 Committee will come to order. I ask unanimous consent that the chair may declare recess at any point without objection so ordered. Also without objection members shall have five legislative days to submit written remarks and additional materials for the record. I wanna thank our witnesses for appearing today and for your service to our nation. The threats we face are more formidable than at any point in the last 20 years. But the administration's policy of integrated deterrence is doing little to actually deter them. The president's disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan has left us nearly blind in the worst terrorist hotspot on the globe. North Korea is lobbying ICBMs over Japan and threatening us with nuclear annihilation on a near weekly basis. And Iran continues to fund and equip terrorists targeting Americans. Last week, one American died and seven were wounded when the eye told his terrorist proxies attacked our base in Syria. We continue to sit by and watch as his regime aggressively pursues nuclear weapons. Under Secretary Kahl last week, last month, stated that the eye told has is 12 days away from having enough fissile material for a nuclear bomb. We absolutely cannot allow that to happen. Additionally, the eye told is exporting kamikaze drones and other advanced weapons to Russia. And Putin is using them to kill innocent civilians and further his brutal invasion in Ukraine. Putin is also threatening our NATO allies by deploying tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus, stepping away from new start, stepping up his harassment of American forces in Eastern Europe and Syria. But most concerning is the strengthening alliance between Putin and Xi. Putin is literally fueling the Chinese Communist Party's strategic nuclear breakout with Rossitán highly enriched uranium. In what the former stratcom commander Richardson described as breathtaking, the CCP has doubled their number of nuclear warheads in just two years. The CCP is starting to outpace us on the battlefield as well. The CCP has leapfrogged us on hypersonic technology. They are building what we are still developing. And their rapid advances in space were one of the primary reasons we established the space force. We all know the CCP is not building these new and advanced military capabilities for self-defense. We watched their ongoing attempts to intimidate and coerce Taiwan and our allies and partners in the region. Just this week, they threatened the Navy with serious consequences after we exercised our right to sail through international waters in South China Sea. And we've heard from combatant commanders over the past month about how the CCP has used economic coercion to gain footholds on new continents. We also heard from their efforts to expand their military presence in Africa and sign a new security agreement in South America and the Middle East. Finally, we all know from the spy balloon incident that Z and CCP are no longer hesitant to make provocative actions against the American homeland. These are just a few of the growing threats confronting our nation. How we respond to them is the biggest test that we face as Americans. Many of us here, regardless of party, believe we should respond with sustained investment in the men and women of our armed services and the modernization of our conventional and strategic deterrent. These investments are going to be expensive, but neither the president nor Congress can shy away from them. We no longer have the luxury of time. As we speak, our adversaries are rapidly expanding their military capability, showing much less restraint in employing these capabilities against America and our allies, and worst of all, developing a powerful alliance, the likes of which we haven't confronted since the height of the Cold War. We need to make the right investments and the right capabilities to ensure our military can effectively deter and, if necessary, defeat our adversaries. I look forward to working with all of you on this effort. And with that, I yield to my friend, the ranking member, Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank our witnesses, Chairman Milley and Secretary Austin, not just for being here today, but for their leadership in their career of service to our country. Appreciate all of your efforts. I also want to note that this is Chairman Milley's last posture hearing before he retires, and really want to thank him for his service. And most specifically, Chairman Milley has shown a willingness to engage with Congress that has been quite refreshing for me serving. It's always a difficult task. The Pentagon has their job. We have our job. But those two jobs intersect within our constitution, within our democracy. And I have never worked with a member of the Pentagon who's been more willing and to engage with Congress, certainly to appear before us, but also to meet with us, take our phone calls whenever, because he recognizes the incredibly important role that Congress plays in the oversight role that we must play with DOD. So I thank you for that. And I thank you very much for your service. As the chairman laid out, we have an incredibly complicated and dangerous threat environment. There is no question about that. But I do believe that the National Defense Strategy lays out a vision for how to confront that. We can't make China go, we can't make any of those things that the chairman just talked about go away. We have to figure out how do we deal with them? How do we deter our adversaries and what is our central goal? Our central goal is a rules-based international order where sovereign nations resolve their differences through international organizations peacefully. That's what we're trying to do. Now we have folks out there in Russia and China and elsewhere, again, as the chairman outlined, they want to blow that up. They want to challenge that. We have to be in a position to deter that. That certainly starts with having a robust and strong military. We've had the largest defense budgets we've ever seen the last two years. The president has just proposed, again, the largest defense budget we've ever seen. We are making that investment. I will spare you the long speech that many of you have heard from me before about how I'm more focused on how we're spending the money, making sure that we're spending it efficiently and effectively. It's always the easiest thing to fall back on and say, gosh, you know, we got to have more money. Everything I've ever dealt with, that's been the answer. But again, I will quote, I think it's Winston Churchill, I could be wrong, who said, gentlemen, we're out of money, now we have to think. And that's what I really want to focus on. You know, where are we spending the money and where are we going? What is the objective? Huge part of that objective. We are not going to be able to deter those adversaries that the chairman just laid out on our own. It's an absolute impossibility. We need partnerships and we need allies. And I want to thank Secretary Austin in particular for his outstanding work on helping to build and hold together the coalition that is supporting Ukraine. 54 nations. I think a lot of people accept that as a foregone conclusion. It was not. And it was not easy. It took the leadership of this administration, particularly the leadership of Secretary Austin, to pull it together and help Ukraine. We cannot forget that most people assume that Ukraine would be taken over by Russia by now. Their incredible will to fight, their courage to stand up, has been an inspiration to the world. But it would not have been possible without the support of that international coalition that we helped build. The same time, we're also building those coalitions to deal with the threat from China. That again, the chairman, I think, did a great job of explaining that threat. But the AUKUS agreement, bringing UK and Australia in. The Quad, where we work with Japan, India and Australia. We have recently seen Japan step up significantly in terms of the amount of money that they're spending on their defense to be an able partner in that part of the world. We have now an expanded military relationship with the Philippines. A relationship that at the beginning of this administration was very much in question. It was very much in question whether or not the Philippines would go over to China or help us. They're helping us. Building that coalition is a crucial part of how we meet those national security needs that have been laid out before us today. Just a couple of other issues. One is recruitment and retention. A big challenge. I think everyone knows that we are not meeting our goals at the moment. But I think there's a couple of important things about that. One, the pandemic had a profound impact on that. We have not been able to recruit effectively for two or three years. We are now stepping back up and doing that. And also, I've had conversations with Secretary Austin about this. He has experienced with this. This is not the first time that the US military has struggled to meet recruitment goals. We have experience in terms of how to make changes and do that. I know that the Secretary is working on that. I look forward to hearing from him about the details of that important issue. And the last thing is something that the chairman and I 100% agree on. Innovation is the key to meeting that threat environment. We have to be able to develop and quickly feel new technologies that help us meet our defense needs. And we've got a lot of work to do in that area. The Pentagon has never been built for speed. And in this era with AI, machine learning, and all the new technologies that are coming on board, we need to be able to access those quickly and figure out how to use them. So I look forward to hearing from our witness about the steps that have been taken to change the way the Pentagon does business so we can do that more quickly. Without question, we have an incredibly complex threat environment. But I want to say unequivocally, I know that we can meet it. I know that we have a capable Congress, a capable administration, and crucially capable partners the world over. We can help maintain the peace and meet our national defense needs. I have no doubt about that. And with that, I look forward to the testimony from our witnesses and I yield back to the chairman. I think the ranking member. Our witnesses today are the Honorable Lloyd Austin, Secretary of Defense and General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Accompanying the Secretary and Chairman is the Honorable Mike McCord, Undersecretary of Defense. He serves as the DOD's Comptroller and Chief Financial Officer. So welcome to the witnesses. Secretary Austin, we'll start with you. Well, thank you, Chairman Rogers. Chairman and Ranking Member Smith, distinguished members of the committee. I'm glad to be here with you today to testify in support of the President's budget request. The gentleman will suspend. We need to get the protesters to take their signs down or be removed from the room. The chair notes that the disturbance of the committee's proceedings is taking place. The committee will be in order. I'd like to formally request that those in the audience causing this disruption cease their actions immediately. I want to advise the protesters or the folks in the audience. If you do this again, we are gonna recess and you are gonna be removed. Mr. Secretary, you're recognized. Now Chairman Rogers, Ranking Member Smith, distinguished members of the committee. I'm glad to be here today to testify in support of the President's budget request for fiscal year 2024. I'm joined as always by General Milley and I remain grateful for his leadership. I'm also glad to be joined by the Department's Comptroller and CFO, Mike McCord. This is a strategy-driven budget and one driven by the seriousness of our strategic competition with the People's Republic of China. At $842 billion, it is a 3.2% increase over fiscal year 23 enacted and it is 13.4% higher than fiscal year 22 enacted. This budget will help us continue to implement our national defense strategy and the President's national security strategy. Now I have three key priorities at the Pentagon, to defend our nation, to take care of our outstanding people and to succeed through teamwork. The PRC is our pacing challenge and we're driving hard to meet it. Our budget builds on our previous investments to deter aggression and we're investing in a more resilient force posture in the Indo-Pacific and increasing the scale and scope of our exercises with our partners. And this budget includes a 40% increase over last year's request for the Pacific Deterrence Initiative. It is an all-time high of $9.1 billion. And that will fund a stronger force posture, better defenses for Hawaii and Guam and deeper cooperation with our allies and partners. Now this budget also makes the department's largest ever investments in both R&D and procurement. We're requesting more than $61 billion to sustain air dominance. And that includes funding for fighters and the extraordinary B-21 strategic bomber that I helped unveil last December. We're also seeking more than $48 billion for seapower including new construction of nine battle force ships. And we're boosting capacity at America's shipyards to build the ships that our strategy demands. We're investing a total of $1.2 billion in the submarine industrial base. And we're buying two Virginia class attack submarines and one Columbia class ballistic missile submarine. On land we're investing in air and missile defense and in defenses to counter unmanned aerial vehicles. We're also requesting $11 billion to deliver the right mix of long range fires including major investments in hypersonics. We'll also continue to modernize all three legs of our nuclear triad and bolster our strategic deterrence. And we put forward the largest space budget in Pentagon history. We've requested $33.3 billion to improve our capabilities and our resilience in space. Now let me again thank Congress for providing the department with multi-year procurement authorities and appropriations for critical munitions. In this budget we're requesting more multi-year procurement authorities. And we're asking for more than $30 billion to further invest in the industrial base and to buy the maximum number of munitions that American industry can produce. This budget also moves us away from aging capabilities that aren't relevant to future conflicts. So we can focus on the advances that our war fighters will need. Now our national defense strategy calls out Putin's highly aggressive Russia as an acute threat. And under President Biden's leadership the United States has rallied the world to help Ukraine fight Russia's indefensible invasion. We've reinforced NATO's defense and deterrence on its eastern flank. Our allies and partners have provided crucial security assistance coordinated through the Ukraine defense contact group that I lead. And we will support Ukraine's defense for as long as it takes. And meanwhile the department remains vigilant against other persistent threats including North Korea and Iran. And we will take all necessary measures to defend our troops and our interests overseas as seen in our recent airstrikes against facilities linked to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. And we're also investing in over the horizon counterterrorism capabilities. And Mr. Chairman our joint force stands ready to meet any challenge. And you can see the force's readiness after Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine when we swiftly deployed elements of the 3rd Infantry Division to Poland to shore up NATO's eastern flank. We closely monitor readiness at the unit level and maintain response forces at our highest states of readiness while the rest of the force by design is preparing for future contingencies. So this budget will help us maintain our readiness with $146 billion in funding for operations, training and maintenance. This budget also invest in improving our readiness and resilience in the face of climate change and other 21st century threats. And Mr. Chairman we're going to remain the strongest military in the world. And as we mark the 50th anniversary of our all volunteer force, I am enormously proud of the brave men and women who choose to wear the cloth of our nation. We owe it to them and to their families to take the best possible care of all of our people. And over the past two years we've made moves easier, we've cut commissary prices, we've made childcare more affordable. And this budget funds other key steps to increase the quality of life of our teammates, including the largest military and civilian pay raises in decades. Now we're also pushing hard to eliminate suicide in our ranks, including immediate steps to hire more mental health professionals and to improve access to mental health care. And meanwhile, we're working toward a military that's free of sexual assault. We worked with Congress to improve the response to sexual assault and related crimes under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Those reforms will be fully implemented by the end of this year. And the department is also investing in a specialized workforce to combat sexual assault, harassment, suicide, and more. Now the department's third priority is succeeding through teamwork. Our unrivaled network of allies and partners magnifies our power and expands our security. And in recent months, our friends in the Indo-Pacific have taken major steps forward. The Philippines has agreed to nearly double the number of sites where we can cooperate together. Japan committed to double its defense spending and through the historic AUKUS partnership will work with our Australian and British allies to build game-changing defense advantages that will deter aggression and boost our defense industrial capacity. In sum, Mr. Chairman, this is the budget that we'll meet this moment. And I respectfully request your support. The single most effective way that this committee can support the department and our outstanding troops is with an on-time, full-year appropriation. So I look forward to working with all of you so that we can continue to defend our democracy and support the forces of freedom in this hour of challenge. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Chairman Milley, you're recognized. Chairman Rogers, Ranking Member Smith, and distinguished members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today. I've been very privileged to defend this country for 43 consecutive years in uniform. And this may be my last set of posture hearings. So I want to thank you, the Congress, for your continued support to our military for the last four decades, not just on this budget, but all the budgets of the past. And I ask that you support this year's request with an on-time budget approval. I'm honored to represent the soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, guardians, and families of the United States Joint Force alongside Secretary Austin and Mike McCord. And I want to publicly thank them both for their leadership. Our Joint Force is the most lethal and capable military in the world because of your support. Our purpose, the military's purpose, is very simple. It's to defend the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic. And our task is to fight and win in all the domains of combat, to secure America, and prevent great power war. Readiness now and readiness in the future through modernization is our number one priority and there is no other number one. The Joint Force will accomplish this at the FY24 budget request of $842 billion. Right now, the international system is under stress. For the first time, the United States is facing two major nuclear powers whose vital national security interests are in competition with the United States. Both the People's Republic of China and Russia have the means to threaten our interests and our way of life. But war with either is neither inevitable nor imminent. Great power war has not happened in the last 80 years in large part because of the rules put in place at the end of World War II and the capabilities of the United States military along with our allies and partners. We must remain the most powerful nation if the great power peace is to continue to hold. The People's Republic of China remains our number one long-term geostrategic security challenge. China intends to be the regional hegemon in the western Pacific and in Asia within the next 10 years and to exceed the United States overall military capability by mid-century and they have publicly stated by 2049. PRC actions are moving it down the path towards potential confrontation with its neighbors or the United States. But again, war with China is neither inevitable nor imminent. Additionally, Russia is an acute threat and remains dangerous. Over a year ago, Russia undertook an illegal and unprovoked war against Ukraine threatening peace on the European continent and global stability. We are supporting Ukraine to protect its sovereignty and supporting NATO with the United States' force presence in every single nation on NATO's eastern flank. This fight is not just in Ukraine's interest it is in the United States' interest to protect the system that has prevented great power war for the last eight decades. Iran threatens to push the Middle East into regional instability by supporting terrorists and proxy forces. Just last week, Iranian-aligned groups killed one American and injured seven in attacks on coalition bases in Syria. We acted immediately to defend our troops and we will continue to counter terrorist threats in the region or anywhere else we find them. And Iran has taken actions also to improve its capabilities to produce a nuclear weapon. From the time of an Iranian decision, Iran could produce enough fissile material for a nuclear weapon in less than two weeks and it would only take several more months to produce an actual nuclear weapon. The United States remains committed as a matter of policy that Iran will not have a nuclear weapon. The United States military has developed multiple options for our national leadership to consider if or when Iran decides to develop a nuclear weapon. North Korea's continued ballistic missile testing and nuclear weapons development pose threats to our homeland and our allies and partners but we stand shoulder to shoulder with the Republic of Korea to continue to deter North Korea aggression as we have for the last 70 years. Terrorists continue to operate around the globe threatening fear, destruction, and destabilization and this budget further supports our continued CT efforts counter-terrorism efforts. In short, the United States military stands ready to protect our nation's interests and the American people. We are currently standing watch on freedom's frontier with nearly 250,000 troops in Europe, Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and South America. And the United States never fights alone. A key source of our strength is our large global network of alliances and partnership. And just this month, we conducted 63 operations and joint combined exercises globally with our allies and partners. And lastly, our operational readiness rates are higher now than they've been in many years. Currently, 60% of our active force is at the highest states of readiness and could deploy to combat in less than 30 days, while exceeding the minimum of the one-third standard that we've always had. 10% of our force could deploy in less than 96 hours. The United States military is ready. The joint force is also at an inflection point. We must balance current operations, readiness, and modernization. We must not allow ourselves to create the false trap that we can either modernize our forces for the future or focus only on today. We must do both. We must integrate advanced technologies, including precision long-range fires, hypersonic weapons, quantum computing, artificial intelligence, robotics, and all-domain sensors. The time is now. We have very little margin to wait. And the common thread critical to all of this is our people. We must continue investing in the training, education, and talent management to be prepared for the future operating environment. I urge Congress to support this budget's significant pay raise, health care, housing, and child care initiatives. And this budget sustains our readiness and adapts the joint force for future war fighting requirements. There is nothing more expensive than fighting a war. And preparing for war is also very expensive. But fighting a war is the most expensive. But preparing for war will deter that war. I encourage the Congress to support this budget. And we must act now with clear-eyed urgency to deter any future possibility of a great power war. We must remain strong in the number one military in the world. By doing so, no adversary should ever underestimate the resolve of our nation and the strength of our military. And thank you, and I look forward to your questions. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I recognize myself for five minutes. Secretary Alston, General Milley, could you describe for us what it would mean for our ability to deter China if Congress fails to pass the NDAA and our Defense Appropriations Bill in a timely manner this year? Thank you, Chairman. It would have a significant impact on our ability to conduct new starts, to go after the technologies that we need to be relevant and dominant on a future battlefield. And again, that money, that time is lost and we won't be able to regain it going forward. Mr. Chairman. So thanks, Chairman. Last year, we did about 24,000 combined arms, live fires, collective training in the ground forces from squad all the way up to battalion and brigade. We did 23 CTCs, that's training rotations through our training centers. We did about 350 mass tactical airborne operations. We are flying all over the world in defense of our country's interests and we're sailing the seas and keeping the freedom of navigation going. If we don't pass an on-time budget, if we go to a continuing resolution, then the readiness levels will drop. We've done the math before. We've done this many, many times in the past years. What'll end up happening is all those live fires, a lot of them will go away. We'll end up training basically to squad, platoon and maybe company level for the ground forces. Our flying hour program, which is about average, is about 150 hours per pilot for both the Air Force, Marines and Navy. That will come down considerably, probably by 10 or 20%. That'll have a very negative impact on our readiness. So the bottom line is in terms of procurement and future, the multi-year starts, all of the things that business needs to continue to supply us with the equipment we need, all of that will be decremented by a significant degree. So the bottom line is our readiness will drop and our future modernization programs will be at risk. Great. To both of you, we're seeing growing cooperation between the militaries of China, Russia and Iran as well as a closer defense and energy supply chain integration. Are we adequately resourced and prepared to deter and if necessary defeat this type of alliance? And I start with you, General. The national, the NDS currently is structured, so the way it's called is a pacing threat for China and a Q threat for Russia. What that really means, and this changed under the former sect of Mattis, we changed essentially from a two war strategy, two regional contingency strategy, which was in existence from, I guess, end of World War II all the way up through a few years ago. We switched to a one war strategy. So we planned to resource, train, man, equip and force structure our force to be able to fight one major contingency against one great power and to hold in the other theaters. And how long has that policy been in place? At least, I know the shift occurred, I guess it was the 2017 NDS, I think it was. And I was Chief of Staff of the Army. We all participated in it and it's, now we can surge and we would have to do that, but that's the reality of it. Our military capability-wise can fight in a lot of places with different types of contingencies, but if you're talking about a serious conflict with a major great power war, realistically, putting both China and Russia together is a very, very difficult thing. Well, and that's the thing that the committee needs to take note of in the Congress is that for the first 15 years that I was here, we had a strategy that allowed us to fight two wars simultaneously and successfully defend the homeland. We have already had to drop that down to just one theater, which is scary enough, and I worry that if we do have a disruption in our funding, our authorization, it could further erode that capability. Let me ask, General, can you tell us a little bit about the intentions of Iran and Syria with recent attacks that we've had there and what's the security situation like in that theater? We've obviously had issues with Iran for many, many years. Iran's, in my view, Iran's strategic objective is to drive the United States out of both Iraq and Syria. They want to do that for their own national security interests. They want to establish what is often referred to as a shea crescent that goes from Iran through Iraq, through Syria into Lebanese Hezbollah. There arch enemy, obviously, is Israel, and they want to be the dominant power in the region. That's what the assessment is from the intelligence community. That's what, and I concur with that, so that's their strategic objective. As you may recall, several years ago, under President Trump, we pulled troops off of the border between Syria and Turkey, because Turkey was gonna invade. That was in the first month of my time as chairman. Then we pulled back, President Trump approved a security zone, essentially, on the northeast portion of Syria, where we put a little bit less than 1,000 troops. That security belt was put there for a specific purpose at the time, and that purpose was to go ahead and continue the enduring defeat of ISIS, which had been, the caliphate was destroyed, but ISIS itself broke down into small little penny packets, so they were still there. There's also a series of refugee camps and a prison camps that are up there with the SDF, the Syrian Democratic Front, so they guard those, so we work with them to do that. If they walk away from those camps, then ISIS is gonna resurrect very quickly. So the enduring defeat of ISIS is the primary and fundamental reason why they're still there. I do think and I applaud members of this committee that have initiated discussions of that. I think that's worthwhile, and I think one of the things that we want, us in uniform, we just wanna know the American people are behind us. If we're gonna put our lives in the line, we want the American people to support us. So if the American people's support is not there, then we shouldn't be there. It's that simple. So I applaud that effort as well. So, but that's why we're there. I recognize Rick and member. Thank you. First of all, I wanna voice my very strong agreement with the chairman's initial line of questioning on the importance of passing the appropriations bills in the NDAA. I would add that each week that we don't raise the debt ceiling also places our budget in jeopardy. And at the end of the, and we can argue back and forth about whether we should add $10, $20 billion to the defense budget, but vastly more important is just being able to pass it, being able to put it in place, and also to not introduce the economic insecurity that's involved with not raising the debt ceiling, let alone getting to the point where we breach that ceiling to stop paying. That would just be devastating to our national security and everything we're talking about here. Mr. Secretary, can you talk a little bit about your goals and your objectives on recruitment? We've talked about this before to meet that challenge. Understanding, of course, that we still have the best military force in the world. I don't think anybody should ever forget that. But what are your goals and what are the challenges you look forward to to meet those challenges going forward? Well, obviously each service as outlined with their requirements, with their goals are going forward. And as you know, last year, the service that fell short by the largest margin was the Army. But all of the services have recognized the challenges that we're currently facing, the headwinds that were created by a couple of years of COVID, the inability to get into high schools, the inability to engage centers of influence. And so that's two years worth of headwinds that we are now working to counter, to improve our efforts here. I think the services are doing the right thing in terms of investing in marketing, investing in the right kinds of recruiters, making sure the recruiting stations are in the right places, going to where, in terms of where the applicants are, going to where they are in the media, and also re-establishing the connectivity that's really, really important. As you mentioned earlier, Chairman, this is not the first time that the military has been faced with challenges in recruiting. And I was assigned to recruiting command because we had challenges in the past as a young captain. I learned a lot about recruiting. We overcame the challenges that we were faced with by doing the right things. I am confident that our secretaries, our chiefs are doing the right things, and they are putting the right leaders in place to make sure that we turn things around. And again, each service will have different goals and objectives based upon what the requirements are, but we see the trends begin to move in the right directions. And it will take, this was a challenge that was brought on by a couple of years of COVID and other things, you know, probably the lowest unemployment rate that we've seen in a very, very long time. And so it'll take a while to come out of that bathtub and get to where we need to be, but I am confident that we'll get there. Thank you. Sure, Chairman Milley, looking at the threat from China and our partners in the region, I mentioned Japan stepping up with the defense budget. We built building other partnerships with Australia, now the Philippines and elsewhere. How does that affect our ability to deter China? What role do you see those partners playing in being strong enough to deter China from aggression towards Taiwan or other neighbors in the region? Well, not only in Asia, but one of our key advantages as a nation is our network of allies and partners around the world. And in Asia, of course, we have, you know, bilateral defense treaties in Europe, you have NATO, but in Asia we have bilateral defense treaties with Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Philippines and Australia. And that is a network of alliances that is really strong. It's very powerful. You mentioned AUKUS and your opening comments. So that is a very powerful deterrent, I think to China when you add in the combat power that we can bring to bear the United States military in combination with that of our allies and partners in the region, and then add in both Britain and the UK, which have run exercises in the Asia Pacific with us. And then there's a whole string of other countries that are very, very close to us, but not official Senate ratified partners. In combination, they bring a tremendous wealth of capability