The subcommittee will come to order. This morning, the subcommittee will continue our series of open defense, posture, and budget hearings with our military services. Today, we will hear from the Army leadership on their fiscal year 2019 budget request. Since 2001, the Army has risen to the challenge of fighting counterinsurgency campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. Pardon me. Even as such conflicts continue, the Army must also prepare for a very different kind of fight under the new national defense strategy. The subcommittee is prepared to help the Army modernize and restore readiness for the full spectrum of conflict. Before I introduce our witnesses, I'd like to recognize our ranking member, Mr. Visklowski. I'm sorry, moving forward. For any remarks he'd like to make. Gentlemen, I appreciate your service and your testimony. I look forward to it. Chairwoman, thank you very much for holding the hearing. Thank you. Allow me to introduce our witnesses. The Honorable Dr. Mark T. Esper, Secretary of the Army. General Mark Milley, Chief of Staff of the Army. Secretary Esper is making his first formal appearance before the subcommittee. Secretary Esper, welcome. Secretary Esper is appearing long-sized as Chief of Staff. General Milley, General, thank you for being here today and all the work that you do. We look forward to hearing your views. Please proceed with your opening remarks. Chairwoman Granger, a ranking member, Visklowski, distinguished members of the committee. Good morning and thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. Let me say upfront that the Army's readiness across its formations is improving and if called upon today, I am confident we would prevail in any conflict. This is due in part to the increased funding Congress has provided recently. For this, I would like to say thank you. However, if we were to continue increasing our readiness to desired levels and modernize the force, we require predictable, adequate, sustained, and timely funding. The Army's mission is to defend the nation. The Army's mission to defend the nation has not changed, but the strategic environment has. We've returned to an era of great power competition that makes the world ever more complex and dangerous. While the Army must be ready to deploy, fight and win anytime, anywhere against any adversary, the National Defense Strategy has identified China and Russia as the principal competitors against which we must build sufficient capacity and capabilities. Both countries are playing a more aggressive role on the world stage and either possess or are building advanced capabilities that are specifically designed to reverse the tactical overmatch we have enjoyed for decades. The Army has a comprehensive plan, however, to ensure its long-term dominance. Fiscal uncertainty, though, has done a great deal to erode our readiness and hamper our modernization efforts. Late appropriations challenge the Army to execute funding well, which is why we are seeking increased flexibility to spend these precious dollars when funding is delayed. To address the challenges mentioned above, I've identified three focus priorities for the Army. Readiness, modernization, and reform. Readiness is the top priority because only a ready, total Army, regular Army, Guard, and Reserve can deter conflict, defeat enemies, and enable the Joint Force to win decisively. And while the quality, training, and the spree of our soldiers are what make the U.S. Army the most ready and lethal ground combat force in history, this superiority is enabled by the best weapons and equipment we can provide them. As such, the second priority is modernization or future readiness. To ensure overmatch on future battlefields, the Army is now increasing its investments in modernizing the force. We are also laying the groundwork for more increases in the coming years. The Army's modernization strategy is focused on one goal, make soldiers and units far more lethal and effective than any adversary can imagine. The establishment of the Army Futures Command this summer is the best example of our commitment to the future lethality of the force. Army Futures Command will address the key shortcomings of the current acquisition system, providing unity of command, effort, and purpose to the modernization process. The Army has also identified its top six modernization priorities for the coming years. Each of these priorities is detailed in our written statement and is the purview of a newly established cross-functional team. The purpose of these CFTs is to determine the requirements of needed capabilities to ensure all stakeholders are at the table from day one and to focus Army resources on accelerated experimentation, prototyping, and fielding. My third priority is reform, freeing up time, money, and manpower to enhance readiness, accelerate modernization, and ensure the efficient use of the resources provided to us by the American people. Our reform efforts, particularly with the acquisition system, are long overdue. While Futures Command is probably the boldest reform we are pursuing, other Army reform initiatives owe much to the acquisition authorities dedicated to the services in prior legislation. With these authorities, we are reinvigorating the Army requirements oversight council, moving major defense acquisition programs back to the service and using other transactional authorities to accelerate fielding in limited situations. Although a ready and modernized Army is critical to defend the nation, we must not overlook what makes us remarkable. For this, I have outlined three enduring priorities. First, taking care of our soldiers, civilians, and their families. Second, a service-wide recommitment to the Army's values, especially treating everyone with dignity and respect. And finally, strengthening our allies and partners by building stronger ties. I look forward to discussing these with you as time permits. With that, let me thank you again for this committee's continued support of the Army and specifically the funding increases requested in FY18 and the FY19 budgets. I look forward to your questions and appreciate the opportunity to discuss these important matters with you today. Thank you. Chairwoman Granger, and I want to thank both you and Ranking Member Viscossi and all the distinguished members of the committee for the opportunity to testify today. And although he's not here right this minute, I do want to acknowledge and recognize former Chairman Frelinghausen for his great support to the United States Army over the last couple of years since I've been the chief and for many, many years a dedicated service to our nation. As you all know, for the past 17 years, the U.S. Army has continuously provided trained and ready forces to both Iraq and Afghanistan and elsewhere as we simultaneously meet the needs of the combatant commanders around the globe. And today, as it was throughout the year and last year, we have approximately about 180,000 soldiers serving in 140 countries around the world. And that represents, broadly speaking, about 50 to 60% of combatant command demand comes to the Army to support. Congress's support has allowed the Army to become significantly more combat-ready today than we were two and a half years ago when I became the chief of staff of the Army. We've increased the number of combat training center rotations. We've improved equipment readiness rates. The spare parts, we've replenished our Army preposition stocks. We've increased our personnel and strength and started to fill some of the holes in our operating units. And significantly, we've improved both our munitions shortfalls along with some of our critical infrastructure. We must be ready, though, not only now but in the future. And we have to maintain a decisive overmatch to achieve victory, as the Secretary said, against any adversary, anytime, anywhere. The tyranny of the present has consumed us for the past 16 years, while our competitive advantage against peer threats has eroded. And advances by our adversaries are very real. This is not a classified hearing, but I'll be happy to illuminate those advances in a classified hearing, specifically with respect to Russia and China, as they continue to assert regional influence in their development of advanced weapons and technology. Likewise, Iran is attempting to expand its regional influence. And as we all saw last week in a recent positive turn of events regarding North Korea, it's very welcome and I remain cautiously optimistic, as Secretary of Defense Matt has said. But we, the Army, we must remain ready. We must remain ready to present options to the President for his consideration, if required. And we will do that. The current battlefield's already lethal and the future battlefield is likely to prove more lethal than anything we have ever recently experienced. So the time is now for the Army to modernize. To both stay ready today and to build the future force of our nation, that's going to require a modern Army. The Army needs predictable, adequate, sustained and timely funding, and you know that, and you all agree with that. The Army's FY19 budget request reflects our priorities. To grow and maintain a highly capable force today, to modernize and build the future force, to take proper care of our soldiers, family members and civilians, and all the while of being good stewards of the generous money of taxpayer money that the Congress has given us. We recognize the American taxpayer and trust us with a significant amount of money to meet these demands. And we will be diligent stewards of our resources and we will enforce accountability to make effective use of every single dollar. Your support for the FY19 budget will ensure the soldiers of the United States Army remain ready to fight tonight as we prepare for any unforeseen conflicts of tomorrow. Thank you again for the opportunity to testify and I look forward to your questions. Our questions and the interest of time and fairness for our witnesses and all the members, we limit the question including the response to five minutes per round trying to have, I think we should be able to this morning have two rounds, but if you'd watch their green, yellow and red lights and reds meet you're over. So I'm a former teacher, I watch them, I hope you all of you will because we really want to hear from you. This is a very important hearing. We're going to have questions. I'm going to call on Mr. Vislowski first. Madam Chair, I'll defer at this point. Thank you. Mr. Calvert. Thank you Chairman. Secretary Esper, General Milley, thank you for being here today and thank you for your service to our country. Over 16 years of combat and contingency operations have compromised the military's readiness to conduct high end war fighting missions. The new national defense strategy focuses on nation-state conflict with a peer adversary which is the Army's domain. All of us here have heard about the readiness shortfalls in the United States Army. Only five of 58 brigades are combat ready to fight. The Army's operational tempo has not slowed down and additional units, equipment, military personnel have been deployed to Eastern Europe to deter and defend against Russian aggression. The fiscal year 2019 request seeks to restore training and maintenance shortfalls by requesting additional funds to prioritize readiness across the Army. Can you please detail the Army's primary readiness efforts that will execute as a result of the FY19 President's budget specifically. How many combat teams are currently rated ready for combat and how many do you expect will be rated ready for combat after executing the FY2019 budget? You expect to increase training rotations at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California and Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Polk, Louisiana and how do you intend to integrate simulation and next generation augmented reality into your traditional deployment readiness exercise in the coming years? Thanks Congressman for the question. What I can do is provide a very detailed classified briefing on the complete readiness. In this session, let me say this. When I became chief two and a half years ago, there were two brigades combat ready. Today we are significantly more combat ready and I need to provide you an update on the actual numbers because the numbers that you mentioned have been improved since those numbers were given to you. And I can assure you that the United States Army has sufficient readiness to take on whatever adversary that the United States meets today or tomorrow. And I'm very confident of that. I wasn't confident of that two and a half years ago. I am very confident of that today. That is not to say where we need to be. The objectives we set out, the unclassified objectives for readiness is we want to attain 66% two thirds roughly of all of our brigade combat teams in the regular army in the active army at the highest level of readiness. And for the reserve component of the National Guard, we want to attain a readiness level of 33%. That is what this budget FY19 is built around is those two metrics of success. And we are not at those numbers today but we are on a glide path to achieve them. A couple of challenges. First challenge is time. Units aren't built just overnight and their readiness is not built overnight as you well know. So it takes time and it takes repetition. It takes a lot of reps on the sled to get units to a level in order to fight the high end fight against near peer threats or regional threats. The second thing is you mentioned the demand. Now there is a global demand. It's significant and a lot of that demand is met by the United States Army. Right now, for example, we've got several brigades involved in train advice assist missions inside the Middle East. And we need to recoup those brigades and get them trained for what their organizational design is to do. So demand plays a big role in that. I expect that demand will hopefully stay steady or come down slightly and we'll recoup some of that. And the last and most important thing in terms of readiness and you've been more than generous and you're giving it to us is a budget. And that's really significant. So time, demand, and money are what's key to readiness. You asked for when we think we would achieve the readiness levels. What we're saying in our analysis, if the international environment stays way it is right this minute, we think on the glide path we're on we'll achieve the readiness objectives complete by somewhere around the 2021-2022 timeframe. And if I can, I'll answer to the specific questions you raised, Mr. Calvert. The FY19 budget allows us to maximize throughput through the three training centers at NTC, JRMC in Europe and the JRTC. And we'll be doing that with a combination of active and guard. So 16 active units will go through and then four guard. So it's exceptional training. I've been to two of those training sites in the three plus months I've been on the job and they're doing a high-end training against likely threats we would anticipate consistent with the national defense strategy. On your question with regard to synthetic training, virtual training, it is initiative that's captured on one of our soldier lethality cross-functional teams. It's an important endeavor because what it promises to give soldiers many, many repetitions at home station before they actually go on to deployment so that they're not engaging the enemy for the first time if you will on a real deployment, but actually can rehearse over and over again at home station. So it's a very important initiative to us and we're putting money into that cross-functional team as provided in the FY19 funding. Thank you, thank you, Chair. Thank you, Mr. Rupersberger. Thanks, sir. For land forces, the Army relies on the Army Research Laboratory to provide the critical link between science and warfighter. And today the Army Research Laboratory helps the Army to understand the implications of technology on doctrine and future capabilities and translates these applicable science and technologies in ways to ensure Army dominance. That being said, I've been following the Army's intent to stand up future's command with great interest and I'm very interested in how its creation will impact the Army Research Laboratory. And I guess, Secretary, either one, how do you envision the Army Research Laboratory contributing to this new modernization initiative? Yes, sir, well, thank you for that question. First of all, our science and technology base is absolutely critical to the modernization of the force. And so in the last several months, what we have done is aligned 80% of our S&T funding actually toward the six priorities that have been outlined. So that's everything from long-range precision fires through next-generation combat vehicle all the way through soldier lethality. We are looking to move over a billion dollars as well over the fit-up to do the same. And so clearly the S&T, the Army Research Labs that are part and parcel of that are critical to the future. Now, the other piece of that with regard to Army Futures Command that will continue the transformation, if you will, of the acquisition process, what we envision is that we would achieve what we call unity of effort and unity of command by having a single senior officer, a general officer in charge of the entire acquisition, big A acquisition process, all the way from concept through requirements, through the acquisition and testing process. What that would mean for the labs is that we would most likely just rewire the boxes differently so that they are reporting into the Army Futures Command. We don't anticipate any changes in locations or change the jobs at this point, but really how do we rewire the boxes because currently they are all over the Army so that we achieve that unity of command, unity of effort that promises us to be able to deliver to soldiers the tools, weapons, and equipment they need, when they need them, and at the best price for the taxpayer. Okay. Madam Chairman, schoolteacher, I yield back. Madam Chairwoman, thank you very much. Gentlemen, a privilege to have you here. First, let me applaud the Army on the plan to acquire the ground mobility vehicles. I'm actually really happy to hear that you're leveraging the experience of SOCOM vehicles to get this critical equipment out to the force as soon as possible. Madam Chairwoman, I was lucky enough in Florida to drive one of these vehicles, which were incredibly versatile, and actually I kind of want one after I drove it, I tell you, but so again, I want to commend the Army for setting an example for a smart and fast acquisition decision in saving taxpayers money, and so again, I saw that firsthand. Let me talk to you a little bit about the next generation vertical lift. So I've read some conflicting reports on the status of this program. The Defense News suggests that the future of vertical lift program has appeared to, as they said, slow rolled. Now, I also know that Under Secretary McCarthy recently said that the program is on track, and so I do understand that it is included in your 19 budget, which is great, but I'm hoping to get some clarification on the Army's intentions and support for the program since, again, I've read conflicting reports. Thanks, Congressman D. I'm not, I didn't read the particular article that you're referring to. It's, first of all, it's a joint program, it's a DOD program, because it's Army Marine equities, Army has a heavy equity in it, so the decisions are actually not Secretary of the Armies or the Armies, it's actually a DOD thing. Secondly is the request for proposals and all of that's gonna be decided sometime in the early fall, so it's on track to meet those timelines. Third thing is what do we want out of future vertical lift? What do we want tactically? What do we want out of this thing? The helicopters we have today, the Apache, the UH-60, the 47, the 47's been around a long, long time, since Vietnam. They're great helicopters, they're good helicopters, they're capable, the guts have been all redone and we're gonna continue to invest in those in the foreseeable future, but the future operating environment is going to be significantly different, we think, especially if it's against a near-peer competitor, than the current operating environment. So we need an aircraft that can first survive. We also need an aircraft that's dual-purpose that can both be manned and possibly autonomous and unmanned, a robotic helicopter. We need an aircraft that can fly faster and further than any existing rotary-wing aircraft today. And we need an aircraft that is agile, both while in flight to avoid enemy air defense and at what we call it the X or at the landing zone in order to evade and survive any of the intense ground fire that would be coming on a hot LZ. Those are pretty stiff requirements. So the discussion with industry is ongoing right now and there's a variety of possibilities out there from a technological standpoint. We'll know more throughout the summer and as we get into the fall to make some hard decisions. But there is no intent and the Secretary and I are not gonna stand for delays. This is an urgent need, we need to get it. It's the third in our, we have six priorities in the Army, six modernization priorities. This is the number three. If you think about what an Army does, an Army fights and wins in ground combat. The first thing I do is be able to shoot long-range precision fires and then you gotta be able to move. Then we move by the ground and we move by the air. So this is a very important priority for the Army. We're committed to it and we're gonna try to keep this thing on track. Thank you, John. And I would just add that building upon what the Chief just said, what we're doing right now reflects the different approach to acquisition that we are taking. In this case, we have two demonstrators. One has flown, I think one will be flying later. Both are largely funded by industry as prototypes with some federal dollars. And so it just reflects a whole new approach where we prototype, we test, we fail, we learn, we prototype and we repeat until we narrow the requirements and we get on a much quicker trajectory to get to the end state that we want. I appreciate the very clear answer. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Mr. Coyar. Thank you, Madam Chair. Mr. Secretary and again, General, thank you for your service and your time. Just one question. The Department of Defense is currently going through this financial statement audit. As you know, verified count, location, condition of military equipment, real property, inventory, testing security, vulnerabilities in our business systems, validating the accuracy of personal records. It's gonna take a while to get this hopefully clean audit. The financial statement audit will help drive, we hope improvements in standardized business and process and basically know what we have. Because as you know, half of the discretionary funding goes into the Department of Defense. Mr. Secretary, and I guess for both of you, but especially you, Mr. Secretary, tell us your experiences and the views of this Department of Defense audit and tell us, even though this is an initial review, if any actions have been taken by the Department has helped the Department of the Army. Yes, sir. Completion of the audit is a top priority for me. Having been through audits in the private sector, I recognize the value of them in terms of what they teach you, what you can learn from them, how they can help you think better in terms of how you employ your resources and manage your resources to accomplish your mission. In this case, it's readiness and future readiness. And so the Army is off to a good start. We are looking at what needs we need to make. So over the previous few years, we have made a number of changes to improve our audit ability. Whether it's better documentation control, improving our IT systems, capturing data better. So we are proceeding along, I get updated on this monthly. And at every meeting I ask what do you need for me, what support do you need for me to make sure that we complete our audit on time? And again, as you rightly said, I don't anticipate we'll get a clean opinion this year. I think it's a process, but I'm confident we will continue to learn. At the end of the day, we need to be able to account for everything that we have and what we do. And I'm fully committed to that. And you said it right. You've been in the private sector, so this is key. And we've got to do the same thing for government. Yes, sir. And part of it is making sure the attitude is one of it's a learning event, not a grading event per se, because there's a lot that can be learned from an audit that helps leaders really manage all of your resources better, whether it's people, equipment, dollars, obviously. It's important that we complete this. Well, following the question you ask your folks every time you meet with them, anything we can do to help you? The Congress has been more than generous with the FY18 and FY19 mark. So I think we really appreciate the funding at this point. As we go, we will be sure to keep the Congress apprised if anything comes up with regard to the audit piece. So thank you, sir. You're back to the balance of my time. Judge Carter. Thank you, Madam Chairman, Secretary Aspirin, General Milley. Thank you for being here. I think you make a great team in taking care of our Army. And I appreciate you very much. I'd like to, we're talking about the new national defense strategy. It raises a new whole section of thinking on warfare with the Army. And we're looking at dealing with near peer aggression and our potential aggression and how we would face it while continuing an insurgency war, which we've been fighting now for 60 or 18 years. It takes a whole new outlook. And it takes evaluation of our near peer enemies and what we're going to do. So my question is, give us an overview, if you could, about the changes in the Army relative to the near peer enemies. And then as we continue, how will we continue to deal with the insurgency and that issue too? And one of the things I'm very interested in is because being at Fort Hood, we have a lot of Abrams tanks and a lot of Bradleys. And they've done a great job for us and been great for our Army. But they are old. They are old vehicles. And it's my understanding from some of my reading that our potential enemies have looked at how we fight and have made improvements. I'd like for you to also talk about equipment improvements as you look down the road for this dual task we're going to have. It's kind of a big question. But if you could outline it quickly, give us some kind of idea of where you are. I think it's important that everybody understand it. I'll take first stab at that. And I'm sure the Chief will have a lot to contribute as well. As you rightly outlined, Mr. Carter, with what the NDS presents, we have to now deal not only with a high end, very complex threats, strategic competitors of Russia and China. We still have to be prepared to deal with the Iran's and North Korea's. And at the same time, deal with irregular warfare. So unlike maybe what have happened in the post-Vietnam era when I entered the service, we don't have the luxury of just focusing on one threat. So instead, we have to now maintain that core competency. At the same time as we open up our aperture to deal with the high end threats, there are a number of things that we are doing to make sure we are ready. So we talked earlier about fully maximizing the throughput of units to the combat training centers. That's number one. Second, relevant to today's discussion about the budget, we are converting an armor brigade combat team. We are, by the end of 19, building another armor brigade combat team. Again, to deal with the high end threat. We are upgrading our strikers, Bradley's and Abrams, making them more lethal, making them more survivable. We are investing in our aviation fleet. So all these things we are doing to deal with the high end. And then of course, we've mentioned several times our six priority areas for modernization. It begins with long range precision fires, making sure we have the ability to reach out and touch the enemy at greater distances so that we can help the Air Force, for example, with the suppression of enemy air defenses all the way down through, as you mentioned, building the next generation combat vehicles. Because we're reaching the point in time, certainly with the Bradley's, where we are out of power, if you will. They're getting too heavy to do some certain things. So that's why we're next generation combat vehicles, another one of our priorities. Thanks Congressman. I would just add that you rightly point out the national defense strategy. Solid document by the way. I don't know how many know the background of it, but that is very much Secretary Mattis' document. His voice is in it, he penned it. He pretty much singularly authored that document. We, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have had a lot of input to it. Many other staffers have had. We think it's a solid document and accurately outlines the way ahead for not only the Department of Defense, but extrapolate to the Army. Specifically, the reintroduction I suppose of great power competition at both levels below outright war and then potentially in conflict. So we've got to shift gears as a Department of Defense and a Department of the Army, and we intend to do that. At the same time, we have to sustain the levels of effort, fighting counterinsurgency and a counterterrorist fight against a very aggressive nihilistic enemy that wants to destroy Americans in our interest. So we have to be able to do both simultaneously and we think that this budget helps us to do that. And in order to do that, we have to improve our readiness, improve our, for today's fight, and we have to modernize for tomorrow's. And we think that this strategy is balanced. It's in the 19 proposals, and we think we can get there in pretty good shape, barring unforeseen events in the international environment. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you gentlemen for being here today and your service to our nation. I'd like to get your thought on a few things. We've been talking a lot about the new national security strategy, and that also includes the Guard and the Reserve. And I would like to dig in a little more about the Army's aviation modernization program and how that all fits together. So we know with the increased global requirements and high operating tempo that it's put a strain on readiness and modernization efforts, especially with respect to aviation, and some of the questions have related to that. And part of that has been past funding by this Congress and timely budgets, which we're beginning to address. So I'd like to know, as you describe, what's in the FY19 budget for the Army aviation modernization, how the Army plans to go forward in the decade, especially now that we're going to have the funding, hopefully, at least for the next two years, better in place. There's been concern from reserve components that the Army's direction here may leave them without the funding needed to complete the modernization efforts for the UH-60 Blackhawks. And I also, from the Army Times, November 9th, 2017, was concerned when I read that the Army's goal for training flights per hour, per crew, is 14.5 hours to reach collective readiness at the battalion level. But the service's active component is only getting 10.8 hours. While the National Guard is getting 6.4 and the Reserve is getting 7.8. So could you, a gentleman, tell me with the increased funding and how we're moving forward, how the active component will, you know, as it continues to rely and rely heavily on the reserves and guards as an operational force, how are you going to ensure that they also see the full benefits of this modernization program? Thanks, man, for the question. On aviation, the last couple of years, Congress has been very generous to us, and we put a lot of money into aviation. So in the, both in 17 and 18, and for 19 for this request, we're asking for money to remanufacture another, I think it's 48 apaches to buy 12 additional new apaches. We're asking for additional monies to procure additional UH-60s and to modernize the UH-60 fleet, as well as the CH-47 fleet. Aviation is the biggest and most expensive outside of Milper or outside of the payroll. It's the most expensive part of the Army budget. And we think that we're putting an adequate amount of money into aviation for both the active and the reserve and guard in order to make sure that they're properly equipped with the best, this is barring future vertical lift. This is the current system. The second piece you mentioned about the training, the flight hour program, we think historically that 15, 14, 15 hours is about what is necessary to maintain the highest level of combat readiness for a rotary wing aviator. That would apply, those numbers would apply to active component, because that's where you want to get them to what we call C-1. So we want them at the highest level of readiness. The National Guard and Reserve are not resourced nor are they planned to be at C-1 prior to Mobilization Day. They are by design planned to be at a lesser level of readiness prior to Mobilization Day. And then upon Mobilization, there's a period of time for each unit and we have it by unit. We have a period of time for them then to reach C-1 prior to them deploying into combat. And I'm sure because it's my time, so I would like to see that breakdown because I'm very concerned about with the up tempo, sometimes the shortness in deployment, and especially with the equipment that they're operating with. So if you could provide that to our staff. I'd be happy to give you all the detail on it. Absolutely. Thank you very much, gentlemen. Thank you, Madam. Yep. Korea, we have some 24,000 troops on the peninsula, including 15,000 active army. In view of the unusual activities of the last few months, i.e. North Korea, what changes have you made, if any, in preparation for what may come? Ms. Secretary? I'll take a first stab at this, but the chief and his joint chief's role is probably more fluent on this. I could tell you that with regard to Korea, we hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. And so one of my first trips on the job was to Korea where I spent about two days on a peninsula meeting with our commanders all the way from Seoul down to the southern end of the peninsula to get a good feel for our readiness. And I can tell you that everybody's working hard to ensure that we are ready, that we are doing what's necessary to strengthen the hands of our State Department, our diplomats, with you will, and to make sure that we have all options available for our decision makers. General? Congressman, I don't want to do a cop out, but I would like to actually come by and brief you in a classified session on the details of what we're doing. The headlines, I suppose, or the brief version and unclassified, we continue to do, and we will continue to do, a significant amount of training for contingency operations on the Korean Peninsula, both on the peninsula itself with