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i 

71–528 2012

[H.A.S.C. No. 112–89] 

INSTITUTIONALIZING IRREGULAR 

WARFARE CAPABILITIES 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON EMERGING THREATS 

AND CAPABILITIES 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

HEARING HELD 

NOVEMBER 3, 2011 
(II) 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON EMERGING THREATS AND CAPABILITIES 

MAC THORNBERRY, Texas, Chairman 

JEFF MILLER, Florida 

JOHN KLINE, Minnesota 

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania 

K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas 

CHRIS GIBSON, New York 

BOBBY SCHILLING, Illinois 

ALLEN B. WEST, Florida 

TRENT FRANKS, Arizona 

DUNCAN HUNTER, California 

JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island 

LORETTA SANCHEZ, California 

ROBERT ANDREWS, New Jersey 

SUSAN A. DAVIS, California 

TIM RYAN, Ohio 

C.A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland 

HANK JOHNSON, Georgia 

KATHLEEN C. HOCHUL, New York 

PETER VILLANO, Professional Staff Member 

MARK LEWIS, Professional Staff Member 

JEFF CULLEN, Staff Assistant 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS 

2011 

Page 

HEARING: 

Thursday, November 3, 2011, Institutionalizing Irregular Warfare Capabilities ......................................................................................................................... 1

APPENDIX: 

Thursday, November 3, 2011 .................................................................................. 39 

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2011 

INSTITUTIONALIZING IRREGULAR WARFARE CAPABILITIES 

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

Langevin, Hon. James R., a Representative from Rhode Island, Ranking 

Member, Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities ..................... 2 

Thornberry, Hon. Mac, a Representative from Texas, Chairman, Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities ............................................ 1 

WITNESSES 

Bayer, MG Peter C., USA, Director of Strategy, Plans and Policy, U.S. Army .. 3 

Harris, RDML Sinclair M., USN, Director, Navy Irregular Warfare Office, 

U.S. Navy .............................................................................................................. 4 

Martinez, Brig Gen Jerry P., USAF, Director for Joint Integration, Directorate of Operational Capability Requirements, U.S. Air Force ...................... 6 

O’Donohue, BGen Daniel J., USMC, Director, Capabilities Development Directorate, U.S. Marine Corps .............................................................................. 5 

APPENDIX 

PREPARED STATEMENTS: 

Bayer, MG Peter C. .......................................................................................... 45 

Harris, RDML Sinclair M. ............................................................................... 58 

Langevin, Hon. James R. ................................................................................. 44 

Martinez, Brig Gen Jerry P. ............................................................................ 75 

O’Donohue, BGen Daniel J. ............................................................................. 67 

Thornberry, Hon. Mac ...................................................................................... 43 

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD: 

[There were no Documents submitted.] 

WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING THE HEARING: 

Mrs. Davis ......................................................................................................... 93 

Mr. Shuster ....................................................................................................... 93 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING: 

Mr. Miller .......................................................................................................... 97 

Mr. Schilling ..................................................................................................... 100 

(1) 

INSTITUTIONALIZING IRREGULAR WARFARE 

CAPABILITIES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON EMERGING THREATS AND CAPABILITIES, Washington, DC, Thursday, November 3, 2011. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:02 a.m., in room 

2212, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Mac Thornberry (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MAC THORNBERRY, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM TEXAS, CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE ON 

EMERGING THREATS AND CAPABILITIES 

Mr. THORNBERRY. We will call the hearing to order. Let me welcome our witnesses and guests. You all please have a seat. 

We appreciate everybody being here for this hearing on a topic 

that I think will play a significant role in the security of the country moving ahead. It seems to me the basic question is to what extent we learn from our experience and build on it, and to what extent we assume that the past was just an aberration and now we 

can, quote, ‘‘get back to normal.’’ I am not sure that the conventional wisdom about normal is quite right. 

Dr. Sebastian Gorka and David Kilcullen found that of the 464 

conflicts since 1815 recorded in the Correlates of War database, 

385 of them involved a nonstate actor. That is 83 percent. Dr. Bernard Fall’s research, cited in the ‘‘2006 Marine Corps and SOCOM 

Multiservice Concept for Irregular Warfare,’’ found there were 48 

small wars in the first 65 years of the 20th century, which, taken 

together, involved as many people and as many casualties as either 

of the two World Wars. A review of U.S. military activities over the 

last 20 years in places like Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Colombia, the 

Philippines, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Uganda confirms 

this trend. 

The tight defense budgets ahead of us means strategic choices 

must be made. The United States must, in my view, maintain a 

full spectrum of capability. But the odds are that we are going to 

be involved in some form of irregular warfare in the future, just as 

we always have been in the past. We have learned or relearned 

much about it in the last decade at a tremendous cost of blood and 

treasure. It would be incredibly shortsighted of us not to ensure 

that those lessons are taught, and ingrained, and applied going forward. That is the reason for this hearing today, and it is the reason 

for our continued monitoring of this issue in the days ahead. 

Let me turn to the ranking member Mr. Langevin for any comments he would like to make. 
2 

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

Appendix on page 43.] 

STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES R. LANGEVIN, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM RHODE ISLAND, RANKING MEMBER, SUBCOMMITTEE ON EMERGING THREATS AND CAPABILITIES 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I would like 

to welcome our witnesses here today. Gentlemen, thank you for appearing before us and for your service to the Nation. 

We shouldn’t let the term ‘‘irregular warfare’’ confuse us. It is not 

an obscure challenge understood and practiced by a few specialists; 

rather it is becoming the norm for our country. If the military history of the last two or three decades tells us nothing else, it teaches 

us that when the United States finds ourselves in a conflict, it is 

irregular more often than not. In fact, although we prepared for a 

war with the Soviet Union, in truth our forces have rarely met a 

similarly arrayed enemy, and we have, as in the case of the opening second war with Iraq, we saw that conflict quickly evolve into 

an irregular war. 

We have learned, or rather relearned, the hard way that these 

conflicts are not just for Special Operations Forces, but really require the entire General Purpose Force working jointly with the 

interagency if we are to be successful. 

Now, with this in mind, I look forward to learning from our witnesses today how much their respective services and the Department of Defense policy have really taken to heart the lessons of the 

recent past. Are you prepared to deter and defeat future conventional threats? Have you also incorporated the need to train, man, 

and equip for irregular warfare across our force, and across your 

force, to the same extent? 

Many of the capabilities required for traditional warfare are critical parts of an irregular campaign. Ultimately the trick is having 

service members who are mentally agile, flexible, and innovative 

enough to recognize when the character of conflict changes and 

move seamlessly and successfully between the two types of conflict. 

This will be a challenge as we grow our force to meet future conventional and unconventional threats. I am looking forward to 

hearing how we are doing in that regard. 

I would like to ask each of you for an example of the capability 

that is critical for success in irregular warfare, but not particularly 

useful in traditional conflict. Next I am interested to hear how well 

we are integrating irregular warfare efforts with our NATO [North 

Atlantic Treaty Organization] allies, particularly with regard to 

Special Operations Forces, in counterterrorism efforts. 

With that, Mr. Chairman, I thank you for holding this hearing 

and look forward to hearing from our witnesses. I yield back. 

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

Mr. THORNBERRY. I thank the gentleman. 

I am pleased to welcome our witnesses here today. Without objection, your complete written statement will be made part of the 

record. 

And let me introduce now Major General Peter Bayer, Director 

of Strategy, Plans, and Policy for the U.S. Army; Rear Admiral Sin-
3 

clair M. Harris, Director, Navy Irregular Warfare Office, U.S. 

Navy; Brigadier General Daniel O’Donohue, Director, Capabilities 

Development Directorate, U.S. Marine Corps; and Brigadier General Jerry P. Martinez, Director for Joint Integration, Directorate 

of Operational Capability Requirements, U.S. Air Force. 

Again, thank you all for being here. And as I said, your statement will be made part of the record, but we would appreciate any 

comments you would like to make or summarizing of it first. 

General Bayer. 

STATEMENT OF MG PETER C. BAYER, USA, DIRECTOR OF 

STRATEGY, PLANS AND POLICY, U.S. ARMY 

General BAYER. Chairman Thornberry, and Ranking Member 

Langevin, and distinguished members of the committee, on behalf 

of our Secretary, the Honorable John McHugh; and our Chief of 

Staff, General Ray Odierno; and the more than 1 million soldiers 

in uniform, thank you for the opportunity to be here before you 

today. 

As you know, in 2002, our Nation went to war with two armies, 

one comprised of conventional forces. It was prepared to prevail 

against traditional adversaries in direct combat. And the second, 

composed largely of Special Operation Forces, was prepared to 

excel in an irregular environment. Our Army quickly learned that 

success in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the other battlefields of this decade required adaptation of both General Purpose and Special Operations Forces, and that they must work together as part of the joint 

force and the interagency team. 

In the past decade the Army has captured that adaptation by institutionalizing irregular warfare across the entire force, and today 

irregular warfare is part of the Army’s DNA. We have trained our 

soldiers and leaders, adjusted our doctrine, adapted formations, 

and developed world-class education and training centers which integrate irregular warfare capabilities. Even more importantly, our 

soldiers successfully employ the skills critical to victory in irregular 

warfare every day in combat. Irregular warfare mission set is at 

the very heart and core of Army expertise, the ability to operate 

decisively, delivering precise and discriminate lethal, and nonlethal 

effects among the people. 

However, our work is not done. The Army continues to learn 

from current operations, develop capabilities, train leaders, and 

adapt doctrine as we look forward to secure the gains from the last 

decade. As we look to the future, our Army will seek to ensure that 

a smaller force remains fully capable of decisive operations in all 

domains against hybrid threats. 

We believe the future operational environment demands irregular warfare competency. To do this, we must optimize the balance 

between soldier, structure, readiness, and modernization, and continue to focus on the professional military education of our leaders 

and soldiers. Through competent, adaptive, versatile, and creative 

leaders in formation, the Army ensures its ability to continue to be 

the strength of the Nation, America’s force of decisive action. 

With the continued support of the American people and Congress, our Army will remain the world’s preeminent land power. 
4 

Again, on behalf of the Army and our leadership, thanks for the opportunity to be here today, and I welcome your questions. 

[The prepared statement of General Bayer can be found in the 

Appendix on page 45.] 

Mr. THORNBERRY. Thank you. 

Admiral. 

STATEMENT OF RDML SINCLAIR M. HARRIS, USN, DIRECTOR, 

NAVY IRREGULAR WARFARE OFFICE, U.S. NAVY 

Admiral HARRIS. Good morning, sir. 

Chairman Thornberry, Congressman Langevin and other distinguished Members, it is an honor for me to be here with you today 

to update you on the Navy’s efforts to institutionalize irregular 

warfare. 

The Navy’s efforts are vital to our national security as part of a 

comprehensive approach to address complex security challenges. 

Our Sailing Directions, recently authored by CNO [Chief of Naval 

Operations] Greenert, emphasize that our mission is to deter aggression, and, if deterrence fails, to win our Nation’s wars. Today 

the Navy is engaged around the world conducting preventative actions and activities to stabilize, strengthen, and secure our partners are providing reasonable deterrence against state and 

nonstate actors. 

The Navy at the same time continues to fight and win our Nation’s wars in concert with United States Marine Corps, Air Force, 

Coast Guard, and Army. We expect the demand for the Navy to increase in the future security environment as combatant commanders seek offshore options as a part of joint solutions. 

The Navy and the Marine Corps and Coast Guard continue to 

use our maritime strategy to guide us in our efforts to secure the 

maritime domain and encourage global partnerships. Again, our 

Sailing Directions coupled with our enduring maritime strategy underscore the Navy’s focus on multimission platforms and highly 

trained sailors conducting activities across the full spectrum of operations in and from the sea. And our forward presence allows us 

to better understand and respond to the underlying causes and 

conditions of regional instability, while actively evolving our proficiency to prevent and counter irregular threats. 

As part of our efforts to institutionalize irregular warfare competency and capacity, the Navy’s ‘‘Vision for Confronting Irregular 

Challenges’’ was released in January of 2010. It provided focus for 

the Navy on mission areas of irregular warfare as well as maritime 

activities to prevent, limit, and interdict irregular threats and their 

influence on regional stability. 

Navy efforts to institutionalize and provide proficiency in confronting irregular challenges are in accordance with the ‘‘DOD Directive 3000.7.’’ Navy’s irregular warfare missions include counterterrorism, counterinsurgency, unconventional warfare, foreign internal defense, security force assistance and stability operations, 

and maritime security operations. These are underpinned by the 

need for a backbone of information dominance. 

To meet the demands in a mission consistent with the maritime 

strategy, the Navy has leveraged the whole of the fleet to meet irregular challenges. Navy intelligence and strike capabilities sup-
5 

port counterterrorism and counterinsurgency operations. Additionally, Navy Expeditionary Combat Command, maritime partnership 

stations, maritime headquarters, and operation centers provide 

unique skills that directly address irregular challenges. 

There are many examples of how the Navy meets global operational commitments and responds to crises as they emerge. Overseas contingency operations continue while 11- to 12,000 Active 

and Reserve sailors serving are preparing to deploy in order to support ground operations around the globe. Navy carrier strike 

groups provide up to 30 percent of the close air support for troops 

on the ground in Afghanistan. Navy/Marine Corps pilots fly almost 

60 percent of the electronic attack missions. And as our national 

interests expand or extend beyond Iraq and Afghanistan, so do the 

operations of the Navy. 

The Navy will meet uncertain global challenges as a forward 

force, ready, present, and persistent in areas critical to our national 

interests. To do this, we must ensure our Navy remains the finest, 

best trained, and most ready in the world to confront irregular 

challenges while retaining the ability to face more capable adversaries. 

The Navy looks forward to working with Congress to address our 

future challenges. I thank you for your support of our Navy, and 

I look forward to answering your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Admiral Harris can be found in the 

Appendix on page 58.] 

Mr. THORNBERRY. Thank you. 

General. 

STATEMENT OF BGEN DANIEL J. O’DONOHUE, USMC, DIRECTOR, CAPABILITIES DEVELOPMENT DIRECTORATE, U.S. MARINE CORPS 

General O’DONOHUE. Chairman Thornberry, Ranking Member 

Langevin and distinguished members of the subcommittee, it is an 

honor to appear before you today. On behalf of the Marines and 

their families, thank you for your support. 

The Marine Corps is the Nation’s expeditionary force in readiness. As such, we are a fully deployed, scalable, crisis response 

force ready to meet the complex irregular challenges of the future. 

Irregular warfare is deeply interwoven into our past, present, and 

future. It is in our DNA. 

We continue to learn, innovate, and adapt in the course of our 

main effort operations in Afghanistan. At the same time, we are instride building a post-OEF [Operation Enduring Freedom] force. 

That force is designed not for protracted counterinsurgency, but 

rather for targeted forward engagement, crisis response, counterterrorism, counterproliferation, security force assistance, and stability operations in support of our allies. 

We have prepared for irregular warfare with a premium on readiness; rapid adaptation; precise application of all aspects of national power; strategic, operational, and tactical mobility; and an 

integrated capability with Special Operations, joint, interagency, 

and allied partners. 

It was 10 years ago today under circumstances no one could predict that 2 Marine expeditionary units of 4,400 marines and 6 am-
6 

phibious ships were assembling to strike Al Qaeda after the horrific acts of 9/11. This task force on short notice rapidly concentrated from wildly dispersed forward engagement missions to 

decisively attack across hundreds of miles from the Arabian Sea, 

to Kandahar, and then on to Kabul. Using the flexibility at sea 

base, they could attack at a time and place of their choosing, were 

self-sustaining, and required no forward basing or supporting infrastructure, and they had only a minimal footprint ashore. Notably, 

with no time for special preparation and in an underdeveloped theater, Task Force 58 conducted a full range of irregular operations 

against Al Qaeda and in support of the Northern Alliance. These 

operations were completely integrated with SOF [Special Operations Forces], interagency, and our allies. 

