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S. HRG. 114–765 

THE LONG–TERM BUDGETARY CHALLENGES 

FACING THE MILITARY SERVICES AND 

INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS FOR MAINTAINING 

OUR MILITARY SUPERIORITY 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

SEPTEMBER 15, 2016 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Armed Services 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov/ 

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

JOHN MCCAIN, Arizona, Chairman 

JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma 

JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama 

ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi 

KELLY AYOTTE, New Hampshire 

DEB FISCHER, Nebraska 

TOM COTTON, Arkansas 

MIKE ROUNDS, South Dakota 

JONI ERNST, Iowa 

THOM TILLIS, North Carolina 

DAN SULLIVAN, Alaska 

MIKE LEE, Utah 

LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina 

TED CRUZ, Texas 

JACK REED, Rhode Island 

BILL NELSON, Florida 

CLAIRE MCCASKILL, Missouri 

JOE MANCHIN III, West Virginia 

JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire 

KIRSTEN E. GILLIBRAND, New York 

RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut 

JOE DONNELLY, Indiana 

MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii 

TIM KAINE, Virginia 

ANGUS S. KING, JR., Maine 

MARTIN HEINRICH, New Mexico 

CHRISTIAN D. BROSE, Staff Director 

ELIZABETH L. KING, Minority Staff Director 

(II)

C O N T E N T S 

SEPTEMBER 15, 2016 

Page 

THE LONG–TERM BUDGETARY CHALLENGES FACING THE MILITARY SERVICES AND INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS FOR MAINTAINING OUR MILITARY SUPERIORITY ..................................................................................................................... 1 

Milley, General Mark A., USA, Chief of Staff of the United States Army ......... 4 

Richardson, Admiral John M., USN, Chief of Naval Operations of the United 

States Navy .......................................................................................................... 8 

Neller, General Robert B., USMC, Commandant of the United States Marine 

Corps ..................................................................................................................... 12 

Goldfein, General David L., USAF, Chief of Staff of the United States Air 

Force ...................................................................................................................... 17 

Questions for the Record ......................................................................................... 55 

(III)

(1) 

THE LONG–TERM BUDGETARY CHALLENGES 

FACING THE MILITARY SERVICES AND 

INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS FOR MAINTAINING 

OUR MILITARY SUPERIORITY 

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2016 

U.S. SENATE, 

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, 

Washington, DC. 

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:34 a.m. in Room 

SD–G50, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Senator John McCain 

(chairman) presiding. 

Committee members present: Senators McCain, Inhofe, Wicker, 

Fischer, Cotton, Rounds, Ernst, Tillis, Sullivan, Graham, Reed, 

McCaskill, Manchin, Shaheen, Gillibrand, Blumenthal, Donnelly, 

Hirono, King, and Heinrich. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN, CHAIRMAN 

Chairman MCCAIN. Good morning. The Senate Armed Services 

Committee meets this morning to receive testimony on the longterm budgetary challenges facing our military. 

I would like to welcome our witnesses: the Chief of Staff of the 

Army, General Milley; the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral 

Richardson; the Commandant of the Marine Corps, General Neller; 

and the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, General Goldfein. I thank 

each of you for your years of distinguished service and for your testimony today. 

Far too often, Washington is governed by crisis and stop-gap 

deals like continuing resolutions, omnibus spending bills, and episodic budget agreements that are a poor substitute for actually 

doing our jobs. It has become an, unfortunately, all too familiar 

cycle of partisan gridlock, political brinksmanship, and backroom 

dealing. Is it any wonder why Americans say they are losing trust 

in government? 

Through it all, we lose sight of the fact that the dysfunction of 

Washington has very real consequences for the thousands of Americans serving in uniform and sacrificing on our behalf all around the 

Nation and the world. From Afghanistan to Iraq and Syria, from 

the heart of Europe to the seas of Asia, our troops are doing everything we ask of them. But we must ask ourselves are we doing everything we can for them. Are we serving them with a similar degree of courage in the performance of our duties? The answer I say 

with profound sadness is we are not. We are not. 

2 

Over many years across Presidents and congressional majorities 

of both parties, Washington has overseen a steady explosion of our 

national debt. This is just a fact. But five years ago, rather than 

confronting the real driver of our ballooning debt, which is the 

unsustainable growth of entitlement spending, we looked the other 

way. We failed to make tough choices and necessary reforms, and 

the result was the Budget Control Act which imposed arbitrary 

caps on discretionary spending, including defense spending for a 

decade. When we failed to fix the real problem, we doubled down 

on these reckless cuts with mindless sequestration. In short, we 

lied to the American people. 

The Budget Control Act and sequestration have done nothing to 

fix our national debt. This is just mathematics. What is worse, the 

people we have punished for our failure are none other than the 

men and women of our armed services and many other important 

agencies. The world has only grown more dangerous over the past 

five years, but the resources available to our military has continued 

to decline. 

This year’s defense budget is more than $150 billion less than 

fiscal year 2011. Rising threats and declining budgets have led to 

shrinking military forces that are struggling to sustain higher operational tempo with aging equipment and depleted readiness, and 

doing so at the expense of modernizing to deal with the threats of 

tomorrow. 

Our present crisis of military readiness is not just a matter of 

training. It is also a capacity problem. Our Army, Navy, Air Force, 

and Marine Corps are too small to train for and meet our growing 

operational requirements against low-end threats while simultaneously having enough spare capacity to prepare for full spectrum 

warfare against high-end threats. As it is, our services are 

cannibalizing themselves just to keep up with the current pace of 

deployments, as recent media reports about the Air Force and Marine Corps aviation have made clear. The result is that our fighting 

forces are becoming effectively hollow against great power competitors. 

If all of this is not bad enough, there is this. We are only halfway 

through the Budget Control Act. There are five more years of arbitrary defense spending cuts. It is true that last year’s Bipartisan 

Budget Act provided some much needed relief, but this two-year 

deal is coming to an end. When it does, those arbitrary caps will 

return and remain in place through the next President’s entire first 

term. 

The Department of Defense and many of us in the Congress believe this would devastate our national defense. Yet, we are fooling 

ourselves and deceiving the American people about the true cost of 

fixing the problem. Just consider the Department’s current 5-year 

defense plan is $100 billion in total above the spending caps set by 

the Budget Control Act. In addition, roughly $30 billion of annual 

spending for base defense requirements is buried in the budget account for emergency operations, requirements that will remain for 

our military even if our present operations immediately ended, 

which of course they will not. 

What this means is that over the next five years, our Nation 

must come up with $250 billion just to pay for our current defense 

3 

strategy and our current programs of record. $250 billion just to do 

what we are planning to do right now, which I think many of us 

would agree is insufficient to meet our present, let alone our future 

challenges. A quarter of a trillion dollars. That is the real hidden 

cost above our budget caps that we must come up with over the 

next five years. 

Put simply, we have no plan as yet to pay for what our Department of Defense is doing right now, even as most of us agree that 

what we are doing at present is not sufficient for what we really 

need. Those needs are great indeed, from maintaining the capability and capacity to wage a generational fight against radical Islamic terrorism, to rebuilding a ready and modernized force, to 

deter and, if necessary, defeat high-end threats, to modernizing our 

nuclear deterrent, to investing in the next generation capabilities 

that will preserve our military technological advantage and ensure 

our troops never find themselves in a fair fight. 

The bottom line is this. From the Budget Control Act caps to the 

so-called OCO [overseas contingency operations] account, to our increasingly obsolete defense strategy, to the modernization bow 

wave that is coming for each of the services, we are lying to ourselves and the American people about the true cost of defending 

the Nation. The result is that our military’s ability to deter conflict 

is weakening, and should we find ourselves in conflict, it is becoming increasingly likely that our Nation will deploy young Americans 

into battle without sufficient training or equipment to fight a war 

that will take longer, be larger, cost more, and ultimately claim 

more American lives than it otherwise would have. 

If that comes to pass, who will be responsible? Who is to blame 

for the increasing risk to the lives of the men and women who volunteer to serve and defend our Nation? The answer is clear. We 

are, the President and the Congress, Democrats and Republicans, 

all of us. 

With budget debates looming ahead, the question now is whether 

we will find the courage we have lacked for five long years, the 

courage to put aside politics, to chart a better course, to adopt a 

defense budget worthy of the service and sacrifice of those who volunteer to put themselves in harm’s way on our behalf. 

I am committed to doing everything I can as chairman of this 

committee to accomplishing this task. I know my colleagues on this 

committee are too. Despite the odds, I am ever hopeful that together we still can. 

Senator Reed? 

STATEMENT OF SENATOR JACK REED 

Senator REED. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Let 

me join you in welcoming the members of the panel and thank 

them for their outstanding service to the Nation and ask them to 

convey our thanks to the men and women who serve so proudly in 

uniform for the United States. Thank you. 

The focus of today’s hearing is the long-term budget challenges 

confronting our Military Services. For 15 years, our armed forces 

have been in continuous military operations. While our men and 

women in uniform have performed their duties superbly and doing 

all that we have asked them to do and more, the intense operVerDate Nov 24 2008 12:51 May 01, 2018 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 C:\USERS\WR47328\DESKTOP\29881.TXT WILDA
4 

ational tempo has had an impact on our soldiers, sailors, airmen, 

and marines, their training and their equipment. On top of all that, 

the services have had to grapple with sequestration and constrained budgets, as the chairman has pointed out. 

The military leaders before us today have an important task. As 

they plan their budgets for fiscal year 2018 and beyond, they must 

anticipate emerging threats for the future and how our military 

will address and ultimately defeat those threats. As we are reminded on a daily basis, our country is facing many complicated 

and rapidly evolving challenges that do not offer easy or quick solutions. 

For example, we have seen our near-peer competitors learn from 

our past successes and make advancements of their own, particularly in the areas of precision and long-range strike, anti-access/ 

area denial, space, and cyber. As a result, the Department of Defense has embarked on a third offset strategy to address the steady 

erosion of U.S. technological superiority and recapture our qualitative advantage over our adversaries. 

We welcome our witnesses’ thoughts on how their respective 

services plan to confront these critical issues again in the context 

of these very difficult budgetary issues. 

In addition to anticipating and planning our future threats, our 

witnesses today must also ensure targeted investments are made 

to rebuild readiness levels, modernize the force, and maintain the 

wellbeing of our troops. Over the course of this year, the committee 

has repeatedly heard testimony on these issues, and I hope that 

our witnesses can provide this committee an update on the 

progress that they have made. 

Finally, defense budgets should be based on our long-term military strategy which requires the Department to focus at least five 

years into the future. Last year, Congress passed the 2015 Bipartisan Budget Act [BBA] that established the discretionary funding 

level for defense spending for fiscal year 2016 and 2017. While the 

BBA provided the Department with budget stability in the near 

term, there is no agreement for fiscal year 2018 and beyond. Therefore, without another bipartisan agreement that provides relief 

from sequestration, the Military Services will be forced to submit 

a fiscal year 2018 budget that adheres to the sequestration level 

budget caps and would undermine the investments made to rebuild 

readiness and modernization and other aspects of our military 

force. 

Not only is the issue one of budgets, but the issue is one of the 

certainty of knowing that you have budget levels not just for a year 

but for at least five years. That is another aspect we have to come 

to grips with. 

I will, indeed, welcome the witnesses’ thoughts and suggestions 

as we move forward. 

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman MCCAIN. General Milley? 

STATEMENT OF GENERAL MARK A. MILLEY, USA, CHIEF OF 

STAFF OF THE UNITED STATES ARMY 

General MILLEY. Thanks, Chairman McCain—I appreciate that— 

and Ranking Member Reed and other distinguished members of 

5 

the committee for the opportunity to appear before you today to 

discuss our Army. Thank you for your consistent support and commitment to our Army’s soldiers, civilians, and families. 

A ready army, as you know, is manned, trained, equipped, and 

well led as the foundation of the joint force in order to deter and, 

if deterrence fails, to fight and defeat a wide range of state and 

non-state actors today, tomorrow, and deep into the future. 

Although there are many challenges, as I outline below, the most 

important of which is consistent, sustained, and predictable funding over time, I still want to be clear. The United States Army is 

America’s combat force of decision, and we are more capable, better 

trained, better equipped, better led, and more lethal than any other 

ground force in the world today. We are highly valued by our allies, 

and we are feared by our enemies. The enemies know full well we 

can destroy them. We can destroy any enemy. We can destroy them 

anywhere, and we can destroy them anytime. 

But having said that, our challenge today is to sustain the 

counterterrorist and the counterinsurgency capabilities that we 

have developed to a high degree of proficiency over the last 15 consecutive years of war for many years in the future, the prediction 

of which is unknown, and simultaneously rebuild our capability in 

ground combat against higher-end, near-peer, great power threats. 

The Army prioritizes readiness in this NDAA [National Defense 

Authorization Act] because the global security environment is increasingly uncertain and complex. I anticipate that we will have to 

continue to prioritize readiness for many years to come. While we 

cannot forecast precisely when and where the next contingency will 

arise, it is my professional military view that if any contingency 

happens, it will likely require a significant commitment of U.S. 

Army forces on the ground. 

The Army is currently committed to winning our fight against 

radical terrorists during conflict in other parts of the globe. Currently, the Army provides 52 percent of all the global combatant 

commander demand for military forces, and we provide 69 percent 

of all the emerging combatant commander demand. Currently, we 

have 187,000 soldiers committed in 140 different countries globally 

conducting the Nation’s business. 

To sustain current operations at that rate and to mitigate the 

risks of deploying an unready force into future combat operations, 

the Army will continue to prioritize and fully fund readiness over 

end strength modernization and infrastructure. In other words, we 

are mortgaging future readiness for current readiness. 

We request the resources to fully man and equip our combat formations and conduct realistic combined arms combat training at 

both home station and our combat training centers [CTC]. We request continued support for our modernization in five key capability areas that we determined are lagging: aviation, command 

and control networks, integrated air and missile defense, combat 

vehicles, and emerging threat programs. 

Our near-term innovation efforts are focused on developing overmatch in mobility, lethality, mission command, and force protection 

with specific emphasis on the following systems: long-range precision fires, missile defense, directed energy weapons, ground vehiVerDate Nov 24 2008 12:51 May 01, 2018 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00009 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 C:\USERS\WR47328\DESKTOP\29881.TXT WILDA
6 

cles, vertical lift, cyber, electronic warfare, robotics, networks, and 

active protective systems for both ground and air. 

We ask your continued support for our soldiers and our families 

to recruit and retain the high level and the high quality of soldiers 

of character and competence that you have come to expect from the 

United States Army. With your support through sustained longterm, balanced, predictable resources, the Army will fund readiness 

at sufficient levels to meet current demands, build readiness for 

contingencies, and invest in the readiness of our future force. 

Thank you, Senators, for the opportunity to testify, and I look 

forward to your questions. 

[The prepared statement of General Milley follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT BY GENERAL MARK A. MILLEY

INTRODUCTION

Today, your Army is globally engaged around the world building partner capacity 

in Iraq to fight terrorism and we continue to train, advise, and assist the Afghan 

National Defense Security Forces. We are engaging our partners in Africa, and 

throughout North and South America and have committed about 100,000 soldiers 

to sustain regional stability in the Asia-Pacific. In Europe, we are actively reassuring allies, with rotational and permanently stationed forces, in the face of emerging challenges and deterring Russian aggression. In short, the Army is protecting 

important national security objectives in every region of the world against five significant security challenges: Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, and counter-terrorism. 

Predictable and consistent funding is absolutely essential for the Army to build 

and sustain current readiness and progress toward a more modern, capable future 

force. We simply cannot sustain readiness or build the Army our Nation needs in 

the future if we return to sequestration-level funding in fiscal year 2018. 

Although there are many challenges as I outline below, I want to be clear—the 

U.S. Army is America’s combat force of decision and can rapidly deploy to destroy 

any enemy in the world today. 

WHERE WE ARE

Readiness is the Army’s number one priority. Readiness determines our ability to 

fight and win in ground combat. It is the capability of our forces, as part of the Joint 

Force, to conduct the full range of military operations to defeat any enemy. Units 

that are properly manned, trained, equipped, and led are the means by which the 

Army generates the skillful application of land power with speed and violence of action in order to terminate the conflict on terms favorable to the United States. 

While the Army is reducing end-strength, we made a deliberate decision to 

prioritize readiness, reduce infrastructure maintenance, and decrease funding for 

modernization. These choices devote resources to today’s fight, but decrease investments for future modernization and infrastructure readiness, and emergent demands. 

GLOBAL DEMAND AND MANNING

The Army comprises 33 percent of the DOD force structure and sources 52 percent 

of DOD’s Combatant Command base demand for forces and 69 percent of emergent 

demand for forces. While the demand for Army units has been and is expected to 

remain high, we are reducing military end-strength in all three of our components; 

Regular Army, Army National Guard, and the Army Reserve. 

TRAINING

In the last year, the Army has made significant progress in our core warfighting 

skills across multiple types of units, but we have much work to do to achieve full 

spectrum readiness in decisive action operations. 

To build sufficient operational and strategic depth, the Army will prepare our formations for the entire range of military operations. All Army training will include 

elements of the Army Reserve, National Guard, and the Regular Army. Additionally, 

all units will require multiple iterations of individual and unit home-station ranges, 

challenging gunnery training, and realistic Combat Training Center rotations. 

7 

Our challenge is to balance the requirements of remaining regionally engaged 

while simultaneously preparing to meet the demands of a globally responsive contingency force. About a third of our Regular Army Brigade Combat Teams are currently ready for high-end combat against a nation state. We will fully fund Combat 

Training Center rotations and protect home station training to increase training frequency, rigor and readiness across the force. 

However, the impacts of reduced resourcing are being felt across the force and 

throughout Army units and installations world-wide. The increased training tempo 

required to train to high-end full spectrum tasks to meet warfighting standards 

must also be balanced against maintaining unit equipment to operational standards. 

The last key factor for improving readiness is time. Our goal is to have Regular 

Army Brigade Combat Teams achieve 60–66 percent full spectrum readiness, and 

I estimate that it will take the Army approximately four years to achieve that assuming no significant increase in demand and no sequestration levels of funding. 

EQUIPPING AND MODERNIZATION

Equipment readiness is a critical component of overall unit readiness. We have 

deliberately allocated resources to prioritize readiness of equipment for the current 

fight and we have deferred investments in modernization. Our strategy has been to 

incrementally improve on existing platforms and we are at risk to lag behind nearpeer adversaries in critical capabilities over the mid-term. 

Our short-term equipment modernization strategy will continue to focus on the 

five critical capability areas: Aviation, the Network, Integrated Air and Missile Defense, Combat Vehicles, and Emerging Threats. The Army will invest in programs 

with the highest operational return and build new systems only by exception. We 

will delay procurement of our next generation platforms and accept risk to force in 

the mid-term, but we are committed to preserve some funding for research and development. 

LEADER DEVELOPMENT

Our Army thrives in complex and uncertain environments because our soldiers, 

non-commissioned officers, and officers are well educated, trained and equipped to 

think, improvise, and adapt to ambiguous and rapidly changing conditions. Our 

strength is derived not from platforms or high-tech equipment, it comes from our 

people. We continue to recruit resilient, fit men and women of character and develop 

them into competent soldiers. Training, educating and compensating our personnel 

helps to retain the best of the best, which requires appropriate and consistent funding as much as other readiness areas. This emphasis will not change now or in the 

future as we reduce our end-strength while retaining the best talent within our 

ranks. 

INNOVATION

The Army will work with all stakeholders across the Department of Defense, 

other services, industry, research laboratories, and civilian innovators to develop 

new operating concepts and technologies. In particular, we are working with the 

Strategic Capabilities Office, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and the 

Defense Innovation Unit Experimental on innovative technologies to improve our 

current and future capabilities. Our near-term innovation efforts are focused on developing technologies to protect mission critical systems from cyber-attacks and to 

sustain overmatch in the key areas of: mobility, lethality, mission command, and 

force protection with specific emphasis on: long-range precision fires, missile defense, directed energy weapons, ground vehicles, vertical lift, cyber, electronic warfare, networks, and active protection systems (ground and air). 

ACQUISITION

Our acquisition process must be innovative, agile, and effective to maintain overmatch. Most recently, the Army announced the stand-up of the Army Rapid Capabilities Office to expedite the design, development, evaluation, procurement and 

fielding of critical combat materiel capabilities to deliver an operational effect within 

one to five years. The Army remains committed to ensuring that we make the right 

acquisition decisions and that we improve the acquisition process to maintain a 

technological advantage over adversaries and provide requisite capabilities to soldiers. 

8 

RISK

The Army prioritizes today’s readiness and accepts risk in modernization and infrastructure maintenance in the mid and long term. 

We continue to implement efficiencies and find innovative ways to preserve funding for our highest priority—increasing readiness. Over the last few years, the Army 

has significantly reduced headquarters at two-star and above echelons, adopted energy and other efficiencies, and made significant business transformation improvements. Even with these cost saving initiatives, however, we have had to make hard 

funding choices such as deferring investments in housing modernization, training 

facilities, and power projection platforms. Our fiscal year 2017 budget request represents the Army’s lowest MILCON budget since 1998. 

In the current global environment, the Army will continue to meet the demands 

of the fight against radical terrorism and the predictable demands of our geographic 

combatant commanders. Absent additional legislation, the sequestration caps set by 

the Budget Control Act of 2011 will return in fiscal year 2018, forcing the Army to 

draw down end-strength even further, reduce funding for readiness, and increase 

the risk of sending under-trained and poorly equipped soldiers into harm’s way. 

CONCLUSION

Sustaining the high levels of performance our Army has demonstrated since 1775 

requires consistent, long term, balanced and predictable funding. Without it, the 

Army must fully fund current readiness, reduce funding future readiness in modernization and infrastructure maintenance, and continue programmed end-strength 

reductions. 

The U.S. Army has made difficult choices to sustain current readiness for today 

and to be prepared for tomorrow. We request the support of Congress to predictably 

fund the Army at balanced and sufficient levels to meet current demands and to 

build a more capable, modern, ready force for future contingencies. 

Chairman MCCAIN. Admiral Richardson? 

STATEMENT OF ADMIRAL JOHN M. RICHARDSON, USN, CHIEF 

OF NAVAL OPERATIONS OF THE UNITED STATES NAVY 

Admiral RICHARDSON. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Ranking 

Member Reed, distinguished members of the committee, thank you 

for the opportunity to appear before you today and thank you for 

your sustained support to our Navy and our Nation. 

I have been traveling around a fair amount recently to put eyes 

onto our Navy around the world. As you know, the problems they 

face are getting more complex by the day. But your naval team is 

working hard, and our sailors, marines, and civilians are simply astounding in their skill and dedication. We must focus on them with 

everything we do to respect their mission and their dedication. 

I can describe our current challenges in terms of a triple whammy. 

The first whammy, as we have said, is the continued high demand for our naval forces. We just marked the 15th anniversary 

of 9/11. The past 15 years of high OPTEMPO [operational tempo] 

in support of the wars has put tremendous wear and tear on our 

ships and aircraft. It has also taken a toll on the sailors that take 

those platforms out to sea, on the skilled Navy civilians that build 

and repair them, and on our family members. 

The second whammy is budget uncertainty. Eight years of continuing resolutions, including a year of sequestration, have driven 

additional cost and time into just about everything that we do. The 

services are essentially operating in three fiscal quarters per year 

now. Nobody schedules anything important in the first quarter. 

The disruption that this uncertainty imposes translates directly 

into risk to our Navy and our Nation. 

9 

The third whammy is the resource levels in the Budget Control 

and Bipartisan Budget Acts. Funding levels require us to prioritize 

achieving full readiness only for our deploying units. These are 

ready for full spectrum operations, but we are compromising the 

readiness of those ships and aircraft that we will have to surge to 

achieve victory in a large conflict. We have also curtailed our modernization in a number of areas critical to staying ahead of our potential adversaries. 

One more related point. Mr. Chairman, this highlights a point 

you brought up. Your Navy thrives on long-term stability, and 

when putting together shipbuilding plans, it is necessary to think 

in terms of decades. While I know we are mostly here to talk about 

the current challenges, I feel I must say I was struck by the recent 

Congressional Budget Office report updating their long-term budget and economic outlook. In it, they predict that within the decade, 

discretionary spending, which includes defense, will drop to the 

lowest levels in more than 50 years. It makes crystal clear that it 

is vital that we all dive in and get to work on this problem now 

for the security of our country. 

In terms of a solution, we must work as partners. On one hand, 

we must work to set sufficient resource levels and restore stability 

to the budgeting process. On the other hand, we must ensure—I 

must ensure that every dollar that the American taxpayer gives 

the Navy is spent as efficiently and effectively as possible. I am 

committed to meeting my responsibilities here and in partnering 

with you as we go forward. 

Together with our sister services, your Navy is here to protect 

our great Nation. Your sailors and civilians continue to do everything that is being asked of them, even as the demands continue 

to grow. Working together with you, I am committed to finding a 

way to address these challenges. 

Thank you, sir, and I look forward to your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Admiral Richardson follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT BY ADMIRAL JOHN M. RICHARDSON

Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Reed, and distinguished members of the Armed 

Services Committee, thank you for the opportunity to discuss the Navy’s current 

and future fiscal needs. I have appeared before you and your colleagues in the Congress multiple times to tell this story over the last 14 months; unfortunately, little 

has changed during that time. The gap between the demands the Navy is facing 

and the solutions available to address them is growing, and remains my deepest 

concern. As has always been true, each of the Military Services seeks to find the 

best balance between readiness for today’s operations and ensuring adequate preparation for the future. The solution required to establish the best balance includes 

two broad dimensions: how much resources are provided, and how Navy uses those 

resources to best effect. 

Regarding how much resources are provided, there is no question that the fiscal 

limits imposed by the Budget Control Act (BCA), application of the sequester mechanism, and even the slightly relaxed limits in the Bipartisan Budget Act have made 

finding this balance much more difficult. The Navy has seen increasing pressure on 

its budget since President’s Fiscal Year (FY) 2014 request. Against that baseline, 

our funding has been cut by $30 billion, to include a $5 billion reduction reflected 

in the pending fiscal year 2017 proposal. 

Reduced funding levels are just one of aspect of the ‘‘triple whammy’’ that the 

Navy faces. Those cuts come at a time when continued mission demands result in 

high operational tempo, and there is persistent uncertainty about when budgets will 

be approved. The combination of these factors has resulted in Navy incurring substantial ‘‘readiness debt,’’ just like carrying a debt on a credit card. 

