[House Hearing, 116 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


.                                     
                         [H.A.S.C. No. 116-83]

                         FUTURE FORCE STRUCTURE

                          REQUIREMENTS FOR THE

                           UNITED STATES NAVY

                               __________

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

             SUBCOMMITTEE ON SEAPOWER AND PROJECTION FORCES

                                 OF THE

                      COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES

                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                     ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS

                             SECOND SESSION

                               __________

                              HEARING HELD

                              JUNE 4, 2020


                                     
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                              __________

                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
47-045                     WASHINGTON : 2022                     
          
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------   

             SUBCOMMITTEE ON SEAPOWER AND PROJECTION FORCES

                  JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut, Chairman

JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island      ROBERT J. WITTMAN, Virginia
JIM COOPER, Tennessee                K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas
DONALD NORCROSS, New Jersey          MIKE GALLAGHER, Wisconsin
SETH MOULTON, Massachusetts          JACK BERGMAN, Michigan
FILEMON VELA, Texas                  MICHAEL WALTZ, Florida
GILBERT RAY CISNEROS, Jr.,           VICKY HARTZLER, Missouri
    California                       PAUL COOK, California
MIKIE SHERRILL, New Jersey           BRADLEY BYRNE, Alabama
JARED F. GOLDEN, Maine               TRENT KELLY, Mississippi
ELAINE G. LURIA, Virginia, Vice 
    Chair
ANTHONY BRINDISI, New York
              Phil MacNaughton, Professional Staff Member
                Dave Sienicki, Professional Staff Member
                           Sean Falvey, Clerk
                           
                           
                           C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              
                                                                   Page

              STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS

Courtney, Hon. Joe, a Representative from Connecticut, Chairman, 
  Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces.................     1
Wittman, Hon. Robert J., a Representative from Virginia, Ranking 
  Member, Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces.........     4

                               WITNESSES

Clark, Bryan, Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute....................     7
O'Rourke, Ronald, Specialist for National Defense, Congressional 
  Research Service...............................................    10
Roughead, ADM Gary, USN (Ret.), Former Chief of Naval Operations.     5

                                APPENDIX

Prepared Statements:

    Clark, Bryan.................................................    65
    O'Rourke, Ronald.............................................    78
    Roughead, ADM Gary...........................................    55
    Wittman, Hon. Robert J.......................................    53

Documents Submitted for the Record:

    [There were no Documents submitted.]

Witness Responses to Questions Asked During the Hearing:

    [There were no Questions submitted during the hearing.]

Questions Submitted by Members Post Hearing:

    Mr. Courtney.................................................   113
    Mr. Golden...................................................   116
     
     
     FUTURE FORCE STRUCTURE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE UNITED STATES NAVY

                              ----------                              

                  House of Representatives,
                       Committee on Armed Services,
            Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces,
                            Washington, DC, Thursday, June 4, 2020.
    The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:02 a.m., in 
room 2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Joe Courtney 
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

 OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOE COURTNEY, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM 
CONNECTICUT, CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE ON SEAPOWER AND PROJECTION 
                             FORCES

    Mr. Courtney. I am going to call the Seapower and 
Projection Forces Subcommittee hearing to order. And I want to 
begin--I just want to begin by saying, noting the fact that 
this is actually the first official proceeding of the House 
Armed Services Committee since early March, and it is--again, 
already we know we have got good participation from the 
subcommittee to join us here today. And obviously, we have 
great witnesses here this morning.
    I want to just, first of all, though, begin by thanking the 
staff for really doing great work in terms of uncharted waters. 
It is a good Seapower metaphor that, you know, again, we have 
set up what I think is a very workable process today to make 
sure that we can conduct this proceeding in accordance with the 
new rules that were adopted on May 15 that, again, allow the 
subcommittees to, again, officially act, using technology for 
some members, and, obviously, affording others the opportunity 
to be here in person.
    Again, just sort of a little bit of housekeeping, and then 
I am going to make a brief opening statement and yield to my 
great colleague, the ranking member, Mr. Wittman, to weigh in, 
and then we will have the members or the witnesses begin with 
their statements.
    Again, just as is obvious, we have numerous members of the 
subcommittee participating remotely today. Members 
participating remotely are reminded to keep themselves on mute 
until they are recognized to speak. In addition, remote members 
are reminded that once they do start speaking, there is a 
slight delay in the camera feed switching its focus to you. As 
a result, please include a brief preamble of some kind before 
you start into your questions to the witnesses, which I know 
most Members of Congress are very good at those preambles, so 
that shouldn't be, I think, a problem at all.
    Again, I would like to remind all members, this is the 
first time the committee has done such an event, and I ask for 
your patience as we do our best to make it work. If necessary, 
I will briefly go into recess to address any significant 
technical issues, but I don't anticipate that today, again, 
because I think the staff has done such a great job.
    One other reminder is that people really need to keep--the 
members need to keep their videos on during this, just to, 
again, make, sure that, you know, we keep a head count in terms 
of who is participating. That is apparently, I think, part of 
the regulations which the House Rules Committee issued.
    I would note, again, we have got great witnesses and great 
content to discuss today. There also, I think, is another layer 
of significance to this pursuant to the House rule that was 
adopted on May 15. Again, in order for committees to move 
towards markup, they actually have to conduct two official 
proceedings before that can happen. And again, the plan right 
now for Armed Services is that this morning's subcommittee 
hearing will constitute one of those two required events. 
Again, it is Mr. Smith's plan to have a full committee event 
coming up shortly, which, again, will satisfy that additional 
procedural requirement, and then we can move into full markup 
of NDAA [National Defense Authorization Act] which, again, we 
have lost some time because of COVID [coronavirus], and--but 
again, I would just note, and I know Rob can attest to this is 
that the subcommittee staff, not just on Seapower, but all the 
subcommittees, have been working hard since March. So, that 
again, I think a lot of the marks are really pretty much on the 
runway, ready to go, again, the minute we get clearance in 
terms of both process and timing to move forward on the mark.
    And at this point, the tentative schedule will be that the 
subcommittees will have a premark and mark probably, you know, 
late June, and again, the plan is to have a full committee mark 
the first couple days of July with floor action sometime later 
in the month of July, which, again, will keep us reasonably on 
track in terms of trying to get an NDAA done certainly before 
October which is always the ideal situation.
    So again, today's hearing is the ``Future Force Structure 
Requirements for the United States Navy.'' Again, we are sort 
of resuming a conversation which started back in February when 
the President's budget was submitted. We did have some input 
from Pentagon leadership, Navy leadership, Chairman of the 
Joint Chiefs, as well as a subcommittee hearing with some of 
the assistant secretaries. Mr. Geurts came over, along with 
some of his colleagues, to talk about the budget.
    Again, there was definitely a number of issues which I 
think our subcommittee had concern about regarding the Navy's 
budget submission. Again, we have been operating right now on a 
force structure assessment that goes back to 2016, you know. 
The world doesn't stand still. Issues are changing, you know. I 
think a lot of ideas about, you know, whether or not that force 
structure assessment needed to be revisited, you know, was 
certainly something that was a big topic of discussion, really 
going back into 2019. We had been promised by the Department of 
the Navy an updated force structure assessment late in 2019, 
then early in 2020, then a little later in 2020, and now, 
again, we, to this day, still have not received an updated 
force structure assessment. In addition, we did not get a 30-
year shipbuilding plan, which is required by law. I know some 
of the testimony this morning will get into that.
    So again, as we approach the mark for 2021, I mean, the 
committee's going to use its good judgement. Again, we have 
got, you know, experienced members that have been through a 
number of these situations in the past. But again, it really, I 
think, emphasizes the importance of this morning's hearing to 
get really good input from great witnesses about, really, what 
we should be keeping focused on as, again, we move forward with 
the 2021 mark.
    I mean, I think the one issue that I think a lot of us on 
this subcommittee know full well is that when you talk about 
Navy budget decisions, it is a long game, and you really cannot 
sort of allow a pause button to get hit from one year to the 
next because frankly, it carries a legacy and a hangover that 
is really just going to, you know, basically haunt future 
Congresses and future naval leaders.
    So, again, as I said, we have got certainly a lot to talk 
about here this morning. We have three great witnesses starting 
off with Admiral Gary Roughead, a former CNO [Chief of Naval 
Operations] back in the 2008 to 2011 or 2012 time period. 
Again, a distinguished record in the Navy. He had six commands, 
different ships during that time period. Again, worked in the 
Atlantic, worked in the Pacific, worked on the Hill, you know, 
headed up the Naval Academy. Again, you know, somebody whose 
background, again, is just really very strong and very solid. 
And again, his testimony today I think will be very helpful in 
terms of the issue that we are discussing here this morning.
    Bryan Clark, who, again, has been a frequent witness over 
the years, again, also served in the Navy as a submariner, and 
again, has worked with different think tanks and policy groups 
in Washington, is now a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. 
And again, I think one of the comments in his testimony that 
the Navy is arguably facing a once-in-a-century combination of 
challenges and opportunities as it embarks on a new family of 
ships, kind of summarizes really how critical, you know, the 
topic is today, as well as the mark that we are about to 
proceed on.
    And finally, we also have Ron O'Rourke, who is a specialist 
in naval affairs for the Congressional Research Service. Again, 
he is someone who has been working at that job since 1984. His 
wealth of knowledge and experience in terms of what he brings 
to this topic is really almost unmatched, in my opinion. And, 
again, his historical institutional memory in terms of, you 
know, the issues of force structure going back again to 
different times in our country's history is just invaluable. 
And again, I just think all of us should be very, very grateful 
for the work that he does at the Congressional Research 
Service, not just on this subcommittee but the Congress as a 
whole.
    So again, we have got a great lineup of witnesses, and we 
have got members who are itching to ask questions. I am going 
to yield now to the ranking member, Mr. Wittman, to weigh in 
again and help kick things off this morning.

  STATEMENT OF HON. ROBERT J. WITTMAN, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM 
    VIRGINIA, RANKING MEMBER, SUBCOMMITTEE ON SEAPOWER AND 
                       PROJECTION FORCES

    Mr. Wittman. I want to thank Chairman Courtney for 
yielding, and I want to thank our witnesses for participating 
today. Our witnesses are esteemed naval theorists whose years 
of blood and sweat to support our naval forces should be 
particularly insightful as we review our maritime force 
structure.
    Naval shipbuilding is a long game. With some ships taking 
over 8 years to construct, and billions of dollars in 
investments, it is important that we be able to translate the 
National Defense Strategy into a coherent shipbuilding plan. I 
look forward to our witnesses' thoughts on how they best 
propose to better allocate resources to accomplish our defense 
vision.
    In my estimation, there are three particular issues that I 
hope to address today, which include our undersea strike 
capabilities, unmanned technologies, and our support naval 
instruments. As to undersea strike, I continue to believe that 
our Nation rightfully relies on the silence of the sea to mask 
our strategic undersea strike capabilities. I support our 
latest force structure assessment that highlights the 
diminishing resources of our attack submarines, and advocates 
for a significant increase in this area.
    I read an article earlier this week that seemed to indicate 
the Department's support to accelerate unmanned, underwater 
capabilities to replace the diminishing undersea strike 
capability. While unmanned, underwater vehicles are essential 
to augment the attack submarines, I am not convinced that they 
are currently able to replace the manned force structure.
    Additionally, I was disappointed that the budget request 
had sacrificed an attack submarine and believe it essential 
that Congress reverse the perilous decline of our attack 
submarines.
    As to unmanned capabilities, I am particularly concerned 
that these nascent products are being billed as being capable 
of replacing strike capabilities. There are a multitude of 
issues associated with the development of unmanned vehicles. 
Concerns with their reliability, their ability to operate in 
comms [communications]-denied environments, their ability to 
sustain operations, and their ability to strike using the law 
of war, are all points to a developing capability, not one that 
is mature. And I don't believe that they are a product that is 
currently ready to enter into the fleet. We need to develop 
baseline requirements and rapidly adapt commercial 
capabilities, but we should painstakingly review the 
application of these assets to ensure their sufficiency during 
times of war.
    I also want to take a moment to highlight the many 
instruments in naval force structure that are essential to our 
Nation's success. Many of these capabilities are not 
immediately apparent, but are fundamental to projecting power. 
For example, while many of our citizens believe the United 
States Coast Guard is constrained to our Nation's coastline, 
the reality is that this committee supports these forces and 
our daily diplomats provided to a wide variety of host nations 
who yearn to be better aligned with our United States ideals.
    We support a 60-ship Maritime Security Program that are 
daily integrators of our logistics training. We support all of 
our oceanic cable repair capability to ensure continuity of 
international communications, on whose backbone rides over 99 
percent of international data. And we support increased tanker 
capacity, in which last year, this subcommittee took the first 
step towards supporting the diminishing international tanker 
fleet who will be essential to allowing our naval forces to 
operate in a disaggregated manner.
    My point in highlighting the softer instruments of naval 
power is to ensure that all of these elements are adequately 
integrated into a cohesive naval strategy. It is not simply 
enough for us to count our Navy ships and assess critical 
weaknesses. It is paramount to develop all of our naval 
capabilities, and align them in a common purpose.
    In conclusion, I remain concerned that our emphasis on 
naval force structure highlights some of our strategic 
weaknesses. The integration of commercial sector practices and 
other maritime instruments are essential to projecting power. 
We need to be diligent in reviewing the real opportunities of 
developing capabilities. We need to be brave and lay out a 
coherent Navy force structure that integrates the Navy, the 
Marines, the Coast Guard, and the Merchant Marine into one 
battle force capable of dissuading aggression.
    We emphasize joint operations with our partners around the 
world. It is time for us to emphasize the integration, the full 
integration of the Navy, the Marine Corps, the Coast Guard, and 
the Merchant Marine. If we fail to do so, our Nation will look 
wantingly on our inaction during this critical time.
    And again, I appreciate Chairman Courtney for having this 
important hearing, and I yield back the balance of my time.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Wittman can be found in the 
Appendix on page 53.]
    Mr. Courtney. Thank you, Mr. Wittman. And again, before we 
start with the witnesses, again, just a gentle reminder to my 
colleagues. Under the House rules, you need to keep your video 
feed on. Most of--it looks like a bunch of you are, but, 
apparently, the staff said a couple are still not. Again, if 
somebody has to take a phone call or do something and leave, 
again, you can just turn it off and then come back, but again, 
please remember to please keep the video feed on.
    And with that, I would now--it is my pleasure to recognize 
the witnesses. We will start off with Admiral Roughead and go 
right across the room.

  STATEMENT OF ADM GARY ROUGHEAD, USN (RET.), FORMER CHIEF OF 
                        NAVAL OPERATIONS

    Admiral Roughead. Thank you very much, Chairman Courtney. 
Thank you for the opportunity to appear before the members of 
this subcommittee to discuss the future force structure 
requirements for the United States Navy. It really is a 
pleasure for me to be here with the other witnesses who I have 
long held in very, very high regard for their knowledge and 
their experience on this particular matter.
    I would ask that my full statement be entered into the 
record, but I do want to touch on a couple of quick points. As 
both of you have mentioned, getting future force structure 
right is really hard, and it does take a long time. The 
uncertainties of rapid technological change, predicting what 
the geopolitical military and geoeconomic environment is going 
to be, adds to that difficulty. Assessing global naval trends, 
and then deciding on should the force be large enough for 
presence, which is now best defined, I think, by this idea of 
gray zone competition, where you have to be there, in some way, 
to influence events, or is it about combat?
    I do believe that there is too little discussion on the 
effect of combat losses on major capital assets. We have been 
free of that burden for a long time, but in peer competition, I 
am not sure that one can assume that we are going to have an 
immaculate war.
    There has also, in my mind, been an overfixation on the 
total number of ships as opposed to the nuanced numbers of 
specific types of ships that support viable operational plans. 
There is also the need to understand just how small our allied 
navies have become. And in the past, we have always looked to 
our allies to support us, but those navies are extraordinarily 
small. And then, as Mr. Wittman mentioned, the supplying of 
naval forces at sea is a challenge, and particularly, the 
ability for us to provide rapid sealift to support combat 
operations is woefully inadequate.
    I think in the future, there is going to be reluctance for 
this country to commit ground troops on foreign soil, and there 
will be reluctance for other countries to accept those ground 
troops. China is going to continue its rise as a maritime power 
and as an naval power, and I think it is important to make that 
distinction, that their maritime industry, whether it is 
shipbuilding, shipping lines, port networks around the world, 
that is going to continue apace.
    The probability of Taiwan becoming a military flashpoint, I 
think, will increase. But I also believe, as has been said, 
that submarines and the undersea domain are a winning hand, and 
we have to preserve that, but our adversaries are going to look 
at ways to diminish our undersea capabilities.
    I do not believe that there is going to be a significant 
increase in allied naval force structure, and the reliance that 
we will have on U.S. flag shipping is not going to diminish.
    The new technologies that are so promising, I think that we 
are often overly optimistic in how quickly they will arrive. 
And in that optimism, we do not plan for gap-filling 
capabilities that allow us to be prepared and be ready, should 
our forces be called into action.
    Accordingly, I think there should be a high-low mix of 
surface ships, and I would say that the high end will operate 
more in the Western Pacific dealing with China, and that in the 
Middle East, which we will not be free of, because of the 
geoeconomic importance of that region, is best addressed by a 
low-high mix. The Atlantic will require significant 
antisubmarine warfare capability, because I think that the 
Russians are going to be active with their submarine fleet in 
the Atlantic.
    As was mentioned, submarines, very important, but the dip 
that takes place in submarine force structure numbers later in 
this decade, I think, is dangerously, dangerously low. The 
guideline of four ships to make one in a particular area of 
operations, I think, will remain valid, and that doesn't make 
any difference if it is manned or unmanned, and that is a rule 
of thumb that I think needs to be adhered to.
    Logistics will continue to matter greatly. I have already 
talked about our sealift. The Ready Reserve Force now, in my 
mind, is a tremendous opportunity to take advantage of the 
depressed shipping industry and be able to acquire some of 
those older--what I would call older new ships, or new older 
ships, even if they are foreign built, to be able to close that 
gap, and now is the time where I think some good deals can be 
made.
    I firmly believe that unmanned is in our future, but we 
have to be more aggressive. We have to be more risk tolerant. 
And I am pleased that the committee shares the view of really 
having to focus on unmanned capability. We have let too many 
years go by without aggressively pursuing that.
    Invariably, your committee is going to have to deal with 
the issue of aircraft carriers, and in this world where we will 
be less likely to put our young men and women on the ground in 
a foreign land, other countries less willing to accept them, I 
do believe that those sovereign American airfields are 
important, are versatile, and that they can move power in and 
out of areas faster than any other military service in the 
world.
    The last point I would like to make is that all of what we 
talk about with naval force structure is only made possible by 
the maritime industry that supports it. Whether it is 
shipbuilders, the suppliers to those shipbuilders, those that 
manufacture aircraft, the technology that goes into unmanned 
systems, the seafarer that sails on our sealift ships, all of 
that is in a very, very fragile condition, and that is an area 
that even though we can talk about the physical things, we 
really need to look at human capital. How do we incentivize it? 
How do we make it attractive for individuals to want to pursue 
careers in that area, and also, for companies to want to make 
investments?
    I don't minimize the challenges that you have, the budget 
challenges that are before you that will only worsen, in my 
mind, in the coming years, but America, as a maritime nation, 
with our interests around the globe, we need to focus on force 
structure, and I thank the committee for the opportunity to 
share my thoughts.
    [The prepared statement of Admiral Roughead can be found in 
the Appendix on page 55.]
    Mr. Courtney. Thank you, Admiral.
    Mr. Clark.

