Committee meets to receive the testimony of the secretary of defense and the chairman of the joint chief of staffs on the administrations fiscal year 2018 budget request. We welcome secretary mattis for the first time before our committee and we welcome chairman dunford back. The question today, as it is each year for this hearing, is how well the administrations proposal meets the security needs of the nation. Factoring in both the external threats and the current state of our military. This committee has repeatedly heard testimony over the past two years that our country faces more serious complex security challenges now than we have faced before. The hearings and briefings we have held on the current state of our military have been disturbing. The administrations budget request of 603 billion for base requirements is 6 above the 17 enacted level and 3 above the last Obama Administration Budget Proposal. Its 37 billion below what this committee assessed last fall was needed and 58 bi
Avoid it . Well, i dont think that conflict is inevitable. I think that the world were in today is probably a different world than the ones we have been in before when a great power arose. The effects of globalization and economic globalization and the movement of people, the interconnectedness of banks and industry, of all these things that you know very well about, i think have made it imperative that we understand the rise of china and that we to some agree, accommodate the rise of china where we can to attempt to shape the rise of china. Ive said on many occasions that a china that would the china with a military that would come forward as a net provider of security rather than a net user of security would be beneficial to not only the region but would be beneficial to us as well. And i think thats an achievable goal. I think it has to be looked at how do we deal with china globally and global institutions from their role in the United Nations to how theyre behaving and conducting
They want to have those groups in charge of public order in their community. So it is troubling that we dont seem more support for the police and courts, and it is perturbing because as the National Academy of sciences quite correctly says, we have seen amazing gains in the quality of policing services of america, effectiveness in fighting crime, professionalism and other ways. So lets look at refocusing on the issues of right now. And i certainly dont mean this to be a criticism because i think actually a refocus would be going back to what i understand to be some of the core ideas that are in the original theory. In particular, if the police are going to gain support from the public by addressing public needs, we have to recognize that, perhaps, the public concern, the needs are different now than they were in earlier eras were there was of focus on fear of crime. In fact, its a good time to reconsider the Public Relationship to the police because crime is low, as we are all in ackno