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i 

91–816 2015

[H.A.S.C. No. 113–131] 

THE ROLE OF MARITIME AND AIR POWER 

IN DOD’S THIRD OFFSET STRATEGY 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON SEAPOWER AND 

PROJECTION FORCES 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

HEARING HELD 

DECEMBER 2, 2014 
(II) 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON SEAPOWER AND PROJECTION FORCES 

J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia, Chairman 

K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas 

DUNCAN HUNTER, California 

E. SCOTT RIGELL, Virginia 

STEVEN M. PALAZZO, Mississippi 

ROBERT J. WITTMAN, Virginia 

MIKE COFFMAN, Colorado 

JON RUNYAN, New Jersey 

KRISTI L. NOEM, South Dakota 

PAUL COOK, California 

BRADLEY BYRNE, Alabama 

MIKE MCINTYRE, North Carolina 

JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut 

JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island 

RICK LARSEN, Washington 

HENRY C. ‘‘HANK’’ JOHNSON, JR., Georgia 

COLLEEN W. HANABUSA, Hawaii 

DEREK KILMER, Washington 

SCOTT H. PETERS, California 

DAVID SIENICKI, Professional Staff Member 

PHIL MACNAUGHTON, Professional Staff Member 

KATHERINE REMBER, Clerk 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS 

2014 

Page 

HEARING: 

Tuesday, December 2, 2014, The Role of Maritime and Air Power in DOD’s 

Third Offset Strategy ........................................................................................... 1 

APPENDIX: 

Tuesday, December 2, 2014 .................................................................................... 25 

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2014 

THE ROLE OF MARITIME AND AIR POWER IN DOD’S THIRD 

OFFSET STRATEGY 

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

Forbes, Hon. J. Randy, a Representative from Virginia, Chairman, Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces .................................................. 1 

WITNESSES 

Brimley, Shawn, Executive Vice President and Director of Studies, Center 

for a New American Security .............................................................................. 5 

Hunter, Andrew, Director, Defense-Industrial Initiatives Group, and Senior 

Fellow, International Security Program, Center for Strategic and International Studies ................................................................................................... 7 

Martinage, Robert, Senior Fellow, Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments ..................................................................................................................... 3 

Ochmanek, David, RAND Corporation .................................................................. 10 

APPENDIX 

PREPARED STATEMENTS: 

Brimley, Shawn ................................................................................................ 44 

Forbes, Hon. J. Randy ...................................................................................... 29 

Hunter, Andrew ................................................................................................ 54 

Martinage, Robert ............................................................................................ 32 

Ochmanek, David ............................................................................................. 68 

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD: 

[There were no Documents submitted.] 

WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING THE HEARING: 

[There were no Questions submitted during the hearing.] 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING: 

[There were no Questions submitted post hearing.] 

(1) 

THE ROLE OF MARITIME AND AIR POWER IN DOD’S 

THIRD OFFSET STRATEGY 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON SEAPOWER AND PROJECTION FORCES, Washington, DC, Tuesday, December 2, 2014. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 4:24 p.m., in room 

2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. J. Randy Forbes (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. J. RANDY FORBES, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM VIRGINIA, CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE 

ON SEAPOWER AND PROJECTION FORCES 

Mr. FORBES. Gentlemen, thank you so much for your patience 

and putting up with us as we had these votes, and we are sorry 

to kind of flip you around. 

We are kind of waiting for Mr. Langevin to get here. He is on 

his way. Mr. Courtney is ill and is not going to be with us. So if 

it is okay with you, I am going to go ahead and do the opening 

statement that we had planned to do. We weren’t going to do that 

in the interest of time, but since we are waiting for Mr. Langevin, 

we will do that. 

Today, the subcommittee convenes to receive testimony on the 

role of seapower and airpower in DOD’s [Department of Defense] 

Defense Innovation Initiative offset strategy. 

Our panel of distinguished guests testifying before us are Mr. 

Robert Martinage, Senior Fellow, Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments; Mr. Shawn Brimley, Executive Vice President 

and Director of Studies for the Center for a New American Security; Mr. Andrew Hunter, Director, Defense-Industrial Initiatives 

Group, and Senior Fellow, International Security Program, Center 

for Strategic and International Studies; Mr. David Ochmanek, from 

the RAND Corporation. 

And, gentlemen, we thank you for being with us today. 

This past summer, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel concluded in 

a speech at the Naval War College that we are entering an era 

where American dominance can no longer be taken for granted. 

This is a stunning admission that deserves the full and undivided 

attention of the Congress. 

Today, states like China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea are investing in precision-guided munitions, advanced sensors, undersea 

warfare, unmanned systems, and offensive cyber and space capabilities to alter the military balance with the United States. 

Nowhere are these risks more evident than in the Indo-Pacific 

region and specifically Northeast Asia, where the People’s Republic 
2 

of China is using its growing economic and military power to coerce 

its neighbors and challenge the current American-led order. 

China’s investments in what it calls a ‘‘counterintervention strategy’’ are calling into question our ability to project power, degrading escalation dominance, forcing allies to doubt the credibility of 

our deterrent, and imposing costs on current joint force capabilities 

that will make it increasingly difficult to sustain the military edge. 

In recent years, we witnessed various responses to these emerging challenges, including the establishment of the Air-Sea Battle 

Office, new weapons programs like the Long Range Anti-Ship Missile, and operational initiatives like the Air Force is pursuing in 

the Pacific. These efforts are all very much necessary, but they illustrate a larger concern: Alone and unguided by a true long-range 

strategic planning process, they are insufficient to prepare the Department of Defense for the future. 

When Deputy Secretary of Defense Bob Work began discussing 

a new offset strategy this past summer, this subcommittee took notice. I read the available literature on the offset strategy of the late 

1970s and the ‘‘New Look’’ of Eisenhower initiated in the 1950s 

and found in this history a useful analogy for today. Just like during these periods, we face new military operational dilemmas that 

cannot be resolved in our favor by doing more of the same. 

I believe that the concept of peace through strength continues to 

be a sound maxim for guiding our defense policy, but, given the capabilities and new warfighting concepts our competitors are adopting, the answer cannot be just to build more military strength but 

to develop and invest in the right type of military strength. 

We need to ask tough questions about the military competitions 

we find ourselves in, work to match our inherent military advantages and disadvantages against those of our competitors, and invest our time, energy, and resources in new ways to exploit our advantages and shift the military balance back in our favor. 

I understand the Department of Defense has initiated the Defense Innovation Initiative to develop a new offset strategy to prepare the United States for emerging warfighting regimes. While I 

look forward to future testimony from the Pentagon about this effort, today’s hearing provides an opportunity to enhance this subcommittee’s understanding about the concept of an offset strategy 

and potential options the Pentagon can consider in pursuing this 

new initiative. 

Finally, there is one important distinction that I believe needs to 

be made concerning the offset strategy from the 1970s. While there 

was a tremendous amount of intellectual capital and research and 

development dollars invested during this period to develop an offset 

for Soviet advantages, the resources to fund this effort never materialized. It was not until the Reagan military buildup in the early 

1980s that the benefits of capabilities like stealth, precision-guided 

munitions, and sensors could be fielded in a way that actually exploited these new technologies and shifted the military balance in 

our favor. 

Today, we face a similar dilemma. Absent a reversal of sequestration, we can develop brilliant ideas for a new offset strategy and 

still fall far short of our objective. 
3 

I again thank our panel for being here to testify and look forward 

to your testimony. 

And, with that, we are still waiting for Mr. Langevin, but Ms. 

