▶ 0:06:22Great. Thanks for being here. think
▶ 0:06:53something like that. So it's
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▶ 0:26:16All right. Well, we are at 8:59 and I will sound the gavl promptly at 9:00 a.m. in different
▶ 0:26:54Tactical Air and Land Forces of the House Armed Services Committee is hereby called to order. Uh we'll begin our our efforts by uh opening remarks from the chair and the ranking member. In the interest of time, in the interest of getting to the testimony from our witnesses and questions, I'm going to dispense with my opening remarks, have them entered into the record. And with that, I yield to Mr. Courtney. Great. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
▶ 0:27:21And I'm going to do likewise I'm going to do likewise. Uh but again, just for the record, just want to, you know, note that I'm just sort of pinch hitting here today for Congressman Norcross who's on the mend um from, you know, his setback. Uh he is watching.
▶ 0:27:35He texted me this morning to say that he's uh following this on streaming um TV and um you know has I you know read all the materials and is uh I think you know on day one going to be you know ready to go in terms of picking up where he left off and again want to just thank the witnesses for being here and with that I'll yield back. Very good. Well, thanks Joe and uh Don if you're watching. We'll hope you get better soon and uh we promise that we will uh carry on in in yourstead.
▶ 0:28:03So with that, let's uh let's go ahead and begin with uh with Director Beck and his testimony. Director Beck, all yours. Thank you, sir. Uh Chairman Whitman, uh Rank Member Courtourtney, and uh we uh sent our our best wishes for a speedy recovery to rank member Norcross. Um members of subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to speak to the committee today and for all Congress has done to put DIU in a position to help make a difference.
▶ 0:28:29At DIU, we're focused on working with our teammates across the department to deliver the very best commercially derived technology with the focus, speed, and scale needed to deter major conflict or win a force to fight. Nowhere is this imperative clearer than in the case of increasingly agile, lethal, and autonomous unmanned systems. in Ukraine.
▶ 0:28:46This past December, I had the opportunity to see firsthand the eyewatering pace of change in UAS and counter UAS technologies and the tactics, techniques, and procedures employed at the front line in an underground unit spread throughout Kev, all evolving constantly in a life and death struggle of innovation and counter innovation. The resulting demand is supported by an incredibly dynamic ecosystem of hardware and software providers who are rising and competing to meet the challenge.
▶ 0:29:11DIU is embedded with the security assistance group Ukraine to help capture these lessons for both offense and defense and then apply them to our own critical needs globally. But we must do far more. The required pace of change and scale is something the commercial tech sector that I come from, fueled by constant and fiercely competitive updates, would find daunting. For the government's traditional approach to defense budgeting, procurement, testing, and fielding, it is simply unattainable.
▶ 0:29:35On offense, we must take advantage of the best emerging tech to put our joint force in a position to defeat our adversaries and to overcome their rapidly evolving counter US capabilities. On defense, we must meet the exponentially growing challenge from ever more capable drone attacks and stop being forced to shoot down drones that cost a few hundred dollars with multi-million dollar weapons that are hard to produce and even harder to replenish. We must do this now and we must do this at scale. This is what DIU is focused on helping all of us to execute.
▶ 0:30:04First, in partnership of the services, we're helping put concrete UAS capabilities in place where war fighters need it most. In just one example, we partnered with the Army on company level small UAS using the agile funding that Congress has authorized to enable them to prototype and actually deploy this capability in just 6 months. We're now working with the Army to accelerate in fiscal year 25 while they work to ensure scaling in future years.
▶ 0:30:27Together, we're bridging the valley of death and delivering war fighter impact and also delivering a successful reference case for private sector investment. Second, DIU's leverage its commercial relationships and its commercial solutions opening process to extend critical enabling command and control, automatic target recognition, and collaborative autonomy capabilities as well as the ability to update them constantly as the technology and needs evolve. Third, DIU is working to catalyze the defense industrial base through the Blue UAS initiative.
▶ 0:30:57Blue UAS provides a continuous approach to rapidly prototyping and scaling capable and secure commercially derived UAS tech for DoD without Chinese parts or Chinese money. To meet the need for dramatically greater scale, DIU is now overhauling Blue UAS from the ground up to rapidly vet a much broader set of UAS platforms and components at speed and year round. Finally, DIU is working to help our commercial partners scale to meet the department's growing demand.
▶ 0:31:23Earlier this month, DIU announced the blue manufacturing initiative, which pairs defense tech hardware and software companies with the very best advanced manufacturing providers right here in the United States to help enable the scale we need. I'm happy to discuss this and our blue UAS revamp more during questions. Turning to defense, DIU's primary role is again to work with teammates across the department to put advanced counter UAS capability into the field fast.
▶ 0:31:46DIU is also driving Replicator 2, a whole of department and inter agency effort to improve counter small US protection for critical assets largely centered on the homeland. Across all counter US efforts, DIU is focused on leveraging the best commercially derived technology to accelerate our war fighters ability to sense, decide, and act under incredible complexity from combat environments overseas to population centers here at home.
▶ 0:32:12For example, we're working with Northcom and the services to defend homeland military sites and installations, including with lowcost sensing, flyaway kits, and low collateral solutions for site defense. In conclusion, the DoD team is already addressing the rapidly transforming arena of unmanned and counterunman technologies and the enormous challenges and opportunities it presents that require us to bring the very best American innovation to bear. DIU is at the heart of these efforts with our partners across the department, many of whom are sitting with me today.
▶ 0:32:42But we need to be doing much, much more. We must put capability in place now. We must dramatically improve our capacity and speed to update unmanned and counter unmanned technologies. And we must build the muscle to do so in greater and greater scale. To do this, we need your support to ensure sufficient authorities and resources are in place to help develop solutions and scale up production capacity. We can't take it tenuous or incremental steps here. We need to take bold leaps and we need your help to do so.
