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i 

65–804 2011

[H.A.S.C. No. 112–33] 

IMPROVING THE READINESS OF U.S. 

FORCES THROUGH MILITARY JOINTNESS 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON READINESS 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

HEARING HELD 

MARCH 31, 2011 
(II) 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON READINESS 

J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia, Chairman 

MIKE ROGERS, Alabama 

JOE HECK, Nevada 

AUSTIN SCOTT, Georgia 

FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey 

CHRIS GIBSON, New York 

VICKY HARTZLER, Missouri 

BOBBY SCHILLING, Illinois 

JON RUNYAN, New Jersey 

TIM GRIFFIN, Arkansas 

STEVEN PALAZZO, Mississippi 

MARTHA ROBY, Alabama 

MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO, Guam 

SILVESTRE REYES, Texas 

JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut 

DAVE LOEBSACK, Iowa 

GABRIELLE GIFFORDS, Arizona 

LARRY KISSELL, North Carolina 

BILL OWENS, New York 

TIM RYAN, Ohio 

COLLEEN HANABUSA, Hawaii 

CATHY GARMAN, Professional Staff Member 

VICKIE PLUNKETT, Professional Staff Member 

CHRISTINE WAGNER, Staff Assistant 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS 

2011 

Page 

HEARING: 

Thursday, March 31, 2011, Improving the Readiness of U.S. Forces Through 

Military Jointness ................................................................................................ 1 

APPENDIX: 

Thursday, March 31, 2011 ...................................................................................... 33 

THURSDAY, MARCH 31, 2011 

IMPROVING THE READINESS OF U.S. FORCES THROUGH MILITARY 

JOINTNESS 

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

Bordallo, Hon. Madeleine Z., a Delegate from Guam, Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Readiness ...................................................................................... 3 

Forbes, Hon. J. Randy, a Representative from Virginia, Chairman, Subcommittee on Readiness ...................................................................................... 1 

WITNESSES 

Gortney, VADM William E., USN, Director, Joint Staff, Joint Chiefs of Staff .. 6 

Krepinevich, Dr. Andrew F., President, Center for Strategic and Budgetary 

Assessments .......................................................................................................... 6 

Odierno, GEN Ray, USA, Commander, U.S. Joint Forces Command ................. 5 

APPENDIX 

PREPARED STATEMENTS: 

Forbes, Hon. J. Randy ...................................................................................... 37 

Krepinevich, Dr. Andrew F. ............................................................................. 48 

Odierno, GEN Ray ............................................................................................ 39 

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD: 

[There were no Documents submitted.] 

WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING THE HEARING: 

[There were no Questions submitted during the hearing.] 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING: 

Mr. Forbes ......................................................................................................... 67 

(1) 

IMPROVING THE READINESS OF U.S. FORCES THROUGH 

MILITARY JOINTNESS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON READINESS, Washington, DC, Thursday, March 31, 2011. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 3:00 p.m. in room 

2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. J. Randy Forbes (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

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

ON READINESS 

Mr. FORBES. We want to welcome all of our members and our 

distinguished panel of experts to today’s hearing that will focus on 

how we are into progressing toward improvements in the readiness 

of our forces through military jointness. 

I want to begin by apologizing to our panel for having the votes 

come up the way they did and a little bit of delay. And several of 

our members, we have got a couple of called meetings for some of 

the freshmen, so they may be coming in and out. So we appreciate 

your understanding of that as they do. 

This topic is particularly relevant with the pending closure of the 

Joint Forces Command or JFCOM. Ironically, the impetus for 

JFCOM was that landmark legislation on jointness, GoldwaterNichols. Let me first take a step back in history and a special message to Congress in 1958. President Dwight D. Eisenhower stated 

that separate ground, sea and air warfare is gone forever. If ever 

again, we should be involved in war, we will fight it in all elements 

with all Services as one, single concentrated effort. 

However, President Eisenhower’s vision was not fully realized 

until the passage of Goldwater-Nichols in 1986. The operations in 

Iraq and Afghanistan have shown that the U.S. military indeed has 

made significant gains in joint operations, training and doctrine. 

However, there are still areas impacting the readiness of our forces 

that need to be addressed. 

We still must develop jointness in the way we communicate, procure our weapons systems and in our logistics processes and information systems. That once would have been the ongoing role of 

JFCOM. In announcing the closure of JFCOM, Secretary Gates 

said the U.S. military has largely embraced jointness as a matter 

of culture and practice, although we must always remain vigilant 

against backsliding on this front. 

In reality, it is my contention that we cannot simply focus on 

what we have achieved to date and try to avoid a backslide, but 
2 

rather, we must continue to advance joint concepts in terms of doctrine, training and development of strategies and tactics, since each 

scenario we face in the future will call for joint operations but potentially differing responses. 

For example, the growing military power of China and its potential threat to the Asia/Pacific region would call for a different joint 

response from U.S. military forces, possibly more focused on an airsea operation than the current CENTCOM [U.S. Central Command] operations which primarily are land-based. 

I would ask our witnesses their view on how we can be assured 

this forward look at jointness will happen without a body that has 

the authority to force that on the Services. The Joint Staff has 

played the role of principal military adviser to our senior civilian 

leadership. Even if they develop the necessary concepts to further 

jointness, how will they be able to press Services into compliance? 

In a recent speech at the Air Force Academy, Secretary Gates 

said it is easier to be joint and talk joint when there is money to 

go around and a war to be won. He said, it is much harder to do 

when tough choices have to be made within and between the military Services, between what is ideal from a particular Service perspective and what will get the job done, taking into account broader priorities and considerations. 

I agree with Secretary Gates in this regard, resistant bureaucracies exist within every part of the executive branch, and the 

Service departments within the Pentagon are no different. 

Another critical readiness factor is that of the role of Joint Force 

provider. Jointness dictates that the Services operate within their 

core competencies and seek the expertise of the Service whose 

skills line of particular competency, including training. In the new 

construct, it is unclear who will take on this responsibility, but in 

order to truly promote jointness, it cannot be given to one particular military Service. 

Finally, the operations with our NATO [North Atlantic Treaty 

Organization] allies pose another concern. An example of their importance to our security interest is being reinforced even as we sit 

here with the operations over Libya, which this committee heard 

about this morning. 

JFCOM provided several venues in which U.S. and allied forces 

could interact. That dynamic cannot help but change. 

Indeed, French Air Force General Stephane Abrial, Supreme Allied Commander for Transformation, or ACT, in discussing the 

NATO role after the closure of JFCOM, told reporters that ACT 

has started looking at how we will replug into this much more distributed system. 

Joining us today to discuss these issues are three distinguished 

individuals: General Raymond Odierno, Commander of the U.S. 

Joint Forces Command. General Odierno most recently served as 

Commanding General for the Multi-National Force—Iraq, working 

jointly with our allies. He also has served in other senior joint positions in the Pentagon. These assignments have more than prepared 

him for ensuring that the military’s focus remains on jointness, 

even as JFCOM is disestablished. 

Vice Admiral William E. Gortney, Director of the Joint Staff. 

While primarily serving in senior Navy commands throughout his 
3 

career, Admiral Gortney has stated that Goldwater-Nichols substantially helped his career. Now as director of the Joint Staff, Admiral Gortney is uniquely positioned to reinforce his personal commitment to jointness. 

Dr. Andrew F. Krepinevich, President, Center for Strategic and 

Budgetary Assessments. Dr. Krepinevich is a well-known military 

expert and currently serves on the Joint Forces Command’s Transformational Advisory Board. He has been involved with JFCOM 

since its beginning. 

Gentlemen, we thank you all for being here. 

I now recognize my good friend, the ranking member, Ms. 

Bordallo, for any remarks she may have. 

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

STATEMENT OF HON. MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO, A DELEGATE 

FROM GUAM, RANKING MEMBER, SUBCOMMITTEE ON READINESS 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I know 

that the topic of today’s hearing is very important to our chairman, 

so I will keep my remarks rather brief. 

First, I would like to welcome Admiral Gortney. Thank you. 

And General Odierno, thank you for testifying. 

And also Dr. Krepinevich. Is that correct? 

Dr. KREPINEVICH. Krepinevich. 

Ms. BORDALLO. And I want to thank the General and the Admiral for their visit in my office yesterday. 

General, as you know and I must mention how proud I am of our 

Guam reservists and our National Guardsmen who served with you 

in Iraq. And thank you for taking good care of my men and women 

when they were serving there. We are all very proud of them back 

home. 

Today’s hearing focuses on ensuring that jointness in the U.S. 

military operation continues and is enhanced to promote our readiness to respond to threats to national security. 

The passage of the Goldwater-Nichols Act in 1986 was a major 

step forward in the reorganization of the Department of Defense to 

enhance operational synergies across all the Services. The First 

Gulf War proved that Goldwater-Nichols had made substantial improvements in joint operations. And to this day, the U.S. military 

continues to be the best prepared force to fight jointly. 

The total force concept of jointness is proven. It works, and it 

makes our military more ready and more capable. As we look to 

the future, it is important for both the Congress and the Department of Defense to ensure that our military can operate effectively 

in a joint environment. 

We must find ways to maximize organizational efficiencies, and 

we must ensure that we maintain our focus on core joint strengths, 

such as training, doctrine, manpower sourcing and simulation. 

I look forward today to hearing from our witnesses on how they 

will continue to maintain the strength of our total force and what 

steps are being taken to improve joint training requirements. 

I have expressed concerns about training requirements in past 

readiness hearings, so I am interested in understanding what steps 
4 

are being taken to ensure more consistency in training requirements across all the Services and how the Joint Staff would support Pacific Command in its efforts to address training in the Pacific as dictated in the Quadrennial Defense Review. 

So, again, Mr. Chairman and to the witnesses, I look forward to 

the testimony from our witnesses. 

Thank you. 

Mr. FORBES. Thank you for those remarks, Madeleine. 

As we discussed prior to the hearing, I ask unanimous consent 

that we dispense with the 5-minute rule for this hearing and depart from regular order so that members may ask questions during 

the course of the discussion. I think this will provide a roundtable 

type forum and will enhance the dialogue on these very important 

issues. 

Without objection, so ordered. 

Gentlemen, we appreciate you being here. I want to just take a 

moment and tell you that our format is a little bit different than 

some of the subcommittees. We have probably, I think, one of the 

most bipartisan committees in Congress. We work very well together, and so what we do is try to ask our questions in a little 

more logical framework than you might see in some other subcommittees. 

The other thing I want to do is tell you how much we appreciate 

you being here. 

General, you have got a lot of stars on your shoulder. They 

weren’t given to you; we know that you earned those. And we just 

respect that service, and we respect what you have done for our 

country and for you being here. 

Admiral, we appreciate your service. And I know that you are 

kind of new to the hearing circuit, and so we hope you have a good 

experience today and thank you for being here. 

Dr. Krepinevich, we thank you so much for your contribution to 

jointness. And I don’t do this very often, but I commend your book 

to anyone who wants to read it. It is just excellent, and I think it 

is a true eye-opener. 

The other thing I want to encourage you to do is, this is not a 

gotcha time or moment. If there is anything that you just left out 

that you want to come back in and do, take the time you need to 

do it. 

One of the witnesses has completed something and you want to 

extrapolate on that, please feel free to do it. If you rethink something afterwards and you just want to come back or you didn’t get 

all the time you need, let us know, and we want you to be able to 

do that. 