   STATEMENT OF BRYAN CLARK, SENIOR FELLOW, HUDSON INSTITUTE

    Mr. Clark. Chairman Courtney, Ranking Member Wittman, and 
distinguished members of the committee, thank you for inviting 
me here today to talk about the Navy's future force structure 
requirement. It is an honor to be here with Admiral Roughead 
and with Mr. O'Rourke, two gentlemen that I have worked either 
for or with over the years, and I have great respect for, so 
thank you.
    The Navy, as you noted, is at a crossroads. Right now, 20 
years after the drive for transformation led to us starting a 
series of programs--like the Ford-class carriers, Zumwalt 
destroyer, and littoral combat ship--that had problems over 
their life cycle, difficulties with technology insertion, and 
continue to be costly endeavors, we are now embarking on a new 
family of ships in almost every vessel class of the Navy. And 
as you noted, we are facing this kind of once-in-a-century 
combination of challenges and opportunities.
    We have got a set of rising peer competitors, certainly in 
China, facing the United States, fiscal constraints that are 
likely to constrain the ability of the U.S. to develop better 
versions of today's fleet. There is a, you know, challenge with 
regard to the viability of our primary capital ships similar to 
what we had back in the interwar period. And then, the last 
thing is we have got new technologies that are going to 
potentially disrupt our force designs and those of our 
potential adversaries.
    So, the Navy needs to address, to come up with a new force 
design to address this new period. That new force design needs 
to be guided by a theory of victory, or operational concept 
under which the Navy is going to be able to contribute to kinds 
of operations it is going to need to do in support of the 
National Defense Strategy. We don't really have that clear 
theory of victory or operational concept today.
    There is a lot of really good work going on inside the 
Department of Defense to develop joint warfighting concepts, 
distributed maritime operations, littoral operations in a 
contested environment. Those concepts are all driving in a good 
direction to try to come up with a new way of fighting that 
doesn't involve strictly attrition-based warfare, which is sort 
of the approach we took largely after the Cold War ended.
    They are driving us toward what is essentially a return to 
maneuver warfare, or decision-centric warfare, where we plan on 
using our forces to create dilemmas for adversaries that 
prevent them from being successful more than us being able to 
project power and take over locations of our own choosing.
    So, this decision-centric move in warfare is going to 
require us to have a fleet design that reflects some new 
characteristics, different than the characteristics of our 
previous fleet. So, defensive capacity in each ship, in each 
combination of ships that is able to prevent an adversary from 
executing a rapid and successful attack on them while they are 
deployed in theater, offensive weapons capacity that allows 
them to actually fight back and deliver strikes and attacks 
against the enemy, and create a threat that the enemy has to 
respect but distributed in such a manner that the enemy can't 
take them out with a single large salvo attack of their own. 
Diversity for force structure at various scales so that we can 
have options to conduct countermeasures to gray zone operations 
being done by our adversaries, like China and Russia.
    Today, we have a limited set of options. We can only send 
in large force structure elements to deal with a gray zone 
altercation. I think the most recent example of China and 
Malaysia, where we sent an LCS [littoral combat ship] to 
intervene on behalf of the United States was a really good 
example of the kind of smaller scale forces we need to have 
that we don't really have in large numbers in today's fleets.
    So those options need to be afforded by having a greater 
diversity of force packages. And then, also, complexity. If our 
goal in fighting is going to be to try to create dilemmas for 
an adversary, we can't do that using a small number of very 
large, expensive capital ships; we need to have a greater 
diversity and rebalancing of the force to create a more complex 
picture for an adversary to deal with that might force them to 
either be dissuaded from starting an act of aggression, or to 
seek an off-ramp once that act of aggression starts.
    And then finally, and most importantly, we need to have a 
fleet that is actually affordable. So both from the perspective 
of buying the fleet and then owning the fleet, we need to 
ensure our force design reflects a concern about 
sustainability, and that is something that today's fleet 
doesn't necessarily reflect to the degree it probably needs to.
    So we have a window here where we can start making some 
changes in the Navy's force design to reflect these 
characteristics and a new way of fighting, and a new theory of 
victory in warfare against pure adversaries that have a level 
technological playing field, and have a home-field advantage 
that we are going to have to contend with.
    But that window is going to close. We are already facing 
fiscal challenges that constrain our ability to evolve the 
fleet quickly, and we have rising peer adversaries that are not 
going to wait for us to get our act together. So, they are 
going to take advantage of the opportunity provided by either 
our reticence to intervene, or the COVID-19 impact on our 
potential operations and those of our allies. So, if we don't 
act towards a new force design now, this may encourage 
adversaries like China to be more aggressive, near and abroad, 
against our allies.
    The elements of this new fleet are fairly straightforward. 
We need to think about rebalancing the fleet to incorporate a 
larger number of smaller platforms, as Admiral Roughead said, 
to create this greater diversity and opportunity for more 
complex force structures. We need to incorporate new 
technologies in a reasonable and realistic way. As Congressman 
Wittman mentioned, unmanned systems aren't necessarily going to 
be able to replace manned platforms in this future fleet right 
away or even ever, necessarily, but they can complement it, and 
they can provide opportunities to increase the complexity and 
the capability of the forces that we are deploying.
    We need to protect the health of the industrial base as 
part of this, and then we also need to think about building a 
stronger, as Admiral Roughead said, logistics capability to 
allow a more distributed and disaggregated force to be 
sustained in theater.
    These are all possible. So, we--in my written statement, I 
included a description of one force that might do that. The 
math that we have been working on with both the Office of the 
Secretary of Defense, and with the Navy works out. You can 
build a force that has got these characteristics and these 
elements. It is just making some choices in the relatively near 
term that is necessary to allow it. So I hope that the Congress 
and the Navy are going to be able to drive those changes, and 
come up with a force plan that I think could be more credible 
and something that both our industry and our U.S. allies would 
be able to depend on. So, thank you for your time.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Clark can be found in the 
Appendix on page 65.]
    Mr. Courtney. Great. Thank you, Mr. Clark.
    Mr. O'Rourke.

STATEMENT OF RONALD O'ROURKE, SPECIALIST FOR NATIONAL DEFENSE, 
                 CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE

    Mr. O'Rourke. Chairman Courtney, Ranking Member Wittman, 
distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you for the 
opportunity to appear before you today to testify on future 
Navy force structure requirements. This is a topic I have 
worked on throughout my 36 years as a CRS [Congressional 
Research Service] specialist in naval affairs. And I want to 
echo the remarks of my co-witnesses that it is an honor to 
appear with Bryan Clark and Admiral Roughead at this hearing.
    With your permission, I would like to submit my written 
statement for the record and summarize it with a few brief 
remarks. As requested, my testimony includes a discussion of a 
30-year shipbuilding plan in the next force structure 
assessment. The annual 30-year shipbuilding plan is intended to 
provide Congress with supporting information for conducting 
effective oversight of DOD [Department of Defense] plans for 
the Navy, and for assessing and marking up the Navy's proposed 
shipbuilding budget. The 30-year plan does this by helping 
Congress assess a number of key issues, including whether the 
Navy intends to procure enough ships to achieve and maintain 
its force level goals; whether DOD ship procurement plans are 
likely to be affordable within future defense budgets; and 
whether the Navy is making reasonable assumptions about ship 
procurement costs and service lives. It also helps Congress 
assess the potential industrial base implications of the Navy's 
intention for ship procurement.
    Since the submission of the fiscal year 2001 budget 20 
years ago, which was the first time that a 30-year plan was 
required, there have been three times when DOD was legally 
required to submit a 30-year plan, but did not do so. Two 
occurred during the first years of the Obama and Trump 
administrations when the absence of a 30-year plan was 
understood to reflect the need for a new administration to 
spend its first year reviewing and revising the previous 
administration's defense plans.
    The third occurred in fiscal year 2006 when DOD provided 
only a brief document that included few details about projected 
ship procurements. If DOD does not submit a fiscal year 2021 
30-year plan, it would be the first time since fiscal year 2006 
that an administration, not in its first year in office, was 
required to submit a 30-year plan, but did not do so.
    The delay in submitting the fiscal year 2021 30-year plan 
raises a potential institutional issue for Congress regarding 
executive branch compliance with statutory requirements that 
are intended to support Congress' role in conducting oversight 
of executive branch operations and authorizing and 
appropriating funds. This potential institutional issue is not 
the only one that Congress may consider in connection with the 
Navy's fiscal year 2021 budget. An additional one is posed by 
the budget's treatment of the procurement dates of the aircraft 
carrier CVN-81 and the amphibious ships LPD-31 and LHA-9.
    The Navy states that its proposed fiscal year 2021 budget 
requests eight new ships, but that figure includes LPD-31, a 
ship that Congress procured in fiscal year 2020. Excluding that 
ship, the Navy's proposed budget requests seven new ships 
rather than eight. That is less than the 11 ships that the Navy 
requested for fiscal year 2020, or the 13 that Congress 
procured in fiscal year 2020 or the 10 that the Navy projected 
under last year's budget that it would request for fiscal year 
2021.
    In dollar terms, the Navy, for fiscal year 2021, is 
requesting about 15 to 17 percent less funding for the 
shipbuilding account than it requested in fiscal year 2020 or 
what Congress appropriated for fiscal year 2020, or what last 
year's budget projected would be requested for fiscal year 
2021. The Navy states that its 5-year plan includes 44 new 
ships, but that figure includes the amphibious ships LPD-31 and 
LHA-9 that Congress procured in fiscal year 2020. Excluding 
these 2 ships, the 5-year plan includes 42 new ships, which is 
13 less than the fiscal year 2020 5-year plan, and 12 less than 
last year's budget projected for the current 5-year period.
    Statements from Navy officials suggest that the new force 
structure assessment that the Navy reportedly completed months 
ago, called the INFSA [Integrated Naval Force Structure 
Assessment], could shift the fleet to a more distributed 
architecture that includes a reduced proportion of larger 
ships, an increased proportion of smaller ships, and a newly 
created category of large, unmanned vehicles. Such a change 
could alter the mix of ships to be procured and the 
distribution of shipbuilding work among the Nation's shipyards. 
More recently, it has been reported that OSD [Office of the 
Secretary of Defense] has been reviewing the INFSA, and 
conducting its own analysis of Navy force structure 
requirements, and that the INFSA won't be released until OSD 
completes its work. Given its potentially significant changes 
in force level goal and fleet architecture, not having access 
to the INFSA could impact Congress' ability to assess and mark 
up the Navy's fiscal year 2021 budget.
    The remainder of my testimony explores various factors 
relating to the future size of the Navy; to procurement of 
submarines, aircraft carriers, surface combatants and 
amphibious ships; and to the process for how these ships might 
be built. Bryan Clark mentioned that this is a once-in-a-100-
year opportunity to think about redesigning the Navy, but if 
you are going to do that, it may also present an opportunity to 
think about reconsidering the ways that we build ships, and my 
testimony includes some remarks on that.
    Chairman Courtney, this concludes my statement. Thank you 
again for the opportunity to testify, and I will be pleased to 
respond to any questions the subcommittee may have.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. O'Rourke can be found in the 
Appendix on page 78.]
    Mr. Courtney. Great. Well, thank you to all the witnesses 
again. Without objection, all the written testimony will be 
submitted for the record, and I appreciate the summarization 
that each one of you did. Again, we are going to try, and 
again, make sure everyone gets a crack at asking questions 
here, so I am going to try and start by leading by example by 
trying to adhere to the 5-minute rule as best as possible, and 
I know Mr. Wittman is similarly situated. If we have time for a 
second round, we will obviously accommodate that.
    Mr. O'Rourke, again, thank you for, you know, your really 
thorough breakdown in terms of the institutional issue that you 
described, you know, about the need to get a 30-year plan. Just 
two quick follow-ups. The process that the 30-year plan by law 
follows is that it is submitted at the same time as the budget, 
and then that also triggers a follow-on window of action by the 
Congressional Budget Office [CBO], which, again, sort of 
marches in a, you know, order so that, again, we can do our 
job. Again, if you could just sort of, for the record, just 
state what that 60-day follow-on that CBO follows when the 30-
year plan is triggered.
    Mr. O'Rourke. The same law that requires the Department of 
Defense to submit the 30-year shipbuilding plan also requires 
CBO to then take that plan and conduct its own independent cost 
estimate of the cost of implementing the 30-year shipbuilding 
plan so that Congress can have that estimate to compare to the 
Navy's own cost estimate. And the CBO report that is done as a 
part of that law forms an important part of the annual 
discussion over the Navy shipbuilding plan. It provides very 
important perspective to the Congress, and is part of the way 
in which the 30-year shipbuilding plan and the legal 
requirements surrounding it support congressional oversight of 
the Navy's proposed shipbuilding budget.
    Mr. Courtney. So, at this point, again, there is no CBO 
analysis because there was no 30-year plan that has been 
submitted. Is that correct?
    Mr. O'Rourke. If the 30-year plan--as long as the 30-year 
plan is not submitted, CBO does not have a firm basis from 
which to proceed to make its own report. At some point, CBO may 
try to put together a synthetic equivalent of what they think 
the Navy might have done, but, of course, it would be 
preferable for CBO--if CBO had access to the actual 30-year 
plan to see exactly what the Navy might be planning, 
particularly because there are changes in the 30-year plan from 
one year to the next, and not all of those changes can 
sometimes be anticipated or synthetically created.
    Mr. Courtney. And you sort of laid out a legislative 
history regarding the 30-year plan requirement, which goes back 
to the early 2000s, when it was enacted. Again, actually 
Congress, at one point, did kind of tinker or consider the 
possibility of waiving the 30-year plan for a 2- or 3-year 
period, but then, actually, I think, reconsidered and 
reestablished, again, the annual 30-year shipbuilding plan.
    In terms of just Congress' own bipartisan support for this 
process, again, it really has shown that it really wants this, 
because it waived it for a year or two, but then decided by law 
that we should, again, reestablish that requirement. Is that 
correct?
    Mr. O'Rourke. Exactly. A few years ago, Congress amended 
the law to require that it be submitted only once every 4 years 
in the same year that a Quadrennial Defense Review would be 
submitted. But when we got into the implementation of that new 
situation, it was actually the House Armed Services Committee, 
among others, that found that situation unsatisfactory, and 
requested that the Navy submit a 30-year plan anyway, which the 
Navy eventually did in somewhat truncated form, but all the 
data was there. And Congress, having gone through that 
situation, then decided to amend the law back, once again, to 
reinstate the requirement for the plan to be submitted each 
year.
    Mr. Courtney. Well, thank you for that perspective. Again, 
when Secretary Esper and General Milley were here, again, we 
obviously raised this issue because it was missing when the 
budget came over. And, again, I think a number of us pretty 
forcefully, you know, indicated this is not a feel-good law. 
This is necessary for us to make investment decisions which, 
again, are a long game and really require a longer perspective.
    One other just quick point, and I hope you guys can see 
this. But again, Admiral Roughead, you mentioned how our 
submarine force is sort of the invisible queen on the 
chessboard. Mr. O'Rourke described them as the jewel in our 
fleet. Again, we also talked about the trough that is fast 
approaching. For your benefit, because I know that is kind of 
fine print from where you are sitting, again, we are roughly at 
about 52 attack submarines, and then you can just see as the 
Los Angeles-class fleet gets into pretty high volume 
retirement, the blue line shows the fact that we were going 
down to 42 by 2027, and then starts to climb back up as the 
two-a-year program of record for Virginia class kicks in and 
recovers. The orange dotted line shows what the budget that 
came over this year would do, which is, it actually worsened 
the trough.
    Again, Admiral, you sort of mentioned--``dangerous,'' I 
think, was the term you used. Again, looking at that chart, I 
mean, we are actually--that budget would really aggravate that 
problem. Is that correct?
    Admiral Roughead. Absolutely. And I think to overlay a 
couple of the other things that I mentioned, there is no 
question that the demand for submarines, particularly in the 
Western Pacific, is going to increase, so you have that factor 
that needs to be considered. There is also little doubt in my 
mind that activity in the Arctic is going to intensify, and the 
ship of choice up there, in my view, is going to be the 
submarine.
    So, in addition to this drastic dip that exists, I also 
envision significant increase in demand. And I don't want to be 
a prophet of doom, but I think it is important to think about 
combat or mission loss of submarines.
    In World War II, we lost 52 submarines. Very few people 
recognize that fact. So, you know, those are factors that have 
to be accounted for and overlaid on that force structure chart, 
in my view.
    Mr. Courtney. Great. Well, thank you. Again, after the 
budget came out, the Navy did send over their unfunded priority 
list, and number one from Admiral Gilday was to restore and 
protect that two-a-year program of record. So obviously, your 
testimony is helpful in terms of guiding the subcommittee as we 
move forward on our mark.
    And with that, I will go to the ranking member, Mr. 
Wittman.
    Mr. Wittman. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to 
thank our witnesses, again, for joining us. I would like to go 
and begin to talk about our proposed unmanned surface vessels. 
You know, the fiscal year 2021 budget request from the 
administration looks to get into serial production of unmanned 
surface vessels. And listen, the Navy's been experimenting with 
unmanned surface vessels for a number of years, but it is one-
off experimentation. I think there are a lot of questions still 
left out there: reliability, operational employment, law of war 
applications.
    So, my question is this to the panel members, and Admiral 
Roughead, I will begin with you. Do you think the Navy's ready 
to enter into serial production to immediately get to that 
point? Are they ready to fully integrate this into the fleet? 
And what elements do you think have to be overcome in order to 
completely and effectively integrate unmanned surface platforms 
into the naval force structure and operational plans that we 
have right now?
    Admiral Roughead. Thank you for the question. If by saying 
entering into serial production to start a ship class of 
unmanned surface ships, I would say no. But I really do believe 
that there needs to be a much more aggressive push to develop 
some operational prototypes that can be used, that can allow us 
to go after what I think are going to be some of the 
challenges. Just the networking of those ships, the security of 
where they may be operating, but those are things that you can 
develop over time.
    So I really do believe that we have to look at it and not 
consider some of these prototypes to be a program of record, 
because once you get into that mode, you get into a very 
lockstep process with too much time, in my mind, to fill the 
gap. And even though your question was on unmanned surface 
ships, I reflect that we flew an unmanned aircraft off of an 
aircraft carrier in 2012.
    Mr. Wittman. Yeah.
    Admiral Roughead. 2012. That has not happened again.
    Mr. Wittman. That is right.
    Admiral Roughead. Eight years, in my mind, of a hiatus in 
trying to advance this new technology is not aggressive by any 
stretch of the imagination. So I think that there have to be 
provisions for the Navy to construct some of these, for them to 
be able to deploy them, even before they meet all of the 
operational wickets, so that we can learn, and from that, work 
out some of the issues that you highlighted.
    Mr. Wittman. Very good.
    Mr. Clark.
    Mr. Clark. Absolutely. I agree with Admiral Roughead that 
we should be thinking about fielding some prototypes on 
unmanned vehicles in general, and then there needs to be a 
space during which we do concept development and evaluation to 
determine what their eventual configuration should be, and then 
also, how they might contribute to the fleet. So, there always 
should be some gap of several years between the time you finish 
that prototype and field it, and then get into serial 
production of whatever the eventual version of it might be.
    The other thing that comes in with unmanned vehicles is 
there are some challenges and opportunities that are there, 
particularly with the large unmanned surface vessel the Navy is 
proposing. The challenges are, obviously, reliability, how we 
are going to fix it if it breaks down at sea. There is law of 
war considerations about can it protect itself, or can it 
simply be herded off and boarded by other players like the 
Chinese. And then the CONOPS [concept of operations] are 
questionable, like, well, if it is an unmanned vessel that is 
going to have to operate in concert with manned platforms, 
because it does have this vulnerability to being boarded and 
taken away, well then, you are constraining its ability to 
contribute to the fleet, because now it is basically just 
another missile magazine that is going to follow along a 
destroyer or a cruiser, which limits some of the valuable--you 
know, the value that it might provide given the cost.
    And then the opportunities that we might leave on the table 
are the fact that it could, if it was manned, contribute to the 
fleet as another manned combatant doing security cooperation or 
operating in regions where our larger combatants can't go, and 
give more diversity to the fleet and command opportunities for 
junior commanders. I think that is something to consider.
    So we have been proposing that instead of this large, 
unmanned surface vessel, the Navy, instead, pursue a corvette, 
that is maybe similar-sized but is a manned platform, and the 
cost difference between the two is actually not that 
significant. But yeah, in general, we should be thinking about 
the CONOPS when we start thinking about where the unmanned 
vehicle might be a player in the future fleet architecture.
    Mr. Wittman. No, I agree, and I think you all bring up 
great points. Another thing, too. Secretary Esper mentioned, 
and I think it is another concept to look at, and that is, 
lightly manned.
    Mr. Clark. Right.
    Mr. Wittman. You know, look at this as a transition, 
aggressively pursue this, because Admiral Roughead, as you 
pointed out, it is not the absolute number. It is the types of 
ships that we have as part of that number, and then their 
operational capability. And then total fleet integration, as I 
talked about, is integration across everybody that has a 
maritime presence. That has to be key.
    Let me jump into one other question, and then I will make 
sure we get to our other members. One of the things that really 
concerns me, and I know many of the other committee members 
too, is logistics. How do we make sure we support operations in 
the long term? And we have seen the Navy's very anemic response 
to recapitalizing the Ready Reserve fleet. We have seen 
recently, too, the capabilities that just aren't there. We see 
the Coast Guard pulling certifications for those ships. We see, 
in the turbo activation, some pretty startling lack of 
operational capabilities there that we see before us.
    With this tepid recapitalization process that we have seen, 
and we have given permission for the Navy to do some things, 
they are finally starting to do it after what I think are 
unacceptable delays and projected retirements of these ships, 
and many of them very old. In fact, I argue many of them belong 
in the Smithsonian, they still use steam plants, as you know. 
Getting a steam plant-certified engineer is very difficult 
these days, you know. We ought to retire them to the 
Smithsonian, not keep them operational.
    That being said, what do you believe are the implications 
of diminished surge capacity, not just for the Navy, but for 
the total force structure, and especially when it comes to what 
we may see in the future, and what our operational plans 
dictate if we are talking about all of this capability and 
presence necessary, Admiral Roughead, as you said, in the Indo-
Pacific area? If our adversaries see warships there, but they 
know that those warships are not going to be able to be 
supported very long, the question is, is how capable are those 
warships of creating a deterrence?
    So, Admiral Roughead, I will begin with you and then go 
down our panel members.
    Admiral Roughead. That was one of the points that I made in 
my oral and in my written statement----
    Mr. Wittman. Yes.
    Admiral Roughead [continuing]. That we neglect logistics, 
and logistics is how this country has won wars.
    Mr. Wittman. Yes.
    Admiral Roughead. And I will share an exchange I had with a 
Chinese admiral during the time that I was on Active Duty where 
he made it very clear to me that our logistics ships were a 
primary target----
    Mr. Wittman. Yeah.
    Admiral Roughead [continuing]. Because if he can take out 
logistics, he takes out the lifeblood of the fighting ships, if 
you will.
    Mr. Wittman. Yes.
    Admiral Roughead. The other thing that is important is that 
I do believe that many of the ports that we routinely rely 
upon, particularly out in the Western Pacific, are going to be 
vulnerable, and so how are you able to sustain that force if 
you can't go in? You know, we have operated in the Middle East 
with, really, logistic impunity. We have been close to ports. 
It has been a benign flow on the sea lanes, and we have to 
rethink that.
    So, the distances that we are talking about in the Pacific 
are huge, compared to what we have been used to, and I think 
that if there is one thing that the committee really needs to 
pay attention to is, okay, we have the fighting force, how do 
we keep it fighting? And logistics will be how you do that to 
include how do you replenish at sea? Some of the new weapons 
that will be coming along.
    So, I would highly recommend a spotlight being put on the 
logistics force. There is a line I read many, many years ago as 
a young officer that logisticians are a sad, embittered race of 
men, and I think that is true, but they are the ones that we 
rely on in war.
    Mr. Wittman. Absolutely.
    Mr. Clark.
    Mr. Clark. Absolutely. I agree. And there are problems in 
basically the two different elements of the logistics force. 
There is the Combat Logistics Force that supports those 
operating forces at sea that are deployed overseas. There are 
challenges there with regard to its fit, meaning it may not be 
designed to support a more distributed Navy, because it is 
composed of a relatively small number of relatively large 
logistics vessels. So, we need a more distributed logistics 
force to support that more distributed operating Navy.
    And then the sealift force, we have got aging ships that 
need to be recapitalized, we need expand the MSP, the Maritime 
Security Program, to help fill in where those aging ships are 
unable to deploy. And then probably the most egregious part of 
the sealift fleet is the tanker fleet, where we only really 
have access in the U.S. Government to about 9 tankers of the 80 
or so that we need to be able to support a large operation 
overseas, both Navy and the other parts of the joint force.
    So, having some kind of way to access more tankers to 
support the joint force in a large overseas contingency is 
going to be a critical element of, you know, kind of future 
policy decisions for the Congress.
    Mr. Wittman. Mr. O'Rourke.
    Mr. O'Rourke. Yeah, very quickly. I agree with the earlier 
comments that planning for these kind of ships is always at the 
tail end after we figure everything else out. It is almost an 
afterthought. And I break things down the same way that Bryan 
did in terms of the UNREP [underway replenishment] ships for 
the battle fleet. There has been a general proposition that 
distributed maritime operations will require a different 
combination of support ships, but we have seen very little 
about what that new combination might be, other than a few 
scattered words in last year's 30-year shipbuilding plan.
    And in terms of surge sealift, if we are not going to 
recapitalize that adequately, it is going to get to a much 
larger question about what our national strategy is, because 
those surge sealift ships support a national strategy of 
intervening in the affairs of Eurasia, so as to prevent the 
emergence of regional hegemons in one part of Eurasia or 
another. So, if you don't do that, you are not following 
through on your national strategy, and you are calling it into 
question.
    And very quickly, if you will indulge me, I have, like, 30 
seconds on your earlier question about unmanned surface 
vehicles.
    Mr. Wittman. Yes.
    Mr. O'Rourke. And you raised many technical challenges and 
risks, and the other witnesses talked about those as well. I 
think to add to that, very quickly, I would say we need to 
understand better what the Navy has done to show analytically 
that this concept for distributing the Navy in this way not 
only makes sense, but that it is the best or most promising 
possible way forward.
    We have had an assertion that this is the way to go, but I 
am not sure how much analytical underpinning there has been for 
it.
    And also, as Bryan mentioned, it is one thing to say you 
are going to do this; it is another thing to develop the 
operational concepts to actually figure out how you are going 
to operate these ships and not just be a topic of hand-waving, 
you know, and briefing slides with electric bolts on them. And 
so, the analytical basis and the operational concepts need to 
