▶ 1:11:55Chair Wicker: When we recessed until 11:15, I did not know that a vote was going on on the senate floor, so we appreciate our witnesses visiting with us down in the classified, and now we wait to receive testimony in open session on the posture of united states special operations
▶ 1:12:26Chair Wicker: Command, united states cyber command. We are joined by admiral mitch bradley, commander of the united states special operations command, general joshua rudd, commander of the united states cyber command and director of the national security agency, Mr.
▶ 1:12:44Chair Wicker: Anderson, assistant secretary of defense for special operations, and low intensity conflict, and miss katie sutton, assistant secretary of defense for cyber policy. And all members are reminded to silence their devices, including the chair.
▶ 1:13:09Chair Wicker: Recent operations including absolute resolve, epic fury represent a watershed moment for american military power. Each operation wove cyber effects into the fabric of joint force operations at the beginning of planning. Consequently, our cyber operators were able to illustrate the potential of these capabilities as a force multiplier unlike any other.
▶ 1:13:37Chair Wicker: We must ensure the lessons learned from recent operations are fully digested and integrated into our doctrine and planning. However, we cannot allow the successes to lull into complacency. Cyber threats are immediate, persistent, and they are escalating. Every day, our adversaries target america's critical infrastructure in government networks.
▶ 1:14:02Chair Wicker: They are advancing their capabilities to outpace and outcompete our forces in cyberspace, and we must not allow that. To keep up with these threats, we must redouble our efforts to modernize and strengthen american cyber forces. Doing so requires us to make fundamental updates to the way military services generate, organize, and sustain cyber forces. This effort is as ambitious as it is necessary.
▶ 1:14:32Chair Wicker: The government has launched an initiative, cybercom 2.0 to increase skill and readiness of our forces. This initiative is simple just like any other military service, we will need a well-trained pipeline of cyber operators supported by a range of acquisition professionals, and we do not have that today. Perhaps we will have testimony about how far along we are.
▶ 1:15:01Chair Wicker: Our cyber operators are working overtime, and we are not ready to generate new forces to replace them. I am troubled this effort is not moving fast enough. Current operations will always be priority number one. We must ensure this pace is sustainable. Our cyber operators are not the only highly specialized forces in demand. America's special operations forces are more important now than ever before.
▶ 1:15:28Chair Wicker: No longer confined to their traditional role as a force of last resort, special operations forces often serve as a first choice across the full spectrum of military action. Special operations forces conduct direct action against high-value targets as we witnessed during the raid to apprehend nicolas maduro from his heavily fortified compound outside caracas.
▶ 1:15:58Chair Wicker: They train and advise partner forces building capacity and strengthening alliances across latin america, europe, and the first island chains. They gather intelligence against hostile environments. They respond to crises worldwide at a moments notice, and they operate in the gray zone between peace and war.
▶ 1:16:24Chair Wicker: The context in which much of today's strategic competition unfolds. However, the funding provided to special operations command has not kept pace with the seemingly insatiable demand for its capabilities. The command faces a troubling gap between its mission requirements and available resources, and I do think there is consensus on both sides of the dais and both sides of the aisle to correct that as soon as we can.
▶ 1:16:50Chair Wicker: Last year by general fenton, commander, special operations command, stated for this committee, we continue to grapple with years of flat budgets. A 14% decrease in buying power, significant personnel reductions, and the requirement to evolve our technology and authorities.
▶ 1:17:17Chair Wicker: All this forces trade-offs, tough choices that challenge current missions, and put modernization at risk. End of quote from general fenton. Ladies and gentlemen, unfortunately the increase in last year's reconciliation funding was not fully applied to the purpose for which congress intended it. Perhaps we can discuss that today.
▶ 1:17:45Chair Wicker: Today I look to admiral bradley and secretary anderson to tell this committee what they need. I hope they will tell us how to equip their force to combat the advanced militaries of china and russia to remain fully engaged in the fight against violent islamic terrorism and to respond at a moments notice as our nation's premier crisis response force. With that, I recognize my friend and colleague, the ranking member reed, for his opening remarks.
▶ 1:18:14Sen. Reed: Thank you very much, Mr. chairman. Welcome, admiral bradley and general rudd, Mr. innocent, and Ms. sutton. Thank you very much. Please convey our thanks, our deep thanks to the men and women in command. Two months since president trump launched the work, both cyber command and central command are deeply engaged.
▶ 1:18:43Sen. Reed: Our forces have played a major role in enabling combat operations, conducting information warfare, and providing intelligence support, including the remarkable mission to rescue the crew of the f-15 aircraft shot down in iran earlier this month. This hearing is a reminder that modern warfare requires full integration of every element of american military power.
▶ 1:19:07Sen. Reed: Today, I would like our witnesses to provide updates on how their personnel are engaged in the war with iran and what lessons should be drawn for future conflicts. Admiral bradley, our special operations forces are unparalleled, but they are not without limits. I am concerned the administration is deploying forces at an unsustainable pace and for missions that could be questioned.
▶ 1:19:33Sen. Reed: Over the past year, socom has led and execute the attack on venezuela to capture nicolas maduro with the campaign in the caribbean and pacific and various operations throughout the middle east and africa. I have serious concerns about operation sons fear in particular -- sun spear in particular. Order to attack criminals in the open ocean over the past eight months, placing them in legally and ethically perilous circumstances.
▶ 1:20:03Sen. Reed: I would ask for update on socom' s role and its missions in the region going forward admiral bradley, in your written statement you rightly discuss how warfare is increasingly defined by competition below the threshold of conflict.
▶ 1:20:20Sen. Reed: In essence, an environment wherever special operations forces should be most effective, and I would ask for your plans to prepare a special forces for such environments and what impact today's high operations tempo could have on future readiness. Similarly, I would appreciate an update on the role of our special operations in advising U.S. partners in europe and the indo pacific and what steps you are taking to help equip and modernize our forces.
▶ 1:20:52Sen. Reed: I would also ask front a under efforts to strengthen the abilities of your office to fulfill its secretary like responsibilities for the oversight of the organization and readiness of our special operations forces. General rudd, miss sutton, I understand you are conducting a cyber 2.0 structure review permit I welcome such a review. The current cyber mission force design is more than a decade old , and chronic readiness problems persist.
▶ 1:21:24Sen. Reed: Our most skilled cyber operators are highly sought after in the private sector and the military cannot easily match the financial incentives that they are presented with. As such, professional attrition in cybercom remains hot. I would appreciate update on the design changes you are considering and how such changes can affect the joint cyber warfare fighting architecture.
