that they're getting good training and proper
equipment and we think that their concept of employment
is sound and we think it'll reap a significant amount
of benefit in the years to come.
- Right, thank you, thank you for that explanation
and Madam Chair, I yield back, thank you.
- Thank you.
Madam Chair, and to both of you, thank you for your
service to our country, we appreciate it very much.
Thank you for your candor here with us this morning.
As you know, I represent southeast Alabama and the people
of southeast Alabama are very proud of the home
of army aviation at Fort Rutger.
So a couple questions and then I'll let you respond.
And I appreciate, Mr. Secretary, the visit by phone
the other day and i kind of laid this out for you,
so we can talk further about it, but I'm real concerned
about why the president's FY19 budget request for aircraft
is 3.8 billion versus the actual spend
in FY17 of 4.9 billion.
We continue to also be concerned about retention of...
Army aviators.
And also want to make sure that the budget is a reflection
of what needs to be done at Rutger to keep up with
a student load that will then...
Help with whatever missions we have.
Clearly, we don't deploy without army aviation,
so we want to make sure that student load is a reflection
of the needs of the army, and then my second question is...
I'm concerned about the funding for the striker vehicle
in the army's FY19 request.
It's my understanding that the army also has
operational requirements for additional brigades
of improved strikers and so a lack of funding for that
would certainly put the industrial base in jeopardy.
And so those are my questions and I'll be quiet
and let y'all respond, but again, thank you so much
for your service to our country and for being here today.
- Thank you, Ms. Roby, I'll take the first one,
aviation budget, I know the chief can speak
to the retention piece and then we'll move to the striker.
I did track down the numbers, so you're right.
The FY19 request for aviation is 3.8 billion.
The FY17 enacted was 4.9 billion, but what we requested
in FY17 was 3.6 billion, so that delta reflected
the additional generosity of the Congress to put money in.
So that's why it looks like, so it's not a planned
increase by the service, what we had planned
was a steady increase, if you will, to continue
to invest in aviation assets.
That's number one, number two is we find at this point
that we've, because of the investments we made
in previous years, the bump up in 17, that army aviation
across the board is in pretty good shape, certainly
relative to our armor, our strikers, et cetera, et cetera,
so we find ourselves in good footing.
We are getting very close to meeting our aviation
objections in terms of the fielding goals
and then the other thing, I think this is due, again,
to the folks at the Pentagon doing the acquisition,
is they made some good decisions, so for example,
on UH60, the procurement is a multiyear procurement
of aircraft, which saved us, as a result, over a half
billion dollars and so that, then we didn't have
to invest that upfront, so a number of things are impacting
both why you see the trending line as you read it,
but also the solid state of aviation funding
and then, of course as we've talked today,
one of the things we're trying to do in the 19 budget
is really consistent with the national defense strategy,
make sure we're investing in conversion of the armor
brigade combat teams, we're looking to create another one,
we're trying to fill our preposition stocks of the
brigade combat team, we're doing upgrades to our Bradleys,
Abrams and other vehicles because they're just not in as
good of shape, if you will, as the aviation fleet.
- Congressman, for the pilots, what I've seen is not so much
a retention issue as a production issue.
We are short pilots, but we're at 94%
on warrant officer pilot for loading way aircraft,
so we're actually not in that bad of shape.
However, that 94% means we're short several hundred pilots
so where we're not where we would like to be, which is 100%
but it's not so much retention as a production issue
and you rightly point out the student base down at
Fort Rutger, we're filling all the scheduled seats
and we're monitoring all of that, very very closely,
and we're very sensitive because of the amount of training
that goes in to train a pilot, and we know that there's
a heavy investment in that, and we want to continue
to make sure that we don't drop off on it.
I know some of the other services with fixed wing pilots
are a challenge on retention, but ours is not so much
retention as it is a production issue.
On the striker piece, it's our intent to continue the
striker upgrades, however,
what you see reflected in the budget, what we did last year
was put money in there for the striker lethality upgrade
and now what we want to do is we want to get the feedback
from the pilot program that we're running now over
in Europe, we want to get all the feedback from
the testing and the prototyping and so on, so forth
and then adjust based off of that.
We'd expect that feedback sometime over the summer
and then we'll adjust and determine which way we want
to go on the remaining striker brigades.
- Thank you, Madam Chair.
Secretary, first of all, I want to thank you for your
comments on the audit and audit ability that Mr. Creyer
brought up and the fact that you are very serious about it
and as I've said many times in this room,
it's not the audit itself, it's the ability it gives you
to make informed decisions, but very much appreciate
your addressing that. - Thank you, sir.
- I have, if I could just set these out, for the two
of you, three questions and again, I would not want
to take time, Chairman Frelinghuysen is here,
Mr. Aderhold, is the first is we're all very proud
of our National Guard organizations.
