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<title> - [H.A.S.C. No. 114-119] BUILDING THE FLEET WE NEED: A LOOK AT NAVY FORCE STRUCTURE</title>
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[House Hearing, 114 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

[H.A.S.C. No. 114-119]

BUILDING THE FLEET WE NEED: A LOOK AT NAVY FORCE STRUCTURE

__________

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON SEAPOWER AND PROJECTION FORCES

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

__________

HEARING HELD

APRIL 13, 2016

[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

______

U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE

20-079 WASHINGTON : 2017
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Publishing
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Washington, DC 20402-0001

SUBCOMMITTEE ON SEAPOWER AND PROJECTION FORCES

J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia, Chairman

K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut
BRADLEY BYRNE, Alabama JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island
ROBERT J. WITTMAN, Virginia RICK LARSEN, Washington
DUNCAN HUNTER, California, Vice MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO, Guam
Chair HENRY C. ``HANK'' JOHNSON, Jr.,
VICKY HARTZLER, Missouri Georgia
PAUL COOK, California SCOTT H. PETERS, California
JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii
JACKIE WALORSKI, Indiana GWEN GRAHAM, Florida
RYAN K. ZINKE, Montana SETH MOULTON, Massachusetts
STEPHEN KNIGHT, California
STEVE RUSSELL, Oklahoma
David Sienicki, Professional Staff Member
Phil MacNaughton, Professional Staff Member
Katherine Rember, Clerk

C O N T E N T S

----------
Page

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS

Courtney, Hon. Joe, a Representative from Connecticut, Ranking
Member, Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces......... 2
Forbes, Hon. J. Randy, a Representative from Virginia, Chairman,
Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces................. 1

WITNESSES

Lehman, Hon. John F., Former Secretary of the Navy............... 3
Natter, ADM Robert J., USN (Ret.), Former Commander, U.S. Fleet
Forces Command................................................. 5

APPENDIX

Prepared Statements:

Forbes, Hon. J. Randy........................................ 29
Lehman, Hon. John F.......................................... 31
Natter, ADM Robert J......................................... 37

Documents Submitted for the Record:

[There were no Documents submitted.]

Witness Responses to Questions Asked During the Hearing:

[There were no Questions submitted during the hearing.]

Questions Submitted by Members Post Hearing:

[There were no Questions submitted post hearing.]

BUILDING THE FLEET WE NEED: A LOOK AT NAVY FORCE STRUCTURE

----------

House of Representatives,
Committee on Armed Services,
Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces,
Washington, DC, Wednesday, April 13, 2016.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 3:30 p.m., in
room 2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. J. Randy Forbes
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. J. RANDY FORBES, A REPRESENTATIVE
FROM VIRGINIA, CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE ON SEAPOWER AND
PROJECTION FORCES

Mr. Forbes. Well, I want to welcome all of our members to
our hearing today. I am particularly pleased to have some of
our Nation's foremost naval experts providing testimony before
our subcommittee.
We have the Honorable John F. Lehman, former Secretary of
the Navy, and Admiral Robert J. Natter, U.S. Navy, retired,
former Commander, Fleet Forces Command. Gentlemen, thank you so
much for all that you have done for our country and we are
delighted to have you with us today.
When John Lehman stepped down as Secretary of the Navy in
1987, we had 594 ships. When Admiral Natter retired from the
Navy in 2003, we had 297 ships. Today, we have 272 ships. The
size of our fleet is only one metric for Navy strength, but it
is an important one. And while I firmly believe that the United
States Navy remains the most powerful and capable maritime
force in the world, I am concerned about the future and the
trend lines that we see in those three points.
We have heard from the Chief of Naval Operations [CNO]
Admiral Richardson that we are returning to an era of great
power competition in which our maritime superiority will be
contested. We have heard the gaps in our aircraft carrier
presence will continue to occur in the Middle East and the
Pacific. We have heard from the Marine Corps that shortfalls in
amphibious ships are driving them to consider deploying aboard
foreign ships.
A few weeks ago, Admiral Harris, our commander in the
Pacific, testified to Congress that the Navy can currently only
fulfill 62 percent of his demand for submarines. We all thought
that sounded pretty dire, but just last week I was informed by
the Navy that across the board, the Navy will only be able to
meet 42 percent of anticipated demand for forces in fiscal year
2017. So it turns out that Admiral Harris' situation may
actually be above average, an alarming realization indeed.
The conclusion we should all be drawing from this data is
that we need more ships, and more aircraft, and more investment
in other elements and enablers of naval power. The
administration points to a ship construction program that will
meet the 380-ship Navy in the next few years. However, if one
looks under the hood of this car, one sees some disturbing
details. The administration continues to count ships that they
intend to shrink wrap and tie to the pier. Once again, they are
proposing to lay up half our cruisers and truncate the
procurement of small surface combatants.
Now, in fiscal year 2017, they are asking for permission to
deactivate an entire carrier air wing. These trend lines are,
indeed, concerning and point to a clear need to provide
additional investment in our Navy and in the other elements of
our national defense. They are also evidence, I believe, of
malaise and a lack of vision in thinking about American
seapower.
While I believe that our uniformed leaders are fully
capable of providing this vision and leadership, I believe the
administration, and the next, must place a higher priority on
national security and the strength of our Navy. Our witnesses
today have fought these battles before and are a clear source
of inspiration as we navigate these troubled waters and seek to
rebuild our maritime strength. We are indebted to them for
their service, and today we once again call on their wisdom and
foresight. I look forward to hearing their thoughts.
But now I turn to my good friend and colleague, the ranking
member of the subcommittee, Congressman Joe Courtney of
Connecticut, for any comments he might have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Forbes can be found in the
Appendix on page 29.]

STATEMENT OF HON. JOE COURTNEY, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM
CONNECTICUT, RANKING MEMBER, SUBCOMMITTEE ON SEAPOWER AND
PROJECTION FORCES

Mr. Courtney. Great, thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding
today's hearing to hear the views of our two distinguished
witnesses on the Navy's force structure. As the Chief of Naval
Operations Admiral John Richardson shared with our committee
last month, the Navy is undergoing a review of its Force
Structure Assessment. Given the changing dynamics around the
world, the growing demand for our ships, and the increasing
strain on our naval fleet, I welcome this reassessment of our
force structure requirements, which is the subject of today's
hearing.
Our current fleet requirements stand at 308 ships which,
thanks to the 84 ships under contract over the last several
years, we expect to reach within the next 5 years. That is good
news, but it is just a start because even under the Navy's
plan, we will not sustain the levels needed to fully support
the various components of that fleet.
While the 30-year shipbuilding plan for 2017 has still not
been submitted to Congress, we expect it to reflect what we saw
in the 2016 plan, that even when we meet the 308-ship goal, key
shortfalls will remain.
For example, we will face shortages in small and large
surface combatants as well as attack submarines over the next
three decades. Additional shortfalls remain in the fighter
aircraft and other capabilities that will be key to combating
the challenges of the future.
Notably, one area that the CNO singled out for particular
review in the Force Structure Assessment was our attack
submarine force. The current requirement of 48 was set nearly a
decade ago before undersea resurgence that we see now by China
and Russia.
Retired Admiral Jim Stavridis told our panel that Russian
submarine activity is probably 70 to 80 percent of what we saw
during Cold War times. Admiral Harris told us of his concerns
that the U.S. submarine force will dip to 41 at a time when
China is increasing their fleet size and advancing their
undersea capabilities. European Commander General Breedlove
told us that the submarine shortfall leaves us playing zone
defense in the North Atlantic. And above all, our combatant
commanders have been clear to us that the current fleet of 54
attack submarines, let alone the future force of 41 or even 48,
cannot adequately meet the demand of our undersea capabilities.
That is the kind of area that begs for reassessment and I
look forward to the outcome of their review, not just for
submarines, but across all aspects of our naval fleet. However,
if we are ever going to reach the required fleet size, Congress
and the Nation must grapple with the dual challenges of the
Budget Control Act [BCA] and the critical need to recapitalize
our sea-based strategic deterrent submarine fleet without
depleting resources for other vital shipbuilding programs.
If not addressed, both of these issues will significantly
impact our ability to build and sustain the fleet we need. I
hope our witnesses will share their views on both subjects with
us today. The shortfalls we will face are largely the result of
decisions made in previous decades which we cannot undo in a
single year. What we can do, though, is continue to work in a
bipartisan way to address our current and future shipbuilding
needs going forward.
I am proud that this panel has a record of doing so and I
look forward to sustaining that record. The witnesses' input
today is vital as we prepare to mark up the 2017 defense
authorization bill and continue to build the fleet we need for
the future. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Forbes. Thank you, Mr. Courtney. And without objection,
Secretary Lehman and Admiral Natter's written testimony will be
made a part of the record. No objection, so it will be so
entered.
And with that, Mr. Secretary, we are delighted to have you
here and we look forward to any opening remarks that you might
have for us.
Secretary, you might want to push that.

STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN F. LEHMAN, FORMER SECRETARY OF THE NAVY

Mr. Lehman. Sorry. It has been a long time since I have
been before this distinguished committee and it really is
distinguished.
I spent hundreds of hours before this committee and your
predecessors. Charlie Bennett, I think I spent more time with
Charlie when I was Secretary than I did with anybody else but
my wife. And the history that this subcommittee, and its
predecessor committee, has had in building and leading, helping
to lead executive branches to form the kind of Navy that has
prevented wars, and prevented us losing wars, stands out among
all committees, in my judgment, in the history of the Congress.
And you have been able to carry that tradition and are
continuing to lead and show a vision of where a bipartisan
naval strategy can be achieved. So thank you for that.
I am delighted to be back. It has been a long time. But as
you know, just so everybody knows my prejudices, the naval
tradition in my family is old. George Lehman was in the
Revolutionary Navy. My great grandfather was in the Union Navy.
My father was in World War II. I was a Reserve naval aviator
for 25 years, and ended up touching virtually every trouble
spot during that period. My son was a naval aviator with three
tours on the Teddy Roosevelt in all of the combat areas. So I
come with prejudices.
I was Secretary of the Navy for 6 years. The
accomplishments of the Navy in those years, I think, was made
possible because, particularly starting in 1977, 1978, 1979,
your subcommittee and the Seapower Subcommittee on the Senate
side, laid the groundwork, the intellectual groundwork at a
time when the Nation was not fully conscious of what the
dangers really were; that we were, in fact, losing the Cold
War. And as a result of the groundwork and the foundation of
strategic thinking that was laid by your subcommittee in those
years leading up to 1981, the possibility of a bipartisan
majority, starting in 1981, led on the Senate side by Scoop
Jackson and others, and on the House side by Charlie Bennett,
and with President Reagan adopting basically what your
philosophy had laid down, intellectual foundations, we were
able to reverse what was a very unpleasant result of the
postwar, the post-Vietnam war letdown and disarmament that had
undertaken.
I think that history will show that it was those years that
really won the war, the Cold War at sea. It was the
demonstration that we could build a Navy and maintain a Navy
without breaking the bank and we could defeat the Soviet forces
at sea. And I think that was a major contribution to the
collapse of the Soviet Union.
Now, as I have said before, quoting my boss, my old boss,
Henry Kissinger, ``History doesn't repeat itself but it
rhymes.'' And we are rhyming again now. Not only with the post-
Vietnam period of disarmament, but we are rhyming more
disturbingly with the 1930s and the reverse of what Teddy
Roosevelt famously argued for, to speak softly but carry a big
stick.
We are currently speaking loudly about Chinese incursions
in the South China Sea, the Russian Navy incursions, and yet we
are carrying an ever-smaller stick. And while the intentions
and naval policy has always been bipartisan, but sometimes the
reality of what is really happening compared to what the hope
and intention of Congress is, are not the same.
The fact is, we have allowed inattention over 20 years to
the structure, the practices, the bureaucracy of the Department
of Defense that it has become so dysfunctional that we
currently have, according to the GAO [Government Accountability
Office], $450 billion of cost overruns in current programs.
Those are going to have to be paid. These are contractual
obligations. They are not funded. That is about 6 years of the
procurement budgets for ACAT [Acquisition Category] I and II
programs. And every year we are averaging about 20 percent cost
overruns regardless of Nunn-McCurdy breaches, and so forth.
That is what the real numbers are.
So we are disarming rapidly. We are spending today roughly
the same in constant dollars as we did at the height of the
Reagan administration. And we have an Army not of 20 divisions,
as Reagan built, but 8. We have an Air Force of not 35 tactical
fighter wings, as President Reagan built, but 15. We don't have
220 strategic bombers as Reagan had, we have 72. We don't have
a 594-ship Navy, as Reagan built with that same amount of
money, but we have 272. This is unilateral disarmament.
And I am just so really optimistic and delighted about what
you did in this committee and working with the Senate to start
really fundamental reform; not the kind of reform that
everybody talks about every year, we are going to reform this
and reform that. But what you all did in the NDAA [National
Defense Authorization Act] that was signed earlier this year
and what you are on the route of doing for the NDAA for this
year, is truly historic and starts the process of dismantling
this vast bureaucratic, amorphous entity that has strangled
innovation, strangled cost control, strangled common sense.
We have got to do that if we are going to get back to the
kind of effective procurement to rebuild a Navy that is
sufficient in size and quality to deter as we deterred--the
600-ship Navy as an objective was not to win a war. It was to
deter a war and it succeeded. It ended the Cold War without
really firing a shot. And unfortunately, today, we are doing
the opposite. We are getting weaker. The threat is getting more
sophisticated and diverse in more places around the world than
we had in the nice bipolar Cold War and so we have really got
to reverse before it leads to unintended combat which we could
well lose.
So I look forward to your questions and thank you for
inviting me. It is a pleasure to be here.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Lehman can be found in the
Appendix on page 31.]
Mr. Forbes. Mr. Secretary, thank you. Admiral Natter.

