U.S. SENATE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE
U.S. Senator John McCain, Chairman
U.S. Senator Jack Reed, Ranking Member

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 NDAA

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Executive Summary

One of Congress’ most important constitutional responsibilities is providing for the common defense. To fulfill this
fundamental duty, Congress has for the last 55 consecutive years passed the National Defense Authorization Act
(NDAA), which authorizes funding and provides authorities for the U.S. military. The Senate Armed Services Committee voted unanimously, 27-0, to advance this important legislation to the Senate floor.
The Senate Armed Services Committee takes seriously its obligation to our men and women in uniform and their
families, as well as the civilians and contractors who support our Armed Forces. Their service represents the best of
our country, and this committee and the Congress honor their sacrifice.
The committee markup of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018 contributes to a total of $640
billion for national defense, which exceeds the President’s budget request and the spending cap of the Budget
Control Act (BCA). The committee believes this authorization is necessary to help the U.S. military restore readiness, rebuild capacity, and modernize the force for future challenges. The committee markup also builds on the
important work of previous legislation to ensure our military is prepared to fulfill the missions of today and rise to
the challenges of tomorrow.
The committee markup:
•  Authorizes critical funding for the Department of Defense (DOD) to rebuild a ready and capable force by
increasing maritime capacity, procuring combat aircraft and munitions, and reducing the shortfall in end
strength.
•  Ensures the long-term viability of the All-Volunteer Force by improving the quality of life of the men and women of the total force (Active Duty, National Guard, and Reserves), their families, and DOD civilian personnel
through fair pay and policies as well as continued reform of the military health system.
•  Continues a comprehensive overhaul of the acquisition system to ensure that our men and women in uniform
have the equipment they need to succeed and drives innovation by allocating funds for advanced technology
development and next-generation capabilities to ensure America’s military dominance.
•  Advances our ability to protect our allies, partners, and friends.
•  Enhances the capability of the U.S. Armed Forces and the security forces of allied and partner nations to defeat
ISIS, al Qaeda, and other violent extremist organizations.
•  Improves the ability of the U.S. Armed Forces to counter threats in the information domain, including space,
cyber, and electronic warfare.
•  Reduces the threats from nuclear weapons and materials by strengthening nonproliferation programs, modernizing our nuclear deterrent, and ensuring the safety, security, and reliability of our nuclear stockpile, delivery systems, and infrastructure.
•  Terminates troubled or redundant programs and activities, identifies efficiencies, and reduces unnecessary
defense expenditures to make the best use of taxpayer dollars.
•  Promotes aggressive and thorough oversight of the Department’s programs and activities to ensure compliance with relevant laws and regulations and proper stewardship of taxpayer dollars.

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 Providing for the Common Defense
The committee markup authorizes funding above the President’s fiscal year 2018 budget request to meet
the immediate needs of restoring readiness, rebuilding capacity, and recapitalizing capabilities. The NDAA
authorizes a base defense budget of $632 billion for the Department of Defense and the national security programs of the Department of Energy. Together with the administration’s request of $8 billion for other defense
activities, the NDAA contributes to a total of $640 billion in national defense discretionary spending. The bill
also authorizes $60 billion for Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO). In sum, the NDAA supports a national
defense topline of $700 billion.
The committee has moved $5 billion of funding for the European Deterrence Initiative from OCO to the base
budget. This is part of a broader effort to use OCO for its intended purpose in funding temporary war-fighting
expenditures rather than for functions traditionally and properly supported through the base budget. Deterring Russian aggression in Europe by bolstering the security of our allies and partners in the region is an
enduring function that belongs in the base DOD budget.
Testimony to the committee from senior military officials and civilian defense leaders has underscored the
shortfall in readiness, the crisis in modernization, and the erosion of the U.S. military advantage—due, in large
part, to the spending caps of the Budget Control Act and sequestration. The administration’s request of $603
billion for the base defense budget was a step in the right direction, but it is insufficient to undo the damage
of the last six years. Indicating the need for funding above and beyond this request, the military services sent
the committee over $30 billion in unfunded requirements.
Ultimately, the solution must be to repeal or revise the BCA, and the committee urges Congress to do so
immediately. Our men and women in uniform, as well as the many other Americans who support the defense
and security of this nation, deserve the resources, training, and equipment they need to do the jobs we ask of
them. We owe them no less.

