Jim Inhofe’s Pentagon wish list: More money for missile defense

Inhofe sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee where he chairs a subcommittee on one of his top interests, the military’s readiness to fight wars. That puts him at the forefront of what he and other defense hawks on Capitol Hill have warned for years is a military readiness crisis.

But lately, the Oklahoma Republican has been holding the gavel at Armed Services hearings as chairman while John McCain battles brain cancer in Arizona. And due to seniority, Inhofe may be next in line to permanently lead the committee.

He sat down with the Washington Examiner this month to discuss the defense budget, the need for more missile defense, threats from North Korea and Russia, terrorism operations in Africa, and, of course, climate change.

Washington Examiner: So, for years, we’ve been hearing from Congress that there’s this military readiness crisis, you know, aircraft that can’t fly, ship crews who don’t get the proper training, Army units aren’t ready to deploy. So how far does this two-year budget deal go toward ending that crisis?

Inhofe: See, it’s gonna do it. Now, the downside of the budget is that this pretty much takes care of us through fiscal year ’19. After that though, we don’t have any kind of a backstop. So, that’s what we’re kind of trying to work on now. I’m seeing already − and I was surprised at this because I’m used to giving the speech where our ground units in the United States Army, only a third of them can be deployed, and 62 percent of our F-18s can’t fly; they’ve been robbed of their parts. Well, those numbers have already changed materially already, and so, I’m really very pleased. So, I think we’re gonna be on a quick recovery. I’ve had a little bit of a debate with [Defense Secretary Jim] Mattis in that he didn’t really approve of some of the things I was saying about the condition, the threat that we have and the condition of our military, because he thinks that he’s worried about the signal that sends to our enemies. So, we’ve kind of had to compromise, and we say, you know, we can still win hands-down, but we are putting our kids at a higher risk. We’re gonna lose more lives while we’re doing it. And so, that’s kind of what we’re taking now.

But I’m surprised, and I’ve had each one of the vices and some of the others in this office just this week giving me the update on where they are on these things that you and I have been talking about for quite some time. So, we’re moving in the right direction. We still have problems out there. For example, our artillery piece that we have gone through several – you know, after spending $2 billion on the Crusader, they junk that; then, they spend $20 billion on the Future Combat System. But finally, we’ve settled down now, so that the Paladin is going to be the one that we’ll be completing because right now, not many people are aware that we’re behind some of our allies and adversaries in terms of artillery pieces. Germany, for example, is ahead of us in artillery. So, we’re quickly catching up and passing. I just want to get back to the point where America has the best of everything.

Washington Examiner: Well, it does seem like the budget situation has really changed. Some defense budget analysts, they’ve said, you know, the good times are back. One said that it’s gonna be raining cash in Washington.

Inhofe: Well, no, that wasn’t me who said that.

Washington Examiner: No, but this is what some of the folks are saying. There’s a lot of money, potential money in the new budget for the military. Some critics say that a hike in military spending coupled with the recent tax cuts could drive up the deficit, and that could potentially threaten the military buildup in the long run. What do you make of that?

Inhofe: Well, it’s wrong, it’s wrong. You go back in history. Go back to 1962, and you had at that time John Kennedy, president of the United States. He said, “In order to come up with the revenues, the additional revenues necessary for the Great Society programs, the best way to increase revenues is decrease marginal rates.” And he took the marginal rates, for example, in the top bracket from 90 percent down to 70 percent, and all comparable changes went down. By 1964, we had increased by 30 percent the amount of revenue that came in.

Then along came Ronald Reagan in 1981. The total amount of money that was raised for revenue in the year 1981 was $469 billion. By the time that period was up, he’d reduced the rates down again from 70 percent to 50 percent and all comparable reductions. And that increased that $469 billion total revenue to $720 billion. So, what we’re doing is increasing revenue.

