 I would like to call this hearing to order. Good morning. The committee meets today to receive an update on the readiness and posture of U.S. Special Operations Command and U.S. Cyber Command. Our witnesses are Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict, Christopher Meyer, Commander of U.S. Special Operations Command, General Brian Fenton, and Commander of U.S. Cyber Command and Director of the National Security Agency, General Paul Nakasone. On behalf of the committee, I would ask our witnesses to convey our appreciation to the men and women you represent and their families for their service and professionalism. We live in a complex and dangerous global security environment. From Russia's aggression in Europe to China's malign influence in the Indo-Pacific, to persistent threats from Iran, North Korea, and violent extremist groups, prevailing in this environment will require the tailored and often planned design capabilities that only our special operations and cyber forces can provide. The United States has been reducing its footprint and conflict zones around the world. As such, the special operations community is at an inflection point, but is no less relevant to the future challenges we face. As the Defense Department's recently released joint concept for competing makes clear, the object of our nation's adversaries is to win without fighting. The concept warns that if we do not adapt to realities of long-term competition, the United States risks seeding strategic influence, advantage, and leverage while preparing for a war that never occurs. The skills, knowledge, and perhaps most importantly, the relationship with foreign partners that our special operations forces have developed over the past 20 years of combat make them well positioned to contribute significantly to this strategic competition. Assistant Secretary Mayer and General Fenton, I look forward to an update regarding your efforts to focus and prepare our special operations forces for the challenges ahead. In particular, I would ask that you discuss the capabilities we need to build an enduring advantage over our competitors and what lessons can be drawn from the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. As part of this, I would like to know how you are shaping the force of the future through new recruiting and retention efforts, including building a culture of accountability. A number of high-profile misconduct cases have reflected poorly on the special operations community and additional efforts to build upon SOCOM's 2020 Comprehensive Review of Culture and Ethics seems necessary. I also want to hear how you are addressing the unique challenges faced by special operations families. The Office of the ASD-SOLIC plays a critical role in the oversight of and advocacy for our special operations forces as a service secretary like civilian for SOCOM. I believe more must be done to assure ASD-SOLIC has provided the necessary authority and resources, including manpower, to fulfill these responsibilities. I look forward to hearing more about the Department's efforts on this front. According to Cyber Command, I would like to commend our cyber forces and the intelligence community for their performance over the past year in exposing Russia's activities and helping Ukraine defend itself against both kinetic and cyber attacks. Intelligence officials are understandably cautious about revealing hardwood insights on adversaries, but this current strategy has proven highly effective in strengthening the international community's response and creating dilemmas for Vladimir Putin. This is a great example of competing effectively in the information domain, and I hope we will continue to make this kind of creative use of intelligence. Some of the tools in our toolbox, like the Section 702 authority from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, are critical to our ability to counter adversaries' malign activities. The Committee would appreciate your views on the importance of Section 702 of FISA, which sunsets at the end of this year and why you believe it is essential that we renew that authority. We would like also know what guardrails are in place to give the public confidence that the authority is being used judiciously. General Nakasone, you have been working to mature the cyber force and advance its capabilities to conduct offensive, offensive, and supporting intelligence operations. It is widely recognized that our cyber mission forces are struggling with shortfalls and personnel numbers. We know that addressing this issue is your highest priority. The military services must also ensure their personnel manager provides qualified and trained personnel to your command at the beginning of their tours, so both the personnel and the command can take full advantage of the time of their assignment to your force. I would also note that the private sector has realized the immense value of our cyber operators and offering them very high compensation to lead the military. The services must adjust accordingly by providing a creative combination of incentives to compete for and retain these personnel. Finally, over the last decade, a recurring debate has been waged over whether to sustain the dual hat arrangement, whereby the Commander of Cyber Command also serves as the Director of the NSA. Recently, an independent panel established by the Director of National Intelligence and the Secretary of Defense and led by former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joe Dunford, concluded that the dual hat arrangement should be sustained. We would welcome your thoughts on this issue. Thank you again to our witnesses for your service and appearance before us today. I look forward to your testimony. Now let me recognize the ranking members, Senator Wicker. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for that very fine and thorough statement. I very much appreciate that, and I want to thank our witnesses for being with us once again. The United States faces the most complex and daunting set of security challenges since the height of the Cold War, and our witnesses today are on the front lines of those challenges. From the Chinese Communist Party's unprecedented military buildup, growing hegemonic ambitions to Russia's brazen and unprovoked attack on Ukraine, our adversaries are testing American resolve. Our foremost adversary and competitor to the Chinese Communist Party has stressed both so-com and cyber-com in ways we never imagined a decade ago. Last year, General Nakasone said Chinese advances in cyber operations are unlike anything he has seen before. He also noted that People's Republic of China is a more difficult adversary than the Soviet Union because they are much more tolerant of risk. So this presents new challenges to our deterrence posture. Although Beijing may be our foremost adversary, others are not far behind. The cyber capabilities of Russia, Iran, and North Korea have continued to surprise many. I would appreciate an update on DOD's work to implement a zero-trust architecture and provide defensive cyber tools across the Department and the industrial base. I also look forward to discussing how collaborative cyber activities with our allies and partners such as hunt forward operations have helped to identify vulnerabilities, mitigate threats, and strengthen our network defenses. Military success in cyberspace depends on the readiness of our cyber mission forces. I hope to hear about how we can improve our cyber force readiness and accelerate development of cyber capabilities, particularly on the offensive side. General Fenton is no stranger to the determination of the People's Liberation Army. Having served as commander of our special operations forces in the Pacific and the deputy commander of Indo-Pakum, his challenge is twofold. To build a force capable of enhancing our deterrence and warfighting in the western Pacific, even as the threat environment facing our nation demands that SOCOM should remain fully engaged in the fight against violent Islamic terrorist groups across the world, from Africa to South Asia. His command's work is critical to our country's security and is often the first to respond to our nation's most pressing, unforeseen emergencies. In the 2022 National Defense Strategy, General Fenton's forces have been asked to assume significant risk. I think this committee will want to ensure his command is fully resourced to mitigate that risk to the degree possible, and I would also ask General Fenton and Mr. Mayer whether their authorities and resources in the upcoming year are sufficient for mission tasks. What is clear to me is that the role and importance of special operations forces is only increasing as the nature and complexity of threats facing our nation increase. The resources we provide to special operations command should reflect that reality. Our first job in this committee is to provide the tools our military needs to deter and, if not successful there, to defeat these threats. There's no doubt that continued real growth, continued real growth in the defense budget top line above inflation, remains essential to our national security. This requires action now, not later. Our adversaries are not waiting, neither should we. This committee led the bipartisan charge to increase the defense budget in last year's cycle. Mr. Chairman, I frankly have little confidence that the administration budget request this year will be sufficient. If it is not, this committee will again need to step up to ensure that our military has the resources it needs to defend the nation. So thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thanks to our witnesses. Look forward to hearing from them. Thank you very much, Senator Walker. We will begin with Secretary Mayer. So Chairman Reid, Ranking Member Wicker, and distinguished members of this committee, thank you for providing the opportunity to testify in the global posture of our nation's special operations forces or SOF. I'm honored to appear alongside General Fenton and General Nakasone. I could not ask for better teammates in General Fenton and Command Sergeant Major Shane Shorter in ensuring your SOF enterprise is prepared to address the threats facing the United States today and in meeting the challenges to come. I start with thanking Congress and especially this committee for your enduring support of the men and women of SOF. I am particularly grateful for your assistance in building the organization I lead, Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict, or SOLIC, with dedicated and gifted public servants. Sitting before this committee last year, I testified we were at an inflection point in SOF's transformation to focus more on the pacing challenge of China and the acute threat posed by Russia, while maintaining enduring capabilities to counter violent extremist organizations, address Iran's destabilizing behavior, and conduct no-fail crisis response around the globe. Today, in updating you on this progress and the work that remains, I will highlight three areas. SOF's ongoing transition in support of the National Defense Strategy, the development of SOLIC, and our continued emphasis on empowering and supporting our people. First, we are transforming the SOF enterprise to achieve the goals of the NDS. While SOF's role in counterterrorism is widely understood and appreciated, my team and I work daily to ensure the value proposition of SOF in integrated deterrence and campaigning against strategic competitors is accounted for and incorporated into the department's processes. As it has been in every major military challenge this nation has confronted since World War II, your SOF will play an essential role. To start, the deep relationship SOF has forged with allies and partners over the last two decades, often through shared challenges and sacrifice, has produced an international SOF enterprise that provides us unique firsthand understanding the global operating environment. It also has enhanced the resilience of our allies and partners to resist aggression. Second, drawing on those relationships and our ability to reach some of the most difficult locations on the globe, your SOF formations provide unique access and placement that creates options for our nation's leaders. And SOF is adept at creating dilemmas for our adversaries. Here I would highlight the many years of our investment in transforming the Ukrainian forces into highly capable force that is consistently outperforming Russia on the battlefield today. Representing the value that SOF brings to the joint force is one of my primary responsibilities and we continue to make progress institutionalizing SOLIX role as Congress has directed. Through my role providing civilian leadership for the organized train and equip of SOF, we have established over the last year in the department a series of recurring processes and delivered key outcomes for the SOF enterprise. For example, the Special Operations Policy Oversight Council, which I chair, provides a senior level forum to address SOF unique challenges across the department. We also have made progress on important initiatives to deter our adversaries and fill war fighting gaps, especially on a regular warfare and information operations. I am also proud that SOLIX played a central role in the department's landmark civilian harm and mitigation response action plan. Finally, I would emphasize the first SOF truth remains truer today than ever. Humans are more important than hardware. None of our efforts are possible without our most important resource, our people. With the strong support of Congress, we continue to evolve the preservation of the force and families or POTIF program to address SOF unique challenges and to optimize physical, psychological, social, spiritual, and now cognitive performance. We also continue to prioritize a diverse capable force by removing barriers to participation in advancement at SOF, an operational imperative if we are to succeed in an ever more complex geopolitical environment. Recent publicized challenges remind us that we must continue to evaluate our approach to force employment, accountability, and most importantly, present and engaged leadership. A healthy SOF culture that reflects our nation's values is essential to readiness and core to ensuring we remain the most lethal SOF enterprise the world has ever known. Investing in our people is the cornerstone of ensuring your SOF are ready to take on our nation's toughest challenges because it is not a question of if but when the call will come. So, Mr. Chairman and distinguished members of this committee, I thank you again for your partnership and support and for this opportunity to testify today. I look forward to your questions. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. General Fenton, please. Chairman Reed, Ranking Member Wicker. Could you bring that closer general to the microphone as close as possible? I'll come up closer. Thank you. How's this, Chairman? Chairman Reed, Ranking Member Wicker, and distinguished members of this committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. I'm honored to testify alongside the Honorable Chris Mayer and General Paul Nakasoni, and I'm equally honored to be here on behalf of the dedicated men and women of U.S. Special Operations Command. Joining me today is Command Sergeant Major Shane Shorter, U.S. SOCOMS Senior Enlisted Leader. Command Sergeant Major Shorter is representative of the incredible U.S. SOCOM team, particularly our non-commissioned officer corps. Our non-commissioned officers are the backbone of our military and a decisive advantage within your Special Operations community, and they make us the envy of every military around the world. We are thankful for the leadership and support of this Congress, particularly this committee, a committee with the legacies of Senators Non and Cohen, who had the vision and determination to establish U.S. SOCOM almost 36 years ago. Thank you for your decades of steadfast support ever since. Your Special Operations forces remain a national advantage as we enter a decisive era, an era where the strategic competitors, such as People's Republic of China and Russia, seek to reshape the rules-based international order. And in response, your Special Operations forces strengthen and sustain deterrence globally as part of the Department of Defense's approach to integrated deterrence. With SOF's World War II origins and DNA rooted in decades of experience in strategic competition, now drawing upon our 20-plus years of hard-won combat credibility and coalition experience, your SOF provide creative, tailorable, and asymmetric options for our nation, while creating dilemmas for our competitors. And as part of the broader joint force, we campaign every day to deter and prevent aggression, counter coercion, close warfighting gaps, and tackle shared challenges alongside allies and partners, all in support of accelerating the Department of Defense's strategic momentum towards our NDS objectives. Yet your SOF also remain vigilant in protecting our homeland and U.S. interests from the persistent threats posed by global terrorist networks. In doing so, your SOF work tirelessly alongside a trusted network of allies and partners, U.S. Interagency counterparts, and our joint force teammates to disrupt VEOs wherever they may be. And while we campaign for integrated deterrence and counter violent extremists, your SOF's capability to respond to crisis represent a critical strategic hedge and advantage for our nation. Agile, tailored, modernized, and capable, they enable us to undertake sensitive high-risk missions, crucial to safeguarding and rescuing our citizens, and protecting vital national interests. Foundational to all these efforts remains our long-standing collaborative partnership with ASD Solic, Chris Mayer, and his team. The oversight, policy guidance, and advocacy within the Department provided by ASD Solic are essential for the modernization, readiness, and well-being of our SOF units and their families. And together we are committed to placing people as our number one priority, and we are preparing for the future by investing in them and by leveraging our nation's diverse talent to solve diverse challenges. And to those listening today who aren't considering service to our nation, know the profound sense of calling and purpose that those of us in serving in uniform share. We know that a deeply rewarding journey lies ahead for those who choose to join. You will be part of an incredible team of men and women tackling the toughest challenges for our nations. Just yesterday I had the privilege of hearing from Colonel Retired Parris Davis, our nation's most recent Medal of Honor recipient at a Green Beret. At yesterday's ceremony to induct him into the Pentagon's Hall of Heroes, he summed up his military service and time with the Green Beret in three words, purpose, opportunity, and pride. And as we speak here today, more than 5,000 service members of US SOCOM are deployed and they share his sense of purpose and pride, and they are defending our nation and standing shoulder to shoulder with allies and partners in over 80 countries to make our world a safer place. The courage and commitment of our special operations community, our military, inspires the CSM and me daily, and we are immensely proud to serve with them. I look forward to your questions. Thank you very much, General Fenton. General Necasone, please. Chairman Reed, Ranking Member Wicker, and distinguished members of the committee, I'm honored to testify beside Assistant Secretary Christopher Mayer and General Brian Fenton. Joining me today is Command Sergeant Major Cheryl Lyon, the US Cyber Command and National Security Agency senior enlisted leader. We're honored to represent the military and civilian members of US Cyber Command. In the contested cyberspace domain, US Cyber Command acts against foreign adversaries that threaten our nation through malicious cyber activity and enables action by our federal, private, and allied partners. For instance, a combined US Cyber Command NSA election security group countered malicious cyber actors and oversaw measures to enable the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI, among other domestic partners, to defend the recent midterm elections. The 2022 election cycle proceeded from primaries to certifications without significant impacts due in part to our effort. Going forward, success for US Cyber Command will be measured by how effectively foreign adversarial actors are prevented from achieving their strategic objectives. Last year saw significant maturation for US Cyber Command, but our work is not done. In 2023, we must continue to focus on our people, our partners, and our ability to deliver a decisive advantage. We must improve readiness, bolster our resilience, and maintain a culture of continuous improvement. We will continue to deliver warfighting advantage for the joint force and partners throughout competition, crisis, and conflict. We are doing so by executing our service-like authorities to build and sustain campaigns in and through cyberspace and the information environment. Through these efforts, we seek to counter adversaries in competition to deter conflict and prevail against aggression. Aligning efforts of both US Cyber Command and NSA is essential to achieving these goals and is in the best interest of the nation and national security. It all starts with people. The men and women of US Cyber Command working with NSA and partners here and abroad, we win with people. The men and women of the United States Cyber Command are grateful for the support of this committee and Congress that has been given to our command. I look forward to your questions. Thank you very much, General Nakasoni. Gentlemen, thank you for your testimony. And as I indicated in my opening statement, Mr. Secretary, we've made progress in strengthening the ASD Solic to act as a service secretary-like position regarding SOCOM, but there's more to do. Particularly, Inspector Personnel, facilities and other aspects of your office, could you comment on what more must be done? Thank you, Chairman, and again, I would thank this committee in particular for the ongoing and very consistent support for the ASD Solic position and indeed my staff. So, Mr. Chairman, I'd give you a quick snapshot to say that I think we have established a degree of momentum and a bit of irreversibility, which certainly wasn't the sense of things when I first took this role. And a lot of that has to do with the continued support of Secretary Austin, Deputy Secretary Hicks. I think as I've testified in this committee before, the best snapshot I can give the committee is when the Secretary of Defense convenes as service secretaries, it convenes the Secretary of the Army, Secretary of the Air Force, and Secretary of the Navy and me as ASD Solic to ensure that soft voice and perspective is in the room. To your question, Mr. Chairman, on areas of growth, I think we do need to continue to add staff. We've added about 20 or 25 people over the last two years with support from this committee, and that's against about 50 people currently. So it's a very small staff compared to the services, even with our limited authorities relative to them. And then I think most importantly leadership billets, we need more ability for people in a very hierarchical defense department to be able to participate in meetings at the right level of seniority service. So I'd highlight those. Thank you very much, Mr. Secretary. General Fenton, what's the value of SOCOM in having a properly empowered service secretary-light civilian like Secretary Mayer? Senator, thank you very much for that question. And I'd say on a couple fronts, very, very, very big value. First and foremost, as Secretary Mayer just mentioned, his ability to be at the service, excuse me, secretary tables with a SECDF and represent issues for the SOCOM team along the lines of people, education, training in even, as he mentioned, where SOF will be and play a big role in terms of integrated competition, excuse me. That's extremely important for the SOCOM enterprise. I'd say next his ability to be with the service secretaries and represent issues from SOCOM back to the services that we take our folks in from is very important for us. We're very grateful for that. And certainly his direction in many ways throughout the department in terms of how SOCOM views not only integrated tournaments but crisis response and counterterrorism has been welcome guidance for me. So I'm very grateful to have a service secretary, as I told you. I think, Chairman, when I was at confirmation, I look forward to testifying next to my service secretary. Thank you very much, General. General Nakasone, the issue of readiness with cyber mission forces has been a persistent issue we've discussed at the committee in numerous times. The cyber mission forces play a very key role and they have very demanding tasks. They require personnel with special aptitude, training, and experience. And one of the ironies, of course, is when you develop such a person, he or she becomes very attractive for outside employers. So you have a retention problem as well as other problems. And in some cases in the past, it's been indicated that the services are not providing you the skilled and trained individuals you need, which does not provide you with the maximum possible use. So could you comment on the President's sort of situation with respect to cyber mission forces and also any steps that we should be taking to improve the readiness? Chairman, as we take a look at the readiness of 133 teams, it really comes down to three hours. It's the readiness piece of it I'm sorry, it's the recruiting piece of it, it's the training piece of it, and it's the retention piece of it. And so when you look at that, where I see this right now is the fact that the services have done a good job of recruiting the forces that I need. Assigning the numbers are one of the things that we're working with right now to make sure that we have all of the folks that we need. We've worked very, very hard to get the training to a very simple and predictable level. That continues to improve. The other piece that we need to work hand in hand with the services is the retention piece, which you highlighted the challenge of someone that has this type of training is very, very attractive to the outside. But several of the services the Marines included have made tremendous progress in this and being able to focus their Marines on doing what these Marines wanted to do, which is cyber operations and being able to stay within our force for long periods of time, we see a reflective retention rate that's much higher. Well, thank you very much. Gentlemen, again, thank you for your testimony. Let me recognize Senator Worker. Thank you. First question to General Benton. And this is about the Naval Smallcraft Instruction and Technical Training School, NAV SEATS, which provides training to foreign forces on small boat operations and unmanned aerial systems. The annual operating cost is $14.8 million, and that is divided across multiple stakeholders, including the Navy, SOCOM, and our foreign partners. So, General Benton, let me ask you, do you agree with General Richardson, the commander of SOCOM, who said the school generates outside return on investments? Ukrainian troops were being trained there last year when President Putin launched his unprovoked and illegal attacks on their country. Do you agree, sir, that NAV SEATS provides value to our combatant commanders and key foreign military partners? Senator, thank you for that question. I am absolutely familiar with this NAV SEATS, as you refer to. I was more familiar with it when I was in INDO PAYCOM as the deputy commander, and there I saw value in that type of training. And I will say, in many types of training, certainly, and we thank this committee for a number of efforts that SOCOM has at its disposal, in terms of Triple 3, the 1202, and 127 ECHO, that increase in capability of our forces and create partnerships in the way that we need those partnerships, and in SOCOM we call those partnerships-facing items. And $14.8 million is a relatively modest investment, would you agree? Senator, I'm not familiar with the budget. I am familiar, again, with the type of training that NAV SEATS produces over the number of training that we've established that there is value there. So I appreciate that. Let me turn then to General Nakasoni. Tell us about cyber in support of our Ukrainian allies and the Russian use of cyber in support of their illegal and aggressive invasion of Ukraine. Senator, the story begins on the 3rd of December, 2021, when we deployed a hunt forward team to Kiev. That began a 70-day journey for us to ensure that Ukraine was at a much higher state of cyber readiness. As you know, we saw early attacks on specific Ukrainian sites within their government, and we also saw continued attacks as the invasion approached. What we were able to do during that time was work with a series of partners to bring the tools and technology to Ukraine that was able to assist them as Russia conducted continued attacks. We continue today with support to a number of different combatant commands, US-European command and the training mission for Ukraine. Also, to US strategic command, as we take a look at ensuring that our NC3 network, our nuclear command and control and communications network is the top and most important network and is fully secure. As we move forward, we continue full-spectrum operations with a series of partners to include Ukraine to provide them assistance as they battle the Russians. Well, okay, do you expect Russia is able to intensify new capabilities in a spring offensive this year? From the cyber perspective, we're watching this very carefully, Senator. They are a very capable adversary. We continue to work very tightly with our other partners within the US government, CISA, FBI, to ensure that a US critical infrastructure is protected and NATO in general to ensure that they're aware of the tradecraft that the Russians might use. Okay, Secretary Mayer, what more do you need? You were asked and you said, do you need to add staff and then you need more attention to the leadership billets. Do you have what you need in terms of funding right now to do this and to deal with your enormous challenges? And if we give you the same amount you got this fiscal year with an inflation adjustment, will that be enough? So, Reggie Member, speaking just to my specific office, I think we are probably on a good pathway just in terms of funding. I already highlighted some of the other requirements in terms of the entire special operations enterprise. I think our priorities are represented understanding full well that the challenge with inflation means that if our budget is flat that reduces our buying power so that's something we'll need to keep a close eye on, sir. And yet you need additional staff and you need increased leadership billets. Yes, sir. So I think we're on a good trajectory with the leadership billets. We're part of that conversation in the department. I think, especially in out years, we're going to need to add more staff to build that capability to really help this transition I've described from counterterrorism crisis response to also include the peer competition that we've talked about and expect we'll talk about more, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Senator Lourkes. Senator Sheehan, please. Thank you, gentlemen, for being here this morning for your testimony and for your service to the country. I think I would start this question with you, Secretary Mayer, because so common cybercom really are the nexus of DOD's efforts to address the weaponization of information, which I think has become as much an issue for us as we're looking at our ability to be successful around the world as our military capability. So can you, Secretary Mayer, talk about DOD's role in addressing that misinformation and how DOD coordinates with other agencies and departments within government to address disinformation? Yeah, thank you for the question, Senator Sheehan. So I would broadly start with describing DOD information as rooted in military objectives. So as we talk about how this fits into the interagency, we have a distinct role in a value to play, but not for broad messaging, not for all the work that say the State Department or some other entities would do. And I think we have looked at significant components of the information operations enterprise and really tried to tighten and target it more. So the value proposition and the measures of effectiveness are there. This is really a journey we're on, and I think it's one that the leadership of the department