CSPAN - Defense Officials Testify on Joint Force Readiness

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March 16, 2025 16:24-18:50 - CSPAN

02:25:52

Defense Officials Testify on Joint Force Readiness

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Participants

Main

dan sullivan

sen/r 30:17

gen christopher mahoney

16:46

mazie hirono

sen/d 18:28

roger wicker

sen/r 06:29

Appearances

eric schmitt

sen/r 01:49

meryl gordon

00:51

rick scott

sen/r 01:47

tim kaine

sen/d 04:00

tim sheehy

sen/r 03:24

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Speaker	Time	Text
The World Has Changed Dramatically 00:07:26
meryl gordon ▲ ● ▼		In Washington, between people and influential governor, government figures who had no money, but a lot of power.
meryl gordon ▲ ● ▼		And she discovered if she gave, she bought boxes at charity galas, if she gave debutante parties for the daughters of the underfunded, she could have a lot of really influential friends.
unidentified		Merle Gordon with her book, The Woman Who Knew Everyone, tonight at 8 Eastern on C-SPAN's Q ⁇ A. You can listen to Q&A and all of our podcasts on our free C-SPAN Now app.
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		Representatives of the U.S. military testified about the full-year stopgap funding bill approved by the House.
		Chief of Naval Operations Admiral James Kilby warned that a lack of funding in the bill could ultimately reduce recruitment.
		The Senate Armed Forces Subcommittee hearing on Joint Force Readiness is about 2 hours 20 minutes.
dan sullivan ▲ ● ▼		This hearing will come to order.
		The Readiness Subcommittee meets today to receive the testimony on the current readiness of the United States Armed Forces.
		I deeply appreciate our witnesses, our esteemed witnesses from our military service services.
		This is an impressive photo right here of all five services and our excellent work from the Government Accountability Office by Diana Maurer.
		This is one of the most important hearings certainly this committee undertakes all year.
		My view is one of the most important hearings in the Senate for the year because there's very few other issues more important than the readiness of our United States military.
		I look forward to the valuable testimony of the witnesses as it will pertain to their services readiness.
		I hope we can have a really good, candid discussion.
		We are living in a very dangerous world where our adversaries can and regularly do contest us across the globe.
		And we must remain vigilant in our pursuit of balancing readiness, modernization, and training with our global commitments.
		In my view, for the last four years, we have taken a holiday from history with the Biden administration's focus on issues in the military that had nothing to do with readiness.
		The list is long.
		climate change over shipbuilding, transgender surgery for active duty troops, DEI, a lack of focus on warfighting and lethality, and defeating our enemies.
		I appreciate Secretary Hegset's three priorities, restoring the warrior ethos, rebuilding our military, and reestablishing our deterrence.
		Many of you know, and I've talked to all of you about this, I'm a big fan of the book by T.R. Fahrenbach, This Kind of War, which Marines and soldiers all read.
		And it is about the Korean War and how in 1945 we had the most lethal military in world history, and five years later in 1950, the United States military had a hard time stopping and defeating a peasant army from North Korea.
		And thousands of American troops died in the process because a lack of leadership from our civilian and uniform military.
		This must never happen again.
		There must never be another Task Force Smith that we saw in the Korean War.
		My view is we have a moral obligation to prepare for any future conflict, beginning with the realization that unlike any previous conflict, our service members will be at risk from threats well before they reach foreign soil, airspace, or waters.
		The world has changed dramatically as it pertains to our homeland as well.
		We can no longer consider ourselves safe based solely on the tyranny of distance from nations and actors that would do us harm.
		One of the things that we are working on in this Congress and this committee in conjunction with the President is his Iron Dome, now Golden Dome, and legislation of mine with Senator Kramer.
		We hope to make bipartisan in this committee to bolstering our homeland defense.
		Suffice to say, the world is a dangerous place, and the facts demand a response from not just the uniformed personnel sitting before us, and again, I respect the service, decades and decades of military service from all of you, but from Congress as well.
		Let's look at a few facts in the last four years I've done to our militaries provided by the military services and GAO.
		The Army has done an outstanding job working to increase recruiting, but there remain significant operational demands and increasing pressures on an already understrength force with units being manned at less than 80 percent.
		16 of the Navy's 32 amphibious warfare ships are in unsatisfactory condition, and the Air Force of today is very different from what we saw during the global war on terror.
		Yes, we have more capable aircraft, and yet the KC-46 and KC-135 tanker fleets sits at an aircraft availability rate of 52% and 57%, respectively, versus 66% during the entirety of the global war on terror.
Impacts of Full CR on Military Readiness 00:02:14
dan sullivan ▲ ● ▼		While modernization will help improve these figures, at what costs will that come in terms of readiness and training?
		These are the key issues that so many of you as our leaders in the military have been focused on.
		There are many other issues that GAO has raised and our members here will be raising, but I want to thank the witnesses in advance again for their exceptional service to our country and for their testimony today.
		I look forward to that testimony, and now I'd like to turn it over to Ranking Member Senator Hirona.
mazie hirono ▲ ● ▼		Thank you, Senator Chairman.
		Senator Sullivan, rather.
		Well, you have your responsibility.
		Gentlemen, thank you for your dedicated service to our nation, and I thank the service members in each of your respective branches as well.
		Ms. Moore, it's always great to have you back and to see you.
		The tireless work that you and your team deliver to Congress every year is instrumental to each NDAA.
		In your opening statements, I ask that each of you briefly describe what impacts to readiness a full year continuing resolution CR would have.
		For example, billions in military construction and family housing projects would not occur in a full CR.
		So please, for all of all three of you, I would like you to briefly go over what the impacts of a full CR may be a year CR.
		So even without a full CR, readiness challenges range from retaining a skilled civilian workforce, balancing modernization with legacy platform maintenance, and training to core missions.
		And yet, while Congress provides ample resources to DOD every year, we still see delays in ship maintenance, cost overruns in military construction projects, and avoidable problems with family housing and barracks.
Stripping Resources From Service Members 00:07:06
mazie hirono ▲ ● ▼		Each of you are doing the best you can.
		Readiness requires a consumption of dedicated resources, time, training, and equipment, which is why deployments to the southwest border, which are all for show, mind you, are stripping precious time, focus, and resources away from our service members.
		In its request for assistance from DOD for fiscal year 25, the Department of Homeland Security acknowledged that tasks at the southwest border require no specific military training, skill set, or specialty to perform customs and border protection CBP duties.
		Some of the DHS requests include operator-level maintenance of CBP civilian vehicles, which can be found in the owner's manual of an SUV.
		Other requests include changing tires, windshield wipers, light bulbs, oil changes, stocking warehouses, data entry, administrative support, etc.
		In 2019, DOD discontinued support like this because they found units were not performing core military functions, and continuing to do so would adversely impact readiness and morale.
		Yet, here we are again.
		Perhaps having elite warfighters from the 10th 1st Mountain Division change oil in Shivitaho or mechanized infantry of a striker brigade combat team overseeing the stocking of civilian warehouses and data entry on the CBP computers are what Secretary Hakes envisions when he talks about lethality.
		But those non-military roles do not sound like they contribute to restoring the warrior ethics, and they certainly do not rebuild readiness.
		So these are slogans that Secretary Hicks likes to throw out, but the reality is our troops are being deployed to the southwest border to do things which does nothing to contribute to readiness.
		DOD has written a blank check, moreover, to DHS for its time, personnel, and resources.
		And as it stands now, DOD is electing to do all of this on a non-reimbursable basis in an open-ended timeline.
		Incredible.
		We are not even two months into this administration yet.
		Here are some of the opportunity costs to date.
		Marines are missing the chance to train in a bilateral exercise with our allies and partners.
		Army soldiers will miss a combat training center rotation.
		Air Force aircraft from the Immediate Response Force and the Space Force are using limited resources to perform tactical surveillance, reconnaissance, and tracking programs for DHS and CBP.
		Where will the readiness of our forces be 60 days from now and beyond?
		During the first Trump administration, it took units from the 101st Airborne Division a year, a year to regain their readiness after being deployed to the border.
		We should learn from that mistake.
		DOD is slow to respond to the requests for information to this committee, yet publishes nearly daily photo ops of troops on the border.
		In the meantime, immigration and customs enforcement agents are dressing up like they're in the military.
		Soldiers are performing data entry in uniform in the same room as CBP agents are processing migrants.
		And airmen are removing their name tags and unit patches when they transport migrants on military aircraft.
		All of these actions erase the distinction between civilian and military personnel.
		Removing active duty forces from their units and core missions to perform support functions of law enforcement agencies does not contribute to lethality or warfighting.
		And where is Secretary Hicks' meritocracy when DHS and CBP asks DOD to do their jobs for them and foot the bill, no less?
		Not only does this administration prioritize these deployments, but claims with a straight face that ordering U.S. service members to cover the jobs of DHS civilians has no impact on military readiness and resources.
		This is delusional, dishonest, unbelievable.
		The choice to burn readiness to score imagined political points is dangerously misguided.
		It is a massive waste of time, resources, and personnel when border crossings are at an all-time low.
		In closing, again, I wanted to thank the Vice Chiefs and Ms. Morrow for their service, for being here, for your hard work, insights, and leadership.
		And I would really appreciate a frank Discussion with you today.
		Thank you very much.
dan sullivan ▲ ● ▼		Well, thank you, Senator Hirono.
		I appreciate your renewed found focus on readiness.
		I'm just thrilled about that.
		And by the way, we've been sending troops to the border for decades.
		My first deployment is United States Marine.
		I came back from a Westpac 31st MU deployment under President Clinton after being in the Taiwan Strait, and half my battalion immediately got sent to the border.
		So this has been going on for quite some time, and it's nothing new, but I appreciate it.
mazie hirono ▲ ● ▼		Mr. Chairman, I don't think it serves our purposes because you have to get into the for you to personally insult me.
dan sullivan ▲ ● ▼		I'm not insulting you at all.
Modernizing Forged Readiness 00:13:55
mazie hirono ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
dan sullivan ▲ ● ▼		I'm not insulting you.
		I'm just glad you're focused on readiness.
		My Democrat colleagues and the Biden administration haven't always been so focused, but it's great that you guys are.
		So with that, I would like to begin our testimony.
		And gentlemen, I'm going to have to step out for a minute, but I will be here for the whole hearing.
		So General Mingus, if you can begin, sir.
		Thank you very much.
		You'll have five minutes, and your extended written testimony can be submitted for the record.
		Thank you, General.
unidentified		Thank you.
		Chairman Sullivan, Ranking Member Hirono, and distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to address you today.
		The Army stands ready to defend our nation.
		Right now, over 109,000 soldiers are deployed or forward stationed across 140 countries, executing missions that deter, defend, and provide immediate response options.
		Still, our adversaries are moving faster than we are.
		That is why we are reorganizing our formations, refining how we fight, and modernizing faster than ever, pushing new capabilities into the force in months, not years.
		Under Transformation and Contact, or TIC, which I will talk about throughout, we are enhancing our tactical networks, rapidly fueling UAS, counter-UAS, electronic warfare systems, and increasing mobility across our formations.
		In the last nine months, TIC delivered 11 new capabilities and technologies to warfighters across the 101st, the 25th, 10th Mountain, and 34th Infantry Divisions.
		In FY 25 and 26, we'll expand this to TIC 2.0.
		And it will encompass all units within the 101st, 25th, 82nd, 4th Infantry Division.
		And additionally, it will extend to include additional armored and striker brigade combat teams.
		We will also scale to integrate three multi-domain task forces and further integrate Army National Guard units.
		Central to the Army modernization are command and control, integrated air missile defense, and long-range precision fires.
		Next generation command and control, or next-gen C2, will provide resilient data sharing and real-time situational awareness, enabling warfighters to synchronize combat power across all domains.
		We are also improving our layered air defenses, expanding Patriot formations, increasing short-range air defense battalions, and adding directed energy systems capable of countering most or more sophisticated UAS threats.
		Additionally, the Army's long-range hypersonic weapon will soon be operational by the end of this year, adding unprecedented speed and range to our arsenal, both for us and the Navy.
		At the heart of those efforts is the health and effectiveness of our organic industrial base.
		We continue to execute our 18 billion 15-year plan to modernize 23 depots, arsenals, and ammunition plants.
		Newly established facilities in Lake City, Missouri and Mesquite, Texas are expanding 6.8 millimeter and 155 munition productions, while for the first time in 40 years, TNT production is being reestablished in the United States to reduce reliance on foreign suppliers.
		However, weapons and equipment do not define readiness, soldiers do.
		And the Army is making targeted investments to ensure that they can focus on their mission, new barracks and construction, modernizing efforts, and replacing outdated housing.
		Dining facilities are being updated to provide more flexible nutritious options, and the Holistic Health and Fitness Program, or H2F, embeds experts directly into our units to ensure peak human performance.
		Recruiting remains a priority.
		The Army exceeded its goal in FY24 with over 55,000 new soldiers, and we are targeting 61,000 this year, and we are currently 72.7 percent of that goal for this year.
		44,358 as of this morning, which is 50 percent ahead of where we were this time last year.
		I'll end on budget.
		With no budget increases to offset inflation and reducing buying power, the continual growth in the cost of paying allowances is crowding out the Army's ability to modernize its force or maintain its infrastructure.
		The Army essentially has three levers to address top-line shortfalls: end strength, readiness, and modernization.
		Our end strength is approximately 25,000 personnel less than the improved structure, resulting in undermanned formations and overtaxed high-demand units such as Patriot battalions.
		Additionally, the Army has had to slash its modernization budgets by billions over the last few years.
		As a result, procurement is reduced to minimum sustainable rates, delaying fielding of new material to formations, and research and development has been cut, slowing technological advances.
		Ultimately, the Army can afford a large, ready, or modern force, but with the current budget, it cannot afford all three.
		Either we provide soldiers the capabilities needed to win or we accept greater risks in other areas.
