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THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE’S 2010 BUDGET 

RECOMMENDATIONS 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

APRIL 30, 2009 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Armed Services 

( 

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

CARL LEVIN, Michigan, Chairman 

EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts 

ROBERT C. BYRD, West Virginia 

JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut 

JACK REED, Rhode Island 

DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii 

BILL NELSON, Florida 

E. BENJAMIN NELSON, Nebraska 

EVAN BAYH, Indiana 

JIM WEBB, Virginia 

CLAIRE McCASKILL, Missouri 

MARK UDALL, Colorado 

KAY R. HAGAN, North Carolina 

MARK BEGICH, Alaska 

ROLAND W. BURRIS, Illinois 

JOHN MCCAIN, Arizona 

JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma 

JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama 

SAXBY CHAMBLISS, Georgia 

LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina 

JOHN THUNE, South Dakota 

MEL MARTINEZ, Florida 

ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi 

RICHARD BURR, North Carolina 

DAVID VITTER, Louisiana 

SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine 

RICHARD D. DEBOBES, Staff Director 

JOSEPH W. BOWAB, Republican Staff Director 

(II) 

C O N T E N T S 

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF WITNESSES 

THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE’S 2010 BUDGET RECOMMENDATIONS

APRIL 30, 2009

Page 

Hamre, John J. Ph.D., President and CEO, Center for Strategic and International Studies ................................................................................................... 5 

Krepinevich, Andrew F. Jr., Ph.D., President, Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments ................................................................................................ 10 

(III) 

(1) 

THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE’S 2010 BUDGET 

RECOMMENDATIONS 

THURSDAY, APRIL 30, 2009 

U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, Washington, DC. 

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:35 a.m. in room SH– 

216, Hart Senate Office Building, Senator Carl Levin (chairman) 

presiding. 

Committee members present: Senators Levin, Bill Nelson, 

McCaskill, Udall, Hagan, Begich, Burris, McCain, Chambliss, and 

Thune. 

Committee staff members present: Richard D. DeBobes, staff director; and Leah C. Brewer, nominations and hearings clerk. 

Majority staff members present: Jonathan D. Clark, counsel; 

Creighton Greene, professional staff member; Gerald J. Leeling, 

counsel; Peter K. Levine, general counsel; William G.P. Monahan, 

counsel; Roy F. Phillips, professional staff member; Arun A. 

Seraphin, professional staff member; Russell L. Shaffer, counsel; 

and William K. Sutey, professional staff member. 

Minority staff members present: Joseph W. Bowab, Republican 

staff director; Adam J. Barker, professional staff member; Richard 

H. Fontaine, Jr., deputy Republican staff director; Paul C. Hutton 

IV, professional staff member; Michael V. Kostiw, professional staff 

member; Daniel A. Lerner, professional staff member; David M. 

Morriss, minority counsel; Lucian L. Niemeyer, professional staff 

member; and Dana W. White, professional staff member. 

Staff assistants present: Kevin A. Cronin, Christine G. Lang, and 

Breon N. Wells. 

Committee members’ assistants present: Edward Mason, assistant to Senator Reed; Christopher Caple, assistant to Senator Bill 

Nelson; Jon Davey and Patrick Hayes, assistants to Senator Bayh; 

Gordon I. Peterson, assistant to Senator Webb; Jennifer Barrett, 

assistant to Senator Udall; Roger Pena, assistant to Senator 

Hagan; Clyde A. Taylor IV, assistant to Senator Chambliss; Jason 

Van Beek, assistant to Senator Thune; and Chip Kennett, assistant 

to Senator Collins. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CARL LEVIN, CHAIRMAN 

Chairman LEVIN. Good morning, everybody. The committee 

meets this morning to receive testimony from Dr. John Hamre, 

President and CEO of the Center for Strategic and International 

Studies; and Dr. Andrew Krepinevich, President of the Center for 

Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. Both of these witnesses are 

2 

well known to the committee. They’ve provided us with valuable insights on broad policy issues in the past. Our witnesses are here 

to present their assessments of Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’s 

recommended changes to the Department of Defense’s (DOD) investment priorities as announced on April 6, 2009. 

Most of the changes will no doubt be reflected in the detailed 

budget for 2010 that we now expect next Thursday. We’re also 

planning on Secretary Gates testifying here on that detailed budget 

the following Thursday, which is 2 weeks from today. 

Some time ago Secretary Gates began to broadly question some 

of DOD’s investment strategies and program priorities that he believes may be less relevant to the current, and most likely, future 

threats that the Nation will face. He has sought to identify any institutional biases and inertia that DOD needs to overcome to ensure that we build and support the kind of military that we need 

both today and into the future. 

Secretary Gates’s concern is that, while the Pentagon is predisposed to give its greatest attention and support to the large, expensive conventional weapons programs, DOD, in his view, has 

failed to give appropriate support to the forces and programs needed to win the kinds of low intensity unconventional or irregular 

wars that we’re in right now in Iraq and Afghanistan and similar 

conflicts that he believes are most likely to be faced in the future. 

With these concerns in mind, on April 6, Secretary Gates announced his recommendations to shift DOD’s investment strategy 

away from costly conventional weapons systems and those programs that are costing far more than planned or are struggling 

technologically toward those technologies and programs that focus 

on counterinsurgency and irregular warfare. 

The Secretary’s recommendations impact all aspects of DOD’s investment plans, including aviation, space, ground vehicles, ships, 

and services. At the same time that he recommended program terminations and reductions, he also recommended resource increases 

for capabilities that are in high demand for operations, such as intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance technologies, and programs 

that support our troops and their families. 

Some of the Secretary’s recommendations are limited to the fiscal 

year 2010 budget request and he defers final or longer range decisions pending the outcomes of the Quadrennial Defense Review 

(QDR) and the Nuclear Posture Review. Congress of course will 

scrutinize the decisions and determine which to approve and which 

to modify or reject. 

Some of the ideas that resonate with me include: first, the view 

that the likelihood of conflict with a major power competitor appears low; second, the idea that we need to shift more focus onto 

the kinds of conflicts that we’re fighting now and more likely to 

face in the immediate future; third, the belief that, while we remain vastly superior militarily to any foe, we need to hedge against 

uncertainties and discourage others from thinking that there is 

something to be gained by challenging world stability, rather than 

by cooperating with the community of nations; and finally, in a limited budget environment, the point that we cannot continue to support programs with long delays, poor performance, and large cost 

overruns. 

3 

There are many questions that I hope our witnesses can help us 

to grapple with, including: Are these strategic and policy approaches of Secretary Gates sound? Do they lead to the major program recommendations of the Secretary which he made on April 6? 

Is the heavy emphasis on counterinsurgency and low intensity conflict by Secretary Gates about right? Is there a way of gauging the 

impact of the Secretary’s decisions on the defense industrial base 

and on the number of jobs that will be lost or impacted? 

While the Gates proposals focus almost entirely on major weapons systems, much of the defense budget’s growth can be attributed 

to significant increases in the personnel and operation and maintenance accounts. Are there any changes that should be considered 

in those areas? 

We are very lucky to have these two witnesses with us this 

morning. Those of us who know them appreciate their talent, their 

independence, and we very much look forward to their perspective. 

I’ll turn to Senator McCain now. 

STATEMENT OF SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN 

Senator MCCAIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to thank the witnesses. Mr. Chairman, you and I have 

had the great pleasure and honor of working with Dr. Krepinevich 

and Dr. Hamre for many years. There are no two people I know 

in Washington who have a better understanding both of the strategic and tactical challenges the United States of America faces 

now and in the future, and I’m very grateful that they are here to 

give us their insight and their view as to not only Secretary Gates’ 

recommendations, but the path that we have to be on with the new 

administration, two wars, and significant challenges such as the increasing militarizing of China and other challenges, not to mention 

pirates, and all of the other numerous national security challenges 

that we face. 

I would also be interested in our witnesses’ view of what may be 

in my mind the most controversial of Secretary Gates’ recommendations, and that’s concerning missile defense. I’m a strong 

believer in missile defense and always have been. So perhaps you 

can provide us some insight in your views on that particular aspect 

of Secretary Gates’s recommendations. 

As you mentioned, Senator Levin, the Pentagon’s programming 

and planning is based on a 5-year cycle and they’re currently working on that plan. Secretary Gates’s recommendations are focused 

on next year’s budget only. So we have a lot to do here and Secretary Gates’s recommendations, at least in my view, reaffirm support for our military, veterans, and their families; rebalance programs; and reform the Pentagon’s acquisition and contracting 

mechanism. 

Finally, I would ask our witnesses if they have had the chance 

to review Senator Levin’s and my legislation, which passed through 

this committee unanimously, concerning acquisition reform, which 

according to the President’s remarks last night at his press conference, may be given some priority. 

So, Senator Levin, thank you for inviting these witnesses. I welcome the witnesses and it’s nice to see old friends and colleagues. 

Thank you. 

4 

[The prepared statement of Senator McCain follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT BY SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN

Mr. Chairman, thank you. I join you in welcoming our witnesses here today to 

discuss Secretary Gates’ 2010 budget and policy recommendations. 

On April 6, Defense Secretary Gates announced a series of 2010 budget recommendations based on his assessment of the Defense Department’s capabilities, requirements, risks and needs for the purpose of shifting the Pentagon in a different 

strategic direction. 

I support a number of the Secretary’s recommendations, which require among 

other things—making very tough choices now on specific weapon systems and defense priorities for the 2010 budget while also recognizing the need to defer, revisit, 

and re-evaluate other weapon systems requiring additional understanding and analysis until after the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR). 

Secretary’s Gates’ overall 2010 budget and policy recommendations reflect his best 

judgment, reflecting lessons learned from prosecuting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan 

for over 2 years. It’s the start of a much longer-term process to ensure our defense 

dollars are spent prudently to address the threats we face today and will likely face 

in the years ahead, while also addressing the range of potential threats around the 

world, now and in the future. 

The recommendations proposed by Secretary Gates provide a snapshot of difficult 

decisions still to come. The Pentagon’s programming and planning is based on a 5- 

year cycle and they are currently working on that plan. Secretary Gates’ recommendations are focused on next year’s budget only. 

So those recommendations and their potential impact on DOD’s base budget have 

not been factored into their 5-year plan. Many more difficult decisions still lie 

ahead. We will have a better understanding of how tough those decisions will be 

later this year when the results of the ongoing QDR are briefed to the committee 

and whether the administration’s fiscal year 2011 budget is resourced to support the 

Pentagon’s QDR recommendations. 

Secretary Gates’ recommendations reaffirm support for our military, veterans and 

their families; rebalance programs; and reform the Pentagon’s acquisition and contracting mechanisms. 

I greatly appreciate that Secretary Gates continues to place the highest priority 

on supporting the men and women of the U.S. Armed Forces. 

Further, I strongly support Secretary Gates’ recommendations to restructure a 

number of major defense programs. It has long been necessary to shift spending 

away from weapon systems plagued by scheduling and cost overruns to ones that 

strike the correct balance between the needs of our deployed forces and the requirements for meeting the emerging threats of tomorrow. I believe Secretary Gates’ decision is key to ensuring that the defense establishment closes the gap between the 

way it supports current operations and the way it prepares for future conventional 

threats. 

Finally, I fully endorse Secretary Gates’ recommendations to improve the performance of the Defense Department acquisition programs and contracting mechanisms. 

There is broad agreement on the need for acquisition and contracting reform in the 

Defense Department. Senator Levin and I have introduced S. 454, a bill to improve 

the way the Defense Department acquires major weapons systems. 

I welcome the President and Secretary Gates’ endorsement of the bill and their 

commitment to work with Congress to quickly enact legislation which can improve 

the performance of the Pentagon’s defense acquisition system. 

Mr. Chairman, thank you and I look forward to hearing our witnesses’ thoughts 

on Secretary Gates’ 2010 budget recommendations. 

Chairman LEVIN. Thank you very much, Senator McCain. In regards to the Acquisition Reform Bill, as I mentioned to you, I think 

that because of our efforts, what we’ve done to let our respective 

party leaders know, there’s a very good chance that we will get to 

our bill by the week after next. So that I think our efforts are paying off and I very much appreciate your raising that here and all 

you’ve done to make it possible. 

Senator MCCAIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for your 

leadership. 

Chairman LEVIN. I guess we’ll go in alphabetical order. If we go 

by age we’d have to let you fight that one out. 

5 

Dr. HAMRE. If we go by weight I could go first. [Laughter.] 

Chairman LEVIN. I think, Dr. Hamre, you’re listed first, so we’re 

going to call on you. Dr. Hamre. 

STATEMENT OF JOHN J. HAMRE, PH.D., PRESIDENT AND CEO, 

CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES 

Dr. HAMRE. All right, thank you. Chairman Levin, Ranking 

Member McCain, and all members of the committee: Thank you for 

inviting me. I had the privilege of working for this committee for 

10 years, and there’s an old saying that you don’t have a second 

chance to make a good first impression, and so I’ve blown it for all 

of you. I’m really speaking to the new members over here, who 

don’t know me. 

Chairman LEVIN. Except we’ve warned them. [Laughter.] 

Dr. HAMRE. Well then, I’m toast. [Laughter.] 

I really am grateful to come back. I treasured the time I worked 

on this committee’s staff. It really was the best professional experience I had, and I miss it. 

I have a formal statement and I’d request that it be placed in the 

record if that’s all right. 

Chairman LEVIN. Of course. 

Dr. HAMRE. I’ll summarize very briefly. 

I admire Secretary Gates for taking on some very hard issues 

here. I know the purpose of today’s hearing is to look at the individual programs that he’s proposing to cut and what impact that 

may have on the industrial base. But I think even more important 

is what he’s trying to do to restore fiscal discipline and budgetary 

discipline in the Department. I was a comptroller for 4 years. I 

know what it’s like to do budgets and, frankly, the current system 

is out of control. He is really taking some very important steps to 

bring it back in control. 

We misused supplementals these last years and we let an awful 

lot of programming get into supplementals that then took the pressure off of making hard and disciplined choices. So I think it’s an 

extraordinarily important thing to do. It’s tough because it does 

mean that we’re having to now bring back into tough balance and 

discipline choices that have long-term implications, and I think it’s 

very important. 

I also think that it’s very important what he’s trying to do to restore the relationship between technical support the government 

needs from the private sector and the responsibility that only the 

government can undertake. He’s wanting to buy back government 

employees, but I don’t think that alone is an adequate answer. I 

think we still have to look deeper into that, and I would encourage 

you to make a focus of that when you get done with your bill, because I think that that’s just as important a question. 

The government does need to buy technical support from the private sector, but we haven’t really got a good structure in place any 

longer. We have private sector people doing jobs that I think the 

government ought to be doing, and, frankly, we have nonprofit 

guys doing work that ought to be in the profit-making sector. This 

is a big issue. I hope you’ll look at that as well. 

Senator MCCAIN. Can you give us a couple of examples? 

6 

Dr. HAMRE. Sir, if you were to go over to the policy shop at DOD, 

half of those people are contractors. They’re not government employees. I happen to think that government employees ought to be 

doing policy. In another example, we have nonprofit organizations 

that are basically running labs, competing against profit-making 

entities for the work. 

These are questions we need to sort out, and I don’t think we 

have a good framework any longer. We do need technical support 

and sometimes it’s in the profit-seeking part of the private sector 

and sometimes it’s in the nonprofit-seeking part of the private sector. But the ground rules have broken down, and we really need 

to come back and look at that. I think this is a start, but it isn’t 

an answer. More work needs to be done. I’d be delighted to talk 

with you at some point about it. 

Chairman LEVIN. That would be great. We look forward to that. 

Dr. HAMRE. So let’s focus on the specific issue, and let me make 

just a couple of very brief points and then I’ll get off the stage. 

First, let me say, of all of the programs that were cut by the Secretary, or proposed for cuts, because really this is now your decision—he’s made recommendations. Only Congress can decide what 

the country’s going to do. So his are recommendations. Every one 

of the programs he proposed to terminate had and has a valid requirement. We still need these things. It’s a question of priorities. 

I think we’re coming on a time when budgets are going to become 

more constrained. They’re going to be constrained by a desire by 

the public to reallocate resources in the aggregate and, frankly, 

they’re being constrained by rising pressure inside the defense 

budget, especially in the operational and personnel accounts. So 

there have to be some priorities set. 

It is not the case that we’ve just been wasting money for years 

on bad programs. It’s a case where we’re having to realign and reassess priorities now, and you’re going to have to do that. 

I think I would like to bring your attention to, what I think is 

a very fundamental issue. Mr. Chairman, you raised this in your 

statement. That is the relationship between the strategic investment we make in people and the strategic investment we make in 

equipment. There has been a very strong preference in Congress 

and, frankly, lately in the Department for people, and we’re going 

to expand and have expanded the Army and the Marine Corps by 

about 100,000 people. 

Now, I honestly do not believe that this expanded manpower 

base is sustainable going forward, unless it means we’re going to 

have dramatically constrained modernization accounts. The cost of 

personnel has skyrocketed in recent years, and during wars we’re 

going to do whatever it takes to support them, and we should. But 

we don’t take back benefits and pay after wars, and we tend to 

hand them out to absolutely everybody, even though maybe only 60 

percent of the force ever deploys. 

So there’s a real question about the strategic investment in people and the strategic investment in things to support warfare. This 

is a budget that basically favors people, and I understand that. I 

think for the next 5 to 10 years that certainly is going to be the 

case before us. 

7 

But I think we have to plan for three types of contingencies going 

forward: asymmetric high-end warfare. If we have to go to war in 

the Taiwan Straits, that’s going to be an astoundingly challenging 

environment. Now, I don’t want a war with China. I don’t think 

we’ll have one. We certainly can avoid it. But we do have to think 

about it, and it’s going to put a real premium on very high-end 

equipment. That’s at the high end. 

At the low end, we’re involved in two very difficult asymmetric 

wars, and they take lots of people. That’s why there is this high 

premium on people in this budget. 

Then we still have to plan for standard conventional, traditional 

warfare. I think this budget tries to do all three of those things, 

but it certainly has made the preference in the near term on people. That is a very major question about what that does to our industrial base over time. 

Chairman LEVIN. Just to be clear, when you say people, you’re 

talking about the number? 

Dr. HAMRE. Military personnel in uniform. 

Chairman LEVIN. Mainly the number. 

Dr. HAMRE. Mainly the number, yes, sir. We’re doing a very good 

job of supporting those that we have, and we should. I have no 

quarrel with that. The real question is, can we support a larger 

force structure over time. My sense is that we will only be able to 

do that at the expense of modernization, and right now we will 

have a hard time sustaining competitions going forward. Our industrial base is getting that thin. 

So I would ask that you look at that question as you are thinking 

about the choices that you’re going to be making. 

Let me make one final comment, and this is, I was the Comptroller for 4 years and the Department builds 5-year budgets. Five 

years makes a difference for the DOD. We have to make choices 

now looking downstream. I mean no criticism because I worked 

here and I love this institution, but Congress tends to look at 1 

year at a time. 

Please do not make a choice just for 1 year to buy the political 

pressure off 1 year. This has to be looked at in a long-term context. 

This is what the Secretary is asking you to do. I’ll tell you, they’re 

working on 5-year plans now that are more painful than the one 

they’ve just given you. 

Our budgets have not been properly priced for over 4 years, and 

there is pressure coming that they’re now having to take program 

cuts just to make good the program of record. Because of that, you 

have to take a 5-year look at this as well, not just a 1-year look 

at it. 

Let me step back and I’d be delighted to answer any questions. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Hamre follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT BY DR. JOHN J. HAMRE

Chairman Levin, Ranking Member McCain, distinguished members of the Armed 

Services Committee, thank you for inviting me to appear before this committee 

again. I had the privilege of working for this committee for nearly 10 years, the best 

years of my professional life. I will always be grateful for that opportunity, and I 

thank you for giving me a chance to appear before you today. 

8 

I congratulate Secretary Gates for his leadership. I know the purpose of the hearing today is to examine the specific recommendations on individual weapon systems, 

but the most important contribution he is making is to restore budget discipline in 

the Department and to start the long road back to competency in the acquisition 

process. This is crucial and he is courageous to take on this problem. 

I recount my time with this committee because it was as a professional staff member of this committee that I had the most comparable experience to what we are 

living today. Back in 1989, then Secretary of Defense Richard Cheney offered sweeping recommendations to terminate a large number of weapon systems—the F–15, 

the F–14, the Army Helicopter Improvement Program, the V–22 tilt rotor aircraft, 

the M1 tank—to name just a few. In one sense, the circumstances are very similar 

to today. Back then, America had come through the Cold War and President Bush 

and Congress promised major reductions in defense spending. The popular sentiment at the time was that we needed to harvest the so-called ‘‘peace dividend’’. 

Defense budgets started a long-term downward trend. I sense that we may be at 

a comparable pivot point now. In this sense the circumstances of these two episodes 

are similar. They differ, however, in a very substantial way. Back then we had a 

considerably larger base from which to cut programs and personnel. We eliminated 

nearly a third of Active Duty and Reserve military personnel. We had 300,000 soldiers stationed in Europe. We reduced the Army and pulled them back from Europe. 

We had nearly 20 prime contractors. We could consolidate defense industry. We had 

a relatively large inventory of modern equipment produced during the height of the 

Cold War, so we could cut back production sharply and still have a very modern 

force. We could undertake four rounds of base closures—closing nearly a quarter of 

the physical infrastructure of the Department. 

We undertook such sweeping changes 20 years ago, but we had a substantially 

larger base from which we could make reductions. The budget for the Defense Department now faces a similar pivotal change. Seven difficult years of war have removed a public consensus for increasing defense budgets. The misuse of supplemental appropriations bills has badly eroded budgetary discipline. All of this is coming together to create a new era of constrained budgets for the Defense Department. 

As was the case 20 years ago, we now must make major changes to the defense program. But unlike the time 20 years ago, all of the relatively easy pathways to reduced spending are gone. We cannot reconsolidate defense industry. We cannot 

again reduce our combat units by 25–30 percent. We cannot close major bases and 

installations. We now face exceptionally painful choices. 