10 

The operational demands on the Navy remain high. The maritime security environment is becoming increasingly congested and competitive, when technology is advancing and being adopted at unprecedented rates, and when competition in the information domain is permeating every aspect of our existence. China and Russia are 

leveraging these trends to expand both their capabilities and capacity, and are making the maritime competition felt both at sea and in the air. North Korea’s missile 

programs continue to advance and their provocations persist. Iranian forces vacillate 

between professional and more threatening actions on the sea, raising the potential 

for miscalculation, and ISIL continues to demonstrate its ability to threaten America and its interests. 

In response to these challenges, the Navy’s sustained operational tempo has been 

high. To meet demands, the Navy continues to extend deployments and stress our 

platforms beyond projections. Our analysis from the last 15 years of conflict shows 

that a seven-month deployment is sustainable. But between late 2013 and the end 

of 2015, the average deployment for our carrier strike groups was nine months. We 

are currently taking steps to return to our seven-month goal as rapidly as possible, 

but the need to support the fight against ISIL recently led us to extend the deployments of the USS Harry S. Truman and USS Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike 

Groups to eight and eight and a half months respectively. 

The effects of this high operational tempo manifest themselves through increased 

wear and tear on ships, aircraft, and people. As we conduct much-needed repairs, 

the average amount of work needed for the 34 ships currently in private shipyards 

is exceeding our projections by 35 percent. For aircraft, our planned maintenance 

in depot work periods for legacy F/A–18s is taking 345 days to return them to safe 

flying status, almost double the 180 days we had planned. This results from extended operations and increased use of our systems, which causes material conditions to degrade faster than anticipated. Longer maintenance cycles have operational implications, and often have a cascading effect. Aircraft carrier strike group 

deployments are just one example: last year, the USS Dwight D Eisenhower’s scheduled dry dock repairs had to be extended by nine months. In order to meet mission 

requirements, the USS Harry S Truman’s maintenance period was cut short so she 

could deploy in place of Eisenhower. The deferred work on the Truman will now be 

rolled into her upcoming maintenance period that begins later this month. For surface combatants, the Congress is currently considering reprogramming actions that 

will help us to address cost growth and support planned maintenance availabilities 

for three destroyers in this fiscal year, but sustained budget pressure and higher 

than expected maintenance volume has already led to delaying an attack submarine 

maintenance period beyond this fiscal year. 

Our people are also feeling the strain. While we continue to meet both our recruiting and retention goals in the aggregate, these numbers mask lower retention for 

certain heavily stressed specialties like SEALs (26 percent less than the goal from 

2013 to 2015) and surface nuclear officers (14 percent less than the goal over the 

same period). Navy aviation is another area where this is a concern. We are seeing 

declines in officer retention for multiple grades, and bonuses are not proving fully 

effective. Though we are still able to meet our manning needs, these trends are particularly worrisome given the projected increases in civilian aviation hiring. This 

fraying of the team represents a grave threat to our future. We ask a lot of our sailors, and they expect very little in return. At a minimum, we owe them the ability 

to sustain a personal and family life as they pursue their Navy careers. 

Constrained resources, reduced funding levels, combined with operational and related maintenance challenges, have been exacerbated by budget uncertainty. Building and maintaining high-end ships and aircraft requires long term stability and 

commitment. Without it, costs grow and work takes longer. Skilled workers leave 

the workforce—many don’t return. Private industry defers investments in necessary 

process improvements. Despite these obstacles, recovery from our current maintenance backlog is underway—but it will take time. We must find a way to restore 

the trust and confidence that underpin the crucial relationship with our acquisition 

and maintenance workforce. Our ability to achieve true effectiveness and efficiency 

has been undermined by budget instability, workforce limitations, and eight—now 

likely nine—straight years of budget uncertainty and continuing resolutions. 

The impact of continuing resolutions is significant. Navy leaders have essentially 

been managing an enterprise, with a budget the size of a ‘‘Fortune 10 Company,’’ 

in what amounts to three fiscal quarters per year. This compromises our mission, 

and drives inefficiency and waste into all that we do. For example, a short term continuing resolution requires us to break what would otherwise be single annual contract actions into multiple transactions. This results in a 20 percent increase in the 

overall number of funding documents for activities like base support and facilities 

maintenance, and fails to take advantage of savings from contractors who could betVerDate Nov 24 2008 12:51 May 01, 2018 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00014 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 C:\USERS\WR47328\DESKTOP\29881.TXT WILDA
11 

ter manage their workload and pass on lower costs to the Navy. These redundant 

efforts drive additional time and cost into the system, for exactly the same output. 

As our first priority, Navy leaders ensure that every single unit we send forward 

on deployment is fully prepared to conduct its mission. Doing so at current budget 

levels forces difficult choices about readiness levels of the force we have in reserve, 

and the resultant length of time that would be needed if we are called upon to 

‘‘surge’’ that force in response to a large conflict or emergent contingency. For example, we are falling short in the numbers of ready aircraft and the parts to support 

them. This means it will take more time and training if there were a need to push 

them forward in response to a crisis. We have also been forced to rely upon contingency funding to augment our base budget. For example, our fiscal year 2017 budget 

proposal funds only 20 of the 24 steaming days per quarter for non-deployed unit 

training and readiness—the four remaining days are reflected in our contingency request. If contingency funding is curtailed, the loss of steaming days will directly impact the surface fleet’s training and readiness to conduct exercises at sea for basic, 

intermediate, and advanced training. 

The Navy’s uncompromising commitment to preserving the readiness of the forces 

deploying today also affects investments in our future readiness, as reflected in our 

modernization accounts. Some examples of this tension include lower funding for 

Counter Electronic Attack Kits to defeat high end threats; continued procurement 

for next generation F–35C aircraft; additional advanced tactical cryptologic and 

cryptologic support tools; additional AIM–9X missiles; and a modernized DDG combat system that leverages the latest advances in attack capabilities. These are critical modernization capabilities that are currently not funded at desired levels. 

My top modernization priority, and greatest concern, is adequate, stable funding 

for the Ohio Replacement Program (ORP) while still providing a fleet that will meet 

other important Navy missions. 

In the immediate future, January 2017 is planned to be a major ORP milestone 

when we transition from research and development to ship construction funding in 

order to conduct detailed design work. The absence of an approved budget puts at 

risk this transition, and the Program as a whole. If we cannot find a way to begin 

this work by the beginning of the calendar year, ORP will almost certainly experience unnecessary cost growth, as well as experience delays that threaten the conduct of an existential mission that we have covered continuously since 1960. I welcome the opportunity to provide any additional information to further explain the 

imperative of keeping this program on track. 

I have other concerns as well. We foresee future shortfalls in our Attack Submarines, Future Surface Combatants (including Destroyers and Frigates), in strike 

fighter aircraft, and in facilities. We are taking steps to mitigate all of those shortfalls as best we can. For example, a major part of our aviation ‘‘get well plan’’ rests 

on a multifaceted strategy that involves extending the service lives of the F/A–18s; 

improving the capabilities of the F/A–18 Super Hornets to address current and 

emerging threats; getting F–35s built on time, in sufficient numbers, and out to the 

fleet; and pushing unmanned aircraft out to the flight deck. Our MQ–25 Stingray 

program is the leading edge of this effort, and I am driving this as quickly as possible so we can capitalize on the step increase in capability unmanned systems will 

offer us in the future. 

Another area of concern is our shore infrastructure. It is aging, and we currently 

carry a facilities maintenance backlog of over $5.5 billion—an amount that is growing at $600 million annually. We are prioritizing funding those projects that resolve 

safety deficiencies and repair the most mission critical facilities, but this is far short 

of what is needed to support a reasonable quality of life and work for the sailors, 

civilians, and families that make up our Navy team. 

The other important dimension to closing the gap between mission requirements 

and solutions is how the Navy uses our resources to best effect. As I’ve previously 

testified, budget constraints are forcing choices that limit our naval capabilities in 

the face of growing threats. I look forward to providing any additional support I can 

to inform discussions about how best to address those constraints, and would be especially grateful for any solution that offered greater budgetary stability. 

But I also share some of the responsibility to address the gap between Navy missions and the resources we have to address them. While I do not write the amount 

of the Navy’s check, I can ensure that we are spending what we get to greatest effect. I see changing how we do business to be faster and more efficient as both a 

moral and a warfighting imperative. 

To that end, I am working to the limits of my authority to bring greater speed 

to our acquisition process without compromising the discipline ingrained in our 

practice. We are increasing our emphasis on rapid prototyping and experimentation 

and simplifying our bureaucracy to the maximum extent possible, seeking input and 

12 

ideas not only from within but from our traditional and non-traditional industry 

partners. This will save money. Even more importantly, it will put capabilities in 

the hands of our sailors that they need to remain superior to adversaries who are 

gaining on us in many key technology areas. 

Given the pace at which things are changing, I also owe you hard thinking about 

our future needs and how we can best address them. We are nearing completion 

of our assessment of future fleet size, composition, and capabilities, which is being 

updated to reflect contemporary missions and threats. We are also engaged in a 

wide set of studies, wargames, experimentation, and analysis to think through new 

ways to ensure the Navy retains our advantage in an environment that is dynamic, 

uncertain, and accelerating everywhere we look. We have clarified roles and responsibilities for thinking through the near, mid, and far term that will bring greater 

coherence and rigor to our plans, and are taking a more strategic approach to allocating the resources in support of those efforts. And we are doing all of this at the 

same time we are reducing our headquarters staffs, consistent with your direction. 

I am convinced that these adjustments, while painful, will force us to become more 

creative and effective as we continue to downsize. 

In sum, taking all of factors into account, the fiscal year 2017 budget request represents our best proposal to strike the appropriate balance between today and tomorrow, given available funding. The Navy’s budget addresses our gaps on a 

prioritized basis, takes measured steps to improve current readiness, and starts to 

accelerate investments in some of the capabilities most important to maintaining a 

competitive advantage over our adversaries. 

Looking forward, I remain deeply concerned about the gap between what the 

American people expect of their Navy now and for the foreseeable future, and the 

available resources to deliver on those expectations. Your Navy team has always 

and will always do everything that is asked of them, and every ship and aircraft 

being sent forward is fully prepared to conduct its mission. The strain on the depots, 

labs, shipyards, logisticians and others that allow us to maintain this standard— 

which we will not compromise—is substantial. We are taking every step we can to 

relieve it. For the Navy, the size of this gap is likely to grow as the nation’s strategic challenges increase in number and complexity, and as resources in both the 

short and longer term remain tight. A return to reliable and predictable budgeting 

is equally important. To fulfill our responsibility to be effective stewards of the resources we receive, we are doing all that we can to bring to bear the ingenuity and 

creativity that has characterized your Navy throughout its history. Thank you, and 

I look forward to your questions. 

Chairman MCCAIN. General Neller? 

STATEMENT OF GENERAL ROBERT B. NELLER, USMC, 

COMMANDANT OF THE UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS 

General NELLER. Chairman McCain, Ranking Member Reed, distinguished members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear today and talk about your marines. I thank you 

for your support of marines, sailors that serve with marines, our 

civilian marines, and our families. 

Marines have a unique perspective on readiness based on the intent of Congress. We are the Nation’s force in readiness, and being 

ready is central to our identity as part of the Navy/Marine Corps 

team. 

That said, Mr. Chairman, my understanding of the purpose of 

this hearing is for the Service Chiefs to provide our best military 

advice on our current and future readiness challenges. My experience in the Marine Corps has been to make do with what we have 

been given. That is just the way I was raised, and I have never 

been comfortable asking for anything more. I also understand there 

are many competing fiscal requirements that this Congress has to 

deal with. 

However, based on the current top line in the future budget projections and though we are meeting our current requirements, I believe we are now pushing risk and the long-term health of the force 

13 

into the future. As an example, we submitted an unfunded priority 

list of approximately $2.6 billion, which is the largest we have ever 

submitted. 

The global security environment drives our requirements, and requirements equal commitments. Your marines are as busy and as 

committed now as during the height of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Current OPTEMPO balanced against fiscal reductions, 

instability of continuing resolutions, and the threat of sequestration during the past few years have driven us to critically review 

the allocation of our resources in order to meet these commitments. 

We, like the other services, make tough choices every day, and 

we are facing our readiness challenges head on. Our readiness has 

been to deployed and next-to-deploy units. Current readiness shortfalls in aviation, facility sustainment, future modernization, retention of critical skills, and building the depth on our ready bench 

forces at home are our primary concerns. 

That said, we have not stood idly by in planning for our future. 

I am confident we have identified our requirements for readiness 

recovery and improvements, and we are making progress slowly, 

but progress nonetheless. Our Force 2025 initiative is identifying 

the requirements of our future Marine Corps, balanced against fiscal reality. Force 2025 addresses current capability shortfalls, 

sustainment of capacity, and future manpower requirements to 

fight on the 21st century battlefield. 

Fiscal constraints necessarily bring tradeoffs, and to paraphrase 

one of my predecessors, we will give you the most ready Marine 

Corps the Nation can afford. The Marine Corps remains good stewards of what we are given, and we will generate the maximum 

readiness possible with the resources we are provided. We will create and generate a Marine Corps that is agile, ready, and lethal. 

Working side by side with Congress, the other services, and our 

Navy shipmates especially, you can count on your marines to meet 

and exceed the standards the American people have set for us. 

I look forward to your questions. 

[The prepared statement of General Neller follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT BY GENERAL ROBERT B. NELLER

INTRODUCTION

The landscape and pace of the 21st century demands a ready Marine Corps to buy 

time, decision space, and options for our Nation’s leaders. All Marines, past and 

present, understand the expectations of the American people and their elected leaders—to answer the Nation’s call, fight, and win. Marine Corps capabilities and the 

posture of our force would not be possible without the support and actions of the 

Congress. A balanced Marine Corps is a force that is healthy, has a sustainable 

operational tempo, is able to train with the needed equipment for all assigned missions, and has a reasonable quality of life across the force. The result of this balance 

is optimally trained and equipped forces that deploy when planned, with the ideal 

quantity of forces (capacity), on the required timeline with a steady reserve of nondeployed forces that can surge to meet large scale contingencies and operational 

plans. Today’s force is capable and our forward deployed forces are ready to fight, 

but we are fiscally stretched to maintain readiness across the depth of the force in 

the near term, and to modernize to achieve future readiness. 

OUR THREATS

Multi-dimensional security threats challenge all aspects of our national power and 

security. The evolution and expansion of the information domain, advanced robotics, 

and improved weapons technologies are causing threats to emerge with increased 

14 

speed and lethality. While your Marines and Sailors have been and remain operationally committed in the current fight, our enemies and potential adversaries have 

not stood idle. They have developed new capabilities which now equal, or in some 

cases exceed, our own. This unstable and increasingly dangerous world situation is 

further complicated by a constrained resource environment from which we must 

continue current operations, reset our equipment, maintain our warfighting readiness, and modernize the force. We continue to make tough choices and balance our 

available resources to meet current operational commitments and, at the same time, 

achieve tomorrow’s readiness. 

OUR READINESS

Marines have a unique perspective on readiness. The Congressional intent to 

serve as the ‘‘Nation’s Force-in-Readiness’’ guides who we are and what we do— 

being ready is central to our identity as Marines. As a force, we must remain ready 

to fight and win across the range of military operations and in all five warfighting 

domains—maritime, land, air, cyber, and space. The emerging technologies and 

threats of the 21st century demand a modernized force with new capabilities that 

complement our traditional warfighting skills and equipment. The fiscal reductions 

and budget instability of the past few years have negatively impacted our current 

and future readiness. As resources have diminished, the Marine Corps has protected 

the near-term operational readiness of its deployed and next-to-deploy units in order 

to meet operational commitments; this has come at a cost. The current operational 

risk to the Marine Corps is tangible. 

AMPHIBIOUS WARSHIPS AND OPERATIONS

Decreased quantity and availability of Navy Amphibious warships, the preferred 

method of deploying and employing Marine Corps capabilities, have resulted in establishing land-based Special Purpose Marine Air Ground Task Forces (SPMAGTFs) 

to compensate so the Marine Corps can meet operational commitments and ensure 

timely response to crises. Where an Amphibious Ready Group/Marine Expeditionary 

Unit (ARG/MEU) may have been the response force of choice in the past, these 

SPMAGTFs have been called on to conduct operations in support of Geographic 

Combatant Commands. 

To be the Nation’s expeditionary force-in-readiness the Marine Corps must remain 

a naval combined arms expeditionary force. Our naval heritage is based on more 

than tradition: it is mandated by law as our primary service responsibility. As the 

service with the primary Department of Defense Directive and title 10 responsibility 

for the development of amphibious doctrine, tactics, techniques, and equipment, our 

capabilities are reliant on the Nation’s investment in our partnered Navy programs. 

This requires the proper balance of amphibious platforms, surface connectors, and 

naval operating concepts to shape our force explicitly as part of the Joint Force. 

The Navy and Marine Corps Team require 38 amphibious warships, with an operational availability of 90 percent, to support two Marine Expeditionary Brigades, 

and to provide the Nation a forcible entry capability. The Marine Corps fully supports the efforts of the Secretary of the Navy and Chief of Naval Operations to balance amphibious platforms and surface connectors that facilitate operational maneuver from the sea and ship-to-objective maneuver. The Long Range Ship Strategy 

(LRSS) increases the amphibious warship inventory to 34 by fiscal year 2022. 

We appreciate Congress providing the funding to procure a 12th LPD and the 

funding for a second ship with the same hull form. The LPD and the LXR (using 

the LPD hull form) represent the Department of the Navy’s commitment to a modern expeditionary fleet. 

‘‘READY BENCH’’ 

The Marine Corps will continue to prioritize the readiness of deployed and nextto-deploy units over non-deployed units. Our deploying units are ready, while our 

non-deployed commands lack sufficient resources to meet the necessary personnel, 

training, and equipment readiness levels to respond today. To meet Congress’ intent 

that we remain the Nation’s force-in-readiness, the Marine Corps requires a ‘‘ready 

bench’’ that is able to deploy with minimal notice and maximum capability. Commitment of regional SPMAGTFs removes regimental-level headquarters and associated 

ground, aviation, and logistics elements from their parent Marine Expeditionary 

Force, which commits leadership and forces of what previously was the ‘‘ready 

bench.’’ This requirement does not allow these units the stability or time for additional training, professional development, and readiness to respond to a major contingency. 

15 

AVIATION

For several years, our aviation units have been unable to adequately meet our aircrew training requirements, primarily due to Ready Basic Aircraft (RBA) shortfalls. 

To remedy this critical situation, we have developed an extensive plan to recover 

or improve readiness across every Type/Model/Series (T/M/S) in the current inventory, while continuing the procurement of new aircraft to ensure future readiness. 

In executing this plan, we are seeing slow but steady improvements in aviation 

readiness, but the plan requires sustained funding and time. The recovery and 

sustainment of our current fleet is necessary to support both training and 

warfighting requirements. Each T/M/S requires attention and action in specific 

areas: maintenance, supply, depot backlog, and in-service repairs. 

Operational tempo has increased the utilization and stretched the sustainability 

of our most in-demand aviation assets. To continue to meet operational commitments, we are reducing our MV–22 footprint from 12 to 6, and our KC–130J footprint from 4 to 3 for our SPMAGTFs in CENTCOM and AFRICOM. To reduce risk 

in the stressed USMC TACAIR force, we have reduced F–18 squadron aircraft levels 

from 12 to 10. 

Over the past year, the Marine Corps committed nearly every MV–22 Osprey pilot 

to source all of its global commitments, and the increased utilization rates on these 

airframes affects the longevity of their service life. Exacerbating our concerns in 

aviation is a potential exodus of pilots and maintenance personnel to join civilian 

airlines. We anticipate requiring additional fiscal resources in future budgets to provide bonus incentives to remain competitive and keep the talent we have invested 

in. With the continued support of Congress, Marine Aviation can recover its readiness by re-capitalizing our aging fleet, while at the same time procuring new aircraft to meet our future needs and support our ground forces. 

GROUND FORCES

The Marine Corps is also executing readiness initiatives with our ground equipment. Our post-combat reset strategy and Equipment Optimization Plan (EOP) are 

key components of the overall ground equipment ‘‘Reconstitution’’ effort. The Marine 

Corps has reset 90 percent of its ground equipment, with 61 percent returned to 

the Operating Forces and our strategic equipment programs. This strategic war reserve is our geographically prepositioned combat equipment, located both afloat and 

ashore where it makes the most sense to respond to contingencies. We remain focused on this recovery effort and project its completion in May 2019. This servicelevel strategy would not have been possible without the continued support of Congress and the hard work of your Marines. That said, our ground forces require modernization to replace legacy capabilities in addition to development of new capabilities to be effective on the modern battlefield. 

BASES, STATIONS, AND FACILITIES

Improving the current state of our facilities is the single most important investment to support training, operations, and quality of life. The Marine Corps has developed a Facility Sustainment, Restoration, and Modernization (FSRM) initiative 

to achieve this requirement. Our 2017 budget proposes funding FSRM at 74 percent 

of the OSD Facilities Sustainment Model. This reduced funding level is an area of 

concern because our bases and stations are more than where we work and live— 

they are platforms from which we train and generate readiness. The sustainment 

of military construction (MILCON) funding is crucial to managing operational training and support projects. As we transition to new capabilities and realign our forces 

in the Pacific, adequate MILCON is a key enabler for the Marine Corps’ future success. 

Readiness is not just in our equipment supply and maintenance, but also in the 

quality and challenging nature of our training through the mental, spiritual, and 

physical readiness of Marines and Sailors across the force. Readiness is the result 

of a variety of factors: commitment of our leadership; standards-based inspections; 

evaluated drills and training exercises; and an understanding that the call to respond to crises can come at any time. Our Marines and Sailors know we must be 

ready and able to answer. 

TRAINING

Organizing and executing high quality training is not easy. It takes time, deliberate thought, and effort. Our approach to training is to emphasize the basics: combined arms, competency in the use of our weapons and systems, and expeditionary 

operations; but also to reemphasize operations in a degraded command, control, 

16 

communications, computers and intelligence (C4I) environment, camouflage/deception, operations at night, operations in a nuclear, biological and chemical (NBC) environment, and decision-making in rapidly unfolding and uncertain situations. We 

must provide opportunities to experiment and work with the latest technological advances. 

MODERNIZATION

The Marine Corps must continue to evolve. The change we see in the 21st century 

is as rapid and dramatic as the world has ever known. The Marine Corps’ modernization and technology initiatives must deliver future capabilities and sustainable readiness. The Marine Corps must continue to develop and evolve the Marine 

Air Ground Task Force (MAGTF), ensuring it is able to operate in all warfighting 

domains. To do so, Marines are re-invigorating experimentation of new concepts in 

order to advance our capabilities. 

The ability to properly plan achieves stability and predictability for our personnel 

and families, ensures ample time to train, and fosters development of our small unit 

leaders. Effective planning produces unit cohesion and leadership in our operating 

forces, and financial predictability for our necessary modernization programs. The 

Marine Corps’ goal is to retain our tactical advantage across the range of military 

operations with the most capable systems today and in the future. Our end state 

is to field and operationalize ongoing programs, and continue to develop solutions 

that will enhance institutional capabilities and retain our tactical advantage across 

the range of military operations. 

Modernization is a key part of our future readiness. The recapitalization of our 

force is essential to our future readiness with investments in ground combat vehicles, aviation, command and control, and digitally interoperable protected networks. 

The Marine Corps has important combat programs under development that need 

your continued support. The Amphibious Combat Vehicle (ACV) will replace our 

aging Amphibious Assault Vehicle (AAV), which is now more than four decades old. 

The Joint Strike Fighter will not only replace three aging platforms, but provides 

transformational warfighting capabilities for the future. 

Our ground combat vehicles like the Light Armored Vehicle (LAV) have an average age of 33 years and our M1A1 tanks have an average age of 26 years. The Marine Corps is grateful for Congress’ support of our wartime acquisition and reset efforts of the MRAP, HMMWV, and the contracting of the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle 

(JLTV). The increasingly lean budgets of fiscal year 2016 and fiscal year 2017 will 

provide increased readiness challenges and cause shortfalls in key areas. 

OUR CHALLENGES

As recently as the 1990s, the Marine Corps’ operational tempo was relatively predictable and sustainable (1:3 deployment-to-dwell.) Marines were home for approximately 18 months and deployed for 6 months. There was a ‘‘healthy bench’’ of nondeployed forces to surge in time of major contingency, such as Operations Desert 

Shield and Desert Storm. Since the formal conclusion of Operations Iraqi Freedom 

and Enduring Freedom, the Marine Corps, like the other Military Services, has not 

had the benefit of an ‘‘interwar’’ period to reset and reconstitute our force. Fifteen 

years of continuous combat have created a high operational tempo, adding significant stress on the force, specifically on our people, our equipment (particularly aviation) and our readiness. There has not been a post-war intermission to reset the 

force. 

Today’s Marines (and Sailors) are deploying at a rate comparable to the height 

of our commitment during Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom (1:2 

deployment-to-dwell) with an end strength of only 183,500. The stress on our force 

will continue as we decrease to the currently-planned end strength of 182,000. To 

mitigate our current operational tempo, return to a sustainable 1:3 deployment-todwell ratio, retain necessary combat capability, and grow future capabilities, the 

Marine Corps will need to be larger, as such our end strength needs to be revisited.’’ 

Requirements will likely drive the future force to consist of more senior Marines 

overall. A more senior force will be more expensive to maintain. Without an end 

strength increase and associated funding we will be forced to trade capacity and/ 

or capability to build the force we believe we will need. 

The Marine Corps is now on its way down to 182,000 marines by the end of fiscal 

year 2017. Although our recruiting force continues to meet our recruiting goals, we 

are challenged to retain certain occupational fields like infantry and aviation. The 

21st century demands capabilities in 5th Generation Fighter Aircraft (F–35), Cyber 

Warfare, Information Operations, Special Operations, Embassy Security Guards, 

and the Security Cooperation Group that advises and assists our allies and partner 

17 

nations. The Marine Corps must continue to maintain the skill sets we need today, 

and develop future skill sets with quality Marines. 

The character of the 21st century is rapid evolution. Our potential adversaries 

have evolved, and it is imperative that we keep pace with change. The Marine Corps 

is no longer in a position to generate current readiness and reset our equipment, 

while sustaining our facilities and modernizing to ensure our future readiness. The 

efforts of the 114th Congress provided sufficient resources to support the Marine 

Corps’ near-term readiness, and we thank the Congress for this fiscal stability. 

However, current funding levels increasingly stretch the Nation’s Ready Force. This 

is not healthy for your Marine Corps or for the security of our Nation as we prepare 

for future readiness. 

Unstable fiscal environments prevent the deliberately planned, sustained effort 

needed to recover current readiness of our legacy equipment in the near term, and 

to modernize in the longer term. The harmful effects of ‘‘sequestration’’ are well 

known and will continue to harm the Marine Corps if they continue. A BBA II budget that allows flexibility in distributing funding cuts according to service discretion 

is certainly preferable to sequestration, but still does not meet our readiness requirements. A Service Chief manages uncertainty and risk through planning. The 

2017 budget has yet to be approved. Decisions in the 2017 budget will affect the 

2018 program, which will be impacted by sequestration or BCA caps if the BCA is 

not repealed. 

