Tim Kaine Questions DoD Nominee About Plans To Counter Drone Incursions Amid Growing Concerns

Forbes Breaking News

During a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing last week, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) questioned Michael A. Obadal, nominee to be Under Secretary of the Army, about drone incursion threats.

Transcript

00:00Senator Kaine.

00:02Thank you, Senator Tuberville, and congratulations to the witnesses.

00:05I had a good conversation with General George and Secretary Driscoll.

00:10They called about the Army transformation initiatives, and I applaud its boldness

00:14and being quick out of the box, looking at the details.

00:19I will tell both of you two sort of just cautions or questions I raised in that phone conversation.

00:25The first was some of the discussions about reduction of personnel kind of at the top

00:32rank, you know, headquarters reduction, I think probably need to be done, but I just

00:37warned them in this committee a number of years ago.

00:41Mr. O'Keefe, you probably remember, reduction in headquarters staff was sort of a driving

00:46theme of one year's NDAA, and at the time I warned against sort of across-the-board reductions

00:52and argued that they should be done based on performance and priorities.

00:56The mandate to reduce headquarters staff went ahead.

01:00A few years later, we had a huge crisis in military housing, and what we realized is that

01:06that directive to reduce headquarters staff had been implemented by reducing massive swaths

01:11of people at the Pentagon who were working on military housing.

01:15And so while not lifting blame off the shoulders of the providers of housing, it really was

01:21a program that wasn't being managed well in the Pentagon because we let people go who were

01:25responsible for it.

01:26So I do think reductions are often important.

01:28I had to do a lot of them when I was governor.

01:30Just it should be based on priorities and performance rather than trying to hit some across-the-board

01:34number.

01:35I sort of echo what my colleague Senator King said.

01:37The second thing I asked, and questions have been asked about this already, about the proposed

01:43re-merger of Army Futures and TRADOC, as Senator Reid mentioned, TRADOC was established,

01:50I think, in 1972, and it oversees 32 schools that train 750,000 members of the Army.

01:56Army Futures was pulled out of it about six years ago.

02:00And, Mr. Obidal, I credit what you said, that hopefully lessons have been learned in that

02:04time period to streamline the way we do things so that when it's reassembled, those lessons

02:09carry forward.

02:10There's been some discussion about when it is reassembled.

02:14Will TRADOC, the 50-year-old organization, be put under the six-year-old organization or

02:20vice versa, or is that not even the way to look at it?

02:23Are they just being merged?

02:25I was assured by General George and Secretary Driscoll that there was not going to be any

02:29significant change in employment levels at Fort Eustice.

02:32I'm obviously going to be following that closely.

02:35But I do hope you're right, and I suspect that you'll be really working to focus on this,

02:41that those lessons learned during the six or seven years that Army Futures stood alone

02:46can be reinserted back in the merged organization in ways that help it be effective.

02:52So those are the observations that I made to General George and Secretary Driscoll.

02:56Again, I see much delight in the broader initiative, and I would make those same observations to you.

03:01Some questions, one for each of you.

03:05Mr. Obedal, the committee has been really focused upon understanding drone incursions

03:09that occurred at Langley Eustice in December 2023, and then also in New York and New Jersey

03:14at the end of last year.

03:16The challenge as a whole of government, not just military, but civilian, FAA, et cetera.

03:21But the Army is DOD's executive agent for countering small UAS,

03:26and it's charged with leading and directing the relevant doctrine, requirements, material and training standards,

03:32and also the capabilities to establish joint solutions for addressing current and future small UAS threats.

03:38Should you be confirmed, how will you ensure coordination between the services

03:42in developing a joint counter small UAS doctrine to help us solve this growing threat?

03:49Well, Senator, thank you.

03:50It's an important and topical issue, as we've seen growing over the years.

03:55In my mind, as the executive agent, the Army has to consider really two different buckets.

04:01One is the technical aspects of how do you layer technical protection and also effectors,

04:07which are more complicated in the United States than they are overseas,

04:11because they have to be less kinetic and more electronic, but also the layers of authorities.

04:18And so whether that's state, local, FAA, and Department of Defense,

04:23and then, of course, Department of Justice comes in with, you know, enforcement of these things.

04:28So those are very difficult tasks.

04:31If confirmed, there are things that I would look at from that aspect is how do we layer not only our capabilities,

04:36but then how do we effectively layer our authorities?

04:39The other problem that I think has been addressed is there is no single end-to-end authority in the Army for this,

04:48and that imparts risk.

04:51And, Mr. O'Keefe, congratulations.

04:53You and I had a good visit in my office.

04:55I'm going to ask you a question for the record about one of your three stated priorities that we discussed in my office,

05:01which is working on sort of TRICARE customer satisfaction, the Defense Health Agency,

05:07and especially the problem in getting providers compensated in a timely way,

05:13because if you don't do that, you end up with providers who would like to serve military members and families,

05:18but then they choose not to because they can't be compensated.

05:21We've had a lot of complaints about that.

05:22You and I had a good discussion about it in the office.

05:24I'll ask a question about that for the record, but appreciate your service,

05:28and congratulations to both of you.

05:30I yield back.

05:31Thank you, Senator.

Category

Transcript

Recommended