▶ 1:21:51Sen. Reed: Additionally, this committee has been briefed in closed session about the cyber activities used during recent operations like midnight hammer an absolute resolve. I would like to understand in open session how your intervening cyber effects into combat missions and operational planning and where shortfalls remain that can be addressed through legislation. Finally, Ms. sutton, your office is new and the mandate is very consequential, providing oversight and advocacy for cybercom.
▶ 1:22:22Sen. Reed: I would like to hear how you are structuring your office, whether you are adequately resourced, and how you are working across the department to improve acquisition functions and civilian hiring authorities for the command. Thank you again, all of you. The missions of socom and cybercom are indispensable to our national security, and I look forward to your testimony.
▶ 1:22:46Chair Wicker: Secretary anderson, I think we will start with you on opening statements if you don't mind. I know you gave a full statement in the classified section, but feel free to go ahead and tell us what you have in mind.
▶ 1:23:05Mr. Anderson: Thank you, senator. Appreciate that. Chairman wicker, ranking member reed, and other distant which members of the committee, thank you. I am honored to testify alongside assistant secretary katherine sutton, admiral bradley, and general rudd.
▶ 1:23:29Mr. Anderson: They bring expertise, leadership, and insight as we advocate on behalf of our servicemembers and their families. People are the foundation of the joint force. They are a component of advantage against our adversaries. We are thankful for those who have volunteered to serve, those currently in harm's way, and those who made the ultimate sacrifice, including the 13 U.S. serviceman but as we have lost during ongoing operations. We honor their lives and legacy and will never forget the sacrifices in defense of our country.
▶ 1:23:59Mr. Anderson: Today's security environment is designed by convergence and speed. Transnational criminal networks are increasingly aligned, technologically enabled, and active across domains and regions. To enter these challenges, there as a shift to protect america's interests. Purpose built for this era, it provides capability and option alley.
▶ 1:24:23Mr. Anderson: Comprising only 3% of the joint force and less than 2% of the department's budget, roughly equivalent to the procurement because of a single aircraft carrier, it provides strategic value and senior leaders with scalable and asymmetric options across the full spectrum of competition and conflict, leveraging persistent global prisons, general prisons, gen generational relationships, strengthen partners, and impose costs to our adversaries.
▶ 1:24:53Mr. Anderson: We may not read about it in headlines but every major operation has a component to it. Operations like southern spear, midnight hammer, absolute resolve, and epic fury have demonstrated our nation's promise and commitment to confront our adversaries wherever they may be. From the western hemisphere across the in the pacific to the middle east, africa, and beyond, it has been decisive in deterring china, and enabling our partners and allies.
▶ 1:25:19Mr. Anderson: Should deterrence fail, in accordance with the law, congressional guidance in which we are immensely grateful, the department has taken decisive and concrete steps to institutionalize oversight advocacy role and strengthen the governments of the enterprise.
▶ 1:25:36Mr. Anderson: Over the last year and half, we have transformed the secretary to provide direct civilian oversight over organized, trained, and equipped responsibilities not to duplicate or disrupt the activity of socom but to support, sustain, support, susta and sustain it. It moves to a true exercise of authority, direction, and control through an analytical, disciplined, data-driven, and strategically sound approach.
▶ 1:26:04Mr. Anderson: While the maturation of these initiatives is ongoing, these foundational changes put full congressional intent and provide the mechanisms needed for structure, guiding planning processes, and forging the future. It requires resourcing investments to ma. To maintain our computer events, we need resourcing and continued modernization.
▶ 1:26:26Mr. Anderson: We greatly appreciate support from this committee and I look forward to making full use of my position to ensure an remains resourced, ready, relevant, and accountable, and to ensure they can meet today's missions while transforming for tomorrow's challenges. I am honored to lead the enterprise and invite you to meet our operators around the globe to see firsthand the great work they do and the challenges they face.
▶ 1:26:53Mr. Anderson: Our servicemembers and their families represent the finest america has to offer and are something we as a nation should be proud of. Thank you for the opportunity to testify. I look forward to your questions.
▶ 1:27:02Chair Wicker: Let's go admiral bradley and then we will do secretary sutton and general rudd. When you are ready.
▶ 1:27:09Adm. Bradley: Thank you. Distinguished members of this committee, thank you for the opportunity to represent the men and women of the united states special operations command. I am honored to testify alongside honorable derrick anderson. We rely on the socom team for oversight support and advocacy to succeed in all of our global missions. Furthermore privileged to testify alongside our partners from cybercom.
▶ 1:27:40Adm. Bradley: The deep integration between our commands ensures, as you have said, chairman, that we can project power and protect the homeland across all domains. Distant wish members of the committee, the honorable anderson is laid out the strategic challenge and I would like to emphasize what this means for your war fighters inside socom. The bottom line is we do not have the luxury of focusing on only a single goal or mission.
▶ 1:28:06Adm. Bradley: While we defend the homeland as our top priority, we must also orient our force on the long-term pacing knowledge of china. We simultaneously deter the acute threat of conventional aggression from russia and iran and remain postured to dismantle the networks of their proxies while we guard against the reckless provocations of isolated rogue states.
▶ 1:28:27Adm. Bradley: Through it all, the persistent threat of ideologically driven and narco terrorism continues to demand our integrated intra-agency's constant vigilance. This is the reality of simultaneity. We carry on the legacy of the marine raiders, underwater demolition teams.
▶ 1:28:48Adm. Bradley: Small teams who flew and parachuted behind enemy lines or slam through murky waters not to win the war by themselves but to empower our partners to win it as part of a greater alliance. That is the essence of how we as just 3% of the joint force in less than 2% of the department's budget provided and indispensable advantage. We are ready to force multiplier for our team is. Our joint force teammate recognize this.
▶ 1:29:16Adm. Bradley: They recognize that ours are more in demand than ever. Your budget was an important down payment, but after five years of flat budget, only with increased investment can we continue to meet the demands of the competition crisis in modernization for future conflict. You see, our purpose is our mission.
▶ 1:29:41Adm. Bradley: This means we are laser focused on maintaining the readiness required to defend the homeland, to deter aggression, and to enable true burden sharing by empowering the global capacity of our allies and partners. But that mission is not accomplished by technology alone. It is executed by the most decisive advantage we have, our people.
