{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.king.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/on-senate-floor-king-touts-historic-urgency-of-2023-defense-bill", "On Senate Floor, King Touts Historic Urgency of 2023 Defense Bill", "2022-11-15", "2022", "2022-11", "Independent", "Senate", "ME", "Angus S. King, Jr.", "K000383", "www.king.senate.gov", "angusking", "https://www.king.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/table", "scraper", "Watch Senator King\u2019s full floor speech HERE and download broadcast quality HERE.\n\nWASHINGTON, D.C. \u2013 U.S. Senator Angus King (I-Maine), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and Chairman of the Strategic Forces Subcommittee, today delivered remarks from the Senate Floor on the importance of protecting peace through strong military deterrence and passing the bipartisan 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). In his speech, King explained the need to modernize the nation\u2019s nuclear arsenal, support Ukraine as it fights for freedom, and improve resources for America\u2019s servicemembers with pay raises and mental health care.\n\nBeginning his speech, Senator King explained the historic importance of preserving peace through strong military deterrence:\n\n\u201c[The National Defense Authorization Act] is important because the essence of our defense policy since World War II has been deterrence. Deterrence means maintaining the capacity to inflict unacceptable costs on any potential adversary and the will to impose those costs if necessary,\u201d began Senator King. \u201cWhat we're really talking about in the National Defense Authorization Act is the capacity that we have at our disposal that can impose costs on our potential adversaries such that they will refrain from aggression and initiating a conflict, a conflict which in this day and age would be catastrophic.\u201d\n\n\u201cI would urge anyone who questions this assumption to Google Rhineland, 1936, Sudetenland, 1938, those were places Hitler could have been stopped, not with an enormous expenditure or enormous investment of troops or material, but by almost token resistance from the Western European powers that they utterly failed to do,\u201d Senator King continued. \u201cHad Hitler been confronted earlier before he completely rebuilt the Nazi war machine, World War II could have been avoided and all of those losses \u2013 tremendous losses in this country and around the world would have never happened\u2026 the only way to avoid war is to be prepared.\u201d\n\nKing, who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee\u2019s Strategic Forces Subcommittee with oversight of the nation\u2019s nuclear arsenal, continued by sharing the critical need to maintain a modern nuclear deterrent and updating the nation\u2019s \u201ctriad\u201d to better meet growing threats like hypersonic weapons.\n\n\u201cDeterrence is also a key to nuclear weapons,\u201d stressed King. \u201cNuclear weapons haven't been used in a confrontation or a conflict since 1945. Why? Because of the concept of deterrence that those other countries which have them realized that if they are used they will pay an enormous and unacceptable price. That has been the policy of this country for over 70 years and it's worked. It's worked \u2013 but it only works as long as the adversary believes that we do in fact have the capacity to inflict that kind of punishment.\u201d\n\n\u201cDeterrence is a matter of credibility and you have to have a credible deterrent in terms of the actual capacity, and you also have to be credible in terms of your will to use it,\u201d Senator King continued. \u201cIndeed, at this point in our history, we're talking about deterring the potential use of nuclear weapons in regard to the Ukraine conflict by Vladimir Putin.\u201d\n\n\u201cDeterrence means that capacity has to be credible and the problem is here in this country, we have allowed our nuclear deterrent to deteriorate and age to the point where we're having to, in effect, rebuild it, not from scratch, but rebuild it substantially all at the same time,\u201d warned Senator King. \u201cThe triad: bombers, missiles, submarines \u2013 we have to rebuild them and it's happening at the same time and it's expensive. It's because this work was deferred for the prior 25 or 30 years that we're now having to do all three legs of the triad at one time which adds substantially to the defense budget, but it's necessary in order to maintain the deterrent that keeps the peace.\u201d\n\nKing continued by laying out how supporting Ukraine\u2019s fight for freedom against Vladimir Putin is key to deterring a future conflict that is \u201cmuch worse.\u201d\n\n\u201cI don't get a lot of this, but occasionally people say, why send money to Ukraine? Well, Putin has told us who he is. He\u2019s told us he feels the greatest tragedy of the 20th century was the dissolution of the Soviet Union. He wants to rebuild the Soviet Union and Ukraine is the first piece,\u201d said Senator King. \u201cI don't think there is any doubt if he was allowed to march in and take over Ukraine in a matter of weeks without any significant resistance, the next irritant for him would be the Baltics, and then Hungary, Moldova, Slovakia, and Poland.\u201d\n\n\u201cMaya Angelou says, if someone tells you who they are, you should believe them. He has told us who he is: he wants to rebuild the Soviet Union. That's why Ukraine is so important, and that's why what we have done and what we have provided and the leadership this administration and our country has provided to other countries in the world in order to resist that aggression is so important and critical to avoiding a worse \u2013 much worse confrontation involving all of our countries down the road,\u201d King stressed. \u201cThat's why it is so important.\"\n\nConcluding his speech, King highlighted key provisions in the bipartisan bill to support America\u2019s servicemembers by providing them better pay, improving the transition out of service, and investing more in suicide prevention.\n\n\u201cThere's a raise for the troops. There's more money for the people defending our country, which they deserve in a time of inflation, they deserve a significant raise and that's in the bill,\u201d Senator King concluded. \u201cAnother piece that's in the bill that I think is very important in terms of our veterans, and of course we're just coming out of the Veterans Day observance last weekend, is funding and attention in the Defense Department to the transition from active duty service to veteran status. I believe that we should be spending as much, or the Defense Department should be spending as much time, money, and effort on the transition out of the service as they spend on recruiting to bring people into the service. The data is that the tragedy of suicide among our veterans is most acute in the first two or three years after separation, and that's where we should focus additional attention and in fact that's in this bill.\u201d\n\nEarlier this year, Senator King announced that Senate Armed Services Committee\u2019s markup of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2023 contained a number of key provisions he advocated for to strengthen national security. King worked as Chairman of the Strategic Forces Subcommittee to include critical investments that modernize the nation\u2019s nuclear triad and address the threats posed by new hypersonic weapons.", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-08T03:24:37Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.king.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/on-senate-floor-king-touts-historic-urgency-of-2023-defense-bill"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.11463014036417, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}