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91–815 2015

[H.A.S.C. No. 113–130] 

NATIONAL DEFENSE PANEL ASSESSMENT 

OF THE 2014 QUADRENNIAL 

DEFENSE REVIEW 

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

HEARING HELD 

DECEMBER 2, 2014 
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS

HOWARD P. ‘‘BUCK’’ MCKEON, California, Chairman 

MAC THORNBERRY, Texas 

WALTER B. JONES, North Carolina 

J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia 

JEFF MILLER, Florida 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey 

ROB BISHOP, Utah 

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio 

JOHN KLINE, Minnesota 

MIKE ROGERS, Alabama 

TRENT FRANKS, Arizona 

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania 

K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas 

DOUG LAMBORN, Colorado 

ROBERT J. WITTMAN, Virginia 

DUNCAN HUNTER, California 

JOHN FLEMING, Louisiana 

MIKE COFFMAN, Colorado 

E. SCOTT RIGELL, Virginia 

CHRISTOPHER P. GIBSON, New York 

VICKY HARTZLER, Missouri 

JOSEPH J. HECK, Nevada 

JON RUNYAN, New Jersey 

AUSTIN SCOTT, Georgia 

STEVEN M. PALAZZO, Mississippi 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

RICHARD B. NUGENT, Florida 

KRISTI L. NOEM, South Dakota 

PAUL COOK, California 

JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma 

BRAD R. WENSTRUP, Ohio 

JACKIE WALORSKI, Indiana 

BRADLEY BYRNE, Alabama 

ADAM SMITH, Washington 

LORETTA SANCHEZ, California 

MIKE MCINTYRE, North Carolina 

ROBERT A. BRADY, Pennsylvania 

SUSAN A. DAVIS, California 

JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island 

RICK LARSEN, Washington 

JIM COOPER, Tennessee 

MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO, Guam 

JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut 

DAVID LOEBSACK, Iowa 

NIKI TSONGAS, Massachusetts 

JOHN GARAMENDI, California 

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

COLLEEN W. HANABUSA, Hawaii 

JACKIE SPEIER, California 

RON BARBER, Arizona 

ANDRE ́ CARSON, Indiana 

CAROL SHEA-PORTER, New Hampshire 

DANIEL B. MAFFEI, New York 

DEREK KILMER, Washington 

JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas 

TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois 

SCOTT H. PETERS, California 

WILLIAM L. ENYART, Illinois 

PETE P. GALLEGO, Texas 

MARC A. VEASEY, Texas 

TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii 

ROBERT L. SIMMONS II, Staff Director 

KARI BINGEN, Professional Staff Member 

MIKE CASEY, Professional Staff Member 

AARON FALK, Clerk 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS 

2014 

Page 

HEARING: 

Tuesday, December 2, 2014, National Defense Panel Assessment of the 2014 

Quadrennial Defense Review .............................................................................. 1 

APPENDIX: 

Tuesday, December 2, 2014 .................................................................................... 39 

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2014 

NATIONAL DEFENSE PANEL ASSESSMENT OF THE 2014 

QUADRENNIAL DEFENSE REVIEW 

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

McKeon, Hon. Howard P. ‘‘Buck,’’ a Representative from California, Chairman, Committee on Armed Services .................................................................. 1 

Smith, Hon. Adam, a Representative from Washington, Ranking Member, 

Committee on Armed Services ............................................................................ 3 

WITNESSES 

Edelman, Hon. Eric S., Panelist, National Defense Panel, Former Under 

Secretary of Defense for Policy ........................................................................... 5 

Flournoy, Hon. Miche`le, Panelist, National Defense Panel, Former Under 

Secretary of Defense for Policy ........................................................................... 7 

APPENDIX 

PREPARED STATEMENTS: 

Flournoy, Hon. Miche`le, joint with Hon. Eric S. Edelman ........................... 43 

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) 

NATIONAL DEFENSE PANEL ASSESSMENT OF THE 2014 

QUADRENNIAL DEFENSE REVIEW 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, Washington, DC, Tuesday, December 2, 2014. 

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

2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Howard P. ‘‘Buck’’ 

McKeon (chairman of the committee) presiding. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. HOWARD P. ‘‘BUCK’’ MCKEON, 

A REPRESENTATIVE FROM CALIFORNIA, CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

The CHAIRMAN. Committee will come to order. 

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. 

The committee meets to receive testimony on the National Defense Panel, the Quadrennial Defense Review. 

Joining us today are the Honorable Eric Edelman, Honorable 

Miche`le Flournoy. Both of these distinguished witnesses are NDP 

[National Defense Panel] panelists and both have served as Under 

Secretaries of Defense for Policy. The panel co-chairmen, Dr. William Perry and General John Abizaid, were unable to join us today, 

so we really appreciate Eric and Miche`le testifying on their behalf. 

And I just wanted to tell you thank you. 

This will be my last hearing, and I want to thank you for your 

many, many years of service and your devotion to our great Nation. 

You have done yeoman’s work, and thank you for being here today. 

The NDP has produced an excellent report, and I encourage all 

of my colleagues and the American public to read it. It is not insignificant that the report is a consensus, bipartisan product. For 

those that advocate for a smaller military and U.S. policy of retrenchment, the panel provides a persuasive reminder that our 

military hard power and our resolve to use that power, remains 

central to an effective foreign policy, and it reminds us that a 

strong military underpins all other tools, from diplomatic to economic, that our Nation has for global influence. However, this 

strength is in jeopardy. U.S. military superiority is no longer a 

given. More continues to be demanded of our Armed Forces, yet 

their size and their resources are declining. 

The panel assessed that massive defense cuts are putting our 

military at high risk in the near term and on a path to a hollow 

force. I just want to remind everybody that it was just a few 

months ago that Admiral Winnefeld, in—sitting where you are sitting today, said that if sequestration comes back into effect, and we 

reminded him it is the law, it just took a 2-year hiatus, but it is 

in full effect, but he said if it comes back into effect, that it will 
2 

not hollow out our force, it will break the force. That is really, really serious and I think we really need to be serious about what we 

are doing here. 

The challenge before us is how to leverage the panel’s work to 

build a broader consensus for reversing the cuts to defense and the 

damage that has been done to our national security and standing 

in the world. 

During my tenure as chairman, I have held numerous hearings 

on the consequences of sequestration. There is no higher priority 

for our military than ensuring they have the resources to go in 

fully ready and equipped for the missions that they are asked to 

do. We must address sequestration. 

While this challenge will transition to my successor, and by the 

way, Mr. Thornberry has been voted on by our conference and will 

be the chairman of the committee going forward in the next few 

Congresses, rest assured that I will remain a loud and active voice 

for a capable, ready Armed Forces. 

I won’t be in Congress, but I am not leaving the fight. I will also 

remain a tireless advocate for our men and women in uniform. 

Serving as chairman of this committee has been the great honor of 

my career. I have learned a tremendous amount about our military 

and the sacrifices that so many men and women in uniform make 

to keep our country safe. I have been humbled by the many soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines whom I have met over the 

years. 

I am thankful for the support of Adam Smith. We have had a 

great partnership now for 6 years? Almost 6 years. I am thankful 

for his support, and it’s not that he says—every time I suggest 

something, he hasn’t always said, that is a wonderful idea, Mr. 

Chairman, but he has always been honest and expressed his opinions, and once the votes have been counted, he has supported the 

committee on everything. 

And there are times, you know, when we get on the ‘‘Big Four,’’ 

he expresses his opinion, but he also strongly supports the position 

that the committee has taken. And I commend you, Adam, for your 

integrity and for the—your intelligence, for the ability you bring to 

this committee. 

I want to thank all of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle. 

I am appreciative of the association that we have had. It has been 

a—it has been a great experience for me. 

I want to thank our staff. They have done yeoman’s work. We 

will be filing a bill later today, and they have done—done great, 

great work to get us to this point. 

I want to thank especially our subcommittee chairs and our 

ranking members for the work that they have done to get us to this 

point. 

And last but not least, I want to thank my vice chairman, the 

incoming chairman of the committee. And they gave me two gavels. 

I can give one to him and I can hold one for a couple more days. 

So I will give him the newer one. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. And the nice note that you sent me the other 

day, I really appreciate that. Thank you very much. 
3 

It has been a real, a real honor to work with you these last several years. Twenty, I think, we have been sitting next to each other 

on this committee. So thank you all very much. 

The CHAIRMAN. And with that, Mr. Smith. 

STATEMENT OF HON. ADAM SMITH, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM 

WASHINGTON, RANKING MEMBER, COMMITTEE ON ARMED 

SERVICES 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Well, first of all, I want to thank you for the great working relationship we have had during your time as chairman. This committee prides itself on being bipartisan and being focused on the 

work that we all know is so important that we get done. 

And as you said, it is not that we don’t have differences, we do, 

any legislative body would, but I think—well, it’s getting to the 

point where it is truly unique in this Congress to have a body that 

works the way our committee does. Which is, we understand we 

have to get a product done, so we will disagree, we will move forward, we will compromise, but at the end of the day, we will—you 

know, we will get the job done and do our job as a committee. 

And I think your leadership has helped make that possible. You 

have followed right along in a long line of excellent chairmen who 

we see on the walls around us who all understood that that was 

the priority, work in a bipartisan way to get the job done. And it 

has been a great working relationship, and I will miss you. 

I will be very happy to have Mr. Thornberry take your seat. It 

has been great working with you and I appreciate your tremendous 

leadership and all the work you have done for this committee. So 

thank you, and thank you for your kind words as well. 

And I thank our panelists, Ms. Flournoy and Mr. Edelman, from 

the National Defense Panel. This is and has been for a number of 

years now a very difficult time in national security and defense policy. We have difficult choices to make, and I think the one thing 

that we have gotten very, very good at over the course of the last 

three and a half years is trying to figure out ways to not make 

them and to wait as long as is humanly possible. I don’t think that 

is good strategy. 

Obviously we understand the challenges of the Budget Control 

Act and we understand the challenges of the—I am sorry. I had hip 

surgery recently, so leaning forward is not a good thing. I will try 

to talk loud enough for the microphone to pick me up. 

Sequestration obviously would have a devastating impact on the 

defense budget and on the discretionary budget in general, but 

even absent sequestration, if you go back 4 years and look at what 

we were projecting to spend on defense over the course of the next 

decade, there is—we are not going to even come close to that. 

So all these plans, all these projects we had for the size of the 

force, for the equipment we were going to build, for the missions 

we were going to be ready for, it all has to change, because we are 

not going to have the money we thought we were going to have. 

Unfortunately, time and time again we have avoided making those 

decisions. 

So first of all, yes, sequestration needs to go away. Personally I 

would vote to eliminate it tomorrow and be done with it. When you 
4 

go back to 2011 when the Budget Control Act was passed and you 

look at what the projected deficit was supposed to be for this year, 

we have achieved more savings than the Budget Control Act called 

for just through the natural flow of the economy, primarily, so, you 

know, we are in a better position budget deficit-wise than we 

thought we were going to be in with the Budget Control Act. 

So I would be in favor of simply getting rid of it. The impact that 

it is having on the discretionary budget, and again, not just defense, I think is very, very negative for this country; but more than 

that, we need to look out at least 5 years and come up with a plan, 

a realistic plan within the budget that is coming at us. 

Now, the Pentagon has sent over a long list of ideas for how they 

would like to start saving money starting this year and then really 

picking up speed in 2016, and we have rejected them all. There is 

no BRAC [Base Closure and Realignment], the reductions in things 

like the A–10 and the cruisers and amphibious ships that we wanted to set aside, the cuts in personnel costs have been rejected writ 

large by this body, and what that does is that has a devastating 

impact on readiness, because the Pentagon is not able to make the 

changes they would like to make, they have got to cut at the place 

of last resort, which is train less, don’t repair equipment that needs 

to be repaired, buy less fuel, buy less ammunition for training and 

so what we wind up with is a force that is not trained for the mission that we are asking it to do. 