▶ 0:33:10We'll also need your help in changing our collective culture surrounding risk. We must be willing to take the right kinds of risk today to avoid taking unacceptable risk. Risk to mission, risk to force, and strategic risk for our nation due to our inability to meet the threat because we move too slowly. Thank you. I look forward to your questions. Director Beck, thank you. Uh very sage advice. We will now go to Lieutenant General Eric Austin, United States Marine Corps. Lieutenant General Austin, the floor is yours.
▶ 0:33:38Good morning, Chairman Whitman, Representative Courtney, distinguished members of this subcommittee. I'd like to echo Mr. Beck's uh well wishes to Representative uh Norcross for a speedy recovery. Uh thank you for the opportunity to testify today. Honor to represent your Marine Corps and I look forward to discussing our efforts to address the growing threats and opportunities posed by small unmanned aerial systems.
▶ 0:33:59The Marine Corps continues to responsibly and necessarily modernize our our force in the context of a dynamic and rapidly changing character of warfare aligned with our strategic guidance and in concert with our sister services. Guided by our comedon's priorities, we're balancing our role as a nation's force and readiness with our aggressive effort to modernize, which certainly includes integration of small unmanned aerial systems and integration of systems to counter threat unmanned aerial systems.
▶ 0:34:24Our mission is clear uh to equip Marines with the tools to dominate in a contested environment while providing active and passive capabilities, necessary training, and other solutions to protect them from an increasingly complex and capable threat. Through a rigorous campaign of learning, informed by lessons from current conflicts, we're adapting to a battlefield in many cases redefined by small UAS. The Marine Corps is fielding unmanned aerial systems like the Skyio X2D, the Skyraider R80 Delta, the Stalker at the battalion level and below.
▶ 0:34:53We're experimenting with lowcost tradable drones using firstperson view guidance methods to provide additional lethality organic to the Marine Air Ground Task Force. To this point, uh just this year uh in a response to the observed evolution of armed FPV drone technology and tactics today on the battlefield, we established the Marine Corps attack drone team.
▶ 0:35:13And this team is tasked to rapidly integrate lessons from modern combat, refine service level requirements uh and to train our Marines through a competition in arms program to increase and inform our organic lethality. Just last Friday uh they completed their first test firing of a firstperson view drone armed with a high explosive charge on a quantico range complex. It's exciting and this construct is really working. Though we fielded hundreds of small UAS and related capabilities, we have work to do.
▶ 0:35:40We must pursue faster and cheaper solutions. We are also fielding a portfolio of force protection capabilities to counter the UAS threat. We've fielded the first of our Marine Air Defense Integrated System or Mattis uh systems to three Marine Expeditionary Air Force and a prototype light variant of the same capability to all three of our Marine Expeditionary Forces. The latter is principally designed to support our Marine Expeditionary Units.
▶ 0:36:07These capabilities tie into our command and control systems and can detect and defeat small UAS and other threats via both non-kinetic and kinetic means. The third marine latoral regiment uh today is campaigning forward in Balakatan and exercising the mattis system as we sit here today. This fiscal year we will also build a prototype counter UAS capability to protect dismounted Marines. This initiative will put manportable solutions into Marines hands at the tactical edge.
▶ 0:36:35We are feverishly working and belief this will be a model for fielding and iterative improvement. We've developed an installation counter UAS system to detect and defeat lowaltitude UAS threats and protect our bases and stations. We fielded initial installations counter UAS equipment sets and will incrementally expand this critical capability to protect 34 sites starting this fiscal year. We've also identified a relocatable fixed site solution that we're integrating into our formations as part of our portfolio approach to counter small UAS.
▶ 0:37:05Despite these successes, challenges loom large. The relentless pace of technological change and adversary innovation demands we accelerate. We must go faster. We must rapidly learn, iterate, improve, adapt, and modernize. We must continue modernizing how we modernize the Marine Corps. And to that end, beyond strictly material solutions, we've established a mechanism to increase the velocity of our acquisition processes for key capabilities.
▶ 0:37:29The Marine Corps Fusion Center, which is located in Quanico, Virginia, is designed to drive necessary and healthy crossfunctional approach that combines experts from our science and technology requirements and acquisition teams to collapse the timeline from concept to fielded capability combined with the ability to work at a highly in a high security construct. In conclusion, uh ladies and gentlemen, this is a team sport and we all must move faster.
▶ 0:37:52To this end, we're collaborating closely with the defense innovation unit, uh the joint counter small UAS aircraft systems office and our other sister services certainly to include the army. Your continued support and advocacy are valued and appreciated and central to our success. Thank you for this opportunity. I look forward to your questions. Lieutenant General Austin, thank you so much. We appreciate it. Now, we will go to Lieutenant General Robert Collins, United States Army. uh, Chairman Wittmann, uh, Congressman Courtney, and I'd also give a shout out to our ranking member.
▶ 0:38:21Our thoughts and prayers are with you for a rapid recovery, and to members of the, uh, HASK subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity to come out and to discuss our unmanned aerial system and counter small UAS modernization efforts. And I would say also our collaboration across this uh, team of experts that I'm joined here.
▶ 0:38:42I would say first and foremost uh we fully acknowledge the threat and the proliferation of these systems both abroad and at home and uh we collectively as a team are acting with urgency. Uh we are generating momentum and we are aggressively uh pressing ahead. Uh we have observed these activities as mentioned from Ukraine uh to the Middle East and also here in the homeland.
