[House Hearing, 114 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.A.S.C. No. 114-37]
THE ROLE OF SURFACE FORCES
IN PRESENCE, DETERRENCE,
AND WARFIGHTING
__________
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON SEAPOWER AND PROJECTION FORCES
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
HEARING HELD
APRIL 15, 2015
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
94-748 WASHINGTON : 2015
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SUBCOMMITTEE ON SEAPOWER AND PROJECTION FORCES
J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia, Chairman
K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut
BRADLEY BYRNE, Alabama JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island
ROBERT J. WITTMAN, Virginia RICK LARSEN, Washington
DUNCAN HUNTER, California, Vice MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO, Guam
Chair HENRY C. ``HANK'' JOHNSON, Jr.,
VICKY HARTZLER, Missouri Georgia
PAUL COOK, California SCOTT H. PETERS, California
JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii
JACKIE WALORSKI, Indiana GWEN GRAHAM, Florida
RYAN K. ZINKE, Montana SETH MOULTON, Massachusetts
STEPHEN KNIGHT, California
STEVE RUSSELL, Oklahoma
David Sienicki, Professional Staff Member
Phil MacNaughton, Professional Staff Member
Katherine Rember, Clerk
C O N T E N T S
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Page
STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Courtney, Hon. Joe, a Representative from Connecticut, Ranking
Member, Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces......... 3
Forbes, Hon. J. Randy, a Representative from Virginia, Chairman,
Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces................. 1
WITNESSES
Clark, Bryan, Senior Fellow, Center for Strategic and Budgetary
Assessments.................................................... 3
McGrath, Bryan, Managing Director, The FerryBridge Group......... 6
APPENDIX
Prepared Statements:
Clark, Bryan................................................. 31
Courtney, Hon. Joe........................................... 29
Forbes, Hon. J. Randy........................................ 27
McGrath, Bryan............................................... 50
Documents Submitted for the Record:
[There were no Documents submitted.]
Witness Responses to Questions Asked During the Hearing:
[There were no Questions submitted during the hearing.]
Questions Submitted by Members Post Hearing:
[There were no Questions submitted post hearing.]
THE ROLE OF SURFACE FORCES IN PRESENCE, DETERRENCE, AND WARFIGHTING
----------
House of Representatives,
Committee on Armed Services,
Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces,
Washington, DC, Wednesday, April 15, 2015.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:02 p.m., in
room 2212, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. J. Randy Forbes
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. J. RANDY FORBES, A REPRESENTATIVE
FROM VIRGINIA, CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE ON SEAPOWER AND
PROJECTION FORCES
Mr. Forbes. I would like to call this hearing to order.
And before we get started, I want to welcome my newest
member of both the full committee and the subcommittee, Mr.
Russell from Oklahoma, who has had a very distinguished career
in serving our country.
And we are delighted to have you both on our full committee
and on the subcommittee. Look forward to your input and help as
we move forward with this markup and other things the
subcommittee will be doing.
Today the subcommittee meets to discuss the role of surface
forces in presence, deterrence, and warfighting. I am
particularly pleased to have two distinguished seapower expert
witnesses to testify before our subcommittee.
Mr. Bryan Clark is a Senior Fellow at the Center for
Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, and Mr. Bryan McGrath is
Managing Director at The FerryBridge Group.
Thank you, both, for being here and testifying today. We
always enjoy reading your material, and we are looking forward
to hearing you today.
This committee's last hearing discussed the evolving
maritime security report in the Navy's recently released
report, ``A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower.''
Today we examine surface forces in this new environment and how
we accomplish the transition from a defensive to an offensive
surface force capable of operating and achieving objectives
both independently and in cooperation with other forces.
Looking at our naval surface forces today, we see a
multitude of new capabilities are being integrated into the
fleet. We are incorporating better sensors, including an
expanded air and missile defense radar that is 30 times better
than current technologies, and a new digital electronic warfare
capability to deter, detect, or to better detect, decoy, and
defeat incoming missiles.
We are continuing to expand our antisubmarine warfare
capabilities, including the addition of multi-function towed
array and a variable depth sonar on our small surface
combatants that will be able to better track even the quietest
of submarines.
We are fielding new missiles to better pace the threats we
face, including a long-range antiship missile and better short-
range missile capabilities resident in the enhanced Sea Sparrow
missile.
Although we face severe fiscal constraints in research and
development, there are new technologies available that the Navy
will shortly be able to integrate into existing platforms.
Advances in technology, such as the electromagnetic rail
gun and the laser weapons system, permit the integration of
systems and promote the multi-functionality of systems. Instead
of a multi-million-dollar missile, a single salvo from a rail
gun will cost less than $50,000. These systems represent a
great opportunity to fundamentally change the cost curves in
our favor.
In addition to harnessing our technological innovation, our
Navy is exploring a new concept entitled ``distributed
lethality,'' a concept that would disaggregate and better arm
the surface fleet. Providing for a better tactical employment
of our surface combatants by disaggregating surface combatants
from a centralized carrier battle group may represent our best
chance of creating a tactical force multiplier.
By complicating potential adversary's ability to
successfully target future naval combatants, our Navy becomes
more survivable and increases the probability that potential
aggressors will decide to pass at future conflict.
I continue to believe the most challenging capability or
tactical problem that the Navy has to contend with does not
reside within the Department nor is it posed by potential
adversaries. I believe that the most pervasive and difficult
problem that the United States Navy faces today is the will of
this body to provide for our common defense and to not be
lulled into a false sense of security.
The idea of American exceptionalism is not idle words, but,
rather, a unique American approach to our current challenges
and future goals and objectives. We need to embrace the role of
the United States and especially the role of the United States
Navy and surface fleet, in particular, in maintaining and
securing the global commons.
As proponents of seapower, we know that our Nation's
viability and future is linked to the strength and health of
our fleet. I just question what we are doing today to ensure
our next generation is able to enjoy the same benefits of life
and liberty that preceding generations have provided to us. I
look forward to hearing Mr. Clark and Mr. McGrath's insights on
how the Navy can reach distributed lethality amidst fiscal
constraints.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Forbes can be found in the
Appendix on page 27.]
Mr. Forbes. And, with that, I would like to now turn to the
ranking member of this subcommittee, Mr. Courtney, for any
comments he may like to offer.
STATEMENT OF HON. JOE COURTNEY, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM
CONNECTICUT, RANKING MEMBER, SUBCOMMITTEE ON SEAPOWER AND
PROJECTION FORCES
Mr. Courtney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you to both witnesses for your presence here
today. Again, you have been sort of frequent fliers around this
building, and much appreciated. Because, you know, there is
obviously a lot in the short term with a mark just a few days
away, but, also, frankly, the longer view that I think you guys
spend a lot of time thinking about and your experience and
training, you know, really provides a very helpful guidance to
all of us.
