I am deeply concerned about the precedent being set by the Secretary's submission to the Administration's political agenda.

If our NATO allies cannot even rely on us to come through on a... MILCON project... how much can they rely on us?

I would argue that nuclear deterrence is likely to be more rather than less important.

Put most directly, Russia and China are now aggressively pushing an alternative view of the world, and of governance.

We are sending these contradictory messages. We are undercutting our efforts with our allies.

That is a way to stand up to China because together we have half the world's GDP and we are dealing from strength.

That alternative view is based on autocracy, the idea that democracy doesn't work, freedom doesn't work, you need to have a strong man.

I think a priority needs to be how we handle other theaters and other contingencies, including through deterrence.

Their economic model, I think, can best be described as kleptocracy, basically the folks at the top control all the money.

The Defense Department needs to invest boldly in new concepts of operations and the capabilities to carry them out.

For my part, containing North Korea is a very worthy objective with the ultimate goal of a denuclearized North Korea, admitting that that will be a difficult goal to achieve.

I worry that that approach could potentially jeopardize our relationship with South Korea.