is very, very focused on. So I would leave you with the idea that this is much more of a priority in the context of integrated deterrence that the National Offense Strategy calls out because information is so critical, as you said, to all the aspects of success, especially as we start to think about adversaries we're trying to deter, ma'am. So as you think about our efforts to recognizing, you're saying that we're trying to be more focused in how we address information at DOD, but clearly what happens at State and other government agencies affects what DOD does. So are there policy changes? Are there resources? Is there coordination that should be done that we should be thinking about? And I would ask General Fenton and Nakasone to respond to that as well. Briefly, ma'am, I think we need to invest more in the DOD information operations enterprise. It's not been one that has frequently been a focus, frankly, and I think with more capability in the department it'll enhance our ability to coordinate in an interagency standpoint. That's still very much a work in progress, ma'am. General Fenton. Senator, I would echo all of Secretary Mayor's comments and then I would add that the integrated deterrence approach I think does demand a whole of government approach in the information operations and SOCOM is one part of that in the department side but we also coordinate with other agencies of the government to ensure that we're integrated and that folks know that the SOCOM piece is a traditional military activity. The information operation space as I like to say is a place we absolutely have to be as part of a military traditional military activity and to get effects for commanders either to a message and adversary to see misinformation and provide that to a host nation. So, Senator, I think our key message to the SOCOM enterprise as we move forward is we remain aligned with the department and certainly as part of the whole government approach it's a key part for us and our state colleagues and other colleagues in the U.S. government are very important as we do that. General Naxoni. Senator begins overseas. We're very familiar on how to do these operations. We've seen it in the elections. We've seen it with Russia Ukraine. We've seen it with Iran. The same actors that are interfering interfering on our elections are the same actors that are doing influence operations. We go after them. This is what persistent engagement is for U.S. cyber command and the national security agency. We find them and we continue to ensure that we understand exactly what they're doing. We examine their tradecraft and then we share it with a series of different partners. This is only done effectively as both the Secretary and General Fenton have indicated is with partners. So inside the United States sharing signatures with the FBI who share it with social media companies being able to work with allied partners who have a broader understanding. But then I think it's also with how do you bring the totality of our government against them whether it's State Department, Treasury, FBI being able to go after them. The one thing we've learned though on this is that they never go away. They're always there and you always have to be persistent. So the fiscal year 20 in DAA tried to better focus the department's efforts on information operations and then established a principal information operations advisor and asked the secretary of defense to conduct information operations and required a strategy and posture review that was due more than a year ago. It still hasn't been delivered by the department. Can you tell us what the status of that report is Secretary Meir? And when we could expect delivery? Senator Yes, we understand both the strategy and the posture review were overdue. They both are now in senior level coordination so above my level they passed through my my review. So I would expect in a matter of weeks they would come to you. I would say and understanding the times out that these have helped to animate a lot of the conversations indeed action within the department to really focus down and in on posture and then the strategy has prompted a relook at how we go about doing information operations per your opening question, ma'am. Thank you. So I should assume we would have it by maybe the end of April. That is our intent. Yes ma'am. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Senator. You send a Fisher please. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. General Fenton in your nomination hearing last year, you agreed with your predecessor, General Clark, that without sustained CT pressure we're going to continue to see terrorist groups that are more able to focus on planning and preparing for external attacks. Do you still agree with that statement? Senator, I absolutely agree with that statement and there's a direction to the SOCOM team from the Secretary of Defense to have that as one of our three main priorities. Integrate deterrents, counter-terrorism, counter-VEO and crisis response. I remain highly concerned that we aren't seen sustained CT pressure that we need in Afghanistan especially with respect to ISIS-K and it's my understanding that we have only had one single strike in over a year. I don't believe that that translates into sustained CT pressure against ISIS-K. Can you describe the challenges of conducting the over-the-horizon CT operations without the reliable partners on the ground, without basing in neighboring countries and without reliable access to airspace? Senator, thank you for that and an opportunity to comment on the first portion of that reference Afghanistan. I would defer certainly to General Corella, his team, that have a more fulsome insight with a series of partners than I would have in additional challenges and SOCOM being one part of a whole government team. I'm sure there are many others that would give you a different insights and probably some more fulsome data. But what I would tell you- Do your insights, sir, differ with some of theirs that they've made to this committee? No, but what I would tell you, Senator, is that part of addressing ISIS in Afghanistan is addressing it globally. And when I look at that question, I certainly view it through the SEC DEF's priority and for us, defend the nation. And I think counter terrorism and VEO, it's a very high priority for SOCOM. And as we think about it, we certainly, first and foremost, know that your special operations command team in partnership with COCOMS because ISIS is a global organization that can sense, see, and strike anywhere in the globe. And in essence, many of our operations are places where we're not proximate to the target. And in fact, last year, an operation that went off in Northwest Syria to remove ISIS number one from the battlefield, we had to fly across Syria again. So we were very far from that target. But our ability to see it, sense it, and then strike it unquestionable. And I think we've been able to do that globally throughout this year in places that Somalia would sustain the pressure on ISIS against an ops and communications node. And I would add also that that global pressure for SOCOM and consulate partnerships goes on even in the Indo-Pacific. So my sense to you, Senator, is that we absolutely have to keep the pressure on ISIS, on any of those terrorist networks. And if I think about it, with a number of the operations that have occurred, and I'd be happy to talk more in a close setting, it's been an extremely challenging year for these extremist operations with a number of operations we put together to include in Syria. Well, SOCOM has been primarily focused on counterterrorism mission for the last 20 years. The special operation forces have a lot of capability that they can bring to the Indo-Pacific. You earlier mentioned your experience there. And I value your knowledge and experience. Can you provide an update on how you plan to rebalance your forces that you have to restructure training and exercises or to develop any kind of unique capabilities in order to meet the increased demand signal that we're getting from Indo-Pacific? Senator, thank you very much for an opportunity to comment on that. I think as we certainly as we look at our priorities across the wind category of integrated deterrence, crisis response and counterterrorism, it's an adjustment. I've heard it referred to in other places as a pivot. I would tell you it's an adjustment for how we're going to address strategic competition integrated deterrence. It's in our DNA. We've been doing it. We've as your special operations forces we're really born to do this. And in Indo-Pacom, I think what it means is through the lens of prevention deterrence and preparation beginning with partnerships. Partnerships with nations in that region that want the U.S. there. They want to see a U.S. capability. And frankly in many ways when that U.S. capability shows up through the lens of special operations forces we're absolutely able to move a partnership toward the U.S. and away from the PRC. I think that same type of partnership helped us in Ukraine with the training that we were doing there as the Ukrainians from 2014 and on saw the special operations way of warfare and the way of doing business. All of that is very applicable to what we're doing in the Indo-Pacific. But I defer certainly to Admiral Acollino for a more fulsome of how he sees it because I'm always in line with his requirements. And we do that through our theater special operations command or TSOC, special operations command Pacific. We take lead from them at the SOCOMM enterprise. But we are invested there Senator Fischer in a way to deter, prepare for and then if needed prevail in conflict. Thank you and thank all of you gentlemen for your service. Thank you, Senator Fischer Senator Gilliburne, please. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. General Mccasone, we've been working together on helping to develop a greater cyber capability amongst new personnel. And we created this cyber academy for civilian workforce which should be accepting its first class in 2024 applications in 2024 for a class in 2025. And we're using the universities that NSA has already assessed as having the correct cyber capability and cyber curriculum. But in light of your testimony I wanted to ask would it be helpful to you to have a dedicated cyber force training just for permanent cyber command personnel for the military side as well? And if you did want that what would that look like? Senator, first of all thank you for the work that you've done to build a greater population of cyber savvy folks. I'm not sure that we need an academy yet. What I'm very, very focused on is being able to look at the continued success we're going to have with the program that you've worked within New York. I'm very interested in continuing the successes that we've had across the National Guard with state partnership programs. You're very, very familiar with the New York National Guard's work with Brazil and other National Guard forces here. And I'm also very, very focused on ensuring that the ROTC and academy programs continue to have strong growth in terms of the numbers of people that can be commissioned into our force. Thank you, Senator Gillibrand. Senator Cotton, please. Thank you, gentlemen. Mr. Mayor, you acknowledge in your opening statement the shift away from counter terrorism is the primary role of our nation's special operations forces. But far from decreasing the need for those forces I'd suggest that the current threat environment calls for even more capability. They need to continue our counter terrorism mission, support foreign internal defense activities to bolster allies and engage in new types of operations that are going to counter Chinese and Russian aggression. In that operating environment would a decrease in force size or budget seem like a reasonable step to you? So, Senator Cotton, thanks for the question. Yeah, this is the crux of the challenge, right? We're being asked to do more and our forces is probably static. So, I would not advocate for a reduction in forces, sir. I regret that you're here today and not 48 hours from now when we're going to get the President's budget because I am troubled that you may in fact get a reduction in budget or forces. Do you have any thoughts on what we're going to see on Thursday? Senator, as I think you know I can't talk to what's likely to be in the budget but I think as General Fenn and I have both said the priorities that we have identified are represented in that budget. Sir, okay. Well, if my fears are proven out I think you can count on many members of this committee probably in both parties to try to make sure that our special operations forces have the resources they need. General Fenn, do you agree that SOCOM's requirements and your relevance are growing in this threat environment not decreasing? Senator, I would agree with that. I think the SOCOM requirements to be campaigning and competition are absolutely important and exceedingly asked for by combatant command teams where I draw my requirements from certainly in line with their theater special ops command the TSOCs but we see it because much of this begins with partnerships, partnerships that we forge through the SOCOM team and enable and the payoff in many ways can be looked at in the vicinity of Ukraine. So a decrease in either your budget or your personnel levels would add risk to your mission and therefore to our nation? Well, Senator, no one wants to see a decrease in personnel or the budget. I would tell you that I think it would not reflect the requirements. Number one, a decrease of that. And number two, we would be forced at some point to make hard choices because each and every time I think you'll see me give you the best special operations command for the budget we get. Okay. Mr. Mayor, when you're talking about your personnel I want to return to something else you had in your opening statement because I want to make sure we're using this personnel budget the right way. You talked about the need for more staff. I got to tell you that gets my hackles up pretty quickly. I think we have plenty of staff in the Pentagon way too much. Frankly, I think we have too many people dressed like you and me and not enough people dressed like the men to your right and your left performing these jobs. Could you explain a little bit more about what kind of staff you're talking about and why you would need more staff? So Senator, I was referring specifically to the special operations slow intensity conflict staff that performs the title 10 responsibility of the organized train equip for SOCOM. So frankly, sir, a lot of what these staff do on a daily basis is try to articulate the soft value proposition back into the department with the services. Some of my concern is that as we go from the less intense environment of counterterrorism or go towards a less intense environment without the intense focus on counterterrorism that some of what soft has traditionally been afforded will be lost in that. So sir, sometimes this is just as simple as making sure that we have the soft value proposition represented in resourcing, training, planning. I've been frankly surprised at times of how that has been forgotten or too narrowly defined as being a counterterrorism problem. So, you know, my 40 some odd staff are very much in that business and, you know, it's the analytics, it's supporting special programs, other things like that that are very, I think akin to the soft value proposition, but don't have representation often within the broader department. Sir. Okay. General Fenton, one final question you in your opening statement, you talked about the strategic transition for the special operation forces. Could you explain a little more about the role that special, that your forces, special operations forces are going to be expected to play in the future fight? And if so, if you can at an unclassified level, maybe help share that story. Senator, thank you for that. I'll focus on integrated deterrence in where the secretary and the department have asked us to be aligned. And when I think about that, I think about it along three, really three lenses, prevent, prepare, and then prevail. I think in the prevention side, it's all about being forward. It's about being deployed. Our skills, cultural understanding, language, and a familiarity with many of these environments that come from organizations in our enterprise that know those places well, such as our first special forces group in Indo-Pacific, for instance, have a very deep familiarity with all things that go on in many of the partner nations. I think it's key to keep that certainly thick and strengthen. So part of it is being out, training, advising, assisting, building capabilities, and using many of the tools this committee gives us in the form of security cooperation 1202 and counterterrorism tools. That's a very key part. I think it also allows us an opportunity to help the joint force and enable them as we're out in those environments and are able to prepare through our understanding of everything from seabed all the way to space domain, and then work in concert with General Nakasone and Jim Dickinson in a soft-space cyber triad. I think those are all very important. There is an acceleration towards that. It began before certainly under General Rich Clark and we're accelerating that in the special operations team while we stay vigilant on the counterterror mission and certainly our crisis response duties as directed by the secretary. Thank you, gentlemen. Thank you, Senator Cotton. Senator Blumenthal, please. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. Let me begin by adding an exclamation point to the point that Senator Cotton just raised about the need for ample resources devoted to our national defense, most especially the kind of work that you are doing. I think your testimony today reinforces my hope that we will have bipartisan support for that kind of sufficient investment in our national defense. I've been to Ukraine three times over the roughly last year, once before the invasion and had an opportunity to talk to some of the special forces trainers who were there working with Ukrainian personnel. General Fenton, I am hoping that there has been continued training outside of Ukraine. I realize none of those special operation forces are located physically there now. When I was there last a number of weeks ago, none were there, at least physically to us. But I'm hoping that that training mission is continuing outside of Ukraine. Senator, thank you for that. It absolutely is continuing outside of Ukraine in a number of locations, bringing the capability that continues to assist Ukrainian soft as part of the entire Ukrainian military. And that training goes along a number of the lines you've seen before, the capability to defend themselves, the capability to mission plan and orient an understanding of the intelligence and certainly an understanding of creating dilemmas for the Russian formation. And so the Ukrainian soft is a key part of the Ukrainian military's approach. We do that as your special operations team, certainly under General Koboli's direction and watch and in concert with his teammates in order that that is integrated with the entirety of the approach set, sector directed. What's your assessment as to how well the Ukrainian special forces have operated? Senator, I think they've been superb from the very beginning. And I will start the journey in the mid 90s when special operations, special forces in particular our 10th special forces group made contact with Ukrainian forces after the fall of the Soviet Union. And that generational relationship, something that's very, very important to your special operations community, my sense laid the pathway for in 2014, our ability to really get after it, after the first invasion by the Russians. Thank you. So they've done superbly well and they've been extremely willing to prepare and to fight. And to learn. And to learn. Yes, sir. General, General Nakasone, I think a number of experts have been somewhat surprised that the Russians haven't been more aggressive in the cyber sphere against Ukraine in this past year. What's your assessment as to why they haven't been more aggressive, why they've been somewhat apparently quiescent or maybe the Ukrainians have just resisted and fended them off without our knowing it. Senator, the Russians have been very active in Ukraine in terms of conducting a number of cyber attacks, including destructive and destructive attacks. I think there's several pieces of the story here that are important though. First of all, when you begin the plan and you think it's going to be a very easy invasion, perhaps you don't do enough planning with regards to your enabling activities. Secondly, give full credit to the Ukrainians. They did a tremendous job in terms of building their cybersecurity resilience. And the third piece is that this is again for persistent engagement, my discussion previously, being able to enable and act with your partners. The Russians have not been as successful and there's a number of reasons for that and I would point also to the fact that we've been able to bring a series of partners, including the private sector that have a tremendous capability and capacity against the Russians. I've been impressed when I have spoken to President Zelensky with his focus on cyber. Do you think that there is a greatly increased danger or risk of Russian cyber attack if the counteroffensive anticipated this spring by Ukraine is successful? We're watching this very carefully. This is the matter of vigilance that I spoke to earlier because by no means is this done in terms of the Russia Ukraine situation. And so as Russia looks at, you know, armaments coming into the country, as Russia looks at different support, how do they react? One of the things that we are charged with is ensuring the security of the U.S. critical infrastructure and key resources with our partners in DHS and FBI. And so this is something that we're working closely every single day on, Senator. Thank you. Thank you very much to you all and thank you for your service. Thank you, Senator Blumenthal. Senator Orange, please. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, gentlemen. Excuse me for being here today. Secretary Mayer and General Fenton, I really do commend your submission of the joint statement to our committee. It reflects both alignments and oversight from civilian policymakers as well as our uniform leaders. So thank you for submitting that. Secretary Mayer and General Fenton, as outlined in your soft vision and strategy, how does the soft balance its various missions with great power competition, counter-terrorism, and crisis response. Your three main missions because right now we're seeing great power competition increase, ever increasing with Iran, of course, our pacing threat with China and of course with the Russian incursion and war in Ukraine. So how do you balance those missions and how should that great power competition affect your mission? Thank you, Senator. And so I'll take it from a more strategic level and then ask General Fenton to speak in more detail. So I would say first and foremost it's a risk assessment and it's weighing against the requirements. So there is always more requirements from the combatant commands and then we can meet as a force and those numbers keep going up. But I think at the same time we're very focused on the idea that while the strategic focus is of course on the pacing challenge of the PRC and the acute threat of Russia, we can't be surprised by an attack from another adversary. And I think managing that risk is many cases what the SOF Enterprise does very well. We are in essence the hedge against that risk. So it's a constant effort to look for areas where we can innovate to be able to do more, do things on a more sustainable fashion. And in some cases look for where we're getting what my New England friends would call a twofer where we're able to do counterterrorism work and have those partnerships and access that then helps us also on the NDS priorities, ma'am. Yeah, thank you. General Fenton. Senator, thank you for that question. I think to your point on balance and adjustment that's in I'm constantly focused on that in the command. As you mentioned, the integrated deterrence crisis response and counterterrorism operations all of those extremely prior extremely high priority for the SOCOM team. I think on the integrated deterrence side, we take our lead from the combatant commands and their requirements for engagement in their in their regions, what they need for partnerships, how they need capabilities built and Senator, in many ways, our counterterrorism tools and the form factors that we have in terms of how we present forces, those are equally applicable in the integrated deterrence, the requirements from the COCOMs for developing a force and competing with adversaries such as the PRC, as they are for actual counterterrorism efforts that you know very well. I think it's a balance. Some of those tools are interchangeable. We can bring them across the spectrum. Very often it is about the relationships that and turn into things that we've seen in Ukraine and we just have mentioned here, soft investment early and we've seen that in many other places as well. Thank you. I appreciate that. And I know that my colleague, Senator Cotton, talked about your top line and strength cuts and how that would impact soft. I am very, very concerned about that and it doesn't matter what commander it was, whether it was General Tony Thomas or Rich Clark or now you, General Fenton. I've always brought this up in discussions and every COCOM commander I have visited with has said, ma'am, we're going to make do. We will execute the mission regardless of the budget. I get that. But I just need to stress to this committee how important it is that we continue to fund you at the appropriate levels. You give us the greatest bang for the buck with what you do all around the globe. So we won't question that. But I do want to dig in a little more. General Fenton, I've supported Section 1202 regular warfare authorities that was done in the fiscal year 18, NDAA. And your joint statement describes this as essential for applying soft capabilities against malign actors. So in your personal opinion, would enabling those partner forces that are responding to hostilities enhance softs, a regular warfare contribution to great power competition? Senator, thank you for that. And I'll thank this committee for the 1202 authority. That is a very important tool in the arsenal of the special operations tools that we used to either develop partnerships, build capability and capacity of a nation, and certainly then move forward. So thank you very much for that. It is key for us to engage in partnerships at that level that involve irregular warfare, our ability to operate build up a capability of a nation, also have it able to look at any malign influences coming its way and identify those and then address them. And those forces that we work with provide options for their national command leadership as well as dilemmas for any adversary. So Senator, I would say a very small investment in many ways, almost like your special operations team. It's a very small investment but for a very high return on the dollar. So I thank you very much for that and happy to talk more about it in a closed session. Very good. Thank you very much, gentlemen. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Senator. Let me recognize Senator Harono and ask Senator King to preside while I attend the banking committee. Senator Harono. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you all for your testimony today and General Fenton and Secretary Mayer. Thank you for meeting with me earlier. General Nakasone, I have been deeply concerned by the state of critical infrastructure on and off military installations. Crumbling and out-of-date infrastructure lead to delays and maintenance schedules and put communities at risk for environmental disasters as we have seen in Hawaii. But it also leaves infrastructure that is critical to our national security but often as an afterthought like wastewater treatment plants and pipelines exposed to cyber attacks. That is why I very much appreciate President Biden's national cybersecurity strategies focus on defending critical infrastructure i.e. things like wastewater treatment plants and pipes. How would the Department of Defense collaborate with other federal agencies to implement the infrastructure goals outlined in the President's national cybersecurity strategy? Senator, from a cybersecurity perspective, we begin first of all with the focus on DOD critical infrastructure. Two weeks ago, I was in Hawaii to see Admiral Aquilino and to work with him in terms of looking at the DOD critical infrastructure within the islands. We work with a series of partners when requested to provide that assistance. That comes as a request for assistance from other agencies to the Department of which then we would be part of that assistance. Don't you think that maintaining are the physical aspects of our critical infrastructure is a very important part of your ability to do your mission? Certainly we need a platform upon which to operate. I agree with you, Senator. And so what we are focused on though is obviously the cyber elements of that and then working again through the Department to assist and answer those requests. So I think it's all, we need to look at these things in a much more total kind of an aspect. That is why it was really important for Admiral Aquilino to ask for an assessment of the infrastructure needs across the services in Hawaii, but I would say across the country. For again, you General Nakasone and General Fenton, the administration's NDS identifies China as the pacing challenge for our military and to create enduring deterrence. It is critical that we remain the partner of choice in the Indo-Pacific AOR which is why I have supported additional funding for exercises in the region and building on long-standing relationships like the Compacts of Free Association which we are concluding our negotiations on. What opportunities have your respective commands had for multilateral training last year, specifically in the Pacific AOR and how will you build from those going forward? This is for General Nakasone and Fenton. Senator, we began with Cyber Flag which is our annual Keystone exercise. We invited a series of partners from the Pacific that includes Korea, that includes Australia, that includes other nations within the Pacific that decided to come and exercise with us. That's one piece of it. The second piece is what I had spoken to previously which is a state partnership program working very, very closely with Hawaii, the Hawaii Army National Guard, Hawaii Air Force Reserve and National Guard to be able to assist them as they take a look at Indonesia and the Philippines, two countries that are partnered with the state of Hawaii. And so that's an area that I think has got tremendous potential in the coming year. General Fenton, I am particularly interested in really strengthening, I agree with your area of focus, General Nakasone, but also the Pacific Island nations such as Palau and Marshall Islands and Micronesia. Can you add to the response, please? Senator, I can. I'll start with your special operations team out there through the Theater Special Operations element SOC PAC, Special Apps Command Pacific is part of all the Indo-PACOM exercise events. It's very key for us because our ability to build partner and allies along with the entire Indo-PACOM team for your special ops is it's a pacing item. It's very important and certainly a high priority for this nation and the Secretary of Defense. Below that, we also have our own either bilateral or multinational special operations training events in the region or back in places around bases that we have in CONUS. Our ability to be linked up with the Indo-PACOM desired end-states for partners and allies and really enable that plus what we bring and it's in our nature it's in our DNA to be a partner force of choice I think is very, very impactful for Ed Moacolino and Indo-PACOM. I would say to your partnering anywhere is important to us. So to the island nations whether it be Oceania, Micronesia, Melanesia, Polynesia your special ops team has relationships there already. Some of that is not in exercise but certainly in contact or in deployments we've had throughout the years and we'll continue to do that and strengthen it as the Indo-PACOM team and commander would want. Thank you. As my time is up I just wanted to mention General Fenton that I did appreciate that in your