[Pages S4890-S4894]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
National Defense Budget
Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, this is my fourth speech this year
arguing how we are going to have to match our defense resources to our
national defense strategy. And this is a reminder--this is the National
Defense Strategy. People seem to be forgetting about this. It was put
together in 2018. Here are the names of the individuals. One was a
former colleague; it was Jon Kyl. So we had 12, 6 Republicans and 6
Democrats. Everyone agreed that this is what we need to do, not just
for 2018 but for each year afterwards. For this year, for example, they
actually have in here that we should be increasing the defense budget
by between 3 and 5 percent. I show this because we all adhered to
these, Democrats and Republicans, up until this year.
This is the first time I have had a chance to talk about this budget
in the Biden administration where we now have a lot of the details
actually released in terms of the budget and what it does to our
military.
Remember, our expert, bipartisan NDS Commission Report said that we
need 3 to 5 percent real growth in the defense budget each year to
actually execute this strategy. The defense budget the Biden
administration sent us does not achieve this goal. In fact, it is
really a cut, in this administration.
Even worse, just last week, the Fed predicted that inflation next
year will be bigger than predicted. If that continues, this budget will
mean even bigger cuts than expected and will hamstring our troops even
more than we thought.
A lower defense top line than last year is just the first problem.
The details of this budget are also worse than we forecasted. We have a
flow chart here that shows that the budget puts shipbuilding on a
starvation diet. The Navy tells us that we need 355 ships, probably
more than the 400 that we have--that we are talking about right now.
Right now, we are under 300 ships, and the trend is down, not up. What
is the administration's answer? They joke around about having a 355-
ship Navy with only tugboats, but we don't have the luxury of jokes.
The people don't know this out there. The people don't realize that
China is ahead of us and that Russia is ahead of us in some of these
areas. They assume that we are always like it was right after World War
II for so many years.
The Chinese Navy already has 355 ships. They already have them. That
is not something they are looking for like we are right now. We are at
300 ships and looking for 355. They already have them. Then there are
the Russians to add to that. That is another 223. So we are talking
about far more that they have right now than we have, and nobody
understands that. It is as if we have only one opposition out there,
one adversary. We don't. We have several. The two prime adversaries are
China and Russia, and they are up right now to 595 ships, and we are at
300. So what does that tell you?
I am not the only one who is concerned about this. A lot of people
say: Well, the Republicans are the only ones who are concerned about
our military.
And that is not true. Democratic Congresswoman Elaine Luria said it
well. She said: The Navy budget is not a serious budget for great power
competition.
Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the
Record her recent article about the Navy's fleet
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From the Texas National Security Review, June 14, 2021]
War on the Rocks--Look to the 1980s to Inform the Fleet of Today
(By Rep. Elaine Luria)
When I was a naval officer, my ships always had a plan when
we left port for where we were going, how we would get there,
and what we would do when we arrived. While that remains true
of individual ships in the Navy, it's not true of the Navy as
a whole today. The Navy lacks a comprehensive maritime
strategy that defines what the Navy needs to do, how it needs
to do it, the resources required, and how to manage risk if
those resources aren't available. The Navy had a strategy
that did these things in the past. The maritime strategy of
the 1980s articulated a clear vision for the Navy's purpose
and how Navy leaders planned to achieve it. The nation would
be well-served by the Navy's developing such a strategy
again.
I entered the U.S. Naval Academy in 1993 and was part of a
new generation of officers who assumed the watch after the
fall of the Soviet Union. We were the beneficiaries of a
nation that had a clear and defensible maritime strategy, an
administration that provided the vision, a Congress that
funded it, and a Navy that executed it. Throughout my career,
I deployed on both the Navy's oldest and newest ships, but
they were all designed for the Cold War against the Soviet
Union.
With China, the world has seen the meteoric rise of a
maritime power that threatens U.S. and allied interests as
well as free access to the maritime common. The United States
and like-minded nations are engaged in a new great-power
competition. As the Navy focuses almost exclusively on future
capabilities, it risks overlooking the immediate threats
posed by that competition today. A Battle Force 2045 plan
does little to ensure a ready battle force in 2025. Today, no
longer in uniform, but as the vice chair of the House Armed
Services Committee, I believe the constitutional role of
Congress ``to provide and maintain a navy'' should be based
on something more than future hopes in technology and budget
expectations. We need to be prepared now for any
contingencies that may occur on our collective watch.
