Bipartisan support is growing on Capitol Hill to let private companies carry out retaliatory hacking against Chinese cyber attackers.

The issue spilled into public view this week at a House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party hearing. The panel’s ranking Democratic member, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, said he favors retaliation against China-linked cyberattackers breaching U.S. critical infrastructure and telecom systems. “I’m going to say something very provocative,” the Illinois lawmaker said. “I think that we should also consider potentially enlisting private sector actors to hack back at the hackers.”

Some Republicans are similarly eyeing new offensive cyber operations enlisting private-sector partners. At a hearing in January, Rep. Clay Higgins asked Adam Meyers, senior vice president of the private cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, whether the industry would use hack-back powers if provided. Mr. Meyers told the Louisiana Republican the industry has “the visibility to identify many bad actors.”

“There is a lot to be done to partner with law enforcement and those that have, the intelligence community as well and the military, that have the titled authority to take those actions and to support those operations,” Mr. Meyers said, adding it was time to “increase the cadence” of those cyber operations.

House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence Chairman Rep. August Pfluger said at a hearing this week that the Islamic State preys on young people to engage in lone-wolf operations.

“There is no doubt that ISIS actively looks to inspire younger individuals and frequently produces media tailored to juveniles because they think they are more susceptible to terrorist ideologies and more accessible due to their online presence on a range of platforms,” the Texas Republican said. “We must acknowledge and confront this urgent threat head on or we risk having another incident like we did in New Orleans.”

ISIS-inspired attacker Shamsud-Din Jabbar killed 14 people and injured dozens more in a terrorist attack in New Orleans Jan. 1. His deadly rampage looks to have already inspired others online. Federal prosecutors last week charged a Minneapolis man who cheered the New Orleans attack with trying to join Islamic State militants in Somalia.

Democrats share Republicans’ concerns and fear different forms of radicalization. Rep. Seth Magaziner, Rhode Island Democrat, raised alarm at Tuesday’s hearing about white supremacists, and said social media companies must not allow terrorists and criminals to act online. “To be clear, American citizens have a First Amendment right to hold and espouse extreme ideologies. However, there is no First Amendment right to plot acts of violence,” Mr. Magaziner said. “There is no First Amendment right to recruit others into committing acts of violence and foreign terrorists have no First Amendment rights of any sort.”

San Francisco-based artificial intelligence company Scale AI says it will partner with the Pentagon on a new project to introduce AI into military planning and operations. The company tells Threat Status that it has scored a prime contract for the “Thunderforge” program via the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), with the intent of bringing AI agents into military workflows.

Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang said in a statement that the development will transform today’s military operating process. “Working together with DIU, Combatant Commands and our industry partners, we will lead the Joint Force in integrating AI into operational decision-making,” Mr. Wang said. “DIU’s enhanced speed will provide our nation’s military leaders with the greatest technological advantage.”

Scale AI and DIU refused to provide details on the cost of the contract. DIU said the Thunderforge solution will first be deployed in U.S. Indo-Pacific Command and U.S. European Command. “Thunderforge is the foundation for the next generation of AI-driven military decision-making, enhancing the Joint Force’s ability to plan, adapt and respond to emerging challenges at machine speed — helping the warfighter to deter major conflict, or win if forced to fight,” DIU Director Doug Beck said in a statement.

Washington is stuck in a self-perpetuating cycle of dysfunction that directly threatens the country’s military, economic and technological superiority, according to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute’s third annual National Security Innovation Base report card released this week.

Despite the dynamism of the American private sector, inefficiencies in the public sector are hindering progress toward technological superiority, according to the study, which gave the U.S. government mixed grades across 10 categories, including defense modernization, manufacturing capacity and the industrial base.

Hypersonic missiles, artificial intelligence, drones and electronic jamming are developing exceedingly fast, writes Jed Babbin, a national security and foreign affairs columnist for The Washington Times.

“The United States is falling behind rapidly for several reasons. One is the absurdly complex acquisition system that takes decades to buy things,” writes Mr. Babbin. “Another is that, as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in his confirmation hearing, the Pentagon is too insular and tries to block new technologies.”

“An overhaul of the acquisition system is long overdue. We must find ways to deliver weapon systems much faster and commit the process to providing what the warfighter needs,” Mr. Babbin writes. “The first thing to do is to throw out the 2,400-page Federal Acquisition Regulation, along with the Pentagon supplement. Its mandates require so many time-wasting studies, audits and reviews that they have become unfixable.”

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