[Senate Hearing 111-836]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office]
S. Hrg. 111-836
THE REPORT OF THE QUADRENNIAL DEFENSE REVIEW INDEPENDENT PANEL
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
AUGUST 3, 2010
__________
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COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
CARL LEVIN, Michigan, Chairman
JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut JOHN McCAIN, Arizona
JACK REED, Rhode Island JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma
DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama
BILL NELSON, Florida SAXBY CHAMBLISS, Georgia
E. BENJAMIN NELSON, Nebraska LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina
EVAN BAYH, Indiana JOHN THUNE, South Dakota
JIM WEBB, Virginia ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi
CLAIRE McCASKILL, Missouri GEORGE S. LeMIEUX, Florida
MARK UDALL, Colorado SCOTT P. BROWN, Massachusetts
KAY R. HAGAN, North Carolina RICHARD BURR, North Carolina
MARK BEGICH, Alaska DAVID VITTER, Louisiana
ROLAND W. BURRIS, Illinois SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine
JEFF BINGAMAN, New Mexico
EDWARD E. KAUFMAN, Delaware
CARTE P. GOODWIN, West Virginia
Richard D. DeBobes, Staff Director
Joseph W. Bowab, Republican Staff Director
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
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CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF WITNESSES
The Report of the Quadrennial Defense Review Independent Panel
august 3, 2010
Page
Perry, Hon. William J., Co-Chair, Quadrennial Defense Review
Independent Panel; Accompanied by Hon. Stephen J. Hadley, Co-
Chair, Quadrennial Defense Review Independent Panel............ 6
The Report of the Quadrennial Defense Review Independent Panel... 54
(iii)
THE REPORT OF THE QUADRENNIAL DEFENSE REVIEW INDEPENDENT PANEL
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TUESDAY, AUGUST 3, 2010
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Armed Services,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:34 a.m. in room
SD-G50, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Senator Carl Levin
(chairman) presiding.
Committee members present: Senators Levin, Lieberman, Reed,
Bill Nelson, E. Benjamin Nelson, Webb, McCaskill, Udall, Hagan,
Begich, Burris, Bingaman, Kaufman, McCain, Chambliss, Thune,
LeMieux, Brown, Burr, and Collins.
Committee staff members present: Richard D. DeBobes, staff
director; and Leah C. Brewer, nominations and hearings clerk.
Majority staff members present: Jonathan D. Clark, counsel;
Creighton Greene, professional staff member; Jessica L.
Kingston, research assistant; Gerald J. Leeling, counsel; Peter
K. Levine, general counsel; Roy F. Phillips, professional staff
member; and William K. Sutey, professional staff member.
Minority staff members present: Joseph W. Bowab, Republican
staff director; Adam J. Barker, professional staff member;
Christian D. Brose, professional staff member; Pablo E.
Carillo, minority investigative counsel; John W. Heath, Jr.,
minority investigative counsel; Michael V. Kostiw, professional
staff member; David M. Morriss, minority counsel; and Dana W.
White, professional staff member.
Staff assistants present: Paul J. Hubbard, Brian F. Sebold,
and Breon N. Wells.
Committee members' assistants present: Christopher Griffin,
assistant to Senator Lieberman; Carolyn Chuhta, assistant to
Senator Reed; Nick Ikeda, assistant to Senator Akaka; Ann
Premer, assistant to Senator Ben Nelson; Patrick Hayes,
assistant to Senator Bayh; Gordon Peterson, assistant to
Senator Webb; Tressa Guenov, assistant to Senator McCaskill;
Jennifer Barrett, assistant to Senator Udall; Roger Pena,
assistant to Senator Hagan; Jonathan Epstein, assistant to
Senator Bingaman; Lenwood Landrum and Sandra Luff, assistants
to Senator Sessions; Matthew Rimkunas, assistant to Senator
Graham; Jason Van Beek, assistant to Senator Thune; Scott
Schrage, assistant to Senator Brown; and Ryan Kaldahl,
assistant to Senator Collins.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CARL LEVIN, CHAIRMAN
Chairman Levin. Good morning, everybody.
The committee meets this morning to receive testimony on
the report of the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) Independent
Panel.
Our witnesses, the co-chairs of the independent panel, are
well-known leaders with long careers in and out of government,
and we are grateful for the willingness of former Secretary of
Defense William J. Perry and former National Security Adviser
Stephen J. Hadley to serve as co-chairs of this panel.
We are also thankful for the efforts of your 16 other panel
members. All of you have brought a breadth and depth of
expertise that is evident throughout the report that is
comprehensive, insightful, and even provocative in its many
findings and recommendations.
The QDR is a congressionally mandated, comprehensive
examination of our national defense strategy, force structure,
modernization, budget plans, and other defense plans and
programs intended to shape defense priorities, operational
planning, and budgets projected as far as 20 years into the
future.
In 2007, Congress required that the Secretary of Defense
create an independent panel of experts to conduct a review of
the Department's QDR, an independent review that had not been
done since the very first QDR back in 1997. This new
independent panel is tasked with providing Congress its
assessment of the QDR's stated and implied assumptions,
findings, recommendations, vulnerabilities of the underlying
strategy and force structure, and providing alternative force
structures, including a review of their resource requirements.
Last February, the Department of Defense (DOD) delivered
its QDR report. This is another explicitly wartime QDR, as was
the last report in 2006, that emphasizes the need to succeed in
the conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan, and against al Qaeda, and
ensuring that our strategy and resource priorities support that
objective.
The QDR also argues for realignment of investments from
programs that it sometimes describes as ``relics of the Cold
War'' toward those that support critical joint missions,
including countering anti-access strategies, building the
capacity of partner states, and ensuring access to cyberspace.
The QDR report also proposes measures to reform institutional
procedures, including acquisition, security assistance, and
export control processes.
The independent panel acknowledges the QDR is a wartime
review that is understandably and appropriately focused on
responding to the threats that America now faces. However, they
are also critical that, like previous QDRs, it fails to provide
long-term planning guidance for the threats the Nation could
face in the more distant future.
In taking its own longer, fiscally unconstrained view of
America's strategic challenges, the independent panel makes
findings and recommendations that raise important questions and
provide policy and program options that we will explore in the
months and the years ahead.
The panel's report begins with the recognition of the many
shortfalls in civilian capacity necessary to meet the modern
demands of the current and future security and stability
environment. The panel reiterates the longstanding call for
participation of U.S. and international civilians--both
government and nongovernment--in preventing conflict and
managing post conflict stability situations.
In some of the panel's most far-reaching and provocative
recommendations, they challenge both the administration and
Congress to reform our national security institutions and
processes. Among other changes, the panel calls for
restructuring the U.S. Code to realign and integrate executive
department and agency responsibilities and authorities,
expanding the deployable capabilities of civilian agencies, and
consolidating the budget processes and appropriations of DOD
and the Department of State (DOS) and the Intelligence
Community. We will want to learn more from our witnesses about
these proposals and which of them, in their view, are the most
important to address in the near- and long-terms.
The panel goes on to warn us about what it calls the
growing gap between what the military is capable of doing and
what they may be called upon to do in the future. To reduce
this gap, the panel essentially argues that defense spending
should be substantially increased, despite the current economic
environment and DOD's plans for modest real growth for the
foreseeable future.
With respect to force structure, one of their most
significant recommendations would increase the size of the Navy
to 346 ships to promote and protect our strategic interests in
the Pacific. We would be interested to know from our witnesses
in what way the QDR force is inadequate to this challenge and
what specific additional capabilities that the panel believes
are necessary for that region and what missions are the
priorities.
In the area of personnel, the panel commends the QDR's
emphasis on the strategic importance of sustaining the All-
Volunteer Force that has performed so magnificently over the
last 10 years of war. The panel notes, however, that the recent
and dramatic cost growth of the All-Volunteer Force is
unsustainable for the long term and will likely lead to
reductions in force structure and benefits or a compromised
volunteer system altogether.
Higher costs per servicemember, as the panel points out,
could mean fewer servicemembers, resulting in an increased
number of deployments for those in service and greater stress
on them and their families. Now that is a vicious budgetary
cycle.
Nevertheless, the panel recommends increasing the Navy end
strength while maintaining the current strengths of the other
Services. We would be interested to hear from our witnesses
more about their recommendations in this area, which include
some kind of a bifurcated compensation and assignment system
for career and non-career military members.
Many of the panel's acquisition-related recommendations
echo Congress' longstanding concerns and legislation previously
enacted by this committee. For example, the panel's call for
the increased use of competition and dual sourcing parallels
requirements enacted in last year's Weapon Systems Acquisition
Reform Act (WSARA). The same is true of the panel's call for
increased emphasis on technologically mature programs that can
be delivered in the shortest practical time.
Similarly, the panel's call for shortening the acquisition
process for wartime response to urgent needs appears to be
consistent with provisions already included in the National
Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which was reported by our
committee earlier this year.
The panel's recommended realignment of acquisition process
responsibilities and authorities, however, is less clear. We
look forward to learning more from the witnesses regarding the
panel's recommendations for adjustments to the lines of
authority established two decades ago in response to the
recommendations of the Packard Commission and to the increased
role that the combatant commanders are already playing in the
acquisition process.
Finally, the independent panel followed our statutory
guidance and conducted its review of the QDR and strategic
assessments from a fiscally unconstrained perspective. When
reading their report, however, one cannot escape questioning
the affordability of many of their recommendations,
particularly given the current state of our economy and the
budget deficit.
The panel recommends that in order to meet the greater
costs associated with its recommendations for force structure
increases, DOD and Congress should restore fiscal
responsibility to the budget process that was lost when
balanced budget rules were set aside at the beginning of the
war. Those rules force decisionmakers to make tradeoffs and
identify offsets to cover those increased costs. Does the panel
recommend other steps to generate the resources necessary to
pay for its many proposals?
Again, we thank our witnesses and their panel colleagues
for this very significant contribution to our ongoing national
security debate. There is much here to discuss as we work
together to meet the challenges that confront our Nation today
and well into the future.
Senator McCain.
STATEMENT OF SENATOR JOHN McCAIN
Senator McCain. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Let me thank our distinguished witnesses and old friends,
former Secretary of Defense William Perry and former National
Security Adviser Steve Hadley. Thank you for your many years of
service to our Nation and your leadership of this panel.
Again, I am grateful for the many years of service to our
country that both of our witnesses have provided and also the
distinguished members of your panel, which I think are amongst
the finest thinkers that we have in America today on national
security issues.
As we know, the panel was mandated in the 2009 NDAA to
provide a separate, outside assessment of the questions posed
by the QDR. The administration's QDR, which was released in
February, is, in their own words, a ``wartime QDR.'' It is
focused mainly on winning the wars we are in and meeting the
associated needs of the force. This priority is understandable
and right.
Our men and women in uniform have for nearly a decade now
been serving in a force at war. They are defeating America's
enemies in the fight against violent Islamic extremism. They
are supporting Iraq's emergence as an increasingly stable
democratic state. If given the necessary time and support, they
can reverse the momentum of the insurgency in Afghanistan and
prevent that country from ever again becoming a safe haven for
international terrorists.
As long as America has troops in combat, they and their
mission must be our highest priority. Yet prevailing in the
wars of today cannot be our only priority. We will also need to
ensure that our force is prepared and resourced to meet a wide
array of other challenges over the coming decades, especially
amid the tectonic shifts now occurring in the global
distribution of power.
In particular, our military must be able to ensure secure
access to the global commons, including cyberspace, to shape a
balance of power in critical regions that favors our interests
and values and those of our allies; to build the capacity of
weak partners to secure their countries and operate together
with us; and, of course, to defend the Homeland.
These are just some of the major challenges that our force
will be called on to meet over the next 20 years, which is the
period of time for which the QDR is mandated by Congress to
propose defense programs. However, as this panel's report
correctly observed, the intended long-term focus of the QDR is
being lost. Instead, successive administrations have
increasingly produced QDR after QDR that are more reflections
of present defense activities than, in the words of the panel's
report, a ``strategic guide to the future that drives the
budget process.''
The 2010 QDR mostly continues this trend, and now more than
ever we need to regain a long-term strategic focus on our
defense priorities. In that regard, the report of the QDR
Independent Review Panel makes an important contribution.
We are in the midst of a great national debate about the
priorities and spending habits of our Government, driven by the
mounting debt that threatens our Nation's future. For the first
time in a decade, there is a growing call for real cuts in
defense spending and a willingness on both sides of the aisle
to consider it.
This panel has now offered a strong counterargument. A
bipartisan group of respected national security experts who all
agree, as Secretary Perry told the House Armed Services
Committee (HASC) last week, that identifying savings and
efficiencies in the defense budget is necessary but not
sufficient to meet our Nation's future national security
priorities. Ultimately, the panel finds overall defense
spending must rise.
As we debate the future of the defense budget at a time of
fiscal scarcity, this report will not be the final word, but it
offers formidable proposals that Congress must take very
seriously--from recommendations for fixing DOD's dysfunctional
procurement system to bold ideas for reforming TRICARE so that
rising healthcare costs do not devour the defense budget. The
report is also an important reminder that we should not allow
arbitrary budget numbers, whether capped top-line figures or
percentages of GDP, to drive our defense strategy.
Instead, we must frankly identify the strategic challenges
facing our Nation over the next 20 years. We must lay out the
commitments and capabilities needed to meet these challenges.
We must cut waste, identify efficiencies, and make every
possible reform that can save money.
We must terminate expensive or over-budget programs that we
can do without. We must put an end to pork barrel earmarking,
which wastes billions of dollars every year on programs that
our military doesn't request and doesn't need.
Finally, having done all of this, having identified our
real needs and gotten the most of our defense dollars that we
can, America should be prepared to pay the resulting bill,
whatever it is, or accept the resulting risk to our national
security and that of our friends and allies for failing to do
so. This will require some very hard choices, but the benefit
to be gained by sustaining and strengthening America's global
leadership is imminently worth it.
I want to thank the witnesses and their fellow members of
the QDR Panel for emphasizing the importance of strong,
confident U.S. leadership in the world and the special role
that our Armed Forces play in securing not only our own
interests, but in defending an open international order that
benefits all who join it.
This panel's report is an important point of reference in
our current debates. I appreciate the time and care that our
witnesses and their fellow panelists put in it.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Levin. Thank you, Senator McCain.
Secretary Perry, if there are any other members of the
independent panel who are here with you and Mr. Hadley, could
you introduce them? Then you can begin your testimony.
STATEMENT OF HON. WILLIAM J. PERRY, CO-CHAIR, QUADRENNIAL
DEFENSE REVIEW INDEPENDENT PANEL; ACCOMPANIED BY HON. STEPHEN
J. HADLEY, CO-CHAIR, QUADRENNIAL DEFENSE REVIEW INDEPENDENT
PANEL
Dr. Perry. John Nagl is the other member of the panel with
us.
Chairman Levin. Good. Thank you.
Mr. Nagl, great to have you.
Dr. Perry?
Dr. Perry. Let us start with Mr. Hadley first.
Chairman Levin. Mr. Hadley, you have your own opening
statememt?
Mr. Hadley. Mr. Chairman, we have a joint statement, which,
with your permission, we would like submitted into the record.
We thought we would just summarize that statement. I will do
the first half.
Chairman Levin. Oh, okay. Great.
Mr. Hadley. Secretary Perry will do the hard work at the
last half, if that is acceptable.
Chairman Levin. I had it reversed. Very good. Mr. Hadley,
you shall begin then.
Mr. Hadley. Thank you, sir.
Chairman Levin and Ranking Member McCain, we thank you for
the opportunity to appear before you and other members of this
distinguished committee to discuss the final report of the QDR
Independent Panel.
Congress and Secretary Gates gave us a remarkable set of
panel members who devoted an enormous amount of time and effort
to this project. It was a model of decorum and of bipartisan
legislative and executive branch cooperation.
Paul Hughes, as executive director of the panel--who is
here today--ably led a talented expert staff, and the result is
the unanimous report you have before you titled: ``The QDR in
Perspective: Meeting America's National Security Needs in the
21st Century.''
Our report is divided into five parts. The first part
conducts a brief survey of foreign policy with special emphasis
on the missions the American military has been called upon to
perform since the fall of the Berlin Wall. From the strategic
habits and actual decisions of American Presidents since 1945,
habits and decisions that have shown a remarkable degree of
bipartisan consistency, we deduce four enduring national
interests, which will continue, in our view, to transcend
political differences and animate American policy in the
future.
Those enduring national interests include the defense of
the American Homeland; assured access to the sea, air, space,
and cyberspace; the preservation of a favorable balance of
power across Eurasia that prevents authoritarian domination of
that region; and providing for the global common good through
such actions as humanitarian aid, development assistance, and
disaster relief.
We also discussed the five greatest potential threats to
those interests that are likely to arise over the next
generation. These threats include, but are not limited to: (1)
radical Islamist extremism and the threat of terrorism; (2) the
rise of new global great powers in Asia; (3) continued struggle
for power in the Persian Gulf and the greater Middle East; (4)
an accelerating global competition for resources; and (5)
persistent problems of failed and failing states.
These five global trends have framed a range of choices for
the United States. We have a unique opportunity to continue to
adapt international institutions to the needs of the 21st
century and to develop new institutions to meet those
challenges.
We have various tools of smart power--diplomacy,
engagement, trade, communications about Americans' ideals and
intentions--and these will increasingly be necessary to protect
America's national interests. But we conclude that the current
trends are likely to place an increased demand on American
hard-power to preserve regional balances because while
diplomacy and development have important roles to play, the
world's first-order concerns will continue to be security
concerns, in our judgment.
In the next two chapters, we turn to the capabilities of
our Government and that our Government must develop and sustain
to protect our enduring interests. We first discussed the
civilian elements of national power, what Secretary Gates has
called the tools of soft power.
