He left the law and joined as infantry officer. He was deployed to iraq and also to a provinnal reinstruction team. After his military career, senator cotton served briefly in the private sector and was then elected to the u. S. House of representatives in 2012. Last year, he was elected to serve in the United States senate and now serves in committees of banks, intelligence and Armed Services where hes chairman of the committee on air land. In his maiden speech on the senate floor last week, he warned we have quote system systemically underfunded our military. We look forward to the insights today and ask you to please join me in welcoming senator tom cotton. Sen. Cotton thank you, good morning. Thanks to fpi and the aaf for hosting me this morning for the important work you do. As the senate prepares to debate and vote on a budget resolution this week, i have a very simple message this morning. The world is growing ever more dangerous and defense spending is inadequate to confront the danger. Today, the United States is engaged again in something of a grand experiment, the kind you saw in the 1930s to allow hitler to rise to power in germany. As then, military strength is seen in many quarters as the cause of military adventurism. Strength and confidence is not seen to deter aggression but to provoke it rather than confront our adversaries, our president apologizes for our transgressions, minimizes the threats we confront and the face of territories seizes, weapons of mass destructions used and proliferated and innocents murdered. The concrete expression of this experiment is our collapsing Defense Budget. For years, we have systemically underfunded our military. Marrying this philosophy of retreat with a misplaced understanding of our larger burdens. We have strained our fighting forces today to the breaking point. Even as we have eaten away at investments at our future forces. Meanwhile, a longterm debt crisis hardly looks any better even as we ask truth to shoulder the deficit redestruction rather than shouldering the arms necessary to keep the peace. The result of this experiment should come as no surprise than the results of the same experiment in the 1930s. Ladies and gentlemen, youre welcome. As much as these fellow citizens support negotiates with iran but negotiates from a piece of strength. Where we, where we are dictating the terms of the negotiations. Not the circumstances where just two days ago, two days ago let me remind you, atole la ripped up the crowd in iran to say death to america. Two days ago, ayatollah in his annual speech whipped his crowd into a frenzy saying death to america. What was his response . Yes, certainly, death to america. This is not the man or the regime to whom we should ever make Nuclear Concessions and in fact and in fact, the president s series of one sided nuclear confessions is of a peace with his philosophy of retreat that apologizes for american conduct and actually undermines our efforts to stop iran from getting a Nuclear Weapon rather than secures it. Not just with iran, but around the world, our enemies sensing opportunity have become steadily more aggressive. Our allies uncertain of our commitment and capabilities have begun to conclude they must look out for themselves even if its unhelpful. Our military suffering from year s of neglect. Lets start with the enemy who attacked us on september 11. The president said alqaeda is on the run. In a fashion, i suppose this was correct. Alqaeda is running wild around the world. It controls now than before. This Global Network continues to plot attacks against america and the west. And maintain active in africa, the Arabian Peninsula and the greater middle east and south asia. Further, alqaeda in iraq withdrew from iraq in 2011. Given the chance to regroup alqaeda and iraq morphed into the islamic state. It cuts the heads off of americans, burns live hostages from allied countries, executes christians and enslaves women and girls. They inspire to plot us here at home, whether by foreign plot or recruiting a lone wolf in our midst. And the threat of islamic terrorism brings me to iran. The worlds worst state sponsor of terrorism. My objections to these Nuclear Negotiations are wellknown and i dont have to rehearse them here. I will note though that the deal foreshadowed by the president and accepting any Expiration Date on an agreement to quote netanyahu, doesnt block irans path to a bomb it paves irans path to a bomb and if you think as i do that the islam ic state is dangerous, a republic is even more so. Recall after all what iran does without the bomb. Iran is an outlaw regime that has been killing americans for 35 years. From lebanon to saudi arabia to iraq. Unsurprisingly, iraq, iran is growing bolder and more aggressive as america retreats from the middle east. Ayatollah did in fact two days ago call for death to america just as in recent months, he tweeted the reasons why israel should be eliminated. Militias now control much of our iraq. Iran continues to prop up assads outlaw regime in syria. Iranian aligned and shiite financed militants, the capital of yemen and over the weekend, we had to withdraw further troops from yemen. Hezbollah remains our lebanon. Put simply, iran dominates or controls five capitals in its drive for regional hegemony. Further, iran has rapidly increased the size and capability of its Ballistic Missile arsenal and three weeks ago, iran blew up a mock u. S. Aircraft carrier in naval exercises