▶ 1:30:01Adm. Bradley: Empowered by a culture of meritocracy and supported by critical programs that you have helped manifest like the preservation of the force and family with the health of your formation is not just wrong, it is getting stronger every day. To ensure these exceptional men and women succeed in compass environmental tomorrow, increasingly encroaching upon today, we are making transformation our imperative. We must adapt faster than our adversaries. We must sustain and improve our ability to project force through the most contested environments.
▶ 1:30:33Adm. Bradley: We must evolve to leverage the ubiquitous information environment, and we must make advantageous use of abundant autonomy as we support the joint force. We are evolving our force design, accelerated capability development, and strengthening our partnerships with services and allies to stay ahead of emerging threats. Our partnership with cybercom is a hallmark of this evolution. Secret is in virtual and physical domain maneuver across the spectrum for mission success.
▶ 1:31:01Adm. Bradley: As the department's lead for experimentation in autonomy, we are not just adapting, we are driving change. We are working with the services to incorporate next-generation capabilities, systems that are precise, autonomous, affordable, and always consistent with the law. Our goal is to deliver these tools with the element of surprise from unwanted access and placement at scale, ensuring our forces maintain the decisive advantage against any adversary. However, our to accomplish this is not guaranteed.
▶ 1:31:32Adm. Bradley: It requires accelerated modernization and your continued partnership. Pretty couple'resourcing fors -- predictable resourcing is necessary. We will meet today's missions while transforming to ensure we are ready for the challenges tomorrow with your support. Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.
▶ 1:31:53Chair Wicker: Thank you, admiral. Secretary sutton, you are recognized.
▶ 1:31:57Ms. Sutton: Distinguished members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify here today. I am modern to be here with general rudd, whose immense experience, specially in the indo pacific region, will prove invaluable as we postured to implement the priorities of the national defense strategy.
▶ 1:32:17Ms. Sutton: I congratulate lieutenant general hartman and his wife catherine on his retirement and thank him for his service and visionary leadership that has built the cyber enterprise over the years, setting the stage for our future success. It is a privilege to also testify alongside our special operations partners, assistant secretary of war derek anderson and admiral bradley. This joint appearance underscores a critical reality.
▶ 1:32:44Ms. Sutton: Synergy between our communities creates an asymmetric advantage, preventing our adversaries -- preventing our adversaries with combating dilemmas in physical and virtual worlds. In my role, I am as possible for overseeing the department's cyber operations policies, integrating cyber activities, and exercising authority, direction, and control over U.S. cyber command. I would like to start by describing two key dynamics of the strategic cyber environment.
▶ 1:33:14Ms. Sutton: The character of cyber warfare is changing rapidly, shaped by the growing threat posed by our adversaries, and at some limited by the ever growing power of technology. The first major change we are seeing is that our adversaries have moved beyond conducting espionage and theft and are preparing for conflict by pre-positioning descriptive capabilities inside our nation's critical infrastructure.
▶ 1:33:40Ms. Sutton: This strategic shift from exploitation to effect aims to disrupt military deployments and sew chaos and conflict. Cyber threats are not just a nuisance. They represent a significant and persistent threat to our national security. Second, artificial intelligence is a powerful force multiplier, increasing the speed and scale and sophistication of these threats.
▶ 1:34:04Ms. Sutton: Ai accelerates the entire attack lifecycle, creating a new dynamic where the pace of attacks challenges our ability to react and the scale overwhelms our ability to defend. Rapid innovation has lowered the barrier for entry for advanced cyber actors, blurring the line between nationstates and other malicious actors. Our adversaries are operationalizing ai to outcompete us and we must put the same tools in the hands of our work fighters.
▶ 1:34:35Ms. Sutton: Given these realities, a purely defensive posture is no longer sufficient. To implement the 2026 national defense strategy's vision of achieving peace through strength, we must act incisively to transform the cyber enterprise, guided by three core priorities. First, we must integrate cyber across all domains. Cyber is the connective tissue of modern warfare, playing a critical role in joint operations alongside our special operations partners.
▶ 1:35:03Ms. Sutton: We will continue to integrate cyber capabilities across every war fighting domain to develop a full range of options to deter conflict and ensure the joint force has every advantage. Second, we must gain strategic advantage below the level of armed conflict. A resilient defense must be paired with proactive, relentless disruption.
▶ 1:35:27Ms. Sutton: By empowering our world-class cyber operators to execute full-spectrum cyber operations, we will systematically erode our adversaries's cyber capable it is their infrastructure, and impose consequences. Third, our force must organize to dominate. Our strategy are only as effective as the force that executes them.
▶ 1:35:52Ms. Sutton: Through the cyber command 2.0 initiative, we are undertaking the most comprehensive transformation of our cyber force since its inception to elevate our operational readiness, scale technological advantage and propel our force to meet the modern demands of conflict.
▶ 1:36:10Ms. Sutton: To achieve these priorities, we are leveraging the engine of american industry, harnessing the speed and innovation of the private sector to protect the cyber domain that powers our national security, our economic prosperity, and american way of life. My office is leading the development of a department of war cyber strategy to implement this payment, which I look forward to sharing with the committee when complete.
▶ 1:36:36Ms. Sutton: Let there be no doubt the deferment of war's commitment to the defense of this nation is absolute. We have a solemn duty to ensure joint force is equipped to dominate within the highly contested cyber domain. The support of this committee is fundamental to the mission success. Keep your support, and I look forward to your questions.
▶ 1:36:53Chair Wicker: Thank you very much. General rudd.
▶ 1:36:56Gen. Rudd: Chairman wicker, ranking member reed, and distinguished members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify. Before you today alongside my distinguished colleagues from the department and U.S. special operations command, with me today is bruce, the U.S. cyber command and national security agency senior enlisted leader.
▶ 1:37:19Gen. Rudd: We are honored to represent the soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, guardians, and coast guardsmen as well as civilians defend our networks and deliver effects that matter every day. I want to thank this committee for your continued support for our critical commission at U.S. cyber command. I want to recognize lieutenant general joe hartman and his wife catherine for their many years of service to this nation and their incredible contrition to cyber command and the national security agency.
▶ 1:37:51Gen. Rudd: The people of U.S. cyber command are paramount to our success. Their professionalism and dedication enable everything we accomplish. Our workforce represents the finest talent in cyber operations, a broad team of military servicemembers and civilian professionals, delivering unparalleled expertise to one of the nation's most critical missions. Cybercom's mission is threefold, defend the homeland, defend the department of war' informations networks, and support the joint force.
