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i 

79–949 2013

[H.A.S.C. No. 113–7] 

THE FUTURE OF SEAPOWER 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON SEAPOWER AND 

PROJECTION FORCES 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

HEARING HELD 

FEBRUARY 26, 2013 
(II) 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON SEAPOWER AND PROJECTION FORCES 

J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia, Chairman 

K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas 

DUNCAN HUNTER, California 

E. SCOTT RIGELL, Virginia 

STEVEN M. PALAZZO, Mississippi 

ROBERT J. WITTMAN, Virginia 

MIKE COFFMAN, Colorado 

JON RUNYAN, New Jersey 

KRISTI L. NOEM, South Dakota 

PAUL COOK, California 

MIKE MCINTYRE, North Carolina 

JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut 

JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island 

RICK LARSEN, Washington 

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

COLLEEN W. HANABUSA, Hawaii 

DEREK KILMER, Washington 

SCOTT H. PETERS, California 

TOM MACKENZIE, Professional Staff Member 

PHIL MACNAUGHTON, Professional Staff Member 

NICHOLAS RODMAN, Staff Assistant 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS 

2013 

Page 

HEARING: 

Tuesday, February 26, 2013, The Future of Seapower ......................................... 1 

APPENDIX: 

Tuesday, February 26, 2013 ................................................................................... 25 

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2013 

THE FUTURE OF SEAPOWER 

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

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

McIntyre, Hon. Mike, a Representative from North Carolina, Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces .................................... 2 

WITNESSES 

Lehman, Hon. John, Former Secretary of the Navy ............................................. 3 

Roughead, ADM Gary, USN (Ret.), Former Chief of Naval Operations ............. 5 

APPENDIX 

PREPARED STATEMENTS: 

Forbes, Hon. J. Randy ...................................................................................... 29 

Lehman, Hon. John .......................................................................................... 31 

Roughead, ADM Gary ...................................................................................... 40 

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD: 

[There were no Documents submitted.] 

WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING THE HEARING: 

[There were no Questions submitted during the hearing.] 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING: 

Mr. Langevin ..................................................................................................... 51 

(1) 

THE FUTURE OF SEAPOWER 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON SEAPOWER AND PROJECTION FORCES, Washington, DC, Tuesday, February 26, 2013. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 3:56 p.m., in room 

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

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

ON SEAPOWER AND PROJECTION FORCES 

Mr. FORBES. I want to welcome all of our members and our distinguished panel of experts to today’s hearing that will focus on the 

future of seapower in advance of receiving a budget request for fiscal year 2014. 

In January, the Navy presented to Congress a goal of achieving 

a fleet of 306 ships, a reduction from the previous goal of 313 ships. 

The fiscal year 2013–2017 5-year shipbuilding plan contains a total 

of 41 ships, which is 16 ships less than the 57 ships projected for 

the same period in the fiscal year 2012 budget request. Of this 16- 

ship reduction, 9 ships were eliminated and 7 ships were deferred 

to a later time. It should be noted that at its current strength of 

286 ships, under the 30-year shipbuilding plan submitted to Congress, the Navy will not achieve its goal of 306 ships until fiscal 

year 2039. And given our past record of meeting long-term goals, 

I seriously question the viability of the shipbuilding plans presented in the out-years of the 30-year plan. 

Even worse, the Navy will experience shortfalls at various points 

in cruisers, destroyers, attack submarines, ballistic missile submarines, and amphibious ships. One would think the number of required ships would have increased instead of decreased with the 

Navy now bearing the brunt of missile defense missions and the 

announced rebalance to the Asia-Pacific. 

Another area of concern is the cost of the plan. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that in the first 10 years of the 30- 

year shipbuilding plan that the cost will be 11 percent higher than 

the Navy’s estimate. It is because of this issue of affordability that 

I agree with both Secretary Lehman and Admiral Roughead on the 

need for acquisition reform. While I think it is critical to provide 

an environment that provides industry some stability to achieve 

better pricing, I think it is equally important to pursue more effective acquisition strategies. I look forward to understanding what 

options our subcommittee could pursue to obtain this needed acquisition reform. 
2 

In addition to new construction of ships, I also have concerns on 

the sustainment of ships already in the fleet. After years of maintenance challenges the Navy has now been forced to cancel numerous 

ship maintenance availabilities in the third and fourth quarters of 

this fiscal year due to the budgetary constraints of sequestration 

and the continuing resolution. The Navy has been operating in a 

sustained surge since at least 2004. We have been burning out our 

ships more quickly because the demand has been high. Indeed, in 

the past 5 years roughly 25 percent of destroyer deployments have 

exceeded the standard deployment length. 

A key tenet in the shipbuilding plan is an assumed ship service 

life for most ships of 35 years. If ships do not get the planned shipyard repairs, attaining this service life will be problematic and 

ships will be retired prematurely. 

In fiscal year 2012, the existing force structure only satisfied 53 

percent of the total combatant commander demand. It has been estimated that to fully support the combatant commander requirements would necessitate a fleet size in excess of 500 ships. Without 

an increase in force structure this trend would only get worse. 

Finally, I think that our Navy needs to place more emphasis on 

undersea warfare and long-range power projection as part of a 

strategy to prevent potential adversaries from achieving the benefits offered by anti-access/aerial denial strategies. I am particularly 

interested to better understand what options the subcommittee 

should consider to achieve these goals and ensure the combatant 

commanders have the right tools to achieve our national strategy. 

Today we are honored to have as our witnesses former Secretary 

of the Navy John Lehman and former Chief of Naval Operations 

Gary Roughead. 

Gentlemen, we thank you all for being here. We especially thank 

you both for your service. But even more than that, we thank you 

for coming to our subcommittee and sharing your wealth of experience and analysis of these issues. This is going to be the launch 

of what we hope will be a revitalization of United States Navy, and 

that will be in large part because of your contributions. 

And now I would like to recognize my friend, the ranking member, Mr. McIntyre, for any remarks he may have. 

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

STATEMENT OF HON. MIKE MCINTYRE, A REPRESENTATIVE 

FROM NORTH CAROLINA, RANKING MEMBER, SUBCOMMITTEE ON SEAPOWER AND PROJECTION FORCES 

Mr. MCINTYRE. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thanks to both you gentlemen for your service and commitment and being here today. I am looking forward to hearing what 

you have to say with regard to the Navy’s role protecting our national interest and how the Navy is going to be poised to meet 

these responsibilities in the coming years. 

In January, the Navy submitted a report to Congress stating 

that the Navy’s new requirement for combatant vessels is 306 

ships. Accompanying that report was a new force structure assessment further breaking down the 306 requirement by ship class. 

The Navy has confirmed that the new requirement and assessment 
3 

are based on the new strategic guidance released by the Department last year. But as I look at the new force structure assessment 

and compare that to the 30-year shipbuilding plan that was submitted last year, it appears to me that the two are not aligned, 

which is a concern. In the 30-year plan it shows the Navy will not 

meet the requirement of 306 ships until 2039. 

I would like the witnesses to share with us whether or not they 

believe the Navy is being properly resourced to meet what is being 

required. Given the recently announced pivot that we have to the 

Pacific and the expected drawdown of our ground forces elsewhere, 

the question is, should the overall Department shift more resources 

to the Navy in order to help support this new strategy while simultaneously accelerating the fleet size towards the 306 goal? 

As our witnesses know, I am sure, the Navy is currently operating at an operational tempo that is unsustainable. I would be interested to hear from our witnesses any suggestions that you have 

as to how one might mitigate the long-term impacts of a sustained 

surge that in recent years appears to become the norm. 

Thank you again for your service. Thank you for your time today. 

And thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. FORBES. Thank you, Congressman McIntyre. 

And, gentlemen, as we talked about before, we are not going to 

give you guys a timeframe because we appreciate you being here 

and what you have to offer. You are welcome to just to submit your 

written testimony for the record if you would like and then anything you would like to tell us we are anxious to hear. 

So, Mr. Secretary, I believe you are going to start off for us and 

we give you the floor. 

STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN LEHMAN, FORMER SECRETARY OF 

THE NAVY 

Mr. LEHMAN. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a real pleasure and an honor to be back in front of this historic committee. I 

must have spent 200 or 300 hours in my 6 years as SecNav [Secretary of the Navy] in this chair when Charlie Bennett was in your 

chair. And it was a real partnership, the 600-ship Navy was a genuine partnership between the Congress and the Administration in 

developing the strategy and implementing the programs. 

I think that the most important historic accomplishment of any 

subcommittee or committee that I know of in Congress belongs to 

this committee when it was a full committee of Navy affairs under 

the legendary Carl Vinson. When he faced a situation very similar 

to the current situation in the early 1930s, after an administration 

that did not believe there was any need for a navy, the only administration in history that never built a single naval combatant—this 

is the Hoover administration—it was this committee that took on 

the challenge of educating the Congress and the American people 

about why there was a need for a strong navy as the United States 

grew in its presence and influence and dependence in the world. 

And over the entire decade of the 1930s this committee was where 

the action was, and they gradually brought the new Roosevelt administration along to begin to start to program for the kind of 

threats that were emerging in Europe and Japan, and it was this 
4 

committee that was the forum of the long-term strategic thinking, 

assisted very closely by the Navy. 

But this was where the action was, this committee. And I would 

hope that this committee will again take up that long-view strategic role, because currently I don’t think anyone else is in the U.S. 

Government. There are three priorities that I would suggest that 

the committee address over the coming years. This is not something that can be done in this session of this Congress. 

But first you have to reestablish I think the intellectual framework, the commonsense framework for why we need a Navy and 

where we need it and what kind of a Navy to carry out the task. 

It was relatively easy for the Reagan administration with a bipolar 

world in the Cold War. The Soviet threat clarified the mind wonderfully and made our task relatively easy. Today you could argue 

that the world is a more dangerous place because it is so 

multipolar, there are now so many more potential disturbers of the 

peace all over the world, and yet we are more dependent ever in 

our history on the free flow of energy and of commerce through the 

Pacific, Indian Ocean, the Atlantic, Caribbean, and so forth. 

We have to have the capability to maintain stability and freedom 

of the seas wherever our vital interests are involved. We should not 

be the world’s policeman, but we must be able to give the rest of 

the world the confidence to know that we are able to maintain the 

free flow of a global community of commerce and freedom of travel, 

and that we don’t have today. We don’t need a 600-ship Navy, as 

we did when we faced the entire Soviet fleet, but we certainly need 

a good deal more than the 280 ships we have today. And I was part 

of the independent panel on the QDR [Quadrennial Defense Review] 2 years ago, and we were unanimous, Republicans and Democrats, that the minimum necessary was a 346-ship Navy just to 

maintain deterrence. This is not arming to deal with a potential 

threat from China or anywhere else. It was simply to be able to 

maintain stability and deter disturbers of the peace around the 

world. The threat has not gotten less since that report was given 

to Congress. 

But also I think it is very important to understand that we 

shouldn’t focus on the easily counted numbers of ships and airplanes and so forth. I would hope that this committee would concentrate on the larger picture of the global requirements and what 

makes up naval power. It is not just numbers. Certainly the shipbuilding program submitted by this Administration is way below 

what is going to be required in the future. 