Secretary Gates has met this demanding situation with sweeping recommendations for cuts to major weapon systems. It is a courageous step. He has thought 

through his options and has presented Congress with a reasoned way forward. It 

is now the serious business of Congress to decide whether or not to accept his recommendations. After all, they are just recommendations. Only Congress can decide 

what is to be the will of the American people going forward. 

I have enormous regard for Secretary Gates. I serve him as the Chairman of the 

Defense Policy Board. But today I appear as a single citizen, and my comments do 

not reflect the thinking of the Defense Policy Board, or of my think tank, the Center 

for Strategic and International Studies. These views are solely mine, and I alone 

am responsible for them. 

I fully understand the Secretary’s thinking, and believe that he has assembled a 

responsible set of recommendations. I strongly agree with the need to restore budget 

discipline in the Defense Department. The wide use of supplemental appropriations 

bills to fund basic activities of the Department was hugely corrosive to budget discipline. This was amplified by the very unfortunate practice during the last decade 

of ‘‘unfunded priority lists’’. The military departments would publish lists of things 

they couldn’t get the Secretary of Defense to buy (or didn’t even ask), and instead 

would beg Congress for more money to buy them. This broadly corrosive climate of 

indiscipline was created inside the Department, enabled, and in many instances encouraged, by Congress. Now this is ending, and I very much support the Secretary’s 

commitment to restore regular order and budgetary discipline. 

Where I perhaps differ with the Secretary is on the very fundamental decision of 

where to make strategic investments—in people or in modernizing weapon systems. 

I could easily be misunderstood, so let me be very clear here. I honor, as do all 

Americans, the sacrifice of our military personnel who have borne the burdens of 

these wars. Like Secretary Gates, we must provide them and their families the support they deserve. The budget should reflect this. 

But I also believe that we are not going to be able to afford over time the larger 

force that is now planned for the future. The cost of sustaining the current force 

is already daunting. The cost of sustaining over time a larger force structure will 

9 

come only with sharp cuts in equipment modernization. We are seeing that today 

with these recommendations. 

We have a very complex future to anticipate. During the Cold War we had a simple thought. If we built a force to fight the Soviet Union, we would have adequate 

capability to handle any lesser contingency. If we could skin a cat, we could skin 

a kitten. 

But today we have a very different circumstance. We have to prepare for three 

very different contingencies. First, we must prepare for highly demanding asymmetric warfare. If we have to take actions in the Taiwan Straits, for example, we 

can anticipate a very challenging contingency. I don’t want conflict with China, I 

don’t predict it, and I don’t think we will actually have it. But we do have to anticipate what it might entail should we face that crisis, and in this instance it will be 

highly demanding with an emphasis on advanced weapon systems. 

At the other end of the spectrum we face asymmetric wars against low-technology 

opponents. We are in two wars like this now. I should point out that although our 

opponents utilize low-technology, we continue to depend on high technology in many 

ways. These wars place enormous demands on people, and I fully understand why 

Secretary Gates believes we need to invest in a larger Army and Marine Corps at 

this time. The all volunteer force has performed very well during wartime, but we 

have not sized our force for 7 years of continuous warfare. We need a larger force 

right now. But that larger force—when combined with the substantial increase in 

the costs of maintaining that force—is now effectively crowding out weapons system 

modernization. 

The third contingency we must anticipate is more traditional war against a serious potential opponent. We have waged two of these types of wars in the past 20 

years. As a planning construct, it is quite different from the high-end asymmetric 

war, and the low-end asymmetric war. We have to plan for all three. 

The Secretary of Defense has given a proposal that balances these three, and in 

his judgment the right balance is to buy a larger force now and pay for it by cutting 

a series of major systems in the near term. I think he may be right. But I am also 

convinced that over time we will not be able to sustain even this reduced modernization with the expanded military end strength at the current cost structure for that 

military. Once we authorize new pay and benefits, we never take it back. So the 

personnel costs are now structural. 

But if we cut procurement substantially now, we also make structural changes on 

the industrial base. In your letter of introduction, you asked me to comment on the 

industrial base, so let me conclude with a few comments about the industrial base. 

First, let me say that we made an enormously important decision 90 years ago to 

build aircraft in the private sector and not in government arsenals. I believe that 

was absolutely the right decision. Indeed, I think it was one of the three decisions 

that helped us win the Cold War—a decision made 30 years before the Cold War. 

This strategic decision continues to this day, and it makes the defense industry 

indispensible partners. We cannot go to war and win without our defense industry 

partners. 

When we harvested the so-called ‘‘peace dividend’’ 20 years ago, we forced a consolidation of the defense industrial base to an absolute minimum. Now we are proposing further cuts. I believe we are coming to the point where we will not be able 

to hold competitions for new weapon systems. This may be unavoidable, but I think 

it is a great worry. I am absolutely convinced it will cost us enormously to try to 

recreate capabilities 10 years from now. 

Let me illustrate this by taking only one example. The Department is recommending termination of the C–17. The current strategic airlift fleet is comprised of 

C–5s and C–17s. 19 percent of the fleet—the C–5A models—is today on average 37 

years old. The C–5Ms—16 percent of the fleet—are on average 24 years old today. 

Their reliability reflects it. The mission capable rate for the C–5A is only 50 percent 

today, and I personally question that. The mission capable rate for the C–5M we 

hope will be 75 percent, but that will be its high point when we complete the modernization. It will decline from there. 

Fortunately the C–17 comprises 65 percent of the strategic airlift fleet, and its 

reliability is 85 percent, which is logical because the average age of the fleet today 

is only 7 years. But we are now proposing to terminate the program. It took nearly 

15 years to build a consensus, design the aircraft and manufacture and deliver the 

first C–17. In 15 years the C–5As will be 53 years old, the Ms will be 39 years old 

and the C–17s 22 years old on average. This assumes we terminate the C–17 today 

and start developing its successor next year. I doubt we will do that. Indeed, I doubt 

we will start a new strategic airlift aircraft in the next decade, given the budget 

pressures we face. 

10 

I use this just as an example. The C–17 is one of those systems that will be used 

in high-end asymmetric wars, low-end asymmetric wars and in conventional conflicts. I would suggest there is considerable risk in terminating the program at this 

time. I don’t doubt we will have a producer of large commercial aircraft in 15 years 

that could build the next airlifter, but the only way to have a competition for it will 

be through an international competition, as we have today with the tanker modernization program. 

Distinguished members of the committee, I have only made your job more difficult. The Department has made important and principled recommendations, but 

only you can make this a national decision. Let me conclude by making your task 

even more complex. 

Congress makes decisions 1 year at a time. The Department makes plans over a 

5 year period. Right now, the Department of Defense (DOD) is working on the next 

5 year plan, and I can assure you this is even more difficult than the one they have 

just submitted. The program of record was not properly priced. For 4 years the Department has utilized unrealistic risk assumptions for most major weapon systems, 

meaning that every sophisticated weapon system is underfunded. There are major 

cuts still coming beyond those announced by the Secretary. Personnel costs continue 

to soar. As you make decisions on this year’s budget, you must consider the impact 

this has on the next 5 years. This is possible only through a close dialogue with 

the Department. I know that Secretary Gates would welcome that dialogue. 

Thank you for inviting me to testify before you today. I am grateful that you are 

willing to serve at this critical time on these important matters. I would be pleased 

to respond to any questions you might have. 

Chairman LEVIN. Thank you, Dr. Hamre. 

Dr. Krepinevich. 

STATEMENT OF ANDREW F. KREPINEVICH, JR., PH.D., PRESIDENT, CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND BUDGETARY ASSESSMENTS 

Dr. KREPINEVICH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, thank you, Senator 

McCain, for the opportunity to appear before you today to share my 

views with you and your colleagues on the issue of the defense 

budget and the defense program. 

Upfront I’ll say on balance I think Secretary Gates’s recent decisions will improve our overall military posture. Having said that, 

I think there are a number of major outstanding issues that need 

to be addressed before we can really get a sense of which decisions 

need to be sustained and which ones might be refined. 

I think it comes down to three issues. Essentially, what Secretary Gates announced was changes in the set of capabilities that 

our military is going to have over time. What didn’t get addressed 

are the challenges or the problems that these capabilities are intended to address, so the what, and the how: How will these capabilities be employed in an optimal manner in order to deal with 

these particular security problems? 

You might look at this in terms of a medical analogy. In order 

to have a good prescription, which is to say, what kind of equipment should we buy, how large of a force should we have, what 

kind of mix should we have, you need to do a good diagnosis of 

what the problem is, what are the existing and emerging threats. 

You also need to have a good prognosis: Among the treatment options, among the possible prescriptions, which one is the most attractive and the most relevant for the circumstance that we’re looking at? 

In looking at that first question, the diagnosis, we belatedly diagnosed that we have a challenge in modern irregular warfare. I believe Secretary Gates right now is struggling to try and instituVerDate Nov 24 2008 10:47 Jan 29, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00014 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 Y:\BORAWSKI\DOCS\54649.TXT JUNE PsN: JUNEB
11 

tionalize what is still an unfamiliar kind of warfare in the Military 

Services. I think that is a major effort or a major objective of his 

that’s animating his actions in terms of some of these changes in 

the programs in the budget. 

But I think equally important, and this came out in his Foreign 

Affairs piece about a balanced defense are, what I believe to be, 

three emerging challenges to our security that perhaps haven’t 

been receiving the attention they deserve. One is the growing risk 

we are incurring and likely going to continue to incur in terms of 

our ability to project military power into two areas of vital interest. 

One is East Asia as a consequence of the Chinese ongoing development of what they call Assassin’s Mace, military capabilities that 

are designed to push us progressively further and further away 

from their coast, uncovering key allies that we have in the region 

and compromising key interests. 

Second, as we’ve seen in a number of military exercises, the increased risk that we are incurring, perhaps not consciously, in operating in the Persian Gulf area, specifically the Persian Gulf itself. 

So the first part of the diagnosis is that the cost of projecting 

power is going up. It’s going up in two areas of vital interest to the 

United States. Second, the cost of defending forward I think is 

going to go up, and I think it’s going to go up substantially, even 

in the case of irregular warfare. 

I think the canary in the mine shaft in terms of this particular 

challenge was the second Lebanon War. In that war Hezbollah 

fired over 4,000 projectiles into Israel, some up to 50 miles or further inside Israel proper. Several hundred thousand people had to 

be evacuated from their homes. They had to shut down the oil refinery and distribution system for fear that a lucky hit would cause 

untold economic damage. Several guided weapons, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), and anti-ship cruise missiles were fired by either Hezbollah or the Quds Force. 

The long and the short of it is, extended range systems are diffusing down to irregular forces and over time certainly it seems 

likely that guided weapons or precision guided weapons, as some 

people call them, are going to filter down into these forces as well. 

Then you’ll face the challenge of, even in irregular warfare operations, this could be the next big thing beyond improvised explosive 

devices (IEDs). How will we defend Camp Victory? How will we defend key commercial facilities, key transportation nodes, key government facilities, key military bases, when these kinds of capabilities diffuse? 

As I said, they have already diffused to Hezbollah, and they’re 

not in the single digits or the dozens; they’re in the thousands. 

What will happen when this begins to shift into precision capabilities? 

Third, there’s getting there, projecting power; there’s defending 

what you were sent to protect; and there is also the ability to sustain that. That requires unfettered access to the global commons, 

which in traditional times were the seas, but now they’ve become 

space, cyberspace, the seas, and the undersea. The Chinese in particular are threatening our access to space and cyberspace, and I 

think progressively in some areas the seas. Certainly we’re compromised in the littorals. 

12 

If you want to get a very interesting briefing, I suggest General 

Mattis and the results of the Millennium Challenge 2002 exercise, 

where the better part of the U.S. fleet was sunk in the Persian 

Gulf by the Iranians. This is going back 7, 8 years now. 

But in particular, the growing risk to our assets in space, which 

are increasingly critical to our ability as a military to utilize the 

battle networks that have been created over the last 20 years, everything from communications to guiding our precision weapons to 

their targets. 

So these are three, I think, emerging challenges that we ignore 

over time at our peril. Essentially, they present us with strategic 

choices: Are we going to accept or do we have to accept an erosion 

in our position, or are there things we can do to offset these challenges and preserve and enhance our position? 

So that’s the diagnosis. Now, what’s the prognosis? Seven years 

ago in 2002, I testified before this committee and I made the point 

that you have a set of capabilities and you have a set of problems, 

and the connective tissue is really the operational concept or the 

doctrine that the military comes up with that says: This is how I’m 

going to apply these capabilities to solve these problems. 

The problem is when you start to talk about operational concepts, you start to talk about winners and losers. What tools, what 

capabilities am I going to use? What tools come out of the toolbox, 

what tools stay in the toolbox? Despite the fact that Senator Levin 

at the time approached the DOD about this issue and Joint Forces 

Command was given the mission, we still don’t have anything approximating the kind of operational concepts that would really enable the committee, the military, or the Secretary of Defense, I 

think, to make some really good decisions. 

Let me give you just a brief example. 25 years ago we had an 

operational concept called air-land battle, because of the new challenges the Soviets were presenting in Europe. As a consequence of 

the detailed study that was done on that, the layer cake defense, 

it was determined that the U.S. III Corps would reinforce northern 

Europe, we made adjustments to the air defense belt, we established Prepositioning of Material Configured in Unit Sets, we 

talked about 10 divisions reinforcing in 10 days, the Navy talked 

about the outer air battle in terms of dealing with the threat from 

Soviet aircraft, and the Marines talked about protecting the northern flank up in Norway. 

You look at our position in the Far East today and what the Chinese are doing in terms of the Assassin’s Mace anti-access, area denial capabilities, and whatever doctrine there is or whatever operational concepts, they are fuzzy. Fuzzy concepts don’t provide good 

debate. They don’t provide good intellectual rigor. They don’t create 

winners and losers. At the same time, they don’t give you the kinds 

of shifts in capabilities that you need in order to be able either to 

deflect these challenges or at least to realize that you can’t cope 

with them. 

So again, we need to match how we’re going to deal with these 

problems along with the problems themselves. 

Finally, the issue of resources. If we do a good diagnosis and we 

come up with a proper prognosis, as my colleague Dr. Hamre says 

here, we have to be able to execute it in terms of resources that 

13 

are available. I would just simply echo the comments he has made 

about the likely gap between the existing program, almost certain 

gap, between the existing defense program and the resources that 

are likely to be made available to sustain it. 

While Secretary Gates made some decisions, the decisions really 

didn’t affect the overall shape of the defense budget in a dramatic 

way. I share Dr. Hamre’s concerns that we are delaying the day of 

reckoning when it comes to the defense top line, given some of the 

other pressures that we confront right now, absent some external 

threat or external shock to the system. 

At this point I think I would like to conclude my testimony, Mr. 

Chairman. I’d be happy to respond to any questions you or Senator 

McCain or the committee might have. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Krepinevich follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT BY DR. ANDREW F. KREPINEVICH

INTRODUCTION

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to appear before you today, and 

to share my views on the Defense Department’s (DOD) fiscal year 2010 Defense 

budget and program. On balance, I believe Secretary of Defense Gates’ recent decisions regarding the Defense program will improve our overall military posture. 

However, there are several major outstanding issues that must be addressed before 

we can fully assess the secretary’s decision. First, have we identified the key existing and emerging challenges to our security? Second, how do Secretary Gates and 

our military leaders see the capabilities in the current program enabling our Armed 

Forces to meet these challenges? Third, is this approach affordable, given projected 

resource constraints? Finally, what role can the defense industrial base play, not 

only in supplying the needed capabilities in a timely manner, but also as a key U.S. 

strategic asset? 

EXISTING AND EMERGING CHALLENGES

In his recent Foreign Affairs article, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates stated 

that the United States needs a more ‘‘balanced’’ U.S. military, one that is better 

suited for the types of irregular conflicts now being waged in Afghanistan and Iraq. 

At the same time, he also cautioned that ‘‘It would be irresponsible not to think 

about and prepare for the future... .’’ Secretary Gates’ admonition is as wise as 

it is obvious. Have we correctly identified the principal military challenges to our 

security? Failure to do so could render much of our existing and planned military 

capabilities ‘‘wasting assets.’’ The term ‘‘wasting asset’’ was common among senior 

U.S. policy makers in the Cold War’s early days. Even after its massive demobilization at the end of World War II, the United States possessed an incalculable strategic advantage: a monopoly of nuclear weapons. When the Soviet Union tested its 

atomic bomb in August 1949, it triggered a sense of urgency and a period of intense 

effort in the United States to devise a new strategy since its nuclear monopoly was 

now a wasting asset. These efforts brought together the Nation’s best strategists 

and yielded the Truman administration’s NSC–68 report and, later, the Eisenhower 

administration’s Solarium Study and NSC 162/2. These in turn laid the foundation 

for a U.S. strategy to counter a nuclear-armed Soviet Union. 

To help offset the loss of this monopoly, the United States sought to develop new 

advantages while sustaining others: some new capabilities would be needed, as well 

as different methods of employment. Shortly after the Soviet nuclear test of a fission 

weapon, President Truman approved plans to develop thermonuclear, or fusion, 

weapons, with far greater destructive power. During the Cold War the United 

States also exploited its longstanding relative advantage in technology to maintain 

a highly effective nuclear deterrent. Faced with a nuclear standoff, equally important were efforts to sustain the U.S. military’s unsurpassed ability to project and 

sustain large forces around the globe. On two occasions, during the Korean and 

Vietnam Wars, and again during the first Gulf War, the United States transported 

large field armies approaching a half million troops or more overseas for a significant period of time, enabled by the U.S. military’s unfettered access to the global 

commons, principally the seas and the air but increasingly space and cyberspace as 

well. 

14 

With the Soviet Union’s collapse in December 1991, the United States’ ability to 

project military power was effectively unconstrained. Large-scale deployments to 

Panama, Haiti, and the Balkans during the 1990s were eclipsed by the dispatch of 

hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops to Afghanistan and Iraq to topple hostile regimes following the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington. Throughout the post-Cold War era America’s power-projection forces continued underwriting 

America’s security commitments around the globe and assured the security of allies 

and partners alike. 

Several events in recent years, although not as dramatic as the Soviet nuclear 

test, strongly suggest that traditional methods of projecting power and accessing the 

global commons, along with perhaps hundreds of billions of dollars of U.S. military 

equipment, risk becoming wasting assets. The rise of major powers such as China 

and hostile states such as Iran, combined with the accelerating diffusion of advanced military technologies, is making power projection increasingly difficult. As 

these trends play out, Washington will likely find it progressively more expensive— 

and perhaps prohibitively expensive—in both blood and treasure to project power 

into several areas of vital interest, to include East Asia and the Persian Gulf. Even 

forces able to deploy forward successfully are liable to find it increasingly difficult 

to defend what they have been sent to protect. Moreover, the U.S. military’s unfettered access to portions of the global commons, especially space and cyberspace, is 

being challenged. 

For some time now it has become apparent that our military will confront increased difficulty in projecting power in maritime chokepoints or in constricted waters like the Persian Gulf. In 1987, toward the end of the Iran-Iraq War, the Reagan 

administration directed the Navy to protect oil tankers in the Persian Gulf. In May 

of that year an Iraqi warplane fired 2 Exocet missiles at the frigate USS Stark, killing 37 sailors and severely damaging the ship. In April 1988, the frigate USS Samuel B. Roberts was badly damaged by an Iranian mine. A few years later, two more 

U.S. warships, USS Tripoli and USS Princeton, suffered severe damage during the 

first Gulf War after striking primitive Iraqi mines, discouraging American commanders from contemplating an amphibious assault against an insignificant naval 

power. 

These events occurred in a relatively benign environment. The United States was 

not at war with either Iran or Iraq during its naval escort operations, and Iraq’s 

navy at the time of the first Gulf War was miniscule compared to the U.S. fleet. 

As later military exercises would show, the risks are far greater when facing an active, clever adversary. Operating in confined waters close to shore significantly reduces the warning time a fleet has to deal with the threat of high-speed, sea-skimming anti-ship cruise missiles. The same can be said of the dangers from high-speed 

suicide boats packed with explosives that can hide among the many commercial 

craft plying these waters. Anti-ship mines are both proliferating and becoming far 

more difficult to detect than those that plagued the U.S. fleet in the first Gulf War. 

If nothing else, by slowing ships’ movement and restricting their maneuverability, 

mines make them easier prey for missiles and suicide craft. Iran is also looking to 

master the operation of quiet diesel submarines in the Gulf’s noisy waters. All this 

suggests that the Persian Gulf, the jugular vein of the world’s oil supply, risks 

gradually becoming a ‘‘no-go’’ zone for the U.S. Navy. 

The challenge emerging from China to the U.S. military’s ability to reassure its 

allies and friends in East Asia is even more formidable. The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is aggressively developing capabilities and strategies to degrade 

the U.S. military’s ability to project power into the region. Senior Chinese political 

and military leaders decided it would be foolhardy to challenge the U.S. military 

head-on for military dominance. Rather, China would combine western technology 

with eastern stratagems. To the Chinese, this means seizing the initiative in the 

event of a conflict by exploiting surprise. This will be accomplished by breaking up 

the U.S. military’s communications networks and launching preemptive attacks to 

the point where such attacks, or even the threat of such attacks, would raise the 

costs of U.S. action to prohibitive levels. The Chinese have a name for the set of 

military capabilities that support this strategic philosophy: ‘‘Assassin’s Mace’’ or, in 

Chinese, Shashoujian. 

The Assassin’s Mace mantra is that such forces enable the ‘‘inferior’’ (China) to 

defeat the ‘‘superior’’ (the United States). The Chinese effort rests on two pillars. 

One is developing and fielding what U.S. military analysts refer to as anti-access/ 

area-denial (A2/AD) capabilities. Generally speaking, Chinese anti-access forces seek 

to deny U.S. forces the ability to operate from forward bases such as Kadena Air 

Base on Okinawa and Anderson Air Force Base on Guam. The Chinese are fielding 

large numbers of conventionally armed ballistic missiles capable of striking these 

air bases with a high degree of accuracy. At present, U.S. defenses against ballistic 

15 

missile attacks, especially from missiles employing penetration aids, are limited. 

