now more than ever we need a clear strategy or strategies plural to guide our actions and defense investments. all too often senior leaders in our government do not even seem able to define the concept. when pressed for a strategy they offer objectives and general interests and inputs and dreams and means but not a strategy. not a description they will marshal limited means to achieve their ends. that's how we heard -- and we get what we heard on tuesday the three r's. what's worse than the national security strategy that become a speech writing exercise to please all constituencies and tell us less than the quadrennial defense review which our witness told us last thursday has become more of a sustained explanation of the

many of our adversaries spent the decades to reshape their militaries and developing technologies to thwart america's military advantages. as we'll hear today, many of the technologies that made america the unparalleled global military power just 15 to 20 years ago, they are pro proliferating to others. our adversaries are fielding new technologies from cyber to space in order to defeat our military advantages. at the same time, we face growing networks of violent islamic extremists that will engage us in a low conflict of technology and will for decades to come. as the bipartisan national defense panel warned in future, quote, conflicts are likely to unfold more rapidly, battlefields will be more lethal. operational sanctuary will be scares and fleeting. conflict will be the norm in this rapidly changing environment. u.s. military superiority is not a given. and yet since the end of the cold war a quarter century ago, the united states has maintained a similar but ever shrinking version of the military we built in the 1980's. in constant dollars we are spending the same amount on defense as we were 30 years ago. but for this money today, we are getting 35% fewer combat brigades, 5 % fewer ships, 63% fewer air combat squadrons and a lot more bureaucracy and joferede head. our forces are more capable than ever but not capable in being multiple places at once. capacity still matters given the numerous contingencies we face. our adversaries are more capable, too. many significantly so. our military technological advantages are eroding fast. add that to the years of arbitrary spending cuts and see questions tration and we are now facing the problem of a erosion. at the level of strategy we are living through a pattern in american history, a period of international exertion followed by the desire to cut defense spending and retrench from the world that goes too far and we end up courting disaster and self-imposed harm done to our

ability to project power and flines. that is where we are today. relearning that underreaching can be as dangerous as overreaching, if not more so. now more than ever, we need a clear strategy or strategies, to guide our actions and defense investments. unfortunately, senior leaders in our government do not seem able to define the concept. when pressed for a strategy, they offer objectives and general interests and inputs and dreams and means but not a strategy. not a description they will marshal limited means to achieve their ends. that's how we heard -- and we get what we heard on tuesday the three r's. what's worse than the national security strategy that become a speech writing exercise to please all constituencies and tell us less than the quadrennial defense review which our witness told us last thursday has become more of a sustained explanation of the program of record. strategy like governing is to choose. we must have priorities. we must determine what missions are more important than others. what capabilities we must have at the expense of others. and there are no shortcuts around strategy. doing more with less is often just a rationalization for doing less. while we need more money for defense, more money spent on the wrong ways and wrong things will still fail if we think we can succeed with business as usual. we cannot. that is why defense reform is so important, not nearly as a cost-saving measures although there is costs to be saved but we need to be more smarter and innovative about how we prioritize our national security interests and how we use our military power to achieve our policy objectives and what size and shape our military must be to succeed now and in the future. the choices entailed here will not always be popular in all quarters of the defense establishment. but these are the choices we must make to ensure our military is built and postured to deter and if necessary, defeat our adversaries. that is the purpose of today's hearings and hearings in the future. and i look forward to the testimony of our witnesses. senator reed.

mr. reed: thank you very much. and thank you. senator reed: your expertise and insights are important as we cope with the issues that the chairman laid out. let me thank the chairman with this opportunity to take a deliberate review of the defense department organization, its structure, missions and essentially look forward to very creatively and thoughtfully. former secretary of defense bob gates and a host of other experts, former officials, historians, they talked about the defense department and going forward. and it is worth while and to quote dr. gates, americans are leaders regard international crisis they are the norm. dr. gates also repeated his conclusion by more than four decades of public service that our record in predicting the future, we have never gotten it right. we must provide training that gives our forces the capabilities across the broadest possible spectrum of conflict. we heard comments from several of the last week's panelists about the way in which our strategic guidance is crafted including the strategy and the quadrennial defense review.

among other things, our witnesses said they consume energy and resources and overtaken by global developments by the time they are published and i would be interested hearing comments about this process and how it can be improved. another theme of dr. gates' testimony is the need for strong civilian leadership particularly by the secretary. while this point is self-evident, dr. gates emphasized satisfying battlefield needs cannot be on the personal involvement of the secretary. he continued, the challenges how to institutionalize a culture and incentive culture that has long-term planning and acquisition. and several of our witnesses have stated the organization processes are outdated and i would be updated on getting insight. given the dynamic and evolving security challenges facing our nation today and 30 years after

passing goldwater-nickels, how the military should be structured to carry out such task and defense guidance to make the products more lanning. and i commend the chairman for leading us in this effort. >> senator reed, thank you for inviting me to appear before you today to present my views on this important topic. given the limited time, i would like to summarize my testimony by making five points. senator mccain: all witnesses' complete statement will be made part of the record. >> it's in the context, i would say, a medical analogy. first you need a good diagnosis of the environment you are in

before writing the prescription and a lot of times we like to o from the threaten virmente to talking about forces and equipment of the defense program. but as you pointed out, mr. chairman, and senator reed, the key connecttive tissue really equipment of the defense program. but as you pointed out, mr. chairman, and senator reed, the key connecttive tissue really s the strategy that tells us

ow we are going to develop a y first point is that we are

now in a period where we face threats that are growing in scale and shifting in form from those begins which we spent most of the last quarter century planning for. there are three revisionist powers in three key regions of the world, regions that presidents of both parties going back decades have declared to be vital to our security. and these powers are interested in overturning in significant ways the rules-based international order that has benefited us and our allies and partners over an extended period of time. aside from these powers, china, russia and iran, we also see the rise and empowerment of radical nonstate groups and entities. and in terms of the scale of the problem, we are also seeing a shift in the form of the challenges they present. any good strategy involves developing sources of advantage that you can use to exploit your enemy's weaknesses. and we have see this through advanced military technology. he chinese focusing on the tendency we have had to operate in permissive environments, areas where our operations aren't contested. so developing capabilities to go after our battle networks and also our forward bases and large mobile platforms like aircraft carriers. second if our adverse sears can't take us on directly they have gone to protracted warfare and gone to acts of aggression, little green men in the ukraine and war that iran has waged against us and paramilitary large mobile platforms like

aircraft carriers. second if our adverse sears can't take us on directly they have gone to protracted warfare and gone to acts of aggression, little green men in the ukraine and war that iran has waged against us and paramilitary forces in the form of organizations like china's coast guard that are pushing overturning the national order in east asia. we find the potential for aggression. space, cyber space and the undersea where it may be difficult for us to detect acts of aggression or attribute them once we have detected them. and finally there is what is called the second nuclear age, which i think could be better described as a new age and strategic warfare. if you look at russian and chinese military writings, not only do they talk about nuclear weapons but new kinds of nuclear weapons, very low yield uclear weapons, and we consider nuclear weapons to be non-usable. but the role that conventional capabilities, the chinese talk about the united states' global conventional strategic strike capabilities something that we haven't thought through in detail. there's also the issue of cyber warfare and the ability of yber weapons to hold certain targets at risk that perhaps and advancing its interests and were once reserved for nuclear weapons. o an array of new challenges

on a greater scale have been presented to us in a different form. now in confronting these challenges, we confront them ith the resources. s a percentage of our gross on a greater scale have been

now in confronting these challenges, we confront them with the resources. as a percentage of our gross domestic product our defense budgets are declining over time. in terms of the budget itself, we have rising personnel costs. the costs per service member since 9/11 in real terms has gone up over 50%. this means over time that if the budget doesn't outgrow the personnel cost growth, you have diminished resources for training, equipping, training of the force and readiness. we also find that our capital stock, planes, tanks and ships and guns, while more formidable

