[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                         [H.A.S.C. No. 117-3]

                      INNOVATION OPPORTUNITIES AND

                         VISION FOR THE SCIENCE

                       AND TECHNOLOGY ENTERPRISE

                               __________

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                   SUBCOMMITTEE ON CYBER, INNOVATIVE 
                TECHNOLOGIES, AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS

                                 OF THE

                      COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES

                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                              HEARING HELD

                           FEBRUARY 23, 2021

                                     
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]    

                               __________

                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
44-409                       WASHINGTON : 2021                     
          
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------  

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CYBER, INNOVATIVE TECHNOLOGIES, AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS

               JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island, Chairman

RICK LARSEN, Washington              ELISE M. STEFANIK, New York
SETH MOULTON, Massachusetts          MO BROOKS, Alabama
RO KHANNA, California                MIKE GALLAGHER, Wisconsin
WILLIAM R. KEATING, Massachusetts    MATT GAETZ, Florida
ANDY KIM, New Jersey                 MIKE JOHNSON, Louisiana
CHRISSY HOULAHAN, Pennsylvania,      STEPHANIE I. BICE, Oklahoma
    Vice Chair                       C. SCOTT FRANKLIN, Florida
JASON CROW, Colorado                 BLAKE D. MOORE, Utah
ELISSA SLOTKIN, Michigan             PAT FALLON, Texas
VERONICA ESCOBAR, Texas
JOSEPH D. MORELLE, New York

                Bess Dopkeen, Professional Staff Member
                Chris Vieson, Professional Staff Member
                         Caroline Kehrli, Clerk
                            
                            
                            C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              
                                                                   Page

              STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS

Langevin, Hon. James R., a Representative from Rhode Island, 
  Chairman, Subcommittee on Cyber, Innovative Technologies, and 
  Information Systems............................................     1
Stefanik, Hon. Elise M., a Representative from New York, Ranking 
  Member, Subcommittee on Cyber, Innovative Technologies, and 
  Information Systems............................................     4

                               WITNESSES

Coleman, Dr. Victoria, Former Director of Defense Advanced 
  Research Projects Agency, Senior Advisor to the Director, 
  Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of 
  Society, University of California, Berkeley....................     7
Fox, Hon. Christine, Former Acting Deputy Secretary of Defense, 
  Assistant Director for Policy and Analysis, Johns Hopkins 
  University Applied Physics Laboratory..........................     6
Kitchen, Klon, Resident Fellow, American Enterprise Institute....     9

                                APPENDIX

Prepared Statements:

    Coleman, Dr. Victoria........................................    52
    Fox, Hon. Christine..........................................    42
    Kitchen, Klon................................................    63
    Langevin, Hon. James R.......................................    39

Documents Submitted for the Record:

    [There were no Documents submitted.]

Witness Responses to Questions Asked During the Hearing:

    [There were no Questions submitted during the hearing.]

Questions Submitted by Members Post Hearing:

    Mr. Langevin.................................................    79
    Mr. Moore....................................................    80
    Mr. Moulton..................................................    79
    
 

  INNOVATION OPPORTUNITIES AND VISION FOR THE SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 
                               ENTERPRISE

                              ----------                              

                  House of Representatives,
                       Committee on Armed Services,
       Subcommittee on Cyber, Innovative Technologies, and 
                                       Information Systems,
                        Washington, DC, Tuesday, February 23, 2021.
    The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 11:00 a.m., in 
room 2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. James Langevin 
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

 OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES R. LANGEVIN, A REPRESENTATIVE 
FROM RHODE ISLAND, CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE ON CYBER, INNOVATIVE 
             TECHNOLOGIES, AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS

    Mr. Langevin. With that, the subcommittee will come to 
order. I'd like to welcome the members who are joining today's 
hearing remotely.
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    Members may use the software platform's chat feature to 
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    Finally, I've designated a committee staff member to, if 
necessary, mute unrecognized members' microphones to cancel any 
inadvertent background noise that may disrupt the proceeding.
    So with that, we'll get going with the formal part of the 
hearing and, with that, I'll give my opening statement.
    So good morning, everyone. I'm pleased to welcome everyone 
to the first hearing of our newly established Subcommittee on 
Cyber, Innovative Technologies, and Information Systems, and 
I'm proud to be chairing this committee alongside with my good 
friend and distinguished colleague, Ranking Member Elise 
Stefanik, and I look forward to our continued record of 
bipartisan collaboration.
    We welcome back our returning Intelligence and Emerging 
Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee members from the 116th 
Congress: Representative Rick Larsen, Ro Khanna, Bill Keating, 
Andy Kim, Chrissy Houlahan, Jason Crow, and Elissa Slotkin, and 
Representatives Mo Brooks and Mike Gallagher.
    And we welcome our new members: Representatives Seth 
Moulton, Veronica Escobar, and Joe Morelle, and Representatives 
Matt Gaetz, Mike Johnson, Stephanie Bice, Scott Franklin, Blake 
Moore, and Pat Fallon.
    So welcome to everyone. It's going to be an exciting year 
and term and I look forward to diving into some very important 
issues within the jurisdiction of the subcommittee.
    So, as we enter the 117th Congress and a new 
administration, we are pleased to launch our oversight 
activities by welcoming our first witnesses to frame the 
Department of Defense's current innovation landscape and what 
the Department should do to invest in, harness, scale, and 
transition the innovation, science, and technology required to 
ensure that the U.S. military--ensure the U.S. military's 
future edge.
    Today, we welcome, in their personal capacities, the 
Honorable Christine Fox, Dr. Victoria Coleman, and Mr. Klon 
Kitchen. I want to thank you all for joining us today.
    In a time when our national defense planning has shifted 
focus to great power competition, addressing the challenge of 
rising science powers requires an ambitious strategy of 
national investment and aggressive development in science and 
technology.
    Funding for basic research, applied research, and advanced 
technology development in our universities, laboratories, small 
businesses, and the tech sector plants the seeds required for 
our next-generation military engagements.
    Yet even with bipartisan support for significant increases 
in investment in our national security innovation base, somehow 
growth in the science and technology budget is almost always 
sacrificed to field the mature technologies of today.
    Well, while supporting our troops in the field is 
absolutely essential, we are putting our next generation of 
soldiers at severe disadvantage when we fail to prepare for the 
battlefield of the future.
    If the U.S. is to remain a global leader in technology, we 
cannot simply rest on our laurels. We must actively execute a 
comprehensive S&T [science and technology] strategy to advance 
innovation.
    We must invest in STEM [science, technology, engineering, 
and mathematics] education, university research, and programs 
that develop junior talent into future leaders. We must also 
actively endeavor to diversify our S&T [science and technology] 
workforce.
    Indeed, a strong diversity of background and perspectives 
is vital for any organization that aims to foster novelty and 
innovation.
    So on that note, we must implement policies that promote a 
sound economic, political, and strategic environment on U.S. 
soil where global collaboration, discovery, and innovation all 
thrive.
    The open dialogue and debate resident in academia and the 
research community can be anathema to the requirement for 
secrecy in the Department of Defense. But we must recognize and 
embrace how our free society provides the competitive advantage 
that lets us innovate faster than our great power competitors.
    So our free society establishes a dynamic innovations 
ecosystem, and federally funded open basic research focused on 
discovery has allowed American universities to develop an 
innovation base that has effectively functioned as a talent 
acquisition program for the U.S. economy, and that talent is 
required today more than ever, as much as ever, to solve our 
most pressing national security challenges.
    Indeed, great power competition is also a race for talent, 
and we must do better. That is why last year Ranking Member 
Stefanik and I introduced the National Security Innovation 
Pathway Act.
    The U.S. attracts many of the world's best minds to our 
universities and innovative companies which develop their 
expertise. These talented people fortify our national security, 
protect our citizens, critical infrastructure, and interests, 
and they improve our economy.
    Today, much of that talent leaves the U.S. because there 
are few pathways to remain. We must retain and leverage these 
scientists and technologists who boost the innovation that 
fuels our economic and defense competitive edge.
    So I would be remiss, of course, not to mention that our 
challenges over the horizon are rapidly changing. While the 
Department has historically focused on producing new hardware, 
we know that biothreats and pandemics can cripple economies and 
dock carriers, and that the wars of the future will probably be 
fought via software platforms with the challenge of who can 
push better improvements and new capability the fastest.
    So the Department, I believe, must pivot quickly to 
preparing us for this software-centric future and to treating 
the acquisition of the Joint Strike Fighter, just by way of 
example, and the sixth-generation fighters not as hardware 
platforms, but as flying computers wrapped in an airplane.
    So the Department leaders must drag data and software from 
back office responsibilities and afterthoughts onto the 
Department's center stage. So they must enable the innovators 
and change agents across the enterprise, change the way the 
enterprise--the Department buys and delivers software, and 
attract the necessary scientific and technical talent to get us 
there.
    We will not maintain our technological edge if we refuse to 
empower the Department to take risks, push scientific 
boundaries, challenge the red tape, attract a talented 
technical workforce, and protect its innovators.
    We must empower those who lean forward on innovation, 
wherever they are, and to enable the technological leaps that 
will ensure our warfighters never enter a fair fight.
    So with that, I look forward to this discussion, and I'll 
now turn to Ranking Member Stefanik for her remarks.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Langevin can be found in the 
Appendix on page 39.]

STATEMENT OF HON. ELISE M. STEFANIK, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM NEW 
    YORK, RANKING MEMBER, SUBCOMMITTEE ON CYBER, INNOVATIVE 
             TECHNOLOGIES, AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS

    Ms. Stefanik. Thank you, Chairman Langevin.
    I appreciate you holding this important hearing today, and 
thank you to each of our witnesses for being here.
    As the chairman noted, this is the subcommittee's inaugural 
hearing and the topic could not be more important. We have a 
vital mission here on this subcommittee that in many ways will 
shape the future of the Department of Defense and how battles 
are fought and won.
    One of those missions we have is encouraging innovation 
within the defense enterprise. Too often legacy programs and 
platforms are prioritized past their usefulness and consume 
resources for new technologies that will help protect the 
United States from future threats instead of those from the 
past.
    There are many reasons for this issue, from the 
Department's culture to congressional influence. However, we 
cannot afford to lose our quantitative or our qualitative edge 
over our near-peer adversaries, especially China, because of 
bureaucratic inertia or simply red tape.
    While we struggle to quickly accomplish our innovation 
goals, the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] leverages all of its 
resources through its military-civilian fusion to rush new 
technologies to the PLA [People's Liberation Army] and upend 
the current global balance of power.
    Make no mistake, we are in a competition to innovate and 
the side that innovates most effectively and efficiently will 
hold the strategic advantage that the U.S. has held since the 
end of World War II.
    To maintain a decisive edge over China, the Department of 
Defense must be willing to take bolder risks, develop new 
programs, and invest in new technologies. Congress, for its 
part, must encourage and support these actions.
    Thus far, Congress has given the Department some 
authorities to enable the acquisition of new technologies. Yet, 
we often hear from innovators about the, quote, valley of 
death.
    Taking an idea from a prototype to contract with the 
Department often takes years, and many small companies and 
innovators are unable to navigate and survive this process.
    The Department's short-term decision making impacts the 
long-term outlook for new technologies. But it doesn't need to 
be that way. We need to find ways to cultivate new ideas that 
don't fit neatly into strict programmatic timelines.
    Innovation also requires a talented workforce and we should 
focus on growing innovators within the Department. With all the 
exciting work going on, from AI [artificial intelligence] to 
bioengineering, the Department should be able to recruit 
personnel to work on transformational projects. Hubs like DARPA 
[Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency], the JAIC [Joint 
Artificial Intelligence Center], and SOFWERX offer talented 
people the opportunity to use their technical skills to solve 
the problems of the present and the problems of the future.
    We need to ensure the private sector is not the only driver 
of innovation. One issue that we keep running into is that 
commercially developed technologies become available to the 
U.S. after their active time. So we cannot maintain our edge if 
we are using the same products concurrently.
    One of the key questions I hope we touch on today and we 
continue to try to answer is how do we make the environment for 
transformational technologies and innovations more efficient 
and sustainable?
    I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today.
    And thank you again, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
    Mr. Langevin. Thank you, Ranking Member Stefanik, for your 
remarks. We now turn to the witnesses, then move into the 
question and answer session.
    Let me introduce each of the witnesses reading their bios 
and then we'll go to our witnesses for their statements.
    First, the Honorable Christine Fox. Ms. Fox was the Acting 
Deputy Secretary of Defense from 2013 to 2014, and until Deputy 
Secretary Hicks was confirmed this month, she was the highest 
ranking woman ever to work in the Pentagon.
    She also served as the director of Cost Assessment and 
Program Evaluation in the Office of the Secretary of Defense 
and was the president of the Center for Naval Analyses.
    She is currently the assistant director for Policy and 
Analysis at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics 
Laboratory, a university affiliated research center that has 
supported Department of Defense research for over 75 years.
    Welcome, Ms. Fox.
    Dr. Victoria Coleman. Dr. Coleman was recently the director 
of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and a member 
of the Defense Science Board. She's a senior policy advisor on 
microelectronics technology at the Center for Information 
Technology Research in the Interest of Society at the 
University of California, Berkeley.
    She was previously the CEO [chief executive officer] of 
Atlas AI and the CTO [chief technology officer] of the 
Wikimedia Foundation. Welcome, Dr. Coleman.
    And, finally, Mr. Klon Kitchen. Mr. Kitchen is a resident 
fellow at the American Enterprise Institute where he focuses on 
the intersection of national security, defense technologies, 
and innovation.
    He was previously the director of the Heritage Foundation 
Center for Technology Policy, and while working as a Senate 
staffer, he helped create the Cyberspace Solarium Commission, 
which I had the pleasure of serving as a commissioner.
    So thank you for that, Klon, and welcome to you as well.
    So, again, I want to thank all of our witnesses for being 
willing to appear today. We're looking forward to your 
testimony.
    And with that, let me turn now to the Honorable Christine 
Fox for 5 minutes for your remarks.

