[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 176 (Tuesday, November 15, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6679-S6681]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT

  Mr. KING. Mr. President, I rise today to discuss the 2023 National 
Defense Authorization Act. I want to talk about essentially three big 
issues: the importance of the bill, what is in the bill, and the cost 
of the bill.
  The first question is--and when I used to appear before the Maine 
Legislature, the first question always was: Why are you here? What is 
the problem?
  Why is this bill so important? It is important because the essence of 
our defense policy since World War II has been deterrence, and 
deterrence means maintaining the capacity to inflict unacceptable costs 
on any potential adversary and the will to impose those costs if 
necessary.
  What we are really talking about in the Defense Authorization Act is 
the capacity; that is, what is it that we have at our disposal that can 
impose costs on our potential adversaries such that they will refrain 
from aggression and initiating a conflict--a conflict which, in this 
day and age, would be catastrophic.
  Why do we have a defense bill? Why do we have a defense 
establishment? Why do we have ships and airplanes and space capability? 
In order to deter possible aggression.
  Why is this important?
  I am just finishing a book by William L. Shirer called ``The Collapse 
of the Third Republic.'' Everyone knows Shirer's great book ``The Rise 
and Fall of the Third Reich.'' This is a subsequent book that he wrote 
in the late sixties about the French Republic and the relationship 
between France and England to Germany in the early days leading up to 
World War II. The central message or rather one of the central messages 
of the book was that the failure of France and Germany to deter and 
meet the aggression of Hitler early in the period leading up to World 
War II, as early as 1936, led to the conflagration of World War II.
  I would urge anyone who questions this assumption to Google: 
Rhineland, 1936; Sudetenland, 1938. Those were places where Hitler 
could have been stopped, and not with an enormous expenditure or 
investment of troops or materiel, but by an almost token resistance 
from the Western European powers, which they utterly failed to do. Then 
we had the rearmament of the Rhineland; the takeover of the 
Sudetenland, Czechoslovakia; and, of

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course, in September of 1939, the invasion of Poland, leading to World 
War II, where 55 million people were lost.
  Shirer makes the point and most historians make the point that this 
was avoidable. Had Hitler been confronted early, before he completely 
rebuilt the Nazi war machine, World War II could have been avoided, and 
all of those tremendous losses in this country and around the world 
would have never happened.
  Deterrence is also a key to nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons haven't 
been used in a confrontation or a conflict since 1945. Why? Because of 
the concept of deterrence. That those other countries--and there are 
other countries that have nuclear weapons--realize that if nuclear 
weapons are used, they will pay an enormous and unacceptable price. 
That has been the policy of this country for over 70 years, and it has 
worked. It has worked. But it only works as long as the adversary 
believes that we do, in fact, have the capacity to inflict that kind of 
punishment.
  Deterrence is a matter of credibility. You have to have a credible 
deterrent in terms of the actual capacity, and you also have to be 
credible in terms of your will to use it. Indeed, at this point in our 
history, we are talking about deterring the potential use of nuclear 
weapons in regard to the Ukraine conflict by Vladimir Putin.
  Deterrence means that capacity has to be credible. And the problem 
is, here in this country, we have allowed our nuclear deterrent to 
deteriorate and age to the point where we are having to, in effect, 
rebuild it, not from scratch but rebuild it substantially. And all at 
the same time, the triad: bombers, missiles, and submarines. We have to 
rebuild them, and it is happening at the same time, and it is 
expensive. It is because this work was deferred for the prior 25 or 30 
years that we are now having to do all three legs of the triad at one 
time, which adds substantially to the defense budget, but it is 
necessary in order to maintain the deterrent that keeps the peace.
  I have many friends in Maine who come up to me and say: ``Why are we 
spending so much? Why are we building nuclear weapons? Let's get rid of 
them.''
  The problem is, aggression and evil exist in the world--always have, 
as far as we can see; always will. The best war is the one that doesn't 
happen, and the most likely way to prevent war is for the potential 
adversary to know that the costs imposed upon them will be 
unacceptable.
