>> tonight on c-span2, a senate hearing looks at the consequences of defense budget him and then the senate foreign relations committee previously upcoming nato summit in chicago and later discussion about the u.s. russia relationship at this center for strategic and international studies. >> a senate hearing today examines the defense of our jet -- department budget. he will hear testimony from the vice jesus death of the army, navy and air force along with the marine corps. they testified about the consequences of the sequester which automatically cuts $500 billion from defense budget next year. u.s. u.s. house today advanced a bill to replace the automatic defense cuts but the measure is not expected to be taken up in the senate and the white house said it would veto the bill.

this hearing is about an hour and 45 minutes. >> meeting. >> the meeting will come to order and i will have brief opening remarks. welcome to our important witnesses today. thank you all four of you for taking time from what i know are heavy our heavy demands on your time to spend some time visiting with us this morning about the overall holistic readiness of our military and we look forward to your testimony. we are pleased to be joined by general lloyd austin bice chief of staff of the army, admiral mark ferguson vice chief of naval operations, general philip breedlove vice chief of staff of the air force and general joseph dunford associate commandant of the marine corps. gentleman i appreciate each of you adjusting their schedules at the last minute. we could not hold this hearing on the original day because we are voting. turning to the shorthand after more than a decade of combat operations in iraq and afghanistan reported readiness levels of our armed forces have

steadily declined. even as defense spending has grown dramatically. arnon deployed forces have experienced serious readiness shortfalls in terms of personnel, equipment and training. even are deploying units have struggled with not enough time to train for full spectrum missions. now we are entering an era of declining budgets, force structure and new strategies. as a result their military services face a new set of challenges as they seek to balance the drawdown of forces, vital reset of equipment and personnel in continuing combat operations in afghanistan. i am interested in hearing from eyewitnesses the extent of current readiness funding backlog and the risks posed by these backlogs. we have been told in the past that the reason our forces will require two years of additional funding after the end of combat operations. i would like the witnesses to provide us with their latest estimates, timelines and amounts in that regard. i am pleased that the navy

budget would fully fund the maintenance requirements for the first time in many years. is my hope this increased level of funding will lead to a decrease in the number of unsatisfactory inspection results of the navy's board of inspection and survey observed. at the same time however i am disappointed the navy has failed to meet the 6% capital investment objective established by congress. the only military service that has done so. i would like to hear from the navy with her long-term plans are for making up this gap in investment. i'm also pleased that the army and marine corps -- no i'm also pleased the army and marine corps has funded facilities as same as modernization at the 90% level which is the dod's stated goal. unfortunately the air force and navy funded this same ssr m. and 82 and 80% respectively. i would like to hear from the air force and the navy what level of risk they are taking on as a result of these lower funding levels and what steps

they plan to take to avoid large bills down the road. finally we have -- that they at least a $1.3 billion bill as a result of the rising fuel prices. this price increase has been exacerbated by a continued closure of the pakistan border forcing envoys for our force in afghanistan to use the northern distribution network and added increased in expensive $38 million per month. given all of these challenges we face we must strive to protect our readiness account and we can also do a better job in managing funds like operation maintenance. we can improve the execution rates and on obligated balances in these accounts. in addition to her operational readiness model. as the services continue to identify deficiencies in overhead, support and other less mission essential areas, i challenge the services to a better balance, a better balance difference between cost savings and cost avoidance as we owe it

to the american people to be much better stewards of their tax dollars. gentleman i can't thank you all enough for your dedicated service and the sacrifice you made on behalf of our country and the sacrifice your families have me. i thank you all for taking the time to have this critical discussion and i look forward to your testimony. i know each of you have prepared statements which will be included in the record. so we can have a full opportunity for an in-depth discussion, i would ask you please try to summarize so we will have plenty of time for questions. chairman ayotte do you have a statement he would like to make at this time? >> thank you madam chair. thank you for calling this hearing in review of the transitional request for 2013 and the to your defense program. i want to thank the witnesses before us today as we confront challenges around the world. i know that each of you have been tremendous leaders and all

the soldiers that served below you deserve our respect and admiration and i thank you offer what you are doing in very difficult times both fiscally and also with a national security challenges we face a thank you. on march 23 of 1983 president ronald reagan delivered an important speech in the oval office. in his speech he said, what seems to have been lost in all of this debate is the simple truth of how a defense budget is arrived at. it isn't done by deciding to spend a certain number of dollars. we start by considering what must be done to maintain peace and review all the possible threats to our security. there is no logical way you can say let's send x billion dollars less. you can only say which part of our defense measures do we believe we can do without and still have security against all contingencies. anyone in the congress who advocates a percentage of a specific dollar cut in defense spending should be made to say what part of our defenses he

would eliminate and he should be candid enough to acknowledge that his cuts mean cutting our commitments to our allies who are inviting greater risk or both. as i consider the national security threats facing our country and as i review the president proposed fiscal's proposed fiscal year 2013 defense budget, i worry that we are falling into the very trap that president reagan warned us to avoid. i worry that president obama's defense budget is based in my view, on what was irresponsible in what we did in the budget control act and what the office of management and budget has handed you in terms of the number that treats all federal expenditures the same, rather than a clear-eyed object its assessment of our u.s. national security interest and the kind of military that we need to protect those interests and the american people. as i consider this year's budget request, i have serious concerns and a lot of questions that i

look forward to discussing today. let me quickly highlight some of my leading concerns for each of the services. wealthy would certainly expect an army end strength drawdown after withdrawal from iraq and with a phased drawdown from afghanistan, i would like to know what the reductions of 72,000 army end strength do for our forces and our national security needs. at a time when much of the army has failed to achieve sufficient dwell time between deployments, it is essential to allow units to reset and retrain. i have serious questions about the 72,000 number. i'm also concerned about the army's plan to involuntarily separate thousands of midcareer officers and noncommissioned officers in order to achieve this drawdown. we talk about not breaking faith with our troops, and i'm

concerned about with this drawdown and with the position we are taking in our plans to provide many of our midcareer officers involuntary separations, what does this do in terms of the morale of our all-volunteer force and also the strength of that horse? at a time when there is consensus that our military needs to do more frankly that we need t. be more agile and responsive, i am also concerned in not only looking at the 72,000 reduction in the army, but i would also like to have the same questions answered with respect to the 20,000 reduction of the marine corps as well. as well as the marine corps's decision to eliminate one maritime pre-positioning squadron, which we talked about at length before. at a time when we are increasing focus on the maritime dominated asia-pacific region, when the navy has approximately 30 fewer

ships and subs than it has said previously our national security requires and when the navy is failing to meet 39% of art combatant commander requirements for attack submarines i also remain concerned for our navy about postponing the procurement of the virginia class submarine. i'm also concerned about the mismatch between our strategy that teachers an increased emphasis on the asia-pacific and the navy's continued shortfall in ships and submarines. i think these are important questions that we need to understand in the american people need to understand what we are incurring under this budget. at a time when the air force is working through the wear and tear of 20 consecutive years of combat operations with a fleet that is already 32% smaller and 43% older than in 1991, my concerns there are about our air force and strength by approximately reducing that end strength by 10,000 airmen and

cutting 246 aircraft from the air force inventory. to be clear, i am not one who opposes all cuts to the budget of the pentagon or our military. there is no question that there are reductions that need to be made. but as we seek to address our nation's fiscal crisis and reduce federal spending, there is no doubt that we need to understand what decisions are being made here in light of our constrained resources. what risks we are taking on as a nation and i'm concerned there is a disconnect between our military capability and the number of the budget that you have been handed under the budget control act from congress. secretary panetta said, let me be clear, you can't take half a trillion dollars out of the defense budget and not incur additional risks. there is no margin for error.

as president reagan said in 1983, we must make sure that any adversary who thinks about attacking the united states or our allies, or our vital interests, that the risks to him outweigh any potential gain. i don't believe that creating a u.s. military with no margin for error is the best way to ensure our allies or to deter our potential enemies and that is what i am worried about. america and the world are safer and more prosperous when the u.s. maintains military power and strength beyond challenge and i think it is the preeminent purpose of this subcommittee and today's hearing as much as is possible in this unclassified context, to drill down and ensure congress and the american people that they understand the risk of this budget that we would incur with what you have proposed today into our warfighters and our country. finally, secretary panetta has

described the defense sequestration cuts as catastrophic inflicting severe damage to our national defense for generations. he compared the cuts to shooting ourselves in the head. it even with these compelling statements, i am still amazed that congress has not mustered the courage to make the tough decisions now to avoid the serious risks to our national security. based on the statements by her secretary of defense, we need to hear from the witnesses and the leaders that are before us today about the impact of the $500 billion in defense sequestration cuts on each of your respective services. i would also like to hear from each of your services, when do you have to start planning for this, because i think there is a view around here that we can suddenly wait until december on this sequestration issue.

but there is a lot of planning that would have to go into this. not only for you but the defense industrial base so i would like to know how urgent this is in terms of congress addressing this issue. while i recognize the defense department must play a responsible role in overcoming our debt and the spending crisis we face, which is no doubt as admiral mullen said, the greatest threat to our national security, i am concerned that the size and scope of the budget cuts will expose our military forces to an unacceptable level of risk. this risk is being assumed at the precise time we are asking our military leaders to plan for an increasingly difficult set of circumstances around the world against a widening array of risks and question marks in terms of things that are happening around the world right now. we cannot repeat the mistakes of history by cutting off forces so much that we are unprepared for future contingencies. our military and the american people deserve better and it is

my hope that today we can discuss these important issues, and i thank all of the witnesses for being here and i want to thank the chair for holding this important hearing. >> thank you senator ayotte. we will begin the testimony now and first we'll hear from general lloyd austin bice chief of staff of the united states army. welcome general austin. >> good morning. chairwoman mccaskill, ranking member a odds and senator inhofe, thanks for the opportunity to appear here today to discuss the current readiness of your united states army. i've submitted a statement for the record and i look forward to answering your questions. these continues to be challenging times for our nations military and we have been at war now for over a decade. in fact ignore the time in history have americans servicemen and women thought for so long a period with an all-volunteer force and as you are well aware, we are still

heavily engaged in operations in afghanistan. we recognize our military and inter-agency efforts there are extremely important. in spite of the heavy demands placed on our personnel and equipment, i'm pleased to report that ours remains a remarkably resilient force. our soldiers are continuing to do an outstanding job and they and their families have routinely done what we have asked of them. after more than a decade of war, hard-fought in two separate theaters, america's all-volunteer force is highly capable and well led. this is due in no small part to the incur g-men and in strong support of congress. i want to take this opportunity to to thank all of you for your continued and steadfast commitment to our soldiers, army civilians and their families. we are certainly proud of all that we have accomplished as a national security team which is comprised of our military services, inter-agency partners and allies and friends around the world. we also recognize much work lies

ahead of us while our prior to continues to be the fight ongoing in afghanistan. we are doing everything we can here at home to help alleviate some of the stress on our personnel. likewise we have begun to retrograde, replace and reset our equipment. the demands of the uncertain future security environment dictate we continually prepare or the next fight. accordingly we are reshaping our army army in may can necessary adjustments to our force structure and our training programs. recognizing that as the army continues to adapt we must be ready and capable of responding to a broader range of missions with fewer people. in the years ahead america's army will be smaller and leaner yet it will also be sufficiently agile and adaptable and responsive. this is critical to ensuring our ability to deter decisively and defeat any opponent. these characteristics will also enable us to grow capacity as

needed in response to unforeseen contingencies. the key to our success as we frequently have heard from secretary mchugh, r. chief of staff general odierno come as balancing the three real stats of force structure modernization and readiness. and that is where we are focusing our efforts. one area in particular where we will need congress is help us in ensuring continued overseas contingency operations or an strength above 490,000. this funding is imperative to our ability to manage a gradual reduction of strength over the next five years from 560,000 to 490,000. the lack of oco funding world drive us to a steeper drawdown primarily through involuntary separations and other means that could result in significant hardship for thousands of army combat veterans and their families and generate a large bill for unemployment and unrelated costs. likewise, we all need to fund

reset for two or three years after we have completed the retrograde of equipment from afghanistan. this is a request that the subcommittee has heard many times, but it bears a bit of repeating. after this funding we will be required to accept risk in other areas at significant cost with a negative impact on readiness. we are confident the strategy we have developed will enable us to achieve our objectives. that said we must continue to work together to ensure our army remains the nations ready for today and prepare for tomorrow. i'm confident we are in the right path to do so at this time. madam chairman and members of the subcommittee i thank you again for your continued support and demonstrated commitment to the outstanding men and women of the united states army and their families and i look forward to your questions. >> thank you so much. next we will hear from admiral mark ferguson vice-chief of the

united states navy. >> madam chairman, senator ayotte and distinguished members of the committee it's an honor to represent the men and women of the navy. as we prepare our fiscal year 2013 budget request, our decisions were driven by the defense strategy and our sailing directions for the navy emphasizing warfighting, operations forward and readiness. we focused on funding the critical element as we balanced our investments and future capabilities, operations, maintenance come personnel, training and affairs. our budget proposes reductions in force structure and delays in the procurement of some new platforms to ensure the wholeness of the remaining force. importantly, we invested in maintaining a sustainable deployment model to allow for the reset and stride of our forces between rotational deployment. as well in training for the flea. we also focused on enhancing our foreign presence to mitigate the

reduced force structure such as planning for the fourth stationing of combat ships in singapore. quite simply, we prioritize readiness and capability overcapacity to ensure we deliver a ready and relevant navy now and in the future. this budget submission which includes baseline and overseas contingency operations or oco funding, supports the requirement of the combatant commanders adjudicated by the joint staff and the global forest management projects with some available capacity to provide search forces in support of our major operational plans and other emerging needs. it is important to note that the combatant commander demand for naval forces is much higher than the gsm process and is steadily growing. we have been operating in a wartime tempo for over 10 years and continue to stress the force as we drawdown from two land campaigns.

