Washington, D.C. – U.S. Representative Mike Rogers (R-AL), Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, delivered the following opening remarks at a hearing on the posture of the Department of the Army for Fiscal Year 2026.
Chairman Rogers' remarks as prepared for delivery:
I welcome our witnesses and thank them both for their service to our nation.
Today, we kick off our review of the Administration’s FY26 budget request for the Department of Defense with the U.S. Army.
Unfortunately, we still have not received any real information on the Army’s budget request.
Nor have we received any detailed information on the Army’s Transformation Initiative, or ATI, the Secretary and the Chief announced over a month ago.
I believe I speak for most of the members of this committee when I say that we share the goal of developing a more modern, agile, and well-equipped Army.
And the broad structure of the ATI sounds encouraging:
• Rapidly delivering modern warfighter capabilities.
• Optimizing force structure.
• And eliminating waste and obsolete programs.
But we need to see your homework.
An overhaul this significant should be based on a thorough assessment of requirements.
And it should include a detailed blueprint of the specific changes being proposed and how the Army plans to implement them.
We need to see those assessments and blueprints.
We also need you to provide us a timeline for implementing ATI.
These details will help Congress understand, evaluate, and ultimately fund, your transformation efforts.
The Marine Corps did this well with Force Design 2030.
The Army should follow that model.
At the end of the day, we want to make sure this overhaul is being driven by battlefield requirements and NOT by artificial budget constraints.
I am pleased to hear you both are committed to fundamental reform the Army acquisition process.
You will find this committee to be a willing partner in that effort.
The battlefield is rapidly changing, but the capabilities we deliver to our warfighters are not keeping pace.
Next week, we will introduce bipartisan legislation that will overhaul the acquisition process and refocus it around rapidly equipping our warfighters with modern capability.
I look forward working with you both on this legislation.
I also understand you both hope to use ATI to build a force more relevant to a conflict in the Pacific.
While I have long supported the pivot to Asia, I urge you not to lose sight of Europe.
The U.S. Army is the backbone of our presence there—and that presence still matters.
Thanks to President Trump’s leadership, our NATO allies are finally investing more in their own defense.
But Europe’s rearmament won’t happen overnight.
Withdrawing U.S. brigades too soon would risk inviting further Russian aggression and leave our Eastern European NATO allies especially vulnerable.
We cannot let that happen.
Ultimately, to maintain readiness and achieve Peace through Strength, we must adequately fund the Army.
I look forward to working with you both to build the ready, capable, and lethal fighting force America needs to deter its adversaries.