STATEMENT OF HON. CHRISTINE FOX, FORMER ACTING DEPUTY SECRETARY 
 OF DEFENSE, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR FOR POLICY AND ANALYSIS, JOHNS 
         HOPKINS UNIVERSITY APPLIED PHYSICS LABORATORY

    Ms. Fox. Thank you so much.
    Chairman Langevin, Representative Stefanik--Ranking Member 
Stefanik, and distinguished members of this committee, thank 
you for the opportunity to speak with you today in my personal 
capacity about innovation opportunities and a vision for the 
S&T enterprise.
    During my tenure in DOD [Department of Defense] and through 
my current position at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab 
[APL], I have had the pleasure of working closely with 
scientists and engineers who are innovating with new 
technologies.
    It is clear to me that incorporating innovation into DOD 
programs is more important than ever. In my view, the principal 
challenge DOD faces is not a lack of innovation. Thanks to 
investments that must be sustained, new technologies are 
plentiful.
    A sampling of APL's government-sponsored work includes 
brain-computer interface, biotechnology-based sensors, first 
dogfight between an AI-driven combat aircraft and a human 
pilot, and much, much more.
    Then there is commercially developed technology. Recently, 
we have seen a greater engagement by DOD with commercial 
developers. So innovation abounds today. In fact, my colleagues 
call it a technology explosion.
    The tougher task is how to adopt all this new innovation 
more rapidly into DOD programs. In my view, the principal 
challenge to adoption is less about supply and more about 
priorities.
    Some argue that DOD must shed much of the existing military 
force structure to leap ahead. While some divestiture of 
outdated systems would be desirable, the reality is that there 
is a near-insatiable demand for ready U.S. forces to defend 
vital American interests.
    We will need manned ships, tactical aircraft, ground units, 
and more for the foreseeable future, all of which require 
considerable resources for training, equipping, and 
sustainment.
    We should not underestimate the enormity of this task. Yet, 
the technology explosion is here. But even if the U.S. may find 
it hard to adopt new capabilities, our potential adversaries 
are not standing still.
    So this brings us back to the question of not whether to 
move forward, but how to do it. To make progress despite 
intense demands and limited resources requires a clear vision 
for what a future force should look like and a path to get 
there.
    Developing this vision of the future force will define the 
priorities for new technology adoption and reveal the 
capability gaps that should drive S&T investment. My colleagues 
and I call this process ``here to there.''
    When it comes to future military forces, visions abound 
inside and outside the Pentagon. Many current visions fall into 
what I would call the near here--concepts of operations, such 
as distributed warfare, that are designed to maximize the 
utility of the existing force structure while incorporating new 
technologies.
    These shifts are significant and needed, but they don't 
take full advantage of new and envisioned technologies. They 
don't get us to ``there.'' The more futuristic visions suggest 
changes like replacing entire categories of military platforms 
with massive swarms of expendable robots.
    These kinds of visions are exciting and potentially 
transformational. Too often, however, they are not grounded in 
operational realities.
    Take expendable robots or drones, for example. Time and 
again, I find myself coming back to questions like, how did the 
drones get to the fight, say, from a warehouse in California to 
the Western Pacific?
    What are they supposed to do when they get there? Drop 
ordnance? Or will they provide intelligence and communications 
links, and in that case, what does in fact project combat 
power?
    Are these drones really disposable? For the advanced 
missions, you would need a highly capable, even exquisite 
platform, one that is likely quite costly. And how will the 
drones be controlled, or will they operate autonomously?
    These questions raise a host of other practical and ethical 
considerations. The point here is not to drop a wet blanket on 
drones or any other transformative technology. These kinds of 
questions can be answered and, in many cases, answers are in 
the works.
    The point is to ask them. It is imperative, then, for the 
S&T community to marry up more closely with operational forces. 
Innovation that is not grounded in operational realities will 
not, ultimately, make a difference.
    New concepts of operation developed without an 
understanding of new technologies will fail to make 
revolutionary change, the kind of change America needs to 
sustain our military preeminence.
    We need to evolve our military force more rapidly and 
purposefully than we do today. Innovation is not the limiting 
factor, only our vision and wisdom in determining where and how 
to use it.
    Thank you again, and I look forward to your questions.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Fox can be found in the 
Appendix on page 42.]
    Mr. Langevin. Thank you, Secretary Fox, and I appreciate 
you being here again with your testimony.
    I now recognize Dr. Coleman for 5 minutes.

 STATEMENT OF DR. VICTORIA COLEMAN, FORMER DIRECTOR OF DEFENSE 
   ADVANCED RESEARCH PROJECTS AGENCY, SENIOR ADVISOR TO THE 
  DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH IN THE 
    INTEREST OF SOCIETY, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY

    Dr. Coleman. Thank you. Can you hear me, first of all?
    Mr. Langevin. Yes, we can hear you fine.
    Dr. Coleman. Wonderful.
    Chairman Langevin, Ranking Member Stefanik, distinguished 
members of the House Subcommittee on Cyber, Innovative 
Technologies, and Information Systems, it is truly an honor to 
testify before you today, as well as nerve-racking.
    Throughout the Cold War and the turn of the 21st century, 
the U.S. military enjoyed significant technological advantage. 
However, this advantage has been steadily eroding.
    America's adversaries have made asymmetric strides in 
building their own technological advantage. This is not a 
result of reduced U.S. investment in national security S&T. It 
is a result of the technology investments outside the defense 
sector surpassing those within it.
    The fruit of this commercial innovation are equally 
available to U.S. competitors and adversaries. But the DOD 
struggles with accessing technology and talent outside the 
defense perimeter.
    Coupled with inefficiencies in the U.S. defense technology 
pipeline and China's aggressive national strategy of military-
civil fusion, the technology advantage of the U.S. military is 
being stressed to breaking point.
    Private sector companies like Intel, Microsoft, IBM, used 
to dominate the ecosystem from which the DOD now draws many 
core technologies essential to its mission.
    But in the past 20 years or so, consumer technology has 
emerged as the driving force. The technology landscape today is 
defined by companies that bring technology to consumers: a 
phone maker, a retailer, an advertising company, and a company 
that keeps your personal address book.
    Commercial and consumer markets matter to securing the 
technology advantage of our military because they drive 
technology evolution. And our peer competitor, China, also 
happens to be the world's single biggest consumer market.
    China's military-civil fusion is overseen personally by 
President Xi Jinping, and aims to enable the PRC [People's 
Republic of China] to develop the most technologically advanced 
military in the world by eliminating the barriers between 
China's civilian research and commercial sectors, and its 
military and defense industrial sectors.
    In contrast, the United States struggles to bridge the gap 
between commercial innovation and military technology needs in 
key areas such as semiconductors, 5G, AI, and aerospace 
technology.
    We must break down the barriers between the U.S. defense 
industrial base and the commercial sector. In the world of 
technology, speed matters. The only way to get ahead and stay 
ahead is to be faster than our competitors.
    As our predecessors envisioned force multiplication as the 
key strategy for defeating the Soviet threat in Europe in the 
aftermath of the Second World War, we should aspire to time 
compression as our key strategy.
    To achieve time compression on our platforms, we need to 
evolve our platforms from the monoliths they are today to agile 
mosaic systems so that we're able to rapidly swap out 
components and always have the latest innovations deployed in 
our platforms.
    How can we get there? It has been said that bits beat the 
atoms. It's all about the software. If we start thinking of the 
F-35 as an information appliance versus an airplane, the whole 
way we approach designing, building, and maintaining it 
changes.
    A lot has been said about supply chains. Innovation can 
create new businesses here at home to re-shore critical 
industries such as microelectronics. Scalable domestic 
manufacturing reduces our dependence on potentially adversarial 
supply chains. It creates good jobs here at home and maintains 
vital know-how in the United States that is essential for 
innovation.
    To sustain a technology advantage, we must act to rebuild 
our industrial complex. Everything starts with people. We need 
to grow the DOD's workforce by expanding programs such as the 
SMART [Science, Mathematics, and Research for Transformation] 
Scholarship Program.
    We also need to increase the diversity of the STEM 
workforce by broadening the recruitment pool in terms of 
expertise, background, and location, and we need to create a 
diverse and inclusive environment where everyone is welcome and 
everyone can succeed.
    We need to make innovation matter. Innovation in transition 
is also critical but often overlooked. DARPA's Embedded 
Entrepreneur Initiative and National Security Seed Fund are 
great examples of what can be accomplished within existing 
authorities.
    Finally, we need to broaden knowledge into the 
nontraditional innovation community by establishing a national 
security open innovation framework.
    Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Dr. Coleman can be found in the 
Appendix on page 52.]
    Mr. Langevin. Thank you, Dr. Coleman.
    Mr. Kitchen, you are now recognized for 5 minutes.

