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i 

71–443 2012

[H.A.S.C. No. 112–72] 

THE FUTURE OF NATIONAL DEFENSE 

AND THE U.S. MILITARY TEN YEARS 

AFTER 9/11: PERSPECTIVES FROM 

FORMER SERVICE CHIEFS 

AND VICE CHIEFS 

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

HEARING HELD 

OCTOBER 4, 2011 
(II) 

HOUSE COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS

HOWARD P. ‘‘BUCK’’ MCKEON, California, Chairman 

ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland 

MAC THORNBERRY, Texas 

WALTER B. JONES, North Carolina 

W. TODD AKIN, Missouri 

J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia 

JEFF MILLER, Florida 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey 

MICHAEL TURNER, Ohio 

JOHN KLINE, Minnesota 

MIKE ROGERS, Alabama 

TRENT FRANKS, Arizona 

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania 

K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas 

DOUG LAMBORN, Colorado 

ROB WITTMAN, Virginia 

DUNCAN HUNTER, California 

JOHN C. FLEMING, M.D., Louisiana 

MIKE COFFMAN, Colorado 

TOM ROONEY, Florida 

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania 

SCOTT RIGELL, Virginia 

CHRIS GIBSON, New York 

VICKY HARTZLER, Missouri 

JOE HECK, Nevada 

BOBBY SCHILLING, Illinois 

JON RUNYAN, New Jersey 

AUSTIN SCOTT, Georgia 

TIM GRIFFIN, Arkansas 

STEVEN PALAZZO, Mississippi 

ALLEN B. WEST, Florida 

MARTHA ROBY, Alabama 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

TODD YOUNG, Indiana 

ADAM SMITH, Washington 

SILVESTRE REYES, Texas 

LORETTA SANCHEZ, California 

MIKE MCINTYRE, North Carolina 

ROBERT A. BRADY, Pennsylvania 

ROBERT ANDREWS, New Jersey 

SUSAN A. DAVIS, California 

JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island 

RICK LARSEN, Washington 

JIM COOPER, Tennessee 

MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO, Guam 

JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut 

DAVE LOEBSACK, Iowa 

GABRIELLE GIFFORDS, Arizona 

NIKI TSONGAS, Massachusetts 

CHELLIE PINGREE, Maine 

LARRY KISSELL, North Carolina 

MARTIN HEINRICH, New Mexico 

BILL OWENS, New York 

JOHN R. GARAMENDI, California 

MARK S. CRITZ, Pennsylvania 

TIM RYAN, Ohio 

C.A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland 

HANK JOHNSON, Georgia 

BETTY SUTTON, Ohio 

COLLEEN HANABUSA, Hawaii 

KATHLEEN C. HOCHUL, New York 

ROBERT L. SIMMONS II, Staff Director 

JENNESS SIMLER, Professional Staff Member 

MICHAEL CASEY, Professional Staff Member 

LAUREN HAUHN, Research Assistant 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS 

2011 

Page 

HEARING: 

Tuesday, October 4, 2011, The Future of National Defense and the U.S. 

Military Ten Years After 9/11: Perspectives from Former Service Chiefs 

and Vice Chiefs ..................................................................................................... 1 

APPENDIX: 

Tuesday, October 4, 2011 ........................................................................................ 31 

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2011 

THE FUTURE OF NATIONAL DEFENSE AND THE U.S. MILITARY TEN 

YEARS AFTER 9/11: PERSPECTIVES FROM FORMER SERVICE 

CHIEFS AND VICE CHIEFS 

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

McKeon, Hon. Howard P. ‘‘Buck,’’ a Representative from California, Chairman, Committee on Armed Services .................................................................. 1 

Smith, Hon. Adam, a Representative from Washington, Ranking Member, 

Committee on Armed Services ............................................................................ 2 

WITNESSES 

Blum, LTG H. Steven, USA (Ret.), Former Chief, National Guard Bureau ....... 8 

Cody, GEN Richard A., USA (Ret.), Former Vice Chief of Staff, U.S. Army ...... 6 

Jumper, Gen. John P., USAF (Ret.), Former Chief of Staff, U.S. Air Force ....... 4 

APPENDIX 

PREPARED STATEMENTS: 

Blum, LTG H. Steven ....................................................................................... 56 

Cody, GEN Richard A. ..................................................................................... 46 

Jumper, Gen. John P. ....................................................................................... 39 

McKeon, Hon. Howard P. ‘‘Buck’’ .................................................................... 35 

Smith, Hon. Adam ............................................................................................ 37 

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD: 

[There were no Documents submitted.] 

WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING THE HEARING: 

[There were no Questions submitted during the hearing.] 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING: 

[There were no Questions submitted post hearing.] 

(1) 

THE FUTURE OF NATIONAL DEFENSE AND THE U.S. 

MILITARY TEN YEARS AFTER 9/11: PERSPECTIVES 

FROM FORMER SERVICE CHIEFS AND VICE CHIEFS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, Washington, DC, Tuesday, October 4, 2011. 

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:08 a.m. in room 2118, 

Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Howard P. ‘‘Buck’’ McKeon 

(chairman of the committee) presiding. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. HOWARD P. ‘‘BUCK’’ MCKEON, 

A REPRESENTATIVE FROM CALIFORNIA, CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

The CHAIRMAN. Good morning. The House Armed Services Committee will come to order. 

We meet this morning to receive testimony on ‘‘The Future of 

National Defense and the U.S. Military Ten Years After 9/11: Perspectives from Former Service Chiefs and Vice Chiefs.’’ 

This hearing is the third in our series of hearings to evaluate lessons learned since 9/11 and to apply those lessons to decisions we 

will soon be making about the future of our Force. In the past 

month, we have heard from former chairmen and a vice chairman 

of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and also a panel of outside defense experts. Today, we will hear from a former Chief of Staff of the Air 

Force, a Vice Chief of Staff of the Army, and a former Chief of the 

National Guard Bureau. 

In these capacities, our witnesses were directly involved in the 

management, training, and equipment—equipping of our Force. 

This panel’s collective time of service to our Nation is over 110 

years. 

Thank you very much, gentlemen. 

Their knowledge of the decisionmaking process within the Department of Defense, as well as their cumulative years of service, 

will provide this committee with vital information as we look to the 

future of our Force. 

While we continue to make progress in Iraq and Afghanistan and 

with the killing of high-profile terrorists, including Osama bin 

Laden and, most recently, Al Qaeda leader Anwar al-Awlaki, I remain concerned that our Nation is slipping back into the false confidence of a September 10th mindset. Believing that we can maintain a solid defense that is driven by budget choices, not strategic 

ones, is a dangerous path for our national security. 

I am not arguing that the military can be held exempt from fiscal 

belt-tightening. Indeed, half a trillion dollars has been cut from the 

Defense Department already. The military has absorbed about half 
2 

of the deficit reduction measures enacted to date. But these cuts 

have happened in advance of the development of a new strategy for 

national defense and without any changes to the military’s roles 

and missions. 

Even more concerning is that if the Joint Select Committee does 

not succeed in developing and passing another deficit reduction 

plan, an additional half a trillion dollars could be cut from our military automatically. It also remains to be seen whether or not additional cuts may be proposed by the Administration even if the 

‘‘Super Committee’’ [Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction] 

is successful. News reports last week indicated that the President 

is proposing further cuts to defense—again, driven by math, not 

strategy. But all this talk about dollars doesn’t translate well into 

actual impacts on the Force and the risk to our Nation. 

I hope our witnesses today can help us understand, based on the 

lessons of the last 10 years and their over 100 years of experience, 

what strategic choices we face in the current global security environment and how further cuts to the military could shape these 

choices. 

The U.S. military is the modern era’s pillar of American strength 

and values. In these difficult times—in these difficult economic 

times, we recognize the struggle to bring fiscal discipline to our Nation, but it is imperative that we focus our fiscal restraint on the 

driver of the debt instead of the protector of our prosperity. 

With that in mind, I look forward to hearing from our witnesses 

today. 

Now let me turn to our ranking member, Adam Smith from 

Washington. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. McKeon can be found in the Appendix on page 35.] 

STATEMENT OF HON. ADAM SMITH, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM 

WASHINGTON, RANKING MEMBER, COMMITTEE ON ARMED 

SERVICES 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate you holding 

this hearing and the hearings that you have held to date to discuss 

the defense budget, our strategic posture, and where we go from 

here in very uncertain times. 

And I am very pleased to have the witnesses we have before us 

today. I look forward to their testimony. I think they can add considerable insight as to what those best choices are. 

And I also agree with the chairman that the proposed cuts in the 

defense budget are a big risk, particularly if we do not make the 

cuts necessary to prevent sequestration. If we do not make the 

other changes to the budget that could prevent that, you are looking at sizable reductions in our national security budget and the 

Department of Defense in ways that we are not ready for and have 

not anticipated. And I agree with the chairman that that is something to be prevented. 

I did not support the debt ceiling agreement in large part because all of the cuts were lumped on to the non-entitlement portion 

of the budget. Not only is that a problem for defense, that is also 

a problem for other non-entitlement areas, like education and infrastructure, homeland security, things that are equally important 
3 

to the security of this Nation, as is the Department of Defense. So 

we definitely have reason to be concerned about the impact of those 

cuts in the Department of Defense. 

I will, however, say that I think resources are part of the equation. We frequently hear in this committee folks say we shouldn’t 

consider money when we are talking about national security because it is just that important. Well, unfortunately, it is a fundamental fact of life that the resources that you have available to you 

are part of the equation in figuring out what you are going to be 

able to do. And we do have choices, in terms of how this impacts 

our need for revenue, what our tax rates are going to be, how much 

we are going to have to cut from other programs. And I think we 

have to consider that when we are looking at what our national security strategy should be. 

But with that said, we need a strategic review of the Department 

of Defense. Much has changed in the last 10 years, and much will 

change going forward. As we begin the drawdown in Afghanistan, 

complete the drawdown in Iraq, as asymmetric hybrid threats continue to emerge in unpredictable ways, it is very appropriate right 

now to do a major strategic review of where best to spend our 

money in the Department of Defense. 