But even more disturbing is what is going on now in the overuse 

of the assets we have. It is very unfortunate that the institutional 

memory in the executive branch and in Congress is so short, because we have been down this road before. Both Admiral Roughead 

and I were in the Navy when we had the exact same situation in 

the 1970s, and we ran the fleet into the ground. We made deployments, added 50 percent to deployments time from 6 months to 9 

months, just as the Administration has decided to do now. And we 

did not put—we, the U.S. Government—did not put the money into 

repairs and overhaul. And as a result the Navy dropped to the lowest readiness ever, where the former chief of naval of operations 

testified to this committee that we would lose a war if we ended 
5 

up going into a conflict, and that was not an assessment lightly 

taken. 

We had the lowest morale, the lowest retention, the lowest recruiting, because families couldn’t live for very long with that kind 

of lifestyle. We were just asking them to do too much. Yes, in a crisis the Navy can do more with less, but for sustaining peace you 

cannot do more with less, you can do less with less. And so I think 

the current policy of extending deployments with the fleet we have, 

small as it is and certainly too small for the commitments that we 

are pledged to, we have got to stop that. And I applaud the Navy’s 

decision to deal with the cuts of the budget, quite apart from sequester, by not deploying a Marine amphibious group and a carrier 

group as well. That is what they should do in this kind of a crisis, 

is just reducing operations and not using what we don’t have. 

And the last point I would make as an area that I would hope 

this committee will concentrate on is procurement. We have been 

for some considerable time now disarming unilaterally. In constant 

dollars the budget today, outside of the OCO [Overseas Contingency Operations] expenditures, is by some estimates 40 percent 

larger than the height of the Reagan administration, yet the fleet 

is less than half the size, the Air Force is less than half the size, 

the Army is about half the size. And so we are spending more and 

getting less in constant dollars, and that is because we have allowed the uncontrolled growth of overhead in the Department of 

Defense. 

So while I know you have to deal with the current fiscal crisis 

and deal with sequester and so forth, but even if sequester doesn’t 

happen you are still facing a major crisis because we are unilaterally disarming. And we have got to fix the procurement system. It 

is fixable. And this committee, I would hope, will take the leadership in taking it on. And I would be happy to answer your questions, Mr. Chairman, thank you. 

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

Mr. FORBES. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. 

Admiral. 

STATEMENT OF ADM GARY ROUGHEAD, USN (RET.), FORMER 

CHIEF OF NAVAL OPERATIONS 

Admiral ROUGHEAD. Mr. Chairman, Mr. McIntyre, it is a pleasure and an honor to be back—— 

Mr. FORBES. Admiral, have you got the mike on? Thanks. 

Admiral ROUGHEAD. I have already lost my touch. 

It is a pleasure and an honor to be back before the committee, 

and also to be at the witness table with Secretary Lehman who did 

so much to build our Navy, rebuild our Navy, that has set the foundation for the Navy’s capabilities today. Much of what I will say 

really echoes what Secretary Lehman said, that I believe our 

founders had it right when they said that it was the obligation, the 

responsibility of the Congress to provide and maintain a navy. Very 

different from what was said about raising and supporting armies, 

because I believe they realized the importance then as a maritime 

nation to have a navy that was in being, a navy that had the reach 

and the power to represent our interests around the globe. And 
6 

even in the early days, that field of view was in much closer than 

it is today. 

And it is that Navy that has been built over the centuries and 

recent decades that has enabled the globalization, that has enabled 

the free flow of commerce on the world’s oceans, and there is only 

one navy in the world that can do that, and that is the United 

States Navy. It is the only navy that can command it and control 

itself globally. It is the only navy that can logistically support itself 

globally. It is the only global navy. And I believe that the path that 

we are on right now may make some of those assumptions unfounded. 

As we look at the world today, while it is generally conducive to 

our interests, it is still a messy place, with disorder and disruption 

in more areas than just 10 or 15 years ago. And as we look out over 

that world and as the only global navy, you do have to ask yourself 

what is the size, what is the capability that you want resident in 

the Navy that is to be provided and maintained by the Congress. 

And I applaud the committee for taking this on and looking at it 

in a strategic way and taking a long view of what will be necessary 

in the future. 

I think it is important as we look at building and maintaining 

a navy that you can’t decouple it from the industrial base of the 

Nation. And I think that all too often is overlooked. I think it is 

an assumption that these things just happen. And it is not just the 

shipbuilders and the airplane manufacturers, but I am most concerned today about the second- and third-tier suppliers, the small 

businesses that are in each and every one of your districts and all 

of your colleagues’ districts all over the country. And I am concerned that the budgetary shocks, the fiscal shocks that we are experiencing will call into question the survivability of that base. And 

it is from so many of those small companies that our real capability, that new technology is introduced. And so that I believe has 

to be very much a part of a strategy as we look to the future, not 

only what size and type of Navy do we want, but what is the industrial base that produces that Navy? 

The other aspect is manning the Navy. As the Secretary mentioned, we are of the vintage that I recall a down time in the Navy. 

I recall a time when we didn’t have enough money to maintain 

ships in the way they needed to be maintained. I recall a time 

when we didn’t have enough time between deployments to train the 

new sailors who had come aboard ships, and I questioned whether 

we could fulfill our missions. And I was particularly concerned 

about the safety of the young sailors that were on board those 

ships as we went out and did very dangerous and hazardous and 

stressful things. And I am fearful that we could return to that time 

again. 

And it is also important as we look at fleet size and the obligations that we have, just how hard are you going to push the Navy. 

Again, going back to my early years, I recall knowing the date that 

I was to deploy. I didn’t know the date I was coming home. And 

there is one thing that sailors don’t like and that is uncertainty. 

You can tell them how long the job is, how hard the job is going 

to be, and they will sign up willingly. But the uncertainty injects 
7 

questions and doubt in the minds of those that we are asking to 

do the very hard work. 

I think as we go forward, in addition to looking at fleet size— 

and I agree that as I look at the world the fleet size is somewhere, 

as I put in my prepared statement, probably between 325, 345, conservatively—because the messiness of the world is spreading. We 

have been able in recent years to essentially be absent in the Mediterranean. I believe the future is not going to give us that luxury. 

I think North Africa and the Arab awakening, the Levant, Israel, 

Syria, energy deposits that are expected to be found in the Eastern 

Mediterranean are going to inject some friction and potential conflict and a presence will be required there. 

Even though we talk about a rebalanced Asia, we are not turning 

away from the Middle East and the Arabian Gulf and the importance that that geographic area has on the global economy. And in 

a few years the Arctic is going to open, and the Arctic is an ocean. 

I refer to it as the opening of the fifth ocean. And so what sort of 

a force do you need there, what are the numbers that you need 

there? And all of that needs to be taken into account. 

And the question then becomes where do you want your Navy to 

be, what do you want it to be able to do, and then how do you build 

and sustain that Navy? And so, again, I applaud the work of the 

committee and the vision of the committee as you look to the future 

to add the strategic underpinning to what I believe are extraordinarily serious discussions and decisions that have to be made not 

just in Congress but in our country, and I look forward to your 

questions. 

[The prepared statement of Admiral Roughead can be found in 

the Appendix on page 40.] 

Mr. FORBES. Thank you, Admiral and Mr. Secretary. One of the 

things that you both encouraged us to do, let me assure you we are 

going to do, we are going to revitalize this Navy and we are going 

to try to lay a foundation for the Navy for decades to come. The 

good news we have in this subcommittee is it is probably the most 

bipartisan subcommittee, I would think, in Congress. Most of the 

people on this committee, we are personal friends, we have enormous respect for each other. We each bring parochial interest and 

areas of expertise, but we will rise above those and try to fight 

against our respective conferences, against the Administration, 

whoever we need to do, to make sure we are doing what is in the 

best interest of the United States Navy and the Marine Corps and 

the future of this country. And we appreciate you being here to 

help lay that footing for us. 

And I am going to start with one question and then defer the 

rest of mine so that other members can ask theirs. But there has 

been a lot of discussion about the overall defense strategy and the 

one-third/one-third allocation between the services of funds that 

has traditionally accompanied the budget request. I am going to 

ask both of you if you can provide your assessment of the defense 

strategy, thoughts on allocations between the services that you 

might provide. 

But there is one other thing. We constantly in this era of cuts 

to national defense hear this phrase ‘‘acceptable risk.’’ You know, 

if you wear a suit acceptable risk gets kind of waffled, but if you 
8 

are in a uniform it normally means how many people come back, 

you know. How do you interplay acceptable risk? Give us your handle on that when we are looking at these cuts that we are facing 

and what we have done and what we may be doing to national defense. And whichever one of you wants to have at that one, I would 

appreciate listening to your response. 

Mr. LEHMAN. Well, acceptable risk is the judgment of the most 

experienced and best people that the country has elected or appointed to provide that judgment. You can’t provide a metric: If you 

reach 307 ships you are over the risk factor. It is a judgment. And 

when you look at the judgment of virtually all naval experts today, 

there is no one, including in the Chinese Navy and the Iranian 

Navy, who believes that given the obligations we have and continue 

to support, that the size Navy we have today is adequate to deal 

with that. 

And so acceptable risk of the cuts that are in the immediate 

prospect, I think a lot depends on where they are allocated. I think 

that there is a huge amount of overhead fat in the defense budget, 

but I don’t see sequester providing the flexibility to remove and cut 

that overhead that is in both the uniform and the civilian sides of 

the Pentagon. And by the way, I think it is much more in the independent agencies and OSD [Office of the Secretary of Defense] than 

it is in any of the Services. 

As to the allocation of a third, a third, a third, I just have never 

believed that looking at the output of defense capability as a function of the input of the budget level is an adequate or valid measure. The more money you put in, if the system is not functioning, 

means the less capability you get out. And the record of the last 

couple of decades from a macro standpoint demonstrates that. 

So I think you need to start with a strategy, and there is not a 

coherent strategy coming from this Administration, and I must say 

from the last administration. This committee can provide the building, the forum to build that consensus of strategy, as we did have 

in past eras, and from that should be derived the requirements to 

meet that strategy. And it is very unlikely that it is going to come 

out a third, a third, a third. Whether we need the size standing 

Army we have today given the threats that we face around the 

world and the nature of what our overall role should be in the 

world, whether or not we can live with an Air Force with an average airplane age of something like 28 years, whether we need the 

size, whether we need a new bomber, those are all questions that 

you in the Congress have to logically decide. I doubt very much if 

it is going to come to a third, a third, a third. But first step is to 

begin to build the outlines of a strategy so you can make coherent 

judgments. Otherwise it will absolutely default to a third, a third, 

a third. 

Admiral ROUGHEAD. I would say that as I look at acceptable risk 

it is important to look at where do we believe the Navy would be 

called into play, either to assure or deter or compel. And in looking 

at that, then you always want to make sure that you have your options preserved and that your probability of success is better than 

a potential adversary’s probability of success. 

And so that gets into what is the strategy, where are our interests globally? To simply say that we are pivoting to Asia almost im-
9 

plies that you are excluding other areas of the world that are going 

to be important in the future. So how you look at the world, where 

the Navy would be, and then how you want to use that Navy with 

a higher probability of success than an adversary is the way that 

I look at it. 