Threats to our Nation remain constant. The Services have become all too accustomed to Continuing Resolutions (CR). A short-term CR of three months or less is 

undesirable but manageable, but a longer duration CR dramatically increases risk 

to an already strained fiscal environment and disrupts predictability and our ability 

to properly plan and execute a budget and a 5-year program. 

CONCLUSION

The Marine Corps will continue to provide trained and ready forces to meet current operational requirements. However, without consistent sustained funding we 

cannot rebuild and recapitalize our readiness. We have readiness recovery and future modernization plans to address aviation, ground forces, and facilities, bases 

and stations. We can re-establish our ‘‘ready bench’’ to ensure the Marine Corps has 

greater depth to respond to crises or contingencies. With the continued support of 

Congress, the Marine Corps can maintain ready forces today and modernize to generate readiness in the future. The wisdom of the 82nd Congress, and reaffirmed by 

the 114th Congress, remains valid today—the vital need of a strong force-in-readiness. The Marine Corps remains committed to be ready to go when we are called. 

Chairman MCCAIN. Thank you, General. 

General Goldfein? 

STATEMENT OF GENERAL DAVID L. GOLDFEIN, USAF, CHIEF 

OF STAFF OF THE UNITED STATES AIR FORCE 

General GOLDFEIN. Thank you, Chairman McCain, Ranking 

Member Reed, and distinguished members of the committee. It is 

an honor to be here and to be a member of this JCS [Joint Chiefs 

of Staff] team, serving beside men I have known for years, fought 

with, and admire. 

In the interest of brevity, Chairman, you and Ranking Member 

Reed asked five key questions in your letter to us requesting this 

hearing. 

You asked, what are the Air Force’s modernization needs? We 

need to maintain stable, predictable funding for the F–35, the KC– 

46, and the B–21 in order to outpace our adversaries. At the same 

time, shoulder to shoulder with the Navy, we must modernize our 

aging nuclear enterprise. While we continue to extend the life of 

our existing fleets, we need the flexibility to retire aging weapon 

systems and reduce excess infrastructure in order to afford the 

technology needed to maintain our advantage, given adversary advancements in satellite-enabled precision, stealth, cruise and ballistic missiles, ISR [intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance], 

18 

and other anti-access/area denial capabilities that continue to proliferate worldwide. 

You asked, how will the Air Force regain full spectrum readiness? It starts with people. Our Bipartisan Budget Act end 

strength totals 492,000 airmen for fiscal year 2017, 317,000 of 

which are Active Duty. Based upon current and projected global demands for air power to deter and, if required, defeat challenges 

presented by China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and violent extremism, we respectfully request your support to grow our force to 

321,000 Active Duty airmen by the end of fiscal year 2017. This remains our top priority in the current budget request. 

You asked, how will the Air Force maintain its technological 

edge? We are laser-focused on fighter, tanker, and bomber recapitalization, nuclear modernization, preparing for a war that could 

extend into space, increasing our capability and capacity in the 

cyber domain, and leveraging and improving multi-domain and coalition-friendly command and control as the foundation of future 

combined arms operation. 

You asked, how will your requirements impact the budgetary top 

line from fiscal year 2018 onward? We will be forced to continually 

make strategic trades to simultaneously sustain legacy fleets engaged in the current fight while smartly investing in modernization 

and the future technologies that will be required to meet combatant commander demands in the information age of warfare. Repealing sequestration, returning to stable budgets without extended 

continuing resolutions, and allowing us the flexibility to reduce excess infrastructure and make strategic trades are essential to success. 

Finally, you asked, what solutions are available for mitigating 

growing costs such as new acquisition authorities or innovative solutions to maintaining our military? As the chief requirements officer, I review every major program to ensure requirements are 

clearly published and sustained throughout the program and by 

personally signing documents leading to milestone A and B decisions to ensure we meet cost, schedule, and performance standards 

for our warfighting commanders. Additionally, we aligned our continuous process improvement efforts with DOD’s [Department of 

Defense] Better Buying Power 3.0 initiatives, as well as Secretary 

James’ Bending the Cost Curve activities. 

In summary, all of our portfolios depend on steady, predictable, 

and timely funding, and the flexibility to make key trades to balance capability, capacity, and readiness. Current global security demands remind us that America’s joint team must be ready to engage anytime, anywhere across the full spectrum of conflict, all 

while defending the Homeland and providing a safe, secure, and reliable strategic nuclear deterrent. America expects it. Combatant 

commanders require it. With your support, our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines will continue to deliver it. 

We look forward to your questions. 

[The prepared statement of General Goldfein follows:] 

19 

PREPARED STATEMENT BY GENERAL DAVID L. GOLDFEIN

INTRODUCTION

In today’s world, credible and effective 21st century deterrence demands both 

properly-sized nuclear capabilities and multi-domain, multi-functional Joint Forces. 

Across the spectrum of national security challenges the U.S. faces—China, Russia, 

Iran, North Korea, and Violent Extremism (Terrorism)—controlling and exploiting 

air, space, and cyberspace is foundational to Joint Force success. 

Against any of these global challenges, today’s airmen are organized, trained, and 

equipped to both deter and/or defeat these threats while simultaneously defending 

the homeland and sustaining a safe, secure, and effective nuclear enterprise. However, satellite-enabled precision, stealth, cruise and ballistic missiles, and other military technology proliferate worldwide. In short, the technology and capability gaps 

between America and our adversaries are closing dangerously fast. 

MODERNIZATION

Our curtailed modernization resulted in procuring approximately 175 fewer fighter aircraft per year than we did 25 years ago. As our challengers employ increasingly sophisticated, capable, and lethal systems, we must modernize to deter, deny, 

and decisively defeat any actor that threatens our homeland and national interests. 

In order to stall the shrinking capability gap, the Air Force remains committed to 

our top three conventional acquisition priorities: the F–35A Joint Strike Fighter, the 

KC–46A Pegasus, and the B–21 long-range bomber. 

At the same time, we are focused on modernizing the nuclear enterprise. The last 

major recapitalization of U.S. nuclear forces occurred in the 1980s and many of 

these systems face substantial sustainment and reliability challenges. While these 

forces are safe, secure, and effective today, significant investment will be required 

in the coming years to ensure they remain ready and credible for the 21st century. 

To address modernization challenges and ensure a reliable nuclear deterrent for 

the Joint Force, the Air Force requires sustained funding. The fiscal year 2017 

budget request supports a number of improvements, including recapitalizing legacy 

bombers with the B–21, replacing aging Air-Launched Cruise Missiles with the 

Long Range Standoff weapon, modernizing Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles 

(ICBMs) with the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent program, and critical investments across the Nuclear Command and Control (NC3) enterprise that are required 

to integrate and employ all three legs of the nuclear triad. 

Additional modernization efforts will allow us to balance new capabilities that can 

defeat future threats with legacy fleets meeting current threats. In fiscal year 2016, 

we invested in B–1 service life extension to maintain this strategic capability 

against evolving threats. In fiscal year 2017, we plan to modernize and sustain the 

three combat-coded B–1 squadrons with additional precision weapons and digital 

data links. Additionally, we are approaching our second service life extension on F– 

16s. High demand for our F–15Cs and F–15Es drove structural fatigue and require 

consistent funding for repairs. 

FULL-SPECTRUM READINESS

The Air Force defines full-spectrum readiness as the right number of airmen— 

properly organized, trained, equipped, and led—to either lead and/or support Joint 

Task Forces (JTFs) in both contested and uncontested environments. In order to 

meet the full requirements of our Defense Strategic Guidance and current operation 

plans, our combat squadrons must be full-spectrum ready. 

To develop airmen properly trained to meet the Joint Force demand signal, we 

are funding flying hours to their maximum executable level. In addition, we continue to invest in joint and coalition combat exercises such as Red Flag and Green 

Flag. 

Weapon System Sustainment (WSS) costs continue to increase due to the complexity of new systems, the challenges of maintaining old systems, and operations 

tempo. We fly our aircraft to their full service life and beyond which requires increased investment in preventive maintenance and manpower. WSS thrives on sufficient, stable, and predictable funding which facilitates planning to meet future challenges. 

With your help, the Air Force aggressively responded in fiscal year 2016 as a 

pivot to improve readiness conditions and increased our manning by over 6,000 personnel. However, there is a lag between recruiting airmen and presenting fullytrained airmen to squadrons. The Air Force surged recruiting in fiscal year 2016 

and will finish the fiscal year by restoring our Active Duty force to 317,000 airmen. 

Maintaining the force remains our number one funding priority in fiscal year 2017. 

20 

We project airpower from our bases, and our infrastructure must keep up with 

modernization and recapitalization to sustain a ready force. Today, the Air Force 

maintains infrastructure that is excess to operational needs. We have 500 fewer aircraft than we had 10 years ago, yet they are spread across the same number of 

bases. This arrangement is inefficient with aging, unused, and underutilized facilities consuming funding that should be redirected to readiness and modernization. 

Reducing and realigning Air Force infrastructure would best support Air Force operations. Therefore, we support a new base realignment and closure evaluation. 

To put it simply, Defense Strategic Guidance places demands on the capability 

and capacity of the Air Force that consume its resources in today’s fight and exceed 

our capacity to address readiness requirements for a high-end fight against a nearpeer adversary. If airmen are unprepared for all possible scenarios, it could take 

longer to get to combat, jeopardize our ability to win, and cost more lives. 

MAINTAINING THE MILITARY’S TECHNOLOGICAL EDGE

Air forces that fall behind the technology curve fail, and if the Air Force fails, the 

Joint Force fails. Thus, we must team with our joint partners, labs, and industry 

to leverage existing technology while developing new technology to maintain our 

edge. Recently, our Air Combat Command Commander declared F–35A Initial Operating Capability—meaning our Joint Strike Fighters are ready for limited combat. 

At the same time, our F–22s are in high demand in the Central, Pacific, and European theaters due to the increasingly aggressive and technologically advancing nature of our potential adversaries. Therefore, we must modernize our fleet to stay 

ahead of the evolving threat with continued investment in the F–35A, along with 

a request for additional funds to upgrade our F–15Cs with modern sensor and electronic warfare suites, and advanced air-to-air weaponry. Fourth generation fighters 

play a critical warfighting role as we develop, test, and field fifth generation technology. 

TOPLINE: FISCAL YEAR 2018 AND BEYOND

The Air Force will be challenged to sustain legacy fleets and simultaneously invest in developing and procuring the systems required to counter threats in fiscal 

year 2018 and beyond. Given these challenges, and current funding levels, we initiated a series of in-depth enterprise-wide capability studies of the Air Force’s five 

core missions. Our first effort, Air Superiority 2030, identified a need for increased 

research and development in advanced capability and capacity. I fully intend to collaborate with Congressional, Department of Defense, and Air Force leaders to build 

a force capable of achieving our national strategic objectives in the more advanced 

threat environment of the future. 

In today’s contests, decision-quality information is paramount—and combatant 

commanders simply cannot get enough Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance 

(ISR). In order to gain and maintain the ISR advantage, the Air Force must find 

new ways to integrate capabilities across multiple domains (air, land, sea, space, 

and undersea) and cyberspace. Our next enterprise-wide capability review will explore ISR and multi-domain command and control operations. With the right mix 

of people, platforms, and resources, we will meet Joint Force requirements across 

the full spectrum of conflict. 

Meanwhile, space and cyberspace threats continue to grow. In space, our Global 

Positioning System provides the world’s gold standard in positioning, navigation, 

and timing. Our 37 existing Global Positioning System satellites remain healthy, 

but they are exceeding projected service life. Further, their ability to provide unfettered information is increasingly at risk from our adversaries. To maintain this capability, we requested support to improve anti-jamming and secure access of military Global Positioning Systems. We continue to partner with the Joint Force on the 

Space Security and Defense Program and the Joint Interagency Combined Space 

Operations Center (JICSpOC) to develop options for a more integrated and resilient 

National Security Space Enterprise. To improve offensive and defensive cyber readiness, we remain on track to grow our 30 Cyber Force Mission Teams to 39 fully 

operational teams in fiscal year 2018 and continue investing in the Joint Information Environment (JIE). 

Air Force command and control represents the connective tissue among the Joint 

Force—providing the essential link between our Joint Force Air Component Commanders and the joint team. The ability to understand changing battlefield conditions and command friendly forces is central to an agile, effective combat force in 

today’s transregional, multi-domain environment. 

21 

ACQUISITION AND INNOVATION

The Air Force is committed to acquisition excellence. Our costs are trending downward, we are meeting Key Performance Parameters for our major programs at a 

rate greater than 90 percent, and we garnered nearly $10 billion in ‘‘should-cost’’ 

savings—we are using these savings to secure greater capabilities and additional 

weapons for our warfighters. But there’s ample room for improvement. We aligned 

our Air Force continuous improvement efforts to the Department’s Better Buying 

Power 3.0 initiatives, as well as the Secretary of the Air Force’s ‘‘Bending the Cost 

Curve’’ effort, all of which are designed to strengthen our ability to innovate, 

achieve technical excellence, and field dominant military capabilities. 

In today’s complex environment, rapid change is truly the new norm. We believe 

incorporating strategic agility into the Air Force acquisition enterprise is the way 

to capitalize on this dynamic environment. Therefore, we are focusing on five key 

areas: 1) strategic planning, prototyping, and experimentation; 2) requirements development; 3) science and technology; 4) modular, open systems architecture; and 

5) acquisition workforce development. I am exercising the increased acquisition authorities Congress vested in the Service Chiefs to push these five key focus areas 

and drive for improved execution of on-going acquisition efforts and formulation of 

future acquisition strategies. 

CONCLUSION

We are grateful for relief from the Budget Control Act caps in fiscal years 2016 

and 2017. However, uncertain future budget toplines make it difficult to deliberately 

balance investments to modernize, recover readiness, right-size the force, win today’s fight, and fully execute Defense Strategic Guidance. Therefore, permanent relief from the Budget Control Act—with predictable funding—is absolutely critical to 

rebuilding Air Force capability, capacity, and readiness across our portfolios. Global 

developments remind us that America’s Air Force must have the capability to engage anytime, anywhere, across the full spectrum of conflict—all while providing a 

reliable strategic nuclear deterrent. America expects it; combatant commanders require it; and with your support, airmen will deliver it. 

Chairman MCCAIN. Thank you. I thank the witnesses and thank 

you for your leadership and service to the Nation. 

I think we would all agree that the world has changed a lot since 

the initiation of sequestration. A simple question. Do you feel that 

you would have resources and ability to defend this Nation against 

present and future threats if we continue down this path of sequestration, beginning with you, General Milley? 

General MILLEY. Under sequestration, no, sir, I do not. 

Chairman MCCAIN. Admiral Richardson? 

Admiral RICHARDSON. I agree with General Milley, sir. Sequestration will prevent us from doing that. 

Chairman MCCAIN. General Neller? 

General NELLER. No, sir, we would not have the capability. 

Chairman MCCAIN. General Goldfein? 

General GOLDFEIN. The same. 

Chairman MCCAIN. Thank you. 

Admiral Richardson, you talk about in your written statement 

how our people are feeling the strain. We continue to meet our recruiting and retention goals. But you go on to talk about SEALs. 

You begin to talk about surface nuclear officers not meeting the 

goals. Naval aviation is another area of concern. We see declines 

in officer retention for multiple grades, and bonuses are not proving fully effective. 

I guess I would ask, Admiral Richardson, General Neller, and 

General Goldfein. It is not a matter of money with these young pilots. Is that not true? It is a matter of being able to fly and operate. 

I mean, when we just talk about solving this problem with bonuses, 

we are never going to compete with the airlines because they can 

22 

always up the ante. But when our pilots are flying less hours a 

month than Russian and Chinese pilots are, you are going to have 

a problem. I will begin with you, Admiral Richardson. 

Admiral RICHARDSON. Sir, I agree with you. Our pilots join the 

Navy to fly naval aircraft. That is what they want to do. This is 

a much bigger problem than money. Money can help up to a point. 

We want to make sure we adequately compensate all of our people. 

There is competition, as you say. But at the heart of the matter, 

this is a highly dedicated team that wants to defend the Nation in 

high performance aircraft, and that is what they want to do. They 

want to fly. 

Chairman MCCAIN. General Neller? 

General NELLER. Sir, I would agree with that. On paper our situation looks a little bit better, but it does not take into account the 

experience level of those aircrew. But it is all about the best retention thing we can is provide modern, maintainable, ready-to-fly airplanes. 

But I would also say it is more than just the aircrew. It is also 

the maintainers. We are making it now on the backs of those sergeants and those staff sergeants out there that have to do work 

twice and to get the part from one to put it on the other. I am as 

concerned about maintainers sticking around. As we go to depots, 

we compete not just with airlines for aircrew, but we compete with 

contractors and commercial concerns for the marines that maintain 

our airplanes. 

Chairman MCCAIN. While I have still got you, in your written 

statement, you said the Marine Corps is no longer in a position to 

generate current readiness and reset our equipment while sustaining our facilities and modernizing to ensure our future readiness. That is a pretty strong statement, General. 

General NELLER. Based on the current fiscal environment, as 

was stated I believe by all my fellow chiefs, we are all making 

trades, and those trades require us to accept risk in certain areas. 

I would like to have our parts support when you look at the aviation particularly, but I could say the same thing about ground 

equipment. The amount of money we are able to put against parts 

and supply support is not what we need to maintain our legacy aircraft. 

Chairman MCCAIN. General Goldfein? 

General GOLDFEIN. Sir, I approach this as a balanced challenge 

and opportunity, quality of service, and quality of life. Removing financial burdens through aviation bonuses certainly fall in the quality of life category. But what we have found in the past—and we 

have been through this before because airlines have hired before— 

is that quality of service is as important as quality of life. Quality 

of service is making sure that you are given the opportunity to be 

the best you can be in your chosen occupation. Pilots who do not 

fly, maintainers who do not maintain, controllers who do not control will walk, and there is not enough money in the treasury to 

keep them in if we do not give them the resources they need to be 

the best they can be. In my mind, readiness and morale are inextricably linked. Where we have high readiness, we tend to have 

high morale because they are given the opportunities to compete. 

Where we have low readiness, we have our lowest morale. 

23 

Chairman MCCAIN. General Milley, in your written statement, 

you said our goal is to have regular Army brigade combat teams 

achieve 60 to 66 percent full spectrum readiness, and I estimate 

that it will take the Army approximately four years to achieve that, 

assuming no significant increase in demand and no sequestration 

levels of funding. That is a pretty alarming statement when you 

look at the potential challenges that we are facing. Do you want 

to elaborate on that a bit? 

General MILLEY. Thanks, Senator. 

For 15 consecutive years, the Army has been decisively committed in Iraq and Afghanistan and other counterterrorist/counterinsurgency type operations. In order to do that, we essentially came 

off of a core warfighting skills of combined arms maneuver against 

a near-peer or a higher-end threat. 

For example—just a couple of examples. An armor officer today, 

a tank officer, up through, say, the rank of major has very little 

experience in terms of maneuvering tanks against an opponent who 

has armor, very little experience in gunnery. Artillery battalion 

have not fired battalion level fires consistently in a decade and a 

half. We have to rebuild that, and that is going to take considerable time, effort on our part. We have made a lot of progress, by 

the way, in the last year. 

Chairman MCCAIN. You cannot do it with sequestration. 

General MILLEY. Oh, absolutely not. Sequestration will take the 

rug out from underneath us. Absolutely. 

Chairman MCCAIN. Well, you know, I would just like to say before I turn to Senator Reed at your confirmation hearings, I asked 

you to come before this committee and give us your frank and honest view. I appreciate the testimony here today, and I think it will 

be very helpful in our efforts to eliminate the effect of sequestration and give you the wherewithal that you need to make sure that 

we meet the challenges which are, as I said in the beginning, far 

more significant than they were on the day that sequestration 

began. We have got a lot of issues, but I appreciate the fact that 

you have outlined for this committee and I hope for the American 

people the necessity of us addressing these challenges. I thank the 

witnesses. 

Senator Reed? 

Senator REED. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Again, thank you, gentlemen, for your testimony. It is very insightful, very sobering, and also reinforces the point that the chairman made that we just have to move away from sequestration. One 

of the issues that has been illustrated by your testimony is it is not 

just the limits on spending. It is the uncertainty. Admiral Richardson, you pointed out that you only operate really three quarters of 

a year, that one quarter is just sort of standing around wishing and 

hoping. Can you elaborate a bit? 

Admiral RICHARDSON. Well, sir, you know behaviors are modified 

to adapt to the reality of the last eight years. Big programs that 

require new funding and that require authorities for new starts— 

those are all prohibited in a continuing resolution environment. 

Rather than put those programs in the first quarter and put them 

all at risk, we just live in a three quarter year. That first quarter 

is a light touch on just trying to keep things going. 

24 

Senator REED. General Milley and then General Neller, General 

Goldfein, your comments too about this uncertainty factor. In fact, 

one could argue—let me get your insight—that effectively you are 

losing lots of money and wasting lots of money because of this uncertainty, not saving anything because of sequestration. Is that 

fair? 

General MILLEY. That is correct, Senator, because if all we are 

doing is planning things year to year or actually three quarters of 

a year to three quarters of a year, things like multiyear contracts, 

developing long-term relationships with industry where they can 

count on us and so on—that becomes very difficult. What ends up 

happening is the price per unit goes up. It has built in inefficiency. 

It has built in cost overruns. It is an un-good situation. It is not 

good and it needs to end. 

Senator REED. General Neller, your comments? 

General NELLER. It is very much the same, Senator. We have got 

some major programs and we would like to have the certainty and 

be able to tell the vendor that they have got the funding there and 

we can press them to drive the cost down. If we live year to year 

or month to month, that is not going to happen. 

But in line with what General Goldfein said, I think the force out 

there—they are watching us. They are looking at us and they want 

to know what the plan is. People, for all of us, are our center of 

gravity. That is the one thing we have to protect. We can buy all 

the planes and ships and tanks and vehicles we want, but this is 

a volunteer force. This is a recruited and retained force. They 

watch everything that is going on. These young men and women 

are very smart, and they want to know that there is commitment 

that they can count on as they decide whether they are going to 

continue to stay in. 

Senator REED. Thank you, sir. 

General Goldfein? 

General GOLDFEIN. Thank you, sir. 

Just perhaps to add some perspective, if we end up in a longterm continuing resolution [CR], this will be the eighth that we 

have had to deal with. To give you a scale then for what will happen in the United States Air Force if we go beyond three months 

into a long-term CR, that will be about $1.3 billion less that is in 

the fiscal year 2017 budget. Some immediate impacts: KC–46 will 

go from 15 to 12 aircraft, and we will be procuring munitions at 

the fiscal year 2016 rates. In the fiscal year 2017 budget, we were 

actually able to forecast, based on what we believe we will be dropping in the current fight. That will go away, and so we will be procuring preferred munitions at a lower rate, which not only affects 

all of us that are engaged in the campaign, but it also affects our 

coalition partners who are relying on us as well for preferred munitions. We will have 60 acquisition programs that will be affected 

and 50 MILCON [military construction] projects, to include those 

that are new mission bed-down will also be affected, that just by 

a long-term CR. 

Senator REED. Thank you. 

One of the issues that you all discussed and the chairman has 

made I think appropriate reference to is the changing situation in 

terms of unexpected challenges in the last several years. My sense 

25 

too is that as we look around, particularly from technology, you are 

beginning to discover unanticipated costs for legacy systems in addition that we might not even have added into the projection. Is 

that fair to say, General Goldfein? Then we will go down the panel. 

General GOLDFEIN. Yes, sir. What happens is we do what we call 

a service life extension program, or SLEP. There is actually a reason it is a four-letter word because what we do is we put an aircraft and we shake it and we put it through all kinds of environmental testings. Then we find out what those failure parts are, and 

then we either buy those parts or we put them in the bench stock 

and we try to predict what we will need. Then we certify that aircraft will fly to, you know, the next 2,000 hours. The reality is we 

only fix what we can accurately predict, and then we put these aircraft into depot maintenance. We pull the skin off. What we find 

are there are things that are breaking that we never predicted. 

A classic example. F–15C has a nose wheel steering problem, and 

we go look for the part and we have not made that part in five 

years. Then we go out to industry and we find that we have got 

to hand make now a part that we have not made in years, and that 

just causes the costs to go up. What we have found over the years 

is that older aircraft—it is actually not a linear path in terms of 

cost growth. It actually gets at some point to an exponential 

growth. Then that cost per flying hour requires us to put more 

money into sustaining systems longer than putting that money into 

the modernization which we desperately need. 

Senator REED. Thank you. My time has expired. Thank you, gentlemen, again for your service. 

Chairman MCCAIN. Senator Inhofe? 

Senator INHOFE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

You know, General Milley, when you were talking about ground 

troops, I am reminded of my last year in the House. I was on the 

House Armed Services Committee. It was 1994 when we had an expert witness sitting out there like you guys are saying in ten years 

we would no longer need ground troops. I think about often what 

our needs are going to be in the future and how we are trying to 

survive today. Looking into the future, yes, you talk about the KC– 

46 and the need. The KC–135 has been around for 57 years, and 

it is going to be around for a lot longer. This is not what the other 

side, the competition does. 

I think the chairman is right when he says that he asked for 

your honest opinion. I do not have and we do not have the credibility to go out to the public and adequately explain the level of 

risk that we are accepting today and the fact that we are in the 

most threatened position in my opinion we have ever been. They 

depend on hearing that from you not from people like me. 

When General Dempsey said—and this is some time ago. He said 

we are putting our military on a path where the force is so degraded and so unready that it would be immoral to use force. Now, 

that to me was a courageous statement that I have used. People 

are shocked when they hear it. This is some time ago now. 

Winnifield. He made the statement there could be for the first 

time in my career instances where we would be asked to respond 

to a crisis, and we will have to say that we cannot. You know, that 

is a shocker. 

26 

When our former colleague, Chuck Hagel, said American dominance of the seas, in the skies, and in space can no longer be taken 

for granted. 

What I am saying is that you folks need to be outspoken. You 

need to be heard because you are the experts. The public is not 

aware of the threats that we have. 

I want to ask you in a minute a question just on the size of the 

military but let me give you a couple of—these are quotes from you 

and other people talking about just the size. General Goldfein, you 

said our strategic capability advantage over competitors is shrinking and our ability to protect strategic deterrence is being challenged. 

Your predecessor, General Welch, said virtually every mission 

area faces critical manning shortages, and the Air Force risks 

burning airmen out. 