So—and I know you know this, we have had this conversation 

before with both of you, but, you know, I would be interested in 

your vision for, you know, what does that look like? Next 5 years, 

what decisions should we make in order to start saving the money 

we need to save instead of what I think the congressional position 

has been, which is let’s just close our eyes and hope really strongly 

that the money appears. 

Not going to appear. We have to start making decisions. And if 

the decisions the Pentagon laid out, you know, on the Guard and 

Reserve changes, on getting rid of the A–10 and on and on, if those 

aren’t the decisions that this committee would like to make, well, 

great, tell us what are, give us the alternatives in terms of cutting 

spending so that we can have a budget that makes sense and so 

that we can protect readiness. 

So a very important subject. I look forward to the conversation. 

Again, I thank the chairman for his leadership. It has been great 

serving with you, Buck. I yield back. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent for 

about 2 minutes. 

The CHAIRMAN. To defend yourself. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. To defend myself, yes, sir. 

And I just want to say, Mr. Chairman, that I think it is particularly appropriate to have these witnesses and this topic as your 

last hearing, because they, I think, encapsulize the challenging security environment which you have had to deal under your leadership. 

But I think I can speak for all members on both sides of the aisle 

of this committee, when I say we appreciate not only the substantive contributions you have made to the country’s security in 

your leadership, but also the way in which you have exercised lead-
5 

ership. Your cheerful countenance and your fairness to all members, even when there were disagreements, is something that all of 

us can learn from. 

So we will all have more of a chance to talk about your leadership when the bill is on the floor, but I just want to take this moment as your last hearing in the committee, where many—where 

most of us have spent so many hours over the past several years, 

to say thank you for your leadership and the example you have set, 

it is something that we can all learn from, and we look forward to 

your continuing strong voice on these issues. 

I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. My funeral is going to be anti-climactic. 

I would like to recognize our former colleague, Jim Marshall. It 

is good to have you here with us today, Jim. We really enjoyed 

serving with you over the years, and it is good to have you—have 

you here today. 

Now let’s turn to our panelists. Who is starting? Mr. Edelman. 

STATEMENT OF HON. ERIC S. EDELMAN, PANELIST, NATIONAL 

DEFENSE PANEL, FORMER UNDER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE 

FOR POLICY 

Mr. EDELMAN. Mr. Chairman, at the risk of over-egging the omelet here, let me add my voice to those who have already thanked 

you for your service to this committee and to the Nation. As someone who has had the chance to work with you, I have, you know, 

watched this from the perspective outside the Congress, and I 

agree with all of the things that your colleagues have said about 

your leadership. 

In particular, I would like to thank you for the confidence you 

have reposed in me twice by asking me to serve on the Independent Defense Panel to review the QDR [Quadrennial Defense 

Review] 4 years ago and then the National Defense Panel this 

time. So thank you very much for that. 

And I am glad you recognized our colleague on the panel and 

your former colleague on this committee, Jim Marshall. And I hope 

Jim will feel free to add his voice to whatever Miche`le and I have 

to say, because he was a very, very active and important part of 

the panel’s deliberations. 

We benefited, I think, on this panel from enormously good leadership from Secretary Perry and General Abizaid, who unfortunately, as you noted, could not be here today. They in turn asked 

Secretary Flournoy and me to take charge of the drafting of this 

report, pulling it all together for the members of the panel, but we 

had a lot of help, notably from Jim Marshall and Senator Talent, 

but also from the staff at our institutional home at the U.S. Institute of Peace, and I would like to recognize them. 

Some of them are here today, too. Paul Hughes, who was our executive director; Tom Bowditch, who was the chief writer and made 

our prose all that much better; Hannah Burch, Troy Stoner, and 

there are others who may be here that I didn’t notice, and I apologize in advance if I have skipped anyone. 

We had an opportunity as a panel to spend a bit of time, because 

the legislation this time enabled us to begin our work before the 

QDR was actually even written, and so we spent quite a bit of time 
6 

working with the Department, with Secretary Hagel, and trying to 

understand how the Department was meeting the challenges it 

faces from an extremely complex and volatile international security 

environment as well as the budgetary difficulties that Mr. Smith 

and you, Mr. Chairman, have already described. 

I think it was our sense from the outset that what our chairman—co-chairman, General Abizaid, suggested in our first meeting, that the Nation was facing what he called accumulating strategic risk, was getting worse as we continued our deliberations. We 

began before Russia had invaded and annexed Crimea and destabilized eastern Ukraine. We began our deliberations before the 

Iraqi army collapsed and we faced the beginnings of a terrorist 

state in Syria and Iraq. 

So all of these things, I think, weighed on our deliberations, as 

well as the difficulty that we understood our colleagues in the Department of Defense were facing because of the budget uncertainties with which they had to contend because of the Budget Control 

Act. It is extremely difficult to have a strategy and to execute it 

when you have no idea what budget you are actually going to be 

dealing with, and when you have to face the prospect of not only 

taking cuts, but having no flexibility in the manner in which you 

distribute those cuts. 

So our conclusions, which Secretary Flournoy and I tried to encapsulate in an op-ed that we wrote for The Washington Post 

shortly after the report was issued, suggested, among other things, 

that, number one, this was a very important strategic misstep, that 

is, sequestration of the defense budget for the United States, that 

needed to be reversed. 

Second, that given the various challenges we saw around the 

world, given the high use rates of our force over the last decade 

fighting two wars, that it made sense to return to the budget that 

was proposed by Secretary Gates in fiscal year 2012, the last time 

the Department had been able to actually do a strategy-driven 

budget rather than a budget-driven strategy. And in that regard, 

we called for return to that top line, but we also had other recommendations, I know Secretary Flournoy will want to talk about 

some of them that addressed the issues that Mr. Smith raised 

about giving the Department of Defense the flexibility and the tools 

to manage itself both in the current environment and into the future. 

We also discussed the force planning and force sizing construct 

that the Department was using, and suggested a variation because 

of the incredible challenges that we saw developing. 

And, in short, we produced a report which we hope will be useful 

to all of you members of the committee and to your colleagues in 

the Congress as they think about the national security challenges 

that we face. 

We hope the report will continue to inform discussion about defense strategy. We hope that candidates in the 2016 cycle for President will be asked their views of our recommendations, and in that 

sense, we hope that what you charged us to do will continue on as 

a kind of living document. 

Let me stop there and turn the floor over to my colleague. 
7 

[The joint prepared statement of Mr. Edelman and Ms. Flournoy 

can be found in the Appendix on page 43.] 

STATEMENT OF HON. MICHE` LE FLOURNOY, PANELIST, NATIONAL DEFENSE PANEL, FORMER UNDER SECRETARY OF 

DEFENSE FOR POLICY 

Ms. FLOURNOY. If I may, Mr. Chairman, let me just begin by 

wishing you fair winds and following seas as you depart, and 

thanking you for your leadership as chairman of this committee. 

I just wanted to underscore a few of the bottom lines of the National Defense Panel report. The first is our assessment of the security environment, that we do face a very complex, volatile situation today with everything from ISIL [Islamic State of Iraq and the 

Levant], to Russian resurgence, to the rise of new powers in AsiaPacific that challenge the international order, and so forth. 

Our assessment is that, that environment is going to become 

even more daunting over time, and so we need to be exerting U.S. 

leadership and we need a robust military to ensure that we can try 

to deter conflict, reassure allies, shape the environment and, when 

necessary, defeat aggression. 

In that context, sequestration, in our view, has become a national 

security issue. I would personally go so far as—this goes a little bit 

beyond where the report is, but I would call it a threat to national 

security. 

Because the inflexibility of sequestration combined with the BCA 

levels, the Budget Control Act levels, means that the Department 

of Defense does not have either the funding or the flexibility to be 

able to field the military that we need to protect and advance this 

nation’s interests now and in the future, and so we argue in the 

report for lifting sequestration and lifting the levels of defense 

spending as a matter of national security. 

We also argue for a very aggressive approach to reform, and that 

includes giving whoever the next Secretary is, the kinds of authorities that previous Secretaries were given to manage periods of challenge and drawdown. When Bill Perry had to manage the post-Cold 

War drawdown, he was given the authority for base realignment 

and closure. 

Today we have 24 percent excess infrastructure that is draining 

money away from readiness, modernization, and other priorities. 

Perry was given RIF, reduction in force, authority to be able to reshape his civilian workforce, rightsize that force for the future. He 

was given meaningful levels of voluntary separation incentive pay 

so that he could affect the calculus of those contemplating early retirement. Those levels have not changed since the 1990s. 

We also need compensation reform. And this is not about taking 

benefits away. It is about providing better health care at lower 

cost, which is quite possible if the Department of Defense were to 

adopt best practices from the private sector. It is about keeping 

faith with all who serve, not just those who make it to 20 years. 

So there is a lot of room for reform, and that reform is also critical 

to ensuring that our taxpayer dollars go to the right priorities in 

defense. 

A third key priority was addressing the growing readiness problem. We are already at a place where should some unforeseen con-
8 

tingency occur, we would not be as ready as we need to be, and 

that lack of readiness, meaning people who are trained, units that 

are fully manned, equipped, and so forth, could translate into slower response times and ultimately greater risk, greater casualties. 

That is not acceptable. That is not a responsible position. That 

needs to be addressed immediately. 

Modernization. Each of the services has had to gouge their modernization plans, upsetting investment, programs, timelines, and 

the truth is at some point we are going to have to pay more to 

make those programs well and to invest in the future. It is very 

critical that we invest now in the research and development, the 

prototyping and the procurement that we are going to need for several Presidents on, you know, to be where we need to be in 20 

years time or more, as some of the challenges we face increase. 

And lastly, we are cutting force structure below where the strategy requires. When you look at the Air Force, 188 squadrons coming out of the Cold War down to 47 planned. One look at the strategy and ask ourselves, is that enough to support what the strategy 

says? The Navy coming down to under 300 ships and so forth. 

So, you know, I would say that we are now, and even more into 

the future, at—you know, we are not keeping faith with the force 

in terms of giving them the readiness, the equipment, the support, 

the capacity, and the capability they need now and in a more 

daunting future. And I don’t think that this Congress has fully 

taken on the responsibility to look that reality in the face and do 

something about it. 

So I would just challenge you all to challenge your colleagues 

to—because I know the people in this committee understand this, 

but this has got to be addressed. We can’t wait 2 years, we can’t 

wait 5 years, we certainly can’t let sequestration run for the full 

10 years and then try to fix it. The risk is too high. 

[The joint prepared statement of Ms. Flournoy and Mr. Edelman 

can be found in the Appendix on page 43.] 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much. 

Very, very important issues that you covered. And the last point 

that you made about this committee understands, we have the benefit of the hearings and hearing what is going on. 

The way the Congress is set up, everybody is busy and people on 

other committees are busy studying those issues and they can’t be 

totally up to date on all of the things that face our committee. So 

it is up to us really to educate them and our leadership, because 

I guess we just kind of take for granted that everybody knows the 

same things, and they—and they really don’t. 

I had a Member come up to me after I was talking about some 

cuts not too long ago, and he said, I didn’t realize we had cut that 

much. So it is an important thing for us to do. And I know we have 

made attempts, we have tried to involve other Members, invite 

them, Members not on the committee, into some things, but it is 

something we will have to just keep working at, work harder at, 

I guess. 

The QDR is intended to provide a force-sizing product that describes how the Pentagon will shape and size the military to meet 

future challenges. Starting with the 1993 Bottom-Up Review, the 

Department of Defense adopted a two-war planning construct, re-
9 

quiring that our military be sized to fight two major regional conflicts that occurred nearly simultaneously. 

This has been largely maintained through successive QDRs. It is 

interesting, we are probably much closer to needing that now than 

we did in 1993; however, the 2014 QDR appears to diverge from 

this two-war construct by suggesting that the United States will no 

longer be able to defeat two aggressors simultaneously. The NDP, 

on the other hand, recommends a stronger and more explicit forcesizing construct. 

In your opinion, what is driving such a policy change in the QDR 

and why does the panel recommend a different force-sizing construct? 

Ms. FLOURNOY. So I think that my understanding of the QDR 

construct is that it is really looking at one multi-phase campaign 

that would include, you know, a full scale not only a defeat of aggression, but a post-construct reconstruction type of campaign, so 

soup to nuts, if you will. 