▶ 1:38:19Gen. Rudd: Executing these missions, we maintain a fermentable partnership with the national security agency. An essay's roles, -- an essays roles, response abilities clement cybercom's creating a unity of effort that strengthens our common defense. Since taking command, I have emphasized four operating principles, speed, scale, innovation, and integration.
▶ 1:38:44Gen. Rudd: I am proud to report that cybercom has been a sickening under these printable since before my arrival, which has made for a smooth transition and allowed me to hit the ground running. Throughout 2025 and into 2026, we have quickly adapted to the dynamic and complex cyber domain, demonstrating our value at scale. In 2025, we executed more than 8000 cyber missions, an increase of 25% compared to 2024.
▶ 1:39:12Gen. Rudd: This year, we expect even more activity and with your support, I am sure our talented force is up to the task. Cybercom gains experience and insights from real world operations every day. That experience guides our operational support to the war fighter. Our innovative activity contributes to mission outcomes, to force building initiatives like cybercom 2.0, and to the employment of emerging technologies. Cyber domain cuts across all war fighting domains.
▶ 1:39:40Gen. Rudd: Into quitting cyber into the joint force operations and hence is combatant command effectiveness across the board. When called upon, cybercom impose the full spectrum of operations with and on behalf of the other combatant commands to deter and if necessary defeat our adversaries.
▶ 1:39:59Gen. Rudd: Our participation in operation absolute resolve and operation epic fury are prime examples that this integration and action cyber and kinetic operations working seamlessly to a chieve joint objectives. We are also -- cybercom 2.0 is moving at pace and achieving milestones each month.
▶ 1:40:23Gen. Rudd: Through cybercom 2.0 we will deliver the capability and capacity to identify and hire a talented workforce, provide them with optimal training, and incentivize them to stay in cyber force. Initially, it will enhance our ability to work more closely with industry and academia to develop, acquire, and operationalize cutting-edge capabilities. Cyber command will continue to work with the cyber policy team and the services to ensure cybercom 2.0 is implemented effectively.
▶ 1:40:53Gen. Rudd: Thank you for the privilege of appearing before you today. I look forward to working with you, and I look forward to your questions.
▶ 1:40:59Chair Wicker: Thank you very much. Secretary sutton and general rudd, let me begin with the two of you. I read a pretty disturbing quote from general fenton last year about years of flat budgets, 14% decrease in buying power, and
▶ 1:41:30Chair Wicker: Significant personnel reductions. How is cybercom 2.0 going to address these? And is the work -- is our pace at this point happening fast enough? Secretary sutton.
▶ 1:41:49Sec. Sutton: Senator, thanks for the opportunity to talk about this really critical initiative. One of the concepts of cyber cyber command 2.0 is to look at how we build mastery in our force before we just continue to build the force. We have built out our mission force and have largely been able to get into a basic trade and qualified level.
▶ 1:42:14Sec. Sutton: What we really need to look at and what the aim of cyber command 2.0 is how we take that force and build domain mastery and specialized skills to be able to get after some of these problems that we face and have them be more effective and a more lethal force.
▶ 1:42:31Sec. Sutton: To do that, the cyber command 2.0 implementation plan looks across the entire talent management pipeline to really address this not as an incremental one by one step but to relook at the entire way we manage this forced to really build that unique technical skill set in the way that we have done other models in the department like the medical community, the nuclear community.
▶ 1:42:56Sec. Sutton: So we are undertaking that implementation plan very rapidly , looking at how we can do quick wins in pilots off the bat and take lessons learned from those and implement more of the long-term policies. We can always move faster and we continue to move faster and look forward to continuing to brief you on our progress as we move forward.
▶ 1:43:18Chair Wicker: General rudd, I will let you follow up there, but could you identify your most in connection with cybercom 2.0, your most important milestone to achieve at the earliest possible moment?
▶ 1:43:40Gen. Rudd: Thanks, chairman. Appreciate the opportunity to follow up on this. The cybercom 2.0 approach is built on seven attributes. First and foremost, it is the people. We have to identify, recruit, and bring in the right people and get them at that baseline level of certification that enables them to do the mission as soon as they get to the force.
▶ 1:44:05Gen. Rudd: The next attribute that is really guiding and driving us is incentive position -- incentive ization. Competition with the private sector as you would imagine for this type of skill set, making sure we harness every authority and every cent that we have two incentivize the workforce. The next critical piece of this is training.
▶ 1:44:31Gen. Rudd: We have to have the right training pipeline and the right resources centered around training to go again from what the services provide, which is that baseline operational capability, and then bringing it to what we desire for every number, the mastery. We then have to make sure we can retain this force.
▶ 1:44:50Gen. Rudd: This is where we look at models like special operations command, where across the service components there is a career path where we can retain the best and the highly trained ones that have again ideally gained mastery or are working towards mastery. We can repeatedly keep them in a rotation and an assignment here at cyber command. And I also much like special operations are developing and executing special sets that require specialized training.
▶ 1:45:19Gen. Rudd: The ability to incentivize and retain that talent. Finally, we are looking at it is not just the cyber operator but also the enablers. It is the headquarters element and support pieces that come with that. That is part of the force presentation model for the services, and that is what we are getting after. Chairman, I think one of the biggest challenges is really just figuring out, how do we attract the right people and incentivize them to want to have a career in cyber force?
▶ 1:45:47Chair Wicker: You can't do this on the cheap, can you, general?
▶ 1:45:51Gen. Rudd: Chairman, we certainly can't.
▶ 1:45:54Chair Wicker: Thank you very much. Senator reed.
▶ 1:45:56Sen. Reed: Thank you very much, Mr. chairman. Admiral bradley and Mr. anderson, you have some of the same issues, and you have been working at it before as secretary sutton and general rudd are, creating a service sector-like position.
▶ 1:46:16Sen. Reed: Since you have been both confirmed, what have you done to accomplish that mission, getting into the service sector-like mode, and what advice do you have us, our cybercom partners?
▶ 1:46:32Mr. Anderson: Senator, first and foremost, honorable sutton and I speak regularly about this topic. I can assure you of that but I want to thank the committee specifically on the 907 authorities you gave us in the nda that allowed us to be a service like entity.
▶ 1:46:48Mr. Anderson: Since taking the seat, we have had a few initiatives, but to highlight a few, we have been investing more in our personnel, having that advocacy for the budget, specifically being in the room with our service secretaries to make sure we are doing things in an efficient manner and it is the best dollar going for the taxpayer.