Reforming Pentagon Management
The committee recognizes that the Pentagon’s business operations are in need of reform. The committee
markup includes a number of provisions to streamline administration, transform business practices, and eliminate excess bureaucracy. Most importantly, the legislation clarifies the role and expands the responsibilities
of the DOD Chief Management Officer (CMO), establishing it as the third most senior position in the Pentagon. The FY17 NDAA created this new role, which will be established on February 1, 2018. The fundamental
mission of the CMO will be to manage the business operations of the Department. This year’s bill also gives
the CMO explicit authority to direct the secretaries of the military departments and the heads of other defense organizations with regard to business operations and Department-wide shared services.
The expanded authority of the CMO includes oversight, direction, and control of business-focused defense
agencies and field activities, to be determined by the Secretary of Defense with a goal of improving their
management to ensure effective and efficient performance. The CMO will also assume some of the traditional
Chief Information Officer functions related to business information technology systems. The bill also includes
provisions to promote defense management transformation through the better use of large amounts of data
from across the Department and directs the CMO to coordinate enterprise governance and use of data for
management purposes. To support all of these missions and activities, the committee markup allows direct
hiring authority for additional management expertise.
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 The committee markup also includes a number of provisions related to audit, financial transparency, and fiscal responsibility. It requires the DOD to certify its financial statements as ready for audit by September 2017,
a deadline originally established by the FY14 NDAA. It reduces the pay for service secretaries should they not
obtain an audit opinion on the open financial statements of their services by 2020. The committee markup
also requires the DOD to establish a database containing key indicators of the Department’s financial performance, with associated savings targets based on improved financial management.
Additionally, the committee markup:
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Reduces the number of Deputy Assistant Secretaries of Defense by 20 percent.
Reduces the number of authorized Senior Executive Service personnel in the DOD by 10 percent.
Removes one assistant secretary from each military department.
Requires the inclusion of “contractor personnel” in the definition and limitation of the size of headquarters staff.
Re-designates the Principal Deputy Under Secretaries of Defense as Deputy Under Secretaries of
Defense in recognition that these are the only Deputy Under Secretaries of Defense.
Re-designates the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness as the Under Secretary
of Defense for Personnel and Health.
Enhances post-employment ethics rules for senior DOD personnel.
Requires the creation of a 10-year pilot program on an enhanced civilian personnel management
system for cybersecurity and legal professionals within the DOD.

Supporting the All-Volunteer Force
As we continue to ask our military to do more in response to rising threats around the world, we rely on young
Americans who commit to serve in the All-Volunteer Force that defends our nation. The committee markup
would improve military readiness and effectiveness by increasing the size of the total force. The legislation
also aims to improve the quality of life for the men and women of the total force. To meet those goals, the
committee markup:
•  Authorizes increases in end strength above the President’s request by the following amounts:
ɲɲ 5,000 in the Active-Duty Army.
ɲɲ 1,000 in the Active-Duty Marine Corps.
ɲɲ 500 in the Army Reserve.
ɲɲ 500 in the Army National Guard.
•  Authorizes a 2.1 percent across-the-board pay raise for members of the Armed Forces.
•  Authorizes $141.5 billion for military personnel, including costs of pay, allowances, bonuses,
death benefits, and permanent change of station moves.
•  Authorizes $33.7 billion for the Defense Health Program.
•  Reauthorizes over 30 types of bonuses and special pays aimed at encouraging enlistment, reenlistment, and continued service by active-duty and reserve component military personnel.
•  Authorizes $25 million in supplemental impact aid to local educational agencies with military dependent children and $10 million in impact aid for schools with military dependent children with
severe disabilities.
•  Authorizes $1 million for a pilot program to develop a public-private partnership on military spousal employment.
•  Authorizes $1 million for a pilot program on public-private partnerships for telework facilities on
military installations outside the United States.
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 •  Creates an offense under the Uniform Code of Military Justice that prohibits the distribution of
a photo or video of the private area of a person or of sexually explicit conduct that was recorded
with consent and distributed by someone who knew or should have known there was no consent
to distribution.
•  Increases pharmacy co-pays to generate discretionary savings for the DOD to fund improvements in military readiness and mandatory savings and to fund other personnel benefits and
programs, such as permanently extending the Special Survivor Indemnity Allowance under the
Survivor Benefit Plan and providing for annual inflation adjustments, and allowing reservists who
are eligible for the Federal Employee Health Benefit to purchase TRICARE Reserve Select.
•  Improves military family readiness by addressing the shortage of qualified child-care workers,
requiring that realities of military life be considered in setting the operating hours of child-care
centers, and by increasing flexibility for families in the permanent change of station process.

