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i 

94–748 2015

[H.A.S.C. No. 114–37] 

THE ROLE OF SURFACE FORCES 

IN PRESENCE, DETERRENCE, 

AND WARFIGHTING 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON SEAPOWER AND 

PROJECTION FORCES 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

HEARING HELD 

APRIL 15, 2015 
(II) 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON SEAPOWER AND PROJECTION FORCES 

J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia, Chairman 

K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas 

BRADLEY BYRNE, Alabama 

ROBERT J. WITTMAN, Virginia 

DUNCAN HUNTER, California, Vice Chair 

VICKY HARTZLER, Missouri 

PAUL COOK, California 

JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma 

JACKIE WALORSKI, Indiana 

RYAN K. ZINKE, Montana 

STEPHEN KNIGHT, California 

STEVE RUSSELL, Oklahoma 

JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut 

JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island 

RICK LARSEN, Washington 

MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO, Guam 

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

SCOTT H. PETERS, California 

TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii 

GWEN GRAHAM, Florida 

SETH MOULTON, Massachusetts 

DAVID SIENICKI, Professional Staff Member 

PHIL MACNAUGHTON, Professional Staff Member 

KATHERINE REMBER, Clerk 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

Courtney, Hon. Joe, a Representative from Connecticut, Ranking Member, 

Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces ........................................... 3 

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

WITNESSES 

Clark, Bryan, Senior Fellow, Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments ..................................................................................................................... 3 

McGrath, Bryan, Managing Director, The FerryBridge Group ........................... 6 

APPENDIX 

PREPARED STATEMENTS: 

Clark, Bryan ..................................................................................................... 31 

Courtney, Hon. Joe ........................................................................................... 29 

Forbes, Hon. J. Randy ...................................................................................... 27 

McGrath, Bryan ................................................................................................ 50 

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD: 

[There were no Documents submitted.] 

WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING THE HEARING: 

[There were no Questions submitted during the hearing.] 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING: 

[There were no Questions submitted post hearing.] 

(1) 

THE ROLE OF SURFACE FORCES IN PRESENCE, 

DETERRENCE, AND WARFIGHTING 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON SEAPOWER AND PROJECTION FORCES, Washington, DC, Wednesday, April 15, 2015. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:02 p.m., in room 

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

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

ON SEAPOWER AND PROJECTION FORCES 

Mr. FORBES. I would like to call this hearing to order. 

And before we get started, I want to welcome my newest member 

of both the full committee and the subcommittee, Mr. Russell from 

Oklahoma, who has had a very distinguished career in serving our 

country. 

And we are delighted to have you both on our full committee and 

on the subcommittee. Look forward to your input and help as we 

move forward with this markup and other things the subcommittee 

will be doing. 

Today the subcommittee meets to discuss the role of surface 

forces in presence, deterrence, and warfighting. I am particularly 

pleased to have two distinguished seapower expert witnesses to testify before our subcommittee. 

Mr. Bryan Clark is a Senior Fellow at the Center for Strategic 

and Budgetary Assessments, and Mr. Bryan McGrath is Managing 

Director at The FerryBridge Group. 

Thank you, both, for being here and testifying today. We always 

enjoy reading your material, and we are looking forward to hearing 

you today. 

This committee’s last hearing discussed the evolving maritime 

security report in the Navy’s recently released report, ‘‘A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower.’’ Today we examine surface forces in this new environment and how we accomplish the 

transition from a defensive to an offensive surface force capable of 

operating and achieving objectives both independently and in cooperation with other forces. 

Looking at our naval surface forces today, we see a multitude of 

new capabilities are being integrated into the fleet. We are incorporating better sensors, including an expanded air and missile defense radar that is 30 times better than current technologies, and 

a new digital electronic warfare capability to deter, detect, or to 

better detect, decoy, and defeat incoming missiles. 
2 

We are continuing to expand our antisubmarine warfare capabilities, including the addition of multi-function towed array and a 

variable depth sonar on our small surface combatants that will be 

able to better track even the quietest of submarines. 

We are fielding new missiles to better pace the threats we face, 

including a long-range antiship missile and better short-range missile capabilities resident in the enhanced Sea Sparrow missile. 

Although we face severe fiscal constraints in research and development, there are new technologies available that the Navy will 

shortly be able to integrate into existing platforms. 

Advances in technology, such as the electromagnetic rail gun and 

the laser weapons system, permit the integration of systems and 

promote the multi-functionality of systems. Instead of a multi-million-dollar missile, a single salvo from a rail gun will cost less than 

$50,000. These systems represent a great opportunity to fundamentally change the cost curves in our favor. 

In addition to harnessing our technological innovation, our Navy 

is exploring a new concept entitled ‘‘distributed lethality,’’ a concept 

that would disaggregate and better arm the surface fleet. Providing 

for a better tactical employment of our surface combatants by 

disaggregating surface combatants from a centralized carrier battle 

group may represent our best chance of creating a tactical force 

multiplier. 

By complicating potential adversary’s ability to successfully target future naval combatants, our Navy becomes more survivable 

and increases the probability that potential aggressors will decide 

to pass at future conflict. 

I continue to believe the most challenging capability or tactical 

problem that the Navy has to contend with does not reside within 

the Department nor is it posed by potential adversaries. I believe 

that the most pervasive and difficult problem that the United 

States Navy faces today is the will of this body to provide for our 

common defense and to not be lulled into a false sense of security. 

The idea of American exceptionalism is not idle words, but, rather, a unique American approach to our current challenges and future goals and objectives. We need to embrace the role of the 

United States and especially the role of the United States Navy 

and surface fleet, in particular, in maintaining and securing the 

global commons. 

As proponents of seapower, we know that our Nation’s viability 

and future is linked to the strength and health of our fleet. I just 

question what we are doing today to ensure our next generation is 

able to enjoy the same benefits of life and liberty that preceding 

generations have provided to us. I look forward to hearing Mr. 

Clark and Mr. McGrath’s insights on how the Navy can reach distributed lethality amidst fiscal constraints. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Forbes can be found in the Appendix on page 27.] 

Mr. FORBES. And, with that, I would like to now turn to the 

ranking member of this subcommittee, Mr. Courtney, for any comments he may like to offer. 
3 

STATEMENT OF HON. JOE COURTNEY, A REPRESENTATIVE 

FROM CONNECTICUT, RANKING MEMBER, SUBCOMMITTEE 

ON SEAPOWER AND PROJECTION FORCES 

Mr. COURTNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you to both witnesses for your presence here today. 

Again, you have been sort of frequent fliers around this building, 

and much appreciated. Because, you know, there is obviously a lot 

in the short term with a mark just a few days away, but, also, 

frankly, the longer view that I think you guys spend a lot of time 

thinking about and your experience and training, you know, really 

provides a very helpful guidance to all of us. 

I am not going to read my whole statement here, but just sort 

of reiterate what the chairman mentioned, is that the Cooperative 

Strategy for 21st Century Seapower, which was released and we 

had a hearing on a few days ago, again, sort of focused on the fact 

that our surface forces are critical to making that strategy work. 

It faces, in many respects, you know, almost unprecedented challenges. 