		But whatever risk we accept now, we will likely pay for it later, not in delayed projects or budget adjustments, but in real-world battlefield consequences.
		We need to invest in the things and training our soldiers need for the next fight, not the last fight.
		Thank you.
dan sullivan ▲ ● ▼		Thank you, General.
dan sullivan ▲ ● ▼		Admiral?
unidentified		Chairman Sullivan, Ranking Member Hirono, subcommittee members, thank you for the opportunity to testify of the United States around the world.
		Your oversight and funding help us to be ready when the nation calls.
		In the past year alone, American sailors have defeated hundreds of drones and missiles and carried out dozens of offensive strikes in the Red Sea and the eastern Mediterranean.
		They have strengthened alliances and deterred aggression in the Western Pacific, and they have used unmanned systems to counter the flow of illegal narcotics across the southern border.
		In short, remains postured resting, and neither will we.
		You to approve with urgency.
		I have spoken to several of you about a sustained focus on adapting the mindset, skill set, and tool set to drive meaningful process improvement.
		Consistent and predictable funding is foundational to our improvement efforts.
		The Navy will need to make hard choices this year if we are operating under a full-year continuing resolution.
		And this fiscal execute will slow our progress.
		To get weapons and equipment, we need to modernize our fleet.
		And we will also slow shipbuilding, including our amphibious warships.
		And with the Navy exceeding recruiting and retention goals last year and on track to do so again, we will need additional funding to sustain our momentum.
		Our priority remains our readiness accounts, which are most vulnerable under a CR or sequestration.
		We are optimistic that Congress will grant us the flexibility to allocate funds to our top priorities.
		Despite these challenges, your Navy will maintain ready platforms, people, and infrastructure.
		We set a goal to make 80 percent of our ships, submarines, and aircraft combat surge ready by January 1st, 2027.
		To do that, we are reducing maintenance delays and improving manning, training, modernization, and sustainment.
		We are seeing progress in the last year.
		We increased our surface ship depot maintenance from 41 percent on-time completion to 68 percent.
		Unfortunately, this progress is not consistent across all platforms.
		I am not satisfied with amphibious ship maintenance.
		Our Navy and Marine Corps operate as a lethal integrated force, and we have work to do here.
		To improve, we are procuring spare parts earlier, refining, partnering, planning with industry partners, acquiring diesel engine repair kits, and building steam plant expertise.
		Our second goal is recruiting and retention.
		The Navy is committed to attracting and developing Americans who can innovate, solve hard problems, and dominate in combat.
		Thanks to process improvements, our targeted investments, we contracted over 40,000 sailors last year, the most since 2003, and we are currently on pace to exceed our recruiting goals in 25.
		We are committed to improving quality of service.
		We reduced the wait list for child development centers from 3,400 children in 2024 to 2,500 as of January 31st, 2025.
		We have reduced poor unaccompanied housing.
		We have reduced our pool of unaccompanied housing rooms rated as poor from 25 percent to 21 percent, and we'll continue to reduce this through focused investments.
		We are focusing on the investment of critical infrastructure in the Indo-Pacific, targeting it to where it has our most impact on our warfighters.
		The Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Program is a once-in-a-century opportunity for us to improve effectiveness of our public yards.
		Through SIOP, we have completed over 40 projects and invested $1 billion in getting ship maintenance completed on time.
		The budget you are reviewing today includes an additional $6.3 billion for the next 40 projects.
		I am proud of the Navy's accomplishments in the past year.
		We still have work to do to ensure that we remain the world's most premier Navy for another 250 years.
		Your leadership and support are critical to Navy readiness.
		On behalf of our sailors, civilians, and families around the world, thank you.
		I look forward to your questions.
dan sullivan ▲ ● ▼		Thank you, Admiral.
dan sullivan ▲ ● ▼		General.
gen christopher mahoney ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Chairman Sullivan, Ranking Member Hirono, Senator Kaine.
		Thanks for the opportunity to appear this morning.
		I'm honored to represent the Marine Corps and discuss our current warfighting readiness.
		Since my testimony last year, your Marine Corps has continued to progress and refine our force design implementation through a campaign of learning.
		We're modernizing our force to meet the challenges of the modern battlefield.
		As directed by our Commandant, we balanced that modernization with our ability to respond to crises.
		This balance ensures that over 32,000 Marines, forward postured and deployed, are trained and ready to support the combatant commanders' competition campaign, deter global threats, and when necessary, fight our nation's battles.
		Whether acting as the forward eyes and ears in the Southwest Islands, we're expanding maritime domain awareness in a unified high north and across the Baltic Sea, or supporting defense supportive civil authorities by constructing obstacles and intel analysis on the southern border.
		Your Marines are ready to operate in any climb and place, as our song says.
		There remain external challenges, though, to our warfighting readiness.
		The most acute readiness detractors are the lack of amphibious ship availability, which has been brought up already by my shipmate, and the absence of organic littoral mobility to marry up with our MLR capabilities.
		The gap in these capabilities creates significant risk and degrade force readiness across the competition spectrum toward conflict.
		Yet despite these challenges, your Marine Corps remains ready.
		Our personnel, our maintenance, supply and training readiness remain high, just as all of you would expect.
		In both recruiting and retention, the Marine Corps made mission and exceeded expectations in fiscal year 2024.
		And you heard it here first.
		We will make our numbers this year, and in fact, we'll be able to push contracts on the order of 1,000 into the next fiscal year.
		I remain completely humbled by the quality of our recruits and the Marines we make fleet-wide.
		Cannot say enough about the excellence and discipline of our recruiting force who continue to do what others say is not possible, making mission without lowering standards, which is something we will never do.
		That discipline, together with consistent funding, remain key ingredients for a high state of readiness.
		Our unprecedented second unmodified audit opinion is evidence of that discipline.
		Our books are clean.
		Our books are open.
		The Marine Corps is appreciative of the continued support from Congress and support for the Commandant's priorities, which are creating an enduring total force readiness.
		With your advocacy, we'll sustain our current and future force readiness to maintain the honor of being the first to fight when called.
		With your support for additional resources, we'll restore the state of our infrastructure readiness in a manner consistent with your expectations as well as the expectations of our Commandant.
		Thank you for the opportunity to speak, and I look forward to your questions.
		Several Fidelis.
mazie hirono ▲ ● ▼		Thank you, General.
mazie hirono ▲ ● ▼		I call on General Goodline.
unidentified		Please proceed.
unidentified		Thank you, Chairman Sullivan, Ranking Member Hirono, and the distinguished members of this subcommittee for allowing me the opportunity to discuss the United States Space Force with you and with the American people today.
Pillars of Space Force Readiness 00:07:53
unidentified		The Space Force underpins our nation's capabilities within the joint force, within our economy, and within the society as a whole.
		In our first five years of existence, we validated the importance of the Space Force as a service and made remarkable progress in building an agile, mission-focused organization that grasps the magnitude of the space threat.
		We delivered critical capabilities, developed doctrine, and took significant steps to integrate space power into joint operations.
		We are now comprised of approximately 15,000 Guardians, including officers, enlisted, and civilian personnel, and we are integrated into other DOD components, the intelligence community, our allies, and commercial partners, maintaining maximum readiness and securing our advantages in space.
		Our military is faster, better connected, more informed, precise, and lethal based on our ability to harness space.
		The world's use of space is growing at an accelerating rate, demonstrated by a significant growth in space launches and an increase in active spacecraft in orbit.
		As access to and the use of space grows, the strategic landscape in space is becoming increasingly complex and perilous.
		We were once, what were once theoretical threats are now daily occurrences.
		I have observed our adversaries' actions, and they are employing new capabilities to counter our advantages.
		Our competitors are jamming GPS signals, spoofing and disrupting satellite communications, and developing advanced anti-satellite weapons.
		Unfortunately, this behavior has become the norm rather than the exception, creating an increasingly hostile environment and putting at risk our continued freedom in the space domain.
		To meet these challenges, the Space Force is accelerating our transformation as a warfighting service through our theory of success called competitive endurance.
		Competitive endurance is the bedrock of our ability to deter and, if necessary, defeat our adversaries.
		It deters them from extending conflict into the space domain and enables the joint force to achieve space separity while preserving the long-term safety, security, and sustainability of space.
		This approach ensures we avoid operational surprise, deny first-mover advantage, and engage in responsible counterspace campaigning, all of which result in deterring aggression and, if necessary, decisively defeating challenges to our way of life.
		An essential requirement supporting competitive endurance is Guardian development.
		We are focused on purpose-built training to meet the unique needs of the Space Force.
		Our Guardians are dedicated warfighters who understand the gravity of the threats that we face.
		We must ensure that they have the necessary training, resources, and unwavering commitment to continue to face these threats head-on.
		Also essential is our continued integration as a critical component of the Joint Force in fostering enduring partnerships with the commercial sector and our allies around the world, which will allow us to overcome resource constraints and build a resilient hybrid space architecture, forging the Space Force we need.
		At only 3% of the DOD budget, the Space Force offers an immense value proposition for the Joint Force and for our nation.
		However, it is woefully under-resourced to meet the nation's demand for space capabilities.
		We must increase investment to deter the threat and if necessary to decisively defeat challenges to U.S. space security.
		The strategic choices we make today will determine whether space remains a domain for peace and progress or becomes a contested battleground for future conflict.
		The Space Force is committed to ensuring a future where space remains a source of American strength and a foundation for global security.
		Achieving this vision requires a shared commitment to providing the Space Force with the resources, the authorities, and the support necessary to meet the growing challenges of the space warfighting domain.
		On behalf of all Guardians and their families, thank you for your support and commitment to ensuring the United States Space Force remains a cornerstone of the Joint Force and protecting the American way of life.
		I look forward to working with all of you and I look forward to taking your questions.
		Thank you.
dan sullivan ▲ ● ▼		Thank you, General.
dan sullivan ▲ ● ▼		Lieutenant General Spain.
unidentified		Chairman Sullivan, Ranking Member Hirono, and members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity this hearing provides to talk about the elements of readiness for the Air Force.
		The four primary pillars being parts and supply, people, flying and training, and current infrastructure.
		To these, I would add elements for future readiness, rebuilding acquisitions, long-term sustainment, and recruiting and retention at a relevant pace and scale, all in a way that reflects our shared purpose.
		Senators, I can confidently state that your United States Air Force stands ready and able to defend America's homeland, ensure a robust nuclear deterrent via our two legs of the triad, and project power around the world to deter and win as the nation requires.
		Is our solemn duty, and your airmen are ready.
		It is also a fact that today's airmen will do so with the oldest airplanes, the smallest force, and with fewer monthly flying hours than at any point in our history.
		Airmen have and always will get the job done, but today they do so at elevated risk.
		Meanwhile, China's military forces are expanding and modernizing.
		Their nuclear modernization, long-range missile proliferation, and recent test flights of two six-gen aircraft is simply further evidence of the elevated threat in this strategic environment.
		Conflict is certainly not desirable, nor is it inevitable.
		It is our responsibility to be prepared should diplomacy or deterrence fail.
		Often, we have focused on the individual elements of readiness and not how they must be synchronized to create a warfighting capability over time.
		Even in this hearing, we will likely talk about individual programs and individual projects, all of which are very important.
		But the previous strategic environment, mostly permissive and without a significant challenger, allowed us the luxury of segmented attention, priority, and risk.
		Today's strategic environment does not.
		Today's readiness requires a synchronized approach: the right parts and the right maintainers and the right support infrastructure and the right qualified air crew and all in the right balance and not or many of our past decisions were appropriate given the previous strategic environment, but no longer.
		So we've taken deliberate steps to see this for what it is and do something about it.
		We've specifically prioritized parts and supply in the flying hour program.
		We've also reconnected our manpower and infrastructure priorities directly to our core readiness outcomes in both our processes and our data.
		It's our intent to maintain focus and priority on these pillars to strengthen our readiness and improve our lethality, and we're moving out.
		I'm grateful for this committee and the broader Congress's support and look forward to working with you to deliberately improve our current and future readiness posture and undeniably retain our position as the world's greatest air force.
		With respect to the CR without anomalies, the CR clearly has impact on our readiness up to the tune of about $4 billion.
		Anomalies, without anomalies and with the Fiscal Responsibility Act kicking in, it's closer to $14 billion, which we cannot afford.
		However, we expect and look forward to the final version of this CR, if it were to pass, with flexibility and agility and anomalies to spend as required to retain readiness to the maximum possible level.
		Thank you and look forward to your questions.
dan sullivan ▲ ● ▼		Thank you, General, for your very frank testimony.
GAO's Recommendations for Military Readiness 00:03:46
dan sullivan ▲ ● ▼		I very much appreciate that.
dan sullivan ▲ ● ▼		Finally, Ms. Maurer from GAO, thank you for your great work on many issues.
unidentified		All right.
		Well, good morning, Chairman Sullivan, Ranking Member Hirono, and other members.
		We'll be here today to discuss GEO's recommendations to help the military address long-standing readiness challenges that span several administrations.
		I'd like to, in particular, to highlight three cross-cutting challenges that we continue to find across the services.
		First, DOD faces growing gaps between mission and resources.
		In many areas, the services assume risk because of imbalances between what they've been tasked to do and the people, parts, and facilities they have.
		Pentagon needs to focus more on sustainment.
		Buying new systems is just the beginning.
		Ensuring combat-ready units can operate and sustain those systems is the hard part.
		And all too often, a host of sustainment problems means planes, ships, and vehicles are not available when needed.
		And third, DOD's ability to move and support forces lags behind operational needs.
		The services face potential adversaries who will contest the movement of people, material, and information.
