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S. HRG. 114–216 

SUPPORTING THE WARFIGHTER OF TODAY AND 

TOMORROW 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

DECEMBER 3, 2015 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Armed Services 

( 

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

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

JOHN MCCAIN, Arizona, Chairman 

JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma 

JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama 

ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi 

KELLY AYOTTE, New Hampshire 

DEB FISCHER, Nebraska 

TOM COTTON, Arkansas 

MIKE ROUNDS, South Dakota 

JONI ERNST, Iowa 

THOM TILLIS, North Carolina 

DAN SULLIVAN, Alaska 

MIKE LEE, Utah 

LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina 

TED CRUZ, Texas 

JACK REED, Rhode Island 

BILL NELSON, Florida 

CLAIRE MCCASKILL, Missouri 

JOE MANCHIN III, West Virginia 

JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire 

KIRSTEN E. GILLIBRAND, New York 

RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut 

JOE DONNELLY, Indiana 

MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii 

TIM KAINE, Virginia 

ANGUS S. KING, JR., Maine 

MARTIN HEINRICH, New Mexico 

CHRISTIAN D. BROSE, Staff Director 

ELIZABETH L. KING, Minority Staff Director 

(II) 

C O N T E N T S 

DECEMBER 3, 2015

Page 

SUPPORTING THE WARFIGHTER OF TODAY AND TOMORROW .................................. 1 

Donley, Secretary Michael B., Former Secretary of the Air Force ...................... 4 

Flynn, Lieutenant General Michael T., USA, Retired, Former Director of 

the Defense Intelligence Agency ......................................................................... 17 

Jones, General James L., USMC, Retired, Former National Security Advisor 

to the President of the United States; Supreme Allied Commander, Europe 

and Commander of U.S. European Command; and 32nd Commandant of 

the Marine Corps ................................................................................................. 26 

(III) 

(1) 

SUPPORTING THE WARFIGHTER OF TODAY 

AND TOMORROW 

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2015 

U.S. SENATE

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES

Washington, D.C. 

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:31 a.m. in Room 

SD–106, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Senator John McCain 

(chairman) presiding. 

Committee Members Present: Senators McCain, Ayotte, Fischer, 

Ernst, Tillis, Sullivan, Reed, McCaskill, Manchin, Gillibrand, Donnelly, Hirono, and King. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN, CHAIRMAN 

Chairman MCCAIN. The Senate Armed Services Committee 

meets to continue our series of hearings on defense reform. In our 

three previous hearings, we have reviewed the effects of the Goldwater-Nichols reforms on our defense acquisition, management, 

and personnel systems. In today’s hearings and the two that will 

follow it, we will consider what most view as the essence of Goldwater-Nichols: the roles and responsibilities of the Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the service secretaries and service chiefs, and the combatant commanders. This 

morning we seek to understand whether these civilian and military 

leadership organizations can function better to support the 

warfighters of today and tomorrow. 

We are fortunate to welcome a distinguished panel of witnesses 

who have grappled with these challenging issues over their many 

years of service to our Nation: the Honorable Michael B. Donley, 

former Secretary of the Air Force; Lieutenant General Michael T. 

Flynn, former Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency; and 

General James Jones, former National Security Advisor; Supreme 

Allied Commander and Commander of U.S. European Command; 

and Commandant of the Marine Corps. We welcome you this morning. 

30 years ago, Congress passed Goldwater-Nichols in response to 

serious concerns about the effectiveness of our military. The failure 

of the Iranian hostage rescue mission in 1980 and poor coordination between the services during the invasion of Grenada in 1983 

were clear signs that something was wrong. Congress and others 

concluded that these failures were driven by a number of factors, 

including the absence of unity of command and an inability to operate jointly. 

2 

Goldwater-Nichols sought to address these problems by making 

the unified commanders explicitly responsible to the President and 

the Secretary of Defense for the performance of missions and preparedness of their commands. Combatant commanders were given 

the ability to issue authoritative direction on all aspects of operations, joint training, logistics, internal chains of command, and 

personnel within their assigned areas of responsibility. GoldwaterNichols also removed the Joint Chiefs of Staff from the operational 

chain of command and prevented the services from moving forces 

in and out of regional commands without approval. 

Just 5 years after the passage of Goldwater-Nichols, America’s 

rapid and stunning victory in the 1991 Gulf War seemed to suggest 

that these reforms had worked. However, more recent experience 

on the battlefield has led to renewed concern about the respective 

roles and responsibilities of the service chiefs and the combatant 

commanders as conceived in Goldwater-Nichols. 

A decade and a half of war in Afghanistan and Iraq suggests that 

the Department of Defense is not optimally organized for protracted conflicts. As Secretary Gates recently testified to this committee, his experience as a wartime secretary led him to conclude 

that the Department of Defense is, quote, designed to plan for war 

but not to wage war, at least for the long term. Indeed, whatever 

one thinks about the circumstances by which we all went to war 

in Iraq 12 years ago, it should be deeply concerning to all of us that 

our Nation was losing that war for 3 years, and the strategy that 

ultimately turned things around did not emerge from the system, 

but rather from a small group of internal insurgents and outside 

experts working around the system. That is a compelling indictment of our defense organization. 

For some, including Secretary Gates, Goldwater-Nichols succeeded all too well by turning the services into force providers that 

are perhaps too walled off from operational responsibilities. With 

a confined focus on the train and equip mission, the services have 

overwhelmingly concentrated more on delivering long-term programs of record than urgently needed capabilities in current conflicts. 

While this problem raises serious questions, we must be cautious 

of the other extreme. If combatant commanders were fully 

resourced with everything they believe is necessary for their theater, the Department of Defense would be totally sapped of resources to invest in critical technologies needed to counter future 

adversaries. I look forward to our witnesses’ views on whether the 

Department could strike a better balance between supporting both 

the warfighters of today and tomorrow and if so, how. 

At the same time, we must also ensure that the operational organization of our military accurately reflects and responds to our 

present and future national security challenges. Our Nation confronts the most diverse and complex array of crises since the end 

of World War II, from ISIL [the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant] and Al Qaeda, to North Korea and Iran, to Russia and China. 

What all of these threats have in common is that they are not confined to a single region of the world. They span multiple regions 

and domains of military activities. Our combatant commands are 

still predominantly geographically. We must ensure that our deVerDate Nov 24 2008 11:50 Apr 05, 2016 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 Y:\REIER-AVILES\BORAWSKI\JOBS SENT FOR PRINTING 2015\99664.TXT JUNE
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fense organization has the regional and functional flexibility and 

agility to address cross-cutting national security missions. 

Many of our prior witnesses have observed that combatant commands no longer directly fight wars, as Goldwater-Nichols originally envisioned. Instead, that is done by joint task forces established on an ad hoc basis and tailored to a given contingency operation. This makes the dramatic growth of the headquarters staffs 

at the combatant commands all the more difficult to justify. I 

would be eager to hear from our witnesses whether, 30 years after 

Goldwater-Nichols, we should consider re-imagining, reorganizing, 

or consolidating our combatant commands. 

I thank our witnesses and look forward to their testimony. 

Senator Reed? 

STATEMENT OF SENATOR JACK REED 

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

me join you in thanking the witnesses for not only being here today 

but for their extraordinary service to the Nation. 

We have been holding a series of hearings that looks at the organization and processes of the Department of Defense, and the 

whole focus is to provide the best possible support for our 

warfighters. You gentlemen know more about that than practically 

anybody else. So thank you for joining us today. 

A constant theme that has emerged in testimony from previous 

hearings is that the Department of Defense has a 20th century organization facing 21st century challenges: globalization, rapid 

adoption of new technology and particularly cyber, free flow of information. These are developments that have complicated the security environment by facilitating a rise of near-peer competitors and 

irregular threats from transnational terrorist groups. However, I 

believe these trends also provide opportunities to improve U.S. 

military capabilities which will support the warfighter if they can 

be effectively harnessed through updated organizational structures 

and processes. As yesterday’s hearing made clear, the men and 

women who make up the all-volunteer force remain this committee’s top concern. We must ensure they have the resources they 

need to complete their mission and return safely home. 

Testifying on these issues earlier this fall—and I will again like 

the chairman quote Secretary Gates—he described the challenges 

he faced in delivering rapidly needed capabilities to troops in the 

field. He indicated that ‘the only way I could get significant new 

or additional equipment to commanders in the field in weeks or 

months—not years—was to take control of the problem myself 

through special task forces and ad hoc processes.’ He pointed out 

the MRAP [Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicle] as an example of one of those situations. 

But he also pointed out that relying on this ‘intense personal involvement’ by the Secretary of Defense just does not work. There 

is not enough time in the day. So we have to, I think, together with 

the Department of Defense create structural changes that enable 

this rapid deployment and rapid support of our troops in the field. 

That is where your advice comes in very critically. 

Goldwater-Nichols was enacted more than 30 years ago, and the 

Department continues to face difficulties to provide for the 

4 

warfighter. That again is the essence of what we are all here to do, 

provide a process, an organizational structure, and a culture that 

delivers the support to the troops they need to protect the country. 

Again, let me thank you, gentlemen, not only for your testimony 

but for your service. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman MCCAIN. I thank the witnesses and we will begin with 

you, Secretary Donley. 

STATEMENT OF SECRETARY MICHAEL B. DONLEY, FORMER 

SECRETARY OF THE AIR FORCE 

Mr. DONLEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member 

Reed, for holding this series of hearings. It has been a little over 

30 years since I left this committee as a professional staff member 

and it is great to back. 

While I was here, I did have any opportunity to work on Goldwater-Nichols and then, following my service here, went to the National Security Council where I also worked on these issues. So 

they are of special interest to me. 

The hearings that the committee held in the mid- 1980s on Goldwater-Nichols were extremely formative in my career in educating 

me and I think other staff members of the committee on the operation of the Department of Defense. It stuck with me all these 

years. It has been of great benefit. I hope that one result of this 

great series of hearings that you have kicked off is that it will stimulate a deeper understanding of how our defense organization 

works. 

My testimony today—by the way, this is a great panel to be part 

of, and I am honored to be here with General Flynn and longtime 

friend, General Jones, who I think when I was here before we referred to as Major Jones. It was Captain McCain. That goes way 

back, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman MCCAIN. He was much more pleasant in those days. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. DONLEY. My testimony today is focused on the roles and relationships between the military departments and combatant commands and how and where these components interact to produce 

warfighting capabilities. I offer six recommendations for reducing 

resource-intensive military department and combatant command 

headquarters and better preparing joint and service headquarters 

for the demanding 21st century environment that you described, 

Mr. Chairman. 

The context for my recommendations is section 346 of the justsigned fiscal year 2016 National Defense Authorization Act in 

which the committees require DOD [Department of Defense] to report on planned reductions to its major headquarters activities by 

March of next year. 

The services interact with combatant commands in many ways 

on many levels to support joint operations. I would highlight two, 

command relationships and resource allocation, as representative 

of how services and COCOMs [combatant commands] interact to 

support warfighters of today and tomorrow. 

Command relationships are at the intersection of how combatant 

commands choose to organize their subordinate commands and how 

5 

services internally organize and present forces. In general, regional 

combatant commands choose to organize forces in land, maritime, 

and air domains within their assigned area, but both the regional 

and functional combatant commands also task organize with subunified commands or task forces for subregions, specific missions, 

or functions. 

The services, of course, have major commands and subordinate 

commands such as numbered air forces, fleets, corps, armies, which 

are dual-hatted as components of the combatant commands. The 

services need to create internal command arrangements that satisfy both efficiency in their administrative command and organize 

train and equip responsibilities and effectiveness in their presentation of forces and in satisfying the operational command requirements as defined by nine combatant commanders. This intersection 

between the command relationships of four services and nine combatant commands is critical to the proper alignment of service 

forces under a unified command and it is directly pertinent to congressional and DOD interests in improving the efficiency of DOD’s 

major headquarters. 

So my first recommendation is that DOD and Congress review 

the service and combatant command relationships, but there are 

four important caveats here. 

First, we should avoid generalizations. These command relationships are unique to each service and each combatant command. 

Second, we probably should not assume that complex command 

arrangements reflect duplicative or unnecessary staff. You have to 

look. Dual-hatting, even triple-hatting where allied forces might be 

involved, makes good sense. 

Also, we should not assume that opportunities for major savings 

might result. We need to review and take stock of previously harvested savings and efficiencies that have been taken by the services 

over the past several years. 

I do have a predilection that Congress should not legislate command relationships at this level. 

In resource allocation, executing roughly 80 percent of DOD resources, the services have to balance the size and capacity of their 

forces across multiple combat elements with the readiness of today’s forces and investment in future capabilities. Combatant commands express their needs through multiple channels in the planning, programming, budgeting, and execution system, which is 

DOD’s primary resource allocation process. These include their 

service components, integrated priority lists, and through the integrating role of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the 

Joint Staff J–8 and the Joint Requirements Council. These responsibilities and organizational relationships established in DOD’s key 

management processes ensure there is joint input and review in 

service resource allocation and acquisition. They provide combatant 

commands the necessary link and voice, but they are also intended 

to keep combatant commands focused on their deterrence, 

warfighting, planning, and engagement responsibilities minimizing 

the need for combatant command headquarters to have large programming staffs duplicating the work of their service force providers. 

6 

At the same time, the combatant commands need J–8 functions 

to interact with the joint staff and the services on matters related 

to program evaluation and resource allocation. The size and scope 

of combatant command J–8’s will vary according to the command’s 

mission and especially so for the functional commands, SOCOM 

[United States Special Operations Command], STRATCOM [United 

States Strategic Command], and TRANSCOM [United States 

Transportation Command]. 

In reviews of major headquarters, I recommend that DOD and 

Congress review the purpose and size of these combatant command 

J–8 functions to ensure they are not duplicating program and resource activities that are primarily the responsibility of others. 

For reasons outlined in more detail in my testimony, I do not believe we need to establish more services. In response to new technologies or the need for new capabilities, I would observe that creating new staff organizations, agencies, and command arrangements has thus far proven to be more attractive and flexible over 

time. 

However, I do believe the existing service headquarters could be 

more effective and efficient, and I support the consolidation of the 

secretariat and service staffs within each military department. 

Current arrangements have a long history and a benefit of strong 

alignment with the existing structure of a separate OSD [the Office 

of the Secretary of Defense] with its under secretaries and joint 

staff with a common military staff structure. Nonetheless, the abiding presence of two staffs in the same headquarters, three in the 

Department of the Navy, has periodically been a source of both tension and confusion both internally within the respective services 

and externally to those with whom the services interact. It is duplicative in several areas and generally inefficient. 

Consolidation of military department headquarters staffs has 

been in the ‘good idea but too hard’ box for many years and it will 

require a careful approach. It has a long history with great potential for missteps. Congress should take a deliberate approach, provide time for the services to carefully prepare legislative proposals 

and take a close look at the details before signing up to the concept. As much as possible, Congress should also provide for uniformity across the military department headquarters, as was done 

in Goldwater-Nichols, while accommodating the special circumstances of two services in the Department of the Navy. 

With respect to combatant commands, I have views on the current unified command plan but no recommendations for increasing 

or decreasing the number or type of commands except to note that 

for the past 15 years it appears that DOD has been self-limiting 

the total number of such commands at about nine to ten. 

Taking the number and type of combatant commands as roughly 

correct, I believe the preferred way to manage them is to maintain 

close control over their assigned forces and low-density/high-demand assets and how well these commands’ staffs are resourced. 

Congress should expect DOD to carefully review the size of combatant command headquarters and each of their staff directorates and 

make choices on which to staff more or less robustly according to 

their mission and current needs. 

7 

Sizing decisions for staff directorates need to accommodate differences in combatant command missions and between the combatant commands and other components. In addition to the differences 

in the J–8 functions that I mentioned, the combatant command J– 

1 personnel office, for example, performs a substantially smaller 

and more discrete personnel function than you find in military departments. 

Finally, any review of combatant command headquarters should 

ensure that all of these commands maintain sufficient resources to 

support their core capabilities for planning and executing joint operations. 

Joint intelligence operation centers and regional centers for security studies such as the Marshall Center in EUCOM [United States 

European Command] and the Asia-Pacific Center in PACOM 

[United States Pacific Command] also deserve close attention. 

These are subordinate components or direct reporting units, technically not part of the combatant commands’ headquarters, but 

nonetheless resource-intensive elements within the commands’ 

scope of responsibilities. 

I strongly support the alignment of these intelligence and security study centers within their respective commands, but due to 

their size, I recommend that they be revalidated as necessary and 

appropriate in combatant commands. 

More important, Mr. Chairman, than how many or what type of 

commands DOD has is how well they work together, which is a 

matter of increasing urgency given the current security environment. Today’s environment requires us to take joint commands to 

new levels of operational competency, including more coordination 

and collaboration with U.S. Government agencies and increasing 

collaboration with international partners and allies. We need to 

move in these directions if possible without increasing the total 

number of personnel in combatant command headquarters. 

I recommend that DOD and Congress support the evolution of 

combatant command headquarters to accommodate these increasing requirements. 

We also need to recognize that in this environment, cross-domain, cross-regional, and cross-functional operations put higher demands on our ability to integrate the work of multiple combatant 

commands, further complicating the web of supported and supporting command relationships. In this context, the U.S. needs to 

enhance strategic planning for global operations in which multiple 

regional and functional commands will be operating simultaneously. In the midst of this demanding environment, we need robust gaming, joint training and exercises across combatant commands that will facilitate the test and evaluation of new operating 

concepts and validate plans. 

In the aftermath of disestablishing JFCOM [Joint Forces Command], I recommend that Congress ask DOD what it has in place 

as the mechanisms and resources for joint experimentation. 

We must also act to ensure the necessary responsibilities, authorities, and resources are in place for the Chairman of the Joint 

Chiefs to effectively integrate the combatant commands’ planning 

activities on a dynamic and global basis. 

8 

1For simplicity, this paper will hereafter refer to Military Departments as ‘‘Services’’ and 

summarize their common functions as ‘‘OT&E’’ responsibilities. Descriptions of component responsibilities are from Title 10, U.S. Code, and DoD Directive 5100.01, Functions of the Department of Defense and Its Major Components, December 2010. 2This paper will hereafter refer to these collectively as ‘‘Defense Agencies’’. 

I recommend that this committee and DOD work together to ensure the responsibility for development of strategic integrated planning across all combatant commands is properly assigned with the 

necessary authorities and resources to support this work. 

Mr. Chairman, Congress should partner with DOD in all this 

work and choose carefully and jointly to set priorities to generate 

mutual confidence and enhance prospects for successful implementation of any resulting reforms. Not all improvements require statutory changes, and many opportunities for improvement fall within 

DOD’s existing authorities. 

There will always be a need for greater efficiency in DOD, and 

I commend the DOD leadership and Congress for keeping up this 

pressure. Transferring the savings from headquarters efficiencies 

and other reforms to combat capabilities is a model we should pursue, but we should also keep in mind that these savings and efficiencies alone will not close the business case. To meet the demands of the current strategic environment and support the 

warfighters today and tomorrow, DOD will need more resources 

and flexibility to sustain and in some areas increase capacity to rebuild readiness and to modernize the force. 

Mr. Chairman, thank you for this opportunity to present my 

views. Again, thank you for this important series of hearings that 

you have kicked off. I look forward to your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Donley follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT BY MICHAEL B. DONLEY

SUPPORTING THE WARFIGHTER OF TODAY AND TOMORROW

Thank you, Chairman McCain and Ranking Member Reed for holding this series 

of hearings. My testimony will focus on the roles and relationships between Military 

Departments and the Combatant Commands, and two areas—command arrangements and resource allocation—where these components interact to produce 

warfighting capabilities. I suggest specific areas for DoD and congressional review 

and also offer other recommendations for reducing resource intensive Military Department and Combatant Command headquarters, and better preparing joint and 

Service headquarters for the demanding 21st century security environment. The 

context for these recommendations is Section 346 of the FY16 National Defense Authorization Act, which requires DoD to report on planned reductions to its major 

headquarters activities by March, 2016. 

MILITARY DEPARTMENTS

The role of Military Departments is to recruit, organize, train, and equip (OT&E) 

forces for assignment to Combatant Commands. The three Military Departments, 

composed of four Services, are organized around the land, maritime, and aerospace 

domains. 1 These are DoD’s largest operating components with the longest history 

and they serve as the foundation for the U.S. military—the places from which the 

full scope of military capabilities are derived and sustained. 

In the broader scheme of defense organization, the Services maintain critical relationships with OSD and the Joint Staff, DoD’s two staff components whose broad 

purpose is to advise the Secretary of Defense on strategic direction of the armed 

forces. The Services must also maintain relationships with the 28 Defense Agencies 

and DoD Field Activities that provide centralized support. 2 In these relationships, 

the Services are both customers of such agencies, and also providers of uniformed 

personnel and other resources to those same agencies. Most importantly, the Services must maintain close relationships with the warfighters, the nine Combatant 

9 

Commands that conduct joint operations with forces assigned by the Secretary of 

Defense from the Services. 

Service Strengths and Weaknesses. The Services are the primary and best 

sources of expertise on their respective domains of warfare; on the training and 

readiness status of their forces; on force and weapon system capabilities and limitations; and on tactics, techniques, and procedures for force and weapon system-level 

employment. They are essential sources of advice for Combatant Commanders 

charged with integrating the best mix of capabilities to fulfill their assigned missions, and all DoD components depend on the Services’ deep institutional knowledge 

and technical expertise. 