Hanabusa has joined us, and we are glad always to have her. And 

it looks like Mr. Kilmer is making his way down, and we certainly 

have Mr. Byrne with us. So we are going to go ahead and proceed 

with our testimony if that is okay. 

With that, Mr. Martinage, I think you are first up. Is that my 

understanding? 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Forbes can be found in the Appendix on page 29.] 

STATEMENT OF ROBERT MARTINAGE, SENIOR FELLOW, 

CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND BUDGETARY ASSESSMENTS 

Mr. MARTINAGE. Chairman Forbes, members and staff of this distinguished subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to share 

my views on the implications of a third offset strategy on air and 

maritime forces. 

I would like to request that my full written statement be submitted for the record. 

Mr. FORBES. Without objection, all of the written statements will 

be submitted for the record. 

Mr. MARTINAGE. While several important lessons with contemporary relevance can be drawn from the New Look in the 1950s 

and the offset strategy adopted in the 1970s, I would like to focus 

my remarks this afternoon on the development of what Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work has dubbed a third offset strategy. 

I would like to share my thoughts on four issues. First, why is 

an offset strategy needed? Or, put another way, what is the operational problem that we need to solve? Second, what enduring capability advantages might we leverage to enable a new operational 

approach to power projection? Third, what kind of shifts in the current DOD investment portfolio would be needed to enable this new 

concept of operations? And, finally, what isn’t a third offset strategy? 

So, to begin, we need a new offset strategy simply because traditional sources of U.S. military advantage are being eroded by the 

maturation and proliferation of disruptive technologies, most notably anti-access and area denial [A2/AD] capabilities, to state and 

nonstate actors alike. 

While China’s ongoing military modernization represents the 

pacing threat in the Asia-Pacific, prospective adversaries in other 

key regions around the globe are also acquiring and fielding a wide 

range of A2/AD capabilities to exploit U.S. vulnerabilities. 

This trend is clear and disconcerting. Absent a major change in 

how the U.S. military projects power, its ability to deter aggression, 

reassure allies, and defend U.S. security interests will be increasingly challenged in the years ahead. 

More specifically, the U.S. military faces four core operational 

problems that will become more severe over time. First, close-in regional bases—ports, airfields, ground installations—are increasingly vulnerable to attack in a growing number of countries around 

the world. Second, large surface combatants and aircraft carriers at 

sea are becoming easier to detect, track, and engage extended- 
4 

range from an adversary’s coast. Third, nonstealthy aircraft are becoming more vulnerable to being shot down by modern integrated 

air defense networks. And, space is no longer a sanctuary from attack. 

Given the increasing scale and diversity of these threats, trying 

to counter them symmetrically with tailored forces or competing 

missile for missile is likely to be both futile and unaffordable over 

the long run. The United States cannot afford to simply scale up 

the current mix of joint power projection capabilities. Similarly, 

while active defenses and countermeasures may be tactically effective and operationally useful in some situations, they must not be 

allowed to crowd out offensive capability and capacity, which is the 

foundation upon which deterrence is built. 

Turning now to my second point, to solve this growing problem, 

I believe we should take advantage of U.S. core competencies in unmanned systems and automation, extended-range and low-observable air operations, undersea warfare, and complex systems engineering and integration. 

Importantly, when I say ‘‘core competency,’’ I don’t mean just 

technology. It is not just about gadgets but, rather, the combination 

of technology, our industrial base, skilled manpower, training, doctrine, and hard-to-learn practical experience that confers the capability advantage that is difficult for rivals to duplicate or counter. 

As part of a new offset strategy, these enduring U.S. capability 

advantages could enable U.S. power projection across the threat 

spectrum to deter aggression, reassure our friends and allies, and 

defend our national security interests. 

More specifically, they could provide the basis for a global surveillance and strike network that would be balanced, in that it 

would comprise a mix of low-end and high-end platforms aligned to 

a widely varying threat environment; resilient, in that it would be 

geographically distributed with less dependence upon close-in 

bases, have greatly reduced sensitivity to enemy air defense capabilities, and be significantly more tolerant of disruptions to spacebased systems. 

It would be responsive, in that a credible surveillance strike 

presence could be generated quickly by taking advantage of rapid 

global reach and survivable forward presence. And, lastly, it would 

be scalable, in that the network could be expanded to influence 

events in multiple locations around the world concurrently. 

While many elements of the U.S. military would have important 

roles to play in a future global surveillance and strike network, it 

would emphasize air and maritime forces. In particular, it would 

leverage increasingly autonomous unmanned systems, given their 

advantages in terms of ultra-long mission endurance and low lifecycle costs relative to manned platforms. 

So now to my third topic: What shifts in the defense investment 

portfolio would we need to realize this type of new operational concept? 

I address this question in considerably more detail in my written 

statement, but, in short, I think the portfolio needs to be rebalanced in three ways: increase space resiliency and fielding hedges 

against degradation of space-based capabilities; expanding under-
5 

sea payload capacity and flexibility; and, third, increasing the combat radius and survivability of land- and sea-based airpower. 

Simply put, it is imperative to rectify the growing imbalance between forces that are able to operate only in permissive environments versus those that can operate in non-permissive environments as well. 

So now to my fourth and final topic, which is: What isn’t the 

third offset strategy, in my view? Three quick points. 

First, it is not a comprehensive national defense strategy, let 

alone a national security strategy. It does not address every threat 

facing the Nation, but, rather, should focus more narrowly on restoring and sustaining our conventional power projection capability 

and capacity, which is a sine qua non of a superpower and the bedrock of deterrence. 

Second, it is not about offsetting sequestration or the Budget 

Control Act. Don’t get me wrong; I strongly support rescinding the 

Budget Control Act, eliminating sequestration, and funding defense 

at a higher level. That said, the changes in the defense investment 

portfolio that I outlined earlier are needed irrespective of the budget level. 

Third, it is not just about technology. It is about identifying the 

operational problems that we face, leveraging our enduring capability advantages to address them, and technology is just but one 

component of that. 

Lastly, I would just like to conclude by saying that we just cannot afford to continue the current business-as-usual approach to 

power projection nor plan on having the resources and time to rectify the many problems with the current path once they become 

fully manifest. So it is really essential for Congress, and this committee in particular, to take an active role in driving the formulation and implementation of a third offset strategy. 

I look forward to your questions and discussion. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Martinage can be found in the 

Appendix on page 32.] 

Mr. FORBES. Thank you, Mr. Martinage. 

Mr. Brimley. 

STATEMENT OF SHAWN BRIMLEY, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT AND DIRECTOR OF STUDIES, CENTER FOR A NEW 

AMERICAN SECURITY 

Mr. BRIMLEY. Thank you, Chairman Forbes, members and staff, 

for the opportunity to testify. I want to acknowledge my co-panelists, whose work I very much admire. 

I want to thank this committee for delving into the issue of how 

the Pentagon’s new Defense Innovation Initiative can be fully harnessed for the long-term military technical competition unfolding 

today. 

It is a contest over military technical superiority and whether 

the U.S. can sustain its advantage deep into the 21st century or 

be overtaken by its competitors. This strategic competition will be 

played out over decades, and it is one the U.S. could very well lose. 

America’s Armed Forces must project and sustain power across 

oceans and be able to perform complex offensive and defensive operations in all types of geographic terrain and in all operating do-
6 

mains. No other nation-state requires this kind of global power projection capability to adequately protect its national interests. The 

U.S. is unique in this regard. 

But after over 25 years of U.S. power projection being the source 

of our unique advantage, today it forms the basis for a long-term 

military competition. 

