National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018
Floor Speech
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Madam President, this week, we are debating the National Defense Authorization Act of 2018. It is very important, and Members of both sides have contributed to this very important legislation we pass every year. It funds our military and authorizes its spending and training. It is really one of the most important things we do in the Senate.
As have many others, I thank the members of the Armed Services Committee. I have the privilege of serving on that committee. I thank Chairman McCain and Ranking Member Reed for the hard work they and all of the members of the committee have put into this and for how seriously we take this responsibility.
You have heard the discussions. This bill is needed now more than ever. We are seeing accidents, in terms of training, that are killing the lives of young men and women who are serving in the military, and a lot of it is due to readiness. In fact, in the past 8 years, the U.S. military has seen its budget decline by almost 25 percent. It is a huge decrease--just pick up the paper and see what is going on in the world--when we know that the national security threats to the United States have dramatically increased. We have decreasing budgets and increasing national security challenges, and this NDAA begins the much needed process of changing that.
I would like to focus on one such threat that we need to address right now that is at the doorstep of our great Nation and what the NDAA is doing specifically about that threat. The threat is North Korea's nuclear intercontinental ballistic activity and capability. As the Presiding Officer knows, that has now literally become a threat to every city in the United States, not just to frontline States like mine, which is the great State of Alaska, or Hawaii, as they are closer to Asia than is any other place in the United States. This threat is now on the doorstep of every American city.
For years, a lot of the ``experts'' and intel officials were saying: Hey, don't worry about this. They are trying, but this threat is a long way off into the future.
Some of us were skeptical of those estimates, and now we know those estimates were wrong. It is no longer a matter of ``if'' but ``when'' the North Korean regime will have the capability of launching a nuclear intercontinental ballistic missile that will be aimed at the United States of America.
Recently, there was a disturbing article written in the Washington Post, the lead paragraph of which reads:
North Korea will be able to field a reliable, nuclear- capable intercontinental ballistic missile as early as next year, U.S. officials have concluded in a confidential assessment, that dramatically shrinks the timeline for when Pyongyang could strike North American cities with atomic weapons.
This assessment was leaked by someone within the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency, and it shaves almost 2 full years off of what we thought North Korea's capability was. Right now, the threat is here.
Think about this threat with regard to who is leading North Korea--an unstable dictator who has shown that he is not rational.
Let me go into a little bit more of the threat here. When you look at the different regimes--Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il, and Kim Jong Un, who is the current dictator of North Korea--in just the 5 years since he has come to power, he has conducted more than 80 missile tests and over twice as many nuclear tests as both his father and grandfather did in their 60 years of ruling North Korea. Look at this chart. It shows missile tests, nuclear tests--5 years--way more than his father and grandfather ever did.
And while several of these missile tests have been failures, we have obviously seen clear successes. In fact, while many Americans were celebrating the Fourth of July holiday--our patriotism, our liberty, our military--Kim Jong Un launched a successful test of an intercontinental ballistic missile.
On the nuclear side, we have seen activity even more recently, allegedly a test of a hydrogen bomb with an estimated yield of 120 kilotons--their third nuclear test since January 2016. It was eight times more powerful than their last test.
The bottom line with regard to this threat from a very unstable regime is they are making very significant progress.
So that is the threat. It is very real--on our shores--led by an unstable dictator who has threatened to use these weapons.
What are we doing about it? Well, we have the capability to defend against this threat, and that capability is through much more enhanced missile defense for the homeland of the United States--for our cities.
That is what this National Defense Authorization Act does.
Unfortunately, over the past several years, the Federal Government has not taken homeland missile defense very seriously. One study recently found that in its history, our homeland missile defense has been characterized by a ``trend of high ambition followed by increasing modesty.''
The ``high ambition'' has been largely driven by the threats to our Nation, but the modesty component has been largely a function of decreasing budgets for the Missile Defense Agency. In fact, from 2006 to 2016, the Missile Defense Agency's budget has declined nearly 25 percent. Homeland missile defense testing has declined by nearly 83 percent. So when our adversaries are testing and advancing, we have been going in the opposite direction.
I am glad to say that this year's NDAA reverses this long-term trend of homeland missile defense neglect.
Earlier this year, with a number of my colleagues in this body, we introduced the Advancing America's Missile Defense Act of 2017. This is a bill that we worked on for months, with experts in missile defense, the military experts, the civilian experts, to say: What do we need to better protect the United States of America? What are the key elements? We put this together in a bill that we introduced several months ago, focusing on the following key areas:
First, the Advancing America's Missile Defense Act would dramatically increase our capacity for what are called our ground-based missile interceptors--up to 28 more interceptors--and require our military to look at fielding 100 more--up to 100 missile interceptors--to fully protect the United States.
Second, our bill would advance the technology to not only have more ground-based missile interceptors but the kill vehicles on top of those missiles--the bullets from which the missiles could shoot additional warheads. This is technology that is advancing, but it needs to advance much more quickly.