And the Democrats, it was such a logical lie to tell, to sell to the American people that you’re gonna be losing revenue by moving the rates down, and that’s just not what history has taught us. For each 1 percent increase in economic activity, that produces $2.9 trillion in revenue increased over the next 10 years. And so, right now, if you look at the average increase during the eight Obama years, it was 1.5 percent of the economy, and it’s now been up since this guy’s been president over 3 percent. And people are speculating it can go to 4 or 5 percent, but we know at least 3 percent. So, we’re looking at doubling that amount, and that’s where the revenue – it’s gonna be a huge revenue boon.

Washington Examiner: Within the FY19 request that just came out, the Missile Defense Agency has requested, I guess, what is one of its biggest budgets in decades, potentially.

Inhofe: Well, but there’s a reason for that, because they took their hits during the Obama years. Now, the budget that we authorized increased about $45 billion because that was just making up [after the decreases]. And I think what we’re looking at now is where we should be, where we got behind during those years because the threat today is even much greater than it was. Nov. 28 changed everything, in terms of potential adversaries having a weapon that can reach the United States [after North Korea test-fired a new ballistic missile]. That was on Nov. 28 that they determined that that was the new threat, the new imminent threat, we’ll call it.

Washington Examiner: Yeah. So, what is it that we should be doing to protect the United States from the threats from North Korea, from Iran, and others?

Inhofe: Well, first of all, there are two classifications of threats, as we are talking about. You have those threats that come from missiles that require missile defense, but we have conventional threats, too. Right now, if we were in a conventional military confrontation with China, we would have problems. And remember, and it’s important what [Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Joseph] Dunford said when he said we are losing — not we have lost — but we are losing our qualitative and quantitative competitive edge over our adversaries, and he was referring to Russia and China. So, I’d say that we’re looking at conventional threats, as well as missile threats.

Washington Examiner: The Trump administration has completed much of its new strategy, the National Security Strategy, National Defense Strategy, and others. In your mind, what are the most striking differences between the Trump and Obama administration strategies, national defense strategies?

Inhofe: Well, the big one is best articulated, and it’s one that can’t be denied, is the policy that each one had. The policy of the Obama administration was we can’t do anything to help the military unless we put an equal amount into the social programs or the non-defense programs. Now, what he’s saying there is that what the Constitution tells us, our number one responsibility up here is to defend America. And he’s saying that is not my priority. And the Democrats who supported him in that they had that same priority. Now, along comes Trump. He says the number one thing is going to be defending America.

Washington Examiner: On North Korea’s strategy, there’s been this prevailing assumption that Kim Jong Un wants his nuclear weapons, so that he can safeguard his regime. But the commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, Adm. Harry Harris, he spent a lot of time watching Kim, and he said that he believes that Kim wants to reunify the Korean Peninsula under his rule. What do you think Kim is after ultimately, and do you think that changes how we deal with him and North Korea?

Inhofe: Well, it depends on who you ask. We had a hearing this morning where we heard from the heads of U.S. Northern Command and Southern Command. Now, we had it at the same time because they have such overlapping interests. [NORTHCOM’s Gen. Lori] Robinson makes a very convincing case; she did in my office, as well as this morning in the committee hearing, that he’s not the crazy guy that a lot of people think he is. The guy is calculating, and he’s doing all these things for a reason and, of course, for his supremacy. She thinks — and I’m not sure I agree with her — that he’s feigning this loose cannon, non-thinking person, but he really knows exactly what he’s doing. And there’s some evidence that that’s right.

Remember, it was only about two weeks ago that he said, “And I have a button now” — this was after Nov. 28 — “I have a button now, and I will use it.” And then, this president, unlike the previous president, who would pacify, said, “Yeah, and I got a bigger button, and I’ll use it and blow you off the map.” The very next day, Kim Jong Un went to South Korea and said, “We wanna join you in the Winter Olympics,” and they started communicating with each other. So, I come to the conclusion that that strategy worked. But to answer your question, everyone, me included, thought he just wanted to be in a position to run the world.

