Statement Testimony of Mr. Alan R. Shaffer, Principal Deputy, Defense Research and Engineering Before the United States House of Representatives Committee on Armed Services, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and Capabilities

摘要

This is an exciting time to be in DoD Science and Technology (S&T), a time with a great deal of on-going change of focus. For the third straight year, we submitted a President's Budget Request for Science and Technology that conveys substantial change driven by the continuing shift in national security priorities to meet the requirements of fighting our current irregular military engagement. In total, we have moved over $6 billion of S&T investment over the last three President's Budget Requests to address new mission areas. This year's budget submission was guided by four strategic principles - the first stated by Secretary of Defense Gates in his FY 2009 Budget posture hearing; the other three were highlighted in Secretary Gates' April 6, 2009 speech that laid out the budget priorities for the Department of Defense. During the FY 2009 Defense posture statement, Secretary Gates specifically highlighted the need to expand basic research. The three remaining strategic priorities or imperatives were defined by Secretary Gates in his speech of April 6, 2009 outlining the Department's budget priorities. This speech clearly stated these imperatives of the Department, which are: 1. Taking care of our people. 2. Developing the capabilities to fight the current and future wars. 3. Improving our acquisition capabilities and accountability. The Department of Defense S&T budget submission we are discussing today addresses all of these priorities and more, building upon our budget request of the past several years, that aligns the S&T investment to Irregular Warfare challenges. We will discuss each of these principles in detail and highlight the recent accomplishments of the S&T program after we provide a macro-scale overview of the Department's S&T budget request.