▶ 0:14:51>> good morning. We are receiving testimony on the posture of the united states army. I want to think our witnesses secretary the army dan driscoll, and chief of staff randy george for being here. It seems the detailed fiscal year budget will not be available for several more weeks. Nonetheless, we will benefit from speaking to both secretary driscoll and general george.
▶ 0:15:21In the past month we have been speaking about the army transformation initiative, ati. It seeks to change portions of the army's capabilities and structure for maintaining the army's flat budget. The army provided the committee with the first real set of details on the ati a week ago. This hearing marks the beginning of the army's discussion with congress on the idea.
▶ 0:15:52We are ready to work with you. In fact, we must work together rapidly to fix fun, no problems with the army. Since 2000, the list of failed modernization initiatives such as the committee helicopter, the crusader howitzer, in the future combat systems has continued to grow. Between 2002 and 2012, the army spent $50 billion on programs that eventually were canceled.
▶ 0:16:22The record in the past five years has been better but still contains missteps. The army spent $2 billion on a scout helicopter that will never fly. Other cancellations that followed included a strategic long-range canon program, the extended range canon artillery programs, and the m-10 support vehicle and the humvee.
▶ 0:16:51Fundamentally, the army needs to decide how to adapt to the changing character of warfare and priority missions against china and russia. Mr. secretary, many ideas he proposed in the transformation initiative meet that mark. I think you will find widespread support for increasing investments in long-range air and missile defense.
▶ 0:17:13I would note the lack of logistics investment in your plan given the army's central role in logistics in the pacific. Perhaps we will talk about that. I think you will find congress a willing partner when presented with convincing analysis that justifies investment changes. In particular, changes to help american soldiers deter war. If necessary, win in a convincing fashion.
▶ 0:17:44Where we do disagree will likely be effects on the industrial base. It is riddled -- brittled. We cannot let sites close or we will lose the expertise of many skilled workers. We need investment strategies that recognize this. Our investments should provide stability and maintain maximum competition.
▶ 0:18:12The army cannot follow the divested investor id the navy and air force have wanted to pursue. United states faces too many threats to leave gaps in capabilities. It will require tightly woven investment strategies among the army, congress and the industry to get this right. We look forward to your testimony.I will turn to my friend , the ranking of the committee.
▶ 0:18:36Sen. Reed: Thank you very much, Mr. chairman. Secretary driscoll, general george, welcome to the hearing. Thank you for your service to the nation and the army. Please convey the committee's appreciation for the men and women serving in your command. Let me take a moment to recognize the historic milestone for the united states army. This month marks the 250th anniversary of the founding of the continental army in 1775.
▶ 0:19:09Sen. Reed: Millions have stepped forward to serve in the army and protect their fellow citizens both on our own soil and abroad. For me personally the opportunity to serve in the army and lead american soldiers was the privilege of my life. I am proud to recognize this important moment in our history. Today the threats the army faces would be inconceivable to its founding leaders. China is working to challenge america's interest and leadership in the world.
▶ 0:19:40Sen. Reed: Vladimir putin continues his vicious assault on ukraine as a steppingstone and his imperial vision. Iran seeks to exploit violence in the middle east to expel the united states from the region. United states army, the most powerful ground force in the world is fundamentally the tear -- confronting these threats. Last month you announced an ambitious plan called the army transformation initiative.
▶ 0:20:08Sen. Reed: The initiative would reduce headquarters, consolidate commands, redirect funding, restructure, procure ground vehicles and aviation systems. That has to be a constant imperative. I have questions about this initiative, including an analysis and rollout for the decision and implementation.
▶ 0:20:38Sen. Reed: Gentlemen, I ask you discussed this plain in detail to the committee. I would note it is difficult to discuss the army's partially -- posture when we have yet to receive a budget request. This is quickly become the longest delayed budget submission and memory. I urge the white house to deliver it quickly. To my understanding in its fiscal year 2026 budget the department of defense will request another flat budget for the army.
▶ 0:21:08Sen. Reed: I'm concerned we risk the army's combat strength that we don't provide it with the resources it needs to continue full modernization. Secretary driscoll, general george, I'm interested in hearing how the service is adjusting its concepts and forth posture within the budget constraints.
▶ 0:21:26Sen. Reed: I am very skeptical of the administration's deployment of more than 10,000 soldiers to the southern border, including a limit to the 10th mountain division headquarters and the fourth infantry division striker brigade, and the expansion of army insulation -- installations into defense areas along the border.
▶ 0:21:46Sen. Reed: I'm concerned secretary hegseth is considering a request from the department of homeland security to activate more than 20,000 national guard troops to carry out immigration enforcement operations deep within the country. That nearly $1 billion is reportedly being diverted from barracks improvement activities to find border operations to include border wall construction. Let me be clear.
▶ 0:22:15Sen. Reed: Border security is a priority and I voted for bills to harden the borders, tougher laws and reforms. Immigration enforcement is a mission that must be carried out by the department of all insecurity, not the department -- homeland security, not the department of defense. My personal engagement with commanders and they made clear these are deepening problems with their training times, resources and readiness. I'm aware at least one brigade's combat training center rotation has been canceled to support this mission.
▶ 0:22:47Sen. Reed: Others are at risk. Secretary driscoll, I would like to know how you plan to ensure our soldiers time, training and capabilities and not needlessly wasted as the army works hard to meet his existing demands. Ultimately, the army's success depends on soldiers and civilians. In the past two years the army made significant progress in recruiting activities. It has enjoyed success like with the future soldier preparatory course.
▶ 0:23:18Sen. Reed: I'm concerned the administration efforts to limit who serves and what roles they may serve could have a chilling effect on recruiting. There is room in the army for all qualified volunteers. This includes the united states military academies where recent efforts to stifle education and narrow the student body represents an assault on merit and inclusion.
▶ 0:23:42Sen. Reed: Contrary to many of the administration's claims, I argue the current american soldiers and west point cadets are some of the finest who have ever served. I'm interested in your thoughts on this issue. I recently visited army post in germany, korea, guam and throughout the united states.
▶ 0:24:01Sen. Reed: I have been impressed by the work our soldiers and army civilians are doing to not only train and equip war fighters but also to incorporate lessons and knowledge from our foreign partners, including the tens of thousands of ukrainians who have conducted training. As the revolutionary drone operation deep in russia demonstrates, the future of combat and a uafs and warfare in particular is evolving at breathtaking speed.
▶ 0:24:33Sen. Reed: The ukrainian drone operations have served as a clarion call for every command at every level about how they plan to protect their forces and installations at home and abroad at all times. I would like to know what lessons and tactics the army is learning from the conflict in europe and the middle east and what resources are needed to implement them. I think the witnesses for the participation today. I look forward to the testimony. Thank you.
▶ 0:24:57Chair Wicker: Thank you very much. We will proceed with opening statements. Secretary driscoll, you may go first.
▶ 0:25:04Sec. Driscoll: Chairman wicker, ranking member reed, members of the committee, is a privilege to address you today. I went to address my gratitude for your support of our soldiers and their families. I would like to start off with some good news. Earlier this week, the army met its fiscal year 2025 recruiting goals four month early, bringing in more than 61,000 new recruits.
▶ 0:25:31Sec. Driscoll: These men and women are stepping up during a time of global uncertainty and complex threats. Those threats are real. When I went through my confirmation hearings in this room I pledged to be the soldiers' secretary the army. That guided our approach every step of the way. The army transformation initiative has been conceived with the soldier in mind. Your partnership is critical as general george and I begin implementing the transformation which is now more urgent than ever.
▶ 0:26:00Sec. Driscoll: This week we witnessed a stark illustration of modern warfare in ukraine and russia. Reports indicate a coordinated strategas russia's strategic bomber force using a swarm of over 100 in extensive drones at a cost of a mere tens of thousands of dollars ukraine inflicted billions in damage, potentially setting back russia's bomber capabilities for years. The world saw in real time how readily available technology can disrupt established power dynamics.
▶ 0:26:32Sec. Driscoll: Drones are but one example of a broader shift in the army -- and the army needs to keep pace. General george and I have immersed ourselves in understanding why the army has been slow to innovate. Our soldiers are not the problem. I have met with them in the middle east, europe, the southern border and at installations across the united states. Their strength, dedication and unwavering commitment to this nation are inspiring. We ask a great deal of them and they consistently deliver.
▶ 0:27:01Sec. Driscoll: Nor is the ingenuity of american industry at fault. Our tech sector continues to thrive, driven by innovation, entrepreneurship and a willingness to embrace risk. Where does the problem lie? I found the army has become calcified, having suffered from years of inefficiency, slow-moving processes and wasteful spending. Program lobbyist and bureaucrats have overtaken the army's ability to prioritize soldiers and war fighting. We must all work together to ensure the army is ready to fight and win.
▶ 0:27:32Sec. Driscoll: The army transmission initiative will make us into an army that is lean, agile and relentlessly focused on empowering its soldiers. An army that erases innovation, collaborates with the private sector and prioritizes were fighting readiness above all else. To achieve this vision we must streamline our acquisitions process, reclaim our right to repair, and cultivate a culture that rewards innovation and calculated risk-taking. We must empower those closest to the fight to make the decisions.
▶ 0:28:03Sec. Driscoll: The army transformation initiative is a first step to achieve this vision. This information hinges on your support. We are asking this committee to empower us to make these changes while providing your constitutionally mandated oversight. We are asking for the flex ability to make decisions that keep pace with the rapid advancements in technology and the evolving nature of warfare. We are asking for this committee to work with us to maximize the value of every dollar appropriated to best support our soldiers.
▶ 0:28:32Sec. Driscoll: I asked this because it is my duty, both as secretary of the army and as an american citizen to ensure every dollar the army receives contributes to defending the great nation of ours. We are all committed to our soldiers, their success, and providing the overwhelming advantage that they deserve. Thank you and I welcome your questions.
▶ 0:28:51Chair Wicker: Thank you very much, secretary driscoll. General george, your recognize.
▶ 0:28:57Gen. George: Thank you, chairman. Distinguished members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to talk with you today and take your questions. I want to start by saying I'm extreme the pride of army. I am proud of our troops out in the end of pacific, on the southern border, the middle east, europe, and everything the army has done in the past year to respond to wildfires, floods, and a bridge collapse.
▶ 0:29:23Gen. George: We have formations all around the world conducting missions and exercises and innovating with partners and allies. Our units are conducting tough realistic training at their home stations and combat training centers. Our army as a professional team that remains focused on its war fighting mission. Young americans want to be a part of it. This is evidenced by our strong recruiting numbers this year. I would add strong retention numbers.
▶ 0:29:54Gen. George: As the secretary mentioned, we met a recruiting mission for the year. We still have our most productive months ahead of us. While I'm proud of our army, I know we have work to do. We know the world is changing. Commercial technology is rapidly evolving, especially ai and autonomous systems. This is impacting the character of work. We understand we must transform to stay ahead of our adversaries. We need to get better but 2026. Not by 2030.
▶ 0:30:25Gen. George: Over the last year using existing fy 24 funding subunits transformed in contact. They experiment it with changing how we train, fight, man, equipment were deployed. This was a great proof of concept and confirmed our formations are capable of rapidly improving their lethality. One transformation in europe was 300% more effective in legal targeting in training.
▶ 0:30:55Gen. George: Transformation in contact todd us lessons about what the army should be buying and how we should be buying it. We are just getting started. We will make these changes to continue to dominate the modern battlefield. For instance, canceling programs that are obsolete or not with the war fighters need, developing and adapting winning capabilities and buying modular, open architecture designs that can be updated. Cutting and consolidating headquarters.
▶ 0:31:25Gen. George: For instance, we will reduce geo structure, cut 1000 positions at the staff and dcn add modern business systems that will make us more effective. We will powerdown authorities in funding so commanders and the fighting formations have what they need to make their teams and community successful. What I have learned from being in the seat is our job his to do what we can with the budget that we have.