Modernizing the Force
The committee markup prioritizes modernization to meet current and future threats and directs funds to
provide critical military capabilities to our warfighters. The legislation:
•  Authorizes $10.6 billion for procuring 94 Joint Strike Fighter aircraft, which is $3.1 billion and 24
aircraft more than the administration’s request.
ɲɲ Includes $6.3 billion for procuring 60 F-35A fighters, which is $1.8 billion and 14 aircraft more
than the administration’s request.
ɲɲ Includes $2.9 billion for procuring 24 F-35B fighters, which is $526 million and 4 aircraft more
than the administration’s request.
ɲɲ Includes $1.4 billion for procuring 10 F-35C fighters, which is $800 million and 6 aircraft more
than the administration’s request.
•  Authorizes $2.9 billion for procuring 17 KC-46A tankers, which is $400 million and 2 tankers more
than the administration’s request.
•  Authorizes $1.6 billion for procuring 17 MC-130J aircraft, which is $1.2 billion and 12 aircraft more
than the administration’s request.
•  Authorizes $103 million above the administration’s request to restart A-10 replacement wing
production.
•  Authorizes $1.2 billion for procuring a fleet of Light Attack/Observation aircraft.
•  Authorizes $8.5 billion for space requirements, which is $771 million more than the administration’s request.
•  Authorizes $3 billion for Army helicopters, including $1.4 billion for 74 AH-64E Apaches, $1.1
billion for 48 UH-60 Blackhawks, $203 million for 6 CH-47F Chinooks, $247 million for 4 MH-47G
Chinooks, and $108 million for 13 Light Utility Helicopters.
•  Authorizes $2.2 billion for Army ground combat vehicles, including $1.3 billion for M1 Abrams
tanks, $793 million for Stryker armored combat vehicles, $111 million for Bradley Fighting Vehicles, and $41 million for Ground Mobility Vehicles.
•  Authorizes $133 million for Active Protection System development.
•  Authorizes $103 million for development of a ground combat vehicle prototype.

