Opening Statement (As Prepared)
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Good morning and thank you to Secretary Driscoll and General George for appearing before the committee this morning. I look forward to your testimony today, and to hearing how you will organize, train, and equip the United States Army.
I’d like to lead by acknowledging the Army’s recent announcement about its Transformation Initiative. I’ve spoken with Secretary Driscoll about this initiative, and I agree generally with the thrust of the argument – that we must eliminate programs that do not meet requirements or are not suited for the modern battlefield. That said, the devil is in the details, and I can’t think of a better forum than this to dig into those details to better understand the strategy that’s driving the need for this transformation, to include the specific programs that might be affected one way or another. Taking it a step further, we need to understand what requirements are not being met, or have changed, and then how the Army intends to develop, procure, and field capability more rapidly and to provide maximum capability to combatant commanders. The Army has demonstrated a willingness to walk away from programs when analysis changes and the program can no longer deliver the capability that it needs; an example of this being the cancellation of the Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA) program. And while some of these decisions may be unpopular, I believe this is positive behavior in today’s budget environment. I look forward to hearing what progress the Army has made to modernize the force and what help the Army needs to manage risk as it balances current readiness with a need to modernize. Along those lines, however, I’d like to add that while I fully embrace acquisition reforms and force design initiatives with an aim toward more quickly delivering capability to the warfighters, I am deeply concerned with the recent announcement by the Secretary of Defense to hollow out the Department of Operational Test and Evaluation, and fear that this decision may result in fielding weapons systems that don't work as designed.
The previous administration did an exceptional job managing U.S. munitions support to Ukraine and Israel, but in doing so it also highlighted a need to invest in the domestic munitions industrial base and started implementing the necessary steps to do so. I’m interested in hearing from the witnesses about the actions the Army plans to take to continue the effort to modernize the munitions industrial base. If the Army plans to change course from the previous administration, it would be helpful for the committee to understand what changes you plan to make, and why.
I look forward to hearing how the Army will protect the investments it has made and to ensure that the industrial base will continue on its present glide path to achieving a capacity that could sustain the Army in a prolonged conflict with a near-peer competitor.
Finally, the Army is continuing to institute its new unit life cycle model named the Regionally Aligned Readiness and Modernization Model (ReARMM), with the goal of relieving operational strain and ensuring that equipment modernization is timely and prioritized. I am curious to learn how ReARMM will align with the focus on continuous transformation, and how the Army will ensure that sustainment of innovative weapons systems is factored into a model that fields new systems more quickly. We expect the Army will keep the committee informed on how this new force generation model will impact training and maintenance requirements, budgetary decisions, modernization efforts, and readiness of the force.
Thank you again to the witnesses for joining us, and I look forward to receiving today’s testimony and getting updates on all of these issues.
I’d like to lead by acknowledging the Army’s recent announcement about its Transformation Initiative. I’ve spoken with Secretary Driscoll about this initiative, and I agree generally with the thrust of the argument – that we must eliminate programs that do not meet requirements or are not suited for the modern battlefield. That said, the devil is in the details, and I can’t think of a better forum than this to dig into those details to better understand the strategy that’s driving the need for this transformation, to include the specific programs that might be affected one way or another. Taking it a step further, we need to understand what requirements are not being met, or have changed, and then how the Army intends to develop, procure, and field capability more rapidly and to provide maximum capability to combatant commanders. The Army has demonstrated a willingness to walk away from programs when analysis changes and the program can no longer deliver the capability that it needs; an example of this being the cancellation of the Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA) program. And while some of these decisions may be unpopular, I believe this is positive behavior in today’s budget environment. I look forward to hearing what progress the Army has made to modernize the force and what help the Army needs to manage risk as it balances current readiness with a need to modernize. Along those lines, however, I’d like to add that while I fully embrace acquisition reforms and force design initiatives with an aim toward more quickly delivering capability to the warfighters, I am deeply concerned with the recent announcement by the Secretary of Defense to hollow out the Department of Operational Test and Evaluation, and fear that this decision may result in fielding weapons systems that don't work as designed.
The previous administration did an exceptional job managing U.S. munitions support to Ukraine and Israel, but in doing so it also highlighted a need to invest in the domestic munitions industrial base and started implementing the necessary steps to do so. I’m interested in hearing from the witnesses about the actions the Army plans to take to continue the effort to modernize the munitions industrial base. If the Army plans to change course from the previous administration, it would be helpful for the committee to understand what changes you plan to make, and why.
I look forward to hearing how the Army will protect the investments it has made and to ensure that the industrial base will continue on its present glide path to achieving a capacity that could sustain the Army in a prolonged conflict with a near-peer competitor.
Finally, the Army is continuing to institute its new unit life cycle model named the Regionally Aligned Readiness and Modernization Model (ReARMM), with the goal of relieving operational strain and ensuring that equipment modernization is timely and prioritized. I am curious to learn how ReARMM will align with the focus on continuous transformation, and how the Army will ensure that sustainment of innovative weapons systems is factored into a model that fields new systems more quickly. We expect the Army will keep the committee informed on how this new force generation model will impact training and maintenance requirements, budgetary decisions, modernization efforts, and readiness of the force.
Thank you again to the witnesses for joining us, and I look forward to receiving today’s testimony and getting updates on all of these issues.