Understanding the 1980s Maritime Strategy During Great-Power
Competition
In August 1982, Vice Chief of Naval Operations Adm. William
Small ordered the development of a document ``to connect
national strategy with defense programming.'' Developed in
just three weeks using briefing slides and speaking notes,
this document birthed the Navy's first global maritime
strategy, which was designed to inform the Navy budgeting
process.
The authors developed the briefing using then-current war
plans, contemporary directives on national defense policy,
and intelligence estimates of the Soviet threat, brought
together with Secretary of the Navy John Lehman's concept of
a 600-ship navy. Over 18 months, the briefing evolved until
it was finally signed by the chief of naval operations and
issued as the Navy's 1984 Maritime Strategy. As Lehman noted,
``Once we had established the maritime strategy, we set about
relating and conforming everything else we did in the Navy
and Marine Corps to it.'' Because of the global reach and
strength of the strategy, the Navy's stated need for a 600-
ship fleet was defensible, and clearly tied to the numbers
and types of ships needed to win in conflict. With the full
support of the president, this strategy launched the nation
on a trajectory to a massive Navy build-up, which nearly
realized this fleet before the conclusion of the Cold War.
The strategy clearly showed why the Navy needed 600 ships and
indicated exactly where they would be deployed in global
wartime operations. Additionally--and often overlooked when
discussing the strategy--the strategy articulated the
requirement for a peacetime presence to fill deterrent roles,
reduce response times, and provide policymakers with naval
crisis-response options. One-third of the ships needed for
wartime missions in each theater would always be forward
deployed under the strategy. Ensuing force-structure
assessments have lacked this clear strategic vision for the
role of naval forces.
Back to the Future
Lehman recently noted, ``In some previous and current
periods, naval strategy (if you could call it that) has been
derived from predicted budgets. During the 1980s, the process
was reversed: first strategy, then requirements, then the
[Program Objective Memorandum], then budget.'' The difference
between strategy preceding budget or budget preceding
strategy is the difference between going to the store with
a shopping list to make a specific meal, and going to the
store, looking in your wallet, and asking, ``What could I
buy with that?'' According to Lehman, a good strategy is a
living document
[[Page S4891]]
that must be tested, refined, and tested again. Most
importantly, however, the strategy should be simple,
logical, achievable and focus on the enemy's
vulnerabilities above all else.
The Navy's most recent strategy document, the tri-service
maritime strategy issued in December 2020 known as Advantage
at Sea, correctly acknowledges the maritime nature of the
United States as a nation whose security and prosperity
depends on the seas, and highlights the great-power
competition faced today. It acknowledges the current world
environment and gives guiding principles for prevailing in
long-term strategic competition. But this document is not a
strategy. It is a vision. One cannot design a fleet to meet
current challenges, develop a naval force structure for the
future, or create a budget input solely from a vision--these
require a global maritime strategy to fight and win against a
peer competitor, while simultaneously deterring other malign
actors.
U.S. maritime leaders need to answer the question: How
would the U.S. Navy deter or defeat Chinese naval aggression,
which may perhaps be compounded and complicated by other
states such as Russia, Iran, or North Korea acting
opportunistically while U.S. Navy forces are engaged
elsewhere? How can the U.S. Navy make a strategic difference?
Irv Blickstein served in the senior executive service in the
Navy's programming office in the 1980s. In a recent
interview, he said, ``If you look at the vision the Navy has
today, nobody quite understands what they want to do . . .
the Congress is not convinced, and they would like to better
understand what the Navy's plan is.'' As Lehman noted, ``A
critical lesson from the Maritime Strategy is that the Navy
must restore credibility with Congress and the public that it
knows what kinds of ships, aircraft, and technologies are
needed.'' What is missing is a concept of operations, broadly
stated.
Today's national security climate is different than that of
the 1980s when the United States and Soviet Union faced off
at the Cold War's apex. The Navy does not have the decades-
long at-sea experience with China that it did with the Soviet
Union after the World War II. Today, the Navy has fewer than
half the ships that it had in the 1980s. While modern U.S.