And that the second is seen as more of a defeat and roll back aggression, but not necessarily an occupation. And I think part of 

that is informed by the scenarios that we see around the world, 

and I think part of it is informed by the resource constraints that 

are there. 

When we looked at this from a strategy perspective in the NDP, 

you know, we saw a situation that even when the U.S. was fully 

engaged in one major regional conflict, because we are a global 

power with global interests, we have got to be able to deter and, 

if necessary, roll back or defeat aggression in multiple other areas 

at the same time if necessary while maintaining homeland security 

and critical operations globally like counterterrorism. 

So we defined a somewhat higher bar based on our assessment 

of the security environment and our projection, our understanding 

of what the future is likely to look like. 

Mr. EDELMAN. I would only add, Mr. Chairman, that we had in 

mind that we could easily find ourselves in a situation—given the 

uncertainties in northern Africa, the spread of terrorist groups in 

the Trans Sahel, the uncertainties in the Levant because of ISIL, 

continued problems in the Persian Gulf with Iran, North Korea, et 

cetera—that we could be involved in a major conflict, but then have 

multiple different conflicts to either deter or have to engage military force with in overlapping both geographic and temporal 

frames, and I think that is why we felt we wanted to be explicit 

about that and actually in the report urged that the Department 

go back and see what it would take to actually execute that somewhat more stressful force-sizing construct. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Ms. Davis. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And I certainly want to echo Mr. Smith’s acknowledgement, Mr. 

McKeon, of your great leadership on the committee, and also welcome Mr. Thornberry, of course, and join in here with Mr. Smith 

as well as thanking you all for being here today. 

Secretary Flournoy, in your statement, you mentioned the need 

to not only provide relief to the Pentagon from recent budget cuts, 

but to remove the limitations on their ability to make judicious 
10 

cuts where they are most needed, and you spoke specifically about 

the, quote, ‘‘modest cuts to the rate of growth and already generous 

military compensation and benefits’’ unquote. And we certainly 

know that this is a very tough issue. It is why people don’t really 

like serving on the personnel committee, frankly, because it is very 

hard, and, in fact, the committee rejected the areas of cuts to at 

least look at in this last year, and hopefully moving forward, we 

can at least begin to acknowledge those and move forward. 

So, I wonder if you could elaborate more. You mentioned one or 

two, I think, in the cost of health care, but could you elaborate on 

the specific programs that you feel could endure such reductions? 

Ms. FLOURNOY. Well, I start from the premise that, you know, 

we absolutely need to keep faith with those who serve, given their 

service and their sacrifice, but we need to define—we need to really 

examine what do we mean by keeping faith. 

Keeping faith certainly means making good on whatever contractual promises we made with regard to compensation and benefits. 

So, I think as we talk about reform, we need to start with the 

premise that we are grandfathering in any, you know, contractual 

obligations that have already been made. 

But we also need to define it more broadly. I mean, keeping faith 

also includes ensuring that when people go into harm’s way, they 

have the training they need, they have had the flying hours they 

need, they have had the tank drive miles they need, they have the 

equipment they need, they have got—they are manned, fully 

manned as a unit, they—you know, they have got all that support. 

So it is not just about compensation. 

But I think the—you know, the most important areas for reform, 

as I said, base realignment and closure. We are—we have, as much 

as I know there have been challenges with past rounds, GAO [Government Accountability Office] report is—reports have been categorical that we are saving billions of dollars based on previous 

rounds of BRAC. We have too much infrastructure. We need to be 

able to downsize some of that. I know that is a very difficult issue 

politically, but we are at a point where I think we are at a level 

of risk that we have got to look at that. 

Being able to rightsize the workforce, both civilian and government workforce, the contractor workforce as well as the military, 

we have got to have the authorities for that. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Do you think that—— 

Ms. FLOURNOY. And then on compensation—I am sorry. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Yeah. If I could just jump in for a second, because 

I think sometimes we talk about where we could perhaps make 

some of those change, but we don’t know where we gain, you know, 

where the shifts are and whether or not it is in cybersecurity or 

whatever areas it is that really we need to make those cuts, and 

I think perhaps getting some help with trying to frame that in that 

way. 

Ms. FLOURNOY. Right. So I think that—those savings, and I 

would add compensation reform and, you know, better quality 

health care, reduce costs, more equitable and modern approach to 

retirement benefits and so forth, but, you know, to me the, you 

know, the investment needs to shift into bringing readiness up to 

the appropriate levels, protecting the most important moderniza-
11 

tion and investment programs for the future, ensuring that we 

don’t cut force structure below the levels that strategy requires. 

So, I mean, I think the investment areas in general are obvious. 

I think there is, you know, lots to be discussed within each of those 

areas, particularly modernization, but really we are currently 

spending billions of dollars in areas where we shouldn’t be, and the 

Department needs the flexibility to move those into the priority 

areas where we really need to buy down risk. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. 

If I could just quickly, building partner capacity is also something that you mentioned and is part of what we—what we try to 

do, although, quite frankly, I think the public is maybe not as sympathetic often to that. How, again, can we frame that better? Do 

you see that as really a critical area and one that needs more funding in order to make it work the way that it should? 

Ms. FLOURNOY. I personally believe that building partner capacity is very—a very important element of strategy. It is something 

we highlight in the report as well. 

When you look, for example, at counterterrorism, for a sustainable outcome in a place like Yemen, in a place like Iraq, in a place 

like Somalia, you have got to be able to leave behind a force that 

can contend with the local challenges, the local insurgencies, in 

order to have an outcome of some stability that lasts. 

So it is critical to actually achieving our objectives in many, 

many places, in addition to a more equitable approach to burden 

sharing. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. Forbes. 

Mr. FORBES. Mr. Chairman, thank you. 

And like everyone else, I want to thank you for your leadership. 

You issued a clarion call to repeal sequestration before it was popular to do so, and you have made a difference, you will continue 

to make a difference. 

I know Mac will do a great job, too. You leave an individual who 

has got 20 years of experience and wisdom as he takes over this 

committee, but I also want to mention someone else, who is not 

here today, and that is Mike McIntyre, who will also be retiring. 

And Mike has had almost as long in terms of his service to this 

committee, done a great job, and certainly been a very, very capable ranking member of our subcommittee. We are going to all miss 

him very much, too. 

And to both of you, I want to thank you. Each of you have been 

giants, champions, experts, whatever you want to say, in your own 

field and defense, but what has impressed me so much in the last 

year or so is how you have pulled that talent together with one 

voice, and I think you have made a geometric difference by being 

able to write and talk together on those things, and we just thank 

you both for that expertise. 

When we talk about giving the Pentagon more discretion, one of 

the reasons we are reluctant to do that is we don’t think the Pentagon is always making the Pentagon’s decisions. Oftentimes we 

feel here, we don’t have a comfort level, we think the White House 

is making too many of those decisions, and I think to the degree 
12 

we see the Pentagon making more of those decisions, I think we 

will be freer to give them more of that discretion. 

But I have two questions for you, pick either one or none to answer, but the first one is based on Secretary Hagel’s recent speech 

about innovation and offset strategies, how do you see that tying 

in to the work of the panel, one? 

And then secondly, it seems like we do defense planning backwards. We always spend time talking about the dollars we want to 

spend for defense spending, then we develop our strategy, and then 

we look at how we implement that strategy. There is almost never 

a time when we come to policymakers and say, here is what we 

want to accomplish, in non-chokepoints in the world, for example 

on shipping, which one do you want to give up, you know? And 

then from there develop a strategy and say this is what it is going 

to cost. 

And over and over again we get into discussions about how much 

a toilet seat costs at the Pentagon, but nobody talks about, you 

know, how many ships we can have, where we can have them 

around the globe. How can we do a better job of painting that picture, of what we give up, to policymakers? So either one of those 

two questions, and either or both of you feel free to grapple with 

it. 

Mr. EDELMAN. Mr. Forbes, well, thank you very much for the 

question on the offset strategy, because I think both Secretary 

Flournoy and I were in California when Secretary Hagel publicly 

rolled out the offset strategy. 

In fact, we mentioned the earlier efforts at offset strategy under 

the leadership of Harold Brown and our co-chairman, Bill Perry, in 

the report. And at Secretary Hagel’s invitation, we outlined in the 

report a number of areas for future investment where we think it 

will be important for the Department to invest, to have capabilities 

20 years from now that the Nation will need. 

One of the things I think we were quite focused on as a panel 

was the statements that Secretary Hagel has made about the potential that the U.S. will lose its qualitative military edge, which 

has been a key to everything that we have done since the end of 

the Cold War. 

So in that sense, although it came obviously after the work of our 

panel, I think—I don’t want to speak for the other members, but 

I can certainly say personally, I think that the offset strategy is in 

keeping with much of what is in the report. I think it is absolutely 

necessary. I applaud Secretary Work for having launched this and 

Secretary Hagel for having endorsed it, and I would only add one 

thing. 

I think there is going to be a hearing this afternoon on the offset 

strategy. My CSBA [Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments] colleague, Bob Martinage, is going to be testifying there, he 

has done a recent report on this, and one of the things he points 

out, and I think it is important to bear in mind, is that the offset 

strategy in the 1970s was absolutely crucial in helping develop 

some of the technologies that became hugely important to our defense force in the 1980s and on into the 1990s and, in fact, right 

up to the current day, but unless those—unless those technologies 
13 

and capabilities are funded, you know, you don’t get the absolute 

benefit. 

So by all means, we need to develop the, you know, ability to 

kind of offset other people’s advantages with areas where we can 

bring something to the table that can counteract that or put stress 

on a potential adversary in an area where they are weak, but I 

don’t think it can be a substitute for, for instance, relief in the top 

line that we advocate in the report. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. Larsen. 

Mr. LARSEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

For both of you, there are some comments that critics would say 

that you failed to address the role or issues of Guard and Reserve 

as you are looking at readiness or looking at Active Duty numbers 

versus Guard and Reserve and how to utilize the Guard and Reserve. Can you both comment on that? 

Ms. FLOURNOY. I think that is a fair criticism. There is only so 

much we were able to cover in the time we had in the report, but 

I agree that rethinking our concept of how—of the total force and 

how we integrate Active, Reserve and Guard capabilities is critical 

to getting it right in the future. I don’t know that there is a onesize-fits-all, I think different models may work well for different 

services, but I don’t believe that the work has been done—the work 

that needs to be done has been done yet to fully explore the opportunities. 

There is tremendous talent and experience to be leveraged in the 

Guard and Reserve, it is an invaluable set of resources for us, but 

we have got to have a compelling concept for how we are going to 

do that in the future, and that may not look like the last 12 years 

when we were trying to sustain a rotation base for two large, long 

counterinsurgencies. And so I do think this is a very ripe area. 

I think the services need help and top cover from both the civilian leadership in the Pentagon and, frankly, civilian leadership in 

Congress to get this right, because, you know, obviously there are 

political challenges associated with making some of the necessary 

changes and trade-offs. 

Mr. LARSEN. Thanks. 

Mr. Edelman, do you have a separate comment? 

Mr. EDELMAN. Well, the only thing I would add, I mean, I agree 

with Secretary Flournoy, I think it is a fair criticism, and as she 

said, there is, you know—given the time and given the small panel, 

we only had 10 members of this panel, you know, we couldn’t attack everything. 

I would say one other thing, and it is related, I think, to the 

issue of how we think about the Guard and Reserve, and it is 

something we do talk about in the report and we talked about 4 

years ago in the Independent Panel report. Most of our planning, 

contingency planning and war planning, is based on the notion that 

we will fight only very, very short wars. That is a nice, convenient 

planning assumption, but I think, as most of us have learned, you 

know, once conflict starts, you don’t know exactly what form it is 

going to take. 

And we have not really thought very much as a nation over the 

last 20 years about how we would mobilize and have a strategy of 
14 

mobilization, which would of necessity involve the Guard and Reserve, to fight a prolonged conflict, and I do think it is something 

we need to give greater attention to and I think it is something 

that the committee should be focusing its attention on as well. 