In programming and executing roughly 80% of DoD’s budget, the broad scope of 

the Services’ OT&E responsibilities and military functions provides the first level 

of integration in assessing the appropriate balance of capabilities and resources. 

This includes the size and composition of the force (i.e. multiple military functions 

and force elements) and the balance between today’s readiness and investments for 

the future. Given the resources available, it is the Services that must balance capacity across military functions, among and between active duty and reserve components, between personnel and equipment, between combat and support elements, 

between training and readiness and quality of life, and between current operations 

and acquisition of new technology for the future. All must be considered, weighed, 

and provided for in proper balance. 

Despite the central role of the Services in defense organization, DoD is so large 

and complex that, institutionally, the Services can be lacking in joint or defensewide perspectives. For example, Service personnel sometimes lack a full appreciation for the role of Defense Agencies, seeming to overlook that this is where they 

get their Intelligence support, fuel to operate their equipment, health care, education for their children in remote locations, and their paycheck, among other 

things. 

More importantly, the Services often lack the ability to convince each other that, 

as a Service, they can impartially and effectively lead other Services in joint activities, or perform defense-wide roles as executive agents for the Secretary of Defense. 

Goldwater-Nichols’ emphasis on joint education and joint experience as preconditions for advancement to senior assignments, and over 30 years of combat experience under joint commands, have done much to strengthen joint perspectives in 

the Services, but not so much that effective joint operations could be assured if 

there were no Unified Combatant Commands. 

MILITARY DEPARTMENTS AND COMBATANT COMMANDS: SUPPORTING THE WARFIGHTER

OF TODAY AND TOMORROW

The role of Combatant Commands is to provide authoritative direction and exercise command over assigned forces to carry out assigned missions. This includes authoritative direction over all aspects of military operations, joint training, and logistics; and prescribing command relationships, assigning functions to subordinate 

commanders, and employing assigned forces. DoD’s nine Combatant Commands include six regional commands (NORTHCOM, SOUTHCOM, PACOM, EUCOM, 

CENTCOM, and AFRICOM) and three functional commands (TRANSCOM, 

STRATCOM, and SOCOM). 

Combatant Commanders are in the operational chain of command, which runs 

from the President to the Secretary of Defense, and from the Secretary of Defense 

to the Combatant Commanders. The Chairman, JCS, among other roles, transmits 

communications to and from the President and Secretary of Defense to the Combatant Commanders, and vice versa. The CJCS also oversees the Combatant Commands and serves as their spokesman, especially on the operational requirements 

of their commands. 

The Services interact with Combatant Commands in many ways on many levels 

to support joint operations. I would highlight two—command relationships and resource allocation—as representative of how Services support the warfighters of 

today and tomorrow. 

Command Relationships are at the intersection of how Combatant Commands 

choose to organize subordinate commands, and how Services internally organize and 

present forces. 

In general, regional Combatant Commands choose to organize forces in Land, 

Maritime, and Air domains within their assigned area; but both regional and functional Combatant Commands also task organize, with sub-unified commands or task 

forces for sub-regions, specific missions or functions. 

Within the Air Force, Major Commands (MAJCOMs) exercise administrative command of Service forces in a regional or functional area, overseeing inter alia asVerDate Nov 24 2008 11:50 Apr 05, 2016 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00013 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 Y:\REIER-AVILES\BORAWSKI\JOBS SENT FOR PRINTING 2015\99664.TXT JUNE
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signed units and personnel, training, logistical support, installations and housing, 

programming and budget execution, and administration of military justice. 

MAJCOMs may also be designated as component commands of the Combatant Commands, presenting a single face and administrative command structure through 

which to provide forces. For example, AF Special Operations Command is also the 

AF component command to SOCOM. 

Within the MAJCOMs, Numbered Air Forces (NAFs) provide the operational level 

of command that are often designated or assigned joint operational responsibilities 

by the Combatant Commander. Within Pacific Air Forces, for example, the Commander, 5th AF is dual-hatted as the Commander, United States Forces, Japan. 

Within AF Space Command, the Commander, 14th AF is designated by STRATCOM 

as the Joint Functional Component Commander for Space. 

These ‘‘dual-hatting’’ relationships make great sense as an efficient way to bridge 

the Service and Combatant Command command elements. At the same time, they 

deserve close scrutiny to ensure there is no unnecessary layering or duplication and, 

within the Services, that MAJCOM- and NAF-equivalent responsibilities are welldefined. 

Secretary Gates’ 2011 mandate for greater efficiencies spurred the Air Force to 

re-examine its headquarters overhead at all levels, including the Secretariat and Air 

Staff, MAJCOMs, NAFs, and down to the Wing level. 

Numerous reductions and realignments were made in the Secretariat and Air 

Staff, and some functions were moved to Field Operating Activities or assigned to 

MAJCOMs, with overall net reductions in personnel. 

Personnel management functions at the Wing and MAJCOM levels were moved 

and consolidated within the Air Force Personnel Center. MAJCOM installation support functions, along with separate services, contracting, and engineering agencies, 

were moved and consolidated in a new AF Installation & Mission Support Center 

attached to Air Force Materiel Command. 

NAFs were restructured, focused in part on situations where MAJCOM and NAF 

headquarters were co-located. As a result, PACAF and USAFE eliminated 13th and 

17th AF respectively, realigning their functions within the MAJCOM headquarters 

with a net reduction in personnel and general officer billets. These changes were 

coordinated with the respective Combatant Commanders to ensure consistency with 

the Commanders’ organizational scheme for subordinate commands. 

The Air Force also consolidated various ISR units and intelligence support activities into a new NAF – 25th AF, assigned to Air Combat Command, providing better, 

cleaner force presentation to all Combatant Commands and the Intelligence Community for ISR support. 

All these changes resulted in net personnel reductions enabling the AF to achieve 

an overall 20% reduction in its major headquarters activities as one part of the 5- 

year, $34 billion in AF efficiencies achieved under Secretary Gates’ initiative. 

In summary, the intersection of Service and Combatant Command command relationships is critical to the proper alignment of Service forces under unified command. The Services need to create internal command arrangements that satisfy 

both efficiency in their administrative command and OT&E responsibilities, and effectiveness in their presentation of forces and in satisfying the operational command 

requirements as defined by the nine Combatant Commanders. 

Reviewing this intersection between the command relationships of four Services 

and nine Combatant Commands is very pertinent to Congressional and DoD interest 

in improving the efficiency of DoD’s major headquarters activities. 

Recommendation: DoD and Congress review Service and Combatant 

Command command relationships, with four important caveats. 1) 

Avoid generalizations: command relationships are unique to each Service 

and Combatant Command. 2) Don’t assume that complex command arrangements reflect duplicative or unnecessary staff: dual-hatting (even triple-hatting where allies are involved) often makes good sense. 3) Don’t assume opportunities for major savings: review and take stock of previously 

harvested savings and efficiencies. 4) Congress should not legislate command relationships. 

Resource Allocation: Balancing Today’s Readiness and Tomorrow’s Capabilities. Warfighter needs are expressed through multiple channels in the Planning, 

Programming, Budgeting, and Execution (PPBE) system– DoD’s primary resource 

allocation process. For example, Combatant Commands express needs through Requests for Forces (RFFs), Integrated Priority Lists (IPLs), and Joint Urgent Operational Needs (JUONs), and occasionally in less formal submissions as well. Service 

component commanders and staff bring insights into the Combatant Commands’ 

force and capability requirements from their Service and, in effect, advocate for the 

11 

Combatant Commanders’ needs in developing the Service’s annual Program Objectives Memorandum (POM). 

At the DoD level, the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff is charged with integrating 

the Combatant Commanders’ needs, serving as their spokesman; preparing resource 

constrained strategic plans; advising the Secretary of Defense on strengths and deficiencies in force capabilities, force and capability requirements; and (when necessary) providing the Secretary with alternative program and budget recommendations that would better conform to Combatant Command needs. The Chairman does 

this through various channels, including the Joint Staff Directorate for Force Structure, Resources, and Assessment (J–8), a critical link with OSD’s Director of Cost 

Assessment and Program Evaluation (CAPE) as OSD and the Joint Staff together 

review Service program and budget proposals in the PPBE process. 

Among the critical resource allocation choices for the Services are those between 

the capacity and readiness of today’s forces, and investing in more modern capabilities for the future; and Combatant Commands are customers for both. 

To the extent today’s needs are not being met due to shortages (e.g. Low Density 

/ High Demand (LD/HD) forces), Combatant Commands favor building more capacity, because more capacity would increase their prospects for receiving more assigned forces, and for mission success. Combatant Commanders also expect that 

forces assigned from the Services are ready, not lacking in training or sustainability; 

and that the Services will fulfill this obligation. Especially in the current strategic 

environment, where there are multiple on-going operations and high demand for 

forces, sustaining capacity and readiness are urgent Combatant Command needs. 

To the extent Combatant Commands can see and understand the benefits of future capabilities or technologies, they favor their development and acquisition. But 

here, the Combatant Commands are largely dependent on the connectivity between 

their Service components, Service R&D elements, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to keep them informed of emerging technologies 

and their potential benefit to future operational capability. Combatant Commanders 

and staffs also understand that the Services and DARPA may be seeking their endorsement for new programs to gain advantage in the broader competition for scarce 

resources. As new technologies mature, the Joint Requirements Oversight Council 

(JROC) and its link with the USD(AT&L) in the acquisition process, provide additional Joint input during review of Service-proposed procurement programs. 

The bottom line, however, is that while Combatant Commands play an important 

role in setting demand signals by defining force and capability requirements, and 

are consumers of ready forces, strategic decisions on how to allocate resources and 

risks ultimately belong to the Secretary of Defense based on the advice of his OSD 

principal staff assistants and military advisors (i.e. the CJCS/JCS/Joint Staff), and 

the Services’ senior civilian leadership. 

Overall, DoD’s ability to support the warfighters of today and tomorrow is dependent on sufficient appropriations from Congress. But in the context of roles and functions across DoD’s major headquarters activities, these assigned responsibilities and 

the organizational relationships established in DoD’s key management processes ensure there is joint input and review in Service resource allocation and acquisition. 

They provide Combatant Commands a necessary link and voice, but are also intended to keep Combatant Commands focused on their deterrence, warfighting, 

planning, and engagement responsibilities, minimizing the need for these headquarters to have large programming staffs duplicating the work of their Service 

force providers. 

At the same time, the Combatant Commands need J–8 functions to interact with 

the Joint Staff and Services on matters related to program evaluation and resource 

allocation. The size and scope of Combatant Command J–8s will vary according to 

the command’s mission, and especially so for the functional commands—SOCOM, 

STRATCOM, and TRANSCOM. 

Recommendation: In review of major headquarters activities, recommend DoD and Congress review the purpose and size of Combatant Command J–8 functions to ensure they are not duplicating program and resource activities that are the primary responsibilities of 

others. 

OTHER ISSUES CONCERNING MILITARY DEPARTMENTS AND COMBATANT COMMANDS

Do We Need to Establish New Services for Space, Cyber, or Special Operations? Periodically, it is asked whether we need to create new Services in response 

to a rapidly changing technology and security environment. There is no agreed test 

or threshold for establishing a new Service, nor is there a clear and consistent hisVerDate Nov 24 2008 11:50 Apr 05, 2016 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00015 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 Y:\REIER-AVILES\BORAWSKI\JOBS SENT FOR PRINTING 2015\99664.TXT JUNE
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tory that suggests when this organizational option is appropriate. In 1947, for example, the Department of the Air Force was established in response to 40 years of 

rapid, astonishing advances in aviation technology and the progressive growth and 

evolution of air doctrine, culture, and organization within the U.S. Army. But there 

was no new Service created with the discovery of nuclear fission, or when further 

advances in aviation and missile technology opened up the domain of space. 

Institutional responses to new threats or technology can take many forms. Important factors to consider might include: 

• Maturity of the mission / function / domain and readiness to assume the full 

scope of OT&E functions performed by the Services (e.g. doctrine, training, logistics, infrastructure, R&D, Procurement, etc.) 

• Relative size in personnel needs / resources—Does this exceed the capabilities, 

or is it overwhelming other military functions, of the existing Service host(s)? 

And, 

• Whether this activity can be separated out of the Services without disrupting 

their ability to fulfill other assigned functions. 

Often, the motivation for a new component is more attention and more money: 

the belief that a new component out from under its current host, reporting directly 

to the Secretary of Defense, would be more likely to get the management attention 

and resources perceived by its advocates as essential to a new, important area. 

The arguments in favor of a new Service would be that it requires dedicated, component-level focus, resources, and leadership for critical capabilities that would otherwise receive insufficient attention within a larger component with multiple responsibilities. As a central feature of DoD’s organizational design, however, establishment of a new Service has been and should remain a very high threshold, and 

we should consider all the alternatives. 

If the needs related to this activity were oriented toward the integration of its 

warfighting elements, then new command arrangements in the joint system might 

be a better solution. Alternatively, where new, emerging needs are focused on supporting capabilities and more efficient resource management with more business 

and less military content, then a Defense Agency might be an appropriate course 

of action. Importantly, whatever structural or organizational solution(s) are considered best, linkages with the roles and responsibilities of other DoD staffs and components should be identified, de-conflicted, and made clear. 

Given the current management and resource environment, however, I find the arguments opposing new Services more persuasive. Further sub-division of the four 

Services to create another Service would yield more headquarters, duplicating 

OT&E and staff functions already provided for; and each new component further 

complicates the coordination required among and across DoD’s approximately 45 

components. Any new Service would further spread scarce budget resources across 

more organizations and weaken integrated decision-making. This would further 

complicate the work of DoD leadership, pushing more resource tradeoffs upwards 

to the Secretary and Deputy Secretary of Defense. 

In each of the cases at issue (space, cyber, and special operations), DoD has made 

reasonable choices focused on the integration of warfighting capabilities, creating 

joint command arrangements and leaving the development of capabilities and OT&E 

responsibilities to the four Services. 

Creation of a new Service seems a deeper, more expensive, and more permanent 

commitment. In recent practice, in response to new technologies or the need for new 

capabilities, creating new staff functions, agencies, and command arrangements has 

thus far proven to be more attractive and flexible over time. 

Can the Services be operated more effectively and/or efficiently? I support 

consolidation of the Secretariat and Service staffs within each Military Department 

to promote greater effectiveness and efficiency. 

Current arrangements have a long history and the benefit of strong alignment 

with the existing structure of a separate OSD and Joint Staff at the DoD level, with 

their undersecretaries and a common military staff structure, respectively. Nonetheless, the abiding presence of two staffs in the same headquarters (three in the Department of the Navy) has periodically been a source of both tension and confusion, 

both internally within the respective Services, and externally to those with whom 

the Services interact. It is duplicative in several areas and, generally, inefficient. 

Various recommendations for reduction or elimination of staff duplication in the 

Service headquarters were proposed by the 1960 Symington Committee, the 1970 

Blue Ribbon Defense Panel, and the 1978 Ignatius Report. During the consideration 

of Goldwater-Nichols, House legislative drafts favored the integration of Service 

headquarters while the Senate opposed it; and the final agreement left separate 

13 

staffs intact with some changes. The 1995 Commission on Roles and Missions of the 

Armed Forces concluded that Service Secretaries and Chiefs would be better served 

by a single staff of experienced civilians and uniformed officers; and the 2004 CSIS 

Beyond Goldwater-Nichols Phase 1 Report echoed this recommendation. 

Some useful changes have been made without legislation. Indeed, current law provides some flexibility for Service Secretaries to assign and/or move functions between the two staffs. Since 2002, the Army has sought a closer integration of its 

two headquarters staffs through General Orders. A recent Air Force decision to 

move it’s A–8 programming function to the Assistant Secretary for Financial Management was a sensible step that closed a seam between programming and budgeting databases—providing more coherence and efficiency in resource allocation and 

budget execution. However, more fundamental changes offering greater effectiveness 

and efficiency will require changes in law. 

Consolidation of the Service headquarters staffs within individual Military Departments would help eliminate some unnecessary or counter-productive seams. For 

example, separation of the Secretariats’ Acquisition functions from Service staffs’ 

Logistics functions runs counter to sound life-cycle management for weapon systems. In this instance, staff consolidations could potentially present a single Service 

office to interact with the USD(AT&L), and with the Services’ own major commands 

which perform both acquisition and logistics functions. Another example is the unnecessary effort to distinguish policy and oversight in the Secretariats from Service 

staffs’ management of nearly identical functional areas of responsibility, such as Assistant Secretaries for Manpower and Reserve Affairs, and Deputy Chiefs of Staff 

for Personnel. 

Historically, when the subject of consolidation has arisen in the past, the civilian 

appointees are concerned the military staff is trying to eliminate the Secretariat, 

and the uniformed military is concerned the presence of civilian appointees in a single staff will interfere with what they perceive as a clear command chain within the 

military Service staff. The results have been strained civil-military relations and 

only limited progress toward greater efficiency. 

Going forward, once again considering consolidation, Congress could increase the 

prospects for success by sustaining the principles of effective civilian control and 

independent military advice and ensuring Service Secretaries and Chiefs of Staff 

have universal access to all elements of the single headquarters staff. 

The system of civilian Service secretaries and assistant secretaries should be retained because they are net value added to the Secretary of Defense and to the Service 

headquarters. While it is true that the Secretary of Defense exercises civilian control 

through delegated authority to Under Secretaries of Defense and other OSD officials 

in various functional areas, none of these Under Secretaries has the full scope of 

responsibilities necessary to oversee a Military Department. Working together in the 

most optimistic circumstances, these OSD officials bring many disparate views to 

the table. In short, I do not believe the Secretary of Defense can exercise effective 

civilian control over Military Departments through the OSD staff alone. 

Based on my experience in both OSD and the Air Force, the size and scope of the 

Military Departments and the issues that arise within them warrant a parallel 

structure of civilian control in OSD and the Services. Ensuring the Secretary of Defense’s direction and intent is understood and implemented at the Service level, 

overseeing the promotion and assignment of senior personnel, overseeing resource 

allocation and program execution, and holding senior civilian and military officials 

accountable for their performance and conduct are among the leadership functions 

that benefit from strong civilian control within the Military Department headquarters. 

Provide the Service Chief unfettered access to any and all Military Department 

headquarters staff for the purpose of developing military advice as a member of the 

Joint Chiefs of Staff. This is an essential element of any Service headquarters consolidation and can be accomplished through a legislative provision to that effect. 

Specifically, it would ensure that the Service chief would have access to military 

personnel within any staff function without interference, regardless of whether such 

function is led by an Assistant Secretary or another senior civilian. In practice, this 

should present no issue since the Plans and Operations functions on the military 

staff have no counterpart in the Service Secretariats and would likely continue to 

be led by General/Flag Officers. 

Maintain a Mix of Appointees, Uniformed Personnel, and Career Civilians. In addition, it is important to recognize that creating a single headquarters staff is not 

a choice between civilian or military staffs. The Secretariats include many uniformed officers, including senior officers in functions designated in law as the sole 

responsibility of the Secretary—for example, Acquisition, Financial Management, 

Legislative Affairs, and Public Affairs. Likewise, the military staff contains Senior 

14 

3DoD Directive 5100.3, Support of the Headquarters of Combatant and Subordinate Unified 

Commands, February 2011. 

Executive Service civilians who provide deep expertise and continuity, compensating 

for the high personnel turnover associated with military rotations. Civilian appointees bring different and useful DoD, congressional, or industry experience and 

skill sets, currently atypical in a military career, that complement those of uniformed leaders and career civilians. 

In my experience, the Service Secretary benefits from a strong partnership with 

the Service Chief, and the Service Chief benefits from having a strong civilian partner in the Service Secretary. Overall, the Service headquarters benefits from this 

mix of political appointees, uniformed personnel, and career civilians. 

Consolidation of Military Department headquarters staffs has been in the ‘‘good 

idea, but too hard’’ box for many years and will require a careful approach. It has 

a long history and great potential for missteps. Congress should take a deliberate 

approach, provide time for the Services to carefully prepare legislative proposals, 

and take a closer look at the details before signing up to the concept. Congress 

should, as much as possible, also provide for uniformity across the Military Department headquarters as was done during Goldwater-Nichols, while accommodating 

the special circumstances of two Services in the Department of the Navy. 

Recommendation: Consolidate Military Department headquarters 

staffs as proposed to help improve unity of effort, effectiveness, and 

efficiency; and present a single Service headquarters structure to the 

field. Retain the benefits of strong civilian alignment with OSD and 

military alignment with the Joint Staff and other military staffs. 

Does DoD Need More, or Fewer, Combatant Commands? The U.S. military 

needs Unified Combatant Commands. Over 60 years of combat experience has proven that no single service can conduct effective operations without assistance from 

others, and more recent experience demonstrates that 21st century warfare crosses 

multiple domains and regions. 

Moreover, we have tried the alternatives. Experience showed that ‘‘specified’’ combatant commands led by a single service (e.g. Strategic Air Command and Military 

Airlift Command) did not produce sufficient integration of effort and, of necessity, 

needed to evolve to a higher, unified level. Ad hoc task forces for multi-service operations did not work as well as joint commands with trained staffs and a full-time 

focus on joint force integration (e.g. the evolution from Rapid Deployment Force to 

Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force to CENTCOM). 

Current concerns are focused on the number of Combatant Commands and the 

size of their headquarters staffs. 

