U.S. Representative Mike Gallagher (R-WI), Chairman of the Cyber, Information Technologies, and Innovation Subcommittee, delivered the following opening remarks at a hearing on the Department of Defense's recently announced Replicator initiative.
Rep. Gallagher's remarks as prepared for delivery:
Good morning and welcome to today's Cyber, Information Technologies, and Innovation subcommittee hearing. This hearing seeks to answer two fundamental questions: What is Replicator and can it work?
The Deputy Secretary announced Replicator's expansive vision in late August – to field thousands of all-domain, attritable, autonomous systems within 18-24 months to combat the Chinese Communist Party's greatest asymmetric advantage – sheer mass. Nearly two months later, 10 percent of the way through an 18 month timeline, this subcommittee, the Armed Service committee, industry—including small and medium sized innovative companies seeking to supply our troops—and the American people are still left without any details on Replicator, what is necessary to make it successful, whether it is feasible, and what counter-effects it seeks to offer to counter Chinese military capabilities.
I agree with the Deputy Secretary that the threats we face warrant a revolution in the defense industrial base—expanding the number of supplies, reducing fielding timelines, scaling production, and modernizing the culture of acquisitions across the Armed Services.
Charles Beard remarked that, "The Industrial Revolution has two phases: one material, the other social; one concerning the making of things, the other concerning the making of men."
I have unquestionable faith in American industry to rise to the occasion and produce what the warfighter needs, as they have done throughout the course of our history and armed conflicts, but I do have concern when it comes to the Department instilling—no, demanding—that leaders and professionals in the Department focus on protecting warfighters, not protecting outdated processes at the former's expense.
Today, we bring together a group of experts from outside the Department of Defense to get their candid advice and perspectives on the challenges and opportunities presented by the Replicator Initiative—and the general theme which we can all rally behind: procuring more hard-power, faster. We are joined by:
•Mr. Bryan Clark, Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute;
•Dr. Bill Greenwalt, Nonresident Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute; and
•Dr. Paul Scharre, Executive Vice President & Director of Studies, Center for New American Security
These experts know how the Pentagon operates and understand the threats we face—positioning them to tell us whether this can work and how Congress can enable the US military to compete when it comes to modernization and mass. I also hope that Deputy Secretary Hicks will take this subcommittee up on our invitation to testify on this very topic in the near future.