Indiana has partnerships with two different countries.
Relative to the European deterrence initiative,
how do the guards in the state partnership program...
Cooperate, play into what the army is doing in Europe?
Second when we look at Asia, I think too often we think of
maritime, navy, Air Force, but the army has a clear role.
Setting aside the Korean peninsula, any particular
activities you would draw our attention to
that you're involved in?
And the last, and again, if you would just touch on these,
is with the new defense strategy that I am pleased
the Department has initiated, we talk about Russia and China
We talk about Iran and we talk about North Korea
and other very important issues.
Has it put stress on the army in particular as far
as these activities in Afghanistan?
Any problems that has created as far as a sense
of priority, thank you.
- Thank you, sir, if you don't mind, I'll take
the first one and maybe the chief can take the second two.
So as you know, my 21 years of service, 10 of 'em
were on active duty and the remaining 11 were in
the guard and reserve, so I have a great affinity
for the guard as a former guardsman myself.
And I will tell you, when I went to Europe, I think it was
in January, I was able to visit Belgium, Germany, Poland
and Ukraine and in Poland, I was very impressed because
there was a guard unit there from Illinois, of all places,
training, conducting training there
and they were well welcomed and doing an incredible job.
I found the same thing, by the way, when I went
to Ukraine, it was actually the New York National Guard
that was training the Ukrainians on better tactics
techniques and procedures, if you will,
consistent with what we do with NATO, so the guard
is performing a critical role.
From the time I left active duty in 1996, they have moved
certainly from a strategy reserve to an operational reserve
to an operational force and everywhere I go
and I'm always reminded of my visit to Afghanistan
just before Christmas, where I sat around with a combat,
a leadership team of a brigade combat team
and you wouldn't know it unless you looked at their patches
but they were from all three components,
but seamlessly integrated, each performing their roles,
side by side, but there were active, regular army
guard and reserve, and so they are doing a tremendous job
and I guess further to your point is what I found
is where states have these particular partnership programs
with other countries, that's been particularly helpful
because there is a longstanding relationship in many cases
where they've been working together for many years
and so it's just, there's a great ease when they have
to deploy and they already have a relationship built up.
And I know, I had that conversation with the Poles
in particular where there was just an easy transition
as our guardsmen were working in Poland on our deterrence
initiatives there.
- Yeah, I would echo all of that, Congressman, the state
partnership program as you know has been a longterm program,
started in the early 90s, and the states have affiliations
with various countries around the world.
A very, very successful program, particularly in Europe,
as a subset of the broader EUCON command of
General Scapperati's engagement strategy
in order to build partner capacity.
For the EDI, the European deterrence initiative,
the army plays a significant role in that of the six plus
billion dollars that it's been increased from
last year's budget, the army is,
I think the army's allocated
four, four and a half billion of that.
That's significant.
The purpose of the whole thing is to deter further
Russian territorial aggression in Europe.
We saw Georgia, we saw Crimea, we saw what they're doing
in eastern Damas, so a strategic decision was made
to deter any further territorial aggression.
In order to do that, it requires a joint force,
so there's elements of the navy and the Air Force
and Marines as part of the EDI as well, but the army
has a big chunk of that because the best form of deterrence
frankly is the deterrence that you can see on the ground
and if you know you can't achieve your objectives
on the ground, then you are likely not to try to attempt
to get those objectives. - If you could address Asia?
- I'm sorry?
As I understood, the question was, is the China issue
impacting or increasing stress on--
- I wouldn't even say China, it's just we think of navy,
we think of Air Force because of the projection.
Sitting inside the Korean peninsula, but just to highlight
some of the other activities and important duties or...
- Well, in the Pacific, again, we're a global power,
and the United States army is a global army,
so we are not committed to one theater versus the other
and we have to retain capabilities as a nation as long as
our strategies remain as they are to be able to engage
worldwide, so in the Pacific, we've got roughly speaking,
as I mentioned earlier, about 70,000 or so
US army soldiers, forward stationed in Korea,
forward stationed in Hawaii, that we have soldiers
up in Alaska and then we have a large, significant amount
that come out of the operational force in FORCECOMM
in the event that we need to surge forces into the Pacific
so there's a very significant army capability
in the Pacific, now the purpose of that is stability,
building partner capacity, ensuring our allies
and deterring any particular opponent.
The Pacific is heavily weighted towards naval capabilities
and air capabilities as it rightly should.
However, the army plays a very, very significant role
as you know in the Pacific.
- Well, my sense is the assurance to our allies
is a very key role there so no one gets nervous.
- It's absolutely-- - If I could just
turn you to Afghanistan and with the new defense strategy,
if you would, any stress or pressure as far as what
you're doing in Afghanistan, budgetarily or personnel wise?
