{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.sullivan.senate.gov/newsroom/in-the-news/op-ed-the-us-needs-to-rebuild-its-military-might", "OP-ED: The U.S. Needs to Rebuild Its Military Might", "2024-07-12", "2024", "2024-07", "Republican", "Senate", "AK", "Dan Sullivan", "S001198", "www.sullivan.senate.gov", "sullivan", "https://www.sullivan.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases?PageNum_rs=12", "scraper", "Trump and the Republican Party promise to do just that.\n\nNearly every leader I spoke with during this week\u2019s North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit agrees: The world has become consumed by chaos. Dictators in Russia, China, Iran and North Korea are working together to undermine the free world. There\u2019s little doubt why they feel emboldened: Under the Biden administration, U.S. military readiness has significantly diminished and authoritarians sense weakness. They\u2019re perceptive.\n\nAmerica urgently needs to embrace the philosophy of peace through strength that has guided Republican presidents from Ronald Reagan to Donald Trump and kept our nation safe. Thankfully at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee next week, Mr. Trump will present the Republican Party\u2019s plan to do exactly that should he be re-elected in November.\n\nThe party\u2019s recently released platform calls for making America\u2019s military the \u201cmost modern, lethal and powerful\u201d force in the world. That isn\u2019t a new playbook. The GOP has a long tradition of championing robust investments in America\u2019s vital defense needs. The Democrats, meantime, have targeted the nation\u2019s defense budget since at least Jimmy Carter\u2019s presidency at the expense of our military readiness and national security.\n\nJoe Biden\u2019s defenders may take issue with this contrast, pointing to his speech at this week\u2019s summit where he declared \u201chistory calls for our collective strength.\u201d The president even took credit for the increase in the number of NATO members meeting their commitment to spend 2% of gross domestic product on defense\u2014doubtless a result that is owing more to Mr. Trump\u2019s blunt, bare-knuckle warnings to our allies.\n\nDoes Mr. Biden\u2019s rhetoric match his record? In each year of his presidency, Mr. Biden has proposed budgets with inflation-adjusted cuts to the Defense Department, while posting double-digit increases for such agencies as the Environmental Protection Agency and the Education Department. The president has America\u2019s defense spending on track to drop below 3% of GDP within the next two years for only the fourth year since the end of World War II. This is the wrong signal to send to dictators like Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, who are building up their military forces.\n\nSuch weakness fails to inspire our own citizens. Our military is facing its worst recruiting crisis in more than 50 years. America\u2019s Navy has been left \u201cin its worst state for designing, building, maintaining, and crewing ships in over 40 years,\u201d experts from the Congressional Research Service told me. Meanwhile Mr. Biden\u2019s Navy secretary is obsessively focused on climate change.\n\nIn addition to the withdrawal from Afghanistan\u2014which took the lives of 13 American service members\u2014the Biden administration has enriched Iran by refusing to enforce sanctions. The White House also lifted oil sanctions on Venezuela while aggressively seeking to shut down energy production in the U.S., including in my home state of Alaska. Don\u2019t forget that Mr. Biden rewarded Mr. Putin by banning new U.S. liquefied natural gas projects and delaying every major weapons system Ukraine\u2019s leadership has asked for.\n\nNone of this is surprising. Mr. Biden\u2019s record on defense and foreign policy is a continuation of a Democratic tradition. Mr. Carter cut defense spending in his first three years of office. The Russians and Iranians took advantage of America\u2019s weakened posture, which forced him to increase spending at the end of his term. Bill Clinton cut the size of our military by a third, upending a decade of progress under the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations.\n\nBarack Obama slashed the Pentagon\u2019s budget by 25% during his second term. Our military readiness plummeted, leaving only three out of 58 Army brigade combat teams at the highest level of readiness in 2015.\n\nIn the Middle East, Mr. Obama\u2019s passivity and infamous \u201cred line\u201d in Syria led to the flourishing of Islamic State and an emboldened Iranian terrorist regime. In the runup to Mr. Putin\u2019s invasion of Crimea in 2014, Mr. Obama opted to send the Ukrainians ready-to-eat meals and blankets when they needed weapons and ammunition. He was also reluctant to build up American forces in the Baltics and Poland.\n\nMr. Trump cleaned up these messes. He worked to rebuild America\u2019s military might and readiness, destroyed ISIS and delivered lethal weapons to Ukraine. Mr. Trump also deployed thousands of troops to Eastern Europe, crippled Iran\u2019s economy and unleashed American energy dominance. This suite of policies kept Moscow, Tehran and Beijing in check.\n\nThe Republican Party\u2019s platform promises to return to these policies. The Democratic National Committee hasn\u2019t yet unveiled its 2024 platform, but if past is prologue, it won\u2019t be promising. The party\u2019s 2020 platform aspired to cut America\u2019s defense budget, chastised America for spending \u201cmore on the military than . . . on diplomacy,\u201d and naively pledged to \u201cmaintain a strong defense\u201d for less money. Such policies will lead only to further global chaos.\n\nMr. Biden can protest all he wants. But for the vast majority of Americans who want to see America\u2019s strength restored and the world\u2019s dictators checked, the choice in November couldn\u2019t be clearer.\n\nMr. Sullivan, a Republican, is a U.S. senator from Alaska.\n\nBy: Sen. Dan Sullivan\n\nSource:", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T18:32:29Z"]], "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.sullivan.senate.gov/newsroom/in-the-news/op-ed-the-us-needs-to-rebuild-its-military-might"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.1070009786635637, "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"}