I am not going to read my whole statement here, but just
sort of reiterate what the chairman mentioned, is that the
Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower, which was
released and we had a hearing on a few days ago, again, sort of
focused on the fact that our surface forces are critical to
making that strategy work. It faces, in many respects, you
know, almost unprecedented challenges.
The Under Secretary for Acquisition, Under Secretary
Kendall, spoke yesterday at the Sea, Air, and Space Convention
with a packed audience and made the comment that he thought
that the sort of changing technology and capabilities out there
are about as threatening as existed back at the time of World
War I with the evolution of a lot of new platforms that people
really hadn't even gotten their heads around. So, you know,
obviously, we really need to be focused on what you are here to
talk about today.
So, again, look forward to your testimony.
And, Mr. Chair, I am just going to ask the rest of my
remarks be entered for the record.
Mr. Forbes. Without objection, they will be entered.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Courtney can be found in the
Appendix on page 29.]
Mr. Courtney. And I will yield back.
Mr. Forbes. Thank you, Mr. Courtney.
And I know you served on a panel at that exposition. I know
you represented us all very, very well. And I am sure that you
mentioned submarines at least once or twice in that panel. Not
today, but thanks so much.
Mr. Clark, it is my understanding you are going to start.
And, as I mentioned to both of you, we will put your full
written remarks in the record, but we look forward to any
opening comments that either of you may have.
So we will turn the floor over to you.
STATEMENT OF BRYAN CLARK, SENIOR FELLOW, CENTER FOR STRATEGIC
AND BUDGETARY ASSESSMENTS
Mr. Clark. Thank you, sir. Chairman Forbes and Ranking
Member Courtney, thank you very much for inviting us to discuss
the role of the surface Navy in presence, deterrence, and
warfighting today. I am honored to be here and to appear with
my friend Bryan McGrath.
This discussion is timely, as the U.S. Navy surface force
is at a crossroads. At the beginning of this century, the Navy
had planned to introduce a family of new warships, the CG(X)
missile defense cruiser, the DD(X) land attack destroyer, and
the sea control-focused littoral combat ship [LCS]. Now we look
back and each of those ships is now either truncated or
canceled, and we need a new family of surface ships to address
the future of security environment.
The environment in which those ships was introduced
reflected kind of that post-Cold War security environment where
the Navy supported power protection ashore and its dominance at
sea was unquestioned.
The new cruiser was designed to protect U.S. forces from
missiles launched from land. The destroyer was designed to use
stealth to approach close to shore and use its guns to attack
targets on land. And the littoral combat ship was planned to be
used to address coastal threats, like mines or diesel
submarines and small boats.
Today the security environment is much different. In
particular, sea control can no longer be assumed and U.S.
surface forces are going to have to expect to fight to gain and
maintain access for the joint force in the future. Also,
resources to address this challenge have and will continue to
be constrained.
So recognizing these trends, the Navy decided to end each
of these programs that were involved in this new family of
surface ships, but it now needs to come up with a set of new
solutions that are going to address this future environment.
That future environment is much different. Today
sophisticated anti-access/area-denial capabilities continue to
improve and proliferate, threatening U.S. freedom of action,
and challenging the security assurances it provides to its
allies and partners.
At the same time, instability is spreading through the
action of revisionist states, such as Russia, China, and Iran,
and there is also the failure of governments in the Middle East
and Africa, which are increasing demands for U.S. forces to
come in and help train and do security assistance with our
allies and partners around the world.
Fortunately, the Navy has some opportunities to address
this set of challenges both with instability and anti-access
capabilities.
In the next year, it is going to finalize specifications
for the Flight III Arleigh Burke destroyer; it is going to
determine the specific requirements for the new frigate that is
going to be introduced; it is going to implement a plan to try
to sustain its cruiser capacity; it is going to integrate into
the fleet a series of new ships, such as the joint high-speed
vessel [JHSV], the afloat forward staging base [AFSB], and the
mobile landing platform [MLP].
The Navy should take advantage of these opportunities to
restore the ability of surface combatants to gain and maintain
access for the joint force through sea control and to also
sustain the ability of the surface fleet to provide a
stabilizing presence and provide security assistance and
training to our allies and partners.
I believe this is going to take five major actions on the
part of the Navy. First, it is going to have to adopt an
offensive mindset. Today a surface fleet is more focused on
defeating enemy missiles and torpedoes than attacking the
aircraft, submarines, or ships that have launched them. This
puts us at the wrong end of the cost exchange and the wrong end
of the missile exchange.
The missiles that an adversary would have to launch to
overwhelm a DDG's air defense would cost about one-tenth the
price of that DDG. So it puts the adversary in a very
advantageous position because of the way we are operating.
Instead, U.S. surface forces need to focus on killing the
archer instead of shooting down his arrows. That is the only
way we are going to be able to change the conversation and that
exchange ratio.
The number two thing we have to do is change our air
defense approach. Our cruisers and destroyers today employ an
air defense concept that uses the largest and most expensive
interceptive missiles first and only uses cheaper, higher
capacity systems, such as small interceptors or electronic
warfare, after the long-range interceptors have run out or
failed. We need to instead engage incoming missiles closer to
the ship with improved smaller interceptors and new electronic
warfare capabilities and directed energy systems that will be
fielded in the next 5 years.
Third, we need to take the defensive workload off of our
large surface combatants. Our cruisers and destroyers should be
the offensive workhorses of the surface fleet, but, instead,
they are consigned to a bunch of defensive missions that are
going to come because we have no other way to provide air
defense to forces ashore or forces at sea, as well as escorting
convoys and logistic ships in wartime.
One way you could do that is to make sure that the Navy's
new frigate will be able to do air defense. Another way we can
do that is by looking at ways to shift ballistic missile
defense missions, which are an increasing demand signal on the
surface Navy, to shore systems that are able to do those
missions much more efficiently in certain locations.
Four, we need to expand our capacity for training and
security force assistance from sea. Today we only have half the
number of small surface combatants that the Navy said are
required. Half. What that means is, for all of those missions
for minesweeping, for training, for maritime security, like
counterpiracy, we are having to use cruisers and destroyers
instead of using frigates and other small ships as we have done
in the past.
We need to look at ways to be able to expand the ability of
other ships, such as those in our logistics fleet or in support
ships, to be able to do some of those missions instead of using
our large surface combatants to do so. There is ways we could
do that by adapting the LCS mission package concept and
widening its approach and using it on other ships than just the
LCS.
Fifth, we need to adopt new technologies. Lasers, rail gun,
new electronic warfare systems, and unmanned systems are all
mature, and we have seen examples of them being used in
operational environments. The Navy needs to start looking at
ways to integrate these into combatant ships to be able to take
advantage of what they are going to provide in terms of higher
capacity, lower cost, offensive, and defensive capabilities.
These actions would enhance warfighting. They would enhance
our ability to provide presence. And the end effect of that is
going to be deterrence. And that is what we are looking for
from the Navy, because, fundamentally, the Nation depends on
naval forces to deter and defeat other forces in conflict.