▶ 0:31:53Gen. George: I have been talking about the need for agile funding free uas, counter uas and ew. We need flexibility in those areas and more. Technology is changing to rapidly. We have to be able to buy capabilities rather than specific programs so we can always get the word fighters the best available tech and equipment for the fight. This is where we can use your help. We are quickly approaching our army's 250th birthday.
▶ 0:32:21Gen. George: This will defend has been our motto for 250 years and I look forward to selling our long legacy of duty. Our soldiers are ready today to defend our country. We will do our part to ensure they have with a need to be successful in that enduring mission. Chairman and ranking member, we look forward to taking your questions on how important the oib is to us, how specifically we will transform and what lessons we are learning from the conflicts today. Thank you for your support.
▶ 0:32:52Chair Wicker: Thank you for mentioning the anniversary and birthday. It is quite significant for this nation and personally significant to a number of members of this committee. Thank you very much. We are rolling out the -- did roll out some very specific information about the reconciliation bill in the last day or two.
▶ 0:33:23Chair Wicker: The bill has been developed with hand in glove consultation with the administration and our colleagues in the house of representatives. It is one of the least controversial sections of the reconciliation bill. However, much of the funding in the defense reconciliation bill, because the rules has to be unspecific and technically be at the discretion of the department of defense. We will write recommendations.
▶ 0:33:54Chair Wicker: I need a quick yes or no based on the fact that this has been written in consultation and with changes made to accommodate the administration. Do you commit, Mr. secretary, to follow congress's spending recommendations unequivocally?
▶ 0:34:18Sec. Driscoll: Yes.
▶ 0:34:21Chair Wicker: General george?
▶ 0:34:23Gen. George: Yes sir.
▶ 0:34:25Chair Wicker: That has been the question by all -- the answer by all of our witnesses. The organic industrial base. Ammunition plants, depots, arsenals remain vital to sustaining combat operations. We have read, Mr. secretary, in your ati memo about potential closure of pine bluff arsenal, bluegrass army depot, red river army depot.
▶ 0:34:57Chair Wicker: In light of the fact that we are going to be so focused on re-industrialization, I would caution that we be very careful about that. Are you planning to propose closing these three facilities?
▶ 0:35:17Sec. Driscoll: Chairman, we are creating a plan to look at what we can do with them with shifting work from them as one of the options. I think general george and I stand hand-in-hand with you acknowledging our organic industrial base is not sufficient for the threats today or in the future. I think spending is constrained. We owe that to the american taxpayer. We are working on plans that could use those facilities for other purposes.
▶ 0:35:47Sec. Driscoll: If the funding does not comment has to come from the rest of the budget, I think our current belief is that those dollars that ar -- at the current budgeted level would be suited somewhere else.
▶ 0:35:57Chair Wicker: I hope we will have a meaningful dialogue there. As the body that is constitutionally charged with the power the purse, it may be that our need for reindustrialization will tie in quite well with actually continuing to utilize this. You mentioned drones.
▶ 0:36:25Chair Wicker: We have sure learned a lot in the last five or six days about small and extent of drones -- inexpensive drones. I don't know what most people realize our drone manufacturers create drones that cost 10 times as much as chinese drones. Dod is spinning less than $100 million per year on small drones.
▶ 0:36:54Chair Wicker: It seems to me this makes it difficult for our industrial base to achieve economies of scale and buying the equipment to reduce at a more reasonable price. Do you agree with me on that? Do you agree that we very much need to address this issue, Mr. secretary? Then I bless general george to comment also -- I will ask general george to comment also.
▶ 0:37:22Sec. Driscoll: If we were only 10x more expensive that would be better than the reality. We are sometimes 50 to 100 times more expensive. We are so expensive that it makes the cost curve absolutely impossible for us.
▶ 0:37:39Sec. Driscoll: I wholeheartedly agree we as a nation have got to set up moonshot to figure out both how we defend against these low-cost drones and how do we create enough to scale against russia creating four to 6 million this year. And china even more. They might be doing 50 million across their entire country. We are currently not ready for it but we need to work with you to get -- the speed of the current test we are doing.
▶ 0:38:07Chair Wicker: I assume you and the secretary are of one mind on this issue.
▶ 0:38:12Gen. George: We certainly are. There are two aspects to your previous comment on the industrial base. That is something you look at dji producing 50 million drones. One of the challenges for us like brushless motors and controllers. This is where we need to move to in our own industrial base and be able to do that. It could help commercial industry stateside as well. That is one aspect.
▶ 0:38:42Chair Wicker: Millions are listening to you on television. Tell them what dji is.
▶ 0:38:48Gen. George: It is a p.r.c. Company that makes drones. 15 million drones. We need the parts and we could produce that here. The second thing I would add is that I think this is why it's important thate have -- that we buy in portfolios. We would not buy the same drone as when we have canceled, 25-year-old drones. Those are updating.
▶ 0:39:19Gen. George: We could in uas, counter uas and two, we let the oversight what systems we are buying. This is an area rapidly transforming and adapting and we need to be able to maintain pace with that and have the flexibility to do it.
▶ 0:39:39Chair Wicker: Thank you, sir. Senator reed.
▶ 0:39:43Sen. Reed: Thank you very much. Let me begin with a tragic incident on june 29 of this year -- january 29 of this year. 67 were lost when the black hawk helicopter collided with flight 342. A tragic moment.
▶ 0:40:05Sen. Reed: In the intervening weeks and months, family members have expressed to me significant concerns by the lack of transparency and direct medication with the army, specifically senior leaders. Secretary driscoll, does the army commit to establish a direct medication with these families? I think it is fear.
▶ 0:40:28Sec. Driscoll: Senator, the incident on that day is a tragedy. Our hearts go out to the victims and their families. The army is doing everything we can to learn to ensure it never occurs again. There is an investigation and lawsuits ongoing. The best advice we have received from counsel to date is let those play out. That is our current position.
▶ 0:40:51Sen. Reed: I understand that. I think just reaching out and clearly non-substantive way but a compassionate way that the army understands their grief and we are doing all we we can would be appropriate. I do understand the national transportation safety board at the army is conducting investigations.
▶ 0:41:20Sen. Reed: General, can you describe the changes you have already made to improve the safety?
▶ 0:41:25Gen. George: I think again we have been cooperating fully with the national transportation safety board and had our own folks in here. The biggest thing is the flight routes have completely changed. That was a decision made that the route that was -- I believe it was route 4, that is closed off. We made adjustments. With the people coming in now, there are few flights coming in and out of the pentagon.
▶ 0:41:57Gen. George: I will tell you that -- you are aware the mission we have to do. Our formations need to continue to make sure they are doing that. Also that the changes we have done with making sure adsb, that there is constant communication. We are working with the faa locally and nationally to make sure we learn from this. Learning means changing. That is what we are doing.
▶ 0:42:26Sen. Reed: I appreciate that. Again, I think on a human level some contact with the families would be more than appropriate. Mr. secretary, the new york times reported the department of fallen security asked for 20,000 soldiers for interior enforcement. Have you been asked to prepare for this?
▶ 0:42:53Sec. Driscoll: We have.
▶ 0:42:54Sen. Reed: Immigration enforcement in the interior is unprecedented for the national guard. The scale of assistance they are asking for is equally unprecedented. Diverting 20,000 guardsmen to this rule -- roll, they are not trained for it. It will pull them away from their jobs, their families.
▶ 0:43:21Sen. Reed: More importantly, it will divert them from their more traditional role of disaster relief, supporting local emergencies, and we know that there's likely to be a strenuous hurricane season which I'm told begins on june 1. From which states with the army be pulling these troops?
▶ 0:43:50Gen. George: We are working on this right now. We will be asked to provide soldiers and we are ready to do that. I will tell you we are prepared to respond to emergencies. We have done that routinely. I mentioned what we are able to do across all the combos.
▶ 0:44:14Gen. George: With whatever mission we are aligned to do, clerical or whatever, they are aligned to whatever the soldiers are trained.
▶ 0:44:22Sen. Reed: Is this a mission in your experience the national guardsmen have been trained for? Searching for illegal immigrants in major cities and across the country.
▶ 0:44:32Gen. George: Again, senator, the missions would be aligned with what our soldiers are trained to do within the authorities we would have hundred title x.
▶ 0:44:44Sen. Reed: Do we have a cost estimate of how much it will cost?
▶ 0:44:50Sec. Driscoll: Senator, I don't believe we do but I will follow up with your office when we know the states and estimated cost.
▶ 0:44:57Sen. Reed: We recognize both legally and traditionally soldiers are not police officers or ice agents. Much of what they do lies outside of this law enforcement environment. Are you concerned about the scene of U.S.
▶ 0:45:21Sen. Reed: Army and people will not make distinction with the national guard and U.S. army driving military vehicles and pulling people out of houses and putting them in the backs of trucks and driving them away? I don't think that is the image the army has stove to create.
▶ 0:45:45Sec. Driscoll: Senator, it is hard to answer the hypothetical. We have not heard of the details in the planning. It is hard to answer today.
▶ 0:45:54Sen. Reed: If you were directed to begin to seize people, put them in trucks and drive them away, you would object because that is inconsistent with the army of the united states?
▶ 0:46:10Sec. Driscoll: Again, it is hard to answer that hypothetical. No one has asked that question.
▶ 0:46:15Sen. Reed: Thank you for the exit time.
▶ 0:46:18Chair Wicker: Senator fischer.
▶ 0:46:20Sen. Fischer: Secretary, general, welcome. The army was undergoing significant changes prior to the april 30 letter from the secretary of defense. I understand we have had some success in increasing experimentation and getting soldier feedback early in the acquisition process. This results in more intuitive capabilities.
▶ 0:46:51Sen. Fischer: How does the army transformation initiative build on the transformation in contact efforts so that technology can be delivered into the hands of the soldiers faster?
▶ 0:47:06Sec. Driscoll: Senator --
▶ 0:47:08Sen. Reed: Mr. secretary.
▶ 0:47:10Sec. Driscoll: It is built off transformation off what soldiers have told us. If you look at what the most successful small, medium and large businesses do, if you looked at the venture capital, they would have this concept called minimum viable product. If you have an idea, get a prototype as quickly as possible and to your end-user.
▶ 0:47:34Sec. Driscoll: What we have tried to do and what the army has done well I hope is to get things we are testing into the hands of soldiers as fast as possible. General george and I were with an autonomous software company that did designs, software for autonomous vehicles to mexico. -- two month ago. We asked if they put it in army vehicle. We got them a vehicle.
▶ 0:47:59Sec. Driscoll: 10 days later they sent us a video of a fully automated humvee. We are currently learning from that. That is how we will actually quickly innovate and change army to face today's threats.
▶ 0:48:13Sen. Fischer: You tie in the command-and-control to that as well? Are you working with any specific private industry to be able to do that?
▶ 0:48:21Gen. George: We are working with a bunch of companies that are doing that. For all of this what we are learning as we will have to pass data very rapidly. I think the network is foundational to everything we do. You have to decide whatever you will do to act. The network is central to that.
▶ 0:48:45Gen. George: I wanted to add on the lessons, besides just the equipment, the biggest changes have been developers that are right there with our soldiers to see what works. We are seeing what the battery life in cold environment versus humidity that is out there right now in the pacific. We are seeing those. We are changing how we are organized. You can see anywhere on this planet how we will reorganize the formations. We are learning that.
▶ 0:49:15Gen. George: How we better train our soldiers to operate in ew environments. How do we train operators, all of that. That is where we are in a continuous transformation mode.