STATEMENT OF KLON KITCHEN, RESIDENT FELLOW, AMERICAN ENTERPRISE 
                           INSTITUTE

    Mr. Kitchen. Good afternoon, Chairman Langevin, Ranking 
Member Stefanik, and members of the subcommittee. Thank you for 
this opportunity to testify.
    Our technology and innovation industries remain the envy of 
the world and the foundation of our national prosperity and 
security. These advantages, however, are not foreordained and 
they must continually be secured, and it's in light of this 
that I would like to make two points.
    First, we must understand how and why the technology sector 
of our economy is growing in influence and importance within 
national security decision making.
    The technologies that will determine the United States 
ability to secure its people and interest are overwhelmingly 
being developed for commercial purposes in the private sector.
    This leaves the national defense more dependent on the 
private sector perhaps than ever before precisely as China, who 
blends its public and private sectors in a strategy of 
military-civil fusion, is emerging as a true peer competitor 
and rival, economically, technologically, and militarily.
    With this in mind, it follows that new partnerships between 
the government and industry are essential, and this leads to my 
second point. We must have a more agile and secure technology 
acquisition system. But there are serious challenges to 
realizing this system.
    The National Defense Industrial Association, or NDIA, gives 
the U.S. defense industrial base a barely passing C grade, and 
says it's getting worse.
    Specifically, in a report last year the NDIA noted that 
scores for three dimensions--production inputs, industrial 
security, and supply chain--all fell below a passing grade of 
70 out of 100 points, with industrial security bottoming out 
with an F at just 63 points.
    The U.S. cannot settle for an industrial base with a 
passing grade and we certainly cannot accept a failure in 
industrial security. We have to do better.
    Our current defense contractors are essential for key 
capabilities, especially more key platforms. But they are not 
typically the source of leading-edge developments in artificial 
intelligence, advanced robotics, or quantum computing.
    These are overwhelmingly developed by companies who do not 
regularly work with the Department of Defense and who are not 
currently trying to solve defense challenges.
    Now, this is not due to a lack of patriotism. It's the 
result of poor incentives and bureaucratic hurdles, and we can 
clear the way with three changes.
    First, we need to recognize and employ new incentives. The 
current system does not prioritize the best available 
technology. Instead, it favors cost accounting, regulatory 
compliance, and administrative ease.
    Budgets are programmed years in advance with little ability 
for companies to realize profits in current fiscal years. And, 
perhaps most significantly, research and development are often 
spread across many small contracts, instead of investing deeply 
in key or in promising capabilities.
    Put simply, technology companies don't need government 
investment. They need government contracts, and they need to 
know that these contracts can then be scaled into real programs 
of record.
    We must also get rid of regulatory burdens that dissuade or 
block these new partners. These burdens are all well documented 
and I'll not itemize them all here. Suffice to say this. We 
need to work with companies who have more engineers and coders 
than lawyers and contract officers.
    Finally, the U.S. should prioritize the security of our 
domestic, technological, and manufacturing capabilities. Don't 
forget it was industrial security that was the lowest scoring 
dimension on the NDIA report.
    This is not a call for economic protectionism. It's a call 
for commonsense security. In a world where securing nations 
means securing networks and supply chains, it is unavoidably 
true that the loyalties and the security practices of those 
creating and building our defense innovations matter.
    In the final analysis, American policymakers and citizens 
should be encouraged, but also feel a sense of urgency. Our 
technology and innovation industries are creative, capable, and 
patriotic.
    But if the United States is going to secure its people and 
its interests going forward, we must do better in leveraging 
and securing this new defense industrial base.
    Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Kitchen can be found in the 
Appendix on page 63.]
    Mr. Langevin. Thank you, Mr. Kitchen. I want to thank all 
of our witnesses for their exceptional testimony today. Your 
insights have been very helpful.
    We're now going to go to the question and answer session, 
recognizing members for 5 minutes. I'll begin with questions 
and then turn to Ranking Member Stefanik.
    If I could, Ms. Fox and also Dr. Coleman, Congress' goal 
for the breakup of the Under Secretary of Defense for 
Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics [AT&L] was to create an 
Under Secretary for Research and Engineering.
    That would be the Department's science and technology 
visionary, the one with the time and ability to look past the 
horizon into the future.
    Do you think that we are achieving this goal, and if not, 
why not?
    Ms. Fox. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think that the emphasis 
on S&T that has been brought about by the separation of AT&L 
into the two components is good.
    But I think that there's a challenge in that it perhaps has 
exacerbated the key problem that many of us have talked about 
this morning, which is adoption of technology.
    I think that you need to have them hand in hand. We need to 
figure out how to get the new technologies into the programs, 
and I worry that the separation has instituted some barriers to 
that.
    Not that it's easy, nor has it ever been easy. But by 
having two peer leaders with different responsibilities have to 
find a way to work together to accelerate adoption can 
exacerbate one of our biggest challenges, and that does concern 
me.
    Dr. Coleman. If I were to echo my friend the Honorable 
Fox--Christine Fox on this, as already has been said, 
innovation has to be executable by the entire enterprise. It's 
no good if we can do it at the beginning but not the end of the 
process.
    And, unfortunately, I think the split has created almost a 
fracture in this continuum of innovation. While the focus on 
the front end on the S&T, I think, has been very welcome and we 
see that, for example, in the various modernization priorities 
that the Under Secretary for R&E [Research and Engineering] has 
put forward these past 4 years that has created the similarity 
of focus.
    At the same time also we see that innovative pipeline 
further down the line to absorb these things. I'm a big 
believer in learning from our organizational structures. No 
organizational structure is ever perfect.
    I think with the benefit now of almost 4 years of working 
in this--in this structure, it's probably time that we should 
review, evaluate, and see how we should go forward, whether we 
should tweak aspects of it.
    I would say that one thing that resonates with me is that 
acquisition of large programs seems to be a fundamentally 
different exercise than creating technologies and figuring out 
the framework with which that technology can be deployed and 
explored, and transitioning that technology to the warfighter.
    So it may be a halfway house, if you like, where 
acquisition of large programs stays with the services. They 
know what they need to train and equip. They should be able to 
buy those things.
    And perhaps the other two aspects, the policy aspects as 
well as innovation aspects, come together.
    And just one quick example, software. We all know that 
software needs to be developed in natural ways. But it's no 
good if we develop it in sprints but we buy it in decades.
    It's clear that different pieces need to come together and 
fit much better than they do already.
    Mr. Langevin. Thank you. If I could expand on that, Dr. 
Coleman. As you mentioned in your testimony, it's all about the 
software. Of the Department's 11 modernization priorities, 5 
are software-defined technologies, while the others will 
require complementary software platforms to maximize their 
potential.
    Both the Defense Science Board and the Defense Innovation 
Board put out major reports in recent years about the need to 
change the way the Department buys software.
    So if you could expand upon this, how must the Department 
adapt to support the acquisition of world-class software 
platforms and tools to better leverage capability for the 
warfighter and affordability for the taxpayer?
    Dr. Coleman. Thank you. This is a topic near and dear to my 
heart, as you can imagine. We need to adopt the best known 
methods from the private sector. When we develop software step 
by step, the reason why agile development is so successful is 
because we've given up on this notion that at the start of a 
large project we can imagine what we want the software to do.
    Instead, we do it step by step, and as we do that, we 
discover if we are going down the right path or the wrong path, 
and we change.
    In order for us to do that, though, how do we do it? Well, 
we do it through this new discipline that has emerged called 
product management. Everybody comes together every 2 weeks, 
every month, and everybody looks at what we've done and they 
decide, is this still the right thing? Should we be adding 
something? Removing something?
    It's all a team exercise. And if you do that, you bring the 
acquisition executives in the same place as those people who 
are responsible for developing the software. So they're making 
every decision together step by step.
    And I just want to, I guess, to emphasize that when we look 
at one or more ways of developing software, we can't bring just 
one part of that into, you know, Department's practices.
    For example, we all understand the JAIC is important, and 
as you pointed out, both the Defense Innovation Board and the 
Defense Science Board pointed this out. We have wonderful 
examples like Kessel Run.
    What we don't have today, however, is this concept of 
product management in the Department. When I ask--when I look 
at our innovation pipeline, which is a component in the 
Department of Defense that plays the role of product 
management, that doesn't exist today.
    And I think we need to adopt these practices but we need to 
bring in the whole picture, you know, not just parts of it 
because that cannot work as well.
    Mr. Langevin. Very helpful insights, and I'm going to want 
to flesh that idea out more and how we bring that into the 
practice within the Pentagon and we institutionalize it. So 
thank you, Dr. Coleman.
    With that, I'll now turn to Ranking Member Stefanik for 
questions.
    Ms. Stefanik. Thank you, Chairman Langevin. Thank you. Can 
you hear me, Jim?
    Mr. Kitchen, in your written testimony, you mentioned 
multiple times that the private sector's ability to help the 
Defense Department is hampered by the need to spend resources 
on contract specialists and lawyers instead of engineers.
    Can you give me policy recommendations about how we can 
improve this outdated and onerous acquisition process that, of 
course, disproportionately benefits larger technologies, and is 
more difficult for the smaller, sometimes more innovative, 
companies?
    Mr. Kitchen. Yes, ma'am. Thank you for the question.
    I think my top-line answer is it's less about authorities 
than it once was, and now it's about changing the culture of 
those in the acquisition system, which is understandably set.
    A couple of very practical things, just to be responsive to 
your question. Always leverage private sector and use 
commercially available off-the-shelf technology whenever 
possible. Leverage nontraditional acquisition authority such as 
the Small Business Innovation Research program.
    Compete new systems frequently and fairly, and then ensure 
that winners receive meaningful contracts with clear timelines 
and dollar amounts.
    As has been already discussed about software, software is 
critical and increasingly a center of focus. Well, recognizing 
that and showing the type of progress that we're discussing 
here today would mean allocating large sums to software-
specific contracts, and perhaps even designating software 
companies as the primes and hardware companies as subordinates 
when appropriate.
    And then, finally, the Pentagon is going to have to 
reconsider its one-size-fits-all approach to software and data 
rights when engaging private sector companies whose 
intellectual property and the way that they do business is 
bound up in the software itself and the data and insight that 
that software then produces.
    The current approach is simply unsustainable and waves off 
a number of the key companies that we want to be attracting.
    Ms. Stefanik. Thank you very much. I'll yield back, Jim, to 
get to others.
    Mr. Langevin. Thank you very much. Next, Mr. Crow is 
recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Crow. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I wanted to start with 
Mr. Kitchen, because you mentioned in your remarks the issue of 
industrial security, which has been an interest of mine for 
quite a while because you can't fill a bucket if you have holes 
in that bucket.
    We can make all sorts of investments and promote, you know, 
innovative technologies in, particularly, our small and medium-
sized businesses, as my colleague, Ms. Stefanik, just 
mentioned, which is a lot of where the innovation is happening.
    But those companies are also the most vulnerable as well 
because they oftentimes don't have the same cyber protections 
and defenses.
    So wondering what you think, starting with you and getting 
the thoughts of the others as well, what would be the biggest 
thing we could do through, like, SBIR [Small Business 
Innovation Research] programs or Small Business Administration 
to help bolster some of those fences around those smaller, more 
innovative companies?
    Mr. Kitchen. Yes, sir. So the fundamental truth that we're 
discussing is the fact, as I mentioned in my testimony, that 
securing nations means securing networks and supply chains.
    The first thing we have to recognize is that that is an 
inescapable reality for the foreseeable future. That is going 
to define how we think about securing innovation technology.
    Relatedly, I think it's also important that the Federal 
Government recognize that it is now a stakeholder on this issue 
and not the stakeholder on this issue, and what I mean by that 
is you're right, smaller companies up and down the supply chain 
do not have the requisite level of security in the supply chain 
that is required.
    But I think an honest assessment of what's recently 
happened in the SolarWinds hack demonstrates that neither does 
the government and, in fact, it was the private sector who 
identified this hack and then shared that information with the 
government, despite our efforts of indications and warning and 
similar capabilities.
    And so the reality is, is that if we're going to be 