To properly frame the so-called third offset strategy, it is necessary to place it in context. In my written statement, I describe 

how military history can be divided into two basic eras or regimes: 

the unguided-weapons regime and the guided-weapons regime. 

The key characteristic of the unguided-weapons regime was that 

most munitions that were thrown, shot, fired, launched, or dropped 

ultimately missed their targets. Therefore, in order to maximize 

success at the point of attack, commanders would need to aggregate their forces to achieve a—often achieve numerical superiority. 

The crucible of World War II and the early Cold War period 

drove the development of two alternative ways for the U.S. to compensate or offset the numerical advantages our adversaries often 

enjoyed. 

The first offset strategy centered on atomic weapons. The massive destructive—the destructive power inherent in a nuclear blast 

obviated the need for much accuracy. This was initially attractive 

to the United States as a means to compensate for insufficient land 

forces in Europe, but as the Soviet Union approached basic parity 

in the nuclear balance, the advantage that the U.S. enjoyed faded 

quickly. This perceived erosion in U.S. deterrence drove the search 

for a new way to offset Soviet conventional military power. 

The second offset strategy that reduced the need for mass on the 

battlefield came in the form of guided conventional weapons that 

actively corrected their trajectories after being fired, released, or 

launched. Transformative technologies like stealth, the Global Positioning System, and the broader revolution in computer networking 

acted as a critical means to employ guided munitions against an 

adversary. Put simply, guided weapons ushered in an entirely new 

warfighting regime, one in which accuracy became independent of 

range. 

Because the U.S. moved first and moved decisively into the guided-munitions era, our Armed Forces gained a competitive advantage that helped to reinforce our conventional deterrent and was an 

influential variable, I think, in how the Cold War ended. 

For a quarter-century, the United States has continued to benefit 

from its initial first-mover advantages in guided munitions. But as 

both Secretary Hagel and Deputy Secretary Work, among others, 

have recently described, we are fast approaching a world in which 

the guided-munitions regime is fully mature, with a much broader 

range of players now fully invested. U.S. defense planners must 

now assume that future adversaries will employ sophisticated battle networks and advanced guided munitions to oppose U.S. military forces. 

We see this dynamic being played out most clearly in Asia, where 

China is moving quickly into the guided-weapons era with a goal 

to establishing a degree of guided-weapons parity in an extensive 

maritime contested zone. 
7 

So I believe the essential strategic challenge the Pentagon faces 

is how to ensure that our Armed Forces can deter and defeat an 

adversary that has established a degree of guided-weapons parity. 

We have never encountered this kind of strategic environment before, and I believe this has to be the primary focus of the Pentagon’s strategic planning and force development efforts. 

So the third offset strategy will need to explore many issues. For 

instance, in my mind, the Pentagon needs to determine how best 

to, one, defend against long-range guided munitions at more favorable cost exchange ratios; two, ensure U.S. aircraft carriers can 

project and sustain striking power beyond adversary missile 

ranges, and I think this committee has done great work in this regard; three, establish greater magazine capacity to ensure our 

forces can engage in multiple rounds of a salvable competition with 

an adversary employing guided munitions; and, four, maintain resilience in our own guided-munitions battle networks as plausible 

adversaries develop ways to contest and degrade our command and 

control links. 

I would encourage Members to review my colleague Bob 

Martinage’s recent report on this topic, where he lays out a series 

of strategy and spending priorities that I believe constitute an excellent guide for the budget cycles ahead. 

But as you adjudicate, scrutinize, and shape DOD’s strategy and 

spending priorities in the years ahead, I would encourage you to 

hold the Pentagon accountable for the priorities articulated by its 

leadership and also hope that you assist them in providing the top 

cover necessary for implementing the choices in the years ahead. 

DOD, as you know, is a massive bureaucracy that tends to resist 

even needed course corrections. But I think a window of opportunity now exists where the strategic environment and the fiscal 

pressure require real choices, and the leadership here on Capitol 

Hill and at the Pentagon can firmly move the Department such 

that America’s military technical advantage can be sustained in the 

decades ahead. 

Thank you again for having me. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Brimley can be found in the Appendix on page 44.] 

Mr. FORBES. Thank you, Mr. Brimley. 

Mr. Hunter. 

STATEMENT OF ANDREW HUNTER, DIRECTOR, DEFENSE–INDUSTRIAL INITIATIVES GROUP, AND SENIOR FELLOW, 

INTERNATIONAL SECURITY PROGRAM, CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES 

Mr. HUNTER. Chairman Forbes, Mr. Langevin, thank you very 

much for the opportunity to testify today on the Department of Defense offset strategy and its implication for the role of maritime 

and air power. 

It is an honor to appear as a witness before this committee, my 

former professional home, and a place where the critical national 

security questions of our time have been and I believe always will 

be thoroughly reviewed. 

And I can’t help but take notice of Chairman Skelton’s portrait. 

It was an honor to serve him on the staff, and a pleasure to see 
8 

so many of his colleagues with whom he served and for whom he 

cared so deeply. 

The topic of today’s hearing is an important one. The Department of Defense’s recently announced Defense Innovation Initiative, which is tasked to develop and support a new offset strategy, 

is a serious effort to achieve an important strategic objective. And 

that objective is to leverage innovation, both operational and technological, to extend the Department’s advantage over potential adversaries even if those adversaries engage in carefully planned aggressive and increasingly successful efforts to erode that advantage. 

The Defense Innovation Initiative must establish a concrete plan 

to achieve this objective, and Congress must ensure that the Department is resourced and organized to pursue that plan. 

Now let me propose a few ways for the committee to assess the 

offset strategy as it is being developed. 

It is critical that the use of innovation as an offset strategy is 

integrated within a broader national strategy. Only in a broad strategic context can it be determined which capabilities, and therefore 

which innovative concepts and technologies, merit enhanced investment. The 2012 Defense Strategic Guidance, the QDR [Quadrennial Defense Review], ultimately the National Security Strategy 

must provide this strategic context. 

If you read these strategic documents today, they specify a remarkably wide range of missions U.S. forces will need to be able 

to perform in the future, and they cite the need for new capabilities 

in the critical domains of cyber and space. Now, to address a mission set this diverse, the next offset strategy will have to focus on 

capabilities with a broad array of applications, from the high end 

to the low end of conflict. 

I believe there is a real danger of over-specifying the problem, 

particularly if you are specifying it at one end of the spectrum solely. As such, it is my view that the next offset strategy should consist of a set of targeted capabilities that enable new operational 

concepts and be paired with a technology investment roadmap. 

I don’t believe the next investment strategy—offset strategy 

should be a list of platform-specific investments. Now, that necessary step comes later and, I think, should come through a separate process, through the budget process. 

To be effective, the next offset strategy needs to guide action by 

industry as well as by the Department of Defense so that the Department’s investments are fully leveraged. Communication with 

industry, therefore, including to the maximum extent possible with 

nontraditional suppliers, is a key enabler that will—as will the 

ability to harvest commercial technologies. And the strategy must 

be flexible enough to adjust for unforeseen adversary capabilities. 

And, lastly, I want to point out that there are inevitably tradeoffs 

between developing new capabilities and operational concepts and 

then maintaining existing ones. We must, however, be careful not 

to throw out the baby with the bathwater as we shift our investment strategy. 

Now, I believe future adversaries are likely to pursue cost-imposing strategies that seek to raise the economic and military stakes 

for U.S. military actions to levels that they believe will be unac-
9 

ceptable to the American public. The U.S. must pursue capabilities 

that enable effective responses at acceptable costs. 

I do not claim to be able to lay out a fully developed offset strategy for you today that meets all of the requirements I have described so far. Developing such an approach will take time and 

much discussion with relevant stakeholders, and I think war-gaming and experimentations to test out these ideas will be critical. 