than that possessed in any power in the world. it is shifting. so our emphasis on, for example, forward deploying forces to large bases, when you have adversaries that are mastering the precision warfare and target these bases with heyak rasi, they make what was once assured to our allies, a source of anxiety and lack of assurance. finally, if there's an arms race going on between ourselves and allies and partners, it's more of a disarmament race or race to the bottom. our allies and partners particularly in europe have failed in most cases to meet the nato standard for 2% g.d.p. deployed or invested in defense. japan, another one of our powerful allies has said some impressive things recently and adopted some forward-looking policies. but we have yet to see japan break through that 1% of g.d.p. barrier. we are not just restricted to our budget in terms of how we respond to threats and the increasing scale and shifting form of the challenges we face. but in terms of the budget itself, how the budget is distributed, our capital stock and the ability or the willingness of our allies and partners to step up when they're needed, i think there's a growing disconnect between the threats we face and the means we have to address them. consequently, i think there is a need for a well-designed strategy, one that employs our resources most effectively to maximize the effect of these limited resources. unfortunately i think we have lost a great deal of our confidence to do strategy well. i don't think this is a military problem or a civilian problem and i don't think it's a republican or democrat problem but a problem that has developed since the end of the cold war. in the 1990's when we didn't have a threat, we didn't have to focus on strategy. after 9/11, the tap was open in terms of defense spending, we didn't have to make tough choices. we are in that period again where resources are limited and perhaps diminishing, where the threats are growing and it is about time that we begin to focus on strategy. one final comment, in terms of the size and scope of our -- military, in terms of the forces we have and the mix of where they are positioned around the world, we have to come up with a strategy before we can make informed decisions about those kinds of issues. how are we going to deter china from advancing its revisionist aims in the far east? is our objective to defend the first island chain? have we made that public, made

hat clear? if we have, are we going to defend it by positioning forces there in what will be called a forward defense posture. there is off-shore control that we ought to limit ourselves to blockading china as a way of if we have, are we going to deterring acts of ggression. that has an enormous effect on the kinds of forces, where you position them, what we ask of our allies. you have to come up with that the kinds of forces, where you position them, what we ask of our allies. you have to come up with that strategy. and i'll close with a quote from a british admiral, jackie fisher, who along with nelson is regarded by many brits as the two greatest admirals. he said members of parliament asked me what kind of a navy we need. you have to make up your mind how you are going to deter and fight. how many of us made up our minds and how many admirals have minds?

thank you, mr. chairman. [laughter] >> chairman mccain, ranking member reed. thank you to contribute to understand factors that shape the u.s. military. this is a summation of the submitted testimony. i'm delighted to know that this committee is looking at all aspects of military. and this is an important step in that process. obviously, there are differing opinions on how and why the military should be postured. with russia, ukraine and syria, iran deeply involved in operations across the middle east and expanding its military portfolio, china behaving more provocatively and nuclear missiles to reach the united

states, having the right force in sufficient quantity is critically important. recent work i have been involved as editor of the heritage foundation's u.s. nuclear strength, how one might think sizing the u.s. military. instead of trying to predict where forces might be needed and what type of conflict, it looks at what history tells us about the actual use of military force. we reviewed other studies on national defense requirements to require the bottom-up review. what we found was that from the korean war onward, the united states found itself in a major war every 15, 20 years and used roughly the same sized force. each of the nine major studies came to end strength, major

platforms. in general, the historical record and the studies indicate that the u.s. needs an active army, a navy approaching of 150 ships, air force of 1,200 aircraft fighting. this size will provide the united states to handle a major war and having sufficient capacities and respond to an emerging crisis should a major competitor try to take advantage of a perceived window of opportunity. in other words, the force enables the country to handle one major crisis while deterring competitors. this historical record spans 65 years encompassing decades of technological advancements, various geographic regions, enemy forces and economic conditions and shifts of political control of the executive and legislative branches of the u.s. government. there are practical realities that override all other factors. the nature of war and where it is waged require large forces

to control territory or deny such. numbers really do matter. sustained sustainability operations require a large base, conventional combat operations require sizeable forces to replace combat osses. small numbers of equipped forces are inadequate to such situations and can lead to a force that is sensitive to combat losses or worn down by numerous deployments. numbers matter in preparing for the future. when the force is small and already hard-pressed to meet demands, little capacity is available for the future. if new ways are needed to maintain a competitive advantage, a portion of the force must be available for experimentation, whether by reducing current demands or enlarging the force. instead, we continue to see further reductions in increased work load.

robert gates recently appeared before this committee as has been noted. one of his major points is the u.s. continuously cycles to ramp up for a crisis and then cutting the force to a bare minimum once the crisis is over. people are assuming another crisis won't come along and we will have to predict when and where it will occur. here is expense. we should continue to explore the advantages of unmanned systems, and precision guided munitions but numbers matter in war. our current modernization path at existing levels of funding, we are likely to find ourselves with state of the art capabilities yet incapable of

conducting sustained operations against a credible opponent. this outcome is troubling and something this committee should consider. to summit up, i emphasize that numbers matter. the capacity of our military is at least as important as how it is equipped. overall sigh of the force and how much it is used appears to be independent of technology, perhaps even strategy, internal organization. and too small a force is profound consequence. once again, i thank you for the opportunity and i look forward to answering your questions. >> thank you, senator mccain, senator reed and distinguished members of the committee. it's an honor to be here. i would like to focus on how current u.s. national strategy shapes the international system and discuss an alternative strategy for the future and i will address the capabilities required under this new strategy. the single word that best describes u.s. foreign policy

today is prime asy, a strategy that hinges on a forward-deployed military poised to stop threats before they are realized. as one government explains, our military power aims to deter potential competitors from aspiring to a larger global or regional role. leaving aside whether the strategy is preventing them, the costs have been considerable. american taxpayers and especially american troops have borne the burdens. going forward, we should ask more of our security partners. we shouldn't merely expect them to support us when we use force abroad. rather we should expect them to address urgent threats before they become regional or global ones. what are these threats?

we are quite quote of identifying them but far less prove fish ent of prioritizing. the united states is expected to address all threats in all vital regions at all times. a more resilient world would not be overly dependent of a single power. restraining our impulse to use the u.s. military when our interests are not threatened would move us in that direction. reluctance to use our military relies on a smaller one. alliances that have advanced common interests are acceptable. the current rangement where we agree to defend our allies, is not. let me turn to three aspects of the force structure consistent with the foreign policy. a capable navy, a credible nuclear deterrent and a flexible and mobile army.

i have served in the navy. i grew up in maine where you ight have heard they build ships. so yes, i'm a navy partisan. but my support for a strong and capable navy is more than just parochial but integral to a strategy of restrain. in thinking of the missions that the navy will need to perform, we shouldn't focus on number of ships in the fleet today but rather on the cost and capability of those of the future. investing a substantial share of the ship building budget on a few aircraft carriers leaves less money for small service combatants.

and where do subjects fit in the mix? the budget must account for them. understanding these tradeoffs is crucial. we not build our fleet that it will be continuously engaged in operations all around the world. the u.s. navy should be a surge force capable of deploying to address threats, not a permanent presence force committed to preventing bad things from happening all the time and everywhere. what about our nuclear deterrent. that is a key component of national security policy. under restraint and does not require 1,600 nuclear warheads on a deliver of vehicles. the try add grew up during the cold war and it was never required to deter soviet attacks against the united states. the case is even more dubious. no adverse sear can destroy all submarines and there would be time to change if the circumstances did. lastly, what about our ground forces? our troops are overtasked and we have asked much of them and hey have responded, but they

cannot do everything and cannot be everywhere. more troops is not the answer. more judicious use of those we already have is. in that context we should consider the wisdom of armed nation building. to observe that the united states is ill suited to such missions is not the fault of the u.s. military. the american people will support missions to strike our enemies with a vengeance but most doubt that nation building is the effort. public skepticism is warranted. the crucial factors for success in coin are beyond the capacity of outside forces to control. then again, americans are accustomed of doing the impossible. he real reason why we will not master state building is that it is not needed. we should deal with threats as they arise and drop building ations abroad. if we revisit the other

possible rationales, if we reduce our overseas presence and encourage countries to defend themselves, we could rely on reservists here on state side. the roles and missions that we assign to our military will grow more onerous and unreasonable to expect our military to do more with less. many would solve this means and mismatch by increasing the means. we should reconsider the ends as well. the military's roles and missions are not handed down on stone tablets from heaven. strategy must take account of the resources that must be made available to execute it. increasing the military budget entails telling the american people to accept cuts in popular domestic programs, higher taxes or both so our allies can neglect their defenses. hard to realize that americans

will embrace that approach so we must reconsider our policing role and encourage countries to defend themselves and bring the object of our foreign policy in line with the public's ishes. >> i would like to reiterate my less. thanks to the chairman and ranking member and to the committee for this opportunity. this is indeed a critical topic. many people have said before me, defense planning is strategy. on the other hand, strategy is not the place that we should be starting, nor starting with threats or operational capabilities. the place to start is really with reflecting upon the continuing security interests of the united states. this is a lesson that i learned while serving as a staff scribe to the national defense