supplying or, excuse me, securing the supply chain, this is 
going to take a level of integration and collaboration between 
the public and private sector that is perhaps unprecedented.
    And to put an even finer point on it, I do not believe that 
there is a category in which we are able to secure our people 
and our interest absent a deep integration of the public and 
private sector at the level of strategy and policy on this 
issue.
    Mr. Crow. Thank you. Ms. Fox, can I actually go to you 
next? Sorry. Because I wanted to pick up on that last point 
that Mr. Kitchen just mentioned, that collaboration, which 
really seems key here right now.
    And, Ms. Fox, since you were formerly in the DOD, you know, 
you're acutely aware of the challenges of actually breaking 
down those silos. What would be the best way to actually 
achieve greater integration between the DOD and those smaller 
companies?
    Ms. Fox. Yes. Thank you for the question. I think that this 
is a vital point, and it's all related to what we have been 
talking about already this morning.
    I think we need to recognize that we need to more rapidly 
be able to upgrade, innovate, and make our systems much more 
modern much more rapidly.
    Software has been mentioned many times. It's, obviously, 
key. That's going to require a different approach to our big 
programs. We're going to have to start from the beginning to 
plan them to be modular so that they can rapidly upgrade.
    Then we're going to have to create an environment that 
these small companies that have these innovations can plug in 
to these upgrades so they can provide these new capabilities.
    I love the phrase of a JSF [Joint Strike Fighter] as a 
wrapper of software. I think that's going to be true for ships 
and ground vehicles, many of our large systems, in the future.
    That means we have to plan from the beginning to have a 
collaborative relationship with these small companies.
    And back to security, there is nothing more important than 
giving them a mechanism to plug in securely to defense 
innovation and acquisition, which means establishing some kind 
of a secure cloud architecture that they can plug into so that 
they don't have to try to lift that cost on their own.
    If we put it all on them, we'll never get them into the--
into the plan--into the program. We need to find a way to do 
that, and that's going to take clever new designs, more owning 
of the system baseline, the program baselines, by the 
Department of Defense, which means more expertise in both how 
to design and oversee the development of a program, but also 
more expertise in innovation and new technology.
    So it's a lift, but I think it's possible if we all just 
kind of work for it.
    Mr. Crow. Thank you, and Ms. Coleman?
    Dr. Coleman. Very briefly. I agree with my colleagues.
    One--you know, one thing that we normally don't think about 
when we think about security in the small businesses, there 
is--who has access to their technology.
    So when I think about security I also think about 
technology protection and, you know, starting with creating 
technology protection programs for each one of these little 
companies, the first thing that you come across is that there's 
predatory capital, venture capital out there, that in many ways 
co-opts these technologies, even before the Department knew 
that they existed.
    So in some ways, you know, we lose, you know, right out of 
the gate. So making sure, for example, that we have capital 
that is not predatory, that is available, and is not foreign, 
that it's available to these small businesses, I think is going 
to be fundamental to our success.
    Mr. Crow. Thank you, Chairman. I yield back.
    Mr. Langevin. Thank you, Mr. Crow.
    Before I go to Mr. Brooks, if I could just remind all 
members that under the committee rules, when they're on--when 
you're on for the hearing, your video has to be visible at all 
times and, you know, you can--if you're going to be stepping 
away for a minute you can just leave it going.
    If you're going to be leaving for extended period of time 
or if you're going to be jumping on another hearing, you should 
exit the platform completely. But while you're on the platform, 
the video has to be on at all times.
    With that, we'll go to Mr. Brooks for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Brooks. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Ms. Fox and Dr. Coleman, both of you allude in your written 
testimonies that overcoming the so-called valley of death 
remains a significant challenge for the Department of Defense.
    For those watching this hearing unfamiliar with the term, 
it refers to the reality that many promising science and 
technology research projects ultimately fail to be delivered to 
warfighters because they're never transitioned into acquisition 
programs once the technology has been successfully 
demonstrated.
    During my tenure in Congress, I have seen the incredible 
work done by private industry and by scientists within the 
Department of Defense, like those of the United States Army 
Combat Capabilities Development Command Aviation Missile 
Center, formerly known as the U.S. Army Aviation Missile 
Research Development and Engineering Center, or AMRDEC.
    Unfortunately, although our science and technology 
enterprise consistently produces astonishing innovations in 
basic research, applied research, and advanced technology 
development, translating those innovations into programs of 
record that result in weapons systems being fielded has proven 
to be difficult.
    I'm impressed by the work being done by the services to 
overcome this, especially by the Army's Rapid Capabilities and 
Critical Technologies Office with respect to hypersonic weapons 
and directed energy. But more needs to be done.
    Can each of you offer concrete examples of current 
Department of Defense efforts to successfully bridge the valley 
of death and how those can be emulated across the Department of 
Defense?
    Ms. Fox. Well, thank you for the question. I'm not sure 
that I have an exemplary current example to offer you. I do 
have, however, a lot of examples of activities that are aimed 
to try to solve this problem.
    I think you have a lot of work, as you pointed out, in the 
Army, but also in the Air Force and the Navy, to do more rapid 
prototyping and to try to learn from the rapid prototyping and 
then select the technology and move it across.
    I think, though, that it fails when we actually try to go 
across that valley of death. We have lots of prototypes but 
what we need are sustainable programs, and getting to 
sustainable programs means that we have to cross over.
    But you don't want the innovation to die once it becomes a 
big program, and that's the problem. Once it's in a big 
program, it starts to get locked up in the system that produces 
something sustainable and important, but not necessarily easily 
innovated and upgraded.
    So what do you do? Well, I think, again, you go back to the 
very beginning and we try to design for this from the start by 
working with small businesses but also, again, as I said in my 
testimony, with the operating forces to understand exactly 
where we're trying to go, what we need, and design these 
programs from the very beginning to be modular by nature and to 
allow the new capabilities to come in and be rapidly upgraded 
so that they are innovative from the start.
    There are a few small examples of this from our history, 
but nothing that I can at least point to right now. Perhaps my 
colleagues have a current example.
    Dr. Coleman. So if I may offer one, at DARPA the agency is 
working on hypersonics and it's working actually in very close 
collaboration with the Air Force.
    DARPA is building out the air-breathing category of 
hypersonic systems which, you know, hopefully, are successful, 
will be transitions leading to the ARRW [Air-Launched Rapid 
Response Weapon] program in the Air Force. So it does happen, 
but I would agree with, you know, all the previous statements 
that it doesn't happen nearly as often as it should.
    But one of the things that I want to highlight is that this 
is not a problem that is specific to the Department of Defense. 
You know, working in a research lab for many years, for 
example, at Intel, we had lots and lots of innovative ideas 
that, you know, we have been able to build out in the lab. Not 
many of them made it into a product.
    There's a big, big road to be--long road to be traveled 
between an innovation and actually building something that 
somebody can use and I think, again, we can learn a great deal 
from looking at the private sector to see how they do this, how 
they get the years of innovation and the years of production to 
come together in a way that allows--maximizes the transfer of 
ideas.
    I think the private sector has built up expertise in this 
over many years that I think we can leverage in the Department.
    Mr. Brooks. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back the 
balance of my time.
    Mr. Langevin. Thank you, Mr. Brooks.
    Ms. Slotkin is now recognized for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Slotkin. Great. Thanks for being here and for doing 
this. I think what you're hearing from us, we're sort of--both 
sides of the aisle, frankly, asking different versions of the 
same question, which is, we have all heard testimony in the 
last Congress.
    We have read the books. We have read the papers. We have 
heard from the experts that technology is not being 
incorporated fast enough and we're losing that edge to China.
    And so I guess--I'm just going to push a little bit on my 
friend, Christine Fox, who is the witness who has lived this 
from the inside.
    If you were named, you know, in Kath Hick's position in 
Deputy Secretary of Defense again right now and you had to 
figure out what you were going to do in the next 2 weeks to try 
and address this problem specifically--either from programs 
within the Defense Department or coming back to Congress and 
saying, I don't have the flexibility I need from you all, here 
are the three things I need--what are the concrete things that 
Kath or that the Deputy Secretary Hicks should be doing right 
now and how can we help from Congress?
    Ms. Fox. Thank you. It's very nice to see you, 
Congresswoman Slotkin.
    So, yes, of course. As always, you ask the very hard 
questions, don't you? So 2 weeks. Well, I think in 2 weeks, I 
would go through the services and the acquisition community in 
this side of the Department and I would handpick a very small 
number of people who have great experience.
    I would combine them with some people from industry, 
commercial partners, but also from our UARC [university 
affiliated research centers] and FFRDC [federally funded 
research and development centers] culture that understand how 
to actually develop these technologies and get them into 
government programs, and I would give them the task of figuring 
out how to start designing these programs from the beginning to 
be upgradable, rapidly upgradable, so that we don't get these 
systems that stay sort of stuck, if you will, in time for a 
very long time, able to accept the software.
    And then I would task them to identify any systems that are 
at the very beginning that we could start to apply this to 
right now.
    And then I would start to work with Congress to understand 
if there are any new legislation capabilities that we would 
need to implement those plans. I'm not sure there are. There is 
actually a fair amount of flexibility now.
    It's a question of figuring out how to put this together 
with this forward-looking vision from the very beginning. 
Hopefully, that would give you a 2-week start.
    Ms. Slotkin. That's helpful. Thank you. I'll yield back my 
time. I just will say, Mr. Chairman and Leader Stefanik, you 
know, I think it would be useful if we got together with the 
new leadership at the Pentagon and offered our help if there's 
anything we can do from a congressional perspective to ease 
some of the restraints that might be on them at the Pentagon, 
to moving quicker and incorporating.
    I don't know that there is, but, certainly, we could do our 
part to try and ease that through our mantle here on the 
committee.
    And I yield back.
    Mr. Langevin. A great suggestion. We want to make sure that 
they know that they have our support and that we would support 
those kinds of changes.
    So, with that, Mr. Gallagher is recognized now for 5 
minutes.
    Mr. Gallagher. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Kitchen, you're familiar with the Bloomberg reports 
about Super Micro and the potential CCP compromises of its 
supply chain, correct?
    Mr. Kitchen. I am, sir. Yes.
    Mr. Gallagher. I know that elements of those reports are 
somewhat controversial. So how, in your opinion, should we on 
this committee view them? Or put differently, it seems to me 
that these reports are a big warning sign, a giant sort of neon 
flashing sign that hardware manufactured in China, even under 
the auspices of an American company, could be subject to 
compromise. Do you agree with that assessment?
    Mr. Kitchen. Absolutely.
    Mr. Gallagher. And should the Department of Defense or, 
really, any entity whose product stores or transmits 
information that is sensitive in nature be sourcing electronic 
components of its supply chain from China?
    Mr. Kitchen. If they choose to do so they're assuming a 
significantly high level of risk, and that level of risk seems 
to be escalating.
    Mr. Gallagher. So I guess if we zoom out, I mean, what do 
you think are some of the lessons of this Super Micro story and 
how would you sort of encourage the committee to view it?
    Mr. Kitchen. So, thank you, sir. As you said, there are 
some missing pieces in the Bloomberg reporting, but it gained 
the traction that it did precisely because the threat is real.
    So whether the specific instances described are correct or 
not, the threat of supply chain interdiction and the use of 
software and hardware to then gain access to critical systems 
is absolutely the case.
    It's the thing that individuals in the information security 
environment know is out there and it's particularly--the 
Bloomberg article highlights hardware.
    But I think things like SolarWinds and other recent 
activity demonstrate that it's actually software that is the 
most critical issue. Hardware, certainly, is important and 
cannot be ignored.
    But hardware is the kind of thing where you can identify 
changes in manufacturing and physical changes and things like 
that. But when it comes to software, you know, a major 
platform's gonna have millions of lines of code, and keeping a 
regular assessment and awareness of any changes going on in 
that code is a Herculean effort.
    And so the bottom-line answer to your question is, is 
supply chain security is a critical factor that we're only 
really beginning to acknowledge, let alone address.
    Mr. Gallagher. I thank you for that. I'd also like to draw 
attention to a recent report that seems to indicate that Oracle 
has been marketing its products to Chinese security services, 
including, remarkably, authorities in Xinjiang and the PLA.