I look forward to your questions and the discussion that
will follow. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Clark can be found in the
Appendix on page 31.]
Mr. Forbes. Thank you, Mr. Clark.
Mr. McGrath.
STATEMENT OF BRYAN McGRATH, MANAGING DIRECTOR, THE FERRYBRIDGE
GROUP
Mr. McGrath. Thank you, Chairman Forbes, Ranking Member
Courtney, and other members of the subcommittee for the
invitation to testify here today on the role of surface forces
in presence, deterrence, and warfighting.
Surface forces play distinct roles in all three of these
functions with the capability of the ship generally determining
how extensible it is throughout the range of functions.
Generally speaking, the more capable the ship, the more
extensible it is.
That said, a new generation of threats, a decline in
surface force proficiency in some vital missions, and a lack of
operational imagination raise important questions about the
future employment of the surface force in wartime.
China's 20-year program of naval modernization and the
development of anti-access and area-denial [A2/AD] regime are
in no small measure associated with their realization after the
Taiwan Strait Crisis of 1996 that American naval dominance in
East Asia had to be contested. During this last 20 years, the
U.S. Navy has gotten smaller, even as it has purposely de-
emphasized the capabilities that are now required to counter
China's A2/AD complex.
After years of neglecting surface-based antisubmarine
warfare and antisurface warfare, we are now faced with a rising
peer competitor who is forcing us to face this neglect.
We have a surface force that is less capable of destroying
enemy surface and submarine forces than its Cold War
predecessor. We have a carrier air wing that has privileged
short-range strike to the point where its effectiveness and
traditional war-at-sea tasks is questionable. That question of
the carrier air wing is one I hope we are able to take up on
another day.
In the future, sophisticated sea-denial strategies, such as
those wielded by the Chinese, will drive the U.S. Navy to look
at seizing temporary and limited pockets of sea control in
order to enable other follow-on operations, something I like to
call offensive sea control, though it bothers the purists.
In an era of little or no threat, the Navy packed its
defense around the carrier and it positioned itself close to an
adversary in order to generate maximal combat sorties. Against
a high-end, near-peer competitor implementing an A2/AD
strategy, this is no longer possible. The carrier strike group
will have to fight its way into portions of the ocean from
which it can then execute strikes and then quickly retire and/
or relocate.
In essence, this resembles an island-hopping campaign that
you are familiar with from the Second World War, except,
whereas in those battles islands were seized and then held to
enable follow-on operations, in this paradigm, pieces of the
ocean will be seized and held for some period of time from
which offensive operations are then conducted.
Critical to any concept of offensive sea control is a more
lethal, mobile, and innovatively employed surface force. We
must begin to more holistically evaluate risk, and we must
recognize that our current concepts of force employment provide
a determined foe with increasingly less complexity.
I look forward to a discussion with you today of creating
operational problems for potential adversaries with more
innovatively operated surface forces wielding powerful
offensive and defensive weapons. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. McGrath can be found in the
Appendix on page 50.]
Mr. Forbes. Thank you, Mr. McGrath.
And let me maybe set a stage. And I am going to ask a
number of things--it is not an exam. So don't feel like you
have to answer each one. Take whichever one you want to set
kind of the foundation of this.
Both of you have talked about today how we have been
planning essentially for an uncontested environment, we are no
longer going to be in an uncontested environment. If I had
General Welch here from the Air Force, he would say the exact
same thing, that tomorrow we are not going to be in an
uncontested environment.
How did we miss that? I mean, you know, did we go a decade
or two decades just missing the fact that one day we would be
in a contested environment? It seems like to me that was pretty
obvious. How did we miss that on such a big scale?
The second thing is: As we find ourselves moving into this
contested environment, are we talking about the need to change
platforms or concepts and strategies or perhaps both?
And then, if it is changing concepts, how good are we at
changing? I mean, for the longest time we have been talking
about Air-Sea Battle concept. That was the big, you know,
concept du jour and all of a sudden, shoom, it just got swept
out, you know, under the rug.
And then the last thing that I would like for you to kind
of put in that framework: We are talking about the high-end A2/
AD stuff that we are looking at. But we looked at in the full
hearing today--we had Admiral Locklear here, and one of the
questions I asked--and I know both of you have looked at the
new Office of Naval Intelligence report that just came out. It
really talked about the military maritime buildup for China.
And in addition to that, it talked about them putting out
more naval ships this year than any other country and more next
year. But one of the things that particularly concerned me was
it is not just their naval ships, but it is what they are doing
in their coast guards. And their coast guard now--with the
ships that they have in their coast guard alone, they are
within like 68 ships of our entire Navy and they are having
huge capacity and capability increases.
And I showed Admiral Locklear a picture, which I imagine
you two have seen--I should have showed it to you beforehand--
but it is of a coast guard ship that they have and they have on
it ``Tug Boat 25.'' I am sure you have seen it. It is painted
white. And then I showed a picture beside that of their
amphibious naval ship that is just painted gray. But they are
the exact same ship, you know.
And I worry sometimes that, when we measure and hear the
Navy talking, they are comparing our Navy against their navy,
but we are missing those lower tier aggressive fights.
So putting that in perspective, how did we miss this
environmental shift? Are we looking at platforms versus
concepts? And then how do we take into account kind of this
lower tier aggressive action we are seeing not just from the
Chinese, but the Russians, the Iranians? And how does that play
into what we are doing here? Either or both of you on that.
Mr. Clark. Okay. Well, so I will go first. I will tackle
some of those.
To start with the last one first--or to start with this
overall question of, I guess, how did we end up in a contested
environment without realizing that we were going to do so, a
lot of that had to do with the fact that we were fighting other
conflicts at that time.
So during the post-Cold War period, for about 25 years,
from, you know, 1990 until 2015, we have enjoyed a relatively
peaceful time, from the Navy's perspective, of not having to
deal with a peer competitor.
But for the first 10 years or so of that, there was really
no competitor at all and we didn't expect that the capabilities
that Russia had developed would then be proliferated to a bunch
of new actors. And then, when that happened, we continued to
rely on our existing Cold War systems to get us through.
By upgrading them, we figured that they would be able to
continue to provide us the capacity to defeat new cruise
missiles, new, you know, weapons that China and others were
getting that were coming from the Russians, not realizing that,
at some point, the number of weapons that would be able to be
brought against us would exceed the capacity of ships to be
able to defend themselves. And that is really the fundamental
metric that is being exceeded here, is that more weapons can be
brought to bear against us than our defensive systems can
handle.
And when we say a ``contested environment,'' that is what
we are really talking about, is that we are going from a time
when one or two missiles might get shot at you by a rogue state
or a terrorist actor to now having hundreds of weapons being
shot at you by a state actor who has been able to buy them from
the Russians. So that kind of accretion of capacity over time
is how that sneaks up on you. And, before you know it, you
realize that you are now on the wrong end of the cost exchange
and need to make a dramatic change to alter that.
