Military

Statement of

George R. Schneiter
Director, Strategic and Tactical Systems
Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics

Before the
Military Procurement Subcommittee
of the
House Armed Services Committee
on
Military Transformation and the Impact on the Department's Modernization Programs

March 28, 2001

            Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My colleagues and I appreciate the opportunity to meet with you to discuss the subject of military transformation and the impact on the Department's equipment modernization programs.

            I am the Director for Strategic and Tactical Systems, in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics. In this capacity, I am responsible for oversight of a large number of our equipment development and procurement programs.

            As you indicated in your letter of invitation to the Secretary, the Department is conducting a number of reviews in setting the course for this Administration's defense program. These reviews include examining what changes are needed in the light of the ever-changing situation and challenges the Nation will confront in the coming years. The Secretary of Defense has identified the need "to transform our national defense posture from its current form to one that will address the challenges of 21^st Century security." This may well require changes in strategy and in objectives for our military forces. We expect such changes will ultimately affect what equipment we decide we need most to develop, to procure, and to deploy. Clearly this may include the more rapid development and deployment of capabilities to defend against missiles, terrorism, and threats against our space and information systems. It will likely involve tradeoffs among systems, and reprioritizations. Only after that process is completed will the Department be able to decide, on a large scale, which weapon systems should be modernized, which should be replaced, which should be retired, and which new ones should be acquired. I shall not make predictions on the specifics of this, for understandable reasons.

            However, the Secretary and the Deputy Secretary have indicated some of the characteristics that our future force must have. Quoting the Deputy Secretary: "It must be at once more agile, more lethal, and more rapidly deployable. It must be able to operate over increasingly longer ranges. It must integrate the capabilities of all of the services so that field commanders have the best possible combination of air, sea, and land weapons for each situation; and it must have the best technology that America can offer."

            Let me observe some of the steps that have been taken recently that I believe move us in the direction he indicates.

As an example, last fall the Department approved the initiation of the Interim Armored Vehicle program. This program procures a family of vehicles to equip an interim brigade combat team, capable of deployment anywhere in the world in a combat-ready configuration. The vehicles are relatively lightweight, will fit on C-130 aircraft, and will have high commonality across the family's vehicles. The Army intends the fielding of a number of such brigades to be a first, interim step toward their ultimate objective -- a force with mobility equivalent to that of our current light forces, but with the survivability and lethality of our current heavy forces.

A second example is the Global Hawk high-altitude, endurance UAV (or unmanned aerial vehicle). Information on friendly and enemy forces is critical to the commander. Over the past several years, we have seen in actual operations the great benefits of modern aerial reconnaissance -- both manned systems such as Joint STARS, and unmanned ones such as Predator. Global Hawk, with its considerable payload and very high altitude, recently demonstrated its great value in a Joint Forces Command Military Utility Assessment. Taking account of this, the Department earlier this month approved Global Hawk for entry into Engineering and Manufacturing Development and Low-Rate Initial Production. We are currently examining possibilities for accelerating both the introduction of additional sensors on Global Hawk, and its rate of production.

A third example is the Joint Direct Attack Munition, or JDAM. JDAM is a gravity bomb equipped with a relatively low-cost guidance and control system. Cost was kept low in part by using commercial components and processes, as well as a healthy competition. JDAM uses a combination of an inertial measurement unit and the satellite-based Global Positioning System to achieve high accuracy, which was demonstrated to great effect in the Kosovo bombing. Such accuracy is critical to achieving assured target destruction, while at the same time minimizing collateral damage, as is necessary in many of today's warfighting situations.

A final example has to do with jointness -- with ensuring our services can fight together well as a team. One step we and the Joint Staff have taken has been to require that interoperability -- the ability to function well with other systems, with other services, and with our allies -- be included among the Key Performance Parameters that are part of every system's operational requirements and acquisition program baseline. For a program to progress from development into production, it must demonstrate through operational testing that it has met those requirements. I expect even more emphasis on interoperability in the future, particularly given the increased emphasis on modernizing our information and our command and control capabilities.

Another step toward better interoperability has been to establish organizations and to assign tasks that promote interoperability in certain mission areas. Air and missile defense is one such area. A few years ago the Department established, within the Joint Staff, the Joint Theater Air and Missile Defense Organization, JTAMDO. JTAMDO's job is to develop an operational architecture that the services, working together, can use in defending against ballistic and cruise missile threats. This is a relatively high-level operational architecture, and it has a corresponding high-level systems architecture. To address the more detailed system-to-system interactions -- to make sure key systems in this architecture will really work together, including across service lines -- we've established in this mission area a System Engineer for ensuring we can have what we call a Single Integrated Air Picture (SIAP). That is, all the participants in the systems architecture "see" the same friendly and enemy air vehicles. The SIAP System Engineer's group is giving first priority to making our current data nets work together better. They are also defining how best to incorporate more advanced capabilities, to better deal with more advanced threats.

Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, these are only a few examples of the kinds of development and procurement I believe will be considered further in the defense reviews. Many other new concepts and systems will also be considered, as the Department decides how best we should structure our forces, and how best we should develop and procure equipment to meet our 21^st Century challenges. The Department will be prepared to discuss these matters further, as the review process continues, later in the spring.

I shall be pleased to address your questions. Thank you.

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