General Milley, you said in light of the threats confronting our 

Nation, to include Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, ISIS [the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria]—you know, we need to talk about 

that—the Army has accepted high military risk to meet the requirements of the national security strategy. 

General Allen. At today’s end strength, the Army risks consuming readiness as fast as it builds it. 

I would like to ask each one of you do the realities of the strategic environment today and the foreseeable future call for a 

change in the size of our military. We will start with you, General 

Milley. 

General MILLEY. Thank you, Senator. 

I think the Army has got adequate readiness and adequate size 

to deal with our current demand which is fighting terrorists, counterinsurgency operation in Iraq, Afghanistan, elsewhere around the 

world, and to meet the current global combatant commander demand for day-to-day operations. 

Senator INHOFE. Now, you are saying the current end strength 

or that which is projected? 

General MILLEY. The current. The day-to-day, what is going on 

today, the national military strategy, given that we are actively engaged against ISIS, Al Qaeda, and other groups. That is current. 

The risk comes if we have a conflict with a near-peer, high-end 

competitor. Those other contingencies that Secretary of Defense 

Carter and many others have talked about with China, Russia, 

North Korea, or Iran, each of which is different operationally and 

tactically, each of which would require different levels of forces, 

types of forces, and methods of operation. 

But the bottom line is with the size of the U.S. Army today, if 

one or more of those other contingencies took place, I maintain that 

our risk would significantly increase, as I mentioned before, and if 

two of them happen at the same time, I think it is high risk for 

the Nation. 

Senator INHOFE. We understand. Of course, that is not predictable. We do not know. 

General MILLEY. Of course, not. But we have to be prepared for 

it. 

Just one last comment. You know, what we want is to deter. Nobody wants to have these wars with near-peer competitors, great 

27 

powers. The only thing more expensive than deterrence is actually 

fighting a war, and the only thing more expensive than fighting a 

war is fighting one and losing one. This stuff is expensive. We are 

expensive. We recognize that. But the bottom line is it is an investment that is worth every nickel. 

Senator INHOFE. Briefly, Admiral Richardson, size. 

Admiral RICHARDSON. Sir, philosophically I could not say it any 

better than General Milley did. I agree with him. 

In terms of the size, we are asking the same question. When I 

first came in to be the CNO [Chief of Naval Operations], our current fleet size—and there is more to capability than size, but size 

does matter—is 308 ships. That assessment was done without considering the emergent threat of Russia, without considering the 

emergent threat of ISIS. We are completing a study this month 

that gets at a new force structure assessment, and we will be ready 

to bring that to you very shortly. 

Senator INHOFE. You two generally agree with that? 

General NELLER. I think it is two things, Senator. First, it is the 

capacity and the size that you talked about, but it is also—I think 

it was mentioned by everybody else—the capability sets that we 

have now. The future fight, if there is one—hopefully there is not, 

but they deter a future fight. There are capabilities that we do not 

in the Marine Corps have that we are going to require because we 

focused on the fight against terrorism in the last 15 years. How big 

is that force? What do you do? Otherwise, you have to trade because there are capabilities that we have now that we do not want 

to get rid of. As you trade one capability for another, you either 

give something up and you accept risk there to get the other capability. Those are the trades that we are in and discussing at this 

time. 

Senator INHOFE. That is right. You have to accept risk. I know 

that. 

There is not time for you to answer that question, but I do have 

another comment to make concerning you, General Goldfein. 

I agree with the fact—and I talked to the pilots. They want to 

fly more. That is significant. You cannot completely eliminate the 

fact that it costs $9 million, if you take someone off the street and 

make an F–22 pilot out of them. Yet the bonuses—you were talking 

about what? $25,000 a year. That has to be considered also I would 

say. 

General GOLDFEIN. Sir, in terms of the fact that we are moving 

forward for an aviation bonus—— 

Senator INHOFE. You have to consider that too along with the flying hours because the expense of taking someone and putting them 

in advanced Air Force training and then you take them all the way 

up to F–22 capability. 

General GOLDFEIN. Yes, sir. As a matter of fact, our studies that 

we have done show that. We have not adjusted the aviation bonus 

for a number of years. 

Senator INHOFE. That is right. 

General GOLDFEIN. We are asking for Congress’ support to give 

us authorization for a higher level based on the data that we have 

that shows that it will take more than what we offer today to be 

28 

able to provide the quality of life incentives to be able to allow 

them to stay in. 

But at the same time, I will tell you I am laser-focused on the 

quality of service aspect to this because even if I pay them more, 

if I do not get them in the air, they are going to walk. 

Senator INHOFE. You are right. 

Thank you. 

Senator REED [presiding]. On behalf of the chairman, Senator 

McCaskill. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Thank you. 

I want to associate myself with the opening statement of Senator 

McCain in many ways because I think you all honestly step forward and lead an amazing fighting force. I think we owe the American people honesty about the military budget. 

What is going on in the House of Representatives this year is, 

once again, a phony budget gimmick to pretend that they are somehow being fiscally conservative because they are using the overseas 

contingency operations fund to fund the base operations of our military. That is dishonest on its face. It is inefficient and ineffective 

for our military. 

General Milley, I would like to bring this home to my State. Obviously, we have Fort Leonard Wood that dates back to World War 

II in terms of some of its buildings, and we have temporary military construction dating back to that time. We are in an aggressive 

updating of that facility, which is such a key facility for our Army. 

I noticed that they even had the nerve to put military construction 

activities at bases in the United States in the overseas contingency 

operating fund. 

Can you comment about how this impacts your ability on readiness and training when you are being put in a fund that is yearto-year and not certain and you cannot plan with it? 

General MILLEY. Sure, Senator. You are exactly right. You cannot plan with it and you cannot just go year to year. Things like 

multiyear contracts and having relationships with the commercial 

industry in order to upgrade either weapons, equipment, et cetera. 

Now, specifically what you are talking about is infrastructure, 

which is a key component. We often talk about man, train, and 

equip sort of thing, but also the infrastructure on Army bases is 

atrophying and the training ranges are not as modern as they 

should be, throughput capacities and so on. We have got a laundry 

list. It is not just in Missouri. It is in many other places. That is 

of great concern, and we have been robbing that account for quite 

a few years now in order to maintain readiness in order to pay for 

the war. That is another area of great concern is that infrastructure. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Our men and women that have been deployed—they are not deployed for a half a year. We certainly 

should not fund their money for half a year. 

General Goldfein, I also had an opportunity to go to the 139th 

Airlift Wing over the last few weeks. You know, it is the top gun 

of airlift in terms of training. The frustration there is there seems 

to be a disconnect, and only you and people that you interact with 

can fix this. That is, these are strategic level courses. We are training people from all over the country at this facility in terms of lift 

29 

and internationally I might add, our allies, as you probably well 

know. 

But for some reason, they are having to deal with an annual 

funding issue instead of getting programmatic funding. I do not get 

that. I do not get why the National Guard Bureau and the Air Mobility Command cannot get together because you know what they 

are both doing? They are doing this. One is saying, oh, we are putting it programmatic, and the other is saying, well, we do not have 

it. It is really frustrating for that excellent facility to have to continue to beat on this door and have nobody answer. I would like 

your commitment today to look into this and see if you cannot get 

this resolved once and for all. 

General GOLDFEIN. Yes, ma’am. I will just tell you quickly that 

we had this come also up in the remotely piloted aircraft business. 

What we found was that because there are so many elements associated with actually getting a CAP airborne and doing a sortie, that 

we had not gone through and done the work that built the requirements that lay out over an entire year. The wing commanders were 

having to plug holes and go month to month to month. As a result 

of that, we put together a team and we are actually working with 

the Director of the Air National Guard to lay out annual requirements for the MPA [Military Personnel Appropriation] days. Then 

once we have those annual requirements, then we are going to fund 

them on an annual basis so that wing commanders will not be 

there. I will take this on and make sure that that—— 

Senator MCCASKILL. That would be terrific. 

[The information referred to follows:] 

Senator, as you know, the C–130H Weapons Instructor Course (WIC) and the Advanced Airlift Tactics Training Center (AATTC), both located at St. Joseph, MO and 

co-located with the 139th Airlift Wing, add important combat capability to the Total 

Air Force. We recognize that the C–130H WIC is a core requirement, while AATTC 

adds further value to the Mobility Air Forces by increasing the warfighting effectiveness and survivability of our mobility team. It is important to note that requirements continue to be evaluated in the Mobility Air Force community and we are 

actively engaged with the Air National Guard, Air Force Reserve, other services, 

and allied nations to chart a long-term programmatic path. Specifically, in November, personnel from the National Guard Bureau, Air Force Reserve Command, and 

Air Mobility Command will visit St. Joseph, MO to assess both WIC and AATTC 

manpower, funding, infrastructure, and airframe requirements in the near term and 

future years. Our intent is to develop options to programmatically inform the 

FY19PB submission and provide an enduring funding construct for the Weapons Instructor Course and the Advanced Airlift Tactics Training Center. The contributions 

of the Missouri ANG remain important to the success of war fighters in the Mobility 

Air Forces, as well as the entire USAF, and we share your pride in having them 

on our team.’’ 

Finally for you, General Neller, I am a big, big fan of the Marines. But I was struck when I was at Fort Leonard Wood. I had 

a chance to visit with recruits who were in the last two weeks of 

their training. They had done nine weeks. They were in their AIT 

[Advanced Individual Training] training. I had a chance to visit 

with these men and women. I was struck how many immigrants 

were in this training class from South Korea, Honduras, Costa 

Rica. They had just done a naturalization ceremony on the base for 

67 soldiers becoming United States citizens. These people are saying they want to cross the line and die for their country. 

When I saw the way that the Muslim soldier was treated in Parris Island, it hurt my heart, and I just want it on the record for 

30 

you to commit that you will get to the bottom of this and there will 

be no question in the Marines that abusing someone because of 

their ethnicity or their religion is absolutely unacceptable or their 

gender orientation. 

General NELLER. Senator, you have my complete and total commitment to that. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Thank you very much. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator REED. On behalf of Chairman McCain, Senator Fischer, 

please. 

Senator FISCHER. Thank you, Senator Reed. 

Thank you, gentlemen, for being here today. 

I am going to pick up a little bit on Senator McCaskill’s expression of frustration and expand that. Many times the American people—they hear different stories, different information from different sources, and I would like to highlight part of that today and 

get your response to that and if you would clarify it. 

General Milley, the ‘‘Wall Street Journal’’ published an article by 

General Petraeus last month, and it was entitled ‘‘The Myth of the 

U.S. Military Readiness Crisis.’’ In it, he characterized the Army’s 

weapons inventory in the following way. While some categories of 

aircraft and other key weapons are aging and will need replacement or major refurbishment soon, most equipment remains in 

fairly good shape. According to our sources in the military, Army 

equipment has, on average, mission capable rates today exceeding 

90 percent, and that is a historically high level. 

General, do you believe that General Petraeus was correct in this 

assessment that the equipment and the mission capable rates are 

what he says they are? What does that tell us or possibly what 

does it not tell us about the state of the Army? 

General MILLEY. Thanks, Senator. 

I know General Petraeus well and have got a lot of respect for 

him, served under him, et cetera, along with Mr. O’Hanlon who is 

the co-author. Both of them are very talented. 

But as you might expect, I do not necessarily agree with that. 

The title of the article is ‘‘Readiness Crisis: A Myth.’’ I do not know 

if ‘‘crisis’’ is the right word. That is packed with all kinds of emotion. But there are serious readiness challenges in the United 

States Army today. The operational readiness rates for our key 

weapon systems are not above 90 percent. They are well below 90 

percent in some cases, and that is cause for great concern. They are 

improving, but they are below 90 percent. 90 percent is the standard, nine out of ten weapon systems ready to go to war at a moment in time. Our weapon systems are not in that condition at this 

time. 

Senator FISCHER. Thank you, sir, for clarifying that. 

Also, the column goes on to argue that training for full spectrum 

operations is resuming. It claims that by 2017 the Army plans to 

rotate nearly 20 brigades, about a third of its force, through national training centers each year. The Marine Corps plans to put 

12 infantry battalions, about half its force, through large training 

exercises, and the Air Force is funding its training and readiness 

programs at 80 to 98 percent of what it considers fully resourced 

levels. 

31 

Generals, do you think that accurately portrays your services and 

their readiness to conduct the full spectrum operations? General 

Milley? 

General MILLEY. It is a partial answer. The flagship training 

event for an Army unit, an Army brigade combat team, is going to 

a combat training center at the National Training Center or Joint 

Readiness Training Center down in Louisiana. A few years ago, we 

were not doing decisive action operations against higher-end 

threats. We changed gears about 24 months ago, and about 12 to 

18 months ago, we started putting brigades through the paces of 

going against near-peer competitors unless they were specifically 

designated to go into Afghanistan or Iraq. 

At the end of fiscal year 2017, by the end of next year, 100 percent of our brigade combat teams on Active Duty will have one rotation. It is all about reps. If you were, back in the day, pre-9/11, 

a typical battalion commander or a major, for example, or a company commander, you would have three, four, five, maybe more rotations through a training center by the time they reached those 

levels. Today we have an entire generation of officers going into the 

field grade ranks commanding battalions or even in some cases 

companies that have very little or no experience at a CTC. By the 

end of fiscal year 2017, 100 percent of the brigades, but it is a matter of reps. We have to do it over and over again. 

The data I have and the forecast we have is by the end of 2018, 

24 months from now, we will have nine of our brigades with three 

rotations, 18 of them with two, and four with one. That is not bad. 

It is better and all that is good. But there is more to it than just 

going to the training centers. That is a key part but there is more 

to it. 

Manning levels are holding us back. We have over 30,000 nonavailable soldiers in the regular Army today. That is a corps, an 

entire corps not available for medical, legal, and a variety of other 

reasons. That is not even talking about your training account, basic 

training, or the overhead it takes to run basic training. Your personnel piece is big, and then equipment maintenance, which you 

just talked about with OR rates. Those are big. Those are all parts 

of readiness. That is just readiness with the equipment, the modernization, the systems we have today. Five or ten years from now, 

there are lots of systems out there that we need to invest in to get 

them online to be able to deal with a near-peer great power, if in 

fact that day ever comes. 

I do not subscribe 100 percent to what General Petraeus, as 

much as I respect him, or Michael O’Hanlon wrote. I like them 

both. 

Senator FISCHER. Thank you. I am out of time. But, General 

Neller and General Goldfein, if you could get that information to 

me, I would be happy to put that out. 

I too respect the service that General Petraeus has given to this 

country, but I think it is important that we get correct information 

out to the people of this country so they understand the situation 

that we are facing with our military. 

Thank you. 

Senator REED. On behalf of Chairman McCain, Senator Hirono, 

please. 

32 

Senator HIRONO. Thank you very much, gentlemen, for your testimony and for your service and the service of the men and women 

whom you lead. 

Over the course of the many hearings that this committee has 

had with regard to the negative impacts of sequestration, we have 

been provided with objective information as to those impacts that 

causes me to question the article that my colleague just talked 

about, as much as, of course, we appreciate the service of General 

Petraeus. 

For General Neller, I have been monitoring the progress with the 

Marine Corps Pacific laydown, including visits to Okinawa, Guam, 

and CNMI [Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands]. I 

know that it will be very important to have adequate training facilities. 

General, can you talk briefly about the current status and if you 

have any concerns about the progress so far of the Marine Corps 

specifically to plan? I just read an article recently about the Governor of CNMI and his position regarding training in Pagan. 

General NELLER. Well, Senator, we are still in the execution of 

the current plan of the Pacific laydown for marine forces. The 

Futenma replacement facility has been separated from the move 

from Guam, but from the very beginning our movement to Guam 

was contingent based on the fact that we could train and maintain 

our readiness once deployed there. Because of actions of others and 

environmental impact, right now that is potentially at risk and has 

pushed the timeline to the right. We are still committed to go to 

Guam, but to go to Guam, we have to be able to sustain the readiness of the force, whatever that force is that we deploy there. 

I am concerned with it. I am watching it. I think there may be 

some other forces involved in this and that is causing delays in 

this. There are also still issues on Okinawa about building on to 

the north of the Futenma replacement facility that are tied up between negotiations between the Government of Japan and their 

prefecture of Okinawa, and we continue to monitor that. 

Senator HIRONO. I share your concerns because there are a number of moving parts with regard to the move out of Futenma and 

Henoko, and there are now delays there. 

I realize that we are doing the buildup necessary for Guam, but 

we cannot send our troops there unless they have a place to train. 

CNMI and the discussions that we are having and whatever negotiations we are having with that government is really critical, and 

I would appreciate your keeping me apprised as we go along. Anything that this committee and I can do to help—— 

General NELLER. Yes, ma’am, we will certainly do that. 

Senator HIRONO. For General Milley and General Goldfein, I 

want to commend you in your leadership of your respective services, including the National Guard components in your mission. As 

you know, a combined force of Active, Guard, and Reserve components is imperative to the defense of our country. 

At our full committee hearing on cybersecurity this week, the important role that the National Guard plays in contributing to total 

force requirements was discussed. Can both of you talk about 

progress in other areas where you will be depending on your Guard 

components to fulfill Army and Air Force requirements? 

33 

General GOLDFEIN. Senator, I will give General Milley a break. 

We are looking across the entire enterprise of the five core missions that the Air Force does for the joint team in the Nation to 

look at where we can partner with Air National Guard to leverage 

that component and the Air Force Reserves across all these mission 

areas: cyber, intelligence, command and control, nuclear enterprise, 

conventional air power in terms of both bomber and fighter force. 

We are looking at all of that. In the mobility portion of our business, you go into a C–17 and ask the question in the cockpit today, 

okay, who is Guard, who is Active, who is Reserve, and very often 

all three hands will go up because we are that connected. We have 

three components. We have one Air Force. We have five missions. 

We are looking across all of those mission areas. 

I predict that cyber will be a growth industry when it comes to 

including our Air National Guard because it is ideally suited for 

that mission set. We are looking across the enterprise at ways we 

can partner and we can increase that. 

Senator HIRONO. General Milley? 

General MILLEY. Thanks, Senator. 

We have made a lot of strides I think in the last year in trying 

to integrate and enhance the readiness of the National Guard. It 

is my assessment that we are going to have to significantly improve the readiness of the United States Army National Guard and 

the Army Reserve. 

We are the only service that has over 50 percent of our force 

structure in the Reserve component, and we have got about 53 percent. A significant chunk of the Army is in the Reserve. 

As was designed many, many years ago, the bottom line is the 

United States Army cannot conduct sustained land campaigns 

overseas without the National Guard and without the United 

States Army Reserve. It is not possible. That is the way the system 

was designed many, many decades ago. 

Today what do we rely on? There is a considerable amount of 

maneuver force in the Army National Guard. We are moving to 26 

brigades with this President’s budget—maneuver brigades. There is 

a lot of artillery. There is a lot of combat power in the National 

Guard, a lot of attack helicopters, and so on. If you look at combat 

service support, logistics units, about 60 percent, 62 percent of the 

United States Army’s logistics is all in the Reserve component. 

The Army, bottom line, could not fight, could not feed itself, 

could not maneuver, could not conduct any sort of extended land 

campaign anywhere in the world without the Guard or the Reserve. 

It is absolutely critical to what we are doing and we need to increase their readiness as well. 

Senator HIRONO. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman MCCAIN [presiding]. Senator Sullivan? 

Senator SULLIVAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Gentlemen, I want to thank you for your service. As a matter of 

fact, somebody stated Secretary Carter, when he testified last time, 

I know a number of us have had a lot of criticisms with some of 

the Obama administration’s foreign policy and national security. 

But one area where I want to commend the President is the quality 

and character of the men and women he has been nominating that 

34 

have come before this committee for confirmation to lead our military. I think the four of you exemplify that quality and character, 

and I just want to commend you for that. 

Part of the reason—and the chairman has already touched on 

it—is the frank and honest views that you have been giving this 

committee and others since your confirmations and your important 

positions leading the men and women in uniform of our Nation. I 

want to commend you on that as well. 

General Milley, when you were here a couple months ago, you 

talked about the issue—and you already restated it—of a nearpeer, full-spectrum threat in terms of a conflict. If we had to address that, you stated that the U.S. Army would be at high military 

risk and you mentioned again to meet our national security strategy. Do you continue to hold that view? 

I would like to have each of the other Service Chiefs here give 

us your assessment of where your service is in terms of risk. I 

thought it was remarkable. I thought it was courageous of you to 

say that. The press did not pick up on it, but the fact that the 

Chief of Staff of the Army was saying high military risk is pretty 

remarkable. I just want each of the servicemembers in terms of a 

full-spectrum conflict, the ability to meet that for our Nation’s security, where are we in terms of risk for your service? 

General MILLEY. Thank you, Senator. 

My assessment remains the same. Just as a reminder, what does 

it mean when I am using that term? I am talking about the ability 

to accomplish the military tasks assigned to Army units. The ability to do it on time and the ability to do that at an acceptable level 

of cost expressed in terms of casualties, troops, killed and wounded. 

But I maintain my same assessment. 

Senator SULLIVAN. High military risk. 

General MILLEY. That is correct. 

Senator SULLIVAN. Admiral Richardson? 

Admiral RICHARDSON. Senator, I concur with General Milley. I 

have sort of forbidden my team to use the word ‘‘risk’’ because it 

has become so overused that you start to lose a sense of what that 

means. But it is exactly as General Milley described. If we get into 

one of those conflicts, we will win, but it is going to take a lot 

longer than we would like. It is going to cost a lot more in terms 

of dollars and in casualties. 

Senator SULLIVAN. General Neller? 

General NELLER. Senator, in short, I agree. We built a force that 

has been focused on a counterinsurgency fight, and while we have 

been doing this effectively, our potential adversaries have recapitalized and from ground up built a force that has very significant capability that grows every day. We are in the process now of getting 

ourselves back and looking at those capabilities we need to match 

that up. 

Would we win? Yes, we would win. But I would associate myself 

that it would take longer and I think the cost would be higher. 

Senator SULLIVAN. You are putting the Marine Corps at high 

military risk as well. 

General NELLER. If we had to do, based on the contingency plans 

that were one major contingency and then a near simultaneous of 

a second one, yes. 

35 

Senator SULLIVAN. General Goldfein? 

General GOLDFEIN. Sir, that is the key for this discussion, which 

is ready for what. What we are all, I believe, talking about is if the 

guidance tells us that we have to be simultaneously ready to defeat 

a near-peer adversary in an anti-access/area denial environment, a 

near-peer, while at the same time imposing cost in deterring another adversary, while at the same time ensuring your safe, secure, 

reliable nuclear enterprise, while at the same time defending the 

Homeland to the level that will be required, then we are at high 

risk. But you have got to walk down that line—— 

Senator SULLIVAN. Right. But that is what we expect of you. 

That is your mission. 

Let me just end by mentioning we talk a lot about costs. General 

Milley mentioned it. I know some of you in the Army and in the 

Marine Corps—the book by T.R. Fehrenbach is still given to our infantry officers to read, ‘‘This Kind of War.’’ When you talk about 

costs—maybe this is for General Milley and General Neller—when 

we are sending less ready units into a near-peer fight, we talk 

about costs. That sounds like dollars and cents. What is it? Relate 

that to ‘‘This Kind of War.’’ Relate that to the first summer in 1950 

in Korea. The costs were dead Americans in the thousands. Is that 

not correct? 

General MILLEY. Well, that is exactly right. I mean, the butcher’s 

bill is paid in blood with American soldiers for unready forces. We 

have a long history of that. Kasserine Pass, Guadalcanal, Tarawa, 

Task Force Smith in the Korean War. It goes all the way back to 

Bull Run. Lincoln thought he was going to fight a war for 90 days. 

Wars are often thought to be short when they begin. They are not. 

They are often thought to cost less than then they end up costing, 

and they end up with outcomes and take turns that you never 

know. It is a dangerous thing. 

The best thing I know of is to ensure that you have forces that 

are sized, trained, manned, equipped, and very, very capable to 

first prevent the war from starting to begin with, and then once it 

starts, to win and win fast and win decisively. That is the most humane thing to do when you are engaged in combat. Otherwise, you 

are expending lives that I do not think are necessary. 

In the Korean War, the book you are referring to, in that war, 

Task Force Smith, the 21st Infantry Regiment, was alerted out of 

Japan, went forward to the peninsula on relatively short notice, 

and they were essentially decimated. It was not because they were 

bad. It was not because they were incompetent. The battalion commander was an experienced World War II guy. It was because they 

had two 90 millimeter recoilless rifles. Their mortars did not work. 

Their ammo was not done. The training was not done. They were 

not properly equipped. They were not in great shape. They were 

doing occupation duty in Japan. They were sent into combat, into 

harm’s way unready, and they paid for it. Tens of thousands of others paid for it in those early months, the first six months of Korea. 

It is not a pretty picture. 

Readiness matters. Reps at training centers matter. Equipment 

matters. Personnel fill matters. To do otherwise for us at this table 

is the ultimate sin to send someone into combat who is unready. 

Senator SULLIVAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

36 

Chairman MCCAIN. That is a risk we are facing right now. 

Senator King? 

Senator KING. Thank you. 

General Milley, I think you have delivered the line of the day for 

me. The only thing more expensive than deterrence is fighting a 

war, and the only thing more expensive than fighting a war is losing a war. That sort of summarizes the situation. 

I would like to ask a couple of questions of you specifically about 

Afghanistan and then go on to the more general question. 

I know the President has modified the troop drawdown schedule 

in Afghanistan, which I think was an appropriate response to the 

situation. Were the authorities maintained for the forces that we 

have there that allow them to act effectively to assist the Afghan 

forces? 

General MILLEY. As I understand it, yes. I am heading over there 

next month actually, and I will see General Nicholson. But with my 

JCS hat on, as I understand, the operational authorities are adequate to do his task. But I will double check that and I can get 

back with you. 

[The information referred to follows:] 

Based on my conversations with Commanders on the ground, the authorities are 

appropriate and allow them to effectively assist our Afghan partners. 

Senator KING. The second question is related. Are the NATO 

[North Atlantic Treaty Organization] commitments that have been, 

in a sense, proportional to ours being maintained? 

General MILLEY. I believe yes, but let me get you a better answer 

than that. Let me get you a specific answer. 

Senator KING. I would appreciate it. Thank you. 

[The information referred to follows:] 

Yes. As a proportion, non-U.S. NATO Allies and partners will increase their commitments to Afghanistan relative to the United States. As reported at the NATO 

Summit in Warsaw just two months ago, our Allies reconfirmed NATO’s long-term 

commitment to Afghanistan’s stability. They declared that NATO will extend its 

Resolute Support Mission to train, advise, and assist the Afghan security forces beyond 2016: pledged to sustain funding through 2020: and agreed to strengthen and 

enhance the Enduring Partnership with Afghanistan. While the US will draw down 

its own Afghanistan presence by 14 percent, all 38 other NATO Allies and partners 

involved in the Resolute Support Mission have committed to provide either the same 

number of troops as in 2016 or increase their presence beyond 2016. 