Service Chiefs, as members of the JCS, have important roles to play in weighing 

the pros and cons of new joint commands and advising the Secretary of Defense. 

This is because any new Combatant Command will need to be staffed by personnel 

from across the Services. In addition, the Services act as Executive Agents for Combatant Command headquarters with responsibility for funding and administration 

of these activities on Service installations. 3 In this sense, the Services act as an internal brake on unconstrained growth in the joint system. 

Informally, it appears DoD has been limiting its Unified Command Plan (UCP) 

to around 9–10 commands. The post 9/11 creation of NORTHCOM in 2002 was part 

of a restructuring that disestablished SPACECOM and assigned space functions to 

STRATCOM, resulting in no net increase in the number of commands. Importantly, 

other 2002 UCP changes included the assignment of countries previously outside the 

purview of any regional command; thus for the first time providing the UCP with 

global coverage. 

In considering whether to split-off Africa from EUCOM’s area of responsibility 

and find the resources for a new headquarters, the creation of AFRICOM in 2008 

was ‘on the cusp’. With continuing instability in the horn of Africa, the emergence 

of Al Qaida-affiliated groups in the Maghreb, a growing war on terrorism, and the 

need to develop indigenous African military capabilities, it was clear there were 

multiple political-military issues to address in a new command. But it was also clear 

that a new AFRICOM would not have assigned forces (though USSOCOM assets 

would routinely operate within the region), and its headquarters would be different 

from other commands, staffed with more non-military, interagency personnel. 

In 2010, when Secretary Gates’ efficiency initiatives included a review of joint 

headquarters, it was determined that the UCP could live without Joint Forces Command. Thus, AFRICOM was last ‘‘in’’ and JFCOM was last ‘‘out’’. 

In assessing the future of the six regional commands, I would not recommend any 

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ration, which should be considered important progress; and adjustments on the 

boundaries can be expected in the normal course of business. The option of merging 

NORTHCOM and SOUTHCOM into an ‘‘Americas’’ or ‘‘Western Hemisphere’’ command mixes very different missions and would dilute necessary focus on the homeland. Given the dynamic strategic environment in Europe, it doesn’t make sense to 

reverse course and reassign AFRICOM to EUCOM, and the United States would 

pay some political price with new African partners if it did so. 

Among the functional commands, CYBERCOM—currently a sub-unified command 

within STRATCOM—appears poised to emerge as the tenth Combatant Command. 

This long-debated development involves highly complex relationships between DoD 

and the Intelligence Community, and within the UCP itself. Some of the UCP implications are discussed below. 

What changes to the Joint system should be considered? Given this perspective that the number and type of Combatant Commands is roughly correct, the preferred way to manage them is to maintain close control over assigned forces and 

LD/HD assets, and how well their staffs are resourced. Congress should expect DoD 

to carefully review the size of Combatant Command headquarters and each of their 

staff directorates, and make choices on which to staff more or less robustly according to their mission and need. 

I would not recommend DoD change, nor Congress legislate, staff structure (i.e. 

J–1 thru J-x). The existing structure provides an important, common framework 

across all military staffs and provides basis for communication and process interaction in both operational and administrative contexts. Sizing decisions for staff directorates simply need to accommodate differences in Combatant Command missions, and between the Combatant Commands and other components. In addition 

to differences in the J–8 functions previously discussed, for example, a Combatant 

Command J–1 (personnel office) performs a substantially smaller and more discrete 

personnel function than is found in Military Departments. Finally, any such review 

of Combatant Command headquarters should ensure all commands maintain sufficient resources to support their core capabilities for planning and executing joint operations. 

Joint Intelligence Operations Centers and the regional centers for security studies, such as the George C. Marshall Center in EUCOM, and the Asia-Pacific Center 

in PACOM, also deserve close attention. These are subordinate components or direct-reporting units, technically not part of the Combatant Commands’ headquarters 

but nonetheless resource-intensive elements within Combatant Commands’ scope of 

responsibilities. I strongly support the alignment of these intelligence and security 

studies centers within their respective commands. Nonetheless, due to their size, I 

recommend they be re-validated as necessary and appropriate for Combatant Commands. 

Recommendation: DoD and Congress should review the size and 

composition of each Combatant Command headquarters and their 

supporting elements. 

Just as President Eisenhower noted in 1958, and Goldwater-Nichols later reinforced, that ‘‘Separate ground, sea, and air warfare is gone forever . . . ’’ we should 

recognize today that single theater warfare has been rapidly fading in the shadow 

of trans-national threats and globalization. In addition, new and more demanding 

roles for Combatant Commands have emerged that should be recognized and accommodated. 

More important than how many or what type of commands DoD has is how well 

they work together—a matter of increasing urgency given the current security environment. 

Hybrid warfare, constant cyber attacks, and terrorists and non-state actors with 

global reach crisscross artificial regional command boundaries and keep 

CYBERCOM and SOCOM continuously engaged in world-wide operations. Attacks 

on the United States could well begin in the silent domains of space and cyber with 

effects in NORTHCOM’s area of responsibility. Regional military commands are but 

one element in a larger fabric of United States Government and international engagement and collaboration in meeting contemporary challenges and threats to 

international security. 

The Combatant Commands’ role in ‘‘engagement’’ has evolved since the 1986 enactment of Goldwater-Nichols. They are still responsible for integrating joint U.S. 

combat and support capabilities, but now in addition they are serving as senior U.S. 

military representatives in developing international partners and conducting planning for coalition operations. This role helps extend the international reach of the 

CJCS in counterpart relations, providing for more regular interaction with regional 

16 

allies and partners at the strategic level, and deeper military-to-military relationships in critical areas such as missile defense. 

I strongly endorse this role for the Combatant Commanders. Critics note the U.S. 

military can become too dominant in regional affairs that more properly belong to 

the State Department. Where that may occur, the answer is not to diminish the 

military engagement, but to increase diplomatic and other interagency capabilities 

and resources necessary to support the full scope of U.S. interests in the region. 

Today’s security environment requires us to take joint commands to new levels 

of operational competency, including more coordination and collaboration with other 

U.S. Government agencies, and increasing collaboration with international partners 

and allies. We need to move in these directions, if possible, without increasing the 

total number of personnel in Combatant Command headquarters. 

Recommendation: DoD and Congress should support the evolution of 

Combatant Command headquarters to accommodate increasing collaboration with U.S. Government agencies and international partners. 

We also need to recognize that, in the current security environment, cross-domain, 

cross-regional, and cross-functional operations put higher demands on our ability to 

integrate the work of multiple Combatant Commands, further complicating the web 

of ‘‘supported- supporting’’ command relationships. 

Within the current UCP, STRATCOM, in addition to its foundational mission of 

nuclear deterrence, has multiple global missions/responsibilities to bring to bear, including Space, Global C4ISR, Cyber, Counter-WMD, Global Missile Defense, and 

Global Strike. Much-needed, integrated perspectives on how these domains and missions should be defended and exploited in today’s complex environment are still in 

development. Under current arrangements, while the relationships among 

STRATCOM’s many global missions and their ‘‘supporting-supported’’ relationships 

to other Combatant Commands have not been developed to their full potential, these 

global tools have at least been kept in the same Command bag. Thus, any realignment of global functions (such as CYBER) away from STRATCOM will create additional command seams that will need to be addressed. 

In this context, the U.S. needs to enhance strategic planning for global operations 

in which multiple regional and functional commands will be operating simultaneously. In the midst of this demanding environment, we need robust gaming, joint 

training, and exercises across Combatant Commands that will facilitate the test and 

evaluation of new operating concepts and validate plans. 

Recommendation: In the aftermath of disestablishing JFCOM, Congress should ask whether DoD has in place the mechanisms and resources for joint experimentation. 

The question arises: who has the responsibility for integrating the Combatant 

Commands’ work and do they have sufficient authority and resources for this purpose? In my judgment, the Chairman, JCS, in coordination with the USD(P), has 

the responsibility and sufficient authority for this work. The Chairman is responsible for overseeing the Combatant Commands, for being their spokesman, and for 

developing resource constrained strategic plans. The Chairman establishes rules 

and procedures for the Joint community, including areas such as the Joint Strategic 

Planning System, and Joint Doctrine. The Chairman also functions within the chain 

of command and assists the President and Secretary of Defense in their command 

functions. 

Together, I believe these assigned duties are sufficient for the Chairman to coordinate and direct the integration of Combatant Command planning; and if not, sufficient authority is only a short distance away through a targeted delegation of authority from the Secretary of Defense. A contrary view, however, is that the Chairman needs to be in the chain of command—requiring a change in law—to exercise 

this authority. 

Recommendation: DoD and Congress ensure the responsibility for development of strategic, integrated planning across all Combatant 

Commands is properly assigned with the necessary authorities and 

resources to support this work. 

CONCLUSION

I support the consolidation of Service headquarters staffs, and reviews of Service 

and Combatant Command command arrangements, and Combatant Command staffs 

17 

4While not considered for this hearing, I also recommend close review of OSD, Joint Staff, 

and Defense Agency headquarters. 

and support components, for greater efficiencies. 4 We must also act to ensure the 

necessary responsibilities, authorities, and resources are in place within the joint 

system to meet the demands of the current security environment. 

Congress should partner with DoD in all this work, choose carefully and jointly 

to set priorities, generate mutual confidence, and enhance prospects for successful 

implementation of any resulting reforms. Not all improvements require new law, 

and many opportunities for improvement fall within DoD’s existing authorities. 

However, the biggest problems in supporting the warfighter are not in the headquarters, they are in the corridors of Congress. Specifically, the inability of Congress 

to reach consensus on stable funding for defense sufficient to respond to a rapidly 

changing threat environment, improve readiness, and finance badly needed modernization across the force; and Congressional opposition to base closures and force 

structure adjustments recommended by military leaders that would permit the Services to shift scarce resources to meet changing needs and accelerate the acquisition 

of new capabilities. 

There will always be a need for greater efficiency in DoD, and I commend the DoD 

leadership and Congress for keeping up this pressure. There will always be shortages: we have never had the resources needed to do everything that prudent and 

cautious military leaders think necessary to do. Transferring the savings from headquarters efficiencies and other reforms to combat capabilities is a model we should 

pursue, but these savings and efficiencies alone will not close the business case. To 

meet the demands of the current strategic environment and support the warfighters 

of today and tomorrow, DoD will need more resources and flexibility to sustain and 

in some areas increase capacity, to rebuild readiness, and to modernize the force. 

Thank you for this opportunity to present my views. 

Chairman MCCAIN. General Flynn? 

STATEMENT OF LIEUTENANT GENERAL MICHAEL T. FLYNN, 

USA, RETIRED, FORMER DIRECTOR OF THE DEFENSE INTELLIGENCE AGENCY 

Mr. FLYNN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman McCain, Ranking Member Reed, thanks. Great seeing you again. 

I actually was a lieutenant and my first combat experience was 

in Grenada in 1983. So it is interesting that I am sitting here today 

because it was a mess. It was very confusing. 

Thanks for inviting me to participate alongside these other great 

patriots. 

Chairman MCCAIN. Good thing it was not a formidable opponent, 

do you not think? 

Mr. FLYNN. Yes. I have a few choice words today for the Cubans. 

Anyway, I appreciate sitting aside these two really unbelievable 

patriots of our country and longtime servants and to really just 

offer some thoughts on this defense reform. I hope that I offer 

thoughts that I think that are going to be consistent with the other 

themes that you have already heard from other people that have 

testified, as well as I think today maybe I will add a few new ideas. 

In the times that we face and we will likely face in this very complex and unpredictable world, addressing defense reform is probably the single biggest strategic issue that we must deal with, and 

I believe we have to deal with it immediately. 

The days of large organizations moving at the speed of an elephant with bulky, expensive, overly bureaucratic acquisition programs with little value to our warfighters and even less value to 

our national security are forever gone. 

Speed is the new big. Innovation is the new norm. The pace of 

change is so stunningly fast, and the Defense Department, at least 

18 

inside the Pentagon, is not capable of meeting the demands of future threats. 

Rearranging the deck chairs on this Titanic will only make the 

chairs slide in a different direction on that deck, but the ship will 

still likely sink. 

As you said, Chairman, former Secretary Robert Gates stated it 

best. I think it was in the fall of 2008 is when he said it, that the 

Pentagon is good at planning for war, but on its best day cannot 

fight a war. That has been proven in spades over the past decade 

and a half with few exceptions. 

If the past 14 years of conflict have proven anything, it has proven Secretary Gates to be spot-on when it came to making that fateful statement. 

Neither our Nation nor the citizens our defense system is designed to protect and defend can operate in the future the way we 

operate today. 

I would add that even though a nice glossy and well meaning report will come out of this committee, there are people inside the 

Department—and I am serious about this—that are looking at your 

efforts today as a joke and wondering why do you bother, nothing 

will ever change. Please, Chairman and members of this committee, please prove them wrong. 

We have forgotten how to win wars because we have lost sight 

of what winning looks like. Instead, we plod along, participating in 

conflict and allowing an overly bulky and bureaucratic Department 

of Defense and a completely broken interagency process, led by the 

White House and rightly so, that has choked itself practically to 

death. It simply does not work in support of our warfighting needs 

today. The President in his role as commander-in-chief and the 

Secretary of Defense in his role as leader of our defense establishment are ill-served. There is no soft or kind way of saying that. In 

a giant organization like the Department of Defense, change is not 

easy. Reforms will take time, and I applaud this committee’s efforts 

to give it your best shot. 

At the end of the day, still the budget process and not the mission is what truly changes anything in our government. We have 

to reverse that thinking particularly when it comes to defense. 

That is just simply the sad truth. Where the money goes, things 

happen. Despite where that money goes, most times has no bearing 

on our ability to win wars. If you do not get any money, you either 

change or you disappear. If you get money, you are able to survive 

another day. 

My experience comes serving over 33 years in uniform, 12 in 

joint assignments, and nearly 10 of those as a flag officer. I have 

also served many years in combat and have suffered from the lack 

of many capabilities that we needed to fight our enemies and found 

myself fighting the Pentagon as much or more than our enemies. 

The bureaucracy of our lethargic system filled with people who depart for the day from their major headquarters or from the Pentagon and leave an inbox filled with actions to await tomorrow 

while we were sitting in a combat zone waiting for an answer is 

not a good way to fight a war. 

I have many personal examples and personal scars and I have 

witnessed many examples of this in may days deployed to the wars 

19 

primarily in the Middle East and Central Asia. We must and can 

do better for our Nation and for those that serve this Nation. 

Today I will highlight a couple of points and provide some ideas, 

and hopefully a few of these are new. 

First, we will never correctly predict the next war. We can warn 

about the many threats that we face, and there are numerous and 

very dangerous threats. You mentioned a few in your remarks, 

Chairman. ISIS [the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria] is the latest 

in a long line of threats to our Nation that we must do more to contain, defeat, and ultimately eliminate this radical Islamist ideology. 

There are many more threats than this very dangerous enemy. 

Second, the connection between people, processes, and systems is 

completely broken. 

Regarding people, we recruit still using old, outdated mechanisms and tools, and then we train people with equipment that is 

aging, not the most advanced even though we, our country, has the 

most advanced technologies available to anyone in the world. Bottom line in this regard is our recruiting and training are being 

done with less than stellar rules, tools, and advanced capabilities. 

We can do better. 

We force our warriors to fight wars by forcing them to push joint 

urgent operational needs or urgent needs statements from the battlefield up the chain of command. That is no way to fight a war. 

It is reality because our people do not have, they do not train with, 

they do not go to war with the right tools. I have seen this numerous times. Essentially they are not prepared to go to war with the 

equipment in our current inventories. We have to do better, and as 

the best military in the world, we cannot afford to not look serious 

to the men and women that we are supposed to serve. We do not 

look very professional in the eyes of our international partners, 

never mind our enemies. 

Lastly, we must consider retooling our high-tech training. We 

must radically move from the information age to the digital age, 

and we have to do this quickly. China, for example, has an organization of 800,000 cyber warriors, and I highlight this in my statement for the record. 800,000 cyber warriors. I was just briefed on 

this about 2 weeks ago at a cyber training event that happened out 

at Camp Dawson, West Virginia. A fantastic capability. These 

800,000 cyber warriors in China are associated with their Department 61398 that we all became familiar with when the Mandiant 

report came out. We are struggling in the Department to recruit I 

think 6,000 within our own Department of Defense that Mike Rogers, our great cyber commander, has highlighted as a need. That 

number fluctuates. But this is the problem that we are facing. 

Again, I will give you a little bit more information on that number. 

Something is wrong with that picture. Any reform must consider 

retooling for future jobs and not hold desperately to these 20th century tools and models that we have. 

On processes, the processes that we use are antiquated and usually one war behind, if not more. I went to war in Afghanistan the 

first time based still on airland battle doctrine, a doctrine designed 

for the Cold War, originally written in the early 1980s. That doctrine was still being trained right up until 2006, 5 years into the 

war when Generals Petraeus and Mattis came out with the counVerDate Nov 24 2008 11:50 Apr 05, 2016 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00023 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 Y:\REIER-AVILES\BORAWSKI\JOBS SENT FOR PRINTING 2015\99664.TXT JUNE
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terinsurgency manual or counterinsurgency doctrine. We can and 

must do better. We have to either understand the type of war that 

we are in and make the decisions upfront to get to where we need 

to be. 

But why did it take us nearly 5 years to change our doctrine 

when we were directly engaged in a counterinsurgency and 

counterterrorism campaign? Two reasons are—and there are others. Bureaucracy and service parochial infighting are two of those. 

Thank God our superb men, women, soldiers, sailors, airmen, and 

marines and those civilians serving in combat innovate better than 

any other military in the world. When they realize that something 

is broken, they fix it on the battlefield instead of using the Pentagon’s motto of ‘‘if it is broke, let somebody else fix it.’’ We still need 

the money. 

Lastly, the systems we have and the acquisition system that 

drives much of how our services and combatant commanders operate may as well be in separate solar systems, and none of these, 

with few exceptions, seem to be anywhere near the battlefields we 

operate on today. 

It is tempting to sit here and beat up those in the Pentagon, and 

that would be unfair. But there are there some in our system that 

see a jobs program, some who have never seen a program of record 

they did not like, and some who abuse the system so badly that it 

makes corrupt governments in the Third World nations blush. 

Additionally, after nearly 14 years of war, conflict, call it what 

you will, we are engaged with enemies of our country and they 

want to win. I am not certain we have demonstrated the resilience 

or the fortitude to do the same, at least not yet. 

There are many in the defense system that have yet to experience that and do not understand the demands of combat, and there 

others who avoid it wishing it will go away. It will not. We, you, 

Chairman, committee have to fix a number of things, but one of the 

most important is the acquisition system, I think has been highlighted by many who have testified to this committee. It must be 

joint and it must include the warfighter requirements and not simply serve the service chiefs, secretaries, and their constituents’ 

needs. Secretary Gates found this, as you highlighted, and fixed it, 

but to do so, he had to become the best action officer in the Pentagon. 

That said, let me list a couple of ideas to consider as we go 

through the rest of this session and as you contemplate what steps 

you need to take forward. I will be prepared to address any of these 

in Q and A. 

Number one, tooth-to-tail ration must change. Reverse it before 

we find ourselves not ready to fight, never mind win. We have way 

too much overhead and our staffs have become bloated beyond the 

nonsense stage. 

Number two, related to the above, we have way too many fourstars, commands and otherwise, around the world and too many 

four-star headquarters in each of the services. In terms of our 

warfighting that the Secretary mentioned, we have 11 warfighting 

commands if you count USFK [United States Forces Korea] as a 

subcomponent and you count Cyber Command as a unified component. 11, not to mention the service four- and three- star positions 

21 

that could easily be reduced a rank or cut and the staffs could subsequently be reduced. 

Number three, cut the civilian system in half or more because 

the growth has just been unbelievable. I saw that in my own agency looking at 10 years of history before I even took over the Defense Intelligence Agency. Turn those dollars into readiness and 

place more tooth into our warfighting forces. Be cautious about salami slicing and help the SecDef [the Secretary of Defense] and the 

senior civilian and military leaders make the best decisions based 

on a unified and strategic national security vision approved by the 

President instead of slicing to benefit some constituency. You must 

play a role, but very candidly and over many years, Congress created much of this mess and now you have an opportunity and I believe a responsibility to correct it. So thank you for taking this on. 

Number four, we need to seriously look at how we organize to 

fight and win in wars. We man, train, and equip as services, i.e., 

Title 10. We go to war as a joint force, and in general Air Force 

takes the Army, the Marines take the Navy—and again, I am generalizing there. But we only win as a coalition. We need to determine—in fact, in here I say please name one time when we did not 

fight as a coalition. I mean that, and if you go back in our history, 

even to the days of George Washington. 

So we need to determine if we are creating a force that is not 

only technically qualified but also culturally and societally understanding and smart. Language training, for example, is something 

that we need to place greater emphasis on for those officers serving 

in maneuver and operational assignments. You know, foreign languages are not just for the intelligence community and attaches. 

For example, maybe we make it a prerequisite for combatant commanders to speak a foreign language before they can even be considered for a combatant command assignment. Maybe we do that 

for a majority of our three- and four-star assignments. That example, that message would go a long way and reverberate across the 

entire force, and it would change the culture all the way down to 

our ROTC [Reserve Officer Training Corps] programs, our junior 

ROTC programs, and in our service academies. It would take a 

generation, but I think we need to think like that. 

