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i 

58–227 2010

[H.A.S.C. No. 111–132] 

HEARING 

ON

NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT 

FOR FISCAL YEAR 2011 

AND

OVERSIGHT OF PREVIOUSLY AUTHORIZED 

PROGRAMS 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

FULL COMMITTEE HEARING 

ON

BUDGET REQUESTS FROM THE U.S. 

EUROPEAN COMMAND, U.S. AFRICA 

COMMAND, AND U.S. JOINT 

FORCES COMMAND 

HEARING HELD 

MARCH 10, 2010 
(II) 

HOUSE COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS

IKE SKELTON, Missouri, Chairman 

JOHN SPRATT, South Carolina 

SOLOMON P. ORTIZ, Texas 

GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi 

SILVESTRE REYES, Texas 

VIC SNYDER, Arkansas 

ADAM SMITH, Washington 

LORETTA SANCHEZ, California 

MIKE MCINTYRE, North Carolina 

ROBERT A. BRADY, Pennsylvania 

ROBERT ANDREWS, New Jersey 

SUSAN A. DAVIS, California 

JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island 

RICK LARSEN, Washington 

JIM COOPER, Tennessee 

JIM MARSHALL, Georgia 

MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO, Guam 

BRAD ELLSWORTH, Indiana 

PATRICK J. MURPHY, Pennsylvania 

HANK JOHNSON, Georgia 

CAROL SHEA-PORTER, New Hampshire 

JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut 

DAVID LOEBSACK, Iowa 

JOE SESTAK, Pennsylvania 

GABRIELLE GIFFORDS, Arizona 

NIKI TSONGAS, Massachusetts 

GLENN NYE, Virginia 

CHELLIE PINGREE, Maine 

LARRY KISSELL, North Carolina 

MARTIN HEINRICH, New Mexico 

FRANK M. KRATOVIL, JR., Maryland 

BOBBY BRIGHT, Alabama 

SCOTT MURPHY, New York 

WILLIAM L. OWENS, New York 

DAN BOREN, Oklahoma 

HOWARD P. ‘‘BUCK’’ MCKEON, California 

ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland 

MAC THORNBERRY, Texas 

WALTER B. JONES, North Carolina 

W. TODD AKIN, Missouri 

J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia 

JEFF MILLER, Florida 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey 

ROB BISHOP, Utah 

MICHAEL TURNER, Ohio 

JOHN KLINE, Minnesota 

MIKE ROGERS, Alabama 

TRENT FRANKS, Arizona 

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania 

CATHY MCMORRIS RODGERS, Washington 

K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas 

DOUG LAMBORN, Colorado 

ROB WITTMAN, Virginia 

MARY FALLIN, Oklahoma 

DUNCAN HUNTER, California 

JOHN C. FLEMING, Louisiana 

MIKE COFFMAN, Colorado 

THOMAS J. ROONEY, Florida 

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania 

ERIN C. CONATON, Staff Director 

MARK LEWIS, Professional Staff Member 

ROGER ZAKHEIM, Professional Staff Member 

CATERINA DUTTO, Staff Assistant 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS 

2010 

Page 

HEARING: 

Wednesday, March 10, 2010, Fiscal Year 2011 National Defense Authorization Act—Budget Requests from the U.S. European Command, U.S. Africa 

Command, and U.S. Joint Forces Command ..................................................... 1 

APPENDIX: 

Wednesday, March 10, 2010 ................................................................................... 39 

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 10, 2010 

FISCAL YEAR 2011 NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT—BUDGET REQUESTS FROM THE U.S. EUROPEAN COMMAND, U.S. AFRICA 

COMMAND, AND U.S. JOINT FORCES COMMAND 

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

McKeon, Hon. Howard P. ‘‘Buck,’’ a Representative from California, Ranking 

Member, Committee on Armed Services ............................................................ 3 

Skelton, Hon. Ike, a Representative from Missouri, Chairman, Committee 

on Armed Services ................................................................................................ 1 

WITNESSES 

Mattis, Gen. James N., USMC, Commander, U.S. Joint Forces Command ....... 8 

Stavridis, Adm. James G., USN, Commander, U.S. European Command ......... 5 

Ward, Gen. William E. ‘‘Kip,’’ USA, Commander, U.S. Africa Command .......... 6 

APPENDIX 

PREPARED STATEMENTS: 

Mattis, Gen. James N. ..................................................................................... 157 

McKeon, Hon. Howard P. ‘‘Buck’’ .................................................................... 43 

Stavridis, Adm. James G. ................................................................................ 46 

Ward, Gen. William E. ‘‘Kip’’ ........................................................................... 107 

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD: 

[There were no Documents submitted.] 

WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING THE HEARING: 

Mr. Johnson ...................................................................................................... 181 

Mr. Sestak ......................................................................................................... 181 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING: 

[There were no Questions submitted post hearing.] 

(1) 

FISCAL YEAR 2011 NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT—BUDGET REQUESTS FROM THE U.S. EUROPEAN COMMAND, U.S. AFRICA COMMAND, AND U.S. 

JOINT FORCES COMMAND 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, Washington, DC, Wednesday, March 10, 2010. 

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:03 a.m., in room 

2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Ike Skelton (chairman 

of the committee) presiding. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. IKE SKELTON, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM MISSOURI, CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON ARMED 

SERVICES 

The CHAIRMAN. I want to welcome our witnesses today. And this 

is, as you know, the posture hearing for the fiscal year 2011 budget 

for the U.S. European Command (EUCOM), U.S. African Command 

(AFRICOM), and the U.S. Joint Forces Command (JFCOM). 

Before I introduce our witnesses, I wish to make note that our 

staff director, Erin Conaton, will be witnessing her last hearing in 

the role of staff director. To say that she has done yeoman’s work 

is an understatement. I am immensely proud of the leadership— 

she supported—her ability, her tireless energy, her good judgment, 

and in steering this committee so very, very well. 

And we wish her well as the new Under Secretary of the Air 

Force, and she will be joining that team in just a few days. But this 

is her very last hearing. 

Mr. McKeon. 

Mr. MCKEON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to second everything that you have said, plus I would like to add that, you know, 

I am fairly new at this job, and Erin has made it so enjoyable. You 

know, as we went through the conference the day after I was 

named the ranking member, we had our markup. And so it was 

like drinking out of a fire hose for the next several months. 

And we got down to the final four. Many of those meetings that 

we held—and I want to congratulate you, Mr. Chairman, because 

for what else is happening in this Congress, this committee has 

been bipartisan due to your leadership. And everything that we 

did, Erin made it bipartisan. 

She made sure that we know everything that is going on and all 

of the decisions. We didn’t agree on everything. We probably agreed 

on more than we did with the Senate. But, I mean, through the 

process, she has been a true professional and done an outstanding 

job. And she will be missed, but the Air Force is gaining a great 

new member. 
2 

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. McKeon, thank you very much. 

Erin, we wish you well. 

[Applause.] 

The CHAIRMAN. We have announced her replacement, Paul 

Arcangeli, standing by the door by Erin, and as the deputy, Debra 

Wada, who all of us know so well through the years. Welcome 

aboard. 

[Applause.] 

The CHAIRMAN. Appearing before us today, Admiral James G. 

Stavridis, United States Navy; General William E. ‘‘Kip’’ Ward, 

United States Army; General James N. Mattis, United States Marine Corps. We appreciate your being with us today, and we welcome you. 

It has been the practice over several years, a very compressed 

hearing calendar causes us to consider your testimony as a group 

but, really, each of you deserve to have—because of your position 

as commander of your important commands—deserve your own 

separate hearing, but we were unable to do that this year. And I 

hope you understand that. 

First, European Command. Admiral, Europe remains critical to 

our national security, and we should remember that. Long transAtlantic ties have endured difficult times over the years. Challenges in those relationships present themselves today. We tend to 

think of our European friends and allies solely as partners for operations outside of that theater, but we should not so quickly put 

aside what the Russian incursion into Georgia two summers ago 

reminded us; real regional challenges do exist in Europe. 

Many of our allies rely on us to guarantee security and stability 

in Europe. One shining example of our commitment to security is 

in the Balkans where, after nearly 15 years, the American presence 

in Bosnia Herzegovina is down to a handful, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) mission in Kosovo has brought us 

genuine stability. 

We are all watching the NATO mission in Afghanistan closely. 

Many of our allies are making considerable contributions to that effort and, sadly, suffering casualties to prove it. Somehow, however, 

are not able to perform all missions where this is a matter of concern regarding capability and not national will. 

I encourage you to continue to find ways to build their capacity 

and would like to hear your ideas along those lines. 

Next, General, U.S. Africa Command. After a beginning of fits 

and starts, it looks to me like AFRICOM has gotten its feet underneath it. You worked very hard to bring together parts of three 

other combatant commands, and until President Obama laid out a 

clear vision of United States national policy toward Africa last 

July, you had been operating under somewhat vague policy guidance. 

Now, it seems like things are finally coming together in your 

shop, none too soon. From Al Qaeda in East Africa to Al Qaeda in 

the Islamic Maghreb and Al Shabab in Somalia, we see that violent 

extremism on the continent is on the rise. AFRICOM has done 

some impressive things while working with its African partners to 
3 

promote African stability and security. And that is, of course, a 

worthy effort. 

The effect the United States Navy and its African partnership 

station has had on developing African maritime security is a great 

example. So we feel like we should pat our Navy on the back for 

having done so well. 

I have thought for some time, General Ward, that when it comes 

to your command’s activities that are not clearly counterterrorism, 

your challenge has been to describe them in terms of a clear linkage to U.S. national security interests. I hope you will emphasize 

that point in your testimony today, sir. 

Last but of course not least, United States Joint Forces Command, JFCOM, perhaps one of the most opaque commands for an 

outsider because so much of what you do, General Mattis, is conceptual. Sometimes, it feels like one has to be an experienced practitioner of the art of war to understand it. Still, that intellectual 

space is exact the where the next war is going to be won before we 

even know who we will be fighting against. 

At last month’s hearing in the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review 

(QDR), I observed that the QDR did not pay enough attention to 

the operational needs of our money boot warriors. The wars in Iraq 

and Afghanistan made it very clear that the superiority of individuals in small units engaged in close combat is essential if the 

United States is going to win these sorts of wars. 

These are our most effective weapons, and I understand the Joint 

Forces Command is making great strides in developing innovative 

tools to make sure our small units are fully and realistically 

trained. I think we are a ground-combat team. It is the same sort 

of preparation in terms of stimulus and other training tools that 

we give our pilots, for instance, and I hope, General Mattis, you 

will talk about that today. 

We welcome you. We look forward to your testimony. This should 

be a very, very interesting hearing. 

The ranking member and the gentleman from California, my 

friend, Buck McKeon. 

STATEMENT OF HON. HOWARD P. ‘‘BUCK’’ MCKEON, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM CALIFORNIA, RANKING MEMBER, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

Mr. MCKEON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Today, we begin our series of posture hearings with the commanders of U.S. EUCOM, U.S. AFRICOM, and U.S. Joint Forces 

Command. I would like to welcome Admiral Stavridis, General 

Ward, and General Mattis and thank each of you for your leadership and your service to our Nation as well as all of those people 

that are here with you in uniform. Thank you. 

Your appearance also reminds us of our extraordinary military 

men and women serving around the globe to protect American national interests. Please pass along my sincere gratitude to all of our 

service members and their families serving under your command. 

Admiral Stavridis, unfortunately, we do not have time to cover 

all of the challenges facing EUCOM and NATO, but I would like 

to highlight a few areas that I hope that you will address today. 
4 

The first is the administration’s Russia reset policy. While your 

written statement correctly highlights the complexities of engaging 

with Russia, we need to ensure that the reset policy does not risk 

the viability of the security architecture that has kept the European continent peaceful for nearly 60 years. 

In other words, reset needs to be balanced with U.S. reassurance 

to our allies. This is why many of us support a NATO-first policy 

which would make clear to our NATO allies that U.S. bilateral engagement with Russia will not foster collected insecurity amongst 

our allies. 

I am pleased that your prepared statement addresses the need 

to strengthen trans-Atlantic security, assure allies, and dissuade 

adversaries. Important to assuring allies is a U.S. force presence in 

Europe. Your prepared statement states that force posture is key 

to achieving our national objective in EUCOM’s area of responsibility and offers context by highlighting how U.S. personnel in Europe has decreased from 300,000 during the Cold War to less than 

80,000 today. 

