 The committee will come to order. Good morning. The committee meets today to receive testimony in the President's budget request for the Department of Defense for fiscal year 2025. Witnesses this morning are Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Under Secretary of Defense Comptroller Mike McCord and Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff General C. Q. Brown, Jr. I'd like to take the moment to recognize that this is General Brown's first posture hearing before the committee as chairman of the Joint Chiefs. We're grateful for our witnesses for their service and for their testimony today. This is a critical moment for our national security. There is broad consensus among Congress, the White House, and the Department of Defense about the threats we face. We know that China seeks to challenge the security and economic interest of the United States and our allies, and that it increasingly has the ability to do so. We know that Vladimir Putin is committed to recreating his vision of the old Soviet Empire, and that his war against Ukraine is one step toward that vision. And we know that Iran is seeking to exploit the war between Israel and Hamas, expelled the United States from the region, and further sabotage the free world's role in the Middle East. It is worth knowing that each of these threats I just mentioned can be addressed to the national security supplementary that the Senate passed nearly two months ago. The bill would support Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan, provide humanitarian relief in Gaza, and replenish the U.S. defense industrial base. Indeed, the dire humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the separate fight for freedom in Ukraine demand our immediate attention. The most important step Congress can take right now is to pass this legislation, and I urge the House to vote on it. Last month, President Biden released his fiscal year 2025 budget request for the Department of Defense, with a top line of $850 billion. I understand that this budget is below what the Department had planned for fiscal year 2025, but it adheres to the cap set by last year's debt ceiling agreement known as the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023. In effect, the Department of Defense had to follow the law and submit this level of funding to the Congress. I expect a stand in recess for a moment. We will resume. Senator, it's a liability of being unusually tall. Again, the Department is responding to the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 in terms of the budget they had to present, and I expect there'll be a discussion today about whether this top line is adequate to meet the national security challenges we face. This was a demand by Republicans in the House in order for us to pass the debt ceiling, and that has constrained your operations and your budgeting, and we understand that. With those limits in mind, the President's defense budget requests well to the national, aligns well to the national security threats before us. As the National Defense Strategy makes clear, the United States is in a long-term strategic competition with China and Russia, and we will continue to face persistent threats from Iran, North Korea, violent extremist groups, and issues like climate change. During today's hearing, I would ask our witnesses to explain how the President's fiscal year 2025 budget request supports the National Defense Strategy, the Nuclear Posture Review, and the Missile Defense Review. Keeping our competition with China front and center, this budget request includes $9.9 billion for priorities covered by the Pacific Defense Initiative, or PDI. I am encouraged by the progress we have made through PDI thus far, and this committee will continue working to help improve the design and posture of the joint force in the Indo-Pacific region. This should include strengthening logistics, modernizing infrastructure, conducting exercises and training, and building the capabilities of our allies and partners. Indeed, our approach to the Indo-Pacific should continue to be informed, in part by lessons drawn from the European Defense Initiative, or EDI, which has played a decisive role in strengthening U.S. force posture and enhancing the readiness of allies and partners in Europe over the last 10 years. The Department's fiscal year 2025 budget request includes $2.9 billion for EDI-related investments and $300 million for the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative. I am encouraged that the President's budget request would provide significant funding to strengthen America's cyber defenses and develop cutting-edge technology such as hypersonics, microelectronics, artificial intelligence, 5G, and quantum computing. Our strategy towards China and Russia should not be defined in dollars by how much, but rather where and why we are investing to achieve the greatest comparative advantage. I am also pleased to see that this budget request prioritizes taking care of our men and women in uniform by providing a 4.5% pay raise and an increase in basic needs allowance eligibility, expanding the benefits for military families. These actions center an important message to the force at a time when recruiting is particularly challenging. With regard to our nuclear strategy, this budget request supports important steps for the modernization of our nuclear triad. Given Putin's reckless behavior and China's rapidly growing nuclear capabilities, we must continue to modernize our strategic forces to reassure our allies and deter aggression from our nuclear armed competitors. Even as we modernize, we should seek ways to promote strategic stability, reduce the risk of miscalculation, and, if possible, reduce nuclear stockpiles. Finally, the proposed investment in next-generation combat aircraft, tactical vehicles, and naval vessels is a prudent decision. However, there are a number of long-sending challenges for our defense acquisition system that must be addressed to effectively field these platforms. I understand that the military services have made difficult but practical decisions in this budget request to identify supply chain problems, pinpoint shortages in critical materials, and to reinvigorate their defense force. In particular, the Navy has requested $2 billion to improve the capabilities of the submarine industrial base, and I would appreciate our witnesses' views on how Congress can help to overcome these issues. Again, I thank the witnesses for their participation today, and I look forward to the testimonies. Now, let me recognize the ranking member, Senator Werner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Today's hearing is an opportunity to take stock in our national security over the past year and examine how the Department of Defense is preparing for the future. Unfortunately, the security environment, as we all know, has deteriorated significantly since we last had this hearing. Armed conflict is ongoing in multiple continents. Regional instability threatens peace and prosperity and freedom around the world, and several Malan nations are forming a new axis of evil. We're approaching a window of maximum danger. Despite this, our government is failing to modernize our defense capabilities and to provide sufficient resources to fund our national defense strategy. Xi Jinping will continue China's historic military modernization with another 7.2 percent defense budget increase this year. China's military production rates, advanced training improvements, and innovation strategies are troubling, and they're stunning. In addition to Xi's designs on Taiwan, there's a very real prospect of Chinese action against our Filipino treaty allies in the South China Sea. Both will test American resolve. Outgunned and outmanned, the brave defenders in Ukraine have exceeded expectations in holding the line against the Russian dictator Putin's army. If Congress passes a supplemental, we can help Ukraine win. But to make that happen, the Biden administration will need to articulate a real plan for provisioning and training Ukrainian forces at scale once Congress passes the supplemental appropriation bill. And I share the chair's comments about the decision that the House of Representatives led by the Speaker will have to make this week. This is an occasion that history will look back on. This is a time for statesmanship and bipartisanship. And I certainly share the chair's hope that this supplemental will be enacted and signed into law very, very soon. I'm disappointed in the drip, drip, drip approach to military aid that has characterized this administration's policy thus far. As to General Brown, I would appreciate your comments on the situation in Ukraine and whether a more timely, aggressive posture toward training and equipping the Ukrainians is called for after the hopeful passage of the supplemental. U.S. strikes in Iraq and Syria lead to a temporary pause by Iran-backed terrorist groups. But those attacks have restarted. By contrast, we've still not figured out how to compel the Houthis to stop attacking maritime trade. I would remind my colleagues that central command per national defense strategy was supposed to be an economy of force theater in which we relied upon our allies. Instead, the administration has ignored our allies and partners for the most part in the Middle East and the damage to long-term U.S. interests could be profound. We face threats on multiple fronts. On top of that, the threats are worsening at a pace that our national defense strategy simply does not contemplate. Secretary Austin and General Brown, I would welcome both of your comments on whether you think it's time to actually rewrite that national defense strategy. Is it adequate for the threats that I've mentioned? And let me say this with regard to my good friend's comments with regard to the CAHPS in the Fiscal Responsibility Act. I disagree that the administration was prevented from asking more for national security and national defense than is contained in the Fiscal Responsibility Act CAHPS. As a matter of fact, the president's budget request for FY25 with regard to domestic spending is some $76 billion over the fiscal responsibility CAHPS. And for some reason, the administration chose to adhere to that CAHPS only with regard to our most important duties, and that is defending this country and making sure our national security is in order. So we'll have a discussion about that. I do have confidence that working together with members on either side of the dais, the chair and I, we'll be able to work alongside the committee members and get closer to where we need to be with regard to defending our country and keeping the peace. What is alarming more than that and should be clear to members on both sides of the aisle is that our budgetary resourcing does not meet even the inadequate defense strategy we do have. We're dealing with a recruitment crisis, a languishing industrial base, an acquisition of bureaucracy and massive maintenance backlogs. We need to invest more and we need to invest more wisely. We should cut red tape, speed up the acquisition process, guard against unnecessary requirements, creep and use more innovative companies, which can respond to defense needs at the speed of relevance. More military spending is absolutely necessary but it alone will not fix our problems. We can never directly outspend the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative, for example. And there are other forms of predatory investment. However, we have the deepest and broadest capital markets in the world. They can be used on behalf of the American people living inside the United States and we should actively work to bring those capital markets to bear outside the United States for national security purposes. Mr. Secretary, you've championed the Office of Strategic Capital and the team there can do this work if you direct them to. Mr. Secretary, we have much work to do, no time to lose. Unfortunately, the time, the last time we were together we discussed what I can only describe as, and I must say this, the contempt with which this administration has treated Congress. When we pass a law and the president signs it into law, that is the law of the land and we would appreciate it being adhered to by the administration. Your responsiveness to many of my simple inquiries, Mr. Secretary, has been lacking to say the least. To take but two examples, you failed to follow the law and canceled the sea-launched cruise missile again. We'll of course have to revisit that in the NDAA and you have decided not to implement my provision from the Merit Act again, which has been enacted by both houses and signed by the president. Your department has also failed to act on simple provisions of the law which would help repair the relationship between you and the elected representatives of the public in Congress. I hope we can fix these issues this year. Thank you, Senator Reid. Thank you very much, Senator Wicker, and now let me recognize Secretary Austin for your testimony. Mr. Secretary, please. Chairman Reid, Ranking Member Wicker, distinguished members of the committee, thanks for the opportunity to testify in support of President Biden's proposed fiscal year 2025 budget request for the Department of Defense. I'm pleased to be joined for the first time by our outstanding chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General C.Q. Brown. I'm also glad to be back with Under Secretary of Defense Mike McCord, the department's comptroller. Case stands it is until the Capitol Police Restore order. The committee will be in order, Secretary Austin. Let me start by thanking this committee for all that you do to support the U.S. military, our troops, and our military families. As Secretary, I've always been guided by three priorities, defending our nation, taking care of our people, and succeeding through teamwork. Our budget request for fiscal year 2025 will advance all three of these priorities. First, the president's request will invest in cutting-edge capabilities across all domains, and that includes $48.1 billion for naval and shipbuilding capabilities to strengthen and modernize our fleet, and $61.2 billion to reinforce U.S. air dominance, and $13 billion to bolster Army and Marine Corps combat capabilities. Our request will also provide $33.7 billion to strengthen our space architecture, and $14.5 billion to develop and field cybersecurity tools. It will direct $49.2 billion to modernize and recapitalize all three legs of our nuclear triad, and it will sharpen our tech edge through a $167.5 billion investment in procurement and $43.2 billion in R&D. Second, this budget request will support our outstanding troops and their families, and that includes raising base pay and housing allowances, investing in better housing, and making childcare more accessible and more affordable. The request will also fund vital work to prevent sexual assault and suicide in the military. And third, this request will help the department further deepen our teamwork around the globe. Our network of allies and partners remains a strategic advantage that no competitor can match, and you can see its power in our strengthening ties across the Indo-Pacific. In today's expanded and United NATO, and in the 50-country Ukraine Defense Contact Group that I convene to ensure that Ukraine can repel Putin's aggression. Our budget remains rooted in our 2022 national defense strategy. Our request positions the United States to tackle the department's pacing challenge, the People's Republic of China, with confidence and urgency. It will also provide resources to meet the acute threat of Putin's increasingly aggressive Russia. It will help us tackle the persistent dangers from Iran, North Korea, and global terrorist organizations and other malign actors. And it will help us continue to deter aggression against the United States and our allies and partners, and to prevail in conflict, if necessary. Now today, I want to underscore three key messages. First, even as our budget request, the committee stands at recess until the Capitol Police can restore the committees and recess. Let me once again reiterate that it is not appropriate for comments or demonstrations by the spectators, audience here. We are conducting a hearing, and we will do so. I would direct the Capitol Police to remove the demonstrators. Mr. Secretary, you're recognized for your remarks. Thank you, Chairman. Again, I want to underscore three key messages. First, even as our budget request abides by the mandatory caps set by the Fiscal Responsibility Act, it is aligned to our strategy. We made tough but responsible decisions in this budget that prioritize near-term readiness, modernization of the force, and support our tremendous troops and their families. Our approach dials back some near-term modernization for programs that are not set to come online until the 2030s, which will require top-line growth and on-time appropriations in future budgets. Second, we can only fully reach the goals of our strategy with your help. I'm grateful that Congress passed the Fiscal Year 2024 appropriations in March, and the single greatest way that Congress can continue to support the Department of Defense is to pass predictable, sustained, and timely appropriations. My third and final message today is that the price of U.S. leadership is real, but it is far lower than the price of U.S. abdication. As the President has said, we are in a global struggle between democracy and autocracy. Our security in these