[House Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                                     

                          [H.A.S.C. No. 118-9]

                       U.S. MILITARY POSTURE AND

                    NATIONAL SECURITY CHALLENGES IN

                        NORTH AND SOUTH AMERICA

                               __________

                      COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES

                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                              HEARING HELD

                             MARCH 8, 2023




                                     
                [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]





                               ______
                                 

                 U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE

52-187                    WASHINGTON : 2024










                                     
                      COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
                    One Hundred Eighteenth Congress

                     MIKE ROGERS, Alabama, Chairman

JOE WILSON, South Carolina           ADAM SMITH, Washington
MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio              JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut
DOUG LAMBORN, Colorado               JOHN GARAMENDI, California
ROBERT J. WITTMAN, Virginia, Vice    DONALD NORCROSS, New Jersey
    Chair                            RUBEN GALLEGO, Arizona
AUSTIN SCOTT, Georgia                SETH MOULTON, Massachusetts
SAM GRAVES, Missouri                 SALUD O. CARBAJAL, California
ELISE M. STEFANIK, New York          RO KHANNA, California
SCOTT DesJARLAIS, Tennessee          WILLIAM R. KEATING, Massachusetts
TRENT KELLY, Mississippi             ANDY KIM, New Jersey
MIKE GALLAGHER, Wisconsin            CHRISSY HOULAHAN, Pennsylvania
MATT GAETZ, Florida                  JASON CROW, Colorado
DON BACON, Nebraska                  ELISSA SLOTKIN, Michigan
JIM BANKS, Indiana                   MIKIE SHERRILL, New Jersey
JACK BERGMAN, Michigan               VERONICA ESCOBAR, Texas
MICHAEL WALTZ, Florida               JARED F. GOLDEN, Maine
MIKE JOHNSON, Louisiana              SARA JACOBS, California
LISA C. McCLAIN, Michigan            MARILYN STRICKLAND, Washington
RONNY JACKSON, Texas                 PATRICK RYAN, New York
PAT FALLON, Texas                    JEFF JACKSON, North Carolina
CARLOS A. GIMENEZ, Florida           GABE VASQUEZ, New Mexico
NANCY MACE, South Carolina           CHRISTOPHER R. DELUZIO, 
BRAD FINSTAD, Minnesota                  Pennsylvania
DALE W. STRONG, Alabama              JILL N. TOKUDA, Hawaii
MORGAN LUTTRELL, Texas               DONALD G. DAVIS, North Carolina
JENNIFER A. KIGGANS, Virginia        JENNIFER L. McCLELLAN, Virginia
NICK LaLOTA, New York                TERRI A. SEWELL, Alabama
JAMES C. MOYLAN, Guam                STEVEN HORSFORD, Nevada
MARK ALFORD, Missouri                JIMMY PANETTA, California
CORY MILLS, Florida
RICHARD McCORMICK, Georgia

                      Chris Vieson, Staff Director
               Walker Barrett, Professional Staff Member
                 Katy Quinn, Professional Staff Member
                    Owen McGeary, Research Assistant








                            C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              
                                                                   Page

              STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS

Rogers, Hon. Mike, a Representative from Alabama, Chairman, 
  Committee on Armed Services....................................     1
Smith, Hon. Adam, a Representative from Washington, Ranking 
  Member, Committee on Armed Services............................     2

                               WITNESSES

Dalton, Melissa G., Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland 
  Defense and Hemispheric Affairs................................     4
Richardson, GEN Laura J., USA, Commander, United States Southern 
  Command........................................................     8
VanHerck, Gen Glen D., USAF, Commander, United States Northern 
  Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command...........     5

                                APPENDIX

Prepared Statements:

    Dalton, Melissa G............................................    59
    Richardson, GEN Laura J......................................   103
    VanHerck, Gen Glen D.........................................    77

Documents Submitted for the Record:

    [There were no Documents submitted.]

Witness Responses to Questions Asked During the Hearing:

    Ms. Escobar..................................................   139
    Mr. Fallon...................................................   140
    Mr. Gaetz....................................................   139
    Mr. Gimenez..................................................   140
    Mr. LaLota...................................................   141
    Mr. Luttrell.................................................   140
    Mrs. McClain.................................................   139

Questions Submitted by Members Post Hearing:

    Mr. Bergman..................................................   155
    Mr. Gallagher................................................   150
    Mr. McCormick................................................   158
    Mr. Moylan...................................................   158
    Mr. Scott....................................................   145
    Ms. Sherrill.................................................   152
    Mr. Waltz....................................................   156










 
                       U.S. MILITARY POSTURE AND
                    NATIONAL SECURITY CHALLENGES IN
                        NORTH AND SOUTH AMERICA

                              ----------                              

                          House of Representatives,
                               Committee on Armed Services,
                          Washington, DC, Wednesday, March 8, 2023.
    The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:00 a.m., in room 
2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Mike Rogers [chairman 
of the committee] presiding.

 OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MIKE ROGERS, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM 
         ALABAMA, CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES

    The Chairman. The committee will come to order.
    A couple of housekeeping matters before we begin. First, we 
will adjourn the public portion of this hearing at 1:00 and 
immediately move upstairs for the classified portion.
    Second, as we noticed last week, we will run questions in 
reverse seniority for those present at the gavel. We try to do 
this every year to give our members at the bottom of the dais 
the opportunity to participate earlier in the process. That's 
right. I have heard many objections.
    Today we kick off our posture hearings with NORTHCOM [U.S. 
Northern Command] and SOUTHCOM [U.S. Southern Command]. I want 
to thank our witnesses for being here and their service to our 
country.
    In recent weeks, the American people saw firsthand that 
China's aggression knows no geographic boundaries. China's spy 
balloon violated U.S. sovereignty and challenged U.S. homeland 
defense.
    Unfortunately, this should come as no surprise. The Chinese 
Communist Party [CCP] has long been expanding its influence in 
North and South America. 25 of the 31 countries in SOUTHCOM AOR 
[area of responsibility] have welcomed infrastructure 
investment from the CCP. Twenty-one have formally joined the 
CCP's Belt and Road Initiative [BRI]. The CCP is backing 
projects to build new or operate existing seaports in Brazil, 
Peru, Ecuador, Jamaica, Argentina, Panama, Mexico, and the 
Bahamas. This is concerning because the CCP is leveraging these 
investments to gain strategic footholds in our hemisphere.
    Many of these countries host port calls, buy military 
equipment, and receive training from the PLA [People's 
Liberation Army]. Sadly, the number of South and Central 
American countries willing to enter into partnerships with the 
CCP is only growing. We need to take action to reverse that 
trend.
    Unfortunately, the CCP is not the only malign influence in 
the Western Hemisphere. Russia recently deploys troops to 
Nicaragua, Venezuela, and continues to prop up Cuba's communist 
regime. Now even Iran is getting presence in South America.
    Just 2 weeks after President Biden welcomed Brazil's new 
president to the White House, 2 Iranian warships were allowed 
to dock in Rio. We must stop being so complacent about our 
adversaries' growing influence in our hemisphere. We need to do 
more to build and enhance partnerships in the region.
    Beyond the growing presence of our adversaries, many areas 
of South and Central America continue to be havens for 
transnational criminal organizations. These brutal criminal 
gangs prey on thousands of vulnerable men, women, and children. 
They steal their money and endanger their lives with perilous 
attempts to gain illegal entry at our borders. They are also 
the main source of fentanyl and other dangerous drugs smuggled 
across our border. We are seeing the consequences on streets 
across America. Over 100,000 are dying each year from fentanyl 
overdoses alone.
    At our southern border, a record 2.7 million migrants 
illegally crossed into our country in 2022. That blew away the 
previous record by over one million individuals. Communities in 
our border states and throughout the country are struggling as 
a result.
    NORTHCOM and SOUTHCOM are doing their best to provide 
support to civilian authorities to address the border crisis. 
But the real solution rests with our President. He needs to 
stop with excuses and secure our border.
    Finally, I am very concerned about the Secretary's decision 
to go along with the Commerce Department's plan that will lead 
to the auctioning off of critical DOD [Department of Defense] 
spectrum. This spectrum is used for the vast majority of our 
military radar systems, including our early warning homeland 
and shipborne missile defense.
    I am having a lot of trouble understanding the rationale 
for his decision, especially when Russia has suspended the New 
START [Strategic Arms Reduction] Treaty, North Korea is 
launching more ICBMs [intercontinental ballistic missiles], and 
China is sending hypersonics around the globe. I expect the DOD 
to explain to this committee how it is in our national security 
interest to auction off this vital spectrum.
    I look forward to hearing from our witnesses and getting 
their best military advice on how to overcome the security 
challenges we face.
    And with that, I yield to my friend, the ranking member, 
Mr. Smith.

STATEMENT OF HON. ADAM SMITH, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM WASHINGTON, 
          RANKING MEMBER, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES

    Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate it.
    And I want to welcome our witnesses, General VanHerck, 
General Richardson, and Ms. Dalton. I appreciate your 
leadership and appreciate you being before us today. I think 
the Chairman laid out, you know, a pretty good analysis of the 
threats that we face in your two AORs. And I just want to agree 
with that.
    Starting with, in the North American domain, as General 
VanHerck put it, the domain awareness issues are significant. 
We need to know what is coming at us. We need to be able to see 
what the threats are. And certainly, publicly we saw what the 
threats could be at high altitude from apparently balloons. But 
some of the bigger threats are cyber. Do we know how well 
protected our systems are?
    So, when it comes to protecting the homeland, that is where 
it starts. Are we aware of the threats that are coming at us in 
all possible domains? And this is not an easy thing. We 
certainly have radars. We have systems to pick up on things 
coming at us. But those radars can't see everything all the 
time. How do we prioritize or how do we improve the systems so 
that they can see more?
    It seems like the Chinese became aware of a vulnerability 
that slow-moving objects at high altitude were things that we 
tended not to see. Well, now we are seeing them. But we will 
look forward to a further explanation of how we can make sure 
that we have a robust domain awareness.
    And again, even though it was very much in TV about the 
objects moving across our airspace, the real threat is in the 
cyber domain. And the real threat is whether or not we can make 
sure we protect our systems. So I would appreciate an update on 
how we can make sure we do that.
    And then certainly, I think the Chairman emphasized exactly 
the point that we are, you know, becoming aware of, and that is 
Russia, China, and Iran are incredibly active in the Western 
Hemisphere. They are building relationships throughout Latin 
America.
    We need to better understand that and figure out how to 
deal with it. It is a challenge that we had not seen for a 
while but is very much present and that we need to be aware of 
and need to be ready to deal with. And I look forward to 
General Richardson explaining to us a little bit more about how 
we are doing that.
    And then, lastly, of course, the issue of transnational 
criminal organizations engaged in drug and human trafficking, 
an enormous problem, which we are all very much aware of, that 
we need to better understand how that threat is coming, again, 
from your AOR and how we can better deal with it.
    Again, I look forward to the testimony and the questions 
from our panel. And I yield back.
    The Chairman. I thank the ranking member.
    Now I would like to introduce our witnesses. The Honorable 
Melissa Dalton is the Assistant Secretary of Defense for 
Homeland Defense and Hemispheric Affairs. She previously served 
as a Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for 
Strategy Plans and Capabilities.
    General Glen VanHerck is the Commander of United States 
Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command. 
He previously served as the Director of the Joint Staff.
    General Laura Richardson is the Commander of United States 
Southern Command and previously served as the Commanding 
General of the U.S. Army North.
    I welcome our witnesses. And, Ms. Dalton, we will start 
with you for 5 minutes.

STATEMENT OF MELISSA G. DALTON, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE 
          FOR HOMELAND DEFENSE AND HEMISPHERIC AFFAIRS

    Secretary Dalton. Chairman Rogers, Ranking Member Smith, 
and distinguished members of the committee, thank you for the 
opportunity to testify today.
    I will highlight how we are putting homeland defense and 
other interests across this hemisphere front and center to 
implement the 2022 National Defense Strategy [NDS].
    Per the NDS, the People's Republic of China is the pacing 
challenge for DOD, while Russia remains an acute threat. In 
addition to building conventional and nuclear capabilities, we 
are concerned that the PRC [People's Republic of China] in 
particular is using non-kinetic means to subvert our ability to 
project power.
    The NDS also ensures vigilance of other persistent threats. 
North Korea is expanding its nuclear and missile capability to 
threaten the homeland. Iran is testing space launch 
technologies. And global terrorist groups require continued 
monitoring.
    A range of fast-evolving technologies could disrupt U.S. 
supply chain and logistics operations. For example, small, 
uncrewed aircraft systems could pose a threat to domestic DOD 
facilities.
    Last year, the homeland endured 90 incidents caused by 
hurricanes, severe storms, wildfires, and floods degrading our 
readiness. In the Western Hemisphere, these hazards contributed 
to instability and migration, creating conditions that state 
and non-state actors can exploit.
    We are doing more than ever to deter, defend, and defeat 
aggression from competitors. We are using an integrated 
deterrence approach to harness conventional, cyber, space, and 
information capabilities to raise costs for our competitors, 
while reducing their expected benefits of aggression.
    Per the 2022 Missile Defense Review, our missile defense 
systems offer protection for the U.S. population while 
reassuring others that we will not be coerced by threats to the 
homeland. Nested within our missile defense approach, 
integrated air and missile defense enables freedom of action by 
negating an adversary's ability to create adverse effects with 
air and missile capabilities. We also rely on strategic 
deterrence for large intercontinental-range nuclear missile 
threats from the PRC and Russia.
    Investments in modern sensors and infrastructure are vital 
to homeland defense against airborne and maritime threats and 
to our ability to project forces. We are grateful for the 
committee's support of the Over-the-Horizon radars. We are 
working with Canada to maximize NORAD's [North American 
Aerospace Defense Command's] coverage of the approaches to 
North America.
    It is also vital to extend the Secretary's authority under 
section 130i of title 10 to protect certain DOD facilities and 
domestic assets from UAS [unmanned aircraft systems].
    By virtue of U.S. sovereign territory in Alaska, the Arctic 
is an extension of the U.S. homeland. We are working to 
implement the national strategy for the Arctic region. We are 
leveraging the Ted Stevens Center for the Arctic Strategic 
Studies in Alaska. We demonstrate combat credible forces in the 
Arctic by training and exercising, including through Arctic 
Edge with Canada and through bomber task force deployments with 
the United Kingdom and Norway to support NATO [North Atlantic 
Treaty Organization].
    Our competitors' gray zone activities threaten key domestic 
assets, networks, and infrastructure that DOD and the American 
people rely on. DOD is enhancing the resilience of U.S. systems 
working within the interagency with Federal, State, local, 
tribal territorial partners, and the private sector. We work 
the defense industrial base to enhance cyber security and 
resilience. To operate through disruption, we are increasing 
DOD's ability to operate in a more dispersed manner and from 
alternate locations.
    Defense Support of Civil Authorities, or DSCA, is an 
important activity supporting the American public and our 
partners, responding to disasters, public health emergencies, 
and securing our borders. Today, approximately 2,500 military 
personnel are deployed to the southwest border. DOD has 
supported DHS's [U.S. Department of Homeland Security's] border 
security mission for 18 of the last 22 years. Per the NDS, DOD 
is prepared to support DSCA activities that do not impair 
warfighting readiness. Our domestic partners should be 
resourced for their mission requirements, preserving DOD's 
warfighting capabilities.
    We are also strengthening our ability to withstand and 
recover from extreme environmental events and to build a 
resilient Joint Force. We intend to use the new Defense 
Operational Resilience International Cooperation Program to 
build our partners' early warning capabilities to reduce the 
need for DOD assets for disasters and other emergencies.
    We are deepening partnerships with Canada, Mexico, Brazil, 
Colombia, and Chile, while reinforcing democratic institutions, 
civilian control of the military, and respect for human rights 
and the rule of law. Secretary Austin highlighted the 
importance of integrated deterrence at last year's Conference 
of the Defense Ministers of the Americas in Brazil. Later this 
week I will travel to Mexico to discuss defense issues.
    Our relationships in this hemisphere help ensure we are 
able to conduct humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, 
bolster cyber defenses, promote climate resilience, and conduct 
pandemic response.
    To conclude, the Department is committed to defending the 
homeland and pursuing U.S. interests across this hemisphere.
    Thank you for your support of the Department of Defense. 
And I look forward to your questions.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Dalton can be found in the 
Appendix on page 59]
    The Chairman. Thank you, Ms. Dalton. The Chair now 
recognizes General VanHerck for 5 minutes to read his 
statement.

  STATEMENT OF GEN GLEN D. VANHERCK, USAF, COMMANDER, UNITED 
 STATES NORTHERN COMMAND AND NORTH AMERICAN AEROSPACE DEFENSE 
                            COMMAND

    General VanHerck. Chairman Rogers, Ranking Member Smith, 
and distinguished members of the committee, thank you for the 
opportunity to appear today and represent the men and women of 
United States Northern Command and the North American Aerospace 
Defense Command.
    NORTHCOM and NORAD are distinct commands united by a common 
purpose, to defend the United States and Canadian homelands in 
what is clearly the most complex and dynamic strategic 
environment that I have experienced during more than 35 years 
in service.
    In my role as the commander of NORTHCOM, I am responsible 
for homeland defense, Defense Support of Civil Authorities in 
the United States, and security cooperation with our military 
partners in Canada, Mexico, and the Bahamas. As the commander 
of NORAD, the U.S.-Canadian binational command, I am 
responsible for aerospace warning, aerospace control, and 
maritime warning in the approaches to North America.
    Despite the complexity of the strategic environment and 
recent erosion of military advantage, the United States 
military remains the most powerful and professional force in 
history. However, we must take action now to stop the erosion 
of our military advantage.
    Our competitors' actions and ambitions are global and all-
domain in nature. And our competitors have the capability and 
intent to hold our homeland at risk, above and below the 
nuclear threshold and in multiple domains, to achieve their 
strategic objectives.
    The PRC and Russia have fielded cruise missiles, the 
delivery platforms, non-kinetic capabilities that hold at risk 
critical infrastructure and civilian infrastructure in the 
United States and Canada and with the capability to strike with 
limited warning with significant consequences, including 
reducing our capability to project power from a secure 
homeland. Limited warning due to a lack of all-domain awareness 
inherently limits the risk and decision space options available 
to national leaders, which increases the risk of miscalculation 
and escalation.
    Today I assess, as I have for nearly three years, that the 
homeland is a potential limiting factor to ensuring rapid and 
effective implementation and execution of global contingency 
plans due to my lack of domain awareness, timely access to 
forces that are ready to operate throughout my area of 
responsibility, including in the Arctic, and a lack of 
resilient infrastructure enabling the Joint Force to fight in 
and from our homeland while ensuring forward power projection.
    To address today's strategic environment, for nearly three 
years I have focused on four key priorities, domain awareness 
or the ability to see and detect potential threats in all 
domains, information dominance, which is the use of artificial 
intelligence and machine learning to process data more rapidly 
for strategic advantage, decision superiority, which is the 
dissemination of data and information to the right leader at 
the right time from the tactical to the strategic level, and 
finally, global integration, addressing today's environment 
with a global and all-domain approach vice legacy, regional 
approaches and practices.
    Those priorities are critical to successfully defending the 
homeland and to providing our national leaders with the only 
thing I can never give them enough of, and that is time to 
create deterrence options and, if required, defend and defeat 
options.
    Our competitors' actions over the last several years have 
shown that regional crisis often take the Department to have 
global implications which the--and also the potential for rapid 
escalation. And it is vital that the Department adopt globally 
integrated plans and policies that fully reflect competitor 
capability, capacity, and intent, including the intent to 
threaten our homeland.
    While we have work to do, there has been some notable 
progress towards these key priorities. I am grateful to the 
Department and Congress for your support of the Over-the-
Horizon radars that will significantly improve domain awareness 
and the ability to detect and track threats well before they 
reach North America.
    But we need to go faster. An acquisition plan based on over 
a decade is too long. Both the Department of Defense and the 
Canadian Department of National Defense have committed to 
funding Over-the-Horizon radar. And I respectfully urge both 
governments to ensure this vital and proven capability is 
fielded as quickly as possible.
    Likewise, the Space Force's investment in advanced space-
based missile warning sensor capabilities and the Navy's 
commitment to modernizing integrated underseas surveillance are 
vital to my homeland defense mission. Yet again, we can't wait 
a decade or longer to field these capabilities.
    Our commands and the Department of Defense need your 
continued support to outpace the rapid gains made by our 
competitors. Continued progress will require the Department and 
Congress to accept some risk by prioritizing rapid 
modernization and innovation over maintaining obsolete 
platforms, organizations, and infrastructure, and occasionally 
accept failure as part of the process.
    The generational challenges ahead of us will require the 
best minds and expertise we can find. The Department also must 
invest accordingly in civilian and military personnel 
recruiting, hiring, and retention. And we must continue to 
build the enormous advantage working with our international 
alliances and partnerships.
    I believe the greatest risk that our nation faces right now 
is our inability to change and adapt at a pace required by the 
strategic environment. Homeland defense must be recognized as 
essential to contingency plans at home and for power projection 
abroad. And it is vital that all military planning account for 
that reality. In an area of incredible innovation and 
technological advancement, inflexible, outdated processes are a 
greater impediment to success than many of our competitors' 
advancements.
    Finally, I would like to comment on recent events, 
including the incursion of the PRC high altitude balloon into 
our national airspace. The PRC high altitude balloon was 
obviously a significant event that shined light on PRC's brazen 
intelligence collection against the United States and Canada. 
It was the first time in NORTHCOM's history we conducted an 
engagement over the United States. And it made clear that our 
competitors have the capability and intent to reach our 
homeland.
    It also clearly demonstrates the limitations of our domain 
awareness and the impediments we face in getting information 
into the hands of decision makers quickly. Candidly, the 
internal discord of this event caused--it just showed one of 
the ways our competitors target us each and every day in the 
information space. And they are becoming increasingly adept at 
driving wedges between the American people.
    As for NORAD and NORTHCOM, I commit to you that this event 
has already generated critical lessons for my commands and our 
mission partners. And I can guarantee you that both NORAD and 
NORTHCOM are going to continue to learn and do whatever is 
necessary to keep our country safe.
    On behalf of all the soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, 
guardians, and civilians at NORAD and NORTHCOM, I would like to 
thank the committee for your steadfast support as we defend our 
nation. I look forward to your questions.
    [The prepared statement of General VanHerck can be found in 
the Appendix on page 77]
    The Chairman. Thank you, General. The Chair now recognizes 
General Richardson for 5 minutes for her opening statement.