		DoD needs to adapt its decades-long reliance on uncontested logistics, just-in-time distribution.
		My written statement summarizes reports with over 100 recommendations to help address these challenges.
		So, for example, the Navy needs an industrial-based strategy to help get better results from the private companies that repair and build ships.
		The Navy, the Army, should ensure units have the necessary training, facilities, and support before fielding new equipment.
		The Space Force needs to refine its plans for training and exercising its squadrons.
		The Navy should coordinate with the Marines to fix amphibious ships and reach agreement on what it means for a ship to be available.
		DOD should decide when and how various services will assume sustainment responsibilities for missile defense systems.
		And for the F-35 program, DOD needs to reassess the balance of sustainment responsibilities between contractors and services and ensure maintainers have access to the technical data they need to meet operational mission needs.
		GAO's recommendations will help improve military readiness, and that's the heart of what we do at GAO.
		We help improve the government.
		Now, we're currently in the midst of a vigorous national debate about improving the effectiveness and efficiency of the Federal Government.
		GAO's independent, nonpartisan role in the legislative branch is as important now as it has ever been.
		We will continue to provide facts, analyses, and recommendations to this committee and to all 535 members so you can execute your congressional oversight of executive branch programs and activities.
Chairman's Full Committee Presence 00:15:32
unidentified		Thank you for the opportunity to testify this morning, and I look forward to your questions.
dan sullivan ▲ ● ▼		Thank you, Ms. Maurer, and I agree with you that you guys do excellent work.
		I recently had the opportunity to highlight your work on the Navy industrial-based issues to our incoming Secretary of the Navy, and I think that was an excellent report.
		So, I'm going to begin with just a line of questions.
		By the way, it's great to have our chairman of the full committee here.
		It shows the importance of this subcommittee and the topics we're tackling today.
		I will begin my questioning for all six witnesses.
		So, please try to be brief.
		It's going to focus on bad news, good news, and flexibilities.
		So, what do I mean?
		You've already touched on it, General Spain.
		You did a good job.
		The CR, right?
		I think from a readiness standpoint, none of us think this is helpful.
		What would be worse, in my view, is a government shutdown.
		So, the impact of the CR, and then very importantly, and General Mingus, you and I had the opportunity to talk about this yesterday, flexibilities that you would like us to provide you and the future NDAAs on budgeting.
		That's a topic that when we deal with these CRs, unfortunately, it's been a way of life for our military for many years.
		It's a failure on the part of Congress.
		But what kind of flexibilities do you need to be more ready that you could use?
		And this could be very broad or very specific.
		And then the good news, very quickly, we've had a turnaround in recruiting.
		I think it has a lot to do with some of the comments I made in my opening statement.
		Where the last four years our military was not focused on lethality and warfighting and why young men and women joined to fight and defend their country.
		It was focused on other stuff, irrelevant stuff, and it hurt recruiting.
		Why do you think, where are you on recruiting, and why do you think there's been such a dramatic turnaround?
		So those are the questions I'd like each of you to answer.
		We'll start in the lineup here.
		General Mingus, if you can hit on all three of those.
unidentified		Thank you, Chairman.
		A full year-long continued resolution impact, yes, to the degree and the severity is unknown as was kind of talked about earlier based on the anomalies that come out of this, the puts and takes in the various lines in the budget, what is plussed up and not.
		We'll have to take a couple of days to kind of fully, if it is actually enacted before the end of the week, the true impact.
		But new starts, spending limits, spending power and buying power, those are critically the ones that always rise to the top.
		And we've never had a year-long continuing resolution.
		This will be the first for the Department of Defense.
		So a lot to be determined in terms of what those impacts are going to be.
		Flexibility, sir, you and I talked about this last night.
		We all submitted a J-Book and a budget almost 18 to 20 months before we actually see an enactment in an appropriation.
		A lot can happen in that 18 to 20 months.
		Every line of accounting, every piece of equipment, every radio has its own individual line within the J books that come back in our budget line items on the back end of appropriations.
		For high-tech things, UAS, counter-UAS, high-tech command and control systems that evolve at a rate faster than our budget cycle, we would like to compress those lines to allow us to move in year of execution those monies to new things that come online in year of execution.
dan sullivan ▲ ● ▼		If you can work with us, all the services with regard to language on the flex, those kind of flexibilities are really important, I think, needed and something that we could work on to get in the NDAA.
unidentified		Sir.
unidentified		And I yield my time to the others because I went pretty deep in recruiting.
dan sullivan ▲ ● ▼		Just for the committee's sake, real quick here, just I mean, we talked about it, but just on the record, I think it's important for lessons learned on recruiting.
unidentified		Who you recruit, where you recruit, how we recruit, more professionalization of our recruiting force, expanding the population, all those things that we've been working for the last 18 to 24 months, we believe are coming to fruition this year.
		We've seen momentum, unlike we have seen in probably a decade.
		We're at 50 percent ahead of where we were last year, 73 percent of missions.
		So as I said in my opening statement, just over 44,000 of a mission of 61,000.
		I think as you and I talked last night, we're going to have the opposite problem we did a couple years ago, where come this summer we may have an end strength that's actually bigger than what we have in appropriations for.
dan sullivan ▲ ● ▼		Maybe we can work on that.
		Admiral, and again, I'll yield time back.
		These are important questions, but we'll get through all of them.
		Go ahead, Admiral.
unidentified		Sir, hey, two bit buckets.
unidentified		One, the CR.
dan sullivan ▲ ● ▼		Yep.
unidentified		Major impact on us.
		We've gotten used to partial CRs.
		As General Mingus says, this is our first full year CR.
		So we'll have to figure that out.
		And we're looking forward to flexibility, anomalies, authorities to address the kind of things that General Mingus talked about.
		Let me just use one specific example.
		Two years ago, probably a little more than two years ago, we were thinking about counter-UAS.
		We weren't thinking about counter-US from the perspective that we've grown to appreciate in the Red Sea.
		So, the ability to turn quickly and use money and have the flexibility to address those things as we're trying to do with the Ford Strike Group, where we're bolting on systems that are more effective for counter-US, like Coyote and Roadrunner.
		Those are all appreciated and hard to do in a CR.
		So, I'd give you that piece: the flexibilities and for us to work through it.
		There's a merge with the next topic, which is recruiting.
		We've made some progress in the Navy, as the other services have.
		We have stormed the problem.
		We understand, and you and I went over and Ranking Member Hirono and I discussed what we did in the Navy to break down the problem and understand what it takes to make a productive recruiter.
		So, I think there's renewed focus and clarity on that.
		We've done the things General Mingus has described, where we've spread to zip codes to get every available person into the Navy, and we're ahead of goal.
		Right now, our projection was 12,000 contracted, we've contracted 14,000.
		We're supposed to have 12.2,000 ship, we've shipped 12.7,000.
		So, we're ahead of goal.
		I'm very concerned about the CR and the impact on that machine and slowing it down.
		So, for us, we want to maintain course and speed, accelerate, and bring in all the people we need to close down our gaps at sea.
		CR makes that a little more challenging.
dan sullivan ▲ ● ▼		Great.
		I'm going to yield back to Senator Hirono.
		I'll get through this line of questioning.
		I do want to do a recognition, Admiral, to the sailors and Marines who have been deploying all over the world and in the Red Sea in particular.
		You know, remarkable performance in terms of shooting down all the incoming missiles and drones at your ships.
		My understanding, it's the most combat that the Navy's undertaken in terms of serious missile threats to our ships since World War II, and you've done it incredibly well.
		So, to all the sailors and Marines on those deployed ships for the great job they've done, thank you from the entire United States Senate.
		Senator Hirono.
mazie hirono ▲ ● ▼		Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
		I get that a full-year CR is going to present some very unique challenges for all of our services, including our Space Force.
		So, we will do what we can to help you all.
		Admiral Kilby, I recognize the need to build a larger fleet.
		However, I have significant concerns about the Navy's basically dismal track record of maintaining ships and submarines in the current fleet.
		We consistently see delays, increased costs, ships without adequate crew, a lack of spare parts, and other issues.
		General Mahoney, it seems clear that maintaining amphibious ships is not a top Navy priority.
		And I do understand Ms. Morrow said that the Navy and the Marines need to come to an agreement on how these amphibious ships will be maintained.
		But how do delays in the Marine Corps amphibious ship maintenance impact your ability to train and deploy Marines?
		And how would you be better supported by, and how could you be better supported by the Navy?
gen christopher mahoney ▲ ● ▼		Senator, thank you for the question.
		We are very concerned with the condition of the amphibious fleet and the availability of the amphibious fleet.
		This morning, I check it every morning.
		There were 13 of 32 amphibious ships available.
		In order to get to a goal of 3.0 muse, that is heel-to-toe Muse combined with their amphibious shipping off the East Coast, one off the East Coast, one off the West Coast, and one in the FDNF.
		That number is not going to do it.
		I look at it in short, medium, and kind of longer term perhaps solution sets, and we're working closely with the Navy.
		Of course, we have to get to terms of reference.
		We can't classify a ship that hasn't sailed in 10 years and probably never will sail as an available ship of any class, much less an amphib.
		What I would say is we need to resource amphibious shipping to make it to their service lives and not decommission them early.
		Secondly, we have to get ahead of the maintenance curve.
		That means years ahead of port loading, of availability sequences, getting the avails in on time, making sure that we have the parts and the maintenance crews to maintain them and get them out of the avails on time.
		More toward the midterm, we need to make every ship count with service life extensions and midlife upgrades.
unidentified		Lastly.
mazie hirono ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
		I'm sorry to interrupt, but I think that your needs are being clearly articulated.
		And as Ms. Morris suggested, we need to have, it sounds like a good suggestion to me, that the Navy and the Marine Corps need to get to an agreement on what we're going to do with the maintenance of these amphibious ships.
		To have only 13 out of 32 available is what we say unacceptable.
		So as we sit here, can we have a commitment from the Navy that you are going to get into an agreement on this issue with the Marine Corps?
unidentified		Ranking Member Hirono, you have my commitment to that.
		We do brief off the same data, which is an improvement in the Navy and the Marine Corps.
		We have the same database, so we look at the things similarly from big deck amphibs to LPDs to LSDs.
		So to me, that's a start.
		But we have to do better.
mazie hirono ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
unidentified		I agree.
mazie hirono ▲ ● ▼		You need to do better.
		Let me move on to General Mingus.
		Several of the critical training areas the Army uses in Hawaii, the main one being Pohakaloa on the Big Island.
		And the leases are set to expire in 2029.
		And these are vital.
		These leases are vital to ensure military forces can adequately train in the Pacific.
		And when we talk about the importance of the Indo-Pacific area, we obviously need our people to be trained.
		And so I would like to ask you, will you commit to continue engaging in good faith with state officials, because that's who you're negotiating these important leases with, and the community to ensure land retention is renegotiated in a way lease negotiation is done in a way that is fair to the state, the people of Hawaii, and the military.
		General Mingus?
unidentified		Absolutely, ma'am.
		We are committed to that.
		Since 2017, we've been working this, as you are well aware, over 500 town halls, meetings, various engagements that are out there.
		2029 seems like a long ways away, but it will be here tomorrow.
mazie hirono ▲ ● ▼		I know that it's not.
unidentified		And so we will continue to and are committed to working this with you.
mazie hirono ▲ ● ▼		And to the extent that a land swap may be in the offing, I do believe that we need to provide the Secretary of the Army with the authority for that.
mazie hirono ▲ ● ▼		Is that correct?
unidentified		Yes, ma'am.
mazie hirono ▲ ● ▼		Mr. Chairman, like you, I have a number of other questions.
mazie hirono ▲ ● ▼		Could I just go over one minute?
unidentified		Sure.
mazie hirono ▲ ● ▼		Thanks.
		Thank you.
		So, General Mingus, last year we spoke at this hearing about the Army's crumbling infrastructure in the Indo-Pacific region.
		In Hawaii, 50% of Army facilities are currently classified as failing or failed, and the cost to repair or replace them is over $5 billion.
		However, the Army and other services are not using non-DOD funded contracting mechanisms like energy savings performance contracts to upgrade its infrastructure and lock in lower utility bills.
		What is the Army's plan to repair or replace infrastructure in Hawaii and Indo Pacific?
unidentified		Ma'am, as we talked last year, there were significant investments in 23-24.
		We're committed to that for 25 and beyond.
		We know that the water and some of the critical infrastructure underneath a lot of these locations are failing.
		We actually think it's maybe in excess of $5 billion.
		We've committed over a billion for this next year, so we absolutely want to work with you on those infrastructure, to include the leadership that goes with this as well.
		Kwajalein is an example where that was largely paid for with RDTE dollars.
		We've actually put a garrison commander there to make sure that the leadership, in addition to the resources, is there to fix these problems.
mazie hirono ▲ ● ▼		I think the energy projects, for example, are important because the Army is the biggest user of the military, DOD, Army in particular, is the biggest user of energy, and whatever sums you can save on energy costs as well can go to other needed necessary projects.
mazie hirono ▲ ● ▼		So would you commit to clear the log jam on installation of energy projects funded through non-DOD contract mechanisms?
unidentified		Absolutely.
		Take a look at that, ma'am.
		Yes.
		Thank you.
dan sullivan ▲ ● ▼		Thank you, Senator Hirono.
dan sullivan ▲ ● ▼		Chairman Wicker.
roger wicker ▲ ● ▼		Well, Chairman, I surely am glad you gave Senator Hirono a few extra moments.
roger wicker ▲ ● ▼		You offered me an opening statement, and so I may take those few extra moments.
dan sullivan ▲ ● ▼		You are the chairman of the committee.
dan sullivan ▲ ● ▼		You can do whatever you want.
roger wicker ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
roger wicker ▲ ● ▼		But I also want to congratulate Chairman Sullivan and Senator Hirono for their leadership in calling this hearing.
Conference Authorization Flaw 00:03:45
roger wicker ▲ ● ▼		It's a terrific panel and it's been great so far.
		Let me say this about the CR.
		We repeatedly say, House and Senate, Republican and Democrat, that we never need to do this again.
		And for some reason, something comes up, some group is unwilling to compromise and look at the long picture, and we find ourselves in this position.
		I will say this about the fact that this is the first year-long CR for the Department of Defense.
