School of War - Ep 140: Roger Wicker on Defense Spending and Peace through Strength

Episode Date: August 27, 2024

Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi, ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, joins the show to discuss his plan to spend five percent of America’s GDP on defense. Click the link to read more Peace through Strength: A Generational Investment in the U.S. Military  ▪️ Times      •      01:31 Introduction      •      01:40 Service years     •      04:39 3% vs 5%     •      9:00 Peace through Strength        •      12:50 More money, more problems?     •      16:40 “Let’s get some more shipyards…”     •      19:37 Modernizing the nuclear arsenal     •      23:14 Force Design 2030 Follow along  on Instagram Find a transcript of today’s episode on our School of War Substack

We're going to talk about money today, specifically what America spends on its defense. Our guest is Senator Roger Wicker, who's the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, and he argues that what we spend today, about 3% of America's economic output, is provocatively low compared to what we spent during the Cold War, a period that looks more and more comparable with every passing day. Let's get into it. It is a prescription for war, this Iraqi invasion of Hawaii. December 7, 1941.

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And also feel free to follow me on Twitter at Aaron B. McLean. Hi, I'm Aaron McLean. Thanks for joining School of War. I'm delighted to welcome to the show today. Roger Wicker, who has represented Mississippi in the United States Senate since December 2007. He's had a career in public service before that. And where I'd like to start, Senator, is some time ago, you served on active duty in the Air Force. You transitioned over to the reserves. You retired as a lieutenant colonel in 2004. How'd you find yourself in the Air Force? How do those experiences inform your thinking about defense policy and what you do today? Well, thanks for having me on, Aaron. We have a tradition of military service in my family going back several generations. My grandfather was in World War I. My father was in World War I. I attended Ole Miss on an Air Force ROTC scholarship and got my commission there. Went to law school and I spent my four years active duty, actually in the JAG department.

And after four years, I got out of active duty, went to work for Senator Trent Lott in Washington, D.C. back when he was a House member, and stayed in the reserves in various capacities. So it was, I have to say, I didn't do anything particularly special, but I did everything they asked me to do. And I was proud to serve. And my son is an Air Force major right now. So he's continuing the tradition. Well, good luck to him. So it's obvious, as you know, it's less than less common for folks in D.C. to include very senior people with important defense policy responsibilities to actually have experience in uniform. Is there, is there anything from your experience in uniform that informs how you think about any particular issue that you work on today? Absolutely. There's no question about it. You know, having been at an operational base back in the days of the strategic air command, I knew pilots who flew the bombers and also the day. tankers. And then we had a tactical air command wing with three fighter squadrons back. So, you know, to having been an operational base and seen how everybody works together to get the

mission done is invaluable. And you're right. We have fewer members of Congress that have served in the military now. And part of that is because it's an all-volunteer for us. And we pay our troops are good enough wage that at least it's something that can they can manage to live on. I don't think we do quite as well as we ought to. But as long as we have a volunteer force, we're going to have people in there that want to serve and understand what it is to step forward and risk their lives and safety and freedom to make America great. So, Senator, you are the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, which puts you really at the center of any number of critical debates about the future of American national security and defense policy.

And you have just released a report that I commend to all listeners, whether that listener is a in the weeds policy walk or just someone with a general interest in American security, which I assume every listener is. It's called 21st century peace through strength, a generational investment in the U.S. military. I'm going to very briefly sum up the main point. I'm going to turn it over to you. Good. The case for it. So we're around 3% GDP defense spending today. here in the United States of America. It's a lot of money.

Just a little less than that, actually. Just a little less than that. Just a little less. Yeah. Roger. You argue, sir, that we should spend 5%, which is really a lot of money. Why?

