Watch or download Senator King’s questioning HERE

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Angus King (I-Maine), Co-Chair of the Cyberspace Solarium Commission and Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces, today called on a top Pentagon leader to ensure America is adapting to the “changing nature of war.” Questioning General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, King warned of “preparing for the last war,” asked what the Armed Forces are doing to prepare for evolving threats like cyberattacks and electronic warfare, and emphasized the need to prioritize research and development (R&D).

“Are we preparing for the right war?” asked Senator King. “In terms of the changing nature of war that you've seen over the course of your career? If a conflict comes, it's going to start with cyber, electronic, directed energy, space. Are we adequately taking account of the change nature of conflict so that we're not preparing for the last war, but for – hopefully there won't be another one – but if there is another conflict, that's where our efforts should be going.”

“Senator, I think we're in a pivotal period here, a transition period where we have a method of war that is based out of an industrial age sort of thing, and we're moving to a different operational environment sometime in the future. So think about things like robotics, artificial intelligence, hypersonics, cyber. There's a wide variety of technologies that are coming at us very, very quickly, and the country that maximizes and optimizes those technologies for the conduct of warfighting is going to have a decisive advantage, at least at the outset of the next war,” replied Chairman Milley. “Now, at the same time, you can't “throw the baby out with the bathwater” here. We're in a transition period, so we're still going to need ships and planes and tanks, et cetera. But we are in that transition period, and I think this budget and the last one, and future budgets are going to have to move us in the direction of modernizing the force, transforming this force, into a future operating environment that is probably not very far away, probably about ten-ish years or so. And we need to move out with a sense of urgency.”

“I agree. And the R&D emphasis in the last budget, in this budget, I think, is one of the most important policy directions that this budget represents,” Senator King concluded.

A member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and Co-Chair of the Cyberspace Solarium Commission, Senator King is recognized as an authoritative voice on 21^st century national security and foreign policy issues. He recently pressed the Commander of United States Space Command on the threat of GPS systems being targeted in a conflict and called for investments in capabilities that will deter and confront Russian and Chinese aggression in growing areas of space competition.