		I guess we could at least admit that it is a hybrid CR in the sense that there are the anomalies that our witnesses have mentioned and the numbers have been plussed up just a little bit.
		But this is a shame on our process.
		And it is not in keeping with what the founders intended.
		They intended for legislation to be difficult, but they intended for the parties and the houses to compromise and have some give and take and finally get in the right direction.
		In my view, Mr. Chairman and Ms. Ranking Member, the real flaw in the CR that we'll be voting on later this week is that it doesn't provide enough money, regardless of the anomalies and the tiny plus-ups here and there.
		Regardless of that, it does not provide adequate support for the military and for the challenges we have from four adversary nations pacing challenges plus Russia plus North Korea plus Iran that like never before have worked together to bring us ill.
		And it is contrary, Mr. Chairman and Madam Ranking Member, to the voice of the Senate in the National Defense Authorization Act, which plussed up national defense out of the Armed Services Committee and from a bipartisan vote on the floor about $25 billion.
		We couldn't get that done in conference, and so we are where we are on the authorization.
		But were it not for the prospect of a reconciliation bill that adds $150 billion for vital national security purposes, I could not vote for the continuing resolution as it is.
		Unless something changes, I'll have to swallow my words again this year and go ahead and pass it because the alternative is so unpalatable and so dangerous.
		But I will say this: based on what we see and based on what is in this continuing resolution, $150 billion in the reconciliation bill may not be enough.
		And I'm hearing some comforting words, Mr. Chairman, from the administration that they realize that too.
		And I realize they're the budget hawks in this city and they're the defense hawks in this city, and we all want fiscal responsibility.
Recruiting For The Reserve Component 00:08:06
roger wicker ▲ ● ▼		But I'm telling you, $150 billion in the reconciliation bill may not be enough based on the way we have treated defense over the past few years and based on what we're about to do this week.
		So thank you all for doing what you can with the authorities, anomalies, and little plus-ups that we give you.
		In the time I have to ask questions, let's talk about the ability, and I'll direct this to you, General Mingus, the ability of our reserve component to be ready for potential conflicts with near-peer adversaries.
		If a conflict began today, General, is the Army Reserve component man-trained and equipped appropriately to be successful?
unidentified		I would say it would depend on the type of organization within the Guard and the Reserve, sir.
		We meet our directed readiness tables requirements in terms of the active component, the Guard and the Reserve, in terms of what are required inside those immediate forces that are needed inside of 10 days, 30 days, and 45 days.
		Once you get beyond that, then it is not as pretty as you would see.
		This last year, we did have to bring down in the Optempo accounts for the Guard and Reserve.
		We typically like to keep them at 85 percent of their training requirements.
		We had to bring that down a little bit this year because of the top line that we were at.
		So there is concern now.
		As a result of that, the Secretary and the Chief and all of us are taking a look at what is the right balance between the active guard and reserve and what mission sets should be in those.
		And there's an active look at all of that.
roger wicker ▲ ● ▼		Well, don't you wish you didn't have to begin your answer with it depends?
		I wish you didn't have to begin your answer with depends.
		With it depends.
		You talked about the balance.
		How about the balance between the types of reserve units?
unidentified		And that's what I mean, sir.
		So, for example, our petroleum capacity is almost all in the reserve component.
		We know that we're going to need some of that capability early on in a fight, and so do we need to move some of that from our reserve component into the active component.
		So that's some of the analysis that we're looking at.
roger wicker ▲ ● ▼		Okay, let's go to Admiral Kilby.
		And it seems that we're picking on that end of the table so far today.
		Admiral Kilby, the Navy spends billions of dollars each year to operate and maintain its combat surface ships.
		Those surface ships are vital to combat, deterrence, defense of the homeland.
		Yet year after year, we hear about significant challenges to the readiness of our Navy's surface fleet.
		How is the Navy changing and modernizing in this regard, and also in the way they attack ship maintenance to get problems under control?
unidentified		Two general areas here, sir.
		Thanks for that question.
		One was addressed by General Mahoney.
		One, locking down that planning in advance of that availability is key.
		That requires the funding, and the contract closed about four months before we start the availability, which allows the contractor to order those long lead parts and develop those teams, in particular for amphibs, steam maintainers, and diesel maintainers, which are a shrinking pool in our nation.
		So lock down that project ahead of time and understand the condition of the ship, which means you have to do inspections and really understand vice opening things and inspecting them during the avail.
		So that's the first part about that.
		The second part is this piece I mentioned in my opening statement, which you didn't hear, but getting the 80% of combat surge ready ships, aircraft, and submarines.
		We've had some success in the Navy doing that with our fighter fleet and are spreading it to all our aircraft.
		We want to do the same thing with our ships, same thing with our submarines.
		That's a bigger challenge because of the complexity of it, but that's the goal we're after.
		That requires some focus and some effort to do that, but it also requires looking at processes which may not be helpful now and changing those processes.
		And that's what we did with aviation, sir.
roger wicker ▲ ● ▼		Okay, and then let me just ask General Mingus and Admiral Kilby, on the recruiting is part of making this more successful long term a better career path for the people we place in these positions, General.
unidentified		Yes, sir.
unidentified		I mean, most come in the military to serve, to make a better way for themselves in terms of their lifestyle, some etc., to get college benefits on that back.
roger wicker ▲ ● ▼		A better career path for the people we put in recruiting positions.
unidentified		Oh, yes, sir.
		Absolutely.
		I misunderstood the question.
		That is one of the things we've talked about.
		Similar to what the Marine Corps have been doing for decades, if we're going to put talent out in our recruiting formations, we have to reward that talent on the back end.
		So absolutely.
		Same applies for the Navy.
		A focus on those recruiters.
		Teach it.
		One, telling their story to a potential recruit is what sells it.
		Identifying with that individual and connecting with them on a very personal level and having them see their future in that is what we need.
		So focus on that process.
		For us, we had an incentivized structure which was not to get the max people in.
		It was to recruit a certain number of people per month.
		We've taken those limits off.
		Bring everybody in.
		Don't save up recruits for next month.
		Bring them all in as soon as you can, and that will either fill up our delayed entry program or get those sailors to boot camp as soon as possible.
		That's been our success.
roger wicker ▲ ● ▼		Okay, Mr. Chairman, I want people in the military who are assigned to our recruiting programs to say, thank gosh, I got this great position.
		career path looks bright because I've been put on a fast track by being a recruiter.
		That's my point.
dan sullivan ▲ ● ▼		Well, General Mahoney, you want to comment on that?
dan sullivan ▲ ● ▼		Because the Marine Corps has been doing that for decades.
gen christopher mahoney ▲ ● ▼		Yes, I would.
		Of the three things that I think are the pillars of our success in recruiting, the one main one is a professional recruiting force.
		These people are screened, slated, handpicked, incentivized while they're in the job.
		Typically will get meritorious promotions.
		And when they get out, what we find is when they return to the fleet, they are some of our strongest officers and staff NCOs.
		The Commandant was a recruiter.
dan sullivan ▲ ● ▼		Most Commandants.
gen christopher mahoney ▲ ● ▼		Most Commandants have been recruiters.
		Most of our general officers have been recruiters.
		Among our most successful staff NCOs, the Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps, was a recruiter.
		So as far as Senator Wicker seeing a path, that's baked in to how we make our recruiters and their breed apart.
roger wicker ▲ ● ▼		Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
dan sullivan ▲ ● ▼		Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
		And Admiral, just real quick, 80 percent, you hit that with Naval Aviation on maintenance, right?
		Or on readiness?
unidentified		We certainly hit it with fighters.
		I get a report every week on every type model series of aircraft in the United States Navy.
		We're not hitting it in CMV-22s.
		That's another story we got, but that's our goal is to get there.
		Across the board for every type model series, it requires a different level of attention and daily and vigil management by the Air Forces in the Navy to make that happen.
Better Shutdown Availabilities 00:15:23
unidentified		We want to apply that same level of focus to our surface ships and our submarines.
dan sullivan ▲ ● ▼		Great.
		Good.
		Senator Kane.
tim kaine ▲ ● ▼		Thank you, Mr. Chair.
		And like others, I'm just going to talk about the CR first.
		You know, I came on this committee in January of 2013, and every year you all and your predecessors sit before us and tell us that a CR is a bad thing, and we don't listen to you.
		You know, I mean, at some point, you've got to measure by the action, not by the words that we say.
		We've allowed a CR to be normal from October 1 to the end of the calendar year.
		That's just kind of the norm.
		But we've often gone beyond that into the next calendar year, and we stand on the threshold of the first time where we've just gone a CR for the entire year.
		And I agree with what the chairman said earlier, the chairman of the subcommittee, that a CR is better than a shutdown.
		I do agree with that, but why do we have to accept, you know, half-assed over catastrophic?
		I mean, the House voted on a CR yesterday, and they left town.
		They're out.
		They adjourned.
		This was not, and now we're going to hear what the Senate has to say and then try to do the right thing for the country.
		They're gone because they're like, okay, we can jam you to vote for a CR that is bad for the defense of this nation by skipping town on a Tuesday.
		I mean, this speaks very loudly about the priorities of this nation.
		And this is all done in public with our adversaries watching.
		Admiral Kilby, I think you testified in your opening testimony that under a CR, one-fifth of our ships will miss their maintenance schedule.
		Did I hear that right?
unidentified		11, specifically 11 ships, those maintenance availabilities are at risk.
tim kaine ▲ ● ▼		Okay, so we want to get to 80 percent ready on ships and subs.
tim kaine ▲ ● ▼		Where are we now?
unidentified		Depending on the day, around 67 percent.
tim kaine ▲ ● ▼		On both ships and subs, kind of right.
unidentified		Ships and submarines are a little less.
tim kaine ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
tim kaine ▲ ● ▼		What will one-fifth of our ships missing their maintenance schedule under the CR, what will that do to the quest to get to 80 percent readiness for ships and submarines?
unidentified		It will certainly be a setback.
		We'll take a penalty there.
		We'll have to bow wave that maintenance to the next year, depending on the availability and scheduling of that ship.
		Worse off, we skip that availability, which means it's doubled down for the next one, which means we'll have growth work and a lot of things we didn't anticipate.
tim kaine ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		So we're being told that this is the public, we're being told in public, this is the impact of voting yes on this CR that's coming to us.
		That we're just accepting that the quest to get to 80 percent is going to be set back because maintenance availabilities for one-fifth of the ships under a CR are not going to be according to protocol.
unidentified		The only and I don't want to say silver lining in that because I don't see a lot of silver lining.
unidentified		If we get a flexibility to move money, we may be able to address that, but it'll pack something else.
tim kaine ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, you'll pull it out of something else, of course.
		But, you know, we're told, well, that's better than a shutdown.
		Hey, it's Wednesday morning.
		I mean, on the Senate side, the appropriators basically had a deal at the end of last year.
		And that deal is still basically on the table.
		My hope is that there will at least be a vote in the Senate to do a short-term CR and then actually get an omnibus for the rest of the year.
		I mean, an omnibus is kind of a funny thing, a word to apply to a budget for less than half of the year, but it would be far preferable to a CR because you'd have new starts, you'd have other authorities within an omnibus that you're not going to get in a CR.
		And we ought to be able to do that.
		And the House decided on Tuesday night we're splitting so we can force the Senate to accept a substandard CR that will hurt the military.
		Great week.
		Man, great, great week of work to leave town on Tuesday night feeling good about yourself because you forced the Senate to try to accept a substandard work product year after year after year after year.
		General Mingus, I want to ask you one question about counter-UAS readiness because the Army is the DOD's executive agent.
		Talk to me about how you're ensuring coordination between the services and developing a joint counter small UAS doctrine and solutions to addressing the UAS threat.
unidentified		Thank you, sir.
		As the executive agent, you're well aware of the joint counter-UAS office or the JCO that is run by the, but it is a joint entity.
		And everybody that's sitting at this table, there's probably very few weeks that don't go by where we don't come together to talk about this problem set, whether it's in the venue of what Replicator 2.0 is going to bring across 100-plus sites across the country to now what is part of the going to be part of the Golden Dome.
		But this conversation on the counter-UAS side is absolutely a joint problem.
		Yes, we have an Army officer in charge of it, but he is in a joint billet, and he is speaking for and trying to solve this problem for the joint force.
		And I collectively think this team is trying to get after that.
tim kaine ▲ ● ▼		Give your effort a grade.
		That'll be my last question.
		Give the joint effort a grade right now.
unidentified		I would give it a grade in two ways.
unidentified		One, compared to where we were two years ago in the B to B plus category, compared to where we need to be, it's probably in the C. Given the rate of technology changes in this space and where our adversaries are going in this space, we cannot go fast enough when it comes to counter-UAS.
tim kaine ▲ ● ▼		Thank you very much.
tim kaine ▲ ● ▼		Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
dan sullivan ▲ ● ▼		Thank you, Senator Kane.
dan sullivan ▲ ● ▼		Senator Scott.
rick scott ▲ ● ▼		So my Democrat colleagues don't like CRs, but the prior majority leader, a Democrat, wouldn't even bring up a spending bill that we could have done last summer to make sure we didn't ever have to do a CR at all.
		After four years of the Biden administration and peace and our enemies and making our forces less lethal, I'm glad President Trump's back and restoring peace through strength.
		He's been clear that he takes the threat posed by Communist China seriously, ensuring the United States is posed to combat these threats.
		I look forward to hearing how you're doing with that.
		But my first question for General Mingus and Admiral Kilby: Since President Trump was elected, recruitment numbers are way up.
		So, is that a result of President Trump's election?
unidentified		I think it's a combination of things, sir.
		I think it's the efforts, as I talked about in my opening statement, that have been being put into place for the last 18 to 24 months.
		But we have seen a momentum over the last couple months that has been pretty remarkable.
		I agree with General Mingus.
		We really took a roundturn on this last year.
		We had 373 more sailors than we predicted to get it last year.
		So, we had an apparatus that was aligned to try to get after this.
		I'll take any win to get sailors in the Navy that want to serve our country.