and publicized it with great fanfare. Iran does all these things without the bomb. Just imagine what iran would do with the bomb, and imagine a United States largely defenseless against this, but you dont have to imagine much. Simply look to north korea because of a naive and failed agreement, that state acquired Nuclear Weapons. Now, america is largely handcuffed. Regrettably, the result of this experiment can also be felt in other parts of the world. Take for example the resurgence of russia with whom president obama conciliated and made one sided concessions from the outset of his presidency or chinas military build up which is clear against the United States as china purr seuss an as china pursues a strategy to keep American Forces outside the socalled first island chain and therefore to expand chinas hegemony in east asia. Now while america is retreated not only have our enemies been on the march, our allies anxious for years about american revolve american resolve now worry about american capabilities. With the enemy on our border many have begun to conclude they have no choice but to take matters into their own hands. We should never take our allies for granted, but we shouldnt take for granted the vast influence our security guarantees give us with their behavior. This kind of influence has been essential for American Security throughout the post war period. Yet it has begun to wane as our allies doubt our commitment and capabilities. And make no mistake, our military capabilities have declined. Today, defense spending is only 16 of all spending. Historic low rivaled only by a post cold war period. To dip some context, during a cold war, defense spending accounted for 60 of all federal spending, but if we dont end with retreat, this president will leave office with a mere 12 of all federal dollars spent on defense. The picture is no prettier when cast in light of the economy as a whole and the early poll work, defense spending was 9 of gross domestic product. Today, it sits at a pal tri a paltry 3. 5 . Our Defense Budget isnt just about numbers and arithmetic. Its about accomplishing the mission of defending our country from all threats. The consequences of these cuts are real, concrete, and immediate. As former secretary of defense panetta explained, these cuts put us on the path to the Smallest Army since world war ii and the Smallest Air Force ever. And these impacts wont be just immediate. They will be felt long into the future. The key programs will be difficult to restart. Manufacturing competencies will be lost. The Skilled Labor pool will shrink. Todays weapon systems and equipment will age and break down. Our troops wont be able to train and weapons equipment wont be ready for the fight. In short, we will have a hollow force incapable of defending our National Security. What is then to be done . Our experiment with retreat must end. This Congress Must begin recognize that our National Security is the First Priority of the government and the military budget must reflect the budgets we face rather than the budget defining those threats. This week, the Senate Budget resolution will reflect 520 3 billion. While better than defense spending mandated by the budget control act, this is still insufficient. Given our readiness crisis and the immediate need to modernize aircraft, ship, vehicles and so forth. The National Defense panel, a Bipartisan Group of National Security experts convened by congress unanimously recommended a 600 billion floor to the Defense Budget. Not a ceiling. I agree that 611 billion is necessary and not sufficient. What then should our budget be next year . Well, i will readily acknowledge that we cant be sure how much is needed above 611 billion. The National Defense panel explained why. Because of the highly constrained department under which the department has been working, the defense review is not adequate as a comprehensive, longterm planning document. Thus, the Panel Recommends that congress should ask the department for such a plan which should been developed without current constraints. I endorse this recommendation. In the meantime though, even if we cant specify a precise dollar amount, we can identify the critical needs on which to spend the additional money. First, our military does face a readiness crisis. From budget cuts in a decade of war. We must act immediately to get our forces back in fighting shape. From flight time and so forth. Second, and related, our military is shrinking rapidly to historically small levels. This decline must be reversed. And in strength of the army and many marine core and the navy. Third, we must increase research, development and procurement funds to ensure our military retains its advantage as our adversaries gain more access to advanced, low cost technologies. These critical priorities will no doubt be expensive. Probably tens of billions of dollars more than the 611 billion baseline suggested. Because the massive cuts to our Defense Budget resulted in record deficits though, the question arises can we afford this . The answer is yes. Without question and without doubt. Yes. The facts are not disputable. The Defense Budget has been slashed by hundreds of billions of dollars over the last six years. The Defense Budget as i said is only 16 of all federal spending, low and heading lower if we dont act. And using the broadest measure of affordability and National Priorities defense spending is a , spending of our economy. Last year, we only spent 3. 