▶ 1:47:07Mr. Anderson: Administratively, admiral bradley and I have been a sprint as you might call it where we have taken our staffs to look at where there might be efficiencies made so we don't have duplicate efforts from the enterprises. Ideally, we come out with a general order, one similar to what the army and other services do where it lays out the roles and responsibilities for us as a service-like an obviously socom and admiral bradley.
▶ 1:47:36Mr. Anderson: A great initiative we have been pushing for. Quite honestly, it has made our staffs talk and be more open in dialogue. I would be remiss not to mention how we have organized ourselves specifically to mirror something like what the services have where we have abilities and development, mnra, and an analytical arm as well. It is a lot of work, but we are moving headstrong forward with it.
▶ 1:48:02Sen. Reed: Admiral.
▶ 1:48:03Adm. Bradley: Yes, ranking member. Additionally, we incite the uniform aspects of socom, recognize constitutional foundation so they control the uniform service. It is a critical facet of our constitutional democracy, and we are fully supportive of manifesting it inside our formations as well.
▶ 1:48:23Adm. Bradley: Very pragmatically as well, socom recognizes the next challenges we face will be solved through a tighter integration with our service teammates. We have to also have that service connection at the secretary level. Inside the pentagon, it is important for a robust and powered solic to be in the same meetings and have the same interactions to complement what we are doing on the uniform side.
▶ 1:48:51Adm. Bradley: Sprint and the interactions our staff are having to both find places where horizontal integration is appropriate, that is dividing labor and being better, but also appropriately vertically oversight functions need to exist. Both of those aspects are coming out of this.
▶ 1:49:07Sen. Reed: Thank you very much. General rudd, we talked a lot about cybercom. Can you tell us what you believe your three top challenges are at nsa?
▶ 1:49:19Gen. Rudd: Sorry, ranking member. At nsa?
▶ 1:49:23Sen. Reed: Yes, I'm sorry. That is my rhode island accent. Forgive me.
▶ 1:49:29Gen. Rudd: Thank you, senator. It goes back to the operating principles, which I conveyed both to the committee in my opening statement but also to the forces. We have to move at the pace of the strategic environment in which driven part biotechnology. So the ability to harvest technology ahead of an adversary, to be at the foremost front and retain and maintain that advantage is what is critical.
▶ 1:50:00Gen. Rudd: The next piece is the ability to scale. We've got to take our efforts again to move fast, figure out, where does it apply, not only across other parts of nsa but across cybercom and of course across the entirety of the joint force. And then driven by innovation, moving creatively to solve the hardest problems. We may not always have the scale and mass we would desire but we know we can creatively outthink anybody. Finally, it is integration.
▶ 1:50:32Gen. Rudd: Want to make sure we are nested with not only across two commands to be complementary to deliver that speed but also in support of joint force but also in support of interagency where required.
▶ 1:50:42Sen. Reed: I have 14 seconds left so I can just salute secretary sutton. I think you are doing an excellent job. One of the questions I was going to ask was to send you a written question.
▶ 1:50:55Chair Wicker: Time is up.
▶ 1:50:56Sen. Reed: Thank you. The center of gravity for your ai efforts in the cybercom realm. And also I think in special ops. I think that is a question I will send in writing. Very important. Thank you very much.
▶ 1:51:12Chair Wicker: Thank you. Senator fischer. Sen. fiscj
▶ 1:51:22Sen. Fischer: Admiral bradley, how are you working in assessing socom if it is appropriately postured for the indo pacific?
▶ 1:51:30Adm. Bradley: Senator, thank you. First, we look at it across the spectrum of conflict. Competition, crisis, and should crisis cascade into conflict. How are we positioned to support the combatant commander, my good friend? How are we prepared to integrate with the services and the service components in the aor?
▶ 1:51:56Adm. Bradley: And at a competition level, how are we able to provide to our allies and partners to strengthen the resilience of our alliances? We believe that is foremost and most important in any strategy of deterrence to have that stronger alliance.
▶ 1:52:12Sen. Fischer: Do you have direct input when you are talking about being able to integrate with services? Do you have input on the training and equipping them for the indo pacific?
▶ 1:52:25Adm. Bradley: Certainly on our forces I do. I have statutory response ability to ensure our members are trained and adequate to the missions they will be presented with.
▶ 1:52:36Sen. Fischer: To integrate with services?
▶ 1:52:40Adm. Bradley: To do our missions, and part of our mission is to integrate with services.
▶ 1:52:45Sen. Fischer: Thank you. We have seen our adversaries increasingly coordinate, especially on malign activity. So how is socom working to strengthen the relationships with our allies and our partners? What you talked about earlier. But both in terms of building up first of all our capabilities with them but also their own capabilities and when you work on those combined training exercises.
▶ 1:53:17Adm. Bradley: First in a relationship is trust, the most basic essence of that trust comes from credibility. Our relationships over generations help us to give that could ability, bring that credibility and that trust. I might pick just one as an example. The country of the philippines, where for 100 years, over 100 years now we have had an institutional relationship as a nation.
▶ 1:53:42Adm. Bradley: But just since 2016 in our partnership on island to help the philippine armed forces clear one of the principal cities of the threat from isis has given us great ability to stretch across turbulent political and diplomatic times to today where we are able to use that could ability, help them see and share information with them through some new relationship dynamics, to understand the threats to their sovereign territory.
▶ 1:54:11Adm. Bradley: So that sharing of information is a critical aspect to allow them to take action for their own problems in the information and competition space.
▶ 1:54:19Sen. Fischer: I am sure you had a number of opportunities there in the indo pacific to work on having that greater collaboration with our partner forces. I was interested in your view on the exercises that took place with calls response 26 -- call to response 26, looking at norway and finland. An entirely different environment, I would say.
▶ 1:54:48Adm. Bradley: Yes. I will speak more generally and don't want to get ahead of my good friend, the general who oversees those.but from our perspective, our partnership with our scandinavian and european and nato allies has always been critical. Of course, for the last 25 years, a lot of focus for us in the middle east. Not as many snowcapped mountains to work in as in the high north.
▶ 1:55:14Adm. Bradley: And so as we reenter into that area working with our scandinavian partners has brought an awful lot of reprisal of old skills back. So we are deepening those. I think that partnership, not just on the land, but in the maritime domain is a critical component to what we will offer to nato for future deterrence.
▶ 1:55:34Sen. Fischer: Good to hear. Ms. sutton, how will cybercom 2.0 enable the department to better adapt to the evolving technological landscape when we look at ai? It is kind of what the question is that senator reed I think was going to send you.