I know the Administration is embarking upon such a strategic 

review. This committee, obviously, is doing that. We need to make 

some hard choices and look at why we spend the money we spend 

in the Department of Defense. You know, why do we insist on a 

313-ship Navy? Why do we have the force structure that we have? 

What do we ask them to do? And, as importantly, if we are going 

to reduce any of that, what are we going to stop asking them to 

do? How are we going to make those changes and make sure that 

those two things match up? 

But I just want to close by emphasizing one of the points I made 

earlier, and that is that the rest of the budget matters in this discussion. And I know what this committee would like to do is to 

focus on the Department of Defense and national security and simply say that, look, these cuts are unacceptable for this reason; and 

as far as where you get the money, well, that is somebody else’s 

problem, but here is why it is absolutely critical to our national security that we not cut below this level. But I think we do so at our 

own peril. 

We have to consider the rest of the budget. If we, as a committee, 

are going to present a plan that says the defense budget has to be 

at this level, then it better fit within a realistic budget. We better 

be prepared to talk about where we are going to get the revenue 

to fund that or, if we don’t want to get the revenue to fund that, 

how much are we going to cut the other programs? Because if those 

other cuts and that other revenue is not politically feasible, then, 

you know, we can scream as loud as we want about the cuts to defense, but they are going to happen. 

So we have to talk about revenue, we have to talk about where 

we are going to cut other programs in order to afford the defense 

that this committee decides that we want. So I hope we will have 

that broad discussion, as well. 
4 

And, again, I thank the chairman for having this hearing, and 

I look forward to the testimony from our very esteemed witnesses. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Smith can be found in the Appendix on page 37.] 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

I am happy to welcome our witnesses here today. We have General John Jumper, former Chief of Staff of the Air Force; General 

Richard Cody, former Vice Chief of Staff of the Army; General H. 

Steven Blum, former Chief of the National Guard. 

Thank you, gentlemen, for being here today. We look forward to 

your testimony. 

Let’s begin with General Jumper. 

STATEMENT OF GEN. JOHN P. JUMPER, USAF (RET.), FORMER 

CHIEF OF STAFF, U.S. AIR FORCE 

General JUMPER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a pleasure to 

return to these rooms after so many years of absence and to see 

so many familiar faces and to appear with my colleagues here. We 

have shared many very interesting hours before this committee in 

the past together. 

And I would also like to thank members of the committee, both, 

actually, collectively and individually, for all that you have done for 

the soldiers and marines, in particular, but for all service members 

on post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injuries. The 

process that—processes that you have supported and enacted have 

helped us diagnose and treat this very disastrous disorder that our 

people return from combat, and it is very difficult to diagnose. So 

thank you, Mr. Chairman, the committee, and the individuals who 

have supported those efforts. 

Sir, I have submitted my statement for the record, and I will just 

highlight a few points and take very little time in doing. 

I think there are several very important things to remember, sir. 

One is that, as we look forward to the future in trying to predict 

the world that we are going to be in, we have to admit right up 

front that we are lousy predictors. If we look back prior to the fall 

of the wall [Berlin Wall] in 1988 and you look at the newspapers 

back in that time, we read how the U.S. economy will be number 

two to Japan by the turn of the century, we read all these papers, 

and you can hardly find the names ‘‘Saddam Hussein,’’ ‘‘Slobodan 

Milosevic,’’ ‘‘Osama bin Laden.’’ These are the very names that 

went on to shape U.S. policy and U.S. military actions for, lo, the 

next 20 years. We are not good at predicting. 

And what that means to people, like the people at this table, who 

wake up, stay up at night worrying about things, the things we 

worry about are the things that we don’t know and what comes 

next. And as we look forward to the general instability in the 

world, we have to have a broad range of responses available. It is 

not just about counterinsurgency or not just about nuclear deterrence; it is not just about a conventional response to traditional 

threats. It is about all of these things. 

And the other thing that we have learned over time is that the 

things that we get drawn into are not things that we would have 

anticipated in any way or even thought that we might find our-
5 

selves involved with. You can go back to 1994 and the Rwanda situation. As you look back on that, we did not get involved, but if 

you look back on that, we probably could have sent a rifle company 

into Rwanda during that crisis and saved 250,000 lives. We chose 

not to do it at the time. We did choose to get involved in other 

things: Kosovo, as a result of a genocide that was going on at the 

time; and our participation in the last year or so in the Arab 

Spring movements around the world. 

It is not for the military people to decide what we are going to 

get involved with, but we do have to answer the phone when the 

phone rings and you get that question, what have you got for me? 

And when you answer that question, you have to have a broad 

range of responses and capabilities able to answer the Nation’s 

needs. 

All the while, I think it is imperative that we keep our eye, Mr. 

Chairman, on our deterrent capability. And as we draw down and 

we look at cuts, the things that come under pressure are the things 

that, in many times, are the most dangerous. We have to—this 

committee has to help the military leadership keep focus on the 

safety, the security, the reliability of our nuclear weapons as we 

draw down and we maintain this nuclear deterrent as part of our 

strategy. 

As far as roles and missions go, there is a lot the military can 

do to reduce the overlap in its capabilities. I have always been a 

proponent of a written concept of operations. The system that we 

use right now, we go out and we start buying things. Before we 

even are able to articulate how we are going to fight, we buy the 

things to fight with. I have always thought that a written concept 

of operations, joint concept of operations, that steered our way in 

areas of redundancy and overlap would reduce a lot of that redundancy and overlap that we see. 

Also, as budgets draw down, Mr. Chairman, it puts great pressure, internal pressure, on the Services, and it brings out the very 

worst of us with regard to internal strife, especially, I might say— 

and Steve will acknowledge this, I am sure—between the Active 

Duty, the National Guard, and the Reserves over resources. 

We have seen in the last 10 years the vital part that the National Guard and the Reserves have played in the rotational base 

as we have gone back and forth with our units in fighting the war 

on terror. That support has been unprecedented. The committee is 

going to have to, again, give focused support to making sure that 

as we draw down we achieve that right balance, that right and correct balance, between Active Duty, National Guard, and Reserve. 

And, of course, the other things that come under pressure as we 

look at further cuts, the first thing that goes is training, research 

and development. I have always said that while the enemy may 

enjoy some asymmetrical advantages, low-tech asymmetrical advantages, the asymmetrical advantage of this Nation is its technology. 

And I hearken back to the young airmen on horses in the early 

days of Afghanistan digitally relaying coordinates up to B–52s that 

were dropping GPS [Global Positioning System]-guided munitions. 

It was the B–52 that was designed in the 1950s, the airmen riding 

the horse that the cavalry gave up I believe in 1932, the GPS kit 
6 

that was strapped on to a bomb that came from World War II. It 

was the innovation and the technology that allowed us to turn the 

things that we had into things that we needed at the moment, at 

the time. 

We do not want to give up the ingenuity of our soldiers, sailors, 

airmen, and marines that reinvent things every day that work on 

the battlefield. It is that technology, that research and development 

that usually is the first that is hit when you get into a budget 

squeeze. 

And, finally, I am going to say that—I would like to say that 

there are low-hanging—there is low-hanging fruit out there where 

we can realize savings as a military. There is a lot in logistics. If 

we just unleash the power of best business practices and competition, we could find tremendous savings in the logistics area. 

Once again, the service chiefs understand and they know this, 

but it is going to take the help of this committee and this Congress, 

sir, to be able to support our military leadership as they seek these 

ways to save and to minimize the drawdowns. 

Thank you, sir. 

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

Appendix on page 39.] 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, General. 

General Cody. 

STATEMENT OF GEN RICHARD A. CODY, USA (RET.), FORMER 

VICE CHIEF OF STAFF, U.S. ARMY 

General CODY. Good morning, Chairman, and thanks for having 

us. I will be brief. 

On 8 April 2008, I testified before this committee as the Vice 

Chief of the Army. Then, I was honored to represent our Nation’s 

one million-plus soldiers, nearly 600,000 of them who were serving 

on Active Duty, Active Guard and Reserve on Active Duty, over 

250,000 of whom were deployed worldwide, most on 15-month combat tours, as I testified on issues critical to the current and longterm readiness of the Force. Today, again, I am honored to testify 

before you as a private citizen, a retired soldier, but one who continues to do what I can to support our great soldiers, marines, sailors, and airmen. 

Many things have changed since I testified in April 2008. The 

surge in Iraq has ended, and the Army is on course to withdraw 

some 45,000 soldiers by the end of the year. We have surged more 

soldiers and marines and airmen into Afghanistan. The endstrength growth of 65,000 additional soldiers that we started in 

2004 is complete, but now there is movement to reduce the Army’s 

Active Duty end strength, as well as the Marines, by significant 

numbers. The Army has completed the restructuring of the Force 

and just finished the largest BRAC [Base Closure and Realignment], MILCON [Military Construction], and global repositioning 

of our Army since World War II, all while fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Today, our economy is in a crisis mode. Probably most 

importantly, we have now been at war for over 10 years, and our 

ground forces and their families are worn thin. 

That said, many things have not changed. In 2008, I reported to 

you that the world we live in is exceedingly dangerous. Recent 
7 

events in Southwest Asia, the Pacific, and the Arab Spring only 

highlight this fact in spite of the courageous efforts of our service 

men and women worldwide. 

I also reported to you that our Army was out of balance; that repeated tours of 12 months in combat with only 13 months back before deploying again was putting tremendous stress on the All-Volunteer Army and their families. Today, that stress is still there, as 

the Army continues to deploy soldiers on 12-month combat tours 

with less than 24 months back between tours. 

I testified then that we are consuming our strategic readiness, 

people and equipment, with repeated tours in the harshest environments we have ever fought in, and, most importantly, that our ability to man, equip, and train for full-spectrum operations somewhere else in the world while fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan was 

not possible. 

In 2008, I reported that the cumulative impact of 6 years of continuing resolutions was causing significant problems within the 

Services’ ability to run their programs, prepare our men and 

women for the next rotation, and to reset equipment—equipment 

that had been in combat for over 6 years then, now much longer. 

Today, we enter another fiscal year with a CR [Continuing Resolution] while at war. It is one thing to deal with the uncertainty of 

our enemies and what new threats in the world we have to prepare 

for, but it is entirely another to deal with the uncertainty of yearto-year budgets and what resources will be available to sustain today’s fight and reset a force that has been at war for over 10 years 

for the next fight. 