The Under Secretary for Acquisition, Under Secretary Kendall, 

spoke yesterday at the Sea, Air, and Space Convention with a 

packed audience and made the comment that he thought that the 

sort of changing technology and capabilities out there are about as 

threatening as existed back at the time of World War I with the 

evolution of a lot of new platforms that people really hadn’t even 

gotten their heads around. So, you know, obviously, we really need 

to be focused on what you are here to talk about today. 

So, again, look forward to your testimony. 

And, Mr. Chair, I am just going to ask the rest of my remarks 

be entered for the record. 

Mr. FORBES. Without objection, they will be entered. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Courtney can be found in the Appendix on page 29.] 

Mr. COURTNEY. And I will yield back. 

Mr. FORBES. Thank you, Mr. Courtney. 

And I know you served on a panel at that exposition. I know you 

represented us all very, very well. And I am sure that you mentioned submarines at least once or twice in that panel. Not today, 

but thanks so much. 

Mr. Clark, it is my understanding you are going to start. 

And, as I mentioned to both of you, we will put your full written 

remarks in the record, but we look forward to any opening comments that either of you may have. 

So we will turn the floor over to you. 

STATEMENT OF BRYAN CLARK, SENIOR FELLOW, CENTER FOR 

STRATEGIC AND BUDGETARY ASSESSMENTS 

Mr. CLARK. Thank you, sir. Chairman Forbes and Ranking Member Courtney, thank you very much for inviting us to discuss the 

role of the surface Navy in presence, deterrence, and warfighting 

today. I am honored to be here and to appear with my friend Bryan 

McGrath. 

This discussion is timely, as the U.S. Navy surface force is at a 

crossroads. At the beginning of this century, the Navy had planned 

to introduce a family of new warships, the CG(X) missile defense 
4 

cruiser, the DD(X) land attack destroyer, and the sea controlfocused littoral combat ship [LCS]. Now we look back and each of 

those ships is now either truncated or canceled, and we need a new 

family of surface ships to address the future of security environment. 

The environment in which those ships was introduced reflected 

kind of that post-Cold War security environment where the Navy 

supported power protection ashore and its dominance at sea was 

unquestioned. 

The new cruiser was designed to protect U.S. forces from missiles 

launched from land. The destroyer was designed to use stealth to 

approach close to shore and use its guns to attack targets on land. 

And the littoral combat ship was planned to be used to address 

coastal threats, like mines or diesel submarines and small boats. 

Today the security environment is much different. In particular, 

sea control can no longer be assumed and U.S. surface forces are 

going to have to expect to fight to gain and maintain access for the 

joint force in the future. Also, resources to address this challenge 

have and will continue to be constrained. 

So recognizing these trends, the Navy decided to end each of 

these programs that were involved in this new family of surface 

ships, but it now needs to come up with a set of new solutions that 

are going to address this future environment. 

That future environment is much different. Today sophisticated 

anti-access/area-denial capabilities continue to improve and proliferate, threatening U.S. freedom of action, and challenging the security assurances it provides to its allies and partners. 

At the same time, instability is spreading through the action of 

revisionist states, such as Russia, China, and Iran, and there is 

also the failure of governments in the Middle East and Africa, 

which are increasing demands for U.S. forces to come in and help 

train and do security assistance with our allies and partners 

around the world. 

Fortunately, the Navy has some opportunities to address this set 

of challenges both with instability and anti-access capabilities. 

In the next year, it is going to finalize specifications for the 

Flight III Arleigh Burke destroyer; it is going to determine the specific requirements for the new frigate that is going to be introduced; it is going to implement a plan to try to sustain its cruiser 

capacity; it is going to integrate into the fleet a series of new ships, 

such as the joint high-speed vessel [JHSV], the afloat forward staging base [AFSB], and the mobile landing platform [MLP]. 

The Navy should take advantage of these opportunities to restore 

the ability of surface combatants to gain and maintain access for 

the joint force through sea control and to also sustain the ability 

of the surface fleet to provide a stabilizing presence and provide security assistance and training to our allies and partners. 

I believe this is going to take five major actions on the part of 

the Navy. First, it is going to have to adopt an offensive mindset. 

Today a surface fleet is more focused on defeating enemy missiles 

and torpedoes than attacking the aircraft, submarines, or ships 

that have launched them. This puts us at the wrong end of the cost 

exchange and the wrong end of the missile exchange. 
5 

The missiles that an adversary would have to launch to overwhelm a DDG’s air defense would cost about one-tenth the price of 

that DDG. So it puts the adversary in a very advantageous position 

because of the way we are operating. Instead, U.S. surface forces 

need to focus on killing the archer instead of shooting down his arrows. That is the only way we are going to be able to change the 

conversation and that exchange ratio. 

The number two thing we have to do is change our air defense 

approach. Our cruisers and destroyers today employ an air defense 

concept that uses the largest and most expensive interceptive missiles first and only uses cheaper, higher capacity systems, such as 

small interceptors or electronic warfare, after the long-range interceptors have run out or failed. We need to instead engage incoming 

missiles closer to the ship with improved smaller interceptors and 

new electronic warfare capabilities and directed energy systems 

that will be fielded in the next 5 years. 

Third, we need to take the defensive workload off of our large 

surface combatants. Our cruisers and destroyers should be the offensive workhorses of the surface fleet, but, instead, they are consigned to a bunch of defensive missions that are going to come because we have no other way to provide air defense to forces ashore 

or forces at sea, as well as escorting convoys and logistic ships in 

wartime. 

One way you could do that is to make sure that the Navy’s new 

frigate will be able to do air defense. Another way we can do that 

is by looking at ways to shift ballistic missile defense missions, 

which are an increasing demand signal on the surface Navy, to 

shore systems that are able to do those missions much more efficiently in certain locations. 

Four, we need to expand our capacity for training and security 

force assistance from sea. Today we only have half the number of 

small surface combatants that the Navy said are required. Half. 

What that means is, for all of those missions for minesweeping, for 

training, for maritime security, like counterpiracy, we are having 

to use cruisers and destroyers instead of using frigates and other 

small ships as we have done in the past. 

We need to look at ways to be able to expand the ability of other 

ships, such as those in our logistics fleet or in support ships, to be 

able to do some of those missions instead of using our large surface 

combatants to do so. There is ways we could do that by adapting 

the LCS mission package concept and widening its approach and 

using it on other ships than just the LCS. 

Fifth, we need to adopt new technologies. Lasers, rail gun, new 

electronic warfare systems, and unmanned systems are all mature, 

and we have seen examples of them being used in operational environments. The Navy needs to start looking at ways to integrate 

these into combatant ships to be able to take advantage of what 

they are going to provide in terms of higher capacity, lower cost, 

offensive, and defensive capabilities. 

These actions would enhance warfighting. They would enhance 

our ability to provide presence. And the end effect of that is going 

to be deterrence. And that is what we are looking for from the 

Navy, because, fundamentally, the Nation depends on naval forces 

to deter and defeat other forces in conflict. 
6 

I look forward to your questions and the discussion that will follow. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Clark can be found in the Appendix on page 31.] 

