 Good morning. The committee meets today to receive testimony from General Glenn Van Herk, Commander of the United States Northern Command and North America Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD, and General Laura Richardson, Commander of the United States Southern Command. General Richardson, I would like to welcome you to your first posture hearing in your current command, and I want to thank both of you for your decades of service to our nation. On behalf of the committee, I also want to thank the women and men serving under your commands for their selfless dedication and service. Thank you very much. The United States is faced with a wide range of security threats around the globe, but we are increasingly finding these threats edging closer and closer to home. Our strategic competitors, China and Russia, are seeking ways to expand their power regionally in South America and the Arctic, as well as for advancements in long-range missile capabilities and offensive cyber tools. At the same time, this competition is unfolding amidst the global pandemic, environmental degradation from climate change, and the emergence of highly disruptive technologies. The interconnected nature of these threats compounds the challenges that Northcom and Southcom have been tackling for decades, and we must calibrate our approach to these regions carefully. I expect today's hearing to help inform that approach. General Van Herk, your command is responsible for protecting the homeland. Importantly, Northcom is tasked with operating our Homeland Ballistic Missile Defense, the ground based mid-course defense system, to defend the United States against intercontinental ballistic missiles and hypersonic missiles. The rapid advancements we have seen on this front from states like China, Russia and North Korea are concerning, as the nature of hypersonic difficult defeat with the technology we currently use. General Van Herk, I would like to know your assessment of the next generation interceptor programs, current schedule for deployment, and in light of recent, very recent North Korean missile tests, your confidence and the capability of our current ground-based interceptors to meet these threats. Northcom also can use to play a vital role for its defense support to civil authority mission, by which the U.S. military responds to requests from civil agencies for domestic assistance. This mission was highlighted recently by Northcom's leadership of Operation Allies Welcome, which housed and cared for more than 84,000 evacuees from Afghanistan on military bases across the country. Further, Northcom was integral to our nation's response to the COVID-19 pandemic when personnel from Northcom and the National Guard distributed vaccines, ran testing centers, and food banks, and supported federal health efforts. General Van Herk, I would like to know whether your command and other federal agencies have the preparations in place to manage the next pandemic outbreak or humanitarian crisis should they arise. Turning to the southern command, Southcom has traditionally focused on counter narcotics and counter-transnational criminal organization missions. Even with limited resources, including minimal intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance platforms, Southcom has sought to leverage non-traditional approaches, such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, to serve as a testbed for new tactics and operational concepts. The Southcom region also continues to experience a rise in political instability, including violence in Haiti, Cuba, and Venezuela, and security deterioration in the Northern Triangle countries of Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. The political and economic instability in these Southcom nations presents a situation that China, Russia, and other state actors are now seeking to exploit to increase their own influence. Short of armed conflict, a critical task for Southcom is to find ways to counter our competitiveness malign activities that are coercing our partners. This includes identifying and addressing sources of insecurity and vulnerabilities among our partners that our adversaries seek to exploit to gain leverage or so division. And it's also important to strengthen the resilience of U.S. partners' security forces, including by building defense institutional capabilities that adhere to the rule of law and respect human rights. General Richardson, I'm interested in your assessment of the threat from near-peer competitors in the Southcom area and how we might work strategically with partners in our neighborhood, such as Mexico and Colombia, to build resilience to China and Russia's malign activities. I want to thank again our witnesses. I look forward to your testimony. As a reminder from my colleagues, there will be a closed section immediately following this hearing in room SBC 217. Let me now turn to the ranking member, Senator Adolf. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And welcome to our witnesses who we've known very well for a long period of time. Our attention is rightly focused on Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine and the Chinese Communist Party's constant march toward dominance in the Pacific. General Van Herk, you are responsible for the defense of the homeland. That's the big deal, as we discussed, given Putin's threats against our homeland during the Ukraine war and China's threats of a military conflict with the United States over Taiwan. I hope you'll candidly speak about your requirements. Do you have the resources that you need and get in much detail? This is the place to do it. I'm also concerned about the situation on the southwest border. It's a situation that people have quit. Somehow that moved off the front page and people are not as concerned about that as they would think they should be right now. We've had 12 straight months of 150,000 plus illegal immigrants being stopped at the border. Nothing like that's ever happened before. Last month, the CBP encountered nearly 165,000 illegal immigrants at the border, which is the highest total for February in the Department of Homeland Security's history. Many of my good friends on the other side of the aisle strongly opposed to President Trump when he deployed troops to assist the CBP at the border in 2018. But given the scale of the current crisis, General Van Herk, I wonder whether more border support might be necessary in the near future or currently. General Richardson, as we discussed in my office, I'm concerned about the growing Chinese threat in your area of responsibility and its national security implications. What China is doing in Southcom reminds me of what they were doing in Africa 15 years ago. They're using predatory economic and diplomatic practices to bribe in bullied countries while they set conditions to build up their military presence and limit United States access and influence. So I hope you'll explain your strategy for this very daunting task and thank you very much for being here. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Senator Inhofe. Let me recognize General Van Herk for his testimony. General, please, sir. Chairman Reed, Ranking Member Inhofe and distinguished members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear today alongside General Richardson. It's my honor to represent the men and women of United States Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command as we defend the United States and Canada. United States Northern Command and NORAD faced the most dynamic and strategically complex environment in their respective histories. The commands face multiple simultaneous challenges from strategic competitors who have openly declared their intent to hold our homelands at risk in an effort to advance their own interests. Today, strategic competitors, rogue nations, non-state actors possess the capability to strike institutions and critical infrastructure in the United States and Canada. Our country is already under attack every day in the information space and the cyber domain. Our competitors, especially Russia and China, are spreading disinformation, actively sowing division and internal discord with the intent to undermine the foundation of our nation, our democracy, and democracies around the world. We're seeing this play out with Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Those same competitors have invested heavily in conventional precision strike capabilities and advanced delivery platforms, which Russia is currently displaying to the world. Their intent is to hold critical infrastructure in the homeland at risk below the nuclear threshold in order to disrupt and delay our ability to project power globally while attempting to undermine our will to intervene in a regional overseas crisis. I believe the strategic deterrent is the foundation of homeland defense and that it is necessary for the United States to maintain a reliable and effective nuclear triad. At the same time, I am concerned that deterrence by cost imposition is currently over-weighted and does not adequately account for the conventional capabilities our competitors have already fielded. This over-reliance increases the risk of miscalculation and escalation because it limits our national leaders options in crisis and in conflict. Our competitors advance conventional capabilities make it necessary to balance deterrence by cost imposition with a model of deterrence by denial. An integrated deterrence that employs all elements of national influence leverages our asymmetric advantage of our alliances and our partnerships and provides leaders with a wide range of timely deterrence options. We must continually demonstrate to potential aggressors that an attack on our homeland will result in failure. We do that by demonstrating homeland readiness, responsiveness, and resiliency and by displaying a range of kinetic and non-kinetic capabilities to defend the homeland. Northcom's support of civil authorities our security cooperation relationships with allies and partners are critical to integrated deterrence as is NORAD's mission to provide warning and defend the approaches to North America. This strategic environment is the new normal. This operating model that we assumed we could project power globally from a safe and secure homeland has been eroding over the last decade to provide national leaders with timely and informed options that they need to achieve favorable outcomes. Northcom and NORAD in our homeland defense design are focused on four key principles that starts with all domain awareness from undersea to on orbit and everywhere in between to include cyber domain. All domain awareness is required to achieve information dominance which is the use of advanced capabilities like machine learning and artificial intelligence to quickly analyze process and deliver data to decision makers at the speed of relevance. By doing so we will increase senior leader decision space and enable decision superiority over our competitors. Finally today's global our problems are our global and all domain and they demand globally integrated strategies plans and actions. These principles are vital elements of our ability to execute a layered defense and integrated deterrence and they are critical to our nation's ability to deter in competition, de-escalating crisis, and if necessary defeat in conflict. I'll end by thanking the committee for all you've done to support our soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, guardians. The FY22 NDAA and the recent passage of the FY22 appropriations omnibus continue to advance our national defense priorities and the missions of U.S. Northern Command and NORAD. Today's strategic environment calls for sustained sufficient and predictable funding in order to prevail. Persistently operating under continuing resolutions over the last decade has contributed to the erosion of our nation's competitive advantage. I join my fellow commanders the service chiefs and the secretary in expressing my appreciation for the resources provided in the FY22 omnibus and in urging the on-time passage of both the NDAA and a full-year appropriations bill for FY22 or 23 excuse me. Again thank you for the opportunity to appear today and I look forward to your questions. Thank you sir. General Richardson please. We are testimony. Chairman Reid, Ranking Member Inhofe, and distinguished members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you. Alongside General Van Herk, my most important teammate in keeping the western hemisphere safe. I'm honored to be here with you representing the men and women of U.S. Southern Command to discuss the challenges we share with our neighbors in this hemisphere and the opportunities that we can unlock together. Today more than ever America's fate is inextricably linked to events beyond our shores. This region our shared neighborhood is under assault from a host of transboundary challenges that directly threaten our own homeland. I've been in command almost five months now and the biggest eye-opener for me has been the extent to which China and Russia are aggressively expanding their influence in our