prayer remarks you talk about diversity of thought and background in our people as a critical enabler of the American advantage. Thank you very much and the focus on maintaining that kind of diversity I completely agree with you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Senator Tuberville. Thank you Senator King. Thank all of you for your service. Thanks for being here today. General Nakasone I like what you said in your opening we win with people I think that's everything that we do especially our country. In your department when you're looking to recruit people obviously cyber is your purview what other areas do you look for in young people? Information technology what all areas do you look for in recruiting somebody for cyber? You look for someone that can do critical thinking Senator that begins with it. There are more than just information technology majors out there that are successful in cyber there are linguists there are mathematicians there are you know liberal arts majors what we're looking for someone that has an interest has a passion to do this type of work that doesn't want to leave work until they're able to get the access that's necessary for us to have an effect. Is that growing? Is are we losing more to private sector? How's that going? So first of all on the recruiting piece the services have tremendous success in recruiting cyber forces. They're not having a problem filling it. I think the challenge becomes later on is there are a number of choices that young people have. And so I think we have to think a bit differently here. First of all maybe we need to lengthen the you know the obligation to become trained in cyber because it is so attractive. Secondly I do believe that when you come to our forces that's the only thing that you should do for your career much in the same way I've watched special operations forces be successful when you come become when you become a special operations force operator that's what you're doing all the time and that's what they want to do our force is the same way. Yeah, how is retention in your department of young people once they fill their duty do we have pretty good retention to re-up? So it's a it's a mixed bag by service senator I can certainly come back to with the numbers but the the challenge of course is is that there are a lot of choices. And so that's what we have to make sure that we're on guard for. How concerned are you about TikTok and the influence that they're having on American kids? So TikTok concerns me in for a number of different reasons one is that the data that they have secondly is the algorithm and the control who has the algorithm third is the the broad platform influence operations as we talked about previously it's not only the fact that you can influence something but you can also turn off the message as well when you have such a large population of listeners. Yeah, thank you for that. General you don't have a recruiting problem do you? Senator I'll start that we are recipient of services and I would want all to know that we're very integrated with their recruiting efforts and there are some challenges out there for the services. Right now your special operations team is not having a recruiting problem we're at we're at an aggregate at a very high level of recruitment and the department's got a retention number I think that's one of the highest in decades and we're right there along with them. Yeah, you require the most rigorous training standards and military correct? We at the center we require very high standards and folks who want to come and be part of that journey who have determination grit initiative willingness to see something through and frankly what we really look for is somebody a quiet professional you may who will do this mission and and succeed and then get ready to do the next one. Would you agree that it's also the most riskiest part in our military? Senator I there's a lot of our teammates out there across the services that do some incredible feats of both their mission and bravery. I'd say we're one part of what that our department has as the most incredible military formation in the history of mankind. That's a pretty diplomatic way to put it general. We do some really tough missions. Yeah, very tough. You know, I think there's a lesson here for the rest of our military and it's not everybody but in America's youth want to serve an organization with purpose and patriotism. I mean, we all saw that growing up in light. It seems people rise to standards that you set for. I mean, I saw that in my former life of coaching. I mean, you set a standard and most of the time if you push them hard enough, no matter the way they want to or not, they'll reach that standard. So I want to thank for what SOCOM does and everything that y'all stand for because you're on the front lines every day and you're usually the first one to get there and the last one to leave. So thanks to your group and the people that stand up for this country and the patriotism that they have for us. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. On behalf of the Chairman, Senator Warren. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So one of the primary purposes of this hearing is to evaluate your command's budget requests. Most federal agencies have to balance their must-haves against their nice-to-haves when it comes to requests for money and they have to account for long-term costs. For example, the maintenance of fleet vehicles that they want to buy, but not the Department of Defense. DOD submits its budget for the things it wants and then it submits a second list of things that they want funded and they don't add what the long-term costs will be. DOD calls this second list unfunded priorities. I call it a wish list. Now, last year, some parts of DOD stuck to their budgets and didn't put anything on a wish list, but not SOCOM. Nope. SOCOM got $13.2 billion in its regular budget, then turned around and asked for $656 million additionally. Now, one of the items on SOCOM's wish list last year was $8.7 million to ensure that a SOCOM armament facility could meet blast exposure standards that protect service members from traumatic brain injury. General Fenton, do you agree that if SOCOM needs funding for a project that will ensure that it is in compliance with basic safety standards and help protect workers from brain damage? That project should be part of the command's budget. Senator, I put a high priority on safety. So should it be part of your budget then? And any budget I build will reflect my priorities and priority is safety and certainly aligned with the NDS. So that means you think that something like this should be in the base budget? Senator, I put a high priority on safety and my budget will... But you're telling me your budget reflects your priorities and somehow this didn't even make it in the basic budget. So look, let me ask it this way then. This armament facility improvements weren't funded last year. So are you going to put that in your base budget this year or are you going to count on Congress to add extra money for it? Which it didn't do last year. Senator, the first thing I'll do is get intimately familiar with the armament facility you're discussing right now. Six months into the job, I'm still working my way through a number of certainly locations in the special ops community. So I'll take that for the record and get back to you. But my budget will be reflective of my priorities that are aligned with the national defense strategy and safety of our entire force is certainly a high priority for me. Well, I appreciate that but I just want to make another point for the record. I wasn't born yesterday. You know, I get what's happening here. SOCOM and other commands are gaming the system. They take costs that should be part of a base budget request, essential programs, like funding to come into compliance with brain injury prevention standards and then put them on the wish list, daring Congress not to fund them. And that way, they can boost their overall budget allocation. In January, I sent a letter to Secretary Austin along with Senators Braun, Lee and King telling DoD not to send Congress any wish lists as part of this year's budget. So General Fenton, this is your first time submitting a budget as the commander of SOCOM. You'll be sending it over to Congress this week. So you should be right on top of this. Will you pledge not to request any unfunded priority items on top of your annual budget request? Senator, I will submit the budget that reflects my priorities aligned against the NDS. And I will submit that and any UPOL required by law that reflects facts of life changes, accelerated capabilities and any additional NDS initiatives. Let me stop here right there. I just want to be required. You need to submit a list. You are right. That is required by law. But you don't need to put anything in it or ask for any funding from it. The lists from European Command and Transportation Command were blank last year. That is, they lived within their budget. They did not come back for an additional bite at the apple. And I'm just asking if you will agree to do the same thing. That's what budgets are about. They're about making your priorities clear. And I want to know if you're willing to live within the budget you have from the DOD and not come back here for more. Senator, I'll submit a budget that is aligned with my priorities and aligned with the NDS. Is that a yes or a no? Senator, as requested by law and by law, I will submit a UPOL. I will take into consideration any facts of life changes. That's frankly, that's not even a very artful dodge. Look, we don't let any other part of the federal government behave this way. And for good reason, the budget process is about making tough choices and setting clear priorities. Anything in the regular budget must include an analysis of the long term costs, not things that are on the wish list. I have a bipartisan bill to eliminate waste like this, but DOD could shut it down voluntarily right now. And I urge you to do that. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. On behalf of the Chairman, Senator Rounds. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Gentlemen, first of all, thank you for your service to our country. And I have to admit, I like seeing options in the budget. I like seeing alternatives. It doesn't mean that everything that's on the budget is necessarily going to be funded by or recommended by this committee, but to see the other options out there, from my perspective, I appreciate seeing those others that sometimes may not make it all the way through the budget process. General Fenton, SOCOMM has undoubtedly been reorienting from counter-terrorism to preparation for a high-end, near-peer fight. Assume a situation in which we had to respond under Article 5 and support our NATO allies in Europe, and China concurrently took military action to claim Taiwan. What do you assess would be SOCOMM's capability to support a two-theater war concurrently in Europe and the Pacific? Senator, what I can tell you now is that your special operations team has already globally deployed 5,000 personnel in 80 different countries at combatant command request and at times at departmental request. Our ability to address the integrated deterrents piece, crisis response and counter-terrorism, we are absolutely able to do all that. We're able to do the front-end competition integrated deterrence with training, building capability, partners and allies. And at the same time, we're also ready to prepare an environment for the joint force and prevail in conflict. I think what I'm really trying to get at is it seems as though our policy here is not necessarily to win into two theaters and yet everything that we can do to be in a position to give the young men and women on the front lines every opportunity we should be talking about now before it ever happens. And with regard to a budget which you will prepare and bring in and lay out, would it be fair to say that there are other items that could be done in the very near future that could help us do a better job of preparing for a two-front defensive capacity? Senator, I stay focused daily on readiness and training and providing the President the Secretary a range of options for whatever conditions they may put in front of us. As you described in some level of potential two-front or we stay trained and ready to provide options across a number of contingencies that the Department has asked us to plan for along with the combatant commands. At the same time, also providing dilemmas for the adversaries, both either in integrated deterrence or in high-end conflict. Thank you. General Nakasone, as we all know, the cyber mission force comprises elements provided by all of the services. Is there anything we should do to better execute this construct? Senator, I'll be coming back to the committee under 1502, the NDA section that came out in the recent NDA to talk about the shortfall. So that comes at the end of March. That'll be the first indicator that I'll have to be able to communicate with the committee. I suspect between that and section 1534, which requires me to come back at the end of June with the Secretary and the Chairman to talk about shortfalls and readiness, we'll be able to outline exactly what we think are the areas. There are some, and there are areas that we can work with the services to improve. Thank you. Also, General, last year we discussed the benefit of NSPM-13 and NSPM-21 and what they provided the command to effectively conduct cyber operations recognizing that they're both classified in nature, but basically they have streamlined and lay out a collaborative effort in which to provide accelerated time frames for cyber operations. As you look over the year since, what, if anything, has changed in your assessment on the impact they have had on cyber operations? Senator, really very little impact. If I can rewind the clock just a bit. 2018, as you recall, is you assisted with us to make sure that within the ANDAA that we saw cyber as a traditional military activity, that was a huge step forward for us. I would also say that the policy memorandums that you talked about there, they're foundational for what we do in a manner that is much more predictable, both for ourselves and for policymakers. So we continue to work with it. We are continuing to move forward. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Senator. General Nakasone, on a scale of 1 to 10, where 10 is essential for the national defense and 1 is nice to have, where would you rank Section 702? 