  People also come up to me and say: Why are we providing this money to 
Ukraine?
  I don't get a lot of this, but occasionally people say: Why send 
money to Ukraine? We need that money here at home.
  That is when I always say: Google Rhineland, 1936; Sudetenland, 1938. 
Because Putin has told us who he is. He has told us that he feels the 
greatest tragedy of the 20th century was the dissolution of the Soviet 
Union. He wants to rebuild the Soviet Union. Ukraine is the first 
piece. I don't think there is any doubt that, if he was allowed to just 
march in and take over Ukraine in a matter of weeks without any 
significant resistance, the next irritant for him would be the Baltics 
and then Hungary, Moldova, Slovakia, and Poland.
  Maya Angelou said if someone tells you who they are, you should 
believe them. Putin has told us who he is. He wants to rebuild the 
Soviet Union. That is why Ukraine is so important. That is why what we 
have done, what we have provided, and the leadership this 
administration and our country has provided to other countries in the 
world in order to resist that aggression is so important and critical--
critical to avoiding a much worse conflagration involving all of our 
countries down the road. That is why it is so important. When a 
dictator takes property, they are going to keep going, and that is why 
what we have done in Ukraine has been so critical and important.
  Well, Putin has told us what he wants to do, and we have joined with 
the rest of the world and the incredibly brave and resourceful people 
of Ukraine to stop it. That has to be continued.
  I am going to talk about cost in a few minutes, but one quick note on 
cost is that the only thing more expensive than maintaining a credible 
deterrent is war. Occasionally, you see a bumper sticker that says: You 
cannot prepare for war and avoid war at the same time. I believe that 
is actually wrong. The only way to avoid war is to be prepared. History 
is full of examples that that is the case, that aggressors look for 
weakness. They look for an opening. If they find none, they are going 
to pull back. That is the entire theory of our defense posture and the 
expenditures that we are making on behalf of the defense of this 
country and the free world.
  So what is in the bill? It is a long bill. There is a lot in it, but 
a couple of highlights. First, there is a raise for the troops. There 
is more money for the people who are defending our country, which they 
deserve. In a time of inflation, they deserve a significant raise, and 
that is in the bill.
  Another piece that is in the bill that I think is very important in 
terms of our veterans--and, of course, we are just coming out of the 
Veterans Day observance last weekend--is funding and attention in the 
Defense Department to the transition from Active-Duty service to 
veteran status. I believe that we should be spending as much or the 
Defense Department should be spending as much time, money, and effort 
on the transition out of the service as they spend on recruiting to 
bring people into the service.
  The data is that the tragedy of suicide among our veterans is most 
acute in the first 2 or 3 years after separation, and that tells me 
that is where we should focus some additional attention. In fact, that 
is in this bill.
  There is an enormous commitment to technology in this bill, to 
artificial intelligence, to quantum computing, to hypersonics, to 
cyber, which is the sort of frontline of the potential for aggression 
that is going on right now. There is a low-level cyber war going on 
right now. Just ask any business in America. I talked to a utility 
executive recently whose company is being attacked 3 million times a 
day, sometimes by State actors, sometimes by ordinary criminals or 
ransomware. But cyber is one of the most serious challenges we face, 
and, again, that is addressed in this bill.
  Another thing that is addressed, as I mentioned, is upgrading the 
nuclear triad, not because we like building submarines or missiles but 
because we must have a credible deterrent, so that, particularly so 
those dictators in North Korea or other countries that have nuclear 
weapons will not be tempted to use them. They have to know that the 
price to be paid is unacceptable. There is also counter drug policy in 
the bill. All of those things are an important part of what this bill 
does for the country.
  I want to digress for a moment on process. This bill is a prime 
example of the bipartisan process that ought to govern all of our 
proceedings here in this body and in the other body of government. And, 
indeed, over the last year, that has been the norm. Five of the six 
major bills passed in the last year in this body have been bipartisan, 
and that is the way it ought to be. And that is the way it is in the 
Armed Services Committee. This bill was reported out of the Armed 
Services Committee with a 23 to 3 bipartisan vote.