panel. distinguished members of those panels took the briefings that were available and begun to scratch their heads and were deeply dissatisfied with what they heard. what they came away from, simply not by taking the briefings, but reflecting on the behavior of the united ranking member and to the states since 1945, if not before, was there was a consistent pattern of american behavior. hey said, it's in both reports that the principal security interests of the united states having a secure homeland not just north america but the caribbean basin, access to commercially and to exploit the seas, skies, cyberspace and balance of the three critical

powers, europe, east asian the middle east. and finally that because we are americans, it was important to us to preserve a decent quality. when there was a humanitarian crisis or the threat of a genocide, the united states could not stand by and would be willing to use military force to intervene. if those are the purposes of our power, then we can ask the how-to strategy question. but without that to orient on, any strategy will do, any set of capabilities will do as we have heard from the previous three witnesses. on the other hand, if you want o preserve the international system as it exists, which i

think is not only wise, possible, but something of a moral obligation, our children would not look kindly on us and would hold us accountable if we failed to prevent the remarkable post-cold-war peace that is slipping away. there hasn't been a great power war and remarkably prosperous. there are more middle-class people on this planet than there have been in any previous period in history. and it's the freest international system that our power, then we can ask the anyone can record. so it has great benefits. it's fundamentally sound, but it requires us to re-engage now. i believe that time in defense planning, in strategy making is equally as important as numbers of troops or the quality of weapons systems. i just have four basic yardsticks that i want to suggest that you should

consider in appraising defense strategies. in a report we put out a couple of weeks ago but there are four fundamental tenets. he construct needs to be a three-theater not two or one /2 as recent reviews have and there is no status quo to

preserving the middle east that is worth the cost. if you are going to be responsive to the situation that we need about every day in the newspapers, we want to reverse the trends. so simple deterrence is not likely to be acceptable. those theaters are all very different in character and gee ag gray. land-bases and my maps show a lot of blue there. so maritime forces are critical for presence. and in the middle east, probably all sorts of forces are necessary. e need to balance in a variety of forces. if we make choices by having one form of military power over another, we will find ourselves if we make choices by having one form of military power over another, we will find ourselves behind the eight-ball as we have found ourselves in the last two decades. secondly, capacity matters. that's the most immediate roblem that the military

faces. i look at the history of the past 15 years and my take-away was that we did not have past 15 years and my take-away was that we did not have sufficient force despite the active duty navy and marine corps and reserve component forces at record numbers and december plight employing naval and air force officers in ground missions to successfully prosecute cam papers in iraq and afghanistan simultaneously. we did not meet our own two-war standard. and those wars were relatively small wars. so the first thing and the thing we can do in a timely way to meet the crisis at the moment is to increase the capacity of the force that we have. that said, i agree completely with the testimony that new capabilities are needed. however, i think the time

actor needs to be applied in this regard as well. as much as it would be great to have devices and all the things that american and international science can invent, it's important to field new capabilities now. we have a very few number of programs that we can throw money at. this is not like the reagan years where there was a warm and diverse industrial base that could difficult guest a lot of money. ronald age and decided not to small wars. both. uild the b-1 or b-2 but we have chosen a company team to build a new bomber, that isn't going to be fielded within the span of the next administration. so we have to put money where it can show some return. we can't afford to wait another 10 years to get new exicts into the field.

and finally, we have to pay the price. the forms are important and i ould urge the committee to focus on several forms, an ideal way of fighting the cold war and passed into law just as the soviet union -- it was remarkable we can support focus on several forms, an combat outposts with teams from a carrier. but it's not the most effective way to do that. here are things that we can do now and we need to be able to have sustained increase in our defense establishment. many people talk about getting back to the gates' baseline budget of 2012. that's not going to be sufficient. that's a good first step. but getting something back to a 4% base which is affordable, sustainable and would be

necessary to build the force that would be sufficient to protect and defend and advance our geo political interests and allow united states to continue to be the leader of the free world. thank you. >> thank you, mr. chairman and ranking member reed and distinguished members of the committee. i'm truly honored to appear before you today and testify along with my distinguished committee. i'm truly honored to appear before you today and testify along with my distinguished colleagues. in my statement, i argue that america's armed forces are the most highly trained, equipped and experienced in world, yet the margin is eroding. unless the trend is arrested and arrested soon, america's armed forces will find it more difficult to prevail in future conflicts. modern u.s. military strategy depends on technological superiority. this was a consistent pillar of strategy during the cold war and the wars of the post 9/11

era. this was intentional cold war strategy designed to increase the quality of u.s. forces to help offset soviet advantages. and this strategy ultimately resulted in capabilities like the g.p.s. satellite, stealth aircraft. the resulting monopoly on these technologies that we enjoyed is among the reasons that the united states stood alone at the end of the cold war. the erosion in american technical superiority is resulted in capabilities like eroding because they are proliferating across the world and nothing we can do to stop t.

the same technologies that u.s. forces enjoyed are now central to the defense strategies of our competitors. this development alone is shaking the foundations of u.s. defense strategy and planning. in my statement, i describe at some length how the velocity of global change coupled with military power is shaping tomorrow's battlefield in three ways. precision munitions will dominate. these weapons have proliferated that nyack tore who desires to employ them can do so effectively on the battlefield and only begun as a community to grapple with the world in which nonstate actors will be able to hit anything they aim at. second, the sizes of battlefields will expand. the i.s.r. networks that support their employment are increasing the effective range. ur adverse sears will not only be -- adversaries will not only

hit what they see but strike over longer distances. third, concealing military forces will be more difficult. more actors are developing apabilities designed to find and target their adversaries. finding the enemy will be easier than hiding from him. these features of the operating environment, munitions, larger engagement zones and larger battlefields are more clearer today. the south china sea is due to adversaries. finding the enemy will be easier than hiding from him. these features of the operating environment, munitions, larger engagement zones and larger

battlefields are more clearer today. the south china sea is due to china's investment and long range guided and cruise missiles. russia is developing anti-access bubbles over parts of ukraine and syria and hezbollah and some inside syria are using anti-tank guided munitions. the logical trend of this should concern us all. in order to prepare, we need to demand creative thinking from the pentagon and the dens community concerning how to change operational concepts. these are the things which guide how u.s. forces plan to engage add a veer sears in different plausible contingencies. core operational concepts will focus more on our abilities to strike at range, persist inside contested areas for longer periods of time and disperse our forces and retaining the ability to mask our fire power when needed. i describe these at length in my written statement. if our operational concepts begin to evolve, it will guide us towards the investment portfolio that does three fundamental things. shore up our air and maritime projection exicts by employing land and carrier-based unmanned strike platforms and i know the chairman's leadership. submarines that can attack. developing dispersed undersea sensor grids that can persist an adversary's contested zones

nd as we heard the other day ensuring the new long strategic omber and procured so 100 is important to constitute a credible sustained ability. we need to ensure u.s. ground forces are rapidly adapting by pushing guided munitions down into the squad and the individual level for our ground forces, experimenting robustly with robotic ground systems and air systems that can obviate the need to risk individuals and developing platforms that can deploy along side our dismounted units to provide them protection from adversary's guided munenigs. by more aggressively funding

research and development and exploring innovative concepts that can disperse military forces. mr. chairman, america's finally u.s. edge is eroding and losing window of opportunity o arrest this trend. our adversaries were convinced that u.s. forces would be able to see them first and shoot hem first due our overwhelming

advantage and the means to deliver at a time and place. if this erosion is allowed to continue, the power of the united states will erode as well causing significant disruptions to the balance of ower. advantage and the means to deliver at a time and place. if this erosion is allowed to continue, the power of the united states will erode as well causing significant disruptions to the balance of power. thank you for the great honor of testifying before you. advantage and the means to deliver at a time and place. if this erosion is allowed to continue, the power of the united states will erode as well causing significant disruptions to the balance of power. thank you for the great honor of testifying before you. senator mccain: i thank the witnesses and it is very mportant and i hope that all

and let's suppose that you are called over to see the incoming president of the united states and he or she wants to talk about defense. what's your first recommendation to the new president of the united states? we'll begin with you, mr. brimley. mr. brimley: my advice would be to invest his or her political capital early on, working with members of congress to re-establish a baseline defense budget that is robust enough to fund what the pentagon has been arguing for some time along with your leadership and the leadership of others. as i said in my statement, erosion of our military edge has to be addressed. size is important, the quantity is important, but i worry that if we allow this erosion of our military technical edge to continue at this pace, it will pose great danger to our men and women and we would be putting them in harm's way at some point. mr. donnelly: i would suggest that the president reposture merican forces particularly in