 STATEMENT OF GEN LAURA J. RICHARDSON, USA, COMMANDER, UNITED 
                    STATES SOUTHERN COMMAND

    General Richardson. Chairman Rogers, Ranking Member Smith, 
and distinguished members of the committee, thank you for the 
opportunity to appear before you today with Assistant Secretary 
Dalton, General VanHerck, who are my teammates in keeping this 
Western Hemisphere safe.
    I am honored to represent the men and women of U.S. 
Southern Command to discuss the challenges we share with our 
neighbors in Latin America and the Caribbean.
    As stated in the National Security Strategy, no region 
impacts the United States more directly than the Western 
Hemisphere. Last year I testified before the committee and 
stated this region, our shared neighborhood, is under assault 
from a host of crosscutting, transboundary challenges that 
directly threaten our homeland. This is still true today and is 
a call to action. In the last year, I have spent traveling in 
the region, meeting with leaders to better understand these 
challenges and the threat they pose to our mutual interests.
    The world is at an inflection point. Our partners in the 
Western Hemisphere with whom we are bonded by trade, shared 
values, democratic traditions, family ties are feeling the 
impacts of external interference and coercion.
    The People's Republic of China, our pacing challenge, 
continues to expand its economic, diplomatic, technological, 
informational, and military influence in Latin America and the 
Caribbean.
    The PRC has the capability and intent to eschew 
international norms, advance its brand of authoritarianism and 
amass power and influence at the expense of these democracies. 
The PRC has expanded its ability to extract resources, 
establish ports, manipulate governments through predatory 
investment practices, and build potential dual use space 
facilities, the most space facilities in any combat and command 
region.
    Russia, an acute threat, bolsters authoritarian regimes in 
Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, and continues its extensive 
disinformation campaign. These activities undermine democracies 
and challenge our credibility.
    Both China and Russia exploit the presence of transnational 
criminal organizations and amplify their destabilizing impact 
on democratic governments. TCOs [transnational criminal 
organizations] spread violence and corruption throughout the 
region and beyond. Their fentanyl-laced cocaine contributes to 
the deaths of Americans in cities and towns across the country.
    The good news is that working with our very willing 
partners leads to the best defense. And we must use all 
available levers to strengthen our partnerships with the 28 
like-minded democracies in this hemisphere who understand the 
power of working together to counter these shared challenges.
    Our partners look to us to lead in the hemisphere. We have 
an obligation to meet them where they are and commit to 
aggressively address our common security challenges. We must 
continue to maximize the effectiveness of important tools like 
security cooperation, programs to train and equip our partner 
militaries and public security forces, and conduct multilateral 
exercises to build interoperability, and to increase the State 
Department's international military education and training, 
foreign military financing, and foreign military sales programs 
to educate, train, and build the capacity that our partners put 
to immediate use to stand shoulder to shoulder with us.
    As the National Defense Strategy states, the U.S. derives 
immense benefits from a stable, peaceful, and democratic 
Western Hemisphere that reduces security threats to our 
homeland. U.S. SOUTHCOM is putting integrated deterrence into 
action every day using innovative methods to work seamlessly 
across all domains with the other combatant commands, the Joint 
Force, allies and partners, Congress, the U.S. interagency, 
NGOs [non-government organizations], and the private sector to 
help build a hemisphere that is free, secure, and prosperous 
for our generation and generations to come.
    I call this team democracy. And we need to build and field 
a resourced team.
    Thank you. And I look forward to your questions.
    [The prepared statement of General Richardson can be found 
in the Appendix on page 103]
    The Chairman. Thank you. The Chair recognizes himself.
    General VanHerck, can you speak to the importance of the 
DOD's current spectrum to radar, sensor, interceptor systems 
and the risks of losing that spectrum would pose to homeland 
defense capabilities?
    General VanHerck. Yeah, Chairman, so the specific 
frequencies you are talking about, multiple DOD platforms 
operate in that to include some of our maritime homeland 
defense capabilities and our airborne capabilities to detect 
threats here in the homeland. I think going forward the best 
way to look at this is make sure that we understand exactly the 
impact to national security and homeland defense and the 
broader impact of any sell off of those capabilities or the 
frequencies going forward.
    The Chairman. So, if you lost access to those, that 
spectrum, would it have an adverse impact on your capability to 
defend the homeland?
    General VanHerck. Chairman, it absolutely could have an 
impact to those capabilities, maritime, homeland defense radar 
capabilities, along with airborne capabilities.
    The Chairman. Okay.
    General Richardson, your testimony outlines the extent to 
which China's pervasiveness in the region is taking place in 
recent years. What tools and resources do you need from this 
committee to improve partnerships and stop China's gains in the 
territory?
    General Richardson. So my main levers to get after the 
problem set and the challenges and help our partners in the 
region is security cooperation. That is my main lever. That is 
the training, the equipping, also our exercise program. We have 
eight large exercises. That is the ability to be able to bring 
over 20 partner nations together to train, to work through 
challenges with translation, interoperability, our doctrine, 
our tactics, all those kinds of things. That is one thing that 
PRC cannot do is bring nations together to conduct exercises, 
so a very, very powerful program.
    But the security cooperation, we got to be there with our 
partners on the field, with our jersey on, with the training 
and the equipping that we bring to make them stronger. Their 
challenges and their security challenges are our security 
challenges. They turn right around and put the security 
cooperation to use in order to counter those challenges so they 
don't end up north and on our southwest border.
    The Chairman. Okay. The Chair now recognizes the ranking 
member for any questions he may have.
    Mr. Smith. Thank you.
    General VanHerck, on the domain awareness issue, which I 
did not explain as clearly as I would have liked to in my 
opening statement, but what do we need to do to make sure that 
we are aware of the threats that are coming at us in our air 
space and in cyber space? What are the most important steps? 
And I am assuming that you believe there is a vulnerability 
there, and we need to do more to protect ourselves from it.
    General VanHerck. Yeah, Ranking Member Smith, absolutely 
there is a vulnerability there.
    The first thing I would say is field as soon as possible 
the Over-the-Horizon capabilities the Department has already 
funded in last year's budget. So we need to go faster.
    Same thing with NORAD and the Canadians, we need to field 
those capabilities. Right now, we employ a legacy 1980s Cold 
War-era system. We need to ensure that the radars besides Over-
the-Horizon radars, such as our FPS-117s that we have, are 
fully modernized and integrated with the Federal Aviation and 
also DOD and other domain awareness capabilities.
    I am grateful for the funding for underseas surveillance 
with the IUSS [Integrated Undersea Surveillance System]. I 
think we need to go forward modernizing that, though. In the 
Pacific, it will be different than what we do in the Atlantic 
due to the vast reaches. So, in the Pacific, I think laying 
cable on the Pacific will be a challenge. We need to get more 
mobile capabilities and also consider going to space-based kind 
of capabilities for that.
    And finally, the cyber is the most concerning for me, 
Ranking Member Smith, candidly. We don't know what we don't 
know. And many of the cyber threats operate outside of DOD 
authority and also Federal authorities, such as CISA 
[Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency] with Jen 
Easterly. And that creates a vulnerability.
    I rely on municipalities, industry, commercial capabilities 
to project power from our homeland and defend our homeland. We 
need to make sure we understand those vulnerabilities.
    Mr. Smith. Yeah, and I think that is something this 
committee really should prioritize as we are looking at the 
authorities and the systems that we need to fund. I mean, a lot 
of it is just a matter of upgrading what we have. I mean, we 
have a lot of great systems, but they have been around a long 
time. We haven't upgraded as technology has moved forward, 
enabling us to better protect ourselves. So I think we really 
need to focus on that. Yes, sir.
    General VanHerck. Can I add one thing? I think it is 
crucial to point out that the FISA [the Foreign Intelligence 
Surveillance Act], the [section] 702 authorities, expire later 
this year. Those authorities have been crucial for us 
maintaining awareness on potential threats to our homeland and 
around the globe. And I would tell you that allowing that to 
expire could increase the threat to the homeland.
    Mr. Smith. That is a very fair point.
    And the spectrum issue is also a challenge, as the Chairman 
alluded to. I mean, part of the reason on the spectrum is we 
are trying to keep up on the commercial side. And I think 
everyone here would agree that in terms of our national 
security the degree to which the U.S. can be the leader in 
communications technology and make sure that we have access to 
that spectrum, even on the private side, is important. We just 
have to figure out how to do it in a way that doesn't 
jeopardize our national security interests. And I have been 
toiling away at that issue for a while. It is not an easy 
balance to strike, but it is one we need to pay attention to.
    General Richardson, we have talked about China, Russia, and 
Iran. Just in a nutshell, why are we struggling so much on that 
with some of our Latin American countries? When you and I met, 
we talked a little bit about how Brazil was basically cozying 
up to Russia and a number of other countries down there as 
well. What is it that Russia and China are bringing to the game 
down there that is making these countries so willing to embrace 
them? And what could we do to get a better balance there? And 
understanding, we are not going to keep China or even Russia 
out of Latin America. But how can we make sure it doesn't 
jeopardize our national security interests?
    General Richardson. Thank you for the question. I think 
the, just to go back a couple of years into COVID [coronavirus 
disease 2019] and create a picture of the landscape, I think 
COVID has had a devastating impact. More proportional than 8 
percent of the world's population in this region, they suffered 
29 percent of the world's COVID deaths. 170,000,000 people in 
this region put into poverty. Their economies are struggling.
    And so, as they are trying to dig out of the hole, all of 
them, and you have the PRC showing up with the Belt and Road 
Initiative, the billions of dollars that they advertise 
available for these big projects, all these projects that they 
do, highways, electrical dams, it looks like investment but it 
is all in critical infrastructure amazingly enough, and space 
and telecommunications and deepwater ports, one has to ask 
themselves why. Why with the largest military buildup on 
conventional and nuclear forces in mainland China are they 
investing, looks to be investing across the globe in Latin 
America and the Caribbean?
    And so this is very concerning. And I would say because of 
the status of the economies of these countries is that they 
have to look at whatever they can get their hands on to deliver 
for their people. The leaders in the region are in there for a 
short period of time, generally one term. And that is about 4 
years. They have got 4 years to deliver.
    Mr. Smith. Thank you. I apologize. I am out of time. I 
yield back. Thank you.
    General Richardson. Thank you, sir.
    The Chairman. [Inaudible]
    Mr. Mills. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Assistant Secretary Dalton, General VanHerck, and General 
Richardson, I have to say, General Richardson, you are probably 
one of the first to actually, in my opinion, properly address 
what China and Russia's real desire is there in Latin America.
    For a long time, I have been talking about this 
geopolitical alignment, for many years, on Russia, China, Iran, 
and North Korea. This Road and Belt Initiative Chairman Xi has 
launched, which was really an effort to try and expand out the 
Eurasian borders, take Africa, take Oceania, take over the 
portage and railways, creating almost a maritime silk route 
that would cut off and choke Western Hemisphere supply chain, 
but also taking over and helping to try and increase tariffs 
and other things through the Panama Canal and then the Russians 
actually creating almost a faux iron curtain utilizing Chavez 
in Venezuela, Petro in Colombia, as well as for utilizing the 
Darien Gap to print fentanyl by the Mainland Chinese to utilize 
to poison Americans.
    It nearly seemed as if it was an entrapment to try and go 
ahead and encircle America to choke off the Western Hemisphere 
supply chain, because what we are really facing is the economic 
resource cyber warfare against China and his malign activities.
    So, in knowing this, what exactly is NORTHCOM and SOUTHCOM 
doing to work on countering this additional ground that China 
is gaining within Latin America?
    General Richardson. So I will go back to the--and thank you 
for the question, Congressman. I will go back to my main 
levers. And that is security cooperation for SOUTHCOM, also the 
exercises. And then in my opening statement, talking about the 
education, the foreign military financing, foreign military 
sales is crucial to help them achieve and obtain the hardware 
that they need in order to counter the malign activity.
    The ISR [intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance], 
to be able to see the domain awareness, to see the threats is 
really important. There are a lot of legacy systems that are 
out there that our partners have, radar systems. And they need 
to be advanced.
    But the thing is, as I said earlier, our partners are our 
best defense. And working with them, everything that we do with 
security cooperation is based in the human rights, the rule of 
law, the professionalization of their militaries. And we have 
seen over the past few years the challenges that they had but 
how they have maintained a professional military. I am really, 
really proud of them. But the security cooperation is really 
important for us.
    Mr. Mills. And kind of staying on topic and realizing that 
China has continued to utilize economic coercion, as opposed to 
kind of the U.S.'s cash diplomacy efforts, how do you see a way 
that we can combat what they are doing from an economic 
perspective that would enable us to weaken them in that area?
    General Richardson. So, in terms of from the military side, 
that is being able to deliver in that short period of time. 
Those leaders are in the seat for like 4 years. They are on a 
stopwatch. They are not on the calendar. They are trying to 
deliver in 3 to 6 months.
    Our foreign military sales is really built for long term. 
So we are really trying hard, and Secretary Dalton has been 
very helpful in that, speeding up those processes, working with 
the interagency, within our own Department of Defense to speed 
those up, because our partners do see how quickly that we can 
get equipment to Ukraine. So we have got to be able to not take 
2 and 3 years to get one coastal patrol vessel or one maritime 
patrol aircraft, a King Air 250, to a country to help them be 
able to see and counter the malign activity.
    And we can do it. We can compete with the PRC. We don't 
have to outspend them to compete with them. But we got to meet 
our partners' needs where they need it. And a little goes a 
long way in this region.
    Mr. Mills. We talk about some of the older equipment that 
we utilize and the importance of ISR capabilities in these 
areas. And I recently visited Florida Atlantic University, who 
is working a lot on quantum linkage and as well as for AI 
[artificial intelligence] autonomous drone capabilities and 
capacities.
    Do you feel that--and this is a concern obviously that 
Chairman Xi has as well, because he has said that he is 
outpacing us militarily and economically, that innovation is 
really the area that he needs to pick things up. Do you think 
getting those types of innovations into the field and into the 
hands of the military would actually help us in being able to 
combat some of these efforts?
    General Richardson. Absolutely. And so I advertise the 
SOUTHCOM region as an area, bring your tools for innovation, 
laboratory tests, whatever you want to do. We will put it to 
real-world use in a real-world mission, get hands on in the 
military, be able to use it, test it, see what works, what 
doesn't work. And we have been pretty successful with that. But 
I advertise that to all of the services. And we have a lot of 
folks that are really taking advantage of that.
    Mr. Mills. Thank you so much. With that, I yield my time 
back.
    The Chairman. The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Veasey, is 
recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Veasey. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much.
    Secretary Dalton, General Richardson noted in her testimony 
that China's trade footprint in Latin America and the Caribbean 
is going to increase by about 4,000 percent by 2025. I was 
curious how the Department is part of the response to address 
PRC's expanding influence in the region.
    Secretary Dalton. Congressman, thank you for the question. 
And it is deeply concerning, the trendlines in the region, and 
it reflects, I think, this broader approach by the PRC 
leveraging all tools of its national power to extend its reach 
really globally and to compete with the United States. That 
comes through gray zone tactics. It comes through economic 
linkages in the Caribbean and Latin America, as you noted.
    In terms of what DOD is doing, I think General Richardson's 
laydown of the security cooperation levers that we have is 
quite right. Our ability to bolster our defense relationships, 
empower the leaders that are aligned with our interests and 
values in the region, and accelerate our security cooperation 
activities to them will enhance our relationships and crowd out 
the possibilities for the PRC to make further inroads.
    I do think there is also more that we could be doing in the 
region, building upon great work that SOUTHCOM is already doing 
to expose the predatory nature of some of the PRC's activities 
through information operations and public affairs.
    Mr. Veasey. Thank you very much. I wanted to ask General 
VanHerck a question on China also. When the previous 
administration put in trade restrictions on China, one of the 
things that the Chinese did was that they just upped their 
investment in Mexico, one of our NAFTA [North American Free 
Trade Agreement] trading partners. As a matter of fact, we saw 
record high investment in Mexico around 2020-2021 time period. 
And the DEA [U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency] is saying that China 
is still the primary source of fentanyl and fentanyl-related 
substances that come into the United States.
    Can you talk a little bit about, as trade continues to 
increase with our partners to the south, particularly Mexico, 
how important it is that we get a hold of this?
    General VanHerck. To make sure I understand your question, 
get a hold of the Chinese investment?
    Mr. Veasey. How concerned should we be about the Chinese 
investment and it being correlated with them being in control 
of so much fentanyl coming into the United States?
    General VanHerck. Yes, we should be very concerned about 
Chinese investment in the entire Western Hemisphere, not only 
in Mexico. There is significant Chinese investment in Mexico. 
About 80 percent of their telecommunications is provided by 
Chinese companies, such as Huawei. Their border detection and 
their security, going back and forth, we work closely with 
Mexico to ensure the Chinese aren't allowed to provide the 
capabilities that look at vehicles and processing, go across 
the border as well.
    As far as the fentanyl piece, let's be clear. When we say, 
``China,'' it comes from individuals and companies in China, 
but the PRC themselves is turning a blind eye. So, it is 
crucial that we expose that. We name and shame their 
activities, the fact that they aren't taking advantage of 
stopping that, and we shouldn't expect them to. But we should 
do more. It's coming not only from China, but other places in 
Asia as well, and we need to work closely.
    I'm working very closely with SEMAR [the Mexican 
Secretariat of the Navy]. They have been charged--SEMAR is the 
Secretary of SEMAR--the Navy in Mexico--in providing 
information to enable them to, basically, go after some of 
these precursors, as they provide port security.
    I would also expand that it is not just in Mexico and the 
Western Hemisphere and Latin America. It is in the Bahamas as 
well. And so, they have the largest mega-resort built right on 
top of our Navy's test and training ranges and where our cables 
come ashore.
    So, things that we could do is we have to continue to 
educate, declassify, and let these nations see what is actually 
going on as well, and continue building the relationships. It 
would vastly help to have an ambassador in the Bahamas. We 
haven't had one since 2011.
    Mr. Veasey. Okay. Well, thank you very much.
    General Richardson, in short, based on that, what sort of 
platform should we be investing in for the future, particularly 
now that we know that China is going to continue to want to 
have this large footprint in our Southern Hemisphere?
    General Richardson. So, I think the challenges that our 
countries face in the region is the cyber is at the top of 
their list of the challenges that they are dealing with. 
Ransomware attacks, cyberattacks are very, very prevalent. And 
building their capacity and capability to, one, harden their 
networks and be able to do that very, very quickly, and harden 
critical infrastructure, and having the ability to be able to 
do that.
    And, again, I go back to the struggling economies of some 
of these countries. They are having a hard time doing that. So, 
we are helping them to identify their vulnerabilities in order 
to put a focus on that and be able to fix that.
    The Chairman. The gentleman's time has expired.
    Mr. Veasey. Thank you.
    The Chairman. The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from 
Missouri, Mr. Alford, for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Alford. Thank you, Chairman Rogers, Ranking Member 
Smith, and our witnesses here today. I am proud to say that 
both of our generals today are Missouri natives. Thank you for 
being here today.
    I, too, am increasingly concerned about the threat China 
poses, not just in the Indo-Pacific region, but us here at 
home, here in America. With the recent Chinese spy balloon 
flying over the U.S. homeland, China's surveillance of America 
through TikTok on their phones, new reports of Chinese-made 
cranes operating at American ports, including cranes used by 
our own military, being used for surveillance by the CCP. It 
makes me wonder, what part--what part of our society, what part 
of our country, our precious Nation, has not been infiltrated 
by the Chinese community government?
    I'm also concerned that we do not have the capabilities in 
place to protect our homeland from a non-kinetic threat; for 
example, electromagnetic or cyberattack. And that leads to my 
first question for General VanHerck.
    Concerning the recent Chinese spy balloon that flew 
unchecked over most of the continental United States, including 
near Whiteman Air Force Base, can you talk a little bit about 
the resources and capabilities that we do have in place to 
defend our homeland from non-kinetic attacks, such as 
electromagnetic and cyberattacks?
    General VanHerck. So, that is a great question, 
Congressman. As far as resources in place, General Nakasone 
primarily has the responsibility for DOD and defense from the 
non-kinetic effects that you are talking about and being aware. 
As far as being aware of EMP [electromagnetic pulse], I would 
say that it is not a specific capability, but, more broadly, 
that is our strategic deterrent that defends against that, any 
kind of an electromagnetic attack on our homeland.
    And it is also my capabilities to defend against any 
platform that may deliver that, such as an airborne platform, a 
high-altitude balloon which could effectively utilize an EMP 
attack on our homeland. So, I think I have the capabilities to 
do that if I have the domain awareness to see that more broadly 
and defend against an EMP kind of threat.
    As far as specific EMP, for DOD facilities and key critical 
infrastructure, much of that is already hardened from EMP 
attacks. So, the way we deliver our Emergency Action Messages, 
the way we look at our command and control that is critical to 
nuclear command and control, much of that is already EMP-
hardened.
    Mr. Alford. Thank you, sir. Another concern I have is that 
we may not be focusing enough on the Army's domestic role as it 
relates to NORTHCOM. Can you talk about the Army's role with 
NORTHCOM? Do you believe that the Army has the resources it 
needs to support our Nation during a Federal disaster?
    General VanHerck. Yes. So, I believe that question would be 
best asked by the Army, or to the Army. But my concern is 
access to forces that are organized, trained, and equipped in a 
timely manner to conduct both defense support to civil 
authorities and, also, defense of the homeland.
    I'm the only combatant commander that doesn't have a 
threshold force day-to-day to defend my area of responsibility. 
I have to gain access to that through a request for forces who 
are just in time, and those forces, then, have to come from 
somewhere else, either retained by the Service or somebody 
else's OPLAN [military operation plan]. I'm confident the Army 
has what they need from a capacity-wise to get to it. My 
question is access to it.
    I would also point out that I do have concerns about the 
Arctic. Fifty-two percent of my AOR is in the Arctic. Okay? And 
we need to ensure that forces are organized, trained, and 
equipped to operate day-to-day in the Arctic, and I'm less 
confident there that the Services are organized. They all have 
strategies; they have not funded those strategies. I look 
forward to seeing the budget for 2024.
    Mr. Alford. So do we. Thank you. Our last question for you, 
General: could you please explain what NORTHCOM is doing to 
counter Huawei? You mentioned their involvement in Mexico. We 
know that the Chinese communist government has their tentacles 
spread throughout with Huawei and ZTE [Zhongxing 
Telecommunication Equipment Corporation] hardware, in 
particular, near military installations. Please address that.
    General VanHerck. So, we work closely with General Nakasone 
and Jen Easterly at CISA to address those. And this is an 
ongoing topic that you see in the media right now. It is about 
the investment of Chinese corporations, companies of the 
Chinese Communist Party itself into our Nation.
    So, this is an education aspect, that we have to ensure 
folks understand the risk as they sell off properties around 
military installations. Primarily, that responsibility would 
fall outside of my authorities, but I am significantly working 
with those who have that responsibility, [the Department of] 
Commerce and others.
    Mr. Alford. We had a good conversation in our office 
yesterday and we talked about not just domain awareness, but 
the awareness of the American people. How do we get America to 
wake up to the actual threat the Communist Chinese government 
poses?
    General VanHerck. Yes, I think this is an education in 
understanding. We are so economically intertwined as well with 
China, that it is hard to set policies in place that could have 
an impact on ourselves. And so, we have to understand the 
threat. We have to be willing to declassify and expose that 
threat a little bit more, so folks fully understand what China 
is actually trying to do, the PRC.
    Mr. Alford. Thank you, General. Thank you to all of our 
witnesses.
    Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    The Chairman. The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from 
California, Mr. Panetta, for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Panetta. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Ranking Member.
    Sir, gentleladies, good morning and thank you for being 
here. I think the Chairman did a pretty good job in setting the 
scene, at least in regards to the question about I am about to 
pose to you, Ms. Dalton, first.
    Obviously, we have heard about the horrific reports about 
the killing of two American people and the kidnapping of two 
more, I guess this group of four that was going down there for 
a medical procedure.
    We are hearing about the explosion of illicit drug deaths 
here in our country. We are hearing about people, thousands 
upon thousands, just disappearing in Mexico. The Washington 
Post did an excellent expose about the amount of fentanyl that 
is coming into our country.
    And now, you are, obviously, hearing more and more public 
officials--attorney generals, former AG [Attorney General] 
Barr; you are seeing a House Resolution; you are going to see a 
Senate bill, I think, by Senator Graham--about what we can do 
to designate cartels as terrorist groups and authorize, quote-
unquote, ``select military capabilities.'' Obviously, Ms. 
Dalton, there is a lot of policy challenges in regards to this, 
but I think we understand why people are asking for this, based 
on what we are seeing.
    If you could, go into some of the challenges that there 
could be for this type of policy to be put in place, especially 
when it comes to Mexico.
    Secretary Dalton. Congressman, thank you very much for the 
question. And, first of all, to acknowledge the tragedy of the 
killing of Americans over the last week, and this is, of 
course, a priority for this administration to look out for the 
families and to ensure that the persons affected are returned 
home.
    And I would say, from a policy perspective, certainly, 
concerning the levels of violence; the flow of irregular 
migrants to our Southwest border; the prevalence of fentanyl 
coming through our ports of entry--these are all deeply 
concerning trendlines, and we need a holistic approach to 
address it, not only with Mexico, but, as discussed, more 
upstream in terms of the sources, whether that is PRC's 
connection to fentanyl or working closely with partners 
upstream in the region as well.
    I think to your question, in terms of weighing the 
advantages and disadvantages of some of the steps that are 
under consideration, in terms of use of force or certain 
designations, I think we need to be clear-eyed about what some 
of the implications might be for the lines of cooperation we do 
have with Mexico.
    And I will speak from a defense perspective, as that is my 
primary line of oversight. So, I am going down to Mexico, 
actually, tonight to engage Mexican partners on intelligence 
cooperation, cyber cooperation, a whole host of critical 
defense cooperation activities. They are important from a 
national security perspective. And I do worry, based on 
signals, very strong signals we have gotten from the Mexicans 
in the past--concerns about their sovereignty; concerns about 
potential reciprocal steps that they might take to cut off our 
access if we were to take some of the steps that are in 
consideration. So, I think we need to be really clear-eyed 
about weighing those tradeoffs.
    Mr. Panetta. I mean, it planned that I will be in Mexico as 
well next week speaking with the President. And obviously, you 
had a Wall Street Journal editorial--excuse me--op-ed recently 
that said, basically, the chief enabler is President Andres 
Manuel Lopez Obrador. Would you agree with that statement?
    Secretary Dalton. I believe these are really complex 
challenges that are going to require engagement at all levels, 
to include with the head of state.
    Mr. Panetta. Okay.
    Secretary Dalton. And, you know, there is cooperation that 
we need to further when it comes to counter drug efforts and 
countering irregular migration as well.
    Mr. Panetta. In the last 40 seconds, General VanHerck, I 
realize that there is a lot of discussion about the Chinese 
surveillance balloon over America. There was also reported, and 
to be assessed by the Pentagon, a surveillance balloon over 
Latin America at the same time. Whatever happened to that?
    General VanHerck. Well, I will speak for what I know, and 
General Richardson can talk about it.
    What I understand is the PRC actually terminated that 
balloon in the Atlantic Ocean off the east coast of South 
America. That is what my understanding is.
    Mr. Panetta. And, General Richardson, is that correct?
    General Richardson. That is what I understand as well, yes.
    Mr. Panetta. Okay. Thank you. I yield back.
    The Chairman. The gentleman's time has expired.
    The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from New York, Mr. 
LaLota, for 5 minutes.
    Mr. LaLota. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Status of Forces 
Agreements [SOFA] are the compacts the Department of Defense 
has in place with friendly foreign nations who host U.S. troops 
overseas. Among other things, these agreements assure that, 
when deployed U.S. forces are accused of crimes by our allies, 
our troops are afforded the proper protocols and American civil 
rights, such as the right to counsel of their choice, an 
interpreter, a bar against pretrial confinement when accused of 
a nonviolent crime.
    And for decades, United States forces have been stationed 
in and deployed to Japan, one of our greatest allies in the 
Western Pacific. And our nations' military cooperation has been 
a strong source of stability for the Western Pacific in the 
face of real threats from China and North Korea.
    Also for decades, military men and women stationed in and 
deployed to Japan have operated with the understanding that, if 
they were accused of a nonviolent crime in Japan, they would be 
afforded basic civil rights.
    Contrary to that understanding, Ridge Alkonis, who is a 
United States Navy Surface Warfare Officer stationed in Japan, 
subsequent to being involved in a vehicular accident where 
everybody agrees no drugs or alcohol was involved, was 
arrested, confined pretrial, denied access to his own attorney, 
and denied access to a translator. And subsequent to the denial 
of these rights, and while sleep-deprived, Ridge Alkonis was 
coerced to confessing and forced to personally pay about a 
million dollars in restitution. Ridge Alkonis is now serving a 
3-year sentence in a Japanese jail.
    General Richardson, you command forces in and around 32 
different nations. And, General VanHerck, your command reaches 
three foreign nations, from what I understand. Can you each 
