Welcome to the 119th Congress: The Armed Services Committees

What are the Armed Services Committees?

The House and Senate Armed Services Committees, with sweeping responsibility for the US “common defense”, are among the most influential government bodies shaping American defence policy.¹ Empowered by the Constitution to raise and support armies, the Armed Services Committees oversee Department of Defense operations on behalf of Congress. Committee members draft the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the annual bill authorising funding appropriations for each US military service and the Pentagon writ large and provide legal jurisdiction for implementing new capability, research and regulatory initiatives. In so doing, these committees ultimately set the terms for the volumes produced of key capabilities and munitions, the quality of life for service members, the priorities for defence innovation, regulations governing issues like technology transfers and capability acquisition, and the size and composition of the armed services, among other security initiatives. Still, it’s ultimately up to the appropriators whether those funds get allocated.

What are their subcommittees?

The House and Senate Armed Services Committees each have seven subcommittees.

Positions within both committees’ subcommittees are divided between the Democratic and Republican members.² Altogether, subcommittees hold exclusive jurisdiction over both the Department of Defense and the Nuclear Security Administration at the congressional level, including the power to call members of the administration, business world, and wider policy community to testify on all matters relevant to US defence and foreign policy.

Why do these committees matter to Australia?

In the previous Congress, Armed Services Committee members enabled the modernisation of Australia-US defence cooperation, including by helping to push through transformative export control provisions and establishing new funding mechanisms to facilitate the AUKUS partnership on nuclear-powered submarines in the FY2024 NDAA. With a new president in the White House and the Senate committee newly under Republican control, understanding where the leading members of these bodies sit on key issues for Australia equities is essential.

Members to watch in the 119th Congress

The Senate

Roger Wicker

Position: Chair, Senate Armed Services Committee

Seat: Republican, Mississippi

Time spent in Congress: 18 years

Time as chair or ranking member: Chairman 2025 – present; Ranking Member 2023-2025

Other committees: Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation; Committee on Environment and Public Works; Committee on Rules and Administration; Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe

Who are they?

Roger Wicker took office as Senator for Mississippi in December 2007, having formerly served in the House of Representatives and in senior active-duty and reservist roles in the US Air Force. He is an increasingly high-profile figure in debates over US defence spending and Pentagon reform, having articulated ambitious platforms on both issues in recent years.³ The Center for Effective Lawmaking at the University of Virginia consistently ranks Wicker among the most effective Republicans at translating his agenda into law.⁴ Mississippi is home to Huntington Ingalls Industries, the largest military shipbuilding company in the country; only Walmart employs more people in Wicker’s state. Unsurprisingly, shipbuilding is among Senator Wicker’s foremost policy priorities, having introduced the bipartisan “Securing the Homeland by Increasing our Power on the Seas (SHIPS) Act” in the 115th Congress.

US President-elect Donald Trump's nominee for Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth greets Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Senator Roger Wicker during his confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill in January 2025Source: Getty

What should Australians know?

Allies and partners

Wicker is a staunch supporter of strengthening America’s alliances and partnerships, though he also insists on greater burden-sharing by US allies and partners.⁵ He was among the 22 Republicans who broke with their party and with then-candidate Donald Trump to support the continuation of military aid for Ukraine in February 2024,⁶ and supports providing the weaponry needed to make a “substantial difference” to Ukraine on the battlefield.⁷ In the Indo-Pacific, Wicker has advocated for modernising command and control arrangements and more advanced cooperation with allies, calling for “visible and concrete demonstrations of support” for Indo-Pacific partners facing Chinese coercion, like the Philippines.⁸ Wicker is particularly concerned with the credibility of assurances associated with the US nuclear umbrella.⁹ Wicker joined SFRC Chairman Senator Jim Risch (R-ID) in proposing the redeployment of tactical nuclear weapons to South Korea, and separately suggested that Washington should explore NATO-like nuclear sharing agreements across Asia.¹⁰

China

Wicker regards strategic competition with China as a “new Cold War”,¹¹ portraying Beijing as a malign actor with little interest in accommodating US interests. His views are shared by Republican colleagues on the SASC and SFRC, all of whom criticised the Biden administration’s diplomatic overtures to China as overly conciliatory and compromising of US interests.¹² Wicker is particularly concerned that “China has gotten closer and closer to matching [US] military might” and is amplifying that strength through cooperation with Russia, Iran, and North Korea,¹³ anxieties which have greatly informed his support for vastly increasing defence spending.