- Well, in Afghanistan, as you know the numbers that we have
in Afghanistan, we're putting in the first security forces
brigade the other day, our strategy in Afghanistan
is to continue to train advise, assist, enable,
the indigenous military force of the Afghan...
Government, so the Afghan National Security Forces.
That is important, it is not in and of itself
the only solution, but it's important.
The other parts of this are economic development,
rule of law, good governance, those are outside
the purview, per se, of US military forces.
Our job is to assist the NSF in order to protect
and stabilize the internals of the government.
It's been a challenge for a considerable length of time
as you know, President Trump has recommitted
in the strategy to sustaining the US level of effort.
Key to the overall strategy, of course, is what's going
on on the other side of the border with Pakistan.
It's a very complex situation, but we the military
and we specifically the army play a very, very heavy role
in train, advise, assisting our Afghan partners.
We think we're able to do that now and we think we're gonna
be improving on that here in the coming year.
- Thank you very much. - Thank you, Mr. Aderhold.
I apologize, I didn't see you come in.
- No problem, thanks.
Thank y'all both, as my colleagues have said,
for being here, we appreciate your service
and when you think back on the days of muskets,
it would have been a surprise,
I guess, to a lot of the service members
back years ago to imagine a rifle that is accurate
up to 875 yards, as we have today,
but in this time of increasing long range threats
from our adversaries, I don't think any of our services
should be excluded from a mission simply because of
its range, but the concern that many of us have is about
the frequency of hypersonic testing from Russia and China.
Also concerned about the speed with which North Korea
might prepare a missile for launch.
Our own future systems may include weapons in the Air Force
and missile launched from submarines, but some of that work
might take 20 years to actually field.
In the past two years, our combatant commanders
have confirmed the positive potential of long range
hypersonics weapons of our own.
General, let me pose this question to you.
It's an operational question.
If the army were provided sufficient resources,
and were asked to prepare a long range hypersonic weapon
launched from US territory, could you build upon our
two successful hypersonic flight tests done through
cooperations between SMDC and the navy and prepare
an early operational land base capability by 2022,
which is directed in the FY18 NDAA?
- Thanks for that question, it's an important area
of S&T and R&D that we're pursuing very quickly.
As you rightly point out, two significant adversaries,
China and Russia, are moving out on in the development
of hypersonic weapons.
We acknowledge that.
We, the army, have as our number one priority
for modernization, long range precision fires.
A subset of that is the hypersonic piece to it.
It is in S&T and R&D.
I don't want to say 2022, because I haven't seen
the results of the S&T and R&D yet.
But I do believe that it's technologically possible
and I believe we will be able to test and then acquire
and procure long range precision weapons
that go significantly longer in range
than any existing artillery system in the earth today.
We're pursuing that and I believe it's possible.
I don't want to confine myself to a date of 2022, though.
I haven't seen the research yet, hard data.
- And I would add I was at SMD a few weeks ago.
Very impressed by what they're doing.
They're very confident in the promise of hypersonics.
And as I came back, as you may have heard,
I meet frequently with my fellow service secretaries
and this is one of the technology areas that we discuss.
About how we can collaborate to make sure that we all have,
we can share that same information to get to the solution
quicker because there is so much promise in hypersonics.
- Mr. Secretary, there have been various opinions
expressed in recent years about what is treaty compliant
and what is not as well as whether our adversaries have
already broken the treaty such as the IMF.
If I understand correctly, part of the equation is whether
a weapon goes into exo atmospheric.
Can you provide to the committee in the next few weeks
a statement at the secret TS level on what, if any,
changes to US law or treaties are necessary to fill
the long range hypersonic weapon launched
from US territory?
- Yes sir, I'll do that. - Thank you, I yield back.
- Chairman Frelinghuysen.
- Great, sorry to be a little late.
Congratulations, Mr. Secretary on your...
Process to the Senate and General Milley, I was so late
I missed a few nice compliments you said about me.
Thanks so much.
Thank you both for...
You know, the remarkable things you do to look after
our men and women, all of our military for...
As you may know, I for a number of years, almost my entire
time on the committee, I was sort of the army guy
on the committee, everybody had their own people,
Marines and the Air Force and I remember, you know,
Jack Martha and everybody, but I was sort of the army guy.
I don't apologize, we were always on the short end
of the stick in terms of money and things of that nature.
So I've had a chance to sort of take a look at...
Some of the systems we've invested in and I think
the figure is, like, $32 billion we've invested
in a variety of things, Comanche, Crusader,
future combat systems, I can remember General Odiare
saying, well, it's only seven more years.
And I would say, yes, I'm right behind you.
I know you've got--
a different sort of...