Third, our bill looks at integrating the different missile defense systems throughout the world. So in theater, for example, in South Korea, we have the THAAD system, and we have that on Guam. We have Aegis systems with our Navy ships, and then we have our ground-based system back home, in the homeland of the United States. Our bill looks at integrating these systems with a space-based sensor, to have an unblinking eye, in terms of the technology, that can track and shoot down missiles coming to the United States and integrate with regional defenses and our homeland defenses.
Fourth, our bill focuses on more testing for missile defense. As I mentioned, the decline of the testing has inhibited the development of these systems. It focuses on the testing but also doing the testing with our allies that are also advancing missile defense in different areas of the world.
As I mentioned, we worked on this bill for months. One of the key elements I am most proud of in this bill is the strong bipartisan support it has received in the Senate and in the House. Importantly, when we introduced it as part of the NDAA markup, we had over one- quarter of all of the Members of the U.S. Senate who were already cosponsors--Democrats and Republicans from literally every region of the United States.
This is a first and important development in a long time with regard to missile defense. Unfortunately, for years, that has been viewed as a partisan issue, not a bipartisan issue. And what we were trying to do as we developed this bill was to say this shouldn't be partisan. This is a threat that every city in America is going to have to deal with. Let's work together and get a bipartisan bill together.
I was proud when the Wall Street Journal editorial wrote about this bill and emphasized that bipartisan nature. A few months ago they wrote:
[The Advancing America's Missile Defense Act] has united conservatives such as Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio and liberal Democrats such as Gary Peters and Brian Schatz, no small feat in the Trump era. . . . Mr. Sullivan's missile-defense amendment would be a down payment on a safer America in an ever more dangerous world.
Why did they write this? Because they understand the importance of having bipartisan support for missile defense but also the importance of making sure that Congress leads on this important issue. Thankfully, that is what the NDAA does this year--both versions--the Senate version and the House version.
The vast majority of our bill that we introduced we debated in the markup for the NDAA this year. Again, I thank Senators McCain and Reed and other members of the committee for the way in which the broader NDAA came together. But we debated this bill, and the vast majority of our bill on advancing America's missile defense is now in this NDAA-- one of the many reasons I am encouraging all of my colleagues in the Senate to vote to pass it.
Something else that I think is important for my constituents to know but also for all Americans to know is the role that Alaska plays in America's missile defense. For those of my colleagues who sit on the Armed Services Committee, they have heard me say this many, many times. There is a famous quote in congressional testimony back in the 1930s by the father of the Air Force, Gen. Billy Mitchell. His quote in front of Congress was: Alaska is the most strategic place in the world because of its location on the top of the world. Whoever owns Alaska literally controls the world.
Fortunately, the United States owns Alaska. So we are, because of that strategic location, the cornerstone of our Nation's missile defense. If there were a missile launched from North Korea or Iran or anywhere else in the world, the trajectory would take it over Alaska. It would be tracked by radars in Alaska. It would be shot down by missiles based in Alaska. The 49th Missile Defense Battalion located at Fort Greely, AK, is a National Guard unit. They have a fantastic motto: 300 protecting the 300 million--young men and women serving in the Guard on duty 24/7, protecting the entire country--300 of them protecting the entire United States. That is a worthy mission that we are glad is done so well by the members of the Alaska National Guard.
So this bill does a lot. The NDAA this year, which we are debating on the floor now, finally takes seriously this important mission of missile defense. As I have noted, it does a lot to advance it.
We have a couple of additional amendments that we are working on and hopefully are going to get passed out of the managers' package that would make even more advances to missile defense. We are going to continue to work those, and, hopefully, we will continue to have the bipartisan support that we did when this bill was marked up.
I remain hopeful that we are finally starting to reverse the trend in missile defense that, as I noted earlier, was one of high ambition followed by increasing modesty.
Today we need ambition, and we need action. The threat warrants it. The American people demand it. The Congress must step up and deliver it. That is what is happening in this NDAA, along with many other important and critical provisions for our Nation's military. I encourage all of my colleagues to vote in favor of passage of this important bill.
Tribute to Micah McKinnis
Madam President, Micah McKinnis began working for me 2 years ago as my military legislative correspondent. He is actually sitting with me right now, and today is his last day in my office. It is a sad day for everyone in my office, but Micah is going on to do bigger and better things with that unit I just talked about, the Alaska National Guard.
While in my office he has done amazing work, including championing my India policy and fighting for more resources for our combat rescue squadrons and playing an important role in helping us develop this missile defense bill. I am genuinely happy for him and his wife, and I look forward to seeing them up in Alaska, as he is getting ready to go join the military himself. He is going to head out for training. He is looking to be a pararescue member of the military. It is some of the toughest training we have in the U.S. military, but I know he is going to do very well.
So Micah, thanks for all you have done, all the things you have done for Alaska. You will always be part of our family. Good luck to you and your family.
I yield the floor.
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