So thank you all for being here. 

And with that, General, we would love to have you start off. 

We are going to just, so you know for the record, we have taken 

all of your written remarks, and we make them a part of the 

record. Don’t feel like you have to regurgitate them to us, but if it 

feels more comfortable to do it, we are going to leave that up to 

you. And if you would take about 5 minutes or so each, and then 

we will go into our questions. 

General. 
5 

STATEMENT OF GEN RAY ODIERNO, USA, COMMANDER, U.S. 

JOINT FORCES COMMAND 

General ODIERNO. Mr. Chairman, thank you. 

Ms. Bordallo, other distinguished members of the committee, 

thank you so much. 

I think it is an important topic we are here to discuss today. Obviously, readiness today and in the future of our Joint Force is key 

to us being successful in the future. 

I would just like to go back to my time in Iraq where, from 2003, 

when I was a division commander, through my time as Multi-National Corps—Iraq Commander to Multi-National Force—Iraq to 

U.S. Forces—Iraq, I got to personally witness as a joint commander 

the growth that we had in our joint and multinational operations. 

Whether it be from intelligence collection, whether it be from targeting, whether it be from Joint Staff operations, it increased exponentially. 

And I believe that is what the Secretary of Defense was talking 

about when this has become more routine. From 2003 and 2011, 

our ability to establish and routinely conduct joint operations has 

become much more routine. 

I think we have witnessed that in Afghanistan and Iraq. We 

have witnessed that in Libya. We have witnessed that in the Pacific during the crisis in Japan, and we have witnessed it in Haiti 

and other places. So forming joint task forces, understanding the 

roles and capabilities of the Services, has significantly improved. 

That said, it is something that we must continue to look at, improve and have the processes in place so we can continue to modify 

and improve our Joint Force as we meet the many difficult challenges that we will face in the coming years. And I certainly recognize this as a former Joint Force commander. 

As I first got the Joint Forces Command, I had this in mind; 

when I originally looked at what Joint Forces Command was doing, 

what was it doing to support the combatant commanders, what was 

it doing to support the Services, what were the core functions that 

needed to remain, so we could, most importantly, not only sustain 

but improve our jointness in the future, and we identified some key 

core functions: One being, first and foremost, joint-enabled collective and individual training; second, the development of joint—continued development of joint concepts through lessons learned; third, 

the development of joint doctrine; and, finally, all of this underpinned by modeling, simulation and experimentation. 

And those are the core functions that will remain as we move 

forward and that will be the key for us in sustaining and continuing to improve our jointness. 

And, in fact, I believe, as we move forward, we are eliminating 

bureaucracy that was unnecessary and that I hope will streamline 

the process that will make us more responsive to the many complex 

challenges we have ahead. So I look forward to having a further 

discussion today about that. 

I appreciate your concerns, and I very much believe that this is 

an important conversation that we are having. So thank you very 

much, Mr. Chairman. 

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

Appendix on page 39. ] 
6 

Mr. FORBES. Thank you, General. 

Admiral, thank you for being here and the mike is all yours. 

STATEMENT OF VADM WILLIAM E. GORTNEY, USN, DIRECTOR, 

JOINT STAFF, JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF 

Admiral GORTNEY. Thank you, Chairman, Ms. Bordallo. 

Jointness is the philosophy that underpins the United States’ 

strategy and operational application of the military. And today’s 

senior military officers are products of Goldwater-Nichols reform, 

and most service members have never experienced operations in 

anything but the joint environment. 

In fact, our young officers, 0–4 and below and senior enlisted E– 

7 and below, it is all they know, as they raised their right hand 

10 years ago, volunteered to serve their Nation in time of war and 

fight in joint operations. 

As a director of the Joint Staff, I see the focus on jointness in 

our service members every single day, in the last 10 years, 6 of the 

last 10 years overseas at the operational and tactical level in one 

of those capacities working for the General here as his maritime 

commander. 

The chairman, by law and policy and intent, is charged with 

maintaining jointness. He does this now, and he will continue to 

do it after JFCOM is disestablished. In order to do so, we are establishing a three-star J7 director on the Joint Staff being specifically charged with Joint Force development. And the pillars of 

Joint Force development were very well explained by the General 

here. J7 partners today with JFCOM in these endeavors and will 

execute them tomorrow in a flatter, more efficient, more responsive 

organization. 

In reality, this is less about a COCOM [combatant command] 

going away and more about DOD [the Department of Defense] figuring out a better way to perform joint oversight and ensuring joint 

readiness, thereby providing a better value for the American taxpayer, and I look forward to taking your questions, sir. 

Mr. FORBES. Thank you, Admiral. 

Doctor. 

STATEMENT OF DR. ANDREW F. KREPINEVICH, PRESIDENT, 

CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND BUDGETARY ASSESSMENTS 

Dr. KREPINEVICH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, thank you, Congresswoman Bordallo. 

My testimony really addresses three questions, first, why was 

Joint Forces Command created in the first place? 

I happened to be on the ground floor of its creation. Back in 

1997, I was serving on the National Defense Panel. We were tasked 

to look out 15 or 20 years into the future to try and get a handle 

on what kind of security challenges we would confront, quite frankly, in the decade we are entering now. 

Our conclusion was that we were in for a period of disruptive 

change, that we would be facing new and very different kinds of 

security challenges. And as we did that, we looked back to the past 

to say, well, how did military organizations that are confronted 

with disruptive change, how do they successfully navigate that? 
7 

And we found in many instances, it was through a period of deep 

thinking where they put some of their best thinkers to work on 

what General Odierno said is concept development, you know, what 

is a way to deal well this new problem, and then second, war 

games, more recently simulations, and then ultimately field exercises to test out those ideas, so that we were sure that we were 

buying, as sure as we could be, the right kind of equipment, developing the right kind of capabilities and so on. 

Our idea was that these operations, as you have said, Mr. Chairman, quoting President Eisenhower, were going to be inherently 

joint, so the Services individually could not come up with the answers or the solutions to these problems. 

And then, finally, the idea was there needed to be a senior officer 

that, in my terminology, spoke for the COCOM after next, the commander that would be in the field 5 to 8 to 10 years into the future, 

because nobody really speaks for that person right now. We don’t 

know who he is; he doesn’t know who he is. So somebody has got 

to be there when we are setting the requirements for capabilities 

that, quite frankly, aren’t going to be in place today but will only 

be in place over time when that commander has to take the responsibility for his or her particular command. 

I think that concern has been validated over time: 1997, we had 

some perception of what might be emerging. Now I think it is much 

clearer. We have the Chinese and the Iranians developing what we 

call anti-access/area denial capabilities that are designed to push 

us out of the western Pacific and the Persian Gulf. 

We have the diffusion of guided weaponry to the point where 

there are concerns that even nonstate entities, like Hezbollah, will 

get these weapons and create a new form of modern insurgency or 

irregular warfare; a situation where if Iran gets nuclear weapons, 

you will have an inherently unstable nuclear balance in the Middle 

East between Iran and Israel; concerns about Pakistan, who has 

four reactors, either in production or underway, to produce plutonium, to make far more nuclear weapons than they can absorb locally; the issue of prospective loss of assured access to space and 

cyber space. We have already seen the Chinese take out satellites 

at low-Earth orbit, and yet that is where we continue to put satellites into for the most part, and then the major issue of cyber 

space. 

You know, these are all presenting us with strategic problems or 

military problems that we need answers to, that the Defense Department and the President need answers to, to decide if, in fact, 

these problems are soluble; if so, what kinds of capabilities and 

doctrine we are going to need; or do we need to pursue an alternative strategy with all its implications for forces, force structure, 

doctrine and equipment? 

Now, my second question is, how well does Joint Forces Command accomplish this mission of representing the COCOM after 

next of looking into the future and helping us position ourselves to 

anticipate what is coming as opposed to react to it. My conclusion 

is, not particularly well. 

There have been a number of reasons for this. It hasn’t been for 

a lack of hard-working people. It hasn’t been for a lack of talented 

people. 
8 

I think, certainly, one thing that has occurred is the consequences of two wars and the enormous demand signal that that 

has placed on the command, and the obvious and logical conclusion 

that you have got to support the war we have got but, again, the 

need to balance that with preparing for the future. 

Second, a resistance by the military Services. Prospectively, 

when you engage in this process of discovery and identification of 

new ways of conducting operations, ultimately you are going to create winners and losers, winners and losers among and within the 

Services, winners and losers among programs. And the Services 

jealously guard their program of record and their responsibility for 

setting requirements. 

Third, I think, is the lack of top cover. I don’t think it was ever 

particularly well understood, either by a series of Defense Secretaries or in some cases even the Joint Forces Command commander, as to what exactly this all meant in terms of joint concept 

development and experimentation, and that is based on my conversations with a number of them. 

Then there was the fact that the commander of Joint Forces 

Command was never really involved in setting requirements, no 

membership on the Joint Requirements Oversight Council, no 

membership on the Defense Acquisition Board. 

Then there was the fact that even though typically these kinds 

of major changes in doctrine force structure take the better part of 

a decade, the commander of Joint Forces Command typically had 

a very short tenure, 2 years, 3 years, when, in fact, if the job was 

being done well, he probably needed two concurrent 3-year command tours. 

And, finally, the tendency in some cases to outsource thinking, 

the civilian support in the J9 shop almost became legendary, not 

only down there but up here. Again, a lot of good people, but history indicates that in concept development, you really need military 

professionals who are really expert in terms of strategy, development of operational concepts, and I don’t think we ever got to that 

point with respect to J9. 

Third, is this mission still important? I would argue it is more 

important now than ever. I don’t oppose the disestablishment of 

Joint Forces Command, but I definitely feel as though this mission 

cannot afford to be an orphan any longer, that it has got to be 

given serious consideration. Otherwise, I think we are going to be 

continuously surprised over the next 10 years of what our rivals 

and adversaries are doing to us rather than being well prepared for 

it, anticipating it and being in a position to deter aggression or coercion or respond effectively if that fails. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Krepinevich can be found in the 

Appendix on page 48. ] 

Mr. FORBES. Thank you, Doctor. I am going to defer my questions until the end because I want to make sure our members get 

to ask all of theirs. 

And so I am going to turn now to my colleague, the ranking 

member, Ms. Bordallo. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 
9 

Admiral, I have a question for you with regard to joint training. 

I understand that the Services have made significant gains in developing new training opportunities using modeling and simulation 

tools. Further, I know these advances in training techniques have 

contributed to our efforts to help train our coalition partners 

around the world. 

What is the next step for the Services to evolve further and share 

these cutting-edge training capabilities with each other in today’s 

distributed environment? And the second part of the question is, 

how will the Joint Staff encourage the combatant commands and 

Services to fully utilize new technologies to meet current future 

training requirements? 

Admiral GORTNEY. Ma’am, I think the answer to your first question is that the Services are all finding that modeling and simulation are one of the best training values for the dollar spent. You 

can get, in particular areas, the best quality training that you can 

through a simulation. It does not fully replace live fire, say live fire 

training, large exercise, but any time that you can work the simulation piece in there at the right level for the right cost, it is a 

very good return on investment. 

And on the Joint Staff, we are going to continue to do that. Modeling and simulation is one thing that is one of the tasks that is 

not going away. With JFCOM’s disestablishment, it will be using 

the same facility, but it will be reporting to the three-star on the 

J7. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you, Admiral. 

