Tom Cotton

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The Army is, quote, outranged, outgunned, and outdated.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

The biggest challenge our defense establishment faces is one of institutional inertia.

I commend Chairman Cotton, Senator King, and the rest of the Airland Subcommittee for beginning this conversation.

I think we can all agree that we would not like to see an infusion of taxpayer cash repeatedly into the program.

It is $25 billion in debt. And while the program does help some Americans with moderate incomes, as well as farmers, it also takes money from working-class Americans to subsidize beach homes for the rich.

We will not rest. We will bear any burden to find them and bring them home.

The Budget Control Act must be repealed.