Navy forces are more capable than those of the 1980s, the
same is true of America's competitors' forces, especially
China's. In the 1980s, the F-14 program was less than a
decade old, as new programs like the F-18, Aegis, Vertical
Launch System, and Nimitz-class carriers matured. These were
state of the art platforms and systems developed to counter
specific Soviet threats and tactics. By comparison, the
platforms the Navy has today are either (like the littoral
combat ship) designed for a low-threat, post-Cold War
environment, or designed to counter the same Soviet threats
and tactics, as the Zumwalt-class destroyers are. Meanwhile,
the Chinese have designed platforms and weapons, such as the
DF-26 ``carrier killer'' missiles, to counter the heart of
the U.S. fleet.
Not only does the Navy have a problem with lagging
technology, the Navy also has a numbers problem. China is
outbuilding the U.S. Navy at a rate the United States has
been unwilling as a nation to match. Three-quarters of U.S.
surface combatants are more than a decade old, while three-
quarters of Chinese naval vessels are less than a decade old.
In addition to growing in size, China's naval forces have
grown their sea legs. Since 2009, more than three dozen
Chinese anti-piracy flotillas have deployed to the Indian
Ocean and elsewhere. These flotillas from the North, East,
and South Sea Fleets have gained nearly as much experience as
have U.S. Navy deployed strike groups over the same period.
The Lost Generation
Meanwhile, the U.S. Navy has lost a generation of
shipbuilding to failed programs. For example, the DD-21
program office (which resulted in the Zumwalt-class
destroyer) was established in 1998. Originally scheduled for
a 32-ship production line, but pared down to just three, the
Zumwalt and her two sister ships have not deployed. One of
the game-changing weapons those ships were to use, the
electromagnetic railgun--which had been under development
since 2005--was abandoned in the Navy's current budget.
Similarly, the CVN-21 program executive office, which was set
up to produce what became the Gerald Ford-class aircraft
carrier, was established in 1996. The USS Ford has not yet
deployed.
To put this in perspective, I graduated from the U.S. Naval
Academy in 1997--between the years in which these programs
were established. I retired four years ago after a full naval
career and have since twice been elected to Congress. Yet in
all of that time, neither ship class has deployed. America
cannot afford for it to take multiple decades to design,
build, and deploy the next generation of warships.
Even new shipbuilding programs that have resulted in
deployed ships have been troubled. Multiple challenges with
the Littoral Combat Ship program have resulted in some of
those ships being slated for decommissioning only a few years
into their intended lifespan. The Constellation-class
frigates, intended to provide a more capable alternative to
the lightly armed littoral combat ship, will not be present
in the fleet in significant numbers for a decade or more.
In its Fiscal Year 2022 budget request the Navy proposes
decommissioning almost twice the number of ships it plans to
build this year. Among the ships the Navy wants to retire are
seven cruisers, some of which were only recently modernized
at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars. The Navy has
argued that the maintenance costs on these decades-old ships
would be better spent on new, modern programs and
capabilities. This is one example of the broader ``divest to
invest'' strategy reflected in this year's budget, which does
not instill confidence in the likelihood of fielding a
capable fleet in a timely manner. Just as the planned railgun
in the Zumwalt class did not come to fruition, history shows
that reliance on hopes and dreams for ``game-changers'' is a
poor substitute for forces and strategy.
With flat or reduced budgets, the Navy has no good options.
It can sacrifice readiness, sacrifice research and
development, or sacrifice fleet size. Those are the Navy's
only options--and they are all bad. I empathize with the
position that Navy leadership finds themselves in today, as
they have inherited a scenario created by decades of their
predecessors' failed shipbuilding efforts--a scenario that
has no real solution without the commitment of significant
additional resources. Regardless of administration, the
United States has been unwilling as a nation to prioritize
shipbuilding, much to its eventual detriment with regard to
Chinese aggression and control of the maritime commons. China
isn't waiting until 2045 to realize its fleet. Neither should
the United States. America needs a ready Navy that can
credibly deter a potential conflict with a confident and
overwhelming opponent.'
