OPINION:
Just over a century ago, America’s military was in disarray. Our focus on defense was declining.
When the RMS Lusitania was sunk off the coast of Ireland by a German U-boat in 1915, this tragic event was a wake-up call to President Woodrow Wilson and many Americans who had been reluctant to support the defense of Britain and France against the invasion by the Germans.
Former President Theodore Roosevelt, one of the most persuasive patriarchs of a strong and well-trained U.S. Navy, was one of Wilson’s most outspoken critics of his lack of military preparedness.
Rep. Nicholas Longworth of Ohio, Roosevelt’s son-in-law, had a similar view. A member of the House Ways and Means Committee and a future speaker of the House, Longworth was a strong voice for defense industrial investment and aggressive military preparation.
Today, we face an eerily similar confluence of events. Americans have grown weary of foreign conflict, given 20 years of the global war on terrorism.
There is a growing feeling of isolationism brought about by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine and the billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars for military, humanitarian and financial support of this sovereign nation.
These growing voices of isolation are appearing precisely at a new and more challenging time with the rising threats from Russia’s allies China, Iran and North Korea.
In addition, the strong military aid for Ukraine provided by the United States and Europe has exposed the weak underbelly of our nation and our allies’ defense industrial capacity to produce critical materials such as ammunition, artillery shells and missiles. Likewise, we are depleting key stockpiles of these components here at home and among our allies.
As Longworth noted after the Lusitania sank, the United States learned that we cannot neglect the importance of “true preparedness” where we are “free from the industrial domination of any other nation” and that our defense base is “the very foundation of military efficiency … in a time of war.”
His words hold true today, both as they relate to lessons of Ukraine and freeing ourselves from reliance on foreign nations in key areas such as strategic minerals, semiconductor chips, and pharmaceutical compounds and supplies.
As Congress considers our nation’s 2024 National Defense Authorization Act, we must focus on true preparedness. While making critical investments in space, artificial intelligence and future technology, we must also enhance our military’s preparedness.
Congress should find the necessary ways and means to create a more effective defense industrial base for our urgent production of these elements. Likewise, the Department of Defense’s Foreign Military Sales, known as FMS, and Foreign Military Financing, or FMF, programs must be reformed to be more responsive.
Subject to the same constraints on the defense industrial base, the United States has offered many different weapons systems to Taiwan, which Taiwan has fully funded. Yet the expected delivery of these weapons systems extends years from now.
This is unacceptable given the growing aggression of the Chinese Communist Party in the region.
To address this, the House Foreign Affairs Committee recently created the FMS Technical, Industrial and Governmental Engagement for Readiness Task Force, of which I am a member.
The task force will study the U.S. government’s foreign military sales process and issue recommendations for enhancing the arms transfer to Taiwan, which is a critical step in analyzing the scope of challenges our nation faces in our assistance to ensure Taiwan can successfully defend itself.
Recently, Doug Cameron argued in The Wall Street Journal that “years of stop-start Pentagon funding for munitions led companies to close production lines or quit the industry, while output of many components and raw materials moved overseas. Defense Department chiefs estimate the decline will take five or six years to reverse.”
This should be our own Lusitania-type wake-up call. The clear and present danger of our own weakness in producing routine military supplies to defend our interests and those of our allies around the world who are dedicated to defend democracy must be top of mind and prioritized.
As Congress works to find a bipartisan consensus that will correct our deficiencies in America’s preparedness, we must keep our nation’s history in mind.
In a time where the threats of our foreign adversaries are ever-increasing, we cannot afford to be unprepared militarily.
Only we can learn from our past to ensure history does not repeat itself.
• French Hill is an American businessman and politician serving as the U.S. representative for Arkansas’ 2nd Congressional District since 2015.
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