Taiwan

Wicker is a forward-leaning supporter of the defence of Taiwan. He is committed to ensuring Taiwan is sufficiently capable of deterring Chinese military aggression,¹⁴ and has gone as far as to argue that a policy of strategic ambiguity “no longer serves our national interests.”¹⁵ Further, Wicker connects Taiwanese security to broader economic security and stability in the Indo-Pacific, and has supported a number of major legislative efforts to arm Taiwan,¹⁶ including the bipartisan Strengthen Taiwan’s Security Act of 2022.¹⁷ However, he has also decried the insufficiency of present military aid to Taiwan, describing supplemental authorisations for FMF to Taiwan “a pittance”¹⁸ and arguing for accelerated arms deliveries by the United States and its allies.¹⁹

AUKUS

Wicker has seemingly conditioned his support for AUKUS upon increased submarine industrial base funding. While he has called AUKUS “vital” for US regional security,²⁰ he has also voiced grave concerns the capacity of the US submarine industrial base to deliver – concerns shared with his SASC Democrat counterpart Jack Reed (D-RI). In July 2023, he joined 24 Republican colleagues in signing a letter warning that transferring submarines to Australia without a clear plan to replace them would “unacceptably weaken” the US Navy.²¹ Accordingly, Wicker refused to back legislative language on the sale of Virginia-class submarines to Australia in 2023 without additional assurances on industrial base funding.²²

Budget issues

Wicker’s signature issue is national defence renewal. In a May 2024 guest essay for the New York Times, Wicker warned that US “military readiness could be at its lowest point in decades just as China’s military in particular hits its stride,”²³ and he has voiced concern that US INDOPACOM priorities are underfunded.²⁴ As such, last year, Wicker began to push for an increase in defence spending to 5% of GDP. In 2024, Wicker pushed for an additional US$55 billion above the Biden administration’s final US$895.2 billion FY2025 defence budget request.²⁵ More recently, he proposed a larger US$200 billion increase in defence spending in the Republican budget reconciliation package.²⁶ Importantly, Wicker advocates for smarter, as well as greater, spending. He has criticised the detrimental impact of continuing resolutions on military preparedness²⁷ and has proposed a massive transformation of the Pentagon’s acquisition and innovation processes, objectives shared with Congressional Democrats and the new administration.²⁸

Jack Reed

Position: Ranking Member, Senate Armed Services Committee

Seat: Democrat, Rhode Island

Time in Congress: 25 years

Time as chair or ranking member: Ranking member 2025-present; Chairman 2021-2025.

Other committees: Committee on Appropriations

Who are they?

Described as a “quiet professional” and a party centrist on foreign policy issues,²⁹ Senator Jack Reed is a reliable dealmaker. Reed has adopted a low public profile relative to other senior Armed Services lawmakers despite his considerable military and political credentials. Indeed, Reed was once floated as a vice presidential pick for Obama.³⁰ Representing Rhode Island, home to Electric Boat’s Quonset Point Facility and several US naval installations, Reed has an enduring interest in submarine production and has spearheaded several efforts to boost funding for submarine programs.³¹

Senator Jack Reed (D-RI)Source: Getty

What should Australia know?

