Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., has released a report outlining key recommendations to rebuild the U.S. defense industrial base and military through generational investments to achieve military readiness and strengthen deterrence.
The defense investment plan titled 21st Century Peace Through Strength: A Generational Investment in the U.S. Military stressed the need to increase the annual defense budget to 5 percent of gross domestic product and recommended routes through which the Department of Defense, Congress and the executive branch could work together to speed up the development of new capabilities, Wicker’s office said Wednesday.
The recommendations are classified into major areas, including proliferating integrated air and missile defense, reviving homeland defense, restoring fleet readiness and accelerating U.S. Army transformation efforts.
Some of the specific recommendations listed in the report are reforming the Defense Production Act, modernizing the air defense radar network, accelerating the production of B-21 bombers and E-2D Hawkeye aircraft, expanding requirements for the Collaborative Combat Aircraft program, advancing the adoption of 5G at defense installations to improve data processing and buying at least 340 more fighter jets in the next five years.
Wicker, the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, also called on the U.S. Space Force to accelerate the deployment of layered, network satellite architecture and strengthen ground stations and underlying architecture.