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i 

86–972 2014

[H.A.S.C. No. 113–82] 

SEAPOWER AND PROJECTION FORCES 

CAPABILITIES TO SUPPORT THE 

ASIA–PACIFIC REBALANCE 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON SEAPOWER AND 

PROJECTION FORCES 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

HEARING HELD 

FEBRUARY 27, 2014 
(II) 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON SEAPOWER AND PROJECTION FORCES 

J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia, Chairman 

K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas 

DUNCAN HUNTER, California 

E. SCOTT RIGELL, Virginia 

STEVEN M. PALAZZO, Mississippi 

ROBERT J. WITTMAN, Virginia 

MIKE COFFMAN, Colorado 

JON RUNYAN, New Jersey 

KRISTI L. NOEM, South Dakota 

PAUL COOK, California 

BRADLEY BYRNE, Alabama 

MIKE MCINTYRE, North Carolina 

JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut 

JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island 

RICK LARSEN, Washington 

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

COLLEEN W. HANABUSA, Hawaii 

DEREK KILMER, Washington 

SCOTT H. PETERS, California 

DAVID SIENICKI, Professional Staff Member 

PHIL MACNAUGHTON, Professional Staff Member 

NICHOLAS RODMAN, Clerk 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS 

2014 

Page 

HEARING: 

Thursday, February 27, 2014, Seapower and Projection Forces Capabilities 

to Support the Asia-Pacific Rebalance ............................................................... 1 

APPENDIX: 

Thursday, February 27, 2014 ................................................................................. 35 

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 2014 

SEAPOWER AND PROJECTION FORCES CAPABILITIES TO SUPPORT 

THE ASIA–PACIFIC REBALANCE 

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

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

McIntyre, Hon. Mike, a Representative from North Carolina, Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces .................................... 2 

WITNESSES 

Berteau, David J., Senior Vice President and Director, National Security 

Program on Industry and Resources, Center for Strategic and International 

Studies .................................................................................................................. 7 

Mahnken, Thomas G., Professor of Strategy, Jerome Levy Chair of Economic 

Geography and National Security, U.S. Naval War College ............................ 5 

Ratner, Ely, Senior Fellow and Deputy Director of the Asia-Pacific Security 

Program, Center for a New American Security ................................................. 9 

Walsh, ADM Patrick, USN (Ret.), Senior Fellow, Tower Center, Southern 

Methodist University ........................................................................................... 3 

APPENDIX 

PREPARED STATEMENTS: 

Berteau, David J. .............................................................................................. 59 

Forbes, Hon. J. Randy ...................................................................................... 39 

Mahnken, Thomas G. ....................................................................................... 49 

Ratner, Ely ........................................................................................................ 69 

Walsh, ADM Patrick ........................................................................................ 41 

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD: 

Statement of Jose Andres, CEO, Makai Ocean Engineering, Inc. ............... 85 

WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING THE HEARING: 

[There were no Questions submitted during the hearing.] 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING: 

Mr. Forbes ......................................................................................................... 91 

Mr. Langevin ..................................................................................................... 95 

(1) 

SEAPOWER AND PROJECTION FORCES CAPABILITIES 

TO SUPPORT THE ASIA–PACIFIC REBALANCE 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON SEAPOWER AND PROJECTION FORCES, Washington, DC, Thursday, February 27, 2014. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:00 p.m., in room 

2212, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. J. Randy Forbes (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

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

ON SEAPOWER AND PROJECTION FORCES 

Mr. FORBES. I want to welcome all of our Members and our distinguished panel of experts to today’s hearing focused on the military capabilities that will be necessary to support our enduring interest in the Asia-Pacific. 

I want to apologize to our witnesses for us being a little bit late. 

We had votes, and that is why we are here. So we appreciate your 

patience with us. 

Today we have testifying before us Admiral Patrick Walsh, U.S. 

Navy retired, and he was the former commander of the Pacific 

Fleet. 

Admiral, thank you for your service and for being here. 

Dr. Thomas Mahnken, professor of strategy at the U.S. Naval 

War College. 

And we certainly appreciate your expertise and your taking the 

time to help us on the committee. 

Dr. David J. Berteau, senior vice president and director of the 

Center for Strategic and International Studies [CSIS] National Security Program on Industry and Resources. 

Thank you so much for taking your time to be with us. 

And Dr. Ely Ratner, senior fellow and deputy director of the 

Asia-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American 

Security. 

And we welcome all of you. Thank you for sharing your unique 

perspectives on this important topic. 

With the support of my colleague, the ranking member, Mr. 

McIntyre, and the tireless efforts of Ms. Hanabusa and many other 

Members of Congress, we spent the last 4 months conducting a bipartisan Asia-Pacific security series to better understand our security posture in this critical area. 

Today’s hearing will conclude this formal effort, but I hope this 

process will only be the start of a surge in the committee’s focus 
2 

and oversight of the shifting security dynamics in the Asia-Pacific 

region and what they will mean for our interest. 

To this point we have heard classified and unclassified testimony 

from U.S. Government witnesses on our military posture in the region. Today we thought it would be valuable to hear a variety of 

alternative independent perspectives on how the United States 

should fashion its regional military posture for the decade ahead. 

While we have maintained a regional military presence in Asia 

over the last 70 years that has successfully limited the escalation 

of conflict, I believe we will need to carefully reassess our posture 

in the years ahead to ensure we can continue to achieve our objective of sustaining a peaceful, prosperous, and rules-based AsiaPacific order. 

I believe the military modernization of the People’s Republic of 

China [PRC] over these last two decades now stands to challenge 

our traditional regional objectives. 

More specifically, the PRC’s investment in ballistic missiles, 

cruise missiles, mines, submarines, fast attack ships, antisatellite 

capabilities, and cyber warfare, among others, all appear focused 

on developing a counterintervention strategy that can limit our 

military’s power projection forces. 

I worry that, absent a calculated adjustment by the Department 

of Defense, this modernization effort could undermine the military 

balance and call into question our alliance commitments. 

The Pentagon had it right when it called for a geographically distributed, operationally resilient, and politically sustainable military 

presence across the Asia-Pacific region. 

I am now curious what range of options we have and what tradeoffs we should be considering for implementing this approach. 

Should we invest more in long-range strike systems and less in 

short-range weapons? Are we too reliant on a small number of 

large bases instead of moving towards a more distributed presence? 

Are we investing in the right type of munitions? How do our operational concepts, doctrines, and capabilities align with those of our 

allies? Do we have the right mix of capabilities for both maintaining the peace and warfighting? And, finally, how will research and 

development investments drive the competition in the next decade? 

I look forward to discussing this important topic with our expert 

panel of witnesses. And, with that, I turn to my good friend and 

colleague, the ranking member of the subcommittee, Mike McIntyre. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Forbes can be found in the Appendix on page 39.] 

STATEMENT OF HON. MIKE MCINTYRE, A REPRESENTATIVE 

FROM NORTH CAROLINA, RANKING MEMBER, SUBCOMMITTEE ON SEAPOWER AND PROJECTION FORCES 

Mr. MCINTYRE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thanks again to our witnesses for being here and for your 

patience. 

Because of the voting schedule, I will be briefer than I had 

thought I would be. I may save some for questions. 

But as we focus on the rebalance or pivot toward the Asia-Pacific, having just been there last week myself, I realize we are real-
3 

ly looking at an arc that is the Indo-Pacific concerns as we look 

through at is occurring throughout the entire area. 

And when we look at the economic usage through the Straits of 

Malacca and the 1.7-mile-wide stretch and we look at not only the 

economic trading, but, also, the energy trading and investment and 

what passes through that area, we realize how strategic it is and 

how important it is and we do have our concern about China’s action in the South and East China Seas and the ramification that 

has for several of our allies in the region. 

Australia, I know, is our closest and strongest ally that has been 

with us in every war that we have fought since they have become 

a nation, going back to 1901. And with the United States presence 

in that area—more than 80 ships, 300 aircraft, 2 Marine Expeditionary Forces and non-Army brigades stationed in the Pacific 

Command area—this presence certainly is serious and demands 

our attention. 

So I want to thank you all for coming today. We look forward to 

hearing what your ideas are and your options are you see for enhancing our military posture in this region and make sure that we 

are effectively working with our allies to make sure that there is 

not a nation trying to dominate that region that does not have our 

interest at heart. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. FORBES. Mike, thank you. 

And one of the things, as you begin, to tell you, we want to have 

that dialogue. So feel free to not have to say everything in your 

written statement. We are going to put that as part of the record. 

Second thing: Despite the reputation this city has, this committee and especially this subcommittee is probably one of the most 

bipartisan subcommittees out here. We all have tremendous respect for each other. We work very well together. 

So you may find us asking some questions maybe out of turn just 

to make sure we are elaborating on that, if that were to happen. 

But we want you to have plenty of time to give us your answers. 

And with that, Dr. Walsh, we look forward to your presentation 

and ask you, if you can, on your opening remarks, to stick as close 

as you can to around 5 minutes so that we can get to those questions. 

Mr. Walsh. 

STATEMENT OF ADM PATRICK WALSH, USN (RET.), SENIOR 

FELLOW, TOWER CENTER, SOUTHERN METHODIST UNIVERSITY 

Admiral WALSH. Thank you, Mr. Vice Chairman. Thank you as 

well for the invitation to be here today. 

In my written statement, I had attempted to present a maritime 

perspective that offered context. By the very nature of it, it is integrative. It looks at not just the military order of battle, which I 

think, through a single lens, would take us down a path that lead 

to conclusions that are often erroneous. So you have to put this in 

its proper context. 

When you walk into the area of responsibility that we call the 

Pacific, an area that is as vast as any that we have ever operated 

as a military, we are talking 100 million square miles and 15 time 
4 

zones. So we have the challenge of the vastness of the geography 

in a world that is very interconnected. It is steeped in history. 

Consider what the community of nations looked like in 1946 as 

we came out of World War II, 51 countries compared to 194 today. 

It is a statement that suggests that we don’t really understand the 

role of nationalism, sovereignty, cultural identity and how that underpins so much of the tectonic plates that move in Asia-Pacific. 

So the area that we are talking about is very vast. And I think, 

when you—when you try and look at the future of seapower in a 

naval strategy, in particular, that represents national interests, 

then it begs for a strategy that looks for, ‘‘Where can I place resources that can have the potential for the most consequence, the 

most impact?’’ 

Throughout history, there have been continental strategists who 

have tried to describe where that critical node is on land, meaning 

that, no matter which way you looked on a cardinal heading— 

north, south, east, or west—or which perspective that you adopted, 

whether it is political, economic, military, or diplomatic, you could 

have the greatest impact and influence from that region. That was 

known as the Great Game in Central Asia. 

You can pull some of Mackinder’s writing and thinking to help 

establish a framework for what matters today. I would offer to you 

that is the South China Sea. Whether it is $5 trillion of economic 

activity or 70,000 container ships that come through the Straits of 

Malacca each year, any disruption to the security and stability in 

that region can have potential impact in the daily lives, in the 

quality of lives, of those all around us. 

Trying to narrowly define national interest in traditional terms 

will take us down an alley, I think, that will be not very—not very 

revealing or satisfying. The problem that we have with—today is 

that we no longer manufacture end-to-end products at home. It is 

done through a distributed network all around the world. 

So that makes it increasingly difficult to define one nation’s singular national interest inside the South China Sea. We all have interests there. So any disruption to that security and that stability 

and that sea line of communication can have impact for all of us. 

When we think about some of the complexities of operating in 

that environment, in an area that continues to develop, we are seeing the underpinnings of nationalism and the drive for resources or 

resource nationalism. That is the complexity of the environment 

that we are in. 

So whether it is the fight for fish or it is the drive for hydrocarbons in the South China Sea, we are seeing the dilemma paradigm play out in the economic exclusion zones. 

So my counterparts are faced with the dilemma of whether or not 

they surveil and then enforce their economic exclusion zones or run 

the risk of a direct confrontation by doing so with a nation like 

China. That is the risk that they are taking. 

I know of no country in the region that is downsizing its Navy. 

I know of no country in the region that is taking reductions in its 

maritime forces. If anything, for reasons that are sometimes a little 

difficult to understand, more nations are acquiring more maritime 

capability, even maritime capability where they have no history of 

undersea warfare. 
5 

So as six Kilo-class submarines arrive in Vietnam, it begs a number of questions in terms of how they are going to manage water 

space, how they are going to deploy those ships, and how they are 

going to use them. What historical concept of operations are they 

going to employ? 

