‘There’s No Fat’: Jason Crow Warns Special Ops Cuts Would Cost ‘Valuable Resources And Support’

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During a House Armed Services Committee hearing prior to the congressional recess, Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO) spoke about potential cuts to the U.S. Special Operations Forces and Command.

Transcript

00:00Member Crowe. Thank you, Chairman. Just picking up on that question stream,

00:06if you were forced to make 8% cuts, what would that look like? Just kind of paint a picture here.

00:14Well, I'm not a doctor, but if I was, it would be cutting into bone. We are already lean and

00:19efficient, and we try to be good stewards of everything, every penny that we gratefully

00:24receive, but we have to be conscious of making sure. It's always a good exercise to examine our

00:31resources and make sure that we're posturing for the future war and not fighting the last war.

00:36There's no fat in so common. There's no fat. No, sir. You're lean and mean as you're supposed to be.

00:40Yes. So cutting into that is cutting into valuable resources and support. Correct. Cutting right into

00:46the bone for sure, and so we're doing our best to avoid that at all costs. All right. General Fenton,

00:51you know, we've had a number of conversations about acquisition and rapid fielding capabilities,

00:55so I wanted to talk about that publicly on the record a little bit. Talk to me about the importance

01:01of giving you new authorities that would allow you to go commercial, to just rapidly speed up

01:08the acquisition process so we could field new technologies. Representative, I think a couple,

01:15thank you for having those discussions with us. It's certainly planted a lot of ideas in our team,

01:21and I hope did the same with yours. I'd start by saying, I think, when I talk about modernization,

01:26some folks may, and transformation, lots of times folks think technology only. Of course,

01:31you know, as SOCOM with people is the number one priority, we start there, then we talk about

01:35technology, but we also add authorities in there. And I think on this piece, this is a modernization

01:40that is, I think, long overdue. The reason I give it in that way, I think about it. Our current

01:47acquisition procurement system, and I mean no harm to everybody that's been a part of that,

01:51but I would just offer it, it's outdated. It's glacial. I think it works in years and decades,

01:56and probably rightly so for some of the highest ticket items, aircraft carrier, bomber, or fighter.

02:01But what we're seeing through the lens of Ukraine needs to be an acquisition site and procurement

02:06system that is hyperspeed, supersonic. Because over there, we're watching the changes in minutes,

02:13hours, and days. And that is a very stark contrast. Different, I came in 1987, I was using Vietnam

02:21era gear because that was a generational acquisition procurement process. That would be unacceptable

02:26today. So I think starting with that, and then acknowledging, it's probably a reflection of

02:31requirements, processes that need to be modified, updated, those authorities changed. If I could

02:37say it so bluntly, take more people out of that system. Get less hands on the requirements process,

02:44go from operator to commander, and then acquisition.

02:47And one way would be to allow COCOMs and others directly downrange, performing the mission to

02:53create those requirements.

02:56That's right. And then buckets of money, I think that's a challenge. There's a lot, I would call

03:00them handcuffs against the striated O&M, RDT&E, and procurement pots. I think there's a way to take a lot of

03:07that off, compress the multiple lines to just a couple, and really modernize there. And then I

03:12think lastly, as I think about the requirements process, certainly the buckets, time. Give us

03:19multi, give us an opportunity to think through multi-year processes. So two years might seem

03:24multi-year, I think to all of us. Multi-year probably needs to be five to ten years. So we

03:28can move at the speed and evolution of what we're seeing out on the battlefield.

03:32Okay. Last piece, my own combat experience underscored for me the importance of protecting

03:37civilians, doing everything possible to minimize civilian casualties. Because not only is that

03:42efficient, you know, less use of ammunition, more focus on the adversary, less distraction,

03:49but it's actually, there's a moral imperative to make sure that we're leading with our values,

03:53we're fighting with our values. We created a couple of years ago on a bipartisan basis, the

03:58Armed Services Committee created the Civilian Protection Center of Excellence. Could you speak

04:04very briefly in your own experience as to the importance of making sure that civilians are

04:10protected in the conduct of our missions and what that means for you as an operator?

04:15Representative, I think you laid it out pretty clearly. I think it's a strategic obligation,

04:20you call it a moral obligation, to accomplish the mission, and especially when we're talking

04:24about high-end kinetics, of eliminating the threat, yet also making sure that we protect

04:31noncombatants, civilians, vulnerable population, because that sends a very different message,

04:36that we are the United States of America, will do the mission, get the bad guys, so to speak,

04:41but protect those around it. And I think that differentiates us from the adversaries we're

04:46watching in motion right now. I think the other piece it sends is a message to the civilian

04:50population in that nation, that we are absolutely there to do the missions against bad actors

04:57or bad things, but in many, many ways to be the United States of America that they know,

05:01to be in a sense sending diplomatic message that, you know, we're here to reassure or assure,

05:06and I think you can do that in the way that you certainly SOCOM approaches kinetic operations.

05:11Thank you to you both. I'm out of time. I yield back.

05:14Thank you. Mr. Scott, you're recognized for five minutes.

05:19Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

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