General. 

General ODIERNO. Ma’am, could I add something to that, please? 

Ms. BORDALLO. Yes. General. 

General ODIERNO. What I would like to—your points are very 

good. And, in fact, we just finished the most complex modeling simulation exercise that we have done where we incorporated an exercise preparing units from Afghanistan. We included a German division out of Europe, a Marine division out of Camp Lejeune and an 

Army division out of Fort Hood, Texas, all virtually who are able 

to conduct an exercise by preparing themselves to go to Afghanistan. It was run by Joint Forces Command. It was completely joint 

and multinational in every way. 

Our capability to do that type of exercise is going to remain, in 

total, in Suffolk, Virginia, in the Joint War Fighting Center. The 

only difference now is it will report directly to the Joint Staff J7. 

We think that is key and then the modeling and concept and experimentation fees will be there together for the first time, instead 

of separate. And being together, we hope that that will facilitate 

more coordination to look at future challenges that we will have. 

That is the concept that we have put together for this. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you, General. 

I have a question for you, General or Admiral. Can either of you 

comment on the success of the implementation of the new Joint Officer Management Program and the joint qualification system? Has 

the opportunities to gain joint credit through experience yielded a 

greater number of joint qualified officers, and are there any hiccups 

to this new process or unintended second- or third-order effects 

through the new requirements for military officers to endeavor to 
10 

be fully joint qualified? Are there any legislative changes necessary 

to further refine the process for the Active Guard or Reserve members? 

General ODIERNO. I would say that the operational experience 

piece of getting joint experience has been fundamentally important, 

especially over these last 10 years, since many of our joint jobs 

have been, in fact, in operational deployed areas. And that has 

helped us significantly getting credit for individuals who are actually performing on the ground, joint tasked together. So I think 

that has gone well. 

We still have some education that has to be done internal to all 

the Services to make sure the officers understand that they get the 

appropriate credit for what they are doing, and we are still working 

our way through that. 

Secondly, I would just say, is I think we just went over the last 

hurdle, because our operational trainer specifically in Joint Forces 

Command—which I would consider probably the most joint job we 

have—because they are responsible for training the Joint Force 

was, by legislation, not included to be considered inherently joint. 

We have now corrected that, and we are on our way to correcting 

that, so I think that is a very positive step forward. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Admiral. 

Admiral GORTNEY. Yes, ma’am. 

And that program is actually run through the Joint Staff today, 

and we have, since its inception, over 2,400 officers have been able 

to be joint qualified as a result of that to include the active and 

the Reserve. Before, the Reserve were not able to become joint 

qualified. 

We see no hurdles, other than maybe an IT, IT technology on 

database management on how to do that and tracking. We have 

worked our way through that. We think it is a terrific program, 

and we want to expand it as much as we possibly can. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Good. Thank you. 

Mr. Chairman, I yield back, but I do have a couple of other questions later on. 

Mr. FORBES. We will come back to you after everybody else, Ms. 

Bordallo, if that is okay. 

The gentleman from Nevada, Mr. Heck, is now recognized for 5 

minutes. 

Dr. HECK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you, gentlemen, for being here today and for your 

service. 

General, my time in Iraq happened to be during the 7 months 

that you were on hiatus in 2008, so we didn’t cross paths, but I can 

attest to the jointness of the operation and am proud and honored, 

as an Army guy, to wear the First MEF [Marine Expeditionary 

Force] patch as my right sleeve patch and having spent some time 

in your neck of the woods when I was at Joint Forces Staff College 

undergoing my advanced joint professional military education. 

I would like first to follow up on the JQO [Joint Qualified Officer] issue raised by the ranking member. I can tell you that while 

there are more opportunities for reservists to get joint qualified, it 

is a very difficult process because of the number of billets that are 

on the JTMD [Joint Table of Manning and Distribution] and the 
11 

JMD [Joint Manning Document]. And I will just say that even 

though through the self-nominative process, you are able to get the 

education and get some points for exercises and other education, it 

is extremely difficult for reservists. And I would hope that we 

would open up other avenues for those in the Guard and the Reserve to get their JQO. 

Can you tell me what the plan is for the Joint Forces unmanned 

vehicle management systems, specifically the unmanned aircraft 

systems of excellence—the Center of Excellence, out of Creech? 

General ODIERNO. Congressman, initially, the joint unmanned 

aerial system task force is going to be sunsetting. The plan was for 

it to sunset in the end of 2012. We have moved that forward to the 

end of 2011, so the organization itself will sunset. 

But what will happen is the Joint Staff under the J–8 is going 

to create individuals there to continue to have oversight of the 

Service programs that continue on for not only the aerial but all 

of unmanned systems as we move forward. We think it is time to 

do that. We think we have the Services focused in the right areas 

on this and with the J–8 oversight, we think that is appropriate 

for us to continue to monitor as we move forward. 

Dr. HECK. So it will be a J–8 function for the Joint Staff. Any 

idea on where that—is that going to be another center of excellence 

or something that is going to be stood up the somewhere? 

General ODIERNO. It is going to be an 8- to 10-man cell stood up 

on the Joint Staff in the J–8 with the sole purpose of monitoring 

and overseeing the Services in conducting both unmanned aerial 

and other unmanned systems. 

Dr. HECK. So it is being pushed back out to the Services to do 

the work with an oversight cell. 

General ODIERNO. That is right. 

Dr. HECK. Thank you. 

I yield back, Mr. Chair. 

Mr. FORBES. Thank you, Joe. 

The gentleman from North Carolina, Mr. Kissell, is recognized 

for 5 minutes. 

Mr. KISSELL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you to our witnesses. 

I have to say, General Odierno, it is good to see you here in 

Washington. The last time I saw you was in Baghdad. 

One of the things, when I was spending many years in business, 

it seemed like there were times when we were successful at things 

and things were going well; then someone higher up decided, well, 

you can do without this, you can do without that. 

Also, the decision has been made, and I do have great concerns 

about this jointness. I can remember, I believe it was the invasion 

of Grenada, we had a famous story about somebody having to call 

somebody at Washington to speak to somebody at the Pentagon to 

call somebody else because there was no way to coordinate. 

We had a readiness hearing not long ago, and we had members 

from the four branches of service in. And I asked them, what is the 

biggest deficiency that they face, and three of the four branches 

said time, time for training. 

If that is the issue, where are we going to find time, not only to 

train in their particular expertise of their Service, but also time for 
12 

the joint aspect of what we need to do? And will the lack of this 

position that will coordinate, how is that going to affect us? 

General or Admiral, if you all could give me some thoughts, I 

would appreciate it. 

General ODIERNO. Sure. First, on the training side, I would just 

say what is happening now among all the Services is they are 

training for the mission at hand. 

For example, in the Army, units getting ready to deploy to Iraq 

and Afghanistan, they are training in a joint concept to prepare 

themselves to operate on the specific contingency that they are able 

to do, and the other Services are doing the same. 

So the concern is, they don’t have the time to train across the 

broad spectrum of missions that could come up under contingencies, and that is the concern with time. 

So what we have done is, with the time we have, we develop 

joint exercises, both at the highest level of command, whether it be 

the JTF [Joint Task Force] itself, division, a brigade, a group, a 

wing, a squadron, and we continue to get them incorporated into 

the joint training as well as, at the lowest levels, preparing them 

for the environment that they are going to operate in a joint multinational environment. That is occurring. 

What is lacking is if they have to go do something else, and that 

is what they are not having the time to do, and that is the concern. 

Mr. KISSELL. Dr. Krepinevich, we have kind of left you out of the 

conversation here, so I want to get you back involved. Am I correct 

in opening remarks that you maybe don’t agree that this is a decision that we should be making in closing down the center? 

Dr. KREPINEVICH. As I said, I don’t disagree with the decision to 

shut down Joint Forces Command. My primary concern is that the 

original mission for which it was established was never really accomplished by the command. 

I am hoping that in the wake of its disestablishment, this mission will find a true home and true support. 

If you look at Joint Forces Command and especially in terms of 

the mission of Joint Force trainer, Joint Force provider, those were 

missions initially assigned to Atlantic Command in 1993. Now, 

when Joint Forces Command was created in 1999, the futures mission was with the add-on. That was the purpose for disestablishing 

Atlantic Command. But, again, I am sorry to say that despite the 

efforts of many good people, we still haven’t gotten traction on preparing for what some people call the next big thing. 

General ODIERNO. If I could just add to that, I don’t disagree 

with what Dr. Krepinevich is saying. In fact, as we went through 

this review, we found that there were some core functions that I 

believe were not being done to the best of our abilities. So it is not 

only a disestablishment of the four-star headquarters, but it is actually a reorganization of how we want to better impact our Joint 

Force, and we are reorganizing ourselves, in my mind, so we gain 

better synchronization and integration. 

And we are doing it by putting, building a center which will remain in Norfolk, which has been a large investment put in there 

for modeling, simulation, experimentation, for us to look to the future, as well as today, and better synchronize what we are doing 
13 

between concept development doctrine and our training as we look 

ahead, so that is the intent. 

So it is not going away. It is the four-star piece of it and the fourstar proponent that is going away, but many of the key pieces will 

remain and be reorganized to address some of the problems, actually, that Dr. Krepinevich has brought up in his testimony. 

Now, we will have to continue to review this over time to ensure 

that we are, in fact, doing the things we think we should be doing, 

and that will be something we have to pay attention to. And it will 

be up to the chairman, vice-chairman and the J7 to do those reviews as we move forward. 

Mr. KISSELL. Thank you, sir. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. FORBES. Thank you, Mr. Kissell. 

The gentleman from New York, Mr. Gibson, is recognized for 5 

minutes. 

Mr. GIBSON. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. 

And I appreciate the distinguished panel being here today. Discussion has been productive. 

The first one is just a process question. With the disestablishment of JFCOM, will the remaining command have any role in the 

global force management process? 

General ODIERNO. What will happen is the expertise that we 

have built in Norfolk to do global force management will remain. 

It will be become part of the J–3 of the Joint Staff. And as they 

do global force management, they will then do that, and the J–3 

will then bring it to the Secretary of Defense, who actually has the 

authority to make the decisions on Global Force Management 

through advisement by the chairman, and that will continue. 

Mr. GIBSON. Okay, very well. And then just to really reinforce 

some of the comments made earlier, I think what is clear with operations in Iraq and Afghanistan that at the individual leader and 

collective level across the force, there is great confidence, joint confidence in the formations, particularly in counterinsurgency operations. 

But I would like to take this point that General Odierno made 

moments ago to another level about some of the risk we are carrying about full spectrum operations. In my last assignment, I led 

the Army’s component of the Global Response Force, and it was my 

assessment that given the ongoing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, we were accepting a great deal of risk in our Global Response 

Force, and that was understandable, given the decision that higher 

level commanders had to make. 

But going forward, particularly when you look at the budget and 

what is forecasted in terms of troop levels and assumptions with 

regard to Afghanistan, when we are going to complete our combat 

task there, how is that going to impact Joint Forces Command and 

the Joint Staff as they look to try to reduce the risk in terms of 

our joint readiness? 

I would point to, not just the joint forceable entry exercises that 

we did, but also the deployment that we did to Haiti, certainly Herculean effort done by the GRF [Global Response Force], but we 

trickled in. We really didn’t have enough sorties to get the force on 
14 

the ground fast enough, and that was some trade-offs based on 

other theaters. 