▶ 0:49:27Sen. Fischer: Thank you. We saw a long rate hypersonic weapons test in june and december of last year. I was encouraged by the success of those tests. Do you still anticipate, Mr. secretary and journal, fielding -- general, fielding that capability by the end of fiscal year 2025?
▶ 0:49:49Sec. Driscoll: We do. We are testing a new version of it that is 1/10 the cost and we think has better attributes. It will be early to know if it will work but we are optimistic.
▶ 0:50:05Sen. Fischer: You highlight the army's midrange capability system deployed in the philippines since april of last year. Can you provide an update on that program and when you expect additional batteries to be fielded?
▶ 0:50:23Gen. George: Senator, that's another thing we are looking at. A total of five batteries. Same thing with continuous transformation. How do we make the systems smaller? How do we make them so they are more mobile?
▶ 0:50:39Sen. Fischer: Has you are testing these different capabilities -- as you are testing these new capabilities, they were businesses alongside soldiers and being able to see the real-time effects.
▶ 0:50:56Sen. Fischer: As you are testing these things in real time and you understand the field of battle you may be facing in the very near future, are you also soliciting not just comments from industry but also they continue -- to continue soliciting those from soldiers as well?
▶ 0:51:23Sen. Fischer: Have you made changes in any of these capabilities you are currently testing?
▶ 0:51:28Gen. George: We both wanted to pull the trigger on that one. We have done that. One of the things soldiers said is it would be better to have an autonomous system or optionally manned vehicle that could move around and do those things. We need the command-and-control piece of this to be smaller and more mobile. We are making the changes. We have had companies that have actually gone out. This is about leveraging commercial industry to do this.
▶ 0:51:58Gen. George: They have made those vehicles and brought them out to our formations and we are testing them. Getting them to the soldiers is the most important thing we can do.
▶ 0:52:06Sen. Fischer: Thank you. The chairman will gavel you out, Mr. secretary.
▶ 0:52:12Chair Wicker: The witnesses can supplement their answers. Senator shaheen.
▶ 0:52:17Sen. Shaheen: Thank you both for being here. I want to follow up on senator reed's question about the role of the national guard in dealing with illegal immigrants and I looking at a memo here from the executive secretary at the department of defense to department of defense from the department of homeland security.
▶ 0:52:50Sen. Shaheen: They are asking the national guard for up to 3500 personnel to support field investigative units are high-priority fugitive cases, joint task force operations for ops condor fugitive tracking, surveillance and canvassing missions, data analysis and call center support, and night operations for rural interdiction. That does not sound hypothetical to me, Mr. secretary. That sounds like a direct request that has been made to the department of defense.
▶ 0:53:21Sen. Shaheen: I assume you have seen it from the department of homeland security to engage in those operations. It also says that the army will not -- the department of defense will not be reimbursed for those operations. Do you know who is going to pay for those? What account from the department of defense those operations would come from?
▶ 0:53:42Sec. Driscoll: Senator, I don't know the account but we can follow up with your office.
▶ 0:53:50Sen. Shaheen: I would hope first of all -- I share senator reed's concerns about asking the national guard to engage in those operations. I did not want our national guard going off to do something when we needed them at home in new hampshire. I would be very concerned about who is paying for those.
▶ 0:54:14Sen. Shaheen: The department of homeland security, if they will engage in these operations, they ought to be footing the bill and not asking the department of defense and the army or anybody else in the national guard to do that. Let me register my great concern, Mr. chairman, about that. I want to go on to another topic at this point. A lot of the discussion so far has been about the changing role of conflict and war.
▶ 0:54:44Sen. Shaheen: One of the places where I think we are seeing those operations dramatically is in the information warfare systems karina. -- arena. I'm concerned about the decision to reduce nearly 3000 special operations forces personnel. Most of those were from military information support operations, miso.
▶ 0:55:11Sen. Shaheen: This comes at a time when we are looking at the expanded operations on the part of russia, on the part of china. I sit on the foreign relations committee. We had a hearing that pointed out that china is spending over $1 billion a year on disinformation operations around the world. It feels to me like we are unilaterally disarming this arena at a time when we should be engaging and thinking about how to do that.
▶ 0:55:41Sen. Shaheen: I wonder from an operational perspective, does socom have the ability to replace those positions?
▶ 0:55:53Gen. George: On the information warfare, I completely agree with you. Rather than what we have been talking about looking at specific formations, we have a bunch of specialties we have had around for 20 or 30 years. Like anybody does in the commercial sector, you have to adapt and change and make sure you are doing that. The cuts were made. This was worked with U.S.
▶ 0:56:20Gen. George: Army special operations command and socom. Print media, leaflet drops, those kind of things. I would argue the world has changed. What we should be doing is focusing. We have grown cyber capabilities and how we will do that through technology. It is important. The other thing we learned is that people have to have this kind of capability throughout our formations. It is less about headquarters.
▶ 0:56:52Gen. George: It's about having capabilities at echelon, throughout all of our formations. You will not get just a certain people I capability because we have to operate on this very complex battlefield and that is what we are looking at. We had a discussion about this. I would love to talk about this more in detail on what we are looking at and how we will embed this across our formation.
▶ 0:57:14Sen. Shaheen: I would enjoy seeing a plan for how that will be done. I think that is one of the mos serious disadvantages we have right now. Thank you, Mr. chairman.
▶ 0:57:25Chair Wicker: Senator cotton.
▶ 0:57:27Sen. Cotton: I was at fort meyer yesterday as the old guard recognized several persons as honorary members of the regiment for the critical work in the case on platoon and for their work at the carter state funeral where the casson platoon represented the army in the nation. I think you for your work forgetting the platoon back in operation and on a path toward full operation very soon.
▶ 0:57:55Sen. Cotton: Secretary driscoll, I want to turn to the munitions crisis our nation faces. President trump said we need to look at defense procurement and the industrial base. It has been weathering down to nothing. Given all the money we spend on the pentagon it's unacceptable we would run out of ammunition or be capable -- unable to produce the weapons we need. You said one of the greatest problems facing our time is getting munitions and magazines back up to where they need to be.
▶ 0:58:25Sen. Cotton: I assume three-month on -- three months on you believe the crisis -- addressing the crisis is vital to fight in a war against china.
▶ 0:58:35Sec. Driscoll: I would even say it's after 100 days of seeing it is worse than I thought at the confirmation hearing.
▶ 0:58:42Sen. Cotton: So do I. That is why I was pleased to see the transformation initiative focuses on arsenals, ammunition plans and depots and the organic industrial base. But secretary directs the army to modernize the organic industrial base to generate the mission stockpiles necessary to sustain national defense during wartime by amp limiting 21st century production capabilities.
▶ 0:59:09Sen. Cotton: Given this in your early remarks, senator wicker, we share the secretary's believe the organic industrial base is a crucial element of our broader defense industrial base. Do you agree?
▶ 0:59:20Sec. Driscoll: Unequivocally.
▶ 0:59:22Sen. Cotton: We are not the only ones either. They are members of this committee like senator mullin and senator ernst and senator rosen who have pushed the army to strengthen its organic industrial base. That includes updating expanding operations have facilities like pine bluff arsenal, mcallister army ammunition plant, hawthorne army depot. All these facilities are underused.
▶ 0:59:49Sen. Cotton: We have thought for some time the army should be expanding them to meet urgent national security needs. While I agree with you that the commercial industry will play an important role in solving the crisis, we all know industry alone cannot do it all. I am doubtful private businesses are going to take up work like smoke grenades or other niche capabilities required by the military.
▶ 1:00:12Sen. Cotton: I'm skeptical is profitable for business to stand up new production of white phosphorous ammunition which is only produced in pine bluff when the customer base is limited to the U.S. military and the costs are so high. Some rough back of the envelope calculations I have made suggest half a billion dollars to replicate that capacity.
▶ 1:00:34Sen. Cotton: We have also learned definitively in the last three years of the ukraine work are commercial industrial base, while vital, does not have the capacity to produce with the nation needs, much less what we would need a major conflict.
▶ 1:00:51Sen. Cotton: Expanding munitions production for necessary materials like nitrocellulose and rdx which are chokepoints in the munitions supply chain will require us to leverage the inherent advantages of the facilities you own, that the army owns. Those organic industrial base facilities like pine bluff arsenal. All these places have highly trained workforces, gone through environment of permitting. They can handle munitions.
▶ 1:01:20Sen. Cotton: They have the infrastructure that can only be replicated at a high cost over many periods of years. Standing up factories from scratch would cost millions of dollars while extending operations at these existing facilities that we already own is much less costly and more efficient.
▶ 1:01:39Sen. Cotton: Given that, can you commit to all of us as the chairman suggested that we work together to create a plan to expand and modernize the army's organic base, including facilities like pine bluff arsenal?
▶ 1:01:51Sec. Driscoll: We absolutely want to work with this committee. This is not intended to be a copout answer. As we look at the budget one of the fundamental problems we have is our military construction costs -- I will do a parallel -- r 68.5 percent more expensive than if we just built something right on the other side of our fence line. A lot of that is statutorily driven. There are inefficiencies from government doing it.
▶ 1:02:15Sec. Driscoll: Generally speaking, there are 70 constraints that when we work -- try -- so many constraints that will be try to expand our supplies, the math often times as we are too expensive for ourselves. In the limited resource world that we live in when we tried to do these trade-offs, it is hard to justify. Working with this committee to streamline a lot of that, allocate additional resources, we are in agreement it is one of the most critical things for our country.
▶ 1:02:44Sen. Cotton: I think we will want to examine the math and work together to find the path where we can meet the nation's munition needs which will no doubt come from private production, some of which will have to come from our organic industrial base. Thank you.
▶ 1:03:02Chair Wicker: Mr. secretary, we might want to work with you on alleviating some of the constraints you referred to. That you mentioned will make it more extensive. -- more expensive to work with existing facilities. Senator hirono.
▶ 1:03:27Sen. Hirono: I would like to join senators to and shaheen for raising our concerns -- reed and shaheen about raising our concerns about the use of 20,000 national guardsmen to engage in immigration enforcement.
▶ 1:03:48Sen. Hirono: We raised these concerns about using soldiers to do things that are not in the mission of the dod. These are raised at your nomination hearings, Mr. secretary. Can you commit to not supporting everquest to use national guards people for law enforcement functions such as arrests and detentions?
▶ 1:04:17Sec. Driscoll: Senator, I can commit to not using the national guard for any unlawful use. Just to reiterate, I have not heard of one single request that makes me believe any current plan is something they are now able to do.
▶ 1:04:33Sen. Hirono: That is the operative word, the conditioning where you would not do anything that would be unlawful. If the president says this is what he wants, whatever he does is lawful in his view. This is a legitimate concern we have. The president has his priorities.
▶ 1:04:54Sen. Hirono: Those priorities are to roundup a lot of people -- round up a lot of people, and in those instances illegally. My question is you commit to not allowing the use of national guards for law enforcement purposes. I put that question to you out there.
▶ 1:05:19Sen. Hirono: Secretary, it's appropriate that the indo-pacific aor is a focus of national security. One of the negotiations -- critical negotiations occurring right now has to do with the training areas of the army in hawaii, including some 22,000 acres.
▶ 1:05:47Sen. Hirono: Some of the critical portions leased from the state. These lease negotiations have got to be completed successfully, otherwise these training areas expires in 2029, right around the corner. These lands are crucial to maintaining military readiness in the indo-pacific but also hold cultural significance for the native hawaiian community.
▶ 1:06:16Sen. Hirono: Will you commit to working closely in good faith with state officials, the community and the hawaiian congressional delegation on this critical negotiation matter?
▶ 1:06:29Sec. Driscoll: Absolutely, senator. On behalf of the army, the hawaiian community, soldiers had redeployed from that area and they always say how well they are treated and how well they are cared for. We are grateful for them taking care of our soldiers.
