>> this week on c-span and prime time three nights of tech featuring the executives and innovators. >> 40,000 a year it should be a bentley arsomething. but instead it's just a taxi. and for that privilege of leasing that car for 40 grand a year he gets to be impoverished. >> hear from insiders at facebook paypal, and more all part of a special presentation. >> israel probably the top high-tech country in the world, went digital first for g.d.p. growth job creation includeion of minorities, health care, education to every location, movement of their cities south. >> three nights of tech starting tuesday at 7:00 p.m. eastern. >> on tuesday, the senate armed services committee held a hearing assessing the u.s. national security strategy in response to global challenges. witnesses included two former defense undersecretaries for policy. at the start of the hearing the committee approved president obama's defense secretary nominee ashton carter who takes over this tuse. this >> since a quorum is now present, i ask the committee to consider the nomination of dr. ashton v. carter to be secretary of defense and if a roll call is requested, we would be glad to have a roll call. if not, is there a motion -- is there anyone who would like a roll call vote? you want a roll call vote? >> i don't know if we need it. >> we don't need it. >> i'd like to be recorded as voting aye. >> the clerk will call the roll. >> mr. inhofe, mr. sessions. mr. wicker. ms. ayotte. mrs. fisher. >> aye by proxy. >> mr. cotton. mr. rounds. mrs. ernst. mr. sullivan. mr. tillis. >> no instructions. >> mr. lee. >> mr. graham. >> aye by proxy. mr. cruz. >> aye by proxy. mr. reed. aye. >> mr. nelson. mr. mccaskill. mr. manchin. miss shaheen. mrs. gillibrand. mr. blumenthal. mr. donnelly. mr. hirono. mr. kaine. >> aye by proxy. >> mr. king. mr. heinrich. mr. chairman. >> aye. >> 25 ayes, one no instruction. >> then the motion will be reported favorably of dr. carter's nomination to the senate to the floor of the senate and hopefully we can get a vote perhaps even as early as tomorrow. >> do you want to keep it open? >> we'll leave it opened for senator sullivan to make his wishes known for a while. i'm sure this committee meets today to receive testimony on our nation's defense budget and priorities from the bipartisan national defense panel. this group of former military leaders, members of congress and pentagon officials who served under republican and democratic presidents released their unanimous recommendations in a report on our nation's defense strategy last year. we have with us today two distinguished members of the national defense panel, eric adelman and michele flournoy each served under defense on policy and among experts on both sides of the aisle. we are grateful to you to appear before us today. also like to thank the panel's co-chairman, dr. william perry and general abizaid. and staff for their work. the national defense panel's bipartisan and consensus report is a compelling statement of the daunting strategic realities america faces in the 21st century. the rules based international order that has further global prosperity and security is not self-sustaining, and as challenges to that order multiply around the world, there is no substitute for robust american engagement to ensure its preservation. though america's many effective tools of global influence, including diplomacy and economic engagement, the panel reminds us that all of these are critically intertwined with and dependent upon the perceived strengths presence, and commitment of u.s. armed forces. yet through a ginavings self-inflicted wounds and dangerous geopolitical and technological trends, america's military strength, quote strategic foundation undergirding our global leadership, as the report terms it, is eroding. $487 billion in cuts to our national defense under the budget control act and billions more under sequestration constitute a strategy -- serious strategic misstep the report warns. these steep cuts have sharply reduced military readiness, led to dangerous investment shortfalls, and present and future capabilities, and prompted our allies and adversaries alike to question our commitment and resolve. these cuts are not the product of any strategy assessment of the threats we face at a time of global upheaval. china's rapid military modernization is tilting the balance of power in the asia pacific. russia's aggression threatens europe's regional security. iran and north korea continue the pursuit and development of tactical weapons. and finally islamist extremists are destabilizing large swaths of the middle east and north africa, while plotting attacks against the united states and our ally. in addition to regional threats, structural trends like the difficult fusion of certain advance military technologies pose new operations challenges to america's armed forces. in a security environment of the future, the panel's report predicts, quote, conflicts are likely to unfold more rapidly, battlefields will be more lethal, operational sanctuary for u.s. forces will be scarce and often fleeting. asymmetric conflict will be the norm and the panel echoed secretary hagel who has said in such an era, american dominance on the seas and skies and in space can no longer be taken for granted. the panel's report recommends the budget control act's immediate repeal and a return to at least the funding base line proposed in secretary gates' fiscal year 2012 defense budget. that budget the panel concluded represents the last time the department was permitted to engage in the standard process of analyzing threats, estimating needs, and proposing a resource baseline that would permit it to carry out the national military strategy. if we had followed the budget path laid out by secretary gates, which he believed was the minimum to keep the country safe, the fiscal year 2016 budget before the department of defense excluding war funding would be $611 billion. that's $77 billion more than the president's fiscal year 2016 budget request, and 1 $$112 billion more under the budget caps of the b.c.a. it's also worth remembering that secretary gates suggested this minimum level before russia's invasion of ukraine posed a renewed threat to european security, before the rise of isis in the further spread of violent extremism across north africa and the middle east. before china's coercive behavior in the east and south china seas had become dangerously commonplace. it is unacceptable to continue the -- to ask our men and women in the military to put their lives at risk around the world while we cut back on their training and equipment. therefore the overriding priority of this committee and congress must be to return to a strategy driven budget, and i look forward to the testimony of our witnesses today as to what that budget would look like. senator reed. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. i also want to welcome our witnesses, mr. ambassador, madam secretary, thank you for your service both in and out of government. thank you very much. over the years and especially since the initiation of hostilities in 2001, the quadrennial defense review like any strategy has had to contend with the challenge of an unpredictable and constantly shifting nature of the world and threats that we face. as military leaders pointed out, we have seldom predicted with great accuracy where or when the next crisis might occur. however the department of defense's requirement to conduct security and defense analysis and planning means that assumptions must be made objective threat assessments done, and guidance provided to our military that prioritize our national security interests. each q.d.r., regardless of the administration, has had to make strategy or resource tradeoffs. the work of the current national defense panel in its review of the 2014 q.d.r., provide an independent consideration of the department's assessment of the security environment, its defense strategy and priorities, and identification of the capabilities necessary to manage our strategy risk. in essence, the panel found that the 2014 quadrennial defense review and defense strategy makes a reasonable strategic assessment. for example, the panel largely echoes the q.d.r.'s assessment and highlights the challenges the nation face was emphasis on china, russia, and the ukraine proliferation in north korea and iran, insurgency in iraq, civil war in syria, and instability throughout the middle east and africa. the panel also acknowledges that the q.d.r. caused the right capabilities and capacities to address the many challenges we face and into the future. however, the panel notes those capabilities and capacities clearly exceed budget resources available and therefore undermines the strategy. a point very accurately made by the chairman. it is no surprise, therefore that the panel's overarching find egg an recommendation is the budget control act endangers the national security and calls for its repeal. the panel also argues for increasing defense funding to 2012 levels, reining in personnel costs and more budget predictability. in addition to the risk of sequestration, i would be interested to hear the witnesses' assessment to other risks to our national security as well as risks to our military and families. finally, mr. chairman, i note that after nearly 20 years of q.d.r.'s and recurring questions about its value, last year's defense national authorization act modifies requirement for this review now called the defense strategy revue. these changes include the development of a national defense strategy that addresses our security interest across the near, mid, and farm terms and focuses an streamlines the elements of a strategy congress considers essential to a comprehensive defense review. i would be interested to note the witness' views on these changes and the prospect from what timely, relevant, and useful national defense process. thank you, mr. chairman. >> welcome the witnesses. secretary flournoy. >> if i may i'm going to let ambassador edelman go first. >> mr. chairman, senator reed, thank you for giving my colleague, secretary flournoy, and me, an opportunity to come before you to talk about the work of the national defense panel to review the quadrennial defense review. the two of us have prepared statement that we submitted and hope it will be printed for the record. >> without objection, both in the record. >> will i just make some general introductory comments and turn the floor over to michele. when we began our work as a panel in august of 2013, one of our co-chairmen, general john abizaid, said as we started our deliberations, the country was running a risk. and all of us consented to that judgment at the time. as you pointed out in your opening statement, mr. chairman, that was before president putin had invaded and annexed crimea and destabilized eastern ukraine. before the collapse of the iraqi security forces and seizure of mosul and anbar province by isil and its approach to baghdad. so as we went through our deliberations, i think the panel became more and more convinced that the accumulating strategic risk that general abizaid was describing at our outset was accumulating at a faster and faster pace. as you have heard as a committee from previous witnesses at other hearings, secretary shultz, my former boss, secretary kissinger, secretary albright, the united states probably