U.S. Representative Mike Rogers (R-AL), Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, delivered the following opening remarks at a hearing on the Fiscal Year 2024 (FY24) budget request.
Chairman Rogers' remarks as prepared for delivery:
I thank our witnesses for appearing and for your service to our nation.
The threats we face today are more formidable than at any point in the last 20 years.
But the administration's policy of integrated deterrence is doing little to actually deter them.
The President's disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan has left us nearly blind in the worst terrorist hotspot on the globe.
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 Ayatollah's 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 threating 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.
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.
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.
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.
Many of us here, regardless of party, believe we should respond 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.
As we speak, our adversaries are –
Rapidly expanding their military capability;
Showing much less restraint in employing these capabilities against America and our allies; and
Worst of all, developing a powerful alliance the likes of which we haven't confronted since the height of the Cold War.
We need to make the right investments, in the right capabilities to ensure our military can effectively deter, and if necessary, defeat our adversaries.
I look forward to working with all of you on this effort.
