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committee what this is just under two hours. [inaudible] >> good morning. testimony from commander north american aerospace temp command and richardson.

evtesential personnel. this involves both of your commands to various degrees and resources in support t respond. national security as principal command. outlined in the national defense strategy is defending the homelandt's posed by the people china. as we see threats from other competitors, unconfident the

the defense policy guidance this challenge and when asked for an update and how it will transform the department from of the urgency estimates over the past year with the chinese surveillance balloons and other fied phenomena in this case. these events raise concerns they may have an awareness and it must be secured to protect citizens technologies to provide protection. i'd be no caps and what additional tools and resources are needed to ove1(rcome them. the u.s. law enforcement for cartels engaged human trafficking success security

cooperation and the harm he had navy and working supporting the home and security. turning to southern command there russia in latin america. the political and economic instability present a situation adversaries are white. china in particular is expanding the structure and 5g expanding network. i'm interested in your assessment challenge with your latin america. >> the outcomes support

transnational they are contravening to overdose deaths each year. the nations and other in these efforts and resources. you know security throughout his contw migrants. economic instability among violence and corruption continues to be a majorn the region especially the northern triangle triangle guatemala and el salvador. i'd like to know your viewse done to help and prove the situation. thank you to our witnesses and i look forward to your testimony

and as a reminder there will be a closed session following this hearing. >> thank you and i want to thank our witnesses for being with us here. she clearly china and russia for these vulnerabilities at home and the western hemisphere in strategy : defense is a top priority a year end a half agodministration has not matched that goal. year after year the biden administration declined to punch the request for the radars for proper air defense and they remain against small drones. this presents a clear and

significant vulnerability. wargames to ignore resilience probtential conflict. the biden administration is to learn from its mistakes. last year surveillance chinese blimp labs for last year's defenses and a senior at biden administration responded congressional oversight ossified informationweek they declined to production this defense value they finally did so with this committee mandating it and presided over distinguished chair. failure of the most pressing, defense

crisis is the one of the southwest border. and the supply texacozásing chinese precursor chemicals and mexico's criminal crisis can only worsen. the cartels are unprecedented in trafficking operation across our open border and it is lucrative charging thousands and it is severe and so is the risk terrorist infiltration. cnn reported human smuggling network with ties to isis helped more than a dozen individuals enter our country illegally. in october two iranians on the

security threat list were caught as they cross the border from mexico. general, i recognize agencies responsibility of the southwest is one of them. explain the contributionse challenges concerns about the chinese but in central and south america the chinese communist party using this playbook that threats to influence government. simultaneously it enhances its military presence and limits access. it's happe here and we cannot ignore it.

two quick examples two underscore making latin america dependent for communications technology something tried to do an hour entry incentives economic influence camping.cw i look forward to hearing how they directly impactof the region the threat they pose during national security. how important is it? influences maduro asserted provocative claim sovereignty over a large portion of the neighboring nation of close is struggling troubling is the mismatch the

requirements and resources received. we need to find ways to exert influence for example let's explore capital i look forward general assessment of the most pressing resources and immediate to learn what congress can do to note your name rhymes with cuba is that right? >> we expect both of you to live up to these. >> thank you. >> distinguished members of the committee, thank you for the

opportunity to appear before you today. it is my honor to represent the men and women of the aerospa command. as we canadian military and personnel are dependent against events for multiple doctors and all domains. only been in command a few weeks weeks, it is clear the united states and canada and network of partners based extraordinarily complex strategic environment. editors advanced kinetic systems designed for civilian and military infrastructure in north america and threshold. competitors probably advanced targeting our infrastructure and networks. threats present in all domains and they include the arctic region. he remains a challenge and

modernizes and grows the modern submarine of hypersonic weapons presenting challenges for homeland defense. while capabilities are a capability it's an immediate nationstate concern. significant capacityo america with air and sea lost conventional weapons. despite havingkraine pressing in systems that can threaten the united states and advanced submarines hypersonic vehicles, icbms as well as cyber and undersea capabilities as well as development of systems nuclear power cruise missile. meanwhile north korea continues

frederick while test launching long-range expanding ties with china and russia. currently lack and capable district north america with long-range missiles investing in the capability and iran supports militant groups in the middle east and maintains worldwide network of surrogates. the most prevalent growing threats include cyber small unmanned aerial systems emp canada against military infrastructure in ways not possible a few years ago. : defense well beyond north america. both commands are working in congress to improve awareness to detect track and defeat threats ranging small unmanned aerial systems. north america is an endeavor that requires to campaign