faces the most volatile and complex security environment that we faced as a nation in a very long time, if ever. and it struck us as a panel that given those growing challenges to stay on the path of the budget control act caps and sequestration made no sense. i had the experience of having been on the previous independent panel to review the 2010 q.d.r., and in that report looking at the budget trajectory, cuts already being taken out of defense in 2010, the growing cost of keeping service men and women in the field over time and the growing health care and other retirement costs that were built into the budget, we predicted that the nation was facing a train wreck on defense, and that was before the budget control act passed and before the department had to cope with sequestration. one of the things that i think we were very focused on and i want to draw some attention to is the charge that secretary hagel gave us as a panel at the outset of our deliberations. he said that as we discussed future capabilities, because many of these challenges that we as a panel were talking about, the rise of china and its very rapid growth in military power the long struggle, i think, that we face with islamic extremism the rise potentially of new nuclear powers like north korea, perhaps iran, all of these things are challenges that as president eisenhower said were for the long haul. we have to think now about how we are going to deal with these challenges 20 years out. that in fact is also one of the mandates of the q.d.r. process itself. it's supposed to be a 20-year out look at the nation's defense needs. so secretary hagel raised the issue with us, the concern that is the program of record, the program we are going to need 20 years down the road? are we going to be starting now to produce the weapons that 20 years from now we'll be needing? many of us, i think, were mindful of the fact that over the last decade we have been essentially eating the seed corn that was laid down in the carter-reagan defense buildup of the late 1970's and early 1980's. we need to be thinking now of what capabilities we can provide for service men and women who are going to be called upon in the future. so i wanted to mention that specific areas that has a panel in keeping secretary hagel's charge that we concluded we ought to be looking at down the road for the future. i hope, mr. chairman, and senator reed, that you and the members of the committee will be bearing some of those things in mind as you consider the program, budget review over the next few years. i'll tick them off. armed intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance, space, because ever our critical dependence on it. cyberspace. maintenance of air superiority. joint and coalition demand and control because of the partnerships we have and the fact we'll be fighting with other people. long range strike. and electric and directed energy weapons. these are areas that we felt had not been given sufficient attention by the department and need a further look in the future. why don't i stop there and be happy for -- turn it over to michele. > i'd like to say how pleased and honored i am to join ambassador edelman here today to discuss the panel with you. this hearing could not come at a more critical time for all the reasons you have described. the international security environment is more complex and volatile, and we have seen, i would emphasize, it's going to get more challenging in the future. it's a time when continued u.s. leadership and engagement globally to protect our national interest, to sustain the rules based in international order on which stability and prosperity depend, to lead the international community, to address the most pressing challenges that you outlined u.s. leadership could not be at more of a premium right now. it's also time that requires investment to ensure that we retain a strong and agile military to shape the international environment, to defer and defeat aggression when we must, to reassure allies and partners, and to ensure that this president and future presidents have the options that they need for an increasingly dangerous world. and yet we see a period where defense budget cuts and sequestration are undermining the department's ability to maintain a robust and ready force torques retain the best and brightest people, and to invest in the capabilities that are going to be necessary to keep our technological edge and our military superiority in a more challenging future. so in this context i just want to foot stomp and emphasize four points. first is our number one appeal to this committee and to the congress more broadly is to work to repeal the b.c.a. and end sequestration. this is absolutely imperative. we cannot restore readiness and invest in our technological edge unless we do so. sequestration set budgets too low, it denies the secretary of defense the ability to protect resources for the highest priorities. it puts d.o.d. in a constant state of budget uncertainty that prevents more strategic planning and investment for the future. deficit reduction and getting our fiscal house in order are essential to u.s. national security, but sequestration is the wrong way to go about it. so we recommend restoring defense fending to 2012 levels as the chairman mentioned, and funding the president's budget request is the first step in that direction. second, we would urge the congress to take immediate steps to restore readiness. the service chiefs have testified before this committee as to growing readiness problems. only half of the marine corps' home station units are at acceptable readiness levels. less than half of the combat coded units in the air force are fully ready for their missions. navy deployments have been canceled and only a third of the navy's contingency force is ready to deploy within the required 30 days. the list goes on. these readiness impacts are real. and it was recommended that the congress should make an immediate and special appropriation above and beyond the current budget levels to correct these readiness shortfalls. third, as ambassador edelman emphasized, the m.d.p. calls for protecting investment and future capabilities. that will be critical to maintaining u.s. freedom of action and our military superiority in the coming decades. our technological edge has long been an advantage but it is not a given. in a world in which technology is proliferating, much cutting edge technology is commercial and off the shell, d.o.d. has to have a smart and determined investment strategy to maintain its edge. i would personally applaud the department's efforts like the offset strategy, the defense innovation initiative, we have to have the investment dollars to pursue those initiatives. and ambassador edelman has laid out a number of the key areas that the m.d.p. recommended should be a focus. lastly i would add it also argues that we need to pursue an aggressive reform agenda inside d.o.d. we can and should reduce the costs of doing business. we know compensation reform and applauded the word of the compensation committee. many of these issues need to be addressed. some of them need to be fundamentally reframed. i'll give you an example. health care, for example, rather than debating whether we should reduce benefits and increase co-pays, we need to be debating how do we get better health outcomes for service members and their families, and reduce costs by applying better business practices? the m.d.p. emphasizes the need for further reforms, for another brac round and right sizing the civilian work force, contractor, career, and so forth so that we can have the work force we need for the future. let me just conclude by saying i think this report lays out an agenda -- very clear agenda for action that has strong bipartisan and civil military support across the panel. nevertheless, there's some heavy lifts involved in what we recommend, but the risks of not pursuing this course are simply unacceptable. i would look to this committee and applaud your leadership in this area, working with your colleagues, to try to convince them that the time to act on these recommendations is now. thank you. >> thank both the witnesses. i would point out to my colleagues that both witnesses have worked for both republican and democrat administrations holding positions of responsibility in both. so there certainly is a total nonpartisanship in the reports and that in my view makes you more credible because of your many years of outstanding and dedicated service. my colleagues, i won't take very much time except to point out that one of the problems that we are trying to highlight on this committee is, as you just mentioned, miss flournoy, on acquisition reform. we simply can't afford these cost overruns of billions of dollars and canceled and delays programs. it harms our credibility. it's going to be one of the highest priorities of this committee to try and address that issue. it's been tried many times in the past. so i'm not confident as to the degree of success, but we have to work on it. i just -- i only have one additional question. why did you use secretary gates' fiscal year 2012 budget levels as a baseline for your recommendations? >> mr. chairman, as i mentioned in the 2010 panel we spoke to secretary gates about what he thought the department needed to recapitalize after 10 years of war. and he told us that he believed he needed about 1 1/2% to 2 1/2% real growth in the budget to fight it in order to do that. i think 20910 panel believed that that was a minimum and that it might actually be higher, but when we met as a panel and tried to wrestle with this, we had a smaller panel this time, only 10 members and limited staff, we concluded that recurring to secretary gates' top line made sense because it was the last time the department had been trying to define its needs on the basis of something approaching a strategy as opposed to being given arbitrary numbers by either o.m.b. or because of the budget control act caps. there were differences of view among us on the panel as to what -- how high the top line ought to go, but i think there was consensus that the gates level that is over 1 1/2% to 2 1/2% real growth from the f.y. 2011 and f.y. 2012 levels was the minimum and all of us could agree on that. >> unless we do something such as you are recommending, the nation's security is at risk. >> i would say so. i think all the members of the panel believe that. >> yes, sir. i think we talked about the force being at substantial risk in the near term. if sequestration was not lifted and higher budget levels not restored. >> thank you. senator reed. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. thank you, ambassador and madam secretary, for your thoughtful testimony today and also for the work of your colleagues on this report. you were obviously tasked with focusing on the needs and responsibilities of the department of defense, one of the rallies we all recognize is that military forces don't operate alone. and they are part of a spectrum of national security efforts. if there's not a sufficient state department presence and capacity building and local communities, then our military efforts could dissipate quickly when we change or shift responsibility. so can i assume -- i won't assume, i'll ask. when we talk about repealing the b.c.a., we also have to be conscious, state department, homeland security department every agency of the government that essentially protects the security of the united states could even go further than that, is that fair? >> senator reed, i think that's certainly fair. although we in our panel really were more focused on the department specifically, in the 2010 panel we actually had a chapter about the need for a better whole of government effort. really very much along the lines you're discussing. because you're right, just solving d.o.d.'s problem is crucial, and i would say a necessary condition for almost everything else. but it's not sufficient because we have other instruments of national power that we don't want to see withering on the vine without adequate funding. >> your comment. >> i would agree. in just about every operation we conduct, every problem we try to solve, there's got to be an integrated balanced interagency approach. one instrument is well funded and the others are on life support if that doesn't work so well. i think our intention was to talk about the instruments of national security more broadly. >> let me shift to another topic that you talked about in your report which is increasingly critical, that's cyber operations. from afar, looking at some of the recent operations, the russians and crimea, that cyber seems to be the first act of any sort of military operation today. and the line between a cyber incident and a military operation is getting less and less distinct. your comments generally about the efforts we should take with respect to cyber d.o.d. and others. this touches the whole spectrum. everything in cyber. >> senator reed, i'm at something of a disadvantage because i have trouble booting up my own computer. like many people of my age, very reliant on my younger sons to get me out of trouble. but the reality is, we rely -- our military forces rely extensively on cyber. not only encrypted systems, but the open net. and that's a huge problem for us whenever we are involved in an operation of any kind. and i think we are all painfully aware of the vulnerabilities that we face. we do cite cyber as one of the capabilities that needs further attention and work. you put your finger on one problem i don't think we have resolved as a government. as i said, d.o.d. relies on the open internet. yet it doesn't really have the responsibility for defending it. it's got the responsibility for defending dot mil. this is one area where the whole of government has to be involved, particularly for d.o.d. >> madam secretary. >> i would just add i think it's a very important area of emphasis and there are many dimensions to the challenge. one is building the human capital and expertise needed within the government and access to it outside of government. figuring out how we are going to get it organized beyond d.o.d. across of government different -- given different agencies have different priorities. how we work with the private sector. and frankly the legislative framework that deals with questions of liability and others. otherwise i would enable the kind of public-private cooperation that's needed to be effective in this area. >> thank you for your great work. thank you. >> thank you, mr. chairman. ambassador, when you're my age you'll be depending on your grandchildren's advice not just your children. in the 20 years i have been on this committee, we talked about our -- you and i talked about this, the fact that we have the oldest nuclear arsenal in the world. most of our warheads are 30, 40 years old. and our delivery system, you look at the triade, b-52 50 years old, and the icbm's and nuclear submarines. we have talked about this for a long period of time and i'm looking now at the new situation, the new threat that's out there, newt threat that you have talked about, both of you as well as our panel that we had last week that was -- that talked about this for quite some time. kissinger, albright, and shultz. now, in light of the new threat should more attention being given to this than we have in the past? i noticed when you used the word -- you ticked off five of the areas that have not been given proper attention, this wasn't one of those areas. do you think it should be? >> senator inhofe, i was as undersecretary member of the nuclear weapons council and followed the issues closely and was very, very concerned throughout my tenure about the state of our aging nuclear force. we haven't built new nuclear weapon since 1988. we haven't tested one since 1991. there are lots of ways we maintain the safety and surety of the stockpile. but as time goes on and particularly not only as the inevitable corrosion and degradation of components goes on, but also the loss of human capital because we are not able to get the best and brightest minds in the field the way we used to be able to do, i think it's a matter of really increasing concern. we are, unfortunately, i think living through a period where the risks of an increasingly proliferated world are growing. we already have north korea testing -- having tested nuclear weapons. iran is moving very close to being a nuclear threshold state. hopefully they'll be in agreement that will constrain that. but if there isn't, or if iran maintains a near breakout capacity, there's a real prospect we may get other states in the region who decide to develop their own nuclear capabilities. in the meantime, you've got a growing nuclear stockpiles in pakistan, india, china's -- the chinese inventory is also growing in terms of weapons, although albeit more slowly. and russia's modernizing its nuclear force. i do worry. i applaud the administration for the very good work it's done and the b-61 modernization effort, but i do think there's much more that needs to be done in this area. >> ambassador, that gets into what i was going to talk about. i have been concerned about iran ever since our unclassified intelligence came out in 2011 talking about when they were going to have the capabilities being 2015, which is where we are right now. i'm concerned about the maligned activities. there's been several published reports, talking about sudan come interesting iran, sudan gaza, yemen, bahrain, iraq syria, and lebanon. i don't think we can assume that our concern should be strictly with iran. this is my concern that i have had for a long time of the we are supposed to be and historically have been the nuclear umbrella. our umbrella has holes in it. we have serious problems. when you look at countries like saudi arabia and turkey and others, if they see what our capabilities aren't, then you know -- i would assume they are going to be involved and we are going to have another arms race coming. does that concern the two of you? >> i think our strategic nuclear forces have been one of our huge strategic apparent advantages as a nation since 1945. and i think we cannot afford to let that advantage go by the wayside. extended deterrence of our allies in asia, europe, and now increasingly in the middle east, has always been a very difficult proposition. it was a difficult proposition when we had a much larger stockpile and inventory of nuclear weapons to make our willingness to use those weapons in defense of our allies. that was a very difficult proposition to convince people of. it's still going to be a difficult proposition to convince people about. but it will be much harder to do, as you say, senator inhofe if the appearance is we are not paying sufficient attention to the stockpile and to the modernization of our forces. >> my time has expired, just as i did for the panel of kissinger, albright, and so on i would like to have you for the record submit something talking about the fact that for the 20 years that we were -- i was involved in this committee before, we had the policy of major -- being able to fight two wars or two major theater conflicts, and that policy seemingly changing now and your analysis of the new policy, for the record. thank you, mr. chairman. >> senator sullivan, you wish to be recorded as voting aye for ashton carter to be secretary of defense? >> yes, mr. chairman. >> senator gillibrand. >> thank you for your testimony today. it's very instructive and something that this committee is focused on. i want to continue the conversation about your recommendations with regard to cyber. obviously the 2014 quadrennial defense rye view reports that cyberthreats come from a diverse range of countries, or individuals, and are posing significant risks to the u.s. national interests. some threats seek to undercut the department of defense's near and long-term military effectiveness by gaining unauthorized access to the department of defense and industry networks and infrastructure on a routine basis. further, our potential adversaries are actively probing critical infrastructure, whether chemical plants, nuclear plants, any type of important infrastructure, and our partner countries which could inflict significant damage to the global economy as well as exacerbate instability in the security environment. what are your specific recommendations with regard to increasing cyber capability? specifically, how do we compete with the private sector to get the brightest minds, best engineers, best mathematicians to want to serve as cyber warriors? to enhance our cyber defense? have you thought about ways to not only recruit and retain the best and brightest in these fields, but also to perhaps develop resources throughout national guard and other sources. >> as panel, senator, we did not go into that level of detail. we noted the importance of the area, importance of investing in both defensive and offensive capabilities. urged the department to move forward with modernization and improving cooperation with the private sector. so i'll give you my personal views on your question. i think attracting talent someone of the biggest challenges. there are a couple ways to go at it. one is to use different incentives and pay schedules for cyber experts than the normal g.s. schedule. second is to develop contract relationships and surge capacity with the private sector, and a third is as you mentioned actually leveraging some of the strength of our guard and reserves. there are a lot of these folks who have this expertise in the commercial sector who are patriots and might want to contribute to our national defense but they are not going to leave silicon valley to join full-time. finding a way to leverage them on the weekends and for their annual training and to be available to be mobilized in a national emergency, i think we need to be thinking creatively about those kinds of arrangements. a couple of the services have some pilot programs you may be aware ever experimenting with that construct. but the human exam dimension is probably the long intent here. >> senator gillibrand, the only thing i would add. i am aware of some efforts in the private sector to do something which i think is a -- in this context a great idea help train some of our wounded warriors to become cyber warriors. there are a lot of our wounded warriors who would love to get back into the field, but because of their injuries cannot. this is a way for them to continue the fight. with a little bit of training. >> would you recommend, for example, our cyber defenders cyber fighters to not have -- say basic training, you might be the best person behind the computer but not behind the gun so train specifically for their requirements. but that would be a first for the military. they have not done that previously. >> my understanding of at least one of the pilots that's using a reserve unit, one of the things they have done is exempt people from the p.t. requirements, from cutting their hair, wearing uniform. really let them come as they are, bringing their expertise to the table without having to meet the traditional requirements. >> in your opening remarks you mentioned five areas, technology areas where you felt we needed to develop more weapons expertise. does your report expand on that or do you just list them? >> we don't go into great detail, senator gillibrand. we basically highlight them as areas where we clearly think there needs to be more attention and there hasn't been sufficient attention directed energy weapons, for one. but there's, as you said, a list of them. we give them about a paragraph treatment in each one, not in any detail. >> i'd love for the record further development to the extent you have it. thank you. thank you, mr. chairman. >> senator sessions. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank both of you for your leadership and your wisdom that you are sharing with us. we do have a problem with defense spending. it's causing me great concern as a member of the budget committee for a couple years. i have been digging into those numbers. i have felt all along that the -- one area of our budget that needs to be examined with most care for spending more money is the defense department. we have to justify that. the defense department has to tell us what they are going to spend the money on and how much it is, but we don't have a lot of money. matter of fact, we don't have enough money to run this government. and the deficits will. we have had a slow annual deficits. they will start rising again it. they projected by 2019, interest on the debt will exceed the defense budget. this is a grim thing. ambassador, do you think if the defense department needs more money, does that increase above the cca totals as he matched by the same increases of nondefense veterinary -- discretionary spending? >> we don't take a position on that. what i'm about to place my personal opinion and not representing my colleague or other members of the panel to putting the issue in defense is crucial. federal spending is to be under better control. the biggest problem is not the discretionary part, it's the nondiscretionary part. forecasts of make that clear for some time. that is the real driver of long-term debt. >> is your answer yes or no? >> it needs to go up and i don't think nondiscretionary -- discretionary nondefense spending needs to go up. >> the presidents budget increases defense spending. i think senator mccain was correct to say that the gates land -- plan would be $100 billion more this year. $100 billion more on defense is more than $1 trillion. the budget of the united states is $4 trillion. these are huge numbers. you don't have the stress every day that we do about every other agency wants more money. >> may i just add question? sequestration needs to be listed across the board so that secretaries. i don't think you can solve the problems on the back of discretionary spending. -- reformed and entitled to reform are the keys. i think that's what we need to focus. >> it's not -- these are the tough years. we are in the tough years right now. the defense department took a damaging demand to reduce spending so rapidly. i understand how hard they have had right now. i don't know that we've got to have these kinds of increases in nondefense discretionary. the fastest-growing part of the budget is entitlements. we all know that. we can also make a difference with discretionary spending. ambassador, you have legends -- questions about negotiations with iran and their nuclear program. dr. kissinger was animated when he expressed concern over our negotiating posture. as he understands it, it could be months within having a nuclear weapon. our goal is allowing a program that would leave them months of a nuclear weapon. he says that other nations in the world plan to have nuclear weapons. how you evaluate that? >> i'm concerned about the trajectory of these negotiations. when you look at the full sweep of them going back to 2003 four 2004, we started with what was a multilateral negotiation with the objective of preventing them from having a nuclear capability. increasingly, we are in a bilateral negotiation between united dates and iran is aimed at limiting the breakout or sneak out time they have to develop a nuclear weapon to one year. that seems to be an enormous retreat. i don't know exactly what the state of the negotiation is. the press indicates they might be allowed to keep thousands of centrifuges without taking them down. that is concerning to me. there is a time limit in the negotiation. it will be time limited whatever that date is. at some point, that time limit runs out. iran is treated as a normal nation despite its violations. they've got an industrial scale enrichment capability, that leaves them as a threshold nuclear state. i am concerned about the way the negotiations have preceded. >> thank you mr. chairman. you both discussed sequestration causing problem's to the department. i am concerned that we're not doing enough to streamline and reduce costs. you noted that changes are required to right size the civilian defense. the number of contractors working for the dod had grown to 670000 and at a time where we have fewer servicemen, i have a problem with the staff sizes. at the army headquarters staff it grew by 60% to over 3000. that does not include the contractors and i was shocked. the dod had yet to produce a realistic land to meet secretary hagel's 2013 goals. the dod headquarters could not determine how many people they needed. they could not tell you what they needed and what positions they would have and what they would do. we heard about the need to fund service members in yield. we are concerned about readiness of force or it would you have bloat on the other side it is taking away from readiness, you are not utilizing your reservists. i am hiring all high-priced contractors and there is no auditing going on. we can't get weapons to the front in time. we've got concerns. would you address that? i think all the senators have touched on this, we need more money and we understand that. what are we doing with the money we give you? why are you spending on it needless stuff? we want to make sure our readiness force. >> this is an important area of focus. it's understandable why the workforce grew over 15 years of war. now, i think it's time to go back to first vegetables and try to right size that force and examine how contractors are being used. we need to look at the civilian organization. there is no overall planet. there are some components that are taking some interesting approaches that may lead the way for others. there are some looking at layering and optimizing organizations. there are others who are looking at streamlining is this practices. -- business practices. currently, the secretary of defense this not have the kind of authority that his predecessors have used to manage drawdowns in this area. the end of the cold war, they were able to right size the civilian workforce. the current secretary does not have those authorities. that is a constraint. it's an opportunity for you to give the secretary some additional tools to right size that civilian workforce during --. >> does it bother you that the dod can't identify the types of jobs? >> i think that something that you need to ask of them. >> if i could make a point to respond to the excellent question you have asked and the earlier question senator sessions posed to us, everybody can cite or stories about procurements that have gone bad or problems in the department of defense. you are stewards of the taxpayers money. you are right to ask about justifying all this. one of the things we talk about in the report in which my colleague has been very active is on the reform agenda. there is a report by the business for not trying to read even more savings out of the department. this is a priority area. i hope the chairman and the rest of you will have the business board to talk about that report and push the department. i know he has them very much on his mind from his reviews service. >> thank you very much. >> thank you for being here today. i appreciate it very much. ambassador, i appreciate it when you said we have been eating the seed corn. that comes home for me. we have been degrading the source of any future strengthen readiness and prosperity that we have. i agree that we do need to and sequestration. we do need to restore readiness. another component beyond looking internally, we have to look externally also. anytime the united states is engaging the military elsewhere we do rely on other partners. i believe we do need to engage other partners in whatever region we are operating in to the fullest extent that we possibly can. over the last 12 years, military cooperation between the united states and turkey has faltered. i can give specific examples at critical moments. in 2003, my unit and others were denied access to turkey as a projection platform into iraq. that is one example. we couldn't use their reports for operations. a few months ago, we heard turkey deny our kurdish allies from heading into syria to break up i saw. -- isis. that led to many deaths. turkey has denied our country the use -- we saw the wall street journal that went into further detail about how turkey had denied us using their areas for search and rescue missions. that provides cover for men and women on the ground or it time and time again, turkey has denied use of their facilities and their grounds. they are a nato ally. they are very unapologetic when it comes to denying resources we believe are necessary in their region. what i would like to hear from you is as we are looking at constrained budgets, a lack of resources and a lack of readiness, we need to engage our other practice in turkey which i think contributes to some of this. their view is that the president must go and that the u.s. is not doing enough to try and promote. you cannot just take on the problem in syria by taking on isil. allies but clearly are partnered with us. our allies are spending less and less on defense themselves. so they have less and less capability for us to draw on. that's the sort of paradox. i think one it's a little beyond the work of our panel but i think one of the things we need to think about more is actually being much more forthright with our allies about where we want them to spend their money on defense. and developing capabilities that will complement, supplement ours replace areas where we may have less capabilities so there is a better division of labor between us and our allies. i think that's true in both europe and east asia as you see defense spending declining in most of those countries. we need to do to that so that we don't have them wasting money and not being able to be there when we need them. >> what would be your recommendation as to the next step for the coalition to take to move isis out of syria? we're making progress in iraq. do you wait in syria until iraq is done or do you begin to take action right now to move them out? and does that action also include assad? >> this is my personal poinl. >> that's all i'm asking. we have your