  I keep a little running tally in the Armed Services Committee when it 
comes to amendments. And this year we had 433 amendments proposed going 
into the markup of the Defense Authorization Act. They were negotiated. 
They were withdrawn. They were modified. But we ended up with 44 
amendment votes. Six were on a party-line basis--6 out of 44 were on a 
party-line basis. All the rest were bipartisan, either voice votes or 
rollcall votes that were bipartisan. That is the way this process 
works, and that is the way this bill has come to this body.
  Now, let me talk a minute about cost. You often hear--and I hear it 
sometimes at home, sometimes down here--that we spend more on defense 
than the next 10 countries in the world combined. Yes, but no other 
country in the world has the global responsibility that we have. No 
other country in the world has the global role that we have; that has 
to look in all directions, not just one direction to one neighbor but 
in all directions. We have an enormous responsibility, whether we like 
it or not, as the most powerful country in the free world. And that 
means we have to support and defend freedom, democracy, the values that 
we have based

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this country on. We have to be the first line of defense.
  So the fact that we spend more than other countries, I don't think 
that is really the question. I think the real question should be: How 
much are we spending with regard to our overall economy and our Federal 
budget? I think that is a fair question. And the answer is pretty 
surprising to many people.
  This is the percentage of national defense of Federal spending, in 
relation to total Federal spending, going back to 1952, 70 years ago. 
In 1952, during the Korean war--and by the way, it was as even higher 
during World War II, but in 1952, about 70 percent of the Federal 
budget was for defense.
  As you can see, it trends down through the fifties and sixties and 
seventies. In 1987, it was 28 percent of the Federal budget. Today, it 
is 13 percent. It is at the lowest level it has been in 70 years as a 
percentage of the Federal budget.
  I think that surprises most people. They think all we are doing is 
spending money on defense. As a percentage of the Federal budget, it is 
actually the lowest it has been in 70 years.
  The other way to look at this, that I think is perhaps even more 
important, is the percentage of national defense spending of GDP, of 
our gross domestic product. That is really a fair measure. In other 
words, what part of our economy is devoted to defense spending?
  Again, going back to 1952, it was around 14 percent--14 percent of 
our gross national product was spent on defense; 1987, 6 percent; 
today, 3 percent.
  So people who argue that we are spending way too much on defense and 
why do you spend--they are looking at the raw dollars, but they really 
ought to be looking at how big a part of our economy are we devoting to 
defending this country and the freedom and values of the rest of the 
free world: 3 percent.
  Now, should other countries be paying a reasonable share? Absolutely. 
And many of them are stepping up. We are seeing significant increases 
in defense expenditures on behalf of many of our NATO allies and other 
countries around the world because they realize they have a 
responsibility too. But I think this is really an enlightening way to 
look at this in terms of what does this bill really mean? How expensive 
is it? The answer to that question is, it is half as expensive as it 
was 35 years ago. And it is about 20 percent of where it was 70 years 
ago. Is it a lot of money? Absolutely. The question is, What is it for? 
What it is for is, preventing war.
  As I think I said earlier, the only thing more expensive than 
maintaining an adequate deterrence is war itself. And that is what this 
bill is all about.
  We have passed the National Defense Authorization Act every year for 
the past 62 years. I deeply hope and believe in the interest of this 
country, of our citizens, and of the entire free world we are going to 
do so again in the next month.
  There is no more solemn responsibility we have. To go back to some of 
the first words of the Constitution, in order to ``provide for the 
common defense'' is one of the major functions--that is in the 
preamble, that is the overarching--``insure domestic tranquility, 
provide for the common defense.'' Those are part of the essential 
function of any government. It is our responsibility. I deeply hope in 
the next several weeks in this body we will meet that responsibility.
  I yield the floor.

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