A Conversation with Rep. James Langevin (RI-02)

Show Notes

Today, we explore the role of Congress in advancing Electromagnetic Spectrum Operations with Rep. James Langevin. Representative Langevin is Chair of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Cyber Innovative Technologies and Information Systems (CITI). Ken Miller and Rep. Langevin specifically discuss the priority issues of the subcommittee and prospects for the Fiscal Year 2022 National Defense Authorization Act. 

To learn more about today’s topics or to stay updated on EMSO and EW developments, visit our website.

The AOC thanks Northrop Grumman Corporation for sponsoring this episode.

Creators & Guests

Host

Ken Miller

AOC Director of Advocacy & Outreach, Host of @AOCrows From the Crows' Nest Podcast

Producer

Laura Krebs

Editor

Reese Clutter

What is From the Crows' Nest?

This podcast features interviews, analysis, and discussions covering leading issues of the day related to electromagnetic spectrum operations (EMSO). Topics include current events and news worldwide, US Congress and the annual defense budget, and military news from the US and allied countries. We also bring you closer to Association of Old Crow events and provide a forum to dive deeper into policy issues impacting our community.

Ken Miller (00:10):
Welcome to From the Crows' Nest, a podcast on Electromagnetic Spectrum Operations or EMSO. I'm your host, Ken Miller, director of Advocacy and Outreach for the Association of Old Crows. Thank you for listening.

Ken Miller (00:21):
In today's episode, I am very excited to be joined by Congressman Jim Langevin. He is chairman of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Cyber, Innovative Technologies, and Information Systems. Also, known as the CITIS Subcommittee.

Ken Miller (00:34):
Before we begin, I would like to thank our sponsor Northrop Grumman Corporation. Northrop Grumman provides full spectrum superiority. Their innovative multifunction interoperable solutions ensure war fighters have full spectrum dominance to make real-time decisions no matter the environment or domain. Learn more at ngc.com/ew.

Ken Miller (00:55):
I'd like to welcome Congressman Jim Langevin to the Crows' Nest today. He is a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee. And as I mentioned in the opening, he is also chairman of the CITIS Subcommittee.

Ken Miller (01:05):
He is actively engaged on a range of technology issues including electromagnetic spectrum operations, directed energy, and cybersecurity. He represents the second district over at Rhode Island and he is in his 11th term in office.

Ken Miller (01:18):
I worked with his office for several years now. He has always been one of the most approachable members of Congress you'll find on Capitol Hill. He has a tremendous personal story of overcoming a tragedy of a gun accident when he was 16 years old that left him paralyzed, a quadriplegic, and he's used this to become a strong voice on a range of issues outside of National Security as well.

Ken Miller (01:40):
I greatly appreciate the job he's done and I'm so happy to have him here with me today. Thank you and welcome Congressman Langevin.

Jim Langevin (01:46):
Thank you, thank you. I find these issues all very challenging and at the end of the day, the more I understand it, hopefully the more I can do to help strengthen our national security and give our war fighters every advantage whenever sending them into middle of air fight.

Ken Miller (02:02):
Excellent. So I want to start off talking about the House Armed Services Committee. You are the chairman of the subcommittee on Cyber Innovative Technologies and Information Systems, and this is a new Subcommittee this year. You were formerly the chairman of the Intelligence Emerging Threats and Capability Subcommittee last year. And so has kind of basically re-designated that old subcommittee and broke it into two. And you have the cyber, that what we call the CITI subcommittee. And then the other one is I guess, Intelligence and Special Ops.

Ken Miller (02:33):
I was wondering if you could walk us through the rationale for breaking apart or re-designating the IETC committee from last Congress into these two new subcommittees. And what is the role this new subcommittee has and what is your jurisdiction?

