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▶ 0:24:37the committee will come to order uh Welcome to our first hearing of the 119th Congress where we will examine a hard truth the United States faces the most challenging threat environment since World War II China is investing heavily in its military and threatening to outpace the United States Russia's military despite suffering massive casualties in Ukraine is rapidly reconstituting in fact the Russian army
▶ 0:25:07is larger today than it was before the conflict North Korea has doubled down on expanding its nuclear capabilities and while Israel has dealt a blow to Iran the Ayatollah continues to Harbor Ambitions and with the help of his terrorist proxies he's attacking commercial shipping in the red sea and American troops across the Middle East alone each of these adversaries poses a significant threat to the United States but they're no longer
▶ 0:25:38acting alone they're building an alliance dedicated to countering American interest China Iran North Korea are actively supporting Putin's War Machine Iran is providing Russia with thousands of drones North Korea is supplying thousands of artillery shells ballistic missiles and however it's China That's become Russia's most important Lifeline in accordance with their No Limits partnership Z
▶ 0:26:08is keeping Putin's economy afloat by buying Russian oil and gas and without Chinese semiconductors and dual use components Russia's defense industrial base would have already come to a screeching halt this growing cooperation extends well beyond the war in Ukraine Putin has expressed public support for Z's Ambitions to reunify Taiwan meanwhile Russia has helped China expand its nuclear Arsenal as well as enhance air defense anti-ship and
▶ 0:26:39capabilities in defiance of Western sanctions Russia and China have funded the ayatollah's malign agenda by purchasing large amounts of Iranian oil as for North Korea Russia reportedly intends to share Advanced space and satellite technology to Aid Kim's development of ICB M this deepening alignment creates the risk that conflict anywhere could quickly become a multif front War we must take this threat seriously
▶ 0:27:10we must take the make the Investments necessary to deter and if necessary defeat this new axis of aggressors yet today the US defense spending as a percentage of GDP is at its lowest level since before World War II this is not enough to Det DET our enemies just look at the consequences of underfunded and uncredible American deterrence over the last four years the Taliban retook Afghanistan Russia
▶ 0:27:40launched a full scale invasion of its neighbor Iran and its proxies perpetrated the worst attack on Israel since the Holocaust Kim abandoned the pursuit of peaceful reunification and instead put his country on war footing and China has become increasingly aggressive escalating against Taiwan and Philippines given these threats it will take significant Investments to restore peace through strength we must get our defense spending
▶ 0:28:10back above 4% at a minimum of our GDP that starts with reconciliation process that includes robust defense spending our allies and partners must follow suit and spend more on their own defense as well the United States cannot and should not face this convergence of threats alone but just spending more is not the answer the weapons we are buying cost too much and take too long to get to the war fighter every dollar has to be spent
▶ 0:28:41smarter as such additional Investments must come in hand inand with reforms to field Innovation faster improve efficiency across the dod I truly believe we are living through a watershed moment the decisions we make in the mo months ahead could be the difference between War and Peace I look forward to hearing from our Witnesses on their assessment of these threats and what advice they have for this committee on how we deter them with that I yield to my friend the ranking
▶ 0:29:11member for any opening comments he may have I thank you very much Mr chairman and thank you for uh bringing together this hearing I think it's a perfect way to start uh the committee's work this year to analyze the challenges we face and I think you you laid them out reasonably well we have a group of adversaries that are coming together with the common purpose basically of reducing the influence of the US in the world there are certainly a lot of differences between Russia China Iran North Korea terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah and Isis but the one thing they all share in common
▶ 0:29:41is they would like the us to have less influence in their part of the world or the world in general and they have found increasingly as the chairman outlined ways to work together even within their differences to try to accomplish that goal and I think that's the frame we need to think about this in we face that that Challenge from these adversaries because they want to push us out and reduce our influence and the second part of the challenge I think the chairman also laid out quite well and that is how uh Department of Defense responds to that and how
▶ 0:30:12we get better at acquisition and procurement it takes too long to purchase the systems that we need because the other big way the world has changed is the rapid pace of changing Warfare and we've seen this in Ukraine um drones counter drone technology secure Communications disrupting those secure Communications it is a constant 3D chess game if you're in a conflict you need to update your systems constantly quickly and efficiently the Pentagon is not built for
▶ 0:30:42that um members of this committee who were on here before have heard me often you know cite an article on foreign affairs from about I guess six months ago now that talked about how the Pentagon was built to be the 1950s Ford Motor Company and that's great but what they need to be is the 2022 Apple okay an Innovative technology company instead of a process oriented company improving efficiency and effectiveness at the Pentagon is absolutely crucial the chairman is right uh more money alone isn't going to solve
▶ 0:31:12the problem whenever any group comes to me and asks for more money um which is just about every single day by the way uh my response is what are you doing with the money you got and if you can't answer that question it doesn't really bode well for what you're going to do within any more so it's really important that the Pentagon gets to a more efficient and effective place and you know the the much talked about do could be a positive in this regard they could go into the Pentagon and make it more efficient and more effective and I would urge members of
▶ 0:31:42this committee to make sure that they do that instead of engaging personal loyalty tests personal Vengeance that's not going to help anything we we've got work to do and then when you look at what the US response should be broadly to this I have concerns and I'm really to hear what the witness had to say about that that we're still basically on the post World War II Mantra of we want to dominate okay we have all these adversaries we the United States have to be big enough strong enough and powerful enough I guess to bring them to heal
▶ 0:32:13I I don't consider that to be possible in the world we face right now China is a pure competitor with us unlike anything the Soviet Union had because they got a strong economy they're also building up their military but their economy is strong plus they've got the partners that we laid out we're not going to be able to meet this alone so the Partnerships are going to be crucial there has been much denigration of our allies recently of you know we're getting a bad deal on NATO we're getting a bad deal on South Korea there's a fundamental misunderstanding
▶ 0:32:43that the alliances that were built post World War II were yes dependent on a disproportionate amount of US Military Support okay but what isn't understood is we benefited from that more than any other country in the world we have been the most powerful economy the world has ever seen for 80 years because of the stability that that brought let us not toss those alliances aside because we think they're not doing enough for us we have to figure out how to make those alliances work as we go forward
▶ 0:33:13and we also have to have a principle because there's another big part of this what I like to refer to as the undecided vote as we try to exercise our influence Russia and China are also trying to spread theirs the bricks countries their ability to try to create an econ e omic alternative to the US level of dominance their ability to succeed on that is going to be dependent upon countries like India and Brazil and South Africa and elsewhere are they going to align with them or they going to work with us we have to understand their interests in doing that
▶ 0:33:43and one key part of this is the notion that the US believes in sovereignty we don't believe that Russia should be able to take Ukraine we don't believe that China should be able to grab territory from a half dozen different countries so it is a problem when the president of the United States talks about taking Greenland and Panama and Gaza and the Canada one I still don't fully understand um but when you talk about that as well it seems to say hey we what what's the American message might makes right if you want it go get it
▶ 0:34:13that is not a message that's going to recr to our benefit in the world so I hope we will consider all of that as we try to figure out how to meet the two huge challenges one a world in many places that is uniting against us and a pentagon that is not up to where it needs to be to build the equipment we need at the scale and Pace that is necessary to put us in the best position to meet our defense interests with that I look forward to the witness testimony and to the questions thank you I Y back thank the ranking member I now like to introduce our Witnesses
▶ 0:34:43first we have General Jack Kean the chairman of the board of the institute for the study of War he's also a former fourstar General who served as the Army's Vice Chief of Staff we uh welcome Dr M Mara Carlin is a professor at John Hopkins school of advanced International Studies she has served in numerous senior roles at the dod including as assistant secretary of defense for strategy plans and capabilities welcome both General Kean you're recognized first and chairman Rogers ranking
▶ 0:35:14member Smith distinguished members of the committee thank you for inviting me back to share some thoughts with you today I'm very familiar with the work of the committee and your dedication and tiess effort to provide for the National and the sustained support you provide for the armed forces and their families I'm privileged today to be with my colleague Dr Mara Carlin a highly respected National Security professional who has devoted much of her life to help protect in the American
▶ 0:35:44people I was honored to participate in the Congressional commission that examined the NDS 2022 we found common ground on the dangers we are facing and issued a by partisan unanimous report frankly we were alarmed and called for Change and Urgent action your hearing topic today was Central to our report findings and recommendations the threats the United States faces
▶ 0:36:14are the most serious and most challenging as our chairman indicated since 1945 and include the potential for a near-term major war the United States last fought a global conflict during World War II the nation last prepared for one for such a conflict during the Cold War we are not adequately prepared today China and Russia's no lims partnership has only deepened and broadened to include a military and economic
▶ 0:36:44partnership with Iran and North Korea Each of which represents its own significant threats to us interests the new axis of Nations opposed to us interests create a real risk if not a that conflict anywhere could become a multi- theater or global war clearly the dominant power in this group is China which the NDS 2022 identified as the pacing challenge however the reality is China is outpacing
▶ 0:37:15the United States and has largely negated the US military advantage in the Western Pacific through 20 plus years of focused military investment meanwhile United States milit Ary capability eroded due to the 9/11 Wars and underfunding conventional capabilities indeed China outguns the United States in every military category surface ships offensive and defensive missiles anti-ship missiles Regional Air power and ground
▶ 0:37:46forces the only areas you know is submarines where the United States maintains an advantage the convergence of the four powers led by China and Russia while it is is not a formal security Alliance their cooperation has significantly accelerated and increased given the war in Ukraine and their desire to help Russia to win if Russia wins so does China Iran and North Korea their underlying common interest
▶ 0:38:16as IR ranking minor minority stated is to weaken us leadership and the Global Order of the United States and like-minded democracies have fostered for almost 80 years this development cannot be taken lightly and it is fundamentally altering the geopolitical landscape this group has assisted each other in overcoming International sanctions have bolstered each other's military capability and fostered support for each country's sphere
▶ 0:38:46of influence the next national security strategy and the subsequent NDS must address the strategy and resources to to effectively deter these adversaries with the primary focus on China and it certainly should include our allies and partners it will not be easy or cheap we must rebuild the military Readiness is down the Army Navy and Air Force are
▶ 0:39:16much too small we need to restore deterrence by increasing defense funding since the end of World War II to the present defense spending as a share of the federal budget has overall declined it's now at 133% which suggests the United States could spend a much greater share of its Budget on defense as it has in the past the nation spends a smaller share on defense because other
▶ 0:39:46forms of spending have taken a priority it's that simple this is a policy choice not a fiscal constraint during a cold war funding Peak at 6.8% with an average around 6% for the period during the Iraq Afghanistan it was 4.7% I agree with chairman Rogers and chairman wicker to increase defense spending closer to 5% of GDP above
▶ 0:40:16inflation beginning with the next two years it underscores the urgency of the crisis we are facing to restore deterrents increase much needed capabilities fix the defense industrial base and also fix the defense's aifi business practices and there is much that can be done to reduce waste and inefficiency and let's welcome Doge if they can help thank you and I
▶ 0:40:47look forward to your questions thank you General the chair not recognizes Dr Carlin chairman Rogers ranking member Smith distinguished members of the committee thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today and I'm honored to be seated next to General Jack Keen a thoughtful and serious defense leader today's threats are complex and interconnected the plasticity of this period where in major regions are being fundamentally reshaped contains challenges and opportunities for US National Security interests
▶ 0:41:17an age of comprehensive conflict has begun this is total war in which combatants draw on vast arrays of resources mobilize their societies and attack a broad variety of targets and reshape their economies to prioritize Warfare over all other state activities we see war changing in three ways first the Continuum of conflict has collapsed you know in an earlier area era we might have seen the terrorism and Insurgency of Hamas Hezbollah the huis
▶ 0:41:47as inhibiting the low end of the spectrum of conflict intensity the armies waging conventional Warfare in Ukraine as residing in the middle and the nuclear threat shaping Russia's war and China's growing Arsenal is sitting at the high end today there is no sense of mutual exclusivity to put it in cinematic terms when it comes to war we see everything everywhere all at once second the demography of War has expanded the post 911 wars were defined by the outsize impact of terrorist groups
▶ 0:42:18proxies and militias today State militaries are back but non-state groups have hardly left the stage and three the return of deterrence in the post 911 era deterrence was rarely invoked since the idea seemed irrelevant against nihilistic non-state actors like Al-Qaeda and Isis now almost every debate about us National Security boils down to deterrence these include deterrence by denial the act of making it difficult for an enemy to achieve its intended objective like we saw with Iran's conventional military
▶ 0:42:48attacks on Israel or deterrence by punishment which requires credibly threatening an enemy with severe consequences if it takes certain actions like we saw with a coordinated diplomatic effort perod with credible threats when Putin threatened to use nuclear weapons and a third approach is deterrence by resilience which we see through the rationale behind the historic and ongoing dispersal of US military bases the indopacific so given that we have the most turbulent Global Security environment in decades the United States
▶ 0:43:18needs to focus on three things first prioritizing China but not ignoring other threats no other country has the will and increasingly the the capability to fundamentally reshape the Global Security order an order that has benefited our national security interests for 80 years the tricky strategic question isn't whether the United States should prioritize the threat posed by China the answer to that is yes but instead how to address the other threats like Russia PR Iran and terrorism and this presents less of a binary
▶ 0:43:49Choice than previously given their cooperation the United States has finite resources of course but ignoring threats is shortsighted two we need to strengthen America's military and tools statecraft the defense budget is both at the highest level in US history and a historically low level as a percentage of GDP but it's more important for us to focus on what should and should not be funded than a Top Line investment should include nuclear modernization undersea platforms uncrewed systems across
▶ 0:44:19domains resilient space architecture cyber artificial intelligence Munitions the submarine industrial base and R&D we could look at creating a focused deterrence fund to support our efforts in the indopacific which would make it easier to Target resources related to the pacing challenge of China even with more funding the military requires cuts to evolve in line with the security environment this could include excess infrastructure older ships and aircraft and compensation costs Beyond resources and platforms it's
▶ 0:44:49often said that people who serve are a military's greatest asset having a force whose members have varied backgrounds and experiences is a Strate strategic and War fighting Advantage Visa China and Russia the secretary of defense is required to give all of you an update this month assessing the national defense strategy I recommend you request assessments on the wars in Europe and the Middle East threats to deterrence in the Indo Pacific and the use of US troops on the border including on the the impact on the military's ability to prioritize
▶ 0:45:19China and the administration plans to empower the Department of Homeland Security to to fulfill its statutory obligations rather than relying on the US military to do so now of course relying solely on the US military to address Global threats is a recipe for disaster the United States has several Tools in its statecraft toolkit including diplomacy development and economic carrots and sticks underfunding or degrading us soft power means the United States will rely on hard power ultimately
▶ 0:45:49that approach is not only inefficient but it'll cost more in American treasure and American lives finally I would just highlight that America's unparallel network of allies and partners sets it apart from every other great power in history this is a net positive it's ultimately more effective and less pricey thank you I look forward to your questions thank you Dr Carlin I now recognize myself for five minutes for questions General Keane I appreciate your opening statement acknowledging
▶ 0:46:20that you believe that the goal of getting to 5% of defense spending GDP 5% of GDP and defense sping by the end of this uh president's term should be the goal uh but I'm really interested in your recommendations on how we could improve the acquisition process and enhance our defense and organic industrial base to be able to take that additional money and turn it into capabilities your
▶ 0:46:50microphone excuse me and certainly that is a major challenge that we're facing I mean we know we have Workforce issues out there we got Global Supply Chain issues um but I think many of you saw uh what the Reagan Institute published you know when when Ronald Reagan did that uh much talked about and successful buildup during the Cold War he was moving from a capacity that was very different than we have today at that time we had
▶ 0:47:2251 tier one defense organizations we're down the five today and that collapse took place as a result of the end of the Cold War back in the early 90s and the so-called peace dividend everybody was for it and when I'm not retiga those issues but that consolidation and collapse went too far and also the cut in the military which was on average about 40% went too far and we know
▶ 0:47:52that because we found ourselves fighting two Wars sequentially inq Iraq and Afghanistan as opposed to number one superpower being able to handle both of them at the same time simultaneous we couldn't we didn't have the land forces to do it so here we sit now with a major Challenge on our hands uh as I indicated China is outpatient Us in just about everything and when you look at our ability to catch up to it and that's a classified briefing all