Part of what China has been doing in their pretty smart
strategy of developing naval capability has been to develop the
maritime services, the non-navy coast guard and other
surveillance services that they use that are not military but,
instead, civilian forces that go out and use similar
capabilities to go press their case on legal issues, so
executing lawfare.
The problem that we have right now is that the U.S. Navy
and the U.S. allies in that region don't have a commensurate or
proportional capability to deal with what is called sub-
conventional aggression. So what the Chinese do is they do
aggression, but it is below the level of conventional conflict,
in the hopes that, over time, they are going to be able to gain
an advantage in the competition for territories in the South
China Sea and East China Sea.
So we don't have a commensurate set of non-warship,
noncombatant-type capabilities that are able to be deployed in
that region. And our allies don't have the same thing. So we
are not able to assist them in the way that we might be able to
where we do equip our noncombatants in a way that would let
them contribute to that.
I would say, in order to address these two problems, the
higher end problem of dealing with a contested environment and
the lower end problem of the subconventional conflict, there is
going to be some changes to platforms, but it is going to be a
lot of changes to concepts that are involved.
Because how we approach air defense in an environment where
the adversary can launch more weapons than I have the capacity
to handle means I need to come up with a new air defense
concept. So I need to start looking at shooting down incoming
weapons closer to my own ship than I would like to because I
need to be able to use smaller weapons, weapons with shorter
range that I can have higher capacity with. And I can get into
some more detail on that.
But there is some specifics on there. But the technical
limitations of those systems at a high capacity are such that
they don't go very far away. So I have got to shift my air
defense concept to be closer in to my ship, which is a cultural
change for the Navy. We like to shoot things as far away as
possible so I can get multiple cracks at them before they
arrive.
We also need to change our concept for how we provide
security assistance to our partners. So if China is using its
coast guard to bully the Philippines or Japan, we need to think
about having ships that are able to operate at that lower
level.
So we need to have noncombatant ships like JHSVs or Coast
Guard ships or noncombatant logistics vessels that are able to
go be out there to provide presence that are able to deter
China from that kind of activity because U.S. forces are
nearby, but without escalating it by having a warship there.
Because right now our only option is to put a cruiser or a
destroyer in that region, and that is highly escalatory.
And then the additional thing we need to do is look at our
payloads. And so we may need to make some fundamental changes
with regard to what kinds of weapons we develop and what
priorities we put on weapons development. Right now we build a
lot of weapons that are designed for a single mission, and they
are generally relatively large weapons with big warheads.
In the future, we are going to have to look at our weapons
capacity and maximizing it to get more offensive firepower and
we need to go to smaller weapons that use smaller warheads and
take advantage of their precision to get the same effect as the
larger warhead weapons.
And I need to look at shorter range weapons that perhaps
can be smaller as well so I can carry more of them on my ships,
more of them on my airplanes, to expand the capacity that I am
able to bring to bear against an adversary who has got a high
capacity of his own.
Mr. Forbes. Thank you.
Mr. McGrath, do you want to take a bite at that,
especially--I know you have written a lot about distributed
lethality. How does that play in that concept in both terms of
offensively for us but, also, maybe a cost-imposition strategy
against some of our opponents?
Mr. McGrath. Yes, sir. Let me start with how did we miss
it. We were busy. We were busy doing something else. Not
everybody missed it. I think the Navy did a pretty good job
tracking the desires and the actions of the PRC [People's
Republic of China] as it reacted to the event that I discussed
earlier, the Taiwan Strait incident of 1996. The problem was
that the rest of the military and the Department of Defense was
doing very important today work, the Iraq war and the
Afghanistan war.
I think that PRC was wise in when it picked its time to
modernize. Again, our attention was elsewhere. Most of our
attention was elsewhere. I think, though, that that dynamic has
changed, and I see very positive signs here on the Hill, at the
White House, and at the Pentagon with respect to focusing more
appropriately on China as a peer competitor.
You asked about changing platforms and concepts and
systems. Everything needs to be on the table. We have arrived
at a place where our Navy hasn't fought a war--a real war in
decades against another Navy or against land forces that were
attempting to destroy it.
The tactics, techniques, procedures, platforms, acquisition
paths that we have placed ourselves on are not up to the
challenge of a peer competitor that would wish to deny us what
we consider our primary competitive advantage, and that is the
projection of power from the sea.
So I think everything has to be looked at. You can't look
at it all at the same time and fund it all at the same levels,
but you can think about these things. And I see a lot of
thought going into evolution of the air wing, distributed
lethality, the submarine forces. Networked operations is just
fascinating, the things that they are talking about. So I think
the Navy is really leaning forward in that regard.
As for Air-Sea Battle, I think, to some extent, when you
say it was swept under the rug, some of that I think is, I
think, a very positive sense of trying to put some toothpaste
back in the tube and stop talking about it all the time. Talk
about the things that you have made decisions--very important
decisions to talk about because those decisions and what you
reveal has a potential impact and an effect that you have
thought about and that you can measure. So I think the
Department has gotten a little smarter about how to talk about
it.
You asked about distributed lethality, and that is
something the surface force is talking about quite a bit.
Distributed lethality or, as I like to describe it, a concept
in which the surface forces of the United States Navy are on an
individual unit level made more powerful and then, to really
optimize that investment, operated differently, not just in the
sort of defense of the carrier battle group--although we still
have to do that--defense of the amphibious ready group--
although that must still be done--but to create mischief, to
spread the adversary's ISR [intelligence, surveillance, and
reconnaissance] forces, to make them assign weapons to a lot
more targets so that then any one target has a smaller number
of weapons assigned to it. You are diluting--you are thinning
his quiver before he ever shoots. These are reasonable
operational ends that the surface force can pursue.
A more distributed surface force in wartime is, I think, a
laudable goal. The way the surface force operates in the
presence and deterrence phases of operations is where we most
likely are to sort of rub up against these nontraditional
forces that you have described from the PRC.
Quite simply, there aren't enough of our forces to be there
and to be watchful and to provide a jaundiced eye at the
operations that are ongoing. Oftentimes these operations come
to our attention because the nation who believes its rights are
being violated videotapes the event or, even worse, China
videotapes the event because what it is doing was plan in order
to have a desired effect that it could then exploit later.
I think we have to get more sophisticated about how we work
with our allies in the region to respond to these events, pre-
planned responses in which escalation is controlled, in which
the story that would be written is thought about in advance, in
which those nations use the legal justification--or the legal
system to their best advantage.
I have no problem with the Philippines, for instance,
taking China to court. I think we should be encouraging nations
in the region to use the U.N. [United Nations] and the Law of
the Sea Convention to the max extent that they possibly can. I
am not sure distributed lethality has a real impact on that
problem in presence and deterrence.
Mr. Forbes. Thank you.