▶ 0:39:07Uh we have lessons uh learned and taking those making them applied as we learn about increasing speeds uh altitudes uh stealth uh how they operate in contested environments uh distance uh all of those things that we need to take immediate action and I would say in one particular instance here in the homeland for example at Pikatenni uh when we had that incident on the 12th of December we were able to take immediate action and within about a 48 8 hour period
▶ 0:39:37we were able to put kit on the ground uh to be able to put that in place uh to take action and protect that critical uh infrastructure. Uh I would say first on the how we certainly are adapting the how of how we more quickly iterate how we scale the speed uh and how we outpace our threat and we insert emerging A couple areas that we're looking at is changing our buying models. And I would say we're doing that through adopting commercial off-the-shelf uh technologies.
▶ 0:40:08Uh working through agile funding to give us additional flexibility. One uh two increasing our modularity and openness of how we do uh these particular areas as we attract and desire to attract some of the uh increasing the competition as we do these iterative and trunch buys to make sure that we get the best of breed of capability.
▶ 0:40:30Uh focusing on software ccentric and autonomous capable systems and also bending the cost curve as we scale up and make sure we're pairing the right intercept and defeat mechanism with the right target and threat. And we are certainly thankful for all the authorities and the tools that Congress has been able uh has allowed us and enabled us to be able to accomplish this.
▶ 0:40:53on the what uh I would say there is likely no single silver bullet nor can we hyper specialize on some of these uh areas and we need a layered approach uh to be able to get after this and that ranges everything from soldier common capability uh to things that may require a military occupational specialty uh for higher complex threats and capabilities and systems we're shaping that uh what I would say in a couple areas one uh
▶ 0:41:23more flexible requirements where we uh describe what it is that we want industry to provide versus uh overly prescribe and use continuous iterations with soldiers to inform. I would say also we have soldiers and users actively involved in the process so we can get their feedback and do so through experimentation and realistic conditions and overall I think this helps from material to training uh to employment on UAS the layered strategy from group one down at platoon
▶ 0:41:54level uh through uh our group two or medium range all the way up to our longer ranges at battalion and brigade. uh couple that with mod modular packages that can do anything from intelcoms, electronic warfare, all of which we can do so without putting soldiers at risk. on counter UAS.
▶ 0:42:12Also continuing to modernize capabilities not only through operational fix sites for some of our operational units as well as the soldier common kit and supporting operations in the homeland and focusing in on that sense uh that decide the ability that we need to do so and pair those weapon systems and also intercept from non-kinetic kinetic and even at the homeland low collateral capability given some of the urban environments.
▶ 0:42:38Um and finally, I would just uh collectively underscore it's imperative to keep pace with this and to continue to operate speed that we operate as a team both with the Department of Defense. We've done great things uh with the DIU, with our joint services and certainly with industry to share those best practices, insights and a partner across many efforts. And I thank you very much for your continued support uh for your members and look forward to your questions. Thank you.
▶ 0:43:09Sorry, Major General David Andrew, I'm sorry, David Stewart. There we go. Trying to change your name. Chairman Whitman, Congressman Courtney, distinguished members of the subcommittee, and of course, best wishes to ranking member Norcross. Uh, thank you for inviting me here today to discuss counter small UAS gaps, requirements, and projected capabilities.
▶ 0:43:33I serve as the director of the joint counter UAS office or JCO, the DoD's executive agent for countering groups one, two, and three UAS. The small UAS threat is present and constantly evolving. Conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine demonstrate how advances in hardware, software, and tactics are making drones more autonomous, easily acquired, and deadlier.
▶ 0:44:01Compared to the IEDs that killed and injured thousands of American service members, UAS are more dangerous because they actively surveil, target, and deliver lethal effects from the air. Importantly, this threat is not just in operational environments abroad. Small UAS are becoming more prevalent here in the homeland.
▶ 0:44:24The JCO leads and synchronizes joint requirements, technologies, training, and doctrine to minimize duplication and redundancy. We are the connective tissue of the DoD, working daily across the department and inter agency with industry allies and partners on all things counter small UAS. The JCO assesses urgent capability gaps and accelerates material development to our war fighters and enhance their lethality.
▶ 0:44:55Funding an enhanced common operating picture, investing in continued development of a costefficient counter small UAS aector and transitioning multiple systems to the services. The JCO has also funded operational assessments to multiple combatant commands to get kit and war fighters hands and simultaneously inform future service rapid acquisition decisions.
▶ 0:45:21We continue to invest in future technologies like low collateral aectors, high-owered microwave and directed energy. To further inform service acquisition decisions and accelerate future system development, the JCO hosts instrumented demonstrations where our industry partners showcase capabilities and we invest in promising service-led RDT&E efforts.
▶ 0:45:47Beyond material, the JCO executes rapid response teams to combatant commands, providing expertise on system imp placement and operation. We funded creation. We funded the creation and further development of the DoD's only joint counter US university and online modules to build doctrinal and training foundations. We also contributed to the DoD's counter UXS strategy and assist with policy development.
▶ 0:46:17Lastly, there is no silver bullet. The breadth of this threat requires a layered systems of systems approach. With your continued support, we aim to move faster for our war fighters and governmentwide stakeholders to outpace this threat at home and abroad. Thank you. Thank you, Major General Stewart. I appreciate the testimony of our witnesses and we will now proceed to questions. Um, let me start by asking the entire panel this question.
▶ 0:46:46Where where we see ourselves today is in the middle of a significant threat by unmanned aerial systems small and otherwise. Most of what we've seen is small. We've seen incursions at places like Joint Base Langley Eustace at Pikatini Arsenal. Those things should concern us deeply. As I have gone and gotten the briefs on these threats, it's very clear to me that this is more than just a hobbyist that mistakenly flew a drone over a US military facility. This is purposeful.
▶ 0:47:16It's meant to not just gain information, which much of it can be gained by other sources, but it's meant to probe. It's meant to determine what is the reaction of the United States. What capabilities do what capabilities do they have and how will they uh act and then how can our adversaries counter that if they did show choose to do something? Uh to me, that's that's very very problematic.