Allies and partners

Reed views the US alliance network as “the decisive factor” and “our greatest comparative advantage” in competition with China and Russia.³² He argues that successful US-led coalition-building efforts in support of Ukraine should be replicated in the Indo-Pacific, particularly for the support of Taiwan.³³ To that end, Reed encourages revisiting long-standing processes that govern US defence industrial and operational cooperation with allies, including arms sales and co-development projects,³⁴ command and control arrangements,³⁵ and cyber and intelligence cooperation.³⁶ At the same time, Reed has warned that strategic competition will require “more than a with-us-or-against-us proposition” – an important distinction for non-aligned Indo-Pacific countries interested in exploring ties with the United States without foregoing cooperation with China.³⁷

China

Reed regards strategic competition with China as a universal and all-domain encompassing struggle “across every field of national power… and across every region of the world,” demanding “urgent and sustained attention”.³⁸ Like the Biden administration, Reed frames this competition in starkly ideological terms as “an existential struggle between democracy and autocracy”,³⁹ in contrast – if only rhetorically - to the more pragmatic assessments of national security Democrats like Adam Smith (D-WA).⁴⁰ Reed has stressed the importance of enhancing Indo-Pacific military deterrence through modernising key relationships, fielding new defence capabilities and strengthening US force posture to prevent conflict and preserve a stable balance of power.⁴¹ He was also a key architect of the Pacific Deterrence Initiative⁴² with former Senator Inhofe (R-OK) to uphold “a credible balance of military power” in the Indo-Pacific.”⁴³

Taiwan

On Taiwan, Reed endorses the status quo, advocating for working under the Taiwan Relations Act to strengthen Taipei’s self-defence capabilities while avoiding provoking “aggressive behaviour” from China through revisiting standing US policy regarding ‘strategic ambiguity’.⁴⁴ He has previously supported efforts to vastly expand military support to Taipei, including doubling foreign military financing for Taiwan in the 2023 NDAA.⁴⁵ Like Senator Wicker (R-MS) and Reps. Rogers (R-AL) and Smith (D-WA), Reed has publicly linked the fate of Ukraine to that of Taiwan, noting the indispensability of US military support and the signals that sustaining such support sends to China regarding a move on Taiwan.⁴⁶ Relatedly, Senator Reed has dismissed concerns that the provisioning of military aid to Ukraine, Israel or Taiwan is a zero-sum game.⁴⁷

AUKUS

Like Wicker, Reed’s endorsement of AUKUS is caveated by concerns over US industrial capacity. The senator made waves in January 2023 when he and then-SASC Ranking Member James Inhofe (R-OK) penned a letter to President Biden warning that AUKUS risked becoming “a zero-sum game for scarce, highly advanced US SSNs,” writing that the administration ought to adopt a “do no harm” approach to AUKUS that would not undermine US prerogatives.⁴⁸ Notwithstanding these concerns,⁴⁹ Reed has championed additional supplementary industrial base funding measures to mitigate prevailing capacity challenges and enable AUKUS cooperation.⁵⁰ He has also underscored the value of AUKUS both in “multiplying” US and allied naval power in the Indo-Pacific into the future and as a catalyst for bolstering American defence industrial capacity.⁵¹

Budget issues

Like HASC counterpart Adam Smith (D-WA), Reed opposes cutting the defence budget but has warned that a ballooning national deficit and competing priorities mean the Defense Department should not count on future funding increases.⁵² Indeed, he consistently encourages making the “difficult decisions” of decommissioning legacy systems to fully fund priority capability modernisation efforts like the Columbia-class submarine program.⁵³ However, Reed has proven willing to support additional funding for urgent requirements. Though he initially opposed breaching congressionally agreed budget caps for the FY25 NDAA, Reed had previously championed bespoke funding measures for the Ukraine, Taiwan and the submarine defence industrial base in the 2024 National Security Supplemental.⁵⁴

The House

Mike Rogers

Position: Chairman, House Armed Services Committee

Seat: Republican, Alabama, 3rd district

Time spent in Congress: 22 years

Time as committee chair or ranking member: Chairman2023-present; Ranking Member 2021-2023.

Other committees: None.

Who are they?

Rogers is a long-time public servant, former attorney and businessman. He served as the Ranking Member of the Committee on Homeland Security before taking the gavel of the Armed Services Committee in 2023. Rogers received President Trump’s “complete and total endorsement” in his 2024 re-election campaign,⁵⁵ and was reportedly considered a viable nominee to lead the Pentagon.⁵⁶ Like Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Rogers has voiced concerns about the alleged politicisation of the Department of Defense, and has already commended President Trump for “restoring the focus of our military on lethality and putting an end to woke DEI programs”,⁵⁷ yet is nevertheless widely regarded across Congress as a pragmatic national security hawk who works productively with his Democrat colleagues.⁵⁸ Rogers is particularly vocal on space issues, having assisted in the creation of the US Space Force and proposed a separate Space Department.⁵⁹

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-AlaSource: Getty

What should Australia know?

