Congressional task force eyes controversial recommendations on future of defense

A congressional task force studying how the Defense Department could better adapt for the future is preparing potentially controversial recommendations on issues like Pentagon spending priorities, U.S. efforts in Africa and the military's approach to pandemics like the ongoing coronavirus outbreak.

The House Armed Services Committee "Future of Defense" Task Force is plodding an uncertain path as the COVID-19 outbreak calls into question the timing of congressional defense legislation this year, task force Co-Chair Seth Moulton (D-MA) told Inside Defense.

"We don't know exactly what that's going to look like," Moulton said in a phone interview today when asked about the effect of the outbreak on the timing of the group's work. The task force was aiming to wrap up its work in April and release a report with recommendations prior to the committee's mark-up of the fiscal year 2021 defense authorization bill. The pandemic has also re-focused some of the group's attention toward how the military should be better prepared for disease outbreaks.

"This pandemic is changing everything in our lives to a certain degree. . . . It necessitates that we take a look at how we approach pandemics as a national security issue," Moulton said. "It's obviously going to have to figure into our conclusions and report in some way."

Since launching in October, the task force's work has largely focused on the U.S. approach to China's military modernization and foreign policy initiatives.

"The longer the task force has gone on, the more we've focused on the China threat and how we prepare for and defeat it," co-chair Jim Banks (R-IN) said in a March 2 interview, prior to the wider COVID-19 outbreak in the United States.

In addition to the co-chairs, the task force includes Reps. Susan Davis (D-CA), Chrissy Houlahan (D-PA), Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), Scott DesJarlais (R-TN), Paul Mitchell (R-MI) and Michael Waltz (R-FL).

During the early March interview, Banks said the task force will look at how the report's recommendations could be included in the committee's FY-21 defense bill. But he acknowledged there is "some uneasiness among some of our colleagues" with the task force's work.

"To do what we need to do, Seth and I both believe we need to eliminate parochial interests, identify sacred cows that can be sacrificed, in order to support the true efforts we need to generate the innovation it's going to take to compete in the long term," Banks said.

In February, Banks traveled to Silicon Valley to visit Defense Innovation Unit headquarters, as well as several nearby companies and investment firms. He also joined up with Moulton in Boston, MA, to speak with DIU officials at their location there, as well as visit the Air Force's Kessel Run software factory, Raytheon BBN Technologies, the MIT-Air Force AI Innovation Accelerator and Ginkgo Bioworks.

"I hope that a large part of [the report] will be related to the industrial base and supporting emerging technologies, innovation, what we can do to disrupt the culture of the Pentagon to allow for or spur more innovation and start-ups in the defense space," Banks said. "That's what hit home for me in Silicon Valley is the tremendous efforts that are occurring there to overcome obstacles and be competitive within the DOD acquisition framework and produce more emerging technologies."

He lauded the efforts of organizations like DIU and military services' attempts to be more innovative, but said they are often small-scale and disjointed. "DIU is growing in its effectiveness, but they are still trying to figure out what they want to be when they grow up," Banks said.

He suggested DIU could link together the service innovation organizations like AFWERX and NavalX. "I talked to some officials at the Pentagon. . . . Could DIU own those entities or could we link those entities so they work better together?" Banks said. "Those are the types of ideas we want to come up with and produce in our report."

Moulton took aim at the Pentagon's massive investments in traditional weapon systems and platforms like aircraft carriers and the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

"We're still spending the vast majority of our budget buying expensive traditional weapon systems while China is investing in AI, biotech and innovative ways to defeat the national security platforms that we have come to rely on over the last several decades," Moulton said, pointing to how U.S. carriers could be vulnerable to Chinese missiles procured at a tiny fraction of the cost of one carrier.

"If you add up all the money we're putting into AI, it's the cost of a few F-35s," he added.

Additionally, while Banks was in Silicon Valley, Moulton traveled to U.S. Africa Command headquarters in Germany before visiting U.S. military outposts in Djibouti and Kenya.

"In both places, we saw Chinese competition on the front lines," Moulton said. "They are investing heavily, tens of billions [of dollars] in Africa, and gaining strategic advantage while doing so."

Defense Secretary Mark Esper has been reviewing DOD forces, programs and activities in each combatant command and recently decided to send "elements" of the 1st Security Force Assistance Brigade to Africa.

But some lawmakers, including Moulton, are concerned the Pentagon review is cover to withdraw forces from Africa or continue to give it a lower priority than other areas.

"What's clearly not on the table is increases, and that is what we should be doing in Africa," he said, adding that he advocates for more diplomatic, humanitarian and economic spending in countries there as well. One of the final trips that would have informed the task force's work, a congressional delegation to the Arctic in early April, has already been postponed due to COVID-19, Moulton said.

"That was a high priority, because China and Russia have been investing heavily in the Arctic, and frankly we have not," he said.

While neither Moulton nor Banks wanted to tip their hand on the task force's recommendations, they promised the report will not shy away from the controversial issues they've raised.

"We've got some problems, and it's going to take a bipartisan effort, a major bipartisan effort, to right the ship," Moulton said. "We also expect to receive plenty of opposition and we expect the opposition to be bipartisan as well, because one of the biggest challenges is going to be making change in the face of parochial interests in Congress and parts of the DOD."