Rounds ready for submarine commissioning

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HURON – Commissioning of the USS South Dakota on Saturday will go a long way in equalling the technological playing field with Russia and China, Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., said Thursday.
Rounds will be the main speaker, Rep. Dusty Johnson will speak as well, and Gov. Kristi Noem will lead a state delegation at the ceremony in Groton, Conn.
“This is a really special deal for South Dakota,” Rounds said in a conference call with reporters.
A member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, he said the United States faces severe challenges because while fighting terrorism in the Middle East has been a priority, Russia and China have been making significant technological advances in rebuilding their strategic forces.
The United States no longer has an advantage over them, Rounds said.
“Its become a very serious issue that we’ve got to take the next technological steps,” he said. “The (USS South Dakota) submarine is part of that response.”
SSN 790, the USS South Dakota, is the Navy’s next generation submarine that will fulfill missions around the world for the next 25 to 30 years, Rounds said.

“This is probably one of the quietest, stealthiest submarines ever developed,” he said.
At 377 feet long and weighing 7,800 tons, it will have a crew of 132 and have the capability of staying at sea for up to three months. It will carry up to 12 Tomahawk missiles and is designed to detect and take out enemy submarines.
The first USS South Dakota was an armored cruiser that was part of the nation’s fleet from 1904 to 1912. The most decorated warship of World War II was the famed battleship “South Dakota,” and Rounds said he expects some of the sailors who served on that vessel will attend the commissioning ceremony in Connecticut.
In the conference call, he was asked if he thought the country had its priorities straight when the military wants to focus its attention on Russia and China and, to a lesser extent, Iran and North Korea, while President Trump wants $5.7 billion for a wall at the southern border.
Rounds said allocating resources to focus on those countries reflects the fact that Congress is seeing the big picture. In a visit with the president in the Oval Office about a week and a half ago, he said Trump said it may not be a wall or a physical structure, but a fence or a series of fences and the use of electronics.
“It’s a recognition that you’ve got to be able to protect your borders,” Rounds said.
While the president and congressional Democrats fight over the issue, the reality is that the nation’s defense budget is $716 billion.
It’s true that Trump wants to honor his paramount election pledge to defend the borders, but “we’re not going to let that be the focus on the total budget,” Rounds said.
With the mid-February deadline to produce an agreement or face the possibility of another partial government shutdown, he said America should be put first, with partisanship second. The Republican conference is fed up with shutdowns, he said. “We don’t want another shutdown.”
Serious negotiations between the parties are under way, he said, after both sides put out their positions on the border security issue.
Members of the GOP caucus met Wednesday and again Thursday.
“We’re not going to wait until the last day,” Rounds said. “That would be stupid. Let’s get this done and get it done correctly.”