It is just an indicator that the region continues to now develop 

maritime capability. And because we have so much history in the 

region and because we have expended so much national treasure 

generation after generation, it is important to understand what is 

at risk. 

What our forefathers did for us is set up a framework that has 

given us a very prosperous economy that has tentacles that reach 

around the world. With that, in the phrase that you described as 

a rules-based system, is a set of standards and understanding and 

a language of how we operate among nations. 

When you fly to Beijing, you don’t require a fighter escort. That 

is because the International Civil Aeronautics Organization Chicago treaty of the 1940s gave us a taxonomy, a language, a rule 

system, for how we would operate. 

When you look at the sea, there is a lot of confusion in terms of 

how we look at the Law of the Sea, what role it plays, and now 

you are seeing, most recently, local interpretations from China in 

terms of how to manage and how to look at the South China Sea. 

In a word, they claim the South China Sea. 

I look forward to your questions and the opportunity to respond. 

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

Appendix on page 41.] 

Mr. FORBES. Admiral, thank you. 

Professor Mahnken. 

STATEMENT OF THOMAS G. MAHNKEN, PROFESSOR OF STRATEGY, JEROME LEVY CHAIR OF ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY AND 

NATIONAL SECURITY, U.S. NAVAL WAR COLLEGE 

Dr. MAHNKEN. Thank you. 

Chairman Forbes, Ranking Member McIntyre, thanks for the opportunity to speak to you this afternoon. You have my written testimony. What I would like to do in the time allotted really is to just 

highlight several things. 

In order to talk about strategy and force posture, I think we first 

need to talk about interests. And I believe the United States has 

a set of enduring interests in the Asia-Pacific region, interests that 

date back, in some cases, a half century, in other cases, much 

longer than that. 

And those interests are really four: First, protecting American 

lives and territory, the most solemn responsibility of any government; second, helping to defend our allies in the region, our treaty 

allies in particular, treaties which bear the force of law in the 

United States; third, as Admiral Walsh has already alluded to, ensuring the free passage of goods and services across the global commons, something that has benefited America tremendously, but 

also benefited the world; and then, finally, ensuring a favorable 

balance of power on the Eurasian continent, something that we 

don’t talk much about, but I think has been crucially important to 

us in the past. 
6 

So we need forces that are sufficient to preserve those interests 

across the spectrum of conflict. We need to demonstrate U.S. presence, shape the region. And in peacetime, we need to dissuade potential competitors, deter potential aggressors, reassure our allies, 

and, should it come to it, be able to fight and win. 

Now, it is true that we have strengthened our position in the 

Asia-Pacific region. And that is a process that has gone on—been 

going on for more or less a decade, and it is a process that is—longterm process that has enjoyed bipartisan support. 

So today we have more forces in the region—more modern forces 

in the region. But this is occurring in a situation where not just 

we are changing, but other actors as well, and the military balance 

in the Asia-Pacific region is changing. 

Chinese military modernization has already been referred to. 

More generally, the modernization of Asian militaries is a fact of 

life. And the net result is that we face greater risk to our forces 

today than we did in the past. There are greater questions about 

our ability to support our allies, and, ultimately, there could be 

threats to our credibility within—within the region. 

As I see it, there are really three alternatives that I will put forward as alternative force postures that we could think about. 

The first is sort of a continuation of the status quo, to continue 

doing what we are doing, focused on relatively short-range assets 

concentrated in a relatively small number of bases, devoting a larger percentage of our—of our capabilities to the region, to be sure, 

but a larger slice of a shrinking pie. 

My concern there is that we will face a growing gap between our 

interests and our capability to defend them. Our forces will face 

greater risk, greater vulnerability to our forces, and then, ultimately, I think we will face greater strategic risk, risk to our credibility, our ability to support our interests and pursue our interests. 

A second alternative is to trim our commitments. It is the type 

of thing that is attractive in the abstract, but truly easier said than 

done. And I welcome a discussion on that. One variety of this approach would be to pull back, trade operational risk, trade the risk 

to our forces, trade space for time. 

My concern with pulling back and focusing more on long-range 

platforms, for example, is that we would trade operational risk ultimately for strategic risk, that we would undermine our alliances 

and undermine stability in the region. 

So the third alternative would be to try to close the gap between 

our commitments and our ability to meet them. And I think there 

are a number of things that we can do, particularly a number of 

things that we can do in conjunction with our allies in the region. 

Greater focus on undersea warfare and greater cooperation with 

our allies in undersea warfare is one. Greater collaboration with allies and partners on intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, 

particularly in disputed waters such as the South China Sea and 

the East China Sea. And then, third, to diversify and harden our 

basing structure, to make it more resilient, more credible, and diversify both on sovereign U.S. territory, but, also, on allied territory. 

These are just a few of my ideas, and I certainly welcome the discussion to follow. Thank you very much. 
7 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Mahnken can be found in the Appendix on page 49.] 

Mr. FORBES. Dr. Mahnken, thank you for that insight. 

And now, Mr. Berteau, we look forward to your comments. 

STATEMENT OF DAVID J. BERTEAU, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT 

AND DIRECTOR, NATIONAL SECURITY PROGRAM ON INDUSTRY AND RESOURCES, CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES 

Mr. BERTEAU. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I am reminded every time I sit in one of these that I am still a 

little bit of a troglodyte when it comes to electronic communications. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Mr. McIntyre, members of the 

subcommittee. 

I am David Berteau from the Center of Strategic and International Studies. I should note that we are a bipartisan institution 

that does not take positions on issues and, therefore, that the views 

in my statement and that I am going to comment on today are entirely my own, although they are formed by our research and our 

experience and my interactions with our colleagues. 

My written statement has a wealth of material, and I won’t go 

through it all. I just want to highlight about three things, if you 

will, for our consideration this afternoon. 

First is to go back to the Defense Strategic Guidance, January 

5th, 2012. That is the basis of both the rebalance to Asia that we 

are talking about today and the broader focus of the strategy underlying the reductions under the Budget Control Act. 

It essentially said with respect to the rebalance to Asia-Pacific, 

number one, its direction to DOD [Department of Defense] and to 

the military, rebalance towards the region, emphasize our existing 

alliances, and expand our networks of cooperation with emerging 

partners, if you will. 

That is the guidance to the Defense Department. And if you listen to what Secretary Hagel said earlier this week in laying out his 

summary of what is going to be in the budget next week, it appears 

that that guidance still pertains today. So I think it is a very important starting point for our discussions. 

As you know, Mr. Chairman, I had the privilege a year and a 

half ago with Dr. Michael Green of CSIS to do this report on the— 

an independent assessment of force posture strategy for the U.S. in 

the Asia-Pacific region, and we made four recommendations there 

that I think are still relevant today. 

One is to focus on forward presence, including a better aligned 

engagement strategy. The second is to strengthen our alliances. 

The third is to add additional capabilities to U.S. forces in the 

Asia-Pacific region. And the fourth is to examine possible force posture and basing efficiencies, including—and both of my preceding 

members of this panel mentioned this—greater reliance on host nation capability on bases and forces and on rotations of U.S. forces. 

And I think that report and its recommendations, in my view, are 

still viable and relevant today as well. 

The third thing I would like to raise during this opening comment is: What do you look for next week when you get the budget 
8 

detail? What does this subcommittee focus its attention on between 

now and markup? 

And I think there are two key questions. One, is DOD properly 

planning and resourcing and preparing to carry out the rebalance 

to the extent it can under the authorized and appropriated funding? And the second is: Are we maintaining the industrial base 

that we need to support that over the long haul? Because it is not 

just the force posture. It is the capability that the industrial base 

provides us as part of that. 

We are going to need to look at the report from the 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review that will come out pretty much simultaneous with the budget, we understand, and presumably the soonto-be-forthcoming National Security Strategy as well. And one 

thing I would particularly look for there is the role of our allies and 

partners as envisioned in those strategy documents. How much of 

this is go it alone? How much of this do we want to rely on the 

region? 

So what would you look for in the fiscal year 2015 budget and 

in the out-years of the Future Year Defense Program, or the 

FYDP? I think there are a couple of things that are going to be 

hard to find in the budget. 

One of the most important, from my view, is the low-end shaping 

and engagement activities in the 30 countries throughout the region because, ultimately, it is about those countries, the U.S. engagement with them in the context of an emerging and growing 

China, but not necessarily in a bilateral, more in a multilateral 

kind of a framework. 

A lot of those activities aren’t budget line items. You are going 

to have to probe to get the information. But I would urge you to 

support that. 

The second is the gaps between the strategy and what is funded both in the base budget and in this $26 billion Opportunity, 

Growth, and Security fund that we have heard about this week. It 

already could be acronymized as the OGS, but I don’t know if that 

is quite yet appropriate. And I think those gaps are an important 

focus for the subcommittee, if you will. 

The third is support for combined exercises. We have had good 

protection for the PACOM [U.S. Pacific Command] level, but I 

think you also need to look at the component level, the PACFLT 

[U.S. Pacific Fleet], the PACAF [U.S. Pacific Air Forces], and the 

component-level exercises, if you will. That is where a lot of that 

shaping and engagement goes underway. A lot of that, again, is not 

line items in the budget. You will have to get some requests in to 

the Department to get that. 

I think it is critical for this subcommittee to support the need for 

forward presence. I think, with the drawdown in Afghanistan, 

there is a tendency to think we don’t need anybody overseas. I 

would agree we don’t need new bases overseas, but we do need to 

support and fund expanded overseas engagement and deployment, 

and we need to be explaining that to the American people and, 

frankly, to the rest of the Congress. 

And you mentioned already the need to support investments in 

R&D [research and development] and in critical procurement programs like the Virginia-class submarine, et cetera. 
9 

These, I think, are some of the issues that you need to look for. 

And I will be happy to expand on those in the questions. 

Mr. Chairman, members of this subcommittee, Mr. McIntyre, I 

am grateful for the opportunity to be here today. I thank you, and 

I await your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Berteau can be found in the Appendix on page 59.] 

Mr. FORBES. Thank you, Mr. Berteau. 

And now Dr. Ratner. 

STATEMENT OF ELY RATNER, SENIOR FELLOW AND DEPUTY 

DIRECTOR OF THE ASIA–PACIFIC SECURITY PROGRAM, CENTER FOR A NEW AMERICAN SECURITY 

Dr. RATNER. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member McIntyre, and 

other distinguished members of the committee, I will thank you as 

well for inviting me here today to discuss the U.S. rebalancing to 

the Asia-Pacific region. 

As I am sure you agree, this is a critically important issue for 

America’s economic and security future, and you and your subcommittee should be applauded for taking a leadership role in helping to clarify and refine U.S. policy in the region. 

Our topic today is ‘‘Capabilities to Support the Asia-Pacific Rebalance,’’ and the underlying question here, as I see it, is: How can 

the United States most effectively develop and leverage its military 

power to advance U.S. interests and maintain peace and security 

in Asia? 

The first-order requirement, as the other witnesses remarked, of 

course, is to ensure that the United States maintains a robust and 

geographically distributed military presence in Asia while investing 

in the capabilities necessary to meet the challenges of the 21st century. The United States can also amplify its military capability by 

deepening its treaty alliances and other security partnerships. 

Today, however, I want to address an additional means through 

which the United States can support its military and security interests in Asia, namely, the construction of an open and inclusive 

regional security order undergirded by widely accepted rules and 

institutions. 

In my view, any strategy to enhance U.S. military capabilities in 

Asia must include efforts to shape a rules-based regional order that 

strengthens multilateral security cooperation while preventing and 

managing military competition and crises. 

And with the balance of my time, let me highlight three of the 

eight recommendations that I put forward in my written testimony, 

and I think these are all areas where the United States can act immediately and where Congress can play a central role. 

First, Congress should reinstate trade promotion authority in 

support of the Trans-Pacific Partnership [TPP] trade agreement. 

Although it may seem counterintuitive to begin a list of national 

security priorities with a multilateral trade deal, the successful 

completion of the Trans-Pacific Partnership both among the negotiators and on Capitol Hill is now the single most important policy 

issue currently affecting U.S. power and leadership in Asia. 

Economics and security are inextricably linked in the region, and 

the United States cannot cement a long-term role in Asia through 
10 

military muscle alone. TPP is a strategic-level issue and must be 

treated as such by the U.S. Congress. 

Second, in the context of continued engagement with Beijing, the 

United States needs a more coherent and proactive strategy to 

deter Chinese revisionism in the East and South China Seas. Over 

the past several years, China has engaged in economic, diplomatic, 

and military coercion to revise the administrative status quo in 

East Asia. 