5 on defense. Approaching historic lows and it makes you pass it by 2019. To provide context, when reagan took office, we spent 5 of our National Income on defense. And president reagan and Congressional Democrats considered that to be a dangerously low amount. That is the point from which they started. If we spent 5 of our National Income on defense today, we would spend 885 billion on defense. Furthermore, trying to balance the budget through defense cuts is both counterproductive and impossible. First, the threats we face eventually will catch up with us and they did on 9 11, as they did in the late 1970s. Well have no choice but to increase our Defense Budget. It will cost more to achieve the same instate of readiness and modernization than it would have without the intermediate cuts. This is the lesson we learned in the 1980s and in the last decade. Second, we need a healthy growing economy to generate the government revenue necessary to fund our military and balance the budget and our globalized world, our prosperity depends heavily on the World Economy which requires global stability and order and who provides that . The United States military. I would suggestion a better question to ask is can we afford to continue our experiment with retreat . And i would suggest the answer is we cannot. Imagine a world in which we continue our current trajectory, where america remains in retreat and our military loses even more edge. Its not a pretty picture. To stop this experiment and turn around american retreat, we must once again show that america is willing and prepared to fight a war in the first place. Only then, only when we demonstrate military strength and confidence in americas National Security will we make war less likely in the first place. Our enemies and allies alike will and must know that aggress sors will pay an unspeakable price for challenging the United States. Bring about this future by being prepared for war will no doubt take a lot. But i will leave you all with two questions. What could be a higher priority than a safe and prosperous america leading to stable and orderly world and what better use of our precious taxpayer dollars . Thank you, all. God bless you, god bless the United States. [applause] thank you, again, for joining us this morning. For your insights. Its now a pleasure to welcome rachel hoff to moderate our panel. Thank you, rachel. Rachel thank you very much. Thank you very much, chris and to senator cotton for those very insightful remarks. I am pleased to be joined by this panel to follow up on the senators remarks and diving deeper into these questions of current military capacity and capability in order to meet rising National Security threats as well as the Defense Budget question within the context of the broader fiscal year 2016 budget. Douglas, to my right previously, he served as director the Congressional Budget Office next is the policy director at the Foreign Policy initiative. Previously, he was a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise institute and served for two years as Deputy Director in the u. S. Department of defense. David also served as a Research Staff member for defense analysis. And mckenzie, who will start us off, is a resident fellow at the center. Shes worked on defense issues both here in the senate and in the house of representatives as well as in the pentagon. Also, secretary of defense and joint staff. Mackenzies served as a staff member on defense council, senator cotton endorsed today. Mackenzie thanks for having me. I guess we can pick up, where the senates going to go this week and the resolutions as opposed. It is a long way from the president s budget to i think the kind of investments that are required that are very similar in line with the National Defense panel. Which we can speak more about in q and a. I think the biggest question on the table or put another way the elephant in the room is ok 39 billion extra in overseas Contingency Operation spending to get the Defense Budgets in the neighborhood ballpark of where president obama has them. Or a billion over depending on , how you calculate it. How is that for defense . Well, im here to say as somebody who helped the National Defense panel think through some of these issues, its completely inadequate. Its not just bad budgeting and governing, its bad defense policy. 39 extra billion in oco or war spending isnt the same Defense Budget as plussing up the base budget. I know thats hard. I get it. Hey, congress has done it twice already and we know theyre going to do it again with the deal, some sort of follow on to the ryan murray, but theyre not going to do it until theyve exhausted every other option and gone through this long torturous path to get there. But theres the base budget that invests in americas military and basically, the size and structure in the standing responsibilities, the daily global responsibilities. The supplementing spending it is intended for emergencies. That is why it is called emergency supplemental money. There are two Defense Budgets and they buy two different things. In fact, the Defense Budget, one for war spending, has been constricted over time partly because of congress. Congress has wanted to restrict the use of those funds, which i think is a good thing. Its often in years past particularly when Defense Budgets were going up, its the christmas tree. It became everybodys favorite place to stop, Stocking Stuffer you could imagine that had