Mr. Courtney.
Mr. Courtney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And, again, thank you to both witnesses.
Mr. Clark, again, you started off with taking us back to
the beginning of the century and the shipbuilding plans and,
you know, the best laid plans obviously have changed.
You know, one of the sort of fallout that we are still
wrestling with as a subcommittee is the cruiser change that you
mentioned and, obviously, trying to figure out a cruiser
modernization plan that works both in terms of, you know, the
length of time that these cruisers can be available and,
obviously, you know, fitting it into the rest of the
shipbuilding plan.
I was just wondering if you had any comments in terms of
the back-and-forth over the last year or two about, you know,
what the Navy's proposed, Congress' response, and any possible
changes even from here.
Mr. Clark. Right. Thank you.
So the Navy had proposed originally to decommission about
half of its cruisers in a money-saving effort mostly. And then
Congress came back and required the Navy to come up with a
better plan and there was some money set aside to be able to
support that.
And the Navy came up with what I think was probably the
best argument and the best plan going forward, which was to
take those 11 cruisers, which are half the cruiser force, put
them into a layup of sorts and then modernize them over time
and then bring them back into the fleet some number of years
later so that they would be able to extend their lives and that
they would be available out into the 2030s--into the late 2030s
or early 2040s.
What that would do is a couple of things. So it would save
the Navy some money in the near term because those ships would
be largely de-manned and then the cost to operate them would
not be borne by the Navy until they get brought back into the
fleet. So there would be some near-term savings.
And then down the road, the Navy would be able to have them
back in the fleet at a time when it is having to buy the new
SSBN [ballistic missile submarine], which is going to decimate
the shipbuilding plan. It is going to be--40 percent, maybe
more, of the amount of money that would normally be allocated
to shipbuilding might be going to the SSBN and the carrier that
would be built around the same time. So there wouldn't be much
money for anything else. Cruisers would be available to help
augment the capacity of the surface fleet.
I think that was a very effective plan in terms of
sustaining force structure, dealing with the fiscal constraints
the Navy is under right now. The challenge with that, though,
is that the Navy doesn't have a good track record of taking
ships out of the fleet to put into some layup or inactive
period and bringing them back. They tend to go to that inactive
state and then make their way eventually to decommissioning
instead of going back into the fleet at some later date.
So I think, if the Navy could be held to account to ensure
that those ships get brought back into fleet and showed that
willingness by having money set aside to support the phased
modernization that would occur, I believe that would be the
best approach.
Now, I think a compromise, the 2/4/6 plan, is a worthwhile
alternative because it still helps extend the lives of the
cruisers out into the 2030s so they are able to address the
crunch in shipbuilding funds that will occur in the future.
It does save some money in the near term so that there are
some benefits on both sides to that, and I think it is a
worthwhile compromise. It would be good to see the Navy put
some money against it so that it would be clear that that plan
was funded, though, so they would be able to pursue it.
Because, otherwise, your only alternatives end up being
keep them in the fleet, but have them at some level of
operational capability that is not clear because they are not
being modernized and they are probably not able to operate as
effectively as the other cruisers, or decommission them
entirely, which is not an alternative that is being presented.
So I think the 2/4/6 plan would be good.
Mr. Courtney. Mr. McGrath.
Mr. McGrath. Mr. Courtney, my sense is that, with respect
to surface force structure, good ideas are in short supply. We
are dealing mostly with the least bad ideas. And taking all the
cruisers at one time and bringing them back slowly over a
course of time I thought was a reasonable response from the
Navy to a financial situation that they are having a tough time
dealing with.
2/4/6 is, I think, a reasonable compromise between
congressional interests and the Navy's interests. I do think,
as Bryan said, if the Navy had some money after 2019 in the
budget to fund it, this would probably not be a conversation.
There is very little money to be had, given the number of
things the Navy is trying to do, trying to build new ships and
new submarines, trying to fund its deployed operations, trying
to ensure that we don't so starve non-deployed ships of
maintenance and modernization money that it becomes
inordinately expensive to bring them out when it is their time
to go.
All of these things factor into the decisions they make.
And, quite frankly, when I see Congress insert money back into
the budget to keep cruisers in, if you were to do the same
thing in 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022, that would satisfy me
quite a bit because I would like to see this program go
forward.
Mr. Courtney. Thank you.
Mr. Forbes. And just a clarification. To do the
modernization, you have to have the money in. Is that fair, for
both of you?
Mr. Clark. Yes.
Mr. Forbes. And at this particular point in time the Navy
has not put any money in their FYDP [Future Years Defense
Program] to do the modernization, have they?
Mr. Clark. Only the ships that are being done this year.
Mr. Forbes. Right.
But they haven't done anything in their 5-year plan?
Mr. McGrath. Right. I don't think there is anything after
the 2015 and 2016 ship.
Mr. Forbes. Mr. Russell, our newest member of the
subcommittee, we now recognize him for 5 minutes.
And, once again, we are delighted to have you as part of
the subcommittee.
Mr. Russell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you, each, for the very insightful overviews. A
lot of challenges there.
In the 1980s, you had kind of a whole restructuring of
moving to the future of our defense posture and you did see a
lot of ships that, to meet the need, were brought out of
mothball. And some had been in and out of mothball for several
iterations and performed magnificently.
And, you know, Mr. Clark, with regard to the small surface
vessels and what would be needed to perform some of those
roles, is that an option that the Navy could turn to to make up
some of that capacity in the short term?
Mr. Clark. That might be. So one challenge we will run into
is it is expensive to take a ship out of mothballs and bring it
back to a condition where it can operate on a, you know,
frequent basis overseas.
So that would be something to think about, is that these
ships are intended to be relatively inexpensive ships that do
these missions at the lower end of capability. So if we have to
spend a lot of money to bring a low-end-capability ship into
the fleet, maybe that is not worth it.
The first approach might be to go after some of the
noncombatant ships that we already have in what is the national
fleet. So if you look in what the government owns in terms of
ships, you have got the Navy and its combatant ships, which are
warships that do their stuff.
There is also logistics ships that the Navy has that could
be used, in some cases, to go off and do some security
cooperation activities, and they do already. They do exercises
in some cases. And you could put mission packages on them that
would let them do different things than they do today.
You could also tap into joint high-speed vessels, which are
another form of logistics ship. You could go into some of our
support ships, which include various salvage ships and repair
vessels, and those things can be used for security cooperation
and sometimes are.
Then we can also go into some of the supply ships that are
part of the Ready Reserve Force, which are reserve ships that
we maintain in operational status that are designed to be
brought out within 5 or 30 or 60 days, that could be made
operational and taken out, and they can use them for some of
these security cooperation activities. And they are designed to
be brought out, and it is relatively inexpensive to do so.
So I may go after those first before we then go into the
mothball fleet and pull some ships out. But it is definitely an
option, and it may be less expensive than we anticipate.