And when you do that, and particularly as you look at some of 

the trends that are taking place in the world today, the increased 

sensitivities with regard to sovereignty, of reluctance of countries 

to openly accept large numbers of ground forces, the space that has 

been reduced by leaders around the world because of the way information moves, where they can privately agree to certain things and 

then publicly have a different position, I think we are seeing that 

that margin is really compressing down. 

So the idea that sovereignty is going to be a much more sensitive 

issue to me argues that there are going to be more offshore options 

that will be in play, that the likelihood of selecting a course of action is going to be light footprint ashore for a minimum amount of 

time, but having that presence offshore, having that power offshore. I would say whether we like it or not we are going to be involved in counterterrorism operation. Offshore staging areas or 

ships give you the opportunity to respond more quickly, more effectively and potentially more lethally than having to come across 

great land masses where you have to get not only the assurance 

of basing in the country where you may want to operate, but all 

of the overflight rights. Navies allow you to you come from the sea 

and not to have to do that. 

So the strategy and the way that we are looking at the future 

collectively as a nation with rebalancing to Asia, the reluctance of 

any administration of any party in the foreseeable future to avoid 

large ground campaigns, I believe argues for the Navy. When you 

do that, that immediately walks you away from an equitable share 

among the Services, and much the same as when we were involved 

in the campaigns of recent years, that biased the budget share differently. 

I think one of the challenges that is faced, not only whether it 

is sequestration or continuing resolution, is locking in place the 

size of personnel, the number of personnel in the military, as not 

being able to be touched really hamstrings the ability to adjust a 

budget that is tailored to a strategy, that is tailored to outcomes, 

that is tailored to capabilities. So I think that as we look to the future, the money must be apportioned in the way we believe the 

military will be called into action. 

Mr. FORBES. Thank you both. 

Mr. Courtney is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. COURTNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you to the 

witnesses for being here today. 

I want to echo the chair’s comments about the fact that this is 

a team on this subcommittee. In fact, I think, Mr. Secretary, you 

can just go back a couple years ago, this subcommittee actually led 

the way to force advanced procurement in the Virginia class [attack submarine] program, which again the prior administration resisted, but thank God we did it. And the program is I think performing better than even its proponents expected at the time. The 

last defense authorization bill that was passed in December al-
10 

lowed for incremental funding for both DDG–51s [Arleigh Burke 

class guided missile destroyers] and the Virginia class to avoid any 

dips. We have obviously got to get an omnibus done to make that 

a reality, but again I think you are really talking to people here 

who are ready to accomplish the goals and missions that are our 

predecessors did so well. And thank you for the little history perspective, that was quite interesting. 

Admiral, you talked about the fact that, you know, we have got 

to obviously keep our eye on the industrial base, Mr. Secretary, you 

talked about the need for procurement reform. During your tenure, 

I mean, I actually give you pretty high marks about the fact that 

the system of doing block grant, block contracts with fixed price, 

you know, that is firm has really I think changed behavior within 

industry and even with LCS [Littoral Combat Ship] and some of 

the programs that we struggled with. And so I guess the question 

I am trying to understand is, is that in terms of shipbuilding this 

model I think, A, has shown real results in terms of moderating 

and eliminating cost overruns, but also protecting the fragile shipyard, you know, network that we still are barely hanging onto in 

this country. So if you had to say what procurement reform and 

how that fits in with where we are at and maybe you could just 

expand on that a little bit, Mr. Secretary. 

Mr. LEHMAN. Thank you. The reforms I think are simple reforms. 

It is returning to the tried and true traditions of line management 

and accountability and have a clear chain of command over programs once they are approved and started. And this should be centered in the Services with the oversight of OSD, but with the line 

accountability and authority in the Services. That is where Title 10 

places the reins of chief executive authority. And going back to that 

tradition where a project manager, for instance, has to stay for 4 

years, and if they don’t succeed they are held accountable. A Secretary of the Navy is given the authority to ensure the proper running of the programs in the Navy and held accountable if they run 

off the rails. 

That has been really lost over the recent decades because the 

power has been drawn up into OSD and the independent agencies 

and into the joint requirements offices, the COCOMs [Combatant 

Commands]. There are now currently 40-some committees, not 

human beings that you could praise or condemn, but committees 

who have authority over procurement programs, which means nobody is in charge, which has been the curse of all of the Services’ 

procurement. 

The Navy, despite the bad headlines of some periods, has a tradition of that line accountability. A captain is responsible for his 

ship, a program manager is responsible for his program, and if it 

goes on the rocks there are consequences. That is not now the norm 

in the Department of Defense. Part of the problem has been the 

constant growth, and I have to say the House and the Senate have 

aided and abetted that process of every time there is a scandal or 

a problem, the only answer that Congress seems to be able to come 

up with is add more people, we need a new cost accounting program, we need new contract auditors. You passed a bill 2 years ago 

to add 20,000 people to the defense procurement, civilians to defense procurement. The whole Pentagon only holds 25,000 and you 
11 

at the snap of a finger added 20,000. There are 970,000 civilian 

employees in the Pentagon today, almost double what they were 

when the fleet and the Army and Air Force were double the size 

they are today. So we keep growing the bureaucracy and overhead 

and shrinking the force, and shrinking the numbers of products 

and weapons that we get for the dollars we spend. 

So it is not that complex an issue. We have to return to lean 

management line accountability and we have got to bring competition back in, as has been. The Navy has tried very hard. I think 

today we have got some outstanding people in key positions in 

Navy procurement, but it is like swimming in treacle because you 

have all this oversight of all of these other nonaccountable bureaucracies that make it so difficult to do. 

You can’t have competition if you don’t have firm grip over requirements. And a huge mistake made by Congress in passing the 

Goldwater-Nichols Act some 30 years ago was to take the Chief of 

Naval Operations and the service chiefs of all the Services out of 

procurement responsibility. That is really crazy. And it was done 

because they wanted to empower the bureaucracy, jointness. And 

the result has been very predictable. Nobody is in charge of programs, everybody is in charge. 

And everything has reverted back to the normal bureaucratic 

norm of sole source, cost-plus for the most part. They call competitions what are really beauty contests to award 50-year monopolies. 

That is not competition. Competition requires dual sources at least, 

with real production competition. You have got to protect the contractors from the constant gold plating and change order culture 

that this bureaucratic system we have produces. How can you have 

a fixed price if there are 75 change orders a week, as the LCS had 

for a long period in the first ship? You can’t. 

Mr. FORBES. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

Mr. Wittman is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Secretary Lehman, Admiral Roughead, thank you so much for 

joining us today. 

Admiral Roughead, I want to begin with you. You spoke a lot 

about acquisition. I want to kind of get your perspective. Admiral 

Burke recently at the Surface Navy Association spoke about the 

costs of the lifecycle of a ship, and he said about 38 percent of that 

cost is in procurement, the other is in essentially lifecycle cost operation. Let me get from your perspective, how do we in looking at 

using the limited resources we are going to have in the future, how 

do we make sure that we address those long-term costs, those 

lifecycle costs up front in the procurement process, especially in 

light of where we are with LCS and some of the things that we are 

currently experiencing with that? Kind you give me your perspective on how do we address that, and not only now but in the long 

term to make sure we don’t keep circling back to those situations. 

Admiral ROUGHEAD. Well, thank you for the question. And I 

agree that one of the things that has not been done is to look at 

what will something cost for the 30, 35 years that you are going 

to use it. And you have to take into account your manpower costs, 

energy costs, and maintainability. And that to me should be one of 

the upfront factors that is taken into account, because what we are 
12 

essentially doing, particularly as we pursue some of the more exotic 

technology, is that 20, 30 years from now we are delivering a bill 

that will be unsustainable by our successors down the road. 

And so I would submit that that comparison, that analysis has 

to be part of whether you go forward or not. Right now it is essentially how much do we pay for a unit and then that is where the 

decision is made. And as I came into my last position in the Navy 

and looked at the cost of operating what we were buying, it was 

one of the most sobering afternoons of my indoctrination. And so 

I think that has to be something that is fleshed out, and quite 

frankly our experience in being able to do that is not very good. 

If I could, I would also just like to reinforce what the Secretary 

said in accountability. Accountability is so important. And I really 

do believe that it is at the service chief level where you set a requirement and then that service chief is responsible for giving the 

up or the down on changes that need to take place, because things 

can take off and these are well-meaning people with good reasons 

of doing what they did. But even in our private purchases we always have to make a decision about what is it that we are willing 

to pay for, some things we are, some things we are not. 

I also think that we have to take a look at those who are in the 

management of our acquisition system, and particularly in the programs, and rationalize our personnel system with it. The Secretary 

mentioned keeping people in place for 4 years. But I really believe 

that we should structure the career patterns for those in acquisition to really be driven by the attainment of milestones. In other 

words, when a program reaches a particular milestone then that 

individual can move on to another assignment, because that only 

adds to this lack of accountability. When something doesn’t happen 

on time whose problem is it, the guy that started it or the guy that 

is holding the bag now? And so I think we have to take a look at 

that. 

And it really gets down to accountability. And since retirement 

I have relocated out to Silicon Valley where I spend most of my 

time and there is a very, very different view on accountability on 

delivering product within a certain amount of time. We have endless, what seem to be endless time limits in developing capability, 

and quite frankly it gets there late to need and costs us more than 

we anticipated. So I think we have to take a look at that. 

And failure in test is not failure of a program. You know, we 

need to be able to not add more requirements because something 

didn’t quite work the way we anticipated it. That is how you develop, that is how you move forward. And we need to change the 

culture that recognizes that making progress sometimes involves 

having a failure or two along the way. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Want to get you to answer real quickly on this, 

I am on limited in time. You spoke very eloquently about your experience and you have seen times of drawdowns, you have seen 

hollowing of the force. Let me ask you this: In going forward in today’s situation, and the chairman spoke very much about acceptable risk, how do we look at the current situation and make sure 

that we are able to maintain a ready, capable, and trained fleet in 

light of the current situations, in knowing, too, that if we don’t 

make the right decisions, as the chairman said, we are going to be 
13 

facing that risk scenario and then having to really face the difficult 

question of what is acceptable risk? 

Admiral ROUGHEAD. I think one of the things that needs to be 

done is to look at these very sophisticated machines that we operate and are we providing the appropriate maintenance to get them 

back online again or are we taking shortcuts. Are we not installing 

upgrades that give our people the edge against a potential adversary. And are we investing in the training that our people need to 

operate this very complex stuff. 

And so I think a lot of it is getting into the, as in so many things, 

the devil is in the details. Are the upgrades being made, is the 

maintenance being performed on time? Because if it is not, things 

are going to start to break. And that only induces more strain on 

the force, as you have to pull somebody who wasn’t ready to go, it 

is now their turn to go. And so I believe that is the point where 

we are. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Mr. FORBES. Mr. Langevin is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I would like to thank you both, Mr. Secretary and Admiral 

Roughead, for joining us today and of course for your extraordinary 

service to the Nation. You both can look back on amazing careers 

and know that you made have extraordinary contributions to the 

Nation, for which we are very grateful. We certainly appreciate the 

benefit of your insight as we grapple with the complex challenges 

of the future and how best to posture our naval capabilities to meet 

them. 