Number five, we need to significantly increase the tenure and 

stature of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Vice 

Chairman. Tenures with a minimum of 5 years—my recommendation—without reconfirmation. It does not mean that the President 

cannot lose confidence and you cannot get rid of that person if they 

are not doing their job, but I think a tenure with a minimum of 

5 years should be considered. Why 5 years? In order to last longer 

than the service chiefs and potentially serve or overlap two Presidents. This maintains the unbiased responsibility that the Chairman and the Vice with serving in that role as required has as the 

principal military advisor to the President. 

Number six, conduct a thorough and comprehensive overhaul of 

the defense acquisition system. Look at every single program of 

record. Every program not currently meeting its timelines or budgets should be immediately cut. Now, that is a big statement, but 

when you send a message that waste and substandard performance 

will no longer be tolerated, that would send shockwaves through 

22 

the system and my belief is it would be nearly impossible to do. It 

would be the harder right thing to do. I do not believe necessarily 

that you could do it, but it would be interesting to see how many 

programs in an analysis of that that are actually up to standard. 

There are very few exceptions or very few in my experience and in 

my judgment today sitting here. 

Number seven, increase the investment in small businesses. 

Today I believe the Defense Department policy states a goal of 25 

percent investments in small businesses across the Department. 

Small businesses are the engine of change in our country right 

now, and with the rapid advancement in technologies across the 

board from health care to intelligence, we must seek new, innovative, and disruptive ways to force fundamental change. Most on 

this committee would be challenged to recognize the Fortune 100, 

never mind Fortune 500. They are all relatively new and many 

started as small businesses within the last decade. As stated, small 

businesses also innovate. They have to in order to survive. My 

strongest suggestion for consideration at this stage is to increase 

the small business investment goals of the Department to as high 

as 50 percent. I believe the Department and especially our 

warfighters would benefit most and many would benefit overnight. 

Lastly, small businesses are the best way to increase our Nation’s 

economic strength, a drive change in this country. They would help 

us retool our Nation for the digital age. 

Number eight and the last recommendation is decide who and 

where decisions about acquisition reform can be made. The SecDef 

cannot make them all. But if a service chief comes in and says we 

need this program, cannot live without it, and a combatant commander comes in and says that program is not working, then do 

not let the system decide to keep it and only fix it on the margins. 

Get rid of it, or make the necessary decisions that actually make 

a difference. If they see something elsewhere and that is a capability they want, especially our warfighting commanders, and it can 

be produced in the requisite amounts within existing budgets, get 

it to them rapidly or allow them to acquire it without going 

through the whole morass of bureaucracy. 

In this context, the questions that this committee is considering 

are in my judgment the correct ones, namely, whether our Nation’s 

institutions of national defense are organized, manned, equipped, 

and managed in ways that can deal with the security challenges 

of the 21st century and that efficiently and effectively spend our 

Nation’s dollars. 

The Department is not meeting those challenges today, and we 

are not ready to deal with the challenges we, as the global leader 

with the premier military capability on the planet, should be capable of in the future. 

Without fundamental and massive reform, as well as some 

smart, numerous, and targeted reductions in areas that have 

grown bloated, irrelevant, and useless, we could find ourselves on 

the losing end of a major war, Chairman, one that sitting here 

today we are unable to predict. 

If our Nation is proud of being the world’s leader, let us start acting like it and as our very first President, George Washington, statVerDate Nov 24 2008 11:50 Apr 05, 2016 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00026 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 Y:\REIER-AVILES\BORAWSKI\JOBS SENT FOR PRINTING 2015\99664.TXT JUNE
23 

ed, ‘‘To be prepared for war is one of the most effective means of 

preserving peace.’’ 

Thank you for this opportunity. I look forward to your questions. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Flynn follows:] 

THE PREPARED STATEMENT BY LTG MICHAEL T. FLYNN (RETIRED) 

Chairman McCain, Senator Reed: Thank you for inviting me to participate alongside other great patriots of our country to offer some thoughts about defense reform 

and hope I offer thoughts consistent with many other themes you have heard from 

previous testimony as well as a few new ideas. 

In the times we face and will likely face in this very complex and unpredictable 

world, addressing defense reform is probably the single biggest strategic issue we 

must deal with (and deal with immediately). 

The days of large organizations moving at the speed of an elephant with bulky, 

expensive, overly bureaucratic acquisition programs, with little value to our 

warfighters and even less value to our national security are forever gone. 

Speed is the new big. Innovation is the norm, the pace of change is so stunningly 

fast, and the Defense Department (at least inside the Pentagon) is not capable of 

meeting the Demands of the future threats. 

Rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic will only make the chairs slide in a 

different direction on the deck, but the ship will still sink. 

Former Secretary Robert Gates stated it best when he said that the Pentagon is 

good at planning for war, but on its best day cannot fight a war (that has been proven in spades over the past decade and a half (with few exceptions). 

And if the past fourteen years of conflict have proven anything, it has proven Secretary Gates to be spot on when it came to making that fateful statement. 

Neither our nation nor the citizens our defense system is designed to protect and 

defend can operate in the future the way we operate today. 

I would add that even though a nice glossy and well-meaning report will come 

out of this committee, there are people inside the Department that are looking at 

your efforts today as a joke and wondering, why do you bother . . . nothing will ever 

change. 

Please prove them wrong. We have forgotten how to win wars. 

Because we have lost sight of what winning looks like, instead we plod along, participating in conflict and allowing an overly bulky and bureaucratic Department of 

Defense and a completely broken interagency process, led by the White House (and 

rightly so) that has choked itself practically to death—it simply doesn’t work in support of our warfighting needs today—the president, in his role as commander-inchief and the SecDef in his role as leader of our defense establishment are illserved—there is no soft or kind way of saying that. 

And in a giant organization like the Department of Defense, change is not easy, 

reforms will take time, and I applaud your efforts to give it your best shot. 

At the end of the day, the budget process (and not the mission) is what truly 

changes anything in our government. We have to reverse that thinking. 

That is the sad truth. 

Where the money goes, things happen. 

And despite where that money goes, most times, has no bearing on our ability to 

win wars. 

If you don’t get any money, you either change or you disappear. If you get money, 

you are able to survive another day. 

My experience comes from serving over thirty three years in uniform, twelve in 

joint assignments and nearly ten of those as a flag officer. 

I have also served many years in combat and have suffered from the lack of many 

capabilities we needed to fight our enemies and found myself fighting the Pentagon 

as much or more than our enemies. The bureaucracy of our lethargic system filled 

with people who depart for the day from their major headquarters or from the Pentagon and leave an inbox filled with actions to await tomorrow while I was sitting 

in a combat zone waiting for an answer . . . not a good way to fight a war. 

I have many personal examples and scars and have witnessed many examples of 

this in my days deployed to the wars in the Middle East and Central Asia. 

We must and can do better. 

Today, I will highlight a couple of points and provide some ideas—hopefully, a few 

are new: 

24 

First, we will never correctly predict the next war. We can warn about the many 

threats we face (and there are numerous and very dangerous threats—ISIS is the 

latest in a long line of threats to our nation that we must do more to contain, defeat 

and ultimately eliminate this radical Islamist ideology). And there are many more 

threats than this very dangerous enemy. 

And second, the connection between people, processes and systems is completely 

broken. 

Regarding people; we recruit using old outdated mechanisms and tools and then 

train people with equipment that is aging, not the most advanced, even though we 

(our country) have the most advanced technologies available to anyone in the world. 

Bottom line, our recruiting and training are being done with less than stellar rules, 

tools and advanced capabilities. 

We force our warriors to fight wars by forcing them to push joint urgent operational needs or emergency needs statements from the battlefield up the chain— 

that is no way to fight a war. It is reality because our people don’t have, don’t train, 

don’t go to war with, the right tools. Essentially, they are not prepared to go to war 

with the equipment in our current inventories. 

We have to do better, and as the best military in the world, we can’t afford to 

not look serious to the men and women we are supposed to serve and we don’t look 

very professional in the eyes of our international partners (never mind our enemies). 

Lastly, we must consider retooling our high tech training. We must radically move 

from the information age to the digital age. China has an organization of 800k cyber 

warriors* associated with their Department 61398 and we are struggling to recruit 

6k in the Department (*China has approximately 800k in their Honker Army/ 

Honker Union—this is a group—some overt, some not, affiliated with the Chinese 

government—http:bbs.cnhonker.com/forum.php—take extreme precautions going to 

this website). Something is wrong with that picture. 

Any reform must consider retooling for future jobs and not hold desperately to 

20th century tools and models. 

On processes; the processes we use are antiquated and usually one war behind. 

I went to war in Afghanistan the first time based on AirLand battle doctrine, a doctrine designed for the cold war. That doctrine was still being trained right up until 

2006 (five years into the war) when Generals Petraeus and Mattis came out with 

the counterinsurgency doctrine. We can and must do better. 

Why did it take us nearly five years to change our doctrine when we were directly 

engaged in a counterinsurgency and counter terrorism campaign? 

Bureaucracy and service parochial infighting are two of the answers. 

Thank God our superb men and women, soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines and 

those civilians serving in combat innovate better than any other military in the 

world. When they realize that something is broken, they fix it on the battlefield instead of using the Pentagon’s motto of, ‘‘If it’s broke let somebody else fix it—we 

still need the money.’’ 

And lastly, the systems we have and the acquisition system that drives much of 

how our services and combatant commanders operate may as well be in separate 

solar systems and none of these (with few exceptions) seem to be anywhere near 

the battlefields we operate on today. 

It is tempting to sit here and beat up those in the Pentagon and that would be 

unfair. But there are some in our system that see a jobs program, some who have 

never seen a program of record they didn’t like, and some who abuse the system 

so badly, that it makes corrupt governments in Third World nations blush. 

Additionally, after nearly fourteen years of war, conflict, call it what you will, we 

are engaged with enemies of our country and they want to win. I am not certain 

we have demonstrated the resilience or fortitude to do the same (at least not yet). 

There are many in the defense system that have yet to experience that and do 

not understand the demands of combat and there are others who avoid it—wishing 

it will go away. It won’t. 

We (you) have to fix a number of things, but one of the most important is the 

acquisition system. 

It must be joint and it must include the warfighter requirements and not simply 

serve the service chiefs and their constituent’s needs. 

Secretary Gates found this and fixed it, but to do so, he had to become the best 

action officer in the Pentagon. 

That said, let me list a couple of ideas to consider as we go through the rest of 

this session and as you contemplate what steps to take to truly reform our system 

(all of which I will be ready to address in the Q&A). 

1. Tooth-to-tail ratio must change (reverse it before we find ourselves not ready 

to fight never mind win)—we have way too much overhead and our staffs have 

become bloated beyond the nonsense stage. 

25 

2. Related to above, we have way too many four stars (commands and otherwise) 

around the world and too many four star headquarters in each of the services 

(11 ‘‘warfighting’’ commands alone). The service four and three star positions 

could easily be reduced a rank (or cut) and the staffs could subsequently be 

reduced. 

3. Cut the civilian system in half or more. Turn those dollars into readiness and 

place more tooth into our warfighting forces. Be cautious about salami slicing, 

and help the SecDef and the senior civilian and military leaders make the best 

decisions based on a unified and strategic national security vision, approved by 

the president, instead of slicing to benefit some constituency—you must play 

a role but, very candidly, and over many years, congress created much of this 

mess and now you have an opportunity and a responsibility to correct it. 

4. We need to seriously look at how we organize to fight and win in war. We man, 

train, and equip as services (i.e., Title 10), we go to war as a joint force (USAF 

carries the Army, Marines takes the Navy—in general), but we only win as a 

coalition—please name one time when we didn’t fight as a coalition. We need 

to determine if we are creating a force that is not only technically qualified but 

also culturally and societally understanding and smart—language training for 

example is something that we need to place greater emphasis on for those officers serving in maneuver and operational assignments (foreign languages are 

not just for the Intelligence Community and attaches). For example, maybe we 

make it a prerequisite for combatant commanders to speak a foreign language 

before they can be even considered for a combatant command assignment. 

Maybe we do that for a majority of our three and four star assignments (that 

example would go a long way and reverberate across the entire force). 

5. Significantly increase the tenure and the stature of the Chairman of the Joint 

Chiefs of Staff and the Vice Chairman. Tenures with a minimum of five years 

(without reconfirmation) should be considered. Why five years? In order to last 

longer than the service chiefs and potentially serve or overlap two presidents. 

This maintains the unbiased responsibility the CJCS (and the VCJCS when required) has as the principal military advisor to the POTUS. 

6. Conduct a thorough and comprehensive overhaul of the defense acquisition system. Look at every single program of record. Every program not currently 

meeting its timelines or budgets should be immediately cut. No questions. Send 

a message that waste and substandard performance will no longer be tolerated—that would send shock waves through the system, would be nearly impossible to do—but it would be the harder right thing to do—I don’t believe 

you could do it, but it would be interesting to see how many programs are actually up to standard—very few in my experience and my judgment. 

7. Increase the investment in small businesses. Today, I believe the Defense Department policy states a goal of 25 percent investments in small businesses 

across the Department. Small businesses are the engine of change in our country and with the rapid advancements in technologies across the board (from 

healthcare to intelligence), we must seek new, innovative (and disruptive) ways 

to force fundamental change. Most on this committee would be challenged to 

recognize the Fortune 100 never mind Fortune 500. They are all relatively new 

and many started as small businesses in the last decade. As stated, small businesses also innovate. They have to, in order to survive. My strongest suggestion for consideration only at this stage is to increase the small business investment goals of the Department to fifty percent. I believe the Department 

and, especially our warfighters, would benefit most, and many would benefit 

overnight. Lastly, small businesses are the best way to increase our nation’s 

economic strength. They will help us retool our nation for the digital age. 

8. Decide who and where decisions about acquisition reform can be made. The 

SecDef cannot make them all. But if a service chief comes in and says we need 

this program (can’t live without it) and a combatant commander comes in and 

says that program isn’t working, then don’t let the system decide to keep it 

and fix it on the margins or edges. Get rid of it. If they see something elsewhere and that is the capability they want (especially our warfighting commanders) and it can be procured in the requisite amounts within existing budgets get it to them rapidly or allow them to acquire it without going through 

the morass of bureaucracy. Secretary Gates experienced this first hand with 

ISR, medevac, and MRAPs to name a few. Again, he became the top action officer in the Pentagon because the people involved and the system itself were 

simply too slow, too bureaucratic and we were losing two wars. Amazing how, 

26 

at that time, no one but the SecDef inside of the Pentagon, at senior leader 

levels, could see that—why? 

In this context, the questions this committee is considering are, in my judgment, 

the correct ones: namely, whether our nation’s institutions of national defense are 

organized, manned, equipped, and managed in ways that can deal with the security 

challenges of the 21st century and that efficiently and effectively spend defense dollars. 

The Department is not meeting those challenges today. We are not ready to deal 

with the challenges we, as the global leader, with the premier military capability 

on the planet, should be capable of in the future. 

Without fundamental and massive reform as well as some smart, numerous, and 

targeted reductions in areas that have grown bloated, irrelevant and useless, we 

could find ourselves on the losing end of a major war—one that sitting here today 

we are unable to predict. 

If our nation is proud of being the world’s leader, let’s start acting like it, and 

as our very first president stated, ‘‘To be prepared for war is one of the most effective means of preserving peace.’’ 

Thank you for this opportunity and I look forward to answering your questions. 

Chairman MCCAIN. Thank you, General. 

General Jones? 

STATEMENT OF GENERAL JAMES L. JONES, USMC, RETIRED, 

FORMER NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR TO THE PRESIDENT 

OF THE UNITED STATES; SUPREME ALLIED COMMANDER, 

EUROPE AND COMMANDER OF U.S. EUROPEAN COMMAND; 

AND 32ND COMMANDANT OF THE MARINE CORPS 

Mr. JONES. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, Senator Reed, members of the committee. Thank you for inviting me to add to the expert testimony that you have already received from many other 

witnesses. I am honored to be here with my colleagues, General 

Flynn and Secretary Donley, to add my own views. 

But before I start, may I also thank the committee for section 

1227 of the NDAA [The National Defense Authorization Act] that 

was recently passed, which pledges that the United States will do 

more to protect the residents of Camp Liberty who have since my 

last testimony been attacked and lost over 20 lives and multiple injuries with very little global interest on their fate. There are 2,000 

people sitting there, trapped, and we need to get them out of there. 

But I thank the committee very much for your support. 

Mr. Chairman, I too would like to commend the committee for its 

leadership in undertaking this Goldwater-Nichols analysis concerning what changes might be necessary in our security architecture based on today’s new and swiftly evolving environment. 

I have a full statement, but I will summarize it as briefly as I 

can. 

At the outset, let me say that I wish to identify myself fully with 

the testimonies previously offered by Mr. Jim Locher, Major General Punaro, and Dr. John Hamre and likewise Secretary Donley 

here today and General Flynn. Most of the people I just mentioned 

were among those who throughout their distinguished careers contributed significantly to the passage and implementation of Goldwater-Nichols in 1986. So it is not my intent to repeat their testimonies phrased in different words, but rather I hope to be of service to the committee and its work by focusing on just a few points 

gathered from the experience of my serving in senior military positions and as National Security Advisor. 

27 

Until this committee’s current efforts, the most comprehensive 

review of Goldwater-Nichols and its so-called unintended consequences across the Department was commissioned in 1997 by 

then Secretary of Defense Bill Cohen when I served as his military 

assistant. While 18 years old now, in my view that study still 

stands in my opinion as the best effort to date in identifying necessary Goldwater-Nichols impacts and reforms, and I highly recommend that this committee revisit the task force’s findings as you 

undertake the task of modernizing the Defense Department and 

our military forces to face 21st century challenges. 

In the course of the important work the committee is undertaking, we should remember distinctly that the Senate passed the 

original Goldwater-Nichols Act by a vote of 95 to nothing. This 

overwhelming consensus was achieved despite the strong objections 

from the Department of Defense civilian and military leadership of 

the time. This clearly suggests to me that any future revision of 

Goldwater-Nichols should again be undertaken objectively and externally to the Department of Defense for three reasons. 

One, the Department is consumed with everyday problems 

around the globe of increasing complexity. 

Two, moreover large bureaucracies have inherent difficulty in implementing change from within. 

Lastly, as we all know, reform challenges and entrenched interests will fiercely resist many of the recommendations proposed by 

our previous witnesses and perhaps my own included. 

So my full statement focuses on four areas that I believe should 

be part of any effort to produce a Goldwater-Nichols II to improve 

our national security. 

The first is fixing the overwhelming and unsustainable ‘‘all in’’ 

personnel costs for the all-volunteer force in addressing the systemic imbalances that endanger the Department’s capacities and 

capabilities. 

Second, to reform the appallingly wasteful and inefficient DOD 

business model for operations. 

Three, moving towards a new interagency balance centers 

around unified commands. 

Four, modernizing the roles, missions, and organizations of the 

National Security Council. That last point was not in the original 

Goldwater-Nichols, but in view of the importance of the National 

Security Council, I think that it should be part of any consideration 

of a Goldwater-Nichols II. 

So with regard to personnel costs, the past three Secretaries of 

Defense, Secretaries Gates, Panetta, and Hagel, have each publicly 

stated that the cost growth of personnel expenditures in general is 

unsustainable. The cost growth in military pay, quality of life, retired pay, and VA [Veterans Affairs] and DOD health care costs far 

exceed both the GDP [Gross Domestic Product] and the Employment Cost Index. 

Interim report of the Military Compensation and Retirement 

Modernization Commission stated that there was a $1 trillion unfunded liability over the next 10 years in military retirement that 

is not in any budget. 

The current Commandant, General Robert Neller, is challenged, 

for example, by the reality of having to spend approximately 68 

28 

percent of his budget on those same costs. By comparison, 12 years 

ago when I was in the similar job as Commandant of the Marine 

Corps in 2003, my expenditure for those same costs was approximately 49 percent. So you have a significant cost growth over 12 

years, and left unchanged, 10 years from now or 12 years from 

now, our budget will be increasingly consumed by personnel costs. 

This disturbing trend will accelerate and will weaken the armed 

forces’ capabilities to fulfill their roles and missions. 

The remedy is to modernize the pay and benefits for the active 

duty, reserve, DOD civilian, and retired communities and reform a 

system built for a different force in a bygone era featuring numerous anachronisms, as noted in my full statement. 

In fairness for all who served on today’s active or reserve duty, 

the terms under which they entered active duty service should be 

honored before making any reforms that would affect the total 

force. I think billions of dollars could be saved by keeping the faith 

with our service members and those who enter service the day 

after the legislation is passed. 

Resources once allocated to recruiting, training, and equipping 

front line forces are now being reallocated to support the increasingly top heavy headquarters components or, put another way, the 

tooth-to-tail ratio is spiraling out of control. The stifling bureaucracy yielded processes and procedures that are far too complex to 

perform once simple tasks. This dynamic has produced a paralyzing environment in which micro-management and endless consensus building impede initiative and impede action. $113 billion to support 240,000 members of OSD, Joint Staff, and 

DOD headquarters illustrates the point. In 1958, the Joint Staff 

was authorized 400 personnel. Today the Joint Staff directorates 

have 4,000. Medical treatment facilities that are now being used at 

a 50 percent utilization rate but have a division’s worth of medical 

administrators are still allocated $41.7 billion. 