our forces are ready with which shows the strain of his pace. let me give an example. tuesday the navy is searching to provide two aircraft carrier strike groups in middle east while the same at the same time sustaining a continuous carrier strike or presence her presence in the western pacific. in response to heightened tensions where up minting our forces in the central command area with additional mine countermeasures assets, control craft and a float forward staging based vessel. this agility of naval forces to respond to crises is preserved there are investments in maintenance and training. supporting this current level of search of our program budget levels is not sustainable over the long term with our current level of resources. to sustain this high operational tempo, we will face the choice between reducing the maintenance on our platforms and shortening their expected service lives, reducing the training on our

personnel or increasing the stress on our forest force through longer deployments. today we are depended upon the receipt of oco ford similar supplemental funding. this year, the added cost of providing these search forces, given fuel cost increases, is placing pressure on our execution. we are working with the department of defense to address the talents of these additional costs without affecting our overall readiness. madam chairman, senator ayotte and distinguished members of the committee, you can be proud of exceptional service of the men and women of our navy. our sailors of the highest quality force in our history and they make this the finest navy in the world. i appreciate the support of the committee for a navy and its readiness and appreciate the opportunity to testify and look forward in answering your questions. >> thank you admiral ferguson. next we will have general joseph dunford the assistant commandant of the united states marine corps. >> madam chair ranking member

ayotte and members of the subcommittee thank you for the opportunity to represent the marines this morning. i would like to begin by making a few key operations regarding our current and future readiness. today a 197,000 active-duty, 26,000 are deployed in 18,000 of those are in afghanistan. number one priority is assuring our deployed forces are well manned, trained and equipped. as a result of your support i can assure you that those marines and sailors are at the highest state of readiness. are forward-deployed units and personnel and equipment requirements that exceed standard allows us. the additional quickness due to the nature of afghanistan and the distributed nature of operations. the additional personnel required to support staff, trained or afghan security forces. we meet these additional requirements at polling equipment and personnel from units and his messenger mentioned in her opening remarks, units and home station continued to experience significant personnel and equipment shortages.

and fast over the past passerby is approximately two-thirds of her units at home station have been at the greatest state of readiness. home station readiness is particularly concerning to the nation's exhibition or a force in readiness. the forces at home station represent our capability to respond to unexpected crises and continuances perk over the past two years units and home station have responded to several unplanned requirements. in these cases marines had days and in some cases hours to respond. we are reminded that crisis response is a come as you are event. is a drawdown of forces in afghanistan we will begin to address these deficiencies at home station and improve our polity to respond to unexpected crises and issues. the critical element in improving our a readiness as the reset of the clement coming out of afghanistan. we currently estimate the ground equipment reset liability at $3.2 billion. this is our strategic reset liability. this forecast is primarily based on the replacement of combat losses, the restoration of

items, the serviceable condition and the extension and service life of selected items. we believe it will take two to three years of overseas contingency funding to completely reset once our equipment returns from afghanistan. in addition to the strategic reset we have asked for $1.3 billion in our fiscal year 2013 budget request. this is what we call operational reset. addresses the current cost of war to include replenishing ammunition, depot level repair and replacement of discarded equipment. if we work to meet current requirements and set readiness we are ensuring we have the right training, organization and modernization to me future challenges. current plan is to develop and maintain back to force in the 182,000 rains and selected marine corps reserve and 39,500 marines. we believe that structure filled with high-quality marines and combined with our aviation and modernization initiatives will allow us to meet the requirements of the new

strategy. with your continued support that force will be equipped as a force of readiness. it will be prepared for a wide range of contingencies. thank you and i look forward to your questions. >> thank you general. finally general philip breedlove's vice chief of staff of the united states air force. >> thank you for the opportunity to be here today and tell our air force story. these are challenging times and i commend you for your leadership in their efforts to ensure we have the best equipped and best trained military on the glow. it's not to be here to serve on behalf of our 690,000 active-duty guard and reserve civilian airmen who selflessly serve our nation. nation. alongside their fellow soldiers, soldiers air and coast guard. it like to share two important items with you today. first the readiness of your airmen after more than 20 years of continuous combat ops and

second the steps we are taking to ensure a superbly trained and force which is ready to support her new strategic guidance and bottom line to avoid a hollow force while balancing risk. thea and people are fully aware that a nation has been a war for over a decade. our air force however his been conducting combat ops continuously for well over 10 decades. december 17, 2011 mark the first time in 20 years the air force did not fly an air-tasking sortie over iraq. madam chairman and senator i would like to point out over two-thirds of our uniformed airmen have taken an oath to defend our nation and have joined our service during a time of war, during a time of continuous operation and for that i couldn't be more proud to serve alongside the dedicated airmen and americans. these airmen are fully joined to the fighting consistently demonstrating their commitment to this joint team you see in front of you and in the support of our combatant commanders and our nation's interest. last year we saw this commitment

at full capacity as her airmen simultaneously providing humanitarian support to our friends in japan, executed a large presidential airlift in south america, supported the nato no-fly zone to protect lives and all the while fully employing counterinsurgent sea operations in iraq and afghanistan. our force capacity of the future may not support this high level of sustained simultaneous operations. i am immensely proud of how our airmen have performed for the past 20 years and across all spectrums, and with what you have seen, very high activity. this intense level of performance does not come without a cause. our forces stressed and we have continually gotten smaller. next year we will be the smallest we have been since the inception of the united states air force in 1947. our aircraft are old, older than they have ever been, with the average age of our fighters at

22 years, bombers at 35 years and tankers, the oldest of the three, at 47 years. and what really concerns me is the challenges we face to get our full spectrum training. we are proficient in the current counterinsurgency fight and we have had to put high and full spectrum training on the back earner which has the greatest effect on our combat air forces. other more recent concerns or the increase in fuel prices and higher than expected overseas contingency operations cost. together they have resulted in a bill that is significantly greater than expected. we are working hard with dod leadership to address this shortfall to avoid actions that might harm readiness. but if unable to reallocate funds with congressional approval we will have little choice but to shift the force -- shift resources within our operational maintenance accounts which could have detrimental effects on our readiness. despite these fiscal pressures there continues to be an increasing demand for airspace

and cybercapability which is evident in our nations new defend strategic guidance. in order to keep faith with the american people and provider unique capabilities upon which the entire joint team so greatly realize, it is imperative that we balance our force structure to preserve our readiness and maintain our risk-balanced force. in doing so we must rebalance our active and reserve component makes to ensure we can meet joint force requirements while not exceeding deployed ratios across the entire total force. while no plan is rear brisk our analysis tells us we are at an increased the manageable risk. as measured against this new strategic guidance. wewe we are concerned that we ae concerned that it ever is aimed at retaining for structure out of balance with our strategic guidance and not accompanied by sufficient support and funding and will lead us to the road of a hollow force. force structure is the key to our future. as we responsibly rebalance the

force we remain committed to advancement in technology and future investments to continually sharpen our sword. although we will be smaller, we will remain an effective and ready force. madam chairman and committee members i am confident in our ability to succeed through these tough times ahead. because i believe in our nation who like their fellow soldiers, sailors marines and coast guardsmen are dedicated to excellence, selfless service and sacrifice. thank you for your continued support of your united states air force and of your airmen. i look forward to your questions. >> thank you very much gentleman. since the turn-of-the-century turn of the century we have been involved in, heavily involved in combat operations which have required our personnel to deploy frequently and has caused incredible wear and tear on both people and the equipment we need for readiness. and frankly we have had little

time to train for anything other than counterinsurgency. notwithstanding this step taken by congress to increase investment, reported readiness rates have significantly declined over the past 10 years. record funding is still a significant decline. and passed readiness subcommittees we have been told by her predecessors that an increase in readiness will not occur until we cd kris and tempo. now we have the drawdown in iraq, and search recovery in afghanistan this year and phased drawdown thereafter. can you give us today what your best projections are as to when we will see a more positive readiness trend in light of the drawdown that is currently underway? >> thank you chairman. i think from the army's perspective, we are already beginning to see that.

the tempo as we have come out of iraq can certainly we have more opportunities to train at home station. we are taking advantage of those opportunities and again, as we retrograde our equipment and put that equipment through reset, more equipment is being made available, so we are already beginning to reach some of the benefits of that slowdown and as you know, i was the guy at the very end there in iraq who was charged with overseeing that replies during effort, and i can tell you that was very well done and a meg matheson job by our joint force to do that. but, as general dunford and i have both pointed out, it will take about two to three years beyond the complete retrograde of our equipment out of

afghanistan to reset that equipment and we certainly need to funded to do so and would appreciate any help you can provide us in doing that. >> anybody else? >> madam chair, as you pointed out, there are really three components, the training piece, the people peace and equipment peace and we have started to recover forces from afghanistan are deployment dwell has expanded. we are at a point where at one point our battalions and squadrons were deploying for seven months in that time is expanded to somewhere between 11 to 13 or 14 months between deployments. that is helpless on the training site and to recover the force we will start to fill in some of the personal gaps we have had over the last couple of years but i would emphasize again what general austin said, before we see increased readiness reporting from our units at home station is going to be the equipment peace and that is two

to three years from the time the equipment gets home, not from the time the units redeploy so our best estimate right now based on the 2014 drawdown from afghanistan would be sometime around 2017 is when we would start to see significantly increase reporting. i mention the 67% of our units were at the grade of readiness and i was referring to see three or c-4 scale one to four in terms of readiness. units report the lowest level of their readiness in manning, training and equipment so 61% of those units that report the greatest readiness report the greatest readiness as a result of equipment shortfalls and so not only do we have have to get equipment home but we have to reset that equipment going through our depots and/or replacing that equipment that has been destroyed so a combination of the procurement process and people maintenance process our best estimate is again the two to three years not from the time the marines come home but from the time there couldn't comes home from afghanistan.

>> to the navy and air force disagree with the two to three-year assessment? or does that sound about right from your perspectives also? >> madam chair from our perspective the force demand is a little different on the navy as we withdraw out of the land campaigns. we have sustained training all of our forces in a major combat operational level through this tenure period and what use on this budget we invested in training. invested in people maintenance and brought it up to 100% that we remain reliant on that oco funding and we see that it will take at least two to three years for transition and perhaps longer for us to stay ready. >> madam chair, the difference for us is much as you saw after became out of desert storm one and desert two, immediately following the combat, change in mission like we are seeing in iraq now and the actual requirement for air force in order to facilitate that retrograde and cover with kinetic isr to reduce the risk

for those ground combat soldiers and marines. they do that mission and we are seeing that now even as we are coming out of iraq come. about three months ago are deployed fighter squadron was about eight and a half and it is up to 11.25 now and that is pretty much what we expect. also on, especially if we do not get movement, and as you know much of the job of bringing home all of the equipment that the marines and army need will fall on the backs of the air force to haul out. so there will be a considerable amount of time as we affect this retrograde and especially increased by the air, before the air force will even begin to begin its retrofit and refit. so our start time could be significantly different than what you heard from my compatriots and it will take us some period of time between a year and a cure and a half after that to get through the training cycles and things we need.