both on the land, sea and air. So in combination, that's a very significant amount of military power. Thank you very much. I yield back, Mr. Chairman. Thank you gentlemen. To your now recognized gentlemen from South Carolina, Mr. Wilson for five minutes. Thank you Chairman Mike Rogers and Ranking Member Adam Smith for your bipartisan continued efforts to achieve peace through strength. And General Secretary, thank you for your service. We want you to succeed as I certainly told General Milley yesterday. And that is that we must face the global war on terrorism which continues of 9-11 and understand sadly that the risk are ever increasing with terrorists coming across the Southern border. Additionally, there is bipartisan understanding that we have a worldwide competition between democracies of rule of law opposed by authoritarians with rule of gun. Today, war criminal Putin is perpetuating mass murder in Ukraine. The Chinese Communist Party is threatening Taiwan and the regime in Tehran pledges death to Israel, death to America. With that in mind, indeed there is such bipartisan support. I'm grateful to quote an unlikely newspaper, The Washington Post, lead editorial. And so Mr. Chairman, stay seated. On March 6th, which confirmed the murderous invasion of Ukraine by war criminal Putin demands Western support. And quote, President Biden will be tested and judged by his own success in making a similar case for this country to step up by applying his industrial might. It continues it as a gap between the West's supportive rhetoric on equipping Ukraine and the pace of actual deliveries of arms and munitions. For European allies security, it is also to maintain a basic principle of civilized international relations that one state cannot invade and subjugate another. End of quote. Again, it's clear that the President Biden, according The Washington Post, and the administration will be tested and judged by his decision to support the courageous people of Ukraine. And so with that, indeed, General Austin, I wanna thank you for what you have done in supporting our allies and partners, specifically the most recent Ukraine and European Defense Initiative along with foreign military sales. However, we must continue to improve expediting and accelerating these processes and rapidly being critical to allow Putin to not succeed with his conquest in Ukraine. With that question, since we have nearly 8,000 tanks and tank hulls, can we feasibly increase the amount of M-1 tanks that are being provided to Ukraine? And additionally, can we, with pre-positioning, immediately provide these to provide peace through strength? So let me begin by thanking you and thanking all of Congress for what you've done to support the effort in Ukraine, our efforts to provide security assistance. And as you know, the United States continues to lead the way. We've invested well north of $30 billion in this endeavor and it has made a difference in the Ukrainian's efforts to defend their sovereign territory. And we will continue this work for as long as it takes. We talk to our counterparts every week. I talk to the Minister of Defense, Chairman talks to his counterpart at least once a week, probably a couple of times a week. We talk to them about what their needs are, what they're doing on the battlefield, and then I meet with them in person every month. And so we really feel that we have a real up-to-date and good feel for what the Ukrainians' needs are, what's required for them to be successful in this fight. And they have really done a great job thus far in countering an adversary that was incredibly more powerful and resource than they were and they fought well and they've inspired us all. They continue to do so. What you've seen most recently is that we have Marshall infantry fighting vehicles, Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, strikers, martyrs, the Germans are giving martyrs, we've leopard tanks, a number of capabilities to enable the Ukrainians to go on the offensive in the spring when they choose to do so. Hey, General, I don't mean to interrupt, but I want to thank you, but I do want to point out the American people need to know that in terms of percentage of GDP, actually we're number nine in terms of providing aid. And so we're not alone in our help and a final point that I need to make to General Milley and that is that I appreciate every effort to observe or monitor what the CCP sees is what they're doing because to me, as they're in the Indo-Pacific, the ultimate target's gonna be the Republic of India, the world's largest democracy. And so we need to be successful in protecting Taiwan. With that, I yield back. Thank you. Thank you, gentlemen. Chair and I recognize gentlemen from Connecticut, Mr. Courtney for five minutes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you again to both witnesses. Secretary Austin, in your written testimony, you highlighted this month's historic gathering at Naval Base Port Loma in San Diego where President Biden, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and UK Prime Minister Sunak announced the optimal pathway to execute the AUCA Security Agreement, which will provide Australia with a conventionally armed nuclear-powered submarine capability. As you well know, the US has not shared this closely guarded technology with another nation since 1958 when we did so with the British Navy. The plan is to sell at least three Virginia-class submarines to Australia in the early 2030s. Can you describe the strategic benefit to the US of sharing these precious assets at the same time that we're building up our own undersea fleet? Our undersea capability is one of our clear advantages that we have over any other nation in the world. And helping an ally like Australia develop a capability that can complement the capability that we in the UK bring is critical. And it will help us to deter. It will help us to achieve our objective of maintaining an open and free Indo-Pacific. And I think the interoperability that comes along with this, I think, is also very, very powerful. So it is a generational capability that will increase our overall capability as allies by orders of magnitude. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. And it's clear from your response, though, that in order for the US to meet its fleet requirements and also fill Australia's looming undersea capability gap, boosting the size and productivity of our industrial base is a national security priority. Last year's omnibus invested a record $751 million into workforce development, supply chain, and facility expansion. This year, you're requesting 647 million more for those same goals. Can you speak to the need for Congress to approve this amount in order to make AUKUS work and to grow our domestic industrial base capacity in parallel? And can you also discuss the need to reform US export controls to enable technology sharing, again, in order to make AUKUS succeed? We clearly have to do more to expand our capability capacity in our industrial base. It's important to us anyway, but it's more important because of the fact that we've gone down the path of AUKUS, which we need to do. It's, again, a generational capability that I'm very, very happy that we have taken on. So we will continue to look to invest in our industrial base capability. And as you know, Australia is also investing in our industrial base. And I think that's the right thing to do, and I compliment them for making that tough decision. No, you're correct. So the day after Port Loma, the Minister for Defense Industry in Australia, Pat Conroy, announced that, again, number one, they are now moving forward with $6 billion of new investment in their own industrial base, the new shipyard in Adelaide. And they are also investing $3 billion into the US industrial base, which is an extraordinary statement of how serious and committed that country is, again, to make this all work. There's another issue that, again, has been sort of in the internet atmosphere, I think, somewhat aided by China, who's not very pleased about the AUKUS arrangement, claiming that this somehow is going to affect the sovereignty of Australia's Navy, that they're basically sacrificing sovereignty by going into this arrangement. Can you just clarify that, again, this is a sale, so title in the deed to the subs will be in the ownership of the Royal Australian Navy. And they, again, will operate, again, within their own sovereign authority. I couldn't explain it any better than you just did. That's exactly right. It does not infringe on the sovereignty of Australia at all. And, again, they are a great ally, and we welcome their decision to invest in this capability. And lastly, as I mentioned, this is a submarine that will have conventional armaments, not nuclear armaments. And, again, that, again, is critical in terms of making sure that it complies with the International Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Is that correct? That's absolutely correct. Thank you. I yield back. Chairman, I recognize General from Ohio, Mr. Turner, for five minutes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Secretary Alston, I want to congratulate you on the leadership that you provided in the effort of just the unbelievable logistics that have had to be undertaken to support Ukraine. Thank you for doing that. This Congress, of course, has been a lead in pushing the administration for the weapon systems that have been provided, but your response has been extraordinary. My questions today are for General Milley. General Milley, when we were all gathered together to talk about the budget document for 2023, we had a discussion concerning SLICM, the Sea Launched Cruise Missile. It is a low-yield nuclear weapon. It was a capability that we had previously that was retired in 2010. The decision had been made to redeploy the SLICM capability. In our budget hearings in 2023, you stated that redeploying SLICM was important for US credible deterrents, specifically, you said. The President deserves to have multiple options to deal with national security situations, recognizing the change that has occurred in Russia's posture. Does that remain your position today? It does. There's alternative views, but that's my position. That's correct. Thank you. Turning to the issue of spectrum, that is radio frequency spectrum. As you know, DOD is not just a user of radio frequency. You're part of the federal government. The federal government is an owner of radio frequency. You don't operate in those frequency areas as a licensee or pursuant to a lease. You are part of the use of the federal government of reserving to itself for its own use radio frequency spectrum. There have been attempts to diminish or limit the access of the Department of Defense to radio frequency spectrum. I believe it's in the 3.1 to 3.45 gigahertz spectrum. I know you know more about this than I would. Could you please give us some information about what would that mean if we require DOD to move from the spectrum that you're currently in? Or if we allow others into the spectrum, how would that affect your operations? It would be significant. I don't want to go into great detail in an unclassified session, but it would be significant in terms of our ability to sense the environment and respond to threats in the environment, things like radars, et cetera. So I think you need to turn your microphone on. Oh, OK. So let me just say that again. It would be significant impact, I think, on national security if we were compelled to vacate that portion of the spectrum. There's an ongoing study. My recommendation has been to the Secretary and to don't make any final decisions until that study is complete, which is estimated to be in September. When that study is complete, then we can make some fully informed recommendations. And then the President can make appropriately informed decisions on what to do with that spectrum. Ultimately, a lot of people want to share it. And I understand that. And I understand the principle behind it. And I think the economy is really important. And there's trillions of dollars at stake here. All that's true. But there's also significant national security interests in that particular portion of the spectrum. So we've got to do it right. And if we make a mistake at it, we're going to be paying for it for years, not only in dollars, but in risk down in the decade or two. So it would affect our capabilities, correct, General? I'm sorry? It would affect our capability. It would absolutely affect our capability. And it would cost us trillions of dollars, not just trillions of dollars in the economy, trillions of dollars in defense spending to try to adjust, to move you from your spectrum. To be honest, I'd have to get you some numbers off to Mike McCord. But it'll be a lot. It'll be a lot of money. Excellent. Turning to, sorry, Secretary. Mike, questions for General Milley. General Milley, turning to missile defense. Russia has changed its posture with respect to nuclear weapons, now claiming that they might put nuclear weapons in Belarus. Certainly, saber rattling indicating their suspending new start. They have undertaken development of Poseidon, Skyfall, Avangard, hypersonic nuclear weapons, Satan 2, which is a merved weapon. China is perhaps tripling their nuclear weapons capabilities. Do you think it's time that we revisit missile defense as we are sitting without real capabilities to respond if there is an attack upon the United States? Well, to be clear, strategic stability depends on an assured second strike capability, which we have. And we can guarantee it without question. So the United States, from a nuclear deterrent posture, we are very secure because we have an exceptional nuclear system enterprise, consisting of the triad that you're well aware of in the NC3. And we're trying to recapitalize that for the out years. But so the stability of the nuclear system is an assured second strike. That's the fundamental underpinning of deterrence between us and Russia. But there are other countries out there that are advancing, North Korea, for example. Maybe, maybe not with Iran. Who knows? So with smaller numbers. And I think an integrated air and missile defense system is critical. We have that in the Pacific. We have a layered defensive system that comes all the way from Japan, all the way back with radars and sensors. And we have a number of capabilities that can shoot down incoming threats. And I think that making that robust is a smart thing to do. We did a missile defense review. And as peace parts in that, this is very expensive. It takes many years. But I think it's worthy of consideration. Generalist time has expired. Chair, and I recognize the gentleman from California, Mr. Gehrmendi for five minutes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. General and Secretary, thank you for your service in an extraordinary, difficult period of time in this world. You displayed true leadership and also a great deal of intelligence and thoughtfulness. Thank you very much for that. Both of you have talked about readiness in some detail. But it really doesn't make much sense unless we talk about weapons sustainment readiness. We love to buy new, bright, shiny things. And we certainly do. But we often don't bother to maintain it. So what are the actual costs when we purchase a platform? Do we really consider the sustainment cost of that new platform when we purchase it? Sustainment requires that we have the right people at the right time in the right places to sustain the aircraft, the ships, and the other platforms that we depend upon. All too often, sustainment has been left behind. It's an acceptable risk. So my question really goes to the multiple GAO reports that have shown that the Department of Defense has not met its own mission-capable goals for various types of aircraft and ships. So first of all, to both of you, sustainment-informed acquisition, are you directing the multiple agencies within the department to include long-term sustainment cost and methodology in all of the acquisition programs that you want to have? Mr. Secretary? Like you, sir, I think this is really important. And I think that we have to consider and factor in sustainment cost in all of our investments, in all of our platforms. You're right, we haven't done that well in the past. We have to do that better going forward. As we've seen with some of the major platforms, if you don't do that upfront, then it doesn't perform to the degree that you want it to perform. You don't have the capability that you need. And so we have to do this. So, yes. General? It absolutely has to be considered all the time. The sustainment cost on any weapons systems has got to be considered as part of it. We have multiple major acquisitions underway, the B-21. We would appreciate detail on how you intend to sustain that platform over the next 30 years in which it's going to be flown. In your budget, gentlemen, did you prioritize investments in the modernization of the facilities upon which all readiness is based? For example, depots, shipyards, arsenals, the bases, the ranges, the housing. Is that included in your budget, Mr. Secretary? We continue to invest in the CyOF program. We continue to invest in housing. And we have some $5.1 billion invested in increasing operational effectiveness and survivability on our bases. So it's an ongoing thing that we're focused on and we continue to try to invest in increasing the capability here. General, do you want to opine on the investments that are necessary to maintain the depots, the shipyards, the arsenals, bases, the housing, and so forth? Sure, Congressman, the infrastructure for our forces, for our troops, quality life housing and that sort of thing, that's mandatory that we do that all the time. We want to make sure that they got the best quality housing. With respect to the defense industrial base and the shipyards, I think additional investment needs to be done over the course of time. It's not gonna be done in one year. Our shipyards, for example, both commercial and naval shipyards have been minimized over the course of 20, 30, 40 years. That needs to be taken a hard look at given the amount of throughput that we can produce naval vessels, you know, 1.5 subs per year, that sort of thing. So we need to take a look at all the shipyards. And I do think additional capability is needed there. Then if you look at our bases that are stressed, we have about 560 or so bases around the world. Some of those are in better repair than others. Some of them have suffered significantly from either hurricanes or floods or fires or various natural disasters. So we've got to take a hard look at all of that too and to make sure that our infrastructure is up to par. But that's critical to the overall defense and national security of the United States. General, thank you very much really for us. As we put together this NDAA, we all too often spend our time and our money buying new bright shiny things and neglecting the ongoing sustainment of the various facilities. And as long as we do not put this as a priority, the readiness will not be there. And the GAO reports and your own reports indicate that that is the case and we have to address it. With that, I yield back. Chair and I recognize General from Colorado, Mr. Lambern for five minutes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman Milley, thank you for your 43 years of service to our country. The Strategic Forces Subcommittee has heard testimony about how Russia, specifically Ross-Adam, is providing China with highly enriched uranium. China is going to put this into fast breeder reactors that will yield plutonium, thus accelerating the pace of their nuclear breakout. How concerned are you about Russia's role in assisting China's strategic nuclear breakout and what do you recommend be done? I'm concerned not only about that, but any coherence and cohesion between Russia and China in this particular strategic environment that we're in. We're seeing that with the two of them are getting closer together. I wouldn't call it a true, full alliance in the real meaning of that word, but we are seeing them moving closer together and that's troublesome. And then if you add in Iran is the third. So those three countries together are gonna be problematic for many years to come, I think, especially Russia and China because of their capability. With respect to what you just cited about nuclear capabilities and the transfer of capabilities, I'd like to go to a closed session on the specifics of that, but it is concerning, very much so. Well, and we will pursue that more later. And as a follow-on, we know from recent disclosures that China now has more nuclear missile launchers than the US. And we also know that they're manufacturing more warheads than ever for themselves. And this is new since some of the posture hearings in the past or reviews have been done. So what do you recommend be done now concerning China's nuclear breakout? China's nuclear capabilities are not matched with the United States, but when you start talking nuclear weapons, Congressman, I mean, these things are enormous payloads. So you gotta ask the question, how much is enough sort of thing? So they have a significant capability, nuclear capability today without going into specific numbers. They have a significant nuclear capability today and they have intercontinental ballistic missiles that can range the United States. That is obviously bothersome. So we are in a situation, now as I mentioned in my opening statement, we are facing two nuclear armed great powers. So the principles of the Cold War of deterrence still obtain, but now it's more complicated because it's two versus one. And anytime you have three variables versus one variable or two variables, it's a much more complicated situation. So strategic stability is essential that we maintain that and we do that with China within assured second strike. That's the best way that exists today with the technologies that exist. We are probably not going to be able to do anything to stop, slow down, disrupt, interdict or destroy the Chinese nuclear development program that they have projected out over the next 10 to 20 years. They're gonna do that in accordance with their own plan and there's very little leverage, I think, that we could do externally to prevent that from happening. There might be some economic levels of power. There might be other things in the intelligence world, but for the most part, they're probably gonna step out. They have a national goal to be a global, to be the global co-equal with the United States and superior militarily by mid-century. They're on that path to do that and that's really disturbing, that's really bothersome and we're gonna have to not only keep pace, but we have to outpace that and that'll assure the peace. Well, a lot of us are concerned that the New START Treaty was negotiated with the Russians in mind and China was a minor, relatively minor player at the time. That's right. That's correct. I mean, there are arms control agreements and regimes, et cetera, but at the end of the day, all of those are good and I support all of those, but at the end of the day, military power matters and our military power has to always exceed that of China in all of the domains and if we do that, then we have a better chance at deterring any kind of conflict with China. Thank you, thank you and we need to continue that debate on what comes after New START. For both of you, my subcommittee and the whole committee wants to make sure that hypersonics development proceeds as rapidly as possible if we can identify ways to accelerate their development, whether through pinpointed funding increases beyond the president's budget, expanded testing capabilities or just overcoming bottlenecks in general, would you both be supportive of that? I am, sir and we're doing all of that. We're investing some $11 billion in long range fires in this budget and hypersonics is a part of that. We invested in hypersonics last year. Two years ago or 18 months ago, we pulled CEOs together to talk about things that we could do to speed up our efforts here in hypersonics and they identified some of the things that you're talking about, greater range access, better ranges and so we're working all of that. So I think if I look at what we're doing recently, we had 12 successful tests, hypersonic tests here in the last year. Not every one of them's gonna work but we had 12 successful tests and we'll continue that work going forward. Gentlemen's time is expired. Chair, I recognize the gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Noh Cross. Thank you Chairman Owen. Thank the witnesses for being here today and certainly to you, General Milley, for your service and echo the comments of the chair and the ranking member. We had close three years of COVID pandemic that had a direct disruption on the America output but also the defense industrial base. So we recognize this has caused considerable amount of backlog and disruption. The defense industrial base and we've heard it not only here on the dais today but we've heard it across many of our committees on not having to work for us. Industrial base is resilient but certainly hasn't been able to answer the call the way many of us had expected. The president has directed the department to increase the use of the American industrial base understanding that certainly we have allies and partners and let me just make the statement partners that are with us all the time not just our part time partners. What actions has the department taken to date and what actions do you plan, Secretary Austin, that would increase the use of this industrial base capacity and capabilities to meet our defense? Well, we have done a lot and we will continue to do more. First of all, let me thank you for providing us multi-year contracting authorities. That sends a strong signal to the industrial base. We've asked you for more of those authorities in this budget and we would be grateful if you would favorably consider them. We've also sent a strong signal by the amount that we're asking for procurement. That's $270 billion and that, again, that's a good signal to industry. We've reached out to the industry leadership, met with them, talked to them about things that we could do to work together to expand capacity in specific areas. We've asked the president for additional authorities with the Defense Production Act to expand certain lines of especially in munitions. And so we continue this work but we're doing a lot and we're gonna do more. To follow up on the Defense Production Act, would you give us more specifics where it has been applied? And you had just mentioned, you're looking for the White House to expand it, not only where but where we want to apply it. We can certainly follow up with additional details in writing but a good example is what we've been trying to do with acquiring and purchasing 155 munitions. We've asked for extra authorities to lean into that and the president certainly gave us the help with that and he continues to help in other areas as well. We certainly appreciate that and almost three years ago, we started to invest very heavily in the armaments and explosives or we would be even in worse condition. Any authorities that is not available to you now that you would need to help expedite this? Quite frankly, no. I think that again, we've asked you for additional authorities to do multi-year contracting. That would help us if you would give us additional authorities in this budget. But Congress has been very, very responsive and helpful and the president has as well. So we're not only working with our industrial base but we're working with allies and partners to work with them, to talk to them about how they can expand as well and increase their productivity. Thank you, Bob. The industrial base of America, as we know from previous wars answers the call. We just need to make sure that America is asked to do it and bring home some of that incredibly important work that has been all short from years past. With that, I yield back. Thank the gentleman. Chairman, I recognize the gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Whitman, for five minutes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I ask unanimous consent to submit the three charts I'm about to present for the record. Without objection, so ordered. Thank you. Secretary Austin, General Milley, thank you so much for joining us today. General Milley, thank you so much for your 43 years of service to our nation. Incredibly, incredibly contributive to the overall effort. Gentlemen, today we face the threat of our lifetime. The CCP is indeed that. And to go back to 2004 when Secretary Rumpffeld said, you go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time. We see the expansionist efforts by the Chinese Communist Party. I'd like to point to this first chart. This is where we were in 1999. As you can see, we were in pretty good shape in relation to the area of influence of the Chinese Communist Party and their military assets. Let's fast forward to today. We see modernized PLA forces. We see the area of influence. Significant, significant strategic overmatch by the Chinese. Incredible, it's hard to believe that this is what they've done through those years to not only catch up, but to surpass us. Folks, the next chart is what keeps me up at night. This is where the CCP will be in 2025, just down the road. And they've said that if reunification doesn't happen by 2027, they will take military action. We know what is in store. We know where this disparity exists. We see this. This should be a sobering effect for all of us. Secretary Austin, the Biden administration proposes a defense budget that allows the Air Force to divest 801 fighter aircraft from FY23 to 28 while buying 345 new fighter aircraft over the same period of time. It disregards Congress's direction to the Navy to maintain a minimum of 31 ships in our amphibious force. It also builds nine ships, that's great, but it retires 11 ships. And I just have a hard time seeing where we're going. I'm not a mathematician, but I wanna know how do we do addition by subtraction? How does this budget create the capacity and capability to close this gap? How does this send a message to the Chinese that this is a deterrent effect for what we know is coming? Please tell us what we're going to do with this threat that's at our doorstep. Please tell the American people what we are gonna do to mitigate this threat. Well, thank you, sir. First of all, on a budget, the way that we constructed this budget and the way that we constructed our last budget is that we linked our budget directly towards strategy. And we not only view the threat as we see it today, but we look over the years and where the threat will be in several years from now. We're interested in investing in the right capabilities that will support the war fighting concepts that we know that we will need to employ in order to be successful. And so it is about the quality, the capability of the platforms, and not necessarily the number. We talked about fighting as a member of a coalition. We don't go to battle on our own, typically. And so we expect that as we engage in a contest with any adversary in the future, allies and partners will be there, and we continue to invest in our interoperability with our allies and partners as well. So it is all about the right mix of capabilities. And if you look at the aircraft that you mentioned, we want that fifth generation aircraft and capability, and that's what we're investing in. And we also don't want to have to continue to invest to maintain aircraft and ships that are costly and provide headwinds and... Secretary Austin, with all due respect, quantity has a quality all its own. And there's only so many things that we can engage in the battle space. It's great to have exquisite platforms, but we do eventually get overwhelmed in this particular scenario. So to talk about these smaller number of platforms that have this capability is great, but capacity matters also. And the Chinese are looking at everything that we do and everything that we do, even with these exquisite platforms, they're developing pretty capable countermeasures. My concern is, is no matter what we're doing within that realm, if we don't do both capability and capacity, we're gonna find ourselves in incredibly challenging places. And I already talked to our warfighters, saying, listen, we're trying today to learn how to fight in situations where we're gonna be significantly tactically and strategically overmatched. That's a pretty sobering place. Gentlemen's time has expired. Chair, I recognize Mr. Gilego. Gilego. Ruben, Ruben is recognized. Appreciate the effort, Chairman. I really do. Secretary Austin, thank you for being here. This administration is built in a press of coalition of allies and partners to support Ukraine, including the Ukraine Defense Contact Group that you lead. Looking ahead to the next few months, can you share your expectation for this summer's NATO summit? Also, what steps have you taken and are you taking to further European security? Specifically, I'm looking at the Baltic States since we do have a Baltic Security Initiative as part of our NDA here. Thanks, sir. As we go into the summit, I think what you'll see in that summit is a strong display of unity. No one imagined that this alliance would be as unified as it is today. You know, a year ago or several years ago, you recall that we were discussing the relevance of NATO several years ago, and now not only are countries united. We see resolve that we haven't seen in a very, very long time, and we see countries investing more in their defense. And so I think what you'll see going into that summit is a call to action for countries to invest even more, to, number one, meet the Wales pledge of 2% of their GDP, but to exceed that and invest in relevant capabilities that can strengthen NATO's efforts. So I think those two things you'll see is as prominent in the summit. Thank you, Secretary Germany. Thank you for your testimony, and of course for your decades of service. In your testimony, you refer to private military companies that Russia relies on to undermine other nations' sovereignty. To the extent possible in this open setting, can you share your perspective on the relationship between the Wagner Group and the Russian forces at the operational level? And are you seeing the Wagner Group's presence in Africa change as a result of the war in Ukraine? As you know, the Wagner Group is a mercenary private military company. They're conducting combat operations right now in Bakhmut primarily. There's probably about 6,000 or so actual mercenaries and maybe another 20,000 or 30,000 recruits that they get, many of whom come from prisons. And they are suffering an enormous amount of casualties in the Bakhmut area. The Ukrainians are inflicting a lot of death and destruction on these guys. In addition to Bakhmut and Ukraine, Wagner Group is in many, many other places, most notably in West Africa, where they essentially have taken over a country. And they are, they pushed out the French out of I think it was Mali and some other places. So the Wagner Group is a very aggressive group. It's led by a very ruthless guy, Pergosian. He purports to be a businessman, but he's got an incredible criminal background behind him. So this is a dangerous group. They're quite large, they're quite powerful and they have at least reach throughout parts of Europe and into Africa and maybe some parts of the Middle East. We ran into them in the Middle East a couple of years ago in Syria with a battalion-sized force that was attacking one of our positions and we destroyed that force. So they are there, they're aggressive, most of them are former Russian soldiers of one kind or another. A lot of internationals work with them as well. So very dangerous group, long reach, very wealthy, very rich, and they are probably very disruptive internal to Russian society. Thank you, General. Secretary Austin, in your testimony, you highlighted the challenge of the both China and Russia pose. What step is the administration taking or steps to counter both Chinese and Russian influence in Africa and South America? Thanks, sir. The most effective way to counter their efforts in those areas is presence. What our combatant commanders are doing to not only be present in those spaces, but also help our partners, our allies build partner capacity as well. And so for the investment of a small number of professionals working with partners, we can achieve tremendous results. But presence speaks volumes, and so we're gonna continue to do what's necessary to make sure that our partners in the region, in those various regions know that we're the best investment, we're the best partner to have, and we're gonna be with them for the long term. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You're back. Thank you, Mr. Gallego. Chair now recognize Mr. Scott from Georgia. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Gentlemen, thank you for being here. I know we've talked a lot about Russia, Iran, China, the alliance between the three. I guess the most brazen thing that I've ever seen with or in recent times of the attack on the United States has been what China did with flying a spy balloon ever since the military installations inside the United States. And yet, less than 15 days after that occurred, Ford Motor Company announced a multi-billion dollar alliance with Communist China on battery technology. Secretary Austin, I'm concerned about how we purge China from the DOD supply chain. I'm concerned about corporate America partnering with Communist China and then slapping a US-made sticker on it and us buying it through our DOD with US tax dollars specifically with regard to the Chinese battery technology. And I just wanna make sure that the DOD is aware of Ford Motor Company partnering with Communist China on the battery technology and make sure that the DOD is committed to not purchasing Communist China's battery technology. Can you speak to that issue and what you at the DOD are doing to purge China from the DOD supply chain? Make sure we're not simply buying Chinese technology with the US sticker on it. Well, thanks, sir. As you know, this is a far bigger issue than just the Department of Defense. We support a rules-based global market and that's been what we've supported for a long time. As you do that, certainly you will have supply chains that run through places like China, but what you've seen our leadership do recently is move to, as best we can, begin to onshore some of those capabilities that are represented in those supply chains and limit our liabilities there and limit our exposure. Secretary Alstaff, if I could, would you agree that if you send money to one person and that person sends money then to Communist China and Communist China then uses that money against the United States that I mean, that's a circle where our dollars are being used against us. I think the best thing that we can do and are doing is to continue to invest in our industrial base, continue to invest in our... I agree with that 100%. I don't mean to interrupt you. I'm getting short on time and I wanna move to another question, but I would just tell you that I think it's counterproductive for the Department of Defense to purchase technology developed by the PLC and Chinese corporations. I think there's better technology available and corporate America does not need to be allowed to sell stick in American sticker on Communist China's technology and sell it to us, especially at the DOD. Moving to another question, General Milley, there are a lot of activity in our own backyard just south of our border. Been there a couple of times, the drug cartels activity and capabilities have increased drastically over the last few years. We're seeing larger influxes from a lot of countries, including China. We've seen a 1000% plus increase in the amount of people coming from China. They can get a 14-day travel visa into Mexico and then simply come to the U.S. border and claim asylum and 72 hours later, they're in our country. Is Southcom, and I realize Southcom operates south of Mexico, Southcom and Northcom are they getting adequate resources to target the illegal immigration, whether it be from China or the transnational criminal organizations coming from south of there and the drug cartels? Given our global commitments, I think they've got adequate resources. However, I would say that there's no COCOM out there at all who would tell you that they get all the resources that they need. So they always need more. But I've talked very frequently with Laura Richardson and Glen Van Herk. There's no question that there's a vulnerability in our southern border. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure it out. You've got thousands of people coming across every single day. There's a lot of drugs coming across every single day. You've got a major league fentanyl crisis. So there is clearly a vulnerability there. And of course, the precursor chemicals for the fentanyl acceptor come from China and so on. So yes. Arms race here are trying to catch up with Russia and China for the worst reasons because we're both rushing to get more of these hypersonics. They're fundamentally destabilizing. That makes the world less safe for all of us. And so I think it'd be helpful to hear not just a strategy to win this arms race, but a strategy to stop it. I'm sorry, I've run out of time. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It's time to expire. The Chair now recognizes Ms. Defonic of New York for five minutes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to ask both Secretary Austin and General Milley about the unique role the 10th Mountain Division and Fort Drum play in great power competition. I recently had the opportunity to visit with Major General Anderson, who's doing a great job after the tremendous leadership by General Beagle up at Fort Drum. And we discussed General Anderson's alpine initiative to return the 10th Mountain Division to its roots of cold weather operations and mountaineering. Given that both you, Mr. Secretary and you, General Milley, we're commanding generals at Fort Drum. You're very familiar with the post with the unique strengths of 10th Mountain. What role do you see the 10th Mountain Division and Fort Drum specifically playing in out-competing our adversaries in the Arctic? I think 10th Mountain Division can play a significant role and does play a significant role in that endeavor. I would also say that there are multi-purpose division. It can, as they've demonstrated, they can go a number of places and be very, very effective because their strength is the quality of their people and their leadership. And that's been demonstrated over and over again. General Milley? Yeah, thanks, Congresswoman. A couple of things. First, they're trained in Arctic operations, so that's a key thing, and as we know, the Arctic's opening up. Secondly is their light infantry, so they can rapidly deploy. It's, in fact, it's the most deployed division in the Army. So the rapid deployment is key and that acts as a strategic deterrent. They're one of the first units to deploy to Europe. In fact, we've got a unit just coming back from the 10th, and there's another unit going over from the 10th, over to the Ukraine area. The third thing is they're optimized for urban combat as light infantry. They're very effective, and as the world becomes ever more urbanized, the probability is higher rather than lower that decisive fights, battles, will occur in highly dense urban areas. So 10th Mountain has a lot of unique capabilities and they bring to the fight rapid deployment, urban combat, mountain warfare, winter warfare, and it's a great outfit, it's a great port, it's a great place to work and live and serve our country. Yeah, thank you, General Milley. And Secretary Austin, you took my line, General Milley. I always like to point out that it is the most deployed division in the U.S. Army since 9-11 and we're grateful for so many military families that I've gotten to know over many years. I wanna shift gears here, still related to Fort Drum, but specifically missile defense. Iran has never been closer to a nuclear weapons capability and has demonstrated a space launch capability which has a direct technical application to an ICBM. For over a decade, it's been U.S. policy to be ready for a third homeland missile defense site should the Iran threat mature. The previous North Com commander testified as long ago as 2015, an additional missile defense site would give us increased inventory and increased battle space with regards to a threat coming from the direction of the Middle East and while you have both Iran increasing their development of nuclear weapons capabilities as well as North Korea continue to develop their ballistic missile capabilities, I want to get your response to Fort Drum has been designated as a potential third site. Why that would be important to include a third homeland site to provide with more confidence to intercept any potential missile. Secretary Austin. I'll certainly defer to the work that we're doing, being completed and looking at the results of that work, but certainly Fort Drum has tremendous capability in a great community. So I think if that site is chosen, I think it would be a good choice. That site has been chosen by the Department of Defense. That was announced a few years ago. We worked on that in the NDA. It's also current in previous NDA, Fort Drum has been designated as the potential third site. General Milley. Potential third site. Potential third site. So what is the process of ensuring that we're focused to meet the needs not of the past, but of the future 2030s and 2040s because it takes a long time for that infrastructure investment for that to be potentially completed. So what is the timeline, General Milley or Secretary Austin? I don't think a timeline has actually been established, but I can tell you that what we're talking about and what you're talking about I think is a project that's been out there for quite some time on the books. You're looking at probably 20 to 40 silo, something like that, then the missiles to go with it. It would probably take a decade to actually put that in. It would take billions, I don't know exact cost figures, but it would take billions. The question is, is it strategically worthwhile? I personally think yes, because we have a missile threat from North Korea, but we have an arrayed system of sensors in the Western Pacific all the way to California and we've got missile capabilities that can engage North Korea. When you're dealing with China and Russia, you're dealing with an assured second strike because of the volume. But in Iran, if they were to develop the ICBM level of missiles, which they haven't yet, but if they do, and they're developing the peace parts, with space launch vehicles, and if they were to then develop a nuclear weapon to put on top of that, that's where it becomes important. Now are they on the road to do that? I think that's a choice that people in a judgment that the intelligence community others would have to make. I personally think developing those systems on the East Coast would be helpful and it would further enhance the protection of the United States. Thank you very much. Generally these times expired. Chair and I recognize the gentleman from California, Mr. Carvajal, five minutes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you, Secretary Austin and General Milley for being here before us today. General Milley, I just wanna thank you for your distinguished service, 42 years to our nation. I know our nation is better for it and I hope you enjoy a well-deserved retirement. And I know you'll continue to serve in some way to help our country. My district houses multiple military installations including Camp San Luis Obispo and Vandenberg Space Force Base. Vandenberg is unique because of the coastline it sits on faces south, making this major range and test facility base a safe and ideal setting to test land-based strategic deterrent assets and to safely place satellite payloads into polar or earth orbit. Despite Vandenberg being the only federal West Coast range in the United States, investments in launch infrastructure are far behind a crowded East Coast range ecosystem. We are expecting an incoming legislative proposal from the department that advances the range of the future by allowing commercial investment for on-base launch infrastructure, a proposal I am very supportive of. Secretary Austin, can you speak to the importance of maintaining bi-coastal ranges for our nation's national security and DOD readiness? It's critical, absolutely critical. And you heard us talk about, it's critical for a number of technologies that we need to invest in, not only the testing of things like hypersonics but also the launching of space-based platforms as well. And the reason I raise it, Secretary, is if it's critical, then I'm sure, I think we're lagging behind the critical investments in infrastructure for it to continue to be fulfilled as strategic mission. And so I raise it in that fashion, and as you aptly characterize it, it's critical, but I think it needs to be matched by the investments we make in that range. I agree, and I think you may have heard me say earlier that one of the things that we did early on is we reached out to industry and talked to them about what they needed to be able to speed up the development of certain capabilities. Ranges and testing facilities was one of the things that they raised. And so my R&E undersecretary and others went after this and we began to invest in that in last year's budget and also in this year's budget as well. Thank you. Secretary Milley, in your submitted testimony, you mentioned some of the capabilities are adversaries in the space domain and that if left unsecured, our capabilities in space will become strategic vulnerabilities. You call on Congress to support a significant increase in the budget for space capabilities. Can you expand on what you think this increase in investment should look like? In your opinion, what space capability should Congress be focusing on to ensure our space assets are secure? Well, I think this budget's got over 30 billion, I think, in space assets, which is critical. And then the development of Space Force was really critical in the last administration that's being carried forward here. In terms of the domains of war, you've got the traditional ones of land, sea and air and subsea, but you now have cyber and space. And that country that has significant, robust, resilient capabilities in space is likely to have a decisive advantage at the beginning of the next war. If there is a war, hopefully there won't be. So what do we need? We need resilient, robust, and lots of space capabilities, both offense and defense. We tend to invest in very, very high tech, unique one-off sort of satellites. What we really need is lots of little satellites. We need the ability to sense and see. We need the ability also, if necessary, to communicate. A lot of our communications, our GPS systems rely on space. So building that and making it more resilient, more robust and redundant, survivable, if you will. And I think a lot of smaller systems in space rather than really big ones that if the Russians or the Chinese took them out, we would be blinded. I think that's the key for right now. There are offensive capabilities, but we're not prepared to go there yet in a public forum. Thank you. Can you elaborate on the cyber capability, the cyber framework? That we have in place in DOD across the services or the departments? Well, as you know, we have a unified command at Cybercom led by General Nakasone, who's dual-headed as the NSA. And that command, each of the services have components to Cybercom. And we've got cyber protection teams for defense and we've got cyber teams for offense. And we have, without going into a lot of detail, I would tell you that we have an incredible cyber capability that can do incredible damage to an adversary on the offense. And the cyber command in combination with NSA does a lot of work to protect our infrastructure, information technologies, et cetera, particularly in DOD. Gennemistown's expired. Chair, I recognize Gennem from Tennessee. Dr. Desjarlet, for five minutes. Thank you, Chairman Rogers. And I would like to thank our witnesses today. But mostly I would like to thank the men and women who are serving in our military that you all have the honor to lead. I want to discuss some readiness issues with you today. There was a poll that was done earlier this month by Wall Street Journal and NORC, which is a non-profit research group out of University of Chicago. It's entitled America Polls Back from Values that Wants to Find It. And without objection, I'd like to submit the poll for the record, Mr. Chairman. So two of the main points that I gleaned from this were that comparing to 25 years ago, the number of Americans who rated patriotism as very important was 70%. Now 25 years later, that's 38%. There were several topics. Religious faith was 62%. Now it's 39%. I think you already discussed earlier that we have recruiting problems. Excuse me, I just want to make sure that people know that the gentleman founded a UC and without objection, it's accepted. Thank you, sir. The AP says the Army missed its recruiting goal by 15,000 soldiers, I think was 25%. The NBC News says every branch of the military is struggling to make its 2022 recruiting goals. In Tennessee, we had a delegation meeting. We're having problems filling our academy slots, which has never happened before. We used to have way too many good applications to deal with and we had to disappoint people. But all of that is very concerning. So I guess I think you both acknowledge that there is a problem. And COVID seems to be the most likely scapegoat that's going to get brought up today. And certainly it caused some issues. The administration made a call during COVID that probably exacerbated the problem and it became more about following orders than keeping people healthy. But at some point, maybe it would be expedient to admit that maybe we were wrong and that we should reinstate people and rebuild the force that we lost from there. But our country seems to send conflicting messages about what our objectives are, whether that be in Ukraine, what we're gonna do with Taiwan, North Korea, Iran. And I understand the concept of strategic ambiguity, but sometimes for the American people, they need a clear message to where we're going. But back to the issue at hand, why are we having problems with recruiting and we know there's been a lot in the news about wokeism and DEI, which diversity, equity and inclusion, we can maybe focus on equity because it should be a quality. Everyone should have a fair chance to achieve the same goal, but equity tips the scales for certain undefined reasons that makes it easier for one person to achieve success and over another. And I think that affects morale and I think it's affecting recruitment. And I do wanna get your opinion. I did wanna reference a study commissioned by Congressman Gallagher where he asked Navy personnel what they thought the problem was. And here's a quote from one officer. Sometimes I think we care more about whether we have enough diversity officers than if we survive a fight with China, a Navy lieutenant on active duty told the authors. They think my only value as a black woman, they think that is my only value. But if you cut our ship open with a missile, we'll all believe the same color. The report also found that almost 94% of sailors being interviewed believe the Navy suffers from a crisis of leadership and culture. Sailors told the authors that the fleet suffered critical loss of focus from primary purpose. And this is pretty critical considering the threats we face. So General Milley, I guess I'll start with you. You've served us for 43 years. You mentioned this may be your last hearing. So when you're retired and you're sitting there with your fellow patriots who served and watched great changes occur in our military over 40 years, can you look them in the eye? Can you look us in the eye today and say that the DEI and Wokeness strengthened our military or weakened it? Well, I would tell you that the purpose of those programs is, you know, e-pluridivist unum to build teamwork and so on and so forth. And in some cases it may not be working out that way, but that is the purpose of those programs. But I would tell you that the, and I get around the military quite a bit and granted, you know, as a chairman, there's gonna be lots of filters and et cetera and people are gonna paint rocks pink when you, but I've been around long enough to figure it out. And I've been on the ships and planes and forts and bases, et cetera. The military I see is a military that is motivated and the folks that are in the military, we have the highest re-enlistment rate in 50 years. Okay, I'm gonna stop on that because that doesn't match the facts. You know, we see China continue to achieve their military objectives at an alarming pace. Well, we seem to be chasing our tails with systems that are obsolete before we field them and our adversaries are finding ways to defeat them before we get these systems built. It happens in space, hypersonic, shipbuilding, and even relationship building. So I think our number one purpose here in Congress is to provide for the common defense. I don't care how much it costs, but we need to do it efficiently. And I agree. I agree. But our, by gentlemen's time's expired. Okay. I do wanna take a moment here to inform the witnesses and the members that about 12, 15, we're gonna take a 10 minute courtesy break. But with that, we'll move to Mr. Keating of Massachusetts for five minutes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The ranking member and Secretary Austin, Mr. McCord, thank you for your service. General Milley, all the best in the next chapter. Those of us in Massachusetts like to take a little pride and where you came from originally, and as well as your predecessor. And thank you for that service. Now, Putin has clearly made some of the most outrageous miscalculations of any leader in modern times. He miscalculated the will and commitment of the Ukraine people. He made a major miscalculation and not understanding the leadership of the US and the commitment of the US to lead. And he made another miscalculation in not understanding how our allies, our transatlantic allies in particular, but even our global allies, even it beyond NATO, how they're banded together so coherently and strongly under this leadership. And I've been able to witness this, not only as a member of this committee, both informed by classified and public information, but also with my service on the Foreign Affairs Committee, where I've chaired and ranked on the European Subcommittee for that time and engaged in very private and important conversations with leaders there. Yet there are voices in the American public right now that will say that our coalition partners are not holding up their end of the bargain. I'm informed by information that I've had that just to the contrary. In fact, it's quite extraordinary. And in some areas, in some countries, historic in nature. But can you take this opportunity to inform from your perspectives the American public that they're wrong because we have people voicing those concerns and using that as a justification to say the US shouldn't be committed to Ukraine because these other countries aren't holding up their end of the bargain when I've been informed that they clearly are. But can you take this moment here in front of this committee to just inform the American public that level of commitment that exists there and how strong it is, how important it is and how they are carrying great weight. Well, thank you, sir. I think you're exactly right. As you know, I meet with 50 plus nations, the administrators of defense of those nations every month. And in those meetings, what I see displayed is a strong sense of commitment and unity to support Ukraine for as long as it takes. As a matter of fact, that's the language that I hear them employ. Some of those countries, especially the smaller ones, have given a lot in terms of the percentage of their GDP and are looking for ways to do more. And when they've run out of stuff, they invest money in things like helping other countries expand their product lines as we look to acquire additional munitions and weapons. So the commitment that I see is strong. What I've seen them provide is impressive but there's always more than we can do. And you hear me consistently beating the drum for more air defense and other things in support of Ukraine. But what I've seen thus far, I've seen tremendous support for Ukraine in helping it defend its sovereignty. Chairman Milley. Yeah, exactly the same thing. The 54 countries, and obviously there's only 30 in NATO, so those come from all around the globe. Britain, France, Germany, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Estonia, Latvia, Poland. These countries are Romanian. These countries are poor in their heart and soul. And they realize that this threat is proximate to them. So you look at Poland, how many refugees they've taken, how many tanks they've done, or they've provided how many BMPs they've provided, all the training that they've done. And they are a major throughput for all the logistics and it's not without risk. So these countries are putting in as one team and they understand the threat that's facing them. We're gonna talk about inefficiencies and waste and not maximizing our efforts here, but I wanna just raise one issue with a little time that's remaining. Secretary Austin mentioned aging assets being phased out. And General Milley, you mentioned on-time budgets and the importance of that. I don't know if you have the time for this. You probably don't, but congressional resolutions after congressional resolution, CR after CR, how is that handicapping your efficiency when Congress should look at itself too, when we engage in that kind of budgetary effort? Again, as you heard us say earlier, you can't affect new starts if you have it under a CR. You lose valuable time in terms of producing the kinds of things that we need to produce in order to be relevant in the next competition. So it's, again, you can't get the time back. It's really, really important. The gentleman's time's expired. Chair now recognize the gentleman from Mississippi, General Kelly for five minutes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My first one is a comment, I don't really, but right now it is taking over eight months on average to pay a traditional soldier when they retire from service. That is unacceptable. And when I asked the question, I sent a letter to the service chiefs and secretaries and they have not responded yet, but I will tell you the response I got through other channels was that eight months is an acceptable standard for them to get pay and ID card and try care retired. And that is unacceptable. That a soldier serves 40 years and one of my friends served 40 years and it took them 13 months to get him his first chest. That's unacceptable. Please help me with that. Number two is Chairman Milley and Secretary Austin. I know you are both huge proponents of this programs, but I'm at an SPP. We have got to go head to head and work with the state department to make sure that we are the next generation of leaders in other countries that we're using. I'm at, which is our military education program. We train junior officers in countries who wind up being sec-davs of those countries and also the state partnership programs to use those resources wisely, which you guys are doing a good job. We just need to continue to invest in those programs. The third point I wanna make is we have a lot of opportunity in South America and Africa in the near peer competition because we are getting our tails with some state department stuff, some IMET stuff, all those things plugged in, but there's huge opportunity with huge return on investment in both South America and in Africa. So I just ask that you look at how we can invest in those continents to make sure that we are protecting our own shores here in the near peer competition. Now my final question, I wanna double tap on what Congressman Whitman said. We cannot divest to increase our power. And I don't feel the sense of urgency with all of DOD in this nation, quite frankly, across the board. Our threat is not 2035. If we are preparing for a war in 2035, we are preparing for the wrong number. We need to be prepared in 2027 or 2028 and we don't get there by subtraction of assets. We have to be able to fight tonight. So I wanna know, General Milley, what are the shortfalls in munitions? And I know you can't specifically, but we need to be thinking what munitions, 155 rounds, we are not where we need to be. Other munitions for other systems are systems. What are we doing to make sure that we have the munitions to sustain based on the current consumption rates that we've seen out in Ukraine to make sure we have the systems and the munitions to fight that war and win in 2027 or 2028? Well, a couple of points. Big lesson learned comes out of Ukraine, which is the incredible consumption rates of conventional munitions and what really is a limited regional war. If there was a war in the Khran Peninsula or a great power war between the United States of Russia or United States and China, the consumption rates would be off the charts. So one of the projects that the Secretary directed me to do with the joint staff and other in the services, et cetera, was to conduct a complete review of all of our O plans, con plans, war plans and look at all the munitions estimates, because it's those estimates that then form the basis of the munitions and the budget. In this budget, we've got about $30 billion into munitions and these are higher end munitions that we wanna make sure that we have. If you look back, I'll use a historical example real quick, if you look back at Libya, we expended an enormous amount of precision guided munitions, way more than people might fully realize. And that's a really small contingency, right? So I'm concerned, I know the Secretary is and you're correct to point this out. We've got a ways to go to make sure our stockpiles are prepared for their real contingencies. And one of the big lessons I think China learns from this thing is. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I hate to cut you off and I'm glad that y'all are looking and I wanted to highlight that we are looking at those things. The final thing I wanna talk about is shipbuilding. And as C-Power Chair, it is very important that we quit divesting in our Navy to invest. It's also very important that we quit chasing shiny objects in the Navy with Cape and chasing shiny objects. And I use the light ship medium, which the Marines asked for, they had certain capabilities in mind. That's exactly what they wanted. They didn't ask and they're the user. And so we have done this thing. So now two years later, we are going back to square one to develop a system that is more survivable and protected and manned with a bigger crew with bigger weapon systems. That's not what they needed. It's not what they wanted. We don't need to be the Pentagon wars in the Pentagon. We need to make sure that when a service asks for a ship or something, that we give them what they ask for and not keep adding shiny new stuff. And we need to maintain the 31 ship amphibs. And we will not go below that. And we also need to get that number up because that's not the number we need. With that I yield back, Mr. Chairman. I thank the gentleman. I recognize the gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Kim. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you to all of you for joining us here today. Mr. Secretary, I wanted to start with you. Both of you have raised these points about hypersonic technologies. You yourself talked about our increased spending when it comes to long range fires, the 12 successful tests. You've heard from some of my colleagues raising these issues as well. I wanted to pick up on that. Part of the issue here in terms of trying to deter competitors from using this type of technology is building up our own capabilities. But some of it is also about our counter capabilities and defensive capabilities here. So I guess I just wanted to ask you, given the speed with which these delivery systems can travel and the difficulty of intercepting them, can these weapons actually be effectively countered? And are we putting in enough support and resources to be able to develop this type of counter-hypersonic capability? Yeah, so one of the first things that we did in coming in... Would you mind bringing the microphone a little closer? Yeah, can you hear me now? Yeah. OK, thank you. One of the first things that we did as we came in was to task our Under Secretary for R&E research to look at ways to develop capabilities to counter-hypersonic weapons. And that work has been ongoing. We brought industry together. We collapsed a number of special access programs. And we really took a look at what it takes to intercept in the glide phase for these types of weapons. That work continues. It remains a priority for me. Thank you. And I did have the chance to talk to the Under Secretary. I think she's doing wonderful work here. And I just urge you to make sure we're putting that type of investment into that that is necessary, because I can tell you, there are a few things that keep me up at night more than just seeing what this type of technology is capable of. General Milley, I wanted to switch to you. In some similar type of vein, but very different profile here, we're seeing a proliferation of unmanned aerial systems, the capabilities to be able to deliver munitions. We've seen it in terms of recent attacks against our interests, our personnel. Some of these systems are very small, low-profile, low-cost, very different than the hypersonic systems. To me, sometimes has an unnerving similarity to some of the rise of what we saw with IEDs during the 2000s in terms of just how prolific this could be, which obviously took a tragic toll on us. I wanted to ask you how you would grade and assess our current capabilities to identify and intercept these types of UAS aerial systems. Well, as you know, there's a lot of different types of UAS there's some small, little off-the-shell stuff you can get on a radio shack, all the way up to very sophisticated MQ-9s that we have, for example. But one of the typical characteristics are they're relatively low and slow, and they can be intercepted. They can be intercepted through a hard shootdown with a kinetic action, or they can be intercepted through non-kinetics like you break the electronic link between that and the control station. So there are a couple of different ways to do that. We have a wide variety of kind of UAS systems that are in the field today, many of them in Syria and Iraq and elsewhere. So it's an area, for sure, of concern. What it is, though, it's a subset of a much broader phenomenon that's happening, which I would call a change in the fundamental character of war, and you're seeing the rapid introduction of robotics across the spectrum. The UAVs are just part of that, and very shortly, you're gonna see the world's advanced military, United States, China, Russia, et cetera. You're gonna see shifts to robotic systems in a big way, in land, sea, and air. So at some point in the future, you'll see maybe a third or more of the United States Navy or the Chinese Navy or the Russian Navy. Those will be unmanned maritime vessels, unmanned sub-vessels, and so on and so forth. So what you're seeing in UAVs is a much broader shift to robotics in the conduct of war. This is an area that I was very concerned about two years ago. As I saw this continue to develop, I asked our folks to take a hard look at making sure that we have the best capability to defend our troops in the inventory, and we do. It's not good enough, and we'll continue that work. But I also wanted the team to get upstream and go after the lines, the chains, that enable this kind of activity, and we tasked our special operations forces to really bear down on this and pull it together in interagency process, for lack of a better turn to after this. And just here as I close here, I mean, the technology that you all are developing, I mean, I worry about the proliferation of this even into the civilian space, not just in terms of military targets. So your technology, your advancement there could help keep us safe everywhere here at the homeland as well. So thank you. Chair, I recognize Jen from Wisconsin. Mr. Gattiger, five minutes. Secretary Austin, one of your predecessors, Secretary Gates, described his greatest success as a, quote, war on the Pentagon that involved really cutting through the bureaucracy and spending 45 billions to develop and field the MRAT program, which is responsible for saving thousands of lives in Iraq. As you look at the problem we face across the Taiwan Strait, what do you see as your version of that? What is your version of the MRAT success? The thing that you are personally bird-dogging to ensure the bureaucracy is not slowing down our efforts to enhance deterrence across the Taiwan Strait. Yeah, so in accordance with the Taiwan Relations Act, as you know, we are absolutely focused on making sure that Taiwan has what it needs to defend itself, the right kinds of capabilities. So pulling together what it takes to get those capabilities to Taiwan at relevant speed is the challenge. And you see us, and I think we may have talked to you about this the other day, pulling together a number of entities to work on this problem set, more work to be done for sure, but we're moving out. But what is the, in simple terms, that even I could understand, what would be sort of the thrust of that effort? You want, on the one hand, there's always this focus on going after the big platforms, the shiny objects that are very attractive, but what does it really take to be able to defend yourself in the most effective fashion if you're a smaller nation? And we saw some of that, we're seeing some of that in Ukraine. Things like coastal accrues, cruise missile coastal defense capabilities, defense against armor, and those kinds of things, and the training that goes along with that. So, but that's what we're focused on, and we are making progress, but we'll move it up faster. And I think there's a lot of bipartisan support for this idea of turning Taiwan into a porcupine. Can the members of this committee have confidence that the Secretary of Defense is personally engaged in that effort and pushing the Pentagon bureaucracy to deliver a deterrence by denial capability west of the international dateline in the next two years? Absolutely. There's not a week that goes by that I am not talking to commanders and staff on the problem set, the challenges faced with, that we face with China, and me personally. And so that is a part of our battle rhythm for lack of a better term. And again, I think that that's what it's gonna take to do the kinds of things that you just described. And do you think with the appropriate metrics for us to look back on or just look at periodically to figure out how well we're doing and how well the building's doing, what you mentioned, coastal defense, cruise missiles, what are the things we should look at that we can actually count and measure over the next two years? Well, I think in terms of their overall readiness, how the reserve forces are trained and their readiness levels, the kinds of training that the average, kinds of capabilities that the average troop has and things that units are able to do, I think there are readiness issues, readiness indicators that we can point to directly to show that we are making progress. But those kinds of things that you just described, I think are critical. In the minute and six seconds I have left, I wanna draw your attention to an article by John Pomfret and Matt Pottinger called, Xi Jinping says he's preparing China for war and talks about four speeches that Xi, the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, the Supreme Leader of China, has given this month, which have as one of their major themes, preparing the party in the country for war, including reducing food imports down to zero, they currently rely on the world for 40% of food imports, military mobilization, offices across the country, combat casualty hospitals in the province closest to Taiwan. Do you, what do you make of this? Do you take Xi Jinping seriously when he says he's preparing his country for war? We take, certainly we take Mr. Xi seriously. But I will say that I don't think that an attack on Taiwan is imminent, nor inevitable. Having said that, we need to make sure that we maintain a combat credible force that can deter any adversary from making a bad decision on any given day. Gentlemen, the time's expired. Chair Nile once again visits the great state of New Jersey. Ms. Sherrill's recognized for five minutes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I do want to express my thanks as well to General Milley for his over 40 years of service. And as we know, when someone serves, their whole family serves. So I'd also like to express my sincere appreciation to your wife, Holly Ann, and your two children for their service. We do owe you and your family a huge debt of gratitude. So thank you very much. I would also like to enter into the record a letter led by Senator Shaheen with 37 of her colleagues, a letter to you, Secretary Austin, expressing their strong support for the department's personnel policy related to reproductive healthcare. So I'd like to associate myself with their sentiments and enter it into the record. Without objection, so order. Thank you. You know, as we know, about one in five service members are women now, about 40% of them don't have access to full reproductive health services. So I'd certainly like to thank you, Secretary Austin, for your commitment to support for these women, for our service women and their families. I will tell you that we have seen in my own state, women making decisions about job opportunities and where they may go for educational opportunities based on reproductive rights. So I do think this is an issue that impacts recruiting as well. And I'll say that in my own service, I served in Texas, a state where now women don't have access to basic reproductive services, basic services for even going through miscarriages right now, which has been devastating for so many families. So thank you for that. I would like to applaud your support for that. Unfortunately, as we have seen, a member of our Senate is now threatening to withhold nominations for flag ranks. And we know that I think over about 83 and four stars are being withheld, not to mention numerous commands where we see upcoming retirements or movements. Can you talk a little bit about the practical impact on readiness this will have for our forces? Well, we spent a better part of the morning talking about the challenges that we face in this complex environment that we see currently without the leadership at the senior levels to help us maintain our readiness. I think this will place our readiness, our overall readiness at risk. And it will also impact families in a major way. Permanent change of station moves won't happen. Kids will be, I won't enter school on time and it goes on and on. And the problem will compound very quickly. And so I think it's important for those troops, those officers that have worked hard and earn those promotions to be able to move up to the next level and command or do whatever they're gonna do, but we need their services at the appropriate level. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. And then Secretary Astin and General Milley, as you may know, I now sit on the new committee on strategic competition with the CCP. And I would echo Mr. Gallagher's remarks on the need for deterrence and I appreciate your understanding and support for that as well. But we also have to confront now the CCP's stranglehold on the global rare earth mineral supply, their human rights abuses, the genocide against the Uighurs and the impact that might have on our supply chains, the unpredictable COVID policies on the global supply chain. So can you both provide an update on how the department's working to ensure our supply chains in the defense department are not only resilient but sourced, extracted, processed and manufactured in a way that is both robust enough for our defense needs but consistent with our democratic values? Well, I wanna thank Congress up front for your support of the CHIPS and Science Act that really I think will allow us to generate pretty significant capability eventually here at home in the United States. In this budget, we're asking you for $253 million to invest in critical minerals. You see $177 million that we're asking for for casting and foraging, $125 million to invest in battery technology and energy sources. So we are doing a lot to make sure that we have the requisite materials to continue to produce the weapons and munitions that we need to maintain our edge. Generally times expire. Chair and I recognize the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Gates for five minutes. Mr. Secretary, you told Senator Schmidt yesterday that if the 8,000 plus service members who've been separated from the military due to the vaccine mandate wanna reapply that they're welcome to do so but that you would do nothing to solicit their reapplication or to incentivize it. Why is that? I think it's incumbent upon the individual to make that decision and reapply it. The mechanisms are there. Yeah, but why don't, I mean, you're overseeing a recruiting nightmare in our military right now. These are 8,000 patriots. And by the way, your department broke the law in administering the vaccine mandate. And that's not me saying so. That's the Inspector General for the Department of Defense who wrote on June 2nd of 2022. We found a trend of generalized assessments rather than the individualized assessment that is required by federal law. The department did not break the law, the vaccine mandate. So the way you mean the IG is wrong? You think the IG is wrong? The vaccine mandate saved the lives of a number of people. Well, it ruined the lives of a number of people too. And it ruined the lives of people who love our country and wanna reenlist. Let me ask you this question. If we direct you by force of law to reengage and incentivize the reenlistment of these folks with full back pay and rank, do you have the capability to follow that instruction? You put provisions in the law to enable those people to, those former service members to reapply in accordance with the service management. Good, well, we will do that just like we had to put the repeal of the VAX mandate in the law. And I get the sense that the only reason you're not reaching out to these folks is pride. Because otherwise they would be totally able to serve and it seems that your personal pride is getting in the way. Going from the deeply serious things that we're not doing, reengaging these 8,000 folks to the deeply unserious things that we are doing. Go ahead and put up the first slide. I guess my question is, how much taxpayer money should go to fund drag queen story hours on military basis? You know, drag queen story hours is not something that the department funds. Wait a second. That's actually not what the record seems to suggest. You were going to fund one at Ramstein Air Force Base. That one got canceled, but that's DOD insignia. That's a drag queen story hour for children. Then also at Malstrom Air Force Base outside of Great Falls, Montana, you had a drag queen story hour for kids. At the Joint Base Langley Eustis, you put on a drag queen story hour on a Saturday for the first ever kid friendly diversity equity inclusion summer festival. And at Nellis Air Force Base, you had the drag you Nellis on June 17th. Who funded these things, Mr. Secretary? Listen, drag shows are not something that the Department of Defense supports or funds. Wait, why are they happening on military basis? I just showed you the evidence. Why are they happening? I will say again, this is not something that we support or fund. So you think hosting a drag queen story hour on a military base isn't supporting the drag queen story hour? I stand by what I just said. But you may stand by it, but it's belied by the evidence over and over again. I mean, are you aware of the peace? Biden's military Air Force Base in Montana holds drag show, drag queen story hour for kids in the Western Journal. Are you aware of that? Again, I will say what I've said before. You're saying what you're saying, but I guess it just doesn't support the facts. General Milley, this will be my last time to question you. You mentioned two years ago that you wanted to better understand white rage. And so my question is this, did you read this book? No, not at all. Well, what is white privilege is the book and it's actually written by a DOD official, a senior official in diversity, equity and inclusion. And there are now hundreds of these books in dozens of schools. And I wonder if you guys connect this to your problems with recruiting. I've never read it, never seen it. Frankly, I don't even think about that stuff. I don't even think about what it is. Go ahead and put up the next slide. About the variance of the force. Go ahead and put up the next slide, please. Okay, well, in the next slide, this is a tweet by one of your employees in charge of diversity, equity and inclusion, and it's patently racist. They say that she had to give Karen the business, that she talks about caudacity, presumably of Caucasian people. So I guess, why does the, look at that. You're not going to argue for me. That's terrible, it's wrong. She shouldn't be doing that. Should she be fired? I don't, that's a DOD employee, not US military uniform. Should they be fired, Secretary Austin? Again, as you heard in your subcommittee here, this incident was investigated. And there's still employed. Mr. Chairman, I have a series of consent requests since my time has expired. With objection. First is joint based Langley Eustis holds drag show at Kid Friendly Festival. And the next is US military defends drag show at largest training center as quote, essential to morale. And the next is Nellis Air Force Base hosts first ever drag queen show, essential to morale and readiness. That's a Breitbart piece. And finally, Ramstein cancels library's drag queen story time for Pride month following criticism. Objection so ordered. Gemma's time has expired. Can I just, can I get copies of those? Cause I'd like to take a look at those myself, actually take a look and find out what actually is going on there. Cause that's the first I'm hearing about that kind of stuff. I don't read those news stories. I don't know what you're talking about. I'd like to take a look at those cause I don't agree with those. Well, they're now in the official record. Shouldn't be happening. Thank you. Thank you for that admission. Great. I would like to point out, Chairman, that our students in Dodia schools scored the highest on the eighth graders and fourth graders scored the highest in math and reading in the country. So I want to thank all of the, all of our Dodia professionals who made that possible. And I encourage them to keep it up. I hope you're not thinking that one. Yeah. Gemma's time has expired. 30. Thanks to our witnesses. Thank you most especially for your service to our country. Please know how very grateful we all are. I want to pick up where my colleague, Mr. Kelly left off on munitions. I have a few questions for Secretary Austin and General Milley. And then if there's time, I'd like to ask a question about my home military installation of Fort Bliss. I'm relieved to see a targeted investment of $30.6 billion in our munitions enterprise, but I remain deeply concerned about our ability to rapidly backfill current shortages and then shore up capacity to meet our own readiness requirements. So Secretary Austin, General Milley, can you please speak to the following? First, the industry incentives provided by multi-year procurement authorities. Second, what supporting industrial-based requirements are necessary to shore up the workforce? And third, what innovative technologies, such as additive manufacturing, are you looking at to integrate, to maximize cost savings and speed of munitions production? Well, thank you very much and thanks for your support throughout. Let me just say up top that as we provide security assistance to Ukraine, the chairman and I go through a weekly routine of looking at the request, making sure that we have the right things to provide to Ukraine that are gonna be relevant to this fight. And I think we've seen that the Ukrainians have been provided the right things and they're putting the things that we're providing to good use. We also are very mindful of our requirements and there are certain requirements, certain capabilities that we know that we have to maintain to support our war fighting plans. And so that is an ongoing process and I can assure you that that is foremost in our minds. In terms of providing incentives to industry or the industrial base, what you've done to support our multi-year contracting requests, authority requests last year was very, very helpful. What we're gonna ask you again for in this budget is the same thing. We would want more of that so that we can signal to industry that the man's gonna be there. But the other strong signal as you've heard me say before is the amount that we've allocated to procurement. $170 billion is probably the biggest procurement budget that we've seen. You add that to $145 billion that we're asking for for our DT&E. And I think it is a strong signal that we are gonna need a lot from industry going forward. Now we continue to reach out to the captains of industry to make sure that we're doing everything we can to help them help us. So that's... I appreciate that. General Milley, maybe you can respond to the question about innovative technologies such as additive manufacturing and how much you are leaning in on that front. So thanks. I've mentioned several times before about what I think is a change in the character of warfare. And there's a whole set of technologies, additive manufacturing is one of them. We mentioned artificial intelligence. We mentioned robotics, precision munitions, the ability to sense the distances that have never been before done in human history. All of these things in combination are gonna fundamentally change, in my view, the very character of war, probably inside of a decade for sure inside of 15 years. And every nation, Russia, China, the United States, Britain, every country around the world has access to some of these technologies. And the country that optimizes those technologies for the conduct of war are likely to have decisive advantage. And that country needs to be us. So I would strongly recommend that we execute all those innovative technologies. I appreciate that. In my closing, you're not gonna have time to answer this, but I do want to, as I did last year, just bring to your attention the issues, the needs for barracks at Fort Bliss. The base budget request identified mil-con requests for barracks across several army installations as quality of life projects, part of the Army's 10 year, 10 billion dollar investment plan, but they did not include Fort Bliss and so I just want to continue to put that on your radar, that installation and the need for those barracks, please. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I yield back. I thank the general lady, the chair and I recognize the gentleman from Nebraska, General Bacon, for five minutes. Thank you, Secretary Austin, Gerald Milley, Mr. McCord, we appreciate you being here. I want to thank you for being accessible to myself and our office with your staff. I'm grateful. I want to congratulate Gerald Milley on retirement. I've been retired now eight years. Looking for another job. I hope you find a good calling when you get out. I have two statements and then a couple of questions. The first one, more of a thank you statement. My second one's a little more critical. I want to thank you for your candor when it came to Afghanistan. When you were here in the previous Congress, you made clear that you had advised against the decision of this rapid withdrawal and that you were overruled, that this administration or the president overruled as top two senior leaders and I think it was a mistake for paying for it. I know so many veterans who served who are still maybe depressed, I hope that's the best word, but they're upset to the core that they lost loved ones in Afghanistan and saw what eventually resulted. But I want to thank you for at least giving your best military advice to the president early on. And the fact, I think the American people need to remember that he overruled your judgment. Sir, if I may, I have never disclosed what my recommendation to the president was and I just want to make sure that I'm on a record for saying that because that's what I said the last time I was here. Okay, that was General Milley that then you were there. Yeah, well, first of all, I would like to interject also, General McKenzie made it clear he objected, so both he and General Milley did. Sorry, go ahead, General Milley. Yeah, what I was going to say, I wouldn't say presidents overrule us. Presidents make decisions and they take advice from all kinds of people and they take information and it's their job to make the decision. All we do is render our military advice and the scope of decisions by the president is much wider. Two consecutive presidents in a row essentially made the same decision. It was just a matter of timing. I disagreed with the first guy that did it too. I'm just saying, but what I'm saying is my job and the job of a chairman is to be an advisor on the matters concerning military operations to express cost, risk, and benefits. The president takes that in, any president takes that in and then makes decisions and we support those decisions. We execute them as long as they're lawful and legal, we execute them. So I would hesitate to use the word overrule. Number one, number two is I like the secretary and I think if we go back to the actual language of the testimony, it is a matter of tradition that we do not disclose the actual advice given to an actual president at the time. I think what I said was my thoughts at the time were, well, my analysis was as opposed to the specific advice given to a given president. It was pretty clear to me that you did not agree with the policy when I heard this. Well, I would say that my thoughts at the time were that I thought given cost, risk, and benefit that we could keep a modest amount, 2,500 was the range of troops, that we could keep a modest amount there to continue to advise the Afghan national security forces. However, 80% of the United States people at that time wanted to pull out of Afghanistan. We'd been there for 20 years. It was an endless war. There was a lot of money going into it. So this is not an easy call. This is a very difficult decision to make. I personally, even today, have to come to grips with reconciling what occurred in that war, along with every other veteran. Secretary Austin spent many years in Afghanistan. I spent many years. I buried 242 kids coming out of that country in Iraq. These wars are personal. They are serious. Many of you served in those wars. And these aren't easy decisions at all. We had a policy that was working and you alluded to it. We had 3,500 troops there. No losses in a year and a half. We had air power that could put bombs on target within 15 minutes. It was working. And what we see today is a total disaster. And it's affected the lives of thousands of veterans who've been through this. It affected the views of our allies and our adversaries. My second point was, I may not get to my questions. No question. I'm concerned about what the DOD is doing in relation to the Hyde Amendment. The Hyde Amendment, it's law. It says taxpayer money can't go towards abortions. But if I understand the DOD policy, you are not in compliance with the Hyde Amendment. That's resulting in a collision in the Senate, which you're seeing the consequences of. And I think over time this year it's gonna be another collision here in the House. So I implore you to get in line with the Hyde Amendment. My main question I wanted to ask it, I'm out of time, I'll do it for the record. Again, I just would like to, for the record, just make sure that we understand that we are not funding abortions. DOD is not doing that. And again, what this policy does, you gotta remember that one in five, almost one in five of our troops are women. This policy provides access to non-covered reproductive health care. And again, it is not, this does not fund abortions. It's based on sound legal judgment. And again, if you wanna see the DOJ's input to this issue, it's posted on their public-facing website. Gentlemen's time has expired. Chair, I recognize the gentle lady from California, Ms. Jacobs for five minutes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, General Milley and Secretary Austin for your service to our country and for your candor with us here today and in all of our times with you. As you know, I represent San Diego one of the largest and proudest military communities in our country. And I assure you when I'm getting phone calls from our military families and I do get many, many phone calls from our military families, they're not calling about drag queen happy hours or the books their kids are being taught in school. They're calling about the fact that there's a 4,000-person childcare wait list. They're calling about the fact that some families are waiting up to 24 months for affordable housing on base. They're calling about the fact that more than 45,000 members of military families have to go to our food bank every single month in San Diego. And as we've talked about here today, recruitment and retention continue to be a problem. For example, GAO found that US Navy surface warfare officers separate from the SWO community earlier and at higher rates compared with officers in similar US Navy communities. And from 2017 to 2022, we've had almost a 2,000-person increase in the number of empty billets on Navy vessels. So Secretary Austin, I wanted to ask you, how do you view the connection between things like basic needs allowance, childcare, and housing, and the recruitment and retention of service members? These are all important things for sure. And thank you for engaging with our troops and our family members. I do the same thing. And what I hear from them are the same kinds of things that you hear. That's why last year we took measures to increase the number of resources that we were providing our families and our troops and do some things to decrease the amount of strain that was being placed on them. So we asked you last year to support a 4.6% pay raise. You did that. We are grateful for that. We're asking this year for a 5.2% pay raise, which I think is the largest pay raise in decades. We raise the BAH. We raise a basic allowance for housing, basic allowance for subsistence. And I think it's those kinds of things that will help to alleviate some of the pressure. By the same token, in this budget, you know that we're asking you for support for universal daycare, pre-K daycare. So I think it's those kinds of things that are really important. We're trying to increase the number of people that we have working in our centers, our childcare centers. And we're doing that by offering incentives to people who work there. And we're seeing some returns on investment there. We will continue to do those kinds of things going forward. Well, thank you. And I wanna thank you for this current budget request that has so much to improve quality of life in ways we haven't seen addressed before. And I know we agree. We need to invest in our service members. And we need to ensure that we're investing in our service members, including our LGBTQ plus and female service members and their families just as much as we're investing in new weapons systems. Moving on, I wanna talk a little bit about the recent strike in Syria. The administration previously told Congress that our engagements with the Iran-backed militias are too episodic to constitute the kind of ongoing and continuous hostilities that would trigger Congress's constitutional war powers. General Amelia, you said if the American people don't support us, we shouldn't be there. That's exactly our job here in Congress as the people's representatives. It's why we are supposed to vote. Could you talk about why you think the tempo of conflict, including the 83 separate times that US forces in Iraq and Syria have been attacked by Iran-backed militias since 2021, doesn't in your view constitute ongoing and continuous hostilities and why these recurring hostilities don't require congressional authorization? Yeah, I'm not a constitutional lawyer on those issues that I'd refer you to the lawyers who can answer those specific questions. I would tell you that Iran has a strategic purpose. That's to drive the United States out of the region, to drive the United States out of Iraq, to drive the United States out of Syria and then to break down all the alliances that are happening along the Gulf. You do see some outreach that's occurring in various quarters by Iran and you see a general sense of anxiety by many of the countries in the Middle East of a general withdrawal of the United States. So from a strategic standpoint, the question to ask is, is the United States posture in the Middle East about right and do we, the American people as represented by their elected representatives to include the president, is our strategic purpose and our strategic task in Syria and Iraq, is that still worthwhile and is it still worth risking American life? And I agree with you and that's our job as Congress. In my last few seconds, sorry, I just wanna make sure I bring up the fact that Congress- I recognize General from Indiana, Mr. Banks for five minutes. Secretary Austin, last week General McKenzie repeated that he has many regrets about the botched, deadly and embarrassing withdrawal from Afghanistan and that he supports investigations into that withdrawal. A moment ago, you didn't, you said you executed the president's order, you didn't tell us what you advised the president to do, but do you have regrets about the withdrawal from Afghanistan? I support the president's decision. Do you have regrets about the withdrawal or how the withdrawal occurred from Afghanistan that cost the lives of 13 of our service members? I don't have any regrets. You don't have any regrets. Secretary Austin is very telling. Secretary Austin, has there ever been any accountability for anyone within the Department of Defense for the deadly botched and embarrassing withdrawal from Afghanistan? Any accountability? Hey, listen, our troops evacuated 124,000 people off of that airfield. Has anyone been held accountable? If a Navy captain grounded a ship, what happens immediately? Typically that captain is removed. That captain is removed. Has anyone been held accountable for what happened in Afghanistan? To my knowledge, no. You don't regret it? No one's ever been held accountable, Mr. Chairman. This is why this Republican majority must provide the accountability that this administration wants to sweep under the rug with what happened in Afghanistan. General Milley. To be clear, I don't regret the great- General Milley a few weeks ago, Northcom commander Van Herk sat before us and testified about the situation at the southern border. You commented a little bit ago. You agree there's a crisis at the southern border. It's a national security threat to this country. Every seven and a half minutes, an American dies from fentanyl poisoning because the drugs that are flowing over the southern border. And since we've been in this hearing, that means 20 Americans have died of a fentanyl poisoning. 