Mike Rogers calls for defense investments to face new threats to U.S.

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Mike Rogers

On Wednesday, the powerful House Armed Services Committee held a hearing on the fiscal year 2024 Defense Department budget request. U.S. Representative Mike Rogers Chairs the Committee. Chairman Rogers said in his opening remarks, “The threats we face today are more formidable than at any point in the last 20 years.”

“The President’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan has left us nearly blind in the worst terrorist hotspot on the globe,” said Rogers. “North Korea is lobbing ICBMs over Japan and threatening us with nuclear annihilation on a near-weekly basis. Iran continues to fund and equip terrorists targeting Americans. Last week, one American died, and seven were wounded when the Ayatollah’s terrorist proxies attacked our bases in Syria. We continue to sit by and watch as his regime aggressively pursues nuclear weapons. Undersecretary Kahl told us last month that the Ayatollah is 12 days away from having enough fissile material for a nuclear bomb. We absolutely cannot allow that to happen. Finally, the Ayatollahs exporting kamikaze drones and other advanced weapons to Russia. And Putin is using them to kill innocent civilians and further his brutal invasion of Ukraine.”

“Putin is also threatening our NATO allies by deploying tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus, stepping away from New Start, and stepping up his harassment of American forces in Eastern Europe and Syria,” Rogers continued. “But most concerning is the strengthening alliance between Putin and Xi. Putin is literally fueling the Chinese Communist Party’s strategic nuclear breakout with Rosatom highly enriched uranium.”

“In what former STRATCOM Commander Richardson described as “breathtaking,” the CCP has doubled the number of nuclear warheads in just two years,” Rogers added. “The CCP is starting to outpace us on new battlefields as well. The CCP has leapfrogged us on hypersonic technology. They are fielding what we are still developing. And their rapid advances in space were one of the primary reasons we established the Space Force.”

“We all know the CCP is not building these new and advanced military capabilities for self-defense,” Rogers warned. “We watch their ongoing attempts to intimidate and coerce Taiwan and our allies and partners in the region. Just this week, they threatened the Navy with “serious consequences” after we exercised our right to sail through international waters in the South China Sea. And we’ve heard from Combatant Commanders over the past month about how the CCP has used economic coercion to gain footholds on new continents. We also heard about their efforts to expand their military presence in Africa and sign new security agreements in South America and the Middle East. Finally, we all know from the spy balloon incident that XI and the CCP are no longer hesitant to take provocative action against the American homeland. These are just a few of the growing threats confronting our nation. How we respond to them is the biggest test we face as Americans.”

Rogers said that the U.S. must respond to these growing threats “with sustained investment in the men and women of our armed forces and the modernization of our conventional and strategic deterrent. These investments are going to be expensive, but neither the President nor Congress can shy away from them. We no longer have the luxury of time.”

Rep. Jim Banks said in a statement, “We now have a Space Force, the end of operations in Afghanistan, a Russian war in Ukraine on the eastern flank of NATO and the ever increasing threat of the PRC military in the South China Sea and in other locations throughout the world.”

Rep. Mike Gallagher said, “I’ve repeatedly expressed my concerns about the Department’s pace for growing and modernizing the ships, aircraft, and weapons required for the potential fight with China. If we accept that we need more time to build the platforms required for a kinetic conflict, it’s my genuine belief that our ability to robustly use information and cyber operations should provide us with the opportunity to “buy time to maneuver” for our kinetic forces.”

Rep. Rob Wittman said, “The National Defense Strategy is clear in its focus on China as our nation’s pacing threat. During my previous tenure as Ranking Member on the Seapower and Projection Forces subcommittee, we oversaw critical capabilities of the long-range strike and long-range logistics portfolios. They are essential components for executing INDOPACOM’s military strategy and enabling operational success of the joint force competing against the tyranny of distance in response to ever-increasing Chinese aggression.”

“I am worried about the Department’s current direction regarding the composition of the U.S. military’s tactical fighter force structure and required capabilities,” Wittman continued. “I am concerned that our existing force structure is optimized for a counter-insurgency fight and is not prepared to address the challenges posed by expected threats in the INDOPACOM area. As I review the plans for each service, two threads are particularly concerning. First, our fighter force structure continues decreasing. And second, we are not able to deliver replacement aircraft at affordable prices to achieve similar quantities going forward. Meanwhile, our adversaries continue out-pacing us, building and fielding their own lethal fighter capacity and capabilities.”

On March 9, the Biden Administration submitted an $842 billion budget request to the Department of Defense for FY2024.

Rogers is in his eleventh term representing Alabama’s Third Congressional District.

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