against threats and all domains among these approaches that requires exchange of information conventional opetions forces and intelligence community in interagency and international partners.e importance of this cannot be overstated and a support the departments work to advance the joint command and control concepts as wwe seek to share information as quickly as possible with operators and decision-makers around the world. a 90 day assessment through the department joint force and execute a task and make recommendations on where commands could or should do look forward to sharing findings on how they will best see the mission of, defense. the challenges are real but there should be no doubt about the result to deter aggression

and if necessary defeat threats to our citizens. thank you for the opportunity to appear before you this morning and am happy to answer your questions. >> distinguished members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to be with you today today. i'm honored to represent the dedicated men and to discuss the challenges we share with our neighbors in the caribbean. national security strategy between this security and our own security. we are harnessing the power of partnership from team usa in support of democracy leveraging all instruments of national power. the clumsy, information military and economics are partnering nations addressing the challenges that impact our$ñ

our shared neighborhood remains in crosscutting and challenges that are homeland. a call to action. in almost two and half years i've made it my priority to meet partners where they are and listen and understand what affects us all. partners in the western hemisphere with whom we are bonded by trade and valued, democratic traditions and family ties increasingly impacted by coercion. i'm learned our presence matters. the people's republic of china and democracy national secret intellectual property and research related to agriculture the scope and scale is unprecedented. an initiative aimed at págower and

influence at the expense of the world democracies. the potential to fuel the world. they've already and is already extracting and eloiting. predatory investment practices construction of these facilities mer activities for a few of the activities that jeopardize the safety of the region. russia remains an threat and bolstering regimes and cuba, nicaragua and venezuela china, russia and iran increase their presence diplomatically and militarily in the region and these undermine democracies and challenge their credibility. china and russia exploit the presence of transnational criminal organizations and

amplify destabilizing governments. the topic weapons drugs and commodities counterfeit goods judy to the surge of functional related deaths here at home. the good news is working with partners leading to the best defensestrengthen partnership with the 28 like-minded democracies in the hemisphere to und to counter these shared threats. united states remains preferred most trusted security partner in the region. we trust investment and security cooperation programs to train and equip our partners in military security versus and joint exercise programs to build interoperability and development employment o maximize resources allocated by the states international

military educa financing and building interoperability and counterbalance military engagement and investment. the national defense strategy states immense benefits from a stable peaceful and democratic we hemisphere and reduces security threats to the homeland. continuing to innovate and adapt putting deterrence interaction everyday. committed to working across allies and partners, combatant command, joint force and nonfederal agencies and u.s. congress. his safety, sec prosperity in the western hemisphere. this is the work promised as part of team and team democracy and resourcing this team.

and the power of our united states conference i look forward to your question. >> after all in t record. [applause] >> let me say we have had unmanned vehicles cost coddeveloped procedures for commanders dealing with these? they could show upould penetrate the space.

a system deal with them? >> shortly after command i realize the chall o increase something that would drive in command because of a number. the services do have authorities but will remains to be done to ensure resources are equipped and standardize operating procedures to address the threats and what remains to be done to use capability second safely without interfering with our airspace structure. at this there is not a designated role but at the end of the 90 days i will show ways

that it could and should play that role. >> that would involve other agencies such as the department of justice and fbi homeland security. working at the agency level. >> they have authorities now and we would need to them together so we bring each capability together against these incursion threats. march 10 we sent in the agency and there is the secretary of defense $200 million for security for the common could you give us your sense of the implications the

united states and the region? >> thank you for the question certainly the u.s. outcomes have a lot of wide range or whatever is required for the department of defense so over the conducted commissions they've been widely publicized the actions that would take place for disease across the globe in the situation has been deteriorating so the announcement will in the political initiations the past couple days so the political solution working and hopefully that continues on a positive

path but if not contingency plans are ready to respond out mayo by china and russia one of the leading edges of china economic ports and ge underway there willingness orss to acquire more interest and i understand they passed states to buy the shares.chinese speed is out without be a problem? >> that would be a problem in the american prosperity of partnership for economic

prosperity and where they hosted the heads of state and this would be and invest in critical infrastructure for the american development bank and the finance corporation so to purchase thosesh is been established in 1959 in the region. >> we don't move, the chinese will. >> exactly right. just say venezuelan president nicholas mindoro established control over contested region in this lien

and the region accounts for two thirds of the territory how has this impacted the security of the region and the fact that venezuela has armored carriers? ... and activities that are taking against this democracy with an unjustified claim. and so our support for guyana we're shown t