This dynamic ability at a moment’s notice to shape, deter, and 

defeat and deny our enemies sanctuary is emblematic of the irregular warfare capabilities that we continue to improve on in our current and future force. We build on 113 irregular warfare operations 

since 1990 to include, most recently, humanitarian assistance operations in Japan, Pakistan, and Haiti; counterpiracy operations in 

the Arabian Sea; and operations in Libya. We provide insurance 

against the unexpected with an adaptive, multicapable force that 

has a global reach to defend American citizens, commerce and our 

vital national interests. 

As with Task Force 58 10 years ago, we are ready today to respond to all manner of crises and contingencies to include especially irregular warfare. 

I thank you for the opportunity to testify. 

[The prepared statement of General O’Donohue can be found in 

the Appendix on page 67.] 

Mr. THORNBERRY. Thank you. 

General. 

STATEMENT OF BRIG GEN JERRY P. MARTINEZ, USAF, DIRECTOR FOR JOINT INTEGRATION, DIRECTORATE OF OPERATIONAL CAPABILITY REQUIREMENTS, U.S. AIR FORCE 

General MARTINEZ. Chairman Thornberry, Ranking Member 

Langevin and distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank 

you for the opportunity to discuss irregular warfare with you today. 

Winning today’s fight with our joint and coalition team is a top 

priority. As almost 40,000 deployed airmen can attest, the Air 

Force is engaged in irregular operations supporting combatant 

commander objectives worldwide. I could not be more proud of the 

work our airmen are doing. They are trained and dedicated professionals. 

The Air Force has capitalized on the lessons learned over the last 

10 years and incorporated them into policy, doctrine, operating concepts, and educational programs. These elements are continuously 

updated with the most current concepts, tactics, techniques, and 

procedures, thus empowering our airmen who are agile and adaptable, and who are ready to succeed in today’s diverse environments. 

The Air Force has not only taken action in training and education, we also continue to make adjustments in how we project air 

power in our intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, as well 

as mobility, personnel recovery, information operations, command 
7 

and control, armed overwatch, close air support, and aviation security force assistance. In doing so, we have created an adaptable culture and airmen with an understanding of irregular warfare, using 

the tools at hand to overcome the challenges we face. 

We expect irregular warfare to remain relevant for some time. 

We are prepared to meet those future challenges. 

Thank you very much for your time and for your continued support of our Air Force and our Nation’s military. 

[The prepared statement of General Martinez can be found in the 

Appendix on page 75.] 

Mr. THORNBERRY. I believe you all have given the briefest opening statements I have ever seen in my time here, but that is all 

right because I think this is a topic that demands a conversation, 

and so I appreciate the opportunity to have one. 

Let me just briefly begin with kind of a background question. 

General Bayer, you had a statement in your opening statement, 

and you repeated it here today, that caught my attention, that the 

Nation effectively went to war with two armies in 2002: General 

Purpose Forces that were prepared to excel against traditional adversaries in direct combat, and Special Operations Forces that were 

prepared to prevail in an irregular environment. 

Looking back, before 2002, would you agree that our Nation has 

a history of not ingraining the lessons of irregular warfare in our 

military education, and training, and so forth? 

General BAYER. Mr. Chairman, you ask a great question, and I 

think the answer is yes, we tend to focus on the war we just fought 

as we look to the future. And I think one of the things that is different about now for the U.S. Army after a decade at war is that 

we recognize, as we look forward, war among the people is the future, and as you look across our doctrinal kind of construct, as we 

look to the future, our ‘‘Army Capstone Concept’’ into our recently 

published ‘‘Army Doctrinal Publication 3.0, Unified Land Operations,’’ we describe the enemy of the future as a hybrid enemy 

that will have regular, irregular, criminal, and terrorist components of it; that will operate in manners that we can’t always describe. And what it demands is a force who has competence in this 

irregular warfare skill set ranging from counterterrorism all the 

way over to stability ops. 

As one of the first soldiers in Baghdad on the conventional side 

of the house, I was the operations officer for the 3rd Infantry Division, I will tell you that we planned two separate operations to get 

to Baghdad. There was a conventional force plan and a Special Operations Force plan. I had limited knowledge of what they were 

doing, and when we both arrived in Baghdad to begin to coordinate, we had a lot of great people, but we were not prepared to operate together amongst the people. I don’t believe that is the case 

now, sir. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. Let me ask, does anybody disagree with that, 

that in our history we have not really—I hate this word ‘‘institutionalized,’’ but institutionalized the lessons of irregular warfare? 

And does anybody disagree with the proposition that we are going 

to have a lot more of this sort of stuff in the future? 

I will get to you in a minute. But none of our witnesses? 
8 

Okay. I think it is important to kind of just lay some groundwork 

to see we don’t have a very good track history of this, and yet it 

is likely to be much of what we do in the future. 

I will be anxiously awaiting Mr. Gibson’s questions in just a 

minute. But right now I yield to the ranking member, Mr. Langevin. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and again thank the 

panel for their testimony here today. 

I would like to go back to my question in my opening statement. 

I would like each of you to give an example of a capability that is 

critical for success in irregular warfare, but not particularly useful 

in traditional conflict. 

General BAYER. Sir, I will start. I think for the Army that is a 

really tough question, because the core of our expertise and what 

we have learned most importantly in the last decade, it is about 

our soldiers. So if you look specifically at how we have prepared 

soldiers to operate effectively in the irregular warfare spectrum, it 

is about increased language capabilities, it is about increased culture capability, and it is about equipping them with the tools that 

can be utilized to deliver, you know, precise effects among the people. Sometimes those effects are on the counterterrorism side of the 

house, where we need to go kill somebody, and we need to kill select people, not innocents. And sometimes those effects are operating amongst the population and utilizing biometrics to be able to 

identify friend from foe, so to speak, over a period of time so that 

we are precise in our application. 

And then ranging all the way over to stability effects, arming 

them with the capabilities, such as civil affairs, military information support operations, lawyers who are trained in rule of law, so 

we can enable them to build capacity in both their security forces 

and their governance. 

So for us I think it is about the soldier, sir, which is applicable 

in both, and it is the skill sets we give that soldier for operations 

in irregular warfare. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. Thank you. 

Admiral. 

Admiral HARRIS. Yes, sir. I have to agree with my Army partner 

here that it is very hard to find the dividing line where a technology or a training or a capability is only used in a conventional 

campaign vice used in the irregular, because, quite frankly, there 

is a very gray area in war. War is war, and you have to flex between the two, it seems like, seamlessly from one day to the next. 

Some of the sensors that we were working towards in support of 

SOF operations that we will put on unmanned platforms are targeting individuals vice things, and those tend to be more toward 

the IW [irregular warfare] spectrum than the conventional, so in 

terms of that as one example, the sensors that we will put on unmanned platforms that look for cell phone or other type of communication devices to target specific individuals. 

In terms of integration with SOF, the Navy for a number of 

years now has done something called Agile Quest, which prepares 

our deploying ships and their crews to operate in support of SOF 

operations. But we have been doing more integration between the 

Navy Expeditionary Combat Command and SOF, to try to relieve 
9 

the stress on Special Forces so they can go off and do those highprofile missions. 

So, again, it is a full spectrum of activity. The equipment has to 

be multimissioned because from one day to the next, maybe even 

inside the same day, we will be operating on both sides of the spectrum. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. Thank you, Admiral. 

General. 

General O’DONOHUE. Sir, just to pick up the theme, and to get 

back to the chairman’s question, ever since Desert Storm we have 

been developing irregular warfare capability. We saw future warfare as not being the son of Desert Storm, but as being the stepchild of Chechnya. And this was the concept of the ‘‘three block 

war’’ that Marines have to operate both in establishing peace, in 

outright conflict, or in humanitarian assistance, all within the 

same conflict. 

So our lessons since Desert Storm have really led us to more one 

of emphasis rather than distinction. And so as we look at a capability as purely IW, really not in the way that we are thinking. 

This idea of hybrid threat, the idea that even a state power would 

be able to use an irregular tactic against a conventional force is not 

one that we see any explicit distinction. 

So the force to prepare has to look at the full range, it has to 

be able to operate, and if there is any definition about irregular 

warfare, it is the aspect of it is without pattern; that we have an 

adaptive enemy, the population will always be relevant, and what 

we need to do is push down the ability of combined arms, lethal, 

nonlethal, all the elements of state power, so we can establish not 

just perhaps the 10-minute firefight or the 1-hour firefight, but the 

fundamental conditions that led to the conflict that started it. 

So, again, irregular warfare is inextricably linked with the force 

structure, and especially the one we have recast to the future with 

the 186-8 [186,800] force is fundamentally different than pre-OEF, 

it is one of emphasis, though, not really one of distinction. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. General. 

General MARTINEZ. Sir, one of the areas that I think is definitely 

with irregular warfare that we never used in conventional wars 

was our new Air Advisor program that we have implemented in the 

Air Force. Throughout my years growing up in the Air Force, we 

were taught simply to go out and destroy an enemy’s air force. 

That was our job: to go defeat the enemy, not to build an air force. 

And as we started getting into irregular warfare operations, especially in Iraq and Afghanistan, you clearly see the need that those 

foreign countries, they need a developed air platform, they need a 

developed capability to help ensure stability in their region. And in 

order to do that, we have done several things in the Air Force to 

promote that. 

First, we established Air Expeditionary Wings in both countries, 

where we put advisors over there to help the locals learn about air 

power. And those areas are not just strictly skills of flying an airplane; it is everything from security of an airport, to the logistics, 

to the maintenance, and the many other facets that go with air 

power. Right now in Afghanistan we have 515 of those advisors 

helping over there. 
10 

In addition, we changed our organizational structure and developed two Mobility Advising Squadrons. We have a squadron on 

each coast, and within those squadrons we have a lot of different 

skill sets, some of which I just discussed. And their role is now at 

a moment’s notice to go somewhere and help whoever is in need of 

building a better air platform, again to provide stability in their region. In the past we didn’t do this. We recognized it was a need 

in this irregular warfare, and we made the changes in our Air 

Force. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. I thank you all for your insights. My time has expired. Hopefully we will get to a second round, and I will have additional questions. But with that, thank you for your input here 

today, and I will yield back. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. Mr. Conaway. 

Mr. CONAWAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Gentlemen, I have got a specific question for the Marines and a 

broader question. 

General O’Donohue, can you give us some insight as to what the 

utility of amphibious operations will be? The Marine Corps excels 

at that in irregular war. You mentioned a little bit of that in your 

opening statement, but the broader post-landing kind of thing that 

the Marine Corps has traditionally looked as being the premier 

force. 

General O’DONOHUE. The most stressing condition could be an 

imposed landing. The most common one is not. So day to day marines are doing operations related to regular, most often with Navy/ 

Marine team, from a platform that gives us strategic mobility. We 

can move, in the case of Libya, before the National Decision Authority has decided what they want to do, but we can provide— 

without an incursion ashore—provide an offshore presence that 

serves as a deterrence and gives options and decisions base for our 

national decision makers. 

It allows us to put in TAC [tactical air control] combat power 

ashore, and not just against traditional targets, but irregular. If 

you had to scale against a terrorist network, you had to go after 

counterproliferation targets of high priority, the Marine Corps has 

the ability, the command and control, the sustainment from an amphibious platform to be able to do that. And in many areas we complement SOF day-to-day with their specialized missions, but there 

are ones again that we are the supported commander, as was the 

case in Task Force 58. 

So, again, it is the ability of sustainment from sea, it is that strategic projection, to pick a time and place of your choosing, to enter 

the environment, and to do so in the case of a strike or raid without a destabilizing presence. You can moderate the amount of force 

that would go in. You don’t have to seize a port or airfield or a base 

for your own sustainment. You can really target how much you 

want to reinforce an ally or how much you want to affect the conditions in a very measured way from that platform. 

Mr. CONAWAY. Thank you. 

The broader question is, just by way of kind of fleshing out the 

question in terms of challenges to making this happen, I have recently watched some village stability operations in Afghanistan, 

northern Afghanistan, in which a Special Forces A Team matched 
11 

up with a—General Purpose Forces are conducting those operations led by the A Team and the Special Forces. It seems to be 

working well. 

One of the issues is, can you get to scale across the country with 

the concept? You don’t have enough A Teams to make that happen, 

so how do you blend and bring in a technique that is generated out 

of the A Team background broadly across? So what are the challenges to blending the conventional forces and the irregular warfare concepts on the fly to make things happen that we want to? 

Anybody can pitch in on that. 

General BAYER. Congressman, I will jump in. I think the first is 

doctrine. And we believe our doctrine generally as we have advanced it has described the requirement for Special Operation 

Forces and General Purpose Forces to work together. 

Clearly the village stability operations being practiced in Afghanistan right now are at the front edge of kind of new concepts. So 

the challenges, we bring that back. You are limited right now by, 

you know, the density of forces that are forward deployed and the 

other missions in their ability to do it. 

But I think the longer-term challenge for us is how do we integrate that in training? And in our training centers we are moving 

to what we call full-spectrum kind of scenarios that portray this 

hybrid threat and require a unit commander at the brigade level 

to deal with a multitude of problem sets, so to speak, during their 

training. So I think our challenge is, how do we have both Special 

Operations Forces and General Purpose Forces [GPF] present in 

that training rotation and work together prior to employment? And 

we have some work to do to ensure that. Part of it is density of 

their utilization for operational missions and how many folks are 

left behind in the training. 

Mr. CONAWAY. Has the Joint Forces Command that stood down, 

has that impacted your ability to do those kinds of things? 

General BAYER. From an Army perspective, no, sir. That has not 

impacted our ability to do the things I described. 

Mr. CONAWAY. Anybody else? 

General MARTINEZ. Sir, from an Air Force perspective, it has 

been minimal impact. The Joint Staff has absorbed most of those 

duties, actually, the J7, handling doctrine, training and irregular 

warfare aspects; as well the J8, who currently does the joint requirements. So we have seen really no impact at all. 

Mr. CONAWAY. I yield back. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

General O’DONOHUE. Sir, just on your first question on the integration of SOF, Marine is inextricably linked. One characteristic of 

the force we project for the future was a growth of Marine 

MARSOC [Marine Special Operations Command], about a little 

over 3,000 to 3,500 Marines that give us obviously an organic connection with SOC [Special Operations Command]. We operate with 

them every day. 

We started with the first conceptual doctrinal piece was a multiservice concept for irregular warfare, which was a companion piece 

with the Marines and SOF. And then the complementary capability 

of the highly trained small units that operate in that battlefield 

using the unique capabilities and authorities that SOF has in combination with the Marine high training is one that is operating 
12 

today in Afghanistan, afloat as we go with the MEUs [Marine Expeditionary Units], and we will continue in the future. 

Admiral HARRIS. Sir, I could add one more example for both of 

the questions you had. The first was utility of amphibious forces, 

and being an amphib officer for the past 10 years, I have had a 

firsthand chance to work with the Marine Corps/Navy team doing 

this. 

And one example I would use is that on the same day that we 

were doing humanitarian assistance in Pakistan during the floods 

in 2010, delivering water and delivering food, we also had the takedown of the Magellan Star in the middle of the Gulf of Aden, again 

leading the Marine Corps team, operating from amphibious ships, 

working with the general force, had a cruiser in support, doing IWtype mission. 

At the same time the USS Peleliu was flying missions in support 

of ground troops doing counterinsurgency in Afghanistan. One arc, 

one Navy-Marine Corps team that shows you on one day, and this 

was not an uncommon day, how valuable amphibious forces are. 