Allies and partners

Throughout the previous Congress, Rogers was resolute in his support for providing security assistance to allies. This included pushing the administration on more ambitious, accelerated aid for Ukraine even as Republican support waned,⁶⁰ supporting an expanded US-Japan defence agenda,⁶¹ and insisting on timely US arms shipments to Israel.⁶² Rogers has been clear that the Indo-Pacific is the region home to “our nation’s greatest threats” and that the United States will not prevail in a future conflict with China without strong regional partnerships.⁶³ Still, Rogers has been frank that, above all, “deterrence depends on our military capabilities”, observing “while enhancing dialogue with our allies is always useful, I believe it is insufficient to address the growing North Korean threat”, as one example.⁶⁴ As such, his greatest emphasis is on national military modernisation rather than the bolstering of alliances.

China

Rogers has named competition with China among his top priorities as HASC Chairman.⁶⁵ In his comments on the FY2025 NDAA, Rogers presented China as “the most dangerous threat facing our nation” and that budget measures authorised by his committee are “laser-focused on deterring China and protecting our nation.”⁶⁶ His greatest concerns are the pace of PRC innovation of advanced capabilities and the comparatively “glacial pace” of US efforts.⁶⁷ Like Sen. Wicker (R-MS) and Rep. Smith (D-WA), Rogers is alert to the risks of China and Russia outpacing US military innovation,⁶⁸ but particularly in the space domain,⁶⁹ partly due to the interest in his Alabama electorate being the location of space command.

Taiwan

Rogers views US military support for Taiwan as an urgent priority, accepting senior Pentagon and State Department officials’ assessments that China may attempt to seize the island by force beginning in 2027.⁷⁰ In 2023, Rogers led a congressional delegation to Taiwan for engagements on bilateral relations, regional security and trade.⁷¹ Under his chairmanship, the HASC has authorised billions in presidential drawdown authority and foreign military financing loans to Taiwan.⁷² Rogers also criticised the Biden administration for not delivering military aid fast enough and Congress itself for not appropriating authorised funds to support Taiwan.⁷³

AUKUS

Rogers is a forward-leaning voice on AUKUS implementation.⁷⁴ He sees AUKUS cooperation on nuclear-powered submarines as a force multiplier in the Indo-Pacific region and supports expanding the US submarine industrial base to meet both national and Australian requirements.⁷⁵ Alongside former HFAC Chair McCaul (R-TX), Rogers wrote to the Biden administration in October 2024 pushing for further regulatory reform, noting that the “excluded technologies list” governing US defence exports to AUKUS partners remained a serious roadblock on cooperation and was “not in the spirit of the agreement.”⁷⁶ He also opposed President Biden’s proposed cut to Virginia-class production from two to one per year for FY2025, noting the potential ramifications for AUKUS progress.⁷⁷

Budget issues

Like Senator Wicker, Rogers is a staunch advocate of greater defence spending, and has made pursuing a budget benchmark of four per cent of GDP a priority for his tenure as HASC Chairman .⁷⁸ Indeed, Rogers has made calls over several years for real increases to the defence budget between 3-5%,⁷⁹ consistent with the goal set by former Trump Defense Secretary Jim Mattis.⁸⁰ The so-called “minimum threshold” of Rogers’ plan would increase US defence spending above US$1.2 trillion.⁸¹ In the past, Rogers has been critical of the consistent tendency of Congress to fail to pass an annual budget measure and instead to rely on continuing resolutions, describing it as “literally un-American if we aren’t doing a better job to provide for our military than that.”⁸²

Adam Smith

Position: Ranking Member, House Armed Services Committee

Seat: Democrat, Washington, 9th District

Time in Congress: 28 years

Time as committee chair: Chairman 2019-2023; Ranking Member 2011-2019; 2023-present.