However, it is my expectation that the next offset strategy will 

extend many of the capabilities developed as part of the last offset 

strategy, as they are likely to be highly relevant when addressing 

future challenges. 

Most notably, I believe battlespace awareness capabilities will be 

critical, if not the critical element of future conflicts, both high-end 

and low-end. Given the rapid pace of development in areas such as 

data mining, sensor fusion, image and video processing, significant 

advances in battlespace awareness are likely to become available in 

coming years. And such advances can significantly enhance the 

ability of U.S. forces to plan and execute successful missions at acceptable cost. 

Denying battlespace awareness to adversaries may present even 

greater opportunities. The ability of U.S. forces to act cooperatively 

with partner forces can provide access to additional sensors and information that enhance our awareness while significantly complicating potential adversaries’ ability to impose costs on the United 

States. 

These capabilities readily lend themselves to the air and maritime realm. AWACS [Airborne Warning and Control System], Combined Engagement Capability, are networked approaches that were 

pioneered by the Air Force and Navy and provide exactly the kind 

of the battlespace awareness that is likely to be key in future conflicts. The Marine Corps Distributed Operations concept applied a 

similar conceptual approach to control of terrain in Iraq and Afghanistan. And the Army and JIEDDO [Joint Improvised Explosive 

Device Defeat Organization] developed integrated sensor networks 

for the protection of U.S. forward operating bases that achieved significant enhancements in capability. These approaches can be extended and applied to other mission areas. 

The support for the funding and flexibility needed for the Department to adopt innovative approaches is far and away the most important role Congress can play in the development of the next offset strategy. In an era of declining budgets, it is all too easy to decrement investments in innovation in order to pay readiness bills or 

to pay bills resulting from the failure to make needed changes in 

force structure or compensation. 

The risk to innovation is by no means theoretical. CSIS [Center 

for Strategic and International Studies] research shows that contract spending for research and development dropped by 21 percent 

in fiscal year 2013, the first year of sequestration, significantly 

more than the overall 10 percent drop in the defense budget under 

sequestration and more than the 16 percent drop in all contract 

spending. It will require the active support of Congress to ensure 

that innovation is enabled and not stifled by these dynamics. 

A significant opportunity for Congress to facilitate the next offset 

strategy comes from reducing barriers to the adoption of innovation 
10 

approaches. Such approaches require relatively open communication with industry and careful tailoring of the acquisition process. 

For systems under design, modular open systems approaches can 

be utilized to enable the rapid incorporation of innovative capabilities throughout system lifecycles. 

Most critically, Congress can support easier access to commercial 

technologies. Existing statutory requirements, such as the Truth in 

Negotiations Act [TINA] and the Cost Accounting Standards [CAS], 

were designed to protect the government’s interest in acquiring 

technology from firms that engage in both government and nongovernment work. While these statutes address real issues in the 

government-industry relationship, the implementation mechanisms 

for these systems are not well aligned with modern commercial 

practices. A careful review of TINA and CAS could substantially 

enhance the Department of Defense’s ability to access cutting-edge 

technology. 

In closing, I commend the committee’s decision to focus on DOD’s 

next offset strategy at this hearing and recommend the committee 

continue to follow this effort closely. Congressional support for 

change is likely to prove decisive to success. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Hunter can be found in the Appendix on page 54.] 

Mr. FORBES. Mr. Hunter, we are glad to have you back before the 

committee, and I know Chairman Skelton would be very proud of 

where you have gone in your career. 

Mr. Ochmanek. 

STATEMENT OF DAVID OCHMANEK, RAND CORPORATION 

Mr. OCHMANEK. Thank you, Chairman Forbes, Mr. Langevin, 

other members and staff of the committee. And thank you for the 

opportunity to testify before you today. 

You have posed a difficult and important question here. We know 

that maritime and air forces will play crucial roles in any future 

conflict against the most capable adversaries we face, but we don’t 

know precisely what roles those forces will play. And that is because the nature of the challenge posed by the most capable adversaries we face, particularly those wielding sophisticated A2/AD 

[anti-access/area denial] capabilities, is so extensive that the 

United States, at this point, has to rethink its entire approach to 

power projection. And, therefore, it will be premature to make conclusions about what roles particular force elements will play. 

Members of this committee are all familiar with the types of 

threats that cause us the most concern. I won’t rehash them here. 

And, as Congressman Forbes and my colleagues have observed, 

China is the leading exponent of these types of threats but not the 

only one. 

Since the end of the Cold War, we have come, rightly, to expect 

that when U.S. forces are committed to combat against the conventional forces of a state adversary they will win quick and lopsided 

victories. Looking to the future, when we think about combat 

against the most capable plausible adversaries, we will have to revise these expectations. 

In such conflicts, should they occur, U.S. forces will have to fight, 

and fight hard, for the sorts of advantages that we have come to 
11 

take nearly for granted in conflicts over the past few years—air superiority, maritime superiority, space superiority, and the ability to 

operate forces forward largely from sanctuary. We can’t take those 

for granted anymore. 

Put most starkly, the legacy concepts of operation that our forces 

have used so successfully in recent years will not work against the 

forces of the most capable adversaries in the future or, at a minimum, won’t produce satisfactory results. 

The third offset strategy, which seeks to focus and energize technology, development, and systems engineering, is intended to rectify this problem, and, in response, one can only say, ‘‘Bravo.’’ But 

this effort, while necessary, will not in and of itself be sufficient. 

It will need to be supported and complemented by several related 

activities, and I will mention five here. 

One, DOD needs to revive and reconstitute its capacity for joint 

operational analysis and gaming. The joint community’s ability to 

conduct quantitative assessments of the capabilities of future forces 

has atrophied in recent years, and this capability is essential for 

all force planning. We especially need more iterative, rigorously adjudicated, tabletop war games to allow operators to test their nascent ideas about potential new operational concepts against an intelligent reactive red team. 

Two, new approaches are required for basing and operating our 

forces in contested theaters. Too often in the war-gaming we have 

done, when the blue team tries to strengthen deterrence during a 

simulated crisis by reinforcing the theater, it ends up actually projecting vulnerability rather than projecting power, creating lucrative targets for the enemy’s long-range precision strike assets. We 

need more survivable ways to base and operate our forces in these 

theaters. 

Three, we should do more to help our partners and allies field 

more capable self-defense forces. We should not try to solve this 

challenge on our own. Allies and partners can impose smaller-scale 

A2/AD challenges of their own to states that threaten them. And 

enhancements like this can’t take the place of U.S. forces and commitment, but analysis suggests there is a lot of unexploited potential there. 

Four, not to be crass, DOD will need more money. It is very difficult to see how even a flawlessly executed third offset approach 

could be sufficient to meet growing challenges if the limits imposed 

by the Budget Control Act are not lifted in fiscal year 2016 and beyond. 

And, finally, number five, as Secretary Hagel has observed, Congress has to be a full partner in this. If DOD is going to spend 

more money on new and urgently needed capabilities, it will have 

to spend less on lower-priority programs. This will call for things 

like continued adjustments to force structure and end strength, 

garnering savings in pay and benefits, eliminating unneeded base 

infrastructure—all hard to do, easy to say, I know, but very important if we are going to actually get the level of effort against this 

new effort that is called for. 

In conclusion, I would say that the most credible deterrent to aggression is one that confronts the adversary with the prospect of 

failure at the operational level. Without question, mounting a ro-
12 

bust defense of this nature is becoming more challenging for the 

United States, and, indeed, some people in this country are already 

saying it is too hard, it is too costly, we can’t do it. 