In terms of the integration with SOF and GPF, I mentioned 

Agile Quest, which is trained out of Fleet Forces Command, are 

doing to a greater extent. What we do in the Navy is before we continuously train and modify the training depending on the COM and 

the fleet commander demand signals as they go forward, to make 

sure that our sailors are prepared to operate not just in a conventional way, but operate also with Special Operation Forces. Maersk 

Alabama is a good example where on the fly we are able to 

seamlessly integrate. 

Mr. CONAWAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. Ms. Davis. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to all of 

you for your service and your leadership. 

I wanted to turn to the issue of language and cultural training, 

and as you may know, the GAO [Government Accountability Office] 

stated recently that both the Army and the Marine Corps should— 

must better document the results of their language and culture 

training programs to make them more effective. And basically what 

they were saying is they need to better leverage language and cultural knowledge and the skills so they can make better individual 

assignments assessing operational needs as well. 

Could you speak to that? Do you think that there is enough emphasis that has been placed on pre-deployment training to your 

General Purpose Forces on language training, regional and cultural 

expertise? How do you meld those in terms of IW and conventional 

forces? 

General BAYER. I will be happy to start. The answer is we in the 

Army, we still have work to do. One of our lessons learned is, to 

enable soldiers to effectively operate in the environments we have 

the last decade, which are center mass of the IW spectrum, we 

have to have increased cultural and language capability. So we 

have initiated a number of programs to do it. 

One of the limiting factors for our units that are employed in the 

counterinsurgency fights in Iraq and Afghanistan quite honestly 

has been the pace. When you are gone a year and you are home 

a year, to try to create the kind of language capacity we are talking 
13 

about in the general purpose formations is quite challenging, to get 

them to what we would refer to as kind of a 1/1 level of proficiency, 

conversational. So we have utilized a number of training aids, some 

shorter courses, done things like our 09 Lima, bringing in foreign 

nationals into the force to be interpreters assigned—in Army uniform assigned with the forces. 

As we look forward, we are institutionalizing a program we call 

a Regionally Aligned Brigade, and it is the utilization of a brigade, 

a general purpose brigade, aligned to a combatant command and 

a U.S. Army service component command to go do Phase Zero prevent-type activities, so security force assistance, pre-conflict to 

shape the environment. And one of the programs we have lined up 

is to give an increased amount of cultural capability and language 

capability to that formation pre-deployment. But we also recognize 

it is only feasible to do that if you have a longer preparatory time, 

as I stated. 

So we think the GAO report, it is not untrue in terms of there 

is work to do, but we believe we have grown substantially and recognize the importance of it. 

General O’DONOHUE. We stood up our Center for Advanced Operational Culture and Language in 2004, with a recognition of the 

challenges ahead of us. It has had a very particular and sharp 

focus obviously in Iran and Afghanistan. The language skills in 

particular are difficult and long to build. We put them and integrate them into each one of our units in the PTP, our Pre-deployment Training Program. 

Probably the broader aspect of it that is relevant especially is 

really to the future where we don’t know where we are going to go, 

and we have to have the ability to have a language capability that 

is targeted, and we will the increase in our foreign affairs and regional affairs expertise of both now—the officer and now newly in 

the enlisted level. 

But the idea is, how do you adapt to a culture, and how do you, 

again, without notice, in an area that you perhaps weren’t predicting, you have to address a threat. A lot of that is related to how 

do you adapt, the idea of how you look at the human training, the 

cultural training, your understanding. Now, this is true of SOF 

forces where language is just one component, but the other one is 

your awareness, and be able to operate, and be able to look at patterns and recognize things as you start going into a fresh one, and 

that will be the new challenge. 

So we have had many issues focused on Afghanistan, and then 

we have to look and address a broader one. We give marines as 

they join a particular area they are going to focus on that they 

have to develop through the course of their career, the education 

and training piece. All of this is ingrained. It is a moving target, 

and we have to look at shifting to the future one where we won’t 

have an established theater or forewarning of where we are going 

to actually be. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Do you see any of this going by the wayside because 

of budget constraints? Will there be a continuing emphasis as far 

as you can see? 

General O’DONOHUE. I can say explicitly, and I was part of the 

force structure review that the Commandant took as he recasts the 
14 

Marine Corps for the future in terms of capabilities, and we were 

forced with making trades between what you categorize irregular 

capabilities and what would be standard as conventional. And we 

have about 8,000 Marines even at a smaller force than we had preOEF to give us that kind of capability. So senior leadership has 

looked at the problem and made most decisively in how we allocate 

our scarce Marine Corps at 186-8 and how we are going to do it, 

and there was that regular piece—— 

Mrs. DAVIS. I was also partnering, of course, with some of the 

universities around the country, San Diego State, and my colleague 

here from San Diego knows this well also, has done a very good 

immersion program utilizing the residents in the community as 

well to help and assist with that. So I think that is certainly important for the future. 

And my time is up. I will come back for another round, Mr. 

Chairman, if you are doing it. 

Sir, do you have one more. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. Go ahead. 

General MARTINEZ. Ma’am, in terms of language, the Air Force 

has recognized a need as we are involved in deployments throughout the world for language training, and our Chief of Staff directed 

a very aggressive program for airmen to start becoming better linguists out there in the world. We started a program called the Language-Enabled Airmen Program, or we call it LEAP. LEAP is basically, we take folks who have a minor understanding of a language, 

and then we put them through a very heavy immersion to get them 

better qualified to speak that language. It increases their language 

capability, but the important piece is that it is amongst the general 

population of the airmen, it is not our special forces folks that do 

this. 

We recently had a board that met just in September to pick the 

next wave of folks that would go through this training, and 329 

people were selected in 46 different languages. So right now in the 

program the Air Force has 772 people doing this training. 

Admiral HARRIS. Very quickly, ma’am, the Navy has got the 

LREC program, which is our Language and Regional Expertise and 

Cultural program, which again goes to the general purpose for sailors. I actually have an LREC course back at home so I can learn 

Spanish to add to my German. 

Additionally, our Office of Naval Research has the Human and 

Social Cultural Behavior Modeling program, which tries to get at 

that awareness, how they are trained to be more aware of their cultural surroundings for sailors and obviously for marines, because 

ONR works for both Navy and Marine Corps team. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. If I could interrupt and follow up for just a 

second. As I read the GAO’s comments, again they were looking at 

the Army and Marine Corps, one of the points they make is that 

the information about what training has been completed in the language proficiency is not captured in the personnel records or within 

service-level training. So it is kind of like we don’t know who we 

have got to do things—who had this capability. Something breaks 

out somewhere, and there is not a database to go and say, oh, we 

have got these 20 people who speak such and such. Doesn’t that 
15 

get to whether irregular warfare skills are institutionalized within 

the services? 

General O’DONOHUE. Sir, the Marine Corps has just started a 

database. To do that, it tracks not just language, it tracks operational and analytical capability if you are trying to look at patterns and analysis in an environment, so all relevant skills. We 

still have to get those who have experience in terms of the training, 

advisors. So it is new, it has started, we have addressed the problem, and we have a little way to go in terms of getting the full 

gamut of skills, not just language, that might be relevant. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. Again, part of what we are doing is looking for 

evidence, looking for signs, is this sort of capability really getting 

ingrained in the services, and I thought it was an interesting point 

that the GAO found as one piece of evidence, not end-all, be-all. 

Mr. Gibson. 

Mr. GIBSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and also to our ranking 

member, for calling this hearing. I think this is a very critical area 

that indeed we do need to have dialogue on the way forward. 

I thank the panelists for their leadership, for their service. And, 

in fact, General Bayer is somebody I served with in Mosul in some 

of the toughest times, and he was a distinguished soldier and leader, and it was an honor to serve with him. 

You asked the question, Chairman, earlier on about the future 

of our country and irregular warfare, and you asked the question 

broadly, does anybody disagree with the statement that you put 

forward. And clearly there is going to be a need for a competency 

or capability with irregular warfare. My nuanced view on this really has to do with the level of political and strategic, not any 

qualms. In fact, anything that has been presented here today, I 

agree with. I think there has been some good testimony already 

put forth. 

To me, it is fundamental to take a look at who we are as a people, and what does it mean to defend a republic, and how do we 

then organize our Armed Forces to do that, to protect America and 

our cherished way of life? I am of the mind that we ought to take 

a hard look at our commitments overseas, the requirements we 

levy on the Armed Forces. And I think if we do that, we will reorganize in a way that will actually make us safer and save money. 

We just came through a very difficult decade and couldn’t be 

more proud of our service men and women and their families, deployment after deployment after deployment, and not complaining, 

just getting it done with great sacrifice and hardship. We can’t go 

through another decade like the one we just came through, or on 

the other side we won’t be the same republic. So I think that is 

really incumbent on us, and that is why I applaud the chairman 

calling the hearing today. 

But even with the world view that I lay out that is certainly a 

minority viewpoint right now, and I know I have got a lot of work 

on that score, there is still going to be a need for the strongest military in the world right here and deterrence that goes with it; all 

the maritime comments made as far as shared access and having 

a capable force here, prepared—a joint force prepared to go anywhere on a moment’s notice. And then there is also the threat, the 

existential threat, that we face: Al Qaeda. Undeniable, and we 
16 

have to rise up to that challenge, so that is where irregular warfare 

is front and center. 

Mr. Chairman, as you know, we are working this in our committee, and we have a provision in the NDAA [National Defense 

Authorization Act] right now for Special Operation Forces about 

the way we are going to relook that. I am of the mind, based on 

my experiences, that fusing intelligence and operations is key to 

this in actually elevating that capability to a global response in 

terms of our allies and friends. I think that will help make us safer 

and more effective in the war against Al Qaeda. And towards that 

end, that goes to some of what General Bayer was mentioning in 

terms of the two armies and us having that capability going forward. 

But even in the world view that I lay out, I can’t say that the 

probability is zero that general forces could get involved in this 

again. I can imagine some circumstances close to home here where 

we may have to be involved in such activity. 

So really this gets me to my question, and it has to do with balance. It has been mentioned here in some of the testimony fullspectrum capability and how an institution—and how the institutions prepare for this, how you strike out, how do you prioritize. 

In the Army we used to call it DTLOMS [Doctrine, Training, Leadership Development, Organization, Materiel, and Soldier] we used 

to organize across, and recognizing that even before the war, we 

did make investments toward irregular warfare. 

I can think of a time when I was in the box at JRTC [Joint Readiness Training Center] in the fictional country of Cortina; 5 of the 

11 days in the box, it was on low-intensity conflict. It is just we 

weren’t doing as well as we know that we need to do it now. So 

how do we then rise to that challenge, looking across the functions, 

doctrine, leader development, materiel, training, including home 

station unit training and joint training? How do we do that? 

General BAYER. Congressman, I will jump in. Tough question. I 

think the first thing you start with is if you use that kind of 

DTLOMPF [Doctrine, Training, Leadership Development, Organization, Materiel, Personnel and Facilities] structure, is your doctrine right? We think that we have got a correct expression of doctrine as we look forward in describing the environment and the 

type of threats our Nation may ask us to face. 

The second is your organization. You know, one of the things the 

Army—or both Secretary McHugh and General Odierno have affirmed their commitment to completing the build-out of Special Operations Forces. So we recognize that as we become a smaller 

Army, a larger percentage of our operating force will be Special Operations Forces. And that is a deliberate decision to enable us to 

have those capabilities on the higher end of the irregular warfare 

spectrum, recognizing skills like counterterrorism, et cetera, or require some advanced capabilities. 

The next piece is in the training base, how do we get to the point 

you are making of how do we integrate these two together in the 

training base? And it really is a—you got to want to do it, and I 

think that our leadership does. One of the things I have heard 

General Odierno tell the staff here a couple times recently is if we 

are the same Army 10 years from now that we are today, it means 
17 

we failed, and we haven’t learned anything from where we have 

been. 

So the guidance and the desire from the senior leaders in terms 

of looking forward across all of doctrine, organization, how we train 

leaders, et cetera, is pretty solid, but proof is in execution, as you 

know. And as resources come down, and we have a smaller Army, 

we recognize we have some challenges to make it happen for our 

Nation, but we are committed to them. 

I know I have only scratched the surface of your question. 

Admiral HARRIS. Yes, sir. If I could follow up, I would agree with 

using the DOTMLPF structure. You could address each of these, 

and I could address each of these in areas where the Navy is continuing to institutionalize that. But that balance question is huge, 

because there is such a materiel-intensive force, our ships, and our 

planes and our submarines. And, of course, our mission set does 

portend us to be prepared for that high-end of operations. We have 

to be; that is our charter. But we are also fully recognized through 

our training that we are going to operate as we have always done 

since the inception of the Navy in an irregular environment. They 

have to have those sailors that are able to walk across a full spectrum. 

I will just take a couple of quick examples. In our leadership 

training we have in our postgraduate school, and our Naval Academy and our war college, irregular warfare is part of that curriculum. I think there are two majors, in fact, at postgraduate 

school in California, just to highlight the importance of it amongst 

our sailors. 

In terms of the materiel, we continue to look at innovative techniques on how we can take our high-end platforms and make sure 

that they can support either SOF operations or other irregular operations by not just targeting things, but being able to target people as needed. 

General O’DONOHUE. The Commandant reported back to Secretary of Defense based on the results of a force structure review, 

capability review, based on a threat really expressed by the chairman at the beginning of this hearing. In that force we had a forward-deployment engagement where we are going to have to take 

some risk where we can’t take the combatant demand. It is essentially in a Marine Corps of a 24-battalion base that allows us dayto-day, and then shift in terms of prioritized focus, specific—the 

Middle East or areas, not that we are not globally responsive, but 

there is a less capacity to do that, and there is a prioritized method 

of doing so. 

So those 24 battalions, essentially a sizing construct for the force. 

This idea of being crisis response, we can aggregate those forces 

that are distributed often with the Navy team. Single ships can 

come together, as I displayed an example given with CTF 58, to go 

to a more substantial operation. 

And then you get the higher end, the MCO [Major Combat Operations], which, again, a commitment of about 20 battalions. The 

point here and the efficiency of it is these are the same battalions, 

so they are trained at a high level, they can operate IW, and they 

can aggregate, they can distribute—distribute operations with pla-
18 

toons operating 39 miles separate. Applying the full instruments of 

national power, they can combine and concentrate if need be. 

Took risk not just in forward engagement in meeting combatant 

demand, but also in the phase 4 and 5 operations, the sustained 

operations ashore. We can’t do them, it is lesser included, but the 

force we have now of 22k is the force to do that. The force of the 

future, the 186-8k, accepts risk in that area. And then we use what 

we call the enablers. We have a very highly trained force, and we 

had those 8,000-some others, intelligence, EOD [explosive ordnance 

disposal], civil affairs, FAOs [foreign area officers], that you can 

combine together to apply to a problem. And just, for example, we 

had a tank battalion, a little bit of training, high-training status 

of any marine, they were able to go into a Black Sea rotation and 

satisfy most of the theater security cooperation needs of a COCOM 

[combatant command]. So force design for a conventional high-end 

threat, but, given the high level of training of some enablers, able 

to satisfy others. 

General MARTINEZ. Sir, I think probably one of the most important pieces in your question is as we move in this irregular warfare 

arena, it really has to start from a commitment from the senior 

leaders of the service. And I think each service has to recognize the 

type of warfare that is probably expected of us in the near future. 

Some time back the Air Force made a very strong commitment 

to irregular warfare, realizing that this really is the way we fight 

now and probably will be in many respects in the future. And some 

of the actions that we took was, one, first organizing our force differently to include establishing an office in the Pentagon under the 

Air Force that works irregular warfare, doctrine, training, et 

cetera; also implementing training programs. We started a threetier training program that is purely about expeditionary training 

and how we go to those different arenas and fight. We actually 

started an Air Force Expeditionary Center, which teaches courses, 

I think it is somewhere around 80-plus courses, on different things 

that our airmen need to know to work in those environments, as 

well as putting them in our professional military education, and 

most importantly is taking lessons learned. I think that is really 

crucial in this area is that we have to understand what we are 

doing, and then where we are not doing it well, and then where 

we could do better, and putting in a process to do that, we incorporate it as well. 