▶ 1:55:54Sec. Sutton: So, as technology continues to move at a tremendous speed, one of the gaps we are seeing in the force is the ability to get our force after they made it through the surface basic service basic training is to have training at the speed of need to address some of these technologies. For example, someone might have made it through their basic training. How do we provide training for them on cloud, aia, systems, other specialized things we will need?
▶ 1:56:24Sec. Sutton: One of the things is creation of advanced cyber training and education center, which will not be a brick-and-mortar institution that builds courses the traditional way but looking at how we leverage industry and academia to have training available for our active force to be able to get it closing the skill gaps as technology continues to move quickly. Let's leverage the training that is available in industry moving at the speed as well.
▶ 1:56:50Sen. Fischer: Thank you. I will question for general rudd for the record look at cybercom 2.0, specifically for the indo pacific. Thank you.
▶ 1:57:02Chair Wicker: Thank you. Senator blumenthal.
▶ 1:57:06Sen. Blumenthal: Thank you, senator wicker. Thank you all for being here. Again as I expressed this morning, thank you all for your service. In our closed session, we discussed a number of questions I would like to raise now. First, I think our cooperation with ukraine is tremendously important.
▶ 1:57:29Sen. Blumenthal: I am regretful that we are, in my view, failing to provide all of the support that we should militarily. I am working hard on a russia sanctions bill that I hope will help economically stop the flow of revenue to putin's war machine from purchases of russian oil and gas.
▶ 1:57:58Sen. Blumenthal: And intelligence sharing has been tremendously important ukraine in pushing back. And I think impressively on russia's assault, the false narrative that russia is winning.
▶ 1:58:13Sen. Blumenthal: I have tried to counter based on my trips to ukraine, 10 in all, most recently in february, where I saw a really the progress ukraine is making, contrary to some of the propaganda that russia is spreading about how they are winning.
▶ 1:58:31Sen. Blumenthal: But I would like to ask this panel may be beginning with general rudd whether our intelligence sharing is continuing in a robust way as it has been in the past, which I think has been tremendously important, to the extent you can comment in this setting.
▶ 1:58:53Gen. Rudd: Thanks, senator blumenthal. As we discussed previously, the focus and attention on a variety of priorities and efforts has remained steady. We move in an agile manner to various crisis and/or efforts, but we maintain focus and push on that.
▶ 1:59:20Gen. Rudd: Our support through european command from an intelligence perspective in support of that effort remains intact. We are looking consistently on making sure we have the right resources and folks focused on that, working closely with the general on that.
▶ 1:59:34Sen. Blumenthal: I hope that our military command will let us know if there is any change in that approach and policy, because I think the american people deserve to know if there is a reduction or diminution in our intelligence commitment.
▶ 1:59:59Sen. Blumenthal: Admiral bradley, if you could tell us a bit about the lessons learned from ukraine.
▶ 2:00:05Adm. Bradley: Senator, absolutely. First, to answer the original question and maybe bridge to that, one of the things I think we provide through those relationships long-standing is the venue for others to partner and to bring capacity and capability. So one of our headquarters there offers the opportunity for 19 different nations to partner to come to support the effort across the area.
▶ 2:00:31Adm. Bradley: I think that is critical because it is not just about what we bring, but it is about enabling those partners to really share more of the burden, to be able to provide assistance to the ukrainians as well. Ultimately, to your point about lessons learned, if I look back over the last 25 years of counterterrorism targeting where our integrated interagency malaak enforcement, intel community, military were able to bring great precision to our understanding of both the adversary but also the context around the adversary, the
▶ 2:01:01Adm. Bradley: Civilians that were not adversaries. That has been very important. Those lessons have translated very importantly into the high-end conflict of the ukraine battlefield. So we continue to apply those lessons, refine them as new information, and frankly we learn from them as well as we do in part to our teammates.
▶ 2:01:20Sen. Blumenthal: When I visited ukraine, often I have gone to the drone manufacturing facilities, which have grown in sophistication and number. Producing I think 1000 drones a day. What has impressed me is they can change. They work on the evolution of their drones on the assembly line. They will get real-time information from the battlefield and make adjustments literally as they are manufacturing.
▶ 2:01:49Sen. Blumenthal: I don't know anything in our industrial base that is as nimble and agile and quick. I hope this panel agrees that we need to move more in that direction. Would you agree, admiral?
▶ 2:02:06Adm. Bradley: Senator, I do, although I would say many of our industrial base partners are watching this as well and of course the ukrainians are driven by the existential need for that cycle of adaptation. As we watch that, I have good confidence our industrial base here can do the same.
▶ 2:02:22Sen. Blumenthal: Thank you.
▶ 2:02:23Chair Wicker: Thank you very much, senator blumenthal. Senator budd.
▶ 2:02:29Sen. Budd: Good to see you. Thank you for being here. Admiral bradley, I noticed an increase from 9.4 billion dollars to $10.9 billion between 2019 and 2027. So it is failing to keep pace with inflation and more importantly the increase in the operational tempo.
▶ 2:02:53Sen. Budd: Can you talk about what you would be able to do with a higher top line and some of the trade-offs you are currently making between o&m as it is an modernization and also --?
▶ 2:03:10Adm. Bradley: I will specifically to o&m in unique ways. Special operations command uses our ops and maintenance budget for our key modernization efforts. In most cases, we modernize not just through the development of new means, articles, and devices, but also the ways in which those means are used.
▶ 2:03:31Adm. Bradley: That requires more exquisite ranges that have the ability for us to be able to practice, train, and rehearse in increasingly contested magnetic spectrum environments. Those are difficult to produce inside the united states but not undoable. We just need more money. We need systems to be able to operate against and operators to mimic our adversaries as they operate them.
▶ 2:03:58Adm. Bradley: All of that takes new ranges in money and for the employment of autonomy. As senator blumenthal was discussing, we have to bring together our standard existing systems with autonomy and there are very few places inside the united states where that is an easy thing to do. In many places where it needs to be done, we are working to do that.
▶ 2:04:21Sen. Budd: Thank you for that. A question for you, admiral bradley and secretary anderson. I would like your thoughts on how we retain midcareer operators. Each service drives its own bonus programs and I acknowledge money is not the only reason why folks stay or go. So tell us what you are doing to help retain our most seasoned operators whether it is through nonmonetary or monetary. Secretary anderson, we will start with you and the admiral bradley.