Mode of operation you're moving towards,
what we call the futures command, which I think conceptually
is supposed to sort of get us out of the bureaucratic
restraints, you're gonna be, and I've said this
to the other secretaries, Secretary Spencer and Heather
Wilson was in the other day, I don't like the expression
that you're gonna be flush with money.
But you're gonna have a lot of money.
I know you've indicated before I got here,
you're appreciative of the flexibility we're giving you
to spend it, but these would perhaps
be some of the best times you might have.
How can you assure the committee that
these dollars are gonna be spent wisely?
- Yes, sir, thank you, it's a great question
and we certainly, as you said, appreciate what we're
seeing in the 18 to 19 appropriations
and recognize that this is a moment in time
that we have to capture and make very good use of.
Not only because it may only be the moment, but we need
to build, we need to build confidence with Congress
and with the American people.
At the same time, this is a chance to also not only
change our processes within the army but change
the culture as well as we look at acquisition.
So to that end, that's why the army futures command
is a critical component, but we are impatient
and speed is critical, which is why we have these
cross functional teams stood up now across the...
Across these six areas, beginning with long range
precision fires, to include next generation combat vehicle,
actively working, trying to either, testing prototypes
we have right now, such as future vertical lift
or developing prototypes so we can quickly get
the requirements down, part of what we want to do
is get the requirements down from five years
to 12 months and we want to get back to an era
where it didn't take us 10 to 15 years to build a platform
but it takes us five to eight years and so this is the time,
as you see from our budget, we contribute or we invest
over 18% of our funding in procurement to get that way,
to begin the prototyping.
At the same time recognizing the challenges,
the current challenges of readiness, we are upgrading
our armor combat brigades, making them more lethal.
Same with the striker vehicles.
We are converting an ABC team and we're building
another one, so a lot of investments across the board
to deal with the near term challenges, but to begin now
making those down payments on the future force,
a more modern force and in a much quicker timeline.
- I don't think there's a great enough appreciation for the
work of our Special Forces and often, we invoke
the Special Forces and they do remarkable things around
the world, we often invoke them if they're not
hindered or restrained by some of what the big army is
restrained by, I hear today even
that they have, are more encumbered than they used to be.
Would you sort of talk about that dynamic?
Is there anything that they're doing in the way
of procurement that relates to how you're designing
the futures command?
Obviously you are impatient.
Because you got to break the culture.
But is there anything you're building into the dynamic
that relates to their ability to...
Get things off the shelf and...
Cannibalize systems to get more effective weapons and...
Increase lethality?
- I'll just make a quick comment, then I'll defer
to the chief because having served in the Special Forces,
he may have special insights, but I will tell you that
in many ways, we're trying to borrow if not mimic
some of the procurement practices that we've seen in
SOCOMM, for example, along the same lines,
what we've established in the past and then last year
with the rapid equipping force or rapid capabilities office
are two other ways that we've tried to leapfrog
a very bureaucratic process to get tools, equipment,
weapons systems to the troops much, much quicker
than we have in the past.
That's why I'm encouraged by these CFTs.
We've already prototyped and want to begin...
Buying these next generation night vision devices,
for example, and we're moving through on a designated
marksman rifle, things that we can do much more quickly,
mimicking what we've seen in the past from the
Special Operations community.
- Chief? - Congressman, thanks.
You know, two years ago when we first conceived
of this futures command idea, one of the things
we set out to do was to inform ourselves
of what's out there today, so there were two models
that we looked at intensively.
One was the SOCOMM model and the other was the navy's model
under Admiral Rickover, to be candid, going back in the day,
so we looked at those and we drew the best practices
and the SOCOMM model, one of the things that makes them
so successful, and by the way, they operate under
the exact same laws, the exact same rules,
so there's nothing special that's done for SOCOMM
in terms of law, rules or authorities,
but they do things slightly differently.
Number one, they have a smaller scale, so they're authorized
under their title to develop equipment that is unique
to special operations and the rest of their equipment
comes from either the navy, the Air Force or the army.
But in that bin of special equipment, they link
the operator, the user directly with the combat developer,
directly with the program manager.
And they link them all to a commander, a commander SOCOMM
and his designated representative, the acquisition
executive, and that speeds the process up
so we mimicked that in today's, what we have now is
six crossfunctional teams, that's exactly what we did
and they're achieving great success,
and the crossfunctional teams are a bridging strategy
until we can get futures command fully stood up
and then they'll be embedded within futures command.
So we are taking the best practices, lessons learned
that have been out there in terms of efficiency
and effectiveness, the key to the whole thing at the end
of the day, though, to ensure that the taxpayer's money
is spent properly, in my view, is accountability.
And we must hold ourselves accountable throughout
the entire system and anyone out there who violates law,
statute, intent, policy, regulations and so on,
in manning, training or equipping the United States forces
must be held accountable.