▶ 0:48:22on its own and if you haven't seen it please take a look at it we are very challenged to catch up uh so the defense industrial base has got to have in my view a number of things they need consistent reliable funding second they need continuous demand to sustain their Workforce and supply chain flow so it's not uneven where some of the suppliers then pull back from them
▶ 0:48:52and then they have an interruption and it's another year it's another two years before they get that back online the the requirements process I'm not an expert in all the services but based on what I know about a couple of them very well it is out of control and the the requirements creep has got to stop it's delaying programs and it's increasing cost we have got to discipline the services to do that and hold
▶ 0:49:22them accountable and I was as guilty as anybody in this in my 4 and a/2 years as the vice Chief but the risk have changed now we have got to accept risk in our business practices in the Pentagon this business of avoiding zero tolerance for error has got to stop nobody runs a private business like that out there but we do here and we've got thousands of civilians involved in this process taking no risk everything is about performance
▶ 0:49:53it's all about schedule and we have got to stop over testing and it that is fundamental to the preposition that we have to take as much risk out of this process you know as well as I do Mr chairman multiple secretaries have looked at this process uh we've got to finally come to grips with fixing it and the defense industrial base is a good place to start our business practices inside the Pentagon is is
▶ 0:50:23also it's much needed we we can't kick this down down the road anymore and I I agree with the comments that have been made the it's not just about the increase in funding it's how we spend the money because if we don't fix the process then we're going to squander some of the taxpayers dollars like we've done in the past we got to end it and we need your cooperation here to be frank about it we have a generation of continuing resolutions gentlemen ladies it's got to
▶ 0:50:53stop that handicaps the services it means less money and it also delays programs if the services come to you with a program they need to get rid of because it's a legacy system that's no longer relevant many are relevant but a lot are not if it's in your district and in your state we got to let it go we can't keep fighting the services of it the risk is too great we got to stop it we can afford that in in peace time
▶ 0:51:23with no major threats but the barbarians are at the gate here all right we got to stop it and you got to you have to open the aperture wider so the services can go out to the non-defense commercial industry and buy bulk for example if you leave the Army program of record to itself they'll get less than a 100 drones this year what they need is about 20,000 but they can't go get that because it's not a program of record and to get
▶ 0:51:54a program of record like that it would likely take a few years the ukrainians built 1.4 million drones inside Ukraine this year next year they're targeted on 4 million inside Ukraine obviously with us startups and with European startups but if they can do that we we got to find our process we have the industry that can support it yeah and I can assure you that the ranking and I are in complete agreement this is a top in fact the top priority for
▶ 0:52:24this committee this year's ndaa is to deal with that acquisition and infrastructure and process and and and reform it as well as getting defense spending up I recognize the ranking member thank you well first of all I was want to do a little amen and Hallelujah uh to requirements CRS okay um if this committee does nothing else if we can somehow accomplish passing our Appropriations bills on a regular basis remember October 1 is the goal um and now we're headed into the middle
▶ 0:52:54of March I'd settle for December one okay if we just do that huge accomplishment and the second on the requirements you you articulated better than anyone I've heard and I get it you could always do a little bit more you could do this you but it has reached just an absurd point I remember you know I was touring uh um LCS when they were refurbishing it and talking with the workers on it one them said that there are 1,200 pages of requirements for how to paint the portion of that ship that's below the waterline
▶ 0:53:241,200 pages of requirements to do that I mean just reading the damn thing is going to cost how many man hours before you figure out how to do it so figuring out how to I get after the requirements is crucial um doc Dr Carlin I want to ask just provocative question about China it seems unlikely that we are going to defeat China in any sort of meaningful sense of the word they are Global power and economy and yet that seems to be a lot of the focus of our efforts you know economic we got to build our military strong enough
▶ 0:53:54to be able to beat them am I wrong that that is an unrealistic objective or if I'm right what is a more realistic way to look at how we should confront the challenge that China presents thank you very much rank ranking member Smith unlike you know I would agree with you that it's unlikely we're going to defeat China I think your microphone needs to be turned sorry about that uh I I would agree with you ranking member Smith that it's unlikely to defeat China it also isn't necessary right what makes a lot more
▶ 0:54:24sense is to deter China and you had said about we and I would just suggest that our Wei has a really wide aperture right now China does not want to war with the United States it definitely doesn't want a war with a whole bunch of our allies around the Indo Pacific our allies around Europe who've gotten increasingly nervous uh about China's irresponsible Behavior as well so the key is to deter China to show China today's not the day that their approach to upending the International rules-based Security order
▶ 0:54:55doesn't work and isn't going to be profitable gu one aspect of that if we're not going to defeat them if we're going to deter them we also have to figure out how to coexist with them um and what what are what's some advice in terms of a policy approach to diplomatically figure out how to coexist with China you know when we look at history with countries that we haven't gotten along with the Soviet Union is a great example we always maintained talks with them even if those talks were folks reading talking points to one another that was really
▶ 0:55:25important it helped us understand how are they seeing threats where are their what's their understanding of escalation and so we can't ignore China there are areas to cooperate the most sort of minimum areas to cooperate I would suggest would be having regular talks with them about how we understand threats particularly threats around uh the indopacific China has a historic modernization and diversification of its nuclear Arsenal and right now we have exactly zero talks with them on
▶ 0:55:55that we should be pressuring on them on that we should be publicly highlighting that they don't want to have those conversations because frankly that's really dangerous for the world if we have a bra you know relatively new and incredibly strong nuclear power not willing to discuss how it's thinking about its weapons and its Doctrine yeah absolutely and just quickly because I don't have much time left here I'm also curious about how we strengthen our Partnerships and alliances and build off of the Aus success
▶ 0:56:25when we talk about everything we need to build we can't build it alone we need to better partner with people and one of the key aspects of aus um is trying to get through some of the restrictions on that cooperation just for for both of you and the limited time we have left what else can we do to strengthen the ability of our partners to help manufacture the equipment that we all need absolutely so it's in our interest right these allies and partners around regions like Europe and the indo-pacific see a lot of threats similar to us they have their own funds and they want to use them in ways
▶ 0:56:55that also make sense for us so I think about it in terms of the life cycle of cooperation how can we work together on research and development how can we work together on using our militaries collaboratively in terms of forest management and how do the how do we build our future militaries together look for countries like the United Kingdom and Australia it should be very easy for us to cooperate these countries have stood by us in just about every war that we fought over the last 100 plus years uh we we don't need to kind of have have
▶ 0:57:25a unnecessary reg regulations on them great thanks and I'm I'm out of time I apologize General k i yield back chair I recognize a gentleman from South Carolina Mr Wilson thank you very much and uh General Keane thank you you're a champion understanding that uh we're in a conflict we did not choose and that is uh of dictatorships with rule of gun invading democracies with rule of law it began on February 24 2022 with the invasion by war criminal
▶ 0:57:56Putin into Ukraine and October 7 the regime in Teran uh invading uh Israel uh and then I'm really grateful uh with your work with the American Enterprise Institute to put together indeed the conversion of where the dictatorships of war criminal Putin Jame and Teran the Chinese Communist party uh working together with uh North Korea indeed what a threat this is to uh world peace and security so I want to thank you for what you've done also uh General K
▶ 0:58:26what extraordinary opportunity we have and that is that Iran's network of proxy groups are are showing signs of weakness as we see with the overthrow of the Assad regime uh uh just a month and a half ago how exciting that was to see his regime go under uh and also uh the success of uh Israel uh prime minister Netanyahu his success uh and going after Hamas and Hezbollah uh what can we do to capitalize
▶ 0:58:56on the weakness currently of Iran and uh and support uh Freedom there and also um what what is your view about what should be done to avoid uh Iran securing a capability yes uh thank you uh Congressman yeah what what's taking place uh in the Middle East certainly was an overreach on a part of Hamas and and Iran in in that sense in terms of strategic failure they obviously had some tactical
▶ 0:59:26success on October the 7th but give credit to prime minister netan and his dogger determination to finally do something about this suddenly they were surprised and and and and and at fault for some of some of the things that took place on October the 7th but their their response has been nothing short of remarkable as we have seen Hamas militarily as an organization has been uh decimated there's still thousands of Fighters there and they're still in control of of Gaza what happened
▶ 0:59:56to Hezbollah is is much the same they had to withdraw tens of thousands of Hezbollah out of Syria which collapse of the Assad regime and we know full well that Iran desperately wanted that strategic platform if it ever intended to dominate and control the Middle East that is why tens of thousands of Hezbollah and other militias became the ground force to sustain Assad as ground military which was not very effective that is why kasum solomani got Russia to come in in
▶ 1:00:272015 the inadequacy of Assad's air power and sustain that regime when the opposition forces were gaining ground once again this has been a major strategic platform and they have lost it Iran has never been back on its heels as much as it is today in 44 years of its history and I agree with prime minister netan and where the president is on this there is an opportunity here to stop them once and for all they want a nuclear weapon why preserve the regime
▶ 1:00:58it's that simple and we have the opportunity to make certain for a fact now that that doesn't happen you can use coercive dis diplomacy and make it them that an Israeli strike supported by the United States is an alternative but you can dismantle this program with verification by the United States and other inspectors to include uh un inspectors by a date certain or we'll dismantle the nuclear Enterprise
▶ 1:01:28ourselves we know that Iran's conventional military is weak and their ability to defend the regime against an air attack they're extremely vulnerable as a result of the Israelis having achieved deterrence over Iran we cannot pass up this opportunity it is right in front of us the regime is weaker than it's ever been the people are frustrated as you all know and we've been talking about regime change driven
▶ 1:01:58by the people for years it is all of the intelligence services are telling us that it is much closer than it's ever been so we should seize this opportunity and not pass it up and we can't get into kind of a diplomatic negotiated effort where the Iranians pull what they've always pulled delay delay delay deny inspections and arrest of that it has to be a date certain verification or the alternative they are back on their heels we need to finish
▶ 1:02:29this once and for all thank you very much and I I'm just so grateful for your service thank you Mr chairman thank the gentleman chair now recognize gentleman Connecticut Mr Courtney thank you uh Mr chairman and thank you to both Witnesses uh today for your thoughtful testimony uh Dr Carlin um again it's great to see you behind the the table again and um again just want to um uh compliment you for the great work that you did in terms of the creation and implementation of uh again um
▶ 1:02:59this committee codified uh in three consecutive National Defense authorization acts in 2023 24 and 25 uh different Provisions that are now in law uh to execute Aus so for example um for the first time in history we're selling uh nuclear powered submarines to Australia uh we also uh Implement a long overdue uh reform of Defense export controls which Mr Smith just referred to and also Al the execution of a direct Financial investment by Australia into
▶ 1:03:29the of $3 billion into the US submarine industrial base um investment by another country in the US was such a novel sort of idea that we actually had to pass a law to allow the treasury Department to accept payment uh uh from Australia and as a result of those authorities we now have joint training at Gren submarine school with Aussie Sailors and officers uh it's in its second year they're now serving on board Virginia class Aussie Shipyard workers are doing repair maintenance work on
▶ 1:03:59us Subs in Hawaii and Guam and last Friday Richard Mars the uh defense minister for Australia was in DC and formerly transmitted a deposit of $5 million out of that $3 billion which U and had a good meeting with u defense secretary heith on Sunday um Australia got blindsided by the announ that they were going to be part of the 25% tariffs on Steel and aluminum and I say blindsided because we have a trade surplus
▶ 1:04:30with Australia we export more to Australia than they export to us um and uh they have been we've had a free trade agreement with Australia since 2002 there's no tariffs uh that are in place right now and at a time when again they are making direct Financial commitments into the us the total cost of OAS which they have kind of budgeted for over the next 10 years is 3 60 billion this is a country whose population is less than the state of Texas
▶ 1:05:01so again as somebody who again was part of this collaborative effort um and again I would note that the Prime Minister actually had a conversation with President Trump uh on Tuesday which uh both sides described as a good conversation and the president said he is going to give serious consideration to carving out or exempting Australia from the tariffs again primarily because we have a trade surplus with them could you talk about the Strategic um argument for for for taking that action by President Trump thank you very much Congressman
▶ 1:05:31Courtney thank you for your leadership and this committee's leadership on making Aus a reality which has been progressing pretty nicely since it was kicked off a couple years ago um as you noted Australia is putting huge amounts of resources into its military transforming it frankly in line with the vision that the United States has um if you're wondering how effective OAS is I would just note that China CH hates it so that's a really nice piece of criteria for us to to judge it by particularly because it is bringing
▶ 1:06:02together a close European Ally and a close Asian Ally to work together in terms of how we're using our militaries practicing that use and potentially if there were a contingency one could imagine our our militaries cooperating again it's hard to recall a conflict in which the Australian military was not standing side by side next to the US military as as we were waging it uh you highlight Congressman Courtney something really important and historic we have never before had a country take
▶ 1:06:32money and put it into our industrial base that creates American jobs period full stop that is better for the US military period full stop and in fact I think it could be a model I would just note that we're talking about3 billion dollar or so that Australia will be will be giving into our industrial base again resulting in American jobs and a stronger relationship with countries that is crucial for deterring China thank you uh Dr um General Kean again
▶ 1:07:02the president Trump did say he was going to give uh good consideration to this I mean that's quote unquote that's there and and just again back in 2017 there was a similar sort of event that took place and again the US made a decision to to to exempt Australia again partly just on economic and trade issues but again you understand the Strategic importance of that country right now can you just you know no I would uh absolutely agree with uh with the exemption and hopefully that that that's what's going to take place here it makes all the sense in the world and
▶ 1:07:32let me just say make a point about allies and partners I think the last two administrations both have strengthened the relationships we've had facing each threats that are so real to us NATO has obviously been strengthened you can make the case that Putin may have more to do that than anybody else but both administrations played a role in doing it that certainly the Abraham Accords both administ ations have have have supported it president Trump repurposed quad and and President Biden strengthened it and
▶ 1:08:02Aus was a novel imaginative program that's going to pay pay great dividends for us in the future for the reasons well stated here and certainly this trilateral engagement which surprised me South Korea Japan and the United States working together is another step uh in the right direction look we're never going to have a Pacific NATO like we have have we're homogeneous countries in Europe uh with common cultures and the rest of it there's different kinds of government different
▶ 1:08:33cultures but patching these uh countries together to work against a common objective these last two administrations deserve some credit and moving Us in in the right direction here gentleman's times expired chair I recognize gentleman from Virginia Mr Whitman well thank you Mr chairman General Kean Dr Carlin thanks for joining us today General Kean I want to uh start uh with you we we talk about the effort of deterrence where I see the world today is very much where it was in 1938 with building axes of evil with China China
▶ 1:09:03being the center of that universe and as we look at what China's doing you know our intelligence agencies show that they spend north of $700 billion annually on their on their defense uh they want to be a world Force we spend our dollars much more on a worldwide basis than than than they do um China has the largest Navy in the world by numbers I would argue their ships are much much more uh impressive today than they were a decade ago also if you look at their total production capacity they
▶ 1:09:33can build 232 ships for every one ship that we build if you take all of our shipyards put them together on a geographic footprint they would not fill the geographic footprint of the largest of the 13 Chinese shipyards if you look at where they are today they're on track to have 1,500 nuclear warheads by 2035 with no nuclear arms limitation treaty in sight if you look at where we are today China wants to dominate the world we're not even in a
▶ 1:10:03position where we can hope we can hope to have any sort of deter effect the disparity is so big and disparities in military Powers Through the Ages have been the emphasis behind aggression by another Nation when those differences are large that is that is really a an antagonistic opportunity for for China to be able to to move I I want to look at what can we do in the short term to be that deterrent Force you know the way that
▶ 1:10:33we look at closing the Gap is not as you talk about programs of record years of writing requirements years of acquisition years in putting these systems in place and listen I'm not against Exquisite systems but you're not going to field Exquisite systems anytime soon the question is is how can we take what is an asymmetric Advantage with us being the best creators in innovators on the earth with us building Expendable and atable systems at the same Pace that we see happening elsewhere in places like Ukraine how do
▶ 1:11:03we close that Gap in what we see right now is not anywhere close to being deterrent I agree with I agree with ranking member Smith I want us to be a deterrent I want us to be a deterrent I don't want war but this bigger Gap is provocative how do we close that Gap so we don't find ourselves in that situation yeah well that's a great question uh congressman and and let me just State this I mean we have been here before when during the Cold
