[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 142 (Thursday, September 12, 2024)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6006-S6007]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                           National Security

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I would like to begin by reminding our 
colleagues of a report released before the August State work period. It 
is a report Congress commissioned in the fiscal year 2022 NDAA, 
produced by a panel of experts that Congress appointed--the bipartisan 
Commission on the National Defense Strategy.
  The Commission was tasked with reviewing the Biden administration's 
national defense strategy and conducting an independent assessment of 
the threats and requirements of our common defense.
  Any of our colleagues who haven't yet taken a close look at this 
report should. But I would like to reiterate a few of its conclusions 
that I discussed just last month as the Appropriations Committee 
finalized defense spending legislation for the coming year.
  This ought to grab our attention, from the report:

       [T]he U.S. military lacks both the capabilities and the 
     capacity required to be confident it can deter and prevail in 
     combat.
       [T]he U.S. defense industrial base . . . is unable to meet 
     the equipment, technology, and munitions needs of the United 
     States and its allies and partners.
       [T]he U.S. public are largely unaware of the dangers the 
     United States faces or the costs (financial and otherwise) 
     required to adequately prepare.

  The report doesn't flinch in assessing the full scale of the threats 
posed by major adversaries: Russian victory in Ukraine would make 
Moscow ``an emboldened and likely stronger power, requiring NATO to 
build and deploy additional forces, potentially at the expense of other 
locations where these resources could be applied.

       China is outpacing the United States and has largely 
     negated the U.S. military advantage in the Western Pacific 
     through two decades of focused military investment.

  And, perhaps most alarmingly, the growing partnership and 
collaboration between our adversaries ``increases the

[[Page S6007]]

likelihood that a conflict with one would expand to multiple fronts, 
causing simultaneous demands on U.S. and ally resources.
  It is a sobering assessment with some urgent recommendations to go 
along with it. The question now is what we are willing to do about it.
  Congress has a constitutional duty to provide for the common defense. 
We have a responsibility to align resources with our requirements and 
our strategy to provide funding adequate to ensure American military 
superiority.
  Unfortunately, this is work Congress must do without help from this 
administration. And as one Commissioner, Roger Zakheim, has observed, 
President Biden's 2022 NDS mentioned neither ``budget,'' ``funding,'' 
nor ``dollar.''
  But after a week back in Washington, Congress is no closer to 
delivering full-year top-line defense spending than we were back on 
August 1. The critical increases Vice Chair Collins secured over the 
President's anemic budget request are no closer to becoming law, 
neither is the National Defense Authorization Act, which the Democratic 
leader has yet to schedule for floor time.
  So it is one thing to request expert analysis; it would be quite 
another to do the urgent work that analysis rightly prescribes.