the pacific, south pacific but also in europe and the middle east. something he or she could do even with the force that will be inherited and important first step towards reassuring our allies that the united states is serious about preserving the world that we live in today. senator mccain: dr. preble, are you related? mr. preble: it's about as distant as you possibly can get. senator mccain: still a great name. mr. preble: strategy is about choosing and setting priorities and we have not done a very good job of that. when you articulate those priorities, you send signals some of which are not necessarily welcome, some of which are necessary. and i do think it is important to send a quite different message to our allies that we will have forever their back forever and forever and not do anything to assist us. i don't think that's wise or over the long-term going to be effective. don't believe that the united states has the ability to foresee many, many other countries that what their security priorities are. senator mccain: mr. wood. mr. wood: i believe the president needs to clearly define u.s. national security interests and

then resource those commensurate with those interests. how could you do otherwise? you aren't willing to devote the resources necessary to serve, you have to recast your interests and the role you want to play. we have seen the impact of the baseline budget. army dropping 520,000 and 490,000. and degradation in readiness and shrinkage of capacity for u.s. military forces to do things. if we want to maintain a primary role in the world where we need to resource those commensurate with those levels of interest. the recent budget deal, $607 billion is to stem the erosion we have seen. it's not going to buy back significant numbers of readiness or build brigade teams where we have seen them drop. that's the bare minimum that folks have been able to agree to. the funding needs to

increase. the services themselves will figure out how to solve operational challenges. they need that breadth of capability to test and see how new technologies are brought into it. if they don't have the capacity to do that, then we are not going to be able to get ahead of that curve and we have a terrible record of trying to predict what the next war will be, against who, what the haracteristics will be, and in that mix and in that current conflict. to have that ability to test those kinds of things, is the overarching need and finding adequate funding to have the military commensurate with the u.s. role in the world. mr. krepinevich: the first order of business that we continue to sustain the vital

interests that we have made for ourselves in the middle east, far east and europe is deal with the three revisionist powers and describe what the priority is among those three, not only in the near term but over time so it is a time-sensitive strategy. my position would be going in the far east, a defense posture strategy of forward defense. in the middle east, it has to be low footprint combined with the posture and trip-wire force with the potential for reinforcements as necessary. and finally we need to come up with a strategy to address the problem of what i would call modern strategic warfare that involves nuclear weapons but advanced nuclear weapons, cruise missiles, cyberweapons and advanced conventional weapons capable of attacking tarts that were once reserved

only for nuclear weapons. senator mccain: my time has expired but i would ask witnesses to give me a written response to what you think is the future of the aircraft carrier. i ask that because the aircraft carrier has been the backbone of the navy since world war ii. and there is significant questions about the carrier itself, its size, the air wing, the role and so i would appreciate that answer. that's one of the issues that we are going to be grappling with when we're talking about a 10 or $is 12 billion weapons system. i thank the witnesses. senator reed: i thank the witnesses for a very thoughtful and frank comments. let me ask all of you a question and it's been highlighted, one of the most

rapid areas of change is technological innovation which is worldwide, affecting ourselves and affecting our competitors and the other dynamic i would ask you to focus on is a lot of the technological change is taking place outside the defense industries, you know, military installations. private sector. and how do we fit that in to our operations in d.o.d. mr. krepinevich: that is integral to the third offset strategy and my strategy and the advantages we have developed for ourselves in battle networks that was based in the 970's. was based in the 1970's is now wasting assets. so where to we go next?

if you look as you said senator where technology is going today whether it's big data or robotics or directed energy, those technologies are widely diffused, they're available to anyone with the resources to buy or sell them. don't think, as my former colleague bob worth and i discussed, you look at the 1950's, the 1980's, you have to look back at the interwar period, the period in the 1920's and 1930's. in that period you had a number of great powers, i mentioned the revisionist powers we're dealing with now and technologies that were moving very quickly then, the automotive industry, radar, aviation, were available to us they can german the brits and so on. what made the difference in world war ii were two things. one, operational concept who best figured out how to employ the technologies. when it came to mecknyization,

aviation, radio, the germans developed brits creag based on that the french didn't. you look at other aspect the first integrated air defense system, that was the british. the germans were a little behind on that. so it was a combination of how best to leverage that new technology to deal with the problems you identify and it was also the speed at which you could develop and apply that. so we start world war ii with eight aircraft carriers. we end the war with 99. 99 aircraft carriers of all types. and this gets, i think, back to the issue of time. how effectively can you exploit time? i think that's one of the reasons i would certainly commend the committee for its focus on defense reform because we are a terrible competitor when it comes to exploiting time. and the better you can exploit ime, the less standing

military capability you need, the better you can exploit time, the more range of possibilities that are open to you, the better you can exploit time, the more uncertainty you generate in the minds of your adversaries because of the directions you could go with it. in terms of your point about technologies widely diffused, those are the discriminators, the germans were a little behind on that. so it was a combination of how best to leverage that new who developed the best concepts and who can do it fast. mr. wood: we need to see what is available, what's free, to do what he mentioned in the interwar period. you need operations that are able to operate independently. g.p.s., independent kinds of precision munitions. closed loop kinds of com

systems. those kinds of things, where one part of the formation can take a hit and the roves the force can continue on. >> thank you very much. my time is diminished, but dr. preble, would you comment? mr. preble:: i'm worried about nonstate actors, it brings us into an area of defensive dominance which raises issues of will we risk truly exquisite platforms and risk large numbers of lives for projecting pow entire other people's areas. this new era of defensive dominance. mr. donnelly: i think your principal task is to understand what our geopolitical purposes is. technologies, as mr. preble said, mean different things to

different people we feel need to figure out what elements are central to us and our job still will be as it was in 1942 to figure out how to have an effect on the far side. we do not want to, you know, experience another sort of pearl harbor like event and our purposes are quite different than they were in 1941. we are trying to preserve an international system, not build one from scratch. >> mr. brimley. mr. brimley: i associate myself with dr. krepinevich's comments. i understand this committee is holding a theerning goldwater-nichols act, i think the 1986 or 1988 amendment to that act created special operations command, socom has unique operational authority that can pull things and experiment with them and by

pass a will the of bureaucracy. investigating those authorities, how they've been used, how they could be replicated would be important. >> thank you very much. on behalf of us all, thank you very much. >> we've had a lot great hearings on the subject of oday. with uniforms present, a lot of people responsible for the mess we're in right now and the other the outside exports -- experts and you fall in that category. we last week had five professors an that was really, really useful to see if the outside, we're hanging around here, we listen to each other, i like to listen to those who

are outside. i would also single out one individual, dakota wood, he certainly has spent time two decades in the marine corps and has been an outstanding leader in america, far more significant than that, he's rom claremore oklahoma, one of the homes of will rogers, so you see a lot of the haracteristics he exhibits are similar to those of will rogers. let me read something. his is 30, 35 years ago but if you go back to compare, the criteria set in developing a defense budget under the reagan administration with what's happening today, i'll ask you to respond, of course, dakota you've already read this, this is 1983, they said, we start by considering what must be done to maintain peace and review all possible threats against security. then a strategy for trengthening peace and

defending against those threats has to be agreed upon. and finally, our defense establishment must be evaluated to see what is necessary to protect against any and all of the potential threats. the cost of the a-- the cost of achieving these ends is totaled up and the result is the budget for national defense. what do you think about that strategy, mr. wood? mr. wood: i think we've, as many members have noted, this has been a budget driven exercise. how much money do we want to spend on defense? and then we try to make do with that. i think what was -- what ronald reagan was getting at with that is figuring out what it is you want to be in the world, where your priorities are at, and then resourcing that commensurate with those interests. so it should be strategy driven. should be u.s. interest

driven. if you want to shoulder that burden you have to find the funding and resources to be able to do that. mr. inhofe: but to do that, you have to prioritize where it is. most of us out there, i can't speak for all of them, that's their number one priority, what we're supposed to be doing here. does anyone disagree with that? >> it's the second part i would disagree with. i have come to believe that, particularly sense the pass am of the budget control act, that it affects what we have seen over the last five years. mr. donnelly: if not an articulated strategy, it's a de defending against those threats acto strategy, wherein the president and say, the more libertarian members of the house of representatives agree that america is doing too much n the world and that if we take away the means of mischief, that we'll get into less mischief. again, i don't think that it's anything like in our, you know, in a formal, strategic review process but there's broad

consensus that for the united states to step back from its traditional engagement in the world. mr. inhoff: i don't agree with that -- senator inhofe: you have very specific in your written tatement, i read that before ou restated it here. that is we should, one of the things western do is adopt a three theater force construct. i agree with that i've watched it deteriorate down to a two theater and one and a half and so forth. i'd like to know what some of the rest of you think, what about you, dr. krepinevich? mr. krepinevich: i believe we don't have unlimited resources so it's never going to be possible to eliminate every threat to our security. to a certain extent, the amount we spend on defense is a