▶ 1:11:33War the Soviet Union when you looked at its military by comparison to ours and obviously NATO was involved uh they out outmanned us and outgunned Us in every major category 10 to one in divisions thousands and thousands and more tanks artillery pieces you name it uh they outgunned us on it and we did a couple of things um we had some very imaginative generals at the time they came out of the Vietnam War like we're
▶ 1:12:03just coming out of 911 they saw that threat they experimented with different capabilities and they determined what they needed to do they knew they could not defeat the Soviet Union but could they impose cost on them that would deter from conducting an invasion that is what they concluded much as Dr Carlin just spoke of I totally agree that is kind of where we are now and so that led to the development of multiple rocket launch systems the Apache helicopter
▶ 1:12:34the Abrams tank badley fighting vehicles and air defense systems and they put their money on that and then we did something else we exercised right in front of them every two years in something we call reforger so we achieved credible DET returns why one the capabilities we had were real and they knew it would impose cost two they saw us exercise it and that not only validated what we had but it also validated
▶ 1:13:04our intent to use it that we were dead serious that's credible deterrence the capability is there the adversary sees it and he knows you're willing to use it I believe our Maritime strategy in the Pacific has been flawed for years it lacks imagination uh we know our surface ships are vulnerable to hypersonic swarming weapons and if we use them most of them are going to go away and the American people aren't prepared these kind of high Capital losses and to to things
▶ 1:13:34and to people we know full well that our bases in the Pacific are vulnerable to long range offensive weapons and we have got to change what we're doing there and and certainly as we've see the character of war changing right before our eyes we have to take advantage of it we know our submarines work because we can get to the China Coastline get close enough to interdict their batteries and
▶ 1:14:04their airfields and take some of that offensive capability away but we cannot take most of it away gentl we can with autonomous above the sea and submersibles below the sea we've got to start using our imagination to take build operational Concepts that really make some sense Che not recognized gentleman from New Jersey Mr Norcross thank you uh first of all thank you for your opening comments the global threats and it appears
▶ 1:14:35by any measurement that there is certainly agreement on what those threats are at least on the high end but following up on ranking member Smith's conversation of do we defeat a China my question is a little bit different on that how do we drive a wedge how do we we keep this convergence or this exess of aggression from forming even stronger so if we go back five years it was very different how do we
▶ 1:15:05drive that wedge from it continuing to progress the way it is why don't we start with you Dr Carlin thank you Congressman I think that's exactly the right question to ask because there are ceilings and limits to these Partnerships and there's also opportunities in them right so General Kean highlighted about how the Russians weren't able to save president Bashar Al Assad over the last year the way they had for many many years that turned out to be a pretty good opportunity uh for the Middle East and particularly for the people of Syria
▶ 1:15:35I would also say when we look at a a you know how to drive a wedge and see these limits who's dying right now for Russia as far as I can tell it is only some North Koreans I don't see Chinese or Iranians dying for them that's actually very different than the United States we have tens and tens of allies who throughout history but especially in the post 911 Wars have been willing to do so so I think highlighting those sorts of wedge issues can be really worthwhile showing that you know showing the Russians that actually this
▶ 1:16:05partnership with China isn't worth all that they think it is or this partnership with Iran that it it has some real uh challenges as well microphone the military aspect of this we've discussed all the elements of National Power have have got to come into play here and obviously we're competing with them economically diplomatically technologically
▶ 1:16:36militarily and geopolitically we are making making good progress I believe geopolitically with our allies and partners in the region uh but there's more that we can do there technologically I have I believe certainly that our our Democrat capitalism can beat their state capitalism that we can outthink outwit and out innovate these guys uh over time and we have to unleash our commercial sector here
▶ 1:17:06to help us do just just that um we don't have to take a backseat to what is happening there we know that they're economically challenged and and when they are exceeding uh what we believe is prudent in the region we have to deal with that we we have to have a strategy to deal with their gry Zone operations you know they have moved from just four or five years ago a few
▶ 1:17:36hundred interdictions of taiwan's air defense uh identification Zone to 1,700 last year and 3,000 in the past year but have a counter strategy to deal with that and I agree with talking to China and I believe the the president of of the United States wants to continue to do what the previous president did in talking to China but they have to clearly
▶ 1:18:06know also where the prohibitions are and and we should be very unequivocally clear to them about what those are yes there's there's much we can do and we have to use all the elements of National Power to do that in concert with our allies thank you and I yield back chair I recognizes the gentleman from Tennessee Dr dear Le for five minutes thank thank you Mr chairman uh General kingan
▶ 1:18:37had a few questions for you on uh Ukraine but first I'd like to submit for the record an article written by our witness uh General Jack Keane that was in The Washington Post last month titled America must continue to arm Ukraine without American tax dollars with without objection so ordered General Keane in this article you suggest that Ukraine should transition from an aid recipient to a defense consumer potentially leveraging its natural resources as collateral for us weapons purchases your article seems to already have made an impact here in Washington with
▶ 1:19:07President Trump offering something similar last night uh can you expand on how the us can help facilitate this transition from recipient to defense consumer and what role can American Industries play in helping Ukraine to develop these assets while securing its defense yeah yes uh yeah the Bas basis for that with uh Mark T you know who's a journalist um is watching the debate that took place in this country for six months
▶ 1:19:38uh over whether to continue to support Ukraine while there was some some opposition over ideology and not willing to be involved uh in something like that in Europe most of the opposition really had to do with funding and it it occurred to us let's take the American taxpayer out of this equation so Step One is put pressure on the Europeans to release the Russian frozen assets most of which are in Belgium and spread around a few other
▶ 1:20:08countries as well there is some opposition to that but I think the administration uh can put significant pressure on them uh to get that to take place the second thing certainly had to do with um Canada's geological Sur company identifying $26 trillion worth of minerals and other assets that are in in Ukraine and using that uh as either an investment or or or as a
▶ 1:20:38collateral for loans to be able to get the Ukrainian defense industry stood up they are making progress in that and that is what they want I mean they want to they want to break the umbilical cord themselves they know they need help from the United States and nato in the near term but they want to be able to sustain their own military capability and believe me they have built one of the most powerful militaries in in Europe today so that that's where they are and I and you're right president
▶ 1:21:09Trump is talking about making a deal with Ukraine to repay through investment purposes the money that we have paid out to Ukraine and the money that we would likely pay out in the future so yes there are real opportunities here here uh to do that and Ukraine's are to building their own defense industry and it's something that we should assist them in doing and I mean the the foreign military uh funding that we do through the state department and we we've given
▶ 1:21:39out 11 billion uh in loans to Poland uh 4 uh $4 million in loans to Romania uh 2 billion uh dollars in loans to uh Taiwan to do what to help build their own defense uh capability and certainly we can do that uh with the ukrainians and now we know for a fact they can pay those loans back so there's there's a good news story here I think and then hopefully the administration
▶ 1:22:09will pursue it aggressively okay and in in the last minute let's shift to Iran for a minute we touched on it briefly but you previously noted that Iran is very very vulnerable at the moment and they know it given this vulnerability what specific measures economic militarily or diplomatically should the us and its allies take to exploit these weaknesses and on the flip side of that what risk do you see allowing Iran's vulnerability to persist without action yeah well I I think the administration is moving rapidly to return
▶ 1:22:39to imposing uh sanctions on Iran and close the loopholes that you know clearly exist uh China is obviously buying a oil at at discounted prices and we've never uh we were if if my numbers are correct um we had them down to something like 200,000 barrels and and then they got up to Millions now under loosening up the sanctions on the Iranians the
▶ 1:23:10there's opportunity uh economically to suppress them we know that gets their gets their attention and we also know uh the rising uh descent that is in the Iranian Society they are they are fed up with what has been going on for four decades and they have suffered the consequences as a result of it I I believe the more pressure we can put on them and and certainly
▶ 1:23:40our allies now should be very willing to join us you know we were doing it singularly when we pulled out of the nuclear deal uh back in 2018 gentlemen's times expired not recogniz a gentl Massachusetts Mr molon thank you Mr chairman uh General Keane would love to ask you a couple quick questions as I'm over here thanks you're a mentor to General Petraeus who's one of my mentors and appreciate your long uh history of service to the to the country I think one of the most important things that you've said
▶ 1:24:11to us this morning speaking to members of the House armed services Committee in Congress is that we've got to stop supporting parochial projects for our districts and there's a long history of that on this committee you know members from Wisconsin reporting the loral combat ship a ship pretty misnamed when it was not certified for combat members of Congress from Arizona supporting the A10 long after the Air Force said we need to get rid of it to make
▶ 1:24:41more room for more modern aircraft in our budget and Untold numbers of carriers and surface ships that as you described will be eviscerated by the Chinese Navy in the Pacific that keep getting supported by members that represent shipyards around the country I'm curious about your take with if I you know I was a Marine lieutenant only made it to the rank of Captain didn't get didn't get very far up like you did but if I were stationed on the beach in Taiwan
▶ 1:25:11and I had two options a $1 13 billion brand new aircraft carrier at my disposal or the number of drones that I could buy for the price of that carrier which if you paid $20,000 would be about drones if you were that Lieutenant which would you pick that is such an Easy Choice Congressman the drones would be the answer listen eventually like in every new technology there will be
▶ 1:25:41an effective countermeasure to drones but that countermeasure is not here I mean it's being experimented with it's microwave it's directed energy and the rest of it but right now drones dominate I mean I I just took a briefing that was in Europe on on ukraini and Russia and the use of drones I mean battalions alone are using 400 drones in the air at one time you can use a $5,000 drone to kill a $5 million tank if you know and yet we're still selling a lot of $5 million tanks to Poland
▶ 1:26:11it's not just in the Pacific it's everywhere we've got to get our allies and partners to catch up here they the reality is as I mentioned the submarines offer our stealth to get close well so do the drones right above the sea and below the sea as well and i' I've played multiple war games four dealing with the most dangerous scenario the China's Invasion scenario and to stop them we're not talking about defeating them but to stop them
▶ 1:26:42it takes about a 10 to 15% change excuse me 15 to 20% impact on them those submersibles and autonomous above the above the sea Vehicles could make that 15 to 20% change and point to use our imagination if you if you have drones every single one of them that you kill doesn't kill an American or Taiwanese soldier soldier but you take out that one aircraft carrier and you've got 5,000
▶ 1:27:12Souls at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean how do we get Congress to wake up to the danger they are causing for our national security by not being willing to put parochial interests aside and invest in the military Technologies of the future well I education and uh this committee has been much closer to the issues than any of the other committees uh you know in the house side here obviously and you have to educate your peers on this let me ask you another question about education in the Pacific you talked
▶ 1:27:42about the importance of allies and partners when I go to the Pacific I was with Vietnam not too long ago and they talked about what China is doing with their belt and Road initiative offering to build a whole high-speed Railway for billion dollars we had offered Vietnam One used Coast Guard Cutter what is the importance of State Department funding of usaid money going to these allies and partners to win over their friendship well it's I I think it's pretty
▶ 1:28:12critical I mean you know China does provide economic assistance to gain geopolitical influence and that's what this is all about not only in in the indopacific region but also in the global South as well and when you strengthen when you ask our partners to stand up and stand together as allies when you talk about the importance of deterrence and standing by uh the the Nations we want to defend against dictators like C jingping and Putin would you ever say that it's unrealistic for Taiwan to remain Sovereign from
▶ 1:28:44China Sovereign in terms of completely independent would you ever say it's unrealistic for Taiwan to not be taken over by China well I I think the answer is probably obviously no right so I'm wondering why our secretary of defense is in Europe right now saying it's unrealistic for Ukraine not to have its territory taken by Russia I yield back okay CH I recognize gentleman from Nebraska Mr bacon thank you I'm over on the right side over here
▶ 1:29:14uh I appreciate both of you being here and I I respect you both my first questions for General Kane or Keane we are spending the lowest on defense since 1940 as a serve GDP 2.9% I think it's inadequate to modernize our Triad to help deter China Russia Iran and do quality of life do you share that sentiment and what do you think the right percent should be yes I I do share that sentiment um I really believe I was on the 2018 NDS
▶ 1:29:45and we we believe the funding should have been 3 to 5% um about half of that uh commission believed it should have been closer to the 5% if we had started it back then we'd be in much better shape today now we have um much greater risk and therefore we need a much greater sense of urgency to move in the right direction so I truly endorse what uh chairman Rogers and chairman wicker want to move
▶ 1:30:15towards and we've got to move towards it with with a sense of urgency with the parenthetical statement that we have to fix our business practices and fix the defense industrial base and how we do business with them and how the Congress does business as well i e i Echo your sentiments on that Dr Carlin what does Europe look like and Central Asia look like if Russia prevails Ukraine and what will be the cost United States if Russia prevails the greater cost in the long run
▶ 1:30:46thank you for that question Congressman it looks pretty ugly right I mean right now we have seen particularly post Cold War a Europe that's largely free whole and at peace a Europe that largely wants to stand to the next to the United States cooperate with us economically if you start to see a Europe that is just riddled with fear that different countries will be the next on the chopping block with Russia it's not going to be in our national security interest so the story starts with Ukraine of course right now occupies about 20% or so of Ukraine but if it doesn't
▶ 1:31:16end there it's going to be problematic if I might just note Congressman General Keane has mentioned about reforming business practices a couple times and I know this is an important issue for the committee I might suggest two things to look at one the US Marine Corps has managed to transform and be the only military service to pass a clean audit why is that how did they manage to do that two the Congress has been us has given us Special Operations Command special acquisition authorities so they have easily been the fastest in making
▶ 1:31:46change in being able to purchase the sorts of capabilities that they need what to what extent can those capabilities can those specialists authorities be translated across the the force thank you particularly interested in trying to apply that to cyber command as well uh we're trying to model after special apps command my next question is back to Gerald Kane or Kean excuse me last I checked under the Biden Administration they owed 10 billion dollar in weapons to Taiwan we're behind that's not a good way to do deterrence uh how
▶ 1:32:16do we strengthen deterrence in regards to Taiwan today how can we do it the well we just discussed one one way to do it and it's not that expensive and and that is to take advantage of the new drone technology that is out there and and put significant amount of it uh into Taiwan look at the the the the problem you mentioned is you know obviously uh Taiwan
▶ 1:32:47can purchase these items which they have through foreign military sales and that the backlog there and that's our defense industrial base uh the problems we have you know providing those uh systems to our own services are similar to what the problem that Taiwan is facing uh and so that that system has got to be fixed and we've been talking about that for some time but in the meantime there is much that we can do to strengthen their defensive systems and I also think uh
▶ 1:33:17we can do considerably more training than what we've been willing to do and I don't think we have to do a covert ly I think we just tell the Chinese we're going to do this and this these are the reasons why we're going to do it but yeah there there's much we can do in the near term to help them and then and we have to educate them on the changing character of war that that is really taking place so they can appreciate the value uh in the new technology that is available and what lessons uh can really be learned I know they're
▶ 1:33:48watching it but we can help them understand it and and even more how to apply it militarily so it has some impact with 15 seconds left uh Mr chairman I'll I'll yield back gimen yields back cheer I recognizes the gentleman from California Mr carbajal thank you Mr chairman uh and thank you to General Keane and Dr Carin for being here today uh I bet all my uh veteran colleagues
▶ 1:34:18today wish they were United States Marines with that clean audit that the Marine Court just came forward with including especially the Air Force a as you both established in your remarks the United States is facing a threat environment like we have never seen both China and Russia are seeking to increase their influence across the globe like through China's belt and Road initiative as we all know uh the Trump Administration decided to freeze all foreign assistance and is attempting
▶ 1:34:48to gut uh the US aid program foreign assistance is critical a critical component of how the United States has built soft power and Goodwill with other countries in fiscal year 2023 with a budget of over 40 billion less than 1% of the US total us budget uh usaid provided assistance to around 130 countries and in fiscal year 2023 some of the top recipients of us
▶ 1:35:18Aid assistance were Ukraine Ethiopia Syria and Afghanistan countries that Russia and China want to increase influence in just to name a few Dr Carlin can you speak to the importance of soft power and the role it plays in maintaining us leadership globally and preventing the influence of near peer adversaries from growing and the soft power make hard power more effectively thank you very much for that Congressman um let me
▶ 1:35:48give you a great example as this committee knows well we have exactly one US military base on the the continent of Africa in jibuti um excuse me we we have a a base that is a priority in jibou and China has one base in on the continent of Africa which which is also there there's a terrific piece by Bush Administration Aid administrator Andrew naos today talking about how our soft power how our Aid assistance helped make that base a reality about a year or so ago I was doing negotiations