▶ 0:47:41Uh, Major General Stewart, I want to ask you if there was um a major incursion tonight at United States military base, what would the response be? You talk about having kit uh are there is there is there kit at these bases? Is there a kit that's in a mobile unit that can go? Uh what would we do? How would we respond?
▶ 0:48:02How do we do things in a way too that not only eliminates the threat but I think as importantly gives us the opportunity to gain intelligence on the source of that threat, the capability of that threat. You know, it's one thing to completely kinetically destroy something, but it's another thing to be able to take it out uh to take the the threat away, but also to recover enough information to where we can uh take another step forward in our in our countermeasures. So, how how do we how do we do that?
▶ 0:48:30And how do we take lessons learned at Langley, especially where in my mind there was a complete breakdown in decision-m? I felt bad for the base commander there who said, "Hey, you know, I want to be able to act." Uh, this this platform was there for over 45 days repeatedly. Uh, there were unfortunately responses we had to make in relation to that. As this base commander asked people above him, they said, "Oh, don't worry about it. you have the authorities.
▶ 0:48:59Uh if if if you think it's an imminent threat, then you can use them. And he said, "That's not the question I'm asking. I'm asking if I use that authority, will you back me?" Nobody above him would say that. They'd say, "Oh, you have the authorities, you can do it." So, here you have an '06 at a base that's 18 months away from retirement uh and is trying to make sure he's doing the right thing, but is not quite confident that the folks above him have his back.
▶ 0:49:23And then when we asked the folks from the Pentagon to come in and give us their assessment of that, we got a nice long assessment that was um word salad. And then when I asked, "Well, what's the Pentagon's response going to be?" Pentagon says, "Well, we we're going to we're going to impanel a work group," my head exploded. So, I I want to know uh SANS's uh impaneling a work group. How are we going to address this? I understand the cross jurisdictional issues.
▶ 0:49:52I think the authorities are clear in what the United States military has. I understand concerns by FAA, FCC, all of those different entities, but I would argue that the protection of our men and women in uniform and those facilities are job one and that should be the priority. So, Major General Stewart, I know I've given a lot of background there, but I want to get your perspective on where would we be today if the same thing happened today at Langley or Pikatini? What would our response be?
▶ 0:50:20and could we act immediately to counter that and to gather the necessary information to make sure we're learning about the nature of threat. Each service and each installation will have different circumstances based mostly on the threat.
▶ 0:50:40And what we're finding with the threat is there are multiple ways to navigate whether that's using radio frequency uplink down link using uh way points through satellites or loading optics into use the terrain to fly. We're now even seeing tethered. So back to the point that a there is no one silver bullet. There's no one single way to detect these different threats.
▶ 0:51:08So you need a system of a systems approach sure. Each service will look at the individual installations and the requirements that are required for capability. But beyond material, you point out some very good uh observations that training is essential, rehearsed, regularly rehearsed battle drills and just really understanding uh policy which the JCO has produced uh videos to help installation commanders understand
▶ 0:51:38their authorities. And then lastly, I would just say uh I believe and assess that the capability is there. We have a bit of a capacity problem across uh each one of the services at installations, but each service is prioritizing installations based on maybe critical infrastructure as well. And lastly, I know the Northcom commander is looking for flyaway kits. Yeah, I think that's critical.
▶ 0:52:05It'd be it'd be great if you could provide for the subcommittee uh a an inventory of kit that's in place on these bases. I understand each service branch is responsible for their base. And then I think mobile kit is critical too for maybe bases that don't have quite as high a level of threat, but if something's there, we can mobilize kit within 12 hours and have it on site to do both sensing and and efforts to be able to neutralize these efforts.
▶ 0:52:32So if you could give us current assessment of that, uh that that would be great. I want to now go to my colleague, Mr. Courtney. You Mr. Chairman, um Mr. back um in your testimony and actually on page three you actually spelled it out in writing um about the fact that the um traditional approach to defense procurement testing and fielding is simply unattainable. That's why DoD with support from Congress must reinforce progress made over the last few years.
▶ 0:53:00Um you know as I think every member knows in the committee uh chairman Rogers and Mr. Smith ranking member are very focused in terms of this year's NDAA in terms of acquisition reform. I mean, is there specific um ways that we can help solve this um issue of traditional procurement So, uh I would love to spend the next 40 minutes and the next day talking about that um because uh uh the
▶ 0:53:31um the energy and passion that I've got that we've all get about getting after that is so enormous. I I I guess maybe to to kind of just hit a couple of points really quickly. Um first I think you got to you know if if you look at the the world and the way that we operate um uh this this whole kind of defense procurement uh universe we have we have the most dynamic market economy in the world here in the United States.
▶ 0:53:57The only place in our entire economy that operates kind of like an old style Soviet 5-year plan is actually the way that we do uh kind of defense uh procurement and budgeting over time. Um and if you compare that to the commercial tech world that I come from, which is dominated by um uh massive demand but uh that you have confidence in but uncertainty about where that demand's uh going to come from and massive competition all the way up to the moment of sale. um we live in a very different world in defense.
▶ 0:54:27So, a couple of concrete things that I think we should do differently that learn from that world. Um the first one is a shift from a very complex requirements-based approach uh to a needs-based approach. Um, so from a 300page document that tells the tech sector, here's exactly what we want you to go build. Even though we may not know because they're the experts, it's their tech.
▶ 0:54:49It's a statement of the problem that we need operationally with the war fighter working together with the tech uh leaders to then come up with solutions to that problem. That's actually we do at DIU, but we need to scale that uh across the department. That'll help us go fast and also leverage tech to really solve the problem. Um second um it's about uh changing the dynamic to move to to flexible funding as uh we have at DIU thanks to the Congress as of last year.