function of how -- of our risk tolerance. the more we spend on defense, the more we can reduce, theoretically, the risk to our ecurity. but we can -- can't eliminate because we don't have enough resources to do that. i think another factor you have to consider is what can our allies contribute? and oftentimes, it seems the more we do, the less they do. so how do we come up with strategies to encourage our allies to do more and be less free riders on the security provided by the american eople? i think there's an element of social choice in this. e have chosen as a country, as a society, to have an all-volunteer force. that costs a lot of money. other militaries don't have all-volunteer forces and when we had a draft era force, our costs were correspondingly

less. as a society we place a high value on human life. we spend over $40 billion on mraps and another $20 billion on jado to protect lives. in world war ii, russia cleared minefields by sending their infantry through it. we spend a great sum of money to minimize casualties. finally, strategy. it always comes back to strategy. a strategy that is in a group that advocates as i mentioned an offshore control strategy in the event that it's a way of discouraging conflict with china, and they call for maritime blockade. that's a very different level of expenditure than what i've been talking about, which is efense which is -- senator inhofe: i'm sorry to -- senator inhofe: i'm sorry to intrument you but i'm running out of time. we have resources, but we don't have priorities.

in your statement, you made that clear. as a percentage of g.d.p. we had at one time and how it's deteriorated over a period of time. i would only say if you give me a written response, each one of you, in terms of this, i would appreciate that very much. i can get that for the record. as to how the reprioritizing would give us the defense that e don't have now and that we need. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you very much for being here. i'll start with you, mr. brimley, i'll get all of you to answer, but if you could tell us what our yeatest threat to our national security is. mr. brimley? mr. brimley: at the risk of being somewhat provocative i'd

say the number one threat is our policymakers and the american people overestimating the abilityings of the u.s. mill tear to close with, our policymakers and the destroy and confront our enemies. i think there's a growing gap, as i talk about in my written statement, between what our forces are designed to do and what our adversaries can condition test us with. i would hate for the country to experience a level of strategic surprise. senator manchin: maybe overreaching? mr. brimley: i think there's verreaching but there's also underreaching. like in syria and iraq. senator manchin: mr. donnelly? mr. donnelly: i think the hedge monoin the middle east is the greatest threat we face. the middle east is such a mess and it's critical to the whole system. it's the point of most likely

failure. again, iran's bid for hegemony there. mr. preble:: i think the greatest threat is what threaten ours greatest strength, which is our ability to mobilize power through a strong, vibrant economy. the greatest threat to our country are the things that

that's a different kind of threat than north korea or iran which will be very sharp and erratic and very pointed. senator manchin: i'm just talking about the greatest threat to our national security. mr. wood: yes, i do think they're our greatest threat. mr. krepinevich: i think the greatest threat emanates from russia and china. i think the exiss ten rble threat is nuclear conflict though i'd expand that to say that there's a blurring between nuclear and conventional weapons that's been occurring for the last 15, 20 years or so. lower yield nuclear weapons, more powerful conventional whens, not clear, when off russian military doctrine that says you escalate to nuclear use that worries me. senator manchin: i asked this five years ago, i had chiefs of staff before me and i asked the russian military doctrine that uestion, it was asked of admiral mullins, i was intently listening and everybody give your opinion he said the debt of this nation is the greatest hreat we face.

the debt of this nation is the greatest threat we face. so i would say to you, do you believe we have enough money in the system, in the system, department of defense, if we can make the changes or are we admiral mullins, i was intently unwilling to make the changes because we're going down the path? where if we flow more money -- i asked my grandfather one time, hey, papa, what's the difference between a democrat and republican. he said no problem, i can explain that to you. if you put a pile of money on the middle of a table, tax dollar, they'll both spend it all. republicans will feel bad about it but they'll all spend it. with that, i don't think we can print enough money. tell me if we can make if we just have to make sure we have enough. mr. preble:: we could fund it at the levels they're talking about, 4%, 5% or more. we could. in real term, real dollar terms, what we're spending now on our military is higher than the cold war average in inflation adjusted terms.

so we have -- senator manchin: not getting bang for our buck? mr. preble:: exactly. senator manchin: i'm exited -- committed to the military. eople question about the money we're throwing at it or the money they're demanding. i don't think you can print enough. you think it could be revamped and still protect our nation and still be a superpower of the world? mr. preble:: yes, sir, all true, all of the above. senator manchin: any other comments? >> in the cold war era, we spent 6% of our g.d.p. on defense. we're going below 3%. that's not the only metric. mr. krepinevich: pe talk about threat -- senator manchin: ou're not all using the same metric, he's using g.d.p. --

mr. crepe pitch: -- mr. krepinevich: president kennedy spoke about the decline of powers because they spent too much on defense. we're in the throes of entitlement overstretch and an unwillingness to fund the things we want. we're defering that burden to the next generation and sticking them with the bill for hat we're unwilling to pay for now. >> i do think you'll find a rare area of agreement of all ive of us, we're not in fiscal defense because of the money we spend on the military. but raising money to increase the amount of money we spend on the military is constrained by the other things we are spending on. senator manchin: thank you, mr. chairman. senator mccain: i will be showing the committee the

deline in the -- decline in the size of the military, the number of ship the number ofbury gade combat teams and also commensurate decline in capabilities, dr. preble, i know of no one who believes we have sufficient capabilities to meet the challenges that we face today which have been outlined at this percent of our gross domestic product. we just have an honest disagreement, senator essions. senator sessions: thank you, outlined at this percent of our mr. chairman, for your opening comments and those of senator reed. i believe they're very wise and raise some important questions all of us need to think a lot about with regard to the question of debt being the greatest threat, well, i think the admiral in one sense if you take it in this sense, was correct, that the larger our debt you get to a point where you can't function anymore. and everything gets squeezed. if he's trying to maintain a certain defense budget, as long

as our debt continues to surge, then it does inevitably squeeze the defense budget. wish it weren't so but it oes. we tried to fund an increase in the defense budget this year on the republican side based on the dangers that have surged around the world and the president insisted that we equally defend -- raise the same amount of money for ondefense. i mean, double the cost. this doesn't help us. i believe, mr. krepinevich, you mentioned our allies' contributions, met with some germans recently in estonia. estonia is at 2% of g.d.p. on defense. germany at 1.3%. the german presiding officer with a good delegation stood up and said, i agree -- when i raised this question -- that it

is unacceptable that the united states spends 70% of the cost of nato. you are correct, senator. that's what he told me. ecretary gates last week alked about his plea, demand to europe that they do a better job and you, i believe, indicated sometimes when we raise our spending, our allies reduce their spending. how to we deal with this? mr. krepinevich: we have inherited, we have right now, an alliance portfolio we constructed in the 1950's in a very different time with a very different security environment. i think if you look at the situation now, as we revise our strategy, i think it's also time to revise our alliance portfolio. not to say we dismiss long-term allies with whom we still have

security interests but i think, for example, in the case of europe, we're going to have to look for to the eastern to europe that they do a better european countries and less to those of our traditional western european allies. i think in the middle east, obviously, israelis are, in a sense, almost a de facto lly. there are other countries in the region like the u.a.e. for example that show an increasing interest in stepping up and providing for the regional defense. japan, i was there a few months back, their western army command. i was amazed at the level of effort they have going on right now there. implementing what i call archipalogic defense. i think they're moving toward a more robust defense posture. we have nonallies, for example, like singapore, the level of interest and contact between japan and india is striking. so i think part of it is to

look at countries who live in dangerous neighborhoods. i think to a certain extent, west europeans haven't come to realize their neighborhood is still dangerous. senator sessions: i think it's a problem, we need to keep the pressure on. mr. donnelly, it seems to me that a big change has occurred,ened i'll ask you from your experience to comment, in the middle east if iran gets a uclear weapon. i mean there's not a country in the middle east that this united states military couldn't topple its government in short rder but is there a historic alteration of those circumstances that if iran would obtain a nuclear weapon? mr. donnelly: i think iran is already getting the benefits, threatening to have nuclear weapon. again, i would offer that

iran's goal is regional hegemony and the nuclear question is a means first of all to deter us. secondly, they're getting the things they wanted, and they're actually enjoying a run of success, as one might say. without -- and they have the prospect of possibly having a legal nuclear capability within 10 years. they have a very clear path to becoming the dominant power in the middle east without even having to cross the nuclear threshold at this point. we find ourselves in a worst of both worlds situation, where the iranians are getting what they want and we don't. senator sessions: i notice secretary gates last week when he talked with us said, my concern is we dent have an overriding strategy on the part of the united states and this complex challenge over the next