Mr. LARSEN. Could I ask a follow-up on that point, because there 

was also some concern about movement away in the QDR from a 

two-war construct. And that two-war construct is based on fighting 

two relatively short wars, and you trade that off for one really, 

really long one. It kind of makes sense to move away from a twowar strategy if you are going to be in a really long one. How would 

you comment on that? 

Ms. FLOURNOY. I think the—you know, the U.S. military, given 

our interests around the world, will always need to be able to defeat aggression in more than one place at a time. It is critical to 

our ability to reassure our allies and it is critical to deter our adversaries. If people think that once we are involved in one place 

heavily, game over, you know, then the—you know, the mischief 

can be made. 

That is inviting aggression in other areas, and it will also really 

create huge anxiety among our allies and potentially affect them 

to—you know, cause them to revise their own defense calculations, 

their own calculations with regard to things like nuclear weapons. 

So this is a really core principle that can come in a lot of different flavors, but the ability to defeat aggression more than one 

place at a time has got to be a cornerstone of any strategy going 

forward, in my view. 

Mr. LARSEN. Mr. Edelman. 

Mr. EDELMAN. I agree with what Secretary Flournoy just said. 

Mr. LARSEN. Okay. Thank you. 

Yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. Mr. Scott. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Ma’am, sir, thank you for being here and for your work. Congressman Marshall, thank you as well. 

I represent the eighth district in Georgia, and Moody Air Force 

Base and Robins Air Force Base are both in my district. And I 

want to talk with you a little bit about the recommendations for 

the Air Force and the number of planes we should have, but I first 

want to mention, going back to what Mr. Forbes said, I do believe 

that good leadership at the Pentagon is necessary to carry out any 

national security plan, and I do think that if we had leadership 

that was able to operate based on what was in the best interests 

of national security, I think you’d see much more support from this 

committee for that leeway that you have asked for than you have. 

And I just go back to Secretary Gates, Panetta, now Secretary 

Hagel. In the 4 years I have been here, we have had three different 

Secretaries of Defense. That is not good for the country. And it 

seems to me that the President is trying to micromanage national 

security instead of putting good people in place and letting them 

do their job. 

In 2021, mandatory spending in this country will be three and 

a half trillion dollars. The net interest on the national debt will be 

above $700 billion and spending on national security, including 

OCO [Overseas Contingency Operations], will be below $700 bil-
15 

lion. And so when we talk about loosening up on the restrictions 

and the reductions of weapon systems, that is where our concern 

comes in under this President, is using the DOD [Department of 

Defense], if you will, as a piggy bank to fund social programs. 

So the F–35 program as we push forward, certainly a system 

that I think most of us support, my fear is that it has the same 

thing happening to it that happened to the F–22, and while we 

stand down A–10s and other weapons systems that are currently 

available, we end up with an F–35 program where the buy gets cut 

in half or a third or 75 percent, and anyway, we don’t have the 

number of planes that we had planned on for national security. 

Can you speak to the number of planes that we need, and if we 

continue to stand down the planes that are currently flying and we 

don’t complete the F–35, the impact of that on national security? 

Mr. EDELMAN. We did consider the size of the Air Force. And I 

think it is fair to say, I don’t want to air dirty linen of the—of the 

panel in front of—in front of the members, but there were some differences about the specific numbers that might be needed, and as 

a result, we just agreed that the Air Force needs to be considerably 

larger than it is today and is foreseen to be in the future. 

I think unfortunately, Mr. Scott, the reality is that the F–35 buy 

almost certainly will end up being cut. I think historically we have 

all—it is not just the F–22. I think historically we have never 

bought as many aircraft as we initially intended. There are a lot 

of, you know, complicated reasons for that; one of them has to do 

with escalating costs, and it is one reason why we recommended, 

you know, some things in this report, as we did 4 years ago, about 

procurement reform, because that, I think, is a big part, you know, 

of the answer. 

But we were very focused on the force structure issues with regard to the Navy and the Air Force, because as part of the strategy 

that the QDR was meant to implement, the likely, most likely conflicts are going to be ones that are going to be heavily engaging 

naval and air power. 

So we looked at those and we tried to come up with some gross 

order of magnitude parameters to help you and your colleagues 

with. And so for the size of the Navy, for instance, which I think 

Secretary Flournoy mentioned a couple of minutes ago, we said the 

range should be somewhere between what Secretary Gates’s fiscal 

year 2012 budget would have purchased and what was in the 1997 

Bottom—you know, Bottom-Up Review force structure in that 

QDR, because that was in a period of time when the world was 

forecast to be even, you know, less troublesome than it is today. 

And we are way—headed to way below that in the Navy. The Air 

Force, as I said, our conclusion was, you know, it needs to be considerably larger, but we were not able to put specific numbers on 

it. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you. I am almost out of time. 

Ms. FLOURNOY. If I could—— 

Mr. SCOTT. Yes, ma’am. 

Ms. FLOURNOY [continuing]. Congressman Scott, with—you 

know, with all due respect, I have a different diagnosis of what is 

going on. I don’t think that—I have not seen evidence that the 
16 

White House is micromanaging the DOD programming and budgeting process. 

What I have seen is that since 2011, that was the last time when 

you had a truly—fully coherent sort of strategy-driven program 

that was offered up as, you know, here is the DOD plan. Since 

then, we—DOD has been battling with, you know, two rounds of 

BCA cuts totaling a trillion dollars, sequestration that doesn’t 

allow them any flexibility to move money between accounts, and a 

life of CRs [continuing resolutions]. 

So you have this constant uncertainty, unpredictability that is 

causing the services in one case last year to do seven different 

versions of their POMs [Program Objectives Memorandums]. You 

know, they are just trying to survive the next budget bogie as opposed to doing the kind of strategic planning that you are calling 

for, but my—I think the reason for that is the BCA cuts and the 

sequestration more than it is any sort of outside interference, as 

far as I can see. 

Mr. SCOTT. Well, certainly I agree that the timeliness of Congress in not getting the job done is a problem for DOD. And I 

would again remind the administration and the Senate, this committee passed unanimously the National Defense Authorization Act 

months ago, and the Senate has yet to take—— 

Ms. FLOURNOY. Yeah. 

Mr. SCOTT [continuing]. Action on that. 

Mr. Chairman, thank you. 

Mr. COFFMAN [presiding]. Ms. Hanabusa. 

Ms. HANABUSA. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Secretary Flournoy, you know, the QDR has been said to be the 

force-sizing construct, and that is what we are supposed to be 

doing. I think one of the most troubling things about the QDR has 

always been that we just seem to—the document seems to just 

hedge on the fundamental issue of exactly what is the force-sizing 

construct. 

Mr. Larsen talked about the two-war or the two-theater assumptions that we have had since the Clinton administration, and then 

we seem to have hedged on that as well in the QDR, and we don’t 

seem to answer the fundamental question, which is, what is the 

military to look like? What is it that we think we are going to be 

needed to do? 

So if we are in Asia-Pacific, the pivot to Asia-Pacific, which is 

hugely sea mass, and/or we are supposed to also be able to do at 

the same time the Middle East, which has a totally different situation, like your testimony in your op-ed piece talked about the fact 

that we didn’t really look at ISIL at the time that this whole thing 

was being discussed. 

One of the things that I found disturbing is we didn’t even begin 

to address the two-theater construct, that was the first thing, but 

the second thing is when we are so diverse, how, then, do we come 

up with a review to say what is the force structure to look like, 

when DOD isn’t able to tell us where we are going to be and what 

is it that we can do, because it just seems to be so contrary to what 

the needs are? So if you could answer that. 

Ms. FLOURNOY. You know, my own view is that, you know, and 

this is based on a wonderful saying of Secretary Gates, which is, 
17 

you know, we have a perfect record about predicting where we will 

fight in the future: you know, 100 percent wrong. 

Ms. HANABUSA. That is right. 

Ms. FLOURNOY. We have never gotten it right. 

Ms. HANABUSA. I remember him saying that. 

Ms. FLOURNOY. And I ascribe to that. So I think, you know, there 

is a lot that can be done in trying to anticipate different scenarios, 

test your planned force against those to see how—you know, where 

it would do well, where it would fall short, but ultimately you have 

to come up with a balanced force and a force that puts a premium 

on agility and the ability to adapt to something you didn’t anticipate. 

When you take down readiness, you take down agility. When you 

take forces down to too small a level, you take down agility. When 

you don’t invest in critical modernization, R&D [research and development] for the future, you reduce agility. And so I think that 

is—that is my, you know, biggest concern. 

But I think a robust discussion of the requirements, the scenarios, and the kind of force trade-offs that we need to make is exactly the strategic discussion we need to be having, but I would 

submit to you, you can’t get there when under sequestration. You 

can’t even get to that conversation. 

Ms. HANABUSA. Secretary, I agree with you. I think—and I voted 

against many things because of—sequestration continuing. Having 

said that, however, you know, I represent Hawaii, and we, of 

course, have a huge issue there of USARPAC, U.S. Army Pacific, 

and the downsizing because of the QDR and also because of what 

we look at, you know, what sequestration’s going to do; however, 

underlying all of that is still the fundamental question of what is, 

for example, the role of Army or, more importantly, are we going 

to continue to fund, is Congress being asked to fund continually the 

three branches, or the four branches, whichever way you want to 

say it, in equal parts, and is that where—and, you know, it all 

comes down to what I think the fundamental purpose of the QDR 

was. 

So what is when we look back? And if the QDR doesn’t then give 

us what we think 4 years that structure should look like, we are 

going to continue to expend based on what we are hearing and 

what literally all of our individual areas and needs are. 

Ms. FLOURNOY. I think that the Defense Strategic Guidance of 

2012 laid out a pretty good strategic vision, and I think that most 

of the panel agreed with that. 

The QDR endorses that and basically says, you know, here is the 

force we would like to build to support that, and that is what 

undergirded the President’s higher budget request, higher than sequestration and the BCA levels. 

But if sequestration continues, these are the cuts we are going 

to have to take. This is the way, you know, it will affect our ability 

to execute that strategy, and this is where we will take risks. 

You know, I think we thought that was—you know, they were in 

a box. They are being told, you know, ‘‘Develop a strategy-based 

plan. But, oh, by the way, you have got to also live with sequestration.’’ And I think they tried to square it the best way they could. 

Ms. HANABUSA. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I yield back. 
18 

Mr. COFFMAN. Mr. Palazzo. 

Mr. PALAZZO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you all for being here today. 

Fifteen minutes is not going to allow me to ask all the things I 

want to talk about. 

But I do want to focus real quick—there wasn’t a lot of mention 

about the National Guard in the QDR. Can you kind of in your— 

you know, very quickly, you know, discuss what you see as being 

the National Guard’s role in the future. I know it has gone from 

a strategic Reserve to an operational Reserve. But what do you— 

what do you see it, in the homeland and operating aboard? 

Mr. EDELMAN. Well, we—you know, as we have said earlier in 

answer to Mr. Larsen’s question, it is not something that we really 

considered at great length in the panel. 

I know that General Kearney, if he was here, would want to talk 

about this because he was very concerned about the balance between the Active and Reserve components and—and all of that. 

I can tell you my own view from—speaking personally, from the 

previous panel 4 years ago and the current panel, is that, you 

know, we are going to—you know, there are going to be certain 

homeland contingencies where DOD is going to play a lot larger 

role than people anticipate and the Guard will be part of that, certainly, very much a first line of defense. 

I mean, if there is a nuclear incident somewhere in the United 

States with a detonation or a dirty bomb, I mean, I just don’t know 

how we are going to get through that without DOD, you know, 

being a very large part of the response. 

And I know there are concerns about, you know, Posse Comitatus 

and other—other issues. But I think one thing we know how to do 

in the Department of Defense is to arrange supporting and supported relationships. 

So I actually don’t think that that is that much of a concern. But 

I do think the Guard is going to play a huge role in things like that 

in the future. 

Mr. PALAZZO. After 13 years, I mean, of the Guard being side by 

side with our Active component in Iraq and Afghanistan, you know, 

it seems now that where sequestration is start—we are starting to 

feel it. You know, you have Active Army coming out and saying, 

‘‘Well, you know, the Guard really didn’t do as much as, you know, 

we had said they had done.’’ Because I think everybody is scrambling for their piece of the pie. 