>> since you touched on the closure and the problems we are having on the border of pakistan and general breedlove, let me go to that question. it is relevant obviously to the drawdown as we pull equipment and men and women out of afghanistan. is obviously very important in terms of fuel costs. you know, it is a huge bill. i think people forget that nobody buys more fuel in the world than we do, and when it is expensive it really is a god punch to the budget of our military. i know that we have to pay almost three times the normal rate to go through the northern distribution network that we would have to typically extend going through pakistan. what affect does this closure going to have on getting equipment out, getting

everything out we need to get out and more importantly on getting the fuel and we need to continue to support the mission we have ongoing in afghanistan? >> madam, i will take the firschein at that. there are two effects on the united states air force in its ability to support the joint team. first of all of this current year as you are where the re-price on fuel is going to cost us approximately $1.3 million that was not in our original plan and that will be money that will have to go into finding other sources assuming you approve them, inside of our budget. so fuel re-prices have been big for us and second of all as you mentioned, if the pack g. watts do not open and we cannot count on the flow that was planned for that, when we originally budgeted for our fuel for this next year, now we have to increase the amount of fuel we use to begin to fly out much of this retrograde by air.

that will again be the unplanned oco requirements in the security force. >> madam chair i would add one quick point to the point you made and that goes back to the previous question you asked about when would we be reset to a high level of readiness? obviously the longer it takes to get our krigman out of afghanistan, the longer will take to get our gear out. the longer it will take us to restore readiness so and in addition implication of cost, the factor of time is an issue. >> i think a lot of americans understand the stresses with pakistan have many applications. and it is not just a direct implication of are they our friends, are they our enemies? what exactly are they and who can we trust within pakistan? it has a dramatic impact on the budgets of our military as

related to operational requirements in afghanistan and drawdown in afghanistan. thank you. senator ayotte. >> thank you madam chair. i wanted to ask each of you and the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, the conclusion of the chairman's risk assessment that was submitted to us. it says that the services will need to quote conceive of a new risk paradigm. can you help me about what that means if we are conceiving of a new risk paradigm? >> well i think, as you create a new strategy certainly you look for ways to balance the risks that you are going to accept and of course you focus on the most dangerous things, and then also you considered the most likely things that are going to occur.

and so, i think what the chairman is getting too with that, at least my read of this, is that each time that you revamp your strategy you are going to have to look at things through the lens of the context of today and what the threat offers in the future. >> general as a follow up on that, just listening to it from my perspective, i assume that is what we did whenever we would issue a risk assessment, so when i hear the word new risk paradigm, it makes me wonder if our overall view of how we are going to meet risks or assessment has change. has it or hasn't it? >> certainly our methodology for conducting risks assessment has not changed but the context has changed a bit in terms of the

state of the world. where we are today is absolutelg today is absolutely different from what we saw two years ago. actions in the middle east and those types of things. >> i appreciate it your answer and i am asking what somebody else means but maybe to make it more helpful let me direct my question more specifically which i think will be relevant. is the proposed $487 million in reduction, obviously we are talking about the first year here from 13 of those reductions over the 10. you have got proposed significant end strength reductions, combat elimination, weapon systems and other cost-cutting measures we are talking about today. there is no question these reductions are going to impact the ability of each service to respond to the request of their combatant commanders.

what i think is important to understand is when you look at what the secretary says, and i quoted my opening statement, you can take a half a trillion dollars out of the defense budget and not incur additional risk and you said there is no margin for error. what in each of your opinions and each of the services is the most, the risk that we are incurring to the extent you can talk about them and if you could, what are the risks that we are incurring here to keep each of you up at night and if we were to add money back into this budget to meet where we have just cut it right on the edge on no margin for error and you have that choice, i'm not asking you to make the request of us but if you could, and you think about what keeps you up at night, what would you tell us?

>> maam, i will take a shot at it first. and i think i understand where you are trying to go. there are a few things that i think as you mentioned, we are taking cuts in the air force budget and it's almost 200 aircraft in the first year a number of people. and that speaks to capacity. our overall capacity is coming down and in our new strategic guidance, the ability to swing capacity from one to the second conflict is key to how well we will support the joint force and what keeps me up at night or two things. that is time to respond if we are fully engaged in the first. what we have time to get to the objectives in the first engagement in order to properly support the second engagement with our reduced capacity which

is evident from the cuts and a number of people and aircraft. and in the then the second thing that worries me is really unchanged from last year and hasn't changed much in relation to this -- to the strategy. it's the same thing i spoke to in the readiness hearings last year and that is that we do have pretty intense pressure on what we call our low density, high demand assets, the jstars, the rivet joints, the isr total. all of those things which are sized for about one conflict and not two. as you know now some of those isr assets are deployed at less than 1:1 ratio in the village he to respond from one conflict to the next with those high demand things are what keeps me up at night. >> general? >> i would like to go back to the original question and talk

about the framework and risk a little bit because there were two kinds of risks. they're the strategic risk that the chairman largely talked about but then he alludes to what i would describe his institutional risk and that is the services ability to create balance between maintaining high-quality people, and meeting the combatant commanders requirements, maintaining home station readiness that i spoke about in my earlier comments maintaining a modernization profile so years from now we will have the capabilities we need and also properly maintain our per structure, something madam chair mentioned. so what we have done, we have done things differently in the sense that we protect the next -- projects that may aid -- nixie to 10 years will project austerity. making sure we understand what we have to have and what is nice to have and we have made hard choices to extend some of our equipment out in the normal service life like the service life extension programs and those kinds of things.

for example in our ground tactical vehicles right now we only plan to modernize 20% of the fleet between now and 27 and 2020. decided to go back and we think think -- we decided to look at the rest of the fleet and do things that will extend the service life of her perhaps seven years beyond what might otherwise have been in terms of service so managing institutional risks is frankly what keeps me awake at night or good piece of that what we call the five pillars, the piece that is as admiral ferguson mentioned supply at this particular time. the other thing that keeps me awake at night as i look over the next eight, 10 or 12 years it is maintaining balance on what it described as the institutional ability of wrist and making sure we don't in a berkeley hollow out one of those pillars. and need to recognize the second or third effects folks will have to deal with eight to 10 years from now and i would just say the last thing that keeps me awake at night is all this came into the military in the late

1970s and i was a platoon commander in the post-vietnam days. i know what a hollowed out forces because -- i will tell you this number when the keep things a keeps me awake as being part of anything that would cause the united states are in court to look like it did in the 1970s as opposed to what it looks like in 2012. that is what really keeps me awake at night. >> thank you general. >> senator i focus a lot of my attention on balancing the present versus the future and in fact those future capabilities of the united states navy and marine corps will need going forward as we face increasing competition and anti-access aerial deniability and trying to afford our ability to operate from the sea. so that future balance investment has to be weighed against maintaining the current readiness of the force as we operate and what you saw in her

legit review was we reduce reduce for structure and we took out older assets to make available those assets and we look at our investment accounts and made critical investments in the capabilities we needed, preserving research and development and new technologies. we reduce procurement in some areas or delayed them for affordability. really focusing on preserving the forest. the investments we make today are focused on more ordinance, training for the fleet and better depot maintenance to sustain the current readiness so it the risk for us, the risk boils down to capabilities. rising peer competitors, capacity. do we have the forces available to acceptable rival -- level of risk and response times and what our present levels are. we think in this budget we try to achieve that balance with an acceptable level of risk. >> i will just add senator that,

these remain challenging times and we are faced with a variety of issues. for me foremost among those issues is supporting the effort in afghanistan and while doing that, striking a balance in all of the other requirements that we are faced with. and so, i routinely worked along with the chief to make sure that we have a healthy balance between our efforts in modernization, end strength and readiness and just keeping that balance routinely is really what we are focused on. but also i worry a lot about the health of our force. having said that, i also said earlier that i believe that we have the most resilient force that we could have ever imagined. 15 years ago if you had told me that we were going to be in

combat for a decade and be able to keep our soldiers and family members with us, i would not have believed that but as you look back and see how we have been able to adapt across the military that specifically in the army, to meet the demand to keep our force with us and take care of our troops, i think that is quite impressive and i'm really concerned about our ability to continue to do that and i will remain focused on that for the foreseeable future because as you well know, people is what the army is all about and so, our ability to do that and keep pace with our soldiers and families is something i remain concerned about. >> thank you senator ayotte. senator begich. >> thank you very much madam chair. i have a couple of broad questions and general breedlove as you can probably guess --

these are just -- the first ones are yes or no. do you support the -- [inaudible] >> i will go first. i do and navy leadership supports it on the uniform side. provides several positive benefits, won a one a legal framework for interactions and resolution of disputes at sea. second, it allows us to shape the resolution of those disputes as a member at a party of the treaty and third we feel comfortable that intelligence operations in military operations will not be subject to jurisdiction of any international corridor so we are comfortable and we support a. >> i would also like to respond to that.

>> second, in a nutshell, any comment in regards to hand the navy also come in regards to the future of the arctic military need or position? >> i think we are looking at the arctic very carefully. we have an ongoing effort in conjunction with our allies, the canadians, norwegians and others in discussing it. i think there are three aspects. there's a security aspect, there is the safety aspect and certainly in them are mental aspect we are concerned about in the art that. i think you know the initial as the area becomes free of ice during the summer months and we start to see shipping and oil exploration and other activities out there, i think there will be the necessity for us to begin to think about having an maritime awareness of what is occurring

in the arctic but i don't see at the present time or within several years the requirement for military operations. >> does anyone else want to respond on that one? we were chinle operate up there now and again a lot in those operations. thank you very much. general breedlove let me go with you. you know where i'm going. i want to talk a little bit about our air force base -- you know, there's an effort to relocate and we have had that conversation. my big concern is based on the volume of movement of civilian force. these are my words. i see it as kind of a backdoor -- without the public process but here's the real question and this is where i ask everyone, if you're the air force, you get these questions and i look are the answers. did the air force conducted a

comprehensive analysis and assessment and as you know in the first year is 3.5 and in five years it was 169 million. when i say comprehensive not notches for the fiscal year 2013 before the spread, and then other services that may be affected. example a is the joint training facility that is on their, that the army uses to move people, the stryker force. they use it on the air force base and air force personnel. the army is going to have to pick up a tab on this. i want to get to you all here but, so is there a comprehensive cost analysis and then if the answer is yes, is it gross in the sense of what it saves or is it that in what it saves because

i believe it is not the latter, it is the gross number so please. >> senator as you know and we talked a little bit about this with your staff, i think the turn of the discussion or the question is what you would call how to deal with that analysis. we did have a detailed analysis to make this decision but i assure you it's not to the level that you are discussing now. that is why is she now we have a team out there that is made to much more deep impact or a much more deep study of this and we will soon see the next level of analysis, which you asked for. as our chief has said, that if after this next level of analysis, that the savings don't pan out as we thought they would, then we will look, relook at the decision about moving

that forced. >> i appreciate that i want to hear the feedback so we have it on the record from many people who met with a team that was up there. they felt, and you probably saw some of the reports, they felt you already had a program of dismantling versus what are the costs, what are the savings, are they real or are they not? as you see that report come to you, but hope that you would ask those hard questions decodes it wasn't just one or two folks that mentioned it to me and community leaders that met with them but everybody. it was not about economic sense, and at the end of the day this is an economic issue, not a strategic issue. it's about how much are we saving and i recognize that. the response we got was somewhat surprising so i would hope you or your folks would take that hard look of our these real savings and then making sure it's not through the eyes of an air force but stepping one more

step out and dod savings. .. and i clearly understand what you're talking about real savings over till long run and the other unintended consequences. the team should be focused on those and we will ask the

questions. >> i recognize the need and as you know through the markup we did last year i offer some neat and savings to save the army a lot of money on the end but they got back in north not by you guys but the house has taken it out a few hundred million so we are finding the savings but let's make sure today are sustainable phases and again to send housing and all those other films that is a cost estimate figure into this so i appreciate that. let me just end on one last comment question and that's on the print flag operation and whatever happens where does that in the? is it the third wing, the 354, kalona said at the end of the day and i don't know if you can answer that at the end of the

day with in this analysis that's going to be one of those questions on the red flag operations will own that exercise. we know the commitment by the air force's and military's continued operation it's a very successful so i just need to know kind of where it lands. >> i will get you the very definitive answer but i can tell you that we see no change in that. as you said, senator, the red flag in alaska is critical to the training we are about to do as the new strategy talks of the shift of the pacific clearly this is a pacific focus area, so we anticipate no change is now. but i owe you a definitive answer on that. >> trinkle will carry much and for your service and the alaskans that are starting to come back from afghanistan we have about 9,000 alaska base operations in the field in afghanistan all starting to come back. thank you for the services it is a pleasure to see them in afghanistan when i was there the last trip.