These defenses can be overwhelmed when confronted with barrage attacks involving 

large numbers of missiles. The message to the United States and its East Asian allies and partners is clear: China has the means to hold at risk the forward bases 

from which most U.S. strike aircraft must operate. 

Area-denial capabilities are generally directed at restricting the U.S. Navy’s freedom of action out to the second island chain, a line that extends from China’s coast 

as far east as Guam. The PLA Navy (PLAN) is investing in submarines to stalk 

American carriers and the surface warships tasked with protecting them. In 2006 

a Chinese submarine emerged in the midst of a U.S. carrier strike group, much to 

the Americans’ embarrassment. The Chinese Navy is emphasizing the production of 

quiet diesel submarines that can form a ‘‘picket line’’ near the second island chain, 

silently waiting to ambush an approaching U.S. fleet. It would likely require significant time for an American fleet to reduce Chinese submarine defenses to the point 

where it could safely advance without risking heavy losses. 

The Chinese are relying on more than submarines to support area-denial operations. They are constructing over-the-horizon radars, fielding unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), and deploying reconnaissance satellites to detect American surface 

warships at progressively greater distances, while also enhancing their ability to 

strike U.S. warships once they are located. PLAN submarines are being equipped 

with advanced torpedoes and high-speed, sea-skimming anti-ship cruise missiles. 

The PLA is procuring aircraft that can carry high-speed anti-ship cruise missiles, 

and fielding ballistic missiles that are capable of striking American carriers at extended ranges. China also possesses advanced anti-ship mines which may limit even 

further the maneuverability of U.S. naval forces and, by so doing, render them easier to target. Consequently, East Asian waters are slowly but surely becoming a ‘‘noman’s land’’ for American warships, and particularly for aircraft carriers with their 

short-range strike aircraft. 

The same is true of the large air bases in the region that host the U.S. Air Force’s 

short-range strike aircraft. Simply stated, a failure to adapt to this emerging challenge could find large surface warships and ‘‘short-legged’’ aircraft becoming wasting 

assets. If the U.S. military fails to address this growing problem and the current 

East Asian military balance becomes increasingly unstable, Beijing might be encouraged to resolve outstanding security issues with Japan, Taiwan and other states 

through coercion, if not aggression. 

Even if the U.S. military overcomes these obstacles to its power-projection forces, 

it will still find that many of its forward operating bases and other key infrastructures risk becoming wasting assets. Since the Korean War the U.S. military has become used to operating with secure rear areas. Even when U.S. forces have engaged 

in irregular warfare, large American bases at Camh Ranh Bay in South Vietnam 

and, more recently, Camp Victory in Iraq and Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan have 

been relative sanctuaries in the midst of conflict. To be sure, there was the occasional raid or act of sabotage, but the damage inflicted was generally minor. Even 

insurgent attacks on the Green Zone in Baghdad failed to yield significant harm. 

This happy state of affairs is almost surely coming to an end. 

The second Lebanon War waged between Hezbollah and Israel during the summer 

of 2006 is the canary in the Pentagon’s mineshaft. The war shows how difficult it 

is becoming for advanced military forces to defend key fixed targets such as military 

bases, critical economic infrastructure, and densely populated areas against irregular forces armed with rapidly proliferating ‘‘RAMM’’ (rocket, artillery, mortar and 

missile) capabilities. During the 34-day conflict Hezbollah fired some 4,000 rockets 

into Israel, most of them short-range and all of them unguided. Yet over 300,000 

Israeli citizens had to be evacuated from their homes. Israel’s oil refinery at Haifa 

had to reduce its oil inventory and dump oil out of fear that a rocket attack could 

spark a major explosion and fire in the city. 

While Hezbollah’s rockets are short-range by modern military standards, some 

could be fired over 50 miles, a major increase over the mortars and rockets used 

by Viet Cong guerrillas 40 years ago against U.S. bases in South Vietnam. In coping 

with the problem at that time, U.S. forces often engaged in intensive patrolling to 

keep the enemy beyond his 4-mile effective mortar range. Applying this approach 

against an enemy whose rocket range may extend out to 50 miles is simply not a 

practical solution. 

Defending key targets will become even more difficult still as guided weapon, or 

‘‘G–RAMM,’’ capabilities diffuse from great powers like China and Russia into the 

hands of irregular forces. This is already occurring. During the second Lebanon 

War, Hezbollah fired a guided anti-ship cruise missile, launched several UAVs, and 

destroyed or disabled over 50 Israeli tanks with sophisticated Russian-made antitank guided missiles. 

16 

By historical standards, the U.S. military has enjoyed an unusually long near-monopoly in the use of guided, or ‘‘smart,’’ munitions, which offer the enormous benefit 

of high accuracy independent of a weapon’s range. The value of guided weapons became clear to all in the first Gulf War, even though they comprised less than 10 

percent of the bombs dropped but were more effective by an order of magnitude 

than unguided ‘‘dumb’’ bombs. The American military currently has no easy answer 

to the challenge posed by ‘‘G–RAMM’s’’ combination of range and accuracy, other 

than a massive expenditure of resources in what will likely prove a fruitless attempt 

to keep an enemy beyond its ever-growing capacity to strike targets at extended 

ranges. 

A major factor enabling the U.S. military to project power abroad, and to sustain 

forces once they are operating in an overseas combat zone, is access to the global 

commons—international waters and air space, as well as space and cyberspace. 

Since the Soviet Union’s collapse nearly two decades ago, America’s military has enjoyed generally unfettered access to the global commons. This favorable situation is 

fading away. 

As noted above, the rise of anti-access/area-denial capabilities, both to state and 

non-state entities, threatens to make key straits and coastal waters prohibitively 

risky areas in which to operate. Offshore oil and natural gas facilities and related 

infrastructure may be particularly vulnerable, as are undersea fiber optic cables. 

China alone seeks to create a maritime no-man’s land extending several hundred 

miles out to sea. 

As for cyberspace, it is no exaggeration to say that information technologies (IT) 

permeate every aspect of America’s military operations, from training to logistics, 

from command and control to targeting and guidance. As the military’s dependence 

on IT has grown, so too has its vulnerability to disruptions, especially disruptions 

of its battle networks. This vulnerability also exists in America’s economic infrastructure, where everything from transportation to electric power generation and finance depends upon the proper functioning of cyber networks. Attacks on both military and civilian IT networks have been growing for at least a decade. Russia has 

been accused of conducting cyber war campaigns against Estonia in 2007, Georgia 

in 2008, and Kyrgyzstan in 2009, while China is reputed to be behind cyber attacks 

that disabled computer systems at the Pentagon, as well as attacks against Britain, 

France and Germany. Part of the problem with cyber attacks is the difficulty in 

identifying their source. In the murky world of computer hacking and related activities, it is unclear whether cyber warfare will enable other countries, or even disaffected groups, to inflict crippling damage on the United States military or its economy. 

The situation is somewhat reminiscent of air power in the period between the 

world wars. At the time, air power advocates claimed that aerial bombardment of 

an enemy’s territory in itself would produce prompt, decisive results, while others 

were far more skeptical. As it turned out, air power proved critical to the success 

of military operations in World War II, but failed to yield the kinds of results 

claimed by its zealots. Today it remains unclear how devastating an all-out cyber 

attack on the U.S. military or America itself would be. If such strikes are able to 

cause substantial damage to the U.S. economic infrastructure, much of the military 

systems fielded to defend the American homeland, such as missile defenses, could 

prove to be a modern Maginot Line. 

The U.S. Armed Forces rely heavily upon military and commercial satellites, key 

nodes in the military’s battle networks. The global positioning system (GPS) satellite constellation is essential for guiding many ‘‘smart’’ weapons to their targets. 

In recent years the PLA has neutralized or destroyed satellites in low-earth orbit 

(where most satellites are located), by launching an anti-satellite (ASAT) ballistic 

missile or by firing ground-based ASAT lasers. As China’s lunar exploration program matures, the PLA will likely acquire the ability to destroy the GPS constellation, which is positioned in medium-earth orbit. Of course, the system might also 

be disabled by jamming it or through cyber strikes. Assuming China continues to 

develop and field ASAT capabilities, the U.S. satellite architecture may be a wasting 

asset, highly dependent upon Chinese sufferance for its effective operation; indeed, 

its existence. 

If history is any guide, these trends cannot be reversed. Technology inevitably 

spreads, and no military has ever enjoyed a perpetual monopoly over any capability. 

To a significant extent, the U.S. military’s wasting assets are the consequence of losing its near-monopoly in guided weapons. This is true in targeting objects in space 

and in cyberspace, as well as ships at sea and air bases on land. 

As the Truman and Eisenhower administrations were faced with the need to confront some difficult strategic choices nearly 60 years ago, so too is the Obama administration today. Will the United States accept that several areas of vital interest 

17 

are becoming ‘‘no-go’’ zones for its military, or will it take steps to address the challenge? Will the United States accept a posture of vulnerability regarding its satellite 

architecture and cyber infrastructure, or are alternatives available to redress the 

problem? The United States can either ignore these developments, at its peril, or 

adapt to them. Simply put, if strategy involves identifying and creating new sources 

of advantage as existing ones erode, what new advantages should the U.S. military 

seek? Equally important, where should the U.S. military scale back its investments, 

and what wasting assets should it divest? 

Presidents Truman and Eisenhower did not make decisions with regard to U.S. 

military force levels and capabilities in isolation, but within the context of an overall 

strategy that emphasized containing Soviet power, deterring aggression, preserving 

a strong American economy, and cultivating alliances with like-minded countries in 

general, and the great powers in particular. Similarly, the Obama administration’s 

choices regarding the future military posture must be informed by an overarching 

strategy. This is no simple matter. Given the changes underway in the geopolitical 

environment, rapid advances in military-related technologies, and the United States’ 

weakened economic standing, a major strategy review comparable to those during 

the first decade of the Cold War is in order. 

Any strategic review must take into account three major challenges. The most immediate challenge is posed by radical Islamist groups, and finds the U.S. military 

engaged in campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq, and in operations around the globe 

in an attempt to defeat or at least suppress them. There is also the prospect of nuclear proliferation. Should Iran become a nuclear-armed state, it could well spur a 

round of proliferation in the Arab world and further complicate the U.S. military’s 

ability to project power into the Middle East in defense of key interests. Finally 

there is China, a key trading partner of the United States and potentially a strong 

force in support of well-established international norms of behavior. However, China’s military buildup suggests that it may be susceptible to pursuing its aims 

through coercion, if not aggression, unless steps are taken to address its development of threatening capabilities. 

Exploring options for addressing these emerging challenges will not be cheap. The 

United States’ financial picture has eroded substantially in recent years, both in absolute and relative terms. This circumstance is not likely to be reversed anytime 

soon, further constraining strategic options. This suggests the United States pursue 

a more measured strategy, one that better balances the goals it seeks to achieve 

with the resources likely to be available. 

In addressing instability in the developing world the United States should adopt 

a strategy of the indirect approach. This means using the U.S. military’s advantages 

in highly trained (but relatively limited) manpower to leverage the developing 

world’s large manpower base. Emphasis should be placed on training, equipping and 

advising indigenous forces of countries threatened by subversion, especially states 

confronting radical Islamist groups like al Qaeda, but also states confronting other 

sources of instability, such as transnational drug cartels in Latin America. Assistance should ideally be provided before states become destabilized. Where U.S. forces 

are deployed in large numbers, as in Afghanistan and Iraq, they should continue 

their efforts to field indigenous forces to enable reductions in American ground combat units. To be sure, the U.S. military will need to maintain a capacity to ‘‘surge’’ 

forces should a state of vital interest begin to fail, but such deployments should be 

a last resort, and not the first option. To support this approach, the Pentagon will 

need to determine the kinds of equipment it will use to outfit the indigenous forces 

of partner states, and procure the equipment in quantities sufficient to establish Reserve stocks that can be quickly deployed when needed. 

How will our military cope with irregular forces armed with G–RAMM capabilities? Success will require intercepting relatively inexpensive projectiles reliably and 

at an acceptable cost. Several alternatives are worth exploring, either separately or 

in combination. One involves deploying loitering ‘‘hunter-killer’’ reconnaissance and 

strike aircraft to search for enemy G–RAMM forces and, once they are identified, 

engaging them quickly before the enemy can fire or disperse. Another option is to 

harden targets against such attacks. This is an expensive proposition and is probably feasible only for the highest priority targets. Then there are active defenses 

that involve intercepting G–RAMM projectiles. Cost is a major problem here as well, 

as kinetic-kill interceptors tend to cost far more than G–RAMM projectiles. Another 

possibility may be found in the rapid advances in solid-state lasers, which have a 

cost-per-shot that is far less than traditional interceptors. Any solution to the problem, if there is one, will most likely be found in a combination of existing and 

emerging capabilities, and in new ways of employing them. 

When it comes to power projection, the United States should adopt an offsetting 

strategy making it clear to Beijing that it intends to continue reassuring allies and 

18 

friends in the region that they will not become victims of coercion or aggression. The 

growing PLA threat to U.S. forward air bases might be handled in several possible 

ways. One is to harden these bases against attack by missiles with conventional 

warheads. Another might involve deploying missile defenses to protect these bases. 

Still another might be to forego such bases in favor of developing long-range strike 

systems. Of course, some combination of these options might provide the best solution. To offset its growing vulnerability the Navy might reduce its emphasis on large 

surface ships to conduct strike operations in favor of submarines armed with conventional cruise missiles. Or carriers might reduce their reliance on short-range 

manned aircraft in favor of much longer-range unmanned aircraft, some of which 

(e.g., N–UCAS) are now in development. 

In terms of preserving U.S. access to space, it may be possible to shift away from 

relying on relatively few large ‘‘mainframe’’ satellites and toward micro- and nanosatellites that can be configured in less vulnerable networks. If part of the network 

is destroyed, it might be replaced through the rapid re-launch of backup satellites, 

or by activating dormant satellites previously positioned in space. Alternatively, it 

may be possible to use terrestrial-based clusters of UAVs to substitute, at least on 

a limited basis, for damaged or destroyed satellites. If a challenge emerges to the 

U.S. stewardship of the world’s oceans, it is likely to come in the form of enemy 

submarines, which are far more difficult to detect than surface warships. Priority 

must be given to preserving and expanding upon the Navy’s advantage in antisubmarine warfare, while also developing more capable countermine capabilities. Current Pentagon plans to increase submarine production must be sustained, while design work on unmanned underwater vehicles and a new class of submarines is initiated. 

Alas, as for the cyber warfare competition, it is so shrouded in secrecy that it is 

difficult to determine the United States’ level of vulnerability, let alone options for 

addressing it. It may be that a defensive strategy cannot be successfully pursued, 

and that the U.S. military will be forced to rely on deterring the worst sorts of cyber 

attacks. But given the paucity of information on this area of the military competition, we are left to speculate. 

Determining whether these approaches and capabilities can offset the U.S. military’s wasting assets will take time and resources, both of which are in short supply. Significant resources may be liberated by reducing emphasis on capabilities 

whose value stands to be greatly diminished by the shift in the military competition. 

The Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps plan to purchase several thousand shortrange F–35 strike aircraft that must operate from forward land bases or off of large 

surface ships, both of which are increasingly vulnerable. Indeed, the F–35 seems 

overdesigned for the emerging low-end threat while lacking the range it will likely 

need against a high-end threat. The Navy’s new Zumwalt-class destroyers are the 

kind of large surface ships that are likely too expensive to address the challenges 

posed by irregular warfare and too vulnerable to operate in East Asia or the Persian 

Gulf. Plans to terminate their production should go forward. The Marines are looking to field an Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV) that swims ashore and then 

fights as a land combat vehicle. Yet the fleet is being forced to operate ever further 

from the shore, far beyond the distance for which the EFV was designed. The EFV 

is also highly vulnerable to the improvised explosive devices that are now proliferating throughout the developing world. The Army anticipates spending over $150 

billion on its constellation of Future Combat Systems (FCS). Yet the FCS is optimized for traditional conventional warfare rather than the era of persistent irregular warfare the Army now confronts. Satellites like TSAT that are highly effective 

so long as space is a sanctuary must be reconsidered in recognition of the fact that 

this condition no longer obtains. 

OPERATIONAL CONCEPTS

While it is possible to identify with reasonable clarity what military capabilities 

are unlikely to prove effective in addressing existing and emerging challenges to 

U.S. security, identifying the capabilities mix that would best preserve the Nation’s 

interests is a more challenging proposition. Ideally, the answer would be found in 

the development and testing of new concepts of operation—how the Armed Forces 

would combine their capabilities to deter or, if necessary, defeat a threat to the national security. Some progress has been made in this regard. For example, in the 

wake of confronting enemies waging modern irregular warfare in Afghanistan and 

Iraq, the military Services have developed new ways of operating (i.e. doctrine) and 

adapted existing equipment while emphasizing new systems and capabilities (e.g. 

unmanned aerial vehicles, mine resistant ambush protected). 

19 

This is all to the good. However, most of this was accomplished after the fact. The 

U.S. military found itself reacting to a threat, rather than anticipating it. Such an 

approach is wasteful in lives and resources, and increases the risk to the Nation’s 

security. The DOD needs to become better at anticipating emerging challenges and 

identifying wasting assets. For example, during the Cold War the Army and Air 

Force collaborated on the AirLand Battle concept for deterring Soviet aggression 

against the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A healthy debate ensued over the 

alliance’s ‘‘layer cake’’ defense, resulting in the U.S. Army’s III Corps being shifted 

to the Northern Army Group. The need for forward-positioned equipment— 

‘‘Prepositioning of Material Configured in Unit Sets’’—was identified. The need to 

reinforce forward-deployed U.S. forces—‘‘10 divisions in 10 days’’—was identified 

and exercised (i.e. ‘‘REFORGER’’). The maritime forces joined the process. The Navy 

explored options for conducting an ‘‘outer air battle’’ against Soviet strike aircraft 

threatening the Atlantic supply lines, while the Marine Corps assessed how it might 

help anchor the alliance’s northern flank in Norway. These efforts proved crucial in 

enabling our senior civilian and military leaders to make informed choices regarding 

military systems and capabilities mix. Unfortunately, the U.S. military has yet to 

develop an ‘‘AirSea Battle’’ concept to offset China’s actions and reassure allies and 

friends in East Asia. 

THE BUDGET

Of course, all this presumes that funding will be made available to sustain the 

revised defense program, and that the capabilities needed can be produced in a 

timely and efficient manner by the industrial base. While the fiscal year 2010 defense budget represents a modest increase over the previous year’s budget, a portion 

of this increase is the result of shifting programs and activities previously funded 

through supplemental appropriations into the base budget. In addition, the administration’s future years defense program has not yet been announced. Absent this data 

it is difficult to state with any degree of confidence how affordable the changes announced by Secretary Gates will be. However, given the relatively weak state of the 

economy, the administration’s projections regarding Federal budget deficits in the 

coming decade, and independent assessments that reveal a significant shortfall between the defense program and the previous administration’s funding estimates, it 

seems likely that more difficult choices lie ahead. 

THE INDUSTRIAL BASE

With respect to the industrial base, there is a strong case to be made for reforming the Defense acquisition system, and I applaud the efforts of Senator Levin and 

Senator McCain to approach this in a bi-partisan manner. However, I am also concerned by the DOD’s general absence of attention to the industrial base with respect 

to its value as an important strategic asset of the United States. Properly 

incentivized and structured, there are at least two important sources of competitive 

advantage the defense industrial base can provide for the Nation: the ability to compete based on time, and complexity and diversity. 

Time-Based Competition 

Time, while always an important consideration, is especially precious during periods of great change. Assuming the Department has the resources to affect major 

shifts in its investment posture, it must still incur a cost in the form of the time 

it takes to realize the benefits of these investments. Periods characterized by uncertainty and the potential for discontinuous change in military competitions may 

present those militaries who do not lead the change with insufficient time to adapt. 

The longer it takes to produce new capabilities, the higher the risk to be addressed, since there is a lag between the time a discontinuity is diagnosed, the Department’s investment strategy altered, and new military capabilities fielded. If, for 

example, the DOD could realize instantaneously the results of a major shift in its 

investment strategy, it would incur no risk other than that associated with sunk 

costs—i.e., those capabilities invested in prior to the appearance of a discontinuity, 

whose value may not hold up well following its occurrence. The longer a military 

requires to field new capabilities—be they in the form of new systems, doctrine, individual skill sets, or the creation of new infrastructure (e.g., bases)—the greater 

the risk that it will not be able to respond quickly enough to the new threats emerging from a discontinuity. In brief, the greater the risk, the greater the need to hedge 

against that risk. The inability to compete based on time thus imposes a cost penalty. The cost here can be thought of in terms of an insurance policy, where the Department invests in a range of capabilities to insure that it is at least minimally 

competitive if and when a discontinuity occurs. In doing so, however, the DepartVerDate Nov 24 2008 10:47 Jan 29, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00023 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 Y:\BORAWSKI\DOCS\54649.TXT JUNE PsN: JUNEB
20 

ment pays a price—by preparing for a range of futures, it is less prepared for any 

particular future. 

This leads to the key observation that if the time required to translate resources 

to capabilities can be compressed, it is possible to apply resources more efficiently. 

This is because when hedging against a given level of risk, the ability to operate 

along short time lines means fewer resources need to be expended. It was not all 

that long ago that our defense acquisition system and industrial base were very 

adept at time-based competition. For example, our first Polaris Submarine, the USS 

George Washington, launched the first Polaris missile in 1960, with construction beginning only 3 years earlier in which an attack submarine was modified to incorporate a missile compartment during construction. Design on the missile itself 

began in 1956, only 4 years before it was first launched. Around that time, in the 

late 1950s, work began on what became the SR–71, whose first flight was in 1964. 