As Congress and the Pentagon and the Executive Branch wrestle 

with the budget reduction required by the Budget Control Act, the 

real question with regard to the Services and DOD’s [Department 

of Defense] budget is simple: What missions do you want our military to continue to perform? What threats do you want our military 

to counter? What levels of readiness do you want the military to 

sustain? 

As General Jumper has said, history has taught us that we have 

not been very good at predicting where, when, and against whom 

the U.S. military will have to fight to protect the national interests 

and the security of this Nation and its 315 million citizens. Simply 

put, when we size, scope, and resource our military for the peaceful 

and U.S.-friendly world we all hope for and not for the dangerous, 

hostile, and unpredictable world that we actually live in, it is the 

American service men and women and our Nation that we put at 

risk. 

During my 6 years in the Pentagon as the Army’s G3 and as Vice 

Chief, this Congress has always responded to the critical needs of 

our Force, especially during the early years of Iraqi Freedom and 

Enduring Freedom. It is well documented we entered this Global 

War on Terrorism woefully short of equipment, resulting from the 

defense budget cuts in the late ’90s after the first Gulf war, especially for our Guard and Reserve forces, and Congress responded. 

In my mind, further cuts in the DOD budget beyond what Secretary Bob Gates outlined with his $400 million is putting our military and our country at high risk. That spirit of support by Congress is still needed today for our troops. 
8 

Thank you, sir. 

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

Appendix on page 46.] 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

General Blum. 

STATEMENT OF LTG H. STEVEN BLUM, USA (RET.), FORMER 

CHIEF, NATIONAL GUARD BUREAU 

General BLUM. Good morning, Mr. Chairman and Members of 

the committee. 

First of all, a genuine ‘‘thank you’’ for the opportunity to here appear this morning and hopefully dialogue with the Members of this 

committee on such an important subject, and that is the Armed 

Forces of the United States, particularly since 9/11 and the future 

of those forces. 

Throughout my 42 years in uniform, I can honestly say that this 

Nation has been well served by this committee and its predecessors. You have always risen to the occasion. 

The CHAIRMAN. General, is your mic on? 

General BLUM. No, it probably is not, but I will turn it on. 

General CODY. Push to talk, Steve. 

General BLUM. Thanks. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

General BLUM. So, for 42 years I served in uniform, and during 

that entire time this committee and the members of this committee 

and your predecessors that served before you have always been 

able to provide outstanding, nonpartisan support for our men and 

women in uniform to ensure that we had the resources, we had the 

policies, and we were asking the tough questions that often, frankly, need to be asked in a building that gets very complacent with 

itself and its procedures. And I am speaking about the Pentagon. 

So you have been very, very strong partners, and the soldiers, 

sailors, airmen, marines, and Coast Guardsmen of the Nation have 

benefited for at least my time in service from your service to the 

Nation. So I appreciate you having these hearings and giving us 

the opportunity to appear this morning before you. 

I will shorten my remarks. I have given you a set of prepared 

remarks for the record, but, first, I will shorten my remarks by 

saying ‘‘amen’’ to what General Jumper said. Every single word 

that he said I agree with. And General Cody, every single word 

that he said I support and agree with so far. 

Now, we have not always agreed; the gentlemen at this table 

have not always agreed. We have had some tough, tough dialogue 

getting the United States Armed Forces, in particular the Air Force 

and the Army elements that I had responsibility to provide the 

States’ National Guard forces, as a Federal reserve of those two 

great Services, we did not always see eye-to-eye to how we did it. 

But we do agree this morning on two very critical points: One, 

our Nation and our Constitution is worth defending. And, two, freedom is not free, and you can’t get readiness at a discount rate. You 

get what you pay for. 

Today, we face a security environment around the world that 

this retired soldier feels may be the most complex and dangerous 

that we have ever faced in our Nation’s history. Predictability is 
9 

not there. The international security landscape shifts every day, 

and every Member in this room and those in the gallery have been 

surprised by world events almost daily. So, as a result, our Nation 

now requires more of its Armed Forces than at any other time in 

the Nation’s history. What a soldier has to do today, the tasks, the 

skills that they must possess are entirely different than those that 

George Washington needed at Valley Forge, that Ulysses S. Grant 

needed at Gettysburg, that John Pershing needed, that Douglas 

MacArthur needed or Pete Schoomaker or Dick Cody needed from 

their Army in Iraq and Afghanistan and the other 40 nations in 

the world where we are out engaged today in very, very dangerous 

and difficult operations. 

To state the obvious, as Mr. Smith said, this challenge does not 

just lie in the military; it resides in every sector of our society. As 

a Nation, we really do have to find a way to do more, efficiently, 

with less. There is no question about it. But to do that job right, 

I maintain that the national security strategy of this Nation has 

to be independently developed without any fiscal constraints. Once 

you set the strategy, then and only then can you make meaningful 

decisions based on an informed dialogue, based on managing and 

measuring risk. And then and only then can we determine how to 

best accomplish that strategy within the existing resources that the 

Nation can provide. 

Certainly none of us at this table think that we are going to be 

able to resource everything and anything that we need, and we understand that there will be some risk we are going to have to assume. But when we assume that risk, it should be done in something—in a different thought process than strictly a numbers drill. 

After some very, very difficult rebalancing, reorganization, and 

spending enormous amounts of the United States taxpayers’ treasury to catch up, we now have the most professional and capable 

total force in the United States military that this Nation has ever 

fielded or the world has ever seen. It is unquestioned. 

Ladies and gentlemen, we must maintain this peerless military. 

It is really the lens through which most of the world views our Nation. And if they see us as strong, they view us much different than 

if they view us as weak. And I have just come back from some 

international travel, and the way we are viewed overseas today is 

not the way we were viewed overseas 5 years ago. And if you ask 

them how they view us 5 years from now, it is even more disappointing. We cannot and must not allow that to happen. 

We must avoid repeating the past mistakes when simply numbers drills and, frankly, parochial interests of the Services, of the 

departments, and of parties and politics entered into an equation 

on national security rather than geopolitical realities. We must 

drive the decisions so that we are prepared for the next 

unpredicted, unexpected threat against our freedom and our way of 

life. 

As this committee deliberates the tough choices that our Nation 

faces, I ask you to consider a new paradigm that is being embraced 

by probably most, if not all, of the internationally successful, profitdriven companies in the world. These companies have adopted a 

new paradigm. They size their full-time professional staff, whether 

it is manufacturing or sales or scientific development, they size 
10 

that full-time professional staff for the smallest, lowest, steadystate business requirement of their business, but they size their 

part-time force, the trained and ready professionals that are ready 

on call, for their most optimistic demand or surge capability, market-driven. 

Why do they do this? They do this because they don’t have unlimited resources, and they want to—they want to husband what 

they do have and save that and at least keep part of it so that they 

can have research and development, they can have capital improvement, they can talk about modernization and recapitalization and 

expansion in the business community. What they want to avoid is 

mortgaging the ability to have that agile flexibility or to be able to 

take advantage of an opportunity in the market because they have 

their costs sunk into personnel costs, entitlements, benefits, retirement, and health care. Although we all at this table agree that 

those things are important, there is going to have to be some balance. 

If you see that model as successful, this soldier, this citizen soldier, thinks that that model may be informative to this committee, 

and you should seriously consider this when alternatives come out 

for how we are really going to balance the capability we need to 

have and the force structure and the size of the force we need to 

have and how we have traditionally salami-sliced the forces, to get 

to the acrimony that General Jumper was talking about, because 

the fair share is not always fair and it is not even always smart. 

I would suggest you take a look at this model because it does give 

you a new paradigm to examine how we do these kinds of things 

in a constrained environment, and I think it is quite useful. 

I think the strategy argues clearly for an increased reliance on 

the Guard and Reserve as part of the total force. For the last 10 

years, not only have our men and women in all Services performed 

in a magnificent manner, it is noteworthy that the Guard and Reserve, after the extraordinary measures taken by the gentlemen at 

this table, among others, and the committee that I am speaking before today, we brought the Guard and Reserves from a 1947 structure on September 11th, 2001, into the 21st century, to right now 

they are standing shoulder to shoulder with the airmen and the 

soldiers of the United States Army and the United States Air 

Force. And I would challenge anybody in this room to distinguish 

a Guardsman, a Reservist, or an Active Duty member of the military unless you interrogated them or asked them specifically where 

they had come from, what they were doing before you saw them in 

theater or you saw them performing their work. 

I don’t think you want to take a giant step backwards just because of a budget drill and have today’s operational reserve be 

forced or relegated into only a Cold War–relic strategic reserve role 

once again. And anything—I might remind you, anything you do to 

decrement or to lessen the capability of the National Guard and 

Reserves, you are basically passing a burden down to the governors 

of this Nation and making their constitutional responsibilities and 

authorities even more difficult to protect the citizens in every zip 

code that you actually represent here in Congress. 

If you want to read a little bit more, I would recommend General 

Craig McKinley’s recent white paper, published March 31st, 2011, 
11 

‘‘A Great Value Today and in the Future.’’ I would recommend that 

to you. 

Last fact before I close: When you call out the Guard and Reserve, you do, in fact, call out America. When you are considering 

value, the value of that, ladies and gentlemen, is priceless. 

Thank you for what you do for our Nation. Thank you for holding 

these hearings on this most serious and urgent matter. And I anxiously will be welcoming any questions that you might have. And 

thanks for the opportunity to contribute in this dialogue on this 

very serious issue. Thanks. 

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

Appendix on page 56.] 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much. 

Let’s consider the impact of funding cuts on end strength. We know, from what we have seen so far with the $465 billion in the 

first tranche, there is going to be a significant cut in end strength. 

But in the event of sequestration or a 10-percent reduction to the 

fiscal year 2013 budget request, military spending would be reduced by about $55 billion a year, starting next October. If the Department chooses to shed end strength to meet just part of this 

goal, we could easily be back below pre-9/11 levels for the Army 

and Marine Corps. 

Based on your experience, what would the consequences be to the 

Force and the military readiness by reducing the Army and Marine 

Corps end strength to or below pre-9/11 levels by fiscal year 2013? 

And what are the consequences for reducing the size of the Air 

Force, which is already smaller than the force we had on 9/11? 

