Opening Statement (As Prepared)
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I wish to welcome Under Secretary Colby and to thank him for appearing today to discuss U.S. defense strategy and posture following the release of the 2026 National Defense Strategy (NDS). It is vitally important for the members of this committee to engage with departmental officials in candid and continuing discourse on these topics, and the 2026 NDS represents a significant inflection point in the conversation.
Together, the 2025 National Security Strategy and the 2026 NDS have altered the strategic framework to promote an “America First” approach to advancing material American interests. In a resource constrained environment, the NDS should identify clear objectives and how they are prioritized according to national interest, but I question whether this NDS properly reflects fundamental American values. For instance, the 2026 NDS appears to abandon U.S. commitments to international norms. In introducing the strategy, Secretary Hegseth criticizes previous administrations for upholding “cloud-castle abstractions like the rules-based international order.” American leadership has been instrumental to working collectively within that construct to our benefit as well as that of the broader international community. If the 2026 NDS can be so summarily dismissive of decades of multilateral growth, then it begs the following question: Aside from the President’s National Security Strategy, within what governing structure is the 2026 NDS intended to operate?
Looking at what is written, the validity of the 2026 NDS appears to be undermined by recent events. Secretary Hegseth’s introduction states, “No longer will the Department be distracted by interventionism, endless wars, regime change, and nation building.” Yet, last week, the President initiated an open-ended war of choice against Iran, and, in the past year alone, he has used military force in Venezuela, the Caribbean Sea, the Eastern Pacific Ocean, Yemen, Syria, and Nigeria. The President’s appetite for military adventurism, to include Operation Epic Fury, appears to contradict the strategy.
Protracted military operations in the Middle East would also appear to detract from the strategy’s top two priorities: defending the United States and deterring China in the Indo-Pacific region. As to the first priority, the expansive scope and the aggressive assertions associated with the strategy’s concept of homeland defense are concerning to me. I’m skeptical of the strategy’s assertion that the Department of Defense “will restore American military dominance in the Western Hemisphere” pursuant to the so-called Trump Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine. More specifically, the NDS states that the Department of Defense “will provide the President with credible options to guarantee U.S. military and commercial access to key terrain from the Arctic to South America, especially Greenland, the Gulf of America, and the Panama Canal.”
I’m also deeply concerned about how this Administration and this NDS treats allies and partners. There is no question that the contributions of allies and partners are crucial to an effective defense strategy. Indeed the 2026 NDS calls for allies and partners to assume various regional responsibilities with “critical but more limited support from the United States.” Yet, it appears to condition that support by prioritizing cooperation with “model allies” or “those who are spending as they need to and visibly doing more against threats in their regions.” It diminishes allies and partners that it characterizes as “dependencies” and those that “have been content to let us subsidize their defense.” I worry that this stance may undermine the trust and confidence that are required of strong alliances and partnerships, rather than bolster them. As a case in point, I am concerned by how the 2026 NDS addresses Russia’s brutal war in Ukraine. In calling for European allies and partners to “take primary responsibility for Europe’s conventional defense,” the 2026 NDS specifies that it “includes taking the lead in supporting Ukraine’s defense.” Instead of confirming robust U.S. support for Ukraine, it echoes President Trump’s emphasis that ending the war in Ukraine “is Europe’s responsibility first and foremost.”
So, does this strategy support the use of American military power, whenever the President chooses, to advance American interests, as the President defines them, in response to threats, that the President identifies, and without legal restraint, even when such uses are applied to the detriment of allies and partners or our standing in the world?
Lastly, I appreciate that the 2026 NDS recognizes that resources are finite and that it identifies revitalization of the defense industrial base and innovation as objectives for enhancing productivity. I am eager to learn how these goals and other strategic aims inherent to the 2026 NDS will inform specific allocations in the President’s budget request. I have often said that simply spending more on defense is not the answer. We need to be spending wisely.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I look forward to receiving the witness’s testimony. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that regular communications with the department are essential, and, in my view, they have been limited during this Administration. The Congress has the power of the purse; it authorizes the department’s activities; and it has a duty to conduct oversight. So, I appreciate the chance we now have for a healthy exchange, and I expect Mr. Colby to facilitate additional opportunities for future dialogue.