The Saturn V rocket that carried our astronauts to the moon began development 

in 1962, and entered use in 1967. 

The ability to compete based on time can also be used as a weapon. If DOD’s defense planners can wait longer before committing resources, it complicates adversaries’ investment strategies, since they have less information regarding the ultimate investment path the Department might take. It is somewhat similar to a game 

of poker, in which the adversary must begin to reveal his hand, card by card, while 

we continue to conceal ours. We have a much better sense of the risks and opportunities we face relative to the opponent, and (assuming we can exchange unexposed 

cards through a request to the dealer) a much greater opportunity to shift our competitive posture. The difference, of course, is that the Department can decide what 

cards it will be dealt, since it can choose where to invest. 

Given the importance of this aspect of investment strategy—especially during periods of anticipated discontinuity in the military competition—high priority should 

be accorded to improving dramatically the Department’s capability in this area. This 

implies a commitment to reforming the acquisition system. Unless the Department 

can make some major improvements in its defense acquisition process, the Department’s ability to exploit time-based competition will be far below its potential. 

Complexity and Diversity 

Investment strategists exploring opportunities to impose costs on adversaries 

might also achieve their aims by inducing risk and uncertainty into an adversary’s 

calculations. This can be accomplished by pursuing an investment strategy that exploits complexity and diversity. This strategy is particularly attractive during periods of discontinuity (or anticipated discontinuity) in the military competition, where 

uncertainty is already high. The problem posed to the adversary here, again, is not 

directly linked to its investment calculations concerning perceived costs and benefits. The adversary experiences no direct impact on its cost to field a given set of 

military capabilities. Rather, the imposed costs are indirect. 

How is an investment strategy of complexity and diversity pursued? First, it helps 

to have certain enduring advantages. A competitor like the United States has an 

enduring advantage in both the scale of its defense effort and the technological sophistication of its defense industrial base. The United States has no rival (or combinations of rivals) that can muster even half the U.S. gross domestic product 

(GDP). Moreover, the United States can also count most of the world’s greatest economic powers (e.g., France, Germany, Great Britain, Japan) among its allies. America’s defense industrial base is unsurpassed in its ability to combine technologies in 

complex combinations through its unparalleled expertise in systems integration and 

architecture integration (i.e., the building of networks). 

These advantages enable the United States, should it choose, to develop (and, in 

select cases, field) a relatively wide range of capabilities that can be combined in 

complex systems. This confronts an adversary with a wide array of existing and potential military ‘‘tools’’ that may be used against it in a military competition. 

For example, during the 1930s the U.S. Navy was developing a relatively diverse 

set of means for destroying an enemy battle fleet. In the years immediately prior 

to its entry into World War II, improvements were being made in the Navy’s battleships (e.g., new ships, larger caliber guns, radar-directed fires); submarines (torpedo 

attack); and, perhaps most importantly, strike aviation (dive bombing and torpedo 

attack). Any rival contemplating competing with the U.S. fleet would have to stretch 

its resources to account for this diversity in striking power, and the variety of combinations in which it might be employed. For instance, developing defenses against 

torpedo bombers but not dive bombers or submarines would cause a U.S. rival to 

incur high risk. Moreover, until the early 1940s the U.S. fleet was comparatively 

small relative to the size it would quickly achieve during the war. Would-be adversaries could still not be certain as to how the United States would choose to scale 

21 

up the size of its fleet if war came, or the mix of capabilities it would emphasize, 

as it had created a substantial number of options for itself. 

In short, by introducing risk and uncertainty through an investment strategy of 

complexity and diversity, the United States posed a problem for Japan, a greatly 

inferior industrial power, of whether to stretch its resources rather than concentrate 

them. With the considerable advantage it enjoyed in scale, the United States was 

able to both choose the preferred forms of competition when the war began (i.e., submarine warfare and fast carrier task force operations vice battleships operating in 

a battle line), and to combine these forces in the most effective manner, and on a 

scale that the enemy could not match. 

In summary, as Congress and the DOD work to reform the defense acquisition 

system, it will be important not only to improve the system’s overall efficiency, but 

to accord equal priority to ensuring the defense industrial base’s potential to serve 

as a strategic asset is both enhanced and consciously exploited. 

CONCLUSION

Secretary Gates’ recent decisions regarding the fiscal year 2010 defense program 

mark what hopefully is the start of a much-needed debate on the state of the Nation’s defense posture. Given emerging changes in the threat environment, the 

United States has a number of major strategic decisions to make. The nation’s senior leaders need to know if there is an acceptable alternative to America’s growing 

vulnerability in key areas of the military competition. If no practical alternative exists, then U.S. national security strategy must be adjusted accordingly, and the 

sooner the better. However, just as it took over half a decade of effort to address 

the problem of America’s loss of its nuclear monopoly, a strategy that addresses the 

United States’ current wasting assets will not be crafted overnight. A sense of urgency similar to that which animated senior national security decisionmakers at the 

Cold War’s beginning is needed. This will require the persistent attention of the 

president and his senior national security advisors, as well as the secretary of defense and Congressional leaders. To be sure, the Nation confronts a severe financial 

crisis, which the president cannot ignore. However, President Obama may take 

some solace from President Franklin Roosevelt, who simultaneously tackled both 

the Great Depression and the need to prepare the Nation’s military for what became 

a global conflict. 

A decade ago the debate in defense circles centered on whether or not the U.S. 

military needed to undertake a ‘‘transformation’’—to field a substantially different 

kind of military to address the challenges of a new era populated by new rivals and 

rapidly diffusing technologies. The idea faced stiff resistance from many in the military, who argued that the evidence for undertaking major changes in what was by 

far the world’s most capable military was lacking. It calls to mind the wishful thinking of many senior officials in the Truman administration who discounted warnings 

regarding Soviet progress toward an atomic bomb. 

Confronted with modern insurgency warfare in the wake of the invasions of Afghanistan in 2002 and Iraq in 2003, the United States has found itself engaging 

in ‘‘reactive’’ transformation, as have the Israeli Defense Forces following the second 

Lebanon War. Despite the growing evidence that a wide array of U.S. military capabilities may depreciate rapidly in value, some policymakers remain reluctant to accept the need to engage in the hard thinking that would characterize ‘‘anticipatory’’ 

transformation: preparing for emerging challenges by identifying new capabilities 

and methods of operating to offset or replace those whose value is depreciating. Ignoring the growing challenges to the United States’ ability to project and sustain 

military capability overseas in defense of the Nation’s interests does not mean these 

challenges do not exist. Sooner or later they, and their implications for America’s 

security, must be confronted. A decline in the U.S. military’s ability to defend key 

national interests may be inevitable; however, it should not be the result of indifference or lack of attention. There are important strategic choices to be made—either 

in offsetting efforts to undermine America’s military shield, or accepting it and 

adapting accordingly. In a time of increasingly scarce resources and growing competing national priorities, the sooner such choices can be made, the better. 

Chairman LEVIN. Thank you both for, as we always receive from 

you, extremely thoughtful testimony. 

Why don’t we just try 8 minutes for our first round of questions. 

This will go to either or both of you. You’ve talked about it, we’ve 

talked about it, but I’d like you to be more specific in your reaction 

to what Secretary Gates’s programmatic recommendations are, 

22 

which are a reflection of his shift of emphasis towards irregular operations, counterinsurgency operations, and stability type operations. 

First, before I get to the impact of those shifts programmatically, 

I’m curious as to something else which he has stressed. That is, he 

has said that the Department needs to institutionalize and finance 

the support necessary for irregular warfare capabilities. What does 

that mean? Assuming, first of all, I think you both generally agree 

that that’s the direction we need to go, although you, Dr. 

Krepinevich, raised some nuances to that. But in general, I think 

you both would agree that that is the right direction. 

Assuming you do, what institutional challenges are there? What 

are the hurdles institutionally to properly support irregular warfare capabilities that the Secretary wants to put greater focus on? 

Let me start with you, Dr. Krepinevich. 

Dr. KREPINEVICH. Mr. Chairman, I would say to the issue of institutionalization, Secretary Gates some months back talked about 

his concerns about next-war-itis, that we focus too much on the 

next war, not enough on winning the war we have. I took his Foreign Affairs article to really separate this out into three dimensions. There’s next-war-itis, there’s the war we have, and there’s 

last-war-itis. 

I think what he’s really arguing against is the Services gravitating back towards their familiar institutional centers of gravity, 

preparing to fight the last war. I think, based on my conversations 

with him and my reading of his public statements, there is a concern that the military will view this conflict as a one-off, much as 

the ‘‘no more Vietnams’’ slogan that was heard after the Vietnam 

war. 

I had one general tell me: ‘‘We’ve had our hand on the stove in 

Iraq and Afghanistan for the last 7 years; once we take it off, nobody’s going to want us to put it back on again.’’ But again, the 

enemy gets a vote and the military doesn’t make those decisions. 

It’s the Secretary and the President. 

So I think his concern is how do we institutionalize that in the 

Services? How does the Army, for example, create an institutional 

force structure to deal with these kinds of problems? How does the 

Army develop a way of training advisers and trainers that can go 

in and actually execute the overall strategy, which is to build partner capacity? 

Our competitive advantage here isn’t in large numbers of soldiers. It’s in small numbers of quality soldiers that can train and 

advise the indigenous forces of other countries. Where are the War 

Reserve Stocks? If that’s our strategy, why aren’t we buying equipment that we might not equip our own soldiers with, but we would 

be familiar and comfortable with equipping the soldiers of indigenous countries threatened with instability, insurgency, terrorism, 

and so on? They don’t have to have U.S. quality. We can give them 

quality that’s good enough for them in terms of their training and 

their culture and so on. Where is the focus on that? 

Again, the idea of a good strategy is to play to your strong suits. 

Our strong suit is not masses of manpower. Our strong suit is high 

quality, high-trained manpower. 

23 

In terms of finances, I think what you’re seeing is an attempt, 

as Dr. Hamre said, you have the base budget and you have the 

supplementals. They’re trying to move a number of items that were 

associated with irregular warfare back into the base budget, in the 

hope that it’ll have the sanctuary of being in the base, it won’t die 

when the supplementals are reduced and done away with at some 

point. 

So here you see the intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance funding, some of the funding for UAVs, I think a total of about $2 

billion, being brought back into the base budget. Even then, 

though, I think the Secretary knows that he has to convince the 

Services, at some point, to keep those in the base budget and not 

essentially take those dollars and put them toward more comfortable, more familiar kinds of capabilities and programs. 

So institutionalization, I think he knows the military has learned 

a lot of lessons, that we’ve developed a lot of proficiency in this 

kind of warfare. Let’s not lose it, because we lost a lot of what we 

learned after Vietnam. 

The second point is to get that worked into the budget, so you 

have an institutional home for the kinds of capabilities that are 

going to be needed to support our forces that have to conduct irregular warfare operations. 

Chairman LEVIN. Dr. Hamre? 

Dr. HAMRE. Sir, I agree with what Andy said. I think that institutionalizing and financing really means getting out of this business of using supplementals. I think that had a corrosive impact. 

If I could just add a couple of things, however. I don’t think 

they’re going to walk away from thinking about insurgency warfare. I think the military sees this as the primary challenge going 

forward. It certainly has a different impact for different Services, 

but I know for the Army and the Marine Corps, they’re in the middle of it and I think they know that insurgency warfare is the most 

likely future. I personally don’t think they’re going to walk away. 

Chairman LEVIN. You don’t see any institutional impediments to 

reflecting that shift? 

Dr. HAMRE. No, sir, I don’t. As a matter of fact, I think that the 

greater concern you would find in the Army is that the emphasis 

on that is taking them away from more traditional doctrinal work 

on things like coordinating artillery with ground maneuver and 

things like that. It reflects the demands. They’ve been conducting 

a very difficult war for 7 years and it’s going to continue in Afghanistan. I do not see them walking away and trying to say, ‘‘we can’t 

hardly wait to get out of that stuff so we can go back to tank warfare again.’’ 

Certainly there are those that feel that we’re not paying attention to that. I honestly don’t think that’s the problem at the time. 

I think there’s a bigger structural question. That is, how do we prepare for contingencies that are beyond what we’re in right now. 

Chairman LEVIN. Beyond what? 

Dr. HAMRE. Beyond the low end. We have these three different 

types and we’re really focusing right now on low-end asymmetric 

war. 

Chairman LEVIN. Maybe this goes mainly to Dr. Krepinevich, 

and that has to do with the specifics that were announced on April 

24 

6. If you’re able to connect some of those major decisions, which are 

going to be, as Dr. Hamre pointed out, recommendations to us, assuming they’re in the budget which is coming up next week, but 

they are decisions in the executive branch. If you could react to 

some of the major ones. 

Let me rattle off about half a dozen of them, just to get a flavor 

of this as to whether in your judgment, and Dr. Hamre, just jump 

in if you feel that you want to do that; we’d be happy to have your 

comments. Let’s start with Air Force tactical fighter aircraft. 

There’s a cut here that he’s going to propose of these older tactical 

fighter aircraft that have many in the Air Guard and Reserve. 

Second is the C–17 production end. Third would be the F–22. He 

would stop the DDG–1000 program, revert to the DDG–51s. The 

cancellation and the apparently rethinking through the manned 

ground vehicle portion of the Future Combat System (FCS). Limiting the interceptor missiles to 33. These are the ones in the Missile Defense Agency’s (MDA) program, and shifting some of that 

funding to the short-range missiles, the Patriots and the missiles. 

It’s a reduction in one and a shift to the other. The termination of 

the Multiple Kill Vehicle program. 

I think I’ve probably thrown enough at you, but just if you can 

give us your flavor, and add, both of you, any that come to your 

mind. Which ones you think should be or are going to be major 

issues, and connect those comments to what your beliefs are about 

the wisdom of the shift that you’ve just described? 

Dr. KREPINEVICH. I can address certainly a few of them with 

some level of competence. In terms of the FCS, the system was 

originally designed to deal with a combined arms mechanized force 

in open battle, the Republican Guard kind of force. The program 

has risk in four areas. One is technical risk, if you look at the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reviews, a high-level technical 

risk, which means likely future cost growth down the road. It has 

already exceeded its cost estimates. They had to cut, most recently, 

4 programs out of the 18 just to maintain roughly the same level 

of costs. 

There is a temporal risk associated with the program, which is 

to say the projected deployment date keeps slipping. Of course, if 

you slip past a certain date then what you have to do is begin to 

recapitalize your existing equipment that you had expected to retire, because the FCS hasn’t arrived on the scene. 

But I think the greatest area of risk is in operational risk. In 

other words, I think the system was fundamentally designed to do 

something else, which is that open battle against a traditional conventional adversary, and I don’t think it translates very well to irregular warfare. 

Yet, if I could add one word to General Casey’s description, I 

think we are in an era of persistent irregular conflict, in addition 

to the other challenges. 

In terms of the DDG–1000, based on what we have in terms of 

the character of the challenges we face, I think the ship is probably 

underdesigned for the kinds of problems that the Chinese are going 

to cause for us and are already causing for us in terms of operating 

large surface ships near the Chinese littoral in the Far East, and 

also not particularly survivable in an area like the Persian Gulf. 

25 

I think it’s probably overdesigned for the low-end threat, where I 

agree with Secretary Gates, if we can get the costs under control, 

I think LCS is a much better approach to guerrilla warfare or irregular warfare in the littorals. 

In terms of the F–22, I go back to my comment about, how would 

you use this aircraft? The problem, in a sense—that the aircraft 

has come to be irrelevant—is how to maintain a stable military balance in the Far East? How do you pursue an offsetting strategy to 

what the Chinese are doing so that the Chinese aren’t tempted to 

get what they want through coercion, let alone aggression, and to 

maintain the confidence of our allies in countries like Japan? 

It’s not clear to me how you can base the F–22 forward in places 

like Kadena Air Base because we haven’t solved the anti-access 

problem that the Chinese are developing. It’s not clear we can tank 

them from Anderson or from other locations to get them into the 

fight in that area. So again, it’s a very interesting capability, but 

I haven’t been convinced about how it might be effectively employed, in order to address one of the security challenges we confront. 

I think I was disappointed in the case of the Next Generation 

Bomber. I think what we have is an investment portfolio that, especially on the aviation side, is trending more and more toward 

shorter range systems, and I think what we’re going to need is a 

Next Generation Bomber the sooner the better. I also think the 

Navy Unmanned Combat Air System (NU–CAS), we’re going to 

have to find some way to get that on the decks of the carrier probably early in the fight because that gives you the extended range 

that you need to win that outer network, outer air battle now in 

the Far East and not in the Atlantic. 

So those are—one final observation, and that is the guided rockets, artillery, mortors, and missiles (G–RAMM) problem, as it’s 

being called, the G–RAMM problem that we’re facing on the low 

end. The Israelis are struggling with this problem of how to intercept these things, both in the second Lebanon War and in the recent conflict in Gaza. 

One problem you run into is that, consciously or not, Hezbollah 

and Hamas are pursuing a cost-imposing strategy. The Israelis 

can’t afford to fire a $20,000 or $30,000 interceptor again and again 

and again to intercept $2,000 and $3,000 rockets. So what is the 

way to get out from underneath that rock? The only thing I’ve seen 

that may hold promise is the rapid advances that have been made 

recently in the form of solid state lasers, where the power has gone 

up dramatically in terms of what they’re able to achieve. It’s a lot 

more workable and battlefield-worthy than chemical lasers. 

But again, where is the operational concept that says on the 

front end we’re going to have hunter-killer teams suppressing the 

fire, we’re going to maybe have boost phase interceptors on the 

front end, and on the back end we’re going to harden key targets 

that we have to harden, we’re going to have maybe a mix of kinetic 

and directed energy intercept? I don’t know if that’s the answer, 

but it seems to me that that ought to be a problem that gains the 

kind of attention and the kind of professional debate that we had 

with air-land battle back 20, 25 years ago, and that seems to be 

absent now. Its absence really, I think, hurts our ability to make 

26 

informed decisions about what are the capabilities we want and 

what mix of capabilities do we want. 

Chairman LEVIN. Dr. Hamre, did you want to add? 

Dr. HAMRE. I’ll just address one, and that’s the C–17. This is one 

asset we’re going to need in the high end asymmetric war, the low 

end asymmetric war, and the traditional war. Our strategic airlift 

fleet today is made up of C–5s and C–17s. The C–5s are two models. The A model is, on average, 37 years old today. The B models, 

turning into the M model, are today on the average 22 years old. 

Now, their reliability shows it. Their reliability is low. Now, if 

we’re going to terminate the C–17, we’re going to need to replace 

those C–5s. It took us 15 years to get the C–17. If we wait 15 

years, start right away next year with the next airlifter, the C–5s 

are going to be 52 years old when the new system enters service. 

That’s just untenable. 

It’ll cost us $10 billion to buy and develop a new replacement for 

the C–17. You can buy 40 C–17s for that. I really think we ought 

to look at this one. I’ve had a conversation with the Secretary 

about it and his problem is that Congress constrains him to operate 

old C–5s. So we have an issue here. But I think this is one I would 

suggest that Congress re-examine, and I think it’s in any one of the 

scenarios going forward. 

I’d be happy to talk about any of the others. 

Chairman LEVIN. Senator McCain. 

Senator MCCAIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I thank the 

witnesses. 

Here’s the conundrum in my view. It’s everything that President 

Eisenhower warned us about. What has exacerbated and exaggerated the problem, to an alarming degree, is that we’ve seen this 

consolidation in the defense industry. 20 years ago, if there was a 

new airplane or a new missile or whatever it is, you had numerous 

corporations and parts of the defense industry competing for it. 

Now we have at best two. Sometimes it is sole source, cost-plus 

contract, which lurches out of control. 

You can’t make it up, the story of the presidential helicopter, the 

story of the LCS, and the cost overruns of the FCSs. The numbers 

are so staggering that nobody believes it. 

So here we have a situation, and John, you just alluded to the 

fact that the contractors are now embedded in the Pentagon to a 

degree where we’ve lost the balance between the kind of input and 

expertise we need to the point where the most fundamental decisions are being made. It is now conventional wisdom—and we’re 

going to find out whether it’s correct or not—that no weapons system, once it’s in production, can ever be killed or can ever be terminated. When the defense contractors, and I say this with the utmost respect, have subcontractors in 40 of the 50 States, then they 

can rally the support in Congress to make sure that these acquisitions go on forever. 

Meanwhile, there’s the tension that both of you have described 

between our rising personnel costs as a necessity of expanding the 

Army and the Marine Corps. 

I think that Senator Levin’s and my effort under his leadership 

is a stab at the problem, but I’m not sure we get at the fundamenVerDate Nov 24 2008 10:47 Jan 29, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00030 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 Y:\BORAWSKI\DOCS\54649.TXT JUNE PsN: JUNEB
27 

tals of the problem. So does that mean to you that we need to go 

to fixed cost contracts? 

If you disagree with my assessment of the situation, please do so, 

or want to modify it. 

Dr. HAMRE. I don’t disagree with your assessment of it, but I do 

want to talk with you about the origins and causes of it. There’s 

an old saying back home that you can grow a pig so fat it can’t 

walk. What we tend to do with systems is we let the requirements 

get out of control. That’s what happened on the VH–71. The President needs a replacement helicopter. The current helicopters are 30 

years old. But in this case, the requirements people were unconstrained by any discipline in the budget, and it got bigger and bigger and heavier and more elaborate. The President’s seat on that 

helicopter weighs 250 pounds. It just went crazy. 

So I think the root cause of most of this growth is that we do 

not discipline our requirements adequately. I think the Secretary 

is speaking to that. That would be the first thing I would say. 

Sir, if I could say one other thing, you asked if your legislation 

was going to fix the problem. I would encourage support of your 

legislation, but I also think it is not getting at some root causes. 

This isn’t any criticism of the legislation. There are two elements 

of the budget that are not addressed by the legislation, which are 

the real cause of the chaos in the procurement accounts. We do not 

budget real cost growth for personnel and yet we know for 100 

years that personnel costs go up 1.5 percent a year. 

Senator MCCAIN. More than that recently. 