These are deeply destabilizing actions that, if permitted to continue, will increase the likelihood of serious conflict down the road. 

Given this pattern of behavior, the White House should lead an 

interagency effort to develop a comprehensive response that includes actions to impose costs on China if it continues engaging in 

acts of revisionism. 

As part of this effort, the United States should build an international consensus on the legitimacy of international arbitration 

for maritime and sovereignty disputes and be unequivocal in rhetoric and action that it does not accept China’s illegal seizure and 

occupation of Scarborough Reef in the South China Sea. 

The goal here is not to contain China, Mr. Chairman, but, rather, 

to ensure that political disputes are managed through peaceful diplomatic means rather than through coercion and the use of force. 

Third, despite the U.S. declaratory policy of rebalancing to Asia, 

there continue to be lingering concerns in the region about the 

long-term commitment of the United States, and intensification of 

these perceptions will undermine the development of a rules-based 

order by causing allies and partners to question the utility of working more closely with the United States while also diminishing U.S. 

influence in regional institutions and potentially encouraging countries to engage in acts of aggression or provocation that they otherwise would not. 

The U.S. Government should therefore make a concerted effort to 

counter the misperception that the rebalancing to Asia is wavering 

or hollow. This can begin with statements by President Obama 

about the importance of the Asia-Pacific region as well as a clear 

articulation from the Administration about the intent, achievements, and future of the rebalancing strategy. 

The Administration and Congress can also more clearly articulate how defense cuts will and will not affect U.S. military posture 

and presence in Asia, which will be particularly important in the 

wake of the release of the Quadrennial Defense Review. 

Mr. Chairman, as the United States thinks about the capabilities 

it needs to maintain peace and security in Asia, they must 

prioritize not just boosting the warfighting capability of the United 

States, its allies, and partners, but, also, building a stronger rulesbased regional security order. 

Thank you again for this committee’s commitment to U.S. policy 

toward Asia, and I look forward to your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Ratner can be found in the Appendix on page 69.] 

Mr. FORBES. Thank you, Dr. Ratner. 

What a great opportunity. We have such an expert panel. We 

have a subcommittee that has an incredible amount of expertise on 

it. 
11 

I am going to defer my questions until the end because I want 

some of our Members to be able to express their thoughts and be 

able to explore their questions. 

So I would like to recognize our ranking member right now, Mike 

McIntyre, for any questions he might have. 

Mr. MCINTYRE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And as I mentioned earlier about—and several of you have 

talked about ways to save cost, but, also, to make sure that we do 

have a forward presence and work with our allies more closely. 

Mr. Berteau, I believe, if I pronounced your name correctly— 

‘‘Berteau’’—page 2 of your testimony—and you referred to this orally—the fourth item, four key elements, you say, ‘‘Examine possible 

force structure and basing efficiencies, including greater reliance on 

host-nation bases and forces and rotation of U.S. forces,’’ and then 

over on page 5, you talk about the forward presence and it says it 

does not mean the United States should build new bases overseas, 

but it does mean the U.S. Government needs to support and fund 

expanded overseas deployments. 

In that regard, I know, for instance, as I mentioned in my opening comments about Australia, that the blue-water port we have 

that we work with in Australia—that we work with Australia’s port 

on the western coast, Perth, Stirling, that base. 

Also, I have visited Techport, which is in South Australia, which 

is already built—as they say, built, operating, and ready. We have 

national security clearance of workers already there and they are 

out of range of ballistic missiles from North Korea and China. 

Those two ports, for example, I think about in Australia, with a 

very, very strong ally—and then, of course, we have our Marines 

up in Darwin—to me, would seem to be examples of how we have 

someone already there, already an ally, already willing to work 

with us, and they are not coming to us asking for money and handouts and, ‘‘Will you come build us bases?’’, but, rather, they are in 

place. 

I wonder if you agree with that assessment of our close ally, Australia, but also how you see us doing this similarly in other countries in the region when you talk about we don’t need to go build 

bases, but let’s find ways to work with our allies who we know 

have opportunities already in place for us to work with and that 

can save us money, yet strengthen our refocus or balance as we 

look toward the Indo-Pacific region. 

Mr. BERTEAU. Thank you, sir. 

I do agree with—I do agree with the supposition that we have 

a tremendous opportunity with Australia. As the chairman mentioned, they have been our partners and allies for more than a century. 

I think it is also instructive to watch the way this has been unfolding, the movement of Marines into Darwin and the other options that come into place both with airfields at the northern side 

of the country and with —— 

Mr. MCINTYRE. Yes. I meant to mention the airfields, also. Yes, 

sir. Go ahead. 

Mr. BERTEAU. And they are moving at sort of a measured pace, 

if you will, not too rushed, not making too big of a step at a time. 
12 

I think that both solidifies the relationship with Australia, but 

it also responds to the second part of your question. 

It gives a signal and a symbol, if you will, that we are not trying 

to create a huge American presence where it is not wanted. We 

want to move at a measured pace, engage one step at a time, and 

move through that. 

And I think that is particularly key for many of the other countries in the regions with whom we don’t have, for instance, treaty 

alliances that are already committed to us there. 

The challenge is, in fact, if you are moving at a measured pace, 

not to lose momentum because you really need to maintain that 

momentum. And I think we focus a lot on the individual steps, but, 

also, the collective movement that is going forward. 

I think, finally, the Australians offer us an opportunity in a multilateral or trilateral engagement in the region where it won’t necessarily be the U.S. in the lead, but perhaps the Australians in the 

lead in a relationship with a third or fourth country, if you will. 

So they offer us all three of those opportunities. We need to continue to take full advantage of that. 

Mr. MCINTYRE. And do you see any other country similarly that 

we can look—when you say about working with our allies or other 

nations that we have a positive relationship with, do you see any 

other countries that we have a relationship with that we can move 

forward that would save us money, yet give us a strong presence? 

Mr. BERTEAU. I think it is fair to say that there is nobody else 

like Australia, and that is a unique relationship in the region that 

we will maintain for a long time. 

But I think there are probably six or eight other countries that 

we are already having discussions and engagements with, ranging 

from our treaty partners, like the Philippines and Thailand, to 

some of the lesser-known opportunities, if you will, including—and 

I would have never thought I would be saying this—Vietnam. 

Mr. MCINTYRE. Okay. Yeah. All right. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. FORBES. Thanks, Mike. 

As you know, Congressman Wittman is the chairman of our 

Readiness Subcommittee. And we now recognize him for 5 minutes. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I would like to thank our panelists for joining us today. Thank 

you so much. It is a great perspective that you are providing. 

Admiral Walsh, I would like to begin with you and to get your 

perspective on where the United States is in building those relationships with our partners in the Asia-Pacific. 

Having visited there and talked to the governing officials as well 

as military leaders in those nations, they are, in all cases, anxious 

to develop those relationships. They are doing that in the context 

of a China that continues to be more aggressive in the region and 

pursuing what I call a testing and response type of behavior, like 

the bully on the playground. 

You know, they go up to somebody, kick them in the ankle, see 

what the response is, and then later shove them a little bit and see 

what the response is, and then later shove them to the ground and 

then see what the response is. Our partners there become more 

and more concerned about this aggressive behavior with China. 
13 

In that context, tell me, what should we be doing to grow our relationships there? How should we be interacting to make sure that 

we provide a strengthened relationship with those countries, but, 

also, one that sends a clear signal to China as a deterrent to that 

particular type of behavior? I wanted to get your perspective on 

that. 

Admiral WALSH. Thank you. 

I think first is an assessment of the laydown current U.S. posture in the Pacific. It is a legacy laydown from World War II in 

terms of brick and mortar and operating patterns. 

And I think, for the Department of Defense, when both the President and the Secretary of State make in very clear terms the strategic value and importance of this body of water that we are talking about specifically in the South China Sea, I would look for the 

Department to now adjust its operating patterns accordingly. 

So you would look for some sort of operational consequence as a 

result of new guidance that is being issued both at the national 

level and the DOD level. 

For us in particular, what we did is we looked at ASEAN [Association of Southeast Asian Nations] in a different way. So, for example—and to be a little more granular—this year we will have a 

Rim of the Pacific Exercise [RIMPAC] that occurs every 2 years in 

Hawaii. It is an opportunity to bring ASEAN into this as an invited 

member in ways that we probably have never thought about before. 

In my view, sir, there are more doors open to us in this line of 

questioning that you are suggesting than we have ever had before. 

And so how to leverage or capitalize or move forward in view of a 

door that is opened and do we recognize it, I think is the key sort 

of question. 

In my view, we can do something that China cannot do and we 

need to highlight that, and that is lead, lead a multinational effort, 

lead a multinational coalition. 

And in my view again, when China looks at our weapons, they 

can always reverse-engineer that. They can always then duplicate 

it and get their own. 

But when it comes to the relationships with partners, that is the 

strategic power—relative power that we have in the area that they 

do not have. 

And so, to the point raised, yes, in fact, the neighbors in the region are getting very concerned. And we are starting to push up 

against constitutional issues inside the Self-Defense Force in 

Japan, for example, because they are not sure exactly how they are 

going to react and respond to these moves that China is making. 

It is in our interest to provide the reassurances that we can to 

all of our treaty partners, especially Japan, who is going through, 

I think, a very difficult period trying to understand how to react 

within their existing constitutional framework, and do it in a way 

that is responsive to the interests of Japan as well. 

There is opportunities in ways that I think this is an area that 

requires much more development, and I think we can move much 

further forward than we already have. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Let me ask this in our relationship with China. 
14 

How do you see the mil-to-mil relationship with China? Where 

should it go? And what is your view of the manning and training 

and equipping of the PLA [People’s Liberation Army] Navy? 

Admiral WALSH. To begin with, it took me 21⁄2 years to have a 

meeting with my Chinese counterpart, Admiral Wu Shengli. And, 

finally, when I had an opportunity to speak with him, which was 

at a regional forum held in Singapore, I mentioned to him, ‘‘You 

know, you need to do more of this.’’ 

Because I think one of the challenges that the Chinese leadership has is understanding how the international community, not 

just the regional community, reacts and responds to the rhetoric 

that comes from PLA leadership. 

From my own point of view, I saw developments taking place inside the PLA that put a lot of the Chinese national economy at risk 

in ways that I am not completely sure that the Chinese population 

was aware. 

The idea that we would be ready for a confrontation over rocks, 

reefs, and shoals in the South China Sea and jeopardize all this 

economic framework and prosperity that has existed for so many 

decades seemed to be counterintuitive to me, but it underscored a 

reminder that the Chinese are acting in ways that represent a civilization and we tend to look at them as a nation-state and we get 

confused and we often talk past each other. 

The dialogue, the importance of having them participate in a 

RIMPAC-like exercise, to me, the value of that comes from being 

able to see us in action with our partners in the region. That, to 

me, is a source of real strength, power, and optimism for the future. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Very good. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Mr. FORBES. Thank you, Rob. 

Mr. Courtney is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. COURTNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you to the witnesses for your outstanding testimony. 

Admiral, you mentioned the sort of proliferation in Vietnam of 

the Kilos that were purchased, and they are not alone in that region in terms of spending money in that area. 

And I guess the question is: Is that sort of a symptom of people’s 

insecurity about whether or not, you know, the U.S. is, you know, 

sufficiently invested in the pivot, in the—sort of an insurance policy, or is it just general high anxiety? And just—and how do these 

sort of unilateral decisions in terms of people’s, you know, military 

budgets fit in with your notion of U.S. leadership for the region in 

terms of our allies? 

Admiral WALSH. Sir, I know you are familiar with the town hall 

setting. I attended the town hall meeting in Hanoi with the Diplomatic Academy. 

And to a person in the room—and there were close to 100—they 

wanted to know what we were going to do about China, which I 

found fascinating to take that kind of question. It is the latter of 

the two proposals. 

I think there is a general anxiety about the emergence of China 

because it is—it has stepped away from its script. For many, many 
15 

years, generations, China was going to hide its capability and bide 

its time. 

In the 2008–2009 timeframe, they got off script. It has a lot to 

do, I think, with the success of the Olympics, the success of the 

Chinese economic model while the world went downhill in terms of 

global economy, and the anniversary of the PLA. 

They became very enamored with their own sort of name legacy 

and were ready to change the deck, so to speak, and what it did 

is it put the Chinese in a position where they lost a tremendous 

amount of goodwill at the international level because people went 

from concerned about China to being afraid. And then, when the 

confrontations take place, whether it is with Malaysian forces or 

Philippine forces or Vietnamese fishermen, now the region is getting very concerned. 