turbulent times relies on Americans' strength of purpose. We remain determined to meet this moment, and that's why our budget request seeks to invest in American security and in America's defense industrial base. It's also why the administration has requested nearly $60 billion in a national security supplemental for the Department of Defense. Now, that supplemental would support our partners in Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan while making investments to increase submarine production. About $50 billion of this supplemental would flow through our industrial base, rushing aid to our partners while creating good American jobs in more than 30 states. I'd like to thank all those who have worked to pass an effective funding package, and now we are more than two years into the Kremlin's war of aggression against Ukraine. And Putin is betting that the United States will falter and abandon our friends and leave Ukraine in mortal danger. If the Kremlin prevails in Ukraine, it would embolden would-be aggressors around the globe. United States would be far less secure if Putin got his way in Ukraine. And President Biden has warned that Putin will not stop at Ukraine. If America walked away, we would put the free world in peril and risk unimaginable cost and dangers. And we know that China and others are watching and learning from what Putin does and how we respond. We look to our partners in Congress to help us make the investments needed to strengthen America's security through both the supplemental and the President's fiscal year 2025 budget request. The U.S. military is the most lethal fighting force on earth. And with your help, we're going to keep it that way. I'm grateful for your support, for our mission, and for our troops. And with that, I look forward to taking your questions. Thank you, Chairman. Thank you very much, Mr. Secretary. General Brown, please. Chairman Reed, Ranking Member Wicker, and distinguished members of the committee. I'm honored to join Secretary Austin and honorable Mike McCord to appear before you today. On behalf of the Joint Force, Department of Defense, civilians, and our families, I want to thank Congress for your steadfast support and the opportunity to testify on the fiscal year 2025 defense budget request, which reflects our shared commitment to our national security. The Gold Security environment is increasingly complex. The 2022 national defense strategy identifies five key challenges. The People's Republic of China, our pacing challenge, continues its risky behavior around the globe. And the aggressive Russia, with its unprovoked war against Ukraine. It is stabilizing North Korea and Iran, which threaten regional security, and violent extremist organizations which leverage instability to advance their cause. These challenges are interconnected, which demands a strategic approach addressing the immediate threats, while also preparing for future contingencies. Days after becoming the chairman, I laid out three expectations in my message to the Joint Force. Holding our work-finding skills has primacy in all we do. Modernizing and aggressively leading with new concepts and approaches, and trust is the foundation of our profession. Our military exists to fight and win our nation's wars. We train every day to ensure what we are so good at what we do that we deter any unnecessary from engaging the U.S. in conflict. This budget requests $147 billion to sustain readiness and ensure the department can counter near-term threats. We're also focused on better integrating our allies and partners in our planning and operations by investing in critical programs and capability, expanding security cooperation, exercises, training, and interoperability. Our investments in readiness ensure the Joint Force can respond when the nation calls. While we remain focused on our readiness for today, it is critical to modernize and lead with new concepts to prepare for tomorrow. The department continues to invest in capability and capacity to outpace our competitors, while transforming from costly legacy platforms that are no longer relevant to the threat. This budget strategically invests $167.5 billion in procurement, underscoring our commitment to equip the Joint Force with unparalleled combat capabilities across every domain. This budget also invests $143.2 billion in research, development, tests, and evaluation of future capabilities that will retain our strategic edge. Finally, this budget invests significantly into nuclear modernization, digital innovation, multi-year procurement of critical munitions, and the strengthened defense industrial base. With rapidly evolving threats and technologies, accelerating our modernization is crucial. Lastly, trust is the foundation of our profession. The Joint Force must build upon and uphold trust in each other, trust with our families, trust of our elected leaders, and trust of our nation. Enhancing the quality of service and quality of life for our personnel is not just a moral obligation, but a strategic imperative. This budget includes investments in quality of service efforts such as advanced training, educational benefits, and career development, while also investing in quality of life projects like housing, medical clinics, and childcare facilities, as well as funding spousal employment initiatives, enhance mental health resources, and our robust programs to combat sexual assault. We must create environment where all can reach their full potential. Trust that our Joint Force stands ready, ready to defend our national interests, ready to deter aggression, and ready, if necessary, to fight and win our nation's wars. I thank you for your support and collaboration in our shared commitment to face the security challenges of today and prepare for tomorrow. We are living in consequential times, and there is no time to waste. Thank you, and I look forward to your questions. Thank you, General Brown. General Lawson, the most pressing issue is the supplemental, in my view, because of the consequences not just in Ukraine, but throughout the world. In fact, CIA Director Burns recently stated, no one is watching U.S. support for Ukraine more closely than Chinese leaders. One of the surest ways to rekindle Chinese perceptions of American fecklessness and stroke Chinese aggressiveness would be to abandon support for Ukraine. Do you think that's an accurate assessment? I do, Chairman. I think we would ask that Congress pass a supplemental as soon as possible. Because Ukraine matters, and the outcome of the conflict in Ukraine will have global implications for our national security as well. We take a look at what Ukraine has done with the support that we provided them, Chairman. It's been quite remarkable. Not only have they stopped a much superior force in terms of quality of equipment and numbers, they've taken back some 50% of the ground that the Russians initially occupied. And so they're not asking for someone to fight the fight for them. They're asking for the means to sustain their efforts. And without security assistance, they won't be able to resupply the much needed air defense interceptors and air defense systems that they need to protect their skies and protect their people. And so we would see things begin to atrophy in a very meaningful way in a short period of time. And so I think it's really important that Congress pass this legislation as quickly as possible. And I would remind everyone that the military doesn't give Ukraine money. It provides security assistance in the form of weapons and munitions. And we replace those weapons and munitions by buying new weapons and munitions for our inventory. And that flows through our industrial base. And so some $50 billion of this request would flow through our industrial base. And it would create good jobs for Americans in some 30 states. And so I think this is about as much about our national security and our industrial base capacity as anything else. But Ukraine matters not only for Europe, it matters for the entire world. Thank you. Shifting gears to another area of contention, the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is something that is obvious to the whole world. The United States is trying to assist. And for many people, this is a moral principle, but it's also, I think, an operational principle because unless you can separate the Palestinian people from Hamas, you'll never defeat Hamas, in my view, that this is something that, operationally, we encountered in Iraq. And you served there, Mr. Secretary. And let me emphasize, Mr. Secretary, rather than your former rank, Mr. Secretary. And you understand, I take these dynamics as well as General Brown. I assume you concur with that comment. Absolutely, Chairman. And if we want to, if Israel wants to create lasting effects, then it must address the humanitarian needs of the Palestinian people, and not in a marginal way, in a meaningful way. And so we continue to encourage the Israeli leadership. And I talked to my counterpart on a weekly basis, I just talked to him yesterday, and encourage them to increase the volume of humanitarian assistance that's going into Ukraine. And we've seen them do that most recently, but we need to sustain that. And the United States continues to do everything that we can to assist. You've seen airdrops on our part, and you see us working to provide a maritime corridor to provide additional assistance as well. And that maritime corridor, in your opinion, is a legitimate mission for the United States military. Both you and General Brown consider that to be a legitimate mission? I do, Chairman. It's, you know, we're using a capability that we have, joint logistics over the shore, and certainly our troops are trained to be able to put this into place. And we expect that the initial operation capability will probably be there being placed by the third week of this month. And so it is something that we have the ability to do, and we should do. And the number one priority is force protection. It is, and it always will be, Chairman. Thank you. Thank you very much. Senator Worker, please. Thank you very much. Secretary Austin, did a genocide occur around the Gaza region, and around the Gaza-Israeli border on October 7 of last year? What we witnessed on October 7, Senator, was a horrific terrorist attack by Hamas. Well, was it a genocide? Well, it... Well, let me be more specific. When non-combatant Israelis were killed, when their families were burned alive, was that a genocide? Well, I, again, Israel suffered a terrific blow when... Okay, so you're not willing to call it a genocide. Was it a war crime? It certainly is a war crime. And when non-combatant Americans were taken prisoner by Hamas, was that a war crime? All of that, the rape, the murder, the taking of hostages, prisoners, all of that was a war crime. Was a war crime. And that, on October 7, that was... The war crime was entirely committed on the part of Hamas that day, was it not? It was. And since that time, General, is it true that Hamas has, in violation of international law, placed civilians in places that they knew would be vulnerable to attack and use civilians as a human shield? We've consistently seen Hamas use civilians as... During the time since October 7, in Gaza, right? That's right. And that is a continuation of war crimes, is it not? It is. Secretary Austin, if Hamas laid down their arms today, would the conflict stop in and around Gaza? It would stop, would it not? It... We certainly would hope so, but that's left to be seen. And I don't want to speculate, but that's the goal. Who started the conflict on October 7? Hamas initiated this conflict, Senator. If Israel laid down its arms today, would Hamas stop their aggression against Israel? I seriously doubt that. They wouldn't, would they? All right. I think we've made that clear. Let me ask this Secretary Austin, with regard to Indo-Paycom, Admiral Equilino has convinced, I think, convinced us that a standing joint task force of... A separate standing joint task force for operations is needed. Are you in support of Admiral Paparo going forward as soon as possible with this standing joint task force? Well, let me just say that it's clear from our strategy and our budget requests, which is linked to our strategy, that the PRC remains our pacing challenge. We've done a lot in terms of force posture and investments in the region to ensure that... I'm aware of that, but my question is specifically about the joint task force. We're going to go forward with it with all due speed. Command and control is really important to me because it's important to all of us. And so what I've asked my team to do is look at this and do an assessment to make sure that we get it right and we understand the operational and cost issues associated with this. And they are doing that and they'll come back to me shortly on that. How soon will they come back to you? In a couple of weeks. And how soon do you think we can then move forward with actually implementing this plan? It really depends on what their assessment is, but as soon as we have a readout, I'll come back and brief you on it. And then finally, do you agree with my opening statement that the Defense Department and the administration could have asked for more? Under the law, they were not constrained to ask for the number much as the defense part of the administration did not feel constrained by the caps. Again, we have to comply with the law. Why did the domestic departments of the Biden administration not comply with those caps? I can't answer that, Senator. Will you acknowledge that the administration asked for far more money above the caps than was provided in that statute and they did not ask for more money with regard to defense spending? You acknowledge that? Well, again, with $850 billion budget, again, what we try to do, what we have done, is link our budget request to our strategy. It's okay if you answer the question. I support the President's budget, Senator. Would you acknowledge that the President's budget request with regard to domestic spending was far in excess of the fiscal responsibility cap? I can't speak to the domestic budget. I can only speak for the defense budget. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Senator Walker. Senator Sheehan, please. Thank you. Thank you, Secretary Austin, General Brown, and Under Secretary McCord for your service to the country. One of the things that I think we would all agree, as we're talking about budgets, is that if Congress would pass the budget bills on time with certainty, it would make the job of budgeting a lot easier. Do you agree with that, Secretary Austin? I think you made that point in your opening statement. I absolutely agree with that, Senator. Thank you. Chairman Reed talked about this, and I think you made it pretty clear, but Senators Gillibrand, Kelly, and I just returned from a trip to the Indo-Pacific. What we heard from our partners was concern that our failure to follow through on our commitment to Ukraine would embolden the PRC. Again, I think you made that pretty clear in your earlier statement, but can you speak again to what the impact would be for global security if we fail to live up to our commitment to Ukraine? It would be a signal that the United States is an unreliable partner, and that would encourage and embolden autocrats around the globe to do the types of things that Putin has done. And it would have an impact not only on Xi, but on Iran as well. Would it not, given that they are the major contributors of drones to Russia and they are benefiting from this war in Ukraine? That's correct, Senator. So if we care about what's happening in Iran, this is a good way to address what's happening there as well, correct? I believe so, Senator. Thank you. Last week, and thank you for taking time to talk with me last week, but one of the things we saw last week was a CBS News investigation, which was the first public report that pointed to evidence of Russia's responsibility in the anomalous health incidents, also known as Havana syndrome. Our office has been in touch with victims almost since the first reporting of those incidents. And what we've heard from a number of those victims is that they believed that there was an adversary who was involved in those incidents. So can you tell me in light of the reports, do you believe that the intelligence community should take another look at its assessment? And you have oversight over two intelligence agencies, the Defense Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency. Have you encouraged them to take another look at the reports and provided any resources towards that action? Let me just say that I take the health and well-being of the force extremely seriously. And I've spoken to leaders in the intelligence community and address this issue with them. They have assured me that they will continue to address and investigate any new evidence that presents itself and they will continue to assess. And the intelligence agencies that are a part of the Department of Defense will continue to support that overall effort. But yes, to answer your question. And so do you consider the revelations from that CBS report that included several other news outlets and a fair amount of real investigation? Do you consider that new information that would warrant that kind of investigation, further investigation? They do. And they're looking into those things, each element of that report. Thank you. And do you have any sense of when you might be able to report back to the committee on what they have found? Do you have any kind of a timeline for that? I don't, but I certainly will get with the leadership of the intelligence community and get a feel for the progress that they're making. Thank you. I would appreciate hearing what they expect and what they're finding out. I think this is both for you, Secretary, and for General Brand. One of the things that we continue to hear about is Russia's malign activities in the information space. And in fact, just this week we heard from two members of the House, the Chair of the Intelligence Committee and the Foreign Relations Committee in the House, that they see Russian disinformation being parroted by members of Republican members of the House. Is this a concern that you all share? And how do the Russian tactics in the information domain address or impact what's happening in Ukraine? Well, the Russians have always endeavored to use to be effective in the information space. And we've seen that from the very beginning here with the Russia-Ukraine conflict, and that work continues to today. And they will also seek to influence attitudes and operations in countries that are supporting Ukraine, not only in the United States, but in other Western countries, and that work continues. But I expect that we'll see that in the future, and there'll be a greater effort on the part of Russia to take advantage of what they consider to be an opportunity here. And so I think anything that we can do to burst Putin's bubble in terms of providing support to Ukraine would be very, very helpful. And a big thing that we can do is pass the supplemental. Thank you. Thank you very much, Senator Shaheen. Senator Fisher, please. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you gentlemen for being here today. Six months ago, the Congressional Commission on Strategic Posture of the United States released their final report on America's strategic posture. This bipartisan bicameral commission found that our nation is on the cusp of having not one but two nuclear peer adversaries, each with ambitions to change the international status quo by force if necessary. A situation which the United States did not anticipate and for which it is not prepared. These conclusions are not surprising. Our plan to nuclear force posture was decided in 2010, when the United States considered Russia to be a partner. And back before China's nuclear breakout, the scale and speed of which were called breathtaking by the commander of U.S. STRATCOM before this committee just two months ago. In order to ensure that we have a safe, reliable, effective, and credible nuclear deterrent as we look to the 2030s and beyond, we need to start laying the groundwork for significant changes now. I strongly encourage Mr. Secretary of the Department to take seriously the recommendations made in the strategic posture commission report. And I am also working with colleagues here to address many of these recommendations through upcoming legislation. Secretary Austin and Chairman Brown, do you agree with the Commissioner's statement that, quote, the nuclear force modernization programs of record are absolutely essential, although not sufficient to meet the new threats posed by Russia and China and that the elements of the program of record should be completed on time, expedited wherever possible, and expanded as needed? Thank you, Senator. And thanks for your sustained support for our efforts to modernize our nuclear triad. We agree with the strategic posture commission that U.S. deterrence remains sound. And we've been taking a fresh look at the assumptions that are underlying our modernization program. And we also agree with the Commission's assessment that the program of record is necessary but may not be sufficient. And to the point that you made, we need to be looking forward and making sure that we have the agility to adjust our modernization program as we go forward to make sure that we not only keep pace but maintain a competitive edge. Thank you, General Brown. Thank you, Senator Fisher. I had the real pleasure to have the Commission come to my office and sit down and brief me here about six weeks ago. And I do agree with their assessment that our nuclear modernization is necessary but not sufficient. One of the areas we did talk about when it comes to deterrence was not only our nuclear capability but also our conventional capability. So it's all things we are doing to modernize our force that will be important to support our nuclear portfolio but also our conventional portfolios as well. Did you discuss with Madeleine Creedon and John Kyle any specific recommendations that are put forward by the report that you would support? We did. I don't have them right off the top of my head. But we came to a pretty good agreement on that. We see I saw the report very much in a way that I think and I really do appreciate the work that they did to highlight the key areas we need to focus on for the joint force. Yeah, they have a number of really great recommendations and we're working on those. Hopefully we'll get by and by this committee and look forward to working with you as well on that. Also, I recognize that the White House tied the department's hands through the Fiscal Responsibility Act. And as soon as the deal was made, we knew that the President's budget request for fiscal year 2025, it just wasn't going to cut it. It's not sufficient. And to be clear, a 1% increase in defense spending is not sufficient. So let me say it is difficult for Congress to budget to pass appropriations bills to meet those threats that this country faces when your department, Mr. Secretary, and this administration do not even acknowledge those threats in the President's budget request that he sends us. Our adversaries, they don't constrain themselves like this. In fact, China has announced it would increase its defense budget by 7.2%. And this is despite significant challenges that the Chinese are now facing in their economy. So, Secretary Austin and Chairman Brown, do you assess that the threats from China, Russia, and our other adversaries are more likely to increase in complexity and severity in the future years? I assume you do. And so I would ask when will you step forward and appropriately offer your concerns on what we need in order to meet those problems, those existential threats that this country faces? Well, thanks, Senator. Again, our budget request is linked to our strategy. And we look at our adversaries over periods of time and not just in the moment. And we know that our adversaries to your point will continue to evolve, and the challenges will increase. Again, given the constraints that we are faced with, we had to make some tough choices. And we made those tough but responsible choices to invest in near-term readiness and to take care of our troops and our families. So, I think, again, based upon where we are, I think our budget request addresses our needs that are outlined in our strategy. I thank the Chairman of this committee and the committee members for two years of going beyond what the budget was that you presented from President Biden to this committee. It is a responsibility of Congress. I agree with Senator Sheen. I am also on Appropriations Committee. And we, as Senator Sheen, Senator Reid and I advocate for what we need, but you also have to be an advocate there. You also have to bring forward a sincere, a thoughtful, a reasonable budget from this administration that addresses the threats that this country faces. We hear it from you, from others within the department, on those threats and classified briefings. This country needs to realize it as well. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much, Senator Fischer. Senator Gillibrand, please. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Secretary Austin, I recently returned from a bipartisan congressional delegation to Asia where we met with key allies and partners and with U.S. forces in the region. I can say that each of the countries where we met with leaders, they were very grateful for the posture in the Indo-Pacific. And very eager to grow it, to expand it, and to deepen it. And so I wanted you to know the feedback was extremely positive of the commitments that you've already made and the great work that our service members were already doing in the region. So thank you for that. With the National Security Supplemental stalled in the House, can you speak to how the lack of funding impacts our strategic posture in the Pacific? And what are we losing in the region by failing to get the Senate passed bill to the President? Well, as you know, Senator, this supplemental not only provides us the ability to provide security assistance to Ukraine, but also our partners in the Indo-Pacific, specifically Taiwan. And so there are provisions in this supplemental request to continue to help Taiwan attain the capabilities to be able to defend itself. And so I think for that reason, it's really important to make sure that we continue to press forward and get the supplemental across the grow line. Military representatives from the U.S. and Indo-Pacific Command met with PRC military representatives for the military maritime consultative agreement working group in Honolulu, Hawaii on April 3rd and 4th. This was the first meeting of its kind since the virtual working group meetings in 2021. What is the goal of the military maritime consultative agreement? And what progress is being made with the PRC to prevent miscalculations and possible escalation within the Indo-Pacum? I think you've heard me say a number of times, Senator, that it's really important in this competitive relationship, and it is a relationship based upon competition, that we have guardrails and that we can prevent incidents from spiraling out of control and causing a conflict at any one point in time. So that dialogue between military professionals I think is really important. We've seen very aggressive behavior in the region by the PRC. We continue to raise these issues to the PRC. This forum allows military professionals to meet and really talk in detail about those issues and talk about things that we can put into place to prevent accidents from happening. Thank you. Secretary Allison, over the last two NDAA cycles I've created the Cyber Service Academy Scholarship Program to provide students with a free education in exchange for post-graduation service in DOD and the intelligence community. As you look at the department's cyber and digital needs, how does this scholarship help DOD meet its mission? Well, it's going to help in a significant way. I mean, this is working with some 420 institutions, providing 100 scholarships this year alone, and that increases the pool of qualified youngsters that can come on board and contribute to our efforts in the cyber domain. You may not have this data, but do you know whether we are on target to fill the 1,000 slots that are provided for this program this year? This year was the first year students could apply, and I think the application period concluded in March. Do you have any information about whether we are on target? I don't have that specific information, but I will get it for you right away. Thank you. And do you have any information about how many additional schools have applied to be part of the program? I don't have that either, but again, the number that we have 420 is really impressive, and it will continue to grow. Thank you. The military services have started to look at privatizing barracks in order to address barracks that are outdated and need of repair. Given the problems that the military privatized housing initiative has encountered, how will the department ensure that those problems are not recreated in the barracks? Well, we, number one, have to invest in making sure that we create the right kind of unaccompanied housing for our troops, and then number two, we have to make sure that we invest in the resources required to supervise the maintenance of these facilities. And we're doing both of those. In this budget, we're asking you for $1.1 billion for unaccompanied housing, $2 billion for family housing, and then $171 million for housing oversight. So I think, I think, you know, there's, we have to, there's a lot of work that we need to do going forward, and I think we're investing in the right things, and we'll continue to keep, keep maintaining emphasis on this. Thank you, Mr. Thank you, Senator Gillbram. Senator Cotton, please. Secretary Austin, thank you for acknowledging and response to Senator Wicker that Hamas committed war crimes on October 7th and has been committing them every day since by using human shields. I want to address what the protesters raised earlier. Is Israel committing genocide in Gaza? Senator Cotton, we don't have any evidence of genocide being created. So that's a no. Israel's not committing genocide in Gaza. We don't have evidence of that. Thank you. Better than Director Burns and Director Haines did last year, last month at the Intelligence Committee when they dodged that question. You stand accused by those protesters of greenlighting genocide. Would you like to respond to that accusation? What I would say, Senator Cotton, from the very beginning is that we committed to help assist Israel in defending its, its territory and its people by providing security assistance. And I would remind everybody that, you know, what happened on October 7th was absolutely horrible. And, you know, numbers of Israeli citizens killed and then a couple of hundred Israeli citizens taken hostage. American citizens as well. American citizens as well. So you deny the accusation that you greenlit genocide? I absolutely do not. Okay. For the record, I don't think Israel's committing genocide. I don't believe you greenlit genocide either. You talked a lot with Senator Reid about Israel's responsibility to provide aid in Gaza. Why does Israel have a responsibility to provide aid to Gaza? Israel is the victim of an unprovoked, vicious attack on October 7th. Why should they provide aid to their, to the aggressor nation? Or aggressor, Gaza's not a nation, to the aggressors on October 7th? We didn't provide aid to Germany and Japan during World War II. What we, we did provide aid to an assistance to many of the countries that we've operated in recently. But not in World War II. If you had been in George Marshall's or Dwight Eisenhower's position in World War II, would you have wanted to provide aid to Germany? I really do believe, Senator, that if they want to create a lasting effect in terms of stability, then I think that something needs to be done to account, to help the Palestinian people. I get that, but they're in the middle of the war. Like, we believe that too, after World War II. That's why we had the Marshall Plan. That's why we rebuilt Japan. That was after the war was won, not in the middle of it. And in the meantime, like, it's not Israel's responsibility to provide aid. It's certainly not our responsibility, but we're spending our tax dollars to build this giant pier that's in aid in Gaza. Who's going to accept that aid? Who's going to be at the end of the pier on the shore taking aid from American forces? That's still being worked out, but there will be NGOs that will help to distribute that aid. Hamas is in charge of Gaza. When aid goes to Gaza, Hamas doesn't divert it or commandeer it or steal it. It accepts it. And anybody operating in Gaza is under the thumb of Hamas. I just think it's very ill-considered, and I don't think it's going to end very well. Let me move on to Ukraine. The Biden administration has discouraged Ukraine from launching refinery strikes against Russia. Why is the Biden administration discouraging Ukraine from undertaking some of the most effective attacks on Russia's war-making capabilities? Certainly, those attacks could have a knock-on effect in terms of the global energy situation. But, quite frankly, I think Ukraine is better served in going after tactical and operational targets that can directly influence the current fight. It sounds to me like the Biden administration doesn't want gas prices to go up in an election year based on all the other actions they've taken to drive up gas prices further. But, anyway, I want to turn to one final point about the recruiting crisis our services face. The army is the most acute. It's challenging all services, though. I've spoken to numerous recruiters, frontline recruiters, heads of recruiting battalions. Two of the most common things I hear is genesis and a lack of medical providers to process new recruits. Do you have a memo on your desk from the services to place a pause on genesis? No. Have you received that? Because my sources tell me you've received a request from the services to pause genesis. I talked to the service secretaries about genesis and also have talked to the service chiefs about genesis as well. And I don't have knowledge of any of that memo. But what I will tell you is that we're doing everything we can to improve the number of healthcare providers that are available and to streamline the operations with genesis. Now, genesis is an issue that our recruiting force had to work through, but it is not the sole cause of... I know it's not the sole cause. There's a lot of other causes. I just say it comes up constantly. And just for those listening at home, genesis is not just the first book of the Bible. It's this giant medical records system that now catches everything that's ever happened to you. So every drill sergeant accuses recruits of lying to their recruiter so they can get into the service. But now genesis catches all that. So if you broke your arm when you were 12 playing Peewee football, genesis knows it. If you were prescribed an SSRI because you were depressed when you were 13, because your parents were getting a bad divorce, genesis knows it. And you got to go through a whole lot of rigmarole to get a waiver. Now look, we can't have psychotics joining military, but if the kid was on an SSRI when he was 13, does that really matter? Does it really matter? If he broke his arm when he was 13, he can't have a degenerate bone condition, but he broke his arm. And I know you'll say, because I've heard it before, that there's waiver approvals here. It takes a long time. And if you're like a super gung-ho captain America kid who wants to serve above everything else, you'll wait that time. But if it's going to take 120 or 150 days to join when you get a job at Amazon for 20 or $25 an hour, you're going to lose those people. I think you really need to look at the way genesis works and the approval authority. And even if you have approval authority, you know, whether it's an E-8 out on the front lines at a mall or a lieutenant colonel at the headquarters, you're counting on them to take what they might see as some serious personal risk that doesn't have a lot of reward. That's why I think this has to be written in the policy. My time is over, but I do think this is a serious question for all the services and that I'd encourage you to look at it and take action sooner rather than later. I don't disagree with you, Senator. I've been a recruiter and I know how important this is to recruiters. And so what we need to continue to do is upgrade what requires a waiver and make sure that we're doing everything we can to provide enough medical professionals to be able to shorten the time that it takes to get that waiver. And so I think there are a number of things that we can do and should do and we are doing some of those things. And we'll continue to press on this to shorten the time that it takes for recruiters to get these packets through. So thank you. Thank you, Senator Cotton. Senator Hirono, please. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Secretary McCord, Secretary Austin, and General Brown, thank you very much for your service. Senator Austin, I want to thank you for your leadership regarding Red Hill in Hawaii, and it was the right decision to close this massive World War II fuel storage facility. Admiral Wade and the Joint Task Force have worked diligently alongside the state and federal partners to safely remove all of the fuel from the facility in recent months, but of course more work remains. What is your view regarding the department's long-term responsibility for the environmental restoration and remediation efforts following the closure of Red Hill to ensure that no contamination of the aquifer that the people of Oahu rely on for drinking water occurs now and in the future attributable to military installations or actions? Thanks, Senator. Protecting public health in the environment, we're in the communities where we have our troops stationed is a department priority. And we made a promise to the citizens of Hawaii to conduct any and all necessary environmental remediation around the Red Hill facility. And we're going to live up to that promise. As you know, as you just pointed out, last month JTF Red Hill completed its defueling, and so the work has transitioned to the Department of the Navy now for the Red Hill closure efforts. And we're going to stay focused on that and I will continue to make sure that I get briefed on this routinely and make sure that we're doing the right things to meet our timelines, but most importantly make sure that we do the right things in terms of environmental restoration. Thank you for your continuing commitment because there will be long term, I would say requirements as to monitoring, etc. So that brings me to another question that I have for you. I am concerned about the Department's ability to hold senior officials accountable following major incidents such as the fuel leak at Red Hill and the fire onboard the U.S. Bon Armory Shard. I am including a provision in this year's NDAA that would create a new investigation category to provide consistency when there is a catastrophic incident resulting in a significant loss of life or billions of dollars in taxpayer money to ensure those responsible are held accountable for their actions. Would you be amenable to changes in this area, especially for catastrophic incidents such as the ones that I cited so that really the investigation and the responsibility issues are before the department as opposed to the services that are involved? Thank you, Senator. I've seen your correspondence on this issue and I've asked my people to take a look at this and certainly we will do so. We'll analyze it and come back and have a discussion with you on where we are but I really appreciate your continued focus on this. Thank you very much. I've talked about how important infrastructure is to readiness and I note that during the last year's posture hearing you agree that the military services need to invest in infrastructure to make sure our service members have the facilities they need to execute their mission. However, even in the Indo-Pakam priority theater there are billions in infrastructure projects in Hawaii alone and the rest of the region either on a service or Indo-Pakam's unfunded priority list. Senator Austin, how does the department ensure that infrastructure maintenance and modernization needs are met if there are multiple critical projects in Hawaii and throughout the region that are not being funded in the president's budget? Well, we have, as you know, Senator, invested a lot into infrastructure and throughout the region and the PDI, the Emeril Aquilino's request for the Pacific deterrence initiative this year is some $9.9 billion and it includes infrastructure projects and that's on top of the $20 billion that we've requested over the last couple of years and supported the PDI. So we continue to invest in this and again in terms of specific projects, you know, the services will have to continue to rank order what their priorities are based upon, you know, what their specific budget, what's available in their budget. But this is very important to us and something that we'll continue to work on. Well, you testified today that tough choices need to be made and near-term readiness which is also making sure that our infrastructure is maintained. I just want to note one more thing. I am concerned about the cost overruns for the critical dry dock three which is the biggest infrastructure project within the DOD replacement at Joint Base Pearl Harbor, Hickam. And despite the lessons learned from Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, the cost of Pearl Harbor's dry dock recently increased by over $800 million. No sooner did I go and give a speech about how important this dry dock is that I am confronted by this, what I consider to be a massive cost overrun. How can we, I mean I just want to note that I'd like to hear from you. I'm out of time right now but we need to be a lot more accurate in planning for infrastructure projects from the beginning to enable us to better estimate how much these costs are going to be because to go for one week to say that this is great where we learned lessons from Portsmouth and then two weeks later it's $800 million more. So, Senator Austin, I really would like to be assured that we are going to keep track of what's going on with this dry dock infrastructure project in Hawaii because I have a feeling that I may be confronted with even more costly increases. It is a statement that I'm making and I expect to be a prize as we go forward. Absolutely and you mentioned that this dry dock is important. It is absolutely important. One of the things that happened here was that we didn't fully appreciate the impact of COVID on the supply chains and some other things. Those effects have lasted longer than we anticipated and that's part of what's going on here. Thank you, Senator. Thank you, Senator Hirono. Senator Brown, please. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Secretary Austin, Secretary McCord, General Brown, thank you for your service to the nation at such a time in history. Close coordination between Congress and the administration is critical to making sure that our troops are resourced and postured in a way that deters conflict and enables them to dominate our enemies if deterrence fails. Mr. Secretary Austin, the assessment of the DoD NTIA led study on the electromagnetic spectrum, which was completed last fall, was that the adoption of dynamic spectrum sharing is the only way that the DoD can share the portions of the critical bands it uses to defend our country and our forces. Developing that capability is one of my highest priorities. I'm aware of coordination between this committee and the DoD CIO, which is centered around a demonstration project to investigate dynamic spectrum sharing being executed sometime at the end of 2025. I applaud the effort, but I am also aware of a simultaneous transmit and receive capability or STAR that is ready for test and evaluation right now. Can you give me your commitment that you will investigate the STAR capability and accelerate testing and evaluation if you discover that it is promising? I can assure you that I would work with you and the committees of jurisdiction to address any hurdles that need to be overcome to fund such an acceleration. Senator, you have my commitment that we will investigate and make sure that if there's capability there, then we will work to take advantage of it. But I just want to re-emphasize the point that you made, and that is that it's really important that we have access to the spectrum so that we can continue to provide security for this country and that we have the capability to enable all of our platforms here. And so I understand that there will continue to be a demand from the commercial sector to access more of the spectrum, but we have to do everything that we need to do to make sure that we have the provisions to protect this country. And so I appreciate your support. And I'm also committed to working with the Secretary of Commerce and with anybody else that can create a capability to enable that dynamic sharing. So thanks for your efforts on that. Well, thank you, sir. And once again, I think this new capability may very well be a key to addressing this issue in an expedited basis. And I appreciate your agreement to work with us on that. Thank you, sir. General Brown, the B-21 Raider in the next gen Airdama and his platform will be critical in a fight against a near peer adversary. Can you briefly share why these platforms are so essential to the Joint Force when it comes to fighting a capable enemy in a contested environment? Well, we have an advancing threat. And if you think about the areas we've been operating in the course of the past several decades, we did not have an advanced threat. It was mostly violent extremists or other countries without advanced threats. What I see going forward is that with that advancing threat, we have to modernize and bring in capabilities that will not only match that threat, but exceed that threat and stay ahead of the threat. And that's why these particular platforms are so important. I think it says without question that both of these two programs need to move forward fully funded. Right now, I think we've identified that we're going to purchase a minimum of 100 B-21s. I suspect that you would agree with me that that number may very well have to go up if we appropriately take care of the needs that our men and women in uniform require. I know on my last job, as Air Force Chief, we did talk about the aspect that we may need to go above 100. I'll defer to the Air Force, but I'll just say that I am focused as a chairman to make sure that we have the joint capabilities for the force and making sure that we are working very closely together with all the services to bring that capability forward. And how important is it that NGAD be fielded as a full program of record? That is also important, but as you are aware, the Air Force is also looking at a collaborative combat aircraft as well to increase capacity at a cost and create more dilemmas for our adversaries. Thank you. I see my time has expired, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Thank you very much, Senator Rao. Senator Cain, please. Thank you to our witnesses for your service. I want to return to the heartbreaking tragedy in Israel and Gaza. Israel, of course, must defend itself against those who would annihilate it. No one asked the question about whether the United States had a right to defend itself after 9-11. Israel has that right, and that would include Hamas. It would include Hezbollah. It would include Iran. It would include militias connected to Iran. It would include the Houthis. But in the days after the October 7 attack, I offered this advice to the Israeli Ambassador to the United States, Ambassador Herzog, learn from our own mistakes and confine your vigorous defense to a defense against Hamas and don't let it look like it's a war against Gazans or Palestinians who are not the same as Hamas, who often are under the thumb of Hamas. I gave advice to the Ambassador then that the world would be watching to see what happened, and there's various bits of evidence that you look at to determine whether this is a defense against Hamas or whether it's a war against Gazans or Palestinians. First, the extent of civilian casualties. The civilian casualties in this war have been heartbreaking, and yet, because Hamas chooses to embed with civilian populations, it's extremely difficult to defend against Hamas without that heartbreak. Second, how do you talk about the war? Are you talking about it as a war against Hamas, or are you more broadly talking about it as a war against all Gazans or Palestinians in the weeks after the October 7 attack? Yes, there was trauma, and you don't necessarily say the most precise thing when you're traumatized, but there were too many statements from Israeli leadership, the President, the Defense Minister suggesting we're going to shut off all water, all food, all everything into Gaza, collectively punishing Gazans who are not necessarily part of Hamas. That is unfortunate. Third, the allowance of humanitarian aid. 500 trucks a day were supplying the needs of these two million people into Gaza. Aid was throttled off immediately, water was turned off. Just two days ago, the amount of aid into Gaza hit 300 trucks, and yesterday it got near 500 trucks, six months into this. If you are not allowing what you were allowing before food and medicine to get to a civilian population, you're making the situation worse, not better. There's no reason the United States should have to build a pier in the Eastern Mediterranean. There's no reason we should have to airdrop supplies, often endangering people who have to go out into the water and get them. I applaud the President for convincing finally the President, Prime Minister Netanyahu, to open the crossing from Arez after it took months to get them to open the crossing from Karem Shalom, but the pace of humanitarian aid is insufficient. The widow of our former chair, Senator McCain, Cindy McCain said two days ago that we are on the verge of a catastrophic famine in Gaza, and we may not be able to recover. If you wanted to maintain a vigorous war against Amos, but not against Palestinians, you'd protect Palestinians from violence on the West Bank. It was shocking to me to hear reports from our own U.S. military officials that settlers' violence against Palestinians on the West Bank is not only increasing, but in many instances the violence is accompanied by escorts from IDF reservists and Israeli border officials who are protecting settlers committing violence against Palestinians. My understanding is that the escort phenomenon has abated, but the violence against Palestinians on the West Bank has not. And finally, if you wanted to make plain that it was a war against Gaza, not against Palestinians, you would hold out some hope to Palestinians that they might have a future of autonomy as they were promised in 1948. The world made a promise to two people in 1948 that there would be a state of Israel and a state of Palestine living side by side peacefully. One promise the world has kept, one promise the world hasn't kept. There's a million reasons for that. There's a million reasons for that, but the fact is 75 years later one promise has been kept and one hasn't. And it's important for Palestinians to believe they might have a future with autonomy that might look different in 1948, but they should believe that instead Israeli leadership in their statements has essentially closed that off. It is so very important that we provide assistance to Israel to allow itself to defend against those who would annihilate it. It is so very important that we take dramatically more steps to encourage Israel, to push Israel, to urge Israel and other nations to make plain that a war against Gazans or Palestinians is going to make this worse. Cindy McCain predicts that there will be a famine, a mass famine in Gaza. Secretary Austin, if that were to occur, if women and children who are already dying but start to die in great numbers because of lack of access to food or medicine, will that improve or will that de-escalate the violence in the region or will that accelerate violence in the region? It will accelerate violence and it will have the effect of ensuring that there's a long-term conflict because the Palestinian people have been disadvantaged to such a great degree. This doesn't have to happen. I think to your point, I think we should continue to do everything we can and we are doing this to encourage the Israelis to provide humanitarian assistance, to open up more land routes and to separate the Palestinian people from Hamas. Failure to do so, I think, would just create more terrorism. I'm going to close. You say we already see dangerous escalation. The U.S. has had to wage 460 strikes against the Houthis who are firing into the Red Sea. They weren't really doing that in any significant quantity until the war in Gaza started. The U.S. has put our own personnel on high alert in the Middle East because there's the expectation that Iran will retaliate against Israel for an Israeli attack on Iranian positions in Syria. We've got to find a path to de-escalation here. The world is depending on us to do so. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Senator Keynes. Senator Sullivan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Gentlemen, thank you for your testimony. I appreciate the discussion of the supplemental, and I would encourage you to continue to talk about it, not as a Ukraine aid package, but as a package that actually builds out our own industrial base to protect our own country, because that's what it is, as you mentioned, Mr. Secretary. It's actually closer to 60 percent of that entire bill goes directly into the defense industrial place. When you look at the AUKUS dollars, it actually unlocks about $6 billion to build subs, the weapon system that Xi Jinping is scared to death of. So I think, you know, labeling it as Ukraine aid isn't helpful. It should be called the Fighting Authoritarian Aggression Supplemental, or the Defense Industrial Base Enhancement Act. So I would encourage you to continue to talk about it in that regard, and the amount it focuses on Israel and Taiwan. So I think that's important, particularly this week with the House. I want to get to the defense budget, which is what you're testifying here. Would you both agree, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Secretary, that we're facing one of the most dangerous times in our history since World War II? This is one of the most complex times that I've seen, Senator. General? In 39 years, I've been wearing a uniform. This has probably been the most complex I've seen. So I know these are hard questions, but I'm going to ask them. You know, the President has put forward defense inflation-adjusted cuts to the Department of Defense every year. Now, the Chairman mentioned, well, this was a house of Republicans. This is the Commander-in-Chief's leadership, and he's failing on it. Every year, he puts forward defense department cuts during one of the most dangerous periods. Right now, this budget, if it continues in the direction the Biden administration is pushing, will get us below 3% of GDP for our defense. We've only done that four times since World War II. Do you think being at 3% of GDP or below 3% of GDP for the Department of Defense meets the moment in terms of the dangers we're seeing right now? Mr. Secretary? I think, again, operating within the guidelines of the law. No, but I'm not asking about the law. I'm saying if we go to below 3% or below, do you think that meets the... We've been there four times. It was mostly in the late 90s when we had the so-called peace dividend. Is 3% of GDP for our Department of Defense what we need during these very dangerous times? Again, we linked our request to our strategy, and again, I think we had to make some tough choices, as I said earlier. General, in your personal opinion, do you think that below 3% of GDP spending is what we need to meet these dangerous times, which we all agree are dangerous times? Well, Senator, what I really believe on this is that we had to get a budget on time. For the past 15 years, we've been... I agree with that. We've had five years and 15 realizations, and budget on time actually impacts our buying power. I agree with that. But can you answer my question? 3% of GDP is pretty easy to answer. The answer is no, right? Mr. Chairman, I'd like to submit this chart for the record. It just shows where we've been four times since World War II. We've been at 3% of GDP or below. The answer is no. I think we all know that this committee knows that. It's important. I respect both of you very much. You have a lot of experience, but it's important to come before this committee and tell us what you believe. None of you believe going below 3% of GDP is good for the Department of Defense. I know that. I know it's hard. The President clearly thinks it is good for the Department of Defense. He cuts the budget every year. He's got to make your job really tough. Let me go to an area that you understand very well, both of you, and that's deterrence with regard to Iran. Tom Friedman, the New York Times columnist recently observed that fighting through Tehran's proxies Hamas and Gaza, the Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Syria, Shia militias in Iraq, Iran is reaping all the benefits in paying virtually no cost of the work of its proxies. I asked General Carilla if he agreed with that. He said yes. I think they are not paying the cost. That's your sent com commander with regard to Iran. Vice Admiral Brad Cooper mentioned on 60 Minutes that the Houthis are actually being supplied by the Iranians, advising by the Iranians, trained by the Iranians, and very importantly, they are receiving targeting information on American warships in the Red Sea. So the Iranians are providing the Houthis targeting intel to shoot and sink the USS Carney and USS Eisenhower. Both of you are, I think, very clear eyed on the threat that Iran poses. You've seen them killing our troops over the years, General. You've seen that very up close with the EFPs in Iraq. Why are we not sinking Iranian warships, intel ships that are providing targeting intel to kill Marines and sailors from Alaska or North Dakota? I mean, I find this outrageous. Why are we not doing that? Why are we not telling the Iranians overtly or covertly next time you send intel to target an American warship through the Houthis? We will sink your ships. Why are we doing that? That's so basic to me. Mr. Secretary, you've been very strong against Iran your whole career. And I maintain the point that Iran needs to be held accountable for what it continues to do. They're providing intel to kill American sailors in the Red Sea. Why don't we sink their ships? Attacking Iran is a different issue. And I think they're attacking us. Their proxies are attacking us. No, they're providing intel to kill Americans. General, your advice on this and your personal opinion? As the Secretary said, we will continue to hold Iran accountable for much of this activity. And I can talk to you more in a classified session of some of the options that we are working through should one of our ships get attacked. This is not an unreasonable position that I'm proposing. Here's the problem. And I've talked to the CNO of the Navy. There was this barrage against the USS Carney, 28 missiles and drones recently from the Houthis. If one of those slipped through and sunk that ship, the President would have pressure to go to war with Iran. My view is we should just tell them right now enough. Operation Praying Mantis, I know you're both familiar with that. That was a very successful operation. We sank Iranian warships when they were mining the Persian Gulf. So I'd like to talk to you more about this in the classified setting, but I don't think it's even a difficult decision. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. One of the quotes attributed to Mark Twain, which has never been verified, but if he didn't say it, he should have, which is that history doesn't always repeat itself, but it usually rhymes. In the late 1930s, there was a very deliberate and sophisticated Nazi propaganda effort in the United States up to and including members of Congress to affect American opinion and political opinion toward the Nazi regime and the defense of Europe. And it worked until Pearl Harbor. Today, Chairman McCall and Chairman Turner in the House have both acknowledged a very sophisticated and concentrated Russian misinformation and propaganda attempt here in the United States to affect our public policy toward Ukraine. And indeed, both of them acknowledge that this has up to and including members of Congress. Do you see, Mr. Secretary, a danger to this country from this kind of concerted, conscious misinformation campaign on the part of the Russians? Absolutely, Senator. And that danger increases on a daily basis. And to your point, it is sophisticated to the degree that people don't know where the information is coming from and how Russia is doing these kinds of things. But again, there is a danger. Well, it's one of the vulnerabilities that we have is also our greatest strength, which is the openness of our society, the First Amendment free speech. The vulnerability is that our democracy is based upon information and if the information stream is compromised by a foreign actor, that endangers our country. One of my concerns is that it's very difficult to defend against such attacks. We don't want to be censoring the Internet. We don't want to be censoring free and free flow of information. Our whole defense strategy in every other area is deterrence. In other words, that's the deterrence is the key to our defense strategy has been for 75 years, except in cyber and misinformation. I would hope that you would take back to Cybercom and the NSA the necessity of a deterrent. That is the adversary, in this case, Russia. If you are going to meddle in our politics, in our system, in our information pool, in a deliberate and conscious way, you will pay a price for that. Not necessarily kinetic, but it could be cyber. It could be sanctions. It could be others. But one of my problems is that there doesn't seem to be a deterrent in this field, which indeed is the new frontier of warfare. Mr. Secretary, I hope you will take that thought back. If deterrence works in nuclear policy and conventional kinetic policy, it also can work in this new frontier of misinformation to undermine the national security of this country. I'll take that back and we'll take it for action. We'll drill on possibilities to create that deterrent effect that you're talking about. I'm afraid if we don't do that, it's just going to continue. There's no reason why it shouldn't. It's cheap for them and it's very damaging to this country. With regard to Gaza, Senator Cain laid out the situation very effectively. It's become apparent. I met with Prime Minister Netanyahu in January. Presidents talked to him repeatedly. You used the word encourage. It's become apparent to me that the current government of Israel needs more than encouragement. And I was surprised that at the very week that the World Kitchen attack occurred and the continuing humanitarian crisis that the administration approved the transfer of additional munitions to Israel, particularly offensive munitions. 2,000-pound bombs are not defensive. They're offensive and they're not very precision. Why did the administration make that decision? It seems to me the President's hand would be strengthened significantly if he had said, we're going to pause this planned conveyance of these offensive weapons until we see some serious attention to the humanitarian crisis and also to the problem of civilian casualties. I had the opportunity to speak with my counterpart on this attack. I was very upfront in terms of how horrific this was and the fact that they needed to be investigated and people held accountable. We're seeing some of that activity. In terms of, as a President-engaged Prime Minister, I won't speak to the contents of that conversation, but it clearly had an effect. We have seen changes in behavior and we have seen more humanitarian assistance being pushed into Gaza. There needs to be more still. But again, I think the President's conversation did have a positive effect. Hopefully, that trend will continue, but that's left to be seen. Again, I think all of us feel Israel absolutely has not only a right but a responsibility to defend itself, but it's the conduct by which they're doing so that is actually hurting Israel. That's what bothers me. I consider myself a friend of Israel and by not separating the Palestinian civilians from Hamas, they are playing into Hamas' hands. When you kill a civilian child, their parents are not going to be very sympathetic to the people that let that bomb lose. My concern is that particularly when those bombs are coming from this country, we have a responsibility as well in terms of the way that war is being conducted because we are engaged also in terms of the supply of the weapons. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me recognize Senator Cramer, please. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, gentlemen, for being here and for your service to our country. General Brown, I'm going to start with you. I'm going to follow up on a number of things my colleagues have brought up, but I want to ask you very specifically, is it your best military advice to the Commander-in-Chief and the Secretary of Defense to continue to cut this defense budget to the point where we're now below 3 percent of our GDP? Is that your best military advice? I give more advice on operational capability. You guys are very good at not answering questions. But I will also tell you, one of the things we will do is actually continue to advocate for the resources required for the Joint Force. And this is an area that I will continue to work not only with my boss, the Secretary, but also with this committee. Mr. Secretary, Senator Cotton, I think you asked you about striking energy assets in Russia, particularly refineries. And you sort of said, maybe there's better place. I don't want to say it the way you said, but better places for them to strike. Has an energy become a weapon in the war in Russia and Ukraine and frankly in Iran? In fact, regarding Iran, I think somebody said that the position of the administration is to make Iran pay for what they've done. And we'll talk about some of those options general in the other session. But aren't sanction waivers for Iran? I mean, that doesn't seem like a great way to make them pay. They've now been able to use oil to build their reserves, their financial reserves from $4 billion, which is what they had at the end of the Trump administration to $75 billion today. So aren't energy assets actually almost like hitting, say, a military site? They can and will eventually have an impact on a country's ability to produce military capability. There's no question. The question is, if you're in a fight and you're fighting for your life, is that most important to you or can something else be addressed that can affect the battlefield, the current battlefield more effectively? Okay. If I buy that, couldn't we be doing at least more on our part to provide some of those much cleaner energy resources rather than letting Iran, for example, continue to sell to China, another adversary, and build up their reserves? Leaving that for a minute, I want to get to something even more specific and something that I was planning to bring up before all this came up. And that is, and won't surprise either one of you, that I continue to be concerned and your combatant commanders are sounding the alarm about the Air Force continually not only eliminating legacy and current ISR assets, but now future ISR assets with the hope that somehow lower the orbiting satellites are going to solve the day. And I know you'll say because we always hear, well, combatant commanders never have enough ISR, they'll always say they don't have enough. But their concern is escalating along with the deterioration of our airborne ISR assets. I know about the priorities and we need to do more. But could General Brown, maybe now that you have this broader responsibility than just the Air Force, maybe you could speak to that a little bit for me and help me feel better about it. And again, we can talk about it in more detail later. Senator, I appreciate the question. And I'll just tell you based on experience, having been deputy commander to combatant command, air component commander, as well as a service chief. And now as a chairman, I do think about all the capabilities that we have. And ISR is one of those. And I will just say it's one of the more contentious issues that we have across the joint force. The things we're going to have to continue to do is not only look at the ISR that we do have to keep that moving, but at the same time, look at opportunities, particularly, and you mentioned space-based capabilities. That's going to give us access into areas we can't get with some of the ISR that we have today. And so it's a combination of things, how we work together with the joint force. And this is an area that I am focused on with the Joint Chiefs and the Command Commands to ensure that we are making best use of the resources that we do have, the capabilities in ISR, but I'd also say all the other capabilities that we provide for the joint force and how we balance that out to make sure we're putting it in the right place at the right time to provide those capabilities. And so I'm having pretty deep conversations with the combatant commanders and with the Joint Chiefs on these very topics about how do we ensure that we are identifying the areas like ISR that we need to continue to resource and how we best do that across the service and across the joint force. Earlier, I can't remember who was asking the questions, but you brought up CCA as a force multiplier. My term, not yours, but I think that's a term commonly used. I think it was in responses to NGAD. But I just want to wrap up with this maybe admonition or please, please, please, whether we're talking about CCA or we're talking about something new in space, we have got to find a way to move at the speed of China. And we've talked a little bit about that with regard to R&D, with regard to procurement. We've got to knock down some of these barriers. And please ask us for help if we need to do some things from a policy standpoint so that our innovators are in the fight with you rather than just the three or four primes that have the same bureaucratic traditions that, frankly, the military has. We've got to become faster. With that, Mr. Jim, thank you. Thank you very much, Senator Kramer. Senator Warren, please. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Secretary Austin, under your leadership, the United States has made preventing civilian harm a top priority. You have repeatedly said that it is both a moral and a strategic imperative. I have pressed the DOD to take this issue more seriously for years. And in 2022, DOD issued its civilian harm mitigation and response action plan, which directs the department to systematically take steps to prevent, mitigate, and respond to civilian harm. Policy makes clear that we expect our military partners to prioritize civilian harm prevention as well. Since October, Israeli strikes have killed over 30,000 Palestinians. The majority of them are women and children. Rafa has become the latest refuge of Palestinian civilians, is now home to more than 1.4 million people. Given the number of civilians there, the Biden administration has repeatedly urged Israel not to attack Rafa, saying that doing so would be, quote, a disaster. Secretary Austin, do you think an attack on Rafa that kills another 30,000 civilians would enhance either US or Israeli security? Thanks, Senator. There's no question that there have been far too many civilian casualties in this conflict, far too many. And what we continue to emphasize to the Israelis is that civilians in that battle space need to be not only evacuated but properly taken care of once they're evacuated out of that battle space before anything is contemplated. And I, you know, this is a point that I have stressed with my counterpart on a number of occasions, just recently. It's yesterday. And again, it cannot be going forward what we've seen in the past in terms of the type of activities that we've seen in Gaza City and in Khan Yunus. Far too many civilians have been killed as a result of combat operations, and they need to get civilians out of that battle space around Rafa. All right. So the United States has an important responsibility here because we are the ones giving the Israeli defense forces the bombs that they are using to destroy homes and hospitals and refugee camps at the president's direction through his February national security memorandum. The Department of Defense and the State Department are currently assessing whether Israel is in compliance with international humanitarian law. There are serious concerns that Israel is not complying with the international humanitarian law. According to recent investigations by Plus 972 and The Guardian, Israeli intelligence officials allege that the IDF often deliberately prefers to wait until its targets are at home among their children and neighbors to launch a strike. Secretary Austin, I understand that civilians are often at risk in a time of war, but would the United States systematically choose to execute on military strikes that are more likely to kill civilians, including children? Absolutely not. Just the opposite. We routinely go out of our way to make sure that we do everything we can to minimize civilian casualties. Even with that, even with extraordinary efforts, there will be collateral damage and casualties from time to time, but it's something that we really work hard to prevent. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. U.S. policy explicitly states that we expect our allies to meet the same standards that we do to prevent and mitigate civilian harm. Israel is failing to do that in its bombing campaign. Under your leadership, DOD has made significant progress in putting policies in place to protect civilians, but we also need to push our closest allies to meet the same standard and to cut off U.S. support if they refuse to do so. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much, Senator Warren. Senator Scott, please. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Judy, for being here. Thank you for your service. First, I want to talk about Homestead. I'm from Florida. We watch what China is doing in Latin America. We watch what Russia is doing. We watch what Iran is doing. We know we have a Chinese biostation in Cuba. I've talked to Chairman Brown, Secretary Kendall, General Richardson about the importance of Homestead Air Force Base as from a standpoint in power projection and the need to have a flying mission. And I think all of them have agreed the importance of Homestead. So, Secretary Austin, do you believe that Homestead is important for power projection to Latin America? And should we have a flying mission there? And will we get a flying mission there? Homestead Air Reserve Base is strategically located and it provides valuable contributions to our efforts in the South Com AOR. And we continue to be grateful for your support for Homestead. I know that there's been questions about whether or not we're going to close Homestead. And I can tell you that that's not under consideration right now. Right. Number two, China. China is elected to be your enemy. No offense about it. We finally got to the NDA elimination, the federal government's ability to buy Chinese drones. But I don't personally understand how the Department of Defense would ever buy anything made in China. Specifically, do you, Secretary Austin, do you believe that we ought to be buying Chinese LiDAR systems to use on our vehicles or Chinese computers which are connected to our top secret networks? I do not. And I also, we will work hard and are working hard to make sure that our supply chains are not vulnerable to manipulation by adversaries. So it's important to us to make sure that we don't have elements from our adversaries included in our weapon systems and repair parts and you name it. So this is something that we pay very, very close attention to. All right. So I'll take that. If we propose things where we're going to prevent our DOD or federal government to buy Chinese products, you'll be supportive. Next, let's talk about Israel. I just got back from Israel. I met with the Prime Minister, I met with the War Cabinet. I went to the Nova Film Festival. I talked to families that lost their loved ones there. I went to a cabbage that I'd been to in 2019 where 63 people were murdered by Hamas. Hamas was about half a mile from there. This is a video of a young lady that was about to be and was murdered by Hamas. I went to a house where a mother was burned alive. I went where babies were killed. It's disgusting. What I found in my conversation there is that in contrast to what some of my colleagues have said, the IDF is absolutely committed to the safety of Palestinians. They have zero interest in killing civilians and actually they put a lot of effort into making sure that that doesn't happen. One, my takeaway of this was that they don't understand why the Biden administration doesn't try to hold Qatar accountable. Why don't they don't, because everybody believes that Qatar can get the hostages out today. I met with American hostage families and I met with some that have families alive and some that have bodies still in Gaza. There's not a lot of understanding of what the Biden administration has actually done to get our American hostages home. The last is that a lot of people I've talked to don't understand why they would, the Biden administration would attack Israel for the civilian deaths which were horrible on the humanitarian effort that was done. We're including where the kitchen program was done where even American was killed. At the same time, the Biden administration has done nothing to hold anybody accountable for the 13 service warriors death at the Kabul airport or the death of innocent Afghan family killed in the U.S. drone strike during the withdrawal. So three questions. Do you believe that we ought to demand accountability by Qatar? Should the Biden administration do more to get our hostages home? And three, why do we demand, why does the Biden administration demand accountability which actually Israel did do an investigation? But to my understanding, we've never done an investigation, hold anybody accountable for the drone strike that killed an Afghan family or done anything about the 13 service members that died at the Kabul airport. Regarding the recovery of the hostages in Israel, this has been a priority for the United States since the very beginning. The President and all the senior leadership have been focused on this and doing everything possible to try to get these hostages released. And that work continues. I know you've seen Director Burns go back and forth to the Middle East working with his counterparts on this issue. We remain hopeful that we will see movement at some point in the future. But this is very, very important. And again, Hamas is responsible ultimately for the beginning, the start of this war. This brutal attack on Israel and the killing of Israeli citizens and Americans was just, it's unthinkable, quite frankly. But having said that, there have been far too many civilian casualties. And I think there is a way to be successful operationally and tactically and also protect civilians. The two are not mutually exclusive, Senator. And I think we just need to see a better job in terms of being more precise and protecting the civilian population. How about Qatar? I'm sorry? How about Qatar, holding them in demand and accountability? I mean, they've got Hamas leaders sitting and living in luxury. In my administration, as far as I can tell, it's done nothing to hold them accountable. We have a military base. We do have a military base here and it is very important to us. And Qatar has done a lot to help get hostages released and they continue that work. And so I've talked to the leadership in Qatar. I know the leadership there and I can tell you they are intensely focused on making sure that we can get hostages released as soon as possible. Thank you, Senator Scott. Senator Peters, please. This is not coming on. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Secretary Austin, General Brown, as you know very well, the Air Force plans to field several different types of collaborative combat aircraft with varying capabilities, including surveillance, jamming, and deception. These CCAs, combined with both fifth and sixth generation fighters, will certainly play a significant role in disrupting as well as defeating our adversary's counter-air operations in any future conflict. However, maintaining air superiority is also going to require that all components, including the National Guard, train with CCAs in real-world training environments. These training opportunities found at locations like we have in Michigan, the National All-Domain Warfighting Center, I think it will be likely to play a very key role in realizing that potential. So my question for both of you, Secretary Austin and then General Brown, with this in mind, how can active duty reserve and guard components best prepared for CCA integration and training, given the near-term acquisition of these uncrewed autonomous systems that we're going to see in the near future? Secretary Austin, if you'd answer first, well, as you would imagine, Senator, I remain focused on making sure that we have the right mix of capabilities to execute our strategy. And I will just speak to the point that the CCA capability is really, really important. And it will ensure that we maintain a competitive edge in the future. And this is something that our Air Force has been working on for quite some time. And we're asking to invest in this, continue to invest in this and this budget. But your specific question about the training of reserve pilots, perhaps I'll let the chairman speak to that because he is a pretty good F-16 pilot and understands that the training requirements are very, very well. But I would just emphasize that this is a tremendous capability. We're investing in the right things, and a total force at some point needs to have that capability. Thank you. General Brown. Senator Peters, thanks for the question. And as I think about the Joint Force as a joint warfighter, I often think and address the total force. And it's active guard reserve and our civilians. And in my role as the, my previous role as the Air Force Chief, as we started the path on cloud combat aircraft, we looked at it from a total force perspective and what we would apply that capability to make sure it is in all three components across the United States Air Force. I would also add as we go down the path of uncrewed systems, not only in the air, but maritime and other areas, how we leverage that capability with our, all aspects of our force will be most important to ensure we're able to have the full capability not only from our active force, but also from our guard reserve as well. Right. Well, General Brown, as a former fighter pilot, you know better than anyone that aerial refueling is a foundation of global mobility and power projection for the U.S. Air Force. And I am thrilled that Michigan will continue to support this mission as we welcome a squadron of 12 KC-46 refueling tankers to Selfridge Air National Guard Base. The capabilities of the KC-46 will support our current and future fighter and bomber missions for decades to come. And I think their value to the Joint Force was again highlighted in last year's multinational mobility exercise, Mobility Guardian 23. Well, my question for you, General Brown, is what strategic role do you see the KC-46 is playing in the Indo-Pacific and how will they really contribute to our broader national security goals? Well, as you highlight, our tankers are strategic assets and it actually allows us to be able to move combat power around the world like no other country and to include the Indo-Pacific. And so what it does is it increases our combat reach and our combat effectiveness with these tankers. And having flown the KC-46, it's an outstanding airplane. As we're bringing it on, we're learning some things about the airplane, but as you highlight, Mobility Guardian last year was a great opportunity for us to show not only what we could do with the KC-46, but with the rest of our mobility force in support of a potential conflict in the Indo-Pacific. Thank you, General. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Senator Peters. For the knowledge you're already won, the first of two votes has begun and let me recognize Senator Telvinville. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning, gentlemen. How are you all? Secretary Austin, glad to have you back. You look like you're in good play and shape, so I know you've had a tough couple of months, but we are glad you're back. Secretary McCord, don't go to sleep on us over there and I'm going to ask you a question. It's my understanding, the work that we've done, my staff, we have spent $300 billion since 2014 in Ukraine. Does that sound about right to you? I know that's before your time. That does sound high to me. We did about 300 million a year for Ukraine for a number of years and then just in the last two years we've done about 40, so if you're talking full of government, it might be, I would have to check, but for DOD that does sound high. Yeah. Well, my staff looked into it, about 300 billion, their best guesstimate. Right now we're printing or barring $80,000 per second, $4.6 million a minute. We can't sustain that much longer. We've got to find the best ways to spend our money. The DOD Inspector General has said that there's 50 criminal investigations going on right now from money sent to Ukraine, by the way, one of the most corrupt countries in the world. Are you familiar with that, Secretary Austin? What I am familiar with is that we've given our Inspector General the access that he needs to be able to exercise oversight, and we've just increased his authorization in terms of number of people to have forward there. That's really important. But in terms of money, specific monies that are being provided to Ukraine, we don't, as you know, Senator, we don't provide money. We provide security assistance in a way of equipment, munitions, and that sort of stuff. When we replenish the things that we've taken out of our own stocks to provide to Ukraine, that work comes through our industrial base. Our companies in Alabama are helping to create the weapon systems to replace those systems that we provided to Ukraine. In terms of specific cases that the IG may be referring to, I don't have knowledge of that. I also want to remind you, we are building munitions in our country, and in Alabama, we do build quite a few boats, submarines, missiles, and those things, but we do spend a lot of money out of the country on munitions because our industrial base is not near what it used to be. General, can Ukraine win? Yes. What does that look like? What we've said all along is we want to see Ukraine remain a sovereign, independent, and democratic state that has the ability to defend its sovereign territory and deter aggression, and that's been our aim from the very beginning, and it remains our aim, but yes, they can be successful. I heard Secretary Blinken say last week in Brussels that Ukraine will soon be a NATO. You agree with that? That's the goal of the NATO members, is to at some point bring Ukraine into NATO, and that's certainly something that Ukraine wants to see. If you're Russia, would you want that? I'm just asking. We're playing games with Russia right now. I just want to understand why we would do that. Certainly, if I was Russia, I would not want that. Senator, I would also not want Finland and Sweden to be a part of NATO, and they are. The reason that they are is because Putin invaded his neighbor, and without provocation, without justification, and so that's why we are where we are. Instead of making things better for himself, he had the effect of enlarging NATO, which obviously creates worse conditions for him. Do we have 12 CIA bases in Ukraine? Can you answer that in this setting? CIA bases. I got this out of New York Times, which I don't read very often. I'll defer that question to the director of the CIA. All right. Thank you. General Brown, just a quick question. I've had the opportunity to travel bases all over the world since I've had this job three months or three years. Our morale is not very good. Our recruiting is really dropping. What are you doing to help solve that problem? We need a strong military, and a lot of them tell me, they say, basically, coach, listen, we're taking all these classes, has nothing to do with killing our adversary. It's about getting along with each other, and I understand part of that, but we also need a killing machine. What's your answer to that? As I stated in my opening statement, honing our war-fighting skills has promising in all we do, and part of it, building that joint war-fighting team is being able to build a team. I know you're fully aware of that based on your background, and so it's the work that we do with each one of those service members to bring them and give them all the opportunity and full potential to make this the most lethal combat-credible force in the world. How do we stop people from getting out of the military? Senator, what I will tell you, I can give you the numbers, but our retention right now across all those services is really good. Our recruiting is now- I'd love to see that. Our recruiting is also trending up here in the course of the past several weeks. I've sat down with recruiters from all those various services. I went to military entrance processing station here to talk to them about their process as well. Genesis was highlighted earlier. It's a system, and there's some things we can do better, and I gave them some feedback while I was there. Recruiting is on the upswing. The thing, the last thing I'd close on is we need to talk about the value of service and talk about what it is to wear the uniform, and that great opportunity, whether you spend four years or four decades, is really important in what serving in our military or serving it at all within our nation and the impact it can have. I think that those are the things that we can continue to do. And I totally agree with you. Our military is about people. It's not really about machines and all those things. It's about people. So thank you. Thank you, Senator Tovill. Senator Rosen, please. Well, thank you, Chairman. Chairman Reid, thank you. Ranking Member Wicker's not here, but we thank him in this absence. And I want to thank Secretary Austin, Secretary McCord, and of course, General Brown, for being here, for testifying and for all your service and hard work. I want to start to talk a little bit about Israel and defending against Iran, because the October 7th terrorist attack on Israel must never be allowed to take place again. The U.S. security assistance to Israel must therefore continue unimpeded. But Israel's security has only become more complicated in recent weeks and months, as it not only works to defeat Hamas and free the hostages, but also faces frequent threats and attacks by Iran and its proxies like Hezbollah and, of course, so many others. So Secretary Austin, beyond the House, finally passing the Senate Pass Supplemental Security Package, which I am fighting for, what more can be done to help Israel defend itself, including from what are reportedly imminent threats from Iran? We're doing a lot, Senator. And first of all, thanks for your support for the supplemental. And I, like you, I sincerely hope that we can get this across the go line in the near future here. The chairman and I talk to our counterparts frequently in and assess what additional things that we could be doing to help Israel try to understand what their priorities are and in their direction of travel is. And again, we do in those conversations talk about the necessity to protect civilians, as you would expect, and to provide humanitarian assistance. But we are doing everything we can to make sure that we get them what they need as quickly as possible. And again, I would expect that things would, as the nature of this fight begins to change to become a more precision fight and their requirements will, should change a bit. And so we will stay abreast of their needs and we will continue to provide security assistance as quickly as we can. We remain committed to helping Israel defend itself. But we expect that they would execute operations responsibly. And again, these are constant conversations that we have. Thank you. I want to move on to Secretary McCord and talk about remote bases and incentive pay. And of course, General Brown, you know about Creech Air Force Base a little bit outside of Las Vegas remote, but Secretary McCord, I want to ask you about this issue facing Nevada service members stationed at Creech Air Force Base and at Naval Air Station Fallon. And of course, everyone who's stationed at other rural or remote installations who have to commute many, many miles to get to the base from where they live. Creech and Fallon have very limited housing nearby, so the vast majority live either in Las Vegas or in the Reno region, respectively. Each are both about an hour away. It's an even longer commute for Creech Airmen who have to drop off their kids for child care, utilize other services at Nellis Air Force Base, which is on the opposite end of town. So Secretary McCord, given the long travel distances, and of course the challenges that service members have to face when they travel, these distances between their home and their duty station. Is the department considering providing a stipend to alleviate the costs? And if not, how can Congress ensure that it does? We have a lot of challenges on a remote basis. This is just one. Senator, I'll need to consult with my colleagues in personnel and readiness as well, who will often make the final recommendation to the Secretary and where we might go on benefits that we're authorized to do. And of course, we need to work with the committee if it's not something we have the authority to do. First things we tend to look at, of course, are housing costs in the area where you are stationed. And in some cases, there's a CONUS COLA. Your issue is a little more unique to a couple of bases. And I don't know that we have a particular proposal on the table working, but I will check with my colleagues and get back to you. Thank you. We'll look forward to that. And I want to continue with you, Secretary Austin, on some of these challenges that our servicemen and women have with affordable housing and childcare. Because in order to build a resilient military force, we have to meet the critical needs of servicemembers' families. Two of the greatest areas they face in these challenges are affordable housing, like I said, affordable childcare. So what additional authorities or funding does the Department of Defense need to improve this access to affordable housing? And really importantly, affordable childcare. We're talking about Creech. Those drones go 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. They need childcare. And so how do we ensure that our servicemembers can fully focus on their duties? Regarding housing, as you may have heard me say earlier, Senator, we, in terms of family housing, we're investing, we're asking to invest some $2 billion in this budget and then $1.1 billion in unaccompanied housing. And it's important to note that $171 million is being carved out for oversight of our housing efforts. So this is very important. We're also increasing the basic allowance for housing. We've increased the BAH some 20% since 2023. And I think that's material that's meaningful to our troops. And I go out and talk to them about it. And they really appreciate that. So thanks for your support in that regard. Your comments on childcare, I could, I absolutely agree with. I just had our senior enlisted leaders together. And we meet on occasion to talk about what's important to the force. And this is one area that they continue to raise that we need to work together to improve. And we have made some improvements. We have provided additional assistance in terms of with childcare fees. We are investing in childcare facilities, some, I think, some $4 billion or so that we're asking for, for new childcare facilities in the 25 budget. And also we're investing in the quality of the workforce. We've seen that the more we can do to recruit the right, a better quality of workforce is going to continue to help us. And so we've invested in that. That's paying dividends. We need to do more. Thank you very much. Senator Budd, please. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, gentlemen, for being here. Mr. Secretary, in your written testimony, you state that, and I quote, the department continues to prioritize investments in our activities and infrastructure to reinforce security and stability in the Indo-Pacific region. So I'm all about prioritization, but it's hard to square that when the department has done so and properly prioritize deterrence in the Indo-Pacific when we're told that there's at least $11 billion in unfunded requirements for the Indo-Pacom. Over the weekend, this committee received a letter from Secretary McCord in fulfillment of your, Mr. Secretary, responsibility to submit a report that prioritizes matters identified as unfunded priorities by the senior military officers of the services and combatant commands. So, Mr. Secretary, is there a reason that you chose not to rank, prioritize the list of unfunded priorities submitted to this committee? Our most pressing priority currently, Senator, is to try to get the supplemental pass. And if we can get that through, I think that that that will help us in a number of ways. And so I certainly appreciate the Senate's help in terms of, you know, the bill that you passed. And I would hope that we'd see some progress on this going forward. Our commanders are required by law to submit unfunded priority lists. We encourage and require commanders and service chiefs and secretaries to invest in their base budget what's needed to make sure that we can maintain a credible fighting force. And this year we chose to invest in readiness and also in taking care of our people. And that caused us to make sure that I have to make some choices about modernization for longer term, for the longer term. But those are those are choices that I think with a higher top line in the future we can certainly recover from. Mr. Secretary, I want to cut in. You mentioned that it is required by law. That's actually section 222A of title 10. And I would just like to point out that it requires rank prioritization. And that was not ranked with priority. And the letter that this committee received further states that he, meaning you, Mr. Secretary, has determined is not necessary to fund these programs in fiscal year 2025 to execute the defense strategy at an acceptable level of risk. So my question to you, Mr. Secretary, is what is an acceptable level of risk to you as described in this letter? Well, you know, as you may have heard me say earlier, Senator, we go through great pains to link our budget requests directly to our strategy. And so we're confident that we can execute the strategy with the things that we've asked for, even though we've had to make some tough choices because of, you know, a top line that's been mandated. So I, again, I think we have every ability to execute the strategy. Certainly in the, in the out years, we're going to need an increase in top line. And we certainly would appreciate Congress's support and that endeavor. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. General Brown, again, thank you for being here. Would you agree that ships, aircraft, munitions form the basis of military capacity capability? Well, Senator, thanks for the question. I think there's two parts to that. Yes, that capable is important, but it's just as important to have our service members. Thank you for every one of those. Thank you for including them. I appreciate that. So here's what's concerning me about that first part, ships, aircraft, munitions, of course, in addition to our all important service members. I'm a little bit confused because the budget request simultaneously divests ships and aircraft while making smaller than expected buys of newer platforms. And another concern is that it leaves slack in the production lines of critical munitions. So if I had to take our best aviator and perhaps General, you're one of those. And we had to put them up against our adversary's best aviators. I would take our guys, our men and women, 10 out of 10 times. But at some point, any conflict becomes a numbers game. It becomes about mass. So if China were to decide to invade Taiwan next year instead of 2027 or 2035, are you concerned, General, at all that we're leaving ourselves with a massive capacity gap? Senator, one of the things I focus on as a chairman and as a warfighter is to be ready at all times. No matter what, because you can't predict the future, but we have a response with shape the future. And that's why we're here to testify on this budget. It's also the reason why, for example, the multi procurement that was put out in the 24 NDA is so important. And to be able to continue that with consistent funding, in demands almost to our industrial base, so we don't have that slack in the system. And so getting the budgets on time helped to decrease that slack, to increase the trust and bring down the cost, and to get capable of the hands of our warfighters much faster than we do today. Thank you, General. Just briefly, the committee heard, and you and I have talked about the F-15E strike eagle, the committee heard from the commander of Indo Pecom that there's a role for strike eagles in the scenario in Indo Pecom. Now, the head of Northcom told this committee just recently in many ways that the F-15E strike eagle is unmatched air to ground, and in many ways it's unmatched air to air. It has a phenomenal radar that can pick out low, slow moving, and also low radar cross sections such as drones or other threats like cruise missiles. Do you agree with their assessments, General? The F-15E strike eagle is a very capable platform, I would agree. Mr. Chairman, thank you. I keep highlighting these issues, Mr. Chairman, because the Air Force plans to divest 26 of these strike eagles at the same time buying less than expected F-15EXs and F-35s. Meanwhile, China is rapidly expanding their Air Force. So I'm seriously concerned about the growing fighter gap. Thank you for the additional time, and thank you gentlemen for being here. Thank you, Senator Bud. Senator Kelly, and we're in a vote, so if you were to hear it in five minutes, it would be much appreciated. I will. Senator Bud, fantastic question. I'm going to have some follow-ons to your question with General Brown. So general on the munitions, so the war in Ukraine has exposed real concerns about our industrial base, and even during this limited conflict that is in our conflict, industry is struggling to produce the number of munitions that we need even to replenish our stores. And if we had a conflict with a peer adversary, we would expend munitions at possibly a higher rate than we're seeing with Ukraine, and a higher rate than they might be able to be replaced. So it's clear that more needs to be done to prepare our defense industrial base for a possible future conflict. General, last year I asked your predecessor about the importance and impact of multi-year procurement on replenishing our munitions stockpiles. So general, how have the multi-year procurements that we passed out of this committee impacted our munitions stores to date? Well, they will have an impact. The challenges that came out, the NDA in 24 gave us the multi-year procurement. We didn't get a budget for 24 until 170 days in. But I do see the opportunity going forward in the future of how multi-year procurement will assist us first to create a constant dimensional to industry. So industry can get facilities, get a workforce, give us consistency, which builds trust, which brings down a cost, and then just a steady stream of munitions. And these