▶ 1:06:45Sen. Hirono: These negotiations are so critical. There is a special person who has been appointed to facilitate these negotiations. General george, I applied the army's focus on innovative sustainment solutions like 3d printing to cost-effectively address long lead times for parts and production.
▶ 1:07:13Sen. Hirono: You noted in your testimony that there was a delay of one year for a part that was going to cost only $20 from the private sector. Your material command 3d people were printing this part for $.16. This is the kind of innovative and creative solutions I very much applaud.
▶ 1:07:42Sen. Hirono: I secured a provision in last year's ndaa that directs the establishment of an advanced manufacturing facility in hawaii to support all of the services. Is this something that you are supporting?
▶ 1:07:57Gen. George: We are certainly supporting advanced manufacturing, 3d printing, making sure we have it at not just the large production facilities but having it from top to bottom. That would start with rock island. There is commercial industries using that. We tested it at project convergence in the pacific.
▶ 1:08:20Gen. George: A big piece of that is giving our ability -- we normally do that under battle damage assessment and repair. The right to repair was a big part of what we had an army transmission initiative.
▶ 1:08:35Sen. Hirono: Thank you. Since you raised the example of what can be done if we have this kind of capability, I hope you will prioritize our ability to do that. Thank you.
▶ 1:08:48Chair Wicker: Thank you very much. Senator ernst.
▶ 1:08:53Sen. Ernst: Thank you for being here today. I'm always inspired by your willingness to move our great army forward. Thank you for that. I want to take a brief moment and address some concerns expressed by my colleagues about the utilization of the national guard and having been a long time national guard member, I say the more that we can use our soldiers in jobs that are
▶ 1:09:24Sen. Ernst: Appropriate, go for it. My soldiers always looked for those opportunities to volunteer to serve in those types of capacities. Whether they are working in logistics opportunities, fueling vehicles, repairing vehicles, if they are a transportation soldier, a transporter, they want to drive. Whatever happens to be, we can always further their skills by having those types of mobilizations.
▶ 1:09:54Sen. Ernst: We just saw mobilization of 1800 iowa army national guardsmen. They are going overseas. It is a different type of mission from what we would see here in the united states. We want to wish them godspeed. We had a number of sendoffs over the course of the past week. Just talking about transformation, I want to continue with that theme. We are going through a lot of reforms for modernization.
▶ 1:10:24Sen. Ernst: You also have had some really notable progress in recruiting and retention. General george, if I could start with you, we are only midway through the year and you have already met the army's recruiting mission or the goals. Can you talk a little bit about how that has been possible and what you see is the motivating factor right now for young men and women deciding to serve in the great united states army?
▶ 1:10:51Gen. George: I think -- I would love to get my ranger buddy an opportunity to jump in on that one. I think it starts with leadership. It has been picking the right recruiters. Recruiters are doing great. We are trying to given the right technology.
▶ 1:11:10Gen. George: One example is using something right off the shelf so people are not filling out hundreds of forms that comes down to something very simple. So recruiters talk about the army. In the end I think they want to join the people out there and we need to make sure we continue to do that. They want to join a team that has a great mission angry purpose. -- and great purpose. That is the biggest thing.
▶ 1:11:41Gen. George: We need to continue to get after that.
▶ 1:11:42Sen. Ernst: Secretary?
▶ 1:11:44Sec. Driscoll: One way we look at retention and recruiting is as a trailing and leading indicator of the health of the army. On the leading indicator side, the young people want to come join an organization that is returning to its lethality routes, pushing for excellence? Very excitingly, eight months into the 12 month goal we had the annual goal.
▶ 1:12:08Sec. Driscoll: On the retention side, those are soldiers that are everyday seeing their leadership -- is the bureaucracy delivering to them what they need to stay in? Even more exciting as we hit that 12 month goal six months into the year. We think of these has good indicators the army is and how these five with our prevents. -- recruitment.
▶ 1:12:34Sen. Ernst: I did introduce the serve act. That will improve the connection between service opportunities and local communities. I am really excited about the opportunity to get that passed this year.
▶ 1:12:52Sen. Ernst: Going back to the army transformation, I do support the initiative in its efforts to redirect resources towards emerging capabilities like the counter y uas -- saw what happened with russia and the ukrainian drone attack. A reminder of how warfare is changing and how we need to adapt.
▶ 1:13:21Sen. Ernst: We are seeing the right kind of change in the army. Kudos to you. We have a bottom-up transformation. We have experimentation and contact and smart divestments. Thank you for being willing to take some of those challenges on. You are making tough choices, cutting positions and reinvesting in operational needs. I know how difficult that is.
▶ 1:13:49Sen. Ernst: Secretary driscoll, how is the army impacting its training to support these technical kinds of units and our offer to -- operational needs? >> to reinforce the bottom up concept, I was at fort jackson where I did basic 20 -- training 19 to 18 years ago. These are soldiers who have been in the U.S. army for five weeks. What their drill sergeants had done is they had gotten drones to fill the lanes.
▶ 1:14:19Sen. Ernst: They would look and see what do I look like from a drones view. This is the part that is remarkable to me. Each time they iterate it, each time a drum took the soldiers through the event, they learned something from soldiers who were five weeks in.
▶ 1:14:35Sen. Ernst: Those learnings trickled up from fort jackson south carolina to the pentagon and changed the way we tell people -- fort jackson, south carolina to the pentagon and changed the way we tell people to interact with the drones. >> happy birthday to the army family. I look forward to celebrating at fort craig adams in the petersburg area, where I live.
▶ 1:15:07Sen. Ernst: Secretary driscoll, you were here for your confirmation hearing on january 30 and I was not in a good mood and it had nothing to do with you. I had been alerted about the crash at lincoln national, 67 lives lost earlier that morning. I had gone out to the scene to interact with the secretary of transportation airport officials. We know a lot more today than we knew then. The ntsb did an interim report they released in march.
▶ 1:15:34Sen. Ernst: They, frankly, pointed out a lot of flaws.
▶ 1:15:38Sen. Kaine: There were flaws in broadcasting in terms of the equipment. And problems with some of the routes, particularly in a congested airspace. There were serious problems on the air traffic control signs. -- sides. There was a shortage of people at the tower that day.
▶ 1:16:01Sen. Kaine: Normally, there would be one person handling the incoming jets and someone else dealing with the helicopters, one person was doing both jobs when the crash occurred. A decade before this crash, there had been hundreds of near misses between hilo's and passenger jets, logged into the faa but the faa had done nothing with that information to try to solve or prevent an accident of the kind that occurred.
▶ 1:16:30Sen. Kaine: We have to be honest, congress has not helped the situation, either. Shortly before the crash, months before the crash, congress voted to add more flights into an over congested airport, over the significant objections of the washington airports authority, appointed by congress to run these airports. They had told us this is a disaster waiting to happen. Congress chose to do so anyway.
▶ 1:17:01Sen. Kaine: It's my hope we will learn a lesson and not repeat that. The interim report in march of the ntsb will be followed up by the final report or a more comprehensive report in the month of july. I want to reflect back that the 67 families, the memory of the 67 families, they are looking for answers.
▶ 1:17:23Sen. Kaine: When they watch a hearing and they hear a question about it as was directed by senator reed, and the answer is there is an investigation ongoing and there is a litigation, I will tell you what they hear. What they hear when they hear that answer is minimizing liability is more important than our suffering. Minimizing liability is more important than making sure this doesn't happen to other families. I've done a lot of disaster response as a mayor and governor.
▶ 1:17:53Sen. Kaine: I've had a lot of lawyers tell me we can't give answers because if you do, somebody may file a lawsuit. We owe it to the 67 and their families for them to be completely confident that we are overturning every last stone and making every last effort to minimize the chance this will happen again. And right now, I've interacted with families a lot like what senator reed said.
▶ 1:18:24Sen. Kaine: They, frankly, feel that american airlines has been pretty solicitous toward them. They feel like the commerce committee and the senate has been solicitous toward them. They don't feel like the army has been solicitous toward them and really sat down and heard their questions. There are some that may be can't be answered because the investigation is not yet complete but they don't really feel that they are being listened to.
▶ 1:18:51Sen. Kaine: And I think that is an important thing that I would just put to you. You have taken steps, I've met with the army as recently as yesterday to talk about steps that have been taken, with respect to new protocols. There is an important protocol you go through to make sure that you can have that turned off for censored admissions without jeopardizing others. You've made positive changes.
▶ 1:19:23Sen. Kaine: You made changes to be helicopter routes in the area of the national capital region. That is really important. I don't necessarily think some of the public is aware of the changes that have been made. There was a recent incident in early may, where a hilo passenger jet interaction caused the air traffic tower to ask the jets to do a go around because of a helicopter that was landing in the pentagon. That's not necessarily a bad thing, it was out of an abundance of caution.
▶ 1:19:54Sen. Kaine: I frankly think some of the reporting was a little bit inaccurate, when they get reported in the paper, it's not to our benefit. What I would encourage you to do , share to the greatest degree possible to the families and the public what they have already done.
▶ 1:20:18Sen. Kaine: And maintain as much dialogue as you can, not only with the three army aviators who died, but the families of the 64 who lost their lives on the passenger jet that day. I yield back.
▶ 1:20:29Sen. Budd: Thank you for being here today. It's great to see you supporting the army in north carolina. -- for being here on a patriotic day. I want to say something.
▶ 1:20:49Sen. Budd: I have heard it referenced a little bit this morning in your opening comments and your response to senator ernst's question about learning from overflights with drones and training at fort jackson, that's excellent. Thank you for sharing that. We have seen the stories coming out of russia, how the ukrainians have taken initiative in operation spiderweb.
▶ 1:21:17Sen. Budd: We applaud them but it makes me wonder how do we make sure we don't become the victims in a similar situation against us? And how do we make sure we are defending ourselves against potential drone attacks. We have talked about offensive operations but less about protection. If you would talk about the army keeping pace in drone and counter drone technology and how do we make sure we protect our troops at home and abroad from these threats?
▶ 1:21:47Sec. Driscoll: Just to close out with senator kaine, I will reflect with any of the remarks. If any of the families are listening, we are devastated by the outcome. If anything, what we are saying sounds like callous legalese, we are not intending for it to sound that way. Air missile defense, when we see our air defenders, we saw them in the middle east, we say with a very straightfaced face that they are the new tip of the spear.
▶ 1:22:19Sec. Driscoll: The way that warfare is changing and what we saw with operation spiders web in russia and the sheer volume of damage, our estimate is they took out up to $10 million in assets for less than $20,000. We would face the same problem. It's one of the challenges of our lifetime as an army to figure this out.
▶ 1:22:42Sec. Driscoll: We are testing all sorts of solutions, from the smallest being to shooting a 50 caliber the highest being ground-based interceptors that are a lot more expensive. We have things in the middle like directive energy which require different power grids and ways of thinking about delivering and storing power. We were doing all sorts of experiments with our soldiers.
▶ 1:23:06Sec. Driscoll: We were just with the company yesterday, who was part of operation spiders web in ukraine and hearing about how they participated in it. We said we have to figure out how to get the technology into our soldiers hands this summer so we can start to learn. It was obviously effective there. In summary, what we are trying to do is test as many things as we possibly can and then work with this committee once we find the ones that are working to scale them as quickly as possible.
▶ 1:23:33Sen. Budd: Thank you. -- it would be stationed in fort bragg, north carolina. With a plan to be fully operational by fiscal year 2028. The question is is that still on track and, in a broader sense, how will the army transformation initiative affect that structure? >> I would tell you the plans are still on track.
▶ 1:24:02Sen. Budd: These are capabilities we know we will need. All of the things we will have to do to counter the uis, that is definitely a capability. >> I want to applaud the army's investment in the next generation. Which will take advantage of software solutions.