The enlarging tail is largely responsible for a broken acquisition 

system. Examples in each of the services. The Air Force’s F–35 program, the Marine Corps’ ill-fated AAAV [Advanced Amphibious Assault Vehicle] program, the Navy’s Ford-class carrier program, the 

Army’s Future Combat System. May I thank the committee also for 

your support in putting service chiefs back in the acquisition process. I think this is something that was long overdue and something 

that was an incredible frustration during my time as service chief. 

Point number two was reforming wasteful, inefficient DOD business operations. DOD’s agencies, once relevant and once perhaps a 

good idea—many have outlived their usefulness and they contribute little to our warfighting capabilities at huge, enormous expense, as General Flynn just referred to. They have avoided serious 

but needed reforms. The DOD agencies themselves consume 20 

percent of the Defense Department’s budgets. 

As General Punaro testified, DOD’s top two clients are DLA [the 

Defense Logistics Agency], which consumes $44.1 billion, and the 

second is the defense health programs, $41.7 billion. Number three 

is Lockheed Martin Corporation, $13.5 billion behind the top two 

DOD agencies at $28.2 billion. 

I experienced significant frustration in dealing with agencies as 

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port is the story of how the Marine Corps changed its combat uniform and modernized it. Essentially I discovered in negotiating 

with DLA that my service would be assessed a 22 percent carrying 

charge for the service of going out and buying the uniform, and I 

politely declined, formed a small group of marines. We went out 

and did it ourselves at a cost far cheaper, far quicker, and more 

efficiently than anything DLA could do. 

One question that I have frequently wondered is why are flag 

and general officers running businesses instead of commanding 

troops. Business-intensive defense agencies headed by active duty 

flag and general officers do not make a lot of sense to me. We need 

business experience to ensure fiscal solvency of agencies. We 

should staff these agencies with business executives and return 

military personnel to operational ranks to reduce the tooth-to-tail 

ratio that is spiraling out of control. 

The tenth largest client of the Department of Defense is the De- fense Commissary Agency, which is subsidized to the tune of $1.4 

billion annually. What is the remedy? Outsource it. Walmart and 

other agencies like it can compete for the same job that the Defense Commissary Agencies are doing on our base at reduced cost 

to the taxpayer, lower inventory, transportation costs, without any 

subsidies, and higher potential savings for military families. In 

2001, I volunteered my service as an experiment to test this, and 

it was soundly rejected as a result of the entrenched bureaucracies 

and the fact that I ran out of time as service chief and could not 

get it done. 

Rebalancing the interagency and unified commands to meet 21st 

century threats is my third point. AFRICOM [United States Africa 

Command] is a good example of what I am about to talk about. 

AFRICOM was created out of EUCOM. It was proposed by General Wald and myself, recognizing that Africa as a continent had 

arrived as a 21st century reality that needed to be recognized. Ironically, although most of Africa except for the Horn, was tasked to 

EUCOM, the word ‘Africa’ does not appear in the EUCOM title. We 

proposed AFRICOM in order to change that span of control which 

was much too big for one commander of Europe and Africa totaling 

some 85 countries. 

But the value of unified commands fosters military interoperability, training, common military architectures, and requisite support to our friends and allies. They are extremely important. They 

are a gift of the 20th century. But they need to be changed to recognize the realities of the 21st century. 

In my view, ideally unified commands should be in the geographical areas they purport to affect and to work in. We have 

taken some steps back over the years, but if I could change any one 

thing, I would place CENTCOM [United States Central Command], 

the Central Command, in its AOR [area of responsibility] as opposed to just a forward command, and I would, as I proposed to 

Secretary Rumsfeld, place AFRICOM in Africa where it would do 

the most good. 

Absence of military unified commands in the regions creates 

vacuums. Vacuums are filled by people who do not have our interests, and routinely as I travel around the African continent, I am 

asked why is the U.S. not here. Why are we not more involved? 

30 

Why are we not competing with China more successfully? We need 

America. We want America. 

The presence of U.S. companies, NGOs [non-governmental organizations], academic institutions, in a combined unified command 

headquarters would send powerful messages to that continent’s 54 

countries. The whole-of-government approach to 21st century engagement would show the U.S. as an enduring partner for all African nations seeking freedom and prosperity. 

With your permission, Mr. Chairman, I would like to submit for 

the record a study called ‘All Elements of National Power: Moving 

Toward a New Agency Balance for the U.S. Global Engagement,’ 

prepared under the auspices of the Brent Scowcroft Center at the 

Atlantic Council, which I was privileged to chair. 

Chairman MCCAIN. Without objection. 

[The information follows:] 

31 

32 

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35 

36 

37 

38 

39 

40 

41 

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44 

45 

46 

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48 

49 

50 

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54 

Mr. JONES. Thank you, sir. 

The last point, the whole-of-government coordination. I believe 

that a look at the National Security Council and how it is 

resourced and what it does must be included in any GoldwaterNichols review. New global challenges require interagency response 

not former stovepipe solutions. For example, early in 2009, we combined the Department of Homeland Security staff with the National Security staff in recognition of the fact that security threats 

are not contained by borders. But the new National Security staff 

was awarded an anemic budget of $4 million to perform the task 

55 

at hand, which is was absolutely impossible. We were able to get 

a modest increase, but a detailed study in 2010 suggested that $23 

million would be appropriate to create a small NSC [National Security Council] staff with agency-like functions and expertise to do 

the job. 

But the overwhelming difficulty with the NSC is one of management of personnel, not so much the size, although I recognize that 

it needs to be reformed. The detailees who are assigned to the NSC 

are there for very short periods of time, and in 2010, because of the 

lack of funding to pay salaries and compensation for the entire 

staff, most of the people at the NSC were detailees from other 

agencies and they were allowed to stay for about a year. So in 

2010, 50 percent of the National Security Council rotated back to 

their parent agencies and was replaced. My view is that threequarters of the people in the NSC ought to be permanent personnel, and one-fourth ought to be augmentees from the agencies. 

Today it is exactly the opposite. 

I believe that the National Security Council must be a policy 

communicating, disseminating organization, not one that micromanages implementation, and we should avoid that micromanagement. But it is a slippery slope that all NSCs eventually have to 

confront as they mature in any administration. It must serve as a 

coordinating agency to effectuate the national security policies that 

require presidential decisions. 

Secretary Gates in his testimony underscored the important role 

of the NSC and the National Security staff as a presidential instrument ensuring proper implementation by the interagency. Destructive consequences of DOD and national security interests pertaining to partisan gridlock, budget impasses, and the recurring 

threat of government shutdowns was also emphasized. 

Mr. Chairman, Senator Reed, thank you very much for inviting 

me to be here today. I firmly believe that your work is an important work. It will serve the country well for the next 30 years, and 

I would recommend use of the original Goldwater-Nichols architects in the Defense Reform Task Force to make a major contribution to a new Goldwater-Nichols, as all are still current on the 

issues and all are still very influential and providing wise advice 

to our government. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Jones follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT BY GENERAL JAMES L. JONES, USMC (RET) 

Chairman McCain, Senator Reed, Members of the Committee, thank you for inviting me to add to the expert testimony you have already received from the staff architects of one of the most significant pieces of legislation affecting America’s Armed 

Forces and their civilian leadership: The Goldwater–Nichols Department of Defense 

Reorganization Act (GNA) of 1986. 

As you know, the GNA’s purpose was to modernize the Department of Defense 

to fulfill its national security roles and missions in changing times. Modernization, 

of course, is an enduring obligation. It requires an iterative and ongoing process of 

examination—one that responds with agility to national experience and lessons 

learned, yielding reforms that meet the unique circumstances and requirements of 

our time. 

So, I commend the Committee for its leadership in undertaking this analysis of 

what changes are necessary based on today’s new and swiftly evolving security 

needs. I hope that some observations from my experience in and out of uniform will 

be of service to you in this task. 

56 

From 1979–1984, I was privileged to serve as the Marine Corps Senate Liaison 

Officer, under the leadership of then-Captain John McCain who directed the combined Navy-Marine Corps Liaison Office until he retired from active duty in 1980. 

In many ways, my time on Capitol Hill was among the most educational experiences 

of my 40-year active-duty career that culminated in my serving as Commandant of 

the Marine Corps (Service Chief function), Commander of the U.S. European Command (Combatant Commander function), and in NATO as Supreme Allied Commander, Europe (Command of NATO’s 26 nation, multinational force). After I retired from active duty in 2007, I served as Special Envoy for Middle East Regional 

Security until 2008. From 2009 -2010, I was privileged to serve as National Security 

Advisor. 

The first days of my Capitol Hill assignment coincided with the advent of GNA, 

the early days of the creation of the All-Volunteer Force (AVF), and the transition 

to joint force concepts. Over the next five years, I had the good fortune of working 

with and knowing many Members of Congress and their staff, as well as the principal architects of the GNA legislation, some of whom have already testified on the 

subject at hand. Many of these relationships blossomed into lifelong friendships that 

I continue to treasure to this day. 

With regard to my appearance before the committee today, I wish to identify myself with the testimony offered by Mr. James R Locher lll, Major General Arnold 

L Punaro USMCR (Ret), and Dr. John J Hamre. Likewise, Secretary Michael 

Donley, here today, was among those who, throughout his distinguished career, contributed significantly to the passage and implementation of Goldwater-Nichols. 

Though many Members and staff participated in the development of GoldwaterNichols, the contribution and expertise of these former members of the SASC Staff 

to this legislation is beyond question. Each of them continues to offer wise counsel 

to current leadership of the Department of Defense today. 

I agree fully with the testimony of these experts. It is not my intent to repeat 

the content of their valuable contribution, phrased in different words. Rather, I 

would hope to be helpful to the Committee 

in making a few points gathered from the experience of serving in the senior military positions I previously mentioned. 

TIME FOR REFORM

The Goldwater-Nichols Act reformed a Department of Defense that operated for 

nearly 40 years under the mandate of the National Security Act of 1947. In the 

nearly 30 years that have elapsed since GNA’s passage, America’s Armed Forces 

have been asked to do much in a world that has changed significantly, and with 

it the national security threats we face and requirements to combat them. 

Until this Committee’s current efforts, the most comprehensive review of GNA 

and its ‘‘unintended consequences’’ across the Department was commissioned in 

1997 by then-Secretary of Defense William Cohen, when I served as his Senior Military Assistant. 

MajGen Punaro’s testimony earlier this month recounts the team that was assembled—the Defense Reform Task Force—and its work at Secretary Cohen’s behest. 

While 18 years old that study still stands, in my opinion, as the best effort to date 

in identifying Goldwater-Nichols impacts and reforms. I highly recommend that this 

Committee revisit the Task Force’s findings as you undertake the task of modernizing the Department and our military forces to face 21st century challenges. 

In the course of this work we should remember very distinctly that the Senate 

passed the GNA by a vote of 95–0. This overwhelming consensus was achieved despite strong objections from Department of Defense civilian and military leadership 

of the time. This clearly suggests that any future revision of Goldwater-Nichols 

should again be undertaken objectively and externally to the Department of Defense 

for several reasons. 

First, the Department is consumed with everyday problems around the globe; they 

are mounting in complexity and frequency, suggesting that there isn’t enough time 

for a study of this magnitude to be accomplished ‘‘inside’’ the Pentagon. However, 

the Pentagon should very much be invited to participate fully and in complete transparency in any notional ‘‘Goldwater-Nichols ll’’ effort. Second, large bureaucracies 

have inherent difficulty in implementing ‘‘change’’ from within. Our senior leaders 

rotate out of their positions frequently, leaving behind the entrenched middle-level 

management which, normally, will always attempt to hold the line against truly significant reform. Third, some of the necessary remaining reforms pertaining to the 

original legislation will challenge entrenched interests who will fiercely resist many 

of the recommendations proposed by previous witnesses, including my own. 

57 

FOUR CRITICAL FOCUS AREAS IN NEED OF URGENT EXAMINAION

In order to not duplicate the previous testimonies with which I largely agree, I 

would like to focus my input on four areas requiring urgent examination and consideration for reform in any effort to produce ‘‘Goldwater-Nichols ll’’ legislation aimed 

at improving the ability to provide for the nation’s security. 

One, the overwhelming and unsustainable ‘‘all in’’ personnel costs associated with 

the All-Volunteer Force and the dangers that systemic imbalances pose to the Department’s capacities and capabilities. 

Two, the wasteful and inefficient manner that the Department of Defense conducts its ‘‘business,’’ requiring that we reevaluate the utility of the Defense Department’s own agencies as currently tasked and organized. 

Three, the compelling need to move toward a new interagency balance centered 

around reformed ‘‘Unified Commands,’’ now titled Combatant Commands. 

Four, the requirement to modernize the role, mission, and organization of the National Security Council (NSC). Though not specifically addressed in the GoldwaterNichols Act of 1986, the critical role played by the NSC in the formulation of national security policy should be considered as a necessary part of any ‘‘GoldwaterNichols ll’’ effort. 

1) Unsustainable ‘‘All In’’ Personnel Costs Threaten the Efficacy of the 

All–Volunteer Force 

The past three Secretaries of Defense (Gates, Panetta, and Hagel), have each publicly stated that the cost growth of personnel expenditures, in general, is 

unsustainable. As noted in MajGen Punaro’s testimony, their conclusions are based 

on the ‘‘comparison of the 1998 to 2014 cost growth in military pay, quality of life, 

retired pay, and VA and DOD health care which far exceeded both the GDP and 

the Employment Cost Index.’’ 

The problem in my view is more serious than commonly recognized. I would submit that the results of the Military Compensation and Retirement Modernization 

Commission’s Interim Report have been, in part, overlooked as it pertains to the actual cost of programs. These costs are reflected in a well-documented chart showing 

that ‘‘the actual costs for pay, benefits, health care, and retirement, was over $400 

billion a year, and that there is a $1 trillion unfunded liability over the next ten 

years in a military retirement fund that is not in any budget.’’ Given the current 

fiscal strains in a time requiring greater national security resources, these are sobering facts. 

By way of example, when I served as Commandant of the Marine Corps from 

1999–2003, I recall that almost 50 percent of the Marine Corps’ annual budget was 

consumed by the aforementioned ‘‘personnel costs.’’ At the time I worried about the 

long-term trend of such costs as it was evident that they were destined to climb rapidly, most likely at the expense of the core competency of the Marine Corps’ most 

urgent mission, that of producing an unrivaled fighting force to meet the future 

needs of the nation. Today, our current Commandant, General Robert B. Neller, is 

challenged by the reality of having to spend 68 percent of his budget on those same 

costs. This means that in the 13 years since I left that office ‘‘all in’’ personnel costs 

have increased by approximately 18 percent. It also means that Gen Neller has 18 

percent less resources to spend on the requisite training and equipping of today’s 

Marine Corps. If left unchecked, this disturbing trend will accelerate, weakening the 

Marine Corps’ capabilities to fulfill its roles and missions. 

Dr. Hamre, MajGen Punaro, and Mr. Locher have provided accurate and valuable 

insights into the situation and the catastrophic consequences of failing to address 

the calamitous growth in personnel costs. Fortunately, there are several remedies 

which warrant serious examination. Among these are the need to modernize the pay 

and benefits for the active duty, reserve, DOD civilian, and retired communities. Serious work has already been done towards better understanding the urgency of the 

current situation. 

The body of evidence strongly points to the folly of superimposing the All-Volunteer Force on what was essentially a conscripted system. In retrospect this was 

probably short-sighted given that today we are harnessed with a raft of requirements developed for a different kind of force in a bygone era, including guaranteeing 

equal pay regardless of quality of work, a retirement system based only on 20 and 

30 years of service, and a health care system that benefitted personnel serving on 

active duty, and those having achieved ‘‘retired eligibility’’ status. The eligibility 

qualifications in all three areas have been enhanced, but remain essentially unchanged despite the increase in the numbers of eligible recipients who are also living much longer than the GNA ever anticipated. 

58 

FUNDING DOD’S ‘‘TAIL’’ AT THE EXPENSE OF THE ‘‘TOOTH’’ 

While I do not want to belabor points this committee has heard in previous testimony, the monumental impact of the Department’s ballooning all-in costs of personnel can’t be overstated. The problem stands as among the greatest threats to the 

Department’s ability to maintain a balanced ‘‘tooth-to-tail’’ ratio between the war 

fighting forces and the support establishment. The status quo threatens the Department’s ability to maintain U.S. national security and it demands urgent attention. 

The significant increase of the Department’s headquarters’ staff—‘‘the tail’’—including civilians, military, and contractors has created a stifling bureaucracy, yielded processes and procedures that are far too complex to perform once simple tasks. 

The dynamic has produced a paralyzing environment in which micro-management 

and endless consensus building impede initiative and impede action. Moreover the 

‘‘tail’’ is soaking up resources needed by the ‘‘teeth’’ of our armed forces. 

Resources once allocated to recruiting, training, and equipping front line forces 

are now being reallocated to support the increasingly top-heavy headquarters’ components. When considering total personnel in the support establishment associated 

with the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, the Combatant Commands and the Defense Agencies, the Department of Defense spends $113 billion 

to support 240,000 people. Referencing once again MajGen Punaro’s previous testimony to further illustrate my point, in 1958, the size of the Joint Staff was authorized for and limited to 400 personnel. Today, we support upwards of 4,000 across 

the J-directorates. At the height of the military build-up under President Ronald 

Reagan, $600 billion was spent in support of 2.2 million active duty service members. Today, in constant dollars, $600 billion supports only 1.2 million troops. 

Funding the military health care system is one of the Department of Defense’s 

largest annual expenditures. When we consider the fact that medical treatment facilities are operating only at 50 percent utilization rate, but have on staff a division’s worth of medical administrators, one has to question the justification of more 

than $41.7 billion budget allocated each year to the Defense Health Program. 

Addressing the inequities in our military compensation and benefits system is 

now necessary and overdue, and I note that some much needed efforts are already 

underway to address this important issue. Consideration should be given to the relationship between active duty pay and entitlements and any earned retirement 

benefits that are representative of a more modern system. 

It is important to be very clear about one fact: I feel very strongly that, in fairness, all who serve today on active or reserve duty should remain eligible for retirement benefits under the terms currently in force. Studies have shown that even 

with this stipulation, billions of dollars could be saved by implementing a new program for all future service members who enter the Armed Services ‘‘tomorrow.’’ 

Across the Department of Defense, we are spending far more resources on the 

‘‘tail’’ and far too little on the ‘‘tooth’’. In any event, the spiraling ‘‘ALL IN’’ personnel costs need to be considered as a single entity, and not as unrelated stovepipes, which has been the tradition for the past several decades. 

MANDATE ACQUISITION REFORM 

Acquisition reform is another area which is in need of urgent reform. While there 

are many ways to address this issue, starting with the costs and the length of time 

it takes to produce the next generation of ground, sea, and air weapons systems, 

culminating with the layered bureaucracy that manages the business end of procurement in the Pentagon, simple logic and observation suggests that our acquisition process as a whole is either dysfunctional, broken, or both. One need only to 

look at the Air Force F–35 program, the Marine Corps’ ill-fated AAAV program, the 

Navy’s Ford Class Carrier program, and the Army’s Future Combat Systems program to recognize that there is unsustainable enormous waste and inefficiency in 

the costs and length of time it takes to travel the road from concept to operational 

delivery of many of our major programs. This process can and must be fixed. 

As a former service chief, I can tell the Committee first hand that my inability 

to influence the acquisition of major war-fighting end items was easily the most 

frustrating aspect of my tenure as Commandant. In fact, even though I was prohibited from any participation in the acquisition process by congressional fiat, I was 

nonetheless summoned on several occasions to testify about the costs, progress, and 

difficulties within our major programs, an acquisition responsibility I did not have 

at the time. 

This committee has already taken a necessary step forward in this year’s National 

Defense Authorization Act by reinstating Service Chiefs into the acquisition process 

and by placing upon them the complete responsibility for their service programs. As 

Dr. Hamre highlighted in his testimony recently, ‘‘DOD often courts trouble when 

there are confused or bifurcated responsibilities for functions and activities. It made 

59 

no sense to have the Service Chiefs responsible for training, equipping and housing 

their respective forces, but not be accountable for acquisition.’’ 

2) THE PENTAGON’S BUSINESS PRACTICES ARE ANTIQUATED 

Several of our Defense Support Agencies, perhaps created to satisfy relevant 

needs of the time, have outlived their usefulness. At almost every turn, we have 

avoided the serious reforms that are urgently needed and could, if enacted, produce 

huge savings. ‘‘Today, DOD Agencies’ expenditures are in excess of 20 percent of the 

entire defense budget’’, according to MajGen Punaro’s testimony, ‘‘and have a cumulative headcount of over 400,000 active duty military, defense civilians, and contractors.’’ 

My most defining experience with such defense support agencies occurred in 2002, 

specifically with the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA), when the Marine Corps became the first service since the Vietnam War to modernize the field uniform, which 

had become too expensive to produce and maintain. 

After significant research, we found that new textile products would allow us to 

produce a new field uniform that was both cheaper for the Marine Corps and less 

costly for Marines to maintain. Initially, in accordance with the Department’s standard operating procedure, I approached DLA for support. Upon asking DLA for a cost 

estimate for production of a new uniform, we discovered that DLA’s ‘‘carrying 

charge’’ for this service would be 22%. This was the ‘‘surcharge’’ to each service for 

the ‘‘privilege’’ of doing our business for us. A simple check of ‘‘industry wide standards’’ for similar middle-man services revealed that the costs should have been approximately 6%. I made the decision to produce the new uniform within the Marine 

Corps itself, with a very small group of Marines, which we did, and at a significantly lower cost to the Service itself than the old uniform, and at a substantial savings in maintenance cost for all Marines. 

