U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan said that the leaders whom he spoke with at the recent North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit agree that the world is now consumed by chaos.
In a column in Friday’s Wall Street Journal, Sullivan pointed out that dictators in Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea are working to undermine the free world.
“There’s little doubt why they feel emboldened: Under the Biden administration, U.S. military readiness has significantly diminished,” he wrote.
Authoritarians sense weakness in America’s military, Sullivan wrote. “America 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’s plan to do exactly that should he be re-elected in November.”
The Republican Party platform, which was released earlier this week, calls for making America’s military the “most modern, lethal and powerful” force in the world.
Sullivan, who is the one Alaska congressional member who works earnestly and consistently for a strong national defense, said the Democrats “have targeted the nation’s defense budget since at least Jimmy Carter’s presidency at the expense of our military readiness and national security.”
Biden this week is taking credit for the increased number of NATO members, Sullivan pointed out that more of NATO’s strength is likely due to Trump’s “bare-knuckle warnings” to America’s allies.
“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’s 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,” Sullivan wrote.
Not only does such weakness fail to give confidence to Americans, the military is facing its worst recruiting crisis in more than 50 years. America’s Navy has been left in its worst state for designing, building, maintaining, and crewing ships in over 40 years, experts from the Congressional Research Service told Sullivan.
“Meanwhile Mr. Biden’s Navy secretary is obsessively focused on climate change,” Sullivan wrote.
Then there’s the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, which resulted in 13 American service members being killed, and the fact that the 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’t forget that Mr. Biden rewarded Mr. Putin by banning new U.S. liquefied natural gas projects and delaying every major weapons system Ukraine’s leadership has asked for,” Sullivan wrote. “Biden’s 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’s 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.
Military readiness started declining when President Barack Obama slashed the Pentagon’s budget by 25%, leaving three out of 58 Army brigade combat teams at the highest level of readiness in 2015, during his second term.
Obama’s infamous “red line” in Syria led to the flourishing of Islamic State and an emboldened Iranian terrorist regime, Sullivan reminded readers: “In the runup to Mr. Putin’s 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.”
Trump cleaned up these messes.
“He worked to rebuild America’s military might and readiness, destroyed ISIS and delivered lethal weapons to Ukraine,” Sullivan continued, and Trump also deployed thousands of troops to Eastern Europe, crippled Iran’s economy and unleashed American energy dominance. His policies kept Moscow, Tehran and Beijing in check.
The Republican Party’s platform and Trump could reverse the precipitous decline now evident to most Americans.
“The Democratic National Committee hasn’t yet unveiled its 2024 platform, but if past is prologue, it won’t be promising,” he said.
In 2020, the Democrats’ platform was to cut defense spending, and attempt to project strength through diplomacy only, saying that America could maintain a strong defense for less money. That’s not proven to be working under the Biden Administration.
Sullivan ended his column by stating that “for the vast majority of Americans who want to see America’s strength restored and the world’s dictators checked, the choice in November couldn’t be clearer.”
“Sullivan, …, who works earnestly and consistently for a strong national defense”. Seriously? A complete shake up of the general officer corps, including cashiering the incompetents and ending the systemic corruption, is 1st step.
“Mr. Putin’s invasion of Crimea in 2014”. Sullivan is either continuing the alternate reality narrative, or he is dangerously deluded in actually believing this distortion of reality. The Crimean people overwhelmingly voted, “that quaint concept of determining the will of the people”, to reunite with the Russian Federation. Just as the locals in the Donbass region voted for autonomy from the regime we installed in Kiev. Their men mobilized, fought and died to protect their families from the genocidal Kiev regime, 8 years before Russia intervened. Trump has to avoid surrounding himself with Neocon parasites in his next administration.
I don’t know. Maybe someone could explain it to me on Dans actions. Seems like Dan has supported Biden in many of his policies. He talked smack of Trump the first time. So what is different this time around?
Dan supported installing the Biden regime, has pretended that Biden ever was cognitively able to perform the necessary tasks of a chief executive and continues to support the unsustainable spending associated with a federal command and control economy. Dan is not currently talking smack against Trump due to the need to shape the narratives that will be used to reinforce public opinion for the need to maintain the failed Neocon spending policies status quo in the event Trump assumes office in 2025. The overwhelming priority interest the Uniparty politicians have is to maintain the current system of enriching their donors looting the nation at the expense the common citizens, period. Unless Trump is controlled, he is likely to wander off the reservation and upset the system.
Heard a great comment on NPR from a CATO guest:
“The Status Quo is sacred in DC”
Project 2025 would shut down the Veterans Administration.
“Strength “ …….. like what would have required to buck the puppet masters? Before and immediately after the theatrically farce of an election in 2020. That kind of strength Dan?
Senator Strangelove needs a grip on reality.
Blah, blah, blah! Trump has said many times that if he is elected he would end the conflict in Ukraine, something that is anathema to Sullivan and probably one of the reasons Trump was targeted for assassination. A lot of scoundrels in Congress are making tons of money off war.
So…. there is a intercontinental ballistic missile that is 81% over budget. There is littoral combat ship Freedom class expected to last 25 yrs and cost $38 bn, it sucked so bad that less than a decade later it was mothballed. It is now being replaced by the Constellation frigate that’s already 40% over budget at $1.4bn each.
F-35 $183 billion over budget and a decade late.
Army’s Future Combat System mostly abandoned in 09 cost $200bn.
Dan where’s the oversight by congress? Who got fired over this mess? Can we, the taxpayers, get a refund?
The military by the Constitution is to protect American citizens not build an emprie.
You are failing us.
The only thing the feds are responsible for is to protect the American people at their boarders. How in the hell did WE let this system completely spill over into the monster we have created. Time to clean house. The states can manage themselves just fine.
Vote him out. Simple as that. But we won’t. Same old story.
The world is increasingly aware of the propaganda from their own established leaders. We can see for ourselves the realities, and we can see for ourselves those whos messages are programming for the ignorant.
Interesting coming from him. The same person who decertified the election because Sullivan said, “Trump was mean to Pence”. Where was Sullivan’s support for Trump through these last years getting harassed by the current administration. Why hasn’t Sullivan stuck up for him in the past? I guess his election is coming up soon and will need all the republican votes he can get”.
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