Tom Cotton

Lieutenant General Bunch, is JSTARS recap vulnerable to delay should Congress fail to pass a Defense Appropriations bill for fiscal year 2017?

Lieutenant General Bunch, given the operational demand for these platforms and the cost of keeping the legacy airframes flying, assuming Congress provides the resources, can you assure me the Air Force will make a decision and move this…

The committee last year increased the cap for bonuses from $25,000 to $35,000. Do you anticipate a request that you'll be increasing the cap further?

Whatever the number is, and I'm pleased to get it to us broken down along those dimensions, would you agree with my first statement that the upshot number is not good for the health of the Air Force and for the security of our nation?

The situation is far from ideal. There is a potential, though, for a full-year continuing resolution for all of fiscal year 2017.

A strong Air Force is key to our joint war fighting capability.

The President has promised to build a military that far outpaces our rivals.

At the very moment when the dangers to our country are increasing, the Air Force's capacity, readiness, and capabilities are decreasing.

The last administration made severe cuts to the Defense budget, which Congress did far too little to oppose.

Does the Army need a modernization command, unity of effort, agility to stay ahead of the threat and innovation?

Cold weather mountainous training in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas, which I strongly support.

Congress has done no small part to hamstring the Army over the last 5 years due to the Budget Control Act and sequestration and the stop and start nature of our appropriations process.

Soldiers and commanders, quote, did not consider it to be very helpful. End quote.

The Army is, quote, outranged, outgunned, and outdated.

No doubt about that as was true in the Cold War as well in Central America and Grenada and the threats from Cuba.

I do expect that we will be fighting away games because, quite frankly, that is a premise of our national security strategy.

For the life of our country, we have mostly thought away games, especially in the last 100 years.

The nature of this future battlefield... makes that unavoidable.

Given the changing face of war in the future... what differences would you expect to see in ground combat leaders of the future?

We got stuck in Iraq and Afghanistan because we cared about the political outcomes of those countries afterwards.

Deploying large numbers of American military forces onto foreign soil to nation-build vice accomplishing a defined mission is counter-productive.

We have to contend with increasing personnel and procurement costs at a time when defense budgets are decreasing.

The pace and tenor of our lives has been irrevocably altered by the acceleration of change.

Our defense strategy must contend with non-state and transnational actors; a rising economic and military powerhouse in China.

We can no longer afford this misalignment--not only is it costly, but it also poses undue risk.