0 to 30 years, he said, we seem to be thinking striketly in a sort of month-to-month term. i think that's a tremendously devastating comment by the secretary of defense that served in this administration and a previous administration, a man of great wisdom and experience. i don't believe we do have a strategy and i think it's important and i think it's possible to do it in a -- on a bipartisan basis. thank you. >> thank you, gentlemen, for your thoughtful testimony this morning. i have been in several countries, and one thing i heard everywhere i went was concern about our inability to respond to the propaganda being put out both by russia and by sigh sis. senator shaheen: and the impact that's having on the potential for us to be successful in

eastern europe, in the baltics, in latvia and we know the numbers around recruiting that isis has done in the middle east. but i was interested that none of you mentioned that. even though former secretary gates last week talked about our failure, even dismantled sia in the 1990's because we thought it was no longer needed. i wonder if anyone would like to comment on the need to do a better job and the role that the department of defense should have in our response to the propaganda that's coming out of russia and other opponents that we face. >> if i may, just quickly, to your last point, i'm not convinced that the right for the department of defense. i'm not convinced of that.

what i think we're seeing, in the same way they talk about the proliferation of technology, we're also seeing the proliferation of information and the ability of nonstate actors and weak states to control the information in a way that not so long ago was controlled exclusively by states. mr. preble:: now we recognize there's a double edged sword there because state controlled media also has its problems. i think we just have to recognize we are in a different environment in which it is harr harder for a single large entity, even as large as powerful as the united states to shape that narrative. we have to rely on many more sources of information to sort of drown out that of isis or russia as the case may be. senator shaheen: mr. donnelly? mr. donnelly: young men of very few prospect respond to spectacular violence in the isis videos. vladimir putin takes his shirt off and tries to lock as virile as possible. our problem is we don't have a message of strength which is not the only message we should

be communicating but one that we must communicate and it's just not very convincing. because there's a proliferation eans of communication we could win this battle and wouldn't require much government intervention to get the message out. just as i said a better message to try to communicate. >> it's not clear to me we're communicating much of a message t all at this point. mr. donnelly: i think we're communicating a message of withdrawal and retreat loud and clear. senator shaheen: i mean we

don't have a strategy and a means by which we are actively looking at responding to the propaganda that's coming out of russia and isis. mr. donnelly: i would just offer that the way to defeat their propaganda is to defeat their narrative and we don't have a convincing story to tell at this point. senator shaheen: does anyone else want to a-- to respond to that? >> i have to agree with the tenor here, to counter propaganda, you have to be confident of who you are, what you represent, and that what you have is better than the other guy. mr. wood: we're seing a lot of confidence and a lack of assertiveness in saying that the united states, our values ystems and what we represent is a better path, it's something better than the opposition. but i think what we have been focusing on was the core idea of this particular panel, had to do with military capabilities. senator shaheen: i understand that that was the idea. but i'm suggesting we're

missing a critical el ofment what should be part of our military or at least our national security strategy. > i'm not an expert on this by any means but it seems fundamentally we're talking about the old story of hearts and minds. trying to mobilize people can you win their hearts? can you convince them they're try -- that you're going to vide a better future for them an the other side? mr. krepinevich: you can win my heart but in my mind i think he other side will win, then i have to live with them and you've lost me. so it's important to have a good narrative to win the hearts but also to have the capability and strategy that convinces them that ultimately you're going to succeed. there's also a problem with the way the message is communicated. the russians present one problem on state-based media.

groups desh take advantage of technology to reef mass audiences that 20, 30 years ago a non-state entity couldn't dream of reaching. you're looking at mass audiences, microclimates, almost a highly segmented market and i think we're at square one on a lot of these issues. and it's -- i think strategic communication is going to be, i know it's a mission for the military, we used to call it propaganda, but i think it's going to be a mission for the u.s. government and an important one because of the, what i would call, democratization of destruction, the greater and greater destructive power in the hands of small groups. senator shaheen: my time is up but i'd make an observation, you talked about what kind of message are we communicating. as we watch the tens of thousands of refugees who are fleeing the middle east and conflicts in afghanistan and iran and syria, they aren't

flee to russia or ian. hey're fleing to the west. they want to live in countries with strong economies and that have values that support democratic values. so i would say we have a strong message. we're just not doing a very good job of communicating that. thank you, mr. chairman. >> gentlemen, thank you for being here today. this has been an interesting discussion. december 13, 1636. that's the birth date of our modern national guard. senator ernst: and of course i'm very proud of our national orward's capabilities. we have seen the national guard participate in conflicts all around the globe as well as in

support roles and places -- in places such as kosovo and onduras and many other types of exercises. around the world. i would like to hear a little bit from all of you about what role that you think the army national guard should play. as i mentioned, we've been in support, combat sustainment roles, but we've also served in combat roles as well. just recently, our secondbury gade combat team from iowa actually occupied battle space in afghanistan. so there is an increasing reliance on the army national guard and they respond quite well. i believe to the -- quite well, i believe, to the needs of the united states and our forces. i would like to know that if you believe the army national guard should be designated as an operational reserve of the army and if so, why, or if not, why not? dr. krepinevich. mr. krepinevich: you said it ight, senator.

senator ernst: thank you, i apologize. mr. krepinevich: that's all right. it goes back, tell me how you're going to fight. he krepinevich strategy over the next 20 years, the big growth in ground forces is rocket artillery, coastal defense, and striking. that's going to be essential to having effective defense of the first island chain. so i think in terms of an operational reserve or a second wave force or reinforcing force, national guard to perform a function there, in the persian gulf, if we were, i think the forward of course has many capabilities that would support it. but also if we have to have an

expeditionary force there, you have to mobilize a certain amount of force. again i think support major growth area for there would be rocket artillery in its various forms. in eastern europe if you buy my idea that trip wire forces, we're going to need because of imits on finances and manpower and so on. if we were to develop our own anti-access area in yeern europe, we would be relying on hose kinds of systems as well. to the extent that the guard, i ork with the guard a long time ago when we had something called the army air defense command and they were off the charts in terms of their capability and expertise in that area. so i think certainly it's an operational reserve for those

kinds of tasks. i think the forward could perform valuable function. senator ernst: thank you. mr. wood? mr. wood: i see it more of active army formations, we talked about proliferation of technology, the increasing complexities of military operations, especially when you're coordinating, synchronizing operations at higher levels. we talk about distributed operations. there's a still set that becomes ever more complex and takes a lot of time to develop competencies in those areas. soing the active component, doing that 24-7, is the force of choice to go off and do these kinds of things we're talking about. you only have so much of that i think the strategic reserve capability and then selected skill sets where you could have army reserve, other service eserves and national guard units that would develop those kinds of things that would plug into larger structures.

senator ernst: thank you. dr. preble. mr. preble:: i have traditionally thought of the reserves as stratiege exreserves. that was the intent as we moved away from the con stripted force -- conscripted force to a volunteer force, augment that. i do see value in engaging the public and communities in a way, when we wage war abroad and there are people from their community drawn away from their jobs and families in a way they weren't intending because they are not full-time active duty, then it seems at a minimum we should have had the debate or then we are having a debate over where exactly are we fighting and why? if it were, if we were to move to an operational reserve and it also engendered debate over the wars we're fighting and why, then i would support it. senator ernst snk very briefly, r. donnelly? mr. donnelly: i agree with both andy and dakota. there used to be a national guard artillerybury gade with long-term associations with every army division. we got rid of those some time ago. there are rules -- roles the guard can play for early deployment and so on and so forth. as we find ourselveses in situations as we found

ourselves say in 2006, 2007, where we were using anything that looked -- that wore a uniform as a soldier, that's a testament to bad strategic planning. not a knock on the guard at all. senator ernst: mr. brimley? mr. brimley: i would say the guard is an operational reserve, they've been used that way for the past 10-plus years. in my mind, i see them that way. enge there's value there last there's hundreds of thousands of former active duty troops populating the national guards. now is the time to think through if they're to be used that way how to do so. i would just say i'm a little bit, i've been frustrated to see relations between the active army and the army national guard dee tieror ate in recent years.

i think there's a lot of blame to go around there. but i've been frustrated that the active army doesn't seem to think about the total army. it seems to think first and foremost about the active army and then and only then do we think about the army national guard and to a lesser degree army reserve. i think if you look at goldwater-nichols, one question to ask is has the elevation of the share of the national guard to four star status, has that had second and third order effects to complicate the relationship in what should be a cohesive, total army. senator ernst: that is a discussion we have had, i see an effort by the generals to repair some of the conflict we have had in the past. so thank you, gentlemen, very much. thank you, mr. chairman. ms. hirono: i do agree we should have a close relationship, strong relationship between the active army and national guard. you know in your testimony we have focused militarily on the quality of our military and

that we have -- we held a technological edge which is being eroded. i do think that when we lose our technological edge, the numbers begin to matter more because when you look at china and their modernization of its military, they will have more ships, many planes, etc. while they may not have the technological capabilities that we do, at some point there's already numbers to shift and becomes a qualitative advantage. so when we focus on the technological edge that we need to retain, what would ewe suggest that we do? what specific things should we do to retain and regain our technological edge?