STATEMENT OF ADM ROBERT J. NATTER, USN (RET.), FORMER
COMMANDER, U.S. FLEET FORCES COMMAND

Admiral Natter. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman Forbes,
Ranking Member Courtney, ladies and gentlemen, I am honored to
be here as an independent witness before your subcommittee,
sitting next to Secretary Lehman, someone who the Navy
certainly respects and admires for what he and the
administration of President Reagan were able to accomplish.
I can say that my family doesn't have near the historical
platitudes that Secretary Lehman talked about. Although I must
admit, I have six brothers, six of whom were naval officers and
one Air Force officer and we still love him.
And I have three daughters. All three served in the Navy.
Two still are naval officers, and two sons-in-law are in the
Navy. So I have a vested interest like so many of us in what
happens to our military today, and especially what happens to
our young men and women serving if we call on them to go to
combat.
I am, quite honestly, worried today about the troubling
reduction in the size of our Navy and the shrinking of our
technology advantage. There is a dangerous myth out there
espoused by some that our shrinking numbers, happily, can be
offset by our technology; that our ships today are so much
better than our ships of the past.
The uncomfortable little truth, though, is that although
our ships are indeed better than they were in the past, our
potential adversaries are not producing buggy whips and ships
that sail either. And in fact, some, not most, but some of
their technologies are, in fact, better than ours today. The
truth is, numbers do count, and the truth is, we need more
ships and aircraft in our Navy today.
Let me expand on that a bit. With respect to the Navy's
force structure, the current number of that force structure is
308. But as a practical matter, that number is not achievable
without top-line relief of the Navy's SCN [Shipbuilding and
Conversion, Navy] account to accommodate the Ohio Replacement
Program. Everyone knows that. There are solutions out there.
There are critics of those solutions, for very valid, and very
longstanding criticisms of those approaches. But the reality is
that without an alternative, without a top-line increase or
some other account to accommodate this national strategic
requirement, the Navy's shipbuilding account is not worth the
paper it is written on.
And given today's realities, what are those? A fast-growing
Chinese military force structure and its actions in Asia waters
that essentially are grabbing 600,000 square miles of ocean
resources; with North Korea developing nuclear weapons and the
means to deliver them--no one disagrees with that. We are
watching it happen--with Russian naval deployments returning to
Cold War levels--that is not a secret, everyone is aware of
that--and with ongoing terrorism deployments on the part of our
Navy.
My view is, given those realities that I just laid out, our
minimum number of Navy combatant force structure ships has to
be, today, given that threat, about 350 ships. I mean, all you
have to do is look at the number of ships we had when I was
commander of the 7th Fleet in Asia and the opposition that we
faced in those days.
The problems today are much more serious and the numbers of
those potential adversaries have--the numbers they have are
much more serious than when I was there, and yet, the numbers
of our ships and aircraft are smaller. We have got to have at
least a 350-ship Navy to be able to confront the kinds of
challenges that we face today, and those technologies that
those challenges have, and the appropriate number of balanced
aircraft to operate with them.
With that, I am going to hush, and then open it up to your
questions. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Admiral Natter can be found in
the Appendix on page 37.]
Mr. Forbes. Admiral, thank you. I am going to defer my
questions until the end to make sure all of our members can get
theirs in. So with that, we recognize Mr. Courtney for any
questions he may have.
Mr. Courtney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again, thank you for
your great testimony this morning, to both witnesses.
Secretary Lehman, again, you described the process that
occurred in the late 1970s and early 1980s, in terms of, you
know, trying to determine what a proper force structure number
should be.
And could you elaborate a little bit more in terms of just,
you know, where did that begin? Did it begin with just sort of
an assessment of just, you know, what are the threats over, you
know, out there, and then sort of build the number from that;
or you know, the industrial base, or you know, what was sort of
the origination of that process?
Mr. Lehman. That is an excellent question because, you
know, the history you don't know, you are bound to repeat. So
one of the reasons that the 600-ship Navy, which was truly a
bipartisan naval rebuilding program, never really changed from
the first time it was proposed in detail with budgets and was
in the supplemental in 1980. Never changed until the end of the
Bush administration and the fall of the Soviet Union, was
because it wasn't just pulled out of thin air. It wasn't just
political theater. It was derived from a careful analysis by
multiple sources including CNA [Center for Naval Analyses], the
Sea Plan 2000 study, the Naval War College, about where our
true vital interests were in the world and what the threat was
in each of those areas, mainly from the Soviet Union and its
allies.
And then what force structure was needed to effectively
deny the Soviet Union any thoughts that they could prevail and
close off chokepoints or interdict the sea lines of
communication between NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization]
and North America. Every single one of these vital areas, vital
to the security of the United States, was carefully analyzed.
And from that, the force structure needed to protect those
vital areas was derived.
And that is basically how we came up with 600 ships and 15
carrier battle groups and 100 nuclear attack submarines, quite
apart from the strategic equation. There was a logic to it.
There was a discipline and a rigor to it. And it held up
because it was not esoteric. It was not based on complex
algorithms of force exchanges and so forth.
And that is what we need and lack today, I think--a
bipartisan acceptance of what our national strategy really is.
And with that national strategy, we can derive the force
structure, the minimum that we have to have, accepting the fact
that we, as we did then, had fully integrated B-52s, and Air
Force assets into the naval strategy, the capabilities and
force structures of our allies, and we do that today.
So I think using that same discipline, that same rigor, and
that same logic, that the minimum figure is the one that I
would fully endorse with Admiral Natter, which is roughly 350
ships. The number of aircraft carriers--don't forget aircraft
carriers are the one absolute that any naval formation or any
naval activity has to have. They provide the disk. It is the
carrier that provides the disk 600 miles across of total air
superiority that protects every other ship whether it is an
Army transport, or a fast deployment ship, or reefers, or the
small boys in a battle group.
There, my number would be 15. And I think that can be
achieved if the reforms that this committee has pushed and
proposed on fundamentally streamlining and reducing that vast,
choking bureaucracy in the Department of Defense to get back to
fixed pricing and get back to the disciplines of no change
orders once production is approved.
We are not going to get there right away. But in the
meantime, we have to show intent because in 1981 we had fewer
than 500 ships. We had 13 aircraft carriers and we had terrible
morale. You will recall, those of you from the Tidewater area,
that in 1979 there were four ships that could not deploy
because they didn't have the sailors. I mean, retention was
terrible. We are heading right down that road again. We are
succumbing to that same siren song that we heard in the 1930s
and we heard in the 1970s, we will do more with less.
But yet, we can't do more with less. We have to do less
with less. But the temptation to do more is there and so we
found in the 1970s we ended up with 11-month deployments, some
of them as long as 12-month deployments, when history has
proven that if you keep sailors at sea away from their families
for more than 6 months over time, they will do it in a surge or
a war, but otherwise, you are going to destroy the
infrastructure of your Navy in skilled people, in morale, in
readiness, the up rates of aircraft on carriers, the ship
systems, and so forth.
So we are headed down that road. We are doing it. We are,
regardless of what people say, the deployments, as you all
know, are now, many of them, well beyond 6 months. And we are
starting to see the same impact on retention of our skilled
technicians and leaders in both the commissioned and
noncommissioned ranks. So we have got to turn it around.
Mr. Courtney. And so Admiral, right around the time you
left the Navy was about the last time we did do a Force
Structure Assessment, which as the chairman says, is 308 ships.
Could you talk a little bit about, you know, what the world
looked like then as you were, again, finishing a distinguished
career and what it looks like today and why that assessment,
reassessment is needed?
Admiral Natter. Well, I retired about 10 years ago. We had
just done a very successful set of operations over in the
Middle East going after Al Qaeda. The Russians really were no
longer confrontational. It was not the Russia of the Cold War
days. They were rebuilding, trying to internally. China was
just coming out of its cocoon. When I was commander of the 7th
Fleet about 5 years before that, I made port visits to China. I
was the first Admiral to go into Hong Kong after reversion. The
Chinese were much more cooperative than they are today. They
were not grabbing islands and claiming territorial seas that
truly don't exist. We have got a different environment today.
We have much graver threats.
The idea that there is going to be a confrontation in the