Dr. HAMRE. More than that recently. This isn’t inflation. This is 

real cost growth. But since we do not budget real cost growth for 

personnel, by the end of a 5-year plan the DOD has a 10 percent 

hole in its budget. The way you make it up is you have to cut 

weapons systems, the only thing you can control. We have a decentralized control on part of the budget and we have centralized control on the other part. 

Operations and maintenance (O&M) is decentralized. We do not 

know how to introduce efficiencies in O&M. We basically say: I’m 

going to cut your budget in 3 years by 10 percent and you figure 

it out. Well, the people who get that assignment will not even be 

in the job in 3 years. So those bills have to get paid when that 3- 

year-out budget year becomes the current year, and the way we 

pay for it is we cut back on the things we have direct control over, 

which is procurement and research and development. 

So these programs, instead of being stable, are hugely unstable 

because O&M and personnel costs are not budgeted accurately. 

Senator MCCAIN. You were talking about the requirements increase. Is a fixed cost contract the answer? Then your requirements 

have to fit in within that contract or no additional requirements. 

Dr. HAMRE. The challenge with fixed cost contracts is the technical uncertainty we tend to program into weapons systems. If you 

can break it into smaller segments and introduce technology in 

subsequent flights or in retrofits, then it is more feasible. 

The challenge here is we have to get control over requirements. 

This is what happened to the LCS. The LCS went from a $78 million ferry and turned into a $750 million war ship, and it was 

28 

largely because of requirements. Now, perfectly valid on any individual case, but when you aggregate them it gets out of control. 

That’s what happened on the VH–71. So somehow we have to get 

back. You’re dealing here very rightly and asking people to do a 

better job of estimating costs, disciplining themselves to know it before you budget it, et cetera. But we have to get at the requirements side of this. Somehow we have to get at that piece. 

Dr. KREPINEVICH. I’m nowhere near the expert John is on this 

issue, but I would like to make a couple of observations. One in 

particular is not only reform to make the industrial base more efficient and costs more predictable, but the industrial base is a strategic asset of the United States. It is an asset that we have that 

no other country in the world has. Really, since the end of the Cold 

War it’s been suffering from benign neglect and in some cases 

maybe malign neglect. 

Just let me make I guess two points. One is, and I think Secretary Gates spoke to this, you can shoot for the 100 percent solution in terms of capability: Give me the absolute best. It will take 

you longer to build something, and of course the longer it takes you 

to build the more opportunities you have to build in new best performance characteristics. 

There is also the matter of speed as a different metric. Not the 

best in 20 years, but maybe an 80 percent solution in 8 years. I 

don’t know what the tradeoffs are, but I do know that not only does 

that get you capability into the hands of our Armed Forces more 

quickly, but if you can produce something more quickly it does two 

other things. One is it reduces the amount of money, the amount 

of insurance money you have to pay. In other words, if it takes us 

20 years to generate a new capability, we have to develop hedges. 

We have to have standing military capability because we can’t 

produce something quickly enough. 

The other is, if you can compete based on time, which is what 

the business world has learned about, you vastly complicate your 

enemies’ calculations. They have to plan not against a narrow set 

of American capabilities, but a potentially broad set of American 

military capabilities. That can have a cost-imposing and a deterrent effect on your rivals. 

So again, I think that John’s the expert here, not me, but as you 

say, Senator McCain, how do we gain in terms of cost control when 

we have one bidder or two bidders, where you know that if this guy 

doesn’t get it this time he’s going to go out of business? How do 

you gain innovation where you have so few opportunities to bid because we bid for systems that are supposed to last for 20, 30, 40, 

or 50 years? Is that the right metric we ought to be using, especially when technology is turning over so fast and the conflict environment is changing rather rapidly? 

So what are the basic metrics we use to gauge how we are using 

our defense industrial base, not only to get what we need in a cost 

effective way, sort of the efficiency question, but the effectiveness 

question, how well are we using this instrument as a strategic 

asset, not only to put capabilities in the hands of our soldiers, airmen, sailors, and marines, but also to complicate the calculations 

of our rivals. 

29 

One final point, our black programs. The fact that if you are an 

enemy or a rival of the United States, every so many years the 

American defense industry comes out with something that just 

blows your mind, whether it’s a U–2, an SR–71, the Manhattan 

Project, or Stealth. That vastly complicates the rivals’ planning. 

But it’s not something that we traditionally think about. We usually think about what’s the enemy doing and what have I got to 

do to parry what the enemy’s doing. 

We have an industrial base that is a tool for us to vastly complicate our enemies’ planning and, quite frankly, if we can compete 

based on time, perhaps actually reduce the amount of insurance we 

have to buy in terms of standing military capability to deal with 

these problems. 

Senator MCCAIN. Mr. Chairman, my time is up. Could I just ask 

very briefly on the missile defense cuts, the $1.4 billion reduction 

in missile defense systems. Do you think that’s a good idea or a bad 

idea? 

Dr. HAMRE. Sir, I think what they did was move dollars into the 

shorter range theater systems. So the standard missile-3 (SM–3) 

and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) got increased 

funding. I think it was their judgment that that was going to be 

more flexible than it would be to put in additional increments for 

the National Missile Defense (NMD) System. Personally, I think we 

need to have a NMD System. We have to tell countries like Iran 

and North Korea they can’t intimidate us by threatening to lob a 

nuclear device. 

Whether that can be done and has to be done with a larger increment of national missile interceptors or with a theater system, I’m 

not current on the details. They made a technical judgment that 

they went with the theater systems. 

Dr. KREPINEVICH. I’d like to get answers to two questions from 

the Pentagon before I made a decision. One would be what is a holistic or comprehensive approach to defending ourselves from weapons of mass destruction attack, ballistic missile attack, cruise missile attack, and covert insertion? How do we balance against those 

three threats? 

Second is how do we solve the G–RAMM problem at an acceptable level of costs? Because we might be able to deter attacks on 

our homeland. You go overseas and confront a group like Hezbollah 

5, 8, or 10 years down the road and they have even what they have 

today, let alone a higher percentage of guided weapons, and we’re 

going to have to figure out a cost effective way of solving that missile defense problem. 

So I think before you make decisions about where you move 

money into theater or nationally or whether the overall number 

goes up or down, again we have to do some serious thinking here, 

and I don’t know that that’s been done. That’s the shame of it. 

Senator MCCAIN. Thank you. 

Mr. Chairman, I thank you for your indulgence and that of my 

colleagues. Thank you. 

Chairman LEVIN. Thank you, Senator McCain. 

Senator Udall. 

Senator UDALL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

30 

Welcome, gentlemen. It’s been very informative already. I know 

we’re all looking forward to the continuing back and forth here over 

the next hour or so. 

I want to start by saluting Secretary Gates. I think he’s asked 

us all to engage in a very serious and important conversation, and 

it took courage, I believe, for him to lay out his vision and his strategy. If you think of a strategy as a path down which you spend 

money, that’s what we’re talking about. 

Also, Senator McCain and Senator Levin, I think, are engaged in 

a timely effort on this procurement reform. I for one look forward 

to the fight, Senator McCain, that I think we’ll have, because this 

opportunity doesn’t come along very often and it’s just crucial that 

we match up the resources. There’s a limit to dollars, no limit to 

virtue, no limit to what we could do with our military. But this is 

just so important. We hear it over and over again, I know you do, 

at home from taxpayers when it comes to the public dollars. 

Doctor, could we talk about as you mentioned the global commons. I was just out at Peterson Air Force Base, Space Command 

(SPACECOM), just a few weeks ago. We talked a lot about cyber 

attack, cyber defense, and cyber offense. You appear to agree. In 

your testimony you said: ‘‘Assuming China continues to develop 

and field anti-satellite (ASAT) capabilities, the U.S. satellite architecture may be a wasting asset, highly dependent upon Chinese 

sufferance for its effective operation, indeed its existence.’’ 

So what is the answer? We’re highly dependent on cyber space 

and our satellites. We have to protect these assets. Do we need a 

counter-offensive capability to protect against the ASAT threat? 

What are some ideas that you might have? Dr. Hamre, if you are 

interested in following on I’d appreciate your thoughts, too. 

Dr. KREPINEVICH. I’ve talked to some folks in the Air Force and 

the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and a few 

other places. Obviously, one answer is you accept the vulnerability. 

You hope that it remains a sanctuary, but you know that they can 

deny you those assets. 

Second, as you begin to develop alternatives. For example, some 

people have talked about using unmanned systems to fill in gaps 

over certain areas. But of course, we’d have to build them and test 

them. 

Others talk about in the event of a serious conflict, threatening 

to take out the Chinese ASAT capability, and you’d have to have 

a rapid re-launch capability to replace the satellites. 

Depending upon advances in nanotechnology and propulsion 

technology, some folks talk about launching dormant or spare satellites, again depending upon cost. There are places in our solar 

system known as LaGrange points and they are locations where 

the gravitational pull of the sun, the moon, and the earth roughly 

allows you to maintain a static position with a very low expenditure of energy. It could be possible that that could, depending upon 

advances in nanotech, information technology, and propulsion technology, be a possible solution. So there may be some combination 

thereof. 

In terms of the cyber threat, again, unfortunately for us people 

in the think-tank community, that world is very opaque. I think, 

though, one of the questions is, is that the next big thing? Using 

31 

an historical example, in the 1920s air power was going to be the 

next big thing. Everyone knew it was going to be important. There 

were some people, like Billy Mitchell, who thought it would win the 

war all by itself, others who thought it would be very important, 

others who thought it would be marginally important. Of course, in 

the war that came we discovered what its utilities were. But nobody could really predict at the time. 

I think it’s the same thing today with cyber warfare. Is it going 

to be effective at the strategic level, the operational level, or the 

tactical level? Is it going to favor the offense or the defense? Is the 

competition going to be static or dynamic, which is to say the nuclear competition has been static. It’s favored the offense since 

1945. Submarine-antisubmarine warfare tends to be dynamic. One 

side develops a way to find submarines, the other side develops a 

way to quiet them and to make them less trackable. I think there 

are many different permutations of different kinds of cyber attacks. 

One of the interesting things is to look at, to the extent that we 

can, the cyber attacks on Estonia, Georgia, and Kyrghyzstan. Evidently the Georgians actually, if I understand correctly, started 

maneuvering on cyber terrain by relocating a lot of their cyber assets to the United States. Again, I’m reaching the limit of my competence when it comes to cyber warfare, but it’s one of those things 

I think, like space, that you ignore at your peril. It’s not familiar. 

It’s not even something we’ve thought about a great deal in the 

past. But it certainly is important today. 

Senator UDALL. Dr. Hamre, would you care to comment? 

Dr. HAMRE. Very briefly. Sir, first, to you and to the committee, 

I would encourage you to take a briefing from the SPACECOM on 

the Schriever Series. It’s an exercise series that they’ve undertaken 

on space dependency and space vulnerability. We can’t talk about 

it here, but I would very much encourage you to take that briefing. 

As Dr. Krepinevich said, you only have three options. You can 

harden the satellite, but that is pretty tough. You can pursue redundancy, and here we bump up against cost. It’s very hard to do 

that. Third, you can pursue replacement. There are real challenges 

to do each of those three. 

I suspect we’re going to have to develop a more comprehensive 

solution, a different way of thinking about this problem. It’s probably better to do this in a classified session, to have that discussion 

with you. 

On cyber, the problem of course with cyber is we have an ubiquitous and dramatically expanding cyber space that is designed in 

a way to make it vulnerable, I hate to say it. It was designed with 

open protocols, very little discipline from a security standpoint. It’s 

expanding every day and it’s global, and it’s bigger and bigger and 

bigger, and the problems are greater. 

Now, the DOD can do things to protect itself inside cyber space, 

but it’s just a little tiny speck inside cyber space, and the real question is just how vulnerable is the American economy to cyber disruption. The DOD does not have jurisdiction over this. The Bush 

administration wrestled with this problem, and the Obama administration is wrestling with this very question: Where do you put the 

planning, coordination, prophylactic thinking for the government 

when it really is about the health of the economy? Should it be in 

32 

the Department of Homeland Security? Should it be put into the 

National Security Council? These are open debates that are still 

continuing. 

It is a bigger problem and it’s going to be a growing problem. I 

really do think the committee should spend some time looking at 

this. I’d be happy to come on another occasion and to talk with you 

about it. 

Senator UDALL. I’m sure my time’s expired, but I hear both you 

gentlemen saying this is serious, we should take it seriously, it deserves a lot of attention. Thank you. 

Chairman LEVIN. Thank you, Senator Udall. The issue which you 

raised and which Dr. Hamre responded to, apparently the briefing 

has been scheduled for next Wednesday. So we’re on track. 

Senator Thune is next. 

Senator THUNE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Dr. Krepinevich, Dr. Hamre, thank you for appearing here. Dr. 

Hamre, your fellow Augustana College alums in South Dakota continue to be proud of your work and your accomplishments. 

Dr. Krepinevich, I want to ask a question. In announcing his 

2010 budget decisions on April 6, Secretary Gates talked about at 

a media roundtable the following day that his decisions were based 

largely on positions that he had taken or been advocating in 

speeches for the last 18 months. That statement was not true as 

it relates to the Next Generation Bomber. There are three instances that I’m aware of where Secretary Gates publicly advocated 

for the Next Generation Bomber in the past 6 to 7 months, and in 

fact he gave a speech at the National Defense University in September stating that China’s anti-access, anti-denial capabilities will 

put a premium on the United States’ ability to strike from over the 

horizon and will require shifts from short-range to long-range systems, such as the Next Generation Bomber. Then he used virtually 

the same language in an article in the first quarter of this year in 

an edition of Joint Force Quarterly, as well as in a Foreign Affairs 

article in January of this year. 

So his statements would appear to be a direct contradiction, his 

most recent statements, with the position that he’s advocated for 

some time leading up to that. I guess, knowing of your organization’s recommendation in its ‘‘Strategy for the Long Haul’’ document to develop the Next Generation Bomber by 2020 and to develop an unmanned variant quickly and buy 130 total, what are 

your views of that decision to delay the Next Generation Bomber? 

Dr. KREPINEVICH. They’re pretty much as you noted in our study, 

‘‘The Strategy for the Long Haul.’’ If you look at some recent conflicts, the Balkan conflict in 1999, certainly Afghanistan in 2001, 

the second Gulf War, you see bombers playing a prominent role. 

We have relatively few of them. A significant number of the B–52s 

are really quite old. 

If you are going to pursue a serious offset strategy with respect 

to China, I think you have to have extended range. I don’t think 

we’ve come up with a solution to the vulnerability of forward air 

bases because of anti-access, area denial capabilities. 

There’s also the risk of loss of base access for political reasons. 

We certainly saw that in Afghanistan. We were denied the use of 

a number of bases in the Middle East. In Turkey, we were denied 

33 

the use of bases in Turkey in the second Gulf War. Then there’s 

just the geography issue. Our base density is very high in Europe. 

Of course, Europe is relatively quiet right now, but if you look at 

areas like East Asia, where the distances are enormous relative to, 

say, Central Europe, where we focused our attention during the 

Cold War, distances are enormous. 

So I think under those circumstances, both on the high end and 

the low end, because in terms of going after critical time-sensitive 

targets—if you look at some of the data that came out of the second 

Gulf War, the fact that bombers have long range, even if they’re 

flying long distances, allows them to hover. Of course, we found 

that out with UAVs as well, that the solution so far in going after 

time-sensitive targets doesn’t seem to be rapid dash; it seems to be 

this persistent dwell. 

So for a number of reasons, I think the sooner we get a Next 

Generation Bomber the better. 

Senator THUNE. In your opinion, does the budget represent a 

shift in the Nation’s mind set, by making decisions like postponing 

the Next Generation Bomber and ending F–22 production, are we 

essentially making a decision to no longer dominate at the higher 

end of conflict? 

Dr. KREPINEVICH. Again, I think the Secretary’s comment on the 

Next Generation Bomber was not a cancellation, but that there 

were some issues that needed to be worked out in terms of requirements, I believe. I’m only speculating here. Is it going to be 

manned or unmanned? What is the range going to be? To nail 

down those requirements, and then to get it moving on to production. 

I’m mildly surprised because we’ve had the B–2 debate throughout the 1990s and into the early part of the Bush administration. 

Debates about what we would like to have, what we would need 

to have in terms of a long-range strike system I think are pretty 

well established. 

In terms of the F–22, again you can look at it in two ways. One 

is, what practical problems that I mentioned does it help us to 

solve? I think potentially it could help us deal with the China antiaccess, area denial problem. However, the military hasn’t really developed an operational concept that allows us to think our way 

through. 

The other aspect is to support a strategy of dissuasion, which is 

to say it’s very important for us to have air superiority, and by 

building a significant number of fighter aircraft that are so far 

above what anyone else can build we discourage other countries 

from entering into that competition, and that’s an important area 

for us to dissuade competitors. 

Is 187 enough? I don’t know. But I think those are the two things 

that I’d be looking at most closely when I think about the F–22 and 

how many we ought to buy and what utility they might have. 

Senator THUNE. If I could direct a question to both of you: One 

of the issues, and I think, Dr. Hamre, you touched on it, is that 

we’re all dealing with some very serious constraints on budget. But 

we have objectives, it seems to me, to dominate at the full spectrum of conflict, from low-end asymmetric warfare such as what 

we’re facing in Iraq and Afghanistan to higher-end conventional 

34 

and asymmetric warfare, as would be the case if we entered a conflict with a near peer. 

I support those objectives. But what you see across the board is 

that our military’s equipment is old and getting older. Half of our 

bombers are pre-Cuban missile crisis vintage. The Army burns 

readiness as soon as they produce it, in both the form of soldiers 

and material. The Air Force’s fleet averages 24 years old. 

I’m concerned that the budget doesn’t do enough to address these 

issues. It’s just simply too small. If the budget attempts to fight 

two wars and grow the forces that are required to fight low-end 

conflicts while failing to adequately address the Nation’s aging 

military equipment and prepare for an uncertain future, I have 

real concerns about that. 

I guess the question is, in your opinion, how much would the 

budget need to increase in order to truly balance the force and prepare it for the full spectrum of conflict? 

We always talk about what the top line needs to be and there’s 

been some reference to it today. I say that again bearing in mind 

that we are facing some very serious budgetary constraints. But it 

seems to me, we’re trying to do a lot of things and we’re not allocating the resources that are necessary to do them. 

Dr. KREPINEVICH. I think the short answer is we’re not going to 

dominate across the full spectrum of conflict. The scale of the challenges that we are confronting is significantly greater than we saw 

in the decade of the 1990s. The form of the challenges is changing. 

There are a number of what I would say cost-imposing strategies 

that we confront, that are not going to be easy to get out from underneath. Irregular warfare is a cost-imposing strategy, if you totaled up what radical Islamist groups are spending versus what we 

have to spend to compete. If you look at space, it’s a lot easier to 

take down satellites than it is to put them up and sustain them. 

Cyber warfare, as Dr. Hamre said, our infrastructure is very vulnerable. As I mentioned, the costs of projecting power are going up 

as a consequence of G–RAMM and other guided weapons systems. 

So I don’t think that, quite frankly, we are going to dominate 

across the spectrum of conflict in the future the way that we did 

in the 15 years at the end of the Cold War. The British faced this 

problem about 100 years ago. Also, the character of conflict was 

changing dramatically, particularly at sea, and they also faced just 

fundamental budget constraints, somewhat similar to what we face 

now. One senior British Government official I think summed it up 

well: ‘‘We’re running out of money; we’ll have to start to think.’’ 

I believe that there is real value in looking at our overall strategy. Senator McCain mentioned President Eisenhower. When the 

Soviets detonated their atomic bomb, first the Truman administration and then the Eisenhower administration used the term ‘‘wasting asset.’’ We had an enormous advantage before 1949, which was 

our nuclear monopoly. Once the Soviets tested their weapon, that 

monopoly was a wasting asset. It was going away. 

If you talk to people who are really serious strategists, they will 

say that the whole business of strategy is identifying where your 

wasting sources of advantage are and identifying, creating, and exploiting new sources of advantage. I think that is what we have to 

be about now. I think we’re really in a pinch because the problems 

35 

are getting more severe and the resources are getting tighter. This 

is not the situation you want to be in. 

But again, a strategy that does a good diagnosis, does a good 

prognosis of what our options are, that explicitly looks not just to 

improve our own capabilities, but to impose costs on our rivals, 

that has to be the fundamentals of this QDR. If the QDR can accomplish this, then I think we’ll have a much better feel coming 

out as to the wisdom of the specific decisions regarding individual 

weapons systems and areas of investment. 

We’ve been cutting out the middleman. We go straight from the 

threat to the systems. There’s a big area in there for strategy and 

concepts of operation that really take us from point A to point B. 

Absent that, it really becomes difficult to make, I think, informed 

judgments about where we need to be going. 

Senator THUNE. My time has expired, Mr. Chairman. But Dr. 

Hamre, anything to add to that? 

Dr. HAMRE. Sir, I first started working for this committee back 

in 1985, it was so memorable, at the height of the Reagan defense 

buildup. The purchasing power of the budget back then is almost 

identical to the purchasing power of today’s budget in real terms. 

But back then we had 20 prime contractors. Today we have four 

and a half. We had 300,000 troops in Europe. Today we have 

30,000 troops in Europe. We had 20 combat aircraft in production. 

Today we have about three, I think. We bought 900 combat aircraft 

in 1985 and this year we’re going to buy about 120. We were buying 1,200 tanks and 1,800 combat vehicles a year. We’re now buying 150. 

Costs have just skyrocketed, people costs and hardware costs. 

Unless we get at this underlying problem, adding a little more top 

line isn’t going to buy us a lot more defense. I hate to say it. The 

trends are wrong here and we have to find a way to live with the 

requirements, be more disciplined with requirements, as Dr. 

Krepinevich said, think our way a little more creatively than just 

the old brute force solutions, and figure out a composite way that 

we’re going to try to address as many of the needs as we can. 

We can’t address them all. Our budget isn’t possibly big enough. 

