NAVY AND MARINE CORPS REQUESTS

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES,

Washington, DC, Thursday, February 21, 1991.

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 9:40 a.m., in room 2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Les Aspin (chairman of the committee) presiding.

STATEMENT OF HON. LES ASPIN, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM WISCONSIN, CHAIRMAN, HOUSE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE The CHAIRMAN. The meeting will come to order this morning. We are pleased to have today as our witnesses Mr. Larry Garrett, who is the Secretary of the Navy; Adm. Frank Kelso, the Chief of Naval Operations; and General Al Gray, the Commandant of the Marine Corps. They will be testifying on the Navy and Marine Corps Fiscal Year 1992 budget request.

As we start this budget cycle, we find ourselves at the confluence of two historic events. First, of course, is war in the Middle East, and second is the chaos in the Soviet Union. Our task is to understand how these events affect our defense requirements.

Last year, Congress began reducing our country's military force structure in response to a reduced Soviet threat and domestic budget pressures. We would like to discuss today how this builddown should continue given the early lessons learned from Operation Desert Storm and the drift toward pandemonium in the Soviet Union.

In particular, the committee is interested in exploring how the fiscal year 1995 goal of a 450 ship and a 12 carrier Navy fits in with our changing defense needs. We are also interested in discussing the Navy and Marine Corps' aircraft and ship procurement and modernization plans. Finally, we would like to consider future sealift requirements.

The committee will continue to hold hearings through the spring to prepare for the fiscal year 1992 defense bill. Our hope is to raise the right questions as we create the force for the future.

Let me at this point introduce the senior Member, Bill Dickin

son.

STATEMENT OF HON. WILLIAM L. DICKINSON, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM ALABAMA, RANKING MINORITY MEMBER, HOUSE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE

Mr. DICKINSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Secretary Garrett, Admiral Kelso, General Gray, good morning. It's good to have you with us.

In accordance with the 25 percent build-down that the Secretary of the Navy Cheney has prescribed for our defense forces, the Navy, as you know, is facing a difficult task ahead. The manpower and fleet size are inherently tied together, so a careful balancing act must occur to avoid the traps of a hollow fleet or a Navy without ships.

The projected budget request asks for roughly 10 ships per year, to be accompanied by the retirement of 65 ships in fiscal year 1992 and 32 ships in fiscal year 1993. Clearly this makes John Lehman's 600 ship Navy a thing of the past. The fleet will shrink from 545 ships in 1990 to 451 ships in 1995.

The department's ship building strategy would raise serious questions about how we intend to continue as a maritime power and maintain the sea lines of communication. You propose to build only one submarine and only one class of surface combatants per year, yet the Soviet Union continues to robustly modernize its fleet. For example, Moscow continues to build four classes of attack submarines annually.

Also there are certainly a number of issues surrounding the future of Naval aviation considering the termination of ongoing A12 and F-14 remanufacturing programs, along with the cancellation of the NATF. Where we go in this terms of fleet air defense power projection will be an issue of major concern to us, as we know it is to you.

In short, the three of you have a tremendous challenge ahead, and I look forward to your testimony. We are not unaware of the problems that you face. It's a matter of great concern to us, too. Hopefully we can work our way out of this thicket and come out maintaining our superiority at sea as we go down the slippery slope of the de-escalation.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. Larry Garrett, the floor is yours.

STATEMENT OF H. LAWRENCE GARRETT III, SECRETARY OF THE NAVY

Secretary GARRETT. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Members of the committee. I welcome the opportunity this morning to review with you the posture of the Navy and Marine Corps team and the opportunity to discuss the Department of the Navy budget for fiscal years 1992 and 1993.

Mr. Chairman, I ask that my formal statement be inserted in the record.

The CHAIRMAN. Without objection, all of the statements may be submitted for the record.

Secretary GARRETT. Thank you, sir. Mr. Chairman, the United States in the last 10 years has made a substantial and concerted investment in its military security-not the least in its sea power. That investment, I submit, has paid invaluable dividends by accelerating the end of the Cold War, by ensuring our ability to counter aggression, and by serving notice that America is a credible moral force for international stability and human freedom.