Mr. FORBES. Thank you, Mr. Clark. 

Mr. McGrath. 

STATEMENT OF BRYAN McGRATH, MANAGING DIRECTOR, THE 

FERRYBRIDGE GROUP 

Mr. MCGRATH. Thank you, Chairman Forbes, Ranking Member 

Courtney, and other members of the subcommittee for the invitation to testify here today on the role of surface forces in presence, 

deterrence, and warfighting. 

Surface forces play distinct roles in all three of these functions 

with the capability of the ship generally determining how extensible it is throughout the range of functions. Generally speaking, 

the more capable the ship, the more extensible it is. 

That said, a new generation of threats, a decline in surface force 

proficiency in some vital missions, and a lack of operational imagination raise important questions about the future employment of 

the surface force in wartime. 

China’s 20-year program of naval modernization and the development of anti-access and area-denial [A2/AD] regime are in no small 

measure associated with their realization after the Taiwan Strait 

Crisis of 1996 that American naval dominance in East Asia had to 

be contested. During this last 20 years, the U.S. Navy has gotten 

smaller, even as it has purposely de-emphasized the capabilities 

that are now required to counter China’s A2/AD complex. 

After years of neglecting surface-based antisubmarine warfare 

and antisurface warfare, we are now faced with a rising peer competitor who is forcing us to face this neglect. 

We have a surface force that is less capable of destroying enemy 

surface and submarine forces than its Cold War predecessor. We 

have a carrier air wing that has privileged short-range strike to the 

point where its effectiveness and traditional war-at-sea tasks is 

questionable. That question of the carrier air wing is one I hope we 

are able to take up on another day. 

In the future, sophisticated sea-denial strategies, such as those 

wielded by the Chinese, will drive the U.S. Navy to look at seizing 

temporary and limited pockets of sea control in order to enable 

other follow-on operations, something I like to call offensive sea 

control, though it bothers the purists. 

In an era of little or no threat, the Navy packed its defense 

around the carrier and it positioned itself close to an adversary in 

order to generate maximal combat sorties. Against a high-end, 

near-peer competitor implementing an A2/AD strategy, this is no 

longer possible. The carrier strike group will have to fight its way 

into portions of the ocean from which it can then execute strikes 

and then quickly retire and/or relocate. 

In essence, this resembles an island-hopping campaign that you 

are familiar with from the Second World War, except, whereas in 

those battles islands were seized and then held to enable follow-on 

operations, in this paradigm, pieces of the ocean will be seized and 
7 

held for some period of time from which offensive operations are 

then conducted. 

Critical to any concept of offensive sea control is a more lethal, 

mobile, and innovatively employed surface force. We must begin to 

more holistically evaluate risk, and we must recognize that our current concepts of force employment provide a determined foe with 

increasingly less complexity. 

I look forward to a discussion with you today of creating operational problems for potential adversaries with more innovatively 

operated surface forces wielding powerful offensive and defensive 

weapons. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. McGrath can be found in the Appendix on page 50.] 

Mr. FORBES. Thank you, Mr. McGrath. 

And let me maybe set a stage. And I am going to ask a number 

of things—it is not an exam. So don’t feel like you have to answer 

each one. Take whichever one you want to set kind of the foundation of this. 

Both of you have talked about today how we have been planning 

essentially for an uncontested environment, we are no longer going 

to be in an uncontested environment. If I had General Welch here 

from the Air Force, he would say the exact same thing, that tomorrow we are not going to be in an uncontested environment. 

How did we miss that? I mean, you know, did we go a decade 

or two decades just missing the fact that one day we would be in 

a contested environment? It seems like to me that was pretty obvious. How did we miss that on such a big scale? 

The second thing is: As we find ourselves moving into this contested environment, are we talking about the need to change platforms or concepts and strategies or perhaps both? 

And then, if it is changing concepts, how good are we at changing? I mean, for the longest time we have been talking about AirSea Battle concept. That was the big, you know, concept du jour 

and all of a sudden, shoom, it just got swept out, you know, under 

the rug. 

And then the last thing that I would like for you to kind of put 

in that framework: We are talking about the high-end A2/AD stuff 

that we are looking at. But we looked at in the full hearing today— 

we had Admiral Locklear here, and one of the questions I asked— 

and I know both of you have looked at the new Office of Naval Intelligence report that just came out. It really talked about the military maritime buildup for China. 

And in addition to that, it talked about them putting out more 

naval ships this year than any other country and more next year. 

But one of the things that particularly concerned me was it is not 

just their naval ships, but it is what they are doing in their coast 

guards. And their coast guard now—with the ships that they have 

in their coast guard alone, they are within like 68 ships of our entire Navy and they are having huge capacity and capability increases. 

And I showed Admiral Locklear a picture, which I imagine you 

two have seen—I should have showed it to you beforehand—but it 

is of a coast guard ship that they have and they have on it ‘‘Tug 

Boat 25.’’ I am sure you have seen it. It is painted white. And then 
8 

I showed a picture beside that of their amphibious naval ship that 

is just painted gray. But they are the exact same ship, you know. 

And I worry sometimes that, when we measure and hear the 

Navy talking, they are comparing our Navy against their navy, but 

we are missing those lower tier aggressive fights. 

So putting that in perspective, how did we miss this environmental shift? Are we looking at platforms versus concepts? And 

then how do we take into account kind of this lower tier aggressive 

action we are seeing not just from the Chinese, but the Russians, 

the Iranians? And how does that play into what we are doing here? 

Either or both of you on that. 

Mr. CLARK. Okay. Well, so I will go first. I will tackle some of 

those. 

To start with the last one first—or to start with this overall 

question of, I guess, how did we end up in a contested environment 

without realizing that we were going to do so, a lot of that had to 

do with the fact that we were fighting other conflicts at that time. 

So during the post-Cold War period, for about 25 years, from, you 

know, 1990 until 2015, we have enjoyed a relatively peaceful time, 

from the Navy’s perspective, of not having to deal with a peer competitor. 

But for the first 10 years or so of that, there was really no competitor at all and we didn’t expect that the capabilities that Russia 

had developed would then be proliferated to a bunch of new actors. 

And then, when that happened, we continued to rely on our existing Cold War systems to get us through. 

By upgrading them, we figured that they would be able to continue to provide us the capacity to defeat new cruise missiles, new, 

you know, weapons that China and others were getting that were 

coming from the Russians, not realizing that, at some point, the 

number of weapons that would be able to be brought against us 

would exceed the capacity of ships to be able to defend themselves. 

And that is really the fundamental metric that is being exceeded 

here, is that more weapons can be brought to bear against us than 

our defensive systems can handle. 

And when we say a ‘‘contested environment,’’ that is what we are 

really talking about, is that we are going from a time when one or 

two missiles might get shot at you by a rogue state or a terrorist 

actor to now having hundreds of weapons being shot at you by a 

state actor who has been able to buy them from the Russians. So 

that kind of accretion of capacity over time is how that sneaks up 

on you. And, before you know it, you realize that you are now on 

the wrong end of the cost exchange and need to make a dramatic 

change to alter that. 