We can't just turn a blind eye to it and that's another
beautiful thing about futures command is there will be
accountability because you'll have unity of command
and unity of effort under one command that'll do
all things modernization for the army and that'll be
important, because it's such a diffuse effort right now.
When something goes wrong, you say how did it go wrong,
who did this, and you start getting fingers going all
over the place, and who's on first, what's on second.
Those days are over, but the establishment of futures
command, there'll be unity of command, unity of effort,
and most importantly, there'll be accountability.
- Glad to hear it, thank you.
Madam Chairwoman.
- Thank you very much.
We have enough time left for another round
and I'd like to do that, just be aware that you need
to keep your questions succinct, and we'll start with...
Okay, so it'd be Mr. DS Belart.
- Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, you know, sometimes
the western hemisphere is kind of overlooked until
things blow up.
The constant bright spot has always been South comm
and it often gets overlooked by obviously more high profile
commands just because of conflicts, et cetera,
but clearly its hands are always full
and whether it's counter drug or transnational threats,
they're always obviously incredibly busy,
so can you talk a little bit about how you intend
to support South comm's operations in the FY19 budget?
- Well, operationally, South comm demand as you rightly
point out is significantly lower than other AORs
or areas of operation at this time.
And that changes from time to time.
Earthquake in Haiti, for example, placed a tremendous
demand on the United States military writ large.
The army, navy, Air Force, Marines, everyone contributed
to that relief effort.
So it's an episodic thing.
As a regional engagement plan, we're supporting
Admiral Tid's regional engagement plan.
We've got joint task force Bravo, that's currently located
in Honduras, Special Forces, specifically seventh
Special Forces group does a lot of work in central
and South America.
And in building partner capacity and assuring our allies.
And then you've got, as you know,
a lot of counter narcotic kind of drug traffic operations,
within the maritimes service, a lot of that's done by
the Coast guard, so there's a significant engagement
in the South comm AOR.
Mexico is also important, but that comes under north comm,
but we routinely engage and work very closely with
the Mexican army on things like border control
and border operation, counter drug and counter narcotics
and so on, so there is a significant amount of engagement,
not only by the US military but by the army.
Throughout the Caribbean, throughout central
and South America and also in Mexico
and we'll continue to do that as budgeted,
but it is significantly less than what you would expect
from other cocomms.
- I just want to make sure that, and I know that you're
aware of it, but I just want to make sure that
there's enough emphasis there.
I don't have to tell you that 10s of thousands of
Americans die every year because of narcotics
and so it is a threat, and I see I have a little bit more
time, let me just, so the army submitted a modernization
plan at Congress for its network communications and...
But there's very little details about specific systems
and the plan for the 19 request, so can you explain
a little bit about your timeline for the plan?
Does the army intend to use streamlined acquisition
procedures for this or is it considering using solutions
already in the army's inventory?
Just again, some further explanation.
- And Congressman, you said with regard to communications?
- Yes.
- So...
Where we're going with regard to communications
falls under the network crossfunctional teams.
It's one of the six that we've described
and what they are doing is...
Building upon some of the current programs that exist,
so one example is we're moving forward on a variety
of tactical handheld radios, a man pack, other radios
to make sure we're at the cutting edge, at the front edge
of the battlefield, that our troops have the type
of communications they need for that type of fight.
At the same time as you know, the strategy we've put forward
is the halt fix pivot on WinT increment two
and what that will enable us to do is to make sure
that we can adapt increment two for the infantry brigade
combat teams to make sure
they have sufficient communications
for the fight we see ahead.
At the same time with the crossfunctional team,
for the network is doing, is...
Looking at what's available on the commercial market,
preferably software based, because what we need to do
is we look ahead in terms of the network, the tactical
network, is make sure that we can keep up with the pace
of commercial technology, this is something we have been
unable to do and unless we get on that type of wavelength
we'll be forever chasing it, so what the crossfunctional
team is looking at, what is happening out there in
the commercial marketplace, how can we then take it,
adapt it to our tactical network and make sure
that we're in a position where we can continually
upgrade, and the network is critical to long range
precision fires to everything else we do across
our modernization priorities.
- May I make a comment on that Congressman, if I could?
We spent the better part of almost a year and a half now
doing an intensive internal look at the quote unquote
network of which WinT is just one component and...
It was my conclusion, our conclusion, the army's conclusion
that the network as designed...
Works fine, for a counterinsurgency, counter terrorist
type fight where you're fighting primarily from static...
Fobs and cops out there in the battle space.
And it more or less works okay at echelons below,
say, battalion, company.
However.
As the NDS points out, we're in an era of great power
competition, and if you need a system that can operate
against a near peer competitor, a Russia or a China
or someone using their equipment, who has significant
electronic warfare capabilities, who has significant
cyber capabilities, who have incredible powers of
observation through a variety of means, who have
incredible fire support capabilities that can deliver fires,
it's our estimation that the system that we were buying
would not survive contact with that type of enemy
on a mobile, highly lethal battlefield against
those enemies, so we said, okay, what in the system...