be developed if they haven't already, and that needs to be 
shared with the Congress so that Congress can look at that and 
factor it into its assessment and markup of these proposed 
budgets.
    Mr. Wittman. I agree.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
    Mr. Courtney. Great. Thank you, Mr. Wittman.
    So now, we will turn to member questions. Again, under the 
House rules, again, folks who are joining us remotely are on, 
you know, parity with folks in the room, again, by seniority. 
So, our first member question will come from Mr. Langevin, 
followed by--next up after him will be Mr. Conaway.
    Mr. Langevin. Very good. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Can you 
hear me okay?
    Mr. Courtney. I hear you fine, Jim.
    Mr. Langevin. Great. Well, good morning, everyone. First of 
all, let me start out, Chairman Courtney, congratulating you 
for being the first subcommittee chair to hold a hybrid 
hearing. And given the fact that you are and I are--our 
districts abut in Connecticut and Rhode Island, I find that I 
am the first member to ask a question virtually, so New England 
and Red Sox Nation are leading the way.
    So, to our witnesses, I want to thank both of our 
witnesses--all three of our witnesses today, Admiral Roughead 
and Bryan Clark and Mr. O'Rourke, for attending today's 
hearing, and accommodating to the new format of these hearings. 
I appreciate your flexibility, as everyone across the country 
is doing their part to practice social distancing and get 
through this pandemic that we are dealing with right now. I 
have got some practice doing this with Bryan, as he recently 
virtually interviewed me a few weeks ago. It is good to see you 
again.
    So, let me begin my first question with Admiral Roughead. 
If the future defense budgets remain flat, which Navy programs 
do you believe are a higher priority? And the current CNO 
stated that the top priority is the Columbia-class program. 
Would you agree or disagree with that?
    Admiral Roughead. Yes, sir, I would. I think that in the 
world that we will be entering into, particularly with 
conventional challenges that we will be facing, we have to 
ensure that we have a strong, robust, and modern nuclear 
deterrent. And, of course, you know full well the importance of 
our sea-based deterrent, so I do agree that that is the number 
one shipbuilding priority.
    Mr. Langevin. Thank you. And attack submarines remain 
behind their goal of 66, where we should be, yet we face 
challenges with expenditures, with expanding production. How 
can the Navy mitigate this upcoming risk? To all three of our 
witnesses, whoever would like to chime in.
    Mr. Clark. In terms of mitigating the shortfall of attack 
submarines, one option is going to be for the Navy to extend 
the lives of existing submarines and try to get a few more days 
or hours or, rather, deployments out of them, so the Navy is 
making that effort right now. That is one option.
    Another option would be to increase production of existing 
submarines, Virginia class, as they are in production. The 
industrial base will be challenged to do that, but I think it 
is a worthwhile effort. The Navy may need to consider accepting 
longer construction timelines, considering that the 
construction yards will be building both Virginia-class Block V 
and Columbia-class submarines. So, if more submarines were 
bought to add to the two per year, certainly they want to fill 
in the one that is missing from this year's budget. There would 
be an opportunity to do that, and it may just be a partnership 
between the Navy and industry to come up with an appropriate 
timeline for construction of those submarines. But that is an 
option to help fill that gap that the Navy could pursue.
    Admiral Roughead. Mr. Langevin, I apologize. My hearing is 
not what it used to be. But just to amplify on what Bryan 
mentioned, I really do think that this is a place where a good, 
hard look has to be taken at the submarine industrial base, 
because in addition to the desire to increase the build, I 
think it is important that the submarine industrial base be 
able to return submarines back into service quickly. And I 
think that if we are only looking at the base as building the 
boats, we are not looking at the big picture.
    So, I really do think this is one area in particular where 
we really need to look at the physical aspects of the base, but 
we also have to put a hard light on the workforce, and how do 
we attract young people to want to be part of this enterprise.
    Mr. Langevin. Thank you. Mr. O'Rourke, did you have any 
comment?
    Mr. O'Rourke. Yes, very quickly. In terms of mitigating the 
shortfall, there are various options that can be pursued. And 
when the chart was shown earlier, it actually brought back some 
memories of mine. I have been reporting and testifying on the 
projected SSN [nuclear-powered attack submarine] valley since 
March of 1995, and when I first did that, it was in this room 
before I think the Procurement Subcommittee. Duncan Hunter, 
Sr., was the chairman of that subcommittee at the time. And to 
illustrate that coming shortfall, I stood up and presented a 
chart that was the same size and looked very much like the one 
that was presented just a few minutes ago.
    So, there are some things that can project that if you 
don't take great steps to change it, those things will come 
true, and now it is baked into the cake.
    So, what do we do about it now that we are in the 
situation? One is what Bryan mentioned, that the Navy is 
already moving forward with to refuel five, or as many as seven 
existing 688s [Los Angeles-class SSNs], and get several years 
of additional service out of them. That could help fill in the 
back half of the valley a little bit.
    You can also take steps to maximize the readiness of the 
attack submarine force during the bottom years of the valley. 
Whether that means adjusting your maintenance schedules or just 
putting extra money into them, you want to make sure that if 
you are only going to have a minimum of, like, 42 submarines in 
the late 2020s, you want to make sure that they are in the best 
possible condition during that period of time for deployment.
    You can also think, perhaps, about forward homeporting an 
additional one or two submarines in Guam or some other forward 
location.
    Mr. Courtney. The time has expired. So, again, I'm sure 
this topic will continue. So, thank you.
    Mr. Langevin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I will yield 
back.
    Mr. Courtney. Thank you, Mr. Langevin. Next up is Mr. 
Conaway. He is followed by Mr. Norcross.
    Mr. Conaway. Thank you, Mr. Chair, I appreciate that.
    It is a bit surreal that we are having these conversations 
because in the light of the fact that our Nation has just spent 
or committed to spend $3 trillion, money that was not budgeted 
anywhere at any point in time, was not contemplated having been 
spent in any of these projections. And so, I don't think 
Members of Congress yet have absorbed that. I don't think our 
Nation has absorbed that. So, all of these conversations will 
have to be reset, I think, at some point to reflect the reality 
of that spending that has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do 
with the topics of today. But we can't ignore it nor I think 
should we ignore it going forward.
    But, with that said, Admiral Roughead, you mentioned that a 
ratio of four ships to one deployed is a good rule of thumb. 
Would you apply that to our carrier fleet as well?
    Admiral Roughead. Yes, sir. I apply it to everything. The 
only way that you can skew that number is, as was just 
mentioned, by forward homeporting. And, quite frankly, I do not 
see aircraft carriers more than the one that we have forward 
now being able to do that because of the complexities of the 
air wing maintenance, what have you.
    So, if in fact you want the presence in the Middle East and 
the Western Pacific, that is a good rule to have, and it drives 
the numbers. If you don't do it, you begin to short 
maintenance, you begin to short training, and you begin to 
short the opportunities that our people have to recharge back 
home.
    Mr. Conaway. So the numbers that we have right now at 11 
won't work. And then if he went to 10 or 9, then you are going 
to have, at best, 2 ships deployed under that [inaudible]. So, 
thank you for that.
    I have been around a little while and long enough to watch 
the LCS come and go and come and go and the issues there.
    As we talk about all of these new classes of ships and new 
capacities and new capabilities, everything else, are there 
lessons that we have learned through the exercise of designing 
the LCS trying to--perhaps being overly optimistic about what 
the capabilities would be, that variety and versatility that we 
thought that ship would have. Are there lessons learned through 
that that the system can use to avoid similar impacts of these 
new classes of ships that are being proposed. Any of the 
panelists want to start?
    Admiral Roughead. Yes, sir, from my perspective, I do 
believe that lessons have been learned with the Navy shifting 
away from the littoral combat ship. I think we put too much 
stock in some of the mission modules and how quickly they will 
come along. So, I do believe that we are shifting back now to 
something that is a bit more certain.
    One of the other areas that I would just offer as a 
caution: In many instances where we have talked about crewing 
concepts for ships so that we can get more out of them because 
we will use double crews, we often short the back end of what 
makes that model work. And, you know, we offer up our SSBN or 
ballistic missile submarine force as the poster child for how 
you can do blue and gold crews, but people often do not 
recognize the vast investment that was made and continues to be 
made into making that scheme possible.
    So, as we look at maximizing availability of ships and if 
we do it with innovating crewing concepts, you have to pay for 
it.
    Mr. Clark. I would agree. And one of the lessons we learned 
was that technology insertion needs to be done in a more 
realistic fashion with some time period for the development of 
the substituent technologies before you start building the 
ship. So, getting land-based prototypes done, beginning the 
investment to put that kind of technology onto another ship so 
you can evaluate it in an operational setting.
    So LCS incorporated a lot of new technologies into the 
mission modules that were not really fully developed or even 
partially developed before the ship actually was fielded. So, 
getting those technologies developed in advance of the ship 
being pursued is a key element of it. And then also having this 
gap between the initial fielding of prototypes and the actual 
serial production of the ship will be important to be able to 
refine the design and ensure that the ones that are built in a 
serial fashion actually reflect a design that makes sense given 
the CONOPS that the ship is going to pursue.
    Admiral Roughead. Just two points that I would add to what 
has already been said. First is that the Navy moved very 
quickly at the outset of the LCS program to try and shorten the 
acquisition cycle time for that class. And some people would 
argue that the Navy wound up paying for that over the longer 
run by having to make a lot of adjustments in that program 
along the way.
    Secondly, this was built not as a multimission ship, but as 
a focused mission ship that would have one primary mission at 
any given point, depending on what mission module is placed on 
the ship. And that gave it less of an ability to respond to 
changes in strategic circumstances. And the Navy has 
traditionally built multimission ships that can adapt to 
changing world circumstances. And moving forward, we face a lot 
of uncertainty about what the international security 
environment could be, and that might argue in favor of once 
again building ships that have a broader set of capabilities 
that would enable them to better adjust to shifts and changes 
in the international security environment over their life 
cycle.
    Mr. Courtney. Thank you, Mr. Conaway.
    Next up is Mr. Norcross. He was signed in. I don't see him 
on the video screen. I don't know if he is still with us or 
not.
    Don, are you there? It doesn't appear so.
    So next up is Mr. Moulton who also--I see him on the 
screen. So, Seth, you're up.
    Mr. Moulton. Thank you very much. I would like to just 
first of all start with a couple of just quick comments based 
on what I have heard, and thank you all very much for joining 
us this morning.
    First of all, I couldn't agree more that this is not about 
the total number of ships but about their capabilities. From 
what I can tell, the Chinese see the future in unmanned 
vehicles: surface, subsurface, aerial, and space. And in my 
mind, we are unquestionably moving too slowly. We have got to 
move more quickly. And we have got to recognize that 
experimentation is okay. One of the things the private sector 
has to learn in the tech age is that it is okay to fail; you 
just want to fail quickly so that you can learn from those 
failures and move on. And I think that caution is really 
putting our national security at risk, given how long it has 
taken to produce and field these unmanned vehicles.
    One lesson I learned as a warfighter in the Marines is the 
need to move quickly. It is better to move fast and break 
things than to hold back. Holding back is what gives your enemy 
an advantage, and I fear that is where we are.
    I also learned a bit in the Marines about getting to the 
fight in care of the U.S. Navy. And my first trip across the 
Pacific was in a cruise ship built in 1968 that I believe is 
still in service carrying Marines and has a steam propulsion 
system, as Mr. Wittman described. And, you know, we only lost 
all power and went completely dead in the water turning 
sideways to the waves once in the journey. That was an 
interesting experience.
    But I imagine that part of the reason that we were building 
steam-powered ships as recently as 1968 is in fact because 
there were Members of Congress who said we are not quite sure 
about this new technology, this turbine stuff, and diesel 
engines, or whatever else, and we should hold back and use the 
trusted and hold true. And I think now we are suffering the 
consequences.
    So one of the people I think who is really trying to change 
this and trying to push this forward is the new Commandant of 
the Marine Corps, and he is asking some really tough questions 
and questioning some long-held assumptions about the role that 
Marines should play.
    I would love to hear from you what you think about General 
Berger's comments and his plans to divest of certain defense 
programs to make room for new ones. I am with Mr. Conaway that 
we cannot avoid the reality here that we are going to have to 
make some tough decisions, some new tough decisions based on 
the budget realities we face coming out of this pandemic.
    Admiral Roughead. Well, thank you for the question, sir. 
And I would--I applaud the Commandant for taking a fresh look 
at how the Marine Corps is going to operate, more distributed, 
lighter. I think that is the role of the Corps in the world in 
which we are going to live.
    I would, however, say that it can't be done in isolation. 
We need to look at how that force will be supported, how it 
will be supplied, and how it will be networked into the broader 
joint force, and I would say starting with the naval force. So 
I applaud what is being done, but I think it is important to 
really dig into the operational concepts and to make sure that 
all pieces of determining what that force's effectiveness will 
be need to be examined closely.
    Mr. Clark. Yeah, I think the work that the Commandant has 
done with his team to develop the elements of a new force 
design for the Marine Corps is terrific. It is moving in the 
right direction. Because for a long time we questioned the 
ability of the Marines to do a large-scale amphibious assault 
in the manner they did during the Korean War or the Second 
World War.
    Now, looking at that force design, as Admiral Roughead 
said, we are going to have to think through the operational 
concepts and what that implies for the kinds of forces we need. 
The force structure work that we have been doing, that I 
included in my written statement, reflects some of those 
insights about the fact that the amphibious fleet is probably 
going to become larger and more diverse and have a larger 
number of smaller platforms that will enable moving Marines 
around in these island locations where they might be standing 
up expeditionary bases.
    But there is a lot of work that still needs be to done to 
evaluate, how are Marines going to get to that fight? Are they 
going to be prepositioned, or are they going to be brought in 
when the conflict starts to begin? Are they going to be moved 
around in a way that allows them to exploit their mobility? How 
is that going to happen? And then what is their role? And I 
think the work that the Marines are doing right now to evaluate 
their role in the joint force is going to be really important 
because a small Marine force based in a place like the 
Philippines or the southwest island chain of Japan can make a 
difference, but that difference is going to be mostly in 
impeding the progress of Chinese power projection over the 
first island chain, rather than in denying areas of the sea to 
Chinese military forces in China's own backyard. So, thinking 
through----
    Mr. Moulton. What is small, light, and nimble in the Marine 
Corps mean for the United States Navy? Because I think part of 
the general's--the Commandant's concern is that a troop ship 
like the one I was just describing is a big target. I think 
that, at the same time as China sees a future in unmanned 
vehicles, they also see our aircraft carriers as massive 
targets that they quite enjoy.
    Mr. Courtney. Make this one quick.
    Mr. Clark. Small and nimble is generally going to mean a 
company-sized type force or a ship that is able to carry that 
company-sized force, like 100 to 200 people with their 
equipment. That is what we are talking about is that kind of 
scale.
    Mr. Courtney. Thank you, Mr. Moulton.
    Next up is Mrs. Hartzler, and she will be followed by Ms. 
Sherrill.
    Mrs. Hartzler. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to 
all our witnesses today.
    I usually like to stay within my lane as far as 
subcommittee questions, but this one is more--falls under 
Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee. But I think it is 
also relevant to our discussion here of the overall Navy future 
force structure. And it has to do with the discussion about the 
Navy's management of their strike fighter fleet. I have raised 
concerns over the Navy's decision to eliminate 36 new F/A-18E/F 
Super Hornets from its fiscal year 2022-2025 Future Years 
Defense Plan. I think this could create greater risk for 
combatant commanders and increases the Navy's current strike 
fighter shortfall in fiscal year 2021 from 49 to 58 aircraft, 
which amounts to about 1 carrier wing's, air wing's worth of 
aircraft. If you factor in attrition requirements, it is 
actually even worse than that.
    I understand the Navy hopes to fix this shortfall in the 
2030 timeframe with initial fielding of its next-generation 
fighter, the
F/A-XX, which is in the concept development stages now. And I 
appreciate the need to focus on development of next-generation 
capability. And I understand the Navy, like all the other 
services, have to make hard decisions given constrained budget 
top lines. However, I think the new Super Hornets would have 
the most immediate impact on the inventory and fleet readiness, 
given that it will take almost a decade at least before the F/
A-XX is slated to be delivered, and that is assuming this 
program is able to stay on schedule and be affordable. I recall 
the Navy took a similar approach to FA-18 procurement approach 
about 10 years ago with aspirational goals to maintain strike 
fighter inventory levels with planned procurement of F-35Cs. 
That plan was not realized, and the Navy in turn had to restart 
production of Super Hornets to help mitigate operational risks. 
And I am wondering if we are repeating history here.
    So, Mr. Clark, you have also expressed some recent 
skepticism regarding the Navy's management of the strike 
fighter fleet. In your view, what is the consequence of paring 
back the production of new Super Hornets, and should we keep 
this production line going until we have a better understanding 
of F/A-XX and its timeline?
    Mr. Clark. Yes, thank you for the question. Great point 
about the strike fighter shortfall in the near term and 
balancing that against the development of a future aircraft. I 
think the F/A-XX is going to need to be probably a derivative, 
an existing airplane rather than some complete new clean-sheet 
design, given the fiscal constraints we are under and also 
given the uncertainty about what the future of unmanned 
aircraft in the air wing is going to be. Therefore, keeping 
production lines going for both of our existing strike fighters 
is a good idea to allow you that--them both to be an option for 
this future F/A-XX.
    Mrs. Hartzler. Very good. You all know that the cost of the 
Navy's force structure has to take into account not only the 
initial cost of procurement of weapons platforms, but also the 
personnel, training infrastructures, sustainment costs, and 
logistics chain that the Navy requires for its platform.
    I am growing increasingly concerned that the sustainment 
cost of these sophisticated weapons system are taking up the 
larger percentage of the Navy's annual budget. There is 
certainly a necessity for revolutionary capability, but at what 
cost.
    So, once again, Mr. Clark, you have studied not only the 
effects of current weapons platforms, but also how the Navy 
intends to sustain them over their life cycle. Are you 
concerned about what the growing sustainment costs of platforms 
might do to the procurement budgets in future years?
    Mr. Clark. Yes, as a matter of fact, it is already making 
impacts on the procurement budgets. Some of the changes we saw 
in this year's budget, the reductions in platforms such as FA-
18 are both impacted by their rising operations and maintenance 
cost for the Navy. So, a future fleet design needs to 
incorporate explicitly the long-term total ownership cost of 
platforms. And, also, we need to think about how to make each 
platform less expensive over its lifetime. So that needs to be 
incorporated into its design. If we don't start making those 
changes, we are going to continue down this road of cutting 
production to support the current fleet, and, eventually, the 
fleet will just shrink down to a force that is going to be much 
smaller than of that today because that is what we can afford 
to own given the nature of the platforms and their costs.
    Mrs. Hartzler. Do you see any ways that right now those 
sustainment costs could be reduced with the fleet that we have?
    Mr. Clark. There are some ways we can better manage the 
fleet and its maintenance. So if we better organize the 
schedule of ships so that they can go in and get the 
maintenance done at the most efficient time possible and avoid 
delays, make sure we do adequate inspections to ensure we have 
a good work package before ships go into maintenance, those are 
factors that can be used to--or those are ways we can drive 
down the cost of the subsequent maintenance.
    Mr. Courtney. Great. Thank you, Vicky.
    Mrs. Hartzler. Thank you. You bet.
    Mr. Courtney. Next, Ms. Sherrill was on, but I think she--
we may have--she may have gotten pulled away.
    So, in order on the Democratic side is Mr. Golden, and then 
he will be followed by Mr. Byrne.
    Mr. Golden. Thank you very much, Chairman, and thanks for 
getting this hearing pulled together.
    In his prepared statement, Mr. O'Rourke observed that the 
upcoming IFSA [integrated force structure assessment] could 
result in a once-in-a-generation change in the Navy's fleet 
architecture.
    Mr. Clark also proposed a similar revolutionary approach to 
Navy in its recent ``Taking Back the Seas'' CBSA [Center for 
Strategic and Budgetary Assessments] report. As you all know, 
any major change in naval procurement in fleet architecture 
requires a corresponding adaptation by the shipbuilding 
industrial base. This isn't a change that can occur overnight 
either. Shipbuilder selection and training requires long-term 
strategic planning and meaningful sustained congressional 
oversight so we can ensure our robust skilled shipbuilding 
workforce. The Navy's fiscal year 2019 and 2020 reports to 
Congress on the annual long-range plan for construction of 
naval vessels identified the shipbuilding defense industrial 
base as fundamental for achieving the Navy shipbuilding 