The challenge before us is to preserve that investment at a time of great geostrategic uncertainty. As the chairman pointed out, to do that makes both fiscal as well as military sense.

The budget you have before you, Mr. Chairman, addresses that challenge. The maritime policy upon which it is built derives in turn from four key realities about the evolving world order.

First is the fact that the United States must remain firmly engaged in a world that is economically interdependent. The vast majority of our trading partners are on the opposite side of one ocean or another. Our economy, our way of life, and even our physical security, depend upon both the safety of our armies and the security of our seaborne trade routes. Current events make it clear that we simply cannot afford to retreat into isolationism or to abandon our maritime superiority.

Second, America faces increasingly limited access to overseas bases and military facilities. Our strategy will depend even more in the future than it does today on self-contained forward deployed maritime forces that can project a wide range of power from international waters anywhere on this globe.

Mr. Chairman, our fundamental policy of maintaining forward deployed combat ready naval forces allowed the United States to have the striking power of two carrier battle groups on the scene within days of Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait; and the first fully operational, combat ready American force in Saudi Arabia was the 7th Marine Expeditionary Brigade, supported by equipment loaded in forward-deployed maritime pre-positioned ships.

A third important factor is the diversity of potential threats to American and allied security from-terrorist attacks to conventional armed aggression, to nuclear blackmail.

Finally, the threat of a global war with the Soviet Union has diminished, but the future of the world, I submit, is still uncertain, and the powerful potential of the Soviet Navy, as was pointed out by Mr. Dickinson, has not lessened. At the same time, weapons of mass destruction have proliferated throughout the world.

In short, Mr. Chairman, our naval policy is to support the Nation with forward-deployed Navy and Marine Corps forces that can perform their missions worldwide and adjust to rapidly changing strategic and tactical circumstances-all within the fiscal restraints established for us.

It is toward that end that we have identified our budget priorities.

The most important priority is our people. The war in Iraq is being won by skilled, courageous, and dedicated men and women who have volunteered to serve their Nation at extraordinary personal risk. Their concerns, Mr. Chairman, Members of the committee, are my concerns-compensation, quality of life, training, and the benefits we provide them as service members, veterans, and retirees. They are without question, Mr. Chairman, our most precious

resource.

Following closely is training. Our ability to respond to rapidly developing crises depends on units and personnel that are practiced, professional and combat-ready. Ships, airplanes and tanks are of little use without well trained people to man them.

Next is readiness and sustainability. By that I mean the ability to bring a credible and effective force to bear in combat when and if the national leadership should require such an option. We were able to confront the Iraqi aggression because we have the means to support and sustain a full-scale offensive operation for an indefinite period of time. To address the sophisticated and volatile threats into the 21st century, we will need to maintain that standard of readiness and sustainability.

Another critical priority is to maintain a balanced force as we build down our force structure. We are on the road to a smaller Navy and a smaller Marine Corps. Our objective is to maintain an appropriate balance of war fighting capabilities while also balancing our force structure against our manpower needs. It makes no sense to keep our harbors filled with ships and our hangars with airplanes if that means sacrificing the training, readiness, quality, and morale of the people required to make them work.

A keystone of our ability to build and maintain a Navy is our infrastructure and our industrial base. America's strategic advantage, I submit, depends fundamentally on a healthy, productive, innovative and competitive national industry. We simply cannot afford to drive our defense industrial base-especially our vital ship building industry-off shore.

Technology is another key priority. Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, I think, have amply validated our traditional emphasis on technological superiority. Advanced high tech weapons systems have not only served to save American lives, they have significantly reduced death and damage to non-combatants. As our force structure reduces in size, it becomes even more important that we preserve our technical advantage with rigorous research, development, and operational evaluation.

Mr. Chairman, the new world we face is one of great promisebut it is also one of great danger. The stability, freedom, and the prosperity of the international community will depend in the end on America's consistent strength and consistent leadership.

With that in mind, we have in the Department of Navy worked very, very hard not only on the challenges to America's security, but on the way that we do our business. The budget before you represents a maritime force which is much smaller than we had before-but one which remains and will remain combat capable, cost effective, and tailored to the threats that we are likely to face as the 20th century draws to a close.

I thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will be happy-after the Chief of Naval Operations and the Commandant of the Marine Corps make