▶ 1:24:34Sen. Budd: What's the status of nexgen c2? Where has it succeeded and where can it improve? >> if you were to ask the men's secretary, we are encouraged by what we are doing. I think we know we have to change how we pass data and move data, based on how you can be seen anywhere on this planet. We just saw out, when we were out at the national training center, the concept works.
▶ 1:25:04Sen. Budd: We are now looking to scale it. We will have a division that is doing it this summer. We just want to go faster. That's our -- that is our press. We did a war fighter over in europe and, general donahue, we were with his team. This is down to the tactical level and we have to do is much as we can to go faster.
▶ 1:25:29Sen. Budd: Thank you. >> thank you. Senator king?
▶ 1:25:37Sen. King: Thank you, Mr. chairman. We have a big parade coming up in over a week. What's the budget? >> $25 million to $40 million. >> that's a rough estimate for something that will happen in 10 days. That's the closest estimate you can give us? >> any contingencies or damages we cause, we are aspiring for zero, but we have budgeted it in.
▶ 1:26:05Sen. King: >> a minimum of $25 million and somewhere around $40 million is the upper estimate? >> Sen. yes, sir. Sen -- >> yes, sir.
▶ 1:26:18Sen. King: An army reservist killed 18 people in a matter of minutes on october 23. He had substantial brain injury, most likely because he was a trainer in munitions, by blast of air pressure and continued exposure. There was a lot of activity at the time in the army and the pentagon generally on this issue with blast overpressure and mental health baselining.
▶ 1:26:46Sen. King: I want to be sure you are aware of that work and they want to be sure, is it lost in the transition from -- it isn't lost in the transition from one administration to another. It is a serious problem. It turns out this case was a notorious one. This is something that, throughout the armed services, particularly in the army. Are we staying after this issue? >> we are staying after that.
▶ 1:27:16Sen. King: It was about three weeks ago that we had the team up to talk about that. Operators were using one of our specialized units to do a lot of these high-end kind of training. Right now, we have implemented the neurological testing. >> you are doing a baseline? >> that's the baseline. We are changing, again, it's how you train as well. You alluded to that.
▶ 1:27:42Sen. King: Do you need the level of explosives when you are doing a certain kind of training? How can you reduce that? We are looking at equipment. How do we change, for example, kevlar might be helpful against bullets coming at you but it does other things when you have concussive events. So, how do we change that? I probably, once a quarter, I will have discussions and these are ongoing with what we are doing. >> this does come up often.
▶ 1:28:13Sen. King: We are trying to look at our training. We are choosing to expose soldiers two things and make sure it is worth the risk. >> I appreciate that. All of the right work has been done at the fairly high level. I want to be sure it gets down to the ground in terms of day-to-day activity and that it is not just reports at the pentagon but that it is direct changes in the way equipment and training and those things.
▶ 1:28:41Sen. King: As I say, this turns out to be a widespread problem and something we need to address. I appreciate your updates. Mr. secretary, my understanding is the army transportation initiative has recommended reducing civilian -- the civilian workforce by 23,000 people. My question is where that number comes from. >> I would jump in a little bit on this.
▶ 1:29:11Sen. King: What we had done, this wasn't like hey, we are going to reduce a specific number. You will notice that we are combining headquarters. We had examples and two geo lead headquarters within a stones throw a each other that had overlapping missions. What we are doing is looking at how we can reduce our business systems. I mentioned that upfront. We had a lot of old business systems and programs that we don't need and that can be done with data.
▶ 1:29:40Sen. King: I have a smartboard in my office where I can get most of this data. Basically from top to bottom, that's what we are looking at. I think that there are additional areas where we can find more efficiencies. Our goal is to fill our formations.
▶ 1:29:56Sen. King: You have examined the structure and come to that number? You didn't start with a percentage or number to work toward? >> correct, senator. It was not driven downward. It was where we thought there were redundancies. A lot of the cuts we reference in api already general george point, when soldiers in list they don't want to send the pentagon pushing paperwork.
▶ 1:30:26Sen. King: >> it strikes me as a large cut. It has to be 1% of the army budget for those 23,000 people. Some of them had to be doing useful work. I just would be interested in following up to see where the cuts are actually happening and the analysis that led to that. Thank you, very much, Mr. chairman. >> thank you, senator. Senator sullivan.
▶ 1:31:03Senator Sullivan: Thank you for your continued service to our great nation. Mr. secretary, inc. You for your last visit. You made your commitment to me clear and you followed through on it very quickly. I appreciate that. I was home for the last 10 days and hosted the chairman of the joint chiefs.
▶ 1:31:27Senator Sullivan: We had a good opportunity to meet with the 11th airborne soldiers, who are really impressive. I wanted to get your impressions on your visit. And then I wanted to ask on the army transformation initiative, general, thanks for coming into my office this week, two weeks ago, to give an update. I want to give a sense of how the 11th airborne division will be impacted by that. Particularly on two issues.
▶ 1:31:59Senator Sullivan: The merging of the headquarters, that may affect for rain white -- wainwright. We want that to be a finding headquarters. It's been an admin headquarters for many years. I love the idea of the 11th airborne being a competitor to the 82nd airborne. I know the 82nd airborne has a storied history.
▶ 1:32:26Senator Sullivan: So does the 11th airborne, with world war ii. A lot of people don't know that. It's always good to have the internal competition. I think the 11th airborne is maybe not only catching you but surpassing you. Particularly in the heart of cops. Maybe you guys can comment on that as well.
▶ 1:32:45Senator Sullivan: But, your impressions, army transformation initiative, and also the issue of the 11th airborne's aviation assets, necessary to complete that transformation from a stryker brigade to an aerosol unit up at fairbanks. I want to make sure they get the proper hilo assets and what's your vision on that. A lot of questions.
▶ 1:33:15Senator Sullivan: But mainly, your impressions to both of you on the alaska trip. I think you guys are doing a great job up there. It's a unit that knows what it is all about now. I think for a long time maybe it hadn't.
▶ 1:33:36Sec. Driscoll: As somebody who was stationed -- I think I mentioned this in the hearing, you get there and there are no mountains. Contrasting that with alaska and the training at black rabbits, it's remarkable what soldiers are out there doing. I did an exercise with some of them. It's hard and it's different.
▶ 1:33:58Sec. Driscoll: The what you have to think about moving the soldiers up these mountains, and a lot of the world is filled with this arctic, mountainous region. -- these arctic, mountainous regions.
▶ 1:34:12Sec. Driscoll: The other thing that blew my mind is we went to a testing facility and they were testing things with incredible freezers that would go -50 degrees to -60 degrees and they would show you what happens to fluid and all of the items the united states are purchasing that manufacturers don't have the ability to do or take the time to do it. There are instances where we are buying $1 billion of something and finding out it can't operate in -20 degrees temperature, which is called not that cold.
▶ 1:34:42Sec. Driscoll: >> you get that a lot.
▶ 1:34:44Sec. Driscoll: The soldiers will take nearly every piece of equipment they get out on these cold days on behalf of the united states army so we can learn. We have learned a lot and it has changed how we procure things. We try to get it to them earlier in the process so they can tell us if it works in those conditions.
▶ 1:34:59Sec. Driscoll: >> on the hilo assets and the headquarters in terms of the army transformation, I know you mentioned you didn't think it would impact the ops and the size of the units of the 11th airborne, but can you unpacked a little bit of that now. -- now?
▶ 1:35:21Gen. George: One of the things we are try to do, I think that is actually a capability, you mentioned having a division that needs to be a war fighting capability and that we need to add certain legal aspects to that division. So, again, what we have to do -- that's why we are trying to lead the way. This is the capability we need to grow.
▶ 1:35:49Gen. George: Because of the 11th airborne, if you can operate when it is 40 degrees and 50 degrees below, those troopers have proven they can go anywhere. They are just physically tough folks who can do things. And we want to invest in that. >> that came up a lot in our discussions with general king. The ability, the discipline, the leadership needed to operate at 40 below zero.
▶ 1:36:17Gen. George: If you can operate at 40 below zero, you can operate anywhere in the world. You can operate in the jungle, you can operate in the desert. But you can't operate at 40 below zero unless you are trained, tough and disciplined. I appreciate that. I will have a few more questions for the record. But thanks for your leadership. >> thank you very much, senator peters?
▶ 1:36:40Sen. Peters: Thank you for your service. As we have discussed in the committee and the three of us have had a chance to discuss in my office and other places, certainly the army transformation initiative will refocus the army toward future conflicts and some real creative thinking.
▶ 1:37:03Sen. Peters: As the army begins, this rapid -- these rapid modernization efforts, I'm hopeful we will continue to capitalize on my stay, the state of michigan's unique commercial automotive expertise, including billions of dollars of research and development and advanced manufacturing talent that is located there. At the same time, we also must ensure that they don't compromise readiness of innovation and manufacturing.
▶ 1:37:32Sen. Peters: I am specifically concerned about potential impacts on some critical hubs like the detroit arsenal, as well as the ground vehicle system center in michigan. These sites are central to the army's modernization goals and the key for both shaping, testing and fielding the next generation capabilities. My first question is for you, secretary driscoll.
▶ 1:37:57Sen. Peters: Do you have -- do I have your commitment on working together to maintain the role of the future for the armies wheeled as well as track the vehicles?
▶ 1:38:10Sec. Driscoll: I would love to work with you, senator. It is dual use, the gm defenses have been incredible partners. I saw them a couple of weeks ago as we were visiting. What they and able to make for our soldiers, their ceo goes out into the field with the soldiers to figure out how it can be better and they will input meant those changes in a couple of weeks.
▶ 1:38:42Sec. Driscoll: I completely agree that the vehicle manufacturing in michigan is incredibly valuable for soldiers.
▶ 1:38:49Sen. Peters: I will ask you another question. My understanding is when you leverage that commercial expertise you mentioned, the silverado used for this vehicle, you can go from concept to prototype to production in six months. That doesn't happen often when you are in the procurement process. That's my question for you, general george.
▶ 1:39:13Sen. Peters: Can you speak to how the army will continue to leverage this against automotive manufacturing and build on what secretary driscoll told us?
▶ 1:39:21Gen. George: Certainly. This gets back to what we are looking at across our acquisitions. We have -- our arsenal is important to us. What is important is our access to adopt and modify technology that is coming from the commercial center. That's been really important to us.
▶ 1:39:44Gen. George: And what gm and ford and those companies spend on r&d and what they are doing with autonomous systems, in certain ways, what we are looking at is how do we restructure to make sure we are taking advantage of that and not trying to build our own systems. We can't compete with what those two amazing companies can do up there. What specifically do we need to do? That's been our focus. We've talked to a lot of companies that are up there and will continue. That will continue to be important to us.
▶ 1:40:12Gen. George: I think we need to adapt a little bit how we are doing that to take full advantage of what the commercial sector in detroit offers us.
▶ 1:40:23Sen. Peters: Thank you to both of you for that answer. General george, strength exercises the one in michigan strengthen our ability to work with allies and work through potential conflict. It brings over 6300 participants from across the U.S. as well as our international partners to michigan's national war fighting center. It's the largest training area east of the mississippi.
▶ 1:40:51Sen. Peters: And, both the admiral and general langley -- for its strategic value. My question is do you support training exercises for increased interoperability with our partners, including through training exercises like northern strike and will you commit to working to expand the active and reserve components that will operate and train and northern strike?
▶ 1:41:20Gen. George: Absolutely, senator. I've been to northern strike. It's very unique and I've been proud of what the guard has done up there to make that a great training opportunity. I think we are looking everywhere and one of the things we need to do is expand our capability to operate drones and operate in the electromagnetic environment, countering drones. All of that, using those spaces that are important to us, today and in the future.
▶ 1:41:52Sec. Driscoll: My office is coordinating with euros, I think, senator. I look forward to seeing the strike with you.
