WASHINGTON–U.S Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Near East, South Asia, Central Asia and Counterterrorism and a member of the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee, spoke on the U.S. Senate floor to highlight the broken Senate floor process through which the U.S. Senate held no debate or votes on amendments this year but still added over 2,400 pages of non-defense policy to the final National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Murphy also highlighted the consequences of the United States continuing to ignore the value of nonmilitary foreign policy tools while our adversaries increase investments in development finance, international media, energy, and diplomacy.

Murphy laid out why the current NDAA process is broken and ineffective: “The first thing that happens – particularly this year – is that many, many big, important pieces of policy get added to the defense bill. Some of them are good policy, but some of them aren't. But there is no democratic process in which members of this body get to review what's added to the defense bill. There's no notification of rank and file members so that we can provide input. Now again, as I understand it, the Armed Services Committee doesn't want to be in this position. They'd rather just have a vote on their original bill, as we did for decades until just recently, when all of this extra policy got added to the defense bill. But because today there are so few avenues for that other legislation to find a path through the floor, in large part because Republicans are using the filibuster to clog up the floor of the Senate, the defense bill becomes this kind of evacuation helicopter, carrying all the passengers that can fit in it.”

Murphy continued: “For the first time this year, there are more pages in the defense bill dedicated to non-defense items, than to defense items. Now, this might be acceptable if senators could offer amendments on the floor, remove parts of the bill we don't like, make other parts better. At least have our day. The other new normal here is that there's going to be zero amendments, amendment votes, likely, in the Senate debate. Now it's the same problem. There's a handful of Republicans here who don't want to legislate and so they are likely going to refuse to give consent to vote on amendments. And plus, as I mentioned, they clog up the floor with filibuster votes, which means that you can't get big important pieces of legislation done, and so they all find their way onto the defense bill.”

On the need to increase our investment in nonmilitary foreign policy tools: “As our adversaries try to undermine democracy and rule of law and use their energy and technology resources to win allies, we simply don't have the means to keep up [with] another asymmetric advantage for our competitors. We have no dedicated anti-corruption or technology or energy policy corps within our Foreign Service. It's not because we don't need this capacity. It's just because we can't afford it. We lament this asymmetric advantage that other countries have on non-defense capabilities, but it is just a choice.”

Murphy cited several examples of Russia and China’s asymmetric advantage, including: “Here's an example, the budget for RT, just one of Putin's international television online news operations: $2.8 billion. The budget for the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which funds all of our overseas broadcasting: $1 billion. How do you compete with those kinds of funding discrepancies?”

“American foreign policy today suffers from a crippling lack of imagination. American leaders complain about these asymmetric threats, but refuse to acknowledge that this asymmetry exists only because we choose to do this: pass an $847 billion defense budget with a 10% one-year increase and do nothing at the same time to build the real capacities necessary to keep up with our adversaries – investments in nonmilitary tools of influence,” Murphy concluded. “Asymmetry — it's a choice. It's a choice for our adversaries and it's a choice for us. And it is a consequence of our entire budget for development aid, anti-propaganda efforts, democracy promotion, human rights advancement, humanitarian assistance, and diplomacy being about the same size as the one-year increase in the defense budget.”

Last year,  Murphy proposed a significant increase to the international affairs budget for Fiscal Year 2022 to better address America’s national security challenges. Investing in 21st Century Diplomacy calls for a $12 billion increase, directing the funding toward three specific challenges: (1) competing with China; (2) preparing for the next pandemic in a post COVID-19-era; and (3) fighting climate change. In 2017, Murphy proposed doubling the State Department budget over five years to develop stronger capacities to respond to contemporary challenges in his white paper Rethinking the Battlefield.

A full transcript of his remarks can be found below:

“$847 billion is a lot of money to spend on anything in one year, even in Washington terms. It's enough money, for instance, to make sure that not a single child goes hungry anywhere in the world ever again.

“It's enough money to end homelessness in America, provide free preschool and college for every American, build high speed rail between every American city, make childcare free for families.