thank you. >> think you, senator begich. senator inhofe. >> we have the hearings we all hear about and the dedication and the fact that our troops are doing all the services roi am i was in the army i never believed that we could reach the stage br today with an all volunteer army it wasn't an all volunteer i was the product of the war draft but i look at this and to me it is less of a concentration on depending america. i used to chair this committee. i was the chairman of the subcommittee and i've always - rall lummis and i've always thought were brisk eclipse line of swa, to increase your risk

and a willingness to accept or loss of lives. am i wrong? what. >> it's also the accomplishment of the mission to, so i think what you want to do is have a force with the capabilities and capacities that allows you to accomplish the mission with minimal losses that really is what we need to have. >> i understand that and i love the way that that's the problem. i'm reading now from your statement use it as we reduce the forced we retain the ability to execute each of these visions but we will have, we will no longer have the capacity to execute them in parallel as a result the days of engaging in the large scale, war one responding to a myriad of the

humanitarian crises engaging in short notice campaigns will not be possible. you have a pretty strong statements. he were talking about the age of the aircraft. i know that. the american people expect more but they don't really know, they don't know what will this is an area that will lead everyone uncomfortable truth and that is all i was very closely served in the house with leon panetta and i know what he said didn't really come from his heart and he knew he was going to be a will to say that, but he said last week the defense department would wage a war on global warming back from billions of taxpayers' dollars on more green stuff and all that.

right now we are trying to survive this thing. the democrats and republicans, all three of them talked about this half trillion dollars and sequestration coming off. it is disarming of america. i happen to be the ranking member and i used to when we were the chairman of the environment works committee for china this on the global warming stuff through the veterans have totally changed. only 19% guinn and believed to number one of the global warming is taking place and the man-made gases are causing to. i read right here and appreciate what when you were talking about what everyone dollar increase in the price per barrel of fuel is

approximately $31 million of additional cost annually above the budget level for but we are talking about huge amounts of money and it's a great if the president coming and he does want to use the military as a test tube for his green agenda he can do that people need to know he does it and he's in an awkward position of having to say things that support the committee and let me just ask you this indirect quote from last week that the first century the reality is there are environmental threats that constitute threats to the national security. any one of the four of you want to volunteer to explain to me because i don't understand what are these environmental threats that are comparable to the terrorists that are out there? anybody? i want either. i want to get into one thing to on the f35.

by moving this program to the white, the president is able to say we are not reducing the number of the effort 35, however, during the cuts over the right said the president's budget request kutz the f 35 budget by 1.6 billion in fiscal 13 and 51 billion well, that's true. the fy 13 kutz result in a few are plans being produced during this per gilpin. granted later on down the road, the mabey produced but we are talking about right now is when the problem is one. i gave a talk i guess, senate floor but i researched it pretty good. i said it mass is the figures we are getting from you guys. in total ... 2008 the department of defense has spent at least $4 billion on climate change and energy efficiency activities that have nothing to do with the actual meeting of.

the cingular billion dollars could have been used to purchase for the with new have 35 swa. i could have been used to purchase 28 new will come if we kept on the f-22 before the budget for years ago and that program was passed or that c-130 five aviation modernization program. i think we all agree have and you certainly agree, don't you, general, and the significance of that program? who >> yes, sir. >> i think everybody does. let me ask you a do you think that working you really believe that it's more important to be experimenting with this than it is to go ahead with that program? aviation modernization program? >> that is in this budget. >> senator, i can't speak to the broad programs included in that amount, but on the needy site we're putting a significant

amount in efficiency and making our forces more efficient. >> that's not the point. our important this program is, which i think is very significant and i have a lot of quotes from all of you talking about how significant this program is tough and the fact that and is knocked out in this budget for the benefit of a few green when test-tube experiment that the military is being forced to do. let me say this, i know my time is expired and i have to leave anyway, but i can remember back when it would be secretary of defense when, back when rumsfeld was before the committee, and the confirmation hearing. i said to him, this was way back in the majority i guess it was about ten years ago, and i said the american people believe we have the very best of everything and we don't.

azar when you would agree upon. there are five countries that make it better than what we have. so, as set when the, if you are granted to go for this position indelicacy the same thing to leon panetta but i didn't do it during that hearing will be advised by a lot of smart generals out there. all four of you are as smart as you can be but you are going to be wrong and i recall that last year i was on the house armed services committee with i would say our current secretary seated next to me we had someone testified that continue as we would no longer need ground troops. so, what does that answer? how can we meet the expectations of the american people that our number one concern should be defending america and a lot of other stuff and we have the best of everything. our kids go out and the battle. but his answer was this we probably should go back to what we did over the last century. he said the average on this

number in times of war and peace, for 100 years in this country we stand 5.7 per cent of our pledge gdp on defending america. and at that time it was dropped down precipitously. this was after the clinton administration. now we're looking at about half of that. so, i guess what i'm saying i'm not asking any questions, i am saying you are doing a great job, we are doing a lousy job because we are not giving you a hand. with the hand you have, you are playing a right. if you need to have a better hand. thank you, madame chair. >> i'm resisting temptation to do any rebuttal of senator inhofe because i want to stay focused -- >> this might be a good time to do it. >> i will wait until you leave. laughter, and not dumb. [laughter] i think what is really of a word

-- one is awkward is when people point to the politics swirled around this place up here and one of the things i admire so much about our military is the loyalty and support you give one another and you stay focused on your mission and try as much as you possibly can to stay away from politics and understand the commander in chief is the commander in chief and i have a deep respect for you in that regard. i want to talk about the non-standard equipment. the services have invested billions of dollars in the mullen standard equipment. since the beginning of the combat operations, which have ranged from the mrap to a flat screen tvs, and i know her are various efforts to look and figure out future usefulness in that regard. this is one of those things that can get left in the corner of the covered as we focus on the standard equipment with all the protocols we have in place what

what is your best estimate on the overall size of the non-standard equipment and what are we going to do with all this stuff? what i'm really worried about with my background as an altar of really worried about the accountability piece. i am worried about whether or not we are doing anything in a way that could even resemble the joint and whether we are having duplicative efforts to try to track down the nsc that we haven't figured out how we are going to transition it out of an operational tempo to a different kind of tempo and could you will address the non-standard equipment initio for me? >> thank you, senator and i share your concern about how much non-standard equipment who we are able to maintain overturning. as you all know, 60% are lifecycles a statement,

lifecycle cost is sustainment and so we have to be able to afford to keep what we have on hand or choose to transition at to what some other new place. and we are very concerned about that in the army. we are taking a hard look at the numbers of the vehicles and the numbers of weapons we are going to keep on hand and we are going through that assessment right now. - gone down to visit a company arms recently to take a look at what hours pictures are actually required when the fisa chief of staff shows up in the company arms room is typically an emotional event for that unit, but my focus was -- >> pettis calling it an emotional event is one of those diplomatic words. i don't think they call that emotional. probably something other than that. >> but i have a concern about how much equipment we are asking the troops to maintain that may

not be useful anymore and we may not be able to afford to sustain so we are going through a collaborative process making sure we keep what we need and transition things we've and don't need and can't afford it and it takes time to work through that but we share your concern. >> what about the mrap? to we have the parts to buy the supply or do we have to continue to rely on the contractor logistics? when that's the big question right now what is answer on the mrap initio? >> will not afford to rely on the logistics for the foreseeable future because as you know, that's a very expensive and so we are going through doing an assessment of how many we are going to keep and what the disposition of those is going to become and again we will outline what this maintenance and supply chain as a result of that.

>> i want to get to guilaume before we leave. does anybody have anything on the standard equipment you want? >> it is less about on standard equipment. the worry i have is we have had a period of time when some good ideas have been brought forth to the battlefield and quickly adopted to help our soldiers and marines on the ground. also we have some examples where we have multiple starts to try to get to capabilities and others where we have several that are competing and many in the same mission in space, and i am concerned that we are able to get to the right number and type and then transition them into long term used with and we've been able to do some of this

work because the money and as it goes away we have to start taking part in decisions aren't some of these one. >> pune you have the money is almost indebted and matt and that you keep looking around and trying different things and it almost breed is a certain inefficiency that is required by many sure what of the mission were but now it's imperative that we decide which of those parts are worth continuing to go down the. one of the biggest problems our military to want to cause this problem there's nothing you don't think you can do so when you are going down the road and hitting bombs come sometimes you could deciding you're going to go over the bumps and keep going down the road instead of saying we need to pull the plug on the journey. maybe this is a road we cannot afford to go down and i hopeful what you're talking about is that. we can't afford to go down the

multiple paths especially if there's overlaying duplication. >> if i could quickly fall than to give a degree of confidence we recognize the challenge that you've raised and we have a process in place to look at it. in our case on the magnitude of about 600 pieces of non-standard equipment as a result in the last ten years we've gone through a bar in the process to go through every item to determine which ones would be transitioned to give you some of the tight we probably will have transition about one-third of those 600 programs and the record to date. the other question which is an important question is where are we with regard to integration in the joint world in when we sit on the joint requirements oversight committee we also have organizations the marine corps board for example that takes a look at things unique to the ground forces and i pretty confident particularly in the case of the non-standard equipment that we have the right

process these in place to look at that equipment and think the proper transition's about as the generally letter to and we're in a result of our significant experience i did believe to identify in the programs that promise years ago but don't have a future and in those cases recognizing again the period that we are in and recognizing detail associated with some of those programs making sure those programs are ended and promptly dispose of the equipment useful in afghanistan but perhaps wouldn't be useful part of the future. >> dad is -- good luck if the equipment is built and more than 25 states, which seems to be a habit that some of the contractors have if they can have pieces of it in more than 25 states they immediately at 50 senators that are protected but i know that you've never witnessed that in all of your time that you've been here. >> my time is up. i know that my colleagues have more questions. i do want to make sure the if i

don't have an opportunity to question again what that we would address the marine corps as it relates to guam and as we look at the budget and i haven't had a chance to sit down to figure out yet about the authorization budget, and anxious that everyone stays in the corral so to speak until we are certain with the future is in guam. i don't want to waste of time doing anything in guam until we get to the reconsideration of the agreement to the place that we think it makes sense for the united states, for the military and for the people of guam and japan. thank you for that. senator begich. excuse me, senator would aayot. >> thank you for raising the

issue of guam and what we need to do in the markup. i wanted to ask each of you, and i raised it in my opening statement, we know that the sequestration is coming in january as the congress doesn't fail to act to come up with other responsible budget savings and i'm strong advocate for doing that. we have heard from each of the services as well as from our secretary defense the devastating impact of defense sequestration and hauling of forces along with all the other consequences. but i would like each of you to address for me is the timing, because i am worried that there is a general feeling around here that we can kick the can until december to make the decision on how to avoid the defense sequestration and undermining our national security. with a group of industrial base the verde but they pointed out

to me there are things there urban to be required to do for example issued layoff notices under the warren act and other legal requirements that they will have to undertake. can you help me each of you if we wait until december what of the disadvantages and consequences of doing that as opposed to resolving this issue much sooner particularly for each of our service branches? because i think this timing issue is important for people around here to understand. >> i agree with your assessment, senator, that if this doesn't pass it would be devastating, and and because of that idea it would drive us to go back and redo some of our planning and certainly make new assessments. that takes time consumes a lot of organizational the energy, so

we are a bit concerned about that and i think from an army perspective, you know again, we've not done any planning on this as you know as you've indicated, but the back of the envelope calculations are such that this would probably mean the loss of probably another 100,000 troops, 50% of those in the guard and reserve, and those kind of impact that probably would drive us to go back and we look at our planning efforts. >> that would be in addition to the 72,000 we are looking in terms of in the strength reduction, another 100,000? and would that not take time and obviously thinking about this concept of first of all of we are going to reduce the force is another 100,000, how do we not break faith there?

i don't know how you can not break faith, but even the implementation of something so devastating wouldn't it be productive if we could still use sooner that we have resolved this for you? is in there and urgency? i think that's what we need to appreciate and around here. would you agree with me that there's an urgency that you not have this hanging over your head? >> absolutely if we didn't have the opinion over our head we would be in much better shape. >> ad morrill? >> others to a significant impact if you look at the sequestration impact on the navy on the 600 billion-dollar defense reduction would be about 15 billion a year that's the amount of the entire ship construction account that we would have to figure out how to spread in our budget and reduce. waiting until december and not having a resolution of the point but allow very short cycle, it couldn't allow us to make

efficient or her effective july says. because us to go back and look at the strategy because the force that comes out of the sequestration is into force that can support the current strategy that we are operating under. the second concern would be the industrial base that you alluded to. our industrial shipyard and providers and corporations have to start making decisions with respect to the notification and pleased that there's furloughs if we are forced to break the contracts and not execute them under the sequestration scenario so i would indicate that the uncertainty in the industrial base one what effect our suppliers who and if it were to occur would greatly affect our industrial base assess damage of long-term weren't. >> if we lose some of those small employers is in the risk that they don't come back? >> that risk exists in many of our more complex procurement programs we are down to single vendors closing will suppliers

and that we are their predominance customers and will be difficult for some to recover. >> senator i would like to go back to your opening comments when you quoted it we got a tendency to view sequestration as a budget issue but it's not a budget issue is the reordering of the priority, it's what we won't be able to do, and certainly at the strategic level i think with the secretary said is we won't be able to implement a strategy as currently written if sequestration goes into effect and i can tell you from a marine corps perspective we are at 182,000 right now we are of the margin of being a will to meet the strategy and i've talked to you in private we believe that 182,000 marines with that number we can meet the strategy secretary leon panetta has articulated the there's an automatic 10% personnel cuts unless personnel is exempted an automatic 10% cut on the marine corps that's another 18,000 right away if we were to reduce.

