National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021
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i [H.A.S.C. No. 116–65] HEARING ON NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2021 AND OVERSIGHT OF PREVIOUSLY AUTHORIZED PROGRAMS BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS SECOND SESSION FULL COMMITTEE HEARING ON THE FISCAL YEAR 2021 NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION BUDGET REQUEST FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE HEARING HELD FEBRUARY 26, 2020 U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE 43–451 WASHINGTON : 2021 COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS ADAM SMITH, Washington, Chairman SUSAN A. DAVIS, California WILLIAM M. ‘‘MAC’’ THORNBERRY, Texas JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island JOE WILSON, South Carolina RICK LARSEN, Washington ROB BISHOP, Utah JIM COOPER, Tennessee MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut MIKE ROGERS, Alabama JOHN GARAMENDI, California K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas JACKIE SPEIER, California DOUG LAMBORN, Colorado TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii ROBERT J. WITTMAN, Virginia DONALD NORCROSS, New Jersey VICKY HARTZLER, Missouri RUBEN GALLEGO, Arizona AUSTIN SCOTT, Georgia SETH MOULTON, Massachusetts MO BROOKS, Alabama SALUD O. CARBAJAL, California PAUL COOK, California ANTHONY G. BROWN, Maryland, Vice BRADLEY BYRNE, Alabama Chair SAM GRAVES, Missouri RO KHANNA, California ELISE M. STEFANIK, New York WILLIAM R. KEATING, Massachusetts SCOTT DESJARLAIS, Tennessee FILEMON VELA, Texas RALPH LEE ABRAHAM, Louisiana ANDY KIM, New Jersey TRENT KELLY, Mississippi KENDRA S. HORN, Oklahoma MIKE GALLAGHER, Wisconsin GILBERT RAY CISNEROS, Jr., California MATT GAETZ, Florida CHRISSY HOULAHAN, Pennsylvania DON BACON, Nebraska JASON CROW, Colorado JIM BANKS, Indiana XOCHITL TORRES SMALL, New Mexico LIZ CHENEY, Wyoming ELISSA SLOTKIN, Michigan PAUL MITCHELL, Michigan MIKIE SHERRILL, New Jersey JACK BERGMAN, Michigan VERONICA ESCOBAR, Texas MICHAEL WALTZ, Florida DEBRA A. HAALAND, New Mexico JARED F. GOLDEN, Maine LORI TRAHAN, Massachusetts ELAINE G. LURIA, Virginia ANTHONY BRINDISI, New York PAUL ARCANGELI, Staff Director KATY QUINN, Professional Staff Member JASON SCHMID, Professional Staff Member EMMA MORRISON, Clerk (II) C O N T E N T S Page STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS Smith, Hon. Adam, a Representative from Washington, Chairman, Committee on Armed Services ................................................................................................ 1 Thornberry, Hon. William M. ‘‘Mac,’’ a Representative from Texas, Ranking Member, Committee on Armed Services ............................................................ 5 WITNESSES Esper, Hon. Mark T., Secretary of Defense, U.S. Department of Defense ......... 7 Milley, GEN Mark A., USA, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff ............................. 9 APPENDIX PREPARED STATEMENTS: Esper, Hon. Mark T. ......................................................................................... 83 Milley, GEN Mark A. ....................................................................................... 96 DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD: Secretary Esper Letter to Senator Inhofe ...................................................... 113 WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING THE HEARING: Mr. Brindisi ....................................................................................................... 121 Mr. Carbajal ...................................................................................................... 117 Mr. Cisneros ...................................................................................................... 119 Mr. Crow ........................................................................................................... 120 Ms. Escobar ....................................................................................................... 120 Ms. Horn ........................................................................................................... 119 Mr. Kelly ........................................................................................................... 118 Mr. Langevin ..................................................................................................... 117 Mrs. Luria ......................................................................................................... 121 Mr. Rogers ......................................................................................................... 117 Ms. Slotkin ........................................................................................................ 120 Ms. Stefanik ...................................................................................................... 118 Mr. Waltz .......................................................................................................... 120 QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING: Dr. Abraham ..................................................................................................... 129 Mr. Bacon .......................................................................................................... 131 Mr. Banks .......................................................................................................... 132 Mr. Byrne .......................................................................................................... 140 Mr. Cisneros ...................................................................................................... 130 Mr. Golden ........................................................................................................ 136 Ms. Haaland ...................................................................................................... 134 Ms. Houlahan .................................................................................................... 131 Mr. Kelly ........................................................................................................... 129 Mr. Lamborn ..................................................................................................... 125 Mr. Rogers ......................................................................................................... 125 Mr. Scott ............................................................................................................ 126 Ms. Sherrill ....................................................................................................... 133 Ms. Speier ......................................................................................................... 137 Mrs. Trahan ...................................................................................................... 135 Mr. Vela ............................................................................................................. 128 Mr. Waltz .......................................................................................................... 133 (III) THE FISCAL YEAR 2021 NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION BUDGET REQUEST FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, Washington, DC, Wednesday, February 26, 2020. The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:00 a.m., in room 2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Adam Smith (chairman of the committee) presiding. OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. ADAM SMITH, A REPRESEN- TATIVE FROM WASHINGTON, CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES The CHAIRMAN. Good morning, everyone. We are gathered this morning to hear from the Secretary of De- fense Dr. Mark Esper and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Milley to hear about the President’s fiscal year 2021 budg- et proposal for the Department of Defense. And I will start with some good news. Well, first of all, I will start by thanking our witnesses for being here and thanking them for their service to our country. Both have served our country in various capacities for a long time, not an easy thing to do. I respect and appreciate that work. I look forward to continuing to work with you. The good news I want to start with is that, unlike last year, we have a budget agreement and last year we spent a lot of time talk- ing about how difficult it is to run, well, anything in the govern- ment but, certainly, the Department of Defense without appropria- tions bills in a timely manner. Now, last year we were off by, I don’t know, 31⁄2 months—some- thing like that. But that’s better than drifting into the next year. We did get appropriations bills and an authorizing bill done by De- cember of last year, which gives some predictability to the Depart- ment. I think that is enormously important. This year, we hope to come a little bit closer to October 1st, cer- tainly, on the authorizing bill but also in the appropriations bill. But, most importantly, we have a budget number and, hopefully, we can get that predictability in place. I think the second thing that is very important is something we have heard a great deal about and that is the so-called blank slate review that the Department of Defense is doing. And I want to say I think that is perfectly appropriate to take a hard look at what we are doing in the Department of Defense, what makes sense, what doesn’t, and what our strategy should be, going forward. (1) 2 And I think this is the great challenge of this budget. We can go through the line items number by number, talk about the number of ships, the number of planes. But what is the strategy? And I think we are still struggling to get a clear coherent strategy in place. As the history lessons go, we had the Cold War. We had a clear strategy during the Cold War and then we developed a post-Cold War strategy and now for a number of years