While some have called for even less force presence, you state 

that—and I quote—‘‘without four brigade combat teams in Europe, 

deterrence and reassurance are at increased risk. Given Russia’s 

military modernization efforts, its behavior in Georgia, and its revised nuclear doctrine, this is not a risk we can afford to assume.’’ 

A key development in your area of responsibility (AOR) since last 

year is missile defense. While I understand the missile defense 

costs and capability are not EUCOM issues, addressing our allies’ 

concerns about the Iranian threat is a major EUCOM equity. With 

respect to defense of Israel, EUCOM should build on its October 

2009 Juniper Cobra exercise which successfully exercised the active 

missile-defense capabilities of both U.S. and Israeli Armed Forces. 

I do have concerns about the administration’s phased adaptive approach, however. 

In my view, it is critical that the administration deliver on its 

promise on missile defense in Europe. We have learned little about 

this plan since the September 2009 announcement. Does EUCOM 

have a detailed plan in place to execute this policy? 

Finally, absent from your comprehensive testimony is discussion 

of NATO as a nuclear alliance. While you highlight that Article 5— 

and collective defense is a cornerstone of the alliance—you do not 

address whether the U.S. should continue to have a nuclear presence in Europe. 

In my view, our forward-deployed nuclear forces strengthen 

trans-Atlantic security and are critical to the credibility of our collective defense commitment. I take to heart the view that our nuclear forces work for us every day by providing assurance to allies 

and deterrence to our adversaries. 

Mr. Chairman, I ask that my entire statement be included for 

the record where I address policies facing the other combatant command testifying today. 

Once again, I thank you, gentlemen, for being here, and I look 

forward to your testimonies. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank the gentleman, and the statement will be 

spread upon the record without objection. 
5 

[The prepared statement of Mr. McKeon can be found in the Appendix on page 43.] 

The CHAIRMAN. Admiral Stavridis, welcome. 

STATEMENT OF ADM. JAMES G. STAVRIDIS, USN, 

COMMANDER, U.S. EUROPEAN COMMAND 

Admiral STAVRIDIS. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Ranking 

Member, members of the committee. Thank you so much for taking 

time to have a dialogue with each of us and to hear our views and 

to learn of yours. 

I want to also commend Erin Conaton who has been a terrific liaison and, sir, has represented this committee in an extraordinary 

fashion. I was also pleased to see you use a nautical metaphor to 

commend her doing ‘‘yeoman’s work’’ which we like that expression 

in the Navy. And she has been a good friend to the Navy and, indeed, to all the services and I believe will be an extraordinary addition to the civilian leadership in the Pentagon. 

I am very blessed to be here today with two outstanding shipmates who are on my flanks and are both good friends. And as I 

mentioned yesterday, I feel very safe in the company of two combat-serious infantry-type officers from the Army and the Marine 

Corps. 

Mr. Chairman, I will be extremely brief. I want to, as always, 

thank this committee for all of the support to all of our men and 

women. Your visits matter. Your support through the committee 

matters deeply. It is the fuel in the machine, and we thank you for 

it. And we thank you for your informed engagement with us that 

helps guide us. 

I will talk—and I look forward to taking your questions on Afghanistan. My role there, of course, is in my Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) NATO hat. I am cautiously optimistic 

about progress in Afghanistan. Secretary Gates is down south in 

the Helmand yesterday and said he sees bits of pieces of progress. 

I think we have a long way to go and a tough year ahead, but I 

am encouraged by what I have seen over the course of the last year 

in terms of strategy, resources, and leadership in Afghanistan. 

The Balkans, Mr. Chairman, thank you for mentioning the Balkans. It really is a success story. I look forward to a continued reduction of our forces there. The key in the Balkans is to ensure we 

don’t fall backward. 

As you pointed out, 10 years ago, we had almost 30,000 troops 

all over the Balkans. Today, we have less than 1,200. Our allies are 

there. The allies have almost 15,000 troops there. So they are pulling hard, and I think, overall together, the Balkans are an example 

of trans-Atlantic security working at its best. 

A couple of other issues that I think are key I would like to touch 

on at some point today are cyber. I am concerned about that both 

in the context of U.S. European Command and, also, on my NATO 

side. I am very concerned about Iran. 

Thank you, Ranking Member McKeon, for mentioning the missile 

defense threat. I think that Iran is what poses that threat, and we 

need to be responsive to that. 
6 

And Russia, I take your point entirely, Ranking Member 

McKeon, that it is a balance between these polls of reset and reassurance, as you correctly point out. 

In terms of how we are approaching business as U.S. European 

Command, as I did at U.S. Southern Command, we are working 

very hard to have an international, an interagency orientation in 

the work we do. We are trying to have effective strategic communications and explain what we are doing. And above all, we depend 

on the brave men and women, almost 80,000 of them in Europe 

today, who are defending our Nation forward. 

I thank you for your time today, and I look forward to your questions, sir. 

[The prepared statement of Admiral Stavridis can be found in 

the Appendix on page 46.] 

The CHAIRMAN. Admiral, thank you very much. 

General Ward, please. 

STATEMENT OF GEN. WILLIAM E. ‘‘KIP’’ WARD, USA, 

COMMANDER, U.S. AFRICA COMMAND 

General WARD. Chairman Skelton, Ranking Member McKeon, 

thank you for this opportunity to be here, distinguished members 

of the committee. We appreciate all that you do in support of our 

command as we work to pursue our interests in the continent of 

Africa. 

I would also be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge Erin. She has been 

such an instrumental and supportive part of all that we have done 

these past now two and a half years in standing up our Nation’s 

newest combatant command. 

And, Erin, thank you for your support and how you were able to 

help us along in so many ways and wish you all the best in your 

new assignment. And we look forward to working with, also, with 

Paul and Debra as they continue to work with us as we move forward for our Nation. 

I am honored to appear here today with my friends and distinguished colleagues, Admiral Jim Stavridis and General Jim Mattis. 

What we do in AFRICOM to protect American lives and promote 

interests is our mission, and we do that by supporting security and 

stability programs in Africa and its island nations. We concentrate 

our strategy and our efforts on helping African states build their 

capacity to field professional and capable militaries that respect 

human rights, adhere to the rule of law, promote professionally 

dedicated militaries and, also, effectively contribute to stability in 

Africa. 

We are assisting our African partners in building capacity to 

counter transnational threats from violent extremist organizations, 

to stem elicit trafficking, to support peacekeeping operations, and 

to address the consequences of human disasters, whether they be 

manmade or natural. 

Supporting the development of professional and capable militaries contributes to increased security and stability in Africa, allowing African nations and regional organizations to promote good 

governance, expand development, and promote their common defense to better serve their people and to help protect the lives of 

Americans, be they abroad or here at home. 
7 

The Africa partnership station—and, Chairman, thank you for 

mentioning that—which includes our European and African partners as member of the staff, is now on its fifth deployment and has 

expanded from the initial focus in the Gulf of Guinea to other African coastal regions as well. 

Africa Endeavor, a continental-wide command-and-control exercise, has seen a steady increase in participation with over 30 nations projected to participate this year. Exercise National Fire was 

acclaimed by all as a tremendously successful exercise bringing together five Eastern African nations to address their response in a 

humanitarian assistance and disaster relief scenario. 

Mr. Chairman, in my written statement, I highlight these and 

other programs and activities all designed to help build our partner 

security capacity, and I ask that it be made a part of this record. 

These programs reflect the willingness of our partners to work 

with us and with each other to address common threats that have 

the ability to impact us here at home and reflect that our programs 

and our activities are, indeed, producing tangible results. And I 

will provide some examples of that later on. 

My focus is on activities, programs, and communications that 

support our national interests and also reinforce the success that 

we have established in ways that will assure progress in the long 

term for our African partners to be more capable of providing for 

their own security and, thus, helping to guarantee our security 

here as well. 

We closely harmonize our activities with our colleagues at State, 

at United States Agency for International Development (USAID), 

and other agencies of our government. Our service components continue to mature. Our offices of security cooperation, defense 

attache ́s, and network of forward-operating sites and cooperative 

security locations, including Camp Lemonier in Djibouti, are tremendously valuable as we pursue U.S. security interests. 

It is my honor to serve with the uniformed men and women as 

well as those civilians who comprise the United States Africa Command. We are making a difference in this vitally significant and 

strategically important area of our global society. Their dedicated 

efforts exemplify the spirit and determination of the American people, and I would be pleased, with your permission, to introduce 

someone here with me today representing those men and women, 

the command senior enlisted leader, Command Sergeant Major 

Mark Ripka, who is here. 

What we do is important. We recognize the contributions of this 

committee. We thank you for your support, and I look forward to 

taking any additional questions to provide you any additional information that I can with respect to our command. 

Thank you very much. 

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

Appendix on page 107.] 

The CHAIRMAN. General Ward, thank you. 

General Mattis, welcome, sir. 
8 

STATEMENT OF GEN. JAMES N. MATTIS, USMC, COMMANDER, 

U.S. JOINT FORCES COMMAND 

General MATTIS. Thank you, Chairman Skelton, Ranking Member McKeon, and members of the committee. I appreciate the opportunity to testify. And, sir, I request my written statement be 

placed into the record. 

The CHAIRMAN. Without objection, the written statements of each 

of the witnesses will be placed in the record. 

General MATTIS. Thank you, sir. And I wish to echo my shipmates’ respect of Erin’s service and quiet support of our military 

forces over many, many years. 

You will be missed. You have been magnificent, Erin. 

Over the course of the past year, Joint Forces Command has continued to provide combat-ready forces to the combatant commanders to support active military operations. We have continued 

to prepare for future conflict by thinking ahead so, if surprised, we 

have the fewest regrets. And after a historic change of command 

in NATO in which I handed over supreme command of allied command transformation, we continue to ensure Joint Forces Command remains closely linked with our allied partners in NATO. 

The character of this current conflict remains different or, better 

said, irregular. We have continued to adapt our forces in stride to 

become increasingly competent in irregular warfare. Across the 

board, the joint forces significantly adapted to this new environment, but our watch board must be balanced. 

The chairman and Secretary of Defense have stated we must not 

lose our nuclear deterrence, our conventional superiority in the 

process of adapting to irregular warfare. Even as we continue to 

prepare and deploy forces into the irregular fights of Iraq and Afghanistan, we cannot permit the dormancy of our conventional capabilities. 

Our forces will continue to achieve balance as dwell times build. 

Through effective training and education across the force, we can 

strike the appropriate balance while ensuring our current and future combat readiness. Based on the reality of current active operations and future trends outlined in our recent assessment of the 

joint operating environment, Joint Forces Command’s top priority 

continues to reflect balance between support for the current fight 

and our constant assessment of the future to ensure we remain the 

most capable military in the world. 

Thank you, sir. 

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

Appendix on page 157.] 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you so much, General. 

Let me ask a few questions, if I may. 

Admiral, I made reference to Russia as well as the ranking member did. Would you discuss for us what you see in Russia? Is it a 

rising Russia? Is it going back to its earlier status? What is your 

opinion of that country and where it is headed? 

Admiral STAVRIDIS. Mr. Chairman, as I look at Russia and the 

way the impact of Russia is felt in the European landscape, the 

view is varied. The view varies from the Baltics and the Eastern 

European states who remain concerned about Russian activities 

that range from Zapad exercises to the residual effect of the activi-
9 

ties involving Georgia. All of that raises a certain level of concern 

in that part of Europe. 

On the other hand, in Western Europe, there is a very strong attempt to try and find zones of cooperation with Russia. And so the 

view of Russia varies across the European theater. 

My own view—and I think the Secretary General of NATO has 

expressed this well—is that we need to find areas of cooperation 

with Russia wherever we can. And they can vary from arms control 

in a bilateral sense to counter-piracy, counter-narcotics, cooperation 

in Afghanistan is possible. 

We can have discussions about military reform. As you know, the 

Russians are in the process of doing a fair amount of military reform, including a significant reduction in their officer corps and 

raising the professionalism of their non-commissioned officers 

(NCOs). 

On the other hand, we need to find and demonstrate to our allies 

in the Baltics and in Eastern Europe reassurance; show them that 

we have contingency plans; that we have the ability to back up Article 5 of the NATO treaty. 

So I would conclude by saying it is really all about balance in approaching Russia. And we must maintain a sense of both reassurance with our allies but also find zones of cooperation as we move 

forward. 

The CHAIRMAN. What military-to-military operations do we have? 