So to the point about Vietnamese acquisition of the Kilo class, 

they simply don’t want to be left behind, and the same is true for 

Indonesia or Singapore or Malaysia when it comes to the acquisition of maritime capability. 

How they will use it and how they will employ it and does this 

mean we are on the brink of an arms race, I don’t know that I 

would go that far because I simply don’t know. 

I get very concerned that there is no other outlet. There is no 

other way to frame this issue, and now we are going to resort to 

arms. And, to me, that is a formula where we have had miscalculation in the past. 

And if anyone understands it, it is our country. In 1964, when 

we were conducting DESOTO [DEHAVEN Special Operations off 

TsingtaO] patrols off of Vietnam, I think the last thing we thought 

we were about to do is start a war or be involved in something that 

would start a war. 

It just goes to the ambiguity that exists for commanders at sea 

trying to understand how far ships are away from land, how close 

ships are to each other, their geometry, the interpretation of what 

their actions are. 

The idea of trying to evaluate intent now becomes something 

that is done at the commander level, and all it takes is a fire-control radar to go off or an inadvertent sort of action by one captain 

against another and you have something that quickly becomes far 

from local. It becomes state on state. 

Mr. FORBES. Thank you, Mr. Courtney. 

I would now like to recognize my colleague and partner in this 

Asia-Pacific series, Ms. Hanabusa, for 5 minutes. 

Ms. HANUBUSA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Chairman, I have a written testimony from one of my constituents, Jose Andres, from Makai Ocean Engineering, Inc., and I 

would like your permission to have it made part of the record. 

Mr. FORBES. Without objection, it will be so admitted. 

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

page 85.] 

Ms. HANUBUSA. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Admiral Walsh, I am quite sure that you have now read the 

statement of Secretary of Defense Hagel and what he views as— 

how he is going to effect this upcoming budget. 
16 

And one of things that, of course, I found very interesting was 

the fact that he is talking about reducing acquisition costs, maximizing resources, and buy and build new ships, but it is sort of 

within just the Navy and Marine Corps budget. 

One of the things that I have always been interested in as we 

look at the pivot to Asia-Pacific is: What is the acquisition posture 

going to look like? Like what is the fleet going to look like? 

We all—we have had great numbers. Three hundred six. We 

have had 346 and 347 between Former Secretary Lehman and Admiral Roughead. I mean, everyone has these numbers, and no one 

knows how it then breaks down. 

You seem to be testifying that you believe that the concentration 

and the pivot to Asia-Pacific should be towards the South China 

Sea. 

Are you then saying that one of the things that you foresee for 

us to do—as you know, in Singapore, we are looking at the LCS 

[littoral combat ship], but then Secretary of Defense Hagel says we 

are only going to built 32 and that is it. 

So do you take issue with that or do you have any positions, 

since you were PACFLT? What should that fleet look like? 

Admiral WALSH. If I may. 

Ms. HANUBUSA. Yes. 

Admiral WALSH. This will take just a minute. 

If you were to look at the force that we had in Desert Storm 

across the range of military operations, we used a label for that 

force called ‘‘general purpose forces.’’ 

In the range of military operations, we would expect to see very 

utilization—a very small utilization of that force in counterinsurgency and very small utilization in thermonuclear war. 

So it looked like a parabolic graph that said: You know what? We 

could use this one box of Armed Forces and we could swing it from 

one contingency to the next. The language we used was ‘‘lesser contingencies.’’ 

And 9/11 changed that. What 9/11 taught us was that, in this 

area of counterinsurgency, we are going to need to spend some time 

and resources, because the solution—the resource solution, the 

budgetary solution, to solve the counterinsurgency problem doesn’t 

exist with the general purpose force because we will expend every 

resource possible and we will find dissatisfying results. And as a 

result, after 9/11, what this committee and others invested in was 

more investment in counterinsurgency. 

What that programmatic solution looked like was that we needed 

pattern-of-life analysis. We needed to understand the impact that 

individuals were having at the strategic level. We needed to find, 

fix, and finish them, which required the fusion of intel and the ability to operate on that intel. That brought us LCS. That made sense 

because LCS fit into the battle force or mix of ships. 

So what we are hearing today and what we are seeing today with 

China is the rise of the state actor. And as you try and think 

through the logical sort of outcome, to answer your question—because I don’t have analysis to give an exact number—what you 

have to keep in mind is the LCS, which was designed for one spectrum of warfare, which made sense for shallow water in and out 

of the Philippines, Indonesia, working with coalition partners in 
17 

order to be able to have an impact on counterinsurgency and the 

leaders of it, now we are putting that up against a state actor. 

And what the country is just not prepared for is now another 

level of investment for antisubmarine warfare, undersea warfare, 

integrated air and missile defense. I mean, that is substantial. 

And, yet, we cannot allow that legacy force to just atrophy, because what happens over time is we lose the ability to deter. We 

are in a world that proliferates this kind of capability. So whether 

it comes out of China, shipped to Iran, and then modified by 

Hezbollah, as it was in 2006, we are going to have to deal with it. 

And my preference is just deal with the technology rather than 

the flag because the flag complicates it. The technology is very real. 

And if we don’t take steps in order to address that, then we lose 

in more ways than we realize. 

So the answer to your question is, when you look at the LCS decision and the Secretary’s most recent statement associated with it, 

the way I would approach it is: What is the force mix? 

We agreed to LCS when we had cruisers. If we are laying up 

cruisers, now, what is going to be in the Pacific? What is the right 

sort of ratio here with heavy combatants and the ability to engage 

forces in shallow water that LCS brings us? 

I hope that answers your question. 

Ms. HANUBUSA. It does. Thank you very much. 

I yield back. 

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

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to thank all of our witnesses today for your very insightful testimony. 

And before I begin, I also want to especially recognize and welcome Professor Mahnken from the Naval War College in Rhode Island. I appreciate the work that you are doing, Professor. It is good 

to have you with us this afternoon. 

If I could—and, Professor Mahnken, if I understood what you 

said correctly—and I agree in your testimony that there very likely 

will be—might—very likely will be a growing gap between our interests and our ability to defend them as time goes on in the AsiaPacific. 

And on that point, as we do look to future scenarios in the AsiaPacific region, it is clear that any military action will be highly dependent on enabling technology, such as undersea strike, directed 

energy, rail guns, cyber and electronic warfare, and spectrum dominance. 

In your views—and each of you can certainly comment on this— 

are we adequately resourcing the research and development needed 

to realize necessary technological advances in these fields? 

Dr. MAHNKEN. Thank you, Congressman Langevin, for that question. 

Look, I think, historically, advanced technology and research development has provided the United States an asymmetric edge and, 

historically, the U.S. Armed Forces, you know, have looked to that 

asymmetric edge. 

Periodically, that edge comes into question. That certainly happened a number of—a number of times in the post-World War II 

era and I think, you know, it is—we are in another era where peo-
18 

ple are looking at the bottom line. They are looking at expenditures, and, you know, research and development is an easy—is an 

easy area to trim. 

I personally believe that, you know, in an era like this where we 

are experiencing rapid change in the military balance, that we really do need to be investing in advanced capabilities. You named a 

number of them. In a way, we can’t overinvest in those. 

I think the big challenge will be then taking those—the R&D investments and then deciding when and how to weaponize them, 

when and how to bring them into the force posture. 

But unless we are accumulating that deep bench of capabilities, 

we are going to be hard-pressed in the future when we need to call 

upon them to move forward and move them out into the fleet. So, 

in my view, you can’t overinvest in those. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you. 

Admiral, you want to make any comment? 

Admiral WALSH. One of the challenges that we have in this area 

is the ability to talk about it. So there is a number of investments 

going on in research and development that actually would help the 

U.S. narrative in the Pacific today, but because of the classification 

levels associated with that funding and those specific efforts, it is 

very difficult to weave that in. 

It is needed. We need to be able to talk about this. We need to 

be able to say, ‘‘You know, I recognize and respect that new system 

that has just come up, but we have a plan for that.’’ And, yet, we 

are not able to do it. 

It would be very helpful, very useful, if we could find a way to 

weave that into our story because, as already mentioned, the investment that we have already made in areas has been a tremendous hedge, and we definitely do not want to lose that. 

Thank you. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you. 

Anyone else care to add anything? Okay. 

Let me ask this: Are the investments that we are making appropriately tied to an overarching strategic vision and nimble enough 

to respond to emerging threats? 

Dr. MAHNKEN. I think that is an excellent question. And I think 

my answer would be that it is very difficult—it is very difficult to 

know. And here I will put my historian’s hat on. 

I mean, if you look at—if you look at the weapons systems, you 

look at the technologies that have proven decisive, say, for the 

United States or, more broadly, throughout our history, oftentimes 

they were developed for different purposes and under different circumstances than those in which they were ultimately employed. 

And so that goes back to my previous statement of why it is difficult to overinvest in R&D. 

What you are doing is, hopefully, you are placing a whole series 

of bets, some of which will pay out because the technology matures, 

some of which will pay out because of the threats we face, but you 

really are trying to build a portfolio of capabilities. And I worry 

that we are, yeah, that we are not building a robust enough portfolio. 

One final comment, if I could—and it was actually brought on by 

Admiral Walsh’s comment—which is I think a key consideration for 
19 

us as a country, for the Defense Department, as we are developing 

these advanced technologies is when to show them and when to 

hide them. 

We hide technologies to preserve an operational edge. We hide 

them for various reasons. But we show them, we demonstrate 

them, to send messages and to deter. 

And I think we need a—you know, as we think about R&D and 

we think about new capabilities, we need to have an intelligent discussion about when to demonstrate those capabilities and when to 

keep them secret. 

Thank you. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. You know, that is a very good point. And, in fact, 

it calls to mind, during both the Iraq war and even Afghanistan, 

obviously, we revealed many of our capabilities, and that certainly 

was an eye-opener, I know, to many of our adversaries and they 

have subsequently adjusted accordingly and refocused their R&D 

and procurement as well. So point well taken. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

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

Mr. PETERS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to go back to Admiral Walsh to Ms. Hanabusa’s question 

because I may be—I may just be slow, but I think that you explained the basis for an answer, but didn’t really get to the answer 

of what the force should look like and particularly the naval force 

in the Pacific. 

So you explained kind of the LCS issue. But how would it—what 

would it look like on a map and in terms of numbers of ships, if 

it played out? 

Admiral WALSH. If I had another dollar, it would go to the South 

China Sea. If I had another ship, I would be very focused on the 

South China Sea in terms of security and stability operations. 

Can you do that with an LCS? Yes, to a degree. I mean, you can 

have engagement with Indonesia and Singapore and Malaysia and 

partners in ASEAN. 

But the mixed question is really what I am getting at. You can’t 

have LCS at the expense of losing cruisers. You have got to have 

both. 

And the reason I couldn’t give her a direct answer on the number 

is because I just don’t have the analysis to put that on the table. 

I would be simply guessing. 

But the mixed question is critically important because what the 

cruisers offer to you is representations of real hard power. And that 

message is clear and understood in the region. 

Mr. PETERS. Okay, I understand now. 

So—but, geographically, you are talking about the South China 

Sea and that would be the resources deployed? 

Admiral WALSH. Yes. So when you consider where we are—predominantly on the South Korean Peninsula and in Japan, with now 

growing presence in Australia—to me, the area that is open for 

question and discussion is the operating pattern for forward deployed forces that are in and around the South China Sea, East 

China Sea. 

Mr. PETERS. Okay. And that is a question that is raised, but not 

answered, by the proposed budget? 
20 

Admiral WALSH. I don’t know. I am not familiar enough with the 

budget. Sorry. 

Mr. PETERS. Okay. Well, I appreciate that clarification. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Mr. FORBES. Thank you, Mr. Peters. 

Mr. Mahnken, you teach strategy. One of the things we have 

heard over and over again from our allies is that they don’t know 

what our current strategy is. 

We have had experts, similar quality to each of you, who have 

sat exactly where you sit and we have asked them the question: 

Could you tell us today what our national defense strategy is? 

Could you articulate it? Could you articulate it to our allies? Can 

you make procurement decisions from it? Each of the ones we had 

said ‘‘no.’’ 

In your opinion, can you help us with that? Do we have a national defense strategy? How does what we have now differ from 

what we have had in the past? 

Dr. MAHNKEN. Mr. Chairman, thank you for that question. 