Spratlys, or more seriously in my view, the Senkakus with
Japan, is going to directly affect every American. And if we
were to go to combat with the forces we have today, we would
not be as effective and I would question our ability to succeed
against a China that was serious about going on the offensive
against us in that theater.
I just can't state enough that we do not have sufficient
forces out there to take them on, or for that matter, North
Korea, who as we all know, is developing a nuclear weapon and
the means to deliver it.
The idea that we are just going to develop a defensive
capability against nuclear weapons that are lobbed against our
bases in Japan, against our ground forces in South Korea, is
insanity. Without a strong military, we may as well just
withdraw and admit that we are going to be isolationists
because that is the direction we are headed. I am very
concerned about it.
As I mentioned, I have daughters and sons-in-law who are on
active duty who have been in harm's way, and I don't want to
lose them without a committed nation behind them.
Mr. Forbes. The distinguished gentleman from Alabama, Mr.
Byrne, is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Byrne. Thank you. Thank you, gentlemen, and both of you
have good, strong long-time connections to the State of
Alabama. Secretary Lehman is from my hometown in Mobile, and
Admiral, you are a son of the State of Alabama. We appreciate
both of you and thank you for your service.
Two weeks ago I was in China at a conference, and one of
the days in conference we spent talking about the military
situation there. We had a representative from the United States
side, and a representative from the Chinese side. And the
Chinese representative was remarkably candid and very
worrisome. I would like to read a portion, just a few sentences
of what he had to say, and ask you to react to it. To some
extent, I think, Admiral, you have already addressed it, but I
would like for you to be a little more specific about what we
would do in response to this. But, listen to what he said. You
know, this is the Chinese speaking:
``As is well known, security frictions between China and
the U.S. for a long time have occurred mainly within the first
island chain. Chinese efforts to secure reunification across
the Taiwanese Strait and to safeguard its territory,
sovereignty, and maritime rights and interests in the East
China Sea and the South China Sea, face incessant U.S.
interference and intervention.'' And here is the key sentence.
``The development of a new balance of power will be marked by
China's enhanced capacity to safeguard its territory and
sovereignty and maritime rights and interests and a weakened
U.S. capability to intervene.'' That is the Chinese perspective
on us.
So if we are going to reverse that, specifically, what do
we need to do?
Admiral Natter. Well, those are very strong words. Because
they are said, does not make them truth. There are legitimate
disagreements as to who those atolls and reefs really belong
to, if anyone, because they are atolls and reefs. And
international law and maritime practice has a definition about
those.
The idea that the Chinese are claiming an additional
645,000 square miles of ocean resources, fisheries, mineral
rights on the sea bed, and potentially waters to restrict
maritime commerce and the passage of naval ships out of the
Straits of Malacca, up to Japan, up to our Southeast Asian
friends, is absolute insanity. Saying it does not make it true,
any more than Putin claiming that Ukraine is part of Russia
makes it true. The reality is, the longer we allow this to
happen, the more difficult it is going to become to reverse it
or to stop it.
The fact that they are putting very capable weapon systems
on these sand bars and we are watching it happen, in my view,
is a mistake. Having said that, I would be the first to say if,
in fact, we are going to contest it, if we are going to
challenge it with our neighbors in Southeast Asia and in East
Asia, we need to do it with more capable forces than the United
States has deployed there today.
Mr. Byrne. Mr. Secretary.
Mr. Lehman. Yes, I would echo that. I have made two
official visits, not official as far as I was concerned, but as
far as the Chinese were concerned, since I left the government.
Both times at the invitation of very senior people in the
Defense Ministry, Liu Huaqing who was the head of the Navy and
so forth. I find that statement totally consistent with the
stated intentions in both of those visits.
My first visit, which was around 1992, they were more in
sorrow than in anger. ``Why are you disarming? You are
abandoning. You are creating a vacuum here in the Western
Pacific. And you are going to create all sorts of instability
because your Navy is not here anymore. We used to--every time
we looked out the window in a Hong Kong hotel, we saw a
carrier, and its escorts there.'' And this provided a stability
that relieved us of the worry that control of the strategic
straits which are obsessive with the Chinese, the Straits of
Sunda, and Malacca. They are not going to let that happen. And
they told us that. And they said, well, we are going to bring--
we are going to build aircraft carriers because we don't have
base rights in those areas. But we are going to not allow the
vacuum that you are creating to persist.
And so I find the Chinese, other than some of their more
bellicose junior military officers, junior, you know, one- and
two-stars which seem to have a franchise of making outrageous
statements, but I find the official statements of their
military very consistent and not necessarily pointed hostilely
at the U.S. I don't believe that they intend to invade the U.S.
or seize the Hawaiian Islands, but I do believe they are, they
view us now, but you know, the Taiwan problem is a separate set
of issues which we could spend all day talking about.
But the fact is that they really are dependent on virtually
all of their oil to be imported and imported through straits
that are potentially not secure. And so they are building, they
told us, they are building a 600-ship Navy, and if you try to
interfere, you would do so at your peril. And that at least we
can understand what their intentions are, which they do not
have the equivalent confidence--they don't know what our
strategy is. And I think one reason is because we have no
strategy.
Mr. Byrne. My time is up. I really appreciate your
comments. Thank you.
Mr. Forbes. The gentleman from Rhode Island, Mr. Langevin,
is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Secretary Lehman and
Admiral Natter, thank you both for your service to our country
and for your testimony here today.
For both of you, I don't disagree with anything you have
said in terms of strength, in terms of where we were, and where
we are. The challenge, of course, that we have and the
circumstances were different back when you were there and where
we are now, is the significant national debt that--the annual
budget deficits and a crushing national debt that we have to
contend with, which in itself, is a threat to U.S. national
security--both short-term rate and long term.
So given those circumstances, you know, what is your
guidance and advice to how we now balance those realities with
the priorities that we have in being able to defend the country
and have the size force that we actually need given the, you
know, the budget realities that we are in?
Admiral Natter. Well, I am not here to testify as the
former Office of Management and Budget. Having said that, I
fully agree, that is a huge threat to the security of this
Nation. And there has to be a handle on our budget deficit. I
think there is bipartisan concern, appropriately, for that. And
I think there is recognition in a bipartisan way for the
problems of the deficit.
Having said that, the security of this Nation, I think, is
first and foremost. I think George Washington would have
believed that and I think he lived that reality. So I think the
idea of a 350-ship Navy and a balanced military is a priority
and that, I think, that it is affordable. I think the Nation is
going to have to get a handle on how it is paid for and how
other costs impacts, of the national budget, and the deficit,
have to be gotten under control. But I am not here to testify
about that, sir.
Mr. Lehman. Congressman, I think that, as I mentioned
earlier, Teddy Roosevelt's famous dictum to speak softly but
carry a big stick is very important today because we have
allowed our defenses, for whatever the sound reasons, and I
don't disagree with anything you said on the budgetary issues
that we face.
Nevertheless, we have, in the hopes that after the fall of
the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, that we would
have a relatively peaceful era ahead that did not require the
kinds of sacrifices that we had to do in the Cold War. That has
not proved to be the case. Our hopes have proved false. And we
now have nuclear hostile powers even, like North Korea and
others emerging. We have got the unique problems of Islamist
terrorism, and we have allowed our deterrence to really erode.
I mean, seriously erode. And by deterrence, that means are you
persuading the potential enemies you have, the potential bad
actors that they would suffer more than they could possibly
gain if they took actions against American interests?
Our deterrence is failing. It is failing to deter the
Chinese from building its bases in the South China Sea. And it
is failing in deterring the Russians from reestablishing a
hegemony that they feel they have lost in their near abroad.
And it is failing to deter a lot of other potential actors down
the road.
So what do we do about this? Well, I totally agree with the
Admiral. We can afford it. We are only spending 3 percent of
the GDP [gross domestic product] on defense today. In the
Kennedy and Eisenhower years it was 8 to 9 percent. In
President Reagan's years it was about 3.5 to 3.75 percent, so
you are not talking of a vast change to reestablish deterrence.
But it is going to take some time.
And the dangerous thing about doing what we are doing as we
did in the 1930s, and that is speak loudly and make bold