neighborhood. Latin America and the Caribbean are experiencing insecurity and instability that has been greatly exacerbated by COVID-19. The People's Republic of China our long-term strategic competitor continues its relentless march to expand economic, diplomatic, technological, informational, and military influence in Latin America and the Caribbean and challenges U.S. influence in all these domains. Without U.S. leadership and modest investment negative PRC influence in this region could soon resemble the self serving predatory influence it now holds in Africa. Let's be clear the PRC doesn't invest they extract. Meanwhile Russia a more immediate threat is increasing its engagements in the hemisphere as Putin looks to keep his options open and maintain relationships in our near abroad. In January the Russian deputy foreign minister said he could neither affirm or exclude that Russia would send military assets to Cuba and Venezuela. Just days before the Russian unprovoked invasion of Ukraine the Russian deputy prime minister visited Nicaragua Cuba and Venezuela countries that maintain close ties with Russia and offer Putin a foothold in our hemisphere. Finally recent visits between the presidents of Brazil and Argentina with Putin in Russia demonstrate a concerning potentially broadening of Russia ties in the region. In this hemisphere transnational criminal organizations operate nearly uncontested and blaze a trail of corruption and violence that creates a wedge and allows the PRC and Russia to exploit these countries. They threaten citizen security undermine public confidence and government institutions and drive irregular migration to our homeland. These TCOs traffic opioids cocaine and other deadly drugs into the U.S. fueling both drug overdoses and drug related violence. In my initial travels to Latin America and the Caribbean it's become obvious to me that our partners are our best defense as we work together to counter our shared threats. We must use all available lovers to strengthen our partnerships with the 28 like-minded democracies in this hemisphere. We must maximize important tools like security cooperation programs to train and equip our partner militaries multilateral exercises to build interoperability and the State Department's IMET FMF and FMS programs to educate train and build capacity that our partners use to stand shoulder to shoulder with us. Columbia for example our strongest strongest partner in the region exports security by training other Latin American and militaries to counter transnational threats. U.S. Southcom is putting integrated deterrence into action every day using innovative methods to work seamlessly in all domains with the other combat commands the joint force allies and partner nations congress the U.S. interagency NGOs and the private sector. Now more than ever the U.S. must lead in this hemisphere and that requires consistent focus and a sustained investment to help build a shared neighborhood that is free secure and prosperous for our generation and generations to come. Thank you and I look forward to your questions. Well thank you very much General Ritzen and thank you also General Grant Herk. General Grant Herk the North Korean missile activity is quite disturbing indeed hours ago they launched a missile which from analysis of the flight path suggests could hit the United States. Given this behavior what are your thoughts about the current 44 ground based interceptors and their current capability? Chairman I'm comfortable with where we are today based on the intelligence I have with the current capabilities and capacity of North Korea. Going forward I do believe that they could exceed my capacity and capabilities that's why it's crucial to keep next generation interceptor on time or early in my discussions with Admiral Hill he's he's confident right now that they're on that path as far as the total number of 44 interceptors that's a policy decision I look forward to seeing the missile defense review and the policy that it provides and guidance to me to get after the capacity and and the challenges that you alluded to sir. So you are at this point confident that the next generation interceptor is on track for deployment I think the plan is 20 interceptors at Fort Greely by FY 2028 is that still holding? That is correct and I'm confident that it it is on track for that now or slightly early based on what I've seen. Very good. You have made your input into the national defense strategy which is yet to be announced do you are you confident that your sort of contribution it will be forwarded to us? I am confident that my input will be included they've been very transparent in the department as they've worked this. Thank you very much sir. General Richardson Southcom because of a lack of resources which as a veteran of USAR cell I can tell you has been the case for many many decades is now relying upon artificial intelligence and other new technologies to compensate could you comment upon it what you're doing and how successful you are? Absolutely Chairman so the advanced ISR or non-traditional ISR that we utilize since we're not given a lot of resources we we look for other ways of being innovative and using other capabilities that either the Department of Defense has or the other services are trying to use and so we'll use that all different kinds of capabilities that use the AI and ML a lot with unclassified data that can rapidly sort through that data and then we use it to tip and cue what limited assets the higher end assets that that we do have to help out with our challenges in the AOR. You're working closely with the Department of Defense to essentially test some new innovative prototypes in a whole range of both air, land and sea. Absolutely and we have five joint capability technology demos that we have in the AOR and I'd like to highlight in a permissive environment I offer that because where our adversaries maybe aren't paying as much close attention to us we can put that to real world use in our area of operations and then it helps me with domain awareness to find our threats see what our threats are doing because the area AOR is so big. Well I want to thank you because I I know you've been in contact with civil society groups particularly the Sisters of Mercy and this whole of government and beyond approach is necessary everywhere but particularly in Southcombe and in an oral triangle particularly Honduras there is a need to support the recent elected government and to begin seriously isolating individuals who are either involved with criminal activities or other inappropriate activities and support a more vibrant constitutional order and I thank you for that any comments about the situation in an oral triangle Well first chairman I've had two meetings so far with the human rights leaders and Sisters of Mercy being one of them human rights watch and a couple of others and they have such an important perspective of the region they've been traveling there for decades they've been working in those countries for decades and certainly taking their perspective and their insight of what they've seen over that period of time is is truly valuable and we bake human rights into everything that we do in US Southcom I have a human rights office in Southcom we have had that for 25 years but it's not about having an office it's actually what you do with that capability and how we make that a priority in everything that we do in the AOR. Thank you very much General Van Herk and General Richardson let me recognize Senator Inhor please Thank you Mr. Chairman as I said my opening statement the crisis to the border has worsened considerably under the current administration we've had 12 straight months of over 150,000 illegal migrants which is was a 63 increase from February 2021 and a DHS record for the month of February and according to the internal see the border patrol estimates from January through August of 21 over 273,000 migrants avoided apprehension and entered our country illegally these are new records this has not happened before I'm deeply concerned that the crisis will soon get even worse as we discussed in my office if the Biden administration ends the Title 42 border policy in April illegal immigration will surge even beyond the current record setting levels so General Van Herk given the worsening conditions and the crisis at the southwest border are you aware of any discussion within the administration or DHS that could result in any request for additional troops at that border Senator Inhofe there is a request from the Department of Homeland Security it's in the planning stages right now of the department to provide additional capability or capacity based on of the potential for additional immigration or folks coming to the southwest border I don't have the details of that right now and I haven't been tasked to provide any additional support to the Department of Homeland Security at this time and I understand that but it is a reality that's that's in in discussion General Richardson it's clear that Southcom continues to be under resource despite all of the threats in your AOR and that's something we need to take closer look at as we develop our our NDA and we'll have to do that China as we discussed in my office this week I'm concerned about their growing presence in Southcom and consequences of for our military so General Richardson what do you find most concerning about China's growing presence in your AOR and how how could it be could undermine DOD's ability to operate in this year's together so thank you senator and then my concern regarding China in the region is just the the presence and the access and presence that they have and they've been able to create partly due to the the COVID-19 pandemic and the economic rollbacks that this has had in the region so eight percent of the world's population is in Southcom AOR 33 percent of the world's COVID deaths were suffered so they've had a they've had a hard time with that economy has contracted eight percent plunging 22 percent of the population into poverty and so when when these 28 like-minded democracies in this region out of 31 are trying to deliver for their people it's hard and when China has the Belt and Road Initiative 21 of the 31 countries in this region have signed up and are signatories to that BRI they need to show that they're delivering for their populations and infrastructure projects is probably the best way that you know with the BRI that that shows progress but as we know the work is not done to standard a lot of times it leaves these countries with even more debt than when they started a highway in Jamaica Jamaica now has six loans as a result of this they lost 1200 acres of land and oh by the way the highway has a toll on it the most Jamaicans can't even can't even drive on the Chinese don't bring in and don't hire host nation workers they bring in Chinese laborers so they don't invest it looks like they're investing all they do is they take they extract and they have strings tied to to what they offer yeah you know we you and I talked about this in the office the it's so similar to what the Chinese have been doing now for about 15 years in Africa it's no surprises here but I think it's important we get into the record what is happening now because it's happening in your AOR something that you didn't anticipate I didn't none of us anticipated the gravity of that situation I'm glad you're there at the helm thank you senator what what I would like to mention are my two greatest concerns strategically and that's with the Panama Canal the projects that the Chinese have around the Panama Canal which is a strategic line of communication that we want to keep free and open for the global economy but also for our global war plans also the Straits of Magellan down around the tip of the southern cone from Argentina and the presence of China and projects and things like that and so that's what bothers me most are those two strategic global lines of a communication areas that the Chinese have projects in and around those areas with everything that's going on now it's it's I think it's important that we and you particularly need to keep reminding us of that because that's something that people are just not not aware of thank you mr. chairman thank you very much senator inhoff let me recognize senator gilverne please thank you mr. chairman general Richardson just to continue the line of questioning that senator inhoff started given the investments that China is making regardless of how extractive they are what you think our best response is and in particular can you talk a little bit about how we're engaging with elected governments in the region to counter authoritarian actors are we collaborating with agencies and other institutions with partner countries like judiciaries legislatures NGOs to support human rights and democracy and further I do want to get a sense of China's also adopted a partner force training model that is of some concern to me and I'd like you to assess how effective is China's partner force training in those countries that participate and how do we ensure these relationships are not