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Opening Statements of Chairman
Jim Saxton
Hearing on Department of Defense
Transformation
Today, the
subcommittee meets to receive testimony from
our witnesses who represent the Department of
Defense, Military Services, and Joint Forces
Command. The subcommittee is interested in the
many programs and initiatives aimed at
transforming our nation's military and the
Department at large.
On September
23, 1999, President Bush announced at the
Citadel Military College in South Carolina
that he would make military transformation a
central theme if elected President. He stated
that the real goal is to move beyond marginal
improvements - to replace existing programs
with new technologies and strategies, and use
this window of opportunity to skip a
generation in technology.
His election,
and the events of September 11th, 2001 served
as catalysts for some of the very changes that
had been endorsed for several years past by
both outside observers and experts within the
military establishments.
Each Service
has approached transformation with its own
vision, and priority is being assigned to
those initiatives organized to support
interoperability and joint operations.
Congress has an interest in transformation
efforts because current choices will shape
defense programs and influence budgets for
years to come. A great deal of attention is
being given to transformation so to understand
its necessity, purpose, speed, and breadth of
effort. For those watching, what are the
metrics upon which one can measure
transformation and how does one describe it?
While I believe
that transformation is the right strategy to
pursue, I would like to understand how the
various service proposals are indeed
transformational. Further, the subcommittee
must understand how the new concepts and
equipment will be funded and tested under
stress conditions. These concerns are
particularly important for information
technology systems and survivability of new
manned platforms, whether air or ground.
In short, with
major changes being proposed, Congress must
keep a keen eye on the process, the funding,
and the experiments that will be conducted to
evaluate new doctrine, equipment, and
operational concepts. This is too important to
take on faith. While the concepts may still be
fuzzy, we are spending real money and real
soldiers will risk their lives with these
systems in the future.
For example,
the Army's Future Combat System seems clearly
transformational to me-but will the network
prove too fragile, as some have alleged, and
will the platform be survivable? I know these
questions are important to Army leaders as
well. With regard to these questions and
similar questions in the efforts of the Navy,
Marine Corps, and Air Force, I am gratified to
know that the Department of Defense science
and technology community, from DARPA to the
service labs, are all working diligently on
various aspects of these issues and making
great progress.
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