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 •  Authorizes $25 billion for shipbuilding to fund 13 ships, which is $5 billion and 5 ships more than
the administration’s request.
ɲɲ Includes $5.5 billion for Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, which is $1.9 billion more than the
administration’s request, including funds for 1 additional destroyer and $300 million for multiyear economic order quantity procurement.
ɲɲ Includes $3.1 billion for Virginia-class submarine advance procurement, which is $1.2 billion
more than the administration’s request, including $750 million for multiyear economic order
quantity procurement and $450 million for either a third FY20 Virginia-class submarine or
initiatives to expand the submarine industrial base.
ɲɲ Includes $1 billion and incremental funding authority for either 1 amphibious ship replacement (LX(R)) or 1 amphibious transport dock (LPD-30), which is in addition to the administration’s request.
ɲɲ Includes $661 million for 1 expeditionary sea base (ESB), which is in addition to the administration’s request.
ɲɲ Includes $250 million for 1 cable ship, which is in addition to the administration’s request.
ɲɲ Includes $509 million for 8 ship-to-shore connectors (SSCs), which is $297 million and 5 SSCs
more than the administration’s request.
•  Authorizes the budget request FY18 quantities of Ford-class aircraft carriers, Virginia-class submarines, Littoral Combat Ships, Lewis-class fleet oilers (T-AO), and salvage ships (T-ATS).
•  Authorizes $30 million for preliminary design of a smaller aircraft carrier, which is in addition to
the administration’s request.
•  Authorizes $1.9 billion for procuring 24 F/A-18 Super Hornets, which is $739 million and 10 aircraft
more than the administration’s request.
•  Authorizes $2.3 billion for procuring 13 P-8A Poseidon aircraft, which $1 billion and 6 aircraft more
than the administration’s request.
•  Authorizes a $1.5 billion increase for various missile procurement and development.
•  Authorizes $8.5 billion for the Missile Defense Agency to strengthen homeland, regional, and
space missile defenses, which is $630 million more than the administration’s request.
•  Authorizes $700 million more than the administration’s request for cyber requirements.
•  Requires the Army to develop a comprehensive modernization strategy explicitly addressing the
Army’s vision, end-state, key objectives, and warfighting challenges.
•  Requires the Army to report how it will develop a prototype for a ground combat vehicle.
•  Directs the Secretary of Defense to commission three independent studies on future Air Force
aircraft inventory levels and capabilities.
•  Authorizes multiyear contract authority and advance procurement for up to 13 Virginia-class submarines.
•  Authorizes multiyear contract authority and advance procurement for up to 15 Arleigh Burke-class
destroyers.
•  Codifies at least a 355-ship Navy with the optimal mix of ships as U.S. policy.
•  Fully supports the modernization of the nuclear triad and ensures that U.S. nuclear forces are
survivable, well-exercised, and increasingly ready to counter Russian nuclear provocations while
reassuring allies.
•  Fully supports Department of Energy programs to extend the life and modernize our nuclear
weapons and infrastructure and to secure nuclear materials and dangerous pathogens worldwide.
•  Requires the Secretary of Defense to conduct an assessment of the Department’s global force
posture in conjunction with the development of a new National Defense Strategy.
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 Continuing Acquisition Reform
Ensuring Implementation of Previously Legislated Acquisition Reforms
The committee markup continues the committee’s efforts to reform acquisition processes and procedures
through establishing accountability, accessing new sources of innovation, removing unnecessary processes
and requirements, adopting best practices, and improving the acquisition workforce. The committee believes
these steps will drive the bold change needed to improve the transparency, accountability, and effectiveness
of the Department of Defense. The committee markup:
•  Continues oversight and management of DOD acquisition enterprise and workforce structure to
reorganize offices and senior leadership to encourage innovative solutions to complex problems.
•  Reduces unnecessary laws and regulations that limit the DOD from obtaining the best value to
the government and the American taxpayer.
•  Authorizes programs and funding to improve the quality and support the efforts of the DOD acquisition workforce and the labor workforce that executes the mission.
•  Addresses challenges from the DOD on prior acquisition reforms, including the use of Other
Transaction Authorities, commercial items, and the Small Business Innovation Research program.
•  Includes provisions to improve DOD software-related acquisition practices, including a high-level
study by the Defense Innovation Board, a pilot program to start effective new software activities,
and other programs to realign troubled major software acquisitions.
Promoting Accountability in Development and Acquisition
As part of the committee’s commitment to providing rigorous oversight for defense spending, the committee
markup contains several provisions that demand accountability for results, promote transparency, protect
taxpayers, and ensure our men and women in uniform receive the capabilities they need on time, on schedule, and at a reasonable cost. The committee identified targeted reductions to wasteful or underperforming
programs and reinvested the savings in high-priority needs for the warfighters. The committee markup:
•  Reduces Army networking programs, such as WIN-T by $448 million, DCGS-A by $150 million,
and AIAMD IBCS by $200 million.
•  Reduces Air and Space Operations Center 10.2 by $105 million (restructured to O&M).
•  Reduces Ford-class aircraft carriers by $300 million.
•  Reduces Arleigh Burke-class destroyers by $225 million.
•  Reduces Zumwalt-class destroyers by $100 million.
•  Reduces Littoral Combat Ship and mission modules by $94 million.
•  Reduces duplicative research and development programs by $80 million.
•  Reduces duplicative contract writing systems by $63 million.
•  Reduces duplicative personnel, pay, and resource programs by $50 million.
•  Requires the Army to report how it intends to implement the findings of the DOD Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation study of the air-land mobile tactical communications and data
network.
•  Directs the Army to submit a plan for successfully fielding a suitable, survivable, and effective
Integrated Air and Missile Defense Battle Command System program.
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 •  Establishes a $12 billion procurement cost limitation for aircraft carriers after USS John F. Kennedy (CVN-79).
•  Extends a limitation on sole-source shipbuilding contracts for certain vessels.
Software-Intensive Systems
The committee reduces the authorized funding for many underperforming programs that heavily rely upon
software and information technology (IT). DOD’s warfighting, business, and enterprise systems are increasingly reliant on, or driven by, software and IT. While the DOD has committed billions of dollars to systems that
would empower the warfighter with a common picture of communications, command, and control in order to
manage operations within and across all domains, the Department and its partners in the defense IT industrial base have been unable to deliver many of these capabilities. Similarly, DOD’s investments in business
systems are often fragmented, with the military services developing their own custom solutions to common
business problems that have ready and available solutions in the commercial marketplace. The committee is
pushing the Department hard to adopt modern IT systems and practices, by using commercial agile software
development practices, to include more incremental development, and the NDAA includes several pilots as
well as associated training, tools, and infrastructure to accomplish this.