Part of what China has been doing in their pretty smart strategy 

of developing naval capability has been to develop the maritime 

services, the non-navy coast guard and other surveillance services 

that they use that are not military but, instead, civilian forces that 

go out and use similar capabilities to go press their case on legal 

issues, so executing lawfare. 

The problem that we have right now is that the U.S. Navy and 

the U.S. allies in that region don’t have a commensurate or proportional capability to deal with what is called sub-conventional aggression. So what the Chinese do is they do aggression, but it is 
9 

below the level of conventional conflict, in the hopes that, over 

time, they are going to be able to gain an advantage in the competition for territories in the South China Sea and East China Sea. 

So we don’t have a commensurate set of non-warship, noncombatant-type capabilities that are able to be deployed in that region. And our allies don’t have the same thing. So we are not able 

to assist them in the way that we might be able to where we do 

equip our noncombatants in a way that would let them contribute 

to that. 

I would say, in order to address these two problems, the higher 

end problem of dealing with a contested environment and the lower 

end problem of the subconventional conflict, there is going to be 

some changes to platforms, but it is going to be a lot of changes 

to concepts that are involved. 

Because how we approach air defense in an environment where 

the adversary can launch more weapons than I have the capacity 

to handle means I need to come up with a new air defense concept. 

So I need to start looking at shooting down incoming weapons closer to my own ship than I would like to because I need to be able 

to use smaller weapons, weapons with shorter range that I can 

have higher capacity with. And I can get into some more detail on 

that. 

But there is some specifics on there. But the technical limitations 

of those systems at a high capacity are such that they don’t go very 

far away. So I have got to shift my air defense concept to be closer 

in to my ship, which is a cultural change for the Navy. We like to 

shoot things as far away as possible so I can get multiple cracks 

at them before they arrive. 

We also need to change our concept for how we provide security 

assistance to our partners. So if China is using its coast guard to 

bully the Philippines or Japan, we need to think about having 

ships that are able to operate at that lower level. 

So we need to have noncombatant ships like JHSVs or Coast 

Guard ships or noncombatant logistics vessels that are able to go 

be out there to provide presence that are able to deter China from 

that kind of activity because U.S. forces are nearby, but without escalating it by having a warship there. Because right now our only 

option is to put a cruiser or a destroyer in that region, and that 

is highly escalatory. 

And then the additional thing we need to do is look at our payloads. And so we may need to make some fundamental changes 

with regard to what kinds of weapons we develop and what priorities we put on weapons development. Right now we build a lot of 

weapons that are designed for a single mission, and they are generally relatively large weapons with big warheads. 

In the future, we are going to have to look at our weapons capacity and maximizing it to get more offensive firepower and we need 

to go to smaller weapons that use smaller warheads and take advantage of their precision to get the same effect as the larger warhead weapons. 

And I need to look at shorter range weapons that perhaps can 

be smaller as well so I can carry more of them on my ships, more 

of them on my airplanes, to expand the capacity that I am able to 
10 

bring to bear against an adversary who has got a high capacity of 

his own. 

Mr. FORBES. Thank you. 

Mr. McGrath, do you want to take a bite at that, especially—I 

know you have written a lot about distributed lethality. How does 

that play in that concept in both terms of offensively for us but, 

also, maybe a cost-imposition strategy against some of our opponents? 

Mr. MCGRATH. Yes, sir. Let me start with how did we miss it. 

We were busy. We were busy doing something else. Not everybody 

missed it. I think the Navy did a pretty good job tracking the desires and the actions of the PRC [People’s Republic of China] as it 

reacted to the event that I discussed earlier, the Taiwan Strait incident of 1996. The problem was that the rest of the military and the 

Department of Defense was doing very important today work, the 

Iraq war and the Afghanistan war. 

I think that PRC was wise in when it picked its time to modernize. Again, our attention was elsewhere. Most of our attention 

was elsewhere. I think, though, that that dynamic has changed, 

and I see very positive signs here on the Hill, at the White House, 

and at the Pentagon with respect to focusing more appropriately on 

China as a peer competitor. 

You asked about changing platforms and concepts and systems. 

Everything needs to be on the table. We have arrived at a place 

where our Navy hasn’t fought a war—a real war in decades against 

another Navy or against land forces that were attempting to destroy it. 

The tactics, techniques, procedures, platforms, acquisition paths 

that we have placed ourselves on are not up to the challenge of a 

peer competitor that would wish to deny us what we consider our 

primary competitive advantage, and that is the projection of power 

from the sea. 

So I think everything has to be looked at. You can’t look at it 

all at the same time and fund it all at the same levels, but you can 

think about these things. And I see a lot of thought going into evolution of the air wing, distributed lethality, the submarine forces. 

Networked operations is just fascinating, the things that they are 

talking about. So I think the Navy is really leaning forward in that 

regard. 

As for Air-Sea Battle, I think, to some extent, when you say it 

was swept under the rug, some of that I think is, I think, a very 

positive sense of trying to put some toothpaste back in the tube 

and stop talking about it all the time. Talk about the things that 

you have made decisions—very important decisions to talk about 

because those decisions and what you reveal has a potential impact 

and an effect that you have thought about and that you can measure. So I think the Department has gotten a little smarter about 

how to talk about it. 

You asked about distributed lethality, and that is something the 

surface force is talking about quite a bit. Distributed lethality or, 

as I like to describe it, a concept in which the surface forces of the 

United States Navy are on an individual unit level made more 

powerful and then, to really optimize that investment, operated differently, not just in the sort of defense of the carrier battle group— 
11 

although we still have to do that—defense of the amphibious ready 

group—although that must still be done—but to create mischief, to 

spread the adversary’s ISR [intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance] forces, to make them assign weapons to a lot more targets so that then any one target has a smaller number of weapons 

assigned to it. You are diluting—you are thinning his quiver before 

he ever shoots. These are reasonable operational ends that the surface force can pursue. 

A more distributed surface force in wartime is, I think, a laudable goal. The way the surface force operates in the presence and 

deterrence phases of operations is where we most likely are to sort 

of rub up against these nontraditional forces that you have described from the PRC. 

Quite simply, there aren’t enough of our forces to be there and 

to be watchful and to provide a jaundiced eye at the operations 

that are ongoing. Oftentimes these operations come to our attention because the nation who believes its rights are being violated 

videotapes the event or, even worse, China videotapes the event because what it is doing was plan in order to have a desired effect 

that it could then exploit later. 

I think we have to get more sophisticated about how we work 

with our allies in the region to respond to these events, preplanned responses in which escalation is controlled, in which the 

story that would be written is thought about in advance, in which 

those nations use the legal justification—or the legal system to 

their best advantage. 

I have no problem with the Philippines, for instance, taking 

China to court. I think we should be encouraging nations in the region to use the U.N. [United Nations] and the Law of the Sea Convention to the max extent that they possibly can. I am not sure distributed lethality has a real impact on that problem in presence 

and deterrence. 

Mr. FORBES. Thank you. 

Mr. Courtney. 

Mr. COURTNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And, again, thank you to both witnesses. 

Mr. Clark, again, you started off with taking us back to the beginning of the century and the shipbuilding plans and, you know, 

the best laid plans obviously have changed. 