presence here. >> my own view is we should have been doing much more much earlier. again, the president has said long ago assad must go. i agree with that. i don't think there's any way this problem can be resolved as long as assad is there. >> what do we do now moving forward? >> the problem in syria is we're relying almost totally on air power. we have not very good intelligence because we have no presence on the ground. we have to find some kind of surrogate as the peshmerga have been to some degree in iraq and unfortunately sometimes shia militias in iraq. we have to find a surrogate on the ground in syria with whom we can work. and that i think goes to the issue of arming of the moderate syrian opposition and getting them into a position where they can actually do something. we would have been much better off had we been doing this going back to 2011 rather than having to face this problem now. bad news never gets bet anywhere my experience. >> i would agree that we -- i would -- i wish we would have begun armling of the moderate opposition when they were far stronger and in greater numbers a while back. but we are where we are. and i think building up a credible surrogate force is key. i think the air campaign could be used in a more robust manner to put more pressure on isil. and in some areas on the regime. i mean, the key is eventually you have to put pressure on the assad regime if you expect them to come to the table. if we were to do that and bring it to a culmination point right now, unnortherly the main ben factor in syria would be isil. they're the strongest force on the ground. we've got to focus on building up alternatives to isil and more moderate surrogates before we get to that point. >> let me ask another question that's more about national security strategy global strategy and that is vladmir putin. what do you think his end game is? >> i think he has a broader agenda first to destabilize ukraine to the point that he can impose regime change in kiev and dominate ukraine and prevent it from associating itself with the european union and moving in the direction of the west. i think he fundamentally lee jects the post cold war security order in europe. and i think it's taken a while for a lot of our friends in europe to recognize this. i think some of them are still in a bit of denial about it. they still seem to hope that there's some way to negotiate a limit with him on ukraine. but i think this is just the beginning. after ukraine he's going to be pursuing this in moldova and i think we're likely to see efforts to create problems and drive wedges between the united states and its allies and particularly its battlic allies. >> would you agree that if nato doesn't live up to its obligations in latvia that would be the end of nato? >> absolutely. >> i don't disagree with anything that ambassador said but my sense is that putin may not have a strategic clear end game. he's a very tactical thinker and he's sitting on top of a former great power that is unquestionably in decline demographicically, economically plagued by corruption poor governance. and but that doesn't make it any less dangerous because i think he will lash out along the way trying to reestablish his sphere of influence. >> do you think he takes a chance wherever he sees a weakness? >> i do. and i think that's why it's so important that we follow through on the reassurance initiatives for nato, on our posture, bowl sturring our posture. underwriting article 5. my own belief is we should be doing more to help the ukrainians defend themselves. >> thank you. >> again i want to thank the panelists. i appreciate your great service to our country and the joint statement. very helpful when we get those kind of joint statements. we've been discussing a lot of the challenges, certainly that we have as a country in terms of national security. we also have a lot of strengths. one of -- to me the ultimate strength that we have is the men and women in uniform who continue to volunteer, raise their right hand, post 9/11, so they know what the risks are to serve our country. i've had the great honor. i get to spend a lot of time with our troops. i'm sure that was a great part of both of your jobs. and just in the last two weekend i was at national training center a couple weekend ago with thousands of young alaskans soldiers training out there. and this past weekend i was with a smaller group of marines reservists. and this time with troops for me raises a very interesting question i would like the two of you to maybe comment on. what we hear from our civilian leaders a lot the president included is that we consistently hear that we are a war-weary nation. there's a subtle element to that i think that it kind of is used as an excuse in some ways that we're not going to be taking any kind of action because we're weary. but when you spend time with the troops, and they've sacrificed a lot in the last 12 years. we all know that. but one of the concerns that they raise -- at least with me. and these are just anecdotal but i'm throwing them out there. is they want to deploy. they joined the military to serve their country. they don't want to be sitting around. so i want you to help us think through this conventional wisdom that somehow we are a war-weary nation. we can't take on global commitments. when the truth is that less than 1% of americans have actually been doing the fighting and the ones that i'm associated with certainly seem to be ready not necessarily to fight but certainly be ready to deploy. how can we think through that? because i think this issue that we're weary has become conventional wisdom in such a way that nobody seems to challenge it. and when you talk to the people who are actually really at the pointing tip of the spear god love them they seem ready to go. >> first of all, senator it's a great question. and i would agree that our men and women in uniform are one of the greatest strengths we have as a nation. they're remarkable. i think that when the american people when it's explained to the american people, what the nature of a threat is, why we have to meet it, what it means for the nation, what are the risks of not going after it, as the president did recently with regard to isil, i think the american people rally and they may shed whatever we'reieness they have and support a cause when it's well articulated and explained and the sacrifice or the risk seems commensurate with the importance of the interest. so i don't think we are generally war-wary. yes, we've had a lot of blood and treasure that we spent over the last 15 years. but i think when -- and that is something that weighs heavily on everyone as it should. but i think, again when there's the interests are clear, the objectives are clear, the mission is clear, and it's well explained and people are mobilized i think they are very willing to follow that strong instinct that you described that we have a mission and we need to get it done. so i think that is the challenge for everyone who? a public leadership position to be making that case when it's necessary. >> ambassador. >> general marshall i think once said that he thought it was difficult if not impossible for the united states to fight a war for more than four years. and i think what that reflects is that americans tend to want to see -- they tend to want to see a decisive outcome to a conflict. inconclusive wars and long difficult fights sometimes can be a bit exhausting to the public. and particularly if, as my colleague suggests, they're not being explained properly to the american public. i agree with everything you said, senator sullivan, about the incredible comparative advantage that we have with our people and it was always incredibly inspiring to go to iraq or afghanistan and see our young folks out there. they are truly incredible. when i talked to folks particularly enlisted and say do you think people out here think people back home know what you're doing out here? and the answer i used to get was no they think all we step is ied's out here and they have no clue what we're doing. so i do think it's important to explain exactly what the stakes are as my colleague just said. and i would also note one other thing. americans are war-weary until they're not. if you look at the data about how the public felt about the videotapes of the beheading this summer came out, it was a very different set of numbers than what you had seen previously because americans feel these thing very deeply and see them as a sign of dice respect to the nation which they don't appreciate. >> thank you. >> senator king cane. >> thank you, mr. chairman. just to put it into perspective the numbers that we are talking about at the beginning. if we had the gates budget of 2012 the defense budget this year would be around $612 billion. instead under the sequester level we're at 492 2.8% of g.d.p. which is just about the lowest level of g.d.p. since world war ii. it is the lowest level of federal spending, lowest percentage for defense since world war ii. 4%. which is a kind of post world war ii average would be $700 billion. so we are definitely at a very low point in terms of funding of defense at a time of escalating challenge on multiple fronts. so i just -- i think putting it in percentage of g.d.p. is a sort of good way to look at it because it really puts it in historical perspective. a question for both of you. ambassador, you mentioned about arming the ukrainians. and that seems to be a developing consensus here in washington that that's something we ought to do. and i understand that. i understand the precedent of the sue dayton land and if there had been force in 1939 we might have avoid it had catastrophe of world war ii. on the other hand i also ubs the precedent of the guns of august and stumbling into a catastrophic world war and we're playing chess with a russian here. if you play chess with a russian you had better think two and three moves ahead. and my concern is a russia has an historic paranoia. and b putin probably wouldn't mind a manageable little war in ukraine right now to take people's minds off the domestic problems. margaret thatcher's approval rating the day before the faulken's war. i suspect putin may not know those numbers but he knows the phenomenon. persuade me that the escalation by arming the ukrainians would not lead to a matching escalation and in fact an increase. we don't live in a static world. we can't assume that we arm the ukrainians, putin says, oh, this is tough. i'm going home. he's not responsive to bodies in bags or tightening sanctions. give me your thoughts. >> well, a couple of things. and i know my colleague will want to speak to this because she with some other colleagues has just been a signatory to a very good paper on this subject that brookings institution atlantic council and the chicago council on world affairs i guess or foreign affairs has put out. i think your question is a good one, senator king, and it has to be answered i would say at multiple levels. first, it is true that in some sense president putin has what we used to cal in the cold war escalation dominance in ukraine. he's -- the stakes are higher for him. the region is closer. >> he has more chips. >> exactly. having said that he's also signatory -- his country is signatory to a number of agreements that make it clear that countries have a right to belong to whatever alliance or multilateral