And one last thing that I have is, one of the things that we have 

talked quite a bit about the last few years but the last few months 

we haven’t been talking about is the reset as we pull our troops 

out of Afghanistan and Iraq. Where are we going to get the money 

to reset? How much is that going to take? And what effect is that 

going to have on the Force? 

General CODY. The Chief told me I could take it first. 

I spent 6 years in the Pentagon, Mr. Chairman, working on force 

structure. The first time I testified before this committee was 1998, 

after Task Force Hawk. I stated then for the record that I thought 

we were a 10-division Army with a 14-division mission. Got criticized quite a bit. 

Interesting to note that in the QDR [Quadrennial Defense Review] of 2000, before 9/11, as you say, September 10th, there was 

movement afoot by the accountants and budgeters to cut that force 

from 10 divisions down to 8. That stopped when 9/11 happened. 

We entered this Global War on Terrorism with a force of 482,000, 

a little over 500,000 National Guard, I think about 200-some-oddthousand Army Reservists. Our readiness levels of those units, 

combat support and combat service supports from the cuts of 1994 

through ’98 had left those portions of the units untrained. Our 

first-to-deploy units, like the 101st, the 82nd, the 1st Cavalry Division were fine—3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment—but, quite frankly, we didn’t have the depth. 

What I have learned in 6 years of doing this was, when you take 

a look at the 1–4–2–1 that is in this committee’s think piece of, 

one, you know, how we force-structure, when you put in all these 
12 

different strategies and then you force-size it, if you don’t put that 

strategy into motion and put a tempo nature to it, you run out of 

troops very quickly. 

Let me explain. We had a force-sizing construct that got us to 

482,000 that said we would be fighting one decisive, with the ability to swing to another decisive, and we could be in four lesser contingencies. That is fine, and so they force-sized to that. The trouble 

was, we got into this war, and we were there 2003, 2004, 2005. If 

you remember, in 2004, we were so short forces, we had to turn to 

the National Guard and activate and mobilize nine National Guard 

brigades that were not equipped, which meant we had to dip into 

our strategic reserve equipment through the world. 

We have underpredicted every year, and that put tremendous 

stress on the Active Duty Force and on the National Guard because 

of people using these force-sizing constructs and not putting it in 

motion. And today we are a tired Army, today we are a tired Marine Corps, today the National Guard is tired. But we have built 

them up. 

I think cuts below 540,000 in the Active Duty force puts that at 

risk again, because we don’t know where we are going to be 5 years 

from now. We are in a 10-year war today. It is longer than Vietnam. I think yesterday was the high-water mark. That is the war 

we think we are in. Our enemies are in a 100-year war. And so we 

have to be very, very careful of these force-sizing constructs. I believe you need to force-size for mid to worst case. Because, quite 

frankly, that is what we have been executing for the last 10 years. 

I testified before this committee that we predicted in 2004 and 

’05 that we would be down to six brigades in Iraq. In execution, in 

year 5 and 6, we are at 19 to 21 brigades. Yet we force-structured 

the budget for going down to six to eight brigades. And how did we 

make it up? You all had to pass omnibuses and supplementals, and 

they were late to the fight. That is the danger when you start 

bringing this force down. 

The other thing I will just say—and then I will turn it over to 

General Jumper and General Blum—when we started the All-Volunteer Force in 1973, America’s demographics were different. And 

the military kept track of men at the time, because that is the way 

we tracked it, 17- to 24-year-olds. When we started the All-Volunteer Force back then, over 90 percent—almost 90 percent of that 

demographic, 17- to 24-year-old males met the minimum mental, 

physical, and moral standards to be in the military. When we started really growing the Army and growing the Marine Corps in 2006, 

35 percent of that population in the U.S. today meets the minimum 

standards. That is a real problem. 

And so, if we cut again and break trust with this force that 

stayed with us for 10 years and then we run into something else— 

as we have talked about, we don’t get to pick and choose—I don’t 

know if we can grow that force back again. So it is a big problem 

for us. 

General JUMPER. Mr. Chairman, I think General Cody’s words 

are right on the mark. 

From an Air Force point of view, we see, I think, as you have 

said earlier, the necessity to accommodate—accompany any reduction in forces with a strategy that can be understandable and en-
13 

forceable by the military services. If we make cuts through the lens 

of the budget, then we have, in the past, always done ourselves an 

injustice and found ourselves really unprepared for what has happened next. And we stand a greater danger of doing that now than 

we ever have before. 

The tempo of the equipment in the Air Force is much like that 

of the Army and the Navy. We have run our—especially our airlift 

and our tactical systems very hard. When this conflict first started 

off, as we prepared to go into Iraq in 2003, we had 10 Air Expeditionary Force packages assembled and ready to go; they were on 

a rotational basis. We essentially pulled all of those forward to 

meet the initial requirements to get into theater and set ourselves 

up and had to reset our whole rotation base because we used elements of all 10 of those force packages. 

If we get into the situation where budgets also dictate our relationship with our allies, it is something else we have to do from a 

strategy point of view. Indeed, I do believe that it is time to reconsider our relationship with some of our allies and our participation 

in some of our alliances, and those could well be restructured. But 

to lose contact with longstanding allies or abandon the common 

cause that we have established over years of time I think would be 

extremely dangerous and would jeopardize our Nation’s ability to 

be a strategic force for stability in the entire world, which I think 

we are. 

And then when it comes to reset, of course the Air Force’s problem is not nearly as difficult as the Army and the Marines. But, 

again, we have equipment that has been used day-in and day-out, 

deployed, redeployed, with scant time to catch up with the proper 

maintenance and overhauls that are required. When we get everything back, a lot of this equipment is going to be—is going to require, again, expensive upgrades and overhauls. 

I would reiterate that I think there is a lot of money to be saved 

here by looking at some commercial best practices to see how we 

might go about this. But, indeed, just to reset the forces that we 

have and the equipment that we have is going to be—require the 

support of this committee. 

And so I think that, again, as we draw down, it is going to be— 

have to be with a strategic goal in mind, it is going to have to be 

with the idea that our relationships around the world will be modified of necessity, and that we very quickly get to dangerous levels 

that will keep us out of critical parts of the world scene that we 

have always been a part of. 

Thank you, sir. 

General CODY. I didn’t answer, Mr. Chairman, the equipment 

reset. I had a brain cramp. 

In 2006 and ’07, we had ramped our depots. I will speak for the 

Army depots, the five Army depots, but, certainly, Yermo and Georgia depots in the Marines got ramped up also. We moved from 5 

million direct labor hours when the war started to 27 million direct 

labor hours. Our depots actually bailed us out of our readiness 

problems as we grew, and they did unbelievable work. And they 

teamed with commercial, and we actually mobilized the depots 

with the commercial industry to reset our equipment. 
14 

We said then, in 2006 and 2007, that we would have to spend about $17 billion a year to reset this equipment that has been in 

the worst environments we have ever had, highest OPTEMPO [Operations Tempo]. Basically, tanks, Bradleys, Apache helicopters— 

you pick them—night vision goggles, weapons systems, where we 

are putting 15 years of life on them in 1 year, that equipment all 

stayed over in Iraq and Afghanistan because we had to rotate out 

equipment, so it hasn’t come out. It is now coming out. 

Back in 2008, we had five brigades’ worth of equipment sitting 

in our depots to be repaired. I don’t know what the number is 

today. But when I look at the depot and the reset accounts and the 

O&M [Operations and Maintenance] dollars of the military’s budget, it is woefully short. And there is a big bow wave and a bill to 

be paid on this equipment when it comes back. 

And it will be a readiness issue that a future Chief will be in 

here next year or the year after, saying, ‘‘Okay, you cut our procurement dollars, we brought the equipment back, and now we are 

C4 because of equipment.’’ And I see that as a very big problem. 

General BLUM. Again, I find myself in a position of concurring 

totally with General Jumper and General Cody and their comments. 

I would only have one other thing to add. The unintended consequence is the signal that you send to our adversaries because 

they measure some of our actions as our resolve, our national resolve. And I have already told you some of the impressions that I 

have picked up in some recent international travel, that there is a 

perception that our resolve may be waning. If that is the perception 

of our friends and our allies, what do you think the perception 

might be of our adversaries or our potential enemies? 

The other signal, again, is that you must understand that with 

the current strategy that we have, any reduction of the Force, the 

total force or any component of that force, only increases the stress 

on the members of that force, because we are not yet in any of the 

Services at the dwell-to-deployment cycle that we would like to be. 

We are not—in other words, if we were heavyweight fighters, we 

are not getting our time in the corner between rounds. Sometimes 

we are going out there and fighting two rounds before we even get 

any time in the corner. And that is taking a toll on the Force, and 

that needs to be considered if we are going to sustain the tremendous, magnificent military that we presently have. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Smith. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The question I want to ask is, where do you see where we could 

make savings within the current budget? And if you look at what 

our current strategies are, our current missions—accept for the moment that we are going to keep those missions, you know, with the 

anticipated changes in Iraq and Afghanistan—you know, are there 

places we could save money and still maintain that mission capability? And then the second piece of the question would be, okay, 

if we can’t, what missions should we decide not to do in order to 

find savings? Those are the two questions. 

Just to set the context—I set this a little bit in my opening statement but didn’t drive home the point on where our budget is at. 
15 

I think the points you gentlemen make about the challenges to the 

Department of Defense budget and the missions we have asked our 

uniformed military to perform is correct, but there is also a big 

huge budget challenge. And our budget is 40 percent out of whack. 

You know, the amount of money we raise is 40 percent less than 

the amount of money we spend. 

And if you accept for the moment that we need to balance that 

budget and that we are not going to bring in any new revenue and 

we can’t touch defense, basically what you would have to do is you 

would have to cut everything else in the budget by roughly half. 

To be honest, the ‘‘half’’ is a slight exaggeration; it is probably 48 

percent. That means Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, education, infrastructure—everything—by almost 50 percent. And I am 

personally not even—I wouldn’t begin to be prepared to do that. 

So those are the choices that we face as we put this forward. And 

I think we have to keep that in mind, because every portion of that 

budget can give testimony along the lines of what you are talking 

about, about the devastating impact of those cuts, and be somewhat accurate. So we are in a bit of a pickle here. 