You know, one of the sort of fallout that we are still wrestling 

with as a subcommittee is the cruiser change that you mentioned 

and, obviously, trying to figure out a cruiser modernization plan 

that works both in terms of, you know, the length of time that 

these cruisers can be available and, obviously, you know, fitting it 

into the rest of the shipbuilding plan. 

I was just wondering if you had any comments in terms of the 

back-and-forth over the last year or two about, you know, what the 

Navy’s proposed, Congress’ response, and any possible changes 

even from here. 

Mr. CLARK. Right. Thank you. 

So the Navy had proposed originally to decommission about half 

of its cruisers in a money-saving effort mostly. And then Congress 

came back and required the Navy to come up with a better plan 

and there was some money set aside to be able to support that. 
12 

And the Navy came up with what I think was probably the best 

argument and the best plan going forward, which was to take those 

11 cruisers, which are half the cruiser force, put them into a layup 

of sorts and then modernize them over time and then bring them 

back into the fleet some number of years later so that they would 

be able to extend their lives and that they would be available out 

into the 2030s—into the late 2030s or early 2040s. 

What that would do is a couple of things. So it would save the 

Navy some money in the near term because those ships would be 

largely de-manned and then the cost to operate them would not be 

borne by the Navy until they get brought back into the fleet. So 

there would be some near-term savings. 

And then down the road, the Navy would be able to have them 

back in the fleet at a time when it is having to buy the new SSBN 

[ballistic missile submarine], which is going to decimate the shipbuilding plan. It is going to be—40 percent, maybe more, of the 

amount of money that would normally be allocated to shipbuilding 

might be going to the SSBN and the carrier that would be built 

around the same time. So there wouldn’t be much money for anything else. Cruisers would be available to help augment the capacity of the surface fleet. 

I think that was a very effective plan in terms of sustaining force 

structure, dealing with the fiscal constraints the Navy is under 

right now. The challenge with that, though, is that the Navy 

doesn’t have a good track record of taking ships out of the fleet to 

put into some layup or inactive period and bringing them back. 

They tend to go to that inactive state and then make their way 

eventually to decommissioning instead of going back into the fleet 

at some later date. 

So I think, if the Navy could be held to account to ensure that 

those ships get brought back into fleet and showed that willingness 

by having money set aside to support the phased modernization 

that would occur, I believe that would be the best approach. 

Now, I think a compromise, the 2/4/6 plan, is a worthwhile alternative because it still helps extend the lives of the cruisers out into 

the 2030s so they are able to address the crunch in shipbuilding 

funds that will occur in the future. 

It does save some money in the near term so that there are some 

benefits on both sides to that, and I think it is a worthwhile compromise. It would be good to see the Navy put some money against 

it so that it would be clear that that plan was funded, though, so 

they would be able to pursue it. 

Because, otherwise, your only alternatives end up being keep 

them in the fleet, but have them at some level of operational capability that is not clear because they are not being modernized and 

they are probably not able to operate as effectively as the other 

cruisers, or decommission them entirely, which is not an alternative that is being presented. So I think the 2/4/6 plan would be 

good. 

Mr. COURTNEY. Mr. McGrath. 

Mr. MCGRATH. Mr. Courtney, my sense is that, with respect to 

surface force structure, good ideas are in short supply. We are dealing mostly with the least bad ideas. And taking all the cruisers at 

one time and bringing them back slowly over a course of time I 
13 

thought was a reasonable response from the Navy to a financial situation that they are having a tough time dealing with. 

2/4/6 is, I think, a reasonable compromise between congressional 

interests and the Navy’s interests. I do think, as Bryan said, if the 

Navy had some money after 2019 in the budget to fund it, this 

would probably not be a conversation. 

There is very little money to be had, given the number of things 

the Navy is trying to do, trying to build new ships and new submarines, trying to fund its deployed operations, trying to ensure 

that we don’t so starve non-deployed ships of maintenance and 

modernization money that it becomes inordinately expensive to 

bring them out when it is their time to go. 

All of these things factor into the decisions they make. And, quite 

frankly, when I see Congress insert money back into the budget to 

keep cruisers in, if you were to do the same thing in 2019, 2020, 

2021, and 2022, that would satisfy me quite a bit because I would 

like to see this program go forward. 

Mr. COURTNEY. Thank you. 

Mr. FORBES. And just a clarification. To do the modernization, 

you have to have the money in. Is that fair, for both of you? 

Mr. CLARK. Yes. 

Mr. FORBES. And at this particular point in time the Navy has 

not put any money in their FYDP [Future Years Defense Program] 

to do the modernization, have they? 

Mr. CLARK. Only the ships that are being done this year. 

Mr. FORBES. Right. 

But they haven’t done anything in their 5-year plan? 

Mr. MCGRATH. Right. I don’t think there is anything after the 

2015 and 2016 ship. 

Mr. FORBES. Mr. Russell, our newest member of the subcommittee, we now recognize him for 5 minutes. 

And, once again, we are delighted to have you as part of the subcommittee. 

Mr. RUSSELL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you, each, for the very insightful overviews. A lot of 

challenges there. 

In the 1980s, you had kind of a whole restructuring of moving 

to the future of our defense posture and you did see a lot of ships 

that, to meet the need, were brought out of mothball. And some 

had been in and out of mothball for several iterations and performed magnificently. 

And, you know, Mr. Clark, with regard to the small surface vessels and what would be needed to perform some of those roles, is 

that an option that the Navy could turn to to make up some of that 

capacity in the short term? 

Mr. CLARK. That might be. So one challenge we will run into is 

it is expensive to take a ship out of mothballs and bring it back 

to a condition where it can operate on a, you know, frequent basis 

overseas. 

So that would be something to think about, is that these ships 

are intended to be relatively inexpensive ships that do these missions at the lower end of capability. So if we have to spend a lot 

of money to bring a low-end-capability ship into the fleet, maybe 

that is not worth it. 
14 

The first approach might be to go after some of the noncombatant ships that we already have in what is the national fleet. So if 

you look in what the government owns in terms of ships, you have 

got the Navy and its combatant ships, which are warships that do 

their stuff. 

There is also logistics ships that the Navy has that could be 

used, in some cases, to go off and do some security cooperation activities, and they do already. They do exercises in some cases. And 

you could put mission packages on them that would let them do 

different things than they do today. 

You could also tap into joint high-speed vessels, which are another form of logistics ship. You could go into some of our support 

ships, which include various salvage ships and repair vessels, and 

those things can be used for security cooperation and sometimes 

are. 

Then we can also go into some of the supply ships that are part 

of the Ready Reserve Force, which are reserve ships that we maintain in operational status that are designed to be brought out within 5 or 30 or 60 days, that could be made operational and taken 

out, and they can use them for some of these security cooperation 

activities. And they are designed to be brought out, and it is relatively inexpensive to do so. 

So I may go after those first before we then go into the mothball 

fleet and pull some ships out. But it is definitely an option, and it 

may be less expensive than we anticipate. 

Mr. RUSSELL. It seems like a lot of the critical threats that we 

hear throughout is with regard to advance missile technologies. 