    I guess to put a fine point on this, Mr. Kitchen, should 
any--in your opinion, should any American defense contractors 
be pursuing business with the Chinese government, let alone the 
Chinese military?
    Mr. Kitchen. So I have no special insight into Oracle's 
activities in China. I will say, however, that any company 
offering data and analytic services to the Chinese Communist 
Party and its regime of oppression deserves to be publicly 
shamed and should be thoroughly reviewed before receiving any 
contracts with U.S. Government.
    Companies that provide these services are enabling human 
oppression at scale and with a type of ruthless efficiency, and 
I, frankly, don't trust anyone who prioritizes those kinds of 
profits over human dignity.
    Mr. Gallagher. Thank you for your candor. And I yield back 
the balance of my time.
    Mr. Langevin. Thank you, Mr. Gallagher.
    The chair now recognizes Ms. Escobar for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Escobar. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, 
Ranking Member. And many thanks to our witnesses. This has been 
a really great hearing, an important one for us to begin our 
work with.
    I found many of the comments and the statements in your 
testimony really fascinating. But one of the ones that I most 
appreciate is Mr. Kitchen's statement that we need more 
engineers and coders than we need lawyers.
    And no offense to any lawyers in the room. But, you know, I 
represent a district that has a university that is creating 
lots of these engineers and coders and with a special focus on 
additive manufacturing and 3DI printing, an area that I think 
is completely underutilized by the DOD.
    And so I'd like to hear from our witnesses what their 
thoughts are on linking up--where we could do a better job of 
linking up with universities and that talent in those 
engineering departments.
    And, Mr. Kitchen, maybe you can go first.
    Mr. Kitchen. I suspect my fellow witnesses will have deeper 
insight into that. I'll simply say that, as I mentioned 
previously, that deep connection between the private and public 
sectors on how to go forward absolutely includes private sector 
research and universities.
    It's often discussed, but not often in detail, the critical 
gap in terms of our national needs for engineering expertise 
and other relevant technological expertise and what we're 
producing domestically.
    And our ability to attract and retain global talent is 
going to be critical, and often that pipeline flows through the 
university systems.
    Ms. Escobar. I agree.
    Ms. Fox and Ms. Coleman, would love your thoughts.
    Ms. Fox. Thank you. Thank you for that question. I think 
university research is key and I completely would agree with 
what my colleague, Mr. Kitchen, has just said. We don't have 
enough great minds in this country able to meet all of these 
fabulous technology innovation opportunities and challenges, 
for that matter.
    The more that we can work with universities, the more that 
we can tap the expertise and encourage more and more U.S. 
investment in STEM education to build more and more of this 
capability and capacity, the better.
    But we do definitely--from the DOD perspective, there needs 
to be strong partnership with academic research at the very 
beginning of what we have been talking about this morning 
leading to this innovation.
    Ms. Escobar. Thank you. Ms. Coleman.
    Dr. Coleman. Thank you. So I don't know where to start. You 
know, I live here in Silicon Valley right next door to 
Stanford. I work at Berkeley. You know, these universities are 
creating entire industries, entire communities.
    I think building stronger links between the defense mission 
and both the research that is done at the schools as well as 
the graduates that work for 2 to 3 years is absolutely 
essential.
    I don't think, honestly, that we pay enough attention to 
this. I don't think we pay enough attention to it even from an 
investment perspective.
    I mentioned briefly the STEM program that the Department 
has been running for some years. It's approximately maybe 3,000 
students a year, Ph.D. students a year. We should be doing 10 
times that.
    You know, you only have to look at the backgrounds and, you 
know, countries that students come to our shores in these high-
tech domains to see that others are making much greater 
investments in supporting the growth of a domestic workforce 
that is essential and can help us, you know, not only building 
the technology but also transition them.
    And it goes, really, hand in hand with this notion of 
building, rebuilding, supply chains here at home. You know, 
what will it take one day for us to be able to make an iPhone 
here in the United States?
    Lots of things must take--need to take place including, for 
example, manufacturing--obviously, manufacturing technologies. 
Where is that going to come from? It is going to come from the 
labs in our universities.
    The other thing, of course, we need to be careful about is 
that there is the ``valley of death.'' This was mentioned today 
already.
    So as we support our universities to create innovation, we 
also need to support them to scale that innovation to show that 
it can succeed, to give them the tools to enable the transit of 
that innovation from the lab to production to products of 
record.
    It doesn't happen if we don't plan for it, if we don't 
resource it, if we don't work on it. Thank you.
    Ms. Escobar. Thank you so much. I couldn't agree more. I 
hope this committee changes that, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
    Mr. Langevin. Thank you, Ms. Escobar. The chair now 
recognizes Mr. Gaetz for 5 minutes. Is Mr. Gaetz still there?
    Mr. Gaetz. Sure. There we go. Thanks for unmuting me, Mr. 
Chairman, and grateful to be on the subcommittee with you and 
the ranking member. I'm admirers--I'm an admirer of both of 
yours.
    I had questions for Dr. Coleman. But Mr. Kitchen's response 
to Mr. Gallagher's question was so sweeping and inspirational I 
have a bit of a follow-up.
    Mr. Gallagher was asking you about Oracle. But I have to 
ask if those same statements you had about it being, you know, 
essentially unpatriotic for these U.S. companies to be 
supporting this regime, have you followed the collaboration 
that Google is doing in China and does that trouble you to the 
same degree?
    Mr. Kitchen. Thank you, Congressman. In my answer to 
Congressman Gallagher, I mentioned that I had no special 
insight into Oracle but that I would reiterate that any company 
who provides material support to the CCP is enabling human 
oppression at scale.
    And so I would say any company who's materially doing that 
would stand under the same condemnation. The only thing ----
    Mr. Gaetz. Have you followed Google? Have you followed 
Google's collaborations in China?
    Mr. Kitchen. So far as I understand, number one, I'm not--I 
don't represent Google or anyone else. I'll simply say that 
what I understand Google to be doing in China exists primarily 
in terms of research.
    I know that they have an artificial intelligence research 
center there. I believe part of the controversy that they've 
ensued over the last several years is because they were 
considering going back into business there, which I don't 
understand them to be currently.
    Mr. Gaetz. So, Microsoft, similarly, has one of those AI 
collaboration innovation centers, just like Google does, in 
China. Does that give you concern for the resiliency of those 
companies?
    Because one of the overall themes of all the opening 
statements today was that we are relying increasingly on the 
commercial enterprises within America to fuel innovation. But 
if they are driving that innovation, in part, from centers in 
China, you know, should that give us some concern?
    Mr. Kitchen. I think companies who are doing a large 
portion of their innovation and R&D in China, obviously, are 
assuming a high level of risk.
    I believe that that level of risk is reaching a point to 
where the United States Government now has to consider the 
implications of that as they think about how they're going to 
work with any company.
    Mr. Gaetz. Yeah. No, I appreciate that, and I know Mr. 
Gallagher and many others, Mr. Banks, you know, on the 
committee who see China for the threat they are will likely 
take that testimony to heart.
    Dr. Coleman, your opening statement struck me because it 
seemed that what you were saying is that, you know, when the 
greatest minds in America at our greatest companies were 
working with military, we have the greatest technological edge 
on the world.
    But, increasingly, today, the greatest minds in America are 
working on likes and clicks and video views and consumer 
activity, and that has coincided with an erosion of the 
technical edge that we have on the world.
    At the same time, Mr. Kitchen is telling us that these very 
companies that are driving the likes and the type of commercial 
activity are now creating innovation centers in China.
    Have I understood your testimony correctly? Because it 
seems to me that that is, you know, a far broader problem for 
the country.
    Dr. Coleman. I completely agree with you, sir. I remain 
concerned about both overt and not so overt activity by the CCP 
in many of the high-tech areas that are of interest to us, both 
commercially as well as in terms of national security.
    One thing that my colleague on here is very familiar with 
is the co-opting that often takes place. If you are going to do 
business in China, there are certain preconditions for 
admission to that market, and that is artificially constraining 
growth and markets for our companies.
    It is a conundrum, especially in companies that require 
very, very significant capital in order to operate. If you take 
the semiconductor business, for example, they need to have 
access to those markets in order for them to create enough 
profit to continue doing the R&D that is needed to develop 
high-end products.
    I think we need, as a nation, to find a solution to this, 
to stop these predatory practices by China so that companies 
can deliver their products in those markets without at the same 
time co-opting their technology.
    I will also take the opportunity of your comment to speak 
about my great concern around digital authoritarianism and the 
export of it by the Chinese government.
    They are masters at blocking sites. They are masters at 
filtering what information arrives at what person. They are 
masters at flooding the network with misinformation, and they 
are also masters of co-opting social media.
    It is a significant concern. I don't believe it's a concern 
that we in the national security community have addressed so 
far, and it's something that I would really like us to spend a 
lot more time and thinking on so that we can figure ways of 
countering it. Thank you, sir.
    Mr. Gaetz. Thank you. I believe it was former President 
Clinton who said saying that the Chinese could control the 
internet would be like saying that they could nail Jell-O to 
the wall.
    So it appears, based on your testimony, they figured out 
how to do that. I appreciate the chair's indulgence and I yield 
back.
    Mr. Langevin. Thank you, Mr. Gaetz.
    Ms. Houlahan is now recognized for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Houlahan. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you to all of you 
all for joining us today.
    I have a question for Dr. Coleman that has to do with some 
of the comments you were talking about, about the importance of 
expanding the STEM workforce and the SMART Scholarship Program. 
And you did, you know, kind of go into some depth about that.
    But I'm still trying to figure out how do we actually do 
what you're asking us to do. One of the recommendations of a 
recent study was that we create a sort of a STEM Academy, an 
equivalent of the Air Force Academy, Naval Academy, for people 
with degrees, rather, in STEM and STEAM [science, technology, 
engineering, the arts, and mathematics].
    Is that something that you're talking about? Is that--can 
you give me some concrete ideas of how we can increase the 
pipeline of STEM talent in this country?
    Dr. Coleman. Thank you. I would love to speak on this. 
First and foremost, I think we see the number--increasing the 
financial supports that we offer to, you know, to domestic 
students. You know, people, frankly, down the line could 
actually obtain a security clearance so that we could bring 
them in to the Department in the roles that we so critically 
need to have filled.
    It is--you know, doing a Ph.D. in a high-end institution, 
and I should know, my son graduated just before Christmas with 
a Ph.D.--it is a very significant commitment, both financial 
and time commitment.
    So two things need to happen. One is that money needs to be 
available, and why is it that we are only sponsoring 3,000 
students a year?
    I don't have the numbers for China, but I can guarantee it 
would be in the hundreds of thousands, as opposed to 3,000.
    The other piece of that, though, is once someone has made 
the investment and the choice to go and spend 5 years getting a 
Ph.D. in a topic, they will have an expectation to get a good 
job here at home.
    Today, for many of these technologies, microelectronics and 
semiconductors, which is something that I have worked on for 
quite a while, those good jobs today are in Taiwan. They are 
not here domestically.
    So there is a vicious cycle. People who don't go into these 
disciplines because they can't get good jobs here at home.
    So as well as growing the STEM workforce, at the same time, 
as I was saying earlier, we need to start an effort to rebuild 
our industrial commerce, and we can do so. We can do so, you 
know, by bringing back, you know, businesses or products that 
somehow we thought was okay to outsource.
    Well, you know, it's not okay to outsource them because 
eventually you lose the know-how that is needed in order to 
innovate because people, students, families will not choose to 
go and study these topics that are essential if you're going to 
innovate, say, in semiconductors. So it all comes in a big 
circle.
    Ms. Houlahan. Thank you. I have only a couple more minutes 
of my time. Another thing that we didn't really touch on yet in 
this conversation is how we can integrate our friendly 
international partners and allies into all of these 
conversations.
    Mr. Kitchen, you're nodding your head. Is there some kind 
of conversation that we should pull in all of those allies of 
ours across the--across the globe as well into this?
    Mr. Kitchen. Yes, ma'am. I couldn't agree more. The United 
States simply just can't--it's not a turnkey thing where we 
turn on, you know, an entire ecosystem of innovation that 
covers every emerging technology.
    And more to the point, even if we did, we need our partners 
and allies to be able to come alongside us, concurrently, for 
their own security. We have international agreements and 
partnerships like NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization].
    The 5G conversation illustrated this very clearly. And our 
response to 5G now within our group of partners and allies, 
particularly in Europe, I think is also illustrating the way 