enduring so the way I look at senator is in terms of our partnerships the u.s. has partners china has clients they don't have the partners and and our partner nations in the south com a or want to partner with us I go to these countries I have visited columbia brazil jamaica believes where I've got to visit with leaders from seven central american countries Honduras and you look in their eyes and they want to partner with us and they're having a hard time delivering for their population I will tell you though that the prc is using our playbook in terms of how I do security cooperation and the other combatant commands the train and equip the partnering the exercises the chinese don't have exercises like we do when we have exercises the u.s. I'll bring 19 21 29 different countries together as I said they want to partner with us and we have partners a great relationship with the interagency and department of state in the aor I'd like to highlight I have my deputy who is an about former ambassador for El Salvador sitting behind me gene mains and I'll tell you we're so lucky to have an ambassador from the department of state who can help bridge and communicate and help us work more collaboratively with our chief submission in the aor we have 12 more to go for ambassadors to fill those very important seats and eight have been nominated so thank you for your support and getting those ambassadors in there as quickly as possible and then just one final question before I move on to general van herk um south com has played an important role in humanitarian operations especially in nations like Haiti where u.s. support was needed not only after the natural disaster but after the political crisis can you explain how you foresee any changes to south com's posture to continue providing humanitarian assistance especially as climate and other issues continue to increase migration we'll continue to watch this aor Haiti all of the all of the challenges that we have in this aor that are ongoing and work very closely with for a whole of government a democratic solution and to instability and insecurity in the region we take that very seriously we bake in as I said before human rights the rule of law everything that we do in our security cooperation programs everything that I do my main lever because I don't get assigned forces in south com I get very limited gift map resources that are assigned to me as well so I really rely on that triple three security and cooperation funding to work with these partner nations to help them increase the capacity and capability of their militaries or their defense forces that's helpful general thank you general van herk China has attempted to establish a foothold in the arctic through economic relationships with smaller arctic states like Iceland Denmark Sweden Finland that grant China China access to their vital natural resources this strategy is coupled with an increase in China's arctic capabilities to create something like a polar silk road do you see these relationships as leading to an eventual movement of Chinese military assets into the region and then further New York Air National Guard conducts several unique missions in support of our scientific missions with the national scientific foundation in the arctic can you speak to the importance of our scientific missions in the arctic and how it supports our overall strategic goals when it comes to that region thanks first senator absolutely the Chinese are active in the arctic each of the last five years they've sent a vessel under the guise of a resource vessel into the arctic for military purposes we assess as well and so they're there they're influencing nations they want to change and influence influence international norms and behavior as well I would also point out senator that the arctic is a strategic location and being able to operate persistently in the arctic is something that we need to do so the research that you're talking about is crucial in the investments finally I understand my time's up but they're not only active in the arctic they're active in the Bahamas they're active in Mexico as well and I would point that out thank you thank you senator thank you uh senator workable general van herk let's keep talking about the art then um during your posture hearing last year I asked you about the coast guard's authorization to build six new icebreakers and uh I appreciated your response and support of these ships but as we all know they cannot operate in the high north without fuel and supply and supplies currently the farthest north deepwater port we have is dutch harbor um on the other hand gnome alaska nearly 800 miles north of dutch harbor has been granted money to dredge and develop a port in order to provide services to deep draft ships how would additional icebreakers and the development of the port of gnome enable north com to accomplish your mission in the arctic thanks senator first the six icebreakers that are on a plan for the coast guard are crucial to enabling persistence to operate within the arctic persistence is also enabled by having a fuel capability further north than currently in dutch harbor in gnome as you alluded to that allows either the coast guard through their cutters or their icebreakers or navy vessels to remain more persistent that's strategically important to that location I would like to clarify one thing the infrastructure and jobs act that was just passed provided about 250 million dollars for the port of gnome the dredging portion of that is not currently funded and it would require that dredging from a 30 foot depth to 40 foot for these vessels that we're talking about to get in there we're going to work closely to make sure we can get that additional funding for that persistence I need so the additional funding is is not adequate unless we get the dredging done it is certainly adequate for commercial operations benefit from the local communities indigenous people in alaska absolutely for military use we have to get the additional dredging that's correct okay let me uh let me switch to general richardson the navy small craft destruction and technical training school nav ski yachts provides training to partner nations from every combatant command today the school has trained over 13 000 students from more than 120 partner nations what's the importance of keeping nav ski yachts what are the potential risk in terms of international support and partnerships should its capacity be reduced well thank you for the question senator because nav ski yachts is a force multiplier and and it's for all of our nations as you said 123 partner nations utilize the school over 13 000 trained the school has been open for 52 years and quite honestly what it does low level it's pennies to operate you talk about a low cost high return on investment this is it and and quite honestly if you think about it the us navy has big ships other nations there are very few other nations that have really big vessels um and most of the other navies and coast guards from the other partner nation militaries as well as the coast guards have smaller vessels you talk about the amazon they don't have highways they have rivers and they need the training they need that they're smaller vessels to get this training and it's absolutely critical to our security cooperation and helping build our defense forces and our militaries enable good maritime operations i do appreciate that let me follow up on on an engagement that that senator inhofe and senator jillabrand had with you i think the discussion with with senator inhofe was like minded democracies in in south com working with us senator jillabrand asked about engaging with elected governments um let me just mention that the organization of american states is based here in washington dc is the only multilateral organization that includes every country in the western hemisphere except for for cuba and um and i and i would point out to my colleagues that in 2020 president trump signed into law the organization of american states legislative engagement senator cardin and i were leaders in this effort just as we have tried to enhance our participation with european parliamentarians both in and out of majorities in government in europe through the osce do you agree that moving to a parliament parliamentary assembly as the um trump uh law um anticipates would be um would be a positive and could promote cooperation in a variety of government and security issues senator i think that increased engagement is in this aor can be nothing but good uh i can't i can only cover so much our department of state can only cover so much and with the uh a program a strategy of focus on this area as i said in my opening statement uh can only be more goodness because uh out of 31 countries and uh 16 dependencies in the caribbean it's a lot of ground to cover and i would certain certainly welcome the focus and the attention thank you thank you mr chairman uh thank you senator worker and now since a quorum is present i asked the committee to consider a list of 2766 pending military nominations all of these nominations have been before the committee they're a quiet length of time is there a motion to fabler report this list of 2766 pending military nominations to the senate uh is there a second thank you all in favor say aye thank you very much the motion carries and let me recognize senator cain and thanks senator tillers for staying with us thank you mr chair and thanks to our witnesses for your service general richardson i want to echo a point that senator inhofe made i i continue to believe that south com is really under resourced you've talked about the value of the security cooperation program describe the kinds of activities that that you engage with our regional partners and through the security cooperation program so we have a myriad of things that we do in terms of the training and the equipping we do things from small teams uh eight to 13 man teams we do it in all the domains special ops included cyber information ops we do big exercises as i mentioned before panamax which is really a defense of the panamaq canal exercise 29 countries from this aor participate in that with us we have trade wins that's been a name that's been around for decades and that's a security operation in a contested environment that we talk that we train to that will bring 21 countries together my components my navy component will do unitas this year brazil will host that that will bring 19 countries together and when you see the picture of unitas of all the different vessels the ships the um and vessels that from the other countries and the navies and the coast guards it's just really impressive and general richerson just to give the committee kind of a magnitude you you have you know nearly 30 countries in your aor i believe general admiral faller last year testified that the total security cooperation budget for south com to do the activities you describe with that many nations is 120 million dollars so that's the that's sort of what we're talking about right that's correct senator and uh it's a it's i know that seems like a lot of money but when i don't have assigned forces and gif mat take capabilities and that's my main lever for engaging with the partner nations uh that's really a low cost high return on investment let me ask about another program the i met program international military education training program that's another security cooperation tends to be in the aor but i met we bring um leaders from south com militaries nations to the united states for training that i was also very small budget but describe to the committee the value of the i met program in south com that's huge that's the professional military education that's where they get a come for example to our war college uh which is at the lieutenant colonel level right now i have 17 chiefs of defense and six ministers of defense that have been to school in the united states they know that they uh they get the best education and training when they come here they want to come here and what we try to work with at 13 million dollars annually is to have sys uh sustained consistent personnel from their militaries attending our professional military education well these are both relatively small investments in south com a region without assigned forces as general richardson says and i'm just going to suggest to my committee colleagues watch this space i think there's going to be a budget submitted to us very soon and look at the dollars in these two accounts to south com i i have a grave concern that challenges elsewhere in the world are going to take these de minimis investments and shrink them even more uh and if that's the case i'm going to be advocating strongly that we don't do less but we do more in the region my understanding general richardson is also with respect to cyber assets i know nations like columbia are dealing with a lot of cyber attacks and misinformation from actors in venezuela and elsewhere they get particularly active around elections there's many elections that are happening in the region this year um u.s cyber command has so much on them i understand in