You spoke of the cost-ratio benefit to potential opponents and 

how they deal with this. And I know everything from nuclear defense capacity with the AN/TPY–2 radars, to the Aegis, to the 

THAAD [Terminal High Altitude Area Defense], a number of other 

things. 

We also have a lot of allies and partners. Our English-speaking 

allies, in particular, we don’t even have to learn languages to operate with them, and they have great shipbuilding capacity. 

Does that factor into any of the comprehensive strategy in presence, even, as we look to deal with some of that? And how do we 

get them up on systems that we find were already in short supply? 

Mr. CLARK. So I will let Bryan answer, too. 

But we do. So many of our allies and partners operate Aegis systems and similar systems, and they do deploy with us. So pretty 

regularly a NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] destroyer 

or frigate will go with a carrier strike group on its deployment and 

act as part of its escort ship umbrella, if you will. So we regularly 

do deployments where we take advantage of what allies and partners bring to bear. 

Mr. MCGRATH. Mr. Forbes mentioned the surface Navy’s distributed lethality concept, and I think part in parcel to that is the fact 

that we have allies that do have serious capability. The South Koreans have wonderful surface combatants. The Australians. The 

Japanese. The Indians aren’t necessarily treaty allies, but they are 

friends and we operate with the Indians quite a bit. So there is a 

great hunger within the sort of world surface force. 
15 

Admiral Mullen used to talk about the ‘‘thousand-ship Navy.’’ 

Distributed lethality is the thousand-ship Navy with teeth. And I 

think that the ability that we have to integrate high-end ships of 

other fleets into our operations, it is almost built in. They have 

Link 16, you know, that we are using the same kinds of systems. 

On the low end, this is something the U.S. Navy has traditionally not done all that well, is small ships. And I was a captain of 

a ship. We all come up through the system. And we all would love 

to scorch around on really fast ships as lieutenants and be in command of those things, but they are expensive to maintain, a lot of 

them, far from home. And we wind up looking—especially in times 

of fiscal contraction, those are nice to have. And we concentrate on 

the high-end warfighting more so than that low end. 

I think, when we find ourselves in a position to more appropriately fund naval power, we ought to put some money into the 

low end. We ought to look at some kind of a fast patrol vessel, 

heavily armed, four to eight 200-mile surface-to-surface missiles, 

that we could build for ourselves and build for export, that we 

could potentially operate in joint bases or composite bases as a way 

of doing what I like to call maritime boots on the ground, economically showing the flag. 

We all have to recognize that these are ships of limited capability, but they show the flag and they are reminders of what is 

over the horizon. 

Mr. RUSSELL. Not far from a lend-lease type of approach from 

many years ago. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Mr. FORBES. Thank you. 

The gentleman from Rhode Island, Mr. Langevin, is recognized 

for 5 minutes. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to thank our witnesses for your testimony today. 

If I could, I would like to talk first about cutting-edge electric 

weapons capabilities that are starting to deploy operationally, specifically the LaWS [Laser Weapon System] system deployed onto 

the USS Ponce right now in the Arabian Gulf, and rail gun and advanced EW [electronic warfare] capabilities. These systems are, as 

you know, starting to become more and more mature and starting 

to make their way out to the fleet. 

And what I want to know is—obviously, the Navy is clearly planning further development. But could you provide your assessments 

of the Navy’s plans and whether you feel these technologies could 

be responsibly accelerated. 

Mr. CLARK. So that is a terrific point. The Navy right now is 

slowly integrating these new technologies into the fleet. And what 

you are seeing right now is an emphasis on some demonstration 

projects like the Ponce, where we take an existing system that has 

been developed in the technology world and bringing it on and just 

bolting it down to the ship and seeing how it works. 

When you get to larger systems, they are going to require a little 

bit more of a footprint, more interaction with the ship’s combat system and electrical power and cooling systems, and that is where 

you have to do some engineering to figure out where it is going to 

go, how to fit it in, how to hook it up. 
16 

The Navy has not yet got a good plan for how it is going to integrate higher energy lasers, so the kinds of lasers that you would 

need to be able to do missile defense, not the smaller one that is 

on the Ponce, but something more in the 300-kilowatt range. 

Those lasers are quickly maturing. I have seen in the last couple 

weeks lasers that get up at about half that power and, putting a 

few of those together, you essentially get to about the 300-kilowatt 

range. So in the next few years, they are going to be available. The 

Navy needs to be thinking about how they are going to put that 

into the next class of—or the next iteration of surface warships 

that it is developing. 

Similarly, with rail gun, the Navy has got a demonstration 

project that it is going to do next year using Stockton with a rail 

gun onboard, which is terrific. It is a great way to show the applicability of that kind of weapon to a ship. 

But, again, there is not a thought or plan yet to integrate them 

into another class of warship, except perhaps a DG–1000 down the 

road, which might be a good thing. But, again, that is one ship. 

And it is a three-ship class; so, it is not likely to be able to translate into an additional number of hulls. 

The Navy needs to think about: Well, how would I take a rail 

gun and put it onto a number of ships that would make it able to 

make a difference in warfighting? So—— 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Yeah. Exactly what you are saying is what concerns me, is that the technologies are maturing faster than what 

we may realize. And my fear is that these things are going to be 

ready and we are not ready to deploy them and the capabilities in 

theater. 

Mr. CLARK. Exactly. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Well, I appreciate the answer. 

Mr. McGrath, as you allude to in your testimony, there is a sea 

change occurring in the capabilities of undersea systems, including 

in how they might support surface action. 

While submarines will clearly continue to be the nexus of such 

capabilities, how might advanced undersea systems and sensors 

play into the concept of disaggregated surface forces that you discuss? 

Mr. MCGRATH. Sir, in a big way, especially when the shooting 

starts. The ability of long-range unmanned undersea vehicles to deploy electronic warfare sensors, to employ weaponized UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles] that could then remove some of the threat 

that we discussed earlier to surface operations—there are so 

many—and I am sure you have had some of these briefs. 

What we can bring—the combat power of them, what we can 

bring from under the surface of the ocean, because it is there, it 

is hiding, and the reaction time to it in many cases is negligible 

for an adversary, huge capability. 

And I appreciate you bringing up the question because what it 

does is it highlights the degree to which the Navy fights as a system. We don’t fight as an aircraft carrier. We fight as a strike 

group. We fight as an Expeditionary Strike Force. We fight as a 

joint force. And so all of these weapons systems work together in, 

I think, a very robust architecture to support each other. 
17 

So I think there is a huge role for subsurface-launched sensors 

and weapons in helping to enable disaggregated surface operations. 

One very important way is to be able to put up long-range ISR assets, maybe some kind of a UAV that takes off, flies around for 8 

or 10 hours, supports a SAG [surface action group] that is 

disaggregated, and then it flies to a land base and lands for recovery. That would be a useful capability. But I think the sky is the 

limit on how we can use the undersea force. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Very good. Thank you, both. 

And I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. FORBES. I thank the gentleman for his questions. You have 

been a leader on these technology issues. And, hopefully, this subcommittee can play a major role in helping the Navy to make sure 

we are moving faster at seeing how we can deploy them. So thanks 

for your questions. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you. 

