We have seen indicators of how they are advancing nuclear capabilities. And then within their missile force, they have more than several hundred Ballistic Missiles. The predominance of those are close range and short range missiles that affect or influence the peninsula. They have also deployed both medium and intermedia range that influence the region, and of course the development of the Intercontinental Ballistic Missile has impact here and Homeland Security in the United States. They have not slow down at this. We have seen as you have seen, this past year they demonstrated their capabilities. They conducted testing. They had more missiledefense and launches in 2014 and they had in the previous five years together. Each of these being in violation of the unsc. We have been taking steps both in material capability, in terms of our missiledefense, to counter that. As well as work with the republic of korea and their Ballistic Missile defense. They just recently funded an upgrade to their pac3s, which is important. We are working with them closely in terms of interoperability. We are working on their material solutions, particularly their air missiledefense center and system that they have recently established, we are working closely on that. Finally, as the admiral just noted, we look at our force the preparation of our force, and our plans, and all of those things in the last couple of years, it has been rather dynamic in order to change our thread and north korea changes. Senator fischer as a talk about Missile Defense, had you interpret china and their vocal opposition to placing a fat battery investment . General scaparrotti personally, i think this is a decision for south korea having to do with the defense of their country and for my perspective as a commander, the defense of our troops. Senator fischer but do you think that they are narrowly focused on missiledefense or d you think they are trying or du think they are trying to exert greater influence over the republic of koreas defensive strategy as a whole. General scaparrotti i think it is a greater influence. The fad system is focused on the defense of the peninsula. That is what it is specialized to do. It does not have any influence be on that. Beyond that. Senator fischer so that would improve defense against north korea, correct . General scaparrotti yes. Senator fischer do you think that south korea and the United States would push against the chinese reaction to that . General scaparrotti well, this is the decision process is underway right now. It is i can discuss on a military perspective but from a political and strategic perspective, i think both countries are taking that into consideration right now in terms of the other impacts that have to do with the deployment of fad on the peninsula. Senator fischer as you look at north korea and their missiles, are they looking away from more traditional conventional forces which they have what is it the fourth largest in the world . Are they moving away from that . General scaparrotti i would not say they are moving away, i think they have changed their strategy. It is the fourthlargest military in the world. It is a very large conventional sort force that is postured along the dnc. It is still a very present in dangerous threat. They are not resourcing it in the same way that they have in the past. We have seen a reduction in their capability conventionally. Senator fischer thank you. We had fascinating testimony on the suspect. I commend the record to you when the pieces of testimony was the historical record of the confrontation between a rising power and an existing power. Graham allison from harvard called it the luciditys trap where in 12 and 16 instances in history we have a rapidly rising power confronting an established power ending in war. Obviously, that is a daunting observation. There has never been a power that has risen as far and as fast as china and the last 25 years. Do you see military conflict with china in any way inevitable given the lucidity trap, how can we avoid it . Admiral locklear i do not think that conflict is inevitable. I think that the world we are in today is different in the worlds we have been in before in a great power rose. The effects of globalization and economic globalization and the move for people, the interconnectedness of banks and industry, of all of these things that you know very well about, i think have made it imperative that we understand the rise of china and that we, to some degree, accommodate the rise of china. Where we can to age attempt to shape the rise of china. I have said on many occasions that a china with the military that would come forward as a net provider of security rather than a net user of security would be beneficial not only to the region but would be beneficial to us as well. I think that is an achievable goal. I think it has to be looked at as had a we deal with china globally and Global Institutions from their role in the United Nations to how they are behaving and conducting themselves in other regions of the world. And how we interact with them there. I think it will require us to have focus on how we see their influence in this region. We have been talking about today, the primarily southeast northeast asia. And to understand we have to try to understand what percent of the equation is. It to be honest with you, some the things they have done are not really clear today. So, we always have a debate about whether we should continue if we are on build engagement. I am a proponent bill to bill engagement. There is benefit to us continuing to have dialogue, to establish those types of framework that allow us to communicate with each other during crisis. We have had good work with the prc lately in building some confidence Building Measures that allow us to understand how to operate with each others in these constrained water rates of that we do not have a bunch of lieutenants and captains and commanders of ships out there making, you know, bad decisions that might escalate as to something that we didnt escalators into an acidity