U.S. Representative Mike Rogers (R-AL), Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, delivered the following opening remarks at a full committee hearing on Department of Defense programs and initiatives to accelerate innovative technologies, solutions, and capabilities from the research and development enterprise to the warfighter.
Chairman Rogers' remarks as prepared for delivery:
Today we continue our review of DoD efforts to outpace the threats we face from the Chinese Communist Party.
Specifically, we will examine why the DOD continues to struggle with rapidly developing, scaling, and delivering innovation to our warfighters.
In recent years, the Department created new offices and initiatives like AFWERX, RDER, RCCTO, DCO, OSC, and now Replicator, to get after this problem.
But this alphabet soup of programs has had only minimal success.
For years we've been hearing complaints from industry about the glacial pace of acquisitions.
And from small innovators that lack the capital and support necessary to bridge the valley of death.
But mostly we're concerned about what we hear from our warfighters.
They tell us how upset they are with the failure to timely deliver the capabilities they need to protect themselves and defeat our adversaries.
And when capabilities are finally delivered, they tell us they often don't meet their needs.
This is immensely frustrating to us because this committee has spearheaded dozens of efforts over the last decade to –
- reform the Department's acquisition process; and
- make it easier for the DoD to partner with academia and the private sector to expedite the fielding of innovation.
It's also frustrating because our time to solve this problem is running out.
Where we've had trouble, the PLA's been successful.
They've invested heavily in new capabilities that are critical to success on future battlefields.
And they've figured out how to rapidly deploy them.
We're seeing them outpace us on hypersonic technology.
They're making advances in AI and quantum computing that we struggle to keep up with.
And our own military leaders have described the PLA's progress in space and in nuclear modernization as breathtaking.
Make no mistake - these capabilities are being developed specifically to defeat our military and deny our ability to freely operate in the Pacific.
We cannot let that happen.
We can't let China or any adversary outpace us on innovation.
Fortunately, the United States has something our adversaries do not – a robust innovation ecosystem.
From our universities, to military science and technology labs, to startup companies; there is no shortage of innovative Americans with the ideas and know-how to keep us ahead of our adversaries.
It's time for us to take advantage of this.
As we've seen in Ukraine, new technologies are emerging faster than tactics are changing.
The side that's faster at innovating, scaling, and deploying has the advantage on the battlefield.
I hope to hear from our witnesses today how the Department will harness our country's innovative spirit.
But most importantly, I want to know what more Congress needs to do to help the Department finally fix this problem.
