Q&A: Rep. Ike Skelton
Written by Marty Kauchak
Leading House Oversight of Training Readiness
Rep. Ike Skelton
Chairman
House Armed Services Committee
Training Readiness Proponent
Skelton, a native of Lexington, is a graduate of Wentworth Military Academy and the University of Missouri at Columbia where he received A.B. and L.L.B. degrees. He was named as a member of Phi Beta Kappa and the Law Review. Prior to his election to Congress, Skelton served as Lafayette County prosecuting attorney and as a Missouri state senator.
A leader in the House on defense issues, Skelton is the chairman of the House Armed Service Committee. Skelton’s district is home to Fort Leonard Wood, Whiteman Air Force Base, and the Missouri National Guard Training Center. Skelton was instrumental in bringing the Army Engineer School to Fort Leonard Wood and the B-2 Stealth Bomber to Whiteman.
As most of the Fourth Congressional District is composed of small towns and farming communities, Skelton looks after the needs of rural America. He is a former chairman of the Small Business Subcommittee on Procurement, Tourism and Rural Development and the Congressional Rural Caucus.
Skelton is an Eagle Scout, a member of Sigma Chi social fraternity, a Lions Club member, and vice chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation. Skelton is an elder of the First Christian Church in Lexington.
Q: Briefly discuss your strategic priorities for committee oversight for the 111th Congress with respect to DoD training readiness and training programs.
A: The committee is gravely concerned with the continuing decline in the readiness of the armed forces. Seven years of continuous combat operations have placed a significant strain on the services, and this strain has begun to manifest itself in declining readiness trends across many aspects of U.S. military forces. Skills not required for the fights in Iraq and Afghanistan have atrophied and will take time to restore once the troops are allowed sufficient dwell time. Equipment shortfalls hamper the ability to train and deploy ground forces and hinder the forces’ ability to train for and respond to other contingencies.
Personnel shortfalls drive lengthy deployment periods, less-than-desirable dwell periods and a reliance on sailors and airmen to perform missions typically carried out by soldiers. The Navy’s and Air Force’s investment of some 20,000 officers, sailors and airmen to support combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan detracts from these services’ ability to perform their core missions. Current operational tempo makes it questionable whether the Air Force can sustain its aging aircraft fleet and whether the Navy can sustain ship material readiness at a time when the Navy and Air Force are considered the nation’s strategic reserve forces.
Q: You frequently visit and meet with service men and women in the United States and overseas. Based on your personal observations, are DoD training programs and processes providing mission-ready forces for duty in Afghanistan, Iraq and other locations?
A: The services are providing the best training possible in the time constraints given, but training shortfalls are limiting the full-spectrum capability of our forces. Our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines are arriving for combat with the equipment available and the training required to complete their assigned combat mission. Because our forces have been engaged in continuous combat now for seven years, we have a great many servicemembers whose combat experience increases the overall effectiveness of units deployed. However, repeated deployments with limited dwell time have reduced the ability of the forces to function in a full-spectrum environment. The nation is put at strategic risk because of the gap in our ability to source sufficient ground forces to respond to emergent contingencies.
Q: As a follow-up, briefly discuss training gaps and shortfalls that must be closed to better support current overseas operations.
A: The amount of time at home—i.e., dwell time—is limiting the amount of training soldiers receive prior to deployment. Every effort must be made to increase this time to allow for training. No one ever thinks they are fully trained for combat, and more time at home will increase effectiveness in combat. Gaps and shortfalls are not due to the defense department’s or services’ lack of training tools; it is lack of time to fully utilize those tools.
Readiness problems appear to be most severe in the ground forces, particularly the Army. Readiness shortfalls in equipment availability and training assessments can be attributed to the challenges of increased operational tempo on both equipment and personnel. Marine Corps readiness has declined since 2001, as continuous combat operations have consumed readiness. The nature of current combat operations has forced the Marine Corps to draw from equipment in non-deployed units and afloat stocks to meet operational needs, resulting in less equipment available for training. Added to this is the fact that the Marines, like the Army, are focusing heavily on counter-insurgency operations in their training, resulting in an overall reduction of full mission capability.
