During a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing prior to the congressional recess, Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) spoke of her concern for proposed cuts to the U.S. Special Operations Forces and Command.
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00:00Thank you, General Fenton. And we will start now with the Senator's questions. I'll start
00:06with five minutes of questions and go on to the ranking member. If we have other members join,
00:12we will have them ask questions as well. If we don't have other members join, we will recess
00:17briefly and move to the closed hearing. So this may be a very speedy round. But I will go ahead
00:25and start. And General Fenton, so you mentioned the personnel reductions in force. And since the
00:33announcement of SOF personnel cuts under the previous administration, I have been very firmly
00:38and vocally opposed to that. The return on investment our nation gets from our special operations forces
00:46is not only measurable, it is absolutely unmatched. Despite those reductions, SOF continues to do
00:53what it does best. It's adapting, innovating, and overcoming. So General Fenton, can you speak
01:00to how SOF is adapting its training pipelines to enable future operators to integrate high-tech
01:07capabilities like AI, cyber, and electronic warfare more effectively? Senator, I can. I would start by
01:18saying I think you know your SOF very well in terms of that we innovate. And I like to think we innovate
01:23for today and we modernize for tomorrow. And as we think about tomorrow, that's certainly through the lens
01:28of the lessons learned that we're watching vis-a-vis the events in Ukraine. And I think it's more
01:35important to not just observe those lessons, but as you laid out, institutionalize them. I think in the
01:40instance of institutionalization of those lessons I would offer U.S. Army Special Operations,
01:46ARSOF, has undergone two what I think are pretty significant efforts against these changing character
01:52of war. First is they've created a brand new course, the remote uncrewed systems integration course
01:58down at Fort Bragg. A course that is about a six-week program of instruction bringing together
02:04everything from learning how to build the drone, fly drones, and then certainly adapt them as we have
02:10seen on on the battlefield. The second thing they've done I would characterize in terms of
02:15institutionalizing is they've created a brand new military occupational specialty or MOS or job title.
02:22And that job title is remote systems integrator. And they've created that around the backdrop of a
02:28special forces warrant officer, a Green Beret warrant officer. And after their training is complete,
02:34a multi-month program of instruction, they'll go back to the special forces groups and start to
02:40really take that as a master trainer and weave it into all group training. You would see that across
02:45many of our components. But I think, Senator, those are a couple of examples I'd want to give you.
02:49No, that's great. And I think many of us recognize there's nothing more dangerous than a warrant officer.
02:56So appreciate that new MOS. So let's talk a little bit more about those cuts. A critical strength of
03:05SOF is their ability to lead on emerging technologies and developing those capabilities that kind of
03:12ripple across the broader force. And it speaks directly to the indispensable role that they play in
03:18today's complex threat environment. So any additional reductions that we might see in SOF wouldn't just
03:26impact our SOF. They would degrade our ability to project power around the globe. So General Fenton, from an
03:35operational perspective, how would further force reductions impact SOF's ability to respond to
03:40emerging threats in regions like Indo-PACOM, Europe, and of course, the Middle East?
03:46Well, Senator, I would offer right out the gate, that would absolutely hurt. It would hurt fairly
03:54significantly, especially against the backdrop of, I think, over the last three, three and a half years,
03:59we've seen a 5,000-person teammate reduction inside of SOF already. And that's against the backdrop of
04:07communications, logistics, intelligence, civil affairs and PSYOP, and of course, operators. I think all
04:15those are the type of capabilities that you see combatant commanders, as I mentioned in my opening
04:20statement, asking for more and more to the tune of about 35 percent. And I think that would absolutely
04:26impact that. We're already forced to make tough choices and trade-offs. Those would certainly
04:33make, those would amplify those tough choices and trade-off and really put us in a place where I
04:38mentioned earlier in the statement, we're already at a zero-sum game. Thank you. And just in the time that
04:43I have remaining, can you please characterize the situation that unfolds when we have soft teams
04:53that are out on the ground as force multipliers? And one example that I'm thinking about,
04:58this is many years ago, in Africa, when we had ODAs there, we were able to bring together many different
05:07nations. Those nations had teams on the ground as well, but they could not get along with the populations
05:14that exist in some of those regions. It took Americans and the leadership that these teams brought
05:22into Africa to bring all of these nationalities together into a collaborative force. Can you speak
05:30to how SOF really can provide that leadership in small teams, small numbers, without a huge footprint
05:37and be able to bring different nations together? I can't center. Small teams, small footprints,
05:45big impact is the way I like to think about it. And I think that starts with the fact that in our DNA
05:49is partnering. And SOF is known as a premier partner force. That's what we do across the globe and maybe even
05:56today to the tune of about 7,000 folks in about 80 different countries. It's all about beginning
06:02partnerships. And those partnerships then evolve into trust. And once you get trust, then we're able
06:08to do everything, build partner capacity, develop some level of competency and capability. And I think
06:15it just goes on from there and even do exactly as you just described, bring folks together who otherwise
06:21may not be together. And I think at the end of the day, amplify capability and capacity for any combatant
06:27commander or for the Secretary of Defense. Thank you, General Fenton. Ranking Member Slotkin.