We’re going to have to temper our appetites. I think the Secretary 

was trying to do that with this budget. Only you can decide how 

much the Federal Government ought to devote to defense. Obviously, I think it’s an important investment that we ought to make 

for our future. But you’re the individuals that have to decide that. 

Senator THUNE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you very much for your contributions to our better understanding of these issues. 

Chairman LEVIN. Thank you, Senator Thune. 

Senator Hagan. 

Senator HAGAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I too want to applaud Secretary Gates’s focus on restoring budget discipline in the 

DOD, and obviously the acquisition process is critical in this component to restoring budget discipline. I thank the two of you for 

your testimony today and I enjoyed reading your written comments. They certainly are thought-provoking and raise a lot of concerns. 

36 

Dr. Hamre, in your opening statement you were talking about 

the fact that we have private contractors developing policy and 

that, I think you stated, it’s your belief that these policy decisions 

should be brought in house. I obviously am aware that we have private contractors doing security and a lot of other issues, but you 

did raise a red flag with me when you commented on policy. 

Do you see this as changing? Do you see this as status quo? Can 

you be specific? 

Dr. HAMRE. I probably was too careless on how I wrote the statement, because I do not think that the private sector is making policy for the United States. But you find a very blurry line that separates contractor personnel and policy personnel inside the Department these days. I think that does need to be clarified. 

Now, let’s get at the underlying causes. The underlying causes 

are we have had effective pay caps on civil servants for 17 years. 

It’s hard to get talent. We have not brought in and sustained and 

replenished the talent that we need in the civil service that we 

should have. We have not updated the Office of Personnel Management rules. It’s so hard to hire a civilian. It’s a heck of a lot easier 

to hire a civilian through a contractor. Just issue an O&M contract. 

That takes a couple weeks. Try to get a new position created and 

advertised, et cetera, it takes years. So it’s just a lot easier. 

We have placed so many impediments in the way of rationally 

managing the civilian force. It just was easier to use contractors. 

It wasn’t because people were wicked. It’s because people were trying to solve a problem. 

As we get at this, please look at the underlying causes for it. 

This is a big, serious, and difficult problem. There’s a very good 

book that’s just been written. Scott Gould and a colleague, I don’t 

remember his name, just wrote it, and it really delineates this fairly well. I’d encourage you to look at that as a starting point. 

Senator HAGAN. Thanks. 

I also wanted to ask a question about safeguarding the industrial 

base. Dr. Krepinevich, you mentioned this a few minutes ago. I’d 

like to ask you about the impact that cuts could have on our industrial base. Obviously, when we cut major programs we run the risk 

of diminishing the industrial base, which can in turn result in a 

reduction in the quality of systems and platforms and an increase 

in the unit cost. 

I also think that we need to be cognizant of the fact that when 

terminating programs there’s obviously a significant termination 

cost, too. But none of this is to say that the programs shouldn’t be 

subjected to a rigorous cost-benefit analysis and phased out if they 

don’t make the grade. But certainly the impact on the industrial 

base is one of the factors that has to be considered when we talk 

about major program changes. 

I was just wondering what your thoughts are about the impact 

of the Secretary’s proposed cuts on the industrial base? 

Dr. KREPINEVICH. Again, I’m not an expert on the industry, but 

certainly if you look at the stock prices, Boeing Corporation was 

the one firm I think that was hit particularly hard, at least in 

terms of the way people on Wall Street look at things. I’ll just give 

you one example. Back in 1997, I believe there was a down-select 

on the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF). There were three firms comVerDate Nov 24 2008 10:47 Jan 29, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00040 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 Y:\BORAWSKI\DOCS\54649.TXT JUNE PsN: JUNEB
37 

peting, McDonnell Douglas, Boeing, and Lockheed Martin. The 

down-select was Lockheed-Martin and Boeing, and McDonnell 

Douglas essentially sat there and said: ‘‘There’s not going to be another tactical fighter bid for another 20 or 30 years, perhaps we 

can’t stay in business,’’ essentially, and they merged with Boeing. 

So I do think that, as John has said, we’ve gone from so many 

prime contractors down to so few that now this becomes an issue 

when you terminate a program. It’s not to say that you can’t terminate the program, but if you think that firm has a lot of talent to 

offer, you want to preserve the option of more firms bidding, what 

can you do? If you say we’re terminating production on the F–18E 

and F–18F; okay, is there a bid somewhere down the road where 

Boeing is going to be able to keep its aerospace design team together, its production facilities together? Maybe there is, maybe 

there isn’t. Maybe you just have to make a hard choice. 

But for example, Boeing was very much engaged with building 

unmanned strike aircraft for the Air Force. The Air Force cancelled 

the program a few years ago. Again, if you’re talking about personnel costs, maintenance costs, and so on, fewer man-hours required to operate these kind of aircraft, less pilot risk, less pilot 

training obviously. These aircraft have longer range, typically, because you don’t have to have a person in the aircraft, and so on. 

If an air-sea battle concept for stabilizing the balance in the Far 

East we could use something like this, then you might get the best 

of both worlds. You might, say, cancel the relatively short-range 

FA–18, you might move to a longer range ground system, and you 

might bring on another unmanned system, the NUCAS, which is 

being built by another firm, and again maintain that healthy competition, maintain that firm in the base, and yet still make program decisions that were consistent with the way you see the military having to operate. 

Senator HAGAN. Dr. Hamre? 

Dr. HAMRE. It’s pretty hard to hold a competition. Look what 

we’re struggling with on the tanker. It’s a big buy. It’s going to be 

a huge investment. We can’t get a competition with only American 

producers. That’s going to be more the norm. 

I think again it’s very hard to sustain a competitive industrial 

base if you don’t buy enough stuff. The industrial base is increasingly getting fragile. I thought the DDG–51, the DDG–1000 decision was rather clever because it really does put that competitive 

picture back and make people decide, what do we want to do in 

terms of ships. We just can’t afford $3.5 billion destroyers, but we 

can afford a $700 million LCS. 

Again, it comes back to the point that we’re going to have to temper our requirements expectations. When we do have to buy the 

very top end, we have to buy quality, but there’s probably not going 

to be very many, and it has to then be able to leverage a larger 

force. I think this is what Dr. Krepinevich was saying, is that we 

have to do a lot more campaign modeling. 

But we are losing the capacity for competition in our industrial 

base. We will still have an industrial base. 

Senator HAGAN. Thank you. 

Chairman LEVIN. Thank you, Senator Hagan. 

Senator Chambliss. 

38 

Senator CHAMBLISS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Gentlemen, thank you for your very frank and concise comments 

here. If I hear what both of you are saying with respect to this 

budget, that really the problem goes way beyond the budget. This 

is a 1-year decision and the real problem is the acquisition process. 

Dr. Hamre, when you say that increasing the top line doesn’t give 

us the ability to add much more in the way of weapons systems or 

assets, that’s a serious problem that I think goes way beyond the 

budget process. It means that we have to get serious about addressing that, and certainly Senator Levin and Senator McCain are 

moving us in that direction. 

Dr. Hamre, you were last at the Pentagon, as I recall, at the end 

of the 1990s, with the change in administrations. During your tenure there in the late 1990s, was there any consideration given in 

a 5-year program to looking out to a conflict where we might have 

to defend our men and women against IEDs or explosively formed 

penetrators, and that we’d need mine resistant ambush protected? 

Dr. HAMRE. Sir, no, not that I recall. I don’t recall any systematic 

review of that. That was something that really emerged with this 

war. 

Senator CHAMBLISS. The reason I ask that is because we 

wouldn’t expect it. I’m not sure even the previous administration 

had any conversation about that early on. It’s something that developed. If we look to where we’re going to be in a 5-year projected 

plan, Lord knows, the way the world is changing today, how can 

we even project who the next potential enemy may be even within 

a 5-year period? 

Again, my point being that, Dr. Krepinevich, you alluded to the 

fact that we have to get away from the next war-itis and let’s concentrate on winning, and that’s what this budget, at least I think 

your comment was, seeks to do. But by the same token, we’ve still 

got to be prepared, and we have to certainly imagine that conventional warfare is not out of the realm. 

What concerns me about this budget is that I think we’re giving 

up a capability that we’re going to need, not next year, not the year 

after, not 5 years but maybe 20 years. Who knows when it may be, 

but we’re giving up a capability in this budget with the termination 

of certainly the F–22, the C–17, and maybe parts of the FCS, that 

we’re going to need for the preparation of that. 

Dr. Krepinevich, you mentioned air superiority, air dominance, 

so I’ll ask you about it first. But John, I want your comment on 

this, too. We’ve not lost a foot soldier to enemy aircraft since the 

Korean War. It’s imperative in my mind, and I think you said this, 

that we have to maintain air dominance and air superiority. 

You also talked about the exercises that we’ve been through recently, going back to 2002, and there have been others since then, 

where when we put our current component of aircraft, F–15s and 

F–16s, into the air against current weapons systems that are available to the Chinese, and the Russians, they don’t survive. They get 

taken out regularly. When we put those weapons systems into a 

scenario of a theater where they’re up against S–300s, for example, 

and we know they’re being improved, they don’t survive. 

The only thing that we have in our inventory that gives us the 

ability to maintain air superiority and air dominance is the F–22. 

39 

If we terminate the F–22 now, we’re going to have a gap in there 

before we ever get to the next fighter, obviously the JSF. 

So my question to you is, let’s talk for a minute about the importance of air superiority. This decision on 187, I don’t know that 

anybody has the answer on what the number is. But the Air Force 

says it’s 243. They said at one time it was 787, I think it was. So 

how important is air superiority? Is there a current weapon system 

on the drawing board that’s going to ensure within the next 5 years 

and 20 years from now that we can maintain air superiority without having a sufficient complement of the F–22? 

Dr. KREPINEVICH. I think air superiority has become a more complex issue over time. For example, if you’re looking at the Far East, 

part of the equation is addressing the question of what does air superiority mean against an enemy with a missile force? What does 

it mean to have a fighter squadron at Kadena Air Base when you 

have waves of Chinese ballistic missiles that can take out that air 

base? 

So what does it mean to have air superiority when it’s not just 

a matter of aircraft on aircraft, but you bring in the electronic aspect of it? I really can’t get into it here, but there was a fairly famous exercise between American aircraft and Indian aircraft a few 

years back. As you alluded to, F–15s and F–16s didn’t come out 

looking too well in that engagement. 

But it’s not just a matter of the aircraft itself. It’s a matter of 

other factors, and in particular one aspect—it goes by the name of 

digital radio-frequency memory systems and capabilities that have 

to do with electronic warfare, that can play a significant role no 

matter what aircraft you’re talking about. 

So I guess my answer is that I don’t know if the number 187 is 

correct. I don’t know if the number 260 is correct. If I were Secretary Gates, I would say: ‘‘Here’s the problem in the Far East. Do 

I need F–22s over Taiwan? Okay, if I do, where can I base them? 

If I can’t base them, how can I tank them? Where are the tanker 

orbits going to be? Are they going to be vulnerable? Is there some 

other way I can deal with this problem? Are there other capabilities I can bring to bear?’’ 

Back in the 1980s, Senator Levin had enough material to work 

with in terms of air-land battle that he produced a thoughtful 

paper called ‘‘Beyond the Bean Count,’’ which was how do we think 

about, beyond numbers, beyond 187 or whatever it is, how do we 

think about what we need. You could have that kind of a thoughtful debate then, and I think that’s what’s lacking now. 

So when somebody says 187 and you say why isn’t it 240 or 750? 

Again, once you get into the business of sitting down and developing warfighting concepts and testing them out, you don’t have a 

mathematical outcome that says winner and loser, but you begin 

to see what professional military people begin to take out of that 

toolbox, what they say they need, how they’re going to use it. 

Just another example. In the period between the two world wars 

there were literally hundreds of war games conducted at the Naval 

War College looking at the problem of the Far East, specifically 

Japan. It was called War Plan Orange. At the end of that war, Admiral Nimitz was able to say that nothing, even the attack on 

Pearl Harbor, surprised us in that war. The only thing that surVerDate Nov 24 2008 10:47 Jan 29, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00043 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 Y:\BORAWSKI\DOCS\54649.TXT JUNE PsN: JUNEB
40 

prised us, that hadn’t been played out at the Naval War College, 

was the kamikaze. 

We have war games today, these title 10 war games, they’re 

good, but they come along only once a year. They’re sort of Ben 

Hur productions, casts of thousands. What we need, I think, is a 

kind of persistent study of these problems, so that we’ll never get 

to the exact answer. As you pointed out, we’re always going to be 

surprised in some way. But will we get close enough so that the 

decisions we make, that whatever turns out to be with the F–22, 

is closer to the right decision. 

Dr. HAMRE. Sir, we’re not going to go into combat without air superiority. It’s just such a foundational issue for us that we’re just 

not going to do it. 

Now, I think the Secretary’s view is that the F–35 will be an adequate substitute for the F–22. The only thing I would like to put 

on the table is like Andy, don’t really know what the right ultimate 

number is. But this is an airplane we’re going to operate for 30 

years. If we only buy 187, you’re going to take off 24 for a training 

squadron. Then you’re going to take off probably another 30 for 

long-term maintenance. Then we’re going to lose an airplane, probably one every year or every other year. We’re going to have to 

have this force for 30 years. 

So I think the question is, is it an adequate high-end force at this 

number over time. I think you ought to be looking at that as you’re 

making your decision. 

Senator CHAMBLISS. Thank you. 

Chairman LEVIN. Thank you, Senator Chambliss. 

Senator Burris. 

Senator BURRIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Our witnesses have been very informative and I’m sitting here 

trying to soak all this in, especially for the budget that’s coming 

up. But my mind keeps running that 5-years-out situation and that 

10-years-out situation. I just left a Boeing plant a couple of weeks 

ago, watching them building that F–18. They tell me that they had 

put in the budget for 330 something and I think in this budget they 

cut it down. Boeing is concerned about the continuation of the line. 

When you say our industrial base is shrinking, I’m just wondering what’s going to happen if there’s nothing else that’s going 

to come to use that line. I look at all this technology that they’ve 

put in in this major plant over there, they hire quite a few Illinoisans that come across the river over into St. Louis, so I’m looking at it from two perspectives. One is to keep our citizens working, 

but also to keep our military strong; but also to make sure that we 

have a reasonable budget in the DOD. 

We’re trying to balance all of these various interests, which leads 

to so many questions, I’m trying to figure out which one to put 

first. Are we letting the foreign competition absorb our industrial 

base? Are we not going to use that industrial base in the future? 

What happens to the Boeing line when they shut down the F–18, 

which I understand will be replacing two or three of the Navy’s 

current fighters that are on those ships because of the technology 

that’s in the F–18. 

Can you enlighten me, Dr. Krepinevich or Mr. Hamre, either 

one? Please, help me out. 

41 

Dr. HAMRE. I think it’s important to look at the health of Navy 

aviation. We have 11 carriers today. We’re going to probably go 

down to 10 carriers over time. But when it comes to fighter aircraft, we only have enough F–18 aircraft to put on about seven of 

the carrier decks. We have not been buying enough F–18s. 

The F–18 aircraft was originally designed for about 6,000 hours 

of service life. The average of the fleet today is almost 8,000 hours. 

We have really flown these aircraft hard. 

So we have a combination of an aging inventory and an inadequate number because we haven’t been buying enough over these 

last several years. The question I think is should the Navy buy a 

few more F–18s for a couple of years until the F–35 comes in quantity to replace it. Now, the F–35 is supposed to be the replacement 

airplane for the Navy over time. It’s going to take a while to get 

them. 

I personally think that there is a gap and we ought to address 

it because it’s putting in question the force structure. Now, this 

budget I believe is going to buy 30 or something. 

Senator BURRIS. 31. 

Dr. HAMRE. So it is keeping it alive as it’s being reviewed in the 

QDR. 

Senator BURRIS. But my Boeing people are saying to me that 

those 31 are just not enough to keep the line going in terms of 

costs and overhead. Am I wrong? 

Dr. HAMRE. Sir, I don’t know. I don’t know the answer to that. 

Senator BURRIS. That’s what they’re saying. 

Dr. HAMRE. I don’t know the answer. I’ve spent some time with 

the Navy on this and again it’s a question of how do we provide 

aviation for a maritime presence when we don’t have enough airplanes to outfit the carriers. I think there’s a very legitimate question of whether or not we ought to be buying some additional F– 

18s in the near term, until the F–35 does come on line. 

My personal view is that we probably should. But again, I think 

that’s a decision that’s in the out years. I’m afraid I just don’t know 

the answer on whether 31 is adequate or not. My experience has 

been that there’s always a minimum that is unbreachable, and we 

have those successively lower numbers. 

But I would look at it. It’s worth looking at, sir. 

Senator BURRIS. Dr. Krepinevich, we’d have the same problem 

with the C–17, wouldn’t we, in terms of whether or not we have— 

what is the number there? 

Dr. KREPINEVICH. I think John is probably better positioned to 

answer on the C–17. 

Let me just add something on the F–18 in terms of how you 

might think about the issue. If stealth is important to you, you 

gravitate away from the F–18. If range is important to you, you 

gravitate away from the F–18. If cost is important to you, then the 

F–18 presents a good argument. 

If you need stealth, then you’re going to go with the F–35 or the 

NUCAS. If you need range, you’re going to go with NUCAS. How 

do you plan to fight? Do you have to have all of one aircraft on the 

deck because you want to minimize the amount of logistics and 

spare parts variations you have? Or can you mix and match? Can 

you have some different kinds of aircraft on the deck of a carrier? 

42 

How do you measure what’s important for these aircraft to do? 

Again, Senator Levin’s ‘‘Beyond the Bean Count’’ numbers of aircraft, but when I come and get briefings from admirals, they say: 

‘‘back in 1991, we could hit this many targets off the deck, this 

many sorties per day in carrier strikes.’’ Then we got precision 

weapons and it’s been going up ever since. 

So if the measure is how many aim points can I hit with a carrier strike per day, you could argue a carrier strike wing could be 

significantly smaller than it was back in the early 1990s and you’d 

still have more striking power. So even though you only have 

enough aircraft, as John says, to put on seven decks, who says you 

need the same number of aircraft on a deck when you can hit more 

targets, many more targets, today than you could 20 years ago? 

So again, it depends on what you want and how you measure it. 

That ought to depend upon what the problem is and how you, as 

the military, see yourself conducting operations to solve those problems. 

Admiral Tom Fargo, who I have enormous respect for, was our 

commander in the Pacific, said some day the Navy and the Air 

Force ought to sit down and figure out how we’re going to deal with 

this situation together. What’s the mix of stealth and non-stealth, 

short- and long-range, air base and carrier base, manned and unmanned. When are we going to sit down and do this? 

I think the frustration is because we really haven’t done a rigorous job of addressing these questions, that we have a hard time 

coming up with good answers. 

Senator BURRIS. On the industrial base question, do you have 

knowledge of whether or not, in terms of this budget, we are getting suppliers from the foreign markets for our military budgets? 

Dr. KREPINEVICH. Just one thing on production. You could allocate money or funding for 31 aircraft, but the production line and 

the second tier suppliers will begin to shut down long before the 

last aircraft is produced, because they’ll stockpile those parts that 

they need to produce those aircraft. Of course, it goes along an assembly line. So you’ll begin to shut down parts of the line as the 

last aircraft are moving through it. 

I’m not expert enough and I don’t know enough about Boeing to 

say when that would happen. But everything doesn’t stay in place 

until the 31st aircraft rolls off the line. 

Dr. HAMRE. Sir, in my testimony I wrote about the C–17, and I 

really do think it merits the committee look at that. Again, my concern is that the strategic airlift fleet, 65 percent of it are C–17s, 

which is good, but 35 percent are old C–5s. The oldest C–5s, the 

C–5A models, are about 20 percent of the fleet, and their current 

average age is 37 years old. 

Now, it’s a remarkable airplane. The original Wright Brothers 

flight could have taken place inside that airplane. It’s amazing. 

Senator BURRIS. Yes. I was down at Scott Air Force Base, where 

General McNabb was saying that they’re concerned about the future of those C–5s. 

Dr. HAMRE. We’re just not going to be able to sustain the C–5 

for 50 years, which is what in essence we’re going to have to do 

if we shut down the C–17 line. 

43 

Senator BURRIS. Are some new ones coming down the line? Are 

there some new cargo—the new one is the—what’s the big cargo 

that’s coming on to replace the C–5? 

Dr. HAMRE. The C–17 is the only military transport that is currently in production. Now, the Air Force has a very long-range program which I think is called the Joint Theater Lift System or 

something like that. If you were to go back, it looks an awful lot 

like the old Advanced Medium STOL Transport back in the early 

1970s. It would be a smaller version of a C–17. 

It would be a lot longer discussion. I’d be happy to come up and 

talk with you about it. But again, my personal view is that we really need to ask the question, how long can we rely with a third of 

our strategic airlift fleet being quite old airplanes? I think that’s 

an issue you need to seriously look at. 

Senator BURRIS. Thank you, gentlemen. 

My time has expired. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate 

that. 

Chairman LEVIN. Thank you very much. 

Just very quickly, Dr. Hamre, on the requirements issue that you 

made reference to, I want to give you some reassurance on our bill, 

that there are some provisions there that do address that requirement problem, where they keep adding requirements without consideration of cost. There’s a number of provisions I won’t go into, 

but maybe the key one is section 201, which requires this early 

tradeoff between cost, schedule, and performance by having the 

cost assessment person, who hopefully will be independent, to be 

at the table. Then there are some other provisions which we can 

get into perhaps later if there’s a second round, on competitive 

prototyping in section 203. So there’s a little effort here, at least, 

I hope adequate, but not as much as probably you point out correctly we would need to get at the excessive requirements and the 

continual add-on of requirements in a number of provisions. 

Now, I’m going to have to leave for a few minutes. Let me set 

the following order for the next 15 or 20 minutes. Senator Begich 

is next. If a Republican comes back, we would switch over. Then 

Senator Bill Nelson if he comes back, then Senator McCaskill. 