		So, I don't know that I can map that to the election or not, but I'm going to ride that wave as long as I can.
rick scott ▲ ● ▼		So, my background before I got into politics was I ran businesses.
		And the expectation was you had to beat your competition by improving every day.
		You had to get your costs better, you had to get your quality better.
		Everything you did, you had to get better.
		So, General Mingus and Admiral Kilby, can you tell me in the last 12 months, what would you say for what you're responsible for?
		What would you say is the big improvements?
unidentified		Sir, I would say at our transformation and contact effort, where we've infused the latest and greatest technology when it comes to mobility, firepower, our network, our UAS counter-UAS efforts into multiple formations, infuse that technology at a rate faster than we typically would do, in quantities that is greater than we would typically do, because we want to learn from them bottom-up to refine the decisions that we're going to make programmatically down the road.
		So, that's going to expand into more formations as part of TIC Transformation and Contact 2.0 this year and next year.
		But that's been, over the last 12 months, what I would say has been our biggest win.
		Two things.
		One, coming from the same type of thinking we're trying to build in the Navy, a focused mindset, skill set, and tool set to get after that continuous improvement.
		There are some common themes here that we've applied across the board from aviation.
		So, the recruiting is an improvement.
		And I'd say on-time completion of ship availabilities, as well as some success in submarine availabilities.
		But we've got a long way to go there, sir, to apply that model consistently every single day.
rick scott ▲ ● ▼		Thanks.
		Admiral Kelby, we've seen the Pentagon failing to recruit, pass, and audit, or deliver ships, equipment, missiles, et cetera, on time and on budget.
		On top of that, while the Marine Corps and Air Force are 100% recapitalized on their C-130s, the Navy needs over 30 C-130s and has yet to program for this critical tactical airlift platform.
		Today, the Navy only has one on contract.
		So, can you explain why that is?
unidentified		Sir, we try to balance our program across the board, all aircraft, all ships, all submarines.
		I'll take that question for the record and come back to you with specifics about C-130.
		But again, it's building the most lethal program we can afford.
rick scott ▲ ● ▼		Chairman Honey, what would you say as far as if you take the last 12 months, how are you in a better position and individuals you're responsible for in a better position than you were a year ago?
gen christopher mahoney ▲ ● ▼		Senator, two things.
		First is the second clean audit opinion two years in a row, and I think we're in the midst of having a hat-trick.
		Why do I say that?
		One of the things, I call it the audit dividend.
		We know exactly what we own, exactly where it is, exactly who takes care of it, and what it is worth.
		In that audit, we can tell the condition of those pieces of equipment.
		So, we have an increased visibility into the operational readiness as a result of the audit.
		The second thing is our third Marine Littoral Regiment has just undergone a CERDX.
		They have been delivered their long-range precision fires, their air defense.
		So, the concept of force design has gone forward.
		I wish we could accelerate it and deepen the magazine, but we've seen that success on time.
		Now, we need to marry that capability up with organic littoral maneuver in the form of the light amphibious warship.
		But those are the two things: force design and audit.
rick scott ▲ ● ▼		Thank you, Chairman.
dan sullivan ▲ ● ▼		Thank you, Senator Scott.
tim sheehy ▲ ● ▼		Senator Sheehy General Mahoney, am I to understand the Marine Corps is the only branch to have passed an audit?
gen christopher mahoney ▲ ● ▼		That's correct, Senator.
tim sheehy ▲ ● ▼		I get really tired of it.
gen christopher mahoney ▲ ● ▼		The only DOD branches, sir.
tim sheehy ▲ ● ▼		I get really tired of Marines lecturing me how much better they are than I am.
tim sheehy ▲ ● ▼		My wife's a Marine, so I already get it every day.
dan sullivan ▲ ● ▼		So I'm glad your wife has wisdom.
tim sheehy ▲ ● ▼		Well, I was in the Navy, so I had to marry up, right?
		Counter-UAS, General Mingus, you brought it up.
		General Mingus was my boss actually back in the day when I went through Ranger School.
		Counter UAS, what branch, what functional branch of the Army do you guys place the counter-US responsibility in?
unidentified		We have six warfighting functions inside the Army.
		So Intel, Command and Control, Maneuver, Fires, Protection is where Counter-UAS sits right now.
		But as we think about the future in the Army, the land force, the vast majority of casualties that occur on a battlefield is direct fire.
		I think that future battlefield, the most casualties are going to occur from the air.
		And so the notion of the convergence of offensive and defensive fires, taking it out of that protection warfighting function and making it part of that scheme of fires and scheme of maneuver, I think is the way of the future.
		But today, to answer your question, it's in the protection function.
tim sheehy ▲ ● ▼		Admiral Kilby, where does the Navy view Counter UAS as a functional area?
unidentified		Because of our platform center, we keep them owned by the resource sponsors.
		So it's a division of labor between the N9, which owns all our warfighting platforms, and the N4, which owns our shore installations.
		So there's a mix between those two.
tim sheehy ▲ ● ▼		And General Mahoney, where is the Marine Corps place that?
gen christopher mahoney ▲ ● ▼		Our counter-small UAS, two parts.
		Operational units with two programs of record, Mattis and El Mattis, and our installations with installations counter-UAS.
		Just as a comment, as General Mingus brought up, we are part of Project Convergence, which has a counter-small UAS element to it in RD and experimentation.
		We're a big part of Replicator 2.0, which also invests in counter-small UAS, and we're invested in the program office as well.
tim sheehy ▲ ● ▼		And General Spain and Space Force Air Force, where do you guys place you at counter-UAS as a functional area?
unidentified		From a Space Force perspective, it's very limited.
		We have very limited involvement.
		Senator, we put it in the protection function as well.
		It's with our defenders.
		But as was mentioned by the other panelists, we're in the process of evolving that to the operational function.
		And so it's a blend of our both defender force and our operational force as we go forward.
tim sheehy ▲ ● ▼		Well, I ask that because I actually was one of the manufacturers of the Mattis program back in my former life for it came here, so spent a lot of time on the range with your air defense lab platoon marines working with that.
		And what I found as we worked with all the branches is each branch understandably had a very different view of where the COAS function fell and how they viewed it.
		You know, the Air Force was very much looking at it from a security forces perspective, fixed installation defense.
		The Navy, of course, was focused on it from a shipboard when the boxer had its incident with Iran in 2019.
		The Army, of course, had more of a EW.
		They really viewed it kind of as an electronic warfare issue.
		And what I found was, as each branch looked at it through their own lens, the Joint Capabilities Office really struggled to coalesce that into an acquisition vision that actually worked.
		And they ended up just buying any shiny object that was dangled in front of their face, and it led to kind of the schizophrenic approach to it.
		It's not a criticism, it's just the reality that as that technology was developing quickly, it was hard to meet all the needs.
		So I think trying to determine whether it's a specific MOS or actually assigning a functional area within the branch that says this is a fundamental change in battlefield tactic technology, as we see in Ukraine, I mean, every single day, whether it's FPVs or beyond line-of-sight drones, it's not transforming warfare, but it is functionally transforming how maneuver units will behave on the ground.
		And I think treating it as a sub-specialty that's branching off whatever convenient areas there, Vice focusing on what it really is a core capability, in my opinion, would help coalesce the operational vision for what counter-drone looks like.
Every Infantry Squad Needs SUAS 00:01:48
tim sheehy ▲ ● ▼		It would also help streamline the acquisition process so we can find that good technology quickly and field it quickly.
		But then also there's the offensive aspect where we think of all offensive drones as reapers and predators dropping hellfires and that we're defending against small drones, but we are not, as far as I can tell, adopting small UAS organic to our maneuver elements.
		Just like every infantry squad has an automatic weapon, every infantry squad should have an organic SUAS offensive capability, a backpack full of FPVs that they can fly at and into the enemy maneuver units and disrupt them, just like we're seeing all over the world in battlefields from Iranian proxy groups to the Russia-Ukraine war.
		For my old buddy, still in uniform, I do not hear that we have an organic offensive small UAS capability within our maneuver units, and I think that's going to be a great disservice to our young men and women when the next conflicts arises.
		So I yield back.
		Thank you.
dan sullivan ▲ ● ▼		Thank you, Senator Sheehy.
		I'm going to continue my line of questioning that I started with General Mahoney to you.
		Just again, on the we've already touched on it a lot, but it's okay to hear from all the services.
		The negative impact on the CR, the budget flexibility that you would want or requests as part of this year's NDAA, and then any lessons learned on the good news that we're all starting to see, I think, across the services on recruiting and to kind of, you know, make sure we're learning across services on that, because I don't think you got enough press,
Anomalies and Flexibility 00:13:31
dan sullivan ▲ ● ▼		but if you have an all-volunteer force and we were hitting a recruiting crisis of tens of thousands of Americans who we were short, that's an existential threat to our military.
dan sullivan ▲ ● ▼		Fortunately, it looks like we're beyond that, but we need to embed the lessons learned from all the services on how we got out of that danger zone.
gen christopher mahoney ▲ ● ▼		So, General, to you on those three questions, Senator, as far as the CR, we've canvassed pretty much all the negative things.
		I'd just like to hammer down on one.
		We talked about anomalies and flexibility in order to move between appropriations or accounts.
		We also need to be mindful of what the top line is.
		If there is only so much top line from which to flex or with to move, we're going to rob from one account to pay for another.
		Examples might be inflation that outpaces the plus-up, pay raises that were not planned for or budgeted, but are must-pay bills.
		That money will come from somewhere.
		And non-budgeted contingencies that we pay out of our own primarily OM accounts will have to be accounted for somewhere in the rules of that continuing resolution.
		A knock-on effect specific to the Marine Corps is if, and it's already been touched on by Admiral Kilby, if ship maintenance or shipbuilding or procurement or anything that touches amphibious shipping, it will have a knock-on effect to the Marine Corps, as I spoke about with Senator Hirono earlier.
		As far as flexibility goes, I would reference the Lord Hale study on PPBE reform, and I'll just bring up three things that come to mind immediately.
		I think they have 16 recommendations in there, which are all really good.
		Multi-year availability of one-year accounts so that you are not forced into making bad decisions at the end of the year and buying things that you really don't need, but have a period of availability to where you can make better executive and managerial decisions against that appropriation.
		Greater transfer authority so that we can move between appropriations or move between sub-activity groups in order to solve a problem early so that we don't have to come to Congress for an above-threshold massive reprogramming late in the year that may be late to need or not solve the problem.
		And lastly, and I'll let it go, is multi-year colorless appropriations to have flexibility within a portfolio to strengthen where you're weak and move money around to make sure that you can get your objectives attained within an account.
		So, multi-year availability, greater transfer authority, and multi-year colorless appropriation.
		And we did the last one, and if you think of MRAP and you think of JAEDO back in the day, that worked pretty well to get things done at an accelerated pace.
		I'm running on here, but recruiting.
		For us, three things.
		We have a brand that we will not back off from.
		We believe that that brand is attractive.
		We believe it is a magnet to a wide demographic of young Americans who will prove themselves physically, mentally, and morally qualified.
		We will not back off of the standard.
		And counterintuitively, you maintain a standard at a high level.
		That attracts people who want to perform to that standard.
dan sullivan ▲ ● ▼		That's a great lesson, and I think we have to always keep that in mind.
		All the services, no matter what our recruiting challenges are, it is counterintuitive, but it works.
		So, thank you for that.
gen christopher mahoney ▲ ● ▼		And lastly, Senator, I already talked about it in detail, and that is our recruiting force, a breed apart, who are hand-screened, selected, incentivized, promoted.
gen christopher mahoney ▲ ● ▼		And as I said, when they get back in the fleet, as you know, they are some of the best staff NCOs and officers we have, and they become Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps and Commandant of the Marine Corps.
dan sullivan ▲ ● ▼		Real quick, General Gutline, can you just hit on these three questions?
		Try to be concise.
		I'm going over my time here.
		I want to be respectful to my colleagues, but I do want to get through this issue of CR, budget flexibilities, and recruiting.
unidentified		Yes, Chairman, I can go pretty quick.
		From a CR, it is very, it's a huge challenge.
		It's very, very inefficient.
		It does impact us, especially because we are the smallest force with the smallest budget.
		So, any churn in our budget is a huge hit to us.
		As far as what we would ask for flexibilities, I agree with the rest of the staff, Newstarts.
		We are seeing an enormous amount of threats emerging every single year, and it is very hard to get after those threats when you have to wait two to four years to get the budget to get after those threats.
		So, anything you can do, budget flexibility for Newstart authority.
		PE consolidation, the ability to move money between programs would be hugely beneficial.
		And then the multi-year procurement, multi-year execution authority that General Mahoney talked about.
		As far as recruiting and retention, we've actually got a much easier problem because we have a much smaller force, but we are seeing two recruits, two volunteers for every recruit that we take into the United States Space Force.
		So we're able to be very, very, very selective for high quality.
		15%, almost nearly 15% of our recruits have some college level of education to include all the way up to masters and PhDs.
		We are recruiting objectives were met the last four years in a row, 104% for our enlisted, 101% for our officers.
		And we're looking at continuing growth in the future, and our retention rate has been in excess of 98%.
dan sullivan ▲ ● ▼		Wow.
unidentified		Great.
dan sullivan ▲ ● ▼		That's great news.
		Great job, General.
		Senator Schmidt.
eric schmitt ▲ ● ▼		Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
		Admiral Kilby, I want to direct this.
		I have a question to you.
		I feel like the fever has broke finally on this obsession that the previous administration had with DEI.
		That's a good thing.
		The previous administration also treated climate change as a national security priority.
		I actually had one of the more ridiculous exchanges in my first couple years here with Secretary Del Toro, who told me Admiral Nimitz would have cared about climate change too.
		This is sort of like the Twilight Zone.
		But we have issues, right, in shipbuilding.
		Now that we're focused, refocused on warfighting capability, what should Congress do to prioritize modernizing the fleet as opposed to this political stuff?
unidentified		Two things, sir, super important for us is to keep our maintenance going.
		Got to get our ships available.
		I'm not going to build a whole mess of new ships in two years.
		So I've got to get the ships I have up to speed and available.
		The other thing we can do is continue to invest in munitions.
		I think the lead time for them is shorter than a ship, so we must renew our magazines so we're ready to fight if called.