A New Maritime Strategy
For the past three years--in numerous hearings and through
information requests--I have sought to determine the Navy's
current global maritime strategy. What I have discovered is
that it does not exist. There is not a clear plan similar to
the 1984 Maritime Strategy that can inform and clearly
articulate the fleet needed today to deter Chinese
aggression, fight and win a war with China if required, and
also employ naval forces globally in response to other malign
actors such as Russia, Iran, and North Korea. I have heard
many buzzwords, acronyms, and platitudes, but as naval
strategist Sir Julian Corbett said, ``Nothing is so dangerous
in the study of war as to permit maxims to become a
substitute for judgement.''
Former Acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Madly confirmed
as much to me when we spoke recently. According to him, We've
had oscillating and unrealistic shipbuilding goals, and a
variety of operational warfighting plans designed for fairly
static contingencies. Neither of these have been the
byproducts of a coherent national maritime strategy that
addresses our biggest threats, the broader geographies we
must protect, or the unpredictable nature of the future. The
national maritime strategy we need today must be an agile one
that allows for rapid development and adaptation. The force
structure it defines should also have the same
characteristics. The strategy must be developed with a sober
look at our adversaries and global responsibilities. Further,
it must be implemented with a national consensus because such
implementation, without a doubt, will be costly to the
taxpayers.
The United States needs a Navy capable of maintaining
maritime superiority and preserving free trade and freedom of
the seas for America and its allies and partners. The Navy
immediately should develop a bold global maritime strategy,
which will clearly define the fleet required today. This
global strategy should focus on Chinese vulnerabilities, of
which there are many, including dependence on access to
shipping lanes to fuel their economy. The U.S. Navy should be
ready to target critical mainland infrastructure and close
maritime chokepoints to strangle the Chinese economy.
American forces should be agile and unpredictable, using
geography to their advantage with mobile capabilities. This
type of strategy will require a larger Navy in concert with
the other services. Day to day, the U.S. Navy should be
present in the East and South China Seas, exercising with
allied navies, testing the strategy, and refining it. From
this new maritime strategy will flow an informed force
structure that will compellingly spell out to lawmakers and
the American public the essential and urgent need to invest
in a larger Navy to deter Chinese aggression and hold at bay
other malign actors who may seek to take advantage of any
future conflict in the Pacific. As Lehman notes in discussing
the development of the 1984 Maritime Strategy, 90 percent of
the deterrent power of this buildup could be achieved in the
first year. This was done by publicly declaring and
explaining the strategy, especially its naval component, and
taking actions that left no doubt among friend and foe that
it would be achieved. Those actions included [the need] to
submit a revised Defense budget to Congress that fully funded
the buildup.
Today, U.S. Navy leadership should heed the words of
Lehman: ``First strategy, then requirements, then the POM,
then budget.'' The global situation and America's competitors
and adversaries may have evolved, but the process by which
the U.S. Navy designs and builds the fleet should take a
valuable lesson from the 1980s. If the United States is to
remain a global power, it needs a Navy fit for the purpose
and the United States, as a nation, needs to make the
commitment to prioritize national defense and make this
investment.
[[Page S4892]]
Mr. INHOFE. This budget also fails to make any progress in a growing
or modernizing Air Force. Instead, the Biden budget procurement
actually decreases by almost 15 percent across the entire military. The
Air Force is 20 percent. President Biden's own nominee for the
Secretary of the Air Force told us that one of the best things that we
could do is to accelerate the buying of additional F-35s, but this
budget doesn't do that. The fleet just gets older and smaller.
Perhaps the greatest casualty of the Biden budget is the Army. I
guess I am used to that by now. I was a product of the Army, and all my
Army friends remember what happened back in 1994. I was in the House at
that time and on the House Armed Services Committee. At that time, I
can remember when someone who was in a hearing--an expert--predicted
that, in 10 years, we would no longer need ground troops. Of course, we
know what has happened since that time. The greatest casualty is always
the Army. Instead of investing, it deeply cuts the Army across the
board in its modernization, procurement, force structure, and
readiness.
I can't understand why we decreased full spectrum training just as we
have started to get healthy after the readiness crisis of 2017, and we
all remember what happened in 2017. That was the last 5 years of the
Obama administration, and they were the years that cut our military
substantially. They actually did reduce our budget in the last 5 years
by 25 percent, the military budget. At the same time, China was
increasing theirs by 78 percent. This is the problem that we had back
then, and it is still going on.