Admiral STAVRIDIS. In terms of operations at this point, we are 

not engaged in anything that I would describe as an actual operation, Mr. Chairman. But we are engaged in active dialogue with 

Russian counterparts. For example, I held meetings in Brussels recently with General Nikolai Makarov, the Chief of Defense (CHOD) 

of Russia. We are in a dialogue with them about exchanging noncommissioned officers and having a sense of showing them our 

training program and understanding what they are trying to do. 

We are also talking to them in general terms about their experiences in Afghanistan; trying it learn some lessons from all that. 

And, also, we are operating with them—and this is probably the 

closest we would come to an actual operation. There are Russian 

ships that are involved in counter-piracy operations alongside our 

ships, both on the U.S. side and on the NATO side, of the Horn 

of Africa. So that is a quick summary of where we are. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

General Ward in your capacity, you, of course, have the service 

component commands working with you and for you. Is that correct? 

General WARD. That is correct, Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Well, in particular, tell us what the Navy has 

been doing in the maritime security arena. And that has been of 

help in working with our African partners—the United States 

Navy? 

General WARD. Mr. Chairman, approximately two and a half 

years ago, in October of 2006, we conducted a maritime conference 

in Cotonou, Benin. It was—at that time, I was still the Deputy 

Commander at EUCOM, and we had the Commander of Naval 

Forces Europe with me. And we worked with the Chief of Defense 

there to find out from them what they needed to help them be in 
10 

a better posture to protect their territorial waters from all the elicit 

trafficking things that had been going on. 

As a result of that conference, we have expanded into what we 

now call the Africa Partnership Station. It is a program. It is not 

the platform. It is a program. It is a training program that brings 

together the various nations of the littoral there in the continent 

of Africa. It started in the western part of the continent. As I have 

mentioned, it has expanded around to the entire continent now. 

But it includes our U.S. Marine Corps, Navy, other European partners, the Dutch, the Germans, the British, French, as staff members of this training platform. It also includes members from the 

African nations where this platform, as it circumnavigates the continent, will touch for two to three week periods of time, training 

these African nations on things that they see for themselves as important to increase their capacity to improve their security. 

It includes such things as small boat maintenance and repair. If 

you have a problem in your territorial waters, you have to have assets to deal with that. And so as simple a thing as keeping your 

boat motors operating, as keeping your electrical systems running 

are the sorts of things that we do with this platform. 

It includes professionalization of the noncommissioned officer 

corps. It includes other professionalism discipline sorts of drills 

that increase the capacity of these nations to bring their own security capacity to bear as they seek to protect their territory waters. 

It also includes how they work together in a linked way with respect to how they monitor and surveil their maritime areas. And 

so how they bring their surveillance systems into play is part of 

that dynamic. 

Training, in some cases, providing the equipment, that program 

is being led by the United States Navy, and it is under the auspices of my command, my component command, Naval Forces Africa, who now leads that program but with the involvement of the 

players of Europe, as I mentioned, the continental players, as I 

mentioned, but also other parts of the interagency in that attempt 

to help these countries increase their maritime safety and security. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

General Mattis, let us talk about professional military education 

for a moment. Our colleague from Arkansas, Dr. Snyder, in his role 

as Chairman of the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, 

has delved into the professional military education at great length 

in a series of hearings. 

And I have a concern that—well, it is reflected pretty well in an 

article that retired General Bob Scales wrote entitled, ‘‘Too Busy to 

Learn.’’ And he compared what we are going through today, about 

putting off education for some people and some not even getting it, 

to what the British went through prior to the First World War. 

How do we correct that? You know, there is only so much time 

in a person’s career. How do we do that? The promotion timelines 

are so tight that it is just hard it fit it all in. But if we are to be 

successful in the future years, it is important that we educate our 

officers at all levels. 

Do you have thoughts on that, General? 

General MATTIS. I do. And thank you, Mr. Chairman. 
11 

The only thing worse in a war than obsolete weapons is obsolete 

thinking. And you can get obsolete by thinking that the war you 

are fighting is what all wars are going to look like. There can be 

no doubt about the operational effectiveness of the U.S. military 

today. It is unmatched in the world. 

The problem is we are not worried about today in terms of your 

question. We are worried about tomorrow. I think that you point 

to a very specific problem of arithmetic. There is no more years in 

a career right now, so you have to squeeze it all in. 

And when you look at the service competency upon which officers 

create their own self-image, they test themselves, they develop 

their confidence based on their service capability, whether it be an 

infantryman in the Army or a ship driver in the Navy or a pilot, 

they have got to get good at their basic skills, their basic military 

skills. 

Then what do we do? I believe that we are going to eventually, 

in light of the better health of the force today where we don’t drink 

or smoke like we once did, this sort of thing, that we need to look 

at extending officer careers. There should be certain restrictions on 

this. There should be continuation boards so we don’t end up keeping the wrong people around. 

But you simply can’t put in the amount of education and everything else that needs to be into an officer’s career if we continue 

with the current 20- and 30-year expectations. 

I believe that the danger is real, and we are going to have to address it in more than just the manner in which we have in the 

past. In other words, distance learning, we are going to have to reward the kind of behavior that we want to keep. Institutions get 

the behavior they reward, yet we do not have sufficient rewards 

right now for those who, on their own, commit to an active learning 

throughout their career. 

So I think you need to change some of the reward systems. We 

are talking personnel policies here. And we also need to consider 

extending, as appropriate, not in all cases, the normal career to 30 

and 40 years versus 20 and 30. 

I hope that addresses your question, sir. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you so much. 

Mr. McKeon. 

Mr. MCKEON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Admiral, while the current policy seeks to reset relations with 

Russia, I think we ought to take steps to reassure our allies and 

friends, as I said in my opening statement. And your posture statement notes that, without four brigade combat teams in Europe, deterrence and reassurance are at an increased risk. 

I talked about moving from 300 down to 80,000 and then if we 

took 2 brigade combat teams out, it would cut it in half again. 

Can you explain how reducing our force presence in Europe puts 

deterrence and reassurance at risk? 

Admiral STAVRIDIS. Yes, sir. I think you have outlined the top 

two aspects of it very well, which are the physical presence of our 

troops is extremely reassuring on the one hand to the allies and 

friends about whom we spoke earlier. And I think there is a deterrent value in it. 
12 

And so with that as backdrop, I would add three other things 

that I think are important to this four brigade combat team level 

presence in Europe. 

One is one we don’t always focus on, but it is logistics. It is having that capability to move rapidly globally and, let us face it, our 

current set of missions are on the other side of Europe. And so that 

footprint in Europe is well supported. And those four brigade combat teams are all cycling forward into the fight in Afghanistan and 

Iraq. 

So I would add logistics. I would also add training. There is an 

extremely important training element in the building of partnership capacity with our allies. And with four brigade combat teams, 

the level, the complexity, the depth of training that can be conducted with allies is twice as good as with two brigade combat 

teams. 

So I think that is a second element I would add to the two you 

mentioned. And then thirdly, I would say there is really a leadership component for the United States. For us to maintain a leadership role, I think, that level of 80,000 troops in Europe is roughly 

about right, particularly, when you look at the steep decline it has 

gone through, as you pointed out earlier, sir. 

So I would sort of say reassurance, deterrence, logistics, leadership, and training as the five reasons that I would put forward the 

military advice to remain at the level of four brigade combat teams. 

Mr. MCKEON. Thank you. 

There seems to be a debate brewing over U.S. nuclear forces in 

Europe. Your statement was notably silent on this issue. Do you 

think keeping these forces in Europe strengthens the alliance? Is 

our nuclear presence important to Article 5, the common defense 

provision? 

Admiral STAVRIDIS. Sir, I have not taken a public stance on this 

because, as you can appreciate, it is very much in the political 

venue. I mean, this is an international dialogue that has to be conducted among the members of the alliance. I will say that the 

shared responsibility of these nuclear weapons creates a militaryto-military level of trust and confidence that is extremely helpful, 

in my view, in maintaining the military-to-military aspects of 

NATO. 

I would also say that I would hope that any decisions that are 

taken are made multilaterally and that we do this as an alliance, 

not responding to this nation or that nation having a particular political issue, but rather we look at the whole question of nuclear 

weapons in the alliance as a whole. 

And I believe that is where Secretary General Rasmussen wants 

to take this dialogue. 

Mr. MCKEON. Thank you. 

I understand that the recent Juniper Cobra exercise with Israel 

was a success. Given the growing crisis over Iran’s nuclear program, what additional steps is EUCOM taking to ensure the defense of Israel and its stability in your AOR? 

Admiral STAVRIDIS. Well, thank you, sir, for mentioning Juniper 

Cobra. We are extremely proud of that exercise. We had over 2,000 

U.S. and allied forces involved in that. It was a very complex missile defense exercise that married up the Israeli systems, the Arrow 
13 

and the Iron Dome system, with our own AEGIS sea-based system 

as well as some of our land-based systems. 

Very complex to bring all that together. Very effective. I would 

say that we need to build on that exercise and continue to have 

that level of dialogue and engagement and actual operational activities with our Israeli friends. And I believe that we can learn 

from them and we can learn from their technical systems just as 

they can marry up and learn from ours. 

So I would say build on that missile defense. I would say continue information and intelligence sharing. And I would say—I 

would support, obviously, the continued very strong military-tomilitary cooperation across the board that we enjoy with Israel 

today. 

Mr. MCKEON. Thank you. 

I am concerned about the reset policy, particularly, the impact on 

our NATO allies. What are you hearing from our NATO allies on 

U.S.-Russian engagement? And what is the military, particularly 

EUCOM, doing to prepare in the event of another Russia-Georgia 

or similar conflict? 

Admiral STAVRIDIS. From all of the allies, there is a real understanding that we have a need to train and be prepared for any kind 

of contingency in Europe. And so we are constantly, actively reviewing all of our contingency plans both on the NATO side and 

on the U.S. European Command side to be prepared for any security eventuality in Europe. 

That is an active dialogue, and it is sort of step-one planning. 

Step two is a very robust series of exercises both on the NATO side 

and on the U.S. European Command side. Example, this summer, 

we have what are called BALTOPS, Baltic Operations, which will 

bring both Marines afloat as well as ships at sea as well as Army 

operators ashore and special operators ashore to practice and exercise with our Baltic partners. 

We are going to do a special operations series of exercises this 

summer in the—in Eastern Europe as well. So exercises, I would 

say, are number two and equally important. 

And then third and finally, it is the sharing of information and 

training—the kind of international military education and training 

(IMET) program where we bring our partners here to the United 

States to train. We send our folks to train and be educated in their 

institutions. To the Chairman’s point about education, that also 

creates a real bond among the allies at the officer-to-officer level 

and at the senior NCO level which is extremely, extremely helpful 

in maintaining the sense of reassurance amongst all of the allies. 

So I did put those three things at the top—planning, exercises, 

and shared education and training. 

Mr. MCKEON. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman from California. We are 

under the five minute rule. 

Mr. Ortiz, please. 

Mr. ORTIZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And I would like to thank all three of you for appearing before 

our committee today, and thank you for your service. 
14 

General Ward, I just have a few questions for you. In light of the 

horrific recent tragedies in Nigeria, does AFRICOM have enough 

troops to conduct training? And I know you have had some training 

exercises with countries that have requested support. 

And can you also speak to the training of African troops by 

AFRICOM? And I know that, in the beginning, you know, when we 

set the command, there were some questions about being accepted 

in the area where we had troops. How well are the African troops 

faring in actual operations? Can we conduct the performance reviews on the African training programs? 

And I know that all of this comes into play with the complex humanitarian emergencies that come about, but maybe you can give 

us a little input as to what is going on and the training and whether you have enough personnel to do something that does justice to 

them. 

General WARD. Thank you, Mr. Ortiz. 

First, you are correct. We have no assigned forces. We get our 

forces through the global force management process administered 

by the Department of Defense (DOD) here in D.C. as well as my 

friend, Jim Mattis’ Joint Forces Command. And we submit, 

through a request-of-forces process, our requirements for forces. 

We are being—that requirement is being satisfied at about the 

80 to 85 percent rate which is commensurate with what happens 

at the other combatant commands. It does affect us a bit because 

we don’t have any assigned forces to complement that. But at the 

current time, we are looking at ways and the Department of Defense is also looking at ways to reestablish the global employment 

of the force priority structure such that the requirement for building partner capacity that you have addressed here is achieved—receives a higher priority in this whole process. 

But right now, that is how we do it. And for me, having assigned 

force is not necessarily the issue. What is important is that, when 

I have a demand for forces, those forces can be provided. Owning 

them is not important, but having them available is something that 

I think is very, very important. 