the units that are stationed there, but also the units in the region. We've got roughly speaking 70,000 Army soldiers in the PAKOM AOR and another 30,000 depending on exercise schedules. So training is key. And then in the continental United States, about, I guess it was a year, 18 months ago, we gave out guidance to our units that we would designate selected units to increase their readiness training, specifically oriented towards high end, combined arms warfare. Not specific necessarily to Korea, although it would be applicable to Korea. And we've been running those units pretty hard, getting them to a much higher level of readiness that I can explain in some detail to you. In terms of equipment, we've ensured that all of the preposition stocks are full up. We have worked hard at replenishing munitions. I can give you the details of those in a classified session as well. And then we've made sure that we've increased the personnel fill for the units that are both there and the units that are expected to first respond. But we, the Army, have done a tremendous amount in coordination with the US Army Pacific, with Admiral Harris and PAKOM and General Brooks, who's the commander on the peninsula. We've done a tremendous amount over the last 12 to 18 months or so in preparation and for any possible contingency so that the President has the widest latitude for options if needed. How would you rate the current state of our military relationship with South Korea? It's very good. With the ROC Army, our mil-to-mil relationship with the Republic of Korea is excellent. And I go over there probably every four or five months. We've had a long-term, 70-year relationship with the ROC Army. And we are very, very solid. We are shoulder to shoulder with the Republic of Korea. And I've had the chance to meet when I was there with the Minister of Defense and with ROC generals. And my assessment was the same and it was the assessment also given to me by our commander there, General Brooks. In closing and quickly, I noticed that you're requesting a huge increase in one-five-five millimeter artillery shells. That's a 1808 with 16,500, the request now is 148,000. I'm an old one-five-five artillery guy in the Kentucky Guard. So I've got an affinity for 155 shells, but what's going on here? Well, as I survey, as Chief Steffs, I survey the world situation and there are lead times to procurements. I want to make sure that the United States Army has sufficient ammunition stocks, not just 155, but the other types of preferred ammunition, precision-guided ammunition, et cetera. But 155 in particular, because the United States Army is, has been and still is, a fires-based Army in order to create opportunities for maneuver and movement. So artillery is fundamental to our ability to do that and in the event of a contingency, artillery ammunition consumption rates would be really high. So I want to make sure that the ammunition stockpiles are significant enough to withstand any contingency, hence the significant amount of 155. Yeah, it's 10 times what you did in 18. You're back. That's correct, Congress. Thank you for a call on Mr. Womack. We'll be calling your office to set up a classified briefing. Everyone on the subcommittee will be invited because I know we all have questions that you very respectfully need to be in a classified briefing. So, Mr. Womack. Thank you, Madam Chair. And my thanks to the Secretary and to the Chief who are doing remarkable work and of course I'm kind of partial to the Army, so I like what they're doing. And congratulations, by the way, I'm bringing the Commander-in-Chief's Trophy back to the Army side. I know my Navy friends are probably, and even my Air Force friends, probably a little bit chagrined about that, but it was about time, so. And I know it's particularly important to the Secretary. I want to talk about manning for just a minute, even though we've got a lot of technology, a lot of really cool stuff that we use that the warfighter is able to take advantage of and more on the way. We're still a people business, and my concerns have always been about the amount of money that we spend and invest, let's just say invest in our people from entry level to some of these midgrades and then how we lose them in the retention battle. And my concern is even enhanced a little more now that we've got a tax cut and Jobs Act bill passed, and there's clearly a movement in the economy to bring more jobs back home, and that's gonna put pressure on wages.  So Mr. Secretary, if you would just kind of let me know what your thoughts are on these issues and if my concerns are founded. Yes, sir, it's a very good question, and I like your choice of words, invest. It's how we need to think about how we access soldiers and officers into our force. I think on the first part with regard to our enlisted ranks, as you know, this bill will help us grow in strength, which is critical to meet the demands out there. But one of the challenges we have, which are widely reported, is that we have anywhere between 20, only 25 to 30% of America's youth could be eligible to serve, and less than 5% probably are eligible and have an inclination, proclivity to serve. And so that makes things more challengeable, which makes it all the more important that once we get them into the service, that we do our darn best to retain them. And so there are a number of things we need to do. Of course, is investment or professional development. We need to be sure to take care of their families, which is why one of the priorities we've highlighted is taking care of their families. But another part of this, and I think you and I may have spoken about it previously, is I've stood up what I call the talent management task force to really look at, how do we manage people differently in the 21st century? So rather than the typical up and out type of system we have now, how do we manage people based on their knowledge, skills and behaviors, marry it up with their preferences, and make sure we look at them more as individuals as we manage them through their career, so that we can retain them longer, particularly in that critical period between the six and eight year mark, where at least for mid career or for officers, they may think about getting out because they're looking for other opportunities, or like you said, the job market is better. So we have to be more flexible on that side as well in terms of allowing lateral movement in and out of the service, maybe to the garden reserve, and thinking about different career path options. This is most specifically outlined when we talk about the cyber force. So a number of things we could do, but you've hit the nail on the head, we have to think about people as investments. General Milley, on that same subject, we have been engaged in a type of conflict that has been driven primarily by the small unit leader, which has been really good for the development of our small unit leaders. Now a lot of these leaders are matriculating up through their field grade and on into general officer positions. And I would just kind of throw the same question out to you, do you ever get concerned about losing some of this great talent that has been so vital in the war fight so far that we could lose them to private sector opportunities? I'm always concerned about that, Congressman. We want to retain the best and brightest of talent, and you're correct that there's a tremendous amount of institutional experience now at the small unit level in combat fighting. So the short answer is yes, always concerned about it. We monitored very closely. So what we've seen so far is we do not in the general... I really just want to get your feedback a little bit on the security force assistance brigades, one of which the first brigade is housed in Benning in Georgia. And no doubt that advising and assisting our allies is a key part of the mission. Can you just share with us a little bit about what you've learned and what you expect and what you hope to see in the future in using these various brigades? Yes, sir. Chief. Thank you, Chief. Thank you, Congressman, for that. It's our assessment that we're going to be in the train, advise, assist of indigenous partner nations, militaries, for some time to come. We've been doing it pretty regularly as a nation for well over a century. If you think back at the big ones, the Rock Army, the South Korean Army, the Army of South Vietnam, and many, many other armies around the world have been advised by the American Army in over the years. So it's always been a fundamental mission of the United States Army. Many times it's defaulted to the United States Army's special forces because they have excellent expertise in foreign internal development and advisory. But in today's world, we think that the mission profile of train, advise, assist exceeds the capacity of special forces. They're running at a very, very high op tempo. So special forces is primarily now, not exclusively, but primarily involved in training and advising host nation special forces. And we need to fill the gap to advise the host nation conventional forces. And what we determined, what we've been doing for 16 years is ripping apart our regular army or national guard brigade combat teams that are designed or combined down as maneuver. We've been ripping them apart to feed an advisory mission. So for example, today, we've got five brigades in the Middle East doing that. You got five preparing and you got five just coming home. So about 15 out of 30 brigades in the active or 58 in the total are wrapped up in that mission profile. We need those brigades to train on their design mission. So what we decided to do is we wanted to produce a better product of advisor rather than just sort of an ad hoc approach to it by ripping units apart, create a professional advisory unit and we're calling it an SFAB. And it's all about the people. They're individuals who are highly vetted. They're meeting the same entry requirements that you have to meet to get into the range of regiment. They're getting full background checks and significantly they've already served in the duty position they're serving as an advisor. So they're on their second company command, their second battalion command, their second brigade command, second time as a first sergeant and so on. They're not coming, we're not ripping them out of the units. This is after they've completed their assignment in a regular unit. So you're getting a high quality product and I think we'll see over time for the indigenous conventional forces of better advisor capability and we'll recoup the readiness value of bringing the current brigades back home to get them trained for their organizational design mission. And a third big strategic benefit of these security force assistance brigades is that they are built upon the inherent chain of command of an infantry brigade without all of the soldiers. So they're E-6s and above, they're all in SEALs and officers and they are designed to look like a chain of command of a brigade. So in a national emergency, if the United States needed to rapidly expand, we're creating five of these in the regular army, one on the guard. If we needed to rapidly expand by say six brigades, five or six brigades, we would take soldiers through basic training and AIT, shove them underneath there and you'll have a brigade in relatively short order about one third of the time it would take to create a normal brigade. So you get these three big strategic benefits from these outfits. The first one as you noted is stood up at Benning, it deployed a few last week or 10 days ago or so, they're in the midst right now of getting into their battle space. And the second one is gonna stand up at Bragg. We haven't determined yet the stationing for