▶ 1:36:19with the president of Djibouti and he also highlighted that the reason that that b has been able to stay and to flourish has been because of our soft power because of our assistance what Aid has done and what the state department has done of course if we're looking at a map that is really important in terms of a strategic location so that's a story that we can actually take around the globe especially when we're looking at places that are particularly precarious when we've got folks with a diplomatic background or development background
▶ 1:36:49uh who are in places like Pakistan or in places like Yemen we get a much better understanding of that and ultimately it means that when hopefully we won't have to use military force but if we do we'll be a lot more effective thank you uh the department currently has uh a budget of around 840 billion and consistently has programs running by schedule and running over cost it seems to me that almost every report or study on what the US needs
▶ 1:37:19to do to increase competitiveness with the the PRC is to increase defense spending I do not think we can continue to increase the Department's budget and expect to magically start outpacing the PRC this is a point I raised at our September hearing on the findings of the NDS commission report Dr Carlin and general Keane in in your view is the dod capable of effectively executing a defense budget that
▶ 1:37:49is 5% of GDP which would be nearly 1 .4 trillion and do you have recommendations for how the department can maximize use of their budgets rather than throwing money at well I wouldn't recommend going to 5% without making the changes that we need to make and we've laid out those changes we have to fix up business practices in the Pentagon and we have to hold the Pentagon you know responsible and accountable
▶ 1:38:20for that and we certainly have to fix how we do business uh with the defense industrial base and also with our own organic industrial base and I think the Congress has to take a tough look at itself in terms of how it does business with the Pentagon and I think if if we do those things then yes uh we can move in the right direction with increased funding but if we don't make those other changes I mean I I think we probably have consensus here we're going to start throwing taxpayers money away again and that's
▶ 1:38:50just that that is irresponsible we got to stop it given the threat that we're facing thank you Dr Carlin uh thank you Congressman uh look it really depends on what you're going to spend that money on right if we spend it on a whole bunch of loral combat ships or a10s it'll deliver and it won't be terribly worthwhile so for example we really need to invest in our nuclear modernization during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan the defense Took a ton of risk on that for reasons that made sense at the time but also means that right now all
▶ 1:39:20three legs of the Triad have got to be updated I think in particular in terms of looking at Cost cutting and how to make investments smartly the Department of Defense needs to figure out how to work more collaboratively with Congress on retiring Legacy systems while in a more holistic way bringing on capabilities that frankly deliver for the military while also being helpful to your District gentleman time expired here and I recognize gentleman from Florida Mr Jimenez thank you Mr chairman um with regards to
▶ 1:39:50us a uh I believe that USA um does spend money to advance American interest but Al I also believe that it spends money not to advance American interest and I think what's going on right now is just an auditing of that getting rid of those things that do not Advance American interests and then keeping those things that do Advance American interests and so there is no agency that is sacac that can't be looked at as a matter of fact as somebody who used to run a bureaucracy I know that bureaucracies get out of hand and they lose sight
▶ 1:40:20of their mission uh and then you got to bring them back back okay and and reconstitute them and redirect them to do the right thing and so that's my my view on USA General Kean um there's you know the word regime change or the two words regime change uh seem to be dirty words okay people don't don't want to hear it we shouldn't be doing that uh I don't share that opinion as a matter of fact I believe that uh when we can uh we should turn enemies into friends and and one
▶ 1:40:51of the things that we should be looking at right now is see what we can do with Iran if we can turn Iran and we can have regime change that would be what would that do to that region and what would that do for American uh security interest if we in fact were able to change the regime Iran well the major destabilizing factor in the Middle East has been Iran Iran uh and how they decided to go about their business uh and it was very novel they began using proxies in
▶ 1:41:21other countries to accomplish their strategic objectives and they hit the Reagan Administration with that in blowing up our Barracks our Embassy in Leeman on and then our Embassy in Kuwait and you know that Adra have could I could you could you say yes it would be good it would be for American it's in Americans best interest to have regime change in in yeah and but to do that also uh we have to work with our
▶ 1:41:51intelligence agencies uh the the Israelis what they do inside of Iran is nothing short of remarkable fair enough in the resistance groups at just about every single one of their operations that they are conducting inside of Iran covertly are done with the cooperation of resistance groups so there's a lot of things that we can do to assist this inside of Iran as well and that the discussion uh should be you know in a closed door session with our intelligence Services
▶ 1:42:21as to how we can assist that but the general pressure that is on Iran and the problems they're having now they have never had to this degree in the 40 plus years they've been in power thank you uh Dr Carlin uh do you sense that there is a a resistance and or a risk avoidance culture inside the dod I think the Department of Defense gets concerned about risks not least because it's got to use American taxpayer money
▶ 1:42:52smartly and and when it fails the consequences are massive massive in what sense massive in the loss of American lives in in Wars potentially lost it is in many ways a no fail culture because unlike so many other parts whether it's business or of government when the Department of Defense calls things wrong people die I'm I'm I'm I'm actually homing in more on defense weapons U uh systems and development of Defense Weapons Systems
▶ 1:43:22is there a risk avoidance there I think it probably varies a little bit by military service but the Department of Defense would probably benefit from endorsements frankly by this committee that which is where exactly where I was going okay all right that that actually I could say that we're the cause of it that they are so afraid of of being uh of having a system fail and come before this body that we were going to I don't know if I can say this ream them okay
▶ 1:43:52for doing that I think there sorry sir yeah okay that we need to change in here too and accept the fact that every once in a while something will fail you know everybody a lot of people take shots at Ellen musk but one thing I really admire about Ellen musk all right is that he launches a Starship it blows up and he says great we learned a whole bunch of things let's let's launch another one all right until he gets it right if that were NASA
▶ 1:44:23we would be investigating the first star Starship launch right and we still wouldn't be with on the second and that's the problem that we have because then oh my God you spent a billion dollars taxpayer money and it blew up how could that happen uh and I think that that is a disservice actually it's holding us back in the in the area defense it's a team sport right and so to the extent that the department calls things wrong which is inevitable right uh being able to have a serious classified conversation
▶ 1:44:53with the committee what worked what didn't work and why not and then frankly folks are going to look at precedent and see the extent to which the Congress is going to be supportive of folks who are Innovative and didn't quite get it right thank you my time is up I you back thank the gentleman chair and I recognize gentle lady from Pennsylvania Miss Holan thank you Mr chair and thank you both for the conversation and for your service um the title of this hearing is protecting American interests conver on in convergent Global threat and environments
▶ 1:45:23and the message that I've taken away is from you all is that we need to increase defense spending as to as much as 5% but we also need to cut inefficiencies and spend less uh we need to be ready tonight they need to think today is not the day these are the headlines of this hearing I'm going to uh start with the Doge uh the Doge uh is supposed to be in charge in my understanding of the latter and a chairman or a ranking member Smith mentioned that in context in principle in concept it's not a bad idea a
▶ 1:45:53uh I agree with him on that so far the Doge has visited the OPM the personal management office CMS the Department of Education Department of Treasury Department of uh usaid the uh small business administration and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and at least publicly they're saying appropriately that their purpose is to reduce waste and fraud and spending and again this I agree with it is said that the Pentagon the dod is possibly next it is said that as early as next
▶ 1:46:24week they will be visiting the Pentagon uh General do you think that the Doge the 20 to 40 people whom you're aware of who are part of this organization is qualified to do the kinds of things with the dod that they've done with the Department of Education or with usaid I've always uh wanted uh people who get assigned to the Pentagon some of them to have come from backgrounds uh when I was asked to be Secretary of Defense by President
▶ 1:46:54Trump in the first Administration I couldn't do it for personal reasons and recommended Jim Mattis to him but I recommended to them also bring in a business person who's had uh who's done startups who's done major turnarounds who who knows how to drive an organization and general sir I I don't disagree with you I think we need that and if if these people who I don't know who the Doge people are exactly but if they have business backgrounds and they can take a look at our business practices
▶ 1:47:24here and make some changes that just make sense to them and Sir with the exception of Elon Musk I believe these to be largely 19 to 25 year olds who largely cannot possibly have extensive business backgrounds yet because they're just plain not old enough to have those well I'm not going to make a judgment based on their age uh but I I think it's worth that's richly ironic because in the military it is all based on time and grade you know your your ability to understand and know something is based based on how long you've been there and
▶ 1:47:54what you know and and I guess what I'm asking sir I don't disagree with you I am a business person and did serve in the military but we cannot possibly expect 20 to 40 people to go through our data our sensitive Department of Defense data and have any way of explaining to the American people what is waste and what is fraud with any sort of accuracy um and if it's okay I'm going to move on to my NE my next question and this question is for uh Dr Carlin uh Dr today I believe
▶ 1:48:24the news headlin said that secretary hegseth has ruled out NATO NATO membership to Ukraine um he says and it's interesting he used the word unrealistic which was the same word that he used for other uh descriptions that the US is no longer going to prioritize uh European and Ukrainian security um and that to your point in your opening remarks you talked about sort of the undecided vote the people who are on the sidelines who are not necessarily yet deciding which team they are on so to speak um
▶ 1:48:55I really am worried and I wanted to kind of get your opinion on the larger political threat again the the title of this hearing protecting American interests what do you think this message says to those who are our allies on the continent and uh those who are our allies abroad and also those who are trying to decide whether to be an ally of ours thank you for that question congresswoman um I I also would find those remarks a little bit disturbing right so what we've seen in uh Russia's war on Ukraine is
▶ 1:49:26700,000 Russian casualties that is an order of magnitude thank goodness than anything our country has faced for very very very long time um and uh and in particular as you note a whole bunch of countries across key regions are watching exactly what happens that's always how it works right so when there are folks who say just focus on this one problem in the world and don't worry about it the challeng is is Everyone's Watching I can assure you that the reason
▶ 1:49:57we have a number of Asian allies supporting Ukraine is partially because of concern out of Ukraine right and partially because of concern about how irresponsibly Russia acts it is also because they see a through line here between how One deals with a bully like Russia and how one will or will not deal with a bully like China thank you a yel back excellent points uh chair I recognizes the gentleman from the Strategic territory of Guam Mr Oland thank you Mr
▶ 1:50:27chairman uh General in your testimony you mentioned that most Americans are not paying attention to the state of National Security and I can report that on Guam National Security is a kitchen table issue the military footprint directly impacts how much we pay for utilities housing and groceries now each time North Korea test a new missile it makes our local paper so on Guam our local agencies
▶ 1:50:57must employ capabilities on a scale of a municipality to encount to counter the full spectrum of China's enhanced competition and coercion federal federal grants help Guam stand up to these threats by supporting our Port infrastructure cyber security power grid and other targets so as a question to
▶ 1:51:28Witnesses how do you see Federal support for local entities on Guam within a wider National Security framework as well thanks for the question Congressman you know Guam is is is an important part of our military infrastructure in the Indo Pacific region and obviously we have to do better at protecting our bases and hardening those bases and giving them the capability to defend
▶ 1:51:58themselves we know uh from playing War Games the reality is that those bases would be under attack from long range missiles and uh and also air power and we have to turn that around uh in part of our program of deterrence as as we have laid out in the past and thank you also for the people of gu mom and for their steadfastness and the support that they have been providing uh to
▶ 1:52:29the United States military uh at our bases there and and throughout the region it's uh it's something we should be proud of and thank you for your support as well Mr Congressman thank you general doctor thank you very much uh sir the chairman highlighted the Strategic location of Guam and I would just wholeheartedly endorse that um when you look at the indopacific which is the prior region one can't help but see just the importance of bases across military services on
▶ 1:52:59Guam efforts in recent years to try to increase dispersal resilience hardening of those bases have only grown more important uh so I would concur wholeheartedly also with General General kean's uh gratitude to the people of of Guam and to you sir thank you both of you now as you said Guam is recognized as strategic Hub in the Endo paycom uh yet it has been threatened treated as a Spoke
▶ 1:53:29when it comes to Investments so to further your statement do you agree that focusing on infrastructure improvements will strengthen Guam and should it be a priority in our national strategy yeah that's a simple answer yes it should be indeed and those improvements should really look at resilience you know deterrence by resilience was a big element in the last National defense strategy I'm guessing the next national defense strategy will
▶ 1:53:59spend a lot of time looking at deterrence as well so making sure that if God forbid there is some sort of attack on Guam that infrastructure those people are able to withstand that and push forward I appreciate your testimonies thank you very much Mr chairman i y back gentleman yields back chair and I recognize Mr Ryan for five minutes thank you Mr chair thank you both for being here I especially want to thank you General Keane for including your lifelong Yankees fandom in your biography I share
▶ 1:54:29that and appreciate that amidst all the great things you've done in your life and career sir I just want to note that to the committee uh on a more serious note um and and to your credit Chanel Kean you have you have been a long time clear strong voice on the threat from Iran and the importance of our partnership and alliance with Israel especially in the moment that we're in including uh today you some of the the important and powerful quotes that I noted uh we have an opportunity to stop them once and for all they're back
▶ 1:54:59on their heels uh and that uh continuing to highlight which I certainly agree with that Iran is quote a major destabilizing factor in the region uh and even going back to last year uh you I think rightly criticize the Biden Administration for their hands-off approach to Iran and creating uh at a minimum minimum a lack of clarity about our resolve and and strength um given that I
▶ 1:55:30I I want to raise a concern that I think I hope is a bipartisan concern the the senior appointee of the new Administration the for the Middle East the dazd for the Middle East does not share that opinion which I think is should be a broadly held American view um Mr Domino who was just appointed Deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East has said that the Middle East quote does not really matter for us interests has argued that quote vital or existential threats in the
▶ 1:56:00Middle East are quote Best characterized as minimal to non-existent he also very concerningly characterized Iran's two missile attacks unprecedented direct attacks on Israel as quote fairly moderate uh and described our strikes against the houthis and our attempts to deter them as quote futile I I'm almost I'm just speechless the dissonance there versus
▶ 1:56:30I think a common picture that so many of us here on this committee hold uh this uh I think ignorant and isolationist rhetoric appointed espoused by a senior official is very concerning to me and I think should be the committee given the opportunity and the risks uh with Iran I'd ask you to speak uh to that to the degree you're willing sir yeah certainly uh uh well certainly I fundamentally disagree with that that that position and the last two administrations have both stated that we have three
▶ 1:57:00geographical areas where us vital interests are at stake the indopacific region the Middle East and Europe uh and and I and I find it hard to believe uh that the appointed Secretary of State Marco Rubio would hold that view agree or I find it hard to believe that the National Security advisor Michael wals would would hold that view um so the the National Security apparatus of any Administration has will always
▶ 1:57:30have people who have differing views uh and that gentleman certainly is entitled to that but I don't believe that will represent the consensus of of the Trump administration's National Security Viewpoint the we have already discuss this I mean the fact there's war in Europe is not an isolated event and the fact there's war the Middle East and Iran operationalized all of its proxies is not an isolated event these events are connected and president XI is preparing for war and
▶ 1:58:00threatening war and that is not an isolated event they really see an opportunity here for themselves to collectively take advantage of the United States and like-minded democracies I think as we all pretty much agree with here no I and and it runs it runs totally against uh that Viewpoint I had not heard that viewpoint but but I disagree with it no I appreciate that and I just I I I I agree and have heard very different things from other as you mentioned senior leaders so I just think it's important we have
▶ 1:58:31Clarity especially given the importance of clarity and credibility when it comes to deterence limited time I I more just want to introduce this idea and build on one of my colleagues Miss holan's Point uh we've talked about acquisition reform we've talked about streamlining the Pentagon I think there we all agree there are many areas of focus big programs of record I would also note some small things like for example uh the new secretary of defense spending $137,000 to paint his home while we have
▶ 1:59:01soldiers across our force with floors caving in and and roofs caving in uh which was very disappointing uh to me separating that aside if we're going to go in and do this streamlining I think it's critical we address the security concerns of those Junior staffers that Miss hulahan mentioned from Doge and the potential conflicts of interest of of Mr musk which I don't have time to go into but are billions of dollars of contracts directly tied to his programs I yield back Mr chair thank you I than the gentleman from New York