describe the importance of valid, enforceable Status of Forces 
Agreements? And what does the lack of them do, especially with 
respect to operationally and otherwise, for our forces' morale 
and effectiveness?
    General Richardson. So, thank you for the question.
    I think it is very important. And for the few countries 
that----
    The Chairman. Would you pull the mic a little bit closer? 
We can't hear you.
    General Richardson. Yes, sir.
    So, very importantly in terms of the Status of Forces 
Agreements, and for the few countries that don't have the SOFA 
in place yet, that is one of the first things that I bring up 
when I meet with the leaders, when I travel to the region. And 
explaining the importance of it and what it really means, 
right? I think that, in some cases, that is not fully 
understood. And so, being able to describe it and explain it 
helps a lot, and so much so that that enables, then--we have 
had a couple cases where we have been able to get that across 
the goal line, as I would say, where we have been able to get a 
SOFA put in place that wasn't there previously.
    Mr. LaLota. Thank you.
    General VanHerck. Yes, it is crucial to have a good SOFA in 
place. We just have a new one in the Bahamas put in place. 
Without that, our folks are at risk serving there to what we 
would expect for due process here in the United States as well. 
And this puts us in a common place to negotiate, when we start 
with any country where we are serving, to have a foundation 
going forward, when there are instances as you described.
    Mr. LaLota. And, General Richardson, of the 32 nations in 
your AOR, about how many do you not have Status of Forces 
Agreements with?
    General Richardson. So, the exact number I will get to you 
for sure, but it is we have more than we don't. And as I said, 
we will continue to aggressively work that to protect our 
service members and ensure the countries that they know that 
this isn't just a way to, you know, allow our service members 
to be able to do something, and then, not be held accountable. 
We hold our service members accountable when appropriate, and 
we will take care of that and make sure that that happens. And 
so, that education piece is really important.
    Mr. LaLota. Thank you.
    And, Ms. Dalton, what is the Department of Defense doing to 
get a valid, enforceable Status of Forces Agreement in place 
with Japan, so that our troops can operate with the confidence 
they deserve?
    Secretary Dalton. Congressman, thank you for the question. 
I will have to take that back to our team that works the Indo-
Pacific. Thank you.
    [The information referred to can be found in the Appendix 
on page 141.]
    Mr. LaLota. Ms. Dalton, will you commit to bringing this 
issue to Secretary Austin and express to him how important this 
committee thinks it is?
    Secretary Dalton. I will.
    Mr. LaLota. Thank you.
    I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
    The Chairman. The Chair now recognizes the gentlelady from 
Alabama, Ms. Sewell, for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Sewell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    And I want to thank all of our witnesses.
    I'm particularly concerned about the People's Republic of 
China's Belt and Road Initiative and their footprint in South 
America, in particular. Twenty-one of the 31 countries within 
SOUTHCOM's area of responsibility have Belt and Road projects 
in their countries. Moreover, China has become South America's 
top trading partner.
    While the United States spends our time decoupling our 
defense industrial supply chains from China, I think we also 
have to think about how our allies and neighbors in the Western 
Hemisphere are responding to this Belt and Road Initiative. In 
fact, I have a bill called the Leveling the Playing Field Act 
which would counter the PRC's cross-border subsidies and other 
anti-free-market economic tools which are at the core of the 
Belt and Road Initiative. Ultimately, I believe we have to take 
a holistic approach to deepening our military, economic, and 
humanitarian ties in the Western Hemisphere.
    General Richardson, in your testimony you discuss the PRC's 
use of the Belt and Road Initiative to promote trade and 
investment in South America. Can you talk a little bit more 
about how that is being used to undermine existing and emerging 
democracies in South America and what our approach should be 
with respect to that? And how should we all, as lawmakers, view 
this threat?
    General Richardson. So, it is definitely a threat. It is 
all the instruments of national power that are coming to bear 
that the PRC brings to the table. And I think that, with Team 
USA, we had a lot of investment; we have a lot of things that 
are happening in this region and in this area of 
responsibility, the AOR.
    And I think that we have got to show that; we have got to 
showcase that, because there is a lot happening, but we need to 
put Team USA's flag on everything that we do. And we don't.
    Ms. Sewell. Absolutely. But do you think that these 
countries actually understand, like, for example, in Africa, 
that the PRC is using their Belt and Road Initiative to 
actually have state-owned enterprises in their ports running 
military operations? And so, I want to know, I want to 
understand. I know that these countries have serious economic 
problems that the Chinese prey on, but do they understand the 
magnitude of allowing those projects to go on in their country?
    General Richardson. I think that they understand, but they 
are desperate. They are desperate for their economies. They are 
struggling to deliver in a short period of time, and they can't 
make up the difference and dig out of the hole fast enough.
    Ms. Sewell. Right.
    General Richardson. And so, when there is nothing else 
available, we don't have Western or international investment or 
bidders on the tenders that come out. When there are big 
projects for the critical infrastructure, and there are only 
PRC and Chinese bidders for those tenders, they have got no 
choice.
    And so, I think that we have got to pay more attention to 
this region. The proximity matters. They are on the 20-yard 
line of our homeland. We are in a neighborhood. These are our 
neighbors, and we have got to pay attention to them.
    Ms. Sewell. I know that we have America's Partnership for 
Economic Prosperity.
    General Richardson. Mhm.
    Ms. Sewell. And it has a lot of initiatives on that, and I 
fully support that.
    In my time remaining, I wanted to talk to General VanHerck 
about the 702 authorities. I sat on the [House] Permanent 
Select Committee on Intelligence for 8 years. And I grew to 
understand the importance of the 702 authorities. I do know 
that the average American hears about warrantless surveillance, 
and they get quite concerned about it, but I understand that 
there are, obviously, guardrails that are in place to protect 
American citizens from such surveillance.
    Can you talk to us, as we are embarking upon reauthorizing 
FISA?
    General VanHerck. Yes. So, I'm very confident that the 
American society is protected under our right to not have our 
own people spying on us. Okay? And 702 gives us access to 
foreign entities utilizing U.S. infrastructure for their 
benefit, which puts our homeland at risk, puts our people at 
risk. General Nakasone is very confident that he can maintain 
the separation of our people's rights along with our national 
security that FISA 702 gives us.
    Ms. Sewell. Thank you.
    And can you talk a little bit about what we have discovered 
and how we use it to our own homeland, defense of our own 
homeland.
    General VanHerck. We should talk about that in a classified 
environment.
    Ms. Sewell. Okay.
    General VanHerck. I will just tell you that it has given us 
insights into potential attacks on our homeland or intent by 
personnel to attack our homeland.
    Ms. Sewell. Thank you very much.
    I yield back the rest of my time.
    The Chairman. I thank the gentlelady.
    The Chair now recognizes the gentlelady from Virginia, Ms. 
Kiggans, for 5 minutes.
    Mrs. Kiggans. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    And thank you so much to the three of you for being here 
with us today and educating us.
    Over the past decade, we have seen our world become more 
unsafe and our adversaries are becoming more aggressive and 
assertive. And we see Russia's actions in the Ukraine, and we 
know that China is waiting and watching with Taiwan. And we see 
China's behavior specifically be more aggressive, like you all 
mentioned, on creating civilian ports, and not only growing 
their navy, but on the economic and civilian side as well. They 
are in places such as important chokeholds in Djibouti. And 
now, we are seeing them spread to the Atlantic side of the Horn 
of Africa.
    So, with your AOR specifically, General Richardson, if you 
could address, I know there are deepwater ports that have a 
potential for dual use for China with commercial/military 
activities, including both ends of the Panama Canal. And we 
have seen recent attempts for the Chinese securing those rights 
to build maritime installations in southern Argentina, which 
would provide China with direct access to the Straits of 
Magellan and Antarctica.
    So, given the strategic location of those two sites, do you 
have any concerns that in a potential conflict with China these 
sites could be militarized by the PRC and limit our ability to 
reinforce supply lines and move key assets to the Pacific?
    General Richardson. So, the Belt and Road Initiative and 
all of the companies that go in, the state-owned enterprises by 
the PRC that I worry about could become dual-use and used for 
military purposes. And so, the five Chinese companies along the 
Panama Canal--obviously, I need to keep the Panama Canal open, 
as well as the Strait of Magellan and the Drake Passage. That 
connects the East and the West, not just for our militaries, 
but the global economy. We have got to keep those things open. 
And so, yes, I absolutely worry about the state-owned 
enterprises and the dual-use nature that they could be used 
for.
    Mrs. Kiggans. And you spoke before about security 
cooperation and how important those relationships are with 
especially the SOUTHCOM and within the SOUTHCOM's AOR and the 
training and equipment that we are providing. Aside from our 
defense relationships that we have in this AOR, what else are 
we doing? Is there diplomacy exchanges, economic partnerships 
that we are creating? Or what else are we doing and what else 
can we be doing to strengthen some of the security cooperation 
that you spoke of?
    General Richardson. So, as I spoke about earlier, the 
exercises are really important. I have eight exercises at the 
SOUTHCOM level, and then, my five components underneath me, one 
from every Service, including Special Operations Command also 
has several exercises that they do.
    And so, the resourcing of those exercises is really 
important because that is what really brings the nations 
together that the PRC can't do. They don't convene exercises. 
They are not able to bring those, that number or that level, 
from the entire region together to work together during 
exercises.
    Panamax, defense of the Panama Canal, we just had that. We 
have that every other year, and we have over 20 partner nations 
that participate in that.
    The Chinese are using our playbook against us. They do all-
expense-paid training to Beijing, professional military 
education, but they are not able to do the exercises yet. And 
that is why I think that that is such a crucial important 
program for us.
    Mrs. Kiggans. And so, why are we so successful? Is it our 
reputation? That is disheartening to hear that the Chinese are 
using our playbook, as you said, because I think that is a 
concern. Is it just we do well because we are--or what is our 
strength there that we can do even better because we are owning 
that space of creating those partnerships? It is a matter of 
trust I am assuming and reputation. But what else can we do to 
kind of fortify what we are doing right there?
    General Richardson. I would say, also, trust is an issue. 
It becomes an issue when they feel like they have been ignored 
and we haven't paid attention and looked south enough. I call 
it ``south blindness'' sometimes. Because we do, we have a lot 
of things going on east and west right now and we have been. 
However, they want to make sure that--they don't want to be 
taken for granted. Very, very important countries, sovereign 
nations, but they are very willing partners. Their first choice 
to work with as a partner nation is the United States. So, it 
is ours to lose.
    And so, I really appreciate Congress' support for that. I 
appreciate the congressional delegations that go into the 
region to visit these key leaders; when they come to 
Washington, that you give them time. And I want to really thank 
you for that, that you see them when they ask for an office 
call, and things like that, because that really matters. A 
little goes a long way. And so, I really appreciate the 
support,
    Mrs. Kiggans. I agree with you; it is the little things 
that count. So, please continue to let us help in that regard, 
and thank you for all you do.
    General Richardson. Thank you.
    Mrs. Kiggans. I yield back.
    The Chairman. The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from 
North Carolina, Mr. Davis, for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Davis. Oh, good morning, and thank you so much, Mr. 
Chair.
    Thank you to each and every one of you for being here 
today. And I also want to personally thank you for your years 
of service to our country. Thank you.
    General Richardson, my first question, can you please just 
discuss a little further the PRC's growing space footprint in 
your region and the security implications for the United 
States?
    General Richardson. So, out of any geographic combatant 
command, we have the most space-enabling infrastructure by the 
Chinese in this region, and the planned space facilities will 
continue to grow, from what we see. And I will be able to talk 
about that more in the classified setting.
    But the Chinese have three deep space stations. Two are in 
mainland China and one is in Argentina, the Neuquen space 
facility. And so, just the increase, the very aggressive 
increase in space-enabling infrastructure is very concerning--
the telemetry and tracking, the uplink/downlinks, the ability 
for the PRC to track their own satellites, but then, also, 
those surveillance sites to be able to surveil other partner 
nations, allies, our own satellites as well, and eventually, be 
able to use that apparatus for targeting, is what a concern is.
    Mr. Davis. Okay. Thank you.
    Let me ask this: you have shared so many different steps 
that you are currently taking right now within the region. My 
question would be, right now, broadly speaking, what is the 
greatest priority regarding any new ways that we should be 
partnering with our allies and partners within the region to 
outcompete our strategic competitors and to address these 
transnational challenges?
    General Richardson. Right. So, they are just continuing 
to--some of the new things, all domain, I would say, being able 
to help them increase their capability and capacity with cyber.
    As we talk about space, cyberspace, they are trying to 
tackle cyber issues. But, then, when you bring cyberspace into 
it, all domains, the exercise program to be able to exercise 
the interoperability, the communications, the ability to talk 
securely with our partner nations is very important.
    And so, the sharing agreements, we talked about SOFA 
before, but there are all kinds of intel-sharing agreements. We 
have got to be able, with the investment of the PRC into the 
telecommunications, 5G, five of our countries have the 5G 
backbone; 24 have PRC 3G or 4G backbone, and I'm sure they will 
be offered a discount to upgrade, to stay with Huawei or ZTE.
    And so, very concerning because we want to be able to 
continue to share intelligence and share information with our 
partner nations to make them stronger, to counter the threats 
that eventually end up in our homeland.
    Mr. Davis. Okay. Thank you.
    General VanHerck, I'm concerned about--I'm sorry. You noted 
in your testimony that the Democratic People's Republic of 
Korea tested more missiles in 2022 than any time in its 
history--prioritizing their military capabilities at the 
expense of other essential items. Can you please discuss the 
dangers this regime possesses?
    And Assistant Secretary Dalton, I would also appreciate any 
insight as well.
    General VanHerck. Thank you.
    DPRK, or North Korea, has absolutely continued to develop 
additional capacity and capability with their ballistic missile 
and their short-range missile program as well. And we saw far 
more tests this year than any other year in the past.
    We should take them at their word. They say they will use 
them. We should ensure that we understand that and we operate 
as such.
    Today, I remind confident in my ability to defend against a 
limited attack from an ICBM from North Korea on the homeland. I 
am concerned going forward, based on what we saw in their 
parade on the 8th of February and what we have seen on their 
capacity and capability, that they could exceed my ability to 
defend against a limited attack.
    Secretary Dalton. Thank you.
    And completely agree with General VanHerck's assessment. 
You know, the NDS makes clear that North Korea is expanding its 
nuclear and missile capability to threaten the homeland. This 
is a space that we are watching quite closely, and through a 
combination of our strategic nuclear deterrent and our missile 
defense systems through an integrated deterrence approach, we 
are looking to meet that challenge.
    Mr. Davis. Okay. Thank you.
    I yield back.
    The Chairman. The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from 
Texas, Mr. Luttrell, for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Luttrell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    And I thank the panel for coming and speaking in front of 
us today. And, Generals, thank you for your distinguished 
service.
    General Richardson, could you tell us about the ISR 
capabilities that you have? And are they sufficient? And if 
not, what upgrades can we help you with?
    General Richardson. So, I get about two percent of the DOD 
ISR in U.S. SOUTHCOM, and it meets about 17 percent of my 
requirement for the ISR. I want to thank the Department and 
thank Congress for the support of the government-owned and 
contract-operated and the contract-owned and contract-operated 
ISR that I am able to get as well. That helps build that 
requirement a little bit more.
    Domain awareness is really important for the region. It is 
a really big region. And being able to see the threats, counter 
the threats, also, expose the malign activity to our partner 
nations. Because when we expose it and say where it is, they go 
right after it. They will go out with their coastal patrol 
vessels to the semi-submersibles or go-fast vessels that are in 
the maritime domain to counter that.
    But the ISR is critical and the domain awareness is 
critical. And so, we don't have--as I said, 17 percent of the 
requirement.
    Mr. Luttrell. Seventeen percent?
    General Richardson. Right.
    Mr. Luttrell. Where is your comfortable operating zone? 
Eighty?
    General Richardson. It would be more towards that end, yes.
    Mr. Luttrell. Okay. What authorities do you have in 
combating transnational criminal organizations and what 
authorities would you like to have on top of that that you do 
not?
    General Richardson. So, I say that I have Joint Interagency 
Task Force South, which is JIATF South, based out of Key West, 
that has the detection and monitoring mission. And then, we 
turn that information, that intelligence, over to law 
enforcement or to our partner nations, depending on which is 
closest and who is able to go after it and be able to disrupt 
it or interdict it.
    And in terms of the authorities, I have the authorities 
that I need right now in order to do what I need to do, based 
on the missions that I'm given in SOUTHCOM.
    Mr. Luttrell. Looking forward, just at the narrative of 
globally right now, is there anything that is on your radar 
that we may need to be briefed on?
    General Richardson. So, in the classified session, I can 
expand more upon all the activities that we are doing in the 
region. Certainly, I am very thankful for all of the exercise 
funding and resourcing that I do get. I could do more. I would 
like to get more into the Southern Cone and have more presence, 
more persistence presence, not just episodic where we visit 
and, you know, do maybe an exchange on cyber for a week or 2 
weeks, or an exchange with our Special Forces. I would like to 
change up to more persistent.
    Mr. Luttrell. My next question may be for the classified 
setting. As a former SOCOM [U.S. Special Operations Command] 
guy, is the SOCOM footprint in SOUTHCOM what you would like to 
see or is that something that we could increase? And is their 
capabilities beneficial or continuing to be beneficial?
    General Richardson. Absolutely beneficial. The TSOC that I 
have, the Special Operations, the Theater Special Operations 
Command, SOCSOUTH, as they are called, out of Homestead Air 
Reserve Base in Florida, fantastic, huge enabler to what we do. 
And the presence and the activities and the training and 
enabling that they do with our partner nations is absolutely 
essential, and it really contributes to making our partners 
stronger.
    Mr. Luttrell. As a border state, the SOUTHCOM footprint, 
how is that handling the drug trafficking? And is there 
anything that we can do? Is there, again, any authorities that 
you might need in that space?
    General Richardson. So, I would say we are not going to be 
able to interdict our way out of the drug trafficking. That is 
really, I think, going after the labs and going after the money 
laundering. And getting after that follow-the-money piece of it 
is really the hard part, but that is really where we need to 
focus. Because by the time that we are interdicting it, whether 
it is in the maritime domain, it has already been broken down 
one or two times already. It would be better to get it at the 
lab where it is being made and cultivated, and things like 
that. But the interdiction is not going to solve the problem.
    Mr. Luttrell. I have 30 seconds left. Is there anything 
that we haven't asked today that you could speak about that 
would help us help you?
    General Richardson. Well, thank you, Congressman. It is 
really just the attention and the focus on this region and show 
that this region matters. This region is full of resources. And 
I worry about the malign activity of our adversaries taking 
advantage of that, looking like they are investing when they 
are really extracting.
    We have the Lithium Triangle in this region. Sixty percent 
of the world's lithium--Argentina, Bolivia, Chile have this. 
And it is taking resources away from these countries and from 
their people that are trying to deliver, these democracies that 
are trying to deliver for their people. And they are having a 
hard time doing it because of the malign activity of 
transnational criminal organizations, the----
    The Chairman. The gentleman's time has expired.
    [The information referred to can be found in the Appendix 
on page 140.]
    The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Pennsylvania, 
Mr. Deluzio.
    Mr. Deluzio. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    And good morning, Assistant Secretary Dalton, General 
VanHerck, General Richardson. Hello.
    I want to focus my questions, as many of my colleagues have 
today, on how NORTHCOM and SOUTHCOM are playing in the 
strategic competition, deterrence with China. Frankly, I 
think--and I think most of my colleagues agree--whether it is 
trade, hollowing out of our industrial and manufacturing base, 
theft of IP [intellectual property], so much of this conduct 
has been commonplace in the last however many decades with the 
People's Republic of China.
    There was a New York Times article released yesterday, 
``The Daring Ruse that Exposed China's Campaign to Steal 
American Secrets,'' highlighting efforts among communist 
Chinese officials to undermine our country--preying on 
scientists, academics, engineers, and others.
    Of course, we have our own struggles, as, General 
Richardson, you were just mentioning, you know, around critical 
materials and other pieces of our own things here at home.
    I want to turn to the Western Hemisphere, though, and 
efforts from China closer to home. General Richardson, I will 
start with you. Latin America has seen significant investment 
and diplomatic outreach from China. You have talked about it 
today.
    In your written testimony, you highlighted communist 
China's investment in critical infrastructure in the 
Hemisphere. So, tell me, if you could, what are your concerns 
here and what do you propose that we in this committee, or the 
government generally, should and can do about it?
    General Richardson. I think we need to--definitely 
concerned with the aggressiveness of that, the Belt and Road 
Initiative with 21 of 31 countries. And we have four additional 
countries that aren't signatories of the BRI [Belt and Road 
Initiative], but actually have PRC projects that are going on 
in their countries. And so, quite a bit.
    So, they are taking advantage of that, but, then, there is 
also the debt trap associated with it, the multiple loans. They 
don't invest, as I said, they don't invest in the country. They 
extract. They bring their own host nation workers. They have 
got an unemployment problem. So, they bring their host nation--
their own workers, Chinese laborers, to the country and build 
these high-rise apartments And so, you know, the investing, you 
don't see the investment in the country. And then, sometimes 
those projects aren't done well.
    And so, what we try to do is capitalize upon that--again, 
meet the partners' needs where they are. We will bring the 
Corps of Engineers in, who is very prevalent in my region, and 
fix the project. But the capability of those funds is a sliver 
compared to what the PRC has.
    But I would say, in terms of our instruments of national 
power from our United States, we need to showcase that more. We 
have a lot of investment from our big companies that are in the 
Americas investing. We just don't advertise it. We are too 
modest, and we don't need to be modest anymore. We need to put 
our American flag/Team USA on there, and we need to speak about 
what we are doing and make sure the countries know how much, 
actually, the United States is involved.
    I would say trade is also very important. South America's 
No. 1 trading partner now is the PRC. The region is still the 
United States, is still the No. 1 trading partner, but we are 
losing. We are starting to lose and we remain flatlined with 
our trade.
    Mr. Deluzio. General, thank you.
    I want to also talk a bit about domestic critical 
infrastructure. Ms. Dalton, Assistant Secretary Dalton--excuse 
me--you mentioned gray zone activities in your written 
testimony, describing them as ``largely non-attributable, 
coercive means that fall below perceived thresholds for 
military action.''
    Give us some sense, folks watching at home or who might 
hear about this later, what are we talking about? What do those 
activities look like?
    Secretary Dalton. Absolutely. Thanks so much, Congressman, 
for highlighting this.
    The NDS makes quite clear that central to the PRC's theory 
of victory is coming after our critical infrastructure at home, 
to subvert our ability to conduct force flow mobilization and 
project power, in the event of a crisis or contingency. So, 
what they are doing today is getting into our systems, whether 
that is through cyber means, through counterintelligence, and 
really, across the gray zone spectrum, to get a better 
understanding, a lay of the land, of where potential 
vulnerabilities are from a critical infrastructure perspective.
    What makes this so complex--and General VanHerck alluded to 
this earlier--is the interdependencies that defense-critical 
infrastructure has with other sectors, whether that is water, 
telecommunications, or power. We are going to have to work 
across our Federal family. We are going to have to work with 
state and local and tribal and territorial governments, and we 
are going to have to work with the private sector, to 
understand where those risks lie and how we close them.
    Mr. Deluzio. Well, my time has just about ended, but I am 
glad you mentioned the private sector piece of this, too, given 
how much of our critical infrastructure is not publicly owned 
or controlled. So, thank you.
    I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
    The Chairman. The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from 
Alabama, Mr. Strong, for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Strong. Thank you.
    Secretary Dalton, General VanHerck, General Richardson, 
thank you for coming before us.
    Last year, General VanHerck, last year during your Senate 
posture hearing, you testified that you were concerned about 
the ability to pace North Korean missile production capacity 
and capabilities. Just yesterday, we saw Kim Jong-un's sister 
warn that any attempt by the United States to intercept a 
missile test would be considered a declaration of war.
    As I have shared before, Redstone Arsenal is the center of 
gravity for Missile Defense Agency's testing, integration, and 
field activity. They are also a key player in fielding the Next 
Generation Interceptor.
    General, can you share why it is important that the Next 
Generation Interceptor reaches initial operating capacity as 
soon as possible?
    General VanHerck. Absolutely, Congressman.
    So, the Next Generation Interceptor will gives us 20 
additional ground-based interceptors. It gives me additional 
capacity to pace with the DPRK that you are talking about. But, 
more importantly, it gives you capability. It gives you 
capability to distinguish between their capabilities to deceive 
our systems, if you will. We should talk more about that in a 
classified environment. That is crucial.
    Also crucial is the Service Life Extension Program for the 
GBIs [Ground-Based Interceptors] that is ongoing, that creates 
additional reliability for me and gives me the ability to 
adjust my shot doctrine, which gives me additional capability 
or capacity as well.
    Mr. Strong. Thank you.
    How can the program be accelerated to meet IOC [initial 
operational cabilitity] faster?
    General VanHerck. Yes, that is a great question for MDA 
[U.S. Missile Defense Agency]. I think they have a great 
structure in place. The two companies that are competing and 
the structure for the contract reward is going faster. We just 
need to make sure that we don't have bureaucratic mechanisms in 
place that slow down the testing, the fielding, those kind of 
capabilities.
    Mr. Strong. Thank you.
    General VanHerck, I have noticed that you have been 
requesting greater sensor coverage over the homeland for a 
while now. Please know I support you in this effort. It is 
clear that, in addition to being able to see various threats, 
we need the ability to defend against them also.
    Would you assess that the U.S. should provide better 
homeland defense against most pressing missile threats, cruise 
and ballistic?
    General VanHerck. I would assess that, based on the 
taskings I am given, that we do need additional capability for 
cruise missiles and, also, the ballistic missiles that you 
reference, sir.
    Mr. Strong. Thank you.
    The Missile Defense Agency doesn't have the cruise missile 
responsibility. The Air Force does. Isn't that right, General?
    General VanHerck. That is right, the way it is structured 
right now.
    Mr. Strong. Thank you.
    Part of the reason for that is the threats to the U.S. 
homeland are many and they are growing. Yet, we have kept the 
Missile Defense Agency's budget, essentially, capped at about 
$8 billion for years. This is concerning to me. I hope my 
colleagues will join me in enacting the proper budget and 
policy investments this year to properly address what 
capabilities our Armed Forces need to protect America's people 
abroad, but also at home.
    Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    The Chairman. The Chair now recognizes the gentlelady from 
Texas, Ms. Escobar, for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Escobar. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And many thanks to 
you and the ranking member for this very important hearing. 
Thanks to our witnesses. And, General Richardson, thanks so 
much for ongoing conversations.
    You know, I have long been a believer--I represent El Paso, 
Texas, a community that is home to Fort Bliss, a key military 
installation. But, also, we are the community that is at our 
Nation's front door. And so, we frequently see, and we have 
seen for decades, that what happens throughout the Western 
Hemisphere ultimately ends up at our doorstep. And I am a big 
believer that we can't continue to just obsess about the 
border; we have got to obsess about the Hemisphere.
    And so, the work that is being done, especially around 
targeting criminal organizations that prey upon communities 
south of us and prey upon vulnerable migrants who are fleeing 
their homeland, it is really critical that we do everything 
possible to attack the challenge south of us, and that we 
provide the resources necessary, especially.
    At the same time, we have to realize what we do, living on 
the southern border and seeing the long lines for southbound 
checks. For all of the weapons from the United States that are 
going south, we have to acknowledge as a country the role that 
we are playing in creating instability and access to weaponry 
that creates more violence and instability south of us.
    So, I want to thank you all so much for consistently 
shedding a light on all of that, but also for using what I 
consider not enough resources and trying to make them stretch 
and go a long way. It really is on Congress, and on all of us. 
If we want to address much of what we are seeing as a country 
at our southern border, we have to provide the resources to all 
agencies and groups that are doing the incredibly hard work in 
our Hemisphere.
    With that, I would like for Secretary Dalton--and actually, 
all of our witnesses--to respond, if you can. A critical aspect 
of addressing and combating the threats across the Northern and 
Southern Command AORs is acknowledging the infrastructure and 
networks that TCOs are using to traffic persons, weapons, and 
narcotics that make their way in and out of our country.
    Can you all speak to the efforts in support of the 
interagency and our partners and allies to assess the size and 
complexity of these networks? And how are you working to 
dismantle them?
    Secretary Dalton. Congresswoman, thank you so much for the 
question. And I completely agree with your framing in terms of 
the need to look holistically and leveraging all the tools of 
national, state, and local power to get after this challenge 
and with partners in the region.
    And I actually had an opportunity to visit El Paso just a 
couple of weeks ago to meet with some of our local DHS and DOD 
officials doing some great work on this challenge.
    To answer your question, Congresswoman, DOD provides 
detection and monitoring support and intelligence support 
through our counternarcotics authorities to key partners in the 
region. And this fits into the administration's broader 
approach of addressing the root causes of migration and 
