Defense and National Security

The foremost responsibility of the federal government is to provide for the common defense. I am an Army Ranger and a combat veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan. I have fought on the front lines to protect our country, and I will fight in Congress to keep America safe through a strong national defense and leadership in the world.

I volunteered to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan, and I believe those wars are just and necessary. As a veteran, I want to bring our troops home as much as anyone, but I want to bring them home victoriously. I don’t believe in exit strategies; I believe in victory strategies. In Congress, I will stand up to President Obama, whose short-sighted and politically motivated decisions threaten the lives and money that America has invested in these wars.

I strongly support the many critical fronts in our global war against Islamic terrorists. We must continue to track and monitor our enemies through terrorist-surveillance programs. We should target these terrorists aggressively through the use of drone technology wherever possible. We should employ our special-operations forces and intelligence professionals where feasible. When we capture terrorists, they should go to Guantanamo Bay for vigorous interrogation—not to a civilian court in America. And we must stop the proliferation of nuclear, biological, and chemical technology, because the world’s most dangerous men cannot be allowed to obtain the world’s most dangerous weapons.

We must also stand with our allies and against our enemies. When countries such as Israel share American principles and support American interests, we should support those allies in their struggles against the forces of evil. When countries such as Iran and North Korea declare themselves to be our mortal enemies, we should treat them as enemies and use every instrument of national power to undermine their regimes. We must remain vigilant against countries such as China and Russia who don’t share American principles and don’t wish us well. And we must always protect America’s sovereignty against encroachment by the United Nations and other international bodies.

Finally, a strong national defense depends on a well-funded military with the world’s best-equipped and trained troops and most advanced weapon systems. While we must stay mindful of wasteful spending—often driven by congressional earmarks and politicians’ desire for reelection, not by military strategy—we cannot gut the military to pay for failed stimulus plans, ObamaCare, or other liberal programs. In fact, the military has already cut nearly $400 billion under President Obama, including the cancellation of major weapon systems and a dangerous reduction in the number of Marines and Soldiers. These severe cuts have occurred without similar reductions at domestic agencies, which have grown even more bloated under President Obama. As your congressman, I will work to reverse this trend and to ensure that our troops have the equipment and weapons they need to win our wars—or deter them from starting in the first place.