requirements. That seems a rather obvious observation, or at 
least it should be. And it also made clear that it was a unique 
national security imperative that required congressional 
management and protection.
    So, I wanted to ask Admiral Roughead, given your experience 
and expertise, I would appreciate hearing from you on how to 
achieve this transition in a manner that protects and builds 
our shipbuilding workforce. Specifically, how do we go through 
this proposed transition and architecture without repeating the 
harm caused by previous boom and bust shipbuilding cycles, what 
types of investments do we need to see in training to achieve 
this change? What obstacles do you foresee, given shipbuilder 
demographic challenges that we are struggling with right now?
    Admiral Roughead. Yes, sir, and thank you for that 
question. I think it is one of the most important ones of what 
the committee has to deal with. You know, the fragility of the 
base and the limited number of shipbuilders and suppliers that 
we have to support shipbuilding, I really do think we have to 
acknowledge that. And as we think about future force structure, 
I really do believe that industry has to come in in the 
beginning and talk about how they can adjust what the impact of 
certain investments will or will not be on their future. We 
have not done that. I would argue that, even among the 
shipbuilders, they are probably reluctant to come together and 
talk about it because of the competitive issues. But I honestly 
believe that we as a country, we don't have the luxury to not 
have a more integrated approach on how we want to go forward.
    I would also argue that we have to be far more aggressive 
in appealing to young people and providing the fundamentals 
that allow them to work in what some may perceive as an 
antiquated industry, but really when you get to it, there is a 
lot of high-tech stuff that is going on there. And so being 
able to create opportunities, particularly in the areas around 
the major shipbuilding centers, to build and encourage young 
people to want to go into that industry is going to be very 
important.
    Mr. Golden. Thank you for that feedback. Very important.
    You earlier talked about needing a high-low mix in surface 
warships. Could you talk a little bit--I think, during your 
time as Chief of Naval Operations, you were actually very much 
involved in development of the missile defense capabilities of 
Flight III DDG [guided missile destroyer] that we are bringing 
into the fleet right now, the SPY-6 radar system.
    Can you talk a little bit about where you see in the Navy's 
fleet architecture the role of the Flight III DDG or some kind 
of future large surface combatant? What role should they play 
today and in the future?
    Admiral Roughead. Yes, sir. I think that, when I talk about 
the high end, these are the ships that we can put in very 
challenging undersea warfare areas, that can perform air 
defense and also increasingly missile defense, that can begin 
to accept the defensive systems against hypersonics. So that is 
where I see the higher end ships, the Flight III and then the 
large surface combatant when we get there.
    So I think it is important that we do the high-low mix 
because just going back in my time, it was always frustrating 
to take a very high-end ballistic missile defense-capable 
guided missile destroyer and send them down to chase Somali 
pirates. That to me was a wasted asset when you can have a 
smaller combatant go down--less capable combatant go down and 
do that. And that is why I think the high-low mix is the only 
way that we can go forward.
    Mr. Courtney. Great. Thank you, Admiral.
    Thank you, Jared.
    Next up is Mr. Byrne, and he will be followed by Mrs. 
Luria.
    Mr. Byrne. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the 
witnesses being here today. It has been really good. A lot of 
our discussion has been about the need for a distributed 
maritime presence, both for the Navy and Marine Corps, lot of 
talk about smaller classes of ships.
    Let me ask you about two classes of ships we haven't talked 
about. One is the expeditionary fast transport vessel, and the 
other is the light amphibious warship. Can each of you comment 
on how important you think that is going forward for the future 
of both the Navy and the Marine Corps?
    Admiral Roughead. Yes, sir, and again, I am not privy to 
where the Marine Corps may be thinking. But, you know, that is 
the type of ship that I think can be effective in the 
Commandant's concept of, how can you configure it to move the 
types of weapon systems or sensors that you may want to put in 
some distributed areas? How can you move large number sort of 
troops? I recall my first visit to the LCS that was being built 
down in Mobile. When I came back----
    Mr. Byrne. I am very familiar with that.
    Admiral Roughead. I figured you would be, sir.
    When I came back, the first person I went to see was to 
walk down the hall and to talk to the Commandant in the Marine 
Corps because I said you, you know, can configure this ship to 
move a significant number of Marines over a short period, and 
in archipelagic areas like the Philippines and Indonesia, they 
are ideally suited for types of things like that.
    So, I would hope that that is where the Marine Corps is 
thinking. I will leave it to Bryan. He might have more insight 
on that.
    Mr. Clark. I think absolutely both those platforms are 
going to be important. The light amphibious warship is going to 
be essential for that company-sized movement of forces around 
within an archipelago like the first island chain of the 
Philippines and Japan. Also, it is going to provide the Marines 
the ability to distribute those forces coming from a larger 
warship. So, a larger amphibious warship can now divulge--or 
distribute those Marines over a larger area and then move them 
around during a period of conflict. So, the light amphibious 
warship will be very important for that.
    The expeditionary fast transport [EPF] has--that role can 
be done by--but it can also do a lot of other roles. I think we 
have--the Navy has been exploring those, the use of it for 
theater security cooperation, the use of it in counter--drug 
countertrafficking operations where its ability to act as a 
command post has been really important. And, also, it can be a 
medical platform. We had the recent experience with the Comfort 
and Mercy being deployed to Los Angeles and New York where they 
weren't really fully utilized because they are a very large 
ship being used for a purpose that was very different than its 
original intent. A smaller medical ship might be able to 
operate in a more distributed fashion, more efficiently provide 
the kind of services you might need in a location like New York 
that is experiencing a pandemic.
    So, I think those are applications that have not been 
really fully explored, but the Navy is starting to do that.
    Mr. O'Rourke. Bryan stole a couple of my points, but what I 
will say is that the EPF is an example, to some degree, of an 
open architecture ship that can be adapted to a variety of 
missions in the future, depending on how you fit it out on the 
inside, whether it is for medical care or other things. And 
since we face some uncertainty as to the exact mix of missions 
that we might want to pursue in the future, that is a platform 
that can be seen as something that can be adapted to the mix of 
missions that eventually emerges because it is a ship with a 
lot of open spaces on it and represents an implementation of 
physical open architecture in ship design.
    Mr. Byrne. Admiral, let me ask you about--Mr. Clark 
mentioned that turning some of these smaller ships like the EPF 
into a hospital ship. Where do you stand on that?
    Admiral Roughead. I really do think that we need to rethink 
our hospital ship concept. I used Mercy very extensively in the 
Pacific when I was out there. It is an extraordinary 
capability, but in some cases, I think it is too large. I do 
think that, depending on whether the Navy and the military is 
called in to go in and work with small remote populations, I 
think it can be hugely important.
    The point that Bryan made, you know, you--for example, in 
pandemic areas, I think you could probably put in packages that 
have the right pressure characteristics so that you could do 
some isolation of patients in ways that would be well-suited.
    So, I would recommend looking at a range of ships. I do, 
however, think Mercy and Comfort are really large for the 
missions that I envision in the future. So, I would look at 
something smaller, and that's one option that I think is 
viable.
    Mr. Byrne. Thank you for your answers. I will just make one 
observation, Mr. Chairman. I agree with Mr. Moulton. One of the 
things that I think we make a mistake about sometimes is that 
we don't understand that we can move faster with our technology 
if we put our minds to it.
    When it comes to the unmanned vessel, I think we need to 
start making our minds move a lot faster. I think if we do 
that, I think we will get the technology we need.
    With that, I yield back.
    Mr. Courtney. Thank you, Mr. Byrne.
    Next up is Mrs. Luria, and she will be followed by Mr. 
Kelly.
    Mrs. Luria. I want to thank you again, gentlemen, for being 
here today. And something that we have talked about a lot--you 
mentioned it in your testimony several times--is that, and I 
will quote Admiral Roughead, there is an overfixation on the 
number of ships. And we have touched briefly with talking about 
different ship classes on the capabilities of ships. But 
something we haven't touched on is the employment of ships.
    And, Mr. Clark, I am curious, what force generation model 
did you use in the analysis that you did, specifically for your 
testimony today? And just on that note, I had also referenced 
some work that you coauthored from 2017 with CSBA. And the 
number, although, you know, we discussed the fallacy of just 
resting on a number, was 340 ships, and in today's testimony 
you say 473.
    So, I suspect that there is significant changes between the 
model that you used. And really what I am getting at is the 
force generation model. Admiral Roughead's comments that it is 
a 1-to-4 ratio as far as deployability. And then where we have 
gone with the OFRP, the Optimized Fleet Response Plan, do you 
think that that is an effective model and sustainable, and does 
it give enough deployed presence specifically for the 
investments that we are making in these ships.
    Mr. Clark. Thank you for the question. Those are great 
questions. The difference in the numbers is in large part due 
to the rebalancing of the force to incorporate a larger number 
of smaller platforms and a smaller number of larger platforms. 
So that increases the size of the fleet in terms of the number 
of ships, of manned ships. And, also, the force generation is 
an aspect of that. So, we have had to incorporate a realistic 
expectation for what the OFRP can deliver, which is you are 
generally at this point going to be 1-to-4 to 1-to-5 ships. So 
that increases the number of ships you need.
    We also didn't try to make overly optimistic projections 
about forward basing of ships, which does give you some benefit 
in terms of the rotational cycle. But a lot of the benefit of 
forward basing comes from the fact you use a shorter 
operational cycle that gives you a higher operational tempo. 
So, those ships get worked a lot harder while they are deployed 
overseas, rather than the more steady pace that you get back 
home.
    So doing those things drove up the number of ships because 
we had to think about what is a realistic expectation for how 
often a ship can deploy, and we have made some assumptions in 
the past that were probably overly optimistic.
    So, yeah, going forward, we need to reexamine the OFRP and 
evaluate if that is really the right force generation model. If 
we can go to a model that maybe generates forces more quickly, 
a higher OPTEMPO [operational tempo] model, which we did 
advocate in that 2017 study, which is more like the model we 
use overseas. I think it is possible to do so, but it will 
require us to have an industrial base that can support that 
throughput of ships for their maintenance cycles. And it will 
also require flexibility in scheduling so that, when a ship is 
ready to go into maintenance, it can do so, rather than waiting 
around for a yard to open or going on deployment and getting 
stuff broken----
    Mrs. Luria. So, to touch on that, when we had testimony and 
Secretary Modly earlier this year testified that the rough 
number that the Navy could hope to maintain in the near future 
was about 310 ships as far as adequate manning, maintenance 
capabilities, and the industrial base. Yet the Navy has stood 
by the 355 and made indications that that number is going to be 
higher when we see the new integrated force structure 
assessment. But the trajectory that they had requested, 
especially in this year's budget, and Mr. O'Rourke correctly 
noted that the numbers are actually going down from what they 
projected. So, they are not on a trajectory to get there.
    And just in the time I have left, shifting back to 
capabilities. So, in your 2017 CSBA study, you mentioned a T-
AKE [dry cargo/ammunition ship], so a logistic ship with VLS 
[vertical launching system]. And a lot of what we do is looking 
at capabilities and the ability to have those capabilities 
forward, and in that includes the VLS and the strike 
capability. And I really haven't heard much about this. I have 
talked to the MSC [Military Sealift Command] commander about 
it, the past MSC commander. Specifically, and do you do any 
work at all in sort of more innovative thought processes of how 
we can better utilize some of the platforms such as the MSC 
ships to augment our other forces and provide more firepower 
forward? Can you comment on that?
    Mr. Clark. Yeah, absolutely. So, the reason we wanted to 
have that VLS magazine equipped T-AKE was to allow reloading of 
ships in a forward location. Also, theoretically, it could 
launch weapons from there. But, most importantly, it was a way 
of bringing weapons forward in a ready manner that could just 
be pulled out and put onto a ship. So, forward reloading and 
rearming of ships is going to be essential in any of these 
operational concepts because we can't have ships driving back 
to Japan or Pearl Harbor to get reloaded when their weapons 
usage is going to be pretty high in some of these conflicts.
    So using the MSC fleet more innovatively and incorporating 
some platforms into the MSC fleet that can move forward and 
provide that ability of reload and rearm and repair forces in 
the field is going to be essential if the fleet is going to be 
able to sustain operations.
    Mrs. Luria. Well, thank you. I just think that is a concept 
that requires further examination. And knowing how the mission 
data is loaded in a Tomahawk missile and a VLS launcher, there 
really isn't a need to transfer it from one ship to another 
with the technology that we have today. It could be a command-
and-control solution.
    Mr. Clark. Right. You can launch on remote.
    Mrs. Luria. A launcher in another type of platform. And we 
have talked a lot about platforms that are less expensive to 
operate and less expensive to build. So, I think that that is 
an important element in evaluating our future.
    Mr. Clark. Absolutely, that is why we included the corvette 
as well in the fleet that we proposed.
    Mrs. Luria. Well, thank you. I think my time is expired. I 
yield back.
    Mr. Courtney. Thank you, Mrs. Luria.
    Next up is Mr. Kelly. He will be followed by Mr. Cisneros, 
who will be followed by Mr. Waltz and Mr. Gallagher.
    Mr. Kelly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    I thank our witnesses for being here today.
    First of all, I want to echo what Mr. Moulton said. I think 
as far as research and development and what platforms and how 
we use those, I think we have to execute quickly. We have to 
accept failures, and then fail quickly, like you said, and move 
forward.
    The second point. I am really concerned that we are still 
waiting on the 30-year ship plan from the Navy. I think it is 
very hard to execute anything and for our industrial base to be 
ready to produce whatever we need when there is no plan. And 
when there is no plan, people just wander aimlessly because 
there is not anything out there to do.
    So, part of it is we have got to research and develop, 
decide what we are going to build in the future. When we do 
that, then we have to violently execute. I see so often we 
start and stop and start and stop, and we don't allow our 
industrial base to build the things that we are committed to. 
So, whether we are talking about unmanned systems or hospital 
ships, we have got what we had until we got something else. 
Then that is why we have to have this plan.
    I would go back to my question now. Admiral Roughead or Mr. 
Clark, the Navy is pursuing advanced technologies through its 
Naval Power and Energy Systems Technology Development Roadmap. 
Among these technologies are innovative approaches to energy 
storage and management. Could you describe why this is 
important now? As we enter critical stages of development for 
future systems, where would you prioritize these efforts within 
the Navy's research and development portfolio, and what 
additional steps could the Navy take to better meet its future 
power and energy storage needs?
    Admiral Roughead. I think one of the things that we need to 
do, particularly in the area of unmanned systems, we have 
already talked in general about the need to accelerate efforts 
there, but when we get into unmanned underwater systems, my 
sense is that we are always drawn to either the weapon, the 
sensor, or how these unmanned systems link with one another, 
which is all very important, all very interesting. But if we 
cannot sustain the underwater systems at sea for a long period 
of time, they really become very, very limited and become very 
expensive unusable assets. So, in my mind, there really should 
be a national push on long endurance, safe, underwater power if 
we really want to capitalize on that capability. And it is not 
just how long they can stay out. But in many areas where it 
will be important for these vehicles to operate, there is going 
to be high currents, and you are just going to use a lot of 
power. So, I think that we got--we have to get off this idea of 
what is the combat capability, and power is the key.
    I often used to say that Admiral Rickover didn't transform 
submarines by designing a new hull. He transformed that entire 
capability by changing the power. And I think that is where the 
key is in unmanned.
    And if I could, one of the things that we are frustrated 
with the pace of our development. But as I look at coming off 
of COVID and where countries are going to be economically, I 
really do believe that China is going to be spending a lot of 
money on its digital future and also on its energy future. They 
also will likely have to divert some of their shipbuilding 
capacity so that they don't have underemployment and probably 
throw that at the naval mission. And so if we think that we are 
on a particular trajectory and we are forecasting where an 
adversary may be, we better be really careful, because I 
honestly believe that we are going to see an acceleration in 
digital power and naval ship activity coming out of China as we 
all try to recover from our economic circumstances.
    Mr. Clark. And I concur with all of that. And I would also 
add that power conditioning and power generation are going to 
be really important to directed energy weapons. That will be an 
essential part of surface warfare going into the future, 
particularly for air defense. Electronic warfare, high-power 
microwave, lasers are all going to be an important element of 
future air defense concepts. So that will be an important area 
of investment as well.
    Mr. Kelly. And Mr. Chairman, my next question had to deal 
with directed energy, and you kind of addressed that. But we 
need to make sure just very quickly, are you looking at 
building ships that house the amount of energy taken for 
directed energy impacts, or are we building the future and--are 
we looking at old ships and can we put these systems on there, 
or are we trying to build new ships that allow the capacity for 
these directed energy systems?
    And, with that, I would yield back, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Clark. Right now, we are building ships that are going 
to incorporate these systems, but they will have some method of 
being able to condition or store the power to be able to do 
laser operations. And then the next generation of ships are 
incorporating a kind of power generation capacity to allow 
these systems to operate continuously.
    Mr. Courtney. Great. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Kelly.
    Next up is Mr. Cisneros followed by Mr. Waltz, then Mr. 
Gallagher.
    Mr. Cisneros. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the--
our guests being here today.
    Look, like everybody else, I believe research and 
development is very important, and we need to invest in this. 
But I also worry that maybe we are moving too fast.
    The Secretary of the Navy told me in my office that the 
DDG-1000 was a failure. We have had problems with the LCS. How 
do we strike this balance, you know? Might it have been better 
to build maybe a newer better frigate than moving to the LCS? 
So how do we strike this balance of really modernizing our 
fleet but not getting too far ahead of ourselves to where we 
are having these mistakes like the DGG-1000?
    Admiral Roughead. One of the things I think is to look at 
the ambition you have and how much technology you are trying to 
introduce into a new class of ship. And there is no question in 
my mind that our approach on the DGG-1000 was far too 
aggressive, and we reached for too much with the DGG-1000. But 
I do think that it is important that we pursue the new 
technologies, that perhaps we don't set ambitions of large 
numbers of ships in a class if our objective is introduction of 
technology.
    I can go back in the Navy's history, and we have a lot of 
examples of one-ship classes where we tried something and it 
didn't work. We were in a far different position then with our 
industrial base and, in some cases, with our budgets. But I 
think that if we are pursuing new technology, smaller classes 
may be the way to go and then evolve it that way.
    Mr. Clark. I think a key area is also looking at the 
operational concepts, or how is the new technology going to be 
employed in practice before we invest significantly in actually 
fielding that technology? So, for example, with unmanned 
vessels, we talked about the large unmanned vessel and how that 
might be really challenging for the Navy to implement. But the 
medium unmanned surface vessel that the Navy is pursuing could 
be something they could actually go very aggressively into 
because it is a small vessel. It is relatively inexpensive. It 
has got a limited set of missions that the Navy plans for it to 
do. We believe that it could do more in the antisubmarine 
warfare realm. It could do a lot in sensing and in 
countersensing.
    So, if you have got a good set of concepts for how the 
technology could be employed, it may allow you to be more 
aggressive in employing it because you have got the trade space 
kind of confined, as opposed to, for example, like LCS where 
you had fairly ambitious concepts that then the technology was 
not able to meet in, you know, short term. So, I think that is 
really important as an element of this.
    And then the second thing would be also when we are 
changing ships or we are adapting a hull type over time, as 
Admiral Roughead had said, we want to avoid changing all three 
elements of the ship at that same time--the combat system, the 
hull, and the propulsion system.
    So, as we go from one ship class to our modification of a 
ship class to the next, maybe we modify only one of those 
things at a time to allow you to improve it over time. And that 
is what we have done with some of these previous one-off ship 
classes, is where we changed the propulsion system, where we 
changed the combat system, but left the rest of the ship more 
or less intact. And that is a way to incorporate technology 
that is more realistic or less risky.
    Mr. Cisneros. Right. I appreciate that answer.
    The second question I wanted to ask, and Admiral Roughead, 
you kind of alluded to this a little bit earlier, but China 
aggressively may be making a change to more aggressively 
increase its shipbuilding. It was already kind of headed on a 
path towards a 400-ship Navy. How is our naval makeup looking 
to meet that challenge of China? Are we building the right 
ships in order to interact with them in the future?
    Admiral Roughead. I do believe that we are focused on the 