I would say—yeah. I am—I am a professor. I am also a recovering policymaker. So I have great sympathy for those whose job 

it is to develop strategy. I have been part of this sausage-making, 

and it looks better from a distance, of course. 

Look, I think it is very difficult to develop—for the United States 

to develop a strategy—for the U.S. Government to develop a strategy for this region for several reasons. 

One is I think we face across the government very different incentives even if we just focus on China for a minute, not even the 

full diversity of the region. Let’s just focus on China. 

Different parts of the U.S. Government face different incentives, 

have different stakes in our relationship with China, some parts 

much more towards cooperation, other parts much more towards 

competition. 

So trying to—trying to forge a consensus across the U.S. Government, even within an administration, is exceedingly—is exceedingly difficult. 

Second, we are—you know, we are in an era now where strategy 

documents are public documents. They are meant not only to guide 

action within the U.S. Government, but they are public documents 

that the U.S. public and foreign publics and foreign governments 

consume. Perhaps even foreign publics and governments consume 

them more than do domestic audiences. And all of that makes it 

very difficult to formulate a very clear—clearly articulated strategy. 

Mr. FORBES. But isn’t that exactly what we want to be able to 

do for an industrial base and for our allies, that we have clearly 

defined that strategy so they know where to make their investments and where to do procurement positions? 

Dr. MAHNKEN. Absolutely right. I mean, I agree with you on the 

desirability of it. And it is highly desirable, but I have also—you 

know, I have seen and I have lived through the difficulty of actually doing it. 

The four—you know, the four enduring interests that I listed in 

my written testimony and my oral remarks came not from any 
21 

strategy document. They came from, you know, a reading of U.S. 

strategic history. 

And I think they are fairly uncontroversial aims, but you won’t 

find them in a strategy document, because it is so difficult to state 

very plainly what our aims are and what our strategy is. 

Mr. FORBES. Let me ask you this question. And I like all four of 

you. I respect all four of you. I read what you say. You know, I am 

listening to you. 

My question, though, is this. You teach it. 

Dr. MAHNKEN. Uh-huh. 

Mr. FORBES. Could you teach the strategy? Do you know—I understand it is difficult, but do we have it? 

Dr. MAHNKEN. I would say that we have a consistent historical 

pattern of behavior in the Asia-Pacific region. 

Mr. FORBES. Is that a strategy? 

Dr. MAHNKEN. I think—well, I think it certainly falls short—you 

know, for me, you know, I think—when I think back to the gold 

standard of sort of a national strategy, actually, I go back to the 

Reagan administration national security strategy and its strategy 

against the Soviet Union. 

And I go back to that because it was coherent, laid out ends, it 

laid out ways and it laid out means. It also had the virtue of being 

a classified document, which meant that people—a small group of 

people could debate it, work it through and then get it signed. It 

is very difficult for the reasons I said to do that today. 

Mr. FORBES. Mr. Berteau and Dr. Ratner, can the two of you— 

I know you are experts and have spent a lot of time doing this. 

In terms of our holistic policy and our strategies for our agencies, 

would it be useful for us to have kind of a top-down review of the 

strategies that our agencies would be using in the Asia-Pacific 

area? And does that exist now? Have we done that? For both of 

you, whichever one of you wants to start, can you give us your feeling on that. 

Dr. RATNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a great question. 

I think the first thing that I would say, I think the—you know, 

the Asia team in this Administration I think is quite capable, I 

think is quite sophisticated, and I think they do have—in many 

senses, they do have a series of policies that they have knitted together that one would consider a strategy. 

So I think—and there are one—if you look at speeches and articles, you could probably knit together a relatively consistent story 

that tells—thinking about the complexities of the region, the degree 

it is changing and putting forward a comprehensive multilateral 

approach to that. 

But I think you are right absolutely that there has not been a 

top-level official description of that. And one of the problems of 

that, you know, as you have described, our allies and partners are 

not always exactly sure what we are trying to do. 

Our own bureaucracies, as you state very clearly, are not always 

sure what they are supposed to do. And there have been good reports by the Congressional Research Service and others looking at 

the way civilian agencies in the U.S. Government have or have not 

rebalanced to Asia in the way that one could argue the Defense Department is very proactively. 
22 

So I very much agree with you not only that it is important for 

our own bureaucracies and allies, but for the broader narrative in 

the region about what the rebalancing is about. And without an official U.S. statement, there are lots of descriptions of it from our 

own partners and potential adversaries in ways that it is counterproductive to our interests. 

So I think what we do need to see is not just a Defense Department policy or strategy or a State Department strategy, but something that either—either a comprehensive statement by the President himself in the form of a speech that everyone can point to and 

say that is the President’s policy or an official White House document out of the National Security Council or elsewhere that is an 

interagency document and not just a singular document out of one 

of the bureaucracies. 

Mr. FORBES. Mr. Berteau. 

Mr. BERTEAU. Mr. Chairman, my own background leads me to 

conclude that, left to its own, resources tends to drive strategy far 

more than strategy drives resources. And if you really want to 

know what the priorities are, look at where the money is being 

spent. That is a generic proposition, if you will. 

I think, if you go back to that Defense Strategic Guidance that 

was laid out, which was not just the rebalance to Asia, but all of 

the broad elements of counterterrorism and Middle East defense 

and so on, what the Pentagon and the White House said at that 

time is you won’t see a whole lot of it in the fiscal 2013 budget, 

which was the budget that was submitted as that document was 

being developed. You really see it in its fullness in the fiscal year 

2014 budget and the associated FYDP. 

Of course, something came along and got in the way of that, and 

that was cuts from the Budget Control Act and the implemented 

sequester for 2013, et cetera. So we have never seen the actual 

laydown of what that document would look like translated into resource priorities. 

Ultimately, to me, as a resource and management guy, the value 

of that strategy is in setting priorities and enabling the framework 

for making the tradeoff so that, when you come down to that next 

dollar, as Admiral Walsh said, you know where you want to put it. 

And this has been one of the strengths of DOD over the decade, 

is it knows where it needs to put its next dollar, should that dollar 

become available. And I think the ultimate test here is not the document itself, but the connection of that document to the priorities 

and the tradeoffs inside there. And that—we will see within a week 

what that looks like for the fiscal year 2015 and beyond. 

But, as you know, we are not out of the woods yet. I mean, we 

have about a $140 billion gap between what the Defense Department thinks it needs over the next 5 years and what the Budget 

Control Act says they are going to get. 

Admiral WALSH. Mr. Chairman, if I could, just to give you the 

net-net. 

Mr. FORBES. Yes. 

Admiral WALSH. So in view of the comments you have just heard, 

it is hard to imagine anything that would come out of the Administration that would try and change the status quo. I think the effort 

is to try and improve the status quo. 
23 

And in 1986, we needed to change the game. In 2014, we are trying to hold on to the framework that we laid down. And what you 

are sensing out of the Department is a reaction to some of the big 

movements that are taking place associated with the PLAN [People’s Liberation Army Navy]. 

And, as a result, we are very reactionary. We continue to go 

through the budget bill process without any change of strategic direction because we are trying to get to the same end state, but we 

are starting to have difficulty in order to maintain that same status quo. 

So it is not a very attractive end state to continue to try and promote the status quo, but at the same time it is very much in jeopardy when you consider the operating pattern of the current forces. 

So, for example, with the 189 ships or so that were in Pacific 

Fleet, a force that was designed for rotation is really based on onethird of the force, one-third underway, one-third training, one-third 

in maintenance. 

We were looking at percentages much closer to the mid-40s in 

terms of the total force underway at a given period of time. That 

becomes much more difficult to sustain, whether it is the status 

quo or something more than the status quo. 

I think the effort for whole-of-government approach in terms of 

economic agreements and trade agreements in the region is terrific, 

but what we have learned over time is that certain parts of the 

government have a very clear direct relationship with their Chinese counterparts. The Department of Defense does not. 

And, as a result, our trade can go up and down, our business 

community can go up and down in terms of their relationship with 

their counterparts in China, and not really feel like the whole relationship is threatened. DOD is not there yet with their counterparts in the PLA. 

Hope that helps. 

Mr. FORBES. It does. 

Admiral, you also mentioned that China is acting like a civilization as opposed to a nation-state, if I understood you. 

Can you just elaborate on that for us just a little bit as to what 

you mean by that. 

Admiral WALSH. Sure. 

If you look at the role that the Chinese Government plays inside 

the lives of individual Chinese citizens, it is promoting and advancing the interests of a civilization. 

We tend to look at China as a nation-state and wonder why 

China is acting in the way it is. It does not seem rational to us. 

We come up with our own language of how we want to influence 

China, how we want to shape China. 

China is the only country inside the international system where, 

rhetorically, we were asked the question, ‘‘Who lost China?’’ If you 

were to go back to Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearings 

in the 1970s where we brought back the China hands from 1948 

and 1949, we said, ‘‘What happened?’’ We thought we understood 

China. We don’t. We didn’t. 

The last time we had a chance to seriously influence China was 

after World War I. China had participated. China had helped. 

China wanted something out of Versailles. And what they got out 
24 

of Versailles was that Shandong Province—instead of going from 

Germany back to China, it went to Japan. And so the Chinese community shortly after that gives birth to the Communist Party, and 

ever since then we have been confused in terms of Chinese motivation and interests. 

China has longstanding interests in China as a civilization. 

China is going to act in a way that advances the interest of its civilization. We are playing by one set of rules. They are playing by 

another set of rules. 

We shouldn’t be surprised by that, nor should we be surprised 

that, when we react and respond and try and say ‘‘no,’’ that we are 

going to feel pressure. We shouldn’t walk away from that and we 

shouldn’t blink. 

Mr. FORBES. Last question I would like to ask to each of you, and 

it is two questions. 

As you know, sometimes we think of the larger conflict that could 

happen in the Asia-Pacific area. In reality, we are looking at the 

potential for these gray zones that I think the Japanese call it. 

The question I would ask to you is: What can we do best to respond to those types of actions by the Chinese, one? 

And the second thing we are always worried about here, that we 

get mired down so much in today that we sometimes miss the 

game-changers that could be out there that we should be worried 

about. 

What would you tell us that we should be worried about as far 

as the game-changer that could happen that this committee should 

not miss? 

So two things: How we respond to these smaller conflicts that are 

there and, number two, what is it we should be looking at that 

could be that game-changer that we are missing? 

We will start with you, Admiral, and each one have a response. 

Admiral WALSH. Sir, I think the answer to the second part of the 

question first is you have got to have surface-to-surface capability. 

I would be most concerned about the surface fleet. I would be 

most concerned that the investments that we are making with regard to the surface fleet—read missiles—and the ability to defend 

ourselves against that type of environment. That, to me, is what 

has changed most dramatically in the last several years. 

We built airplanes with attrition in mind. We don’t build ships 

that way. So the seaworthiness and the combat-worthiness of our 

vessels in this type of environment, to me, is the primary concern 

and where we could do the most good in terms of game-changers 

because that helps change the narrative. 

And to the point raised earlier about research and development, 

I think there is work that is being done in this area that would 

help assure allies in the region that, yes, in fact, we have a common interest, we have a common concern, we respect the technology that is coming on board, and we have a series of actions and 

investments that we are making in order to counter that, we are 

not just standing idly by. 

Because what that allows us to do is to take the first question 

that you answered and to be very clear and very concise and very, 

very consistent with it, which is that we stand by our allies and 

friends in the region. 
25 

And so even though we don’t want to get drawn into a situation 

where we are trying to arbitrate individual actions, we also want 

our allies and friends to know that we are going to be next to them 

if they start to feel the pressure and the coercion that comes from 

a big neighbor. 

The Philippines have just submitted their concerns to the Law of 

the Sea Commission. In my mind, it would be worthy of the committee to take another look at this treaty. This is opportunity lost. 

We are in concert with Iran and Syria in terms of how we look at 

the treaty today. We are on the sidelines watching others assert 

their national interests and we are not in the game. 

To me, this is the most consistent complaint that I hear from 

those in the region, which is that we helped write the language, 

that we helped write the language in 1982, that we modified—we, 

the international community, modified the language in 1982 when 

we objected to the redistribution of wealth that was going to come 

out of the seabed. 

In 1994, they brought it forward looking for us to participate and 

to ratify. In 2004, it came out of the Foreign Relations Committee 

unanimous, and we have never been able to get an up or down vote 

on it. 

Hope that answers your question. 

Mr. FORBES. It does. 

Dr. Mahnken. 

Dr. MAHNKEN. Thank you. 

I think you put your finger on a very important issue in highlighting these gray-zone challenges, again, as the Japanese term it 

in their national security strategy, and I think there are several 

things that we can do to react. 