Developing Strategy and Policy for the Information
Domain
The committee has long expressed its concern with the lack of an effective strategy and policy for the information domain, including cyber, space, and electronic warfare. In previous years, the NDAA has included
numerous provisions that directed the executive branch to define and develop the strategies and policies necessary to improve the structure, capability, roles, and responsibilities of our national cyber efforts. The committee has also placed a strong emphasis on the need to develop a comprehensive cyber deterrence strategy.
The committee believes the responses to those requests have been insufficient and not commensurate with
the threats we face in the information domain. With respect to space, decision-making is fragmented across
more than 60 offices in DOD. Funding for space programs is also near 30-year lows, while the threats and our
reliance on space are at their highest and growing. To help address these issues, the committee markup:
•  Realigns the responsibilities of the DOD Chief Information Officer (CIO) between the Chief Management Officer (who would perform the CIO’s current business functions) and a new Chief
Information Warfare Officer—a presidentially-appointed and Senate-confirmed position reporting
directly to the Secretary of Defense that would assume responsibility for all matters relating to
the information environment of the DOD, including cybersecurity and cyber warfare, space and
space launch systems, electronic warfare, and the electromagnetic spectrum.
•  Establishes a policy that the United States should employ all instruments of national power,
including the use of offensive cyber capabilities, to deter if possible, and respond when necessary,
to any and all cyber attacks or other malicious cyber activities that target U.S. interests with the
intent to cause casualties, significantly disrupt the normal functioning of our democratic society or government, threaten the U.S. Armed Forces or the critical infrastructure it relies upon,
or achieves an effect—whether individually or in aggregate—comparable to an armed attack or
imperils a U.S. vital interest.
•  Establishes that it is the policy of the United States to develop, procure, field, and maintain an
integrated system of assets in response to the increasingly contested nature of space to ensure
the resilience of capabilities at every level of orbit, deter or deny an attack on capabilities at every
level of orbit in space, and defend U.S. territory, allies, and forces.
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 •  Requires the Commander of Air Force Space Command serve a term of at least 6 years.
•  Requires the Secretary of Defense to conduct a Cyber Posture Review, with the purpose of clarifying U.S. cyber deterrence policy and strategy.
•  Clarifies the functions of U.S. Cyber Command and refines command and control responsibilities
of the commander.
•  Requires the Commanders of U.S. Cyber Command and U.S. Strategic Command to jointly assess
the cyber resiliency of the nuclear command and control system.
•  Establishes a cross-functional task force to integrate DOD organizations responsible for information operations, military deception, public affairs, electronic warfare, and cyber operations to
produce strategy, planning, and budgeting to counter, deter, and conduct strategic information
operations and cyber-enabled information operations.