10 plus. And let me talk a little bit about 702. Thank you, Senator, for that question. As you know, FAA 702 allows the U.S. intelligence community to collect the information and communications of foreign targets of interest operating outside the United States that use U.S. infrastructure and services. So outside the United States the intelligence community can collect against foreign targets of interest. It's critical for what we do and what have we seen since FAA 702 was enacted in 2008 and reauthorized two times? It's disrupted terrorist plots. It's alerted us to cyber attacks and finally, it's uncovered CI threats. Last year, we were able to utilize this in a series of rants somewhere and a series of being able to uncover what adversaries we're trying to do to us against our critical infrastructure and most importantly as General Fenton can testify is what we were able to do against our hearing. An essential piece that we need as a nation. I think the keyword is essential. Thank you, General. Talk to me about the relationship between electronic warfare and cyber. Who's in charge of electronic warfare of because in a conflict, electronic warfare and cyber is going to be where it begins. So traditionally, the services had electronic warfare capabilities that they deploy with their forces. I think what you speak to is a synchronization of this battlefield and cyberspace which we are starting now to work very, very closely with the combatant commands. I'm concerned that if electronic warfare is scattered among the services, it's not going to have the attention for example that cyber has because we have cyber command and electronic warfare is definitely going to be part of the conflict whether it's jamming or disabling satellite communications, those kinds of things. There's no central, what you're telling me is there's no, it's not part of your command and there's no central command that controls it. It is not part of my command, but again, a lot of the electronic warfare that is done is done in support of service requirements and so they have service forces that do this. I think what you're speaking to senator is much in the same way we have tactical forces that assist the services. Is there some type of national capability that we might need? And I think that's something that we have to look very carefully at. I worry about coordination and duplication. Two sides of the same coin. You mentioned briefly in your opening statement election interference in 2022. Is election interference in terms of cyber an ongoing problem? It hasn't gone away. It hasn't gone away. This is something we will deal with for as long as I can look at the future and we see cyberspace and the ability for adversaries to influence what goes on. Is it things like hacking and meddling with the system or is it more in terms of disinformation? So what we have seen senator really when you talk about infrastructure that's more of an interference piece. We see the influence piece much more prevalent these days and being able to operating outside the United States go after trolls and other different actors that are trying to create influence. And these are can be Russia Iran North Korea China they're actively involved in trying to affect and interfere in our politics. Is that correct? You've hit the top four plus proxies. China cyber capability is it on the rise? They've been not as aggressive in terms of elections and interference as the Russians have been over the last 10 years or so is China starting to become more aggressive or you're seeing more activity less worry about reputational risk and those kinds of things. So they have a different playbook I think than the Russians from what we've seen. The other piece is that as I mentioned last year this is a very capable force and so we can cover many of the areas that I can discuss in close testimony but again a very formidable foe. The new national cyber strategy was just issued last week. Any gaps? I don't expect you to criticize it but do you have any suggestions you can share with us? I'm really pleased with the national cyber strategy. I think that this is something that we've long wanted in terms of what's the responsibility of both the government and the private sector and being able to meld that is critically important for us. I think in the weeks to come obviously the Department of Defense's cyber strategy will nest within that and so I think for the first time we'll probably have from the government all the way down to our department something that's very effective. Think of that a coherent government-wide strategy. Yes, Senator. Thank you, General. Senator Budd. Thank you all for being here. So General Fenton, you know, there's been a series of concerning incidents, suicides, murders, overdoses, drug trafficking arrests surrounding the special operations community of Fort Bragg but I think you and me and the members here of the committee, we know that those reports they're not indicative of the thousands of incredible men and women at use of cyber. I'm hoping that you can discuss some of the issues that we're actually seeing at Bragg including those and if you can describe what SOCOM is doing to combat these challenges and I just also just say that our office is here to help and I'm sure on both sides of the aisle all of us are here on your team in that regard. Senator, thank you very much for an ability to comment on that for an opportunity that that very issue hits at the part of our number one priority are people who are competitive and comparative advantage and who we place a lot of trust and confidence in and this type of behavior atypical to the 70,000 plus that are doing the right thing almost every single day every each and every day majority are absolutely doing that is a first and foremost it disrespects that type of work that our SOCOM enterprise is known for. Second, it certainly it is not behavior that's welcome I'd want everybody to know that is not the type of behavior that's welcome in this formation and it's not indicative of an organization in whom the nation has placed a lot of trust we hold ourselves to a higher standard and the Command Sergeant Major and I are first of all we're very angry when we get reports like that and we're deliberately laser like focused on this in fact we talk about it as a corrosive these are corrosives toward the trust and confidence that this this committee the secretary and certainly the nation has in us and we're laser focused on eradicating that from SOCOM enterprise one is too many but we recognize we're not immune so we look at it through a number of lenses versus it's a leader issue in preventing this reinforcing the standards that behavior of drug some type of other untoward illegal not moral not ethical behavior is not who we are not we want our formation and we ask our whole formation to be on alert and to help point that out for us and let us as leaders start to take action second it is reinforcing policies that tell folks this in the event they just came into this formation they didn't know any better and they're at risk of doing something like that that disrespects decades of successful operations and many many who came before and those will come after responding I think a key piece in that one is holding folks accountable and you'll see us do that because that sends a very big signal back when appropriate center back to the enterprise about this behavior is absolutely not welcome and not part of the SOCOM enterprise so you got my commitment on this center I've been in about six months it's been a top priority because of what it does not only the trust that this committee and others have in the SOCOM team but to overall readiness and that readiness is important because it needs to be a very lethal force each and every time the secretary puts us on the job Thank you and you have our commitment as well Secretary Meyer and also General Fenton you've talked a little bit about this today but can you please expand on balancing the need for special operations forces to continue conducting counterterrorism in the Middle East and Africa versus the important role they play in great power competition and do we have the right mix of forces to accomplish both we'll start with you secretary So senator thanks for this this point this is maybe among the most important points that I focus on every day and I think the answer is somewhat so I think we have a very lethal very capable counterterrorism force what we are working to do is make that force more sustainable over time because frankly many of the threat actors are still out there and we're still having to do this mission but being able to make it more sustainable so we can draw on the unique capabilities of the SOF enterprise to bring that to the fight against a potential PRC or Russia certainly to establish that integrated deterrence we seek sir Thank you Senator I would just add that it is a balance as we look at it across the enterprise with the three missions of the integrated deterrence and counterterrorism crisis response and as I mentioned before and we'll reinforce the capabilities we have in the counterterrorism arena transfer as well over into our integrated deterrence approach but at the same time we know that very often they are unilaterally asked for in this case in Africa we work with AFRICOM commander and our special operations command Africa our TSOC as a way to address their requirements keep the pressure as I mentioned earlier one of the things that so come we look at is a threat has been disrupted but it persists and our job is to remain vigilant and when we can sense see and illuminate we take action in concert with the combatant commanders and certainly under sector F direction Thank you all very much I have some questions for the record General Nakasani I'll submit for you but I yield back thank you Thank you very much Senator Cain please Thank you Mr. Chair and thank you to our witnesses Secretary Mayor I want to talk to you about a previous job you had that I still think you're very involved in I understand that you previously led the DOD defeat ISIS task force is that correct Yes Senator Ike and that you continue in your role as assistant secretary of SOLIC to focus on the anti-terrorism mission including the defeat of ISIS correct correct Senator that task force included international partners I think there are about 80 international partners and it's fair to say that in your work on that task force and currently it involved a lot of coordination with Iraqi defense forces isn't that correct it did yes Senator I know that my colleagues might have seen that Secretary Austin has paid an unannounced visit to Iraq that news of that broke this morning I just want to read a phrase a quote from him US forces are ready to remain in Iraq at the invitation of the government of Iraq he said this following a meeting with Prime Minister Alsudani further quote the United States will continue to strengthen and broaden our partnership in support of Iraqi security stability and sovereignty do you think the US being in partnership with Iraq for their stability and sovereignty for their own sake and for the region is an important priority Senator yes I do and I think it's critically important to managing a very challenging political situation to with obviously the Iranian and proxy threats there as well sir just for my colleagues we have two war authorizations against the government of Iraq our strategic partner who Secretary Austin is visiting today we have 2,500 American troops in Iraq at the Iraqi government's request one of the war authorizations was passed in 1991 it's 32 years old the other war authorization was passed in the fall of 2002 the invasion of Iraq began on March 19th 2003 20 years ago next week I have a proposal that's very bipartisan 12 Democrats and 12 Republicans have joined together to urge Congress to repeal the two Iraq war authorizations this is going to be marked up in the foreign relations committee likely in the next few days and hopefully will be on the floor for a vote soon coincident in timing with the 20th anniversary of the Iraq invasion and I just wanted to bring it to the attention of my colleagues I urge that we repeal the Iraq war authorizations to recognize reality an enemy that we were trying to push out of Kuwait in 1991 an enemy whose government we wanted to topple in 2002 is no longer an enemy they're a security partner of importance right now second Congress should exercise our article one authority over war peace and diplomacy and not allow it to be an autopilot third an authorization that is no longer necessary becomes sort of a zombie authorization that can be grabbed and used for mischievous purposes if we're not careful and fourth I even think we send a powerful message not just to analyze and strategic partners we even send a message to adversaries that you may be adversary today Iraq once was but the U.S. specializes over time in turning adversaries into allies look at Japan look at Germany look at other nations and we hold that hope out to everyone that we will defeat you should we need to but we also hold out an olive branch and look for an opportunity to beat a sword into a plowsher and turn an adversary into a partner the proposal that I have Mr. Chairman that I hope will be voted on in the floor this month has the support of the administration and they've indicated that neither of the two authorizations are necessary for any current U.S. military operation and thus their repeal will not endanger in any way the security of the United States or Americans anywhere in the world and I would just urge my colleagues possibly to take a look at this once the foreign relations committee acts because I believe we will be taking this matter up on the floor very soon with that Mr. Chair I yield back thank you Senator Cain Senator Mullen please thank you Mr. Chairman General Fenton General Fenton can you explain to us and I know you've been asked this question before but I just want it for context again the value of the soft community Senator I think the value of the soft community transcends all all three missionaries that we have right now our integrated deterrence approach which previous was strategic competition the days before the tragic events of 9-11 when we were out developing partners and allies competing for relationships building partners of force of choice and in many places with our security cooperation approach actually strengthening nations across the globe I think that's called for even more now and as we come forward with 20 years of hard earned combat credibility a technology influence and an incredible formation the soft formation it's a formation that knows the hard skills it knows technology it deploys around the world on a moment's notice and in that case all that value transitions over to integrated deterrence on the counterterrorism side of the house center for 20 plus years in places all over the world your special operations command team along with the rest of our military interagency and partners I think brought immense value to this nation disrupting degrading terrorist actor networks globally and figures and names that many folks know here are no longer and have been removed from the battlefield are no longer a threat to this nation on crisis response our ability as SOCOM to do within a very short notice deploy forces and arrive in a country and either safeguard our U.S. diplomats citizens or rescue them if that is indeed the task and then bring home safely I think is all part of this special operations command value proposition and I would add a very small investment on the budget that we're very grateful for and I think a very high return on investment across all those and many more in the interest of time I can follow up with you in a classified session one last quick question for you and then if you could be brief on it I'd like to you just kind of explain the partnerships that we have with our with our allies in Europe and how that is how that is benefiting us in I would say with Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine Senator I go back to a very specific part here of the very high value proposition I think your special operations teams bring it started with a relationship our ability and small teams to be with Ukrainians in the mid 90s develop a level of trust speed of trust is important in these as you know very well and then in 2014 begin in earnest a level of training that was about resistance and resilience and those look like skills of developing militaries but the Ukrainian special operations that has an NCO court that knows about mission command has an initiative and frankly has been have seen and certainly talk a lot about very valuable to the Ukrainian military effort at large I think we've also had the ability to learn from them they've got an incredible way that they take equipment off the battlefield reengineer that's really great for us because we learn as much from our partners as I hope they do from us so I think in a very small way that ability for the Ukrainian soft and the Ukrainian military to resist and now absolutely it's really fight against this aggression and has paid dividends started with a high investment with your special operations team thank you so much and Mr. Chairman kind of kind of divvy here a little bit during August Sony and I have known each other and I just want to raise a point here the general is over a program that's very forward leaning and I would ask that we would we would ask the Senate intel and the House intel to brief us on a program that General Augustini is over and it will reflect in my opinion his complete incompetence and in his ability to lead this program I think it's important when we're talking about a budget that he's over that it is important for us to know that we have leadership there that that we can rely on to make sure the dollars are protected and the investment has returned and I think before we can do that we actually need to know what has happened I was involved in a briefing when I was on the intel committee that turned into a hearing and I think it's imperative for us to know the the the general's risk adverse