And then I think the last piece is, that we haven’t mentioned yet 

today, is we have a generation of airmen growing up, especially our 

young ones, that they know nothing but this type of warfare. You 

know, we call it irregular. It is irregular to the old guys, because 

this isn’t how we are used to fighting. To our young airmen this 

is the way they fight, this is what they know. So it is just as important as we focus on irregular warfare that we are also keeping our 

younger folks in the military in tune to conventional warfare. 

Mr. GIBSON. So, Mr. Chairman, I know I am out of time here. 

Let me just sum up by saying I am encouraged by the responses, 

the agility, the commitment to facing and rising up to our challenges and threats. And in view of your comment about dialogue, 

you know, I think it is important going forward that we find ways 

that the Congress helps and not harms this vision. Thank you. 
19 

Mr. THORNBERRY. Mr. Shuster. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, gentlemen, for being here today. 

Over the past several years, when the leadership comes to—the 

military comes before us, they talk about how language is a game 

changer, and you talked a little bit about that. One of the quick 

questions, just real briefly, I heard the Air Force has a program 

that is going across the force to the airmen to offer language training. Do the other branches have the same sort of program? Please 

be brief. A yes or no answer would be good. I don’t need the details. 

Admiral HARRIS. Yes, sir. LREC is our program. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Army? 

General BAYER. Not mandatory for all soldiers. 

General O’DONOHUE. We have a broad, targeted program, sir. 

Mr. SHUSTER. I would think that this would be important. The 

GAO report says you are not inventorying who is getting the training. I think it is also equally important to go out there and offer 

it across the force and test people for the aptitude, because there 

may be a guy that is a logistics officer, and you got to have logistics 

people in Afghanistan, and Iraq, and other places in the world. So 

I encourage you to look at that, to go across the force to find a guy, 

a private who may be a genius when it comes to speaking several 

languages that we don’t know about. 

So, as I said, that being so important that I heard from Petraeus 

to McChrystal, to McRaven saying it is so important, we should 

really be focusing on that. 

Second question I have is our allies, as we—the world is a big 

world, they are out there, and I know they have irregular forces. 

Are we able to use them as a multiplier force working together, because we operate well together? You don’t have to point out country-by-country, but certainly are there other forces out there as capable as ours that we can work extremely well with and insert 

them when we can’t be somewhere, or help them get to places we 

can’t—— 

General BAYER. Congressman, our Army experiences, there are a 

select number of armies around the world that we can truly operate seamlessly with. This happened with our most senior partners 

in NATO, others to varying degrees. 

One of our challenges, quite honestly, is that most of the nations 

of the world have divested themselves of support for security at a 

rate faster than our Nation. So what we see amongst our allies is 

vastly and rapidly declining capabilities, which makes, as we look 

to a future world, the assumption that some would make that we 

can get greater cooperation from our allies challenging, I think. But 

there are some we work very, very well with. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Anybody else? 

Admiral HARRIS. Yes, sir. Probably the clearest example happens 

in our 5th Fleet, where we have got a number of coalition operations that go on for our countering piracy, countering the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction that may go by sea. That 

is with, again, coalition navies from around the world. 

Mr. SHUSTER. I think I got a good enough answer on that to get 

an idea. 
20 

To shorten the prep time with cultural and language training, 

some folks that I have talked to and in SOCOM [Special Operations Command] have advocated for—there are about 90 countries 

out there that are on the brink or could be failed states soon, and 

we may be asked to come in and help. And they have advocated 

a strategy of inserting today, countries that want us, an 8- to 12- 

man team in that country so that if things go bad, that we shorten 

the prep time, and we have half a dozen, dozen people on the 

ground that can help us. 

I just wanted your general view of that. You think that is a 

smart thing to do? Is that something we should in Congress be trying to push forward to get those senior leadership the assets and 

the ability to do those types of things? 

General O’DONOHUE. Sir, that happens every day, both in small 

teams and on a persistent basis, working with the COCOM, who 

comes up with the theater security engagement process. So it is not 

exclusive to SOCOM. There are standing relationships. And obviously, we have deployments with the Marines and the Navy, with 

the MEUs that go out and operate as well to reinforce those. 

General BAYER. Congressman, our experience has been that that 

is a worthwhile investment, and its developing capacity relationships are critically important as you look to the future. So those 

are worthwhile investments, and I concur with my Marine counterpart. We do it all the time. 

General MARTINEZ. Sir, an important program that we have right 

now in the Air Force—it is actually the Air National Guard that 

is doing it—we have a State Partnership Program, where Air National Guard units are getting, basically, in a bilateral relationship 

between countries around the world and a State. Right now, there 

are 63 partnerships that occur. And those National Guard units 

with the members of that country will provide mentorship, they 

build crucial relationships, they ensure dialogue is flowing. 

Recently traveling with the Capstone Program, every country I 

stopped in, the locals from the country were extremely positive 

about their relationships with the Air National Guard and how 

they felt that actually really helps keep them linked to the United 

States. 

Mr. SHUSTER. That is great. 

I see my time is running out, but if I could just submit a question for the record that maybe you could answer me in writing. In 

the times we face now with tight budgets, I certainly am an advocate for not cutting the Defense Department any more. In fact, let 

us figure out a way to make sure we fund you at higher levels. But 

from your positions of looking at irregular war, looking at budgets 

and planning, what are the top priorities that we absolutely cannot 

touch to make sure that you can do the important work that you 

do? 

So if you could submit that in writing over the next week or two, 

I certainly would appreciate that. 

[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix on 

page 93.] 

Mr. SHUSTER. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. Mr. Hunter. 
21 

Mr. HUNTER. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. 

I don’t really have a question. I am a little bit curious, though. 

I know the Navy and Marine Corps have an answer to this. The 

Army probably does, too. I wasn’t indoctrinated in Army history, so 

I don’t know. But the Marine Corps had a Small Wars Manual in 

1940; the banana wars; 1890 to 1930. None of this is new, literally. 

None of what we are talking about right now is new. The materiel 

is, and the new gizmos, and the sensors, and the UAVs [unmanned 

aerial vehicles], but the rest of this stuff is old. 

When we went into Fallujah, it was the same thing. In fact, I 

was a SASO [Stability and Support Operations] guy. They call it 

SASO now. It is a stability and support operation guy. 

None of this stuff is new. The Navy and the Marine Corps have 

been doing this for over a century, going to little places, getting 

with the local population, getting the guerillas on our side. The 

Army has probably done the same thing. 

So I don’t know, I don’t know if I even have a point besides this 

is nothing new. It is doctrinal. It has been around for over 100 

years. It just seems like it is a new iteration, it is a different language, it is a different place, it is a different continent, maybe, 

than we have been in the past, but it is not new. And I think we 

have adapted extremely well. 

With that, I yield back the balance of my time. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. Mr. West. 

Mr. WEST. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member. Thanks 

to the panel for being here. I want to try to dovetail off of what 

my colleague Mr. Gibson and also what Mr. Shuster was talking 

about. 

Back in the mid- to late 1980s, we saw that the Army then made 

Special Forces a dedicated branch instead of how they had been 

doing it previously. Just recently, within the last 5 to 7 years, 

MARSOC has come onboard. So my question really is this: As we 

look at the irregular warfare threats—because I think the most important thing is that we have to start matching our capability and 

capacity to the threats that are out there. So when we go across 

the geographic AORs [areas of responsibility], and we look at the 

irregular warfare threat—because, sir, as you said, General Martinez, you are right. To the young people now, this is regular warfare. For us that grew up once upon a time having the Fulda Gap, 

this may be irregular warfare. 

But how do we make sure that we have the capability and requirements to—I mean, the capacity to meet these requirements? 

Because my biggest concern is that there is a shortfall out there 

because the enemy is seeking to fight in this manner. And I don’t 

want to see us be caught much so and with our pants down. As 

our colleague Mr. Hunter said, this is just a repeat of things that 

we have seen previously. 

So the question is: Where do you see the shortfalls out there with 

our Special Operations Forces contending with the irregular warfare threat throughout these geographical AORs? And then are we 

looking at means by which we can retrain some of our conventional 

forces to fulfill some of those shortfalls and gaps? 

General BAYER. Congressman, I will start. As I mentioned, the 

Army leadership remains committed to completing the growth of 
22 

SOF, which means about a 30 percent growth, give or take, in the 

last decade. So proportionately they are a bigger part of a smaller 

Army. 

What we have recognized really is that the GPF can do some of 

the mission sets that are commonly associated with irregular warfare, and it is not the exclusive domain of Special Operations 

Forces. 

As you gentlemen both know, both you and Congressman Gibson, 

you know, we have General Purpose Forces that actually can do 

counterterrorism missions in a counterinsurgency environment. So 

part of it is we have to blend those forces together in terms of mission profiles, so to speak. 

The other thing, I think, as we look forward, it is Phase Zero activities: prevent; it is being able to commit to the combatant commanders’ forces, General Purpose Forces, to augment the Special 

Operations Forces that have very finite levels of languages, cultural, advise-and-assist type capabilities, but to take some of the 

burden off development of security capacity and use General Purpose Forces to do security force assistance, you know, basic skill 

transference 101. And our Regionally Aligned Brigade concept will 

field the first of those, generate the first of them, in fiscal year 

2013 is aimed at trying to do that in the ‘‘Phase Zero, shape the 

environment’’ type of timeframe. 

So I hope that answers part of your question, sir. 

Admiral HARRIS. Yes, sir. Great question. And, again, I agree 

with my Army colleague, quite frankly, in the same type of approach. How the Navy does it, quite frankly, is through our partnership stations, which are General Purpose Force sailors on general ships that have operated in the Africa AOR since 2007; in the 

Pacific since 2004 with the Pacific Partnership; with the Southern 

Partnership Station, which has been going on since 2007; and Continuing Promise in about the same area as well. 

Now, in these partnership stations we bring together not just 

Navy, but also other services, interagency, and NGOs [non-governmental organizations] in a number of these operations in order to, 

as we talk about Phase Zero, trying to shape the area. And that 

provides for stability operations, which is, of course, part of IW. 

In addition, we are looking to take some of the burden off of our 

special operators. NECC, our Navy Expeditionary Combat Command, has done a number of missions in the training and the security force assistance missions that have been transitioned from the 

SOF, from NSW [Naval Special Warfare], to NECC. 

General O’DONOHUE. We try to mitigate risk. Again, I explained 

before about how the Marine Corps is going after it. But the idea 

of being multicapable, and being able to aggregate from a forwarddeployed posture where you are influencing, shaping, and then be 

able to respond to a crisis, for that strategic mobility is critically 

important. We can’t predict, as we didn’t with Afghanistan, where 

the next fight might be. We need to be able to get there to affect 

the initial conditions, reinforce a partner at the right time to do it, 

and then allow for a more considered response. That is a focus that 

the Marines have taken. 

There is a readiness aspect of it; again, a very efficient way to 

keep our units ready across the spectrum to be able to do this. The 
23 

way we mitigate the risk as well is the Reserves. The Reserves 

have a tremendous capability—both in specific capabilities and resources and talents—that we can draw on to the Active Force both 

to augment or to mitigate risk as well. The force structure we designed at 186-8k has those elements and assumes that the Reserves can mitigate some of the risks that the Active Force has 

taken. 

General MARTINEZ. Sir, I think an important point to make when 

you look at this conventional versus the irregular warfare and Special Ops operators out there is, what can we do to take the burden 

off them? Our country has asked a lot of Special Ops Forces, and, 

wow, have they delivered in the last 10 years. 

One of the things that we do in the Air Force is we are looking 

for ways to transfer some of those duties. First, you can do it by 

training your general populace to better understand language, region, culture, and the things that traditionally in the past Special 

Forces members have been extremely good at. 

The other is looking at actual missions. Earlier I mentioned an 

air advisor course, where we teach people to go out and basically 

teach other countries how to set up an air force. That role actually 

started and was done by Special Ops Forces. It was not general 

populace that did that; it was the Special Ops people who owned 

that mission. And within the Air Force we have migrated it over 

time through this Air Academy and taught our general forces how 

to contribute to those missions and let Special Ops go on and do 

other things. 

Mr. WEST. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I guess I will yield back 

the rest of Mr. Hunter’s time. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. We are being a little more flexible today because there is obviously a lot to talk about here and a lot of good 

questions and answers. 

I want to go back a little bit, because in the last few exchanges 

there has been discussion about the doctrine, how it is not new, 

and so forth. I think the concern is that while the doctrine may be 

on paper, the reality of it, when it comes to promotions and dollars 

spent and so forth, may be somewhat different. Let me just cite 

some examples and invite the appropriate one of you to make any 

comments you would like. 

So, for example, I guess for the Army, I have a study from the 

Institute of National Strategic Studies, National Defense University, Christopher Lamb, et al., wrote, and it is titled: ‘‘MRAPs, Irregular Warfare, and Pentagon Reform.’’ And basically it goes 

through the history of resistance in the Pentagon to MRAPs [MineResistant Ambush-Protected vehicles]; how this committee actually 

was a key instigator in getting some up-armored Humvees first and 

then tried to push the MRAPs. But he makes some statements 

which may or may not be true about the cultural resistance within 

the Pentagon to irregular warfare and to spending money on equipment which has, as its primary use at least, irregular warfare. It 

goes on to say the problems with irregular warfare go well beyond 

the acquisition system. 

So I don’t know. General, is this something in the past, this problem, or are they at least in a vein of concern here that will extend 
24 

beyond our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan and inhibit our 

ability to prepare for the future? 

General BAYER. Sir, from my perspective, I think it is a thing of 

the past. But I acknowledge that for some people, change is uncomfortable, and it is something we see in every aspect of life. When 

faced with a different future and where you are, some people will 

have a hard time adapting. 

I will tell you that the guidance of our current set of leadership, 

Secretary McHugh and General Odierno, is crystal clear to me as 

an Army staff officer. And I would just echo the words of General 

Odierno: If we are the same Army 10 years from now that we are 

today, then we have not learned a thing, and shame on us, essentially. And he is absolutely right. And I don’t sense amongst my 

peer group of leaders and those that I work with every day in the 

Pentagon a mentality that is similar to what was expressed relative to, you know, bringing the MRAP into duty. 

What I would tell you as a previously conventional forces soldier 

raised as an armor officer in armor formations, who has now been 

to Iraq multiple times, I believe the culture of the Army has 

changed to accept that, and the probability of future conflicts says 

it is going to be among the people and look strikingly similar to 

what we have seen in the last decade, and I think our culture has 

changed to accept that, sir. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. I think that is a fair point, let me just say. 

And I think General Martinez mentioned it a while ago. People 

who have been through this over the last decade are not going to 

go back to the way we were. I think that is a point well taken. 

General O’Donohue, Marines are primarily responsible for 

nonlethals, correct? 

General O’DONOHUE. They are the executive agent, yes, sir. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. This has been an issue for me for some time. 

I requested a GAO study, I don’t know, some time ago, and the results of what the GAO found are similar to what we were just talking about about the MRAPs; that there is cultural resistance to 

nonlethals. Obviously, it is not exclusively an IW sort of equipment. 

But they go and talk about how many research and development 

efforts basically amounted to nothing. And part of it is not having 

the priority, not having the oversight, but also cultural resistance. 

Is this another example of something where, you know, the Building, if you will, resists spending money on things that are primarily 

IW-oriented? 