Driving Innovation in Research and Development
A strong and responsive research and development (R&D) enterprise has always been the backbone of defense innovation—and is crucial to delivering cutting-edge military technology. For over 70 years, the DOD
research enterprise has produced myriad scientific breakthroughs, which ensured that the United States
maintained a significant military technological advantage over its adversaries. With that technological edge
now eroding in the face of rapid and sustained foreign investment in military technology, it is important that
the United States maintains an agile and streamlined defense research and development enterprise. While
DOD R&D continues to operate at an advanced level, it has been hampered in recent years by an increasingly restrictive set of rules and regulations imposed by the Department itself. Building on previous committee
efforts to make the research enterprise more efficient and effective, the committee markup:
•  Authorizes funding for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Strategic Capabilities Office, and basic research near or above the level of the administration’s budget request.
•  Authorizes over $500 million in additional funding to accounts meant to drive advancements in
the Department’s Third Offset Strategy and address unfunded requirements of the Department,
with the goal of bolstering U.S. military technological superiority, including over $50 million for
basic research programs, and an additional $200 million for prototyping of directed energy systems.
•  Establishes and authorizes funding for a directed energy weapon system prototyping and
demonstration program to enhance the fielding and deployment of such systems for the benefit
of the warfighter.
•  Expands the use of Other Transactions Authority and Experimental Procurement Authority as
methods for entering into research agreements.
•  Streamlines bureaucratic processes that hinder the effectiveness of Department of Defense laboratories.
•  Expands DOD technology prize authority to allow non-cash prizes and to allow the government
to jointly fund prizes with private sector organizations.
•  Establishes authority for test and evaluation facilities of the DOD to hire senior scientific technical managers.
•  Authorizes the Secretary of Defense to establish more flexible mechanisms for the DOD to access
technical expertise at U.S. universities.

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 Strengthening Homeland Defense and Assisting
Partners in the Counterdrug Fight
As threats increase around the world, they are also on the rise here at home. The committee markup takes
several steps to bolster the defense of the homeland. The legislation:
•  Authorizes $791 million for Department of Defense drug interdiction, counterdrug, and drug
demand reduction programs.
•  Extends by three years the authority to support the unified counterdrug and counterterrorism
campaign in Colombia.
•  Directs the Secretaries of the Army and the Air Force to provide a report with recommendations
on how the Army National Guard and Air National Guard could gain effective unit and individual
training while also enhancing border security capabilities.
•  Directs an evaluation of the National Guard Counterdrug Program to assess its funding and determine how it aligns with DOD counter-narcotics goals, state-level plans, and program objectives.
•  Directs the DOD to provide an update on its efforts to combat the trafficking of drugs, people,
weapons, antiquities, and tobacco.
•  Requires that 50 percent of any funding allocated for cooperative anti-tunneling R&D activities
with Israel be spent in the United States.

Sustaining Detention Policy
The committee markup extends prohibitions related to Guantanamo Bay previously enacted by Congress.
•  Extends the prohibition on the use of funds for transfer to the United States of individuals detained at Guantanamo Bay.
•  Extends the prohibition on the use of funds to construct or modify facilities in the United States
to house detainees transferred from Guantanamo Bay.
•  Extends the prohibition on the use of funds to transfer or release of individuals detained at Guantanamo Bay to Libya, Somalia, Syria, or Yemen.
•  Extends the prohibition on the use of funds for realignment of forces at or closure of U.S. Naval
Station, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
•  Authorizes the transfer of individuals detained at Guantanamo Bay to the United States temporarily for emergency or critical medical treatment.

Countering Russian Aggression
The committee believes the United States must do more to deter Russian aggression, whether across its
borders or in cyberspace. Russia continues to occupy Crimea, destabilize Ukraine, threaten our NATO allies,
violate the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, and bolster the Assad regime in Syria. In
an unparalleled attack on our core interests and values, Russia engaged in an active, purposeful campaign to
undermine the integrity of American democracy and affect the outcome of the 2016 presidential election.