approach to a program that needs to be extremely proactive thank you Senator Mullen your comments have noted and we will follow up thank you at this point let me recognize Senator Manchin thank you Mr Chairman and General Augustini let me just say I'm sorry because I have all the confidence in the world in you and we've been working very close together and I'm chairman of the cyber committee and also along with Mike Senator Mike Rounds we both appreciate your service and we're looking forward to any hearing you want to have and but I can tell you you have the support of a bipartisan group here which is very very deep next of all General Fenton I would like to ask you a question based on the publishing of the 2019 SecDef DoD cybercom operation forces memo which directed the organization of DoD cyber operation forces there has been substantial appropriation development of cybercom organization capabilities the question is what is the status of the current special operations forces program developed within SOCOM and what effort is needed and to keep pace with cybercom Senator I'll start by we've got a very close relationship with General Nakasone and cybercom and it's it's progressed into an area that we now call a capability soft space cyber tryout at its heart it's the ability to converge those capabilities the soft placement access the cyber work and certainly the space the space work in places for integrated deterrence effects that we would otherwise not get if we were doing it individually and bring certainly a bigger sum back to not only the mission but to any partner we're working with okay that's that's been an incredible effort alongside Paul General Nakasone's team we're very grateful for that and also in the space com arena we are moving that forward with exercises experimentation a number of senior leader huddles and I think that you'll see that progress center and we'd be happy to talk about the progress my final question is for all three of you and I'll start with secretary mayor then go to general oxone and then the general fen what can we do to help as congress what would be the greatest help we could be to you all of us in the senate and our congress our cohorts over on the side the other side of the house that would be the greatest and I think if I'm asking the having a budget done on time what does that mean for you so senator thanks for the question I think we will probably all say that having a budget that's consistent predictable and does it save you time does it save you money it saves us time it saves us money it adds predictability it it allows us to put things on contract and frankly for we're talking september 30th yes sir and I think from the perspective of enterprise in the special operations enterprise that's going through transition the ability to modernize is hurt by the fact that the budgets don't come predictably so that's really where sometimes it comes home to roost and it's a so budget on time would be pretty high priority yes sir John Nagasone it's the same thing senator it's on time it really does how does it reduce your cost it's predictability it's being able to actually spend the money when it's actually do as opposed to a you know a shortened period of time we also have new starts that will not be delayed would actually be able to get on so we would we would welcome that when's the last time that you had a predictable budget on time not since I've been the commander General Fenton senator I'll start first by you already helping many ways with the number of the tools that we use the SOCOM triple three twelve or two 127 but to your point on the budget I'll echo my colleagues here at the table predictable reliable on time and then I'll just add that CR's hurt in SOCOM our priority number three is transform and we think of ourselves as a pathfinder and a trailblazer and we need new capabilities to not only surpass adversaries but always to be dominant that that's not possible with new capabilities and new contracts with the CR it's also we work with a lot of littles little companies that want business with special ops command because they know where transformative and and that we're a trailblazer for the department they can't wait forever to get their their their money and many of them aren't there anymore as a result of my sense is the number of CR's from this make sense this make does this sound reasonable to you all that I've been told by some retired admirals and generals that if we did our budget on time now by the 85 budget the budget law that we had the president's supposed to have his budget submitted by the 1st of February and here we are the House and the Senate is supposed to have those by April the 1st American South by April the 15th and then we're supposed to have a budget completed by September 30th I've been told if all that happened that the military could have a savings anywhere between five to 10 percent well on today's cost you're talking 40 to 80 billion dollars is that does that sound reasonable that's I mean it's tremendous but is that type of an effect I don't know if you all looked at and evaluated it per per area of DOD secretary view you have anything on that or if you looked at it under those conditions because the person never hesitated when they told me this so senator I I can't account for that exact measure but I can tell you that it is more costly and as I think my colleagues and I have indicated there's a risk to it as well that it's not only financial it's the ability to execute and operate with some degree of predictability which of course the nation looks at us to do well I know that we haven't any examples that you can look back on and find out when we did do one on time and everything but if you could and give us an accurate account or as close as accurate as you can be what would be the savings because we're in a position now we're having debates and discussing we can do things we can change this year and change our ways and not commit the sins of the past and I'm hoping that we can do that but it has a tremendous effect on our military which is what we're depending first of all thank all of you and all of you sitting there for your service I appreciate it more than you know and again I want to thank you all give them a time back thank you senator mansion senator schmidt please thank you mr. chairman general fenton I appreciate the time we had to to spend together and talk about some of the threats around the world and your role and your team's role and combating those threats and getting ahead of those threats and to me as I mentioned there is no greater threat than china on the world stage and in this you know great powers era that we've been discussing the alliances and the Indo-Pacific to me are critical you've mentioned it in my meeting with you we've heard about that today general Nakasoni had mentioned indonesia and the philippines we've talked about the philippines what specifically would you like to see this committee address as we move forward in this congress to do everything we can to put ourselves in the best position to continue to to cultivate and support those those alliances senator first thanks for the session with you the other day I appreciate your time I know how busy you are I would comment on the extreme importance in the power of of the partners and allies you and I spoke quite a bit about it and in the Indo-Pacific but certainly globally as the secretary has discussed with the department and in many ways is doing that with the NATO alliance vis-a-vis Ukraine and all the work that has gone into the entire whole of government team to make that stronger than ever as a signal that aggression by adversaries like Russia will not be tolerated I think it's just important just as important as we discussed in the Indo-Pacific we've got a number of bilateral treaty allies out there they are extremely important partners as Indo-Pacom goes ahead on its daily and certainly its overall mission in particular for the special operations team we actually like to think that we're a premier partner for us we have long-standing ties throughout the region that we look to continue to strengthen and maintain and we certainly each and every day don't take them for granted and we look to reinforce them I think that's important that that continues to grow and I think it's as you think about this senator it's about the growth of partners and allies and the power in that not only for the rules-based order but probably for the envisionment of where we go the next three to five even 10 years so I would just recommend that it's a continued focus on partners and allies the power that comes with that the partnering the burden sharing certainly the capability grows growth that we've all experienced in that and I could talk certainly more well that and I don't listen I don't want you to I want to give you the time to be able to get back to to my office with this because this is something that to me is a paramount importance particularly in the end of pacific theater and be a long-term commitment on my end and as you work through so by the way you won't be the only one I'm asking this question that comes before the committee of what can we do because I do think that's just critical in in doing everything we can to to guard against China's global domination ambition which has been stated and so I want to work with you on that and I guess General Nakasone if I could ask you this into the extent that you can share what you can share with this committee in the open setting here just where we're at with China's capabilities whether it's on cyber or AI our defensive capabilities versus their offensive capabilities this will be an ongoing discussion but in the open setting I certainly wanted to ask you about that Senator there in your pure threat they are very good they have been able over the period of two decades to develop not only their military but also their industrial base as we look to the future those capacity and capabilities whether or not it's in artificial intelligence machine learning whether or not it's looking at the capacity to grow cyber forces they are very good but they are not they are not first of all as good as us and secondly they are not 10 feet tall and so we can get in closed session more in terms of some thoughts on this but I did want to make sure I hit that well I'll just close with this I agree with the concerns that have been raised by other committee members and you with TikTok to me TikTok is in Chinese AI weapon aimed directly at the United States of America and we better take it seriously so among other things thank you Mr. Chairman thank you Senator Schmidt Senator Duckworth please thank you Mr. Chairman and I just have to say I had a wonderful working relationship with Senator Blunt who has recently retired and I would have to say Senator Smith I agree with you with your concerns on the Indo-Pacific region and in fact my question gentlemen is going to follow up a little bit on my colleagues a line of questioning but I did want to start with saying that Mr. Assistant Secretary and General Fulton your written testimony references the first soft truth humans are more important than hardware and I couldn't agree with this more and two weeks ago I let a codelle to Japan and Indonesia my interactions on that trip reinforces how important those alliances and partnerships are we must not forget that human ties are the United States strategic advantage in the Indo-Pacific region and these human relationships are critical to countering malign CCP activity in that region General Fenton I appreciated our discussion last week and can you please elaborate furthermore on that questioning line and on an unclassified level on how the soft community fosters close relationships with our allies and partners specifically how does special operations commands ongoing work with other nations from the smallest unit operations all the way up through your leadership to leadership relationships with military leaders in some of these countries reinforce our campaign plans in Southeast Asia Senator, thank you I really appreciate our discussion as well and I appreciate your reference in that I'll start with just emphasizing that partners and allies are absolutely a key focus for the department the secretary and for your special operations command team and I put that in contrast to what China's focus may be in terms of clients or customers we're about partnerships we're about friendships we're about the power of many to make us all stronger and I think we see that in the way that we approach firstly your special operations team as you mentioned we start very much from a perspective of it's in our training and in our schoolhouses to work through these because we recognize it's the speed of trust it's the speed of relationship in many ways partners and teammates around the world you'll see us at a very tactical level and I won't mention any countries and certainly Senator I could talk more in a closed session you'll see us at a tactical level doing events like training shooting jumping driving building capabilities that use the tools that this committee has honored us with I think at an organizational level we'll be showing folks how we've grown ourselves in the 20 plus years of combat what it meant to weave in technology how we understand gathering of intelligence how we understand mission type orders and I think at the institutional level what you'll see your special operations team do in any of the COCOMs is work with the COCOMs to ensure that the nation we have a relationship with understands his special operations forces and what they can do the types of missions and if I may be the return on investment and the value that they will bring that nation in a way that I believe we certainly bring this nation thank you general turning now to general Nakasone general I just want to say I too have complete trust in your ability to do your job and in fact your forward-leaning posture allowed us to keep tabs on the well-being of my constituent who was held in Haqqani network hands and also in his safe return so thank you very much for for the work of you and your subordinates in that I want to talk about the cyber domain of course it has no boundaries I include legislation in fiscal year 2021 and the AA authorizing DOD to establish a pilot program to enhance the cyber security of our allies and in particular the readiness of military forces of Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia and this year I plan to expand that program to include Malaysia and the Philippines could you elaborate on specifically why the cyber security of our allies and partners is important for US overall US national security and if possible can you comment on the value of direct engagement with our overseas partners to help build their cyber skills and how that is important for our own national security? Certainly Senator I think that there's no better example than Ukraine we've watched this now for over a year we're a very cable partner that was able to raise their level of cyber security was able to fend off a much larger foe but it's not only that it's also the ability for us to share information with that partner we want to be able to share our information in the future and being able to share information in cyberspace means that you have to have an assurance that the partner can secure your information and that's a critical piece and I know that the work that you've done to drive that type of cyber security both from the element of the bar has to go higher for our partners to operate but also we have to have the confidence that we share information that our information is between us and that partner Thank you you're back Jim Thank you very much Senator Duckworth Senator Scott please Thank you Chairman I want to thank each of you for being here Senator Nakasone first let's talk about China the is there anything that China sells us we have cranes now at the the port in Miami that they're worried that there was the ability for China to surveil what we're doing at our ports you look at what some of my colleagues have talked about the risk of TikTok is there anything that China sells in this country that you don't believe is creates a potential cyber security risk and what would it be that they could sell us that wouldn't Senator certainly you point to the challenge of cyber which is a huge attack