But as we look at full spectrum, how are we, from the training 

perspective, going to manage that risk, and largely we are probably 

talking about staff tasks here, so we are talking about simulations? 

And how we are going to ensure we have the cadence, the reputation and cadence to build that competency? And then from the 

management of the readiness side, how are we going to track that 

and ensure that we are communicating the risk to the President 

and to the Secretary of Defense? 

General ODIERNO. I think that, first off, we do that on a quite 

regular basis, understanding where our shortfalls are, what we can 

and can’t do. And I think the chairman takes a lot of time in making sure that both the Secretary of Defense and the President understands what those risks are. 

You know, we don’t know the unknown. I mean, I think the 

thought process is with us finishing our commitment in Iraq here 

at the end of the year, that that will allow us to start to do some 

of the things we have not been able to do. But I hesitate to say that 

because the unknown is the unknown, and we never know what 

other commitments could come up. 

But I think the thought process across the force is that we have 

to start folks in on other areas, and Dr. Krepinevich mentioned 

China, and that is an important one and what our role will be 

there and how we prepare ourselves. 

He also mentioned anti-access. That is something that we are 

really starting to take a hard look now and how we are going to 

do that. So those are the kinds of things we absolutely have to stay 

focused on and prepare our forces so that they are prepared to respond. But, again, time is an issue and the amount of our commitment of our forces and how long that remains will always be an 

issue and whether we are able to meet these other demands that 

you have mentioned. 

Dr. KREPINEVICH. I would also like to add, sir, that not 100 percent of the force is focused on Iraq and Afghanistan; not 100 percent of the force owns the same amount of risk and being able to 

fight through the full spectrum of conflict. So you will see a large 

majority of your Navy and your Air Force that are focused on the 

high-end war, while we are accepting risk and because of the capacity and the near-term fight for the Army and the Marine Corps. 

And as we draw down, you are going to see that shift again because the Service chiefs clearly recognize that need to be able to 

full—full spectrum ops. 

Mr. GIBSON. Thank you. And as we manage this risk and as we 

develop competency, I also envision this is going to help our diplomats and, really, the Administration as they work to advance our 

interests. When we can demonstrate a capability to deploy Joint 

Forces, followed by early entry forces, followed by campaign forces 

and sustainment forces, even in an exercise, I think that will be 

more meaningful when we deal with situations, perhaps in Iran, 

Korea, China. 

As you know, I mean, really deterrence is about capability and 

will. If you have got will and no capability, you don’t have deterrence. And vice versa, if you have got capability and no will. 
15 

So I see this piece of this, restoring the joint readiness to a more 

acceptable level of risk, is actually going to help our country manage our overall risk and advance our interest in the out-years. 

Thanks, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. FORBES. Doctor, did you have a response that you wanted to 

make to that or did I—— 

Dr. KREPINEVICH. Yes, just a brief one. 

I think the issue here is the responsibility to manage near-term 

and long-term risk. What you are trying to do is mitigate or minimize the overall risks in your situation. 

And so in terms of, as General Odierno said, we have got a lot 

of stress on the force right now. Somebody has to speak up and say, 

well, we are going to have even more stress on the force down the 

road if we don’t do certain things now to prepare. 

And so you mentioned a particular exercise about forcible entry. 

Well, you know, a big part of the issue of anti-access/aerial denial 

is, you know, missile forces holding at-risk assets to forward bases, 

ships being vulnerable in the littoral. 

I will just give you a quick example. There was one large exercise 

that Joint Forces Command did conduct in 2002. It was called Millennium Challenge 2002. And in that exercise, the enemy was a 

country similar to Iran. 

And we found that, number one, operating our fleet in the Persian Gulf was a high-risk operation. A significant part of the fleet 

was either damaged or destroyed. 

Number two, at the time the Army had a concept where it said 

we need to deploy a brigade forward in 96 hours, well, we got the 

brigade forward, but then how do you sustain it forward? That was 

an issue that developed. 

Third was the enemy in this case decided to operate like the Serbians and not turn on their radars like they didn’t do in 1999, so 

we were restricted to operating with our stealth aircraft. And the 

solution to that was to tell these guys to turn their radars back on. 

So there were a number of lessons that came out of that, that 

said, look, toward the end of even the 2000-aughts, if you are 

thinking about projecting power in the Persian Gulf, even against 

a minor adversary, given the geography, you are going to confront 

a number of different problems. 

And, in my estimation, that exercise was a success because, you 

know, it identified areas where we were doing well and areas 

where we needed to think about in terms of how we need to operate in the future. 

Unfortunately, those lessons, I think, were left on the cutting 

room floor. I am not quite sure why, but you can begin to see 

now—I mean, Congresswoman Bordallo, you know, Guam, Andersen, we are piling stuff into Guam. You know, somebody said it is 

going to flip over one of these days, there is so much military capability—I know, I know. 

But the point is, this isn’t lost on the Chinese. And if you look 

at the ballistic missiles they are building, the greater and greater 

percentage of them are longer and longer range. 

I mean, Guam and Andersen have a gigantic crosshairs on them 

right now. Well, what are we going to do about that? Are we just 

going to pile targets into Andersen so that the Chinese can intimi-
16 

date us when they conduct, you know, some kind of military cooperation or coercion in the western Pacific? 

We have got ships in the fleet that, you know, may be able to 

operate in the western Pacific, but you know, they have fairly shallow magazines. Well, we can’t re-arm them at sea. And if they have 

got to come back to Guam for re-arming, then they are coming 

right into the bull’s eye. 

Okay, so what is the solution here? You know, back in the early 

1990s, you know, studies in the office of the Secretary of Defense 

identified this as a problem. I have quotes from General Fogleman 

and Admiral Johnson, the Service chiefs of the Air Force and the 

Navy, in the mid-1990s saying this is a problem. 

And here we are 2011, and the Air Force and the Navy are still 

trying to come up with an air-sea battle concept independent of 

what Joint Forces Command has done to try and begin to focus on 

this problem. You know, we are doing a very poor job of anticipating. And I agree with General Odierno; there are certain things 

you just can’t know, and you are always going to be surprised to 

some extent. But you shouldn’t be surprised by things like this. 

Mr. GIBSON. Mr. Chairman, if I could just wrap up from that, I 

would just like to make one other comment, please. 

Mr. FORBES. Yes, sir. 

Mr. GIBSON. Thanks very much. 

Precisely the point I am hoping to make here in this hearing is 

that as we complete operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and as we 

look beyond COIN [counterinsurgency] being really our major 

focus, that we need to be brutally honest with ourselves in terms 

of our capability right now to conduct joint forceable entry, lead to 

early arriving forces, to campaign forces, to sustaining those forces, 

ultimately to bring victory in what would be probably a low-probability but very high-risk scenario right now. And this has everything to do with connectivity between how we communicate and 

how our diplomatic efforts go forward. 

I want to be clear: In a perfect world, we will never have to do 

that. But I think to the extent that we show a capability, if we 

show a very competent capability to do that, I think that is going 

to help our country in the out-years. 

Thanks. 

Mr. FORBES. Thank you, Mr. Gibson. 

The gentleman from Arkansas, Mr. Griffin, is recognized for 5 

minutes. 

Mr. GRIFFIN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

General, I have been in the Reserve for Army Reserve for about 

15 years, and I was wondering if you would speak to the Reserve 

Component and Guard and how important, if at all, joint training 

is in that context. 

I know that for me personally, joint is something you learn about 

when you get deployed to theater, and I am sure, I know there 

have been attempts to address that and sort of change that. But 

we all know that there are limited resources. There is limited time 

for reservists, particularly the Guard. 

And I wonder if you would just comment on that and what you 

all are doing to address that in that context? 

General ODIERNO. There are a couple of things that we do. 
17 

First off, the way we do operations today is the Guard and the 

Reserves play a critical role, whether it be Iraq, Afghanistan, 

Japan, even some of the standing Joint Task Force we have prepared for response to a natural—a problem inside of the United 

States. 

So we now have Joint Standing Task Forces that are made up 

of National Guard and Reserve component. So they are critical to 

that. They participate in all of the Joint Staffs and combined staffs 

that we have established for all of the exercises we do, I mean, all 

of the operational missions that we are doing, and they also play 

a role in all of the exercises that we do. 

We also have in our Joint Warfighting Center, we have reservists 

and National Guard there who help us to train and sustain this, 

and that will remain. We have also developed both individual and 

collective training online that will remain as well in the deputy director J7 that will have access to the whole force to include our 

Joint Force. 

So we have the pieces there, it is still about getting individuals, 

leaders and others to take advantage of this. It is also about making sure we don’t forget about the Reserve component and Guard 

as we move forward. And I think we have worked very hard at this 

as we have gone forward in many of the operations and training 

environments that we have established. 

Mr. GRIFFIN. Are a lot of these individuals, Guard and Reserve 

folks, are they AGR [Active Guard Reserve]? Are they full-time 

AGR? 

General ODIERNO. It is a combination of all. 

Mr. GRIFFIN. TPU [Troop Program Unit] and others. 

General ODIERNO. It is a combination. Some are full time, but we 

also have many AGR and National Guard who come in on a periodic basis. 

Mr. GRIFFIN. I am less concerned about you plugging people into 

your structure, because that is going to be a limited percentage of 

the Guard and Reserve force. 

What I am more concerned about is just culturally incorporating 

the Guard and Reserve into what is going on with the Active Duty. 

I know that there are joint exercises occasionally, but in my real 

world experience, and I am still in a TPU—I am in the process of 

getting out of it because I have to—but in my experience, jointness 

is something that a lot of reservists and Guard members on a 

weekend basis just don’t have any dealings with. 

General ODIERNO. I will say that I have also, we have had some 

problems with National Guard and Reserve Component general officers who have not had the opportunity to serve in joint assignments. And we are trying to address that now and trying to identify them, recognize what they are doing and how we can better incorporate them. So I will tell you it is not a full solution that we 

have developed. 

Mr. GRIFFIN. It is a challenge. 

General ODIERNO. It is a challenge. 

And it is also about making sure that we have the leadership of 

the National Guard, which they do, and Reserve Component of all 

the Services understanding the importance of ensuring they do get 
18 

involved in the joint culture, because it is something that we all 

are totally involved with. 

We don’t do many large-scale exercises anymore that are not 

joint. We do very few Service-only exercises. 

And so it is important that we integrate that because the Guard 

and the Reserves are going to be such an important part of our 

operational capability as we move forward. 

Mr. GRIFFIN. As we move away from the strategic concept. 

General ODIERNO. That is right. 

Mr. GRIFFIN. Admiral, do you have anything to add in my 21 seconds I have left? 

Admiral GORTNEY. Yes, sir. One of our key take-aways, when it 

comes to employing the Guard and Reserve, we don’t want to go 

back to where we were 10 years ago. And as we are looking to the 

future, it is, how are we going to employ the Guard and Reserve? 

How can we take those units? How can we train them and employ 

them, whether they are in exercises, some rotational capacity. And 

in order to do that, there has got to be training on the front end 

of that, and that is where we are going to have to focus that joint 

training. 

Mr. GRIFFIN. Thank you, all. I appreciate it. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. FORBES. Thank you, Mr. Griffin. 

We appreciate all three of you being here today. I have got just 

a couple of questions. We will come back, Madeleine, if that is 

okay. 