trap. We need a lucidity trap. I think we need to be forthright about how we feel about these things in what the United States position is on behavior where does not match what our allies and our partners and our value system support. Clearly the thrust of the chinese has been economic, but an even more recent years, it has been military, as he testified today, tremendous growth and subsurface everything else. What you make of these actions which can only be characterized as aggressive, building islands off the shore and increased patrols in the South China Sea. What do you read into that in terms of chinas military or expansionist intentions . Admiral locklear i had the chinese communicate to its pretty clearly what they are doing. They see themselves as a renewing power, they have the assets to build a military. They are building specifically in the navy and air force. Because they understand the importance of protection of the global areas and you start to see them operate globally in different places, which the not operate years ago. They told us over and over again that they believe that the South China Sea is the historic territorial waters. They have, as far as i understand, refused to participate in International Legal venues you know, the filipinos have a case at the u. N. Law challenging the line. As far as i know, the chinese have refused to participate in that. So what they are doing is they are through what they articulate as peaceful means, they are building these land reclamations, they are establishing their position in the South China Sea, which opens their options down the road as this thing conditions as the situation continues to unfold. Im at a time, a oneword answer, do you believe it would be beneficial to the United States to a seatbelt law of the sea treaty . Admiral locklear yes. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Take give for your testimony and service. General locklear, think you for hosting me a couple of weeks ago. I appreciate your time. Please send my regards to your staff. Three hours on a saturday is above and beyond the call of duty for anybody, so let them know how much i appreciate that. I have been critical in many aspects of the president S National Security strategy in part because i think we have lacked credibility when we Say Something that we are going to do as a country, we need to do it, and i think that there are certain areas in the world are we have not done that. I think it undermines our National Security we do that. One area of the president s strategy that i have been supportive both militarily and economically is, as the chairman sir stated, the rebalance of the asiapacific, i believe we need to make sure this rebalance and optimization of our military forces in the region is credible. We are saying that we are going to rebalance, we need to actually do it, do you agree with that . Admiral locklear yes sir, i do. I think that the rebalance goes far beyond just military though. I think we have to also get our economic house in order as well, otherwise all the military rebalancing that we do will have the effect of he wanted admiral locklear to have. I agree with that. I appreciate the map. I wanted to talk briefly, you know, alaska is no longer in the por. Ao are to it aor. A robust air force presence, those troops are still there any event of contingencies, arent they . Admiral locklear that is correct. Have critical d. C. These troops, general scaparrotti please comment. In the region but also in terms of contingency forces with regard to your plans. General scaparrotti the forces in alaska, you know, if you take a look at the global they are as far west are made even farther west in some cases than hawaii. So, the Response Time that those forces would have in any significant contingency in northeast asia or Southeast Asia is quite good. An important, that is why the forces have been for a long time. There is a variety of forces up there that are important to us. The fighter squadrons that are there, the bcts that are there, including the range complex as we have in alaska are very important, because that is where we get our training for our hardest active environments that are aviators have to fly in. How about you, in terms of korean contingency issues . General scaparrotti i agree. We rely on those forces for Quick Response that were written need in times of crisis that we need in times of crisis. If you removed one or two ecgs from alaska bct to alaska, with that undermine our balances commitment. This goes to credibility. General scaparrotti i think from her perspective of what the other outcomes were of that from a regional perspective, there are be questions about the lost troops and the credibility of our rebalance strategy . General scaparrotti i think you have to look at it holistically. Not just take it from one perspective here. I would have to understand the remainder of the changes we are taking place in fact that have happened. Admiral locklear, what that undermine our rebalance credulity . In the region . Our rebalance credibility in the region . Admiral locklear any significant force structure move out of my aor in the middle of my rebalance the have to be understood and explain because it would be counterintuitive to rebalance to move significant forces in other directions. I agree with that. I think it is an important issue as we look at the because as you as a successful rebalance that is credible. I want to also command you for what commend you for what you stated on the strategic lift issue, i think that was something i saw my recent trip that was a concern, moving forces to different parts of the region, but the strategic lift seems to be lacking, both air force and our capacity, but to get there, we need to have a successful they dont are you confident that the realignment of forces from okinawa to guam and australia and other places is going to be on schedule in terms of cost and timeline that the department has laid out. I know that something this committee has been very focused on. Admiral locklear yes. In the last