We make a number of recommendations for the structural and
cultural changes in both the executive and legislative
branches, which will be necessary, in our view, if these
elements of national power are to play their role in protecting
America's enduring interests.
The panel notes with extreme concern that our current
Federal Government structures, both executive and legislative,
and in particular those related to security, were fashioned in
the 1940s. They work, at best, imperfectly today. The U.S.
defense framework adopted after World War II was structured to
address the Soviet Union in a bipolar world, and the threats
today are much different. A new approach is needed.
We recommend that Congress reconvene its Joint Committee on
the Organization of Congress to examine the current committee
structure and consider establishing a single national security
appropriations subcommittee and a coordinated authorization
process between relevant committees.
Furthermore, the panel recommends that the President and
Congress establish a national commission on building the civil
force of the future to develop recommendations and a blueprint
for increasing the capability and capacity of our civilian
departments and agencies to move promptly overseas and
cooperate effectively with military forces in insecure security
environments.
Let me turn to my colleague, Bill Perry, to summarize the
rest of the report. I want to thank him for his leadership. He
is the person who made clear from the very beginning this
needed to be a consensus report and, because of his leadership,
it is. He is a great national resource, and the country is
lucky to have him.
Mr. Secretary?
Dr. Perry. Thank you very much, Steve.
I must say a major part of our panel's effort was devoted
to a consideration of future force structure. For many decades
during the Cold War, the primary mission of DOD was to build a
force capable of deterring and containing the Soviet Union. DOD
recognized other missions, but considered those missions were
lesser included cases--that is, they would be automatically
covered by the force we had capable of deterring the Soviet
Union.
In 1993, the Cold War was over. We needed a new force
structure, and we created something called the bottom-up
review. That identified the primary missions of DOD to have the
force structure capable of fighting and winning two major
regional conflicts. We looked at other cases, but we considered
them lesser included cases that would be covered by the force
we built for the two MRCs.
Today, the assumptions of the Cold War in the 1990s are no
longer valid. A major portion of our military is engaged in two
insurgency operations. Not surprisingly then, Secretary Gates
has focused this QDR on success in Afghanistan and Iraq. I must
say, had I been the Secretary of Defense, I would have done the
same thing.
However, it is also important to plan the forces that we
will need 10, 20 years ahead. A force planning construct is a
powerful lever for shaping DOD.
The absence in the QDR of such a construct was a missed
opportunity. So our panel decided to offer our own judgments as
to what that should be, based on the assumption of the global
trends and the threats that were just described by Mr. Hadley.
Those judgments are as follows.
First, the recent additions to the ground forces, we
believe, will need to be sustained for the foreseeable future.
Second, the Air Force has the right force structure, except
for the need to augment its long-range strike capability.
Third, we need to increase our maritime forces to sustain
the ability to transit freely in the Western Pacific. We saw
that as the primary driving factor for an increased naval size.
Fourth, DOD needs to be prepared to assist civil
departments in the event of a cyber attack on the homeland. It
is a homeland security issue, but DOD has the primary resources
for dealing with a cyber problem.
We believe that a portion of the National Guard should be
dedicated to the homeland security mission. In fact, we need to
revisit the contract with the Guard and the Reserves.
A major capitalization will be required of our forces, not
the least of which is because of the wear and tear of the
equipment in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Secretary Gates'
directive on efficiencies to deal with these costs is a good
start but, in our judgment, will not be sufficient. That is,
additional top line will be required. What we have described as
a need will be expensive, but deferring recapitalization could
entail even greater expenses in the long run.
We looked carefully at the personnel issue and believe--
started off with the belief that the All-Volunteer Force has
been a great success. But the dramatic increases in costs in
the last few years cannot be sustained. We believe we must
seriously address those costs, and a failure to do so would
lead either to a reduction in force or a reduction in benefits
or some way compromise our volunteer force, none of which is
desirable.
So we must reconsider longstanding practices, such as
extending the length of expected service, revising benefits to
emphasize cash instead of future benefits, looking hard at and
revising the current longstanding up-and-out personnel policy,
and revising TRICARE benefits.
I must say we understand that these are all big issues and
all very politically sensitive issues, but we believe they have
to be addressed. We recommended the establishment of a new
commission on military personnel comparable to the Gates
Commission back in 1970, which established the All-Volunteer
Force. The charter of that commission basically should be to
implement the recommendations which we have described in this
report.
An important part of the personnel issue is the
professional military education. The training and education
program in the military today plays a key role in making the
U.S. military the best in the world. It is expensive, but it is
worth it.
We recommended a full college program for Reserves with
summer training and a 5-year service commitment. We recommended
expanding graduate programs in military affairs, foreign
culture, and language. We recommended providing key officers
with a sabbatical year in industry. All of those are
evolutionary changes to professional military education which
would be beneficial.
We looked carefully at the acquisition and contracting
problems and recommended, first of all, clarifying the
accountability. In fact, we devoted several pages to discussion
of specific recommendations as to how that might be improved.
We looked at the history of programs in the last decade or
so which dragged on for 10, 12, 14 years and led to very
extensive overruns. We believe that we should set limits of 5
to 7 years for the delivery of defined programs. Five to 7
years, we have a history of programs with that limit that have
been successful, and all programs that we know of that have
dragged on for 10 to 20 years have been unsuccessful. We
believe that it is no coincidence that the long programs lead
to problems.
We recommended requiring dual-source competition for
production programs whenever such dual-source competition
provides real competition. We recommended establishing a
regular program for urgent needs such as now being done by the
Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and
Logistics in Afghanistan.
Finally, we had some comments on planning. We believe that
the QDR, as now mandated, is an inappropriate vehicle for
dealing with the issues that Congress wants to deal with. It
comes too late in the process.
We recommended that you establish an independent strategic
review panel in the fall of the presidential election year that
would be established by the legislative and executive branches,
as was the QDR, that this panel convene in January of the new
administration and report 6 months later. This then would be an
input to the National Security Council for preparing a national
security strategy, and this plus the regular procurement
planning and budgeting process would replace the QDR.
I would like to close with a final comment that this report
we hand to you is a unanimous report from a bipartisan panel.
Mr. Hadley and I, from the very first day of the panel, told
our panel members that not only was it a bipartisan panel, but
our deliberations should not be bipartisan, but rather
nonpartisan. The national security issues we deal with are too
important to be dealt with in a partisan way.
The panel responded positively to this, and therefore, we
are able to give you today a bipartisan, unanimous report.
Thank you very much.
[The joint prepared statement of Dr. Perry and Mr. Hadley
follows:]
Joint Prepared Statement by Hon. William J. Perry and Hon. Stephen J.
Hadley
Chairman Levin and Ranking Member McCain, we thank you for the
opportunity to appear before you and other members of this
distinguished committee to discuss the final report of the Quadrennial
Defense Review (QDR) Independent Panel.
The QDR Independent Panel includes 12 appointees of the Secretary
of Defense, Robert Gates, and 8 appointees of Congress, and is mandated
by the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2010
to:
Review the Secretary of Defense's terms of reference
for the 2009 QDR;
Conduct an assessment of the assumptions, strategy,
findings, and risks in the 2009 QDR;
Conduct an independent assessment of possible
alternative force structures; and
Review the resource requirements identified in the
2009 QDR and compare those resource requirements with the
resources required for the alternative force structures.\1\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010, P.L.
No: 111-84, Section 1061.
That is what our panel has tried to do in its review. We have
deliberated for over 5 months, in the process reviewing a mass of
documents (both classified and unclassified), interviewing dozens of
witnesses from the Department, and consulting a number of outside
experts. Congress and Secretary Gates gave us a remarkable set of panel
members who devoted an enormous amount of time and effort to this
project. It was a model of decorum and of bipartisan, legislative/
executive branch cooperation. Paul Hughes, as Executive Director of the
Panel, ably led a talented expert staff. The result is the unanimous
report you have before you entitled: ``The QDR in Perspective: Meeting
America's National Security Needs in the 21st Century.''
Mr. Chairman, the security challenges facing the United States
today are much different than the ones we faced over a decade ago. In
addition to ongoing military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the
United States faces a geopolitical landscape that is increasingly
dynamic and significantly more complex. Secretary Gates and the
Department of Defense deserve considerable credit for attempting to
address all these challenges in the 2009 QDR.
The modern QDR originated in 1990 at the end of the Cold War when
Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff General Colin Powell undertook in the ``Base Force'' study to
reconsider the strategy underpinning the military establishment. Then
in 1993, building on his own work as the chairman of the House Armed
Services Committee, Secretary of Defense Les Aspin decided to conduct
what he called a Bottom-up Review--an examination of the long-term
risks which America was likely to face, the capabilities necessary to
meet them, and the various options for developing those capabilities.
The Bottom-up Review was considered generally a success. Congress
thought the process worthwhile and mandated that it be repeated every 4
years. Unfortunately, once the idea became statutory, it became
routine. Instead of unconstrained, long-term analysis by planners who
were encouraged to challenge preexisting thinking, the QDRs became
explanations and justifications, often with marginal changes, of
established decisions and plans.
This latest QDR is a wartime QDR, prepared by a Department that is
focused--understandably and appropriately--on responding to the threats
America now faces and winning the wars in which America is now engaged.
Undoubtedly the QDR is of value in helping Congress review and advance
the current vital missions of the Department. But it is not the kind of
long-term planning document that Congress envisioned when it enacted
the QDR requirement.
Our Report is divided into five parts.
It first conducts a brief survey of foreign policy, with special
emphasis on the missions that America's military has been called upon
to perform since the fall of the Berlin Wall. From the strategic habits
and actual decisions of American Presidents since 1945--habits and
decisions that have shown a remarkable degree of bipartisan
consistency--we deduce four enduring national interests which will
continue to transcend political differences and animate American policy
in the future. Those enduring national interests include:
The defense of the American homeland;
Assured access to the sea, air, space, and cyberspace;
The preservation of a favorable balance of power
across Eurasia that prevents authoritarian domination of that
region; and
Providing for the global ``common good'' through such
actions as humanitarian aid, development assistance, and
disaster relief.
We also discuss the five gravest potential threats to those
interests that are likely to arise over the next generation. Those
threats include, but are not limited to:
Radical Islamist extremism and the threat of
terrorism;
The rise of new global great powers in Asia;
Continued struggle for power in the Persian Gulf and
the greater Middle East;
An accelerating global competition for resources; and
Persistent problems from failed and failing states.
These five key global trends have framed a range of choices for the
United States:
Current trends are likely to place an increased demand
on American ``hard power'' to preserve regional balances; while
diplomacy and development have important roles to play, the
world's first-order concerns will continue to be security
concerns.
The various tools of ``smart power''--diplomacy,
engagement, trade, targeted communications about American
ideals and intentions, development of grassroots political and
economic institutions--will increasingly be necessary to
protect America's national interests.
Today's world offers unique opportunities for
international cooperation, but the United States needs to guide
continued adaptation of existing international institutions and
alliances and to support development of new institutions
appropriate to the demands of the 21st century. This will not
happen without global confidence in American leadership, its
political, economic, and military strength, and steadfast
national purpose.
Finally, America cannot abandon a leadership role in
support of its national interests. To do so will simply lead to
an increasingly unstable and unfriendly global climate and
eventually to conflicts that America cannot ignore, and which
we will then have to prosecute with limited choices under
unfavorable circumstances--and with stakes that are higher than
anyone would like.
In the next two chapters, we turn to the capabilities that our
Government must develop and sustain in order to protect our enduring
interests. We first discuss the civilian elements of national power--
what Secretary Gates has called the ``tools of soft power.'' We make a
number of recommendations for the structural and cultural changes in
both the executive and legislative branches which will be necessary if
these elements of national power are to play their role in protecting
America's enduring interests. The panel notes with extreme concern that
our current Federal Government structures--both executive and
legislative, and in particular those related to security--were
fashioned in the 1940s and they work at best imperfectly today. The
U.S. defense framework adopted after World War II was structured to
address the Soviet Union in a bipolar world. The threats of today are
much different. A new approach is needed.
We then turn to the condition of America's military. We note that
there is a significant and growing gap between the ``force structure''
of the military--its size and its inventory of equipment--and the
missions it will be called on to perform in the future. As required by
Congress, we propose an alternative force structure with emphasis on
increasing the size of the Navy. We also review the urgent necessity of
recapitalizing and modernizing the weapons and equipment inventory of
all the Services; we assess the adequacy of the budget with that need
in view; and we make recommendations for increasing the Department's
ability to contribute to homeland defense and to deal with asymmetric
threats such as cyber attack.
In this third chapter, we also review the military's personnel
policies. We conclude that while the all-volunteer military has been an
unqualified success, there are trends that threaten its sustainability.
Major changes must be made in personnel management policies and in
professional military education. A failure to address the increasing
costs of the All-Volunteer Force will likely result in: (1) a reduction
in force structure; (2) a reduction in benefits; and/or (3) a
compromised All-Volunteer Force. To avoid these undesirable outcomes,
we recommend a number of changes in retention, promotion, compensation,
and professional military education that we believe will serve the
interests of America's servicemembers and strengthen the All-Volunteer
Force.
The fourth chapter of our Report takes on the issue of acquisition
reform. We commend Secretary Gates for his emphasis on reducing both
the cost of new programs and the time it takes to develop them. But we
are concerned that the typical direction of past reforms--increasing
the process involved in making procurement decisions--may detract from
the clear authority and accountability that alone can reduce cost and
increase efficiency. We offer several recommendations in this area.
Finally, our Report's last chapter deals with the QDR process
itself. While we very much approve of the impulse behind the QDR--the
desire to step back from the flow of daily events and think creatively
about the future--the QDR process as presently constituted is not well
suited to the holistic planning process needed by our Nation at this
time. The United States needs a truly comprehensive National Security
Strategic Planning Process that begins at the top and provides the
requisite guidance not only to the Department of Defense but to the
other departments and agencies of the U.S. Government that must work
together to address the range of global threats confronting our Nation.
The issues raised in our Report are sufficiently serious that we
believe an explicit warning is appropriate. The aging of the
inventories and equipment used by the Services, the decline in the size
of the Navy, escalating personnel entitlements, increased overhead and
procurement costs, and the growing stress on the force means that a
train wreck is coming in the areas of personnel, acquisition, and force
structure. In addition, our Nation needs to build greater civil
operational capacity to deploy civilians alongside our military and to
partner with international bodies, the private sector, and
nongovernmental organizations in dealing with failed and failing
states.
The potential consequences for the United States of a ``business as
usual'' attitude towards the concerns expressed in this Report are not
acceptable. We are confident that the trend lines can be reversed, but
it will require an ongoing, bipartisan concentration of political will
in support of decisive action.
In conclusion, we wish to again acknowledge the cooperation of the
Department of Defense in the preparation of this Report--and to express
our unanimous and undying gratitude to the men and women of America's
military, and their families, whose sacrifice and dedication continue
to inspire and humble us.
Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to testify before you
today. We welcome your questions regarding the Final Report of the
Quadrennial Defense Review Independent Panel.
Chairman Levin. Thank you very much, Dr. Perry.
We will have a 7-minute first round.
Dr. Perry, let me start with you. The Department of State
(DOS) has traditionally had the lead in decisions on security
assistance through programs like foreign military financing. In
recent years, DOD has brought an increasing share of resources
to the table in determining the distribution of U.S. security
assistance through programs like train-and-equip programs, the
Iraq Security Forces Fund, the Afghan Security Forces Fund.
The panel's report, Secretary Gates, and a number of think
tanks in Washington have proposed the idea of establishing an
interagency-controlled pool of resources in certain areas such
as counterterrorism, stabilization, and post conflict. DOD,
DOS, and the U.S. Agency for International Development have
national security interests, and each has a role to play in
these critical areas, and to varying degrees, they cooperate in
advancing the foreign policy agenda.
Would you recommend pooling these resources and providing
each of these agencies an equal seat at the table in
distribution of the nondirected portions of these military
security assistance accounts?
Dr. Perry. In a word, yes. The kind of conflicts we have
been fighting in Bosnia, Iraq, and Afghanistan cannot be done
successfully by DOD alone. They are fundamentally interagency
problems. Providing the right training for that and the right
coordination for that is very difficult, but we really have to
face those issues.
I would make an analogy with the problems of getting joint
service operations in an earlier era, which finally led to the
Goldwater-Nichols bill and to where we now truly have joint
operations. That was difficult as well, but it was
accomplished. Something comparable needs to be done in this
area.
Chairman Levin. Now, is there any recommendations you have
as to where you would draw the line between where DOS would
have the lead in providing assistance and where DOD would have
that authority?
Dr. Perry. I don't have a good formula for drawing that
line, Senator Levin.
Chairman Levin. Okay.
Dr. Perry. I would say that certainly, a basis for making
that judgment should be on the proportion of effort of each of
the various departments.
Chairman Levin. Now for some of us, the civilian agencies,
which are better suited to build capacity in certain nondefense
elements of the security sector, have provided a very uneven
performance in those areas to date. We have seen their
operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and they have not been
particularly steady or successful. They have been halting, and
we have had to push that envelope a lot.
Would you agree with that? If so, is that not going to be a
problem?
Dr. Perry. I do agree with that, and I think at least two
things could be done to correct or improve that process. First
would be to adequately fund that mission, that function in the
civilian agencies that has been traditionally underfunded in
the past and, second, to have DOD and the civilian agencies
train together, exercise together for these kinds of missions.
That has been completely absent in the past.
Chairman Levin. Okay. You have made some recommendations
relative to Navy capacity, particularly for the Asia-Pacific
region, and you have cited potential challenges in Asia as the
reason to increase the size of the Navy fleet. What specific
capabilities did the panel find to enhance our capability in
the Asia-Pacific region?
Given the long lead times inherent in the budgeting and
construction associated with major acquisition programs such as
shipbuilding, what would you consider the most pressing
military needs in the Asia-Pacific region? Either one of you
could answer that.