Admiral Roughead, if I could start with you since I have had the 

pleasure of working with you most directly over the years. The current Navy shipbuilding plan allows the existing fleet of dedicated 

SSGNs [cruise missile submarines], Ohio class submarines converted to carry cruise missiles, to retire. In its place the plan relies 

on the Virginia Payload Module, which would insert a hull section 

into the Block V Virginia class submarines that would have the 

ability to carry a variety of assets, including cruise missiles. Admiral, can you speak to the value of maintaining this type of capability for the future? 

Admiral ROUGHEAD. I think that what we were able to achieve 

when we converted the SSBNs [ballistic missile submarines] to 

SSGNs gave us an incredible capability, not only in the area of 

strike but also in support for special operations forces. Clearly, recapitalization of SSGN, in my view, is extraordinarily costly and I 

would submit too costly as we look to the future. But moreover, 

putting aside the cost, by being able to put in the Virginia class, 

the payload modules, gives you more of that capability to spread 

globally. And I talked earlier about the disorder that was likely 

going to exist around the world in many different places, and again 

it gets into a question of numbers. And I would tell you that I 

would rather have many Virginia class submarines with that capability, maybe not as many tubes as an SSGN, but it gives me more 

options of where to put them and bring that capability to bear, 

whether it is strike or whether it is special operations forces. 

So I think the plan to move forward with that in the Virginia 

class is important, and I also believe it sets up the Virginia class 
14 

to be the ‘‘mother ship,’’ if you will, for what I believe is an extraordinary potential in unmanned systems in the undersea that will 

prove to be more dramatic than what we are seeing in unmanned 

systems in the air. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. I hope to be able to get back to talk about the 

UAVs [Unmanned Aerial Vehicles] in just a minute if time permits. 

But to the panel—and thank you for that answer, Admiral—to the 

panel, to both of you—Mr. Secretary, perhaps we could start with 

you—staying on the theme of the submarines, I am deeply concerned about the possible effects of the current budgetary uncertainty of the procurement of nuclear submarines, and as we are at 

a critical moment now as Virginia class procurement hits its design 

rate of two boats per year and with those boats coming in early and 

under budget. Additionally, the Ohio Replacement development 

program is at an inflection point in preparation for the procurement of the first boat in 2018. 

To both of you, can you speak to the value of those platforms in 

the future and what they mean to America’s deterrent and ability 

to project power? In particular, can you speak to the downstream 

operational costs of any delay in procurement of the submarines? 

Mr. LEHMAN. Well, first, I think the submarine program has 

been one of the best managed of any procurement program in the 

Pentagon over the last couple of decades. There are other approaches that could have been taken, but I think this is a model 

for the current era. But to delay it could really lose a significant 

proportion of the benefits that have been gained and the wisdom 

that has been gained coming down the learning curve with both 

ships, or with both contractors on that ship, on that boat. And it 

would be a shame because you lose key welders, particularly with 

the kind of steels that are involved in submarine construction, 

welders and shipfitters and pipefitters. You can’t just get them on 

the street, you can’t go get a headhunter and hire 20 when the 

budget comes back on. When you lose them they are gone, they are 

gone particularly with the new sources of energy and the growing 

gas oil businesses. So that would be a tragedy, to see the current 

procurement program delayed. 

As to their utility and necessity for deterrence in the future, it 

is not just what they can do as SSNs for projecting power ashore 

or defending the fleet, but they make possible all the commerce, all 

of the container ships, all of the tankers. It is those Virginia class 

that are going to have to bear the burden of preventing any of the 

more than 140 active and effective quiet diesel electric subs around 

the world, many of them in the hands of disturbers of the peace, 

from being able to close off the Straits of Hormuz or the Malacca 

Straits or from actually sinking a tanker and bringing the flow of 

oil to a halt for however length of time. So they are essential to 

any naval operations around the world, and so I think this committee should take great care to see that they are protected. 

Mr. FORBES. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Conaway, is recognized for 5 

minutes. 

Mr. CONAWAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Gentlemen, thank you for being here. 
15 

Admiral Roughead, the Navy recently announced that they are 

going to delay the refueling or the major overhaul of the Lincoln 

[USS Abraham Lincoln supercarrier], which daisy chains the 

defueling of the Enterprise [USS Enterprise aircraft carrier] and 

then refueling the Washington [USS George Washington supercarrier]. Can you speak just how is the Navy going to mitigate this 

delay in the refueling of these nuclear carriers and keep us on 

track? 

Admiral ROUGHEAD. Well, I am not in a position to speak for the 

Navy, but I would say that my sense is that we are going to have 

to pay later for what is being done, because this has a ripple effect 

throughout the entire carrier force. And by delaying the refueling, 

by disrupting the flow within the industrial base, because particularly when we get into ship maintenance and especially our very 

complex nuclear maintenance, the schedules of maintenance and 

operations are very carefully synchronized. And what we are in the 

process of doing, for good reason because of the fact that the Navy’s 

leadership has to be good stewards and accountable for the funds 

that they have, we are now in the process of disrupting that pattern, that synchronization, the workloading of shipyards in a way 

that will take some time to recover. 

There is a word that I see in strategy and I see it in the press, 

it is called ‘‘reversibility.’’ And reversibility flows off everybody’s 

tongue really easy and it is a nice catchy word. But I believe that 

we have to be very, very careful of reversibility within the industrial base, whether it is new construction or maintenance because, 

as the Secretary pointed out, some of those skills that we depend 

on are going to migrate out of the shipbuilding business, they have 

to because they want to feed their families, they want to keep their 

companies alive. 

And so I am very pessimistic that once we get into the shift of 

work away from our shipyards and the subcontractors that support 

our shipbuilding and our aviation maintenance and building, that 

it is going to be hard to get it back, that that depth is no longer 

existent in the industrial base. 

Mr. CONAWAY. Manning the Navy in Littoral Combat Ship, there 

are some reports out there that the Navy may move to a dedicated 

significant group of folks who only serve, I guess their whole career, on LCSs. Can you speak to us about what your perspective 

is on that as well as the Blue crew/Gold crew concept of keeping 

the boat in place, but just move the crew on and off, is the Navy 

seeing good results in that? And then the overall issue of dedicating a career to just LCSs. 

Admiral ROUGHEAD. Well, thank you very much. And I would say 

that I believe that the crew design that the Navy has for LCS is 

a good one, because, particularly when you are in the Pacific making those long transits, that is just lost time on station. And having 

served in small ships before, they can be quite fatiguing. So I think 

the crew concept is good, as long as the resources are provided to 

train the off crews when they are ashore, that we don’t simply load 

more work on them because we have cut in other areas and they 

are a labor pool that is not on a ship, so we use them. The whole 

thing can unravel if that is allowed to happen. 
16 

With regard to serving on LCSs for a career, I think that for 

many people that will be just fine. We have sailors today who serve 

their whole life on destroyers because they like destroyers, sailors 

who routinely go back to aircraft carriers, and of course our submarine fleet force is pretty unique. I do think that we will always 

want to bleed off some of those sailors to go serve in other areas 

because of that cross-pollinization that you get, and the different 

perspectives and different ideas I think are very helpful. But I 

would have no problem with a young man or woman who likes that 

duty, stays in that duty. They will know that ship better than anybody else. 

Mr. CONAWAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yield back. 

Mr. FORBES. Ms. Hanabusa is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Ms. HANABUSA. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

Thank you, Mr. Secretary. 

Thank you, Admiral. 

Both of you have come very close to the number that you believe 

the ships should be. Admiral, you are between 325 and 345, and 

Mr. Secretary’s adopted the review panel’s 346. But what I don’t 

know is what makes up the 325 to the 345 or what makes up the 

346. In fact, the review panel has 11 aircraft carriers and 10 carrier air wings, 55 attack submarines and 4 guided submarines and 

the total of 346, and that kind of doesn’t add up. 

So can you both tell me that as we sit here and we make these 

decisions, what should we be looking at in your 325 to 345 or in 

your 346? Is there some sort of criteria as we look at what we want 

to see the Navy of the future actually begin to look like? 

Mr. LEHMAN. That is a very, very good question, because too 

often the commentary in the media focuses on those numbers as if 

somebody just came up with them and then we will decide how we 

will allocate them and where we will use them. 

The 600-ship Navy in the Reagan administration and the 346- 

ship Navy of the independent panel was derived first from a strategy. And in the Reagan administration there was a very clear 

strategy that the President had very thoroughly vetted and had approved with the National Security Council. From that were derived 

the force packages that were needed to be in place both for deterrence, and then in the event of conflict in any area, to be able to 

reinforce. And when you have a force package, you have to have 

submarines, you have to have air superiority, you have to have resupply ships, you have to have mine-sweeping capability, and of 

course you have to have submarines to keep the area clear of 

enemy submarines. 

And from that, you get force packages made up of those numbers 

of ships. And the sum total, in the case of the Reagan strategy, 

given the areas we had to be in the world, came to 15 deployable 

battle groups, with 5 of them forward deployed all the time on a 

1-in-3 cycle, and that came to 600. That is how it came from. It 

wasn’t the reverse, you pick a number and then figure out how you 

are going to use them. 

Similarly, the 346 made assumptions, because the strategy paper 

in the Administration’s QDR was a fairly reasonable and clear allocation. And the minimum that all of us, Republicans and Democrats and very experienced people, uniform and civilian, came up 
17 

with minimum for force package to meet what the Administration 

said it had to do was 346. That included allocating submarines, 

reefers [refrigerated cargo ships], aircraft carriers, et cetera. 

So I think that is the way the committee should go about evaluating the Administration’s proposal and other recommendations 

from people like us. That is why I emphasize that the committee 

needs to start by building a clear, simple, commonsense strategy, 

and from that making their decisions and judgments on individual 

programs. 

Ms. HANABUSA. Thank you. 

Admiral. 

Admiral ROUGHEAD. If I could just add on to that. You know, I 

have a band of numbers in mind, and I think that it is not just 

a question of where you want to be, but it is what the mix is, what 

the Secretary was referring to, and sometimes if you come down in 

one area, you might have to have a few more ships of a different 

type. But balance is very important. You know, we could drive to 

a high number if we just built a bunch of LCSs, but that is not 

going to meet the Nation’s need. And so I think you have that. 

The other factor that needs to be taken into account, and this is 

where strategy comes into play, what are your assumptions and 

what are your dependencies on allies and partners? What capabilities will they bring? Can you be reasonably sure that that is going 

to be there when you need it, because every nation is going to have 

competing interests and considerations? 

And then there is also the question of where do you base it, 

where do you operate from? You know, we gain greatly by being 

able to have ships in Hawaii, farther to the west in the Pacific. We 

gain greatly by the accommodations that are made to have forward 

deployed forces in Japan. We are recently moving some ships to 

Spain. 

So all of that goes into the mix, and that is why I avoid shooting 

at one particular number, because there are factors that can come 

into play. But this comes back to this idea of the committee’s view 

and the committee’s strategy, the committee’s assumptions about 

what kind of a Navy does the Nation need and how do you see it 

being used. 

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

Mr. FORBES. Gentleman from Mississippi, Mr. Palazzo, is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. PALAZZO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to thank the witnesses for their testimony and thank you 

for appearing in front of this committee and for your faithful and 

dedicated service to our Nation. So I really appreciate that. 

Of course, you know, traveling through my district, we are starting to hear a little bit more about that awful word, sequestration. 