Doesn't work?
And whatever it is, we found that didn't work,
we halted it, what in the system doesn't work
but can work, we decided we would identify those subsystems
and fix them, and then we decided we needed to move on
to a new procurement strategy.
In the world of information technology, the commercial world
is operating at lightspeed compared to the way the US
government can do acquisition and procurement.
They are light years ahead of us, so the networks design
and requirements are written years and years and years ago.
The commercial world has advanced way beyond anything
we wrote years and years and years ago.
So that's the pivot part of it.
We need to change our fundamental procurement strategy
of all things information, so that's what's behind
all of this, and I know it's controversial out there.
I know a lot of people are...
Up in arms about it, so to speak, I got that.
But we cannot fund a system that we know ahead of time
is unlikely to work against the type of threat
that we've been charged to plan against in the national
defense strategy.
- Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
- Thank you, Mr. Ruppersberger.
- Yeah, earlier, we discussed the need for a modernized
army to deter future adversaries and thoroughly
overmatch them, should a fight become necessary.
That's certainly the right call, especially considering
the advance of technology and the army's need
to have a longterm strategy to maintain a decisive edge
in great power competition.
Now I'm very worried about the here and now,
the current and short term investments the army is making
to maintain dominance in today's threat environment.
Today Russia is increasingly belligerent and aggressive.
It has demonstrated more of a willingness to use
its ground forces to further Putin's goals.
We also have issues involving China.
My question in the FY19 budget, I'm happy to see funding
for measures such as European defense initiative
have increased from 4.7 billion to 2018, 6.5 billion
this year, in addition to this effort, what other near
and short term investments do you see in your budget plan
that can deter Putin from testing our resolve?
- Mr. Ruppersberger, there's a number of things we're doing
so let's, I'll talk about armor brigade combat teams.
As I said, we are converting a 15th armor brigade combat
team and plan on building a 16th.
At the same time we are looking to build up our
prepositioned stocks in Europe, so that in the case
of a contingency, we can quickly fly in and...
Fall in on those types of stocks in brigade combat team.
At the same time we are making sure that in Europe,
those stocks have a mobile short range air defenses
that have enhanced multiple rocket launcher capabilities.
We spoke earlier about the strikers because the strikers
are playing a critical role.
When I was in Poland I actually visited the striker unit
and talked with our commanders and that's why, at their
request, we're upgunning them with 30 millimeter cannons
and we're looking at increased survivability with the hulls.
At the same time we are, as you know, doing these
heel to toe rotations with an armored brigade combat team
going back and forth every nine months.
That's given us two things, that's allowed the army to
practice deploying again and that's a critical skill
in a theater like that where you can actually move your
unit from continental United States to Europe
and all the critical tasks it takes to get into your
optimal battle positions, so we're rotating
and we're rotating very highly trained units
that are coming right out of the national training center
and are prepared, so that gives you a great deterrence
capability as well, and so that's just kind of a sampling
of things that we're doing to make sure that we maintain
that deterrence initiative.
We're also working very closely with the Poles to make sure
that they improve their training areas,
both in the northeast
and in the northwest of the country
that'll allow us to maintain our readiness.
We see them participating in exercises with US forces
in Germany, in fact when I was there in Germany
I visited the joint maneuver readiness center at
Hoenfeld Germany, and it was a Polish brigade
going through training there with US units,
Italian units, UK units, et cetera,
reporting up to it, exercising in a multinational endeavor
against a likely threat they might see from the east
so all these things, whether it's the training,
whether it's the equipment upgrades, et cetera,
all adding, I think, building to the deterrence that
we need in order to keep any...
- I know there's some unrest with some of our key allies
in that European area around the Russia area.
Are we doing anything to make them feel better
and working with them and helping them?
- We are training extensively with all of our NATO allies
in Europe, but like I said, when I was there,
I saw everybody from the Germans, Poles, Estonians.
We had these enhanced force packages running all the way
from Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, down to the US presence
in Poland and a lot of assurance happening there
and as I mentioned earlier as well, I was in Ukraine
where we have a presence there, training the Ukrainians,
so I think we're doing a lot on that front.
I don't know, the chief may have
something to add on this issue.
- Thanks, Congressman, the...
In terms of assurance, I think the United States does a lot
for NATO and our allies and...
From a military perspective.
And from the army's perspective, we are.
We're doing a tremendous amount of training.
We've got units cycling through a wide variety
of exercises that General Scaperatti has planned
and now General Cavoli.
So that's important.
We're increasing our APS2 stocks in this budget
from what is currently about a brigade set
to a division set, that's important.
