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Floor Speech
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Mr. TILLIS. Mr. President, I want to thank Senator Shaheen and my colleagues on the floor here--Senators Coons, Ernst, Blunt, and the others who joined the bipartisan delegation at the NATO summit. It was an extraordinary opportunity to see firsthand how the democratic world looks at the United States for leadership.
It was an extraordinary opportunity to talk about Russia's aspirations. It was an extraordinary opportunity to talk about what I think may go down as the greatest miscalculation in this century on the part of Vladimir Putin.
Months ago, when he was massing troops at the Ukrainian border, he called it a special military operation, a training exercise, for a little while. What he was thinking in the back of his head was that now was the time to test NATO's resolve; now was the time to see if the differences that we have was enough to break an alliance.
What he found out was quite the opposite. Shortly after February 24, the NATO countries came together, the EU came together. We implemented sanctions. We provided troops on the ground to assist with the evacuation of Ukrainian refugees.
And now we are in a position of providing support for the very courageous members of the Ukrainian military.
What else did he get for his miscalculation? Two nations that, for decades, have been nonaligned, Sweden and Finland. Eight hundred and thirty miles of Russian border is now about to be the back door or the front yard of NATO. And when Finland and Sweden ultimately get membership in NATO, which I expect to be in weeks or months, then Vladimir Putin needs to understand his reward for invading a sovereign nation is 830 miles of NATO borders right next door.
Now I want to talk a little bit about Finland and Sweden. They are extraordinary countries--advanced democracies, the rule of law, a great defense industrial base in Sweden, home to Saab. They manufacture jet fighters that are NATO interoperable.
Finland is already spending in the 2-percent threshold for NATO and wanting to go further. Finland has 64 joint strike fighters on order. If the United States was going to have as many--they are a nation of about 5\1/2\ million people--if the United States was going to have as many F-35s as Finland on a per capita basis, we would need thousands of them. We have less than 200. They are committed to defense. They are a strong army, a strong ground force. Russia knows that; just look back to 1939.
And then in Sweden, we have a defense industrial base and a Navy that covers the Arctic. It covers the Baltics. They are going to be net distributors of security the day that they get NATO membership.
I had somebody a couple of weeks ago--from time to time, I go to the front office, and I take calls from constituents. I had someone call up and say, Why are you supporting--why are you focused on Ukraine? Why are you focused on Finland and Sweden when we have so many things we need to do back here at home?
I said, We have to do both because the future of our safety and our freedom at home is intrinsically linked to the safety and security of Europe.
This weekend, I was moving some furniture around. I came across a globe I have had for 40 years. It has a picture of the Soviet Empire on it. Vladimir Putin wants to recreate that and expand it. This doesn't end. And I told the caller this: It doesn't end in Ukraine. It is one step of several chess moves that Vladimir Putin would like to play out and, ultimately, dominate the free world. We can't let that happen.
When we were at the NATO summit, I think it was very clear--at least to me--that those whom we met with, the heads of state, feel like now more than ever is the time America has to lead, that America has to understand the threats that exist: a rising China, a threatening Russia, a malign group of leaders in Iran. Now is the time for us to look outward and preserve the free world.
How do we do that? We make NATO stronger. We admit Sweden. We admit Finland. And we continue to work together to recognize emerging threats in the Pacific Rim.
I think at the end of the day, to the American citizen who is wondering why do we worry about NATO, why do we worry about Ukraine? Because it is directly linked to the future of our sovereignty and our safety here at home.
I want to thank the President for his contribution at NATO, as well. We met with him for about an hour last week. We had a press conference a little later in the day, and people wanted to ask us about domestic policies. I said, We are a bipartisan group here to talk about our commitment to NATO and our commitment to having Putin fail in Ukraine. We can have our differences back home, but there is no daylight between the Republicans and the Democrats who were on that codel with respect to the future of our commitment to NATO and a future to our commitment to the free world.
I hope that we will move swiftly to pass the treaty, to be one of the first to recognize that we want and welcome Sweden and Finland into the NATO alliance. And then we need to continue to remind people at home why it is important. Although it is not in our backyard, it is in a part of the world that if we let this stand, if we don't act with unity, then we will live to regret it.
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