Mr. Russell. It seems like a lot of the critical threats
that we hear throughout is with regard to advance missile
technologies.
You spoke of the cost-ratio benefit to potential opponents
and how they deal with this. And I know everything from nuclear
defense capacity with the AN/TPY-2 radars, to the Aegis, to the
THAAD [Terminal High Altitude Area Defense], a number of other
things.
We also have a lot of allies and partners. Our English-
speaking allies, in particular, we don't even have to learn
languages to operate with them, and they have great
shipbuilding capacity.
Does that factor into any of the comprehensive strategy in
presence, even, as we look to deal with some of that? And how
do we get them up on systems that we find were already in short
supply?
Mr. Clark. So I will let Bryan answer, too.
But we do. So many of our allies and partners operate Aegis
systems and similar systems, and they do deploy with us. So
pretty regularly a NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization]
destroyer or frigate will go with a carrier strike group on its
deployment and act as part of its escort ship umbrella, if you
will. So we regularly do deployments where we take advantage of
what allies and partners bring to bear.
Mr. McGrath. Mr. Forbes mentioned the surface Navy's
distributed lethality concept, and I think part in parcel to
that is the fact that we have allies that do have serious
capability. The South Koreans have wonderful surface
combatants. The Australians. The Japanese. The Indians aren't
necessarily treaty allies, but they are friends and we operate
with the Indians quite a bit. So there is a great hunger within
the sort of world surface force.
Admiral Mullen used to talk about the ``thousand-ship
Navy.'' Distributed lethality is the thousand-ship Navy with
teeth. And I think that the ability that we have to integrate
high-end ships of other fleets into our operations, it is
almost built in. They have Link 16, you know, that we are using
the same kinds of systems.
On the low end, this is something the U.S. Navy has
traditionally not done all that well, is small ships. And I was
a captain of a ship. We all come up through the system. And we
all would love to scorch around on really fast ships as
lieutenants and be in command of those things, but they are
expensive to maintain, a lot of them, far from home. And we
wind up looking--especially in times of fiscal contraction,
those are nice to have. And we concentrate on the high-end
warfighting more so than that low end.
I think, when we find ourselves in a position to more
appropriately fund naval power, we ought to put some money into
the low end. We ought to look at some kind of a fast patrol
vessel, heavily armed, four to eight 200-mile surface-to-
surface missiles, that we could build for ourselves and build
for export, that we could potentially operate in joint bases or
composite bases as a way of doing what I like to call maritime
boots on the ground, economically showing the flag.
We all have to recognize that these are ships of limited
capability, but they show the flag and they are reminders of
what is over the horizon.
Mr. Russell. Not far from a lend-lease type of approach
from many years ago.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. Forbes. Thank you.
The gentleman from Rhode Island, Mr. Langevin, is
recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to thank our witnesses for your testimony today.
If I could, I would like to talk first about cutting-edge
electric weapons capabilities that are starting to deploy
operationally, specifically the LaWS [Laser Weapon System]
system deployed onto the USS Ponce right now in the Arabian
Gulf, and rail gun and advanced EW [electronic warfare]
capabilities. These systems are, as you know, starting to
become more and more mature and starting to make their way out
to the fleet.
And what I want to know is--obviously, the Navy is clearly
planning further development. But could you provide your
assessments of the Navy's plans and whether you feel these
technologies could be responsibly accelerated.
Mr. Clark. So that is a terrific point. The Navy right now
is slowly integrating these new technologies into the fleet.
And what you are seeing right now is an emphasis on some
demonstration projects like the Ponce, where we take an
existing system that has been developed in the technology world
and bringing it on and just bolting it down to the ship and
seeing how it works.
When you get to larger systems, they are going to require a
little bit more of a footprint, more interaction with the
ship's combat system and electrical power and cooling systems,
and that is where you have to do some engineering to figure out
where it is going to go, how to fit it in, how to hook it up.
The Navy has not yet got a good plan for how it is going to
integrate higher energy lasers, so the kinds of lasers that you
would need to be able to do missile defense, not the smaller
one that is on the Ponce, but something more in the 300-
kilowatt range.
Those lasers are quickly maturing. I have seen in the last
couple weeks lasers that get up at about half that power and,
putting a few of those together, you essentially get to about
the 300-kilowatt range. So in the next few years, they are
going to be available. The Navy needs to be thinking about how
they are going to put that into the next class of--or the next
iteration of surface warships that it is developing.
Similarly, with rail gun, the Navy has got a demonstration
project that it is going to do next year using Stockton with a
rail gun onboard, which is terrific. It is a great way to show
the applicability of that kind of weapon to a ship.
But, again, there is not a thought or plan yet to integrate
them into another class of warship, except perhaps a DG-1000
down the road, which might be a good thing. But, again, that is
one ship. And it is a three-ship class; so, it is not likely to
be able to translate into an additional number of hulls.
The Navy needs to think about: Well, how would I take a
rail gun and put it onto a number of ships that would make it
able to make a difference in warfighting? So----
Mr. Langevin. Yeah. Exactly what you are saying is what
concerns me, is that the technologies are maturing faster than
what we may realize. And my fear is that these things are going
to be ready and we are not ready to deploy them and the
capabilities in theater.
Mr. Clark. Exactly.
Mr. Langevin. Well, I appreciate the answer.
Mr. McGrath, as you allude to in your testimony, there is a
sea change occurring in the capabilities of undersea systems,
including in how they might support surface action.
While submarines will clearly continue to be the nexus of
such capabilities, how might advanced undersea systems and
sensors play into the concept of disaggregated surface forces
that you discuss?
Mr. McGrath. Sir, in a big way, especially when the
shooting starts. The ability of long-range unmanned undersea
vehicles to deploy electronic warfare sensors, to employ
weaponized UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles] that could then
remove some of the threat that we discussed earlier to surface
operations--there are so many--and I am sure you have had some
of these briefs.
What we can bring--the combat power of them, what we can
bring from under the surface of the ocean, because it is there,
it is hiding, and the reaction time to it in many cases is
negligible for an adversary, huge capability.
And I appreciate you bringing up the question because what
it does is it highlights the degree to which the Navy fights as
a system. We don't fight as an aircraft carrier. We fight as a
strike group. We fight as an Expeditionary Strike Force. We
fight as a joint force. And so all of these weapons systems
work together in, I think, a very robust architecture to
support each other.
So I think there is a huge role for subsurface-launched
sensors and weapons in helping to enable disaggregated surface
operations. One very important way is to be able to put up
long-range ISR assets, maybe some kind of a UAV that takes off,
flies around for 8 or 10 hours, supports a SAG [surface action
group] that is disaggregated, and then it flies to a land base
and lands for recovery. That would be a useful capability. But
I think the sky is the limit on how we can use the undersea
force.
Mr. Langevin. Very good. Thank you, both.