eric schmitt ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		And then for sticking with you, Admiral Kilby, and then also for General Spain, if we had to fight a peer war in the next two years, what would be our greatest capability gap?
		And what should Congress do to address that?
unidentified		I'll start first.
		Again, munitions, long-range munitions, preferred munitions are an area where we need to increase our productivity as a nation.
		And then from just a general sense, our capabilities are pretty good with the exception of that munitions quantity, but our capacity is a problem.
		So getting those ships and funding available out on time will result in a greater capability overall.
		Senator, thanks for the question.
		To your point, in the next two years, the greatest challenge for us is going to be regaining the sustainment edge in our current fleet.
		The lead time required for parts and supply within that timeframe would require an infusion to help us with our aircraft availability, our mission capable rates, and training our flying force to be ready within that window.
		In addition, some flexibility on new opportunities with technology in terms of asymmetric capabilities that would enable us to actually inculcate our force design, which calls for both high-end exquisite capability paired with low-end, low-cost per effect, massive capability that can augment the air component commanders who are in the field.
eric schmitt ▲ ● ▼		Sounds like NGAD.
unidentified		NGAD would be an example of the Exquisite, yes, sir.
eric schmitt ▲ ● ▼		General, I guess with the time that I have remaining, General Mingus and Mahoney just wanted to ask if sort of the similar theme of flexibility, if you had unrestricted funding for readiness, how should that be spent first and in order to get that high-end capability?
		What would we be doing?
		Like if we're in an era of scarcity, right, that we have to accept at some level, what is the level of priority?
		Or what are the priorities?
unidentified		For us, I would say, well, the second one would be just what Admiral Kilby talked about, our magazine depth, precision-gadded munitions, long-range precision fires, and the ability to scale rapidly at time of crisis and conflict.
		So it's one thing to bring production rates up, but it's another to have the ability to rapidly scale at time of crisis and conflict.
		And the other would be support.
eric schmitt ▲ ● ▼		How would you rate where we're at right now on that front?
		Because I've heard that I agree with that.
		Where do you think we're at with that?
unidentified		Well, just using 155 as an example, before the Russia-Ukraine conflict, we were producing at 14,000 rounds a month.
		We are now at, we had a higher watermark in November of 42,000, ramping to 70 by this summer and 100K a month by this fall.
		So that's a two-year journey.
		We've got to be able to do that in months, not years.
		And it's about automation or robotics.
		People are hard to bring in, let go, bring in, let go.
		And so the key to all this is automating those both organic and defense industrial systems and bases to be able to do that.
		And then the second place that I would put that money is in our transformation efforts that I described earlier, our TIC 1.0 and 2.0.
		The end result of that infuse of technology into those formations is they're more lethal, they're more agile, they're lighter, they can get to places much faster, and they are just better formations that are designed purpose-built for the next fight, not the last fight.
gen christopher mahoney ▲ ● ▼		Senator, if I had a three-part wish list, the first one would be to accelerate our force design to ensure victory and more killing power in the contact layer.
		I agree completely with depth of magazine across people, parts, programs.
		There's several things that we don't have enough of that we need to build more and deepen that.
		If anything, what Ukraine, what the Levant, what the Houthis show us is that the short, sharp illusion is just that, a short, sharp illusion.
		We need to shoot.
		We need to be able to take a hit.
		We need to reset and get back in the fight.
		Secondly, our force-gen platforms are, and specifically our barracks for our Marines.
		If we're going to count on them to generate a lethal force, we've got to provide them the quality of life and the living conditions that they rate.
		And thirdly, and we've already talked about it extensively, is the ability for us to move, maneuver, and sustain on 73 percent of the Earth's surface.
		That's amphibious shipping and project power from sovereign American soil when we do that, as well as organic littoral maneuver in order to move shore to shore and in order to maneuver to a position of advantage in order to sustain in the contact layer.
unidentified		Thank you.
dan sullivan ▲ ● ▼		Thank you, Mr. Thank you, Senator Schmidt.
unidentified		Senator Hirono.
mazie hirono ▲ ● ▼		Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
		I would say that as our services, with the exception of Space Force, are facing recruiting challenges, why should we discourage or why would we be discouraging women and minorities from enlisting with all this anti-DEI stuff?
		Admiral Kilby, the Navy's Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Program, or SIOP, projects were unfortunately not included in Secretary Hags' list of protected and prioritized programs following his directive to implement an 8 percent budget cut across the board at the Pentagon.
		You testified today on the importance of SIOP.
		And of course, clearly we need to do a better job of repairing and maintaining our ships.
		So with the flexibility that you are requesting in the CR, even if SIOP is not on Secretary Hicks' list of priorities, are you planning to prioritize critical SIOP projects across the fleet, including, for example, completion of the dry dock and planning and design for a waterfront production facility at Pearl Harbor?
Hiring Freeze Hits Forces Design 00:15:39
mazie hirono ▲ ● ▼		Indeed, we need to get on with continuing to modernize our four public shipyards so that you will have available ships to do what you need to do.
mazie hirono ▲ ● ▼		So would you use the flexibility that you request in the CR to prioritize SCIOP?
unidentified		We want to continue on our SIOP program, ma'am.
		I've talked about the 40 projects we've done, the additional $6.3 billion that are in the budget that we want to continue on, and the remaining projects we need to execute.
		So we're committed to SCIOP.
mazie hirono ▲ ● ▼		Good.
		I'm looking to you for that because what is the point in enabling us to build more ships if we can maintain the fleet that we currently have?
		A skilled workforce is foundational to military readiness.
		However, this administration has implemented a DOD hiring freeze and is planning to fire up to 60,000 DOD employees.
		DOD is eliminating people across the spectrum from firing general and flag officers without cause to removing new and motivated employees.
		These would be the employees who had just gotten hired and are being trained.
		And you would think that we would want to keep those folks, but the people in probationary status are among the first to go.
		As happened across the administration, for example, the VA, which is already strapped with the need to hire people, they just eliminated some 2,400 employees and about to eliminate 83,000 employees going forward.
		So, gentlemen, Ms. Moore, how are these personnel actions impacting the hiring, training, and retaining of a skilled national security workforce?
		Briefly.
		You can say it's not helping.
gen christopher mahoney ▲ ● ▼		I'll start.
		Specific to the Marine Corps, we started our leaning-out process six budget cycles ago in accordance with force design and talent management.
		So we're at the start game of this exercise for us.
		We're pretty lean.
		So any cut is going to have some impacts.
		However, of the 2,300 employees that we've identified, we've got protection, either exemption or exclusion down to a number south of 75.
		Not without impact, but manageable from the Marine Corps standpoint.
		What I'm also concerned about is the exclusions or exemptions for a hiring freeze.
		We lose about 7 to 10 percent of our civilian workforce just through natural attrition each year, so we have to figure out a way to replenish that or the number will just keep going down.
mazie hirono ▲ ● ▼		Well, hundreds of thousands of federal employees are being fired.
		These firings are not based on any kind of a job performance evaluation.
		So it's going to happen to the DOD, I would say.
		So anybody else wants to?
unidentified		I'll just connect to our last exchange.
		Ranking Member, the shipyards are exempt from the probationary employees and they're exempt from the hiring freeze.
		So, we are trying to shape this in a manner that allows us to continue the most important work as we work through guidance from the administration.
		Also, exempted from the hiring freeze is the Military Sealift Command, an important force for us to maintain our fleet.
		So, I think those are efforts on the services part to manage.
mazie hirono ▲ ● ▼		Basically, all three of you are needing to identify some very critical people that you want to make sure that these fire wings do not hit.
unidentified		Is that what you're doing?
unidentified		Yes, Senator.
mazie hirono ▲ ● ▼		Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
dan sullivan ▲ ● ▼		Thank you, Senator Hirono.
		I'm going to finish this line of questioning with you, General Spain, on the CR budget flexibilities and specific, if you can get there, and then Air Force recruiting and lessons learned.
		And then, Ms. Maurer, I'd like you to answer the same question as well.
unidentified		Mr. Chairman, thanks for the question.
		We talked a little bit in the opening statement about the bad, but echo the comments from across the table on top-line restrictions.
		Flexibility, in my mind, really comes down to treating our readiness accounts and quality of life accounts in terms of MILCON and FSRM with the same flexibility as operations.
		The readiness impacts within those accounts have the same deleterious effect across the force as stopping current operations.
		And so, by allowing flexibility across the pillars of those readiness accounts, that's manpower, infrastructure, flying and training, and parts and supply, we can mitigate some of that risk that comes along with the CR.
		From a recruiting standpoint, the Air Force is above Glideslope on our recruiting goals for the year.
		We increased the number by 20 percent, and in fact, we're still above the 20 percent increase.
		We have the largest delayed entry pool that we've had in 10 years and the most recruiting that we've done at this point in the year in the last 15 years.
		So, we're in a good position.
dan sullivan ▲ ● ▼		Are there lessons learned from what you did to get over that, huh?
unidentified		Yes, sir.
		So, we have increased the number of recruiters, we've increased the training, which reflects some of the things that were said before.
		I don't know if I was a recruiter when I first started out in the Air Force waiting to go to pilot training.
		It's a tough job, and you need the right people doing that work.
		We're bringing the right people in and we're training them even better than we had before.
dan sullivan ▲ ● ▼		Great.
		Ms. Mauer, do you have any views on the in general, the line of questioning that I've been going through on CR?
		But in particular, we've heard the challenges of that.
		But in particular, what I want to hear from you is your sense on flexibilities.
		That I know that we could provide more in the budget to give our services the ability to address some of the challenges that you put in your report, but also give them flexibility that if we have to, you know, and certainly I wouldn't advocate for it, but another CR, another kind of budgetary constraint issue, that they have more flexibility to address them.
		And then, also, if GAOs looked at lessons learned from the recruiting kind of challenge that we had over the last three or four years and how that's come about, what are those?
unidentified		Sure.
		Thank you for the question, Mr. Chairman.
		On the issue of CR, you know, talking about a full-year CR makes me think back to work that we did over a decade ago looking at the impacts on sequestration.
		Obviously, it's a little bit apples to oranges, but we issued a report 2015-ish that looked at how sequestration impacted DOD.
		And at that time, we had a recommendation that DOD collect the lessons learned from sequestration and stockpile them in case they needed those lessons later on down the road.
		2017, we reached out to the comptroller shop.
		They said they had taken action to implement that recommendation.
		So that's sort of a takeaway item for the department is to look back at what DOD did back in 2017 in terms of lessons learned on sequestration and see what any of those lessons can be applied to today.
		In terms of flexibilities, we've heard a lot in my teams, I've heard a lot about the types of flexibilities that the generals and the admiral talked about today.
		Obviously, GEO tries to stay a little bit agnostic in terms of specific flexibilities, but what I will say is that whatever flexibilities are offered should be directed towards ensuring the ability of the services to meet the readiness challenges that they face.
		I talked about earlier in my opening statement, there is a significant imbalance between resources and mission.
		And so anything that can be done to help bring that into better balance would be very helpful.
		In terms of recruiting, we are very encouraged to see that the recruiting numbers have come up.
		We have issued a whole series of reports in areas where the services have critical shortfalls in the number of people they need.
		So, for example, at the Navy, for every six sailors that they need for the fleet, they only have five assigned.
		We found deficiencies in the number of air defenders.
		The Space Force has a really good force generation model, but they don't have enough guardians to actually carry that out, much less on the civilian and the contractor side.
		So that the improvements and the change in the trend line in recruiting can be helpful in that regard.
		In some of our work on recruiting, we think it's important for the different programs, the different services to get an understanding of what is working, what isn't working, and then double down on the things that are working and then share those lessons with each other.
		That way you'll get a better outcome.
mazie hirono ▲ ● ▼		No, I'm going to submit questions.
dan sullivan ▲ ● ▼		Okay, great.
		Thank you on that.
		And I still have a number of questions.
		Senator Aharn, do you want to do another round or you want to submit questions about that?
		I'm going to stay for a while since I have all these very important members of our military, I think.
mazie hirono ▲ ● ▼		I will be submitting questions for the record.
mazie hirono ▲ ● ▼		Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
dan sullivan ▲ ● ▼		Well, let me continue with some additional questions.
		General Mingus, one of the things that I want to try to nail down is my understanding is the top line number for the end strength of the Army was reduced because of the recruiting challenges.
		We almost had to do it in a forced way.
		Now that we've met these numbers again and you have almost a surplus, will you be requesting from us?
		And do you have the flexibility to increase your top line to a certain number?
		What's your flexibility on that?
		Because I'd like to see it.
		If you need more funding to get to that higher top line, I think we'd all be certainly willing to provide it.
		But what kind of authorities do you need to get back to a higher end strength when the reduction in your end strength was actually a resultant function of the recruiting challenges?
		Now that you're going in the positive direction, we want to take advantage of that to increase your end strength.
		What do you need?
		Money, authorities, both?
unidentified		Thank you, Chairman.
		Money, yes, in the Milpur's account, because what we asked for in this year's budget was in appropriations for an end strength of $442,000.
		What I believe will happen if the trajectories remain consistent with where they're at today, we're going to end this year somewhere between $449,000 and $452,000.
		So almost $10,000 over what we believe will be appropriated from a military pay and allowance account standpoint.
		So there will be a deficit there that we will have to come back and ask for help.
dan sullivan ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
unidentified		On the authorities.
dan sullivan ▲ ● ▼		I would strongly encourage you to do that.
		Nobody wants a smaller army, and the fact that you had to shrink due to recruiting challenges, nobody wanted that.
		And now that you're fixing it, we need to reward you, in my view, to get back to a higher end strength.
unidentified		Yes, sir.