So I ask the question, again, within our current mission set, are 

there areas where you go, you know what, we could save money 

there, we could do this more efficiently and still meet that mission 

set? Or second question is, what missions are we currently funding 

for that we probably shouldn’t be? Are there any two areas where 

you could find savings in—well, in one of those two ways or both? 

Thank you. 

General CODY. When you—I mean, it is a dilemma. But when 

you take a look at what has happened in the last 10 years, even 

with Secretary Rumsfeld, Secretary Gates, and now with Secretary 

Panetta, the military has already cut some 240 programs across 

the board to shift the weight of the Force. We were a big, lethargic 

force, better set for the cold war, not set as well for asymmetrical 

and irregular warfare. And so we did it while we were fighting the 

war. We actually restructured the entire Army. The Air Force restructured. We restructured the National Guard into a better dualpurpose force that could be operational. 

The problem was, we did it, Mr. Congressman, on the fact that 

we already were in a hole from 1994. I mean, from ’94 to ’98, even 

to ’99, it was almost a procurement holiday. And so you had two 

things: You had a force that wasn’t sized for the threats of the—— 

Mr. SMITH. If I may, General, I accept all that. You know, we are 

where we are. 

General CODY. Yeah. 

Mr. SMITH. The question is—I mean, it seems to me what the 

three of you gentlemen are saying is that there is no level of cuts, 

there is nothing in the current military that can be cut. Let me put 

it slightly different: Not that there is nothing in the current military that could be cut; we can’t spend less than we are currently 

contemplating. In fact, we should spend more. 

General CODY. No. 

Mr. SMITH. Is that accurate? I mean, it leads to implications, 

but—— 

General CODY. No. 

Mr. SMITH [continuing]. That is where we have to start. 
16 

General CODY. No, no. There are cuts to be made. I mean, before 

even the Budget Control Act, Secretary Gates and the Services already ponied up something like $400 billion. While we are fighting 

a war, while we have 100,000 troops in Afghanistan and while you 

had something like 80,000 troops at the time in Iraq and other 

commitments across the world, he said, ‘‘I can find $400 billion 

worth of efficiencies. Cut back on these programs.’’ We only have 

one new Air Force airplane on the drawing board for the first time 

in years, compared to some of our competitors. So that was being 

done. 

To tie the whole or half the weight of the budget control problems that this country has put itself in to a military who, by the 

way, has been trying to police itself up very—in my mind, tough 

love down there in terms of budget cuts, the years I was there, 

while we were fighting a war. 

I think there are more places you can go, but I warn that if you 

are talking about significant cuts to end strength, if you are talking 

about significant cuts to resetting the Force and not—— 

Mr. SMITH. Understood. Do you—— 

General CODY [continuing]. And not maintaining the program—— 

Mr. SMITH. Right. 

General CODY [continuing]. I don’t know where we are going to 

be if something goes wrong. 

Mr. SMITH. Understood. Do you have—do any of you have—you 

say there are more places. Do you have specific ideas? 

General CODY. Yeah, there are some more places, but I don’t see them as significant as the $400 billion that has already been put 

on the table. In fact, I am a little nervous about the $400 billion. 

Mr. SMITH. That is the gist I am getting. 

General CODY. Yeah. I mean, listen, this is tough. This is about 

choices as a Nation. Unfortunately, we don’t get to pick. And this 

is, as Steve Blum has said—and we can go talk to historians—I 

think this world is more dangerous than at any time in modern 

history. 

Mr. SMITH. Do you think it is possible to meet those national security needs that you have outlined without increasing the revenue 

that we have in the Federal Government? 

General CODY. I am not an economist. I think, at some point, we 

are going to have to ask, how much is America sharing the burden? 

I mean, I know everybody—you know, we have unemployment 

problems, we have all kinds of problems. But, quite frankly, when 

you talk to soldiers and you talk to families, they have been carrying this burden for 10 years, a heavy burden, financially as well 

as separations and everything else. 

And, you know, we have to wake up and realize this is a terribly 

unfriendly world for us right now and extremely dangerous. And 

so, if we have to tax more, I am all for taxing everybody. You guys 

will have to figure out what it is because I am not an economist. 

Mr. SMITH. Right. 

General CODY. But it is not going to get better. Putting our fiscal 

house in order is important, but we need to be very, very careful 

about the choices and chances we take with our national security 

right now. 
17 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. 

I yield back. 

General JUMPER. Sir, may I add that, as Dick says, the Services 

are right now over there putting together plans to deal with this 

$400 billion-or-so cut, whatever it turns out to be. 

We have also given up, in the last—in the last 10 years, $46 billion worth of research and development through cancelled programs, things that were scheduled to be—come in to recapitalize 

our forces that have been cancelled, major programs. Just the research and development and where we were in those programs 

when they were cancelled added up to $46 billion. 

Having said that, I do believe there are places we should look. 

I think that we should take a serious look at our tactical nuclear 

program, our tactical nuclear forces as a part of our NATO [North 

Atlantic Treaty Organization] alliance and how much of that we 

really need. As I said before, I think we could take a look at how 

much forward stationing we really need as we relook at the structure of our alliances around the world. And then I think, again, in 

the area of logistics, I think within the spirit of the air logistics 

centers and the depot 50/50 sharing rule, I think we could find 

ways to restructure to let industry best practices in and save ourselves a tremendous amount of money as we look forward to resetting. 

But as Dick points out, when you look at this in proportion to 

the problem we have, these are certainly things we all should do— 

a lot of this is low-hanging fruit—but it takes a lot of courage, a 

lot of support from this committee. As uniformed military leadership sits at this table and asks for your support to do tremendously 

unpopular things, they are going to need your support to do it in 

order to take advantage of even these small actions that might 

be—that might be helpful in the—in reducing the burden. 

Still in all, the problem you point out, Congressman Smith, is 

one that we all have to be concerned with, and that is this tremendous burden that has to be paid for in some way. You are exactly 

right. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. Bartlett. 

Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you. 

I first have a question for General Blum for my colleague Frank 

LoBiondo, who can’t be here. General Blum, could you please tell 

us—give us your thoughts on how the Air Force could be better utilizing the Air National Guard’s fighter fleet in terms of transferring 

missions and getting them newer iron, while reaping the benefits 

of overall cost savings? 

General BLUM. Thank you. Let me see if I can get this microphone to come on. 

Thank you for the question. And Congressman LoBiondo’s question gets, actually, to the business model that I talked about a little 

bit earlier. 

The good news with the Guard and Reserves is that they are now 

competent, professional, and, actually, when they are on duty with 

their Active Duty counterparts, you are talking equality in per-
18 

formance and capability. Some argue that they bring civilian-acquired skills and that makes them, in some mission sets, even 

more valuable. I am not making that argument right now, although 

I could. 

What I am suggesting is, for the routine missions—for instance, 

if you want to expand the capability of the Air Force, airplanes cost 

what airplanes cost. It isn’t any cheaper for a National Guard pilot 

to fly them than an Air Force pilot to fly them, as far as what the 

fuel costs or what the operating hours cost or what the cost of the 

airplane is. Where you gain your efficiencies there is you are only 

paying that pilot to fly the plane when he is flying the plane; you 

are not paying him 365 days of the year or the days that he is not 

flying. 

And so, you could maintain—you could make an argument—you 

could maintain three to four pilots in the Air National Guard essentially available to fly that plane, owned and operated by the 

United States Air Force on call, for the cost of one pilot in the Air 

Force. And you could also make the argument that that pilot may 

end up being—tends to be a more experienced pilot because they 

serve longer and they retire later, and so you basically get a longer 

shelf life from them. 

So what it does is it gives you a personnel model that does get 

to what Mr. Smith is talking about and how do you do more with 

less? In other words, okay, if I am going to do with this all-Active 

Duty Air Force, you are going to pay a dollar for every, you know, 

you are going to pay full amount for that pilot to be on duty every 

single day, and he isn’t going to fly every day. But when you do 

it with the Guard or Reserves, you are only paying that pilot for 

when he is actually in the cockpit and performing the mission, essentially. There are other times you pay him for training and administrative and medical exams and that kind of thing, but the 

cost is roughly a magnitude about three to four to one. In other 

words, you can get three or four Guard or Reserve people in the 

Air Force for what it costs for a full-time Air Force person. 

Now, that doesn’t mean you don’t need a full-time Air Force. 

Even as the chief of the Guard and Reserve, I was also—I mean, 

the Guard, I was also a U.S. Northern Command and joint combatant command, and there is a very legitimate need for a standing 

Air Force and an Active Duty Air Force. And, you know, you are 

going to have to balance the risk versus the reward, the benefits 

against the disadvantages. And there are a few disadvantages. 

But if you are just looking at how do you basically expand the 

force without exponentially increasing the costs, then I would say 

an increased reliance on the Guard and Reserve is something that 

this committee ought to really take a pretty serious look at, because there are some efficiencies there. But I don’t want to say, 

and I won’t say, that you don’t need an Active Duty Air Force of 

substantial size so that it can handle the steady state, so that you 

are not disrupting and interrupting citizen soldiers needlessly. But 

on the other hand, if their national strategy cannot be met by the 

national resources, then you are going to have to look at different 

business models than what we have looked at in the past. 

What General Jumper alludes to is what will possibly happen, 

sir, if we get—not we, because we are retired—but if the current 
19 

people in the positions that we recently held get a mandate, what 

likely will occur in the building is that there will be a fair sharing, 

what they—quote, unquote, ‘‘fair sharing’’ of cuts against the active 

force, the Guard force, and the Reserve force. And so what we will 

do is we will cut a slice of the pie out of the Army and that will 

cost full value because they are full-time people. And then you’ll 

get—let’s say that value is X. And then we will do the same pie 

slice or a different pie splice out of the Guard or Reserve, and that 

will cost X-minus because they don’t cost the same; frankly, they 

cost less. 

So you will actually get less, you will harvest less by that slice 

than you will in the Active Duty slice. But what it will really start 

is the Yugoslavian model of an army disintegrating into three different armies and fighting itself, and the Air Force doing the same, 

because all three of us have seen this ugly dynamic happen now 

through our whole adult careers. 

