Defense Writers Group
June 15, 2022
Moderator: Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Defense Writers Group breakfast with Representative Adam Smith, Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. Sir, we’re honored to have you. As I mentioned, there’s such great interest in these topics.
As always, our discussion is on the record, but there’s no rebroadcast of audio or video. I’ll ask the first question and then of course we’ll go to the room. Almost a dozen of you emailed me in advance. If we get through this list, we will of course get to others.
Mr. Chairman, the timing of our meeting is especially important right now. Ukraine’s on the top of everyone’s mind. The SecDef just returned from Asia. He’s in Brussels soon for talks about Ukraine. All of these highlight a range of important national security concerns.
As you’re looking at the budget proposal, what risks are being assigned the highest priority and does the budget do it well in your mind? And sort of the other half of that, Mr. Chairman, is where might the President’s budget request fall short and fail to properly address threats that you see as significant?
Mr. Smith: I think it’s a reasonable balance. And the problem always is, it’s a very slippery slope to a premise that says -- well, I think of a Member who shall remain nameless asking Secretary Gates, and Gates said, you know, he went through the whole our budget manages risk, here’s the risk we’re managing, you know. The basic analysis that you sort of just went through. And the Member said, now Secretary Gates, I don’t think that’s your job. You need to give us a budget that has no risk. I literally snorted in laughter at the question, and they went back and forth with that for a while and Secretary Gates finally said, I’m sorry, Congressman, we don’t live in that world. Okay? We’re managing risk. I think that’s where you can sort of run headlong into a lot of paranoia about what can happen and what you really need to be prepared for.