Don't take my word for it. General McConville told us last week that
most of the Army's weapons systems are 1980s vintage. Yet the Biden
administration is slow-walking the Army's modernization efforts while
our adversaries are relentlessly advancing--and they are. Secretary
Wormuth, who is the Secretary of the Army, said the service is still
under stress in some areas, including defense, which is a critical
priority, and that is unacceptable.
Additionally, while Secretary Austin kept his promise to fully fund
nuclear modernization, this is an area I can't blame anybody for
because this has been going on for a long period of time, since after
World War II, that being that our nuclear modernization program has not
been substantial. Others have been catching up with us slowly but
surely, and that is where we are today. So he kept his word. His
promise was to fully fund nuclear modernization.
I remain concerned about the $600 million cut in the NNSA's deferred
maintenance budget. Now, with the NNSA, we are talking about nuclear
now, our nuclear capabilities. It would have fixed crumbling
infrastructure that is necessary to keep the nuclear weapons program on
track.
Now, you can't see this very well, but when you look closely, it is
worth coming up to look. We see some of the oldest equipment here, and
it is obvious just by looking at it that it doesn't work. So not only
are other countries catching up and passing us, but our equipment has
not been modernized. That is what we were going to do, and this is what
Secretary Austin wants to do, but we have not been able to pay for it
yet. We have to get that done. It would have fixed crumbling
infrastructure that is necessary to keep nuclear weapons on track.
The reality of this budget cut is on display in the unfunded
priorities list that was put together by military services and the
combatant commanders. No one knows more than the combatant commanders
about our state of readiness. In total, we are looking at $25 billion
in key equipment weapons--and more that our services could use--but
this budget can't support it.
Many people call these wish lists. I call them risk lists. The reason
we don't hear a lot about people who are talking about the risks, the
military people, is that ``risk'' means lives. When military people
talk about risk, they talk about losing lives. People don't like to
talk about that, but we are now in the position whereby we have to talk
about it. We can only kick the can down the road so far, generating
more and more risk. We don't talk about risk. We never do. We just
demand that our military do more with less. We keep divesting, but the
investments never follow. This trend of increased risk has only
accelerated. It is already clear that the administration is signaling
they want to cut the military even deeper next year.
Earlier this month, I read in the press about a memo by the Acting
Secretary of the Navy as he tried to minimize the damage and risk of
his sailors resulting from the significant budget cuts. He was very
sincere about this. He said the Navy is forced to choose between
modernizing ships, subs, and aircraft. Does anyone in here believe that
the Chinese are choosing between ships, subs, and aircraft?
Recently, our Nation's highest ranking military officer, General
Milley, told us that the Chinese and Russians combined actually spend
more than we on defense. Now, think about that for a minute. You don't
hear that. Nobody is talking about this. We have been told for so many
years that we don't need to spend more on defense because we already
spend more than our competitors. It turns out that this is just not
true, and the American people are not aware of this.
Now, part of the difference is that the Chinese and the Russians
don't take care of their people. I have talked a lot about the fact
that we don't do that. Do you remember all of the housing problems that
we were all concerned about? Are we spending enough on housing for our
people? Communist countries don't care about that. They just give them
the guns and say: Go out and kill people. They don't care about people.
The greatest expense that we have in supporting the military is the
expense that we have for housing and for the quality of life of our
troops.
By the way, I am drawing out a couple of Democrats when I talk about
the problem and the fact that this is a concern. It is not just a
concern of the Republicans. These are Democratic Members, and they are
concerned. Democratic Congressman Anthony Brown made this point
recently, and I agree with him.
He wrote:
We spend $1 billion more on Medicare in the defense budget
than we do on new tactical vehicles. We spend more on the
Defense Health Program than we do on new ships.
Now, that came from a Democratic Member of the House.
He concluded:
In total, some $200 billion in the defense budget are
essentially for nondefense purposes--from salaries to health
care to basic research.
Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the
Record Congressman Brown's article because I think it gets it exactly
right, and this is coming from the other side
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From Defense News, May 14, 2021]
The Case for a Robust Defense Budget
(By Rep. Anthony Brown)
The United States is confronting a multitude of complex
domestic and global challenges brought about by the COVID-19
pandemic (https://www.defensenews.com/coronavirus/),
disruptive technologies, severe weather events (<a href='https://
www.defensenews.com/smr/energy-andenvironment/'>https://
www.defensenews.com/smr/energy-andenvironment/</a>), systemic
racism, and great power competition with China and Russia.
Now more than ever, Congress has a responsibility to ensure
that we robustly fund our national security, even as the cost
of doing so rises every year.
We maintain our national security not only by the military
dollars we spend, but also by the resources we dedicate to
international diplomacy and development, and the investments
we make at home in infrastructure and education, in climate
change mitigation, and in health care, public safety and our
democratic institutions.
With ample defense and nondefense spending, we are better
able to secure our nation, revitalize our economy, defeat the
pandemic and restore U.S. global leadership.
The American Jobs Plan and the American Families Plan are
bold initiatives that will strengthen our nation. They
comprise long-overdue investments in infrastructure,
innovation and our workforce, and they meet the equitable
needs of our children and families. They promote American
competitiveness and security. Yet, we should not
irresponsibly cut defense spending as a way to offset the
costs of these necessary investments. We cannot ``rob Peter
to pay Paul.''
We need a well-funded military because we ask the men and
women in our armed forces to do more today than ever before.
Our military deters aggression from China and Russia. China
seeks to exert more control over trade and resources (https:/
/microsites-livebackend.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker/
conflict/territorial-disputes-
[[Page S4893]]
south-china-sea) in the Pacific and to challenge the security
of our critical infrastructure (https://www.C4isrnet.com/
critical-infrastructure/ 2019/11/ 22/how-the-fccs-new-ban-on-
huawei-benefits-the-miltary/) while investing (<a href='https://
media.defense.gov/2020/Sep/01/2002488689/-1/-1/1/2020-DOD-
CHINA-MILITARY-POWER-REPORT-FINAL.PDF'>https://
media.defense.gov/2020/Sep/01/2002488689/-1/-1/1/2020-DOD-
CHINA-MILITARY-POWER-REPORT-FINAL.PDF</a>) significantly in its
military. Russia threatens (<a href='https://www.militarytimes.com/
flashpoints/2021/04/22/russia-orders-troop-pullback-but-
keeps-weapons-near-ukraine/'>https://www.militarytimes.com/
flashpoints/2021/04/22/russia-orders-troop-pullback-but-
keeps-weapons-near-ukraine/</a>) our European partners and
allies, increasingly tests (<a href='https://www.airforcetimes.com/
news/your-air-force/2021/04/28/spike-in-russian-
aircraftintercepts-straining-air-force-crews-in-alaska-three-
star-says/'>https://www.airforcetimes.com/
news/your-air-force/2021/04/28/spike-in-russian-
aircraftintercepts-straining-air-force-crews-in-alaska-three-
star-says/</a>) the boundaries of our air defenses and interferes
(<a href='https://www.npr.org/2021/03/16/977958302/intelligence-
report-russia-tried-to-help-trump-in-2020-election'>https://www.npr.org/2021/03/16/977958302/intelligence-
report-russia-tried-to-help-trump-in-2020-election</a>) in our
elections.
Our armed forces defend the homeland against threats from
North Korea, which has tested missiles (<a href='https://
missilethreat.csis.org/country/dprk/'>https://
missilethreat.csis.org/country/dprk/</a>) capable of striking our
capital, and Iran, which funds terrorism in the Middle East
and attacks our institutions through cyber operations
(<a href='https://www.csis.org/programs/technology-policy-program/
publicly-reported-iranian-cyber-actions-2019'>https://www.csis.org/programs/technology-policy-program/
publicly-reported-iranian-cyber-actions-2019</a>). And through it
all, our military maintains watch against terrorism.
The threats are real and increasing, and we must rise to
meet these challenges--not simply because we have an interest
in our own security and the international order, but because
the United States has a greater interest than any other
nation.
While we are less than 5 percent of the world's population,
we generate 20 percent (<a href='https://ustr.gov/issue-areas/economy-
'>https://ustr.gov/issue-areas/economy-
</a> trade) of global economic production. We are the leader in
international trade, with over $5 trillion in commerce
crossing our borders annually, including smartphones, cars
and the medicines that we need.