declarations about getting the Chinese out of the South China
Sea, as we continue to erode our naval and other services'
capabilities is the worst of all possible dangerous situations
because that leads--historically, has led to miscalculations.
You know, in the 1930s, we spoke boldly and we imposed
embargoes, a steel embargo, the scrap embargo, the oil
embargoes on Japan, as we disarmed, as we adhered to the
Washington Naval [Treaty] agreements and built no capital ships
until this subcommittee, which was then a full committee,
passed the 1936 initiative to start building capital ships. Up
to that time, we had adhered to the Washington Naval
agreements, and the Japanese did not. They withdrew from the
Washington Treaties, and so they grew and we shrank. And I
think that was a major cause of World War II in the Pacific.
So we have got to maintain deterrence. We don't have a
choice. And people have to start articulating this because the
American people will support it, if their leaders on both sides
of the aisle, and I might just as an aside to perhaps upset
some of my revered Republican colleagues. I know the chairman
knows his history better than I do, but the fact is, there are
only three Presidents in the history of the United States that
never built a single capital ship for the U.S. Navy and those
were all Republicans, ending up with Hoover. And that is a
history we don't want to repeat for sure.
So I just, I think we, my last point would be, let's be
careful. As Reagan proved, you don't have to have achieved a
600-ship Navy to have 90 percent of the deterrence. You have to
make it clear that you are heading there. You are rebuilding.
There is strong bipartisan support to maintain deterrence. Once
you have achieved that, because it is a game of perceptions,
but perceptions based on people who are smart and they read our
mail. And they know what the reality is of our capabilities and
our weaknesses. And so whereas if we had the full deterrent, we
might take actions, not necessarily violent actions right away,
but we might begin to put the pressure on the Chinese and force
them out of those militarized islands. But today, we do risk a
conflict by miscalculation. And that far away with as small of
a force as we have today, it might not end well for us.
Mr. Langevin. All right. I appreciate both of your
insights, your testimony here today. I know my time has
expired, but I take your words to heart and I thank you for
what you have imparted to the committee today.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. Forbes. The chairman of the Readiness Committee, Mr.
Wittman from Virginia.
Mr. Wittman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Gentlemen, thank you
so much for joining us. Thanks for your service.
I wanted to talk about two issues I believe we see of the
Navy force structure. One is amphibious lift. I think we are
doing more to address that this year. I want to thank the
chairman for all of his efforts and a continuing effort to
address what I believe is a shortcoming in amphibious lift.
But I do want to get your perspective on where we are with
our submarine force. A couple of different tracks, you see
China continuing to grow their fleet moving eastward through
the South China Sea into the Pacific, more presence there.
Secondly, with the Russians, the fifth-generation submarine,
the Yasen-class, the Severodvinsk very, very capable attack
submarine. We see those forces going in that direction. We see
our forces going in the opposite direction. The 30-year
shipbuilding plan shows us going down to a 41-boat force in our
attack submarines. We see, too, a gap between Ohio-class
retirements, Ohio-class replacement availability. We see back
and forth about a national sea-based deterrence fund to make
sure that we can fund Ohio-class replacement.
Give me your perspective on what we need to do overall with
our submarine force, which I believe is truly going to be the
most tactically and strategically important element of our
Navy, and not to discount the others, but to have that as part
of that, part of the nuclear triad, but also the ability to
keep up with pretty advanced submarines with the Russians and
the numbers of Chinese submarines that we will see out there.
Give me your perspective on what we need to do both in our
attack class, in our Ohio class, to make sure that we counter
what we see going on with the other, we will call them, near
peers?
Mr. Lehman. Well, I strongly support the idea of a
strategic funding approach to rebuilding our strategic
deterrence, because while this is one of the proudest of Navy
roles and missions, nevertheless, it is only very indirectly
related to maintaining command of the seas. And if the Navy is
forced to fund the entire replacement of the Ohio class, there
will, under almost any feasible funding scenario, not be enough
money to even maintain the fleet we have.
So as an approach, I think that is the right approach. But
our submarine force, just to go back to command of the seas, to
protect our vital interests and restore deterrence, is the idea
that we are going to end up with 41 or even 48 nuclear attack
subs is insufficient, because the biggest vulnerability we have
today and in my judgment it is severe, is in antisubmarine
warfare. We have allowed a lot of our antisubmarine systems,
not just the ones on ships and submarines, but overall, to
deteriorate significantly. And we have got to rebuild that. And
we have, to me, it is unbelievable how a succession of CNOs let
this happen.
But we have no frigates in the fleet. This is unbelievable.
And the idea--I am a strong supporter of the LCS [Littoral
Combat Ship] and have been from the beginning. I think both of
the versions of it are good ships for certain roles, but they
will never be frigates. I don't care how much--how big a plug
you put in and how much fuel you stuff in, they will never be
frigates. They were never designed to be frigates.
Frigates are one of the most essential parts of protecting
a naval force at sea, a Marine amphibious group, an Army
resupply flotilla, or a carrier battle group, you have got the
threats. The submarine threat is so much greater today, not
only the Russian and Chinese, the Russian subs are the equal or
better of our best submarines from the Cold War. But you have
got over 100 very, very quiet diesel electrics or closed-
propulsion circuit modern submarines that are really quiet. And
that is a huge threat because we have really, because of higher
priorities, we have let that dimension of our protection of
surface ships really deteriorate.
So you know, this always gives, always gave all of my nuke
friends heart attacks when I would suggest it. And I am not
suggesting that we don't build a nuclear attack submarine fleet
up above 60, at least, but I believe we need a high-low mix. I
think the modern, particularly German technology in closed-
propulsion conventional submarines which cost a quarter or less
than a nuclear submarine, a high-low mix is probably what we
ought to have in the future. And I guess I am not going to be
invited to the Army-Navy game this year, but that is what I
think.
Admiral Natter. You can take my ticket.
Mr. Forbes. The gentleman's time has expired. Ms. Gabbard
from Hawaii is recognized for 5 minutes.
Ms. Gabbard. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, gentlemen.
A follow-up to Mr. Wittman's question, that was kind of what I
wanted to talk about as you spoke broadly about the nuclear
threat coming from North Korea to places like Japan and South
Korea. Representing Hawaii, this is something that as North
Korea beats its drums and makes its threats, Hawaii falls
within range of their ICBM [intercontinental ballistic missile]
capabilities and now the miniaturized nuclear capabilities that
they are talking about.
And so this question of our submarines, the projected
reduction and the need for us to be able to maintain that is
something that is critical. But really, also, the entire
ballistic missile defense capability that we are looking at is
of paramount importance.
I am wondering if you could talk a little bit more about
that ballistic missile defense and where you see that falls
into this need for what you talk about a bipartisan strategy, a
national security strategy.
Admiral Natter. Well, with respect to ballistic missile
defense, as you well know, we have a sea capability as well as
a land-based capability. But getting back to our own submarine
question, the only way you are going to really protect yourself
and defeat that threat is to go on the offensive and knock out
their sites before they launch, or after they start launching.
Because if you remain on the defensive, you will never, ever be
able to gain 100 percent reliability in knocking everything
down. That is the beauty of a submarine. It is a very offensive
weapon system.
Our purpose in being as a Navy is to destroy the
opposition. And if you can't go on the offensive, remain on the
offensive and attack until that threat is destroyed, you are
never going to be batting 100 percent against the threat coming
toward you. BMD [ballistic missile defense], land-based and
sea-based, is awfully important, very important. And it is
pretty well funded.
But the sea-based threat to that, getting back to the
Secretary's commentary on antisubmarine warfare, we need to
improve that because the Chinese are developing a significant
submarine-based threat and the Russians are, as I mentioned in
my opening remarks, deploying in ways that they have not done
since the Cold War.
That is why the Navy is looking at basing antisubmarine
warfare capabilities back in Keflavik, Iceland. It is not
because we enjoy cold weather. It is because that is where the
Russians operate. And we need to work with our allies to go
after that threat both offensively and defensively. So
ballistic missile defense, I am in. I am all in.
Ms. Gabbard. Thank you.
Mr. Lehman. The ballistic missile defense based on the
Aegis has a long history, and while I will not indulge my
tendency in my anecdotage to tell you too much about it, one of
the first battles as a new kid working for Henry Kissinger that
I was engaged in, was the attempt by the Arms Control and
Disarmament Agency to block the Aegis cruiser because they
