During a House Armed Services Committee hearing held before the congressional recess, Rep. Pat Harrigan (R-NC) questioned Military officials about Chinese drone production.
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00:00Gentleman yields back, Chair, and I recognize a gentleman from North Carolina, Mr. Harrigan.
00:05Thank you, Mr. Chair.
00:07Gentleman, thanks for your testimony this morning.
00:09Very much appreciate it.
00:11And just got a couple questions for you.
00:14One thing I've noticed, and I think we all understand, is that the Indo-Pacific is truly the pacing threat in theater for strategic competition.
00:25That is happening right now.
00:26And there is no doubt that the lessons that we are learning in Ukraine show us that low-cost innovation is starting to dominate the battlefield.
00:37This is a particular concern for me as we look at China because of the discrepancy between what China can produce against our dollars versus what we can produce here in our country.
00:50I think sometimes when, most times, when a product is purchased in China and then sold in the United States, it's sold for approximately three to six times, depending on the distribution model, what it actually costs to produce in China.
01:04So when we look dollar to dollar against what China is spending on their defense, what the United States is spending on our defense, what we're spending here, there's actually, you can't compare it dollar for dollar because those dollars are representative of a very different production capacity.
01:20And this has me very concerned, particularly with SUAS and small drones, as we wrap in the lessons that we're learning from Ukraine.
01:30And I think that we've come to a point where we have $2,500 drones that are truly threatening multi-hundred million, if not billion dollar assets.
01:41The ranking member talked about how Russia's Black Sea naval fleet has been, in part, scuttled by a force that has no navy of its own.
01:53Truly remarkable times and incredible threats.
01:57Eighty percent of the Russian casualties that are being caused in the Ukrainian theater are being caused by FPV drones.
02:03And it's estimated right now that China's drone output in 2024 was $29.4 billion, which is at least four times the amount of money that the United States is spending, obviously with far lower, by an order of magnitude, unit costs.
02:23China's continued modernizing its FPV swarm and biomimetic drone capabilities.
02:29So I want to talk about the Chinese drone advantage that we see today.
02:36What threats does China's dominance in the global drone market pose for U.S. national security in the event of a potential conflict?
02:47Congressman, China dominates the drone industry just by dint of their capacity to build them.
02:57Many of the long-lead critical items that go into any drone are made in the People's Republic of China.
03:02So diversifying our supply chains in order to ensure that we're not dependent on China to acquire the drones that we need to deter China is absolutely critical.
03:16General Brunson, do you have anything to add for Korea?
03:18I would, Congressman, and thank you.
03:20I can see without my glasses that you have served, so thank you for that, sir.
03:24One of the things that we want to try to bring to Korea is I think what we might be able to do is to innovate better.
03:32So if you're familiar with the Army's Transforming in Contact, Part 1 and 2, Tax Zero,
03:38there's some technology that's being put forward now that's going to allow us to 3D print drones.
03:43And so we can have our own autonomous swarms that we could go counter with.
03:47We're also looking to invest in other counter-UAS technologies as we've seen the hardening along the DPRK border within the DMZ.
03:56We've got to be able to see it a bit further.
03:59And other things that we might be able to do in order to improve our ability to understand our operating environment
04:05is the use of technologies that already exist that would give us the same advantages.
04:09High-altitude balloons, for example, could be used to great effect, in particular, on the peninsula.
04:14Are we doing any of these initiatives at the scale we need to do them
04:19in order to accomplish your strategic objectives that you've been given?
04:26I'm dissatisfied with the scale.
04:28I'm dissatisfied with the speed.
04:30And we have to go faster, work harder, and get better.
04:33Thank you, sir.
04:35Thank you, gentlemen.
04:37Mr. Chair, I yield back.
04:38Thank you, sir.
04:43Mr. Chair, I yield back.