One is we already have a very powerful instrument, the U.S. 

Coast Guard, and I think the Coast Guard provides a very good 

channel for conversations with China and with other regional 

states on these issues. And building up Coast Guards within the 

Asia-Pacific region I think is an important lever for dealing with 

these types of challenges. 

Related to that, you know, the term ‘‘building partner capacity’’ 

has had a lot of resonance in the Defense Department in recent 

years, both in the former Administration and the current one. 

When we have thought about building partner capacity, though, 

we have tended to think about at the low levels. It has tended to 

be associated with counterinsurgency. I think we need to give a lot 

more thought to building partner capacity against higher-end 

threats. 

And when you start to look at that, you know, what could we export to, say, the states in Southeast Asia that would help them defend their sovereignty and harden themselves to coercion, the answer is there is not—we don’t produce as much as we might. 

Things like smaller patrol craft, land-based anti-ship missiles, 

they are not in our tool kit. And we might want to think about 

some opportunities to do that, to build the capacity of regional 

states so that, you know, in the future maybe Vietnam doesn’t go 

to Russia for Kilos, but maybe there are some options from us. 

In terms of game-changers, certainly at the tactical level, perhaps developments in directed energy, the rail gun, as Congress-
26 

man Langevin mentioned earlier. If they pay off, I think those 

could be very powerful and could change naval warfare. 

Certainly a number of developments in undersea warfare I think 

could prove to be game-changers both in terms of unmanned undersea vehicles, but also, submarines and submarine payloads. 

And then, from a tactical all the way up to a political military 

level, I think there are all sorts of opportunities now for sharing 

intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance data—imagery from unmanned aerial vehicles, for example—broadly sharing that and 

knitting together our allies and our friends and us in some relationships to share data, particularly when it comes to these contested areas. 

At one level, I think it is very tactical, but it could be a gamechanger in terms of building and maintaining a consensus in favor 

of the status quo and against revisionism. 

So those are my thoughts. 

Mr. FORBES. Good. 

Mr. Berteau. 

Mr. BERTEAU. Mr. Chairman, I would like to actually associate 

myself with the remarks of both Admiral Walsh and Dr. Mahnken. 

I think those are excellent observations, if you will. 

I think, in terms of your first question, one of the critical elements that comes into play is not just the U.S. bilateral relation 

with each of the nations there, but the way in which we can get 

them to engage with one another. One way to do that, as Tom mentioned, is, in fact, through our own foreign military sales. 

I think one of the manifestations of the comments you made earlier about what is the strategy and our allies and partners asking 

that, drill that question down one layer. If they come to us and say, 

‘‘Okay. We have only got so much money. What do we need to 

spend it on?’’, we need to be able to have an answer to that question. 

And the way in which we do these kinds of things today tend to 

be individual deals of individual systems rather than anything that 

is looked at in a more comprehensive manner, if you will. 

And if we did that in such a way that it builds up the federated 

capability across the region rather than just a U.S.-only or a onenation-only kind of a capability, I think that would add a lot of 

value. 

The things that I worry about from a game-changer point of 

view—and, actually, yesterday my panel followed you and Congressman Smith over at that event across town and I was asked 

this very question, ‘‘What do you wake up at 3 o’clock in the morning worried about in this business?’’ 

One of the vulnerabilities at the low end, and that is 

cybersecurity. I mean, it actually has high-end vulnerability as well 

in an electronic warfare sense, but the real vulnerability from 

across the region is at the low end. The other is space, and that 

is the vulnerability at the high end. 

These are both much harder for us to get our arms around. In 

one case, in the case of cyber, the military alone can’t defend America or the world. It is going to take the cooperation and collaboration of the private sector, the nongovernment sector, across the 

board. 
27 

And for the life of me, I don’t understand why the business community in America can’t see its own vulnerability here and get on 

board with the legislation that would help open and move in that 

direction, but that is obviously beyond the jurisdiction of this subcommittee. 

The second at the space end suffers from the difficulties that Admiral Walsh was talking about of our general R&D, which is it is 

hard to talk about it; so, it is very hard to fix this stuff. 

Ultimately, I think, though, we need to recognize that China 

tends to look at an awful lot of these things in a Metternichian 

kind of way. You are either on my side or you are on their side. 

And for many of the nations in this region, they don’t want to have 

to choose. They want to be able to play both sides. 

It is in our interest to help them do that in such a way that 

strengthens the overall capacity and capability rather than forcing 

people to line up on one side or another. That is hard. 

Mr. FORBES. Good comments. 

Dr. Ratner. 

Dr. RATNER. Great. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I think this issue of gray zones is probably the toughest and most 

important strategic question in U.S. strategy in Asia right now. So 

I think a lot of people are struggling with this. 

I think, if you read Danny Russell’s recent testimony carefully, 

clearly the Administration, I think, has come around to understanding the importance of some of China’s assertive actions and 

the gray-zone contestations that we are seeing. 

I guess, in terms of response, I mean, clearly understanding the 

implications of this and the broader picture of China’s rise and U.S. 

leadership in the region as opposed to thinking about—you know, 

people say, ‘‘Well, these are just rocks and islands.’’ I think they 

are much more important than just that in their overall strategic 

significance. 

So I laid out a number of things in my written testimony that 

I won’t go into detail here. But I would echo Admiral Walsh’s remarks about needing to support international arbitration. 

Even if the Senate—even if we are not going to ratify UNCLOS 

[United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea], I think supporting the current Philippines international arbitration in the 

South China Sea is critically important in the process, not necessarily the Philippines’ claims. 

I think we need to think about improving confidence-building 

measures in other ways to prevent and manage crises. Considering 

the code of conduct in the South China Sea, it is unlikely to be 

completed anytime soon. We should think about how we can take 

some of those mechanisms and advance them without the full 

agreement. 

And I would echo Dr. Mahnken’s suggestion about a common operating picture in the South China Sea. I think, fundamentally, it 

could be extremely helpful in terms of helping countries modify 

their own behavior as well as setting norms that others would be 

more likely to abide by. 

But I think, at the end of the day, the underlying question here 

is about the willingness of the United States to impose costs on 

China, as I said in my statement. 
28 

And this is not about containment. It is not about a fundamental 

change in U.S.-China policy. It is about looking at our decades-long 

hedging strategy of engagement, on the one hand, and balancing, 

on the other, and deciding whether or not we have that mix right. 

And the argument that I have been making and others is that 

we may need to beef up the balancing part of that mix of the policy 

so as not to create a permissive environment for Chinese assertiveness in these gray zones. And there are a lot of ways we can do 

that. 

One, we can augment our military presence in the region. Senior 

White House officials raised that possibility in the context of ADIZ 

[Air Defense Identification Zone] in the South China Sea. We can 

think about expanding or more clearly defining our security commitments in the region, which are sometimes intentionally ambiguous. We can think about broadening the type of capabilities we 

are willing to transfer to certain partners. 

We can think about—and this would be incredibly sensitive—but, 

in certain contexts, revisiting our neutrality on certain sovereignty 

issues. We can think about offering legal assistance to countries 

who are interested in international arbitration. 

And as a final suggestion, I think one idea that we should consider—and it would have to be legal—we have to get into sort of 

legal and operational aspects of this—but I think the United States 

needs to think about, in cooperation with allies and partners, treating Chinese maritime vessels—nongovernmental maritime vessels 

and paramilitary vessels as naval combatants if they are engaging 

in acts of aggression and physical coercion. 

China is clearly using Coast Guard-like vessels for essentially 

military coercion, and I think, as long as we draw a red line and 

say that is nonmilitary action, they are likely to do so and keep the 

U.S. response below the military threshold. And I think that only 

works to China’s strategic advantage and against the interests of 

peace and stability. 

Mr. FORBES. Good. Thank you. 

Ms. Hanabusa, do you have a final question you would like to 

pose to the panel? 

Ms. HANABUSA. Thank you. 

Admiral Walsh, when we were discussing it earlier, my other 

question to you would have been—as you know, the Congress, primarily the House, has taken a very strong position against the retiring of the cruisers. 

So I was very interested in what you were saying because the 

cruisers are scheduled to be retired and, as you know, we are going 

to lose at least possibly two or three at Pearl [Harbor]. 

And so, from what you are saying—and that is what I expected 

you to say, that we need a mix, and the mix will be determined 

by where we are. So the South China Sea, I understand you. 

You seem to be saying that, for the general picture of the whole 

of PACOM AOR [area of responsibility], we are going to need more 

than just that. That is for that particular area. But if the player 

that we are all looking at is China, then we need the subs, we need 

the carriers, we need everything else. 

Am I understanding you correctly? 
29 

Admiral WALSH. Yes. What I am suggesting to you is a line of 

questioning as the budget is revealed in terms of how to approach 

it. 

And if the going-in concern is battle force mix, then it prompts 

now the conversation of, ‘‘Okay. How many? And what is the analysis of how many LCS and how many cruisers? And the decision 

associated with retiring or laying up cruisers, is that based on 

budget or is that based on changing scenarios in the Pacific that, 

in my mind, are playing out?’’ 

We have to make adjustments with the budgetary plan because 

of changes that are taking place in the political and military environment in the Pacific. 

So it was more of just sort of helping with the playbook when it 

comes down to trying to understand what the exact answer is. 

And I have no agenda in this discussion, other than I am reacting to a concern that we are going to become LCS-dominant in the 

Pacific, and that was never part of the plan. That was not something we agreed to. 

We were always going to have the cruiser capability, the carrier, 

the submarine capability. And when you put all of that together, 

now you can optimally place LCS where it belongs and where it fits 

into the overarching strategy. 

Ms. HANABUSA. Mr. Chairman, may I ask one more question? 

Mr. Berteau—am I saying that correctly?—you know, one of the 

things CSIS has always been in the forefront with has been the— 

and this is, of course, with Michael Green—has been in the discussion of what does it mean to have the pivot to Asia-Pacific. 

We have heard various people tell us that there seems to be a 

lack of clear strategy of what does it mean when we say—when the 

United States says we are pivoting to Asia-Pacific or rebalancing. 

I have even heard recalibration. Whichever word you want you can 

use. 

The question is: Do you see a clear strategy or is it something 

that you feel that we are sort of, you know, kind of finding our way 

around, which doesn’t help us as the people who are finally going 

to make the decision as to where the money goes and what is going 

to be there? What is the strategy, if you feel that we have one, or 

if we don’t have one, why do you think we don’t have one? 

Mr. BERTEAU. Such an easy question to ask. 

Ms. HANABUSA. And my last question. It is all yours. 

Mr. BERTEAU. I think that there are some sound elements of the 

current strategy that have been articulated and followed and, in 

particular—and I think Dr. Ratner mentioned this in his testimony—there is much more going on here than just military presence. 

We tend to focus on the military presence side and on the elements of this that fall under the purview of the Defense Department, and it is clearly substantially more than that. 

I won’t pretend that I am tracking what is going on in the trade 

arena and the diplomatic arena, et cetera. It is a bit outside of my 

area. So I look at it from within the Defense Department’s point 

of view. 

I think there has been a consistent articulation of what constitutes a strategy that guides the theater campaign plan that the 
30 

Pacific Command has in place that allows the development of 

courses of action inside there, and I think there is plenty of work 

that has been done on that. 

What I think remains to be articulated in a public way that you 

and I can read and understand—not a classified document, but a 

public document—is something that allows us to say, if you can 

only do so much of these actions in this campaign plan, which ones 

are the most important and which ones come first. That articulation I think still remains to be laid out there. 

As to why it hasn’t been put in place, I will tell you, I think a 

big part of the problem is just the fundamental budgetary and programmatic uncertainty that pervades the defense establishment 

today and makes it very difficult to think beyond where we are 

right now. 

I mean, you look at this. We are on the eve of the 1st of March. 

We have 7 months left in this fiscal year. For the first time, actually, in 3 years, the Defense Department knows what it is going to 

have to spend in that 7 months, but they don’t know what they are 

going to have to spend starting on October 1. Well, we sort of do. 

We are going to have a continuing resolution. But we don’t know 

much beyond October 1, if you will. 

That level of uncertainty, even though it is not strategic at all, 

I think permeates the environment in which any kind of a strategic 

thinking comes into play. That is the best explanation that I can 

put forward, I think, that looks there. 

But I think there is one overriding important point that has 

changed dramatically, and Admiral Walsh alluded to this, I think, 

in his response to the very first question or the second question, 

perhaps, that was asked here. 