But future U.S. forces, I believe, properly modernized, properly 

postured, and employed with the forces of regional allies and partners, should be capable of posing very serious obstacles to aggression by even our most sophisticated adversaries. This, as I understand it, is the central goal of the new offset strategy. I believe it 

is a worthy and achievable objective. 

Thank you, and I look forward to your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Ochmanek can be found in the 

Appendix on page 68.] 

Mr. FORBES. Gentlemen, thank you all for your statements, and 

thanks for your written statements. 

I am going to defer my questions until the end. And since Mr. 

Byrne was the first one at the hearing today, we are going to recognize him first for 5 minutes for any questions he may have. 

Mr. BYRNE. Gentlemen, we appreciate you being here today. 

One of the things, as a new member of the committee, that 

strikes me about the position we find ourselves in is that decisions 

that were made before I got here—and I am not trying to secondguess them—have put us in a posture where we don’t necessarily 

have the capacity to catch up as quickly as we would like. 

Is there one thing that you would focus on, one precise thing that 

you could tell this committee that we should focus on that could get 

us back into the game at a level that we need to be in? 

Those are easy questions, I know. 

Mr. BRIMLEY. Maybe I will take the first stab at that, sir. 

I mean, I would look to the recent hearings that this committee 

has held. A good example, in my mind, is making sure that the carrier air wing can fully project and sustain strike power in these 

kinds of contested environments. And so making sure that, however the Navy or however the DOD finalizes the requirements on 

the UCLASS, the Unmanned Carrier-Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike vehicle, whether it is for a lightly contested environment or for a more high-end environment, to me, that is one of 

the canary—a canary in the coal mine. 

You know, if DOD is really serious about fully exploiting the advantages inherent in a long-range, unmanned strike platform, that 

requirements debate is something I am paying a lot of attention to 

because that, I think—how that goes in the next 3 or 4 months I 

think will indicate how serious the Department is in fully moving 

into this more unmanned autonomous warfighting regime. 

We have got to find a way for the aircraft carrier to remain very 

relevant at range when faced with one of these high-end, anti-access/area denial challenges. If we fail to do that, it is hard for me 

to understand how we can project and sustain power with our allies and partners and maintain the conventional deterrence that we 

need to provide security in the Asia-Pacific as one example. 

Mr. HUNTER. From my perspective—I recently departed the Department of Defense—the capability that I perceive to be the single 

most limited—the highest-demand, most limited capacity that the 

Department has is intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance. 

When a new mission comes on board, that is the thing that the 
13 

COCOM [combatant commander] is most interested and gets the 

least of that they are looking for at the start of a conflict. 

So I would say that is a good place to look. And, frankly, that 

really informed my thinking about the criticality of battlespace 

awareness in future conflicts. 

Mr. OCHMANEK. I would broaden it a little bit, Congressman. If 

we think about recent applications of U.S. military power, when 

the President presses the ‘‘go’’ button, we expect that with hours, 

if not days, U.S. forces will dominate all five domains of warfare— 

air, land, sea, space, and cyberspace. We have to disabuse ourselves of that notion in the future. 

So we have to find ways to reach in to the contested airspace, 

maritime space, and not only detect but also strike the enemy’s 

operational centers of gravity, whether it is naval ships, amphibious ships making an invasion, aircraft, combat aircraft. And I 

think standoff weapons are a way to do that. ISR [intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance] systems that can survive in highly 

contested air defense environments are ways to do that. 

But that is sort of the single operational problem I would focus 

on as a priority. 

Mr. MARTINAGE. To build on that, I would take it up maybe even 

one step higher and just say, when you look at the air and maritime investment portfolio, it is heavily weighted towards capabilities that operate in low- to medium-threat environments or permissive environments. We need to shift the balance and have relatively more capabilities that can project power in non-permissive 

environments, the higher-end threat environments. 

I know you asked for one, but I am going to have to throw one 

more in. And that is we need to do something to streamline the acquisition process. It takes too long to field new capabilities, and, 

you know, in many cases, they are almost obsolete by the time they 

field. And we just need to get faster and more agile in terms of our 

exploitation of R&D [research and development]. 

Mr. BYRNE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. FORBES. The chair recognizes Ms. Hanabusa, who we are 

going to miss very much from this committee, and we have enjoyed 

having her and her service to our country. 

Ms. HANABUSA. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

As many of you may be aware, the chairman and I had this wonderful series of hearings basically on what does it mean to pivot to 

Asia-Pacific. And, as you can imagine, as someone who represents 

Hawaii, when we talk about the pivot to Asia-Pacific, I have gone 

on and say, well, it is an air and sea issue. If you know anything 

about how large the Pacific Ocean is, it is air and sea. Of course, 

it doesn’t play well with, in particular, Army, because they don’t 

like the fact that we are saying it is an air and sea situation. 

So isn’t one of the most critical aspects that we have to deal with 

is really, I guess, the territoriality or the protection of the various 

branches and the fact that we have funded in the past with everyone sort of sharing equally and if we are pivoting to Asia-Pacific, 

for example, it cannot really continue with a, quote, ‘‘equal share’’? 

So, as we look at what is this offset strategy, don’t we have to 

first begin by looking at the structure of the DOD, how the DOD 

apportions its resources? And if it continues with a basic assump-
14 

tion that everyone will share, then how do we then shift to the 

point where we are looking at, for example, carrier strength, submarine strength? 

You know, a very good friend of mine and mentor, Senator 

Inouye, always said to me, ‘‘You know, we used to rule the seven 

seas after World War II. We don’t do that anymore, but we will always rule, or we should always rule, the deep blue sea.’’ 

So, in that scenario, if you would all look at it in terms of the 

offset strategy, I can’t get past the major assumptions that I think 

DOD makes. Even with the QDR that we just went over, DOD 

makes certain kinds of assumptions that I don’t think necessarily 

fits in your strategy. 

Is there any one of you who wants to tackle that? And if you 

want to tell me I am wrong, that is fine too. But, you know, I think 

when we talk about the pivot, we’ve got issues, and it is in line 

with what you are looking at for the offset strategy. 

Mr. OCHMANEK. Congresswoman, if I might make a suggestion or 

throw out an idea, I agree with you that when we come through 

the process of designing a concept of operations and a force that 

will be appropriate for this new demanding environment, things 

will look different. We will have different apportionment of roles 

and missions across the services, different budget shares, and so 

forth. 

But I think form follows function. And my lead-off remarks suggested that we don’t know today exactly how we would fight this 

fight in 2020 and 2025. I think that as we figure that out, through 

analysis, experimentation, field exercises and tests, we will get insights about the capabilities that we need. And the forces, if we are 

successful in planning and fielding the appropriate force, will come 

along to fulfill that concept. 

Ms. HANABUSA. I agree with you. But let me add this, though. 

You know, if we can’t know what we are going to do in 2020 or 

2025, we in Congress are making those policy calls, and I—after 

one of the CSIS hearings, as a matter of fact, I said, I know how 

we do things now. We set policy by acquisition. As we acquire, we 

are setting policy. 

And that is—2020 is right around the corner. And as we go 

through the NDAA [National Defense Authorization Act] and as we 

go through the appropriation measures, we are setting the policies 

that are going to affect 2020. So one of the most frustrating parts 

about sitting on this side has been you want us to wait and see 

what it is going to do, but we have to appropriate and set the authorization early on. 

So how do we come and do that and then incorporate this offset 

strategy, which I agree with? I just don’t know how it all melds together. 