Dr. Perry. I would say, generally, the most pressing need
is dealing with so-called anti-access missions, that is,
various military systems that could deny access of our fleet to
the Western Pacific. High on that list would be certainly anti-
ship missiles, divining countermeasures for those.
Mr. Hadley. We were not in a position to generate a
detailed force structure. A lot has changed in the 21st
century, but the circumference of the Earth and the percent
covered by water is one thing that hasn't. What we thought was
that a bigger presence requirement would require a bigger Navy.
Obviously, much more work needs to be done to make sure
that the Navy is structured in a way that is appropriate to the
challenges. The one thing we did identify was that this anti-
access process needs to be addressed, but exactly what ships
with which capabilities is something this committee and the
Department would have to develop.
Chairman Levin. Okay. The panel's acquisition-related
recommendations would give greater responsibility and authority
to the combatant commands supported by the Services for the
identification of weapons and equipment requirements or
capability gaps. We have included provisions in recent
legislation, including both the WSARA and the NDAA, which the
committee reported earlier this year, that would ensure that
combatant commanders play an important role in the requirements
development process.
However, General Cartwright, who has been a leading
advocate for an improved requirements process, has told us that
the combatant commands have heavy responsibilities as
operational headquarters executing missions around the world
and cannot be expected to run the requirements process.
Are you familiar with General Cartwright's recommendations
for improving the requirements process? If so, would you agree
or disagree with him as to the appropriate role of the
combatant commanders?
Dr. Perry. I have not read General Cartwright's testimony.
Chairman Levin. Mr. Hadley, are you familiar with that?
Mr. Hadley. Yes, we think--and I think our report
suggests--that the combatant commander doesn't necessarily run
the process, but the combatant commander, supported by the
Joint Chiefs, should be looked to for his input on this
requirements issue since they are the closest to the----
Chairman Levin. More so than is currently the case?
Mr. Hadley. Mr. Chairman, what we tried to do was where
there were reforms that had been in place--and the activities
of this committee is one--we tried to reaffirm those reforms we
thought were in the right direction and suggest where we had to
go further. We think that a number of things in the
legislation, which came out of this committee are in the right
direction, and this was one.
Chairman Levin. Okay. Thank you.
Senator McCain.
Senator McCain. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to again thank the panel. Could I discuss for a
minute with the panel members this latest issue of the leak of
93,000 documents? Obviously, we have already had a private
first class charged with leaking of documents.
The environment that we grew up in was that classified
information was kept on close hold. There was a need-to-know
provision that even if you had clearance, you did not have
access unless you had need-to-know.
Now we have a situation where apparently a private first
class was able to get access to classified information, and,
apparently, other people that shouldn't have obviously did,
abetted and aided by a willing and compliant media that doesn't
seem to care about national security or the lives of the
Afghans that have been put at risk.
How do you size up that problem, and what do we need to do?
It is obviously due to the age of computers. Dr. Perry or
Steve, whoever wants to take a stab at that.
Dr. Perry. I think there are two fundamental factors
leading to this problem. First is the desire to get
intelligence down to the battlefield level so that people who
are fighting the battles have access to the best intelligence.
I completely support that requirement, and I understand why
there is the desire to do that. That inevitably leads to much
more information being held at lower levels in the military.
Second, it fundamentally has to do with the fact of the
digital age that we are now in, as you said. That it is not
only possible to transmit huge amounts of data, but it is also
possible to store it in very simple and small devices. That is
a fundamental problem. I don't think I can give you a solution
for how to deal with that.
But I do support both factors which have caused this
problem, both getting the information down to the people who
can use it in the field and the greater use of the digital
systems to handle and process data. That does make us highly
vulnerable to these kinds of leaks.
Mr. Hadley. One of the problems is anonymity. I think many
people believe that if something is anonymous, it makes it more
reliable because people will then speak the truth if shielded
from responsibility. I think just the opposite. Anonymity is a
problem because it does not hold people responsible for the
results of their actions, and we don't have a good way when
people leak to hold them to account.
A lot of leaks occur. A lot of leaks get referred to the
Justice Department. Very few leaks get prosecuted so that
people are able to escape responsibility for the consequences
of their actions, and that is a problem.
Dr. Perry. I would say one other thing, Senator McCain.
When I was the Secretary, we had an example of an egregious
leak which I thought compromised the national security. We
prosecuted a case and sent the leaker to prison. I think more
examples of that would be useful in injecting better discipline
in the system.
Senator McCain. I thank you both.
The situation as it exists now, obviously, we want to
preserve those aspects of technology that you point out, Dr.
Perry, but at the same time, it seems to me that cybersecurity
has been rocketed up to the top of our priority list here. We
have had indications of a need for it in the past, entire
computer systems being shut down, et cetera, et cetera. At
least if there is anything good that comes out of this, it may
put emphasis on the absolute requirement for us to address
cybersecurity.
Dr. Perry, in the 1990s, as part of your honorable service,
you talked to the defense industries and told them that there
would have to be consolidations, which I don't disagree with
that. But it seems to me, we have ended up, despite our efforts
legislatively and other areas, in the worst of all worlds. We
have a consolidated defense complex, industrial defense
complex, and, at the same time, a lack of competition, but yet
a lack of sufficient cost controls being in place.
It seems to me that is the fundamental problem here with
cost overruns. On the one hand, you can impose further
government intervention and regulation, or you can encourage
competition, which isn't likely to happen. In fact, more and
more major industries are getting out of the defense business.
I would really like your thoughts on that because we all
know that cost overruns not only are damaging to our ability to
defend the Nation, but it is also greatly damaging to our
credibility.
Dr. Perry. We were very conscious of that problem when we
prepared this report. The primary recommendation we made on
controlling costs had to do with strongly recommending that
major programs be limited from the beginning to a 5- to 7-year
period, from the time of the beginning of the program to the
time of delivering the operational equipment.
We know that can be done. It was done in the F-15. It was
done in the F-16. It was done in the F-117, all of which
programs came in on cost and on schedule. So I think a
discipline on schedule is the first requirement.
The competition we have had in major aerospace programs at
the front end of the program has been, I think, sufficient. The
issue is also whether you can continue that competition through
the production of the equipment. In other words, can you have
dual-source production? In our report, we recommended that
whenever that truly leads to continuing competition that we
should provide for dual source.
Mr. Hadley. If I could add a third consideration? Our
panel's conclusion is once the performance requirements for a
system get set, they remain in stone. If the program gets in
trouble, you either extend the time, and that usually means you
increase the cost. Our recommendation is that performance
should be in the trade space. With the advice of the combatant
commanders, you should be willing to trade away performance in
order to maintain cost and schedule.
We need to start using technology not just to drive up
performance but, in some cases, to hold performance constant
and use technology to drive down cost. That is the only way, in
our view, we are going to have both an adequate force structure
and a modernized force structure.
Senator McCain. Mr. Chairman, if you will indulge me one
other question very quickly. It seems to me that your
recommendations for increasing the size or capability of the
Navy, especially in the Pacific region, is a recognition of the
rise of China and the influence of China in the region. The
latest dust-up about the South China Sea is an example.
But yet there are allegations such as Secretary Gates said.
It is a dire threat that by 2020 the United States will only
have 20 times more advanced stealth fighters than China.
Secretary Gates says, ``Does the number of warships we have and
are building really put America at risk when the U.S. battle
fleet is larger than the next 13 navies combined, 11 of which
belong to allies and partners?'' How do you respond to that?
Dr. Perry. Secretary Gates is operating within restrained
budget. Our requirements, we were not restrained by budget. We
were looking just at the requirements and the needs. We did
observe that if our recommendations were actually acted upon,
they would require an increase in the top line of the DOD
budget.
But I believe that there is a growing importance of the
United States being able to maintain free transit in the
Western Pacific, and there is a growing difficulty in being
able to do that. The only way I can see of achieving that is by
increasing the size and capability of the Navy.
Senator McCain. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Levin. Thank you, Senator McCain.
Senator Lieberman.
Senator Lieberman. Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
Secretary Perry, Mr. Hadley, thanks very much for really an
extraordinary piece of work. It is a very important document,
which shows a lot of thoughtfulness. All the more important, I
think, because you have achieved your goal of having it be
nonpartisan and because it is self-evident that you were not
special pleading for any Service or industry or whatever.
You start out very methodically with the four traditional
security interests of the United States. You talk about global
trends that represent the most significant threats to our
security today. Then you provide answers to how we can best
meet those.
Along the lines of ``no good deed should go unpunished,'' I
have a suggestion for you, which is this. We are heading into a
time, self-evidently, of fiscal austerity. I fear that the
defense budget will become a fashionable target for cuts,
thereby creating some real peril for our country because my own
personal belief is that security is the pre-condition to
liberty and prosperity. So if we are not able to provide for
the security of the American people, we are not going to be
able to guarantee the great values of liberty and prosperity
and the pursuit of happiness that our founding documents
guarantee.
I want to cite for you the example of the 9/11 Commission,
Governor Kean and Congressman Hamilton. After their official
work was done, they somehow miraculously reconstituted
themselves in the status of a nonprofit corporation. They
continued to issue regular reports and entered the debate about
our homeland security.
I hope that the two of you and your commission members will
consider doing that because I think we are going to come to
some points in the not-so-distant future where we in Congress
really will need an independent outside group to come in and
say, ``hey, what you are about to do here is not good for the
national security of the American people or what you are about
to do makes sense in a tight budget situation.''
I don't particularly invite a response. I fear that if I
give you the opportunity, you might be negative. I want you to
think about it. So I hope you will think about that.
I note Colonel Nagl is here. He runs the Center for a New
American Security. He has proven a remarkable ability to raise
money. I don't know how he does it. But I am sure it is all
legal. But he might be one to assist in making this vision come
true.
I want to say that it was my honor during the 1990s to work
with former--and it looks like maybe future--Senator Dan Coats
on the legislation that actually created the responsibility and
authority to do the QDR. In that regard, I want to say that I
share your criticism of what has become of the QDR.
A lot of the problems you cite, as you say, are
understandable. It is much more focused on the current threats,
the wars, and to some extent, unfortunately, on defense of
current programs. What we had hoped this would be was, at a
minimum, looking 4 years forward. Instead those other things,
the defense of the programs, confronting the wars, is what we
do, what DOD does in the annual budget submissions, what we do
here.
We were trying to get the process to rise above the
immediate and look over the horizon. I think you have made a
very good case that it is not doing that now. I think your idea
of the independent panel is a good one. I would still not want
to give up on something like the QDR because I think we ought
to be trying to force people inside the building to look over
the horizon, as well as convening an independent panel.
I don't know if you have a response to that. Is it possible
to combine your suggestion for making statutory the independent
review with some continuation and perhaps sharpening of a QDR?
Dr. Perry. I would not want to suggest that the
recommendation we made is the only way of proceeding on this
problem.
Senator Lieberman. Yes.
Dr. Perry. But if you are trying to keep the QDR and have
it look at long-range planning as well as force, as well as the
budgetary issue, it has to be later in the process because for
the first 6 months of a DOD QDR, the team is usually not fully
together.
Senator Lieberman. That is right.
Dr. Perry. Therefore, you are asking the team to do
something that they are not there to do. So it has to be either
later in the process or, as we suggested, getting it started
ahead of the game. Then there has to be an independent group
outside of it.
Senator Lieberman. That is a good suggestion.
Mr. Hadley?
Mr. Hadley. I think the only way that would work is if you
have a front end, as we propose with the independent panel on
the national security strategic planning process, that will
force and lay out a broader framework and then have that
broader framework with a broader time horizon drive the
individual planning processes within DOD. That is the model we
propose.
Whether you formally need a Quadrennial Diplomacy and
Development Review or QDR at DOD or whether you can do that
through the normal planning, programming, budgeting, and
execution process, I leave to you. But I think you won't get
there without the broader front-end process that we recommend
in our report.
Senator Lieberman. Okay. I would like to continue that
conversation. I thank you.
I think that perhaps the most important contribution of the
panel will have been to highlight the need for continued,
sustained, strong defense funding if we are to maintain the
forces we need to protect our security. I was particularly
struck by your recommendation about the Navy.
We are now at about 285 vessels at sea. The goal for a long
time has been a 313-ship fleet, which we are not reaching at
all. You have recommended 346 ships. I wanted to ask you in
this public session whether you would describe what
capabilities you envision growing in this larger fleet and why.
Dr. Perry. Three points. First of all, more ships give you
more presence, and presence itself is important. Second,
improved anti-ship capabilities. Third, improved anti-submarine
warfare capabilities.
Senator Lieberman. Mr. Hadley?
Mr. Hadley. The principal task is to maintain our ability
to have access to international waters throughout the world.
People have focused on China and the anti-access threat there.
It is also in the Persian Gulf. There are a lot of places.
That, I think, is the principal mission. You want a
configuration of ships and operational concepts that vindicate
that mission. That entails both, in our view, a larger Navy,
but it also involves in some sense doing things differently and
more creatively so we can achieve that objective with an
operationally sound concept and as modest a cost as we can
achieve.
Senator Lieberman. So is it fair to conclude from your
recommendation that you would say that the 285-ship Navy that
we have now or the 313-ship Navy that is our goal now is not
adequate to give us the access we need around the world to
protect our national security in the decades ahead?
Mr. Hadley. We think the challenge is going to get greater,
and we don't see how you can meet a greater challenge with a
diminishing number of ships. Again, bottom-up review seemed a
good place to start, and that is what that number is, a
starting point, because it was at a time 17 years ago when we
thought the world was going to be much more benign than it
turned out to be.
Senator Lieberman. Right.
Mr. Hadley. We see challenges coming even greater in the
future in this area, and that is why we think as a mark on the
wall that 340 is probably the right number.
Senator Lieberman. Thank you both.
Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Levin. Thank you, Senator Lieberman.
Senator Burr.
Senator Burr. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Perry, Mr. Hadley, welcome.
To either one of you, the comprehensive approach also
requires international security assistance and cooperation
programs. As we have seen in Iraq and to a different degree in
Afghanistan, our coalition and North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO) partners are often constrained in the near-
term by public opinion and in the long-term by budgetary
austerity measures that limit their ability to provide the
proper mix and quantity of forces.
With the latitude to participate without strict rules of
engagement, it is likely that these nations will continue to
spend far less than we do on national security. Given that
reality, should we expect many of our NATO partners and allies
will not be willing or able to support the types of operations
that will be undertaken in the future and that that may be
better suited for a more defined, nonkinetic role in support of
future operations?
Mr. Hadley. Those are certainly constraints. I think the
point the report tries to make is part of the constraints of
building better partners are not just their reluctance or the
constraints they are under, but constraints that we have
imposed on ourselves.
So we talk about in our security systems reforms, building
systems in the United States that are able to be shared with
allies in the get-go, so that we can have allies working with
common systems with us. We talk about identifying
communications and others' equipment that can be shared among
allies so that it enables them to partner with us in the most
effective way.
So the constraints you describe are real. But within those
constraints, we have imposed some constraints on ourselves. The
recommendations of the report are how to eliminate the
constraints we have imposed on ourselves.
Senator Burr. Great. Steve, if I could, one last question
to you. Part of your review is to look at emerging threats, and
this is not the first time you have had the responsibility to
look at emerging threats.
Do you see chemical and biological weapons as a real
threat? Is our research and response in this country today
sufficient for the threat that you perceive?
Mr. Hadley. No. There has been a lot recently about the
need for greater preparedness, particularly on biological,
which is a much more strategic threat than is chemical. I think
the priorities are nuclear, biological, and chemical. I think
the report says that there is more to be done on weapons of
mass destruction, and the priority there, I think, is nuclear
and then bio. More to do.
Senator Burr. On many of those threats, there is a fine
line between an agent that is a disease threat to us and an
agent that is used for the purposes of terrorism. You were in
the administration when we stood up biomedical advanced
research and development authority at Health and Human
Services, and we created the BioShield procurement fund. Those
most recently have been under attack to steal the money out of
both. Do you see that as a threat to our country's national
security?
Mr. Hadley. It is a threat. It is also, as you point out,
short-term thinking because the investments we make in
defending against the biological weapon threat also help enable
us to deal with disease threats. So it is a case where if we do
it right--and there are members on this panel with more
expertise than myself--it can be win-win both for defending the
country and enabling us to better deal with pandemic and other
threats.
Senator Burr. Thank you for that. I thank both of you for
the review.
I thank the chairman.
Chairman Levin. Thank you very much, Senator Burr.
Senator Ben Nelson.
Senator Ben Nelson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, gentlemen, for your service.
In your report, you highlight the cooperation between the
Air Force and Navy on the AirSea Battle concept as one of the
best examples of Services developing I think what you called
new conceptual approaches to deal with operational challenges
we will face.
I am glad you have drawn attention to an effort to break
down the barriers, sometimes referred to as stovepipes, between
the various branches so that they can use their collective and
collaborative capabilities more efficiently.
One of the things that has always been important is
enhancing overall mission effectiveness, and the best use of
available resources where the branches of Services come
together. But one area where there just simply doesn't seem to
be that level of cooperation is each branch wants to develop
its own fleet of unmanned aircraft.
What can we do, in your opinion? How do you assess the
ability to avoid duplication and unnecessary redundancy that
very often develops from each wanting to develop its own?
I am in favor of competition from time to time, but not
necessarily in this area, where cooperation and collaboration
would serve us a lot better. What are your thoughts about that?
Dr. Perry first, and then Steve.
Dr. Perry. I can see the need for each of the Services for
unmanned aircraft. Further, that each of the Services probably
have needs for unique aircraft.
In the case of the Army, it would be very short range,
basically soldier-launched aircraft. In the Navy, it would be
ship-launched aircraft, unmanned aircraft.
But having said that, there is a very broad area of
commonality here as well, and I would think it would be very
appropriate to have a joint office for unmanned aircraft, which
would deal with the requirements for all three Services and
would strive to get standardization even among the different
Services' unmanned aircraft. I think nothing could be more
important to our future than continuing to aggressively develop
this capability, but I do very much take your point that there
is a greater need for jointness in this field.
