[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 123 (Wednesday, July 14, 2021)]
[Senate]
[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 (https://
www.defensenews.com/smr/energy-andenvironment/), 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 (https://
media.defense.gov/2020/Sep/01/2002488689/-1/-1/1/2020-DOD-
CHINA-MILITARY-POWER-REPORT-FINAL.PDF) significantly in its 
     military. Russia threatens (https://www.militarytimes.com/
flashpoints/2021/04/22/russia-orders-troop-pullback-but-
keeps-weapons-near-ukraine/) our European partners and 
     allies, increasingly tests (https://www.airforcetimes.com/
news/your-air-force/2021/04/28/spike-in-russian-
aircraftintercepts-straining-air-force-crews-in-alaska-three-
star-says/) the boundaries of our air defenses and interferes 
     (https://www.npr.org/2021/03/16/977958302/intelligence-
report-russia-tried-to-help-trump-in-2020-election) in our 
     elections.
       Our armed forces defend the homeland against threats from 
     North Korea, which has tested missiles (https://
missilethreat.csis.org/country/dprk/) capable of striking our 
     capital, and Iran, which funds terrorism in the Middle East 
     and attacks our institutions through cyber operations 
     (https://www.csis.org/programs/technology-policy-program/
publicly-reported-iranian-cyber-actions-2019). 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 (https://ustr.gov/issue-areas/economy-
 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 (https://
chinapower.csis.org/much-trade-transits-south-china-sea/) of 
     maritime trade transiting the Indo-Pacific region, or 
     partnering in Africa to provide security for development, or 
     checking Russia's Arctic expansionism (https://
www.defensenews.com/smr/frozenpathways/2021/04/12/russian-
military-buildup-in-the-arctic-has-northern-nato-members-
 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 (https://
www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2020/o2/14/why_we_
should_grow_the_active_duty_army_115042.html). 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 (https://health.mil/News/Gallery/
Infographics/2017/05/01/MHS-Facts-and-Figures), child care 
     for 200,000 children (https://crsreports.congress.gov/
 product/pdf/R/R45288/7), retirement for 1.5 million veterans 
     (https://media.defense.gov/2019/May/14/2002131753/-1/-1/o/
MRS_STATRPT_2018%20V5.PDF#page=7) and K-12 education in 
     about 160 schools (https://www.dodea.edu/aboutdodea/
demographics.cfm) 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 (https://
www.nationalguard.mil/Features/2015/Remembering-Hurricane-
 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:/ /www.cnbc.com/2021/01/08/covid-vaccination-crisis-
national-guard-is-being-mobilized.html) 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.