[Senate Hearing 115-167]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 115-167
THE DEFENSE BUDGET FOR FISCAL YEAR 2018 AND ONWARDS
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
TUESDAY, JANUARY 24, 2017
__________
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COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
JOHN McCAIN, Arizona, Chairman
JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma JACK REED, Rhode Island
ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi BILL NELSON, Florida
DEB FISCHER, Nebraska CLAIRE McCASKILL, Missouri
TOM COTTON, Arkansas JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire
MIKE ROUNDS, South Dakota KIRSTEN E. GILLIBRAND, New York
JONI ERNST, Iowa RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut
THOM TILLIS, North Carolina JOE DONNELLY, Indiana
DAN SULLIVAN, Alaska MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii
DAVID PERDUE, Georgia TIM KAINE, Virginia
TED CRUZ, Texas ANGUS S. KING, JR., Maine
LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina MARTIN HEINRICH, New Mexico
BEN SASSE, Nebraska ELIZABETH WARREN, Massachusetts
LUTHER STRANGE, Alabama GARY C. PETERS, Michigan
Christian D. Brose, Staff Director
Elizabeth L. King, Minority Staff Director
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
_______________________________________________________________________
January 24, 2017
Page
The Defense Budget for Fiscal Year 2018 and Onwards.............. 1
Wood, Dakota L., Senior Research Fellow for Defense Programs, the 5
Heritage Foundation.
Mahnken, Dr. Thomas G., President and CEO, Center for Strategic 9
and Budgetary Assessments.
Korb, Dr. Lawrence J., Senior Fellow, Center for American 12
Progress.
(iii)
THE DEFENSE BUDGET FOR FISCAL YEAR 2018 AND ONWARDS
----------
TUESDAY, JANUARY 24, 2017
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Armed Services,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:30.m. in Room
SH-216, Hart Senate Office Building, Senator John McCain
(chairman) presiding.
Committee members present: Senators McCain, Inhofe, Wicker,
Fischer, Cotton, Rounds, Ernst, Tillis, Sullivan, Perdue,
Sasse, Reed, Shaheen, Gillibrand, Blumenthal, Donnelly, Hirono,
Kaine, King, Heinrich, Warren, and Peters.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR JOHN McCAIN, CHAIRMAN
Chairman McCain. Good morning.
The Armed Services Committee meets this morning to receive
testimony on the defense budget for fiscal year 2018 and
beyond.
I would like to welcome our witnesses: Dakota Wood, Senior
Research Fellow for Defense Programs at The Heritage
Foundation; Dr. Thomas Mahnken, President and CEO of the Center
for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments; and Dr. Lawrence Korb,
Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress.
As President Trump assumes the awesome responsibilities of
his office, he has inherited a world on fire and a U.S.
military weakened by years of senseless budget cuts. I am
encouraged that he recognizes these problems. In fact, the
White House website now features President Trump's promise to,
quote, end the defense sequester and, quote, rebuild our
military. I know the President will find many allies on this
committee who share these goals.
The world order that America has led for seven decades,
which has benefited our people most of all, is now under
unprecedented strain. We have entered a new era of great power
competition even as we continue to face an enduring global
conflict against violent Islamic extremist groups. Too many
Americans seem to have forgotten that our world order is not
self-sustaining. Too many have forgotten that while the threats
we face may not have purely military solutions, they all have
military dimensions. In fact, too many have forgotten that hard
power matters. It is what gives our Nation leverage to deter
aggression and achieve peace through strength.
The epitome of this forgetfulness is the Budget Control Act
of 2011, which cut and arbitrarily capped defense spending for
a decade. At a time of growing threats, this law led to a 21
percent reduction to the defense budget from 2010 to 2014.
Across the board, the military got smaller and, worse, less
capable. Critical investments in new technologies were
deferred, which helped adversaries like Russia and China to
close the gap. At the same time, the combination of rising
threats, declining budgets, aging equipment, shrinking forces
and high operational tempo produced a military readiness
crisis. In other words, President Trump is now Commander-in-
Chief of a military that is underfunded, undersized, and
unready to meet the diverse and complex array of threats
confronting our Nation.
That is why every member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has
testified to our committees that years of budget cuts have
placed the lives of the men and women of our armed forces at
greater risk.
Despite the damage done to our military over the last
several years, there are still those that argue we should not
be so concerned. They say America's military is still the
greatest fighting force ever known, that our military
capabilities are still, quote, awesome, that we spend so much
more than Russia or China or that we spend roughly the same
amount as we did during the Cold War.
True as these statements may be, they say little or nothing
about whether our military can achieve the missions assigned to
them and at what cost. In fact, the testimony of our military
leaders in open hearings and closed briefings leads me to
believe there is real reason for concern. We do not fight wars
by comparing budgets. That is why this kind of happy talk is
not just unhelpful, it is dangerous. It breeds the kind of
complacency we cannot afford with the world on fire.
It is time to change course on America's defense budget. We
have to invest in the modern capabilities necessary for the new
realities of deterring conflict. Our adversaries have gone to
school on the American way of war, and they are investing
heavily in advanced capabilities to counter it. After years of
taking our military advantage for granted, we are now at
serious risk of losing it. We cannot just buy a bigger version
of the military that won the Gulf War 25 years ago. We have to
invest in the new technologies and capabilities that will allow
our military to prevail in a conflict 25 years in the future.
We also have to regain capacity for our military. Put
simply, our military today is too small. It does not have
enough ships, aircraft, vehicles, munitions, equipment, and
personnel to perform its current missions at acceptable levels
of risk. Adding capacity alone is not the answer and any
capacity that we do add must be done deliberately and
sustainably. Add we must.
Of course, rebuilding our military must be done smartly. We
must seek to make our military better not just bigger. We must
continue our reform efforts to make the Department of Defense
more effective and efficient, while cutting wasteful spending.
We must also be clear about the challenge of rebuilding
America's military will not be cheap. In my estimation, our
military requires a base defense budget for fiscal year 2018,
excluding current war costs, of $640 billion, which is $54
billion above current plans and sustained growth for years
thereafter. It will not happen overnight. The harm done to our
military over the past eight years will not be reversed
quickly. The longer that we wait, the worse it will get and the
longer it will take to fix it.
It will not be easy. Rebuilding America's military will
require spending political capital and making policy tradeoffs.
That is why national defense must be a political priority on
par with repealing and replacing Obamacare, rebuilding
infrastructure, and reforming the tax code, indeed, more so
because national defense is job one for the Federal Government.
None of these challenges should obscure the fact that
rebuilding America's military is the right and necessary thing
to do.
I look forward to the testimony of our witnesses on the way
forward.
Senator Reed?
STATEMENT OF SENATOR JACK REED
Senator Reed. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for
holding this hearing to consider funding levels for the
Department of Defense and to maintain our Nation's military
forces.
I welcome our distinguished witnesses this morning. Thank
you, gentlemen, and I look forward to your testimony.
Last week, Chairman McCain issued a White Paper
[``Restoring American Power''] detailing his spending
priorities for the new fiscal year and beyond. As this
committee begins its work on the defense authorization process,
the chairman's proposal includes many policy objectives that
deserve capital consideration by this committee.
In addition to the chairman's budget proposal, the
committee will also be considering the upcoming fiscal year
2018 budget request that will be submitted by the Trump
administration. President Trump has stated repeatedly that he
will focus on rebuilding our Nation's military, but there have
been few specific details on what that will include.
Furthermore, as this committee has done in the past, we
will have several posture hearings with senior civilian and
military leadership to hear directly from the Department
regarding their resource requirements.
Finally, like today, we will have hearings with outside
defense experts that will help provide an alternative view for
this committee to consider.
I am very proud that this committee has always worked in a
bipartisan fashion during this process, and I look forward to
working with the committee and the chairman and all that are
here to continue that process.
While there has been a change in administration and
administration priorities, this committee is still governed by
the funding constraints enacted under the Budget Control Act,
the BCA. President Trump has stated that he will end the
defense sequester. As my colleagues on this committee are
acutely aware, current law restricts both defense and non-
defense spending. Many of my colleagues will maintain that the
defense bill is not a vehicle to discuss the fate of domestic
spending. However, for the past several years, I have argued
that when it comes to questions of adequate funding, we need to
consider all of the security responsibilities of our Nation not
just those that are executed by the Department of Defense.
For example, as numerous witnesses have testified over the
years, our Nation's fight against ISIL [Islamic State of Iraq
and the Levant] consists of nine lines of effort, only two of
which are controlled by the Department of Defense [DOD].
Increasing the BCA caps for DOD alone will not support the
State Department's diplomatic engagement with the Government of
Iraq. It will not support State and USAID's [U.S. Agency for
International Development] delivery of humanitarian aid to
refugees and displaced persons. It will not support the
Treasury Department's disruption of ISIL finances, and it will
not support Department of Homeland Security, the FBI [Federal
Bureau of Investigation], and the Justice Department in their
efforts to protect the Homeland by thwarting terrorist threats.
I would further argue that protecting our country goes
beyond funding our national security agencies alone. Domestic
agencies need funding to ensure the resiliency of our
electrical grid, the safety of our food, water, and medicine,
and the protection of all of our cyber networks. From those
that regulate dams to those that are used during our elections,
the cyber infrastructure is critical to the country and is not
within the strict purview of national security agencies.
One of the military and diplomatic tenets of combating
extremism is to provide the populations with security and basic
needs. While we help the Afghans build roads, schools, and
clean drinking water systems for the villages, I believe we
should do the same for the American population.
While we are deploying troops to Poland and Eastern Europe
to support our NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] allies
against aggressive Soviet actions, we also need to provide the
funding necessary so that Americans feel safe in their
neighborhoods and on their computers.
As we examine what funding requirements are necessary to
the safety and security of our country, we need to look at our
federal budget in a much broader context recognizing our
strength also depends on the health of our economy, reliability
of civilian institutions, our scientific preeminence, and the
health and education of our citizens.
The BCA delineation between defense and non-defense
spending has had the unfortunate effect of pitting each
category of funding against the other. Instead, we would be
better served if we considered the needs of our Nation
holistically.
I would also like to note that President Trump has not
provided many details on what our defense posture will be under
his administration. He has stated that eliminating ISIL is his
top national security priority, which is a continuation of
present policy. However, other public statements, from calling
NATO obsolete to developing closer relations with Russia, could
counteract that goal and suggest a critical program such as the
European Reassurance Initiative may be rolled back or
eliminated. Such policy changes will have an effect on
strategy, force structure, and funding.
Therefore, as our witnesses discuss their recommendations
for military funding, I hope they frame their proposals, first,
in the larger context of what they believe American strategy
should be and, second, what force structure will be necessary
to achieve the specific goal of that strategy.
Finally, like Chairman McCain, I believe it is time to
repeal the BCA's arbitrary spending caps. The BCA has not made
this country safer and it has not resolved our fiscal
challenges.
Likewise, I am deeply concerned that the Trump
administration plans to pursue massive tax cuts for
corporations and the well-off while simultaneously seeking to
increase military spending without working to develop any new
revenue that we need to invest in our country. It could lead us
into a situation where the deficit becomes significantly
encumbering of our whole economy.