government and through all the instruments of national power the diplomacy the military and certainly -- >> do you have directions from the white house from their superiors in the department as to what we as we work my engagements and what we do with security cooperation, we have a very robust plan with guyana and we continued on that on the plan and that's been coordinated with our u.s. government. >> can you briefly describe the plant? >> it consists of visits by folks within my command and the engagements that we do, the exercises, thejeexchanges. we continue with all of those not trying to exacerbate the but continued on path with our regular engagement that a been scheduled and we have not halted any of that. >> is the international us in that regard? >> the international community is very much assisting and i was a our allies, part of a

western hemisphere framework that we cited u.s. south with a allies that work in the region, the uk, canada, the netherlands and also france. so as a work together to coordinate our activity they also have activities and engagement they do in the region and are doing in guyana of those also coordinated. >> thank you very much. let me switch the gener deployment of national guard troops on the border. i maybe a lot of americans don't understand how often we do this. but it's worsen the program is that the lead agency but it has deployed troops there in in in '18 of the previous 21 years. they're called temporary deployments but it's beginning to look like permanent. there is difference in the way

we do deploy and notify these units, is there not in the sense that if it's a temporary deployment thicket 180 days notice in advance. if it's a regular employment it is a year and half. so could you us? is my understanding correct? >> unison is correct. the primary difference that we see in north command is we are in sport as you mentioned so, therefore, we wait for the request from the lead agency, in this case customs and border protection and request for assistance that is reviewed and then has the department of defense at that point we can start trying to match to the joint staff and the national guard the quick connect to support that based on the needs that are in that request for assistance.

as you alluded to -- >> would it be helpful if we treated it as a permanent deployment?éç >> senator i think more than treating it as a permanent deployment would be early notification of the requirements dixons those changed that allows us to tailor the national guard force to meet the changing requirements of ther border protection. where as if we had a permanent force we might have permanently the wrong type of unit to support. however, to your point what we having a permanent command-and-control structure over there so we have continuity and predictability and how we present the for and work with the customs and border protection. >> do we need to give you different authority in that regard or is it just a matter of the department? >> senator -- >> i'm sorry. >> senator with the authorities we need come to thing that we would most as you alluded to is time, time to pick

and train and prepare the national guard units that are going to down there and support the cbp. >> to both of you tell us what you need will try to get it for you. thank you sir. >>hank you very much, senator wicker. senator king it. >> thank you, mr. chairman. in my notes since you been talking i've written the word gap about five times some going to talk about gaps. general guillot do you have a sensor gap at norad? we learn more from fails do from successes. what did we learn from the balloon incursion about the adequacy of our sensors which is essentially the basis of >> senator was learned a great deal. to the gaps, what we have we had some gaps in the lyric approach we wanted to build to detect with tomato winners from satellite data to traditional air. one of the problems is low altitude is speedy that's right although it unto the serpent and

even the undersea. we were able to address many of those on initiatives that were started by my predecessor general vanherck by changing the sensitivity of the radars that we do have. and that has allowed us to domain awareness in that regime that you mentioned. however, there are some gaps that will be manifesting in the near future. those are currently scheduled to be addressed by the over the horizon radar ivey hbts s s which nd ballistic missile tracking base system. those capabilities are essential to fill gaps t growing because of the increase capability of the absurd. >> i would suggest that is an urgent need, given expense we had but also given the incredible militarization of the arctic coast by russia. and the development of technology although sinks added together create a significant risk i hope you can come to us with what you need because this is something we need to do in a

hurry. we can't wait five years to develop this capacity. we also have an icebreaker gap in terms of our ability to operate in the arctic as he arctic ocean opens up it's become as images more militarized by the russians and a much more important body of water. it's like we've said he discovered the mediterranean sea. talk to me about icebreakers. we only have one and half icebreakers, heavy icebreakers in the arctic. >> that's correct senator that is, we are severely outnumbered. we appreciate the coast guard. i would say 421 is outnumbered. that's approximate number the russians have. and the chinese declaring themselves in your arctic nation. when the chinese to clothe themselves and your arctic nation, my position is that maine is a near caribbean state.aughing]