▶ 1:42:00Sen. Peters: I look forward to that. You will be impressed like the gender -- general has.
▶ 1:42:09Sen. Tober Bill: -- Sen.:
▶ 1:42:19Sen. Tober Bill: -- Sen. tu
▶ 1:42:24Berville: Are we keeping our physical values when we recruit these people?
▶ 1:42:31Gen. George: I believe so. We are having discussions with how we are raising our standards. We have had we have h had the soldier prep course. We will keep that as an option. We have had times where we have had brilliant soldiers out there who need to spend a couple of weeks getting in better shape to join our formation and that is what that is for. I am pleased with the path we are on.
▶ 1:42:58Gen. George: >> as long as we are putting them through it and they can handle it. It states the army will begin enabling ai driven command control by 2027. Secretary driscoll, how will the army be using artificial intelligence to help decision-making?
▶ 1:43:23Sec. Driscoll: Senator, we think of the army has two discrete functions. General george and I talk about it. One is a large enterprise business that moves people and things across the country and the world. The other is hopefully an incredibly lethal war killing and war fighting machine. I think ai and generative ai will meaningfully impact those spaces.
▶ 1:43:46Sec. Driscoll: The first thing we are working on is creating a data layer that allows for people and our things and sensors to communicate in real time on the war fighting function. Once you can have that occur, you can lay in generative ai for fire targeting. I would estimate that we will start to see that at scale in 12 months. On the armies and enterprise business side, we are optimistic.
▶ 1:44:14Sec. Driscoll: We have 200 plus enterprise systems right now that are often times siloed. Often times, we have had software created just for us that we have to maintain that is decades out of date. We think generative ai will be able to help us with all sorts of tasks in the coming months. I'm excited to announce or give credit to the recruiting team. They have onboard it to a common serum.
▶ 1:44:43Sec. Driscoll: Generative ai can be applied to a lot of things that we do as we recruit soldiers and bring them into the army. >> secretary, have you been there yet?
▶ 1:44:55Sec. Driscoll: Would you mind repeating that? What state is that in? >> it's in alabama.
▶ 1:45:02Sec. Driscoll: I have. >> if you hadn't, we would need to get you there. You are contracting things in my state. If it helps, I am all for it. So, we will work with you as much as we can. Right outside the gate at bridgestone, they completed the assembly of a quantum computer system that should be soon complete.
▶ 1:45:32Sec. Driscoll: Secretary, how can the army leverage these new systems and optimize the future the right way?
▶ 1:45:39Sec. Driscoll: Senator slotkin and I were talking about quantum computing. What quantum computing will do is otherworldly. You could probably start to plan out where you should put air missile defense systems and how they would react in near real to threats. Any sort of innovation like that, we are in support of.
▶ 1:46:09Sec. Driscoll: >> thank you. A lot of good things are going on. Especially with ai. I hope we all understand too that for ai and all of the future big tech stuff, we will need energy, big time. China doubles our energy every three years that we have in this country. We are way behind. We can talk about all of these technologies that we want.
▶ 1:46:34Sec. Driscoll: Unless we have energy, then we will have huge problems. Do you agree with that, secretary?
▶ 1:46:42Sec. Driscoll: Yes. >> general?
▶ 1:46:44Gen. George: Yes, senator, I do. >> I would hope we would talk about it more with all the things we have coming down the pipe, that we would have the ability to build on it and that we would have the energy to run all of the data centers and mega-data centers in the future. >> senator blumenthal.
▶ 1:47:04Sen. Blumenthal: Thank, Mr. chairman. Thank you for your service and thanks for being here today. I listened to your early response, secretary driscoll, about the cost of the celebration and its planned pre-just to be absolutely clear, I am all in favor of celebrant in the army's 250th. I am hoping maybe we will celebrate the navy's as well.
▶ 1:47:32Sen. Blumenthal: Having some marine corps background. But, I am struck by the cost. 25 million dollars to $40 million? As senator king said, that's a pretty wide spread. And you are saying that it is due to the damage that may be caused? Is that the result of having tanks going through the streets of washington and possibly tearing up the streets and what other damage would be done?
▶ 1:48:03Sec. Driscoll: To the cost, senator, I think from our perspective, we are optimistic and will be able to report to you after the parade.
▶ 1:48:12Sen. Blumenthal: But why have tanks? Why this kind of parade?
▶ 1:48:17Sec. Driscoll: We believe we have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to fill up recruiting.
▶ 1:48:23Sen. Blumenthal: Wouldn't your preference be to save money in light of the budget cuts we are seeing on freezes on hirings and staff levels and differing maintenance? Jeopardizing equipment maintenance? These problems are not theoretical. Wouldn't you agree that this money could be better spent? We don't have unlimited funds.
▶ 1:48:46Sec. Driscoll: Very sincerely, senator, I think this is a once in a lifetime opportunity --
▶ 1:48:52Sen. Blumenthal: There are a lot of once-in-a-lifetime opportunities, we all have them. But it doesn't mean we spend money extravagantly. In fact, it would be an honor to the army to impact devote those resources to where they are really needed. And let me just cite to you the fact that the national guard bureau has yet to be reimbursed $38 million.
▶ 1:49:18Sen. Blumenthal: By the department of the army for its essential work during the presidential inaugural mission. It isn't a minor oversight. This mission demand at the guards expertise and security in logistics and an emergency response. National guard needs that money. Why are you stiffing the national guard and spending $25 million to $40 million on the parade?
▶ 1:49:44Sec. Driscoll: I'm not aware of the $38 million you are talking about --
▶ 1:49:49Gen. George: I'm not aware of the 30 the $38 million you are talking about. We were talking about the things we need to put out there that we were working through. I can follow up with you on that.
▶ 1:50:02Sen. Blumenthal: I hope that you will. Because, I have a lot of trouble justifying to veterans who have been fired from positions in federal government that we are spending potentially 40 million dollars on a parade, when they have been fired because supposedly we have to eliminate waste, including veterans who
▶ 1:50:33Sen. Blumenthal: Were in the department of veterans affairs. I don't know how you can justify that kind of expenditure. Let me ask you, drone warfare, are you satisfied that we are doing enough to protect our bases in this country and elsewhere against the swarms of small, lightweight drones, such as what ukraine used in its operation spiderweb and such as
▶ 1:51:04Sen. Blumenthal: Terrorists used in the middle east against our base in jordan? I have visited that area. I have heard personal descriptions from troops there about what they fear and our inability to defend them. Are you satisfied we are doing enough on the offense to develop warfare and in terms of defending our cities as well as our bases?
▶ 1:51:33Sec. Driscoll: We are not doing enough. The current status quo is not sufficient. We are rapidly trying to prototype and work with companies who actually are deploying their technologies in the ukraine. This is probably an instance where the united states can be a fast follower. If we could ingest and suck out the lessons learned --
▶ 1:51:58Sen. Blumenthal: My time is about to expire and the chairman will interrupt me. I have visited the drone factories and spent time in -- w■ith their military, talking about their drones. I guarantee you, they are at -- they are way ahead of us. We have a lot to learn from them. It's not just at luxury or convenience. We are at risk because of the technology that they have developed.
▶ 1:52:27Sen. Blumenthal: And the russians are soon going to take from them because that's the pattern in this war. Ukraine takes a step in the russian try -- russians try to keep up with them. And I think we have not only a lot to learn but we have an obligation to learn it. I would like to ask you, because my time has expired, for a briefing on this area, which I think is revolutionizing modern warfare.
▶ 1:52:58Sen. Blumenthal: >> senator, I think that is an important goal. We will have a closed hearing 15 minutes after the adjournment of this. The senator would want to ask those questions.
▶ 1:53:19Gen. George: I would love a chance to address you on that topic.
▶ 1:53:23Sen. Blumenthal: With respect, Mr. chairman, I'm not sure I will be able to attend the closed briefing. I will try. The briefing may not exhaust this topic. I would suggest a specific briefing on drone technology and warfare. >> there will be no time limit on the subject matter. We will do the best we can and I hope the senator will be able to attend.
▶ 1:53:52Sen. Blumenthal: >> I think I would be a good thing to do. It seems to be the topic to shore for uis and counter uis. We've been briefed on these topics before. Seeing what everybody saw with you with ukraine and with russia I think highlights the need for us to be speedy with this.
▶ 1:54:27Sen. Blumenthal: We can talk more about it in a classified setting but it's been something that has been on the radar. I want to commend the army for I think being ahead of this. And, quite frankly, versus the air force. From everything I have gathered, he's clumsy with how we are protecting our assets with counter ua s.
▶ 1:54:54Sen. Blumenthal: It is an unwillingness to adopt technology -- technologies that already exist in the private sector. That's not really a question for you guys today. But, I know that you guys are sort of leading the joint effort, right. Can you talk me through what might be done with, let's just say, of all the branches, you guys are number one in this.
▶ 1:55:23Sen. Blumenthal: Noting and granting that there is work to do. How can you help influence what the air force is doing? Weidman air force base is in missouri. Can you talk with through what the leading effort means and how we can be more nimble when it relates to counter uis? -- uas?
▶ 1:55:50Gen. George: Everybody will have to know how to protect yourself from drones and autonomous systems. I will point out that we need to be more agile. He referred to that when you said we don't get locked into some program. The discussion we had yesterday was somebody who was supporting ukraine. It was an update and it's going to continue to happen. I think stateside, we have submitted, I think we will have to make some changes.
▶ 1:56:19Gen. George: We will have to work locally with the faa and fcc locally. Some of this gets to the 130 ia. Some of that is legislated, how we can share information and drones. I think that legislation is about nine or 10 years old. I think that needs to get updated. The big thing we are looking at is on every system we've mentioned, I think we should be focused on cost curve.
▶ 1:56:45Gen. George: How do we do this in a way that we are not sending million dollar missiles or using big, expensive equipment on things that are relatively cheap. That's what I'm looking at. We are running a very large exercise this month and next. Right now, we are doing this overseas and going to all of that and I would love to come in brief you on that.
▶ 1:57:13Gen. George: There are several systems, kinetic and non-kinetic that we are employing around the world. They work different in different environments. We are doing the same thing stateside. To make sure we are testing it in every environment. >> is having a great impact on what's happening at the border.
▶ 1:57:37Gen. George: In many ways, the autonomous efforts are not only gathering important intelligence and directing critical resources to apprehend people trying to come here illegally, it's a scarecrow effect too. If it's there and people know it's there, the cartels are sophisticated in the places they want to go. I think at the border, this is very important. I want to drill down with the time we have and this will be a much longer discussion.
▶ 1:58:03Gen. George: As it relates to, you know, there's a big focus on the actual drone and what the drone does. There's a lot of things that happen before a drone were to be intercepted or shot down. There is the detection. There is the awareness and sensors. How is the army getting -- what steps are being taken right now to make us more nimble to acquire these sorts of systems?
▶ 1:58:30Gen. George: Because, I have great concern that the efforts that are being made, we have a long way to go. What is happening right now?
▶ 1:58:41Sec. Driscoll: What we are trying to do, we can talk about this more in a classified setting, talk specifically to the companies and the tool makers that are being used in war right now and figure out how do we get -- what they used on sunday was a pretty ingenious way to get it in some ways. We would not have been ready for that and we are not ready for it. But, we know what they did. We will be after that.
▶ 1:59:09Sec. Driscoll: >> I appreciate the candor and will make one final point. The air force in particular, I'm sorry to pick on the air force today. But, the truth is they have asked private companies to come in and do an assessment and they have a good way to do it and they say thank you for your input, we will keep doing it the way we are doing it. That's my concern. Thank you, Mr. chairman for your grace with my extra 40 seconds. >> let me just say this.