>> thank you, senator. i would outline some things in depth in my statement. mr. brimley: but i would say two things right now. one is manned systems. one thing chairman mccain is engaged on is the future of the carrier air wing. and the debate on what that ought to look like? what would their roles be and what would their missions be? that's an area where the navy needs to be pushed hard. any time you have emerging technology that fundamentally call into question the role of traditional pilots in this regard you'll get a lot of natural bureaucratic tension and friction. i think that's an area where civilians can play a strong role both inside the pentagon and in congress. senator hirono: mr. donnelly, you noted in your testimony that you recommend a three-theater construct involving europe, the middle east and east asia.

in your looking at what woe we do in east asia, could you elaborate on what we're doing in regard to an east asia collaborative construct and what more we should be doning there? mr. donnelly: the policy of this administration has been to pivot in east asia and that's problematic in east asia. hat's a problem, global powers don't pivot, where everybody -- like in a kiddie soccer game where everybody fol throes bouncing ball. they're much more cautious when it comes to poking the japanese in neevet asia. so the spite the fact, i would agree that the development of chinese military power is an important element and essential issue for defense planning but the first order of business is to get some presence there. the secretary made a big deal the other day about the fact that we were sending a destroyer to re-establish

freedom of navigation. again, the striking thing about that to me was not what was being done, which was welcome, but the fact that it's taken so long to do it and it required a couple billion dollar destroyer to safely go on those waters again. if we had been there, over the course of the past couple of decades, maybe that wouldn't -- senator hirono: are you suggesting we need a stronger forward presence in east asia and to work more closely with allies in syria? mr. donnelly: yes, the filipinos are desperate to have us return to the region. in the conversation about allies we should focus on the frontline states and they're the ones who are most interested in having us return. and what they provide which is a battlefield is something that is very hard to to put a price tag on. senator hirono: for dr. preble and mr. donnelly, i'd like your reaction to a recent hearing,

dr. thomas mankin stated that strategy is about mitigating damage an risk. he feels the u.s. has grown unused to having to take risks an bear costs. o you believe we as a nation have become too risk averse? both of you. dr. preble and mr. donnelly. mr. preble:: i wouldn't say risk-averse. i would agree with the rest, that we have become less capable or adept at prioritizing. i think when we do see great risk aversion, especially the desire to not see american sole jers be killed overseas, the question is, is the fission mission vital to u.s. national security. i think you're much more risk averse and averse to casualties when there isn't a clear sense of how that mission is serving u.s. national security interests. mr. donnelly: i have a

different definition of strategy, to achieve our national security goals, not so much to mitigate risk per se. but i do not believe that this nation is risk averse. if properly led. senator hirono: thank you. thank you, mr. chairman. >> mr. chairman, before i begin my questioning, an inquiry of the chair or perhaps the staff, what does the budget agreement do to the unfortunate veto of the national defense bill? do we know? senator mccain: i think the deal would entail a $5 billion reduction that we on the committee are trying to work through instead of $612 billion, it would be $607 billion. >> would the veto still, do we have to act on the veto? sit withdrawn? senator mccain: i don't think you can withdraw a veto. think we have to go through

the drill again. is that your understanding, jeff? i think we have to go through it again. >> you mean repass the bill or override the veto? enator mccain: i think what we have to do is readjust the authorization by looking at $5 billion out of authorizing and move it through the process again. 'm afraid. i hope not but i'm afraid. senator king: i'm going to ask some questions, to me the most serious threat is capability plus will. what makes me lose sleep is north korea. they certainly are developing the capability and their will is unpredictable, as opposed to russia or china that have some semblance of a rational

calculation of their interest. mr. brimley, your thoughts about -- i just don't want to wake up and say, who knew the north cree -- who knew north korea was going to fire a nuclear weapon at the west coast? mr. brimley: i think that's a good observation. in the near term that's a huge strategic concern. the longer term threat that is somewhat typified by your comment is the marriage of increased capability. 10, 15 years ago, north korea, to have an intercontinental ballistic missile that they could mate with nuclear war heads and target the continental united states would have been unthinkable. senator king: and of course the jihaddists with a weapon in the hold of a trunk steamer. mr. brimley: indeed. there was a book that talked about the democratization of violence. what concerns me in that world is when precision guided

munitions are available to all these actors. senator king: what bothers me about north korea, we are commenting, they're developing nuclear weapons, they're developing a missile. my question is, what should we be doing about it? if anything? what are our alternatives? second point on the issue of the budget and joe manchin's questions, and senator sessions, did a little quick calculation. if interest rates to return historic levels of 5.5%, the differential, the increase of 3.5% between what we're running now would exactly equal the current entire defense budget. it would be over, it would be something like $630 billion just in the increase in interest charges. so i think the national debt is a threat, not to define our defense budget, i'm not arguing that we should reduce it because of that. the real problem with the national debt is increasing demographics and health care costs. that's where the problem is. but i think we have to be ognizant of it as a national

security threat. number three, mr. preble, you talked about submarines as a possible, instead of the triad submarines. the question is how vulnerable are submarines to detection? my concern is that we not fall into the magino line trap. mr. preble:: this has been a long-standing concern since -- for a long time. and from the beginning the concern about being able to detect them and undermining their capabilities. i think that generally speaking, those concerns have been proved wrong so far over time. each time the people claim there's some exquisite technology ornew technology hat significantly undermines the stealthiness of our submarines that they continue

to perform extremely well. as i pointed out in my statement however, if that circumstance were to change, we still have the flexibility to adapt other forces. but for now, the combination of stealth and precision and other improvements in technology make ballistic missiles the best of the platform. senator king: but the keyword is stealth? and if the erosion of that quality that creates problems, we need to be attentive to t? mr. preble:: yes. senator king: a question for the record for all of you, how do we enforce the 2% standard? you all have mentioned it. we're carrying fooch of the burden.

what i'd like some suggestions as to how that is carried out rather than in ways other than just imprecations to our allies. finally, i'm not even going -- i'm going to screw up the ronunciation, krepinevich is that close? dr. krepinevich, i think you made a really important point, time is an issue. senator inhofe has a chart that shows the time to put an aircraft in the field is 23 years. if that has been the case with radar and the manhattan project we'd be speaking another language today. we have to be able to field new technologies faster. cost is obviously a question but to talk about a new bomber that probably won't be built for 10 or 12 years may be not even then, we have to deal with this issue of time. mr. krepinevich: time is a resource as manpower is, or technology is, or defense dollars. senator king: are we overthinking new weapons

systems in terms of making them so complex that it backs, time just wastes? mr. krepinevich: i think secretary gates had it almost right. he talked about performance characteristics. he said we want everything that's possible and a lot of things that aren't possible in a new system. he talked about costs and he said we treat costs as though cost is no object. and he talked about time and said time, again, everything is subordinate to performance. we sacrifice cost in terms of no limits on cost. we sacrifice time in terms of e seem to be willing to wait forever. time is also linked to relevance because it's a lot easier to know what kind of security challenges you're going to face in two or three years than in 20 or 30. so his point was i'd rather have an 80% solution that you can give me within a reasonable cost and get on the ramp or wherever in a reasonable amount

of time that's relevant to the threat and that's why he canceled systems like future combat systems and so on. senator king: i agree with that the message is as you've said, let's design and build systems so they can be upgrade over time but get the system online. thank you very much, mr. chairman. senator mccain: thank you, dr. krepinevich, known to many as andy. we have a famous coach k. and a famous doctor k. where i come from. senator blumenthal. enator blumen that'll: i'm more sympathetic to the pronunciation question having a more difficult to pronounce name than reed, mccain and king. this is an excellent discussion i've been following it in in the midst of doing other duties