Senator Ben Nelson. Steve?
Mr. Hadley. I agree with that. It needs to be done in a
coordinated way with an eye on duplication that is unnecessary
and emphasizing commonality wherever possible. I think it is
important that this report not get characterized as the ``we
need more'' report. The essence of this report is, in some
cases, we need more, but that we need to do things in a better,
in a smarter way, in a different way, a more effective way with
an eye on cost.
Having said all that, where quantity matters, we have tried
to make that point as well. But I don't want the rest of it to
be lost.
Senator Ben Nelson. Thank you.
Regarding force structure, the report concludes, first and
foremost, that it is important to rapidly modernize our force.
You also recommend an alternative force structure, increasing
the size of our existing force.
We really would like to do everything that we could afford
to do, but is it even likely that we might be able to afford an
alternative force?
Dr. Perry. Briefly, my answer would be yes. There are many
different ways of assessing affordability. One common way
through the years has been as a percentage of the gross
domestic product (GDP). As a percentage of GDP, our defense
spending is not excessively high. By that criterion, I think
the answer is, yes, we could afford more.
Mr. Hadley. The report applauds ongoing efforts to reduce
costs, reduce duplication, acquisition reform, suggests
additional ways and additional reforms, which we think will
produce additional cost savings. We think we need to address
the cost increase of the All-Volunteer Force. Our view is we
need to do all of those things very vigorously and save as much
money as we can.
But what we thought we owed this committee was to say that
if those savings do not produce enough savings in order for us
to afford the force structure we need, a modernized force and
the All-Volunteer Force, then the country has to be prepared to
increase the top line. Our expectation is that there may need
to be some increase in the top line. We thought we owed this
committee that statement.
Senator Ben Nelson. Thank you.
Last week, Dr. Hadley, you told the HASC that your panel
thinks we really need to rethink the relationship between the
Active Force, the Guard, and the Reserve. Of course, you said
the question is which role for the Guard and Reserve? How much
of it is an operational reserve and how much of it is a
strategic reserve?
Just last Saturday, we sent an additional 300 Nebraskans to
Afghanistan. The Guard and Reserve continue to contribute to
the operational reserve. Can you speak to the significant
factors you see affecting the balance between a strategic and
an operational reserve force? What is your assessment of our
current mix in that regard?
Mr. Hadley. Obviously, the Active Force is the most
expensive way to deal with the mission. Where the Guard and
Reserve can make a contribution, we think it is a smart way to
go.
The Guard and Reserve is very stretched, and it needs to be
looked at. It is operational reserve, strategic reserve, and
homeland mission. We talked, for example, that there needs to
be perhaps greater priority for that in terms of the Guard and
Reserve. We could not, within our own resources, make a
specific recommendation on the right balance, which is why we
thought it was important to have the national commission on
military personnel take a thoughtful look at it.
But we believe that we can and should have a better balance
between Active, Guard, and Reserve and consider some kind of
capacity to mobilize beyond the Guard and Reserve. We have
talked on the civilian side of a civilian response corps--
firefighters, policemen, and the like--that would be available
potentially for missions overseas as required. That may be a
concept that we can be using, for example, dealing with issues
like cybersecurity and the like.
So our only point here is we need some new thinking. We
have given our own recommendations, the direction of change,
and suggested that Congress and the White House establish this
national commission to follow it up.
Senator Ben Nelson. Part of the continuing obligation and
requirements would be at the State level in the event of
emergencies--nonmilitary emergencies, natural disasters, and
the like. I would assume that would continue to be part of the
ongoing role of the Guard in particular?
Mr. Hadley. Yes, sir.
Dr. Perry. Senator Nelson, I think that is a particularly
important part of our recommendation, to focus some part of the
National Guard on preparing for the homeland defense mission.
They are uniquely able to do that, and some segment of the
Guard ought to be focused on that particular mission.
They train with the local police. They train with the State
police. That makes them uniquely able to respond to
emergencies.
Senator Ben Nelson. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Levin. Thank you very much, Senator Nelson.
Senator Chambliss.
Senator Chambliss. Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
Gentlemen, good to see both of you again. Thanks for your
continuing service to our country.
The United States has been successful in maintaining air
dominance, basically, since the Korean War. That has allowed us
to provide ground support in every theater we have ever been
in. Times have changed. Conditions on the ground have changed
relative to the war on terrorism, but obviously, we don't know
where the next adversary is going to come from.
Today, we know that both Russia and China are building
airplanes that they have publicly said compete or, in their
opinion, are superior to the F-22, which is designed to make
sure that we maintain air dominance. The F-35 is a great
airplane, but it is interesting to note that those countries
don't even mention the F-35 in their public statements because
its mission is primarily air-to-ground, and from an air
dominance standpoint, the F-22 is our lone asset in the sky out
there.
Obviously, we have made a decision to discontinue
production of that. We now will have somewhere between 120 and
140 F-22s at any one time available to maintain that air
dominance in whatever region of the world the next adversary
appears.
During the course of your review of the QDR, did your panel
have any discussion about this issue? Assuming that you did,
what kind of conclusions did you arrive at relative to air
dominance?
Mr. Hadley. We thought that we need to look at the Air
Force in terms of air superiority--we talked about the need for
more long-range strike. There is, of course, also continuing
need for a modernized force for lift.
Our judgment was that we do need a fully modernized force
and a fully capable force, but our judgment was that the
requirements of the Air Force could be met within the current
size of the force. The issue then becomes the right mix,
ensuring a fully modernized force within that mix. That was the
challenge, and the one thing we emphasized was that
modernization be long-range strike.
As a first approximation, that is how we looked at the Air
Force, the emphasis on the air superiority mission, but
believing that it could be accomplished adequately within the
currently sized force.
Senator Chambliss. Okay. I think it is interesting that you
did conclude that the top line needs to continue to rise. I
know one of your panel members was Senator Jim Talent, and Jim
and I have been long-time advocates. I am sure that he was very
forceful in his comments and discussions with the panel about
that.
You found that the 2010 QDR lacked a clear force planning
construct and that thus, by implication, DOD doesn't really
have one. In the absence of a clear force planning construct,
how does DOD determine priorities, goals, and investment
decisions across the department?
Dr. Perry. Our critique of the force planning structure was
on the future, the 10- to 20-year planning period. We believe
they certainly have a careful consideration on the way to
structure the force for the present needs. So the critique was
only directed to the 20-year time planning period. That is
where we felt that there was a missed opportunity.
Senator Chambliss. In your report, you talk about how the
aging of the inventories and equipment used by the Services,
the decline in the size of the Navy, and the escalating
personnel entitlements is going to lead to a train wreck in the
areas of personnel acquisition and force structure. In your
view, which of these issues is most pressing, and what are the
potential consequences of not addressing these issues and those
priorities?
Dr. Perry. Certainly, number one on my list was the fact
that we are simply wearing out or destroying our equipment in
the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The need for
recapitalization, at a minimum, is going to be very extensive
and very expensive.
Mr. Hadley. I don't think that we have the luxury, really,
of picking among the three. We thought all three were a top
priority, that we had to save the All-Volunteer Force, have
adequate structure, and do the modernization. That really was
behind the recommendation.
Senator Chambliss. Lastly, I want to veer off-course for
just a minute and take advantage of both of your being here to
ask you a question about an issue that is very much front and
center with this committee right now, as well as with the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee. That is the issue of the
Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START). I know both of you
have made public comments about that.
I know both of you have come out in support of the treaty,
but what concerns do you both have about the treaty? What would
be the implication for the United States if we fail to ratify
this treaty in the Senate?
Dr. Perry?
Dr. Perry. I believe if the United States failed to ratify
this treaty, our country would essentially lose any ability for
international leadership in this field and international
influence in the field. I think this would be a very unhappy
consequence.
Senator Chambliss. Do you have any concerns about
provisions in the treaty?
Dr. Perry. I do not. I have studied the treaty rather
carefully, and it is my own judgment that it provides
adequately for the national security interests of the United
States.
Senator Chambliss. Steve?
Mr. Hadley. I think there are concerns about some
ambiguities on some of the coverage issues, the concerns about
whether it indirectly would put some limitations on missile
defense or conventional strike. I think there are concerns that
we have, the kind of modernization of our nuclear
infrastructure, our weapons, and our delivery systems to
maintain a credible strategic force going forward.
The good news is, in the appearance I had on this,
Republicans and Democrats seem to share these concerns and
believe they need to be addressed. So my view is, with that
bipartisan consensus, let us address these problems in the
ratification process. Then we can, on a bipartisan basis,
ratify the New START treaty because the problem has been fixed.
I have not seen much disagreement about the commitment to a
modernized force, to not have defenses constrained, and,
obviously, to sort out any ambiguity. So I think there is a
terrific opportunity in the Senate in the ratification process
to address these bipartisan concerns. Then, having addressed
them, I think people can feel very comfortable about ratifying
this agreement.
Senator Chambliss. Your thoughts about not ratifying it,
the implications of that?
Mr. Hadley. I don't get there because I think the problems
that people have identified need to be fixed in their own
right. Once they are fixed, then the issue of ratification
becomes easy.
So I think they should be fixed, and then the treaty should
be ratified. It makes a modest, but useful contribution to the
process of dealing with these strategic weapons.
Senator Chambliss. Okay. Thank you very much.
Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Levin. Thank you very much, Senator Chambliss.
Senator Udall.
Senator Udall. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Good morning, gentlemen.
I want to thank Senator Chambliss for his important
questions about the START. I think it is a fact that, right
now, we have no treaty in place. Is that correct, gentlemen?
Dr. Perry. That is correct.
Senator Udall. I think that is an important reason to move
forward. I appreciate, Mr. Hadley, what you said about building
on what START II would provide us. There are some significant
questions that need to be answered. But I, too, hope the Senate
will move quickly to ratify the treaty by the end of the year.
Let me turn to the QDR itself. There was some attention
paid in the QDR to energy security and the effects of climate
change on the DOD. The QDR made it clear that these were
concerns that the DOD leadership thought were real and needed
to be addressed.
Did you, in your efforts, look at energy security and
climate? Did you draw any conclusions about whether the
Pentagon has enough resources to respond?
Mr. Hadley. We addressed it in a couple of different ways.
First of all, one of the emerging problems we feel is increased
competition for resources and as countries try to get energy
security.
Second, our report noted that energy issues and climate
change are liable to exacerbate some of the problems we are
going to face over the next 20 years.
Third, we talked about the need to take into account cost
of energy, both in fueling platforms, but in terms of also
getting energy--gas, oil, and the like--into combat theaters.
We thought that that should be a consideration in the
acquisition process--energy efficiency. But we could not come
up with a specific recommendation as to how to take that into
account in the acquisition process.
So I think our judgment was that it is a priority. DOD
needs to address it. We did not have any specific
recommendations to offer on it at this time.
Dr. Perry. Senator Udall, I would just offer one additional
comment by way of example.
We complain about the high cost of gasoline at the pump of
$3 or $4 a gallon, depending on where you live in this country.
But the cost of gasoline delivered to a forward operating base
can be $50 or $500 or $1,000, not counting the lives that are
put at stake by getting the gasoline there. The importance of
energy considerations in our national security is very clear, I
think.
Senator Udall. Thank you, Dr. Perry.
I am convinced DOD will lead us toward more energy security
and new technologies, if we provide them with the support and
the interest. Thank you for taking time in your commission's
efforts to consider that important area.
Senator Chambliss and others, including yourself, have
talked about the rising costs associated with doing right by
our men and women in uniform. I think you proposed a
commission, a national commission on military personnel, of the
quality and stature I think of the Gates Commission back in the
1970s.
Could you talk just a little bit more about the mandate
that you propose and the challenges it would address? How do
you think the service chiefs would react to such a commission?
Dr. Perry. The Gates Commission was originally established
because they considered the problems were so fundamental, they
should not be left to each military department considering what
to do about them. They made a sweeping recommendation, which
led to the All-Volunteer Force, which has been a very important
benefit.
Such a commission, if it were established, should consider
very basic issues--for example, the longstanding up-and-out
practice of the military. With the trend of rising longevity,
and with the importance of technical aspects in the military
today, it is very clear that we need people who have benefited
from the training, who have the technical background, to stay
in the Service longer than they are now staying.
That is going to take making a fairly fundamental change to
the way our personnel systems are run today.
A related issue is, of course, the rising costs of
healthcare, the TRICARE costs. That has to be reconsidered from
first principles as well, exceedingly important to the military
to have some sort of a benefit. But the benefits, as they are
now established, will simply be unaffordable to go on into the
future.
So those are the kinds of issues that need to be
considered. They are very difficult, and they are very
politically sensitive issues. Therefore, it is going to take
something of the nature of the Gates Commission to make those
changes.
Senator Udall. Would you recommend that the Simpson-Bowles
Commission, which is undertaking an important study right now--
it will hopefully be followed by recommendations on how we
drive down our deficits--that they give the chiefs a chance to
testify along with Secretary Gates?
Mr. Hadley. I think that would be useful. But I think our
judgment was these issues are so technical, and you want to
reform the All-Volunteer Force and the career patterns without
breaking them, and reform them--we are in the middle of
fighting a war. This is a delicate business. That is why we
thought you really needed a commission of distinguished people
supported by the right expertise that would really focus
exclusively on this problem.
Our sense in the witnesses we heard from is that the
Military Services would see this needs to be done, see the
train wreck government coming, and would generally welcome this
recommendation. That is our belief.
Senator Udall. That is a very powerful image, by the way, a
train wreck.
Let me talk on the macrocosmic level. I think it is
probably my last question. I think the chairman alluded to this
and asked some specific questions as well.
But you actually, as I understand it, recommend that we set
aside the QDR process and craft a new way forward. An
independent strategic review panel, I think, is the way in
which you characterized it. Would you comment, both of you,
about your thinking in that regard and how we would put such a
new approach in place?
Dr. Perry. First of all, the timing of the QDR is wrong in
terms of the capability of a newly established DOD. Second, the
focus on strategic issues instead of budgetary and program
issues is needed. Given both of those factors, we felt that it
was important to get this process started earlier, and that
almost by definition has to be an independent panel outside of
DOD.
So the key to our recommendation there was the
establishment of this independent strategic review panel, and
we felt that it would be best established before the new
administration came in place. So Congress and the executive
branch, about the time of the presidential elections, would
appoint the panel, and they would be ready to start then in
January of the year and have the report ready 6 months later.
That would get the timing in sync with the objectives that we
called for.
Mr. Hadley. That report then would be taken by this
national security strategic planning process to give a
government-wide look to set some priorities, and with that
guidance, then you could go into the departmental planning
processes.
Our judgment was that what this committee was seeking out
of the QDR process was right, but a DOD-only process was not
going to get you there. So, what we tried to design was a
process that would get you what you were looking for in a way
that would actually perform, and that is what we hope we have
done.
Senator Udall. Thank you, gentlemen.
It is uplifting to see the two of you sitting there
together, working together. So thank you for being here today,
and thanks for your good work.
Chairman Levin. Thank you, Senator Udall.
Senator Collins.
Senator Collins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Let me echo the comments of Senator Udall that it is
wonderful that you have come together to produce such an
excellent report. I thank you for that public service, as well
as both of you for your previous public service.
Your report very clearly states that to project power and
ensure access, we need a larger Navy. Mr. Hadley, you said it
very well this morning. You said greater challenges require
more ships. That raises the question of why didn't the QDR
reach that conclusion, which you document carefully in your
report.
The law requires that the QDR directly state the
recommendations in a way that are not limited by the
President's budget request. Do you believe that DOD in the QDR
proposed a smaller force structure than your panel proposed for
the Navy because DOD was, in effect, considering budget
requirements, even though the law very clearly states that that
is not supposed to be a consideration?
Mr. Hadley?
Mr. Hadley. I think they tried to walk a line between
budget constrained and budget unconstrained. I think our best
judgment was that the QDR was informed by the budget, that in
some sense they were developing their budget proposals in
parallel with the QDR.
It is laudable in one sense because they did not want to
make policy or force structure recommendations that they could
not afford, and you can understand why they would do that. But
the effect of it was, I think, that it was not an unconstrained
look.
Our judgment is that it is almost inevitable, if you give
this to DOD, that that is probably the best you are going to
get. Therefore, if you really want an unconstrained look, you
need a different kind of process, which is what led us to the
recommendations that are contained in our report.
Senator Collins. The problem is that the law is pretty
clear that it is supposed to be unconstrained by budget
considerations. I think you are right that the practical
reality is that it is not going to be, given that the same
people who are involved in the budget analysis and the budget
request are also performing the QDR.
But what we really need is an assessment that is
unconstrained by the budget requests. That is what you have
given us. It is significant that in the case of the Navy, your
recommendation--looking at the threats, looking at the need to
project power and ensure access--is a Navy that would be sized
at 346 ships. That is considerably above the current level of
282 and higher than the goals set out by the Navy on
shipbuilding plans, which I believe is 313.
We do need that kind of analysis. We need to know what we
really should be providing in a world that is free from budget
constraints. Now, we are not going to be able to ever have that
kind of a situation. But if we are going to set priorities and
make the best judgments, we do need that analysis.
I want to turn to a second issue. Due to the wars in Iraq
and Afghanistan, our focus in recent years has been on
determining the appropriate end strength for the Army and the
Marine Corps. We have seen our troops under tremendous pressure
because of repeated deployments. We have seen the National
Guard and the Reserves called up repeatedly as well.
I was interested in your conclusion that the Army and the
Marine Corps are sized about right, in your judgment, while the
Navy and the Air Force are a bit too small and do need to be
increased. Did you reach that conclusion because you are
looking at the drawdown of troops in Iraq? Or did that reflect
the recent increases that we have authorized in the end
strength of the Army and the Marine Corps? What is behind that
analysis, which surprised some of us?