Jim Langevin (02:48):
So the rationale behind the changing the subcommittees and having two is that the subcommittee that under the current jurisdiction, it is with the cyber and innovative technologies and patient systems is growing in importance and capabilities. And it didn't seem to be slowing down any time soon. And we need to be able to give the attention, the focus that these issues really deserve. And the last years is NDAA just by way of example, had over 70 cyber provisions in there so much so that we had to create a new cyber title in the bill for the first time. There were also dozens of AI revisions and our success in great power competition really rise on sophisticated, coordinated digital capabilities.

Jim Langevin (03:38):
So it has needs, and we dedicated staff and resources to face this challenge and exhibit the oversight for men and women in uniform that they deserve. And again, our goal is to try to master these technologies, identify where we have an advantage as a country and grow that advantage. But remember that also our enemies and adversaries are investing heavily in technology and their electronic warfare capabilities to undermine our advantage where we've made such heavy investments over the years. And we need to identify where they have undermine our advantage. And we need to turn that around in our favor. Again, we should never send a war fighters into an fair fight, and that is our goals.

Ken Miller (04:22):
So, I wanted to quickly build on that. You've had a number of interesting hearings to start off this Congress at one on, on electromagnetic spectrum operations. You just had one on just this information, warfare ideas and cyber heading into this year, particularly with the eye on the FY 2022 defense budget. What are some of your specific priorities that you're looking to direct the subcommittee's attention to?

Jim Langevin (04:48):
Well, so we have jurisdiction over cyber security, cyber operations, and forces. We're going to focus on artificial intelligence, machine learning, information technology, and operations, software acquisition, electromagnetic spectrum, and warfare and science and technology. So those are the areas of jurisdiction under the subcommittee. I particularly interested obviously cyber and both the offensive and these sets of capabilities, but then directed energy is another thing we.

Jim Langevin (05:20):
I believe that directed energy is at an inflection point, and we've got to do more to get it out of the labs and into the hands of the war fighters and then electromagnetic spectrum of aggravated issues. Again, those are the areas that is especially EDW, where we make use of these extraordinary exquisite capabilities, very heavy technology centric, but given a war fighter is amazing. It manages everything from whether it's ISR to these sophisticated weapons systems that we've developed, even cyber capabilities, our enemies and adversaries know this, and they haven't invested heavily over the years to try to undermine our advantage. And in a lot of ways, our EDW capabilities had atrophied over the years. And we're changing that around where we're making them more robust as we go forward. So those are the kind of the problem set areas that I'm going to continue to focus on.

Ken Miller (06:15):
On, which do your sub committee. And this is an area of the AOC has worked a lot with your office. You also have a leading role in three very important caucuses to the cybersecurity, directed energy caucus, and then the EDW working group, which basically allows you to lead on each of these issues from a caucus standpoint. But, what role as a subcommittee chair, what role do some of these caucuses play or can play in terms of advancing the issue in Congress or raising awareness?

Jim Langevin (06:45):
Yeah, so, all three of these areas are, are vital to national security and initiatives, but not necessarily well understood by law makers and their staff. And so the role of the caucus is basically to educate law makers and staff, every kind of support for these programs. I know that we spun to two DE caucus events this year, we had program updates and DE weapons and the strategic context. And it allows us to advocate for policies to push the DOD, to develop and field these, these new technologies. So you get all three are vital to national security. And I'm proud to lead or co-lead all three of them.

Ken Miller (07:34):
I just wanted to talk a little bit about directed energy too. You've been following this for many years and you've seen kind of the growth of this area as it's really starting to enter operations. Can you talk about where we're at today with directed energy and where are we succeeding and what are some of the challenges we have moving forward?