This hearing has focused a lot on money, and I think it is appropriate. There should be some context. In 1967, defense spending 

was 8.6 percent of GDP [Gross Domestic Product]. In 1991, it was 

5.2 percent. Today it is 3.3 percent. I think often the public and 

all of us get caught up in these big numbers of $560 billion, but 

the reality is our commitment to defense has fallen dramatically in 

the last 45 years in part because of a perception that the world was 

getting safer and in part because of budgetary issues. 

The other thing I would point out is that net interest on the national debt today is more than a third of the military budget, and 

we are at an all-time low in interest rates. That is going to only 

go up, which will tend to make the budget be strained even more. 

I just think we need to be talking to the American people about 

the fundamental responsibility of any government, which is to keep 

its people safe, and that the dramatic reduction in the commitment 

that we have made to defending this country. 

37 

The follow-up point, of course, which has been made previously, 

is that since 2011 and the Budget Control Act, we have had Syria, 

ISIS, South China Sea, Ukraine, the North Korea nuclear development, and cyber. To maintain a rigid budget structure in the light 

of those changes, it just seems to me is dumb. We are trying to protect this country. We have new threats. 

It is similar to the discussion we have had, Mr. Chairman, about 

the troop levels in Afghanistan. We have got to respond to circumstances on the ground, and the circumstances have dramatically changed in the last five years in terms of threats that this 

country faces. 

The other point that has been made by Ranking Member Reed. 

Certainty is as important as amount. I think you testified to that. 

The other way we are not serving the public is by the absolutely 

ridiculous process around here of not adopting budgets, doing continuing resolutions, getting you the money in the middle of the 

year, which does not allow you to plan, does not allow you to do 

the capital planning and the long-term planning that you need to 

do. 

I realize I have talked a long time without a question. I am going 

to add one more point. 

The other piece of this financial burden that we are facing is the 

nuclear recapitalization, and I have got some slides that I think 

make this clear that to me are rather dramatic. What we are facing 

is a very large bulge, if you will, in the commitment, and if we do 

not make some additional overall way of dealing with that issue, 

it is going to eat up everything else. We are not going to be able 

to maintain aircraft or develop the ships that we need because all 

the money is going to go into that. I just point this out. It has been 

40 years since there has been a recapitalization, and we are heading into a—we have got to have some special way of accounting for 

this, it seems to me. It does not mean borrow for it. But it does 

mean fund it in some way. Otherwise, it will crowd out the necessity of modernization across the rest of the enterprise. 

If you can find a question in there, gentlemen, you are welcome 

to it. Admiral? 

Admiral RICHARDSON. Senator, I will jump on that because between General Goldfein and I—and we are lockstep on trying to 

solve this problem in every way we can. I think that that bulge 

talks to a number of the points that you made. 

One, as General Milley said, it is much cheaper to deter a war, 

and this is what this program is all about. This is about deterrence. 

Senator KING. It is a theory that has worked for us for 80 years. 

Admiral RICHARDSON. It has been absolutely effective for 80 

years not only nuclear war, of course, but also conflict worldwide. 

If you look at sort of before and after, it is a startling difference. 

The other point is that each of these recapitalizations, the first 

one in the 1960s, then in the 1980s, and then now, we are getting 

that mission done for less. Each of those peaks is subsequently 

smaller. 

Then to your point, we can get that peak even smaller if we have 

predictable funding in place. We are going to recapitalize the undersea leg with 12 submarines. If we get that to predictable funding to buy that package in a block, we could get those 12 subVerDate Nov 24 2008 12:51 May 01, 2018 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00041 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 C:\USERS\WR47328\DESKTOP\29881.TXT WILDA
38 

marines probably for the cost of 10 or 11. You can see real savings 

that come through this predictability. 

But I want to go back to my first point. It is absolutely essential 

that we get this done because without that deterrent effect—we 

think things are bad now—it would be much worse. 

Senator KING. Thank you, gentlemen. Thank you all for your 

service and for your outstanding testimony here today. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman MCCAIN. Senator Graham? 

Senator GRAHAM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Let us see if we can summarize here. 

All of you agree that a long-term CR is bad for the military. 

General GOLDFEIN. Yes, sir. 

Senator GRAHAM. When I hear my House colleagues wishing for 

a long-term CR, you do not wish for that. 

General GOLDFEIN. No. 

Senator GRAHAM. Okay. 

To my House colleagues, the OCO account. Do you all have a 

problem with what they are doing, taking OCO money to fund the 

military? 

General GOLDFEIN. Sir, I will tell you that our preference is a 

stable, long-term budget that we can plan on. 

Senator GRAHAM. Do you think OCO funding is not stable? 

General GOLDFEIN. It is one-year funding. It does not give us 

long-term stability. 

Senator GRAHAM. Does everybody agree with that? You would 

prefer not to go that route. 

Why do they do this? They do not want to bust the caps. They 

do not want to take on the right and tell them you all are crazy. 

You know, this sequestration is not working. 

Have you all talked to the President about this? Have you told 

the President what you are telling us about the state of the military under sequestration? Have you had a conversation with the 

commander-in-chief telling him what you just told us, General 

Milley? 

General MILLEY. I have not personally had a conversation with 

the President. 

Senator GRAHAM. What about the Navy? 

Admiral RICHARDSON. No, sir, not personally. 

Senator GRAHAM. What about the Marines? 

General NELLER. No, sir, not personally. 

Senator GRAHAM. What about the Air Force? 

General GOLDFEIN. No, sir. 

Senator GRAHAM. What are you doing at the White House, Mr. 

President? You are threatening to veto a bill that would increase 

defense spending because it does not have non-defense increases. I 

will make some suggestions to you. Go tell the President what you 

are telling us. 

I absolutely see the flaws in what the House is doing. I cannot 

believe the commander-in-chief is sitting on the sidelines and 

watching this happen, taking a laissez-faire attitude that if you 

send me a bill that increases defense spending without increasing 

non-defense spending, I will veto it. I find that as repugnant as 

what the House is doing. 

39 

Okay. By the end of 2021, we will be spending what percent of 

GDP on defense if sequestration is fully implemented? Does anybody know? 2.3 percent. Check the math. Senator King made a 

very good point. 

Do you see by the end of 2021, given the threats we face as a 

Nation, it is wise to cut defense spending in half in terms of historical numbers? 

General GOLDFEIN. No, sir. 

Senator GRAHAM. Do you, General? 

General NELLER. No, sir, I do not. 

Admiral RICHARDSON. No, sir. 

General MILLEY. No, sir. 

Senator GRAHAM. Well, somebody should ask, how could your 

Congress and your President allow that to happen. I ask that all 

the time. I do not have a really good answer. 

If sequestration goes back into effect in 2017, are we putting people’s lives at risk because of the effects of sequestration in terms 

of training? 

General MILLEY. Yes, sir. 

General GOLDFEIN. Yes, sir. 

Senator GRAHAM. Well, does anybody else listen to these hearings but us? How do you live with yourself? I say that. I include 

me. I am part of this body. I voted against sequestration, but that 

is no excuse. Do you want to do revenue to fix it? I will do revenue. 

But what I am not going to do is keep playing this silly game. 

When you rank threats to our military from nation states and 

terrorists, would you say sequestration is a threat to our military? 

General GOLDFEIN. Yes, sir. 

General MILLEY. Sure. 

Senator GRAHAM. Would you agree with me, General, that the 

Congress is going to shoot down more planes than any enemy that 

we can think of in the near term? 

General GOLDFEIN. Potentially. 

Senator GRAHAM. Do you agree with me that we are going to 

park more marines and take them out of the fight than any enemy 

we can think of in the near term here, General, with sequestration? 

General NELLER. Sir, nobody is going to park us. We are going 

to fight, but we will be at risk. 

Senator GRAHAM. What is your budget in terms of personnel 

cost? 

General NELLER. We pay about 61 percent of the green TOA 

[total obligation authority] for personnel. 

Senator GRAHAM. Let us just walk through that real quickly. 60 

percent of your budget is personnel. 

General NELLER. Yes, sir. 

Senator GRAHAM. If sequestration goes into effect, are you going 

to lose marines? 

General NELLER. Yes, sir, we will. 

Senator GRAHAM. Okay. They will be out of the fight. 

How many ships will the Navy have if sequestration is fully implemented, Admiral? 

Admiral RICHARDSON. Sir, hard to say, but fewer than the 308. 

Senator GRAHAM. They say 278. Is that about right? 

Admiral RICHARDSON. That is in the ball park. 

40 

Senator GRAHAM. The Congress is going to sink how many ships? 

Admiral RICHARDSON. Sir, I might take you on with the word 

’sink,’ but it will be—— 

Senator GRAHAM. Okay. Well, whatever. They are not going to be 

there. 

Admiral RICHARDSON. Thirty. 

Senator GRAHAM. How many brigades are we going to wipe out, 

General, in the Army? 

General MILLEY. Our estimation is we will lose between 60,000 

and 100,000 troops if sequestration comes out. 

Senator GRAHAM. Would you agree with me when you rank the 

threats to the military, you would have to put Congress and the 

President in that mix if we do not fix sequestration? 

General MILLEY. I will not judge either—— 

Chairman MCCAIN. You are not required to answer that question. 

[Laughter.] 

General MILLEY. I am not judging the President or Congress. 

Chairman MCCAIN. Senator Blumenthal? 

Senator BLUMENTHAL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman MCCAIN. I would remind the witnesses. There are certain questions that you are not required to answer. 

[Laughter.] 

Senator BLUMENTHAL. I was about to say that I was going to 

reask that question, but it would probably reach the same result. 

I just want to say how much I respect your service, and I think 

we all do. Regardless of the demanding and tough questions that 

have been asked, we approach this as a collegial effort working together with men and women who have devoted their lives to the 

service of our Nation with extraordinary distinction and bravery. 

That goes for you and all who serve with you. I just want to begin 

with my profound thanks for your service. 

Admiral, I want to talk a little bit about submarines. I know that 

we are moving toward building two submarines a year, Virginiaclass. In your testimony, you briefly note your concern for the future shortfall in our attack submarines. What is the Navy’s strategy to deal with that shortfall when the desired 48-boat minimum 

in 2025 reaches a low point in 2029 of 41, potentially placing our 

Nation in jeopardy? Do we have a strategy to address that shortfall? 

Admiral RICHARDSON. Sir, we do. First, that shortfall highlights 

sort of a fundamental element of shipbuilding plans, which is that 

you have got to think long-term. Some of these things are very difficult to correct in the short term. It just takes time to build submarines and there are capital investments as well. 

But we are building two per year. We are going to continue to 

do that. We are also going to look to every possible way to extend 

the life of the current Los Angeles-class submarines that are carrying much of the burden today so that we can fill in that trough 

as much as possible. We are building two Virginia-class submarines a year. We are going to examine continuing that as we 

bring the Ohio replacement program online, particularly in the 

year 2021. If you put that submarine in place, it actually starts to 

fill in a good percentage of that trough. Then we will look forward 

41 

to more creative deployment options so that we get more out of 

every submarine. We will use all of these methods together to try 

and minimize the effect of that trough, but we are not going to be 

able to erase it. 

Senator BLUMENTHAL. Your point about the importance of planning I think is profoundly important, little understood by the 

American people who often think we can snap our fingers and turn 

on the spigot for submarines. But we know and so do the dedicated 

men and women at Electric Boat in Groton that planning requires 

investment in skill training and the defense industrial base that 

consists of those men and women who in many ways are as vital 

as the men and women in uniform because they build the platforms, the submarines, that make our projection of power possible 

around the world. Would you agree? 

Admiral RICHARDSON. I would completely agree. In terms of their 

talent and the skill level, I wish we could take every American 

through that facility up at Electric Boat and the same at all of our 

shipbuilding facilities just to see what America can do when it puts 

its mind to it. It is stunning. 

But as we ramp up to build the Ohio replacement, the biggest 

challenge is the workforce and bringing those skilled laborers on. 

I agree with you 100 percent. It is a team effort, and it is a tough 

job. 

Senator BLUMENTHAL. I hope you will come back. I have been 

privileged to go through Electric Boat with you. I know Senator 

Reed has on many occasions as well. This investment—it is not 

spending. It is investment in our future—I think is really vital. 

Likewise, General Milley, on the Blackhawks, as you know, the 

National Commission on the Future of the Army issued aviation 

recommendations earlier this year, and these recommendations create some budgetary tension with the aviation restructure initiative 

the Army proposed in 2014. I am concerned that the planned UH– 

60 Blackhawk procurement, which is a vital modernization initiative for the Active Army and National Guard across the Nation, 

will be reduced to pay for other programs. As you move forward 

with the Army aviation fiscal year 2018–2022 budget, are revisions 

being made to assure that future aviation modernization plans will 

be sustained in light of the commission’s recommendation? 

General MILLEY. Aviation is one of our top priorities. It is one of 

the ones I mentioned in my opening statement, Senator. absolutely 

we are committed to improving the modernization, and we have got 

several initiatives underway. 

With respect to the National Commission, we have put some of 

the aviation requirements into the UFR [unfunded requirements], 

into the unfinanced requirement list. Others we are funding. We 

think the commission did great work, and we intend to implement 

their recommendations to the extent we can. 

Senator BLUMENTHAL. Thanks. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman MCCAIN. Senator Ernst? 

Senator ERNST. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

Gentlemen, thank you for being here today. It is a privilege to 

be in the same room with you. 

42 

We do have a lot of difficulties coming up, especially with sequestration, and I do not think I can be any more eloquent than Senator Graham. 

Admiral, I would like to start with you. I do understand the 

Navy is facing some significant budgetary challenges, and this is 

true of all of our services. However, I was able to visit one of your 

ships earlier this year, and I was stunned to learn about the requirement for up-to-date paper charts aboard U.S. Navy ships and 

the low priority of celestial training. I did send a letter to the Navy 

on this topic about two months ago, as of yesterday, and I am still 

waiting for a written response. 

But what I would like to know from you, what steps are you taking to increase basic nautical and celestial navigation training for 

your sailors and remove dependency from electronic devices? The 

way I understand it, they do use an off-the-shelf product that other 

civilian navigators use, as well as a program that is specific to the 

Navy. They just do not get those up-to-date downloads, and they 

do not have the paper charts necessary. Maybe you can fill me in 

a little bit. 

Admiral RICHARDSON. Well, with respect to navigation, it is 

something that, obviously, we take very seriously every moment 

that we are underway and looking into the future. 

With respect to minimizing our vulnerability to electronic navigation, global positioning system [GPS], and those sorts of systems, 

really a multifaceted approach. We have started teaching celestial 

navigation, and so those types of courses are back in the curriculum at the Naval Academy and other places. We can use technology to move us beyond the sextant in terms of proficiency and 

accuracy there. 

One of the things that I am working hard with our industrial 

base partners is there are other ways to get precision navigation 

and timing into our systems, which is so critical not only for navigation, but also for weapon system performance and everything 

across the board. That is an area of emphasis as well. These would 

be systems that would be independent of GPS and potentially more 

precise than GPS. We are working very hard across the full spectrum. 

Senator ERNST. Okay. That is very encouraging. We cannot forget that we need to stay a little bit old school. 

Admiral RICHARDSON. We have got to stay in the channel, 

ma’am. 

Senator ERNST. That is right. Outstanding. Thanks, Admiral. I 

appreciate that. 

General Goldfein, I recently did have the opportunity to visit one 

of my Iowa Air National Guard units, 185th Air Refueling Wing, 

in Sioux City. One of the things I noticed was the pilot shortage. 

They continue to talk about that. I know the chairman has already 

addressed this issue. But what I would like to maybe know from 

you is, is there a solution for the Guard and Reserve force as well? 

What can we do to better enable them with our pilot shortage? 

General GOLDFEIN. Ma’am, actually it is a very similar solution 

to what we look at in the Active Duty because the motivations are 

the same and the same pilot who joins because very often, as you 

know, a lot of the Air National Guard actually came from the AcVerDate Nov 24 2008 12:51 May 01, 2018 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00046 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 C:\USERS\WR47328\DESKTOP\29881.TXT WILDA
43 

tive Duty. The important part for us is to ensure that they are getting the same opportunities to train in the Air National Guard as 

they have in the Active Duty. 

Like General Milley said for the Army, the Air Force is structured in a way as well that we could not do the job that we are 

required to do without the Air National Guard, the Air Force Reserves, and the Active component all working together. Especially 

in the mobility community is where we are actually the most connected in terms of these associations and how we get together to 

get the mission done. 

Actually what I mentioned in terms of quality of service, making 

sure they have the hours to fly, that they have the resources they 

need to be able to be competitive, at the same time, we also provide 

the financial incentives they need to stay. All those come together. 

That is going to improve our retention rates, and we are fully committed to that. 

Senator ERNST. Wonderful. Thank you very much. 

Just very briefly, in March, the Army announced a new associated units pilot program partnering National Guard and Reserve 

components with an Active brigade combat team. My understanding is that this could greatly increase the readiness of our Reserve forces and reduce costs. 

General Milley, do you have any updates on how this program 

is working so far? Again, sir, very briefly, please. 

General MILLEY. Yes. We have got 14 associated units right now 

in the pilot program. We do think and hope that it will increase 

the readiness of the Guard, along with increased CTC rotations 

and increased requests for man-days. In combination, all of those 

things will help increase the readiness of the National Guard. 

Senator ERNST. Outstanding. We love our Guard folks, do we 

not? 

General MILLEY. Absolutely. 

Senator ERNST. Okay. Thank you, sir. 

Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

Chairman MCCAIN. Senator Tillis? 

Senator TILLIS. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

General Goldfein, thank you for being here. I would note I was 

here for your opening comments. I had two concurrent committee 

meetings I had to run to. But you said something I think made me 

reflect on the 440th, and I am not going to focus on it except to 

say you were saying you need the flexibility to get to shed excess 

infrastructure if you are going to address some of your budget constraints. I think the 440th was a classic example of that because 

I know very well that there were at least five or six other sites that 

were either statutorily protected or protected by BRAC [Base Realignment and Closure] that in your opinion would have been a 

better, more appropriate way to get to the target that you were hitting. I understand the pressure you are under. 

Hopefully, we will repeal sequestration, but if we do not, we need 

to find some other ways to provide you with flexibility to weather 

this storm. 

I have one question for you, and it really has to do with the 

NDAA from fiscal year 2016 which has I think a requirement to 

44 

retain 1,900 aircraft. How are you going to comply with that requirement, or can you? 

General GOLDFEIN. Sir, actually in this FYDP [Future Years Defense Program], we will comply with that. The next FYDP afterward is going to be a challenge because as we bring on new weapon 

systems, given all the other challenges we face, being able to maintain the 1,900 is going to be a challenge as we also increase investment in some other key areas that the Nation requires—— 

Senator TILLIS. I am not sure I see how you do it. We should 

probably, outside of this committee hearing, talk about shedding 

light on that versus putting a requirement in there that I do not 

think you are going to be able to achieve. 

To the Commandant, General Neller, I have spent a fair amount 

of time down in North Carolina at Cherry Point, and I have had 

a number of discussions up here. I continue to hear about challenges facing readiness for your aircraft, and then you have the 

second and third order effects on challenges for pilot flying time, 

training time. 

How would you assess the current state of readiness? Give me 

an idea of what the trend lines look like. 

General NELLER. The current state of readiness for Marine aviation is dependent upon what model type series, but in the aggregate, it is improving but it is not where we need it to be. It is below 

an acceptable level. We are not flying enough. We do not have 

enough ready basic aircraft, and that means the aircraft that we 

fly get turned faster and so they are harder to maintain. We are 

at our flight hour program, not that we are flying a lot of hours, 

but that is also where we get our parts. 

We are not where we want to be. I do not think we are going 

to be where we want to be. Assuming consistent, stable funding, if 

we can increase the parts support funding, it will happen faster. 

If we can get new airplanes sooner, it will happen faster. But the 

trend line is up, slightly up. 

Senator TILLIS. I tell you one thing I saw down at Cherry Point 

where really the rubber hits the road and you are down there and 

you see these repair operations. The way that it works, they can 

go so far with certain repairs, and then they are either waiting for 

parts or they are relying on some other part of the supply chain 

to finish the repairs. We got planes that could probably be ready 

to go but for changes in some of the processes, some other things 

that we may need to do to provide you with the flexibility or the 

funding to do it. I know that has to do with funding in some of the 

accounts that have been depleted over time. We have got to shed 

light on that as we go into planning for next year. 

General Milley, you made a comment about we are mortgaging 

our future readiness to be ready today. I mean, we are creating a 

debt. Would you mind getting into specific examples of what that 

looks like? 

General MILLEY. Well, specifically with respect to the budget, we 

have, over many, many years now, undercut or reduced our S&T 

[science and technology] and R&D [research and development] 

parts in the modernization accounts. That part of the budget, that 

part of the pie has been reduced over time. That is the part of the 

pie that is future readiness because 10 years from now, 15 years 

45 

from now, those R&D projects, those S&T projects—they become 

real weapons or real equipment. That is what I am talking about. 

That part of the pie has been reduced. 

We are trying to, in this President’s budget, make some hard 

choices as a service given a top line and given basically a fixed 

amount on the compensation piece of it to try to balance the readiness today versus modernization, S&T, and infrastructure, et 

cetera for tomorrow. These are hard, tough choices. In the Army’s 

piece of it, we are preferencing, we are biasing today’s readiness 

because of the gaps from the last 15 years. We got to get them back 

up to speed because of the threats we have all been talking about. 

Senator TILLIS. Well, thank you all for your service. I thank Senator McCain for opening his question about your position on the 

deleterious effects that sequestration is going to continue to have. 

If we take nothing away from this, we have to be unified and end 

this ridiculous way to budget and protect our Nation. Thank you 

all. 

Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

Chairman MCCAIN. Senator Donnelly? 

Senator DONNELLY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you all for being here. 

In 2014, the Jacob Sexton Military Suicide Prevention Act was 

signed into law through the fiscal year 2015 NDAA. It was the first 

bill I introduced after joining the Senate, and it is named after a 

Hoosier soldier we lost to suicide in 2009. Last year was the fourth 

straight year we lost more servicemembers to suicide than to combat. 

My colleague, Senator King, is sponsoring a showing of a movie, 

‘‘Thank you for Your Service,’’ which touches upon this very subject. When we talk about taking care of our troops, when we talk 

about readiness, when we talk about maintaining the strongest 

fighting force the world has ever known, I cannot think of anything 

more fundamental than ensuring the physical and mental health of 

our men and women in uniform. 

The Sexton Act mandated that each of the services provide a robust mental health assessment to every servicemember, Active or 

Guard or Reserve, every year. I would like to know how each of 

your branches are doing in implementing this requirement. General Milley, if you could touch on that. 

General MILLEY. Thank you, Senator. 

Within the Army we are seeing in the last year an improvement, 

meaning a reduced number of suicides, slight but significant 

enough to be noticeable across the force. That is important. All the 

efforts that we have done with your help and Congress’ help and 

lots of folks’ help over the last several years we think are showing 

leading indicators of improvement in suicide, which we recognize is 

a component of readiness because it is a tragic event. 

Specific to your question, we are implementing through 

MEDCOM [U.S. Army Medical Command] annual mental health 

assessments for the force in the regular Army. I would have to 

check on the Guard and Reserve on how that is being done. But 

we are doing that throughout the force. 

[The information referred to follows:] 

46 

In 2014, the Army began incorporating the annual Mental Health Assessment 

into the routine annual Periodic Health Assessment, which is utilized by all three 

components (Active Army, Guard and Reserve). These assessments are completed 

concurrently. The Mental Health Assessment questionnaire may be reviewed by a 

behavioral health provider or the medical provider completing the Periodic Health 

Assessment. The review is followed by a person-to-person encounter as required in 

Department of Defense Instruction 6490.12, and section 1074n of title 10, United 

States Code. 

The new Department of Defense Periodic Health Assessment will provide an optional opportunity for a Behavioral Health provider to review the Mental Health Assessment portion only, while a healthcare provider will complete the rest of the Periodic Health Assessment. Periodic Health Assessment completion is carefully tracked 

throughout the Army. 

The Mental Health Assessment is also fully integrated into the Deployment 

Health Assessment program with a person-to-person pre-deployment mental health 

assessment and three post-deployment mental health assessments as directed in 

section 1074m of title 10, and implemented in Department of Defense Instruction 

6490.12, Mental Health Assessments for Service Members Deployed in Connection 

with a Contingency Operation. 

We also do routine post-deployment health assessments. If you 

go to Iraq, Afghanistan, come back, we do TBI [traumatic brain injury] checks. We have got a lot of programs right now throughout 

the force to focus on the very thing that you are talking about. We 

are taking it serious, and we think we are making some improvement. 

Senator DONNELLY. Thank you. 

Admiral Richardson and General Neller, I know you are a team 

in many ways on this. If you could touch upon it. 

Admiral RICHARDSON. Sir, exactly the same commitment. We are 

on track to implement that completely in compliance with your intent. We share your deep commitment to the mental health of our 

sailors. 

With respect to the other measures to prevent, we find that the 

more that we can make our sailors feel like a member of a team 

that they have got, a network of support that they can fall back 

on, that seems to be one of the most effective things. That, in combination with an assessment, we hope to turn this thing downward. 

Senator DONNELLY. Thank you. 

General Neller? 

General NELLER. According to the senior medical officer, who is 

a Navy admiral that is for the Marine Corps, we are in the process 

of implementation. He estimates on the active side by the end of 

fiscal year 2017, it will be implemented. The Reserve will probably 

take longer just because of the nature of their drilling on weekends 

and having access. But as far as filling out the questionnaire online 

and then having a care provider contact them and have a conversation with all the intentions of the legislation and the law, we are 

planning on being fully implemented by the end of fiscal year 2017, 

Senator. 

Senator DONNELLY. Thank you so much. 

General Goldfein? 

General GOLDFEIN. Sir, I will just say we are in the same boat, 

and we will be fully implemented by about the mid part of fiscal 

year 2017. 

But I will also add we are taking a little bit different approach 

as well. It is fairly new. We are actually taking the SOCOM [Special Operations Command] approach that they have approached it 

47 

with. Their approach is if we would take an aircraft on the schedule at a certain periodic time to do periodic maintenance and then 

take an aircraft off the schedule at longer periods of time to do 

depot maintenance and make sure they are in good shape and put 

them back in the fight, why would we not do the same thing for 

airmen? We are actually looking at taking your initiative to the 

next level, which is a periodic maintenance schedule for the human 

to increase performance. That takes the stigma off because if you 

are having to go in based on a schedule and everybody is having 

to do it, we think it will have profound effects. 