Let me be clear. I am not opposed to increasing military
spending. In fact, I think we have got to do it. It is the duty
of the committee to carefully review the proposals to ensure
the men and women we are sending into harm's way have the
resources necessary to complete their mission and return home
safely. It is a duty we all take very seriously here. We have
to act responsibly in terms of the Nation's entire fiscal
health.
I look forward to our testimony today and to continuing
this important work with the chairman. Thank you.
Chairman McCain. Mr. Wood? Welcome to the witnesses.
STATEMENT OF DAKOTA L. WOOD, SENIOR RESEARCH FELLOW FOR DEFENSE
PROGRAMS, THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION
Mr. Wood. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman McCain, Ranking
Member Reed, distinguished members of the committee, I deeply
appreciate your invitation to appear before you today to
discuss the defense budget for fiscal year 2018.
The views I express in this testimony are my own and should
not be construed as representing any official position of The
Heritage Foundation, where I am a senior fellow.
This committee has already fully explored defense budget
cuts in real terms over the last several years, so I do not
think it worth this committee's important time for me to dwell
on the details of that topic. The military Service Chiefs have
repeatedly testified before you describing the condition of
their services, how budget cuts and sustained high operational
tempo have affected them, the challenges of carrying out their
mission in such a budget-constrained environment, and their
forecasts of the future condition of the services if current
trends are not altered.
The military budget was certainly increased following the
attacks of September 11, 2001, but those increases were
immediately consumed by the operations in Afghanistan, Iraq,
and elsewhere. What was not addressed was the baseline force
and all the things that make it possible to organize, equip,
train, deploy, and sustain combat power.
As Chairman McCain has noted in his just-released White
Paper, the combined effects of nearly $1.5 trillion of cuts
over a decade have been devastating to our military. It seems
odd since we spend more than $600 billion each year on defense,
and the military appears to do what is asked of it. The
military's dedication to accomplishing the current mission has
come at a substantial cost and there is an increasingly
worrisome cost to the Nation in strategic terms. To sustain
current operational readiness for deployed forces, all of the
services have sacrificed readiness and capability in all other
areas of military affairs, to include preparing for the future.
For reasons already well known to this committee, Congress
has been unwilling to make investing in the defense of the
United States and its interests a high enough priority among
the many competing interests within the federal budget.
Consequently, defense spending has steadily declined since the
end of the Cold War to a point of historic lows for the modern
era.
Rather than rehash budgetary details, I would like to share
some thoughts on what the fiscal year 2018 budget represents
for the United States, its friends and competitors, and those
sitting on the fence somewhere in between.
The news has certainly been awash in reports of degraded
unit and material readiness: ships unable to get underway,
aviation mishaps, ground combat units that are under-strength,
at low levels of readiness, and so few in number that
servicemembers and their families are being worn out as quickly
as their equipment.
Both our friends and our enemies can count the number of
units, squadrons, and ships the U.S. maintains abroad. They pay
close attention to service testimony that has increasingly
highlighted growing risk in the military's ability to perform
its functions. They read the same headlines and watch the same
news programs we do reporting the consistent message of a U.S.
military that is under-strength, aging, and challenged to
defend U.S. interests at an acceptable level of risk. They
track the reports of problematic acquisition and modernization
programs stemming from poor program management but also the now
routine shortage and variability of funds that has driven the
military to be smaller, older, and less ready than at any time
since the 1930s.
A robust investment in defense, via the fiscal year 2018
budget, will not only be an important first step in rebuilding
the U.S. military, but it will also send a profoundly important
message to the rest of the world that America is once again
serious about protecting itself and its interests, standing
with those who choose to align with it in common cause, and to
serve as a bulwark against forces of disorder.
It is not a matter of figuring out what problems need to be
addressed or where additional funds can be best spent or
savings obtained. My personal observation is that the Military
Services have done this analysis. They know what they need and
have prioritized those needs for every additional dollar that
might be provided. In my judgment, their analysis is, by and
large, right on target.
What they fear is imbalance. They are concerned about
having too many people and too little equipment, or the
reverse: too much equipment and too few people. They understand
the difficulty of generating new units, the time it takes not
only for individuals and small units to become tactically
proficient, but also for commanders and staffs to become
operationally competent.
Stability is important in buying new equipment that is
critical to keeping the force relevant in future years, while
repairing aging equipment to keep it in the fight until the new
equipment arrives.
Stability over time is also essential to building and
maintaining a healthy and diverse industrial base that enables
the government to leverage competition to get the best product
at the best price. Highly constrained and unpredictable budgets
inevitably lead to consolidation in the manufacturing sector,
which results in fewer companies able to produce the tools
needed by our military. Sometimes this leads to a single
manufacturer, a government-driven monopoly, if you will, that
effectively eliminates the government's ability to compete a
project for best price and innovation in design.
The point here is that the fiscal year 2018 budget
represents an absolutely critical opportunity for the United
States to tell itself and the world where its priorities are
and can serve as a much needed first step toward rebuilding the
military we need. It will put our potential adversaries on
notice that the U.S. intends to operate from the position of
strength, and it will give assurance to our allies that we will
fulfill our commitments to them.
Once again, I thank you for this opportunity to speak about
the health of our military, and I look forward to answering
your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Wood follows:]
Prepared Statement by Mr. Dakota L. Wood
Chairman McCain, Ranking Member Reed, and distinguished members of
the Committee, I deeply appreciate your invitation to appear before you
today to discuss the defense budget for fiscal year 2018.
The views I express in this testimony are my own, and should not be
construed as representing any official position of The Heritage
Foundation.
This committee has already fully explored the extent to which the
U.S. defense budget has been cut in real terms over the last several
years, so I do not think it worth this committee's important time for
me to dwell on the details of that topic. The military Service Chiefs
and senior members of their staffs have testified before you on
numerous occasions, describing the condition of their services, how
budget cuts--combined with sustained, high operational tempo--have
affected them, the challenges of carrying out the tasks assigned to
them in such a constrained budget environment, and their forecasts of
the future condition of the services if current trends are not altered.
To be fair, the military budget was certainly increased following the
attacks of September 11, 2001, but those increases were immediately
consumed by the operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere. What
was not addressed was the baseline force and all the things that make
it possible to organize, equip, train, deploy, and sustain combat
power. That includes the institutional elements of the services: the
physical infrastructure of bases, air stations, and maintenance
facilities, training ranges, and so forth.
As Chairman McCain has noted in his just-released White Paper, the
combined effects of nearly $1.5 trillion in cuts over a decade--which
includes Secretary of Defense Robert Gates' $200 billion in
``efficiency cuts'' during roughly the same ten-year period--have been
devastating to our military. I realize this may seem odd to the public
and even to many in Congress, since we spend more than $600 billion
each year on defense, and the military appears to do that which is
asked of it. But the military's dedication to accomplishing the current
mission, their ``can-do'' spirit if you will, has come at a substantial
cost that is less well known or understood. There is a growing and
increasingly worrisome cost to the nation in strategic terms--a
situation that perhaps is even less well known or understood. To
sustain current operational readiness for deployed forces, all the
services have sacrificed readiness and capability in all other areas of
military affairs. This has taken a toll among programs to modernize
their forces, to prepare for the future, and to maintain their physical
infrastructure.
For reasons already well known to this committee, Congress has been
unwilling to make investing in the defense of the United States and its
interests a high enough priority among the many competing interests
within the federal budget. Consequently, defense spending has steadily
declined since the end of the Cold War to a point of historic lows for
the modern era.
As mentioned, it is not worth the committee's valuable time for me
to rehash budgetary details it already knows so well. Rather, I would
like to share some thoughts on what the fiscal year 2018 budget
represents for the United States, its allies and friends, its
competitors and enemies, and for countries ``on the fence'' somewhere
between friend and foe.
The news has been awash in reports of degraded unit and material
readiness:
Ships unable to get underway, delayed getting out of the
repair yards, or suffering engineering casualties while deployed;
Aviation mishaps resulting from both equipment failures
and pilot or crew error due to lack of adequate flight hours for
training, aging planes; and
Ground combat units that are understrength, at low levels
of readiness, and so few that service-members (and their families) are
being worn out as quickly as their equipment.
Both our friends and our enemies can count the number of units,
squadrons, and ships the U.S. maintains abroad. They pay close
attention to the Service Chiefs' testimony provided to Congress that
has, for the last several years, increasingly highlighted growing risk
in the military's ability to perform its functions. They read the same
headlines and watch the same televised news programs we do, reporting
the consistent message of a U.S. military understrength, aging, and
challenged to defend U.S. interests at an acceptable level of risk. And
they track the reports of canceled, truncated, and delayed acquisition
and modernization programs stemming from problematic program management
but also the now-routine shortage and variability of funds that has
driven the military to be smaller, older, and less ready than at any
time since the 1930s.
A robust investment in defense, via the fiscal year 2018 budget,
will not only be an important first step in rebuilding the U.S.
military to the size, modernity, and readiness essential for it to
perform its function in protecting America and its interests, but it
will also send a profoundly important message to the rest of the world
that America is once again becoming serious about protecting itself and
its interests, standing with those who choose to align with it in
common cause and prepared to lead like-minded nations in the effort to
preserve peace, enhance stability, and expand freedom and opportunity,
and to serve as a bulwark against forces of disorder.
It isn't a matter of figuring out what problems need to be
addressed or where additional funds can be best spent or savings
obtained. Nor is it a matter of quantifying shortfalls and their impact
on military operations. My personal observation is that the Military
Services have done this analysis; they know what they need, and have
prioritized those needs for every additional dollar they might be
provided. They have analyzed their forces and institutional ability to
generate and sustain those forces and how they would spend additional
funding to generate near-term readiness and longer-term preparedness in
a balanced manner. In my judgment, their analysis is, by and large,
right on target.
What they fear is imbalance, usually driven by spending decisions
imposed on them. They are concerned about having too many people and
too little equipment or the reverse: too much equipment and too few
people. They understand the difficulty of generating new units, the
time it takes not only for individuals and small units to become
tactically proficient but also for a commander and his or her staff to
become operationally competent.
They must balance repairing aging equipment to keep it in the fight
(while awaiting replacement items) with buying new equipment that is
critical to keeping the force relevant in future years. Rebuilding a
force, especially one that has been depleted over so many years, must
be done in a balanced way.
Stability over time is also essential to building and maintaining a
healthy, diverse, and innovative industrial base that enables the
government to leverage competition to get the best product at the best
price. Highly constrained and unpredictable budgets inevitably lead to
consolidation in the manufacturing sector, which results in fewer
companies able to produce the tools needed by our military. Sometimes
this leads to a single manufacturer--a government-driven monopoly--that
effectively eliminates the government's ability to compete a project
for best price and innovation in design.
The point here is that the fiscal year 2018 budget represents an
absolutely critical opportunity for the United States to tell itself
and the world where its priorities are and can serve as a much needed
first step toward rebuilding the military we need. It will put our
potential adversaries on notice that the U.S. intends to operate from a
position of strength, and it will give assurance to our allies that we
will fulfill our commitments to them.
Once again, I thank you for this opportunity to speak about the
health of our military and I look forward to answering your questions.
* * * * *
The Heritage Foundation is a public policy, research, and
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The top five corporate givers provided The Heritage Foundation with
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audited annually by the national accounting firm of McGladrey, LLP.