And, you know, for many of us, we know that the Guard has 

been able to, you know, join with their Active components and not 

miss a step. And it is also—you know, it is a lot—and more inexpensive to maintain certain things, like the heavy brigades and the 

Guard, and the Apaches and the Guard. 

And when—you pull them up when you need them. And they 

have done a fantastic job. And I could think of a lot of other things 

that the Guard—we could surge them to the border and help secure our border. You know, we have talked about that in Homeland 

Security. 

But moving on real quick, you know, we have also talked about 

readiness. And I agree with Ms. Flournoy that, you know, we want 

to be well equipped, well trained, you know, well led. We expect 
19 

our men and women in uniform to have it. The American people 

expect our men and women in uniform to be ready to do their mission and come back home safe and sound to their loved ones. 

But, you know, when you have this trust deficit—and it was 

mentioned by several different members, is that we don’t necessarily know if the Pentagon is making the right decisions or some 

of these decisions are coming from the White House. 

And it is hard for me—when I look at a well-equipped, welltrained, and well-led tactical airlift squadron in my home State 

being picked up and moved with no cost justification, no strategic 

military value, it is very hard for me to accept everything that 

comes from our military leadership. 

And that is why I think, if we take certain steps such as, you 

know, the audibility of our forces, the acquisition reform that our 

new chairman is going to be working on, it will give us a lot more 

confidence in what is being presented to us. 

But that was just one—one example of a record-breaking tactical 

airlift squadron in Afghanistan being moved with no strategic or 

cost justification. And, you know, if we are talking about readiness 

and wanting to maintain that high level of readiness and to see 

that and with still today no justification, it is really—really hard 

to swallow. 

And, lastly—and I won’t take up more of your time—is October 

13, 2011, we had Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta here and we 

were talking about the future of the national defense 10 years after 

9/11. 

And I personally asked him, ‘‘What would be the short-term cost 

for things such as termination costs on contracts? You have already 

committed to increased unit procurement costs if production quantities are reduced.’’ And—and, you know, he—and I am kind of 

paraphrasing. So if you want to, you know, go back and look. 

But in the end, he says, you know, ‘‘I went through the BRAC 

process and I know that all the dollars that people looked at for, 

you know, huge savings in BRAC.’’ 

And, yet, when you—they didn’t take into consideration the 

cleanup. They didn’t take into consideration all the work that had 

to be done. They didn’t take into consideration all the needs that 

had to be addressed. In many cases, it wound up costing a lot 

more. I don’t want to repeat that mistake. 

I mean, that is the former Secretary of Defense sitting where you 

all are, telling us that BRAC was a mistake. And I understand 

there is reports showing a difference of opinion. But, you know, to 

many of us, again, we need to have that confidence renewed in our 

military leadership to make those tough decisions going forward. 

Ms. FLOURNOY. If I could just comment on the BRAC issue, with 

all due respect to my former boss, who I hugely admire, you know, 

I do think you have got to look—there were probably particular 

areas where we got the cost estimates wrong, particularly bases— 

particular bases where, you know, we didn’t save as much as was 

expected. 

But I think the record is actually pretty clear on this, if you look 

at the series of GAO reports, the series of CBO [Congressional 

Budget Office] reports. These are, you know, congressionally, you 
20 

know, empowered bodies to do analysis for you. The record is very 

clear on what the cumulative savings over time have been. 

So the question is not whether, but how, to design a BRAC to 

make sure that you get a strategically aligned result and actually 

some serious cost savings for the Department so that money can 

be reinvested in readiness, in modernization, in real capability. 

Mr. EDELMAN. Mr. Palazzo, just a couple of points. 

One—again, I won’t speak for my colleague. She may have some 

observations of her own on this. But when I was Under Secretary 

and went out to Afghanistan and Iraq, I saw lots of deployed Guard 

and Reserve units, and I was astonished at how well they performed. So I—I think I agree with you on that. 

I think—I think my observation on the BRAC issue, as a member 

of the National Defense Panel, is that the Department has not done 

a very good job, frankly, of working with you all and telling their 

story very well and very effectively. 

I think it is fair to say that the last BRAC round, which went 

on when I was Under Secretary, although I am also happy to say 

that it was in the province of my colleague, the Under Secretary 

for Acquisitions, Technology and Logistics, that that real—that 

BRAC was really about realignment rather than closure. And so, 

as a result, I think there may have been some miscommunication 

about the savings that were going to be realized and anticipated, 

et cetera. 

And I think one has to look at the issue over the life of multiple 

BRAC rounds historically and not just focus on the last round. And 

I don’t think the Department has done a very good job of that. 

To be fair to them, I think they need to be able to conduct the 

studies that would enable them to tell the story very effectively or 

more effectively than they have. So I think that is a—you know, 

an important aspect of this as well. 

And just one final observation: We have had a lot of discussion 

this morning in answer to Mrs. Davis’s questions and several other 

members. I think Mr. Smith raised some of them as well. 

I think all the members of the panel support and endorse the reform agenda that was laid out, including dealing with issues like 

compensation reform. We hope the Maldon Commission will come 

in soon with its recommendations for you to consider, et cetera. 

But I also think it is fair to say that, even if we had wild success 

in implementing reform and we are able to reap all of the savings 

that everybody anticipates, I don’t think it would still begin to 

touch the—the deficit we are facing in terms of the budget and 

funding the Department to be able to meet the challenges that it 

is facing right now. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Thank you. 

Ms. Gabbard. 

Ms. GABBARD. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you both for being here and for your work on this. 

My question really goes to the QDR process. There is no question 

about the fact that the challenges that we face today are vastly different than the ones that we have historically faced and, yet, it 

seems that the structures and the mechanisms for developing and 

implementing our national security policy remain largely unchanged. 
21 

One particular concern that I have is the fact that cabinet agencies continue to be the principal organizational element in their 

prospective areas, but there is not a clear part of this process that 

brings them together in a way that they are nested with each other 

and that they are aligned in order to achieve the overall desired 

effect and specific objectives. 

I am wondering if you can speak to—give your thoughts on how 

we can modernize the QDR process, especially considering the fact 

that so much of our activities in different regions of the world that 

are undertaken by Department of Defense have very specific implications with efforts for—with State, for example, and the lines 

have become very much—a lot more gray. 

Mr. EDELMAN. Well, Mrs. Gabbard, I am not a fan of the QDR 

process. I mean—and I will only comment on the QDR over which 

I presided in 2006, and I will let Secretary Flournoy talk about her 

own experience. She has done it more often than I have. 

I think the reality is that the QDR process largely ends up the 

way it is currently structured, becoming an effort to provide a rationale for the force in being and the program of record, with a few 

minor adjustments. 

And that is because the way we do this bureaucratically is to get 

the—you know, the service programmers who are, you know, presiding over these programs in a room to put together this document. 

So I think—and we addressed it 4 years ago in the Independent 

Panel Report. We actually suggested that there might be some 

thought given to doing away with the QDR requirement. 

The problem I think that you have is that there is—I think Members of Congress rightly want to, first of all, make sure that there 

is some kind of strategic process going on inside the Department 

of Defense. I mean, I think that is fair enough. 

And in the instance of creating these panels, that they want a 

second opinion, I think that is fair enough, too. But I do think the 

current process is excessively bureaucratic and that—you know, my 

view is you don’t get good strategy, you know, written by committees of that—of that size. 

I am also very sympathetic to your comment about the—you 

know, the whole-of-government kind of effort that is required in so 

much of what we do, yet it has really been traditionally only the 

Department of Defense that has this kind of big strategic exercise. 

Now, that did change under Secretary Clinton, who launched the 

QDDR [Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review]— 

QDD—the State Department’s equivalent of the QDR. And that 

process produced, you know, a report a few years ago. I don’t know 

what the status of that is now, but I think the problem is it is very, 

very difficult to do this across agency lines. 

I do know that there has been more of an effort to socialize the 

QDR with the Department of State and other agencies. I know we 

certainly did that in 2006. I suspect that Secretary Flournoy did as 

well in 2010. But I think your concerns are well taken. We still 

haven’t figured out bureaucratically how to—how to do this. 

And I am not quite sure what the right answer is because I— 

you know, at one level, you could say, ‘‘Well, this is really a task 
22 

for the National Security Council because it is meant to integrate 

all instruments of national power on behalf of the President.’’ 

But I am not sure that is the right answer either, to be honest, 

because the danger there is that the—the bureaucratic imperatives 

of the Departments then could get lost a little bit, I think, in a 

process that was purely White House-driven. 

Ms. FLOURNOY. I would say I am a veteran of several QDRs and 

have the scars to prove it. But—and I agree with much of Ambassador Edelman’s assessment. 

The best strategic process that I witnessed in two rounds of service was the development of the Defense Strategic Guidance. And 

that was the President sitting down with the Defense Department 

leadership—the Chairman, the Secretary, the service secretary, the 

service chiefs, the combatant commands—for multiple sessions of 

multiple hours each and, really, as a leadership team, working 

through, ‘‘What should our strategy be? What are the strategic 

trade-offs? What are the big areas where we are going to prioritize? 

And where are we going to accept and manage risk?’’ 

And then that—because that—that team worked it intensively, 

all of those stakeholders at the end of the day slapped the table. 

So when it came time to translate that strategy into a program and 

budget, that process went relatively smoothly. 

You could envision something like that at the principal’s level on 

a more interagency basis, bringing in the Secretary of State or the 

Secretary of Treasury and Homeland Security, and so forth. But in 

all of my years of government, that was the closest thing that I saw 

to a successful strategic process, and it didn’t look anything like a 

QDR. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Dr. Wenstrup. 

Dr. WENSTRUP. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I appreciate you both being here today. It has been a very good 

conversation, I feel. And you are right when you say that people 

in this room, even those that aren’t here that take these seats, they 

do—they get it. And that is the challenge that we face being on this 

committee. 

One question I had—and I just want your opinions on some of 

these things. If we were to increase our force structure personnel, 

in particular, would we need the infrastructure that we are not 

using now? 

You talked about the 24 percent. You know, so if we somehow 

cut out the 24 percent, but found ourselves increasing our military 

to levels that we feel it should be, would we need that back, do you 

think? 

Ms. FLOURNOY. I think that the question that—needs analysis. 

My impression is that there may be some things—some recommendations that would be changed on the margins, but a lot of 

this infrastructure has been sub—you know, underutilized for 

many, many years, even when we had a larger force. 

Dr. WENSTRUP. So there is a potential that some of it would 

maybe need to be—— 

Ms. FLOURNOY. I think it is worth analyzing. 

Dr. WENSTRUP [continuing]. If we were to get—— 
23 

And one of the questions that I had I think you answered very 

well is, you know, if we went through all the reforms that you suggest within DOD, it still would not be enough to get there. 

So do we change, in your opinion, what we are spending on discretionary spending? Mandatory spending? You know, where do we 

reach for what we need? 

Ms. FLOURNOY. You know, again, I think that the reform piece 

is part of the solution because we have to be able to, you know, 

whether it is executive branch or the Members of Congress, look 

the American taxpayers in the eyes and say, ‘‘Look, you know, we 

are spending your dollars as well as we possibly can, as wisely as 

we possibly can.’’ 

Dr. WENSTRUP. Lead by example. 

Ms. FLOURNOY. Right. 

So I think the Department has to go down the reform path. Our 

judgment, as a panel, was that would be necessary, but not sufficient, to get to the spending levels we need. 

And so I do think we need to lift sequestration on defense spending. I think, given the facts that Representative Smith laid out, the 

fact that we have achieved much of the BCA goals with regard to 

deficit reduction—I think we should look at lifting it, in general. 

What we really need is a comprehensive budget deal with all of 

the key elements on the table: entitlement reform, tax reform, and 

smart investment in what will drive the dynamism of the American 

economy in the future. 

That is what we really need, and that would be the best way to 

handle this challenge. Short of that, some sort of smaller deals that 

create relief for the Department in the near term I think would be 

very important. 