The scale and scope of material deficiencies found during inspection of Navy surface ships over the past year raise questions about the sufficiency of the Navy’s manning and training, especially during a time of increased deployment tempo and as DoD officials underscore the reliance upon the Navy and Air Force as the nation’s strategic reserve force and global deterrent. The Air Force continues to struggle with maintaining the full mission capability of its aircraft. Operational tempo for the Air Force has remained high since the first Gulf War, placing continued strain on the Air Force’s aging aircraft fleet. Maintenance challenges have reduced overall mission capability rates below levels seen in prior years and are particularly troubling given that procurement programs for new aircraft will not fill capability gaps until the years beyond the Future Years Defense Plan.
Q: This January DoD released the 2009 Quadrennial Roles and Missions Review Report. Please discuss whether current DoD training programs and processes are adequately funded and organized to support roles and missions in cyberspace and other areas highlighted in the report.
A: The defense department traditionally has been very proficient at developing and employing training programs to improve the force. I am not comfortable that proficiency has been fully manifested when we speak of training for cyberspace operations. DoD has focused so heavily on the technological side of cyberspace that the other elements of doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leadership and education, personnel, and facilities [DOTMLPF] have lagged behind. The 2009 QRM, as well as recent studies by the Defense Science Board and the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board, have done a tremendous service by emphasizing the war fighting importance of our information technology systems and the potential consequences for military operations if we do not do more to improve our capability to utilize the networks in denied or degraded environments. I expect that realization should now manifest in the upcoming FY10 budget submissions, including additional training, exercise, and personnel certification requirements. Some important steps have been made in laying the foundation for future training and exercise opportunities— such as the development of DARPA’s National Cyber Range.
I hope that we will also begin to see increased attention on a human capital strategy to ensure that the military is able to attract and retain the highest quality professionals to provide IT, networking and software engineering services. To ensure our predominance in cyberspace, I hope we will also begin seeing more comprehensive training exercises. We need to include a broader base of individuals participating, not just the techies, but also the everyday user so they learn more of the importance of simple cybersecurity measures. We also need to increase use of red teams to reflect real-world threat tactics and tools. Finally, we need to increase integration of cyber exercises into larger training exercises, such as unit mission readiness exercises prior to deployment, to reinforce the message that cyberspace should be seamlessly integrated with all of the other instruments of military power.
The information technology [IT] revolution has fueled the U.S. military’s superiority since the end of the Cold War. The military’s expanding reliance on information technology is predicated on sufficient capabilities to provide systems engineering for software intensive programs. Due to the growing complexity of software and integration challenges of linking disparate systems, our committee is focusing particularly on the management and acquisition of the Department of Defense information technology programs. IT as an enabler of military operations calls for increased emphasis on the security and integrity of the data, applications and networks. We will continue to scrutinize military cybersecurity efforts, including the Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative. The committee is particularly interested in examining the effects of globalization on the assured integrity of microelectronics and software. We will also focus on the offensive cyber capabilities and how they are integrated into traditional kinetic operations.
Q: Last November the HASC Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee released a report on the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization. Please share with us the report’s findings and recommendations with respect to the department’s training for this mission.
A: As the HASC O&I Subcommittee report described, our committee has been concerned about the department’s pre-deployment training for dealing with the improvised explosive device [IED] threat. During the early years of the operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, not all military personnel received adequate or, in some cases, any training before deployment. We were especially concerned that military personnel trained with the electronic jammers, armored vehicles and other tools that were developed specifically to counter IEDs prior to deployment. Too often the first time a soldier, Marine, airman or sailor saw a jammer or drove an armored vehicle was after they arrived in theater. Likewise, we were also concerned that training was based on the enemy’s latest IED tactics, techniques and procedures [TTPs] and that these were tailored to the region to which the service personnel deployed.