forward.
    So as we have prevailed upon our friends in the United 
Kingdom, in Germany, I hope in France, I hope--and I hope in 
the broader European Union, we're going to see both the need 
and, I think, the reality of deeper, more sustained cooperation 
where we are mutually encouraging and supporting one another's 
technological development, not only to include and facilitate 
interoperability but our own individual and corporate security.
    Ms. Houlahan. Thanks. And with the last half minute or so, 
several of you have made a comment which kind of says, 
effectively, well, there really isn't anything standing in our 
way of creating, you know, these awesome pipelines of 
technology and talent legislatively. We just need to culturally 
change.
    Is that--is that fair? Like, several--at least two of you-
all have said that during this discussion, and I was struck by 
it. Is that something that I should be taking away from this 
conversation or did I mishear?
    Ms. Fox. You didn't mishear me. I do think that we need to 
constantly be looking for obstacles in our way. So I wouldn't 
ever assert there's nothing.
    But there's been a lot of positive change and I do think we 
need different approaches, different conversations. Those are 
cultural, in large part.
    There are lots of important reasons. We should recognize 
that the culture makes it difficult. They're doing important 
things now, but we also have to change.
    Ms. Houlahan. And I'm afraid I've run out of time and I 
have to yield back, and I appreciate your time.
    Mr. Langevin. Thank you. I just recognized the vice chair 
of the subcommittee. Thank you for your line of questions.
    Ms. Bice is now recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mrs. Bice. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to the 
witnesses for being here today. This is such an important topic 
we are discussing because the conflicts of tomorrow will truly 
be won or lost by the investments that we make today.
    Dr. Coleman, you mentioned earlier the role of venture 
capital in this space. What approach do you think Congress 
should take to protect predatory venture capital firms from 
overtaking these smaller firms who may be working on classified 
programs that they may not be able to fully divulge or 
disclose?
    Dr. Coleman. Thank you. I love that question. Thank you so 
much for asking it.
    As the CEO of a new startup that is trying to, well, raise 
capital for my company, I experienced that very personally.
    You know, one of the things that we did right was the 
passing of FIRRMA [Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization 
Act of 2018], the rejigging of CFIUS [Committee on Foreign 
Investment in the United States] to also include investment 
within the purview, and this is what's really worth hearing 
about.
    Entire companies, venture companies that used to pump 
Chinese money into small startups have gone away. They've 
chosen to go away. Not all of them. The problem is we didn't 
replace them with trusted domestic capital.
    So you now have a situation where a company that would have 
access to Chinese money, they no longer have access. What 
happens to them?
    I have been worrying about this now for years because I 
experienced it personally, and luckily for me and my company, 
we were able to raise a good Series A and move forward.
    I think that we should be thinking very seriously about 
reforming SBIR or creating additional programs to make trusted 
capital available to small businesses. At DARPA, you know, we 
started pushing a little bit down this path by creating the 
National Security Seed Fund.
    So we took a little bit of money away from SBIR allocation 
and we said, we'll turn this into the seed fund. So, first of 
all, it would be--it's available to companies to bid at any 
time on any topic, and then the funding that they would--they 
would take from that would be used to build products, to hire 
salespeople, to build out the business pretty much the same way 
as venture capital is being used.
    So we do that. It was $35 million. It's a drop in the 
bucket. I think the only reason why we did it, really, is to 
show what is possible within existing authorities.
    I couldn't--I couldn't say--I couldn't put it in even 
stronger terms. We have a ``Houston, we have a problem.'' We 
need to do something to replenish the Chinese capital that left 
town. Thank God they're dead. I'm very glad. They should go 
somewhere else. But we should be doing something to replenish 
it.
    Mrs. Bice. And Dr. Fox or Mr. Kitchen, do you have any 
comments on that?
    Ms. Fox. So I think that Dr. Coleman--and I'm just Ms. Fox. 
I'm sorry.
    But Dr. Coleman makes a very important point. We need to be 
very aware of what China is doing and take actions to bolster 
security, and kicking out the Chinese money for venture capital 
is a step in that direction.
    But the most important thing I believe that we can do is 
invest in ourselves and we need to really look hard at where 
those investments are needed, and I think those investments are 
needed in things we've talked about today: STEM education and 
in investing in our small businesses and in our own innovative 
culture, and, frankly, in our government innovation and our 
government-funded work.
    If we invest in ourselves, I truly believe that we can make 
a lot of progress here, and we have kind of gotten out of the 
habit of looking at that.
    Mrs. Bice. Well, Ms. Fox, thank you for that comment 
because that leads me into the second question, which is really 
about the education piece of this. I'm concerned that we aren't 
doing enough focus on an emphasis on STEM programs for young 
people in the country.
    I actually met with the dean of engineering at one of the 
colleges in my State, Oklahoma State University, and was 
shocked to find out that a very small fraction of students that 
are graduating from some of the largest high schools right 
around Tinker Air Force Base were actually entering STEM 
programs after high school.
    What do you think we should be doing either through 
Congress or what the--what should the DOD be doing to sort of 
foster those relationships and make sure that kids are exposed 
to STEM and that they're looking at STEM certifications or 
degrees that will help us down the road?
    So to Dr. Coleman's comment earlier, we don't have enough 
of those folks. We need to foster it at an earlier age. How do 
we do that?
    Ms. Fox. So I can take a stab at that. I believe that if--
there's not a silver bullet here, obviously. I think that this 
needs to be something that we understand and there should be 
incentives put in place for everything, every company, every 
organization, every government-funded lab, like APL, to be 
engaged in reaching out to the STEM education community and get 
kids as early as possible.
    Just one tour of our lab that I've seen over and over and 
over has turned young girls around into going into STEM 
education. It's so rewarding.
    We have many programs but we don't have enough. I mean, 
there's just--again, investing in ourselves, investing 
explicitly in programs that engage kids early and from all 
walks of life and all economic levels.
    We really can't afford to leave a great mind behind. This 
is--this is a race and we have all been talking about the 
importance of it. We have got to tap our talent.
    Mrs. Bice. Well, my time is expired. I want to thank you 
for the questioning and I will add that I am the mother of a 
daughter who's in an engineering program in college. So I agree 
with what you're saying there.
    So, thank you. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Langevin. Thank you, Ms. Bice.
    Mr. Morelle is now recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Morelle. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is a really 
critically important subject so I appreciate you very much 
starting our efforts focused on it.
    And I want to thank the witnesses. This has been a 
fascinating conversation. I'll admit most of my work on 
innovation policies at the State level involved commercial 
innovation.
    For instance, the ``valley of death'' that we talk about in 
that space is really a company, usually a small company, 
perhaps not capitalized, that has innovations but can't get to 
the marketplace fast enough and get to a revenue positive 
position.
    So learning about it from a national security perspective 
in this context is new to me.
    I was very interested in the comments about stem cell, or 
STEM education--stem cell--STEM education, something I worked 
on as well as workforce and supply chain disruptions.
    One of the other things I've worked on in the State level 
is orphan technologies where innovators would be working on 
advances, but because it wasn't central to their mission they 
would often put things to the side.
    And we did some interesting work in New York trying to take 
those innovations and use them in places, perhaps with other 
companies, that could make a connection. I don't know whether 
that's something that is done in this space.
    But I think for now, as I'm a new member, and, clearly, I'm 
just beginning the journey on how all this relates in terms of 
innovation policy to national security, I think I'm going to 
submit questions for the record.
    And with that, I, again, appreciate the witnesses, 
appreciate the subject very much, and I will yield back the 
balance of my time.
    Mr. Langevin. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Morelle.
    The chair now recognizes Mr. Franklin for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Franklin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and our panelists 
today. I really appreciate your time. It was a very, very 
important topic. We spent a lot of our time today talking about 
the acquisition process and the need for change there.
    As a former operator, retired Navy pilot, I experienced 
that on the end of the whip a lot of times, just anecdotally, 
frustrations I had as an operator. We just never being able to 
seem to get technology that was readily available on the 
civilian side quickly enough on the military side.
    As an example, in the early 1990s, we were patrolling no-
fly zones in Iraq. We were actually having to go to Bass Pro 
Shops to buy Garmins to use for GPS [Global Positioning 
System], even though it was readily available in the outside 
but wasn't available in any of our aircraft.
    Then later on after I retired, started flying on the 
general aviation side and realized that we had technology in 
civilian airplanes that anyone could go out and buy that we 
still didn't have in our most advanced fighters.
    So we have always had that lag. It's a cultural challenge 
that we have known has always existed and, to me, I think some 
of that is we know that the DOD doesn't typically reward risk 
taking and innovation. It's a system that kind of gravitates 
towards inertia and that tends to be rewarded a lot of times. 
So I think we do need to make changes there.
    And then now, as a civilian on the outside working with a 
lot of companies that--entrepreneurs that work in the defense 
space, the idea that--the concept I hear over and over from 
them is that we have great ideas that we would love to share 
with DOD but that's where good ideas go to die, and that they 
can monetize those, get them to market, and do things more 
productive in working with the civilian sector.
    But Ms. Fox, I was very encouraged to hear your commentary 
about the progress that we have made culturally. Actually, for 
you and for the others, I would love to hear what we can do to 
continue to foster within DOD the type of mindset that we're 
going to need to bring these technologies to market faster.
    Ms. Fox. Yes. Thank you, sir, for the question.
    I believe that we have made progress in the recognition 
that we need to move faster, that innovation is key, the rapid 
prototyping, the demonstrations. There's so much activity here.
    What I think we need to now do is to translate the activity 
into programs that are sustainable but also rapidly upgradable. 
As you're talking about, the frustration of having to go out 
and buy a GPS, I remember when that happened.
    It's almost--it's appalling to think about it. Yet, when 
you recognize that it has to be integrated into a program, it's 
under, you know, a prime contractor, there's rules, it has to 
be checked out and tested and so forth, you can start to see 
how that would happen.
    That's what has to change. We have to plan for that at the 
very beginning. And so I think that the culture is recognizing 
the need for change. I think the Hill is recognizing the need 
for change. The need to take more risk is being recognized.
    Now what we need to do is figure out how to do that and 
with purpose. So we need to have priorities. We need to do 
design from the very beginning. We need to lay out this plan, 
but we need it not to be a plan that goes for 50 years, but 
much more rapid term.
    I think those are steps that need to be taken. I think 
there's awareness they need to be taken. It's just--it's hard. 
I mean, let's not underestimate; this is hard stuff to change. 
But we do need to keep pushing on everyone to make those 
changes, as this hearing is doing today.
    Mr. Franklin. Well, it does seem that the special 
operations forces have been able to do a better job over time 
of getting things that they need, whether it's off-the-shelf 
technology and out into the field more quickly.
    We have made some special dispensations for them to do 
that. Are there areas that we can extend that across other 
parts of the Department of Defense?
    Ms. Fox. You know, there are other aspects of DOD that are 
looking at the special ops, as I understand it. The cyber area 
is one that's, obviously, considering these kinds of rapid 
acquisition authorities.
    But we ought to keep in mind that the special ops community 
leverages the acquisitions of the services and then they 
upgrade from there.
    We can certainly learn lessons from the special ops 
experience into how they've been able to do that and what they 
look for in the platforms that are being procured by the 
services that lend themselves to that kind of rapid upgrade 
capability.
    So I think there are lessons to be learned there. I'm a 
little hesitant to say that we should just use that model for 
all of our acquisition because we do need to keep in mind these 
things have to go out to lots of forces, as you experienced, 
and be sustainable and be trainable.
    And so it's a big lift. Again, I don't think we should 
understate the value of the acquisition system that has 
produced some of the absolutely, I think, unquestionably finest 
warfighting equipment ever. We just need it to move more 
expeditiously with some changes to the model.
    Mr. Franklin. All right. Thank you.
    Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    Mr. Langevin. Okay. Thank you very much, Mr. Franklin.
    Are there any members that have not been present or online 
that have not been recognized for a first question? Okay. 
Hearing none, we're going to go to a second round of questions. 
And Dr. Coleman, if I could start with you.
