To expose them and make them even deeper. Host we llavto ended there this morning. The book is donald trump the divider. Trump in the white house 2017 the 2021. That is going to do it for us today. We are going to take you over to the Heritage Foundation event with Mike Gallagher, already underway. Live coverage here on cspan. Busy in fixing this problem. We are going to do so, of course, not just by saying this is a blank check, as long as you put military in it. A warning from heritage not just that this is a blank check, but to spend as we have allocated on the right things for American Military wellness to protect the government. The one person in congress you can find who is so eloquent about this happens to be with us today. Congressman Mike Gallagher is, in fact, the man of the hour. He has served since 2017, seven years prior and the u. S. Marine corps including two deployments to iraq. He served as the Central CommandAssessment Team in the middle east and has worked with multiple agencies within the intelligence agency. Congressman gallagher serves on the Permanent Select Committee of intelligence and the transportation and Infrastructure Committee from 20192021. He served as cochair of the Cyberspace Commission with strategic approaches to defense against evolving Cyber Threats to the United States. One logistical note, after congressman gallaghers remarks, we will have a conversation with the editor of the index and her executive Vice President and you will of course have opportunities to ask questions. Please join me in welcoming congressman gallagher. [applause] congress and gallagher thank you kevin, congressman gallagher thank you for inviting me here today, congratulations on the publication of the 2023 military strength which is an incredible accomplishment. You should be very proud. Although, i have to say that i dont know what was more depressing. Watching my Green Bay Packers lose to the new york jets who i didnt even know where a professional Football Team until i was there on sunday, or reading this years military index which, for the first time in the history of the heritage index, downgraded the overall rating of the u. S. Military. I thought to myself, it sure would be nice if we didnt have to spend all this money on military strength in pursuit of peace. But here is the problem. We have tried everything else. And none of it seems to work. For example, at the height of utopianism that characterized the civil war period, the senate actually attempted to outlaw war by ratifying a pack on january 15, 1929. The only no vote was wisconsin senator john blame who as the author of the 21st amendment must have understood that outlawing war would work about as well as outline alcohol. He subsequently lost his senate seat. He was censured by the wisconsin state legislature. While secretary kellogg won the nobel peace prize. But just a few years later, japan, germany, austria, italy violated the treaty, eventually leading to world war ii. In fact, today, war remains outlawed. And yet war persists. Because these same utopian administration has gone farther, deluding itself into thinking that integrated deterrence succeeded. In ukraine. Barely one month into the war. Anonymous pentagon officials bravely bragged to the western postthat integrated deterrence comes out smelling pretty good from this. The tens of thousands of dead ukrainians, millions more displaced should not smell, look, or feel good. A profile luading included boasting that we are literally define the laws of bureaucratic physics by how fast we are going in ukraine. Now, i am a marine, not a physicist, but newtons first law of motion states that an object in motion will stay in motion unless acted upon by an sternal force. And on february 20 4, 2022, deterrence failed in ukraine because, as putin put his invasion plans into motion, President Biden repeatedly signaled that he would not put American Power in putins way. The president primitively pulled american troops out of ukraine. Facing threats of nuclear escalation. Eventually after we went back and forth Armed Services committee, the secretary actually admitted that integrated deterrence failed in ukraine and that pushed short of the commitment of u. S. Military forces into ukraine proper, putin was not deterred. This was an inadvertent admission about the supremacy of hard power in matters of deterrence, one that has profound implications for how we deter a war with china over taiwan. For when it comes to taiwan, time is not on our side. We had entered the window of maximum danger, a reference to phil davidson, assessing that china may make a move on taiwan within the next five years. A hard power within the davidson window is dangerous. And yet the Biden Administration insists on doing just that. The Defense Budget would force the navy to bottom out at 280 ships in the air force to cut over 1000 airplanes by 2027, just in time for the hundredth anniversary to target them for having the capability to take taiwan. Most of the Transformative Technology invested in with the 9. 