Senator Roger Wicker (R-MS) recently released a landmark report that lays out how the United States can invest in national defense renewal to face the rising axis of aggressors—China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. In an era of growing threats, investing in hard power is a prerequisite to peace and security for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
Hudson President and CEO John P. Walters sat down with Senator Wicker to discuss burden-sharing, US defense spending, and the way ahead for the alliance.
Event Transcript
This transcription is automatically generated and edited lightly for accuracy. Please excuse any errors.
John Walters:
Welcome to the NATO Public Forum, I’m John Walters, president and CEO of Hudson Institute. I am very pleased to be joined by United States Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi, he sits on the Committee on Armed Services in the United States Senate. And most of all, I think he has been the author of this report, Peace Through Strength, which is an analysis of the needs of the United States military, how to meet those needs with actual budget numbers. So, we’re not talking about talk, we’re talking about actual dollars and building capacity. Thank you for being with US Senator.
Roger Wicker:
Thank you, John. Glad to be with you.
John Walters:
Thank you for your work. You released this report on how to maintain 21st century peace through strength, can you give us a little idea about the key parts of this plan, because you’re the author?
Roger Wicker:
Well, the key parts of this plan are getting us back to 5 percent of gross domestic product, just like Ronald Reagan did. During the Reagan years, we stood the Soviet Union down by saying, we’re going to be strong enough that nobody’s going to take us on. That’s called peace through strength, that was Reagan, beginning in 1981. So, my plan is modern day peace through strength. And really, it’s based on everything we see in the news, but also the specific testimony that we’ve gotten from defense leaders, and from people who actually are tasked within the Pentagon, and within the administration, to keep us safe and get the job done.
John Walters:
As a think tank hit, I read a lot of reports, government and so forth, a lot of them are not interesting, they’re not as specific, they’re not very general. I urge everybody, read this report, it’s online, it gives you detailed analysis of weaknesses and how to fix them, which is most important.
Roger Wicker:
Thank you very much. Well, we did put a lot into it, and I have to credit my staff for working through the minutia. But these are specific plans to build our Navy up where it should be, to rebuild our shrinking Air Force, and also to get us where we need to be on our munitions. There’s so much that needs to be done, and of course, this interview is taking place in connection with the NATO Public Forum, so we need to work with our allies, and a great alliance we’ve had.
John Walters:
What do you see as the biggest shortfalls, and where do we need to make up deficits? The nice thing about the report, I think, is also it does near term needs and threats and building a base for longer term.
Roger Wicker:
Well, the principal shortfalls are in the Indo-Pacific, but also, this report asks us to recognize—And excuse me for my voice—that we are facing an axis of aggression between Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran, and in regard to what we are being challenged by, and what’s going on in Ukraine, for example, it’s Russia on the attack, but there’s no question Iran is helping, North Korea is even sending assistance to Russia, and certainly Xi Jinping is doing everything he can to keep the West tied down in Ukraine, so he can continue to build up in the Indo-Pacific.
John Walters:
This NATO Summit is on the backdrop of burden sharing discussions, burden sharing, and what allies actually owe each other, and how they work as allies and not as dependents or protectorates. And that’s a big debate in the United States, you’ve been a part of that debate. Can you say a little bit about where we stand? Are we making progress on burden sharing? How do we deal with this, given the threat environment, it becomes more critical?
Roger Wicker:
It is absolutely important, essential that our NATO allies keep their promise that they made several years ago at a NATO conference, that each country would spend at least 2 percent of their gross domestic product on national defense. Now, at first there were only a handful, really, single digits of all the NATO members, and that was indeed troubling. Now, we’re up in the 20s, but there are some notable exceptions, and quite frankly, the leadership of the Senate, me included, met with Prime Minister Trudeau, our northern neighbor, and one of our closest allies yesterday, and we pointedly mentioned that they are one of the laggards when it comes to putting in money on their national defense so they can help the alliance.
It’s only about 1.5 percent in Canada. I can report to you that Prime Minister Trudeau said that they were going to unveil a plan later on this week, and perhaps it will come Thursday, Friday, but before the end of the week, to get Canada to 2 percent of GDP by the end, within a decade. Within a decade. So, that will be helpful. Clearly, we’re making progress, clearly we’re not where we need to be. But it is, I would have to say, the strong rhetoric, perhaps hyperbole on the part of President Trump, during his term of office, and during the course of this election, has been a wake-up call for our NATO allies. And so, they’re headed in the right direction, a lot more needs to be done.
John Walters:
And since the context here, and allows speaking to the American people as never before, and a reminder, what is the importance of NATO, as you see it? You have to look at the appropriations for the US military, you have to work with our allies, but you see the overall threat situation. When you look at that, how do you tell your constituents what the importance of NATO is?
Roger Wicker:
Well, the question is who will lead the world in the rest of the 21st century? Will it be dictatorships, like Iran, Russia, communist China, North Korea, or will it be the great democracies of the West, and people like them like, like we’re beginning to form alliances with in the Indo-Pacific, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines even, and Australia? So, someone is going to lead in the world, will it be the dictatorships of Putin and Xi Jinping, or will it be the United States and our allies? And that will determine what kind of world we live in. I don’t want to turn this country over and the rest of this century over to my grandchildren in a world that is ruled by dictators.
Democracies don’t invade their neighbors, look around. The countries that threaten their neighbors and try to change the borders by violent aggression and armed forces are the dictatorships of this world. Chief among them are this war criminal named Vladimir Putin. Absolutely, if Russia were a democracy, they’d be tending to their own business and seeking to internationally recognize borders that the rest of the world has agreed to abide by. Since we’ve had NATO, we’ve had a relatively peaceful Europe, and that has meant a relatively peaceful Atlantic alliance, including the United States and Canada.
John Walters:
Yeah, I think people forget that the combined GDP of America and its European allies, when they worry about being swamped by the economic power of China and others, we dwarf them out as far as you can see, we’d have to let them not wreck that.
Roger Wicker:
True, except for this, China is increasing their defense spending dramatically, and that’s why we have this report. We are being overtaken by the dictator shifts of this world. They don’t have to spend money on school lunches, on social spending, on retirement programs, and we need to be absolutely mindful of what the witnesses in this year, last year, and the year before have told us. And they tell us this is the most dangerous era that we have faced in half a century or more. And so, yes, while we have the economic might, we are not spending a big enough portion of it on defending our future and defending freedom and democracy.
John Walters:
Well, I want to thank you again for this plan.
Roger Wicker:
Well, John, thank you so much.
John Walters:
For your leadership.
Roger Wicker:
And thanks for the Hudson Institute, we really appreciate it.
John Walters:
You’re welcome. Thank you, sir.