right high-low, and then particularly submarines. In my mind, 
it's going to be a question of capacity. I think that is going 
to be our greatest challenge. Because when you get inside that 
first island chain, not only do you encounter significant 
numbers of the PLA [People's Liberation Army] Navy, but their 
coast guard, some ships of which are bigger than some of our 
largest combatants, and then you have the maritime militia. So, 
numbers are going to be important. How you distribute the 
force, how you network the information, all of that is key. So, 
I think we have the right path forward. Capacity is going to be 
an issue. And then rapid introduction of technology is going to 
be key.
    Mr. Courtney. Thank you, Gil.
    Mr. Waltz, you are up.
    Mr. Waltz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Do you hear me okay?
    Mr. Courtney. Loud and clear.
    Mr. Waltz. All right. Thank you. And thank you for having 
this today. Thank you to the witnesses. I just wanted to echo 
my colleagues' concern about the 30-year shipbuilding plan. I 
just can't imagine as a former CEO [chief executive officer] 
going to my board and asking for the amount of money that the 
taxpayers are producing without a long-range plan. So just to 
echo those thoughts and very much looking forward to seeing 
that from the Navy soon.
    So, I have just two quick questions. I wanted to add on, 
and I am happy to hear the conversation on power, very 
concerned about power, and particularly our raw ingredients 
when it comes to the battery power and storage I think we are 
going to need as we are starting to project the need for 
unmanned underwater systems, unmanned aerial systems, and 
others. I think worth noting for the committee that right now, 
China, Australia, Chile, and Argentina produce 90 percent of 
the world's lithium. And the rest of it are in other countries 
besides the United States as well. We really lost that refining 
capability.
    So, what--I would just ask for any of the witnesses to 
comment on the fact that our supply chain that our naval forces 
need to predict is incredibly vulnerable. I mean need to 
protect--excuse me--is incredibly vulnerable. And it is a bit 
of a negative cycle that those forces are absolutely dependent, 
particularly the Navy of the future, on the raw ingredients 
that the United States lost the capability to mine, 
manufacture, refine, and produce. And I would just welcome some 
additional commentary there.
    Mr. Clark. Well, it seems like we need--the government is 
trying to do a better job of evaluating where the supply chain 
vulnerabilities might be. I think the recent--the pandemic and 
certainly our trade confrontation with China both created an 
opportunity to better examine where our supply chain goes--
comes from and where we might need to shore it up by investing 
in a domestic source of some of those materials. So, the 
Defense Production Act is an option for being able to do that. 
That kind of research needs to be done in more aggressively 
going back into the research and development chain, though. It 
is not just a matter of what we build today; it is also where 
our vulnerabilities with regard to what we are going to be 
building in large numbers tomorrow, to your point.
    Mr. Waltz. Just to add onto that question. How much of 
those vulnerabilities are being incorporated into the type of 
Navy that we think we have the ability to produce going 
forward? How does that factor into that long-range planning?
    Mr. Clark. Well, it is likely, as we go into a more diverse 
and distributed fleet that is more rebalanced towards more 
smaller platforms, we are going to have more of these 
technologies that rely on materials and parts that come from 
suppliers we don't necessarily have the best relationship with.
    Mr. O'Rourke. Right now, we don't have a whole lot of 
visibility into the question of foreign content in our 
shipbuilding programs at the component, subcomponent, material, 
and software level. So, in my view, that is something we need 
to gain a better understanding of.
    And in terms of certain key raw materials, Congressman, you 
mentioned lithium, but the issue of rare earths also comes into 
play here because they are critical to many of the combat 
system pieces of equipment that are incorporated into our 
ships.
    Mr. Waltz. Thank you for that. And just for my colleagues, 
I introduced legislation that is taking a hard look at how we 
can improve that here domestically, and I welcome their 
support.
    My follow-on question is, just to state it bluntly is, and 
this is adding on to my colleague Mrs. Luria, is OFRP still a 
valid concept? Is it in real trouble? And if it is, how do we--
I will just welcome more of your thoughts on how we get to the 
maintenance issues and the industrial base issues? I know I--I 
heard in some initial testimony that it is incorporated in your 
written--I look forward to reading that. But if you could just 
spend a few minutes on that, I would appreciate it.
    Mr. Clark. So, the challenge with OFRP is that we need to 
be able to have ships be able to do their maintenance when they 
are available to do it. And that is one of the challenges with 
having a more flexible schedule for ships that the government 
is pursuing with this dynamic force employment concept. So, 
having a predictable schedule for maintenance of ships does not 
necessarily align with a dynamic force employment concept. And 
so that is one of the challenges that is being encountered by 
OFRP right now. The Navy is getting better at being able to do 
the inspections and predictions for the maintenance so they can 
plan work packages better. But they need to address this 
scheduling challenge. And they also need to address the 
industrial base challenge of the industrial base that does 
maintenance on ships today has rightsized itself to meet the 
exact demand that we had maybe 5 or 10 years ago. And as that 
demand changes, that industrial base needs to adapt in support 
of that. And that is something the Navy might need to think 
about investing some time or money into developing, 
particularly dry docks on the east coast.
    Mr. Courtney. Thank you, Mr. Clark. And thank you, Mr. 
Waltz.
    Next up is--Mr. Gallagher is up next. And I believe Mr. 
Vela has rejoined us, so he will be up after Mr. Gallagher.
    The floor is yours, Mike.
    Mr. Gallagher. Great. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate 
it. Thank you to all of your witnesses. This has been 
incredibly helpful.
    I want to follow up on something that we talked about 
earlier. I think in some ways our ability to learn lessons and 
move on from LCS and DDG-1000 is the frigate itself.
    And Mr. Clark, you played a key role in CSBA's 2017 fleet 
architecture study that called for more than 70 frigates. Can 
you just talk a little bit again about why small surface 
combatants are so important to the future fleet, and if you see 
the demand for them going up or down in future years?
    Mr. Clark. Yes. Thank you for question, Congressman. 
Absolutely, they are important to the future fleet. They 
provide you the ability to distribute the capability out of a 
larger number of areas and a larger number of ships. One of the 
challenges we are already seeing with COVID, for example, is 
that you have got a fleet of a relatively small number of large 
ships. A challenge like a pandemic can take an entire ship out 
very quickly whereas if we have a larger number of smaller 
ships, you are more resilient, you degrade more gracefully. It 
also allows you to address challenges that maybe don't require 
that larger ship, as Admiral Roughead said, deploying a 
destroyer to go do a pirate counterpiracy exercise or operation 
is maybe not the appropriate use or best use of that platform 
and tends to then have this cascading effect into the challenge 
of their operational schedule being unpredictable and difficult 
to allow maintenance to be done in between deployment.
    So, there is this interrelated effect between maintenance 
and the size of the fleet and its composition. So, frigates are 
an important element of the fleet to allow you to have that 
more distributed capability than what we have in today's force.
    Mr. Gallagher. And in your network fleet design, would the 
frigate serve as a C4I [command, control, communications, 
computers, and intelligence] node for network unmanned 
platforms?
    Mr. Clark. Yes. So, we saw the frigate as doing the C4 
function for unmanned systems doing antisubmarine warfare, 
countermine operations, as well as surveillance and 
countersurveillance operations. So, we saw it was--it had this 
really important role to manage unmanned systems.
    Admiral Roughead. If I could just add, I am [inaudible] 
enough to have operated with frigates when we had a very fairly 
sizable class. And they really do become the workhorse. As the 
battle force may be focused on a particular area, the frigate, 
it just gives you tremendous flexibility, its size, its draft 
allows it to go places. And you can be confident in its own 
ability to protect itself and still project power. So, you 
know, and I can even go back in the days of Nelson and talk 
about frigates, but I won't go back that far. They are going to 
be instrumental, and I think we are going to work the heck out 
of them.
    Mr. Gallagher. That is great. I want to follow up. You made 
a comment, I believe, earlier in the hearing that subs will be 
the platform of choice in the Arctic. Can you comment on the 
fact that, unlike the Los Angeles class improved and the 
Seawolf subs, our new Virginia-class boats are not ice-
hardened, meaning their sails and their bows are not reinforced 
in the manner that the previous two classes of ships are? Help 
me understand why did we make the decision not to require full 
ice-hardening for the Virginia class?
    Admiral Roughead. My sense is it likely came down to cost. 
But I think I have a submariner here to my left that might want 
to address that.
    But I still think that the submarine in the Arctic even un-
ice-hardened is still going to be a significant player. And I 
firmly believe that we are going to see the environment change 
up there quite a bit during the course of submarine's lifetime. 
And I think that their flexibility will increase because the 
environment is going to change.
    Mr. O'Rourke. Just very quickly.
    Mr. Gallagher. And then--please.
    Mr. O'Rourke. And just very quickly, I think the answer is 
cost. The 688s when they were originally designed were not ice-
hardened. Ice-hardening was incorporated into the 688 class 
with the San Juan and 751, the improved 688s.
    I think the Navy's thinking is that not every attack 
submarine needs to be under-ice capable. Some fraction of the 
fleet needs to be, and the Navy manages that over time by 
incorporating ice-hardening into some of its attack submarines 
as needed to replace the ice-hardened submarines that are 
retiring due to age.
    Mr. Gallagher. Thank you. My remaining 40 seconds, Admiral 
Roughead, while you were saying that we made significant 
investments in the X-47 Bravo prototypes that could serve as 
unmanned combat aerial vehicles, now we seem to be limiting 
unmanned aircraft in the carrier air wing to a tanker role. Why 
do you think that is?
    Admiral Roughead. I think it is a mistake. I really do 
believe that we need to be able to strike deeply unmanned off 
of an aircraft carrier. Earlier, I had mentioned the fact that 
we have lost 8 years in that process, and I think that we need 
to try to regain that ground because being able to go unmanned 
at a great distance, to be able to replenish an air wing at 
great distance with unmanned vehicles is something that is 
going to transform the nature of naval aviation.
    Mr. Gallagher. I agree, and I am out of time. So, I won't 
make a comment how you dated yourself with the previous frigate 
comments, which I very much appreciated.
    So, I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Courtney. Mr. Gallagher does that to all of us.
    So, is Mr. Vela still with us? I guess we lost him here. 
So, we do, if it is okay with the witnesses, have some members, 
I think, who would like to do a second round. I am going to 
reserve. I have one question. Mike Conaway, I think, in terms 
of the first order, you were first on the batting order. And 
look, you have another question that you wanted to ask?
    Mr. Conaway. Yeah. No questions. I just thank the witnesses 
for being here today, and I do think that all three of them 
would do the Nation a great service if they could reflect on 
their thoughts relative to the $3 trillion we have committed to 
spend in the last 3 months and what impact that will have on 
our capacity to actually execute all the great things that they 
talked about.
    So, with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    Mr. Courtney. Thanks, Mike. I don't know if that was, you 
know, just an editorial comment or a question, but if anyone 
does want to weigh in on that, you know, you've got time.
    Admiral Roughead. Mr. Conaway, I can't even begin to 
underestimate the challenge that this poses for the country and 
the burden that it will be on all of us, and particularly on 
you, as you have to make the hard decisions, but I do believe 
that being able to provide a viable Navy forward is important.
    I would also, as we look at how do we stimulate and bring 
the economy back, that we should look at opportunities to 
address the industrial base, to address education systems that 
give our young people skills that can go into that.
    I also alluded to the fact that now is the time to, 
perhaps, jump on some opportunities that may be there, 
particularly in sealift. The prices are going to be 
extraordinarily good for recapitalization of that fleet. Might 
not last very long, so I think it is important to do that. 
Those are just some thoughts.
    Mr. Clark. And I would also add that this is--one of the 
drivers behind having a fleet that is more affordable is going 
to be the potential concern about budget pressures coming from 
the amount of debt that we have been incurring to support the 
current response to the coronavirus.
    So that is one of the drivers behind the fleet architecture 
that we proposed in our written statement.
    Mr. O'Rourke. Very quickly, I actually touched on this 
point a little bit in my prepared statement. I noted the fact 
that there are some people who are arguing that the 
expenditures that we have made to support the economy during 
the stay-at-home period could have the effect of putting 
further constraints on the defense budget in coming years 
because of the impact on the deficit and the debt situation. 
But I pointed out that even if defense spending as a whole is 
suppressed, that does not necessarily mean that that would 
carry through to the budget of the Navy. If we are going to 
adopt a less expensive concept for our national strategy and 
our role in the world, if we are going to stand off Eurasia as 
some people are advocating, that can actually require a Navy as 
capable as the one we have today, because you would, under even 
that more retrenched strategy, depend as much or more than we 
do now on using the oceans as a buffer for protecting the 
United States from security challenges that might arise within 
Asia.
    And I did find it interesting that one policy group here in 
Washington, just within the last few days, they happened to 
advocate a smaller defense budget, but they went out of their 
way to say that within that smaller defense budget, they think 
that the Navy should get a larger share of that budget, because 
it is a key service for implementing that kind of a national 
strategy, should policymakers decide that they want to go in 
that direction.
    So even if the defense budget goes down, the point is it 
does not necessarily imply or mean that the Navy budget would 
go down with it. What it implies is a need to make choices 
about what your strategy is and how to implement it.
    Mr. Courtney. Right. Well, thank you to all the witnesses 
for those answers, and again, Mr. O'Rourke, again, your 
testimony, I did read that section that you just cited, and 
it's, again, really a great thought provoker for all of us, so 
thank you for mentioning that.
    So next up, Jared, you, again, are on the batting order if 
you have a question you want to offer to the witnesses.
    Mr. Golden. Yeah. Absolutely. Thank you for the 
opportunity, Mr. Chair.
    I wanted to follow up a little bit on my previous question 
as well as Congressman Gallagher was talking about the frigate 
class. And with my first question, I talked with Admiral 
Roughead about the future of the DDG Flight III's role in the 
Navy today. Some people have testified a little bit in your 
statements for the record about a potential for a Flight IV, or 
talked briefly about the potential for the future large surface 
combatant.
    Mr. Clark, in your prepared remarks, you talked a little 
bit, and also just talking with Gallagher, you talked a little 
bit about how the frigate should play, like, a lead role in 
antisubmarine warfare or escort surface action groups. I think 
you also talk a little bit in your prepared statement or in one 
of your reports about a smaller surface combatant like a 
corvette class or something. I just wanted to give you an 
opportunity to talk a little bit about what you were 
envisioning for the future of the fleet force when you were 
talking about that.
    Mr. Clark. Sure. Thank you. We recently did a study looking 
at the future of the surface fleet, and we saw the need to 
rebalance it more than the Navy is already pursuing. So, the 
frigate is a great step in the right direction to provide an 
alternative to a destroyer that essentially provides the same 
capability as a destroyer, but with a smaller capacity, and in 
ASW [antisubmarine warfare] it would actually provide some 
additional capability.
    So, we see that need to rebalance away from the destroyer 
as the only surface platform, to add the frigate to the LCS, 
and then we also saw a need to further distribute the fleet by 
adding this corvette.
    The challenge with the frigate is that although it is 
smaller and less expensive than the destroyer, it is still, you 
know, a $1 billion ship or so, and it is going to limit how 
many you are able to buy and deploy and maintain in the field. 
It also has an operation and support cost associated with it 
that will constrain how much you can use them as an element of 
the fleet.
    So we needed another platform that was even less expensive 
to build and to maintain that could act as a distributed source 
of fires and that could act as a security cooperation platform 
in peacetime, and we saw that corvette as being a way to do 
that. So the corvette would be maybe a 3,000-ton vessel that 
would be an alternative to the Navy's proposed large unmanned 
surface vessel, and it would carry vertical launch system and 
missiles so that it could provide fires, and, perhaps, rotate 
through surface action groups as an element to do that. And 
then it could also act as a counterpiracy platform, maritime 
security platform, and do training and operations with our 
allies and partners overseas.
    So that rebalancing of the surface fleet to a more diverse 
set of platforms was really important to manage costs, but also 
to provide a fleet that is maybe better suited for the 
environment that we are embarking on, where we are going to 
have this range of gray zone through great power high-end 
competition where we need a more diverse set of platforms to 
support that.
    We saw the destroyers as being the key element to providing 
missile defense, both to larger force formations like carrier 
strike groups and amphibious ready groups, as well as places 
ashore that require ballistic missile defense that can be 
relocated, and that is something they do today. So, we saw the 
DDG's role evolving as well in that future surface fleet.
    Mr. Golden. Thank you for that, and I just wanted to give 
you the opportunity. I had read that. I thought it was 
interesting, and I appreciate the testimony.
    Mr. Courtney. Great. Thank you, Jared.
    So next up is Mr. Gallagher, followed by Mrs. Luria.
    Mr. Gallagher. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. O'Rourke, to go back to your comment about budgetary 
constraints, I mean, are you suggesting, I mean, that we need 
to be having the broader conversation about the size of the 
budget that seapower consumes relative to land power and air 
power, particularly if we have, as I believe we do, a National 
Defense Strategy that prioritizes seapower in INDOPACOM [United 
States Indo-Pacific Command]?
    Mr. O'Rourke. That is always a question that the Congress 
or policymakers, in general, can consider, and questions like 
that and others, I think, are certainly going to be on the 
table as we move into whatever the world is going to look like 
after we get past the current pandemic situation.
    There are a lot of uncertainties about what the pandemic 
may do to change the international security environment going 
forward, and that particular question is one among several that 
can be considered as we examine what our national strategy 
should be, and our military strategy within it.
    Mr. Gallagher. And then one follow-up on the ice-hardening 
conversation. As we look at the retirement of our Los Angeles-
class subs over the next decade, with the exception of the five 
to seven boats I think we are looking to refuel again, it 
appears as though we are going to lose a lot of the ice-
hardened subs. So, is there any conversation about a new ice-
hardened variant of the Virginia class, and I apologize if you 
commented before and I missed it.
    Mr. O'Rourke. I haven't heard of it, but I would suspect 
that within the Navy, they are very aware of that factor, and 
my presumption would be that they are planning on continuing 
that capability through modifications to the Virginia class 
that would be procured in coming years.
    Admiral Roughead. And as we discussed earlier, I think it 
is important that we begin to think about the Arctic, because 
Russia will be there, China will be there. So, how do we want 
to do it? And I wouldn't be surprised if the Navy wasn't 
thinking about that.
    But further to Ron's point, I really do think, and I know 
this is a very hard, inside the building, inside the Pentagon, 
and also up here, but the one-third, one-third, one-third is 
really something that needs to be addressed, and by that I mean 
equal shares to the services. And I know that opens up 
parochial fissures and fights, but where does the country want 
to be? What are the types of capabilities? And the budget needs 
to support that.
    Mr. Gallagher. And I completely agree, Admiral Roughead. I 
mean, I confess my navalist bias and my seapower bias, but it 
would make no geopolitical sense that, you know, the allocation 
of resources would fall neatly in a one-third, one-third, one-
third bucket. So, I think it has to be informed by strategy, 
and I really appreciate those comments.
    I want to ask one last question. I am sorry. I don't want 
to go on here on my second round. But Mr. Clark, there has been 
some conversation about, perhaps, a new carrier design to place 
the Ford class. Given that our air wings are now around 65 
aircraft, could we go to a smaller carrier?
    Mr. Clark. In theory, we could, but we have done a lot of 
analysis on this in support of this work that we have been 
doing in concert with the Navy and with OSD. And the challenge 
that we found is that the nonrecurring engineering cost 
associated with building a new smaller carrier ends up eating 
up most of the cost savings that we would harvest as a result 
of going to that smaller carrier. And, so, we found that 
really, we might as well stick with the Ford class that gives 
us, you know, the capacity and the, sort of, generation 
capability, and the new technologies that have already been 
incorporated into it.
    All those are good things, and once we have kind of come 
through the maturation of them in this very long and painful 
process, we should stay the course on that, because we found 
that shifting ended up being more problematic than staying on 
the current design.
    What we did see instead was a value in using the large deck 
amphibious ship or the amphibious assault ships primarily as 
fixed-wing carriers. So transitioning them from being kind of a 
multi-purpose amphibious ship to using them almost exclusively 
to do fixed-wing F-35B deployments, that would give you that 
smaller carrier that is able to do operations in environments 
where they don't need the kind of sorties that a larger carrier 
would provide.
    And the Navy and the Marine Corps are already doing that a 
little bit today in the Middle East. Often, that is the only 
air--sea-based airplanes are coming from an LHA [landing 
helicopter assault ship] or LHD [landing helicopter dock ship]. 
So, taking that concept into the future and using the F-35 