surface right there's whether or not you trade in some type of good or you trade in some type of commodity there's always that opportunity you know I think this points to the the challenge that we have to be able to address which is supply chain to make sure that the elements of the supply chain that we operate particularly within the department of defense are secure so do you think that Americans should have do you think it puts America at risk if Americans have TikTok on their phone my concern with TikTok senator really is from two pieces one is the the fact that there's tremendous amount of data and understanding where your data is is is critical I think and the second piece is the opportunity for influence this is a a means upon which you know you receive information or don't receive information and that's where you know I always look at that in terms of being able to measure that risk so if you were running a let's say a one of our electrical grids in the country if you were responsible knowing now what you know and the job that you have now would you would you allow would you buy anything from China would you allow the employees to have TikTok would you would you do would you do any business would you buy DJI drones would you do anything knowing what you know and now in this job senator very difficult in the scenario that that you point to to our picture to imagine that you can really do that I mean there's so much of of what we do is based upon a national trade and China has the the corner on some things I think what I would do is ensure that the areas that are most sensitive to our operation are well censored and I have the confidence that what's being utilized there I understand where that information may be going in a world where there was an alternative to to every Chinese product and app and service out there if there was if there was an American alternative or American ally alternative to them would you at that point if you're running one of these companies would you guarantee that that your company did no business with China if there was a good alternative and would you think the same thing about our government knowing what you know so again coming back as a perspective perhaps future business owner I would take a very very very hard look of anything that was coming from an adversarial nation and being able to understand that Joan Fitton on can you talk about what things you're doing to prepare your your forces to deal with China and where are they beating us and where and what do we need to do more and better knowing that China doesn't like our way of life and wants to demolish our way of life Sir I think the the very first thing we're doing in special operations command to focus the formation on on the adversaries of the China and Russia but in particular China's reorienting the formation in terms of focus there are a number of elements in our formation that understand the PRC and what they've been doing for years pretty well but there's work that we've got to do to certainly bring an additional portion of the formation along we do much of that through our education process in our school houses at the all the components our army Navy Air Force and Marine components and frankly at our joint special operations university understanding of the PRC and the PRC way of warfare we knew that very well when we fought the ISIS threat we understood how they were gonna wage war and now that's the understanding of the of the PRC second I would say is being present in any region and trying to understand their malign activities as I mentioned before diplomatic pressure from the China from the PRC economic coercion from the PRC creates clients and customers we're out there to build partners and allies and I think that also allows us to get a sense of what PRC's malign activities are globally and then on any given sense senator we're providing ranges of options for the combatant commanders and certainly for the secretary to address either in deterrence preparing and if needed to prevail and you've got the best special operations team in the world to do that and that same time we're presenting a lot of dilemmas to the adversary the PRC thank each of you thank you senator scott senator rosen please well thank you chairman reid I really appreciate you holding this hearing I'd like to thank each one of the witnesses for being here and of course for everyone's service to our nation and so general Nakasoni I have quite a few questions for you on our cyber workforce and Nevada National Guard but I'm going to get into cyber workforce first because the national cyber security strategy which was released just last week it calls for expanding the national cyber workforce I know it's critical we continue to invest in innovative non-traditional cyber capabilities and in talent to support the department of defense cyber mission requirements so in last year's NDA as reported out of this committee it included my civilian cyber reserve act bipartisan legislation I introduced with senator Blackburn to create a civilian cyber reserve that ensures additional cyber capacity for cybercom and greatest times of greatest need and so this year of course I look forward to working with the chairman to ensure this critically important legislation will be included in the final conference but I was hoping general that you could discuss the value of reserve models including the value of a potential civilian cyber security reserve to support your cyberspace operations senator first of all thank you for your support of us cyber command and in general the work that we do in cyberspace it begins with humans and so this idea of being able to have many more analysts many more operators many more developers is something that is part and parcel to our success in the future it's not only with the civilian workforce that you've championed but it's also this idea of how do you bring a larger base to bear how do we bring it from K through 12 that makes people very interested that science technology engineering mathematics it's the way of the future the girls that code all these things that will provide a greater base for us to to draw from are really important to us well you're speaking my language as a former software developer the co-founder of the women in stem caucus and trying to promote stem education all the time this is music to my ears and so of course in fiscal year 2021 the NDA required the department of defense to submit to congress an evaluation of the reserve models to support these cyberspace operations and the report was never submitted so could you update me on the status of the report and also the requirement I added in the FY23 bill to have DOD enter into an agreement to assess the benefits of such a program I really like to see us be able to move forward on this senator if I might take that for the record just to make sure I can leverage the the department of defense for that that would be perfect I have some other questions too on on a specific excuse me specifically for Nevada National Guard but you know the national cyber security strategy rightly identifies a strengthening our international partner capacity it's a pillar of our collective cyber security our hunt forward operations in Ukraine in particular they really show us the value of international partnerships I've advocated for more funding for hunt forward as we identify more vulnerabilities and so our Nevada National Guard we have three partner nations as the National Guard State partnership program Fiji, Tonga and Samoa so how is the program promoting cyber partnerships with our allies and partners and what challenges do you see are you facing building these and where can we create a better strategy for this command so first of all I see very very future very very a few limitations on what we need to do in the future the countries that you talk about there in the Southwest Pacific we've worked very closely with our partners in Australia to look at how do we kind of incorporate all of them as we understand their needs their requirements their vulnerabilities and then be able to assist them a very very small amount of money and a very very small amount of time yields tremendous results in my opinion yeah I agree I want to tell you that I'm also very excited because Department of Homeland Security recently announced another cyber strategy as it's going to expand the Abraham Accord's collaboration among the U.S. Israel UAE Bahrain and Morocco to include cyber security and so as you work to promote multilateral partnerships between the Abraham Accord countries how do you think this is going to help you with that we'll just think about Hunford operations we began those in 2018 since 2018 47 different missions 22 countries 70 different networks and when we take a look at what's been able to be done what we've been able to do is the fact that one it builds tremendous confidence between nations right when the United States deploys a hunt forward team to country X country X knows that the United States cares and it is for us being able to work with a partner to understand their requirements and also build a higher bar of cyber security well thank you for being there we have heard that from our allies and partners it means a lot when you're there you show up and we work in partnership with others to help potentiate what they're doing to protect themselves so thank you again my time is up Mr. Chairman thank you Senator Rosen and the open portion of the hearing has concluded for the benefit of my colleagues who might be listening we have two votes one is already under way we will adjourn here and convene our closed session SDC 217 immediately following this I urge my colleagues to vote and then join us and I would also like to commend the panel for their excellent testimony we've done our excellent testimony and also Senator Sullivan please thank you Mr. Chairman I appreciate it very much General Fenton and Mr. Mayor I know this has been touched on but it's an issue that I think it's really important how is the how is the shift going from your rightful an exceptional focus on CT operations primarily in the CENTCOM AOR to the Indo Pecom region as our pacing threat and what is the kind of orientation of the strategy in that region and what I mean by that is the CT SOCOM focus post 9-11 was very kinetic which our guys did an incredible job at but the Indo Pecom strategy and focus is not kinetic at least not now we all hope it's never going to be kinetic so it's a very different mission set I don't know if that impacts morale it's not as well I'd like both of you to talk about that because I've been concerned that it's been hard you've done such a good job in that AOR and that AOR is still important in the issue of making sure that violent extremist organizations do not threaten our nation particularly with weapons of mass destruction is still critical but the pacing threat is China every day we see something you saw the foreign minister of China yesterday publicly saying hey we're on a collision course towards war we don't want that but we'd better well be ready for it and your operators are the best in the world there's no Chinese forces that can hold a candle to the U.S. special operations enterprise not even close so it's a giant strategic advantage we have over them I want them to fear the hell out of it so what are we doing and how's that shift going so senator thanks for the question maybe I'll start and then general fen can address some of the issues that are that are core to his force here so I would say that the shift is very much underway but I think it's it's a question of how do we maintain the counterterrorism capabilities because if you look at the maps or of course many of the areas that were problems continue to be problems so we're we're having to manage that risk at the same time we are doing as you correctly said sir a different mission in the Indo-Pacific and I think the idea that we're not very kinetic or not kinetic at all in the Indo-Pacific is not necessarily something that means that the same kind of soft skills are not relevant so as we think of things like placement and access and really relying on partners sometimes for that placement and access but also the ability to work unilaterally go to places that last tactical mile that at times only us special operations can do that's still relevant in the Indo-Pacific even if the finish is is not a kinetic or lethal finish and I think second senator I would highlight the by within through approach really working through partners that has really been the hallmark of the counter-terrorism efforts especially the last decade or so is very very relevant again in the Indo-Pacific because we want our partners to be in the lead but we've demonstrated in places like Ukraine we can do that from a distance so it doesn't have to be the hand on the shoulder that we're always we've been familiar with in the past so I think these fundamental tools that and approaches we've used are still very relevant in that Indo-Pacific sir general Fenton how's the reorientation of the Indo-Pakum theater going yes senator I'm I'm for might I'm going to start by agreeing with you that your special operations formation is the best the very best in the history of Chinese don't have anything remotely close to it and they know that we know that and I agree with that and the same thing with Russia and any other adversary out there that's right and the other part is that we exist and then included with the entirety of the U.S. military and the cybercom team is exactly the best and we have all that so I think and I would want everybody that wishes this nation harm and there's an adversary out there at China right I just want the Indo-Pakum theater to know that we're out there too right I want the Chinese to wake up thinking they got Navy SEALs all over them every day sir and your special operations team is out there and and and a very sustainable durable way in it and in a concert with Admiral Aquilino's requirements and and I would tell you that we can't handle these challenges and I'll start by saying special operations really never left strategic competition and great deterrence and you and I talked about this a senator I think last year where I was a special ops commander responsible in the Pacific for the special operations forces that both did counter-terrorism with one partner that we can I can talk more in a closed session about but competed with the PRC all day long by building partnerships relationships and capability that continues the same time we will not take our eye off the persistent threat of global terrorism and so we will still handle the C.T. mission and there will be a number of our forces that have the C.T. mission each and every day hunting anybody that wishes harm to this nation but can slide over to present some level of dilemma to an adversary in an integrated deterrence arena and I would just add much of our counter- terrorism experience is desired by these partners in nations as we go forward to train and becomes a key part of the partnership so center I would just end with your SOCOM team is absolutely ready to handle that challenge I think there's a large portion of our force that is excited about this they want to do what the nation needs and right now the nation needs us to get very involved and we are and deter PRC and certainly to address aggression by the Russians and they want to be knee deep in it you know your special out there you seem to team well and at the same time handle the counter-terrorism mission and any crisis response mission or U.S. citizen or diplomat need to be safeguarded or rescued thank you thank you Mr. Chairman and I just want to say to General Nakasone no question I just think you're publicly because a lot of what you do is not public I think you and your team are doing an exceptional job General thank you thank you Mr. Chairman thank you Senator Sullivan the open session has concluded again we have two votes I urge my colleagues to go to the first vote we will resume immediately in SVC 217 for the closed session and to each of you gentlemen thank you for your testimony General Fenton Secretary Mayer General Nakasone let me tell you you've all been extremely diligent dedicated and offered superb service to this nation over many years and we are in your debt thank you all very much for that I'll adjourn the open hearing