▶ 1:59:31chair not recognize gentleman from Virginia Mr Maguire for five minutes thank you Mr chairman um you know I served in our Navy for 10 years in Special Operations and I know there's some talk here today about streamlining process and the good thing about special ops is we can open purchase and we can get things quicker often cheaper and we can buy a lot of things off the shelf right now uh there's talk of programs that we have to pay for for 15 years because we had a contract for 15 years but they're outdated
▶ 2:00:01so I would totally agree that we need to make some decisions now um I agree with the chairman when he said that our weapons cost too much it takes us too long to get them but we are spending 2.7% of our GDP right now which is less than we spent all the way back to before World War II and if China has more ships than us more airplanes than us and everything else accept submarines there's no other way to catch up unless we increase percentage of GDP and so I would ask you what are some things that we
▶ 2:00:31do whether it be Congress whether it be the president to help us uh speed up the process of new technologies and getting them to the Troops and that would be for General Kean yeah well one of the things I think that would be very helpful is to let the defense department have considerably more access to the non-defense sector um I was just at an exercise
▶ 2:01:01in Europe watching the Army deal with the realities of the lessons learned from the war in Ukraine so there was a opposing Force there using Russian tactics and Technology a lot of electronic warfare and US using lots of drones and other Technologies the great thing that was there reminds me of what you just referenced Mr congressman is all the contract factors representing these Technologies were there listening to the Troops talk to them about what needs to be done approve this this one's no good Etc and it reminds me it
▶ 2:01:31a process that special ops has gone through for for a number of years with the close Association it has so there's there's much we can do now we don't have to wait five years to start changing capabilities we there there's capability out there that we can get in into our into our ranks and start making changes in the Congress can help do that I know uh the chief of staff of the army has been talking to many members about doing this thing and opening the aperture so he can go out and make these
▶ 2:02:01purchases and not have to wait uh for years in terms of a pro program of record that changes how we do business but it also recognizes the sense of urgency that we need to have to deal with this problem and start solving it in the near term so I have a second question um we talk about China Russ Russia Iran North Korea and their various sub uh factions during these proxy wars uh they're kind of United right now so I think that we
▶ 2:02:31have these hot spots all over the world so we are uh definitely under more threat today than we have been in a long time and so we've got to be prepared I remember Ronald Reagan talked about American exceptionalism he talked about building a 600 ship Navy and he inspired me to join the Navy and be part of that be part of something bigger than myself I I don't know what the number is we're somewhere under three 300 ships now and you know again ships aren't always the answer but you know we we can't compete with our our our enemies I want to know I have a question for
▶ 2:03:02both Dr Carl and general Keane if somehow Iran were to get a nuclear weapon how would that impact the region and I guess I'll start with Dr Carlin and we don't have much time but it would be a catastrophe it would be a catastrophe because I don't think any us should really trust the decision-making of the Iranian regime would be a catastrophe because a number of countries around the region such as Saudi Arabia will now feel as though they need to get nuclear weapons to protect themselves and the more countries that
▶ 2:03:32have nuclear weapons the more dangerous it will be will now be relying on them having responsible control because of time General Kane is a nuclear arms race in the Middle East is is the answer what would take place as a result of that and it's a recipe for disaster when Henry Kissinger was alive he believed the most dangerous thing facing the world today was a nuclear arms raced in the Middle East because it would likely result in an exchange of nuclear weapons for the first time so I'm very much very much in strong
▶ 2:04:02support of limited federal government but if the government should do anything it should be able to keep the Homeland keep the American people safe at home and abroad and I I okay this the best committee I could possibly be on this armed services committee and so I've got a lot to learn I'm glad be part of it but I would ask you if we knew we got actionable intelligence that they are going to have a nuclear weapon and as much as you can say in this in purview what should uh Israel do what should the United States do and I'll start with General
▶ 2:04:32Keane well I we have the means and the capability to to stop that from happening and and we should do that if if it required that degree of urgency that means a a military operation and we have the capability to do it and also uh not to hurt uh uh innocent civilians and it Sharon I recognize a gentleman from California Mr ceros thank you Mr
▶ 2:05:02chairman General Jim Mattis former Secretary of Defense during the first Trump Administration one said if you don't find if you don't fund the state department fully that I need to buy more ammunition ultimately so I don't think it's a cost benefit ratio the more we put into the state Department's diplomacy hopefully the less we have to put into the mil budget as we deal with the outcome of approval of American withdrawal from the international scene uh this hearing is about the convergence of global threats my colleagues uh have discussed the
▶ 2:05:32importance of combating those threats posed by our competitors and adversaries including the PRC Iran Russia and North Korea we've also discussed the ways in which those competi competitors and adversaries work together in advance their their interests at the expense of ours but we need to discuss how a US pursuit of isol aism would help adversaries undermine US Security so Dr Carlin how does removing the mission of usaid and possibly
▶ 2:06:03a reduced State Department budget like in the first Trump Administration put our national security at risk thank you for that question Congressman look the more that we have fragile countries under developed countries the more likely in many places that the folks in those communities are going to make decisions will not work in our national security interests right if folks are going to be mired in poverty if they're going to be in situations where their governments aren't taking care of them and no one else is they could turn to Alternatives like
▶ 2:06:33terrorism which ultimately could hurt our national security interests I would also know a big theme of this hearing has been that we are in a big competition with China the Chinese are quite enthusiastic about the announced cuts to us Aid and to us diplomacy because they see this as an opportunity for them to come on in and as we all know when we look at conflicts in the past the Cold War being a great example you don't always win those just on the battlefield you win those by taking a holistic approach using
▶ 2:07:03all the tools in your toolkit so hopefully fewer members of your country fewer members of your military end up having to die J Keen care comment well foreign aid certainly and support other countries is it is literally part of the elements of National Power it's it's important I think we've all been horrified by some of the examples of the spending of usaid I I think that a prudent measure has been taken uh the Secretary of State uh Marco
▶ 2:07:33Rubio who enjoys you know quite amount of support in the Senate and in the House of Representatives here a bipartisan support and respect for him he's taken his program uh under his wing and I I think he'll make prudent decisions in what we should continue to fund let's not throw theb be out with the bathwater so to speak and and obviously eliminate the programs that are are indeed wasteful and and certainly horrified many of us uh looking at that uh that list so I I think
▶ 2:08:03we can move forward here in a positive way to continue to support activities that make sense US national interest but you agree it is important to to fund these International interests the funding the state department isn't key to our National Security in order to ensure that we don't have to put troops on the ground in order to to do that no absolutely and you know the and the state department at times uh you know they they
▶ 2:08:33have been underfunded they were underfunded when I was uh Vice Chief of Staff of the army and they just didn't did not organize the way the P the Pentagon is to deal with all of you either I mean we almost have a small army in the Pentagon that to had a work Congress and and have relationships Etc I was stunned by the difference but yes the state department is an important National instrument of our national power and obviously should be funded thank you
▶ 2:09:04uh Dr Carlin um I know you worked very hard on these um at at the Pentagon where you were there you were working very hard on these alliances and Partnerships that we help build there through the department of offense but if we continue on President Trump's path to isolationism by let's say removing ourselves from defense alliances like NATO or intelligence alliances like fire um is there a cost to our national security thank you Congressman there actually is a pretty big cost to our national security so as you know what happens
▶ 2:09:34when a crisis or a challenge or an opportunity emerging number of countries call up Washington and say Here's how we understand what's happening how do you assess it and how can we collaboratively plan the way forward that's collaboratively right it means that they're going to be giving their own resources their militaries may be involved they're diplomats ultimately that ends up actually being a lot more efficient for us and it ends up being less costly as well so if we don't have countries cooperating with us in terms of intelligent sharing if we don't
▶ 2:10:05have countries looking at the threats posed by countries like Russia and China and saying how do we work together to counter this I worry a lot about us standing on our own with that thank you I yield back gentlemen yields back Che not recognized gentlemen from North Carolina Mr haragan for 5 minutes thank you Mr chairman and thank you ranking member Smith and uh thanks to both of our Witnesses today for your testimony really appreciate the thoroughness and and thoughtfulness of of your remarks I've become a
▶ 2:10:35a very big believer that we can either invest in the military that we have today or we can invest in the military that we need in order to defeat China tomorrow and I do not think that we can do both of those things and I think that I identified very strong General Keane with some of your statements earlier that challenged myself and my colleagues here that we have a number of Legacy systems in our military that are no longer relevant to the Future fight
▶ 2:11:05that America could be forced to face one day and I don't want to press you but would you be willing to share what some of those systems are across our different services in your opinion yes uh well certainly you know bringing the service Chiefs in here and letting them deal with that they all have you know their own list of what that really means um but some of these systems that we have today are just in terms of their capabilities
▶ 2:11:36are not relative not relevant to you know the war that we're that we would be involved in if if we do go to war with China um so the uh the reality is is that uh when it comes to systems uh we have old bombers and obviously we have a new bomber that's coming but it's it's going to take so long uh to get there the I think we have to take a a
▶ 2:12:06hard look at at our surface Fleet I'm not a naval expert uh but I do know how vulnerable that surface Fleet is we need a certain amount of ships obviously to as a global power to make certain that the navigation routes that help sustain a global economy uh through peaceful engagement we need a number of ships to be able to do that the Navy believes they're about 70 70 short in doing that but also
▶ 2:12:36we have to take a hard look at the ships we do have in terms of the quality of those ships and how relevant are they uh for the future um though I I think all the Services owe you a rund down on exactly the question that you just asked and and with some degree of specificity about those systems that there's always a reluctance to deal with this uh in a public forum uh because
▶ 2:13:07then for sure something is going to happen that's negative to them and and and the money will never go to the area that they want it to go to the the United the uh the Army itself land forces we we've seen the Marines make some fundamental changes and I know the land uh the Army is attempting to make uh fundamental changes to help deal with the War in China um and they're developing multi-domain organizations uh that
▶ 2:13:37uh have offensive and defensive missiles associated with them there's a recognition uh that when we look at the Indo Pacific and think of it as an A and Maritime theater um much of the land that surrounds the navigation routes are actually key terrain and our World War II leaders understood that rather dramatically and used it as such and we have to recognize that we can take advantage of that key terrain which accesses
▶ 2:14:07the navigation routes uh that the Chinese would be using and we have to change the capabilities uh out there as well we obviously don't need tanks on out there because that kind of war is not going to be fought it's an a air and Maritime theater enabled by land power as war in Europe is a land power theater enabled by air power but we have to make those kinds of fundamental changes in the in the Pacific
▶ 2:14:38region by land forces to assist uh in the Aaron Maritime theater but the best answer uh I think would come from the Chiefs themselves in terms of what specific specific programs that they really have on their on their chopping block and seek your support uh to make the kind of changes that they need to do I mean they they're they're all underwater when it comes to the budget you know they have major Readiness issues
▶ 2:15:08the Army hasn't been at the size it's at since prior to World War II the Air Force is sitting at a 40-year low and I I already mentioned the Navy's about 70 ships short so they need to increase in size as well as capability to be able to meet the objectives that they have in in dealing with the threat gentleman's times expired and the chair now moves to another North Carolinian Mr Davis for minutes thank you so much Mr chair and to the ranking member
▶ 2:15:38for convening us today and importantly to our Witnesses thank you both for being here um since coming to Congress for me I fought to make sure Ukraine in particular had the resources it needed to protect itself against Russia's um unprovoked Invasion and um Dr um car um Carlin thank you so much for your earlier testimony um my question um to you specifically is as we're moving forth now
▶ 2:16:08what support does Ukraine need from allies like the United States um to put itself in the strongest possible negotiating position um um and does that include if you can speak specifically we know um f f f-16s are made way to Ukraine um can you speak towards that and also training pilot training thank you very much
▶ 2:16:38Congressman um and and that's exactly the right way to think about this right how to make sure that Ukraine's militaries is capable as possible because Wars end in negotiations generally and that's how one can expect this will will come together um in terms of continued support as you know so well congressmen a lot of it comes from the United States and a lot of it comes from a number of other countries 50 plus uh countries or so that are actually meeting this week with the Ukraine defense uh uh consultative group and that
▶ 2:17:08has traditionally been convened by the secretary of defense for the first time it will actually be convened this week by the the Brits so making sure that Ukraine has the continued support for its military is really important the ukrainians have a good idea of how the battlefield is changing and what can be most useful I think in particular what we're seeing is the utility of like uncrewed systems uh frankly I would also say us advising has been worthwhile as well the US Army has used uh artificial intelligence to really
▶ 2:17:38support uh the Ukrainian military their efforts in the sky are increasing you know will increasingly start to make progress in terms of the F-16 front it just takes a while right in terms of that training get getting those Pilots um ready and capable to do so so I would uh strongly recommend uh the United States should uh enthusiastically continue to participate in the UDC uh continue its assistance and work closely with Ukraine to figure out not just what are the platforms that
▶ 2:18:08it needs but what kind of training what kind of advising because often times that can be the secret sauce for their military not just the stuff absolutely thank you um in the most recent National Defense um strategy analysts referen the significance of pacing change uh or the pacing challenges I'm sorry uh that the People's Republic of China poses um General U my question for you today uh when we think in terms of
▶ 2:18:39Japan South Korea Taiwan moving are they moving quick enough um to encounter any potential acceleration of a buildup that may come from the PRC especially in the straight yes I think uh some of that's been quite remarkable Japan certainly the case in point I mean they've turned their entire defense budget around and completely committed to it uh the the trilateral
▶ 2:19:09arrangement that the Biden Administration sought with them with the United States Japan and South Korea I think is historic in every sense of the word you know that South Korea and Japan coming together because of a common uh enemy the the obviously South Korea does have challenges in in terms of its present government internally but the their commitment that they have made to return to robust training with the United States
▶ 2:19:39uh and and also recognizing uh you know how Kim Jong-un has changed any thought of reunification with South Korea and is claiming the peninsula uh in terms of their own sovereignty and aligning with the other three countries uh in terms of the peninsula being in their sphere of influence is is a fundamental change and South Korea certainly is standing up up against all of that
▶ 2:20:10so and Taiwan I think there's more that they can do and uh Congressman Molton was all over this in in in terms of some of the Innovation changes that they can make that could strengthen their defenses uh while they're waiting for the major industrial items that they're owed as a result of their uh $1 million purchases so yes we're moving in the right direction but there's more that can be done gentlemen's
▶ 2:20:40time expired here and I recognize a gentleman from Indiana Mr Mesmer for five minutes is it now on there we go
▶ 2:21:11um all right start over thank you Mr chairman I'd like to thank the witnesses for being here today the threats that the US is facing today are more challenging serious than ever and now is the time for the US to focus un increasing defense spending General King currently China has the world's leading Hypersonic missile Arsenal and they continue to develop conventional and nuclear armed Hypersonic missiles while the dod has continued to experience setbacks because of this the dod established a Hypersonic flight test bed called mock TB a program that is designed to increase the
▶ 2:21:41Cadence and decrease the cost of developing hypersonics this program is leveraging commercial practices to rapidly scale flight testing of hypersonic technology could you talk about the value of having a robust testing program that would increase the Cadence and decrease the cost of hypersonics like mock TB to support the technology maturation Pro process for hypersonics I certainly China has a lead uh on Hypersonic weapons they've they have deployed these weapons uh so
▶ 2:22:11they're currently in their in Arsenal uh and we are catching up here but look at what this is the United States uh and I'm convinced we're going to get there with our own capability um and Hypersonic weapons as we all know they are they are difficult to track difficult to intercept uh it's a new reality of War itself and as they are going to be used and the intimidating
▶ 2:22:41aspect of it is back in 21 uh when China launched a fractional orbital bombardment system and circumnavigated the globe and we we could not track that nor would we be able to intercept it and it would have the capability also to carry a nuclear weapon so yeah this is advanced technology we're behind uh but I I I I'm convinced we're Absolut committed uh to get these weapons and get them deployed as quickly as possible okay
▶ 2:23:12as a followup to that over the fast over the past four years the Biden Administration missile defense priorities of the dod were put on the back burner it's great to see the Trump Administration has already signal signaled it will rior rep prioritize missile defense systems uh General Kane as I alluded in my last question our adversaries are producing Hypersonic systems at a unprecedented rate how important is it for the Glide phase Interceptor program which is supposed to briide America's First defense against Hypersonic vehicles and also
▶ 2:23:42a program that Biden delayed until 2035 against the directives from Congress be rep re prioritized for the well as a secretary defense uh he Heth has said this is now a major priority for DOD I mean obviously uh this committee will have to see the details of of what that means as a part of the national defense strategy which which certainly they'll they'll be crafting and what are the specific uh