One of the frustrating points that we have as Members of Congress, and I don’t expect you to comment on this, is that we feel 

over and over again today, from the Department, that we are not 

getting true risk assessments, true strategic analysis, because it is 

being so budget driven, that it is more budget driven than it is by 

risk assessment. 

That may be true. It may be false. But it is not just us. The independent panel that was as partisan as you can get—no one thought 

they would reach consensus—they reached a consensus that that is 

what they thought, that the QDR even was now being budget driven, as opposed to being driven by risk assessments. 

We have to do the best we can to pull our way through that. And 

we get wonderful men like you who come over to testify to us, but 

we know when you walk through those doors, your hands aren’t 

physically tied behind you, but your testimony is, because you have 

to salute and you have to take what is given to you. 

And I don’t say that critically; I am just saying we understand 

that. We don’t expect you to do different. 

But our job here is to try to filter through that the best we can 

and get the answers we need because, in the final analysis, the job 

that Ms. Bordallo and I have is to make sure, when we have a fight 

anywhere in the world, we don’t point fingers but that our men and 

women are ready for that fight. 

Doctor, you talked about Millennium Challenge, but you didn’t 

really get the clear picture, I don’t think, of why we left some of 

those concepts on the floor. 
19 

You know, you pointed out to me in conversations before, three 

examples, Admiral Yarnell and I think his war game, and the Panzer situation in Germany. 

And we have a difficult situation, I think, some time, because we 

love to reinforce what we have done as opposed to learn the lessons 

to predict where we are coming. And I am going to ask you if you 

can just to elaborate a little bit on your thought and any potential 

concerns you have about our inability to continue to look at the experimentation and what we need to be learning from lessons 

learned and some of the institutional concerns that prohibit us 

from learning those lessons. 

Dr. KREPINEVICH. Well, specifically, in terms of Joint Forces 

Command, again, one of the motivating factors behind its creation 

was to have someone, four-star commander with sufficient clout, so 

that the results of these exercises and experiments would get a 

hearing in terms of establishing requirements, that there would be 

an interest on the part of the senior defense leadership back in the 

Pentagon on the results and on, you know, what the consequences 

were and how they might be applied to the defense program and 

forces and such. 

There was discussion at the time about giving MFP [major force 

program] authority to Joint Forces Command. For some reason, 

several Joint Forces Command commanders rejected that, but 

again, that would have given them the opportunity, when you are 

looking at some of these emerging challenges, to say that if we 

could prototype this capability, would it make a big difference or 

wouldn’t it? And again, we see prototyping being an important factor in the past in militaries getting a sense of what they need to 

be able to do next. 

The fact that the commander of Joint Forces Command didn’t 

have a seat on the JROC [Joint Requirements Oversight Council], 

didn’t have a seat on the Defense Acquisition Board, again, really 

no voice in terms of making recommendations that they could really, perhaps, stick in terms of requirements and, you know, program 

choices and so on. 

The fact that there was turnover, you know, the commanders 

typically lasted 2 or 3 years. My sense was that if you got somebody who is really capable, two 3-year tours followed by a third 

tour as Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, because when you are 

talking about changes in doctrine, you are talking about new kinds 

of capabilities and systems. It is not a 2-year or 3-year problem you 

have to solve, it is an 8- or a 9- or a 10-year problem. 

Dr. KREPINEVICH. So I think those are some of the things. And 

then again, the Services, they, according to Title 10, they are responsible for organizing, training, and equipping the force. And 

they guard that prerogative jealously. You know, that is their responsibility. They feel like they have the level of expertise inherent 

in their organization to be able to make the best decisions about 

ground forces, Air Forces, Naval forces, and so on. And I think they 

are reluctant to, quite frankly, put a lot of trust in one command 

that will not only see things the way they do but see things in the 

right way. You know, why is your view better than mine? 

So there are a number of reasons I think, you know, why there 

is difficulty in getting this done. And I also mentioned in the testi-
20 

mony that oftentimes field exercises can be a big help because they 

can show you what is possible. I mentioned Admiral Pratt after 

Fleet Problem IX, you know, moving his flag from a battleship to 

a carrier because he was so impressed by what a carrier could do. 

General Halder, after the ’37 field exercises in Germany, just was 

amazed at, not the theory, but actually what he could see happening and the reality of that. And it is not just the senior leaders. 

It is officers at a number of different levels that generate a momentum for this kind of change where it wouldn’t exist. It is hard to 

get people excited about a war game or a simulation. It is much 

easier to get people excited when they can actually see it happening in reality. 

So I think that is another particular issue when you are thinking 

about this particular role for Joint Forces Command. General 

Odierno said, you know, obviously, we haven’t seen anything like 

Millennium Challenge since Millennium Challenge. Understandably, you have wars on several fronts, tightening budgets. But at 

the same time, I think if you look at the American military’s history and experience, in the 1930s, we were doing these things with 

the fleet problem and so on; we were in the middle of a depression 

when we did those things. The United States Army in the late 

1950s and early 1960s, at the height of the Cold War, stood down 

an entire division to develop the air mobile/air assault concept. In 

the early 1970s, they did it with the TRICAP [triple capability] Division. In 1980s, they did it with the High Technology Test Bed Division. So they were willing to take risks in the short term in order 

to minimize risks in the long term. I think that approach is important. 

And the final thing I will say is we don’t seem to do strategy very 

well. I think there was kind of an allusion to that in the critique 

of the QDR [Quadrennial Defense Review]. If you don’t do strategy, 

if you don’t take it seriously, and strategy involves looking down 

the road as well as what you have got in front of you today, then 

everything that comes up seems to be priority number one, because 

you really haven’t done that risk analysis to where you are balancing in the near-term and the long-term risk. I would say it is 

not just a military problem. My understanding is it is quite characteristic not only of this Administration but the previous Administration. 

Mr. FORBES. Or Administrations. Let me read you a quote from 

some military papers. It says this: The building of joint operations 

systems, jointness, is the focal point of modernization and preparations for military struggle. Do either of the three of you agree with 

that statement or disagree with that statement? 

If you need me to, let me read it again: The building of operations systems is the focal point of modernization and preparations 

for military struggle. 

Dr. KREPINEVICH. I will take the first crack at it, I guess. I think 

what that quote says to me is there are some major strategic 

choices out there, you know, getting back to the point of strategy. 

Anti-access/area denial. Are we going to counterbalance China in 

the Western Pacific or aren’t we? What is it going to take do it? 

Is that possible technologically? Is it possible fiscally for us to do 

that? Is it possible if we get some help from our allies? What is it 
21 

going to take? Or if we can’t do it, then that is something the commander in chief needs to know so he can adapt our overall grand 

strategy to take that into account. 

The diffusion of guided weapons into the hands of irregular 

forces, that is coming. You know, what will a third Lebanon war 

look like if Hezbollah has out of its 4,000 projectiles that it might 

fire into Israel as it did in the last war maybe 1,000 that are guided? Space: Are we going to continue to pack stuff into low Earth 

orbit, or are we going to emphasize more mission-type orders, commanders’ intent, terrestrial-based alternative systems? We don’t 

know. But we know we can’t invest the same dollar twice. 

And so there are a number of strategic choices that are in front 

of us. And the importance of what Joint Forces Command in this 

area was designed to do was to help us get some of those answers, 

because you know, only they could bring together a Joint Force; 

only they could ideally do an impartial analysis and provide good 

input into decisionmakers who are making decisions about strategy 

and programs and budgets. 

Mr. FORBES. Admiral, what is your take on that phrase? 

Admiral GORTNEY. I have a little bit more water in my glass. I 

don’t disagree with any of the challenges, and I agree with almost 

all of the challenges that the doctor brought out. 

But at the end of the day, I think we are doing better than most 

people think we do. And I think we are doing as well as our predecessors did, given the challenges and constraints and restraints 

that they were confronted with. 

When it comes to joint training, after 10 years of combat, everybody has found out pretty closely that there is no team sport like 

combat. And the Joint Force, no Service can go alone; no platoon, 

no ship, no squadron can do it alone. It is the synergy of the Joint 

Force bringing tasks to bear to create the effect that we want to 

effect on the battlefield. And I think we are doing pretty good work 

with that. And it is because our predecessors gave us that capability, and our leaders had the vision of Goldwater-Nichols to force 

us to do it, because the Services wouldn’t have done it on their 

own, clearly. 

So what are some of the challenges, though, of that weapons system? 

Mr. FORBES. And Admiral, I am going to let you come back to 

that. Could we focus just on this statement, if you would? Because 

this statement basically is saying that jointness is a focal point of 

modernization and preparations for military struggle. And I want 

you to say all you want to say. I am going to give you plenty of 

time to do that. But do you agree with that statement or disagree 

with that statement? 

Admiral GORTNEY. No, sir, I agree with it. And that is how I 

opened it up. Jointness is the philosophy that underpins the United 

States strategic and operational applications of the military. That 

is how I opened up my—— 

Mr. FORBES. I appreciate that. 

And General. 

General ODIERNO. I do agree with it. 

Mr. FORBES. Okay. 
22 

And the reason that I asked that—it is not a trick question—is 

that statement is coming from the most recent PLA [People’s Liberation Army] defense white paper that they put out. So they recognize that. 

Here is the confusion that I have, not from any of the three of 

you. But when the Secretary announced the closure of Joint Forces 

Command, he didn’t do it in a venue of saying we want to do 

jointness and keep it as a priority. He did it in a venue of saying 

we have got to make significant cuts to the military, $100 billion 

of cuts basically at the time. And here is one of the big cuts that 

we are going to do because we are going to save money. 

Most of us realize, when you start saying you are going to do 

something better and you are going to save money, oftentimes that 

comes back to bite you. You get what you pay for. So, when the 

Secretary came out and said, we can now cut this because we are 

there, help me with what your best understanding is. Was he saying that we have got to make some cost cuts and we are going to 

do this, or was he saying we have done the analysis and we think 

we can do jointness better because it is still going to be a priority 

for us? Or was he saying we have already accomplished this now 

and we don’t need to put that kind of focus on it? 

General ODIERNO. I am not going to try read the mind of the Secretary of Defense. 

Mr. FORBES. No. 

General ODIERNO. But what I am going to tell you is the conversations I have had with him and where we are now going. What 

I think his point was is that we have made progress in jointness. 

We are much better at it today than we were 10, 15 years ago. And 

we believe, he believes, and I believe it is no longer necessary to 

have a four-star command to oversee the process of jointness. 

But I would also say what we found is what had happened to 

Joint Forces Command over the 10 years is there is many things 

that were attached to it, added to it that has absolutely nothing to 

do with meeting our core mission of sustaining jointness. And so 

I think the solution we came to is that we need to eliminate those 

things that are redundant and done other places, those things that 

don’t really apply to us sustaining our jointness in the future, and 

let’s create something that is more efficient but still enables us to 

focus on this very important task of jointness, understanding that 

we have made progress over the last 10 years. 

Mr. FORBES. And General, if you would, I think a lot of those additional things were sent down from the Department of Defense to 

Joint Forces Command. They didn’t birth from the Joint Forces 

Command. They were sent down from the top, saying, will you do 

this? The second thing, though, that concerns me is when we say 

we no longer need a four-star general to push these concepts and 

what they are doing, one of the real concerns I have is with the 

experimentation and what we are doing there. 

