Our Nation's Missile Defense Isn't A Bargaining Chip

Floor Speech

Mr. TURNER. Mr. Speaker, once again, President Obama and his administration have offered up America's missile defense shield as a bargaining chip. Just the other week, Secretary of State John Kerry flew to China and offered to remove our recently added defenses in the Pacific to encourage them to counter the increasingly belligerent tone and actions by North Korea.

This is the same failed strategy that the administration offered up to the Russians in exchange for them engaging with Iran. If it failed to work then, how could it possibly work now?

At a time when our missile defense system is the only defense that we have to the threat from North Korea and the emerging threats from Iran, I am greatly concerned that our Nation's missile defense strategy is languishing. The end result is increased risk to the United States, increased cost to the taxpayer, and needless alienation of our allies.

Our enemies around the world have sought nuclear weapons and missile technology, yet the Obama administration has consistently reduced missile defense funding, abandoned previous Bush administration strategies that sought to respond to these emerging threats, and has compromised the implementation of current missile defense programs. Meanwhile, they have sought elusive Russian, and now Chinese, approval of the right of the United States to defend itself.

Most recently, the administration has abandoned its own missile defense strategy, known as the ``phased adaptive approach,'' in favor of a stopgap measure of finally placing the additional ground-based missiles in Alaska that they had previously canceled. I welcome the administration finally completing the missile field which it has attempted to close. Although, this reveals that they have no plan to reasonably respond to the real and foreseeable threats from North Korea and Iran.

This announcement leaves the United States without an articulated missile defense strategy. This deficiency is compounded by the effects of the administration's clumsy handling of our relationship with our NATO allies. The abrupt cancellation of the Bush administration missile defense commitments, coupled with the announcement of the abandonment of the President's phased adaptive approach, have left our allies to stand alone in the face of domestic criticism and Russian opposition.

Our relationship with the Polish Government has yet to fully recover, and I am concerned that this administration may repeat the same relationship-straining affront with our Romanian allies. The President and his administration must address the damage done to our relationships with our NATO allies as a result of their failed missile defense strategies.

In addition, I am concerned that the administration fails to recognize the significance of the emerging threats from North Korea and Iran which places the United States at risk. The administration should inform Congress of the effects of the abandoned and failed Obama administration phased adaptive approach and of their plan to complete the Bush administration's Alaska missile defense strategy.

Further, since completion of the Alaska missile field alone is insufficient for the full protection of the United States, I am calling upon the administration to support the site selection and completion of a United States east coast missile field to complement the Alaska site.

The world is not becoming a safer place. Offering to weaken our defenses in hopes of irrational nations suspending their weapons programs is not an effective strategy to protect the United States. Simply put, these offers are of greater benefit to our adversaries than to the protection of the American people. They are to the detriment of the American people.

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