▶ 2:24:12capabilities that need need to be there but I I think it's a an absolute step in the right direction okay uh while we're talking about missile defense what do you see as the long-term trajectory for the Iron Dome for America executive order by President Trump well I think we need to take a deeper dive in this to understand what are we really talking about here I mean obviously we we're not going to deploy defense missiles all over the United States
▶ 2:24:42this has a lot to do with space based technology and how do we track and how do we defend uh using space in a way that we're not using it today um so more work needs to be done in terms of the conceptualization of this but in terms of the objective in better able to protect our homeland given the advance that Hypersonic missiles and sophisticated uh cruise missiles that Russia
▶ 2:25:12is has at least has aspirations of that can circumnavigate the globe uh these These are fundamentally objectives that are worthy of conceptual study and also deployment and we need to find out more about how we best can get at this and I think we're in a very early stages of it right now okay thank you that kind of leads into my next question do you think a space-based Interceptor system is needed to protect
▶ 2:25:44hypersonics yes and the previous administration felt the same way about that I mean we we have to make advances in space to be able to identify to be able to track and then also to be able to intercept and we don't have that uh capability today remember all of our all of our systems are designed to track icbms that are coming in the northern hemisphere from the east or the west and with the development of these
▶ 2:26:14uh Hypersonic Glide vehicles that can circumnavigate the globe that can come from any any direction and we've got to be able to identify track and intercept that we don't have that capability today thank you Mr chairman I yield back representative Crow Colorado you have five minutes thank you chairman um General I just wanted to start with you and respond to something that you said in the opening which which I agree with there there is near consensus and a bipartisan
▶ 2:26:44basis in this committee that our procurement and Contracting systems are badly broken that we are wasting tens of billions of dollars on systems that are not effective that are not efficient that are not being fielded quick enough um that is not in the interest of our constituents and and taxpayers uh that we need drastic reform and it's one of our biggest National Security issues uh again near consensus on that issue and and I I liked your analogy about talking about DOD from the business frame right that no business
▶ 2:27:15would um would would operate that way I struggle though with squaring that with the the constant asks for more money right uh because how can we say that it should operate more efficiently and more like a business uh if and if it's wasting tens of billions of dollars inefficient and DOD hasn't passed an audit ever um and then we should just pump tens of billions of dollars more and increase the to the Top Line
▶ 2:27:45because the dod is a rational organization actually and and and rational organizations respond to incentives and if the incentive structure uh is broken then you have to change that incentive structure so I would just pause it to my fellow members that if we want to change the incentive structure and make this big change then we have to tie increases to the Top Line and increases to additional funding to that reform that bifurcating those actually won't
▶ 2:28:15make no sense and and and because we've been debating this as long as I've been in Congress reform reform reform reform efficiency six plus years and virtually nothing has changed so we have to connect the two uh and I'd love to work with anybody who would be willing to to do that um Dr Carlin to go to you I I am deeply concerned with the lack of capturing Lessons Learned uh in in the Ukraine Russia War
▶ 2:28:45right there there is uh this is the most brutal War since World War II um massive amounts of casualties massive amounts of Destruction uh and and you know both the ukrainians and the Russians are actually learning quickly and they're adapting quickly but what I'm hearing from our own people both our intelligence agencies and our DOD is that we're not we we're not both putting those lessons to the cooms and we're not putting them into the schoolhouse
▶ 2:29:15to adapt our battle battle drills to adapt our ttps to do new things it's just not happening so can you talk to me uh has that been your experience as well and how do we tackle that thanks for highlighting that congressmen um as you know also it's often easier to learn the lessons of others than ourselves and to do that introspect introspection we saw that with the US Army which really studied the 1978 Arab Israeli War or the 2014 Russian invasion CRI of Crimea arguably probably a lot more than they studied
▶ 2:29:46say uh their role in the US war in Vietnam um so learning from others is really important it's a lot easier lower costs uh my understanding was that the Department of Defense actually has been doing a lot of that when I was still there throughout 2023 we sponsored a massive effort that got briefed to the most senior levels of the Department of Defense that took gosh probably almost a year or so to try to get it a number of different Lessons Learned tactical oper that housed in in call in the center for Army Lessons Learned is that where it's
▶ 2:30:16housed uh this was actually the office of the Secretary of Defense that sponsored that OSD indeed and we did it in collaboration with the joint staff but because we saw it was just so important we wanted it done at headquarters frankly with a whole bunch of smart operators so that it could get into the budget and the strategy process as well so I'm familiar with that I'm sorry I can't speak as well to the uh to the Educational Systems and how professional military education can be although I have found that in visits recently to both West Point and the army war College the questions on these topics are
▶ 2:30:46boundless I'd love General Keane to weigh on on this issue and give me perspective obviously isw does a lot in this front so what is your view of of those Lessons Learned the uh the Army has now institutionalized it and you mentioned it I just took a classified briefing a couple of weeks ago on Lessons Learned um and you know and we have done this it's one of the services that does this very robustly and then proliferates it through its education system
▶ 2:31:16not only did I take the The Briefing on the lessons learn but what was its implications the purpose of the briefing is well here is what is happening what is the implications for the United States Army in terms of the changes we make and the exercise I saw was in play demonstrating those new capabilities and the changes that the Army had to make based solely on those Lessons Learned I can't speak to whether they're being transported to the
▶ 2:31:46cocoms I'm assuming uh IND commander and others are all over this I would imagine their staffs are doing it but institutionalizing is the important thing here because that's how you change the education system and the operational capabilities of the forces the gentleman's time has expired representative crank Colorado you have five minutes thank you Mr chairman um and thank you for your Insight today and your testimony I appreciate that uh General Kee
▶ 2:32:17um you talked earlier about the way that we're buying drones for instance right now that we've got maybe you know we can buy a hundred drones when we need 20,000 drones and I guess I think of this and my colleagues have talked about this a little bit but the threat of lower cost easily attainable weapons um like drones or cyber warfare that many of our adversaries are using how do we become how how do we prevent becoming Goliath
▶ 2:32:48uh in the David versus Goliath ath with with the rock that hits Us in the head uh when we're really thinking that we're Invincible in other areas I guess i' I'd ask your thoughts on on that for both of you general or whoever would like to go first sure thank thank you for that question Congressman um I mean you're exactly right that this is becoming more of a challenge and we've seen this in particular against our troops in places like Iraq and Syria and so the US military has had to worry about how to deal with this problem in terms of platforms to be
▶ 2:33:18sure but also in terms of tactics techniques and procedures and I think that may be part of the secret sauce for how to deal with a counter uh uncrewed autonomous system challenge yeah well the changing character of War has been uh really quite traumatic and we've not seen anything quite like it when you look at what is happening uh in the war in Ukraine so this is a landbased war obviously where that's the focus uh Ukraine doesn't really have
▶ 2:33:48uh an Air Force but they they obviously they have What's called the Drone core they they've had to form this because they recognize that to maximize the capability of surveillance and killer drones it's much better to have it in a separate organization where you have all that Innovation together as opposed to being in a tank Battalion or an infantry uh Battalion per se and when you look at the battlefield itself where the where the Russians
▶ 2:34:19and the Ukrainian are closing the casties are enormous but the reality is the drones are influencing those casualties more than anything else artillery still does more casually producing as a weapon system than anything else drones are second but the drones are the uh give the uh give the proponent the ability to see the battlefield and detect movement and capture that movement
▶ 2:34:49so so that you can put a killing system on it in a matter of seconds so Warfare as we know it has dramatically changed and how best you integrate this capability uh is is really the what has taking place right before our eyes the Russians still have huge tactical problems in terms of their leadership the the willingness of their Force to fight and the skill sets that they
▶ 2:35:19have the the ukrainians are outnumbered but they have huge amount of creativity and Innovation and they have the will to fight they're fighting for their their families they're fighting for their their preservation of their of their way of life but yeah the the technological changes on the on the battlefield are quite dramatic combined arms maneuver uh which is what we were seeing a little bit of last year is hardly taking
▶ 2:35:49place at all because if you move you get killed if you identified you get killed and it it's it's really quite remarkable how how this change is impacting ground Warfare not not seen anything like it uh in some time well and maybe I would ask this question I probably don't have time to get much of an answer but on Iran very quickly how do we break this Iranian regime you know I remember back in during the Obama Administration we had um uh we had a student uprising
▶ 2:36:20and I think we lost an opportunity there to to get rid of this Iranian regime are we at a moment here where there're they're broken and we could we could finally push that over the edge and bring freedom and liberty perhaps to the people of Iran you know I remember that very well that was the summer of 2009 um you know where the people are actually saying where are you you know President Obama similar to comparing it to Reagan and uh and and Poland
▶ 2:36:50you know in in supporting the factory workers uh all I can tell you for a fact is that they are in the weakest position they've been in since the regime was formed and the hostility inside the country is significant and you know how they solve this I mean if the people take to the streets again by the tens of thousands by the hundred of thousands they will go out there and kill as many of them as they possibly can to get them off the streets their security Services
▶ 2:37:20you know will unleash themselves uh on those people the gentlem I I don't know what it's going to take uh specifically uh for that kind of implosion to take place but based on the information I'm receiving uh they are much closer to it than they have ever been I don't know whether we're weeks away or months away I I just don't have those kind of facts the gentleman's time is expired representative takuda Hawaii you have five minutes thank you Mr chair um you know I know a number of
▶ 2:37:50questions have been asked to date but to to echo on to the sentiments of my colleagues I agree with what former secretary Mattis told the Senate armed services committee that if you don't fund the state department fully then I need to buy more ammunition he was clear that our International Affairs budget and our defense budget are inextricably Linked In terms of our advancing of our national interest but that ultimately the state department and its programs needed to come first and be backed up second by our military if not we will trade this power diplomacy for our
▶ 2:38:20boys and girls on the front line um I also want to Echo the alarm expressed by many members of this committee and in countries across the world with the administration's freeze on foreign assistance and attempted shutdown of usci no matter how long these policies last they have sent a shocking and harmful signal to our partners allies and yes our adversaries about our commitment now questionable commitment to our shared values and interests across the globe General Kean Dr Carlin for the record just a yes or no will suffice as the the attempted shutdown of usaid
▶ 2:38:51and the freeze on US foreign assistance alarmed our allies and partners and emboldened and abdicated our soft power leadership role to our adversaries including China and Russia simple yes or no ad do yes General Keen well uh listen the the problems we've seen the usaid had in terms of what they are for the the loss of these this funding billions of dollars of funding yes or no are we abdicating our role as a soft power leader
▶ 2:39:22um throughout the globe emboldening our our adversaries like China and Russia does give believe we need to continue to fund the state department in terms of uh programs that make sense that add value and add to our national security period okay so I would take that as a a cautious yes um I want to focus specifically on our state department then funding for nonprofit organizations that work on China related issues from outside of China they track protests monitor State censorship
▶ 2:39:52and document ongoing human rights abuse including those related to the weager genocide since the funding freeze many of these organizations are in crisis forced to abruptly suspend their work and layoff staff this is a critical blow we know to the already limited information flow outside of China and it puts us and the global community at an extreme disadvantage in terms of holding the Chinese Communist Party accountable General Keane Dr Carlin from your perspective as former Pentagon leaders how important
▶ 2:40:22is this kind of information on China to the types of decisions we have to make at the Pentagon especially in terms of shaping the information environment around China well certainly it's important and uh it's vital to have that kind of uh understanding going forward um but as I've said before uh we need all the elements National Power applied in dealing uh with the threat of the Chinese
▶ 2:40:52Communist party and its intent to dominate the region and replace United States as the world's Global power all the elements of National Power integrated together have toed robbing our our allies and partners thank you Dr Carlin Congressman I would absolutely agree with what you heard from General Keane look we can always turn to the Department of Defense to solve problems the challenge with that is they're not always good at solving certain problems right development experts diplomats are often going to
▶ 2:41:22be better in circumstances moreover there's going to be an opportunity cost and so if we are having the Department of Defense do things that maybe are more expensive or are not on the priority list that will cause a problem just one example right to the extent we have pilots from the US Air Force that are flying migrants elsewhere that's actually a lot more expensive than using chartered aircraft for instance it also means those Pilots aren't spending that time thinking about about what I think much of this committee concurs with which is the primary challenge
▶ 2:41:53of China absolutely and I think you also agree that when it comes to being able to gather intelligence and information we should not be limiting ourself but to your point Dr Carlin dollar for dollar many of these nonprofit organizations that we have funded had amongst the most effective and giving us the Intel we need from places like China uh lastly I didn't the time if I want to raise the Pacific Islands that are so geost strategically important to the Indo Pacific region for years China has been making major inroads in this region peeling away taiwan's diplomatic allies and deepening
▶ 2:42:23security relations that pose major risk to our posture and operations last year China regained its place as the second largest bilateral donor to the Pacific surpassing the US just again just this week the Cook Islands expected to sign a partnership agreement with China do you both um familiar with this area believe that when we are shutting down and suspending support to these foreign assistance programs that we are basically abdicating and giving away the Pacific Island region critically important to our adversary China
▶ 2:42:54so the time has expired thank you if I can request that that question be um sent out and responded to briefly thank you Mr chair real brief all right representative hameda Arizona you have five thank you General Keane warns that the threats we face today are the most serious since 1945 and yet as Dr Carlin's testimony describes we conf front adversaries operating beyond the traditional boundaries of conflict across a highly integrated
▶ 2:43:24Battlefield that spans from cyber attacks on our home front infrastructure to nuclear brinksmanship abroad from the leading State sponsor of Terror Iran the central challenge is this unprecedented convergence of threats where Rising revisionist powers are deepening cooperation to undermine American interests worldwide while Rogue regimes collude to blunt our countermeasures nowhere is this more apparent than the No Limits partnership between Russia and China who support each other's territorial Ambitions while enabling weapons
▶ 2:43:54development that jeopardizes our overmatch meanwhile North Korea and Iran trade ballistic missile technologies that threaten threaten our greatest allies and shipping lanes like the houes have been doing in the Red Sea Congress must assess this net assessment of Allied defense spending industrial based output force Readiness and modernization timelines against our adversaries rapidly Fielding Advanced combined cap abilities America must lead in developing the most lethal forces to deter this axis of aggression before
▶ 2:44:24it spirals into a global conflict my first question is for General Kean uh General do our current capabilities match our adversaries rapid Fielding of hypersonics and AI enabled Technologies my district has all the Taiwanese semiconductors coming into it so I know the semiconductor Space is really critical to this but I'm just wondering do our cap current capabilities match our adversaries currently well in terms of
▶ 2:44:55hypersonic capabilities assisted by Ai No they do not um the reality is that you know as we mentioned China uh is ahead of us on this they they have their assets deployed and we're still testing ours uh other capabilities we obviously you know have advances that that they don't have particularly uh in submarine warfare but uh we have a ways to go here and that's the reality of it it's not just what what China has managed
▶ 2:45:25to do is is not just numbers in terms of quantity their the quality that they are producing in terms of their platforms uh is is quite sophisticated and it and it's grown in quality through the years that's the reality of of what we're doing our systems are excellent as well I'm not suggesting that they're not um but there is there is a and as I pointed out when you get about a th000 miles from the coast of China
▶ 2:45:55the the advantage moveed decisively to China in terms of a military advantage that they have thank you general and this question is for both of you but let's start out with Dr Carlin uh what are the most critical reforms Congress should prioritize to ensure a defense industrial base can sustain high intensity conflicts across multiple theaters thank you Congressman uh I would just note by the way that in addition to looking at Chinese capabilities it's important to look at experience of which they have virtually none
▶ 2:46:26right last where they fought was nearly 50 years ago and it didn't go so terribly well for them in terms of what Congress can do uh regarding the defense industrial base two things jump out one is on time Appropriations that gives them and of course the Department of Defense some sort of predictability that when we put out a strategy going to align the resources appropriately and then I think think secondly uh Congress can have some important and hard conversations with defense industry about them delivering the things they have committed to delivering
▶ 2:46:56in a timely manner and then trying to figure out when things aren't looking the way that they should and need some real change uh what what needs to happen congress's leadership on the submarine industrial base is a really good example here and um if I can go back do you think foreign military sales also is combined with this with our defense industrial base because I've I've been hearing that some of our allies have been reducing their American military equipment and weapons and shifting other places because they're not able