the third, fourth and fifth and so on. But we think it's a good idea, it's a good program. We think that they're getting good training and proper equipment and we think that their concept of employment is sound and we think it'll reap a significant amount of benefit in the years to come. Great, thank you, thank you for that explanation and Madam Chair, I yield back, thank you. Thank you Madam Chair and to both of you, thank you for your service to our country. We appreciate it very much. Thank you for your candor here with us this morning. As you know, I represent Southeast Alabama and the people of Southeast Alabama are very proud of the home of Army aviation at Fort Rucker. So a couple questions and then I'll let you respond. And I appreciate, Mr. Secretary, the visit by phone the other day and I kind of laid this out for you so we can talk further about it. But I'm real concerned about the why the president's FY19 budget request for aircraft is 3.8 billion versus the actual spend FY17 of 4.9 billion. We continue to also be concerned about retention of Army aviators and also wanna make sure that the budget is a reflection of what needs to be done at Rucker to keep up with student load that will then help with whatever missions we have. Clearly, we don't deploy without Army aviation so we wanna make sure that student load is a reflection of the needs of the Army. And then my second question is I'm concerned about the funding for the Striker vehicle in the Army's FY19 request. It's my understanding that the Army also has operational requirements for additional brigades of improved strikers. And so a lack of funding for that would certainly put the industrial base in jeopardy. And so those are my questions and I'll be quiet and let y'all respond. But again, thank you so much for your service to our country and for being here today. Thank you, Ms. Roby. I'll take the first one, aviation budget. I know the chief may could speak to the retention piece and then we'll move to the Striker. I did track down the numbers. So you're right. The FY19 request for aviation is 3.8 billion. The FY17 enacted was 4.9 billion. But what we requested in FY17 was 3.6 billion. So that Delta reflected the additional generosity that Congress put money in. So that's why it looks like a, so it's not a plan decreased by the service. What we had planned was a steady increase with you will to continue invest in aviation assets. That's number one. Number two is we find at this point that we've because of the investments we made in previous years, that the bump up in 17, that army aviation across the board is in pretty good shape, certainly relative to our armor, our strikers, et cetera, et cetera. So we find ourselves in good footing. We are getting very close to meeting our aviation objectives in terms of the the the fielding goals. And then the other thing, I think this is due to again to the folks at the Pentagon doing the acquisition is they made some good decisions. So for example, on UH-60, the procurement is a multi-year procurement of aircraft, which saved us as a result over a half billion dollars. And so that meant we didn't have to invest that up front. So a number of things are impacting both why you see the trending line as you read it, but also the solid state of aviation funding. And then of course, as we've talked today, one of the things we're trying to do in the 19 budget is really consistent with the national defense strategy. Make sure we're investing in conversion of the army of the armor brigade combat teams. We're looking to create another one. We're trying to fill our pre-position stocks of the brigade combat team. We're doing upgrades to our Bradley's Abrams and other vehicles, because they're just not in as good a shape, if you will, as the aviation fleet. Congressman, for the pilots, what I've seen is not so much a retention issue as a production issue. We are short pilots, but we're at 94% on warren officer pilots for roady wing aircraft. So we're actually not in that bad a shape. However, that 94% means we're short several hundred pilots. So we're not where we would like to be, which is 100%, but it's not so much a retention as a production issue. And you rightly point out the student base down at Fort Rockwell. We're filling all the scheduled seats, and we're monitoring all of that very, very closely. And we're very sensitive because of the amount of training it goes in to train a pilot. And we know that there's a heavy investment in that, and we want to continue to make sure that we don't drop off on it. I know some of the other services with fixed wing pilots are challenged on retention, but ours is not so much retention as it is a production issue. On the striker piece, it's our intent to continue the striker upgrades. However, what you see reflected in the budget, what we did last year was put money in there for the striker lethality upgrade. And now what we want to do is we want to get the feedback from the pilot program that we're running right now over in Europe. We want to get all the feedback from the testing and the prototyping and so on and so forth. And then adjust based off of that. We expect that feedback sometime over the summer, and then we'll adjust and determine which way we want to go on the remaining striker brigades. Thank you, Madam Chair. Secretary, first of all, I want to thank you for your comments on the audit and audibility that Ms. Quayer brought up and the fact that you are very serious about it. And as I've said many times in this room, it's not the audit itself, it's the ability it gives you to make informed decisions. But very much appreciate your addressing that. Thanks, sir. I have, if I could just set these out for the two of you, three questions. And again, I would not want to take time, Chairman Freiland Heisen here, Mr. Adderholt, is the first is we're all very proud of our national guard organizations. Indiana has partnerships with two different countries. Relative to the European deterrence initiative, how do the guards in their state partnership program cooperate, play into what the Army is doing in Europe? Second, when we look at Asia, I think too often we think of maritime, Navy, Air Force, but the Army has a clear role. Setting aside the Korean Peninsula, any particular activities you would draw our attention to that you're involved in. And the last, and again, if you could just touch on these, is with the new defense strategy that I'm pleased the department has initiated, we talk about Russia and China. We talk about Iran and we talk about North Korea and then it's other very important issues. Has it put stress on the Army in particular as far as its activities in Afghanistan? Are there problems that has created as far as a sense of priority? Thank you. Thank you, sir. If you don't mind, I'll take the first one and maybe the chief can take the second two. So as you know, my 21 years of service, I attended on active duty and the remaining level were in the Guard and Reserve. So I have a great affinity for the Guard as a former guardsman myself. And I will tell you, when I went to Europe, I think it was in January, I was able to visit Belgium, Germany, Poland, and Ukraine. And in Poland, I was very impressed because there was a Guard unit there from Illinois of all places, conducting training there and they were well welcomed and doing an incredible job. I found the same thing, by the way, when I went to Ukraine. It was actually the New York National Guard that was training the Ukrainians on better techniques and procedures, if you will, consistent with what we do with NATO. So the Guard is performing a critical role. From the time I left active duty in 1996, they have moved certainly from a strategic reserve to an operational reserve to an operational force. And everywhere I go, and I'm always reminded of my visit to Afghanistan just before Christmas, where I sat around with a leadership team of a brigade combat team. And you wouldn't know it unless you looked at their patches, but they were from all three components that seamlessly integrated, each performing the roles side by side, but they were active, they were the regular Army Guard and Reserve. And so they are doing a tremendous job. And I guess further to your point, what I found is where states have these particular partnership programs with other countries, that's been particularly helpful because there is a longstanding relationship in many cases where they've been working together for many years. And so it's just, there's a great ease when they have to deploy and they already have a relationship built up. And I know that I had that conversation with the Poles in particular, where there was just an easy transition as our guardsmen were working in Poland on our deterrence initiatives there. Yeah, I would echo all of that Congressman, the state partnership program, as you know it's been a long-term program, started in the early 90s, and the states have affiliations with various countries around the world. Very, very successful program, particularly in Europe, as a subset of the broader UConn Commander General Scaparotti's engagement strategy in order to build partner capacity. For the EDI, the European Deterrence Initiative, the Army plays a significant role in that of the six plus billion dollars that it's been increased from the last year's budget. The Army is, I think the Army's allocated four, four and a half billion of that. That's significant. The purpose of the whole thing is to deter further Russian territorial aggression in Europe. We saw Georgia, we saw Crimea, we saw what they're doing in the east in Damascus. So a strategic decision was made to deter any further territorial aggression. In order to do that, it requires a joint force. So there's elements of the Navy and the Air Force and Marines as part of the EDI as well. But the Army has a big chunk of that because the best form of deterrence, frankly, is the deterrence that you can see on the ground. And if you know you can't achieve your objectives on the ground, then you are likely not to try to attempt to get those objectives. You could address Asia. I'm sorry? As I answered the question was, is the China issue impacting or increasing stress on it? I'm going to say China is just we think of Navy, we think of Air Force because of the projection of setting aside the Korean Peninsula just to highlight some of the other activities and important duties. Well, in the Pacific, again, we're a global power. And the United States Army is a global Army. So we are not committed to one theater versus the other. And we have to retain capabilities as a nation as long as our strategies remain as they are to be able to engage worldwide. So in the Pacific, we've got roughly speaking, as I mentioned earlier, about 70,000 or so US Army soldiers, forward station in Korea, forward station in Hawaii. We have soldiers up in Alaska. And then we have a large significant amount that come out of the operational force in force comm in the event that we need to surge forces into the Pacific. So there's a very significant Army capability in the Pacific. The purpose of that is stability, building partner capacity, assuring our allies and deterring any particular opponent. The Pacific is heavily weighted towards naval capabilities and air capabilities, as it rightly should. However, the Army plays a very, very significant role, as you know, in the Pacific. Well, my sense is the assurance to our allies is a very key role there, so no one gets nervous. It's absolutely, it's absolutely critical. If I could just turn you to Afghanistan with the new defense strategy, if you would, any stress or pressure as far as what you're doing in Afghanistan, budgetarily or personnel-wise? Well, in Afghanistan, as you know, the