DoD should use likely $100B-plus reconciliation money on downrange needs: Wittman

Rep. Rob Wittman speaks at the Reagan National Defense Forum in 2023. (screengrab via RDNF Youtube)

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon is likely to end up with over $100 billion through budget reconciliation in the halls of Congress, a key lawmaker said today, money that he thinks should be prioritized for technologies urgently needed by troops operating around the globe, rather than only going to “big programs.”

Once Congress approves a single budget resolution, the House and Senate armed services committees will be tasked with figuring out how to spend additional defense funds. During comments at the McAleese and Associates conference today, Rep. Rob Wittman, R-Va., argued that in favor of handing some of that money over to combatant commanders overseeing current operations rather than routing it exclusively for major weapons programs.

“Where are the capability gaps today? Where are things that we need to close gaps quickly?” the head of the House Armed Services tactical air and land power subcommittee said. “I would argue the folks closer to the operational side know better than we do, and I want to make sure, too, that it’s not all about big programs. Obviously we need to be building submarines, ramping those things up, but it’s also about getting those dollars out there for these attributable, expendable systems.”

Congressional Republicans are aiming to pass a budget resolution with additional funding for key Trump administration priorities using a process called budget reconciliation, which allows a party with a slight majority in both chambers to push through legislation without the threat of filibuster. The House’s draft budget resolution includes an additional $100 billion for defense, while the Senate’s version includes $150 billion.

Republicans will have to coalesce around a singular approach on reconciliation with agreed-upon spending increases and cuts. But despite urging from Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., to boost defense funds past $150 billion, Wittman said its more likely that the final number is somewhere between the $100 billion to $150 billion already established as “guardrails” for negotiations.

In addition to floating more money to the combatant commands, Wittman said that Pentagon organizations  such as the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) and the Office of Strategic Capital, which focus on harnessing innovative technology outside of the legacy defense industry, will also need more money to scale up operations. However, when asked about whether he would be supportive of consolidating DIU with similar offices focused on innovation, Wittman indicated he was agnostic as long as more funding was allocated over all.

“Do you allow these various entities … do you let them do things independently cause all of them have a little bit of area of expertise? Or do you try to combine them all together and have one common enterprise?” he asked. “I’m not wed to a particular concept of the other, but what I am wed to is that we have to make much larger investments to get this innovative technology into the hands of the warfighter. And I think these entities have done a pretty good job about discovering what’s going on out there and helping these companies cross that bridge into the defense industrial base.”

Wittman, a proponent of Navy shipbuilding, also noted that he has been engaged with OMB director Russ Vought on the Navy’s Shipyard Accountability and Workforce Support (SAWS) proposal which would allow prime contractors HII’s Newport News Shipbuilding and General Dynamics Electric Boat to shift long-term funding for submarines earlier in order to invest in raising wages in the short term.

OMB has raised concerns with the funding mechanisms associated with SAWS, but Wittman said he hoped to convey that OMB could help move money to the shipbuilding workforce more quickly than Congress can through the normal appropriations process.

“OMB can allow the money in these contracts to be moved to the left, to move that up front, to address workforce. I understand some of the issues that have been raised with that,” Wittman said. “Our focus is, how do we, how do we get workforce issues addressed in the fastest way possible?”

Vought has been “very willing to listen, which is great,” Wittman said, noting that the OMB chief “hadn’t made any commitment. I don’t want to put any words  in his mouth, but I think he understands the importance of this enterprise and the things that need to be done, and I want to make sure we continue that constructive conversation.”

Drone Incursions Are ‘Probing’ By ‘Adversaries’

Following sightings of drones over domestic military installations in recent years, Wittman also stated his belief that the unmanned systems are operated by “adversaries” attempting to glean information on US counter-drone operations.

“I think that those efforts, where you see incursions of UAS [unmanned aerial systems] across the United States at military bases, I think that’s probing that’s happening by our adversaries, and they’re figuring out, What’s the response going to be? How’s the United States going to respond to that?” the congressman said in a speech with conference attendees. “I would argue we haven’t done a really good job of that to this point.”

Given the complexity of some reported drone operations, such as days of mystery flights over Langley Air Force Base in Virginia in December 2023, some officials have reportedly suspected a foreign adversary like Russia or China is to blame, though many have been reluctant to point fingers absent evidence. Other officials, like Northern Command chief Gen. Gregory Guillot, have said they have not seen evidence that the drones are operated by a foreign power and that many flights are thought to be the work of hobbyists.

The drone issue has kicked off a whole-of-government effort to fix policy gaps tying commanders’ hands from responding to potential threats over bases and to deploy technologies that could take out drones with minimal risk to civilian life.

In a subsequent gaggle with reporters, Wittman declined to elaborate on direct evidence that the drones are operated by an adversary power, citing the classification of briefings he has received from military officials. Nevertheless, he said the public should infer that the drone flights are not innocent errors.

“If you look at the nature of these incursions and the information that’s all public, I think you can reach a reasonable conclusion that these aren’t hobbyists flying these platforms over these bases, that there is somebody, whether it’s somebody here that wants to be mischievous… I think we have to assume that there is an effort here to try to discover what is the response of the US going to be?

“There’s too much of this happening and too frequent of a basis to say that it’s just random,” Wittman continued, pointing to the Langley sightings. “So that wasn’t just a hobbyist flying that platform in there just by mistake. I mean, this is a concerted effort.”