three years, i have had a lot of time to take a look at this and work through it. In my overall assessment is that we are on plan at this point in time. Thank you. Admiral in march, there was a report published on operational contract support and i am dirty enough about operational contracts that i pay nerdy enough about operational contracts that i Pay Attention to this stuff. We did not embrace trading on contracting is a core capacity in iraq and afghanistan, or command engage in a contingency and in that report, it indicated that your command is the furthest kind in incorporating operational contract support in this joint training exercises and operation plans. I know that you noted the you have taken some recent positive steps to address this, i would like you to lay out, if you would, briefly the steps you are taking to include operational contract support in your command joint training exercises. Admiral locklear thank you. Not to make excuses, but the reason we are trailing behind, is because we have not had the command signal that was put on the commanders in the middle east during the last several worse and we have not had that type of massive rapid buildup to support a war effort anywhere. That said, weve recognized it after that report as a deficiency. We are looking hard where are those contracting decisions made . How is the commander held visibility to those decisions during the execution of a crisis or the execution of the campaign because, when a crisis occurs, stuff just starts coming, and as was good, thats what makes a strong, but when it starts coming, at some point in time, you have to decide, was enough that go with not enough . Who is going to be the steward of it down the road . We are trying to understand the command and control of those contracts and how much the leadership knows and what they need to know and when. I think it is so critical that we never lose sight of this contracting oversight in planning and training as a core capacity, because we are never going to go back to the day, my father peeled potatoes during the second world war, we are not going to have trained more fighters peeling potatoes ever again, and all we have to do is look at the long, ugly saga of contracts to see what happens when contracting is not considered a huge priority. I appreciate your attention to that. On another note, i know that you are the primary provider in the navy for dod. Can you speak about the role of Airborne Electronic attacks and how critical they are and how critical is the asset of our only Electronic Warfare capability that is provided by the growler . Admiral locklear i have been a huge supporter of growler for my entire navy career, the transition of the squadrons that were so significant in many of our conflicts and provide us with what i thought was a decent advantage in our airspace because of the capabilities. I was glad to see that those capabilities and jim are keep abilities transitioned to, you know, basically a four Generation Air craft that can operate in any campaign i can envision that would be a higher and warfare in my aor Electronic Warfare provides me battle space then i may have to go fight for. Those growlers and to some degree the other higherend capabilities that we have our critical to allowing this to have that access. Finally, i wanted to touch on the stresses that we are feeling on remote piloting of aircraft. As you know, wightman is the home to the 20th reconnaissance squadron, and as pilots and as operators and is intelligence personnel along with the airmen who were operating the predator in the reaper are very important. We are putting incredibly high demand on these, so, they are not getting no more rest, they are not getting time for training, we cant even rotate some of them into a training capacity, because the demand is so high. Could you briefly talk about what steps can be taken to alleviate what i think is a critical problem, and these guys they are working round the clock and getting very little break, i dont know that we would do this to a traditional war fighter, but we are doing it to these rpas. Admiral locklear well, the advent of the systems in the past couple of decades and the obvious benefit that they brought to the battle space have put pressure, i think on the air force to be able to produce and the types of people and to be able to man them. Unfortunately, the demand is goes up and up and up. One of the asymmetric strengths of the United States is our ability to sense and understand what is going on. We have the best isr in the world but it is overtaxed for the number of demands we have globally. That shows in the faces and working hours of these young people. We need to rationalize number one, the platforms we are going to vest and in the future, and then build a structure of man training to acquit that is sustainable. I worry because i think we have a tendency to figure these as machines but dont realize the human component of this and the stresses they have, i mean, these guys are manning these things for 1012 hours and then going there families for supper and homework and then getting up quickly and going back at it. It is unique kind of role and certainly nontraditional as we look at the history of our military, and i want you to share with your colleagues that talking to some of these folks you know, it is clear to me that we need to be thinking about their wellbeing and whether or not we are over utilizing then and what kind of stresses we are going to see in that personnel. Thank you mr. Chairman. Thank you. Thank you, admiral locklear and general scaparrotti for being here today and for your men and women that serve, as well. As you know, the dod is planning to transfer operational control of south korea forces to the south korean government in the event of another conflict on the peninsula. This opcom transfer has been discussed for many, many years. I was originally supposed to take place in 2007, it has been delayed many, many times in the past number of years. It does appear to be currently and indefinitely postponed. So, ca