Members of The Heritage Foundation staff testify as individuals
discussing their own independent research. The views expressed are
their own and do not reflect an institutional position for The Heritage
Foundation or its board of trustees.
Chairman McCain. Thank you.
Dr. Mahnken?
STATEMENT OF DR. THOMAS G. MAHNKEN, PRESIDENT AND CEO, CENTER
FOR STRATEGIC AND BUDGETARY ASSESSMENTS
Dr. Mahnken. Thank you. Chairman McCain, Ranking Member
Reed, distinguished members of the committee, thank you for
this invitation to appear before you today to discuss the
defense budget for fiscal year 2018 and beyond.
Chairman McCain, at the outset, I would like to commend you
for ``Restoring American Power.'' It was a thoughtful and much
needed contribution to the debate over defense strategy and
resources. CSBA's [Center for Strategic and Budgetary
Assessments] diagnosis of the situation and recommendations
accord with those detailed in the paper in many respects.
Now, the bottom line that I have for you today is that the
United States requires more resources for defense if we are to
continue to safeguard America's national interests in an
increasingly competitive environment. Specifically, in my view,
we need increased investment in both readiness and
modernization.
I had the pleasure of serving on the staff of both the
congressionally mandated 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review
Independent Panel and on the staff of the 2014 National Defense
Panel. Both of those bodies achieved a bipartisan consensus
that the Defense Department required additional resources.
Seven years on from the first and three years on from the
second, today's situation is even more dire.
First, as has already been noted, additional resources are
needed to restore the readiness of the U.S. Armed Forces. As
Dakota said, I need not detail the path that has gotten us
here. You are aware of that, the circumstances we are in today.
It is worth emphasizing, however, that our drawdown has
occurred all the while the United States has been at war in
Iraq, in Afghanistan, and across the world, a situation that is
historically unusual, to put it mildly.
Second, there is growing need to modernize U.S.
conventional and nuclear forces. eight years ago, when I last
served in the Department of Defense as the Deputy Assistant
Secretary of Defense for Policy Planning, the risk calculus was
that we could afford to take some additional risk in preparing
for high-intensity war in order to focus on counterinsurgency.
As Secretary of Defense Gates frequently put it, we needed to
focus on the wars of the present rather than the possible wars
of the future.
Eight years on, I believe the risk calculus has
fundamentally changed. Whereas we have spent the last 15 years
focused on counterinsurgency, we are now in a period
characterized by the reality of great-power competition and the
increasing possibility of great-power conflict. We see China
and Russia acting aggressively both in their own regions, as
well as beyond them. China is busy remaking the geography of
the western Pacific, but is also increasingly active elsewhere.
Russia has not only used force against Georgia and Ukraine and
threatened other neighbors, but is also waging a high-intensity
military campaign in Syria. Moreover, both China and Russia
have been investing in military capabilities that threaten
America's longstanding dominance in high-end warfare. We have
given them a decade and a half to catch up.
In other words, the wars of the future may no longer lie
that far in the future. Moreover, they are likely to differ
considerably both from the great-power wars of the past, as
well as the campaigns that we have been waging since the turn
of the millennium.
That is not to say that battling radical Islam will not
continue to be a priority. However, it has been the focus of
U.S. investment over the last decade and a half. By contrast,
we have neglected the capabilities needed to deter and, if
necessary, wage high-end warfare.
That includes our nuclear deterrent. Historically, when the
United States has drawn down its conventional forces, as it did
in the 1950s and after the Vietnam War, we came to rely
increasingly on our nuclear deterrent. In recent years, by
contrast, we have both drawn down our conventional forces and
our nuclear forces. Now both require modernization.
Needless to say, the tasks of improving readiness and
modernizing the force will require additional resources beyond
those permitted by the Budget Control Act.
In closing, as we seek to rebuild American military power,
we need to keep a couple of things in mind.
First, the Defense Department's capacity to absorb an
infusion of resources is limited. The Pentagon today is a lot
like a person who has been slowly starving for years. There are
limits to how effectively it can spend a large infusion of
cash.
Second, that which is available is not necessarily that
which is necessary. One byproduct of our neglect of
modernization over the past decade and a half is that there are
few programs that are ready right now to accept new funds.
Rebuilding the American military will take time. To take but
one example, achieving the 350-ship Navy that President Trump
has pledged to deliver, or the 355-ship fleet that the Navy now
says it needs, or the 340-so ship fleet that CSBA believes the
Nation needs cannot be accomplished in four or eight years. Our
analysis, using the Navy's own models, show that it is
affordable, but making it a reality will require a sustained
commitment on the part of the executive and legislative
branches.
The capabilities that the United States needs to remain
dominant on the land and in the air against great-power
competitors will similarly take time to field. The
modernization of the U.S. nuclear deterrent will require time
to accomplish as well. Maintaining U.S. military effectiveness
over the long haul will, thus, require more than a quick,
though much needed infusion of cash in fiscal year 2018. It
will require sustained support for defense investment in the
years that follow.
Thank you, and I await your questions.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Mahnken follows:]
Prepared Statement by Thomas G. Mahnken
Chairman McCain, Ranking Member Reed, and distinguished members of
the Committee, thank you for your invitation to appear before you today
to discuss the defense budget for fiscal year 2018.
At the outset, I would like to commend you for ``Restoring American
Power,'' which is a thoughtful and much needed contribution to the
debate over defense strategy and resources. CSBA's diagnosis of the
situation and recommendations accord with those detailed in the paper
in many respects.
The bottom line is that the United States requires more resources
for defense if we are to continue to safeguard America's national
interests in an increasingly competitive environment. Specifically, in
my view we need increased investment in both readiness and
modernization.
I had the pleasure of serving on the staff both of the
Congressionally-mandated 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review Independent
Panel and the 2014 National Defense Panel. Both achieved a bipartisan
consensus that the Department of Defense required additional resources.
Seven years on from the first and three from the second, today's
situation is even more dire.
First, additional resources are needed to restore the readiness of
the U.S. Armed Forces. I need not detail the path that has gotten us
here. Nor do I need to detail the corrosive impact that sequestration
has had on the readiness of the U.S. Armed Forces. The members are well
aware of that. It is worth emphasizing, however, that all this has gone
on while the United States has been at war--in Iraq, Afghanistan, and
across the world--a situation that is historically unique, to put it
mildly.
Second, there is a growing need to modernize U.S. conventional and
nuclear forces. Eight years ago, when I last served in the Department
of Defense, as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Policy
Planning, the risk calculus was that we could afford to take additional
risk in preparing for a high-intensity war in order to focus on
counterinsurgency. As Secretary of Defense Gates frequently put it, we
needed to focus on the wars of the present rather than the possible
wars of the future.
Eight years on, I believe that the risk calculation has
fundamentally changed. Whereas we have spent the last fifteen years
focused on counterinsurgency, we are now in a period characterized by
the reality of great-power competition and the increasing possibility
of great-power conflict. We see China and Russia acting aggressively
both in their own regions as well as beyond them. China is busy
remaking the geography of the Western Pacific, but is also increasingly
active elsewhere. Russia not only has used force against Georgia and
Ukraine and threatened other neighbors, but is also waging a high
intensity military campaign in Syria. Moreover, both China and Russia
have been investing in military capabilities that threaten America's
long-standing dominance in high-end warfare.
In other words, the ``wars of the future'' may no longer lie that
far in the future. Moreover, they are likely to differ considerably
both from the great-power wars of the past as well as the campaigns
that we have been waging since the turn of the millennium.
That is not to say that battling Radical Islamism will not continue
to be a priority. However, it has been the focus of U.S. investment
over the last decade and a half. By contrast, we have neglected the
capabilities needed to deter and if necessary wage high-end warfare.
That includes our nuclear deterrent. Historically, when the United
States has drawn down its conventional forces, as it did in the 1950s
and after the Vietnam War, it came to rely increasingly upon its
nuclear deterrent. In recent years, by contrast, the United States has
both drawn down both its conventional and nuclear forces. Now, both
require modernization.
The tasks of improving readiness and modernizing the force will
require additional resources beyond those permitted by the Budget
Control Act.
In closing, as we seek to rebuild American military power, we need
to keep a couple of things in mind.
First, the Defense Department's capacity to absorb an infusion of
resources is limited. The Pentagon is like a person who has been slowly
starving for years; there are limits to how effectively it can spend an
infusion of cash.
Second, that which is available is not necessarily that which is
necessary. Indeed, beyond an infusion of cash, the Defense Department
requires a sustained increase in resources. To take but one example,
achieving the 350-ship that President Trump has pledged to deliver--or
the 355-ship fleet that the Navy now says it needs--or the 348-ship
fleet that CSBA believes the nation needs--cannot be accomplished in
four or eight years. Our analysis, using the Navy's own models, show
that it is affordable, but making it a reality will require a sustained
commitment on the part of the Executive and Legislative branches.
The capabilities that the United States needs to remain dominant on
the land and in the air against great-power competitors will similarly
take time to field. The modernization of the U.S. nuclear deterrent
will require time years to accomplish as well. Maintaining U.S.
military effectiveness over the long haul will thus require more than a
quick (though much needed) infusion of cash in fiscal year 2018; it
will require sustained support for defense investment in the years that
follow.
Chairman McCain. Dr. Korb, welcome back.
STATEMENT OF DR. LAWRENCE J. KORB, SENIOR FELLOW, CENTER FOR
AMERICAN PROGRESS
Dr. Korb. It is nice to be here again, Senator. I was
trying to reflect about the first time I ever came before this
committee. I do not even remember how many years ago it was.
Chairman McCain. It was during the Coolidge administration.
[Laughter.]
Dr. Korb. If I can put my prepared statement in the record.
Chairman McCain. Without objection.
Dr. Korb. I will summarize it so we can move on to the
questions.
I think the first thing to keep in mind, when you are
deciding how much to spend on defense, is no matter how much
you spend, you cannot buy perfect security. There are always
going to be risks. From my own days in government and in the
military, a lot of people always complaining we needed more
money for something else.
Second is that it is not just the Department of Defense
that protects our national security. State Department, AID,
Homeland Security--these are all part of it. For years, we
urged--we could never get any administration to adopt it--to
have unified national security budget so we could see all of
these together.
The third thing is you cannot be strong abroad unless you
are strong at home. Go back and look at what Presidents Truman
and Eisenhower began talking about that you could not just do
one and not the other.
The next thing is no matter how much you spend on defense,
you need a strategy. I am not quite sure what the new
administration's strategy is. Does President Trump believe, as
Chairman Dunford said, that Russia is the biggest threat? I am
not quite sure.
Then finally, it is not just us. We have our allies that we
work with. When we are talking about dealing a threat, we have
to take all that into account.
Now, people urging more money for defense usually make two
arguments. One is a share of the GDP [gross domestic product]
should go to defense. Well, again, I think that in fact if the
threat goes up and the GDP goes down, I would hope we would not
be bound by that. Or if the economy recovers more, as it has
under President Obama--recovers very rapidly--obviously, the
share of the GDP that he allocated to defense did go down.