And you and I had a conversation just this morning, and I really 

respect and appreciate what you said, and I hope it is okay to repeat it, in that you pushed strongly for the continuation of that experimentation component because you thought it was valuable. 

Fair statement? 

General ODIERNO. Absolutely fair. 
23 

Mr. FORBES. And secondly, that you had to push hard for it because you got some push back. 

General ODIERNO. There were some elements who didn’t agree 

with it. It was not the Secretary. 

Mr. FORBES. No, no, no, this is not a pointing the finger at the 

Secretary. This is just saying you got some push back. I think the 

doctor would say that what you did was very important, that we 

keep experimentation. 

Here is my worry. You are a big guy in a lot of ways, you know, 

not just the stars on your shoulders, but you carry a lot of clout 

with you, and you had to push hard for that concept. If we had 

someone that didn’t have that kind of clout, I don’t know if that 

day would have been won or not. And I don’t know tomorrow, if we 

don’t have somebody in there with that kind of clout pushing it, I 

don’t know whether that day—let me just if I can, and then I am 

going to give you a chance. 

The independent panel that came back, not on Joint Forces Command, but on the QDR, basically said exactly that. They said that 

what happens is now, instead of doing these looks at what we need 

to do, what we are doing is using it to justify what we are already 

doing. And that is just the natural bureaucratic tendency to have 

happen. How are we going to be assured that that is not going to 

happen with the whole jointness concept? Because clearly, the message the Secretary gave in his opening volley was, oh, we have kind 

of reached this point now, and all we have to do is make sure we 

don’t slide back, but we don’t have to keep pushing forward. 

General ODIERNO. First, what I would say is with the way we 

have set this up for the future is that we now have a three-star 

J7, which in the past it has been a one-star general, who will focus 

his full time and effort on overseeing this effort for the chairman 

and the vice chairman. And what you are really doing is, in my 

opinion, cutting a level of command that allows this issue to be 

raised much more quickly and, when there is an issue, be brought 

directly to the chairman and the vice chairman, who ultimately has 

the responsibility by Title 10 for jointness. 

One of the struggles I see, although I have not had to live it because my time as Joint Forces Command has been different than 

others, is that he really has very few authorities. The authorities 

rest with the chairman and the vice chairman and the Joint Chiefs 

of Staff on making decisions that are key to sustaining jointness 

over time. 

What the Joint Forces Command commander was able to do was 

raise some issues, bring attention to it. And I think that is the 

point you are making. 

But I would argue today, because of where we come and because 

in fact we are going to raise the level of expertise on the Joint Staff 

on this, I think it will actually streamline it. And I think it forces 

the chairman and the vice chairman to make sure they are overseeing this. 

And as we talked, and I will say it now, is, as we walk through 

this, the chairman, we all agree that in a year, we will do an analysis of this. And we will continue to do this to make sure we got 

it right. Because we think it is so important that we are able to 

sustain our ability to move forward with jointness. 
24 

Mr. FORBES. Would you mind if I just asked a couple more questions on that, General? Oh, I will come right back to him. The concern that you said you thought it was important that we do an 

analysis in a year or so to make sure we had made the right decisions because it was so important on the jointness issue. And I 

think, but I just wanted to make sure that I was correct, you said 

that you have done an analysis of that yourself at this particular 

point in time and think we are moving in the right direction. And 

I think when I asked you on that, too, you said that analysis was— 

because I used the concern of what happens if somebody kidnaps 

you or takes you away, and you said that this would all obviously 

be done in a written format and that analysis. And I take it when 

the chairman has this done down the road, the same thing would 

take place. It would be a written analysis because it was so important to do. Fair? 

General ODIERNO. Yeah. I can’t speak for what the chairman will 

do, but what I can tell you is we will provide, we are providing a 

written analysis of how we came to our conclusion. 

Mr. FORBES. But the analysis that should be done in a year will 

be similar? 

General ODIERNO. We will use that as a baseline. 

Mr. FORBES. And the admiral is shaking his head yes. 

Then help me with this. If it is so important, and I agree with 

you, and that that analysis needed to be done by you and that 

analysis to be done, why wasn’t it important that the Secretary do 

that same kind of analysis before he announced the disestablishment, or as he said at first, the closure of the Joint Forces Command? And the reason I raise it is this, because I think you can 

appreciate how it does not give quite the same credibility when you 

come out and say, by the Secretary of Defense, we are going to do 

this, and then say, you are tasked to do it, and then come back and 

give us the analysis that we are doing the right thing. 

It would have been far more credible for us as a Congress had 

the Secretary come in and said, let’s do an analysis and see if that 

is the right decision to do first so that everybody could have analyzed that and looked at that same kind of analysis. Why wasn’t 

that kind of analysis done before the decision was made? 

General ODIERNO. I can’t say it wasn’t. What I know is I got a 

guidance letter based on analysis that was given to Joint Forces 

Command before I got there. So we took the guidance letter that 

we got from the Office of Secretary of Defense on what they wanted 

us to look at, and then we did our own independent analysis based 

on the guidance letter we received. So I can’t discuss about what 

analysis was done prior. 

Mr. FORBES. I am not asking you. The only thing I would ask is 

this. And you have been very patient with me. But oftentimes we 

see reports, we have just had some from the GAO [Government Accountability Office] and other groups that might analyze decisions 

we have made, whether it is moving carriers or whatever else, and 

sometimes they disagree by hundreds of billions of dollars. If I am 

doing an analysis, it would seem to me to make sense that one of 

the things I would want to do is look at the previous analysis that 

was done and compare my analysis with that and say, did we line 

up, or how far off we were. 
25 

My question to you is, not just a guidance letter, but were you 

ever presented with the written analysis that was done to substantiate the decision to shut down the Joint Forces Command initially? 

General ODIERNO. My thought was—my impression was that 

they wanted my independent military opinion based on independent analysis to come forward. And that is what I did. 

Mr. FORBES. And General, the last thing I guess I will ask you 

is this. When you were sent down to the Joint Forces Command, 

were your instructions to go down and make an independent analysis and come back and tell us what we should do, or was it to disestablish the Joint Forces Command? 

General ODIERNO. I was required to report back to the Secretary 

on my findings of the analysis on what I thought we should do. 

Mr. FORBES. To shut down the Joint Forces Command. 

General ODIERNO. To take a look at the guidance I had been 

given, which was based on the announcement that the Secretary 

did, was to disestablish Joint Forces Command. And he asked me 

to do an independent analysis. We did that. We presented that 

back to the Secretary. 

Mr. FORBES. But General, again, your instructions, as I understood them, and you correct me if I am wrong, was not to come 

back and do an independent analysis and let us know what we 

should do. It was to say how best to shut down and disestablish 

the Joint Forces Command. 

General ODIERNO. I would say that is correct. 

Mr. FORBES. Okay. And the only thing I throw back to you is you 

understand how that is less credible to us than if the Secretary had 

said to a very respected general such as yourself, go down there 

and do an independent analysis and come down and tell us what 

decision we should make. 

And the final thing I will just say, General, is to this date, if that 

analysis exists prior to August 9, when the Secretary made it, he 

has refused to give it to any Member of Congress that I have seen 

from this committee, the Budget Committee, the Oversight Committee, or the Senate, or anything else. And that I think is a huge 

concern of ours. 

But thank you for that. 

Admiral, one quick question for you. When we did BRAC [Base 

Closure and Realignment] stuff on here, this committee also has jurisdiction over MILCON [military construction] projects, when we 

do a MILCON project—my good friend has overseen a lot of those 

in Guam now—there is kind of a start and there is a stop. And at 

some particular point, we walk in and say this building is done, 

and it is completed. How is jointness, and how is education? Because you mentioned to me both yesterday and today, you said all 

our young men and women know is jointness, because that is what 

they have been trained to do. But it would seem to me that 

jointness is never something that we just get done and say, we are 

done. It seems like it is constantly being trained, and taught, and 

built, and reexamined, and looked at, and it is an evolving, dynamic thing. Is it more like the MILCON project or more like that 

education thing that is an ongoing process? 
26 

Admiral GORTNEY. It is a continuum of education, sir, as are 

most things. And we have put process in place. We have legislated 

education requirements and experience requirements that service 

members must achieve in order to promote. And we reinforce that 

through a reporting process. Out of every statutory board, promotion board, the Secretary—the chairman has to sign to the Secretary joint qualifications, joint educational requirements, things of 

that nature that mandates that it continues. 

Mr. FORBES. And you guys do a wonderful job. You train our 

young men and women better than any in the world. But you start 

fresh with every young man and woman that comes and raises 

their hands and are sworn in. 

And my big concern here is this. I am not expecting you guys to 

weigh in on it. But I fear when I hear the Secretary say we have 

reached jointness and now we just have to keep from backsliding, 

that we forget that jointness is that component of rebuilding that, 

retraining that to every single one of those recruits and also, like 

the doctor mentioned, constantly looking at a dynamic, evolving 

world and how we are going to do the jointness for our allies and 

for us. 

And Doctor, I know you had a comment earlier. And thanks for 

your patience with me. 

And I will let you do that and then go back to Ms. Bordallo. 

Dr. KREPINEVICH. I think at least in terms of the purpose for 

which Joint Forces Command was established as separate from Atlantic Command, I think it was pretty clear. I don’t know that you 

would really need a rigorous, detailed analysis to know that that 

mission was not being accomplished, the joint concept development 

and exercises, to the point where you could say we need to continue 

to justify this as a command. Plus you had the fact that Atlantic 

Command had a geographic responsibility. Joint Forces Command 

no longer had one. Nor was the Joint Forces Command commander 

the Supreme Commander for Allied Command Transformations. So 

I think that is one aspect of it. I mean having sort of tracked the 

command since its inception, I don’t think it is a hard case to make 

that in terms of accomplishing that mission after 12 years, this 

wasn’t working. Now, I think we need to find something that 

works. But clearly, it seemed to me that what we had was not 

working. 

In terms of General Odierno talked about pushback and so on, 

there has been a lot of pushback over time because a lot of the 

things the Joint Forces Command was coming up with weren’t seen 

as particularly relevant. And when I talked to one of the commanders a few years ago, the issue came up, we are looking 20 to 

30 years out. And I said in a way, you are kind of wasting your 

time. Nobody has a clue what is going to happen 20 or 30 years 

from now. I said, if you look back historically, and I was part of 

the National Defense Panel conversations course, you are looking 

5 to 8, maybe 10 years out. And that is what you are really focused 

on. And in a sense, some of these problems are problems that we 

know of today that are just going to get worse over time. So, of 

course, if that is what you think your mission is and that is what 

you are providing by way of results, you are not going to satisfy 

very many people. 
27 

The concepts they were coming up with were interesting but very 

abstract. And actually, the impetus for them was a memo signed 

out by Secretary Rumsfeld in August of 2002 that said we need 

joint integrating and operating concepts to deal with these problems that he had identified in the 2001 QDR, which were not terribly different from the ones that I mentioned here. And unfortunately, in talking to a number of senior military leaders, they just 

did not feel that they were useful to them. So I think that created 

a problem. 

Now, do we have a solution? I don’t know. I would say that I 

would rather be a combatant commander than a three-star J7. I 

think they have more clout. I think they have more influence. I 

think they have more access. I could be wrong. 

