[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 11]
[Senate]
[Pages 15532-15534]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           MILITARY READINESS

  Mr. CORNYN. Separately, Madam President, I come to the floor today to 
highlight a pressing national security concern that just doesn't get 
enough attention. Members often come to the floor to talk about 
specific military threats that other nations pose to the United States, 
and that is good and right. For example, we have heard a lot about Iran 
this week as the Senate considers the Iran Sanctions Extension Act--a 
bill that will help ensure that President-Elect Trump and future 
Presidents will have the authority they need to reimpose sanctions on 
Iran, even in spite of President Obama's flawed nuclear deal which 
provided relief from these same types of sanctions and others without 
getting a whole lot of meaningful concessions from Tehran in return. 
This bill passed the House a few weeks ago with more than 400 votes, 
and I am glad there has been significant bipartisan support to move it 
forward here.
  But today I want to talk about a problem that is partly of our own 
making, and that is threats to our long-term military readiness. It is 
no secret that our military leaders continually call on Congress to 
adequately fund the weapons programs that enable our troops to defend 
our Nation.
  The major concern I have and one that is shared by leadership at the 
Pentagon is that our military's technological edge on the battlefield 
is being whittled away by other countries, such

[[Page 15533]]

as China and Russia, that are working at breakneck speed, investing 
millions of dollars to erase our advantage in many areas of military 
capability. That means we have to wake up to the risks that are 
inherent in this situation and do more to invest in the next generation 
of weapons to meet the challenges on the battlefields of tomorrow. The 
nations that are most belligerent and hostile to America and our 
interests are not cutting back on their investment in military 
technology, so we simply do not have the luxury of being complacent.
  Recently, I had a chance to meet with Under Secretary of Defense 
Frank Kendall, the Defense Department's top acquisitions person or top 
weapons buyer. He is charged with equipping our men and women in 
uniform, and he has been thinking long and hard about the need to get 
the next generation of our military the very best capabilities 
possible. As he has said publicly in speeches and in congressional 
testimony, he is concerned that our enemies are rapidly expanding and 
building out their technological innovations for military applications.
  But it is important to understand that these countries aren't just 
building up their own militaries to simply defend themselves; countries 
such as China and Russia are doing all they can to invest in specific 
technologies to defeat our forces and to be used for purposes of 
aggressive activity, whether it is in the South China Sea or in Europe, 
where Russia continues to threaten the NATO alliance. Countries such as 
China and Russia are preparing not for next week but for the coming 
decades to effectively counter and defeat the U.S. militarily. That is 
a big concern of Secretary Kendall, and it should be a major concern 
for all of us here in light of the responsibility of Congress to 
provide for our military.
  I have a chart that helps explain where we are headed. Here we can 
see the research and development projections for the United States, 
China, and the European Union. It is not hard to see that China will 
soon outpace the United States.
  This represents total research and development spending for the 
countries involved--not just in military R&D, but given the fact that a 
large percentage of research and development is spent on defense-
related efforts, on military weaponry, it is a useful bellwether for 
understanding what the future holds in terms of Chinese and Russian 
military investment relative to our own. Clearly, we can see that China 
is on track to overtake the United States in this critical area in the 
next decade.
  I should also point out that, according to one report, this isn't 
just because China is so committed to research and development; it is 
also because in recent years, due to austerity measures in our own 
country, U.S. investment in research and development is increasing at a 
historically low rate.
  Why is this important? Well, it is important because China is using 
some of this R&D to make weapons that are designed to undermine 
interests of the United States in the Asia-Pacific region. One recent 
study made headlines just this week, highlighting that both China and 
Russia are developing high-speed, high-altitude weapons designed to 
penetrate traditional U.S. defensive systems, such as our ballistic 
missile defenses, to attack not only our allies but to potentially 
attack the mainland of the United States as well.
  Reports continue to surface about Chinese cyber theft of top U.S. 
military and industry secrets. Once they have stolen our trade secrets, 
the Chinese military can create copycat or cloned weapons for their own 
use without having to invest the years and billions of dollars that we 
have to in this country for research and testing and development of 
those weapons. They can simply steal the blueprints and copy them, 
saving themselves a lot of money and a lot of time in producing those 
weapons.
  So while nations like China are doing all they can to build their 
capabilities and research the next cutting-edge weapons, the U.S. 
military is extremely limited in the amount of money we are investing 
in our own future, instead having to spend that money to maintain the 
readiness of current forces. That is where the money has gone--to try 
to maintain the readiness of our current forces, not looking out to the 
next 5 and 10 years, to the growing threat of our adversaries having 
weapon systems that will have the capability not only to be used 
offensively but potentially to defeat American forces around the world.
  We know we need a robust military budget in order to allow us to walk 
and chew gum at the same time--to both maintain these world-class 
forces at high levels of readiness and ensure our troops have the 
cutting-edge weapons of tomorrow. Back in March, the Committee on Armed 
Services heard testimony by current Secretary of Defense Ash Carter. At 
the end of his prepared remarks, Secretary Carter made a point we all 
need to better understand. He said:

       We don't have the luxury of just one opponent, or the 
     choice between the current fight and future fights--we have 
     to do both, and we have to have a budget that supports both.

  He went on to explain that means being ready to fight the battles of 
today and train our current troops but also to develop the technologies 
and perfect the strategies to fight the wars of the future. And we know 
from Ronald Reagan's doctrine of peace through strength that military 
readiness is much more likely to make sure that we don't have to fight 
those battles because it deters the aggressive actions of our 
adversaries when America leads and when America is the strongest 
military in the world. But when our opponents see us pulling back, both 
in terms of our investment and in terms of American leadership, they 
are all too happy to fill the void left by that withdrawal.
  Unfortunately, the Obama administration has apparently failed to see 
that national defense is the most critical function the Federal 
Government performs, and so every time we get into this discussion 
about how do we spend more money to keep the American people safe and 
secure, they want to enter into a discussion about how we can raise 
spending caps so we can spend more money on nondefense discretionary 
spending, and so it goes.
  I believe that defense spending--making sure our men and women in 
uniform have the training and equipment they need for the current fight 
but also that we are preparing for the mid- and long-term so they will 
have the weapons and resources they need to fight the fights of the 
future--is job No. 1 for us here in the Congress.
  It is not too late to eliminate some of these spending caps and to 
adequately fund the Department of Defense. I look forward to working 
with all of our colleagues to make sure we take care of job No. 1 
before we then look to other priorities in our Federal budget.
  We can't take for granted the fact that the U.S. military is the best 
in the world. We are the best in the world, but there is no certainty 
or guarantee that will always be the case, especially when our 
adversaries are making investments for the future and as America's 
leadership pulls back out of the world and allows others to fill that 
void. There are other nations at our heels spending a lot of money 
specifically to neutralize our military advantages and defeat us. The 
threat extends far beyond China. North Korea, for example, continues to 
threaten us and our allies with their nuclear weapons and their missile 
tests. As I indicated earlier, Russia continues to make tremendous 
advancements in areas such as cyber and electronic warfare, working to 
render our most effective and advanced capabilities ineffective.
  We don't have any time to waste, and we have to spend more time and 
more energy looking not just at the threats of today but those of 
tomorrow and beyond. Frankly, once the threat is upon us, it may be too 
late to do the sort of research and development and investment we need 
in order to be prepared.
  So I am hopeful that the next Congress, working with the new 
administration, will be able to move the needle in the right direction. 
We certainly can't just cross our fingers and hope for the best. That 
is not fulfilling our responsibilities and doing our duty as Members of 
the Congress. If we want to

[[Page 15534]]

maintain our position as the most capable military in the world, we 
have to continue to act, and act without delay.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.

                          ____________________