The U.S. Department of Defense is being urged by members of Congress to develop a national security plan to address China’s interest and investments in seabed mining.
Virginia U.S. Rep. Rob Wittman, vice chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, led over two dozen legislators including fellow Rep. Jen Kiggans in sounding the alarm on China’s involvement in mining critical resources, such as nickel, cobalt, lithium, manganese and zinc from the seabed.
Read More
Republican Rep. Jim Banks of Indiana is pressuring the Air Force to conduct an investigation of text messages warning against attending a conservative rally, according to a letter obtained exclusively by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
A master sergeant at Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota urged leaders to caution their troops about the potential for violence aimed at military members at a conservative rally or participating in the featured political advocacy group in leaked text messages on November 17, Fox News first reported. Banks, who chairs the House Armed Services military personnel subcommittee and heads the chamber’s Anti-Woke Caucus, said the texts from an unidentified leader defamed a conservative organization and interfered in an Airman’s right to free assembly and the political process, the letter stated.
Read More
The $886 billion defense spending bill that the GOP-led House is poised to vote on in the coming days is $26 billion more that the previous year, as the national debt climbs to $33 trillion. The bill has received bipartisan votes in both the House and Senate Armed Services Committees.
Read More
The Department of Defense has put a stop to a “child-friendly” drag show event slated for Thursday at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada.
Read More
“We are probably not going to be able to do anything to stop, slow down, disrupt, interdict, or destroy the Chinese nuclear development program that they have projected out over the next 10 to 20 years,” said Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley on March 29 at a hearing of the House Armed Services Committee. “They’re going to do that in accordance with their own plan.”
Milley is wrong about China’s nuclear weapons ambitions. He is, unfortunately, expressing the same pessimism that pervaded the Nixon, Ford and Carter years, when the American foreign policy establishment took the Soviet Union as a given and therefore promoted détente.
Read More
The House of Representatives passed the Fiscal Year 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) with added funding after Virginia Representatives Rob Wittman (R-VA-01) and Elaine Luria (D-VA-02) blasted the administration’s original military spending proposals for not including a large enough budget and for planning to decommission some ships. Wittman was the only Virginia Republican voting in favor of the bill after the House Freedom Caucus criticized it the day before the vote.
After passage of the NDAA on Thursday, Wittman praised it in a press release: “In today’s increasingly divided political world, today’s passage of the NDAA is encouraging proof that Congress can still work together for the greater good of our nation. This year’s NDAA does right by our servicemembers and their families, reverses Biden’s reckless defense cuts, counteracts Biden’s harmful inflation, provides the resources we need to deter Chinese aggression, and protects our homeland.”
Read More
The House Armed Services Committee (HASC) approved Wednesday a $37 billion military spending increase sponsored by Representatives Elaine Luria (D-VA-02) and Jared Golden (D-ME-02) with the support of HASC Vice-Ranking Member Rob Wittman (R-VA-01). Some of the proposed spending includes $1.2 billion for a new guided missile destroyer, about $7.4 billion to offset rising costs due to inflation, and $1 billion for more Patriot missile systems.
After the HASC approved the increase over President Joe Biden’s original National Defense Authorization Act proposal, Luria said in a release, “The bipartisan Golden-Luria amendment passed today will increase purchasing power and counter inflationary pressures on the military, invest in public and private shipyards crucial to maintaining the fleet, and ensures that we have the resources necessary to counter the threats we face from China, Iran, and Russia. This amendment sends a message to our adversaries that we will meet the moment when it arises, and I look forward to negotiating with the Senate on a final topline amendment number.”
Read More
The U.S. military depends almost completely on China for a mineral essential to the production of ammunition and other defense products, Defense News reported Wednesday.
The House Armed Services Committee released draft legislation on Wednesday which would require a briefing on the antimony supply by October and a five-year outlook on supply chain vulnerabilities, Defense News reported. The U.S. has no domestic mine for the mineral antimony, which is reportedly used in the production of night vision goggles, armor-piercing bullets, explosives and nuclear weapons.
Read More
Top American military leaders are set for another round of intense congressional grilling on Wednesday, following a day-long Tuesday session that at times featured blistering criticism of their part in the U.S. exit from Afghanistan.
The Tuesday hearing placed on the griddle Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin; U.S. Central Command Chief Gen. Frank McKenzie; and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley.
Read More
A major defense bill passed out of the House Armed Services Committee Thursday, with spending for Virginia. Congressman Rob Wittman (R-VA-01) said that Republicans led an effort to include an amendment that, in part protects three guided-missile cruisers based in Virginia from decommissioning. The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2022 passed 57 to two. It includes a top-line spending level of $740 billion, up from President Joe Biden’s proposed $715 billion, according to Defense News.
“While defense is often and rightfully viewed as a national priority, here in Virginia, this additional funding fuels economic growth and the creation of jobs. This growth will further translate to funding for state priorities such as roads, schools, and law enforcement. With many of these ships built, maintained and repaired in Virginia, the Commonwealth’s economy especially stands to benefit from the passage of the FY22 NDAA,” Wittman said in a press release.
Read More
Virginia’s congressional delegation, led by Congressman Rob Wittman (R-Virginia-01), is warning the Navy not to forget the East Coast and Norfolk Naval Shipyard as international military and commercial dynamics draw attention to China and Russia.
“As we pivot towards the Indo-Pacific in our global force posture, it comes as no surprise that we’ve bolstered our presence on our Western Seaboard through increases in homeported ships. This increased presence is of such magnitude that San Diego has eclipsed Norfolk in the sheer number of homeported ships,” the delegation wrote in a letter to Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Michael Gilday.
Read More
The Democratic and Republican leaders of the House Armed Services Committee called the current National Guard deployment on Capitol Hill unwarranted.
Democratic Rep. Adam Smith and Republican Rep. Mike Rogers, the committee’s respective chairman and ranking member, asked the Department of Defense to implement a “measured drawdown” of the guardsmen stationed at the Capitol in a joint statement Thursday.
Read More