and i think that just to pursue a line of questioning that senator king raised on stealth or as mr. brimley referred to it as concealment and just to quote one sentence in your testimony, the nature -- quote, the nature of an actor's awareness of adversary forces will differ but it seems clear that on future battlefields finding the enemy will be easier than hiding from him. senator king, right -- senator king rightly identified the advantage of submarines as their versatility and their stealth. the ohio class replacement promises to be far stealthier than any submarine now known or erhaps imagined but i wonder in terms of both your point, dr. preble, in relying on a

smaller nuclear deterrent that macon cyst only of submarines, whether in fact we can pursue that objective in light of the plausible point that finding our submarines will be in fact easier than hiding them and obviously we're at a loss here ecause we can't talk about the echnology in this setting. and in fact, i might be at a loss to talk about the technology in any setting in terms of my scientific or engineering expertise. but maybe you could just expand

on that point. >> on the question of survivability as a function of concealment or stealth for the submarines, of course it's not merely that our submarines are well hid and continued improvements have made them kind of leaps ahead. mr. preble:: but it is that there are many of them. e talk about one throfinge triad, it's not just one boat. -- one leg of the triad, it's not just one boat, it's 12 16. so we would have to believe that the advance in technology that made it so much easier to find those submarines was made without our knowledge and then sprung on us in a moment of surprise in which all of those vessels were all held vulnerable at the same time. i think that highly unlikely. therefore, that's why we wrote a whole pain own the subject, i'd be happy to share a copy, but that's why we believe that while some of the earlier arguments against the submarine in the early days of the triad

were valid, those have been overcome over time through a combination of technological advances and changes in nuclear use doctrine which also explain why they are a suitable platform. senator blumenthal: i think that point is powerful and convincing for the first 10 or 20 years, but the ohio replacement will last well into this century and may not be sprung on us in the first five years or even 10 year but at some point one wonders whether that technology can't be developed. mr. preble:: which speaks about the absence of time and our seeming inability to adapt over ime which is not true. we are capable of adapting and revising technology in an integrative process but investing so much in a single

platform on the assumption that it will retain its tech no lobbling call edge for 40, 50 years, i agree, is unreasonable. senator blumen thaul: mr. brim -- senator blumenthal: mr. brimley, i agree with you that we should never have a fair fight against an adversary. and i'm quoting you, one of our first steps should be to, quote, shore up maritime protection by emphasizing submarines that can attack from concealed positions ideally with platforms with larger payload capacities, etc. and i wonder if you could, given the point that you made about concealment, ebs up and down on that thought. mr. brimley: thank you, senator, for reporting my written testimony. i would expand on it by saying that there are fascinating levels of research,ing naval research a doing and also darpa. part of the solution to establish is to fully invest in

the unmanned regime. in a world where stealth starts to erode or our ability to keep pace with those technologies comes into question, i think one of the investment ways we'll have to deal with that is get fully unmanned into unmanned submarines to the point where we can answer a little bit of the erosion of the qualitative edge with our enhanced ability to generate more in terms of quality and take risks with the plat forls because they'll be unmanned. i take some solace in the fact that secretary worth and secretary herder are taking a look at this very closely. there's agreement that this is an area of potentially large advantage for us if we invest in it. senator blumenthal: my time has expired, i thank you all for this discussion. >> i recognize senator sullivan. mr. sullivan: thank you. i wanted to focus about -- really any of the panelists --

on the issue of energy. we've had a number of members of the administration, secretary carter, for example, but then other experts, general jones, you know, the former nato commander, americorps commandant have all talked about this as a really kind of incredible new instrument of american power, that 10 years ago we weren't focused on because we really didn't believe we had it as something that was important. but it is and it's pretty remarkable that we're now the world's largest producer of gas, oil, renewables. not by any real help from the federal government, all through the innovations of the private sector. so, would you care to comment on that? how we should take advantage of that?

and how the federal government can help, being from a state where energy's very important, we're a big producer of energy, looking to produce more, we have a large scale -- actually a huge l.n.g. project that the state of alaska's working on that would help our citizens with low-cost energy. but certainly would help in terms of our strategic -- the strategic benefits for our allies in asia, who need l.n.g., even the chinese need l.n.g. i would just welcome comments on that. i know, mr. brimley, you talked about it in your testimony but i welcome that for any other panelists. mr. brimley: i would say as a defense analyst, i would say i'm very pleased by the fact that, potentially by the end of this decade, north america will become quote-unquote energy independent. mr. sullivan: a remarkable development. mr. brimley: it is. but that's not a panacea. it's a global market. we will still be importing and participating in the global

market. we will have national interests that are intimately bound up in the security situations of other regions, europe, middle east, etc. but i would say the geopolitics of this is going to be interesting, fascinating, potentially destabilizing, in a world where the exports from the middle east are coming out of the persian gulf, when they're not going west across the atlantic, but they're going east into the pacific, all sorts of, i would say, interesting dynamics will develop. the role of india and its forward defense posture, the role of china, how it invests in forward access points as it starts to invest in its global posture into the persian gulf. we need to be thinking very, very seriously about how to tracking these activities and how to react to them. they will potentially be destabilizing. mr. sullivan: any other thoughts and what the federal government should be doing to encourage the ability to seize this opportunity? everybody -- every panelist we've had in the last nine months has talked about, this

is a new instrument of american power in terms of our foreign policy, national security. and yet it's true, we do not have an administration that seems even remotely interested in it. they don't seem to like the term hydrocarbons and they don't want to recognize what is something that's pretty remarkable in terms of a benefit to our country. mr. donnelly: i would caution about over -- i mean, making everything a national security issue. both devalues the meaning of security and provides the temptation for everybody to try to make everything a national security issue. if you look globally and historically, there's a lot of conflicts that have started and been resolved due to energy. and it's likely to continue to be that way. look, i would agree that, say, becoming a stable source of energy for japan would be a very important strategic plus for the united states.

mr. sullivan: or korea. mr. donnelly: or east asian, you know, the t.p.p. countries. having an alternative route of supply for those countries would be critically important. mr. sullivan: how about for ukraine? mr. donnelly: if we could get it there in a timely way, you bet. on the other hand, to sort of echo shawn, there are bound to be destabilizing -- there are already destabilizing aspects from the changes that are affecting the middle east. the saudis are spending down their cash reserves at an extraordinary rate to try to underbid, you know, fracking sources and stuff, and also to upset iran. but what that will mean for the internal stability of the kingdom is a pretty good question that probably has a host of answers, but all of which are bad. so, changing this regime that has been in place for a number

of decades now is going to have international political effects that almost certainly will have security implications for the united states. not all of them good. mr. sullivan: i would just agree that the ability of u.s. energy producers to reach a global market should be as unencumbered as possible, to the extent the federal law limits export of various products. or delays development is also a problem. mr. preble: the last point i'd make, i'd agree with tom, just because there are benefits economically does not necessarily make it a national security issue. we have to recognize it distinctly. and also, for many years, myself and my colleagues were frustrated by the talk that when or if we become energy-independent it will have a huge impact on our strategy, we said for a long time that should never be the standard because we can never be energy-independent. we trade into a global marketplace, etc. now that that is happening, and i think soon will happen, i would like to see that particular argument taken off the table as why it is we behave the way we do, especially in the middle east. mr. sullivan: thank you, mr.

chairman. mr. reed: thank you. on behalf of chairman mccain, let me thank you gentlemen for an extraordinarily insightful testimony which will be a superb foundation for the hearing the chairman is envisioning, recommendation. truly, truly impressive and helpful hearing. thank you very much, gentlemen. at the direction of the chairman, the hear something adjourned. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national able satellite corp. 2015]

>> tonight on the communicators, the top democrat on the house communications subcommittee discussing how congress should discuss cyber security. she is joined by kate, politico's reporter. >> what i'm struck by is what analysts have instructed us, as if there are two main pillars relative to cyber security that need to be honored. and up to 90% of these breaches are due to two factors. a lack of hygiene in the

system, and the lack of security management. >> this week on "q&a," jay nordlinger discusses his book "children of monsters" which looks at the lives of children of dictators including stalin, mussolini and saddam hussein. brian: jay nordlinger, what were you doing in albania in 2002? jay: well, i was on a state tour , about 10 years after the

collapse of communism in albania, when the country was in bad shape in and, i think, still is. brian: this book, "children of monsters" came out of that trip? jay: yes. albania had suffered under a terrible dictatorship. really one of the worst that man has ever known. the thing closest to it was the dictatorship of kim il-sung. albania was like his personal dungeon. no one left the country or came into it. it was almost a perfect tyranny. and so, i was being shown around the capital by a young man from the government ministry. and it occurred to me to ask, did hoxha have children? what do you do? do you stay in albania? do you go out? what do you thk?