And I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Forbes. I thank the gentleman for his questions. You
have been a leader on these technology issues. And, hopefully,
this subcommittee can play a major role in helping the Navy to
make sure we are moving faster at seeing how we can deploy
them. So thanks for your questions.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you.
And, Mr. Chairman, I should mention that, although I--you
know, obviously, it is appropriate to raise this issue with
respect to the Navy in this subcommittee--the Navy has been a
leader in trying to push these technologies that have been in
the lab and get them actually into the field. The other
services could take a lead from----
Mr. Forbes. We just get greedy and we want to get them
there even faster.
Mr. Langevin. Exactly.
Mr. Forbes. So that is good, Jim.
Now, I would like to recognize the distinguished gentleman
from Texas, the chairman of the Agriculture Committee, Mr.
Conaway, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Conaway. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I represent a district that is totally landlocked. I don't
have any ports. I don't have any shipbuilding. I don't have
anything like that. So----
And, Mr. McGrath, probably the sea is the limit rather than
the sky is the limit on that last phrase that you used earlier.
Mr. McGrath. I stand corrected.
Mr. Conaway. Mr. Clark, on your five-point program, you
made a reference to a kill-the-archer issue versus, I think,
what we are doing right now. Put some meat on the bone on that
for me, given that the archer's range is generally longer than
the reach of a lot of our stuff that we are bringing to the
fight. Help me understand what you are talking about.
Mr. Clark. You bet.
So the archers, in this case, are going to be aircraft,
submarines, and surface ships that are able to launch antiship
cruise missiles at our surface ships.
Today the surface ships we deploy don't have weapons that
are able to reach enemy aircraft, ships, or submarines until we
are already well within range of their antiship cruise
missiles. So, as Congressman Forbes has said, we are
outsticked. The way you get out of that is we have to deploy
some new weapons, and that is why I have got the emphasis on
weapons there.
So for the aircraft threat, the new SM-6 missile that is
coming out that has been deployed on a few ships already and is
being incorporated with the new Aegis baseline, that missile is
going to be able to reach an airplane outside the range of the
airplane's antiship cruise missiles in most cases--or in many
cases. So that gives us that ability to hit the archer before
he is in range to shoot his arrows. That is a good news story
on the air side.
We don't have a similar capability on the ship side. So if
I want to shoot another ship and I am a surface ship, I have to
wait until I am within Harpoon range if I have Harpoons even
onboard, which means I am probably half of the distance that he
can reach me. So he can--I am well within his weapons envelope
when I do that.
For submarines, it is even worse because my antisubmarine
rocket that I have got onboard of a surface ship has a range of
about 12 miles, whereas the antiship cruise missiles that
Chinese submarines, for example, can carry have ranges of a
couple hundred miles and they can be launched comfortably from
100 to 150 miles, so I am well within his weapons range when I
am able to shoot him.
Now, we might have a helicopter or something flying around
that might be able to attack him, but that is only if the
helicopter is in the right place at the right time and is able
to do something about it. So we need new weapons that allow me
to increase the range.
So on the ship side, the Navy is developing the long-range
antiship missile, the LRASM, that will eventually be going onto
surface ships. I would advocate that. In addition to being able
to do ship attack, that missile will also be able to do strike
missions, because every VLS [vertical launching system] cell
that I take for a strike mission is a missile cell I can't use
for anything else. So we need more multi-mission weapons.
And then, for the submarine threat, we need to develop an
antiship rocket that has got longer range. So if I do detect a
contact, a submarine out, you know, dozens of miles away, more,
I can engage him right away and make him go away before he is
able to mount an attack against me.
Mr. Conaway. Dozens of miles is significantly shorter than
200 miles you mentioned earlier.
Mr. Clark. Right. Right.
So it is--you could--we could maybe develop an
antisubmarine rocket that goes out, you know, 100, 150 miles
that would be able----
Mr. Conaway. So it is on--it is on the weapons package,
isn't it, not necessarily the----
Mr. Clark. Right.
Mr. Conaway [continuing]. The transport of those weapons?
Mr. Clark. Right. My detection capability may or may not
extend out that far under water.
Mr. Conaway. Yeah.
Mr. Clark. But you certainly want the ability to reach out
that far if you were able to get detection.
Mr. Conaway. I got you.
And then your fourth point about expanded capacity for
train and equipment. I must have dozed off. Can you back up and
go through that one again. Are you just talking about using
different ships to do the train and equip mission that we are
currently using?
Mr. Clark. Right. So, normally, when we want to do security
cooperation----
Mr. Conaway. And stop laughing in the back. You saw me
dozing off. So stop it back there.
Mr. Clark. Normally, the kind of security cooperation or
training missions that we do with partner nations, especially
some of the less-capable partners, we use small surface
combatants to do that.
We have used frigates in a lot of cases to do that over the
last 20 or 30 years. Well, we don't have any frigates now. They
are all being decommissioned, and we are only going to have
half the----
Mr. Conaway. Unless you rename the LCS.
Mr. Clark. Right. Right.
And so we have got a few LCS out there, but not very many,
and they would ostensibly pick that load up. But we only have
half the number of small surface combatants that are required
right now, and it is going to be below the requirement until
well into the 2020s.
Mr. Conaway. So that is more just a tactics issue? I mean--
--
Mr. Clark. So I am arguing that we take some of the
noncombatant ships----
Mr. Conaway. Right.
Mr. Clark [continuing]. In the fleet and just take some of
those mission packages from the LCS and, instead, put those
onto the noncombatant ships and get the joint high-speed vessel
and the mobile landing platform and some logistic ships to go
out and do these missions instead. So the missions get done,
but we are not having to do it with a cruiser.
Mr. Conaway. All right. Well, thank you all for your
comments. Thank you.
Mr. Forbes. Mr. McGrath, could you follow up on Mr.
Conaway's question a little bit, too. Because we have really
three concepts. We can block the arrow. You know, we can try to
blind the archer. We can try to kill the archer.
I think one of the things both of you have talked about is
that right now we have an overcapacity of trying to block the
arrow, but technology is getting to the point where it is going
to be more and more difficult to do that; so, we are going to
have to try to kill the archer.
And so can you kind of explain the tradeoffs we have in
those two concepts.
Mr. McGrath. Bryan came up in the Navy as a submariner. I
came up as a surface guy, Aegis for most of my time. And so,
when Bryan talks about his concept for air defense and he talks
about waiting longer to take the shot, I start to get a little
nervous, because that is--that is the human reaction that you
have in a ship, is that you want to kill that missile as far
away from you and from what you are protecting as possible.
Range equals dollars. It is a very simple--very simple
thing. Probability of kill increases as range decreases. Right?
All of these things are interrelated, but the nervousness of a
surface warfare officer remains. If I have to sit there and
wait, it is a hard thing to do.
And so, when Bryan and I have our arguments about this
concept, I talk to him about we have to--there is a culture to
overcome, there are training issues we would have to overcome,
and we would have to layer into this--so that is--what he is
describing is the blocking--right?--killing the--killing that--
killing that inbound missile closer to you at a more economical
rate. That is fine.
