So it's got a terrible impact. At the same time, the submarine that was put to sea last week will still be out for three months and, God bless them, the lads will not have any e-mail connectivity, so they will not even know what's going on as they cruise quietly out there, carrying out their duties. The ships at sea will continue. The ones -- our lads in Iraq and Afghanistan, who are in the fight, will continue. The young ladies who are guiding the drones right now will stay at their desks and keep them overhead.
So we will continue what we're doing. But the value of the American military is grossly enhanced by the sense that the American model of government -- of the people, by the people, for the people -- can function and carry out its governmental responsibilities.
We're not -- I didn't serve in the Marine Corps for 40-odd years. I served in the U.S. Marine Corps -- belong to you, accountable to you, as Speaker Ryan pointed out here. For those out there right now, in the field, at sea, in the air, the ones sitting in the ready room over here at Andrews Air Force Base, I'd just tell you that they deserve -- they deserve full support. And we have got to come to grips with this as a nation.
Why don't we take one more? Katherine, you choose.
MODERATOR:Absolutely. This final question:How would the U.S. deter adversaries in space, as space itself becomes (off mic)?
SEC. MATTIS:Yes, how do we deter in space? It's philosophically -- or basically in the same way that we would deter anyone else. Don't try it, because we can do more damage to you than any benefit you could gain.
So it comes down to that. But what that means is we've got to have capabilities to deny them what they want to achieve. In this regard, it's not just about what you might think -- of guns in space shooting each other.
It could be nothing more than, "We have -- for every satellite up, we have 100 more this big that we could launch, so it's just faster (inaudible) out. By the way, we're going to take you down in the United Nations and we're going to get economic sanctions."
In other words, there's a way to raise -- this is what I mentioned, expanding the competitive space. There's no nation that has a wider competitive space, in terms of its moral or ethical or economic or military power, than we can amass, if we choose to use it wisely.
And so in space, we will do our best to deter. We'll come up, I'm sure, with arms control agreements at some point, and we'll start getting this under control. But, for right now, it's sizing up the problem and making certain, again, that our diplomats will be negotiating from a position of strength, when they negotiate on that.
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