Securing the global economy on which we rely demands that
we field an expeditionary force capable of deploying to where
it is needed most. Whether securing the 60 percent (<a href='https://
chinapower.csis.org/much-trade-transits-south-china-sea/'>https://
chinapower.csis.org/much-trade-transits-south-china-sea/</a>) of
maritime trade transiting the Indo-Pacific region, or
partnering in Africa to provide security for development, or
checking Russia's Arctic expansionism (<a href='https://
www.defensenews.com/smr/frozenpathways/2021/04/12/russian-
military-buildup-in-the-arctic-has-northern-nato-members-
'>https://
www.defensenews.com/smr/frozenpathways/2021/04/12/russian-
military-buildup-in-the-arctic-has-northern-nato-members-
</a> uneasy/) for newly accessible resources, our military must be
able to operate anywhere and everywhere around the world.
Success in these varied regions and missions requires us to
train and equip our forces to prevail over any adversary,
both in competition and in conflict. It means investing in
fighter jets that can counter Russian advanced aircraft and
developing submarines to avoid detection by Chinese sensors;
modernizing our Army so soldiers have 21st century technology
to fight and survive; and ensuring sufficient troop levels to
limit back-to-back deployments so our military has time at
home with family to maintain morale and readiness (<a href='https://
www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2020/o2/14/why_we_
should_grow_the_active_duty_army_115042.html'>https://
www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2020/o2/14/why_we_
should_grow_the_active_duty_army_115042.html</a>). Having a
global force that is ready and lethal provides the necessary
presence to deter war and maintain peace in the global
commons.
At the center of this worldwide mission are the men and
women who serve.
Two million service members and civilians devote their
lives to our defense, and the Pentagon's budget funds the
everyday needs for them and their families: health care to 10
million Americans (<a href='https://health.mil/News/Gallery/
Infographics/2017/05/01/MHS-Facts-and-Figures'>https://health.mil/News/Gallery/
Infographics/2017/05/01/MHS-Facts-and-Figures</a>), child care
for 200,000 children (<a href='https://crsreports.congress.gov/
'>https://crsreports.congress.gov/
</a> product/pdf/R/R45288/7), retirement for 1.5 million veterans
(<a href='https://media.defense.gov/2019/May/14/2002131753/-1/-1/o/
MRS_STATRPT_2018%20V5.PDF#page=7'>https://media.defense.gov/2019/May/14/2002131753/-1/-1/o/
MRS_STATRPT_2018%20V5.PDF#page=7</a>) and K-12 education in
about 160 schools (<a href='https://www.dodea.edu/aboutdodea/
demographics.cfm'>https://www.dodea.edu/aboutdodea/
demographics.cfm</a>) worldwide.
The benefits of defense spending reach beyond the military
and our contribution to the international order, returning
the investment through domestic dividends. During Hurricane
Katrina, the National Guard rescued over 17,000 people and
airlifted almost 22 million pounds (<a href='https://
www.nationalguard.mil/Features/2015/Remembering-Hurricane-
'>https://
www.nationalguard.mil/Features/2015/Remembering-Hurricane-
</a> Katrina/) of cargo to the flooded areas. The Pentagon's $8
billion annual spend on research invigorates our academic and
tech sectors, resulting in technologies like GPS and Google
Maps, which were first invented by Navy scientists. Defense
innovations like radar are now in civilian use, and they
power the weather stations that detect increasingly severe
storms amid climate change. And the internet, the backbone of
the global economy, began as a Defense Department program.
We spend $1 billion more on Medicare in the defense budget
than we do on new tactical vehicles. We spend more on the
Defense Health Program than we do on new ships. In total,
some $200 billion in the defense budget are essentially for
nondefense purposes--from salaries to health care to basic
research.
In no place are these domestic benefits of defense spending
clearer than in the current pandemic. The Moderna vaccine,
developed in record time, was originally seeded by a Defense
Advanced Research Projects Agency investment in 2013, and a
subsequent Pentagon request to rapidly produce a human ready
antibody contributed to the delivery of multiple vaccines in
under a year. And 50,000 National Guard members are assisting
(https:/ /<a href='http://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/08/covid-vaccination-crisis-
national-guard-is-being-mobilized.html'>www.cnbc.com/2021/01/08/covid-vaccination-crisis-
national-guard-is-being-mobilized.html</a>) in coronavirus
testing and vaccinations across the country, strengthening
our nation against a grave threat to our collective health.