General O’DONOHUE. Sir, I can only speak to the Marine position. So not to confuse with the joint program and joint evaluation 

that is an executive agent versus a Marine program, so within that 

context there is a very strong push within that joint nonlethal environment for programs that have actually been successful. The requirement was conceived, a program was devised, and it has been 

brought home. So within that context, separating the executive 

agent responsibility that is joint, to the Marine Corps programs 

themselves, there is success within there. 

Some of the systems there are very focused on very specific situations. They are not a widely capable—capability that gives a marine forward, say, a spectrum of effects that he needs. So if you 

give a marine, for instance, a shotgun, it might not be the weapon 
25 

he needs to be carrying in an environment where he needs a fullspectrum of range. 

So I think the next development in nonlethals is to give them a 

scalable response. It is not exclusively nonlethal, but allows them 

to range up to the area of effects that he needs. That has really 

been one of technology and being able to integrate it, and not one 

of desire. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. Somewhere I have read in these materials that 

it is better to get something 75 percent within months than 99 percent within years. If we wait on the technology to have the dialable 

deal here on your weapon, we may be waiting a long time. On the 

other hand, it seems to me if we are going to be operating within 

populations, having capability such as nonlethals provide is an important capability. 

Admiral, let me just toss one to you. This is a little bit different. 

But I notice yesterday in the Wall Street Journal, Dr. Krepinevich 

had an article that talked about the enormous amount of infrastructure we have underseas, but also the growing capability of 

nonstate actors in underwater vehicles and the potential dangers 

that that presents. It is kind of a different sort of threat than what 

the Navy has traditionally been looking at. 

Is that sort of thing, protecting our underwater infrastructure— 

you know, oil stuff, mainly—and dealing with these somewhat 

crude, but effective underwater vehicles part of what you all are 

looking at, and what is the role of the Coast Guard in doing that 

as well? 

Admiral HARRIS. Yes, sir. That is an area of emphasis, quite 

frankly, inside of my office, inside the Navy and other parts of the 

Navy, to look at unmanned vehicles that can be used to detect deleterious actors that might use either personnel or equipment to target infrastructure or target ships. A lot of cyberspace is on the bottom of the water, quite frankly. That is another area where I know 

that our 10th Fleet has got interest. But we certainly are looking 

at the right investments to use systems to monitor that underwater 

space as well. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. It is a little different from the traditional Navy 

role, so I think that is something we will be interested in, too. 

Mr. Langevin. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again, thanks to the 

panel for a second round. 

I wanted to touch on a question Mr. Shuster had raised. That is 

what I was planning to do for my second round. There is obviously 

a variety of things that go into making up our national security, 

making sure that our Nation is protected; obviously, our military 

capability, diplomacy, and other such things. One of those is, obviously, our fiscal security. Right now, obviously, the Nation is challenged in that we have a weak economy, and we have exceptionally 

high budget deficits. 

So as we are looking across the range of what we need to do to 

get our fiscal house in order, and given the current fiscal environment, what aspects of irregular warfare capabilities right now do 

you feel are most at risk, and how are each of the services 

prioritizing irregular warfare as funding decreases? 
26 

General BAYER. Congressman, what is most at risk for the Army 

are soldiers, because we recognize that our fair share of handling 

or addressing the Nation’s fiscal requirements is a smaller Army. 

And our prime weapon system is a soldier. So we recognize that we 

will have a smaller Army that has to stay balanced. 

So the second part of that is, really, we know that in irregular 

warfare none of those mission sets is one we can divest ourselves 

of. They must remain inherently part of our core competencies. 

What it really comes down to is we have reduced capacity to offer 

to the Nation to go execute missions in defense of our national security, from the Army’s perspective. 

Admiral HARRIS. Yes, sir. I think similarly the Navy, the biggest 

concern in terms of what is at risk as our fiscal pressures happen 

on our defense capability and our infrastructure is the fact that as 

our force structure is pressurized and manpower is pressurized, we 

are going to have to choose what areas we will be there to prevent 

crisis and do preventative activities, and in other areas we won’t 

be able to have that forward presence that acts in a preventative 

way to stop crises. 

The other part is going to be the time to respond. With fewer 

forces spread farther out, it is going to take longer to respond to 

crises as they show up. 

So the pressure on the whole of the force, both from the infrastructure—the ships, planes, submarines—and the personnel, is 

going to increase our time of response. 

General O’DONOHUE. I concur. The issue is primarily capacity. 

Irregular warfare is embedded in what we do. As we come down, 

as we looked at the capability, the base review, is it balanced, and 

we are not coming down to a pre-OEF force, so there are drivers 

in the future fight that are related to irregular that have to be honored in the force structure. There would be a concern, again, about 

strategic, operational, and tactical mobility. This gives us a range 

to apply influence across a battlespace, and a breadth and depth 

an enemy can’t cope with, in all areas of national power. Those assets—amphibious shipping alike—and other means, the tactical 

connectors that we use at the high-end are also the ones we use 

at low-end. If you look at Haiti and the like, a replacement for the 

EFV/ACV [Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle/Armored Combat Vehicle], those type of things. So mobility, I think, is an aspect of the 

problem as well. 

General MARTINEZ. Sir, I think the piece that is going to be really important in this is it is going to come down to prioritization, 

and I think each of us as a service needs to make sure that we are 

doing the best that we can to prioritize the needs. When you are 

in a fiscally challenged environment, you are going to have to make 

tough decisions, and those decisions need to really keep in mind 

the warfighter. They also need to keep in mind the conventional 

warfare that we could face in the future. 

In the Air Force, some of the things that we have done is we 

have recently implemented a prioritization change within our Air 

Force Requirements Oversight Council to help get a good, solid 

grasp on that. And I think the one advantage that we may have 

in this is by nature of the mission of the Air Force, conventional 

versus irregular is not necessarily zero sum for us. If we invest in 
27 

good ISR [intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance] with our 

Predators or our Reapers, our overhead watch, those platforms are 

usable in irregular warfare just as much as they would be useful 

in a conventional battle. We could easily watch a single home in 

an irregular environment, or we could be watching a mass army 

approaching in a conventional. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. With that, I will yield back. Thank you. Thank 

you for your answers. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. Mrs. Davis. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And I appreciate the fact that you are talking about 

prioritization. I think that is also managing talent. And if I could 

just refer to General Odierno’s comments recently regarding the 

role of women in the services, he spoke to the fact that it is not 

just about allowing women to have the opportunities that they 

should be allowed, but it is about managing that talent in the services. And we know that the Army now is training elite women soldiers, female soldiers. Certainly, the Marines have had the FETs— 

the female engagement teams—in Afghanistan. 

Where do you put women’s role in the military in that future 

that we are looking at? Odierno, again, as you quoted, the military 

shouldn’t look the way it is today. If 70 percent of jobs in the services are barred to women, where do you take this discussion? I am 

going to put you on the spot a little bit, perhaps, because this is 

a sensitive issue to a lot of folks. But I am just wondering what 

your comments are about that. 

General BAYER. Congresswoman, I will happily jump in. My personal opinion is that there should be no boundaries for women. I 

believe that women soldiers have acquitted themselves exceptionally well in everything we have asked them to do. And the reality 

for soldiers over the last decade is we find ourselves doing things 

we never expected to be doing. And they, like their male counterparts, have performed fabulously. 

So I personally believe we should remove those boundaries. And 

the reality of the environments we fight in, there are no neat divisions of the battlefield that say a certain sex or type of person can 

operate, you know, in this little segment of the battlefield and be 

safe or apply their skills only there. The battlefield is 360. It is all 

around us. 

And I looked at and I have read and interfaced with some of our 

peers from allied nations who have integrated women into combat 

formations, and they have done it successfully. 

Admiral HARRIS. Ma’am, I will just give you a quick example. I 

relieved Michelle Howard as the Commander for Expeditionary Operations in 5th Fleet, and I was relieved by Peg Klein. So from my 

vantage point, women have gotten pretty much an equal footing in 

a number of areas and an increasing role in our Navy, and it is 

seamless. And it is probably more of a generational thing of us who 

are 50 and older, we can remember when it wasn’t that way, but 

when you talk to the young sailors now, officers or enlisted, they 

don’t see a difference. 

Mrs. DAVIS. I particularly see that in the Navy, of course. 

General O’DONOHUE. We are part of a comprehensive OSD [Office of the Secretary of Defense] review with an open mind to look 
28 

at the facts already that were beyond the policy for women. I was 

a battalion commander in OEF, and we had a female convoy commander who ran a road that was arguably more dangerous than 

anybody in terms of giving us supplies based on the old rules and 

conventions. My previous aide now is in a female engagement team 

that you mentioned with MARSOC, and she will be at the leading 

end of operations in Afghanistan. So we are beyond the bounds of 

current policy of geographic collocation. 

Are there metrics and standards that you go with things into 

entry force where there are physical aspects of it, again, a complete 

open mind to an understanding of not a presumption or assumption 

about what can be done, but is there a rational reason why you 

couldn’t? 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. 

General MARTINEZ. Ma’am, I am very proud of our Air Force and 

the fact that our women are in fighter aircraft as we speak all over 

the world defending our country. They have a tremendous record 

of success. They have been shot at, they have been hit, and they 

have performed magnificently. 

Having just returned in March from a year in Afghanistan, I was 

very privileged to travel throughout the country and see airmen 

pretty much everywhere. And, you know, the roles that our women 

take now, they have changed so much from the past. They are out 

there in the fight, and, you know, you can look and see that we 

have lost women to combat debts over there. 

So I am proud of our Air Force. I think we do a great job. I personally could never understand why we would tell somebody they 

can’t do something because of their gender. That is a personal opinion. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. I appreciate your comments on that. 

And just quickly—and you can actually do this for the record if 

you would like—we have had a lot of talk about whole-of-government approaches, and certainly when we come to the area that we 

are discussing today, it is very important in terms of the interaction and the interdependence in many ways with the State Department, with other government entities. 

Would you, when you have a chance, take a moment to just— 

how, specifically, are you doing things differently in your service 

with the State Department today, and what do you see is lacking? 

You know, is there something that would make a difference in 

terms of being more successful at that relationship and as we move 

forward in the role that is played as we talk about irregular and 

conventional forces? What would you like to see that look like, and 

what do you think we ought to be doing to ensure that that is a 

reality? 

I know the chairman and I have spoken about this before, and 

we know we are not there, that there is a great deal to be done. 

Different people have suggested something more akin to a jointness 

kind of document, if you will. I am not sure if that is the right answer. But what is it that would actually push this in the direction 

that you think would be better for the country and would fit in 

more with the discussion that we have today? 

I would appreciate that when you have a chance to do that. 

Thank you very much. 
29 

[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix on 

page 93.] 

Mr. THORNBERRY. Great question. 

Mr. West. 

Mr. WEST. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And, Mrs. Davis, hopefully I can get a front-row seat to the next 

GI Jane, Part 2. I will agree with you that the modern battlefield 

is totally different than the battlefield that we originally saw, and 

we have to look at how we can integrate all people on that battlefield. 

With that being said, Mr. Chairman, I have one last question. I 

just found out I have a phone call coming from the Administrator 

of FAA [Federal Aviation Administration], so I am going to have 

to run out. 

But, you know, when we look at irregular warfare, and we look 

at how this enemy set is, I think there is one thing that we see 

as a commonality, except for Afghanistan, and that would be the 

littorals. So my question is: How are we developing that capability 

to once again make sure that we can contend with an enemy in 

this littoral environment, and also making sure that we keep those 

sea lanes of commerce and trade open? Because as we saw a few 

years ago, who would have ever thought once again that we would 

be dealing with piracy at sea? 

Also, an addendum to that question is: As General Odierno said, 

we don’t want the Army to look like 10 years from now as it is 

today. Is the Army taking into account that once again it may have 

to get involved in those type of operations as well? 

Admiral HARRIS. In terms of littoral warfare, I say that the Navy 

and Marine Corps team is taking great strides to increase our ability to operate in the littoral. One of the examples is our stability 

operations doctrine that we are working right now. The Marine 

Corps is the lead. The Coast Guard and Navy work in support of 

that doctrine. But even beyond that, how we do our partnership 

stations, again, to make sure we have that cultural awareness in 

those areas in Phase Zero to try to keep it from getting past that 

or into Phase One or into a higher level of warfare. So we are continuing to emphasize our expeditionary knowledge inside the Navy 

as part of the Navy-Marine Corps team. 

I will give the balance of my time to my Marine Corps counterpart, which I am sure has more examples. 

General O’DONOHUE. Again, you would have to ask the Marines 

about the importance of littorals, sir. But 75 percent of the world 

population, the large aspect of the problems they face in the future 

are related to littorals. We are a maritime nation. How do we 

project power; how do we deny sanctuary to the enemy; and how 

do we provide options from a sovereign base, a U.S. naval ship that 

doesn’t need basing rights? As we start coming back from our forward presence and basing, and with the anticipation of an unpredictable future, it is unstable, what gives us the strategic mobility 

to allow us to influence the action? 

Working with the Navy on significant exercises, Bold Alligators 

continue with partner nations; working with the Australians, who 

are developing two amphibious ships; and obviously the Pacific, an 

area of interest, economic and every way—security—with a key 
30 

chokepoint in the Straits of Malacca; the influence of extremism, 

not yet a predominant factor in the Pacific, but potential, and the 

idea when the Marine Corps comes out of Afghanistan, our 

prioritization will be the Pacific; and then, obviously, with the global reach, to affect other littorals. 

So you will see a rebalancing—in fact, came today—both of us 

will be at a littoral maneuver war game jointly between the Marines and Navy—in fact, all the services—to look at the problems 

you address, sir. 

General BAYER. Congressman, just briefly, the Army role is really part of the joint operational access concept, which is currently 

under development. So we recognize as part of the joint team we 

have a role. And we think we have a very heavy role in the Phase 

Zero shaping engagement operations because predominantly security forces around the world are land-based. So that is part of our 

role, to help give us access in the littorals. 

Mr. WEST. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. Thank you. 

Let me ask each of you to address organization for a second, because, you know, I somewhat stumbled over introducing each of 

you with your various titles. It is only the Navy that has someone 

who is Director of Navy Irregular Warfare Office, not that titles 

necessarily limit the scope. But I am struck by the fact that to really deal with what we are talking about today, ingraining throughout the services this capability, skill set, way of thinking, you are 

talking about not only doctrine, but the organizational structure, 

training, the acquisition, leadership development, personnel assignments. 

And I guess my question is how do you—and let me acknowledge 

it has got to come from the top, absolutely—but how does somebody 

other than the one at the top, whether it is you all’s positions or 

somewhere else, keep a watch on this every day? How do you ensure that somebody is there kind of raising the hand, saying, well, 

how does that affect irregular warfare; or, is this a capability good 

for irregular warfare? 

I am not interested in a flow chart, but I am interested more in 

the practical. In your organizational structures for each of the services, how does that work? Who is the advocate? 

General. 

General BAYER. Sir, at the department level, it is me. I am delegated through my boss, the G–3/5/7 in the Army, by the Secretary 

of the Army, as our lead for irregular warfare, in accordance with 

Department of Defense guidance. So from an Army policy 

proponency strategy perspective, it is me. Colonel Andrew Dennis, 

who is a U.K. officer who sits behind me, leads our division that 

does that on a day-to-day basis. We partner predominantly with 

our Training and Doctrine Command for concept development, material development, et cetera. We have a number of institutions. 

The Irregular Warfare Fusion Center that is out at our Combined 

Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth, so soon-to-be-Lieutenant General Perkins has that. Our Peacekeeping and Stability Ops Institute at Carlisle does stability operations. 
31 

So we have a defined network. I am the Army staff officer that 

is responsible for it, and we partner with our Training and Doctrine Command. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. Let me just ask a follow-up, and then each of 

you all can address the follow-up, too. 

So if you think that irregular warfare capabilities are being 

shorted in acquisition decisions, or that there is—the personnel decisions are not being made appropriately for people with that skill 

set, can you influence that, or at least bring it to somebody’s attention? 