organizations like the e u. that they would like to association with. >> you seriously believe putin cares about agreements? >> no. but we should care about it. the point is that he doesn't have a legitimate way to protest that we are helping a legitimate government defend itself against his aggression. i think we have to thing about it in terms of the moral obligation to do that when people want to defend themselves we have an obligation i think to try to help them if we can. i think secondly, we need to raise the costs for him of what he is doing. and he i think is perhaps a little bit more sensitive to tomesoff these things than you were suggesting. the body bags coming home, the protesting russian mothers, the capital flight, the amount of money that's been expended defending the ruble. these are real costs and they're costs that are hitting his base of support cht the olegark. they are suffering from this. so he has to respond to that in some way. but it's also important to remember that while there's potentially costs to action there's very serious costs to inaction here. >> there are real risks either way. >> and the cost to inaction could be the catastrophic miscalculation. we need to make him understand that if we are willing to provide this kind of assistance to a country with whom we have no treaty legal obligation that he ought to think twice then about doing something with a nato member state like latvia as mr. donnelly asked me about earlier, with whom we do have a legal treaty obligation. it's the importance of underscoring our commitment to defend our nato allies in europe that really is at stake here i think. and if we don't do this, the risk that he will miscalculate in a place like latvia or astonia i think will go up dramatically. and i think that is something in terms of regret that we will feel very seriously later on. >> my father used to say there lies the body of jauntsdzven gray who died defending his right of way. >> one of the thing that is we've learned since the collapse of the cease fire is that putin is going to continue to escalate. because he wants to keep destabilizing ukraine and eventually cause the regime to change. so he's on a path anyway. the question is whether we can provide ukraine -- ukrainians with the weapons they need to impose a level of cost on the separatists and their russian backers that might make him think twice. and particularly counter battery radars that could locate where the artillery and rocket fire is coming from. that's what's responsible for 70% of the casualties in ukraine. and anti-tank system that is could stop armored or heavy up armored vehicles from taking further territory. so i think he's demonstrated he's on an esclatri path. the question is whether there's anything that we can do to help ukraine impose costs to make him stop and actually come to the negotiation seriously. i think it's worth seeing what happens on wednesday in minsk and seeing if by some miracle an agreement is forged. but barring that, i think it's very important that we help the ukrainians defend themselves and impose greater costs on the separatists and the russians for their aggression. >> thank you. very helpful. >> senator ayotte. >> i want to thank both of you for being here. and secretary, i wanted to ask you about afghanistan. i know that last june you were quoted in the "new york times" about the administration's time line for withdrawal from afghanistan. and one of the things you said was if it was a time line with a strong statement that said, hey, this is our plan but no plan survives contact with reality, and of course we're going to adjust based on conditions on the ground then no problem. in reference to the withdrawals. are the afghans on the plan we called for or not is the insurgency as we expected or worse. ? what i'm hearing is it's hell or high water. i'm hoping you have a different sense of this now and i want to get your thoughts on afghanistan because many of us i think who have had the opportunity to visit afghanistan and then this weekend we had obviously the opportunity to sit doub with president gaunie and hear his per spective to really understand their plan right now as it stands president gani seemed really concerned that we not reduce our forces in 2015 in particular and then many of us are very concerned that by the end of 2016 under the current plan it will really be 1,000 people based in kabul. so i wanted to get your perspective on afghanistan and what you think we should be doing. >> so that's a great question. thank you for asking. i think at this point we need to change the frame of discussion on afghanistan. rather than debating the fine points of the final phases of the drawdown and the end of the u.s. combat role and so forth we need to stop and say, ok we need to look forward. we have an afghan government that is trying to -- that has a good chance of pulling it together and going forward as a democratically elected coalition government. we have an ansf that's continuing to develop its capabilities that is in the fight, that is taking risks, that is trying to hold their ground. but we also see continued challenge from insurgency that remains able to contest a lot of areas. and we see continued activity from al qaeda moving across back and forth across the border. so now is the time to stop debating whether we can change the drawdown timeline and we need to stop and say, ok, looking forward what kind of posture does the united states need both intelligence and military in the aff-pack region to protect ourselves against future terrorist threats and prevent afghanistan or the border region from becoming a serious safe haven once again for al qaeda and ah ashesosheyated groups. and with that fresh sheet of paper what's the military posture we need to support that and to continue to help the afghan national forces develop. i think that shift in the conversation is very, very important. my sense is that starting to happen inside certainly inside the intelligence community. but hopefully that's a conversation we need to have over the next year. >> could you give i think thinking about our squenlts the importance of really looking forward there and frankly in terms of our own interests the importance of afghanistan and the intelligence that we might need from afghanistan for protecting our own interests. >> this is an area where we need to continue to be able to have a sense of what the remnants of al qaeda that remain there their taliban supporters the hah canie network. we need to still have eyes and ears. it's not something you can do from kabul alone or from bagram alone. and that intelligence posture will require some supporting military posture. it will be far less than what we've had in previous years. it is a small continued investment relatively speaking to try to support the afghan government and continuing on the path of progress and continuing to hold their country and not allow the insurgency to regain any kind of foothold in terms of actually governing or leading the country. >> thank you. i also wanted to follow up briefly with the size of the naval fleet including the attack submarines. as i understand it, we're with sequester we're on a path really to reduce our fleet size to 260 ships or less overall. and having worked on the qdr the navy's current fleet size is around 285. and as i look at the attack submarine fleet size, this is something that we have even greater need for now especially as we want to have a presence in the asia pacific region. so i wanted to get your assessment of, as we go forward, where we are. it looks like a dramatic decline if we continue on the sequester, the importance of the attack submarine fleet and this investment and why it's important for us. >> i think overall, the fleet is on a path to becoming too small for what we will need in the future. i agree with you that the undersea warfare is an area of american advantage that we want to do everything in our power to keep. it will require continued investment but it's also going to require investment in new technologies such as unmanned undersea vehicles and how we network manned submarines and unmanned systems to leverage that capability to have much greater impact. so i think this is an area very ripe for some new thinking and development of both lerging of new technologies and developing of new operational concepts. but your core premise about the importance of the attack submarine fleet is a very important advantage that we want to maintain. >> if i could just add. we did not have the kind of staffing that would have enabled us to do a real fine grain analysis of this. but we did conclude as you have suggested in your question as my colleague just suggested in her answer that we are on a path towards a fleet that is much too small. and that we ought to -- we tried to bracket the problem for you and your colleagues by saying somewhere between the number that secretary gates requested and the fy 12 budget which i think was 320-something. and the number that secretary perry identified in the bottom up review which was in the 340s, was the place where we ought to be looking to try to get. >> thank you. >> senator shaheen. >> thank you, mr. chairman. and again thank you for holding this series of broader strategic looks at what our defense capability should be going forward. i want to thank bote of our panelists for being here and for your long service to this country. and follow up first -- i should apologize for missing your statements in the earlier questions. i was at a briefing on iran and those negotiations. but i wanted to follow up on senator ayotte's question because i'm not sure if she asked very directly if in your assessment should we be drawing down troops, the remaining troops in afghanistan as rapidly as we are this year. or do you think that since that sends the wrong message to both the afghans who are trying to make a new start with a new president and address their internal issues as well as the taliban and the other enemies who are fighting them in afghanistan? >> my sense is that the delay in the government formation process that we've seen post elections in afghanistan should put some more time on the clock in terms of the drawdown and we need to reexamine that. but most fundamentally what i was trying to say before is that we need to reexamine the pace and scope of the drawdown in light of what we're going to need in the future. i don't believe a zero posture in afghanistan is going to serve our interests in the long term given the continued terrorism threats that we face, given the continued importance of our support the development of the ansf. so figuring out instead of looking back and drawing down, looking forward and saying what are we going to need in the next five to ten years, what kind of -- it will be more modest than what it's been, certainly, but it won't be zero. so figuring out what that looks like and having that inform the pace and scope of the final stages of the drawdown i think is very important. >> ambassador? >> senator shaheen, you've asked a slr good question. and i am very concerned that we are going to go down too low. i mean, it's a source of great regret i think to most of us that we left iraq without any residual presence. and the consequences i think are staring us in the face with the rise of isil and collapse of the iraqi security forces. i worry that we