Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this important hearing.  I would also like to welcome our distinguished witnesses this morning, and thank them for their service to our country. 

The focus of today’s hearing is the long-term budget challenges confronting our military services.  For fifteen years, our armed forces have been engaged in continuous military operations.  While our men and women in uniform have performed their duties admirably, doing all that we have asked them to do and more, the intense operational tempo has had an impact on our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines, their training, and their equipment. On top of all that, the services have had to grapple with sequestration and constrained budgets. 

The military leaders before us today have an important task.  As they plan their budgets for Fiscal Year 2018 and beyond, they must anticipate emerging threats for the future and how our military will address, and ultimately defeat, those threats.  As we are reminded on a daily basis, our country is facing many complicated and rapidly evolving challenges that do not offer easy or quick solutions.  For example, we have seen our near-peer competitors learn from our past success and made advancements of their own – particularly in the areas of precision and long-range strike, anti-access/area denial, space, and cyber.  As a result, the Department of Defense has embarked on a “third offset strategy” to address the steady erosion of U.S. technological superiority and recapture our qualitative advantage over our adversaries.  I would welcome our witnesses’ thoughts on how their respective services plan to confront these critical issues. 

In addition to anticipating and planning for future threats, our witnesses today must also ensure targeted investments are made to rebuild readiness levels; modernize the force; and maintain the well-being of our troops. Over the course of this year, the Committee has repeatedly heard testimony on these issues, and I hope that our witnesses can provide this Committee an update on the progress they have made.  

Finally, defense budgets should be based on our long-term military strategy, which requires the Department to focus at least five years into the future.  Last year, Congress passed the 2015 Bipartisan Budget Act that established the discretionary funding level for defense spending for fiscal year 2016 and 2017.  While the BBA provided the Department with budget stability in the near term, there is no budget agreement for Fiscal Year 2018 and beyond.  Therefore, without another bipartisan agreement that provides relief from sequestration, the military services will be forced to submit a Fiscal Year 2018 budget that adheres to the sequestration-level budget caps and could undermine the investments made to rebuild readiness and modernize platforms and equipment.

I welcome the witnesses’ thoughts and suggestions on these issues, and I look forward to their testimony.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.