		And for authorities, the Secretary of the Army, all the service secretaries, can authorize a 2 percent deviation from what the NDA so that would put you at about 451.
		So we think unless it goes above that, we will be okay on authorities.
		Okay.
dan sullivan ▲ ● ▼		Great.
		General Mahoney, I want to go to a topic you and I and the Commandant have discussed a lot.
		That's where we are in force design.
		And, you know, very innovative Marine Corps initiative started with General Berger, but not without criticism.
		And anytime you innovate, you're going to get criticized.
		There's no doubt about that.
		I think the Marine Corps has gotten ahead of the curve on a lot of issues relating to drones and loitering munitions and light, flexible forces that can move with weapon systems that can take out Chinese shipping.
		All very innovative.
		However, one of the criticisms was that the divest to invest strategy divested too much combat power.
		And the Marine Corps' primary mission of a 911 force with amphibs to go anywhere in the world at a moment's notice to kick in the door with sufficient combat power was reduced.
		And a lot of criticisms came from, you know, within the family, retired four-stars, and retired commandants, and retired very well-respected Marines.
		So that's a difficult balance.
		I remember a hearing that we had a couple years ago on force design where I asked one of the top Marine Corps officers: hey, look, you do an amphibious invasion and then you get three miles in wherever you are and you have to cross a river.
		Wait a minute, the Marine Corps got rid of all its bridging equipment.
		How are we going to cross a river?
		The answer, I think, if I remember, was we're going to call on the Army.
		Now, I love the Army, but in the Marine Corps' tradition, calling on the Army was not something that we typically have done.
		So, where are we on the balance?
		Where are we on things like bridging and route clearing?
		Where are we on things like artillery, infantry, which we cut, the Marine Corps cut a lot?
		And do you still think this criticism, which came from some very, very well-respected Marines, is legit?
		Are we recalibrating a little bit in terms of we want an innovative Marine Corps, but we do not want to get rid of our 911 capability, kick in the door anywhere in the world, and bring significant combat power to bear anywhere.
		And what's the balance and how are we doing on all those things, General?
gen christopher mahoney ▲ ● ▼		Yes, Senator, we've talked extensively about this.
		And if you remember where the force design journey started, and that was with the statement that we are not manned, trained, or equipped for the future fight.
		That's something tough for a Marine to swallow.
		That's what generated the shift in some of the design elements of our force.
		We believe that we're on the right course based on operations extant today, based on experimentation that we've done, based on what the COCOMs demand.
		That having said, our Commandant is very his top priority, in fact, is to balance that modernization if we put that in the modernization bin, although force design is modernization, talent management, training, education, and logistics.
Arctic Tankers and Military Tasks 00:15:06
gen christopher mahoney ▲ ● ▼		We'll put it in the modernization bin with the ability to respond to crises.
		We've talked about the dearth of amphib shipping.
		That's significant.
		I believe it's strategic to the nation.
		As far as organic combat power goes, we divested of heavy armor.
		We do not believe in the situations that we were faced that we need organic heavy armor for maneuver or maneuver support.
		We believe we have enough artillery, both rocket artillery and cannon artillery, for the problems that we will face.
		We believe that we have enough engineering and engineering support.
		You brought up bridging.
		What we have found at gap negotiation, gap crossing is a shortfall, and we have divested of bridging equipment, frankly, that was too heavy and logistically unsupportable.
dan sullivan ▲ ● ▼		So, can Marines cross the river if they do an amphibious invasion and find themselves three miles inland and have to cross a river?
gen christopher mahoney ▲ ● ▼		So, there are other ways to negotiate a gap, Senator.
		You know that.
		But as far as bridging goes, we are looking at more expeditionary solutions.
		And this circles back to your point of recalibration.
		One of the things about force design, I'll try and keep this short, was that it immediately admitted to being wrong.
		We were to challenge all the assumptions along the way.
		If we found an assumption wanting or invalid, then we had to adjust to satisfy and verify that assumption.
		We have looked very closely through what we call the campaign of learning at those assumptions.
		We have adjusted the size of a battalion.
		We have adjusted some of the aviation capabilities we have.
		We have adjusted some of the weapons that we have either bought or not bought.
		And to your point, we're looking hard at expeditionary solutions to bridging.
		As far as joint support, frankly, I'm less concerned about the Army providing an M1A2 force as I am about us as a joint force being able to project, set a theater, and sustain a theater from a joint perspective.
		Great.
dan sullivan ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
dan sullivan ▲ ● ▼		Senator Hirono.
mazie hirono ▲ ● ▼		Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
		In 2019, the Secretary of Defense discontinued certain tasks at the border after determining that service members were not performing military functions and the continued support would negatively affect military readiness and morale.
		I think that is an important aspect of what is happening, the impact on morale.
		General Mingus and General Mahoney, how is this deployment, the current deployment, any different from 2019 when DHS was asking your units to perform the same non-DOD tasks?
unidentified		Thank you, ma'am.
		We've been asked to defend and secure the border, and we're going to do that.
		That's a priority for this administration.
		We're going to execute that mission as we have been asked to do.
		Over time, as we build, anytime you're asked to defend, it has three critical components: a physical, a technical, and a human.
		And as those physical and technical things come online, as our secretary testified, the human resources associated with this mission set will come down.
		But to answer your specific question, that the lessons we learned from 2019 is the troop to task, as we like to use, was a one-for-one.
		Detection and monitoring, POE support, admin support, data entry, et cetera.
		And so there was no time to come offline to continue to train and do their mission.
mazie hirono ▲ ● ▼		So it doesn't sound much different from what was going on.
unidentified		This time we're going to make sure that the troop to task allows for rotations so that the degradation in readiness is not as substantial as what we saw in 2019.
mazie hirono ▲ ● ▼		That remains to be seen.
mazie hirono ▲ ● ▼		And Senator?
gen christopher mahoney ▲ ● ▼		Senator, similar but not the same.
		We've been on the border, as it's been stated, for a while.
		The mission has changed with this recent evolution where we're primarily executing engineering tasks and engineering support tasks, think barrier and placement, but we're also executing intelligence tasks.
		And in both of those, there is training value, especially for the intelligence analysts to collect and analyze what is a very complex situation.
		But as General Mingus brought up, anytime you have 10 essential tasks and you're only training to one or two of them, you have to figure out a way to either accept risk in the tasks that you're not training to or to figure out a training plan.
		And maybe unlike the Army, even before we had a rotational basis where we could plus up the skills in the tasks that weren't being performed, and we'll manage the same way.
mazie hirono ▲ ● ▼		There's actually, from what you're testifying, you are needing to find some tasks that our military people are doing on the border that somehow has more relevance to what they should be doing in the military and that perhaps if you had your drothers, your people would not be in the border at all, especially as border crossings are at an all-time low.
		During the NORTHCOM posture hearing, General Gillow said that units deployed to the southwest border get only one dedicated training days per week.
		General Mingus and General Mahoney and Ms. Moore, is one day a week normal for military training?
unidentified		Depending on which cycle you're in, ma'am, it could be normal, but I'll go back to where I talked about before is it's the ability to cycle people in and out of their tasks associated with the border mission versus going back and the ability to train on their mission essential tasks.
		The other thing I would offer, and this is to kind of expand on General Mahoney, is that at the highest level of our doctrine, the Joint Force has to be able to execute offense, defense, and stability operations simultaneously.
		This is a defensive operation, and so there is training value associated with that.
		Is it going to be the same as if they went to the National Training Center?
		Absolutely not.
		But there's still value to be had if the leadership takes the right approach to it.
gen christopher mahoney ▲ ● ▼		And Senator, I'm not familiar with exactly what NORTHCOM said, but I would maintain that our engineers and our intel analysts have had far more than one day of training to train for this mission.
gen christopher mahoney ▲ ● ▼		For obstacle in placement, for intelligence analysts, they undergo a whole battery of training to prepare them for just this support.
mazie hirono ▲ ● ▼		So you're saying that our troops on the border are actually getting equivalent, something that is equivalent to more than one day a week in training.
		So you know what?
		I mean, I would like, I think that you're doing your best to be very forthcoming in your assessment of your troops being deployed to the border.
		Clearly, you can do all you're doing your best to enable these people to be getting some sort of equivalent training.
		But it is hard to, frankly, it kind of stretches the imagination to think that that is happening and that they are not losing the kind of training and opportunities to train that would be the case if they were not.
unidentified		Senator Floyd.
		From a GAO perspective, I'll just say real briefly that I think back to one of my previous jobs at GAO was at GEO's Homeland Security Justice team.
		And we obviously, that team continues to do oversight of DHS.
		And I think about all the capabilities that currently exist within CBP and ICE and other federal law enforcement agencies on the border.
		I think from an oversight perspective, it would be interesting to pursue what those agencies are doing and at what point are their capabilities insufficient to meet the mission needs on the southwest border.
		Now, we're not looking specifically at that topic right now, but I think that's something to valuable to think about.
		From a readiness perspective, one of the trends we've seen over the years is there can sometimes be a tendency to look to DOD to perform functions that can also be performed by the domestic and civilian agencies.
		In many cases, that's definitely warranted, but DOD comes in with a heavier footprint.
		It costs bigger dollars, and it does have a readiness and a mission and a resource trade-off for the department as well.
mazie hirono ▲ ● ▼		Of course, a flight using military aircraft to take only about 100 people to another country costs over $2 million.
		That is not a very efficient use of military resources.
		You raise a good point, Ms. Maurer.
		And, you know, up to date, we have not received information from either the Homeland Security or the DOD as to the need asserted for the troops to go to the border.
		We await that kind of information, but until then, highly questionable.
		Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
dan sullivan ▲ ● ▼		Thank you, Senator Herono.
		I'm going to wrap up here with just a few more questions.
		Again, thanks for the patience.
		This has been a really good, enlightening hearing, and I appreciate all the witnesses' testimony and frank discussion of our readiness challenges.
		General Spain, I'm going to turn to you a little bit on contested logistics.
		Ms. Maurer talked about it.
		We all deal with it, all the services, but the Air Force, I think in particular with its tanker fleet, is particularly challenged because tankers are so important.
		The previous Secretary of the Air Force committed after the Chief of Staff of the Air Force and many others over the last several years, we're going to be moving more KC-135s to ILSON.
		But what is the sense of your tanker fleet writ large, and how can we be addressing that?
		And can you commit to me to keeping that timeline and getting those four tankers?
		I think one has already been moved to ILSON, but we need three more with over 100 fifth-gen fighters in Alaska.
		As you know, our Air Force is doing a fantastic job, real-world missions, very regularly intercepting Russian bear bombers and our aid is, Chinese and Russian strategic bombers in our aid is.
		Our military, our Air Force has done a great job up there.
		But as you know, those intercept missions are not easy, and we need tankers.
		But we need tankers throughout the world.
		So what's the situation there?
unidentified		Thanks, Senator.
		I appreciate the question.
		As you are fully aware, we're committed to the KC-46 program, 89 aircraft on the ramp today, and recent deployments have been wildly successful in their ability to offload gas to a multitude of receivers, both in theater and around the world.
		For the KC-135, obviously, we did some re-engining and service life extension in the 80s and the 90s that will keep the platform flying for decades to come.
		But we are also fully committed to tanker recapitalization post-the KC-46 program.
		Right now, we're on track to continue to procure 15 KC-46s a year, and we're continuing to move the tanker recap acquisition strategy forward, and we'll continue to do so.
		And to your point, we are continuing to move down the path to bringing the remaining three KC-135s to Ilson for the reasons that you mentioned.
		We have some work to do with the department on some notifications, but beyond that, we'll be able to move relatively great.
dan sullivan ▲ ● ▼		Keep me posted on that.
		That's very important.
		General Mingus, we talked about the 11th Airborne Division, Arctic Angels.
		I'd like you just to get an update from your perspective on how that unit's doing.
		I try to touch base with them a lot.
		From what I can tell, they seem to be very motivated.
		And now that that's a warfighting headquarters, any other additional personnel that we talked about coming to that unit in Alaska.
		And then, any other thoughts about additional multi-domain task force that you're looking at placing?
		I know that you were looking at Alaska for a multi-domain task force at one point, but just to update on really the operations and morale of the 11th Airborne Division, who do a great job in my state.
unidentified		Yeah, thanks, Chairman.
		I know you're proud of them, and we are as well.
		Their trajectory still continues to move in a very positive direction, both on the suicide front, also on the people side that you and I talked yesterday, but also on the operational side.
		Multiple warfighter exercises.
		They just demonstrated their ability to self-deploy in-flight rig all the way from Alaska to Hawaii, jump in, and participate in a high-scale warfighter exercise on island just a couple months ago.
		So, from an operational perspective, they continue to improve and get better every day.
		The other fundamental change that we made in Alaska was converting the brigade in Alaska from a striker to an infantry brigade combat team.
		So, that climate culture and the identity associated with being light fighters, Arctic light fighters, they absolutely have embraced that.
		It's turned the corner in that organization, and they are off on a great start.
		So, very, very proud of where they're headed.
		On the multi-domain task forces, we did consider, but in the end, sir, we did not make a selection to go to Alaska for the fifth multi-domain.
dan sullivan ▲ ● ▼		Where is the fifth multi-domain task force going to be homeported?
unidentified		Fort Lewis, Fort Carson, Hawaii, Fort Bragg, and Europe.
dan sullivan ▲ ● ▼		Okay, great.
		Thank you.
		Admiral, you and I had a good discussion on ADAC the other day.
		If you look at a map, it's an incredibly strategic base.
		It's the gateway to the Arctic.
		It's much further west than Hawaii.
		It's kind of a dagger in the flank of China.
		Can you give me your sense on the strategic value of ADAC and any updates since you and I talked about that?
unidentified		Well, just for the record, sir, we went to look at ADAC from kind of a small, medium, and large warm basing perspective on what we could do in the future.