A second memorable experience from my time as Service Chief relates to the role 

and functions of the Department of Defense’s own agencies, many of which have 

long since outlived their usefulness and currently contribute little to the war-fighting capabilities of our Armed Forces. Consider, as MajGen Punaro testified, that 

‘‘Defense Agencies are Big Business’’. Five of the Department of Defense’s top ten 

clients are its own agencies, and its top two clients are the DLA and the Defense 

Health Programs (DHP). Lockheed Martin Corporation occupies the third spot on 

DOD’s top ten clients. 

MajGen Punaro goes on to inform us that the ‘‘DLA does over $44 billion a year 

of business with DOD while Lockheed Martin is a distant third at $28 billion.’’ 

He further states that ‘‘most of the Department’s defense agencies would rate in 

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nesses . . . even though one is, in fact, a grocery business. Another is a worldwide 

communications provider, and another on is the world’s largest and most expensive 

health care system (DHP).’’ 

FLAG AND GENERAL OFFICERS SHOULD COMMAND TROOPS, NOT RUN 

‘‘BUSINESSES’’ 

A question worth asking is this: Why is it that our largest and most business intensive defense agencies are headed by active duty flag and general officers? It 

would seem that leadership, direction, and fiscal solvency of such agencies would 

be greatly enhanced by having in the agencies’ most senior positions leaders who 

actually have the experience of successfully managing large businesses. They would 

benefit significantly by the accountability and continuity of stable leadership than 

the current difficulties associated with transient military personnel who move in 

and out of such leadership assignments very rapidly. Excess military personnel derived from such reforms would be identified and returned to the operational ranks 

of their respective service, further enhancing the ‘‘tooth-to-tail’’ ratio. 

Overall, however, we should ask the hard questions as to why several agencies 

remain operational at all. For example, the 10th largest client of DOD, the Defense 

Commissary Agency (DCA) operates as a subsidized entity at a cost to the taxpayer 

of $1.4 billion, annually. Why would we not ‘‘outsource’’ our military on-base ‘‘grocery stores’’ to a major grocery chain that could run the operation without a subsidy, 

at reduced cost, and with more savings for military families. As Commandant of the 

Marine Corps, I volunteered my service to experiment with the concept of outsourcing our commissaries in 2001. However, the offer was not accepted, largely because 

of entrenched interests opposed to this idea, coupled with limited time I had remaining as a Service Chief in early 2003. 

How the Department of Defense does its business is very much worthy of review 

in any effort to construct a meaningful revision to GNA. 

3) REBALANCING THE INTERAGENCY AND THE UNIFIED COMMANDS 

TO MEET 21ST CENTURY THREATS 

Dr. Hamre’s testimony identified some interesting ideas concerning the Combatant Commands and their evolution since GNA was adopted. I would like submit for 

consideration several suggestions on transforming our Unified Commands to better 

reflect the realities of their missions and the deployment of national assets to enhance the global engagement effectiveness of the United States in the 21st century. 

From 2003–2007, I was privileged to serve as NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander (SACEUR) and as Commander United States European Command 

(EUCOM). All totaled, this responsibility included in excess of 80 countries. What 

is not as well known is that this assignment also included the entire African continent, but excluded the countries comprising the Horn of Africa. Interestingly, at 

the time of my command, the word ‘‘Africa’’ did not appear in the title ‘‘U.S. European Command’’. The Deputy Commander of this command, for most of my tenure, 

was Gen. Charles Wald, USAF. His leadership and commitment to our entire geographical area of responsibility, including Africa, was critical to the transformation 

of the command in supporting the war-fighting efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq, as 

well as the eventual creation of the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM). Gen. Wald’s 

insistence that the African continent’s emergence on the world stage as an enormous reality that the United States could no longer ignore was the catalyst to an 

American awakening to this reality. Future administrations will have to recognize 

this as one of the most urgent geo-strategic imperatives of the future. Africa has 

‘‘arrived,’’ and its potential is enormous; this should be good news for the United 

States, as well as an increasingly urgent challenge. 

The idea for AFRICOM, which was devised by EUCOM, was based on a simple 

premise. Gen Wald and I concluded that EUCOM’s mission at the time was too vast, 

especially if we were to devote the required attention to the growing terrorist 

threats that were surfacing in different regions in Africa. We proposed to Secretary 

Donald Rumsfeld the idea for creating AFRICOM. Coupled with this idea was the 

recommendation that if created, AFRICOM should be located on the African continent. We also recommended that we should not call it a ‘‘Combatant Command,’’ 

as this title alone would make it more difficult to find a ‘‘home’’ in Africa. We proposed referring to it by what I strongly feel is the correct title for all such geographical commands: a Unified Command. Today, AFRICOM has a home in Stuttgart, Germany alongside EUCOM. This is not ideal from a geographically strategic 

standpoint. All geographical commands are still referred to a ‘‘Combatant Commands,’’ inaccurately in my view. With your permission I will hereinafter refer to 

such commands as ‘‘Unified Commands.’’ 

61 

The presence of our six geographical Unified Commands on several different continents is a gift of the 20th century, a privilege no other country in the world enjoys. 

The Unified Command structure emerged after the end of World War ll, when confidence in the United States as a country to be admired and associated with was 

at its zenith. For its values, its refusal to permanently occupy defeated adversaries, 

and democratic principles that celebrated the potential of each individual fortunate 

to be called ‘‘American,’’ America became the global model for the future. 

Today, our Unified Commands remain uniquely valuable assets that continue to 

foster military interoperability and training, common military architectures, and 

requisite support to our friends and allies. For these commands to be able to achieve 

their maximum potential effectiveness, I believe they should be geographically located in the regions they hope to affect. 

In the past years, we have witnessed the transition of the United States Southern 

Command (SOUTHCOM) from Panama to Florida, and the United States Central 

Command (CENTCOM) operating only a forward headquarters element in Qatar 

with the predominance of its forces operating in Tampa, Florida. Today, only 

USEUCOM (Stuttgart, Germany), and the United States Pacific Command (Hawaii) 

are the two unified commands that can claim to be located in the geographical regions of their responsibility. I recognize the inherent difficulty in reversing decisions 

already taken, but I would highly recommend that, if possible, CENTCOM and 

AFRICOM find homes in their respective regions of responsibility as a matter of urgency. 

In the Middle East, the influence and reputation of the United States has suffered 

in the eyes of our friends and allies in the region. Generally speaking, it is the widespread view that the Unites States has rebalanced its priorities to the Pacific at the 

expense of what many feel is the most dangerous region on Earth, the Middle East. 

It is true that the home of the United States Navy’s Fifth Fleet is still Bahrain, 

and that CENTCOM still maintains a forward headquarters in Qatar. We have 

smaller task forces sprinkled in several countries in the region, but the absence of 

CENTCOM itself in the region has created a vacuum. This calls into question our 

national resolve to play a constructive role in a crisis-torn part of the world with 

enormous security challenges now and in the future. 

The regional decline in confidence in the United States has opened up the previously unthinkable possibility that our historical friends and allies are actually 

seeking assistance from, and closer relations with, Russia, China, and several European countries. In Africa, we surrendered in 1990 the top trading position we used 

to enjoy to China. Today, the oft-repeated refrain from many African leaders to their 

American counterparts is ‘‘Where are you? Why aren’t you in my country? We need 

America in Africa!’’ 

Much has been done in the preceding two administrations towards reversing this 

negative trend, but much more needs to be done. I am not just speaking about 

United States military presence or stepping up the activities of our foreign and civil 

services in Africa, but the presence of our companies, NGOs, and academic institutions. As part of this overall effort, successfully placing AFRICOM in Africa would 

send a very powerful message to the continent’s 54 countries, that we are ‘‘present 

for duty’’ as a whole-of-government; and that we intend to be an enduring partner 

for all African nations seeking freedom and prosperity—objectives which we know 

depend on the mutually reinforcing pillars of security, economic development, and 

good governance/rule of law. I would also like to submit for the record a paper I 

wrote for under the auspices of the Atlantic Council on the need to modernize U.S. 

global engagement based on these three pillars: security, whole –of-government enterprise, and greater public-private sector cooperation. 

Moreover, in July 2014, I chaired as study conducted by the Atlantic Council’s 

Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security entitled ‘‘All Elements of National 

Power; Moving Toward a New Interagency Balance for U.S. Global Engagement.’’ 

I commend it to this Committee’s review. What follows is the executive summary 

of this study, which suggests that a transformation of our Unified Commands is 

worthy of consideration in any review of GNA. I request that the full report of the 

Atlantic Council’s study be included as part of my testimony. Copies of the study 

have been made available to Members and staff of this Committee. 

[Questions for the record with answers supplied follow:] 

‘‘All Elements of Power; Moving Toward a New Interagency Balance 

for U.S. Global Engagement’’ Executive Summary 

To deal effectively with long-range global trends and near term securities 

challenges, the United States requires a broader application of all elements 

of national power or risks continued disjointed efforts in U.S. global engageVerDate Nov 24 2008 11:50 Apr 05, 2016 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00065 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 Y:\REIER-AVILES\BORAWSKI\JOBS SENT FOR PRINTING 2015\99664.TXT JUNE
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ment. A transformed interagency balance is a hedge against uncertainty in 

a dramatically changing world. 

As the U.S. National Intelligence Council suggested in its landmark 2012 

report, Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds, tectonic shifts in several 

theaters will have significant potential to cause global and regional insecurity in the coming decades. American overseas presence in key regions is 

and will remain integral to meeting the dynamic regional security challenges and specific military threats. The United States faces increased risks 

and missed opportunities to advance U.S. interests, however, if it continues 

to focus on the military as the primary government instrument working 

with allies and partners on a regional scale. The U.S. government currently 

has only one structure, the geographic combatant command, to execute foreign and defense policy in key regions of the world. At present, there is no 

mechanism in place to integrate activities of all U.S. government departments and agencies in key regions. 

As a result, U.S. gov’t regional actions often are uncoordinated and disconnected. To this end, recent geographic combatant commanders have recognized the need for greater interagency coordination and experimented with 

strengthening the role and relevance of the interagency within their commands. The intent of this report is to go further and make interagency components the key integrator of elements of national power to better manage 

foreign and defense policy execution. This report discusses how the United 

States can resource and restructure for a more balanced, forward-deployed 

regional approach essential in improving the integration of national Instruments of power—diplomatic, informational, military, economic, and others— 

to advance U.S. interests at the regional level. This task force initially focused solely on restructuring the geographic combatant commands, but it 

quickly became apparent that higher-priority, untapped points of leverage 

existed that, if properly resourced, could greatly strengthen U.S. efforts at 

the regional level. Although these general recommendations are Department of Defense- and Department of State-centric, we recognize the importance for all of us government agencies and departments to play a role in 

a true ‘‘whole-of-government’’ approach. Initial discussion focuses primarily 

on security issues with the goal of bringing in the full range of economic, 

political, and other issues and agencies as changes progress. Many of the 

recommendations could be implemented in the near- to mid-term under the 

current structures of the Department of State and the Department of Defense. The following general recommendations were developed toward that 

end: 

Interagency synchronization 

• The United States should rebalance national Instruments of power by providing 

enhanced Department of State capacity in key regions. Unbalanced resourcing 

and manpower between the Department of Defense and the Department of 

State creates significant roadblocks to enhancing interagency presence in the 

region. A more balanced approach would strengthen U.S. engagement more 

broadly. 

• Department of State regional assistant secretaries should be further empowered 

to set and coordinate foreign policy within the regions. Currently, assistant secretaries have an explicit requirement to be responsible, but they lack sufficient 

resources and authority to be effective. Regional assistant secretaries should 

have the authority to integrate the full range of foreign and security policy as 

well as diplomatic resources to execute foreign policy on a regional scale. 

• There should be an ambassador-level civilian deputy in each geographic combatant command with deep regional experience and expertise. Absent crisis or war, 

the civilian deputy would, on behalf of the commander, oversee and integrate 

security cooperation efforts with allies and partners. The civilian deputy could 

also act as the senior political adviser (POLAD) who would have direct liaison 

with the Department of State regional assistant secretary. Likewise, the senior 

political-military advisers in the Department of State regional bureaus should 

have direct ‘‘reach-forward’’ access to applicable geographic combatant command 

leadership as well as a direct link to civilian deputies/senior POLADs in the geographic combatant commands. If the civilian deputy and senior POLAD are 

two different positions (depending on combatant command structure), then the 

civilian deputy would serve as the senior-most civilian representative within the 

63 

combatant command and the primary link to the Department of State. The senior POLAD would act as the policy adviser to the combatant commander. 

• To reach the fullest potential and ensure sustained, effective change, interagency legislation to support these changes would be essential, entailing provisions that would direct departments and agencies to adopt a whole-of-government approach. Legislation could use the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986 as a model. 

Organizational transformation 

• Geographic combatant commands should be renamed to signify the importance 

of a whole-of-government approach. A name change to ‘‘unified regional commands’’ would reinforce efforts to coordinate and integrate instruments of foreign and defense policy execution and would represent broader capabilities and 

engagement efforts than strictly a war-fighting approach. 

• Allies and partners could play a more significant role in geographic combatant 

commands; international involvement could strengthen allied/partner nation 

support for U.S. policies and improve prepositioning and posture opportunities. 

• Geographic combatant commanders should be assigned for sufficient time (at 

least three or four years versus two or three years at present) to gain a deeper 

understanding of the region and help fortify relations with regional counterparts. 

• Divergence of regional boundaries among the Department of Defense, Department of State, and National Security Council causes friction and confusion; a 

common ‘‘map’’ would enhance a whole-of-government approach. 

Efficiencies 

• Certain regional prepositioned supplies and equipment should be managed in 

a more coordinated manner by departments and agencies. Integrated 

prepositioning would save money and manpower, eliminate redundancies, and 

provide for a synchronized approach to crisis response resulting in quicker reaction times. 

• Major efficiencies can be gained by returning ‘‘back office’’ functions from the 

geographic combatant commands and their service component commands to the 

Services and the Joint Staff, thereby streamlining geographic combatant command headquarters’ staffs. The Secretary of Defense and Chairman of the Joint 

Chiefs of Staff should request a qualified outside group to assess details in report back in 60 to 90 days. 

The task force also evaluated three specific restructuring options that would help 

move U.S. regional presence toward a more effective interagency balance. Although 

these restructuring options require legislative and organizational changes and a 

move away from long-standing institutional norms, they are worthy of discussion 

and should be evaluated based on emerging 21st century strategic and fiscal realities. The following restructuring options should be explored: 

1. An unconventional end-state would be the creation of an ‘‘Interagency Regional 

Center’’ that would act as a regional interagency headquarters for foreign and 

defense policy. This new organization would result in the unification of the Department of Defense and the Department of State (as well as other agencies 

and departments) at the regional level. The Interagency Regional Center (IRC) 

would be led by an ‘‘interagency regional director’’ with regional experience and 

expertise who would report directly to the President or Vice President of the 

United States. The president develops the grand strategy and establishes national security strategy, while the regional directors would implement that 

strategy that the regional level. The regional directors would advise and participate in the National Security Council, as requested. Regional directors 

would also convene to discuss cross-regional issues and activities. The IRCs 

would ensure long-lasting integration of all instruments of national power. 

The interagency regional director would have a military and civilian deputy. 

The military deputy would focus on defense issues while the civilian deputy 

would focus on diplomacy, development, and other critical nonmilitary issues. 

The civilian deputy would also act as a regional ambassador-at-large who would 

have coordination authority for country ambassadors and other civilian-led organizations such as Treasury, Justice, and Commerce. Country ambassadors 

would still formally report directly to the Secretary of State through the IRC. 

The civilian deputy would be in charge of coordinating all nonmilitary agencies 

64 

and organizations at the regional level. During wartime, the military commander will report directly to the President through the Secretary of Defense 

as in the current combatant command structure, while the director and civilian 

deputy would focus on nation-building and post-conflict operations. During 

peacetime, the military would report through the IRC for engagement. For this 

approach to be successful, peacetime and wartime responsibilities would need 

to be clearly delineated and understood. 

2. An intermediate approach would collocate the Department of State regional bureaus with the geographic combatant commands. These locations would be 

ideal to strengthen the authority of regional bureaus and allow the bureaus to 

operate more nimbly. Colocation of the regional assistant secretary (or alternatively, a deputy assistant secretary) in his/her staff with the geographic combatant command would allow for regional-level integration with a more unified 

approach and presence. Colocation of other departments and agencies, such as 

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) regional offices, should also be considered. 

3. An alternative intermediate approach would be for the geographic combatant 

command civilian deputy to act also as a regional ambassador-at-large who 

would have coordination authority for country ambassadors and other civilianled organizations in the region. His/her mission under this authority would be 

to coordinate U.S. actions, issues, and initiatives within the region and bordering regions. The civilian deputy would have the authority to require consultation between regional organizations, but would not have the authority to 

compel agreement. This coordination authority would be a consultation relationship, not an authority through which chain of command would be exercised. This approach works under the current structure, but adds integration 

by bringing together all agencies operating within the region to coordinate regional activities. 

It is critical that the United States think about how to adapt to emerging 21st 

century realities, both strategic and fiscal, particularly as the United State 

transitions from a decade of war. Long-range global trends and near-term security challenges demand a broader use of instruments of national power. The 

United States must take advantage of its strategic assets, and resource and restructure for a better balanced, forward-deployed approach. The Secretary of 

Defense, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Secretary of State, and the 

National Security Advisor should commission a detailed follow-on study to this 

report to further evaluate key insights and execution of suggested recommendations. 

WHOLE–OF–GOVERNMENT COORDINATION

The importance of the National Security Council (NSC) as an instrument of coordination in the foreign policy and national security direction of the Executive 

Branch belongs in any discussion pertaining to a possible ‘‘Goldwater-Nichols Act 

ll.’’ In an increasingly multipolar world, it is evident that a whole-of-government approach is needed to respond to an increasingly wider array of threats, as well as 

a dramatic increase in their sheer numbers. My experience in the NSC from 2009– 

2010 convinced me that strategic policy coordination by the NSC is its prime responsibility and is the best service it can provide the President. Gone are the days when 

a single department can be given the single responsibility to take on, by itself, any 

of the major challenges of our times. New challenges, such as cybersecurity, energy 

and climate security, economic security, and the rise of non-state actors indicate 

that the proper national interagency response spans across the traditional ‘‘stovepiped’’ menu to which we grew accustomed in the past century. Assuming that this 

is correct, it follows that there needs to be a ‘‘coordinating agency’’ tasked to effectuate the national security policies that require presidential decision making. 

I presume that today’s NSC remains afflicted by the same organizational challenges that I faced in January 2009 when I first assumed the role as National Security Advisor. The main challenges facing the NSCs of this era are resources, manpower allocation, and increasing span of activity. 

One of the first decisions regarding the NSC in 2009 was to combine the NSC 

and Homeland Security staffs, a move that was widely applauded and which has 

proven itself to be extremely useful. Our security does not start or stop at our borders, and our efforts to respond to the multiple security challenges we face must 

be coordinated in a combined NSC staff. That task has largely been accomplished. 

In 2009, as I recall, the NSC operated on an ‘‘anemic budget’’ of $4 million. In 

combining the two staffs, as previously discussed, it became obvious that an increase in resources was necessary. After conducting a detailed study, it was deterVerDate Nov 24 2008 11:50 Apr 05, 2016 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00068 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 Y:\REIER-AVILES\BORAWSKI\JOBS SENT FOR PRINTING 2015\99664.TXT JUNE
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mined that $23 million was necessary to conduct the NSC’s important work, which 

also included the funding to hire the requisite expertise to appropriately staff the 

NSC. This request was rejected as being out-of-line in relation to the funding of 

other West Wing entities. As I recall, however, we did receive an increase of $8 million, adding to the $4 million previously allocated, for a total of annual budget of 

$12 million. Even considering that modest increase in funding allocation, I continue 

to feel that the NSC has been consistently underfunded for the tasks it is asked 

to perform and perhaps more importantly, those that it is expected to perform. 

The size of the NSC has come under criticism recently. Critics would do well to 

recall that in combining the Homeland Security Council (HSC) and the NSC in 

2009, significant personnel efficiencies were achieved. Actually, the number of assigned personnel to the NSC is not the main problem; the main problem lies in how 

personnel are assigned to the NSC. The majority of personnel ‘‘detailed’’ to the NSC 

are ‘‘on temporary loan’’ from other government agencies. Parent agencies select the 

‘‘detailees,’’ pay their salaries, and place strict controls on how long they can be 

‘‘away from home.’’ This system causes significant personnel annual turnover rates 

within the NSC. As I recall, almost half of the NSC staff turned over in 2010, just 

one year after the administration took office. This situation exists for several reasons. One is that agencies themselves benefit from having more NSC-experienced 

staff, not realizing that frequent rotations impact continuity of NSC efforts. Another 

is that the NSC itself is not resourced to pay the salaries of the amount of personnel 

needed to accomplish its mission. The result of frequent personnel turnover is a detrimental effect to the experience level, efficiency, and consistency needed in the NSC 

itself. My view of an adequate NSC staffing composition is 3/4 ‘‘permanent personnel’’ and 1/4 ‘‘detailees.’’ The length of service for ‘‘detailees’’ to the NSC can be 

easily determined by it and the respective agencies, and certainly the reforms I suggest could reduce the overall number of ‘‘detailees,’’ which would benefit the various 

agencies. 