▶ 1:59:39Sec. Driscoll: With regard to drones, because this can be said in an opening session. We will have a closed session and the public will not know it. Our reconciliation bill contains $1 billion in funding for small drones.
▶ 1:59:58Chair Wicker: And another billion dollars for one-way attack drones. I wanted the public and members who will not attend the closed session to know that. Senator duckworth?
▶ 2:00:19Sen. Duckworth: I wanted to associate myself with senator blumenthal's -- about blowing 30 main dollars to throw a parade. You are doing it to stroke trump's ego. I would suggest using it on tuition for military families. There are ways to celebrate the army's birthday without blowing it on a parade.
▶ 2:00:47Sen. Duckworth: I want to echo the concerns of senator reed and shaheen, misusing and burning the readiness of our national guard troops and other expensive military assets like deportation flights for interior law enforcement operations. The military should not do the job of dhs for it. I'm concerned by your answer to senator blumenthal, Mr. secretary. I think you copped out with your answer of we will do what's legal.
▶ 2:01:14Sen. Duckworth: It ignores -- that answer ignores your obligation to do what's right for our water fighters and focus on fighting. General george, I appreciate your efforts. I especially support the push to modernize munitions enterprise to deliver munitions to war fighters at scale.
▶ 2:01:44Sen. Duckworth: That's why your proposed cuts are confusing and troubling to me at rock island. Rock island is central to the future of battlefield sustainment and logistics. Yet, under your current plan, two commands with distinct missions, army sustainment command and joint munitions command, would be integrated. We have been told this consolidation would result in workforce reduction for approximately 100 personnel. Beyond this, details are scarce.
▶ 2:02:14Sen. Duckworth: Secretary driscoll, do you have more recent updates on the workforce impacts of these planned changes including how many personnel will be affected and the timeline of implementation?
▶ 2:02:22Sec. Driscoll: I just want to echo how important rock island is. We have been scheduled to go up there soon. The workers have been remarkable and have helped our country and the army for a long time. As it relates to sustainment and the joint munitions command, when we were looking at it, basically the headquarters exists so close together we thought we would have efficiencies without impacting the outputs, by combining, the intent is not to slow down production in any sort of way.
▶ 2:02:55Sec. Driscoll: There are no changes from what you reference. -- reference.
▶ 2:03:03Sen. Duckworth: What's the timeline?
▶ 2:03:06Gen. George: We have two headquarters that are almost co-located and there's a lot of things we can do within that, to combine that. What we still need and we what -- what we want to invest in is the technical expertise that we get at rock island and are probably unmatched through the printed capability and edit manufacturing that the commercial industry is coming through there and using it.
▶ 2:03:34Gen. George: We are looking across the formation at how we can update our business systems and combine some of these capabilities and I think it will make us better. We are happy to brief you on that data in detail or meet you and have that discussion. Sen. secretary driscoll, same question. What's the timeline and how money people will be affected?
▶ 2:03:57Sec. Driscoll: We are currently working on the plane. I would hypothesize there would be growth at rock island on a net basis. We will provide them the moment they are available.
▶ 2:04:10Sen. Duckworth: I think what you're doing is scaling down. I hope the answer is we will work toward a minimum workload, at the very least at rock island to maintain that capacity. I want to flagged that by joining the bipartisan sustainment act, this bill would in set private industry to ensure a more portable workload and hit -- enhance efficiency read I hope you and general
▶ 2:04:40Sen. Duckworth: George will work with us to move and get this legislation passed. >> we would love to. >> I'm concerned about the armies -- without a clear plan to replace pre-we have been told the inventory squad vehicle was identified as the future. The current model of that vehicle does not support the needs and medical -- for medical evacuation.
▶ 2:05:09Sen. Duckworth: The vehicle back in service ambulances in the meantime is facing severe issues. This is not a gap we can afford to ignore. What's the army's to bridge this gap as the humvee is phased out? Either of you can take that one.
▶ 2:05:26Gen. George: You brought up the armor protection, we have 18,000 plus jail tv's, continuing to buy those. Obviously, medical evacuation. And now we do that, having done that, with all of our vehicles. That's why we are also talking about having armored vehicles that will be critical. We are also looking at autonomous systems and how they can go into certain areas. We have 105,000 humvees.
▶ 2:05:58Gen. George: Certainly, that is part of -- we are going through that process of how to make sure we are maximizing the vehicles we need. You mentioned medical vehicles. That would be in the category of how do we make sure we are maintaining the capability? We will be in our formation. >> thank you. Senator scott.
▶ 2:06:25Sen. Scott: I want to thank you for ensuring the army is a lethal war fighting machine. I appreciate the changes you are making to restore the war fighting e thousand and making sure the army is ready for whatever may come. We put a lot of effort into programming and assimilation training.
▶ 2:06:54Sen. Scott: The headquarter plays a critical role in preparing unmatched testing and simulation and training systems to ensure war fighters are ready for the next fight. There is a reason it is in central florida. They host an industry that supports over 30,000 good paying jobs and generates over $7 billion annually.
▶ 2:07:16Sen. Scott: It is strategically located in a unique defense innovation ecosystem, alongside your other partners, the navy, air force and marines and established U.S. space force training at the space force base. We put a lot of effort into it. We put a lot of effort in to make sure it is a space everyone he wants to serve. Can you talk about what your plans are there?
▶ 2:07:43Gen. George: It's very important to us. Two days ago, we consistently run wahhabist. I think we can do more with the commercial industry. That is what we are focused on, down there with peo stride. There are companies all over our country that can produce simulations.
▶ 2:08:09Gen. George: Right now, our overhead christian relation exercises that we are running, which are with soldiers, it is high. I know the technology exists. That is what we are trying to do down there. We did a big conference in orlando that was about six weeks ago, where we explained where we need to move with nexgen simulation.
▶ 2:08:32Gen. George: And, much like some of the previous comment, I think us doing internally -- comments, I think us doing this internally, we will need less expertise. We should be able to adopt and modify commercially available tech that is out there and that's what we are focused on.
▶ 2:08:49Sec. Driscoll: I would say that simulation has leapt forward in the last couple of years. It should have incredible benefits to the united states army. If we think about the trade-off, that's not a particularly good outcome for all trading. We are looking at -- training.
▶ 2:09:17Sen. Scott: What impact do you think it will have there and what impact will have on your ability to work with the other branches?
▶ 2:09:25Gen. George: I don't think it will impact it. What we are looking at is basically aligning our program management where we have adopt, modify and develop. Think these are areas we need to be developing and adopting for people who can do it.
▶ 2:09:50Gen. George: There will be people overseeing those programs and people who understand contracting and having war fighters down there to know what we need.
▶ 2:09:59Sen. Scott: If there's anything I can do to help you, let me know. >> thank you.
▶ 2:10:05Sen. Rozen: I would also like to thank secretary driscoll and general george for testifying today and for your service to our country. I know we are talking about training so I will talk about small arms training. Small arms range in the meta-.
▶ 2:10:23Sen. Rozen: Army leaders in the past have made commitments to build nevada's first certified small arms training range, excuse me, at hawthorne army depot, so that the national guard and reserve soldiers no longer have to travel out-of-state to fulfill their annual weapons qualification. At an average cost of $500,000 per year, per unit. If you want to save money, build our range.
▶ 2:10:50Sen. Rozen: I am appreciative that the army followed through on these commitments and included the project in the fy 2025 budget request, which was added in the house and senate fy 25 appropriations bills. Since congress did not pass these bills and instead passed a full year see art without budget tables, we lack certainty about whether or not the army will fund this project, which is already well underway.
▶ 2:11:15Sen. Rozen: So come on to both of you, can I have your commitment that the army will in fact the liver nevada's first certified small arms training range so that our soldiers can meet their annual requirements at a greater convenience and lower cost to the taxpayers? Secretary driscoll?
▶ 2:11:33Sec. Driscoll: Yes. >> general george?
▶ 2:11:38Gen. George: Yes. >> we will stay on this and talk about the transformation initiative. Hawthorne army depot is the world's largest ammunition depot and demilitarization facility. It demilitarized munitions and ensures readiness for each of the services, despite its size and crucial role that hawthorne plays, it's in dire need of infrastructure upgrades.
▶ 2:12:08Gen. George: Investing in our munitions depot has only become more important in light of our need to ramp up munitions production. We have heard quite a bit today about the army transformation initiative. I am concerned about these broad, structural changes, particularly reductions in platforms and personnel systems as you've been alluding to. They may impact critical facilities and communities such as hawthorne. During both your confirmation hearings, you made commitments to consider further investments in hawthorne.
▶ 2:12:35Gen. George: Can I have your commitment that as the army moves forward with each transformation initiative, investments in hawthorne will continue providing munitions readiness for the army and dod, secretary driscoll?
▶ 2:12:48Sec. Driscoll: The munitions depots are incredibly important. Our magazine death is not where it needs to be. -- depth is not where it needs to be. When you are referencing the cuts that we are making in ati, what we are trying to do is have a bottoms up approach. Where we over indexed on things like companies or jailed tv's. Or where did we over invest in research development.
▶ 2:13:16Sec. Driscoll: Where can we save money and reallocate those dollars, to best help all of these big problems that we have? I can absolutely commit that we would want to work with your office to figure out how can we rapidly continue to scale our munitions base. >> perfect. General george?
▶ 2:13:34Gen. George: I would agree with what the secretary said. The other thing we would like to work with you on is how we can build these things and repair things cheaper. Because I'm confident we can do that as well. >> we would love to work with you on that. My final question is about cyber workforce development.
▶ 2:13:52Gen. George: The fy 24 ndaa included bipartisan legislation, authorizing the army to create a civilian cybersecurity reserve to provide cyber calm with qualified civilian personnel for search capacity. Ensuring the U.S. government has the cyber talent it needs to respond to malicious activity and secure the dod's information and systems.
▶ 2:14:16Gen. George: General george and secretary crystal, can you provide a status update on the army's implementation of the civilian cyber reserve?
▶ 2:14:24Gen. George: I just had about, I think it was last week, I took a brief specifically on cyber and army cyber and how we are filling the formations. And I don't have is the specifics on the civilians. This is a conversation we have a lot as far as for the guard and people that are actually out there working. That is their day job and had they been connected to that, that's important to us.
▶ 2:14:54Gen. George: There is a lot of folks filling those positions. This is an area we are trying to expand this. We are doing pretty good, expanding it. This is something that takes months and years, to get the exquisite capability we are talking about. I can come and go over some details. >> I appreciate that. Secretary justo -- secretary driscoll?
▶ 2:15:19Sec. Driscoll: I have nothing more to add to that. The ability to scale our cyber needs, everything we are talking about, generative ai will require cyber warriors to help us. >> especially as we try to implement cyber calm 2.0. Thank you.
▶ 2:15:38Chair Wicker: Thank you, senator banks. >> I want to echo what others have pointed out. It is somewhat awkward to have a budget hearing without the army's budget. When it is released by the pentagon, I hope we can work together to talk about priorities and the budget and how we can fight for them.
▶ 2:15:58Chair Wicker: General george, thanks to the inspirational leadership of president trump, there is a big difference between this year and last year, when it comes to army recruitment. I want to unpack that with you. The army has met its recruiting goals for the rest of this fiscal year. The army is seeing its best recruitment numbers in over 10 years.
▶ 2:16:27Chair Wicker: They have beaten their retention goals. What do you make of that? What's the difference between laster and this year that's gotten us to that point? >> I would tell you, senator, we have made steady improvement over time with that. As you know, we have been talking about how we have given them the right technology to make sure they are doing that. Reducing the amount of forms and things that people are figuring out.
▶ 2:16:59Chair Wicker: We have had very good months. We had not seen this since 2014. We are happy with where we are at. >> you say we have had very good months. I want to go there. Was there a good month, was there a point if you study the trends of these recoupment numbers, when did you see the cigna can shift? -- significant shift?
