Congressional conservatives are hailing the passage of two dozen hawkish defense-policy amendments that members of the Republican Study Committee inserted into the National Defense Authorization Act, which the House passed this morning.
The House version of this annual defense-policy bill is expected to tee up an attention-grabbing clash with Senate Democrats who oppose its provisions on Pentagon DEI programs, abortion, and other social issues and will try to remove them. There’s another noteworthy aspect to the legislation that has gone overlooked in the conversation about the legislation, though: GOP lawmakers quietly scored some noteworthy policy wins focused on countering China, Russia, and Iran.
“The goal of the RSC is to make each bill that goes to the floor as conservative as possible while still being able to get 218 votes,” Representative Kevin Hern (Okla.), the chairman of the Republican Study Committee, told National Review. “With this NDAA, conservatives fought for and secured a long list of key reforms.”
He added that he’s “proud” of the amendments that RSC members advanced, saying these provisions “ensure our military is focused on threats from nations like China, Russia, and Iran, not carrying out the Left’s radical social experiments.”
The 24 amendments address a range of pressing national-security issues, including joint exercises with Israel and other Middle Eastern countries, Iran’s growing influence in South America, and Russian propaganda operations.
Some of these amendments might complicate the Biden administration’s ongoing effort to secure a nuclear agreement with Iran.
An amendment submitted by Representative Chip Roy (Texas) blocks funds authorized in the legislation from being used to fund, directly or indirectly, the Iranian government, people and entities controlled by the Iranian government, and people subject to sanctions through the Specially Designated Nationals list. Republicans had tried, and failed, to get this provision into the NDAA for several years, a senior congressional GOP aide said.
Other provisions, introduced by Representatives Jim Banks (Ind.) and Morgan Luttrell (Texas), respectively, would block funding to Iranian proxies, such as the Badr Organization in Iraq, and require a Pentagon report on whether U.S. assistance to Iraqi state-sponsored militias.
Several of the RSC’s NDAA provisions are focused on countering Chinese military aggression.
Another Banks amendment would streamline the process for designating Chinese firms as Chinese military companies for the purposes of existing U.S. sanctions lists, granting the chairmen of the House Armed Services and the Senate Armed Services Committees the ability to suggest additions to the list.
Some of the provisions focus on the effort to boost U.S. defense production and arm Taiwan.
“The lesson we learned with Ukraine is, you arm your partners in advance to avoid war. With these amendments, we are asking the Pentagon for reports on how to expedite arming Taiwan to prevent future conflict with the CCP,” Representative Mike Waltz (Fla.) said.
One of Waltz’s amendments would require the secretaries of state and defense to report to Congress on their efforts to transfer Harpoon anti-ship missile systems to Taiwan. Current backlogs have resulted in the ongoing delay of Harpoon sales, with the State Department recently telling Congress that it’s “not possible” to expedite delivery in many arms-sale cases.
GOP lawmakers are also trying to encourage the production of more long-range, ground-launched missiles; an amendment by Representative Doug Lamborn (Colo.) would require the Pentagon to come up with a strategy to boost production of precision-strike missiles.