I do know that, in 1999, when Secretary Cohen and General 

Shelton were approached by Members of Congress about establishing a Joint Forces Command because they took the National 

Defense Panel report, they did say that periodically we would revisit the command and see how well it is doing and make adaptations so that at least that is on the table. 

My sense is I think that if you look at what the command has 

done well, in a sense there is kind of three missions: One is what 

some of us in the military in the past have called polishing the cannonball; you know, to get more efficient at what you are already 

doing. And I think, based on my experience, I think the command 

has done that pretty darn well. 

Second is reactive transformation. You know, if the mission was 

transformation, I think as General Odierno said, and he should 

know better than just about anybody, the command provided a significant amount of utility when we were faced with modern insurgency or irregular warfare in terms of helping us begin to deal with 

that, react to that, and become very proficient at it. 

I think the area where we have consistently come up short is 

what I would call anticipatory transformation, getting out in front 

of the next problem. And I don’t see necessarily how that is going 

to change, given what we have here in terms of the disestablishment of Joint Forces Command. It is not self-evident to me that 

what we have got in its place is going to accomplish that mission. 

Mr. FORBES. Okay. 

Ms. Bordallo. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you. 

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

And my first question is for you, Dr. Krepinevich. I want to 

thank you for mentioning Guam. And just to let you know, and the 

rest of the world, that we are still afloat. 

To be clear, Doctor, China does not have a missile that can reach 

Guam yet, although it has been talked about. Is that correct? 

Dr. KREPINEVICH. I am not sure about the specific ranges. And 

of course, a number of those are classified in terms of what we get 

from our intelligence community. 

I do know that beginning in the mid-1990s, they focused intently 

in building missiles that could range Taiwan. And then, in my conversations with my Japanese colleagues in recent years, they said, 

well, they have moved beyond that; they have really begun to em-
28 

phasize hitting us now with medium-range and intermediate-range 

ballistic missiles. 

I have had classified briefings that would suggest that the overall trend, I think I can say this, is toward increasing range, number one. It has been reported in the open literature that they are 

developing the DF–21, which is designed to be a maneuverable 

warhead to go after our carriers. And then, of course, you have the 

issue of their submarine fleet, which although it, in terms of technical capacity, isn’t that great, you know, the potential for anti-ship 

cruise missiles and cruise missiles that could be used, especially if 

you get to shoot first in a conflict, you can at least expend those 

munitions. And then building certain capacity in terms of their air 

force and so on. 

So I would say that depending upon the contingency you are 

looking at right now, we are lesser or better able to prepare to deal 

with it. Based upon my understanding of what is in the open literature, open source literature right now, obviously the Taiwan situation is not as—we don’t have as—it is a higher risk proposition. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Right. 

Dr. KREPINEVICH. If you look at the way—if you look at two 

things, if you look at where we are basing our forces in Kadena and 

in Anderson, when I was a kid, I would watch these Westerns. And 

there was always some second lieutenant leading the wagon train, 

usually Ricky Nelson or Fabian or somebody, who wanted to take 

them through the canyon. And somebody like John Wayne would 

say, don’t do it, that is where all the Indians are. In a sense, these 

big bases are the canyons. If they know you have got to go through 

there, if they know that is where you are going to be, you have 

given them an incredible incentive to target those. So, again, we 

see the Chinese moving exactly in that direction. 

In terms of investments, and I was very glad to see Secretary 

Gates make the announcement recently that they are going to 

move forward with the family of long-range strike systems, because 

up until now our investment ratio has been over 15 to 1 short 

range versus long range. 

Ms. BORDALLO. That was one of the things, Doctor, I was going 

to talk to you, because further, when we talk anti-access, shouldn’t 

we view this through a prism of full-spectrum operations like the 

long-range strike? 

Dr. KREPINEVICH. Absolutely. Our center has developed our 

version of the air-sea battle concept. And since right now it is the 

only game in town, we have gotten a lot of visits both from the Chinese embassy and the Japanese embassy. And I was scheduled to 

meet with the chief of staff of the Japanese Air Force. Unfortunately, the earthquake precluded that. 

But the idea behind that is you have an integrated set of capabilities. And again, this is why exercises at the tactical level and 

training at the tactical level make sense. But unless you put it 

within an overall operational context of what you are trying do as 

part of a campaign, you know, you really are not capturing all you 

need to do. 

And so, for example, in our concept, we realized that, at least the 

way we look at the situation, number one, you know, things like 

range become very important; submarines become very important; 
29 

anti-satellite capability becomes very important; cyber. We were 

able to sit down with the Japanese and say, look, we need your 

vote in the U.N.; we need your bases, but here is what we need in 

terms of your military capability. And we actually ended up doing 

planning exercises with the Japanese Government. And they are 

waiting—they are waiting for our Air Force and our Navy to publish air-sea battle. And they have been waiting since Secretary 

Gates gave them the directive over a year ago. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you, Doctor. 

Both the chairman and I have been through numerous briefings 

and CODELs [congressional delegations] over to China. And there 

is not much you can learn. They are very secretive. But I do know 

that they are developing missiles that—— 

Dr. KREPINEVICH. Well, if you read their military publications, 

they are—first of all, they are very unambiguous that way. There 

are slogans like, and this is repetitive, you know, we need capabilities that will enable the inferior to defeat the superior. We are 

weak, but we are not weak in all things. The Americans are strong, 

but they are not strong in all things. We need to align Eastern wisdom and Western technology to defeat the Americans. 

If we were publishing stuff like this about the Chinese, there 

would be a great hoo-hah. 

Ms. BORDALLO. There would probably be another war. 

Dr. KREPINEVICH. Quite frankly, the shift clearly is one to move 

the military balance in their favor. We used to have a term for it 

in the Cold War called Finlandization. You gradually shift the military balance to where your allies start to become detached from 

you because they lose confidence in you. And their big emphasis is 

on this anti-access/area denial capability and fracturing our battle 

networks. 

So one big question, in fact General Mattis and I, the predecessor 

to General Odierno, used to have this conversation about, okay, 

what happens—are we training sufficiently enough and rigorously 

enough and at the operational level in situations where we lose access to the battle network? And General Odierno and I were commissioned around the same time. Obviously, he has gone a little bit 

further than I did, but one of the things that would happen in a 

lot of field exercises was the evaluator would come and say, buddy, 

you just loss your coms [communications]. And you would have to 

figure out, okay, well, how do I operate effectively now? 

And those are the sorts of things that we need to be doing. And 

it is not just at the individual unit level; it is with a campaign perspective. And the talent is out there. And the frustration, at least 

for me individually, is why haven’t we been able to harness this 

great talent, you know, the great professionalism of our military to 

begin to come up with at least some answers to these questions? 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you, Doctor. 

I do have just one last question, Mr. Chairman, please bear with 

me, for the admiral, and possibly the general as well. 

I have heard nearly every combatant commander come and testify that they are trying to build a whole-of-government approach 

to their operations in their areas of responsibility. And some have 

mentioned strategic endeavors to foster broader public-private partnerships between the military and commercial industries. 
30 

Now, my question for you is how does the Joint Staff foster this 

partnering ideology? And what is the Joint Staff doing to build 

broader inter-coordination among our forces around the world and 

our future allies or partners? 

And I could, Admiral, start with you. 

Admiral GORTNEY. If there is another lesson learned from 10 

years of combat, it is the whole-of-government approach and how 

much it is needed. It is a key tenet of what we want to do, what 

we want to continue to do, what we want to continue to train to. 

And one of the synergies of aligning Joint Force Development underneath the J7 for the chairman is that the interagency lives here 

in D.C., the exercise. We can exercise here in D.C. We have the 

conferences here in Washington, D.C. It really provides that opportunity to ensure that we do it right in the future. 

Ms. BORDALLO. General. 

General ODIERNO. I don’t want to go too long of an answer on 

this. But this is one that I think about and talk about quite often. 

We are watching it in front of our eyes today: The globalization, 

which is allowing many different communities to understand what 

is going on around the world very quickly, the change in populations, the change in power as we see it shifting in front of us requires us to engage along several different levels. We have learned 

over the last 10 years that sometimes there is a limit to military 

power, and you have to use many other capabilities in order to 

achieve your end states and your results. 

And I think what the combatant commanders are talking about 

is they must have the capabilities to go out there many different 

ways in coordination with our interagency partners, as well as 

make bilateral connections, mil-to-mil connections with all these 

different countries around the world, for us to understand, better 

understand the environment that we have to operate in and how 

we might solve problems in many different ways, just not always 

with our military power but in conjunction with our capabilities 

within our military. 

And I think that is one of the key components of our training of 

our young joint officers today is them understanding the environment around them and then able to think about these complex environments they are about ready to enter and how they can come 

up with the right solutions working across the broad spectrum. 

And I think as we continue to have budget issues and budget 

problems and potential reductions and other things, we have to 

come up with adaptive alternative ways to solve problems. And I 

think that is why they believe they have to continue to do this. 

So I think it is something we have to pay attention to. It is something we have to focus on as we move forward. You know, we 

talked about anti-access. You know, part of that is attacking that 

across many different ways, having a military capability to do it, 

but also, how do we gain access? You know, the global commons 

we used to always think of as air, land, and sea. It is now air, land, 

sea, space, I personally would add cyberspace. So how do we assure 

our own access to the global commons as we look forward around 

the world? And those are the issues that are very difficult. And 

that is why we have to attack it in many different new ways, 

ma’am. 
31 

Ms. BORDALLO. Well, I would say that the military buildup that 

is occurring right now on Guam, and of course, this is a partnership between Guam and Japan; this would be a shining example 

of how we are going to be able to go forward. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, very much. 

Mr. FORBES. General, any final comments you have or questions 

that we didn’t ask that you wanted to get on the record? 

General ODIERNO. The only thing I would say is I want to again 

thank you for holding this hearing. I think it is a very important 

one. And the discussion we had is one that we have to constantly 

have as we look ahead to the future and how we are going to sustain ourselves in this very complex environment. 

So I just want to thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this committee meeting today. 

Mr. FORBES. Thank you, General. And thank you for being here 

today. 

Admiral, any final thoughts that you have? 

Admiral GORTNEY. Yes, sir. I just want to make sure there is no 

doubt in anybody’s mind that through this process, we are not challenging or walking away from Goldwater-Nichols and the importance of Joint Force development. Remember that Goldwater-Nichols predates JFCOM by 13 years. Instead, we are finding a better 

way to perform that joint oversight and ensuring joint readiness if 

the future. 

Mr. FORBES. Thank you, Admiral. 

Doctor, any final comments? 

Dr. KREPINEVICH. Just to thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to be here and express my views today, and also to have 

the opportunity to publicly express my admiration and appreciation 

for, in particular, General Odierno and his great service to our 

country, but also to the admiral and the little army that he brought 

along today. Having served in the military once upon a time myself, I can’t but imagine how challenging and how difficult it has 

been for these young men and women, and how remarkable a job 

they have done under these difficult circumstances. 

Thank you. 

Mr. FORBES. Thank you all for being with us. We appreciate your 

patience and your service to the country. We are adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 4:40 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

A P P E N D I X 

MARCH 31, 2011 

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD 

MARCH 31, 2011 

(37) 

Statement of Hon. J. Randy Forbes 

Chairman, Subcommittee on Readiness 

Hearing on 

Improving the Readiness of U.S. Forces 

Through Military Jointness 

March 31, 2011 

I want to welcome all our members and our distinguished panel 

of experts to today’s hearing that will focus on how we are progressing towards improvements in the readiness of our forces 

through military jointness. This topic is particularly relevant with 

the pending closure of the Joint Forces Command (JFCOM). Ironically the impetus for JFCOM was that landmark legislation on 

jointness, Goldwater-Nichols. 