I have been trying to explain it for the past year to anybody who 

would listen. I think just the sound of it just made people bored, 

but now that they actually realize that, you know, these are going 

to be some serious cuts to our national security, undermining our 

national security, and it is going to affect our industrial base and 

hollow out our military, people seem to be paying a little more attention. 
18 

And so just kind of jumping straight to it, I know with the continuing resolutions, one after another, the fear of sequestration and 

all these things, that the Navy has most definitely been deferring 

maintenance on their ships and now there is talk of deferring procurement on the ships. And you just got finished talking about 

what you would like to see the desired ship numbers be in somewhat of a range. 

So my question would be to you, based on your experience, if 

they do defer ship procurement, what is going to be deferred? Is it 

going to be aircraft carriers, is it going to be submarines, is it going 

to be amphibs [amphibious assault ships], is it going to be destroyers? Just in your opinion, I would like to know what you think 

would be the first—LCS’s—what would be the first to go or to be 

pushed out further to the right? 

Mr. LEHMAN. Well, I think that you are going to have the major 

say in that here in Congress, as you have in the past. I would say 

what should be. First of all, maintenance is the worst of all places 

to go for deferment, because it has an immediate impact on morale 

of the sailors, things don’t work, it is very frustrating, they get unhappy. And then when you defer it, when you go finally to fix it, 

it costs more. It is more difficult. What you might have been able 

to repair has to be chucked over the side and replaced with new. 

And so it is one of the worst places to go. 

If you defer procurement, then you have got to look at the workforce. Is there enough work, for instance, in Pascagoula to slip one 

destroyer without really hitting the workforce as hard as it would 

be if you slipped an amphib somewhere else? So it is a management issue. When you have to allocate pain, it is just like allocating additional money. 

And that gets back, I am sorry, to my hobby horse, which is the 

key people that should be making those decisions are not able to 

make them independently. The CNO [Chief of Naval Operations] is 

out of the procurement chain now by the wisdom of—the unwisdom 

of Goldwater-Nichols. Even the people, the project managers have 

so many kibitzers that can stop them from doing things in so many 

offices and the bureaucracy of 960,000 civilians that the chances, 

if you don’t take control of where those cuts are going to be made, 

they are not likely to be made with all rationality alone. 

Admiral ROUGHEAD. And I would just add that the complexity of 

your question is significant, because there are so many factors that 

the Navy will have to take into account. The Secretary touched on 

workforce, touched on schedule, touched on replacement for other 

ships. But then as you look at some of the pending procurements 

that are taking place, they are predicated on bids that the shipbuilders have gotten from second- and third-tier suppliers. How 

long will those bids be good? And so do you make the decision of 

we can’t defer this because the whole deal may fall apart, so maybe 

we have to do that one first instead of the other. 

So it is extraordinarily complex, but I believe those are the types 

of questions that the committee needs to address, not just on the 

state and the size of the Navy, but also what impact it has on the 

industrial base beyond the major shipbuilding companies, but down 

into the second and third tier. Is it going to be survivable with 
19 

some of these procurement decisions that are going to be made? 

And that is really going to be very, very hard. 

Mr. PALAZZO. I appreciate you all’s comments. I guess my time 

is up. Thank you again. And I definitely agree with the Secretary 

that our procurement system needs to be looked at really hard, and 

I am also extremely concerned about our third- and fourth-tier 

subs. I mean, they are already pressed up against the wall and 

hurting. Thank you. 

Mr. FORBES. Mr. Cook is recognized for 5 minutes. 

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

Thank you, Admiral. 

Thank you, Mr. Secretary. It is been a long time since I served 

under you. I think I was a captain or Marine Corps captain or 

maybe I was a major. As I said, it was a long time ago. 

But I appreciate some of the things that you were talking about. 

And quite frankly, it is very, very scary, and I think you are right. 

And one of the battles that we used to have personally was this 

phrase, ‘‘the tempo of ops [operations].’’ It seems as though it never 

goes away. And these commitments with a force that is diminishing, and now you have the extra problems with your procurement process and the inefficiencies, and we just don’t have that 

luxury anymore. It is going to be a come-as-you-are party when 

war breaks out. We are going to have to go with what we have. 

And I am deeply worried about maintenance, obviously, and training. 

One of my colleagues, there were several, we went out to the 

Truman [USS Harry S. Truman supercarrier] a few weeks ago and 

we saw the carrier ops, including night ops. And I will tell you, 

that is such a fine skill that if you lose that training, bad things 

are going to happen; even in training environments, if we lose that 

time. 

So, you know, I am saying to myself, now that I am here and I 

am certainly not young, but I am not in the infantry, a company 

commander anymore at Camp Lejeune or going down the ropes of 

the Francis Marion [USS Francis Marion attack transport ship], 

which no one ever heard of, because that was in a dinosaur Navy. 

And what I am looking for is, I agree with you on this force, that 

we have this huge bureaucracy, I am actually looking for hard, concrete suggestions in terms of proposed legislation, because if we 

had the courage to change things, we could actually do it, because, 

Admiral, I think you are right, the culture has changed. And if we 

are not getting those forces and what have you down to the fleet 

and down to the troops, down to the sailors, you know, we are not 

doing our job. 

So, obviously, I should have been retired 100 years ago, but now 

I am in a position where maybe I can change that. So you, gentlemen, I think you kind of beg the question or the proposal. I am 

looking for actual suggestions which would be a major policy initiative to improve the efficiency of the procurement forces, change it 

so that readiness is much better, and save it in a time where budget crisis is going to be after budget crisis, money is always going 

to be a problem, where we can have better efficiency to protect our 

Navy and make sure that they are combat ready for anything that 

comes down the pike. If you could comment on it. 
20 

Mr. LEHMAN. I would just say one thing. I hate to say anything 

particularly in praise of the current Administration’s defense policy, but one of the best things that they have produced is the Pentagon’s report done by the Defense Business Board on how to get 

at the bureaucracy and the overhead. They have put for the first 

time in my time in Washington the real hard numbers, finally 

made them accessible as to how many people there really are in 

the bureaucracy and which bureaucracies. And what surprised everybody, including the Secretary of Defense, is how many of our 

uniform people never deploy, but have become part of the civilian 

bureaucracy, and the 250 joint task forces that have grown from 

seven with no particular visible requirement, but it provides the 

billets necessary under Goldwater-Nichols. 

So I would use as one of your primary sources for ideas as to 

where to go to get the cuts the Pentagon’s own study, which was 

completed 2 years ago and is, I believe, being updated. So there is 

plenty, plenty of places to go to find reductions that do not cut into 

muscle and bone, but really get the fat that is marbled through the 

entire process. 

Admiral ROUGHEAD. If I could, sir, what I would also add is that 

we seem—and I will be honest. I can’t recall any time during my 

time as CNO when I testified either before the House or the Senate 

that I was ever pressed on how quickly we were getting something 

to the fleet. It was all about price, capability, things like that. 

And I really do believe that focusing on getting the equipment 

out quickly is important. And I just keep looking back on some, 

particularly in some of the communication systems and information 

technology systems, that I saw billions of dollars invested in and 

nothing to show for it, and yet I look commercially, and it is not 

an apples-and-apples comparison, but I look at the introduction of 

the iPod, the iPhone, and the iPad in a very short period of time, 

because I believe they were driven by when do they have to get it 

to the market. 

And for us, with the systems that we field, there is a market, 

and that market is to get those systems into the hands of our 

young people so that they can beat an adversary. And I think we 

have lost sight of that and we allow some of these programs to just 

go on and on and on, and there is no pressure to deliver on time 

and an examination as to what is holding it up. So I would offer 

that. 

Mr. COOK. Thank you. 

Mr. FORBES. Thank the gentleman for his questions. 

And Admiral and Secretary, we just have three more questions. 

I deferred mine till the end so I could get them on the record for 

you, if you don’t mind. 

Admiral, after you released the 2007 Cooperative Strategy for 

the 21st Century’s Sea Power, your staff, as I understand it, undertook a force study that would size the Navy suggested by that 

strategy. What was the size of the Navy that the study suggested 

and how was that reflected in the 2010 QDR? 

Admiral ROUGHEAD. My recollection is obviously we really stuck 

a number onto the 313-ship Navy. Some of the subsequent work 

that we did took it up into the 324, 325. But I would also add that 

that was before the Arab awakening, that was before some of the 
21 

science that is now coming out of the changes in the Arctic, that 

is before increased tensions that we are seeing in the East China 

Sea and the South China Sea. So, you know, we were at 313, which 

was a number that I maintained throughout my time, but the 

world is changing, and to look at a number that won’t be realized 

until 2039, I think that the committee needs to look differently 

about how we look at fleet size and how we drive to that number. 

And I would submit that getting out to 2039 is interesting, but it 

is almost irrelevant. 

Mr. FORBES. And for both of you, we look at that 2039 figure and 

we hear testimony and we hear speeches made. It is kind of as if 

we have those ships right now, you know. But we all know that 

during that period of time, not only is it a long time, but there are 

certain gaps in there where we take rather substantial risks. We 

have gaps for our cruisers and destroyers, our attack submarines, 

and you know the gaps are there. 

Where would you pinpoint the greatest risk during that period 

of time, if you had to look at it, when we are stretching it out to 

2039? What do you think is the greatest risk we are looking at, 

what period? 

Mr. LEHMAN. Well, I would not pick a specific risk, because I 

think when you have to stretch as thin as we are now already 

stretched, when we can’t meet deployments that everyone, every 

combatant commander believes is minimally necessary, that we 

can’t protect all of our ships, commercial ships in the Indian Ocean, 

for instance, the first time in history that the U.S. Navy has told 

ships they have to stay 600 miles away from the east coast of Africa because we can’t protect you. 

So the danger is when you are stretched that thin, an incident 

happens, and because you have the number of submarines deploying with a Marine amphibious group, that some North Korean submarine happens to get a shot off the way they did to the South Koreans and sinks an entire aircraft carrier of marines and equipment, that is catastrophic. What that would do to world markets, 

to our economy, we would be in the tank overnight, and who knows 

once you loose the dogs of that kind of incident. And nobody sleeps 

well if they are depending on the North Koreans or the Iranians 

not doing anything irresponsible. 

We are there now, so I wouldn’t say that you could pick a time 

where it gets worse. Obviously the fewer we have and the thinning 

out that we have to do more of, which we are absolutely going to 

have to do, makes us more vulnerable to those unforeseen events. 

And they happen. As any student of history knows, they will happen. 

Admiral ROUGHEAD. Mr. Chairman, I would say that, very similar to what the Secretary said, I think the greatest risk is having 

a Navy that is not sized or ready to respond to the unexpected, because it is going to happen. I mean, we can go back in history, and 

no one had perfect vision even 5 years, 10 years ahead. And so I 

think that that element of risk needs to be accounted for. 

But I would also say that the great risk to achieving a Navy that 

meets the needs of the Nation is the erosion of the budget from 

within. And we have touched on that with the inefficient acquisition and the increasing cost of personnel. And being able to get in 
22 

and reform that, I think, gives the Nation much more running 

room with regard to building and maintaining the fleet that it 

needs. 

If that is not arrested, if that is not controlled—and I am not 

saying take things away from people, I am saying we have to come 

up with a different way of attracting, recruiting, retaining, and 

compensating those who serve—but if we can’t do that, the risk of 

providing and maintaining the Navy, I think, is pretty significant. 