south com your cyber assets are pretty limited you're making good use of a state partnership program with the south carolina guard good on them and good on you for using them in an effective way but i understand that cyber command does not have many assets that it can currently allow to be used in south com am i right about them that's correct senator um they they have more higher priorities uh looking towards uh europe and then also in the end of paycom region uh and so it uh and i just like to highlight and thank all the senators for the support of this national guard state partnership program which is a huge force multiplier for south com we are not paying attention to this region um you know we're not paying attention to them on and diplomatic circles we're not we're not paying sufficient attention to them in terms of vaccine distribution and we're not paying attention to them in the military area but other nations especially china are paying a lot of attention and i think we should do better i want to thank you for your testimony well thank you senator kane and let me now recognize senator fischer please thank you mr chairman general richardson general van herk thank you so much for being here today general van herk in your prepared testimonies discussion of hypersonic threats you state quote the impact is the loss of critical decision space for national level decision makers regarding continuity of government and the preservation of retaliatory retaliatory capabilities resulting in an increase in the potential for strategic deterrence failure end quote you make a similar assessment of cruise missile threats saying quote additionally these advanced cruise missiles and their supporting platforms will limit national leadership decision space and my ability to provide threat warning and attack assessment which directly influences my ability to support continuity of government operations and provide support to strat com missions again the potential consequence is an increased risk of strategic deterrence failure can you elaborate please on what you mean about the threat to continuity of government and the risk of deterrence failure senator sure so one of my biggest challenges is domain awareness and hypersonics and cruise missiles significantly challenge my ability to conduct my norad mission of providing threat warning and attack assessment what you can't see and what you you can't deter and you can't defend from and they will significantly challenge me why i primarily do that is exactly for to support continuity of government and the survivable of our nuclear posture our nuclear forces as well and when you can't do that then you have to make some assumptions that those threats might be nuclear threats that that will be inbound and that increases the risk of miscalculation and also the risk of strategic deterrence failure so that's my number one priority is to gain that domain awareness so i can provide that threat warning and attack assessment i'm currently not tasked to defend against hypersonics i look forward to seeing the missile defense review i am tasked to defend against cruise missiles and that's a very tough mission for me right now without domain awareness thank you you mentioned norad could you update us on our partnership with the canadians there please the canadians are an outstanding ally militarily i have hundreds of them working for us at the headquarters at norad my combined headquarters i've met multiple times the chief of the defense staff my boss on the norad side's coming to visit me next week as well minister anand i've met with her in person as well in canada great allies canada is in the decision-making process to support norad modernization i look forward to seeing where they go with norad modernization i think the world requires us to think hard about modernizing the forces to operate across the entire aor for norad which includes the arctic and the infrastructure and the communication capabilities as well and so i look forward to seeing what they come up with thank you we we saw this morning that north korea did another long-range missile test to demonstrate that their ballistic missile capabilities continue to grow and that the threat to the homeland i believe is continuing to increase with this in mind is it your view that next generation interceptor the ngi needs to be fielded as soon as possible absolutely senator as soon as we can get that here i'm i'm confident the contract mechanism rewards fielding it faster and i'm glad it's on track right now to be clear on this when you say it's on track right now so to be clear on this do you think delaying the schedule or changing the requirements would put us at a serious risk of being unable to pace ballistic missile threats to our homeland senator i'm very concerned about my ability to pace the capacity of production that we assess and the capability that we assess the north koreans continue to adapt to that's why the funding for the service life extension program for the current ballistic missile defense capability is so crucial thank you for that funding and that's why next generation interceptor is crucial as well because it will help both get after the additional capacity problems and the capability problems thank you uh general richerson in the time we have remaining uh can you talk about the role that you see that china and russia are playing in your aor and specifically how do we improve um the relations we have the quality of our engagement engagements to better compete i know i know um we're friends and their their clients viewed as clients um but can you be more specific on what needs to be done the way i'm on the field i don't need to out uh outspend china to out compete them but i do need my security cooperation funding that triple three funding to do security cooperation to help build uh the capacity and capability within those militaries and defense forces which helps them secure their borders which helps them with internal security in their country and then also be exporters of training to other latin american countries and then in peacekeeping operations around the world too thank you thank you mr chairman thank you senator fischer senator king please thank you mr chairman um with regard to north com u com and pay com my concern is that in a moment of crisis is a question of who's in charge uh are you satisfied with the coordination level between the three combatant commands and the canadians in case of a of a some kind of uh a crisis in the in the arctic senator i'm comfortable with the way the unified campaign plan is currently laid out we have outstanding relationships with canada outstanding relationships with uh u com and into pay com i do think we need to look at based on threat changes um how we would command and control those capabilities so for example the threats to the homeland today do not reside in my area of responsibility they are actually existing in other areas of responsibility such as the end of pay com area of responsibility and the u com area of responsibility so i do think there's potential gaps and seams that we need to uh make sure that we close those in a time of crisis and conflict to ensure we don't have uh challenges that we're unaccounted for that's that's exactly my question and i hope that there will be work actively done to close those gaps and seams because we don't want to be working on that in the middle of a crisis we want to the structure to be on the shelf ready to ready to operationalize uh can the current missile defense system that we have uh defend us against hypersonics senator i'm not tasked to defend against them but know uh it can't because we don't have the domain awareness at this time we don't have the domain awareness we also don't have the technology to deal so i i think that's important to understand that we do have missile defense it's important for ballistic missiles but it it will not uh suffice when it comes to uh when it comes to hypersonics um general richardson could you estimate what percentage of worldwide is our resources we have to utilize in the in the south com aor so senator i get about one percent or a little bit less than one percent of the global isr i was gonna that's what i was afraid you were going to say and i i frankly i'm just i i just can't believe that because we're talking about america is under attack the principal attack on america right now is is drugs 300 people a day that's almost that's that's one nine eleven every two weeks two people in my state every day dying are dying of overdoses uh and yet we're treating it as if it's some kind of domestic problem or a law enforcement problem this is an attack and the fact that you have one percent of the isr to keep track of this of this threat to me is is a gross misallocation of resources i realize it's not your responsibility but i i guess my next question is why in your opinion are we are we so short of isr if this is if we need it in a particular area why don't we build more global hawks i i just don't understand why this is not something that we can't budget for and deal with so senator i i and all my uh fellow combat commanders will will always say that we don't have enough to see and be able to see the threats in our aor well the budget ought to reflect that fact so that we could fill that gap i mean that's a pretty straightforward sort of mathematical question well and uh i certainly appreciate congress uh always gives me a little extra funding for isr and so we have some contracted uh operated contractor owned um assets and uh for airplanes that actually helped me with isr in the region uh be able to uh look for threats and look for uh counter narcotics illicit trafficking let me ask let me ask you the same question that asked general van herk and that is uh one of my principles of management is that you always want to have one throat to choke who's in charge of the anti drug activities in in uh you're in latin america who's in charge so senator i am in charge for detection and monitoring and that is uh to get actionable information about illicit drug trafficking either by air or maritime who's in charge of interdiction and for interdiction that would be dhs and our law enforcement agencies but there's no one individual who can be held responsible for the for the overall uh dealing with this issue is that correct i would say that uh that would be our department of homeland security senator well i think that's something we have to we have to strengthen and clarify i'm not going to pursue this but for the record i would hope you would give us more detail on what you mentioned just earlier about the panama canal and chinese activity i understand at either end of the panama canal as well as the straits of mcjellan i think that's a very very serious matter and would like to have more detail thank you thank you mr. chairman thank you senator kank senator cotton please general itch and i'll give you a chance to talk in a little bit more detail about the panama canal because i was troubled by the brief comments you had to senator inhofe of all the things you described that china china is doing in your area of responsibility i think the strategic investments it's made along the panama canal is most striking i know that this is primarily a state department and treasury matter but can you tell us a little bit more about what's going on around the canal and how south com plays into the interagency efforts to counter the threat and what else you'd like to see from the u.s. government to do so thank you for the question senator we work very closely with with panama and our core of engineers just was able to negotiate a water tender contract with with panama which i think is huge because it's been 15 years in the making and so we have a lot of ground to make up with with panama but in terms of the investment china and the strategic investments that they make you know i just like the panama canal when you enter and exit and on either side you have chinese state-owned enterprises and what i worry about chinese state-owned enterprises that have capability and infrastructure there is that they're used they they can be used for dual use which means civilian but also military and quite honestly if you just look at where the port projects are 29 port projects in the aor in 17 countries i mean these are very methodically thought out in my opinion and again i worry about the access that they get in there under the guise of infrastructure and and looking like they're helping economies when they're really not as well as the resources that are in this aor it's just off the charts i've got 66 60 percent of the world's lithium in the lithium triangle in south in south america that's in argentina bolivia and chile you've got 31 percent of the world's fresh water you have the amazon you have the the oil reserves in venezuela the light sweet crude that was discovered off the shores of guiana there are a lot of resources in this region and again i go back to the it's not an investment by our competitors it's it's there to extract in some way shape or form what do you think china is up to there um and all those investments