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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 | |
| Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800; | |
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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.] | |
| ======================================================================= | |
| A P P E N D I X | |
| April 13, 2016 | |
| ======================================================================= | |
| PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD | |
| April 13, 2016 | |
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