“Frankly, come up with five problems that plague parts of the world or parts of the country, design a solution, and you could probably solve all five for a year for $847 billion.

“Here's another number that's big: $80 billion. That's smaller than $847 billion, but it's still a lot of money. For $80 billion you could build a high speed railroad from New York to Washington, you could build 4,000 brand new, state-of-the-art high schools, and underserved communities, or you could hire – wait for it – a million new public school teachers.

“Here's why I tell you this. Next week, likely this body is apparently going to be on a glide path to pass an $847 billion defense budget authorization for the current fiscal year. That is an $80 billion increase over last year. That's a 10% increase in just one year. And there has been very little public debate.

“And there's going to be very little debate on this floor over whether this is a good idea, about whether we should spend $80 billion on this or whether that $80 billion would be spent better on something else.

“There's no debate, and there's going to be little debate here in part because the process of passing this bill is pretty broken. Thanks to Senator Reed, the Armed Services Committee is a functioning committee. The Democrats and Republicans on that committee write this bill together with an open amendment process. If you're a member of the Armed Services Committee, thanks to Senator Reed and Senator Inhofe’s leadership, you have a lot of opportunities to weigh in on the size and scope of the U.S. defense budget.

“But the problem begins once the bill leaves the Armed Services Committee. Then the bill kind of disappears and gets changed. That's not Chairman Reed's fault. That's our collective decision to endorse that process.

“The first thing that happens – particularly this year – is that many, many big, important pieces of policy get added to the defense bill. Some of them are good policy, but some of them aren't. But there is no democratic process in which members of this body get to review what's added to the defense bill.

“There's no notification of rank and file members so that we can provide input. Now again, as I understand it, the Armed Services Committee doesn't want to be in this position. They'd rather just have a vote on their original bill, as we did for decades until just recently, when all of this extra policy got added to the defense bill.

“But because today there are so few avenues for that other legislation to find a path through the floor, in large part because Republicans are using the filibuster to clog up the floor of the Senate, the defense bill becomes this kind of evacuation helicopter, carrying all the passengers that can fit in it.

“For the first time this year, there are more pages in the defense bill dedicated to non-defense items, than to defense items. Now, this might be acceptable if senators could offer amendments on the floor, remove parts of the bill we don't like, make other parts better. At least have our day.

“The other new normal here is that there's going to be zero amendments, amendment votes, likely, in the Senate debate. Now it's the same problem. There's a handful of Republicans here who don't want to legislate and so they are likely going to refuse to give consent to vote on amendments. And plus, as I mentioned, they clog up the floor with filibuster votes, which means that you can't get big, important pieces of legislation done, and so they all find their way onto the defense bill.

“But I just want to plead with my colleagues for a moment that there is a better way to do this. We don't have to look too far in the past to see what a real debate on a defense bill could look like. And I just want all of my colleagues to think about how much more interesting this place would be, how much healthier the Senate would be, if we could have debates on defense bills that looked like they did just 20 years ago.

“So I was just curious, so I literally just picked a year out of a hat from a slightly different generation in the Senate. I swear, I didn't cherry pick the year. I just went back to 2000. The year 2000, right, a nice, convenient date for the fiscal year 2000 defense bill debate, which by the way, happened in May, not in December, the Senate took roll call votes on 13 amendments.

“There were many amendments on contested controversial policy that got full debate and full votes. And there are a whole bunch of other amendments that got voice votes in the Senate. But on the amendments that got full debates on the Senate floor and roll call votes, there was an 87 to 12 vote on the legality of a new NATO strategic plan, a 49 to 50 vote to compel information from the Secretary of Health and Human Services on welfare reform, 48 to 52 on a war powers resolution for the war in the Balkans, 90 to zero on a measure to encourage Balkan War Crimes prosecution, 52-47 on a contested military promotion case, 40 to 60 to authorize a new round of base closures, 44 to 56 on nuclear weapon retirement policy, 49 to 51 and then 51 to 49 to remove restrictions on prison labor products, 49 to 51 to remove restrictions on abortions on DoD property, 21 to 77 to limit funding for the Balkan War, 11 to 87 to limit the costs of the F-18 program, and 98-0 to support sanctions on Libya.