Other Committees: None.

Who are they?

A well-known national security figure in Congress and in Washington DC’s think tank community, Adam Smith has served on the HASC continuously since his election to Congress in 1997. Smith is aligned with the socially progressive and fiscally conservative “New Democrats”, though he is regarded as an effective bridge between progressive and national security Democrats, and his top priority remains the regular passage of the annual NDAA. Smith has not shied away from articulating the limits of American power, observing that the era of US military dominance is over, and that Washington must adjust its priorities and resourcing accordingly. He advocated for ending the US mission in Afghanistan to refocus on other global priorities⁸³ and emphasises alliance modernisation, defence industrial revitalisation, and fostering military innovation as essential ingredients for American strategy in Asia.⁸⁴

Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash. at the US Capitol, July 2024Source: Getty

What should Australia know?

Allies and partners

Smith sees the modernisation of US alliances and partnerships in Asia as “absolutely crucial” to upholding a stable regional order, emphatically stating in 2023 that “the United States on its own is not going to be able to deter and outcompete China.”⁸⁵ Consequently, he has cautioned that Washington will “need to be as concerned about their [allies’] interests as we are about our own” if all parties are to deter Chinese aggression together.⁸⁶ Smith has also warned against the neglect of US relationships with critical non-aligned countries in the ‘global south’, including India and Indonesia.⁸⁷ Unsurprisingly, empowering allies and partners to “balance and hedge” against growing Chinese power, including through minilateralising cooperation, sits among his top priorities.⁸⁸

China

Smith has categorically rejected a straightforward win-lose conceptualisation of strategic competition with China.⁸⁹ He has sought to balance advocating for both stronger deterrence in the Indo-Pacific with fostering a cooperative relationship with China on global climate and economic challenges.⁹⁰ In part, this is due to his belief that US military primacy over China is “unrealistic”.⁹¹ Smith holds concerns about the unproductive nature of the all-prevailing “anti-China rhetoric” across Congress.⁹² Such are his convictions issue that Smith maintained his calls for greater diplomatic engagement even amid the spy balloon saga of early 2024.⁹³

Taiwan

On Taiwan issues, Smith supports maintaining ‘strategic ambiguity’ with respect to US declaratory policy on defending the island in a conflict, musing that the term is “somewhat of an oxymoron.”⁹⁴ At the same time, he has committed “to do everything we can to deter China from going into Taiwan”.⁹⁵ He is supportive of “a multi-tool, deterrence strategy” that includes providing Taiwan with asymmetric defence capabilities,⁹⁶ with the objective of turning it into a “porcupine”.⁹⁷ Notably, Smith visited Taipei as part of a bipartisan committee delegation in June 2023 alongside HASC Chairman Mike Rogers.⁹⁸

AUKUS

Smith is a strong advocate for AUKUS, framing it as a “huge positive” for the US industrial base and for military capability.⁹⁹ He supported reforming information and technology sharing regulations to facilitate greater collaboration with Australia through AUKUS Pillar II,¹⁰⁰ and also lent his signature to a bipartisan letter that countered concerns regarding US submarine production submitted to President Biden by the Chairman and Ranking Member of SASC in January 2023. That counter letter argued that AUKUS was “far from a zero-sum game” for US capability and expressed signatories’ strong support for strengthening the US submarine industrial base to enable “the early provisioning of existing Virginia class submarines” to Australia.¹⁰¹

Budget issues

Smith has consistently made the case that smarter, not larger, defence spending is needed to meet US global security requirements and force modernisation efforts.¹⁰² Smith has consistently warned that Washington “can’t afford to spend its way into military dominance,”¹⁰³ musing in October 2020 that the Pentagon was “going to have to live with a flat budget given the debt and the deficit and other priorities.”¹⁰⁴ Rather, defence innovation and acquisition reform are his foremost priorities as HASC Ranking Member. He has embraced the development and procurement of new disruptive capabilities for the Air Force or Navy,¹⁰⁵ even going so far as to muse that “Elon Musk, in his own unique fashion, is making a legitimate point” when it comes to rapidly adopting unmanned systems to replace manned capabilities.¹⁰⁶ Smith was also an active player in the creation of the Pacific Deterrence Initiative, though his proposals focused primarily on budget accountability rather than appropriating new money.¹⁰⁷