>> i share your view, sir. we do appreciate that the coast guard is procuring more icebreakers but even with those will be severely outnumbered and that this limit our freedom of maneuver in that region. >> it's basically like not hitting the road to get to where you need to get. general richardson, let's talk about another gap drugs. si w here about ten americans have died of drug overdose just since we began this meeting 45 minutes day is -- one person a a day is dying in my home state of maine. do you have the capacity to interdict drug shipments coming in by sea that we know of? i've asked this question every year for about the past ten years and am afraid i know the answer. >> senator so in u.s. southcomave detection monitoring mission and that is to gain the

intelligence for spee the capacity. do we, does a country. you have could traffic capacity for intelligence and a defecation. my concern is once we know about the dangers shipment, then do we have the capacity to interdict it? >> so we passed that enforcement or partner nations added to bent on whose close enough to do that. answer in terms of the capacity we anticipate we are able to, know is out there interdict about 10% of the known problem. and with the resourcing and capabilities that we currently are given. >> have emphasized that figure to our colleagues. we can interdict 10% of what we know of. that's inexcusable. i don't mean to say it's inexcusable to you but one of the problems that strikes m everybody is in charge, nobody is in charge. you got yourself, dea dhs intelligence community. and the problem is americans are dying. in about every ten days we have

september 11. 3000 people people die in this country every ten days, and use the the word in your testimony assault. that's what it is. it's an assault over united overtraining as a kind of domestic law enforcement problem when it's an assault since most of it is coming from outside of our country. so i hope that you wil with your colleagues perhaps for mccaskey group to get after this problem of interdiction. and if we don't have capacity, if we don't have enough coast guard cutters or do you just doesn't have the capacity, tell us. tell us because we can't solve don't know what it is. we know the general shape of the problem but you are in a position to tell us what's missing and what can do in order to help protect this country. >> senator i would offer that we can't interdict our way outs problem. we've got to be able to go after the networks. we've got to be able to go after the drug labs we got to be able

to follow the money and the money laundering which is fueling this a very rich environment that theyour way to talk about the demand side. in treatment and prevention. i told agree with that but this is a discrete problem that i think we do have some capacity question. this isn't about a gap what is your overall chinese incursion into latin america? specifically, they have been doing this for some time doing infrastructure projects in other parts of the world. there's some development of buyer's remorse that the chinese have performed as they were expected that the debt colonialism is becoming a problem. is that occurring in latin america, in your view. >> was absolutely senator and my concern as a combatant commander for the1 countries in the region have signed on to the belt and road initiative. but of investment in critical infrastructure where the big-money projects are. that's deep water port, 5g

space, safe city, smarts theen the populations. and so it's withse state-owned enterprises from the prc, and my concern is being able to use those for military application if required and it's an all of the critical infrastructure. >> thank you. >> senator f place. >> thank you mr. chairman. i thank you both for being here today. general guillot the pressure our discussion that's on the challenges of detecting characterizing and tracking potential threats to our homeland. and most americans are fully aware of of the incident with the chinese balloon but northcom has other responsibilities as well, the homeland from the more advanced threats that are out there which would include ballistic and cruise missiles. why is having that improved domain awareness which is the ability to detect and track t

threats and also to provide a clear threat picture of what's out there and to be able to discriminate what you're seeing? why is that so important to defending our homeland? >> senator it's important because it gives us time, time to inform leaders to make decisions and enact defeat mechanisms to defeat these threats that are comingation capability as the threat becomes more advanced and they can put at decoys. interceptors at objects that not a threat, but having the discrimination where to make sure we can and kill the warhead that would be a threat. and the other thing i would quickly say senator capability are growing so much by the adversary that domain awareness you mention needs to push out further away from our shores detect earlier characterizing earlier as you mention swing more time to employ the defense capabilities that we have. >> are we moving quickly enough?

>> senator right on, right on the edge. i think that we are moving quickly and appreciate all the support from this body and the services but we can't pause adversaries and multiple adversaries not just one, are growing very, very quickly and it really is at an alarming rate. >> i am concerned about what we are seeing in the president's budget request for fy 20205. administration decreases spending for the glide phase interceptor program and it's stating it's going to be delivered in 2035, yet in the ndaa of fy '24 in section 1666, that requires the missile defense agency to achieve an initial o capability of that program by december 31 2029.

how to respond to my concern? >> senator my response ishat i view hypersonics as perhaps the most destabilizing threat that we have out there because of the fast speed and more than that the maneuverability and unpredictability on what it will impact as opposed to a ballistic missile which is fairly predictable. i've worked very closely in my short time with ndaa. please with some of the efforts they are doing to intercept in the glide phase and then alsothe sm sex to adapt against that threat. and also very pleased with the ndaa is doing with the hbtss capability to detect and track hypersonics. >> just yesterday we heard from a the national air and space intelligence center. he told congress court china now a world leading hypersonic arsenal. so given the pace we are seeing

with russia and with china if they advance their hypersonic programs, should the department accelerate the development of those hypersonic defense systems? really when it is technically feasible to do so. >> senator i support moving all abilities against the strategic threat you mentioned as far left as possible based ony going capabilities of her avaricious. >> thank you. general richardson, thank you for all the work that you have done and your service to this country. when we talk about china and the belt and road initiatives you answered senator kaine on that, but when you're looking at the longer-term strategies that china hasn the buying that they continue to do in your area of responsibility, how serious a