▶ 2:04:50Sec. Anderson: One of the things I noticed in the army is you cannot just throw money at the problem. Retention bonuses are helpful but we have seen things where change of duty location, those small things keep our individuals. What I would argue with in the socom community we do well is preservation of the force and family, which congress has been so gracious to give us that $11 million.
▶ 2:05:17Sec. Anderson: To see an increase in the workforce that I would like to see an increase in the workforce on that. When they are making those decisions to stay in the military, it is typically not done in the team room, at the pool, wherever. It is usually done at the kitchen table, so the preservation of the force and family has been an absolutely amazing program were we not only take care of our operators from a physical standpoint but from a mental standpoint. You will hear admiral bradley talk about the mind tune.
▶ 2:05:49Sec. Anderson: If you see a professional athlete when they go out to the top tiers, yes their physical body is in absolute great shape but their minds have to be pristine. Whether it be family outings, we can take individuals and have them speak with folks to help their family out, but that program, the preservation of the force and family, is critically important.
▶ 2:06:13Adm. Bradley: The only thing I would add is as you highlighted pay incentives are part of it but those are controlled, and another place where embossed and empowered helps us to stitch those together to ensure we have a common approach across all the services for all of our operators and enablers.
▶ 2:06:33Sen. Budd: Thank you both. Secretary anderson, I am a strong supporter of the U.S.-israel program. Can you talk to us about what your team is doing in israel to counter iranian unmanned systems and how this helps our military in return?
▶ 2:06:50Sec. Anderson: Yes, senator. So we have the unique ability to work with countries like israel and there is a few other countries out there where we do essentially a 50-50 burden sharing investment. What we have found incredibly helpful is to see some of the counter things that us and israel have developed together that one have been applicable to operations like epic fury.
▶ 2:07:17Sec. Anderson: Granted we don't always have the capability that has the same function, if that makes sense, so there are certainly things we want to use the cap ability for that the israelis want to use the capability for, but it has been 100% absolute a great partnership with the israelis, not only on the counter front but a few other areas we have been able to work with the israelis.
▶ 2:07:39Sen. Budd: Very helpful. Thank you all.
▶ 2:07:41Chair Wicker: Thank you very much, senator. Senator hirono.
▶ 2:07:47Sen. Hirono: As part of the election security group esg, both cybercom and nsa played a vital role in acting our democratic processes from foreign interference. I also share my concern that there is a potential for foreign interference in our upcoming elections.
▶ 2:08:12Sen. Hirono: So I would like to ask if you have already set up or if you are planning to set up the esg to ensure that there is no foreign interference in our upcoming elections.
▶ 2:08:29Gen. Rudd: Senator, we certainly share your concern and are always looking as you would expect us to for any foreign activity that would undermine our democratic process. As we discussed, we are postured and ready to support as required in making sure we safeguard our elections.
▶ 2:08:46Sen. Hirono: Do you have an esg set up for this purpose?
▶ 2:08:50Gen. Rudd: Senator, I don't know that an esg has been established yet, but we are prepared to as required.
▶ 2:08:57Sen. Hirono: Well, we used to have an esg. I think you can understand why I am concerned, because there is no reason not to anticipate foreign interference in our elections, I.e. Russia, china, possibly I'm possibly iiran, although they may have other things to deal with. Do you anticipate foreign interference with our upcoming elections?
▶ 2:09:24Gen. Rudd: Senator, I think it is reasonable to expect based on what we have seen in the past.
▶ 2:09:30Sen. Hirono: And so I think it is really important to set up an esg, and I will follow up with you on whether that is happening. Will you commit to zealous recordings of our elections this year? There are attempts by this administration to polarize the process.
▶ 2:09:52Gen. Rudd: Senator, we will certainly execute what we are tasked to in regards to that.
▶ 2:10:01Sen. Hirono: Yeah, I realize that you have a responsibility regarding foreign interference with our elections, but there is definitely efforts to domestically interfere with our elections. Like for example, having the former attorney general sue 29 states for voter rolls. This is millions of people have information dish -- this is millions of people's information.
▶ 2:10:31Sen. Hirono: What do they desire to do with that information and to push forward the passage of the so-called save act, which will resolve in millions of people currently registered to vote unable to register to vote because they don't have either a birth certificate or passport, so there are things happening on the domestic front. That is why I have some serious concerns.
▶ 2:10:53Sen. Hirono: For admiral bradley, one of socom's advantage in competition is the network of allies and partners in the indo pacific built over decades through sustained engagement, training, and interoperability.
▶ 2:11:14Sen. Hirono: Given the increased demands for homeland defense and ally burden sharing and the new nds, how are you increasing the posture, the presence in the first and second island chains to deter chinese aggression and support the denial defense?
▶ 2:11:36Adm. Bradley: Senator, thank you. As you know, general fenton was very strong on needing to adjust our posture over the last four years, to be able to empower those generational relationships. Thanks to your strong work, we are resourced with the right people in the right structure to sustain that presence and that commitment while we manage the ongoing threats to the homeland and the other commitments that we have.
▶ 2:12:05Sen. Hirono: Ok. I am glad that some of you already talked about the importance of having the kind of workforce that is trained to deal with the needs of the cyber domain. General rudd, you mentioned it is critical to get the right kind of people. What are the right kind of people that you are hoping to recruit to be trained in the cyber domain?
▶ 2:12:33Gen. Rudd: Yeah, thanks, senator. As you would expect, someone who is highly technical minded, smart, innovative, motivated, and is committed to doing something extraordinary.
▶ 2:12:49Sen. Hirono: Do you have a number goal? How many thousands of people will need to have this kind of training to counter the malign activities of our peer competitors?
▶ 2:13:05Gen. Rudd: Senator, I think we have objectives that are outlined within cybercom 2.0, but I think what I owe this committee and frankly the nation is a continuous assessment to make sure we have the right numbers. And to your opening point, that they are the best most highly qualified talent and that we can make sure we can up-game them through training and the mechanisms that will make this enduring.
▶ 2:13:27Chair Wicker: General, if you can quantify that on the record by supplementing your answer.
▶ 2:13:33Gen. Rudd: Chairman, I certainly will.
▶ 2:13:35Sen. Hirono: Thank you.
▶ 2:13:36Chair Wicker: Thank you, senator hirono. Senator scott.
▶ 2:13:40Sen. Scott: I want to thank you for joining us today. It is critical the U.S. is ready to deter threats. One big way is by working with our allies and partner nations to ensure security around the world, even places where we do not have our own troops readily stationed. Admiral bradley come how do foreign military programs enhance U.S. military relationships in the indo pacific and globally?