challenges in the region that have a bit of a Venn diagram 
overlap with the challenge of TCOs. You know, they are not one 
and the same challenges, but, certainly, the TCOs are creating 
conditions that fuel migration, and the broader context of 
governance and development challenges are stressing to 
economics in the region and compelling not only the flow of 
irregular migration, but creating opportunities for the TCOs to 
thrive. So, that is the DOD piece in this broader framework, 
but I know General Richardson will have more great 
amplification on this.
    General VanHerck. Thanks, Congresswoman. JTF [Joint Task 
Force] North, which is in your district as well, has a big role 
here.
    First, I couldn't agree more; it is not about the border. 
It is about the Western Hemisphere. And we need to think much 
broader.
    TCOs are a global problem as well. General Sandoval and 
Admiral Ojeda from Mexico often tell me that we also should 
focus on what comes south, not what comes north. And so, JTF 
North has been instrumental in developing support to the 
interagency partners that we work with, providing intel to go 
after money that is going south, weapons that are going south, 
which are just as crucial. We are not going to interdict our 
way out of this problem. We need a broader, holistic strategy 
that gets after that. And so, I look forward to continuing 
doing that.
    General Richardson. So, as you said, Congresswoman, the 
TCOs bring violence and corruption, and then, the PRC comes in 
and is able to exploit that. So, it all connects together.
    But the violence, it is off the charts. These organizations 
are getting more powerful, $310 billion revenue annually. They 
have diversified the portfolio. It is not just 
counternarcotics. It is human trafficking. It is illegal 
mining. It is illegal logging, fishing, whatever they can get 
their hands on.
    And then, the Chinese money laundering with the seven PRC 
banks, 275 branches in the region. It is just a vicious cycle 
that continues.
    So, the work that we do with the security cooperation to 
help our partner nation militaries and public security forces 
deal with these challenges internally and be able to secure 
their borders, and work cross-border with their neighbors, 
enable them to handle these situations, so it doesn't again 
just----
    The Chairman. The gentlelady's time has expired.
    [The information referred to can be found in the Appendix 
on page 139.]
    The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Florida, Mr. 
Gimenez, for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Gimenez. Thank you very much. And I want to expand on 
what you just said, General Richardson, about the banks, the 
Chinese banks, and the branches that they have in South 
America. Do any of these Chinese banks do business in the 
United States?
    General Richardson. Congressman, I'm not for sure.
    Mr. Gimenez. Okay.
    General Richardson. I can't answer that, but I----
    Mr. Gimenez. Is there any way you can find out if they do? 
Okay?
    General Richardson. Yes, sir.
    [The information referred to can be found in the Appendix 
on page 140.]
    Mr. Gimenez. So that we can take some steps against them, 
okay, and these activities.
    General Richardson. Right.
    Mr. Gimenez. Because they seem to be, what, the money 
laundering arm of these enterprises are these Chinese banks? Is 
that what you are saying?
    General Richardson. Well, they are a piece of it.
    Mr. Gimenez. Okay. All right. Fair enough. And thank you 
again for the briefing you gave me in SOUTHCOM.
    For those of you who know, SOUTHCOM is about a mile away 
from my district and it is a very important part of my 
district.
    And some of the things you told me you have said here. But 
you said that 60 percent of the lithium in the world, the world 
supply of lithium, comes from South America. What percentage of 
that 60 percent is actually controlled by the PRC?
    General Richardson. I don't have the answer to that, but I 
could try to get that for you from one of our interagency 
partners.
    [The information referred to can be found in the Appendix 
on page 140.]
    Mr. Gimenez. Would you say it is a significant amount?
    General Richardson. When you talk to the U.S. Ambassadors 
for Chile and Argentina, and then, the companies that are 
there, the aggressiveness of the PRC and the ground game that 
they have with the lithium is very advanced and very 
aggressive.
    Mr. Gimenez. Look, I don't think that combating China, I 
mean combating the PRC in South America--I do believe that is 
our greatest threat. It is just going to take military. It is 
going to be a military--although you all do a great job in the 
partnership, it is actually an economic. And I believe that, 
for far too long, we have ignored our own backyard and allowed 
Russia, China, Iran, adversaries of the United States, to 
actually make great footholds into our region. And we need to 
do something about it.
    And it has to be a holistic approach, an economic approach. 
How do we help our neighbors? Because the PRC is not helping 
our neighbors. They are building the infrastructure with their 
own people, their own material, and then, getting those 
countries to actually pay for their own people. So, it is 
actually a pretty good gig. Okay? It is a great racket what 
they are doing right now.
    General VanHerck, we talked about your cooperation with 
Mexican authorities dealing with the cartels. Do you think they 
are doing enough?
    General VanHerck. Do I think the Mexicans are doing enough?
    Mr. Gimenez. Yes.
    General VanHerck. I think everybody can do more than we are 
right now to look at this problem. They are doing a significant 
amount. They have tens of thousands of forces applied to the 
problem. The problem just continues to grow, though. So, I 
think that is a better policy question than it is for the 
military. I stand ready to support, if directed to do more or 
directed to plan more, et cetera.
    Mr. Gimenez. It wasn't a policy question. It was a 
question. Are they doing enough? Do you think that, if we in 
the United States were allowing our organizations to flood 
Mexico and kill 100,000 Mexicans a year, do you think that they 
would be happy about it?
    General VanHerck. I don't think they would be happy about 
that, Congressman.
    Mr. Gimenez. Would they be asking us to do more?
    General VanHerck. I would ask them. I would assume they 
would.
    Mr. Gimenez. Okay. Do you think they should do more?
    General VanHerck. I think we all can do more.
    Mr. Gimenez. Okay. Fair enough. One other question, and I 
have about a minute and 30.
    I live in Miami and I have a bunch of friends in Miami. And 
there are a bunch of them coming and saying, ``Hey, you need to 
see what's going on in the Bahamas with the PRC.'' So, what is 
going on in the Bahamas? And by the way, the Bahamas are 15 
miles away.
    General VanHerck. Yes, Congressman, I couldn't agree with 
you more. The PRC is aggressively pursuing their economic 
coercion in the Bahamas. They built the biggest embassy around 
the globe in the Bahamas. They have a very aggressive 
ambassador. He uses the information space to undermine us each 
and every day.
    The resort that they built on top of our cables that come 
ashore there, which are crucial for command and control, which 
are crucial for economic prosperity, those kinds of things as 
well, they are right over that, as they gain additional access 
to land. And right on top of the Navy's test and training 
facilities in the Atlantic as well. So, they are very 
aggressive in the Bahamas.
    After the hurricane in Abaco Island, the Chinese financed 
and ensured they built a port there. That port is not being 
used for military purposes right now, but it is another 
indicator of their aggressive nature to coerce and use their 
economic influence around the globe.
    Mr. Gimenez. And we don't have an ambassador since 2011 to 
the Bahamas?
    General VanHerck. There is currently an ambassador that is 
nominated, but not confirmed, and it has been since 2011 since 
we have had an ambassador.
    Mr. Gimenez. Fair enough. That is very concerning to me 
because, obviously, you know I live in Miami, and that is only 
15 miles away. So, thank you very much.
    And my time is up. I yield my time back.
    The Chairman. The Chair now recognizes the gentlelady from 
Pennsylvania, Ms. Houlahan, for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Houlahan. Thank you. And thank you to the panel for 
coming and speaking to us.
    General Richardson, my questions are for you at first. The 
TCOs are very much a large part of the reasons why we have 
concerns about the security of the southern border. And you 
spoke about that here and, also, in your testimony, about the 
flow of drugs that they are generating. These guys are super 
well-funded, $310 billion annually, as you also noted in your 
testimony.
    Can you talk a little bit about, if you are able in this 
setting, these criminal organizations and how they are 
receiving support from the PRC-connected criminal organizations 
and what SOUTHCOM is doing to prevent that?
    General Richardson. So, the connection, what the TCOs do 
with the violence and the corruption, it cracks the fragility. 
You know, these democracies, again, are trying to deliver for 
their people. It creates insecurity and unstable environments. 
It causes people to have to move and get on the move. It feeds 
into this irregular migration, when people and families don't 
feel safe.
    Ms. Houlahan. But what are the mechanisms that the PRC is 
exercising to deliver funding or support to these 
organizations, to these criminal organizations?
    General Richardson. So, through the money laundering, in 
terms of the transnational criminal organizations being able to 
provide the money to the PRC, who, then, sell it back to the 
countries through the goods, is one way to do it.
    We have law enforcement agencies within that work as part 
of the liaison officers within SOUTHCOM. We try to connect 
those dots, work very closely with the Department of Treasury, 
Justice, Commerce on following this money. Because I think, as 
I said earlier, getting after how you follow the money, and 
what is actually enabling this piece to clean the money and be 
able for these organizations to flourish--we have got to get 
after that in order to counter it.
    Ms. Houlahan. And then, real quickly, you mentioned you 
felt like you had the authorities that you needed in those 
particular areas.
    You also mentioned twice today that we are too modest; that 
we should put our flag on more things that U.S. companies are 
doing; things that we here, you know, with Federal money and 
taxpayer money, are doing. What do you mean by putting your 
flag on it more, when you are speaking about industry or 
private industry? How can we advertise more explicitly? What is 
your idea?
    General Richardson. And I'm gaining this perspective when I 
meet with leaders in the countries, and they don't seem to be 
aware of a lot of the United States investment. The tenders 
that come out, the project bids for big projects within these 
countries, only have Chinese bidders. So, it is all this 
information I am receiving from them that we are not.
    And then, when I meet with the companies--I met with the 
Atlantic Council, the Council of the Americas--and these 
companies have an opportunity to tell me what they are doing, 
there is a mismatch in what the country sees and what our 
companies say they are doing.
    And so, that is why I said it seems to me that we need to 
bring all of our strengths together and advertise it, say what 
we are doing to talk about Team USA and the investment in this 
region, and how important it is, because it absolutely is.
    Ms. Houlahan. Thank you. And, General VanHerck, with my 
remaining time, I wanted to drill down on something that you 
talked about. I just recently led a delegation to Finland and 
to Norway, a bipartisan delegation. And we spoke a lot about 
the Arctic. And I know this hearing is not necessarily about 
that, but you brought it into play.
    Can you talk a little bit about your insights into the 
impact that climate change is having in the Arctic; what it 
means for national security vis-a-vis Russia, and even China as 
well?
    You also mentioned that you are worried about being ready 
to train and wanted more resources in that area. We are hoping 
that the budget would reflect that. If you could be more 
specific about what you are looking for when the President's 
budget is released, that would be great.
    General VanHerck. Thanks. Environmental change is 
absolutely having a significant impact in the Arctic. It gives 
access to resources, which is going to definitely challenge 
nations; there will be friction. So, competition is important. 
That is what the National Defense Strategy tells us to do, is 
go after competing in the Arctic.
    As far as the importance and the capabilities we need, so 
persistence is one thing. So, the jobs and infrastructure bill 
provided $250 million for the Port of Nome, which will help me 
with persistence in the Arctic.
    Communications capabilities as well. When you get north of 
about 65 latitude, it is a very challenging environment. So, 
the commercial, such as SpaceX through Starlink, has given the 
opportunity for us to take advantage of that. I need more 
funding for terminals to use that allow us to access those 
kinds of capabilities.
    Infrastructure is crucial for campaigning. It is also 
crucial for crisis and when we defend our homeland. 
Infrastructure is severely limited, both in Canada and the U.S. 
And access to infrastructure, such as in Thule, Greenland as 
well.
    So, when you only have a day's worth of fuel or limited 
building, those things will prevent me from doing what I need 
to do to defend the homeland.
    Ms. Houlahan. Thank you. I have run out of time. I yield 
back.
    The Chairman. The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from 
Texas, Mr. Fallon, for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Fallon. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for 
having this hearing. It is vitally important.
    General VanHerck, in January, there were 1400 pounds of 
fentanyl seized at the southern border. I mean, I found that to 
be startling.
    So, I would like to start, if we can dial it back a minute, 
and, Ms. Dalton, do you believe that national security--that 
border security is a national security issue?
    Secretary Dalton. It is a Homeland Security issue.
    Mr. Fallon. Do you think it is a national security issue?
    Secretary Dalton. We have national security issues.
    Mr. Fallon. Yes or no?
    Secretary Dalton. It is a secure border.
    Mr. Fallon. It is a really simple question. Yes or no?
    Secretary Dalton. We have national security interests and a 
----
    Mr. Fallon. So, yes? You are not going to answer yes or no?
    Secretary Dalton. We have national security interests and a 
secure border.
    Mr. Fallon. Okay. All right. Thank you.
    So, General VanHerck, the same question. It is real simple. 
Is border security a national security issue?
    General VanHerck. I'm on the record as saying that border 
security is national security.
    Mr. Fallon. See, it is not that hard. Yes. Thank you.
    You know, it is interesting because I had an amendment to 
the NDAA [National Defense Authorization Act] in 2021 and it 
simply said that. And I was very careful in crafting it--it was 
one page--because I wanted it to be a unanimous vote. And it 
did pass. And we were, the Republicans were in the minority at 
the time. It was 31-28, and it passed 33-26, which meant that 
five Democrats voted for that and agreed with the statement 
that the General just made and I made. But 26 Democrats said 
no. They voted no, which was shocking to me.
    So, we laid out that securing our southern border against 
transnational criminal organizations and drug dealers and human 
traffickers, weapons smugglers, terrorists, and various other 
criminals, is a matter of national security. And what we 
really, ultimately, have to decide is: is the United States 
Federal Government going to control our southern border or are 
we going to let the Mexican drug cartels do it?
    Because we have seen in the last couple of years--we have 
never had a month that we over 200,000 illegal border 
crossings, and then, we had 10 months in a row of over 200,000 
illegal border crossings. We caught over a hundred people that 
were on the Terrorist Watch List. We had 160 countries 
represented by folks that were crossing the border illegally. 
Twenty-five thousand pounds of fentanyl has been seized, and 
even more now over the last couple of years, which is enough to 
kill every man, woman, and child dozens of times over. And we 
lost 108,000 Americans to fentanyl overdoses last year. And as 
we mentioned, General, about the 1400 pounds.
    So, earlier this year, I cosponsored legislation to author 
a military force against any foreign nation, organization, or 
person responsible for trafficking fentanyl in the United 
States. Specifically, there are nine cartels that have used 
violence and intimidation to wreak havoc in our country and in 
Mexico and Central America.
    So, General, do you believe that the Mexican drug cartels 
present a clear and present danger to the United States?
    General VanHerck. I believe that transnational criminal 
organizations are a global security problem, which would 
include here in the homeland.
    Mr. Fallon. And, sir, what are your thoughts on authorizing 
military force against the cartels to stop the deadly flow of 
narcotics into our country?
    General VanHerck. I think that is a policy decision. If 
directed to plan and execute and use military force, then I 
would do that. Posse Comitatus prevents me from enforcing our 
laws. I believe that inside the United States this problem is a 
Homeland Security/Department of Justice problem, not a DOD 
problem. And they need to be fully resourced to execute their 
missions.
    Mr. Fallon. And what else do you think, in your opinion, we 
could use to effectively confront the cartels and to protect 
the country?
    General VanHerck. I think information-sharing, helping our 
interagency partners, which is what we are doing, is crucial. I 
think information-sharing with Mexico and other Western 
Hemisphere nations, as General Richardson has discussed, is 
crucial to enable them to address the problems that they have 
on their soil. Their problems on their soil are a problem on 
our soil as well. And so, we need to work together.
    Mr. Fallon. And, sir, I really quickly, too, want to get to 
the fact that you stated in your testimony in front of the 
United States Senate--I found this fascinating--that ``most GRU 
[Main Intelligence Directorate] members''--we would probably 
know them colloquially as KGB [Committee for State Security]; 
that would be their predecessors. That ``most of the GRU 
members in the world are in Mexico at the moment,'' which I 
found startling. That those Russian intelligence personnel, you 
know, they are keeping a close eye on their opportunities for 
influencing the United States.
    And in fiscal year 2022, Customs and Border Patrol Officers 
encountered 21,763 illegal aliens from Russia. And then, in 
this fiscal year, it has been 17,000 already.
    And, you know, you think about that, and even if 1 percent 
of those are Russian intelligence agents--and that is the ones 
we caught; never mind the ones that we didn't--I mean, we could 
be looking at a battalion of, essentially, KGB officers in our 
country.
    So, is it a reasonable assumption that adversarial 
intelligence services, such as the Russians, and hostile non-
state actors would take advantage of the vulnerabilities at the 
southern border to serve their interests?
    General VanHerck. Congressman, I would say that potential 
adversaries would take advantage of any opportunity to gain 
access here, whether it is the southern border, whether it be 
through cyberspace, the information space as well. They are 
going to take advantage of any loops or gaps----
    The Chairman. The gentleman's time has expired.
    [The information referred to can be found in the Appendix 
on page 140.]
    The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from California, Mr. 
Carbajal, for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Carbajal. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you to all 
the witnesses for being here today.
    General Richardson, you highlighted significant investments 
from the People's Republic of China into the SOUTHCOM AOR. I 
agree with you that strengthening partnerships to help partner 
democracies deliver for their population is imperative in 
helping counter the PRC's influence. Do you think we can 
strengthen relationships with countries who are sympathetic to 
the PRC through this strategy? And what other strategies are 
being implemented to encourage alternatives to cooperation with 
the PRC? And how can Congress help to further that support?
    General Richardson. So, thank you, Congressman.
    I think that the work that we do with--the answer is yes. 
And the work that we do with security cooperation, building 
those relationships. I would like to highlight the IMET, the 
International Military Education and Training, as well as the 
Professional Military Education.
    When you are talking about building that trust, not just at 
the leader level, but all the way down at leaders--because they 
grow up to be in charge of their militaries and their services. 
And the investment that we make in that program, I would say 
that we really need to look hard at it and continue to fund 
that, and maybe even a little bit more, because it is so 
important.
    When I can pick up the phone and we can have our 
conversation, the folks that have been--the military leaders 
that have been to school in the United States speak English. 
There is no translating. We have already built the trust. We 
are already across the bridge and we are building the 
relationship already, as opposed to not. And so, just a shout-
out for that education/training program because it is just 
huge. It is a huge enabler for us.
    But the security cooperation; the train and equip; 
understanding the challenges from their perspective; being able 
to link the leaders together from the different nations, we 
have been very successful at that. And they can do cross-border 
operations because the borders a lot of times between our 
partner nations are very porous, and they are not wanting to 
cause an international incident. So, there might be some scenes 
and gaps there. Closing those gaps, and having those leaders 
work together, and I have many cases where they have been able 
to do that over the past years.
    But those levers that I have in order to make our partner 
nations stronger are really where we succeed as partners. And 
our partner nations succeed, and we succeed as a Team 
Democracy.
    Mr. Carbajal. Thank you, General.
    General VanHerck, as you noted, the administration funded 
Over-the-Horizon radars, allowing us to better detect potential 
threats to the homeland. Can you elaborate on how this enhanced 
detection capability; will create more time for military 
leaders, allowing for the creation of better deterrence 
options, and on how the Over-the-Horizon radar will affect 
NORAD's capabilities?
    General VanHerck. Yes. Thank you.
    So, today's radar systems, designed, basically, and 
implemented in the eighties, only allow me to see, based on the 
curvature of the earth, a distance that is, I would say, is a 
couple of hundred miles. Okay? Over-the-horizon capabilities 
will bounce off the ionosphere and give me the ability to see 
potentially a couple of thousand miles or beyond, and not only 
that for airborne objects, but maritime objects, as well as 
space objects, and depending on how you prioritize them.
    So, it gives me the ability to see further in the future; 
to anticipate what may come our way, and create options for me, 
as an operational commander, by positioning forces, or at the 
strategic level, with the President or the Secretary, the 
option to pick up the phone and have a discussion with a nation 
and create deterrent types of options ahead of time.
    As far as NORAD, it is crucial to field these to give us 
the ability to not only see, like we said, airborne objects, 
but to be able to provide my threat warning for NORAD, which is 
crucial to strategic stability--to be able to see hypersonics; 
to be able to see objects that could potentially emanate 
through space as well.
    Mr. Carbajal. Thank you, General.
    Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    The Chairman. The Chair now recognizes the gentlelady from 
Michigan, Mrs. McClain, for 5 minutes.
    Mrs. McClain. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you all 
for being here today.
    General Richardson, you have warned about China's constant 
attempts to invest further in the SOUTHCOM AOR. General, would 
you agree that several of the countries in your AOR adopt 
socialist or communist regimes? It is even more important than 
ever for the United States to be involved in South America?
    General Richardson. Absolutely, Congresswoman. We need to 
be more involved, pay more attention to what is so close to our 
homeland. This is our neighborhood. This is a shared 
neighborhood, and neighbors watch out for each other; we are 
good to each other; we help each other. And so, absolutely.
    But I would say that they are paying attention to the PRC, 
not because they want to; it is because they have to.
    Mrs. McClain. And in the past, you have raised the specific 
issue of the Port of Cartagena in Colombia. The Chinese have 
been attempting to gain a majority stake at this vital port in 
South America. If they are successful, they would have access 
to a deepwater port, but, more importantly, China would have a 
significant ISR asset.
    I want to know, specifically, what tools do you have to 
counter Chinese investments in SOUTHCOM.
    General Richardson. So, in order to counter the investment 
that they have is to talk about it, which is what I am doing. I 
am bringing awareness to the fact that, when there are tenders 
and projects that come out from the countries, and there are 
only Chinese bidders on there, we have got to get our 
international community, our Western investment, our Team USA 
investment focused on these countries when these bids comes 
out, so that they have a choice; it is not just all Chinese 
state-owned enterprises. And we have got to pay attention to 
that.
    Mrs. McClain. Would you agree that we could use a little 
more help in this task?
    General Richardson. I do. I think it is the awareness and 
talking about it, and making it well known that we are not 
competing as we should, and we can. And we can outcompete.
    Mrs. McClain. We can.
    And Congress established the Development Finance 
Corporation in the 2018 BUILD Act. The DFC was supposed to 
facilitate private sector investments that specifically 
complemented and are guided by overall United States foreign 
policy development and national security objectives. Has DFC 
been working with SOUTHCOM to establish investments in SOUTHCOM 
AOR to achieve our national security objectives?
    General Richardson. So, I would want to come back to you, 
Congresswoman, on that to make sure that I give you the correct 
answer. I think that, as I have said, continually, we have got 
to shine the light on it and make that investment coordinated, 
consolidated, and more aggressive.
    Mrs. McClain. Point blank, what tools, if you can 
articulate, do you specifically need that you don't have?
    General Richardson. I would say just the continued 
resourcing of my requirements for security cooperation, my 
exercise program, the State Department's foreign military 
sales, financing, excess defense articles. And we make those 
processes which are really more long-term, we have got to 
pressurize them and make them to where they deliver within 
months, not years.
    Mrs. McClain. And I want to go back to the DFC. If you will 
get back to me on my question on have they been working with 
you, and to what end?
    General Richardson. Yes.
    [The information referred to can be found in the Appendix 
on page 139.]
    Mrs. McClain. Because we give them a lot of taxpayer 
dollars, and I want to make sure that those taxpayer dollars 
are being spent that we are getting good value for our money, 
so to speak.
    General Richardson. Right.
    Mrs. McClain. I mean, Congress established the DFC to help 
counter the Belt and Road Initiative, right, from the CCP? DFC 
was supposed to be coordinating private sector investments in 
projects that benefit the United States, that benefit our 
interests. Instead, what I am seeing is DFC has dozens of 
projects in the Western Hemisphere that provide no real value 
to the national security, while at the same time China is 
investing in critical infrastructure--I mean mineral mining for 
their military and to provide greater ISR in the AOR.
    So, what is a little concerning--and I don't mean this 
disrespectfully--but you can't rattle this off at the top of 
your head. Yet, I am sure if we asked China, they have direct 
mining initiatives, Belt and Road. I mean, they have clear and 
precise initiatives.
    In my opinion, Congress needs to take a hard look at the 
DFC, the DFC's mandates, when there is legislation to 
reauthorize this agency, when it comes up for reauthorization 
this year. I mean, we need to take a good, hard look at what 
are those dollars getting spent for and are they being spent 
appropriately.
    The Chairman. The gentlelady's time has expired.
    The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Nevada, Mr. 
Horsford, for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Horsford. Thank you very much, Chairman Rogers and 
Ranking Member Smith, for holding this important hearing.
    Assistant Secretary Dalton, in your testimony you mention 
that ``Rising temperatures, droughts, and more frequent, 
intense, and unpredictable storms and floods have already begun 
to affect military readiness and impose significant costs on 
the Department.'' I agree with you that these environmental 
hazards are degrading readiness, critical infrastructure, and 
capabilities.
    In my home State of Nevada, the vast majority of the State 
is currently experiencing a severe drought. That means that 2.6 
million people are affected by the drought, with 6.13 percent 
of Nevadans experiencing extreme drought. The Colorado River 
Basin has racked up such dramatic deficits that a single season 
can't foretell the dire water supply concerns.
    And Lake Mead, the Nation's largest reservoir, has fallen 
by about 170 feet since the current drought began in 2000 and 
currently sits at 27 percent capacity. In fact, if Lake Mead 
falls below 950 feet, it will go to dead pool status, which 
will prevent it from generating power that serves 40 million 
people throughout the West.
    This clearly has an impact on our readiness, including the 
bases in my district at Nellis Air Force Base, Creech Air Force 
Base, the National Test and Training Range, and the Hawthorne 
Army Depot.
    So, could you explain how extreme weather is affecting our 
military readiness further and how the Department is addressing 
climate resiliency?
    Secretary Dalton. Congressman, thank you for highlighting 
this really important issue. The NDS captures it as a critical 
transboundary challenge facing not just the United States, but 
also our global network of allies and partners.
    The Department is seeking to make our systems more 
resilient to a range of threats that result from, or are 
exacerbated by, extreme weather events which are being reshaped 
by climate change. Increasing the resilience of our bases, 
making our structures, power grids, fuel distribution systems, 
and water lines more survivable not only gives us a strategic 
advantage, particularly in contested logistics, but also 
improves our operational effectiveness.
    The military's mission is to provide the most lethal, 
effective, and capable fighting force, and that requires 
adapting to a changing security environment, including the 
effects of climate change. Additionally, working to build the 
resiliency of our partners to respond to climate-related 
disaster response efforts, through both DOD and non-DOD 
programming, will help DOD sustain focus on our key warfighting 
mission.
    For example, SOUTHCOM is working with allies and partners 
in the Caribbean to enhance their planning capabilities and 
better prepare for the anticipated impacts of extreme weather 
events and regional climate-related hazards through an upcoming 
tabletop exercise. And we are grateful for Congress' support of 
a new authority, the Defense Operational Resilience 
International Cooperation Fund, that will enable us to help 
build the resiliency of our allies and partners abroad.
    But we are looking at this, both domestically and abroad, 
to tackle the effects of climate change.
    Mr. Horsford. And what happens if we fail to build 
resilience against these effects of climate change and its 
effect on the loss of military capability?
    Secretary Dalton. Thank you, Congressman.
    Let me give you a pretty stark example. The NDS makes clear 
the PRC is our pacing challenge. Part of the theater is the 
Indo-Pacific. When we look at Pacific Islands that we rely upon 
for access, basing, and overflight, for priority war plans for 
our PRC contingency, those are the very islands that are 
subject to storm surge and sea level rise over the next 10-to-
20 years.
    And so, if we fail to build climate resiliency in the 
Pacific Islands, key locations like the Kwajalein Atoll that 
has critical missile defense capabilities, we are going to be 
at risk of being able to perform our warfighting missions. Full 
stop.
    Mr. Horsford. I appreciate very much the Department taking 
these challenges seriously, for you answering my questions, and 
I look forward to continuing to work with the Department and 
this committee to address the threats facing our national 
security, including those related to climate.
    Thank you. I yield back.
    The Chairman. The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from 
Texas, Mr. Jackson, for 5 minutes.
    Dr. Jackson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate it. And 
I also want to thank our witnesses for taking time out of your 
schedule to be here today. Much appreciated.
    The past 5-to-10 years have brought with them unprecedented 
challenges in North and South America, including natural 
disasters, political upheaval, border and migration crises, and 
a pandemic. Overshadowing all of these challenges are the ever-
growing attempts of the Chinese Communist Party to achieve 
influence and a foothold right here in the Western Hemisphere.
    In the last 5 years--and I know this has been touched on a 
little bit--in the last 5 years, Taiwan has lost four allies in 
Central America--Panama in 2017, El Salvador in 2018, Dominican 
Republic in 2018, and Nicaragua in 2021. In all cases, the 
severing of these relationships with Taiwan came hand-in-hand 
with Chinese predatory economic tactics in the form of 
investments and loans for these small countries, something 
Beijing has been able to exploit all over the world, quite 
frankly.
    The majority of Chinese enticements to these small, 
vulnerable countries have come in the form of significant 
financial aid and investment in exchange for severing ties with 
Taiwan. General Richardson, to your knowledge, have any Chinese 
offers involved military assistance and have there been any 
requirements from the PRC to allow access to Chinese forces on 
any of the territories here in the Western Hemisphere?
    General Richardson. So, in terms of the hardware and the 
ability, so the PRC does compete in terms of whether a country 