threat is that? >> i look at it as a series threat because of the ability of the state owned controlled by e government companies. if i just take the panama canal and the five state owned enterprise along either side of that's a very important strategic line of communication. and so there are large implications there in terms of in all the critical infrastructure the water port, the 5g space safe city, smart city technology. so very concerning. >> thank you. and thank you general guillot you made comments i think was yesterday before the house committee, or two days ago before the house armed services committee, about seeing the possibility of seeing in the very near future chinese aircraft in closeness to our homeland. i t bringing that to our attention. >> thank you senator fischer.

senator hirono, please. >> thank you mr. chairman. for being here. general guillot i remain concerned about the dod's missile-defense posture and that dod's us not have a planresile-defense needs of hawaii. it's an issue i have brought up with just about anybody who comes to testify from the dod. in in the 2024 ndaa directs a plan or the missile defense of the wife which indopacom is leading. general, your predecessor tony last year that northcom is responsible for protecting hawaii against ballistic missile threats from north korea but of course, we aves with the missile threats, cruise missiles and hypersonics. have you been coordinating development of the missile-defense plan? >> senator i have. we work very closely with

indopacom on all defense of our entire homeland. i also agree with the characterization that general vanherck did on our specific role in that. >> so i have some concerns that there are so many different commands involved in the missile-defense of hawaii. missile-de g we have, indopacom space come, stratcom missile-defense agency. you have some concerns about how all of your core needing and come up with the kind of plant that we need for missile-defense? >> senator i think that we communicate very well with each other. i think that we all understand the priorities and so i haven't seen any place where having multiple agencies responsible for a common area presented femur challenge but i'm very acutely aware of the potential and i watch for that very closely. >> the ndaa as a mention to rexrom

indopacom so that plan is going to be presented to us i hope my next month which is the timeframe for that plan. i assume that plan will reflect the coordinated input from all of you. general richardson, china is building a deep water port in peru that is expected to open this the firm and will be the first south american port controlled by china. this is just one example of china's growing influence in latin america through economic ties controllingtical minerals and establishing port and space facilities. this presents a unique risk to u.s. national security and global order. are you seeing in the region as result of the growing influence of the prc and what steps are you taking influence in latin america? >> so thank you senator and we have double down with the increase of funding last you from the united congress, us and southcom and africom received some defense funny the way to securitys,

programs and that also with flexible authorities come so that was extremely helpful. and it allows us to be very responsive in terms of being able to help our partner nations, to counter the influence of china. and so what to thank you avi e tve

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of the areas you discussed, the

forces up there are extremely well trained and equipped with the right quitman to the arctic but the other forces are well trained but not equipped and haven't trained in that environment so anything we can do for the supplemental he back forces that would go into the arctic, training them either in the arctic environment or in something as you described it would replicate that would be very important not only to give them those skills but to identify the pieces of equipment we n operate in that strategic environment. >> thank you. general richardson. the national guard state partnership program links the state national guard units with global partners and the program certainly has been invaluable in strengthening our partner nations, active participants. of the state partnership program have bilateral affairs officer working as a conduit between the state as well as partner

country, and these villas often sit vacant forcing the commanders to use their assigned bills to pay for these so my question for you is what role do bilateral affairs officers play in implementing these partnership programs and how can we address the gaps to ensure they are filled and get the maximum utility out of these partnerships? >> i would say the spp program the largest among the geographic commands, we are grateful to that program. it's a huge enablers. d synchronize the activities of the national guard with operation activities and invement utcomes. it's a critical role and with

theater maintenance partnership initiative, which is a put 9 centers of excellence in the region and this is partnering wi nation militaries and military academies with salmon instruction to teach and train maintenance and culture maintenance, tactical level program at the operational level with ministries of defense and teach logistics and the culture of maintenance to keep equipment ready and increase readiness of capabilities for partner nations. >> question i have for you is my understanding is right now the chinese military is training about 5 times more latin american than caribbean military officers than the united states. i have concerns these chinese military exchanghi may have an

outsized impact on our allies so my question, what are the risks associated with allowing chinese education exchanges to outpace what we are providing how can congress counter this challenge? >> the prc is using our playbook against us in terms of these exchanges and all expense paid training exchanges for a year to two years and what to provide for professional military education but the difference it makes in the united states, when you don't speak the language i would say there are several ministers of defense and 15 chiefs of defense that have been to united states schools. you have already built the trust which i don't have to build the trust over a year

with these leaders. if they've been to our us schools, we need to continue to sustain that and even increase our i net program. >> thank you. >> senator scott please. >> begin my remarks i want to say something about what chuck schumer said on the senate floor. for a new israeli government. this is coercion, dangerous and undemocratic. of chuck schumer doesn't like matter. we should respect the, israeli government should be respected by the american government. amwith letter is relapse elected leadership not -- i personally hope israel destroys, kills every hamas terrorist there is. thanks to both of you for your service. i want to say a few things before i ask a couple questions. precational security interests means the midterm must be laser focused on cold, hard facts, not only when our adversaries are doing but what they are capable of doing.