are the things we need to work on in addition to get the budget on time. All those together are going to help us increase our stocks. The last thing I'm going to add to that is the supplemental that's been talked about several times today. That doesn't only help our partners in Ukraine. It helps to build out a defense industrial base that will help us in the future to make sure we have the capacity of munitions that will require for any future contingency. Okay. So beyond what you just mentioned and the supplemental, is there anything else we could be doing to make sure we have the right types and quantity of munitions going forward? Well, I guess the other piece that I would talk to you about is having gone out to visit some of our industry partners just recently, one of the things we talked about is the workforce. And that can be a long lead item to make sure we have the engineers, the skilled workforce to bring in that capability. And this is why it's consistent funding and all that. So you can actually, once they have that workforce, they can maintain that workforce to continue to move forward as well. All right. Well, thank you. A separate subject, drones, the drone problem, incursions on military installations have gone up and is a real threat to our national security. I think some of it is hobbyists, but there are also foreign actors that are certainly involved here. In December, we saw a large number of drone incidents at Langley. We still don't know who was behind those. We had an F-16 about a year and a half ago in the Barry Goldwater range strike a drone, not a lot of damage to the F-16. If it would have went down the intake, General, as we both know, that could have been catastrophic for that airplane and possibly the crew member on board if he couldn't get out. And we see consistent incursions around sensitive government facilities. So, General, why are the current drone detection and defeat systems that we currently have, why are they failing? And could you maybe go into why we need to continue to feel these outdated measures? Senator, one of the things we have to continue to work on is to continue to understand the technology that's moving forward and then move at the same pace as was highlighted. We do have to move faster. If you go back to what happened in December, one of the things I did as a chairman was establish a cross-functional team that wasn't just from the military, but also the interagency to work together on this particular problem set, because it's a combination of factors. It's not only the detection, but it's the defensive systems that you use and how those may impact civilization and other areas. And so it's an area that we collectively have to continue to work on, not only here in defense here in the United States, but also in our four locations where we have many of our service members deployed. Okay. Well, we are prepared to work with you on that to make sure we have the right technology moving forward that we could do more to solve this problem. So thank you, General. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Right on time. Thank you. Right on time, Senator Kelly. LD, you crossed it. Senator Schmidt, we're trying to adhere to five minutes because of the votes. Okay. That's what happens when you're last, right? Yes, sir. On this dais. Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Secretary Austin, the United States has appropriated $112 billion previously for Ukraine aid, $60 billion in the supplemental that's being considered. Based on this budget, am I to assume then that as of September 30th, there will be no more Ukraine aid from the United States? This request takes us out through the end of month, September. Right, but there's no money. So I can only be left to assume one of three things. One is the war is over. Two, or B, the United States won't be allocating any more dollars, or C, that this is a dishonest request. So I guess the question is, are we going to, it's not in this, but we're going to get another supplemental because members of this committee have been told there could be another request for $100 billion. So I guess I'm just trying to understand the totality of the request to the American people for this war that does not seem to be represented in this request. Well, I assure you that the request is not dishonest, Senator. It's based upon, for this fiscal year, what we see Ukraine needs and our ability to provide security assistance and replenish our stocks. And again, this is not, this goes through our industrial. I understand the argument, but I would also make the argument that the weapons that are being procured for Ukraine aren't necessarily the weapons that our industrial base would produce to defend the United States or even in the Indo-Pacific. Those are more long range fires. That's really not what Ukraine needs. And so with an industrial base that does not have the capacity to do all of these things, we are making decisions about what is produced and what is sold. And those may not be in the interest of the United States. I mean, you understand the point. I do, Senator. I think you're right. I think, you know, there are munitions that we will need for a peer competitor fight that we're not using in Ukraine right now. But having said that, Ukraine needs air defense capabilities, weapons, systems, and interceptors. It needs artillery munitions. And of course, our industrial base produces all of that. And we have work to expand our capacity in our industrial base to produce anti-tank weapons systems. I appreciate the point. I don't mean to cut you off. I just, as you heard, I've limited time. I just want to get through a couple more questions. So what does victory look like for Ukraine? How do you define victory? You may have heard me say this earlier, Senator, but we've said from the very beginning that what we want to see is a Ukraine that's a democratic country that is independent and has the ability to protect its sovereign territory, to defend its sovereign territory, and to deter aggression. Does that mean Crimea is part of Ukraine? Crimea is a part of Ukraine. Well, okay. Right. But in order for the war to be over, does Ukraine have to control Crimea? In terms of how things transition going forward, you know, I would not want to predict what President Zelensky will decide. I think part of the problem with all due respect is that this administration has not articulated what an exit strategy is. To me, this is a blank check for a war that without any clearly defined goals will be endless. And that is, so the skepticism among, I didn't vote for the supplemental, because I don't think that we've, we don't have adequate controls on how the money is being spent. Victory hasn't been defined. So for America's interest, I understand America's interest, we're continuing to head down this road and now we're getting a budget request that doesn't, isn't reflective of the administration's, for however long it takes, statement. So that's, that's part of the objection. I guess one of the issues too is, and I want to make sure I'm clear, is that the administration's position that Ukraine should be admitted into NATO? It's NATO's position overall that... No, the United States of America. What is the administration's position on Ukraine's admission to NATO? I think you've heard the president say that, and of course, NATO has an open door policy. So all of the countries have worked towards... I'm really not trying to put you in a weird spot. I just heard Secretary Blinken say, or maybe it was a mistranslation. So I'm just looking for clarity. If it's the position of the United States of America that Ukraine should be admitted into NATO. Was that question as to whether or not they should be admitted right now or in the future? Either or. Well, right now they're in a war, Senator. Right, so that would be a disastrous result because we would go to war. That's right. Right. That's right. But let's say the war ends tomorrow. That's what all... Or September 30th, based on this budget, ends September 30th. Is it the position of this administration that Ukraine should be admitted into NATO? It's unlikely that the war will end on September 30th, but again, it's the goal of the alliance to bring Ukraine into the alliance at some point in the future. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, a lot of time. Thank you. Thank you, Senator Duckworth, please. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me just say that a free independent Democratic Ukraine that can defend itself is in America's national interest and, in fact, should Russia overrun Ukraine, it will not stop with Ukraine, and then Article 5 of NATO will be invoked, bringing U.S. troops. So this is about keeping U.S. troops out of a war in Europe. Good morning to our witnesses. Secretary Austin, I want to applaud your engagement in the Indo-Pacific. Your nine official visits to the region underscores the United States' deep commitment to our allies and partners. And it is so important that the Department of Defense continues to make the region a priority for investments, including in Guam, Hawaii, and addressing contested logistics in the region. Next month, I am leading a codel with my colleague, Senator Sullivan, to the Shangri-La Dialogues, where we will engage with our partners on a range of national security issues. Secretary Austin, I have long been an advocate for strengthening our mill-to-mill partnerships in Southeast Asia. What investments do you plan to make in the fiscal year 25 DOD budget to implement the U.S.-ASEAN Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, and how can Congress help you in that effort? By the way, I'll see you at the dialogue. We, as you know, the U.S. Secretary of Defense has supported that every year. And again, I think we've made great progress in strengthening our relationships with partners in the region. In terms of ASEAN, we have continued to develop our relationships with ASEAN members. Every year, we attend the Defense Ministerial Meeting members plus. And so I think we've gained a lot of ground in reassuring partners in the region. We also recognize the primacy of ASEAN. And again, I think relationships are as strong as they've ever been based upon the continued efforts of not only the department, but leaders like yourself who continue to go out to the Indo-Pacific. And I suspect you have more than my nine visits to the Indo-Pacific since you've been in office. But so thank you for everything that you're doing. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. I've discussed the need to improve DOD's medical readiness in the Indo-Pacific with every service chief and combatant commander who comes before this committee. It is our collective responsibility to ensure that the DOD has adequate military treatment facilities for service members and their families during peacetime and in the event of a conflict. I would like to discuss an NDA proposal for FY25 that is a priority for me. The golden hour for saving lives will be rarely achievable due to the great distances within the Indo-Pacific should there be conflict in the region. So I would like the DOD to establish a medical readiness program in the Indo-Pacific to address current gaps in DOD's medical capacity allowing DOD to access accredited foreign medical facilities for patient care while also creating a medical readiness strategy within the region. DOD already does a version of this in the Republic of Korea and we need to expand this concept across the region where appropriate. And in fact the DOD helped to set up among others the Aju Trauma Center which is designed and to be exactly like the San Diego Trauma Center. I mean the doctor there Dr. Lee Kuk Jong was trained by U.S. surgeons. I mean in fact that is where the North Korean dictator defector was sent in 2018 and his life was saved because he was able to be operated on at that center. Secretary Austin, DOD has a limited number of military treatment facilities west of the international date line. Do you think working with our allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific can help DOD improve its medical readiness both in peacetime but also in the event of a large-scale conflict where we are not able to medivac service members back to the United States? I do Senator and I agree with you. I think Korea is a great example from talking to our troops and family members. They really appreciate having the ability to do what you describe and take advantage of existing capabilities. So there's no doubt possibilities to do those types of things in other places and I think we should explore that. Thank you. Secretary Austin, under Secretary McChord and General Brown can you work with my staff and me to refine this proposal with a goal of potentially establishing this medical readiness program in the FY25 and EAA? We will, Senator. Thank you. And you're back, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much, Senator Duckworth. Senator Blumenthal will be recognized. He will terminate the hearing. I must go vote. We will reconvene at 1230 and SVC 217 honor about 1230 for the closed session. So we will see you again in the closed session, SVC 217. I'll recognize Senator Blumenthal as the last member and he will adjourn the open session. Senator Blumenthal, please. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. I will be brief. I want to thank you all for your service as I'm sure my colleagues have and apologize that I haven't been here for the full hearing. I was here earlier. I want to ask about Navy shipbuilding and particularly submarines and the industrial base. As you know, the Navy's recently released 45-day shipbuilding review offered a pretty sobering look into the future of procurement efforts by the Navy. And according to this assessment, every major program faces multiple years of delays, including the Columbia and Virginia class submarines, which give the Navy an essential edge in undersea warfare over our competitors. Russia and China are trending in the opposite direction. They're building more. They're developing more and more advanced submarines. The decision to fund the production of just one Virginia class submarine seems highly alarming. And in addition, it sends a signal to our key AUKUS partner that the United States may not fulfill its commitment to providing a key capability. So I am troubled that this decision seems to undermine procurement stability, the workforce development, and our credibility in this area with some of our key allies. So I would appreciate your comments, Mr. Secretary, on how we are going to correct any potential loss of capability, loss of progress in undersea warfare, and the kind of respect from our allies that we need to continue in this area of undersea superiority. Thanks, Senator. And our undersea supremacy is indeed a strategic advantage that no country in the world can match. And we're going to work to keep it that way. The current issue is one of capacity. And there is a backlog currently in terms of industry's ability to produce submarines on time. So we could increase the backlog or we could choose to invest in the industrial base to expand capacity so that they can speed production up. And that's what we're doing. In FY23 and 24, we requested some $1.9 billion to invest in the submarine industrial base. In this budget, we're asking you for a total of $4 billion. And in addition to that, the supplemental that we've spoken so much about today includes a $3.3 billion request to also invest in the industrial base. And that'll help us strengthen supply lines. And it'll also help industry recruit and retain the workforce that will need to produce these really sophisticated platforms. I just met with the CEOs of General Dynamics and Huntington Ingalls. And we talked about the challenges that they were facing and what we're going to do with the resources that we're providing them to expand their capability and capacity. So it's a good discussion. And they are investing some of their own capital to do that as well. So in terms of Australia and the signal that it sends to Australia, I remain in contact with my counterpart, the Australian Minister of Defense, and we've talked about this issue. And they get it. And by the way, Australia is investing in our submarine industrial base as well. So we're doing the right things in investing in the industrial base. And hopefully, hopefully, but that will get us on the right path in the mid to longer term. But but increasing the backlog is probably not the right thing to do at this point in time. And investing in capacity and capability is the right thing to do, I think. I respect that answer because it recognizes the realities of what we face. Electric boat has to hire 5,300 more people in the next year or so, 5,300 skilled welders, pipe fitters, electricians, not just people hired off the street. And I know that on paper, you could easily say, well, we're going to build two submarines a year, but it wouldn't happen. And I think that the candor and and realism are very much to be respected. My purging would be that we make the investment of sufficient size to meet the reality of the challenge. Because, as you've said so well, our undersea warfare supremacy is a key capability. And I would hope the Congress would support you in this effort. Thank you. I'm going to respect the five minute rule, even though there's no one to discipline me. And thank you for your testimony on behalf of the committee and adjourn the committee. Thank you very much. Thanks, Senator.