Politics
Restoring America as Arsenal of Democracy
I
Rep. Mike Rogers, Armed Services chairman, tells Newsmax of sweeping defense reforms. BY MICHAEL COZZI
n the 1940s, president franklin d. roosevelt declared the United States to be the “Arsenal of Democracy,” highlighting America’s industrial might as the backbone of victory in World War II. Today, amid renewed great power competition and
the growing specter of a potential conflict with China, Congress is working to reclaim that title — not with nostalgia, but with necessity. At the forefront of this revital-
ization effort is Rep. Mike Rog- ers, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, who is lead- ing a push to rebuild and reorient the U.S. defense industrial base for the 21st century. “We have to remember that
back when Reagan did the last of our industrial bases in the late 1980s, we had 51 prime defense contractors,” the Alabama Repub- lican told Newsmax. The dramatic consolidation to
fewer than half a dozen has cre- ated a brittle and sluggish defense industrial base, one ill-equipped to meet the demands of a high- tempo, near-peer conflict — espe- cially one against a technological- ly advanced adversary like China. To address this, Rogers and
his committee are ushering in sweeping reforms to retool the Pentagon’s acquisition processes and expand production capacity across the board. Central to Rogers’ plan is a cul-
“We need to get [the Pentagon] away from their risk-aversion tendencies and their desire to keep doing things the way they’ve
always done things.” — Rep. Mike Rogers
tural transformation within the Department of Defense. Historically risk averse and mired in bureaucratic iner- tia, the acquisition system has been slow to respond to emerging threats and sluggish in scaling production. “We need to get them away from their risk-aversion
42 NEWSMAX | JULY 2025
tendencies and their desire to keep doing things the way they’ve always done things,” Rogers said of the Defense Department. To that end, the upcoming National Defense Authori-
zation Act (NDAA) will compel the Pentagon to adopt a more agile, commercial-style procurement model. This, Rogers argues, will accelerate delivery and reduce costs. Rogers and his colleagues have convened roundtables
with CEOs of top defense contracting firms to ensure reforms are practical and targeted. “This year we are not giving just the authority to do things differently; we’re mandat- ing that they exercise new author- ities.” The pandemic laid bare Amer-
ica’s dangerous overreliance on China — not only for cheap con- sumer goods, but for critical sup- ply chains ranging from semi- conductors to rare earth miner- als. These vulnerabilities, Rog- ers insists, must be eliminated if the U.S. is to maintain strategic autonomy. A key piece of the new funding
includes a $13 billion investment in low-cost, autonomous weapons designed to be fielded in swarms, survive harsh conditions, and be produced at scale — all while low- ering risk to human personnel. The war in Ukraine has served
as both a warning and a prov- ing ground. Despite the collective might of nearly 50 nations back- ing Kyiv, the West has struggled to keep up with demand for artil- lery shells, air defenses, and basic munitions. Rogers sees this as a wake-up call. The strategy being advanced
by Rogers is clear: deterrence through readiness, production,
and speed. At a time when the Pentagon faces simul- taneous challenges in Europe and Asia, ensuring that American factories can build weapons faster than adver- saries can plan aggression is no longer optional — it’s existential.
©REUTERS
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100