My lasting conclusion with regard to the NSC’s ‘‘span of activity’’ is that it should, 

first and foremost, be a very small ‘‘agency-like’’ organization with all the entitlements of larger agencies, such as funding for protocol, media, congressional relations, travel, etc. This is a simple resource allocation problem, but it has never been 

fixed. Second, the NSC should be a ‘‘policy communicating/disseminating’’ organization and needs to be the principal coordinating vortex for major national and international security issues. The number of Cabinet rank advisors who gather in the 

Situation Room to give advice to the President on the most important issues has 

increased significantly in the past few years. It is critical that the NSC staff be organized, resourced, and adequately staffed in order to do what is needed to coordinate interagency activities. 

Lastly, the NSC should not and cannot be a policy ‘‘implementing’’ organization. 

NSC’s have had a historical tendency to travel down the ‘‘slippery slope’’ of micromanagement as their tenure in an administration evolves. This is where the major 

criticism usually occurs; it is easy to lose the sense of balance between what is a 

primary function and what becomes an ‘‘urge’’ to manage the implementation of policy, something that vastly exceeds the mission of the NSC. It is, in my view, the 

responsibility of the National Security Advisor to create the environment that lends 

itself to partnerships and trust among Cabinet-rank officials who play an increasing 

role in the wider national security community. 

In his testimony before the Committee, former Secretary of Defense Bob Gates expressed doubt about the efficacy of an interagency Goldwater-Nichols. He makes 

valid points that must be considered carefully. I would submit that the practical difficulties he points out underscore the important role of the of the NSC and the 

NSS—as a presidential instrument—can and must play a role in ensuring that decisions taken by the President and his national security team are duly and properly 

implemented by the interagency. I believe that the NSC’s ability to help perform 

this essential function would be greatly advanced by the personnel and structural 

reforms I proposed. 

Secretary Gates also testified about the Congress’ vital role in setting the conditions for an efficiently run national security establishment. He noted the destructive 

consequences to the Department of Defense and our national security interests of 

perpetual partisan gridlock, budget impasses, and the recurring threat of government shutdowns. I would like to associate myself with his remarks on the need for 

Congress to be a part of national security reform, not only by how it funds and directs the DOD to operate, but how it conducts its legislative and oversight responsibilities. 

66 

CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS

Mr. Chairman, Senator Reed, Members of the Committee, I thank you for allowing me to offer this testimony. I am of the opinion that the landmark legislation 

of Goldwater-Nichols Defense Reorganization Act of 1986, which was informed, in 

part, by many of the findings included in the Packard Commission Report of 1986, 

provided the framework for the United States Armed Forces that our country enjoys 

and admires today, a force that is unequalled and unrivaled anywhere. It is now 

time to look to the future by modernizing those areas of the legislation that are in 

most need of reform. Previous witnesses have provided a long and wide ranging 

commentary on the need for a ‘‘Goldwater-Nichols ll.’’ 

We are fortunate that many of the framers of the original legislation are still ‘‘current’’ on security issues, and are still providing advice to the leadership of our government and the Department of Defense. I recommend that additional use of this 

distinguished group be considered in any effort involving a proposed ‘‘GoldwaterNichols ll.’’ They are truly national assets and collectively they represent decades 

of unparalleled experience. It could well be that the Committee might benefit from 

such a group to gather once again, as they did in 1997, for the purpose of recommending the most important areas, on which there is universal agreement, for urgent reform. I hope my contribution has been useful and I look forward to helping 

you in any way possible in the important ongoing work of reform that serves the 

nation’s interests. 

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

I would just add it is my understanding, General, that under 

Henry Kissinger, the NSC staff was 50 people. I understand now 

it is 400. I might argue that in the days of Kissinger, we were more 

successful than we are today. It is not clear to me that increasing 

sizes of the staffs is necessarily the answer. 

I guess one of the fundamental questions I think that we are trying to confront here, that we have the COCOMs, but every time 

that there is a major contingency or emergency or some challenge, 

that we form up a joint task force, and they address it rather than 

the COCOMs themselves. In addition to that, obviously, we do not 

know the number of people on these staffs because we have never 

had a full accounting for not only the military personnel but the 

contract personnel and the civilian personnel that are all assigned 

to them as well. So some argue that the COCOMs should be reduced significantly in size and number because these standing task 

forces seem to be the vehicle for addressing the national emergencies. 

I guess we can begin with you, General Jones. 

Mr. JONES. Well, I think, first of all, the term ‘combatant command’ is one that was coined during Secretary Rumsfeld’s tenure. 

In my view the correct title for these commands is ‘unified command.’ One of the reasons that AFRICOM wound up in Stuttgart, 

Germany was that we refused to change the title ‘combatant command,’ and no African leader was going to welcome a combatant 

command of the United States in their country. So Germany has 

a long history with us. They understood what we were trying to do, 

and they extended the invitation to put it in Stuttgart, Germany. 

The overall functions of the 21st century unified command in my 

view are, number one, warfighting but also, number two, to by 

their presence, which is I think a gift of enormous value to the 

United States, be molded I think, as this report suggests, into a 

much more useful instrument of American engagement in foreign 

policy. I would advocate that there could be a structure where senior elements of the interagency could also be present. They would 

be working in the same time zone as their colleagues. It would 

67 

bring a regional focus to our strategic thinking that would be extremely important. Right now in the State Department, the strategic and the operational level of involvement is located here in 

Washington, and as a result, we have a soda straw mentality approaching each country country by country when the world is much 

easier to understand if you did it by regions. 

So modernizing and transforming these unified commands into a 

more cogent expression of our national capabilities I think makes 

a lot of sense and should be seriously considered for the future. 

Chairman MCCAIN. General Flynn? 

Mr. FLYNN. Thanks, Chairman. 

So I am going to be a little bit hypothetical here. You asked 

about sort of re-imagining. You used the word ‘re-imagining.’ To 

specifically answer your question, the fighting forces inside of our 

combatant commands are not resourced the way you believe they 

are. So Army components, Marine components, naval components 

within a combatant command in some cases AFRICOM, parts of 

EUCOM—they do not exist or they do not exist in the capacity and 

capability to be able to actually combine themselves together with 

joint forces or coalition forces to do the job. 

So that said, imagine only two geographic combatant commands—only two—an east and a west. You would have to have 

specific other commands like STRATCOM, which I believe is necessary because we do have a nuclear responsibility for this Nation 

for this century; Cyber Command because this is definitely a new 

world as I highlighted in some of the things I said. So if that is 

all you had, you just had an east and a west four-star that did a 

lot of things—they would take on a lot of things. What we have to 

figure out is how do we flesh out the resources, the warfighting resources, the ready capabilities that we need from all these other 

places that have been highlighted by the testimony that you have 

heard today and others and get that stuff out of the tail of the Department of Defense and get it down into the warfighting forces 

that we need because otherwise we are going to—you know, we 

have Ebola, we have some problem somewhere around the world. 

It is like, okay, give me some bits and pieces and we throw it together. It really has nothing to do with coming out of that combatant command. 

So could you get to that? Could you get to an east and a west 

geographic combatant command? You know, they do not need to be 

services. They are headquarters. Would they be relatively large? I 

am not so sure if they need to be much larger than what they are 

doing. If you look at like a PACOM, you look at—I mean, when we 

talk about EUCOM, AFRICOM, CENTCOM, I mean those are interesting. Could you bring something together that commanded all 

those? Then what you do is you drive down the size of these headquarters, starting with the building across the river here, and the 

resources that they need, as well as the agencies and activities of 

the Department of Defense. I tell you the one that I led is way 

over. It is overpriced and there are too many people in it. When 

you look at 9/11 to the size of it today, just in that example—and 

I think General Jones—he nailed it when we talk about some of 

what these agencies and activities are doing and how bloated they 

are. 

68 

So could we get to that? Could we get to an east and a west? 

Could we drive down the number of four-stars and three-stars that 

we have? I mean, when I look around the world, there are not a 

lot of four-stars out there. There is a few when we are talking 

about colleagues and we talk about what exists out there. It does 

not mean that we get rid of every one of them, but it means that 

we really take a hard look and do sort of a red team analysis of 

what it is that I am imagining here in this hypothetical, which I 

actually think that it is practical. Now, could it be achieved in 4 

years? It would take some time and it would certainly take a lot 

of effort. 

Is it possible? It is possible. Can you imagine it? I can imagine 

it because when I look at how we fight today and how we have 

been fighting and how I think we will fight for at least the next 

10 years, we are going to continue down this road that you have 

already recognized. We are stealing—so CENTCOM—I am pulling 

people on the battlefield. I am pulling people from PACOM, USFK, 

EUCOM, AFRICOM to fight a war in Iraq. From the intelligence 

perspective, we are pulling people from all over the place. They had 

no rhyme or reason to any kind of structured system that we had 

in place. So all those combatant commands had to pile on. It just 

made no sense. 

It is almost like take the whiteboard, wipe it clean, and then 

have some effort, some analytical effort, that takes a really hard 

look at sort of what I would just call a team B approach to what 

I am addressing. 

Chairman MCCAIN. Senator Reed? 

Senator REED. Well, let me start with Secretary Donley. If you 

want to make a comment, that would be appropriate, Secretary. 

But there is one point in your testimony that I thought was interesting because we are going to have a huge process here of reform, 

and you have to start off with some tangible first steps. One step 

you suggested was integrating the staffs of the services. Currently 

the uniformed staff is there and then the civilian sector staff is 

here. 

Can you just for a moment sort of comment on that proposal? 

Then I will ask General Flynn and General Jones for their perspective since they have served in different areas. Mr. Secretary, 

please. 

Mr. DONLEY. Sir, I will turn to that just quickly in answer to 

Senator McCain’s question about COCOMs, a couple of points real 

quick. 

The committee’s effort to redefine management headquarters and 

to get the Department to rebaseline all that work will be very important I think in getting a new updated baseline of the COCOM 

headquarters, the service component headquarters, et cetera. That 

is very important as you consider the way forward. That is why I 

focused on that area. 

Second, I do think having global coverage is important across the 

regional combatant commands. We actually did not have global 

coverage until the early 2000s. We had several countries that were, 

quote/unquote, unassigned. So it has taken us a long time to get 

to the global configuration we have. You can expect changes at the 

margins as commanders talk about the seams and they get adVerDate Nov 24 2008 11:50 Apr 05, 2016 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00072 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 Y:\REIER-AVILES\BORAWSKI\JOBS SENT FOR PRINTING 2015\99664.TXT JUNE
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justed. But I think trying to collapse the regional structure at this 

point would be a step backwards. 

Third point quickly on how COCOMs task organize. It makes a 

lot of sense to assign regional responsibilities to subunified commands or to component commanders. COCOM headquarters are 

not capable of doing everything themselves on their headquarters 

staff. One prominent example that is out there right now is the 

need to develop missile defense architectures. We are doing that in 

at least three places that I am aware of. We are doing that in the 

Gulf. We are doing that in Europe, including the eastern Med, and 

we are doing that in Asia. We need the technical expertise of the 

service components, air and land, to work that together, and they 

are doing it with allies at the operational level. So these are things 

that COCOM headquarters cannot do by themselves. It makes a lot 

of sense to task those. 

On the military department headquarters, so this has a very long 

history. As provided for in Title 10 coming out of Goldwater-Nichols, it sort of cements these two staffs in the same headquarters. 

But there are functions on both sides that in some cases are almost 

the same function. The assistant secretaries and the services, for 

example, for manpower and reserve affairs, have functional responsibilities for policy and oversight that look a lot like the deputy 

chiefs of staff for personnel on the military side. So they are compelled to work together, but they are organizationally separated. 

Depending on who is assigned there, the personalities and the 

guidance they get from their chief or their secretary, sometimes offices such as these and these two staff do not always work well together. If you are in the field, sometimes there is confusion about 

where you go in the headquarters. Do you go to the secretariat for 

this or do you go to the deputy chief of staff for this? 

Other parts of the staff that are separated actually ought to come 

together. Acquisition and logistics is one of those. As the committee 

knows, there is a long history of trying to work lifecycle management and put acquisition and logistics functions together. AT&L 

[the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics] does that at the OSD level, but in the services those are still separated. 

So there is a lot of potential here to get to a single staff. It will 

be hard work, but it is I think worth doing. 

Senator REED. Very quickly because my time is expiring. General 

Flynn, any comments? General Jones, any comments? 

Mr. JONES. I do. I am sorry, Mike. Go ahead. 

Mr. FLYNN. I would just say briefly having witnessed this integration between services and the department level, I think that is 

the right approach. I do think that there has to be more—you 

know, the recognition of our civilian leadership has got to be very 

clear. But military officers to be able to work in there because it 

gets into what General Jones talked about is the interagency roles. 

You do not have to duplicate staff. So I think that that is a good 

idea. 

Senator REED. Thank you. 

General Jones, please. 

70 

Mr. JONES. Senator, I believe that we should consider all kinds 

of ideas, and I think we should not probably pick any one as being 

the best way to do it. I think that is the value of studying things. 

But just for information, the civilian-to-active duty ratios of the 

Department right now, with the Air Force is 1 to 1.7, civilian to 

military. In the Navy, it is 1 to 1.8. In the Army, it is 1 to 2.3, and 

in the Marine Corps, it is 1 to 8.3. So we clearly have inflated numbers in our bureaucracy both military and civilian. We need to become more efficient. We need to do things quicker. We cannot continue to take 15 years to produce a major end item, important system for the warfighter. We just have to be leaner and really reduce 

the size of military staffs in headquarters just across the board. 

How you do the civilian secretariats and the military staff I 

think is something worthy of study. I do not have a clear view on 

how that would work. But it is certainly something we should consider. 

Senator REED. Thank you very much. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman MCCAIN. Senator Ernst? 

Senator ERNST. Thank you, gentlemen, for joining us today, and 

thank you, Mr. Chair, for your very kind words on the floor yesterday. I certainly appreciated that. 

General Flynn, I am very concerned about the military intelligence force structure and the support actually going out to the 

warfighter. For example, AFRICOM. Despite ISIS surging in Libya 

and many of the other threats on the continent, the Army has stated there is likely going to be about a 2-year delay in getting an 

Army theater intelligence brigade established for support in that 

area. 

General Breedlove has also stated that in Europe the current levels of MI [military intelligence] support are very inadequate. They 

are lacking considering the threat that we have coming from Russia and other transnational threats and terrorism. Not much is 

being done to provide EUCOM with MI support. 

So we have INSCOM [United States Army Intelligence and Security Command] at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, and it is this Army senior 

intelligence integrator. It equips, trains, and mans the Army intelligence units all around the globe. You have spent 30 years in MI. 

If you could please tell us in your experience if INSCOM could be 

better reformed to support the warfighter and how we can achieve 

that. 

Mr. FLYNN. Okay, and this really gets to the chairman’s question 

about what we have been talking about with combatant commands’ 

ability to organize, to fight. 

So INSCOM was a creation of the Soviet Union Cold War system 

that we fought at least 25 years ago now. So it is a—I am going 

to be very candid here. It is a bloated, almost irrelevant headquarters. We have Army component commanders underneath every 

geographic combatant command, actually underneath all of them. 

So we have an Army service component underneath EUCOM. You 

have one underneath CENTCOM. They are three-stars. I think in 

Europe it is still a four-star. But those are senior officers. The 

Army intelligence forces are aligned back to INSCOM. It just does 

71 

not make any sense. Talk about more headquarters that you do not 

need. 

So I think that there is a fundamental need to take a real laser 

focus at what you are addressing and decide whether or not 

INSCOM can be dissolved. You take resources and you push them 

out to those theater intelligence brigades which are necessary, and 

they function very well and they do actually work for those commanders. But the way that we have them aligned—I know the size 

of INSCOM’s headquarters, and I honestly do not know—I cannot 

sit here today and tell you that I have served 5 years in combat 

in the last decade, and I am not sure what that particular headquarters did for me. I know what the intelligence brigades did, and 

I would work it through the warfighting command system. 

So I think part of this reform—it is like agencies and activities 

and some of these other headquarters that have grown. This is one 

that goes back to the Cold War, and it is time to take another look 

at whether or not that is necessary. 

Senator ERNST. That is great. Thank you for the input, General 

Flynn. 

General Jones, in January of 2013, former Secretary of Defense 

Leon Panetta signed a memorandum eliminating the direct ground 

combat definition and assignment rule which directed the services 

to open the direct ground combat specialties previously closed to 

women by the first of January 2016 or to request an exception to 

policy for any direct ground combat specialties they determined 

should remain closed. 

In your experience as the former Commandant of the Marine 

Corps, what would your best military advice or recommendation for 

the Marine Corps have been to the Secretary of Defense for 1 January? If you could expound on that please. 

Mr. JONES. Well, thank you, Senator. I would like to think that 

my time as Commandant was one that advocated for more billets 

being opened for women and broader integration. I was in the Marine Corps long enough to see the separateness become one Marine 

Corps where we had two separate organizations for a long time and 

they were brought together in the 1970s I think. So I have been 

a staunch advocate for making as many billets as possible available 

to women. 

The one exception that I feel strongly about is combining genders 

at the rifle squad, platoon, and company level simply because of 

the physiological differences between men and women. Overwhelmingly, that is my objection. I have served in combat as a platoon 

commander and a company commander in Vietnam. I have been a 

battalion commander. I do not see that as something that would 

enhance the combat warfighting capability of our units. When you 

look at professional sports and the National Football League, the 

National Hockey League, the National Basketball Association, professional tennis, professional golf, they make a distinction between 

men and women in terms of putting them on the same teams at 

the same time. I think that that analogy applies to women serving 

in line outfits at the very, very—at the warfighting level, as I said, 

at the rifle squad, platoon, and company level where I would be 

very careful about mandating 100 percent inclusion because I actually think that would decrease our combat capability. 

72 

Senator ERNST. Thank you. I respect your opinion very much. 

Mr. JONES. Thank you. 

Senator ERNST. Thank you, gentlemen. 

Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

Chairman MCCAIN. Senator McCaskill? 

Senator MCCASKILL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you all for your service to our country and thank you for 

being here today. 

I am going to start with you, Secretary Donley. I am aware of 

the pressures that have been put on the Air Force as it relates to 

drone operators because of the incredibly capable unit that we have 

in Missouri at Whiteman. I know that the Air Force is working on 

this problem. 

But it seems to me that this is something that we did not see 

coming because now I have learned that the Air Force is actually 

considering using contractors in order to ease the burden on these 

drone operators. 

At large, I think the issue of contractors versus active military 

is something that we are struggling with in our military. Certainly 

there is a role for contractors. Certainly we all acknowledge there 

is a role for contractors. Hopefully contracts that have been well 

scoped and competed and that are not cost-plus and that are overseen with capability and confidence as opposed to what we saw 

with CORS [Contracting Officer’s Representatives] when I first arrived in Washington in connection with what we were spending in 

Iraq on particularly logistic support, LOGCAP [the Logistics Civil 

Augmentation Program]. 

So I guess my question for you, Secretary Donley, is are you comfortable that we are at a position that we are hiring contractors to 

do the drone work, which in fact our warfighters—the reason they 

are under such stress right now is because they are being asked 

to target and kill the enemy during the day and going home to dinner with their families. It is a new kind of warfighting. It just appears that we were not really ready to support these warfighters. 

I am uncomfortable that the answer is to hire civilians. 

Mr. DONLEY. Senator, I cannot speak to the current state of readiness or personnel pressures on the RPA [remotely piloted aircraft] 

operator force, but it certainly was significant and has been for 

quite some time. 

The demand for this capability has been off the charts, and the 

Air Force had discussions with Secretary Gates and his staff about 

what the upper limit would be. We always had difficulty. Working 

with my colleague, General Flynn, I remember when he was in Afghanistan. We were working these issues. The Department set targets for the Air Force to grow the number of orbits. Each time the 

Air Force met that goal, the goalposts were moved. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Right. 

Mr. DONLEY. This happened two or three times in a 2- or 3-year 

period. So the Air Force was playing catch-up. 

These aircraft take a special training, obviously, and the mission 

integrating these aircraft with the intelligence system and providing that instantaneous sort of sensor-to- shooter capability netted into the entire intelligence network through the DCGS [Distributed Common Ground System] has been a tremendous capability 

73 

for our country. But it has also been manpower intensive, and the 

Air Force has been behind the power curve in doing this. 

It seemed much easier and frankly the focus had been in the 

Congress and in the Department to just continue to buy more aircraft, which made sense. But what the Air Force was doing behind 

the scenes, at a time when the Air Force budget was stagnant and 

the Air Force was actually decreasing in size, is we had to man this 

force. We had to create a new job series and invent the career force 

for RPA operators, and we had to set up the schoolhouses. There 

was so much pressure on operations that it was difficult to keep 

up because they were also robbing from the schoolhouses. 

So your point is well taken. The force has been tremendously 

stressed. 

I am uncomfortable with having civilian contractors performing 

military missions. That does not sound right to me, and we need 

to take a close look at that interface between what is an appropriate civilian activity and what is an appropriate military activity 

in the sensor-to-shooter kill chain. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Correct. 