the viol a haiti is heartbreaking. it is a symptom of political unrest that only continued to grow uer this administration not only has the biden administration taken an active role in destabilizing the region by appeasing venezuela and nicaragua but it appears the white house is unprepared to deal with the conses political unrest these regimes create and support. the policies of the united states cannot be we let everyone in unvented when there's trouble around the world. what president biden has done at the border with 8 million people pouring across, and after the withdrawal from afghanistan, 90,000 people coming in. not only does this administration open floodgates for people who don't know anything about what we believe and to come to our country, president biden and democrats at every level of government give these individuals cash, phones everything else paid for by the us taxpayer, the biden administration can be summed up as this. biden create a magnet for illegalbçmm appeases evil regimes, forces the american people to pay for

the unrest humanitarian crisis and mass border crossings that result. doesn't work and can't be our answo it's worth knowing all of this will benefit our adversaries like china, russia and iran. enemies th these evil regimes are working every day to expand their foothold in the western hemisphere and increased ability for their proxies to threaten the us and destabilize e region we see iran infiltrating the region, communist chinesefluence and saddle poor countries in latin america with massive debt. north.com we see russian, unconditional warfare, cyber attacks going after supply chains, taking advantage of the open border. in and expanding into the arctic closer to the us. a couple questions. let's start with haiti. the people of haiti have reached a breaking point. florida families have a lot of haitian families in our state, they are worried how this instability in the region not only to include haitiñá but all of south.com theater stoking mass immigration in my state.

i spoke with the coast guard last night. i would like to hear from you. what is your plan to address the possibility of not only impact florida but also our bases in the caribbean. what are the options with dod assets and capabilities? >> in terms of mass migration, we did a contingency plan@south.com and last summer on naval stations with all of the interagency is to walk through the processes and ensure that all the steps that are necessary to take place are in place, everything is refreshed, the equipment, everything is ready to go, so as we work through our contingencylans, i assure you the department of defense is ready to go. >> second question for laura richardson. a lot of us worked on a dual use amendment in fiscal year

23 this allows us to china, russia and iran. i ask air force leadership about the future of having a permanent fly. general bradley assured me he was coded having a platform, talking about the strategic value of the base and why we need it. >> the homestead air reserve base is a great staging platform. as in north.com in my previous job as army north commander we staged out of homestead for the response into the bahamas for the damage done by hurricane dorian. we launched our mission, my special operations my theater special operation command. two missions that we conducted in tahiti this past week from homestead, the aby permit of defense to have homestead is a staging base in south florida to be able to jump, to respo humanitarian assistance and

disaster response type activities is hugely helpful. >> i think i thank both of you. >> thank you. senator scott. senator kaine. >> thank times witnesses for your great service. my colleagues and i on this committee have recently discussed insulation security to drone threats at bases in the united states recognizing that we are in an unclassified setting. what can you tell me about how north.com is addressing this issue and with what partners are you working this challenge? >> north.com as part of my 90 day assessment to tell the truth, the counter mission hasted in the first month. i knew it was an issue coming from another combatant commander where we face that threat in a different way because of the environment but i wasn't prepared for the number of incursions that i see.

into the events langley eustis i am using that as the centerpiece of my 90 day assessment to see where norad and north.com can and should do more as the merging capability outstrips operational framew >> talk about other partners you are working with b there's a lot enforcement component of this. who else is working with you on this problem? >> primarily department of homeland security, department of justice along the border have the primary responsibility, that so i am working with, in the inter services that have the responsibility for defending their bases, working with each individual service and depart ogy for specific critical infrastructure locations, those are the primary ones i'm working with. >> astion for both of you about the importance of fms

mentioned by jennifer but as general carella last week, you mentioned in your written statement, jenna richardson, you and i talked about it last week when we were together. the fms programs not onlyincrease interoperability, strength, and partnerships, but can help reduce our partners reliance upon strategic competitors as well. what are you hearing from your counterparts about fms? i want to direct at general rikardson recognizing gregory guillot's short tenure that is affected by other issues. >> fms is a quickly enabler, and being able to equipment have up-to-date equal intent having us equipment and being interoperable and that ing is an imperative so secretary austin and the chairman have instituted to speed up the processes within fms over the past two years have taken place but i would say we've got to streamline the urgency because it's not just