I mean, I’ve often referred to the good old days of the Cold War because I really believe that where we had two superpowers, and we knew what they had, they knew what we had, and mutual shared destruction meant something. I never thought I’d call the Cold War the good old days, but I do now because now rogue nations, not necessarily just North Korea because you’re talking about Iraq, Iran, Yemen, Syria, so many other countries, it doesn’t take a giant country to have a weapon that can blow up an American city. And so, that’s the new threat that’s out there that scares me the most.

Washington Examiner: You mentioned the Olympics. And as the U.S., we pursue this kind of maximum-pressure campaign on North Korea, the North Koreans seem to be getting more cozy with South Korea. And I’m wondering if you think that that is sincere or if they’re trying to play us with some type of strategy. There’s been a lot of talk about a wedge, them trying to drive a wedge between the South and us.

Inhofe: Well, I don’t think so because I can’t see how that would do it, and we’re gonna be close, and we’ve got 27,000 people over there. We’re gonna do what we can to protect our — they’re a valued ally. And of course, you have China that’s over there. I think this president’s doing the right thing in trying to drive that wedge using China instead of the wedge that you’re talking about because North Korea, if it loses its number one trading partner, China, they are out of the water. They’re just, they’re out of money. And he’s doing a pretty good job by saying, “Look, if they can, they have this range now, it could affect you, as well as not just us.” So, I’m inclined to think that, in terms of the strategy, that we will continue to support South Korea.

Washington Examiner: You have a lot of experience with Africa. Do you think that Africa’s the next big front in the war on terrorism?

Inhofe: Well, I think it’s becoming very prominent. If you will remember, just a few years ago, we didn’t have an AFRICOM. We didn’t have a command, and that was kind of my deal, you might remember. Africa was divided into Pacific Command, European Command, and Central Command, three different commands. Now, it’s all AFRICOM, and that was one of the reasons we wanted to do it. And sure enough, we have a lot of things happening, not just what you have experienced recently that gets a lot of headlines, like Niger, and particularly in the northern countries, it’s pretty — there’s a lot of terrorism there, and a lot of the terrorist organizations are working there. And we see things like the LRA, that’s the Lord’s Resistance Army, working primarily in Northern Uganda, but now spread all over. That is also a terrorist organization. And these things are happening now all over. We’re seeing things on both coasts, and a lot of that came with recent discoveries of oil. That always causes a lot of conflict.

And so, I think the answer to your question is, yes, but the mistake that we made when we put AFRICOM in, we didn’t give AFRICOM any assets. If they have to have troops to come into Niger or someplace, they have to go to either the Central Command or European Command because they have assets. That’s part of the rebuilding that’s gonna take place.

Washington Examiner: And I think that you’ve called for AFRICOM to get more resources. You know, the president’s FY19 budget request has hikes in there, more troops and aircraft and ships. Do you have a sense of what the budget would do for AFRICOM?

Inhofe: My committee’s an authorization committee, so it’s not the appropriations. But when it gets to the military, the appropriators do pretty much what the authorization committees get together and do because we’re a little closer to a more serious problem. So, I think that it’ll be enhanced because it didn’t even exist 10 years ago. And so, now with all the problems that are coming up there, that’s considered to be one of the spots that I think needs to own its own assets, and I think we’ll probably get to that point. But we’re still recovering from Obama now. And when I say that, I don’t really say it critically of him. He’s a proud liberal. And proud liberals don’t think you need a military to start with. And so, that’s what we’ve been operating under, and that’s what we’re gonna have to change.

Washington Examiner: You mentioned the Niger ambush. The Pentagon has investigated Africa operations. My understanding is it’s thousands of pages long. Obviously, at this point, we don’t know exactly what that’s going to say. But do you think that that incident shows us that we need to rethink how the military operates on the ground in Africa?