As we work with the African nations with our various exercises, 

we provided training support, logistics support, and they have participated in peacekeeping operations. We see that level of training 

and support being very, very instrumental to their level of performance. 

As a recent example of a training iteration that we conducted in 

Mali as we were working with the Malian armed forces as they 

conducted their counter-terror training. You may recall that, last 

summer, the Malians suffered some pretty substantial defeats on 

the part of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. Part of the outcome 

of this most recent training happened in January from one of the 

members who participated who said, had I had that training prior 

to or had those who encountered that incident last July, had they 

had this training, the outcome would have been different. 

We think we are making a difference. The performance of these 

African nations indicates that our presence, our training with them 

makes a difference. And we certainly look to continue that because 

that is how we help safeguard our own populations. With their 

having increased capacities to do those things, to provide for their 
15 

own security, it has a direct impact on the safety and security of 

our citizens and Africa but also in the transnational nature of today’s threat environment also helping them do their part to counter 

those transnational threats. 

Mr. ORTIZ. And I know that we do have some health threats, 

pandemics in the area. How are we addressing some of the health 

problems, the pandemics that we have in the area? Are we working 

jointly with them? Are we having doctors that help out as well? 

General WARD. Our efforts are part of the entire Department of 

Defense health assurance program. We work our pandemic plans 

with the African nations as well as, obviously, our European 

friends because we see the global connectivity of all of those things. 

We do work with them in their planning, their response. 

A part of my staff—my surgeon staff, my medical staff—are 

going and doing their engagement—our medical engagement, also, 

to help them address their own individual unique requirements 

and how they counter these threats from pandemics. 

The H1N1, they didn’t have a problem with it. It was kind of in 

reverse how they tried to assure people that that didn’t have an effect on them. And, obviously, the health threat that would emanate 

from the continent and would spread, likewise, keeping those in 

check. 

But other things as well from HIV–AIDS, malaria, robust program with all those issues of health are also security related if they 

are left unchecked. 

Mr. ORTIZ. Again, thank you so much for your service. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank the gentleman. 

Mr. Bartlett. 

Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you. During the last break, I and 12 other 

members of Congress, both the House and Senate, spent the better 

part of a week with several Russians in Madrid talking about U.S.- 

Russian relations. 

It was pretty obvious from the perspective of those Russians 

present that there are two major impediments to better relationships between the United States and Russia. One is NATO, and 

the other is our placement of anti-ballistic missile defenses. 

Sometimes, it helps to put yourself in the other guy’s place. Suppose that the Cold War had gone differently and we had lost and 

NATO was gone and the Warsaw Pact was alive and growing, and 

the next two countries that were coming into the Warsaw Pact are 

Canada and Mexico. How would we feel? 

That is kind of the way that the Russians feel, I think, when the 

Baltic countries and the Ukraine might be coming into NATO. If 

we need a good will—European good will society, it probably ought 

to be called something other than NATO or Russia ought to be invited into NATO. One of those two solutions, I think, would be very 

preferable to what we are now doing. 

The other major impediment to better relations was our placement of the missile sites. I don’t think there is any country that 

is going to launch over the pole except Russia, and our meager defenses there would be immediately swamped by Russia. They have 

thousands of weapons. 
16 

These other people may be evil. They are not idiots. They are not 

going to launch from their soil. Are they going to launch from the 

ocean? They know if they launch from their soil, they will be almost immediately vaporized. They are not going to do that. 

If, in fact, you think we need these sites in the Arctic, why not 

put them in Russia? Russia has a lot of Arctic territory. 

As far as protecting Europe is concerned, we were going to place 

them in Poland and Czechoslovakia. If you look at the map, that 

leaves about half of Europe totally unprotected. You really need 

these missile sites to protect Europe from Iran, and Iran is not 

going to launch weapons from their soil. 

But if we really think you need that, what is wrong with the 

most extreme southwestern part of Russia? If you look at that site 

as a far better place to put missiles to protect Europe than where 

we are now planning to put them? 

Would you agree that these are the two major impediments to 

better relations with Russia? 

Admiral STAVRIDIS. I would say that I have heard both of those 

discussions from my Russian interlocutors, and that Russia, as you 

know, sir, just recently issued a new strategic doctrine in which 

they talk about NATO expansion as a—they call it a danger to 

Russia. So I think it is absolutely correct to say that, from a Russian perspective, NATO expansion is of concern. 

Mr. BARTLETT. Then, sir, why do we continue with this if we 

want better working relations with Russia? 

Admiral STAVRIDIS. Well, NATO is an open organization. And if 

you look at Article 9 of the NATO treaty, sir, it says very simply 

that membership in NATO is open to any nation by a unanimousconsent vote of all the current nations in NATO. 

Mr. BARTLETT. Have we invited Russia in? 

Admiral STAVRIDIS. We, the United States, have not invited Russia into NATO, no, sir. 

Mr. BARTLETT. Why would we not want Russia to be a part of 

NATO if we want better working relationships with them and better security on the continent? 

Admiral STAVRIDIS. Well, I think that that question really is better posed to NATO rather than to the commander of U.S. European 

Command. But I know that the Secretary General of NATO, Secretary General Rasmussen, recently had a visit in Moscow and had 

a very wide-ranging discussion about all of these topics and is 

working very hard, along the lines of what you suggest, to place 

himself and to place the alliance in a position to look through the 

eyes of Russia so that we can find these kinds of zones of cooperation. 

So I think our hand is out from a NATO perspective. I have 

heard the secretary general say repeatedly our hand is out in cooperation. I think whether there is a follow-on along the lines you 

are discussing is something that all 28 NATO nations would have 

to discuss. 

Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. Before I call on Mr. Taylor, General 

Ward, you formerly were the deputy at European Command. Is 

that correct? 
17 

General WARD. That is correct, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. And your rank was four-star. Is that correct? 

General WARD. Correct, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. You do not have a four-star deputy in your command. Is that correct? 

General WARD. None of the combatant commands have four-star 

deputies. 

The CHAIRMAN. That answers the question. Thank you very 

much. 

Mr. Taylor. 

Mr. TAYLOR. Mr. Chairman, I am going to yield to Mr. Kissell 

and take his place at the appropriate time. 

Mr. KISSELL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you, Mr. Taylor. The last time, Mr. Taylor was nice 

enough to yield to me like this, I said I would be glad to take his 

time if he would also yield some questions to me because Mr. Taylor asks some of the best questions that are ever asked on this 

panel. 

I welcome you gentlemen here today and thank you for your 

service and thank you for being here today. 

Admiral, we have talked quite a bit about the importance of 

NATO and our relationship with NATO. What is the mindset of 

NATO towards the organization—the European mindset. How committed are they? What do they see as the future for NATO? How 

do they view this alliance? 

Admiral STAVRIDIS. Sir, I believe that broadly—and here I speak 

from polling data conducted in Europe—about 60 percent of most 

Europeans in Western Europe feel extremely positively toward the 

NATO alliance. And those numbers go up as you move toward the 

east. So that in the eastern part of Europe, we see numbers very 

high, as high as 70 percent, if you will, approval ratings for NATO. 

So from a public perception, I have that, broadly speaking, there 

is acceptance of NATO as a fundamental construct in the trans-Atlantic bridge. 

My own experiences talking to heads of state, ministers of defense, ministers of foreign affairs, chiefs of defense, the equivalent 

of our Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, certainly support that. 

I feel there is strong support for NATO, even as we are today engaged in a wide variety of activities. We have almost 90,000 NATO 

troops engaged on three different continents in operations all 

around the world. There are losses, but, overall, I believe there is 

a strong sense of support for NATO as an alliance moving forward. 

Mr. KISSELL. Just curious in a specific country, Turkey. Reading 

last week about conflicts between a less secular part of Turkey 

versus the military. What do you see is the role of Turkey and how 

it might play out there? 

Admiral STAVRIDIS. I believe Turkey is an extremely important 

state geopolitically. It is a hinge state between Europe and the Levant and South Asia and, indeed, the entire arc of the Islamic 

world. So the presence of Turkey in NATO is extremely important 

and I think is very helpful in maintaining an orientation of Turkey 

toward and with the West. 

Mr. KISSELL. Okay. General Ward, we have had hearings recently about our relationship with China. What is the influence of 
18 

China into the continent of Africa? How is that playing out? Pros 

and cons about what is taking place there? 

General WARD. Thank you, sir. China is pursuing its interest in 

Africa like other nations. It is working with many nations of the 

continent pursuing economic and developmental interests. Their— 

from what I can see, their military relations are not very robust. 

From time to time, you will note some engineering sorts of things 

going on with infrastructure development. 

It is the type of thing that, from my perspective, we clearly see 

how these sovereign nations reach out to other sovereign nations 

to help them achieve various national objectives that they may 

have. China is one of the countries that they reach out to. China 

responds in ways that satisfies requirements. 

What impact that will ultimately have, I am not prepared to address. The work that we do is work that we hope that, where there 

are opportunities to cooperate from the standpoint of promoting security and stability, that that would clearly be an objective, also, 

of the Chinese and any other nation that is engaging on the continent with the sovereign nations of Africa as they move ahead and 

pursue those common objectives. 

That is how I see the current situation as it moves ahead there 

on the continent, sir. 

Mr. KISSELL. Thank you, sir. 

And General Mattis, you had talked about, in your opening statement, about the thoughts in trying to envision the next war. And 

looking at that now and our mindset—where we are with the conflicts we have and the challenges we have—what would be an 

area—or what is the area that most concerns you that we are missing the most as we do move forward? What potentials are we missing? 

General MATTIS. Sir, that is really the $64,000 question in my 

line of work, knowing that we will not get it exactly right, we just 

don’t want to get it completely wrong. We look at what happened 

in our current operations. We look at South Lebanon in the second 

Lebanon war, and we look at Russia-Georgia, and we put together 

what we believe is a hybrid nature of threat that is coming at us, 

where it will not be all conventional or all irregular; it will be more 

of a blurred hybrid threat that we have to confront because the differences between types of warfare seem to be blurring. 

The enemy has found our weak area, and they are moving 

against us in those areas. They are a very learning, adaptive 

enemy. 

So the most important point we can make is that we not adopt 

a single preclusive view of war and we stay attuned to what Secretary Gates has called for with this balance because we could inadvertently actually incite an enemy to try us in an area that we 

decide to abrogate because we don’t think it is very likely. It makes 

for a very difficult effort, but it is one that is primarily addressed 

through education and training that creates the kind of adroit officer that can move from one type threat to another without being 

caught flat-footed, sir. 

That is about the best answer I can give you with just a couple 

moments here. 

Mr. KISSELL. Thank you, sir. 
19 

Thank you, Mr. Taylor. 

And, thank you, Chairman. I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Forbes, the gentleman from Virginia. 

Mr. FORBES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And gentlemen, let me echo what my colleagues have been saying in terms of our appreciation for your service and all that you 

do. 

And General Mattis, if I could follow up on some of your previous 

comments that you just made in response to Mr. Kissell’s questions. 

As you know, our forces face an adversary that does tend to 

avoid our strengths and exploit our weaknesses and remains quickly adaptable to the changing engagement environment. To train 

our soldiers in our conventional manner is expensive and time consuming. 

I am just wondering if you could share with the committee how 

we can use modeling and simulation to help train our forces. And 

what do you believe the resulting benefits would be? 

General MATTIS. Thank you, Mr. Forbes. This is an area of some 

great focus to me. And if we would go back to the Chairman’s opening remarks about the need for superior individual and small-unit 

capabilities being the most critical, most effective weapons today, 

we are going to have to have the ground forces adopt an aviation 

and a maritime view with the use of modeling and simulation. 

The aviators and the maritime forces have used them from the 

Idaho desert where they have the reactors for the Navy to the simulators on every single airbase for our aviators. We just had signed 

48 hours ago by the Deputy Secretary of Defense a decision to create a line of funding that will permit us to take advantage of the 

gaming industry’s advances, and we will try to put our young 

troops, our infantry, the ones who take—over 80 percent of our casualties since 1945 have been infantrymen—we are going to try to 

bring to them a level of simulation and modeled training that will 

put them through as many technical and ethical challenges as we 

can before they go into their first firefight and during every dwell 

time after that. 

This is, to me, a fundamental area. It is both a military effectiveness area of opportunity, and it is an ethical burden that we need 

to take on right now. 