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 In the aftermath of revanchist Russian aggression against Ukraine, this committee authorized the DOD’s request to establish the “European Reassurance Initiative” in the FY2015 NDAA (renamed the European Deterrence Initiative in the FY17 NDAA) to reverse major reductions in U.S. combat capability in Europe over many
years. Due to the arbitrary budget caps in the Budget Control Act, the timely U.S. initiative was only possible
by including those funds in the Overseas Contingency Operations account. However, the committee has long
been concerned the European Deterrence Initiative does not properly belong in the OCO account and should
be transferred to the base defense budget as soon as possible without negatively impacting ongoing U.S.
efforts to reassure allies and enhance deterrence.
To those ends, the committee markup:
•  Transfers $4.6 billion for the European Deterrence Initiative from the administration’s OCO budget request to the base defense budget to fully support U.S. combat capability in Europe, facilitate efficient planning and execution, and ensure budgetary transparency.
•  Authorizes $500 million to provide security assistance to Ukraine, including defensive lethal assistance. The bill restricts half of these funds until the Secretary of Defense certifies that Ukraine has
taken substantial action to make defense institutional reforms critical to sustaining capabilities
developed using security assistance.
•  Authorizes up to $100 million from the European Deterrence Initiative to conduct or support a
joint program of the Baltic nations to improve their resilience against and build their capacity to
deter Russian aggression.
•  Authorizes $65 million for a research and development program on a ground-launched intermediate-range missile in order to begin to close the capability gap opened by the Russian violation of
the INF Treaty, without placing the United States in violation of the treaty.
•  Adds reporting on hybrid warfare as part of the annual report on Russian military and security
developments, including assessments of Russia’s information warfare strategy and capabilities,
malicious cyber activities, and coercive economic tools.
•  Extends the prohibition on using DOD funds for bilateral military-to-military cooperation with
Russia.
•  Prohibits the DOD from using software platforms developed by Kaspersky Lab due to reports
that the Moscow-based company might be vulnerable to Russian government influence.

Supporting Allies and Partners
America’s global system of alliances and partnerships provides the basis for security and stability around the
world. With adversaries actively working to erode that system, it is imperative that the U.S. commitment to
our allies and partners remains strong. Therefore, the committee markup:
•  Authorizes $1.8 billion in funding for counter-ISIS efforts via the “train and equip” programs in
Iraq and Syria.
•  Clarifies and supports the role of the Office of Security Cooperation in Iraq to assist Iraq in building strong defense institutions and force professionalization.
•  Authorizes $4.9 billion for the Afghanistan Security Forces Fund, including $25 million to support
recruitment, training, and integration of women into the Afghan National Defense and Security
Forces.
•  Authorizes 4,000 visas to be made available for individuals who are eligible for special immigrant
status under the Afghan Allies Protection Act.
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 •  Authorizes the Secretary of Defense to establish the Asia-Pacific Stability Initiative.
•  Approves the Compact Review Agreement with Palau and provides $123.9 of funding for the
Agreement.
•  Directs the Department to continue with the Maritime Security Initiative and encourages the
Department to expand the initiative to include certain countries in South Asia.
•  Authorizes $705 million for Israeli cooperative missile defense programs—$558.5 million more
than the administration’s request—including $290 for procurement of multi-tiered missile defense systems and $268.5 million for RDT&E for these systems. Of this funding, up to $120 million
is for the David’s Sling Weapon System, up to $120 million is for the Arrow Upper Tier program,
and up to $92 million is for Israeli procurement of Tamir interceptors for the Iron Dome shortrange rocket defense system through co-production in the United States.
•  Expands authorized workshop and course engagements with Burma to include areas that would
help shape and assist ongoing reform efforts in Burma.
•  Expresses the sense of Congress that the South China Sea is a vitally important waterway, that
the People’s Republic of China is undermining regional security and prosperity in the region, and
that the United States should play a vital role in securing the South China Sea and ensuring freedom of navigation and overflight for all countries.
•  Reestablishes regular ports of call by the U.S. Navy at Kaohsiung or any other suitable ports in
Taiwan and permits U.S. Pacific Command to receive ports of call by Taiwan; directs the Department to implement a program of technical assistance to support Taiwanese efforts to develop
indigenous undersea warfare capabilities, including vehicles and sea mines; and expresses the
sense of Congress that the United States should strengthen and enhance its long-standing partnership and strategic cooperation with Taiwan.

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