Inhofe: Oh, definitely. I mean, it’s operating without resources on the ground. So, when something like Niger comes up, they have to go someplace with their hand out, saying, “We need to do this.” Well, you have, in addition to a bad policy, you also have a timing where you can’t respond to it as quickly as you should. And that’s, again, yeah, that is gonna be looked at. I’m gonna make sure we do that.

Washington Examiner: On the strategy front, part of the administration’s new nuclear strategy involves developing nuclear cruise missiles and low-yield warheads. And some people have argued that this could increase the likelihood of those weapons being used or the likelihood of war. What’s your take on that?

Inhofe: Yeah, the reason I think it’s the right course is, you see, we’re kind of married into the old American mentality that we have the best of everything. Now that we realize we don’t have the best of everything, and we need to have, if you’re talking about that type, that class of missiles, that’s kind of a missile war, it’s not a real missile war. Our tendency and I think the tendency of this new administration’s going to be, look, if we get involved, we’re there to win. And so, I think the low-yield [weapons] are not gonna have the prominent place that it’s had in the past really because our competition already is ahead of us in some of these areas, including low-yield cruise missiles.

Washington Examiner: I wanna ask you about Sen. McCain. Do you have any update on his health or how he’s feeling?

Inhofe: His office says that he is progressing and that he is still — and we do communicate with him, just like on this morning’s hearing. It was his thought that since we had two witnesses, one the commander of NORTHCOM, one SOUTHCOM, and there’s an overlapping there, have them both there at the same time. I mean, that’s the type of thing that he is interested in. So, he is still making decisions, and his office says that he’s anxious to get back. And I have not had the personal conversation with him, so that’s what was told to me. That’s where we are with him.

Washington Examiner: So, obviously, Armed Services, you’re having hearings, and you’re gonna be putting together the next National Defense Authorization Act, the committee’s signature piece of legislation. What new policies or issues would you like to see addressed in this coming year’s NDAA?

Inhofe: Well, I think, first of all, the threat we have is a changing threat. Every time we get focused in on what type of threat is out there, and we used to always talk about China and Russia, I think they’re accurate when they say the more immediate threats are Russia and China. And then, when you had Gen. Dunford, who came out and said that we are losing our qualitative and quantitative advantage in those two countries, well, that should be our number one thing is to regain what we’ve always had before, qualitative and quantitative advantage. Number two, I think we made a horrible mistake nine years ago when Obama came in. We had a program where we were going to have ground-based interceptors and radar in both Poland and the Czech Republic. And I remember I had a personal conversation because I was in the Czech Republic, and I’ve always thought a lot of [former President] Vaclav Klaus. He’s always been a hero of mine. And he said to me, “Now, if we do this, we’re gonna incur the wrath of Russia, and it’s gonna be very uncomfortable for us. Now, can we depend on you to say, if we’re gonna take this risk, you’re not gonna pull the rug out from under us?” And I said, “Absolutely not.” The first thing that Obama did was pull the rug out from under him.

And now, they probably have 44 ground-based interceptors, but they’re all on the West Coast, Alaska on down. And they can present a case where, from Alaska, you’re looking down equally at all parts of the United States and that we don’t have the disadvantage that I think we have in the Eastern part of the United States because we’re putting that ground-based interceptor in those two countries. Iran was not the immediate threat that it became. Well, that would be coming from the other direction. So, I think the second thing that I would want to do is increase that defensive capability to make sure that we advance on that. And then, the defensive mechanisms we have against an incoming missile, I think that’s got to be in the two top priorities that we’re gonna be facing as we go into the next reauthorization.

Washington Examiner: What do you see the threat from Russia being, and what is the best way for the United States to deal with Russia and President [Vladimir] Putin?