Then we would start a second round, and I expect I’ll be back by 

then. 

So I thank my colleague. 

Senator BEGICH [presiding]. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you very much. Thanks for being here. It’s very informative for me. I’m a new member, so this is a lot of good information 

coming in my direction. 

I want to show you something and then maybe—this is a general 

comment. I’ll make a statement and then get a general comment, 

and then I have some very specific questions to some of the commentary you made. 

It’s going to be hard to see, so I’ll just show it and you’ll have 

to trust me here. This is the expenditure outlay for DOD in regard 

to gross domestic product (GDP). In World War I it shows, you see 

the spike; World War II, you see the spike. Here we are over here; 

there is no spike. 

44 

There is some discussion that the budget should be based on 4 

percent of GDP and we’re at about 3.4. That’s one debate. Then 

there’s the other debate based on capabilities and requirements. 

Can you just give me some general thoughts? When you see a 

chart like this, it stands out pretty strongly that here we are in two 

theaters and yet the spike is a little bump, and therefore it puts 

a lot of strain within the internal budgets of these different forces. 

So could you just give me a general comment, and then I have 

some very specific things I want to try to get from you, from either 

one of you? 

Dr. KREPINEVICH. I don’t think the 4 percent metric is at all useful in thinking about what our level of defense expenditures should 

be. In times when the threat is high, as your graphic shows, we 

were spending almost 50 percent of our GDP during World War II 

on military issues. In other periods where the threat was very low, 

it certainly seemed to make sense that it could go below 4 percent 

of GDP. 

It also depends on your strategy. If you have a clever strategy, 

you can get by with fewer resources. So in a sense, writing blank 

checks is not quite an invitation to think dumb, but it certainly 

isn’t a prod to think cleverly. In fact, people in the private sector 

who do strategy say that the best strategy is done when the wolf 

is at the door, in other words, when resources are tight and problems are growing. 

In public finance there’s a term called the free rider principle. 

Basically, if somebody else is willing to do it for you, then you’re 

willing to let them. Again, there’s this issue of the more you can 

get your allies to do, the less, hopefully, you have to do. So in a 

sense, it can in some circumstances make you less attentive to the 

need or the opportunities that are presented by engaging other 

countries as prospective allies. 

Then finally, risks. You can never eliminate all risks to your security. So in theory you would spend, if you had zero risk tolerance, 

100 percent of your GDP on defense, sort of an extreme example. 

But different people have different levels of risk. So if you are 

deathly afraid of something going wrong in a particular area you 

may be willing to invest a lot more than I would. So it’s a judgment 

call there in terms of how much risk. 

Of course, then the final issue is opportunity costs, what other 

priorities are being unmet. President Eisenhower, for example, 

when he took office and had his famous Solarium Strategy Review, 

said that he would not support any strategy that undermined the 

economic foundation of the country, because that was the key to 

the country’s ability to compete long-term. So his risk profile, if you 

will, essentially said, ‘‘I’m willing to take some risks in terms of the 

level of defense spending in order to ensure that I minimize the 

risk to our economy.’’ 

So there’s a number of factors, and again I don’t think the 4 percent number is particularly helpful. 

Senator BEGICH. Thank you very much. 

Dr. Hamre, do you want to add to that? 

Dr. HAMRE. Sir, I take a much simpler-minded approach. I used 

to be the comptroller and then the chief operating officer at DOD. 

For me the concern is that we have to put together 5-year plans 

45 

and they’re real, and we really are making decisions today that impact our force 4 and 5 years out. If we were to establish some artificial metric that we will budget X percent of GDP, right now we’d 

be cutting to compensate for a recession, and I just don’t think 

that, just from a mechanical standpoint, that would be really hard 

on the Department. 

I’ve been around for 30 years and I’ve seen these debates. Congress is just not interested in a mechanical process that ties their 

hands. They want to decide every year how much they want to put 

to these things. So unfortunately, it’s very incremental, and I don’t 

think it’s probably going to change. 

Senator BEGICH. I hope you can be more positive, but I just 

talked to my staff on it while we were listening to some of the testimony here. I’m a former mayor and I know that the 1-year process 

is painful. That’s why we did 5-year labor contracts. That’s why we 

did 5 year contracts with regard to services, because it created better balance and you could focus on management of those resources 

rather than paperwork for those resources, and you became more 

efficient. The system here is not very efficient, as you pointed out 

in your testimony. 

I found it interesting, your discussion of as we build a defense 

strategy, for both of you on this. Obviously I’m a little parochial 

here on the missile defense system in Alaska and I see it from a 

strategic purpose. It sounded like what you were saying was sometimes you have to have multiple systems to keep your opposition 

also spending some money and causing them some unknown on 

where you’re at and where you’ll go. 

I see the missile defense, obviously, again as a very important 

strategic, especially in the Pacific Rim, as well as I think one of you 

mentioned the issues of Iran in developing our systems better and 

better, so we have greater capacity. But I also see it that it’s a way 

to force those that are thinking of specializing in certain weapon 

systems, they have to look at all ours to figure out how to balance 

against them, which means an economic hardship on them potentially. 

Do you want to expand on that, or do you see that, what I’m laying out there, as a positive, as a piece of the defense strategy? Either one of you want to comment on that? 

Dr. HAMRE. Each of these different capabilities brings strengths 

and weaknesses. The difficulty of the national system, of course, is 

that it’s dependent on sites that are crucial for the architecture, 

both the long-range radars as well as the interceptor fields, and 

they’re vulnerable. We will try to protect against that, but they are 

vulnerable. 

On the other hand, when you get a mobile capacity, like the 

Aegis with the SM–3, it doesn’t have that vulnerability. It has a 

different vulnerability. So it’s really the range and mix of these resources. 

I think this administration has decided that they want to put 

more emphasis on the mobile assets, and I think there’s a good 

case for that. Now, it would be a different case if we didn’t already 

have a commitment to the deployment that already exists. Its biggest impact is obviously for the third site in Europe. But I think 

they believe that the Aegis with SM–3 is actually superior because 

46 

of its flexibility and it avoids a lot of complicating issues with basing. So I think that’s why they’re thinking about that as a substitute for it. 

This is not like the debate we had in 1993, when President Clinton was elected. President Clinton had promised to cut $60 billion 

from the defense budget in his campaign, and 60 percent of those 

cuts came in missile defense. That’s not the case here. In this case 

I think it’s a repackaging of the investment. There is, I think, a 

sentiment that too much emphasis has been placed on the fixed 

base deployments as opposed to the mobile based deployment, and 

I think that’s what they’re trying to address. 

Senator BEGICH. My time is up, but if you have one comment on 

the economic component, too? 

Dr. KREPINEVICH. Just first, I think John made excellent points. 

I think as long as you’re talking about ballistic missiles with nuclear weapons on them, it just becomes very hard to achieve the 

level of intercept probability that you need to talk about imposing 

costs on the other side. 

I will say, though, that if you look at certain dimensions of ballistic missile defense, for example there are concerns that the Chinese are developing ballistic missiles with maneuverable warheads 

to go after carriers in particular at significant distances from their 

coast. To defend against a ballistic missile with a ballistic trajectory, it’s a lot easier calculation and it’s a lot easier intercept. They 

have kinetic systems, SM–3, as John was mentioning, and so on, 

that can go after these kinds of warheads. 

Directed energy systems that are still interesting but not yet 

proven, would be better to go after the maneuverable vehicles because the computational problem is different, because they are maneuvering, they’re not following a predictable path. Plus, maneuverable vehicles, because they do maneuver, spend more time before they get to the target, and that allows a laser with a given 

power level to lase more or burn more on the warhead. 

I probably sound like I’m getting a little bit too technical, but 

really there are a lot of moving parts to determine this. You probably want to take a look at that before you came to a determination 

as to whether you could really impose costs by pursuing missile defenses. 

Senator BEGICH. Great. Thank you very much, and thank you. 

I’ve expired my time, but thank you for your comments. 

Senator MCCASKILL. I Thank you both for being here. 

Senator Burris jumped my area a little bit because I wanted to 

talk a little bit about F–18 versus F–35. You outlined it pretty well, 

Dr. Krepinevich, about cost versus stealth and range. I’ve heard 

that the Secretary of Defense has said that if we can get 80 to 85 

percent of what you need with a cheaper way to go, we should do 

it. I’m trying to get a handle on how we, and correct me if I’m 

wrong, that the F–18 does 80 percent of what the F–35 does, what 

JSF does, and it’s 40 percent of the cost, about $50 million versus 

$130 million a pop. 

I am trying to figure out, it’s almost unfortunate for me in a way 

that St. Louis figures into this equation, because the auditor hat 

that I wear here in terms of cost-benefit would have me probably 

47 

pounding for F–18s just based on that analysis. Now, the added 

whipped cream and cherry are obviously those jobs in St. Louis. 

But just based on the data as it relates to capability versus cost, 

can you speak to that as to why we’re doing 31, to say nothing of 

the gap that you talked about? We’re talking about a serious gap 

on carriers in the next 2 or 3 years. GAO is telling us that the

F–35 is not on time, it’s not on schedule. We have some problems 

in terms of the technology. We’re not ready to buy it yet. 

This is really serious. How many carriers are going to sit empty 

for 3 or 4 years if we don’t come down on the side of a blend here 

going forward? Now, I get the countervailing argument about what 

do you have to fix them and the maintenance capabilities and all 

that. But if you would speak to that briefly. I know we’ve covered 

it. I don’t want you to go over new territory. I want to home in on 

the 80 percent capability and the 40 percent of the cost. 

Dr. KREPINEVICH. I think if you’re just looking at range and payload, the range and the payload of the F–35 and the F–18 are 

roughly the same. I don’t have the details. So if it were just those 

two metrics that you were using, certainly when you introduce the 

cost metric the F–18 would look quite good. 

If you introduce stealth into the equation, then the F–35 really 

dominates in that area relative to the F–18. How survivable is this 

plane going to be? How well is it going to be able to penetrate? 

Advocates of NUCAS, the unmanned system, would say that’s all 

good, but NUCAS has payload, it has stealth, it has range, and it 

may have lower operational costs because we don’t use a pilot, and 

so on. If range becomes important, and quite frankly, that’s becoming a growing issue for the Navy because as the Chinese develop 

their capabilities the carriers are probably going to have to operate 

further and further from China, at least in the early stages of the 

conflict. 

But then, there’s always another question. The other question is 

sea-based versus land-based. How do I think about that? Or Admiral Fargo’s question was, maybe if the Air Force can take down a 

lot of the Chinese ability to see deep into the ocean, then the carriers can move in fairly quickly and we don’t need stealthy aircraft. 

So that leads you to how are we going to fight, how are we going 

to operate this air-sea battle concept? 

Then there are folks who are saying if we can harden our air 

bases it may be cheaper to put unmanned land-based aircraft on 

them, that may be the cheapest solution of all. Then finally, as I 

mentioned before, I have admirals who tell me essentially you 

could have significantly fewer aircraft, in other words, you could 

spread those 7 carriers’ worth of aircraft over 10 or 11 decks, have 

fewer aircraft, but still be able to strike a lot more targets than you 

could 15 or 20 years ago, because now all these planes carry precision weapons that can hit and you can be confident they have a 

very high probability of hitting what they’re aiming at. 

So it comes down to what metrics do you choose to evaluate these 

various options against and then how do you value the metrics. Depending upon how you do that, you come up with an F–18 as an 

answer or the F–35 or a NUCAS or maybe a different answer altogether. 

48 

Dr. HAMRE. Senator McCaskill, I personally don’t look at this as 

a tradeoff between F–35 and F–18. There’s a difference in timing 

between these two fleets. I personally look at the health of the current F–18 fleet and it’s already beyond its design life. If we’re going 

to be able to outfit the carriers, and we probably have several hundred billion dollars invested in the carriers, it doesn’t make sense 

to me that we wouldn’t put airplanes on that investment over a period of about 10 years until you can start getting F–35s in quantity. 

So I look at it from a much narrower perspective. We have a substantial investment. We use the carriers every day. We want a 

naval presence every day. It’s a matter of whether the air component is up to speed and should we be making an additional investment to ensure that it is up to speed for that period. 

So I don’t personally put it in the tradeoff calculus between F– 

35 and F–18. I think instead that it’s a question of a serious investment in the fleet, and the need to maintain that over the period 

of the next decade. 

Senator MCCASKILL. It’s hard. But with the C–17, we’re flying 

the wings off of them. The F–18, in terms of the utility of it, even 

though I support what the Secretary is trying to do as it relates 

to, kind of arm-wrestle this bear to the ground, the weapons systems and acquisitions and how we do this in a more thoughtful 

way, rather than the way we typically do it around here, which is 

all of us fight each other based on what’s built in our States. That’s 

probably not the best way to equip the military. 

Since we’ve covered a lot on the JSF and the F–18, I want to 

take a minute to talk about contracting and the irregular warfare 

issue. It is not talked about, I think don’t enough, as a component 

of modern warfare. We clearly have taken contracting to a level 

that the military would have never envisioned 20 or 30 years ago 

in terms of what contractors are doing in the contingency. You 

have spent a lot of time talking about the future of ground forces 

and what kind of ground forces we need. 

I have asked repeatedly about the drawing down of contractors 

in Iraq and the building up of contractors in Afghanistan and 

whether or not we’re going to change the way we embrace contracting going forward. We didn’t learn lessons from Bosnia and 

I’m hoping that we’ve learned lessons. I was very proud that Secretary Gates embraces acquisition personnel to the extent that he 

did in his message, and I think he is serious about that. 

But I’m not sure that we’ve figured out how to invade the culture 

in terms of contracting oversight within the military. You are both 

in a position to speak to that. I know that the folks in charge of 

the theater didn’t think contracting oversight was part of their mission. They knew what their mission was and it wasn’t controlling 

costs on Logistics Civil Augmentation Program, and it got completely away from us over there in so many ways. 

I would like both of you to speak to that in terms of what you 

would urge us to do to get a handle on this, because I don’t think 

we’re going to go back to having our Army peeling potatoes. 

Dr. HAMRE. This is an area that needs to be examined in depth 

and we need to take the anger out of it, because there’s an awful 

lot of anger about it. We do need contractors on the battlefield. We 

49 

have depended on them for a very long time, and to get the technical support, not just peeling potatoes, but for example, maintaining night vision equipment. It’s very sophisticated stuff. It’s cheaper to buy that from the private sector than it is to try to bring it 

into the military. 

So we really need to examine it carefully. We do not do well in 

managing service contracts in the Department. We have a very 

deep culture that revolves around contracting for things, acquisition of things. We don’t have anything like it for the acquisition of 

services. We’ve experimented with using contractors to supervise 

contractors, and I’m not sure that’s a very good idea. 

So this is a longer-term, serious effort that needs to be undertaken. We are going to depend on contractors in Afghanistan. We 

will depend on them everywhere, and we do need to ensure that 

we’re getting value for money when we do it. This needs real attention. The Army let its eye off the ball on contracting expertise and 

it’s starting to rebuild that because of some bitter experiences that 

they have had in Iraq. 

Now, I will say I do suspect that we’re going to have to invent 

some new ideas here. We have too high personnel costs, we don’t 

have a big enough military, and we want to do more supervision. 

This just isn’t coming together. So we’re probably going to have to 

invent some new things for this, and utilizing instruments like 

Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDCs) to 

help with technical guidance and support to the government is 

probably going to be a part of that. 

By way of disclosure, I serve on a board of an FFRDC. It’s not 

to advocate. The company is doing perfectly fine. We’re not going 

to put profit-seeking people in charge of other profit-seeking people. 

I think we’re going to have to find other ways to get at that. I 

would be very happy to come up and talk with you about it. It’s 

going to take some time to work out a formula for it. 

Dr. KREPINEVICH. There’s a principle in the business world that 

you don’t outsource your core capabilities. I do think John’s correct 

that a certain amount of outsourcing, certainly in terms of support 

activities, if you can do it in an efficient way, makes sense. What 

concerns me most is the outsourcing to some of the security firms 

of core military capabilities, which is the providing of security, conducting security operations. 

I was talking to one of the Service Chiefs who actually spent a 

fair amount of time in Iraq. He said the number when he was there 

was somewhere on the order of 30,000 or so. I suspect the reason 

we had so many is because of the limitations on the size of the 

Army and the Marine Corps at the time. 

But you really run into trouble when you begin to outsource core 

functions. It wasn’t clear whether these people were or weren’t 

under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. They move around the 

battlefield. Are you obligated to share intelligence with them on 

where the enemy might be? If they run into trouble, should you 

take your rapid response force and dedicate it to their support 

when some of your uniformed people could be getting in trouble? 

They don’t operate under the same standards of discipline that soldiers do. Obviously there have been a number of very unpleasant 

50 

incidents that are associated with contractors operating in poor discipline. 

If the goal is to save money, it’s not clear over the long term that 

we do save money. In a sense, it almost seemed to me that the U.S. 

Government was competing against itself for the services of these 

people, engaging in bidding wars with Blackwater, up to $150,000 

to get a Special Forces noncommissioned officer (NCO) to reenlist. 

Then I quite frankly have concerns about the political factor 

when firms like this begin to lobby Congress, contribute funds to 

campaigns, and so on, because it’s not clear to me what their motives are. It’s not like their motives are the same as the U.S. military’s. 

Finally, a lot of the people who seem to be recruited for these 

sorts of positions in some cases are people that were rejected by the 

military or foreigners. These are not draftees that once the job is 

over they go back home. Whether it’s a fellow from Chile or 

Ukraine or somewhere else, these people in a sense are mercenaries and they’re looking for the next war. Again, it’s not clear to 

me that that’s the sort of capability that we want to have after the 

war is over and looking for something else. 

So it was done, I think, out of the stress of the moment, the necessity of the moment. But I really have grave questions about 

whether this is an approach you want to take when it comes to core 

military capabilities and functions. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman LEVIN. Thank you, Senator McCaskill. 

Senator Bill Nelson. 

Senator BILL NELSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’ll be brief. 

Thank you, gentlemen, for your testimony. I would say good 

morning and I think I’m making it by about 10 minutes. 

I want to get your opinion; Secretary Gates is proposing the Joint 

Cargo Aircraft procurement to cut the aircraft from 78 to 38. Yet, 

the Joint Requirements Oversight Council and the Defense Acquisition Board have both said that there is a requirement for these aircraft and they say 78. Indeed, the Quadrennial Review of Rolls and 

Missions supports that joint program. 

So as we are looking to try to respond to the threats in the future, where we can’t rely on big cargo aircraft, is this a mistake 

to cut that program in half? 

Dr. HAMRE. Senator, I’m embarrassed to tell you I don’t know 

very much about the program. I’d be happy to learn more about it 

and come back and talk to you. What I don’t know is the degree 

to which it is taking the burden off of the C–130s or it’s filling a 

mission that can’t be addressed by C–130s, I just don’t know 

enough about it. 

Senator BILL NELSON. I understand. It’s a smaller, shorter takeoff and landing cargo aircraft that can get into a dirt field, for example. 

Dr. HAMRE. Yes, sir. 

Dr. KREPINEVICH. Is this the C–27, Senator? 

Senator BILL NELSON. Yes. 

Dr. KREPINEVICH. Okay. I’m a micrometer ahead of John Hamre 

in terms of understanding this program. My understanding is some 

51 

of the aircraft were going to the Army and some were going to the 

Air Force. Now all the aircraft are going to the Air Force. I think 

there is an issue with respect to how we think about homeland security, disaster relief, and those kinds of issues. I’m not an expert 

on what the demands are or how we’re going to deal with various 

contingencies relating to homeland security. 

I would say, though, that in terms of requirements, and this gets 

back to a point I think I made earlier, Secretary Gates is saying, 

‘‘look, when I look at the threat profile I am coming to different 

conclusions than those that are derived from the defense planning 

scenarios that we’ve been using in the past, so I think these scenarios need to be updated.’’ Once you update those scenarios and 

say this is what we want the military to focus on, then that creates 

the potential for a change in requirements. Okay, Mr. Secretary, if 

this is what you want to focus on, our requirements shift. 

Certainly we’ve seen that happen over time. For example, with 

the F–22 there was a requirement a few years ago for 381, the Air 

Force said; then 243; now I think it’s 187. 

Senator BILL NELSON. Right. 

Dr. KREPINEVICH. So I think what you have to do is look at how 

this QDR process is going to play out in terms of adjusted requirements. Then we may have 10 pounds of requirements and, as Dr. 

Hamre said, a 6 pound budget, and then you have to start to say 

we may have requirements, we can’t fill all the requirements, we 

have tough decisions we have to make; how do we make those 

tough decisions? 

Senator BILL NELSON. I agree, and we have to make those tough 

decisions. But I must say that I was surprised, because the whole 

thrust is quick response, surgical strikes, get into very difficult 

areas. So that was the idea, bring this cargo aircraft down in size, 

short field takeoff and landing, rough terrain to land on, et cetera. 

Now, in the same vein, what the Secretary is proposing is to retire 250 of the oldest Air Force tactical fighter aircraft. The GAO 

found that unless the Air Force extends the life of F–15s and 16s 

or speeds up the introduction of new aircraft, then it’s going to lack 

the aircraft to perform the air sovereignty alert mission all the way 

up through 2015. 

So any comments from you as to whether or not it’s prudent to 

retire that kind of aircraft? 

Dr. HAMRE. I assume air sovereignty alert is airplanes based in 

the United States to fly up and intercept a Russian Bear bomber 

or something. 

Senator BILL NELSON. Right. 

Dr. HAMRE. I didn’t know we did that any more. 

Senator BILL NELSON. The Air National Guard does. 

Dr. HAMRE. The Air National Guard has that as a mission? 

Senator BILL NELSON. Yes. 

Dr. HAMRE. So this is largely going to be retirement of Air National Guard assets? Is that what this would do? 

Senator BILL NELSON. That’s correct. 

Dr. HAMRE. I see, and they’re primarily old F–15s? 

Senator BILL NELSON. F–15s and 16s. 

Dr. HAMRE. Forgive me. Again, I’m not very up to speed on that. 

