Freshman Sen. Tom Cotton delivered a hawkish maiden Senate speech Monday, calling for increased military spending and an end to America’s "experiment with retreat."
"I yield the floor, but I will never yield in the defense of America’s national security or on any front," Cotton, R-Ark., said at the end of his address.
In his talk, Cotton said the United States currently lacks the military wherewithal or political will in the White House to properly defend against its enemies.
"I speak today for the first time on the Senate floor with a single message: The world is growing more dangerous, and our defense spending is wholly inadequate to confront the danger," he said.
He called for an end to military spending reductions that are part of the automatic round of federal spending cuts known as sequestration and added that a bolstered military could help improve the economy.
"In our globalized world, our domestic prosperity depends heavily on the world economy, which of course requires stability and order," he said. "Who provides that stability and order? The United States military."
Cotton, an Iraq and Afghanistan Army veteran, made headlines last week when he authored an open letter to the leaders of Iran warning against a nuclear deal that’s still being negotiated between the Tehran government, the United States, and five other world powers.
Forty-seven Senate Republicans signed the letter, which critics, congressional Democrats and the Obama administration said was a deliberate attempt to sabotage the negotiations.
Cotton repeated his opposition to the yet-to-be-done deal Monday.
"I will simply note the deal foreshadowed by the president – allowing Iran to have uranium-enrichment capabilities and accepting any expiration date on an agreement – to quote (Israeli) Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, ‘doesn’t block Iran’s path to the bomb; it paves Iran’s path to the bomb,’" he said. "If you think, as I do, the Islamic State is dangerous, a nuclear-armed Islamic Republic is even more so."
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