99% of it comes over the southern border. General Van Herk told us that President Biden has never requested a single hearing from him, the Northcom commander about the southern border. Has the president ever asked you for a briefing about the southern border and the national security threats? I have been in several meetings and briefings. Principles, committees and other forums, specifically about the southern border. And there's no question. With the president? A couple of them were with the vice president and some discussions with the president, that's correct. Now, if I could, look at the southern border situation is a very serious situation and you know it as well as I do and that there's some, I think it's in the range, the reports I get is about 5,000 a day. You're talking about 35,000 people a week. That's an army corps that come across that border. And then with the fentanyl issue that you're talking about, look at it, I don't know what the exact numbers are, but the ranges that have been reported to me is something where between 70 and 100,000. That's an enormous amount of casualties and people dying, young kids that are dying in our communities. So there is a crisis at that border. Now the question is what do you do about it? And we have to work much closer, I think anyway, with Mexico, there's certain things that have to be done along the border with the CPB and others. Now that's out of our lane, that's DHS, et cetera. I don't want to kick you off, but I do want to ask you this. So General Van Herk told me, he said, quote, President Biden could ask under special authorities for the military to do more. That's what he told us before this committee. What special authorities is he talking about? I'm not sure. I'd have to check back with General Van Herk about the exact numbers. If there are special authorities, it's mind-blowing to me that the President of the United States, the Commander-in-Chief, wouldn't use the military to secure our southern border if it is a crisis and a national security threat that you've agreed with us that it is today. Yeah, if I could, I personally think the primary, the lead, should be on the border itself, clearly law enforcement, as opposed to the military. Now, mechanically, could you line up divisions of troops? Of course you could, but is that the right thing to do? Is that the right way to do it? And I would certainly advise against that. We'll execute whatever decisions are made. But lining up- You would advise against the military doing more at the southern border? No, what I said was lining up troops and securing the southern border with divisions of troops. Now, we are supporting the southern border with several thousand troops and logistic support. And I think the lead agency along the border itself should be the police. Now, this- I don't wanna cut you off, I gotta move on. But if General Van Herk said there are special authorities the President's not using to secure the border- I'll find out. We should be digging into that and doing everything that we can. I'll get back to you. Secretary Austin, last year in your budget request, you asked for $114.7 million for diversity and inclusion activities. This year you asked for $27 million more. Does that mean that what you did last year didn't work and that's why you need $27 million more? And how much is it gonna take if you're already failing at your objectives with DEI? How much more are you gonna need to succeed at it? I just highlight, sir, that as you know, we are directed by Congress as a result of the 2020- Get them as times expired. I wanna inform the witnesses and the members that to make sure everybody knows I'm being fair, I have been allowing members of the panel to finish their answers at the five-minute point. I'm gonna cease to do that five minutes is five minutes to make sure that people understand that we treat everybody the same, no matter which side of the aisle they sit on. Chair now recognizes gentlemen from North Carolina, Mr. Jackson. Thank you, Secretary Austin. You were just asked a question with respect to Afghanistan and you were not given the opportunity to complete your answer. If you would like to, I'd like to give you that opportunity to complete your answer right now. Is there anything else you'd like to say on the subject, sir? Only to say that I remain very proud of the tremendous work and the sacrifices that our troops made and throughout our efforts in Afghanistan but especially at the end as they worked hard to evacuate over 124,000 people from there and work continues to ensure that the people that have helped us in Afghanistan that if they wanna repatriate to the United States someplace else, we can help them. As someone who served in Afghanistan, I appreciate your remarks, sir. Chairman Milley, with respect to Bakhmut which you mentioned earlier, it appears that Russia is still unable to accomplish core strategic objectives. It is frankly remarkable to me that Bakhmut still stands and is still owned by the Ukrainians. Do you share the perspective that the failure of Russia after going all out to capture this town is indicative of the fact that we're still facing that the Ukrainians rather are still facing the same deeply incompetent military that they were facing last year or is this a special brand of incompetence that we're seeing with respect to this particular military effort? I think the Russians are struggling in a big way with command and control, logistics, sustainment, basic tactical doctrine but also training. These forces are very under-trained. They're essentially doing frontal assaults into machine gun positions, et cetera, and they're getting slaughtered. The Russian troops are. Ukrainians are doing a very effective area defense that has proven to be very costly to the Russians. For about the last 2021 days, the Russians have not made any progress whatsoever in and around Bakhmut so it's a slaughterfest for the Russians. They're getting hammered in the vicinity of Bakhmut and the Ukrainians have fought very, very well. That's also true across the entire frontline trace from Kramina all the way down to Kherson. The Ukrainians have fought a remarkable defensive fight and the Russians have not achieved their strategic objectives. Do you see the Russian objectives with respect to Bakhmut as being part of their offensive or would you say this is a special effort and the broader offensive has yet to begin? No, I think it's the latter. I think the Russian offensive, if you will, began some time ago and it has had fits and starts and it has not achieved the momentum and success that they expected it to achieve. If I could ask you a broader question, would you may not be able to answer? If we had never supported the Ukrainians at all, would Russia have conquered Ukraine by now? I think without Western support, first of all, I think the Ukrainian people, their will is indomitable. These are the same people, the sons and grandsons of the folks who fought Stalin and Zhukov for 10 years from 1945 to 1955. So the Ukrainians are not going to be easily conquered no matter what. If they're fighting with pitchforks and spears, they're gonna fight back. But having said that, they would have probably lost considerably more ground without Western assistance. There's no question in my mind about that. So I think Western assistance has been critical to the Ukrainians being able to defend themselves. With respect to Putin, seems to me, seems to a lot of folks very clear that he's a war criminal, lots of evidence for this. And yet there are plenty of people in this country who still don't see it that way, who see Putin as basically a national leader pursuing national interests. If you could speak to those folks and give us your sense on his status as a war criminal, that would be appreciated. I think the war itself is illegal. It undermines one of the first principles that were established after World War II that underwrites the so-called rules-based international order that is part of the United Nations, for example, which is wars of aggression, which are unprovoked, not in the cause of defense, where large countries then use their military force or attack smaller countries, not in the defense of their own nation. And Ukraine presented no military threat whatsoever to Russia. And yet he lined up 170, 200,000 troops, multiple divisions, multiple acts of advance, and he conducted a major league war of aggression. A war of aggression in and of itself is a war crime. And then, of course, you've got the actual war crimes in many of the cities and towns. When you bomb and shell civilian cities, when you bomb and shell civilian infrastructure, when you're killing kids and women and children, all of that, all of that is war crimes. And their units, their unit commanders, all the way up the chain are committing war crimes. The Russian forces are. And it's a tragic unfolding of events, but it's true. There's a lot of war crimes being committed by the Russian forces in Ukraine. Thank you. I yield back. General from Alabama, Mr. Strong is recognized for five minutes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. General Milley, Secretary Alston, will also want to thank you for coming for this committee. Before I begin my questions today, I want to make a comment regarding the President's budget. You were sitting here today to ask for our support and say you'll make do with what you have and that's your job. But what I want to be clear about is I'm gonna do everything I can to get you more. Because as you well know, the threats facing the United States are greater than ever. A 1.2 or 2.3% increase is not enough. We've gotta see real growth over inflation. While there are cuts that we should be looking at, national security is not one of them. Secretary Alston, General Milley, neither of you need a reminder of the vast impact Huntsville, Alabama has on the defense industrial base. We're listed as one of the best places to live in the United States by U.S. News and World Report, the highest concentration of engineers per capita and the nation's only public high schools solely dedicated to cyber and engineering. Combined all of this with over 45,000 civilian and military personnel at Redstone Arsenal which houses several major departments of defense equities plus the FBI Department of Homeland Security and NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center. And based on what is best for national security, we're looking forward to a near term decision for Air Force for the base U.S. Space Command headquarters. Right now, Huntsville has 25% of the nation's top defense contractors, the best and brightest of our small and medium, mid-sized businesses. One DOD agency at Redstone is the DIA's Missile and Space Intelligence Agency, also known as MISIC. We've seen reports that MISIC is receiving some unexpected and valuable Russian weapons from the battlefield in Ukraine. President Biden said last week that while China hasn't provided Russian weapons yet, it doesn't mean they won't. Secretary Austin, can you speak to the value of MISIC bringing to the joint forces and the importance of the intelligence they are gathering should the U.S. find itself in further conflict? They bring a lot of value. Obviously, our ability to learn more about what our adversaries are using and how they're using it is critical to us being successful in the future. Thank you. General Milley, when you took over as the Army's Chief of Staff back in 2015, the modernization plan you inherited was, well, let's just say it's not the most robust as people would like. Almost eight years later, we have Army Futures Command and the six key modernization priorities. Hypersonics is one of the highest priorities, priority modernization areas of the Defense Department and is pursuing and falls under the Army's top priority, long-range precision fires. It also happens to be one of Huntsville's many areas of expertise. I know you've been able to see it all yourself several times. What do you believe the services have done well when it comes to hypersonic weapons and target development? As the Secretary said, I think a little bit earlier, we had 12 successful hypersonic weapons tests. And hypersonics, it's not a magic weapon. There are no magic weapons in warfare, but it has a significant capability and it travels at such speeds that there's no known defense right now. And depending on the level of warhead, it can do a lot of damage. So the development of hypersonics for us, and was asked earlier by one of the previous congressmen, I'm not gonna opine whether it's strategically stable or unstable. All I wanna do is make sure that we get there first as what the most is and I don't want the enemy to have a whole bunch of hypersonics and us not. So I think it's important that we have that and I think it's a significant capability. Long-range precision fires is the number one Army priority and all of the services are working on long-range precision fires. And the Futures Command and the initiatives that went into what the Army did have led to in the last 36 months, 40 months or so, the most successful set of Army modernization programs in the last four decades. And that's because of that command, the innovation that the troops have put into it, the commanders that have done that. Obviously Huntsville is part of that. There's a whole series of those that spread throughout different locations. There's six of those priorities at the top six, but they're carrying the weight forward for the Army and the Army's in pretty good shape going forward. Thank you, General. Hypersonics are critical. Based on your best military recommendation, are we moving fast enough to be able to fill this technology in a near-term conflict? I would argue that we're never moving fast enough. I'd always want to move faster, but you have to be faster within the bounds of, first of all, physics with some of these things and the testing regimes that are applied, but also the money. You can't have everything all the time. Thank you, General Milley. Secretary Austin, I yield my time back, Mr. Chairman. I thank the gentleman. Chair and I recognize General Lady from Washington, Ms. Strickland, for five minutes. Thank you, Chairman. This is for Secretary Austin. I continue to be concerned about housing costs for service members and their families and serving joint-based Lewis McCord, which is in the metropolitan Seattle Tacoma area. It's one of the fastest growing regions of the entire United States and housing is at a premium. The department currently gives service members 95% of their calculated housing allowance. Last year, I was pleased to introduce the Basic Allowance for Housing Restoration Act, which will ensure that service members receive their full BAH. I'm encouraged by your recent memo to strengthen our support to service members and their families. As you know, they have to have their basic needs met at a minimum because this is directly tied to readiness. So can you please discuss your current thinking on how we fully restore BAH to 100% and your work to support service members and their families? Oh, thank you. And, yeah, I just, I've heard you. I've heard our troops, our families, and I know this is important and this is a thing I've asked for. You know, the panel that will do the review of military compensation to look further into to see what's in the realm of the possible. But I know that this is a concern and I would say that we'll do everything we can to make sure that we're taking additional stress off our families and off our troops. Great, thank you very much. And I have one more question to talk about the role of diversity and inclusion in readiness. So I grew up as an Army brat. My father joined a military, an army that was segregated. And when President Truman desegregated the troops in 1946, that was controversial at the time. It was, people met it with a lot of skepticism. And given some of the language that I've heard around this conversation in the military, some people would call that woke. But we also know that there was a very strategic and specific reason that President Truman did that. So can you talk specifically about how DEI is good for the military, recognizing that 40% of those who are enlisted are people of color, but making sure that we are doing what we can to help them with promotion, with military justice, and to make sure that they are treated fairly, just like my father wanted to be. We remain grateful for your father's service. We are a diverse nation. Our military should look like the nation that it defends. And it does. And I think, you know, I truly believe that diversity makes it stronger. It brings different cultures, different ideas together. And we set a great example for the world, wherever we go. As you know, Congress, with the 2020 NDA, directed the Secretary of Defense to develop a strategic diversity and inclusion plan. And that was done in 2020. We're following that plan. And again, as we follow that plan, we allocate resources to make sure that we're doing the right thing. In terms of promotions, we promote best qualified. The question is always whether or not we have the processes and procedures in place to ensure that, you know, we have a competitive space remains just that, competitive. If you have the talents, if you're willing to work, then you will achieve your goal. And you should understand what that pathway is to success as well. So we not only have to provide opportunity, but leaders should be mentoring and coaching along the way. Well, thank you very much, Secretary Austin. And for me, when I talk about diversity and inclusion in promotion and opportunity, it goes without saying that the people who are seeking those promotions are in fact qualified. Thank you, sir. I yield back. Thank you, General Lady. Chair, I recognize the gentleman from Louisiana, Mr. Johnson, for five minutes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Secretary Austin, my constituents, and I know millions of other Americans remain extremely concerned about the politicization of the Department of Defense. We've talked about this before. The policies that you've implemented have led to what we believe is the worst recruiting crisis in the history of the DOD become a distraction to our service members when they should be focused on maintaining the most lethal fighting force in the history of the world at this critical time. And third, have caused public perception of the military to crater over the last couple of years. These are objective facts. I want to focus on that third point because in November of last year, the Reagan Foundation conducted a survey of thousands of Americans that span the spectrum of demographic criteria. Just five years ago, everybody needs to understand this, five years ago, that same survey found that 70% of Americans had a great deal of trust and confidence in the military. But last year, that number plummeted to 48%. So we got to let that sink in. Less than half of the American public has a great deal of trust and confidence in our military. Secretary Austin, do you know what the top response was when the surveyors asked the people why their trust in the military has eroded? I don't. I want to enter that report into the record if that's okay. Without objection, so ordered. And I'd commend it to your reading because 62% of the respondents in that nationwide poll said that military leadership has become overly politicized and that has decreased their confidence. So we know that confidence in military has eroded. We know that the top reason for that erosion is the military leadership is just too political and that brings us to the decisions you've made. Last year we talked about the COVID vaccine mandate and we knew at that time that that was gonna lead to a recruiting shortfall it already had. You reiterated here your unwillingness to repeal the policy. And thankfully we intervened in the NDAA to repeal it ourselves. But our lingering concern here is that the damage done by that mandate is still being realized. It's probably irreparable. And I think the Reagan Foundation survey is proving some evidence of that. But now the issue of the day now is your next crusade and it appears to be abortion policy. On February 23rd, dozens of members of this committee wrote to you asking very important information relating to the department's new abortion travel policy. Are you familiar with the letter we sent you and or the response that we received just last week finally from Under Secretary Cisneros? I am familiar with the letter. Well, did you see the response? Did you review it before it went out? I've seen the response, yes. It was a non-response. It answered none of our important questions and the most important of which was the legal justification because here again, you're not only causing division, you're exceeding your legal authority. Abortion travel policy that's here provides the basis for reimbursing service members for travel costs associated with obtaining an abortion, but the law is very clear. Law and the legislative intent behind it. Title X, section 1093 explicitly prohibits funds available to the DOD from being used in abortion services. I get that you're trying to find a crafty workaround but it's a blatant violation of the intent behind the statute. Are you aware of the applicable statute here? I tell you what I am aware of and that is that this policy is based on sound legal basis and if you go to the Department of Justice, Justice's public facing website, you'll see what their opinion of this is as well. And again, I would emphasize that one in five of our troops are women. 80,000 of them now live in places where they don't have access to non-covered reproductive health care. So this is important to our force. I've heard from our force, I heard from our leaders, our senior enlisted leaders, I heard from our chiefs, our secretaries. This is something that's very important to the force. What's more important is adherence to the rule of law, sir. And in our system, it is the United States Congress that makes those decisions, not you. This is a statute that was created by the people's elected representatives. And the last time I checked, not a single person in this country voted for you. You're not an elected official. Don't get to make this policy. And this assistance upon diving into issues outside of simply maintaining a lethal and capable fighting force is tearing our military apart. This is the most credible combat credible force on the planet. Then why is the trust of the American people eroded so much? Why do all these surveys over and over confirm what we know intuitively that they don't trust the leadership of the military? You're diving into issues that you should not be involved in. There's a process in our constitutional system. We expect for you to respect that. And you're not when you make a policy. The troops trust that the re-enlistment rates are higher than they've ever been in 50 years. Listen. Our troops like what they're doing. They like the fact that their leadership cares about them and we're gonna continue to care about it. I have 15 seconds left. I'm gonna ask you to repeal this unlawful policy. It will be challenged in court, I'm certain. You will certainly lose it. But save us all the hassle and follow the law. That's what I'm asking. I yield back. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from New York, Mr. Ryan. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you all for being here for so long for answering our questions for your service to our country, both in uniform and as well as secretary now in that fine suit that you're wearing today. As someone who wore the uniform myself in combat, I just want you to know, I want every service member watching to know that I believe that the American people trust, respect and support our armed forces and have tremendous pride. I have tremendous pride and I urge all my colleagues to share that sentiment with those that are around the world right now, risking their lives for our country. Pardon me. First question I have for you, both of you gentlemen. I've been tremendously impressed and both of your testimonies spoke to the innovation and the urgency that we've seen from Ukrainian forces and all partners fighting in the European theater right now. Faced with that urgency of combat, they've been tremendously creative, agile and come up with all sorts of things at the tactical level, junior officers, NCOs and soldiers that folks further from the battlefield often are not able to do. How do we bring that mindset, that urgency and as close as we can approximate those conditions in our great innovation work that you're both part of? Would love to hear any either broad or specific thoughts from either or both. Thanks for that and thanks for your service too and you and I have talked many times about that. There's a couple of really significant initiatives going on within the department and I would point to the Deputy Secretary of Defense, Kathy Hicks and also the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Grady, as part of the JROC process and each of the services has their modernization programs but at the joint force level what we're trying to do is a couple of things. One is we wrote what's called a Joint Warfighting Concept. That concept will become doctrine here in just a few months and in order to change large complex organizations like the Military Doctrine Matters. Second thing is we're exploring an initiative with the Secretary of Defense to establish what's called a Joint Forces Command or a Joint Forces entity. I don't know if it'll be a command or not but it will help drive innovation at the joint force level in the years to come. That'll probably get stood up sometime this summer with the Secretary's approval and briefings are ongoing with that. So those are two of the things. The last thing I would say that's really critically important is working with Congress to lead the way. The Army Futures Command, I use that as an example, that started with an office call between myself and then Senator McCain. That couldn't have gone off Jump Street without Senator McCain. There's just no way that could have happened. So the support of Congress for innovation and modernization is critical and as I said, we're in this fundamental shift in the character of war. There's going to be continuity from the past and there's just still gonna be tanks and planes and carriers and that sort of thing but we're moving into a different era, a very different era in the conduct of warfare with robotics, artificial intelligence, quantum computing, the ability to sense hypersonics and a wide variety of other technologies that are all coming in time and space in the next 10, 15 years. If we do not adapt this military, this joint force in the next five to 10 years, we're gonna be on the wrong side of history very, very shortly against some country that may not be on our team. Thank you, General. And I just, I appreciate both of your emphasis from the top on that sort of sentiment and I believe that increasing risk tolerance and leaders, subordinate leaders, hearing that from you all is just so critical and I know you're both doing that and I commend that and appreciate that. Second quick question I know running short on time. Speaking to the recruiting challenges, how can we try to think creatively, not across all components and skill sets within the force but certain specialized, more technical components, the cyber mission force, for example, how can we look at a more whole of nation approach to build pipelines? I point to things like the civil air patrol, for example, from another era, how can we do things like that around cyber? Well, there are a number of things that we can do to support our efforts in cyber but I would like to take this to kind of a bigger, a higher level, bigger picture. I would appreciate Congress's support in emphasizing the value of service. It doesn't have to be military service. It could be- Gentlemen, the time's expired. Chair, I recognize the gentle lady from Michigan for five minutes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and thank you both for being here. Last year when you came in to testify, I had questions about our withdrawal from Afghanistan. Specifically, when you came and testified before this committee, after the withdrawal from Afghanistan, you made it clear that we would continue to have significant over-the-horizon ISR assets to continue to monitor Afghanistan. That was my line of questioning and I actually felt a little bit relieved after that. In fact, General Milley, you stated in July, 21st at a press conference and I quote, we maintain an agile over-the-horizon counter-terrorism capability that is set up and effective now to detect and address any terrorism threat to the United States. However, last week, General Carilla of SENTCOM testified he has suffered an 80% reduction in ISR assets to monitor and counter ISIS-K. And ISIS-K is still in existence and it's still going strong, unfortunately. I mean, even CNN reported in August last year that the ISR task force established by the department failed to produce a single target for the Pentagon to act on because we lacked boots on the ground. So in layman's terms, simply put, I'm curious as to what happened. How did we go from unwavering confidence to SENTCOM ringing the alarm bells? Well, I'll circle back with General Carilla on the alarm bells part of this. Couple of things. First of all, there's human intelligence. That's people on the ground. That has been degraded significantly. And no surprise, right? When you pull folks out, you no longer have troops on the ground and the networks, it's not to say it's zero, but the networks that we had, the human intelligence networks, those are much, much reduced. So that's really significant, especially in this type of, in a counter-terrorism fight to find, fix, the second piece is airborne ISR. This, I don't know if he was referring to that, but it's not an 80% reduction in airborne ISR. We are no longer collecting on the Taliban. Most of the ISR assets that were being used were against the Taliban. Some were against ISIS-K and al-Qaeda. And I grouped those two together. There has been a degradation in airborne ISR against al-Qaeda and ISIS-K. It's certainly not 80% though. We have, and I'm here to tell you, and I'll talk to General Karilla, we have the ability to see, we have the ability to find, and where we find, we can fix and we can finish. But don't you think it's interesting we couldn't provide one target? I don't understand what you mean. We have provided a target and that target's dead. CNN reported last August that the ISR task force established by the department failed to produce a single target for the Pentagon to act upon. Is that incorrect as well? We killed Zahra Heery. I'm sorry? We killed Zahra Heery. He's dead. That didn't happen, I imagine. So the report was incorrect by CNN? I don't know what report you're referring to. All I know is that we targeted the Emir of al-Qaeda, Zahra Heery, in Kabul and he's dead. That didn't happen by accident. That happened through exquisite intelligence and action, direct action, in combination with the intelligence community. We have the ability to track ISIS-K. We know they're growing and if necessary, if we determine that there's going to be what we call an ex-op, an external operation, if we detect that, we will strike it. I'm assuming with the presidential approval we'll develop contingency operation to do that. We can't see, I don't want you to walk out of here and think that we can't see into ISIS-K, we can. It's just confusing for me. I understand. And I want to know which one is right. And what I'm hearing is from you today, you still have the utmost confidence in our over-the-horizon capabilities. It is, I don't want to fool you here. It's not what it was. Nothing's going to replace having troops and Afghan security forces and the amount of infrastructure that we had. That's not going to get replaced. We do have the capability to see into Afghanistan with a variety of ISR assets and to determine any threats to our homeland. If we pick those up, we have the ability to strike at great distance. I'm very confident. Is your confidence level in my limited time? And I appreciate it. Is your confidence level at the same one it was last year when you testified before, or is it reduced? No, I think it's about the same. Look, we can see, we know ISIS, we know where ISIS-K is. We know what they're doing and we know that they're a growing threat. There's no question about that. The issue is, are they preparing an operation to strike the United States our interest? If yes, then we'll do whatever is appropriate. Jane Lee's time's expired. Chair, I recognize a gentleman from... I'll get back to you. Mr. Besquah is for five minutes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you, Secretary Austin, General Milley, for taking the time to speak with us today. As the representative for New Mexico's second district, I represent White Sands Missile Range and Holloman Air Force Base. These bases are home to some of the most important and strategic research across the country and they play a vital role in our national security. While service members and support staff work on these installations every day to keep us safe, many of them struggle to afford the basic necessities and to make ends meet. I recently visited Holloman Air Force Base, met with leadership and was shocked to learn that our service members' basic allowance housing had been decreased by 4%. Holloman was one of only four military installations out of the 300 designated military housing areas that received a decrease in benefits. I think that needs a change. At a time when inflation is hurting rural military communities like in Otero County, I don't understand how Holloman received a decrease in housing assistance while the cost of housing has dramatically increased. Secretary Austin, how can the department improve how it calculates the basic housing allowance rate so that those who serve our country, especially in rural areas, where in the case of Holloman, we struggle to attract the airmen for our F-16 and now our MQ-9 program can make ends meet. Well, again, thank you for your support. It's in my interest to make sure that our families, our troops have what they need to support themselves and we owe that to them. As you know, this is done by, we conduct surveys and we compare market, what's going on with the market there and those adjustments are made based upon that. I do hope that the pay raise that we're asking you for 5.2% in addition to the 4.6% that we provided last year will provide some relief. But we'll make sure, well, first of all, I'll send somebody by to brief you on exactly how that was computed and what happened. And again, everything that we can do and including reducing the cost of childcare, lowering the prices in the commissaries and those kinds of things, we will continue to work it. As you know, we've driven the prices in the commissaries down to where they should be, 25% discount from what you get out in the outside market. Thank you, Secretary. And that's very important, especially in the recruitment of really important military installations like White Sands and like Holloman is to incentivize those airmen, those researchers, those engineers, everybody who's part of the defense system to be able to have a good quality of life. Now, leaders at the Holloman also told me that they're facing a shortage right now of over 70 childcare workers. In fact, that's about three-fourths of the childcare workforce that should be on the base, which is also very troubling. In fact, they have a brand new empty building that is sitting with dozens of classrooms that have gone unused for several months. What specific steps is the department taking to address the lack of access to childcare on our military installations, Secretary? We've provided some incentives to our childcare workers. So if you, for example, if you are an employee, your first child, if you want to put your child in the childcare center, you get a discount, 50% discount, and some are even providing even more of a discount. We're looking at additional things we can do to attract additional talent. This is the center of this problem. Having enough qualified workforce to meet the demand, and we'll stay after this. Thank you so much, Secretary. And particularly, I'm interested in expanding the In Your Home Childcare Fee Assistance Pilot Program to include rural installations like Holloman Air Force Base. My last question with my remaining time is for General Milley. General, do you believe that the energy resilience and conservation investment programs' goal of diversifying our energy sources contributes to mission readiness, creates more resilient installations, and serves as a good use of taxpayer dollars? As a former commander of several different installations in the Army, I can't speak to the other services, but in the Army, that was, first of all, it's a lot of money, energy resources for these bases are a lot of money. And anything we can do to conserve energy is saving money. And at the end of the day, it turns out in these budgets. So we can take that money savings and put it towards other things like lethality, readiness, and training. So I do think it's