That should be avoided. It doesn’t serve the Nation well; it 

doesn’t serve the members of the Armed Forces well; and it doesn’t 

serve the American citizens well. 

So to answer your colleague’s question directly, I will repeat 

what I said. I think a careful examination of the risk versus reward and the value of having an expanded force and an increased 

reliance in the Guard and Reserves—it doesn’t allow you to get airplanes cheaper, it doesn’t allow you to operate them cheaper, but 

it does cut down your personnel costs, and they are significant in 

a volunteer professional force. 

General JUMPER. Sir, if I might jump on to these comments. Is 

that permitted? 

The CHAIRMAN. We are over time. We will get back to you. Mr. 

Andrews. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I want 

to thank you for the service that you are doing for the country and 

Congress by having these hearings. 

I think there is insufficient attention being paid to the fact that 

if the Special Select Committee does not come to an agreement, we 

are facing certain automatic cuts in the neighborhood of half a trillion dollars over a 10-year period to the Defense budget. 

You can argue that that is a good idea or a bad idea, but to not 

even take into account the argument as to whether it should happen or not is very important. And the fact that you are having 

these hearings is focusing attention on that, and I thank you for 

that. 

And I thank the gentlemen on the panel for their incredible service to our country. I can’t express enough how grateful we are for 

the lives you have given to your country and how well you served. 

I want to ask a question that is not a rhetorical question. I do 

want you to answer as well as you can. 

In the 10 years since 2001, if you take out the overseas contingency operations, put aside all the costs of the wars in Iraq and 

Afghanistan, in real dollar terms the core Defense budget is 40 percent higher than it was in 2001. 

Our end strength is essentially the same as it was in 2001. Our 

number of ships and airplanes is essentially what it was in 2001. 

A little different, but not much different. Now, about a fifth of that 
20 

cost, that 40 percent increase, has gone to increased compensation 

for uniformed personnel and civilian personnel. Where did the rest 

of the money go? What did we buy for that money? 

General CODY. I can take that question, Congressman. Because 

a lot of it went to the Army to equip combat, combat support and 

combat service support soldiers for a 360-degree battlefield. That 

was in the procurement accounts. It was also to equip and bring 

up to combat status the equipment in the National Guard and Reserves. I can give you about—I mean, I dealt with this every day 

for 6 years. Radios the Guard didn’t have because they weren’t secure, we didn’t buy them so we had to get them upgraded. The 

night vision goggles, they had the old night vision goggles and we 

had to buy them. But we also had to buy them for everybody, because there was no line where you had rear echelon and you didn’t 

have to worry about protected lines. Everybody was in the battlefield. 

Jessica Lynch’s convoy that got hit was a telling moment for all 

of us that combat service support troops need to be equipped as 

well as the combat troops. We have a moral obligation if we are 

going to put troops into harm’s way that they are the best 

equipped, best led, and best trained. 

That generated gunnery. Before our combat soldiers fired gunnery three or four times a year; our combat service support people 

didn’t. We had to bring everybody up to that. 

Mr. ANDREWS. General, all the things you talk about I think 

have essentially unanimous support on this committee, because we 

understand the urgency of outfitting our troops properly. But, you 

know, some of it, the GAO [Government Accountability Office] said 

that $296 billion of that money went to cost overruns in 27 major 

weapon systems. You know, R&D [research and development] 

phase is exploding. As I was looking at data on the SBIRS program, the Space-Based Infrared Program, the per-unit cost of that 

program has quintupled since the program began, which, you 

know, means we are going to spend five times as much money 

when we actually buy the copies of it in the end. 

What suggestions do you have as to ways that we can curb this 

voracious appetite for cost overruns in major weapons systems? 

General CODY. Well, I think, one, as I look back on it—first off, 

you are right, there have been some Nunn-McCurdy breaches and 

large cost overruns in space programs, big platforms and things of 

that sort. 

You know, quite frankly, the predictability of the budget each 

year causes problems not only for the program managers that are 

running these things, but also for the industry that is trying to predict what their costs are going to be. 

I can remember on the joint strike fighter when they rescoped it 

several times, as they rescoped that program, the costs went up. 

I am not an expert in that acquisition process for sure. I have been 

on the receiving end of it. 

Mr. ANDREWS. The unit cost on that has gone up by almost double since that program started. 

General CODY. I think, you know, what Secretary Carter is doing 

in looking at these things is the right thing to do. But I also want 

to go back to the fact that during these 10 years, we cut several 
21 

programs, and really lightened and refocused the Force in ways 

that, quite frankly, if we hadn’t been at war, we wouldn’t have 

done. And we restructured the Force and we equipped the Force 

with what is really needed. 

And so the fiscal overruns and the anecdotes of this program or 

that program are interesting, but when you take it in the whole, 

DOD has done a pretty good job in the last 10 years of policing up 

some of these things. 

Now there are ones that stick out like a sore thumb, and I think 

you ought to deal with that as you can. But we do have a moral 

obligation every day. If we are going to send men and women into 

combat, they better be the best led, they better be the best 

equipped. We don’t want to go into a fight with parity. 

Mr. ANDREWS. I see my time is up. I would completely agree with 

you. I would also say we have a moral obligation to taxpayers to 

be sure that we paying value for what we—absolutely need to 

equip the troops with what they need. But we have a moral obligation to the taxpayers to show that we are not paying $3 for something we could buy for a dollar. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you for your kind words about holding 

this hearing. We are also on the Education Committee, and you 

look at the dollars that have been spent on education over the last 

10 years, 20 years and then look at the return and how the education scores and everything else have gone down, we have got 

problems not just at the DOD, we have got problems across the 

whole of Federal Government spending that we also really need to 

look at. 

Mr. Wilson. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and as I begin, I want 

to thank Congressman Andrews for his very heartfelt statement 

about our chairman, his bipartisanship, and how indeed this hearing is important and the tradition of this committee truly has been 

to support our military, to defend our country. And I see the primary function of the national government as national defense. 

Also, I am really grateful to see General Blum and General Cody 

here. I have had three sons serve in the National Guard—one for 

a year in Iraq—and it was an extraordinarily meaningful experience to him to help the American people at home by defeating the 

terrorists overseas. 

And I am also grateful, General Jumper, that I have a nephew 

in the Air Force, so I am covering you. And I know of your leadership, but also we are a joint service. My number two son is a doctor 

in the Navy who served in Iraq. So again, thank you for what you 

do. 

And indeed as we are talking about the future of national defense, for each one of you beginning with General Blum, because 

you indicated the dangerous environment, the no predictability. I 

certainly agree with the statement that we are in a 100-year war. 

The statement has been that we have the watch, they have the 

time. That is what they think. I believe, ultimately, the American 

people do have resolve. 

Could you, each one of you, indicate what you see as the biggest 

threat to the United States and the American people today? 
22 

General BLUM. I think the biggest—are you asking me to go first 

on this? 

Mr. WILSON. Please, absolutely, General. 

General BLUM. The biggest thing that I worry about frankly is 

complacency and being numbed. It almost becomes a constant 

background noise, because so few of U.S. citizens really are engaged in this conflict. 

It is the smallest percentage of any conflict we have ever had in 

the history of our country, when you think about it. Those that are 

defending our freedom are guaranteeing or ensuring our way of 

life, and the fact that you can do what we are doing in this building 

and what we do outside, that burden is being carried by an extraordinary low percentage of the American people. 

And frankly, the Guard and Reserve provide the connective tissue so that our Armed Forces, as magnificent as they are, and as 

trained and professional and dedicated and patriotic as they are, 

don’t become viewed by the American people as a foreign legion or 

a mercenary unit. 

That is why I would do absolutely nothing to lessen the 

connectivity to the American people through the Guard and Reserves, because business cases will cause you to consolidate Active 

Duty bases, make them more efficient. Where they are gets more 

and more away from the general population. What they do behind 

those gates is pretty much ‘‘who cares’’ to the general population 

unless they make their living off of what goes on in there. 

And the sons and daughters like mine and yours, and those in 

the room that have members that are serving, I don’t want them 

disassociated with the American people. And I think the best insurance policy for when making sure that the American people are in 

this fight—look, I will give you examples. Dover Air Force base in 

Delaware, if they deploy, nobody in Delaware really knows where 

they went or what they did or if they are gone. But if the Delaware 

Guard goes, the Delaware Air Guard goes, everybody in Dover 

knows all about it, or everybody in Newcastle knows all about it. 

If you go to West Virginia, there is no Active Duty in West Virginia, so the only connectivity to our Armed Forces in West Virginia is the Guard and Reserve, and there are many States like 

that. 

So the footprint to gain efficiencies that that we all want, our Department of Defense to be efficient and cost-effective, there are 

downsize risks to that. An All-Volunteer Force means, you know, 

okay, go over there. But when you send a Guard unit or Reserve 

unit, the whole community goes. And they are there while they are 

there and they support them while they are there. 

So that is one of the big reasons that I say the thing I am most 

afraid about in a long war with United States where everybody 

doesn’t have somebody in this, very few of us do, is that we get 

complacent and it becomes—we get disconnected from the American people. That is my greatest fear. Because if you keep the 

American people in this, and you keep the national focus on what 

is going on, then I don’t think we have anything to fear. I think 

the enemy better be very fearful. 

But if the American people get disassociated from this, either 

from fatigue or numbness to it, or because they don’t have a per-
23 

sonal stake in it, I think it is a terrible, terrible danger. So that 

is why I say an increased reliance on the Guard and Reserve is not 

only economically smart, it is really a strategically imperative—it 

is a strategic imperative if you are going to maintain a volunteer 

force. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. Ms. Davis. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I appreciate it as 

well having the hearings. I think one of the concerns I have is 

sometimes there isn’t the opportunity for give and take on a number of these issues. And so I would hope that in addition to the 

hearings, maybe there is some way that we can also have a greater 

role as we move into this process right now. And I thank you all 

very much, again, for being here and for your service. 

And, you know, along with that, you have been around a long 

time. You have been to these hearings for many, many years. You 

have probably felt a number of frustrations as you see some of the 

decisions that are made, whether they are tactical or strategic. 