around the canal is it more about advancing their own interests or holding at risk and threatening hours i think it's both i mean we depend on the canal more because of our geography then does china right i would say that the i would say yes but the panama canal as well as the strait of mcjellan in my aor those two very strategic global lines of communication must remain open i agree i mean it should we ever have a conflict with china the decisive effort would be somewhere in the western pacific not in the cribian basin or the eastern pacific and it's the very essence of strategy to try to force your adversary to defend what he has no choice but to defend far removed from the theater of decision that's one reason i'm so worried about these investments around the canal you know the panama canal treaty was actually two treaties one of them was the neutrality treaty we retain under that neutrality treaty the uncontested right to ensure the neutral operation of the canal correct that's correct senator good one other area i wanted to discuss uh was agriculture i know this is somewhat removed from the department of defense is lain but as we've heard you have no assigned forces and a lot of what you do is with interagency partners and looking at uh non military non traditional ways to cooperate sometimes people overlook the importance of agriculture i don't think china overlooks it if you consider their investments in south america especially targeting crops like soybeans i think this economic investment seems to be aimed at creating alternative markets for them to buy as well as to crowd out our exports fortunately for us brazil soybean crop didn't compare so well to ours especially in arkansas can you give me your thoughts on how you can work with agencies like a id and the trade representative to dissuade countries in your area of responsibility from continuing down the path of further economic entanglement uh with china and the agriculture domain so senator we work very closely as i mentioned before regarding the uh the folks that we have that work in the western hemisphere and so we have a very close working relationship with uh with us a id and i've met with director powers previously and then she travels the region as well but uh none of us have the resources and so i think that that helps us work together more collaboratively across all of the interagency and work so close together to uh to figure out how we can invest in this region but i'd also like to highlight that china gets 36 percent of its food source from uh from this aor as well and so uh the aor just has a lot of resources that are being eyed by by our competitors yeah they are and i think this is going to be a matter of growing importance this year given the war in ukraine and how much uh grain ukraine and russia provide to the rest of the world as well as how many inputs they provide into fertilizer uh or other agricultural inputs not only in increasing prices on our grocery shelves here in america but also threats to stability uh in your region and in africa in the middle east in places that have pretty fragile governments and very limited food supplies thank you thanks senator blumenthal please thanks mr chairman uh thank you both for your service thanks for being here today uh this morning president biden announced that the united states will welcome 100 000 ukrainian refugees who are fleeing an absolutely intolerable situation in ukraine i recently visited the border of ukraine and poland with a number of colleagues bipartisan trip and saw the women and children they are almost all women and children fleeing the horror and terror that putin has caused to their country and they'll come here through a variety of legal pathways and likely follow the same general program as the afghan refugees did i continue to call on the administration to enable more of our at-risk afghan allies to escape the taliban they have targets on their backs they helped americans our troops our diplomats while we were there and they are under dire threat from the taliban but i also applaud the president for his effort to welcome ukrainians into the united states and there's much more to be done the 3.5 million refugees who have already fled ukraine and the 10 million more internally displaced have added to an already burgeoning refugee and humanitarian crisis around the globe literally last year 26 million refugees 26 million refugees were displaced from areas as diverse as syria venezuela afghanistan south sudan maymar and other countries and these refugees represent a threat as well as an opportunity literally an opportunity because they have a great deal of talent and skills and potential for contributing to the countries that they may be moving to but also a threat in so far as the failure to aid them will lead to potential terrorism and other adverse activity i've seen the tremendous support that north com provided to operation allies welcome over the last year and finding capacity on us bases and efficiently housing and processing afghan refugees fleeing the taliban and i hope that north com will play a role as well in welcoming and resettling the ukrainian refugees general van herk have you been given instructions on the role for north com um with respect to ukrainian refugees senator i'm aware of the president's announcement i do not have any direct mission task to plan for that yet uh as we did with operation allies welcome we stand ready if directed by the secretary of defense to do that it was an honor to support nearly 74 000 afghans as we process them through eight installations from dod and so uh once if if directed we'll move out senator are there lessons that we should learn from the oaw experience with the afghan refugee there are absolutely lessons that we've incorporated that we learned during allies welcome that i'm sure would make us better prepared if we had to stand up to do this mission again what kinds of lesson uh interagency coordination lessons to make more efficient use of data and information the the ability to track uh categorize uh whether it be medical whether it be security screening all of these things will work closely and we're in a much better place today than we were when we started last july well i was uh tremendously impressed when i visited uh quantico which is only one of those eight with the uh enthusiasm and dedication of the marines who were involved at quantico in welcoming and aiding the refugees there many most of them had never served in either afghanistan or iraq for them this was their deployment so to speak and they love doing it and they provided a real american welcome to these new americans and i think that we can all be proud of the work that was done by our military at those bases in providing that first american experience to the afghan refugees and i hope the same is done with respect to ukrainian refugee thank you thank you senator blumatov senator rounds please thank you mr chairman let me begin by thanking both of you for your service to our country i'd like to begin with general van herk uh with regards to your mission and your role in keeping our country safe could you share with us what uh the activities that are southern border and the challenges that we face that are southern border right now with regard to uh transnational uh criminal organizations uh violent extremist organizations and so forth and the the the porousness of that that border right now can you share with us what the impact is that that might have on your responsibilities and role senator currently i'm in direct support of the department of homeland security providing about 2450 national guards troops on title 10 status what what they're doing is detection and monitoring intel analysis and aviation support um we're really treating the symptoms you know counter narcotics migration human trafficking those kinds of things are symptoms in my mind of a broader problem and that's transnational criminal organizations who create an environment that's not conducive to raising a family for economic success and we see that happening right on our border in mexico my concern with that senator is the instability it creates the opportunity it creates for actors such as china russia and others who might have nefarious activities on their mind to seek access and influence in our aor from a national security perspective do you see evidence of that at this time there are actors who are very aggressive and active all across the north com aor to include in the bahamas in mexico china and russia i would point out that the largest portion of the gru members in the world is in mexico right now those are russian intelligence personnel and they keep an eye very closely on their opportunities to have influence on us opportunities and access general richardson this is your aor would you concur with the general's assessment yes senator does that impact your ability to do your role or how does that impact your ability to fill out to complete your assignments there so we work very closely with our partner nations and as and as i've said how important the lever is for security cooperation for us to be on the field to have our jersey on have our number and work shoulder to shoulder with our partners they really want to work with us and and everything that all the levers that i have that you all provide and that i get from the department of defense the department of state go into action a little goes a long way in this aor again i don't need to outcompete my competitors but the or outspend them to outcompete them but we do have to be present and we do have to be there with them today we fight war or at least we have to be able to defend against war that comes from multiple domains air land and sea space and cyberspace i understand that that right now with regard to cyber capabilities there's a limit to the number that we have general richardson can you share with us the challenges you face in terms of being able to meet your responsibilities with the limited cyber capabilities or cyber cyber defense capabilities that we have so the we do our best in terms of the small teams the subject matter exchanges subject subject matter expert exchanges that we do with our partner nations will go with like a cyber assessment team to help with a an assessment of their network maybe a 13 man team that works with the partner nation we work over the shoulder we we cannot we can provide direction and subject matter expertise but we can't get on the keyboards with them and and and go to work with them let me ask this in a different way if if in order to do your mission are you able to receive the number and types of cyber mission teams that you request we're able to do that through our national guard state partnership program cybercom does not have the the full capacity and capability to support all the combat and commands and i'm not a priority aor and as we see the ucom and endo paycom are the right now the two priorities and so demand exceeds supply then that's correct thank you uh general van herk with regards to all domain awareness can you very briefly describe to us just how critical cyber is and the challenges that you face in getting the resources that you need senator cyber domain awareness is absolutely critical the vast majority of the key critical infrastructure in the united states of america and canada for that matter exists in the private sector uh today i'm very comfortable where we are with general nakasone and his teams on the the doden of the department of defense infrastructure sissa with other federal networks but domain awareness outside of that is relatively and unknown you you know the the the many of those municipalities companies their reporting is all we get and so they they actually are voluntarily playing and so from a domain is a domain awareness perspective we don't know exactly what we don't know thank you my time has expired thank you mr chairman thank you senator rountz senator sullivan please thank you mr chairman um i want to thank both the witnesses i think you uh both are doing an exceptional job and an important aor that don't always get the attention that they deserve uh general van herk i appreciate our meeting the other day i want to talk a little bit uh more and follow up on the discussion about the provision that senator king and i um co-sponsored in the ndaa on the artic security initiative you're already hearing here in this hearing a number of senators bipartisan group of senators are very focused on that um as you know it authorizes the sect f to establish an artic security initiative which is modeled on the pacific deterrence initiative and the european deterrence initiative essentially initiatives from this committee where we have thought the pentagon wasn't focusing enough on critical regions and i think both of them pdi and edi have been quite prophetic saying hey pentagon focus europe asia taiwan now the artic can you please provide a status on the update regarding the assessment any conclusions you've drawn as you know the artic security initiative that was passed in the law directs you the north com commander not osd to complete an independent