Mr. Hadley. We think this issue has been worked pretty hard
by DOD and Congress in the context of meeting the needs of
these conflicts. While we think there will be continuing
requirements, we don't see an increasing requirement.
So we thought the level was probably about right, and the
recommendation we had is that it be sustained for the next 3 or
4 years because the Army and the Marine Corps do have a plan to
get dwell times and the like on a more sustainable basis. So
what we thought was needed for Army and Marine Corps end
strength was stability over the years so that it can then be
built into the rotation and return times and all the rest. That
was our judgment.
Dr. Perry. It does reflect, though, the recent increase
very much.
Senator Collins. Thank you. Thank you both.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Levin. Thank you, Senator Collins.
Senator Hagan.
Senator Hagan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to thank both of the gentlemen here for your
excellent work and your testimony today.
In your opening comments, you recommended that DOD return
to a strategy requiring dual-source competition for the
production programs in circumstances where we will have real
competition. In most situations, competition works better than
sole-source contracting. That was an underlying reason last
year, under Senator Levin's and Senator McCain's leadership,
the Senate passed WSARA. Hopefully, competition does drive down
costs, enhances performance, and yields savings ultimately to
the taxpayer.
Currently, the Secretary of Defense continues to recommend
sole-sourcing one Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) into the F-135.
Terminating the F-136 JSF alternate engine will leave only one
U.S. company to produce high-performance military engines for
this platform. It is expected to be the largest engine
procurement in the history of DOD.
The development of the F-136 engine is 75 percent complete.
I understand that DOD has experienced 50 percent cost overruns
beyond the original estimates in the JSF F-135 engine.
Can you describe your views on the JSF alternate engine and
whether DOD should have dual competition in this sector? If
not, could you please describe your rationale consistent with
the panel's overall recommendation on ensuring dual
competition?
Dr. Perry. Senator Hagan, when I was the Secretary and
earlier, when I was the Under Secretary for Acquisition, I was
confronted with these kinds of decisions frequently. I found in
each case that each case was a special case, and I had to dig
very deeply into it before I came to a judgment.
I have not studied this problem enough to make an informed
judgment. While we support dual sources whenever it leads to
appropriate competition, I cannot give you a personal judgment
on whether that applies to this case.
So, therefore, I am really obliged to defer to the judgment
made by the people in DOD who have studied it carefully and
trust that they have made the right decision. But I would not
presume to offer an independent judgment on that, not having
studied it carefully and deeply.
Senator Hagan. Mr. Hadley?
Mr. Hadley. I think what our panel could do was establish a
set of general principles, which is what we did. But we didn't
really have the time and resources to take the two or three
leading cases and look at them and to be able to come with a
specific judgment or recommendation.
So we did what we could do, which was to establish
principle, dual sourcing when it results in real competition.
Then this committee, DOD is going to have to take those
principles, if you agree with them, and apply them case-by-
case.
Senator Hagan. Thank you.
I also appreciate your comments on reducing the number of
years in the contract situation.
Let me ask a question on personnel. All of the Services are
concerned with driving down the cost of manning the All-
Volunteer Force. Your panel indicated that the growth in the
costs of the All-Volunteer Force cannot be sustained for the
long-term. The panel further indicated that a failure to
address the increasing costs of the All-Volunteer Force may
result in a reduction in force structure, a reduction in
benefits, or a compromised All-Volunteer Force.
You made several recommendations aimed at modernizing the
military personnel system, including compensation reform;
adjusting military career progression to allow for the longer
and more flexible military careers; rebalance the missions of
Active, Guard, and Reserve and mobilization forces; reduce
overhead and staff duplication; and reform Active, Reserve, and
retired military healthcare and retirement benefits to put
their financing on a more stabilized basis.
Our military personnel, we know, are highly specialized
with specific skill sets that are needed in this persistent,
irregular warfare environment. We obviously cannot compromise
the QDR's goal of preserving and enhancing the All-Volunteer
Force and to develop our future military leaders.
Would you please elaborate how the All-Volunteer Force may
be compromised if we fail to address the increasing personnel
costs? Will we see a sharp decrease in retaining personnel that
have served in overseas contingency operations and what long-
term impact this might have to our military?
Mr. Hadley. Even in times of relative prosperity, it has
been costly to make sure that the incentive system was enough
to get the people we need to have a fully fleshed-out All-
Volunteer Force that meets our standards. Our concern is that
as we return to more prosperous times, the cost of retaining
the structure to fill out the All-Volunteer Force will just
continue to increase. At some point the money won't be there,
either for the All-Volunteer Force or for adequate force
structure for modernization, and that is the train wreck we
talk about.
So our judgment is we need to take a smarter approach,
maybe not so much a one-size-fits-all approach, tailoring the
military personnel system and the compensation to the different
groups of people available who have different objectives in
serving. That is the door we tried to open and suggest that
this military personnel commission needs to explore.
So the main concerns are we are okay now. But as you look
at the projections of the costs, we may not be in the future.
Let us address the problem now. That was our recommendation.
Senator Hagan. How do you weigh that with the increased
number of contractors?
Mr. Hadley. One of the things we recommend is that there be
a good look at the contracting issue and that there be an
Assistant Secretary-level person appointed to look hard at the
whole contracting issue. But there are reasons why we have
contractors.
For example, the fact that our civilian departments and
agencies have difficulty deploying promptly overseas has
resulted in a reliance on contractors, for example, to do
functions that couldn't be done in a different way. So one of
the things I think we need to do is to ask the question why is
it that we are relying on contractors? Where does it make
sense? Is it because of something else that we should address
and maybe solve a problem in a different way without using
contractors? We have suggested in our recommendations that
there needs to be more focus on that issue.
Senator Hagan. Dr. Perry?
Dr. Perry. I just wanted to make a really, I think, basic
point on this issue, which is that we have, without doubt, the
best military in the world, maybe the best the world has ever
seen. I think a primary reason for that is because of the
superb training and professional military education we have.
Those are very expensive, but they are worth it.
The second factor, though, is when you invest all of this
in training, to get the benefit of that, you need retention. I
have two comments regarding retention. The first is that
retention does depend on our benefits because the reenlistment
decision is made as much by families as it is by the military
personnel themselves. So that is a very important issue.
We are not getting enough benefit from that when we have
people leave the military at 20, 25--when we force people to
leave the military at 20 or 25 years. We need to revise our
procedures on how people leave the benefit. In particular, we
need to fundamentally review the up-and-out system.
Senator Hagan. Thank you.
Chairman Levin. Thank you, Senator Hagan.
Senator LeMieux.
Senator LeMieux. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Perry, Mr. Hadley, thank you for being here today.
Thank you for this very thoughtful report. I enjoyed reading
it.
I want to talk to you about these emerging first powers--
Brazil, Russia, India, and China--the so-called BRIC countries
and what their role will be, as you see it, going forward. It
seems that these nations want to have all the benefits of
first-tier powers but don't necessarily want to shoulder the
responsibilities.
We don't see Brazil taking a strong role in dealing with
Venezuela, for example. We don't see China taking a strong role
in dealing with North Korea. It falls upon the United States to
shoulder the burden in issues such as terrorism and dealing
with rogue countries.
How do you think that relationship can change? What can we
do so that we are not the only nation in the world that is
responsible for fighting terrorism around the world, for
shouldering this immense burden that we shoulder now? How can
we get those countries more engaged?
Mr. Hadley. I think the four countries you mentioned are
very different. BRIC are all different cases. But I think
particularly with respect to China and India, we have to
recognize that China is going through a period of enormously
rapid change. Their government is, I think, struggling to deal
with probably the fastest rate of change in the world's most
populous country, fastest rate of change we have ever seen.
So the role that China is playing and being asked to play
is new. I think it is, in some sense, true for India. India has
broken out from being a regional country to be a global
country, and it is going to take them time to adjust to that
new role.
So it is both a challenge and an opportunity. I think that
some of the language in our report makes that point. We need to
be both engaging them, trying to work with them to understand
their responsibilities and them working with us to solve global
problems.
At the same time, we make it clear that there are a set of
international rules and that all countries, including India and
China, would be better if they played within those rules. We
have to have the capabilities to enforce those rules, if
necessary.
So it is not all black or white. It is a challenge and an
opportunity, but we need to be engaging those two countries,
and we need to be present and active in Asia not just in terms
of militarily, but economically, in terms of business, in terms
of diplomacy.
There are free trade agreements being signed all the time
in Asia, and we are on the sidelines. I think the number-one
point we would make is Asia is where the action is going
forward, and we need to be a player, not on the sidelines.
Senator LeMieux. Dr. Perry?
Dr. Perry. The last administration called on China to be a
responsible stakeholder. I think that is a pretty good term. I
think pushing that concept, not only with China, but with the
other three countries, is a very good idea.
I think the point you raise is a very important one. The
best approach I can describe to dealing with that is to
continue to call these countries to be responsible
stakeholders. We need their assistance in dealing with global
problems.
Senator LeMieux. I want to focus, if I can, specifically,
as part of that larger subject, on Latin America. Not a lot of
attention in your report to it, but some. There was one line I
liked in your report where you said America has too often been
chasing the future rather than working to shape it. I have that
concern about Latin America. I think that we have taken our eye
off the ball because of all of the other things we have had to
work on around the world.
The hemisphere is obviously very important to us from a
trade perspective, but it is also important to us from an
emerging democracy perspective, as well as the challenges to
democracy that folks like Chavez and Morales and others pose in
the region.
Where do you see our relationship with Latin America in the
next 10 to 20 years? Do you have concerns about Venezuela and
threats that they may pose? I see the growing connections
between Caracas and Tehran. The presence of Hezbollah and Hamas
in Latin America gives me a lot of cause for concern.
Mr. Hadley. To be honest, I think with all the things going
on, it is a struggle for any administration to pay as much
attention to Latin America as we should, particularly with
Mexico, which is in a life-and-death struggle with
narcotraffickers, which are really posing a threat to the
future of the Mexican democracy.
The prior administration made some initiatives to try to be
a partner to Mexico. The current administration has continued
those.
Second, we need to be working with Brazil, Chile, Colombia,
Peru--those countries that have not chosen the Chavez way, but
are really trying to proceed and develop their countries on the
basis of free-market and democratic principles. Those are our
natural allies in the hemisphere. We need to be partnering
closely with them.
I would like to think that Chavez has peaked, in some
sense, in terms of his appeal. Certainly what is happening
within Venezuela is an enormous tragedy. It is destroying that
country--not only its politics, but also its economy--and that
is an example for all to see. But it is a struggle in Latin
America.
I think, as I say, it is a challenge for every
administration to pay as much attention as they should and to
be standing with those countries that are trying to make the
right decisions based on right principles.
Dr. Perry. I would like to comment on how strongly I agree
with your comments on Latin America. Indeed, when I was the
Secretary, I visited Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, and
Venezuela. I was amazed to learn that I was the first Secretary
of Defense to visit Mexico.
I established a meeting of all the defense ministers in the
hemisphere--biannual meetings which still continue to this day,
and we created the Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies.
In spite of that, I think that there has been a slacking
off of interest in that in recent years, and I would very much
urge that we return to that interest and strengthen those. We
have substantial security interests in Latin America.
Senator LeMieux. Thank you both.
My time is up, but a follow-on comment to what both of you
said, Mr. Hadley, what you commented about Mexico. It occurs to
me that Mexico is in the situation Colombia was in 10 years ago
when they are fighting for their very life.
We need to have not just diplomatic help for Mexico, but we
need to have, like we did with Colombia, a military-to-military
strong relationship now so that they can fight back what has
really become an existential threat to that government.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Levin. Thank you.
Dr. Perry. I couldn't agree more, by the way, with you on
that last point, the importance of working with Mexico,
specifically in helping them deal with their problem and using
Colombia as an example of what can and should be done.
Chairman Levin. Thank you, Senator LeMieux.
Senator Reed.
Senator Reed. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, gentlemen, and your colleagues for your
important contribution.
Secretary Perry, can you help us think through this
tradeoff between quantity and quality, which is going to be one
of the issues we will have to address? I think it is identified
in the report between the number of platforms versus the high-
tech platforms?
Dr. Perry. We have a unique advantage in the United States
in the way we can apply technology to our weapons systems. This
has given us a strong, competitive, unfair advantage over any
other military. It is manifested in the way we have used
stealth in our systems. It is manifested in the way we use
smart intelligence and smart weapons. That is a huge advantage,
and we should sustain that advantage.
There are some areas, though, where quantity is necessary,
whatever the quality of your systems. You have to have
presence, for example, in the Western Pacific, and that takes a
number of ships. That was one of the factors driving our
recommendation for increasing the size of the Navy.
But there is no doubt, particularly in the case of air
platforms, that quality gives us a huge advantage and allows us
to reduce the numbers of our air platforms.
Senator Reed. But in practice, it seems, over the last
several years at least, that the quality issue wins out. Look
at the initial plans for procurement of F-22, hundreds and
hundreds of fighter planes which have shrunk dramatically as
the price has gone up and, arguably, hopefully, the quality has
also been maintained or enhanced.
As we go forward, I think we are going to be in that
similar dilemma, where you want to have a lot of platforms, but
after DOD gets through with the design, it is pretty expensive,
and it gets more expensive in the contracting phase.
Dr. Perry or Mr. Hadley, any sort of sense of how we break
through that?
Dr. Perry. Specifically in the case of air platforms, if
you look, for example, at the bombing mission, the fact that
our bombs are precision bombs now and fall directly on the
target means it takes a small fraction of the total number of
bombs and, therefore, fewer bombers. That is one very obvious
example.
The fact that our airplanes have stealth and can resist air
defense systems means we have less attrition that way. So, in
that area, I think it has allowed for a substantial decrease in
quantity.
There are other areas that are like where we need boots-on-
the-ground, where we need the presence of naval ships, where we
need quantity as well.
Senator Reed. Thank you.
Mr. Hadley, your comments?
Mr. Hadley. We seem to have an iron law of increasing
performance, and you wonder whether it is driven by need or
just by inertia. One of the things we say in this report is
technology is a tool. We have been using it to drive
performance. We need to use technology to reduce costs that
would allow us to increase quantity.
So I read Bob Gates' comments not about quantity, but
quality. If there are places where the quality of our forces
far exceed what our adversaries have, then that is an
opportunity to use technology to bring down the cost of
fielding systems in adequate numbers to affect those things
that haven't changed, which is the size of the globe and, for
example, the proportion of it covered by water.
That is what we need to be thinking about, to put
capability and performance into the trade space and be willing
smartly to trade it against cost and schedule and quantity.
Senator Reed. Going forward, it seems that we have seen a
shift from the Cold War, where there was a competition between
two superpowers based upon these issues we have talked about--
technology, quantity, innovation, in terms of more and more
sophisticated weapons and systems.
But over the last several years, we have seen asymmetric
warfare become the predominant. One of the great and even cruel
ironies is that we have produced very sophisticated equipment,
which is being defeated and our troops being killed by plastic
containers of fertilizer and detonation.
The irony here as we go forward is as we build these new
systems, build these new platforms, build all these things, we
ironically might become more susceptible to asymmetric attacks.
How do you propose that we think about these things? This is a
large question, but it might be an important one.
Dr. Perry?
Dr. Perry. In the specific example of the use of improvised
explosive devices, for example, using insurgent forces to
attack our convoys, we need two things. First of all, we need
boots-on-the-ground. We do need quantity to deal with that.
But additionally, technology can be directed to dealing
with those problems. We have unmanned aircraft, for example.
Our drones can be used to provide protective cover over our
convoys and is being used for that today I think quite
effectively. We also have devices which can detect the presence
of buried explosive devices by sophisticated infrared detection
means. So the technology and quality does have a role in that.
But fundamentally, in the battle going on and the
insurgency battles going on today, we cannot get around the
fact that a quantity of troops, indeed boots-on-the-ground, are
important.
Senator Reed. Mr. Hadley, your comments?
Mr. Hadley. Senator, part of it is just asking the question
you asked. It is interesting, in our deliberations, we met with
a QDR task force that was dealing with the asymmetric threats.
We asked them, ``Is the acquisition system giving you what you
need?'' The answer was ``no.''
Then we met with the panel that was dealing with the high-
end anti-access threats, and we said, ``Is the acquisition
system giving you what you need?'' The answer was ``no.''
It made us ask the question, ``Well, who is the acquisition
service system serving?'' I think it tends to serve that kind
of traditional set of requirements for conventional forces that
we have looked at and that has driven the situation for the
last 20, 30 years.
The question is whether that is the right allocation of
effort. I think you are right to ask that question, and we
somehow have to drive that into the planning process within
DOD.
Senator Reed. Gentlemen, again, I not only thank you for
this report, but for your service to the Nation. Thank you very
much.
Chairman Levin. Thank you, Senator Reed.
Senator McCaskill.
Senator McCaskill. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, gentlemen, and the rest of the panel, for your
service.
I know that my colleague from North Carolina touched on
contracting, but I would like to go a little further as it
relates to contracting. I was very disappointed at the QDR and
how it handled contracting, almost as if this was an
acquisitions personnel matter as opposed to the dominant role
that contracting has taken in our contingency operations in
both Iraq and Afghanistan.
We are north of $750 billion worth of contracting in these
two contingency operations, and I don't think there has been a
time for a long time that we have had more active military on
the ground and engaged in the contingency operations than we
had contractors. Contractors have been more in volume, and
contractors have been a huge, huge cost driver of these
contingency operations.
I appreciate the fact that the panel at least did more than
the QDR did as it related to contracting. I think that that is
helpful. But I want to try to visit with you about this because
I worry that it has not really penetrated yet that we will
never again have a contingency operation where our military is
really executing logistics support.
