Chairman inhofe our hearing will come to order. We meet today to continue receiving our hearing will come to order. We meet today to continue receiving the posture statements. We have quite a few more. This is the time of year, and we have general todd walters, and i appreciate very much the time we spent together last week. And general stephen lyons, so i appreciate you two, the years of service that you have donated and given to your country. As stated many times before, the Armed Services committees top priority is to ensure the effective implementation of the National Defense strategy. We have that. Yeah. We have it pretty much surprised me, senator, how we have really stuck with it from the very beginning. With that from the very beginning. It means that we must ensure that in this era of great power and competition with russia and china, that our military services are resourcing commands to address the challenge of strategic competition. This is especially true of our two combata
Appreciate you two, the years of service that you have donated and given to your country. As stated many times before, the Armed Services committees top priority is to ensure the effective implementation of the National Defense strategy. We have that. Yeah. We have it pretty much surprised me, senator, how we have really stuck with it from the very beginning. With that from the very beginning. It means that we must ensure that in this era of great power and competition with russia and china, that our military services are resourcing commands to address the challenge of strategic competition. This is especially true of our two combatant commands that are here today, ucom is focused on deterring vladimir putin, who has repeatedly shown his willingness to use force to achieve his political objectives, and then there is transcom, focused on fullspectrum mobility operations. Both of which face capability shortfalls. I just returned from the security conference with several others here at th
And i appreciate very much the time we spent together last week. And general stephen lyons, so i appreciate you two, the years of service that you have donated and given to your country. As stated many times before, the Armed Services committees top priority is to ensure the effective implementation of the National Defense strategy. We have that. Yeah. We have it pretty much surprised me, senator, how we have really stuck with the from the very beginning. With that from the very beginning. It means that we must ensure that in this era of great power and competition with russia and china, that our military services are resourcing commands to address the challenge of strategic competition. This is especially true of our two combatant commands that are here today, ucom is focused on deterring vladimir putin, who has repeatedly shown his willingness to use force to achieve his political objectives, and then there is transcom, focused on fullspectrum mobility operations. Both of which face
Political level, as a result of recent documents that were approved at the political level, we are seeing greater cohesion. For the first time in over six decades, we at nato approved the first nato military strategy. It is a document that is classified, nato secret, that codifies the threat and codifies the activity we need to embrace to more comprehensively defend all 29 nations agreeing to the nato military strategy. I think that is a reflection at the political level, the military level, of improving cohesion. We talked about the shipbuilding program, can you give us a quick summary of where we are at and where we have to go . Gen. Lyons yes, senator. On toow, we depend carry 90 of our Cargo Capacity in a wartime scenario. Our readiness of the fleet is below where we needed to be. It is rapidly reaching the end of useful life. We are working closely with the nato the navy. I anticipate we will purchase two in 2021 working closely with the navy. My view is we should have the first v
We dont know how many people have left britain to fight with so called Islamic State over the last few years. There is talk of 850 of whom half may have already come back, that would leave hundreds still out there. But if we dont really know how many, we cant know all their names. And with isis now pushed out of its own self declared capital city, raqqa, we dont know where the remaining ones are, or what they are currently planning to do. The only thing we do know is that we need some approach to dealing with them if they return. One idea would be to ease them back into mainstream society. But one government minister, rory stewart, said yesterday that in most cases, theyll need to be killed. Hes clarified that he meant that they would fight to the death, not that we should illegally assassinate them. But mr stewart has prompted quite a debate. Our diplomatic editor mark urban has been looking at it. In the rubble of the self proclaimed caliphate live the corpses of many british jihadis