numbers that we have in Afghanistan, and we're putting in the first security force system brigade the other day, our strategy in Afghanistan is to continue to train, advise, assist, enable the indigenous military force of the Afghan government, so the Afghan national security forces. That is important. It is not in and of itself the only solution, but it's important. The other parts of this are economic development, rule of law, good governance. Those are outside the purview per se of US military forces. Our job is to assist the ANSF in order to protect and stabilize the internals of the government. It's been a challenge for a considerable length of time, as you know. President Trump has recommitted in the strategy to sustaining the US level of effort. Key to the overall strategy of course is what's going on on the other side of the board of Pakistan. It's a very complex situation, but we the military and we specifically the army play a very, very heavy role in train, advise, assisting our Afghan partners. We think we're able to do that now and we think we're gonna be improving on that here in the coming year. Thank you very much. Thank you. Mr. Adelho, I apologize. I didn't see you coming in. No problem, thanks. Thank you all both, as my colleagues have said for being here. We appreciate your service. And when you think back on the days of muskets, it would have been a surprise, I guess a lot of service members back years ago to imagine a rifle that is accurate up to 875 yards as we have today. But in this time of increasing long range threats from our adversaries, I don't think any of our services should be excluded from a mission simply because of its range, but the concern that many of us has is about the frequency of hypersonic testing from Russia and China. Also concerned about the speed of which North Korea might prepare a missile for launch. Our own future systems may include weapons in the Air Force and missile launch from submarines, but some of that work may take 20 years to actually field. In the past two years, our combatant commanders have confirmed the positive potential of long range hypersonics weapons of our own. General, let me pose this question to you. It's an operational question. If the Army were provided sufficient resources and were asked to prepare a long range hypersonic weapon launch from US territory, could you build upon our two successful hypersonic flight tests done through cooperation between SMDC and the Navy and prepare an early operational land-based capability by 2022, which is directed in the FY18 NDAA? Thanks for the question. It's an important area of S&T and R&D that we're pursuing very quickly. As you rightly point out two significant adversaries, China and Russia, moving out on the development of hypersonic weapons. We acknowledge that. We, the Army, have as our number one priority for modernization, long range precision fires. A subset of that is the hypersonic piece to it. It is in S&T and R&D. I don't wanna say 2022, because I haven't seen the results of the S&T and R&D yet, but I do believe that it's technologically possible and I believe we will be able to test and then acquire and procure long range precision weapons that go significantly longer in range than any existing artillery system in the Earth today. We're pursuing that and I believe it's possible. I don't wanna get, confine myself to a date of 2022 though. I haven't seen the research yet. And hard date. I would add, I was at SMDC a few weeks ago, very impressed by what they're doing. They're very confident in the promise of hypersonics. And as I came back, as you may have heard, I meet frequently with my fellow service secretaries and this is one of the technology areas that we discuss about how we can collaborate to make sure that we can share that same information to get to the solution quicker because there is so much promise in hypersonics. Mr. Secretary, there have been various opinions expressed in recent years about what is treaty compliant and what is not as well as whether our adversaries have already broken the treaty such as the INF. If I understand correctly, part of the equation is whether a weapon goes into exo-atmospheric. Can you provide to the committee in the next few weeks a statement at the secret TS level on what if any changes to US law or treaties are necessary to fill the long-range hypersonic weapon launch from US territory? Yes, sir, I'll do that. Thank you. I'll be right back. Chairman Freeling-Heisen. Great, sorry to be a little late. Mr. Chairman? Congratulations, Mr. Secretary, on your process to the Senate. And General Milley, I was so late, I missed a few nice comments you said about me. Thanks so much. Thank you both for the remarkable things you do to look after our men and women and all of our military. For, as you may know, I, for a number of years, almost my entire time on the committee, I was sort of the Army guy on the committee. Everybody had their own people, Marines and the Air Force. I remember Jack Murth and everybody had, but I was sort of the Army guy. I don't apologize. We were always at the short end of the stick in terms of money and things of that nature. So I've had a chance to sort of take a look at some of the systems we've invested in. And I think the figure is like $32 billion. We've invested in a variety of things, Comanche, Crusader, Future Combat Systems. I can remember General Odierno saying, well, it's only seven more years. I would say, yes, I'm right behind you. I know you've got a different sort of a mode of operation you're moving towards, what we call the Future's Command, which I think conceptually is supposed to sort of get us out of the bureaucratic restraints. You're gonna be, and I've said this to the other secretaries, Secretary Spencer and Heather Wilson was in yesterday, I don't like the expression that you're gonna be flush with money, but you're gonna have a lot of money I know you've indicated before I got here, you're appreciative of the flexibility we're giving you to spend it, but these would perhaps be some of the best times you might have. How can you assure the committee that these dollars are gonna be spent wisely? Yes, sir, thank you. It's a great question. And we certainly, as you said, appreciate what we're seeing in the 18 and 19 appropriations and recognize that this is a moment in time that we have to capture and make very good use of, not only because it may only be the moment, but we need to build confidence with Congress and with the American people. At the same time, this is a chance to also not only change our processes within the Army, but change the culture as well as we look at acquisition. So to that end, that's why the Army Futures Command is a critical component, but we are impatient and speed is critical, which is why we have these cross functional teams stood up now across the six areas, beginning with long range precision fires to include next generation combat vehicle, actively working, trying to either testing prototypes we have right now, such as a future vertical lift or developing prototypes, so we can quickly get the requirements down. Part of what we wanna do is get requirements down from five years to 12 months. And we wanna get back to an era where it didn't take us 10 to 15 years to build a platform, but it takes us five to eight years. And so this is the time, as you see from our budget, we invest over 18% of our funding in procurement to get that way, to begin the prototyping. At the same time, recognizing the challenges, current challenges of readiness, we are upgrading our armor brigade combat teams, making them more lethal, same with the striker vehicles. We are converting an ABCT and we're building another one. So a lot of investments across the board to deal with the near term challenges, but begin now making those down payments on the future force, the more modern force, and in a much quicker timeline. The, I don't think there's a great enough appreciation for the work of our special forces. And often we invoke the special forces and they do remarkable things around the world. We often invoke them that they're not hindered or restrained by some of what the big army is restrained by. I hear today even that they have, or are more encumbered than they used to be. Would you sort of talk about that dynamic? I mean, is there anything that they're doing in the way of procurement that relates to how you're designing the future's command? Obviously you are impatient. You've got to break the culture, but is there anything you're building into the dynamic that relates to their ability to get things off the shelf and cannibalize systems to get more effective weapons and increase lethality? I'll just make a quick comment and I'll defer to the Chief because having served in special forces you may have special insights. But I will tell you that in many ways we're trying to borrow, if not mimic some of the procurement practices that we've seen in SOCOM for example. Along the same lines, what we've established in the past and in last year with either the Rapid Equipping Force or Rapid Capabilities Office are two other ways where we've tried to leapfrog a very bureaucratic process to get tools, equipment, weapons systems to the troops much, much quicker than we have in the past. That's why I'm encouraged by these CFTs. We've already prototyped and wanna begin buying these next generation night vision devices for example and we're moving through on a designated marksman rifle. Things that we could do very much more quickly mimicking what we've seen in the past from the special operations community. Chief? Congressman, thanks. Two years ago when we first conceived of this Features Command idea one of the things we set out to do was to inform ourselves of what's out there today. So there were two models that we looked at intensively. One was the SOCOM model and the other was the Navy's model under Admiral Rickover to be candid going back in the day. So we looked at those and we said we drew the best practices. In the SOCOM model, one of the things that makes them so successful and by the way they operate under the exact same laws, exact same rules. So there's nothing special that's done for SOCOM in terms of law, rules or authorities. But what they do things slightly differently. Number one they have a smaller scale. So they're authorized under their title to develop equipment that is unique to special operations and the rest of their equipment comes from either the Navy, the Air Force or the Army. But in that bin of special equipment they link the operator, the user, directly with the combat developer, directly with the program manager and they link them all to a commander, a commander SOCOM and it's designated representative of the acquisition executive. And that speeds the process up. So what we mimicked that in today's, what we have now is six cross-functional teams. That's exactly what we did. And they're achieving great success. And the cross-functional teams are a bridging strategy until we can get Futures Command fully stood up and then they'll be embedded within Futures Command. So we are taking the best practices, lessons learned from that have been out there in terms of efficiency and effectiveness. The key to the whole thing at the end of the day though to ensure that the taxpayer's money is spent properly in my view is accountability. And we must hold ourselves accountable throughout the entire system. And anyone out there who violates law, statute, intent, policy, regulations and so on in the manning training or equipping the United States Army's forces must be held accountable. We can't just turn a blind eye to it and that's another beautiful thing about Futures Command is there will be accountability because you'll have unity