Towards Achieving a Better Understanding of the Nation's Defenses

ADM Charles Richard, commander of the U.S. Strategic Command, speaks during a briefing at the Pentagon in Washington, Thursday, April 22, 2021. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Over time, DoD posture hearings have largely devolved into “information-free” events. At the outset, Pentagon witnesses affirm the president’s budget meets their needs. Thus satisfied, many Congressional leaders are then content to spend the rest of their allotted time asking about the Pentagon’s intent to buy pieces of hardware or to extol the virtues of installations –  all made or located in their districts and states.

In the rare instance a congressman does ask a relevant question about readiness or preparedness, the witnesses often will seek to defer the answer to a forum outside the public eye. Or if they answer it, often the response is so vague as to be meaningless.

After about four hours of this banal exchange, hands are shaken, and the words that were spoken, largely forgotten.

Improving these hearings will require Congress to ask better questions and for the Pentagon to provide more fulsome answers.

It was not always so. When Army chief General Edward “Shy” Meyer in 1980 testified that his service had become “hollow,” the news came like a thunderclap. Twenty-three years later, famously contradicting his Pentagon masters including defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Army Chief of Staff General Eric Shinseki told the Senate that “several hundred thousand soldiers” would be needed to secure Iraq.  More recently, in 2022 Admiral Chas Richard, the outspoken former head of U.S. Strategic Command, pulled no punches when he testified America faced “a crisis deterrence dynamic right now that we have only seen a few times in our nation’s history.”  But these glimpses of candor are unfortunately increasingly infrequent.

Uneventful hearings could indeed be the norm if the international scene were tranquil and military readiness assured. But that is not the case today. China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea are all “on the march.” Meanwhile, the state of America’s military is visibly diminishing. The recruiting crisis is resulting in the military services dropping in size by thousands. The Navy remains far short of the number of ships it says it needs. The average age of Air Force aircraft is greater than the pilots flying them. Military aircraft readiness rates stand nothing short of miserable.

Underlying much of the poor state of interaction that takes place in hearings between Congress and the Pentagon is a lack of knowledge behind the fundamental difference between political and uniformed military leaders. Politically appointed secretaries support the President’s agenda and run their departments, while senior officers seek to provide their impartial military advice, independent of the reigning political environment.

But often in hearings members of Congress unknowingly treat these two types of leaders interchangeably, asking them the same questions in the same manner, while for their part, senior military officers often fail to maintain a distinction between the current administration’s views and their own professional judgments.

Thus, often the part of the senior military officer at a posture hearing resembles that of a TV color commentator, adding interesting details to the political official’s answers, but devoid of independent thought.

Congress, however, has always expected independent advice from the nation’s uniformed military leaders. To that end, prior to Senate confirmation for any three star or higher position, officers are required to affirmatively respond to the question: “do you agree, when asked before this Committee, to give your personal views, even if your views differ from the Administration?” 

Few in Congress seem to understand that granting a military officer the ability to testify freely requires prefacing a question with the phrase: “in your personal, professional judgment….” But without that distinction, a uniformed officer is bound to articulate the policies of the current administration.

Responses to questions routinely asked like this might help uncover some necessary facts and judgments. And then of course military officers must then meet their responsibility to provide their judgement and advice, even when potentially personally inconvenient, or at worst, career-ending.

Senators and Representatives in turn must forgo the temptation to focus on issues that impact only their states and districts and instead relentlessly probe DoD witnesses for answers about military preparedness writ large. They must be prepared to relentlessly follow-up on answers which are often vague or incomplete. Questioning like this requires extraordinary preparation.

Now, more than ever, it’s important that America and Congress understand the true state of our national security. More can and should be done to ensure this happens. Both Congress and the Pentagon have the responsibility to make their interactions more productive and informative.

Thomas Spoehr is a retired Army Lieutenant General with more than 36 years of service. He is a senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.