the department of defense that has a stake in that code we got to streamline that process a little bit better and speed it up. >> we talked last week in my office about the potential synergy between the state partnership program senator peters was discussing i>>or ey were

doing a lot of work at the panama canal, don't know if you keep up with that are not? >> the prc? yes. they are building 1/4 bridge across the canal. we absolutely track everything that's done with the panama canal and work with our panamanian authorities and partners as we watch all of this activity that takes place and continues to take place. >> have your staff

visited the daring gap where we have immigntrv? >> i visited it several times on the colombia side and the panama side and i've been to the binational base at colombia andpanama, together and conduct joint operations. >> where's the funding coming from for that? >> in terms of the operations colombia conducts as it comes from colombia resourcing they have for their military, funds for panama come from panama security forces. our activities, operations activities, investments we do with panama are from my security cooperation investment in the south.com. >> i saw your budget and no doubt both, so important to the protection of american citizens and our country, we voters give $60 billion to ukraine.

i wish -- i've seen your budgets and things you use to work in both ofour no south.com and what you do is amazing, but we need to help you. thank you very much. >> senator rosen please. >> thank you. thank you for holding this hearing. i would like to thank gregory guillot and laura richardson for testifying today and your service to our nation. really appreciate it. i will hit a little bit on countering chinese and russian forces because as russia continues its war in ukraine and increasing aggression. both countries are taking steps to pose a direct threat to our national security right here at home so how can north.com address its posture to proactively respond to the increasing presence and

capabilities of russian and chinese assets off our coast and within north america? >> the best way to counter them is to have presence of our own. the execution of all domains extremely important primarily focusing right now in the region of alaska because of the number of incursions by russian aircraft and the number of strong presence the chinese and russians have their and the same applies for the 2:00 approach making sure we have presence there. that is what i think is the best way to counter and part of that presence being exercised is a strong exercise program, multinational. a lot of partners showing we have the resolve in that strategic area. >> i will move on again talking

about cybersecurity because this is a big part of the homeland security system as talk to us.com is currently addressing cybersecurity threat to the homeland? you are talking other posturing. in your opinion could the creation of a new unified commd specific responsible for defensive cyber operations to ensure better comprehensive and actually cohesive defense posture against cyber adversaries? >> in my previous should have mentioned cyber because it's the most consistent we see in the daily basis, we see the maritime in the air, but every day we have state actors including russia and china that are get in department of defense networks the strength that we have through cybercommand in detecting and defeating those threats is what's keeping us operational, northern command's role is first and foremost to

protect the systems we use inside norad and north.com to operate and we have four different networks we protect loseeyond that is anything with the part of defense nexus we work with cyber command to make sure all of those are addressed and the third with thing we do, we work with the fbi and sis, strong partnership, i met with both of their leadership's about how do we help other members of the critical infrastructure community, and if they need dod support it is synchronized and presented through north.com to protect th for your question about a separate command i would need to look into it by initial response would be in the two combatant commands in which i served, the relationship and support from cybercommand has been phenomenal. i would hesitate to do anything seamless ability to do operational offense of cyber in

defense of cyber under the same leadership because it has worked really well for previous job in central command and it is working well for us in northern command so always looking to improve but something i've worked with clely because cyber command in my opinion has been a tremendous partner in this realm. >> i appreciate it. imove on to you, general richardson and talk about linguists and with the department of defense increasingly making ve focused on countering people's republic of china, do you have concerns regarding lack of language expertise for countries in the south.com area? or is this sufficiently addressed by the diversity of the force we have recruited? >> i think with spanish predominantly and portuguese and brazil, we have enough linguists, but because a lot of our linguists speak spanish and a

matter of making sure we register personal demand and requirements all the time but this region is important and we've got to keep these positions filled. >> you speak to the panama canal and prc around their so it is important to have more than spanish and portuguese in that area because our adversaries are also th my time is up. >> thank you very much, senator rosen. we anticipate sender schmidt will arrive shortly. i will take this opportunity to ask questions but gregory guillot, congress has been considering taking x-band which is exclusively military for military use, and begin to share or sell it to partner entities. can you tell the committee the