I am almost out of time, but I wanted to briefly, General Jones— 

any of you. If you want to respond to this on the record. But I am 

still looking for some kind of data that would support the morphing 

that occurred during Iraq and Afghanistan from the military with 

CERP [Commander’s Emergency Response Program] to building 

highways and how we got to the point that there was a lack of accountability because it was never clear whether AID [United States 

Agency for International Development] was doing infrastructure 

and development or whether it was the active military. Obviously, 

there were security concerns. We had highways that probably 

should not ever have been built and were built under the aegis of 

this is fighting counterinsurgency by winning the hearts and 

minds, but in reality, it was probably more about our supply chain 

and reliability of our supply chain. This all got very murky. I have 

yet to see data that shows a direct relationship between the money 

we spent, which began with fixing the storefront broken window to 

the billions that were spent on vacant health centers, power plants 

that do not work. I could sit here and list dozens and dozens of 

projects. 

We have got to figure this out because just because we decided 

using this money in fighting counterinsurgency was a good idea 

does not mean it necessarily was. Somebody has got to show me 

that it worked. I do not think anybody has been able to show that 

yet, and I do not want us to go down that road again until somebody produces the data that showed it had an impact. 

Mr. JONES. Senator, I think that is a great question. My recollection of those days leading up to the invasion of Iraq was that the 

Defense Department was specifically informed that we would not 

do nation building. Therefore, there was no nation building plan. 

My recollection of the plan basically saw a military force go to 

Baghdad, pull down Saddam Hussein’s statue, and they said, okay, 

we are going home. That was not the case. Everything that happened after that was very, very ad hoc and not well done. The lessons I think of that mission I think should stay with us for quite 

a while because I think engagement—if you are going to engage at 

74 

that level in this 21st century, you need to have the operational 

plan to bring about the security that you need, but you also need 

an economic plan and you also need—if you are going to change the 

government, you need to make sure you have governance and rule 

of law in what is going to happen afterwards. The Central Command of that time did not have that plan. 

Senator MCCASKILL. I want to make sure those lessons get to 

Leavenworth. 

Mr. JONES. Exactly. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Thank you. 

Chairman MCCAIN. I might point out that the latest example of 

that is Libya, completely walking away, and many of us warned 

that the outcome now seems to be a new base for Al Qaeda. 

Senator Ayotte, the Democrats have a gathering and if it is okay 

with you, I would like to recognize Senator King to go, if you do 

not mind. I know you do not mind. 

Senator AYOTTE. Of course, absolutely. 

Chairman MCCAIN. Thank you. 

Senator KING. Thank you, Senator. 

We are talking about supporting the warfighter. I think one of 

the most dramatic examples of the failure to do so and then eventually turning it around and doing so was the MRAP program. 

General Jones, what have we learned from that and the fact that 

Secretary Gates had to move heaven and earth to make that happen? What have we learned from that experience in order to be 

more nimble in terms of dealing with threats on the battlefield? 

Mr. JONES. Senator, this is one of the largest problems that we 

have in the current construct of the Defense Department. I might 

even say that even presidential directives are ignored. I will give 

you an example of a meeting between the President of Algeria, 

President Bouteflika, and President Bush in which the President of 

Algeria asked the American President for night vision goggles for 

his air force, pretty standard stuff. The President said let us do 

that, and he said we will do that. To this day, the Algerian air 

force have never received them. It is simply because in the bureaucracy that we built, there are too many people that can say no 

and too many areas in which it can be blocked. I can give you chapter and verse of other examples in dealing with foreign countries 

who really want to have a relationship with the United States and 

really want to buy United States products and eventually just 

throw up their hands and go buy French or Israeli or another country simply because it is just too hard and too slow. As I said, there 

are examples of presidential directives being consumed by the bureaucracy and its inertia. 

Senator KING. But we have got to try to figure this out because 

lives are at stake. American lives are at stake if we cannot do an 

MRAP, if takes 2 years instead of 2 months, and there was a clear 

need. Not necessarily in this setting but perhaps following up in 

writing, you could give us some suggestions about how to deal with 

this bureaucratic issue. There has got to be some kind of expedited 

path. Are lives at stake? Yes. Then it goes in a different direction. 

Mr. JONES. Absolutely. But my opinion is you have got to reduce 

the bureaucracy. There are simply too many people that can say no 

and too many people that can block it. If we cannot do it for our 

75 

own troops, let alone the troops of our allies and our friends, we 

are at risk I think in terms of, as you said, Senator, costing more 

lives because of our inefficiency. That is something that I think 

Goldwater-Nichols II could really take a look at and trim the bureaucracy so that there are fewer people who can say no. 

Senator KING. It seems to me we have parallel bureaucracies 

now. We have the Secretary of Defense with all that that entails, 

and then we have the Joint Staff. We have got sort of two very 

large entities. Would that be where you would start? 

Mr. JONES. I think those are two very large bureaucracies. I noticed on the Secretary of Defense’s staff, we have 70 flag and general officers. On the Secretary of Defense staff, 70 flag and general 

officers working today. So this is enormous and contributes to the 

inversion that we have created with huge headquarters and their 

survival, and the amount of resource they consumes comes at the 

direct expense of the fighting forces, our fighting capabilities. 

Mr. FLYNN. If I can just make one quick comment. 

Senator KING. Yes, Secretary Donley, please. 

Mr. FLYNN. In my last deployment, I spent almost 18 months in 

Afghanistan. The first office that I went back to the Pentagon and 

thanked—I purposely did this—was the Rapid Fielding Office, 

which was a creation of the inertia that was required on the battlefield because just literally the dozens of urgent need statements 

that were coming from the battlefield. So this rapid needs office 

was stood up, a bunch of really great Americans, and they were 

rapidly turning as fast as they could those kinds of things. The Secretary, both Rumsfeld and Gates, really turned it on. They were 

able to move things faster. But even then, they had to work around 

all this mess that we have all highlighted here. I just think that 

we have got to figure out how we can speed up the process when 

we go to war. We have to. 

I will leave one other comment. Secretary Rumsfeld came out to 

visit us in Balad, Iraq early as in the 2004 time frame. I will never 

forget the conversation. A small group. We told him. We told him 

if you told us that we were going to go to war and we were not 

going to come home until we won, we would fight this war differently. But when you tell me that I am on a 9-month deployment, 

I am on a 6-month deployment, I am on a year deployment, what 

you have just told is I am going to participate in this conflict. I am 

going to return forever. If you told me, Flynn—and we were looking 

right at him. If you told me, Flynn, you are not going to come home 

until we win, how would you fight this war differently. Trust me, 

Senator. We would have fought it differently, much differently. 

Senator KING. Well, I appreciate this. 

Mr. Chairman, I think this is one of the areas we really have to 

look at, the whole issue of bureaucracy because it is one thing how 

long it takes to get socks through the process, but if we are talking 

about an MRAP or ammunition or lifesaving equipment and we are 

in a battle space that is changing so fast that you just cannot fight 

the last war. So I hope you fellows can help us think this through 

because the tendency of any bureaucracy—and these are not bad 

people, by the way, but the tendency of any bureaucracy is, A, to 

say no and, B, to grow. I think it is something we are going to have 

to—this is the purpose of these hearings is to help us to address 

76 

these questions. But this puts a very fine point on the necessity, 

it seems to me. 

Thank you very much, gentlemen. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman MCCAIN. 70 flag and general officers that work for the 

Secretary of Defense? 

Mr. JONES. That is correct. 

Senator KING. I wonder how many there were in all of World 

War II. 

Chairman MCCAIN. There was a PACCOM [Pacific Ocean Areas 

Command] and there was a European Command. 

Senator Ayotte? 

Senator AYOTTE. Thank you, Chairman. 

I want to thank all of you for your distinguished records of service to the country. 

General Flynn, I wanted to ask—really have all of you comment 

on something—your comments where you said I have also served 

many years in combat and have suffered from the lack of many capabilities we needed to fight our enemies and found myself fighting 

the Pentagon is much more than our enemies. 

The one thing that I have noticed in my first term in the Senate 

here is that when we get feedback from the ground and we get 

feedback from the soldiers, the airmen, the sailors, and they tell us 

about something, it becomes almost retributive in terms of when 

they are telling us something and what happens to them to give 

us the honest opinion of what they need from the ground and what 

they think. I feel like I have a responsibility to get that opinion, 

not just to hear from the service chief but to hear from the people 

who are really affected. The experience that I have seen around 

here is that, listen, you got to do it secretly. You got to do it quietly, and if they find you out, they will root you out. 

So how do we change that culture? You know there is a law that 

says if a Member of Congress—you legally can talk to a Member 

of Congress about your opinion. So how do we change that cultural 

problem that seems to be, in my view, something that I have been 

shocked by. 

Mr. FLYNN. I could spend all day, and I will try to be very, very 

brief. I once wrote and sent in an urgent needs statement because 

we were actually using the equipment. So it was an off-the-shelf 

buy that we did and we are using it and it is working. Our operational guys going and doing raids in houses were using it. We 

pieced it together, and we said, okay, this is something that we 

want to go to our larger joint task force. So I wrote it, sent it up 

through the channels. I did all my back channel stuff to all my 

buddies because we were trying to move at a different speed. When 

it made it through the system, it got into the Army, in this case— 

but not always the Army is the bad guy. Folks on the Army staff 

said that is not what they need. He does not need that. Who does 

he think he is? 

Now, at the time, I was a colonel. These senior guys come out 

and they say, Flynn, if one of you ever need anything, call me. So 

I called up the boss, in this case the Deputy Secretary of Defense. 

I was calling from combat. So they took the call. Good enough, the 

77 

DepSecDef said let me look into it and we were able to get the capability. 

Now, that is about as bold as you can get because you know 

what? I was, in this case, in Iraq and I was like, okay, what the 

hell are they going to do. We need this capability. I am finding a 

system that just could not, did not respond. 

Senator AYOTTE. What worries me is that you were able to do 

that. I can assure you that that has happened, and the person who 

tried to do that in your shoes, instead of getting what they need, 

got punished in some way. That is what worries me. Am I wrong 

about this? 

Mr. FLYNN. No. I think you are right. I see it right now. I actually see it happening right now because I have a lot of friends that 

are still serving, especially in the intelligence community where 

they feel so—it is not just about this assessment stuff. It is actually 

about other things that are going on, and it is like they feel encumbered, limited, constrained to say something because particularly 

with systems, there is some equipment out there that is just flat 

not working. 

We are getting ready to send some more forces to combat here. 

The Secretary of Defense was in here the other day talking to you 

about it. I know down at the troop level because I see it, they are 

asking for a particular piece of equipment and their headquarters 

are saying do not ask for that piece of equipment. In fact, in one 

case, one headquarters has said I do not want to see any more urgent needs coming through this headquarters. Now, for a commander to say that, it is—I guess I am not surprised, Senator, 

but—— 

Senator AYOTTE. What can we do to empower that, I mean, to 

empower that people can speak freely? What more can we do? 

Mr. JONES. I think it is, first and foremost, a leadership problem, 

and I think service chiefs owe it to put out guidance to their forces 

that this is our system. This is what happens. You are going to 

be—in the course of your career, you are going to talk to Members 

of Congress. You are going to talk to staff. The only thing we would 

ask is that what you tell them you have told us so that everybody 

is on the same sheet of music. You do not, on the one hand, keep 

your mouth shut while you are talking to your commander and 

then unload on your commander behind closed doors. 

So I think that we can do a lot more in the leadership department to try to educate our men and women in uniform exactly why 

this is part of the system. The other thing is positive leadership 

means that you do not take retribution out on people for speaking 

honestly about what they feel. So I think there is a way to do it. 

I just think it takes more focus and it takes positive leadership and 

guidance to make sure that people in the respective service understand that this is the policy. That still will not stamp it out, but 

it will help. 

Mr. DONLEY. I would associate myself 100 percent with General 

Jones’ remarks. This is a leadership issue. As Members of Congress, I encourage you to keep those channels open and exercise 

your prerogative to talk to anybody you feel you need to talk to, 

to mix it up with our men and women in uniform. 

78 

At the same time, as a service leader, we tell our forces, our civilians, our military personnel, use the chain of command. I would 

ask if something gets into a congressional channel, I am asking 

why is it not coming to me or the chief. Why is it not coming up 

through the leadership channels? So it is a leadership issue, and 

we should be encouraging our people to be straight with their chain 

of command and with anybody who asks from the outside. 

Senator AYOTTE. So I appreciate all your comments on this. I 

think people would be straight with their chain of command if they 

felt that they were not going to get punished for doing so. So that 

is my big concern. 

Mr. JONES. Senator, I think you probably had this experience as 

well too that in units that are well led, you do not have that problem. 

Senator AYOTTE. Right. 

Mr. JONES. Units that demonstrate that trait, that negative trait, 

are generally led by people who are somewhat insecure and cannot 

tolerate that just psychologically. 

Senator AYOTTE. Right, because the leader will take feedback of 

all forms and be able to address it. 

Mr. JONES. You can overcome that. 

Senator Ayotte [presiding]: Thank you. 

It looks like I am here. So I am going to call on Senator Sullivan. 

Senator SULLIVAN. Well, I appreciate everybody’s testimony and 

again your service, gentlemen. 

I want to dig in again. I think you might be seeing here maybe 

a little bit of consensus on the committee on the issue. General 

Jones, you wrote about it very articulately in your testimony, and 

all of you have been speaking to it on the tooth-to-tail ratio issue. 

I know this is a big question, but why do you think it has exploded so much? Is it just the normal kind of desire of bureaucracies to always grow whether it is at DOD or NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] or the EPA [Environmental Protection 

Agency]? I mean, why do you think it exploded? Because I think 

that can help us get to some of the answers. 

Then on this issue of just 77 flag officers, do you think it would 

make sense for us, as opposed to try and reposition each flag officer 

position, say, in the Secretary’s Office, to just pass a law saying, 

hey, you will have no more than 25 flag officers. You figure out 

what they should be doing? 

Why do you think it has grown, and then how do you think we 

can get a handle on it? 

I will ask one final question. General Milley has been really focusing on this issue because the Army has been required to undertake a lot of cutbacks, at least for now. I think he is looking at the 

wisdom of these cutbacks and to what degree the tooth-to-tail ratio 

is out of whack. What advice would you give him, who is really 

real-time struggling with this issue? But I think it is an important 

one that you could see some consensus building here in the committee. I know I threw a lot at you, but feel free to, any of you, 

take a crack at any of those questions. Thank you. 

Mr. DONLEY. Senator, I will take a first cut at it. First of all, I 

think it is the nature of bureaucracies to grow over time. So this 

issue of regularly addressing the need for greater efficiencies is an 

79 

extremely important one. DOD’s bureaucracy is no different than 

any other. It needs to be pruned. 

Senator SULLIVAN. Do you think we are only entity that can really do that effectively? 

Mr. DONLEY. I think Congress has a very strong role to play because this is your role to oversee the Department in this kind of 

a context. 

I do think Congress has effective tools that it can use. At times 

in the past, Congress has put ceilings on headquarters activities in 

the Department down to the service level, and the Congress currently has limits on general officers at each grade. So you do have 

tools available. 

The one aspect that I would ask you to think about—and it is 

a little bit new from our decades’ old experience—is the rise of the 

contractor workforce. I think the Department needs to get a handle 

on that and is in the process of doing that and trying to figure out 

how many contractors are supporting its headquarters activities. 

So the way I advised Secretary Hagel on this, when we did the 

OSD review a couple of years ago—you will recall that he had 

given direction for 20 percent reductions in all management headquarters in the Department, including OSD. 

Senator SULLIVAN. Did that happen? You hear that everybody 

does that. The bureaucracies grow. So it does not look like it always works. 

Mr. DONLEY. No. I think it is underway, and it has been underway for a couple of years. Secretary Gates started this in his efficiencies work in 2011. It got reinforced by Secretary Hagel. Now 

it is getting reinforced again by Congress. Actually one of the complexities the Department is going through now is to how to unite 

all those efficiencies that had been set in motion that are now piled 

on each other sort of in three different time frames over the last 

3 or 4 years. So I think the work is underway, and what the committee has directed the Department to do in this management 

headquarters review will help set a new baseline for that. 

But getting back to the contractors, you have to not just control 

the authorizations, but you have to control the money because if 

you allow the headquarters to have more money to work with, then 

they will buy contractor support with those resources. So getting a 

handle on how many contractors are supporting the headquarters 

and in what contexts is an important part of reestablishing a good 

baseline over these headquarters activities. 

Senator SULLIVAN. General Jones, General Flynn, any comments? 

Mr. FLYNN. Just really quick because I am not sure you were 

here, Senator, when General Jones talked about civilian-to-military 

ratios. 

Senator SULLIVAN. No. I did hear that. 

Mr. FLYNN. Of everything I have heard today, that is a really, 

really important set of data to really hone in on and take a look 

at because it addresses a bigger issue than what you are talking 

about. So when we are really looking at reform, I think that is 

super important. 

The other is the flag officer ratio within the military. If you look 

at historical ratios, you know, how many flag officers per how 

80 

many troops, as far back in time as you want to go, I would recommend that you go take a look at that because we actually have 

more flag officers per fighting unit than we did when we were 

doing really, really big things. So it is worth taking a look at as 

part of this effort. 

Mr. JONES. I do not have the figures, but I do have the active 

duty-to-enlisted ratios in the militaries. In the Air Force, it is 1 officer for every 4.1 enlisted. In the Navy, it is 1 officer for every 4.9; 

in the Army, 1 officer for 4.1; and in the Marine Corps, 1 officer 

for every 7.8 enlisted. That is the officer-to-enlisted ratios. That 

has been fairly consistent over time. 

With regard to your question about how do we get here, I completely agree with my colleagues. As a matter of fact, I noticed, 

when I was in the Pentagon, that everybody is for change as long 

as the change is done to somebody else. That is just the inherent 

personality of a bureaucracy. I believe honestly to enact the kind 

of change that we critically need here, it is going to take an external effort. I do not mean this pejoratively or critically of my former 

colleagues in the Pentagon. They are working like crazy trying to 

keep up with this very difficult world. But it is going to take an 

outside—and they should participate in it, but it is going to take 

a focused, separate outside organization much like the Defense Reform Task Force of 1997 to really think this through and how to 

do it. 

Senator SULLIVAN. Thank you, gentlemen. 

Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Senator AYOTTE. Thank you. 

General Jones, it sounds like you are signing up for duty—I like 

that—with this outside task force. 

So since the chairman left me to close out this hearing, I cannot 

help myself since I have such a great panel here of incredible experts on national security issues. I have to ask you about something that has just been developing, which is yesterday the IAEA 

[International Atomic Energy Agency] issued its report on the prior 

military dimensions of Iran’s nuclear program. Have you had a 

chance to take a look at that? 

One of the pieces of it talks about the fact we know that Iran— 

we have had serious concerns about the Parchin facility and what 

they have done there in terms of conducting experiments related to 

the design of the core of a nuclear bomb. We also know that they 

took activities even during the negotiations process to demolish and 

change things at that facility. 

So the IAEA report—one of the pieces of it concerns me because 

the IAEA concluded that the extensive activities undertaken by 

Iran at that facility since February of 2012 have seriously undermined the agency’s ability to conduct effective verification. 

So I just wanted to ask you sort of post-agreement here—the 

IAEA report issued yesterday. So I am not going to ask you to 

render an opinion on it. You have not seen it yet. But I think it 

raises some verification concerns. We had the testing of the longrange missile in October, which I have not seen a response yet 

from our administration on, that is in violation of existing U.N. 

[United Nations] resolutions, and many of us have long been concerned about their missile program because you do not need an 

81 

ICBM [intercontinental ballistic missile] unless you are interested 

in delivering a nuclear weapon to the United States. 

So I just wanted to get your opinions, especially General Flynn 

and Jones, on where we are with Iran and where we are postagreement, if you have concerns, what they are and what we 

should be doing. 

Mr. JONES. I have just spent some time in the Gulf region talking to various leaders of our friends and allies. The word that most 

came up in conversations is the word ‘existential threat.’ Most of 

our friends and allies in the Gulf, quite apart from the agreement 

that was reached with Iran, still consider Iran to be an existential 

threat for the foreseeable future. As a matter of fact, one of the 

leaders said this agreement may paper over our concerns for a few 

years, but make no mistake about it. We are going to be fighting 

Iran for 25 years or 30 years. This is not going away. 

So I think time will tell whether Iran is going to be trusted. My 

personal view is they are not going to be. 

Senator AYOTTE. I think even just even in the immediate aftermath of the agreement—— 

Mr. JONES. You would think. 

Senator AYOTTE.—things are not going exactly how you would 

think they would. 

Mr. JONES. Yes. You would think. 

But we entered into this agreement not just in isolation but with 

our P5 Plus 1 partners, and they are bright people, intelligent, and 

trying to do the right thing. 

But I just think Iran has yet to prove itself that it is ready to 

join the family of nations in the way of doing trade, in the way of 

normalized relations, and do not worry about Hezbollah, do not 

worry about Hamas, do not worry about the fact that they are supporting a war in Yemen, and all the other things that they are 

doing. So until there is really a behavioral change at the leadership 

level in Iran, we should be very, very careful about what we buy 

into with them. I have seen no evidence that they are trustworthy. 

Chairman McCain [presiding]: I thank the witnesses and I thank 

you for your service, and I thank you for helping us in this very 

significantly difficult challenge. The more we talk, the greater the 

challenge becomes. So I thank you. It has been extremely helpful, 

and we will be calling on you in the future. Thank you. 

This hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:30 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.] 

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