We inherited a laydown of U.S. forces at the end of World War 

II that essentially was the basis of our Pacific posture, or at least 

after the Korean War, if you will. 

One of the things that Dr. Green and I did when we undertook 

our study 2 years ago was said, ‘‘What if we were starting from a 

clean sheet of paper, I mean, literally, we had no basing structure 

in the Asia-Pacific region? Where would we want to be?’’ 

Well, guess what. We would want to be in Korea because of the 

dynamic there. We would want to be in Japan because of the importance of the alliance. We would want to have a good physical 

presence in the first island chain, which we do in Okinawa. We 

would want to have a sound physical presence in the second island 

chain, which we do in Guam. 

The big gap is everything south of there, Southeast Asia on 

around into the Indian Ocean. That is where the gaps were, if you 

will. And I think one of the things that time has precluded is we 

are not going to go build big bases there. We don’t have the money 

for it. They don’t have the appetite for it. But we do have to have 

the engagement that is coming into play. 

This is both a strategic framework, but a very set of tactical decisions day to day at the very small unit level. And I think a lot of 

what I am seeing going on at the Marine Corps level, at the Pacific 

augmentation team level, small groups, country by country, location by location, engaging in dispersal opportunities at air bases 
31 

around the region, all fits into this pattern. But it is very hard to 

describe in a strategic sense. 

So I am seeing a lot of positive activities, if you will, but it is 

going to take time before we can see how they play out in a strategic sense. 

Mr. FORBES. Thank you. 

As we mentioned at the beginning, the importance of this hearing is not just for the hearing itself, but for the transcript and the 

record we are making. 

And we promised each of you we would give you just a few moments, if you needed it, at the end for anything that perhaps you 

wanted to wrap up with or anything that we left out in terms of 

our questioning. 

So, Dr. Ratner, let’s start with you. And we’ll work our way back. 

Any closing thoughts that you have that we failed to ask or that 

we mischaracterized? 

Dr. RATNER. Sure. Well, Mr. Chairman, thank you again for 

these hearings. I think this is a real service to U.S.-Asia policy. So 

congratulations. I think it has been a success already, and I hope 

to see more up here on the Hill. 

Let me address the issue of how we should go about building our 

alliance and partnerships, because I guess I would somewhat disagree with how—some of the characterizations earlier that we’re 

talking about. ‘‘Well, this just should be geared at the China 

threat. These countries are feeling more threatened; and, therefore, 

we should work with them to deal with that threat.’’ 

I think it is true that countries in the region are feeling increasingly insecure because of China’s rise, but it is also true that they 

have deep political and economic interdependences with China and, 

whereas U.S. policy can blow hot and cold, China is a geographic 

reality for them that is not going away and, as a fundamental rule 

in the region, with a couple exceptions, countries really do not want 

to have to choose between the United States and China. 

So when we think about engaging with allies and partners, yes, 

it should be about enhancing U.S. capability and deterrence, interoperability for warfighting. But more fundamentally, it has to be 

about building partnerships and having a more politically sustainable relationship, as we have said—as you said in your opening 

and as we have said, as official U.S. policy. 

So we should think about how our partnerships can be integrated 

in regional institutions, for instance, how they can address nontraditional security threats or other threats that are locally important to our partners outside of major power war. 

We should think about how to include engagements with China, 

whether it is in multilateral agreements or through our relationship with Australia, for instance, the fact we need to have a good 

relationship with China or at least a stable relationship with China 

to deepen our security partnerships with countries in the region 

who, again, don’t benefit from a highly adversarial relationship between the United States and China. 

And, finally, we need an economic component to these engagements such that security is not the overriding core or pillar of our 

relationships with these countries. 
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It makes it very difficult for a number of countries in the region, 

even allies like Australia and the Philippines and Japan, to go to 

their domestic publics and say, ‘‘Well, our relationship with the 

United States is all about security and, in some cases, all about deterring China.’’ That is not what their publics are looking for out 

of their relationship with the United States or with China. 

So I think we really do need to think about political sustainability and think about shaping a regional order rather than thinking about it in the terms of building some type of anti-China coalition or whatever you would call it that, really, most countries in 

the region will not sign up for. 

Mr. FORBES. Mr. Berteau. 

Mr. BERTEAU. Mr. Chairman, thank you. 

Ms. Hanabusa’s last question actually gave me the opportunity 

to say an awful lot of what I already put in my notes. To wrap up 

here, I would just add two final points. 

One really piggybacks on Admiral Walsh’s comment about China 

doesn’t behave necessarily in ways that we interpret. They are 

playing by one set of understandings and we are playing by another. 

I would note that that is not just true of the United States understanding of China. It is true, I believe, of the understanding of 

many other countries in the region of China. And they all look at 

it through a prism, and we need to keep that in mind as we go forward. 

We are on an adventure here that there is no cookbook that tells 

us what to do. You know, to behave in such a way that it changes 

the evolution and development of a major power is something that 

is very rare in history that has been done in a coherent and peaceful way, if you will. 

And I think the challenges that we have are enormous in this regard and it requires this kind of constant discussion and dialogue 

in the open that you have promulgated here that I think will be 

of enormous benefit as we go forward. So I thank you for all these 

hearings. 

Mr. FORBES. Thank you. 

Dr. Mahnken. 

Dr. MAHNKEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thanks to the committee for this important work that you 

are embarked upon. 

Yeah. Let me just conclude by emphasizing my belief that, you 

know, the United States does need a long-term strategy to guide 

our investments and to help us compete in an increasingly challenging environment. 

We need that strategy, first, to be a smart competitor. We are 

not going to, you know, spend ourselves to good strategy. We need 

to be a smart competitor. 

We also need to be able to explain our commitment to the AsiaPacific region to the American people. 

And then, third, we need such a strategy so that we can work 

with our allies and with our friends in the region. 

I think we are blessed with some very powerful allies in the region, and I think there are tremendous opportunities before us, 

very exciting opportunities before us, to work with our allies in 
33 

ways that benefit us, benefit our allies, but then together disproportionately benefit us as alliances. So we need to be alive to 

those opportunities. 

Now, if we lack a strategy currently, well, partially that is because of us, and I talked about that. But, also, it is because of 

our—you know, the other members of the—the other states in the 

region and our competitors. 

We have been talking about China and how best to understand 

China. I think we need to invest in capabilities to help better understand China and China as a competitor, because I think it is 

manifestly clear that we don’t fully understand what is driving the 

party leadership and the PLA and Chinese actions. 

So we need that as a foundation to develop a long-term strategy 

to guide our investments, guide our actions, explain to the American people and work with our allies. 

So thank you again. 

Mr. FORBES. Thank you. 

Admiral, we will give you cleanup. 

Admiral WALSH. Thank you. An observation and then a suggestion. 

While I was the Pacific Fleet commander, I traveled with Kirk 

Campbell and a representative of the U.S. Agency for International 

Development and we hopscotched across the Pacific to 10 different 

stops. And in the course of that, we found the power of what we 

were doing as in the representation of a whole-of-government sort 

of approach, at least in the minds of the audience. 

We have an opportunity coming up in Hawaii not long from now 

with the Rim of the Pacific Exercise that, if we really do think that 

these are matters of important concern, that I could envision a 

RIMPAC dialogue where you do have Department of State representation, where you do have academia that comes out of Singapore or out of Malaysia, to engage in a forum where there is an 

honest, open discussion about some of the maritime concerns that 

you have seen play out over the recent few years. And I could see 

China having an opportunity to present itself and participate in 

ways that I think would be very friendly and very encouraging. 

It is just a suggestion. But it tells me that the traditional sort 

of approach that is DOD-centric has its limitations. And until we 

invite others under the tent with us here and engage in that kind 

of dialogue, then I don’t think we are really going to be able to 

move much beyond where we are today. 

Thank you. 

Mr. FORBES. Gentlemen, thank you so much for all your work in 

these areas. They are vitally important to our future. 

We thank you for taking time to be with us today and for your 

help with this committee, and we look forward to continuing to be 

able to utilize your expertise in the future. So thank you. 

With that, we are adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 4:24 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

A P P E N D I X 

FEBRUARY 27, 2014 

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD 

FEBRUARY 27, 2014 

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DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD 

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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING 

FEBRUARY 27, 2014 

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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. FORBES 

Mr. FORBES. What flashpoints in the Asia-Pacific region are of most concern, and 

how does the rebalance address them? 

Admiral WALSH. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. FORBES. Provide your assessment of the rebalance to date. What are the most 

significant challenges and your concerns with respect to its implementation? 

Admiral WALSH. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. FORBES. What is your assessment of U.S. basing in the region? Is the U.S. 

military effectively positioned to respond to contingencies in the region? How can 

its positioning be improved? 

Admiral WALSH. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. FORBES. How is the force structure in each of the services being affected by 

the rebalance (e.g., end strength, training and readiness, investment and modernization)? 

Admiral WALSH. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. FORBES. How critical is forward presence to the rebalance as well as readiness of the commands in the theater? In what areas is PACOM lacking required 

forward presence? 

Admiral WALSH. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. FORBES. Does the Defense Strategic Guidance and refocus on the Asia-Pacific 

necessitate a change in our preposition strategy, including operational stocks? 

Admiral WALSH. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. FORBES. Discuss the importance of accessibility in the Asia-Pacific region, our 

current accessibility challenges, and how the rebalance addresses them? 

Admiral WALSH. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. FORBES. What capabilities, research and development (R&D) areas, and resources will be required to meet rebalance needs? What are our most significant 

gaps and shortfalls? How is the Department prioritizing those, and how have they 

changed to align with the rebalance? 

Admiral WALSH. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. FORBES. What are the implications of China’s military modernization, specifically its power projection, anti-access/area-denial, counter-space and cyber capabilities? What is being done to address these threats? 

Admiral WALSH. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. FORBES. What should be the role of the U.S. military in the event of a contingency in the East China Sea or the South China Sea? 

Admiral WALSH. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. FORBES. What flashpoints in the Asia-Pacific region are of most concern, and 

how does the rebalance address them? 

Dr. MAHNKEN. I believe that the following flashpoints should be of greatest concern in the Asia-Pacific region: (1) the Taiwan Strait, (2) the East China Sea, (3) 

the South China Sea, and (4) the Korean peninsula. (1) I am concerned that despite 

the rebalance, the military balance across the Taiwan Strait continues to shift away 

from Taiwan and toward the PRC. Taiwan’s armed forces are increasingly overmatched by Chinese military modernization. (2,3) In the East and South China seas, 

China has utilized a number of instruments of statecraft short of the use of force 

to establish a new status quo and coerce Japan into recognizing Chinese territorial 

claims. The United States and its allies need to develop a better understanding of 

these so-called ‘‘grey area’’ challenges and develop countermeasures to them. (4) The 

Kim regime continues to threaten stability on the Korean peninsula. I believe that 

that threat will remain as long as the Kim regime remains in power in P’yongyang, 

regardless of the rebalance. 

Mr. FORBES. Provide your assessment of the rebalance to date. What are the most 

significant challenges and your concerns with respect to its implementation? 

Dr. MAHNKEN. I believe the rebalance has provided needed attention to the growing strategic weight of the Asia-Pacific region. I also feel that the commitment to 

deploy an increasing portion of the U.S. armed forces in the region is wise, both 

given the United States’ enduring interests in the region as well as the eroding military balance. My main concerns are two. First, U.S. forces in the Asia-Pacific region 
92 

represent an increasing slice of a shrinking pie. As a result, unless the United 

States adopts innovative approaches to force posture and force structure, it will continue to face a worsening military balance. Second, I am concerned that the United 

States is not exercising leadership among its allies in the region. Absent that leadership, U.S. allies are becoming increasingly concerned. In abdicating its leadership 

role, the United States is also sacrificing the opportunity for deeper collaboration 

with allies. 

Mr. FORBES. What is your assessment of U.S. basing in the region? Is the U.S. 

military effectively positioned to respond to contingencies in the region? How can 

its positioning be improved? 

Dr. MAHNKEN. I believe that the United States should harden and diversify its 

bases in the region and augment them with contingency operating locations. These 

should be balanced between bases on sovereign U.S. territory, such as Hawaii and 

Guam, and those on allied territory, such as Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines. Bases on U.S. territory guarantee access, whereas those on allied territory 

provide extended deterrence and reassurance. 

Mr. FORBES. How is the force structure in each of the services being affected by 

the rebalance (e.g., end strength, training and readiness, investment and modernization)? 

