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Senate Armed Services Committee Approves NDAA

The Fiscal Year 2021 National Defense Authorization act has been approved by the Senate Armed Forces Committee. It’s more than just a budget statement; it is an expression of national security strategy.  It will undergo changes as it winds its way through the legislation process. We present the Committee’s general description.

At no time in recent memory has it been more critical to have the personnel, equipment, training, and organization needed to signal to our potential enemies, as former Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis put it, “you, militarily, cannot win it — so don’t even try.”

The FY21 NDAA rests on this simple foundation. A credible military deterrent, however, requires more than just having the most planes, ships, and tanks. It requires forces in the right places, at the right time, with the right equipment and capabilities. Posture and logistics are equally as important as fifth-generation aircraft and advanced weapons. Just as necessary to an asymmetric balance of power are our alliances and partnerships, which must be strengthened and solidified. The FY21 NDAA addresses each of these areas, using the National Defense Strategy Commission as a roadmap and building off the authorities and investments provided in both the FY19 and FY20 NDAA.

The FY21 NDAA boldly sets policy and prudently aligns resources to achieve irreversible momentum in implementation of the NDS and ensure that America is able to prevent and, if necessary, win the wars not just of today, but tomorrow as well. With so much at stake, predictable, on-time, and adequate funding remains vital to the success of our military forces, as military leaders have told the Committee time and time again.

 After years of sustained conflict, underfunding, and budgetary uncertainty, Congress focused on rebuilding the military in the past two NDAAs. Progress has been made, but the work is not yet done. The National Defense Strategy calls for annual increases of three to five percent above inflation each year, which the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2019 did not provide for fiscal year 2021. This year’s NDAA focused heavily on prioritizing available resources to address the most worrying shortfalls and imminent threats. 

The FY 2021 National Defense Authorization Act advances four priorities:

Supporting our troops, their families, and the civilian workforce

The committee’s top priority is, and always has been, supporting the more than 2.1 million men and women who bravely serve our nation in our Armed Forces. They, along with military families and the civilian workforce, are the backbone of America’s national security.

The FY 21 NDAA prioritizes their health and wellbeing — ensuring our troops have the resources, equipment, and training needed to succeed in their missions. The bill recognizes that family readiness strengthens our force overall, and advocates for military spouses and children. It also ensures previous reforms to the military privatized housing program and to the military health system are implemented to rigorous standards, and reemphasizes a focus on training to ensure our service members can conduct their missions safely. 

       Charting a Course for the National Defense Strategy Now and into the Future 

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The FY21 NDAA continues to reinforce and accelerate implementation of the NDS. In doing so, the bill shifts our focus even more to the Indo-Pacific, our priority theater. Critically, the bill establishes the Pacific Deterrence Initiative to enhance budgetary transparency and oversight, focus resources on capability gaps, reassures allies and partners, and restores the credibility of American deterrence in the region. The bill also emphasizes a combat-credible forward posture, making investments in posture, logistics, and intelligence capabilities, and preserves our nuclear deterrent by supporting our nuclear triad, command and control, and infrastructure. Strategic and steady support for our partners and allies provided for in the bill, including through security cooperation efforts, will strengthen the capabilities of our friends, and ensure the balance of power remains in our favor. 

Building a Modern, Innovative, and Lethal Force

Our national security rests on our ability to attain and maintain an asymmetric military advantage. Our supremacy in the seas, in the skies, in space, in cyberspace, and on land must be protected, and as we look to the future of warfare, joint capabilities that ensure the protection of the joint force are essential. The FY21 NDAA ensures the United States fields a force of the optimal size, structure, and strategy, capable of supporting the conflicts envisioned by the NDS. Unfortunately, in key technologies and capabilities, we’ve fallen behind our near-peer competitors. The FY21 NDAA accelerates innovation so we can compete effectively and regain our comparative advantage over China and Russia. 

Reshaping Pentagon Management to Maximize Performance, Accountability, and Lethality

For too long, the Pentagon has operated as a lethargic bureaucracy. Since the FY15 NDAA, Congress has implemented numerous reforms to make the Pentagon more efficient, responsive, and agile. This year, the NDAA prioritizes accountability, with flexibility, for the Department of Defense — setting up management structure and processes that better harness innovation, operate at the speed of relevance, and effectively steward taxpayer dollars. The FY21 NDAA improves the Pentagon’s budget process, adjusts hiring practices to recruit and retain top talent in critical fields like advanced technology, acquisition, health care, management, and more, strengthens the defense acquisition system, and reshapes the Defense Industrial Base as a more resilient, advanced National Security 

Innovation Base. The COVID-19 pandemic exposed and exacerbated supply chain deficiencies across the government, and the FY21 NDAA takes numerous steps to secure the supply chain — both from overreliance on foreign nations and from infiltration by our adversaries. 

Achieving the aims of the NDS is a long game, and the committee takes a long view. The FY21 NDAA sets us up for success in the long term, putting our nation on an irreversible, confident, and steady course to achieve a peaceful, free, and prosperous world — not only for us, but for our children and grandchildren. 

Photo: U.S. Army Pfc. Justin Vnenchak maintains security in his sector while fellow paratroopers and Afghan policemen search a compound in southern Ghazni province, Afghanistan, on April 8, 2012. Vnenchak is an infantryman assigned to the 82nd Airborne Divisionís 1st Brigade Combat Team.   DoD photo by Sgt. Michael J. MacLeod, U.S. Army.