Let me first take a step back in history. In a special message to 

Congress in 1958, President Dwight D. Eisenhower stated that 

‘‘Separate ground, sea and air warfare is gone forever. If ever again 

we should be involved in war, we will fight it in all elements, with 

all Services, as one single, concentrated effort.’’ However, President 

Eisenhower’s vision was not fully realized until the passage of 

Goldwater-Nichols in 1986. 

The operations in Iraq and Afghanistan have shown that the 

U.S. military indeed has made significant gains in joint operations, 

training and doctrine. However, there are still areas impacting the 

readiness of our forces that need to be addressed. We still must develop jointness in the way we communicate, procure our weapon 

systems, and in our logistics processes and information systems. 

That once would have been the ongoing role of JFCOM. 

In announcing the closure of JFCOM, Secretary Gates said the 

‘‘U.S. military has largely embraced jointness as a matter of culture 

and practice, although we must always remain vigilant against 

backsliding on this front.’’ 

In reality, it is my contention that we cannot simply focus on 

what we have achieved to date and try to avoid a ‘‘backslide.’’ But 

rather we must continue to advance joint concepts in terms of doctrine, training and development of strategies and tactics since each 

scenario we face in the future will call for joint operations, but potentially differing responses. For example, the growing military 

power of China and its potential threat to the Asia-Pacific region 

would call for a different joint response from U.S. military forces, 

possibly more focused on an air-sea operation, than the current 

CENTCOM operations, which primarily are land-based. 

I would ask our witnesses their views on how we can be assured 

this forward look at jointness will happen without a body that has 
38 

the authority to ‘‘force’’ that on the Services? The Joint Staff has 

played the role of principal military ‘‘advisor’’ to our senior civilian 

leadership. Even if they develop the necessary concepts to further 

jointness, how will they be able to press the Services into compliance? 

In a recent speech at the Air Force Academy, Secretary Gates 

said, ‘‘It’s easier to be joint and talk joint when there’s money to 

go around and a war to be won.’’ He said, ‘‘It’s much harder to do 

when tough choices have to be made within and between the military Services—between what is ideal from a particular Service perspective, and what will get the job done, taking into account broader priorities and considerations.’’ I agree with Secretary Gates in 

this regard. Resistant bureaucracies exist within every part of the 

Executive Branch, and the Service departments within the Pentagon are no different. 

Another critical readiness factor, is that of the role of joint force 

provider. Jointness dictates that the Services operate within their 

core competencies and seek the expertise of the Service whose 

skills lie in a particular competency, including training. In the new 

construct, it is unclear who will take on this responsibility, but in 

order to truly promote jointness, it cannot be given to one particular military Service. 

Finally, the operations with our NATO allies pose another concern—an example of their importance to our security interests is 

being reinforced even as we sit here, with the operations over 

Libya, which the committee heard about this morning. 

JFCOM provided several venues in which U.S. and allied forces 

could interact. That dynamic cannot help but change. Indeed, 

French Air Force Gen. Stephane Abrial, supreme allied commander 

for transformation, in discussing the NATO role after the closure 

of JFCOM, told reporters that ACT has started looking at ‘‘how we 

will re-plug into this much more distributed system.’’ 

Joining us today to discuss these issues are three distinguished 

individuals: 

• General Raymond Odierno, Commander, U.S. Joint Forces 

Command. General Odierno most recently served as commanding general for the Multi-National Force—Iraq, working jointly with our allies. He also has served in other senior 

joint positions in the Pentagon. These assignments have 

more than prepared him for ensuring that the military’s 

focus remains on jointness even as JFCOM is disestablished. 

• Vice Admiral William E. Gortney, Director, Joint Staff. 

While primarily serving in senior Navy commands throughout his career, Admiral Gortney has stated that GoldwaterNichols substantially helped his career. Now as director of 

the joint staff Admiral Gortney is uniquely positioned to reinforce his personal commitment to jointness. 

• Dr. Andrew F. Krepinevich, President, Center for Strategic 

and Budgetary Assessments. Dr. Krepinevich is a wellknown military expert and currently serves on the Joint 

Forces Command’s Transformation Advisory Board. He has 

been involved with JFCOM since its beginning. 

Gentlemen, thank you all for being here. 
39 

STATEMENT OF 

GENERAL RAYMOND T. ODIERNO, U.S. ARMY 

COMMANDER 

UNITED STATES JOINT FORCES COMMAND 

IMPROVING THE READINESS OF U.S. FORCES 

THROUGH MILITARY JOINTNESS 

HASC READINESS SUBCOMMITTEE 

MARCH 31, 2011 
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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING 

MARCH 31, 2011 

(67) 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. FORBES 

Mr. FORBES. If similar functions to JFCOM exist within the Joint Chiefs of Staff 

and other organizations, was there any consideration given to consolidating those 

functions at JFCOM, rather than disestablishing JFCOM? For those functions that 

will continue, what process is DOD using to determine which function and where 

or by whom it should be performed? 

General ODIERNO. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. FORBES. Allied Command Transformation (ACT) and NATO have built strong 

ties to JFCOM in areas of training, capability development, experimentation, and 

coalition forces integration. • How will this progress be sustained and which U.S. commander and staff will 

assume counterpart responsibilities to ACT’s NATO four-star commander? • What is your plan to ensure that our allies have access to joint operability 

doctrine without a combatant command to coordinate and lead them? 

General ODIERNO. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. FORBES. We have become heavily reliant on the Navy and Air Force to provide individual augmentees to meet ground force requirements in CENTCOM. When 

this practice started several years ago it was supposed to be a ‘‘temporary fix’’ to 

the imbalance in the force. In the long term, DOD should right-size its forces structure to ensure that taskings for CENTCOM are filled with the best qualified individual for the task and not a surrogate from a different Service with different core 

competencies—a function that JFCOM was well positioned to address since it played 

a vital role in the improving the processes for assignments and development of 

training standards for these taskings. • With the JFCOM disestablishment, how will DOD ensure that policies, procedures and training for these cross-service taskings don’t fall through the 

cracks again? 

General ODIERNO. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. FORBES. Secretary Gates, in announcing the closure of JFCOM, stated that 

it was not needed because jointness was part of today’s military culture. In reality 

we must continue to advance the concept of military jointness. • However, without a body that has the authority to ‘‘force’’ that on the services, how can we be assured this will actually happen? • How do we ensue that the services pay more than simple lip service to 

jointness? 

General ODIERNO. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. FORBES. Does Title 10, United States Code, prevent the CJCS from executing 

certain functions currently being done by JFCOM in support of the COCOMs? • Which commander will be assigned the missions specifically assigned to 

JFCOM in the Unified Command Plan in accordance with the GoldwaterNichols Act? 

General ODIERNO. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. FORBES. The tension between joint needs and service-centric processes has led 

some functions, such as special forces and missile defense, to migrate to department-wide entities. • Is there an authoritative process for defining near- and long-term joint capability needs? • If so, who is, or should be, responsible for managing that and for validating 

those requirements? 

General ODIERNO. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. FORBES. With the disestablishment of JFCOM, who should be assigned the 

responsibility of joint force provider? If it were assigned to the JCS, is there adequate legal or statutory authority to do so? 

General ODIERNO. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. FORBES. If similar functions to JFCOM exist within the Joint Chiefs of Staff 

and other organizations, was there any consideration given to consolidating those 

functions at JFCOM, rather than disestablishing JFCOM? For those functions that 

will continue, what process is DOD using to determine which function and where 

or by whom it should be performed? 
68 

Admiral GORTNEY. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. FORBES. Allied Command Transformation (ACT) and NATO have built strong 

ties to JFCOM in areas of training, capability development, experimentation, and 

coalition forces integration. 

• How will this progress be sustained and which U.S. commander and staff will 

assume counterpart responsibilities to ACT’s NATO four-star commander? 

• What is your plan to ensure that our allies have access to joint operability 

doctrine without a combatant command to coordinate and lead them? 

Admiral GORTNEY. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. FORBES. We have become heavily reliant on the Navy and Air Force to provide individual augmentees to meet ground force requirements in CENTCOM. When 

this practice started several years ago it was supposed to be a ‘‘temporary fix’’ to 

the imbalance in the force. In the long term, DOD should right-size its forces structure to ensure that taskings for CENTCOM are filled with the best qualified individual for the task and not a surrogate from a different service with different core 

competencies—a function that JFCOM was well positioned to address since it played 

a vital role in the improving the processes for assignments and development of 

training standards for these taskings. 

• With the JFCOM disestablishment, how will DOD ensure that policies, procedures and training for these cross-service taskings don’t fall through the 

cracks again? 

Admiral GORTNEY. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. FORBES. Secretary Gates, in announcing the closure of JFCOM, stated that 

it was not needed because jointness was part of today’s military culture. In reality 

we must continue to advance the concept of military jointness. 

• However, without a body that has the authority to ‘‘force’’ that on the services, how can we be assured this will actually happen? 

• How do we ensue that the services pay more than simple lip service to 

jointness? 

Admiral GORTNEY. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. FORBES. Does Title 10, United States Code, prevent the CJCS from executing 

certain functions currently being done by JFCOM in support of the COCOMs? 

• Which commander will be assigned the missions specifically assigned to 

JFCOM in the Unified Command Plan in accordance with the GoldwaterNichols Act? 

Admiral GORTNEY. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. FORBES. The tension between joint needs and service-centric processes has led 

some functions, such as special forces and missile defense, to migrate to department-wide entities. 

• Is there an authoritative process for defining near- and long-term joint capability needs? 

• If so, who is, or should be, responsible for managing that and for validating 

those requirements? 

Admiral GORTNEY. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. FORBES. With the disestablishment of JFCOM, who should be assigned the 

responsibility of joint force provider? If it were assigned to the JCS, is there adequate legal or statutory authority to do so? 

Admiral GORTNEY. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. FORBES. Secretary Gates, in announcing the closure of JFCOM, stated that 

it was not needed because jointness was part of today’s military culture. In reality 

we must continue to advance the concept of military jointness. 

• However, without a body that has the authority to ‘‘force’’ that on the services, how can we be assured this will actually happen? 

• How do we ensue that the services pay more than simple lip service to 

jointness? 

Dr. KREPINEVICH. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. FORBES. Does Title 10, United States Code, prevent the CJCS from executing 

certain functions currently being done by JFCOM in support of the COCOMs? 

• Which commander will be assigned the missions specifically assigned to 

JFCOM in the Unified Command Plan in accordance with the GoldwaterNichols Act? 

Dr. KREPINEVICH. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. FORBES. The tension between joint needs and service-centric processes has led 

some functions, such as special forces and missile defense, to migrate to department-wide entities. 

• Is there an authoritative process for defining near- and long-term joint capability needs? 
69 

• If so, who is, or should be, responsible for managing that and for validating 

those requirements? 

Dr. KREPINEVICH. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. FORBES. With the disestablishment of JFCOM, who should be assigned the 

responsibility of joint force provider? If it were assigned to the JCS, is there adequate legal or statutory authority to do so? 

Dr. KREPINEVICH. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 

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