▶ 0:55:17Um but we need to have that I think at greater scale and in the services uh as well and move from a of an approach that's based on programs of record um uh which may make sense for certain categories of of activity but for technology that moves at an incredibly rapid pace. it makes no sense to be identifying exactly what you're going to buy in two years when the thing doesn't exist yet.
▶ 0:55:39And so moving from programs record to something looks more like a portfolio of record um together with the right kind of transparency uh so that Congress can provide the oversight necessary to be able to move within that portfolio. Third, it's about having the talent and the paracity of talent for the department to be able to move in the right people in and out to be able to help with all of uh help with all of this. and we have massive numbers of people who'd actually like to help, but we make it very hard for them to do so. Um, and then fourth, it's about the approach to risk.
▶ 0:56:08Um, and that dynamic that I mentioned at the end of my comments that we've got to go from a kind of zero defect uh uh world to one in which um, you know, in in the company that I used to work for, we used to talk about a 100 nos for every yes. Um uh if you think about the what it took for SpaceX to get to the kind of launch capability they have and how many failed launches there were before they got to those successes compare that to the way that we do it in uh in the government system. We've got to be much more comfortable with failure on our way to success.
▶ 0:56:38And we also that means we need to be partnered with Congress differently because we need the Congress to help support the concept that we will fail on our way to success. Great. That's very helpful and honestly it's really aligned a lot with some of the testimony we've heard from industry over the last few months or so and um and you know we're going to get to a place pretty soon we start putting pen to paper um in terms of NDA this year and certainly if you or your staff follow up um you know with our committee staff
▶ 0:57:08I mean it really I think there's a window of opportunity here on all those issues about requirements reform funding flexibility uh you know workforce and risk I mean those are um we want to make sure we can you know help um unclog the system here because obviously it's uh you know the urgency of everyone's testimony this morning I think is the overwhelming uh message. So thank you all for being here. I yield back. Thank you sir. Very good. Thank you Mr. Courtney. When I go to Mr. Jimenez thank you Mr.
▶ 0:57:37Chairman and uh Amen. Uh Mr. Beck. Um I think that uh we've my time here it's um it's pretty evident that the that the DoD is is got a culture of a fear of failure. Uh and uh I've quoted uh what uh what Mus does with SpaceX a lot where where failure to him is success because that means that's one more point of failure that won't happen because they figured it out.
▶ 0:58:06And so we need to get to that where DoD uh doesn't have a fear of failure. And then we in Congress also have to change our MO because u you know can you imagine if if uh if um Starship were actually a NASA thing uh and then you know second one blew up or the first one blew up the second one wouldn't have flown for five years. Okay. And yet he just continues to fly. So we need to get to that. All right. and failure is just part of the process and and to to get us there.
▶ 0:58:36I'm going to I'm going to I'm going to pivot a little bit. Um, in um 2017 I I went to uh at the time I was the mayor of Miami Day County and I went to Israel uh because I I had a fear and I still have that fear that um that our critical infrastructure in my case I we operated the Miami International Airport um was going to be vulnerable to uh to drones and if uh if I had five drones
▶ 0:59:06I could probably stop air travel worldwide. I all right if I do something you know coordinated. So my my question is by the way we haven't done anything since 2017 that I've seen uh to protect our critical infrastructure especially airports etc and transportation infrastructure. Do we share information with the civilian sector and how how can we accelerate the sharing of information so that we can protect the homeland better?
▶ 0:59:35I know we're trying to do it for our war fighter. I'm okay with that. I'm happy with that. I think we, you know, that's our responsibility. But are we leaving the civilian sector behind because um they're just as vulnerable as the war fighter? Anybody want to take that one off? Well, Mr. Beck, it's going to fall on you. Okay. I I can start I can lead off. Okay.
▶ 0:59:59Uh, Congressman, I I believe uh initiatives like Replicator 2 and what's happening on the southern border will help DoD and the inter agency advance uh our learning and coordination to identify problems here in the homeland which is really helpful. Also, I think Northcom being designated the synchronizer will help here at the homeland as well. From a JCO perspective, we have demonstrations that we do with our uh our partners in industry.
▶ 1:00:29We also uh monthly meet with four to eight industry partners to bring them in and and share our perspective and then learn from them. When you talking industry, you're talking about the people that are making the stuff that shoots these things down or are you talking to are you talking to like the airport authorities and uh transportation authorities and said how to make how to how to harden their u their infrastructure against you know these attacks. Mark my words mark my words. Okay. Absolutely.
▶ 1:00:59And I would say this is not a question of if it's going to happen, right? Because Murphy says if it can it will. Okay. I And so I would say both. Are we working with you know our civilian partners that have critical infrastructure to bring some kind of capability to uh to defend against these unmanned aerial systems?
▶ 1:01:20One one yes one example of that is we perform tabletop exercises where we bring in 30 inter agency partners from all over the government state and local uh to address policy and legal issues and then we bring up issues both konis and then looking at what's been learned in Ukraine and uh in the Middle East. So we do bring that body together to share ideas and come up with common solutions.
▶ 1:01:51If I could augment two as well, General Collins from the army, um I would say yes, we have in one particular example as we learned activities at Pikatenni, the ability to do that cross collaboration with state, local and federal authorities and this was everything from how we sensed in particular environments when you have a lot of uh collateral and you had to decon that deconlict that uh two I'd also say in the intercept to make sure that we look at things like
▶ 1:02:21the ability to have like net capture or tangle drones to be able to drink bring them down without having you know s significant challenges in spectrum deconliction. I would say those are other areas and as we go through all of those battle drills as we've discussed how you have that cross communication and clear lines of authority are absolutely the things that we're starting to get after not just on the M side of material how we do that all the coordination that goes uh to effect in that infrastructure with other agencies. Thank you Mr. Chairman.