Mr. FORBES. And my last question is really two parts, and I 

would love to hear both of you respond to this, if you don’t mind. 

General Pace testified before the full committee several months 

ago, and he said at some point in time there is this tipping point 

where we are continually making cuts, and some of our potential 

adversaries see that tipping point and start trying to challenge our 

national security, where they would not otherwise have it. 

I know it is hard to pick an exact figure, but both of you have 

talked about the need to have substantially north of 313 ships, 

whether it is 342, whether it is 346, or whether it is 400 ships, 

something much higher than we have today. We are heading in the 

other direction. 

Where would you say, if you had to peg, that tipping point might 

be where we start seeing some of our potential adversaries start 

saying, my gosh, maybe we can catch them, one. And then the second thing that we hear over and over again, Mr. Secretary, you referred to our COCOM requirements that we have, we are not meeting those now. Give us your take on our COCOM request. You 

know, sometime when we are concerned about that as a committee, 

we kind of get witnesses that pooh-pooh those requests, act like the 

COCOMs are just coming up with everything under the sun. You 

guys have seen that. You have assessed it. Give us your take on 

those requests and, if you would, the tipping point and what your 

opinion is about how our COCOM make their requests and how 

valid you believe they are. 

Mr. LEHMAN. Both very good points. The first one, the tipping 

point, I think we clearly are already there. I saw in this morning’s 

paper a book just out giving Lee Kuan Yew’s assessment of the 

world balance, and his assessment is already there. This is very recent. And, you know, I met with Lee Kuan Yew. He is one of the, 

I think, wisest global viewers of this century, or last century as 

well. And he says the U.S. is declining and that people in his 

neighborhood do not believe they can rely on the U.S. as they have 

in the past, although he then says that the nature of the American 

spirit is such that he believes the United States will come back. 

But the perception in his neighborhood is we are disappearing fast 

as a make weight in the balance. And that is what begets the 

temptation of disturbers of the peace like North Korea to go beyond 

prudent risk. 

So we are already there. It is a question of when it can be reversed, if it can be reversed. And I believe it can. It certainly can 

be reversed. 

The second question about the COCOMs’ requirements, their responsibility is to assess worst case, and not worst-case Armageddon 

and all-out nuclear war, but in the kinds of things that they see 

in their theater as possible to happen, what would they need to 
23 

win. And they don’t just say, sure, what do you want, what do you 

want, what do you want, throw it all in the pot. It is very, very 

heavily staffed. And so what comes out is their assessment of their 

theater in kind of a worst case of possible things. And so obviously 

if you tried to fill them all, we would—and, Admiral, you know this 

far better than me—but when I was in the building, if you added 

up the COCOM carrier demands, as the minimum, it was 22 carriers. And so, you know, you have to do a bit of optimizing, obviously, and you can’t meet all the minimum demands of all of the 

COCOMs. 

Admiral ROUGHEAD. I would agree with the Secretary. And I 

would say that, particularly if sequestration takes place and is not 

amended in some way and we go into a year-long continuing resolution, I think we are on a very, very rapid downturn that will 

challenge reversibility. And I already commented earlier on reversibility. And I think we put too much weight on that word. 

If sequestration takes place, the CR is in place for a year, you 

are fundamentally going to have a different Navy than the Nation 

has had since the end of World War II, in my opinion. So I think 

that we are there. 

With regard to COCOM demands, the Secretary has it just right, 

but I believe that that is where the broader strategy that the committee is thinking through allows you to weigh that risk and why 

it is so important to have this global view for a global Navy for our 

global interests. And I applaud the committee for taking that on. 

Mr. LEHMAN. Mr. Chairman, just one codicil to that. I agree totally with Admiral Roughead, but I hope that this committee will 

not take the view that if they are able to stop sequester, which I 

hope you are able to, that that will solve the problem. It won’t. Sequestration is simply a symptom and it is a step along a path that 

even before sequestration puts the Navy on the decline. Without sequestration, it gives maybe another 6 months’ breathing room. So 

solving sequestration does not solve the problem that the Admiral 

and I are talking about. 

Mr. FORBES. And we wholeheartedly agree with you. We have got 

really the perfect storm. We have these cuts that have already been 

taken, which have been extraordinary, I believe, and I think in 

many of the situations the budget has been driving our strategy instead of the strategy driving the budget. We have the continuing 

resolution, Admiral, that you addressed that has been a killer. And 

then the third thing is sequestration. But the fourth thing is the 

lack of kind of a long-term planning so that we can get on the right 

course. This committee is going to try to deal with all of that, you 

know, as we look. And along that way, we will probably call you 

back in and try to pick your brain through the process. 

So thank you both for again your service to our country and 

thanks for being here and sharing with us today. And we are adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 5:25 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

A P P E N D I X 

FEBRUARY 26, 2013 

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD 

FEBRUARY 26, 2013 

(29) 

Statement of Hon. J. Randy Forbes 

Chairman, House Subcommittee on Seapower and 

Projection Forces 

Hearing on 

The Future of Seapower 

February 26, 2013 

I want to welcome all of our members and our distinguished 

panel of experts to today’s hearing, that will focus on the future of 

seapower in advance of receiving a budget request for fiscal year 

2014. 

In January, the Navy presented to Congress a goal of achieving 

a fleet of 306 ships, a reduction from the previous goal of 313 ships. 

The fiscal year 2013–2017 5-year shipbuilding plan contains a total 

of 41 ships, which is 16 ships less than the 57 ships projected for 

the same period in the fiscal year 2012 budget request. Of this 16- 

ship reduction, 9 ships were eliminated and 7 ships were deferred 

to a later time. 

It should be noted that at its current strength of 286 ships, 

under the 30-year shipbuilding plan submitted to Congress, the 

Navy will not achieve its goal of 306 ships until fiscal year 2039. 

And given our past record of meeting long-term goals, I seriously 

question the viability of the shipbuilding plans presented in the 

out-years of the 30-year plan. Even worse, the Navy will experience 

shortfalls at various points in cruisers-destroyers, attack submarines, ballistic missile submarines, and amphibious ships. One 

would think the number of required ships would have increased instead of decreased with the Navy now bearing the brunt of missile 

defense missions and the announced ‘‘rebalance’’ to the AsiaPacific. 

Another area of concern is the cost of the plan. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that in the first 10 years of the 30- 

year shipbuilding plan, that the costs will be 11% higher than the 

Navy’s estimate. It is because of this issue of affordability that I 

agree with both Secretary Lehman and Admiral Roughead on the 

need for acquisition reform. While I think it is critical to provide 

an environment that provides industry some stability to achieve 

better pricing, I think it is equally important to pursue more effective acquisition strategies. I look forward to understanding what 

options our Subcommittee could pursue to obtain this needed acquisition reform. 

In addition to new construction of ships, I also have concerns on 

the sustainment of ships already in the fleet. After years of maintenance challenges, the Navy has now been forced to cancel numerous ship maintenance availabilities in the third and fourth quar-
30 

ters of this fiscal year due to the budgetary constraints of sequestration and the continuing resolution. 

The Navy has been operating in a sustained surge since at least 

2004. We have been burning out our ships more quickly because 

the demand has been high. Indeed, in the past 5 years roughly 25% 

of destroyer deployments have exceeded the standard deployment 

length. A key tenet in the shipbuilding plan is an assumed ship 

service life for most ships of 35 years. If ships do not get the 

planned shipyard repairs, attaining this service life will be problematic and ships will be retired prematurely. 

In fiscal year 2012, the existing force structure only satisfied 53% 

of the total combatant commander demand. It has been estimated 

that to fully support the combatant commander requirements 

would necessitate a fleet size in excess of 500 ships. Without an increase in force structure, this trend will only get worse. 

Finally, I think that our Navy needs to place more emphasis on 

undersea warfare and long-range power projection as part of a 

strategy to prevent potential adversaries from achieving the benefits offered by anti-access/aerial denial strategies. I am particularly 

interested to better understand what options the subcommittee 

should consider to achieve these goals and ensure the combatant 

commanders have the right tools to achieve our national strategy. 

Today we are honored to have as our witnesses, former Secretary 

of the Navy John Lehman and former Chief of Naval Operations 

Gary Roughead. Gentlemen, thank you all for being here. 
31 

Testimony before the House Sea power and Projection Forces 

Subcommittee by John Lehman, February 26th , 2013 

Mr. Chairman it is a special honor for me to appear today before this 

historic committee of Congress. In my six years as SecNav I spent 

hundreds of hours testifying and consulting with Chairman Charlie Bennet 

and the bi-partisan membership. They were truly equal partners with the 

Reagan Administration in building the 600 ship Navy and a rejuvenated 

Marine Corps. 

Perhaps the greatest among its many accomplishments was the role of the 

Committee (then a full committee titled The Naval Affairs Committee) and 

its legendary chairman, Carl Vinson, in first persuading and then partnering 

with President Franklin Roosevelt in urgently rebuilding the US Navy 

through the shipbuilding acts of 1934, 1936, 1938, and 1940. Those bills 

authorized every new capital ship that fought to victory in WWII. Without 

that Robust leadership of this committee, we could not have won the war. 

It is with that historic perspective that the Committee should approach its 

current task. 

The current administration has called for a 300-ship Navy, up from the 

current 286. It is their belief that such a number at half the size of the 

Reagan Navy, is sufficient for our security on the grounds that newer ships 

are better than the ones they replace. 

While that is true in some cases, such as submarines, it is not true for other 

ships such as the new LCS (littoral combat ship), which does not have the 

capability of the older frigates that they replace. Moreover, our potential 

adversaries, from North Korea to the Iranian Navy, have improved their 

technology as well. 

But most important, numbers still count: The seas are great and our Navy 

is small. The administrations position that "the United States Navy will be 

everywhere in the world that it has been, and it will be as much [present] as 

the 600-ship navy" is not persuasive. 
32 

The size of the Navy in the Reagan administration (it reached 594 ships in 

1987) reflected a strategy to deter the Soviet Union's world-wide naval 

force. Today we face no such powerful naval adversary, but the world is 

just as large, and there is now greater American dependence on global 

trade and many more disturbers of the peace. 

While we do not need 600 ships today, no naval experts believe a 300-ship 

Navy is large enough to guarantee freedom of the seas for American and 

allied trade, for supporting threatened allies, for deterring rogue states like 

Iran from closing vital straits, and for maintaining stability in areas like the 

western Pacific. For example, the bipartisan Quadrennial Defense Review 

Independent Panelled by Stephen Hadley and William Perry last year 

concluded that the Navy should have at least 346 vessels. 

The more troubling problem is that the administration goal of 300 is 

counting ships that won't be built at all. Last year, the president's budget 

called for cuts of $487 billion over the next decade. The President's 

proposal for the sequester would mean an additional half-trillion dollars in 

mandatory defense reductions over the next decade. 

Naval readiness is already highly fragile. In order to meet current 

operational requirements, the shrunken fleet stays deployed longer and 

gets repaired less. There is now a serious shortage of Navy combat 

aircraft, and for the first time since World War II there are essentially no 

combat attrition reserves. But the biggest effects of budget cuts will be on 

drasticatty curtailing naval operations now and naval shipbuilding for the 

future. 