Dr. WENSTRUP. And that is what I am thinking about, too. I 

mean, ideally, I would love to hear the American people screaming 

for regular order and that we pass budgets and appropriations and 

did all those things that would let things flow and give people some 

certainty as we look towards the future. 

But I am wondering, on a shorter term, what we could actually 

achieve. And if sequester was taken off of the military, I think that 

would obviously be one step in the right direction. 

The question comes in then where do we get the funds from—— 

Ms. FLOURNOY. Yes. 

Dr. WENSTRUP [continuing]. Which is the hardest part. 

Ms. FLOURNOY. One of the things I would say is, in some of these 

really challenging politically sensitive areas, to explore the idea of 

pilots or, you know, experiments, you know, allow us to try—you 

know, allow the Department, I should say, to try, you know, a 

change and see if, for example, you could get better quality of care 

at lower cost in part of health care. 

I mean, but, you know, if Congress feels it is too risky to kind 

of swallow across-the-board reform, let the Department try something and see if it works and then let it scale. But to just say, ‘‘No. 

It is off the table because it is too high risk or it is too sensitive,’’ 

I just—it is not a viable solution. 

Dr. WENSTRUP. The other thing I would like to get your opinion 

on—and I see it, as a reservist. There is so many people today, 
24 

young people in particular, that have real-time experience—realtime military experience. 

And this is—these are people that I think and many I know 

would still like to be in the Guard and Reserve, even if they are 

leaving Active Duty, or remain in the Guard and Reserve, and they 

have this real-time experience and we are letting them go. 

And so I am wondering your opinion on the level of Guard and 

Reserve that we have maintained when we have the unique opportunity for maybe the first time in our history to have such a large 

experienced Guard and Reserve. 

Mr. EDELMAN. You know, I think it is a good point. I think it 

goes back to this question of how do we think about mobilization 

and mobilizing all the resources that we have if we end up in a 

conflict that ends up being more than 30 days, which I think is 

likely to happen. 

And I don’t think we have given nearly enough thought about it, 

as a nation. I think it is one of the things we are all concerned 

about on the panel. 

Ms. FLOURNOY. I do think that it is very important to think strategically about, you know, what skill sets do we want to maintain 

access to. One of the things that happens in drawdowns is we lose 

a lot of field-grade leadership. 

Keeping connections to some of those people, keeping them tied 

so that they could come back in, you know, use their experience 

again, that would be a very strategic approach to sizing parts of 

the Guard and Reserve. 

Similarly, cyber. You know, this is an area where tremendous civilian expertise and skill sets that need—you know, perhaps we 

could leverage by reaching out to certain communities in areas of, 

you know, expertise and having them affiliate via the Guard and 

Reserve as opposed to becoming—expecting them to become Active 

Duty and so forth. 

So I think a more strategic approach to thinking about, you 

know, how do we want to leverage this incredible resource and size 

and shape it appropriately for the future. 

Dr. WENSTRUP. Thank you very much. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for allowing me to go over. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Mr. Veasey. 

Mr. VEASEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I was reading a statement by General Dunford just a couple of 

weeks ago, actually, where he said 50 percent of our units that are 

at a home station today are at a degraded state of readiness. 

And I was wondering what you thought of the general’s statements and what you feel could be done to help our home stations, 

you know, be at a more prepared state of readiness. And I know 

one of the things that he did cite was sequester. 

Ms. FLOURNOY. Right. 

And I think that the situation that General Dunford described 

for the Marine Corps is true across all of the services. 

And what that means is that, if a major contingency happened, 

you know, a war on the Korean Peninsula, you know, Russian aggression against a NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] ally, 

some major contingency, those are the units that would be called 

to go. 
25 

And when—if those units are less than fully ready, that means 

that you are accepting risk in some form: slower response, less capable response or, you know, putting into harm’s way—putting people into harm’s way without the full—all of the training and equipment that they need or undermanned. 

And so, you know, it is something that is not visible to the American people day to day, but it is something that today we are accepting risk if another major contingency were to surprise us. And 

so it is something that needs to be addressed. 

In the panel report, one of the priorities we state, one of the first 

things that we should do when we—after lifting sequestration is 

make the readiness accounts whole, put money back into readiness 

to raise—to ensure we have units that are on standby and fully 

ready for contingencies. 

Mr. VEASEY. Is that the number? Do you think that 50 percent 

is pretty accurate? 

Ms. FLOURNOY. I have heard—I have heard him say that. I have 

no reason to doubt that. You know, the evidence I have seen supports that. And I think, as I said, other service—the numbers in 

other services are similar. 

Mr. VEASEY. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Ms. Walorski. 

Mrs. WALORSKI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you—both of you for being here. 

You know, I sit as we listen to this and I listen—I agree so much 

with what you both are saying. I agree with the premise—a lot of 

the premise of the report. 

I do question, like my colleague just questioned—the whole concept of the QDR seems like a wish list, as we are coming into 

Christmas, saying, ‘‘From a military perspective, here is what we 

need—here is what we would really love to have.’’ 

But back in the reality of where we are at and some of the tough 

decisions that haven’t been made, you know, I look at this as—as 

kind of like arms flailing in the air, kind of swinging, kind of treading water. 

And my question is: For those people like me that grew up in a 

nation that ascribed to peace through strength and in a country 

now where we are sitting here listening to the best, brightest experts that we have saying that this is real threat to national security, this issue of sequestration—and I agree—how long—how far 

away are we? How many years will it take, given—if sequestration 

rolled off today? 

And I have heard so many answers to this, even in California, 

the defense summit, when the former SecDefs [Secretaries of Defense] talked about this. Readiness has been so affected. Trust has 

been so violated with our NATO allies. The global dominance of the 

United States obviously questioned by the activity with ISIL, Russia, and all the things that you just described earlier in this hearing. 

How many years away are we if we rolled sequestration back 

today till you, as the expert, could confidently say that we are leading from a strength—a position of strength and we are not just 
26 

doing crisis management as things come up? How—where are we 

on that timeline? 

Ms. FLOURNOY. My own view is that I think lifting sequestration, 

increasing defense spending to a robust level, would send an immediate signal to both adversaries and allies that would have very important immediate effects. 

I think the actual recovery time of how long until you recover 

readiness, how long until you make modernization programs 

whole—I think a lot of that would depend on the level of funding 

and, you know, how it was allocated. 

So it is hard to estimate. But I can tell you the longer we stay 

under sequestration, the longer that recovery timeline will be. 

Mrs. WALORSKI. But when it comes—and I understand. I agree 

that an immediate withdrawal of sequestration would send a significant signal. 

But is it just—are we just sending a monetary signal to our allies, saying that—that, you know, if we had more funding, we could 

do X with our NATO allies? 

Because that would be mixed—there has—there seems to be 

mixed signals coming from the administration. It is not just a 

money issue. 

And the issue with, for example, just Ukraine and Crimea and 

Russia doesn’t just seem to be the money issue of why are we sending blankets, not ammunition. There is greater implications there 

on where our strategies lie with trust with our allies. It can’t just 

be finance, I would think. 

Mr. EDELMAN. Ms. Walorski, I think you need to think about the 

top line. I think I said this, actually, when Secretary Flournoy and 

I were on a panel together out at the Reagan Library when—with 

regard to allies. 

But, also, more broadly, you need to think about the top line in 

kind of two ways. I mean, the number, whatever it is—the number, 

for instance, that was in the fiscal year 2012 Gates budget represents what we buy with it as a Department of Defense and how 

we man, train, and equip the Armed Forces. 

But it is also a surrogate for national will, how much are we willing to tax ourselves as a nation in order to provide the kind of global public goods that we have traditionally provided and what I 

think a policy of peace, you know, from strength represents. 

And so I agree with Secretary Flournoy that a—you know, a signal like that would be read by both adversaries and allies very 

clearly. Then how you actually spend out the money, that takes a 

little bit longer until you decide what it is you are going to, you 

know, do. 

And I think both she and I agreed buying back readiness would 

be the first thing you would want to do, but that doesn’t—you 

know, ultimately, while it is a surrogate for national will in terms 

of a signal, it doesn’t substitute for the national will. 

Mrs. WALORSKI. Right. 

Mr. EDELMAN. And that has to be executed, you know, by the 

President of the United States, who is the Commander in Chief. 

Mrs. WALORSKI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Mr. Langevin. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 
27 

And I want to thank our panel for the work you have done on 

this and the service you provided to the country. 

Before I just get to a couple of questions, Ms. Flournoy, I was 

glad to hear you talk about cybersecurity and perhaps better 

leveraging the private sector in assisting us in better protecting the 

Nation in cyberspace. 

And you are right there—you are right that there are incredible 

capabilities and expertise in the private sector that we can more 

effectively leverage, I believe. I think that the President helped to 

facilitate that with the issue—issuance of the Executive order recently on cyber. 

And let’s not forget, also, of course, the Guard and the Reserve, 

that right now in Rhode Island, for example, the 102nd Network 

Warfare Squadron, you have cyber—effective cyber warriors that 

that is what they are doing in their day job and are highly effective, but, yet, they are providing that important service to the 

country. So just an observation. 

And I wanted to ask—on page 50 of the NDPR [National Defense 

Panel Review] report that—you spend a good amount of time talking about innovation and the need for specificity in the Department’s planning and the need to avoid using innovation as a substitute for actual investment. 

One point that particularly struck me was the—the panel’s observation that—and I quote—‘‘It will be increasingly important to 

build and support a culture of innovation at the service level, including creating opportunities to compete concepts, conduct real experiments, pilot and prototype new solutions, risk failure, and 

learn as an organization. And, obviously, this is going to be no 

small challenge.’’ 

So what would be needed to effect this kind of change? And what 

in the Department’s current structure is holding this back? 

Ms. FLOURNOY. You know, for the last 13 years, I think the services have been rightly focused on the wars that we were in and 

making sure that we were focused on innovation in terms of dealing with the real-world threats we were dealing with every day. 

I think, as we enter this new period and see more fundamental 

changes in the security environment, the services have to sort of 

buy back some of their bandwidth and reallocate some of their talent to really be thinking about how will we fight differently in the 

future both because of the challenges we will face and the capabilities of future adversaries and because of the technological opportunities that are coming online as a whole variety of technologies 

that we listed in the report are reaching greater maturity for applications in defense. 

And so, you know, to really create an environment of innovation, 

you almost—you need a dramatic change from the mentality you 

take into warfare, which is sort of zero defects, no tolerance for, 

you know, every—you know, lives are on the line. You have got to 

get it right. 

In an environment where you are trying to innovate for the future, you have got to have experiments that actually risk failure 

not on the battlefield, but in the laboratory or in an exercise. You 

have got to actually be able to try things that may be so far out 
28 

there that they may fail, they may not work. And you learn from 

that and then you redesign and then you try again. 

But it is a very different incentive structure, a very different cultural environment, than the one we have been living in in the last 

decade. And so it is going to take conscious change and leadership 

to create that space and those incentives inside the services. 

And, again, this sequestration is an enemy of innovation in that, 

if you are trying to survive each day from a budgetary perspective, 

you are not spending a whole lot of time innovating for the future. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Any comment from Mr. Edelman? 

Mr. EDELMAN. I would just say that—two things. 

One, I think one of our concerns—we, I think, were very supportive of the idea of innovation, but wanted to make sure that 

people in the passage you quoted don’t just start repeating innovation as if it is a mantra of some kind that will, you know, get us 

out of very severe problems that sequestration has created. 

Secondly, though, I think—when it comes to creating a culture 

in the Department of Defense that is more open to innovation, I 

think you have to recognize that innovation is almost certainly 

going to be seen by somebody somewhere in the Department of Defense as a threat to the existing program of record and, therefore, 

a problem to be managed rather than an opportunity to be exploited. 

And I think that is why it is important to have competing centers, ideas, some of the things that Secretary Flournoy was just 

talking about, and an openness to—you know, to taking risk and 

having failure, again, not on the battlefield, but in exercises, in war 

games, however you want to try and approach it. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you. Thank you, both. 