▶ 1:02:51Thank you Mr. Manz when I go to Mr. Carbajal. Oh sir, sir, can I add one quick thing to that or I don't I'm not good at this, but yeah. Okay. Um, so I would just add one one maybe two quick points. The the first one is that um one of the areas that we are spending an enormous amount of time on is particularly around the technologies and sensing to be able to have a much broader uh reach of sense including uh in some of the unique ways that we can do that.
▶ 1:03:16Not just uh leveraging kind of acoustic, radar, 5G, LTE, but also the data that exists out there in highly populated areas, leveraging all of that to do a better job of sensing and then leveraging AI to be able to pull all that together and do rapid decision-m based on it. So that's one thing. Second thing is the general mentioned uh replicator 2 initiative.
▶ 1:03:36Um we've actually had the FAA directly involved as part of that initiative as we've been going through it and we're uh we will be launching just next week um a low collateral defeat um uh DICso focused on those low collateral um uh technologies for for defeating drones particularly in highly populated areas and the FAA is is part of that effort. Very good. Thank you Mr. Carvajal. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to all the witnesses being here today.
▶ 1:04:05I being a Marine, I always get excited when we have Marines on the panel. So, um I have been glad to see different parts of DoD lean into commercially available technology like DIU with the blue list. Uh obviously, we need to push the cutting edge and rapidly rapidly prototype to innovate and to adapt to get the war fighter what they need. Uh Mr. Dr.
▶ 1:04:30Beck, can you walk me through the rationale behind the blue UAS refresh that took place in 2024? And are you worried that removing companies from the blue list will erode trust with the industrial base? Uh yeah. So I'm I'm really glad that you brought this up um because the uh the the So first I'll answer your specific question about what we did in 2024, but then maybe walk quickly through the evolution of blue.
▶ 1:05:00And I mentioned in my prepare remarks that um we are right now um uh doing a complete revamp of blue to get after exactly the challenge that I think you just alluded to. Um so the first is uh in 2024 we did a major refresh of the list in order to reflect the huge change that's come in the technologies themselves.
▶ 1:05:22Um and that was fundamentally about uh changing the uh the the quality uh everything from uh electronic warfare resiliency to lethality um as well as cost um because we need these things to be less expensive frankly than they were. Um and so uh that's what that was all about.
▶ 1:05:42Now as a reminder, the blue list primarily is uh from from its inception was about ensuring that uh that providers of unmanned systems were um uh were vetted uh to be compliant with the law uh in in in terms of Chinese parts uh and Chinese capital.
▶ 1:06:04Um and one of the things that sort of has happened over time is uh frankly the scale of the industry and the pace of the industry has outgrown the processes and the way that we uh the way that we work through it. So for example when we started blue in 2019 there there were the there were a couple dozen companies to be thinking about vetting.
▶ 1:06:23By the time we actually did the first list, there were over a hundred uh that uh that try to get on the list of which there were a couple of dozens that actually meet those hard criteria of uh established in the law. Now there are hundreds maybe even thousands that could meet that list and we were still using that same sippy straw effectively uh in order to vet them all in a very white glove way one at a time to issue an atto.
▶ 1:06:49And so we're changing that now so that the compliance piece that says do does this company meet the standard that's been established in the law and therefore are they legal to buy. We are making that working very closely with industry who we've been spending a lot of time on how do we revamp this. We're making that a truly compliance-based list that anybody who meets those criteria can get on and that's done constantly on an ongoing basis. um so that you you meet the criteria, you can be on the list.
▶ 1:07:18And then we're taking those that actually reach that higher standard um and that include those quality requirements and they're really the best of the best in terms of including for example one that just came on the list uh during this last revamp. That's the first US company using only US parts that's getting to Ukraine level levels of both cost with just a couple thousand dollars and dropping and thousands of units a month and rising.
▶ 1:07:43um and uh taking that and for that group which we're going to call blue select um effectively giving them that white glove treatment helping them to scale across a department. So it'll be kind of a two-tiered system. Um and that's really important to avoid the kind of challenges that I think you alluded to and that we've heard very much uh from our partners in the tech sector.
▶ 1:08:02Um, the third thing I'll say on this is that those first two pieces that I talked about are important, but the biggest thing that we've got to do to really make uh our unmanned systems capability grow in the way that we need to is put the scale behind this, the scale of demand signal um that will allow the flywheel to really go.
▶ 1:08:19And so that's about establishing, if I go back to my earlier comments, effectively a portfolio of record in the unmanned systems space, funding it at the right scale, and then giving the services as well as the rest of us a chance to go and help go after that. That was actually a good filibuster uh in answering my question. I have limited time now, but thank you. That was very thorough. Uh I'm going to submit these questions in hope that I can get an answer. Uh for the record, uh Mr. Chair, I yield back. Thank you, Mr.
▶ 1:08:49Carbajal, we appreciate that and we'll make sure that your uh questions get submitted and answered. Uh we'll now go to Mr. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to our witnesses for being here today. You know, I echo the chairman's uh frustrations with the flyovers at Langley Air Force Base and other installations. I know today is more about equipment, uh but I want to enter um I want to talk to you guys about an advisory real quick.
▶ 1:09:11So in 2020 there was an advisory and it was put out by the Department of Justice uh the Department of Transportation uh let's see um FCC and the Department of Homeland Security and the title of that advisory says the advisory on the application of federal laws to the acquisition and use of technology to detect and mitigate unmanned aircraft systems.
▶ 1:09:33I believe the reason our commanders hesitate is because they're treating a remote control airplane or a drone as if it was a passenger airliner. And so, um, I'd like to with the with unanimous consent, I'd like to enter this advisory into the record. Without that objection, without objection.
▶ 1:09:51and and so we're our team is looking at uh legislation to um possibly amend 18 USC32 code and basically changing the language from aircraft to manned aircraft and I think that will get rid of the stigma that comes with that advisory that came out in 2020. So again we've entered that in the record but let's go back to equipment.