may be putting ourselves on the same path in afghanistan and i hope we won't do that. >> well, thank you both. with respect to europe and what's happening in ukraine, how important is the effort to beef up nato to encourage the european countries to actually follow through on their commitment to provide 2% of g.d.p. for support for nato and to what extent do you think actually doing that, actually taking some of these steps with nato to put more visible operations on the borders of eastern europe will be helpful in deterring russia from future aggression? >> i think it's absolutely critical. there is a clear plan to bolster our posture our exercise activity, our cooperation, our prepositioning with our nato allies particularly the frontline states battlics poland and so forth. i think doing that consistently relieably, visibly, is extremely important to bolstering deterrence and to reassuring our allies. you know i also think that getting more of our allies to meet the 2% of g.d.p. defense spending target is essential. as is engaging them as partners in developing capability for the future. i mean, we talk about an offset strategy and innovation agenda. we need to have that on a transatlantic basis as well with -- there are great opportunities for pooling resources, sharing having a clear division of labor and so forth. >> i know you both were in munich this past weekend. to what extent did you hear nato members countries who were there talking about their appreciation that this is important for them as well? if at all. >> well, there was actually i thought not very much of that. i heard a lot of discussion about how there is no military solution to the problem in ukraine. and that is i think dems strabbably false. if we do nothing there will be a military solution in ukraine and it's going to be the one that's imposed by vladmir putin. i think the importance of all the things -- and i agree with everything that my colleague said about the importance of the nato reassurance effort and all of that in terms of deterrence. i think we also need to remember it's an important part of diplomacy. i always carry around with me a quoteation from george cannon who says you have no idea. this is a lecture he gave to the national war college -- how much it contributes to the general politeness and diplomacy when you have a little quiet armed force in the background. and i think that we tend to lose track of that. i mean what is now going on and i hope maybe there will be some success to it on wednesday, but we should be clear about what's happening. the europeans are discussing this and calling it minsk plus but it's really ukraine minus. because what it does is reaffirms the principles of minsk agreement in september but makes adjustment for the reality of the continued reality by the done bath separatists. we should have no illusions for what's happening here. and it's the reason why i and i'm not going to speak for my colleague but why i believe we do need to arm the ukrainian government. and senator kaine has raised rightly how do we respond further escalation by president putin. one thing i think is absolutely important to bear in mind, which is if we do this, we have to do this seriously. we cannot arm the ukrainian government the way we've been arming the syrian moderate opposition for the last three years. because if we do that, we will end up with all the effective provocation of president putin with none of the benefits of increased deterrence or military capability for ukraine. >> thank you both. >> senator hirno. >> thank you mr. chairman. i would like to be noted as voting in person for dr. carter. >> without objection. >> thank you. thank you both for your testimony and your service. and secretary, i do appreciate your noting that there's a shift in the conversation that is beginning regarding what we need to do in afghanistan and certainly in the intelligence community that the shift is happening. i think that moves us forward as opposed to talking about what we should have done et cetera. i also would like to thank both of you for stressing the importance of maintaining our sea power and your concerns about our decreasing size of our fleet. dr. carter was asked at his confirmation, and i would like to paraphrase the question he was asked he was asked how do we respond to the threats in the middle east and africa, ukraine, and still be committed to the rebalance to the asia pacific. i would like to ask both of you the same question. but first, why you believe that the rebalance is important to our national security. >> well, let me start since i can be blamed for part of that. part of that initiative. when you look long term at what region of the world will have the greatest impact on u.s. economic prosperity and i think our security asia pacific is undenyably sort of the most important. and so it speaks to even though we obviously have to deal with crises in the middle east, we have to deal with russian aggression in europe, over the arc of the long term we want to be ensuring that we're adequately investing in asia in the foundations of continued economic growth in the maintenance of the rules based international order that's been underwriting stability there, in our alliances in our partnerships. so i think it's very important that the rebalance continue not only militarily shifting more of our assets there and becoming investing more with our partnerships and alliances there, but also in economic terms. and i think this is why the transpacific partnership is such an important initiative. to signal u.s. commitment to the region, u.s. staying power that the u.s. will remain a critical economic partner as well as a security partner going forward. >> the region obviously is growing in wealth and importance in the world. and obviously america's future is very much tied up. we've always been an atlantic and pacific nation but the impact of the pacific is much greater now and will be in the future for some time to come. i think it's for that reason that all the members of the panel agreed that the general direction that the president announced in the defense strategic guidance in january 2012 was the right direction. i think what we expressed in the report is some concern about whether at current budget levels this will be sustainable. and that's why we talked about the importance of growing both naval and air capability. because this is a theater where largely we're going to be operating in and because of the tyranny of distance and geography over water and air. so i think the need is clear. i think it's important that we move ahead on the rebalance. i'm concerned that what we've done already is fairly limited on the military side. it's -- and i'm not saying that we shouldn't do it. but it's basically 2500 marines rotationly deployed to darwin, four lcs' in singapore and the rebalancing of a shrinking fleet. it's one of the reasons i believe we have got to lift the caps on sequestration. >> thank you. mr. ambassador, you noted in a response to one of the questions earlier asked that other nations are decreasing the amount of resources they're putting into the military. would you say that that's where japan is also? >> under the prime minister japan has obviously done a bit to increase its defense capabilities. i don't think they've done enough. and we need to make sure that the money they spend -- japan spends about 1% of its g.d.p. on defense which is, given the size of the japanese economy, a considerable amount of money. i think where we need to help our amlies in japan is working with them as i said earlier in response to one of the questions, to focus on the capabilities we think they can provide that will really be additive and help complement what we're doing. and that's what i think we ought to be doing with japan. i think the prime minister has done a lot to cheak the direction in japan in a more positive direction. >> may i ask the secretary to respond to that, too? >> i would agree that i think japan is moving in the right direction. i think it is. prime minister is seeking to have an internal discussion that would allow the japanese military to play a more if you willsome role in our alliance. i think that the depth of the alliance relationship is really unprecedented now. and we are deeply engaged in looking at the region, developing common understandings of the environment, the threats we see, the capabilities that are needed how we will invest together, and so forth. so i actually think the alliance is on a very strong footing and moving in the right direction. but the question really is the internal debate within japan about the proper role of the military and what the japanese people are comfortable with moving forward. >> thank you. >> senator kaine. >> i was a proxy yes for ash carter but i'm a proud yes now. thank you for your testimony especially your strong testimony with respect to the foolishness of the sequester in today's global environment. big picture strategic question since you're both good strategic thinkers. i know question's have been asked earlier about afghanistan and we'll have a hearing later in the week. should our activities be based on a calendar or based on conditions on the ground. those questions have been asked already. but from a strategic standpoint talk about what failure would mean. if we were to pull out precipitously, for example, and then the gains that we've achieved are lost, what would that mean to u.s. credibility, what would it mean to the people of afghanistan, what would it mean in the region from a security standpoint? >> well, i can start. i think if history is any guide, it could be very dangerous for the afghan government and afghan society. recall that when the soviets ended their aid to the afghan government, the government collapsed. i think if the u.s. were to have -- and the international community would have no follow-on mission in nato, that international assistance would quickly dry up and you could see a sort of accelerated decline of the afghan government's hold over territory and the country. so i think it would be very, very dangerous. on the opportunity side, i think with continued modest but consistent international support i think the afghan government has an opportunity to hold the key urban centers, the ring road, the strategic territory inside afghanistan and keep governing without having the government and the overall control of the country being threatened by a continued insurgency. given that the region remains a home to various terrorist elements that still harbor our very dire intentions, dangerous intentions against the united states, it's some place we need to keep an eye on and keep investing in to make sure those threats are kept at bay. so i think the stakes are very high. i also think it would be very damaging for u.s. credibility to put so much into getting afghan to the point where it is today, and then pull the carpet out from underneath their feet. i think it would also be very danieling in terms of civil military relations given the degree of sacrifice that our men and women have been asked to make to create the possibility for afghanistan to succeed. and then to walk away from that before we complete the job i think would be very, very damaging. >> ambassador quickly one more question. would there be something you would add? >> i agree the reputational risk, the homeland risk because it will