Could you share with us—is there anything that you feel that 

would be helpful as we move forward and want to play a role in 

these discussions, because we think it is so critical that it is not 

just a knee-jerk decision that is made regarding these cuts. And I 

am not suggesting that they will be, but I think you know how important it is to really be thinking on the front and back end. You 

know, what is going on here? What are the unintended consequences and how do we make sure that we do the right thing? 

Is there anything in your history of being so engaged at this level 

that you could share that would be helpful as we move forward? 

General CODY. Well, thank you, Ma’am. And I never, you know, 

worried coming over here. I didn’t enjoy it a lot, but I never worried about it because I knew at the end of the day, we needed to 

tell the story. We needed to lay our cards on the table. And then 

cooler heads would prevail. But we are at an inflection point in our 

history. 

General Blum talked about the national will, basically, of this 

country. I do worry about that. But right now what we have 

learned in the last 10 years and what I have learned, and several 

of the former service chiefs and vices and leaders, is this: The AllVolunteer Force is absolutely the best thing this country has done 

in the military. It is absolutely precious. And the fact that we have 

got young men and women who last year and the year before after 

watching this war raised their right hand and said, ‘‘You know 

what? I am going to go serve. This is important.’’ 

I worry about losing the All-Volunteer Force as we get into these 

fights about budgets and about entitlements versus defense and 

things like that. I can’t remember a force—and I have been in a 

long, long time from the Vietnam War to now—I can’t remember 

a more professional, patriotic, and dedicated force, as well as their 

families. And so I put that as job one. We have got to retain this 

All-Volunteer Force. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Can I ask you, General, do you believe that the discussions around military retirement could impact those decisions of 

the volunteer force—— 

General CODY. Absolutely. 
24 

Mrs. DAVIS [continuing]. And do you have any thoughts about 

what the committee is doing? The Defense Business Board is recommending, as you know, going to 401(k)s. Could you weigh in on 

that? 

General CODY. We don’t know how to do 401(k)s. We don’t know 

how to do any type of that management. We live checkbook to 

checkbook. I have seen the figures on it. Be very, very careful with 

this retirement program. I have seen numbers that say that only 

13 percent of the people actually benefit from it. Yes, those are the 

people that lead. Those are the people we invested in. So we size 

an Army, we size an Air Force, it is a young man and woman’s 

game. People come in and serve and then they go out and become 

great citizens. 

Mrs. DAVIS. I am sorry, my timing—so as we look as some of 

these personnel issues that are coming up then, and I don’t know 

if any of you generals would like to comment, are there areas in 

personnel that we should be looking at that would help us be more 

sustainable, as people have suggested, of course, that it is not sustainable anymore? 

General CODY. I think your personnel costs will start going down 

as your footprint goes down because it is very expensive having 

troops in combat with combat pay and everything else. That will 

go down. We brought up save the benefit TRICARE [DOD health 

care program] 6 years ago, 4 years ago now. I think we ought to 

take a look at TRICARE again. I mean, I am retired now. I probably could pay a lot more for TRICARE than I am paying now and 

I probably should. We haven’t raised it since 1993 or 1994. I would 

be careful with it. I don’t want to hurt young sergeants and everybody else who—we got to graduate it. But I think there are some 

savings in TRICARE as well as best practices, as General Jumper 

talked about, about reducing the cost of health care. Get industry 

involved to figure out how to use generic drugs and all kind of 

other things to be more efficient. But I think TRICARE is a place 

we could go. But to keep it, but run it more efficiently. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Okay. I don’t know, Mr. Chairman, if General—did 

you want to comment on that, General Blum? 

General BLUM. I don’t think I have anything to add beyond that. 

I think General Cody has identified some ideas worth exploring. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. Mr. Coffman. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I think in terms 

of looking at savings, it is not just a matter of reducing the budget, 

but it is also looking at areas that we have to actually increase 

spending. Cyber warfare. The safety of our satellites. And looking 

at, you know, the new sort of asymmetric weapons like the antiship ballistic missile that China is coming up with. 

But with that said, I do think that that there are opportunities 

in taking a look at our force structure and seeing what we could 

emphasize in the Guard and Reserve. I do think we need to look 

at certain benefit issues and I think you mentioned retirement and 

TRICARE and those things have to be looked at. 

One question I have of you, and I have got to tell you, I think 

that our young men and women today, I think we have the most 

extraordinary military in our history. I retired in 1994 from a com-
25 

bination of Active Duty and Reserve time. But then came out of retirement 11 years later to go serve in Iraq in 2005 and 2006. And 

so I got to meet them and I just was amazed which I looked back 

when I came in the military in 1972 to going back just a night and 

day difference of our forces. 

So one question I have is that—retention rate is very high right 

now. I mean, and I think because of the professionalism that we 

have, I think people want to stay in the organization. Obviously the 

economy is a factor, although I don’t think it is the leading factor 

why people want to stay in. We have a very elite military. But we 

retained the same kind of up-and-out structure, a pretty rapid promotion system. Should we be slowing down that promotion system 

to allow more folks time in grade to be able to benefit from their 

experience, from their training that we paid for? Anybody like to 

answer that? 

General CODY. I think they have already done that, Congressman. They have made that adjustment. Clearly the promotions to 

major—captain to major were expedited only because we were 

growing the Force. In the Marine Corps and the Army, we are we 

are growing the Force and there were more slots. And so the last 

stuff I have seen, they have actually slowed it down to what you 

remembered back in the 1980s. And I think we also have to remember a captain who serves 1 year in combat has probably got 

as much experience as a captain who had 3 years back not in combat. And so we balanced it very well. The best are still getting promoted, but we also grew the Force. And I think the promotions are 

going back to be settled where they are. 

I just want to make sure—I want to make sure that I think any 

tweaks for the retirement system need to be looked at very, very 

closely. And I do think that we could look at TRICARE, but I 

wouldn’t mess with TRICARE for the Active Duty Force. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Okay. Let me ask you, we have, I think, still have 

107,000 between Europe and South Korea—I think 79,000 in Europe, and I think it is 28,000 in South Korea. Only four out of, I 

think, the 28 NATO allies are spending the minimum 2 percent 

that is required under the NATO charter, and I think two of them 

are probably doing it for the wrong purposes, Greece and Turkey. 

Are they relying too—I mean, can’t we demonstrate our commitment to them by doing joint military operations as opposed to 

maintaining those forward bases? 

General JUMPER. I think that is a very good observation, sir. And 

when I was talking about I think it is time to recalibrate our participation in certain alliances, that is probably the key one that 

needs to be reconsidered. 

I don’t know that we need to have zero participation up front. 

And I firmly believe that we need to keep our contact with our 

NATO allies close. But I also think that we need to make sure that 

we take steps to ensure they are pulling their fair share of the 

weight as well. Clearly that has fallen off over the years. 

And in Asia, of course, I think that this is the next place that 

we really have to worry about. I am not sure how much I would 

modify over there based on how volatile the situation—— 
26 

Mr. COFFMAN. My time is running out, but on South Korea, do 

you think that at this point in time we ought to bring in the families for the 28,000 there at the $13 billion of construction costs? 

General JUMPER. It can always be reviewed. I think if you are 

going to put the All-Volunteer Force people over there, you have to 

pay attention to the families. It is a great morale issue to separate 

the two. I think that that is the next area of danger we need to 

focus on, so I am not sure how much I would modify the Asian scenario. 

The COFFMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. Mr. Garamendi. 

Mr. GARAMENDI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My apologies to the 

witnesses and others. With two big committees going at the same 

time, it is back and forth. I missed a lot of what you have to say 

and I am sorry about that. 

The testimony that you gave at the outset indicated that we really need to start with a strategic vision of where we are in the world 

today and what we are likely to have in the future. I have found 

a most interesting dialogue or opportunity for a dialogue with a 

document called ‘‘A National Strategic Narrative,’’ produced by two 

members of the Armed Forces, Porter and Mykleby, that talks 

about how we need to view ourselves in the world of the future, 

and that we no longer live in a bipolar world, but rather one that 

is multifaceted with threats that can emerge very, very rapidly 

from totally unknown places, for example, the Internet. And suddenly Egypt isn’t the Egypt of yesterday, but it is something quite 

different. 

In that context, they suggested that we rethink how we use our 

military not as being the biggest, strongest dog on the street, but 

rather a big strong dog together with others, in other words, a collaborative world. I think we saw that in the Libya situation. Not 

as robust a NATO as we might like. 

I think what I would like to do is to introduce you gentlemen and 

the committee to that narrative and for us to think about that in 

the context of what we are going to have to go through, which is 

a reordering of the military. 

And what are the strategic strengths that we must preserve? You 

mentioned deterrence. Do we need 3,000 nuclear weapons or can 

we get by with 300 nuclear weapons that are properly deployed and 

safe, secure, and reliable? Those kinds of thinking. Do we need to 

have a triad, or is a dual mechanism necessary? Do we need a sixth 

fleet—or seventh fleet in the South China Sea? Or can we have a 

collaborative work with our partners? 

Those are the kind of things that I think we really need to look 

at now as we look at the reordering, the repositioning and the 

budget for the Defense Department. 

So I think what I would do is just, if you have seen that document, if you would like to comment on it, I would appreciate it. If 

you haven’t seen it, my staff will be here in a moment. I had those 

documents on my desk and they carefully picked them up and took 

them away. But they will be back. So if you have seen the document, please comment. 

General JUMPER. Yes, sir, I have seen the document. I haven’t 

read the whole thing yet, but it reminded me of a session that I 
27 

had with the great world diplomat, Lee Kuan Yew, the guy who 

founded Singapore and then ruled it for 35 years, and I was able 

to have a session with him at one time. And he said to me: America 

must never lose sight of its role as the world’s great benign superpower. And this document reminded me of his remarks. 

And I think as we reconsider our position in the world, this is 

how we need to think of ourselves from a strategic point of view 

and decide exactly what that does mean. It means for sure being 

a force for stability in the world without being the world’s policeman. It means rethinking how we do posture ourselves. 

Unfortunately, some of our experience with our allies has not 

been what it should be as you think about sharing the load, et 

cetera, because it becomes obvious very quickly to military people 

that the United States has the greatest capability, and it becomes 

very comfortable to others to live under that umbrella. 