The Navy has cancetled the deployment of one carrier strike group, halving 

our deterrence in the Mid-East, and the CNO has testified that even more 

drastic cuts to deployments will immediately result when sequester takes 

effect. This is the correct policy by Navy leadership. The Navy cannot do 

more with less, they can only do less with less. 

Currently the Navy has 286 ships. In order to pay for even drastically 

reduced current operations, the Administration will be retiring a score or 

more of modern combat ships (cruisers and amphibious vessels and 
33 

frigates) well before their useful life. In order to reach a 350-ship fleet in our 

lifetime, we would need to increase shipbuilding to an average of 15 ships 

every year. The latest budget the administration has advanced proposes 

buying just 41 ships over five years. It is anything but certain that the 

administration's budgets will sustain even that rate of only eight ships per 

year, but even if they do, the United States is headed for a Navy of 240-250 

ships at best. 

So how is the Obama administration getting to a 300-ship Navy? It projects 

a huge increase in naval shipbuilding beginning years down the road, most 

of which would come after a second Obama term. In other words, the 

administration is radically cutting the size and strength of the Navy now, 

while trying to avoid accountability by assuming that a future president will 

find the means to fix the problem in the future. 

This compromises our national security. The Navy is the foundation of 

America's economic and political presence in the world. Other nations, like 

China, Russia, North Korea and Iran, are watching what we do-and on the 

basis of the evidence, they are undoubtedly concluding that America is 

declining in power and resolution. Russia and China have each embarked 

on ambitious and enormously expensive naval buildups with weapons 

designed specifically against American carriers and submarines. 

WHAT SHOULD THE COMMITTEE DO? 

I urge the committee to step up to the challenge of the current crisis just as 

its former leader Carl Vinson did. That does not just mean adding money 

and ships to the Administration's request. It means instead providing a new 

framework of debate based on a sound and simple strategy just as Vinson 

did. It means focusing the Debate on those key issues where legislation 

can be determinant. 

The current fiscal crisis should be harnessed as a catalyst to enable the 

undertaking of deep changes. 
34 

The two highest priorities for the Committee should be fundamentally 

changing the disastrous systemic dysfunction of the DoD procurement 

process, and completely re-setting the military compensation system. 

PROCUREMENT 

The Department of Defense acquisition process is seriously broken. Under 

the current system, it takes decades, not years, to develop and field 

weapons systems. Even worse, an increasing number of acquisition 

programs are plagued by cost over runs, schedule slips and failures to 

perform. The many horror stories like the F-35, the Air Force tanker 

scandal, the Navy shipbuilding failures and the Army armor disasters are 

only the visible tip of an iceberg. The major cause has been unbridled 

bureaucratic bloat (e.g.690,000 DoD civilians, 250 uniformed Joint task 

forces) resulting in complete loss of line authority and accountability. As the 

House Armed Services Committee formally concluded: 

"Simply put, the Department of Defense acquisition process is 

broken. The ability of the Department to conduct the large scale 

acquisitions required to ensure our future national security is a 

concern of the committee. The rising costs and lengthening 

schedules of major defense acquisition programs lead to more 

expensive platforms fielded with fewer numbers. 

That is, of course, an understatement. We are really engaged in a form of 

unilateral disarmament through runaway costs. Unless the acquisition 

system is fixed it will soon be impossible to maintain a military of sufficient 

size and sophistication with which to secure our liberties and protect the 

national interest. The solution is clear and achievable. 

MILITARY COMPENSATION 

Just as entitlements are steadily squeezing out discretionary spending in 

the Federal budget, personnel costs in the Pentagon are squeezing out 

operations and modernization. There has not been a comprehensive 

overhaul of military compensation, retirement, and medical care since the 

original Gates Commission during the Nixon Administration. It is long 

overdue. Over the last several years the Pentagon has done the difficult 
35 

work through the Defense Business Board to establish the hard facts 

necessary to undertake such an effort. The Independent QDR panel two 

years ago recommended the establishment of a bi-partisan commission to 

undertake the task and report to Congress and the President. Now is the 

time to act on that recommendation. 

SUMMARY 

This committee has an historic constitutional responsibility, and in the 

present fiscal crisis a unique opportunity to put our Navy back on the 

proper course to secure our future security. The Committee can't do 

everything and must concentrate its efforts on the highest priorities where 

its unique power can be decisive. I urge you to do so. 
36 

John Lehman FebruarY,2011 

John Lehman is Chairman of J.F, Lehman & Company, a private equity investment firm, He 

is a director of Ball Corporation, Verisk, Inc and EnerSys Corporation, Dr. Lehman was 

formerly an investment banker with Paine Webber Inc, Prior to joining Paine Webber, he 

served for six years as Secretary of the Navy, He was President of Abington Corporation 

between 1977 and 1981. He served 25 years in the naval reserve. 

He has served as staff member to Dr. Henry Kissinger on the National Security Council, as 

delegate to the Force Reductions Negotiations in Vienna and as Deputy Director of the U.S. 

Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. 

Dr. Lehman served as a membcr of the 9/11 Commission, and the National Defense 

Commission. 

Dr. Lehman holds a B.S. from St. Joseph's University, a B.A. and M.A. from Cambridge 

University and a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. He is currently a Fellow of 

Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge University. 

Dr. Lehman has written numerous books, including On Seas of Glory, Command of the Seas 

and Making War. 

He is Chairman of the Princess Grace Foundation USA and is a member of the Board of 

Overseers of the School of Engineering at the University ofPel1l1sylvania. 
37 

DISCLOSURE FORM FOR WITNESSES 

CONCERNING J:;'EDERAL CONTRACT AND GRANT INFORMATION 

INSTRUCTION TO WITNESSES: Rule II, clause 2(g)(5), of the Rules of the U.S. 

House of Representatives for the 113'h Congress requires nongovernmental witnesses 

appearing before House committees to include in their written statements a curriculum 

vitae and a disclosure of the amount and source of any federal contracts or grants 

(including subcontracts and subgrants) received during the current and two previous 

fiscal years either by the witness or by an entity represented by the witness. This form is 

intended to assist witnesses appearing before the House Committee on Armed Services in 

complying with the House rule. Please note that a copy of these statements, with 

appropriate redactions to protect the witness's personal privacy (including home address 

and phone number) will be made publicly available in electronic form not later than one 

day after the witness's appearance before the committee. 

Witness name: The Honorable John Lehman 

Capacity in which appearing: (check one) 

V;:;dividual 

_Representative 

If appearing in a representative capacity, name of the company, association or other 

entity being represented: 

FISCAL YEAR 2013 

federal grant(s) / federal agency dollar value subject(s) of contract or 

contracts grant - ----- A/J.'-7v:/ 

FISCAL YEAR 2012 

federal grant(s) / federal agency dollar value subject(s) of contract or 

contracts grant 

;V,~ f. 

v 
38 

FISCAL YEAR 2011 

Federal grant(s) I federal agency dollar value subject(s) of contract or 

contracts grant 

I/~, /c 

Federal Contract Information: If you or the entity you represent before the Committee 

on Armed Services has contracts (including subcontracts) with the federal government, 

please provide the following information: 

Number of contracts (including subcontracts) with the federal government: 

Federal agencies with which federal contracts arc held: 

Current fiscal year (2013): _____________ _ 

Fiscal year 2012: _________________ _ 

Fiscal year 2011: __________________ _ 

List of subjects offederal contract(s) (for example, ship construction, aircraft parts 

manufacturing, software design, force structure consultant, architecture & engineering 

services, etc.): 

Current fiscal (2013): ______________ _ 

Fiscal year 

Fiscal year 2011: 

Aggregate dollar value of federal contracts held: 

Current fiscal (2013): ____________ _ 

Fiscal year 

Fiscal ycar 2011: ________________ _ 

2 
39 

Federal Grant Information: If you or the entity you represent before the Committee on 

Armed Services has grants (including subgrants) with the federal government, please 

provide the following infonnation: 

Number of grants (including subgrants) with the federal government: 

Federal agencies with which federal grants are held: 

Current fiscal year (2013): _____________ _ 

Fiscal year 

Fiscal year 2011 : __________________ _ 

List of subjects of federal grants(s) (for example, materials research, sociological study, 

software design, etc.): 

Current fiscal year 

Fiscal year 

Fiscal year 2011.' ________________ ..... __ . ____ . 

Aggregate dollar value of federal grants held: 

Current fiscal year 

Fiscal year 

Fiscal year 2011.' ______________ .. _ .. _ ... ____ . 

3 
40 

Statement of Admiral Gary Roughead, USN (Ret.) 

HASC Seapower Subcommittee 26 February 2013 

Chairman Forbes, Congressman Mclntyre I am pleased to appear before this 

committee to offer my perspectives on the future challenges, internal and external, 

to our naval forces. 

I am not prone to hyperbole and do not consider our time to be the most dangerous, 

most critical or most challenging time for our nation and its armed forces. Our 

nation has faced more daunting times before - world wars, ideological struggle and 

the existential threat of nuclear annihilation. In fact, the international order is more 

conducive to our interests than is generally appreciated. I believe it is such because 

of the role our Navy has played in past decades. There is no other naval force that 

can command and control and sustain itself globally or be present in so many 

regions with such credible and versatile power. We are the only global maritime 

power and our Navy's presence has made and continues to make a difference. That 

presence and its influence on events have become expected by our fellow citizens 

and friends and foes the world over. That expectation is on the verge of becoming 

unfounded. 

We have reduced defense budgets before, but this time is different. In contrast to 

earlier defense reductions this time the industrial base is smaller, more brittle and 

unsure. Unlike previous periods of defense growth, the spending of the past eleven 

years was not directed toward increasing the inventory of major capital assets that 

enable and sustain our global presence. Accordingly, there is not excess inventory 
41 

that can absorb a procurement holiday or assets which we can rapidly jettison and 

still support our global interests. The increasing costs ofthe All Volunteer Force are 

distorting distributions of spending within the Department of Defense and crowding 

out procurement and operations. Excessive procurement requirements, redundant 

layers of oversight and the time it takes to introduce new capabilities and capacity 

add more cost and further erode purchasing power. 

I served long enough to have experienced the consequences of previous reductions 

in defense budgets. I recall, as a young officer, deploying on a ship that did not have 

the benefit of adequate time at sea to train new Sailors. I was concerned we were 

not ready for the missions assigned and remember being uneasy with regard to the 

safety of my Sailors as they went about their demanding and often hazardous work 

without the training time to prepare adequately. I recall ships remaining in foreign 

ports for extended periods of time because they were unable to get underway 

because of equipment problems or lack of money to steam. None of us wish to 

return to those days, our Sailors and Marines deserve better. 

I recognize we face daunting budgetary challenges and that defense will not be 

immune from reductions. But how that is done will determine the reach and 

effectiveness of the Fleet. It is regrettable and unfortunate that we are in the 

eleventh hour of such important budgetary decisions and only now are the 

consequences of such reductions being made known to the American people - we 
42 

have not had the benefit of a public debate on the challenges and consequences to 

our nation's Navy. 

