In his penultimate State of the Union address, President Barack Obama mentioned the military and veterans earlier and more often than in last year’s speech–but even members of his own party were disappointed in the scant details he offered and the lack of any mention of sequestration, which is set to tear back into the defense budget later this year.
“The president made a very strong statement about national security–however, he ignored the effects of his pending sequestration,” House Armed Services Committee (HASC) tactical air and land forces subcommittee chairman Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio) told Defense Daily after the address. “In (fiscal year) 2016, sequestration comes back in full force. In my community thousands of people are facing the possibility of furloughs, and our Joints Chiefs of Staff said it would cripple our military. The president said not one word about it, not one proposal about how to fix it, and I think if he’s going to be serious about national security he needs to be serious about funding our military.”
He vowed action on sequestration, saying “certainly the House is going to be moving forward with setting aside sequestration. It’s going to be the president that’s going to have to sign it into law,” he added, noting–along with many of his Republican colleagues–that the president offered veto threats but no details to begin negotiations.
HASC seapower and projection forces subcommittee chairman Rep. Randy Forbes (R-Va.) expressed similar frustrations with the speech. “We were all sitting there listening with all the threats around the globe, all of the slashes to the military budget, sequestration looming–it was crickets about [military funding]. I think most of us were very, very concerned about the fact that he didn’t even mention what he was going to do to rebuild the United States military.”
“I think he made it clear, if you want to reenergize this economy, reestablish the rule of law and rebuild the military, then Congress is going to be on its own,” Forbes said. “But I think we’re up to that task.”
In his speech, Obama called for “a smarter kind of American leadership–we lead best when we combine military power with strong diplomacy, when we leverage our power with coalition-building.” He vowed to continue to hunt down terrorists, avoid costly ground wars and modernize global relationships. He also warned Congress to back off their plans to vote on new sanctions against Iran, asking that they give him time to negotiate a plan to prevent a nuclear-armed regime without the threat of sanctions hanging over the talks. Obama mentioned threats scattered all around the world–Russia, China, Africa, and even in cyberspace.
But HASC readiness subcommittee chairman Rep. Rob Wittman (R-Va.), whose subcommittee oversees funding for training, equipment maintenance and modernization and more, said that naming the crises around the world was not sufficient.
“He talked about supporting our men and women in uniform, which is great, but that’s the extent of the specifics about what was going to happen to help our military get back on track, how we’re going to rebuild the lost capacity, how we’re going to restore readiness. How do we make sure we’re doing the things necessary to provide for our men and women in uniform’s training, their equipping, modernization of the force–all those things he’s going to have to have to address these threats around the world,” Wittman said.
For the Republican-led House, which generally supports removing sequestration’s spending caps for defense, Wittman said the details matter. He said he’d be open to a discussion about tax increases, but a talk about spending cuts elsewhere, either in entitlements or in the domestic budget, has to also take place to get a majority of Congress on board.
“It’s easy to say, yeah let’s fix the sequester, but he didn’t even say that,” Wittman noted. “That doesn’t, I think, provide peace of mind to those of us that look at national defense as being very, very important.”
A high point of his speech among lawmakers was a request for Congress to pass an authorization of use of military force (AUMF). After outlining current military actions in Iraq and Syria, Obama said “this effort will take time. It will require focus. But we will succeed. And tonight, I call on this Congress to show the world that we are united in this mission by passing a resolution to authorize the use of force against ISIL. We need that authority. “
HASC member Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii), a combat veteran and captain in the Hawaii National Guard, said she was pleased to hear Obama ask for an AUMF but, again, its success would rest in the details.
“I look forward to seeing more details that I think are going to be critical for this to gain Congress’s approval, and more importantly for there to be an effective strategy,” she said. “That is number one–there needs to be recognition and an understanding of exactly who our enemy is, who is it that we are fighting and targeting. This is a much bigger thing than just one specific group called ISIS or one group called al Qaeda or any of the number of the other offshoots. And we’ve got to recognize that when we look back to 9/11, and we look at the attack that just happened in Paris, the motivation and those behind it are fueled by this extreme Islamic ideology. We’ve got to recognize that in order to be able to come up with a very clear strategy to defeat that threat. So that’s going to be critical for this to pass Congress and for it to keep the American people safe.”