So again—here I hearken again, let’s look the at international affairs budget and what we do to engage with nations, again, as a 

force for stability in the world that indirectly, Mr. Chairman, does 

help the military if we pay attention to our diplomatic efforts 

around the world to engage nations. These things should fit together in different ways and not really compete with each other 

when it comes to these serious discussions of cuts. 

General CODY. I agree. I haven’t read all of it, but when I read 

it, I hearken back to the QDDR [Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review] that the State Department put out which basically said we need to have a synergy between defense, diplomacy, 

and development. And quite frankly, I think we need to look at 

that as our full national security strategy. And I think what Secretary Clinton and Bob Gates started needs to be looked at. 

Mr. GARAMENDI. I would just wrap up in 10 seconds and say it 

seems to me that this is the fundamental starting point for what 

we are trying—what we must accomplish in this year and probably 

the next year ahead of us. That we take a look at this overarching 

way in which this Nation acts. 

One thing that we haven’t yet brought up is our own economic 

strength, which is a major piece of this. And I know that in the 

discussions that we hear around here, we have to maintain the defense industry’s ability to build things, and, yes, but at the same 

time we need to maintain our ability to make things in America. 

That is the overall manufacturing base and intellectual research 

base of this Nation. 

All of those things come together, it seems to me, in a way that 

is going to be different in the future. And that discussion ought to 

take place as we figure out what the Defense budget’s going to be, 

both the overall budget as well as the elements within it. And gentlemen, I would love to engage you in a long cup of coffee at some 

point to discuss that with you. 

Mr. Chairman, thank you for the extra 1 minute 25 seconds. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. General, I think I cut you off, you 

had some comment on Mr. Bartlett’s question for Mr. LoBiondo 

about the Air National Guard fighter fleet transferring missions. 

General JUMPER. I would just like to, first of all, comment as I 

did in my opening remarks about the superb relationship that the 

Air Force and the Air National Guard have maintained, and how 
28 

well the Air National Guard stepped up to significantly increase 

the pace of duty and action during these past 10 years. 

I sometimes wish that the enthusiasm that our Air National 

Guard shows for the flying missions also extended to and the same 

question would have been asked about other missions: Space, cyber 

and the support functions which are equally critical to our combat 

capability and which the Air National Guard is also very capable 

of taking on. Command and control, I should add to that too. In 

many cases, they do, I must say, they do. But we always seem to 

get down to the flying missions when we talk about comparisons 

and resources, 

And in fact, I think even Steve would admit that as the experienced—as much as we enjoy the experience of the Air National 

Guard and their pilots and especially their maintainers, it is also 

a core competency of our United States Air Force that we are able 

to get ourselves off the ground anywhere in the world in 72 hours 

to respond to whatever does emerge in an era where we have to 

anticipate these growing short-term surprises and be able to deal 

with them and react to them. 

But these are the issues that have to be discussed and balance 

is always the prime word. I don’t let these—when I was the chief 

I did not let these discussions get out of hand or off balance or tilted one way or the other in favor of one or the other. But I also insisted that we have a healthy discussion about all of the missions 

that the Air Force is responsible for and sharing all of those in 

equal proportions. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. Mr. Smith, do you any further comment? 

Mr. SMITH. Nothing further. 

The CHAIRMAN. I just would like to say in wrapping this up that 

one thing we need to remember is we have already cut in the last 

year $465 billion going forward over the next 10 years. That is already done. The chiefs are trying to figure out how that will be implemented. They have given their recommendations to the Secretary. He will be up here for a hearing next week and we will be 

able to talk some more about that. 

Ms. Davis had a question or comment, something about cuts 

should not be indiscriminatory. But if we get into the sequestration, that is just equal across the board. There will be no chance 

to weigh and let those who have the most experience figure out 

how best to utilize those cuts. That is just already done and there 

will be no discretion there. 

And so I have problems with that in two ways: The amount and 

the way it is done. And I think that until we have really digested 

the $465 billion, half of the cuts that we have done out of discretionary have come out of defense. And I just—everybody needs to 

understand that. We are not saying that defense shouldn’t be a 

part of this. It has been a heavy part. And this is the purpose of 

these hearings, is to give us a chance to let the experienced people 

tell us what these cuts are really going to mean when the rubber 

hits the road. 

So appreciate you taking the time and being with us today. And 

there will be more of these type hearings as we move forward. And 

one of the members mentioned he would like to have a long cup 
29 

of coffee with you. I think I have felt that you are there whenever 

there is a request. So I think other members, if they feel like they 

are not getting enough out of these hearings, I encourage them to 

give you a call and have some of these other discussions. There 

should be no limit on gathering information, because these things 

are very, very important. 

With that, we will end this hearing. Thank you again very much 

for your service and for being here today. This committee is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:46 a.m., the committee was adjourned.] 

A P P E N D I X 

OCTOBER 4, 2011 

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD 

OCTOBER 4, 2011 

(35) 

Statement of Hon. Howard P. ‘‘Buck’’ McKeon 

Chairman, House Committee on Armed Services 

Hearing on 

The Future of National Defense and the U.S. 

Military Ten Years After 9/11: Perspectives from 

Former Service Chiefs and Vice Chiefs 

October 4, 2011 

The House Armed Services Committee meets this morning to receive testimony on ‘‘The Future of National Defense and the U.S. 

Military Ten Years After 9/11: Perspectives from Former Service 

Chiefs and Vice Chiefs.’’ 

This hearing is the third in our series of hearings to evaluate lessons learned since 9/11 and to apply those lessons to decisions we 

will soon be making about the future of our force. In the past 

month, we have heard from former Chairmen and a Vice-Chairman 

of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and also a panel of outside defense experts. Today, we will hear from a former Chief of Staff of the Air 

Force, a Vice Chief of Staff of the Army, and a former chief of the 

National Guard Bureau. In these capacities, our witnesses were directly involved in the management, training and equipping of our 

force. This panel’s collective time of service to our nation is over 

110 years. Their knowledge of the decisionmaking process within 

the Department of Defense, as well as their cumulative years of 

service will provide this committee with vital information as we 

look to the future of our force. 

While we continue to make progress in Iraq and Afghanistan, 

and with the killing of high-profile terrorists including Osama bin 

Laden and most recently, Al Qaeda leader, Anwar al-Awlaki, I remain concerned that our Nation is slipping back into the false confidence of a September 10th mindset. Believing that we can maintain a solid defense that is driven by budget choices, not strategic 

ones, is a dangerous path for our national security. 

I am not arguing that the military can be held exempt from fiscal 

belt-tightening. Indeed, half a trillion dollars has been cut from 

DOD already—the military has absorbed about half of the deficit 

reduction measures enacted to date. But these cuts have happened 

in advance of the development of a new strategy for national defense and without any changes to the military’s roles and missions. 

Even more concerning is that if the Joint Select Committee does 

not succeed in developing and passing another deficit reduction 

plan, an additional half a trillion dollars could be cut from our military automatically. It also remains to be seen whether or not addi-
36 

tional cuts may be proposed by the Administration, even if the 

‘‘Super Committee’’ is successful. News reports last week indicated 

that the President is proposing further cuts to defense—again, 

driven by math, not strategy. 

But all this talk about dollars doesn’t translate well into actual 

impacts on the force and risk to our Nation. I hope our witnesses 

today can help us understand, based on the lessons of the last 10 

years, what strategic choices we face in the current global security 

environment and how further cuts to the military could shape 

those choices. 

The U.S. military is the modern era’s pillar of American strength 

and values. In these difficult economic times, we recognize the 

struggle to bring fiscal discipline to our Nation. But it is imperative 

that we focus our fiscal restraint on the driver of the debt, instead 

of the protector of our prosperity. With that in mind, I look forward 

to hearing from our witnesses today. 
37 

Statement of Hon. Adam Smith 

Ranking Member, House Committee on Armed Services 

Hearing on 

The Future of National Defense and the U.S. 

Military Ten Years After 9/11: Perspectives from 

Former Service Chiefs and Vice Chiefs 

October 4, 2011 

I would like to thank the witnesses for appearing here today. We 

are in a time of significant uncertainty concerning the budget, and 

the input and advice provided by General Jumper, General Cody, 

and Lieutenant General Blum will be extremely helpful in understanding the impact of potential cuts on the Services. 

Our country faces a long-term, systemic budget dilemma—we 

don’t collect enough revenue to cover our expenditures. Currently, 

we must borrow about 40 cents for every dollar the Federal Government spends. This problem must be addressed from both ends— 

spending will have to come down, and we’re going to have to generate new revenues. 

Like many, if not most, of our members here, I share the view 

that large, immediate cuts to the defense budget would have substantially negative impacts on the ability of the U.S. military to 

carry out their missions. I am also deeply concerned about cuts to 

all non-entitlement spending, which bore the brunt of the recent 

deficit deal. Furthermore, if the ‘‘Super Committee’’ fails to reach 

a deal, then cuts through sequestration will only impose deeper 

and more dangerous cuts to our military and non-entitlement 

spending such as infrastructure, education and homeland security. 

I believe that we can rationally evaluate our national security 

strategy, our defense expenditures, and the current set of missions 

we ask the military to undertake and come up with a strategy that 

requires less funding. We on this committee like to say that strategy should not be driven by arbitrary budget numbers, but by the 

same token not considering the level of available resources when 

developing a strategy is irresponsible and leads inevitably to asking our military to undertake jobs for which we do not resource 

them. We can, I believe, spend smarter and not just more. 

It is also important that we address the revenue side of our 

budget problem. Recently, some of my colleagues on this committee 

issued dire warnings about the potential impacts of additional defense budget cuts. I share their concerns, and that is why we must 

consider raising additional revenue. In order to avoid drastic cuts 

to our military and other important programs, revenue must be on 

the table. 

It is my hope that this hearing will help remind everyone here 

that we have to make some serious choices. Our budget problems 

must be looked at in a comprehensive manner. If we are serious 

about not cutting large amounts of funding from the defense budget, something else has to give. Large, immediate, across-the-board 

cuts to the defense budget, which would occur under sequestration, 
38 

would do serious damage to our national security. In order to avoid 

large cuts to the defense budget, we’re going to have to stop repeating ideological talking points and address our budget problems 

comprehensively, through smarter spending and new sources of 

revenue. 

Thank you again, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing. And 

thank you to our witnesses for appearing here today. 
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