Appendix 1. Armed Services Committee Members in the 119th Congress

House of Representatives

Republican

• Mike Rogers, (R-AL 03)
• Joe Wilson (R-SC 02)
• Michael R. Turner (R-OH 10)
• Robert J. Wittman (R-VA 01)
• Austin Scott (R-GA 08)
• Sam Graves (R-MO 06)
• Elise M. Stefanik* (R-NY 21)
• Scott DesJarlais (R-TN 04)
• Trent Kelly (R-MS 01)
• Don Bacon (R-NE 02)
• Jack Bergman (R-MI 01)
• Ronny Jackson (R-TX 13)
• Pat Fallon (R-TX 04)
• Carlos A. Gimenez (R-FL 28)
• Nancy Mace (R-SC 01)
• Brad Finstad (R-MN 01)
• Mogan Luttrell (R-TX 08)
• Jennifer A. Kiggans (R-VA 02)
• James C. Moylan (R-GU)
• Cory Mills (R-FL 07)
• Richard McCormick (R-GA 06)
• Lance Gooden (R-TX 05)
• Clay Higgins (R-LA 03)
• Derrick Van Orden (R-WI 03)
• John McGuire III (R-VA 05)
• Pat Harrigan (R-NC 10)
• Mark Messmer (R-IN-08)
• Derek Schmidt (R-KS 02)
• Jeff Crank (R-CO 05)
• Abe Hamadeh (R-AZ 08)

*Prior to confirmation to the administration.

Democrats

• Adam Smith (D-WA 09)
• Joe Courtney (D-CT 02)
• John Garamendi (D-CA 08)
• Donald Norcross (D-NJ 01)
• Seth Moulton (D-MA 06)
• Salud O. Carbajal (D-CA 24)
• Ro Khanna (D-CA 17)
• William R. Keating (D-MA 09)
• Chrissy Houlahan (D-PA 06)
• Jason Crow (D-CO 06)
• Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ 11)
• Jared F. Golden (D-ME 02)
• Sara Jacobs (D-CA 51)
• Marilyn Strickland (D-WA 10)
• Patrick Ryan (D-NY 18)
• Gabe Vasquez (D-NM 02)
• Christopher R. Deluzio (D-PA 17)
• Jill N. Tokuda (D-HI 02)
• Donald G. Davis (D-NC 01)
• Gil Cisneros (D-CA 31)
• Eric Sorensen (D-IL 17)
• Maggie Goodlander (D-NH 02)
• Sarah Elfreth (D-MD 03)
• George Whitesides (D-CA 27)
• Derek Tran (D-CA 45)
• Eugene Vindman (D-VA 07)
• Wesley Bell (D-MO 01)

Senate

Republican

• Roger Wicker (R-MS)
• Deb Fischer (R-NE)
• Tom Cotton (R-AR)
• Mike Rounds (R-SD)
• Joni Ernst (R-IA)
• Dan Sullivan (R-AK)
• Kevin Cramer (R-ND)
• Rick Scott (R-FL)
• Tommy Tuberville (R-AL)
• Markwayne Mullin (R-OK)
• Ted Budd (R-NC)
• Eric Schmitt (R-MO)
• Jim Banks (R-IN)
• Tim Sheehy (R-MT)

Democrat

• Jack Reed (D-RI)
• Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH)
• Kirsten E. Gillibrand (D-NY)
• Richard Blumentahl (D-CT)
• Mazie K. Hirono (D-HI)
• Tim Kaine (D-VA)
• Angus King (I-ME)
• Elizabeth Warren (D-MA)
• Gary C. Peters (D-MI)
• Tammy Duckworth (D-IL)
• Jacky Rosen (D-NV)
• Mark Kelly (D-AZ)
• Elissa Slotkin (D-MI)