Senator DONNELLY. Okay. 

Admiral Richardson, you were kind enough to visit Crane Naval 

Base. It is integral to several modernization efforts we have going, 

most prominently the Ohio replacement program. How does our 

pattern of reliance on continuing resolutions impact your ability to 

modernize the Navy? 

Admiral RICHARDSON. Sir, I think that we all sort of feel this 

pain in some way or another. This continuing resolution business 

really undercuts the trust and confidence that we have with our 

suppliers, with the industrial base that are so key to providing not 

only at the ship level, particularly in the strategic deterrent business, but also down at the component level. When you disrupt that 

trust and confidence, when you double the amount of contracts that 

you have to write just to get through the year, when you prevent 

the ability to buy things in blocks over a long period of time, the 

only thing you are doing is increasing cost, increasing time, and 

that translates to increasing risk to our warfighter. 

Senator DONNELLY. Thank you all for your hard work and dedication. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman MCCAIN. Senator Manchin? 

Senator MANCHIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I thank all of you for your service and for being here today. 

The one question I wanted to ask—and I know it has been batted 

around quite a bit, but the United States Air Force—I will start, 

General Goldfein, with you, but it is really for all of you. Standing 

tradition of leadership and coalition building, which you all do, and 

it is evident today in the significant role in the 20-nation air coalition aligned against ISIL [Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant], 

which you all have done quite effectively. As you may know, only 

four of our fellow NATO coalition members spend at least two percent of their GDP on defense spending. The target for NATO countries—there are 28, and it should be at two percent. There is only 

five, including the U.S. That leaves 23 that do not seem to care or 

make any attempt whatsoever. I cannot figure why that condition 

was even put in if it was not intended to be kept or met. 

I think I would just like to hear your all’s assessment of this and 

what effect it is having. I know there have been some wild political 

statements made about what would be done. I do not subscribe to 

any of that. But I am thinking why do we still have that condition 

if we are not going to force anyone or there is no retribution if you 

do not. How is it affecting I think, sir, is what I would ask. 

General GOLDFEIN. Sir, I will just tell you the Secretary has been 

over there and talking to NATO significantly about their contribuVerDate Nov 24 2008 12:51 May 01, 2018 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00051 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 C:\USERS\WR47328\DESKTOP\29881.TXT WILDA
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tion and increasing their investment in defense. that was certainly 

something I think all of us at the table would want to see not only 

in the air domain but in all the domains. 

One of the areas that we are focused on in the Air Force specifically over the next several years is coalition-friendly command and 

control because the information age of warfare is more about data 

sharing. It is more about information sharing, and it is more about 

being able to connect into a common network and architecture. 

Technology has increased security over time and has actually made 

that harder. As we partner with not only our NATO allies but 

other allies and partners around the globe, being able to have them 

connect into a common framework, a common network, share information, and be able to fight as a coalition is going to become more 

important in the future, not less. 

Senator MANCHIN. I know that, but I am just saying how much 

of a strain does that put? We know with our challenges we have 

financially and everybody else’s challenges around the world. But 

if they are basically able to just neglect that, thinking we are going 

to do all the heavy lifting, which we have done and I understand, 

but also come up with the financial wherewithal to do it too. Is 

there anything that we could do that kind of—do you see any 

movement in a positive direction? I mean, I understand Germany 

kind of takes the lead on this and the rest of them follow Germany. 

If Germany does not take it serious, it is not going to happen. 

General GOLDFEIN. Sir, one of the areas that would be very helpful I think—and we have had this conversation. I know I do it as 

an air chief, as a global air chief, and my partners here do as 

well—and that is, you know, we call something high-demand, lowdensity, and then we tend to admire it over time. We do the best 

we can to be able to increase the density or decrease the demand, 

but it does not often happen. It would be very helpful if our NATO 

partners and others could actually contribute in those key mission 

areas and enablers, which would raise the bar for everyone as opposed to sometimes what they choose to invest in. 

Senator MANCHIN. Would anybody else have any comments? 

General NELLER. Senator, I would just add that, first, this is not 

a new problem. I was a NATO officer in the 1990s, and after the 

end of the Cold War, they took a peace dividend and they have not 

reinvested. 

Second, our military counterparts—they want to participate and 

they want to play, and they play within their capability. I think we 

need to provide them opportunities to do that, whatever their percentage of GDP is for investment. 

Lastly, I think it is changing. I think it is changing. I think the 

world environment and the strategic environment you see particularly in Europe is causing them to recognize that they have underinvested particularly if the Eastern European countries are going 

the point. I think there will be some change. I think we should encourage them. I think if there are foreign sales, that we should facilitate their purchase of U.S. equipment, which would increase our 

interoperability. Then whatever way, whether it is FMS [foreign 

military sales] or their own money, we encourage them to increase 

their capability. 

Admiral RICHARDSON. Sir, I will just add onto that. 

49 

First, just like General Neller said, my counterparts in NATO— 

they are as frustrated as anybody about this. They want to be full 

participants in securing not only their nation but Europe and contributing to global security and stability. To that end, again, the 

importance of American leadership to provide an example, be there 

is another thing that they comment on consistently. As a team, 

whether it is equipment interoperability, command and control, 

they want to participate and they are as frustrated at these policy 

decisions as anybody. 

Senator MANCHIN. General? 

General MILLEY. As you know, Senator, we have had a long history in Europe with Army. We have still got 30,000 troops over 

there doing a lot of exercises. We are putting out APS [active protection system] systems, et cetera. 

With respect to the NATO partner spending, et cetera, what I 

have read is that their defense spending is actually increasing with 

many of these countries lately, perhaps not at two percent yet, but 

Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Poland, even Germany, Sweden, Finland, Norway, to include the U.K. [United Kingdom] recently—they 

are reversing some of these trends because of what they have seen 

in Ukraine, in Crimea, and elsewhere. They are investing and they 

are expanding. 

The key now is interoperability and work as a team. 

NATO is a critical alliance. There has been a long peace in Europe since 1945, so going on seven decades. Part of that is because 

of nuclear weapons but also because 300,000 soldiers stood on a 

wall up until 1989–1990, but also because of those European allies 

all shoulder to shoulder facing down the Soviet Union. That alliance is key. It is critical, and I think it is mutually interdependent 

between us and them in order to achieve effect on any kind of future battlefield. 

Senator MANCHIN. I will just finally wrap up real quick. If this 

is one of the conditions that the NATO member nations had when 

they formed NATO, how many other conditions are not being met? 

There is no enforcement, no policing. There is no retribution. I 

mean, it just seems that if you are not going to do anything, why 

do we have it there? They are going to say do not worry about that. 

The Americans will pick it up. They will pay. 

You know, you understand when we go to our constituents, it is 

pretty hard to explain why is it there if you are not going to make 

them do something, if there is no retribution. I am not saying we 

are not going to help, not going to defend. But maybe, you know, 

the World Bank, interest rates, things of this sort that gives them 

privileges being a NATO member, that there might be a little bit 

of a penalty. It might give them a little bit of a push. I am understanding it is not from the military. It must be coming from the 

policymakers and state departments. 

But thank you all again for your service. I really appreciate it. 

Senator REED [presiding]. Thank you. 

On behalf of Chairman McCain, Senator Wicker, please. 

Senator WICKER. Thank you, sir. 

For General Neller, on April 6th, Secretary Stackley testified 

that the required number of amphibious ships necessary to provide 

the lift of two Marine expeditionary brigades to conduct joint forcVerDate Nov 24 2008 12:51 May 01, 2018 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00053 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 C:\USERS\WR47328\DESKTOP\29881.TXT WILDA
50 

ible entry operations is 38 ships. But he also said that number is 

fiscally constrained to 34 ships, with an operational availability of 

90 percent. 

We often hear about combatant commander requirements concerning amphibious ships. 

General, you are the man who provides the marines who operate 

off those ships. What is the right number in your opinion? What 

mix of ships should that include, sir? 

General NELLER. Well, Senator, you are correct. The combatant 

commanders—if we could meet all the requirements, it would take 

50 ships. The fiscally constrained requirement is 38 with 90 percent availability. Right now, we are at 31. We are going to go to 

34 by 2022. 

Senator WICKER. We will get to 34? 

General NELLER. We will get to 34 by 2022. 

Senator WICKER. Where would that leave us? What would that 

not permit us to do, sir? 

General NELLER. It will not give us, based on the average availability, the ability to embark two Marine expeditionary brigades 

which is the minimum requirement for forcible entry. 

Ultimately we will get to 38, but it will be beyond multiple 

FYDPs, I believe 33, and then it will start to go down if we do not 

sustain it. 

What is the right mix? The right mix is ideally a minimum of 

12 big deck amphibs that can handle F–35 and Osprey, 12 LPD– 

17 class, and then a 12 other comparable hull forms, ideally either 

an LPD–17 repeat or what we are calling the LXR, which uses the 

LPD–17 hull form as its base. 

Senator WICKER. That is only 36. 

General NELLER. You have also got two LHA(R)s and other ships 

that would get you to 38. We have two non-well deck, big deck 

ships which would actually get you 14 big decks. 

Senator WICKER. Between the LDP–28 and the LXR, can you get 

more ship at less cost if the schedule is accelerated? 

General NELLER. Well, first, Senator, I thank the Congress for 

giving us the 12th LPD. 

But absolutely. It is similar to what the CNO [Chief of Naval Operations] said about submarines. Anything that we block buy and 

that we can give the shipyard, whatever shipyard it is, certainty 

where they can get the workforce, they can train the workforce and 

they can learn as they build the ships, they can build these ships 

faster for less money. If we were to block buy five LPD–17 replacements or LXR, we could probably get three and a half ships for the 

cost of five. But that is a big number. I know Mr. Stackley would 

agree with that. It goes with any type of ship or any type of platform, whether it is an airplane. The more we can provide certainty 

to not just to the primary vendor but all the subs that build the 

parts, we can drive the cost down, and the workforce gets better. 

They get smarter. They get faster. 

Senator WICKER. Thank you, sir. 

General Milley, about Afghanistan, my understanding of our goal 

in Afghanistan is to participate in a sustained partnership with the 

elected leadership there. I would observe that we have had a sustained partnership for decades with our friends in Europe and a 

51 

successful sustained partnership in Korea. Although there is not 

much kinetic warfare going on in Korea at this point, we are there. 

We have had a sustained partnership, and I think it has been successful for the people there and for Americans also. 

What is the understanding in your opinion of the Afghan people 

about our purpose in being there and our long-term relationship? 

General MILLEY. Senator, thanks. 

As you know, I have got a fair amount of time in Afghanistan. 

In general, the Afghan people are very supportive of the United 

States military being there. They would be fearful of us withdrawing completely, at least in the near term. 

What we are trying to do is working by, with, and through the 

Afghan Security Forces, who have been built up to a significant 

size now—what we are trying to do is train, advise, assist them in 

order to maintain stability against their enemy, their internal enemies, so that the government and the other elements of the campaign plan, the economy, and rule of law, et cetera can be sustained over time. I think that is going to take a considerable length 

of time. The attitude of the Afghan people is, at least from my experience, that they would prefer that we continue to stick with 

them. I think that is our plan, our current U.S. Government plan, 

and I think that is also the NATO plan is to continue to sustain 

that effort. 

Senator WICKER. I for one concur in your conclusion there, sir. 

Is it unsettling to the Afghan people when they hear that we 

might leave early? 

General MILLEY. I would say yes, but I think that we, the United 

States, and NATO have been very firm in our commitment now, 

and we have said what we are going to have going forward. I think 

that the government, the military, and the people understand that 

message, that we are not going to abandon Afghanistan. 

Senator WICKER. Mr. Ranking Member, I understand we have 

had some discussion about sequestration. But my understanding is 

no one has asked these panelists if they are designing a FYDP that 

reflects the return to sequestration. I realize I am a bit over my 

time, but I think it would be important for us to hear. I know they 

are horrified at the thought of sequestration returning. 

But if each of you could tell us, are you designing a future years 

defense plan to reflect going back to sequestration? General 

Goldfein? 

General GOLDFEIN. Sir, we are not. 

Senator WICKER. You are not? 

General GOLDFEIN. We are not. 

Senator WICKER. But you are aware it is the law of the land. 

General GOLDFEIN. Yes, sir. We absolutely are. 

Senator WICKER. Okay. 

General Neller? 

General NELLER. Sir, we are not designing one, but we have had 

discussions about what might be the consequences and some actions we could possibly have to take if it went into effect. 

Senator WICKER. Admiral Richardson? 

Admiral RICHARDSON. Sir, I would say our design is based on 

providing the security that the Americans expect of the United 

States Navy. But we have always got to start that conversation 

52 

with the sequestration levels, which puts us in a terrific bind to be 

able to meet that mission. 

Senator WICKER. No FYDP, though, that actually reflects the 

draconian things that you would have to implement. 

Admiral RICHARDSON. No, sir. We would have to adapt. 

Senator WICKER. Finally, General Milley. 

General MILLEY. We have done some preliminary planning, Senator. I understand what the order of magnitude actions that would 

have to take place in the event of full sequestration. However, no, 

we have not developed a POM [Program Objective Memorandum] 

or a FYDP to that level of detail that would be submitted to the 

President and the Congress. 

Senator WICKER. Well, I certainly we can avoid it, but as I said 

years ago, Senator Reed, it is the law of the land and it surprised 

us all the last time when we got to that point and it actually went 

into effect. I hope we can avoid it. 

Thank you all for your service. 

Senator REED. Thank you very much. 

On behalf of the chairman, Senator Shaheen, please. 

Senator SHAHEEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you all very much for being here and for your service to 

our country. 

I apologize. I had two other hearings this morning. I am sorry 

that I missed much of the discussion. I am sure you may have already answered this question, but I think it is important to ask 

again. 

As I have traveled around the month of August, when we were 

not here in Washington, and met with businesses, one of the things 

I consistently heard from many of our businesses in New Hampshire—and we have a significant number that have contracts with 

the Department of Defense that provide equipment and technology 

to our military—was concern about two things. One was about the 

budgeting process and about the fact that we are going in again 

with no budget for the upcoming year and a short-term continuing 

resolution. Hopefully, we will have a longer-term budget after the 

election. The other was about the reduced investment in research 

and development. 

Can I ask you to speak to what the impact is not just of your 

budgets in the military but also of the industrial base that supports 

our military that we need to maintain if we are to keep our technological edge? General Goldfein, I see you nodding. Maybe you could 

begin? 

General GOLDFEIN. Yes, ma’am. You know, the impact to industry, when we cannot provide some stable budget and projection for 

them, probably hits them the hardest in their technical workforce. 

What I see as a rather technical force is when I am talking to a 

company that is building, for instance, let us just say, an air-to-air 

or an exquisite air-to-ground missile or munition, they have got to 

keep a certain amount of that workforce engaged over time. Then 

when I go to them with one-year budgets and tell them my procurement quantities now are going to be here and the next year, 

because of trades, they are going to be down here, and I go jack 

them around back and forth, it causes an incredible challenge for 

industry to be able to sustain their workforce that we need. That 

53 

does not even go into at what point do I go to them and say because of the global security environment, I need you to surge and 

build even more capability and produce more weapons over the period of time. what they tell me is, hey, we got rid of that workforce 

because you told me that you were coming down this year. Everything that we deal with in terms of an unstable budget and oneyear budgets actually gets accelerated into industry as well. 

Senator SHAHEEN. You alluded to the impact that has on our national security and our ability to be prepared. But can I get you to 

elaborate a little more on that? 

General GOLDFEIN. Well, ma’am, it goes to what kind of weapon 

systems that we need to modernize. For the Air Force, like all the 

services, we have got aircraft that have already exceeded their 

service life or are at the end of their service life and they have got 

to be replaced. We rely on industry to be able to support us with 

our acquisition programs going forward. If we do not have stable 

budgets, if we do not have the research and development dollars 

to be able to develop that technology for the future, then what happens to us is we continue to push that to the right. Like General 

Milley said, you start mortgaging the future to pay for the current 

readiness in the fight you have. 

The other challenge you have is as the aircraft age over time, 

they actually become more and more expensive to fly. You take 

even more of those dollars that you need for research, development, 

and modernization, and you shift them left into sustainment of 

older weapon systems. This all adds up to an increased risk. 

Senator SHAHEEN. Thank you. 

Admiral RICHARDSON. Ma’am, if I can pile onto that—— 

Senator SHAHEEN. Please. 

Admiral RICHARDSON.—in support of my fellow chief. This is 

really a team effort, and this message of stability is critical because 

it is not just government R&D but those businesses that you visited—they are investing their own dollars in IRAD [independent research and development]. They need to know if they are going to 

get anything back on that investment. When we do not give them 

that signal of stability and confidence, they are simply not going 

to invest. They are going to cash out and they are going to be out 

of the business. 

The other thing is that particularly with technology changing so 

quickly today—and Senator Reed highlighted it in his opening 

statement—what used to be long-term future, that is becoming a 

more short-term future. We are not talking decades into the future 

anymore. We are talking single digits of years because things are 

moving so fast in directed energy, additive manufacturing, electronic magnetic maneuver warfare, artificial intelligence, biotechnologies. We have got to keep on the step with this because we are 

not the only team out there looking to capture these capabilities. 

Senator SHAHEEN. Thank you. Well, hopefully that is an admonition to Congress that we get our act together and produce a budget 

and some certainty for the long term. 

Mr. Chairman, could I ask one more question? 

Senator REED. Senator King will have one too if you let him. You 

go first. 

Senator SHAHEEN. Okay. 

54 

I know this on budget, but I just came from a hearing in the Foreign Relations Committee on Afghanistan, and I heard Senator 

Wicker asking about Afghanistan. I wanted to ask you all about 

the special immigrant visa program for the Afghans because, as I 

am sure you are aware, it is about to expire, and Congress so far 

has declined to extend that program. Therefore, we have several 

thousand Afghans in the pipeline who it is questionable whether 

they will get visas, and many of them are under immediate threat 

or their families are being threatened. Can I ask you to speak to 

the importance of that program to our men and women on the 

ground and why it would be important for Congress to extend it? 

General Milley, do you want to start? 

General MILLEY. Yes. Thank you, Senator. 

Lots, hundreds of thousands, of Afghans work for us, the United 

States military since 9/11, since we went in in 2001. They have 

been interpreters. They have been analysts. They have been doing 

a lot of things. Many of them have asked to become American citizens and get visas, et cetera. I personally would be in favor of extending that because those are brave men and women who have 

fought along our side, and there are American men and women in 

uniform who are alive today because of a lot of those Afghans were 

putting their life on the line, for their own country, to be sure, but 

with us. Now they want to become American citizens. I for one 

would like to afford them that opportunity. 

Senator SHAHEEN. Thank you. 

Would anybody else like to add? General Neller? 

General NELLER. Yes, Senator. We saw a similar thing in Iraq 

and the very same thing that General Milley described where they 

are out there shoulder to shoulder with marines, soldiers, sailors, 

and airmen risking their lives and sharing the risk and providing 

great services to keep our citizens alive, our folks alive. I used to 

interview them myself and make sure they understood that this is 

not what you might have seen on TV but you are going to come 

here, you are going to work because you have an opportunity. 

I think there is a proper vetting process. I know commanders up 

to the rank of flag and general officers are involved in this. I signed 

off on all of these myself. I know there are background checks. I 

fully support, with the proper vetting process, that this program be 

allowed to continue. 

Senator SHAHEEN. Thank you all very much. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator REED. On behalf of Chair McCain, Senator King, please. 

Senator KING. Just briefly, Senator. 

One of the privileges of serving on this committee is the relationship that we have with our services, and one of those relationships 

is the military fellows that are assigned to our offices. Today marks 

probably the last hearing for Lieutenant Commander Dennis 

Wishmeyer, a naval officer who has served in my office for this 

year. I just want to recognize the importance of that program, recognize the work that Lieutenant Commander Wishmeyer has 

made. If I have asked good questions, they have been his. If I have 

asked stupid questions, they are mine. I just wanted to provide 

that recognition. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

55 

Senator REED. He must have been here today, Senator King. 

On behalf of Chairman McCain, let me thank you, gentlemen, for 

your testimony, forthright and very sobering. Thank you for your 

service individually and please extend our thanks and gratitude to 

the men and women that you lead so proudly. 

With that, I would adjourn the hearing. 

[Whereupon, at 11:45 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.] 

[Questions for the record with answers supplied follow:] 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN

FUTURE MODERNIZATION VISION AND STRATEGY

1. Senator MCCAIN. I assume each of your services has a vision for how your force 

should be configured ten years from now with respect to warfighting capacity and 

capability, and accompanied by a modernization strategy to meet the needs of the 

combatant commanders. Can you each describe the major components of your respective Service’s modernization vision, and the strategy you will follow to achieve 

that vision? 

General MILLEY. The vision is an agile, adaptive Army that is lethal, professional 

and technically competent with a decisive edge over potential near-peer state adversaries. To achieve this, the Army must achieve an affordable balance between modernization, readiness, and manpower. Right now we are out of balance, with Army 

modernization paying the bills to build readiness—we have no other choice. 

Based on the current fiscal constraints, in the near- to mid-term the Army will 

guide equipment modernization efforts through five components: 1) Protect—Protecting Science and Technology investments is key to ensuring the next generation 

of breakthrough technologies can be rapidly applied to existing or new equipment 

designs; 2) Invest—The Army continues iterative reviews of capability gaps to ensure proper alignment of limited resources with mission requirements and Army 

priorities; 3) Modernize—the Army must incrementally modify or modernize existing 

systems to extend service life and maintain an advantage at each echelon; 4) Sustain—Returning Army equipment to the required level of combat capability remains 

central to regenerating and maintaining near-term readiness; and 5) Divest—The 

Army divestment process seeks to identify equipment and systems that are excess, 

obsolete or no longer required to reduce and eliminate the associated sustainment 

costs. 

For the long-term we are in the process of identifying the characteristics of the 

future battlefield, the attributes our soldiers will require to fight and win on that 

battlefield, rewriting our doctrine and, finally, determining what critical capabilities 

we require to fight and win in that environment. We will have a phased approach 

as we are investing in the development and fielding of new combat capabilities 

while divesting others. 

Admiral RICHARDSON. The Navy vision for the future force has two components: 

a ‘‘fleet design’’ and a ‘‘fleet architecture’’. ‘‘Fleet design’’ is how the Navy fights and 

wins, expressed through concepts, doctrine, and tactics, techniques, and procedures. 

‘‘Fleet architecture’’ refers to the activities that support the fleet design, which include: 

• Presence, surge forces, and force packages 

• The processes through which forces are prepared for and recover from deployment 

• Bases and facilities that support or host material components of the fleet 

• Material components of the fleet, such as ships, aircraft, unmanned vehicles, 

personnel, weapons, and sensors. 

In order to achieve this vision, I have identified leads for fleet design and architecture for the near-, mid-, and far-terms. In general, I have designated U.S. Fleet 

Forces Command as the supported command for the ‘‘present-to-five year’’ time horizon; OPNAV N9 for the ‘‘three-to-ten year’’ time horizon; and OPNAV N3/N5 for 

‘‘eight years and beyond’’ time horizon. These leads are currently taking stock of the 

myriad ongoing activities across the Navy that inform our thinking about fleet design and architecture. They are responsible for aggregating the inputs from studies, 

war games, experiments, and other exploratory activities into strategies, concepts of 

operations, requirements, or additional study both within and across time frames. 

General NELLER. In September, we began a detailed DOTMLPF–C analysis of the 

appropriate end strength for the Marine Corps as part of our Marine Corps Force 

56 

2025 (MCF 2025) efforts. This analysis will provide the associated costs, risks, and 

abilities associated with various courses of action. 

Assuming 182K end strength, Marine Corps Force 2025 emphasizes improving information warfare capability and capacity to allow our operational commanders the 

ability to fight in five domains and protect our ability to command and control. Additionally, we will increase our inventory of marines with special skills (e.g. intelligence, electronic warfare, and cyber) that are frequently called upon to make repeated deployments without even the minimum reset time. In order to do this, we 

will have to make tough decisions between modernization and readiness, along with 

force structure trades. However, some of the risk can be mitigated in certain circumstances by our Reserve component or the joint force. 

General GOLDFEIN. The Air Force has refocused its process to have our strategy 

drive our plan and our plan drive our program. While a primary focus remains balancing our investments in capability, ensuring sufficient force capacity, and maintaining the readiness of our current force, our new strategy, planning, and programming process (SP3) provides a comprehensive and actionable pathway toward building the future force. This framework is designed to provide our leaders with the 

long-term outlook (10–30 years out) needed to analyze future challenges and assess 

our modernization priorities. Those priorities are then translated into programmatic 

actions in the short- to mid-term (1–5 years), balanced against competing internal 

(e.g. readiness, capacity, etc.) and external considerations (e.g. current operational 

requirements, fiscal constraints, etc.) and subsequently submitted to Congress in the 

form of the President’s Budget. This ensures our continued ability to meet nearterm challenges while developing the force of tomorrow. 

DEFENSE MODERNIZATION ‘‘BOW WAVE’’ 

2. Senator MCCAIN. Considering the additional acquisition authorities Congress 

provided the Service Chiefs in the Fiscal Year 2016 National Defense Authorization 

Act, and is proposing in the Fiscal Year 2017 NDAA, what specific actions will you 

take regarding your Service acquisition programs that could help you successfully 

navigate through the magnitude of the impending defense modernization ‘‘bow 

wave’’ we are facing in the next decade? 

General MILLEY. To navigate through the magnitude of impending Army defense 

modernization ‘‘bow wave’’ I am leveraging the authorities provided to me in the fiscal year 2016 NDAA by reinvigorating the Army Requirements Oversight Council 

(AROC). The AROC was changed from a staff centric to a commander centric forum. 

The AROC is the primary forum in which I exercise my requirements authorities 

and question assumptions. I review all categories of requirements for major acquisition programs and concur in programs’ cost, schedule, technical feasibility, and performance tradeoffs before the programs’ Milestone A and B decisions. I use the 

AROC to review proposed tradeoffs in the above areas with active participation from 

key stakeholders. The AROC has been instrumental in driving improvements in requirements analysis; resulting in cost savings, reduced acquisition timelines, and informed risk management. 

Also, to support execution of my new authorities, and with the Secretary’s approval, I directed a significant Army Staff re-organization pilot effort by realigning 

requirements and resourcing functions under a single three-star general, the G–8. 