We should neither view the nondefense and defense budgets
as opposite sides of the same coin, nor accept them as a
false choice between two competing options.
This nation was founded to form a more perfect Union, and
in doing so to provide for the common defense and promote the
general welfare. For 233 years, Congress has endeavored to
balance these responsibilities, and in doing so has often
found a way to secure our democracy and freedoms while at the
same time investing in America as the land of opportunity. It
is imperative that we in Congress meet these challenges and
fulfill our responsibilities.
Our national security depends on it.
Mr. INHOFE. We can disagree sometimes about how we compete with China
on nondefense areas. It is important. That is an important debate. We
want to do that, but we have to be on the same page when it comes to
national security.
Some people would say that my criticism of cutting the military is
because President Biden is a Democrat. I want to be really clear that
this is not about politics; it is about protecting this Nation and
making sure our men and women in uniform have the training and the
resources and the equipment they need to compete and complete their
missions and come home safely. I mean, this is what we are supposed to
be doing, and that is what we are doing.
I told President Trump, back when he sent his initial budget up when
he became President of the United States, that it was not adequate at
that time. I called up Secretary Mattis, and we met the President at
the White House. We showed him why it was inadequate, and it was
inadequate. So we were able to get something done at that time, and
that is something that we are concerned about today.
I happen to think President Trump wanted to spend even more on his
troops, but I think he got some bad advice from his advisers. I think
the same is true with President Biden. I think he wants a strong
military when he is up against our adversaries. I know this President
believes that a strong military underpins all of our other tools and
national power, including diplomatic efforts. I know the President
believes in America's role in the world and in the value of deterrence.
I know the President believes in the importance of our allies and the
partners who look to us for commitments and for investments to know
that we are very serious. Our President knows that. President Biden
knows this, but we don't have the budget to support it.
The President needs to be coming forth with adequate budgets to take
care of the problems that we are faced with today. We all know how
painful Obama's readiness crisis was as flight training hours were
slashed, and we didn't know all of the things that happened during the
last 5 years of his administration. This administration should remember
how dangerous that was not just for our deterrence but also because
there was a human cost. That is one of many reasons I am struggling to
understand the administration's cuts to the defense budget.
One thing we have been told is that anything more than this defense
budget is just not affordable. We have been told by the Pentagon that
we have to live more fiscally. That is one way to tell the military
that you don't care about them. This administration wants to spend
trillions in taxpayers' dollars on everything you can think of except
on the military, and this comes through very clearly when the amount of
increase they are having right now is between 16 and 20 percent and
ours is 1.6 percent.
In reality, the investments we need to strengthen our military in the
decades to come are minimal when compared to overall Federal budgeting.
Defense spending compared to our GDP is half of what it was in the Cold
War, and we live in a much more dangerous world now. We have been told
that the Pentagon must make hard choices as if hard choices are a
substitute for strategy-based budgeting. Yet we are not making hard
choices; we are just making bad choices.
All of our current military and senior DOD officials agree that we
have a
[[Page S4894]]
good military strategy for China and Russia, but the budget doesn't
support that strategy. As a result, I am worried that deterrence will
fail maybe today or maybe 5 years from now, and when it does, the cost
will be much higher than any investment we would make today.
We have made a sacred compact with our servicemembers. We tell them
that we will take care of them and take care of their families. We do
that very well, but we also tell them that we will give them the tools
to defend the Nation and to come home safely, but we are not holding up
that end of the bargain. With this proposed budget and the prospects of
further cuts, we are failing to give them the resources they need.
We can't simply spend our way out of our military problems, but we
can spend too little to give ourselves a chance. We have seen the high
cost of underinvesting in the military. Underfunding in the military
tempts our adversaries, raises doubts in our allies, and makes war
more, not less, likely.
So we need to make a generational investment in our defenses so that
our children and grandchildren don't have to, and we are not doing that
now.
We have a lot of impatient people right now who want to vote.
I yield the floor.