There is a real problem. We keep holding on to old assets and 

52 

make them keep them in service. Boy, it’s tough to keep them 

going. It would be far better to find a way to modernize, but we’re 

buying new things, it’s hard to do that. 

But I just don’t know enough to question the Secretary’s judgment at this stage, but I’d be happy to learn more about it. Andy? 

Dr. KREPINEVICH. I’m sure glad John’s taking these questions 

first because, like I said, I’m barely catching up to him. But again, 

I’m speculating a bit here, as John is. You get to a point where it’s 

like the old car in the driveway that’s dripping oil and the transmission’s going, and you say: Look, I could keep this thing going, 

it’s probably not going to perform all that well, it’s probably going 

to be a hangar queen, it’s going to spend more hours down than 

up. How much capability am I really getting out of this and what’s 

the opportunity cost? Could I be investing, for example, in advanced radars that can help detect when an incursion might be occurring, or perhaps in UAVs, unmanned systems that can fly and 

incorporate the latest electronics and avionics in terms of having 

a wide area of surveillance? 

What is the problem? Is the problem drug smugglers? Is the 

problem illegal immigrants? Is the problem a Russian Bear bomber? What are the new requirements today, as opposed to the ones 

that existed when continental air defense was a big issue during 

the Cold War? 

So I think you have to look at the range of issues there before 

you can judge whether this decision makes a lot of sense or not. 

Senator BILL NELSON. Okay. One more question regarding contractor rapes of American contractor personnel in the war zone. 

We’ve had difficulty. We’ve had a number of those rapes. The evidence was swept under the rug. The DOD not requiring the contractors to preserve the evidence, not setting a set of procedures 

whereby a woman who was raped would be attended to immediately, and the condescension toward a woman who was raped in 

the war zone. 

We obviously need to have better DOD oversight and responsibility and referring these cases to the Department of Justice for 

prosecution. Has this come onto your radar scope, either one of 

you? 

Dr. HAMRE. Yes, sir, it has. A couple of years ago at my little 

think tank we looked at this problem. It was a problem in the Balkans and it was a problem that we had, to a lesser degree, in Iraq. 

I think it’s a serious issue because right now it’s treated as just a 

moral deviancy question and get them out of country, terminate 

that person from employment, et cetera. 

I think it’s a little more serious than that, because what we do 

know is our opponents do try to target us for intelligence purposes 

through some of this contract activity. I suspect that the vector of 

convenience is also potentially a vector of vulnerability in some of 

it. So I think it ought to be taken much more seriously than we 

have been taking it. 

We did for a time, I remember talking to General Jones when he 

was Supreme Allied Commander Europe about this as an issue. He 

actually had a conference on the problem in Brussels. But I must 

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53 

plementation on it. But I do think it’s worth your looking at and 

following through on it. 

I think there’s a bigger security issue, not just a moral justice 

issue here. 

Senator BILL NELSON. Thank you. 

Chairman LEVIN. Thank you, Senator Nelson, for your continuing focus on that issue. 

I just have a few more questions. One of the things that Secretary Gates’s announcement suggested was that we limit the 

growth of combat brigades to 45 instead of 48, as originally 

planned. What this does, it seems consistent with the goal that the 

increase in end strength will be used to build force stability and 

depth, and not just result in a larger version of a thinly stretched 

and less ready Army. In other words, we would use the end 

strength growth to thicken the existing units and allow the Army 

to quit using stop-loss as a force meeting tool. 

Have you given any thought to that, either of you, as to what 

your reaction would be? 

Dr. KREPINEVICH. Yes. I had the opportunity to spend a little bit 

of time with Secretary Gates and his rationale was as you’ve described it. The Army was building toward 48 brigades. In Secretary 

Gates’s estimation it could only really adequately fill 45. So the 

concern on the part of the Army was the dwell time. The more brigades we have, the longer the dwell time in between rotations into 

combat. 

From my point of view, I think the Secretary made a wise choice. 

In our assessment of the Army, we actually recommended the 

Army stay at 42 brigades. The reason was the strategy that the 

DOD is pursuing, which is a strategy of indirect approach and 

building partner capacity. If your strategy is building partner capacity, you need essentially a higher density of officers and NCOs. 

You need them because they’re going to be your trainers and advisers. They’re the ones who are going to provide the reinforcing rods 

in the Iraqi security forces and help build up and advise the Afghan National Army. 

To me, that strategy makes perfect sense because it plays to our 

strengths, and it also seems to be the direction the administration 

is going in with the drawdown in Iraq and I think a limited buildup in Afghanistan. So there should be less concerns about dwell 

time as that deployment or redeployment is executed. So I think 

for my money Secretary Gates actually went too far in going to 45. 

The other point I would make is, if you look at the structure of 

the Army proposal, 19 of the 48 Active brigades were going to be 

heavy brigades. That’s almost 40 percent of the Active Force. Zero 

brigades were brigades that were going to be specifically oriented 

on security cooperation operations. On the other hand, of the 

Guard brigades, only 25 percent were heavy brigades. 

This struck me as very odd, given that the Active brigades can 

be rotated more frequently into these combat zones. It’s obviously 

an irregular war. Infantry brigades are structured more optimally 

for that if you don’t want to create security cooperation brigade 

combat teams or increase the number of advisers and trainers. So 

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54 

ther consciously or subconsciously trying to get back to its heavy 

force comfort zone. 

Dr. HAMRE. I take Dr. Krepinevich’s view on this. 

Chairman LEVIN. Thank you. 

One of the things our bill does, our Levin-McCain Acquisition 

bill, is that we really have a focus on the development of independent cost estimates. We do it in a number of ways, one of which 

is we would have the cost estimator report, that independent person, report directly to the Secretary, to increase the independence, 

instead of going through someone else. Do you have any thoughts 

on that? 

Dr. HAMRE. Sir, I think the Cost Analysis Improvement Group 

(CAIG) and the independent cost estimates have been pretty accurate through the years. I think they’ve had a very good track 

record. I don’t think that there was ever a difficulty in getting their 

estimate in front of the Secretary. I think it routinely came in front 

of the Secretary through the program review. 

It’s just that when you’re living with constrained budgets and 

you have this unrealistic pressure toward optimism, you choose to 

ignore the CAIG. It’s not that there hasn’t been the knowledge. It’s 

that people have chosen to ignore it. 

Chairman LEVIN. Should we make it harder to ignore? 

Dr. HAMRE. Sir, you’re making people—— 

Chairman LEVIN. Isn’t that exactly what your point was here 

this morning, was that we have to rein in costs? 

Dr. HAMRE. Yes, sir. 

Chairman LEVIN. Doesn’t that mean we have to make the cost 

estimator a stronger position? Isn’t that the whole point? 

Dr. HAMRE. But I don’t personally think you’re going to get that 

by just putting a requirement on top of people like this. I have a 

different view on why we’re in this trouble. 

Chairman LEVIN. Is that a requirement? 

Dr. HAMRE. Pardon me, sir? 

Chairman LEVIN. Is that a requirement, or is that a capability? 

Dr. HAMRE. Which? 

Chairman LEVIN. You said put a requirement on these people. 

Dr. HAMRE. If we were to put a statutory hurdle to get over. 

Chairman LEVIN. No, we’re getting rid of a hurdle. We want direct access to the Secretary. 

Dr. HAMRE. I honestly don’t think that’s the problem. I think 

that we knew that the F–22 was going to cost more than the Air 

Force said it was going to cost, and we budgeted the lower number. 

I was there. 

Chairman LEVIN. Why was that? 

Dr. HAMRE. It was too painful politically either to force them to 

cut the procurement quantity or to budget a high funding number. 

Chairman LEVIN. Is it too painful politically in the executive or 

the legislative branch, or both? 

Dr. HAMRE. Both. 

Chairman LEVIN. Okay. We have given extraordinary flexibility 

to the MDA and we’ve given them immunity from the normal acquisition rules on missile defense. Some senior DOD officials have 

indicated they think missile defense should be held to the same 

standards of acquisition discipline as other major defense acquisiVerDate Nov 24 2008 10:47 Jan 29, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00058 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 Y:\BORAWSKI\DOCS\54649.TXT JUNE PsN: JUNEB
55 

tion programs. Do you have a comment on that? Do you agree with 

that? 

Dr. KREPINEVICH. I would defer to Dr. Hamre. I’m not knowledgeable enough. 

Chairman LEVIN. You guys keep deferring to each another. 

Dr. HAMRE. It should be subjected to the same discipline, of 

course. 

Chairman LEVIN. One of the things that was proposed here, and 

I think you may have briefly commented on this when I stepped 

away, is the shift of funds in the missile defense area that is being 

proposed. Secretary Gates says that in order to, and these are his 

words, ‘‘better protect our forces and those of our allies in theater 

from ballistic missile attack,’’ that he’s proposing to add $700 million to field more of the most capable theater missile defense systems, specifically THAAD and SM–3 program. 

Now, that follows the guidance provided by Congress last year, 

or it’s consistent with the guidance anyway, that the highest missile defense priority, based on the findings of the so-called Joint 

Capabilities Mix Study. That study showed that DOD was not 

planning for even half of the interceptors needed for our regional 

combatant commanders. So we put the focus in our last bill on additional THAAD and SM–3 interceptors as the highest priority. We 

put less less emphasis on NMD for three reasons. 

Number one was it is not as near-term, it is not as immediate. 

Number two, not as likely. Number three, that the operational effectiveness had not been demonstrated for the NMD interceptors, 

and that we should demonstrate their operational effectiveness before we continue to purchase additional ones. 

That was the tradeoff, and I’m wondering if either of you want 

to comment or have a comment. I heard part of what I believe you 

said, Dr. Krepinevich. I’m not sure whether you, Dr. Hamre, had 

a comment that I missed. But could you comment on that point? 

Dr. KREPINEVICH. I think the logic is strong there. I think theater defense is more likely to be used in the near-term. It gives you 

an opportunity to field test, if you will, systems, find out where 

their strengths and weaknesses are. 

I think, with respect to defense of the Homeland, it has to be 

more than missile defense. It has to be ballistic missile defense. It 

has to be cruise missile defense and a holistic strategy that looks 

to both of them, plus nontraditional means of inserting weapons of 

mass destruction. I think the dog that isn’t barking here is what 

I called earlier the G–RAMM threat, which really isn’t addressed 

by a Patriot Advanced Capability-3 system because of the flight 

times and trajectories. The Israelis, for example, have come up 

with systems like Iron Dome. But again, the expense of the interceptor so exceeds the cost of the projectile that I think again we’re 

going to have to look for novel ways to come up with defending 

against that kind of problem. 

The only promising technology I see in the near-term has to do 

with the solid state laser technology, the Slab lasers, or prospectively the fiber lasers that they’re coming up with. But even then, 

it’s far from being a done deal. 

Chairman LEVIN. Dr. Hamre? 

56 

Dr. HAMRE. Sir, I apologize for not being aware of the direction 

that you gave. But I think the logic is very strong. The threat we’re 

facing every day tends to be from intermediate range missiles. Theater systems are appropriate investments right now, and we do 

have this foundation in national ballistic missile defense that we’ve 

invested in. We should make sure it works. 

Chairman LEVIN. Thank you both. You’ve been really wonderful 

witnesses. I know how much all the members who were able to get 

here appreciated it, and we appreciate your service. 

We’ll stand adjourned. 

[Questions for the record with answers supplied follow:] 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY SENATOR CARL LEVIN

JOINT FORCES COMMAND ROLE IN JOINT REQUIREMENTS

1. Senator LEVIN. Dr. Krepinevich, there has been a longstanding concern that 

our acquisition system is not well-designed or run to procure the technologies and 

systems that we need for joint operations. Senator McCain and I try to address this 

issue partially in our acquisition reform legislation, by clarifying and emphasizing 

the role that combatant commanders should play in advising the Joint Requirements Oversight Council (JROC) in reviewing and establishing requirements. Under 

Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics, Ashton Carter, endorsed the idea of Joint Forces Command (JFCOM) becoming a full member of the 

JROC in testimony before this committee in 2000. What is your view of the role that 

JFCOM should be playing in the JROC and in establishing joint requirements? 

Dr. KREPINEVICH. The JFCOM is the only senior military officer charged with representing the views of the ‘‘Combatant Commands (COCOMs)-After-Next.’’ Put another way, the future generals and admirals who will command the U.S. Armed 

Forces 7 or 8 years from now should be JFCOM’s principal customers. Obviously, 

these future commanders cannot yet speak for themselves. They must count on the 

Commander, JFCOM, to speak for them. In this role, the JFCOM Commander’s 

voice can best be heard as a member of the JROC and the Defense Acquisition 

Board (DAB). 

Given current trends, these COCOMs-After-Next will encounter some very different challenges from those that confront us at present. The COCOMs will require 

new concepts of operation, which will themselves necessitate new types of equipment and new force structures to execute properly. It is the Joint Forces Commander’s job to ensure the COCOMs-After-Next will have what they need to best 

protect the Nation. 

This will likely require significant changes in the Joint Force. Such change in 

large military organizations almost inevitably involves a process that spans a decade or more. However, the U.S. military’s institutional practices typically find senior 

leaders—including the Commander, JFCOM—rotated out of their assignments every 

2 to 4 years. While this rotation cycle may work well for leaders whose responsibilities are focused on the near-term (for example, the regional COCOM who is responsible for the immediate warfighting mission in his area of operation), the task of 

identifying the key emerging challenges to national security and adapting the military to meet them is one that can only be accomplished over an extended period 

of time. 

It is not surprising, then, that military organizations that have successfully 

changed to address major shifts in the character of the threats confronting them (or 

exploited opportunities to create a major new advantage) have almost always had 

key senior military leaders serving an extended tour of duty, often double or even 

triple the length of a typical flag tour. During the onset of German Army’s transformation to blitzkrieg in the 1920s, for example, the head of its shadow general 

staff, General Hans von Seeckt, served 7 years in that position. The American 

Navy’s exploitation of naval aviation was shepherded by Vice Admiral William 

Moffett, who remained head of the Navy’s Bureau of Aeronautics for an astounding 

12 consecutive years. Admiral Hyman Rickover, widely known as the ‘‘Father’’ of the 

Navy’s nuclear submarine force, remained Director of the Naval Reactors Branch for 

over 30 years. Yet the tour of duty for the Commander of JFCOM is the same as 

those of senior commanders of operational units. A strong case can be made for the 

JFCOM commander to have extended tenure to enable him to see his job through 

to completion. 

57 

It almost goes without saying that the insights and lessons derived from JFCOM’s 

analytic efforts, wargames and simulations, as well as field exercises, must be harvested if our military is to adapt to meet emerging challenges. Properly formulated 

and executed, the command’s efforts toward this end should yield important insights 

regarding what operational concepts, force structures, and equipment will be of 

greatest value to future COCOMs. Moreover, changes in force structure, doctrine, 

and equipment under consideration today will not be created or fielded in significant 

quantities until well into the next decade—when the COCOMs-After-Next will assume their duties. Given these considerations, a strong case can be made that the 

JFCOM commander’s views should be accorded great weight in DOD decisions regarding Defense program priorities. 

At present, however, even if one assumes a robust level of Service and Joint experimentation focused on emerging challenges, it is not clear how the insights derived from these efforts will be translated into new requirements and ultimately, 

new doctrines, force structures, equipment and capabilities. In recent years the 

Joint Chiefs’ JROC have generally proven incapable of effecting significant changes 

in Service budget shares or program focus. 

One way to help remedy this problem is to assign the Commander, JFCOM, a seat 

on the JROC, as well as membership on the DAB. As a member of the JROC and 

the DAB, the Commander, JFCOM, could give voice to the demands levied by meeting emerging challenges. He could also guard against unwarranted influence being 

exerted by the military Services, which are often tempted to act more out of narrow 

institutional interest than from a broader, joint perspective. 

Assuming that the Commander, JFCOM, receives the extended tenure (i.e., consecutive 3-year terms) necessary to develop new concepts of operation, a logical follow-on assignment would be a 4-year tour of duty as Vice Chairman of the Joint 

Chiefs of Staff, who chairs the JROC and co-chairs the DAB. This would facilitate 

the Pentagon’s efforts to ensure that the equipment needed to execute new concepts 

of operation are purchased and fielded in a timely manner. 

Finally, for these recommendations to have value, the flag officer designated to 

serve as Commander, JFCOM, must be carefully selected. People do make a difference, even in today’s world. The world would likely be a very different place were 

it not for General von Seekct, Admiral Moffett, and Admiral Rickover. Given the 

stakes involved, the Commander, JFCOM, should be both a warrior and a scholar— 

and perhaps a bit of a salesman, to boot. The current Commander, JFCOM, clearly 

fits this description. 

2. Senator LEVIN. Dr. Krepinevich, would the goal of moving the Department toward joint requirements and capabilities that strike the balance you are seeking in 

addressing current and future threats be better served if the JFCOM commander 

were a member of the JROC? 

Dr. KREPINEVICH. See answer to question 1. 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY SENATOR SAXBY CHAMBLISS

C–5

3. Senator CHAMBLISS. Dr. Hamre, in an Office of the Secretary of Defense’s 

(OSD) Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics (AT&L) memo dated February 14, 

2008, on the C–5 Reliability Enhancement and Reengining Program (RERP) Acquisition Decision Memorandum (ADM), it indicated that OSD reviewed 14 different 

airlift alternatives as part of the C–5 RERP Nunn-McCurdy process and concluded 

that a mix of 205 C–17s with 49 RERP’d production aircraft, and 59 C–5As provided 

the greatest military capability at the least cost. The memo also stated that retention and operation of the C–5A aircraft were required to meet JROC validated requirements and that procuring additional C–17s was rejected as not meeting requirements, as more costly to the taxpayer, and that additional C–17s were 

unaffordable in the Future Years Defense Program. Are you aware of this memo 

and its contents? 

Dr. HAMRE. I would be happy to look at the memo. I don’t doubt it may reflect 

a snapshot of today’s situation, but are these conclusions valid for the next 20 

years? I doubt it. The C–5A fleet reliability is low. It is well known that the Air 

Force avoids sending the C–5A on long missions because of the frequent break-down 

pattern. I would be happy to read the study and meet with the Air Force analysts 

who prepared it. 

58 

4. Senator CHAMBLISS. Dr. Hamre, Section 132 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2004 addresses the language regarding C–5A retirement restrictions. Section 132 clearly does not restrict the Air Force from budgeting for additional C–17s nor preclude Congress from adding additional C–17s. Do you believe 

that the Department should see the full results of C–5 RERP, including the modernized C–5A, to ensure it has all the information it needs to make fact-based and objective decisions for the future regarding the C–5 fleet? 

Dr. HAMRE. The Department should always have as much information available 

as possible. The Air Force should also insist that objective analysis guide its resource commitments. 

5. Senator CHAMBLISS. Dr. Hamre, the Mobility Capabilities Study (MCS) identified a need for between 292 and 383 strategic airlift aircraft. At the time, the MCS 

coincided with the Air Force’s program of record of 292 aircraft (180 C–17s and 112 

C–5s with engine and avionics upgrades). The MCS recommended a strategic airlift 

force structure at the bottom of the range necessary to meet National Military Strategy (NMS) requirements with acceptable risk. Subsequently, the 2006 Quadrennial 

Defense Review endorsed a DOD goal of maintaining 292 strategic airlifters (180 

C–17s and 112 C–5s). Subsequent to that, the JROC (codified in the February 2008 

C–5 Nunn-McCurdy ADM) stated that United States Transportation Command supported 205 C–17s, 49 RERP production aircraft (+3 SDD aircraft), and 59 C–5As to 

meet the NMS requirements. Do you believe that the Air Force’s planned strategic 

airlift fleet is adequate to meet the NMS of the Nation and the JROC validated requirements? 

Dr. HAMRE. No. I suggest that the analysis may reflect a plausible condition 

today, but that in 20 years we will deeply regret depending on 52-year-old aircraft 

for long-range strategic lift. 

6. Senator CHAMBLISS. Dr. Hamre, over the years, there have been multiple studies which have affirmed the long-term structural health of the C–5 fleet as well as 

the operational and economic benefits of C–5 modernization. In fact, C–5 modernization consistently appears to be the most cost-effective solution. Do you know of any 

validated studies that suggest otherwise? 

Dr. HAMRE. The original C–5 wing had to be rebuilt in the early 1980s because 

weight problems in the original aircraft program caused the Air Force and the contractor to cut structure out of the center wing box, causing the wing to fail prematurely. An entirely new wing box was retrofitted into the C–5A aircraft 15 years 

after they were originally manufactured. This heavier wing was included in the C– 

5Bs. Therefore, the wing life of the aircraft is likely to carry us well into the years 

ahead. That is not the cause of the poor reliability of the C–5A. 

7. Senator CHAMBLISS. Dr. Hamre, it is my understanding that the recently released Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA) study considered 36 alternative mixes 

and sizes for airlift and compared them both in cost and effectiveness with the program of record. The study identified several relatively inexpensive ways of generating higher capability from the existing force without buying more planes and that 

purchasing additional C–17s were not needed to meet the MCS moderate-acceptable-risk delivery rates used as a benchmark by the analyses conducted here. Are 

you aware of the IDA study and, if so, do you agree with its conclusions? 

Dr. HAMRE. I would be pleased to review the study. Having worked for 6 years 

as an airlift analyst, I know how to evaluate studies. 

8. Senator CHAMBLISS. Dr. Hamre, it is my understanding that C–5 RERP is performing well, that Lockheed Martin is performing to cost and schedule, and that the 

Air Force has indicated that RERP meets or exceeds all key performance parameters specified by contract. Is this true? 

Dr. HAMRE. I do not know. I have not been briefed by the Air Force on the C– 

5 RERP. I did not comment on it during my testimony. 

9. Senator CHAMBLISS. Dr. Hamre, do you have any comments on how well the 

C–5 RERP is performing? 

Dr. HAMRE. I would be happy to receive a briefing from the Air Force on the program. 

[Whereupon, at 12:08 p.m., the committee adjourned.] 

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