become ungoverned space again. it will reduce our strategic leverage on pakistan and we should not lose site of the large number of nuclear weapon that is pakistan presides over. >> one other picture. i was a mayor worrying about my police force and governor worrying about economic development. but you've been doing national security for your whole career. we often hear questions about where is the strategy? and i'm kind of sympathetic to those questions as i look quickly at what we've been up to. we had a national security strategy like it or not the trumeman doctrine from 1946. until the soviet union collapsed. we kind of dealt with challenges as they arose and often not in consistent ways. 9/11 began. our policy was the war on terror. thags not a big enough national security security policy as great as the u.s. as mag nan muss as the u.s. so i think we're probably now recognizing the ongoing battle with terror still looking for a broader definition of what is a big picture national strategy. are we back to sort of the ad hocism or folks who have done this as a lifetime professionally what would you suggest to us the big picture and national security strategy should be? >> this is the $64,000 question. and i think that it is something we've got to rise above the crisis of the day and get back to having a strategic framework, a sense of american purpose in the world that can garner bipartisan support. i personally believe that one of the key elements of it is to defend the international rules-based order that we put into place. we architected after the world war ii that has been the basis for stability in so many regions and has been the basis for economic growth and our security. we have a lot riding on that and it's being challenged in asia with the rise of china that is questioning that order and challenging and trying to unilaterally change the status quo. it is being challenged in the middle east as the boundries of nation states start to fray. and you have sunni-shia conflicts, the rise of extremist terror elements. and now it's being challenged in the heart of europe with russian aggression. so i think sustaining that rules-based international order is something that's got to be at the heart of any streergic framework we develop. >> mr. chair could i ask the ambassador just to answer that question as well? >> well, i agree with everything that my colleague said senator kaine so that makes it a little easier. a few years ago there was an article in the journal international security that had the provocative title of strategy is an illusion. and i teach a course in american grand strategy at johns hopkins, and my students at the end of it some say well it's easy to have a strategy when you had a bipolar world and one adversary. now it's just too complicated and too hard. and we said in our opening statement that we're dealing with a volatile and complex security environment and therefore maybe might say well it's just too hard to do. my view is that as hard as it may be marrying objectives to ways and means is just the essence of good governance. and if you don't try to do it, it just becomes an excuse for going, taking any road that will lead you where you think you might want to go but you won't have a roadmap. so i think it's a necessity. i think we have to do it. i think there's a lot of merit in what secretary kissinger has suggested. we're faced by primarily regional challengers now not a global peer competitor and we need to develop regional strategies but strategy that is are interconnectd with an overarching global vision. and i think that's the beginning of wisdom on that subject. >> thank you. >> i do recall a thing called the reagan doctrine which was in the words of margaret thatcher won the cold war without firing a shot. but maybe there's some of us who have different views of history. senator sullivan did you have additional questions? >> thank you, mr. chairman. i just had one quick follow-up question and it relates to some of the broader issues that we're struggling with here. and i would like your views on just some of your -- your thoughts on what's going to be looks like an upcoming debate in the congress on the authorization on the use of military force. and secretary, you mentioned a fresh start looking forward. how would you advise members of congress to look at that, whether it's years troops, geographic scope? there's a lot that can go into something like that. it's going to be important. and i would just appreciate your views on that. thank you, mr. chairman. >> first of all i would say i think it's important to have the discussion. the debate about the aumf will be a good surrogate for what should our strategy be with regard to counter terrorism and with regard to the middle east. i think that as you have that discussion it's very important to remember something that was said earlier which is we're very bad at predicting exactly how conflicts are going to unfold, how enemies are going to act, how things are going to more of and change. and so being overly restrictive, saying categorically no boots on the ground or being -- you know don't do -- being overly restrictive i think could become a problem over time. that said, i think it's very, very important to recognize that the aumf that we have from 2001, a lot of realities have moved beyond that and we do need to update it and recognize that there are groups who have distanced themselves from al qaeda but nevertheless now pose a similar threat to us and we need to have an authorization to deal with thefment but again, i would just caution against being overly predictive or specific in restrictions because we don't exactly know how the threat will evolve, how our response will need to evolve. >> senator sullivan, i agree with that. i agree with everything that michelle just said. i would just add that the other element here is i know that there's lots of interest in some kind of timeline. we frequently talk about this. i think that to do that is to set up potentially a very devicive and difficult debate later on down the road. once -- things don't always work out in war. there are mistakes and you have problems. you've got to let the people who are fighting the war fight the war. and i think you also don't want to signal lack of resolve to the other side and tell them how long they have to wait you out. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> well, i thank you. the witnesses. we've covered a wide range of issues today. >> mr. chairman can i ask another question before we close? >> the senator from new hampshire. >> thank you. i wanted to follow up on senator kaine's question about strategy because there have been a number of high profile articles in the last few months about the lessons learned in afghanistan and iraq. and there's been the d.o.d. commissioned report from the rand corporation about those lessons learned. that have suggested that we have got to also take a look at our decision making structures and think about how we can better make some of those decisions. and i wonder if i can get each of you to comment on whether you think that's an accurate analysis of some of the challenges that we face and what we should do better as we're thinking about how to make these decisions in the future. >> i think it's really important to try to pause and catalog what lessons we should be learning. there's kind of a desire to get all of this in the rear view mirror and just move on. but it's very, very important to understand what we should take away from this and capture some of the best practices that were developed on the ground. so i think it's an important exercise. i do think that the decision making element particularly at the interagency level is something that bears study. it's something that actually we're looking at going forward. because i think you can look at different models of nsc's, different types and ways in which they've operated, different results over time in history. and you can draw some conclusions about what works better and what doesn't. similarly, i think in the field some of the innovations for fusing intelligence and operation and -- having all of the interagency players in one operations center sharing authorities, information and conducting truly joint whole of government operations, that's something we don't want to lose. the next time we may have to face an operational challenge. so i think it's really important line of inquiry. >> senator shaheen i have to confess to a certain degree of skepticism about reforming the interagency process. it's a little bit like the weather. people are always talking about it and then it doesn't ever change. the national security act of 1947 is an incredibly flexible -- has created an incredibly flexible system. the reality is that it's flexible enough that each president that we've had has developed a system that suits their management style best. and for better or for worse. and our system is so presidential cent rick in terms of national security decision making that guest:, unless you want to really tinker with the constitution, i'm not sure that anything else that you do is going to be more than moving kind of boxes around on a wiring diagram. so i think it's certainly worth looking at lessons learned. and thrshes always better or worse ways to do it. but i'm struck by the fact that the relationship between process and outcome is not always clear and direct. if you read through, for instance, the traps crypts of the executive committee of the national security council during the cuban missile crisis and were to grade it on process you would give it an f because there were no agendas they're not talking from common papers. they're not doing anything that they teach you do do at the kennedy school of government. but president kend yea -- kennedy came to the right decision somehow. this ultimately revolves around the president and he or she should not necessarily be constrained by efforts to tinker with the machinery. >> thank you both. thank you mr. chairman. >> your testimony has been very helpful. we began our conversations about your work on a commission and now we have branched out and covered a lot of very important areas that i think that needs to be an important part of the discussion and dialogue that we have on both sides of the aisle and both ends of pennsylvania avenue. so i con-- you contributed a great deal to our knowledge and our thought process and i thank you for it. >> i simply want to express the same feeling and appreciation for your efforts not just today but for many, many years. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> this hearing is adjourned. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption contents and accuracy. visit ncicap.org host: good morning on this president's day weekend. president obama remains in palm springs, california. he returns to the white house tomorrow. and on wednesday at the white house, he will host a summit dealing with violent extremism. he will also deliver a speech thursday on the same subject at the state department. meanwhile, congress is off for the president's day week. and when lawmakers return they will have just a couple of days to resolve how to deal with the funding issues for the department of homeland security. we're going to begin with your calls and comments on the affordable care act.

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