security assessment of the artic senator we're in progress with the uh the assessment what i commit to you is you will get an honest candid assessment from me i will coordinate that across the department i expect to have my portion of it complete within the next uh few weeks then the coordination will begin the suspense is here in the very near future i'm likely going to ask for an extension i believe it's crucial to not do this fast but to do it right and i hope to have it done by early summer at the latest i would point point out real quick if you don't mind that i look forward to seeing what the budget comes out with next week with regards to arctic for inclusion into my assessment are there any things that you can highlight already right now with this committee in terms of your assessment senator without seeing the 23 budget i really can't give you a full assessment of of what we're going to see for infrastructure support i believe we will see additional domain awareness capabilities significantly funded with the 23 budget but i look forward to seeing that i would assess that there may still be some work to do with regards to the strategies that each of the services have funded or not funded but put out and the department strategy but when the budget comes out i'll give you the final assessment let me ask specifically on that when secretary austin was here for his confirmation hearing i asked if he would commit to work with this committee to ensure the arctic strategies from the different services are fully resourced and he said quote you have my commitment to do that that's what he told the committee do you believe funding for the arctic security initiative in a similar manner that has been done for pdi and edi is critical to our integrated deterrence efforts in the arctic and are and are you seeing that funding now i'm not talking about the upcoming budget i'm talking about what you've seen in the last year to answer your last question we have not seen the funding that i would like to see with regards to the arctic so the strategies are coming together i think they're all coming together well they're serious that's a big change from a couple years ago but you're not seeing the funding as of yet in the past that's correct senator i look forward to seeing the 23 budget the arctic is strategic in nature we must be persistent there to compete that's a part of the integrated deterrence that you mentioned as well so just for the pentagon folks watching it's not just forces but as senator wicker talked about its infrastructure i know that it gives some people a neuralgia and the pentagon when we talk about strategic arctic ports but that's what we need isn't it general the capability to have presence in a strategic region where one of the most brutal dictators in the world vladimir putin has said he's going to own the arctic he's going to create the new su s canal in the northern sea route and he's going to dominate it don't we need a presence ourselves to push back on this dictator in that region of the world we do we do need a presence in fuel north of dutch harbor would do that as would infrastructure and communications capabilities i look forward to working with the canadiens on their part of this they need to be part of it as well not only the department of defense especially on the infrastructure piece well just a final point mr chairman i think this committee has been very strong on this over the last several years in a bipartisan way and i think the pentagon needs to wake up they need to wake up and recognize this is a strategic interest for our nation and the signal that's coming from the congress couldn't be more clear just like with the european deterrence initiative the pacific deterrence initiative the arctic security initiative falls in that line and i look forward to working with you and this committee on your assessment and seeing it soon thank you thank you senator sullivan senator petis please thank you mr chairman and i couldn't agree more with senator sullivan on the strategic importance of the arctic and investments in the arctic and i think it is a consensus with members of this committee in a bipartisan way that we need to be focused on that i had some questions related to that senator sullivan did a great job of addressing some of the questions that i had but maybe just pick up one thing with you general herrick is that national guard bureau uh to what extent are you working with them to ensure that they're ready to conduct some cold weather operations in that region we work with all the services including the national guard bureau to do that actually i'm highly reliant on the national guard bureau to execute my day-to-day campaign plan uh in in a voluntary status actually so i couldn't be more proud and appreciate the support because i don't get access to the forces through the global force management process and i don't have the assigned forces to do that campaign plan i'd point out that we need ready trained and equipped forces to operate throughout my entire air of responsibility and that includes the arctic that's part of the services strategy and something that we have to work on i just concluded an arctic edge exercise which included some of the national guard and many of the services a joint exercise and some allies and partners uh in a classified environment i'll share some observations with you from that but the arctic is a challenging environment to operate in and we have worked that remains right appreciate that general uh you uh general and herrick u.s intelligence indicates that russia may be positioning itself to use chemical weapons in ukraine under the guise of a false flag and certainly while our hearts go out to the the brave ukranians who are defending their country from this illegal invasion and fighting for freedom i think we also must use this crisis as an opportunity to consider our our own preparedness for such an attack so my question for you is do you believe the united states is properly prepared to contain and respond to chemical attacks in the homeland and are there any resource shortfalls impacting c-burn response enterprise so i believe we're prepared to execute a response to a small event such as we have planned for based on a violent extremist type organization event for a large-scale event in the homeland i think there's much work that still needs to be done that could be additional resources applied to senator great thank you general richardson uh in your reply to a senator kane uh question the senator kane offered you you describe the importance of small team engagement with our allies and partners nearly every nation in south com aor participates in the national regard state partnership program as you're well aware my question for you is is how do you plan to employ your national regard state partnership program units to to deepen the defense relationships so that we have in the region so this is a huge force multiplier senator uh the state partnership program and in some cases uh two three decades of relationships uh that have evolved and we see the the impact of that with ukraine and california and that relationship that they have and so uh there was a creation a few years ago the bilateral affairs officer which is a national guard officer that's actually embedded uh in the embassies with the do d team there and uh and then helps integrate that state partnership program in my campaign plan and strategy for the region and uh and as was brought out and uh other questions you know i don't have all the resources i need but that is reach back into the national guard and the capabilities especially with the cyber battalions uh to help me with uh with uh operations in the cyberspace domain yeah an area that we need to have increased focus on without without question another question for you general is are you seeing the chinese or the russian militaries copy these types of efforts uh in collaborating with regional militaries for training opportunities is this something they're picking up as well i do senator i see them using part of our playbook against us actually and what i've said before is that they don't have partners they have clients and so when we do our big exercises and bring you know 20 some countries together from the region they don't do that but they do have a lot of of funding to bring large groups of personnel from the militaries or the defense forces to all expense paid professional military education in beijing for either a year or two years and if they do that if i take the country of giana for example and they do 15 or 20 a year they can get through their defense force in about you know uh five years and so we've got a as i've said before i don't need to outspend uh china but i do to out compete them but i do need to be on the field of my security cooperation and i met funding uh a little bit goes a long way great thank you thank you mr chairman thank you senator peters senator scott please thank you chairman general richardson uh can you first off thank both of you for being here thanks for the people your your service and the people the men and women that work with you general richardson can you describe what you've seen from our enemies over the past six months they've you've had this command and what do you believe their primary goals are in our hemisphere so on frankly the uh i'm uh i'm surprised at how much that our competitors have been able to uh expand within the region and how they've done that with the proximity to the homeland uh and what i what i find myself doing is a lot of educating and informing about my aor as i travel around and speak to different groups and and go to different places to offer the message and just educate folks because we tend to leak east and west not necessarily south and uh and i can fly to 80 percent of this aor it's huge it looks huge and it looks really far away i can fly to 80 percent of it in two to three hours from miami and a lot of people don't you know we just kind of forgotten about that uh i would say with the investment of infrastructure over the last five years by our long-term strategic competitor china from 17 to 21 an investment of over 50 billion i have core of engineers and we average about 50 million per year so from 17 to 21 about 250 million investment in the region now that's not it i mean usa id is there and there are other um uh businesses and corporations that are in the region uh but there's a there's a huge investment by by our long-term strategic competitor in the region some of these countries as well as i look to levers levers that allow me to out compete my adversary uh foreign military sales i met foreign military financing security cooperation being able to have responsive levers we can't take a year to two years when our you know our partner nations are asking for capability a couple helos uh fighter jet weapons vehicles and we take two years our processes got to be able to evolve with the uh with the times and and we got to be faster do you see in in um in our hemisphere that russia and china have become clearly no question about their adversaries um they are definitely competitors and i do look at them as adversaries so when you see american companies that go do business in china uh with chinese the chinese government with the chinese military does that make your job harder or less hard uh i look at it from a perspective of the the dual use you have they come under the guise of infrastructure doing a good thing for that particular country that uh that they're they look like they're investing in they don't do a good a good job on the project in the first place that generally becomes evident in anywhere from five to seven years after a project is done they don't hire host nation workers they bring in their own labors um it's uh i would say from my perspective it it's i worry about the civilian and dual use with the military and the prc being able to bring in and use uh switch something over that's a state-owned enterprise to military use when they when the chinese bring in their own labor do they take it back when it's finished when the project's finished or do they leave their labor there i think it depends um i think they actually do both do you see signs of our enemies actively supplying weapons uh to any state or group state or group in latin america yes right and is that increasing decreasing what's happening i think over uh recently probably over the past couple of years that's increased again it takes uh uh whether they can do it faster or cheaper than us uh is that's why i say our levers and our ability to be able to deliver has to has to speed up and our processes have to get faster with the times what type of weapons are they sending into our hemisphere fighter aircraft uh helicopters um air defense systems uh small arms vehicles so south commas had an office that supports trade and investment and works to connect small businesses in the region how is that doing uh the in terms of the small business we have the small business director uh actually uh attend the chile inauguration for the president and in terms of small business i'll tell you what i've done