Service Leaders Make Budget Request Case Before House Panel
By Cheryl Pellerin DoD News, Defense Media Activity
WASHINGTON, March 16, 2016 – Service secretaries from the Army, Navy and Air Force discussed their budget requests for fiscal year 2017 before the House Armed Services Committee today, focusing mainly on readiness and emerging threats.
Testifying were acting Army Secretary Patrick J. Murphy, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus and Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James.
Murphy, in his 10th week on the job, said he's visited with soldiers, Defense Department civilians and their families at Fort Hood and Fort Sam Houston in Texas, and also has gone to Iraq and Afghanistan.
Army Budget Request
"Our Army must produce ready units today to deter and defeat our nation's enemies, defend our homeland, project power and win decisively," he told the panel.
Readiness, Murphy said, means units that are fully manned, trained for combat, fully equipped according to their designed structure, and led by competent leaders. Soldiers also must be ready for future fights by investing in modernization and in research and development.
"With our $125.1 billion budget request, our Army will focus its efforts on rebuilding readiness for large-scale, high-end ground combat today," he said. "We do so because we believe that ignoring readiness shortfalls puts our nation at greatest risk."
Readiness prepares the force for potential future conflicts, and the Army must be prepared to face the high-end and advanced combat power of an aggressive Russia, or more likely Russian aggression employed by surrogate actors, Murphy told the panel.
The fiscal 2017 budget request dedicates resources to develop solutions to give the force the space to develop new concepts informed by the recommendations of the National Commission on the Future of the Army, the acting Army secretary said.
"Our formations must first be ready to execute against current and emerging threats," he added," [but] the choice to invest in near-term readiness does come with risk."
Smaller modernization investments risk the Army's ability to fight and win in the future, and no new major modernization programs are planned this decade, Murphy said.
"Smaller investments in end-strength risk the Army's ability to conduct multiple operations for sustained periods of time," he told the committee. "In short, we're mortgaging our future readiness, because we have to ensure success in today's battles against emerging threats. That's why initiatives we asked for, like [the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission] in 2019, need to be implemented now."
Letting the Army manage this investment will result in $500 million a year in savings and return on investment within five years, Murphy said.
Navy Budget Request
In his remarks, Mabus said he's proud of the many steps the Navy has taken and the changes it's made to ensure that the Navy and Marine Corps remain the greatest expeditionary fighting force the world has ever known.
The Navy's proposed $165 billion budget for fiscal 2017 makes key investments in people, platforms, installations and research and development and includes a $45 billion base and overseas contingency operations procurement budget focused on improving high-end capability across all warfare areas, according to a Navy budget fact sheet.
The budget buys seven new ships in fiscal 2017, and it fully funds the Ohio-class replacement ballistic missile submarine and maintains the Ohio Replacement Program as the Navy's top priority in strengthening naval power from the sea.
Mabus said the administration has funded the fleet to grow to 308 ships in fiscal 2021.
The budget also funds 94 aircraft in fiscal 2017, the fact sheet said, and reflects the need to expand capabilities to meet dynamic changes in today's security environment by including $17.3 billion for research and development.
"We continue to provide presence. That unrivaled advantage on, above, beneath and from the seas gives our leaders options in times of crisis, reassures our allies and deters adversaries," Mabus told the panel.
Resourcing that presence depends on people, platforms, power and partnerships, Mabus said.
"When I took this post seven years ago … each of these four P's was under pressure. … Now our people platforms power and partnerships are stronger than they've been in many years, enabling us to provide that invaluable presence," Mabus said.
Air Force Budget Request
In her remarks, James said the Air Force priorities continue to include taking care of people and balancing readiness and modernization.
James said the Air Force is fully engaged in every region of the world, in every mission area and across the full spectrum of operations.
"We have never been busier on such a sustained and global basis, and we are doing all this with roughly 200,000 fewer people and 79 fewer fighter squadrons than we had at the time of Operation Desert Storm," she said.
The Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 gave the Air Force a period of stability and predictability, James said, but leaves the Air Force $3.4 billion short compared to its original fiscal 2017 request.
"This means that once again we had some tough choices to make in this budget," she said.
The Air Force must upsize its force after years of downsizing, James said, and wants to do it to address, among others, critical career fields such as intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance; cyber; maintenance across the Air Force; and battlefield airmen.
James said another priority is getting the readiness-modernization balance right. Less than half of Air Force combat forces are ready for a high-end fight, she said, defining that as "a conflict that might take place in an anti-access/area denial environment … where an adversary could shoot us down, interfere with us in some major way in space or cyberspace."
The Air Force aircraft inventory is the oldest it has ever been, she said, at the same time adversaries are closing the technological gap. After consulting with combatant commanders, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark A. Welch and James agreed to rephase the A-10 and the C-130 aircraft retirements.
"The bottom line here is we are not proposing to retire any of these aircraft in [fiscal 2017]," she said. Air Force leaders will continue to look at the mix of aircraft each year, she added, and will be prepared to modify based on the global security situation.
The fiscal 2017 budget request would continue ongoing investments to support nuclear deterrence, space and cyberspace, she said, and will continue with the F-35 joint strike fighter, the KC-46 aerial refueling aircraft, combat rescue helicopters, the Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System and the B-21, formerly known as the long range strike bomber.
"This fifth-generation global precision-attack platform will give our country a networked sensor-shooter capability and propel us into the next century of air power dominance," James said.
Tough choices include deferring the fiscal 2017 purchases of five F-35s and three C-130Js, delay some upgrades to fourth-generation systems such as the F-16, and many infrastructure projects, James said.
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