Sequestration, at its current level and method, will be devastating and is 

irresponsible. We are already seeing a decrease in our global presence due to 

cancelled deployments. Training needed to prepare for future deployments is being 

curtailed harkening back to past times of budget reductions. Even before 

implementation, cash flows are already being disrupted with significant 

consequences for small business and the skilled men and women employed there. 

am quite sure each of you has better examples of their uncertainties than I. My 

great concern is that much of our capability comes from such business across our 

country that may not be able to survive the consequences of sequestration. Under 

sequestration, I believe Fleet size will likely plunge to around 220 ships and 

operational and tactical competence will erode quickly. Sequestration, as currently 

enacted, must be avoided. 

What must be done to provide and maintain a Navy appropriate to the security 

environment and likely demands of the future? I recommend steering the debate 

away from chasing topline budget numbers and engaging in an informed debate 

about where do we want our Navy to be and what do we want it to be able to do. To 

affirm a smaller, more ready Navy can be in the many regions of the world where we 

have vital or important national interests is a false promise. Our Fleet is hard 

pressed now at 286 ships. Anything less will strain our Navy more and jeopardize 
43 

the industrial base that produces and maintains our Fleet. I believe a Fleet between 

325 to 345 ships, with diverse capabilities, to be right for the future. 

The strategy of rebaJancing to Asia, with which I completely agree, does not mean 

we will be able to turn away from the Middle East or neglect events in the Maghreb 

or Levant. Naval forces will still be in demand there, as sensitivities to boots on the 

ground will bias response to the Navy and Marine Corps. Our counter-terrorism 

forces will remain active for the foreseeable future and being able to come from the 

sea will make them more agile, effective and lethal. The number and mix of ships 

will likely matter more in the future than they do today. As we contemplate a 

precipitous drop in Fleet size, we must be mindful of the decade of 2020. That must 

be a factor in considering Fleet size as the number of ships added each year during 

the Reagan build-up of the 1980s will presumably retire at the same rate in the 

2020s, and we will begin the retirements of NIMITZ Class aircraft carriers. The 

opening ofthe Arctic Ocean and demands for ships there will exacerbate the 

problem. 

In addition to thoughtfully addressing Fleet size and composition, maintaining the 

viability of the defense industrial base, controlling spiraling aggregate personnel 

costs, and enhancing the effectiveness and efficiency of our procurement system 

must be addressed and resolved. Each is intellectually and politically hard and 

addressing all simultaneously is harder. But dealing now with these systemic issues 

is imperative if we are to redress the mismatch between requirements and 
44 

resources and if we are serious about having a more sound and essential way to 

engage a constrained budget environment that will likely exist for more than a 

decade. I believe the two most critical areas are addressing unsustainable 

personnel costs and rationalizing our procurement process. Changes to personnel 

compensation and benefits must not be viewed as breaking faith with those who 

serve or who have served, but rather a necessity in preserving the great All 

Volunteer Force we witness today. Rationalizing the procurement process should 

focus on streamlining and not on adding more oversight and cost as is currently and 

illogically being done by adding more people to the acquisition force at a time when 

we will likely be buying less. 

At this very consequential and different time there is much that must be done. The 

founders were very explicit in the need for a Navy and the obligation of Congress to 

provide and maintain a Navy. Circumstances have changed, technology has 

changed, but our nation's maritime imperative remains. This Committee, 

throughout its history in equally challenging times, has understood that imperative 

and led in providing and maintaining a Navy without peer. That time has come 

again. 
45 

Admiral Gary Roughead (USN Ret.), the Annenberg Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover 

Institution, graduated from the US Naval Academy in 1973. In September 2007, Admiral Roughead 

became the twenty-ninth chief of naval operations after holding six operational commands and is one of 

only two officers in the navy's history to have commanded both the Atlantic and Pacific Fleets. 

Ashore he served as the commandant at the US Naval Academy, during which time he led the strategic 

planning effort that underpinned that institution's first capital campaign. He was also the navy's chief of 

legislative affairs, responsible for the Department of the Navy's interaction with Congress, and the 

deputy commander of the US Pacific Command during the massive relief effort following the 2004 

tsunami in Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean. 

As chief of naval operations, Admiral Roughead successfully guided the navy through a challenging 

period of transition in fiscal, security, and personnel matters. He stabilized and accelerated ship and 

aircraft procurement plans, accelerated the navy's capability and capacity in ballistic missile defense and 

unmanned air and underwater systems, and directed the service's investigation of climate change and 

alternative energy. He reestablished the Fourth and Tenth Fleets to better focus on the Western 

Hemisphere and cyber operations, respectively. Admiral Roughead introduced bold programs to prepare 

for the primacy of information in warfare and the use of social media within the navy. He also led the 

navy through changes in law and personnel policy to draw more inclusively than ever on the navy's 

greatest strength, its sailors. 

Admiral Roughead is the recipient of the Defense Distinguished Service Medal, Navy Distinguished 

Service Medal, Defense Superior Service Medal, Legion of Merit, Meritorious Service Medal, Navy 

Commendation Medal, Navy Achievement Medal, and various unit and service awards. He has also 

received awards from several foreign governments. 
46 

DISCLOSURE FORM FOR WITNESSES 

CONCERNING FEDERAL CONTRACT AND GRANT INFORMATION 

INSTRUCTION TO WITNESSES: Rule II, clause 2(g)(5), of the Rules of the U.S. 

House of Representatives for the 113'h Congress requires nongovernmental witnesses 

appearing before House committees to include in their written statements a curriculum 

vitae and a disclosure of the amount and source of any federal contracts or grants 

(including subcontracts and subgrants) received during the current and two previous 

fiscal years either by the witness or by an entity represented by the witness. This form is 

intended to assist witnesses appearing before the House Committee on Arn1ed Services in 

complying with the House rule. Please note that a copy of these statements, with 

appropriate redactions to protect the witness's personal privacy (including home address 

and phone number) will be made publicly available in electronic fonn not later than one 

day after the witness's appearance before the committee. 

Witness name: Admiral Gary Roughead, USN (Ret.) 

Capacity in which appearing: (check one) 

_X_Individual 

._Representative 

If appearing in a representative capacity, name of the company, association or other 

entity being represented: 

FISCAL YEAR 2013 

federal grant(s) / federal agency dollar value subject(s) of contract or 

contracts grant 

N/A 

FISCAL YEAR 2012 

federal grant(s) / federal agency dollar value subject(s) of contract or 

contracts grant 

N/A 

--
47 

FISCAL YEAR 2011 

Federal grant(s) I federal agency dollar value subject(s) of contract or 

contracts /i!ant 

N/A 

Federal Contract Information: If you or the entity you represent before the Committee 

on Armed Services has contracts (including subcontracts) with the federal government, 

please provide the following information: 

Number of contracts (including subcontracts) with the federal government: 

Current fiscal year (2013): __ N/A ___________ _ 

Fiscal year 

Fiscal year 201 

Federal agencies with which federal contracts are held: 

Current fiscal year (2013): ___ N/A ___________ _ 

Fiscal year 2012: ______ N/A ____________ _ 

Fiscal year 2011: N/A __________ _ 

List of subjects offederal contract(s) (for example, ship construction, aircraft parts 

manufacturing, software design, force structure consultant, architecture & engineering 

services, etc.): 

Fiscal year 

Fiscal year 2011 : _____ NI A 

Aggregate dollar value of federal contracts held: 

Current fiscal year (2013): __ N/A __________ _ 

Fiscal year 2012: N/A ___ _ 

Fiscal year 2011: N/A ___________ _ 

2 
48 

Federal Grant Information: If you or the entity you represent before the Committee on 

Armed Services has grants (including subgrants) with the federal government, please 

provide the following information: 

Number of grants (including subgrants) with the federal government: 

Current fiscal year 

Fiscal year 

Fiscal year 2011·. _______ . 

Federal agencies with which federal grants are held: 

Current fiscal year 

Fiscal year 

Fiscal year 2011·. __________ , 

List of subjects of federal grants(s) (for example, materials research, sociological study, 

software design, etc.): 

Current fiscal year (2013): ____ N/A. ___________ _ 

Fiscal year 

Fiscal year 2011·. ________ -

Aggregate dollar value of federal grants held: 

Current fiscal year 

Fiscal year 

Fiscal year 2011·. ________ , 

3 
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING 

FEBRUARY 26, 2013 

(51) 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. LANGEVIN 

Mr. LANGEVIN. 1) Future threat environments are likely to be exceedingly complex, as threat actors acquire significant capabilities in the realms of UAVs, cruise 

missiles, and swarming attacks. I have been pleased to note the Navy’s increasing 

investment in the technologies that I feel will be needed in these environments, especially in fields like directed energy and railguns that promise the ability to create 

diverse effects with minimal magazine requirements, thereby greatly increasing 

time-on-station and combat capability for surface combatants in a future conflict. 

However, such capabilities are not without costs in terms of power requirements, 

cooling capabilities, and other factors highly relevant to our discussion of future 

force mixes. Can you speak to the need for such technologies, and in your view is 

the Navy adequately factoring the needs of future high-energy systems into its future shipbuilding plans? 

Mr. LEHMAN. Along with maneuvering ballistic warheads, and sophisticated homing torpedoes, these are the principal threats to our Navy. None are game-changing 

and all can be countered, but defensive technologies must stay ahead of these evolving threats. R&D accounts must be adequate to fund them. It is important however 

that ships not be developed concurrently with new parameter changing systems. 

The power, dimensional and other requirements of these systems should be integrated into ships in an evolutionary way. The new destroyer and new carrier efforts 

are sad examples of trying to do too much development of new technologies concurrently with ship designs. The record of LHA/LHD, DDG–51, and Nimitz class are 

examples of the proper management of evolutionary design integration. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. 2) I have been following with great interest the development of 

semiautonomous and autonomous UUVs and USVs designed for roles ranging from 

environmental monitoring to mine-hunting. Can you please elaborate on the growing roles of such platforms, and assess how well the Navy is leveraging them as it 

attempts to do more with less? 

Mr. LEHMAN. These underwater systems, UUVs and USVs can be relatively more 

useful in undersea warfare even than their airborne counterparts are to surface and 

air forces. Remotely piloted versions have long been essential to mine-hunting and 

underwater exploration. While the Navy recognizes the promise of these technologies, at a time of shrinking budgets, new technologies without existing bureaucratic and industry supporters tend to suffer disproportionate cuts and cancellations 

compared to programs with political and bureaucratic constituencies. They must be 

actively protected by Congress. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. 3) Future threat environments are likely to be exceedingly complex, as threat actors acquire significant capabilities in the realms of UAVs, cruise 

missiles, and swarming attacks. I have been pleased to note the Navy’s increasing 

investment in the technologies that I feel will be needed in these environments, especially in fields like directed energy and railguns that promise the ability to create 

diverse effects with minimal magazine requirements, thereby greatly increasing 

time-on-station and combat capability for surface combatants in a future conflict. 

However, such capabilities are not without costs in terms of power requirements, 

cooling capabilities, and other factors highly relevant to our discussion of future 

force mixes. Can you speak to the need for such technologies, and in your view is 

the Navy adequately factoring the needs of future high-energy systems into its future shipbuilding plans? 

Admiral ROUGHEAD. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. LANGEVIN. 4) I have been following with great interest the development of 

semiautonomous and autonomous UUVs and USVs designed for roles ranging from 

environmental monitoring to mine-hunting. Can you please elaborate on the growing roles of such platforms, and assess how well the Navy is leveraging them as it 

attempts to do more with less? 

Admiral ROUGHEAD. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 

Æ