if we cut another 18,000 we wouldn't have the adequate capabilities to make a contingency operations that is fairly significant in light and the point you raised that is absolutely we would not be able to keep faith with our people the sequestration modeling with the ticket that 18,000 people to 15 per 182,000 range we rely on an overseas if lynn of him down the marines that we are going to be at edify 16 the sequestration and to effect we were not given the opportunity to have that grant the would be an immediate of production from to hundred 2,000 to something on the order of 168,000 that number there is no way we could keep faith we would be breaking contracts and sending people on their way to

believe they have a commitment to keep on active duty and these are the people we talked about earlier you are in afghanistan for deployment or engaged in harm's way to shake their hand that would be a mistake. >> thank you, general. >> senator, just to reiterate a couple things my compatriots have said. we think we would definitely not be able to execute the existing strategy if we have to go through sequestration. we echoed the remark that would be devastating and we can't afford this one. as we talked about several times the air force is the oldest it's ever been. we desperately need to recapitalize our flying feet and if we sit sequestration lee will not be able to maintain capacity and to the recapitalization so we will have to take tough decisions to either come down in the number of units or give up

the modernization of the units and i want to echo something that was also said on the industrial base there are some key capabilities help their that are already at risk and the aviation business the number of houses that can do stealth in another country to keep above the in the effort we are putting into the stealth capabilities because the severe problems in that industrial wastes. >> i think all of you and i know my time is up. can you give me a quick yes or no. yes is there an urgency we do this before december, general? thank you. >> madame share, thank you. i told my ever questions but first i'm sorry senator inhofe isn't here. we actually do a lot of stuff together on general aviation, the good as he called it the

green test tube but the ask a couple questions. i was in afghanistan visiting a sisal marines utilizing new technology around solar energy's with a lot of equipment which i know marines don't like to do with a certain type of equipment that actually saves the lives and what i saw was incredible technology different met from these huge trucks of energy and navy fuel and other wise on the small compact. is it been that of value to the marines to have that technology when they are on the operating bases such as afghanistan with all the fuel been brought in the deacons and three days in the field is that a good thing? >> focus of our energy initiatives along the lines of what we talked about designed to make us more operational effective the individual marines and all the times in afghanistan solar panels that use of, hundreds of pounds of batteries

and otherwise have to carry which conducted seven patrols without that extra weight of batteries because we've had the solar panels so all of the interaction is designed we are spending money in places we could have an immediate impact in fact i was done at camp lejeune for carolina we have what we call the experimental for operations. we articulate what we need this year and focus on things like water and how could we create probable water without the reverse osmosis units that typically are seceded that we agreed deal so that is the focus of the energy efforts enhancing the effectiveness and increasing the ability to operate an expeditionary and austere environment. in an efficient and reddi-wip. >> you move quicker with less of those batteries. estimate i was amazed. >> we are in that equipment because when we feel that the first battalion of there was a

demand signal and immediately was raised of the civilian and the other piece of this is making sure we get it to the marines early enough and sometimes we have to relearn the lesson when the marines are already deployed it isn't going to be very effective, so we've worked for hard to make sure we get that equipment before they deploy but when we do, they absolutely, that to be extraordinarily useful and goes beyond the batteries it goes to those kind of things like those you seen. >> also from the air force and the alternative fuel development making sure you're not just on a certain types of aviation but new technology so you can become more self-sufficient and let the pending from the national perspective on foreign oil from the countries that keep us is that a fair statement? >> our focus their as you know and you have diluted to this to make sure the fleet is ready to accept the fuel such as that when they become economically

viable the fleet would be ready to go and we are proceeding with that. >> also from the navy perspective if i remember reading the report one of your concerns that's what you have if you have a change in the water levels, levels it has an impact on the ports. am i mistaking that? the ports around the country and around the world to make sure we can argue over the signs and all that those that do the weather on tv but i prefer to take all of that aside. we are having some changes and you from that administration are looking at those as an infrastructure cost potentially is that a fair statement? >> it's fair some are looking at that and we are also looking in relation to the arctic about what are the future challenges as that opens upper.

as we focus similar to the air force we are operating and certifying the alternative fuels for our ships and aircraft in order when they become economically viable they are certified and ready to use them and to focus on efficiency and the humification toward fuel bills alone consuming their readiness account so we need to look at alternatives. cynical and of the highest things in the fatalities is protecting the fuel sources coming into afghanistan for example. so the more efficient they become, the less you have to hold getting through those fuels you probably will save lives. am i wrong about that? >> this is becoming more efficient and is all about saving lives and the army perspective, the three tours and iraq and one in afghanistan and i can tell you every time i can do something to not put a

soldier on the road, with a drizzle want to do it because it saves lives and it's also as mentioned earlier maintaining the soldiers and decrease and the burden on them and increasing their endurance if they can go out with longer batteries for a longer life and if it is easier to recharge them if they can harvest energy that's left over in batteries and putting that energy and other places i think that's all good and contributes to saving lives and becoming more effective on the battlefield. islamic the last comment and i will to one more thing on that issue and that is the energy costs because of the dependency on the diesel and other types are draining your accounts and overextending because the cost of fuel has gone up so then you make choices because you've got to have the fuel and the choices are not necessarily fun choices

to make so the less we spend in that area of the less stress you have another budget elements in your own division is that a fair statement? >> let me end on this, and i appreciated the senator's comments in her questioning to you, but i want to for the record if automatic cuts if i were sitting in front of another group here and the va would say some similar things if i were sitting in front of the infrastructure groups, roads, water, sewer guys would say everyone is in a pension. the first thing the congress is missing discuss for the larger audience you don't have to respond to this we've always talked about to replace the cuts we have to have more cuts. the reality is you cannot cut your way out of this problem. there is no possible way. after two decades of poor management around this place republican and democratic, we have a deficit and a debt that

staring. everyone is to blame. the question is are we going to do the right thing. when i was mayor and we had the same problem as a three-pronged attack cut budgets, deal with revenue and invest in the right infrastructure. whenever that may be. if it's education, energy and i think it is the basic core infrastructure. we have to deal with the revenue which is a big -- no one wants to talk about it, it scares everyone but the fact is the only way, and i'm happy to say the city i was the mayor of survival of the economic crash without a hiccup as a matter of fact we cut prices and housing, a strong economy. it's moving it and was rated by business week as one of the economy is the we move and recover very quickly in this economy in the dow recession because we did a three-pronged attack on this issue cash. revenue, expense and investment. of this place has a habit of doing because it makes good political sound bites is it is always about we have to cut or to revenue or deutsch infrastructure to read all three

are going to make the problem get resolved and until the congress get some good about it they will not have a notice. you cannot cut more to then save the cuts that are over here. it's going to be a combination of things if we can cut our way out of this budget your training we will have significant cuts. we have to do that. we have to get rid of things we can no longer do. that is clear. but the gap as large because a few decades of poor management around this place and the goal lucky days of those days are over. but we have to be honest with the public is a three-pronged attack and we should be realistic about it. what's going to happen is the politics will be ayotte. already, no disrespect, senator ayotte, we have to do it now to save the military before.

who's going to be pro defensive end who is not? based on everything we did when i was the mayor and what my wife does to support the military, there is none of us and are going to see the military degrade the capacity we are going to protect the country and to the right way so all of us are success of. i get frustrated when i hear this because it is a three-pronged attack we have to be serious about this and honest with the public. >> we will end with a grant. i would say what really worried about is hour defense industrial base because they have to make decisions up front so we can wait until december but those decisions are being made as we speak here. >> , we talked about all three pieces, but we don't and you know that because it's politics

as usual around this place. >> first of all, i think -- let me step in and say that maybe now the time i should do my rebuttal of senator inhofe this would be perfect time for that. i think it is a perfect time to thank you for your service to the country and all the people in the room. i'm going to resist the temptation to ask why there's so many of you in the room because as some of you have been appearing before you know it is one of my pet peeves that we have to be careful about how many people we have tasked and whether we need as many people. sometimes and attendance at these hearings since the are televised, but i know everybody in the room cares deeply about their country and is committed, and i appreciate that and we are struggling with trying to correct mistakes that have been

made over the last 20 years as to the way we fund what we must fund as a federal government. there is no disagreement between democrats and republicans that the most important priority of the federal government is our national defense and there's absolutely no disagreements regardless of the democrat or republican that we have the best military and the world and we must keep the best military and the world and how we get there. we also have to realize we can't give you everything we asked for in the future because we tried that and we've taken it out. the base budget in the pentagon taking out the health care so you can't even use the health care increases come from to under 70 billion to north of 600 billion in ten years. we've doubled the amount of money going in the pentagon in ten years and that's not

counting oko sigler added on top of that and that is a huge piece. so, can we keep the best military and do it smarter with a little less money? i'm confident we can because the leadership in the military which is represented very well. thank you. there will be more questions from the record some of us didn't get to and we that we don't and drown in debt about 15 or 20 years from now. thank you very much.

>> [inaudible conversations] >> these men go through things and have scholars that no one can understand except each

other. the first thing that startled us is the relationship between harry truman and herbert hoover, were to such personally and publicly different men and a vendetta performing this alliance that not a lot of them live anticipated and ended up being enormously productive and formed the foundation of what became a deep friendship and the letters between them leader in their lives about zero important if become. estimate it may be the most exclusive club in the world >> furthermore i remain optimistic about the future of indiana and the united states of america. the news media and political leaders spend a great deal of time talking about what is broken in our country and in some degree that is the nature

of their business. but we shall also have confidence that the unique american experiment is alive and well and our political system still can work. chicago will lowest annual nato summit on the 20th and 21st of this month. the senate foreign relations committee held a hearing on the issues to be discussed at the summit including european defense spending, missile defense and relations with russia. this is two and a half hours

scan the hearing will come to order. thank you all for being here this morning i apologize we are starting a moment late. i have a conflict at 1030, 10:25. senator shaheen will share the hearing from that point forward, and i appreciate everybody's understanding of that. yesterday the committee had the opportunity to have very healthy and the broad discussions with secretary general rasmussen and he laid out the general expectation of the summit, the road forward as we continue to

define this role, the new parameters of nato. this is our fourth hearing since 2009 and it's not an accident that we are having it now. i think all the members of the committee share the belief that the alliance remains vital to the american security and its effectiveness as an institution deserves our continued focus and attention, but leave this to say that focus has changed, the world has changed, and later this month when the allies meet in chicago to discuss its future in afghanistan and elsewhere, a lot of that redefining will be on the table. so the summit is about how to make nato strong your, how we learn from our shared experiences.

in my judgment, nato is, and i think this is a shared judgment the fundamental element of the national security and its organization demands critical analysis in order to meet the evolving threats of our national security. one thing is pretty clear about nato that it's already confounded the skeptics from bosnia to kosovo, from afghanistan to libya for the alliance has demonstrated the ability to adapt to the post cold war security environment. obviously we've had our challenges in both afghanistan and libya, but we have heard from them. the signing of the strategic partners of the agreement by president obama last week signaled the gradual transition from the war fighting posture to a supportive role. nado's commitment to the people of libya in the past year this shown the alliance properly

leveraged is still a very highly responsible cable and legitimate tool when it really matters. i don't want to spend too much time on the agenda which the members are engaged in putting strengthening partnerships with countries and organizations around the globe defending against terrorism and cyber threats and deploring defenses against the real missiles frets that the alliance faces. each will get i'm sure some further attention in the course of the hearing today. but let me just make a couple lufkin broad points. first, on afghanistan and then second, on meeting our security needs in the age of austerity. recently, just literally a day before the president arrived in afghanistan i was there for two days for discussions with

ambassador crocker, the head of the u.s. forces, general allan. i met with president karzai, the cabinet members and with that of the u.n. mission in afghanistan and also visit tibet several society members with potential presidential candidates and parties. to a person everyone stated the completion of this agreement something of a game changer and over the years i traveled to afghanistan in the region might think about 18 times since the 9/11 events i've had many conversations with people in all different levels of the high points and the low points of the conflict, and i don't think -- i think i can confidently say that i've never sensed quite a collective sense of direction or sigh of relief as consequence of that agreement.

