Senator Cramer Questions Secretary Austin and General Brown on Military Budget, Energy Assets, and China’s Defense Capabilities

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WASHINGTON – During a Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) hearing on Tuesday, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Charles Q. Brown, Jr. provided testimony on the Department of Defense budget request for Fiscal Year 2025 and the Future Years Defense Program.

U.S. Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND) specifically asked Secretary Austin and General Brown on the future of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR), flat defense budgets, energy assets in Russia, and the need to catch up to China’s capabilities.

Senator Cramer first questioned General Brown if it is his best military advice to continue cutting the defense budget to the point where the United States is below three percent of our GDP. Brown equivocated but ultimately said he would continue to work with Secretary Austin and the committee to advocate for the resources required by the Joint Force.

Senator Cramer then asked Secretary Austin about whether energy has become a weapon in the war between Russia and Ukraine, as well as against Iran. He explained the United States could be doing more to provide cleaner energy sources, rather than using sanction waivers to let Iran continue to sell to another adversary such as China.

“Hasn’t energy become a weapon in the war in Russia and Ukraine and frankly in Iran? Somebody said, ‘the position of the administration is to make Iran pay for what they have done,’ but sanctions waivers for Iran don’t seem like a great way to make them pay. They've now been able to use oil to build their financial reserves from four billion, which is what they had at the end of the Trump administration, to 75 billion today. Aren’t energy assets actually almost [as valuable as] hitting a military site?” asked Cramer.

“[Energy resources] can and will eventually have an impact on the country's ability to produce military capability. There's no question,” said Secretary Austin. “The question is if you're in a fight and you're fighting for your life, is that most important to you? Or can something else be addressed that can affect the battlefield, the current battlefield more effectively?” 

“Couldn’t we at least be doing more on our part to provide some of those much cleaner energy resources rather than letting Iran, for example, sell to China, another adversary and build up their [financial] reserves,” responded Cramer.

Further, Senator Cramer expressed his concerns about the Air Force eliminating legacy and current ISR assets, in addition to future ISR programs, “With the hope somehow low Earth orbiting satellites are going to solve the day.”

“I know you’ll say, because we always hear ‘well, the combatant commanders never have enough ISR,’ […] but their concern is escalating along with the deterioration of our airborne ISR assets,” said Cramer. “I know about the priorities, and we need to do more.”

General Brown said ISR is one of the more contentious fights across the Joint Force. Due to his capacity as the former Air Force Chief of Staff and now more broadly as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Senator Cramer asked him for an explanation.

“The things we're going to have to continue to do is not only look at the ISR that we do have to keep that moving, but at the same time look at opportunities,” said General Brown. “You mentioned space capabilities. That's going to give us access into areas we can't get with some of the ISR that we have today. So, it's the combination of things. It's how we work together with the Joint Force, and this is an area that I am focused on with the Joint Chiefs and the combatant commands to ensure that we are making best use of the resources that we do have—the capabilities in ISR—but I'll also say all the other capabilities that we provide for the Joint Force and how we balance that out to make sure we're putting it in the right place at the right time.”

Senator Cramer concluded his questioning by emphasizing the importance of finding a way to match China’s speed for all our modernization priorities.

“We’ve got to find a way to move at the speed of China. We’ve got to knock down some of these barriers, and please ask us for help if we need to do some things from a policy standpoint so that our innovators are in the fight with you rather than just the three or four primes that have the same bureaucratic traditions that frankly, the military has. We've got to become faster,” concluded Cramer.