of command and unity of effort under one command that'll do all things modernization for the Army. And that'll be important because it's such a diffuse effort right now when something goes wrong, you say, how did it go wrong? Who did this? And you start getting fingers going all over the place and who's on first, what's on second? Those days are over. So by the establishment of Futures Command there'll be unity of command, unity of effort and most importantly, there'll be accountability. Glad to hear it. Thank you, Madam Chairman. Thank you very much. We have enough time left for another round and I'd like to do that, just be aware that you need to keep your questions to think and we'll start with, okay. So it'd be Mr. Diaz-Ballard. Thank you, Madam Chair Owens. You know, sometimes the Western Hemisphere is kind of overlooked until things blow up. The constant bright spot has always been Southcom and it often gets overlooked by obviously more high-profile commands just because of conflicts, et cetera but it clearly, its hands are always full and whether it's counter-drug or transnational threats they're always obviously incredible busy so can you talk a little bit about how you intend to support Southcom's operations and in the FY19 budget? Well operationally, Southcom demand as you rightly point out is significantly lower than other AORs or areas of operation at this time and that changes from time to time. Earthquake and Haiti, for example, plays a tremendous demand on the United States military at large, Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, everyone contributed to that relief effort. So it's an episodic thing. As a regional engagement plan we're supporting Admiral Tidd's regional engagement plan. We've got Joint Task Force Bravo that's currently located in Honduras. Special Forces specifically, the 7th Special Forces Group does a lot of work in Central and South America in building partner capacity and assuring our allies and then you've got, as you know, as you know a lot of counter-narcotic kind of drug traffic and operations within the Maritime Service, a lot of that's done by the Coast Guard. So there's a significant engagement in the Southcom AOR. Mexico is also important but that comes under Northcom but we routinely engage and work very closely with the Mexican Army on things like border control and border operation kind of drug and counter-narcotics and so on. So there is a significant amount of engagement not only by the US military but by the Army throughout the Caribbean, throughout Central and South America and also in Mexico. And we'll continue to do that as budgeted but it is significantly less than what you would expect from other co-coms. I just want to make sure that and I know that you're aware of it but I would just want to make sure that there's enough emphasis there because as you know I don't tell you that tens of thousands of Americans die every year because of narcotics and so it is a threat. And I see I have a little bit more time. Let me just, so the Army submitted a modernization plan at Congress for its network communications and there are little, but there's very little details about specific systems and the plan for the 19 requests. So can you explain a little bit about your timeline for the plan? Does the Army intend to use streamlined acquisition procedures for this or is it considering using solutions already in the Army's inventory? Just again, some further explanation. And Congressman, you said with regard to communications. Yes. So where we're going with regard to communications falls under the network cross-functional team that it's one of the six that we've described and what they are doing is building upon some of the current programs that exist. So one example is removing forward on a variety of tactical handheld radios, a man-pack, other radios to make sure at the cutting edge, at the front edge of the battlefield that our troops have the type of communications they need for that type of fight. At the same time, as you know, we've, the strategy we've put forward is the Halt-Fix Pivot on WNT increment two and what that will enable us to do is to make sure that we can adapt increment two for the infantry brigade combat teams to make sure they have sufficient communications for the fight we see ahead. At the same time, what the cross-functional team for the network is doing is looking at what's available in the commercial market, preferably software-based, because what we need to do is we look ahead in terms of the network, the tactical network, is make sure that we can keep up with the pace of commercial technology. This is something we have been unable to do and unless we get on that type of wavelength, we'll be forever chasing this. So, what the cross-functional team is looking at, what is happening out there in the commercial marketplace, how can we then take it adapted to our tactical network and make sure that we're in a position where we can continually upgrade. And that's, the network is critical to long-range precision fires to everything else we do across our modernization priorities. May I make a comment on that Congressman, if I could? We've spent a better part of almost a year and a half now doing an intensive internal look at the quote-unquote network of which wind tea is just one component. And it was my conclusion, our conclusion, the Army's conclusion, that the network, as designed, works fine for a counterinsurgency, counterterrorist-type fight where you're fighting primarily from static fobs and cops out there in the battle space. And it more or less works okay at echelons below, say, Battalion Company. However, as the NDS points out, we're in an era of great power competition. And if you need a system that can operate against a near-peer competitor, a Russia or China, or someone using their equipment, who has significant electronic warfare capabilities, who has significant cyber capabilities, who have incredible powers of observation through a variety of means, who have incredible fire support capabilities that can deliver fires. It's our estimation that the system that we were buying would not survive contact with that type of enemy on a mobile, highly lethal battlefield against those enemies. So we said, okay, what in the system doesn't work? And whatever it is we found that didn't work, we halted it. What in the system doesn't work but can work, we decided we would identify those subsystems and fix them, and then we needed to move on to a new procurement strategy. In the world of information technology, the commercial world is operating at light speed compared to the way the US government can do acquisition and procurement. They are light years ahead of us. So the networks design and requirements were written years and years and years ago. The commercial world is advanced way beyond anything we wrote years and years and years ago. So that's the pivot part of it. We need to change our fundamental procurement strategy of all things information. So that's what's behind all of this. And I know it's controversial out there. I know a lot of people are up in arms about it, so to speak. I got that. But we cannot fund a system that we know ahead of time is unlikely to work against the type of threat that we've been charged to plan against in the national defense strategy. Thank you, Madam Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Rupersberger. Yeah, earlier we discussed the need for modernized army to deter future adversaries and thoroughly overmatch them should a fight become necessary. That's certainly the right call, especially considered the advance of technology and the army's need to have a long-term strategy to maintain a decisive edge in great power competition. Now, I'm very worried about the here and now. The current and short-term investments the army is making to maintain dominance in today's threat environment. Today, Russia is increasingly belligerent and aggressive and has demonstrated more of a willingness to use its ground forces to further Putin's goals. We also have issues involving China. A question, in the FY19 budget, I'm happy to see funding for measures such as European Defense Initiative have increased from $4.7 billion and then to $2018, $6.5 billion this year. In addition to this effort, what other near and short-term investments do you see in your budget plan that can deter Putin from testing our resolve? Mr. Rupersberger, there's a number of things we're doing. So I'll talk about armor brigade combat teams. As I said, we are converting a 15th armor brigade combat team and plan on building a 16th. At the same time, we're looking to build up our prepositioned stocks in Europe so that in the case of a contingency, we can quickly fly in and fall in on those types of stocks and brigade combat team. At the same time, we're making sure that in Europe those stocks have mobile short-range air defenses that have enhanced multiple rocket launcher capabilities. We spoke earlier about the strikers because the strikers are playing a critical role. When I was in Poland, I actually visited the striker unit and talked with their commanders and that's why at their request, we're upgunning them with 30-millimeter cannons and we're looking at increased survivability with the halls. At the same time, we are, as you know, doing these heel-to-toe rotations with an armor brigade combat team going back and forth every nine months. That's given us two things. It's allowed the army to practice deploying again and that's a critical skill in a theater like that where you can actually move your unit from continental United States to Europe and all the critical tasks it takes to get into your optimal battle position. So we're rotating and we're rotating very highly trained units that are coming right out of the National Training Center and are prepared. So that gives you a great deterrence capability as well and so that's just kind of a sampling of things that we're doing to make sure that we maintain the deterrence initiative. We're also working very closely with the Poles to make sure that they improve their training areas both in the Northeast and Northwest of the country that will allow us to maintain our readiness. We see them participating in exercises with U.S. forces in Germany. In fact, when I was there in Germany, I visited the Joint Maneuver Readiness Center at Hohenfels, Germany and it was a Polish brigade going through training there with U.S. units, Italian units, U.K. units, et cetera, reporting up to it, exercising in a multinational endeavor against a likely threat they might see from the East. So all these things, whether it's the training, whether it's the equipment upgrades, et cetera, all adding, I think, building to the deterrence that we need in order to keep any- I know there's some unrest with some of our key allies in that European area, around the Russia area. Are we doing anything to make them feel better and working with them and helping them? We are training extensively with all of our NATO allies in Europe but like I said, when I was there, I saw everybody from the Germans, Poles, Estonians, we had these enhanced force packages running all the way from Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, down to the U.S. presence in Poland and a lot of assurance happening there and as I mentioned earlier as well, I was in Ukraine where we have a presence there training the Ukrainians. So I think we're doing a lot on that front. I don't know if the Chief may have something to add on this issue. Thanks, Congressman. In terms of assurance, I think the United States does a lot for NATO and our allies and from a military perspective and from the Army's perspective, we are. We're doing a tremendous amount of training. We've got units cycling through a wide variety of exercises that General Skapperati has planned and now General Cavoli. So that's important. We're increasing our APS-2 stocks in this budget from what is currently about a brigade set to a division set. That's important. We're continuing, as the Secretary said, the rotation of the Armored Brigade Combat Team, the Combat Aviation Brigade and other enablers in addition to the forces that are already there. I would mention manning. It's both in this budget and the previous budgets. Congress has been very generous and the Secretary of Defense, the President, have allowed us to modestly increase our end strength. That's important because the readiness of the force is rests upon good people and having enough people in the right ranks and skill sets. So increasing our readiness by the end strength in the regular Army increase here another 4,000 this year, increased last year, except that'll be important in improving the readiness. So in the here and now, our readiness glide path bottomed out two and a half years ago. That's when it hit bottom and because of the great effort of Congress, OSD and many, many others, we are on an upward trajectory. It's unambiguous, an upward trajectory of readiness. It needs continued sustained funding and that'll take care of the here and now. And simultaneously with that, we want to pivot and ensure tomorrow's readiness, modernization. And that's what those six priorities are. That's what the Futures Command CFTs are all about. Again, maintaining and sustaining and continue to improve the foxhole of today's readiness while at the same time building tomorrow's readiness. Thank you. Judge Carter. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I hate to go back to our fourth subject, but on the WNT, we've invested six million dollars in that, many dollars in that. And it's what I want to classify as a failed early project. It didn't do well at all. It's loved in multiple categories. It's loved in what the Chief just talked about. Now, as you go forward in this area, I hope you're impressed with all those that are going forward that we don't need any more six billion dollar early fails for communications. And let's let the Army lead the whole federal government because in reality, the environment of the federal government is slow and tedious when it comes to technology. I agree with the Chief. We've got to get up to lightspeed because I used to try cases where we'd have intellectual property cases and we'd settle them because by the time we got to court, it was over, it had changed. That was six months of time. Shifting over to another product, another thing that's out there, we're looking to build a range-based, ground-based defense system for protect our threats. The Israelis, we've given them and assisted them with 1.5 billion and helped them in building Iron Dome. There are those in the Pentagon that have talked about we should look at off-the-shelf project of things that are out there. Iron Dome seems to be battle-tested, seems to work. Is there any reason why we are not looking at Iron Dome rather than spending 51 million dollars on a slow research and development process that maybe will put us on line by 2022 to have this system when the Israelis are usually at the day and I'm sure they'd be glad. So that's one question. We are looking at Iron Dome. I think what you're talking about, I think, Congressman, what you're talking about is IFPIC, which is inside the budget and you're looking at a ballistic missile defense capability but not just ballistic missiles, short-range missiles and additional aircraft. Iron Dome, however, is designed against a different threat than IFPIC. So we're working with and we're examining a multiple alternatives. It has to be mobile, Iron Dome is not mobile right now, tactically mobile, but we haven't ruled out or ruled in anything in the area that you're specifically talking about right now and all options are still on the table for that and we are exploring all those options so Iron Dome's not in or out, we're looking at it. We're looking at IFPIC, we're looking at the requirements and we wanna make sure with industry that we get what we need as fast as we can get it because that particular area, shoot, move, communicate, protect. So it's in our priorities there as the fourth priority. That has to do with fixed-wing enemy aircraft, rotary-wing enemy aircraft, ballistic missile defense, short-range missile attack and our army needs to fill that gap and do so quickly. So we're looking at all the options. Thank you. Secretary, anything? Just like to note for the record that General Milley went to a very fine New Jersey institution to graduate studies and we note of course Secretary Esper as a graduate of West Point. This is sort of an odd question but you're both graduates of the 1980s and I was gonna ask this of Heather Wilson and her colleague, the Air Force Chief. How do you get input from the younger generation, you being obviously in positions of major responsibility, obviously no soldier wants to go into combat with the Army Chief one-on-one. How do you actually take input and ideas from soldiers? How do you make sure that the chain of command knows sort of the reality of social networking and the things that sort of tie our, tie their incredible missions to the real world we're in? Yes, sir. I have two sources, first of which are my three kids who range between 18 and 25 and knowing them and their friends I got a good feel for what's happening at that age group and that's roughly the age group from which we recruit and it gives you good insight into what they do in social media, how they interact socially, how the skills they take to any role but more importantly though is every time I've traveled and I've been in a job now three and a half months I've traveled more than half that time, mostly overseas I spend almost every lunch and sometimes a breakfast sitting down with a group of soldiers, E2s, E3s, E4s, oh no sir I keep them far away and so we just have a very candid discussion about what's on their mind and I typically come back with notes as soon as I get back that I divvy out to the staff and it's any range of issue whether it pay issues or if you're in a guard it's how soon or how late you are notified on an issue it could be what's the next Army PT test look like so I get a full range of questions out there with regard I've also been privileged to have my wife join me on these trips and she meets with her wives the spouses, the husbands on these trips as well and so I have I guess a third source of input there as well with regard to what's happening with regard to the schools, the daycare facilities, the clinics, et cetera, et cetera so I try and draw from multiple sources as I head out on the road. It's interesting and this is not to drive the proton the number of people that have a fit bit and then we get a report in the New York Times that maybe at some forward operating base somebody's lifting weights or they're doing something and we identify where the hell they are to be a very aggressive and you know enemies that are in that calm but it's a concern and you're assuring us that there's an opportunity for input. Very similar in many ways, you know we call it battlefield circulation or going around and engaging with soldiers and families and civilians around there, do that all the time constantly on the road doing it been doing it for 40 years so you get a lot of feedback that way in addition to that though, formally we do a lot of surveys, we do a lot of scientifically based analyses of various people's opinions. Thirdly, we run a thing called the captain's solarium where I go out, we assemble a group of representative group of captains, it's run by Fort Leavenworth annually and they go out and they do a whole seminar at the last couple weeks and then I go out and meet with them and they give me back briefs on a wide variety of topics that we think are of interest to them. The SARB major is important in this regard too. We have, I personally think and I've known a lot of SARB majors and I love them and respect them all but I personally think Dan Daley's one of the finest non-commissioned officers the Army's ever produced and I think he's the best SARB major the Army the Army's ever had. This is a man who has massive amounts of energy he has a natural connective tissue sort of with the younger generation and the troops out there and he gets out there so talk to him frequently get a lot of unvarnished sort of opinions. The other thing too that's key for both the secretary and I and anybody operating at these levels is to remain open-minded, accept bad news don't go ballistic if it happens to be bad news at a moment in time but remain open-minded and fresh to new ideas. This is a different generation it's a remarkably talented generation of young people that are out there in our military they communicate in different ways stay inactive on Facebook and Twitter we get all kinds of ideas and feedback from those lanes as well but I think being open to fresh new ideas we know in the world of science the most brilliant mathematicians they were most brilliant in their 20s Einstein and many many others the passing of Stephen Hawking they did some of their most brilliant work in physics and mathematics early in their life and that is true I think of the military or any other area that requires innovation the innovation is with the youth and that's important that we at the top who work with the Congress on the resources and the budget we remain open-minded to fresh new ideas to solve age-old problems. Thank you both. Thank you Mr. Madam Chairman. Thank you very much. You have already addressed the issue with Chairman Freedlingheisen so I don't need a response I just feel compelled to emphasize again and I appreciate your positive response that the additional monies the department is going to receive in 18 are significant it is Congress's fault that we've shaved five months off of your year but the fact is the increase the department is going to have is greater than the total spending of five different subcommittees on this committee so I appreciate the care. Second thing that the Chairman brought up about younger people and one of my faults on this subcommittee is I do not travel enough I do not visit enough bases do not talk to enough enlisted people and appreciate the effort you've gone to still remember and it was very moving we cleared out all the adults talked to the children at the school for Campbell and it was moving after about 15 months they realized you actually want to listen to them and so I appreciate that I would suggest and don't need a response trust you're also with the women enlisted clearing all the men out of the room and have a conversation with them as well so again appreciate your service and thank you very much Madam Chair. Thank you I have just one last thing along with that significant amount of money goes a significant amount of confidence in the abilities of the US Army we never forget that also I had a wonderful conversation yesterday in my office and I would want to tell you one of the things that will always stay with me and I wish I'd said this at the beginning because for the whole subcommittee you are very clear about what 16 years of war did to our army and that's something that we need to always keep in mind so you're catching up in a different a different way than other that we work with also the SFAB program is a fascinating program be sure and keep us up to speed on that because it's just I see that it has great possibilities thank you both for all your service and we're adjourned I think I was gonna say something about that hold on okay that concludes today's hearing the subcommittees adjourned. Thank you ma'am.