We're continuing, as the Secretary said, the rotation
of the armored brigade combat team, the combat
aviation brigade and other enablers in addition
to the forces that are already there.
I would mention manning that's both in this budget
and the previous budget, Congress has been very generous
and the Secretary of Defense and the president
have allowed us to modestly increase our end strength.
That's important because the readiness of the force
rests upon good people and having enough people
in the right ranks and skillsets so increasing our readiness
by the end strength and the regular army increase here
of another 4000 this year, it increased last year,
et cetera, that'll be important in improving the readiness.
So in the here and now our readiness glide path
bottomed out two and a half years ago.
That's when it hit bottom and because of the great effort
of Congress, OSD and many many others we are on
an upward trajectory, it's unambiguous, an upward trajectory
of readiness, it needs continued sustained funding
and that'll take care of the here and now.
And simultaneously with that, we want to pivot
and ensure tomorrow's readiness, modernization,
that's what those six priorities are,
that's what futures command, CFTs are all about.
Again, maintaining and sustaining and continue to improve
the foxhole of today's readiness while at the same time
building tomorrow's readiness.
- Thank you. - Judge Carter.
- Thank you, Madam Chairman, I hate to go back to a sore
subject, but on Wednesday, we've invested six million
dollars in that, billion dollars in that
and it's what I would classify as a failed early project.
It didn't do well at all, it flunked in multiple categories
throughout what the chief talked about.
Now as you go forward in this area, I hope that you're
impressing upon those that are going forward that
we don't need any more six billion dollar early fails
of communications and let's let the army lead
the whole federal government because in reality,
the environment of the federal government is slow
and tedious when it comes to technology,
and I agree with the chief.
We've got to get up to lightspeed because I used to try
cases where we'd have intellectual property cases,
and we'd settle because by the time it got to court,
it was over, it had changed, that was six months of time.
Shifting over to another thing that's out there,
we're looking to build a range based, ground based,
a defense system for projectile threats.
The Israelis, we've given them and assisted them
with 1.5 billion and helped them building Iron Dome.
There are those in the Pentagon that have talked about
we should look at off the shelf,
of things that are out there.
Iron Dome is battle tested, seems to work.
Is there any reason why we are not looking at iron dome
rather than spending $51 million on a slow research
and development process that maybe will put us online
by 2022, yet this system, when the Israelis are using it
today, I'm sure they'd be glad, so that's one question.
- We are looking at Iron Dome.
I think what you're talking about, I think, Congressman,
what you're talking about is, IFPIC, which is inside
the budget, and you're looking at a ballistic missile
defense capability, but not just ballistic missiles,
short range missiles, in addition to aircraft.
Iron Dome however is designed against a different threat
than IFPIC, so we're working with and we're examining
multiple alternatives, it has to be mobile,
Iron Dome is not mobile right now.
Tactically mobile, but we haven't ruled out or ruled in
anything in the area that you're specifically talking about
right now and all options are still on the table for that.
And we are exploring all those options, so Iron Dome's
not in or out, we're looking at it, we're looking at IFPIC,
we're looking at the requirements and we want to make sure
that with industry that we get what we need as fast as we
can get it because that particular area, you know,
shoot, move, communicate, protect, so it's a very,
it's in our priorities there as the fourth priority.
That has to do with fixed wing enemy aircraft,
rotary wing enemy aircraft, ballistic missile defense,
short range missile attack and our army needs to fill
that gap and do so quickly, so we're looking at
all the options. - Thank you, Chief.
- Secretary?
- Just like to note for the record that General Milley
went to a very fine New Jersey institution in graduate
studies and we note, of course, Secretary Esper
is a graduate of West Point, this is sort of an odd
question, but you're both graduates of the 1980s
and I was to ask this of Heather Wilson and...
Her colleague...
The Air Force...
Chief.
How do you get input from the younger generation?
You being obviously in positions of major responsibility?
Obviously no soldier wants to go into combat
with the army chief one on one.
How do you actually take input and ideas from soldiers?
How do you make sure that the chain of command knows
sort of the reality of social networking and...
The things that sort of tie their incredible missions to
the real world we're in?
- Yes, sir.
I have two sources, first of which are my three kids
who range between 18 and 25.
And knowing them and their friends, I get a good feel
for what's happening in that age group and that's roughly
the age group from which we recruit and it gives you
good insight into what they do in social media,
what they, you know...
How they interact socially, the skills they take
to any role, but more importantly though is every time
I've traveled and I've been in the job now
three and a half months, I've traveled more than half
that time, mostly overseas, I spend...
Almost every lunch and sometimes a breakfast sitting down
with a group of soldiers, E2s, E3s, E4s.
(man speaks indistinctly)
Oh, no, sir, I keep 'em far away and so we just have
a very candid discussion about what's on their mind
and I typically come back with notes.
