Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ann, in our compelling and lengthy testimony, you mentioned that there are different agencies that oversee programs.

I hope that today's hearing can shed light on some of the issues small businesses face in this program to help us identify ways to improve these programs during the upcoming reauthorization.

I passed my first bill in the House of Representatives out of the Small Business Committee

these programs have helped launch tens of thousands of successful research projects

I am especially looking forward to hearing from our panel to learn how we can get new companies interested in the programs.

Do you think that our capability lead over Russia and China is growing or shrinking?

How many times has China attacked us here at home with cyberattacks? It is ongoing.

Now, this Congress recently passed a science bill, really just a thinly veiled attack on climate science, but it prevented funding for NSF projects that are not in the, quote, 'national interest.'

If we had canceled the Manhattan Project during World War II so that we could build a few more aircraft carriers, I don't think it would have been a good decision.

I think it is very important on this subcommittee that we talk about numbers of ships and capacity and whatnot, but sometimes I get a little frustrated when we seem to focus exclusively on that.

So, General, do you think that we need to revise the current policy to be able to do that kind of training, to better meet this hybrid warfare or whatever you want to call it threat from Russia?

I was shocked at how little we were doing to counter the Russian hybrid warfare threat.