It is questionable whether or not we will ever again have a
military that is executing some of the important missions that
must be undertaken in a conflict like Afghanistan. Best example
I can give you is police training, where, clearly, training the
army and police is one of the primary missions we have in this
contingency operation. But yet I can give you example after
example--I could take all my time citing something far beyond
anecdotal examples of failure of contracting in this regard.
So I would like you to take another round at what we can do
specifically that will begin to bring some accountability. My
favorite story to tell, when I went over on contracting
oversight in Iraq and realized that that Logistics Civil
Augmentation Program (LOGCAP) was so out of control that when I
asked someone in the room, the civilian personnel that was
briefing with the ubiquitous powerpoint, how they could explain
that it went from--I think the figure went from the first year
of $20 billion on a contract, by the way, that was estimated to
be $700 million when it was entered into. It went from an
estimate of $700 million to a cost of $20 billion in its first
year, and it went down to $17 billion in the second year.
I thought this poor woman who had been asked to do the
presentation, the civilian employee over there, I said to her--
well, she clearly forgot what measures they took to get it down
from $20 billion to $17 billion. You know the answer she gave
me in that briefing in Baghdad? It was a fluke.
So here you are recommending that we spend more and more
and more, and we reduced a contract by $3 billion in 1 year,
and nobody even knew how we did it. That is one example of
many, many I can give you because I have focused on this in my
time in the Senate. That is why I put in the NDAA this year
that the QDR will be required to address contracting in a more
in-depth manner when we go around for this again in 2013.
But I would like both of you to take a moment and talk
about this in terms of ways that we can get some urgency within
DOD that this is no longer an afterthought. This is a core
competency that, frankly, we are just now beginning to get our
arms around.
Mr. Hadley. You are right. I think the thing that is easy
to get lost is that there is a role for contractors, an
appropriate role when it makes sense for contractors to do
things it doesn't make sense for Active-Duty Forces to be
doing.
But it is clear that the use of contractors grew like Topsy
without adequate oversight. We have really tried to address
that problem.
I know it is going to sound very bureaucratic, but we
couldn't find any other way to do it other than to say DOD
needs to have an Assistant Secretary-level person who is
responsible for contracting and can look at the whole way we
manage them, the way we train them. How do we hold them to
account? How do we make sure they are accountable, for example,
when they are involved in the security side, to the
consequences of their actions the way our military is?
The whole area needs to be re-thought and managed. It is,
in our view, not being managed now. So our solution was you put
somebody in charge and say, ``Your job is to try to manage this
problem.''
But second, we also recognize that, appropriately used,
contractors can play an important role in the battlefield. The
question is to get it down to that appropriate role and then
integrate them into our planning and training so that they are
actually doing effectively the role we have asked them to do,
not just treat them off to the side.
So that was the philosophy, if you will, of the report. A
lot more, obviously, to be done. One of the questions will be
whether this national commission, for example, on military
personnel or the national commission on building the civil
force for the future ought to have as part of their
responsibilities looking at this contractor question as well.
Dr. Perry. This is a very important issue. The QDR, in my
judgment, did not adequately address it. Our panel looked at
the issue, saw the problem, but I must say we did not have the
resources to do a detailed examination or recommend solutions.
I think the first step in trying to get a handle on this
would be what the military calls an after action report on
Iraq. We are far enough along in Iraq now that I think a look
back at what has happened there in this field in the last
number of years could be very useful in identifying the issues
and problems and recommending solutions.
It could be done by one of these two commissions, as Steve
Hadley has said. But it ought to be an explicit charge to that
commission to do this. It is very important.
Senator McCaskill. I know my time is up, and I appreciate
that you all recognize the importance of this. I urge both of
you, because you have a sphere of influence and connections,
this is something that is going to have to be inserted in the
culture because it is not there now.
It is not something that commanders really feel like they
have true accountability for. It is like who is the low man on
the totem pole? We hand the Contracting Officer Representative
a clipboard. Typically, this was somebody who wasn't trained or
experienced.
They are doing slightly better in Afghanistan. I have to
give credit where credit is due. But I also think it is
important that we take a look at what, if any, impact
earmarking has on overall cost drivers. There are a lot of good
ideas that Senators have about what should be earmarked to
either a company in their State or a university in their State,
research that must be done on this armor or on this technology,
and that this all is about the future and our technological
capabilities.
But I am not sure that there has ever been an analysis as
to how much of that money that has been spent actually produced
something the military wanted or needed. We are past the point
we can afford that anymore.
So I certainly would urge you all, as you finished your
work, as we look at the next QDR, and then we look at these
other commissions that are coming, I think it is time we take a
look at whether or not what one Senator thinks is a good idea
is something that we can afford in light of the overall
stresses--and we all know that our deficit is a national
security threat. That stress is something that I think that
needs to be brought to bear.
So, thank you both, and thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Levin. Thank you, Senator McCaskill.
Senator Thune.
Senator Thune. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Perry and Mr. Hadley, thank you very much for your good
work.
Please convey to the other members of your panel our
appreciation for all that they and you put into this. This is
an important review, something that I had advocated in the
defense authorization bill. I think it has borne out that it
was something that needed to be done.
I think your assessment and recommendations are very useful
as we try and do everything we can to make sure that America
stays strong not only for the near term and the challenges we
face today, but also those that we are going to face in the
future.
Your report states on page 58 that the Air Force's need for
an increased deep strike capability is a priority matter. On
page 60, the report goes on to say, ``The panel supports an
increased investment in long-range strike systems and their
associated sensors.''
As part of your recommendation to increase investment in
long-range strike systems, do you believe that the Air Force
should be modernizing its aging bomber fleet by developing a
next-generation bomber?
Dr. Perry. My answer to that is a short one, which is: yes.
Senator Thune. What do you think about the prospect of
Services retiring weapon systems before a replacement weapon
system is built and made operational?
In other words, before the replacement for, say, the next-
generation bomber, the follow-on bomber is operational, some of
the existing fleet being taken out of service? Your view on
that, the Services retiring weapon systems.
Dr. Perry. Particularly, are you thinking of the B-52s?
Senator Thune. B-52s, right. B-1s.
Dr. Perry. I would be reluctant to retire the B-52s until
the new bomber force has been established.
Senator Thune. Any comment on that, Mr. Hadley?
Mr. Hadley. There are obviously cost pressures. But I think
the obvious question you have to ask is, if a Service is
willing to retire something before the next generation comes
in, how important is the requirement if they are willing to
accept a gap? It raises questions about the seriousness of the
requirement.
Senator Thune. For the Air Force, the QDR provides for a
bomber force structure from 2011 to 2015 to be up to 96 in
primary mission bombers, implying that the number could be less
than 96. Your report suggests that the alternative force
structure that you recommend was 180 bombers.
I guess my question is what assumptions led you to
recommend a number of bombers that is well above what the QDR
recommends? When do you believe the Air Force will need those
180 bombers?
Mr. Hadley. It was part of our recommendation to enhance
long-range strike. We explicitly have in the report a list of
systems we thought that were required. A new bomber was part of
them. So it is part of our notion that we need to be able to
have long-range strike capability to deal with emerging anti-
access threats, which we think will get worse over the next 20
years.
So, as to when, I think our reaction is it takes a long
time to get these systems fielded. It is time to get on with
these necessary modernizations.
Dr. Perry. To that I would add that our emphasis on long-
range strike, among other things, included our concern that we
would not have continuing access to forward bases that we now
have. That was the reason for the emphasis on the long-range
aspect of strike.
Senator Thune. Why do you think that the QDR recommends the
lower number compared to what is recommended in your report?
That is probably not a fair question.
Dr. Perry. ``I don't know,'' is the short answer.
Senator Thune. Okay. Let me just put it this way. The 2006
QDR directed that a next-generation bomber be built by the year
2018. The 2010 QDR states that long-range strike capabilities
must be expanded, but only directed that a study be conducted
to determine what combination of joint persistent surveillance,
electronic warfare, and precision attack capabilities,
including both penetrating platforms and stand-off weapons,
will best support U.S. power projection operations over the
next 2 to 3 decades.
In fact, Secretary Gates stated in a hearing earlier this
year that a new bomber would not be developed until the mid to
late 2020s.
So let me put the question this way, in the 2006 QDR, they
said we need to have a bomber fielded, operational by 2018. Now
it has been pushed back to the 2020s. Do you believe that the
need for the new bomber became less urgent over that 4-year
span from the 2006 QDR to the 2010 QDR?
Dr. Perry. No.
Senator Thune. I like the way you answer questions.
Let me shift over for one other observation here and a
question dealing with UAVs. You write in your report on page 58
that the Air Force end strength may require only a modest
increase in order to meet the requirements of the increased use
of UAVs.
What do you estimate that modest increase in Air Force end
strength should be to accommodate the increased use of UAVs? Do
you believe that UAVs are going to become more and more
prominent in terms of our force structure in future years?
Dr. Perry. I definitely believe there will be increased
prominence of the UAVs for the indefinite future. I think they
continually demonstrate their increased effectiveness and their
increased ability to use our limited manpower very effectively.
Mr. Hadley. We could not put a number on that. It is not
just Air Force personnel, but there are additional intelligence
requirements generated to process the information that you get
from the UAVs. So it is a terrific tool. There is a big
footprint associated with it. It is much more than the Air
Force.
We were not in a position to put numbers on it. So what we
thought we needed to do was just to flag that as a
consideration as you look forward in terms of planning.
Dr. Perry. One other comment about the UAVs in terms of
their effective use of manpower. Of course, even though they
are unmanned, they do require personnel on the ground to
operate and maintain.
So they are not--in the use of the UAVs in Afghanistan, for
example, a substantial percentage of the personnel are actually
based in the United States instead of overseas. So not only the
fact that they use less manpower, but the fact that some of the
manpower can be based out of theater, which is a great
advantage.
Senator Thune. Mr. Chairman, my time is up. I thank you all
again. Thank you very much for your very complete body of work
and for the great assistance that it provides us in looking
into these important issues. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Levin. Thank you, Senator Thune.
Senator Webb.
Senator Webb. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Gentlemen, I would like to say first that I have been here
through most of the hearing today, and I appreciate your
frankness. Also, it has been a long, long morning for you. I
know it is getting on 2\1/2\ hours here. So I appreciate very
much your patience in getting through our litany of questions.
I had to leave briefly to meet with the Commandant of the
Marine Corps. But I wanted to come back and make this point
because I think it is so vital in terms of the findings that
you have brought forth. That is really a valuable service to
have had the input of the people on your commission providing
us a continuity here of defense experience as we try to project
into the future as opposed to, as has been hinted a few times,
the more immediate budgetary nature of the QDR itself.
But I would support the idea of having a continuing
independent strategic review panel. I think that would be very
valuable to how these issues are analyzed up here. We get
caught up so much in reacting to events that we need something
like that.
I have spent many years trying to address the issues of the
Navy force structure and how vital it is in terms of our
national strategy. We tend, when we get in these long-term
ground engagements, to eat the gingerbread house a little bit.
We have to pay for what is in front of us.
But there is going to come a time at some point where the
ground commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan are going to end, I
hope, and we may be looking at rebalancing the ground forces.
Then we are going to turn around, and without the right sort of
planning and projection, we may be in a very vulnerable place
in terms of our sea power presence around the world.
I have heard a few questions here today, a few comments
about the size of other navies in the world and why should our
Navy be a much larger size. As both of you well know, in the
articulation of national strategy, the issue for us is how we
communicate our national interests to the rest of the world,
not how a navy can fight a navy. It is how a nation can have
credibility and link up with its allies.
So that particular question is basically irrelevant of a
size of a navy versus a size of a navy. It is how we are
going--particularly in Asia and the Pacific--to help maintain
stability in that region. I have spent a good bit of time
there. I have spent a good bit of time there this year, in the
last 12 months.
When we look at the increased size and the sophistication
of the Chinese navy and the buildup in places like Hainan
Island and its increased activity throughout that region and
the sovereignty claims in the South China Sea that have gone
beyond anything that we have seen in our collective lifetimes,
I think, with China stating that the South China Sea areas in
terms of sovereignty are a core interest and putting it on the
same level as Taiwan has always been, and the reality that only
the United States can ensure the right sort of stability in the
face of this kind of growth.
We see a lot of nervousness in the region, as I am sure you
know. Vietnam has just ordered six submarines from Russia.
There is a great deal of concern as to whether we are going to
stay and a realization that bilateral arrangements don't work
with China when these countries are so much smaller.
So I was very gratified to see the report and with the
collective experience of the people on your panel saying we
need to grow the size of the Navy. The big question--and, Dr.
Perry, I would really like to get your advice on this--is how
to get there, how to get there when we want to grow the Navy
back up.
When I was commissioned in 1968, we had 930 ships in the
United States Navy. They were different types of ships. That is
not an apples-to-apples comparison. We went down to 479 by
1979. We got up to 568 when I was Secretary of the Navy. I have
heard several different numbers here, but we are somewhere just
north of 280 today.
The goal stated by the Navy is 313. I think you were
talking 346. But the key question that I have been struggling
with up here is that there is a very unusual economic model
when we talk about shipbuilding. It is not normal competitive
process because of the sophistication and our very low profit
margin, quite frankly, for the industry.
So, if you were Secretary of Defense today, how would you
be going about this so that we could--and with all the other
pressures that we have--increase the force structure?
Dr. Perry. A couple comments, Senator Webb. First of all, I
don't see the relevance in comparing with the size of other
navies. The United States has global interests, and those
global interests require presence around the world, around the
globe.
In particular, we have increasingly important economic
interests and security interests in the Western Pacific. That
requires not only a presence in the Western Pacific, but an
ability to confidently assure transit there and a competence
that our allies can have confidence in. So I do want to
underscore the importance of that recommendation. It does
require presence, and it requires a larger fleet than we now
have to do that with confidence.
It takes a long time to build a ship, from the time you
conceive it to the time you actually have it operational. So it
is important to get started. I don't think that the Secretary
of Defense can make the tradeoffs with this present budget to
do this. That is why we say there has to be a way of decreasing
other costs. Even if you are successful in that, there will
have to be a larger top line at DOD than we now have.
So this is something that the Secretary of Defense cannot
do by himself. The Secretary of Defense, although he advocates
a defense budget, is not the one that finally determines the
size of the budget. So it will take a greater top line to do
that. It needs to get started, I think, because it is going to
take a while to build it up. But the presence--there is no
substitute, in my judgment, to maintaining our security in the
Western Pacific, in particular, than having a strong and able
maritime presence there.
Senator Webb. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Levin. Thank you, Senator Webb.
Senator Nelson.
Senator Bill Nelson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
In your report, you discussed the concept called
comprehensive approach. It goes beyond the concept of the
whole-of-government concept that was emphasized in the QDR. So
can you explain the comprehensive approach and why you think
the whole-of-government concept falls short of addressing the
national security requirement?
Mr. Hadley. Yes, sir. We have learned in Iraq and
Afghanistan that in those kinds of missions, it is not just the
U.S. Government. Yes, you want all elements of national power
or all agencies, departments working together in an organized
way. But there are other players.
There are other allies that are with us on the ground, both
militarily and in terms of civilians. There are in Afghanistan,
for example, and in Iraq international organizations that are
present. There are nongovernmental organizations, private
voluntary organizations that are players.
It was an effort to say that in those efforts there are
players beyond the U.S. Government, and there needs to be a
coordinated activity with a common set of objectives, working
together as much as possible in an organized way to achieve
those objectives. We thought the best way of showcasing that
requirement was whole of government and then, beyond it,
comprehensive approach.
Senator Bill Nelson. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Levin. Thank you.
Senator Bill Nelson. Thank you, gentlemen. Thank you for
your continuing service to our country.
Chairman Levin. Thank you very much, Senator Nelson.
I just had one additional question of you, Secretary Perry.
The issue of the START has come up here this morning, and I
want to just ask you a question about the fact that tactical
nuclear weapons are not included in the START. That has been
raised by some as a problem.
Now, as I understand it, this issue is a topic which the
Strategic Posture Commission, which you chaired, discussed and
concluded that the first treaty should focus on strategic
offensive nuclear arms, and then, hopefully, there would be a
subsequent treaty addressing the tactical nuclear weapons
issue.
Can you give us your thinking as to the argument that there
is a flaw in START because it does not include tactical nuclear
weapons--if that is a reason for opposing the START?
Dr. Perry. The START did not do everything we want to see
done in the field of nuclear weapons, but it is a very
important first step. But it is only a first step, and we need
to be looking beyond that to follow-on treaties, which would
deal, among other things, with tactical nuclear weapons.
So I don't think the fact that it does not do everything we
want in the field means that it is not a very useful and
important treaty. I strongly support the START the way it is
now negotiated, but I do look forward to follow-on treaties
which deal with these other issues.
Chairman Levin. Mr. Hadley, does the fact that the START
does not include tactical nuclear weapons, is that a reason not
to ratify it?
Mr. Hadley. No.
Chairman Levin. Okay. Looks like Senator Nelson and I are
the last ones here. So if you are all set, Bill, we will
adjourn, with our thanks again to you and your panelists.
I hope that you could pass that along when you see them,
that we are greatly indebted to them.
Mr. Hadley. Thank you. We will do that, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Levin. We are adjourned.
[Questions for the record with answers supplied follow:]
Questions Submitted by Senator Daniel K. Akaka
unified medical command
1. Senator Akaka. Dr. Perry and Mr. Hadley, the Quadrennial Defense
Review (QDR) Independent Panel report notes that the rising cost of
medical care is taking an ever increasing portion of the Department of
Defense (DOD) budget. Between the years 2000 and 2015, the Department's
health care budget will increase by 179 percent ($48.5 billion), with
cost inflation amounting to 37 percent of that total increase and
medical care to retirees amounting to 31 percent. These total costs,
projected to exceed $65 billion in 2015, show retirees as the fastest
growing portion of the military medical budget since 2001, when the
TRICARE for Life program began. Some have proposed a Unified Medical
Command (MEDCOM) as a way to help DOD realize health care cost savings.