Well, I take advice from the people who know what they're talking about, including people who've done it before and people who are doing it now. Secretary Gates, who served in two administrations, one Republican and one Democrat, had a meal with me, some two years ago and he said, we need to move back to 5%. And so I've been actually working with that in mind for quite a time. Now that I have a staff that's part of the leadership, I had enough technical help to actually put that on paper. But listen, there's no question that we're in a very dangerous time. You can ask the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. And he's

will say we have not had such a dangerous military situation, such a threat to the United States since World War II. You can ask the Secretary of Defense, who's part of the Biden administration, he'll say the same thing. Talk to the top four star in the Indo-Pacific, and that four-star will tell you we are very much at risk and we're not ready for what might become a two-theater war. and then again you go over to the Middle East and again talk to the top four star there for the United States of America. And again, they will say this is something like we haven't seen in decades and decades. And we are not prepared for the threat that comes from what I call in my report the access of aggressors. And of course, that chief among them are communist China with Xi Jinping, having told his Congress that they need,

to be ready to retake Taiwan by 2007. Well, that's right around the corner. You know, when the Japanese attacked us at Pearl Harbor, at least it was a surprise attack, we had the signals there. But here's, here is the dictator of the most populous country in the world and the most militaristic in terms of adding to their weaponry. And he says, I want to be ready to re-reactored. take Taiwan by a year certain. And then you add to that, Russia, with their illegal war crimes of

invading their neighbor, something that threatens the 70-year-old rules-based Europe and Iran, and all of their three proxies, at least their three proxies, which are reigning havoc and doing so even as we speak, even as we do this interview and add to that, a person who probably is not very well balanced, and that's the dictator of North Korea. So it's a four-pronged axis of aggressors that we simply are not prepared to fight. We had moved when I was in the service to being able to say we can win a two-theater conflict at the same time. We're now in a position of trying to say we could win a one-theater conflict. actually we're threatened by from four different directions.

So there's a line of criticism for the defense buildup that you propose that I'll articulate and then I want to solicit your response to it. It would run something like this that while 5% may get us important capabilities, it's going to take us a long, even if we implemented everything in your plans here, it would take us a long time to get there. So that leaves a pretty good window between now and then, even if we do get there. And in that window, a lot of bad things can happen. order to survive in that window, we need to prioritize. This is the key word of this line of

argument. We need to prioritize. And what that means in practice, it seems, is to tell the Chinese we mean business over some elements of our security posture in the Pacific. And we got to tell the Europeans and potentially the Israelis and our friends in the Middle East, you guys are just not exactly on your own, but you need to figure some things out for yourself because we're going to focus on China and kind of leave other things to take care of themselves as best as you can make it work. What, and that that's necessary that to say anything other than that is essentially unstrategic. That's a powerful argument right now. You probably encounter it from time to time in the Senate. I'm curious to know your response to it. Well, you know, getting to 5% will take a few years and

and I allow for that in my plan five to seven years. What we need to do in the first year is, is an increase of far less than that. Some $55 billion is what I advocate. I was able to on a bipartisan basis to get the Armed Services Committee in the Senate to go $25 billion. But that's only half of what we need for the first year. But clearly, we can take some time to do that. But let me tell you, as we're talking about the idea of concentrating on the Indo-Pacific, let me tell you, the best money spent to counter what Xi Jinping, and Kim Jong-un might do in the Indo-Pacific is for our allies in NATO and our friends in Ukraine

to actually win and run the Russians out of Ukraine. And honestly, this can be done by an indigenous group of folks in Ukraine like the Ukrainian army right now. They have surprised everyone who, most of people that were experts, both in the media and in the military and in the administration said, the Russians will be in charge of the capital city of Ukraine within two or three days. Well, it's been two and a half years. And we now see Ukrainian troops taking Russian territory in the northern part,

a total surprise to the allies, to the people I've been talking to in the administration, and also to the Russians. So if Xi Jinping and Kim Jong- The success on the part of the democratic rule of law forces in Europe, they will think not only twice, but several times before they try to do anything foolish and start a war in a conflict in the Indo-Pacific. So I do think it's wrong to try to take these conflicts or these potential areas of conflict separately. I hear that argument. But, you know, honestly, I think Vladimir Putin saw the debacle that the United States and our allies experienced when we just abandoned our friends in Afghanistan.