General BAYER. Yes, sir. We have a number of forums as we look 

forward both through concept development on the training/doctrine 

side of the house. And then on the resource allocation side of the 

house, you know, we have a set of regularly prescribed forums that 

help us develop on, you know, an annual basis that 5-year program 

where I inform my boss. So we vote, so to speak. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. Admiral. 

Admiral HARRIS. Yes, sir. As you already pointed out, I am the 

Director for Irregular Warfare for not just the Chief of Naval Operations, but also the representative for the Secretary of Navy as 

well. And, believe me, I get asked constantly what are we doing, 

are we doing enough, how can we do more, from my chain of command. 

I engage quite often with OSD/SOLIC [Office of the Secretary of 

Defense for Special Operations/Low Intensity Conflict] on the policy 

side, also with Irregular Warfare on the capability side on what our 

capacities are. At the fleet level we have got, again, fleet forces and 

PAC fleet, who we integrate and we talk to and work with daily. 

Doctrine commands and schools I have already mentioned. 

Beyond that, we have established a network we call our Confronting Irregular Challenges Community of Interest, which has 

got about 30 or more different organizations not just from the 

Navy, but from academia and other services as well that highlight 

and bring up irregular warfare capabilities and needs to confront 

these challenges. We have been meeting now for several months as 

we have been implementing the instruction division from our CNO. 

General O’DONOHUE. Sir, I am responsible for capability development writ large for the Marine Corps. We are in a process of transition. The Commandant has given clear guidance about the emphatic importance of irregular warfare to the future, and his guidance was in his transition point: How do we strengthen and consolidate numerous efforts to the urgent need of the current war; 

how we rationalize them for the future? 

We had stood up a Center for Irregular Warfare in 2007, which 

has custody for all aspects of irregular warfare. It was a standalone center. It is maintained at center status. It has now been 

brought into my organization. So just as we look at fires, maneuver, irregular warfare is represented in every aspect and every 

move related to combat development across all aspects of 

DOTMLPF. 

So, again, I think it is a mark of the maturation of how we look 

at irregular warfare that it has been brought in so tightly to the 

institution. 
32 

General MARTINEZ. Sir, I mentioned earlier that in the Air Force 

we actually established an office in the Pentagon to oversee irregular warfare. This was a big shift in transition for us as we moved 

into this new type of fight. And we recognize that, and we now 

have that office in place, and they are working with things like doctrine, and tactics, and training, et cetera. 

Your question about then who is your advocate, well, certainly 

they are an advocate. I will tell you, in my opinion, I think our real 

advocate is our airmen that are out there in the field every day. 

I think it is fair to say, just as like our fellow services here, they 

have deployed so much, that I don’t think they would accept anything less than good training, than good equipment, and all the 

things that go with it. I know personally I have deployed four different times already to the Middle East, and I am amazed at the 

level of where I was on my first deployment and, on my most recent deployment, the level of training, equipment, and preparation 

that I was provided by our service to go do that job. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. General, does the new office in the Pentagon 

have the ability to weigh in on personnel decisions and acquisition 

decisions? 

General MARTINEZ. The office is not under the acquisition realm, 

but they certainly have an input to it. They are under what we call 

our A3/5, which basically runs our operations and plans for the Air 

Force. And the A3/5 has inroads to acquisition. We work with them 

every day, working requirements and the things that the Air Force 

needs. In addition to that, they have inroads to the A8, which runs 

our money. So they are absolutely connected to it, they have a 

voice, and they have an advocate as our A3/5, our three-star general. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. I just think that is key to go from doctrine to 

the hard decisions that are made every day about people and 

money, which is kind of where the rubber meets the road. 

Another example might be, if one were to—I think nearly all of 

you all have mentioned professional military education, which I 

would argue may be even more important in a time of declining resources than it is at any other time, if you look historically. But 

I just wonder if you looked at the courses that are currently offered 

kind of cumulatively in all the schools, how many would be irregular warfare-connected courses, and how many would be more of 

what we think of as conventional warfare-connected courses? 

Again, there is no one piece of evidence that tells us anything definitive, but I just wonder if that is a piece of evidence that might 

enlighten us as to where our emphasis is being put. 

Anybody have a comment? 

Admiral HARRIS. I will go ahead and jump on that first, sir. I will 

start with Newport, the Naval War College and their Center for Irregular Warfare and Armed Groups. It has hosted our irregular 

warfare conference the past 2 years. It has become part of their 

curriculum to a greater extent. 

Go to the National Defense University, which Admiral Rondeau 

runs, and their Center for Complex Operations. There is great 

work there that looks across all the services. 

The Naval Academy I have already mentioned. We have irregular warfare incorporated into their curriculum. 
33 

And then to the Naval Postgraduate School, which has got two 

majors, I believe, there in irregular warfare. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. I guess my question really is—I mean, no 

question, there are specific things going on in each of the services. 

I am just kind of trying to sit back and look at the cumulative 

total. Where is the greater emphasis? Are these kind of ones and 

twos, these sorts of programs and courses? Or, when you take a 

look at the whole PME [professional military education] complex, 

how does the emphasis fit? 

General O’DONOHUE. Sir, I can give you for the Marine Corps 

representative. Our Command and Staff College is one-third specific to irregular warfare. Again, it is hard to tease it out. For instance, our Marine Corps planning process, we used to look at mission analysis. Now we do problem framing, which takes all aspects 

of irregular warfare. So that is not specific to irregular warfare in 

this part of the curriculum, but a third of the curriculum is absolutely specific to irregular warfare, and the rest, obviously, relates. 

And this is in the context of the Commandant’s guidance. In a period of declining resources, we will increase education and training 

to the Marines. 

General MARTINEZ. Sir, in our School of Advanced Air and Space 

Studies, which is really a graduate-level PME that we have in the 

Air Force, it is a short anecdote, but just to give you a number, information warfare lessons are now in 6 of the 11 courses, so over 

50 percent. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. Thank you. That is helpful. 

Let me ask one more thing, and then I will yield to Mr. Langevin. 

Somebody—Conaway, I think—asked earlier whether the abolishment of Joint Forces Command made any difference to what you 

all are doing. And it turns out just this morning I see in a magazine called Training and Simulation Journal, and the title is: Modeling Irregular Warfare. 

You know, one of the things the Joint Forces Command was 

tasked to do was to be a Center of Excellence for simulation and 

modeling. This article goes on to talk about, of course, how difficult 

it is to have simulations for irregular warfare; all of the different 

variables, and so forth. But basically it says we are better than we 

used to be, but still not very good at doing that. 

I am wondering, in that case—thinking, again, about training 

and education efforts, how do you all see where your service is as 

far as modeling and simulation when it comes to these sorts of— 

these types of engagements? 

Admiral HARRIS. I will go ahead and jump on this one again. 

One of the areas that our Office of Naval Research is pushing is 

efforts on human, social, cultural, and behavioral modeling program. It has been going on for some time now. Code 30 and 34 in 

ONR [Office of Naval Research] are the ones who are leading that 

effort. Again, that is for both the Navy and Marine Corps, and 

other services as they see utility in that type of model simulation. 

Additionally, from the campaign level, our assessment division, 

N81, also works toward how to model that irregular warfare to a 

greater extent. So we are trying to do it from the campaign level 

down to the individual training of individual sailors and marines. 
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General O’DONOHUE. Just to build on that, again, the companion 

is obviously training and exercises that are not strictly modeling, 

if you will. The high-fidelity exercises that approach that and are 

supported by the modeling are ones that we participate and host 

regularly. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. Well, it just seems to me this is an area, kind 

of going back to something Mrs. Davis was talking about, where 

this has to be not only joint among the services, but interagency. 

And without a Joint Forces Command to do that sort of modeling 

and simulation, I think it is something I would expect would fall 

off somewhat because it is not—it is going to be unlikely, I think, 

any of the individual services would do that kind of broad look. So 

it is something I am kind of interested in. 

Mr. Langevin. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The Internet obviously has changed the world in so many ways, 

not the least of which is our Nation’s sense of use of it in the military and how it has affected modern warfare. It is obviously a very 

powerful tool for our military. So it is for both peer adversaries as 

well as asymmetric actors. So because of that dependence, obviously we will never see modern conflict again where we don’t have 

a major cyber component as a part of it. 

How does our use of cyberspace impact irregular warfare, and 

how are we making use of that capability? 

General BAYER. Sir, probably if we really wanted to have an honest discussion about it, it probably needs to be a classified discussion. I will say at the unclassified level, based on my personal experience in irregular warfare, we know our adversaries all use cyber. 

They use it to organize. They use it to transfer resources. They use 

it to pass propaganda. So it goes without saying that we have to 

develop then the tools to counter that in that domain in order to 

be able to, you know, prosecute both counterinsurgency, counterterrorism, et cetera. 

The services are all beginning to invest significant—I can speak 

for the Army—significant additional resources into cyber. We are 

working with Army Cyber Command and U.S. Cyber Command to 

try and define what it is we are exactly looking for as we look forward. But as we look at a smaller Army, one of the things we know 

is going to grow is cyber. We have kind of put a bill on the table 

as a placeholder that said over the next 5 years or more, cyber is 

going to grow by hundreds of spaces to develop the capabilities we 

need. We haven’t necessarily defined them finitely yet, but we recognize it is increasingly important. 

Admiral HARRIS. Sir, I would completely agree with General 

Bayer that cyberspace is a contested domain. To have a real indepth conversation about it, you have to go classified. But we have 

established recently our 10th Fleet, which is our cyber fleet, again, 

working with U.S. Cyber Command. 

I mentioned in my opening statement the word ‘‘information 

dominance,’’ which is our phrase for talking about the activities, 

and the personnel, and the systems that are needed to dominate 

that space, just as we do the maritime, the air, and the land, in 

order to win our Nation’s wars, and hopefully prevent us from having to get into war. 
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General O’DONOHUE. Sir, the same. Air, land, sea, the electronic 

spectrum, and in cyber are aspects that we integrate and need to 

dominate not just at the strategic level, but at the tactical. We 

have created a Marine Forces Cyber Command that has both the 

mission to support marines forward, and also one that directly corresponds to irregular warfare and its larger mission. 

We have at the tactical level—before we had a fire support coordinator, who did kinetic effects. We have nonkinetic effects we are 

looking at. And we are looking at integrating cyber, electronic warfare, IO [information operations]—in fact, these areas are all converging—so you have an integrated capability, not just one, but integrated both with nonlethal fires and maneuver, with marines forward. 

General MARTINEZ. Sir, without doubt, in this day and age, you 

have got to have an offensive and a defensive cyber capability. The 

actual capabilities that we have are mostly classified, but in generic terms, you can certainly see that using our space assets and 

cyber assets, we use them for things as simple as navigation, 

weather, intelligence, communications, and many other things. I 

would be happy to get into specifics, if you needed to, in a classified 

forum. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. I know this is something that the chairman and 

I spent a lot of time on and cyber space, cyber security is an issue 

that obviously is growing in importance and presents unique opportunities, but also great challenges to our Nation and our Nation’s 

military. Thank you for your perspective on that. 

With that, I will yield back. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. I thank the gentleman. 

Where I would add, that evolution and maturation of doctrine is 

really critical and not just within the services, but within the country as a whole. Enormous challenges. More than the technical, I 

think, the law, and the policies, and doctrine and so forth. 

Admiral, let me just follow up. If you would like, you may certainly want to follow up with a written answer. But would you just 

make a brief overview about the relationship between you all and 

the Coast Guard when it comes to irregular warfare? Seems to me 

they have some law enforcement authorities that complement, 

hopefully, what you all do. 

Can you just comment on that briefly? 

Admiral HARRIS. Yes, sir, I would be glad to, because my last 

operational tour, the PATFORSWA [Patrol Forces Southwest Asia], 

which was operating in the Arabian Gulf, came under Expeditionary Strike Group 5, so I worked with the Coast Guard on a 

daily basis. 

What we find with the Coast Guard, quite simply, is this. While 

the Navy maybe has capacity out to here in the number of ships, 

and sailors, and planes and the things we have to go out and do 

our mission, our authorities are fairly narrow because we are Title 

10. On the other hand, the Coast Guard has got a culture and has 

got capability and has a way of doing these things, and they have 

got a lot of entryway with the Departments of Interior in a number 

of nations that really hit the home of what the preventive actions 

that have to happen. 
36 

Unfortunately, the Coast Guard only has capacity out to here, so 

it is trying to marry those two up, and we have been successful 

with our LEDET [Law Enforcement Detection] operation. We have 

been successful with the forward-deployed Coast Guard that has 

operated in the 5th Fleet of operations, working with the nations 

inside that area. We have been successful in the MOTR, the Maritime Operational Threat Response, again working with the Coast 

Guard. 

And then going back to our strategy that is signed off by our 

Chief of Naval Operations, by the Commandant of the Marine 

Corps, by the Commandant of the Coast Guard. So we have gotten 

stronger and stronger and better and better in working together to 

try to fill those gaps. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. Well, I just offer that as you look at that interworking relationship, if there are authorities issues that we can 

help clarify, then let us know, because I think your description of 

the situation is very good, but maybe we can help marry those up 

a little bit if there is a need to do that. 

The last question I have is I think General O’Donohue mentioned 

hybrid warfare. And mostly when we think about irregular warfare, it is what other people are doing to us. In a general sense, 

are we working on the doctrine of how we may want to use irregular warfare against others? 

General O’DONOHUE. Yes, sir. Again, everything is about an 

asymmetric advantage. The relevance of the population is something that we assume almost in every context. We have the ability 

to distribute. Again, we talked about platoons that were operating 

39 miles at distance. They can combine. And really it is about giving options to commanders at the lowest level with the broadest 

sense of combined arms, both lethal and nonlethal, so he can use 

the tools to the best advantage against an opponent that now is 

presented with a dilemma. We can attack across the breadth and 

length of the operating environment. We can use all the instruments of national power. So incredible flexibility. 

If there is one definition for irregular warfare, it is that it is 

without pattern. The next threat will be different than the other 

one. So the idea of training and education, for forcing adapt very 

quickly, and now he has all the tools in the echelon, from the tactical to the operational and then to the strategic. Signals intelligence. EW [electronic warfare] is one example of that. It has freed 

up a tremendous amount of maneuver in the battlespace. Cyber is 

potentially another in that category. 

General BAYER. Sir, I would just echo those comments. Absolutely. And for the Army it is about what we call one of our core 

competencies, Combined Arms Maneuver. But it is the application 

of all the resources you have in a manner that gives you a decisive 

advantage. And what we recognize is there is no pattern necessarily, so it is how we aggregate these resources. So we absolutely are focused on it. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. From my standpoint—and you mentioned it— 

from the tactical to the strategic level, and sometimes I think we 

are better at the tactical, maybe, than looking at irregular warfare 

from a strategic level, which also deserves our attention. 
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I think that is all the questions we have for now. Again, thank 

you, each of you, for being here and for your answers. This was 

helpful to me, and I think it was to other Members, too. This is 

obviously an issue that we want to continue to follow in the months 

ahead. 

But with that, again, with our thanks, the hearing stands adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:53 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

A P P E N D I X 

NOVEMBER 3, 2011 

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD 

NOVEMBER 3, 2011 

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WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING 

THE HEARING 

NOVEMBER 3, 2011 

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RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. SHUSTER 

General MARTINEZ. Irregular Warfare has become even more important in dealing 

with global security threats. The Air Force must continue to maintain the ability 

to respond with kinetic capability as well as build partnerships with other air forces 

to bolster international cooperation, sustain powerful, global forces for stability, and 

ensure access to the global commons. 