Mr. FORBES. And, General, I have heard you speak before, but 

I was just wondering if you could elaborate on your thoughts about 

how that kind of modeling and simulation training could actually 

save of the lives of some of our infantrymen. And where do you see 

JFCOM in this role, and how are they positioned to, perhaps, assist 

or help with this? 

General MATTIS. Yes, sir. JFCOM has a role because, today, we 

find jointness where the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, coalition 

forces are working together at increasingly lower levels. Where, at 

one time, you might have an Army division alongside a Marine division alongside an allied division. Today, we have Marine infantrymen with Army intelligence specialists serving alongside them 

inside an Army brigade with Air Force and Navy close-air support 

alongside a NATO ally that is closely off an enemy line of retreat. 
20 

This means we can no longer leave simply to the services without 

support the ability to train the joint and coalition warfare at levels 

now that may involve NCOs receiving the same kind of training 

that you and I have characterized in the past for junior officers. 

So the Joint Forces Command role is one to bring this joint piece 

down to the lowest tactical level so joint intelligence capabilities 

are understood and used there, joint fires are used to mitigate danger, carry out the mission. 

Mr. FORBES. And specifically as it relates to casualties for our infantrymen, what role can modeling and simulation play in helping 

to ratchet up their experience level and, perhaps, reduce these casualties? 

General MATTIS. Mr. Forbes, I have been in a lot of fights, and 

this isn’t scientific, but I would say half the people—I am an infantry officer—half the casualties I have seen on our side were for 

silly, stupid reasons. And if we can put people through simulation—it is not so they know one way to take down an enemy 

stronghold but so they know five different ways to do it and they 

have already been through it so many times they know how not to 

make the mistake that can be made on a simulator. We will still 

have to do live-fire training. 

It won’t give us a risk-free environment. But I am convinced, 

both ethically and casualties wise, we can reduce the missteps that 

we are taking on the battlefield and reduce them significantly. 

Mr. FORBES. Thank you, General. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back the balance of my time. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank the gentleman. 

Dr. Snyder. 

Dr. SNYDER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you, gentlemen, for being here. We appreciate your many, 

many years of service to our country. 

Admiral Stavridis, Mr. Kissell asked about Turkey. In the Arkansas River, we have the USS Razorback, which was a World War 

II era submarine. It is actually one of the submarines that you see 

in the row in Tokyo Harbor in 1945 at the surrender. It saw some 

action at the end of the war and then did some Cold War tours, 

but at some point, was donated to Turkey as part of our U.S.-Turkey alliance. It served the Turkish navy for quite a few years. 

And a few years ago, they donated it back to the city of North 

Little Rock as part of a museum. And so we actually have a submarine sitting in the Arkansas River. We had to lift it a little bit 

between some barges to get it up there. 

But it sits there. I think it is a symbol of the very, very strong 

relationship between Turkey and the United States. Would you amplify, please, on how important Turkey has been or is currently to 

our activities in both Iraq and Afghanistan? 

Admiral STAVRIDIS. Yes, sir. I will be glad to. 

As the—first of all, as the only Islamic nation in NATO, Turkey 

has been extremely helpful in assisting all of the other nations in 

understanding the cultural morays that are so important as we go 

into these kinds of complex situations that General Mattis is talking about. 

Secondly, Turkey is a big, muscular country with a strong-standing army and a very capable military. We have learned a great 
21 

deal and have drawn on their active support, for example, the 

Turks today have 1,800 troops in Afghanistan doing exceptionally 

good work really across a wide spectrum of missions in the country. 

Thirdly, they are an absolutely vital link in the overall Article 5 

defense of the alliance. They are a border state of NATO. The Combined Air Operations Center (CAOC), the air-control station in the 

southeastern portion of the alliance is located in Ismir, Turkey. 

They link up with us extremely well. 

We have forward aircraft there. At every dimension, Turkey has 

been an extremely strong NATO partner. In terms of the U.S. aspects of this, the bilateral relationship, equally so. They have been 

very supportive. We are working with them on intelligence and information sharing along their borders working across that border 

with Iraq. 

My good friend, General Ray Odierno, has been very engaged in 

this. I count the chief of defense of Turkey, General Ikler Basbug, 

a close friend and interlocutor who gives me good advice on how 

we should be approaching and working in the Islamic world. 

So overall, an extremely important partner both to NATO and to 

the United States. 

Dr. SNYDER. There also is a very strong relationship between Armenia and the people of Armenia and the American people. And as 

you know, on August 31st of last year, Turkey—the leadership of 

Turkey and Armenia signed two protocols that they intend to be a 

pathway to normalization. And the protocols, as you know, are 

awaiting legislative approval in both countries. 

And we, as a Nation, certainly understand agreements, whether 

they are trade agreements or other agreements, awaiting approval 

by legislative bodies. 

Should both countries approve those protocols, how important a 

step do you think that will be forward for Europe? 

Admiral STAVRIDIS. I think it would be an extremely important 

step. There are several of these so-called frozen conflicts in Europe. 

And this is one of them. And a step forward between those two nations, I think, would also serve as a very good example as other 

types of these issues are worked through, for example, in the Balkans. 

My grandparents were born in Turkey. They were of Greek descent and immigrated here to the United States. It is an extremely 

complex region of the world. 

And whenever these nations can find common ground and move 

beyond the disputes and the anger and the warfare of the past, 

that is an extremely salutary step, really, for all of Europe but certainly nations involved. 

Dr. SNYDER. And we wish both nations well as they grapple with 

that issue. 

Admiral STAVRIDIS. Yes, sir. 

Dr. SNYDER. General Mattis, you specifically mentioned in your 

opening statement in response to the Chairman’s question talked 

about PME. I was at Quantico a week ago or so, and we wanted 

to have a discussion about enlisted PME. And one of the topics that 

was brought up there by the leadership there was the fact that, at 

the enlisted level—while we do a lot in the Marine Corps and the 

military for enlisted PME—when you take a 30-year enlisted per-
22 

son and look at their career, how much time they have been given 

during their career to actually go to college, it is dramatically lower 

than the officers. 

And the feeling was that is something that we need to look at. 

I just have a few seconds left, but if any of you had any comment 

about that issue of should we be revisiting the issue of enlisted people and where time off to go to college. Because a lot of them go 

to college, but it is on their own time at night. 

Any comments? 

General MATTIS. As you know, sir, the Congress has given us 

money to defray the tuition costs for our NCOs going. And they 

have taken great advantage. We have a quality of enlisted force 

today that is eager to learn very broadly and, of course, their own 

skills. 

A point I would make is one of the great strengths of the American forces is its NCOs—noncommissioned officers—and petty officers. Much of what we call ‘‘sergeant’s work’’ or ‘‘chief’s work’’ cannot really be taught in a college or university. 

So we need to make sure that we separate out the natural quest 

of almost all of these young Americans to improve themselves and 

educate further versus the military requirement which may require 

more extended military schooling at a level that we usually associate with junior officers vice putting them through college which 

may or may not actually make them better NCOs. 

But the need for the education is absolute. It is just making certain we do it in a focused way so we stay at the top of our game, 

sir. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank the gentleman. 

Mr. Kline. 

Mr. KLINE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you, gentlemen, for your service and for being here. 

Just a quick comment, General Mattis. I was very pleased to 

hear your comments about modeling simulation response to Mr. 

Forbes’ questions on the one hand. On the other hand, it is almost 

appalling that we have reached this 2010 and we are not further 

along. I know the services—and certainly the Marine Corps because I was involved in it going back 16 years or more ago—was 

recognizing that need for modeling simulation. 

So I hope we will move out aggressively to take advantage of 

that technology. 

General Ward, it is always great to see you. I sometimes flash 

back those many years ago when we were colonels and commanding soldiers and Marines in Somalia. And I want to get to 

that country in just a second. 

But I was looking at some headlines here in the last week from 

the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and others: Hundreds 

dead in Nigeria attack; Mauritania vows no negotiations or prisoner exchanges with Al Qaeda; tear gas fired at Togo protestors; 

Sudan army says it now controls strategic Darfur plateau; twin 

blasts hit Rwanda’s capital; Canada lists Somalia Shabab as a terrorist group; France claims biggest haul of pirates off Somalia; 

Libya calls in U.S. oil firms over Gathafi jibe; and so forth. 

You have got a mess and very few forces. Let us go to Somalia, 

if we can, to help me and us understand how AFRICOM works to 
23 

address these issues. If you look at Somalia—and you know well 

what a mess it was 17 years or so ago when you and I were there. 

And you look at Al Shabab and you look at the headline that I just 

read. And today, in the New York Times, it says as much as half 

the food aid sent to Somalia is diverted from needy people to a web 

of corrupt contractors, radical Islamist militants, and local United 

Nations staff members. 

We could have read the same thing 16, 17 years ago. In fact, that 

is why you and I were there because food wasn’t getting where it 

would supposed to go. 

So we have AFRICOM. And somehow, you have got to work with 

the interagency, with Special Operations Command, with African 

forces. Who is in charge? And how do you do that? 

I know that is a big question, but I know that we have been 

grappling since the standup of your command. How does that 

work? Is Special Operations Command in charge? Are you in 

charge? You know, is the ambassador in charge? Is there nobody 

in charge? 

Use Somalia as the example or pick any one you want to kind 

of tell us how that works. 

General WARD. Well, thank you for that, Mr. Kline. And, obviously, as you pointed out, that is a complex environment, and 

things have not changed. 

If you take the case of Somalia, obviously, with where we are and 

the transition federal government that is there and the fact that 

the African Union—which wasn’t the case when we were there 17 

years ago—there is a continent-wide organization that has said 

that we will do our best to help bring this transition federal government into a place where it can begin to exert some control over 

that vast territory. 

The problem in Somalia is the lack of a government. It is the 

lack of effective governance. But there are things being done to address that. Is it truly an international effort. It requires the support of the global community. And the response that the United 

States has in that endeavor is—and the things that we are doing 

to try to reinforce the work of this transition government, to reinforce the work of the African Union, its mission in Somalia, Amazon, as they have fielded peacekeeping forces, African peacekeeping 

forces who have familiarity, have understanding. 

Our training support, our logistical support, our support to the 

transition federal government forces to cause them to be in a better 

state to help deal with this lack of governance are the sorts of 

things that we are doing in support of this, I think, international 

effort to address the problems of lack of governance in Somalia. 

And doing what we do through our interagency process, coordinating our activities with the Department of State and where there 

are things that need—— 

Mr. KLINE. If I could interrupt, I am about to run out of time 

here, and I do really want to be respectful of that. But I am just 

struck again that this New York Times story is talking about a web 

of corrupt contractors, radical Islamic militants, and local United 

Nations staff members. 

And if the United Nations is, frankly, is as inept now as it was 

when you and I arrived there those many years ago where they 
24 

were all holed up in a little corner of the Mogadishu Airport, I 

guess I would like to have the confidence—or I would like to have 

a feeling that, somehow, AFRICOM, now that you are in existence, 

is going to be able to exert, perhaps, more influence to help clear 

that up. 

And I have run out of time, and I know it was too big a subject. 

But it is worrisome to us that we don’t—you don’t have, perhaps, 

the organizational ability to step in there. 

I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank the gentleman. 

Mr. Smith. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Just a couple of areas to follow up on some of what my colleagues 

had asked about and some from your opening statements. 

Admiral Stavridis, if you could talk to us a little bit about our 

NATO partners in Afghanistan now that we have been into our 

new strategy for a few months, making progress in some areas, obviously, long-term continued support across Europe is going to be 

critical and it is hard to come by. 

Certainly, the population has considerable concerns and the leadership is grappling with that. If you could just walk us through 

how you think that is going as someone who is got to perspective. 

Where are our European allies at in terms of their cooperation 

short term and long term on our plan in Afghanistan? 

Admiral STAVRIDIS. Sir, I would be glad to. Big picture, U.S. has 

about—we are moving toward about 100,000 troops in Afghanistan. 

Our allies are about 40,000 troops. We have taken just over a thousand casualties. Our allies have taken about 750 casualties. 

They are very much in the fight with us. I think it is worth mentioning as a passing aside, if you will, 75 percent of the casualties 

in Afghanistan are actually taken by Afghan security forces. But of 

that 25 percent, our allies are very much in this fight with us. 

In fact, the nation who has taken the most casualties on a per 

capita basis may surprise you. It is Estonia. Estonia, Great Britain, 

Canada, the Dutch, many of these nations have taken a great 

deal—have given a great deal of blood as well as treasure. 

