Hearings to examine the current readiness of the Joint Force.

Senate Subcommittee on Readiness and Management Support

2025-03-12

Source: Congress.gov

Summary

The Readiness Subcommittee convened to discuss the current state of readiness of the United States Armed Forces with military leaders and the Government Accountability Office (GAO). The hearing highlighted critical challenges and ongoing efforts to ensure the military remains capable and prepared for evolving global threats.

Themes

Readiness Challenges and Budgetary Impact

Committee members and service leaders expressed deep concerns about the readiness of the U.S. Armed Forces, citing understrength Army units, unsatisfactory Navy ships, and low Air Force aircraft availability. A significant point of contention was the impact of a full-year Continuing Resolution (CR), which all military witnesses stated would severely hinder modernization, maintenance, and recruitment efforts. [ 00:25:40 ]

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 The service leaders emphasized the critical need for consistent, predictable funding and greater budgetary flexibility to adapt to rapid technological changes and emergent threats. [ 00:25:29-00:25:40 ]

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 The GAO corroborated these concerns, pointing to increasing gaps between mission requirements and available resources, and advocating for a stronger focus on sustainment and resilient logistics.

Recruiting and Retention Successes

Despite previous struggles, service leaders reported notable improvements in recruiting numbers across the board. The Army exceeded its FY24 goal, and the Navy and Marine Corps are on track to meet or surpass theirs. [ 00:22:28 ]

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 Senator Sullivan attributed past recruiting difficulties to a perceived lack of focus on warfighting and lethality, and a preoccupation with "irrelevant stuff" in military policy. The Marine Corps credited its success to maintaining high standards, a strong brand, and investing in a professional and incentivized recruiting force. The Space Force highlighted its unique position, attracting two volunteers for every recruit and boasting high selectivity and retention rates.

Service-Specific Modernization and Challenges

Each service outlined its unique modernization efforts and challenges. The Army is reorganizing, rapidly fielding new technologies like UAS and counter-UAS systems, and developing long-range hypersonic weapons, but struggles with infrastructure maintenance and balancing force size with budget realities. [ 00:20:28-00:21:45 ]

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[ 00:22:49-00:23:18 ]

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 The Navy and Marine Corps are working to improve ship maintenance, but amphibious ship readiness remains critically low, with only 13 of 32 ships currently available. [ 00:26:46 ]

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 The Marine Corps' "force design" initiative, aimed at adapting to modern warfare, has faced criticism for potentially reducing traditional combat power, a concern General Mahoney acknowledged while affirming the ongoing recalibration and commitment to expeditionary solutions. The Space Force is focused on "competitive endurance" to deter adversaries who are actively jamming GPS and developing anti-satellite weapons. The Air Force faces the challenge of operating the oldest aircraft fleet with fewer flying hours, prioritizing parts, supply, and training to maintain warfighting capability.

Homeland Defense and Border Deployments

The importance of bolstering homeland defense against evolving threats was emphasized by Senator Sullivan. Senator Hirono vehemently criticized the current administration's deployment of military personnel to the southern border for non-military tasks, such as changing tires or data entry. She argued that these deployments strip precious resources, negatively impact readiness and morale, and constitute a "massive waste" of time and personnel, especially given current low border crossings. While service leaders acknowledged the challenges, they indicated strategies like troop rotation are in place to mitigate the impact on readiness compared to previous deployments. The GAO noted a pattern of the Department of Defense (DOD) performing functions that could be handled by civilian agencies, leading to increased costs and readiness tradeoffs.

Integrated Missile Defense

A key discussion point was the complex integration required for homeland missile defense, referred to as "Golden Dome" or "Iron Dome" legislation, which involves all military services. General Gutlein of the Space Force likened its complexity to the Manhattan Project, stressing that organizational behavior and culture are the biggest hurdles. He called for a single, empowered entity with full national support and stable funding to manage this multi-agency effort. The discussion also touched upon the need to include non-traditional contractors and international allies, such as Canada, in this defense strategy.