Yield back. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Mr. Wittman. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Edelman, Ms. Flournoy, thank you so much for joining us, 

and thanks for your service. We appreciate all the work you do on 

the National Defense Panel. 

I want to go to an issue involving readiness and, really, the—the 

heart of readiness, and that is the concept of risk. 

As was pointed out, risk is sometimes hard to measure objective—or subjective, I should say, in many ways. But, also, under 

the law, it requires that the QDR identify the resources necessary 

to implement the National Defense Strategy in the low- to moderate-risk realm. We see with sequester coming back that it significantly increases risk. 

The question is—today is: Where are we on the risk scale, as we 

speak? Where would we be in the face of sequester fully implemented again next year? And what is the best way for Congress to 

communicate that concept of risk to the American people as it relates to the decisions we have to make concerning this nation’s defense posture? 

Mr. EDELMAN. Mr. Wittman, since I am one of your constituents, 

I think Secretary Flournoy has decided to defer this question to 

me. 

Well, first, I think the panel believed—in terms of where we are 

on the risk continuum, the panel said that, you know, unless we 
29 

lift sequestration, we will very soon be facing a high-risk force, and 

that was based essentially on our reading of the chairman’s risk assessment. And I think—you know, if we face sequestration again, 

I think the answer is we will be there. 

And I—you know, the question that you raise is a good one: How 

do you convey this to the public? Because it is a little bit of a slippery concept sometimes. I mean, you know, exactly how are you 

measuring this? 

But I would say I, for one, as a panel member, when we were 

talking with representatives from the Department, was quite concerned about what the state of readiness of our forces were—our 

ground forces were, in part, because the Army has been one of the 

big bill-payers for all of these cuts with regard what was going on 

in Crimea and Ukraine. 

And I think, you know, if you start talking about what—how little we are able to put on the table right now in terms of the defense of Europe, which is something we haven’t thought about for 

quite some time, rightly—I mean, I think people felt that, you 

know, Europe was whole and free, the security issues there had 

more or less been resolved, particularly after the wars of the Yugoslav succession, now—you know, now we could focus on East Asia 

and the Middle East and maybe even more on East Asia than the 

Middle East. All of that makes perfect strategic sense. 

After February, March of this year, it is a little harder to think 

about the world in that way. And so, if you are—if you don’t have 

a ready force, if you have low levels of readiness, your ability to 

respond and the kind of options that a President has at his or her 

disposal in the future are going to be compromised, and I think 

that is, you know, one way that you can try and make that concrete for your constituents. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Secretary Flournoy, give me your perspective on 

this whole concept of risk. You know, many times it is tough for 

the public to understand, you know, the strategy if we can’t deploy 

forces here or if something breaks out here or there. 

I mean, I want to determine what is the most direct and simplest 

way for us to do it. Mr. Edelman was very specific in how we do 

that in a perspective of our forces. 

But I think, boiling it down to maybe the individual level, what 

would be the best way to, say, talk to a citizen off the street and 

say, ‘‘This what increased risk means to our men and women that 

serve’’? 

Ms. FLOURNOY. You know, I think, at the—at the individual 

level, it means a couple of things—service member level. 

It means that—you know, that someone may be sent into a mission without having been fully trained for that mission. It means 

they may go as part of a unit that is only partially manned, not 

manned full strength. It means that they may not have the best 

equipment. 

It means that they may—we may lose some of the best and 

brightest talent. You know, if I am an Air Force pilot and I am told 

I can’t fly half the hours that I would normally fly to maintain proficiency, am I going to stay if I have other options? 

The best will probably walk. So it means, over time, losing the 

best and brightest, which is what has, more than anything else, al-
30 

ways distinguished the All-Volunteer Force from any of its competitors. 

And then, at a more strategic level, it means, you know, the 

President—any President, this one or future Presidents, having 

fewer options for responding. It means that we may be late to respond. We may do too little. 

We may have more casualties. We may not be as effective. And 

it also means that day to day we are not out there shaping the environment, deterring aggression, preventing conflict, as much as we 

could and should be. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Mr. Chairman, thank you. 

Mr. Edelman, Ms. Flournoy, thank you very much. 

Mr. EDELMAN. Just if I could add, Mr. Wittman, one of the things 

that I think was of concern to us is that, when you look at the 

timelines we operate on with the current plans we have, it is going 

to be increasingly difficult for us to meet those timelines. 

And that—and that means, if we were to find ourselves in a conflict, let’s say, in the Far East, where, you know, our strategy of 

rebalance as, you know, one of the major areas of national interest 

for us, we are talking about, you know, a longer conflict and one 

in which we will have higher casualties. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Mr. Nugent. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Thank you, Mr. Wittman. 

Mr. Nugent. 

Mr. NUGENT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And I want to thank the panel for being here. 

It is a daunting task, the QDR, particularly all the challenges 

that we face. You know, I have heard from you on acquisition reform, readiness, compensation, living up to commitments made, the 

Guard and Reserve, and particularly sequestration. And I think we 

all agree, at least here, that sequestration is going to be the death 

knell for our armed services if we don’t correct that issue. 

But I hear, you know, time and time again from service members, particularly when we start talking about, you know, changes 

in compensation—you know, we all agree that that is not going to 

balance the budget as it relates to what Department of Defense 

needs, and I think that sometimes it is how that message is formed 

and passed on to those service members that, you know, are listening. 

Listen, they don’t—‘‘sequestration’’ is a word that they really 

don’t care about or know about, but they do care about when, you 

know, their chain of command is talking about cutting benefits 

and, from the Pentagon’s standpoint, as to how, you know, we get 

readiness back on track. 

And I think that is a dangerous precedent to set because, for any 

employee or member of the military, it just sends a really disheartening message that ‘‘We really don’t care about you.’’ 

I mean, we talk about good things about readiness. But when we 

start talking about taking away things that we have agreed to with 

those members, I think that is a bad tack to take. 

Now, one that we need to address and—obviously, on future 

members. And that is always the way—you know, in my past life, 
31 

we always talked about, ‘‘Okay. What do we do for our current 

members and what do you do for the future members?’’ 

And it can be different for future members, not necessarily the 

same as what you currently have. And I would like to see that really formulated more so that our current members don’t feel like they 

are just going to be chucked to the wayside. 

And we talk about readiness. You know, the National Guard and 

Reserve—the National Guard unit that I am very familiar with has 

been, you know, deployed numerous times to Iraq and Afghanistan, 

an aviation unit. 

My son now is a pilot in one of those units and, you know, their 

hours are being cut and they don’t even know if they are going to 

have enough hours to maintain proficiency. You can do a lot in a 

simulator, but it is still not the same as grabbing the stick and flying. 

How do we resolve that? I mean, short of, if I could wave a wand 

and do away with sequestration, how does—how does the Pentagon—how should the Pentagon really address the issue of compensation and getting that message out to the troops and, also, 

readiness? How do they do that under current—— 

Mr. EDELMAN. Well, let me take on the compensation point for 

a second and then perhaps Secretary Flournoy will want to talk 

about readiness. 

But I think, as she said earlier, no one is talking, I think, about 

taking benefits away from current Active, you know, Duty service 

members. We—we have an obligation, a contractual one. 

I think what we are really talking about is rebalancing compensation in the future so that we—we know from, for instance, 

surveys that have been done of service members that they tend to 

value certain benefits more than others, particularly at different 

periods of service, particularly the younger members of the service. 

And there may be ways to rebalance compensation to more cash 

benefits in the early period as opposed to deferred benefits later 

that create an enormous fiscal drag on the DOD budget over time. 

And I think that is what we are really talking about. 

But I take your point that the way that this is presented to the 

service members is absolutely crucial. 

Mr. NUGENT. It is a messaging issue because, I mean, you have 

publications out there that give a different message. And I think 

the Pentagon has just sort of accepted that, and, unfortunately, I 

think it is a mistake. So I agree with you. 

Ms. Flournoy. 

Ms. FLOURNOY. I am not sure what more I can say on the readiness point. But I do—what I—I do think that, if we are going to 

keep forces, we have got to ensure that they are ready to meet the 

timelines of the missions that are assigned to them. It doesn’t 

make sense to keep a lot of structure that can’t be ready. And so 

I think we need to consider that as we find that balance. 

Mr. NUGENT. One last point on readiness. And it just—you know, 

you hear readiness versus future weapon platforms and particularly as it relates to the A–10 versus the F–35. 

And you talk about, you know, what is currently available with 

the current fight or what fight we could find ourselves in today 

versus the future fight and the F–35 and the problems that are, 
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you know, associated with the F–35 and the time to implement and 

the cost. 

Is it—is it worthwhile, though, to scrap a program just for a future program, like scrap the A–10 so you can future fund the F– 

35 program when the A–10 program provides for the warfighter, 

the guy on the ground, a huge—a huge advantage? And I don’t see 

that particularly going away in the future. I mean, don’t we have 

to weigh those two, current capacity versus future capacity? 

Ms. FLOURNOY. You do have to weigh current capacity versus future capacity. And, you know, if the budget constraints remain, 

some very hard tradeoffs will have to be made. 

I don’t think the Air Force—I think the Air Force preference 

would be to have a budget situation where they could keep the A– 

10s through the end of their service life and have a healthy investment in the Joint Strike Fighter. I don’t think this is their preference. 

They are at this point because they haven’t been allowed to take 

the reforms. They have been given a sequestration target, and they 

have got to make tradeoffs somehow. And this—and that is why 

they are at this point. I don’t think it is anybody’s preferred answer. 

But I will say that, if you believe that the security environment 

is only going to become more challenging in the future and you 

have to take some risk, there is some risk to be taken today to 

get—to make sure we are fully prepared for that more daunting future. 

I personally would—I would like to see, again, sequestration lifted so the tradeoffs are not so draconian, but there will have to be 

tradeoffs at any level of budget. And—and I think that you have 

to look at in each case where does it make sense to manage risk. 

You can never eliminate risk entirely. 

Mr. NUGENT. I appreciate your comments. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Former Congressman Jim Marshall, would you do 

me a favor and join us at the table, please. 

Thank you. 

I would like to first thank you all for being involved, I think, in 

this very important project in terms of seeing where we can cut 

costs without compromising national security and see where the 

needs, in terms of prioritizing them, are in terms of our national 

defense. 

There are several issues I want to raise. And that is former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, before he left, I think, told this 

committee on several times—on several occasions that the trajectory of personnel costs, the rise in personnel costs, are going to eat 

into acquisitions costs, that sometime, if left unchecked, we will become a hollow force. 

And so let me raise to you a couple of issues. One is what I sense 

here is a—is cultural—or institutional friction between the Active 

Duty component and the Guard and Reserves when it comes to the 

allocation of resources between the two. 

I think, as someone who has served in the Army, Army Reserve, 

Marine Corps, and Marine Corps Reserve, that we can transfer ca-
33 

pability to the Guard and Reserve at a cost savings without compromising national security. 

We may have to restructure certain things, like, for instance, say 

that it is—when it becomes a—from an operational to a strategic 

force, that it is no longer, you know, 2 weeks out of the year or 1 

week in a month, that we need more training than that in order 

to maintain effectiveness. 

But I think that there is a savings. I think—if you compare the 

cost of an Active Duty Sergeant E–5 to a Reservist Sergeant E–5, 

I think it is about the third of a cost for nondeployed. But, then, 

when you take in the legacy savings—or legacy cost of retirement, 

then that savings is a lot more. 

I wonder if you all could comment on shifting capability to the 

Guard and Reserve as a cost-saving measure. 

Ms. FLOURNOY. I think in certain areas that can make a lot of 

sense. I think—but it needs to be driven by a sense of what are 

the capabilities we need in the future, which are best sort of 

parked in the Reserve—you know, where do we need that surge capacity and is the Reserve—are the Guard and Reserves the right 

place to hold that and so forth, are there specific skill sets where 

you—they are particularly prevalent in the civilian side and you 

want to leverage those. 

So I think it—as it—in certain cases, it may well apply. As a 

general across-the-board principle, I would be a little less comfortable with it. But I think, in certain cases, it is exactly as you 

describe it and it is like that—— 

Mr. COFFMAN. I mean I think that there are expeditionary units 

that you probably wouldn’t want to be in that—that—there. But 

there are, say, combat service support elements that—particularly 

higher echelon, that have a strong civilian nexus professionally 

that you would do for a savings. 

