Robert Wittman

America is entering one of the most consequential periods for our national defense in decades.

We face a rapidly modernizing China, continued threats from Russia, Iran and North Korea, increasingly sophisticated unmanned systems, strained munitions stockpiles and a defense industrial base that must be able to produce at the speed and scale modern warfare demands.

Congress is responding. The House-passed Fiscal Year 2027 National Defense Authorization Act authorizes $1.14 trillion in defense funding as our nation considers even greater investments in rebuilding our military and defense industrial base.

For Virginia, these decisions are particularly important.

Our commonwealth is one of the centers of American national defense. In Fiscal Year 2024 alone, Virginia received $76.2 billion in Department of Defense spending — the highest total of any state in America. The Department of Defense also ranked Virginia among the states where defense spending has the greatest impact on the state economy. Direct department spending in Virginia accounted for 10% of Virginia’s GDP in 2024, with even more economic activity being generated by the countless companies throughout the commonwealth supporting defense efforts. Those numbers represent much more than federal spending.

They represent the men and women who serve our country. They represent shipbuilders and engineers, welders and machinists, scientists and software developers. They represent military families, small businesses and communities whose economies are intertwined with the mission of defending our nation.

That is why Virginia’s voice in Congress matters.

I have the privilege of serving as vice chairman of the House Armed Services Committee and chairman of its Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee. As subcommittee chairman, I help oversee an extensive portfolio that includes aircraft, missiles, ammunition, tanks, tactical missile defense and many of the capabilities our service members will depend upon on tomorrow’s battlefield.

But our goal cannot simply be to spend more money.

The measure of a defense budget is not how much money Washington spends. It is how much combat capability we deliver to the men and women we send into harm’s way.

That means rebuilding munitions inventories and production capacity. It means modernizing aging facilities and the industrial base that supports our military. It means bringing innovative technologies into the force faster instead of allowing promising capabilities to spend years trapped in the procurement process. And it means demanding accountability for programs that are late, over budget, or failing to provide the readiness our warfighters deserve.

These are issues I have made central to my work on the Armed Services Committee. Earlier this year, our Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee examined how to increase the capacity and modernize the Army’s organic industrial base after recent conflicts exposed serious vulnerabilities in our ability to rapidly replenish munitions and expand production.

We also can’t forget the most critical component of our military readiness — the people.

Our military cannot remain the world’s best fighting force if service members and their families cannot find adequate housing, child care, health care or the quality of life they deserve. Investments in platforms and weapons must be accompanied by investments in the people responsible for operating and maintaining them.

Virginians understand these issues because national defense is not an abstraction here. It is part of the fabric of communities across our commonwealth.

The decisions Congress makes over the next several years will determine whether the United States can deter conflict, whether our industrial base can support a prolonged crisis, whether we can field new technology faster than our adversaries, and whether the men and women serving our nation have what they need to return home safely.

Virginia deserves a strong voice when those decisions are made.

I will continue working to ensure that voice is heard, and that every defense dollar we invest strengthens America’s security, supports our warfighters and builds the military capabilities our nation actually needs.

U.S. Rep. Rob Wittman has represented Virginia’s 1st Congressional District since 2007. A Republican from Montross, he serves as vice chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.