While China pieces together drone fleets in months, it still takes the Pentagon nearly two decades to deliver a new aircraft to the battlefield.
The problem: The Department of Defense has no shortage of talent, but it’s still using a Cold War-era playbook to fight 21st-century threats. One of the smartest teams in our arsenal — the Joint Reserve Detachment (JRD) — is made up of nearly 50 reservists embedded at the Defense Innovation Unit. They’re software developers, drone engineers, and cybersecurity experts. But right now, they’re underfunded, underutilized, and lack formal authorization.
The solution: I introduced the Joint Reserve Detachment Act — a bipartisan bill to make this unit permanent and unlock its full potential.
Here’s what the bill does:
✅ Formally authorizes the JRD as a rapid innovation reserve force
✅ Ensures continued integration with the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU)
✅ Expands access to top-tier private-sector talent in AI, robotics, and cyber
✅ Bridges the gap between battlefield needs and cutting-edge solutions
Bottom Line: We can’t outpace our adversaries if advanced technology gets buried in red tape. This bill helps us get battle-ready solutions to the field, fast.