Did your panel look at the Unified MEDCOM as a method to help DOD
realize cost savings?
Dr. Perry and Mr. Hadley. The QDR Independent Panel shares your
concern about the rapidly rising costs of military health care, which
are unsustainable over the long-term. While the panel did not
specifically examine a reorganization of service medical activities
into a centralized Joint/Unified MEDCOM, a 2001 RAND Corporation report
on reorganizing the military health system discovered at least 13
previous studies examining military health care organization since the
1940s. All but three had either favored a unified system or recommended
a stronger central authority to improve coordination among the
Services.
A Unified MEDCOM would have value, if the Military Services would
endorse and commit to the concept of a single organizational structure
to deliver health care. Currently, TRICARE is being implemented as a
separate program that comes on top of the three independent medical
structures for each of the Military Services.
As part of the panel's work to ``stress test'' the All-Volunteer
Force, we came to the conclusion that military personnel management
policies and benefits must be reexamined by a national commission to
fully examine and consider these complex issues in depth, particularly
health care. As part of the review, we recommend the commission
consider updating the military health care system to allow a shift to a
defined-contribution plan allowing all employers to contribute to
health care for serving and retired members of the Armed Forces. A
helpful precursor to this reform could be the establishment of a
Unified MEDCOM. The standing up of this command would also align with
the Secretary of Defense's latest efforts to find efficiencies within
the Department and to streamline operations and consolidate redundant
bureaucracies and thereby generate cost savings that may be applied to
modernization.
While the potential savings would be helpful, this command would
not address the cost explosion connected to TRICARE. The Defense Health
Program base budget--including retiree health care costs--has grown 151
percent in the past decade in constant dollars. Meanwhile, private
sector benefits have decreased, leading many military retirees who are
working to abandon their civilian health care program in favor of
TRICARE. One challenge will be the long-term solvency of the retiree
medical benefit, which is extremely important to the men and women who
have served in the Armed Forces and earned this benefit. To guarantee
retiree health care for the long term, bold options need to be
considered.
2. Senator Akaka. Dr. Perry and Mr. Hadley, what is your opinion of
a Unified MEDCOM as a way to address increasing healthcare costs in
DOD?
Dr. Perry and Mr. Hadley. A Unified MEDCOM has been studied by
various organizations and has the endorsement of the Defense Business
Board. The Center for Naval Analyses estimates annual savings of
roughly $300 to $500 million depending on the organization's structure
and mandate. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) determined that
DOD must overcome both a cultural resistance to change and the inertia
of various subordinate organizations, policies, and practices,
including longstanding organizational and budgetary problems, to update
the military health system structure.
Given that the challenges and solutions go beyond organizational
restructuring, however, we also urge Congress to consider the
establishment of a national commission, perhaps as part of a mandate
for the panel-proposed National Commission on Military Personnel, to
further study these recommendations and to offer additional bold
solutions to keep the All-Volunteer Force healthy and the defense
health program viable. A Unified MEDCOM would have value, if the
Military Services would endorse and commit to the concept of a single
organizational structure to deliver health care. Currently, TRICARE is
being implemented as a separate program that comes on top of the three
independent medical structures for each of the Military Services.
Careful attention would have to be paid to ensure the unique needs of
each Service are met under a Unified MEDCOM. To reap the level of
savings required to make military health care more affordable, however,
the creation of this command would need to be synchronized and
integrated with larger changes in the health care system, particularly
for retirees.
foreign language proficiency
3. Senator Akaka. Dr. Perry and Mr. Hadley, foreign language
proficiency and cultural understanding are essential to protecting our
national security. Threats to our national security are becoming more
complex, interconnected, and unconventional. These evolving threats
have increased the Federal Government's needs for employees proficient
in foreign languages. In June 2009, the GAO found that DOD had made
progress on increasing its language capabilities, but lacked a
comprehensive strategic plan and standardized methodology to identify
language requirements, which made it difficult for DOD to assess the
risk to its ability to conduct operations. I noticed that the QDR
Independent Panel report recommends that foreign language proficiency
should be a requirement for those receiving a military commission from
the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) and the Service academies.
What do you recommend that DOD do to increase currently serving
servicemembers' foreign language proficiency?
Dr. Perry and Mr. Hadley. We would support DOD's continuation of
its efforts in this direction and reinforce the need for Active and
Reserve Forces and DOD civilians to be prepared for the complexities of
the operational environment in foreign countries. First, if officers
begin their time of service with foreign language proficiency, that
skill will likely be renewed in a master's degree program, given that
many encourage or require proficiency in one foreign language. Second,
in pursuing programs and policies to promote foreign language
proficiency, DOD should develop more training opportunities. These may
include online distributed learning, resident, and/or localized
instruction for visiting units preparing for deployment to provide some
basic instruction for all personnel in the language(s) used while on
deployment. Successful company grade or junior field grade officers
should be offered fully-funded civilian graduate degrees to study in
residence military affairs and foreign cultures and languages, without
specific connection to a follow-on assignment. Additionally, personnel
already serving should be identified for language schooling prior to
deployment, especially in the Army and Marine Corps due to their
interaction with local people as part of combat operations. Finally,
while the 2009 GAO report notes DOD's deficiencies in fulfilling its
plans, we are encouraged by the June 2010 updated report that is
similar but notes progress in solidifying those plans.
______
Questions Submitted by Senator Mark Udall
climate change and energy
4. Senator Udall. Dr. Perry and Mr. Hadley, I would like to ask
some questions related to climate change and energy in both a domestic
and international context, and the role of DOD in these areas. In the
domestic context, the QDR noted that both energy security and the
impacts of climate change are major concerns of DOD, and referred
specifically to the roles of the Services and especially of the
Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program (SERDP) and
the Environmental Security and Technology Certification Program (ESTCP)
in assessing and responding to the impacts of climate change on DOD
within the United States and of developing and serving as a test bed
for emerging energy technologies to increase both domestic energy
security and reduce the energy-related logistical burden on deployed
U.S. forces.
Did your panel consider that aspect of the QDR report, and, if so,
did you reach any conclusions about the current DOD activities in this
regard, and especially whether the SERDP/ESTCP program as currently
constituted and resourced is sufficiently robust to effectively perform
the roles described in the QDR report?
Dr. Perry and Mr. Hadley. The DOD's SERDP and its companion
demonstration/validation program, the ESTCP, are essential to DOD's
ability to address climate and energy security concerns. Since the
early 1990s these two technology development programs enabled DOD to
address critical energy and environmental challenges confronting our
Armed Forces. Given the significant energy and climate security
challenges DOD faces, including that it consumes approximately 1
percent of total U.S. energy and that DOD's energy needs present
continuing operational challenges and logistical burdens to our
deployed forces, investments in ESTCP and SERDP should enable DOD to
improve delivery of energy to our forces, reduce overall energy demand,
and reduce climate risks. With greater investment in ESTCP, DOD
installations could serve as testbeds for improved energy technologies
that reduce the fuel burden on our troops. Additionally, DOD
installations will face future risks from natural disasters and other
environmental changes. These programs constitute an important set of
capabilities needed by DOD to provide the information and resiliency
necessary to make appropriate decisions to protect its assets in the
face of these risks.
5. Senator Udall. Dr. Perry and Mr. Hadley, in the international
context, the QDR report concluded--and the Independent Panel
concurred--that climate change and energy are two key factors that will
play a significant role in shaping the future security environment and
that climate change may act as an accelerant of instability or
conflict. More broadly, your report identified as one of the five key
global trends an accelerating global competition for resources. Your
report also indicates, and as I understand it, many in the Intelligence
Community (IC) and many other international security experts agree,
that increasing global water scarcity as a result of climate change and
other factors may both raise the potential for and perhaps the scope of
instability and conflict.
The QDR report indicated merely that, ``Working closely with
relevant U.S. departments and agencies, DOD has undertaken
environmental security cooperative initiatives with foreign militaries
that represent a nonthreatening way of building trust, sharing best
practices on installations management and operations, and developing
response capacity'' and further, that ``Abroad, the Department will
increase its investment in the Defense Environmental International
Cooperation Program (DEIC) not only to promote cooperation on
environmental security issues, but also to augment international
adaptation efforts.'' Unstated in the QDR is the fact that these
efforts are minimally funded (the global budget for the DEIC is
currently around $5 million per year) and that the environmental
security cooperative initiatives are largely low-budget initiatives
included as minor aspects of the Theater Security Cooperation plans of
the combatant commanders and that these efforts are divorced from the
broader Security Assistance and Foreign Military Sales (FMS) programs.
Your report calls for significant restructuring of the Security
Assistance and FMS programs as part of the overall effort to achieve a
true whole-of-government approach to the new security challenges facing
us. Both the QDR and your review concluded that those challenges
include climate change and energy and more broadly competition for
resources, including energy but perhaps especially water resources.
Given the major impacts that the international aspects of climate
change, energy resources, development and fielding of new energy
technologies, and water management will have on our national security,
should the reform of the Security Assistance and FMS programs also
include support aimed at conflict prevention by addressing climate
change, energy, and water management to allow DOD to play a more
effective supporting role to U.S. civilian agencies within a whole-of-
government approach to these security challenges?
Dr. Perry and Mr. Hadley. The QDR Independent Panel noted that the
roles and responsibilities of DOD have grown across many nontraditional
military missions. The militarization of these roles outside
traditional defense, deterrence, security, and disaster assistance
missions has a direct impact on the ability of DOD to accomplish its
traditional missions. This growth also imparts a military persona to
traditional civil roles and issues with all the attendant foreign
perception issues a military presence creates. A whole-of-government
approach does not mean that the whole-of-government must be used on all
issues, but instead means that the whole-of-government must be reviewed
for the appropriate pieces and resources to solve the issue. It is our
opinion that the role of prevention, vice deterrence, is best performed
by the civil departments and agencies, with DOD assisting in its
traditional roles as needed, filling in near-term capability gaps, and
with technology as appropriate.
The scope of the panel did not include reviewing the roles and
capabilities of U.S. civilian agencies. We cannot directly opine on
what level of assistance may be needed by them in this matter, and by
extension whether DOD would, or could have the right capabilities to
meet any shortfalls. It was to this type of question that the panel
recognized and recommended that the United States needs a truly
comprehensive National Security Planning Process to address the roles,
responsibilities, and balance between executive departments and
agencies so that resource decisions such as the above may be cogently
answered. This question also goes to the panel's recommendation on
reconvening the Joint Committee on the Organization of Congress to
review national security authorities, appropriations, and oversight to
establish a single national security appropriations subcommittee for
Defense, State, State/AID, and the IC so that Congress may also address
such issues from a holistic viewpoint.
6. Senator Udall. Dr. Perry and Mr. Hadley, do you see a potential
for a technology transfer program where the results of both the DOD
energy and the DOD climate change assessments and adaptation programs
in a U.S. domestic and operational context could be, perhaps in a
Security Assistance/FMS context, transferred to foreign militaries to
assist those militaries in addressing similar challenges within their
own countries? Could that be extended, under the leadership of U.S.
civilian agencies, to transfers beyond the militaries as such, much as
the advances in energy technologies developed by DOD in the United
States are transferred to and benefit energy production and use in the
civil sector in the United States?
Dr. Perry and Mr. Hadley. The potential for a technology transfer
program has merit. Any ability to provide peaceful, preventive measures
to reduce the risk of crisis and military intervention in areas vital
to U.S. national security is worth investigating. Broadening the range
of ways in which the Security Assistance and FMS programs can help
foreign militaries train and equip their forces to address emerging
threats to security and stability would enable DOD to play a more
effective supporting role to the U.S. civilian agencies, such as the
State, State/AID, and Energy departments. This would enhance the U.S.
comprehensive approach to address the complex and interrelated security
challenges we will face in coming years.
In many nations, the military is the only institution with the
capacity to rapidly respond to widespread humanitarian crises that may
be caused by climate change or water management failures. Certain
organizations within DOD, such as the National Guard Bureau and the
Army Corps of Engineer, possess significant technical expertise that
could support the State Department, State/AID, and Energy in their
efforts to build capabilities in partner nations and international
institutions to respond more effectively to climate change, energy, and
water management challenges. Such capabilities would likely enhance
regional and State-specific stability. Additionally, new technology
developed to address operational energy and water management challenges
may be appropriate for consideration under FMS programs. Certainly,
including the leadership of all relevant U.S. civilian agencies in such
decisions is consistent with the panel's recommendation to establish a
National Commission on Building the Civil Force of the Future.
Projects designed to support partner nations by building such
capabilities should be allowed to compete for funding under Section
1206 of the 2006 National Defense Authorization Act along with more
traditional proposals for improving capabilities to conduct
counterterrorism or stability operations. The U.S. Government should
consider issuing revised guidance to ensure the review process
considers the security threats posed by climate change and natural
resource competition as it seeks to prioritize proposals and to select
projects aligned with regional security cooperation and foreign policy
goals.
Linking energy, climate, and water challenges to the broader
context of Security Assistance and FMS programs will help enhance
awareness and understanding of the interrelated nature of security
challenges the United States will face in the coming years and promote
an integrated approach to preventing crises. As in all FMS and
technology transfer programs, any technology transfer should be
reviewed for the balance between the value to the United States,
resources available, and the potential threat of the transfer before
approving any individual transfer within such a program.
recommendations
7. Senator Udall. Dr. Perry and Mr. Hadley, your panel recommends
that Congress consider structural reforms to improve whole-of-
government planning and budgeting. With regard to cybersecurity, you
specifically recommend the establishment of a special committee with
members drawn from Armed Services, Intelligence, Judiciary, and
Homeland Security because cybersecurity cuts across all of the
departments and agencies overseen by these committees. My question is
why stop there? There are numerous, important national security
challenges that cut across multiple Federal departments and committee
jurisdictions--terrorism, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction,
narcotics and organized crime, capacity building and stability
operations, and so forth. Why single out cybersecurity for a joint
committee approach?
Dr. Perry and Mr. Hadley. Though the panel was focused on areas
specifically addressed by the QDR, the panel agrees that there are
other areas of concern for national security that could be well served
by developing a variety of mechanisms to enable all U.S. Government
stakeholders to work together on coordinated solutions, including, but
not limited to, a joint committee approach. The panel views the present
organization of Congress as being inefficient because its organization
precludes the ability of Congress to harmonize its decisions relative
to a host of national security challenges. The recommendation to
establish a joint committee on cybersecurity would improve the ability
of Congress to address the multi-faceted nature of the cyber threat,
not just to DOD, but to the entire nation.
interagency teams
8. Senator Udall. Dr. Perry and Mr. Hadley, the government has
faced the problem of ineffective interagency integration and
coordination for decades, and frequently has turned to the creation of
so-called czars with questionable results. You recommend that the
President try naming lead departments and establishing interagency
teams. But naming lead agencies is nothing new, and the interagency
process already is replete with interagency policy teams and processes.
The executive branch is managed by powerful cabinet secretaries who
answer to no one other than the President and defend their departments'
interests in the interagency. Thus, short of the President presiding
over everything, progress depends largely upon consensus--in other
words, often the lowest common denominator of agreement among the
departments and agencies.
The President's executive authority by law can be exercised only by
presidentially-appointed and Senate-confirmed officials. There is no
``joint'' or interagency space where the President's authority can be
delegated. Is that needed to balance the power of cabinet secretaries
and their subordinates?
Dr. Perry and Mr. Hadley. We believe our panel's recommendations
for revamping the national security strategic planning process provides
the necessary space within which the President can exercise his
constitutional authorities to provide for the defense of the Nation.
The recommendations identify the need to a develop a national security
strategy based on input developed by a proposed Independent Strategic
Review Panel and timed to ensure a top-down driven development process.
Our recommendations also provide for a whole-of-government approach to
ensure an efficient and effective strategy emerges from the process.
______
Questions Submitted by Senator Mark Begich
missile defense
9. Senator Begich. Dr. Perry, in the findings and recommendations,
the panel identifies the five key global trends that the Nation faces
as it seeks to sustain its role as the leader of international system
that protects our enduring security interest. The QDR discusses how we
will seek out opportunities to work with Moscow on emerging issues,
such as the future of the arctic and the need for effective missile
defense architectures designed to protect the region from external
threats. Can you further elaborate on the arctic being critical to our
national security and the need to cooperate in missile defense?
Dr. Perry. The arctic is a region that affects many nations, both
because of its natural resources, as well as the fact that it may, in
the future, serve as an important maritime trade route. Because of
that, we believe that the arctic represents a promising region for
international cooperation. Moscow has in recent years attempted to
stake out its sovereignty over the arctic. We believe it would be
undesirable for any state to dominate the region, and as a result would
support efforts to cooperate with the international community to keep
the arctic free and open to all.
As to missile defense, U.S. presidential administrations since that
of Ronald Reagan have sought to cooperate with Russia on missile
defense. Both the Bush and Obama administrations have demonstrated at
length to the Russian leadership that American missile defense
deployments are not aimed at Russia. We face common threats such long-
range ballistic missiles in the hands of a nuclear North Korea and
(prospectively) a nuclear Iran. Cooperation is in both nations'
interest.
the law of the sea treaty
10. Senator Begich. Dr. Perry, keeping with the importance of the
arctic and the opportunity for further international cooperation, the
QDR, DOD supports the United Nation's Convention on the Law of Sea
(UNCLOS) Treaty and says it is necessary for cooperative engagement in
the arctic. Do you agree with this statement?
Dr. Perry. Yes, absolutely. The UNLOS is a comprehensive, multi-
lateral regime that provides the structure and general international
rules for maritime navigation (the principle of freedom of navigation
is central), coastal states rights versus those of maritime users in
the high seas as well as provisions dealing with protection of the
marine environment in ice-covered areas and maritime boundary
delimitation. Because of the inherent difficulties in operating in
harsh arctic waters, rules and procedures will need to be evolved to
deal with oil and gas exploration, transarctic shipping, and search and
rescue responsibilities. It will be more difficult for the United
States to be a powerful broker of those policies in organizations like
the International Maritime Organization, the Arctic Council, and other
UNCLOS fora if the United States remains a nonparty to the UNCLOS.
