Goldwater–Nichols Reform: the Way Ahead
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i [H.A.S.C. No. 114–130] GOLDWATER–NICHOLS REFORM: THE WAY AHEAD COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS SECOND SESSION HEARING HELD JULY 7, 2016 U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE 20–817 WASHINGTON : 2017 For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Publishing Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800 Fax: (202) 512–2104 Mail: Stop IDCC, Washington, DC 20402–0001 COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS WILLIAM M. ‘‘MAC’’ THORNBERRY, Texas, Chairman WALTER B. JONES, North Carolina ADAM SMITH, Washington J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia LORETTA SANCHEZ, California JEFF MILLER, Florida ROBERT A. BRADY, Pennsylvania JOE WILSON, South Carolina SUSAN A. DAVIS, California FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island ROB BISHOP, Utah RICK LARSEN, Washington MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio JIM COOPER, Tennessee JOHN KLINE, Minnesota MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO, Guam MIKE ROGERS, Alabama JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut TRENT FRANKS, Arizona NIKI TSONGAS, Massachusetts BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania JOHN GARAMENDI, California K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas HENRY C. ‘‘HANK’’ JOHNSON, JR., Georgia DOUG LAMBORN, Colorado JACKIE SPEIER, California ROBERT J. WITTMAN, Virginia TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois DUNCAN HUNTER, California SCOTT H. PETERS, California JOHN FLEMING, Louisiana MARC A. VEASEY, Texas MIKE COFFMAN, Colorado TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii CHRISTOPHER P. GIBSON, New York TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota VICKY HARTZLER, Missouri BETO O’ROURKE, Texas JOSEPH J. HECK, Nevada DONALD NORCROSS, New Jersey AUSTIN SCOTT, Georgia RUBEN GALLEGO, Arizona MO BROOKS, Alabama MARK TAKAI, Hawaii RICHARD B. NUGENT, Florida GWEN GRAHAM, Florida PAUL COOK, California BRAD ASHFORD, Nebraska JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma SETH MOULTON, Massachusetts BRAD R. WENSTRUP, Ohio PETE AGUILAR, California JACKIE WALORSKI, Indiana (Vacancy) BRADLEY BYRNE, Alabama SAM GRAVES, Missouri RYAN K. ZINKE, Montana ELISE M. STEFANIK, New York MARTHA MCSALLY, Arizona STEPHEN KNIGHT, California THOMAS MACARTHUR, New Jersey STEVE RUSSELL, Oklahoma ROBERT L. SIMMONS II, Staff Director KARI BINGEN, Professional Staff Member WILLIAM S. JOHNSON, Counsel BRITTON BURKETT, Clerk (II) C O N T E N T S Page STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS Smith, Hon. Adam, a Representative from Washington, Ranking Member, Committee on Armed Services ............................................................................ 1 Thornberry, Hon. William M. ‘‘Mac,’’ a Representative from Texas, Chairman, Committee on Armed Services ............................................................................ 1 WITNESSES Ham, GEN Carter F., USA (Ret.), Former Commander, U.S. Africa Command 5 Hamre, Dr. John J., Former Deputy Secretary of Defense .................................. 2 Zakheim, Dr. Dov, Senior Fellow, Center for Naval Analyses, Senior Adviser, Center for Strategic and International Studies ................................................. 6 APPENDIX PREPARED STATEMENTS: Ham, GEN Carter F. ........................................................................................ 54 Hamre, Dr. John J. ........................................................................................... 43 Zakheim, Dr. Dov ............................................................................................. 57 DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD: Letter from retired senior military commanders ........................................... 69 WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING THE HEARING: [There were no Questions submitted during the hearing.] QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING: Mr. Langevin ..................................................................................................... 73 (III) GOLDWATER–NICHOLS REFORM: THE WAY AHEAD HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, Washington, DC, Thursday, July 7, 2016. The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:04 a.m., in room 2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. William M. ‘‘Mac’’ Thornberry (chairman of the committee) presiding. OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. WILLIAM M. ‘‘MAC’’ THORN- BERRY, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM TEXAS, CHAIRMAN, COM- MITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES The CHAIRMAN. The committee will come to order. Thirty years ago after five years of study and effort, the Congress passed the Goldwater-Nichols Reform Act. I think virtually every- body would agree it has been tremendously successful. I also think virtually everyone would agree, in spite of 30 years of success, it needs to be looked at again and reviewed because no law that we pass is successful for all time. The House has roughly a dozen provisions related to Goldwater- Nichols and strategic thinking and planning in the military; the Senate has about 20. And as we