And, Mr. Chairman, I should mention that, although I—you 

know, obviously, it is appropriate to raise this issue with respect 

to the Navy in this subcommittee—the Navy has been a leader in 

trying to push these technologies that have been in the lab and get 

them actually into the field. The other services could take a lead 

from—— 

Mr. FORBES. We just get greedy and we want to get them there 

even faster. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Exactly. 

Mr. FORBES. So that is good, Jim. 

Now, I would like to recognize the distinguished gentleman from 

Texas, the chairman of the Agriculture Committee, Mr. Conaway, 

for 5 minutes. 

Mr. CONAWAY. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I represent a district that is totally landlocked. I don’t have any 

ports. I don’t have any shipbuilding. I don’t have anything like 

that. So—— 

And, Mr. McGrath, probably the sea is the limit rather than the 

sky is the limit on that last phrase that you used earlier. 

Mr. MCGRATH. I stand corrected. 

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Clark, on your five-point program, you made 

a reference to a kill-the-archer issue versus, I think, what we are 

doing right now. Put some meat on the bone on that for me, given 

that the archer’s range is generally longer than the reach of a lot 

of our stuff that we are bringing to the fight. Help me understand 

what you are talking about. 

Mr. CLARK. You bet. 

So the archers, in this case, are going to be aircraft, submarines, 

and surface ships that are able to launch antiship cruise missiles 

at our surface ships. 

Today the surface ships we deploy don’t have weapons that are 

able to reach enemy aircraft, ships, or submarines until we are already well within range of their antiship cruise missiles. So, as 

Congressman Forbes has said, we are outsticked. The way you get 

out of that is we have to deploy some new weapons, and that is 

why I have got the emphasis on weapons there. 

So for the aircraft threat, the new SM–6 missile that is coming 

out that has been deployed on a few ships already and is being in-
18 

corporated with the new Aegis baseline, that missile is going to be 

able to reach an airplane outside the range of the airplane’s antiship cruise missiles in most cases—or in many cases. So that gives 

us that ability to hit the archer before he is in range to shoot his 

arrows. That is a good news story on the air side. 

We don’t have a similar capability on the ship side. So if I want 

to shoot another ship and I am a surface ship, I have to wait until 

I am within Harpoon range if I have Harpoons even onboard, 

which means I am probably half of the distance that he can reach 

me. So he can—I am well within his weapons envelope when I do 

that. 

For submarines, it is even worse because my antisubmarine rocket that I have got onboard of a surface ship has a range of about 

12 miles, whereas the antiship cruise missiles that Chinese submarines, for example, can carry have ranges of a couple hundred 

miles and they can be launched comfortably from 100 to 150 miles, 

so I am well within his weapons range when I am able to shoot 

him. 

Now, we might have a helicopter or something flying around that 

might be able to attack him, but that is only if the helicopter is 

in the right place at the right time and is able to do something 

about it. So we need new weapons that allow me to increase the 

range. 

So on the ship side, the Navy is developing the long-range antiship missile, the LRASM, that will eventually be going onto surface 

ships. I would advocate that. In addition to being able to do ship 

attack, that missile will also be able to do strike missions, because 

every VLS [vertical launching system] cell that I take for a strike 

mission is a missile cell I can’t use for anything else. So we need 

more multi-mission weapons. 

And then, for the submarine threat, we need to develop an antiship rocket that has got longer range. So if I do detect a contact, 

a submarine out, you know, dozens of miles away, more, I can engage him right away and make him go away before he is able to 

mount an attack against me. 

Mr. CONAWAY. Dozens of miles is significantly shorter than 200 

miles you mentioned earlier. 

Mr. CLARK. Right. Right. 

So it is—you could—we could maybe develop an antisubmarine 

rocket that goes out, you know, 100, 150 miles that would be 

able—— 

Mr. CONAWAY. So it is on—it is on the weapons package, isn’t it, 

not necessarily the—— 

Mr. CLARK. Right. 

Mr. CONAWAY [continuing]. The transport of those weapons? 

Mr. CLARK. Right. My detection capability may or may not extend out that far under water. 

Mr. CONAWAY. Yeah. 

Mr. CLARK. But you certainly want the ability to reach out that 

far if you were able to get detection. 

Mr. CONAWAY. I got you. 

And then your fourth point about expanded capacity for train 

and equipment. I must have dozed off. Can you back up and go 

through that one again. Are you just talking about using different 
19 

ships to do the train and equip mission that we are currently 

using? 

Mr. CLARK. Right. So, normally, when we want to do security cooperation—— 

Mr. CONAWAY. And stop laughing in the back. You saw me dozing off. So stop it back there. 

Mr. CLARK. Normally, the kind of security cooperation or training 

missions that we do with partner nations, especially some of the 

less-capable partners, we use small surface combatants to do that. 

We have used frigates in a lot of cases to do that over the last 

20 or 30 years. Well, we don’t have any frigates now. They are all 

being decommissioned, and we are only going to have half the—— 

Mr. CONAWAY. Unless you rename the LCS. 

Mr. CLARK. Right. Right. 

And so we have got a few LCS out there, but not very many, and 

they would ostensibly pick that load up. But we only have half the 

number of small surface combatants that are required right now, 

and it is going to be below the requirement until well into the 

2020s. 

Mr. CONAWAY. So that is more just a tactics issue? I mean—— 

Mr. CLARK. So I am arguing that we take some of the noncombatant ships—— 

Mr. CONAWAY. Right. 

Mr. CLARK [continuing]. In the fleet and just take some of those 

mission packages from the LCS and, instead, put those onto the 

noncombatant ships and get the joint high-speed vessel and the 

mobile landing platform and some logistic ships to go out and do 

these missions instead. So the missions get done, but we are not 

having to do it with a cruiser. 

Mr. CONAWAY. All right. Well, thank you all for your comments. 

Thank you. 

Mr. FORBES. Mr. McGrath, could you follow up on Mr. Conaway’s 

question a little bit, too. Because we have really three concepts. We 

can block the arrow. You know, we can try to blind the archer. We 

can try to kill the archer. 

I think one of the things both of you have talked about is that 

right now we have an overcapacity of trying to block the arrow, but 

technology is getting to the point where it is going to be more and 

more difficult to do that; so, we are going to have to try to kill the 

archer. 

And so can you kind of explain the tradeoffs we have in those 

two concepts. 

Mr. MCGRATH. Bryan came up in the Navy as a submariner. I 

came up as a surface guy, Aegis for most of my time. And so, when 

Bryan talks about his concept for air defense and he talks about 

waiting longer to take the shot, I start to get a little nervous, because that is—that is the human reaction that you have in a ship, 

is that you want to kill that missile as far away from you and from 

what you are protecting as possible. 

Range equals dollars. It is a very simple—very simple thing. 

Probability of kill increases as range decreases. Right? All of these 

things are interrelated, but the nervousness of a surface warfare 

officer remains. If I have to sit there and wait, it is a hard thing 

to do. 
20 

And so, when Bryan and I have our arguments about this concept, I talk to him about we have to—there is a culture to overcome, there are training issues we would have to overcome, and we 

would have to layer into this—so that is—what he is describing is 

the blocking—right?—killing the—killing that—killing that inbound missile closer to you at a more economical rate. That is fine. 