Mr. MARTINAGE. I think you raise an excellent point. I mean, 

really, right now, we are building the Air Force and the Navy of 

2030 and 2040 and beyond. So I think that it is an excellent point. 

I mean, in terms of the offset strategy in dealing with the challenges in the Pacific, I think, generally, basing resiliency and dispersion is a big issue, as well as longer-range, more survivable aircraft—both manned and unmanned—and undersea, exploiting the 
15 

undersea, as you said, both submarines and UUVs [unmanned 

underwater vehicles] and other payloads. 

How all that sorts out in terms of budget share, I guess we will 

need to see. But the point I would stress, though, is that, whether 

it is the offset strategy or the pivot to the Pacific, those aren’t comprehensive national defense strategies. We still have other challenges around the world—you know, subconventional aggression in 

Europe, you know, in the Ukraine, counterinsurgencies in various 

places in the world, counterterrorism. Those are all places where, 

you know, ground forces, the Army and the Marine Corps, have important roles to play. 

So we have to just figure out what the right capability and capacity balance is across these various types of contingencies. 

I am not sure if that exactly answered it. 

Ms. HANABUSA. Thank you. 

And I yield back. 

Mr. FORBES. Mr. Coffman is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

A couple questions. The first one is, in terms of the projection of 

seapower, the carrier has been central to that. And if you look at 

the Chinese, they realize they are never going to match us carrier 

for carrier, so they are focused on some, I guess you might call it 

an asymmetric measure or the anti-ship ballistic missile. 

How—I mean, is it still important for us to put so many of our 

eggs in that one basket as a platform for the projection of 

seapower? 

Anybody who wants—— 

Mr. BRIMLEY. Maybe I will just quickly. 

To build on what Mr. Martinage was talking about, you know, 

the aircraft—and knows better than I do, certainly—the carriers 

we are fielding today are going to be with us for 40-plus years. And 

so, for me, as sort of a policy analyst, you know, and to put a pun 

on it, you know, that ship has sailed. So the question for me is, 

how do we make sure that that investment, that sunk cost—— 

Mr. COFFMAN. Well, I mean, 11—do we maintain in the future—— 

Mr. BRIMLEY. That is right. 

Mr. COFFMAN [continuing]. 11 carriers? 

Mr. BRIMLEY. That is right. 

So the question for me is, how do we make sure that what flies 

off of that carrier can make that investment sound when we look 

at the operational challenges we will face 5, 10, 15 years from now? 

That is why, for me, in terms of this question, it is the carrier 

air wing that is the key. And if you can fully push the Navy—in 

my mind, if you can fully push the Navy to embrace what I see as 

the inherent benefits of moving decisively into the unmanned, more 

autonomous regime where you can really get some cost-benefit 

analysis and get an unmanned system to be able to penetrate and 

strike at distance and at range, that makes the aircraft carrier 

highly relevant even 20, 25, 30 years out. 

A separate question is, you know, what is the long-term future 

of the capital ship? Some analysts have suggested that over time 

the A2/AD environment may get so bad that the competition tends 

to go under the surface. And you see indications of that now. You 
16 

see senior leaders spending a lot of rhetorical time and effort talking about making sure we maintain our submarine advantages. I 

think that is the critical, sort of, corollary to your question, sir. 

Mr. HUNTER. I would just say on that, I agree with the point 

about the sunk costs. We have these carriers. They provide incredible capability. We don’t want to lose that. They are being threatened. And there are things that we should do in terms of having 

capabilities with increased range and with low observability. But 

that does take you down the path where the cost-imposing strategy 

is working. In other words, you are playing into the cost-imposing 

strategy, because long-range and very low-observable platforms 

tend to be fairly expensive. 

What we relied on in the past to protect the carrier was the fact 

that it was hard to find. And it is becoming increasingly easier to 

find because adversaries are using more networked approaches, as 

we did long ago. 

We simply didn’t focus, I believe, on how to defeat those capabilities, their battlespace awareness, their ability to find us, because 

it is so new that these capabilities belong to anyone except us. And 

I think the most cost-effective way I can think of to go after that 

is to go directly after their ability to find and detect our assets. 

Mr. COFFMAN. The last question is: Speaking to airpower and the 

future of the manned bomber that the Air Force wants versus unmanned or existing platforms—and I think that the argument for 

the next generation of manned bomber is, well, what if, i.e., communications were cut off, you would still be able to execute a mission, versus an unmanned platform. 

I mean, in terms of the investment and the alternative uses of 

those dollars, is that a viable argument? 

Mr. OCHMANEK. We did some work on that some years ago, Congressman. The marginal cost of actually putting human beings inside that platform is fairly low. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Okay. 

Mr. OCHMANEK. And when Secretary Gates approved the program, he specified that it should be optionally manned so that we 

have the choice, as we field these things, to send them out with 

crews or without crews. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Okay. 

Mr. OCHMANEK. So we will have flexibility as we build the overall platform to employ it in different ways. 

And you are right; how confident we are about the resiliency of 

that communication link will be a key factor in whether or not it 

will be viable as an unmanned platform. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Okay. 

Mr. OCHMANEK. So I think we have covered—covered down on 

that. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Okay. Great. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Mr. FORBES. Mr. Langevin is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to welcome our panel here today. Thank you for your testimony. 

And, Mr. Hunter, in particular, welcome back before the committee. It is great to see you again. 
17 

So I appreciate the discussion that we are having and the comments you have made. 

And, Mr. Brimley, in particular, I appreciate the comments you 

made on UCLASS. We talk about developing the standoff technologies. I think these types of things are going to be essential. 

And in terms of what we should be doing, actually, one only has 

to look at what our adversaries are doing and what would hold our 

assets and our capabilities at risk. And, certainly, developing platforms that are most robust, that are standoff, that allow for deep 

penetration are the things that we need to focus on more heavily. 

So I am watching very closely the Pentagon’s decision as they design the requirements on UCLASS to see where that is going to 

come down. I think that will be very telling about how they are 

thinking and if they are getting this right. 

But, obviously, innovation is going to be key to all of this and developing these new capabilities. And no matter which way the innovation tree branches, there are a few constraints that will be limiting factors. 

But if I could, just for a minute, to focus particularly on the undersea, the Virginia-class program of record is well known, and the 

trend, of course, for the number of platforms and the payload space 

that they will have, particularly as the SSGNs [cruise missile submarines] age out and VPM [Virginia Payload Module] slowly builds 

into the fleet. The picture in terms of the numbers that we need 

isn’t necessarily a pretty one, particularly when we look at programs like the LDUUV [Large Displacement Unmanned Undersea 

Vehicle], whose threshold requirements for the integration with 

VPM and Virginia-class boats with dry-dock shelters. 

So are we investing in enough payload capacity to enable these 

future mission and technology constructs? 

And, Mr. Martinage, maybe we would start with you and go 

down the line. 

Mr. MARTINAGE. In my view, increasing undersea payload capacity and flexibility is a critical thing that we need to look at as part 

of the offset strategy. I think we gain a lot of advantage from our 

undersea warfare capabilities. And, as you alluded to, on the current trajectory, our undersea payload capacity is going to shrink by 

over 60 percent when the SSGNs retire in 2028 and the declining 

LA [Los Angeles] class are retired more quickly than they are being 

replaced by Virginia. 

So, at the time we want to be increasing undersea capacity, it is 

actually going down rather dramatically. So the question is, how do 

we deal with that? 

One is I think, absolutely, we have to get on board with Virginia 

Payload Module. It looks like we are heading in the right direction, 

but, again, that needs to be fully funded. 

Then, looking at other options, undersea payload modules is a 

program that DARPA [Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency] is looking at, which would be payloads that are external to the 

submarine that could be deployed in peacetime or in period of crisis, but it would be a means to increase payload capacity but outside the submarine. 