but i will say definitively, and i said this to the enterprise in karzai in the end the game will be nothing if we lose sight of the three major challenges remain. one is the continued challenge of governance, the challenge of corruption within the government process and the delivery of services that is paramount. number two the question of the continued danger of the sanctuary war being prosecuted against the forces. i am a veteran of the sanctuary war and i know how insidious it can be and i think it is unacceptable to have those loan of immunity for the lack of war against armed forces and the collective community cuts trying to accomplish what it's trying to accomplish. that means pakistan has to become more assertive and more

cooperative and we may have to resort to other kinds of cells called depending on what they decide to do, and the final point i think everything hangs on, and again i am just going at this as powerfully as i could, having been involved in sort of talking to dig our way out of the problems of 2,000 line's election if we must prepare now for the election process, not later but now. it's imperative that the afghan government, through an independent election commission put out the rules of the road for that election. the lists have to be prepared, the legislation has to take place, they're has to be openness, transparency, accountability, free and fair elections are mandatory to any to go forward after 2014 with any possibility of success. so those three things leap out at the nato challenge.

finally, the second point, the alliance can only endure if there's a shared sacrifice and a shared commitment to the common purpose. we talked with the secretary general rastus and about this and the failure of some countries to muster the two per cent contribution and the expectation going forward raised serious questions still as we've defined the road ahead is a we need to work with our european friends and we understand this is kind of austerity, its austerity for everybody. but we have to set priorities and we have to decide what is important and perhaps less important. and while we all understand that military budgets may not be in flyable respect to the austerity, certain priorities have to stand out, and i believe the need to allow the of this defense is one of those come and

we need to make that real. so, we have to be clear that even before the financial crisis, nato was seriously underfunded, and as we emerge from the financial crisis we have to commit the resources necessary to the security interest finally i will put the remainder of the comments in the record as if weld deily kuran in full but i am delighted to have the panels that we have here today we couldn't have a better group of experts to share our thinking about this important topic and on the first panel we have to dr. philip cord and the assistant secretary state of eurasian affairs, dr. to jamestown's in the secretary defense of the european nato policy come and on the second panel, we are joined by dr. charles kupchan of georgetown university, and what

shepherdess and. and ian brzezinski of the atlantic council at the brzezinski durkan the doctor hans. we are grateful to all of you for taking the time to be here. and we look forward to your testimony. mai tais a senator lugar has asked that his comments be placed in the record and they will be appropriately, senator corker, i recognize you. >> the gentleman, we look forward to your testimony. thank you. >> thank you, chairman and other members of the committee for inviting us here today to testify on the nato summit which the united states is proud to be hosting in chicago may 20th and 21st and with your permission i would like to submit my submission for the record and summarize my comments. >> we appreciate that and without objection the statement will be in the record. islamic i appreciate the support for the summit as well as its

recognition of the significance of this alliance, transatlantic security. the chicago summit will be the first summit on american soil in 13 years and the first-ever outside of washington. in addition to the opportunity to showcase one of the nation's great cities are hosting of the summit in chicago is a tangible sample of the importance of nato to the united states. it is also an opportunity to underscore to the american people the continued value of this alliance, the security challenges we face today. the last summit in lisbon nearly 18 months ago the allies unveiled a new strategic concept that defines the focus of the 21st century. building on the decisions taken in lisbon, the allies have three objectives for the chicago senate. afghanistan key buildings and partnerships and if i might and would like to say a few words about each. on afghanistan, the coalition has made significant progress in preventing that country from

serving as a safe haven for terrorists and insuring afghans are able to provide for their own security. these are both necessary conditions to fulfill the president's goal to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al qaeda. last week as the chairman acknowledged the united states demonstrated its commitment to the long-term stability and security of afghanistan, and president obama and president karzai signed a strategic partnership agreement, and again i appreciate it during chairman kerry's assessment and look forward to discussing afghanistan further. in chicago where afghanistan is concerned the united states anticipates three deliverable some particular. an agreement on an internment milestone in 2013 commission will shift from combat to support the afghan national security forces the nsf. second come in agreement on the size, cost and senate of the ansf beyond 2014 and finally a road map for the post 2014 role

in afghanistan. regarding capabilities, nado's ability to deploy an effective fighting force in the field makes the alliance unique. however, its capacity to discharge and respond the security challenges will always be as successful as its verses are able effective interoperable and moderate. in the current era of fiscal austerity, nato can maintain a strong defense, but doing so requires innovation, creativity and effectiveness. united states is modernizing its presence in europe come at the same time that our nato allies and nato as an institution are engaged in similar steps. ..

>> our allies are furthermore expected to understand the trendlines. this will help nato meet the 21st century security challenges, and assist us in making this transition to posture issues. effective partnerships allow the alliance to extend its reach

with greater legitimacy, share burdens come and benefit from the capabilities of others. our allies will not take decisions on further enlargement of nato in chicago, but they will, nonetheless, send a clear and positive message in support of countries membership goals. the united states has been clear that nato's door remains open to european democracies that are willing and able to assume responsibilities and obligations of membership. macedonia, montenegro and george are working closely with allies to meet member nato criteria. let me talk about two aspects that i know our particular interest to this committee. macedonia and georgia. macedonia has contributed to regional and global security. the united states fully supports the u.n. process led by ambassador and we engage with greece and macedonia to find a mutually acceptable solution, which will develop the nato summit in bucharest.

with regard to georgia, u.s. security systems where the countries defense reform, train and equip troops for operations, and advance nato operability. in january, president obama agreed to enhance its cooperation to advance georgia's military modernization, defense reform come and self-defense capability. u.s. assistance programs provide ongoing reform efforts in georgia, a critical part of their progress where they have made strides. within the internationally recognized borders, it remains steadfast. finally, let me address russia's vast nato's relationship with russia. 2012 marks the 50th anniversary of the nato russia council and

the anniversary we commemorated at a meeting in brussels last month. the nrc sounded on commitment to address issues of disagreement. russia's transit support has been critical to mission success. at the same time, nato continues to seek cooperation with missile defense in order to enhance our individual capabilities to counter this threat. while we strive for cooperation, we have also been frank in our discussions with russia that we will continue to develop and deploy our missile defenses irrespective of the state of missile defense cooperation with russia. let me be clear. nato is not a threat to russia, nor is russia a threat to nato. there are issues on which we differ. russia has been critical of nato's operation in libya. we also disagree over the fundamental situation in georgia. since 2008, nato has supported

georgia's integrity and continues to urge russia to meet its commitments with respect to georgia. in conclusion, the three priorities i just outlined, demonstrate how far nato has evolved its founding six decades ago. the reasons for its continued success are clear. the alliance over the last 63 years has proven to be adaptable, durable, and cost effective provider of security. when president obama welcomes his counterparts to chicago just a week, the united states will be prepared to work with our allies and partners to ensure that the alliance remains vibrant and capable for many more years. thank you very much, and i look forward to your questions. >> thank you, mr. secretary. i appreciate it. >> chairman kerry and members of the committee, thank you for inviting me here today to discuss the nato summit which the united states will host in chicago in may. i will describe for the committee what we hope to achieve at the summit from a defense point of view, it and

its relevance for u.s. national security. i particularly look forward to hearing the committee's views on the summit and the priorities you have for its outcome. i like to summarize my statements amah mr. chairman, and some submit the full statement for the record. >> without objection? nato and the governments come together every few years, not only to approve report and pieces of alliance business, but also to renew at the highest level, the commitment allies have made to one another in the north atlantic treaty. this commitment to come to one another's defense, as expressed in article five of the treaty, is a solemn one that has only been invoked once after the united states was attacked on september 11, 2001. this commitment, which was critical during the cold war, to help deter the warsaw pact from attacking the united states and our allies.

even with the end of the cold war, this article five commitment remains the core of the alliance. nato serves as the organizing framework to ensure that we have allies willing and able to fight alongside us in conflict, and provide an integrated military structure that puts the military team behind alliance political decisions to take action. in addition to ensuring the interoperability of our allies, nato serves as a hub and an integrator of a network of global security partners. the nato air and maritime operation in libya illustrate this point. the operation began at the coalition of the willing, involving the united states, the united kingdom, and france. however, when nato answered the un's call to protect the libyan people, it was able to take on the mission and executed

successfully. had nader not been there, or nato been too weak and institutional to take on such an operation, the coalition would've had to carry on alone. keeping nato strong, both politically and militarily is critical to ensure that nato is ready when it is needed. this is true for the past 20 years when the turbulence of the international system has demanded that nato respond nearly continuously to crises throughout the globe. today, for example, nato forces are in afghanistan, it in the waters off of somalia, and have just concluded operations in libya. looking out into the future, challenges to the united states and our allies can come from ballistic missile proliferation, attacks, terrorism, weapons of mass destruction as well as the

instability that we can see happening as turmoil takes place as nations russell to set up their forms of government. we must be ready to meet emerging threats. we would prefer to meet these challenges together with allies and not alone. so the strategic context for the summit is what i have just described. for our work at nato everyday, this is what we have in mind. how can we keep nato and the allies relate content ready and able to meet the challenges of today and in the future. this is especially complex today at the european economic crisis. it compels allies to cut spending and force structure, in order to reduce spat on trent money. allies have different priorities regarding perceptions of threats in the tradition of their own military forces. not every ally sees the world in

the way we do. but one thing we agree on, we need the alliance to be unified and strong. allies look to the united states to lead the way in keeping nato strong, capable, incredible. that is where we come to the summit in chicago. at chicago, heads of state and government will agree through work that we committed to at the last summit at lisbon 18 months ago, at chicago we will focus on three areas. an agreement on a strategic plan for afghanistan, military capabilities, and nato partnerships. the united states has three summit objectives. the first is charting a clear path for the completion of transition and reaffirming nato's commitment to the long-term security of afghanistan. the second objective is maintaining nato's core

capabilities of defense during this period of austerity and building a force ready for future challenges. finally, deepening the engagement of nato's nations and alliance operations and activities. chairman, i would like to conclude my summary here, and i welcome your questions and look forward to a great discussion. >> thanks very much. let me ask you quickly, if i can, before i turn the gavel over. secretary gordon, what is the reaction of the european -- generally, to the obama administration's decision to take two of the four combat army brigades out of europe? >> and what is the impact? >> i appreciate the opportunity to address that. i think we have been quite successful in explaining what is

behind that thinking. i was actually in berlin, lithuania, and copenhagen and had the opportunity to engage extensively in the thinking behind it. it is a misunderstanding to think about in terms of withdrawal from europe. that was the initial concern, that people would be imagining that somehow we were reducing our presence in europe. the brigade combat teams that you are referring to have been fighting in asia for the past decade. the issue of the defense department that they were addressing in regards to europe, is after this decade of heavy presence of spending hundreds of billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of troops in iraq and afghanistan, what was the right posture moving forward, especially in the form of fiscal constraint. we have the opportunity to explain his thinking to our european allies.

we remain absolutely committed to europe and to article five, and moving forward, even after those brigade combat teams do not return to their original homes in germany, europe will have his many europe forces as it has had for the past decade, during which we believe article five is incredible and we have absolutely have an ability to defend europe. we have also, and the pentagon is working this out as we speak, taken the decision to ensure the element of those brigade combat teams are rotating through europe to ensure the critical partnership function that they performed while they were there. whereas there may have been some initial concern that the headline of withdrawing troops in europe was imminent, we think that by actually explaining what is behind this thinking and reiterating our commitment to europe, which, by the way, should not be -- i will end with this -- it should not be reduced

to the numbers of brigade combat teams in europe. over the three years of the obama administration, we have done another of other things to modernize and reiterate our commitment to europe, including deploying missile defense, which will give american presence, including troops and people in romania and poland and we have radar in turkey. we are rotating ages cruisers and there is a whole new presence in europe. we have moved forward on an aviation detachment and poland we have done special forces in the uk and elsewhere. >> can you give me a quick take on the president-elect, hamid karzai promise on the effort?