The other—one of the other things that you could do is you can 

mess with its guidance. You can—you can make it track something 

that is not you—deceit, deception. The surface force in N2/N6 at 

the Pentagon are putting a lot of money into the SEWIP [Surface 

Electronic Warfare Improvement Program] Block III electronic warfare system that we will put to sea on ships. 

The more we can defeat kinetic attacks with nonkinetic means, 

the deeper our magazines will get. The more we are able to—the 

more we are able to integrate the weapons systems that Mr. 

Langevin was talking about that are pennies or dollars a shot, the 

deeper our magazines will get. 

We have to maintain, though, the ability to reach out at range. 

Some percentage of those magazines has to be filled with weapons 

that can take advantage of the sensor volume that we have. 

That has been one of our problems for a long time in surface 

warfare, is we go out there and we bang away with a SPY–1 

radar—or soon a SPY–6 radar—on the AMDR [Air and Missile Defense Radar] that has got, I mean, hundreds of miles of range, but 

we could only take advantage of a small part of that search volume. The SM–6 helps us overcome that. 

So taking the archer out before he shoots his arrow is, once 

again, important, like it was in the Cold War. In the Cold War, we 

set F–14s out hundreds of miles from the aircraft carrier and we 

had tactics that we developed. We had tanking that would support 

it. The outer air battle was something we took a lot of pride in 

being able to fight in. When that threat dissipated, we de-emphasized the outer air battle. We are gaining some of that back. 

I think, on a totally unrelated—not a totally unrelated—the F– 

35 will need a longer range AAW [anti-aircraft warfare] weapon, 

something like we used to—like the Phoenix that we grew up with 

on the F–14. We need a long-range air-to-air weapon so that the 

F–35 operating in this naval integrated fire control-counter air environment, NIFC–CA [Naval Integrated Fire Control-Counter Air 

Capability], can get that archer even further away, maybe when he 

goes feet wet. Maybe you don’t have to wait until he gets near his 

weapons release point. 

So the technology is there that we can exploit, but we need the 

weapons that exploit the search volume that we are able to generate. 

Mr. FORBES. I want to thank you both for taking the time to be 

here with us today. And, as I mentioned to both of you before we 

started, I want to give you now whatever wrap-up time each of you 

need for anything you need to clarify, maybe elaborate or that we 

didn’t ask that you think is important to give as part of this transcript. 

And, Mr. Clark, we will start with you. 

Mr. CLARK. Thank you, sir. 
21 

So one thing I will note is the new technologies we talked about 

that could be used for air defense, so rail gun, lasers. High-powered 

microwave would be another example and then electronic warfare. 

All of those technologies could do a lot to give us more defensive 

capacity and open up those vertical launch system cells for offensive weapons instead. 

The one thing that you have to do in order to leverage them, 

though, is you have to be able to accept that missiles are going to 

get closer to you before you engage them, because all of those systems are line-of-sight systems that can only, you know, engage a 

missile if it is on the horizon 10 miles away and, if it is a little 

bit higher up, maybe 20 miles away. So you are not going to be 

able to engage incoming missiles with a nonkinetic weapon like 

that at more than 20 or 30 miles, generally. So that is part of the 

air defense concept you have to accept. 

But then, you know, stepping back to look at the big picture, the 

Navy is faced with a lot of hard choices in the next, you know, couple of years as it starts to figure out how to equip the surface force. 

And the surface force doesn’t have the clear and unambiguous mission of the undersea forces that, you know, do things for surveillance and strike and for strategic deterrence, and it doesn’t necessarily have the clear missions of the carrier air wing. 

But it is kind of the jack-of-all-trades. It does a lot of different 

things, and we depend on it for a lot of different missions, from security cooperation all the way through high-end missile defense 

and strike. 

And, as a result, it is hard for it to be able to maintain that ability to work in every domain, from undersea to air and space, as 

well as being able to do every mission across the range of military 

operations. 

So the Navy has got to put the investment necessary to maintain 

the force structure capacity so it can maintain the presence. It has 

got to maintain the warfighting capability in the fleet that it needs 

in order to be effective and then deter conflict. And then it has got 

to be willing to sustain that over time, even in an environment 

where other things are going to intrude upon it. 

So I would advocate that the Navy needs to look carefully at 

these upcoming decisions and, you know, adapt the surface fleet to 

be able to evolve into the fleet that is able to go back on offense 

and develop this offensive mindset and equip it with the kinds of 

weapons and the kinds of sensors it needs to be able to be effective. 

And, you know, I think one thing—one thing I fear is that we 

will just progress down the status quo, we will simply recapitalize 

our existing systems, as opposed to adopting new concepts that 

might enable us to maintain the warfighting capability we need 

going into the future. 

Mr. FORBES. Thank you. 

Mr. McGrath, give you the last word. 

Mr. MCGRATH. Thank you for this opportunity. 

My friend Ron O’Rourke at the Congressional Research Service 

likes to talk about—— 

Mr. FORBES. He is watching what you say; so, make sure that 

you don’t say anything critical. 
22 

Mr. MCGRATH. He talks about being in a new strategic era, and 

I think he is right. My way of putting that is: Great power dynamics back on the menu. 

We have to begin to think differently about how conflict in this 

new strategic era is waged. We cannot continue to address this 

question with the same risk profile that we applied to campaigns 

and campaign analysis when we were the sole hyperpower, when 

there was no blue-water threat to the U.S. Navy. 

Those aspects of that threat environment drove us to well-intentioned decisions. We have removed surface-to-surface missiles from 

our DDG Arleigh Burke destroyers. We built Arleigh Burke destroyers, from number 51 to number 78, with a Harpoon missile on it. 

Number 79 through today cannot kill another ship over the horizon 

by itself. We have not built a ship in the United States Navy since 

1999 that can kill another ship over the horizon by itself. 

That decision and decisions about how to allocate missions within the portfolio—surface, subsurface and aviation—has led to a situation in which we look at the surface force, the Navy looks at the 

surface force, as something that needs to be protected by the air 

wing. I think that needs to be questioned. 

I think we have put a ton of money in the last 30 years into the 

world’s most sophisticated air defense systems. I think that we 

have to begin to question whether or not air supremacy or air superiority that is required for surface operations—detached surface operations—whether that can’t be provided to a level of risk that is 

acceptable by the ships themselves. 

I am not saying that we should drive three-ship SAGs into the 

Taiwan Strait. I am saying that the Chinese ISR complex is not 

equally as good throughout its entire volume and that there are 

places within it where surface forces will be able to operate, will 

be able to create mayhem, and will be able to hold targets that that 

opponent would value at risk. We just have to think differently 

about that risk. 

Thank you. 

Mr. FORBES. Thank you, both. We appreciate your time, and 

thank you for sharing it with us today. 

And, with that, Mr. Courtney if there is nothing else that you 

have, then, we are adjourned. 

Mr. COURTNEY. Thank you, both. 

Mr. FORBES. Yeah. 

[Whereupon, at 3:08 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 
A P P E N D I X 

APRIL 15, 2015 

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