As soon as I get back that I divvy out to the staff
and it's any range of issues, whether pay issues
or if you're in the guard, it's how soon or how late
you were notified on an issue.
It could be what's the next army PT test look like,
so I get a full range of questions out there with regard.
I've also been privileged to have my...
Wife join me on these trips and she meets with their
wives, spouses, husbands, on these trips as well.
So I have I guess a third source of input there as well,
with regard to what's happening with regard to the schools,
the daycare facilities, the clinics, et cetera, et cetera,
so I try and draw from multiple sources as I head out
on the road.
- It's interesting, and this is not to drive the point
home, the number of people that have a Fitbit
and then we get a report in the New York Times
that maybe at some forward operating base,
somebody's lifting weights or they're doing something
and we identify where the hell they are to the very
aggressive and, you know, enemies that are in that...
Comm, but it's a concern and you're assuring us
that there is an opportunity for input.
- Very similar in many ways.
You know, we call it battlefield circulation,
going around and engaging with soldiers and families
and civilians, do that all the time, constantly
on the road doing it, been doing it for 40 years.
So you get a lot of feedback that way.
In addition to that, though, formally,
we do a lot of surveys, we do a lot of...
Scientifically based analyses of various people's opinions.
Thirdly, we run a thing called a captain's solarium.
Where I go out, we select a representative group
of captains, it's run by Fort Leavenworth annually,
and they go out and they do a whole seminar,
it lasts a couple weeks, and then I go out and meet
with them and they give me back briefs on a wide variety
of topics that we think are of interest to them.
The Sergeant major is important in this regard, too.
We have, I personally think, and I've known a lot
of Sergeant majors and I love 'em and respect 'em all
but I personally think Dan Daley's one of the finest
noncommissioned officers the army's ever produced
and I think he's the best Sergeant major the army's
ever had, this is a man who has massive amounts of energy.
He has a natural connective tissue, sort of,
with the younger generation, and the troops out there
and he gets out there, so talk to him frequently,
get a lot of unvarnished sort of opinions.
The other thing too that's key for both the secretary and I
and anybody operating at these levels is to remain
openminded, accept bad news, don't go ballistic
if it happens to be bad news at a moment in time,
but remain openminded and fresh to new ideas.
This is a different generation, it's a remarkably
talented generation of young people that are out there
in our military, they communicate in different ways,
staying active on Facebook and Twitter.
We get all kinds of ideas and feedback from those lanes
as well, but I think being open to fresh new ideas.
We know in the world of science the most brilliant
mathematicians, they were most brilliant in their 20s.
Einstein and many many others, the passing of Stephen
Hawking, they did some of their most brilliant work
in physics and mathematics early in their life
and that is true I think of the military or any other area
that requires innovation.
The innovation is with the youth and that's important
that we at the top who work with Congress on the resources
and the budget, we remain openminded to fresh new ideas
to solve age old problems.
- Thank you both, thank you, Madam Chairman.
- Thank you very much, you have already addressed
the issue with Chairman Frelinghuysen, so I don't need
a response, I just feel compelled to emphasize again
and I appreciate your positive response.
That the additional moneys the Department is gonna receive
in 18 are significant, it is Congress's fault
that we've shaved five months off of your year
but the fact is the increase the Department's gonna have
is greater than the total spending of five different
subcommittees on this committee, so I appreciate the care.
Second thing that the chairman brought up about
younger people and one of my faults on this subcommittee
is I do not travel enough, I do not visit enough bases,
do not talk to enough enlisted people and appreciate
the effort you've gone to, still remember
and it was very moving, we cleared out all the adults,
talked to the children at the school at Fort Campbell
and it was moving, after about 15 minutes,
they realized you actually wanted to listen to 'em.
And so I appreciate that. I would suggest
and don't need a response, trust you also
with the women enlisted, clearing all the men outta
the room and have a conversation with them as well.
So again, appreciate your service and thank you very much,
Madam Chair.
- Thank you, I have just one last thing, along with that
significant amount of money goes a significant amount
of confidence in the abilities of the US army.
We never forget that also.
I had a wonderful conversation yesterday in my office
and I want to tell you one of the things that will always
stay with me and I wish I'd said this at the beginning
it goes for the whole subcommittee, you were very clear
about what 16 years of war did to our army
and that's something that we need to always keep in mind
so you're catching up in a different way than...
Others that we work with.
Also, the SFAB program is a fascinating program.
Be sure and keep us up to speed on that because I see
that it has great possibilities, thank you both
for all your service and we are adjourned.
I think I will say something about that, hold on.
(laughs) Okay, that concludes today's hearing.
The subcommittee is adjourned.
(gavel bangs)
- [Man] Thank you, ma'am.