is looking for vehicles or aircraft, or things like that. And 
so, certainly, with our processes, and the countries, now 
partner nations, are looking at, because of the economies and 
the issues with their economies, they are looking at what is 
the best finance package, too, to also be able to, before they 
make the big decision on buying aircraft or vehicles, and 
things like that. And so, the PRC is definitely competing in 
that space.
    Dr. Jackson. In the military space as well?
    General Richardson. They are more in terms of training and 
education, all-expense-paid training and education to Beijing--
--
    Dr. Jackson. I see.
    General Richardson [continuing]. And to China for a 1-year, 
2-year, and even recently found out about a 4-year program.
    Dr. Jackson. But, to date, really no big plans for 
installations, ports, things of that nature, that we see going 
on right now in Africa and other places?
    General Richardson. I would say what the PRC is doing now, 
sir, is setting the theater, is what I call it----
    Dr. Jackson. Yes.
    General Richardson [continuing]. Or setting the table for 
these state-owned enterprises that come in and could be used 
for dual-use capability for the military in the future. So, 
while we don't have any basis right now from the PRC, I would 
say that that is something that will eventually happen--
possibly 7, 10, 15 years from now.
    Dr. Jackson. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. That makes sense. Thank 
you.
    As we have discussed today, some of our most sensitive, 
vital, and advanced defense platforms draw heavily on certain 
ranges of the spectrum. China also relies on the spectrum for 
its defense apparatus. However, here in the United States, our 
spectrum usage and allocation system is currently in flux, and 
there is a lot of debate on how we are going to ultimately 
resolve this.
    General VanHerck, do you believe that China is exploiting 
our spectrum allocation in the dilemma that we are currently 
going through regarding this spectrum? And are they making 
significant advances beyond our own capabilities? If so, do you 
believe that we can make up our losses on this issue? And how 
do you suggest we recapture the high ground on spectrum?
    General VanHerck. Congressman, I don't have any direct 
evidence that China is exploiting the electromagnetic spectrum. 
I would say that that would be their intent, if they could, the 
way they exploit everything else.
    I believe that what we need to do with regards to spectrum 
is not look at it from only a commercial aspect, a sale, but a 
national security aspect, and ensure that all decisions with 
regards to spectrum look and assess the impact to national 
security, the ability to accomplish all of our national 
security missions.
    Dr. Jackson. Yes, sir. Thank you.
    One last question. In Europe, we operate in a theater with 
many allies possessing military capabilities and technologies. 
We rely on knowing that, when deterring aggression or stopping 
bad actors there, we have capable, competent, trained forces 
with whom we can work side-by-side. SOUTHCOM, by contrast, 
operates in an area of the world where we are just kind of 
discussing to some extent that it is often still developing and 
lacks institutional knowledge in defense means and resourcing 
that many of our European allies have.
    General Richardson, how does SOUTHCOM manage the distinct 
power and resource imbalance between the U.S. and our SOUTHCOM 
AOR allies when it comes to ensuring U.S. strategic interests 
in South America? And the EUCOM [U.S. European Command]/NATO 
model are different from what we face in this command.
    General Richardson. So, Congressman, I am happy to report 
that we just last spring, myself and the other allies that 
operate within the region, signed a Western Hemisphere 
Framework. And that is really a non-binding agreement, but it 
is a commitment to work better together, to share information. 
And as we are getting after integrated deterrence and Team 
Democracy in the Western Hemisphere, that is really what that 
is about.
    The Chairman. The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from 
Nebraska----
    Dr. Jackson. Thank you, ma'am.
    The Chairman [continuing]. For 5 minutes.
    Mr. Bacon. Thank you to all three of you for being here 
today. It is great to see General VanHerck, who I have had the 
honor of working with in the past. And thank you, General 
Richardson, for visiting yesterday.
    I want to clarify with General VanHerck some of the news 
reporting on the Chinese reconnaissance balloon. Some of the 
news reports claim that the citizens of Montana detected the 
balloon, which then led the military to brief the President on 
the location of it and what was going on. And reporting 
indicates that was the first the President had heard of it. Is 
that the case? Did we wait until citizens detected the balloon 
before we briefed the President on the balloon status?
    General VanHerck. Congressman, I can't answer that question 
because I didn't specifically discuss that with the White 
House. I can tell you that, on 27 January, I made the 
Department aware. And when we detected it with radar on the 
28th of January, again, I made them aware and made my 
assessment that there was no hostile intent--that being 
maneuvering to seek an offensive advantage or hostile acts, 
such as dropping weapons. And I provided that to the 
Department.
    Mr. Bacon. That is just a little worrisome, that it sounds 
like in some of the reporting that the President wasn't going 
to be briefed, but the fact that citizens saw it triggered, you 
know, the briefs to the President. That would be my concern.
    I would like to follow up, too, on your comment on the mid-
band frequency spectrum. You mentioned earlier that the auction 
of part of the spectrum, that our radars operate in that area 
would have a significant impact on your mission. If the science 
indicates that it is possible to effectively share the spectrum 
in these frequency ranges, would that reduce the risk to your 
mission? Or should we be even more cautious and not go down 
that path at all?
    General VanHerck. Yes, Congressman, ultimately, it is a 
policy decision. With regards to sharing, I am agnostic to the 
solution. We just need to understand the impacts of any sell-
off on national security and defending our homeland.
    Mr. Bacon. Thank you.
    And, General Richardson, Brazil is a rising power. How do 
you characterize our two countries' relationships? How is it 
trending? And what can we do to involve Brazil more in the 
world's leadership of standing up to authoritarian regimes and 
being part of the free nations?
    General Richardson. Continue to engage, Congressman. We 
have a foreign liaison officer at United States Southern 
Command, the second one from Brazil. We need to keep that 
relationship and build upon that.
    And it is through our exercise program, I really think we 
are able to continue to build that. And we have a very good 
mil-to-mil. I have the Chief of Defense that is visiting the 
SOUTHCOM headquarters this coming Monday and Tuesday of next 
week, and then, I will go to Brazil next month and visit with 
the Minister of Defense as well as the Chief of Defense again.
    But it is to build that trust. We have a brand-new 
administration that is in the seat, and so, clean slate and we 
have got to move out.
    Mr. Bacon. Thank you.
    Would you benefit from having more Navy and Air Force 
presence in the southern part of South America?
    General Richardson. I would say our presence from Team USA 
in the region, as I said earlier, getting down into the 
Southern Cone, because it is a little bit further and it 
takes--you know, we need to visit our partners there. We need 
to be with them on the field. We need to meet with them in 
person. We need to do exercises in that region and be present, 
because there is a lot of--I think that is why the PRC has been 
able to gain inroads in the Southern Cone of Latin America, 
because we are not there. We are not there to compete with them 
on the field.
    Mr. Bacon. Thank you. General VanHerck, one last question, 
since I have got a little more time. One of the things that 
concerns me is nuclear command and control, having the 
survivability of it. I know it is more in the STRATCOM [United 
States Strategic Command] realm. What is your take, what is 
your assessment of our ability to track hypersonic weapons and 
the warning times that that we would have to respond?
    General VanHerck. I will give you more in a classified 
setting. But I have significant concerns about my ability to 
track hypersonics and cruise missiles, for that matter, and 
track undersea capabilities for submarines that could 
potentially threaten us, and cyber threats to our homeland. I 
am on record; I have been saying it for 3 years. So, 
significantly concerned about that.
    Mr. Bacon. And with that in mind, I think we need to do 
more on strengthening our command-and-control survivability. 
That is something to work on.
    General VanHerck. Yes, I want to point out why this is 
crucial. Okay, this is decision space for our national security 
apparatus, for continuity of government, for survival of our 
nuclear forces. And when you can't provide threat warning or 
attack assessment in a timely manner, then strategic stability 
erodes and the potential risk of strategic deterrence failure 
goes up. So, I couldn't agree more; we need to be very 
concerned about that.
    Mr. Bacon. The Russians and the Chinese must know that we 
can respond. We have to ensure that we have the capabilities in 
place to do it. Thank you.
    General VanHerck. We absolutely can respond. And I would 
remind you that the foundation of homeland defense is the 
nuclear deterrent.
    Mr. Bacon. Yes.
    General VanHerck. It is a safe, secure, reliable nuclear 
deterrent that we have today.
    Mr. Bacon. Thank you. Mr. Chair, I yield back.
    The Chairman. I thank the gentleman. The Chair now 
recognizes the gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Scott, for 5 
minutes.
    Mr. Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    And I would like to take just a minute to read from each of 
our witnesses' testimony.
    And, General Richardson, on page 2, you give a pretty bold 
and direct statement. ``Today, the PRC has both the capability 
and intent to eschew international norms, advance its brand of 
authoritarianism, and amass power and influence at the expense 
of the existing and emerging democracies in our hemisphere. 
This is a decisive decade and our actions or inactions 
regarding the PRC will have ramifications for decades to 
come.'' I agree with you 100 percent and I appreciate you being 
as bold as you are with that statement.
    General VanHerck, in your statement, on page 4, ``In May of 
2022, the PRC and Russia conducted a combined bomber patrol 
over the Sea of Japan coinciding with the Quad Leaders' Summit 
in Tokyo. The May 2022 bomber patrol was followed by a second 
bomber patrol in November 2022. The cooperation is not confined 
to the air domain. PRC and Russian naval forces conducted a 
combined patrol in the fall of 2022.''
    Ms. Dalton, in your testimony, ``In the NDS, the Secretary 
directed the Department to act urgently to sustain and 
strengthen U.S. deterrence, with the People's Republic of China 
as the pacing challenge for the Department.''
    ``A stark example of these challenges''--pushing along 
forward--``was recently brought to the attention of the 
American people and the world when the PRC irresponsibly 
entered our sovereign air space with a high altitude balloon. 
We know with certainty they intended to surveil sensitive U.S. 
military and critical infrastructure sites.''
    I would have changed one word and put ``intentionally'' 
maybe, instead of ``irresponsibly,'' but I think your statement 
is very direct as well.
    And, General VanHerck, I appreciate you giving specific 
examples of the alliance between China and Russia.
    Mr. Alford, I believe it was, earlier said, ``How do we get 
America to wake up?'' Less than 14 days after China flew that 
balloon across the United States of America, Ford Motor 
Company, one of America's most iconic brands, announced a 
multibillion dollar partnership with Communist China's CATL 
[Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Limited] for battery 
technology. Are you aware of this? Are you all aware of this?
    General VanHerck. I'm not aware of that, Congressman.
    Mr. Scott. Yes. Less than--okay, I hope you will look at 
that--less than 15 days. Now, I have thought about whether or 
not this was the right action or not, because I don't like the 
heavy hand of government, but, every now and then, it needs to 
be used. And I will tell you something. Someone at that 
Pentagon needs to have enough brass to pick up the phone and 
call Ford Motor Company and tell them that the DOD will not 
purchase any vehicle that has that Communist Chinese technology 
in it.
    Now, I don't have a choice as a consumer. When I go to a 
Home Depot and I want to buy a power tool, every tool is made 
in China. The American citizens can either walk out of that 
store without a power tool or they can buy one made in China.
    But I'm going to tell you something. The DOD budget is big 
enough that we can correct this action. We should have started 
correcting this a long time ago.
    Now, Vietnam. In Vietnam, we lost 58,000 Americans in 
almost 20 years, if I am not mistaken. Over 100,000 overdoses 
this last year in the United States of America. You have all 
testified that China is indifferent and not willing to help us 
with this, is that correct?
    General VanHerck. Congressman, I did say that. They are 
turning a blind eye to the precursors.
    Mr. Scott. Turning a blind eye to the deaths that we have.
    I apologize if the rest of you didn't say it. But it is 
pretty much the consensus of our intelligence community, our 
military community, that China could help, but they won't.
    Corporate America has got to step up to the plate and help 
us stop this. And I will tell you, it is time for the heavy 
hand of government to pick up the phone and call Ford Motor 
Company and say, ``You develop those batteries with China and 
we're not buying any of your battery-powered vehicles through 
the Department of Defense.''
    With that, I yield the remainder of my time.
    The Chairman. We can do that statutorily, I think. I will 
help you with that. I will help you with it.
    Mr. Scott. Mr. Chairman, I plan to.
    The Chairman. Now, we have got the gentleman from Indiana, 
Mr. Banks, for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Banks. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    General VanHerck, how many times have you briefed, 
specifically briefed, the President of the United States about 
the situation at the border?
    General VanHerck. Congressman, I have not personally 
briefed the President of the United States.
    Mr. Banks. Has the President of the United States requested 
a briefing from you about the situation at the border?
    General VanHerck. Not that I'm aware of.
    Mr. Banks. Are you surprised by that?
    General VanHerck. No, not necessarily. He works closely 
with, obviously, the Secretary and senior leaders, but I'm not 
necessarily surprised.
    Mr. Banks. It has been said many times already, 107,375 
Americans have died from drug overdoses specifically related to 
fentanyl--the leading cause of death of Americans my age in 
this country today. And we know that the vast majority of the 
fentanyl is coming across the southern border.
    It surprises me greatly--and frankly, it angers me--that 
the President of the United States of America is so tone-deaf 
and has turned a blind eye, that he is not asking the top 
general in the United States of America tasked with overseeing 
drug interdiction at our southern border to come and brief him 
on the leading cause of death of Americans of working age in 
this country.
    What is the specific role that you are playing at the 
border to stop drugs from coming into this country?
    General VanHerck. So, to be clear, I am in support of 
Homeland Security. I don't have a direct role. I can't enforce 
the law because Posse Comitatus prevents me from doing that 
day-to-day. So, my direct role is providing support, such as 
intel analysis, detection and monitoring, those types of 
things. But I'm not authorized to provide the support that you 
are talking about.
    Mr. Banks. What is NORTHCOM doing at the southern border?
    General VanHerck. We are doing two things. Number one, we 
provide support to the requests for assistance from the 
Homeland Security; detection and monitoring, which we have 
about 106 locations where we provide support. We provide aerial 
support, about 12,000 hours for detection and monitoring, and 
we provide intel analysis.
    JTF North, my Joint Task Force North, provides direct 
support to enable law enforcement agencies to conduct their 
mission, to include intel assessments in Mexico, pointing out 
where the Mexicans can utilize intel assessment to collect 
precursors, interdict precursors, and also, provide support to 
enable our folks here in the homeland, law enforcement 
agencies, to get after the problems north-to-south flow, such 
as interdicting money, and also, interdicting weapons. But I 
can't do that directly because that is a law enforcement 
action.
    Mr. Banks. But could the President ask you to do that?
    General VanHerck. The President could ask, under special 
authorities, for the military to do more, yes.
    Mr. Banks. Yes. I mean, this is pure insanity--a testament 
to the lack of leadership of this President, that he is not 
asking you to do whatever you can to stop fentanyl from 
flooding into this country.
    In fact, let me point out that, in 2020, President Trump 
visited SOUTHCOM for a briefing, specifically, he went to 
SOUTHCOM for a briefing, to talk about the campaign against 
drug trafficking. That is the type of leadership that he 
provided in this country--the opposite of what we are seeing 
coming from President Biden.
    Mr. Chairman, it is just unbelievable to me that this 
President has completely ignored this situation. I'm baffled by 
it, that the General has not briefed the President of United 
States directly and shown that kind of leadership, knowing 
that, as you just said, he could ask you to do more at the 
border, and he is not asking you to do it.
    There is not a family in my district in northeast Indiana 
anymore that I talk to who isn't directly affected by the drug 
epidemic in this country. And that the President of the United 
States won't go to his top general in charge of protecting our 
southern border and stopping drugs from coming in here, when he 
could, is just--it is just absolutely--it is shameful, and I am 
going to continue to do whatever I can to make sure that we get 
a President in the White House who is paying attention to the 
southern border.
    So, with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    The Chairman. The gentleman from Florida, in fact, is 
recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Gaetz. General VanHerck, ever heard of ``Rice's 
whale''?
    General VanHerck. Congressman, I have not.
    Mr. Gaetz. I don't blame you. There are only 51 of them. 
And until 2021, even the Rice's whale didn't know it was a 
Rice's whale; people thought it was a Bryde's whale. But now, 
because in 2021 some scientist believes they found 51 Rice's 
whales off the coast of Florida, right off the Continental 
Shelf, there's no live fire testing going on right now in the 
Gulf Test Range, because the renewal process that is required 
has been cleared by the Department of Commerce. As you well 
know, the Gulf Test Range is the only place where we do certain 
types of exquisite live fire testing.
    Doesn't it seem odd that our country would suspend all of 
that for 51 whales that are a subspecies of a different whale?
    General VanHerck. It is certainly a policy decision. I am 
not aware of the specifics behind that, but, certainly, I think 
the stopping of military testing capabilities to test our 
weapons could have an impact on our readiness.
    Mr. Gaetz. Yes, a cascading effect on our readiness, as a 
matter of fact. Because what is happening at Eglin Air Force 
Base now is that the live fire testing is having to occur over 
the land range, which is impacting the mission of 6th Ranger 
Battalion, of 7th Special Forces Group, of the Navy EOD 
[Explosive Ordnance Disposal] School. It will potentially lead 
to evacuations of several highways that my constituents use by 
the thousands every single day.
    And so, what I am hoping to do is bring a little sanity to 
this process. Because a serious nation would not impair live 
fire testing and other critical testing of hypersonic component 
parts over this range that this committee has invested about 
$170 million into because we found 51 whales that we didn't 
know existed before 2021.
    Because we share a vision to ensure that we have that high-
level readiness and that we have the areas necessary to plan 
for a China scenario, will your staff work with me to try to 
see how we can supercharge the voice of the Department of 
Defense in this interagency process where some people appear to 
be stopping a critical military mission over 51 whales?
    General VanHerck. Congressman, that is not what my staff 
would do. I would say the Air Force and the Department should 
work with you on the way forward on that. I'm a consumer of 
that readiness. I do have concerns about ensuring our forces 
are ready, but that would not be my responsibility as a 
combatant commander.
    Mr. Gaetz. Well, will the Department work with me on that?
    Secretary Dalton. Congressman, thank you for highlighting 
this issue. We are happy to take that question back.
    [The information referred to can be found in the Appendix 
on page 139.]
    Mr. Gaetz. Thank you. I appreciate it. Because I don't 
think a serious country would behave this way.
    And by the way, we are not the only ones operating in the 
Gulf of Mexico. China--China--was able to purchase from Shell 
Oil an oil rig where they have dual-use capabilities. As a 
matter of fact, it is called the Ram Powell Unit Platform. Are 
you familiar with that platform, General VanHerck?
    General VanHerck. I'm aware of what you are saying with 
regards to China purchasing an oil rig. I'm not aware of that 
specific platform.
    Mr. Gaetz. Yes, so, I mean, here is what happened. It was 
astonishing to me that this could occur. In 2016, Shell Oil 
wanted to sell one of their platforms out in the middle of the 
Gulf of Mexico, where we do all this high-end testing. And the 
96th Test Wing at my military installation objected. They said, 
``Please do not create a secret Chinese intelligence-gathering 
platform masquerading as an oil rig in the middle of the Gulf 
of Mexico.'' And lo and behold, in 2016, the Obama 
administration State Department approved it anyway through the 
CFIUS [U.S. Committee on Foreign Investment in the United 
States] process.
    And so, I just wonder how that happens. I wonder how, like 
when the 96th Test Wing, when the Air Force, is saying, ``Bad 
idea. Don't sell this oil rig in the middle of the Gulf of 
Mexico to China,'' then the Obama administration green-lights 
it.
    What advice can you give me, Ms. Dalton, about how to 
ensure that these interagency workings don't lead to a 
circumstance where Americans are paralyzed in testing and 
operations in the Gulf because of 51 whales we didn't know 
existed until 2021, and yet, the Chinese are able to go and 
compromise a platform to gather intelligence on our exquisite 
testing?
    Secretary Dalton. Congressman, as mentioned, I'm happy to 
take the question back on the whales. Certainly, when it comes 
to PRC activities in the region, as the three of us have 
testified today, we are closely tracking their investments, 
their activities, their operations, including through third 
parties.
    Mr. Gaetz. Is there anyone who doesn't agree with the 
statement that we are all better off if the Chinese Communist 
Party isn't operating dual-purpose oil rigs in the Gulf of 
Mexico? We all agree with that, right? No one disagrees? No one 
is like, ``You know what? We need to think twice and maybe be 
more accommodating to the Chinese.''? Well, I would say let's 
not be so accommodating to the Chinese; let's not be so 
accommodating to the whales, and let's get back to the great 
mission that I know you all believe in.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
    The Chairman. I thank the gentleman.
    The Chair now yields to the gentleman from Tennessee, Dr. 
DesJarlais, for any questions he may have.
    Dr. DesJarlais. Thank you, Chairman.
    General VanHerck, how concerned are you by North Korea's 
continued missile development and production? And do you 
believe they presently have the capability to overwhelm our 
missile defenses of the homeland, or are they nearing that 
point?
    General VanHerck. Yes, I'm incredibly concerned about their 
ability to potentially overwhelm my capacity to defend. I would 
rather talk in a classified session about the details of that, 
but, absolutely, I'm concerned.
    Dr. DesJarlais. Okay. Can you describe the benefit that the 
Next Generation Interceptor could provide in defending against 
this threat?
    General VanHerck. Absolutely. So, the Next Generation 
Interceptor gives 20 additional ground-based interceptors, 
which will help me with the capacity that you are alluding to. 
So, it would give us a total of about 64 or more interceptors, 
which gives me more opportunities and capacity.
    In addition to that, the Next Generation Interceptor, when 
coupled with the Long-Range Discrimination Radar, will help me 
against the additional capabilities they are developing, such 
as decoys, to be able to discriminate that. That is really 
crucial going forward.
    Dr. DesJarlais. Yes. How about placement of additional 
interceptors in Alaska; would that be useful?
    General VanHerck. Capacity-wise? Absolutely, as long as 
they came with the capabilities we are describing.
    Dr. DesJarlais. Okay. And finally, earlier in this hearing, 
you briefly mentioned concern about U.S. defense funding and 
strategies in the Arctic. I wanted to give you some more time, 
if you need it, to elaborate on your concerns in this area. 
What are the gaps in our Arctic strategy and capabilities, and 
what do we need to be doing better to compete with China and 
Russia in this critical region?
    General VanHerck. Yes, I would point to last year the 
National Defense Authorization Act directed me to do Arctic 
studies. I completed that and turned it in, and it was given to 
Congress in September. That will give you a classified look at 
the capabilities we are talking about.
    But, in general, I need persistence. That means fuel north 
of Dutch Harbor, Alaska; infrastructure to operate day-to-day 
in campaigning, but also in a crisis, and communication 
capabilities as well, so we can communicate not only voice, but 
data as well in the Arctic.
    Dr. DesJarlais. Thank you. I yield back.
    The Chairman. The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from 
Louisiana, Mr. Johnson, for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    General Richardson, thank you for your testimony today. I 
thank all of you for your time.
    I'm very concerned about China's influence in our own 
Hemisphere in South America. And it has been widely reported 
that they have been trying to buy favor through the Belt and 
Road and other means. And you noted in your testimony that 
China's trade with Latin America and the Caribbean has 
increased by 24,000 percent over the last 20 years.
    So, I'm curious about your assessment of how successful 
they have been in using those trade relationships to exert 
influence in South America. And what are some of the indicators 
that we should be looking at in measuring that success?
    General Richardson. So, I think that is, when that enormous 
amount of trade over a short period of time, then that is 
building trust with the partner nations, I would say. It is 
also building partnering that they are doing with our partner 
nations, and that further makes our partners think twice about 
partnering with us or continuing to look that direction towards 
them. And so, I think that plays quite a bit into the 
relationship dynamics.
    Mr. Johnson. What are some of the things that we are 
currently doing to respond to those attempts from China to 
exert influence in our own Hemisphere? And then, moreover, in a 
perfect world, if you could design a perfect plan, what more 
would we or should we be doing to push back?
    General Richardson. Well, it is really to highlight what we 
offer and what we are able to do; that we are on the field and 
being able to give something counter. You know, that there is a 
counter argument to what the Chinese is offering.
    And that is why I want to talk about loudly we are on the 
ground on the military side of the house, but we can do better 
talking about and advertising the other investments that we 
have going on in the region as a whole-of-government approach 
from Team USA.
    Mr. Johnson. And I heard you earlier--and I wish you would 
elaborate or explain it one more time--what you mean by 
``putting the flag on more things.'' I mean, we want to project 
peace through strength, and part of that, a big part of that is 
perception, right, our strength, our resolve? Is that what you 
mean by that?
    General Richardson. It is. And the private sector is a very 
important piece of this, and they are busy at work investing, 
but I would say we could--we shouldn't be so modest; that we 
should advertise what Team USA is doing. Through all the 
instruments of national power, we should be advertising what 
Team USA is doing, because we are much more prevalent in the 
region than we are given credit for.
    Mr. Johnson. I love that. You know, Ronald Reagan used to 
remind us we should paint with bold colors and not pale pastels 
because weakness invites aggression, and that is, in our view, 
what is happening right now.
    General VanHerck testified a few moments ago to Mr. Banks' 
questions about the very limited support, obviously, that the 
Department of Defense is providing at the southern border. And 
I wanted to ask Secretary Dalton about that just a little bit 
more.
    My understanding is that DOD has fewer than 2,000 National 
Guard personnel in title 10 status deployed to the southern 
border in support of CBP [U.S. Customs and Border Protection], 
and the Department is providing UAV [unmanned aerial vehicle] 
support and some of the intel assessment, I think. But the 
Department of Homeland Security requested the current levels of 
support, is that right?
    Secretary Dalton. Congressman, thank you for the question.
    So, we are actually providing approximately 2500 ground and 
air personnel in title 10 status to support DHS in the 
Southwest border mission, as well as 12,100 flight hours. On 
top of that, also, aerostat support; and also, the Secretary 
has approved contracted, reimbursable support for additional 
air, ground, land, building, and medical support for a surge at 
the border, if that is anticipated in the next few months.
    Mr. Johnson. Okay. But all the things that have been 
described is not enough, clearly. We have a catastrophe at the 
border, from our perspective, and I think the evidence speaks 
for itself.
    So, why hasn't DHS requested more? That is the question.
    Secretary Dalton. Thank you, Congressman.
    We are continuing to engage DHS and our other interagency 
partners on what is an unprecedented challenge at the border. 
As noted, the numbers are skyrocketing. We are all very 
conscientious of the likely lifting of title 42 in May, and 
there are concerted interagency efforts to get after this 
challenge.
    As General VanHerck mentioned, this is principally a law 
enforcement function. And so, we are strong advocates for fully 
resourcing the Department of Homeland Security for----
    Mr. Johnson. Good. But I only have 10 seconds left.
    Secretary Dalton [continuing]. Technologies that are 
important to this mission.
    Mr. Johnson. Let me stop you. It is a law enforcement 
function, but if law enforcement is overwhelmed because of 
policy choices, or otherwise, DOD has to step up. We have to 
close the border. If we don't have a secure border, we don't 
have sovereignty; we don't have a nation.
    I'm out of time. I yield back.
    The Chairman. The gentleman's time has expired.
    The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Guam.
    And before he starts, I do want everybody to know, tell all 
the MLAs for Members back in their offices, after Mr. Moylan, 
then we will recess and move to the classified area for second 
portion of this hearing.
    But the gentleman is recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Moylan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Thank you for our witnesses.
    General VanHerck, yes, the 2022 Missile Defense Review 
states, ``an attack on Guam or any other U.S. territory by any 
adversary will be considered a direct attack on the United 
States.'' And it goes on to recognize that Guam is an 
unequivocal part of the United States. And given that Guam is 
part of the U.S. homeland, in your personal military 
assessment, General, is Guam defended to an acceptable 
standard, especially considering that the territory does not 
fall under the umbrella of NORAD? General?
    General VanHerck. That question is best answered by Admiral 
Aquilino.
    What I can tell you is the Department is moving forward 
with an aggressive plan to defend Guam. The Missile Defense 
Agency is working that right now. I look forward to working 
with the Missile Defense Agency as we build capabilities out to 
defend the CONUS [continental United States] as well.
    Mr. Moylan. And thank you, General. And then, just in your 
opinion, could you please highlight some resources that you 
would feel important to have defending the entire U.S. 
homeland, including Guam, such as the Over-the-Horizon radars?
    General VanHerck. Yes. So, the Over-the-Horizon radars are 
crucial for domain awareness. And I applaud Congress and the 
Department for funding those in fiscal year 2023. As we go 
forward, we will need a little bit more funding, and I look 
forward to seeing the budget in 2024, as it comes out here.
    Additional capability, though, it is really access to 
forces that are organized, trained, and equipped to operate 
throughout my AOR, which includes the Arctic as well, but not 
only in the Arctic, but here in the homeland. I'm the only 
combatant commander that has to go ask for forces that has an 
area in a time of crisis that I don't have the assigned or 
allocated forces. And I don't need them assigned or allocated 
as long as I have access to those to defend the homeland.
    I need additional domain awareness for undersea 
capabilities. The Russians, as you probably likely are aware, 
not only have now their most capable submarines in the 
Atlantic, but they have them in the Pacific as well. And that 
is going to present challenges. And the PRC is about 8 to 10 
years behind them.
    So, the problem is only going to grow from the homeland 
domain awareness perspective and, also, in the cyber domain. We 
need more capabilities to understand where we are vulnerable 
across not only DOD and our Federal entities, but across the 
Nation as a whole in the cyber domain.
    Mr. Moylan. Thank you, General, for all you do. And thank 
you to the witnesses.
    Mr. Chairman, thank you. I yield back.
    The Chairman. I thank the gentleman. The Chair will be 
reconvening in 2212 at 12:45.
    This hearing is adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 12:36 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]



