Jim Inhofe

In fact, I would give another quote of the second man down, Admiral Winnefeld. He said there could be a time, for the first time in his career, of instances where we will be asked to respond to a crisis and we will have to say we cannot.

I just hope that you recognize, all five of you, that we are in a situation that, certainly in my 20 years in the U.S. Senate and on this committee, I have never seen a more stressed time, in terms of budget problems and all of that.

A war is a war, and I think we're going to have to elevate the threat that we're talking about in this committee.

If Iran seizes this opportunity and chooses to join the global community, then we can chip away at the distrust that exists.

He was asked when a cyber-attack is actually an act of war and to explain what sort of actions an adversary might take in crossing that threshold.

In my opening statement I quoted General Fraser. He testified last year that the number of cyber-attacks on TRANSCOM had doubled from 45,000 in 2011 to nearly 100,000 in 2012.

Now, if that's true, the geopolitical consequences of such an attack should really be profound.

I've been concerned about that for a long period of time. I'm concerned that we have a President that somehow thinks that there is an opportunity to get them to join the global community and reform their ways.

The administration's failure to acknowledge or establish penalties for these actions emboldens countries like North Korea, Russia, China.

A slow and weak response by the United States to Chinese bullying in the East and South China Seas decreases confidence in U.S. commitment to the security of our partners and allies.

I think that if we don't follow through on the rhetoric of a rebalance, that we will cause significant damage to our regional security relationships.

Despite resource constraints over the past year, the United States--including DOD--has prioritized efforts such as modernizing our alliances and partnerships.

A budget-driven approach will almost always result in greater strategy risks than a budget-informed approach because it does not focus on interests, threats to those interests, and trade-offs among investment choices.

A budget-informed strategy would first consider national interests and objectives, then assess how to achieve those objectives given the strategic environment.

To me, risk equals lives, the lives of our men and women in uniform.

If confirmed, I expect to have a significant role in reviewing, implementing, and as required, recommending changes to policies and procedures.

Increases in health care spending will largely come at the expense of readiness spending.

If Congress chooses not to support our TRICARE proposals, our readiness and modernization accounts will be significantly affected.

I believe Congress, DOD, and beneficiaries--all of us--must share the responsibility for helping to control health care costs.

I share the concern that the resources we will have to devote to the valuation effort could be considerable

Should we not devote more of our resources to achieving the core of the requirement?

Though establishing the value of a company's property is critical in the private sector, the benefit of ascertaining the value of property owned by DOD has much less significance.

A budget-driven strategy is not really a strategy at all but rather an exercise through which the force is developed to fit a given funding level.

A budget-informed strategy begins by defining one's objectives; assessing threats, challenges, and opportunities impinging upon those objectives.

I believe we can all agree that sequestration has had a devastating impact on our Nation's military readiness.