an important initiative. Thank you so much, both Secretary General, for your service to our country. I yield back, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Chair, and I recognize gentlemen from Florida, Mr. Waltz, for five minutes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I want to caveat my question to say, look, if the Ukrainians are bravely willing to do the fighting and dying and asking us for the beans and bullets, that's a policy we should support. We should have done it much faster and before the war to actually establish deterrence and that our smaller European allies are truly stepping up the Baltics in Poland in particular. However, when you look at this chart and when the American people see the disparity and how much the United States is providing and then how much large economies, 46 billion versus Germany, two and a half billion versus Italy, 700 million, less than a billion. France, which is four times the size in the terms of their economy of Poland, even less than that. Mr. Secretary, I know you've had a lot of meetings, a lot of engagement, we can dispense with that. What are we doing to actually have burden sharing with our European allies? This war is on their doorstep. The Germans have already backed away from their 2% commitment. What are we doing to actually get them to step up to the plate? And would you call this burden sharing? Would you call this fair if you were an American taxpayer? Well, again, we're gonna do everything that we can to make sure that Ukraine is successful. But what we will continue to do is continue to engage at all levels. My level, Secretary of State, President, and to encourage- But the engagement, Mr. Secretary, according to actual metrics, isn't effective. And what I think, when I talk to my constituents, the American people about continuing support for as long as it takes, as the President say, they ask me this question, what the hell are these large economies doing that Germans in particular to step up? The EU economies together are the same size as the American economy, right? I mean, they're roughly the same size. So do you think it's fair for them to question whether this, for the American people to question whether this is true burden sharing? Number one, and number two, how many countries now have lived up to their 2% commitment? Despite years and years of engagement, how many out of the 30 NATO countries have lived up to their 2% GDP? I don't have the correct- It's seven, seven out of 30. That's pathetic. So I think it's reasonable for the American taxpayer to be sick and tired of subsidizing European social spending. Point one, point two, on cartels, Chairman Milley, you've participated in Planned Columbia personally, initially the Colombian government was against the provision of US military resources, not boots running, you know, not an invasion of Colombia, we're not talking an invasion of Mexico now, but providing space, intel, satellite, special operations resources, we took down the Cali and Medellin cartels, correct? Successfully. That's right. And initially they were against it, then they were for it. Would it be helpful to authorize military resources, to authorize use of military force? And again, we're talking cyberspace, intel, and other resources to support law enforcement, to support the Mexican government, and to take out these cartels, we need to treat them more like ISIS than the mafia, because that's how they're behaving as they destabilize our border. Huge portions of Mexico and stand toe-to-toe with the Mexican army. Is that a fair assessment? Would you oppose that? No, I wouldn't oppose it. What I want to do is give some thought, but the key, as you know, and you were there too, is to work, in this case, with the Mexican government, hand in glove with the Mexican government, and Planned Columbia was just that, it was a plan developed between both countries. Actually, initially the Colombian government opposed it. When we told them we're gonna do it one way or another, they got on board. That's right, and it was a very, very light footprint, very small, a lot of aid, a lot of assistance, a lot of intel, et cetera. So they'll have capabilities that we have, military. Thank you, I just wanted to hear that you wouldn't be an opposition. No, I think things like that should be considered, for sure. Would, we've talked a lot about China that seeks to displace the U.S., seeks to displace the U.S. military. Is it fair to say that Chinese Communist Party is in a cold war against the United States as they seek global hygieny? I would actually say it's more than a cold war. I think this, I think we are in a, you know, you have competition, so there's economic competition, that's normal competition between nations. But I would say we're in a situation of competition. I think we need to stop calling a competition and call it what it is, there in a cold war against the United States. So what I'm about to say was, in certain areas, we're in front of a frontation. Gentlemen from Pennsylvania, Mr. DeLuzio. Sorry, that didn't get our minutes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I wouldn't want to add one note to agree with Mr. Walts. I share his concern about our NATO allies not yet meeting or too many not meeting their defense spending obligation. I'm encouraged by some of the progress in that front, but I share that concern as well. I want to spend my time on a different topic, though. Shipbuilding and our defense industrial base. Yesterday, joint subcommittee hearing on the posture readiness, the mobility enterprise. I heard some disturbing facts, including the average age of our sea lift fleet with being 44 years old. I think it was 17 vessels being more than 50 years old or 50 years old and older. That the maritime administration's resorting to purchasing foreign built ships. Despite clear direction from Congress over repeated years, the Navy hasn't allocated money to build new sea lift ships. And the FY23 Chief Naval Operations Long Range Shipbuilding Plan, there's no mention of building a new sea lift fleet, but rather only to buy used, which really means foreign and refit. The decision to neglect shipbuilding, I think along with our government's past decisions across decades to consolidate the defense industrial base and send our supply chains overseas. I think it's gutted this American industry, like so many others we've seen in our country. We take at our peril freedom of the seas for granted, I think, and I fear. We can't forget the disruption caused by our reliance on foreign supply chains. A ship stacked up outside harbors and ports during the worst of the pandemic. I think we'd be fullest overlooked the Chinese Communist parties build up in the east of and south of China Seas and their growing potential to restrict shipping and access to those sea lanes and international waters. But simply, I think we have to build ships here, not just our naval vessels, our military ships, but others. A good example of this is the success of the National Security Multivision Vessel in Philadelphia's shipyard. I think that investment in our shipbuilding infrastructure is critical and certainly part of deterring communist China. I don't think this is just the Navy's fault. I think Congress is to blame here as well. I heard from Admiral Phillips, the Maritime Administration yesterday that although authorized in FY23 NDAA, sea lift recapitalization of the ready reserve force was not funded or to put it plainly, there was no funding for the program that invests in domestic shipbuilding infrastructure investment along the lines I'm discussing here. General Milley, I'll start with you, sir. Please explain as clearly as you can. How does this reliance on foreign-built ships impact our national security or readiness? I think you're talking commercial ships. Yes, sir. So look at the United States over decades upon decades have outsourced our commercial shipbuilding programs and that impacts our ability to conduct sea lift. In one of the fundamental characteristics of the US military is power projection. We do that through airlift and sea lift, primarily by sea lift, 80% of the world's commerce goes over the ocean. So sea lift, the ability to produce ships, commercial shipping for sea lift is fundamental I think to our national security. Unfortunately, we've outsourced it over many, many decades and it probably needs a corrective over time. Okay, I think there are investment decisions this committee and this Congress has to make that reflect that we care about this. I certainly do. Secretary Oskin, I'll ask you a little different question, it's related. I've worried about the consolidation of defense industrial base, something like a 90% reduction in the prime contractors since the 90s. How has that overly consolidated and I think at times inadequate defense industrial base impact our national security? I share your concern that what we've seen over the years as the number of companies that we have participating competitively in this space has decreased. In some cases it's provided advantage because we've been able to do things more efficiently. In other cases it's taken away that competition that has kept us healthy. So I wanna make sure that small businesses have a voice and they feel that they can compete and we're working to provide the means for them to compete in this space. We've made a little progress but there's a lot more to be done to answer your question. This is an area of concern. Gentlemen, thank you. Mr. Chairman, I yield back. Thank you gentlemen, chair. And I recognize the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Jackson for five minutes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Secretary. And thank you, General Milley for being here today. I appreciate it. I have a couple of district specific questions for you here. My district is the 13th congressional district. It's the home of the Pantex plant. The United States only nuclear assembly and disassembly plant that we have. For the past few decades, DOD has stressed that it's placing a renewed emphasis on the strategic deterrents enterprise and the Pantex plant is an absolute key component of that effort. There's no doubt about that. While DOD has been committing resources and seemingly doing its part, there doesn't seem to be concert or unity of effort between DOD and the Department of Energy on updating Pantex plant's severely aging infrastructure which is actually, I think having an impact on the mission right now. General Milley, I just wanna ask you real quick, can you update us do you have anything to update us with on coordination that's occurring between DOD and the Department of Energy regarding Pantex plant given Pantex was slotted to receive hundreds of millions of dollars for improving the facility, the past several budget cycles with those same projects now being zeroed out in the president's current budget. I'm gonna have to take that for the record. Congressman, I apologize. I'm not familiar with the specifics of the DOE, DOD coordination on Pantex but I can get you a written answer here shortly. Yes sir, I appreciate that. I think it impacts the Department of Defense as well, obviously. Also, as you gentlemen know, the Army's dependent on vertical aircraft in nearly every aspect of operations. 20 years of the global war on terror, taxed Army aviation assets such that the H-60 and the CH-47 have been maxed out now and it's necessitated that we have to have a new vertical lift option now. In December, the Army selected Bell helicopters V-280 platform to fulfill the Army's requirement for future long range assault aircraft. However, the contract award has been protested and we're looking at the GOA decision, hopefully sometime this week, I don't know. But, generally, I was gonna ask you, have you reviewed the contract award process the Army used in this case? Are you confident that the Army used a justifiable and defensible methodology to make its selection and is the Army doing everything in its power to defend its decision on this contract award before the GAO? Thanks, Constance. As a matter of course, I do not review contracts. I did that as a Chief Staff of the Army, but as a Chairman, I'm much more in an operational role. So I don't review those, but I'll circle back with the OSD folks who do that to ensure that that, but I do know it's in protest. So I don't wanna make any public comments that would jeopardize anything in protest. I do know that future vertical lift is one of the key priorities, one of those big six priorities that we talked about earlier with the Army Features Command. But as far as the contract itself, I'll have to get back to you on that as well. Yes, sir, I understand. Okay, I have two more questions real quick to hit on. Some of it's already been hit on here already, but I just wanna start by saying, General Milley, I do appreciate your 40-plus years of service to this country. Having served 25 years on active duty myself, I know what a burden that is on you and your family. It's no secret that I've got a little bit of an issue and had a little bit of an issue with some of the stuff that's happened in your last job here as Chairman over the last few years. We've talked about that before, but I do wanna say that I do think that politicization of our general and flag officers has become a real issue in our military. I think that it does have a big impact on the forces in general, mentioned by Congressman Johnson here, some of the polls that were out there on just the public's opinion of what that matters. And General Milley, I'll just say, whether it's real or whether it's perception, I think it matters. And I just wanna point out, it's not just me saying it. There's an article that came out in Politico here on the 24th of March, just a few days ago, five days ago. And the title of the article is the Serial Post-Trump Embrace of Mark Milley. In spreading the gospel of an apolitical military, he's becoming a political lightning rod and a reminder of how far Washington is from normal. So I'm just gonna leave it at that. I have a question I'll just give to you off the record. I can just tell you that I am committed to an apolitical nonpartisan military myself on down. 100%. I read the article. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. And I understand. And sometimes, you know, perception is not reality, but I think you will agree with me that perception has a big impact on your military. The military has got no role in politics. Yes, sir. So I appreciate that. With the last few minutes I have here, Secretary Austin, I just wanted to ask you, we've talked about the DEI initiative going on in DOD right now. I think that we've heard lots of times in lots of different conversations about the potential positives impact of that. But I think that there is a negative impact of that as well. I think that it has an impact on readiness and it has an impact on recruitment and retention. I think it creates in some circles an environment of hate and discontent when you're pitting one group against another. It's identity politics to some extent. I think it's damaging. I just wanna know, were there any studies that were done before this was rolled out? You know, unbiased scientific based studies that showed that this was a good idea. Gentlemen's time has expired. Chair and I recognize the gentle lady from Hawaii, Ms. Takuta for five minutes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Secretary, I first just wanna thank you for your decision last year to safely shut down, defuel and close the Red Hill bulk fuel storage facility on the island of Oahu. What you said then continues to be true now. This was the right decision to make for our people, for our environment, public health and overall national security. I'm also grateful for your continued engagement with an oversight of the department's lines of effort on Red Hill, including your own personal visit during September of 2022 and your recent meeting with senior department leadership on March 16th. That being said, you and I both know there's still a lot of work that needs to be done in Hawaii with regard to Red Hill and rebuilding lost trust, a broken trust with the military and our communities and how this crisis was handled. Part of the challenge is that different organizations are responsible for different lines of effort related to Red Hill. Joint Task Force Red Hill is focused on just the defueling while Navy facilities engineering command overseas environmental remediation and aquifer restoration. The Navy is largely responsible for facility closure and separate from all of that. You've got the defense health agency that handles the medical care for impacted individuals. Now, to most Hawaii residents, this is very, very confusing and quite frankly, this should not fall upon them to have to navigate the complexities of our military bureaucracy when it really comes down to ensuring them transparency and accountability. Our Hawaii congressional delegation has stood unified in our support for language and last year's NDAA that required the department to identify a single point of contact to oversee and communicate with the public and Congress regarding the status of Red Hill. Mr. Secretary, what is the status of the department's effort to implement this requirement, Section 332, for a single point of contact and when can I expect to be able to announce this POC and the process to my constituents? Well, thank you and thank you for the delegation's continued support throughout all the work that's on that has occurred on this very important issue. What I've asked and I asked them this months ago, the JTF to do is to be able to feel the calls, the inquiries that are coming in from various sectors and to be able to make sure that we are directing those calls or facilitating those people who have questions, facilitating them getting answers to their questions by making sure they get linked up to the right agency. And so that work continues. I think that's the best approach because if we don't do it that way, then I agree with you, we'll continue to be confused. Thank you. One humble suggestion, considering further empowering the Joint Task Force, Red Hill with the responsibility of coordinating overall efforts in regards to Red Hill, especially as you mentioned communications, but also being able to make sure that when citizens and quite frankly community leaders and people in the public have questions that they can get answers straight from the JTF because it is very difficult to even follow the chain once you are then handed off to the next entity for assistance. I would also add that one of the big things that has been brought up is the constant rotation of commands. We know that is part of the military structure. However, we are looking for institutional commitment and leadership, and that is something critical that needs to be part of the JTF as well. Wanna segue into another topic over our infrastructure. By the end of the decade, we all know here very well that we'll need to renew all of the land leases in Hawaii. We've heard throughout this hearing and out in other hearings, how critical these are to our readiness posture in the Indo-Pacific. Yet we also know that these facilities and infrastructures on these lands are falling apart. In some cases, they are literally putting military and civilian lives at risk and negatively impacting our environment. And I'm not just talking about Red Hill. These are military-wide issues across all of our islands across my district. This is as much a statement as a question, Mr. Secretary and General Milley, do you see our old and deterring military infrastructure as a liability to our readiness and our posture in the Pacific? It's absolutely important that we do everything that we can, not only here, but in all corners of our organization to ensure that we continue to update our infrastructure. You see us dedicating $5.1 billion towards that endeavor in this budget for operational effectiveness. And so we will continue to invest in this going forward. It includes a number of things, housing and so many other things. And to your point, this is critical. And I would just reinforce with the remaining time that I have that if you're serious about these land leases and maintaining presence in Hawaii, then maintaining this infrastructure, investing in it, and actually showing action to our people is absolutely necessary. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Chair, now I recognize General from Texas, Mr. Fallon. My name is German. I appreciate it. General Milley, are you familiar with the program that's extremely important to me? It's the Army's Humvee anti-lock brake system and electric stability control. We're having a problem with the Humvees rolling over and they're killing our military. I think over a hundred deaths and hundreds of casualties. And tragically, every year, we continue to lose troops. We're giving you the funding. And I think there's 47,000 vehicles that are gonna eventually be replaced with the JLTV. So we have three options. We can retrofit them. We can buy new ones, or we can just let a dangerous situation continue. And I'm advocating for saving $8 billion in retrofitting these. So I just wanted to ask you, General Milley, what could you do if we saved $8 billion? There's a lot of, you know, billion here, billion here, as they say, then you're talking about some money. No, you can, $8 billion would be tremendously important for a lot of things, modernization programs, training, readiness, et cetera. Let me get back with General McConnell, Chief of Staff of the Army. I think the retrofit thing obviously makes sense, but let me circle back and find out what the status of that is. You know, it'll be very frank. Yeah, it's good politics because this is in my district, but I don't care about that. I care about the readiness. No, I got it. It's safety is the truth. It's good policy. It really truly is. I got it. And it's about safety. And we're asking, and it just seems like there's a dragging of the feet. And I don't want any more soldiers. I know you don't want any more soldiers to die or get hurt. And we have a solution. And I don't think the solution is buying new ones. And I know there's a political element to that, but. If I could just add a little bit. Sure, please, Secretary. You know, the Army's taking a holistic approach to this. And this is truly important. And I think you know that there are 10 sites total that are focused on this work. They're retrofitting about 655 vehicles per month. Hopefully they'll be able to speed that up at some point in time. But that's kind of where we are. And really appreciate you continuing to shine a light on this for us. And Secretary Austin, this is something that I wanted to ask you about because it's near and dear to my heart because my father was served in the military. I served in the military. And my father, when he was in a training exercise, his life was saved in the late 50s by an African-American soldier. I wouldn't be here if it weren't for African-American soldiers, literally. And do you believe that there's any room in the DOD for racism or bigotry? The DOD does not support, Secretary Austin does not support any form of racism or bigotry. When I was in the military 30 years ago, I remember going on active duty and they gave us a briefing when you PCS'd. And they said to us, there will be no isms. There'll be no racism, no sexism, no nepotism. And there's zero tolerance for it. And there was, and I believe there still is. And the way you affect the culture, as you know, is you can instill a culture in months or years. You instill it over decades. And I believe the military has done that successfully. And that's why, you know, I was very distressed to see this post from a DOD employee. And I quote, she says, I'm so exhausted at these white folks in these PD sessions, this lady actually had the caudacity to say that black people can be racist too. I had to stop the session and give the care and the business. I would imagine you don't agree with that statement. Again, I don't support any form of a racist commentary or any form of discrimination. You may have heard me say earlier that it's important for our country to know and our dependents to know that DOD schools are producing good products. Our fourth and eighth graders score the highest scores in math and reading in the country. And Mr. Secretary, with all due respect, my question, it begs the question, and I agree with you, there is no room for it. We have a special force. We have a diverse nation. We have a diverse military. And we have the best military that history's ever known. So my question is, why is this woman still working for you? Well, you certainly, I think you know, DOD investigated this issue. This is a personnel issue, the specifics of which I will not discuss in an open hearing. But if it was a general officer, would they still be working for you if they said something like this? And you could twist it. It could be something about white folks, black folks, Asian folks, it doesn't matter. It really doesn't matter, does it? Who's the target? It doesn't. I mean, any kind of racist or language or discriminatory behavior, that's not who we are. Again- But she still works for the Department of Defense. I don't think there's any room for a person like that that says those kinds of things. I think she should be forthwith. Yeah, I won't discuss personnel issues in this hearing. Well, that's unfortunate, because I think we should discuss them. And I think that she should no longer be a part of our Department of Defense. So with Mr. Chairman, with that, I yield back. Thank the gentleman. Chair now recognizes Mr. Davis of North Carolina for five minutes. Thanks. Thank you so much, Mr. Chair. And I want to first start today by thanking all of the men and women who are serving our country, both home and abroad. And even those who are here in support roles, thank you so much for what you're doing. And General Milley, thank you. God bless you for your service. And Secretary, thanks for your continued service and definitely get to see you again. My question, General Milley. I agree with you that our adversaries view space as a war fighting domain and believe that achieving supremacy in this area will be a decisive factor in winning future conflicts. Do you believe the budget goes far enough to support your space capabilities to ensure that we maintain a competitive edge? As with any budget, it's all about balance. You're really balancing resources to make sure that you're advancing along a wide variety of programs. This budget puts about $33 billion, I think it is, into space. I think that's an adequate amount of money given the totality of the budget. What is key here is how do you apply that $33 billion? And we're applying that in our space programs for defense and offense. What we have to be careful though as a nation also is the weaponization of space. This domain of space. Space is critical to our country. It's critical to our comrades. It's critical to our day-to-day life. And we, the military, have certain critical capabilities that rely in space. So as I said before, resilient, redundant capabilities in space, a lot of small things running around that gives us those capabilities. That's what I would advocate for as we go forward in the programs. But $33 billion is a lot of money. That depends on where we put it. Thank you very much. Mr. Secretary, I want to start with something General Milley said earlier. And I think for me it was a great takeaway for today is when we're losing people, it's personal. It's personal. And it is personal. And let me tell you something else that's personal. It's personal when someone goes to serve our country, to come back home to take their lives. And I commend you, absolutely commend you for noting suicide prevention and addressing that in the budget and forming a working group. My question is, when we think about the efforts that are underway, the initiatives that are underway, do you have a sense of how this will really help curtail suicides in the ranks? This is, thank you, sir. This is one of the most complex issues that any of us have ever taken on. And it's been a constant effort, combined effort throughout. And I think that all of us would agree that we have to do better. Now, from 21 to 22, we did see in the active force an incremental improvement in the numbers. For the reserve component, the numbers were flat. We're hoping that we'll continue to see some improvement going forward. But we're gonna stay focused on this going forward because this is really important to the point that you just passionately made. This is about our people's lives. And it doesn't have to be this way. So we're gonna emphasize safety. A large number of suicides happen with firearms. And we're gonna make sure that our troops, our family members have the means to adequately secure their firearms and use them safely. But there's just a number of things that we're gonna continue to focus on. And mental health is one of those things. We gotta continue to resource this in a proper way. So we really appreciate your support and thanks for your support for what we're asking for in this budget to apply to mental health and suicide prevention. And Mrs. Secretary, what are the point that I raise? It started on the journey to look at how we can activate an Air Force ROTC unit at Lisbon City State University to realize that nearly 75% or so are viable detachments on the Air Force side. But then I was inquiring it seems like one out of 15 of the HBCUs were viable. HBCUs, how can we cultivate or even expand the work there? Because I believe they're vital to our national interests. I agree. I think the first step is engagement with the leadership at the various institutions and making sure that our services are reaching out where appropriate as well. I think these- Your time's expired. Chair, I recognize the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Jimenez, for five minutes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And Mr. Secretary, what do you think poses the greatest existential threat to America's way of life, our freedom, climate change, or the Communist Party of China? Well, I think they both pose threats to us going forward. I think climate is an issue that shapes the environment that we live and work in. It certainly shapes the- It's a pretty simple question. Which one poses the greater threat, climate change or the Chinese Communist Party? Well, I think in terms of competition, as you heard us say, China is our pacing challenge. That's what our strategy is focused on. And that's a priority for us. So you would say China. Right, it's a priority. That's the greatest existential threat to our American way of life and our freedom. Right, and again, our relationship- Pretty simple question, Mr. Secretary. It's a yes or no, yes or no. Yes or no? Strategy is focused on China as a competitor. Thank you very much. Do you think that Russia utilizes its energy as a way to advance its global strategic interest? I do. You do. Do you think it would be wise for America to use the power of its energy, the ability of America to be energy dominant, to advance America's global strategic interest? I think America advances its interest in a number of ways. That is a component, but I certainly wouldn't sit here and say that that's the element that we need to lead all conversations with. No, I didn't say that. I say that could America use energy and our dominance in certain sectors of energy to advance our global strategic interest? Absolutely. Absolutely. Do you know why this administration is bent on destroying our ability to be dominant in that the energy sources that we can be very dominant in and probably in that the world is gonna be needing for the next 50, 60 years, while trying to rely on energy sources that come from our greatest adversary, China, i.e. windmills and solar panels. Can you explain that for me? I would not agree with the premise that the United States or this administration is trying to destroy our position with respect to energy and providing energy. Well, I guess the evidence contradicts what you're saying. We have a difference of opinion, but we live in America. That's what's great about America, sir. All right. Mr. Secretary, the Defense Department budget that has been introduced by this administration has an increase of 3%, which when you factor in inflation is actually a 3% reduction because inflation is at 6%. You have an increase of 3% for defense and we know that we need to start to build up our defense capabilities in light of the fact that our greatest adversary is the Communist Party of China. And yet they've increased DPA by 19%, which is 13% above inflation. That to me says everything about what this administration is all about. And so the reason I ask you those questions is that I believe that this administration thinks that climate change is the greatest threat to America and not the Chinese Communist Party. So are you okay with this budget? As you've heard me say a number of times, we linked our budget requests to our strategy. And yes, I support this budget. I think it gives us the ability to go after capabilities we need to be successful going forward. And I would not care to comment on another agency's budget. I'll let OMB do that. Fair enough, but it's actually a 3% reduction over inflation. While at a time we need to be increasing our defense budget, we're actually decreasing in reality when you take in consideration inflation. So your testimony said that we needed to up our game because we have a new adversary called the Chinese Communist Party. And yet we're not upping our game, we're downing our game. Because we have- It's the largest defense budget ever. Yeah, but it's less in relation to inflation. So yeah, but it is the largest but it's actually in actual terms, you have less money to spend because inflation is at 6%. One final thing for, and one final comment for general, the general, we left a ton of equipment in Afghanistan. And I saw a picture of all these trucks that look like they came off the showroom floor. Did you ever think about blowing them up before you left? Jim is time expired. Chair now goes to recognize a gentle lady from Virginia, Ms. McClellan for five minutes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, General Milley and Secretary Austin. And Secretary Austin, I want to follow up. First of all, I appreciate your commitment to meeting the comprehensive healthcare needs of all our servicemen and women. And I wanna follow up on the line of question from Mr. Davis around mental health and suicide. And I agree with you, mental health in the military has been a constant struggle. And while we've seen some improvement, the suicide rate remains nearly 60% higher than the civilian suicide rate. Can you tell us specifically how the department, the DOD is mobilizing resources within the budget to address mental health needs and bring this number down? Yeah, so we're asking for $1.2 billion, excuse me. We're asking for $1.2 billion for support for suicide prevention, excuse me, $209 million, I'm sorry. $209 million for suicide prevention. As you know, we stood up a commission to focus on this. They provided recommendations back to us. We've already taken some of those recommendations and put them into action. And we'll continue to work on the other recommendations to make sure that we have processes and procedures in place in order to be able to implement them. So one of the ways that we can make sure we are addressing the mental health needs of our service members is helping to ensure that there are sufficient providers that can provide that care and that they are reimbursed for providing that care so that they stay incentivized to provide it. But currently the reimbursement rate for mental health under tri-care is dramatically lower than that of other comparable government healthcare programs. Does DOD have the resources to increase the rate of reimbursement or is that something that you need us in Congress to take action on to raise those rates and help increase the number of mental health professionals who are willing to take tri-care? Right, we certainly need all the help that we can get in that regard. I've asked the DHA to really focus on this specific piece of access to mental health care and do everything that we can to improve in this area. And thank you. And related study published by the Journal of American Mental Association in January showed that 35% of tri-care beneficiaries lived in an area with a shortage of mental health providers, civilian or military, and that approximately 6% of tri-care beneficiaries lived in an area where there was no mental health provider at all within a 30-mile driving distance. What is the DOD doing to ensure that tri-care beneficiaries also have access to a mental health care option through telehealth? Yeah, telehealth is something that we've been promoting quite a bit. And again, as we continue to use that, we want to make sure that the right mechanisms are in place to ensure that our families, our troops are getting the quality care that they need. I think that's really important. And are there any resources or legislation that we should be pursuing to help you to ensure more access to mental health care either through tri-care or any other mechanism that is not currently included in your budget request? There's nothing I need to ask you for at this point in time, but if there is, I'll come back and ask again. Okay, thank you. And then finally, has DOD done a full accounting of how tri-care's mental health coverage and resources can better support our service members? I think we've done a very thorough scrub of this throughout. This continues to be a work in progress. I'll take for the record that question and come back and give you a specific answer. Thank you very much. I yield back. I thank the general. The chair and I recognize the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Latrell, five minutes. Good afternoon, gentlemen. Yesterday at three o'clock at Artiology National Cemetery, I put one of my teammates in the ground that was killed on a tragic parachuting accident during training. And at 430, I received a phone call that senior chief, Mike Day, who was shot 27 times while on combat operations, took his own life yesterday. So all I ask is that you continue to, which I know you will, cherish our service members and our veterans and focus on the mental health aspect after these two wars. Secretary Austin, you said ISIS and Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups continue to threaten the security of the United States and our citizens and our partners. Do you consider the cartel to be a terrorist group? I consider them to be transnational criminal organizations. Regardless of vernacular, sir, I would, which that's the same thing in my opinion. Is it not yours? Well, it's a, again, this is, it's, they are criminal organizations, so. Mr. Milley, thank you for your distinguished career, sir. And over your tenure in the military and your multiple commands, if you lost 50,000 troops in one deployment, would you be relieved of duty? Yeah, I would imagine if I lost 50,000 troops in a single battle or deployment. I don't know if I'd be relieved, depends on the nature of the war. You know, there were 2,000 killed at Normandy, my dad at the beach at Iwo Jima, 7,000 killed there. So I guess it depends on the nature of the war, but 50,000 is a lot. One of our deployments, not a national invasion. One of ours, sure, yeah. Okay. If you had 2,500 enemy combatants move through your front lines and take over your interior, would you be relieved of duty? Yeah, I probably would, yeah, I would think so. If you were a commanding officer and you were not enforcing the ROEs or the sofa that was in place by the leadership, would you be relieved of duty? I would imagine that if I did not enforce the ROEs, yeah, I'd probably be relieved, I would imagine, sure. If you were a commanding officer and individuals were coming into your AO and kidnapping your troops, would you be relieved of duty if you didn't do anything about it? If I knew about it and didn't do anything about it, sure. 100,000 Americans die each year from fentanyl. 