Congressman Marshall. 

Mr. MARSHALL. This particular conversation is one that we sort 

of had in the panel discussions and concluded that we just had 

such a broad difference of views on this and it would take so much 

of our time and probably resources to try and figure it out that we 

just wouldn’t get into that. And that is one of the reasons why you 

didn’t see a lot of discussion of this in the panel’s report. 

The other thing is that we were very careful to say that we encourage the Congress to urge the Department to go through another QDR. Now that I have heard both Secretary Flournoy and 

Ambassador Edelman describe how unpleasant that is for the Department and how it might itself need to be restructured, I am not 

so sure that they need to be directed to go through another QDR, 

but go through another process that is not so resource-constrained, 

thinking about what our strategic needs are and letting the strategic needs drive the budgeting decisions as opposed to the opposite. 

And in the process of doing that, among the things that we 

thought might occur were the things that we listed, but we were 

very careful to say ‘‘we think.’’ We don’t know—because we didn’t 

have the capacity to determine what the end strength should be— 

what the appropriate relationship between Guard and Reserve and 

Active Duty should be. 
34 

My own view has been for really quite some time that it would 

be far more cost effective and strategically smart for a number of 

different reasons to rely more on Guard and Reserve than we do 

right now. 

So I agree with your observation and, you know, the questions 

by Mr. Palazzo and Mr. Larsen and a few others that, you know, 

there wasn’t much of a discussion of this in the National Defense 

Panel’s report is largely because we sort of talked about it a little 

bit and then concluded this is well beyond the capability of the 

panel to come up with the analysis that needs to be done in order 

to—to figure what is the right balance. 

I appreciate you calling me to the table. It gives me an opportunity to—to say that just the testimony by both Miche`le and Eric 

evidences conclusively what I have been saying for quite some 

time, that both of them would make excellent Secretaries of Defense. Very balanced, very bright, very informed. 

Mr. EDELMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. MARSHALL. And I also wanted to make a couple of structural 

observations that need to be taken into account as we think about 

how the world is going to work and, more specifically, how the Defense Department ought to be working in the future. 

You see throughout business this global trend and the elimination of middle management. I mean, that—middle management 

is just being cut out, and it is because modern-day communication 

and IT [information technology]— those two combined enable management to not have to rely upon levels and levels and levels of 

middle management. 

When you put that into a government setting, it means that ambassadors are kind of frustrated because they don’t quite have 

the—they don’t have the State Department relying upon them as 

much as the State Department used to rely upon them because the 

State Department and people here in Washington can sort of reach 

right through them and make decisions concerning what is going 

on in different countries without having to rely too much upon the 

in-country team. 

The same thing is going to happen with the Defense Department—or is happening where the Defense Department is concerned, and it might explain, in part, why so much more is being 

done from a White House perspective as opposed to just relying 

upon the Secretary. 

That is one observation. And it is a trend that is going to continue, and it is something that the committee is going to have to 

take into account in trying to figure out what the right balance and 

authorities would be. 

The other is sort of a true confessions thing by me. I thought 

that Miche`le was very generous to the committee in saying that the 

committee is well aware of all these problems and is trying to persuade the rest of Congress what Congress needs to do in order to 

right these problems. 

That is true on the macro issue concerning funding, but it is not 

so true on the more micro issues associated with actual management of the Department. 

The reality is that the committee is made up of characters like 

me. Why did I become a member of this committee? Well, I had a 
35 

military background, but my principal background when I came to 

Congress was finance. 

And it would have been natural for me to get on the Financial 

Services Committee. That is where my expertise was. I had been 

in the military, and that is about it. You know, after that, I was 

doing other stuff. 

Why did I become a member of the Armed Services Committee? 

Because it was good for my politics. Why was it good for my politics? It was good for my politics because the largest employer in my 

district happens to be Warner Robins air base. 

And when I described what I had to do, what my job was, as a 

Representative elected from my district in middle Georgia, I was 

quite frank. I would say job number one for me is jobs for my district. And the largest job producer, you know, the largest number 

of jobs—the economy of the district is dependent upon Warner Robins Air Force Base. 

So, in Congress, I had protect Robins Air Force Base as number 

one, grow Robins Air Force Base as number two. And that is true 

of most of the members on the committee. And we all know that 

is the case. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Let me—let me throw in a question about that because—and I will ask concluding remarks when we wrap up. 

Mr. MARSHALL. I am sorry. 

Mr. COFFMAN. On the base realignment and closure process, I 

would agree with you that there is a surplus capacity and those are 

wasted defense dollars. 

And the BRAC process, though, only looks at bases inside the 

United States. And so we are asking folks, you know, like Representative—former Representative Marshall, but that are on this 

committee today, that have those same economic interests to potentially close one of their bases. 

At the same time, the BRAC process does not take into account 

overseas military operations where there are—where you have base 

housing, where you have all of the infrastructure supporting families, that could, in fact, be supplanted by rotational forces, by major 

joint military exercises. 

Why shouldn’t they be in the mix in the consideration in terms 

of the BRAC process? 

Ms. FLOURNOY. The truth is, Congressman, that because we 

haven’t had—the Department has not been able to execute any further BRAC rounds for several years, the primary base closures 

have occurred abroad. If you look at the posture in Europe, it has 

come down to something close to bare bones. 

You look at the posture in Asia, this is an area where we say we 

want to put greater emphasis. Still, we have consolidated and 

closed bases there. Because the services couldn’t touch domestic 

basing, so the only place they could take money out of infrastructure was overseas. 

So I think if you looked at where overseas infrastructure has 

been from the end of the Cold War till today, you will see a very 

dramatic reduction in that that I think has—you know, has the potential to go beyond what is in our strategic interests. And so it is 

not that they—it has been off the table. It has been the only place 

where the services could cut for several years. 
36 

Mr. COFFMAN. But as somebody that has been deployed in those 

facilities, I think it is an archaic notion to—when we have the ability to do joint military exercises to demonstrate our commitment to 

our allies, when we have the ability to use rotational forces in the 

place of having these fixed permanent facilities, I just think that 

it is—that from a standpoint of equity to the American people, to 

districts that have large—that defense—that these bases are a big 

economic component of their district, I think from the standpoint 

of equity, they ought to be in the mix, they ought to be in the mix 

in terms of that. 

Let me go to another issue, and that is that I think we have a 

dinosaur of a retirement system that is in the military, and I think 

that we can in fact come up with a new system that will better 

serve our military, better serve the taxpayers of this country, and 

grandfather in those who are currently on Active Duty with an option of coming in a new system if they want to. And I think that 

the new system would be part defined benefit, where you—you 

know, based on the number of years served, based on the rank you 

retired at, or maybe they would be vested after 5 years, just to 

throw that out, and then part 401(k), part like a TSP [Thrift Savings Plan] program for Federal employees, so I think you have 

those two component parts. 

But I think if I were a young soldier again just enlisting in the 

military or even a junior officer when I was in the Marine Corps, 

that I would have opted for such a system, and out of the system 

that says, you have to be 20 years, and if you are anything less 

than 20 years, there is a prospect of you leaving the military with 

no retirement benefits whatsoever. I mean, I think that—unless, 

you know, Congress in a reduction in force agrees to do some sort 

of severance package, but that is not—that—there is no requirement for that. And so I would like your comment on that. 

Ms. FLOURNOY. I think this is—you are absolutely on the right 

track, Congressman. I am hoping that the compensation review 

committee that you all put in place will report back with some 

strong recommendations in this area. 

It is an area that we did not get into detail as the NDP, knowing 

that that compensation benefits committee was reviewing this, but 

the idea that 80 percent plus of our service men and women walk 

away with nothing because they don’t make it to 20 years, to me 

doesn’t sound like the right retirement system. 

So I think there are changes to compensation and benefits that 

grandfathering in the commitments that we have already made, 

but going forward could be both more equitable and more cost-effective for the Department. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Any other comments on that? Well, I would love 

to hear concluding remarks from each of you in terms of your observations of the process. 

Ambassador, why don’t we start with you. 

Mr. EDELMAN. Well, I actually think, from my point of view, this 

was a terrific process. I think the Congress is well served by getting a second opinion on the QDR. And I think that the panel that 

we had, which was somewhat serendipitously chosen, because, of 

course, there—it is, you know, chosen by the chairmen and ranking 

members of the committees in the two bodies and then the SecDef 
37 

choosing two chairmen, you know, we ended up with a panel, I 

thought, that was extremely collegial, dedicated to looking at the 

problem of national defense, not—not only, as Secretary Perry said, 

in a bipartisan way, but in a non-partisan way. 

And so I think the report that we were able to come up with, 

given the diverse backgrounds that we brought to this and diverse 

kind of political commitments of one sort or another, I think stands 

the Nation in good stead and I hope stands you and your colleagues 

in good stead. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Ms. Flournoy. 

Ms. FLOURNOY. Well, thank you very much for this hearing and 

for the support for the panel’s work. 

We really tried to issue a call to action, and my hope is that this 

report will help to frame some of the debate and discussion for the 

new Congress to take action on some of these issues. We really cannot wait 2 years, 4 years, 6 years, 10 years, and so I hope that this 

will provide grist for your mill as you engage not only the members 

of this committee, but the other Members in this body to take action to align our investment in our military with our strategy and 

the leadership role we need to play in the world. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Thank you. 

Former Congressman, Jim Marshall. 

Mr. MARSHALL. Thanks, Mike. I appreciate that. 

It was a real honor and pleasure for me to serve on the committee—on the panel, rather, and I found it to be a group of very 

diverse, very well-informed, very well-intentioned people who recognized that we didn’t have the time nor the analytical capability 

to do what really ought to be done where planning is concerned. 

So you see that the report intentionally stayed pretty top level, but 

it tried to offer language that could be used by Members of Congress for arguing the case for increased funding, which is critical. 

You have heard that repeatedly today, and I think everybody already knows that. But how do you persuade Congress this is the 

case? 

Among the things that we observed in our report was not only 

was this a—it was a serious strategic misstep for a couple of reasons: one is obviously the force is weaker, not as ready, we are at 

higher risk, and at some point we are going to be at extremely high 

risk if we don’t reverse this; the other is it makes no financial 

sense. The cuts were intended to somehow assist us where the bottom line is concerned. 

Instability in the globe inevitably leads to poor economic performance here in the United States. Poor economic performance 

here in the United States drops our Federal revenue significantly. 

And you can go through the numbers. I have done this. 

The bottom line is this is bad policy for a couple of reasons, one 

of which is it is not accomplishing what it is intended to accomplish, and so for that reason, those who are budget hawks should 

be interested in increasing the defense budget, because increasing 

the defense budget leads to greater global stability, given the reality that America really is the indispensable nation. It leads to 

greater global stability, which leads to greater global wealth, which 

leads to greater tax revenues. 
38 

I would also add, finishing up on the statement where I was trying to hog the microphone earlier, the structure of the committee 

is part of the problem with giving the Defense Department the 

kind of discretion that it ought to have, and it is because people 

like me don’t want to take a chance that their base or their group 

of, you know, soldiers or troops otherwise, are somehow going to be 

adversely affected, and so we would rather just maintain the status 

quo by not having BRACs, by not giving management authority 

where it ought to be given, that sort of thing. So there is a structural problem here in the committee. 

If you took the average Member of Congress and just made 

them—this committee full of the average Members of Congress as 

opposed to the Members of the Congress that have military issues 

that are politically very important to them, if you did that, I think 

it would be a lot easier to get things done. I don’t know how structurally you get past the structural problem here, but you really do 

need to do that. 

Solving the management issues, though, will not solve the budget 

problem. The top line’s got to be increased dramatically. 

And thank you for giving me the opportunity to say that. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Thank you so much. 

I thank all of you for—and those who did not testify and are here 

as well, thank you so much for your dedicated service to this particular process, and I hope it leads to fruitful results. 

Thank you. 

Hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:13 p.m., the committee was adjourned.] 
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