impact that would have on your operations. >> sharing or yielding the spectrum between 3. one, and 3. 45 ghz would have significant r homeland defense systems. >> is there a possibilit folks have come back and said we can use it mutually, is that something you could do? >> would say in our initial review, i haven't found a way that we could share especially because with northern command, 24/7 on alert responsibly for defending the homeland i would need full access for all the various systems which rc based, land-based and databased systems that use that frequency assume too there be a period of time where some of these systems could not effectively operate as they

fair? >> as we negotiate the potential to share we've made clear that we would need 24/7 access to those >> richardson, the chinese influence in your area of command is focused on many things but one of the things is strategic minerals which could be the oil of the next generation as we move to more electric powered vehicles, homes, etc. . have you seen a noticeable concentration of focus by the chinese inis? >> yes chairman especially with the work i've done partnering with us ambassadors in argentina and chile and the lithium triangle is comprised of argentina, bolivia, and chile.

60% of the world's lithium is in that region and the aggressive nature of which the prc works to extract that lithium as well as gold and copper from the region too. >> as we spoke before, resources and the into develop until jovan and bank could help non-chinese computers acquire these lines and begin processing. >> i will bet initiative similar to what i mentioned before on the economic recovery act of 1948 which was the marshall plan and american partnership for economic prosperity through the idb invest program at the inter-american development bank and develop mental finance corporation and the infusion of billions of dollars into critical infrastructure, clean technology, and digital technology. >> i will recognize senator

schmidt and senator king. >> thank you, mr. chairman. general, i wanted to ask about the increase and by some account tenfold increase in the number of chinese nationals that hav southern border. it is 50 times, whatever account, there's a lot of chinese nationals coming across in the last year. flying in and out of china is not like getting oa much different ordeal. i want to ask, 60 minutes had a report about content pushed through socialt the border. i'm concerned about espionage operations.

what information do we have about who these people are, what activities are taking place when they cross the southern border. seems like this is happening now at a rate that doesn't feel natural to the extent that this is what's happening o border makes any sense but the number of chinese nationals coming across is of great concern to me and i wonder if you could speak to that. >> the number of chinese coming across the border is a big concern of mine. in the shorteriod of time i've been in command i've gone to the southern border to talk to agents and leadership about that acting commissioner of the cdp on the subject. what concerns me most about the chinese migrants is that they are so centralized in one location on the border and 2

many may be political refugees and other telligence to hide in plain sight in those numbers so we have a very strong and and i received frequent briefings on the disposition ohended and potential of that threat you described. >> do we have, some of this is a closed setting but what kind of coordination is taking place? because you are right, there were 20 one thousand in the last four months in california alone, the numbers i've seen recently so there seems to be a concentration coordinated again getting in and out of the people's republic of china is a different deal. what have you heard about coordinated activities and are

we aware of specific efforts on their part to be in part sensitive military locations? >> i had the same questions you brought up. the reason california is the focal point is ease of flying into tijuana and across what you are alluding to is how the surges seem tod using social media primarily by the cartels to drive migrants to areas where there's a similar analogy to squeezing the balloon where we squeeze down, they with command and control primarily through social media know to go to the other areas so our re is we

are in support of customs and border protection for detection and monitoring along the side with 2500 military members primarily from the army in the marine corps and they work very closely to pick up where those surges are as well as where the gaps are to alert the law enforcement side of border protection to make the apprehensions. >> i look forward to working with you on that and continuing the dialogue about what's happening because i think i and with my limited time, one last question. as far as the drone activity we see at the southern border presumably being coordinated by the cartels, other actors information can you share? are they tracking border patrol agents what is the drone activity, what are they seeking to discover with these drone that are coming across?

>> i asked the same question to the commissioner. he said overall majority of the activity they see, the incursions are spotters trying to find gaps, finding out where we are so they can be where we aren't. that's the majority. there is a smaller number that are probably moving their products across the border. >> the drones themselves. >> that's right. and the last thing i would say there's a lot of activity that is our own, doing the same thing to try to find where that activity is and make sure we are prepared to stop it. >> thank you, mister chairman. >> thank you. senator king, you have another question. >> a brief question to follow-up on our conversation about coordination. i understand there's led by the coast guard, could we follow-up together on upgrading

t include all the other agencies and talk about how to better coordinate our response at the border, is that something you're willing to work with us on? absolutely the interdiction committee meets regularly and the meeting is coming up and that includes all the interagency. >> i hope i would like to meet with you to talk about the activity and further operationalize the activity of the committee. thank you. >> thank you, senator king thank you to the witnesses for testimony. i will adjourn the open we will reconvene at 11:40, giving people time to rest and recuperate. thank you for your service, general richardson, your remarkable service over your career has really sustained

this nation and set an example that we admire. thank you. with that, i will adjourn the open session. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

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