      
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                            A P P E N D I X

                             March 8, 2023

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              PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD

                             March 8, 2023

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[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    

      
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              WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING

                              THE HEARING

                             March 8, 2023

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             RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. GAETZ

    Secretary Dalton. The Department of Defense (DoD), via the 
Department of the Air Force, has been engaged with the National Marine 
Fisheries Service (NMFS) on this matter. NMFS and the National Oceanic 
and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) expedited issuance of a new Final 
Rule and Letter of Authorization under the Marine Mammal Protection Act 
for the Eglin Gulf of Mexico Test and Training Range (EGTTR). The 
Department appreciates the efforts of NMFS and NOAA in this regard. The 
new LOA became effective 13 April and enables the Air Force to resume 
live, inert, and/or aerial gunnery operations in the EGTTR's two 
designated Live Impact Areas. Neither air-to-air operations nor costs/
schedules of the Systems Program Offices were impacted while awaiting 
issuance of the final rule and LOA. As per normal practice, the Air 
Force actively works with tenant units at Eglin Air Force Base to 
maintain weapons development test schedules; additionally, the Air 
Force regularly engages with customers of the EGTTR Complex to continue 
the pace of readiness-related trainings with the least amount of impact 
to other missions as possible.   [See page 49.]
                                 ______
                                 
             RESPONSE TO QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MS. ESCOBAR
    General Richardson. Our partners are our best defense in this 
region. As you outlined in your question, the interconnectedness of 
these issues caused by TCOs creates an environment that the PRC has 
learned to exploit. For that reason, we use integrated deterrence-- 
working alongside our partners, allies and the interagency--to build 
capacity in the region and bolster the resiliency of some of the more 
vulnerable populations. We synchronize activities with the interagency 
that bolster cooperation with militaries and security forces to secure 
and tailor support to our partners that are willing to break the 
vicious sequence described.
    For example, we share information with our partners to aid 
decisionmakers in selecting trustworthy telecommunications providers. 
We quickly coordinate and execute assessments that identify network 
vulnerabilities and threats. We employ a whole-of-government integrated 
deterrence approach to help our partners develop reliable and secure 
telecommunication infrastructure and cyber resilience while 
highlighting state-of-the-art substantive alternatives. We coordinate 
with the Department of Commerce to advise and assist partner nations in 
developing robust legal frameworks to secure their critical 
telecommunication infrastructure.
    This effort is coordinated through the Department of State, both at 
the NCR and country team level, and is further guided by National 
Security Council prioritization to ensure synergy. The detect and 
monitoring activities the Joint Interagency Task Force-South (JIATF-S) 
conduct help degrade TCO networks by integrating FBI, DEA, and HSI 
targets into the daily targeting cycle. JIATF-S consistently integrates 
partner nation forces and assets into combined detect and monitor 
operations as well. These integrated efforts of interagency and 
international partners apply pressure on TCOs, preventing them from 
operating in a permissive environment.   [See page 31.]
                                 ______
                                 
             RESPONSE TO QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MRS. MCCLAIN
    General Richardson. USSOUTHCOM began coordinating with the 
Development Finance Corporation (DFC) in 2021 to better understand 
DFC's mission, resources, mandate, and potential integration with the 
command. We have included DFC's intelligence analyst in our USSOUTHCOM 
Joint Interagency Coordination Group to facilitate ongoing information-
sharing, but there has not been extensive coordination on priorities or 
the DFC's current projects in the Western Hemisphere.   [See page 40.]
                                 ______
                                 
              RESPONSE TO QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MR. FALLON
    General VanHerck. Adversary intelligence services and hostile non-
state actors are likely to at least consider exploiting known 
vulnerabilities at any of our border locations and ports of entries. 
Intelligence services are also able to utilize other legal methods of 
entering the U.S., to include tourist, work or immigration visas. We 
assess the majority of Russian passport holders seeking asylum in the 
United States, or who enter illegally, are economic migrants seeking 
greater opportunities in the United States.   [See page 37.]
                                 ______
                                 
             RESPONSE TO QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MR. GIMENEZ
    General Richardson. Over the past ten years, the PRC has 
significantly expanded its lithium mining operations in Argentina and 
Chile--collectively known as the ``Lithium Triangle.'' Between 2018 and 
2020 alone, the PRC invested approximately 16 billion USD on projects 
in the region and now has 23 PRC-affiliated lithium mining, 
development, or exploration projects. At least three PRC companies 
(Ganfeng Lithium, Tianqi Lithium, and Zijin Mining) have majority 
stakes in mining operations in Chile and Argentina, the world's second- 
and fourth-largest lithium producers, respectively. PRC companies 
control 75-100% of the offtake of four mines in Argentina that are 
still in development and own a 24% stake in Chile's largest lithium 
mining company. Market experts estimate these mining operations will 
produce over 60,000 tons of lithium per year, which is close to half of 
global lithium mining production in 2022. In early 2023, a PRC battery 
company, CATL, won the bid to develop Bolivia's huge lithium reserves. 
Technical hurdles and a lack of infrastructure have long delayed the 
extraction of lithium in Bolivia, whose reserves are estimated at 21 
million tons (24% of the known world reserves).   [See page 32.]
    General Richardson. We defer the question about Chinese banks doing 
business in the United States to United States Department of the 
Treasury, we do not have the authorities to investigate activities in 
the United States. Regarding the Chinese banking footprint in the 
USSOUTHCOM AOR; there are at least seven Chinese banks operating in 
Latin America and the Caribbean. All have strong affiliations with the 
PRC government. Four of the seven are the world's largest financial 
institutions based on total assets. Three of the four (Industrial and 
Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), China Construction Bank (CBC), and 
Agricultural Bank of China (AgBank)) were created as state-owned 
subsidiaries of the Peoples Bank of China following the Communist 
Revolution, and the Bank of China (BoC) was founded by the Chinese 
government in 1912. All four banks are majority-owned and controlled by 
the PRC government and maintain their corporate headquarters in 
Beijing.
      All four have commercial office representation in Sao 
Paulo, Brazil.
      ICBC has commercial representation in Lima, Peru and an 
extensive retail network in Argentina, with additional branches in 
Uruguay and Panama.
      CBC has commercial representation in Santiago, Chile and 
some retail presence in Brazil.
      BoC has commercial representation in Santiago, Chile and 
some retail presence in Panama City, Panama and Lime, Peru. We continue 
to study and assess the processes Chinese banks leverage, how they 
operate in the region, and how they approach contracts which many times 
lead to debt diplomacy of our partner nations.   [See page 32.]
                                 ______
                                 
             RESPONSE TO QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MR. LUTTRELL
    General Richardson. Your questions have largely focused on 
USSOUTHCOM's resource constraints. No budget is unlimited or without 
risk, and the Department of Defense makes tough choices and weighs 
where it can take greater risk. To make these tough resource decisions, 
the Department prioritizes against the National Defense Strategy (NDS). 
Transnational Criminal Organizations (TCOs) are not included in the NDS 
and the focus for the Western Hemisphere in this strategic document is 
to ``maintain the ability to respond to crises and seek to strengthen 
regional roles and capabilities for humanitarian assistance, climate 
resilience, and disaster response efforts.''1 USSOUTHCOM's resource 
allocation will not change as long as our mission requirements are not 
reflected in the NDS. This is true for our ISR requirements that would 
allow USSOUTHCOM to have domain awareness and it is also true for our 
levels to engage with and train our partners such as the Joint Exercise 
Program and Security Cooperation Programs. These programs yield a high 
return on investment as they get our willing partners in the fight with 
us to counter shared threats and they also go a long way toward 
building and strengthening our relationships within the region at a 
time when the PRC is increasing its efforts to gain a strategic 
foothold in the Western Hemisphere.
    1 2022 National Defense Strategy of the United States of America. 
https://media.defense.gov/2022/Oct/27/2003103845/-1/-1/1/2022-NATIONAL-
DEFENSE-STRATEGY-NPR-MDR.PDF   [See page 27.]
                                 ______
                                 
              RESPONSE TO QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MR. LALOTA
    Secretary Dalton. The U.S.-Japan Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), 
in effect since 1960, is a mutual agreement between the governments of 
Japan and the United States that respects the legal systems of both 
countries while providing for the rights and privileges of U.S. 
military personnel stationed abroad. We have no plans to revise the 
SOFA.   [See page 20.]



      
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              QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING

                             March 8, 2023

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                    QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. SCOTT