And then, lastly, taking advantage of UUVs, like the large-diameter UUV, and a family of UUVs, I think, is really critical. I 
18 

think that is another high-payoff area with unmanned systems and 

automation that could help us increase the geographic coverage of 

our limited submarine fleet by having the unmanned systems extend their reach and their flexibility. 

The other thing is that I think we want to look at new types of 

payloads for our submarines. Right now, it is fundamentally torpedoes and Tomahawks. It doesn’t have to be that way. There is 

a variety of new weapons that they could take on, in terms of electronic attack or decoys or going after enemy air defenses, going 

after aircraft. There is a wide range of other things submarines 

could do that we should actively explore. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. But do we have a right balance in terms of investing enough in payload capacity and enabling these future missions? What do you think? 

Mr. MARTINAGE. My personal view is we need to shift the overall 

composition of the fleet over time increasingly to undersea and 

shift some of the resources that currently is going into the surface 

combatant force structure and modernization, shifting that balance—however much we need to determine—more towards the undersea for the reasons that we have talked about. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you. 

Anyone else want to comment? 

Mr. OCHMANEK. I think, looking forward, undersea launch platforms and standoff attack means are good bets for this contested 

environment. And VPM is the option immediately available to us. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. So could I ask this? Are the current organizational structures within the services robust enough, independent 

enough, and agile enough to drive innovative tactics, procedures, 

and technologies and the like into the operational forces? And how 

does today’s status compare to the structure that produced the innovative ideas of past offset strategies? 

Mr. HUNTER. I think this builds a little bit on Ms. Hanabusa’s 

question, as well, because the question is, you know, can the services accept innovation? Because it does threaten existing capabilities, existing infrastructure for which there are strong advocates 

within the Department. 

And one of the reasons why I recommended that the strategy be 

focused more on capabilities than on platforms is because I think, 

when you get into platforms, it is inevitably, well, I have my platform and you have your platform and now we are going to fight 

each other over who wins. 

I think at the level of capability, it is not necessarily—as in some 

cases there are clear service, you know, areas of excellence. But at 

the level of capability, all of the services have an opportunity to at 

least make a case for how they can provide that capability, what 

can they bring to the table. So I think it changes the conversation 

a little bit less to one about rice bowls and more about what folks 

can actually do and bring to the table. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you. 

Mr. MARTINAGE. On that point, I would just reiterate a point 

that Dave Ochmanek made during his presentation about the need 

for joint operational analysis and war-gaming. I think that is one 

of the tools that could help build confidence that these are new 

operational concepts that we need to exploit and these are the 
19 

types of enabling technologies we need for those concepts to work. 

And I think that is just an important tool for building that confidence and driving that change. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Very good. I share that. Thank you. 

I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. FORBES. As you guys know, Mr. Langevin has been a leader 

in these issues on this committee and the full committee, and we 

appreciate his leadership in all of that. 

I want to wrap up now by telling you two things. First of all, this 

has been a very important hearing for us, and it is just the beginning. And we are probably going to follow up with some written 

questions, if that is okay with you, to get on the record. 

Mr. Byrne and I were in a meeting earlier today when we heard 

the majority leader give us a cute little analogy, but he talked 

about four frogs sitting on a log—or maybe he said five. I forgot 

what it was. But let’s say it was five frogs sitting on a log, and four 

of them decided to jump off. How many was left? And the answer 

was five, because there is a big difference between deciding and 

doing. And so we want to make sure that we go from just talking 

about this to doing it. 

And assuming we do that, we—Mr. Brimley, you have been very 

clear that this shouldn’t be a defense strategy. I think everybody 

is pretty much agreeing with that, that we should narrow the focus 

of this down. 

So I am going ask you four questions. You can pick any one of 

them you want, or all of them, and use it as, kind of, each of your 

closing remarks. 

But first thing, all of our strategies and our budgets are built on 

assumptions. If you had to pick two of the assumptions that we are 

using today that you think are wrong or either could very probably 

be wrong, what would those two assumptions be? 

The second thing is: How do we do what Mr. Brimley has suggested we do and focus our efforts? In other words, if we weren’t 

going to shotgun this and bring it into a focus, the next two steps 

that we take from here, what would you recommend that those two 

steps be? 

And then the third one is: This a partnership, but more and 

more this is no longer just a partnership between DOD and Congress; it is also the private sector. And we are depending more and 

more upon their creativity and what they bring to the table. How 

do we get them involved in this process but yet try to protect our 

intellectual property rights so that we are not having all this stolen 

around the globe? 

And then the fourth part of that, each of you have mentioned the 

importance of our allies. How do we do more to encourage our allies 

to be a part of this strength thing? 

And, Mr. Ochmanek, why don’t we start with you, and we will 

just work backwards down the line and finish up. 

Mr. OCHMANEK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will take a swing 

at two of those pitches. 

First, with regard to the next two steps, not to be a broken 

record on this, but I think careful analysis of the problem can help 

us focus from the outset on what we think the most important 

operational challenges are. 
20 

As we discussed before we came in here, the people—the giants 

who gave us the offset strategy from the 1970s that were so successful didn’t wake up every morning with vacuous thoughts about 

how to transform the force. They woke up trying to solve discrete 

operational problems of enduring importance: How do I attrit and 

delay the second echelon of Soviet Army forces in Central Europe 

in the face of a very robust air defense? 

And that is the kind of focused work that can help a strategy like 

this really make rapid progress toward innovating on the things 

that our future combatant commanders most need. So that would 

be step one. 

Mr. FORBES. And if I could impose on you—— 

Mr. OCHMANEK. Yes, sir. 

Mr. FORBES [continuing]. Go ahead and take that step. If you 

were there and you said, ‘‘What do we need to be focusing that 

analysis on?’’, give me two suggestions that you would put forth. 

Mr. OCHMANEK. Two have been mentioned here. One is finding 

ways that when we project power forward that the forces we 

project are survivable so that we are not inviting an attack by our 

adversary, we are not creating targets for him to shoot at. 

We don’t know how to do that yet. In the 1960s and 1970s, we 

did it by pouring a lot of concrete at our bases in Germany. It 

worked well because the adversary didn’t have highly accurate 

weapons. That is not likely to work now. 

It is going to be a combination of things: dispersal, getting used 

to using austere facilities, simple things like rapid runway repair, 

fuel bladders, things like that. But it is a mix of things, and we 

have to try it, we have to learn it, we have to practice it. And then 

we have to resource this. 

And, two, again, finding ways to locate, identify, track, engage, 

damage, and destroy enemy forces on the move in the opening 

hours of a war. Before we have been able to roll back the air defense, before we have been able to achieve maritime superiority, 

reaching into that bubble to attack. 

Mr. FORBES. So you are looking at more offensive capability than 

just defensive capability? 

Mr. OCHMANEK. I think it is offensive strike capability in the 

service of a defensive strategy, yes. 

Mr. FORBES. Thank you. 

Mr. Hunter. 

Mr. HUNTER. It is a long list of questions. I think—— 

Mr. FORBES. Pick two you like. 

Mr. HUNTER [continuing]. I got them down. 

I would say two assumptions that I think we may have or may 

make that will be wrong, I think we are wrong if we think we 

know where the fight will be. I don’t think we do know where the 

fight will be, and we will probably be surprised. That has been a 

lesson of recent history. 

Mr. FORBES. Your former chairman loved to testify that I think 

he had 13 conflicts while he was here, and 12 of them we did not 

predict. 

Mr. HUNTER. Exactly. 