alleged--and frankly, they were right--the Aegis missile
system, the phased-array radar, did violate the ABM [anti-
ballistic missile] agreement in SALT I [Strategic Arms
Limitations Talks/Treaty]. It had the kind of power aperture
that clearly was capable of ballistic missile defense. And of
course, now it is. It is now part of our ballistic missile
defense. That was a long, long time ago, well before you were
born. And here we are.
Now, the Navy got the mission, and now just as, you know,
the Navy fought a huge battle in 1947 in this room to get a
role in the nuclear deterrence and then after some severe
battles, they won that role and they were in the SIOP, the
single integrated operational plan. But then they suddenly
found, hey, wait, being in the SIOP with the nukes meant that
they were tied to launch points and no longer could the fleet
move. It had to stay where it is. And the Aegis ballistic
missile defense ships are finding the same thing.
So while they count in the 300-ship Navy or the 272-ship
Navy, they are of limited use in a conventional war because
then you will be in DEFCON 3 [Defense Readiness Condition], or
wherever, and you are going to be tied to a specific point.
So I am not arguing for canceling the ABM capability in the
Aegis cruiser, but it severely limits the strategic
capability--I mean, the conventional capabilities of deterrence
in the fleet.
So I believe we need ballistic missile defense. We
shouldn't try to delude ourselves. You know, again, the reality
is that our pursuit of Star Wars helped to end the Cold War
because the Russians believed that we could do it because we
showed them we could do so much else. And it was really so far
out in terms of cost and capability that it was not an option
any of us were really comfortable with putting all of the money
that would be necessary to get it going.
But it sure paid off because the Russians, it helped to
paint a picture that gave Gorbachev what he needed between the
600-ship Navy kicking him around in the annual exercises and
the idea of Star Wars, which his military were telling him
``oh, yeah, it is going to work. So we have got to have our
own. You have got to give us three times the budget.'' That is
what ended the Cold War.
So we do need to stay up on the capability, the technology.
We need to deploy it particularly in the land, against Iranian
threats and Russian threats now against their near abroad, and
North Koreans, who God knows what they will do. So we should
have that capability. But let's not go overboard and tie every
Aegis ship to a launch point where they are no longer part of
the Navy.
Mr. Forbes. The gentlelady's time has expired. The
gentlelady from Missouri, Mrs. Hartzler, is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mrs. Hartzler. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you both
for your service. My goodness, all the way back to the
Revolutionary War. I mean----
Mr. Lehman. No, not me.
Mrs. Hartzler. You don't look that old. But I mean, your
family history of serving in the Navy is just admirable. And
Admiral, certainly, you have so much to be proud of too. I
can't imagine your whole family involved in the Navy and one
son still serving in another capacity. But thank you for your
service.
I wanted to talk a little bit about unmanned capabilities
as it relates to the aircraft carriers. And so can you speak to
the value of unmanned aviation to an aircraft carrier air wing?
Mr. Lehman. Well, let me start. But the fact is that----
Mrs. Hartzler. I don't think your microphone is on.
Mr. Lehman. Oh, I am sorry. If I left it on all the time,
you would hear our side comments, which you don't want to do.
There is an absolutely important role for unmanned aircraft
as part of the carrier air wing. But don't think it is going to
solve a lot of manpower or cost problems. It takes more people
to operate in a squadron, to maintain and operate a squadron of
UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles] today with today's technology
than it does manned aircraft.
I am a strong supporter of UCAS [Unmanned Combat Air
System]. I think it should have a strike capability, but we
shouldn't try to make it all things to all possible missions.
Because you just--that is what we tried to do with the F-35 and
look what happened to that. And so what we should do is move in
a measured way. To me, you know, as a former carrier aviator,
the most important thing for me right now, if I were in that
planning phase, would be an unmanned tanker as part of the
carrier air wing because our strike aircraft today are less
capable in terms of range and payload than they were 30 years
ago. So we need to get more range and more payload and that
means you need more tankering.
And the reconnaissance intelligence gathering and so forth,
these are important functions that UCAS can do. Strike versions
as well. What we shouldn't do is try to cram all these
different missions into one airframe and one system, and it
should be done in a measured way.
Stealth, I am very much a skeptic on stealth. It has its
role in certain places, but the price and the compromise is in
other capabilities that you have to make to be truly stealthy
are not worth it in my judgment, particularly on a carrier. I
don't think that even the F-35 will get more than one truly
stealthy flight.
Because anybody that has ever spent time, as you all have,
on an aircraft carrier and sees what goes on down on the deck
and pitching seas and salt spray, and particularly towards the
end of a deployment, the grease all over the deck and airplanes
starting to slide, and people running with chains and knocking
dents into the--nobody who has spent time operationally on a
carrier believes that stealth can survive on a ship.
As it is, the Air Force's stealth aircraft have to go into
a clean room after every flight to get their full stealth
restored. So it doesn't have to be stealthy. It is nice to have
perhaps for some missions, particularly ISR [intelligence,
surveillance, and reconnaissance] missions, but we have got to
be careful what we are going to give up to get that stealth,
particularly in a strike version. It has got a role. There are
going to be more of them in the future, but to try to rush into
it and put too many requirements on it would be a big mistake.
Mrs. Hartzler. I represent Whiteman Air Force Base that has
B-2 bombers, stealth bombers, so a little bit familiar with
that. I understand what you are saying.
Admiral, do you have anything to add in 26 seconds?
Admiral Natter. Yes. Thank you. I certainly agree with the
Secretary on this. The real value of having unmanned aircraft
is to augment the air wing and the capabilities of our F-18s
and F-35s.
I see, in addition to an air refueler, which makes a lot of
sense to me, the ability to put another ISR node up in the air
so that you have not only the F-35 and the E-2 working through
NIFC-CA [Naval Integrated Fire Control-Counter Air] to the
Aegis cruisers and destroyers, you also have an unmanned node
up there so that you can spread your ability to attack and
defend the battle group and to attack either land targets or
other naval targets.
As the Secretary of Defense has testified in open hearing,
the Navy has already conducted a significant range attack on
the surface target as well as an air target, utilizing this.
And so unmanned aircraft would fit very well into that
approach, but I don't foresee in my lifetime an unmanned air
wing operating from a carrier. I just don't see that happening.
Mr. Lehman. Well, I will believe in it when I get on and
fly in the first unmanned United airliner.
Mr. Forbes. The gentlelady's time has expired.
The gentlelady from Florida, Ms. Graham, is recognized for
5 minutes.
Ms. Graham. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you so much, gentlemen. I wish I would have been here
at the beginning. I found this to be so informative. Really
appreciate all you bring to this discussion.
You mentioned, Mr. Secretary, the Littoral Combat Ship. I
am interested in talking a little bit more about that. Since I
have sat down, you have said that the frigate, you don't want
to have the LCS and the different roles it can play, you think
the frigate would be a better ship for some purposes. You have
also said that a ship can't be all things for all
possibilities. If I have quoted you wrong, please correct me.
How do you see the LCS, its current role, what it is
expected to do? Can it meet those challenges? And, Admiral, you
as well. I think the current budget from the President has
decreased the number of LCSes that we are going to be
purchasing. Do we need to maintain the number or even increase
them? And just how do you see this fitting into our Navy
operations today? Thank you.
Mr. Lehman. Well, first of all, I have always been a fan of
the LCSes. They do have a role in littoral combat. The modular
idea was one of these ideas that, you know, it is a great idea
but actually implementing it is going to cost more than it was
worth.
But frankly, in their current versions, I think we have
enough of them with what the administration has been asking
for. But we have built up in two shipyards a tremendous
capability. I mean, I have owned some shipyards. And building a
workforce that really knows what it is doing and knows how to
take care of supply chain management and learning curve
production, it takes years. And we have built that kind of
capability in Marinette, and we have built it in Mobile. And so
whatever we do next, we should do everything possible to keep
that organic capability alive by participating in shipbuilding.
Right now, building the same Littoral Combat Ship, more of
them than has been asked for, I don't see the need for them.
Trying to make them, either of those two hull forms, which
each, in their way, is a tremendous really technological
achievement, but trying to make them into a frigate--a frigate
has to be that multi-role ship. It has to have, first and
foremost, antisubmarine warfare capability. It has got to be
able to tow a passive tail, so for passive sonar. It has got to
have an active sonar. It has got to be able to defend itself
against cruise missiles. It has got to be able to attack other