Jim Langevin (07:51):
I grew up in the Reagan era, right? And I still remember the famous strategic defense initiative speech, and Ronald Reagan did what presidents do, right? They, set up this bold vision and this is the director and energy missile defense shield that was going to protect the United States from ICBM attachments. So [inaudible], at the time it turned out there was a lot of hype and the deep technology was not nearly mature enough at all to come close to that vision, but it did rally our greatest bright scientists and military thinkers to move in that direction. So, here I am all these years later, and the directed energy is really coming into its own. It's maturing at a rapid pace. And it's currently really at an inflection point that the technology is mature and it's showing real operational benefits, especially against drones, jury been demonstrated, but that's a small mindset in some ways that that fixes today's problems that this is where Congress really needs to step in and help.

Jim Langevin (08:52):
We need to convince the services that DE is the way of the future. So the way forward for things like missile defense, defending the fleet of our ships, our sailors and Marines, and we need to get these systems fielded across the military services. So this is what we're we're focusing on. We want to get the technology over the valley of death, if you will, because it, it can be a game changer, enemies and adversaries investing in things like hypersonics, and also short, medium and long range missiles that they can hold us, our forces fleet at risk. We need to change that around as you know, and obviously the Connecticut receptors are very expensive. We can utilize directed energy. We're talking about pennies per shot versus millions per shot. So we definitely bend the cost curve in our favor and just enhance our capabilities of course, across the spectrum.

Ken Miller (09:48):
But you, you mentioned the valley of death. And I think one of the challenges that I've seen with direct energy over the years is it's has a very strong track record in the labs, but when you really get into operationalizing directed energy, you have to deal with what we call like the dot middle PF doctor and organization leadership, the training, the personnel, there's a lot that goes into operationalizing, the capability. How is DOD positioned on that front? Do you think, how, what do you think, what role do you think Congress has in working with DOD to make sure that, we have the manpower, we have the training, the skill set, the policy, and doctrine all that to support really pushing DE into the future and operationalizing it.

Jim Langevin (10:32):
Well, you raised a good point, right? Cause you have to feel the equipment. You got to get into the hands of the war fighter, right? Let them work with it. You got to incorporate into our con ops and a number of the planning and you know how to incorporate it as a compliment other technologies. So the services really need to incorporate these systems into future design plans. They need to articulate operational plans, identify and employee DE capabilities, showing the Navy as a promising start by mentioning the need to design future ships around DE systems.

Jim Langevin (11:04):
But we've already seen that it's not just a science project anymore. This has real utility for shooting down drones. We've already done it. Real-world tests. I was excited when they put the first wave of laser demonstrator on the USS Ponce. And there's only a 30 kilowatt system. It's not suitable for missile defense, but you know, it showed utility and showed it shooting down low flying or slow flying planes or drones, and then you've got the 150 kilowatt system that's being put on the USS Ponce. And so there again, when you get into the hundred 150 to 300 kilowatt breach, you're talking about utility for things like ship defense, missile defense, and it's exciting that we're at the cutting edge,

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Ken Miller (12:50):
Let's shift our focus to electromagnetic spectrum operations. The subcommittee had a hearing featuring Brian Clark from the Hudson Institute and the Dr. Conley from Mercury, as well as GAO, raised a lot of issues about where DOD is going in terms of governance and, and fielding capabilities. What were some of the takeaways that you had from that hearing back in March?

Jim Langevin (13:13):
Well, I think some of the takeaways or that DOD has made a significant progress in closing gaps and in our, you have your capabilities and maintaining advantages, obviously more work needs to be done. And is it modernizing systems and capabilities, joint interoperability develop, right management structure, strategy and resources in DOD? But we're showing steady progress there. And I want to make sure that we continue to stay on the right path.

Ken Miller (13:44):
The GAO testified that they had a report back in December and testified on that at the hearing. And they mentioned that basically in the past we have the DOD EMS superiority strategy out that's currently, they're getting ready to release the implementation plan for that. But DOD's history with effectively implementing strategies is a little bit up for debate. They haven't always done a good job, particularly on the EW front. What can Congress do? What are some of the things that Congress can do or the armed services committee, your subcommittee, can do to hold DOD accountable, to fully implementing the EMS superiority strategy?