>> absolutely. as you know, the lisbon commitment and the lisbon timetable, the things that we were so successful in doing in lisbon was the 2014 timetable. the alliance as a whole agreed that the combat troops should remain. performing their mission, being successful to the and of 2014, after which they would be gone. the french troops will be out by the end of 2012. this is obviously something we will look forward to discussing with the presidents once he is sworn in. in fact, i leave for paris this afternoon to carry on with this conversation, which is already begun. in recent days and weeks. the french usher us that they are committed to our common

success in afghanistan, and i'm sure we will find a way forward that ensures that common success. all i can do with his speak your own view, which is this principle remains critical and we should also not lose sight of the fact, which i think is quite an accomplishment for the president and his leadership of this alliance, that every single member of our staff has stuck to that. and there hasn't been the withdrawals notwithstanding the economic crisis that we know is there, notwithstanding the political pressures. every member of the staff is on board with maintaining their commitment to the end of 2014. >> those interested in the discussions come honestly, i was just thinking that europe and the toughest job of all, is having to travel to these difficult capitals of london and paris and brussels. >> i made clear to secretary clinton i am ready to spend as much time as necessary and paris in the coming weeks.

>> fair enough. final question, quickly. almost a year ago now, terry gates made a very strong statement to the alliance period in which he lamented that many of the allies to make the necessary changes or devote resources tuesday be serious and capable partners in their own defense. where does demonstrations and with respect to that statement today, and what can we hope for. >> mr. chairman, as i underscored in my statement, we continue to urge our european partners to uphold their responsibilities, including the common pledge of 2% on defense. it is a reality that the trend of european defense spending is poor. if they don't keep their promise, it will be difficult.

notwithstanding the constraints that we face, the european allies did step up. they flew more than 84% of the strike missions in libya. they made a critically important contribution in afghanistan. they sustained 40,000 troops as part of isap. in these and other cases, we want more anymore, but they are making critically important contributions. we are constantly urged them to make the investments necessary so that will be true in five years from now. just as it is true today. the last thing, we understand the constraints. that is why one of the deliverables for chicago that both jim and i have emphasized, is the question of capabilities and smart defense. even if we sustain levels, we have to do it more efficiently and better, and we have some particular projects that would be able to show the alliance moving forward by pooling and

sharing in moving forward with the limited resources available. >> there are obviously some follow-ups to that. i appreciate it. we believe the record open for a week after this and we will try not to burden you too much. there may be some things we want to do to fill it out. i will now recognize senator corker and i will turn the battle over to senator shaheen. >> thank you, mr. chairman, and thank you both for your testimony. you know, this issue of the to pretend gp commitment that is not being honored, it is something that has been talked about for a long time. secretary albright was in maybe two years ago talking about the same thing. secretary gates has been in talking about the same thing. certainly, we did so in your period and we talked yesterday with the secretary general about the same issue and it continues to be a huge problem. this trend has been continuing for a long time. we understand that europe is under stress right now. what set of ingredients do you

think exist or what is it that we are doing. you know, we spent a little over 5% of gdp here on defense, and i am glad that we did. i know it is dropping to the hype for percent in this next year. certainly, i think that we should invest appropriately in that regard. what we are doing, we have almost been the provider of security services. and they are becoming the security services consumer. it doesn't seem to be anything that will change that dynamic. on a per capita basis, many countries have had more casualties than us, and we honor it. but from the standpoint of year and and year out investment and defense forces and modernization, it is just not happening. we have been talking since i have been here. i've been here five years, and

nothing has changed. as a matter of fact, it is moving in the other direction. only three countries, the united states, united kingdom and greece, are investing 2%. a lot of people are saying that greece's investment is not being done wisely, or at least that is what we heard yesterday. i just wonder if there's anything that you would tell us other than urging anything that is going to change that dynamic and cause us to be a true alliance and not one of us providing security services to consumers. >> i will start in the general might want to jump in on this. first of all, senator, we agree with that assessment. that is why, as i say, we have been clear in making comments to our european allies about how critical this is. i would again recall libya is an example of doing more than urging, where the case of libya

facing a grave humanitarian crisis, a situation of a dictator being violent to his own people. the arab league calling for intervention as well. went to the europeans in that case and said, we agree. action needs to be taken. we took the lead. we said we are prepared to do what we can do. >> let me talk, now. i appreciate and honor that, too. but you know, to build an appropriate defense mechanism, as a group of countries, it takes year and year end and year out commitments. we are concerned about the future. verizon is over a long period of time. i think what we are seeing in europe is over a long period of time. a very downward trajectory. i honor what happened in libya, but i am still not seeing anything whatsoever that is

changing the trend to move it back up to what is a commitment. a 2% gdp commitment is not that much for the allies. i'm wondering again, what set of ingredients is going to change that, especially with the economic times we are dealing with? >> once again, senator, i agree with that assessment. the point i'm going to make about libya is not just in the short term, but a longer-term point. which is to say that we will provide our unique capabilities, but we expect you to be able to play a major role yourselves heard by insisting on that, we got them to do it in that case. and we are now able to say that there is the example. if you don't continue to invest in the fighter planes and the precision guided missions, and

intelligence assets, you will be able to do this in the future and you can't expect united states to do it for you. only they can make those decisions, but that is what they are hearing from us. we also believe, as i refer to her capabilities deliverables for chicago, trying to -- there are a lot of inefficiencies when it comes to spending. there are a lot of redundancies and people are doing it smartly enough. the allied ground surveillance system, were 13 of them will come together and by five drums built by an american company, to be able to share all of this with the entire alliance is something they need to be investing in, unless they're going to have enough money for them to buy individual dones. this is the sort of thing they can do with less money to provide a capability for everybody. we are trying to do that as well. >> thank you, and i am glad we are on the same page. let me ask another question. when are we -- this commitment

to afghanistan. the last i checked, and i have dated on this, but to provide enough resources for them just to maintain the security forces that we have trained with them, i think it is about $9 billion a year, if i remember correct way. you all might correct me. the last time i checked in afghanistan, and again i am dated, it was around 1.5 billion or 2 billion. that is for the entire government. what is the entire security tab and what kind of commitment -- because this is something that is coming up right now. this is not introductory. these are commitments we need to make. what is the exact gap and when do we expect from our nato allies to have those real pledges coming forth to fill that gap? >> i will have to get to the exact numbers on where we are

right now. >> in the order of magnitude. >> we are focused on where this is concerned for chicago. honestly, this number needs to go down. i think you are order of magnitude is about right on where we are. none of us want to keep spending that amount years into the future. we are focused on how to be something sustainable in our wake. once afghans are fully in charge of their security, we wanted to work. but we know we're going to have to help. the plan that we are looking out for chicago would involve the international community putting in around $4 billion a year to maintain the afghan national security forces. for up to one decade. now, the afghans themselves already pledged $500 million a year of their own money towards that goal for three years, and that amount should rise year by year after that. secretary gates challenge the

rest of my stuff to come up with a billion euros per year, about 1.3 billion years. we have been working hard at the highest levels of government to get the international community to deliver on that pledge if we get to that point of the 4.1 billion, the afghans -- the other members would give at least 1.3 billion that would bring our numbers down by a factor of significant numbers. >> and you may get those commitments in chicago? or will that take a much more elongated period of time? we are looking to get this as soon as possible from as many countries as possible. i think it is for to say we are making good progress towards the goal. >> they could rework and madam chairman, thank you. >> let me thank our witnesses. secretary gordon, i want to talk

about something that i brought up yesterday. that is the chicago summit will not be an enlargement summit. i got the secretary-general's view on how we deal with that aspect nations that one day we hope will be part of nato. i want to start off with my concern. it has been that ability or desire to join either the european union or nato, that has been a motivating factor to accelerate democratic reforms in many countries of europe. and we see that work very successfully. there must be some disappointment that the summit will not be an enlargement summit. montenegro and macedonia were very close to moving forward on their plans. we have the issues with bosnia,

where they have made some significant progress, and have not quite met the target dates, but they are moving forward in a very positive way. georgia has also made substantial progress, and i understand they may not have reached the plateau for formal acceptance, but i think the signal that is being sent, is that we are slowing down the formal expansion of nato for many reasons. many legitimate reasons. on a parallel, it has been slow in expansion because the economic problems of europe. i guess i would like to get the administration's view as to how we continue to keep the momentum moving towards democratic reform and ultimate membership in nato and countries we have been very actively engaged with. >> thank you, senator. the first point is absolutely agreed.

historically, nato enlargement has been good for nato and europe and those countries as he said. it has contributed to democracy in europe and stability and has been absolutely the right policy administrations of all different stripes have been supported by it. we completely agree with that. we have been saying, and this phrase that you heard that this was not an enlargement summit, we have said that it is not enlargement summit, but it is also not a summit that should be backing away from enlargement. there is not a country ready to be included in the alliance at the summit with the consensus behind it. in that sense it is not an enlargement summit. but this does not mean that we are not focused on enlargement or as supportive as ever as the open door policy that we have. one of the ways that we are going to signal that is secretary clinton will participate in a meeting of nato foreign ministers with the four countries to specifically acknowledge them, let them know

that the door remains open, and to talk with them and to signal our strong support for enlargement in general, in the process for these countries in general. every country should be treated separately, and we should have high standards for joining the alliance. we continue to work with each of the four countries as you mentioned. i will be happy to talk about each one with you. but our bottom line, we remain committed to the open door. >> and i accept that and agree with you. each of the countries are truly unique. i understand the hurdles that each of the four countries still have remaining. i really do. i think, though, that it is important -- this important signal that's given, the types

of reforms that are being carried out, not just in these four countries, but others that would like to become one day candidates or a plan for entering nato -- they are not necessarily popular locally. the type of commitments to the defense and constitutional change for authority, the types of democratic reforms that we see, the types of control necessary for security. those types of issues are not always the most popular domestically in those countries, but they will be able to do it because they see a path towards integration. if that path looks like it's going to be a long haul, we have seen in the recent european elections, countries don't always go for the responsible route. i think it is very important that the message come from the united states. clearly, i am pleased that secretary clinton will be talking to the four countries. we have to be very clear that we do want integration and we do see the path that will lead to

that. there are reforms that need to be pursued, and although we are not ready at the summit, we do anticipate that there will be enlargement, and we do encourage countries to seek membership in europe and the membership of nato. >> we agree with that for the very reasons you stated, and it is our goal and commitment to make sure that the summit since they've positive signal in that direction. i will be honest. not every member of nato is enthusiastic about the enlargement process. sometimes it takes some persuading to make sure that positive signal gets sent, but it certainly is this administration's view, and we appreciate the support of this committee for that goal. >> and we have seen it at higher summits. the exact points that you have raised. another our concerns about other countries in europe and their view about nato enlargement, we are well aware of all those different issues. that is why i think it is particularly important for u.s.

leadership to be airy focused and clear in chicago. >> thank you, madam chair. >> senator risch. >> madam chairman, thank you. this committee met with the secretary-general yesterday, and we have had a spirited discussion along the lines of senator raised remarks. i think all of us have the same concerns that he does and want to make certain that the communication is clear that wanting to join is one thing. the strong commitment to the requirements for joining is another issue that certainly needs to be underscored. let me say, secretary gordon, you correctly identified the issues that this committee is interested in. i want to talk about just one of those briefly. that is the georgia situation. it is a concern to a lot of us, and in your remarks you talked

about stressing about meeting commitments as far as georgia is concerned. you touched on it lightly, and i don't mean that derogatorily. it is almost as if the international community understands the commitments that the russians have made regarding georgia, but nobody really expects him to meet those commitments. as i read between the lines of what you were saying, it was almost a reiteration of that. it is unfortunate, but give me your thoughts on whether russia is going to meet its commitments. they made very strong commitments. excuse me, not strong, clear commitments as to what they were and what they were going to do to the french. the one that i am most interested in is the obligation to vacate the occupied territories. it is just not right. the russians said that they

would meet the commitment to vacate. they haven't done that. from what i can tell, nobody expects them to do that. what are your thoughts on that? >> thank you, senator. i won't pretend that it is easy to find a way to get russia to meet those commitments. we completely agree with your assessment that russia is currently in violation of the cease-fire agreement that was reached in august and september of 2008. they had six commitments, one of them was for russian troops to go back prior to where they were at the start of the conflict. those troops are not back to where they were at the start of the conflict. we believe, therefore, like you, that russia is in violation of those commitments. we have also been clear, and secretary clinton has referred to russia's occupation in georgia, not meant to be provocative, but to simply describe what we believe to be the case, which is russia having military forces within the

territorial congeries of an internationally recognized country. we have been very active in preventing any further recognitions of garcia. i think there may be three other countries in the world that have done so. every single other member of the international community has refused to do so. since we believe we have denied russia any legitimization that they have tried to have over these countries. we also have maintained an absolutely -- not just rhetorically informally support for georgia's territorial integrity, but genuine support for the country of georgia. i most recently manifested -- this was most recently manifested in the president meeting in the oval office, where we committed to strengthening the relationship and the defense relationship.