My staff is also examining long-standing processes and actively making changes to 

solidify requirements and shorten acquisition timelines. For instance, our Analysis 

of Alternatives process has been restructured and will be initiated earlier in the requirements generation process. The Army also announced the stand-up of the Army 

Rapid Capabilities Office to expedite the design, development, evaluation, procurement and fielding of critical combat materiel capabilities to deliver an operational 

effect within one to five years. Most recently, we combined two existing processes 

into a new, single process, the Strategic Portfolio Analysis Review (SPAR). The 

SPAR reviews capabilities across a 30-year period to prioritize existing and emerging capabilities against a near-peer pacing threat that are aligned with Army priorities and resourcing. The assessment will provide in-depth analysis the Secretary 

and I need to make difficult requirements decisions within a constrained resource 

environment. 

As a result of these initiatives, I anticipate that some requirements will be deferred, some programs will be accelerated, some programs may be terminated and 

some current equipment will be divested. In the aggregate, the Army cannot maintain aging equipment that is no longer relevant and execute over 700 programs 

within the resource constrained environment that stretch our fielding timelines over 

decades to make them affordable. If we plan on defeating near-peer threats, maintaining our technological edge, and addressing modernization challenges we must 

57 

use these initiatives to streamline our processes. In the long-term, these initiatives 

will enable the Army to better navigate its future modernization challenges. 

Admiral RICHARDSON. The 2016 NDAA has increased my ability to exercise ownership of the Navy acquisition process. Ownership includes four key elements: authority, technical expertise, responsibility, and accountability. I’m taking a number 

of steps to better execute our requirements, acquisition, and budget processes in 

ways that will directly impact the warfighter. I’m committed to improving execution, 

transparency, and integration in acquisition, with the goal of increasing effectiveness, confidence and speed. 

These efforts include an even more rigorous implementation of the Navy Gate Review and Resources, Requirements, Review Boards processes to better manage 

trades between cost, schedule, technical feasibility and performance; my early involvement and approval of Concepts of Operations and Concepts of Employment approval; a stronger role for analytically-based concepts and analysis; and more accountable timelines and tracking of requirements and acquisition decisions and documentation. 

I am also working to include discussions with industry as early as possible to better understand the ‘‘knee in the curve’’ above which additional cost yields only marginal capability enhancements. This collaboration will help ensure only technically 

feasible and affordable requirements are pursued. 

I am taking steps to streamline the requirements and acquisition processes for 

more concise, clear, and timely capability and acquisition documents. In support, I’m 

also taking steps to increase training, qualification, and career path management 

for our Navy requirements officers and professionals. 

Finally, I am convinced that we must deliver technological advances, warfighting 

capability, and operational capacity to the fleet more quickly. The Rapid Prototyping, Experimentation and Demonstration (RPED) initiative to improve agility of 

capabilities and expertise through prototyping and experimentation will result in 

more realistic and informed requirements and deliver technological advances to the 

Fleet more quickly. For technologies that are mature and ready to transition to production, we are establishing Maritime Accelerated Capabilities Office (MACO) programs to employ more tailored processes and decentralized decision making, which 

will cut the timelines for delivering new programs to our warfighters. 

General NELLER. The fiscal year 2016 NDAA redefined the Service Chief role in 

the acquisition process with a focus on the authorities, responsibilities and accountability associated with defining the service as a customer of the Defense Acquisition 

System and the chief as the customer’s direct and accountable representative. Under 

section 801 of the fiscal year 2016 NDAA, the Commandant acknowledged responsibility for improving our acquisition outcomes and identified five fundamental focus 

areas shaping our actions in this commitment: leadership, people, streamlining processes, role of Service Chief and impact of funding stability. Subsequently, the report 

responding to the section 808 requirement to identify actions taken and planned to 

link and streamline requirements, acquisition and budget processes identified in 

greater depth and breadth the Marine Corps initiatives advancing this commitment. 

The pending legislation for the fiscal year 2017 NDAA essentially carries on the 

comprehensive focus on acquisition reform. While the particulars may be negotiable 

on the Hill at present, the underlying mandate remains clear—to drive innovation 

to meet the warfighting needs and ensure accountability to deliver military capabilities on time, on budget, and fulfilling stated requirements. 

The Marine Corps modernization strategy is well-served by the combined acquisition improvement initiatives of Congress, the Department of Defense, Department 

of the Navy and the Marine Corps. In our continued efforts to achieve better program outcomes, we recognize the critical need to, first, get the requirement right. 

Our approach begins with strengthening the decision support foundation. We have 

anchored future capability development in two fundamental concept documents. 

They are the Commandant of the Marine Corps Fragmentary Order or FRAGO 01/ 

2016: Advance to Contact issued in January 2016, and the Marine Corps Operating 

Concept dated September 2016. These documents will serve as the institutional 

mooring to continuously inform our capability development and budget programming decisions. As reported in our response to the fiscal year 2016 NDAA section 

808, our requirements definition employs a capabilities based assessment (CBA) 

process for the necessary analytical rigor at a strategic level to guide force development and set priorities for investments to build the future Marine Corps. In coordination with organizations across the Marine Corps, the Deputy Commandant for 

Combat Development and Integration (DC CD&I), as the requirements process 

owner, leads the annual CBA to produce the Marine Corps Enterprise Integration 

Plan (MCEIP). This plan drives future capability development and associated investments aligned to CMC’s strategic objectives. The CBA/MCEIP process provides 

58 

the enterprise discipline to deliberately translate our warfighting concepts into modernization investments while designing our programs for success. 

Specifically, FRAGO 01/2016 requires that the Commanding General, Marine 

Corps Combat Development Command (the DC CD&I under a different ‘‘hat’’ that 

integrates training as well) will drive our capability development process to ensure 

all materiel and non-materiel solutions will be ‘‘born MAGTF,’’(Marine Air-Ground 

Task Force) optimizing the MAGTF as our principal warfighting formation, known 

for its adaptability by scalable task organization. The FRAGO also specifies that we 

continue developing our concepts to take advantage of the capabilities of the F–35 

Joint Strike Fighter and all of our emerging aviation platforms, particularly in regard to sensor fusion and electronic warfare. We are committed to pursue technologies that enhance our warfighting capabilities such as unmanned aerial systems 

and robotics, artificial intelligence and autonomous technologies that provide tactical and operational advantage. 

The recently published Marine Corps Operating Concept (MOC) further strengthens our requirements foundation by its unflinching recognition of the challenge 

ahead. It emphasizes upfront that the Marine Corps is currently not organized, 

trained, and equipped to meet the demands of a future operating environment characterized by complex terrain, technology proliferation, information warfare, the need 

to shield and exploit signatures, and an increasingly non-permissive maritime domain. The MOC challenges us to ‘‘overcome enduring obstacles to leverage and sustain commercial-off-the-shelf systems.’’ An affordable 70 percent solution now is better than an outdated solution ten years from now. For improved capabilities in the 

high-demand, speed-of-light warfighting function ‘‘Command and Control,’’ for example, we must drive innovation by combining a mission perspective with commercial 

developments that allow information providers to collaborate on a situationally dependent architecture that lets information users opt-in to access or create tailored 

data streams. We will be vigilant to take more and better advantage of commercialoff-the-shelf network and data solutions. 

Future modernization efforts face the steep challenge of keeping up with 

globalized, rapid technology growth and proliferation. This demands the agility to 

accelerate the acquisition process when appropriate. In this regard, we are working 

with the Department of the Navy to create a menu of appropriate accelerated means 

to respond to the urgent materiel priorities of the operating forces. Within the Marine Corps we are establishing a Rapid Capabilities Office. This is a collaborative 

effort integrating our warfighting lab, requirements, and acquisition experts. Specifically of relevance to this QFR, The RCO will enable the procurement of promising capabilities, through a tailored acquisition process, while maintaining the 

ready capability to inform future and ongoing requirements and resource planning 

for potential transition to the traditional acquisition process. Our acquisition professionals are ready to work the required capabilities within the year of execution, specifically with emergent technology that appears to offer significant military utility. 

Our success in transforming the force for the future will also depend on the collaborative ties we form. Specifically, we are strongly partnered with US SOCOM 

and the Army through formal venues, such as the Army-Marine Corps Board and 

ongoing objective-driven discussion, e.g., our series of regular staff talks between the 

Marine Corps and the Special Operations Forces requirements and acquisition leadership. As these USMC–SOF staff talks are getting underway, they have the potential to yield quick wins, such as a tailored abbreviated acquisition program, and expanded access to our innovative requirements transition tool. Focused engagement 

with Industry will likewise serve to strengthen our ability to modernize our systems. 

For example, we recently kicked off the Marine Corps Infantry Equipping Challenge. We are engaging Marine Corps stakeholders and industry to identify innovative (COTS & Non-developmental Items) capabilities specifically tailored to our infantry marines in order to rapidly evaluate and field COTS & NDI technologies supporting their entire mission set. 

Another illustration of our effort to more effectively engage the industrial base is 

the recent release by the Department of the Navy of a special notice to industry calling for white papers on technologies that will be demonstrated in April. This is part 

of the aforementioned menu of accelerated acquisition means. This project is known 

as the Ship-to-Shore Maneuver Exploration and Experimentation Task Force in cooperation with the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development, Test and Evaluation. It will explore the potential for what may be rapidly 

prototyped to help with more rapid ship-to-shore maneuver. We must define the art 

of the possible in this regard, whether small boats with small teams to move ashore 

quickly; robotics; manned-unmanned teaming; or unmanned aircraft systems able to 

pass information, for example. After the demonstration, the government will select 

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technologies assessed good enough to sign a Cooperative Research and Development 

Cooperation Agreement. 

In addition to the foregoing, we are: 

• Working with the Service Acquisition Executive to define in-depth the role of 

the Principal Military Deputy as central to the Commandant’s acquisition decision support under fiscal year 2016 NDAA. • Executing an Organizational Design Review of our ground weapon and IT systems acquisition hub (Marine Corps Systems Command), including its substantial realignment to implement MAGTF portfolio management. • Conducting an Acquisition Workforce Review to identify the optimal allocation 

of acquisition personnel in and outside the acquisition community; to be completed by the end of fiscal year 2017. 

As the Commandant emphasized in his 26 May transmittal of the 808 report, ‘‘We 

remain committed to the challenge of innovating our acquisition processes and tools 

to produce 21st Century military capabilities apace with the changing global security, fiscal and technology environments.’’ The above provide a representative sampling or snapshot of this leadership heading today, while nonetheless noting that 

we continue actively exploring, experimenting and developing solutions with the 

characteristic, forward-looking sense of mission urgency that drives our Corps as the 

nation’s expeditionary force in readiness. 

General GOLDFEIN. The first action is to revamp our capability development activities by reinvigorating Development Planning. Accomplishing this action, in concert with experimentation, will produce empirical data to inform Air Force strategic 

decisions about how to move from nearer-term, stove-piped planning toward longerterm, multi-domain integrated capability planning. We will also strengthen our capability development by sharpening our focus on prototyping and experimentation 

efforts. Our focus on prototyping and experimentation efforts will inform critical decisions on operational utility, technical feasibility, producibility, and programmatic 

risks and accelerate the fielding of advanced capabilities to operational forces. 

The second action is to insert agility and continuous improvement into our standard acquisition processes. Our acquisition policy and processes teams will review opportunities to tailor acquisition regulatory requirements with the objective of delivering the needed capability to the warfighter in the shortest practical time while 

balancing risk, ensuring affordability and supportability, and providing adequate information for decision making. 

Third, we will refine our affordability assessment process to inculcate responsible 

and sustainable investment decisions through the formal examination of the long 

range implications of today’s capability requirement choices. 

Fourth, we will acquire systems using a modular open system approach which will 

accelerate replacements and/or upgrades to capabilities and allow for open competition to more vendors. This open systems approach, coupled with efforts to improve 

partnership with Industry, allows us to insert speed and flexibility in product development to facilitate rapid innovation and quicker technology updates. 

Underpinning all of these actions is our emphasis on fully implementing Bending 

the Cost Curve (BTCC) which is focused on expanding our dialogue with industry 

throughout the acquisition life cycle and expanding competition among traditional 

and non-traditional industry partners. We will strengthen our ability to innovate, 

achieve technical excellence and field dominant military capabilities by implementing AT&L’s Better Buying Power initiatives as well as the Secretary’s Bending 

the Cost Curve initiative. 

3. Senator MCCAIN. The Air Force is the service most affected by the impending 

modernization investment ‘‘bow wave’’ of the 2020s, peaking at over half of the Department of Defense’s modernization investment requirement in a single year at approximately $35 billion. When you consider all of your many modernization imperatives such as the F–35A fighter, KC–46A tanker, B–21 bomber, JSTARS recap, 

T–X trainer replacement, Ground Based Strategic Deterrent, Long Range Standoff 

weapon; the list goes on and on . . . How will you approach this seemingly insurmountable funding challenge? 

General GOLDFEIN. Without additional topline, the Air Force cannot fund everything and adequately address the pending acquisition bow wave; consequently we 

will be forced to sequence programs over time and take risk in conventional capacity, capability, and readiness. 

ARMY MODERNIZATION

4. Senator MCCAIN. The preponderance of the combat equipment resident in our 

Army today was designed and built in the era of the Reagan defense build-up. NotVerDate Nov 24 2008 12:51 May 01, 2018 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00063 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 C:\USERS\WR47328\DESKTOP\29881.TXT WILDA
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withstanding Army efforts to overhaul its equipment and upgrade operational effectiveness of its combat assets, do you believe your mission equipment inventory, from 

both a capacity and capabilities perspective, is keeping pace with the capabilities 

that other armies around the world, friendly or otherwise, are developing and fielding? 

General MILLEY. It really depends on the specific capability you are referring to, 

in some areas we maintain overmatch and in a few areas we have already been surpassed. For an ‘‘overall answer,’’ our near peer state competitors are rapidly closing 

the gap in several key areas, increasing risk. Today’s Army is a decisive combat 

force, the world’s best, which can rapidly deploy and destroy any enemy in the 

world. However, the size of the Army has decreased and for the last fifteen years 

we have optimized the Army to focus on counterinsurgency, counter-terrorism, and 

irregular warfare. At the same time, near peer competitors have modernized their 

forces for higher end warfare. Additionally, absent legislation, the sequestration 

caps set by the Budget Control Act of 2011 will return in Fiscal Year 2018 forcing 

the Army to draw down end-strength even further, further reduce funding for modernization, and increase the risk of sending under-trained and poorly equipped soldiers into harm’s way. 

In the future, the Army will operate on a highly contested and lethal battlefield 

in multiple domains across multiple regions simultaneously. Adversaries will attempt to degrade, disrupt, and deny our ability to operate in the land, cyber, air, 

space, and maritime domains. The Army is prioritizing investments to counter the 

threat against mission critical systems from cyberattacks and to sustain overmatch 

in the key areas of mobility, lethality, mission command, and force protection. We 

are placing specific emphasis on long-range precision fires, missile defense, directed 

energy weapons, ground vehicles, vertical lift, cyber, electronic warfare, networks, 

and active protection systems for both ground and air. Because the resources required to invest for the future are in direct competition with the resources required 

to upgrade and improve our current combat systems the Army is falling behind and 

is at risk of losing technical superiority and overmatch. 

INNOVATION AND SERVICE COMPETITION

5. Senator MCCAIN. In the report of the 1994 Commission on Roles and Missions, 

Commission Chairman John White wrote that ‘‘ . . . while DOD needs to increase 

jointness throughout the system, it is necessary to place a high value on broad Service competition,’’ to produce ‘‘innovation in weapon systems, forces, doctrine, and 

concepts of operations that yield the dramatically superior military capabilities we 

need.’’ Yet, in the ensuing two decades our armed forces divested much of their 

warfighting capacity, took a ‘‘procurement holiday’’ from modernizing and recapitalizing our most critical defense weapons systems, and ultimately drove a strategy 

change from a two major regional conflict force to something far less. In your opinions, is this outcome merely a symptom of declining defense budgets, or is it a product of the way our entire defense system is organized and allocates increasingly 

scarce resources? 

General MILLEY. It is probably a bit of both. The ‘‘system’’ rightfully allocates resources against what the leadership of the Defense Department believes are the 

most critical capability gaps and the more constrained the resources become, the 

harder the decisions on which critical capabilities are resourced and where we 

choose to assume risk. The easy decisions were made years ago—resourcing decisions made today are truly which critical capability gets funded and which do not. 

Additionally, because we have focused our combat development efforts on irregular 

warfare for the last 15 years we are behind in the modernization investments of our 

current and emerging near-peer threats and face losing overmatch in several key 

areas. National defense continues to be very expensive, but the alternatives are 

even more so. 

Admiral RICHARDSON. The primary driver of current reduced warfighting capacity 

and modernization is the ‘‘triple whammy’’ of reduced funding levels, high operational tempo, and persistent budget uncertainty. The combination of these factors 

has resulted in a significant ‘‘readiness debt’’, both in equipment and in personnel, 

just like carrying debt on a credit card. 

Since the Budget Control Act of 2011 was passed, defense funding has been significantly reduced and the defense strategy has been revised to meet the realities 

of year-after-year reductions to the defense budget. For the Navy specifically, this 

has resulted in weapons, aircraft and modernization reductions, as well as underfunding of military construction and base operating programs. In addition, the Navy 

has been required to defer some depot level maintenance which has had a direct 

impact on Navy’s overall readiness. Although operational tempo and demand for 

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Navy units remain high, there has not been any corresponding fiscal relief to help 

offset the wear and tear that our units continue to experience. As a result, we see 

the effects of extended deployments in the degraded material condition of our ships 

and aircraft. The budget uncertainty also causes cost growth and program delays 

because building and maintaining high-end ships and aircraft requires long term 

stability and commitment. 

At the same time, the Navy must continuously look for ways to maximize every 

dollar that has been authorized and appropriated to support the defense of our nation. The enhanced Service Chief authorities provided by the fiscal year 2016 National Defense Authorization Act increased my authority in the Navy’s acquisition 

system and, coupled with previous requirements and budgetary responsibilities, enable improvements in performance and agility. Thoughtful changes that improve collaborative decision making and oversight without creating excessive micromanagement or redundancy are welcomed, and I am working to make such changes. 

General NELLER. Declining budgets impact our ability to field a capable future 

force and hinder our ability to equip that force with robust capabilities to ensure 

battlefield success. We must dedicate the resources to be able to field the needed 

capabilities and technologies to win today and more importantly transform our force 

with the winning edge capabilities for tomorrow’s fight. For the Marine Corps, it is 

particularly challenging as our military personnel costs account for 61 percent of the 

Marine Corps’ ‘‘green’’ baseline budget request. Of the remainder, 27 percent is for 

O&M, nine percent is for modernization, and three percent is for military construction. Additionally, costs continue to rise while the budget declines. For example, the 

cost to equip and clothe a basic rifleman is currently 5.7 times of what the cost was 

in 2000 (this figure accounts for inflation and does not include night vision goggles). 

In the meantime, many of our weapons systems continue to age and oftentimes cannot compete with our adversaries’ technology. 

Within that relatively small modernization investment, there are some big ticket, 

high priority items for the Marine Corps-like the amphibious assault vehicle (AAV) 

survivability upgrade which will continue to provide a ship to shore self-deploying 

capability bridge until we have replacement for our 40 year old AAVs. The amphibious combat vehicle (ACV 1.1) is our first step in an incremental approach to replacing those AAVs. Common Aviation Command and Control System (CAC2S) and 

Ground/Air Task-Oriented Radar (G/ATOR) provide an ability to control our airspace enabling freedom of action to employ our organic weapons with the speed and 

tempo that makes the Marine Air Ground Task Forces successful. Communication 

Emitter Sensing and Attack Systems (CESAS) II, Intrepid Tiger II, Network on the 

Move (NOTM), and MQ–21 Blackjack unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) are some of 

the new capabilities that we must buy to support the Information Warfare (IW) 

enablers. These investments are just a few of our highest priority capabilities and 

come at the expense of the other 150+ programs in need of sustainment and modernization. In most cases the lower priority programs are underfunded, not procured 

to the full authorized acquisition objective (AAO), or not sustained at a level that 

would be expected for the Nation’s crisis response force. 

The operating environment is rapidly changing due to the actions of increasingly 

aggressive and capable peer competitors that are demonstrating high end (to include 

space and cyber) capabilities across the range of military operations (ROMO). These 

potential adversaries are, for example, capable of creating combined arms dilemmas 

using information, cyber, deception, unmanned ISR and long range precision fires 

in highly advanced and lethal ways. The Marine Corps must not only modernize, 

but also change in order to deter conflict, compete and, if necessary, fight and win 

against such foes. Consequently, we have identified several areas where significant 

modernization efforts, to include new capabilities and additional structure, will be 

required if the USMC intends to be able to fight and win as a Naval Force in contested littoral environs against such highly capable foes. The Corps’ leadership is 

convinced that the threat is not emergent, rather, it is upon us. The nation needs 

its Corps of Marines to move out on modernization, and to make prudent and timely 

changes. 

While we continue to accept risk as we prioritize our modernization efforts, we 

are often thwarted by the lack of stability in funding. Innovation is at the forefront 

of our pursuits, because we understand that we must adapt all our systems to the 

challenges at hand. Therefore, we appreciate the continued and redoubled Congressional support to not only support and help stabilize our budgets but, equally important, to continue working with the Department of Defense, Department of Navy and 

the Marine Corps on collaboratively improving how we equip our Marines to fight 

and win our nation’s battles. 

General GOLDFEIN. Actually the outcome reflects both budgets and organization. 

We are mindful of the fiscal situation and recognize that our organizations must 

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contribute to the government-wide deficit reduction as a national security imperative. Our ability to make proper investments to modernize and sustain the capabilities of the Air Force is tied to the economic health of the United States. Nonetheless, we must respond to a changing strategic environment that has evolved over 

the past two decades. Since 2001, the Air Force has performed exceptionally well 

during combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, these operations have 

focused on missions conducted in a permissive air environment, with large footprints for counterinsurgency. This left insufficient time or resources to train across 

the full range of Air Force missions, especially missions conducted in contested and 

highly contested environments. Any budget increases that occurred during this time 

were primarily consumed by operational expenses, not procurement. Moreover, we 

made strategic trades to support the counter-VEO (violent extremism operations) 

campaign. For instance, we reduced investment in ‘high-end’ capability to pay for 

capacity and readiness, build the ISR enterprise, and maintain legacy fighter force 

structure. Additionally, while budgets have tightened, health care costs have continued to increase. We must now make strategically informed choices that build a future force focused on the challenges posed by China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and 

violent extremism. 

INNOVATION AND SERVICE COMPETITION

6. Senator MCCAIN. What would you recommend as the way forward to reversing 

this trend? 

General MILLEY. Absent additional legislation, the sequestration caps set by the 

Budget Control Act of 2011 will return in Fiscal Year 2018, forcing the Army to 

draw down end-strength even further, further reduce funding for modernization, 

and increase the risk of sending under-trained and poorly equipped soldiers into 

harm’s way. To move forward with any certainty, the threat of sequestration must 

be eliminated. Sequestration is an impediment to good planning and represents a 

threat to the Department’s ability to develop and maintain the military capabilities 

and forces we need to support the broader national security strategy. The support 

of Congress to predictably fund the Army at balanced and sufficient levels to meet 

current demands and to simultaneously build a more capable, modern, ready force 

for future contingencies is imperative. 

Admiral RICHARDSON. Constrained resources, reduced funding levels, combined 

with operational and related maintenance challenges, have been exacerbated by 

budget uncertainty. Building and maintaining high-end ships and aircraft requires 

long-term stability and commitment. Without it, costs grow and work takes longer. 

Skilled workers leave the workforce and do not return, while private industry defers 

investments in necessary process improvements. Despite these obstacles, recovery 

from our current backlog is underway, but it will take time. We must find a way 

to restore the trust and confidence that underpin the crucial relationship with our 

acquisition and maintenance workforce. Our ability to achieve true effectiveness and 

efficiency has been undermined by budget instability, workforce limitations, and 

eight straight years of budget uncertainty and continuing resolutions. 

The solution will require that we work as partners to set sufficient resource levels 

and restore stability to the budgeting process, and also ensure that every dollar that 

the American taxpayer gives the Navy is spent as efficiently and effectively as possible. I am committed to meeting my responsibilities here and in partnering with 

you as we go forward. 

General NELLER. We need to continue to strive for greater flexibility within our 

acquisition process, so that we can modernize our equipment, and provide our Marines the resources needed to win our battles. Our nation has a world premier fighting force, however, our equipment has been depleted by nearly 15 years of constant 

battles, without the requisite maintenance and or replacements. Our aviation community is particularly vulnerable when it comes to lack of required maintenance 

and or upgrades. 

We will continue to budget within our TOA. But in order to maximize that funding we must look for efficiencies and opportunities to incorporate evolving technologies. One of the ways we can achieve this is by participating in joint acquisition 

efforts, such as the JLTV, to reduce the per item cost and achieve more flexibility 

with developing variants to an item. 

The acquisition process, however, can be cumbersome when we are trying to keep 

pace with changes in technology and weaponry advances. Recognizing this, we whole 

heartedly support streamlining the acquisition process. This was addressed in my 

May 2016 ‘‘Report to Congress on Linking and Streamlining Marine Corps Requirements, Acquisition, and Budget Processes’’ (per fiscal year 2016 NDAA section 808). 

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siveness to our capability needs, including agile adjustments to environment 

changes. The optimal system must build-in process flexibility. Flexible examples 

that could serve as models in addressing the optimal system design include the categorical tailoring process of our Abbreviated Acquisition Program (AAP), our cyber 

process streamlining, and rapid prototyping. 

The 808 report describes rapid prototyping as a 21st century solution to fast-track 

development and fielding of maturing technologies and engineering innovations. 

This epitomizes to a significant degree the challenge and opportunity of streamlining processes as a key element in improved acquisition system design. 

We are incorporating open architecture and modular designs in our prototyping 

efforts, and will continue to require open architecture and modularity in our formal 

acquisition programs, to further enable rapid prototyping at the system and component levels and ensure technology advancements can be quickly prototyped, demonstrated and fielded. By designing our platforms and systems using open architectures, we are confident that rapid upgrades can occur that will achieve significant 

performance improvements at significantly less cost. 

As we identify emerging requirements in our weapons procurement programs, we 

are often frustrated by the lack of funding flexibility and stability. The practice of 

reprogramming funds is necessary to achieve flexibility in the execution of programs. In order to optimize the funding we receive, raising the below-threshold reprogramming limits for appropriations would allow increased resilience and responsiveness to unpredictable changes. 

Finally, inherent in improving our weapons procurement process is also protest 

reform. Protests add program delays, financial costs, and lost opportunity costs for 

the government. Again, our 808 report details what we believe are thoughtful options for improvement. Our ability to evolve and adapt to a rapidly changing battlefield will ensure our Marines success. We must not only be prudent with our investment dollars, we need to also streamline a system that will ensure we field a modern capability for the current and future fight—not an outdated capability from yesterday’s fight. 