▶ 1:10:11Uh I recently v visited the star base uh in Texas where Elon Musk is building the starship can take 150 plus tons of equipment into space and he cannot meet the demand. I mean it's amazing how efficient he is. He puts engineers on the floor not up in some air conditioned office. So if you're working on a rocket and you see a weakness you can go straight to an engineer and fix it on the assembly line. Or if you see an improvement you can go straight to an uh an engineer and fix it. Right.
▶ 1:10:41So every rocket gets better, better, and better. And one of the things I heard him say is he actually said when he has a project, he wants to fail as hard as possible as fast as possible. You can imagine if it drags on forever and ever and ever. So I I just want to echo the comments that you guys said. I also heard a comment, I think it was from General Stewart. Uh you said that this UAS threat is way worse than the IED threat that we experienced in the Middle East. And that makes a lot of sense to me.
▶ 1:11:10And so it's it is a real threat. So that being the case, and I'd like to ask all members of the panel is how are we doing on outpacing this threat at home and abroad? And we'll start with Mr. Beck. I think we've got a long way to go. So we are making enormous progress. Uh we are accelerating uh against that challenge. You could hear that up and down here.
▶ 1:11:35And I also think we've got a long way to go to get to the um the level of meeting the threat and also the level of pace of change that's necessary um in the way the technology moves across senside and act uh to be able to meet uh to meet the challenge at the at the scale that uh that we see it. Since we have limited time, let's just go real quickly. Lieutenant General Austin. Sir, thank you for the question. I would tell you from a Marine Corps perspective, we're happy but not satisfied. We're making progress.
▶ 1:12:01for fielding equipment that has the agility and the built-in open architecture to adapt and improve from a software and a hardware perspective. Uh but we've got a ways to go to uh keep up with the threat and exceed the threat. General Collins, I would say from the army, we're making progress, but we still have much to go on sense. As mentioned, we need to get the better ability to deconlict.
▶ 1:12:23uh you know there's a lot of uh you know uh uh you know things that are out there that we need to discriminate these targets understand what it is on the decide piece use AI with data to be able to identify and pair those with weapons and then on the intercept not only on kinetic but on non-kinetic and low collateral so that we can lower the cost curve and be able to get after some of the threats that are swarms and things that go into an autonomous mode. I think about the Patriot missile systems and things like that. Small dollars taking out big dollars.
▶ 1:12:52And General Stewart, ISIS, we've had some great success in the Middle East leveraging uh against group 3, one uh group three one-way attacks using uh Coyote, APKWS, and then SM2 3 and six. Uh so that was the most important and dangerous uh threat, the group three one-way attack. Now we're seeing both home and abroad the groups one and two smaller for swarm and mass attack.
▶ 1:13:22And uh Mr. Beck, you mentioned that you visit Ukraine and you went to the tunnels where I guess they're producing these drones at a very low cost. How would you if you could in this environment? How would you compare our capabilities to do the same or better to scale compared to Ukraine? Well, I mean, I I think that um we need to be able to scale at a whole other level of scale, but um I I I maybe I'd make two comments.
▶ 1:13:48Um first one is um that what I saw there was very impressive because you've got literally in basement and uh you know 3D printers developers uh together with war fighters uh coming up an incredibly iterative process to move um and um uh and you know our system is not is not built to do that which is why we right now buy you know four or 5,000 drones a year uh in in our system and there are 4,000 a day being produced over there. Um, so we're on a different scale.
▶ 1:14:18One thing I I would uh that we're doing to try to get after this or help to is to link the incredible capability that we have for hardware and software um in some of these emerging companies um who just don't have the scalability yet with the incredible capability and advanced manufacturing that we're now seeing in the United States, everything from digital uh digital engineering all the way through the 3D printing. Putting those two groups together and giving them an opportunity to effectively find each other so both can scale, which is strategic for us. That's the blue manufacturing initiative that I mentioned.
▶ 1:14:48Thank y. Thank you, Mr. McGuire. Now go to Mr. Bell. Thank you to the chair and ranking member. Uh thank you all for being here. Um during our hearing with Northcom, I asked General Guo about the importance of instituting strong policies to counter UAS um and to protect our military and intelligence installations.
▶ 1:15:11His recommend recommendations included putting all DoD installations under section uh 130i and and expand the rules of engagement for drones. Uh General Collins, what are the current capability gaps in detecting and countering drones near military installations?
▶ 1:15:33And how is the joint counter small unmanned aircraft systems office working to address these challenges with both both existing and future technologies? Thank you, Mr. Congressman. And I think that's a a very good question. And I think you know first as we start to look at what we're putting out on the installations in the homeland our ability to sense and look through the clutter that is a unique thing as part of the urban environment is one area that we're specifically looking at.
▶ 1:16:03I would say too in the decide area there's a lot of data that we get in from a lot of different sources and as Mr. Beck mentioned, you know, as we couple that data and we use the artificial intelligence to be able to to sift through that data in what is literally milliseconds to be able to respond and then on the intercept, you know, how do we have the ability to have that range and to go after whether it be swarm, whether it be individual and do so and defeat that in a very low collateral manner. So that's probably one area.
▶ 1:16:33I would say too we've been partnering closely with the the JCO team on particularly in the policy. Uh I would say uh first in the the coordination that needs to go into place. Uh we've learned a lot about how we need to be able to do that. Uh learn those lessons and replicate that across those all those various environments. Uh the second piece is a training aspect in which the JCO has helped AC I think across all the services.
▶ 1:16:58Everything from how we do installation training to mobile training to everything as simple as a video that someone can go out and watch. And then as already mentioned to the SOPs on those battle drills to get out there and rehearse, rehearse, rehearse. Uh and those are areas to make sure that folks are comfortable with not only the capability they have, what we're going to pursue, but that the authorities that they have so that they can make sure that they make timely decisions uh when uh something an incursion should occur. May I add, Congressman?