▶ 2:17:26Chair Wicker: >> I can get you the monthly data that goes back from september to october. We have seen a rise, a slight rise. We have been on a good, steady path. >> was a good indicator of november 5? Was there a significant increase in army recruitment after november 5?
▶ 2:17:48Gen. George: We have seen recruitment numbers come up a little bit. >> it seems obvious to me that who the commander-in-chief is matters to military recruitment. And I have seen those trends generally. It would be great to unpack them even further with you, the difference between last year and this year and a pentagon that is focused on legality and a commander-in-chief inspiring the next generation to step up and serve our country. My big question for you is how do we keep that going?
▶ 2:18:20Gen. George: What do we do from this point forward to keep those recruitment numbers heading in the direction that they are? >> this is a discussion we have pretty consistently. We have to continue to do what we are doing. We have to constantly evaluate. For us, we track 16 different specialties in making sure we are doing it. One of them that we have been doing very well on this year, we have had struggles with was the 18 x-ray.
▶ 2:18:49Gen. George: How do we reach those people and how we look at our marketing, that is something we have to constantly evaluate, senator. It's important on the retention side. You mentioned what we are doing inside of our formation to make sure we are retaining -- >> can you give us anecdotes or reasons why higher recruitment and higher retention matters to the united states army?
▶ 2:19:18Gen. George: >> I think it matters to everybody in the joint force. You want to have everybody capable. >> what can you do with better retention?
▶ 2:19:27Gen. George: What's important about retention is -- we were just talking about cyber. You are keeping some of the you have trained. Some people I enlisted in the army many years ago. You look at keeping people that you have invested in and you have trained in. Often times, people have other opportunities. They stayed because of the team and the mission. Signal.
▶ 2:19:53Gen. George: In ceo's drive our trait -- ncos drive our training. Keeping them on our team is critically important.
▶ 2:20:05Sec. Driscoll: Senator, it's a virtuous cycle. When we are having a harder time recruiting, we have to lower standards, which means we are letting in a different population. The army feels that. What we are able to do now is there is so much demand, we can start to raise standards. We can start to focus on putting people where -- >> the last administration lowered standards to meet recruitment goals.
▶ 2:20:34Sec. Driscoll: Can we go backwards and put those standards back to where we need to be so that we are getting the best and the brightest? The trump bump of recruitment is obviously real. That's what I'm going for. >> we are actively, quantitatively raising standards on things like our a pft.
▶ 2:20:52Sec. Driscoll: If this continues, we will continue to prioritize giving slots to basic training for the most qualified young adults. >> that's good news. I yelled back.
▶ 2:21:06Chair Wicker: Senator slotkin ?
▶ 2:21:14Sen. Slotkin: Thank you for being here. We talked about the army transportation. I will echo a number of the things that senator peters said. We understand the need for the army to modernize.
▶ 2:21:28Sen. Slotkin: I don't think there is a signal person who things we should stay the same and and that is based on the fact that china is investing in new technology, new techniques and if they and others -- hopefully never -- that we have to fight, are ahead of us on a whole bunch of different things, like we are not doing our job in preparing and protecting the united states. I think we are all on the same page.
▶ 2:21:56Sen. Slotkin: I want to make sure it is not just about cutting stuff. We understand you have looked at cutting things like humvees and the jltvs, things that michigan does but that we also look at processes and procedures. Right now, can go from concept to fielding a new system in one year. The U.S. military can go from concept to fielding in three years if we are lucky.
▶ 2:22:27Sen. Slotkin: To me, the future is going to be won by the people who are most agile and flexible in taking a new great idea, some of the stuff we are seeing in ukraine and moving it to contact faster. And I would just offer that we don't want to the defense industrial base, we want to update it. I think michigan can be the place to do that advancement factoring, to bring in ai, 3d printing, all of these new techniques that are going to make us go faster.
▶ 2:22:59Sen. Slotkin: I'm thrilled that you are coming. We are going to show ourselves off and instead of fighting to hold onto everything that we've had in the past, we want to be the defense point of contact for advanced manufacturing for the future. We are going to give you the dog and pony to make sure that you feel the same way because we are pretty hot shit at what we do michigan. Sorry to swear.
▶ 2:23:27Sen. Slotkin: Can you talk a little bit about -- on the advanced manufacturing piece, can you help elaborate on what the army is going to do to speed up that pipeline with manufacturing?
▶ 2:23:42Sen. Slotkin: >> to your earlier point about the cuts, when we have rolled out army training, the first bucket was the cuts in order to take the $48 billion in savings defense empowered us to innovate and spend it to make the army stronger. General george and I are stronger -- are confident that it will be stronger for the defense industrial base so that they can show us innovation.
▶ 2:24:14Sen. Slotkin: We have been a very poor customer oftentimes and perhaps all the time. We do not allow small and medium businesses to show us their product, have us get into the hands of scholl -- soldiers and then reward them when we need it often enough and there is this chasm that has been created that only incredibly large companies -- three years is generous, it is public closer to 10.
▶ 2:24:40Sen. Slotkin: >> to your earlier point about modeling and simulation, michigan is coakley becoming the hub if you want to test something out before you have to build a scale model, bring in a platoon of guys to let them put on the vr glasses and test something out before we build it. We are going to become the hub of that and we are eager to show it off.
▶ 2:25:04Sen. Slotkin: One of my many criticisms of this administration in general is that they are happy to have the press conference about cutting this many people or this many programs but as someone who worked in the federal government, it is often the procedures within the departments and agencies that take forever. There are so many steps, so many things to do. I would welcome the pentagon saying we are not just going to do the press conferences on how many woke people we got rid of or how many programs we got rid of.
▶ 2:25:37Sen. Slotkin: It is about actually cleaning up our internal processes so it is not so laborious. I've never once gotten a proposal, please take off these regulations. Please remove these things. They may have been well intended but it is too much. Don't just do the shiny object, the stuff that gets political attention. Please dig in and do the work so that if you want transformation you actually get it.
▶ 2:26:07Sec. Driscoll: I want to quickly give my ranger buddy a shout out on the recruiting side. Over 600 forms that could be filled out in recruiting. I don't know what they could possibly ask but you would have to repeat your name if he seven times on each of the forms and what general george did with the recruiting team is he said you were not allowed to have more than 10 forms. , make it work.
▶ 2:26:33Sec. Driscoll: They have cut down on 592 forms which is remarkable and we would be delighted to give you that list. >> can I add one thing chairman? We have asked senators for agile funding in the past and we have to buy keep ability portfolios for drones, counter drones, ew. We will be submitting that as part of our budget, to have that capability.
▶ 2:27:00Sec. Driscoll: >> I would happily give flexible funding and multiyear funding if we can get our act together up here. But it is also for more traditional things -- we've given you a lot of authorities over the years. There is a culture problem in the pentagon, not just what more authorities. Do the internal work too.
▶ 2:27:25Chair Wicker: Thank you senator slotkin. Senator kelly, you were polite that senator slotkin could walk in ahead of you and you seem to have been punished for that.
▶ 2:27:38Sen. Kaine: It worked out well -- Sen. king: lee -- it worked out well because of what she asked Mr. chairman.
▶ 2:27:47Chair Wicker: I understand you are yielding back?
▶ 2:27:53Sen. Kelly: I am not. I have a similar and related question on the army transformation initiative. First of all secretary, general george, thank you for being here and your continued service.
▶ 2:28:11Sen. Kelly: Secretary driscoll, and reference to the army transformation initiative, is it correct that it is consistent with the secretary of defense's directive on army transformation and acquisition reform? That those things are consistent ?
▶ 2:28:30Sec. Driscoll: Yes.
▶ 2:28:32Sen. Kelly: That directive states that the army must prioritize investments in investments to improve electronic warfare capabilities among other things. Is that correct?
▶ 2:28:44Sec. Driscoll: Yes.
▶ 2:28:45Sen. Kelly: And I agree. Lessons learned from ukraine, especially underscore the requirement for just how important our offense and defense electronic capabilities are. We've seen that on the battlefield in europe. It seems to me that the army would want to bolster its electronic warfare evaluation and testing capabilities.
▶ 2:29:15Sen. Kelly: Senator slotkin talked about advancement factoring. One aspect of being able to manufacture advanced innovative combat power is to be able to test it and evaluate it. Without testing or evaluation, you don't know what you are going to get. We want to make sure we can deliver the most advanced fighting capabilities in any conflict. Would you agree?
▶ 2:29:36Sec. Driscoll: Yes.
▶ 2:29:37Sen. Kelly: So it is concerning to me that the U.S. army test and evaluation command has a reduction in force plan that would disproportionately impact the army's primary electronic warfare test and evaluation center, the electronic proving ground at fort watch yuka outside of sierra vista.
▶ 2:30:05Sen. Kelly: The electronic proving ground provides the unique capability to execute development of testing without interference due to its geography. Surrounded by some mountains, it also benefits from an ideal climate, over 320 flying days per year in federally protected airspace which further minimizes interference and allows us to conduct aggressive tests that really show off our capability.
▶ 2:30:38Sen. Kelly: This is important develop mental tests. The existing proving grounds simply cannot provide the same environments outside of that site. That would leave us without the ability if we get rid of personnel, we will not have the capability to do that develop mental test and to train our soldiers and pilots how to use the systems, to counter our adversaries.
▶ 2:31:07Sen. Kelly: If carried out, this reduction in force, this could result in some long-term consequences for testing and evaluation and readiness. Mr. secretary, do you agree that disproportionately slashing our electronic warfare test centers would harm the army's electronic warfare capability?
▶ 2:31:29Gen. George: Would you mind if I jumped in? As you know, we have yuma. I agree with you on the w -- on the ew. We've had a lot of discussions on this, we are also testing some of the stuff around the world. What we had and what we are looking at is where do we have excess capacity we are not using?
▶ 2:32:01Gen. George: Yes, ew is going to be important, we are going to have to do it in a lot of different locations. We will probably be doing much differently at the fox range, adding drones, doing different --
▶ 2:32:16Sen. Kelly: Let me give you a quick example. The proving ground is a valuable asset in the state of arizona but they are different. The geography of the electronic proving ground allows us to do stuff there that we cannot do anywhere else.
▶ 2:32:34Sen. Kelly: If you want to simulate a surface missile system, the electronic signal from it in yuma, proving ground, you are talking maybe .1 watt of power before you can start to interfere with communication systems, airplanes, tv stations in and around the phoenix area. When you do that at the electronic proving ground, could go in order of magnitude or more higher in power output.
▶ 2:33:01Sen. Kelly: There is no place like it anywhere and the rift that is planned, if that continues and is carried out, where going to find ourselves in a situation where we cannot do the testing that we need on these ew systems. General and Mr. secretary, I encourage you to look into this. I am happy to have a follow-up discussion about it.
▶ 2:33:30Sec. Driscoll: The work they are doing is incredible but we will follow up with your office.
▶ 2:33:36Chair Wicker: Senator kelly, I believe you are accompanied by your brother who is also an astronaut.
▶ 2:33:42Sen. Kelly: And a former navy pilot.
▶ 2:33:46Chair Wicker: A combat veteran.
▶ 2:33:47Sen. Kelly: He is in the audience.
▶ 2:33:50Chair Wicker: He bears a striking resemblance to you.
▶ 2:33:53Sen. Kelly: We are twins. I am the twin -- I am the original and he is the cheap copy.
▶ 2:34:01Chair Wicker: Let me salute a family of aviators and astronauts. This concludes the open portion of today's hearing. I want to thank our witnesses for their testimony. Questions for the record will be due to the committee within two business days of the conclusion of the hearing. We will commence the closed portion of this hearing in the senate security in 15 minutes. We are in recess until then.