5 increase in the research and Development Budget from weapons to domain commandandcontrol may not be fielded until the 20 30s, if at all. Making matters worse, we are running low on the munitions that are essential to both ukraine and taiwan. Two months into the war, we have already sent ukraine a quarter of our entire stockpile. In more than seven years. Admittedly, some people think im too pessimistic and think that the 59yearold xi jinping who this week is securing a third term as general secretary of the Chinese Communist party will abandon his lifelong ambition of taking taiwan. But look at what he has just recently gotten away with. Hong kong. Genocide. Covering up the coronavirus pandemic that killed at least 6 Million People globally. Furthermore, skyrocketing household debt. The demographic buzz saw dealing with more retirees than any society in Human History all get worse in the 20 30s. Why would he wait . We must not gamble the fate of the free world on xis restraint, nor on our own utopian delusion that somehow we have evolved beyond war of territorial expansion. We must put american hard power in his path before it is too late. Longterm investments to rebuild American Military in general and maritime superiority in particular are critical. The reality is we will not be able to build the navy the nation the and the next five years. But what we can do, it is in the davidson window. However, build the antinavy. I mean forces and weapons designed to target the chinese navy, denied in control of the area surrounding taiwan and prevent amphibious forces from gaining on the island. The first step in building this antinavy does not actually require us to decide any laws of physics, bureaucrat or otherwise. So technically, it is rocket science. Now that we are no longer bound by the inf treaty, we can serve in three concentric rings across the pacific. The first island chain, the Second Island chain, and the outer edges including alaska, hawaii, and australia. In the first, we need shorter ranged antiair defense missiles , strike missiles, longrange antimissiles. These weapons will be operated by army and marine corps standing forces, especially in the Southern Japanese and northern Philippine Islands and wherever possible, they should be containerized so as to confuse chinese targets. In the second ring, we need extended range maritime strike, hocks and other intermediate range missiles. And in the third rate, we need longerranged intermediate missiles with advanced, energetic materials in places like alaska and australia. The point is that the rocket, chinas antinavy has fielded low cost to keep american ships out and target American Forces concentrated in a few fixed locations. We have used the same logic against them. Building an antinavy that can sink ships and on taiwans beaches. The second step in building the antinavy is to stockpile munitions before the shooting starts. That is one of the big lessons of ukraine. At current production rates it will take at least two years to boost production to 4000 missiles annually. In many cases, Chinese Government is the sole source for the primary provider for the materials used in our missiles. To fix this, the pentagon should stop buying critical munitions and start maxing out its capacity of active production lines through multiyear contracts, drawing on the lessons of operation warp speed. We can also modernize the defense production act and use it to provide direct project financing, automatic fast tracking, and investments in Defense Workforce training. Consider that when i first deployed to iraq in 2007, most were still riding around in highly vulnerable humvees and when i returned in 2008, as if by magic, suddenly we all had. But of course it wasnt magic, it was because the secretary was building them as his highest acquisition priority. The next secretary of defense must similarly make rebuilding our Industrial Base a personal crusade. The third and final step in building this antinavy is deterring all of the talk about arming taiwan to the teeth into reality. We start with moving taiwan to the front of the military line and clearing the backlog of 14 billion of items that have been approved but not delivered to taiwan. Going even further by providing direct Financial Assistance to taiwan, and by getting the pentagon the authority to directly provide what it already enjoys with ukraine. For example, rather than demilitarized in hundreds of harpoon missiles or putting them into deep storage, the pentagon could utilize the authority and make any modern or necessary certification and send these missiles along with their associated launchers to taiwan. We should also learn from the first two taiwan crises where president eisenhower dramatically increased power on and around the island. This means decreasing the size and frequency of american activeduty and National Guard rotations on taiwan and giving them the tools they need to help put chinese amphibious ships on the bottom of the taiwan strait. We can complete these steps within the davidson window. We could pay for it by reducing the size of the civilian workforce, the joint staff, the office of secretary of defense, the overall number of general officers, and the fastgrowing bureaucracy. We can recycle valuable assets that contribute nothing to war fighting like golf courses. We could resurrect the 2015 defense study of Business Practices which identified a path to saving 125 billion over five years, more than enough to build both the antinavy and the navy the nation needs. In other words, we dont lack options, we lack leadership. We lack leadership in the pentagon capable of bending the bureaucracy to their will. In service of a Defense Strategy that prioritizes hard power. And we lack leadership in the white house that understands the paradox at the heart of deterrence. That to avoid war, you must convince your adversaries that you are both capable and willing to wage war. If we ignore hard lessons about hard power, if we continue down this utopian path, or if we allow the fear of escalation to dominate our decisions, we will feedxis appetite for conquest and we will invite war itself. By choosing instead to put the antinavy in his path, we can deter war in the short term and buy time to build a