John Cornyn: “for each of the past 61 years straight, the Senate has passed the National Defense Authorization Act. I still remember…”

“for each of the past 61 years straight, the Senate has passed the National Defense Authorization Act. I still remember the Presiding Officer's predecessor, John McCain, who used to rail on the Senate to get this done and making the very correct point that this should be the No. 1 priority of the U.S. Congress--making sure that our men and women in uniform received the training, the support, and the weapons they need in order to keep America safe. The annual Defense bill is part of Congress's commitment to give our men and women in uniform the resources they need to surmount the growing threats of today and prepare for the ones that inevitably will come tomorrow. As we know here in the Senate, the global threat landscape is not getting easier. It is getting more and more dangerous. Some of the changes happen quickly and can be traced to a single moment in time. For example, September 11, 2001, changed everything in our conversation and our acts to fight terrorism across the world. That single day and that single act forced us to reexamine our longstanding military paradigm and change course as rapidly as we could. But other threats grow over time. Just look at the rise of the People's Republic of China. Over the course of roughly four decades, China has transformed itself from a poor, isolated country to the world's second largest economy. Its wealth is used to finance a powerful military, with increasingly aggressive and hostile acts.…”