Jim Langevin (14:18):
Well, firstly, we can put a single office in charge. Congress has already taken the first step by directing DOD to find a single entity to be responsible for EMSO. Ideally, it's a policy person, but we also need to resource that office appropriately. Those are the things that I'm going to continue to focus on. This session of Congress and, and beyond.

Ken Miller (14:41):
You mentioned earlier, when we were talking about direct energy, the valley of death, that's getting programs from R and D over to procurement is a very important issue and kind of related to is also how is how we diversify the limited resources we have on key capabilities. You can only fund so much. We have the new budget coming out for FY 2022 budget requests coming out hopefully soon. And of course the Congress's role in developing the annual authorization bill. How can Congress help DOD invest in, in future technologies, diversify that into some of the capabilities that you've talked about today?

Jim Langevin (15:17):
Yeah, basically we need flexible agile systems that are software centric. Historically, we've been hardware focused while the software is kind of an afterthought that needs to change. We need interoperability between new and existing platforms and we need to leverage innovation in the private sector, wherever possible. So, things that are plug and play, if you will, allowing for software upgrades, flexibility, these are the things that what we need to focus on in the future. That's not the way it is right now, but if we're going to change that.

Ken Miller (15:51):
During the rounds of questions with the other members of the subcommittee, one of the topics that I was pleased to hear come up so frequently, was that on kind of workforce in stem and education, that, that aspect of the issue, because I think oftentimes you just look at just the technology and we forget about the people behind it that are making that technology and have to operate it and learn it. So how do we improve education training and, and sustainment programs for an EMSO? So workforce skilled engineers, physicists, programmers, and operators.

Jim Langevin (16:23):
Well, you're spot on to focus on workforce because it's not only about developing the technology, but it's about the people that are doing the research and development and then ultimately using the technology. So we've got to invest more is in career and technical education programs to CTE through all levels of schooling, to create a tactical workforce with EMSO understanding, and we need to attract and retain foreign talent as well.

Jim Langevin (16:50):
So one of the things I've put forward to hoping to receive progress in getting it into the NDAA [inaudible] the national security innovation pathway act, and that would allow the secretary defense to designate certain areas that have imported national security and put them at the people that after they work out and they've studied here, that they put them on a path to what is citizenship? So, we keep that talent here in the United States. But we need public and private sector competitiveness. Attracting talent to work in government is a matter of national security. We lose talented people due to bureaucratic barriers like, security clearances. So, we need to change that. And need to, really up-skill the current talent. Encourage service members and DOD civilians to take AI, and coding, and programming, and cybersecurity courses that we leverage that talent grow that talent in the military going forward.

Ken Miller (17:48):
And a lot of also has to get into our schools; high school, college, through stem programs and other, private sector, public sector partnerships. Is this something you're looking into is how to kind of improve or facilitate these STEM partnerships and opportunities to really get some of the young people that have the ability to really dive into this technical matter very early on and get them trained up. What are some of the things that we can do to kind of help out the STEM partnerships out there?

Jim Langevin (18:19):
So definitely having growing this talent at the youngest ages is important. So that's, again, a big believer in get a career and technical education programs, K through 12 education. And you'll get defense and commercial sector partnerships where we're most effective when the two sectors collaborate on training the skilled workforce. In summary, industrial base really epitomizes this model where we're going to have to hire 17,000 new skilled workers for the Columbia class program, the Navy, Congress, and private industry. I know right now, are working together to get set up at that training pipeline today, and it's going to impact as well into the future.

Ken Miller (19:01):
You mentioned the NDAA and Congress, obviously the sub committee is starting its annual defense budget process, but we're still of course waiting for the official president's requested the budget, which I assume is going to be coming here in a few weeks. Can you talk to us a little bit about what is the process going to look like moving forward here? What is the subcommittee schedule or what is the committee schedule for addressing the FY 2022 defense budget?