“That's a lot of debate on really important foreign policy and national security policy on the floor of the Senate. And that is virtually unthinkable in the modern Senate and we're all poorer for it. Back then every Senator, not just leadership, saw themselves as having a co-equal responsibility to set us defense policy, and they required the process on the floor to reflect that belief.

“In just that one year, 2000, senators took three votes on the Balkan War, vote on fighter costs, vote on base closures, sanctions, military promotions. I go through this exercise just to explain to my colleagues, it just doesn't have to be like this. Those of us not on the Armed Services Committee or not in leadership don't have to be relegated to 70 rubber stamps with virtually no ability to have meaningful real time impact on the bill once it emerges from committee.

“But I make this point for another reason as well. When there is limited debate and limited input from rank and file members on a bill this big, on policy this important, I would argue that we miss the opportunity to be able to step back from this year-to-year creep of existing policy, and ask ourselves: are we doing it right? Are we spending hundreds of billions of dollars in a way that actually protects this country and our national interests? Or are we simply continuing down a path, continuing to invest and over-invest in weapons of war and underinvest in the tools that are necessary to prevent war?

“$847 billion is a ton of money, but so is $80 billion, this year's increase in authorized defense spending. Now, let me say this, there's no doubt that there are legions of meritorious programs in this defense budget. Frankly, I publicly and proudly support many programs that are built and constructed in Connecticut. Our submarine fleet, our helicopters, our fighter engines. Why? Because I really do believe that the United States is the world's defender of democracy, the defender of the rule of law, the defender of international norms and free navigation. We have to be the world leader in kinetic, hard military power.

“Ukraine is an example of why conventional military might and still matters. Big nations like Russia and China are not content any longer to stay inside their boxes. They are, like pre-World War II times, seeking to revise their borders through invasion. And while the United States is currently at no risk of being invaded ourselves, we do still have a responsibility to step up and help others, to help reinforce that post-World War II order to ensure that wars of aggression do not become normalized.

“But that post-World War II order is under threat not just because countries like Russia and China are using or threatening to use their militaries with alarming new frequency. The lion's share of threats to the United States and threats to world stability are often referred to not as conventional military threats, but what is commonly referred to as asymmetric threats. This generally means they are threats that cannot be addressed just through military power, air power, armies, nuclear weapons, the kinds of things that are funded in this defense bill. Let me give you some examples.

“Thousands of pages of think tank reports and endless hours of congressional testimony are dedicated to this lament that China's influence around the world is growing due to its willingness to aggressively invest in developing economies, critical mineral supplies and supply chain routes. For instance, today, China owns over 100 different international ports. They own 100 ports outside of China in 60 different countries. A new study revealed that China's development bank lend more money in Sub-Saharan Africa than the development banks of the United States, Germany, Japan and France combined. Now to fix this, we need to be growing the size of U.S. development finance, but it is like pulling teeth to get Congress to extend the authorities or borrowing and capital limitations of the U.S. Development Finance Corporation.

“Last year, DFC announced that it had lent more money than any year before — $7.4 billion. Now that’s a lot of money, $7.4 billion. This July, China's largest development bank announced that its six month total for a targeted set of urban infrastructure loans in the developing world, just a tiny piece of their overall portfolio, was $27 billion. U.S. development finance isn't even playing in the same ballpark as Chinese development finance.

“Here's another example of asymmetric power. It's kind of cliché these days to remind policymakers that information is power. But Ukraine's democracy is not just under attack from a foreign army, it is also under attack from misinformation. China, Russia, Iran, non-state actors, they are spending billions of dollars all over the world spreading messages into democracies to try to create division and undermine faith in the rule of law. That controversy around Colin Kaepernick's protest? That was mostly a creation of 500 Russian internet bots, who posted an incredible 12,000 tweets, inflaming public opinion.

“China's global disinformation campaign is equally robust. For instance, the largest backer of Philippines President, former President Rodrigo Duterte’s illegal assassination campaign: Chinese social media firms. But once again, the United States just chooses asymmetry by letting these countries – Russia and China and others – dominate the information space.