head towards conference, it seemed to me it was important to get some learned perspectives on the various proposals in our bill and the Senate bill and the things we need to be thinking about. I could not ask for a better panel of witnesses, either in previous jobs or in their current jobs, and to have a former Deputy Secretary of Defense, a former Under Secretary of Defense, a former combat- ant commander, a four-star, gives us a variety of perspectives and very helpful insights on the issues we face. Before turning to our witnesses, let me turn to the ranking mem- ber for any comments he would like to make. STATEMENT OF HON. ADAM SMITH, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM WASHINGTON, RANKING MEMBER, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I agree with your com- ments. I think this is a very appropriate time to revisit Goldwater- Nichols, to look at the command structure, figure out, you know, what is the best plan going forward. And I also agree that we have three outstanding witnesses to give us some guidance in that. I think the issues that I am most interested in are, number one, is it too top heavy the way we have it structured with the com- mand structures? That is one of the complaints I know that the Senators have made, is that as you, you know, create all these com- mands there then comes, you know, all kinds of bureaucracy that (1) 2 comes with it, various sort of, well, I guess the government equiva- lent of middle managers. Is that necessary? Could we save some money by consolidating that and trimming that down? And then the second thing that I have been intrigued by is some- thing General McChrystal has talked about, is the need for greater flexibility in terms of moving around DOD [Department of Defense] assets. And is the current combatant command structure the best way to do that? As a challenge arises, you want to be able to pull together the best team from wherever it is to confront that challenge. That is what General McChrystal basically did in response to Al Qaeda. As he said, it takes a network to defeat a network. And the network that was built, not just by him, but certainly by others, took from all across government, and not even just DOD, to maximize our in- telligence assets and our military assets to confront that threat. So does the current combatant command structure allow for that level of flexibility? And then frankly something that I have, you know, always sort of puzzled over and don’t know that well is, you know, the Joint Chiefs versus the SECDEF [Secretary of Defense] versus the com- batant commanders, what is the chain of command? Who is in charge of what? And how do they all work together? And is there a way that they could work together better? So those are the three things that have arisen out of some of our discussions on our side and also in looking at what the Senate has done, that I hope we will hear from our witnesses today. And with that, I will yield back and I thank the chairman for having this very important hearing. The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman. I think he raises excel- lent points. Again, let me welcome our witnesses. We are pleased to have Dr. John Hamre, the president and CEO [chief executive officer] of the Center for Strategic and International Studies [CSIS]; General Carter Ham who is now the president and chief executive officer of the Association of the United States Army; and Dr. Dov Zakheim who is senior adviser at CSIS and also a senior fellow at the CNA Corporation. I am not going to take time to go through all of their qualifications. Again, thank each of you for being here. Without objection, any written material you would like to provide will be made part of the record. Dr. Hamre, the floor is yours. STATEMENT OF DR. JOHN J. HAMRE, FORMER DEPUTY SECRETARY OF DEFENSE Dr. HAMRE. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Smith, thank you. It is a real privilege to be back in front of this committee. I think I have testi- fied in front of this committee over 50 times. It hasn’t always been fun, this one is going to be a lot better than some of them, but I am honored that you would have me back. Thank you. If I might start with just two very brief observations and then I would like to comment on each of the five sections that you asked me to review. 3 First, I would just ask you as you are looking at this legislation and how it changes the Department, please be careful. We are in war. We have got at least two wars going on. We have got tense operations around the world. We are going to have a change in the government that is coming up. And so I would ask you to approach this with prudence, please. The second thing I would say is that, unlike 30 years ago when I was on the staff of the Senate Armed Services Committee when we passed Goldwater-Nichols, at that time we had failure in the field. We were failing as a military organization in the field. That is what motivated change then. We do not have failure in the field today. We have policy failure, but it is not military failure. And so I think we have to be very careful to understand why we need to make changes now. We need to make changes now because we don’t have enough resources to support the needs that we have. We have to find ways to make this organization more agile, more streamlined.