▶ 1:17:29Sure. Very quickly, uh I would say from a homeland perspective, looking at low collateral defeat mechanisms as well as active and passive sensors, not one or the other. Uh and then I know General Guio is looking to expand 130i to extend to all installations. I just want to reinforce that the services, all services are also pursuing uh those installations that are covered under 130i, but expanding would give us uh more crisis response ability.
▶ 1:17:58And then lastly, DoD is working to consolidate and clarify policy to prevent that uh policy confusion. And Mr. Beck. Uh, what remains of some of the key techni technical challenges DIU is seeking to overcome in its effort to identify counter UAS solutions for the protection of military installations and to what extent will such technology be relevant to other federal departments and agencies.
▶ 1:18:28Um so the um the the areas that we're really focused on break down into that sense decide and act um that we've all been talking about. And um so you know on the on the sensing side the the the ability for uh for our teams to be able to see what's coming. Um so that's new acoustic technologies. It's radar that's lower cost and smaller and can be mobile. Um it's it's leveraging 5G and LT and it's leveraging that commercial data.
▶ 1:18:54I I mentioned the AI enabled decision support which is really a critical critical area because the the the the volume of data and the speeds that we're talking about as the general referred to is is truly astronomical and that's a major area that we're focused on and frankly where the commercial tech sector has capabilities that are immediately applicable that we need to figure out how to get on board and we're in the middle of doing that. In fact, we have a project with the army right now that we're working very closely on exactly that.
▶ 1:19:18Um and then on the uh from a commercial tech sector particular on the on the uh ACT side um it's it's really about those uh those low low collateral uh interceptors um and uh and getting after those solutions um whether it's through electronic means or low kinetic ballistics means um or uh other forms of of bringing those uh those drones down.
▶ 1:19:43Um and those solutions I think are extremely applicable to uh to others um not just to us. I think that's my time. I yield back. Thank you Mr. Bill. Appreciate it. We'll now go to Mr. Hammed. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. General Collins, there's a huge contrast between what Israel was able to accomplish jointly with the US and partners in stopping hundreds of missiles and drones. And we saw how just one drone was used to tragically kill our soldiers in Jordan.
▶ 1:20:10Now, are we better able to counter drone threats in the region than when Iran barged Israel last year? Mr. Congressman, I Mr. Congressman, I think uh we have been able to take uh the lessons learned and we are better off as we start to take a look at how we've prepositioned capability, how we have put out our ability to sense, to distribute.
▶ 1:20:33Uh there are things that we have done in our intercept capability uh specifically on the time to launch from the time to seek and the time to be able to destroy. uh so that we've been able to learn and then as we start to look and we've partnered with the JCO as we start to see various parts of the threat specifically in the group three how they increase speed how they increase altitude and maneuverability making sure that we are not only keeping pace but getting ahead of the pace of how that we get uh we're able to address those threats also
▶ 1:21:03within the layering of the capability taking a look at other alternative means uh from both kinetic and non-kinetic means to provide a multi-layered approach approach for protection and could our outposts or even a major base such as Aludu and Qatar sustain such a barrage and wave of drones attack?
▶ 1:21:22I think we'd need to uh you know each every one of those sites we've looked at the threat profile to make sure that we've got the appropriate mechanisms to defend each one of those Mr. Beck, in your view as director of the Defense Innovation Unit, how could a partnership with Israel help bring us up to speed? Uh sorry. Um so I think there probably two two forms of getting to kind of specific technology.
▶ 1:21:48The first one is um uh actively learning from the experience that uh that the Israelis are having or they're putting obviously an enormous amount of effort into uh the challenges. They're seeing it every single day. Um and they have extremely adept technology uh in Israel. Plus they're very adept at leveraging technology from the rest of the world. And so we actively learn from what they're doing in DIU.
▶ 1:22:10Um and um and then the second piece is uh specific um specific kit, specific technology, specific companies that are doing that in Israel. And and one of the things about DIU uh when we will um if if the very best capability is is from one of our allies or partners, we will uh we'll take that on board and sometimes one of the two or three prototypes that we end up uh awarding to will be from one of our allies or partners. Thank you.
▶ 1:22:38And General Austin, the 2021 NDA requested a joint electronic warfare training range plan. Are you familiar with that? I am not, sir. Okay. Okay, when we're going to submit this question for the record, I hope just get a response. Okay, absolutely. And I know we've got votes coming up, Mr. Chairman. U I will submit my final questions for the record. I yield back. Thank you, Mr. Hammed.
▶ 1:23:02Uh and I would uh encourage other members too if you have additional questions to submit them for the record and in the face of us having a pending vote and then a lot of people getting ready to u to head back to their districts. We will do that. And want to thank our witnesses for joining us today. This has been incredibly helpful. It will indeed inform what happens in this year's NDAA where I think we need to take some additional steps forward. I know there's been a lot of discussion about 130i. I look at it and believe that the authorities are there.
▶ 1:23:30I think a lot of times there's hesitancy on other agencies uh for uh various and sunundry reasons. Many are not related to the threats that we face on the base. But again, you know, trying to mitigate what they believe is their risk. I think it's fairly clear under 13i what we can do and what we need to do, but we will make sure we provide a little refinement there in this year's NDAA. So again, I want to thank our panel today. Thank you so much for your reflection on what we need to do. Thanks for what you're doing. Thanks for pushing this issue forward.
▶ 1:24:00It is incredibly important for us to be able to do these things, especially in light of all the other tangential information that's come out in the last eight months on drone sightings across the nation. And I think people are in a heightened state of awareness on this and when they ask about what's happening on our military bases, they want to feel confident that we are responding and responding quickly. So I appreciate uh the panel and if there are no further comments this subcommittee stands