Inhofe: I use as an example Ukraine, and I happened to be with [President Petro] Poroshenko when they had their parliamentary elections, and that’s when they, for the first time in 96 years, they don’t have one Communist in their parliament. And they did that because they love the West; they love America. And so, the first thing Putin did after that parliamentary election was send his people in there to kill Ukrainians. And we had the president at that time, Obama, who wouldn’t allow us to send defensive weapons in for the Ukrainians to use. So, what that does, it causes our allies to question whether we’re gonna be there when they need us. So, first thing we had to do with the new president was to reestablish the image of being the leader of the free world because we lost that. So, I think that we’ve now changed that because we did, once we got a new president, we sent defensive weapons in there, and so, I think that’s a positive change. But still, you have to look at Russia. They had to have a motive for doing what they did. I believe that motive is to restore the old Soviet Union. Now, we find out, since we changed presidents, we no longer have a ban on exporting oil, and we are now taking advantage of the fact that we’re passing up everyone in terms of our production capabilities. So, every time I see Russia, it seems like they want to eventually get back to where they were before Reagan did his job.

Washington Examiner: Yeah, couple different policy issues. The first one is the Trump administration has eliminated climate change from its strategy documents. It wasn’t in the National Security Strategy. It’s not in the National Defense Strategy. Yet, the Republican-controlled Congress passed an NDAA last year that referred to climate change as a direct threat to national security. I’m wondering, what’s the disconnect there?

Inhofe: It’s just that it got to the point that those individuals who are at the fountain of global warming, they do that to the exclusion of everyone else. And my good friends on the Left, they all just thrive at that. That’s all they can talk about. And so, they really enjoy the idea that – and keep in mind, it’s climate change. Everybody knows. How many times have I stood on the floor and said, “Every evidence is there. Climate always has been changed, always will be changed. Scriptural evidence, biologic, everything.” So, we all know that. And the only reason they even talk about that is because they tried global warming, and that didn’t work, so they had to change.

Now, they want that to change all the policies, and right now in the military, you always get someone wording you a question at all of our hearings on climate change or global warming, and they say, “How much money are you spending on – how much do you propose to spend on this?” as if they’re wanting to dilute our defense dollars. And in reality, those that are on the far Left that are into that subject, they’re not, I mean, we all know that they’re not strong in national defense anyway. We knew that. That’s how our discussion started off. And so, I don’t see that as a disconnect. I think sometimes it’s easier to go ahead and say, “All right. Go ahead, and tell them you’re concerned about this, and then go and do your job.”

Washington Examiner: The administration’s also rolling a new policy on transgender military service. As a conservative, how do you think that the military should handle troops or recruits who wanna serve but are transgender?

Inhofe: Well, first of all, we’ve gotten ourselves into the habit of using the military to change social policy. Well, that’s not what the military’s there for. The military should objectively look, if you are talking about transgenders, that affects a lot of other things that you’re doing. Back when they were talking about gays in the military, you have to consider the cost of changing restrooms and all these things. When I was in the Army, 100 percent of our effort was to really be sharp, and soldiers, we were under live fire all the time. I mean, that’s part of their training, and that’s turned into using the military for social experimentation. Regardless of what you think about either one of those issues, whether you’re talking about transgender or gays in the military, the military should not be the area for experimentation. And so, let the military be the military, and then, they have all the programs they want to take care of social problems as they see it. If there’s public support for it, let them have it, and we can vote our conscience.

Washington Examiner: I wanna get back to the two-year budget deal. So, what about fiscal year 2020 when this deal ends?

Inhofe: Well, I’m hoping that we maintain a leadership, so that we can continue on the path where we are now. I believe we will. I think, you know, a lot of people are saying that we’re gonna have problems because the normal history of the midterm of the first president is to lose. It happens almost every time. But this coincides with the time in the Senate when they have twice as many seats up as we do, and we have two, conceivably two endangered species; they have nine. I really think we’re gonna pick up four seats. I’ve been saying that, and if we do that, things will be easier for the time period that you’re asking about.