The second is--and I am sure we will be talking about it--
the current state of our military. As I mentioned in my
testimony, I was very impressed with the article that General
Petraeus and Mike O?Hanlon wrote in ``Foreign Policy,'' as well
as their op-ed in the ``Wall Street Journal'' last summer which
in fact they said there is no procurement holiday. Readiness is
getting back to where it needs to be.
The next thing is that no doubt about the fact that the
Budget Control Act is not the way to run the government. We all
agree with that. In terms of the caps put on, remember, as a
result of actions by the Congress, we have given about $100
billion in relief since that law was passed. Also--Senator
McCain has mentioned this several times--the OCO [overseas
contingency operations] budget has been used as a way to get
around the caps.
All right. Now, in conclusion, basically I do not believe
that the Department of Defense has a resource problem. I think
the resources, the $620 billion that was allocated in fiscal
year 2017. I believe, as I point out, that it has a management
problem.
I was appalled when the Defense Business Board recommended
making $125 billion in cuts over 5 years. The Pentagon tried to
bury it. Had it not been for Bob Woodward from Watergate fame,
we would not even have known about that. The cost growth in
weapon systems, which GAO [Government Accountability Office]
has talked about, $500 billion--and I commend President Trump
for talking about the cost of the F-35, and I hope that we can
do something about that.
Senator McCain, I like the things in your proposal, some
things that we could do to save money. Conventionally powered
smaller aircraft carriers, cutting down the buys of the F-35,
substituting the F/A-18E's and F's for some of the F-35's for
the Navy.
Then finally--and I would urge the committee to take a good
look at what former Secretary of Defense Perry and General
Cartwright have said about the nuclear modernization program,
particularly when it comes to the air-launched cruise missile.
I noticed Secretary General Mattis expressed some concerns
about that in his confirmation hearing. The land-based and the
air-launched cruise missile.
Then finally, if you decide to raise defense spending, as
recommended by President Trump and the campaign--and, Senator
McCain, I ask you to consider how are you going to pay for it.
Do not take it from other things that make this country strong.
One, the debt and then, of course, funding for our programs,
the infrastructure, education, climate change, all of these
things.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Korb follows:]
Prepared Statement by Lawrence J. Korb
Chairman McCain, Ranking Member Reed, and members of the Senate
Armed Services Committee, I appreciate the opportunity to appear before
you, with the other distinguished panelists, to discuss the appropriate
size and distribution of the defense budget for fiscal year 2018 and
the defense program for the fiscal year 2018-2022 period.
In my view this is the most critical national security issue facing
the new administration and Congress because in defense, dollars are
policy. In deciding how much of our scarce resources to allocate to
national security it is important to keep several things in mind.
First, no matter how much this nation or any nation spends on
defense, it cannot buy perfect security.
Second, the Department of Defense is not the only federal agency
responsible for protecting our national security. The State Department,
the Agency for International Development, and the Department of
Homeland Security all play a vital role in protecting this country. If
we provide so much of our limited resources to the Pentagon that we
cannot fund these agencies adequately, our national security will
suffer.
Third, we cannot be strong abroad if we are not strong at home. As
presidents like Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower realized a strong
economy at home is the basis for our military might abroad. Therefore,
running up large deficits or not providing adequate funds for
education, health, or infrastructure as a result of providing too many
of our limited resources for defense will impact our national security
negatively.
Fourth, whatever level of funding we provide for national security
is not as important as having the appropriate strategy to deal with the
current challenges facing the nation. Spending large sums of money to
deal with threats from a bygone era will not enhance our national
security. Just as sequester was, is a non-strategic and unwise way to
limit a budget, increased funding that is not connected to a sound
defense strategy for the demands we face today will be non-strategic,
wasteful, and do more harm than good.
Fifth, in most cases the U.S. does not have to deal with threats to
our national security by itself. Nor do we have to use military power
as a first resort. Whether it is dealing with Russia, China, North
Korea, Iran or ISIS, the United States can work most effectively with
allies and partners. The United States-led sixty nation coalition
fighting ISIS, the buildup of military forces by our NATO allies to
combat aggressive moves by Russia, and the economic sanctions we and
the European Union placed on Russia after its annexation of Ukraine,
are examples of leveraging all the instruments of our own power and the
contributions of our allies to protect our national security.
Despite the many contributions of our allies, Republicans and
Democrats, including many of you on this Committee and all recent
presidents, have expressed dismay about inadequate defense spending by
our partners, even calling them free-riders. That kind of behavior is
enabled by profligate U.S. defense spending. We need to spend wisely as
we call on friends to honor their side of our common-security bargain.
Many of those who advocate increasing the current level of defense
expenditures substantially make two arguments. First, the Pentagon is
not receiving a large enough share of the nation's gross domestic
product (GDP). Second, our military is not prepared to deal with the
current threats because of the limitations placed on all discretionary
budgets, of which defense represents half, by the Budget Control Act
(BCA) of 2011. But objective analysis demonstrates that these arguments
are incomplete and somewhat misleading.
For fiscal year 2017 the defense budget of about $620 billion will
account for 3.3 percent of the nation's GDP as opposed to the 4.7
percent it received in Obama's first year in office. But, this decline
in the share of GDP devoted to defense is not a significant reduction
in defense spending, but is mainly a result of the fact that Obama's
economic policies have led to an economic recovery in the wake of
national and global financial disaster. In fact, in real dollars the
baseline for the non-war defense budget for fiscal year 2017 is higher
than it was when Obama took office. Giving defense a 4.7 percent share
of our $18 trillion GDP or even 4 percent would increase current
defense spending by over $100 billion. An arbitrary level of defense
spending is just as non-strategic as sequester. What if we require more
than 4 percent in a crisis or war? What if an economic boom makes 4
percent grossly excessive? The budget should be tied to the
requirements, not to arbitrary numbers.
Moreover, analysis by experts, like General David Petraeus and
Michael O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institution, makes it clear that the
current state of our armed forces is ``awesome,'' that we are not
facing a readiness crisis and the current level of defense spending on
readiness and procurement is more than adequate \1\. This does not mean
that the new administration will not face challenges but the challenges
are not as much monetary as they are management. Even with the limits
placed upon the Pentagon under the BCA, the amount of funding for
defense in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), as recently
signed by former President Obama, amounts to more in real terms than
the U.S. spent on average in the cold war and more than we spent at the
height of the Reagan build-up. This amount is three times more than our
nearest competitor, the Chinese, will spend this year and accounts for
more than one-third of the world's total military expenditures. In
addition, our allies account for another one-third. In fact, for 2017,
the top ten major powers will spend about $1.33 trillion on defense. Of
these ten countries, only China and Russia, which between them spend
about $230 billion, can be considered potential adversaries.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ O'Hanlon, Michael and Petraeus, David. (2016, September/
October). America's Awesome Military And How to Make It Even Better.
Foreign Affairs. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/americas/2016-
07-22/america-s-awesome-military
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The BCA caps have not constrained defense spending as much as many
assume. The Congress has provided about $100 billion in relief from the
BCA since fiscal year 2013, and at least half the Overseas Contingency
Operations (OCO) account, which is not subject to the BCA caps, has
been used for enduring programs that have nothing to do with the wars
in the Middle East or Afghanistan. In other words a significant part of
the OCO account is a slush fund that allows the Pentagon to get around
the BCA limitations.
Before the new administration and the Congress adds significant
funds to the fiscal year 2018 budget, as recommended by President Trump
and Chairman McCain, they need to take a close look at how the Pentagon
is currently spending the large amount of funding it currently
receives, especially in at least four areas.
First, as noted in a recent report by the Defense Business Board
the Pentagon could save $125 billion by cutting the size of its
headquarters or administrative staff which has grown by 38 percent
since 2001. However when this report, which was commissioned by the
former administration, came out, rather than endorsing it, its leaders
tried to bury it in no small part because they believed it would never
get support from the Congress. Congress should be leading on finding
savings, not just adding dollars to our defense budget.
Second, the Pentagon needs to curb the cost overruns on its major
acquisition programs. In 2015, according to a report by Deloitte, the
combined costs overruns for the major acquisition programs was $468
billion, something Government Accountability Office (GAO) has been
pointing out for years. Chairman McCain himself has called these
overruns absolutely outrageous. Congress and the new Administration
should take advantage of their unified political control of the
government to get an actual audit of the Pentagon and begin a clear
process of reform to improve acquisitions.
Third, the Pentagon should adopt some of the recommendations made
by Senator McCain in his excellent report, ``Restoring American
Power.'' Specifically, the Pentagon should: develop a high-low mix of
aircraft carriers by building smaller conventionally powered carriers
rather than simply continuing to build only $15 billion nuclear powered
Ford-class super carriers; cut the total number of Air Force F-35's
from 1,732, a number Chairman McCain correctly points out is
unrealistic; and get the Navy to stop production of the poorly
conceived and managed Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) at 28, as opposed to
the Navy's goal of 52. The Navy should also buy more F-A 18 Super
Hornets and fewer F-35's.
Fourth, the Pentagon and Congress should adopt the proposals put
forward by former Secretary of Defense, William Perry, and former Vice
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General James Cartwright, and
cancel the new land-based missile and air-launched cruise missile
portions of the multi-billion dollar nuclear modernization the Pentagon
is currently undertaking, something we endorsed in our report,
``Setting National Priorities for Nuclear Modernization.'' These steps
would be a good start toward improving the management and stewardship
of our defense dollars and should be implemented before Congress
approves major spending increases.
Thanks again for the invitation to once again appear before the
Committee. I look forward to your questions as you deal with these
critical issues.
Chairman McCain. Thank you, Dr. Korb. I just would like to
point out that over the last eight years, defense spending, OCO
and everything included, has declined by some 21 percent. I do
not believe that most observers would agree that America is 21
percent safer.
You mentioned President Truman, and I am a great admirer of
President Truman. It is a fact that we were not ready when the
Korean War took place. In fact, we were not only not ready, we
sacrificed so many brave young people who simply did not have
the ability to counter the North Korean attack.
Then, of course, we get back into the 1970s after the
Vietnam War when the Chief of Staff of the United States Army,
General Meyer, testified before this committee that we had a
hollow Army.
Well, our uniform military today are testifying before this
committee that we are putting the men and women in uniform at
greater risk. That is the opinion of those who we ask to lead
the uniformed military. That should disturb all of us. It is
our young men and women who are now serving in uniform in
harm's way, and if their leaders say that their lives are at
greater risk, we should be taking whatever steps we can to make
sure that their lives are at less risk. That means, in my view,
first of all, repealing this mindless sequestration.
I do agree with you, Dr. Korb. There are other areas of
national defense. Homeland Security is a major one. CIA
[Central Intelligence Agency], all of these other agencies that
are not strictly defense, particularly in this new kind of
warfare that we seem to be engaged in, which I guess brings me
to my question.
We will begin with you, Mr. Wood, and this may be a little
bit generally. We have a new President, and there are
conflicting statements being made. This new President has said
he wants to rebuild the military. Yet, at the same time, he
says he wants better relations somehow with Vladimir Putin. At
the same time, I think most of us--I think all of us--would
agree we have an outstanding national security team and one
that has gotten near unanimous agreement of Members on both
sides of the aisle. Here we are in a very interesting time,
which is one of the reasons why we had this hearing.
Beginning with you, Mr. Wood, what would you recommend to
the President as a correct defense strategy?