    Mr. Scott. What is the U.S. Coast Guard's security cooperation role 
with Canada?
    General VanHerck. I defer to the U.S. Coast Guard Commandant for 
this response.
    Mr. Scott. What is the U.S. Coast Guard's security cooperation role 
with Mexico?
    General VanHerck. I defer to the U.S. Coast Guard Commandant for 
this response.
    Mr. Scott. What is the U.S. Coast Guard's security cooperation role 
with the Bahamas?
    General VanHerck. I defer to the U.S. Coast Guard Commandant for 
this response.
    Mr. Scott. Is the United States to conduct a large scale Search and 
Rescue mission in the arctic today?
    General VanHerck. No. I believe the United States government would 
face significant challenges in conducting a large-scale Arctic search 
and rescue (SAR) response. The harsh climate, remoteness, limited 
Arctic capable platforms and capacity, and limited infrastructure in 
the region create challenges for all Arctic missions, to include search 
and rescue (SAR) response. As Commander of NORAD and USNORTHCOM, I have 
prioritized improved domain awareness, reliable communications, and 
infrastructure in the Arctic, all of which would benefit all of the 
interagency and international partners who would be needed to execute 
successful SAR operations in the Arctic.
    Mr. Scott. How can the National Guard be better integrated with 
USNORTHCOM?
    General VanHerck. The National Guard is well-integrated with 
USNORTHCOM including the National Guard Bureau staffing an Integration 
Office at NORAD and USNORTHCOM (N&NC) Headquarters. There are 52 
National Guard personnel assigned to and performing USNORTHCOM missions 
daily. Army and Air National Guard units perform many of the Command's 
missions except for maritime warning. With additional resources, the 
National Guard could expand its contributions to critical 
infrastructure resilience, Arctic domain awareness, communications, and 
cyber operations.
    Mr. Scott. How can the U.S. Coast Guard be better integrated with 
USNORTHCOM?
    General VanHerck. The Coast Guard is well-integrated within 
USNORTHCOM including Coast Guard officers holding a number of key 
positions on the N&NC staff. Additionally, the Atlantic Area and 
Pacific Area Commanders have been invited to all USNORTHCOM Commander's 
Conferences since 2013. Senior Coast Guard and USNORTHCOM leaders are 
working to further integrate the Coast Guard to better utilize their 
unique authorities and capabilities. The Coast Guard continues to have 
an integral role in homeland defense, having most recently they 
supported N&NC operations involving the High-Altitude Balloon and Lake 
Huron unexplained aerial phenomena (UAP) recovery operations.
    Mr. Scott. What are your explosive ordnance disposal (eod) 
priorities?
    General VanHerck. My priorities for explosive ordnance disposal 
(EOD) are homeland defense, Defense Support of Civil Authorities, and 
Theater Security Cooperation. EOD units also provide critical support 
to the U.S. Secret Service and Department of State to mitigate threats 
to National Special Security Events such as the annual United Nations 
General Assembly in accordance with Department of Defense policy and 
orders.
    Mr. Scott. Captain Michael Cilenti and Commander Matthew Rooney, 
U.S. Coast Guard wrote an article in the October 2022 edition of 
Proceedings entitled, ``SouthCom Needs an Oiler.'' According to Cilenti 
and Rooney, ``The recent oiler deployments to SouthCom naturally 
improved logistics, but counterdrug operations provide an opportunity 
to use replenishment ships for more than their traditional role. With a 
little planning, they also could decrease the time detainees remain on 
deck and reduce crew fatigue while building credibility among myriad 
stakeholders and disarming critics. Further, they could improve 
operational success by foiling transnational criminal organizations' 
(TCOs') counterintelligence efforts by altering cutter pattern of 
life.'' Do you agree with the authors that SouthCom needs an oiler?
    General Richardson. USSOUTHCOM can put any platform to good use, to 
include oilers that could extend the presence of any surface platform 
compatible with the ship's logistics connection. This could help us 
more effectively use the limited surface platforms we are allocated to 
meet our mission requirements. Employing fleet oilers for missions 
outside logistics, specifically migrant operations, imposes 
unacceptable risks to both ship crews and migrants. Transferring people 
at sea from ship to ship via small boats is inherently risky. Moreover, 
these crews are not properly trained or equipped to conduct complex and 
dangerous migrant operations at sea. The logistics, authorities, and 
feasibility of staging migrants or detainees on a ship not designed for 
this purpose, as described in the article, is not recommended. From the 
perspective of the United States Coast Guard (USCG), while at-sea 
replenishment does reduce time needed in ports, which diversifies asset 
movements and reduces TCO surveillance opportunities, Coast Guard 
cutters must still routinely pull into port to replenish other 
resources such as food, water, and parts.
    Mr. Scott. Can the aviation assets of the Department of Defense 
conduct more training missions in your area of responsibility by flying 
missions North to South instead of East to West?
    General Richardson. I highly encourage all services to conduct 
training and exercise missions, along with research and testing 
missions, within the USSOUTHCOM Area of Responsibility (AOR). The 
USSOUTHCOM AOR provides an easily accessible training environment that 
mimics the topography and environment of other AORs, providing the 
ability to conduct real-world missions with lower costs and risks 
associated with deployment to AORs with greater time-distance 
challenges for CONUS-based forces. At the same time, the training 
environment increases force readiness and our presence in the region, 
reinforcing the message that the U.S. wants to be the partner of 
choice. Similarly, I invite the Navy to conduct port calls throughout 
the AOR as ships transit through enroute to other theaters. As a recent 
example, U.S. Air Force South demonstrated the innovative capabilities 
of USSOUTHCOM by hosting an Air Combat Command (ACC) Lead Wing/Agile 
Combat Employment (ACE) exercise in February 2023. ACC fielded A-10s 
from the 23d Wing in Moody AFB, GA and C-130s from Air Mobility 
Command, which featured operating locations in Jamaica, the Dominican 
Republic and Puerto Rico. The exercise provided a unique opportunity 
for both Commands to experiment and refine Command, Control, and 
logistics concepts relevant to the Pacific and European theaters while 
simultaneously strengthening partnerships with participating nations.
    Mr. Scott. How can the National Guard be better integrated in 
USSOUTHCOM's AOR beyond the State Partnership Program?
    General Richardson. The National Guard is a critical component of 
our total force at USSOUTHCOM as we leverage all available personnel, 
making us flexible and agile to counter any challenge we may face. Of 
the service members at USSOUTHCOM, up to 20 percent at any given time 
are Guard or Reserve members conducting operations in more than 20 
locations throughout the AOR. One such total force mission has been 
ongoing for a decade. Since 2013, Air National Guard Airmen have 
supported JIATF-South's detection and monitoring mission through the 
Host Nation Rider Program. This program provides critical foreign 
language support and translation/interpretation that has been 
instrumental in achieving successful detection and monitoring of air 
operations within the AOR. In fiscal year 2022, this program was 
involved in the seizure of over 49,000 kilograms of cocaine, 24,000 
pounds of marijuana, and the apprehension of 154 detainees. The 
National Guard is fully integrated into our operations. I invite them 
to be a part of all national level meetings and visits between 
USSOUTHCOM and partner nations to foster those partnerships and look 
for ways to expand our interactions. Outside of the State Partnership 
Program but leveraging their partnerships and capabilities, we have 
expanded engagement with our partners in other nontraditional State 
Partnership Program capacities, particularly in the Cyber and Space 
domains. I would support fully resourcing the requirements of the SPP 
Program, as it is a force multiplier for this theater. As USSOUTHCOM 
has no assigned forces, we work to optimize all the capabilities they 
can provide.
    Mr. Scott. Your predecessor General John Kelly is on the record 
that the Coast Guard, ``Isn't big enough and can't deploy enough 
cutters to prevent all at-sea contraband from reaching U.S. shores.'' 
What is the minimum number of Coast Guard cutters and aviation assets 
needed in USSOUTHCOM's AOR ``to prevent all at-sea contraband from 
reaching U.S. shores?''
    General Richardson. We won't be able to interdict our way out of 
this threat to our national security or prevent all at-sea contraband 
from reaching U.S. shores. This problem is a complex international 
challenge that needs to be attacked on many fronts, not just at-sea. 
The Transnational Criminal Organizations (TCOs) are conducting a wide 
spectrum of illegal smuggling to include not only drugs, but people, 
weapons, and other illicit cargo. The US and our partners need to focus 
actions on activities that work closer to the sources of the 
contraband, including drug production, loading of ship/plane, and 
initial movement of contraband to have a significant impact on 
decreasing the amount reaching U.S. shores. We also need to continue 
and enhance the Counter-Threat Finance activities being accomplished in 
coordination with the Department of Treasury, to have an impact on the 
over $310B annual profit realized by TCO's this past year. USSOUTHCOM 
serves as a supporting entity to the greater U.S. Government actions to 
accomplish this goal. USSOUTHCOM authorities are limited to providing 
support and assistance to law enforcement organizations, like the U.S. 
Coast Guard, DEA, and Customs Border Protection, as they enforce U.S. 
laws at sea. While we cannot interdict our way out of a drug problem, 
additional U.S. Coast Guard ships and aviation assets provide increased 
presence, deterrence, and interdiction capabilities, which allows us to 
counter threats further from the homeland. An active presence, by the 
U.S., both U.S. Coast Guard and U.S. Navy, along with allies, such as 
France, Netherlands, and UK, enhances the deterrent effect and 
increases interdictions. Bolstering DoD-led detection and monitoring 
capabilities, to include intelligence-directed targeting, directly 
impacts our ability to counter at-sea contraband from reaching U.S. 
shores. Additionally, partner nations contributed to 76% of JIATF-S 
cocaine disruptions in FY 2022, which highlights the vital support 
provided by partner nations to detect and interdict contraband before 
it reaches U.S. shores. To enable these continued contributions by 
partner nations requires full resourcing of USSOUTHCOM's security 
cooperation program to build our partner nations' capacity to execute 
this mission.
    Mr. Scott. What low-cost ideas are you pitching to get more 
platforms operating in USSOUTHCOM's AOR?
    General Richardson. USSOUTHCOM pursues opportunities with U.S. 
Service labs to test emerging capabilities and to conduct technology 
acceleration initiatives within the USSOUTHCOM AOR. This allows 
USSOUTHCOM to remain on the front edge of technology development while 
also providing a complex environment for testing of emerging 
technology. Examples of some of the technology being tested/reviewed 
include, but not limited to, the following: Integrating air and surface 
unmanned systems into US 4th Fleet, which is a subordinate command of 
US Southern Command. Those capabilities will begin operations in that 
region during the UNITAS 2023 exercise scheduled for July 2023. 
Airborne Long-Wave Infra-Red Hyperspectral Imagery (HSI) Sensor. HSI 
enhances our counter-narcotics/counter-Transnational Criminal 
Organization mission through the detection of chemicals associated with 
manufacturing illicit materials and improves detection and monitoring 
against PRC and RUS illegal mining and logging activities. Center for 
Southeastern Tropical Advanced Remote Sensing (CSTARS). CSTARS provides 
access to commercial synthetic aperture radar imagery collection and 
analytics to provide early warning of changes in the environment, such 
as indicators of illicit trafficking. Asymmetric Targeting Acquisition 
Center (ATAC). ATAC exploits aggregated Publicly Available Information 
by leveraging assisted artificial intelligence/machine learning and 
advanced analytics to prosecute targets associated with PRC, RUS, 
Transnational Criminal Organizations, and Violent Extremist 
Organizations. I also encourage all services to conduct training and 
exercise missions, along with research and testing missions in this 
theater which offers real-world missions in a variety of geographies, 
close to the homeland. These opportunities increase force readiness, 
while at the same time increase U.S. presence in the region, 
reinforcing the message that the U.S. wants to be the partner of 
choice. Similarly, I invite the Navy to conduct port calls throughout 
the AOR as ships transit through on their way to other theaters.
    Mr. Scott. How can NGO's be better integrated with USSOUTHCOM'?
    General Richardson. USSOUTHCOM does work closely with NGOs 
throughout the AOR in a variety of missions. Our mission has 
historically been achieved through the integration of non-Federal 
entities (NFEs), which includes non-governmental organizations (NGOs), 
business, think tanks, and academia. USSOUTHCOM J7/9 currently has 
active partnerships with 64 NFEs. NGOs participate in and help shape 
USSOUTHCOM exercises by participating from the initial to the final 
planning conferences alongside USSOUTHCOM and component planners. Their 
subject matter expertise on topics such as humanitarian assistance and 
disaster relief (HA/DR), medical support, and more enhances our reach 
and effectiveness in the region. We are also exploring how NFEs can 
support achieving national security goals related to countering the PRC 
and Russia in the AOR. Recent examples of how NFEs have enhanced 
USSOUTHCOM Operations and Exercises:
      Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) Fishing- In 
January 2021, USSOUTHCOM finalized a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) 
with Global Fishing Watch (GFW), an NFE that employs the latest 
technology to visualize, track, and share data on global fishing 
activity in near real time. GFW is working with us to re-establish 
automated data sharing and has offered to share their analysis 
methodologies with us and partner nations during virtual training 
sessions.
      Continuing Promise 2022: 22 NFEs and two interagency 
partners augmented the USNS COMFORT mission with approximately 560 
medical/interpreter volunteers, subject matter exchanges (SMEEs), 
logistics, and donations valued at $1.7 million in aid to the region. 
NGO World Hope International led the HA/DR training and provided 
medical volunteers; NGO Project CURE donated medical supplies and 
equipment; NGO Operation Blessing supported with medical interpreters.
      Tradewinds 2022: Six NFEs supported logistics, cyber 
training, IUU-F maritime domain training, and medical and school 
furniture donations. NGO World Hope International provided air 
transportation to the Regional Security System and donated medical 
supplies and equipment to Belize valued at $200,000.
    Mr. Scott. Should the United States consider shiprider programs, 
bilateral agreements, and information sharing with partner nations to 
combat IUUF?
    General Richardson. As the lead Federal agency for at-sea 
enforcement of living marine resource laws, the U.S. Coast Guard is 
uniquely positioned to combat illegal, unreported, and unregulated 
fishing (IUUF). As such, the U.S. Coast Guard currently has ship rider 
programs, bi-lateral agreements, multi-lateral agreements, and 
information sharing agreements with partner nations to combat IUUF. As 
Coast Guard presence expands in vital areas such as the Indo-Pacific, 
the Service will continue to seek new opportunities to partner with 
like-minded nations to combat IUUF. At present, the U.S. Navy does not 
have authority to conduct IUU fishing law enforcement operations in the 
SOUTHCOM AOR, but can share information, improve maritime domain 
awareness, and conduct professional exchanges with our partner nations 
who identify IUU fishing as a top maritime threat.
    Mr. Scott. What is the center of gravity of the transnational 
criminal organizations in USSOUTHCOM's AOR?
    General Richardson. At USSOUTHCOM, we have worked with our 
interagency and international partners to identify three distinct 
Centers of Gravity (COG) for the Transnational Criminal Organizations 
(TCOs) operating within our AOR. The three distinct environments for 
the COGs are Strategic, Operational, and Informational. The Strategic 
COGs for TCOs in the Western Hemisphere are the illicit revenue streams 
and the associated ``strategic objective'' to acquire and maintain 
wealth and power by any means available. Collective TCO operations 
generate continuous revenue streams that exceed the GDPs of most 
countries in Central America. These annual profits of over $300 billion 
make it impossible for regional and local governments to counter them 
independently; inoculate TCOs and affiliates against local law 
enforcement; and is not impacted by attrition of illicit drugs from its 
supply chain alone. In the operational environment, the COG for TCOs is 
a permissive environment--illicit pathways and federated functional 
systems that enable its trafficking of commodities that sustain its 
wealth and power to act. A TCO's illicit activities exacerbate the 
destabilization of regional state and civic institutions, allowing the 
TCO to operate in a fluid, decentralized, and extremely efficient 
manner. In the information environment, the COG for TCOs is its control 
of information. That is, the state and quality of the information, 
information sources, and information means it possesses; and its 
ability to use and control information effectively to accomplish tasks, 
create effects, and achieve objectives. Any network's continued success 
is based on gaining and maintaining a favorable information position.
    Mr. Scott. How can Non-Governmental Organizations be better 
integrated with SOUTHCOM?
    General Richardson. USSOUTHCOM does work closely with NGOs 
throughout the AOR in a variety of missions. Our mission has 
historically been achieved through the integration of non-Federal 
entities (NFEs), which includes non-governmental organizations (NGOs), 
business, think tanks, and academia. USSOUTHCOM J7/9 currently has 
active partnerships with 64 NFEs. NGOs participate in and help shape 
USSOUTHCOM exercises by participating from the initial to the final 
planning conferences alongside USSOUTHCOM and component planners. Their 
subject matter expertise on topics such as humanitarian assistance and 
disaster relief (HA/DR), medical support, and more enhances our reach 
and effectiveness in the region. We are also exploring how NFEs can 
support achieving national security goals related to countering the PRC 
and Russia in the AOR. Recent examples of how NFEs have enhanced 
USSOUTHCOM Operations and Exercises:
      Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) Fishing- In 
January 2021, USSOUTHCOM finalized a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) 
with Global Fishing Watch (GFW), an NFE that employs the latest 
technology to visualize, track, and share data on global fishing 
activity in near real time. GFW is working with us to re-establish 
automated data sharing and has offered to share their analysis 
methodologies with us and partner nations during virtual training 
sessions.
      Continuing Promise 2022: 22 NFEs and two interagency 
partners augmented the USNS COMFORT mission with approximately 560 
medical/interpreter volunteers, subject matter exchanges (SMEEs), 
logistics, and donations valued at $1.7 million in aid to the region. 
NGO World Hope International led the HA/DR trainings and provided 
medical volunteers; NGO Project CURE donated medical supplies and 
equipment; NGO Operation Blessing supported with medical interpreters.
      Tradewinds 2022: Six NFEs supported logistics, cyber 
training, IUU-F maritime domain training, and medical and school 
furniture donations. NGO World Hope International provided air 
transportation to the Regional Security System and donated medical 
supplies and equipment to Belize valued at $200,000.
    Mr. Scott. How can U.S. corporations support USSOUTHCOM's mission? 
How can U.S. colleges and universities support USSOUTHCOM?
    General Richardson. In order to meet the national security 
challenges in this AOR we must take a holistic approach: Integrated 
Deterrence. Integrated Deterrence provides a common framework for 
collaboration, planning, and coordination, allowing us to connect 
easily and deliberately with private sector and academic partners on 
USG priorities. U.S. corporations are already investing and doing 
business throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. Many corporations 
also do philanthropic work in the countries in which they conduct 
business. However, many times it goes unknown that these are American 
companies. By simply prominently displaying the US flag on their 
activities, for example, next to their company logo, Team USA can take 
credit for being present and contributing to our partners' economies. 
Colleges and universities are critical partners for the U.S. Government 
to deliver information and perspective not available through other 
means to the USG, which helps mitigate some of our pervasive knowledge 
gaps. Such knowledge provides a different lens through which to view 
persistent issues affecting the Latin American and Caribbean region and 
infuses key leader engagements--from those within the top echelons of 
the U.S. Government, across the Intelligence and interagency 
communities, and with our allies and nations, with well-researched and 
candid solution-oriented insights and recommendations. Such access has 
also proven critical to challenging conventional wisdom, inspiring 
intellectual curiosity, and identifying potential blind spots and 
alternative approaches to countering strategic threats. Because it is 
unclassified, it also drives engagement with whole-of-government, whole 
of society, regional and global partners on a variety of platforms. 
Also, institutions such as the InterAmerican Defense College, Western 
Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, and the William J. Perry 
Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies execute critical IMET programs 
for us that professionalize partner nation military and security forces 
and strengthen our long-term relationships with these personnel.
    Mr. Scott. Do you have any plans to issue a USSOUTHCOM recommended 
reading list?
    General Richardson. US Southern Command currently has 3 recommended 
reading lists; USSOUTHCOM Key Documents, Allied Partner Nation 
Recommended Reading List, and USSOUTHCOM Reading List. The first 
encompasses all national strategic documents and our nested USSOUTHCOM 
documents. The Allied Partner Nation Recommended Reading List contains 
recommendations from our Foreign Liaison Officers that provide 
historical and cultural references. The USSOUTHCOM Reading List 
contains regarded authors such as David Kilcullen, Christian Brose, and 
Adam Grant.
    Mr. Scott. How important is WHINSEC to USSOUTHCOM?
    General Richardson. WHINSEC plays a pivotal role in the USSOUTHCOM 
AOR, providing key international training with an overwhelming focus on 
Professional Military Education. WHINSEC is the largest provider of 
international training for our Partner Nations and has trained more 
than 19,000 students from 36 countries. The WHINSEC academic curriculum 
directly contributes to the ability and capacity of our Partner Nations 
across the USSOUTHCOM AOR to enhance their own defense institutions, 
contribute to U.S. efforts to Counter-Transnational Criminal 
Organizations across the region, support the Command's Military 
Imperatives, and build long-term, enduring partnerships. The 
preponderance of all WHINSEC courses are categorized as PME, 
contributing directly to Defense Institution Building and/or Security 
Sector Reform. Attendance at WHINSEC courses encompassed a variety of 
Services, including Army, Navy, Air Force, and Coast Guard units, as 
well as the Colombian Anti-narcotics Police. Courses are broken out as 
follows: Cadet Leadership; Small Unit Leader; NCO Professional 
Development; Inter Agency Crisis Action Planning; Transnational Threat 
Network and Intel Analysis: Intermediate Level Education; Joint 
Operations; Maneuver Captains Career; Senior Enlisted Advisor; and UN 
Staff & Peacekeeping Operations. These programs not only help 
professionalize the military and security forces, but also build life-
long relationships with Partner Nation service members and civilians 
that will be the future leaders in their national security 
organizations.
    Mr. Scott. What are your explosive ordnance disposal (eod) 
priorities?
    General Richardson. In USSOUTHCOM's AOR, there are many countries 
affected by landmines, unexploded ordnance, conventional weapons, and 
munitions remaining within reach of civilian populations because of 
varying degrees conflicts throughout the AOR. Colombia remains the 
priority for demining efforts closely followed by Ecuador; both victim 
to the violent extremist organizations and transnational criminal 
organizations that use this as a tool to counter their respective 
countries' counter drug efforts.
                                 ______
                                 
                  QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. GALLAGHER
    Mr. Gallagher. Generals: within each COCOM is a CYBERCOM-owned 
entity, called a ``Cyberspace Operations Integrated Planning Element'' 
as well as a separate ``Joint Cyber Center.'' What does your Joint 
Cyber Center provide to you, and how is it distinct from what the 
Cyberspace Operations Integrated Planning Element is capable of 
providing?
    General VanHerck. The Cyber Operations--Integrated Planning Element 
is in direct support of USNORTHCOM and provides cyber subject matter 
expertise in the areas of policy, planning, and cyber domain awareness.
    The N&NC Joint Cyber Center (JCC) is a distinct, organic part of 
the command that conducts full-spectrum cyberspace operations to 
include planning, prioritization of cyber operations, and command and 
control of USNORTHCOM cyberspace operations to assure N&NC critical 
mission systems and networks. Furthermore, the JCC provides 24-hour 
manning support to the N&NC Joint Operations Center, ensuring cyber is 
integrated into all aspects of N&NC assigned missions.
    Mr. Gallagher. How does PRC influence affect your mission in 
NORTHCOM, and what is your command doing to limit Chinese interference 
in the information operations space?
    General VanHerck. The People's Republic of China (PRC) operates in 
the USNORTHCOM area of responsibility and associated information space, 
often with the intent of countering U.S. interests. USNORTHCOM partners 
with a wide variety of stakeholders to cohesively provide mutual 
defense and cooperation to deter malign influence threatening the 
homeland. USNORTHCOM uses a combination of avenues, including public 
and non-public fora, to identify malign threats in the information 
space and provide partner nations with situational awareness. These 
efforts serve to expose the predatory nature of specific Chinese 
activities, increase our cooperative relationships, and emphasize the 
advantages of the United States as the partner of choice.
    Mr. Gallagher. In both of your commands, what do you find to be the 
most important and least financed area of infrastructure investment 
critical to carrying out your operations?
    General VanHerck. My greatest unmet need for infrastructure 
investment is in the Arctic, specifically infrastructure investments at 
Pituffik Air Base (formerly Thule Air Base). My fiscal year 2024 (FY24) 
unfunded priorities list includes funding requests that enable 
geotechnical and topographic surveys in advance of infrastructure 
restoration and design work for hangar restoration at Pituffik. I also 
have a validated requirement for fuel north of Dutch Harbor, Alaska 
that I believe will be met by planned improvements to the Port of Nome, 
Alaska in the coming years.
    Mr. Gallagher. Can you speak to any efforts underway by NORTHCOM to 
harden U.S. military infrastructure and enhance capability in the 
Arctic? Are there any factors that, in your opinion, prevent NORTHCOM 
from delivering the capability required to deter Russia and the PRC in 
the Arctic within the next three years? In your opinion, has the US 
already fallen behind our adversaries in the development of the 
operational capacity required to preserve American security interests 
in the Arctic?
    General VanHerck. Through the Services, NORAD & USNORTHCOM 
advocates for continued development of facilities-related control 
system cybersecurity, particularly critical for remote Arctic 
facilities where the distance between alternate sites does not allow 
for practical redundancy. Factors preventing NORAD & USNORTHCOM from 
delivering capabilities in the Arctic within the next three years 
include the lack of domain awareness from undersea to space and the 
cyber domain, and a continued need for timely access to forces 
specifically equipped and trained to operate in the Arctic.
    To answer your second question--yes, we have fallen behind our 
adversaries. To close the operational capacity gap, we conduct 
operations, exercises, and activities in the Arctic to enhance Joint 
Force capabilities, in coordination with other Combatant Commands as 
well as allies and partners. Examples include joint exercises like 
ARCTIC EDGE and key strategic activities executed as part of 
Consolidated Strategic Opportunities Development (CSOD) process. 
Additionally, I continuously advocate for the Services to resource 
Arctic capability development.
    Mr. Gallagher. Generals: within each COCOM is a CYBERCOM-owned 
entity, called a ``Cyberspace Operations Integrated Planning Element'' 
as well as a separate ``Joint Cyber Center.'' What does your Joint 
Cyber Center provide to you, and how is it distinct from what the 
Cyberspace Operations Integrated Planning Element is capable of 
providing?
    General Richardson. As I meet with Partner nation leaders, cyber is 
always at the top of their list of concerns and it is a regular ask for 
support from USSOUTHCOM, as they are concerned about the security of 
their networks. The Joint Cyber Center (JCC) is the USSOUTHCOM command 
organization, embedded within the Operations Directorate, responsible 
for planning and executing full-spectrum cyber operations, and 
advancing cybersecurity capabilities of partner nations in the AOR. The 
Cyberspace Operations Integrated Planning Element (CO-IPE) is an 
extension of Joint Force Headquarters--Cyber (Navy) and provides direct 
support to USSOUTHCOM. The CO-IPE enables full spectrum Cyberspace 
Operations by providing subject matter expertise and operations level 
planning in direct support of USSOUTHCOM and CCDR's objectives. At 
USSOUTHCOM, JCC manning shortfalls limit its capacity to effectively 
coordinate on all cyber requirements. JCC personnel and funding 
challenges also affect how much, and how often USSOUTHCOM can provide 
support to partner nations. With 31 countries in the AOR, the JCC's 
limited capacity restrains its ability to plan and execute engagements 
that meet the partner nation demand. The JCC and COIPE are 
complementary organizations, each with their own responsibilities and 
capabilities. One does not replace the other. These shortfalls are also 
resident in our space operations activities. We have a Space Operations 
Branch comprised of one Space Force officer.
    Mr. Gallagher. In both of your commands, what do you find to be the 
most important and least financed area of infrastructure investment 
critical to carrying out your operations?
    General Richardson. There are several critical areas of 
infrastructure that challenge USSOUTHCOM's operational success both 
here and in the AOR. USSOUTHCOM's designation as a posture limited 
theater challenges our ability to respond to crises throughout the AOR 
and where our limited resources place U.S. interests at risk by 
allowing the PRC to continue its expansion efforts. Persistent 
USSOUTHCOM presence in the Southern Cone would provide needed domain 
awareness over vital sea lanes of communication and the access and 
placement necessary to strengthen our relationships with partner 
nations to compete with the PRC. USSOUTHCOM does not have permanent 
locations, support facilities or bases throughout the AOR and depends 
on others for movement of forces and supplies to accomplish our 
missions. This leads to my first critical need: consistent heavy 
airlift routes across the USSOUTHCOM AOR and especially into the 
Southern Cone. As the United States works to collaborate with countries 
throughout the Southern Cone, limited strategic airlift inhibits access 
and persistent engagement in Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and 
Brazil. Consistent engagement with these countries is essential to 
countering monopolistic PRC occupation with U.S. partners in the 
region. Additionally, the United States does not currently maintain 
support facilities or contingency basing locations, inhibiting our 
ability to support our partners. Establishing agreements with our 
partners to facilitate contingency basing locations would allow the 
United States to achieve force projection and dynamic force employment 
into the theater to provide policy makers response options during 
emerging crisis. The two forward strategic locations that do exist, 
Soto Cano Air Base in Honduras, and Guantanamo Bay Naval Station, Cuba, 
each have MILCON projects that are in the FY24 President's Budget 
Request: a DLA fuel facility at Soto Cano ($41M); and a DHA Ambulatory 
Care Center at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay ($257M). There are also 
additional requirements for MILCON that remain unfunded for replacing 
old, aging facilities at Soto Cano Air Base, Honduras. Closer to home, 
JIATF-S HQ facilities are 70 years old and deteriorating. Roughly $30M 
has been spent over the past five years to keep these facilities 
operational, but despite this they are rated as ``poor'' or ``failing'' 
according to Navy facility condition data. An economic analysis 
completed in 2021 showed that new construction was more cost-effective 
than continued repairs. The replacement facility design is fully funded 
and will be completed in FY24. The MILCON project remains unfunded.
                                 ______
                                 