“Here's an example, the budget for RT, just one of Putin's international television online news operations: $2.8 billion. The budget for the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which funds all of our overseas broadcasting, $1 billion. How do you compete with those kinds of funding discrepancies?

“Here's one more example. A few years ago I was in Dublin, coincidentally at the same time of a major telecommunications contract tender in Ireland. Ireland was making this key decision to award its internet backbone to a European firm or to Huawei, the Chinese communications conglomerate. I was told by a very competent, but frankly very overwhelmed defense attaché assigned to our Irish embassy that over the prior few months, the Chinese Embassy had grown by leaps and bounds as dozens of new Chinese diplomats and provocateurs arrived in town to try to help sway the award for Huawei.

“Now matched up against this legion of Chinese diplomats was this one guy, our single defense attaché, maybe supported by a couple diplomats in the embassy. He was competent, but he had no background in telecommunications policy. And frankly, really nobody else there did either. And no extra help was on the way.

“The same phenomenon plays out with energy projects. Other nations seamlessly integrate their energy resources with their diplomatic and national security efforts. There's no separation between the Middle East oil and their foreign politics, the same for Russia or Iran or Venezuela. But U.S. energy executives are not representing the U.S. government, which means our diplomats are on their own in conducting energy policy, which means they have an enormous amount of catching up to do against these other petro powers.

“But for the first time, today, the U.S. is not the leading country when it comes to diplomatic posts around the world. That distinction now belongs to – guess who? – China. As our adversaries try to undermine democracy and rule of law and use their energy and technology resources to win allies, we simply don't have the means to keep up another asymmetric advantage for our competitors.

“We have no dedicated anti-corruption or technology or energy policy corps within our Foreign Service. It's not because we don't need this capacity. It's just because we can't afford it. We lament this asymmetric advantage that other countries have on non-defense capabilities, but it is just a choice. It's a choice because we pass, year after year, these massive defense bills, and then we choose not to increase the capabilities that would actually protect us: the investments in nonmilitary capabilities.

“Listen,  I get it, I know this bill is going to pass. But why on earth aren’t we spending more time asking the tough questions about whether the balance of our spending on national security is right-sized to the actual threats the United States and our democratic allies face? Yes, the Ukraine war is worth fighting, and it is expensive. But does it really make sense to spend 847 times more money on conventional military tools than we spend on winning the information war? Does it really make sense to add 10% to the defense budget while doing nothing to increase the size of our international development bank? Do we really think that we are adequately responding to the actual array of threats posed to this country with the spending allocation that ends up with America having 11,000 diplomats total and 12,000 employees of military grocery stores?

“American foreign policy today suffers from a crippling lack of imagination. American leaders complain about these asymmetric threats, but refuse to acknowledge that this asymmetry exists only because we choose to do this: pass an $847 billion defense budget with a 10% one-year increase and do nothing at the same time to build the real capacities necessary to keep up with our adversaries: investments in nonmilitary tools of influence. 

“We could decide, this Congress could decide, to build a massive modern International Development Bank. We could decide, this Congress could decide, not to let RT dominate the international information space. We can decide, all of us in this Congress, to have enough diplomats around the world to be able to fight the fights that matter to us.

“We should imagine this world in which we fight toe-to-toe with Chinese and the Russians and other adversaries in the development, information, technology, energy and diplomatic spheres. We should imagine that world and then put in place a plan to achieve it.

“Asymmetry — it's a choice. It's a choice for our adversaries and it's a choice for us. And it is a consequence of our entire budget for development aid, anti-propaganda efforts, democracy promotion, human rights advancement, humanitarian assistance, and diplomacy being about the same size as the one-year increase in the defense budget.

“$847 billion is a lot of money to spend without a real debate on the Senate floor, without the ability to offer amendments. I think this country would be better off, I think our security would be better protected, if we just took a step back, asked some hard questions about how we allocate money within our national security budget, and took the time to have a real floor debate with real input about it all. I yield the floor.”

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