At the moment, we are seeking to fill up to about a total of 

10,000 allied troops coming in alongside the 30,000 that President 

Obama just sent forward. We have got about 9,500 of them committed, but we are concerned about the fact that the Dutch government, as you mentioned, appears to be taking their forces out of 

Afghanistan by the end of this year. So that is of concern. 

Mr. SMITH. And what—how many troops do they have there 

now? 

Admiral STAVRIDIS. They have about 1,700 troops there now. So 

that would set us back from filling up that goal of a total of 10,000. 

My particular focus at the moment is on trainers because the success strategy in Afghanistan will be training the Afghan security 

forces, and that is really where we have made significant progress 

and where our allies have been very, very helpful over the last 

seven or eight months. 

I need about 700 more NATO trainers, and we are working very 

hard going country by country to get that and to fill it up. So over-
25 

all, we have a significant contribution from the allies. I would like 

to get a little bit more. We are working very hard to achieve that. 

The war is, in various places in Europe, it is less popular than 

the United States. And in other places, it is—I don’t want to say 

more popular—but it enjoys a higher level of support even than it 

does here. 

So it really varies across the European continent. I would say, 

overall, the allies are very much in this with us. I think they are— 

they will be with us through the short term, and I would say as 

long as the U.S. is engaged, as long as NATO is engaged, I am confident, overall, they will stay with us. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. 

General Ward, I don’t have a lot of time left here, but I would 

want to ask quickly about the situation in North Africa, Al Qaeda 

in Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) in particular. You know, we are looking at, you know, future places that could be sort of the next 

Yemen, if you will, in terms of a place that rises up and becomes 

more of a problem than perhaps we expected, though I will say the 

DOD expected Yemen for some time. It is a bit of a misconception 

that we didn’t see that coming. 

But in North Africa, in Mali and Mauritania, Al Qaeda (AQ) is 

very active and we simply don’t have the resources there, certainly, 

than we have in Iraq and Afghanistan but even than we have 

watching Yemen and Somalia. What is your assessment of where 

that threat is at and what more we can do to be aware of what is 

happening? Because my great fear is there is a lot of, you know, 

vast open space out there that we know AQ is active. We don’t 

have the type of intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance (ISR) 

coverage or intelligence that we would like to know what is going 

on there. 

Could you give me your quick assessment of that region and 

what more we should be doing? 

General WARD. Thank you, Mr. Smith. 

That region that you are describing is the size of the continental 

United States. It is a vast region, and what we are doing, working 

with those nations—those are sovereign nations there. So our effort 

is focused on trying to give them additional capacity to help, in 

fact, have better control over those vast spaces. 

So we will work with Malians, Algerians, Burkina Faso, Niger, 

other nations in the Sahel so that they have increased capacity. 

The intel piece is a very great piece of that, sir. And so how we 

are able to have additional information that helps them understand 

better what the Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb is doing will also 

be a part of their ability to then deal with that threat. 

Mr. SMITH. Can you say a quick word about Mauritania? I know 

we have the—their critical there in the middle of this. We had the 

problem—they had the coup a few years back, broke off relations 

to a certain extent. 

What are we trying to do to deal with Mauritania’s role in all of 

that? 

General WARD. Thankfully, in Mauritania, we are past the coup, 

and we are looking to increase our cooperation with the 

Mauritanians to work with them as well as other international 
26 

players working with the Mauritanians to give them increased capacity to deal with the threat as well. 

And we are opening that again. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. It is an area of particular interest to me 

and would like to be supportive as I can of your efforts there. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. Before I call Mr. Coffman, Admiral, 

earlier, you mentioned a concern regarding the cyber world. Would 

you explain that, please? 

Admiral STAVRIDIS. As I look at a world today in which 1 billion 

devices are connecting to the Internet and I look at all of our 

vulnerabilities in U.S. European Command and also look at it from 

the perspective of a NATO commander with 28 nations all of whom 

are very dependent on this cyber world, this cyber sea in which we 

sail, I am concerned that we are vulnerable from a military perspective; that we do not have the level of international cooperation 

that would create the norms, the systems of maintaining together 

how we navigate this cyber sea. 

And so I am an advocate of an international and an interagency 

approach, and I think the cyber world really needs to be a wholeof-government, whole-of-society approach. And so as I look at our 

vulnerabilities, I am seeking to improve those by working with 

interagency partners as well as international partners in the 

NATO context particularly with the NATO cyber center that we 

have established in Estonia as one example of that, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank the admiral. 

Mr. Coffman. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

First of all, General Mattis, I first want to commend you in taking a look at going beyond this 20-year career path and looking at 

a longer career path. Having served as an infantry officer, too, only 

having one year as a rifle platoon commander in my first assignment, I mean, I think that we need to look at individuals being 

able to serve more time at different develops in their career path. 

And I think we are pushing people through faster than we ought 

to. 

But one question—first, a statement that I disagree with using 

nation building as a principle tool for achieving our foreign policy 

objectives, but I understand that is beyond the pay grade of—or beyond the Department of Defense to make that decision. 

But one question I have of you is, number one, has using our 

conventional forces and a heavy footprint for counterinsurgency 

purposes—how has that degraded our war fighting capability from 

a conventional standpoint? And prospectively, are there plans to 

use our—rely more heavily on special operations forces (SOF) to 

counter irregular threats, asymmetric threats and utilize our conventional forces to counter conventional threats going forward? 

Could you address that, please? 

General MATTIS. Thank you, Mr. Coffman. 

On using our SOF more, we are using them right now to the absolute limit of capacity in a number of areas, not just the ones that 

make the newspapers every day. So between General Casey, General Conway, Admiral Olson who commands Special Operations 

Command, between the Army, Marine Corps, SOF, and Joint 
27 

Forces Command, we are looking at those engagement efforts, 

counterinsurgent efforts, that require SOF only. We are building 

relationships and this sort of thing. 

If it is just teaching troops how to fight small-unit tactics, how 

to march, how to shoot, how to do first aid, those are things the 

general-purpose force can take off of the special forces so they are 

free to do only the things that they are best tuned for. 

So there is going to continue to be a need for our general-purpose 

forces to be able to fight across the spectrum of combat. We cannot 

have forces that we basically put on the shelf and say we only use 

them in this kind of a fight. We try to bring all of them together. 

And I recognize there is some degradation right now, but we believe that, with the congressional build-up of the Army and the Marines that they have funded, and with the drawdown of about 

10,000 fewer troops in the Central Command (CENTCOM) AOR in 

September of this year compared to September of a year ago, you 

will see dwell times extending. And that will allow the Chief of 

Staff of the Army, the Commandant of the Marine Corps, to get 

back to some of the more conventional aspects of war, which we 

have put on the back burner right now. 

We have Marines who have not been on board ship, although 

they have been in the Marine Corps for eight years. We have Army 

troops who have not coordinated large artillery fires in support of 

brigade maneuver. Dwell time will give us the chance to do that, 

sir, without segregating the general-purpose force out of irregular 

warfare. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Thank you, General Mattis. 

Admiral, I think you have four brigade combat teams organic to 

NATO or positioned in Europe. But my first assignment was in the 

United States Army mechanized infantry in Europe, and we did 

Reforger exercises every year—I don’t know if those are still ongoing—where forces from continental United States (CONUS) would 

then go to Europe and we would kind of simulate being able to utilize them for a counterattack against, at that time, Warsaw Pact 

forces. 

Since we have that capability, can’t we preposition those forces 

within the United States without compromising our commitment to 

NATO and simply utilize those forces on an ongoing operational 

basis by deploying them into Europe on a very temporary basis and 

then pulling them back but basing them inside the United States? 

Admiral STAVRIDIS. You could examine a construct like that, and 

I recognize that any decision like this has political and economic 

elements that need to be worked out. There is a business case that 

is involved with all this, and I would refer that aspect of it to the 

Department of the Army which looks very closely at all this. 

My job is to provide my military advice as to what I think is best 

for the security and defense of the United States in Europe, and 

I have look at this very closely. And from my perspective, because 

of the things we talked about earlier—the reassurance, deterrence, 

leadership, logistics, training—I think four brigade combat teams 

in Europe is a good investment for the United States, sir. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank the gentleman. 

Mr. Taylor. 
28 

Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Gentlemen, in reverse alphabetical order, if you don’t mind, we 

will start with you, General Ward, in a minute and a half, what 

keeps you awake at night, if anything? 

General WARD. Sir, I am concerned about the potential that 

American lives will be lost because of what might generate and emanate from the continent of Africa. That is why our focus on the 

security capacity of those nations to secure their territorial borders, 

to secure their territorial waters is so important. Those threats 

could affect us wherever we may be in this globalized society. 

What goes on in Somalia, Sudan, Nigeria, what goes on in East 

Africa with respect to Al Qaeda, what goes on in Maghreb with respect to Al Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb—our programs are all designed to address those threats that are faced by Americans who 

live on the continent and also could have an effect on us here at 

home. 

Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you, sir. 

Admiral. 

Admiral STAVRIDIS. Sir, I will be very brief. Afghanistan, through 

my NATO hat, is of extreme concern, and we are working that. 

And I would put that at the top of my list of things I worry about. 

I am concerned, also, about the Balkans, making sure we don’t 

fall back into the situation we saw in the 1900s. As I mentioned 

to the chairman, I worry about cyber. I don’t think we spend 

enough time looking and thinking at that. 

And then, lastly, I worry about Iran, about the growing threat 

of ballistic missiles, about the possibility of them acquiring a nuclear weapon, about state-sponsored terrorism. 

So those four things, sir. 

Mr. TAYLOR. General Mattis. 

General MATTIS. Sir, mine are a mix of current and future concerns. First of all, the loss of precision dominance by our forces 

means that no longer do we have the ability to hit the enemy in 

ways they cannot reply in kind. Just think of Israel. Instead of 

under attack by ballistic-launched rockets, think if each one had a 

GPS transmitter or receiver on the front that can guide them precisely onto locations and what are we doing to make certain, if we 

deploy forces, they can protect themselves. 

Second is counter-improvised explosive device (IED). We need to 

get away from defensive measures and create technologically sustainable offensive ways to turn the IED on the enemy so we are 

no longer putting more armor or more jammers on ours. 

Mr. TAYLOR. General, can I interrupt? Do you see that technology 

anywhere? And is Congress missing the boat on acquiring it? 

General MATTIS. Sir, it is not the Congress. There is enough 

money that you have given to Joint Improvised Explosive Device 

Defeat Organization (JIEDDO) and others. What we have is a technologically challenging effort, as a physicist put it to me, General, 

you are asking us to do something harder than going to the moon. 

That took us 10 years. You have been at war eight. We should be 

getting pretty close then. 

We have the money, sir. We need to organize the effort. But this 

one very much concerns me. This weapon is coming to a city near 

us very soon. 
29 

A couple other things that keep me awake at night, sir, the quality of the troops joining the U.S. Army. The Army continues to do 

most of the fighting and most of the bleeding for this country. It 

is okay right now, but we all saw a concern about this a few years 

ago. And the all-volunteer force is unmatched, but we must maintain the quality of this force. 

I am also concerned in the long run about the financially 

unsustainable path that our national budget is on and whether or 

not we will be able to maintain the military forces when the only 

discretionary money you may have to play with, to address, to allocate, is at the Department of Defense. And what are the long-term 

implications of that? 

And last is the one that was just mentioned by my comrade here, 

and that is the cyber vulnerability. 

Mr. TAYLOR. Admiral, while I still have you, going back to your 

days in Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), are there any surface 

combatant missions off the coast of South and Latin America that 

cannot be handled by a Guided Missile Frigate (FFG) or a SLEP’d 

[Service Life Extension Program] FFG? 

Admiral STAVRIDIS. Day-to-day, no. Everything can be handled 

by a frigate-sized vessel. I would only point out the Haiti experience that you and I remember both from the hurricanes and most 

recently from the earthquake, hospital ship, big-deck amphib for 

those extremely discreet individual high-end events. 

But other than that, those frigates do us very well down there, 

sir. 

Mr. TAYLOR. General Ward, on the counter-piracy mission off of 

Somalia, is there anything that could not be handled by a frigate? 

General WARD. To my best understanding, Congressman, there is 

not. 

Mr. TAYLOR. Okay. Thank you very much. And, again, thank you, 

all of you, for your tremendous service to our Nation. Thank you 

for being here today. 

Mr. TAYLOR [presiding]. The chair now recognizes the gentleman 

from South Carolina, Mr. Wilson, for five minutes. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And Generals and Admiral, I want to join with you. I agree with 

you about Erin Conaton, who has been confirmed to be the Under 

Secretary of the Air Force. Ms. Conaton has just been a—I have 

seen firsthand a devoted person for our military and, of course, she 

was trained by Chairman Ike Skelton. So we know that she will 

be an excellent resource and supporter of our military. So I am 

grateful for that. 