navy that defeats communism over the longterm. Thank you and im happy to entertain some questions. [applause] if you can identify yourself and any organizations you are affiliated with. Microphone. Congressman, i am a soldier no longer young. I recently celebrated with my family two then yes. One, i celebrated my 80th birthday, and i told my family of eight grandsons and granddaughters that i was not doing that handoff very well. We are in for tough times. You give me the second then yet wien yet viniette that there is hope in the antinavy that you speak of. Now there is hope in doing the kinds of preparation. So my question to you, ive addressed future leaders and ive been pretty hard on them. What can i tell my grandsons and granddaughters that gives us the kind of hope that you just articulated and also, for new lieutenants in the army and also the marine corps . Thank you very much. Thank you for your question, thank you for your service. I am told that old soldiers never die, they just stay away. Or at least he got his commission to west point. I would say a few things. Something has happened in the last six years that ive never encountered in my time in congress. Now i have parents coming up to me whose kids are considering the military enlisting or going to the Service Academy and they are saying is this a good idea . There is a new glitch in the matrix that is very, very troubling. Absolutely. The best decision i ever made in my life was joining the United States marine corps. A phenomenal experience for every young man and woman who wants to serve this great country of ours. Absolutely do it. The perceived polymerization of the military, i believe we are going to have a very productive agenda if republicans take control of the house, one that is squarely focused on rebuilding our excellence and focus when it comes to matters of work. I think you are going to see a change and i think the American People are going to support that change. In my mind, all of this comes down to basic love of country. In other words, how do you convince young men and women to fight and die for a country that in some parts of the country we are teaching them is evil or racist or a neocolonial health scape that must consul he apologize for its past and be afraid of its shadows . In other words, we need to have confidence that our values are indeed superior to the values if that term is even the right 1 that the Chinese Communist party is putting out there. The final thing i would say is i believe we do face an existential threat from the Chinese Communist party, so we are going to meet everybody. Those that choose to serve, the private sector, we need everybody to get on team america. We are not destined, necessarily to win this competition. We have to work hard not only to prevent world war iii, but to win the longterm competition. Please, dont lose faith in the basic goodness of this country. It may not be perfect, but it happens to be the best experiment in Human History. So let us not screw it up. Let us not be the generation to screw up whole thing. [applause] by the way, the hard questions go to this panel. I west point grad in one of our that we have currently in mclean. It was mentioned that 17 congressman did not nominate any future cadets, and my question is do you think it is a lack of interest in the young men or women, or is it Something Else in congress . For people to know, each congressman was allowed to have five cadets at one time. If someone dropped out, you could replace them the following year. I just was amazed that 17 congressman did not nominate anybody. Well, we thank you for that, thank you for your service. Im always indebted to army officers. Without knowing the specifics of the 17 cases, quite honestly it would shock me if the explanation were there wasnt interest within the Congressional District of 750,000 people to have five or so young kids apply for the service. That would shock me. I dont know what the issue is. Notwithstanding some of the controversies weve had over curriculum at academies and some of the backandforth with others, i would say the best part of my job is getting to nominate young kids to go to the Service Academy. This kind of gets to your question. I think it is the quality of Young Americans that are applying. I mean, it is so competitive, i dont think i could get in if i were a heisel kid applying today. It is so powerful to see the parents reactions. I stole this idea from a colleague of mine but ive used it for the last six years. When we get a notification from the Service Academy a little bit ahead of when the family does, i will call the school and tell the principal to get the kid out of class. They have a spotless record, theyve never been in trouble, so for the first time in their lives they think they are getting suspended. And then i am on the phone or i am there in person and i say you dont know me, i am a member of congress and wanted to be the first to congratulate you on getting into west point or Naval Academy and i look forward to you serving this country. The kids will cry, the parents will cry. I had my tear ducts removed a few years ago. But it is such a great opportunity for kids. I have to look into those cases. It is a matter of members of congress not getting out there and promoting. Im with the Washington Times and before any boos, i was also a soldier once and fought in iraq myself. Are there any marines . Ive heard several problems with the military in the last couple of years. Some specifics if you end up taking one or both houses of on capitol hill nick couple months . Next month . The caveat, i dont speak for who will be the chairman of the c