Bravo to its fullest extent would be a way to get you that 
smaller carrier.
    Mr. Gallagher. But didn't the Navy announce the 
cancellation of its future carrier study? If so, why? I mean, I 
know the debate gets very fraught politically in Congress, but 
why not have the debate?
    Mr. Clark. It may be just a matter of, you know, internal 
dynamics within the Navy that caused that effort to fall apart 
because of leadership changes, but I do think there is a lot of 
value in going back and continuing to evaluate what the right 
design for carriers is going forward, because at some point, we 
will want to transition, you know, away from the Ford class, 
and then that transition probably should be looking at a 
smaller carrier if we are going to make that nonrecurring 
engineering cost investment anyway.
    Mr. Gallagher. Thank you. Thank you all for your testimony. 
This is very helpful.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
    Mr. Courtney. Thanks, Mike.
    Next up is Mrs. Luria.
    Mrs. Luria. Well, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for 
the opportunity to go into the second round. And I wanted to 
follow up on the theme that Mr. Golden was speaking about with 
Mr. Clark's response about the smaller ships, but I wanted to 
switch over to Mr. O'Rourke, because I know in reading your 
testimony, you commented on this, and I think I am quoting you. 
It may have been one of the other testimonies. The FFG [guided 
missile frigate] is one-third of the firepower, but two-thirds 
of the cost. And I saw that you had made some suggestions as to 
ways to build more platforms at the lower end. So if we are 
talking large surface combatant small, we really want to talk 
small-small, and some of the ideas and specifically 
coordination with the Coast Guard and how we could leverage off 
of the designs that they have already implemented as naval 
forces. Can you comment on that?
    Mr. O'Rourke. Yeah. The quote that you had is from Bryan 
Clark's testimony, but the general point is, is that the 
frigate that we have in the FFG-X is a 7,000-ton ship. And I 
will say just very quickly, in answer to the earlier question 
about lessons learned from the LCS, the LCS was a new hull 
design and some new equipment. The frigate is working off a 
parent design and is not to have any new development items on 
it. So, in terms of managing its technical risks, we seemed to 
have learned a lot of lessons from the LCS.
    Now, as a frigate, it is a fairly large frigate by world 
standards. It is in the 7,000-ton range. And in my testimony, I 
talk about that creating room or opportunity to consider 
smaller ships underneath it, something perhaps in the manner of 
a 5,000-ton ship, which would be a smaller frigate or something 
in the 1,000- to 4,000-ton range which would be a corvette of 
the kind that Bryan Clark talked about.
    There are many possible ship designs out there for doing 
that, including designs that have come out of the Coast Guard's 
cutter procurement program, including the national security 
cutter, and the designs that have been developed for the 
offshore patrol cutter. That creates a once-in-a-generation 
opportunity to think about commonalities that work across the 
services to get greater production economies of scale so that 
you could work more toward the goal of optimizing our national 
shipbuilding effort as opposed to suboptimizing our 
shipbuilding effort at the individual service level.
    Mrs. Luria. Well, thank you.
    And Mr. Clark, I wanted to go back to some comments in the 
2017 CSBA Restoring American Seapower study. I noted in there 
that you talked about the model that we are using with 
geographic combatant commanders and shifting that to a 
deterrence and maneuver model. And although we say we have 
global force management to source our forces around the world, 
often that creates geographic stovepiping of resources. And 
there is sharing, and the combatant commanders do work 
together. But can you describe your model, and specifically in 
terms of how you think that could help us gain more efficiency 
in providing presence?
    Mr. Clark. Yes. So the model we moved to is similar to what 
was adopted in the National Defense Strategy after that. So the 
model where you have forces that are focused on local 
operations overseas in different theaters, so there is a 
deterrence force for the East China Sea, and there is one for 
South China Sea, and there is one for the Persian Gulf.
    Mrs. Luria. And it seemed to--sorry to interrupt, but you 
had a lot of forward-basing of these forces.
    Mr. Clark. Right. Right. And those forces would 
predominantly be forward-based where they would be able to, you 
know, get used to the neighborhood, learn the allies, learn the 
potential adversaries, understand the geography. So, we saw 
there being a lot of value in that model which has been very 
beneficial for our forward-deployed naval force that is in 
Japan, where those forces gain that level of familiarity. And 
it also allows them to pursue this higher operational tempo, or 
this shorter operational cycle, because they don't need to 
relearn everything every time they go on deployment, because 
they know where they are going. And they know the people they 
are likely to deal with.
    So those deterrence forces were then augmented or 
complemented by a blunt force, which is the carrier strike 
groups that would be deploying out of the continental United 
States that would be going on these longer deployments, that 
would be operating on a slower, more like the OFRP operational 
cycle. We saw it would be really important to look at the 
divergence between two different operational cycles, because we 
saw it being necessary to maintain presence overseas, to get a 
higher operational tempo out of some of our forces, and we saw 
the way to do that as giving them this limited responsibility 
as a deterrence force, where they didn't have to go through as 
long a training cycle for each deployment. And because they 
would be remote and located near the areas where they were 
going to deploy, the transit time would be shorter, and so they 
could maintain a higher operational tempo and, therefore, a 
greater presence.
    So that model was incorporated, to some degree, into the 
NDS [National Defense Strategy] in the form of the blunt force 
that the--the blunt and contact forces that the National 
Defense Strategy discusses. The contact forces, like our 
deterrence force forward, largely forward deployed, operating 
in concert with our allies and dealing with adversaries, and 
then the blunt force was this larger force that remained 
offshore and operated from CONUS [contiguous United States], 
for the most part.
    Admiral Roughead. If I could just add to that, I think the 
concept works well, but it also requires political flexibility, 
because building ships and having them forward where they are 
not being maintained in the continental United States where the 
economies aren't benefiting from the crews, but that is 
political reality. And if we want to be able to be more 
flexible, if we want to be able to have these forward forces, 
that is something that, I think, needs to be addressed.
    Mrs. Luria. Well, thank you, Admiral. And I just want to 
close by quoting something that Mr. Clark just said in his 
testimony when answering a previous question. I am quoting you 
that you said, ``The resulting lack of a product or response 
from the Pentagon was based off of internal dynamics of 
leadership changes.'' And I think that we are caught up in 
exactly that term right now, because we don't have a 30-year 
shipbuilding plan, we don't have a force structure assessment, 
and the Navy has needs. We are here to meet those needs. But if 
you can't tell us what they are because of the internal 
dynamics of leadership changes that continue to happen, it puts 
us in a difficult situation, and I think it puts the sailor on 
the deckplate in a difficult situation, because I truly feel 
like there is not a consistent vision. And even when we have 
had a 30-year shipbuilding plan, when it changes every year in 
years 1 through 5, that is still not a clear vision.
    So, I appreciate your work. I appreciate the thought and 
insight you put into how we can develop our future Navy, and I 
look forward to hearing from the Navy what they truly want to 
request to meet their mission, so thank you again.
    Mr. Courtney. Thank you. Well put, Elaine.
    Next up, again, Mr. Wittman has a couple questions, and I 
have one, and then we will call it a day.
    Mr. Wittman. Mr. Chairman, thank you.
    I wanted to ask for our witnesses' perspective on our 
maritime forces interoperability. As you know, the Chinese are 
much better than we are by taking everything across the 
spectrum of their maritime capabilities, and we have seen that, 
what has happened there in response to the Taiwanese, to the 
Japanese in certain disputed areas, where the distinction 
between one force and another is not significant. They are 
amassing their naval forces or their maritime forces.
    What I see in the United States is, we have the United 
States Navy; we have the United States Marine Corps; we have 
the Merchant Marine; we have the Coast Guard. Obviously, all 
have mission areas that are unique, but also do not operate in 
an interoperable way. And I would argue that there are many 
opportunities where they should. And if they don't, and the 
Chinese do in those sort of gray zone areas where the Chinese 
have become very, very effective in doing that, and we are 
looking at the challenge of amassing enough maritime forces to 
deter and to operate in a conflict, then it seems like to me, 
we ought to be using every single element of maritime force 
structure in the United States. It doesn't seem like we have 
that. Doesn't seem like we even have a plan going forward.
    So I wanted to get your perspective on what should be the 
path forward for all of those elements of maritime forces in 
the United States to have a formal plan of interoperability, 
much like we have with other forces around the world. You know, 
we jointly operate elsewhere. We do RIMPAC [Rim of the Pacific 
Exercise]. Why don't we have the same sort of operational 
exercise with all U.S. maritime forces which we never do? So 
anyway, I wanted to get your perspective there.
    Admiral Roughead. For fear of sounding like a dinosaur, you 
know, I think that we have focused on the joint force, and 
there is no question, you know, in my lifetime, I have seen us 
become a much more effective military because of jointness. But 
I think the one thing that we seem to have neglected is to 
acknowledge the fact that the maritime space is different.
    Mr. Wittman. Yes.
    Admiral Roughead. And to your point, within the maritime 
domain, it almost is a joint force unto itself.
    Mr. Wittman. Right.
    Admiral Roughead. And I really do think, and I was part of 
the National Defense Strategy Commission, and we were very 
blunt about the fact that there were not operating concepts 
about how we would move forward, how we would engage. There 
were piecemeal parts. So I really do think that, you know, the 
maritime strategy that was developed for a different time 
during the Reagan administration, for a different adversary, 
but very high-end warfare, is something that needs to be done 
today, and I don't think we should be shy about the fact that 
it is maritime.
    Mr. Wittman. Yeah.
    Admiral Roughead. That it is about our maritime forces that 
require certain types of capabilities to come together, that we 
can rely on elements of the joint force. But we really need to 
start thinking more about the maritime domain, because I would 
argue that the PLA, if you look at their writings, they have 
transitioned, and a lot of their work is into a maritime space.
    Mr. Wittman. Yeah.
    Admiral Roughead. And I think if we do not acknowledge the 
fact that we have maritime needs, capabilities, and we have to 
integrate all of it, we are going to be behind the eight ball.
    Mr. Clark. Certainly. And you look at the Chinese case, and 
they have got the People's Maritime Militia, the PLA Navy, and 
then they have got the coast guard, all operating under a 
single command organization. That is something we need to look 
at; certainly in the Pacific Fleet that is happening today.
    So, we are now starting to deploy Coast Guard cutters 
regularly to the Pacific. They are operating under the command 
of Pacific--Indo-Pacific Command and PAC [Pacific] Fleet. We 
need to do more of that. That is going to require maybe some 
force design changes in the Coast Guard, so you have got more 
forces that are able to deploy overseas and act in that manner, 
because we are the away team, you know. The home-field 
advantage afforded to the Chinese gives them the ability to 
have all these different units occupy the South and East China 
Seas.
    So having a command structure that is organized around, you 
know, having all of these elements under their leadership, 
having more of these forces that can deploy overseas, and I 
think you bring up a great point with the Merchant Marine is, 
we do have CLF [Combat Logistics Force] forces and sealift 
forces deployed over in the Pacific that could do more to 
contribute to our operations.
    And so, as we move towards a more distributed logistics 
force, it is going to be able to contribute more directly to 
the capability of the forces that are deployed. And they can do 
more than simply just, you know, bringing material back and 
forth. They could do more of the surveillance mission. They 
could do more of the response mission when there is, you know, 
a boater that needs assistance or a piracy attack on somebody. 
So, there are areas where we may look at more unified 
operations between the Merchant Marine, Coast Guard, and the 
naval forces out there, but it requires these force design 
changes, and it requires that unified command structure.
    Mr. Wittman. Yeah. Very good.
    Mr. O'Rourke. Very quickly, you mentioned interoperability 
in the Pacific. And if we are considering that on an allied 
basis, then I think that the first country to talk about and 
the most significant one is going to be Japan, because they 
have the largest of the allied navies in that part of the 
world.
    And in terms of interoperability, if you talk to Navy 
personnel out there, one of the points they will make is that 
it would help if Japan's own forces became more joint than they 
are because their Navy and their Air Force don't work as 
closely together with one another as we are used to our own 
Navy and Air Force in the U.S. context. So that would be one 
thing where you could get more bang for the buck, just with the 
forces that you have.
    Secondly, it would then be a matter of having the Japanese 
forces, the Navy, and also their Air Force, work with greater 
interoperability with us. Several years ago, our fleet may have 
told you that that was at a certain level and that there was a 
lot of room for improvement. My understanding is that there has 
been some improvement and that our interoperability with the 
Japanese forces is better.
    Finally, in terms of making use of all the available force 
structure that is out there, I have tried to scour the world 
for unrealized western naval force structure, and the number 
one opportunity that I have identified is the Japanese attack 
submarine force.
    For industrial base purposes, they build one per year, so 
that they have a steady drumbeat. So, the size of their force 
depends on how long they keep them in service. They keep their 
submarines in service for 22 years, because they have a force 
level goal of 22 submarines. But if they were to simply make a 
decision to keep their submarines in service for 30 years, more 
like our own service, they could grow their submarine force 
from 22 to 30 without building a single boat more than what 
they already planned to build.
    And, furthermore, if they were to grow that force from 22 
to 30, it would grow from that number at the very same 
timeframe that we are going down to the bottom of the valley. 
They would hit 30 within a year of when we are at the minimum 
of our own attack submarine valley. Now, those are diesel 
boats, and they can't do as much as a nuclear boat, but they 
can do some things.
    So if we are talking about interoperability and trying to 
make use of available force structure, this is one option, and 
it is something that I have talked about with our Navy, and 
with the Japanese Ministry of Defense as well. And so, I am 
watching to see whether they will pull the trigger on that 
because right now, they can expand their submarine force 
without building any more boats than they already plan to.
    Admiral Roughead. If I could just add to that, I think Ron 
hit on a terrific point. You know, we talk about our allies, 
and we have a pretty exclusive club with what is called the 
Five Eyes, and there are certain things that we do with them. 
But I really do believe that it is time that we change the 
nature of our alliance with Japan. Japan has some things that 
they need to do to accommodate that, but I really do think that 
that has to be an elevation because, as Ron said, they have 
really good stuff----
    Mr. Wittman. Yeah.
    Admiral Roughead [continuing]. And they are very, very 
proficient operators. The recent changes in their 
interpretation of laws have made that change dramatic, and I 
think that we have to think differently about Japan.
    Mr. Wittman. I think that is a great point. That mil-to-mil 
[military-to-military] relationship should be turned up a notch 
on the effort to make sure we have capability to bridge that 
gap. Interoperability, as you said, is not just, you know, 
within the United States military, within our maritime forces, 
it is also with our allies.
    I do want to emphasize that, you know, there are parts of 
interoperability within our maritime forces. The problem is it 
is fragmented. And normally, it is Marine Corps to Navy, and 
then Navy to Coast Guard instead of Coast Guard to Marine 
Corps, and interoperability in all four of those, Merchant 
Marine included. So, we have pieces of that. The key is how do 
you fully integrate all of that? I think there is a tremendous 
amount of capability there that we can bring to bear, both on 
deterrence, and on being able to operate in contested 
environments, I think, too.
    And then, you know, the big thing in those environments is 
how do you create more uncertainty? As our allies look at this 
and say, Wow, we didn't see this type of interoperability and 
then exercising that, so our adversaries look at it and go, We 
are not quite sure what the Marine Corps can do in conjunction 
with the Coast Guard or, you know, what support elements are 
brought by the Merchant Marines.
    Those things are going to be critical, especially in times 
of limited resources, so use what we have got. Ron, you bring 
up great points about getting our allies to bring into service 
a greater period of time availability for those submarines, all 
great aspects.
    So, Mr. Chairman, with that, I yield back.
    Mr. Courtney. Thank you, Mr. Wittman. And great, great 
comments.
    So, you know, I just wanted to close out, maybe, with Mr. 
Clark just for a minute, to go back to where we sort of began 
the conversation a couple hours ago which is--and Elaine 
described it, I think, aptly. It is just that, you know, we are 
on the brink of making, you know, a big decision in terms of a 
markup, and we are going to be investing money. But in my 14 
years here, I have just never been in a situation where it is 
just, you know, kind of this radio silence in terms of what is 
the normal operating procedure. I don't know whether, Mr. 
Clark, you had any sort of thoughts about what you see 
happening in the Navy and the Secretary of Defense office that 
is sort of holding up the show.
    Again, Mr. O'Rourke's report, kind of in excruciating 
detail, you know, talked about some of the leaks and the, you 
know, press reports about, you know, whether it is going to be, 
you know, this number or that number, you know. Why don't we 
have a plan? And what is your observation as someone who is a 
pretty, you know, savvy guy who has been around in this town?
    Mr. Clark. Well, so what I see right now is we have got--
the Navy has a plan that maybe wasn't adequately addressing 
some of the concerns of the Secretary of Defense's staff 
regarding cost, and then maybe an evolution of the fleet 
towards a new design. So maybe less--more conservative than 
what the SECDEF [Secretary of Defense] staff might have been 
looking for. The less--the more conservative approach towards 
changing the fleet also means that it might cost more, and 
there is a cost concern there.
    So reconciling those differences is what this current study 
is trying to do, is evaluating what that fleet design should 
look like to try to deal with cost constraints that are likely 
to be in place while also evolving the fleet to create the 
capabilities we are talking about here, incorporate new 
technologies, create more uncertainty for adversaries, start to 
make the fleet a little bit more distributed compared to where 
it is today. But do so in a realistic way that doesn't damage 
the industrial base.
    So, squaring all of those different considerations is what 
this current study is trying to do, and our contribution to it 
was attempting to do it as well. I don't anticipate we are 
going to get results out of that until basically the lead-up 
until the program budget review which will happen this fall. 
So, this summer will be the time when a lot of this 
reconciliation occurs. Some final answers might come out around 
the time that that ends, and then going into program budget 
review for the fiscal year 2022 budget will be when some 
decisions are made about what the Navy's shipbuilding plan and 
force structure assessment is going to look like.
    So, we may not see those answers until that timeframe which 
will make it difficult for the Congress to decide on how to 
mark up the bills.
    I think in terms of what the budget is going to look--or 
that the force structure assessment will look like is, it will 
look very similar to kind of what the, you know, previous plan 
looked like. So, we are not going to have a dramatic change. We 
are not going to get rid of classes of ships, for example, and 
start new ones from scratch, but there is going to be this need 
for investment in the new platforms that we need to distribute 
the fleet, to complement the platforms we already have. So, we 
are going to continue building DDG-51s and Virginia-class 
submarines, and Columbia class will continue, and amphibious 
fleet will continue. LPD production Flight II will continue, 
and the LHA-9 will still come. But we need to think about 
investing in the R&D [research and development] necessary to 
start those new set of platforms, and that is maybe something 
where the Congress can start to lay that seed corn in because 
the Navy is going to need that to start rebalancing the fleet 
for the future.
    I think an important element of it also would be to ensure 
that the current classes that are in production are sustained 
and give that demand signal to industry, because otherwise, you 
are going to have industry starting to hold back its potential 
capital investment out of concern that we are throwing away 
classes of ships and betting on the [inaudible]. And the Navy I 
don't think is going to do that. I don't think that is what the 
Secretary of Defense's intent is either, to throw away the 
existing capability and bet on the new one. So, we will have to 
do both for a while. So, making those investments will be 
important, I think, and that is what the markup may need to 
entail.
    Mr. Courtney. Well, I appreciate that. I mean, it is an 
explanation. It is, in my opinion, not a justification because 
just, you know, having this sort of blackout is, you know, 
given all of the--I wouldn't say, you know--well, yeah, urgency 
that we heard from, you know, members as well as the witnesses 
here today.
    Again, it is just, as I said, something that I have never 
experienced on this subcommittee during my time. But your 
testimony today was extremely helpful in terms of providing, 
you know, I think great guidance both, you know, long term, 
short term.
    Again, I just can't thank all of you enough for, you know, 
being here today, and your patience answering two rounds of 
questions. Again, kudos to the staff for, you know, really 
bringing this all together in an, you know, unprecedented 
fashion.
    And, again, I think we certainly checked the box in terms 
of the Rules Committee's requirements today, but more 
importantly, I think the content of the hearing is going to 
give us the right guidance so that we move forward with a 
strong mark.
    So again, thank you to all the witnesses, and with that, I 
will adjourn the hearing.
    [Whereupon, at 12:34 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

