The Current State of Readiness of U.S. Forces in Review of the Defense Authorization Request for Fiscal Year 2016 and the Future Years Defense Program

The preeminent responsibility of the Federal Government is to provide for the common defense. In order to fulfill this foundational responsibility of our Government, Congress has been explicitly charged, in Article 1, Section 8, of the Constitution, with the authority and responsibility to raise and support armies, and provide and maintain the Navy. We have to begin with an objective assessment of our national security interests and the threats that we're facing around the world. We then should determine what defense capabilities and capacities we need in order to protect our interests against likely threats. That is how you develop a defense budget that keeps America safe. Unfortunately, that's not what we have been seeing with the impact of defense sequestration in Washington. Rather than a reality-based, strategy-based defense budgets, we are seeing that the impact of sequester is deeply disconnected from the many threats that we face around the world right now. We all know that the readiness of our forces is something that we don't often see, but we'll know right away if it's not there, given what we ask of our men and women of uniform.