                  QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MS. SHERRILL
    Ms. Sherrill. First, I would like to thank all of you for your 
service and commitment to keeping our homeland safe, especially as our 
country grapples with a variety of complex and nontraditional threats, 
including the war in Ukraine, disinformation, global terrorism, climate 
change and increases in natural disasters, as well as supply chain 
shortages. I'd like to point to a common topic that ties together many 
of the challenges you have brought to our attention today, and that's 
the role of transnational criminal organizations and economic 
insecurity in the NORTHCOM and SOUTHCOM areas of operations.
    I think it would be fair to say that a poor economic outlook 
coupled with transnational criminal organizations and crime syndicates 
that use systematic violence and terror to destabilize local 
communities are key factors that drive migration to our borders.
    How would you say the Department of Defense, and in particular 
NORTHCOM and SOUTHCOM, are doing in executing integrated deterrence to 
reduce the corrupt and violent influence and impact of transnational 
criminal organizations throughout the region?
    Specifically, what are the successes in this regard, and where are 
the areas where we need to reassess?
    Secretary Dalton. The Department of Defense (including USNORTHCOM 
and USSOUTHCOM) provides many types of support for U.S. and foreign 
partners that enables them to conduct a range of operations, including 
to counter transnational organized crime (CTOC). DoD provides most of 
its CTOC-related support to other U.S. Government (USG) departments and 
agencies and to partner nations through DoD's Counterdrug (CD) program 
under 10 U.S.C. Sec. 284, for the primary purpose of supporting efforts 
to disrupt drug trafficking organizations. Under 10 U.S.C. 284, support 
may include transportation, establishment and operation of bases of 
operation or training facilities, intelligence analysis support, and 
aerial and ground reconnaissance. Pursuant to 10 U.S.C 124, DoD is the 
lead Federal agency for the detection and monitoring of aerial and 
maritime transit of illegal drugs into the United States; interdiction 
activities are conducted by U.S. and foreign partners. Approximately 67 
percent of the DoD counterdrug support budget is focused on the Western 
Hemisphere and the homeland. It is important to note that DoD's CD and 
CTOC activities are in support of USG and foreign partners; DoD is not 
the lead agency to conduct CD and CTOC operations. For more detailed 
information on DoD's CD and CTOC support activities, I would refer you 
to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-
Intensity Conflict, who is the Department's lead for these programs.
    Ms. Sherrill. A general theme tying together many of the issues 
discussed today is the insecurity and instability facing nations in the 
NORTHCOM and SOUTHCOM areas of operations caused by economic 
challenges, the climate crisis, and the widening sphere of Chinese and 
Russian influence.
    As China continues to increase their presence and sway in Panama, 
such as winning contracts for critical infrastructure, what are the 
Department of Defense and SOUTHCOM doing to protect and strengthen our 
interests and reach in the region? What additional resources do you 
need to accomplish your mission?
    Secretary Dalton. I remain concerned that autocratic powers are 
working within the Western Hemisphere to undermine the stable, open, 
rules-based international order. The best way to counter the 
autocracies' attempts to gain influence is for the United States to be 
present and engaged in the region, including by building strong defense 
and security partnerships with our neighbors. Toward this end, in 
fiscal year (FY) 2023, the Department of Defense has allocated more 
than $115 million in funding to support our partners in Mexico, Central 
America, the Caribbean, and South America. This brings our investment 
in security cooperation in the hemisphere since 2020 to more than half 
a billion dollars. The Department is dedicated to engaging in the 
region in alignment with the objectives in the National Defense 
Strategy and with congressional intent, as reflected in our 
International Security Cooperation Program resource allocation for 
USSOUTHCOM in the President's FY 2024 budget request. We will continue 
to invest in regional, transparent solutions that deepen our shared 
security, and that promote democracy, the rule of law, civilian control 
of the military, and human rights.
    Ms. Sherrill. First, I would like to thank all of you for your 
service and commitment to keeping our homeland safe, especially as our 
country grapples with a variety of complex and nontraditional threats, 
including the war in Ukraine, disinformation, global terrorism, climate 
change and increases in natural disasters, as well as supply chain 
shortages. I'd like to point to a common topic that ties together many 
of the challenges you have brought to our attention today, and that's 
the role of transnational criminal organizations and economic 
insecurity in the NORTHCOM and SOUTHCOM areas of operations.
    I think it would be fair to say that a poor economic outlook 
coupled with transnational criminal organizations and crime syndicates 
that use systematic violence and terror to destabilize local 
communities are key factors that drive migration to our borders.
    How would you say the Department of Defense, and in particular 
NORTHCOM and SOUTHCOM, are doing in executing integrated deterrence to 
reduce the corrupt and violent influence and impact of transnational 
criminal organizations throughout the region?
    Specifically, what are the successes in this regard, and where are 
the areas where we need to reassess?
    Secretary Dalton. Countering the illicit activities of the TCOs is 
inherently a law enforcement responsibility, and USNORTHCOM is tasked 
with supporting partners and lead Federal agencies' efforts to reduce 
crime, corruption, TCO finances, and illicit narcotics production and 
flows toward the United States.
    As I have testified, an approach focused on interdiction is 
insufficient to stemming the flow of illicit traffic into the United 
States. In recent years, USNORTHCOM has shifted the focus of our 
support to countering illicit networks, regardless of commodity, while 
focusing on the competitors that seek to exploit these networks. Our 
support activities successfully leverage our allies and partners while 
working seamlessly across domains and theaters to address Homeland 
Defense and CD/CTOC priorities. Due to the scope and scale of this 
challenge, I strongly support the establishment of a USG operational-
level convening authority and coordination mechanism to better 
facilitate and to oversee a whole-of-government synchronization of all 
CD/CTOC activities.
    Ms. Sherrill. General VanHerck, it is great to see you again. Last 
year you mentioned the importance of persistent presence in the Arctic, 
especially due to the complexity of the region. As the PRC continues to 
assert their `near-Arctic state' title and increase their investments 
in Arctic infrastructure, what is NORTHCOM doing to protect and 
strengthen our interests and reach in the region? What additional 
resources do you need to accomplish your mission?
    General VanHerck. USNORTHCOM and NORAD's priorities in the region 
continue to focus on increased presence, campaigning through joint 
training and exercises, and close collaboration with allies and 
partners. I continue to advocate for additional Arctic capabilities to 
include Over-the-Horizon Radar for domain awareness; Pituffik Air Base 
(formerly Thule Air Base) infrastructure to support a persistent 
presence; maritime fuel availability north of Dutch Harbor, Alaska to 
enable campaigning and deterrent operations in the far north; and 
sustainment of existing domain awareness capabilities such as ARCHER. I 
also require timely access to forces that are organized, trained, and 
equipped to operate day-to-day in the Arctic. I continue to advocate to 
the Government of Canada for timely modernization of forces and 
infrastructure to support day-to-day campaigning and crisis operations 
that will enable NORAD & USNORTHCOM to conduct assigned missions.
    Ms. Sherrill. As the war in Ukraine continues on, militaries around 
the world are facing challenges with supply chain and production of 
critical defense assets. How is NORTHCOM working with our organic 
defense industrial base to ensure that the end items and munitions that 
you are receiving are fully compatible with Arctic operations? What 
challenges has your department faced as you modernize your systems to 
work in a complex environment and what additional resources do you need 
to accomplish your mission?
    General VanHerck. Munitions and end-item procurement is a military 
Service responsibility, and NORAD & USNORTHCOM works closely with the 
Services and Joint Staff to meet our commands' requirements. When 
addressing ``Arctic Capable'' munitions, the Services procure munitions 
that meet a broad specification to function in a variety of conditions. 
Through demanding exercises such as Arctic Edge and live fire training 
events at the Joint Pacific Range Complex in Alaska, we identify 
limitations or issues and convey this information to the Services in 
order to assist with modifying or designing equipment and munitions.
    Ms. Sherrill. First, I would like to thank all of you for your 
service and commitment to keeping our homeland safe, especially as our 
country grapples with a variety of complex and nontraditional threats, 
including the war in Ukraine, disinformation, global terrorism, climate 
change and increases in natural disasters, as well as supply chain 
shortages. I'd like to point to a common topic that ties together many 
of the challenges you have brought to our attention today, and that's 
the role of transnational criminal organizations and economic 
insecurity in the NORTHCOM and SOUTHCOM areas of operations.
    I think it would be fair to say that a poor economic outlook 
coupled with transnational criminal organizations and crime syndicates 
that use systematic violence and terror to destabilize local 
communities are key factors that drive migration to our borders.
    How would you say the Department of Defense, and in particular 
NORTHCOM and SOUTHCOM, are doing in executing integrated deterrence to 
reduce the corrupt and violent influence and impact of transnational 
criminal organizations throughout the region?
    Specifically, what are the successes in this regard, and where are 
the areas where we need to reassess?
    General Richardson. Transnational Criminal Organizations are 
extremely complex entities that destabilize the hemisphere with their 
unbounded violence, illicit profits, and corruption. No one entity has 
the resources and authorities to counter this threat to our national 
security. At USSOUTHCOM we have more than 24 representatives from 15 
different agencies and departments assigned full time to enable 
effective interagency integration into operations and planning to 
counter TCOs. As an example, our Law Enforcement Working Group here 
brings interagency law enforcement agents and intelligence officers 
together with key members of the staff and components to support the 
DEA Special Operations Division, target TCO and cartel members, and 
work with the Department of Treasury to build sanctions packages. 
Additionally, the interagency, international effort led by JIATF-S is a 
model for integrated deterrence for the detection and monitoring of 
illicit drugs.
    Last year, JIATF-S, together with our international partners, 
disrupted 371 illegal smuggling events including cocaine and marijuana 
worth $7.5 billion. In addition, these disruptions produced evidence 
our interagency and international law enforcement partners use for 
judicial purposes to degrade and dismantle TCOs. As I mentioned in this 
year's posture statement, while illicit drug movement disruptions are 
critical, in order to truly impact these billion-dollar conglomerates 
we must also support interagency efforts to follow the money. To that 
end, USSOUTHCOM continues to identify TCO financial support networks, 
providing direct analytic support to U.S. Treasury Department and other 
interagency partners that facilitate sanctions, arrests, and 
prosecutions.
    Recently, USSOUTHCOM supported Treasury's designation of Ecuadorian 
national Wilmer Emilio Sanchez Farfan, one of the most significant drug 
traffickers in the world and a major cocaine supplier to the Sinaloa 
cartel. We know we can't interdict our way out of this problem. To 
compete and win, we need an increased whole-of-government effort to go 
after the spectrum of threats associated with TCOs--counterdrug, 
counter threat finance, demand reduction on the domestic side, and 
security cooperation to build our partners' capacity to counter the 
TCOs. Through innovation, creative resourcing and smarter use of 
artificial intelligence and machine learning, USSOUTHCOM will continue 
to leverage integrated deterrence to reduce the corrupt and violent 
influence, and impact of TCOs throughout the region.
    Ms. Sherrill. General Richardson, how is SOUTHCOM working with our 
organic defense industrial base to ensure that the end items and 
munitions that you are receiving are fully compatible with regional 
operations? What challenges has your department faced as you modernize 
your systems to work in a complex environment and what additional 
resources do you need to accomplish your mission?
    General Richardson. As a Combatant Command, USSOUTHCOM develops its 
requirements for end items and munitions and submits those requirements 
through the Global Force Management Process to the Joint Staff. As part 
of our requirement generation process, we consider factors such 
interoperability and compatibility with partner nations. USSOUTHCOM 
then relies on the Joint Staff and the Services, to meet those 
requirements working with the industrial base. As a posture-limited 
theater, USSOUTHCOM does not receive the assets needed to meet our 
requirements, and as such, the Command strives to find commercially 
available options to mitigate those shortfalls.
    Ms. Sherrill. A general theme tying together many of the issues 
discussed today is the insecurity and instability facing nations in the 
NORTHCOM and SOUTHCOM areas of operations caused by economic 
challenges, the climate crisis, and the widening sphere of Chinese and 
Russian influence.
    As China continues to increase their presence and sway in Panama, 
such as winning contracts for critical infrastructure, what are the 
Department of Defense and SOUTHCOM doing to protect and strengthen our 
interests and reach in the region? What additional resources do you 
need to accomplish your mission?
    General Richardson. Our goal is to increase security and amplify 
democracy to maintain a stable and prosperous hemisphere. Across the 
AOR, USSOUTHCOM focuses efforts on exposing, illuminating, and 
attributing PRC malign activity through information and intelligence 
sharing with the interagency and partner nations. We need well-
resourced and staffed interagency partners. In those areas that 
directly affect our authorities, we need more agile vetting processes 
to reduce the lag-time for International Military Education and 
Training program enrollment. We need a faster foreign military sales 
pipeline to meet the real-world challenges that partner nations face. 
We need the ability to react at scale to support U.S. government 
messaging, counter disinformation, amplify key narratives, and refocus 
target audiences on topics of national security. We need the resources 
to support our partner nations in securing their technology 
infrastructure. This can only be accomplished through a multi-front 
campaign including, removing disinformation, releasing timely messages 
that are amplified at scale, using third-party validators that are able 
to reinforce that narrative, offering private/public alternatives that 
are viable, and providing a proactive, technologically advanced 
protective force that can work on partner nation infrastructure. At the 
end of the day, nations in the region value U.S. relationships, but not 
at the expense of their own national interests. We must be present, 
responsive and reliable in meeting their needs or we can expect our 
adversaries to fill the void.
                                 ______
                                 
                   QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. BERGMAN
    Mr. Bergman. How are you using your Guard & Reserve components 
within your unit?
    Secretary Dalton. As the Assistant Secretary of Defense for 
Homeland Defense and Hemispheric Affairs, I am the principal civilian 
policy advisor to the Secretary of Defense and the Under Secretary of 
Defense for Policy on a range of matters, including homeland defense, 
defense support of civil authorities, defense continuity, mission 
assurance, the Western Hemisphere, and the Arctic and global 
resilience. In this role, although I do not command Reserve Component 
(including National Guard) personnel, I benefit from the superb 
contributions and insight of Reserve Component personnel who are 
serving tours in the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
    Mr. Bergman. How are you using your Guard & Reserve components 
within your unit?
    General VanHerck. The Guard and Reserve have been integrated into 
day-to-day operations since the establishment of NORAD & USNORTHCOM. 
Guard and Reserve component personnel support various homeland defense 
missions such as ballistic missile defense, cyber, Defense Support of 
Civil Authorities, and chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear. 
Further, Air Guard and Reserve elements are directly involved in the 
NORAD Operation NOBLE EAGLE mission which identifies, monitors, and 
tracks suspect air tracks approaching and traveling through North 
American Airspace. Air Guard and Reserve forces are critical to the 
Aerospace Control Alert mission providing 24/7 national coverage to 
immediately respond to intercept, inspect, influence, and if necessary, 
defeat a potential airborne threat.
    Mr. Bergman. How are you using your Guard & Reserve components 
within your unit?
    General VanHerck. Guard and Reserve personnel are a force 
multiplier and are fully integrated into our total joint force at 
USSOUTHCOM. They are engaged in all aspects of the COCOM's operations 
including manning the Joint Operations Center, planning and 
participating in joint exercises, managing the vital State Partnership 
Program (SPP), and working alongside civilian and active-duty service 
members at USSOUTHCOM seamlessly. Our Service Components also 
incorporate their respective Guard and Reserve organizations in the 
same way.
    One example of this total force approach at my headquarters is the 
Navy Reserve Joint Intelligence Operations Center 0174. Leveraging 
their drill weekends and yearly active-duty times, these reserve 
sailors supported the intelligence and evidentiary package that 
ultimately led to sanctioning action on Pingtam Marine Enterprise, Ltd. 
(Nasdaq: PME) along with eight other affiliated entities. This action 
represents the first time the Department of Treasury has designated an 
entity listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange. Additionally, this action 
identified 157 People's Republic of China-flagged fishing vessels, of 
which, 300-600 operate within our AOR.
    As a recent emergent response example, in September we had forty-
eight, C-130 sorties flown over 28 days delivering 121K of diesel fuel 
to US Embassy/USAID in Haiti. Thirty percent of the flight operations 
were executed with Air National Guard aircraft and crew. Air Force 
Reservists from Homestead Air Reserve Base provided critical, short-
notice voluntary support to base operations during this high visibility 
fuel delivery mission with elements consisting of aerial port, logistic 
planners, and ramp security surveillance. These RC forces were 
designated part of the initial SOUTHCOM response because they had high 
operational readiness, unique capabilities, and location proximity to 
the mission. Within the USSOUTHCOM Joint Exercise Program, the Guard 
and Reserves typically make up a large portion of participating US 
forces--78% of Resolute Sentinel, 60% of Tradewinds, and 40% of 
PANAMAX. Although rotational, as of this response, within our two Joint 
Task Forces, they make-up 66% of JTF-GTMO, and 20% of JTF-Bravo 
personnel respectively. Internally, state National Guard units such as 
Arkansas, Texas, and Florida provide intelligence capabilities and 
analysis and guard units in the operations directorate play a critical 
role in strengthening our partners' cyber defense capabilities and 
developing their space support capabilities.
    Additionally, Alabama's 167th Theater Sustainment Command is an 
integral part of ensuring we can sustain our forces throughout the 
Hemisphere. Due to our lack of assigned forces, maximizing the 
integration of the Guard and Reserves is critical to our success.
                                 ______
                                 
                    QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. WALTZ
    Mr. Waltz. In 2022 Russia released its new Maritime Doctrine 
prioritizing the Arctic, pledging to protect these Waters ``by all 
means''. This shift in priorities has already manifested itself in 
terms of assets on the ground and increasing exercises. Russia unveiled 
plans for a new strategic missile carrying submarine cruiser and just 
one month later it deployed several submarines for an exercise to the 
Arctic around Umka to showcase their capabilities in the High North.
    General VanHerck, do you currently have the resources and 
infrastructure to protect and deter Russian creep into the Arctic?
    General VanHerck. No, I do not have the resources and 
infrastructure to counter increased Russian or PRC military activity in 
the Arctic. To address NORAD and USNORTHCOM mission requirements in the 
region, I continue to advocate for investments in domain awareness and 
infrastructure to deter potential threats in the northern approaches to 
North America. For example, given Russia's advanced maritime 
capabilities, I fully support the Navy's investment in a modernized 
Integrated Undersea Surveillance System in the Atlantic, while Over-
the-Horizon Radars will significantly extend the detection range for 
airborne and maritime objects. I also need timely access to forces that 
are ready to operate in the Arctic, resilient infrastructure that can 
support those forces, and maritime refueling capability north of Dutch 
Harbor in Alaska. Finally, I need a netted array that links undersea, 
air, land, and space sensors to a common operating picture command and 
control node.
    Mr. Waltz. You have previously highlighted the challenges for 
communications north of 65 latitude, and how they effect our ability to 
defend the homeland--what is the status of your work with SPACECOM to 
field capabilities that secure our ability to communicate in the 
Arctic, particularly given increased Russian and Chinse activities in 
the high north?
    General VanHerck. NORAD & USNORTHCOM are engaged with USSPACECOM in 
their role as the Global Satellite Communications Operations Manager, 
and the Services, to access proliferated commercial satellite 
communications (SATCOM) services which are now capable of providing 100 
percent Arctic coverage. Appropriations provided in response to 
previous unfunded priorities lists enabled testing of proliferated 
commercial capabilities at Arctic ground stations, aboard ships, and on 
Department of Defense (DoD) aircraft, and facilitated development of a 
hybrid terminal capable of switching seamlessly between multiple 
commercial and DoD military SATCOM systems. Once the hybrid terminals 
are ready for production (fiscal year 2028) we will advocate for the 
Services to begin procurement. While not specifically designed to 
provide polar service, the Mobile User Objective System (MUOS) 
demonstrates an ability to provide tactical communications across the 
Arctic region. I endorse the U.S. Space Force plan to extend the 
service life of this constellation and I continue to urge the Services 
to fully fund terminal procurement.
    Mr. Waltz. Do you believe Iran could use its space launch vehicle 
program to develop an ICBM capability to strike our homeland?
    General VanHerck. We have not observed any indications Iran is 
pursuing an ICBM or that Tehran plans to lift its self-imposed 2,000km 
range limit on its ballistic missile program. Iran continues to develop 
space launch vehicles (SLVs) with increasing lift capacity. Although 
key differences between SLVs and ICBMs remain, including technologies 
necessary for development of launch trajectories and survivable ICBM 
reentry vehicles, progress in Iran's space program could shorten a 
pathway to an ICBM.
    Mr. Waltz. What are we doing NOW to ensure we will have a shoot-
look-shoot homeland defense capability against an Iranian ICBM if/when 
they field one?
    General VanHerck. I defer to the Missile Defense Agency on 
programmatic and architectural specifics. I remain confident in my 
ability to defend the homeland against a rogue nation threat such as 
the DPRK and potentially an Iranian ICBM. However, as we work towards 
future proofing our architecture to provide the flexibility afforded 
through shoot-assess-shoot, it is a capability I welcome.
    Mr. Waltz. Could the drug and human smuggling routes on our 
southern border be used to infiltrate terrorists into the United 
States?
    General VanHerck. Yes, terrorists could be infiltrated into the 
United States utilizing current drug and human smuggling routes. 
However, attempting surreptitious entry into the United States via 
Mexico poses greater risks than attempting to send in operatives 
unknown to U.S. law enforcement or intelligence agencies with 
legitimate travel documents via commercial air or maritime conveyances.
    Mr. Waltz. In a Taiwan contingency, do you believe China could 
conduct cyber-attacks against our CONUS U.S. military bases and the 
civilian infrastructure that supports them and what are you doing to 
address that threat?
    General VanHerck. Yes. USNORTHCOM, in conjunction with U.S. Cyber 
Command, has worked to ensure vital assets, both physically and 
virtually, to conduct military operations will be able to provide all 
support necessary. USNORTHCOM works closely with the Department of 
Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency 
and U.S. Cyber Command to coordinate defensive efforts across the 
entire United States.
    Mr. Waltz. More than 80,000 Americans with fentanyl every year, 
creating a crisis at our border. Yesterday, we heard the awful news 
that 2 of the 4 Americans kidnapped by Mexican drug cartels were 
killed. General Richardson, do you believe the Mexican drug cartels 
pose destabilizing threat to the nations in your area of 
responsibility?
    General Richardson. Mexican cartels are a threat to the stability 
of countries in the SOUTHCOM AOR. Mexican cartels dominate the drug 
supply chain, moving cocaine from South America to the United States 
and Europe. With most U.S.-bound cocaine originating in Colombia, 
Mexican cartels facilitate key revenue generation for some of 
Colombia's most dangerous armed groups responsible for regional 
instability, including the Gulf Clan, National Liberation Army, 
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)-People's Army, and FARC-
Second Marquetalia. The Mexico-based Sinaloa Cartel, New Generation 
Jalisco Cartel, and the Zetas traffic weapons into Central and South 
America often as payment for northbound drugs, fueling the violence 
committed by transnational criminal groups and local gangs.
    Mexican cartels have gained more control of these supply chains 
during the past two decades, and their presence and activities in Latin 
America and the Caribbean have also grown. Although Mexican cartels do 
not control territory, they send emissaries to negotiate and monitor 
cocaine movements headed north. Mexican cartels have long-established 
associations with smaller gangs and transportation networks that 
facilitate cocaine movement in Central and South American transit 
countries, including Belize, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, and 
Panama, and they use the Dominican Republic as the central Caribbean 
hub for cocaine trafficking to the eastern United States and Europe. 
These gangs and transportation networks violently compete for territory 
motivated by their alliances with one or more Mexican cartels.
    For example, in Ecuador, during the past two years, gangs aligned 
with either the Sinaloa Cartel or New Generation Jalisco Cartel have 
engaged in deadly clashes for control of logistical corridors and have 
targeted Ecuadorian security forces responding to the violence, leading 
President Lasso to declare a state of emergency several times. Other 
countries that have identified Mexican cartels coordinating cocaine 
trafficking activities include Argentina, Chile, Peru, and Uruguay. In 
addition to drug trafficking, Mexican cartel operatives in Latin 
America and the Caribbean reportedly engage in myriad illicit 
activities that have destabilizing economic, environmental, and 
security impacts, including money laundering, human trafficking, 
illegal logging, wildlife trafficking, and illegal mining.
                                 ______
                                 
                   QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. MOYLAN
    Mr. Moylan. The Fiscal Year 2023 NDAA mandated by statute a 
timeline to contract an independent assessment of the much discussed 
``defense of Guam'' integrated air and missile defense architecture.
    The 60 day window for the Secretary of Defense to enter into a 
contract to fulfill this requirement has expired, and we have not seen 
any public notification that this congressional mandate has been met. 
Please advise where we stand on this mandate as of date.
    Secretary Dalton. OUSD(R&E) is actively seeking to enter into a 
contract with an FFRDC to conduct the assessment. The Department of 
Defense intends to complete the study and submit a response to Congress 
no later than December 2023.
    Mr. Moylan. The Fiscal Year 2023 NDAA mandated by statute a 
timeline to contract an independent assessment of the much discussed 
``defense of Guam'' integrated air and missile defense architecture.
    The 60 day window for the Secretary of Defense to enter into a 
contract to fulfill this requirement has expired, and we have not seen 
any public notification that this congressional mandate has been met. 
Please advise where we stand on this mandate as of date.
    General VanHerck. I defer to the Secretary of Defense for this 
response. Guam is in the USINDOPACOM area of operations, and USNORTHCOM 
was not tasked with this report.
    Mr. Moylan. The Fiscal Year 2023 NDAA mandated by statute a 
timeline to contract an independent assessment of the much discussed 
``defense of Guam'' integrated air and missile defense architecture.
    The 60 day window for the Secretary of Defense to enter into a 
contract to fulfill this requirement has expired, and we have not seen 
any public notification that this congressional mandate has been met. 
Please advise where we stand on this mandate as of date.
    General Richardson. I defer to the Secretary of Defense on this 
question.
                                 ______
                                 
                  QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. MCCORMICK
    Mr. McCormick. ASD Dalton, given that many of our efforts in 
NORTHCOM and SOUTHCOM span the DIME spectrum, what other U.S. 
government entities and international organizations are the most 
important in supporting our national security goals in these regions?
    Secretary Dalton. In addition to Congress, the Department of 
Defense works closely with many other Federal departments and agencies 
in support of our national security goals in the Western Hemisphere. 
These include the Departments of State, Homeland Security, Justice, and 
the Treasury. Key international organizations include the United 
Nations and its agencies, the Organization of American States, the 
Inter-American Defense Board, and the Inter-American Defense College.
    Mr. McCormick. GEN VanHerck, as you're undoubtedly aware, tragedy 
struck just days ago when 4 U.S. citizens innocently traveling in the 
NORTHCOM AOR, specifically in northern Mexico, were violently kidnapped 
with 2 Americans losing their lives. We've seen similar tragedies play 
out countless times, and it's symptomatic of our failure to deter and 
contain these murderous drug cartels. Can you offer us some sense on 
how your command plans to cooperate with partner nations in your AOR to 
ensure that tragedies like this don't continue to occur? What 
additional authorities and resources could Congress provide that would 
produce maximum positive impact on this mission set?
    General VanHerck. Mexico's strong bilateral military relationship 
with USNORTHCOM focuses on defense security cooperation efforts, to 
include domain awareness, domain control, and institutional 
strengthening. Through our CD/CTOC authorities, USNORTHCOM assists 
Mexico in funding multiple small-scale construction projects 
specifically designed to support and enhance Mexico's CD/CTOC efforts. 
As I have testified before Congress, CD/CTCO is primarily a law 
enforcement action and USNORTHCOM is in support of Federal law 
enforcement agencies.
    Mr. McCormick. GEN VanHerck, In recent years, we've observed the 
Arctic region become a nascent arena for great power competition with 
the U.S. and several NATO allies on one side and the Russian Federation 
on the other. Does NORTHCOM anticipate the Arctic becoming a potential 
battlefield of the future and, if so, what resources or authorities are 
urgently needed to deter and, if necessary, combat threats to our 
sovereignty in the region? a. Given the intense cooperation between 
Russia and China on icebreaker development and deployment, is NORTHCOM 
pursuing a parallel strategy to pool icebreakers and other key assets?
    General VanHerck. Today the Arctic is a region of strategic 
competition. Future potential crisis and conflict with the PRC or 
Russia could spill into the Arctic. As such, the United States cannot 
afford to concede operational superiority in the region to any 
potential adversary. Russia clearly has the capabilities to threaten 
our national security interests in the region and has demonstrated its 
intent to use the Arctic as an avenue of approach to North America. The 
PRC also has clear ambitions to increase its influence in Arctic 
governance with a focus on long-term exploitation of natural resources. 
Per the National Defense Strategy, the Department must be able to 
``monitor and respond'' to threats in the Arctic, and to do so, I 
require timely access to forces and equipment that are capable of 
Arctic operations, along with the necessary supporting infrastructure. 
To meet that requirement, the Services must resource their Arctic 
strategies, and the Global Force Management process must be better 
aligned with the NDS's prioritization of homeland defense. Finally, 
while icebreaker procurement is currently a U.S. Coast Guard 
responsibility, as the DoD Arctic Capability Advocate, I fully support 
their efforts, or efforts of DoD Services to grow the fleet of 
icebreakers and Arctic-capable vessels.
    Mr. McCormick. GEN Richardson, I'm very pleased to see the 
seriousness with which SOUTHCOM treats strategic competition with the 
PRC in your AOR. As we know, diplomatic and economic overtures that the 
PRC makes to developing countries are so often predatory and extractive 
in nature, and I believe they present a direct threat to our national 
security. After all, limiting the influence of near-peer competitors in 
Latin America is a national security goal almost as old as the United 
States itself. What specific sectors would you point to as the most 
critical areas where we should be leveraging assets to outcompete China 
in the SOUTHCOM/AOR? Due to China's authoritarian system, they 
unfortunately have something of an advantage in strategic planning 
since they aren't subject to electoral cycles. How can we insulate our 
strategy in SOUTHCOM from political turnover not just every 4 years but 
also every 2 years?
    General Richardson. Presence and proximity matter. Not only do we 
share many of the same values and ideals with the countries that 
comprise the USSOUTHCOM AOR, but our national security is also 
intertwined with their stability. Our consistent and persistent 
military and security engagement in the USSOUTHCOM AOR has enabled our 
military-to-military relationships to weather regional political 
shifts. But we must remain on the field to make a difference. Threats 
develop and gain momentum when we don't have a presence with our 
partners, and we must maintain consistent relationships or risk losing 
influence, especially regarding Panama, Colombia, and the Southern 
Cone.
    The PRC poses a strategic, pacing threat to the United States and 
to our partners around the world. For this reason, USSOUTHCOM's 
strategies continually look toward both short and long-term impacts. 
One example is International Military Education and Training (IMET), 
where we focus on training our partners' next generation of military 
leaders specifically promoting respect for the rule of law and 
upholding democracy--these programs pay dividends in the long game. But 
we also need tools for competing in the near term. Our FMF and FMS 
processes are not built for agile competition. We need to relook these 
processes and streamline them so we may offer alternatives to PRC 
equipment at the speed of need for our partners. Space enabling 
infrastructure (SEI) is one critical area where we should leverage 
assets to outcompete China in Latin America and the Caribbean. The PRC 
continues to advance its SEI projects in the AOR through federal, 
provincial, academic, and commercial partnerships. With the PRC's large 
focus on Military-Civil Fusion (MCF), it is possible that these sites 
may serve a dual use.
    Despite PRC advances, partner nations want to establish a 
partnership with NASA and the United States. For example, thirteen 
companies from Argentina's space industry participated in the Argentine 
Embassy's first-ever ``Space Day'' this year in Washington D.C. 
Panelists discussed opportunities for Argentine companies to pursue 
U.S. commercial opportunities, help address emerging challenges like 
climate change, and strategies to secure investment funding. Cyber is 
another critical area that deserves our attention. The 3G, 4G, and 
developing 5G infrastructures in Latin America provide network 
connectivity on which international commercial banking, providers, and 
government critical infrastructures operate, making them vulnerable to 
PRC and Russian influence.

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