senator is the we were able to bring bends which is business executives for national security uh who coordinated a trip into panaman october with 10 ceo's uh and i just took the out brief a couple of weeks ago was uh organized under my predecessor and then just seeing the value of getting that perspective on the ground because when you talk about the investment levels uh that the prc has when they go into these countries with over 50 billion in five years across the aor i'm looking at opm other people's money how can we get investment in the region uh to help with the economic problems that these countries are having all right thank both of you for your service thank you senator scott senator orange please thank you mr chair and and thank you general van herk and uh general richardson for being here today we really do appreciate your service to our country and uh you both are acutely aware of our adversaries and and how they are actively spreading their economic and military influence beyond their borders to our own door step this is right here as uh your predecessor admiral faller used to say in our own neighborhood and that's such a great way to phrase that because they are there right here uh china in particular is on the offensive here in the western hemisphere and there are days that i i truly worry that our posture uh remains very reactive at best and on certain days weak at worst and that's that's not due to you it's because uh we have many whether it stems all the way from pennsylvania avenue all the way here we just don't give enough attention to our own neighborhood many of my colleagues have already stated that um so i think it's imperative that we must give you all the tools that you need to have at your fingertips the authorities making sure that they are flexible but we also need realists in the dod policy shop and at the state department that will actually acknowledge the significance of a great power threat that is emanating through our area um so general richardson i know that senator cotton focused very heavily on the Panama Canal um i had a line of questioning as well in that area i'm going to skip over quite a bit of that but um just for everyone's information i think last year there were about 14 000 transits through the Panama Canal and the united states is the number one user of the Panama Canal and 60 percent of what goes through the Panama Canal it either originates in the united states or is headed to the united states and of course i come from a very ag heavy state a lot of those commodities or products do transit through the Panama Canal so it is extremely important for us so if we could just hammer down just a little bit more just very briefly general ritz richardson if you could talk about what you see going on around the Panama Canal with the chinese influence that exists there so thank you senator and certainly i'd like to highlight that our country does 740 billion in trade with latin america and the caribbean it's huge and so the importance of keeping that the Panama Canal open and free and for global economics and the economies not just the war plans which i i worry about as well is extremely important but the strategic way of the investments and the proximity and the continued investment with other projects that they make in and around the Panama Canal is very concerning and so six billion additional in in addition to the on either side of the canal having stayed on enterprise companies along the canal yeah it is very concerning about a week or so prior to the bends group and jovo tells bends group going into Panama i had traveled there with a group of other congressmen to just really see the chinese influence that is on the ground there and it is extremely concerning as well i'm so thankful that the bends group is engaging in central america and Panama and other regions we do need that economic support in that region so that we can also be a good partner and if there are ways that the united states maybe won't invest if we can find other allies and partners that do have the type of supports that might be necessary in that area i think that we should facilitate where we can i'd like to focus a little bit on the mining activities that occur in south america as well this is an area where we have seen a number of businesses from the united states attempt to get into places like Chile where they have lithium resources but who beat us to the punch the chinese so if you can talk a little bit about mining activities and and how valuable that would be to the united states if we were able to engage in those types of activities so the the region is just rich with with rare earth minerals and as you you talked about i mean i just took my granddaughter to the the history museum on the mall a couple of weeks ago and got to see just all the minerals and the precious metals and things like that resources from the region you know the rubies the emeralds all of those kinds of things but when you talk about illegal mining it's illegal mining it's illegal logging it's illegal fishing that happens um if i i know you asked about mining but if i could mention the fishing at any given day i have over 600 prc fishing vessels in my aor that are off the coasts of ecuador pru uh chile and they follow the fishing migration patterns and so you know where they're going to be by the migration of the fish and this is about three billion in lost economics you know productivity that those nations desperately need that the chinese are are taking away and so it's it's it's all three of those things that are extremely prevalent in this aor yeah i appreciate that very much i'm glad you brought up all of those other resources um it's just incredibly important that we pay attention to our own neighborhood and not only through our military but also through our state department but also economically as well so i really appreciate your presence here today thank you general van herk and thank you so much general richardson and i yield thank you thank you senator and senator holly please thank you mr chairman and thanks to you both for being here thank you to your for your service to our country general van herk let me start with you and let me say it's great to see a fellow missourian here as always um i noticed something you said in your opening statement i want to quoted to make sure i get it correct you said i think that our reliance america's reliance on deterrence by cost and position is currently over weighted and significantly increases the risk of miscalculation by limiting our national leaders options following an attack that caught my attention because i have been arguing for a while now about the importance of adopting a strategy of of denial deterrence by denial versus deterrence by cops cost and position especially as it relates to china so i wonder if you could just expand on your comments a little bit and tell us why you think it's important to end an over reliance on deterrence by cost and position thanks senator first first i would say uh cost imposition the nuclear deterrent is the foundation of homeland defense and we must fully fund a triad that is the foundation we also must have a strong conventional force but that has to also be balanced with deterrence by denial and deterrence by denial is the capability to deny a potential adversary the ability to believe they can inflict damage on us that may bring us to our knees and it's the ability to demonstrate readiness resiliency across the whole of government responsiveness we do this every day with hurricanes wildfires we've demonstrated it with allies welcome all of those contribute to the overarching integrated deterrence that's where my campaign plan is focused i don't want to start with defense kinetically in the homeland i want to keep us out of the crisis and conflict by focusing on that deterrence by denial on a day-to-day basis let me ask you this when you say that one of the one of the dangers of over relying on deterrence by cost of position is that it increases the risk of miscalculation and limits options can you just explain that piece of it absolutely so without the deterrence by denial and the belief in a potential adversary's mind of that they can't be successful they may actually believe that because the homeland is vulnerable and they could bring us to our knees that that may be the emboldening factor that leads them to make a decision to attack whether that be in taiwan or another place because they believe that they can disrupt delay or destroy our will in the homeland we want to create the them to believe and understand that we have the capability that they could never do that to us by defending the key critical infrastructure and having the resiliency and readiness to respond very good thank you for that let me shift to the situation involving the drug supply at the southern border and particularly fentanyl which is in our state absolutely devastating and we're seeing mass quantities of it can you just give us an update on north com's efforts to help dhs stem the flow of of illegal drugs and particularly fentanyl there at the southern border senator currently north com's providing about 2450 guardsmen from various states in a title 10 status doing detection and monitoring intel analysis and also aviation support there the request for support for f y 23 is in the department as well and being adjudicated at the department level i don't have a tasking yet for 23 let me ask you about the mexican government have they been helping with this with the the flow of drugs the human trafficking has that has it gotten better or worse than the last year hey the mexicans are extremely good partners i have great relationships with general sandoval of sedena with admiral ojeda of samar both are coming to visit me next month they have tens of thousands of mexican troops conducting the mission to support what we need with the common objectives and and we're very grateful for their partnership what are you looking for them to do in the year ahead continue to partner would provide additional security samar has port security now for fentanyl that's crucial because those precursors often come into ports would like to work additional information sharing to enable them to be more successful in interdicting much of those precursor chemicals that come into mexico very good let me shift back to china here quickly in my my little bit of remaining time you mentioned taiwan a second ago it's no secret beijing would love to cease taiwan they'd love to execute a feta company with regard to taiwan and we also know that if they attempted to do that they would seek to prevent us from deploying forces from the west coast into the theater tell me about your concerns about china's ability to strike military targets targets in the homeland using cyber capabilities but china possesses extensive cyber capabilities those responsibilities to defend the homeland primarily reside with sissa director easterly and general nakasone on the dodin side my role is to provide defense support of civil authorities in the case of municipalities industry ask for support we have a good capability what we don't know senator is the unknown we don't know where the vulnerabilities are because of the way we're set up across multiple agencies across multiple industries that we rely on volunteering their information for uh cyber vulnerabilities got it thank you both for your service again general richison i'll give you a few questions for the record thanks for being here thank you mr chairman thank you senator holly senator rosen please thank you mr chairman and i would really like to thank generals richerson and van herk for testifying today and for your service to our country thank you i want to speak a little bit about iran's presence in the western hemisphere and general richerson during your confirmation hearing we discussed iran's presence in latin america through its proxy hezbollah its involvement in the tri-border region of pergway argentina and brazil and its exchange of arms for oil with of course venezuela over a year ago brazilian authorities extradited a leading hezbollah financer to pergway which dealt a blow of course to the terrorist group however we don't often receive the same support in combating iran or its proxy activities from other countries in the region just a little over two months ago iranian official mosin uh mosin rezi was wanted by inner poll for his role as leader of the iranian revolutionary guard corps in the 1994 amia jewish community center bombing in argentina he made an appearance at the inauguration of nikah raglan president daniel ortega in nikah ragwa to hold iran accountable and hezbollah accountable for their activities in latin america senator blackburn and i introduced hezbollah in latin america excuse me accountability act so general could you please update the committee on hezbollah's recent activity in latin america are we effectively disrupting their agenda and to your knowledge is hezbollah continuing to exchange arms for oil with venezuela so thank you for the question senator and i think the uh quite honestly thank you for the for the act and the um and