unidentified		With your support, and we're going to send up a team to engage with the Aluk Corporation and the Department of Transportation from Alaska to really understand that to a greater level.
Admiral's Commitment to Amphibs 00:14:47
unidentified		We sent 14 ships to Dutch Harbor last year, two from the FDNF, 12 from San Diego.
		So there's a need.
		I happened to speak to Admiral Paparo last night on a number of issues.
		This came up.
		We talked about the increased activity by China and Russia in that area.
		So to me, that lends itself to address those types of activities.
		So we're not having to sail so far to get there.
dan sullivan ▲ ● ▼		Well, I appreciate that.
		And again, it's not just aircraft, strategic bombers, and our AIDAs that our great Air Force is doing such a good job at addressing.
		It's, to your point, it's Chinese and Russian joint naval task forces in our EEZ up in Alaska.
		This is happening on a regular basis.
		The rest of the country doesn't really notice, but we notice in Alaska.
		We're on the front lines, and we appreciate the great work our service members are doing there.
		And so I want to thank you on that.
		Look forward to working with you on that.
		Can we get to a point?
		I know it was already discussed in depth, but on the amphibs between the Navy and the Marine Corps, you know, General Mahoney, we talked about the Marines' kind of 911 kick-in-the-door capability, but essentially that goes away if you don't have a MUAG that you can rely on.
		So, Admiral, can you commit to us to work with us and the Marine Corps on prioritizing amphibs?
		You know, I'm just being frank here.
		You don't get the sense that if it was a Ford-class carrier or something like that, that the maintenance numbers that GAO has reported would be so challenged.
		Right now, the recent GAO report stated roughly 50% of the amphib fleet was in poor condition, poor material condition, including five out of the nine LHA LHD carriers, and 90% of the LSDs.
		Those are numbers that are shocking and they really undermine the Marine Corps' ability to do its job.
		And it's a team, one team, one fight, Navy, Marine Corps, but that's a real detriment.
unidentified		Yes, sir.
		Thanks for that question.
		I'm not satisfied with amphibious maintenance or readiness.
		We are committed to the 80% combat surge ready.
dan sullivan ▲ ● ▼		So that's going to be all surface warships.
dan sullivan ▲ ● ▼		Well, 80% idea.
unidentified		Yes, sir.
		But as a subset, I've asked Admiral McLean, who is the SWO boss, to really do a deep dive on amphibious ships in particular.
		And there's some things I discussed that we can do better there.
		But you have my commitment to meet that goal, to exceed that goal, and to ensure that we have a three-ship ARG ready for the Marine Corps when they embark.
		As a result of the Boxer and WASP challenges, LHDs, that you mentioned, I directed a study last April, and I reviewed that study in November.
		And there are some actions we're taking to get after that, splitting up the flag responsibilities of CNMRC, which is a maintenance command as of today, and C-21.
		Admiral Bill Green will give command to Admiral Lanneman, and he will be C-21, and Admiral Lanneman will be CNRMC.
		So focusing on that with that effort and leadership, I think will help us there.
		But as a subset of our perform to plan for surface ships, I'm going to focus on amphibious ships.
		You have my commitment.
		Great.
dan sullivan ▲ ● ▼		Thank you very much for that.
dan sullivan ▲ ● ▼		And General, how many Mu ARGs did we deploy out of the West Coast last year?
gen christopher mahoney ▲ ● ▼		15th Mu.
dan sullivan ▲ ● ▼		Was it a full compliment?
gen christopher mahoney ▲ ● ▼		It was not.
		It was due to the issues with Boxer.
		Somerset sailed as a single.
		She was joined by Harper's Ferry.
		Boxer had to go back for maintenance, and so was the Congoline of three ships.
		I believe they only operated as a three-ship for less than two months.
dan sullivan ▲ ● ▼		And we need to fix that.
		My final question, it's a bit of a complicated one.
		So, General Gutenline, I'm going to give it to you since it seems to make the most sense, but it's an issue that I'm trying to figure out how we work this.
		And it relates to the President's vision for a golden dome.
		I, as I mentioned, have drafted legislation with Senator Kramer that we're hoping is going to be bipartisan.
		It's very comprehensive in terms of missile defense for the country.
		But I think most people would be surprised that missile defense for America really, really strongly entails pretty much every service right here.
		Of course, there's a space-based component that's in my bill.
		There's an Army component.
		General Mingus, you certainly know the 49th Missile Defense Battalion is a U.S. Army battalion at Fort Greeley that really protects the whole country right now.
		I love their motto, the 300 protecting the 300 million.
		But all the ground-based missile interceptors protecting our country are at Fort Greeley.
		This bill would dramatically plus that up.
		Admiral, this bill has a lot of AGIS Ashore focus in Hawaii, for example, in other places.
		So, and then, of course, General Spain, the Air Force plays a huge role in missile defense.
		So, my question is: as we're working on this, I brief Mike Waltz on our bill, I brief Secretary Hegsteth on our bill, I've even briefed President Trump on the legislation that we put together after the executive order came out.
		So, I know the Pentagon's really getting on this, but how do we coordinate?
		What's your sense?
		And, General, I'll start with you as a Space Force service here.
		What's the best way to try to integrate and work together?
		This committee wants to work with all the services, but it is an integrated effort.
		It literally is Space Force, Air Force, Army, Navy.
		The Marine Corps, I'm sure, has some tactical element to it, General Mahoney.
		But this is a full service approach.
		What's the best way that we can work together legislatively, of course, with the President's executive order, but the full Pentagon integrating the different services, all of whom play an important role?
		I think a lot of Americans would be surprised that the cornerstone of missile defense, which is in Alaska, all the ground-based missile interceptors commanded by the Army, all the major radar sites, particularly the clear Space Force Air Station with the new long-range discrimination radar.
		How do we integrate that, General?
		And if anyone else has a thought on that, it's a really important issue.
		It's a really good vision that the President has put forward, and we just need to operationalize it between the Pentagon, the Congress, and we need to get on it.
		And Ms. Maurer, if you have a view on this as well, I'd welcome that.
		So, General, why don't we start with you?
		Final question, I promise, but it's an important one.
unidentified		Thank you, Senator.
		It is, let me start with, it is a very bold vision that's going to have a lot of complexity to it, as you said.
		The good news is we just met with the Vice Chairman yesterday in the Joint Requirements Oversight Council.
		We had all the combatant commands, we had the OSD staffs, we had the service staffs, we had NGA, we had MDA, and the National Reconnaissance Office all present in that room talking about what is it going to take to get after something of this magnitude.
		I would compare this, the only time that I can think of in the history of the United States where we have gone after something this complex was the Manhattan Project.
		That's how complex this capability is going to be.
		But I want to tell you, it's not complex because the technology is going to be hard.
		It's complex because of the number of organizations and the number of agencies that need to be involved, as you said as you're going around through your question.
		Organizational behavior and culture are going to be our two biggest challenges.
		The way to get through organizational behavior and challenges is we've got to make sure first and foremost that we have one entity in charge that has the full support of the nation from the President, from the Hill, and from the American people on down.
		That person or that entity needs to be empowered and resourced to make decisions across organizational boundaries.
dan sullivan ▲ ● ▼		And is that, do we have that yet?
unidentified		We do not have that yet.
		That is what was in discussion.
		That's what we talked about yesterday with the Vice Chairman.
		We're going to talk about it next week with the Deputy Secretary of Defense.
		And the Secretary of Defense owes an answer back to the President by the end of March.
		And we are on path to do that.
		But not only is it an organizational challenge between agencies and services, but we also need to bring the full blunt of our industrial base into the equation and empower them to be successful, harness their innovation.
		That means we need to embrace the non-traditional contractors and get their ideas and get their capabilities on the table.
dan sullivan ▲ ● ▼		By the way, they are really motivated, those non-traditional contractors, to play an important role here.
dan sullivan ▲ ● ▼		So I'm really glad you're highlighting that.
unidentified		Yes, sir.
		And we've had numerous industry days.
		I've taken numerous meetings.
		The Missile Defense Agency had an industry day trying to look at the whole of the U.S., not just the government, but the whole of the U.S., to get after this problem.
		We are also having conversations with our allies.
		Can the allies bring capabilities to the table?
		The Canadians are very interested in partnering with us on the protection of the homeland.
		They would like it to be the protection of the continent.
		So we're having those kind of conversations as well.
dan sullivan ▲ ● ▼		It would be great to see the Canadians participating and helping fund missile defense right now.
		It's my distinct recollection that they don't participate hardly at all.
		They don't do anything on NORAD missile defense.
unidentified		They do participate in NORAD.
unidentified		They do not participate in missile defense agencies.
dan sullivan ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, they need to participate in missile defense.
		If a rogue North Korean missile is shot into our continent, we're not going to wait to see if it hits Chicago or Toronto.
		We're going to shoot it down.
		Canada needs to step up like they haven't been on defense spending.
		It's been woefully inadequate as a NATO, as a wealthy NATO member, and they need to do it on missile defense, too.
		I've been pressing the Canadians for years on this.
		They don't put any money into missile defense, and it's not acceptable.
unidentified		The last element that I would bring to bear on here as we start to look at the authorities and start to look at the accountability, everything we've talked about in this session today, dealing with the continuing resolution, also comes to bear.
		This program to be successful has to have funding stability.
		They have to know that they're going to have those resources from year to year to be successful, or else they're going to be very inefficient and they're going to suffer death by a thousand cuts through fits and starts and stops.
dan sullivan ▲ ● ▼		That is an outstanding answer, General.
		I really appreciate that.
		Any other comments?
		Ms. Maurer, do you have a question?
unidentified		Yeah, very quickly, Mr. Chairman.
		So we issued a report a couple weeks ago looking at sustainment of missile defense in Guam, which I think could be, in a sense, sort of a preview of potential coming attractions.
		And the General's point is definitively spot on about the sheer complexity of the number of organizations.
		That report, we had probably the most complicated org chart that I've ever put in a report that I signed out under my name because there are so many different organizations.
		That's just Guam, which is a small island, as you know.
		So, getting arms around that challenge is going to be important.
		The second point I'd like to make is that thinking about sustainment, that needs to be part of the conversation from day one.
		That's been a continuing challenge in the missile defense enterprise.
		The missile defense agency develops and purchases the technology.
		In theory, it's handed off to one of the services to operate and sustain.
		Those handoffs have not been happening in the way that they've been envisioned.
		In fact, that's one of our recommendations in this report on Guam: DOD needs to spell out specifically who is going to do what and how sustainment is going to work for our Guam defense system.
		Great.
dan sullivan ▲ ● ▼		Any other thoughts, Admiral?
unidentified		I'm just going to offer one thing I talked about in the JROC.
		We can do this.
		In 2008, we shot down a satellite that was deorbiting full of fuel in six weeks.
		The whole of the government got together with agencies, the science community, and industry, and we made it happen.
		So, we can do this.
		We just need to do the things that were outlined and provide clear lines of C2 and solid, consistent budgeting, and I'm convinced we can deliver.
dan sullivan ▲ ● ▼		Good.
		That's a great answer.
		Anyone else on this topic?
unidentified		Senator, briefly, agree with everything that's been said.
		The stitching together of the various capabilities will be the key enabler of Irondome and Golden Dome, obviously the scaffolding of which exists today in Air Force Forces and Space Force Forces, along with the Army ground-based deterrent.
		The integrated PEO that we have in Major General Luke Cropsey and our ABMS program and the CJAD C2 program will be the thing that will allow each of the services to connect the effectors, the sensors, and the sense-making capability across all services and agencies.
		That will need to be a primary focus of this effort, along with the capabilities of each of the services over here.
dan sullivan ▲ ● ▼		Good.
		Well, these are great answers.
		You know, you have a strong vision from the Commander-in-Chief.
		The President obviously is really focused on this.
		He mentioned it in his State of the Union last week.
		We will be in the budget reconciliation bill that we're working on.
		The DOD component is going to have a lot of funding on this.
		So, I think it's a sense of urgency that we all need to work together on the Congress, the executive branch.
		And, General, you kind of laid out a vision and the importance of some key principles.
Hearing Adjourned 00:02:32
dan sullivan ▲ ● ▼		We look forward to working with all of you and look forward to having that designated individual or agency in charge.
		I think that's a really important component as well.
		So, with that, I want to thank everybody.
		This has been a long hearing, but a really important hearing.
		I want to thank again all six of you for your service, decades of service to our country in uniform and without or not in uniform.
		GAO does a great job.
		If there are additional questions for the record, my Senate colleagues will submit those in the next few days, and we respectfully request that you try to respond to those within the next two to three weeks.
		With that, this hearing is adjourned.
unidentified		Tonight on C-SPAN's QA, New York University journalism professor Meryl Gordon, with her book, The Woman Who Knew Everyone, talks about the life of socialite and democratic fundraiser Pearl Mesta, dubbed the hostess with the mostest.
unidentified		She was close to three U.S. presidents during the mid-20th century and was known for throwing parties that brought political elites together.
meryl gordon ▲ ● ▼		Social climbing is a lot easier if you have money.
		And Pearl quickly realized when she went with her husband to Washington, who was an advisor to President Wilson during World War I, Pearl realized there was a huge dichotomy in Washington between people and influential government figures who had no money but a lot of power.
		And she discovered if she gave, she bought boxes at charity galas, if she gave debutante parties for the daughters of the underfunded, she could have a lot of really influential friends.
unidentified		Merle Gordon with her book, The Woman Who Knew Everyone, tonight at 8 Eastern on C-SPAN's Q ⁇ A. You can listen to Q&A and all of our podcasts on our free C-SPAN Now app.
		C-SPAN, democracy unfiltered.
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		No, it's way more than that.
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Chapters

00:00:00 The World Has Changed Dramatically
00:07:26 Impacts of Full CR on Military Readiness
00:09:25 Stripping Resources From Service Members
00:16:17 Modernizing Forged Readiness
00:29:58 Pillars of Space Force Readiness
00:37:36 GAO's Recommendations for Military Readiness
00:41:08 Chairman's Full Committee Presence
00:56:25 Conference Authorization Flaw
00:59:56 Recruiting For The Reserve Component
01:07:47 Better Shutdown Availabilities
01:22:56 Every Infantry Squad Needs SUAS
01:24:44 Anomalies and Flexibility
01:38:16 Hiring Freeze Hits Forces Design
01:53:55 Arctic Tankers and Military Tasks
02:08:47 Admiral's Commitment to Amphibs
02:23:19 Hearing Adjourned