ships and shore.
The Perry class, which we have now retired the last one of
them, we called them FFG-7s, they had a little bit of
capability in each area, a lot of capability in the
antisubmarine area. But they were great ships. We were able to
compete them where there were three yards building them. The
price came down and down and down because we had that annual
competition.
And they could deploy--they had ranges of over 8,000 miles.
So they could deploy with any--people criticized them because
they only had a top speed of 28 knots, but they actually could
go faster than that. They could keep up with the carriers 98
percent of the time and they were great ships. And they were
very cost effective.
You cannot take an LCS of either design and get any--you
know, they called the F-18--the Super Hornet F-18 was just
supposed to be--it was really to get through you guys. It was
just an F-18. It was just a Hornet, a little bigger, it would
go longer, faster, et cetera.
It was totally a different airplane. It had no commonality.
The engines were different. The wing was different. The radar
was different. It was a new airplane. And that is what they are
going to try to do with the LCS. Call it an LCS frigate, but if
it is going to do the frigate job, it will be an entirely new
ship, and yet it will have to make compromises to retain some
commonality at all with the LCS and you are going to get the
worst of both worlds out of it, I guarantee it.
What we need to do--even if we went back to the FFG-7 with
modern technology, we have such vulnerability. Admiral Natter
used to deploy his battle groups with 28 ships. Today we
average six ships, which leave these huge gaps in your layers
of defense particularly against submarines, and particularly
against diesel submarines, let alone attack submarines--I mean
nuclear submarines.
So I think we need to be realistic about it. And we ought
to come up with a frigate design that can be built in these
same yards or at least part of them, if not all of them, and
that can be competed on a fixed-price base. Don't let the vast
bureaucracy--you know, I owned Hawaii Superferry. I am sorry
that Ms. Gabbard is not here. She hopefully rode it at one
point. We built that right next--150 feet from the first
aluminum LCS, roughly the same size ship, both built to ABS,
American Bureau of Shipping, quality standards.
In the lifetime of our ship, we had two change orders that
we found, sand eroded the intakes. There was sort of good
commonsense changes that did not require any big design
changes. One hundred fifty feet next to us, the first LCS, the
aluminum LCS, which I think was an LCS 2, they averaged 75
change orders a week. Seventy-five change orders a week!
I had one guy down there as my, what my equivalent would be
SUPSHIPs [Supervisor of Shipbuilding] to supervise and oversee
the shipyards. It was a great shipyard. The Navy had to build
their own building to house all their SUPSHIPs people. And as a
result, ours came in on budget, because we had a fixed-price
budget. So we were on budget, on time, two change orders.
Next door, they came in three times the price, the contract
price, and a year and a half or 2 years late. And when you try
to look at what the change orders did, they were all, you know,
move the ashtray from here to there, some Beltway bandit had
submitted a study that showed if you go from 38 knots top speed
to 39 knots top speed that, therefore, there were instances
where this could make a big difference and so that change order
came down. Nobody knew who approved it, where it came from. It
just got into the system from one of the 40 JROC [Joint
Requirements Oversight Council] subcommittees.
So whatever we do here--and this is really--a lot of good
ideas are coming out of this committee. We have got to do it
along with fixing and carrying out the reforms that you put
into the defense bill this year, because if you just pour that
money into the current dysfunctional system, it is wasting the
money.
Mr. Forbes. Gentlemen, you have been very patient with us.
I have just a few more questions I would like to ask for the
record.
Admiral, you have spent a fair amount of time with the 7th
Fleet in the Asia-Pacific area. Can you just give us a little
capsule version of your experience there? And then if you could
also tell us, based upon that experience, as you see our force
structure there now, with also what you see with other forces
there, how would you assess our capabilities there and your
worries, if any?
Admiral Natter. Yes, sir.
As we have discussed prior to that question, the Navy and
the fleet, when I was commander of the 7th Fleet, had roughly
the same number of ships that are forward deployed there now,
today. But we did not have a Chinese Navy that was worthy of
being called a navy. The Russian Navy was back in port trying
to keep their ships from rusting to the bottom. I visited
Vladivostok. Their ships were a disgrace.
The reality, though, is times have changed. We have a
Russian Navy that is deploying, as I mentioned before, to Cold
War levels. We have North Korea that has developed a nuclear
weapon and the means to deliver it, in the process of means to
deliver it. And we certainly have the Chinese Navy that is much
more aggressive, much more capable, technologically and with
force levels, and yet we still have roughly the same size as
the 7th Fleet that we had when I was there.
The idea, as Secretary Lehman has mentioned here today,
that we are going to say we are not going to stand for them
unilaterally claiming 645,000 square miles of ocean resources,
and yet we don't have the means to put up and to confront them
in the early stages of what they are doing. Because if we wait,
and we don't get with our allies and say this is not something
that we are going to allow to happen unilaterally, then it is
going to become impossible further down the road.
And if, as Secretary Lehman has mentioned, that we fall
into a confrontation with them, and we have insufficient forces
there to act in a responsible way as a capable Navy, then you
are going to have American citizens who are serving our country
die. And I would suggest that the government is responsible for
that, and I would again applaud this committee for what you are
doing to raise that as an important issue.
Because I had it relatively easy as 7th Fleet commander; my
successor today does not. He has a very, very tough problem to
confront.
Mr. Forbes. Would you be concerned if you were the 7th
Fleet commander today?
Admiral Natter. I think it goes without saying, yes, sir. I
would be very concerned about the capability of my forces.
Individually, they are great.
And let me just say, we have been talking about force
levels. The men and women serving in your military today are
the best citizens this country could ever ask for. We just need
to give them the tools to prevail if we ask them to go do
something. That is what I am fearful of today.
Mr. Forbes. There is a myth that--or at least I think it is
a myth, I would like to have both of your opinions on it--that
we are not going to need to increase the number of ships, in
fact, the size of our force structure today because all of our
future battles are going to be done with special forces and
with unmanned platforms.
Mr. Secretary, how would you respond to that argument? And
then, Admiral, if you would give us your thoughts.
Mr. Lehman. Well, of course, the Navy is a very visual
service, and that is the advantage. Through the Cold War our
fleet was visible throughout places like Singapore, and later
Vietnam, and Malaysia, and Hong Kong, and Korea. Everybody knew
we were there, and everybody knew these ships had real
capability. And nobody doubted the ability of America to
command the seas--that is to protect our allies and to keep
free trade traveling and keep freedom of the seas.
Today, I meet very few people in my travels who believe
that is the case, even though they are totally pro-American.
The fact that through most of the last 10 years we have had no
combatants in the Mediterranean, for instance, when we normally
had 40 or 50 combatants in the 6th Fleet during the Cold War.
Now, I mean, I travel to places around the Mediterranean
and they say, gee, we haven't had a liberty call here for 20
years. We haven't had a Navy ship. Don't you have a Navy
anymore? Because they don't see it because we aren't there. So
who knows what the next war is going to be tripped by, but
there will be conflicts. There have been conflicts.
Nobody foresaw, before 9/11--Presidents of both parties
were saying that terrorism, yeah, it is a problem, but it is
one that--you know, every President that I can recall,
including, I must say, my sainted boss, President Reagan, their
first response to every terrorist act was we will bring these
people to justice. Well, who gives a damn about bringing these
people to justice? You have got to prevent it from happening.
And today, more and more of our enemies do not see us bringing
anybody to justice and still let us be able to deter and to
stop and to enforce freedom of the seas and so forth.
Cyber is very important, and we are becoming more and more
vulnerable to it. I don't know how many dozens of millions of
lines of code are in the F-35, for instance. Many of our
systems, just as our electrical grid, we think we have
protected, but the thousands of hackers that are all over the
world, that is just red meat to them. Oh, you think you have
got a hack-proof system, and we find out that it is not hack
proof.
So who knows where it is going to come from, but history
has told us that you say we cannot predict where and how the
next war is going to break out. So you better be prepared for
other contingencies than just the favorite ones you would hope
would be the problem.
Mr. Forbes. Admiral.
Admiral Natter. I am glad you have asked this question, Mr.
Chairman. I served with the Naval Special Warfare in Vietnam,
worked with two SEAL [Sea, Air, and Land teams] platoons. I
have very good friends in Ranger battalions and also Ranger
Regiment and also in Naval Special Warfare, friends and
relatives today. They are the very first ones who will tell you
that they cannot be effective without the support and