Jim Langevin (19:32):
Yeah, right now, we'd be in the middle of posture hearings. That's what we were expecting. We would be, but we haven't, we don't have the budget yet. So it's a little difficult to do posture hearings without a budget. Yeah. We're hoping to get the president's budget soon. And then secretary [crosstalk 00:19:45] Austin testifying before Congress coming up in a few weeks and then moving forward, it's going to be about the, during the mark of the NDAA, but we're looking at probably July or perhaps even September before we actually get to markups. So, it's going to be a little later than usual.

Ken Miller (20:04):
Yeah. That's quite a bit unprecedented, but I mean, this is obviously every year is a little bit different. I don't believe it's ever been that late for quite a while, at least.

Jim Langevin (20:13):
Yeah. I can't remember that either. We're going to have to adapt and push through.

Ken Miller (20:18):
With that, there's been a lot of conversation looking forward, obviously we're coming out of this COVID new reality and a lot of other competing priorities for limited federal resources. And there's already been talking about not being able to continue the growth and defense spending that we've experienced in the years past, but that doesn't necessarily mean that there's going to be significant cuts, but there is going to have to be some contraction probably in the future years. What are some of the areas that you think Congress and do you need to focus on that can help us bridge this uncertainty between potentially contracting a defense budget, but also meeting our meeting the requirements for future warfare.

Jim Langevin (21:01):
There's no doubt that defense budgets will, I could bend to pressure in coming years. But I think we just have to get smarter about how we're spending our defense dollars making sure we're getting the best capabilities, at an appropriate cost.

Jim Langevin (21:17):
And [inaudible] is going to have to military will have to divest from legacy systems that are not effective, great power competition. Just by way of example, the Marine Corps decommissioned it's tank battalion and invested in Naval strike missiles. So, the city subcommittee, [inaudible] city incorporate commercial off-the-shelf technology where we can, that we're going to update our software acquisition policies to accelerate and improve how the DOD acquires software. And even as the budgets remain flat, we can't stop investing in emerging technology. Bottom line is if we don't figure it out, our adversaries will emerging technologies like, AI or quantum. They're going to be game changers in the cyber and space and the spectrum domain. So, we're got to make sure that these technologies are harnessed by us and developed and that we maintain our competitive and qualitative edge.

Ken Miller (22:12):
One of policies of the new Biden administration, as it pertains to the defense budget, is the effort to bring overseas contingency operations funding, OCO funding, back into the base budget. They've been separated for almost 20 years and basically OCO funding has been separate from any effort to either balance the budget or keep defense spending to a certain cap level. I think it's good that we actually are bringing this back together so we have more accountability and transparency in the budget. I wanted to get your take on this idea of bringing OCO and base budget back together.

Jim Langevin (22:47):
Yeah. I definitely think we should make every effort to do just that. OCO I think has been too often used as a fund to get things in that weren't in the base budget. And I think bringing it back together to mainstream budget is a better way to go. I'm looking forward.

Ken Miller (23:04):
I want to thank you for joining me for the episode and I really appreciate your time.

Jim Langevin (23:12):
Well, thank you. It's been a great discussion and I appreciate your interest in all of these topics and look forward to future conversations. That sounds great. Thank you so much.

Ken Miller (23:18):
That will conclude this episode From the Crow's Nest. Thank you, Congressman Lanterman for joining us, AOC appreciates all the hard work you do in Congress. I also want to thank our episode sponsor Northrop Grumman corporation, Northrop Grumman's multi-function interoperable solutions create full spectrum superiority for our war fighters across all domains. Learn more at ngc.com/ew. And finally this week from the crow's nest is set up here at our AOC SEMA 21 conference. We are currently working on a special episode of interviews with speakers and exhibitors that we will be releasing next week. We also have a much anticipated release of our sister podcast, the History of Crows. Coming out on June 2nd, please join us for these special episodes and as always, thank you for listening.