The FY12 PB continues to support the ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) personnel and infrastructure needed to successfully prosecute the irregular campaigns we have in Iraq and Afghanistan. For the foreseeable future, we expect this demand for ISR to continue. The Air Force will also continue to engage 

in aviation partnering activities with foreign nations in order to develop professional 

aviators, support staff and effective infrastructure. There are extremely difficult decisions the Air Force will have to make to prioritize limited resources and prepare 

for a wide range of evolving security threats the nation might face. These decisions 

must be based on strategic considerations, not compelled solely by budget targets. 

The Air Force will prudently evaluate the future security environment, deliberately 

accept risk, and devise strategies that mitigate those risks in order to maintain effective capabilities against those evolving threats. [See page 20.] 

RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MRS. DAVIS 

General MARTINEZ. The interagency relationship between the US Air Force 

(USAF) and Department of State (DoS), as well as USAID, is very strong and growing stronger. Both in terms of philosophical recognition among Air Force leadership 

for the need for a closely-linked interagency team and in terms of formal programs 

and communications, the USAF and DoS are working together every day. 

While we are making excellent progress building the interagency relationship, we 

are still striving to improve. First and foremost, we need to better communicate our 

current efforts, progress made, and continuing opportunities both inside and outside 

the departments to help improve interagency coordination and interaction. Second, 

we must continue to support our existing interagency training and outreach efforts 

with sufficient personnel, funding, and policy to ensure these activities will endure. 

In terms of conventional, steady-state forces, USAF-DoS exchanges are well-supported on both sides of the interagency team. The USAF currently has 21 positions 

embedded within DoS, with plans to expand to 25 under the new draft agreement 

between the departments, including a Major General who serves as the Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Political-Military Affairs Bureau. DoS, in turn, provides up 

to 10 Foreign Policy Advisors to USAF commands. In addition, advisors are provided 

to warfighting commanders on an as needed basis to establish greater interagency 

cooperation in current planning and operations. In this way, future DoS leaders are 

gaining more experience working with their defense counterparts. 

We have several programs that are aimed at improving the knowledge, capability, 

and integration between the USAF and DoS. In 2004, the Air Force initiated the 

Political-Military Affairs Strategist (PAS) program to develop interagency and international expertise among its future senior leaders. Each year, the program competitively selects up to 100 mid-level Air Force officers who have shown the potential 

for advancement to senior level positions and provides them formal education and 

on-the-job experience in a position with strong interagency and/or international engagement. Upon completion of the program, the officers are placed back on their primary career path for command, joint staff, and other career-developing positions. In 

addition, the Air Force has up to 5 field grade officers per year completing their 

intermediate- or senior-level service school through a fellowship at DoS. In these 

ways, the Air Force is developing a cadre of mid-level officers who will be tracked 

throughout their careers for their acquired political-military expertise and future 

senior-leader assignments. It should be noted that among these officers, promotion 

rates have exceed the Air Force averages to Lieutenant Colonel and Colonel. Beyond 

these dedicated political-military affairs specialists, interagency lessons have been 

built into the curriculums of our professional military education, and the interagency training opportunities being offered to both our Regional Affairs and International Health Specialist career fields are further expanding interagency awareness and opportunities throughout the force. [See page 29.] 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING 

NOVEMBER 3, 2011 

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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. MILLER 

Mr. MILLER. Following up on DOD Directive 3000.05, issued in 2005, DOD Instruction 3000.05, issued in 2009, states that it is DOD policy that Stability Operations ‘‘shall be given priority comparable to combat operations and be explicitly addressed and integrated across all DOD activities including doctrine, organizations, 

training, education, exercises, materiel, leadership, personnel, facilities, and planning.’’ Despite this clear directive, and despite being fully-engaged in counterinsurgency campaigns for the past 10 years, our combat units devote only a fraction of 

their pre-deployment training to attaining proficiency in stability operations. What 

is being done to address this disparity? 

General BAYER. The Army must prevail in current fights while ensuring that we 

retain depth and versatility as the Nation’s force of decisive action across the range 

of military operations. Future battlefields will be populated with hybrid threats: 

combinations of regular, irregular, terrorist, and criminal groups. The Army must 

retain the flexibility to operate both in missions requiring maneuver over extended 

distances, and in missions requiring the establishment of security over wide areas; 

whatever the threat. During these campaigns, re-establishing security is an essential prerequisite for a return to civilian control. Until that is done, deploying forces 

must be prepared to protect themselves and defeat any threat they may encounter 

while performing their mission. As host nation security forces assume a larger role 

in maintaining the security environment, fewer U.S. security forces are required for 

that role—as is the case now in Afghanistan where an increasing percentage of U.S. 

Army personnel are required for security force assistance. The Army established the 

162nd Brigade at Fort Polk, Louisiana, in May 2009 to train deploying advisory 

teams. In response to the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review, the Army increased 

the 162nd’s capability to provide increased training support to stability operations. 

Beginning in February 2012, the U.S. Army Joint Readiness Training Center at 

Fort Polk will integrate the training of a significantly increased number of Security 

Force Assistance Teams responding to Theater requirements. The Army requires all 

deploying forces/personnel to meet theater-specified counter-insurgency (COIN) 

qualification requirements. Furthermore, the leadership in all deploying combat brigades, division, and corps attend a COIN seminar conducted by the Army’s COIN 

center of excellence at Fort Leavenworth. Stability operations are being internalized 

by the Army. Army Doctrinal Publication 3–0, Unified Operations, recognizes stability operations as integral to decisive action by Army units during unified operations. Rotations at U.S. Army Combat Training Centers for non-deploying forces 

are being redesigned to emphasize combined arms operations and wide area security, both of which are Army core competencies that enable return to civilian control. Additionally, the Army is developing a concept to regionally align a brigade 

with security cooperation capability/training to each geographic Combatant Commanders. 

Mr. MILLER. Following up on DOD Directive 3000.05, issued in 2005, DOD Instruction 3000.05, issued in 2009, states that it is DOD policy that Stability Operations ‘‘shall be given priority comparable to combat operations and be explicitly addressed and integrated across all DOD activities including doctrine, organizations, 

training, education, exercises, materiel, leadership, personnel, facilities, and planning.’’ Despite this clear directive, and despite being fully-engaged in counterinsurgency campaigns for the past 10 years, our combat units devote only a fraction of 

their pre-deployment training to attaining proficiency in stability operations. What 

is being done to address this disparity? 

Admiral HARRIS. The Navy routinely conducts Stability Operations as part of its 

forward presence, as evidenced by humanitarian assistance and disaster response 

(HADR) operations from the sea in Haiti, Pakistan, and Japan, coalition counterpiracy operations in the Gulf of Aden, support to NATO forces operating in Libya, 

support to USCG law enforcement activities, and Partnership Station engagement 

in the Pacific, Africa, and Latin America. Over the past three years, the Navy has 

under taken a number of initiatives to enhance its capabilities in this mission area. 

Admiral Roughhead, as CNO, established the Navy Irregular Warfare Office 

(NIWO) in July 2008 as the Navy’s advocate for actions subsequently directed by 
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DoDD 3000.07 and DoDI 3000.05. The Navy Vision for Confronting Irregular Challenges, promulgated in January 2010, places special emphasis on Stability Operations and building partner capacity as a measure to prevent instability. NIWO 

works closely with the OPNAV staff, other Services, USSOCOM, geographic combatant commands, the Interagency and foreign partners to advance comprehensive approaches for preventing and responding to instability. 

With regard to pre-deployment training, deploying Navy units participate in Agile 

Quest, a Special Operations Force (SOF)-Fleet training exercise, Amphibious Task 

Group work ups, and leader training in Naval War College Maritime Staff Officer 

Courses. The Navy Expeditionary Combat Command (NECC) established the Expeditionary Training Group (ETG) to conduct a range of Maritime Expeditionary Security Force (MESF), Riverine, Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD), Mobile Diving 

and Salvage Unit (MDSU), Expeditionary Intel and Civil Affairs integrated training, 

focused on Phase Zero stability operations to build partner maritime capacity. This 

training emphasizes Joint, Coalition and Interagency coordination to achieve partner nation security objectives. In addition, the ETG has been designated the executive agent by U.S. Fleet Forces and Pacific Fleet commands to conduct staff planning and mission rehearsal for Navy Partnership Station deployments to the Pacific, 

Africa, and Southern commands. These missions, conducted in cooperation with U.S. 

country teams, work closely with the navies and civilian authorities of developing 

nations to enhance stability. NECC has established, trained, and deployed crisis response Adaptive Force Packages (AFPs), consisting of staff and seleted NECC forces, 

to respond to Humanitarian Asssitance/Disaster Relief (HA/DR), Non-combatant 

Evacuation Operation (NEO), Maritime Infrastructure Protection or other short fuse 

contingency missions. The Navy’s specialized ability to support Stability Operations 

exists in the NECC Maritime Civil Affairs and Security Training Command 

(MCASTC). MCASTC provides Maritime Civil Affairs Teams for routine deployment 

in support of Fleet Civil Military Operations and when required, for specific support 

to Counterinsurgency, Counterterror, Foreign Internal Defense, and Security Cooperation missions. MCASTC maintains Maritime Civil Affairs Teams as an on-call 

surge capability for HA/DR efforts such as operation UNIFIED RESPONSE in Haiti. 

Additionally specialized Civil Affairs Staff units are available to augment Fleet and 

Joint Task Force staffs planning Security Force Assistance missions. MCASTC provides Security Assistance detachments and tailored mobile training teams (MTTs) 

that conduct maritime security force assistance to bolster State Department led 

Maritime Security Sector Reform efforts. 

Navy technology investments in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) (e.g. Fire 

Scout, STUAS, Scan Eagle), new UAV payloads, and information sharing and fusion 

techniques are enabling information dominance among fleet units, SOF, and coalition partners who respond to instability. Incorporating advanced technologies for 

mine hunting and neutralization on LCS will improve the Navy’s ability to conduct 

Stability Operations in contested waters. 

Additionally, the Navy is pursuing a number of initiatives to codify its doctrine 

and operating concepts for Stability Operations and IW-related activities. A forthcoming tri-service Navy-Marine Corps-Coast Guard doctrine for conducting maritime stability operations will acknowledge the importance of this mission area and 

improve planning and coordination of Stability Operations with interagency, NGO, 

and coalition partners. The Naval War College recently conducted a comprehensive 

maritime stability operations game involving U.S. government, NGO, industry, and 

coalition naval partners. The Center on Irregular Warfare and Armed Groups 

(CIWAG), also at the Naval War College, conducts annual symposia related to irregular warfare and stability issues. The Navy maintains liaisons at the Department 

of State and USAID to provide increased awareness and information sharing, which 

is key to future operations. The Naval Post Graduate School offers two masters programs related to IW (Special Ops/IW and Security Affairs and Reconstruction). Last 

summer, Johns Hopkins University/Applied Physics Lab (JHU/APL) conducted a collaborative study on Navy Roles and Capabilities in CIC. It analyzed capability gaps 

for stability operations, steady state security force assistance, and maritime security 

operations. The objective of each of these initiatives is to increase understanding of 

roles naval forces play in Stability Operations and to improve the Navy’s integration 

with the efforts of other agencies, organizations and foreign partners. 

Mr. MILLER. Following up on DOD Directive 3000.05, issued in 2005, DOD Instruction 3000.05, issued in 2009, states that it is DOD policy that Stability Operations ‘‘shall be given priority comparable to combat operations and be explicitly addressed and integrated across all DOD activities including doctrine, organizations, 

training, education, exercises, materiel, leadership, personnel, facilities, and planning.’’ Despite this clear directive, and despite being fully-engaged in counterinsurgency campaigns for the past 10 years, our combat units devote only a fraction of 
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their pre-deployment training to attaining proficiency in stability operations. What 

is being done to address this disparity? 

General O’DONOHUE. Pre-deployment training is based on each unit’s approved 

mission essential task list (METL) and the pre-deployment training requirements 

established by the Marine forces component commander. Units preparing for deployment receive extensive pre-deployment training in irregular warfare, including the 

tasks and activities required in stability operations. This training uses a building 

block approach, beginning with individual skills such as cultural and language 

training, and progresses through increasing levels of collective training. Pre-deployment training culminates with a comprehensive 25-day exercise known as Enhanced 

Mojave Viper (EMV). The final phase of EMV is a mission rehearsal exercise that 

provides a rigorous assessment of a unit’s ability to execute operations using culturally-relevant role players and realistic irregular warfare scenarios. 

The Marine Corps also recognizes that interoperability with our joint, interagency 

and multinational partners is essential to success in the complex operating environments that characterize irregular warfare and stability operations. Our service-level 

pre-deployment training incorporates joint, interagency and multinational partners 

into a dynamic, capabilities-based training program in order to prepare our deploying forces for the full spectrum of military operations. 

With regard to joint training, the Joint National Training Capability (JNTC) provides the primary means to incorporate joint context into USMC training events. 

The Marine Corps currently has five accredited JNTC programs. In interagency 

training, our ongoing interagency (IA) initiatives are designed to: 

• Expand and improve IA integration for both theater-specific and non-theater 

specific training. 

• Improve coordination and increase IA participation in USMC training by aligning service requirements to the IA’s internal tasking process. 

• Enhances our awareness of our IA partners’ roles and capabilities. 

• Increase our forces’ participation in IA-sponsored training, such as the Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Development for Afghanistan Pre-deployment 

Training (ADAPT) and Afghanistan Field Orientation Training offered at the 

Foreign Service Institute. 

In multinational training, our primary goal is to prepare our forces and their coalition partners to operate together in Afghanistan. Our training focuses on operational level interaction through reciprocal participation in mission rehearsal exercises with partner nations. We are also pursing improved interoperability at the institutional level through staff and instructor exchange programs. Looking ahead, 

our Training and Education Command is coordinating with selected coalition partners to explore future training opportunities in a post-OEF environment. 

In summary, our pre-deployment training strives to prepare our forces for potential missions in the most effective and efficient manner possible. Our unqualified 

operational success, spanning more than 10 years of continuous operations, validates our approach. 

Mr. MILLER. Following up on DOD Directive 3000.05, issued in 2005, DOD Instruction 3000.05, issued in 2009, states that it is DOD policy that Stability Operations ‘‘shall be given priority comparable to combat operations and be explicitly addressed and integrated across all DOD activities including doctrine, organizations, 

training, education, exercises, materiel, leadership, personnel, facilities, and planning.’’ Despite this clear directive, and despite being fully-engaged in counterinsurgency campaigns for the past 10 years, our combat units devote only a fraction of 

their pre-deployment training to attaining proficiency in stability operations. What 

is being done to address this disparity? 

General MARTINEZ. As directed by DoDD 3000.05, Stability Operations, the Air 

Force implemented Air Force Policy Directive (AFPD) 10–43, Stability Operations, 

16 May 2011, detailing Air Force support of stability operations. Stability Operations is a core US military mission and the Air Force provides tailored training 

to all deploying personnel based on mission requirements. Training for stability operations is incorporated into pre-deployment training for personnel deploying to Afghanistan and all units have been directed to comply with the Under Secretary of 

Defense for Personnel and Readiness’ Directive Type Memorandum (DTM) 11–002— 

Counterinsurgency (COIN) Training and Reporting Guidance for Preparing U.S. 

Forces to Succeed in Afghanistan and Pakistan. 
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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. SCHILLING 

Mr. SCHILLING. How can the organic base help address the new challenges that 

the military faces with irregular warfare? How has it done to this date and how can 

it improve? 

General BAYER. The Army’s organic industrial base (OIB), consisting of manufacturing arsenals, ammunition plants, and maintenance depots, has the capability to 

respond quickly to support conventional and irregular warfare requirements. As an 

example of responding to irregular warfare, the Rock Island Arsenal counteracted 

the enemy’s use of improvised explosive devices during Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom by manufacturing specialized armor kits for tactical 

wheeled vehicles to protect the Warfighter from roadside bombs. Current OIB facility capabilities can also be expanded through the establishment of public-private 

partnerships with private industry partners to support emerging requirements to 

counteract irregular warfare tactics. The Army continually improves this process 

through enhanced communication with its private industry partners and through its 

assessment of current and anticipated irregular warfare techniques. 