Dr. MAHNKEN. I do not believe that the rebalance has yet significantly affected 

the force structure of the each of the Services. A force structure that fully implemented the rebalance would feature a greater emphasis on naval and air capabilities; investment in new capabilities of particular importance to the theater, including unmanned strike, undersea warfare, guided munitions, and electric and directed 

energy weapons; the development of innovative operational concepts for projecting 

power in the face of anti-access/area denial threats; training focused on the unique 

features of the theater; and deeper collaboration with U.S. allies. Although the Services are undertaking a number of initiatives along these lines, I do not believe that 

they have progressed far enough to affect force structure. 

Mr. FORBES. How critical is forward presence to the rebalance as well as readiness of the commands in the theater? In what areas is PACOM lacking required 

forward presence? 

Dr. MAHNKEN. I believe that U.S. forward presence plays a critical role in dissuading aggressors, deterring aggression, and reassuring allies and friends. However, presence rests upon a foundation of credible warfighting capability. Although 

the United States maintains presence throughout the PACOM area of responsibility, 

I am concerned that as the size of the U.S. armed forces shrink, the credibility of 

U.S. combat power will be called into question. In particular, I am concerned that 

the decreasing size and increasing age of Navy and Air Force platforms will undermine deterrence and reassurance. 

Mr. FORBES. Does the Defense Strategic Guidance and refocus on the Asia-Pacific 

necessitate a change in our preposition strategy, including operational stocks? 

Dr. MAHNKEN. I believe that the growth and modernization of Asia-Pacific militaries means that wars in the region are likely to involve increasing expenditure 

of munitions and other expendables. I also believe that the growth and spread of 

precision-strike systems, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region, is ushering in an 

era of longer, costlier wars. As a result, I believe that the United States needs to 

rethink its strategy for acquiring and positioning operational stocks. 

As part of this, I believe that the United States should enter into discussions with 

its close allies in the region on how to pool operational stocks, to include the acquisition of common munitions and shared contingency manufacturing. 

Mr. FORBES. Discuss the importance of accessibility in the Asia-Pacific region, our 

current accessibility challenges, and how the rebalance addresses them? 

Dr. MAHNKEN. Forward-based forces play an important role in U.S. strategy in 

the Asia-Pacific region. Access to the region is thus crucial to U.S. credibility. Forward basing on U.S. and foreign territory play complementary roles. Bases on sovereign U.S. territory, such as Hawaii and Guam provide assured access. By contrast, 

those on allied territory, such as Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines provide 

extended deterrence and reassurance. Although the rebalance has seen increased access to allied and friendly territory in the region, including Australia, the Philippines, and Singapore, I believe that more can and should be done. In particular, 

I believe there are opportunities for enhanced access to naval and air facilities in 

Australia and the Philippines. 

Mr. FORBES. What capabilities, research and development (R&D) areas, and resources will be required to meet rebalance needs? What are our most significant 

gaps and shortfalls? How is the Department prioritizing those, and how have they 

changed to align with the rebalance? 
93 

Dr. MAHNKEN. I believe the United States faces shortfalls in the following areas. 

Unmanned Strike Systems: The United States requires greater investment in 

stealthy unmanned strike systems that can be launched well outside the growing 

range of increasingly precise long-range missiles and other so-called anti-access, 

area-denial (A2AD) systems. Undersea Warfare: The United States has built and 

maintained a comparative advantage in undersea warfare over the course of decades. I am concerned, however, that the United States is not adequately resourcing 

U.S. undersea capabilities I believe that the United States should commit itself to 

purchasing 2 Virginia-class SSNs per year, funding and procuring the Virginia Payload Module (VPM) and exploring the Towed Payload Module (TPM). The United 

States should also place additional emphasis on developing unmanned underwater 

vehicles (UUVs) that can complement current U.S. attack submarines. Guided Munitions: Current U.S. anti-ship and land-attack cruise missile designs date to the 

1970s; the U.S. military urgently requires a new long-range anti-ship cruise missile 

to replace the Harpoon and a new land attack cruise missile to replace the Tomahawk. The United States should also increase its investment in research into autonomous systems, which offer the ability to operate in the face of enemy attempts to 

interfere with sensors and communication links. Electric & Directed Energy Weapons: U.S. forces are increasingly at risk from large salvos of guided rockets, artillery, 

missiles and mortars. Electric weapons, such as electromagnetic rail guns and high 

energy lasers, have the potential to possess both high rates of fire and very low cost 

per shot, making them probable game-changers for U.S. defense strategy if successfully developed and fielded. These systems deserve greater funding. 

Mr. FORBES. What are the implications of China’s military modernization, specifically its power projection, anti-access/area-denial, counter-space and cyber capabilities? What is being done to address these threats? 

Dr. MAHNKEN. Chinese military modernization threatens not only to deny the 

United States access to areas of vital national interest, but also to erode the alliances that have served as the foundation of regional stability for over half a century. Three aspects are of particular concern: (1) Its growing ability to destroy fixed 

targets in the region (including on our allies’ home territory) could weaken deterrence and reassurance. (2) Its growing ability to target U.S. power projection forces, 

including U.S. carrier strike groups, could not only deter the United States from intervening in a crisis or conflict in the region, but also degrade U.S. warfighting capabilities. (3) Its nuclear modernization, including the deployment of increasing 

numbers of nuclear ballistic missiles, could potentially decouple allies from the 

American extended nuclear deterrent by reducing the credibility of U.S. nuclear retaliatory threats. I believe that more needs to be done to address these threats. This 

includes investment in new capabilities, including unmanned strike, undersea warfare, guided munitions, and electric and directed energy weapons; the development 

of innovative operational concepts for the use of U.S. forces; deeper collaboration 

with U.S. allies; and measures to bolster nuclear deterrence. 

Mr. FORBES. What should be the role of the U.S. military in the event of a contingency in the East China Sea or the South China Sea? 

Dr. MAHNKEN. Much would obviously depend upon the circumstances. However, 

it is worth remembering that the United States has, for the better part of a century, 

served as a guarantor of stability and order in the Asia-Pacific region. As a result, 

in the event of a contingency in the East China Sea or the South China Sea, I believe that the United States should act to safeguard that order. 

Mr. FORBES. What flashpoints in the Asia-Pacific region are of most concern, and 

how does the rebalance address them? 

Mr. BERTEAU. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. FORBES. Provide your assessment of the rebalance to date. What are the most 

significant challenges and your concerns with respect to its implementation? 

Mr. BERTEAU. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. FORBES. What is your assessment of U.S. basing in the region? Is the U.S. 

military effectively positioned to respond to contingencies in the region? How can 

its positioning be improved? 

Mr. BERTEAU. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. FORBES. How is the force structure in each of the services being affected by 

the rebalance (e.g., end strength, training and readiness, investment and modernization)? 

Mr. BERTEAU. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. FORBES. How critical is forward presence to the rebalance as well as readiness of the commands in the theater? In what areas is PACOM lacking required 

forward presence? 

Mr. BERTEAU. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 
94 

Mr. FORBES. Does the Defense Strategic Guidance and refocus on the Asia-Pacific 

necessitate a change in our preposition strategy, including operational stocks? 

Mr. BERTEAU. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. FORBES. Discuss the importance of accessibility in the Asia-Pacific region, our 

current accessibility challenges, and how the rebalance addresses them? 

Mr. BERTEAU. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. FORBES. What capabilities, research and development (R&D) areas, and resources will be required to meet rebalance needs? What are our most significant 

gaps and shortfalls? How is the Department prioritizing those, and how have they 

changed to align with the rebalance? 

Mr. BERTEAU. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. FORBES. What are the implications of China’s military modernization, specifically its power projection, anti-access/area-denial, counter-space and cyber capabilities? What is being done to address these threats? 

Mr. BERTEAU. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. FORBES. What should be the role of the U.S. military in the event of a contingency in the East China Sea or the South China Sea? 

Mr. BERTEAU. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. FORBES. What flashpoints in the Asia-Pacific region are of most concern, and 

how does the rebalance address them? 

Dr. RATNER. The most concerning flashpoints in the Asia Pacific are the Korean 

Peninsula, maritime/territorial disputes in the East and South China Sea, and the 

broader military competition with China. The rebalance to Asia seeks to address all 

of these issues through its multifaceted approach that includes: 

— Strengthening traditional alliances; 

— Building closer ties with emerging partners; 

— Deepening political and institutional relations with China; 

— Engaging the region’s multilateral institutions; 

— Diversifying the U.S. military presence in Asia; and 

— Reinforcing U.S. economic leadership in the region. 

Mr. FORBES. Provide your assessment of the rebalance to date. What are the most 

significant challenges and your concerns with respect to its implementation? 

Dr. RATNER. The rebalancing policy has made considerable achievements over the 

last five years. In nearly every dimension of the policy, the United States has made 

significant and tangible advances. There is little evidence to support skeptics who 

argue that the policy is not real or is all rhetoric. 

Sustaining and deepening the rebalancing will require continued political and financial commitment from the White House and Congress. Part of the task ahead 

is for U.S. political leaders to make the case to the American people about the importance of Asia’s future for U.S. economic and security interests. The administration and Congress will also have to keep ensuring that the non-military elements 

of the policy receive sufficient attention, including for diplomacy, economic assistance, and trade. 

Mr. FORBES. What is your assessment of U.S. basing in the region? Is the U.S. 

military effectively positioned to respond to contingencies in the region? How can 

its positioning be improved? 

Dr. RATNER. The United States should continue seeking a more geographically 

distributed, operationally resilient and political sustainable military presence in the 

region. Presence and access agreements in Australia, Singapore and the Philippines 

are extremely important in this regard in terms of demonstrating U.S. commitment 

to the region, providing new operational and strategic advantages, and creating 

greater opportunities for building partner capacity and responding to regional crises. 

Mr. FORBES. How is the force structure in each of the services being affected by 

the rebalance (e.g., end strength, training and readiness, investment and modernization)? 

Dr. RATNER. The question is beyond the witness’ scope of experience. 

Mr. FORBES. How critical is forward presence to the rebalance as well as readiness of the commands in the theater? In what areas is PACOM lacking required 

forward presence? 

Dr. RATNER. Forward presence and access agreements are extremely important in 

terms of demonstrating U.S. commitment to the region, providing new operational 

and strategic advantages, and creating greater opportunities for building partner capacity and responding to regional crises. 

Mr. FORBES. Does the Defense Strategic Guidance and refocus on the Asia-Pacific 

necessitate a change in our preposition strategy, including operational stocks? 

Dr. RATNER. The question is beyond the witness’ scope of experience. 

Mr. FORBES. Discuss the importance of accessibility in the Asia-Pacific region, our 

current accessibility challenges, and how the rebalance addresses them? 
95 

Dr. RATNER. See answers above. 

Mr. FORBES. What capabilities, research and development (R&D) areas, and resources will be required to meet rebalance needs? What are our most significant 

gaps and shortfalls? How is the Department prioritizing those, and how have they 

changed to align with the rebalance? 

Dr. RATNER. The question is beyond the witness’ scope of experience. 

Mr. FORBES. What are the implications of China’s military modernization, specifically its power projection, anti-access/area-denial, counter-space and cyber capabilities? What is being done to address these threats? 

Dr. RATNER. The question is beyond the witness’ scope of experience. 

Mr. FORBES. What should be the role of the U.S. military in the event of a contingency in the East China Sea or the South China Sea? 

Dr. RATNER. The precise role of the United States military will, of course, depend 

on the nature of the contingency. Nevertheless, the United States could have a key 

role to play in terminating any conflict, either through the use of force or deterrent 

threats. Depending on the circumstances, failure to play that role could have significant negative effects on U.S. credibility, leadership and interests in Asia. 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. LANGEVIN 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Looking at the probability that future environments in the AsiaPacific will be denied, are we making the right investments to ensure the adequacy 

and resiliency of our ISR capabilities? 

Admiral WALSH. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. LANGEVIN. In your views, have we placed appropriate strategic emphasis on 

matters other than high-end warfare in the Asia-Pacific, in particular on contesting 

the persistent low-level competition that seems endemic to the region? 

Dr. MAHNKEN. The United States faces a number of challenges in the Asia-Pacific 

region. Of these, the most consequential would be a great-power conflict. It is not, 

however, the only contingency of interest. In particular, I am concerned about China’s so-called ‘‘gray-area’’ challenges to the status quo in the region. China has utilized a number of instruments of statecraft short of the use of force to establish a 

new status quo and coerce regional states into recognizing Chinese territorial 

claims. The United States and its allies need to develop a better understanding of 

this strategy and develop countermeasures to it. 

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