Second—and maybe this is a Pentagon perspective; I am still a 

recent escapee—is the assumption that regular order is better, bet-
21 

ter than the alternatives that have been created over the last several years, that we are more insightful when we take a longer period of time to make a decision. 

I do think that analysis is critical, and I am not in any way 

meaning to downplay the importance of it. But our regular-order 

processes are not holy writ. And there is still a tendency, as we 

come out of the conflicts that we have been in, as much as we can, 

over the last 10 years, that if we could just get back to regular 

order things would work much better. And I think that is a false 

assumption. 

Mr. FORBES. And the two things are not mutually exclusive, you 

know, to be able to—— 

Mr. HUNTER. Exactly. 

Two next steps. I am going to agree—I know it is a little bit boring, but I am going to agree with Dave on the criticality of experimentation, work on operational concepts, and the net assessment 

that he mentioned. Those are things that need to be substantially 

reinforced and upgraded. And, as you know, we changed our structure for engaging in that work in the last several years, and I am 

not sure it has yet reached a new balance where it ought to be in 

those capabilities. 

And the second step is we need to work with industry, because 

they are the key to the problem. There is no innovation without 

talking to industry. And by that, I don’t necessarily mean what we 

think of as the traditional defense industry, the big six contractors 

of the Department of Defense. I mean industry more broadly. Because it is a global and fully open industry now that is creating the 

kinds of technologies that are relevant to the problems we are trying to solve. 

On how to protect intellectual property, I think you have to look 

at what industry’s incentives are. Although they clearly have a 

business incentive to protect their intellectual property, they don’t 

necessarily have the incentive to protect it in the way that we 

would like that to occur. We need to talk to them about what are 

the incentives that they need to do what we want them to do in 

regards to their intellectual property. 

And then on allies, I think we have to change the culture of the 

government. This is not just a DOD problem, but there is still a 

perception that we protect technology by holding it tight. And that 

is just, I think, not in accord with the reality of a global industrial 

complex that is out there, that is in the world that we are living 

in. We can’t achieve that goal. And it only inhibits our ability to 

access technology, the best technology, when that resides in companies that are overseas. 

Mr. FORBES. Okay. Thank you. 

Mr. Brimley. 

Mr. BRIMLEY. Yes, sir. Quickly, I will take on flawed assumptions 

and next steps. 

On flawed assumptions, you will hear echoes of the—me echo the 

statements of my colleagues. 

Number one, that the U.S. will maintain dominance in the guided-weapons regime. As I said in my written statement and my oral 

statement, I think that assumption is false. I think it is false today. 

It is certainly going to be false 5, 10, 15 years from now. I think 
22 

there is an indication—I mean, planners in the Department are 

moving in this direction, but I think, you know, keeping up that 

focus in the years ahead will be important. 

And, number two, another flawed assumption is that the U.S. 

will be able to compensate for a loss in the first-mover advantages 

that one might accrue from being aggressively moving in the unmanned and robotic warfighting regime. I think, given where the 

intellectual ideas are emanating from, it is not like the 1970s, 

where it is sort of a DOD-focused S&T [science and technology] 

R&D. These ideas are emanating—you know, autonomy is happening in Silicon Valley, it is emerging overseas. I worry that we 

are not going to be able to catch up if we fail to move and move 

decisively in the next, say, 5 years. 

In terms of next steps, I would just encourage Members to make 

sure that the next budget submission reflects these rhetorical priorities. I think we ought to hold the Pentagon leadership accountable 

for the rhetorical priorities that it has talked about. 

I think we have talked about some program-specific canaries in 

the coal mine. If you are serious about the offset strategy, here are 

a couple programs where we can see indications about how the Department is moving. That is going to be very important, I think, 

in the next 4 to 5 months. 

And, number two, just to continue doing what you are doing. I 

think, for this subcommittee and for the House committee writ 

large, I would encourage you to develop a year-long series of hearings to fully explore this issue, whether it is a hearing on undersea 

dominance and payload capacity, a hearing on maritime experimentation, a hearing on alternative air and maritime concepts of 

operations, where we could start talking about these things more 

fulsomely in the public domain, and maybe a hearing on what the 

role of allies and partners is. 

And as you pursue, perhaps the allies and partners one is an interesting one. If you call a bunch of defense nerds like us to the 

table, we will all basically agree with one another. But I think it 

would be interesting if you called in some regional—some responsible regional players from, say, the Pentagon or the State Department for a hearing like this and really force bridges to be built between, sort of, functional defense expertise in the Department and 

the more regional policy expertise. That could be a very valuable 

thing. 

Mr. FORBES. Mr. Martinage, we will let you have the last word. 

Mr. MARTINAGE. Great. Thank you very much, Congressman 

Forbes. 

On the two flawed assumptions, there are so many, I am not 

sure where to begin. But the two that I think stick out most to me 

is the assumption of close-in operational sanctuaries, whether it is 

airfields, carriers forward, surface combatants forward, airborne 

tanking forward. We are unlikely to be able to operate that way in 

the future. 

And the second is our freedom of operation, our use of space in 

the electromagnetic spectrum. I think those are both going to be increasingly contested, with a lot of cascading ramifications for how 

we think about the joint force and how it operates. 
23 

I would echo really what all my colleagues have said on point 

two—the experimentation, the war-gaming, the conceptual development, I think that is all critical. 

And, as Shawn said, while we don’t have a crystal ball, I think 

some near-term wins of things that are put forward under the offset-strategy umbrella, like the VPM [Virginia Payload Module] or 

UCLASS or directed energy or UUVs and unmanned systems—we 

are pretty sure that those things are going to figure prominently 

in the future. You know, we can work out the details later, but I 

think those are all—would be candidate near-term wins. 

In terms of the private sector, I agree on, you know, the importance of bringing them in and, you know, minimizing, you know, 

espionage and theft. I think the bigger fundamental problem is private industry doesn’t really want to work with the Department of 

Defense, because they put their IP [intellectual property] at risk, 

their profit margins are constrained, or, you know, they have—very 

narrow, they have a ton of red tape and regulations to deal with. 

So, generally speaking, a lot of the cutting-edge R&D that is out 

there in the private sector, they are not interested in working with 

the Department of Defense. Which gets back to, you have to fix our 

acquisition processes in the Department. 

And then, lastly, on allies, I think if we come up with a compelling strategy, I think our allies will kind of help us figure out what 

they can do to support it. I think we need to bring them into the 

tent as we get this further along. I mean, the process is just starting in the Department. It is probably going to take some months 

or a year to flesh out the strategy, but I think once we do, I think 

our allies will want to try to help. 

And I think there are likely to be some key roles in command 

and control, communications, logistics, basing, as well as potentially helping to field and develop some of these new capabilities. 

Working with some of our closer partners, I think that is possible, 

as well, to help share some of the burden of doing that. 

But, again, I thank you for the opportunity to speak today. 

Thank you for the subcommittee’s interest in this, I think, very important area. And, as Shawn said, I think a series of hearings over 

the next year or two to keep people’s feet to the fire and keeping 

this on the rails would go a long way. 

But thank you. 

Mr. FORBES. We thank all of you for your help. As you know, 

DOD has kind of launched their first volley at this. This is a congressional first volley. And we are going to be doing this for a long 

time, I am sure, as we try to get our hands around what we need 

to do and how we need to move forward. So we appreciate your 

help today, and we are going to continue to try to pick your brains 

as we move forward. 

So, with that—do you have anything else that you have? 

With that, thank you, gentlemen, for being here. 

And we are adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 5:31 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

A P P E N D I X 

DECEMBER 2, 2014 

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