Tone of the Meeting

The tone of the meeting was largely serious and urgent, driven by the critical nature of military readiness in an increasingly dangerous global environment. Members of Congress expressed significant concern and criticism regarding the impact of budgetary constraints, specifically the Continuing Resolution, and the rationale behind deploying troops to the southern border for non-military duties. Despite sharp policy disagreements, particularly between Senator Sullivan and Senator Hirono regarding border deployments, the overall interactions between the committee and military witnesses remained professional and respectful. [ 00:14:16-00:14:16 ]

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[ 00:14:51-00:15:19 ]

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 There was a notable undercurrent of hope and optimism, particularly concerning the recent improvements in military recruiting across all services, and a shared commitment to addressing the identified readiness challenges. [ 00:22:28 ]

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[ 00:44:09 ]

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Participants

Transcript

The Readiness Subcommittee meets today to receive the testimony on the current readiness of the United States Armed Forces.  I deeply appreciate our witnesses, our esteemed witnesses from our military services.  This is an impressive photo right here of all five services and our excellent   work from the Government Accountability Office by Diana Maurer.  This is one of the most important hearings certainly this committee undertakes all year.  My view is one of the most important hearings in the Senate for the year because there's very few other issues more important than the readiness   of our United States military.  I look forward to the valuable testimony of the witnesses as it will pertain to their services readiness.  I hope we can have a really good, candid discussion.  We are living in a very dangerous world where our adversaries can and regularly do contest us across the globe.   And we must remain vigilant in our pursuit of balancing readiness, modernization, and training with our global commitments.  In my view, for the last four years, we have taken a holiday from history with the Biden administration's focus on issues in the military that had nothing to do with readiness.   The list is long.  Climate change over shipbuilding, transgender surgery for active duty troops, DEI, a lack of focus on warfighting and lethality, and defeating our enemies.  I appreciate Secretary Hegseth's three priorities, restoring the warrior ethos, rebuilding our military, and reestablishing our deterrence.
Many of you know, and I've talked to all of you about this, I'm a big fan of the book by T.R.  Ferenbach, This Kind of War, which Marines and soldiers all read, and it is about the Korean War and how in 1945 we had the most lethal military in world history, and five years later in 1950, the United States military had a hard time   stopping and defeating a peasant army from North Korea.  And thousands of American troops died in the process because a lack of leadership from our civilian and uniformed military.  This must never happen again.  There must never be another Task Force Smith that we saw in the Korean War.   My view is we have a moral obligation to prepare for any future conflict, beginning with the realization that unlike any previous conflict, our service members will be at risk from threats well before they reach foreign soil, airspace, or waters.   The world has changed dramatically as it pertains to our homeland as well.  We can no longer consider ourselves safe based solely on the tyranny of distance from nations and actors that would do us harm.  One of the things that we are working on in this Congress and this committee in conjunction with the President   is his Iron Dome, now Golden Dome, and legislation of mine with Senator Cramer.  We hope to make bipartisan in this committee to bolstering our homeland defense.  Suffice to say the world is a dangerous place and the facts demand a response from not just the uniformed personnel,
sitting before us.  And again, I respect the service decades and decades of military service from all of you, but from Congress as well.  Let's look at a few facts in the last four years have done to our militaries provided by the military services and GAO.  The Army has done an outstanding job working to increase recruiting   but there remains significant operational demands and increasing pressures on an already understrength force with units being manned at less than 80%.   Sixteen of the Navy's 32 amphibious warfare ships are in unsatisfactory condition, and the Air Force of today is very different from what we saw during the global war on terror.  Yes, we have more capable aircraft, and yet the KC-46 and KC-135 tanker fleets sits at an aircraft availability rate of 52%.   and 57%, respectively, versus 66% during the entirety of the global war on terror.  While modernization will help improve these figures, at what cost will that come in terms of readiness and training?  These are the key issues that so many of you, as our leaders in the military, have been focused on.   There are many other issues that GAO has raised and our members here will be raising, but I want to thank the witnesses in advance, again, for their exceptional service to our country and for their testimony today.  I look forward to that testimony, and now I'd like to turn it over to Ranking Member Senator Hirono.
Thank you, Senator Chairman.
Senator Sullivan, rather.
Well, you have your responsibility.   Gentlemen, thank you for your dedicated service to our nation, and I thank the service members in each of your respective branches as well.  Ms.  Maurer, it's always great to have you back and to see you.  The tireless work that you and your team deliver to Congress every year is instrumental to each NDAA.   In your opening statements, I asked that each of you briefly describe what impacts to readiness a full year continuing resolution, CR, would have.  For example, billions in military construction and   family housing projects would not occur in a full CR.

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