▶ 2:47:26to get a lot of the equipment on time I'm not familiar with them reducing and I actually used to oversee all of our foreign military sales throughout most of the Biden Administration uh that process has gone much faster than it used to go the technical aspects of of that process not least that thanks to lessons learned from Ukraine and then from uh assisting Israel post the October 7 attacks um so usually folks want us uh military uh platforms they're often times the the best I think
▶ 2:47:57one challenge can just be there are so many customers it becomes an issue of prioritization all right I back representative uh Tran from California you have five minutes thank you Mr chair I uh welcome and thank the witnesses for being here uh Dr Carlin I am a big proponent that our military's greatest asset is its people additional funding weapon platforms and equipment and even the most sophisticated capabilities are meaningless without
▶ 2:48:27a robust and cohesive fighting force each of the military Serv uh services are facing recruiting challenges amid a disinterested recruiting market and other factors my question to you is what solution would you offer to overcome the current recruiting challenges challenges facing our military today okay thank you for that congressman and I wholeheartedly agree with you our people are our secret sauce absolutely so there have been these recruiting challenges over the last few years we saw last year or so that
▶ 2:48:57those are starting to turn a corner for example with the Army and I think the Army is a really interesting model here they've set up some different ways for folks to join where they've been able to get some of that training get some of that education so then they are kind of have those capabilities that are needed to to to really be be successful solders so I think that's one important piece another broader piece frankly is trying to bridge the gap between those who serve in the military and the American public right this is a gap that has really grown into
▶ 2:49:27a Gorge it's not least because one half of 1% of Americans serve in the military and folks who serve are often going to be on these kind of big sprawling bases rather than spread out around the country so really kind of upping the recruitment effort in spots where folks don't have a lot of interaction with folks in uniform and in in and trying to incentivize that that interaction to just lower those barriers so all Americans understand here's what it means to join the military here's what a day in the life of someone who serves look like looks like and here's
▶ 2:49:57why you might want to consider it Congress can I add to that sure first of all in 24 all services met their recruiting objectives so they have figured out what the issues are and much of it had to do with improving their own programs and I think the Army had a pretty Innovative program in in dealing with people uh who couldn't pass the Armed Forces test and and they didn't teach the tested them what they wound up doing is teaching arithmetic I call it
▶ 2:50:28all right and and reading to people because they're coming out of Education systems in the United States that are wanting the second thing get to your point about people our retention all services retentions are almost at record levels which tells you that the people who are serving are getting a mean meaningful and purposeful experience that they value and the degree of satisfaction is high my concern about it having spent 20 months looking
▶ 2:50:58at the national defense strategy and and the this the services applying that strategy is we're so much smaller than what we should be we're asking but the requirements are going up given the threats we've been discussing here today we're asking more of them that's the concern I have if we don't grow them then then that retention may go down because life balance is going to change with their families it's not happening the morale is good and they feel
▶ 2:51:28purposeful of what they're doing I I totally agree with you our people are our most important resource thank you General uh my next question uh before I start that is uh as a veteran myself I chose to serve because of the distinct privilege to give back to my country and my community yet it recent actions by this Administration to attack members of the military and undermine efforts to be more inclusive are harming the sanctity of service and threaten the lore of service for potential recruits what impacts
▶ 2:51:59do you believe President Trump's recent actions to abolish Dei efforts within DOD will have on our ability to adequately recruit and retain new Talent uh Dr car look our military as you congressman is stronger when we have different types of folks serving in it right folks with different backgrounds different experiences from different parts of the country and where they feel like this is uh an environment where where they they can Thrive um we have a ton of evidence that that
▶ 2:52:29is the case I'll just give you one one data point which is about 20% or so of our active duty force is women uh they are playing critical roles throughout the US Military and so when we have an environment where folks maybe feel like not everyone has those opportunities it ends up inhibiting the terrific kind of capabilities that is the US military that again sets the US military apart from our competitors like China and like Russia thank you so much Dr Carlin I for one am deeply concerned
▶ 2:52:59that the president's attacks on the service members will have a chilling effect on recruitment later today I will be sending a letter with some of my colleagues on H challenging the decision to disband certain Cadet clubs gentlem time expired chair now recognizes himself for five minutes um I just I wanted to really talk about Naval policy but I I got to clear up some things um first and foremost I want to welcome the vast majority of my Democrat colleagues to the Doge caucus because they want to streamline the acquisition process
▶ 2:53:29so you're all welcome we get together twice a week um mayam I understand uh your experience in jibuti uh I lived there and I served there and my my my experiences there are remarkably different than your testimony and usaid essentially paying tribute around the world like we did to the barber Pirates and that's why they need to be
▶ 2:53:59completely defunded and rebuilt from the ground up so Thomas Jefferson did not want to get us involved in foreign conflicts but he did on purpose because he didn't want to pay tribute anymore and the barbar Pirates were taking uh our citizens and allies hostage and selling them into slavery so let's just let's just remember that and also ma'am I would ask you Dr Carlin have you ever been sitting down in ATI somewhere and surrounded by the Taliban and have an A10 come over and rip off some 30 millimeters and Save You and Your
▶ 2:54:30lives I'm going to guess the answer is no so when we're talking about these Legacy systems we have to understand that A10 platform has saved countless of my Navy sealed Brothers Special Operations forces around the world and general purpose forces so let's not just throw that out um General Keane I want to personally welcome you home from Vietnam and your your service is remarkable and um if no one's told you that I'm going to tell you that now
▶ 2:55:00and experiences were very similar My Generation fought Afghanistan I fought in Afghanistan and Iraq and in the Horn of Africa Bosnia herg goia was my first conflict and we we just have to acknowledge the fact that we have the most highly educated and powerful military in the history of the plan planet we have not won a war in 80 years that's what you and I have in common sir um and part of the problem is and Miss Carlin you're representing Academia essentially here uh is
▶ 2:55:30that there's a great book if you haven't read it's called best and brightest was published 1972 um we haven't learned we simply have not learned we didn't learn from Vietnam we didn't learn from Afghanistan we didn't learn from Iraq and I'm I'm very very concerned that we're stumbling our way back into another one of these conflicts by not focusing on the most important thing we can and it's the first soft truth that humans are more important than hardware and when we focus these are
▶ 2:56:01a lot of these systems are critically important but we have to understand at the end of the day we have to have a group of people that are willing to go into a room and shoot somebody in the face and that's what wins a war I just wanted to frame that so uh General Kee I understand that you're not a naval expert but uh looking at at the de evolution of my Navy um I don't think we have a naval expert at this point um we have given the Red Sea over to the houthis and I don't understand that
▶ 2:56:31Straits of Mala what are we doing so General Kean if we remember that humans are more important in Hardware what do you think you as a recognized expert for decades in military leadership what can we do to reshape the most important piece of this puzzle and that's the well using the example that that you're describing I mean it's our unwillingness to confront the adversary that permits this you know disaster going on
▶ 2:57:01in the Red Sea and the Suz Canal I mean just think about this we have had anti-ship ballistic missiles fired at Navy warships when's the last time that's happened that's never happened it's never happened and and and it has happened recently and what did we do about that not much of anything so General I I and we were in seconds there's there were 300 people on that ship right that would we were in seconds of that ship
▶ 2:57:31exploding correct so General Keen I'm sorry I don't mean to interrupt I just have a very limited time my colleague Mr Jimenez asked you a question Miss Carlin about risk aversion and what he was referring to is uh our naval officers and many of our military officers are have become careerists and I'd say that's why we lost Vietnam that's why we lost Afghanistan that's why we lost Iraq so when our general officers and our field grade officers are focused more on their career than they're accomplishing the
▶ 2:58:01mission which is protecting our citizens and our allies we lose and until that changes we will never win another conflict again uh my time has expired uh Mr senson from the great city of Illinois recognized for 5 minutes thank you to the gentleman Mr chairman from Wisconsin uh good morning all Welcome to our Witnesses General thank you for your great service to our nation Dr Carlin uh thank you so much for giving your Insight and speaking truth um uh as my first hearing as an armed services member let me tell
▶ 2:58:31you what an honor it is uh to be sitting in this chair today my district is Central and Northwestern Illinois it's home to the Rock Island Arsenal our our Army's first Army Headquarters also the 182nd airlift with at Peoria I'm proud to represent the men and women at these entities both uniformed and civilian and the work that they do to support our National Defense interests at home and abroad
▶ 2:59:01your written testimony you both discussed the importance of our defense industrial base and how critical it is to counter Russia and China's growing influence and aggression before diving into my questions I'd like to touch briefly on the importance of our organic industrial base and the work at the Rock Island Arsenal having played a key role in every conflict going back to the 1830s generations of illinoisans in my district have worked at the Arsenal building the equipment that keeps our men and women safe
▶ 2:59:32In 1832 The Rock Island Arsenal began a story of American innovation leading the world in cuttingedge Technologies and advanced manufacturing the labor of those in our region is the story of the heartland that we would ever think about putting an Arsenal on an island in the middle of the Mississippi River hard workers good neighbors serving their communities every day and our nation by providing the resources needed to uphold our values here
▶ 3:00:02and around the world it's therefore Mission critical to the United States Readiness that we have the tools to equip the Arsenal and the organic industrial base to meet the demands of the 21st century Dr Carlin I'll begin my questions with you in this era of complex and interconnected Global threats can you speak to the importance of focusing not just on the Weapons Systems but on the infrastructure and the men and women who build and maintain the systems
▶ 3:00:33we need thank you Congressman absolutely you know in 2018 General Keane and I both worked on a national defense strategy commission and in that we assessed that we really had to focus on the defense industrial base we were worried about the state of it worried in particular about the state of our Munitions well lo and behold a couple years ago those concerns become spectacular as we see the impact of Russia's invasion of Ukraine now the good news is folks have all gotten to learn the lesson while not being engaged
▶ 3:01:03directly in a war with American Service members so the progress that has been made with the defense industrial base over the last two and a half three years or so has been crucial I would also really commend Congress because your leadership especially on the munitions piece like with multi-year procurement Authority has been incredibly important I mean frankly as as you know well uh having the people is absolutely important they've also got to have the stuff thank you Doctor um General Keane you spoke on the
▶ 3:01:33importance of uh consistent funding uh for the industrial base and and the Investments that we have made over the past several years in particular to update our facilities can you elaborate a little bit more on the importance of continuing to ensure modernization is prioritized in the budget yeah this is very important the organic industrial base the which is what the the Department of Defense owns themselves is is absolutely critical
▶ 3:02:03separated from the commercial part of the defense industrial base and starting with the second half of the Trump Administration uh major funding began and it continued right through the Biden Administration and uh the war in Ukraine certainly elevated the significance of that particularly as it came to ammunition plants and the like so we went literally from $200 million to $800 to1 billion
▶ 3:02:33a year and then uh this committee supported a $4 billion supplemental in terms of funding for artillery ammunition and we managed to build our first new small alarms plant since 1941 in a place called Lake City Missouri this is 50 caliber and below so the war in Ukraine has truly emphasized that many of our facilities are outdated
▶ 3:03:04and some of them actually are not as safe as they should be because of the processes that they're using we've got to fix it and we've got to continue the funding that has begun by two administrations the Trump gentlem adist thank you General I look forward to meeting the the the chair now recognizes Madame goodlander from the small yet Mighty State of New Hampshire thank you Mr van Orton and you to our Witnesses for your service to our country
▶ 3:03:35and for being here today for this hearing it's an important one for me because it's my first hearing as a member of the House armed services committee it's it's truly the honor of my lifetime to represent the state I love so much small But Mighty indeed the state of New Hampshire in the people's house and at a time of great division in our country I'm I am so excited to be serving on this committee and proud to be doing so because when we don't agree on a lot a lot of the time but today we've agreed on several core things
▶ 3:04:05and how refreshing and hopeful is that one of the things one of the through lines in the work that you've both done in your many years of service to our country and in our conversation this morning has been the imperative of a defense industrial base that is prepared to meet the moment um an American defense industrial base that is innovative that is Nimble responsive and competitive and you've pointed us to some important things that we can do here in Congress um including ontime Appropriations and a return to
▶ 3:04:35normal order uh which is a huge priority for me um but you've also both pointed to a really important fact um that in 1991 we had 51 Primes today we have five we've we've seen incredible consolidation in our defense industrial base just like we've seen consolidation in Industries across the American economy um General Kean you wrote in your written testimony something I couldn't agree with more that American Democratic capitalism can outwork
▶ 3:05:06outwit and out innovate China's State capitalism it's it's so true but capitalism without competition isn't the kind of capitalism that the American people deserve so I want to ask both of you starting with you Dr Carlin how has consolidation in the defense industrial base undermined American Military Readiness thank you very much congresswoman and I wholeheartedly agree with all those points you highlighted look consolidation at the end of the Cold War might have made sense for that moment in time
▶ 3:05:36but as you note it was really dramatic right an order of magnitude change in our defense industry and that meant not only are you not having folks kind of producing the material you don't have a this the same number of folks innovating and thinking about what the next thing should be that we should be investing in now we've saw about frankly three decades or so that consolidation being problematic what we've seen interestingly in the last few years is other types of companies start to come into this space right other types of companies who we might not
▶ 3:06:07naturally think of as doing defense starting to do defense and getting more comfortable with that and playing more of our role in our national security interests so uh while I've been quite concerned about that consolidation I am hopeful that in particular given the uh efforts over the last few years particularly by this committee to work with the defense industry and the involvement of other types of companies that we can start to see those shifts that we need through serious Focus thank you so I want to want
▶ 3:06:37to open it up to you General Kean but I want to ask you also we've talked about the stuff and we've talked about the people and you you've both said it the men and women of our Joint Force are our secret they are our most important resource I want to ask you both what is the single most important thing you think that Congress can do to make sure that our Recruitment and Retention numbers keep us in a place to be the most powerful military force the world has ever known well from my from my perspective um we're too
▶ 3:07:07small and our requirements are growing so we have to we have to authorize our services to grow to meet those requirements because that will eventually impact you know people's life balance look at War breaks out the mission comes first and families are at distance second that's just the way it is but when we're at peace Services families are trying to find some kind of life balance
▶ 3:07:37and the force I see out there is being stressed because the requirements of climate so we've got to we've got to grow that Force so there's the life balance truly truly is there for them I don't want to I don't want to uh be negative about how that force today feels about themselves they feel very good about themselves their their sense of satisfaction about what they're doing is high and
▶ 3:08:08the number one indicator of morale in a in the service is retention rates and ours are almost record so we should feel feel good about that and this committee should feel good about some of the funding that's taken place to help that more needs to be done as we've stated in my final three seconds I think something we all agree on also should the Pentagon be subjected to a full audit the Pentagon all parts of our government should be able to go through an audit
▶ 3:08:38and pass an audit it's responsible to American taxpayers the gentle L's time has expired the chair now recognizes Mr vinman from Virginia for five minutes the chair chair now recognizes Mr Fallon from the great state of Texas for five minutes thank you to our very experienced chairman thank appreciate it oh guys you got to give him a little grief General he's a Navy SEAL you know on an Air Force guy Army uh General Omar Bradley said
▶ 3:09:08I'm sure you heard uh tactics are for amateurs and Logistics are professionals and I think we uh given the daunting task War I did a pretty good job with Logistics on the Fly for the those almost four years and then we seem to have kind of lost the Lessons Learned in Korea and um so I wanted to just ask you obviously contested Logistics in Indo paycom a is a topic of great debate and in your view what has the US done
▶ 3:09:38or should do to secure and expand the access in the region well the uh the reality is a number of changes I think need need to be made certainly um our World War II bases which we're pretty much relying on they are all vulnerable to China's attack long range weapons air power we have to harden them but we have to and the Air Force is
▶ 3:10:09is is moving in this direction in terms of establishing expeditionary bases that they can set up in in a number of stat uh and we need to present that kind of a problem uh to the Chinese in other words it complicates their problem U and expeditionary bases we have to the and then we have to make certain that those bases are also defensible uh so yes the what the Chinese are