Mr. SCHILLING. We have continued to hear that the military will need to reorganize how it works in order to deal with the upcoming budget cuts. How will this 

reorganization affect the way in which you can address irregular warfare in the future? Are there ways that Congress can help, outside of funding, to ensure that any 

changes to the DOD will facilitate your ability to address irregular warfare now and 

in the future? 

General BAYER. The biggest institutional challenge, given fiscal constraints, will 

be ensuring the right mix of capability to support our mission and requirements. 

The Army must maintain the full capability to conduct Unified Land Operations to 

seize, retain and exploit the initiative through the decisive action of offensive, defense or stability operations. Our nation demands we be prepared to operate successfully across this expansive mission set. 

Future battlefields will be populated with hybrid threats: combinations of regular, 

irregular, terrorist, and criminal groups. The Army must retain the flexibility to operate both in missions requiring maneuver over extended distances, and in missions 

requiring the establishment of security over wide areas; whatever the threat. As 

pressures for cuts in defense spending and force structures increase, the Army must 

assess which capabilities to emphasize, how many of each, and at what level; finding the right mix will be a challenge. 

As we have learned from the last ten years, the military cannot succeed in today’s 

operating environment alone. Full integration of U.S. Government capability in 

planning, training, and conduct of irregular operations is critical to success. In future operating environments it will remain critical that the Joint and Interagency 

community develop a policy framework that enables a whole-of-government approach for operations that support irregular warfare. Likewise, the Army will continue to improve its ability to team with partners in support of coalition operations 

in an irregular warfare context. 

Mr. SCHILLING. How can the organic base help address the new challenges that 

the military faces with irregular warfare? How has it done to this date and how can 

it improve? 

Admiral HARRIS. Navy forces are inherently agile, and their multi-mission capabilities enable them to operate across the full range of military operations. The same 

type of Sailors that supported Operation Tomodachi also supported Operation Odyssey Dawn. The same training to confront irregular challenges provided to Sailors 

deploying from San Diego is given in Norfolk as well. With growing emphasis on 

fleet-special operations forces (SOF) interoperability, the Navy’s role in countering 

terrorism, piracy, and other forms of instability by, with, and through a variety of 

partners is rapidly expanding. 

The Navy is also working to provide better equipment and tactics to the fleet. 

Among these improvements are expanded use of UAVs and new payloads to expand 

collection opportunities, new protocols for fusing intelligence at local levels, and information sharing protocols that will leverage the contributions of coalition partners. 

Expanded research and development of mine hunting and neutralization technologies will enable fleet forces to operate more effectively in littoral areas where 

irregular challenges must be addressed. The Navy’s emphasis on building partner 

security capacity is reflected in the establishment of the Navy Expeditionary Combat Command and its Maritime Civil Affairs and Security Training Command 

(MCASTC). MCASTC provides Security Assistance Detachments; mobile training 

teams (MTTs) that conduct security force assistance with the navies of developing 

countries and support the Navy’s partnership programs in the Pacific, Africa, and 

Latin America. 
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More Navy personnel are receiving Language, Regional Expertise, and Culture 

(LREC) training and its Foreign Area Officer (FAO) program is expanding to meet 

new requirements. Notwithstanding many initiatives to enhance Navy irregular 

warfare capabilities, improving the Navy’s capacity to address dynamic security 

challenges through prevention and flexible response is wholly dependent on the size 

of its fleet. 

Mr. SCHILLING. We have continued to hear that the military will need to reorganize how it works in order to deal with the upcoming budget cuts. How will this 

reorganization affect the way in which you can address irregular warfare in the future? Are there ways that Congress can help, outside of funding, to ensure that any 

changes to the DOD will facilitate your ability to address irregular warfare now and 

in the future? 

Admiral HARRIS. As ADM Greenert stated during his House Armed Service Committee hearing on the Future of the Military Services and the Consequences of Defense Sequestration on 2 November 2011, ‘‘We do our best operating forward at 

what I call the strategic maritime crossroads. [ . . . ] We have to be prepared. We 

have to respond when tasked, and our challenge is to posture for that possibility.’’ 

The strength of Navy forces resides in its multi-mission nature and the ability to 

operate across the full spectrum of naval operations in peacetime, combat, contingency, and pre-crisis conditions. The Navy’s ability to respond to security challenges, 

including those involving irregular threats, depends on its ability to sustain forward 

presence in regions key to U.S. national interests. The size of the fleet directly determines the level of that presence. A reduction in the Navy’s operating and procurement budgets may also have an adverse affect on our mission priorities, requiring the Navy to ‘‘buy risk’’ if forced to determine what it can accomplish and what 

it can’t with a reduced fleet (e.g., the need to choose between competing destabilizing threats due to reduced forward presence). If budget cuts reduce the Navy’s 

capacity to maintain its current level of forward presence, careful prioritization will 

be required along with possible greater emphasis on building partner capacity to offset reduced presence. Aside from contributing to stable maritime governance in regions of strategic importance, Navy efforts to build partner capacity can also help 

maintain the Navy’s core mission skills and enable the U.S. to peacefully compete 

for influence with rising regional powers. 

If a smaller Navy becomes a reality with a shift in emphasis to bolstering maritime partner capacity, the Congress could adjust authorities to facilitate broader 

partner training roles for the Navy. However, operating under new authorities without additional funding will undoubtedly have a negative impact on the Navy’s readiness to accomplish its core missions (e.g. 10 USC 168 grants authorities for militaryto-military contacts and comparable activities, but has yet to be accompanied by 

specific appropriations, resulting in a lack of ability to execute the functions enumerated in the statute under its authority). 

Mr. SCHILLING. How can the organic base help address the new challenges that 

the military faces with irregular warfare? How has it done to this date and how can 

it improve? 

General O’DONOHUE. The Commandant of the Marine Corps’ Planning Guidance 

states that the demand for military forces with irregular warfare (IW) capabilities 

will expand over the next two decades. With that in mind, the Marine Corps has 

taken aggressive steps to posture itself to meet the full spectrum of IW challenges. 

One of the key areas in which the Marine Corps has bolstered its ability to support 

IW operations is in the organic base. The Marine Corps maintains two organic 

depot-maintenance sites—one in Albany, GA, and one in Barstow, CA. Both sites 

are structured and designed to respond rapidly to the ever-changing requirements 

of the operating forces. In addition to the two U.S.-based sites, the Marine Corps 

has also established forward-deployed logistics nodes in the Central Command Theater to serve as hubs for a wide range of logistics functions. These logistics hubs 

routinely support Marine Expeditionary Units (MEUs) and Marine Corps Special 

Operations Command (MARSOC) forces in the Central Command Theater by providing a robust forward-deployed maintenance capability and ensuring that worn 

equipment expeditiously enters the maintenance cycle in CONUS when required. 

The Marine Corps’ organic base also supports the Urgent Universal Needs (UNS) 

process, acting as the choice source of repair to upgrade and maintain a variety of 

equipment sets, including the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) family of 

vehicles, the Ground Based Operational Surveillance System (G–BOSS), mobile 

trauma bays and gunner shields for special-operations forces, to name a few. All of 

these equipment sets directly support IW missions. Additionally, Marine Corps Logistics Command’s Innovation Lab has the capability to reverse-engineer, design 

and field various parts, components and platforms to meet the Marine Corps’ diverse range of IW requirements. 
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The Marine Corps’ recruit training depots at Parris Island and San Diego and Officer Candidates School at Quantico provide entry level training that is essential to 

the process of transforming young men and women from civilians into Marines. This 

training lays the foundation for developing the widely-varied skills needed to succeed in irregular warfare. Central to the transformation process is a rigorous valuesbased training program that strives to inculcate our core values in all Marines and 

provides an essential foundation for developing the ethical decision-making skills 

needed in the complex operational environments that characterize irregular warfare. 

At the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center, 29 Palms, California, our 

MAGTF Training Command provides a rigorous, pre-deployment training program 

that serves as ‘‘graduate’’ level training for our units preparing to deploy to OEF. 

This training covers the entire irregular warfare spectrum from live fire, combined 

arms training based on kinetic counterinsurgency scenarios to non-live fire force-onforce training events that prepare our units for the subtler forms of influence used 

in stability operations, such as key leader engagements and training indigenous security forces. 

To date, the Marine Corps has done an excellent job addressing emerging IW 

challenges. The Marine Corps’ middleweight force structure makes it the ideal force 

to support IW engagements, as the Corps is light enough to get there quickly, heavy 

enough to carry the day upon arrival, and fully capable of operating independent 

of local infrastructure. The flexibility, responsiveness and robust capabilities of the 

organic base will continue to be key enablers of the Marine Corps’ ability to counter 

IW threats in the future. Improvements and advancements in the areas of technology, specifically with regard to mission rehearsal systems and identity dominance 

will be necessary in order to keep the military ahead of the enemy. The organic base 

must stay healthy and resourced to maximize effectiveness and enable the best support to IW challenges of the 21st century. 

Mr. SCHILLING. We have continued to hear that the military will need to reorganize how it works in order to deal with the upcoming budget cuts. How will this 

reorganization affect the way in which you can address irregular warfare in the future? Are there ways that Congress can help, outside of funding, to ensure that any 

changes to the DOD will facilitate your ability to address irregular warfare now and 

in the future? 

General O’DONOHUE. The Marine Corps is the nation’s expeditionary force in 

readiness. As such it is prepared for all manner of crises and contingencies. It recognizes the complex, highly adaptive threats that we face. In the future, as in the 

past, multiple regional powers and a host of lethal groups will exploit numerous 

seeds of instability, proliferating increasingly lethal technology and extremist ideology while leveraging the advantages of networks hidden amongst the population. 

Marines are prepared to meet that challenge with our Navy, Special Operations, 

Army, Air Force and interagency partners. 

As we look to the future, the post-Operation Enduring Freedom Marine Corps is 

fundamentally different from the current and pre-9/11 force. It draws on a rich history of innovations in irregular warfare but is recast as a scalable crisis response 

force ready to counter complex irregular, conventional and hybrid threats—and the 

gray areas in between. We have substantially invested in relevant organizations 

such as Marine Special Operations, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, communications, partnering, civil affairs, electronic warfare, cyber, regionally oriented 

command and control, and information operations. Tasked organized with our highly trained line units, these enablers provide versatile, scalable capability for a broad 

range of missions to include deterrence, counter-terrorism, counter-proliferation, 

partnering, reinforcement to our allies, humanitarian assistance, and assured access 

for the joint force under any condition our national interests require. 

In his 2010 planning guidance, the Commandant, General James Amos, provided 

specific guidance for strengthening and consolidating irregular warfare organizations. We have increased the size of the Center for Irregular Warfare Integration 

Division and tasked them to deliberately assess our capabilities for future irregular 

warfare. This is intended to integrate joint and interagency practices with our current guidance and insights in order to ensure a holistic approach to identifying and 

implementing necessary changes. 

We consolidated two organizations into the new Marine Corps Security Cooperation Group (MCSCG), which provides pre-deployment training and other support to 

operating forces that conduct training and advisory missions in each of the geographic combatant command areas of responsibility. The Marine Corps is further expanding the Foreign Area Officer/Regional Area Officer (FAO/RAO) program to the 

enlisted ranks in the form of Foreign Area Staff Non Commissioned Officers/Regional Affairs Non Commissioned Officers (FAS/RAS). 
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The Marine Corps has doubled the size of its Civil Affairs Groups, growing from 

two to four and increasing them in size. It has led DOD in the creation of an automated Irregular Warfare Manpower Skills Tracking system that enables commanders to easily identify Marines with documented civilian education, military 

skills and experience that could be useful in the conduct of IW. 

Language, regional, and culture training and education efforts were developed in 

response to validated operational requirements. The overall regionalization and specialization effort extends across DOTMLPF. The Center for Advanced Operational 

Culture and Learning (CAOCL) provides standards-based training throughout the 

operating forces and has implemented the Regional, Culture, and Language Familiarization Program (RCLFP) as a mandatory component of both resident and distance education throughout a Marine’s career. These programs are assisted by the 

creation of Language Learning Resource Centers at major bases. 

Effectively countering irregular threats relies primarily on non-materiel aspects of 

preparing Marines for Irregular Warfare (IW) activities. Acknowledging upcoming 

reorganization, addressing irregular warfare operations capabilities does not rely 

solely on a specific organization or organizations. Addressing IW relies on the successful integration of IW-related capabilities across the doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leadership, personnel and facilities spectrum. The Marine Corps will 

maintain its focus on maximizing efficiency in these capabilities: institutionalization 

of IW training and education; train, advise, and assist foreign security forces; language and culture expertise; attacking the network; population based intelligence; 

interagency coordination and collaboration; non-lethal weapons engagement; identity dominance; and information operations. 

The Marine Corps will continue to follow the guidance and orders of the President 

and the Office of the Secretary of Defense when training and equipping Marines to 

succeed in irregular warfare operations. Opportunities to further increase IW capability and readiness could include: 

• Adapt collaborative frameworks to plan, act, assess, and adapt: Alignment of 

various interagency planning processes with Defense processes could avoid imbalances in assessment, planning, and execution. 

• Support the development of National Security/Interagency professionals: Career 

paths which give career professionals incentives to pursue diverse interagency 

experience, education, and training. This could yield structures and personnel 

which are better able to coordinate and collaborate as national security partners. 

Mr. SCHILLING. How can the organic base help address the new challenges that 

the military faces with irregular warfare? How has it done to this date and how can 

it improve? 

General MARTINEZ. The ‘‘organic base’’ is not associated with any Air Force, force 

structure or Title 10 function. The term often referred to as the ‘‘organic base’’ is 

used to describe an assortment of arsenals, maintenance depots and ammunition 

factories which are operated, funded and modernized by the US Army. 

Mr. SCHILLING. We have continued to hear that the military will need to reorganize how it works in order to deal with the upcoming budget cuts. How will this 

reorganization affect the way in which you can address irregular warfare in the future? Are there ways that Congress can help, outside of funding, to ensure that any 

changes to the DOD will facilitate your ability to address irregular warfare now and 

in the future? 

General MARTINEZ. Within our current organizational structure, the Air Force is 

prepared to conduct direct action irregular warfare effectively and efficiently. Indirect IW capabilities supporting building partner capacity are effective but less well 

developed. The Air Force has added an additional mission, building security capacity of partner nations, to contingency response wings and groups in Air Mobility 

Command, Pacific Air Forces, and U.S. Air Forces Europe. Units are aligned with 

specific regions of the world to support these operations. Additionally, two mobility 

support advisory squadrons recently established initial operational capability at 

Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, New Jersey and Travis Air Force Base, California, and form the core of our general purpose force security force assistance capability. 

Between our traditional aviation and irregular warfare capabilities, the Air Force 

can provide joint force commanders tremendous capabilities for future irregular 

warfare operations. Upcoming budget cuts, however, will impact how many of those 

operations the Air Force may be able to respond to at any one time. 

Building partnership capacity, a resource-intensive mission, requires adequate authorities and predictable funding. Legal authorities and funding for partner nations 

are complex, confusing, and restrictive—a vestige of the Cold War. For example, 
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Title 10 U.S.C. appropriations may not be used for the explicit purpose of building 

capacity in the DOD to train foreign partners. These restrictions inhibit Security 

Force Assistance air advising and aviation enterprise development. Further, singleyear funding restrictions cause difficulty in developing long-range plans for countries of interest. However, USD(P) along with DoS have included a FY12 legislative 

proposal to establish the Global Contingency Security Fund that should streamline 

authorities and funding. 

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