Also, as a nonparty the United States lacks the ability to legally
register its claims to the arctic extended continental shelf areas
north of Alaska and to have its own experts on the Continental Shelf
Commission to pass on the legality of the claims of other arctic
claimants. Such registration is the only way for U.S. claims to gain
the international recognition that is necessary to minimize conflicts
and incent investment activities. By contrast, Russia, Norway, Canada,
and Denmark have all ratified the UNCLOS and have either registered
their claims or are in the process of doing so. Finally, so long as the
United States remains outside of the UNCLOS it lacks full access to the
mandatory dispute settlement mechanisms that it might use to deal with
excessive maritime claims or high seas fishing violations in the
arctic.
11. Senator Begich. Dr. Perry, in your opinion, how does
ratification of UNCLOS impact our national security?
Dr. Perry. In the modern security environment, it is increasingly
important that the United States moves quickly to accede to the UNCLOS.
The UNCLOS, as modified, provides a written legal regime that would
protect U.S. national security interests, principally by preserving
freedom of navigation and overflight worldwide. In dealing with threats
such as the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, international
terrorism, and worldwide narcotics trafficking, U.S. forces must have
freedom to move swiftly and as a matter of right through the world's
oceans and straits. U.S. accession of the UNCLOS would protect these
rights and preserve reciprocity with other coastal nations. The UNCLOS
guarantees the right of innocent passage through foreign territorial
seas and constrains coastal nations from unreasonably extending their
maritime boundaries. These assurances of vessel and aircraft mobility
and limitations on unreasonable maritime claims will ensure
preservation of our capability to deter and respond whenever and
wherever required pursuant to national security objectives.
The United States is currently the only maritime power that has not
become a State Party to the UNCLOS. The failure to accede to the UNCLOS
continues to be detrimental to U.S. international reputation and
adversely affects U.S. credibility in international fora, where the
United States continues its efforts to preserve the right to freely
move throughout the world's oceans. In many respects, the UNCLOS
codifies customary international law and the state practice comprised
of the cumulative actions of governments in areas such as transit
through international straits and establishment of the exclusive
economic zone.
The UNCLOS has been an enormously positive influence on the
development of authoritative decision, shaping the process in a
direction that protects the international community's right to freedom
of the seas. Whether UNCLOS is able to continue to serve the critical
function on the development of authoritative decision will depend on
the outcome of the ongoing deliberations about international law
governing the oceans. As an outsider, the United States is hamstrung in
its ability to shape and influence this deliberation for public order
in the oceans.
This issue is exemplified by the current ``disputes'' associated
with resource exploitation, maritime claims, and transshipment of the
very sensitive (and hazardous) waters in the arctic. Additionally, the
recent actions by China to seek to deny the U.S. access to areas in the
South China Sea are another example of challenges we face. That denial
of access is predicated on China's unwillingness to abide by the
maritime boundary rules in the UNCLOS and its unwillingness to respect
the rights of maritime users to exercise high seas freedoms in areas
outside of Chinese territorial waters. China asserts that the United
States, as a nonparty to the UNCLOS, has no right to exercise the
rights and freedoms that are codified in the UNCLOS. In this respect
and others, becoming a state-party to the UNCLOS would enable the
United States to exercise both leadership and a stabilizing influence
regarding overreaching claims of China and other countries.
legislative reform to national security
12. Senator Begich. Dr. Perry, in the findings and recommendations,
the panel identifies several recommendations for the legislative branch
in reforming the national security effort. Which one of the
recommendations for the legislative reform package would you deem as
the most important?
Dr. Perry. The panel identifies several recommendations for needed
interagency and DOD process and capability improvements, some of which
may be solved by the executive branch, and others requiring legislative
action. Yet, no matter how well these recommendations are implemented,
their true effectiveness and the driver of the resource management
decisions required lie within the effectiveness of the guiding strategy
documents. The panel concluded that sufficient strategic guidance does
not exist at the national level for DOD to make required mission and
resource decisions, nor does sufficient guidance exist to allow a
complementary, coordinated mission and resource management of the
interagency. Based upon this conclusion, we recommend that the most
important legislative reform package is the establishment of a standing
Independent Strategic Review Panel to review the strategic environment
over the next 20 years and provide prioritized goals, risk assessments,
and strategic recommendations for use by the U.S. Government. The
results of this panel, as adopted by the administration, would then be
the driver that guides the rest of the strategic planning process and
determines both the capabilities and resources needed.
13. Senator Begich. Dr. Perry, how would you suggest moving forward
on this recommendation?
Dr. Perry. We recommend that Congress use our panel's
recommendations found in Appendix 4, ``Independent Strategic Review
Panel,'' as a guide to prepare legislative language jointly with the
executive branch to implement and empower this panel.
training exercises for civilians
14. Senator Begich. Mr. Hadley, I believe the panel recommended the
Army and Marine Corps remain at the planned authorized end strength.
With that being said, you also recommended enhancing the civilian
whole-of-government capacity and said ``DOD needs to contribute to
training and exercising these civilian forces with U.S. military forces
so that they will be able to operate effectively together.'' Without
changing the strength of the Army and Marine Corps, would they be able
to assume a potential mission to train civilians? If so, how should we
go about this?
Mr. Hadley. When we addressed the training and exercising the
civilian forces with U.S. military forces, the panel sought to set the
foundation for U.S. civil agencies and military units to train and
exercise with allied and coalition partners so that they are
collectively better prepared to handle a variety of missions that
require extensive collaboration and cooperation with multiple
government and military entities. This, in turn, would enhance our
whole-of-government capacity to prepare for and participate in
operations overseas.
We believe that DOD's optimal contribution to the enhancement of
civilian whole-of-government capacities should be through the
integration of civilian agencies into its exercises and training
events. This may require Congress to expand civil agencies'
capabilities to allow them to surge as a situation may require. In the
event that DOD might have to commit its forces to an ongoing operation
at the expense of training civilian agency staffs, the most viable
alternative with which to replace these Active-Duty Forces is to use a
mix of National Guard and Reserve Forces and contractor personnel, both
to provide the training personnel and to act as surrogates for Active
Duty formations with whom non-DOD civilians must interact.
national security strategic planning process
15. Senator Begich. Mr. Hadley, in the last chapter, the panel
recommends the United States needs a truly comprehensive National
Security Strategic Planning Process that begins at the top and provides
the requisite guidance not only to DOD, but to the other departments
and agencies of the U.S. Government. Do you also recommend DOD being
the lead agency to implement across the U.S. Government?
Mr. Hadley. We do not recommend that DOD be the lead agency to
implement across the U.S. Government. The national security concerns of
the United States and the tools that may be used to address them are
broad and varied. In many cases, if not in a majority, the traditional
roles of the military may not be the right ones to use, and the
inclusion of, or lead of the military in these, may in fact create a
negative reaction to the intended goal from the perception and
perspective of other nations and peoples. To determine the appropriate
missions, strategies, lead agencies, and resources needed to meet our
national security goals is the most important reason for our
recommendation to establish a new National Security Strategic Planning
Process.
______
Questions Submitted by Senator Roland W. Burris
strategic scope
16. Senator Burris. Dr. Perry and Mr. Hadley, QDR 2010 is the
second to be conducted while at war. QDR 2010 supports the military's
mission to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda. Will we miss
strategic opportunities, given our current focus on today's wars, one
particular region, and the current adversary?
Dr. Perry and Mr. Hadley. Concern about seizing opportunities as
well as preparing for future threats was one of the reasons the panel
began its assessment of the strategic environment with an appreciation
of enduring U.S. security interests. As a nation with global concerns
and responsibilities, America must be alert to multiple and divergent
trends at the same time, even while fighting two wars.
A good example of this approach is reflected in the panel's
emphasis on the Asia-Pacific; the current balance of power in the
region--the world's most dynamic and clearly a key to the prospects for
peace in the 21st century--is fundamentally favorable to the United
States. Recent decades have seen both rising prosperity, lifting
hundreds of millions out of poverty, and the spread of political
liberty. But this very dynamism creates geopolitical uncertainties,
particularly as the panel report outlines, in regard to the rise of
China and India as great powers.
It is fair to say that the panel saw these emerging conditions as a
tremendous opportunity for the United States diplomatically,
economically, and in the realm of political ideas, not only to avoid
the kind of terrible conflicts that characterized great-power relations
in Europe over the last century, but to provide continued security for
the very positive recent trends across the region. Thus, we concluded
that maintaining adequate U.S. military forces in the Asia-Pacific--yet
not detracting from current operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and in the
broader effort against al Qaeda and other terrorists--was a key element
in seizing this strategic opportunity on which so much of our future
rests.
17. Senator Burris. Dr. Perry and Mr. Hadley, how confident are you
that this QDR ensures that our military will be more flexible and
adaptable to respond to a dynamic security environment?
Dr. Perry and Mr. Hadley. We agree that flexibility and
adaptability are core attributes the U.S. military must cultivate to
deal with the threats of today and tomorrow. We share Secretary Gates'
goal of a balanced force. However, our panel's report noted a number of
shortfalls in ensuring that the United States can respond to these
challenges. Specifically, we noted the need to strengthen U.S. force
structure to address the need to counter anti-access challenges,
protect the Homeland (including defense against cyber threats), and
conduct post-conflict stabilization missions.
Flexibility and adaptability also come from having highly-trained
and well-educated officers and enlisted members. In our report, we
noted the need to strengthen professional military education by
increasing both the opportunities and incentives for education within
the Armed Forces. For example, we believe that successful company grade
or junior field grade officers should be offered fully funded civilian
graduate degree programs in residence to study military affairs and
foreign cultures and languages, without specific connection to a
follow-on assignment. Additionally, all officers selected for advanced
promotion to the rank of major should be required and funded to earn a
graduate degree in residence at a top-tier civilian graduate school in
a war-related discipline in the humanities and social sciences. We also
believe that attendance at intermediate and senior service school
should be by application, and require entrance examinations
administered by the schools in cooperation with the service personnel
offices.
reserve force components
18. Senator Burris. Dr. Perry and Mr. Hadley, the findings and
recommendations speak to joint training, professional military
education (PME) for General/Flag Officers, strategy, and force sizing.
I applaud the fact these QDR recommendations are very thorough and
specific, but they appear to focus on Active Forces. How do these QDR
recommendations apply to the Reserve component?
Dr. Perry and Mr. Hadley. The United States must have well-trained
and experienced personnel in both the Active and Reserve components.
Many of our recommendations should apply to both Active and Reserve
Forces keeping in mind the time constraints on members of the Reserves.
One of our recommendations is for Congress to establish a new National
Commission on Military Personnel of the quality and stature of the 1970
Gates Commission. Its mandate would include an examination of the mix
of Active and Reserve Forces and a comprehensive review of personnel
management policies. We recommend, for example, that officers selected
for general officer or flag rank serve an assignment in some level of
the teaching faculty in the PME system. There are currently positions
in the Reserves for officers to serve as instructors. We also call for
the curricula of ROTC and the service academies to be aligned so as to
strengthen the education of the officer corps in the profession of
arms. It is clear that the Nation goes to war using both its Active and
Reserve Forces, and they must be interchangeable as much as possible.
19. Senator Burris. Dr. Perry and Mr. Hadley, should these
recommendations be supported by a top-down review of the many disparate
pay, personnel management, and promotion systems used by the Active and
Reserve components of each Service?
Dr. Perry and Mr. Hadley. These are complex and challenging
recommendations that should not be implemented without realizing that
many of the QDR Independent Panel recommendations are interlinked. Our
panel strongly recommends a top-down review of the policies for both
Active and Reserve components of each Military Service as part of the
broader National Commission on Military Personnel. Given that many of
the military's personnel policies were established in the 1940s and
1950s, the laws, policies, and structures therein must be reformed to
more closely align with the needs and demands of a highly-mobile 21st
century workforce.
The panel continues to recommend the lengthening of officer careers
to 40 years, including in the Reserve components. Changes in medicine,
longevity of life, and the nature of military service make this
possible. Additionally, this would save money and allow the Services to
realize their full investment in the education, training, experience,
and accomplishments of their officer corps. This recommendation should
be considered by the commission, along with a July 2005 RAND study,
``Reforming the Military by Lengthening Military Careers,'' by Bernard
Rostker. If enacted, personnel management and promotion policies could
be improved as a result.
We also support DOD adopting a continuum-of-service model for
personnel allowing them to move fluidly between the Active and Reserve
components and between the military, private sector, civil service, and
other employment. Such changes would make military service and its
compensation system more flexible and offer attractive intangible
benefits.
Given that many DOD witnesses with whom we met predict today's
operational reserve will remain for the next 20 years, our panel was
concerned the Department was not planning for mobilization beyond
standing forces. We are also concerned about the expectations of
service in the Reserves, as well as the cost effectiveness of an
operational reserve which diminishes the cost differential between the
two components. Again, a continuum-of-service model would allow
different pay systems and offer the Services the ability to transfer
skill sets from the private sector readily, which improves readiness.
______
Questions Submitted by Senator David Vitter
defense and state departments coordination
20. Senator Vitter. Dr. Perry, during your testimony you stated
that we've come to a point where the relationship between DOD and the
Department of State (DOS) now merits legislative action similar to
Goldwater-Nichols. I agree that like Goldwater-Nichols, something needs
to be done to better integrate DOS and DOD in terms of planning,
operations, and training. Could you elaborate on your recommendation
and provide a blueprint, even if only in rough format, for what you
envision?
Dr. Perry. We believe the panel's recommendations to establish a
single national security funding line and a new national security
strategic planning process are the basic building blocks to improve
interagency integration, planning, training, and operational
capabilities. We fully recognize the difficulty for Congress when the
issue involves the appropriations process but the national security
threats have changed dramatically since the current appropriations
process was created. We believe the time has come to improve it so that
the executive branch departments and agencies are provided funding that
is coordinated and integrated from the very start of the process in
Congress.
We also recognize that having the funds in the appropriate hands of
Federal departments and agencies is not enough. The executive branch
needs a better planning process and our recommendations outlined in
Chapter 5 of the report provides that blueprint. The United States
needs a truly comprehensive National Security Strategic Planning
Process that begins at the top and provides the requisite guidance, not
only to DOD but to other departments and agencies that must work
together to address the full range of threats confronting our Nation.
The first step in creating this new process calls for both the White
House and Congress to jointly establish a standing Independent
Strategic Review Panel as we described in appendices 4 and 5 of our
panel's report.
reporting alternatives to the qdr
21. Senator Vitter. Mr. Hadley, as pointed out in the QDR
Independent Panel Report, the initial legislative intent behind the
defense QDR has degraded over time. Recent QDRs, and especially the
2010 QDR, have devolved into near-term planning documents instead of
reviewing/projecting long-term defense policy. You stated that the 2010
QDR lacked a clear future planning construct going forward 20 years,
and recommended replacing the QDR with an independent QDR panel from
here forward. What, if any, reporting requirements would you recommend
for continued internal DOD action were DOD to be relieved of the QDR
requirement?
Mr. Hadley. The DOD would still need to have an internal process to
review and project long-term defense policy based on a current
administration's policy and strategy guidance--informed and advised by
our proposed Independent Strategic Review Panel. This DOD long-term
policy would then influence the budgeting process to ensure that the
missions, structures, forces, and processes would meet the
administration's strategic guidance. How this is integrated and planned
for should be a required part of the annual budget report.
The panel's recommendation for the independent panel does the
following:
Provides a clear future planning construct going
forward 20 years;
Ensures that strategic guidance is top-down rather
than a bottom-up program defense;
Ensures that a holistic whole-of-government approach
is used in defining the strategy to balance and define the
roles, missions, and requirements of the interagency; and
Ensures that the strategic guidance provides
sufficient details and priorities to allow departments and
agencies to make informed, critical resource decisions in a
whole-of-government perspective.
maritime force strength
22. Senator Vitter. Mr. Hadley, the administration exempted the
defense budget from spending freezes being applied to other parts of
the government. However, due to cuts and delays to the defense
shipbuilding budget, Northrop Grumman has announced it will close its
Avondale and related shipbuilding facilities by 2013 as it consolidates
its shipyards on the Gulf Coast.
Given your recommendation within the QDR Independent Panel Report
to increase the size of maritime forces, do you think that this
announcement will have an adverse effect on America's commitment to see
that our forces have the tools they need to prevail in the wars we are
in while making the investments necessary to prepare for threats on or
beyond the horizon?
Mr. Hadley. As we recommended in our panel's report, DOD should
return to a strategy requiring dual-source competition for production
programs where this will produce real competition. This applies to
shipbuilding as well as other areas. However, if the Pentagon policy
does not change to increase shipbuilding and encourage competition in
production between qualified competitors, then Avondale and other
shipyards should be closed. The worst of all worlds would be to
allocate too few ships to too many yards. We would note, however, that
such closures would send an adverse signal to the world of our lack of
commitment to maintain maritime deterrence.
23. Senator Vitter. Mr. Hadley, does this have an effect on U.S.-
based dual-source competition for shipbuilding?
Mr. Hadley. Closure of good shipyards and dispersal of skilled and
experienced work forces cannot easily be resurrected. Once they are
closed, the waterfront tends rapidly to put the land to other uses.
Thus, in the future, if the Nation requires an expanded fleet there
will not be the industrial base available to build it. But to repeat,
to avoid closure of yards like Avondale, the shipbuilding program must
increase and competitive production must be the procurement policy.
______
[The Report of the Quadrennial Defense Review Independent
Panel follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S)] [NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
[Whereupon, at 12:02 p.m., the committee adjourned.]
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