50,000, excuse me, 5,000 illegal aliens come across this border every day. Sex trafficking, kidnapping, drugs, gangs, and your professional opinion, do you think Secretary of Mallorcas is doing a job at all with securing our border south and north? Yeah, it'd be inappropriate for me as a chairman of the Chinese staff from a legal basis to actually make comments about cabinet members. That's actually in the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Okay, sir. You gotta respect that, but here's what I would say. Look, there's a significant crisis at the border. I've mentioned it a couple of times. Yes, sir. 5,000. That's why I shifted to this line of questioning. 35,000 a week, that's a core. You've got about a million or so. Now, most of them, realistically, most of them are economic migrants and they're fleeing violence and so on and so forth, but not all of them. Some of them are not. Some of them are bad. Who knows where they're coming from and what their intent is. So that border crisis is very serious and it's having a very negative effect on our society in general, and obviously the border states, but well beyond the border states. The federal crisis is compounding that. Now, the question is, what do we do and how do we get about that? And that is a very complicated area, as you know. I think you have to obviously start right at the border, but there's obviously some things deeper into the, in the so-called battlefield, if you wanna call it that. In Mexico, Central America, except we're getting at some of the root causes. We have to work with the host nation governments. Talk to Congressman Walts a little earlier. We've got to get a handle on this and get a handle on it quickly. This is being very, very destructive to our society as a whole. And I am absolutely agree with that problem identification. The issue is, what do we do about it and how do we do it? We the military have certain skills and capabilities that can help, but the lead has gotta be law enforcement. I think the leadership itself sort of translates nicely from military to civilian. And fortunately, on this side, as you soon, I'm assuming you will soon. And I'm a border state. And it's my people and my district that are dying. And I wholeheartedly believe that the secretary is skirting his fiduciary responsibilities to save the lives as we would if we were combatant commanders in any given AO. But I appreciate your position and how you have to answer that question. Thank you. I do wanna say my thoughts and prayers with your two fallen comrades. I'm surrounded by seals in my office. I see one sitting behind you. Yes, right. And I appreciate your personal service and that of your brothers as well. Thanks, sir. Mr. McCord. I recommend it. Thank you, Mr. Austin. Mr. McCord, I have nothing for you today. John Mcstown's expired. Chair and I recognize General Lady from Michigan for five minutes. Thank you. We're almost done. Thank you for hanging in on two long days. General Milley, thank you for all your service. I'm sure you're thrilled. You won't be back up here, but we're sorry to see you not coming up here. You've always been frank and forthright with us. And as chairman Smith or ranking member Smith, excuse me, said it's a refreshing to have that level of engagement with the Joint Chiefs. My questions are related to China, which has become an in vogue thing for both Democrats and Republicans to talk about and agree on up here. General, I'm sorry, Secretary Austin, can you help us understand what you think is going on between China and Russia vis-a-vis Ukraine? I know, obviously, we're not in classified session, but help the American people understand it as they all watched Xi go to spend some time with Mr. Putin. Are they helping them evade sanctions? Is there a weapons exchange? Just help me understand it. There's probably some of that in terms of helping them to evade some sanctions and creating some opportunities for them. I do think that Xi does not want to see Russia fail in a catastrophic way. My thoughts are that he believes that that would be bad for international stability. Plus, he feels that as long as there's a Russia that can keep NATO and the US busy, then that works in his favor and it keeps us from focusing on the Indo-Pacific. I don't think that he has agreed to provide material support to Russia at this point. I do believe that that's what Russia really, really wanted coming out of this meeting, but we saw that Xi didn't move that way because he is concerned about reputational damage and he's concerned about the loss of access to some pretty important markets going forward. So Russia is enormously isolated right now and it doesn't have many directions that it can go in. They had a relationship before this started. They still had a relationship, but it's questionable as to whether or not Xi is gonna lean into this in a fulsome way and provide significant support to Russia. Great, thank you for that. I think my second point is really a comment. We have a new commission now on China up here. We have hearings on TikTok. There's a lot of focus on the role of China and I am as much of a believer in peace through strength as anybody, but I do think we run the risk of tipping into sort of a beating our chests war-like footing. And this isn't like a country like Russia where our economic integration is relatively minimal. I think what I have found is we tend to silo our military conversations, from our economic conversations, from our agriculture conversation. China depends on us for 30% of their food. So I guess my ask would be the Department of Defense does incredible work on wargaming, scenario planning, tabletop exercises. My ask is that you incorporate homeland security, commerce, ag, and the private sector, even giving them one or two day clearances to come in so that the Defense Department can learn from them and they can learn from you because what I'm seeing is completely separate conversations where we make cars in my district. The mutually assured economic destruction that comes from the U.S. going to war with China is real and it's as dangerous as a nuclear exchange. So that would be my ask of the Department is that we try to build out and incorporate other parts of society since a war with China is such a devastating potential. And we will do that. And you've heard us say, you've heard the President say that, this is a relationship characterized by competition. We don't want a contentious relationship. There needs to be guardrails on this relationship and we need to be able to communicate with each other so that we can prevent miscalculation and we can manage crisis. And so I absolutely agree with what you said. By some of the things that we say and do, we can create our own problems and it could be a devastating problem. Yeah, so we would look forward to, and I'm sure folks in this committee on both sides of the aisle would be happy to participate in that war gaming so that we avoid any potential with Russia. Thank you to both of you for your time and enduring two long days of testimony. Right, Chair, I recognize Generality from Virginia, Ms. Kiggins for five minutes. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I represent Virginia's second district which is home to Oceana Naval Air Station very close to Norfolk Naval Base and many special forces teams and thousands of military families and veterans. We know that 80 to 85% of new recruits have family members that are in the military. I'm the daughter of Vietnam veteran as a Navy pilot married to a Navy pilot. I've got sons who are at the Naval Academy and Navy ROTC that we're very proud of. So I just want to for a moment speak on behalf of all military moms and dads out there. I worked very hard to be able to look both of you in the eye and just to remind you that we entrust you with our most precious possession which is our children. So please ensure that they have the resources that they need to be able to defend our great nation. And moving on from that, just talking about quality of life issues. I know that we've talked a lot today about housing. It's been a long and lengthy discussion but I support some of those issues. We need to do better with housing our military service members. I don't want to ask a question about it but I just want to put in a plug for privatization. I know that we're budget constrained. So how can we think outside the box? We have a lot of great supporters of the military especially in my district who would love to be able to do things like provide housing. How can we use those public partner, private partnerships just to be able to house our military especially our enlisted men and women who are unaccompanied, you know, charging them for wifi and barracks. We've got three condemned barracks to NIS Oceana. This is unacceptable. Moving on from that, I know that representative Whitman who's from Virginia as well talked today about the needs of the Navy and our capacity and our numbers and he had some pretty, pretty disheartening charts that he brought with him but if we have a potential war with China will absolutely be a maritime conflict and I know you've spoke about technology but technology is only part of the answer but it's not the answer. We certainly need to be mindful of the capacity which includes maintaining the fleet and ship repair which in my district is very important. I know six weeks ago we closed four of our dry docks on the West Coast. We only have 22, we're down to 18. We literally closed 22% of dry docks. We now are down to one dry dock on the East Coast that can repair an aircraft carrier. So this has got to be prioritized. You know, God forbid we enter into a maritime conflict with Asia and there will be damaged ships. We have no salvage capability I know out there. So what are you doing and what is your just prioritization of ensuring that our ship repair industry just has the resources they need to be able to provide and keep these old ships at sea? Well thank you and thank you for all that you have done to support our military with your family certainly with your children, your husband. We're investing $4 billion in the industrial base in this budget that includes $1.2 billion for submarines in the submarine industrial base and a remainder in PSI out which will help improve our infrastructure. We have to continue to invest in this and increase the capacity and improve the way that we're maintaining our ships and get more of them to the operational level. That's a focus of the CNO. He is absolutely focused on this and I think hopefully we'll see some returns on his investment here in the near term. Last week we witnessed the 40th meeting between President Xi and President Putin over the last 10 years. President Xi's parting conversation with President Putin was explicit that their relationship is forcing change that has not occurred in nearly 100 years. We know the Sino-Russian Treaty, the 2001 Treaty of Good Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation was reaffirmed last summer and has now been in effect for nearly 21 years so it's clear that with Iran and North Korea providing Russia with weapons, industrial capacity to fight Ukraine, the PRC is now collaborating with Russia and Iran on technology programs and there's a convergence of strategic interests among these adversaries. So I just wanted to know from your perspective, our strategy or overarching strategy, are we looking at these aligned threats? I know we look at them individually, the threat of China, the threat of Iran, the threat of Russia but are we looking at them of more of an alignment and are we practicing and preparing to fight that adversary as a whole? Yeah, we certainly continue to watch that to the point that you're making, this is very, very important and potentially dangerous. Now we know that they have a relationship, we wouldn't say that they have an alliance at this point but this is certainly something that we'll remain focused on. Thank you and I yield back, Mr. Chair. Thank you, General Ed. The Chair and I recognize the General Ed from the great state of Alabama. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman and I wanna thank you as Secretary Austin and General Milley for your years of decades of service to this nation. Thank you so much for your willingness to endure all the lines of questioning. Mine actually has to do with what I think is probably the most important part of our budget which is investing in its people, the servicemen and women who serve this great country. I know that both of you probably will agree that the strength of our military lies in its servicemen and women and their families and I am happy to see that President Biden's defense budget prioritizes key personnel issues such as childcare and healthcare. I also am glad to see that the military is prioritizing diversity, equity and inclusion. At the end of the day, I think it's about military readiness. If we want the best and the brightest to join our armed forces and rise through the ranks, we have to ensure that all Americans feel welcome in our service. Secretary Austin, you were asked a question by my colleague on the other side that you didn't get a chance to really answer. It was a question regarding diversity, equity and inclusion training. I believe that it's been highly politicized. Not only is training for diversity, equity and inclusion important, sexual harassment training and other types of training are also critically important as we think about the readiness of our forces. I also believe that it's more than just compliance related. I think that it does go to the very core of a sense of belonging, a sense of morale and camaraderie as well. So my question to you is does diversity, equity and inclusion training negatively impact our military readiness? What, you know, how do you see it? What kind of role does it play with respect to our armed forces? Thank you very much. We have a diverse military. We will continue to have a diverse military. The military looks like the country that it serves and it should. You heard the chairman say a couple of minutes ago that we are about cohesion. We are about being able to operate effectively as organizations and being able to operate in a combined way that creates advantage for us on the battlefield. We bring people from all walks of life and as we bring them together, they have to learn a bit about each other. They have to learn about their organization that they're serving and all of that happens with some of the diversity training. And so I think this makes us healthier and that's why Congress asked us to do this back in 2020. And I think it's the right thing. I think what we continue to do is to make sure that we remain a ready force. This is not all that we do. As a matter of fact, it's a fraction of what we do. We spend most of our time focused on war fighting issues and that's why we're the most combat credible force on this planet. And that's why our troops are voting with their feet and saying we wanna stay in the military. Our re-enlistment is as high as it's been in 50 years. And so I think all those things are important. Thank you, sir. I believe that we need to tap into some great talent that we have at our HBCUs to follow up on my colleague, Congressman Davis's question. I believe that HBCUs and their ROTC programs are critically important. It concerns me that only one seems to be viable and that's Howard. I know that I submitted a letter to HBC as well as Tuskegee's ROTC. I think it's important that they understand that they have a place in our armed services and efforts are being made to actually try to bring those ROTC programs up. And so would you say, I know that the HBCUs in Biden's budget and then the defense overall has $100 million in it. And I think that's a great start. But can you talk to us a little bit about HBCUs as a pipeline for strong military? I think they are. I think there's certainly talent there that our military needs and will benefit from. Most recently you saw us invest some $90 million in Howard where we put together a consortium where the students at Howard will work with a number of other colleges to focus on some issues that are relevant to the military. Yes, sir. And I guess I'm just saying I would love to see some sort of consortium like that for Tuskegee University. I know you know Auburn University has a stand up ROTC and I think that there's some synergies that can happen. So I'm excited about that money for that pilot program but love to see some come our way as well. As I told you when I was at Tuskegee back in 2007, speaking to the students and to the president, I thought it was a real good idea at that time that we have more connectivity between Auburn and Tuskegee and others in the state. I think that they can all benefit from that and I think those are kind of things that we should be doing. I look forward to working with you on that. Thank you, sir. I need to go back to the rest of my time. Thank you, ma'am. The gentleman from Guam, Mr. Moylan has just recognized for five minutes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Secretary Austin, in the past hearings, the Department of Defense has made it clear to me that the extension of H2B visas is needed to meet the Department of Defense construction requirements in Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas, inclusive of ensuring that the deadline to accomplish the completion of construction of this Marine Corps base, Camp Ben Blas, which will house over thousands of Marines from Okinawa, which has Marine Corps base has never been built in the last 70 years, inclusive of this, to meet this deadline, currently by statute, the Guam CNMI H2B extension ends at the end of 2024. Secretary Austin, I have two questions with this. First, would the failure to extend the H2B create a risk that critically, Department of Defense construction projects fall behind schedule or go uncompleted? Yes, you know, sir, this construction on Guam is critical to us in terms of what we're trying to do to provide for the defense of Guam, but also make sure that we have the right infrastructure to support our efforts in the Indo-Pacific. We need those workers to be able to complete that construction, so the HBTU visa program is really important to us, and I would ask that we get continued support from Congress on this issue, because it is important to our defense. All right, secondly, Secretary Austin, you'd actually answered it. You support the extension of the H2B for Guam, which would mirror the completion of the construction of Camp Bloss, which is scheduled for 2029. Yes. Thank you. On another note, Secretary Austin, I understand that my Guam rear-adural, Adriel Nicholson, has submitted a waiver to your office to stop the reduction of overseas cost of living allowance, Ocola on Guam, and that the waiver is with the Deputy Secretary of Defense, Hicks. Secretary Austin, please, yes or no. The reduction of Ocola is driven by the department policy and not by law. That's correct. Considering that Guam is at the tail end of the supply chain and that the cost of living for both service members and the island's residents has skyrocketed over the years due to many factors, Secretary Austin, would you support keeping Ocola's status quo versus the reduction which was recently implemented? I'll have to look at the specifics of this particular issue. There are a number of places where COLA is being reduced and certainly as a Deputy Secretary has worked through this, I'll engage with her and see what the issues really are and what's in the realm of the possible. You know, it's, again, we're doing everything we can to provide as much value to our troops and our family members as possible, pay raises, reduction of prices in the commissary, so forth and so on, so this is important to us. I appreciate that, Secretary Austin, and it's also important to our rare Adron Nicholson. So I'm hoping that this decision will be rendered on the waiver requests submitted as soon as possible, please. Okay, and finally, Secretary Austin, on the provision of Public Law 117263, which is the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act, it mandated a 60-day timeline for the Department of Defense to contract for an independent assessment of the integrated air and missile defense architect in Guam. This is vital component for the defense of Guam is very important for assessment of my district and community. The timeline expired earlier this month. Was a contract issued for the independent assessment? And if not, does the Department of Defense intend on pursuing this mandate, which was created by statute? And once again, this is very important for my community. Thanks, sir, I agree it is important and the contract will be let by the end of the month. Thank you, Secretary. Mr. Chairman, I yield back my time. Thank you, sir. The gentleman from Nevada, Mr. Horsford, is recognized for five minutes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and to the ranking member. I was glad to see the large-scale investments in taking care of our service members in President Biden's FY24 budget by increasing service member compensation, launching universal pre-kindergarten at all Department of Defense education at activity schools and continuing to combat sexual assault and harassment in the services. We are looking forward to taking care of those who protect us. Secretary Austin, thank you for your service. I noted also in the budget an increase in the budget for suicide prevention programs and that you recently stood up a working group to begin the implementation of the Suicide Prevention and Response Independent Review Committee. Do you have a sense for whether you will have the right resources to implement those recommendations as soon as practicable? I do. This is something that we've invested in year after year. We'll continue to invest in it. I think the mental health challenges are a significant part of this and we'll do everything we can to improve in terms of access and the quality of mental health care that's being provided as well. But I do think it's important to continue to invest in it. Thank you and Secretary Austin, as you know every day our military grows more diverse and I believe it is critically important to support policies that ensure our forces can work as a cohesive team and that means addressing disparities that affect our military service members of color and our women service members. The Defense Department recently conducted a stand down to address extremism within the ranks. How would you assess the effectiveness of that effort? What are the lessons learned that can be applied for future stand downs and General Milley with a lack of propensity to serve among America's youth? How is the Department of Defense making sure that we are not missing the mark when talking about recruitment with women and with young people of color? So I continue to make the point that 99.9% of our troops are focused on the right thing each and every day and they're actually focused on accomplishing their mission and being ready to accomplish their mission if they're called out to do something. And so when we focused on for a very short period of time, two hours or so per unit on this issue, we not only focused on how to recognize extremist behavior and what the existing policies were and that we had on the books that addressed this issue because we did have policies that covered this, but we also focused on the value of service and why we are serving and the importance of sticking to our values. So because of that, I've had numerous commanders tell me that the ability to kind of talk to their units and interact with their units in small group and talk about some of these issues was very valuable. Now once that two hours was over, again, they're on to the mission. This is not an effort to root out to any kind of specific person. This is just to make sure that our units are living environments, remain healthy and safe for people to work in. Thank you. General? So on the propensity to serve about 9% of America's youth and I say youth, it's 18 to 25 as a demographic. We're looking at about 9% of a propensity to serve, about 23% qualified to serve without a waiver. So the population pool is relatively small to begin with. And of course, there's other competitive things out there with job markets and so on and so forth. What we know statistically is that the propensity to serve increases exponentially with contact. So if recruiters get out in contact, but not just recruiters, we know that about 80 some odd percent or so, high 70s of those of us in uniform today also have family members in uniform. So in essence, the all volunteer force over the course of 50 years has become a family business and we're in contact with each other and people who know the military join the military. Then when they're in the military, they stay in the military. So you got 50% or 50 year high in retention. So contact, contact, contact, outreach, outreach, outreach. So if you're in charge of a camp poster station, don't just deal with the local community, get beyond that, go out a hundred miles. If you're at Fort Hood, get to Dallas and so on and so forth. So we've got to help the American people become familiar with the military. The gentleman's time has expired. Thank you. Chair recognizes Mr. Alford from Montana. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman and ranking member and thank you, General Milley and. Missouri, sorry. That's all right. Thank you, Mr. Secretary for being here today. I know it's late. We're down to the freshman. We're almost done. So stick with us. I do want to talk about the budget. I think that's why we're here today. I've got a few questions that I want to deal with something else but I want to talk about Indo Paycom. It has a $3.5 billion budget shortfall. Secretary Austin, you did say that China is our number one threat. It's our most strategic competitor, if you want to use that term. Why did the DOD fail to include additional funding to bolster Guam's missile defense system, enhance our cyber and networks defenses for our joint exercises and training in that region? Why were these Indo Paycom unfunded priorities not included in the budget? I'll just point to the fact that this, we've invested $9.1 billion this year in the Pacific Deterrence Initiative. That's 40% more than we invested last year and we'll continue to invest in the years to come in those things that we can actually execute. But at some point you have to prioritize on what you're going after in the current term. Modernization is really key for the assets of our military, including the nuclear triad. I'm honored to represent Whiteburn Air Force base, home of the B-2, soon to be home of the B-21. I'm fortunate enough to be able to go see that program in two weeks. It's exciting, it's going to be a great deterrent. The question is, is it going to get here in time to be a real deterrent for a potential conflict with China over Taiwan, whether it's 25 or 27, how concerned are you about our ability to protect our allies in the Indo-Pacific and deter China from invading Taiwan? This is what we focus on each and every day and we know that we have to have a capability for the future because China will continue to evolve in terms of their capabilities, but we have to be able to fight today and be successful. And I am confident that we have the right things to be able to be successful today and I'm asking you for your support to continue to invest in things that will increase readiness today, but will also invest in future modernization. And so that's been our approach. We've linked our budget requests directly to our strategy. And so in terms of my level of confidence that we're going after the right things, I think we absolutely are. Thank you. General Milley, I want to shift back over to the concept of the politicization of the military. Trust and confidence has gone from 70% down to 48% from 2018 to 2022. Why do you think that is? Yeah, first of all, I looked at that survey too. The top two categories are a lot of trust and confidence and then trust and confidence. Then there's a neutral category, then there's no trust and confidence. The numbers actually go from the top number one to number two. If you combine the two numbers, it's still trust and confidence. So the military still has a lot of trust and confidence. It's still a decline though, right? It's a decline from the top to the second. And it's not doing that. I would argue that the American people still have enormous pride and trust and confidence in the military. That's the first point. Secondly, I do think that there has been politicization of the military. I don't think it's been by the military though. So I'll just leave it at that. I think the military, all of us from me on down, have tried enormously to keep the military out of politics. That's fundamental to the health of this republic. You never want the military in actual politics. Very dangerous. So we need to keep the military out of politics. We need to keep it apolitical and nonpartisan at all times. And we're committed to that. Since you took over the chairmanship, October 1 of 2019, is there anything that you have done in that time period that you would do differently that you've learned from to at least avoid the perception that it is more about politics than guidance and leadership? Yeah, I gave remarks at the graduation speech at N.D.U. a couple of years ago. When I walked from the White House to outside with President Trump toward what is a political event. Look, President Trump could do whatever he wants to do. He's a politician, but I'm not. And because I went out there in that uniform, that was a terrible moment for the United States military. And it gave the perception of politicization. It wasn't intentional. It was done by accident on my part. As soon as I realized there was a political event, I walked away from it. But I got to tell you, that photo is out there. It's all over the place. And that did a lot of damage to the military, for which I will always regret. That had nothing to do with President Trump or anybody in the White House. That had to do with me walking out there. It was wrong and I knew it as soon as it happened. 30 seconds after, that's why I walked away. But that one moment was captured and that was one of the things as an example of lessons learned. Thank you, General. Thank you, Sir. I yield back. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, ranking member. General Milley, thank you for that candor. I appreciate that statement. Gentlemen, to both of you, obviously what we've seen with the security environment and what I call the swath of the Sahel is deteriorating. Since 2018, the area has experienced an over 200% increase in Islamic Veo violence in Western Niger, Burkina Faso, and in Mali. In Burkina Faso alone, we're seeing U.S. designated terrorist groups, including the Islamic State, control much of Burkina Faso's national territory, especially in the northern and eastern regions. Chairman Milley, first, what's your assessment of the expanding violence in and across the Sahel? And second, as we focus on great power competition with China and Russia, can you discuss why we should care about counter Veo and counter terrorism efforts in Africa? The various groups that are in Africa, both East Africa and West Africa, have expanded in their capability. They do have aspirational intent to strike either the United States or our interests in Europe or elsewhere. They haven't done it yet, but they have the aspiration to do that. The particular threats that you're talking about in West Africa are expanding. They are moving down towards the coast. They're destabilizing large sections of West Africa. Does it matter to the United States? Is there a national security interest at stake there? That's for others to decide. I would argue, though, that there are some key countries there that if they became destabilized, there would be a spillover effect, and that's why we have a limited number of groups working in train-advise-assist missions to help those countries secure themselves against those threats. These are al-Qaeda-affiliated organizations, by the way. This isn't just a local group of guerrillas for whatever their local reason is. These guys are like ISIS. They're al-Qaeda derivatives. They have an ideology. It is not an existential threat to the United States. It's not like a Russia or China, but they can do significant damage as we saw in 9-1-1. And if we don't attend to it with a modest amount of resources, then the problem will get worse. And therefore, there are a threat to any American troops that we have in that area. Absolutely. Secretary Austin, of that note, last year it appears to have been the deadliest for civilians in Burkina Faso, with the state experiencing two military coups, regional assurgencies linked to al-Qaeda, as the general just mentioned, and the Islamic State, and overt outreach from the Wagner group even. Last March, the former commander of U.S. Afrikom submitted an endorsement to provide our service members stationed in Burkina Faso with imminent danger pay. And last week, U.S. Afrikom, at a posture hearing right here, General Langley reaffirmed that our service members there should receive IDP. Secretary Austin, do you believe that the security environment warrants these benefits for our service members in those countries? Excuse me, in Burkina Faso. I do, sir. And because of that, we very recently designated Burkina Faso as an imminent danger pay area. And that will be effective retroactively back to February 1st, 2022. Outstanding. Thank you. And I appreciate that. Moving on though, because I can't just let it go there, I've worked with my colleague, Austin Scott, on designated Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, and Niger as qualified hazard duty areas to support our service members as they face considerable expanding threats in that region and providing them with tax exclusion benefits. Would you assess the security situation in Chad, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger as warranting consideration for qualified hazardous duty area designation? As we did with Burkina Faso, we're gonna have to go back and look at all of the things that go into the decision making process on this. And where appropriate, we'll make sure we're doing the right things, but it's important to me to take care of our troops. As it is for me, and if there's anything I can do to help you with that, Mr. Secretary and General, please let me know. Gentlemen, thank you very much. I yield back. Thank the gentleman. Chair, I recognize you. I'm from Florida, Mr. Mills for five minutes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Gentlemen, thank you so much for being here today. As someone who's actually served in the military, we understand, and I think that you would both agree, General Milley and Secretary Austin, that if an officer has a dereliction of duty, there are many articles which could remove him for that reasoning, is that correct? And do we understand that my definition and understanding of dereliction of duty is a person's purposeful or accidental failure to perform his obligations? Do we agree with that? There's also willful dereliction of duty, which in my opinion is nothing more than a failure through negligence. Now, Secretary Austin, we have seen where we have failed to secure a status of forces agreement during Iraq withdrawal, which has now allowed ISIS to retake key locations of Baghdad. We have Afghanistan in the control of the Taliban, Heqani network, ISIS course on, with billions of dollars in weapons, armament, defense articles, millions of dollars in cash, thereby actually creating probably one of the most well-funded and well-positioned terrorist organizations in the world, even though our intent in going to Afghanistan was actually to stop it from being a safe haven of terrorism. We have Libya, which is controlled by a UN-backed government that faces challenges from militia groups who threaten the stability across the entire region. And we have Syria, which is fractured between the Assad regime, the Russian military, militia groups, and ISIS, plus the United States, continuing to be the recipient of missile and rocket attacks that's resulted recently in the loss of American lives. And as my colleague Representative Johnson had pointed out, also not abiding by law. Many of these things are very personal to me. One is a United States Army combat veteran myself, but one, in understanding that leadership is lead by example. And in my opinion, this example has not been very strong. That is why we have 8,400 people who is purged as a result of the vaccine, which I find to be unconstitutional and support them being reinstated with full pay, back benefits, and their ability to serve their country, not the political agenda. But Afghanistan is near and dear to my heart because before I ran for, when I was running for Congress, actually, and before I was elected member, I helped to conduct one of the very first successful overland rescues of Americans who were left behind in this botched withdrawal. And we also know that there was officers who were deployed and military members who were deployed like Sergeant Vargas Andrews, who could have actually have engaged and taken out the suicide bomber in Afghanistan at the Abbey Gate, but had no escalation of force and no rules of engagement to be able to do so. The idea of being deployed and going downrange without a clear escalation of force and rules of engagement, even after receiving a Bolo and identifying the target is a failure in leadership. In my opinion, this is willful. That is why Secretary Austin, but not only do I believe that you should have resigned as a result of this continuation and this path, but I myself perceive this as their election of duty. And I take that very seriously, especially for our armed service members and those who are looking for accountability as a result of this botched withdrawal, based on my perception and having conducted these operations and seeing how political optics was placed above the true military strategy where we should have held Bagram Air Base, held the detention center, had it conducted withdrawal as a way of supposed to not shut down and entrap Americans by taking over H. Chi, the commercial airspace and abandoning thousands of Americans, not to mention our SIV and the friends of those who have fought beside us proudly and honorably, who are being methodically and systematically murdered now, who trusted the American people for 20 plus years and the increase in suicide rates of American soldiers who spiked over 25 after this failed withdrawal as a result of them feeling as if they had failed. That is why Secretary Austin and based on further hearings and investigations, I've already drafted my articles of impeachment for the dare election of duty. I do feel there needs to be accountability at the top and at the highest levels. And I hope that we can get true accountability with future hearings and investigations and your testimonies that would actually either substantiate or discredit my beliefs. With that, I yield back. Gentlemen's Times expired. Gentlemen from Texas, Mr. Visee is recognized for five minutes. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. I have several questions I don't wanna ask but before I get to that, I wanted to know Secretary Austin if you wanted a chance to be able to respond to Congressman Mills' comments. Well, the Congressman's certainly welcome to his opinion. You know, we all thank you for your service. I, you know, I don't take a back bench to, when it comes to patriotism or devotion to our cause here or protection of our troops. I don't take a back bench to anybody. In the short 41 years that I spent in uniform, you know, I, about six years, almost six years of that was in a combat zone. So I get it. And I command it. I command it, Boggram Air Force Base. So I know a little bit about Boggram Air Force Base. But again, you're welcome to your opinion. And so I'll leave it at that. Yeah. It's my time to speak, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Visee is recognized. Secretary Austin, I hear from service members often about delay or issues with their pay and entitlements, especially when they PCS duty stations. And I know that these delays may result in service members having to manage large amounts of debt, which in turn may negatively impact their credit rating and security currents. I was hoping that you could tell me what the department is doing to minimize these issues across the service. Could you say that last piece? I was wondering if you could tell me what the department is doing to minimize these issues across the services. Well, we always want to do everything we can to make sure that we're responsive in terms of taking care of our troops. I expect that our commanders at every level will work to make sure that their personnel, personal services are being provided in a timely and effective manner. And those things that are systemic, that rise to our level, certainly our PNR section will continue to focus on making sure that we eliminate barriers to providing compensation. Thank you very much. Chairman Milly, when you talk about retention, we obviously need to talk about quality of life infrastructure. And I know that across the department, barracks, dormitories are in poor and failing condition. As a matter of fact, whenever you go in a co-dale, that's the first thing that they wanna talk with you about before they show you anything else that's going on the base is the need for infrastructure. And across the department, and I know that this is not merely a matter of basic keep up, I'm talking about buildings that are long past our service life, buildings that do not meet the department's own standards and policies for housing service members. And I hear anecdotally that conditions in some barracks are so bad that service members fear for their safety and are worried that broken windows could allow people to break into their rooms. We hear a lot of people talking about this being a top priority for departments, but according to the last several budgets, they are an unfunded priority at best. Giving competing military construction priorities, what innovative solutions are you looking at to ensure that service members are housed appropriately and how do you protect facilities sustainment funds that have been used as a bill payer across multiple administrations to fund higher priorities? Yeah, your last point is the most critical one. To protect the funds for the sustainment of these facilities. We have 560 or so camps, posts and stations around the world. Barracks are on almost all of those and a lot of these barracks are in disrepair and is probably in the range of 10 to 15% or at the lowest ratings. So that's the ones that they work on through milk on this point 1.2 is in terms of privatized housing or not privatized housing, but military housing, we got about a quarter of a million housing units that were responsible for throughout the entire uniformed military at all those bases. Of those, a lot of that at ours, almost all of it has been privatized. That is probably the best methodology technique, but we also have to make sure that we have adequate accountability of the civilian companies that are running these things because we have had issues with PFAS, we have had issues with mold, et cetera. So privatization is the best technique to do that for the actual housing on base housing, but that requires supervision and oversight by all of us, especially commanders, post commanders to make sure that they're fulfilling their duties. Thank you very much. I yield back my time, thank you. Gentlemen yields back. Gentlemen from Georgia, Mr. McCormick has recognized for five minutes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and thank you all for appearing before us today. Particularly what I understand is your last appearance before the committee, General Milley, in your capacity currently. In order to trust that future defense spending is gonna be used appropriately, I think you can see we have, with the Afghan veterans especially, just that we're held accountable to learn from our past mistakes and I hope we admit that we make some of mistakes. I'm cognizant that you guys have engaged in plenty of post-mortems inside the Department of Defense and Congress with our withdrawal from Afghanistan. And General Milley, I appreciate your prior candor in finding it as a logistical success but a strategic failure, end quote. I was a logistician in a squadron and I was in Afghanistan as the head of emergency medicine in Kandahar. My opinion would be strategically, tactically and logistically we kind of failed in this war. We talk about the money in military spent over there in Afghanistan and as usage strategically, we spent 20 years over $2 trillion in lives of about 20, over 2,400 Americans to take a country from the Taliban only to end up with the Taliban owning that territory again. Before the withdrawal we had, I would make the argument that Kabul was probably safer than Chicago and women had the ability to participate in the workforce, politics and had relative freedoms that they no longer have. And now this country strategically is housing terrorist groups again against the United States. So strategically I have questions about our engagement tactically in our withdrawal. We gave up Bagram and I appreciate your prior service and I really do mean that. You both served your country honorably but we didn't really give a fight. We didn't authorize deadly force in certain scenarios which I think would have been appropriate. And I think we resulted, the result was the single greatest loss of life in about 10 years which I think we'd all agree was at least tragic. Logistically we left behind $86 billion of military equipment, some of it brand new which can now be used against us like it's been found to be used in Kashmir against India. I think it's fair to say some of it could show up in Ukraine if Russia's so deemed to purchase it from the bad guys which I wouldn't put them above. I think we really need closure and we need healing on this topic. I think everybody agrees that I don't care if you're Democrat or Republican when we need closure and the only way to do that is to at least admit that we made some mistakes and that there's accountability which I don't feel like as a veteran of this war that we have accountability. So with that I just wanna ask whose plan was it that we executed for the withdrawal and did we have accountability for the mistakes made? When you say plan, do you mean decision or what are you? The plan, obviously the decision that comes from the Commander-in-Chief but the plan executed, where did that plan originate that we executed? Well, certainly the SENTCOM Commander is a guy who puts the plan together, his staff with the joint staff and we integrate all elements from the interagency to make sure that it's supported but it's Department of Defense, that's right. If I could just make a comment. Yes, sir, of course. There's really two plans. Plan one is done by Scott Miller, subordinate to Central Command, so Central Command owns it. That is the withdrawal of U.S. military forces. That was done by July 3rd, 4th with zero casualties. All U.S. military equipment was taken out. The military equipment you're referring to and it's not 84 billion, it's seven billion according to the SEGAR, that military equipment was transferred over a course of years, that 86 billion, that's 20 years worth of military equipment transferred to the Afghan security forces. That's not U.S. military leaving that equipment. That's a little bit of a mischaracterization out there. So that's $7 billion worth of military equipment that was transferred to the Afghan security forces was left behind because the Afghan security forces dissolved. So plan one was the U.S. military departs, July 4th or so, they did. And then we had to secure the embassy with about 700 personnel. You can't secure a bargram and the embassy with 700 personnel. And it took 8,000 personnel to secure. With due respect, sir. I'm sorry. You're making a good, you're making a good case. Withdrawal plan and the neoplan. Okay, so. The neoplan is done by SEGAR. I guess my point is we made some strategic, I see me tactical errors. There were strategic mistakes made over 20 years. Yes, sir. And I can point to every one of them. There's a huge amount of mistakes. I guess my point is, have we held anybody accountable for those mistakes? I will tell you, from my perspective, there were many people over the course of 20 years that were held accountable for writing things. I'm just gonna say at the strategic level, I'm out of time, so I'm just gonna say, I appreciate it, but I will say, hopefully we'll have some true accountability for the ultimate decision maker. There's a large AER. The gentleman's time has expired, the gentleman's foot. This is an AER, five minutes. And we owe you that. The Chicana has the time. Thank you, Mr. Chair. General Milley, I wanna thank you for your distinguished service to our country. And I appreciate both you and Secretary Austin sticking around till 3 p.m., commitment to the democratic process. I would argue that the United States Department of Defense has been the most innovative institution, probably in humanity over the last 50 years. When you look at what has come out of the Department of Defense, obviously things that have helped my district, the internet, the mouse, GPS, radar, stealth technology. I have a joke with the entrepreneurs. I said, yeah, you commercialized it, but the Department of Defense invented it. And this has been the history of DARPA and other institutions. I wanna make sure that we stay the most innovative Department of Defense. And to that point, Secretary Austin, I commend you for starting the Strategic Capabilities Fund, which is going to be investing in cutting edge technology that could be disruptive. I guess I am puzzled and maybe you can help and generally give us some guidance on how we solve this issue of getting funding to the Strategic Capabilities Fund and how we get more of the funding put into the purchase of advanced technology, not just the funding of the companies, but actually the acquisition. Because we've got almost a trillion dollars which we're heading into the defense budget. Here we're talking about a few billion dollars and yet it seems hard to get that funding and the challenge with China and others, as you know, is asymmetrical. They're not gonna compete with us conventionally. So it seems to me very prudent that we take asymmetrical bets. And I just love with that, I have one question. And my question is just how do we get more of the acquisition into emerging technologies and asymmetrical approaches and what can Congress do to help? And I love both Secretary Austin and General Milley's comments on it. Well, we certainly worked hard to stand up this office because we think it's important to incentivize investors to help create the technology that we need. We've accounted for some of this in our budget. We're partnering with a small business bureau to make sure that we're pulling every lever. We have initiatives such as Raider, which is incentivizes small businesses to come forward with the technology that we've said that we need to help the war fighters so that we can create relevant capability for the war fighters now. And so that has created things like, you've heard us talk about switchblade that's been relevant for the Ukrainians in this fight over the last year. We're able to get that to the war fighters in really record time because of the initiatives like that. So we'll stay after this, but I agree with you this is really, really important that we try to do everything we can to speed technology being introduced at scale where appropriate to support our war fighters. General Milley? Same thing. I think the importance of it is critical. As I mentioned several times today, this change in the character of war is on us and we are seeing the rapid advance of a whole series of technologies that are gonna fundamentally change how militaries fight. And it's not gonna look like it did before. So the faster we get after this and the better we integrate these technologies into our military, the better off we're gonna be against China or Russia or anybody else for that matter. So I think speed and sense of urgency is critical and we need all the help we can get from Congress for that. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Will the gentleman yield? Yes. Secretary Austin, is it the position of the Department of Defense that we need to keep the 2002 AUMF? You're asking me if that's a decision by the Department of Defense? Is it your position? That's something that Congress will decide. If we repeal the 2002 AUMF, will it? What I ask for is that we have the relevant authorities to do the work that we need to do against transnational terrorist organizations. But the 2002 AUMF was about Saddam, right? It was and 2001 AUMF provides us what we need. Still? We still need the 2002 AUMF, you think? 2001 AUMF provides us what we need in terms of authorities. So in your mind, we could repeal 2002 then? That's up to Congress, but if Congress does that, then we still have the ability to do what we need to do based upon the 2001. Thank you. I appreciate the gentleman. I support that questioning. Yeah, I appreciate the gentleman yielding on a matter of mutual interest. The gentleman from New York, Mr. Lillow, does recognize for five minutes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Secretary Austin, in your opening statement, you referenced several DOD initiatives good for the quality of life of our troops, including access to childcare, more affordable products to commissary and better base housing. And these are commendable advances and I know our troops appreciate them. As you know, Mr. Secretary, another way we take care of our troops overseas is by having proper and enforceable status of forces agreements with our allies. And these compacts guarantee our service members certain rights when they're overseas, including rights the Americans are generally comfortable with when they're under arrest by a government. Can you tell us, Mr. Secretary, how important you think status of forces agreements are, both with respect to troop welfare and mission accomplishment? I think they're really important. I want to go into a little more depth, Mr. Secretary. Yeah, it's very difficult to us to operate in an area where we don't have the ability to protect our troops. And so it's important that we do everything we can to go after the right measures to ensure those protections. In the United States, if a citizen is arrested, there are four basic rights, like a right to a lawyer if they request one. Mr. Secretary, do you think that our troops overseas, if they're arrested by a friendly foreign nation, should also be afforded to the right to attorney before being questioned? Yeah, and I think those things ought to be addressed as we work out those visiting forces agreements. But yes, I always want to make sure that our troops have access to legal counsel. In a friendly foreign nation, when in U.S. service members, liberty is at risk, and when that friendly foreign nation doesn't have English as their primary language, do you think our troops should be afforded to the right to a translator, Mr. Secretary? I do, but again, if there are specific cases that you're talking about, again, we probably ought to talk about what those specifics are. Are you familiar with the case of Lieutenant Ridge Alconas, Mr. Secretary? I am. Would you mind telling me a little bit about it? Yeah, he was charged with the killing of a couple of Japanese citizens as a result of an automobile accident. Right, no drugs or alcohol were involved. He was on a liberty weekend coming back from Mount Fuji, I understand, innocently fell asleep at the wheel, which resulted in the death of two Japanese nationals. He admitted to guilt. He was of the understanding that if he admitted to that guilt, and if he paid a restitution of about $1.5 million, half came from insurance, half came from his own personal funds, that he was led to believe that his liberty would no longer be at risk. Currently, he's serving three years into a sentence in a Japanese jail with subhuman standards, Mr. Secretary. Notwithstanding that, the committee does understand that our relationship with Japan is critical to our strategic interests in the region. We know that the most dangerous conflict if it comes will be with one with China, and possibly with North Korea. We understand value of that relationship, but the unjust imprisonment of Lieutenant Alconas has begun to erode that relationship, and looking how harsh our ally has treated the Lieutenant, including being confined without any real basic rights that might be afforded to a U.S. prisoner, it's starting to erode that relationship and having a chilling effect on our troops. Mr. Secretary, a prisoner transfer request under the Council of Europe Treaty has been submitted to resolve this issue and to bring Lieutenant Alconas home. The President, the Vice President, and the National Security Advisor have all personally pledged, not only for the prisoner transfer request, but also to the Alconas family. Is your department doing anything to execute the Commander-in-Chief's intention to bring Lieutenant home? We continue to work with the interagency to provide support wherever we can. Great, and my time is almost up, Mr. Secretary. So I want to leave you with two things. I hope that the department continues to use all the tools at its disposal to bring the Lieutenant home, but going forward that we negotiate proper and forcible status of forces agreements that give our forces overseas the basic civil rights that are afforded to most Americans without a yield back. Gentleman yields back. Mr. Finstead of Minnesota's recognized for five minutes. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Mr. Secretary and General, for being here. I appreciate the time you've given us today and just really want to say thank you for your service. Both of you have touched on the importance of the industrial base and ways in which the President's budget will benefit and strengthen that. While this may be true in some cases, there's still quite a bit of a concern with the recent growth in our outsourcing of many critical aspects to our supply chain, and most notably, critical minerals. It's been widely reported that in the last couple of decades, China has significantly increased its footprint, most notably in the mining and mineral processing realm. And as someone from Minnesota, you can imagine that this is concerning for me. And so at the same time, we've really undervalued the critical minerals that we have here at home, again, including my home state of Minnesota. So Mr. Secretary, what's your level of concern with China's newfound global dominance over strategic resources and critical minerals? And what concern do you have if we were to find ourselves in a position of direct conflict with China on that front? Well, critical minerals are important to us, obviously, and you see us asking for the monies to invest in critical minerals. I think we're asking for $253 million to support that effort. We're doing a number of things to reshore some of the capabilities that we need for our supply chain to the United States of America. So this is important, and where we can, we will continue to stockpile critical minerals that support the important weapons and munitions that we'll need to maintain our competitive edge. I appreciate that, Mr. Secretary, and I would just very humbly ask that you use that wisdom and knowledge to communicate with your fellow members of the cabinet and the administration to really hammer home the importance of us being able to provide those critical minerals. And we know we can do that right here in the U.S., and now is not the time to sit back and let others do it. We have to take ownership of that and control of that. So again, I appreciate your answer. I appreciate you being here today. Mr. Chair, I would yield back. Gentlemen, yields back, and we'll take one moment as this makes our way to the chair. General Lady from South Carolina has been recognized for five minutes. All right, thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, gentlemen and generals, for being with us this afternoon. And it's an honor to serve on the Armed Services Committee. My father served for 28 years in the United States military and have many family that are serving in our active duty today. So I appreciate your time and your commitment to our country and to our questions today. I've been deeply concerned about what's been going on. It's watching the invasion of Russia and Ukraine, watching China line up with Russia as well, and looking at some of the technology advances that have been happening over the last, not just a couple of months, but also a couple of years in cybersecurity and in AI. And would just like to ask you generally, your thoughts on seeing some of the technology advances, my sense is, and whether or not to that we are ready, we have the resources financially to support what's going on within DOD with regards to cyber and the advances we're seeing in AI, because my sense of it is that this is gonna happen so fast. And we're seeing advances quickly and swiftly in ways that we've never seen before, I even could even imagine. And my sense is that DOD and the Pentagon, they're going to, you all will be the most, I think, prepared for the future in technology with regards to our defenses and even offense. But I am worried about China and what they're doing and their investment in AI and other technologies. And wanted to get your sense too of the technological resources that we have, the partnering with private industry and within the DOD and how you see that moving forward. How do we stay ahead of China? How do we learn from what the war in Ukraine and Russia's invasion and sort of this new battle front? I'm curious to sort of get your thoughts on some of that too today. Certainly share your concern on, in terms of our ability to not only keep pace, but stay ahead of advancements. And that's why we're investing, we're asking to invest $145 billion into our DT&E, some $13 billion into cyber, which I think is critical. And also the investments that we're making, we're looking to invest $1.8 billion into AI. And it's things like that to your point that will help us maintain a competitive edge. Now we're not just doing things by ourselves, but we're working with allies and partners as well. And one of the benefits that AUKUS brings is that it enables us to not only work on conventionally armed nuclear powered submarines with our allies, but we're also working on other things like long range fires, hypersonics, AI, and those kinds of things. And so working together with our allies and partners I think is key. And that creates, that'll magnify our efforts going forward. And some of those countries have great capability. Congressman, I would say you're exactly right. Time is key here, sense of urgency is key. And I try to mention that in my opening statement, the Secretary mentioned it, it's so important. In terms of time, I think we're probably inside of 10, maybe we have 15, I don't think so. I think it's probably in around 10 years. The key technologies, precision guided munitions, they've been around for 30, 40 years. You combine that with the ability to see, we can see today like we've never been able to see in human history. Combine that with the ability to crunch numbers, quantum computing, artificial intelligence, and combine with robotics in about four or five, maybe six other really key technologies that are all converging in time and space. The nation state that maximizes those technologies with a way of war and optimizes them in the military is gonna have a decisive advantage in all the domains, space, cyber, land, sea, air. That's fundamental. This fight up, this budget is really critical to that and maybe the next one. But this one has gotta put us on the path to really transform this military into that operating environment. If we fail to do so, we're gonna be on the wrong side of the curve relative to China or Russia. Both of them have access to the same technologies we do. Whoever goes fast and gets there first will have a decisive advantage in my view. Right, and I agree with that assessment and I certainly don't want China eating our lunch in that regard because it's important for us to lead and to win in that. In terms of the budget and looking at that and the resources that we're investing there, our long term or even short term of the next five, 10 years, are we seeing enough recruitment in this area to be able to fill some of the positions? Are we relying very heavily on private industry? Where's that balance of finding the right assets to help with and assist in that investment, those investments we're making? You mean? Recruiting for the military, for some of those jobs. For the military? Mm-hmm. Yeah, you've heard us talk about recruiting a number of times a day and this remains a point of focus for us. I truly believe that based upon the things that we're doing, we're going to continue to recruit and retain high quality people. And again, the fact that we're working and leading the way in some of these advance investments will help in that regard. I think young people want to work with things like this and want to work in space and cyber. And so I'm optimistic that we will be able to recruit the right kinds of people. The gentlelady's time has expired. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Thanks to the witnesses for their participation today. It is likely that over the next five legislative days, members will submit additional questions for the record, and we look forward to your prompt response. With that, the committee stands adjourned.