Mr. Wood. Well, I do not think there are internal
inconsistencies or contradictions. I mean, we think back to the
Cold War--you are very familiar with that--that even while we
tried to maintain a very forceful posture militarily--NATO was
certainly there on the inner German border across from Warsaw
Pact countries--you still had open lines of communication with
Moscow. I think we should always be striving to do things
diplomatically, economic initiatives, those sorts of things to
lessen the chance of war.
Chairman McCain. I would also remind you that the first
thing--the first thing--that President Reagan--his first
priority was rebuilding the military.
Mr. Wood. Absolutely. Along with that, that does not mean
that you keep your military depressed. The economic and the
diplomatic initiatives are amplified. They are made more
effective by a strong military posture. Where we have declined
in that regard, our words are taken much less seriously in
capitals around the world both by competitors in Moscow and
Beijing and Tehran, but also by our own allies. I think
rebuilding the military is the first step to making more
effective the diplomatic and economic levers that we would have
in other areas.
Chairman McCain. Dr. Mahnken?
Dr. Mahnken. Mr. Chairman, several things.
I think we need a truly global strategy. We are the world's
only global power, but at the same time, we also deal with
competitors in different regions and beyond. We need a global
strategy that also deals with regional challenges. I think the
new administration is going to have to make up its mind as to
which of the challenges deserve the greatest attention and
which lesser attention. I tend to believe that great-power
challengers such as China and Russia really do deserve the
greatest attention, and then we should stress test our
capabilities and our force against regional challengers such as
North Korea and Iran, all the time acknowledging the need to
continue the campaign against ISIL and al Qaeda.
Chairman McCain. Dr. Korb, which would be not only your
view on the strategy but of priorities?
Dr. Korb. Well, I think the two biggest challenges we face
are Russia and China. I think President Obama's European
Reassurance Initiative is the way to go, and I agree with
President Trump and also the last four Secretaries of Defense
that told NATO that you have to step up more to be able to deal
with it and I think we are.
I think President Obama's rebalance to the Pacific showed
that China is a much bigger threat to the United States than
what is happening in the Middle East. I think we need to add
more ships to the Navy. I think your suggestion about 18 more
ships I think would be good over the next 5 years, and also
stopping the littoral combat ship and getting these smaller
aircraft carriers would be a way to have the presence.
I think that basically we ought to not just use military
power but economic. I think the sanctions were the way to
handle what happened in Crimea. They are beginning to have an
impact. The Russian military budget is going down. President
Putin has had to back off from his modernization plan.
I think the way that we are fighting ISIS with the other 60
countries in the coalition is the way to deal with it.
I think that the sanctions brought Iran to the table. Now,
we can debate whether that was a good deal or not, but the fact
of the matter is we did get a deal that is a step in the right
directions, and it was without military power. I think the
economic thing.
Then finally, I think North Korea--you are going to have to
work with China and the countries in the region. I applaud the
decision to put the THAAD [Terminal High Altitude Area Defense]
missiles in South Korea because that has got China's attention.
They do not like that. Hopefully they will do more to bring
North Korea to stop their provocative actions.
Chairman McCain. Thank you, Dr. Korb. You sound a bit
hawkish this morning.
[Laughter.]
Chairman McCain. Thank you. I have enjoyed our exchanges
over the years, and I think you have contributed a lot to the
dialogue.
Senator Reed?
Senator Reed. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you
again for holding this hearing because this is going to be one
of the most significant issues we discuss not just today but in
the many, many months that follow.
Dr. Wood, the concept of national security extends beyond
the Department of Defense--I think you would agree with that--
so that any relief from the Budget Control Act would logically
have to extend to at least those agencies. Is that your
viewpoint?
Mr. Wood. Yes, Senator, it is. I mean, I think the first
and foremost responsibility of the Federal Government is to
provide for the security of the United States. Other things
that it does oftentimes overlaps with what can be done at the
State and local community, religious group types of levels.
Where you see 70-plus percent of the federal budget dedicated
to social and economic programs and an increasingly smaller
percentage dedicated to defense, I think priorities are out of
whack there. I agree completely with my fellow panelists and
with yourself that the intelligence community, Homeland
Security, activities of the Coast Guard, all those things
contribute to the security, and that should be taken in total,
not the Defense Department specifically as some exclusionary
account.
Senator Reed. Dr. Mahnken, your sense?
Dr. Mahnken. Look, I would agree that national security is
more than defense, and in recent years, because of the
incapacity of other parts of the national security community,
the Defense Department has been forced to step in, whether it
was after Katrina or in other circumstances. I would also say
that unless DOD and the U.S. Armed Forces excel at their core
mission of fighting and winning the Nation's wars, nobody else
is going to be able to do that. With that in mind, I absolutely
agree.
Senator Reed. Dr. Korb, I think you have said you agree.
Dr. Korb. I can agree with you. I agree with you 100
percent. I think we have got to have a unified national
security budget. Whatever amount you decide to spend on the
Department of Defense, the Homeland Security, the State
Department, AID, we have got to look at it together so we can
make some tradeoffs to make sure that things that we would like
to do are more important for Homeland Security than the
military because there is never going to be enough money to buy
perfect security. It is always going to be limited. I think,
therefore, you need to make these particular tradeoffs.
The budget, for example, for the State Department and AID
together is about $50 billion. Okay. We have got more people in
the military bands than in the Foreign Service. Is that really
the way that we want to do things? Those are the things I think
we need to take a look at.
Senator Reed. I can recall listening several years ago to
the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff saying that the
number one national security problem was the deficit. I am just
trying to do the math in my head. If we significantly increase
military spending, if we significantly invest in
infrastructure, which is one of the commitments both sides made
during the election campaign, and then we cut taxes, there is a
strong argument that we are going to have significant deficit
repercussions. How do we avoid that other than by trying to
find revenue?
Mr. Wood. Well, again, I think it is reassessing what your
priorities are in terms of what the Federal Government is
supposed to be doing and where it decides to spend its money.
This issue of debt, inflation, economic trend lines has been
appreciated by every President that I can think of. Eisenhower
made a great argument about the devastating impact of inflation
on the U.S. citizen. It is not really a matter of decreasing
defense spending or defense spending at the expense of the
intel community, it is really about what is the priority of the
Federal Government and how does it choose to spend the taxpayer
monies that are provided to it. To the extent that it takes
risk in security for the country and its citizens and our
interests globally, that is a choice that Congress is making
and the President when he or she submits the budget.
Senator Reed. Dr. Mahnken, quickly.
Dr. Mahnken. No. Look, I would agree. Providing for the
common defense is one of the core functions of the Federal
Government. We can disagree about other functions, but that is
core.
Senator Reed. Dr. Korb?
Dr. Korb. I think one of the biggest mistakes we made was
when we went into Afghanistan and Iraq, we did not raise taxes
to pay for it. Those wars were fought on the credit card, and
that created some of the deficit problems that Admiral Mullen
was concerned about when he was on Active Duty and since he has
retired. Not only did we not raise taxes, we cut them twice,
and we are still paying for that. The Brown University, the
Watson Center in your State has talked about the cost of these
wars is going to be somewhere between $3 trillion and $6
trillion that we did on the credit card. We need to understand
that.
If in fact we decide that the threats are increasing and we
need to rally the American people to spend more, let us talk
about ways in which we are going to pay for it because I think
that would get people much more involved. You may remember that
in Vietnam when Wilbur Mills got Lyndon Johnson to put a surtax
on, that got people's attention about what was happening there.
Senator Reed. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman McCain. Senator Inhofe?
Senator Inhofe. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Korb, I observed the same thing the chairman did. I am
a little more hawkish. I was ready to talk and to kind of
pursue the statement in your written record that BCA caps or
sequestration have not constrained defense spending as much as
many assume. If you go back and you look at the hearings that
we have had before this committee in the last couple years,
without exception every combatant commander, all the rest of
them who have come before us have disagreed with that
statement. Did I understand this right?
Dr. Korb. What I was saying is that when people talk about
the BCA caps, they do not take into account the fact that you
have given them relief. I looked it up going back to when it
was passed. Roughly about $20 billion a year over the last 5
years. That is about $100 billion in relief. For example, the
budget in the NDAA [National Defense Authorization Act] this
year was roughly--you added $3 billion more to the number that
you had given last year.
The other is--and lots of people, including Senator McCain,
have pointed this out--the OCO budget, or the warfighting
budget, has been used to get around it. The best estimate by
the DOD comptroller for fiscal year 2017 is about $30 billion.
Therefore, when you say the BCA cap was 500 or 50, or whatever
it might be, by putting that OCO money, you really got more for
the base budget.
Senator Inhofe. Okay. I understand that.
Dr. Korb, you talked about--you criticized the percentage
of GDP. When you just look at the raw figures and you see that
we are spending now 16 percent of our defense spending--on
defense spending of our total budget, and as recently as 1964,
it was 52 percent--I mean, something has changed. We were wrong
then or are we wrong now? What do you think, Mr. Wood?
Mr. Wood. I think we need to fund defense commensurate with
our interests and challenges to those interests. I agree that
there has been some relief given in BCA. The BCA was never
intended to provide adequate security. In fact, it was the
opposite. The Budget Control Act and sequestration levels were
meant to be so painful that it would force the Super Committee
to find $1.2 trillion in savings in other areas of the budget.
When that failed and these painful cuts were enacted, it was
supposed to be painful, and we are seeing the consequences of
that.
Further, the relief was not total relief from BCA cuts, and
it certainly does not account for the ongoing cost of
operations. Where things get worn out, blown up, people are
injured, you are using fuel and bombs and those kinds of
things, a marginal relief on a year-by-year basis does not
account for that. I think the priorities are out of whack.
Senator Inhofe. That is key right there because people say,
you know, where is it going to come from? Priorities. I
disagreed with--I do not remember which one of you said that it
is an equal concern. I think defending America is the number
one concern. I mean, that is the way I have always thought. In
fact, the old measure that we should size the posture and fund
our military to fight and win two major wars in different
regions of the world near simultaneously--is that still a good
idea? What do you think, Dr. Mahnken?
Dr. Mahnken. I do because we always want to have that
margin of safety, and we also want to have that margin of
deterrence. I think unfortunately in the last Quadrennial
Defense Review, the previous administration walked away from
that two-war standard and I think that needs to be
reestablished.
Senator Inhofe. Yes, I think so. During the last
administration, it was pretty well decided by the President--
and a lot of the Democrats agreed with him--that if you address
sequestration for the military, you have to do an equal amount
for the non-defense spending. To me, that tells me that that is
not the priority. How did you interpret that?
Mr. Wood. I agree. I think it was appealing to various
constituencies and your prioritizing spending in other areas,
social spending, agricultural bills, those kinds of things at
the same level as defense of the country. I agree with Dr.
Mahnken that defense of the country should be the priority.
Senator Inhofe. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman McCain. Senator King?
Senator King. First, I want to commend the chairman for the
White Paper. It is a very thoughtful and important document,
and I have always thought that the first person to put pen to
paper has the maximum amount of power. I appreciate that. I
think it was a brilliant step to begin this discussion.
One of the things the White Paper talks about is
assumptions and faulty assumptions. We have been talking about
all strategy is based on assumptions. We need a strategy.
One of the assumptions is--several of you mentioned China.