interaction of conventional forces.
Let me give you an example: The SS Alabama, those SEALs who
shot and killed the pirates who took the captain of the
Alabama, how did they get on station? Air Force aircraft. From
what platforms were they enabled to take those pirates down? A
United States Navy ship supported by other ships and aircraft.
Those SEALs did not just come out of the water and emerge and
start shooting.
Without conventional forces, without air support for our
Rangers, and SEALs, and other special operators in Iraq and
around the world, there is no way they can be as effective as
they are today. There is a good place. They are very valuable
to this Nation. I respect the heck out of them. But I agree
with them; they would not be nearly as effective without strong
conventional forces around the world.
Mr. Lehman. Yeah. Even the delivery of the Special Forces,
for instance, in Desert Storm came from the Kitty Hawk. I mean,
the carriers are not just air wing carriers. I mean, when there
was all the uproar during the Clinton administration in Haiti,
it was a carrier that took the two airborne divisions down to
Haiti and delivered them with their helicopters.
The Navy is able to project power and to provide support
anywhere in the world. Anywhere in the world. We have lost
bases, 95 percent of the bases we had during the Cold War in
Europe and in Asia. We don't have land bases. When there is a
crisis that can be solved and put down before it escalates into
a conflagration, it is the Navy that can go there.
Yes, Air Force is an essential part of that as well, but 95
percent of the tonnage for any military contingency has to
travel by sea. And if that is the case, whether it is a
prepositioned ship in Diego Garcia, or a fast deployment ship
or whatever, it has got to be protected by total air
superiority and submarine superiority underneath.
So the idea is so typical of Washington armchair think
tanks that see this great new wave. That is why a mess was
created in our Ford-class carrier, because the think tanks were
saying, oh, the Navy is so stodgy. They never know what is
happening in technology. We have to have a revolution in
military warfare. We are going to put 12 new technologies into
the aircraft carrier, so there you have a hull. It is a Nimitz
hull. And it has got seven technologies today that we still
don't know how to make work.
Mr. Forbes. Last two questions because I know Mr. Courtney
needs to go as well.
Our carriers. There have been some arguments that we don't
need carriers today. We need to maybe reduce the number we
have. And there is even a proposal to take one of our carrier
air wings out in the budget this year.
Can you just tell us how important you think it is that we
maintain at least 11 carriers and 10 air wings, or do you think
we can reduce them down? Admiral.
Admiral Natter. I would love to take that one on, sir. The
assumption that we can do away with an air wing assumes that we
are going to just be operating in peacetime. What happens when
those aircraft go down through hostile fire? We will suffer
casualties in warfare. There will be an opposition who wants to
kill us as badly as we want to kill them, and they will be
successful to a point. So the idea that we are operating on
zero margin is crazy.
With respect to the number of carriers, we have been
operating 10 for really--and will be for about 10 years until
Ford comes online and is able to deploy. These ships, as the
Secretary has said, are deploying for 9 months now. It is
crazy. And we have adjusted the rotation, the Fleet Response
Plan to accommodate really longer deployments. What does that
do? It builds up deferred maintenance on the part of these
ships and aircraft.
The F-18s, they can't get them through depot quickly enough
because when they have opened them up they have found problems
that were more critical than they expected, primarily because
of the high flight hours on the F-18s. So we need to be able to
have sufficient force structure for what the national command
authority is asking our ships, our squadrons, and our people to
do.
Mr. Forbes. Good. Last question for you is this: I think
both of you basically concurred we need about 350 ships. Is
that fair? We have both witnesses are nodding.
Mr. Lehman. Yes.
Mr. Forbes. There was a question that we were asked about
what the makeup of those ships would be. We can't get there
overnight. But as we start allocating our dollars, where would
you suggest we start, as we go from where we are today to
perhaps one day getting back to 350. What is the most important
investments we need to make over the next 5-plus years?
Mr. Lehman. Well, I would say the biggest lack is
antisubmarine capability, and the frigate is perhaps the most
glaring deficiency. The less sexy things--you know, everybody
likes to debate how many of this and how many of that,
airplanes and ships, but the things like the towed arrays, and
the former SOSUS [Sound Surveillance System] arrays, and the
less sexy things that are fundamentally important to having an
environment where you do command the seas. Those are the ones
that get left out when you get into shooting wars, in the
Middle East and elsewhere, and you have insufficient budgets,
but you are told you have got to keep this many ships and hit
these many deployments.
All of that unsexy stuff disappears from the budgets. The
committees don't concentrate on them, because there is only so
many things that a committee like yours can really take on. And
we are leaving ourselves today in a very dangerous position
vis-a-vis the submarines, not just the Chinese, Russian nuclear
submarines, but the huge proliferation of good, quiet, diesel
electric subs.
And the cruise missile threat and so much is said by people
that say, oh, get rid of the aircraft carriers, they are just
targets. We have dealt with the problem of ballistic missile
attacks on the submarines for as long as I have been involved
with the Navy. The Russians had them. The technology has moved
on. But our defensive technology has moved on.
So, yes, we are going to get hit. Any of the surface ships
are going to get hit by missiles, by conventional missiles. But
that doesn't mean that it is going to take them out of action
or prevent the defeat of our potential enemies. So if there is
one issue I would urge you to really focus on, it is our
vulnerability to enemy submarines of both conventional and
nuclear.
Mr. Forbes. Admiral.
Admiral Natter. To me, the question really begs a
commonsense response, an answer. And that is, what is the best
way to achieve roughly a 350-ship Navy, because I think in
gross numbers that is what the requirement is, and do it in a
way where we are not wasting money. Industry has got to be
involved in this. We don't want to say, all right, start
building five submarines a year, for example. That is not going
to happen without wasting a lot of money.
What I would suggest is that we establish as an overall
goal 350. You say we are going to up it to three submarines a
year, three DDGs [guided missile destroyers] a year. We are
going to shorten the timeline between the start of a new
carrier from 5 years to 4 years. That will eventually drive it
up to 12 carriers. And ASW [antisubmarine warfare] ships and
aircraft, the P-8 is a good start. We need surface ships that
can conduct competent ASW.
And we also need to build amphibious lift. The Marines have
a steady drumbeat, as you all Members of Congress know. They
need the lift for their people. The way to do that is in a
gradual industry-sensitive way that gets us to where we want to
go, gets us on the right track, and doesn't burn money in the
process.
Mr. Lehman. Yeah, I would just like to add one fillip to
the admiral. I agree with him completely. But in the 1980s, we
froze designs, which enabled contractors to bid fixed price.
You can't bid fixed price if there is 75 change orders a week.
It is impossible. You have got to go to cost-plus. That is why
everything today in procurement is cost-plus even when they say
it is fixed price. It is really every time a change order comes
in that allows them to escape the strictures of the fixed-price
contract.
So unless the Navy does its part in preventing change
orders, then you can't expect contractors to be held to fixed-
price competitive contracts. The three and three worked
brilliantly during the 1980s. We had three subs. The low-priced
bidder for two got the two, and the high-price got the one. And
the same with--that is how we built all the Arleigh Burke
destroyers, how we built all the Tico [Ticonderoga]-class Aegis
cruisers, all the submarines. We competed everything every
year. And that discipline got better ideas, it got innovations.
Because when you are looking at the guy running next to you
trying to take your extra ship, then things happen. That is how
we were able to return $8 billion to the Treasury, in effect.
So we have got to get back to that.
But you can't ask the contractors to take those kinds of
risks until you get control of the constant change and the
bureaucratic method of running a business, which average, as
you know, in the ACAT I and II, we average 22.5 years to go
from the requirement to the first fielding. That is insane. It
took 4 years for Polaris and Minuteman, 4 years to do the same
thing. But then, of course, the defense bureaucracy was about
one-tenth the size it is now.
Mr. Forbes. Gentlemen, we thank you.
Mr. Courtney, did you have anything else?
Thank you both again for your service to our country. Thank
you for laying this foundation for us, which we hope will help
us build upon to rebuild the number of ships that we need in
our Navy. If either of you have any last comments that you
would like to offer before we go?
Mr. Lehman. Keep up the good work.
Mr. Forbes. Okay.
Admiral Natter. Amen to that, sir.
And I would just like to emphasize again, our men and women
deserve your support, and I want to thank you and the fellow
members of your committee for that support. Good luck with the
rest of the Hill.
Mr. Forbes. Thank you. And with that, we are adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 5:05 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

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