The other--one of the other things that you could do is you
can mess with its guidance. You can--you can make it track
something that is not you--deceit, deception. The surface force
in N2/N6 at the Pentagon are putting a lot of money into the
SEWIP [Surface Electronic Warfare Improvement Program] Block
III electronic warfare system that we will put to sea on ships.
The more we can defeat kinetic attacks with nonkinetic
means, the deeper our magazines will get. The more we are able
to--the more we are able to integrate the weapons systems that
Mr. Langevin was talking about that are pennies or dollars a
shot, the deeper our magazines will get.
We have to maintain, though, the ability to reach out at
range. Some percentage of those magazines has to be filled with
weapons that can take advantage of the sensor volume that we
have.
That has been one of our problems for a long time in
surface warfare, is we go out there and we bang away with a
SPY-1 radar--or soon a SPY-6 radar--on the AMDR [Air and
Missile Defense Radar] that has got, I mean, hundreds of miles
of range, but we could only take advantage of a small part of
that search volume. The SM-6 helps us overcome that.
So taking the archer out before he shoots his arrow is,
once again, important, like it was in the Cold War. In the Cold
War, we set F-14s out hundreds of miles from the aircraft
carrier and we had tactics that we developed. We had tanking
that would support it. The outer air battle was something we
took a lot of pride in being able to fight in. When that threat
dissipated, we de-emphasized the outer air battle. We are
gaining some of that back.
I think, on a totally unrelated--not a totally unrelated--
the F-35 will need a longer range AAW [anti-aircraft warfare]
weapon, something like we used to--like the Phoenix that we
grew up with on the F-14. We need a long-range air-to-air
weapon so that the F-35 operating in this naval integrated fire
control-counter air environment, NIFC-CA [Naval Integrated Fire
Control-Counter Air Capability], can get that archer even
further away, maybe when he goes feet wet. Maybe you don't have
to wait until he gets near his weapons release point.
So the technology is there that we can exploit, but we need
the weapons that exploit the search volume that we are able to
generate.
Mr. Forbes. I want to thank you both for taking the time to
be here with us today. And, as I mentioned to both of you
before we started, I want to give you now whatever wrap-up time
each of you need for anything you need to clarify, maybe
elaborate or that we didn't ask that you think is important to
give as part of this transcript.
And, Mr. Clark, we will start with you.
Mr. Clark. Thank you, sir.
So one thing I will note is the new technologies we talked
about that could be used for air defense, so rail gun, lasers.
High-powered microwave would be another example and then
electronic warfare. All of those technologies could do a lot to
give us more defensive capacity and open up those vertical
launch system cells for offensive weapons instead.
The one thing that you have to do in order to leverage
them, though, is you have to be able to accept that missiles
are going to get closer to you before you engage them, because
all of those systems are line-of-sight systems that can only,
you know, engage a missile if it is on the horizon 10 miles
away and, if it is a little bit higher up, maybe 20 miles away.
So you are not going to be able to engage incoming missiles
with a nonkinetic weapon like that at more than 20 or 30 miles,
generally. So that is part of the air defense concept you have
to accept.
But then, you know, stepping back to look at the big
picture, the Navy is faced with a lot of hard choices in the
next, you know, couple of years as it starts to figure out how
to equip the surface force. And the surface force doesn't have
the clear and unambiguous mission of the undersea forces that,
you know, do things for surveillance and strike and for
strategic deterrence, and it doesn't necessarily have the clear
missions of the carrier air wing.
But it is kind of the jack-of-all-trades. It does a lot of
different things, and we depend on it for a lot of different
missions, from security cooperation all the way through high-
end missile defense and strike.
And, as a result, it is hard for it to be able to maintain
that ability to work in every domain, from undersea to air and
space, as well as being able to do every mission across the
range of military operations.
So the Navy has got to put the investment necessary to
maintain the force structure capacity so it can maintain the
presence. It has got to maintain the warfighting capability in
the fleet that it needs in order to be effective and then deter
conflict. And then it has got to be willing to sustain that
over time, even in an environment where other things are going
to intrude upon it.
So I would advocate that the Navy needs to look carefully
at these upcoming decisions and, you know, adapt the surface
fleet to be able to evolve into the fleet that is able to go
back on offense and develop this offensive mindset and equip it
with the kinds of weapons and the kinds of sensors it needs to
be able to be effective.
And, you know, I think one thing--one thing I fear is that
we will just progress down the status quo, we will simply
recapitalize our existing systems, as opposed to adopting new
concepts that might enable us to maintain the warfighting
capability we need going into the future.
Mr. Forbes. Thank you.
Mr. McGrath, give you the last word.
Mr. McGrath. Thank you for this opportunity.
My friend Ron O'Rourke at the Congressional Research
Service likes to talk about----
Mr. Forbes. He is watching what you say; so, make sure that
you don't say anything critical.
Mr. McGrath. He talks about being in a new strategic era,
and I think he is right. My way of putting that is: Great power
dynamics back on the menu.
We have to begin to think differently about how conflict in
this new strategic era is waged. We cannot continue to address
this question with the same risk profile that we applied to
campaigns and campaign analysis when we were the sole
hyperpower, when there was no blue-water threat to the U.S.
Navy.
Those aspects of that threat environment drove us to well-
intentioned decisions. We have removed surface-to-surface
missiles from our DDG Arleigh Burke destroyers. We built
Arleigh Burke destroyers, from number 51 to number 78, with a
Harpoon missile on it. Number 79 through today cannot kill
another ship over the horizon by itself. We have not built a
ship in the United States Navy since 1999 that can kill another
ship over the horizon by itself.
That decision and decisions about how to allocate missions
within the portfolio--surface, subsurface and aviation--has led
to a situation in which we look at the surface force, the Navy
looks at the surface force, as something that needs to be
protected by the air wing. I think that needs to be questioned.
I think we have put a ton of money in the last 30 years
into the world's most sophisticated air defense systems. I
think that we have to begin to question whether or not air
supremacy or air superiority that is required for surface
operations--detached surface operations--whether that can't be
provided to a level of risk that is acceptable by the ships
themselves.
I am not saying that we should drive three-ship SAGs into
the Taiwan Strait. I am saying that the Chinese ISR complex is
not equally as good throughout its entire volume and that there
are places within it where surface forces will be able to
operate, will be able to create mayhem, and will be able to
hold targets that that opponent would value at risk. We just
have to think differently about that risk.
Thank you.
Mr. Forbes. Thank you, both. We appreciate your time, and
thank you for sharing it with us today.
And, with that, Mr. Courtney if there is nothing else that
you have, then, we are adjourned.
Mr. Courtney. Thank you, both.
Mr. Forbes. Yeah.
[Whereupon, at 3:08 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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A P P E N D I X
April 15, 2015
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April 15, 2015
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