And General Ward, of course, each year, I like to welcome you. 

I like to remind you that Charleston, my birthplace, would love to 

have you and AFRICOM to locate there. The Chamber of Commerce in Charleston has an open invitation for AFRICOM. 

And with that, I understand that Secretary Gates has stated that 

a move of AFRICOM’s headquarters will not be considered until 

2012. When this decision is made, what are the primary issues that 

are going to be considered? Particularly, I am interested in the 

quality of life for dependents, access to schools, medical facilities, 

transportation access, jobs. 

How would that be weighed in the decision? 
30 

General WARD. Thank you, Mr. Wilson, and thank you for your 

invitation, again, as well, sir. 

The decision, when it is considered in 2012, has not been outlined at this point in time. However, to be sure, in any environment, the quality of line, the well-being of the serving members, be 

they uniformed or civilian, their family members will be a part of 

that dynamic, I am sure. To what degree it will take, again, I am— 

we are not at that point just yet. 

As you are aware, those are factors in determining where the 

headquarters are currently located from the standpoint of the enduring location that Stuttgart offers, the availability of those facilities. So I am sure they will be considered in that same light when 

this decision is revisited in a few years. 

Mr. WILSON. Well, anytime I see you, whether in the hallway, 

anywhere, do understand, we would love for you to relocate to 

Charleston, South Carolina. [Laughter.] 

And, Admiral, DOD-sponsored programs for spouses and dependents of service members are very important. What are you doing 

to ensure the dependents of members stationed within EUCOM are 

receiving the same benefits as those stationed within the continental United States? In particular, are education standards for 

schools-age children meeting these of their counterparts in the 

United States? 

What are the employment opportunities for spouses? And what 

measures are being taken to increase awareness of those? 

Admiral STAVRIDIS. Thank you, sir. 

I do want to mention that my sister lives in Charleston and she 

lives in Mount Pleasant. She is a schoolteacher there. And she 

loves Charleston which brings me to teaching children and the 

quality of that over in Europe. 

And I am very pleased to report that the budget coming forward 

for which we are seeking the support of the Congress does, in fact, 

allocate a significant upgrade in the schools for our DOD children 

which I would argue is at the very top of the quality-of-life programs. Every parent—we all know this—every parent, the first 

thing we ask as military members when we are moving, the very 

first thing is how are the schools. 

So we have gotten a good level of support in the budget in front 

of you, and we would sure ask for your support on that. 

We also, to your question of how do we focus on this, we hold 

a lot of conferences. In fact, right now, my senior enlisted is not 

with me because he is back in Europe spearheading my annual 

quality-of-life conference which I know all of the combatant commanders do. We really value that direct feedback from the families. 

That is our kind of input loop. And I must say, this Congress has 

been terrifically supportive of our dependents in Europe and, of 

course, Kip is actually my next-door neighbor in Europe. His headquarters, as you know, is currently there. 

We are very happy with the overall level of support, and we ask 

for the continuance of that from the Congress, sir. 

Mr. WILSON. And we appreciate your efforts. 

And, General Mattis, I want to thank you for raising the threat 

and danger of the budget irresponsibility that is going on here in 
31 

Washington. I am also concerned, though, about the joint training 

events. Are they sufficient for our troops to be trained? 

General MATTIS. Sir, I just want to correct one thing. I did not 

say anything about budget irresponsibility. I just—I am concerned 

about the sustainability of the budget. 

Mr. WILSON. Right. 

General MATTIS. But as far as the training, sir, we have the dollars, and we have the means to train. Where we are challenged 

right now is primarily for chief of staff of the Army, Special Operations Command coming out of the Marine Corps is the dwell time. 

That is improving, as you know, but it is mostly a time constraint, 

not a physical plant or a dollar constraint. 

Thanks, I might add, to the support of this committee. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you very much. 

Mr. TAYLOR. The chair recognizes the gentleman from Georgia, 

Mr. Johnson, for five minutes. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

With the ice melting in the North Pole due to global warming 

which does open up new lanes for commercial activity, shipping in 

particular, and given the fact that abundant natural resources lie 

in that area—natural gas, coal, even oil—and given the fact that 

Russia has planted its flag on a disputed region of the intercontinental shelf, I would like to know what we are doing from a security standpoint to protect our commercial interests in that area. 

Admiral STAVRIDIS. Thank you for the question, sir. It is an extremely interesting part of the world, as you allude to. There are 

actually three combatant commanders who have contiguous responsibility, and I am one of them. U.S. European Command, also, U.S. 

Northern Command from the northern part of Canada and then 

U.S. Pacific Command. 

So the three of us, together, look at these security issues in that 

region. Today, there are five nations that surround that North Pole 

where you are correct, there are shipping lanes that, I think, over 

the next decade will begin to open up. U.S., Russia, Canada, Denmark, and Norway are the five nations. 

There are two others, Sweden and Finland, who are also associate members of a group called the Arctic Council. This Arctic 

Council, sir, is the forum in which all of these issues—and it is 

really security but also navigation. It is the environment. It is scientific research. It is hydrocarbon recovery, as you mentioned. All 

of those issues come together in this Arctic Council which provides 

a forum for discussion. 

I think that is probably the right place for this discussion to be 

occurring. It is a cooperative, an active body. And that is the center 

of the security discussion at this time. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Okay. Well, let me ask you this question and follow up. There is a need for vessels that can accommodate the conditions—icy conditions—in that area. Do we have—are we properly 

equipped navally to be able to address any concerns that would 

occur up there? 

And, also, I wanted to know about the relationship, military-tomilitary, between China and Russia. And not just military-to-military, but even other ways that they may cooperate with each other. 
32 

Admiral STAVRIDIS. In terms of the ability of U.S. ships to operate in high-north conditions, I think we are reasonably capable in 

that regard. In terms of more specifics, I would be happy to take 

the question for the record and go to the commandant of the Coast 

Guard because we should remember a great deal of this ice-breaking capability is resident in the Coast Guard and to the Chief of 

Naval Operations who, I think, are better suited than I to address—and I will get you that. 

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

page 181.] 

Mr. JOHNSON. How many working seaworthy ice breakers do we 

have in this country? 

Admiral STAVRIDIS. I don’t know the answer to that. It is not in 

my purview or my remit as commander of U.S. European Command. 

Mr. JOHNSON. I appreciate you—— 

Admiral STAVRIDIS. I will be glad to find that data out for you 

and provide it for the record, sir. 

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

page 181.] 

Mr. JOHNSON. All right. Thank you. 

Admiral STAVRIDIS. Yes, sir. 

Mr. JOHNSON. And with respect to the rest of the questions. 

Admiral STAVRIDIS. To China—excuse me—China and Russia. As 

I survey the relationship between those two, I look at it, of course, 

from a Russian perspective because Russia is part of U.S. European Command’s area of focus. I would say it is a relationship that 

has commercial, demographic, limited military-to-military cooperation, although they are both cooperating in the counter-piracy operation off the Horn of Africa. 

So I would say it is a relationship of both of the nations watching 

each other. They share one of the longest land borders in the world. 

But at this time, they are not in an extremely active geostrategic 

dialogue. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you. 

And last question. How are AFRICOM and the U.S. military efforts in Africa perceived by Africans and by other foreign nations, 

General Ward? 

General WARD. The perception is increasingly favorable. It has 

been rising over the last two years, and they are continuing to increase in a most favorable way. Positive perceptions. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you. Thank you, all three of you, for your 

work. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN [presiding]. Thank the gentleman. 

Mr. Jones. 

Mr. JONES. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. 

And General Mattis, I want to thank you. I read your article in 

Marine Times, March 1, 2010, ‘‘Better Officer Training.’’ And you 

called for an overhaul. I found that article very interesting, and I 

would hope that some of my colleagues would have a chance, 

maybe, to read the article and your recommendations. Thank you 

very much for that. 
33 

Admiral, I want to ask you a question. I have got most of my 

questions for General Ward. But if you would, give me kind of a 

short answer. 

I remember back in 2003, 2004 many Generals—and I don’t 

mean this disrespectfully—I mean, respectful. They would get 

questions about the Afghan security force, and they would say, 

well, the training is going well, we, you know, have got a lot to do, 

we have got years ahead, but it is going well. 

You know, the American people are frustrated, many in the military, particularly wives and some children are very frustrated. Do 

you see—I know this might be very difficult to project the future. 

That, I fully understand. 

But you know, I know the President said we are there another 

year and a half, but many of us are concerned that, as we get closer to that year and a half and another Presidential election, that 

some advisers—not necessarily military—might say, well, I don’t 

think right now you need to pull down the troops in Afghanistan; 

we need—you know, we have got an election coming up. We have 

got to make sure that the people understand, you know, this and 

that. 

If you would, this is 2010, and I don’t know who will be here— 

maybe I am running the gambit—maybe I will, maybe I won’t. 

But two or three years down the road, if there is an admiral or 

a general that says that the training of the Afghan security force 

is going pretty well, how long should we say to the American people it is pretty well before we get to a point that we are financially 

broke as a country, we have worn out our military, we have worn 

out the equipment? I am not asking you for a timeline, but truthfully, do you see that maybe, in the short term, whatever the short 

term might be, that the Afghans can pick up it and take the responsibility? 

Admiral STAVRIDIS. I will be very brief. I can talk for an hour 

and a half on that. 

Mr. JONES. I am sure. 

Admiral STAVRIDIS. The short answer is, in the seven months 

that I have been in command and the eight months that Stan 

McChrystal has been in command, I think both of us would sit here 

and tell you honestly we have seen progress. And in January, February, and March of this year, we have seen everything from Afghans piloting MI–17 helicopters going on commando raids to them 

repulsing serious attacks inside the capital to the current operation 

in Marjah which is being conducted in a one-to-one ratio. 

So I can’t speak to the four, five, six years ago, sir, but I can say 

that I think we are on a positive trajectory now. We have an outstanding three-star general who has unified command of all training for the first time, Lieutenant General Bill Caldwell. I would 

love to take you to Afghanistan and show you what is going on. 

It is hard. It is very challenging. There is great risk ahead. But 

I am seeing progress. And that is as short as I can be about it. 

Mr. JONES. Admiral, thank you. And maybe at some point in 

time in the future, I could ask you to come to my office and give 

me a briefing for an hour and a half if you want to. 

Admiral STAVRIDIS. I would love to. I will do it. 

Mr. JONES. Really would appreciate that. 
34 

General Ward, I want to pick up very briefly because time goes 

so quickly with five minutes. But the issue of China. You made a 

statement—and I accept your statement—that the Chinese are, as 

it results to their military, they are not very robust but in other 

ways, they are being very aggressive, I would assume. 

My concern is that—in your discussions with African leaders and 

other countries, do you feel that, at the present time, that the Chinese are trying to buy the hearts and souls of leaders by being able 

to be in a position of spending money, making investments in the 

infrastructure of certain countries? Do you feel that this is something that policy makers in Washington, not necessarily military 

people but policy makers need to be concerned about? 

General WARD. Thank you, Mr. Jones. I don’t know if I am in a 

position to characterize Chinese actions in that way. I think what 

I would say is, as I see Chinese activities, as they attempt to secure 

the sorts of things that will help fuel their economic development, 

they are pursuing multiple lines and multiple channels to secure 

resources to have the type of impact in Africa that would be in 

keeping with them achieving whatever their national interests 

from the Chinese perspective may be. 

Mr. JONES. Mr. Chairman, thank you. I see my time is over. 

Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank the gentleman. 

Mr. Sestak, please. 

Mr. SESTAK. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. 

Good morning—good afternoon. 

Admiral, the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy, is this a good thing we 

are doing to repeal it? And I have a couple of questions, so I am 

just going to try to get to them rapidly. 

Admiral STAVRIDIS. I think that the Secretary of Defense and the 

Chairman have come forward and spoken to this, and they have 

put in place a process—— 

Mr. SESTAK. As an operational commander, do you agree with it? 

Admiral STAVRIDIS. I agree with their process that they are undertaking. 

Mr. SESTAK. Good. There was a program called the Arctic Military Environmental Cooperation (AMEC) Group where we focused 

with Norway and Russia on the SSBNs that were rotting away up 

there in—we have stepped away from that but never did the SSNs 

up there as at reactors are rocking away. 