the work that we do partnering with our partner nations is so important through the security cooperation uh train and equip triple three funding that's my main lever to work with these militaries and these defense forces to counter our competitors and counter our threats in the region and just as you listed off you know what uh what iran does and has done uh in our in our uh in my aor is very concerning and obviously um to impact that and when i uh secretary defense uses the integrated deterrence and and as i look at that and you partner with all of the capabilities that are in the region it's so important that the partner nations that are dealing with this internally be able to have the capacity and capability to do that too um i just request that i'm able to continue with that triple three funding so i am there because they want to partner with us they want to partner they look to us they look for help they look for assistance they look for coaching teaching mentoring uh they want to come to our schools and this is how we make them stronger to handle their own uh their issues internally as we work together to counter the threats thank you i want to continue on this line of questioning because we know there's also chinese surveillance technology um in south america and so i asked you at the confirmation hearing about uh chinese state companies deploying that smart city safe city technology in latin america and of course you said countries don't don't like that in the region so i'm concerned about the national security ramifications of this so i know i have a short time left but can you provide us an update on the countries who are trying to get rid of the technology implemented in their countries by china and uh what can we do to help stop this widespread um chinese surveillance so we do our best i mean not just the do d but uh but also department of state as we consistently work with them my senior defense officials and my senior cooperation uh officials that are downrange that are actually embedded in the embassies and working with our partner nations to advise them about the technology their surveillance technology a back door of getting into the defense networks and things like that certainly uh the possibility of 5g and if if nations get 5g then our inability to be able to continue to work with them because of that cyber threat thank you i want to kind of keep on the cyber threat and i move over to general van herk uh about missile defense cyber security uh as mda works to rapidly deploy missile defense systems to stay ahead of threats i'm concerned that we might not be taking potential cyber vulnerabilities seriously enough before fielding new systems so in the 2019 missile defense review a software's mentioned a software's mentioned only once this is a key way the hackers get in even more alarming gaos may 2021 reports highlights that none none of mda 17 operational cyber security tests planned for fiscal year 2020 were conducted and that cyber security testing since 2017 has revealed vulnerabilities i will take my answer off the record but uh i just like to know what steps norad is taking to address the cyber security vulnerabilities i see my time is up so uh i'll yield to my next question we'll take it for the record thank you thank you both generals thank you senator rosen senator tubberville please good morning save the best for last glad to see y'all uh general van herk uh we're here in title 42 is going to expire march the 30th are we prepared for it i would defer to the dhs that's their mission we are actively planning based at the request of dhs i don't have a task to do that at this time but i understand the department is working through that with dhs one of my favorite movies is i think we were soldiers mel Gibson uh played colonel howmore who was a friend of mine a few years ago and since passed away in that movie they're getting run over and the code was broken arrow in other words they're up there on top of us i saw a facebook page this morning from from uh board patrol holland broken arrow we got huge problems and i know we got huge problems all over the world but it doesn't seem like we're addressing this enough and we're going to have to sooner or later because it's really going to affect and it is affecting our country as we speak but with the drugs and all that but just wanted to bring that up hey given your 3200 hours of flight time you've flown about everything i guess is there anything you haven't flown there's plenty i haven't flown what general Richardson flies helicopters uh a former thunderbird squadron commander j v venable recently wrote that a fighter pilot needs at least 200 hours a year or four sorties a week and coaching we call it practice but the air force and navy flight hours have fallen to historic lows is that concerning from a readiness perspective from somebody who receives forces from the service it is concerning to ensure that every force that we receive is ready to execute the missions that i'm tasked to do best answered by the services specific to their actual training but it would be concerning if the trend continues to drop on the flight hours thank you mr chairman i'd like to submit mr venable's report on air force readiness and a wall street journal article that references his assessment for the record please without objection general Richardson last week i met with a columbia ambassador good guy uh they're huge allies what inroads have you made down there relationships have you made because we've got even from my state we've got a lot of input down to what goes on in columbia yeah with their business dealings minerals those things what what have you what have you seen from columbia our number one security partner and i look to them as like a key linchpin to the security and the stability of the region quite honestly uh if you just look over you it's really hard in this day or to take a snapshot and time of of a country but if you look for when when they uh in 1999 and where they were then to where they are now it's just really tremendous i have the chief of defense general navarro visiting on monday we had our staff talks south com columbia staff talks in january we have that was first country i visited in the aor when i came into command of south com so our relationship is excellent is strong it's uh we share information we're constantly communicating again as coaching teaching mentoring i i look at our partners i mean they're there on the ground they see the threats they're dealing with the threats every day we have to have those good relationships with them uh in order to increase our domain awareness to make up for what i don't have in domain awareness and is our and things like that but the partnership gets you the trust and the access and the presence with your partner nation it's obviously going to be a big key for us yeah in your aor but uh thanks to y'all i'll cut my time short uh i yield thank you very much senator tover real senator kelly please thank you mr chairman and uh general van herk and general richardson thank you for being here today yesterday i held a uh hearing in this committee's panel on emerging threats to focus on how our military can work with our partner nations to improve security conditions in our hemisphere that in turn impact the u.s border and our national security throughout south and central america criminal elements china and russia are seeking to destabilize the region for their own gain this is a national security challenge and we need to treat it as a national security challenge with that context in mind i would like to touch on north comms first north comms mission at the southwest border uh the national guard plays a critical role in this mission providing much needed relief to overstretched border patrol agents and local law enforcement i've been to the border um many times and i stay in close contact with local elected leaders and law enforcement i've also delivered additional federal resources and the and the assistant secretary of defense for homeland defense and hemispheric affairs committed to me earlier this year that national guard troops would be well resourced during these missions so general van herk uh in your view is the national guard's border mission properly resourced to significantly assist in addressing the crisis at the border then at first i share your assessment of the national security imperative a challenge for us with what's going on at the border the national guard forces that are working for us in a title 10 status are not only resourced by dod but they're provided resources by dhs and my assessment is for the most part they're resourced to where they need to be uh they could have additional resources for observation detection and monitoring of those kinds of things from dhs i i think long term this is not an enduring mission of the department of defense we need to fully fund and resource dhs to do their mission uh and uh the dod should be used in extremist times for the uh support on the border mission i'd like to just make sure that our mission is understood we're not there enforcing the laws that dhs can do we're supporting them to free up capacity so they can do that mission uh and we provide support detection and monitoring aviation support to help them and also the intel analysis well till dhs is fully resourced to do this let's make sure that uh the guard and reserve have the resources they need in their interim there um general are you in regular communication with uh cbp with customs and border protection and local law enforcement partners on this issue me personally uh yes not not uh daily or anything like that i've been to the border multiple times i was at the border last uh month as well and met with both the customs and border patrol agents and discussed we had eight in the room as well i visited in your uh your state as well in the gallus and been to the border uh so we do that i have multiple liaisons from 40 government agencies that work in my headquarters to include from dhs and the border well that that's good to hear we need to uh you know this is a comprehensive and challenging problem and we need to all have all agencies working together uh to try to deal with this crisis um um general richardson in your posture statement you mentioned the insecurity and instability that's been exacerbated by covid 19 you know we know that transnational criminal organizations routinely exploit poverty and stability and corruption to gain political and criminal power this is bad for stability it's bad for our partners who are trying to sustain democratic societies and it's bad for our own interests um when we spoke earlier this week you specifically mentioned that criminal organizations are using the instability brought about by the economic impacts of covid 19 to create a wedge that russia and china are taking advantage of can you elaborate on the relationship between russia china and criminal organizations in the region and how does the instability caused by criminal groups and opportunism of countries like china allow them to expand their reach so overall senator i just look at the uh the insecurity and instability the cycle of vicious threats this wedge that the tco's can create which allows the uh our competitors you know the prc and russia to flourish and look like the the heroes of the day right when they come in with their projects and their money and or equipment and capability and things like that and so uh and as we talked about as well the chinese money launderers that take the money from these tco's when these tco's have all this cash uh huge three hundred and ten billion dollars a year annual revenue uh and move it back and turn it around into goods that they that they send back for the tco's to be able to sell and it's all cleaned cleaned uh money if you will and so we have to uh you know this isn't just a uh a do d or a dhs we also have to i think get after this money and uh and in terms of what our whole of government approach is to follow the money and then be able to crack down but i know that it's very difficult these are complex cases that treasury and justice have to deal with uh but until i think we get it out we get out we we get after that specific problem we can't interdict our way out of this we're not going to be able to do that we got to go after and follow the money well um i want to thank you for the comprehensive answers from our phone call the other day that your staff sent sent over i really appreciate that and uh and uh those are really helpful i also want to make sure that you have the resources you know that you need to tackle this challenge so i'm interested to see you know what the president's budget looks like um for uh for south com north com as well and since i'm um over um thank you mr chairman um and i have some additional questions for the record thank you very much senator kelly and let me thank you general van herk and general richson for your thoughtful and very very responsive testimony uh at this juncture i will adjourn the open hearing and we will reconvene at 11 45 approximately 15 minutes in svc 217 for a closed session thank you very much