Clearly, we can see from the facts on the ground that Russia is
in a new phase of aggression in the Ukraine and Crimea, in
Syria, other areas. I am interested in what your assessment is
of China's--what is your assumption of what China wants?
Because they do not seem to be demonstrating that kind of at
least military ambition. Is it economic hegemony in their
region? We all know about the South China Sea. What are the
assumptions about China, and are they the same level of threat
to the United States from a military point of view as Russia? I
see them as distinct. I would be interested in your thoughts.
Dr. Wood?
Mr. Wood. I think different countries and different leaders
in different countries, different cultures behave in different
ways that correspond with their particular perspectives even if
they have the same objectives. I think Russia and China both
have objectives of being hegemons in their respective regions,
Russia much more in a militaristic sense, China in an economic
sense. China does not have to do the same sorts of things that
Russia is doing in Ukraine and in Syria to have a dominant
influential posture relative to the neighbors in its region. If
it keeps everybody intimidated, kind of cowed, it has economic
dominance, it causes its neighbors to account for Chinese
interests in their calculations----
Senator King. That is not a military threat. My question
is, how do we adjust our military in relation to the threat?
Other thoughts? Dr. Mahnken?
Dr. Mahnken. I would say one common thread between China
and Russia is that they are seeking to revise the international
status quo that has governed for decades.
Senator King. It is an economic status quo you say.
Dr. Mahnken. Political and military. I think they are all
intertwined. More than what the Chinese Communist Party
leadership wants, I think, is what they believe they deserve,
and I think that is an important distinction. We look at
building new geographic features in the South China Sea, and we
see that as kind of creeping expansionism. No. Look, they
believe that it already belongs to them. They believe that they
are merely asserting control over what is justifiably theirs.
That to my mind poses a much greater challenge than a country
that is sort of being opportunistic. I think whereas Russia is
in many ways a declining power--and it has already been alluded
to in the economic dimension. It is also true in demography and
other ways as well--the Chinese leadership at least sees China
as a rising power and sees this century as being theirs. Again,
I think that makes them a greater challenge as well.
Senator King. Do they have military designs on Korea or the
Philippines or Japan?
Dr. Mahnken. I would argue that even short of military
designs on Korea, the Philippines, or Japan, merely what the
Chinese leadership sees as theirs, large parts of the South
China Sea, Taiwan, parts of India--merely that poses a threat
to the international order. It poses a threat to allies and
also poses a threat to U.S. territory, including our
territories in the Western Pacific.
Senator King. Dr. Korb, I am almost out of time, but your
thoughts.
Dr. Korb. I think basically China is trying to assert
control, I think as Dr. Mahnken said, over what it sees as its
proper territory. They are not an aggressive power in the sense
that they worry about the Japanese. If you go to China, they
still have not gotten over World War II when it comes to the
Japanese. They are concerned about their economic growth
because they cannot keep going like they have, and I think that
is why they try and get more of these resources in the South
China Sea. I think that is why President Obama correctly had
the pivot to the Pacific, or rebalance, to show them that there
is a line if they upset the freedom of navigation, that we will
take action.
The other thing is in the long term, these actions that
they are taking will hurt them. The Japanese are spending more
on defense. South Koreans are. The Vietnamese are very
concerned, and they are beginning to work again with us.
Unfortunately, the very erratic person that just took over the
Philippines is not doing what needs to be done.
Now, I want to say this and it will not be politically
popular. Not supporting the TPP [Trans-Pacific Partnership],
even if you wanted to modify it in some way, is the worst
signal we could have sent to dealing with China because had we
done that, I think that that would have united a lot of the
countries in the region against them and would have got them to
modify some of their behavior if they wanted to be part of it.
Senator King. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman McCain. I agree.
Senator Ernst?
Senator Ernst. I agree as well.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I would like to start with a fairly small program that I
believe has significant impact overall. To you, Dr. Mahnken, I
know that while you were serving as a Navy reservist, you
deployed to Kosovo. I want to thank you for that service very
much.
Kosovo is important to me personally but also to the State
of Iowa as well. Iowa's National Guard and Kosovo worked
together through the State Partnership Program, a program that
was started to strengthen our security in that region after the
fall of the Soviet Union. I believe it is a great, great
program with a lot of impact in that area.
Last year I was pleased that my efforts ensured the program
was permanently authorized, and going forward, I want to make
sure that it is properly funded.
To you then, Dr. Mahnken, would you agree that we need to
ensure our budget properly funds programs like the National
Guard State Partnership Program? Then if you could in regards
to Kosovo specifically, can you talk about how important it is
to have those relationships in that area for their own
security?
Dr. Mahnken. Thank you, Senator. Good catch on my bio. That
seems like a lifetime ago, but I do appreciate you bringing
that back.
Look, I do think that programs like that are very
important, and I think they really leverage expertise in the
Reserve component and they also build enduring relationships.
I think one of the problems that we have encountered, one
of the challenges that has come with our operational deployment
pattern over the last 15 years is a lot of habitual
relationships have been disrupted. I mean, traditionally it was
not just National Guard but special forces we relied upon to
develop habitual relationships with partner militaries across
the world. In an era when, for good reason, many of those
relationships have been disrupted, I think things like the
National Guard partnerships really have filled a key role. I
think going forward, establishing and maintaining those
relationships with not just our allies but our partners is
going to be all the more important. I am fully behind programs
like that.
Senator Ernst. Thank you very much.
I know, Dr. Korb, you had stated that we do need to involve
more partners. I think this is a way of developing some of
those partnerships with nations that really share a lot of our
same values as well. Do you have any input on that?
Dr. Korb. Well, I do and I think, as Dr. Mahnken pointed
out, this is very critical. We are not in this alone. Threats
that we face are global. We work with various countries at
different times. At the beginning of the Obama administration,
the United States worked with Russia to allow our supplies to
go through Russia to go to Afghanistan. There are areas that we
can work on. We have had arms control agreements going back to
the Nixon administration.
The other thing I think is important to keep in mind is
that the National Guard and the Reserves are not just
strategic. They're operational.
Senator Ernst. Absolutely.
I have fought that for years to get it funded. In fact,
before this committee, General Kaine and I almost came to blows
one time when he objected to my saying that. I think that's so
critical because it is a total force. As we found out during
the height of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, even today,
those folks can add to the capacity that we have.
Senator Ernst. Thank you very much.
Dr. Mahnken, just very briefly. I have got about a minute
left. You are the author of a book entitled ``Strategy in
Asia.'' One of my greatest concerns is the Islamic State and
its spread into Southeast Asia. If you could, talk a little bit
about our forces and how you would say we should budget and
prepare those forces to deal with issues like ISIS [Islamic
State of Iraq and Syria] in Southeast Asia.
Dr. Mahnken. I think that is just one area where we have
some very strong partners, non-allies, but countries like
Singapore and Malaysia and others. I think they have, by and
large, been doing a very good job by bolstering the identity of
their citizens and hardening their citizens against influence
by groups like ISIL. I think working with partners is
absolutely key.
I think we can play a role. I think largely that role is
behind the scenes, supportive. I think that is as it should be.
As I look at kind of the global campaign against ISIL,
Southeast Asia still remains I think largely a success story,
and I want it to remain that way.
Senator Ernst. Fantastic. Thank you, gentlemen, very much.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Chairman McCain. Senator Warren?
Senator Warren. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you all for being here today.
The debate over defense spending is often about the
importance of the top line numbers. The efficient distribution
of those dollars is also critically important. Part of
achieving our efficiency is making sure that we are spending
money in a way that aligns with our priorities and our
positions and that positions us to address current and emerging
threats. While states like Russia and Iran and North Korea and
others threaten our interests, our military engagements today
are increasingly low-intensity armed conflicts and cyber-based
conflicts against both state actors and terrorist groups and
other kinds of non-state actors.
Let me ask you this. Dr. Korb, can these modern threats and
challenges be fully addressed by large spending increases on
traditional military investments like troop levels, ships,
planes, and nuclear weapons?
Dr. Korb. I think you raise a great point because of the
fact that the Military Services basically have an identity and
they always try and move ahead with that identity. Threats like
cyber, for example, which are seen as nontraditional--for
example, the special forces would not even have gotten the
funding that they have gotten over the years unless Congress
set up a separate Assistant Secretary for Special Operations
Forces because they were getting lost in the budget.
I think you have to be careful. As I pointed out in my
testimony, you do not want to deal with threats from a bygone
era. Secretary Gates said any Secretary of Defense who
recommends to a President to send large land armies into the
Middle East or Africa should have his head examined. Then you
ought to say, well, why do you need a large land Army? Those
are the type of things that you need to do.
I think it is important to keep in mind if you go back and
you look at the history, in the 1990s the military fought
against developing drones. It was the CIA drones that we used
in Afghanistan after the attacks of 9/11. So, yes, you have to
because they always want to stay with their traditional
missions.
Senator Warren. That is very helpful. Thank you very much.
I appreciate that, Dr. Korb.
It is easy to talk about spending more. The hard question
is spending smarter and budgeting our defense resources based
on 21st century threats in a way that enhances our military
strength and lets our diplomacy complement our military
strength.
Efficient spending is also about eliminating waste. In its
annual report last April on wasteful and duplicative programs
across the Federal Government, the GAO identified several areas
where the Defense Department could achieve savings in areas
like acquisition, contract management, and facilities
maintenance. According to this report, from 2011 to 2016, GAO
directed 152 recommendations to DOD to achieve savings, but 95
of these recommendations--that is about two-thirds, 63
percent--remain only partially addressed or not addressed at
all.
Dr. Korb, what are some of the major reforms that would be
most effective toward eliminating wasteful spending?
Dr. Korb. Well, I think the first thing to take a look at,
as I mentioned in my testimony, is what the Defense Business
Board said is the buildup of the administrative part of the
Department of Defense. The committee last year in the NDAA told
them to cut back. It is not just civilian, but it is also the
military staff I think is important.
The other is--and I commend President Trump for doing this
in terms of the F-35 contract. I hope that rather than just
tweets, he really gets involved in dealing with it because I
think that is very, very, very important. These cost overruns--
we have not done as much as we should for the penalties. I
think that, as I mentioned in my testimony, some of the things
that Senator McCain recommended in his budget in terms of
letting the Navy who for years wanted to buy F/A-18E's and F's
rather than the F-35's because they felt that they could deal
with the threats that they would face--the littoral combat
ship, when it turned out to be a disaster, nobody did anything
about it. So, yes, I think there are things that we can do.
I have written this several times. Unless you get a Deputy
Secretary of Defense like a David Packard or Charles Duncan,
who came from Coca-Cola, or Don Atwood from General Motors to
do these things, it is going to be very, very hard.
Defense--they have not even passed an audit yet. Okay? We
keep waiting and waiting, and you keep saying, well, when is it
going to happen? Well, you have got to have it.
Senator Warren. Well, I appreciate that. I know there are
always push-backs on audits and they cost time and money, but
there is a lot of cost of not doing an audit as well.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman McCain. Senator Perdue?
Senator Perdue. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Last week now Secretary of Defense Mattis agreed and made
the comment that the greatest threat to national security is
our own federal debt. Mr. Wood, do you agree with that?
