They need to know that there are things we will not accept, and their existence is at stake.

I think North Korea needs to know that we may not be the best of all times in creating a new government, but we are pretty good at taking one down.

Ultimately, we have to use these powerful weapons--hopefully not these--but powerful military force to defend the interests of the United States and the world.

I think it is important for us... to send a message to the entire world that we are not so shaken by the concept of nuclear weapons.

I think you cannot make foolish decisions and incur more cost than is reasonably necessary in this project.

we do need, and can maybe even agree upon, a strategy that could be bipartisan.

Deterrence is the key fundamentally to peace.

Over the last 20-30 years, we are the slowest nuclear power in the world to modernize and recapitalize our nuclear weapons system.

You're, I believe, the right person at a very challenging time, here in the middle of some decisions that have to be made by the United States sooner rather than later.

there's just going to be a lot of violence for a long time.

Senator McCain and this committee is going to give vigorous oversight to that.

I believe we could get there. I believe we can achieve a policy that defends the legitimate interests of the United States in bipartisan way.

I think maybe more so now in recent years than in the past, push to make sure that we do the things necessary for real defense capability.

Senator Graham is correctly challenging and asking some legitimate information.

If we do it in the right way, perhaps we can have congressional support for that.

We're talking about $240 billion for one part of the defense budget.

There is a growing feeling that our allies need to contribute more to the mutual defense of what used to be called, I guess, the free world.

I just really feel like that.

The fiscal year 2017 MDA budget request is $300 million below what the President anticipated last year in the 2016 5-year budget.

It is problematic that there is no money in the whole five-year plan.

When I have asked questions for the last decade and others have, they say the Europeans are getting better and they are going to do better.

I think our allies and our adversaries may get the wrong impression about the willingness and capability of the United States to respond.

We wish that things were continuing to go down, like we hoped and saw for quite a number of years.

We've done--we were--have been the only nation that hasn't been advancing our systems.

The deal was, Senator Sullivan, that North Korea proposed a threat, and we decided to accelerate the process to actually get these things in the ground.