i will take the opportunity to express appreciation for the contributions towards that has made in afghanistan. they are one of the major contributors per capita. we are working to strengthen that relationship as well. >> i think we have all done likewise. especially in appreciation. it is disheartening to watch something where a commitment is made like this. it is handled cavalierly by the international community. nobody does anything about it. it is disheartening to say the least. i'm going to follow up on comments that senator corker made. if you feel comfortable in answering these, fine. if not, we can go back to mr. gordon. it has to do with the sustainability of the nsf forces. those of us who deal with this regularly, when you put a pencil to this, it just doesn't work.

i know that secretary gordon said, in fact, i think he listed this as the number one priority for the chicago meeting, was to chart a clear path forward for security forces in afghanistan for sustainability. i understand you want the money that you want from the european countries and from others, but when you look at what cost to maintain the ansf, even when you include the drug profits that they may, it just doesn't work. how do you get there? what are your thoughts on that? how do you get some confidence in being able to do this when the numbers just don't work? >> thank you, senator. the work you desired is being done on the hill. hill. it is being done by the administration as well. my department, as well as the department of state -- we are

working those numbers as well. also, at nato. with allies in the afghan government, there are a lot of pencils going about trying to determine as we chart the way forward between now and 2014. and also post- 2014. whether you are at nato were looking at what the nato presence could be, or looking at the u.s. side or on a bilateral basis, the afghan side, we have to first do is think of what we will need in terms of ansf to do the job after 2014. what needs to be some of the factors that we look at. i think one of the major factors driving the size of the ansf, which is, of course, one of the driving forces, we look at what will the taliban look like. these are all unknown factors. we feel that we have a pretty good feeling for what we think could happen. but so much depends on how much we are able to degrade the

taliban. that presents less of a threat to afghanistan and less of a threat to the ansf. but certainly impacts this as well. we know, as senator kerry talked about, there is an important election in 2014. what will be the terms of security and making sure that the election goes up without a security threat? we are moving, and we are still at work. at chicago, nato is going to produce its strategic plan for afghanistan. we will be trying to deal with these numbers are and what the nato presence will look like. as you know, we just signed, also, the strategic partnership agreement with the afton afghans. right now, we are putting on paper the structure of what we think we are going to be doing. that will impact what the ansf will apply, and that, in turn, will add in the cost figure there. we know that we have a tall job ahead of us, but we know, too, that we have to make sure that

the afghans have what we think they're going to need to do the job. >> i appreciate that. i have to say that i think everyone has a long way to go before the comfort level for a lock people up here are met. we are just -- we are very nervous about this. we have difficult times bring this together with the amount of money we are talking about, particularly in the present economic circumstances of this country and the european countries and the afghans to. my time is up. i would like to hear from mr. gordon. >> thank you, senator risch. i want to get into some of the specifics of the upcoming summit. before i do that, i want to ask you about some news that broke this morning around the decision in russia in the newly inaugurated president vladimir putin and he is not going to come to the g8 summit next week. i wonder what we think about

this decision by vladimir putin, if that comes as a surprise. more generally, how is his return to the presidency going to affect nato and russian relations. >> the narrow question of the g8 summit and the broader one of the relations, president putin call president obama yesterday to have an exchange on the anniversary of the victory day, but more specifically, to let him know that he looks forward to continuing -- the first time since he was inaugurated -- looking forward to continuing the relationship. given his responsibilities in moscow, and trying to put a cabinet together, he thought it felt it was important to stay there, and instead suggested

they meet -- but the two presidents meet at the next g. 20 meeting which is some five weeks from today. that is a fact. the president will look forward to seeing the prime minister at the g8. and he looked forward to seeing president putin at the g. 20. in terms of the broader relationship, as you know, we have been very proud of what we have been able to accomplish with russia over the past three years. on the very straightforward basis, we have a lot of incumbents, but we have some significant differences as well. we were just talking about when with regard to georgia. as you know, we have done that. the new treaty agreement on transit in afghanistan, the 123 civil nuclear agreement, russia

supports the security agreements on iran. russia's agreement to join the wto which included the basis of cooperation with russia. your question is how does that continue with president putin? i can only speak from our end. it would be to pursue the same practical policy overall. we look for cooperation with russia. nobody can predict the future. what we can say is that president putin, then prime minister putin, was around for every agreement that i just described. and we managed to agree. even with those two gentlemen in different jobs, we won't be -- there won't be reason to think that they won't be successful when they are mutual. >> so we really think he is just busy and there is no underlying

alter your motive here? >> i think only the russian government can take at face all you what -- >> i should have clarified. that was a rhetorical question. [laughter] >> stepping back a little bit from the content of the chicago summit, i want to talk about what we see is a nato member, the messages that people should take away from chicago. last month, i had the opportunity to host with the winning council and event around the upcoming summit. secretary albright and former senator warner were there. it was very well attended. there was a lot of interest in it. i think this summit comes at an important time with what has happened with nato and europe. what is happening right now.

there have been a suggestion that we should pull back from commitments to nato, that the same is true in europe as we look at the declining defense budgets, which people have raised here today. i actually think that would be a mistake. if we look at the successes of nato, and you both talked about those eloquently in your opening remarks, this is a 60-year-old alliance that has been the most successful one in modern history, anyway, we talked about success in libya. we still represent three of the top for defense spending countries in the world. and we have, after a decade of fighting in afghanistan, the most experienced fighting force that we have seen. again in modern history, enlargement has been good for

europe. in view of where the alliance is now, and some of the criticisms and questions that have been raised about its ongoing potency to deal with the challenges we face in the world today, what is the message that you all would like to see coming out of the chicago summit about nato and our role in nato? and i would like to ask actually, both of you if you could address that. >> madam chairman, i could not agree more with your analysis and couldn't disagree more that it is time to move on. as you say, it goes beyond the particulars in afghanistan capabilities. i think the overall message is that it is simply in the national security interest of the united states to strengthen our partnership with the allies. whatever the drawbacks and inefficiencies in defense spending or different points of view we may have, it is

important that we face the daunting challenges that we face around the world with a standing alliance of countries who probably share our values and interests. i just think that the case for doing that, in some ways, is greater than ever before. giving the physical situation we are in. if you take any of the most recent examples, being in afghanistan is challenging enough. imagine trying to do this without the alliance or contributions of our partners. without an integrated military command structure, and the tradition of militaries that cooperate with each other, and some common assets like the allied ground surveillance. it just doesn't make sense. again, broadly speaking, european partners are those that manage global problems. in the balkans and libya and afghanistan, and also our iran

negotiations and so many others in question. i think it is just absolutely the case that it is in our interest to do this. again, libya is another recent example. i don't think anybody would've imagine us doing a military operation in libya if you look back a couple of years ago. to have a command and control system and interoperable forces any political body in brussels. you can't just look these things up with the snap of a finger. you have to have the same institutions and structure. that is the broad message of cooperation we would like to figure out the map thank you mr. townsend. >> mr. senator, just a personal reflection. i have worked in the department of defense since the early 1980s in various guises. what i have seen over time, and when i answered this question to groups of americans, when the

crisis happens, going back so many years, the telephones ring in europe. they don't bring other places in terms of washington calling our allies that is where the phone rings in those early days as we grapple with what to do. it is something that is precious and something that we haven't always had. if you look back in history, whether it is the 1930s and we watch how we as a nation have tried to organize ourselves to deal with problems -- the problems of those days which are different than problems today, we have been organizing entity with nato to help us quickly come together on a political basis at 28 around the table, and sort out what we need to do. we are able to go to the u.n. with these nations with us and give u.n. assistance. the u.n. security council takes on these issues. politically, when we all decide

on a course of action, you have nato on the military side, the integrated military structure helps us to organize ourselves and take action pretty quickly. secretary gordon mentioned libya. i use libya as well as an illustration on how we were able to come together politically and work with the united nations and work with the international community, not just with the european allies but also probably. and then we take a course of action. it is a great test case of the theory. i will also say in closing that we have to always work at it. there will always be critics. and we need the critics. we need to understand where we are failing here and there. the lessons learned coming out of libya. the defense spending. the capabilities. i have worked for years trying to keep moving forward and keep the alliance strong. we will never reach 100% in terms of fixing all the problems. we have to keep trying.

secretary gordon and i worked for many years on this together. we want to hand off to our successors and alliance that is continually moving forward and continuing to look for ways to get better. a lot of what the chicago summit is in the capabilities package in particular, are ways of which we can address the defense spending issues and the ways we can address trying to spend money with the priorities -- some of the senators in their statements have talked about prioritizing in the area of austerity in how we spend money. that is what we'll try to do in chicago. every summit, as it comes around, takes is another step towards addressing these issues and becoming an even stronger alliance. >> thank you both, very much, senator leahy. >> thank you, madam chair. and thank you both for joining us. i would like to start with mr. gordon. do you anticipate that over the next 10 years on 10 days we might see a softening of

turkey's objection to israel's participation in the upcoming summit? >> i think there is a misconception about this issue. i actually appreciate the opportunity to clarify. nato had not envisaged inviting them to the summit. it is a member of the mediterranean dialogue, one of nato's manifold partnership relations. it was simply a matter of logistics and time. there was no meeting of the mediterranean dialogue, or a particular invitation to israel for turkey to block. i have seen reports and speculation about this, but that is just not accurate. what is accurate, as you know very well is that turkey has a

relationship which is fraught, it is one of the more positive aspects of the middle east is the deep cooperation between those two countries. we regret that partnership activities at nato with israel are not proceeding because of turkish objections. we have been very clear about that. no country should bring bilateral disputes into the orient. as a broad matter, we are focused on this is a specific matter for the nato summit, it is not really an issue. >> okay. so you're saying that the relationship between turkey and israel does not bode well for the partnership, such as it is between israel and nato? >> that is right. as i say, nato has a history of partnership activities with lots of countries, we see it as a package as i say, first of all, we don't expect that any

countries should bring in a bilateral dispute into the alliance. and we don't expect that countries can pick and choose and activities. as you know, nato operates by consensus. if nato operates partnership for one country, and if we won't accept it for one country, we won't accept them generally. that is where we are now. we won't allow discrimination. >> turkey's actions jeopardize that understanding? they are challenging that assumption and assertion? >> not the assertion that it is all or nothing. we in the united states, again, if everything is by consensus, will not allow certain countries to be blocked and others to go ahead. >> but turkey is nonetheless objecting to partnership activities? >> correct. >> through the mediterranean partnership or otherwise? >> correct. >> what are the administration's

plans with regard to possible funding of afghan security forces of their peak of 350,000 troops beyond 2014? what can you tell us about that? >> well, as i think you know, you are right to see that peak nsf will be at 15,000 troops. what we believe is a sustainable goal will be considerably less than that. plus the 200 30,000. >> thinking about this all along, the ansf needs to be sufficient to do the mission, but also sustainable. which is to say affordable over the long-term. that is where we think this remains to be decided. some of the issues to be discussed among allies in chicago and work continues to be done. but we don't envision the 350,000 people will be sustained over the next decade.

we also acknowledge and this is partly a response to senator risch's question earlier, they can do them by themselves. probably for the next decade, ensuring that the ansf are sustainable. it is also important to remember that whatever that cost the international community, it will be far less than what we have been paying for the last decade. >> thank you. mr. townsend, french president-elect françoise hollande has indicated he would like to withdraw all french combat forces from afghanistan by the end of 2012. what do you think the odds are that will actually occur? >> senator, i am not a betting man. so this is going to be

difficult. establishing odds will be difficult. we have been in touch the team as they began to take the reins of power. they are not there yet obviously. the and operation has to come. senator gordon just a few moments ago told the committee that he will be going to paris this afternoon to talk to the team. the shadow defense minister, if you will, came by about a month or two ago. i spoke with him a bit and listened to what he had to say. i think they face the situation that many politicians face after an election. they are now going to be faced with governance. they are going to be faced with a summit were a lot of work has been done by the allies to try to make sure that the way ahead is something we are all unified on. of course, we will be making a

declaration with a summit on afghanistan. there will also be the strategic plan that will be agreed there. there has been a lot of work done. the new french government as it takes the reins of power, once françoise hollande is inaugurated, they are going to be stepping into an already flowing stream. we are looking forward to talking to them and explaining to them as they get ready to take that big step. speaking personally, i would expect and hope that they would understand as they take the reins of power in france, in the nato context, they would be one of 20 nations that will come together to plan for 2014 and afterwards. france has played a very important role in the development of this plan. very important role in afghanistan. they will be taking on him as they take the reins of power, a big responsibility to join with us and go forward in an alliance that wants to make sure that there will be an enduring