    With your experience in Silicon Valley, where many 
companies struggle with diversity and inclusion, aspects that 
are vital to producing novelty and innovation, can you tell us 
your perspective of how the Department is doing in nurturing a 
diverse S&T workforce, and what must the Department do to 
strengthen its workforce so that it can face the challenges 
coming over the horizon?
    Dr. Coleman. Thank you, sir. I appreciate that question, 
and in many ways, it speaks to my own experience as an 
individual in the S&T enterprise.
    I want to reflect a little bit in this situation. In my 
previous agency, you know, at DARPA, we were 85 percent white, 
70 percent male, 30 percent female. And we know--we know that 
companies that favor diversity in the ranks are much more 
likely to have above average profitability.
    I don't think, you know, DARPA or the DOD in general is any 
exception--any exception to that.
    How do you change it? I think, first of all, it is 
extraordinarily difficult, and it's extraordinarily difficult 
not because people don't want to change it, but because we, you 
know, culturally, will we hire--you know, there is this adage 
``like hires like.''
    We are comfortable with people that look like us, that 
sound like us, that have done the same things as us.
    We have to work against that impulse. We have to be 
mindful. We have to create pathways and we have to create 
metrics that support the change. Otherwise, sir, we will never 
have change.
    I will tell you, in my own personal, you know, life now as 
a private citizen, what do I do? I do mentoring. I go out of my 
way to help people that want to be part of the S&T community 
for national defense but for one reason or another are not able 
to.
    And I open up doors, I work with them, because it's not 
just about getting through the door. So it's also about giving 
them the tools that they need in order to succeed once they 
are--they are inside the organization.
    Understanding what makes somebody succeed as well as 
somebody getting hired is really important. I have not seen a 
ton of emphasis on this. I would like to see a great deal more.
    I do know that it can really pay dividends. At the 
Wikimedia Foundation, after many years of effort, we got to a 
place where we really have much more balance. It took a ton of 
work. It is--you know, it's aspirational but it's also 
something that we have to realize we have to work at. It just 
doesn't happen because we desire it. It happens because we work 
on it. Thank you.
    Mr. Langevin. Thank you, Dr. Coleman.
    Last question I have is of Ms. Fox or Dr. Coleman.
    There is currently a pause in the Defense Federal Advisory 
Committee Act, FACA, boards, including the Defense Science 
Board and Defense Innovation Board during a 6-month review.
    Understanding the importance of these boards, what would 
you--what would your recommendation be for the vision of these 
two boards, going forward? Again, just briefly.
    Ms. Fox. Yes. Thank you for the opportunity.
    I think these advisory boards are potentially very 
important, and I think they have played important roles in the 
past. I think that the opportunity to kind of rethink them and 
stand them up again gives us a chance to refocus the membership 
on some of the very issues we're talking about this morning.
    I think that for the Defense Science Board, for example, 
there are some notable experts that have been on the Defense 
Science Board that should, hopefully, have the opportunity to 
come back.
    We need experience. But we also need new voices, voices 
that understand Silicon Valley, voices that understand the 
challenges of defense acquisition today, voices that understand 
diversity and STEM education and many of these challenges.
    And so I would look at this as an opportunity to think 
about what are the challenges the Department is most struggling 
with, like the ones we are talking about, and how do we tailor 
the representation to get us the best advice going forward.
    Mr. Langevin. Thank you.
    Dr. Coleman. I had the privilege of serving on the Defense 
Science Board for about 5 years. I have to say that it has 
been, professionally, just a remarkable run. These boards are 
full of brilliant people.
    Honestly, I would look around and I would think to myself, 
how come they let me in here. Just incredible individuals, and 
I know that even in the 5 years I have been associated with 
them, a great deal of contribution has been made.
    Providing the kind of independence, that deep expertise 
that otherwise might not be available to the Department, I 
think, is fundamental. I do agree with my colleague that we--
there's nothing that is so good that could not be made better.
    This is a great opportunity to take stock, to make sure 
that the goals are right, that they--the number of members that 
each board has is sufficient to support the needs that the 
Department has and also making sure that we have the right 
composition in terms of all these challenges that we spoke 
about today.
    I think it's a unique opportunity to reconstitute them to 
be even better than they were in the past, and they were pretty 
good in the past.
    Mr. Langevin. Very good. Thank you.
    I'm going to now--I understand that the ranking member did 
not have any other further questions. So in that case, I'll go 
to Ms. Bice for 5 minutes.
    Mrs. Bice. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Dr. Coleman, you mentioned earlier that China works with 
the commercial sector to advance their initiatives. What can we 
do to remove barriers between DOD and commercial innovation?
    Dr. Coleman. Thank you. This is--this is what--you know, 
this is the single biggest, you know, question and maybe I can 
relate some of my own kind of experiences.
    You know, first of all, you know, these worlds, honestly, 
kind of the west coast world and the east coast world are very, 
very separate. It's very rarely the case that there is cross 
talk.
    But that has implications. If you want to be--to be 
effective in the national security enterprise, for example, 
requires a security clearance. There are many, many people here 
in the west coast community that would not qualify or they 
would not care to qualify. So that's one piece.
    The other piece is what forums do we share. How do we--how 
do we speak to each other in such a way that we can leverage 
the best from each side?
    You know, I served on the Defense Science Board for 5 
years. I had this little company I was trying to get funded. I 
did not know where I could go to ask for support for this 
company in the DOD.
    If I don't--if I didn't know that, what chance does the 
average CEO or startup founder from Stanford or Berkeley have? 
You know, where is the door? Where is the entrance that people 
can come and knock and say, I have this incredible idea that I 
think could change a number of things in the DOD enterprise.
    I was--you know, one of the initiatives that I started at 
DARPA was to create, first of all, a base right here in the Bay 
Area where DARPA PMs [program managers] could come and do their 
work, which would be great because then they could form the 
relationships with local universities, with a lot of the 
entrepreneurship community, and then things flow.
    But also, honestly, creating a visible door. Our notion 
was, and I hope that, you know, DARPA will pursue this, was to 
create a physical point of presence in a high foot traffic area 
like downtown Palo Alto, maybe in San Francisco, maybe in 
Berkeley, a little bit like the Apple store.
    You can walk in and you can see incredible displays showing 
you the latest and the greatest and the needs. And, you know, 
you can book an appointment with Genius Bar to go and talk to 
somebody from the DOD to say, hey, I've discovered this thing.
    Is there something that I could do in order to enhance your 
mission with this and, if so, who do I talk to? What programs 
would I have access to? How do we work together?
    You know, let's not underestimate the value and the 
importance of physical presence in relationships and networks. 
It's all about building that--you know, that human kind of 
network that would allow us to flow innovation and people from 
one side to the other.
    Mrs. Bice. Thank you for that.
    Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    Mr. Langevin. Thank you, Ms. Bice.
    Next is--I understand that Mr. Khanna is there and has not 
yet asked a question. So I'm going to yield to Mr. Khanna. Is 
Mr. Khanna there and unmuted? Okay.
    If not, then we will go to Mr. Morelle for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Morelle. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I passed 
earlier. But since I'm getting a free shot, I'm going to ask 
questions of these witnesses, if I might.
    I was talking earlier about sort of my experience in the 
commercial world and, you know, there among innovators it was 
often hard to get people to collaborate because they were 
stymied by the need to make their innovations profit-making so 
they'd keep things in a proprietary way in sharing information.
    I mentioned my work on orphan technologies. At one point, 
we did something in New York. We went to a number of large 
companies. Eastman Kodak, for instance, had done some work with 
light spectrum because that's, obviously, light and optics and 
imaging is their specialty.
    But they had technology that they didn't use. Anyway, 
another company came along, observing that there was a database 
with this technology in it as part of our orphan technology 
initiative.
    They used it, put it into a product, but they haven't been 
very successful with it.
    On the national security side, and I apologize, I'm brand 
new so this will probably be an ignorant question. But how do 
you encourage innovation among companies that would perhaps 
accelerate the development of their work when you still have 
the need to make sure that you're protecting national security?
    Obviously, that's the--you know, the most important thing. 
But is that ever a problem or does this not present itself, and 
if it is a problem, are there ways that you've thought of that 
we could resolve it to continue to maintain national security 
but accelerate the development of promising technologies?
    And I would ask any of the witnesses.
    Mr. Kitchen. Sir, I'll briefly respond and then I'll defer 
to my colleagues.
    The point you raise is real and it is persistent. It is a 
persistent challenge, and it's reflected in the--in the 
government sphere as much as it is in the private sphere.
    However, I think one of the key points that I would 
encourage everyone to take away is that that's not one of the 
decisive problems.
    We are having a hard time ingesting the technology 
innovation that we have, and that we're actually being flooded 
with new technologies, whether they be completely new or even 
just recombinant innovations.
    And so the key barrier to entry is our ability to, again, 
ingest that information. Our private sector does a phenomenal 
job of building a diverse innovation ecosystem and working 
together collaboratively when everybody understands that it's 
in their respective interests.
    The only other thing I'll say specific to your question is 
that to the degree that we can bolster intellectual property 
protections in the private sector, we will enable and enliven 
that type of sharing when people feel safer to do so.
    Mr. Morelle. This problem--yeah, I'm sorry, Mr. Chairman. I 
just wanted to follow up.
    So in a sense, you don't--there's no concern that the 
integration of different innovations might allow us to 
essentially make--to leapfrog in terms of time the development 
of new technologies? That would not be a concern and that's not 
something that I should be thinking about in this space?
    Mr. Kitchen. Well, sir, I wouldn't say it's not a concern, 
and I wouldn't presume to tell you what you should--what you 
should be spending your time on.
    I'll simply say that as we talk about innovating in the 
defense space, that is a secondary concern relative to our 
general difficulty ingesting innovation that we already have.
    Mr. Morelle. And I'd just be curious, in the remaining 
moments, whether or not Ms. Fox or Dr. Coleman might have any 
comments on that.
    Dr. Coleman. I think, just, you know, reflecting, I agree 
with my colleague. But I will also say that, you know, the 
biggest--the biggest problems that we have as a society, as a 
Department, oftentimes can be solved by very determined 
innovators from the private sector.
    Ms. Fox. If I could pile on to ----
    Dr. Coleman. Goodbye, Christine.
    Mr. Langevin. I think she froze. Yeah.
    Dr. Coleman. I would just like to bring up the example of 
Steve Jobs. He changed the world. He wouldn't take no for an 
answer.
    So I think, you know, if you see orphan technologies, you 
know, what I would say is encourage people to find new ways of 
using them, licensing.
    You know, if it doesn't make sense within the portfolio of 
one company, maybe there's another company that can--that can 
make use of them. There are many ways that you can take things, 
dust them off the shelf, and put them to good use, and I would 
highly encourage that.
    Christine, you're back.
    Mr. Langevin. Yeah. Ms. Fox, you were--you were--you froze 
up so we didn't hear what you had to say. Did you want to add 
to the discussion?
    Mr. Morelle. I suspect she's frozen again, Mr. Chair.
    Ms. Fox. You know, I can ----
    Mr. Langevin. Yeah, go ahead. Oh. I think we're having 
technical difficulties there.
    Mr. Morelle. Very good. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield 
back.
    Mr. Langevin. Okay. Thank you all very much.
    Before we close out the hearing, are there any other 
members that didn't get a chance to ask a question? Okay. Very 
good.
    Well, with that, I just want to thank our witnesses, Ms. 
Fox, Dr. Coleman, and Mr. Kitchen. Thank you for what you had 
to say today. Very helpful insights. We appreciate----
    Ms. Fox. I'm sorry. Can you hear me?
    Mr. Langevin. Oh, go ahead. Ms. Fox, did you want to try 
again? Ms. Fox, did you have something to add? Okay. Somebody 
was just speaking. I'm not sure who that was.
    Ms. Fox. Mr. Chairman, can you hear me? I'm sorry.
    Mr. Langevin. Yes. Go ahead. Go ahead.
    Ms. Fox. Thank you.
    Mr. Langevin. Yeah. Unfortunately, I think you're having 
technical difficulties on your end and it keeps freezing up.
    Yeah, it keeps freezing up. Do you want to try one more 
time? Ms. Fox, if you want to try. You seem to be on now but 
you need to unmute.
    Okay. I think we'll end there. But I want to--again, I want 
to thank our three witnesses. It's been a very informative 
hearing. We're going to probably have some follow-up to do and 
I know there is some--I have a couple of questions that I'd 
like to submit for the record, and perhaps we could follow up 
with your input there. But you've given us some things to look 
at, to work on, and have been very helpful.
    So. with that, I want to thank our witnesses for their 
testimony today, and the hearing now stands adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 12:48 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]