Do you believe we should reengage on that effort? We stopped 

this about two, three years ago. What is your proposal? 

Admiral STAVRIDIS. I will have to get back to you on that one. 

I don’t have a set response for that. 

Mr. SESTAK. It was called AMEC. 

Admiral STAVRIDIS. Yes. We are looking at that type of issue, sir, 

in the Arctic Council which I spoke about a few moments ago. 

Mr. SESTAK. Right. 

Admiral STAVRIDIS. And that is—that, I think, is the right forum 

to address that, and I will get back to you with a more detailed answer. 

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

page 181.] 

Mr. SESTAK. Thank you. 
35 

Sir, I heard your response on AFRICOM. My understanding is, 

when we established this, we kind of pushed it a little harshly, potentially, without being a bit more ingratiating with South Africa. 

Is that an unfair statement after having sat down with them a bit 

and talked? 

General WARD. I am not aware of not being fair with South Africa, Mr. Sestak. That doesn’t resonate with me. The South Africans 

had concerns, as did a few of the other nations, that it was being 

established to bring large military formations to militarize the continent. As we have seen, that didn’t happen. The South Africans’ 

response has been, certainly, less strident against the command. 

Mr. SESTAK. We have a good bilateral Defense Department relationship with South Africa, particularly, in the environmental area. 

Is that part of your charge, also, as AFRICOM as part of this engagement that you are doing down there? 

General WARD. Not directly. Our engagement, military-to-military, that is very robust. It is growing. Our naval relationships, our 

land relationships, our air relationships, the work between the 

component commanders of my command and their South African 

counterparts—— 

Mr. SESTAK. Mainly military-to-military? 

General WARD. Mainly military-to-military. 

Mr. SESTAK. Wasn’t your staff supposed to be two-thirds civilian, 

and so you were supposed to be a broader engagement than just 

military-to-military? 

General WARD. The staff is about half civilian. Of that half, a 

percentage of that is from the interagency. Not from the standpoint 

of doing the work of the interagency, from the standpoint of how 

the interagency work is more and better supported by what we do 

so we have a better understanding—— 

Mr. SESTAK. I understand now. 

General WARD. Correct. 

Mr. SESTAK. General, the Commandant of the Marine Corps testified to a question a week or two ago that it would take us, because of our involvement in Iraq and now Afghanistan, upwards of 

10 years before we get the U.S. Marine Corps back to where it is 

able to respond to the war plans. 

My question to him had been that for the last four years, we 

have done no training except—nothing on combined arms—just on 

counterinsurgency—and that the Army can’t respond to any other 

war plan around this nation; was that the same for the Marine 

Corps? 

In your joint training area, would you say that is a correct assessment that our military is—in order to get back to the pre-Iraq 

days of readiness to respond to that is about 10 years? 

General MATTIS. Sir, I did not see the Commandant’s—the context of how he was—— 

Mr. SESTAK. His exact words were ‘‘about a decade.’’ 

General MATTIS. Yes, sir. We have lost some of our edge that I 

believe that, thanks to the increased numbers of troops that you 

have authorized us and the drawdown in CENTCOM, is going to 

allow a graduated return to some of the things that have atrophied. 

Mr. SESTAK. Would you think the time—— 

General MATTIS. I don’t believe it will take 10 years—— 
36 

Mr. SESTAK. All right. 

General MATTIS. But I can’t—I would have to study it a little bit 

and actually look at dwell times and training—— 

Mr. SESTAK. If you are able to with our commitment in Afghanistan, it would be great because I think that is one of—you know, 

the national fabric of national security got changed by Iraq. I am 

not arguing good or bad right now, although I would argue bad. 

But I would be curious if you did. 

Admiral, one last question. And, first, for all three of you, thanks 

for your service. 

Advanced Electronic Guidance and Instrumentation System 

(AEGIS)—we have taken and plucked out from the Czech Republic 

and Poland what some would say was a stick in the eye of the bear 

and placed the same missile defense capability at sea in a way that 

protects us, some would argue, where we couldn’t do before—Turkey and Israel more immediately but also can give us something 

in 2017 to more effectively defend our Nation here. Right step? 

Admiral STAVRIDIS. Yes. 

Mr. SESTAK. He always cuts me off because I am a sophomore. 

[Laughter.] 

The CHAIRMAN. Finish your question. 

Admiral STAVRIDIS. I think the question was finished, and I 

agree. I think we need to—we need to move forward, and I have 

confidence in the AEGIS—— 

Mr. SESTAK. In terms of, also, of negotiating with Russia and—— 

Admiral STAVRIDIS. I think it is—— 

Mr. SESTAK [continuing]. Helping them pivot to Iran? 

Admiral STAVRIDIS. Yes. 

Mr. SESTAK. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank the gentleman. 

Mr. Franks, wrap it up. 

Mr. FRANKS. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And, gentlemen, thank you for your lifetime commitment to freedom. We never are grateful enough to you. 

If it is okay, I wanted to take off on a point that Mr. Taylor 

makes often about what keeps you up at night. 

I have to suggest to you, even though my perspective is not nearly as relevant as your own, that what keeps me up at night is the 

potential of Iran gaining a nuclear capability. I know that has been 

talked about and touched on significantly here. 

But I think that we, perhaps, made an error—and I am sure that 

there will be disagreement on the panel here—relating to the European missile defense site. Most of you know that the phased adaptive approach—and when we were in the Bush Administration, 

these were things that were planned in general already. These are 

already kind of on the planning schedule. 

But I am concerned about the timing. You know, one of critiques 

of the former missile defense plan was that it was only expected 

to cover about 75 percent of our European allies by 2013. But how 

does the phased adaptive approach compare coverage wise by percentage of allies supported by that timeline? And what can we look 

to in the future? 

And, Admiral Stavridis, I will talk to you first about that. 
37 

Admiral STAVRIDIS. Sure. First of all, the answer to that is a 

technical one, and I would have to really direct you to the Missile 

Defense Agency. They are the people that kind of come with that, 

and they can give you a very detailed briefing on it. 

But as I mentioned to Representative Sestak a moment ago, I am 

confident in the ability to begin by using a sea-based system off of 

our AEGIS ships, and it will provide some initial coverage. And 

then the plan, without going into classified details, is to use some 

of those systems ashore. 

And I am confident that we will be able to transition that technology. As to the precise degree of coverage and when it walks in, 

there is a classified briefing that can take you through that in detail. 

Mr. FRANKS. Well, Admiral Stavridis, I appreciate your perspective. I will just suggest to you that there is at least a conclusion 

on the part of a lot of us that, even though no one supports the 

AEGIS system more than I do—I think it is a magnificent testimony of American technology and capability—it is the timing. 

My concern is that Iran, in all of their calculus of moving forward a nuclear weapons program, I think part of their concern is 

what would be the response of the Western world. I am not sure 

that they are really too shook up about our response at this point. 

I am thinking they are more concerned about Israel’s response. 

But if we had had that capability to defend most of Europe in 

the timeframe that could have at least beat them to the punch, I 

think it might have played in their calculus. At this point, I don’t 

think that we are going to be able to have much of a deterrence 

within the timeframe here. 

And I guess I illustrate that by—it seems that we have made a 

buy of eight SM–3 Block 1–B interceptors for this year, and how 

does that affect the timeline in the phased adaptive approach? I 

mean, what happens if the industrial base that is currently set to 

produce 48 interceptors cannot make up the difference after 2 years 

without any real substantive orders from the Department of Defense? I mean, you understand we are behind the eight ball here. 

Admiral STAVRIDIS. Well, again, sir, I am not the right person to 

address the slip stream of missile moving forward, but I will take 

that question to the Missile Defense Agency, and I will make sure 

they come and give you a brief in-depth about that. 

[The information referred to is classified and retained in the committee files.] 

Mr. FRANKS. Okay. I certainly don’t mean to badger you because 

I think you are doing your job in a magnificent way. 

General Mattis, I appreciate your soldier statesman diplomacy in 

clarifying that you were saying ‘‘sustainability’’ instead of ‘‘irresponsibility.’’ That is a word left to people like myself, and I think 

I would probably—if I were to use ‘‘irresponsibility,’’ I would berate 

myself for understatement because I do think that the budget irresponsibility this administration has some pretty profound implications for our military readiness in the future. 

So with that in mind, if there were some area that you feel like 

we are maybe missing the boat on making sure that we are going 

to be ready for whatever contingencies come in the future, what 
38 

area of the budget—and it is not fair to ask you, but I am sure 

your statesmanship will be in tact here too. 

What area of the budget would you be concerned about the most? 

General MATTIS. Representative, looking at my crystal ball, 

which is about as good as anyone else’s, we are facing an increasingly difficult problem gaining access around the world. And that 

access is being denied technologically, as we see a profusion of precision weaponry being passed around the world. We see it going to 

potential adversaries. It is political. All politics being local, there 

are places where large footprints of our troops ashore are not welcome. 

I think we are going to have to see an increased naval aspect to 

how we reassure our friends and temper potential adversaries’ 

plans using our asymmetric strengths of sea control. 

Thank you. 

Mr. FRANKS. Thank you, gentlemen. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank the gentleman. 

Mr. McKeon, any further questions? 

If not, the hearing comes to a close. We thank each one of you 

for being with us, for your excellent testimony. In a word, you 

make us proud. 

[Whereupon, at 12:06 p.m., the committee was adjourned.] 
A P P E N D I X 

MARCH 10, 2010 

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD 

MARCH 10, 2010 

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WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING 

THE HEARING 

MARCH 10, 2010 

(181) 

RESPONSE TO QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MR. SESTAK 

Admiral STAVRIDIS. BLUF: Re-engagement thru the Arctic Military Environmental Cooperation (AMEC) program would be prudent for the long term cooperation and protection of the Arctic. The more venues in which we can encourage dialogue and cooperation amongst the Arctic nations the better opportunities we have 

to develop peaceful and meaningful solutions to our challenges. 

Background: 

The AMEC program began as a Norwegian initiative to combine the efforts of the 

U.S., Norway, and Russia to address environmental problems in the arctic region 

associated with Russian nuclear submarine decommissioning. In a 1999 program 

plan to the Congress, DOD stated that AMEC projects would support the goals of 

the Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) program. However in GAO–04–924 the 

GAO found that ‘‘only one of eight AMEC projects designed to support CTR’s objective of dismantling Russia’s ballistic missile nuclear submarines’’ had done so. ‘‘Despite AMEC’s limited contribution to the CTR, DOD officials, including CTR representatives, said that most of the projects can be used to support dismantlement 

of other types of Russian nuclear submarines’’ 

Jerry Havens, Distinguished Professor of chemical engineering and director of the 

Chemical Hazards Research Center and reviewer for the Technical Guidance Group 

of the AMEC program stated in 2004 that ‘‘nuclear submarines pose a 

transnational-boundary environmental threat primarily because of the highly radioactive spent fuel that remains in their nuclear reactors’’ and that ‘‘It is critical that 

the United States participate in the efforts to prevent further damage to the environment. It’s not just Norway’s problem or Russia’s problem . . . eventually the pollutants released into the Barents Sea will wash up onto our own shores.’’ [See page 

34.] 

RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. JOHNSON 

Admiral STAVRIDIS. Last year, Admiral Roughead, the Chief of Naval Operations, 

began studying the implications of climate change for the Naval services. That research is ongoing as there are many factors that must be analyzed. The U.S. Navy 

has no ice-hardened surface ships and all of its icebreakers were transferred to the 

Coast Guard in 1965. As such, the Coast Guard is the federal agency charged with 

operating the Nation’s icebreaking fleet. Polar-capable icebreakers are unique national assets and the only USCG surface assets capable of projecting and fulfilling 

national objectives in the Arctic region year round. Therefore, I feel it prudent that 

the USCG maintain its current icebreakers in operational condition until such time 

as the Nation can determine the best mix of assets needed to meet national requirements. [See page 32.] 

Admiral STAVRIDIS. Currently the Coast Guard has three polar-capable icebreakers, although the USCGC POLAR STAR (WAGB–10) and USCGC POLAR 

SEA (WAGB–11) are the only two built to handle heavy ice. Both Polar-Class icebreakers are near the end of their service life. The third icebreaker, HEALY is a 

multi-mission, medium icebreaker that primarily supports Arctic science research; 

however, HEALY is not nearly as capable at breaking thick ice as our two Polarclass breakers. HEALY and POLAR SEA are operational. The Coast Guard is reactivating POLAR STAR from a caretaker status and it should be operational by the 

end of 2012. [See page 32.] 

Æ