During a Thursday confirmation hearing, the administration’s nominee for Army Secretary vowed to make acquisition reform a focus of his tenure and to stand up a Rapid Capabilities Office meant to expedite the development and fielding of weapons.
Before being nominated as the civilian head of the Army, Eric Fanning held the position of acting Air Force secretary and collaborated with the service’s Rapid Capabilities Office, he told the Senate Armed Services Committee.
“If confirmed, one of the things that I’d want to do in the Army is initiate a Rapid Capabilities Office like I worked with very closely in the Air Force,” he said. “What we’re seeing based on what’s going on—on the ground in the Ukraine, Syria and so forth—is that our overmatch is not as great as it should be, as it needs to be, particularly if we don’t change course.”
Like the Air Force’s office, the Army’s version could address smaller, immediately-needed acquisitions as well as large scale programs, he said. Three potential problem sets the office could explore include: precision navigation and timing; electronic warfare and cyber; and the survivability of platforms, particularly aviation.
After the war in Afghanistan started, the Army stood up the Rapid Equipping Force in 2002 to fill urgent capability gaps. However, the Air Force’s Rapid Capabilities Office is arguably more powerful, as it is able to fill both immediate and near-term needs as well as contribute to expensive, high-profile programs like the new bomber.
Although SASC Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) had said Fanning’s appointment to acting Army Secretary violated the Federal Vacancies Act, he said the nominee’s resignation of that position fixed the problem. Fanning, for his part, applauded acquisition and Pentagon reform provisions pushed through by the committee.
The acquisition reforms in the 2016 National Defense Authorization Act will help the Army field equipment more quickly, Fanning said. In particular, the inclusion of the service chiefs in the weapons buying process holds great promise for keeping programs under control, as those leaders can help make requirements tradeoffs when needed to keep things on budget.
“Where I think there is the most potential is that requirements process. Getting the requirements right to start, and then at various points in the acquisition process, being able to make those tradeoffs.” “We learn more as we do, particularly if the technology isn’t mature. A good program manager should have the opportunity to come back to the chief of staff and service secretary and say, ‘I can get this to you a year faster if you can cut 5 percent of the requirement.’”
Fanning also expressed support for congressional attempts to pare back Pentagon bureaucracy through recent legislation that requires the reduction of headquarters staff by 25 percent and $10 billion in cost savings through cuts to administrative support over a five-year period.
That was a good start, he said. “I’ve been particularly impressed with how the Army went about it, because they really did try to de-layer the organization. I think this is something you never stop working on. Headquarters grow back if you’re not applying pressure in the opposite direction.”
Throughout the hearing, Fanning was candid about his concerns, including increased pressures on the force, and said he would push to reverse cuts to Army end strength.
“I do worry about the size of the Army today,” he said. The service is slated to go from 490,000 active duty troops to 450,000 soldiers in 2018, but the risk has increased since that decision has made. “I don’t see that factor changing. Two years ago, when we targeted 450 [thousand], we didn’t have ISIL.”
Readiness also continues to be a problem and has not improved since this summer, when Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley said only 30 percent of brigade combat teams were at acceptable levels. That number should be at least 60 percent.
“The Army has planned ways to get there, but there are many impediments in place,” Fanning said. “The demand on the force [and] the size that is makes it difficult to keep it going through those training rotations.”
Earlier Thursday morning, Milley expressed his support of Fanning’s nomination.
“I think Eric Fanning is a first-class, quality guy,” he said. “He’s a great professional, articulate. He’s intelligent. He seems very effective on the Hill, across the river inside the building. He knows national security. He’s very calm and analytical and he’s a pleasure to work with, so I think very highly of him.”