As the O&I report notes, DoD has made progress in counter-IED training since the start of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The military departments, with support from the Joint IED Defeat Organization [JIEDDO], have now established extensive and realistic counter-IED [C-IED] training regiments at all the national training centers and are currently building the capacity to provide some C-IED training at home stations. Additionally, JIEDDO has provided tactical advisory teams and joint expeditionary teams with recent combat experience to advise and mentor deploying units from platoon to division level on the latest trends in the IED threat and on TTPs to counter IEDs. To date the primary training emphasis has been on the defensive side of the IED fight, how to find the devices and minimize their effects. This training appears to be having the desired effect. In the beginning of operations in Iraq only 40 percent of the IEDs were discovered and rendered safe. Today the majority of IEDs emplaced in Iraq, nearly 70 percent, are found.
However, just finding IEDs before they are detonated is not enough. The biggest pay off in the IED fight comes from going on the offensive to locate and disrupt the human IED networks. Coalition forces are doing this successfully in Iraq, and military units need to be trained on how they can contribute to this offensive approach. Training units how to effectively use and coordinate intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance [ISR] assets and information at the tactical level, recognize IED network activities and bomb-making materials, and work with the civilian population to gather information on IED activities will yield big payoffs in taking down IED networks.
I am concerned that our C-IED training has focused too much on Iraq. I have long called for greater attention to the war in Afghanistan and applaud the president’s new strategy. The national training centers have re-created Iraqi villages populated with role-playing Iraqi citizens to provide a realistic pre-deployment training environment. However, the lessons in Iraq don’t necessarily apply to Afghanistan. For those units headed to Afghanistan, all of their predeployment training, including C-IED training, needs to be tailored for the mission and the threats in this theater.
Q: Your forecast please, on congressional support in the Fiscal Year 2010 National Defense Authorization Act for the department’s training.
A: Since I have become chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, I have advocated for increased training for our servicemembers and have added to our bill each year additional funds to support additional training for the military. I will continue to advocate for a stronger, more robust training program to ensure all our servicemembers are fully trained for combat and that no contingency goes unanswered.
In the fiscal year 2009 defense authorization bill, the committee added funds for increased training of critical skills, exporting training from the combat training centers and increased battle command training; increased ground force operational training; and redistribution of equipment to fill shortages. Additionally, the committee directed funding to fill shortages in the services’ pre-positioned stocks and to repair and maintain barracks and troop housing in all of the services, all of which are vital to sustaining our troops and equipment.
In the FY08 bill, the committee included $250 million to address training shortfalls throughout the services. These funds were to be used by the secretary of defense to address training readiness needs of units throughout the services on an urgent, emergent basis and to increase the overall training readiness posture of the services. We expected that the department’s future requests for training funds would reflect the services’ actual training requirements.
The department must fully fund training and ensure every effort is made to increase the opportunities for unit and individual skill training. Readiness will improve in the out-years only with intensive management and resourcing as the services require funding to reset and retrain their forces. We have strongly urged the secretary of defense to use every available authority to accelerate restoration of a strong readiness posture to reduce risk as soon as possible.
Q: Briefly discuss the committee’s support for technology in DoD training programs. Does the HASC have areas of interest or concern regarding the department’s use of technology in training?
A: The House Armed Services Committee has strongly supported technology in DoD training programs, particularly in the area of simulation technologies. The department’s modeling and simulation efforts have developed an impressive array of scenarios to allow our forces and partners to prepare for security missions across the spectrum.
However, technology is a tool, not a substitute for hands-on training. I have always advocated that we need more soldiers and less stuff. More equipment to train on is not necessarily a good thing if it is a substitute for actual hands-on training.
Likewise, on the civilian side, providing the defense department with the proper tools to invest in its work force and ensuring that the department has the people with the right skills to contribute effectively to the success of the department’s mission will remain a focus of our committee. ♦