Mr. Wood. From a non-military standpoint, yes, I do. I
mean, to the extent that the Nation is evermore in debt, $20
trillion, it lessens your ability to spend on defense.
Senator Perdue. Thank you.
Mr. Wood. Debt does not bomb cities. It depends on how you
define it.
Senator Perdue. Right.
Dr. Korb, I agree that--and there have been studies that we
can certainly procure better and smarter. The Federal
Government does not even have a capital budget, and so it is
very difficult to plan for a multiyear acquisition.
I totally agree the Department--I think I agree with our
chairman. The Department of Defense does need an audit. I think
it would help us see a lot of things and actually become more
efficient in our procurement.
I want to focus on a couple things that we have talked
about today.
We are talking about the needs in the military without
talking about the missions and the mission requirements from a
bottom-up standpoint. The last time anyone really did that was
Bob Gates in 2011, and he made a five-year estimate and for
fiscal year 2016, his estimate was some roughly $100 billion
more in current dollars, greater than what even the President
was asking for for this year, at the very time that I would
argue that we are facing threats. I agree with my colleague
from Massachusetts that we are facing various different
threats, but they are additive. They are not replacement
threats.
We have a five-plus-one mission today versus a one-plus-one
mission through most of my lifetime through a nuclear
deterrent. When you look at Russia and China being symmetric
threats--you have asymmetric threats in ISIS and all the
terrorist activities. Then you have the rogue nations of North
Korea and Iran with a nuclear threat. Cyber we are beginning to
talk about. We are not even beginning to talk about the arms
race in space yet.
I would argue that at a very time when our threats are
additive, we are talking about reducing to the point where
today we have the smallest Army since World War II, the
smallest Navy since World War I, and frankly the oldest and
smallest Air Force ever. I do not know what that size should
be, but there are experts. If we would do it from the bottom up
based on missions, we would get there.
I just have a simple question very quickly. Mr. Wood, do
you agree that the Budget Control Act today is an inhibiting
factor that is arbitrary in terms of what we are doing in terms
of evaluating what we need to spend in light of the fact that
we do need an audit, we do need better procurement practices
and a more efficient way to actually run the Department of
Defense? Do you agree the BCA now should be repealed?
Mr. Wood. I do and without reservation.
Senator Perdue. Mr. Mahnken?
Dr. Mahnken. I do, Senator.
Senator Perdue. Dr. Korb?
Dr. Korb. I do not think any arbitrary ceiling should be
there. However, I think that roughly $620 billion for fiscal
year 2017 was more than adequate to deal with the threats that
we currently face.
Senator Perdue. Thank you.
Mr. Wood, at current levels of operational tempo, the
concern I have is deployments are getting longer, families are
being broken up. The number is certainly questionable in terms
of how many troops we actually need in a voluntary military. I
am very concerned about the increased deployments and our
inability--and I can tell you from trips around the world where
we are not able to fulfill the missions today because either we
do not have the equipment--you both talked about balance of
manpower and equipment, and I certainly agree with that. I am
concerned today about the shortage of certain pieces of
equipment in certain theaters that keep us from meeting certain
mission requirements today. They are very real and they are not
yesterday's war. They are the current issue. We saw in
Benghazi--that is not a state-on-state war, but we had men die
there. I am very concerned that we continue to look at the
operational tempo.
Do you believe that we can maintain this current tempo at
the current size without really looking at the mission
requirements going forward?
Mr. Wood. I do not. There is a huge imbalance that you just
so well described. We are currently in a death spiral where you
have lack of money to repair things and send it back. That
means you have fewer end items. Fewer end items means that the
things that are in the force should then used more, and so you
consume the life of that end item, whether it is a ship or a
plane or a tank, that much more rapidly. It just feeds on
itself, and unless we get BCA relief by getting rid of that and
expanding the force--we currently have two-thirds the force
that we need based on 70 years of experience. That is the only
way we are going to get out of this death spiral.
Senator Perdue. Mr. Chairman, I am out of time, but I fully
support this effort to look at this from all angles. I am very
concerned that over the last 30 years, our history has been
that in the 1970s disinvested in our military, in the 1980s we
recapped it, in the 1990s we disinvested, in 2000 we recapped
it. Now after 15 years of war, we need to think about how to
replace and recap our military at the very point in time when
we have $20 trillion of debt and we have our Social Security,
Medicare, and mandatory expenses over the next 20 years running
away from us. This is a time, Mr. Chairman, we have got to get
serious about how we look at our debt crisis and how we look at
our allocation of limited resources across the entire Federal
Government and actually be smarter.
I certainly applaud today's hearing. I hope we have many
more. Thank you.
Chairman McCain. Senator Gillibrand?
Senator Gillibrand. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I focus a lot on military families and their wellbeing, and
one of the things we have heard about from our families is the
current rules do not accommodate them. If someone gets
transferred somewhere, the husband might leave, the family
still has school to finish, get a change of job. There is no
accommodation for when they move.
We are trying to change that. Senator Blunt and I had a
bill that was passed by this committee in the NDAA but taken
out in conference.
Just a more general question. We are really dealing with
21st century families in a 20th century military personnel
system. It is really set up for the days when mom and dad did
not both work. It is set up for the days when mom stayed at
home. It is set up in the days where a lot of the military
personnel were single.
What can we do to change the system to address the
challenges military families confront today?
Mr. Wood. Anyone in particular?
Senator Gillibrand. Anyone.
Mr. Wood. Over a 20-year career and something like a dozen
moves, my wife certainly has an experience with schools and
finding new doctors and what church do you plug into and the
whole bit. We are very sympathetic to that problem.
One problem the services have is these continuing
resolutions where money is put on hold. That is money that can
be used for PCS, or permanent change of station, types of
moves. Under normal circumstances, the military tries to do
most of its moves during the summer season between academic
years, but when you have very short notice about how much money
is available, sometimes you have these interruptions that come
in. Then you have unexpected openings for a variety of reasons
and a billet just needs to be filled.
The Military Services are extraordinarily sensitive to and
sympathetic to the toll taken on personnel policies and the
movements of these families. They have done a lot to look at
that. Stability in funding would go a long way to stabilizing
these sorts of moves and enable families to better prepare with
longer lead time. Again, I go back to the funding issue.
Continuing resolutions, bad; BCA, bad. We just need more and
stable over time.
Senator Gillibrand. Similarly, we have had a number of
hearings about the importance of cyber defense, cyber warfare,
cyber expertise. We have talked a lot about making sure we are
using the National Guard effectively because if you have got a
guy working at Google who is the best computer scientist and he
happens to be in the National Guard, he should be part of that
work.
More broadly, what is the most effective employment of
additional funding in addressing the current needs for the
military's cyber needs? How can we more effectively recruit and
retain our cyber warriors?
Dr. Mahnken. Senator, I think the answer both to your
previous question and to this is flexibility. I think trying to
bring in cyber expertise through the Reserve component is part
of it, but I think more broadly the military, I think for
understandable reasons, tends to accord rank with seniority
with pay. In the cyber world, certainly in the private
industry, those things do not always align. I think what we
need to do is think about some authorities that give the
services greater flexibility to really tap into the deep
expertise that we have in our society and bring it into the
service of our Nation's defense.
Senator Gillibrand. My last question is about--and, Dr.
Korb, you can answer this one--this issue of sequestration. I
did not vote for sequestration. I thought it was a terrible
idea, and I knew it would end up where we are today. Do you
think that if we raise the defense budget, we should also raise
our domestic budget?
One of the reasons why I ask that question, there are
certain accounts in the domestic budget that very much affect
the wellbeing of the men and women we are recruiting for the
services. If we neglect or ignore those accounts, we will not
have the fighting force we need. I'd like your thoughts on
that.
Dr. Korb. Yes, Senator, that is an excellent point because
you want to recruit the best and the brightest to come into the
service, but if they do not have good education, they are not
going to be able----
Senator Gillibrand. Even good nutrition. I mean, we had a
whole hearing in the Ag Committee [U.S. Senate Committee on
Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry] about obesity, that so
many of our recruits are coming in not physically fit and obese
because our nutrition policy is not supporting fruits and
vegetables and healthy foods in schools.
Dr. Korb. Similarly, if you do not fund health adequately,
for example, like we do through the Affordable Care Act, you
are not going to have them come in. So, yes, it does contribute
to national security.
I think it is important to keep in mind something President
Eisenhower did. When he built the federal highway system that
we all use, basically he said that will contribute to national
defense. After the Russians launched or the Soviets launched
Sputnik, we needed a National Defense Education Act because if
you want to bring in these people--and I go back to the point
that Dr. Mahnken made--you are going to have more flexibility
of people coming in and out of the service or not just coming
in and you got to stay for 20 years if you want to get these
people.
The other thing. You know, your first question about
military families--I got to tell you something. We have a
policy about how long you should stay. The services violate it
all of the time. They move people around. When I was there, I
said, you know, you had 3 years of minimum, and people would
come at their retirement system, like Colonel Wood said. This
family moved around 18 times in 20 years. I said what happened
to your policy. There are things that you can do.
You can also look at the spouse's employment. If you have a
chance to put a Navy person in San Diego or Norfolk and his or
her spouse is a lawyer in Virginia, you ought to send him to
Virginia. I mean, just things like that to try and get them,
but the bureaucracy--oh, no. They have got to do more of this
for the families because given the strain that they have been
under for the last 15 years or so.
Chairman McCain. Senator Tillis?
Senator Tillis. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Senator Gillibrand, I am looking forward to serving with
you on the Personnel Subcommittee because these are the kinds
of things that we can do a better job of I think.
Dr. Korb, I wanted to start with you. You said something in
your opening comments and your answer to Senator Perdue's
question. I liked all of your answers, but I liked your answer
best. That had to do with sequestration. I am curious as to all
your reactions.
I have spent two years and I have spoken with a number of
people in uniform who are very capable managers of the
organizations that they are responsible for. Most of them have
more of a concern with how they are allowed to spend the money
than how much money they have to spend. I think a discussion
about let us plus up defense spending so that we can plus up
non-defense spending, some of which complements defense, some
does not, is not necessarily the best way to start looking at
how we do a better job of budgeting and executing in a more
fiscally sound, sustainable way.
I think that if we started by looking at sequestration for
the person around the kitchen table to understand that
sequestration is a blunt force object. It is a budgeting
technique that would never be used in a Fortune 500 company
because it would cut evenly your programs that are the most
promising, most productive with those that are the least
promising, least productive. Do you all agree with that?
I want to get to something else, though, because I think we
can only go so far with improving the fiscal execution of the
DOD unless we recognize that some of the inherent
inefficiencies are a product of decisions made by Congress. I
remember when the 440th was removed from Pope Army Airfield
last year speaking with someone in the Air Force who said, you
know, Senator, we are sorry but it was sixth on the list. The
question was, well, why not one through six? Well, they were
protected by BRAC [Base Realignment and Closure] or they were
protected by statutory action which made it impossible for us
to do the thing that we wanted to do which was spend the least
amount of money while preserving the best capability and
readiness that we have.
Has there been much work done over, say, modern history to
say if you really want to set people before this committee and
tell them to be more efficient and use the dollars more wisely,
that you need to go back and relook at constraints that
Congress has placed on them in Republican and Democrat
administrations so that you can truly achieve the efficiency we
would like to? I open that up to anyone.