     
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                            A P P E N D I X

                           February 23, 2021
      
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              PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD

                           February 23, 2021

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[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

      
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              QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING

                           February 23, 2021

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                  QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. LANGEVIN

    Mr. Langevin. Can you talk about the role of user feedback in 
innovation and adoption? How do you think a tighter partnership between 
the operational military forces and the S&T community can best be 
achieved?
    Ms. Fox. Chairman Langevin, thank you for this important question. 
Feedback in innovation and adoption is essential, in my view. 
Innovations that cannot be used in an operational environment are not 
valuable. Similarly, operators who are blind to the advantages of new 
technologies will neglect to make game-changing advancements. When the 
partnership between the operational military forces and the S&T/R&D 
community has been strong, it has produced game-changing results. A 
notable example is the adoption of stealth and precision that led to 
significant operational advantages dating back to Desert Storm. The 
U.S. Air Force set up an internal organization called ``Checkmate,'' in 
which dedicated creative operators determined how to best use these 
emerging technologies. Today, this partnership is more important than 
ever and needs to be strengthened. The technologies being developed 
today are not evolutionary upgrades of existing capabilities but, 
rather, entirely different from anything we have had access to before. 
We need to educate the operators on the potential power of these new 
technologies. We need to educate the developers on the operational 
needs and opportunities the technologies can fulfill.
    Liaison assignments might be able to help. Scientists living with 
operators and operators assigned to S&T/R&D organizations can expand 
the understanding of what is needed and what is possible. Technical 
exchange conferences can help as well. For example, once the Strategic 
Capabilities Office (SCO) began to hold technical exchange meetings 
with the IndoPacific Command, the resulting partnership helped guide 
SCO's activities and solidified their value. That is near-term R&D, but 
the same idea can be used for S&T. These technical exchanges do happen, 
but not often enough or deeply enough to build tech-infused concepts of 
operation or to focus tech development in critically important areas. 
Another approach is to increase the focus of experimentation on the 
integration of S&T/R&D advancements into operational challenges. 
Experimentation with new technologies will help operators envision new 
concepts for their use. Additional resources focused toward fostering a 
closer partnership between S&T developers and operators would help make 
this a reality.
                                 ______
                                 
                   QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. MOULTON
    Mr. Moulton. I appreciated your comments about grounding new 
technologies in operational reality, and vice versa. It seems that a 
critical part of that would come from training our forces to leverage 
new technologies and integrate them into their concepts of operation. 
Based on your previous experience at DOD, did you get the sense that 
the Services were adequately integrating new technologies and concepts 
of operations into their training and education? Do you have the sense 
of whether they are adequately doing that now?
    Ms. Fox. Thank you for this question, Congressman Moulton. The new 
technologies envisioned today have the potential to completely change 
the way the military operates. As a result, it is very difficult to 
integrate new technology into training and education. This is what we 
call the ``here-to-there'' problem at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics 
Lab. The force must be ready to meet any challenge thrown at it today 
and, therefore, training and education is rightly focused on today's 
capabilities and concepts of operation.
    A key challenge is that the new technologies envisioned for 
tomorrow are radically different. To explore the potential of 
artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, zoomorphic robots, 
biology-based sensors, brain-controlled drones, and more, we need 
dedicated events that place operators into a future world with these 
future capabilities. This is likely to require virtual interactive 
environments tied to advanced digital engineering and modeling and 
simulation efforts that are integrated with prototypes as they become 
available. These dedicated experiments are important if we are to 
develop concepts of operation that can take advantage of these 
potentially game-changing technologies.. They could occur on enhanced 
test ranges or within the government-funded R&D labs or both.
    Mr. Moulton. Last year I co-led the Future of Defense Task Force, 
which was a bipartisan effort to identify the hard choices and smart 
investments necessary to secure our future competitive advantage. In 
our months of interviews and research, we frequently faced the 
challenge of investing in the future while managing platforms of the 
past. We looked at current and future budget constraints and ultimately 
concluded that it would be necessary to divest of some legacy systems 
to make room for the next generation of technology. In Dr. Coleman's 
testimony, she noted that we need to ``evolve our platforms from the 
monoliths they are today to agile, mosaic systems.'' Do you believe 
that ALL platforms can and should be carried forward into a new era of 
warfare? Are all the platforms designed for conflicts of decades past 
still appropriate to address the threats of the future?
    Dr. Coleman. The essence of mosaic systems and platforms is that 
they are modular, compositional and able to be assembled in fit-for-
purpose force packages just in time. This then calls for a set of 
diverse platforms and components to be available. I believe that it is 
not possible for a single, multi-purpose platform to meet all mission 
needs. This mixture of platforms will include manned and unmanned 
aircraft. As we look at the mix of capabilities, and as older platforms 
are retired, we should be laser focused on replacing them with modular, 
easily upgradeable capabilities. And at the same time we should be 
investing to modernize and upgrade our software development and 
deployment infrastructure to take advantage of these new platforms that 
would be capable of over the air updates including test ranges to 
support incrementally developed, tested and fielded capabilities.
    Mr. Moulton. As a veteran who has served overseas and faced some 
very real threats to our nation, I believe that every person in this 
country must have a vested interest in national security. But the 
reality of these threats sometimes aren't clear to everyone--the 
importance of national security is clear to everyone who took part in 
this hearing, but it often doesn't seem like a compelling business case 
for companies considering investments or clients in China. How can we 
show companies that it is worth thinking about national security 
implications in their everyday activities, either for investment 
screening or cybersecurity practices or anything else?
    Mr. Kitchen. The very best thing Congress can do to raise general 
national security awareness on these issues is to speak clearly and 
regularly on these issues. Beyond this, increasing coordination and 
general information sharing between the federal government, state and 
local governments, and private industry will be essential. Continuing 
to refine and to expand the prevue and expertise of the Committee on 
Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) will also be critical. 
The recent CFIUS reforms were largely well-received; however, it will 
be necessary to continue this refinement if the organization is to 
remain relevant and engaged on the most important emerging 
technologies.
                                 ______
                                 
                    QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. MOORE
    Mr. Moore. I understand the Air Force has been examining legacy 
programs and trying to accelerate the retirement of programs that won't 
contribute significantly in the 2030-2038 timeframe. What are the 
greatest challenges in expediting the retirement of legacy programs to 
re-invest in next generation technologies?
    Ms. Fox. Congressman Moore, thank you for this question. I 
experienced two challenges when attempting to expedite the retirement 
of legacy programs. The first was that many of these capabilities were 
in constant demand, so the operational need outweighed the benefit of 
early retirement. There is a significant time delay between initial 
investment in next-generation technologies and their availability for 
actual use. As long as there is a great need for deployed military 
forces, this gap is a deterrent to early retirement of legacy systems.
    There are, however, some capabilities that the military services 
and DOD leadership would like to retire early. Some examples from my 
time in government include the A-10 and Navy cruisers. While these 
platforms still provided operational value, there were more modern 
alternatives that cost much less to operate and maintain. In each case, 
despite strong evidence that the military could perform its missions 
without these platforms, Congress, at that time, overruled DOD and 
forced the Department to retain these platforms. Congressional 
interests and constituency pressure are factors the Department must 
face when attempting to retire legacy platforms.
    Mr. Moore. Utah is home to the Utah Test and Training Range, the 
nation's largest overland restricted airspace. This Major Range and 
Test Facilities Base provides capabilities critical to support of next 
generation technologies and the DOD acquisition system. How should the 
department modernize and invest in this infrastructure that supports 
the training and integration of next generation technologies?
    Ms. Fox. Thank you, Congressman Moore. The Utah Test and Training 
Range, with its large area and extensive high-altitude restricted 
airspace, provides a vital ability to test and experiment with current 
and new technologies. I am not current on the status of test ranges; 
however, in the past these ranges have been under constant pressure to 
reduce operations from nearby communities and civilian airspace 
control. In my view, it is vitally important to protect these ranges 
and their capabilities. Beyond protection from encroachment, to 
adequately test new technologies, I believe we will need some new 
capabilities and, possibly even new policies. AI-enabled autonomous 
systems, for example, have the risk of straying out of approved test 
areas. Technologists are working hard, and are making progress, to 
effectively control these new technologies, but upgrades to ranges 
could be necessary to enable them. Additionally, as operational ranges 
and altitudes continue to expand, we will need to incorporate more 
detailed modeling and simulation capabilities, to include augmented 
reality/virtual reality (AR/VR) technologies, in order to fully test 
and experiment with some of the next-generation technologies.
    Mr. Moore. During your time at DARPA, did special hiring 
authorities give you the ability to recruit and retain top tier talent? 
What changes can the department pursue to improve personnel 
authorities?
    Dr. Coleman. DARPA hires personnel using two authorities: 1121 and 
IPA. It is tremendously important that DARPA's hiring authorities are 
not only preserved but also continually reviewed for enhancement. The 
hiring authorities are often under attack from those who would prefer a 
``one size fits all'' approach. That would be nothing short of 
disastrous for the Agency. The authorities must be preserved and 
expanded so that their benefits don't fall too far behind the private 
sector.
    1121: This is perhaps the most widely used authority at DARPA. It 
works well for two types of people: those who are already employed by 
the government and/or those who live in the DC metro area. People that 
do not work for the government are not eligible for full relocation 
benefits. So on top of very often asking them to take a pay cut, we 
also ask them to self finance their move to Washington. This obviously 
acts as a powerful disincentive for technical talent outside the 
government and the DC metro area for joining the Agency. Adding a 
statement to the 1121 language that DARPA employees appointed under the 
authority will be considered as current government employees for the 
purposes of the Joint Travel Regulations would be a huge recruiting 
tool.
    IPA: Extending the same relocation benefit as above to those hired 
under the IPA authority and/or offering full per diem for those who 
choose not to move for the duration of their service would offer much 
needed flexibility to those who want to serve so that they can select 
which option works best for them and their families.
    DARPA does not currently have any HQE allocations. When the HQE 
authority was first created, DARPA had 60 regular allocations. At its 
inception the authority was delegated from SecDef to the defense 
agencies. However OSD/WHS rescinded the delegation of the HQE direct 
hiring authority in September 2012. The significant delays this 
introduced were of the order of several months and the authority became 
no longer viable as it resulted in loss of expediency to hire. 
Legislating the HQE authority directly to the DARPA Director (as is 
1121) would offer the Agency an extremely valuable tool to recruit 
senior talent.
    While it is true that nobody joins DARPA for the financial 
benefits, and it will always offer less than what the private sector 
can provide, every little bit helps and allows the Agency to target the 
critical technical talent we need to secure our national security 
technology advantage
    Mr. Moore. Back in my district, Hill Air Force Base and Utah's 
defense community consistently rank a highly competitive hiring 
atmosphere and the ability to find and retain talent as one of their 
greatest challenges. Do you share any concerns about the health and 
quality of the DOD STEM workforce and how can government programs 
better compete with private industry?
    Mr. Kitchen. Congressman Moore, I do share your concerns regarding 
the nation's STEM workforce--in the Department of Defense and elsewhere 
in the government. There have been several attempts to ``attract and 
retain'' STEM expertise into government service; however, until the 
U.S. government is able to pay, train, and use this expertise as well 
as the private sector (or at least close to these standards while 
providing a sufficiently motivating mission), there is little reason to 
believe the government will achieve its STEM manpower goals. Even 
industry is unable to attract the level of American STEM expertise that 
is demanded by existing commercial needs. Add to this the complications 
of calcified bureaucracies and a near total lack of agility, the 
federal government is not well positioned to make meaningful progress 
on this front in the near- to mid-term.

                                  [all]