WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC), spoke on the Senate floor on North Korean ballistic missile threats and the need to pass the fiscal year 2018 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) in a timely manner.

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Remarks as prepared for delivery:

Mr. President, as we begin markup on this year’s National Defense Authorization Act, I rise to express my deep concern over continued malign behavior by an overtly hostile nation, North Korea. 

It is important for us here in the Senate to communicate to the American people the credible, grave and immediate threat that we face from North Korea and the Kim Jong Un regime that has expressed a desire to destroy the United States. 

In April, North Korea’s official newspaper relayed the threat of a preemptive strike to  “completely and immediately wipe out not only U.S. imperialists' invasion forces in South Korea and its surrounding areas but the U.S. mainland and reduce them to ashes.” 

These are just the most recent of a long line of threats by the despotic North Korean regime aimed at our citizens. 

In addition, North Korean leaders constantly threaten our friends and allies in South Korea and Japan.

These threats are not just hollow words any longer. North Korean capabilities are rapidly improving to meet their long-stated intent. 

In his six years in power, Kim Jong Un has conducted as many as 75 ballistic missile tests. In comparison, his father Kim Jong Il conducted about 30 missile tests spread over 17 years. 

Additionally, Kim Jong Un has sped up North Korea’s nuclear program since taking power in 2011, and North Korea’s nuclear technology is advancing at an alarming rate. 

For example, the bomb North Korea tested in its most recent test last September was 10-times more powerful than what the regime could produce in 2006. 

Also, North Korea has actively worked on miniaturizing nuclear weapons so that they can be delivered via a ballistic missile. 

Earlier this year analysists detected activity at a North Korean nuclear test site, indicating another nuclear test may be imminent. 

Intelligence and military experts have repeatedly argued that it is prudent to assume that North Korea has successfully miniaturized their nuclear weapons. 

That means that the only technology they need to conduct a nuclear strike on the United States mainland is a functional intercontinental ballistic missile, or ICBM. 

In January, Kim Jong Un said North Korea is in its “final stage in preparations” to test an ICBM. 

Last month, the Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Lt. Gen. Vincent Stewart, told the Armed Services Committee that "If left on its current trajectory the regime will ultimately succeed in fielding a nuclear-armed missile capable of threatening the United States homeland." 

General Stewart added that “the North Korean regime is committed and is on a pathway where this capability is inevitable." 

I will say that again: our intelligence experts assess that an unchecked North Korea will inevitably achieve the capability to strike the United States homeland with a nuclear missile. 

Even without the ICBM capability, the missiles that we know they already have can range U.S. military personnel in South Korea, Japan, and Guam as well as the millions of innocent civilians in those locations. 

North Korea’s known missile inventory now includes a missile that North Korea successfully tested for the first time on May 14th, the Hwasong-12.  

That missile represented a major breakthrough in North Korean ballistic missile technology. 

Reports indicate the missile travelled over 1,300 miles in altitude and successfully exited and reentered the earth’s atmosphere—a key requirement of nuclear-capable ICBMs. 

If fired at its maximum range, the missile could have reached Guam. 

Though this missile itself was not an ICBM, the technological breakthrough demonstrates the significant advancement North Korea has made in their ballistic missile capability. 

Another significant advancement that concerns me is the solid-fueled, road-mobile missiles the regime is developing.Kim Jong Un has successfully tested two such missiles already this year—one in February and another just last month on May 21. 

Solid-fueled missiles mounted on mobile launch vehicles can be prepared ahead of time, concealed, and then fired very rapidly. This affects our ability to track and detect pre-launch activities and limits our options to defend ourselves. 

So what can we do? It is clear that North Korea does not respond to international pressure. All of these ballistic missile tests violate multiple UN resolutions, yet North Korea carries them out despite sanctions and international condemnation. 

Furthermore, conventional wisdom has led us to believe that China, North Korea’s main trade partner in the region, holds significant sway over the regime. That conventional wisdom has been called to question recently. 

I commend the Trump administration for working with China on this issue, but we cannot take assume that China will be able to help us close the deal in a diplomatic way. 

Therefore, it is incumbent upon us to take all appropriate steps to defend ourselves from this growing threat.

We must keep that in mind as we formulate this year’s National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). 

I applaud the President for the FY18 Budget Request that calls for increases to defense spending and aims to fill critical readiness gaps, and we in Congress need to build off of that baseline even further. 

First, we need to bolster our national ballistic missile defense capabilities to address the threat we face from North Korea. 

Since 2006, the Missile Defense Agency budget has fallen more than 23-percent when adjusted for inflation. While we have taken positive steps in recent years, we need to ensure our last-resort defenses are airtight. 

We should heed the recommendations of defense experts like Gen. Lori Robinson, commander of United States Northern Command who testified here on April 6 that, “As adversaries continue to pursue credible and advanced capabilities, we too must evolve our missile defense capabilities to outpace increasingly complex threats.” 

Simultaneously we must bolster our military. Our forces are smaller than the days of the “hollow force” in the 1970s, our equipment is aging, and our base infrastructure requires critical maintenance and upgrades. 

We owe our brave service men and women better. Through this year’s NDAA, we should prioritize across-the-board end strength increases and additional investments in maintenance to fill gaps in existing formations, and to get our existing equipment back up to par. 

I hear people say that defense spending is out of control. The truth is that defense spending as a proportion of total government spending has steadily decreased since World War II. 

In 1964, 52-percent of federal spending went to defense. In recent years, despite waging multiple wars and facing unparalleled global threats, our spending has decreased to about 15-percent of our total spending. 

Chief of Staff of the Army, Gen. Milley, said it best when it comes to funding our military, “the only thing more expensive than deterrence, is actually fighting a war. And the only thing more expensive than fighting a war, is fighting one and losing one…We're expensive. We recognize that. But the bottom line is, it's an investment that is worth every nickel.” 

So we must immediately make up for the damage done by years of dangerous defense budget cuts. 

The good news is that, under the leadership of President Trump, we have already started that process. 

The appropriations bill last month stopped the decline in Army end strength so instead of the planned 460,000 active soldiers, we now have 475,000. 

We also added 1,000 Marines, and a few hundred airmen. In total, we currently have 24,000 more service members than we would have under Obama’s plan. 

More good news is that we have exceptional patriots like the Airmen at Tinker, Vance and Altus Air Force Bases, and those protecting our skies in F-16s out of Tulsa.

 Soldiers like those at Fort Sill, and in Oklahoma’s 45th Infantry Brigade who are right now in Ukraine training our allies there. 

Our military is the finest in the world, but new threats present new challenges, and we need further investment to give our service men and women the tools they need to do their jobs without undue risk. 

I am optimistic that we will rise to the occasion and meet the challenge presented by the antagonistic North Korean regime. 

I am confident that President Trump is taking the appropriate steps to address this threat diplomatically. 

However, we as the Congress need to follow his lead to ensure that our men and women in uniform have the resources required to answer the call quickly and effectively. 

Mr. President, I ask for the support of you and our colleagues here in the Senate to help communicate the reality of this grave threat to the American people, and to support increased defense spending in this year’s NDAA.