Dr. Korb. Yes. I think very definitely. People do not
understand why you need a BRAC to close bases. Up until the
late 1970s, the Pentagon could decide what bases it wanted to
open, to close. Then the Congress put an amendment on that said
before you did that, you had to basically do all these studies.
They brought the process to a halt. I worked with the late
Senator Goldwater to deal with this thing and that led to the
setting up of the BRAC. We have not had a BRAC since 2005, and
the Pentagon estimates about 20 percent excess capacity. Just
think what you could do with some of that.
Senator Tillis. My time is limited. Unless you all disagree
with that--to me a part of what we have to do is transparency
in these decisions. You know, when a decision is made that has
a material effect on the presence of any area of the DOD, if it
comes down to--while I recognize that maybe we are optimizing
training, readiness, et cetera by moving here, a decision or a
constraint that was placed on us is going to require us to
sacrifice some of that because of the congressional mandates
that you have on factors that have nothing to do with that. I
think that our process really needs to start looking at that.
I will fight for North Carolina when it makes sense for
North Carolina. I would never advocate for a change in the
recommendation from the DOD if I am completely convinced that
that is a dime better spent in some other State.
Do you agree that we have some work to do there as Members
of Congress to really recognize that we are impeding some of
their progress?
Dr. Mahnken. Senator, absolutely. When it comes to
infrastructure, when it comes to acquisition, when it comes to
a whole host of areas, I would agree.
Senator Tillis. Dr. Wood, I?ll let you finish.
Mr. Wood. For a long time, sir, for the best of intentions,
Congress will mandate some increase in pay raises, or what have
you. The services realize that they have to take that burden
for years and years and years, and they would much rather get
an airplane back onto the flight line. Flexibility and
accounting for service priorities where trying to execute the
mission that the country is telling them to do I think would be
greatly appreciated.
Chairman McCain. I would just like to say to the Senator
that Senator Reed and I are seriously considering the issue of
BRAC, and obviously, we want to talk to the now Secretary of
Defense about it. It is a little bit like sequestration. It is
an act of cowardess. We cannot make the decisions ourselves. We
leave it up to a commission. Frankly, the last commission made
some very bad decisions, for example, closing Naval Air Station
Cecil Field in Florida. Now we only have one base on the whole
east coast, and that is Naval Air Station Oceana. This whole
issue of Walter Reed. We need to talk about it and I think it
has to be considered, as all things should be on the table.
Like sequestration, it is kind of a cowardly act because it is
authentication that we cannot make the tough decisions
ourselves.
Senator Peters?
Senator Peters. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you to our panelists for very interesting testimony
about an incredibly important topic as we are grappling with
how to use taxpayer money as efficiently as possible and
provide for, without question, the number one role of
government, which is to keep us safe. I appreciate your
thoughts on that.
I would like to take a look at the future. I know several
of you have mentioned how we prepare for future wars and that
the landscape is changing. It is certainly a very dangerous
world, but we are going to see a different type of war five,
ten years from now than we see right now.
When I had the opportunity to spend some time with General
Mattis, I was struck by a comment that he made in which he said
that he knows--when he was a battlefield commander, that he was
really benefiting from decisions that were made 10 years prior
to him being on the battlefield and investments that were made
and equipment and personnel and strategic ideas that came up
during that time.
I would just be curious. As we are talking about budgeting,
I do not want to ever fall in the trap that too many folks
throughout history have, which we always prepare for the last
war and spend a lot of money to fight the last war which never
comes. There is always a new war. If each of you would tell me
where you think we should be focusing for a war in the next 10
years where we are simply not spending the type of money we
should in a particular area. If you have an idea, I would
certainly appreciate you sharing it. We can just go right down
the panel.
Mr. Wood. Senator, thank you. I think that the operative
word here in all of this is ``additive.'' I know we are in the
21st century, but if you look at what is going on in Ukraine,
very non-21st century in many ways, multiple launched rocket
systems, some of the warheads, artillery, armor, anti-armor
fires. The idea of contests on the battlefield--your opponent
figures out where you are strong and then does something
different. You do not want to meet strength with strength.
Right? You attack a vulnerability. It has to be additive.
I think as we move forward, the military has to retain
conventional capabilities while also improving its ability in
cyber, hyper-velocity munitions, directed energy types of
systems, the ubiquity of everything from social media and
information types of campaigns to how you use satellites. I
think it is additive.
What I am driving at is the capacity within the force that
is uncommitted to current operations so that they can do the
types of experimentation that reveal the insights that you are
looking for. Right now, the military is 100 percent committed
to current ops and it has no capacity to do the sorts of things
that you are looking for. It is additive, be called upon to do
more.
Senator Peters. Thank you.
Dr. Mahnken. I would agree but also add that for decades
the United States, U.S. military has enjoyed a unilateral
advantage in being able to identify, track, and strike targets
with precision, both fixed and increasingly mobile targets.
That capability is spreading, and that which we have been able
to do to our adversaries our adversaries very soon will be able
to do to us. We will be subject to our adversaries' precision
strike, whether from drones or from missiles or other means.
That is a very different world. Not only will our forces be
vulnerable, but increasingly the U.S. Homeland will be
vulnerable not only to nuclear attack, which we have been for
decades, but to precision conventional attack and cyber attack.
I would say that that is a very different world, and even to
the extent that many leaders will acknowledge that we are
entering that world, as Mr. Wood said, we have not as a defense
community, as a defense department really systematically
thought through the deep implications of that not just for U.S.
forces but for U.S. national security.
Senator Peters. Thank you.
Dr. Korb. Senator, I would take a look at what is called
the Third Offset strategy, which I support as a strategy, but
make sure that you fund it adequately. The Under Secretary of
Defense for Acquisition has said, well, I do not have enough
money to do it. I would give that a priority because, as Dr.
Mahnken said, you want to maintain your technological edge.
Cyber is something where you have to invest more in. It is
not as expensive as some of the more traditional areas. I think
you need to build a new generation of nuclear-powered
submarines. I would not go with as many as they want, 12. I
think you can do with eight or nine. I think you also need to
build a new bomber because it has both a conventional and a
strategic role.
Senator Peters. Thank you. I am out of time.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman McCain. Senator Sullivan?
Senator Sullivan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Gentlemen, thank you for your testimony. I very much
appreciate the different issues you are focusing on.
I want to kind of take an earlier focus when you were
talking about the debt and the deficit and touch on a related
topic with regard to our national security that I do not think
often kind of gets tied into national security, and that is the
strength of our economy just in general.
The last 10 years, we have had a lost decade of economic
growth. We have not had 3 percent GDP growth, which is not even
that great for America. Our traditional rates of growth have
been closer to 4 for the last 200 years. We have not had 3
percent GDP growth in almost 15 years, not 1 year.
Can you just tell us from your perspective--obviously, that
would help on the deficit, on the debt. Just as a symbol of
American power--you know, in the Reagan years, we were growing
at 5.5, even 6 percent; the same with the Clinton years. Can
you explain just how that helps us in terms of getting our
national security objectives, not just our economic objectives,
the attractiveness of a robust American economy which, to be
honest, we have not had in well over a decade? I will offer
that to anyone.
Dr. Mahnken. Senator, well, I would say two things.
The first is like Dr. Korb, I am not a fan of pegging
defense to GDP, but certainly the more your economy is growing,
the more affordable defense becomes. The more your economy is
growing, the more vibrant it is, also the more innovations that
that economy is producing.
Senator Sullivan. Does it not also give us power to get
things done when we are strong economically, particularly in
Asia?
Dr. Mahnken. It also I think gives confidence. You know, it
gives the American people confidence in the United States in
our international role, and it also gives our allies and our
friends confidence in the United States as well. Conversely, I
would say part of the questioning that we have had of America's
international role has domestic roots because people do not
feel confident in our economy at home.
Dr. Korb. Senator, I think it is very important. You
mentioned the 1990s. At the end of the decade of the 1990s, the
Republican Congress and President Clinton had come up with a
budget plan that not only balanced the budget but gave us a
surplus and predicted that in the first decade of this century,
the debt would be wiped out. Then we had the attacks of 9/11,
the wars, as I mentioned early, we did not raise taxes to pay
for. We ran up a big deficit. Then, of course, you had the
economic collapse because of some decisions that were made in
the 1990s in terms of some of the regulation of the banks. That
is what we are recovering from right now.
You are quite right. Go back. I mentioned about President
Eisenhower said, you know, it is a robust economy that is going
to enable us to eventually undermine the Soviet Union. We are
not going to end up fighting them on the battlefield. It is
important to keep in mind that it is very hard to be strong
abroad if you are not strong at home. If you have a larger GDP,
it allows you to do things.
There are problems that you know better I do in terms of
dealing with things like the age for Social Security. When I
worked for President Reagan, we were able to move it up a
couple of years. Maybe we ought to think about doing that
again, for example, for certain people, or raising the amount
that you pay Social Security taxes on that would help that.
There are a lot of things that I think that the Congress,
working with the new administration, can do to get our economy
back up again. I happen to believe--free trade. I think the TPP
and a lot of these others, North American Free Trade
Agreement--that was the way to go. We should not be backing off
from those.
Senator Sullivan. Let me ask just one other question on
another element of strengthening our national security, and
that is our allies. As you all know and you have testified, we
are an ally-rich Nation. Most of our adversaries or potential
adversaries, whether it is Russia, China, Iran, North Korea,
are ally-poor.
Fortunately, I think a number of the Trump administration's
cabinet officials, certainly General Mattis during his
confirmation hearing testified about the importance of allies.
I think Rex Tillerson has. The President in his inauguration
address talked about deepening our traditional allies.
Can you just talk briefly about just how important that is?
Because I think there are some of our allies who are
questioning our commitment, but to Americans, how important
that is to strengthening our national security and what a great
strategic advantage it is that we have these allies all around
the world. Again, most of our adversaries do not have any.
Mr. Wood. I would say the more allies you have, the more
legitimacy you have in taking actions, the more access you have
to regions, the expanded amplifying capability set that you
have where the U.S. can bring some capabilities to bear. Our
allies might have things that are more uniquely positioned in a
given region. It allows you to shape an environment
economically, diplomatically not only at the international
level like U.N. [United Nations], et cetera, but even
regionally in these regional consortiums of sorts of
agreements, you know, in trade and access to resources and
movement of people. You would much rather have more friends on
your team than lacking friends, and I think the American people
appreciate that. I think that money spent in ways that go to
other countries are often criticized, but it is such a very
small percentage of the budget and we reap such great benefits,
you know, pennies on the dollar, so to speak, that this
alliance structure should not only be appreciated but matured
and expanded over time.
Dr. Mahnken. Yes. I think if we start with the premise of
your first question, just thinking about economic weight, I
mean, our allies are not--it is not just numbers, but these are
some of the biggest economies in the world. They add to our
economic weight.
We have allies because we have common interests, and we
have allies because we share common values. I think it is
worthwhile to keep both of those in mind. Where we have common
interests and where we have common values, we have very deep
alliances that are not only additive but I think in many cases
also multiplicative of American power.
Chairman McCain. I thank the witnesses. This has been very
helpful, and we look forward to working with you and appreciate
your being here today.
This hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:03 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
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