▶ 3:10:39trying to do is deny us access um and the other thing that we know if we move our surface ships and if there's validity in war games and I think there are some validities I don't think war games are an end in themselves what I get out of it is not so much who wins and loses but what do you learn about your own capabilities what works and what doesn't work and our surface ships are very vulnerable that that's that is the reality and it's not going to change uh in the near term
▶ 3:11:09but uh submarines are absolutely very effective and we can use and above the sea autonomous vehicles as well not by the hundreds but by the thousands to make certain that we're imposing cost uh and that gives us access one of the problems we have if you play a war game China's going to take down the major bases that we intend to fly our air power into
▶ 3:11:40so we find out we find ourselves using air power from as far away as Australia or from a far as uh as Alaska and that's not nearly what we need to have so yes there deny access is is the asymmetric Warfare that China is imposing on us but given the technology that exists giving the willingness to change the strategy and the operational concept
▶ 3:12:10uh I believe with some imagination we can break down that denial of access that we have and begin to kind of penetration what we're not talking about we're not talking about defeating China here we're talking about imposing enough cost on them to deter them from taking offensive actions against us much as we did with the Soviet Union they outnumbered us significantly I mentioned before and the reality is we
▶ 3:12:40put together an imaginative operational strategy that imposed cost on them and it effectively deterred them from conducting that Invasion that they truly wanted to do and that is where we need to be and we need to exercise it also right in front of them which we we did every two years in front of the Soviet Union and we don't do enough of that operationally we do individual exercis with uh bilateral with a
▶ 3:13:10country or one or two with others but we don't really put together an operational plan and exercise that plan and I think a mistake and and hopefully we'll make changes to get on with doing that it is it is about convincing your adversary that the cost that we can impose on them is too significant for them to take the operational risk to start that conflict and general real quick do you think given the the
▶ 3:13:40changing realities of warfare that uh we should focus maybe more and lean in on subs and uavs yeah absolutely and I know Dr Carlin would would agree with us would agree with me I mean our submarines have a decisive Advantage we just don't have enough of them the gentleman's time has expired recognizes yes sir uh the journ recognizes Mr vinman from Virginia for minutes thank you General ke Dr Carlin I'm excited
▶ 3:14:10to join this committee at a critical time in our nation's history to make sure that the next generation of War Fighters serving today as equipped for the next fight including many of whom are stationed on the three installations I represent in my district without regard to political party or ideology National Security and support to our uniform services must be bipartisan while also ensuring accountability Effectiveness and efficiency the current threat environment demands a part bipartisan Nimble and Rapid approach
▶ 3:14:40to countering both today's and tomorrow's adversaries using all elements of National Power including diplomatic information military and economic General Keane you talked about this access of adversaries that has Loosely formed with Iran North Korea China and Russia I call it an access of autocrats we have recently seen Iran weakened as a result of Israel's military actions Russia is also under strain after three years of war in Ukraine since this is a team sport and uh looking at us
▶ 3:15:11and its Partners versus the AIS of autocrats holistically we want our strength to be greater than theirs in the short term next year or 18 months or so uh the Russia dimension of this access is actually the one that we could influence the most dramatically and at a relatively low cost compared to our budget in military jargon sort of an economy of force operation can and uh we can and must do this while acknowledging that China is the pacing threat uh that we need
▶ 3:15:41to be gearing up for do you agree with this assessment um and that's both for you and and Dr Carlin yeah C certainly um Russia obviously thought they were going to be able to take Ukraine in a matter of days if not if not weeks they overestimated their own capabilities and underestimated the ukrainians and and now I mean in the last two months they've taken 48,000 casualties
▶ 3:16:11in each month they've Advanced X number of miles across the front line of of troops uh 40 to 50 miles in the course of a year they they truly have their challenges but in their minds they are winning and and that is why Putin is so re resistant to actually come to the negotiating table he'll probably want concessions to get there I think we're on a pathway here if we stay committed and and stay committed
▶ 3:16:41to Ukraine that it it is possible to put enough pressure on Russia to force them to the negotiating table but that means you're going to have to add more to Ukraine than what we are currently doing I agree General Keane and I appreciate that assessment Dr Carlin thank you Congressman I would agree with what you highlighted and frankly if one is worried about China which I think seems to be overwhelming kind of consensus of this committee one has to care about European security what
▶ 3:17:11happens in Ukraine is being watched much much more than just across Europe but across the Pacific as well thank you so um you mentioned that um your your oped uh you talked about rare Earths 60% uh of those um rare Earths are in occupied regions 40% are inuk uh in Ukraine and so I'd posit that it's better that Ukraine a us uh EU aligned country control these assets that are critical to manufacturing all kinds of
▶ 3:17:42things including weapons than Russia and its access of autocrats um General ke Let's uh sort of drill down from the the Strategic to the the operational tactical we already talked about drones and the utility drones and how important they are to the next Battlefield um and I agree with you that we probably need to rebalance these Capital assets that we have with with drones it's probably not an either or it's it's a both and just what what amounts so um in your testimony you said Services need
▶ 3:18:12Congressional relief uh to purchase large quantities of drones from these non-defense commercial sector that are outside of a programmer record are you familiar with prior examples uh where Congress has provided this authorization and 20 seconds or less because I want to give each of you a chance no I'm not aware of it I mean I'm my information comes from the Army Service Chief and and his desire to do just that and uh that that kind of permission in
▶ 3:18:42in the bulk that he's looking for uh hasn't been given him uh as recently I may may be off a little bit I think that's our job and so we need to focus on that Dr I totally agree I would just add uh that it really is worth looking at us Special Operation command special authorities for acquisition because they have managed to in many examples move much more quickly more deafly uh more Innovative gentleman's time has expired the chair now recognizes mrin for five minutes thank you Mr chairman
▶ 3:19:12Mr chairman China's sea power capabilities and ship building uh progress has been fascinating and startling to observe General Kean you you stated in your testimony that autonomous above water vessels and Below water submersible begin to close a gap between where where we are as as the defender of the Free World and the responsibility of this committee to provide the Pentagon with what's
▶ 3:19:42what it needs to prevent and dominate any any looming military conflict particularly regarding um autonomous vessels with for Navy it it it seems to me as as an as an American who loves this country and I'm watching what happens and the system doesn't seem to be functioning very well you know the amount of money that was versus the product that were actually
▶ 3:20:13deploying for our war Fighters it seems to be quite a app uh one of my my colleagues across the aisle earlier mentioned that uh the general lady stated that Young um studying DOD books can't possibly be counted on to explain DOD expenditures well let me say the dod has has has failed seven OD it seemed like us old guys not doing too well either perhaps we we
▶ 3:20:43should give we should give an opportunity to the new Administration to examine these books and and and track this money and as a congress we have to do a much better job on communicating very well with the with with the pentagon's Frontline requirements and to that General King I will ask you uh to address the autonomous vessel requirements that how do you envision our immediate response
▶ 3:21:14uh you stated that that us leaders experimented with new technology to determine what worked best and produce those quickly during the Cold War H how what can we do how would you speak to that how Congress can move to encourage the uh the the Pentagon and the existing process to to embrace a new paradigm of of what we Face yes well the Pentagon is
▶ 3:21:44very much aware of the less that have been learned in the changing character of War as a result of Russia and Ukraine on the battlefield and applying those not just to land Warfare but the sea Warfare the Indo Pacific Commander admiral paparo has is moving in this direction and he is breaking from the past and moving in a direction of what I just described as more autonomous vehicles both above and below the surface
▶ 3:22:15H and that makes all the sense because that is how you overcome the asymmetric successful strategy that China has been applying to deny us access to their military capabilities that are on their Mainland and that is how we deter them if we put those military capab precisely I I I concur in in my remaining time I'd like to get I'd like to get your thoughts on you said something I felt was quite courageous
▶ 3:22:45earlier said you would not recommend going to 5% of G GDP expenditures without reform with the the current process that we're talking about right now the way we spend money and how does that tie in it seems to me that we could immediately quickly move into autonomous production for for land vessels sea vessels undersea vessels and aircraft um to help us close the gap and that it would
▶ 3:23:16be it would be far more affordable we could like make the corrections of the of the way we're spending American treasure and how what The lethality level of our of our military forces are what power we can project worldwide it seemed like the bang for the buck right now is in autonomous vessels would you concur I I absolutely Concur and the service Chiefs that are right on top of this uh combatant commander in the Pacific is yes you can
▶ 3:23:46get a lot of capability for uh considerably less funding than what it takes to build a major platform and but we got to get on with the with the reform as well and look at if we're going to open our books to Young business guys as opposed to Old business guys as mentioned by one of the Congress people who had objected to it I mean what are we intimidated by let's have someone look at this thing we've been looking at it for years and we don't have very good
▶ 3:24:16maybe true thank you Mr chairman my time has expired the gentlem yields back the chair now recognizes Mr Bell and simultaneously offers my deepest condolences for your City chief sir thank you Mr chair a ranking member and also uh Vice ranking member Davis believe this is uh your first Hearing in this role congratulations and it's also my first hearing um on this committee which I'm very proud uh to serve um not not only in this committee
▶ 3:24:47but also my district back home in St Louis uh in a time where political influence is increasing worldwide from adversaries like China Russia and others the United States must must utilize all of its resources to ensure we remain a global force and counter these threats countering our adversaries and protecting our National Security will require a multi-pronged approach that also focuses on our defense intelligence capabilities
▶ 3:25:17this includes the work of support agencies within DOD that Aid in our security efforts the National geospatial Intelligence Agency West which is located in my district in St Louis is one of those agencies um and just for time sakes quickly Dr Carlin and general Kean can you talk about nga's important role in supporting our forces everywhere in the globe thank you Congressman simply put it's critical right NGA has consistently helped
▶ 3:25:48as I've worked for six secretaries of defense I'm guessing General Keane will say something quite similar in helping us understand what the threats are on the horizon what the threats are that we are countering today and how we can best counter them I associate myself completely with Dr Colin's comments uh General Kane for any future fight in the Pacific we're going to have to heavily rely on air Mobility command which is headquartered just outside my district
▶ 3:26:18to move goods and forces around the fight can you talk about their importance in the Pacific both in peace time and wartime well yeah absolutely I mean the challenge the United States has always had as a global power is and we're oceans away usually from where the threat is and so air Mobility command is absolutely crucial and getting us to the theater what has changed is the power projection
▶ 3:26:48that we have done in the past and the last major one was in Iraq in 2003 next one we have to do if it is to the indopacific region it will be contested in other words they will Cyber attack the deployment of it and they will kinetically attack it as well so a strategic deployment being made that is uncontested if the the foe is China is not going to
▶ 3:27:18happen it will be dramatically different than anything we have experienced uh in the past going all the way back to World War II when our deployments were contested so air Mobility command is vital in being able to do that and and my last question is also for you General Kean in your written testimony you mentioned the size of the force being too small with recent attacks on service members quality of life from health care and other angles are you concerned this will act actually hinder
▶ 3:27:49the growing or hinder growing the force no I I still am convinced once we get the message out and the services have done a good job in relooking themselves and how they talk to the American people how they talk to young people how they talk to influencers and they've all proved it it's getting the fact out there that there's value added by service in the military you're going to grow as a human being we're going to strengthen
▶ 3:28:19the values that your family uh or your your religion has given you and you're going to have a meaningful experience you don't necessarily have to make a career out of it but you're going to you're going to have an experience that'll help you uh as you move along the pathway in your journey in life and we have done a better job at communicating with the American people the Congress has helped us with compensation which is also very important and we need help also how how we take care of our families put
▶ 3:28:49that package together I'm optimistic thank you and it's a privilege to yield my time back to the vice ranking member the CH recognizes Mr Davis um thank you so much Mr chair I want to thank our Witnesses today um okay well will you will you that's uh that's two today the chair now recognizes my great friend Mr Mills
▶ 3:29:19from the state of Florida thank you Mr chairman it's uh good to see you actually sitting up there it's good to see one of the oldest members and the least attractive sitting there as chair it makes my heart War um thank you General Keane thanks so much for being here M Cary thank you so much as we look at the lessons learned during the last few years of warfare from Ukraine to Yemen it is clear that rapid innovation in technology and driving rapid Innovations and tactics
▶ 3:29:50small businesses are driving that Innovation here in the private sector and in the commercial sector especially every single day they face both High barriers to entry into the defense sector Dr Carlin there is a wide divide between the agility of offices like the diu and service Innovation Labs what recommendations do you have to export those Innovations to the conventional acquisition Frameworks thank you Congressman absolutely there are these barriers to entry and we see
▶ 3:30:20that not least because of this massive consolidation that happened with our defense industry base so a couple companies got really really good at figuring out how to crack the code of the Department of Defense whole bunch of others as you know have not have not been able to I think we have started to see some good change over the last few years in particular you highlight diu as one really good case study we're starting to see players come into the defense business who wouldn't naturally be there and who are more comfortable being there as well I think one of the things really to
▶ 3:30:50look hard at is how to lower those barriers to entry through Rapid acquisition systems right having these authorities where folks are able to participate in Department of Defense contracts but not have to throw all of their kind of focus towards it and of course on time Appropriations plays an important role for particularly the small businesses and as we know unfortunately the state department the director of Defense trade controls and other whether it's dsp5 export approval DSP 83s to actually engage in the activities of trying to uh work
▶ 3:31:20with other developing nations and also allies have been completely hamstrung and it's been a very delayed process to include we need real procurement reform when it comes to that the overall process uping the D but also just becoming more competitive in the market and so I think that's really important as we look at our economic challenges uh General Keane you know thank you so much for the decades and Decades of service that you've given this nation um you know one of my growing concerns right now when we look at our Armed Forces is the declining recruitment
▶ 3:31:50numbers when we talk of the 42,000 deficit when we talk about the 8600 who is in my personal opinion unconstitutionally purged do you see that these recruitment challenges could pose greater threats for us from a national security perspective moving forward no I don't be quite Frank about it all the services have made their recruiting objectives this year I think they figured out uh how to better communicate effectively to the American people and to young people who may consider uh a service opportunity
▶ 3:32:20and they've you know relooked themselves uh as well so the changes have been made and we we did this uh about 20 years ago when we had a recruiting problem and within a couple of years we solved it certainly the economy always impacts it but it was it was more internal than anything else uh and the services are there uh and I know for a fact the Army will likely exceed rather significant ly it's recruiting objective coming in 2025 I don't can't speak to the other services
▶ 3:32:51I I think we're overstating the recruiting problem uh it it we did have it for two years plus I think it's essentially it it it are we still going to have some challenges of course we got to work hard at it but I think all the services have learned the lesson the Marine Corps taught us well people in it I would just add to that General Kean that while I respect what you're having to say I disagree that recruit deficits are not a potential national security threat as we move forward if our retention levels do not maintain and especially
▶ 3:33:22when you think about quality of life improvements in milcon VA that needs to be guaranteed for our soldiers and for their spouses to say things like not just giving you child care twice a week but five times a week so the spouse can have another career or a pathway to transition but also the idea that you shouldn't work at Chick-fil-A full-time 40 hours a week and make more than a service member risking his life I think that those are also the recruitment challenges but also the things like Dei which was actually causing people to be more concerned because it was wasn't about diversity equity and inclusion it needs to be about increased lethality Readiness and being properly equipped
▶ 3:33:52the way it was when I was in the Army when it was be all you can be when it was when I was in the military and looking at the service groups when it was years in Iraq years in Afghanistan that I served in Koso in other locations that in my opinion while I agree with you on one thing that you definitely said which is that the 2025 recruitment numbers I believe will be very strong but that's because of the incoming Administration and because of the Secretary of Defense who's prioritized the war fighter with that I yield back the gentleman yields back the chair now actually recognizes the Mr Davis
▶ 3:34:22my friend from North Carolina thank you Mr chair um to the W Witnesses thank you so much for being with us today um as we're kicking off the 119th um Dr um Carlin and general King we really appreciate it and to the chair thank you made it to the Finish Line obviously with some staff well thank you very much the gentleman yelds back I too would like to thank you very much for your uh very thoughtful testimony I think we agree on a lot and we disagree on some and that's okay as long
▶ 3:34:52as we continue to understand that that the priority of the Department of Defense must remain lethality and Readiness uh we can move on from there so again uh with that this hearing is adjourned thank you
▶ 3:37:14for for