And we lost troops. And actually, those were the first casualties we had had in years. We're trying to evacuate and left all of our equipment over there. But also, we sent the signal to the world that the United States is capable of abandoning a promise to a friend. And that's a terrible signal to send. When Ukraine did away with their nuclear weapons, we made them a promise. And the civilized countries of the world, including NATO, made it. I promise, if you give up your nuclear weapons, which you ought to do, we'll be there for you

if something happens. Russia decided to invade their neighbor, and thank goodness, NATO is there for them, and thank goodness we're helping them with arms and ammunition, which is what we should be doing. At the risk of getting a little bit into the technical side of things, how do you think about how the Pentagon buys stuff? That is to say, if you write the Pentagon larger and larger checks, It seems like we have some troubles in the process of acquisitions, and then we have some troubles in the industrial base that's producing the things we might buy. So more money in and of itself, I realize I'm not telling you anything you don't know, is not the solution. What are the problems, the biggest problems, is you see them, and how do you propose fixing them?

Well, more money in itself is certainly not the solution. The solution is more weapons and more advanced weaponry and better ammunition. That's what we need. So if anybody wants to try to make the case that the federal government has ever done anything absolutely efficiently, then I don't know who they'll get to take them on in that argument. Certainly the defense department is the biggest department in the federal government, and the federal government makes poor decisions quite often when it comes to spending money. We are making improvements, but that's not to say we don't need.

more weaponry and more ammunition and and better ships and more and and and and a better life and and and quality of life for our troops so one thing that we are insisting on now and it's something that has worked in the past but should work better if we do it on scale is multi-year contracts we know that we're going to need more than one littoral combat ship you know or the amphibious troop transporting ships. We know we're going to need more and more of those. And so why not do a multi-year contract, a block buy?

We're going to build three of them the same way, the exact same formula and an exact same model like the automobile manufacturers do. So that's one thing. And it can save us a lot of money, and we are doing better in that regard. But also, we've let our manufacturing plants shrink. to a level that they're not that they're not capable of giving us what we need. We need more shipyards. We just don't have the capacity that China has it.

This is going to be a statistic that will shock you. China has over 200 times the military shipbuilding capacity as the United States. Because they're a dictatorship and because they don't care, take care of their people as well as we do, and their retirees and their elderly folks and their children, And because of that, they can spend a ton more money on a military buildup and they've decided to do that. Yeah, I do kind of wonder about the economics there. This is not covered in your report. We don't have to talk about it.

But I do wonder at some point how the economic picture for them continues to make sense. I wonder at what point they start running into this sort of Soviet Union style issues in the direction that she is taking them. Well, let's just say in a sentence and we won't get off on that. But there are real troubling signs inside China's economy. And yes, a Marxist approach to creating jobs and providing opportunity for your people has shown that it doesn't work. And it's not going to work long term in China. But they do have a ton of money now to put into not only the conventional war fighting and their army, but also into their nuclear program, which is something we worry about.

Well, so I want to talk about both ships and then nukes. I mean, you've been a leader on this for a long time now. You're from Mississippi. Obviously, a lot of important work in terms of the nation's naval defense industrial base is there in Mississippi. Not having munitions is a big problem, but producing more munitions as problems go is a problem that you can think about solving, you know, given the will, given the resources in a tighter timeline than a problem of not enough shipyards. I mean, that strikes me as an enormously complicated burden of an issue to tackle. how do we get more? Because as you know, I mean, in a protracted scenario in the Pacific, we can talk all we want about a 357 ship Navy,

but that number is going to start going down quickly in the first days of that conflict. How do you think about, sir? Well, you know, the reason that we say 355 is what's in the statute now is because that's what the admirals and generals and people who will be in charge of defending ourselves should we have a conflict, tell us that we need. So actually they gave us a very detailed and complex of mix of small and large ships. And that's how we came up with that number. But you don't ever get anything done if you don't get started. And one of the arguments that I've had over the past year is what we can.

There's no reason for us to authorize more ships. We don't have enough shipyards. Well, let's get some more shipyards and get going on it. That's the answer. But let's don't throw up our hands in despair and let the current lack of manufacturing capacity stop us from doing what we need to defend ourselves. And to their credit, after I really pressed the administration over this past year to add to our shipbuilding industrial base, they agreed to add to the supplemental bill $3.4 billion.