    
=======================================================================

                            A P P E N D I X

                              June 4, 2020

      
=======================================================================


              PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD

                              June 4, 2020

=======================================================================
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

=======================================================================


              QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING

                              June 4, 2020

=======================================================================
     

                  QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. COURTNEY

    Mr. Courtney. The Navy's force of SSNs is projected to experience a 
valley from the mid-2020s through the early 2030s, reaching a minimum 
of 42 attack boats in FY2027-FY2028. This valley was first identified 
by CRS in 1995 in testimony before the House Armed Services Committee 
and has been discussed in multiple, annual CRS reports since then. What 
strategy or strategies do you feel are best suited to mitigate the SSN 
valley in the short and long term?
    Mr. Clark. The upcoming valley in nuclear attack submarine (SSN) 
inventory results in part from DOD's mid-1990s post-Cold War 
``procurement holiday'' when Los Angeles-class submarine production 
ended and only three Seawolf-class submarines were constructed. 
Combined with the early retirement of almost half the Los Angeles-
class, dramatically reduced submarine construction is now coming home 
to roost as the last of the Los Angeles-class submarines reach their 
end of service life during the 2020s.
    There is no way to make up for submarines that were not built, but 
the impact of the coming trough can be mitigated in three main ways, 
which the Congress should address and support:
      Continue construction of two SSNs per year. Sustained 
submarine construction is essential to eventually rebuild the U.S. 
submarine inventory and strengthen the submarine construction and 
supplier bases.
      Life extension of remaining Los Angeles-class submarines. 
The U.S. Navy is planning to refuel or extend the hull life of select 
SSNs. This effort should continue and be expanded if additional ships 
are able to continue serving.
      Improve integration with allies. The U.S. Navy already 
closely coordinates SSN deployments with the Royal Navy, whose Astute-
class submarines are nearly as capable and quiet as the U.S. Virginia-
class. The Navy should more tightly coordinate submarine operations 
with other allies such as France and Japan to provide more effective 
submarine presence in key areas like the Mediterranean, North Atlantic, 
and Western Pacific.
      Encourage allies to grow their submarine forces. Allies 
would have a difficult time growing their SSN forces due to industrial 
base and financial constraints, but more conventional submarine (SS) 
could be maintained in service to mitigate the shortfall in U.S. SSN 
presence in European and Asian littorals. For example, the Japan 
Maritime Self Defense Force could retain their Soryu-class SS in 
service longer than the current 20 years to grow their submarine force 
from the current 22 to more than 30 at a modest additional cost.
      Adopt new anti-submarine warfare (ASW) concepts that use 
unmanned systems. One of the largest demands on the U.S. SSN force is 
ASW operations, both for peacetime surveillance and to defeat enemy 
submarines in wartime. A combination of unmanned sensors and surface, 
air, and undersea vehicles would be well-suited to relieve SSNs of much 
of the ASW mission. These unmanned systems are already fielded or being 
prototyped today and the sensors and weapons they would deploy would be 
the same already in use by U.S. or allied navies. This shift to 
unmanned systems is absolutely necessary to get the most value from the 
shrinking U.S. SSN force as well as enable affordable and scalable ASW 
operations in the future.
    The U.S. Navy needs to address the coming submarine shortfall 
through a combination of ship construction and sustainment, alliances, 
and new operational concepts. All three elements are needed both to 
address this challenge during the next decade as well as sustaining 
America's long-term undersea advantage.
    Mr. Courtney. The Navy's force of SSNs is projected to experience a 
valley from the mid-2020s through the early 2030s, reaching a minimum 
of 42 attack boats in FY2027-FY2028. This valley was first identified 
by CRS in 1995 in testimony before the House Armed Services Committee 
and has been discussed in multiple, annual CRS reports since then. What 
strategy or strategies do you feel are best suited to mitigate the SSN 
valley in the short and long term?
    Mr. O'Rourke. Options for mitigating the SSN valley that the 
subcommittee may consider include the following, which are not mutually 
exclusive:
     Options for increasing the total number of U.S. submarines 
in service during the valley:
          Procure Virginia-class SSNs over the next few years 
        that are in addition to those the Navy already plans to procure 
        during those years. This option would mitigate the bottom and 
        the back half of the SSN valley and accelerate the valley's end 
        date. This option could begin with procuring an additional 
        Virginia-class boat in FY2021, which would make for a two-boat 
        Virginia-class procurement in FY2021 and a total of 10 
        Virginia-class boats under the FY1019-FY2023 Virginia-class 
        multiyear procurement (MYP) contract, which includes an option 
        for a tenth boat. The Navy's FY2020 budget submission projected 
        a request for two Virginia-class boats in FY2021 and a total of 
        11 boats over the period FY2019-FY2023. The procurement of a 
        second Virginia-class boat in FY2021 is the number one item on 
        the Navy's FY2021 unfunded priorities list (UPL).
             Navy officials testified this year that their earlier 
        concerns about the ability of the industrial base to execute 
        the construction of an additional Virginia-class boat have been 
        satisfied, and that the only remaining issue regarding the 
        procurement of an additional Virginia-class boat is 
        availability of funds. The Navy estimates in its FY2021 UPL 
        that fully funding the procurement of an additional Virginia-
        class boat in FY2021 would involve adding about $2.77 billion 
        to the Navy's shipbuilding budget. In dollar terms, such an 
        addition would fund 51% of the Navy's FY2021 UPL and more than 
        75% of the net reduction in the Navy's FY2021 shipbuilding 
        funding request relative to what the Navy's FY2020 budget 
        submission had projected would be requested for FY2021. 
        Alternatively, an additional Virginia-class boat could (with 
        congressionally granted authority) be procured in FY2021 with 
        incremental funding, enabling the FY2021 appropriation to be 
        something less than $2.77 billion.
             If Congress were to procure an additional Virginia-class 
        boat as soon as FY2021, Congress would then have the option of 
        exploring the feasibility of adding still more Virginia-class 
        boats to the Navy's planned procurement profile through the 
        mid-2020s. It could also consider making investments in the 
        capacity of the industrial base to support that additional 
        work, so as to further mitigate the back half of the valley and 
        further accelerate the valley's end date. Unlike the options 
        discussed below, procuring additional Virginia-class boats 
        could not only mitigate the SSN valley, but help achieve the 
        Navy's 66-boat SSN force-level goal sooner.
          Refuel five to seven Los Angeles (SSN-688) class 
        submarines and extend their service lives by about 10 years 
        through Engineering Refueling Overhauls (EROs). This option, 
        like the one above, would mitigate the back half of the SSN 
        valley and accelerate the valley's end date. It likely would 
        not, however, accelerate the date for achieving the Navy's 66-
        boat SSN force-level, because even with 10 years of additional 
        service life, these boats would likely age out and be removed 
        from service before the SSN force would begin to approach that 
        goal. These EROs would each cost something more than $500 
        million. Initial funding for the first of the EROs was provided 
        in FY2019 and FY2020.
          Expand and/or accelerate procurement of Extra Large 
        Unmanned Underwater Vehicles (XLUUVs) as supplements to the SSN 
        force. XLUUVs can be viewed as small, unmanned, non-nuclear-
        powered submarines. The first five XLUUVs were funded in 
        FY2019. The Navy wants to procure additional XLUUVs at a rate 
        of two per year starting in FY2023. The Navy's FY2021 budget 
        submission does not include funding for the procurement of 
        additional XLUUVs in FY2021 or FY2022.
     Options for maximizing the material readiness and 
capability of U.S. SSNs that are in service during the valley:
          Eliminate the SSN maintenance backlog, so that no 
        SSNs are idled while awaiting the start of their maintenance 
        work.
          Provide robust funding for modernizing combat systems 
        and other equipment on existing SSNs, so as to increase the 
        capability of each in-service SSN.
          Provide robust funding for procuring Mk48 torpedoes 
        and other weapons, so as to reach inventory goals for Mk48 
        torpedoes sooner and maximize the capability and diversity of 
        weapons available for arming in-service SSNs.
     Options for maximizing the fraction of the SSN force that 
is at sea and on station on a day-to-day basis during the valley:
          To the extent possible--and without jeopardizing the 
        material readiness of the SSN force--examine options for 
        shifting SSN maintenance away from the lowest years of the 
        valley, so as to increase at the margin the number of SSNs 
        available for operation during the valley's lowest years.
          Temporarily increase average transit speeds and 
        reduce time spent making port calls for SSNs that are traveling 
        between their home ports and their operating areas, so that a 
        marginally larger percentage of their deployments can be spent 
        on station. Increasing average transit speeds could shorten the 
        service lives of SSNs by using up their nuclear fuel more 
        quickly, unless the period of increased transit speeds is 
        offset by reduced average transit speeds in other years of 
        their lives. The diplomatic impact of reduced port calls made 
        by SSNs could be offset by increasing port calls made by 
        surface ships. The impact on quality of life for submariners of 
        making fewer port calls might be offset by making investments 
        to improve their quality of life in other respects.
          Shift the homeports of some SSNs from the continental 
        United States (CONUS) to locations closer to Eurasia during 
        some or all of the valley years, so as to reduce their transit 
        times to and from likely operating areas. In the Pacific, for 
        example, this could involve homeporting one or two additional 
        SSNs at Guam or Pearl Harbor. The homeports of these SSNs could 
        then revert to CONUS locations as the valley ends.
          Employ dual crewing on some SSNs during some or all 
        of the valley years, which would increase, perhaps by about 
        40%, the fraction of time that they can be on deployment. 
        Single-crewing could then be reinstated as the valley ends.
     Options for increasing allied submarine capacity (numbers) 
and capability (quality):
          Encourage Japan to increase its non-nuclear-powered 
        attack submarine (SS) force from 22 to 30 during the years of 
        the U.S. SSN valley. In part to support its submarine 
        construction industrial base, Japan builds its SSs at a rate of 
        about one boat per year. The size of Japan's attack submarine 
        force is thus determined by how long each boat is kept in 
        service: Japan had previously planned to maintain a force of 16 
        SSs, and thus planned to keep each boat in service for 16 
        years. As part of its most recent defense review, Japan decided 
        to expand its SS force from 16 boats to 22 boats, and thus now 
        plans to keep each boat in service for 22 years. Japan could 
        further expand its SS force from 22 boats to 30 boats by 
        deciding to keep each boat in service for 30 years, which would 
        be consistent with the potential service lives of well-
        maintained modern SSs, rather than for 22 years. Expanding 
        Japan's SS force from 22 boats to 30 boats consequently would 
        not require Japan to build any boats that Japan does not 
        already plan to build, just as expanding the force from 16 
        boats to 22 boats did not require Japan to build any boats that 
        Japan did not already plan to build. If Japan were to begin now 
        to implement an expansion of its SS force to 30 boats, the 
        force could increase from 22 boats in about 2021 to 30 boats in 
        about 2029--an increase that would occur at the same general 
        time as the front half of the U.S. SSN valley.
             These eight additional Japan SSs would not be as useful to 
        the United States as eight U.S. SSNs, because SSs are not able 
        to perform certain missions that can be performed by SSNs, and 
        because these SSs would be under another country's control. 
        Even so, they could be of value to the United States in terms 
        of helping to maximize combined U.S.-allied undersea warfare 
        capability during the valley years. The eight additional SSs 
        could eventually be removed from service as the U.S. SSN valley 
        ends. Japan sets the planned size of its SS force to meet its 
        own needs. The goal under this option would be to encourage 
        Japan to consider not only its own needs, but the larger 
        context of combined U.S.-Japan naval capability, in setting the 
        size of its submarine force. The potential expansion of Japan's 
        SS force to 30 boats is one of the most significant lower-cost 
        options for bolstering Western naval force structure globally 
        that I have been able to identify.
          Work with Australia and regional allies and partners 
        to explore options for forward-homeporting some of Australia's 
        SSs closer to the South China Sea. This could increase their 
        potential for responding to issues of common U.S.-Australian 
        concern in that area.
          Work with Japan and Australia as needed to ensure 
        that Japan's and Australia's SSs are highly capable in terms of 
        their combat systems and other equipment, armed with adequate 
        numbers of highly capable weapons, operated by highly 
        proficient crews, and well maintained by their supporting 
        industrial bases.
                                 ______
                                 
                   QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. GOLDEN
    Mr. Golden. ADM Roughead described maintaining the health of the 
shipbuilding defense industrial base as ``one of the most important'' 
issues requiring the subcommittee's oversight and observed that the 
``fragility of the base and limited number of shipbuilders and 
suppliers that we have'' will impact on the Navy's future force 
structure plans. Admiral Roughead made clear that neither the Navy nor 
the shipbuilding industry have ``the luxury of not having a more 
integrated approach'' towards naval shipbuilding going forward.
    Given your particular experience and expertise, I would appreciate 
your responses to the following questions:
    (1) How can the Navy and Congress achieve the anticipated change in 
naval force structure without repeating the industrial base harms 
caused by previous ``boom and bust'' shipbuilding cycles?
    (2) What investments in shipbuilder training may be helpful to 
achieve this transition?
    (3) What obstacles do you foresee given shipbuilder demographic 
challenges, in which there are large numbers of new shipbuilders still 
learning their trade, large numbers who are senior and nearing 
retirement, and not enough personnel in the middle of their careers to 
teach new shipbuilders vital skills?
    (4) What legislative or oversight options might the House Armed 
Services Committee have to encourage the ``more integrated approach'' 
between the Navy and the shipbuilding defense industrial base ADM 
Roughead feels is necessary? Has there been previous Congressional 
action on this issue?
    Mr. O'Rourke. Regarding question (1), options that Congress may 
consider include the following, which are not mutually exclusive:
      Use the 30-year shipbuilding plan to explore 
possibilities for shifting projected procurement dates of new ships to 
years that would not be optimal for replacing aging ships precisely at 
the ends of their projected service lives, but would nevertheless be 
beneficial in terms of dampening boom-and-bust cycles for shipyards and 
associated supplier firms.
      Use multiyear contracting (i.e., multiyear procurement 
[MYP] or block buy contracting) where appropriate to help enhance year-
to-year planning stability for shipyards and associated supplier firms 
while permitting the Navy to reduce unit procurement costs.
      Use Profit Related to Offer (PRO) bidding (i.e., 
competition for profit, as opposed to competition for quantity) where 
appropriate to help enhance planning stability for shipyards and 
associated supplier firms while still permitting the Navy to employ 
competition to restrain prices.
      Bundle shipbuilding programs together and compete those 
bundles periodically between individual shipyards or teams of 
shipyards, perhaps with PRO bidding, so that reductions in one 
shipbuilding program can be used to offset increases in another, and 
then perhaps implement those bundled efforts with multiyear 
contracting.
      Build ships with modular and loosely-coupled open-
architecture hull designs, so that these in-production designs can be 
easily adapted and remain cost effective to build in modified 
configurations. This approach could help enable ongoing shipbuilding 
programs to continue--thereby preserving some production stability and 
production learning curve benefits for shipyards and associated 
supplier firms--if changes in strategic circumstances require new ships 
to be built with a changed mix of capabilities.
      Maintain an awareness of both Navy and Coast Guard 
shipbuilding programs, and of how declines in one service's 
shipbuilding programs might be offset by increases in the other 
service's shipbuilding programs. Maintaining such an awareness might 
not have been important in earlier years, when the Coast Guard was 
doing relatively little shipbuilding, but it might be more important to 
do so now, with the Coast Guard currently executing multiple 
shipbuilding programs.
    Regarding questions (2) and (3), which relate to shipyard 
workforces and their training, my understanding--based on discussions 
with shipyard officials in recent years--is that at least some 
shipyards are contending with (or will soon need to contend with) the 
retirement of relatively large cohorts of older and highly experienced 
workers, and consequently now (or soon will) need to replace these 
retiring workers with relatively large cohorts of newly hired younger 
workers. This could lead to shipyard workforces that include relatively 
large numbers of younger and less-experienced workers (aka green 
labor). The percentage of green labor could be increased further in 
shipyards that are seeking not only to replace retiring older workers 
on a one-for-one basis, but to increase total numbers of workers in 
response to the increased shipbuilding work associated with enlarging 
the size of the Navy.
    My understanding from shipyard officials is that compared to 
earlier generations of newly hired shipyard workers, today's newly 
hired shipyard workers can sometimes bring a different set of initial 
skills into the shipyard. They may have less prior experience using 
mechanical tools, working in an industrial setting, and working in 
settings with regular, fixed schedules. On the other hand, they may 
have more experience than older workers in using digital devices to 
access and work with information in electronic formats, and they may be 
more used to shifting from doing one kind of work to another. They 
might also have different learning styles (i.e., learning by reading, 
learning by watching, learning by doing, etc.) than earlier generations 
of workers. Training of shipyard workers, both in shipyard schoolhouses 
and on the waterfront, may need to adapt to potential differences such 
as these. Even with such adaptation, some shipyards will continue for a 
time to have workforces with a relatively large amount of green labor, 
and productivity models for shipbuilding programs would need to take 
that into account.
    Regarding question (4), Admiral Roughead is not the only observer 
to recommend an approach to shipbuilding that features a greater degree 
of integration between the Navy and the industrial base. I have heard 
other observers make similar statements over the last 10 or 20 years, 
though what these observers have in mind regarding the specifics of a 
more-integrated approach can vary from person to person. U.S. naval 
architects and engineers are currently focusing in part on best 
practices used in South Korean and other Asian shipyards for designing 
and building warships, because in the view of these naval architects 
and engineers, ``Asian navies are building larger warships that are 
easier to construct, easier to maintain, and that have greater service 
[life] allowances for future combat system upgrade. It is also reported 
that they are also doing this at significantly lower costs than US 
practice.'' The approach that these U.S. naval architects and engineers 
see being used in South Korean and other Asian shipyards features a 
higher degree of industry participation in the early stages of naval 
shipbuilding programs than is typically the case in U.S. Navy 
shipbuilding programs.\1\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ See Peter E. Jaquith, ``Asian vs. U.S. Warship Design, 
Production Engineering, and Construction Practice,'' Naval Engineers 
Journal, December 2019: 55-58. See also Tony Jang, Lois Pena, and 
Nicholas Abbott, ``Realizing Flexible Ships: Lessons from Allies to 
Improve the U.S. Shipbuilding Affordability, Capacity, and Schedule,'' 
Naval Engineers Journal, December 2019: 59-71.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    One option for Congress would be to review the approach outlined by 
these naval architects and engineers. Whether this approach would make 
sense from a congressional perspective is an open question, because it 
could, for example, substantially alter the point in a shipbuilding 
program where the Navy would conduct its source selection and award a 
contract for building the ships. If Congress determines that the option 
makes sense from a congressional perspective, Congress could then 
consider legislative options for having the Navy provide its 
perspective to Congress regarding the potential merits and legislative 
authorities needed to implement this approach. Offhand I do not 
remember a prior legislative provision that was focused on the 
potential merits of a more-integrated approach like the one outlined by 
these naval architects and engineers.

                                  [all]