General GOLDFEIN. For our part, we are reinvigorating development planning at 

the AF enterprise level to build-in agility and formulate truly innovative strategic 

choices. Our capability development efforts will foster the necessary close relationship between our operational, science & technology, acquisition, and requirements 

disciplines. 

Our efforts are aligned to initiatives which are designed to strengthen our ability 

to innovate, achieve technical excellence, and field dominant military capabilities. 

As a case in point, war in the information age will consist of multiple nodes operating in a network that can exist both physically and virtually across all domains. 

In particular we need to be able to fuse data, collected from all assets, to get decision-quality information to decision-makers faster than our adversaries. This will require open architecture systems across the multi-domain environment. We are focused on improving capability development as part of a joint force for the joint fight 

and the Nation. 

NUCLEAR ENTERPRISE MODERNIZATION

7. Senator MCCAIN. According to recent estimates from the Department of Defense, the cost to operate, maintain, and modernize the Department’s nuclear forces 

will be $234 billion between fiscal year 2017 and 2026. These costs will increase as 

the Ohio-class Replacement Program, B–21 bomber, and the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent (the Minuteman ICBM replacement program), all get into the heart 

of their procurement and fielding portions of their acquisition life cycles. Yet, it is 

also a fact that nuclear modernization will comprise only about 12–14 percent of all 

DOD acquisition programs, so it is part of a much larger modernization investment 

‘‘bow wave.’’ As your services comprise the three legs of our nation’s nuclear triad, 

and if you consider the Department’s modernization investment ‘‘bow wave’’ of costs 

peaking at the same time, how are you going to approach the challenge of funding 

the nuclear enterprise amongst all of your non-nuclear force requirements? 

Admiral RICHARDSON. My top modernization priority, and greatest concern, is 

adequate, stable funding for the Ohio Replacement Program (ORP) while still providing a fleet that will meet other important Navy missions. ORP is paramount to 

our ability to strengthen naval power at and from the sea, and is foundational to 

our survival as a nation. In order to procure these vessels without impacting remaining procurement plans, the Navy will continue to need additional resources for 

ship construction beyond the Future Years Defense Program, not unlike those that 

occurred during the construction of the Ohio-class in the 1980s. To minimize overall 

impact to other department programs, the Navy is pursuing an incremental funding 

64 

profile for the lead and second OR SSBN. The Navy is also leveraging over 50 years 

of submarine design and operational experience to improve affordability and deliver 

the OR SSBN in the most cost-effective manner. These improvements in affordability allow the Navy to reduce the overall cost of the nuclear modernization compared to those incurred in the 1960s and 1980s. The Navy greatly appreciates Congressional support in overcoming the challenges posed by funding ORP and the procurement authorities provided in the fiscal year 2016 National Defense Authorization Act that enhance affordability. 

General GOLDFEIN. The Air Force is committed to funding the nuclear enterprise 

at the appropriate level to ensure continued safe, secure, and reliable operations, 

as well as required nuclear modernization, including Nuclear Command, Control, 

and Communications (NC3). Of particular note, the commander, Air Force Global 

Strike Command is the single accountable officer to the Chief of Staff and Secretary 

of the Air Force for all aspects of the nuclear mission. We have established NC3 

as a Weapon System and have outlined NC3 milestones and programming actions. 

The Air Force’s long term planning budget includes a significant level of funding 

for the nuclear enterprise, based on previous program estimates. As actual cost projections are refined, the Air Force Strategic Planning and Corporate Process will revise the long-term planning budget in accordance with established processes. The 

Air Force will address any program shortfalls as part of the Air Force Corporate 

Process, and may request additional Total Obligation Authority to meet funding obligations. 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY AYOTTE

CHILD DEVELOPMENT CENTERS (CDC)

8. Senator AYOTTE. Admiral Richardson, in April, despite the best efforts of those 

at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard (PNSY), there were at least 163 families waiting for 

childcare at the PNSY CDC with average wait times of almost 300 days. According 

to information I received this month from the Navy, average wait times for children 

in category 2 remain above 300 days and average wait times for children in category 

1 have actually worsened since April when the Navy testified that a temporary solution, military learning classrooms (MLCs), would be installed by the end of this fiscal year. Now, the Navy has informed my office that these MLCs will not be installed until May 2017. What explains the eight month delay in installing MLCs? 


16-69_QFR7.eps
65 

Admiral RICHARDSON. The Navy is committed to providing quality child development programs at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard (PNSY) and at Navy installations 

around the world to enable readiness and help Navy families balance the competing 

demands of work and family life. We have worked diligently to expand the childcare 

program PNSY by installing Mobile Learning Centers (MLCs). During the planning 

and design phase for this effort, the local public works staff determined the best solution for PNSY families was to purchase MLCs specifically constructed to meet 

Navy childcare specifications and to install those facilities on underdeveloped land 

close enough to the existing CDC to allow for convenient drop off and pick up. This 

course of action triggered environmental compliance, land permitting and contracting requirements that took several months to complete. The PNSY team successfully completed all required steps and awarded the contract for MLCs in September. The MLCs are scheduled to be in full operation no later than May 2017. 

9. Senator AYOTTE. Admiral Richardson, what can the Navy do to expedite the 

installation of the MLCs? 

Admiral RICHARDSON. I assure you the Navy is doing everything we can to expedite this process, ensuring that we also produce the highest quality childcare solutions for our families. We awarded a contract for the installation of MLCs on Sept. 

20, 2016. They are scheduled to be in full operation by May 2017. Commander, 

Navy Installations Command will continue to provide updates to Congress on the 

status of childcare at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. 

10. Senator AYOTTE. Admiral Richardson, in the meantime, what is the Navy 

doing to provide PNSY the resources it needs to address unacceptable wait times 

and wait lists at the CDC and to make life better for the workers at the shipyard? 

Admiral RICHARDSON. The Navy has prioritized the addition of PNSY in the Department of Defense’s MilitaryChildCare.com system, which provides a single gateway for military families to find comprehensive information on military-operated or 

military-approved child care programs worldwide. PNSY families can access realtime availability and wait times for all military child care options based on their 

individual family priority. 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY SENATOR DEB FISCHER

READINESS: STATE OF FULL-SPECTRUM TRAINING

11. Senator FISCHER. The Wall Street Journal published an article, co-authored 

by General David Petraeus and Michael O’Hanlon, last month titled: The Myth of 

a U.S. Military ’Readiness’ Crisis. It claims that ‘‘by 2017 the Army plans to rotate 

nearly 20 brigades—about a third of its force—through national training centers 

each year. The Marine Corps plans to put 12 infantry battalions—about half its 

force—through large training exercises. The Air Force is funding its training and 

readiness programs at 80 percent to 98 percent of what it considers fully resourced 

levels.’’ Does this accurately portray the state of your service and its readiness to 

conduct full-spectrum operations? 

General MILLEY. I respect both General Petraeus and Mr. O’Hanlon, however, I 

do not entirely subscribe to the conclusions made in their article. While the Army 

is facing serious readiness challenges, I would not characterize it as a ‘‘crisis.’’ Furthermore, while large-scale collective training like that executed at the Combat 

Training Centers (CTCs) is essential, it is not the only critical component of readiness. 

Hard, realistic home-station training is a fundamental building block of readiness, 

and is essential to preparing units for CTCs. Demanding home-station training, coupled with the near-peer hybrid threat scenarios experienced at CTCs, is critical to 

narrow the generational divide in high-end warfighting experience between pre-9/ 

11 and current field grade officers and senior noncommissioned officers. 

With respect to numbers of CTC rotations, the Army intends to increase Decisive 

Action, full spectrum operations, Brigade Combat Team (BCT) rotations from 19 in 

fiscal year 2017 to 21 in fiscal year 2019. Increasing CTC rotations will permit 

greater repetitions across the Total Force. Units and leaders must get repetitions 

to be fully trained, and this will take time. 

Another critical aspect of readiness is manning. Significant decreases in endstrength across all Army components—Regular, Guard, and Reserve—compounded 

by elevated non-availability rates, are causing manning challenges. While the Army 

is working aggressively to decrease soldier non-availability within units, the overall 

smaller size of the force makes this a greater challenge. 

66 

In addition to manning and training, a ready Army requires modern equipment 

to win. An unintended consequence of the current fiscal environment is that the 

Army is not modernizing the force at the desirable rate and risks falling behind 

near-peer adversaries. 

Lastly, a ready Army must have leaders of character who are technically and 

tactically proficient, adaptive, innovative, and agile. It takes time to develop leaders 

who can effectively train and ready their units, and successfully lead them in the 

demanding and unforgiving crucible that is ground combat. 

General NELLER. While the training that infantry battalions and attached units 

receive at the Integrated Training Exercise (ITX) contributes to unit readiness, 

these forces constitute less than half of the Marine Corps’ forces, which task-organize to deploy and fight as Marine Air Ground Task Forces (MAGTFs). The Marine 

Corps is meeting its Global Force Management Allocation Plan (GFMAP), contingency, and ‘‘New Normal’’ requirements, but at the cost of readiness for non-deployed forces, modernization, and infrastructure sustainment—all of which lead to 

a degraded ability to generate forces per Operational Plan timelines. There has not 

been a sufficient decrease to operational tempo at the unit level that would permit 

training to full spectrum operations, and that will not improve as the Active Duty 

end-strength is reduced to 182,000. 

Acute readiness issues exist in Marine Corps aviation units. Other readiness concerns are: (1) training lapses in advanced warfighting capabilities such as Marine 

Expeditionary Force-level combined arms maneuver, anti-air warfare, and amphibious and prepositioning operations; (2) personnel shortages from filling Joint Manning Document and Individual Augment billets; (3) shortages of critical enlisted 

leaders; and (4) the limited operational availability of amphibious warships and 

maritime prepositioning force platforms, which restricts core mission amphibious 

training to that of only our Marine Expeditionary Units (MEUs). 

General GOLDFEIN. No it does not. Air Force full spectrum readiness is at historic 

lows. The Air Force operational training enterprise is unable to surge and quickly 

return the combat force to higher readiness due to three key constraints: chronic 

manpower shortfalls; limited capacity to train; and sustained operational tempo. 

Chronic Manpower Shortfalls: Until the Air Force can solve its manpower shortfalls, ‘‘national training center’’ style training will only have a limited impact on improving full-spectrum readiness. Current and projected aircraft maintenance and 

pilot shortfalls will continue until the Air Force can recruit, train, and field critical 

manpower shortfalls necessary to recover its full capacity to train to full-spectrum 

readiness. This is why we have made increasing our end-strength a budget priority. 

Limited Capacity to Train: The Air Force currently cannot generate enough sorties to meet both overseas contingency missions and required flight training requirements. Our primary limiting factor is the lack of sufficient maintenance personnel 

to generate sorties. Additional limiting factors include tasks that take priority over 

full-spectrum training to include directed partial-unit taskings (i.e. Theater Security, Regional Assurance, Training Support), and continued low intensity combat operations (i.e. Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria). 

Sustained Operational Tempo: Our Air Force has become highly proficient in 

counter-insurgency air operations. Sixteen years of continuous low-intensity combat 

operations have honed the skills of our kinetic, mobility, support, intelligence, and 

space forces; however this has come at the expense of full-spectrum readiness. The 

Air Force simply does not have the capacity to continue both the current pace of 

today’s combat operations and simultaneously rebuild full-spectrum readiness. 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY SENATOR DAN SULLIVAN

FREEDOM OF NAVIGATION IN THE ARCTIC REGION

12. Senator SULLIVAN. Admiral Richardson, if tasked by the President, how would 

the U.S. Navy conduct a year-round surface FONOP in the Arctic? 

Admiral RICHARDSON. The Navy currently provides year-round capability and 

presence in the Arctic primarily through undersea and air assets. Surface ship operations, including Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONOPs) to challenge excessive maritime claims, would be executed only after assessments of the specific operating environment and application of Operational Risk Management (ORM) principles to account for risk factors including sea ice, wind, ice accumulation on equipment, and impacts to communications and satellite coverage. 

The Navy also works in close coordination with interagency partners in order to 

support the National Strategy for the Arctic Region. The Navy would likely partner 

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with the U.S. Coast Guard to leverage their extensive experience in the Arctic region to conduct surface ship operations, including FONOPs. 

13. Senator SULLIVAN. Admiral Richardson, if Russia decided to deny access to 

vital U.S. or international shipping in the Arctic region, could the U.S. Navy conduct a surface FONOP year-round to challenge that act? 

Admiral RICHARDSON. Freedom of the seas is a national priority. The Navy will 

support access for the safe, secure, and free flow of resources and commerce in the 

Arctic Region. The Navy is prepared to respond to a wide range of challenges and 

contingencies if necessary in order to maintain stability in the region. 

U.S. military forces conduct Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONOPs) to challenge a coastal state’s excessive maritime claim in order to preserve the global mobility of U.S. forces. As the Secretary of Defense has said, we will continue to fly, 

sail, and operate wherever international law allows, including in the Arctic region, 

to protect the U.S. national security interest in preserving global mobility of U.S. 

military and civilian vessels. 

The Navy currently provides year-round capability and presence in the Arctic primarily through undersea and air assets. Surface ship operations, including 

FONOPs, would be executed only after specific assessments of the operating environment and application of Operational Risk Management (ORM) principles to account for risk factors including sea ice, wind, ice accumulation on equipment, and 

impacts to communications and satellite coverage. The Navy would likely partner 

with the U.S. Coast Guard to leverage their extensive experience in the Arctic region to conduct surface ship operations, including FONOPs. 

The Navy’s strategy in the Arctic emphasizes low-cost, long-lead time activities, 

keeping pace with the changing environmental conditions. Although a gradual opening of the Arctic is predicted, the region’s frequent harsh weather and sea conditions 

are significant limiting factors for shipping in the Arctic region. 

14. Senator SULLIVAN. Admiral Richardson, when was the last time that the U.S. 

conducted a FONOP in the Arctic? 

Admiral RICHARDSON. The last time the United States challenged excessive maritime claims in the Arctic was in 1964, when U.S. forces conducted oceanographic 

surveys in areas previously claimed by the former Soviet Union as historic waters. 

Additionally, the Navy has over six decades of experience operating in the Arctic 

with our submarine forces. The Navy currently provides year-round capability and 

presence in the Arctic primarily through undersea and air assets. 

15. Senator SULLIVAN. Admiral Richardson, should the U.S. Navy have that capability? 

Admiral RICHARDSON. As the Secretary of Defense has said, we will continue to 

fly, sail, and operate wherever international law allows, including in the Arctic region, to protect the U.S. national security interest in preserving global mobility. 

The Navy currently provides year-round capability and presence in the Arctic primarily through undersea and air assets. The Navy also works in close coordination 

with interagency partners in order to support the National Strategy for the Arctic 

Region. The Navy would likely partner with the U.S. Coast Guard to leverage their 

extensive experience in the Arctic region to conduct surface ship operations, including FONOPs. 

The Navy is taking a deliberate, measured approach to achieve our strategic objectives in the Arctic, as outlined in our Arctic Roadmap. We will continue to study, 

assess and make informed decisions on Arctic operating requirements and procedures to keep pace with the changing environmental conditions. 

16. Senator SULLIVAN. Admiral Richardson, the U.S. stopped doing surface 

FONOPs in the SCS for three years, an absence that China capitalized upon to 

build militarized islands in sovereign seas of other nations. Does the same principle 

of Freedom of the Seas—and the FONOPs that help preserve it—apply just as much 

to the Arctic as to the SCS? 

Admiral RICHARDSON. Yes, the United States is committed to upholding all the 

rights, freedoms, and lawful uses of the sea and airspace guaranteed to all nations 

under international law. As the Secretary of Defense has said, we will continue to 

fly, sail, and operate wherever international law allows, including in the South 

China Sea and the Arctic region, to protect the U.S. national security interests in 

preserving global mobility. 

In support of this commitment, U.S. military forces conduct Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONOPs) to challenge coastal States’ excessive maritime claims in 

order to preserve the global mobility of U.S. forces. U.S. military forces execute 

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FONOPs with respect to a wide range of excessive maritime claims, irrespective of 

the coastal State asserting those excessive claims. 

The United States conducted FONOPs against the excessive maritime claims of 

various South China Sea claimants in fiscal years 2012 through 2016. FONOPs are 

reflected in the annual Department of Defense Freedom of Navigation (FON) Reports. The U.S. Navy also maintains a consistent presence in the South China Sea 

through presence operations. 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY SENATOR MAZIE HIRONO

GENERAL FLAG OFFICER REDUCTIONS

17. Senator Hirono. General Milley, Admiral Richardson, General Neller, and 

General Goldfein, both House and Senate-passed versions of the Fiscal Year 2017 

National Defense Authorization Act look to reduce the number of General and Flag 

Officer positions in the services. One version prohibits component commands under 

combatant commands from being led by an officer in a grade above Lieutenant General or Vice Admiral. What are your thoughts on the proposed reductions in the 

number of general and flag officers as well as the timeframe provided to implement 

these changes? Are there possible impacts including those at the second and third 

levels which could impact readiness and the effectiveness of our military forces? 

Would you have concerns with an implementation of these reductions and restrictions without the time to adequately study, plan and manage them? 

General MILLEY. The proposed reductions in the number of general and flag officers, which would be taken without regard to the mission of each general officer, 

would diminish the influence and authority the services need to conduct their statutory functions and provide services to the joint force. These actions will also lessen 

the services’ capacity to assist combatant commanders’ in shaping the strategic environment, influencing foreign counterparts, and expanding force capacity in response 

to contingency requirements. Any reduction of general and flag officer grades should 

be predicated on a thorough analysis of mission requirements and scope of responsibilities to ensure military leadership has the appropriate grade and experience for 

their scope of responsibility. Implementing the changes on an expedited timeframe 

would prevent the thorough analysis necessary. 

Admiral RICHARDSON. At a time when we are facing a wide array of security challenges in the most complex security environment ever, a dramatic change in our 

military’s leadership structure would introduce instability and adversely affect the 

Nation’s warfighting capabilities. Reductions to the leadership structure should only 

be done after a more detailed study of the full range of consequences is completed. 

As written, the proposed legislation could result in the reduction of the grades of 

the Commander, U.S. Fleet Forces Command; Commander, U.S. Pacific Fleet; Commander, U.S. Naval Forces Europe/Africa, the Vice Chief of Naval Operations or 

Naval Reactors. These commands have 4-star leaders because of their wide-ranging 

spans of responsibility and control; large personnel and budget portfolios; and, to a 

lesser extent, but important one, their diplomatic roles. Reductions in flag officer 

ranks need to be carefully weighed against the potentially adverse impacts on foreign military cooperation, diplomatic ties, and mission accomplishment. Any reductions may be viewed by our allies and rivals as a lessening of the Navy’s commitment to global maritime security. 

General NELLER. The Marine Corps opposes the Senate provision that would reduce the authorized number of Active Marine Corps General Officers (GOs) from 61 

to 47 and Reserve Marine Corps GOs in an active status from 10 to 7. We also oppose the timeframe allowed to implement this reduction. 

The Marine Corps is our Nation’s force in readiness. We require the right leadership structure to support our evolving warfighting role. This reduction would leave 

critical senior leadership billets unfilled or under filled, negatively impacting the 

leadership, capabilities, and readiness of the Marine Corps. 

The reduction will also impact GO management, causing significant promotion 

stagnation and a substantial loss of talent that will take decades to recreate. As the 

Marine Corps is the smallest service with the fewest GOs and lowest leader-to-led 

ratio, a blanket percentage reduction will be significantly more difficult to absorb 

without negative impacts to the Corps. 

A thorough study of Department of Defense senior military leadership should be 

undertaken prior to making any reductions, especially in light of current efforts to 

reduce Senior Executive Service and headquarters-element civilians. 

General GOLDFEIN. The 2017 NDAA language regarding general and flag officer 

reductions is a complex proposal that requires in-depth Department analysis prior 

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to implementation. The USAF supports DOD’s efforts to conduct a detailed review 

of General and Flag Officer requirements to mitigate arbitrary reductions that 

would have negative impact on readiness and experience. The USAF also believes 

that any adjustment to GO authorizations should consider the probable impact to 

operational capability in terms of both effectiveness and efficiency. Until a detailed 

Department analysis has been conducted, we cannot say how we would implement 

the aforementioned changes. It should be noted that the proposed HASC NDAA language prohibiting component commands under combatant commands from being led 

by an officer in a grade above Lieutenant General or Vice Admiral would eliminate 

five 4-star general officer positions in the USAF. These positions include the commander of AF Global Strike Command (AFGSC), AF Space Command (AFSPC), Air 

Mobility Command (AMC), Pacific Air Forces (PACAF), and US Air Forces Europe 

and US Air Forces Africa (USAFE/AFAFRICOM). These cuts along with other proposed cuts in GO authorizations would have a significant and adverse impact on the 

experience, readiness, and representational duties of our senior leaders in the areas 

of air, space, cyberspace, ISR, and nuclear operations. Moreover, it would further 

erode the assurances we have provided our allies and partners in USAFE and 

PACAF who rely on our regional leadership. 

18. Senator Hirono. General Milley, it is important to have a strong and stable 

presence in the Asia-Pacific region in light of the actions of China in the South 

China Sea and the unpredictable threats posed by North Korea. The House-passed 

version of the fiscal year 2017 NDAA prohibits component commands under combatant commands from being led by four-star officers. How would this change affect the 

forces in US Army Pacific? How would this provision, if enacted, affect our strength 

and presence in the Pacific? How do you think other countries in the region would 

interpret the change of the Commanding General of US Army Pacific being reduced 

from four to three-stars? 

General MILLEY. The Commander, U.S. Army Pacific (USARPAC) position was 

upgraded from a three to four star general in July of 2013 in support of the administration’s declared ‘‘Rebalance to Asia.’’ At that time, this upgrade was explained 

as a sign of the U.S. commitment to our allies in Asia and a recognition that a four 

star general will have more influence in many Asian nations where armies are the 

predominant Military Service. Because of the emphasis placed on the importance of 

this upgrade, downgrading that position to a three-star command would signal to 

our partners and allies in the Asia-Pacific region that the United States is less serious about its commitment. The Asia-Pacific region is a strategic priority given China’s demographic growth, expanding economic influence, and modernizing military. 

Maintaining a four-star commander at USARPAC sends a message to allies and 

partners in the Asia-Pacific Region that the United States is committed to building 

and maintaining a robust network of like-minded states that contribute to sustaining the rules-based regional order while deterring those states that seek to reform it. Furthermore, a three star USARPAC Commander would not garner the 

same level of access to senior government leaders in partnered Pacific countries as 

does the current four star Commander. The USARPAC Commander is also designated as the theater Joint Force Land Component Commander (JFLCC) for U.S. 

Pacific Command (PACOM) USARPAC Command, and provides critical mission 

command capabilities for a full range of combat and non-combat military operations 

throughout the PACOM Area of Responsibility. 

19. Senator Hirono. Admiral Richardson, it is important to have a strong and stable presence in the Asia-Pacific region in light of the actions of China in the South 

China Sea and the unpredictable threats posed by North Korea. The House-passed 

version of the fiscal year 2017 NDAA prohibits component commands under combatant commands from being led by four-star officers. How would this change affect the 

Pacific Fleet where about 60 percent of our Navy’s ships operate? How would this 

provision, if enacted, affect our strength and presence in the Pacific? How do you 

think other countries including allies, friends and potential adversaries in the region 

would interpret the change of the Commander of the Pacific Fleet being reduced 

from four to three-stars? 

Admiral RICHARDSON. Commander, U.S. Pacific Fleet is responsible for production 

and consumption of readiness on a vast scale. As the Theater Joint Force Maritime 

Component Commander to U.S. Pacific Command, the Pacific Fleet Commander 

leverages a four-star command structure that provides strategic and operational integration, de-confliction, synchronization, and mitigation oversight in an AOR geographically larger, and with higher human population, than the rest of Global Combatant Commander areas of responsibility combined. The Commander oversees complex, and sophisticated operational missions and responses across the region, while 

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commanding 3-star subordinates (Commanders of Seventh Fleet, Third Fleet, and 

Fleet Marine Force Pacific) who collectively lead the world’s largest expeditionary 

force and the most capable forward deployed Naval force on earth. The Commander 

is responsible for U.S. Navy engagements with 36 nations including five nations 

with whom the US shares mutual defense treaties. Additionally the Pacific Fleet 

Commander oversees the man, train, and equip responsibilities of three Type Commanders (Commanders of Naval Air Forces, Surface Forces, and Submarine Forces 

Pacific) as well as the regional responsibilities of Commanders of U.S. Naval forces 

in Japan, Korea, Singapore, and Guam. With missions, functions and tasks incorporating 140,000 personnel, an annual budget of $13 billion, and ships, aircraft, 

equipment and infrastructure valued at over $500 billion, the U.S Pacific Fleet Commander’s range and depth of responsibility is without peer in the United States 

Navy. 

In the case of the Commander, U.S. Pacific Fleet, the reduction of the service component commander pay grade from a four-star Admiral (O–10) to a three-star Vice 

Admiral (O–9) would undermine the Nation’s credibility, reduce our ability to influence world events, increase strategic and operational risk, and weaken the Navy’s 

ability to execute U.S. national security objectives in the Pacific Fleet Area of Responsibility (AOR). Our current Navy rank structure in the Pacific is a direct reflection of the variety, magnitude, and consequence of the challenges faced in this region, combined with the preponderance of the U.S. Navy’s combat power located in 

the region, and culminating in a level of responsibility and required authority far 

beyond the span of responsibility of a three-star Flag Officer. At its outset, a pay 

grade reduction would serve to discourage our allies and partners and embolden our 

potential adversaries with a strong signal that will be interpreted as a retreat from 

our commitment to America’s Rebalance to the Indo-Asia-Pacific, and a withdrawal 

from our long standing commitment to the region’s security, stability, and prosperity. 

Overall, Commander, Pacific Fleet has a 4-star leader because of its wide-ranging 

span of responsibility and control; large personnel and budget portfolios; and, its 

diplomatic role. Reductions in flag officer ranks need to be carefully weighed against 

the potentially adverse impacts on foreign military cooperation, diplomatic ties, and 

mission accomplishment. Any reductions may be viewed by our allies and rivals as 

a lessening of the Navy’s commitment to global maritime security. 

In the 71 years since World War II, our allies and partners in the Indo-Asia-Pacific have counted on the U.S. Navy to anchor, with highly capable combat-ready 

forces, the framework of norms, standards, rules and laws on which their security 

and prosperity depend. The U.S. Navy requires a four-star Admiral at Pacific Fleet 

in order to maintain and ensure our Nation’s role as the region’s preeminent maritime power and leader. 

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