But you know, you mentioned Mississippi, and I won't go, I won't take long on this, but we do have a lot of states where they have shipyards. This includes California, it includes the Great Lake Midwest, as well as the Gulf and the Atlantic Ocean. What people don't spend as much time learning about is that really over 40 of our states participate in manufacturing the components. of our submarines and our war-fighting ships. So it's not just a few shipyards in a few states. It's really a massive effort on behalf of most of the states. And it's good for national defense and national security. And it also creates jobs in almost all of our states.

So on nuclear weapons and the strategic deterrent, I don't think a lot of people, I don't think the average person who cares about America's national security, but who doesn't think about nuclear issues with a lot of their time, actually appreciates why the emergence of this substantial Chinese nuclear arsenal, why it affects our thinking about future acquisitions and the nature of our nuclear arsenal. That is to say, I think it's a pretty common opinion out there that, well, we have a lot of nuclear weapons. We have a lot of nuclear weapons to destroy just a lot of stuff out there designed to deal originally. Right.

Right. So what if the Chinese get some more like, you know, we've got a lot. Why do we need to modernize? Why do we need potentially more? And, you know, it's a delicate issue to discuss just staying on the unclassified side of things. Like, why does the emergence of China as a nuclear power affect our thinking in terms of what we're getting? How's that actually works, sir? Okay.

Well, the good thing about it is that we don't, we're not practicing getting under desks at schools anymore and we're not encouraging homeowners to go. fallout children like they did when I was a boy, when your parents were barely here on this earth. But we've got some of the best minds in the world that we've asked to think about this and tell us what we need. And the most recent product of a totally bipartisan commission was the Nuclear Poster Commission, which came out just last year. The recommended, and really honestly, people from every end of the ideological spectrum came out and said, our nuclear weapons are old. They're over half a century old. And eventually, things wear out. And they need to be

replenished. But also, I'm glad to say to report to you that in addition to what they recommended on refurbishing our nuclear weapons, they talk about a new nuclear weapon. They talk about a new sort of a nuclear shield. And I've heard President Trump talking about this in his campaign. You know, he admires the Iron Dome that Israel has. And of course, that Iron Dome principally shoots down the conventional weapons. We're a much bigger country by an order of magnitude. But the president is interested in some sort of nuclear shield.

And frankly, this commission says that's a good idea. They did it separate and apart from any presidential campaign. But there are recommendations that they can make, particularly because of our capability in space now and the capability of our enemies in space that can give us an added layer of defense and protection. And again, it's all in a recommendation by a scholarly commission appointed by Democrats and Republicans at the highest level in this government. And we ought to pay attention to what they recommend. Yeah. Just to editorialize for a moment myself, I mean, for a long time, the folks who were opposed to missile defense, I mean, a core of their argument is it just can't work, can't work at scale.

You can't, you can hardly shoot down a bullet with a bullet. We'll try doing a 500 bullets. It's just not going to happen. And I feel like that argument had to have been finally laid to rest back in April when the Israeli, along with us and Arab partners and, you know, a lot of folks really successfully defeated a very substantial missile attack that was occurring with different kinds of systems at different altitude simultaneously and just defeated it. And in the 1980s, Ronald Reagan said, yes, we can do that. If we put our minds to it with the right of scientific minds, we can absolutely do that. And he was right. And we can still make scientific discoveries about how to do that better. Last question, sir. I want to be respectful of your time. If you'll indulge me about the Marine Corps. I'm a Marine. We got a lot of Marines listening to the show. You talk about force design 2030 in the report. This, as you know, has been a hotly contested controversial issue in the Marines.

Has the Marine Corps basically gotten it right in the last few years in the direction it's been driving in terms of preparing for war in the Pacific? Based on everything I've heard, the answer to me is yes. And, and, you know, again, if we don't have confidence in the people we put in office, then we ought to switch them out. But I have a lot of confidence in our immediate past commandant of the Marine Corps. And I visited with him extensively on this. And, yeah, he did take a lot of heat for this new approach. and I think it's sound and continue to listen to witnesses in that regard.

It was controversial, and I did get an earful from the other side of that issue. But, you know, things change. The climate of warfare, even island to island and ground warfare changes. And I think we're on the right track there. Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi, ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Sir, thank you so much for your time today. Thank you, Aaron. This is a nebulous media production.

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