▶ 2:14:04Adm. Bradley: Senator, foreign military sales, direct commercial sales, and the like are all critical to us being able to have expectation of interoperability and expectation for what our allies and partners will be able to perform when they act on their own behalf. That in turn gives us a much better ability to understand what their weaknesses might be or what gaps might need to be filled by U.S. contributions.
▶ 2:14:33Adm. Bradley: And so as you highlight, even in places where we are not present at all times or all ways, knowing what they are using, how they are using it gives us that extra advantage.
▶ 2:14:43Sen. Scott: So you know the capability and if you will work with them, how you operate with them.
▶ 2:14:51Adm. Bradley: Yes, sir.
▶ 2:14:53Sen. Scott: What risk do we face to remain a reliable and timely defense partner compared to communist china?
▶ 2:15:02Adm. Bradley: In all cases, placement and access is a corollary to understanding. So being on the ground with those out on the edge of the territory, to be able to appreciate the context of what is happening helps to inform our decision-making in the rear and throughout the chain of command. So I believe it is fundamental to our ability to know not only when we should act but how we should act. That is a partnership that we see play out across the world, not just in the indo pacific.
▶ 2:15:33Adm. Bradley: For instance, in ecuador recently, some really good operational results informed by our ecuadorian partners to help us choose which and how to target adversaries there, but that of course is just an instance that has been played out over the last 25 years across the middle east, africa, across europe as well, and I believe the same analog applies globally.
▶ 2:15:57Sen. Scott: Admiral bradley and assistant secretary anderson, how does the four presence of U.S. special forces counter china's influence campaigns particularly in the indo pacific and other key regions, and what advantages do special operations forces bring in building partner capacity, shaping the component of environment below the level of armed conflict?
▶ 2:16:18Adm. Bradley: Senator, I might start by quickly the same aspect excess and understanding allows us to use what is the equivalent of the high ground in the influenced sphere of competition, the truth. In almost every case, we have to illuminate the truth of our adversaries's previous activity to allow our partners to then counter it and use it to their advantage.
▶ 2:16:42Sec. Anderson: Senator, I might add back to admiral bradley's point of place and access, just being present in some of these areas with our partners is an absolute deterrent. Not only that, but some of our forces and the capabilities they have been able to create if you might call it within some of these areas of responsibility.
▶ 2:17:04Sec. Anderson: One example is some of our special operations forces had a critical need for medical, a medical facility, so they were able to work with a local hospital to admit themselves in the hospital, not only providing care for the local area but also providing training for themselves. That itself is one a capability's development, readiness development, but also we talk about by, with command through your partners and there is no better way then through the population.
▶ 2:17:32Sen. Scott: Thank you. How are special operations forces with unmanned forces into operations?
▶ 2:17:40Adm. Bradley: Senator, at every level. As we say from the battlefield to the back office, finding ways to be able to bring autonomy, mass autonomy to bear is a very important part of how we on the edge can leverage our placement and access to not only serve our own interests but to be able to help our partners who generally don't have the same budgets we do, to be able to buy that kind of capacity, to give them asymmetric advantages.
▶ 2:18:11Adm. Bradley: So autonomous capability is critical to our understanding from a sensing perspective as well as it is from a surveillance to be able to sustain containment of an objective that you would want to watch.and finally, clearly for the ability to project violence should that be required.
▶ 2:18:25Sen. Scott: So looking at the success the ukrainian armed forces have had with drones and other autonomous opportunities do you think we are moving fast enough?
▶ 2:18:35Adm. Bradley: Senator, I would never suggest that the pace at which we are moving today is fast enough. We need to continue to accelerate it. Clearly, the ukrainians are driven by an existential need that we do not we need to make up the difference in motivation with a real appreciation of the advantage that it will provide us and importantly to deal with the challenges of simultaneity to help our partners do the same.
▶ 2:19:05Adm. Bradley: Our role inside the department is to identify opportunities to test, validate and eliminate those -- illuminate those down selected and to work with industry partners to improve their capabilities as well as our allies and partners.
▶ 2:19:34Sen. Kaine: I have questions for admiral bradley and secretary anderson about two topics. Operation southern spear and the preservation of force and family initiative. On southern spear, I'm correct, am I not that the lead on southern spur operations is south com, am I correct?
▶ 2:20:13Sen. Kaine: >> yes. >> I do not just believe everything I read in news accounts but this is one that I want to ask about. It is a story about a U.S. strike reportedly on a fishing vessel near the galapagos that took place on march 26. The indication in the story that is one week old is that this was a fishing vessel. After the boat was struck a U.S.
▶ 2:20:42Sen. Kaine: Patrol boat rescued those on the vessel, handcuffed them, transported them to a salvadore in patrol boat. They were eventually taken to salvador where they were released to a u.n. Shelter and eventually taken back to ecuador where they were released without charge. Are you aware of the allegation of this U.S. strike on this fishing vessel?
▶ 2:21:10Sec. Anderson: I am aware of the article and later in the article is the department response as they are having not been any U.S. military involvement. I am aware there are no U.S. strikes within three weeks around that incident. I believe the ecuadorian government has rendered judgment is U.S. involvement in that.
▶ 2:21:38Sec. Anderson: I cannot speak to any greater detail. Those are from superficial observations.
▶ 2:21:46Sen. Kaine: Let me read the portion from the article. The white house did not respond to question or comment. U.S. southern command said it had no information to provide regarding any U.S. government personnel involvement in any of the incidents laid out. Are you aware of any investigation? This is a tough claim that the U.S.
▶ 2:22:15Sen. Kaine: Would have attacked a fishing boat and had nothing to do with any group on the classified list. Are you aware of any investigation being done into this of the purporting to see if it is accurate?
▶ 2:22:29Adm. Bradley: I am not. I believe the methodology we go through his first to assess a claim like this whether or not it is credible and I believe from what you have cited there and from what I understand from the rendering that it was deemed not to be credible there for further investigation.
▶ 2:22:48Sen. Kaine: Secretary anderson, is that your understanding?
▶ 2:22:52Sec. Anderson: I am unaware as well from what I have been told.
▶ 2:22:57Sen. Kaine: So your testimony is based on your understanding, special operations participates, that this public reporting at least south comm has gone back and they cannot find evidence that the U.S. has carried out strike operations of any kind on that day. That is your understanding.
▶ 2:23:23Adm. Bradley: Obviously
▶ 2:23:27Adm. Bradley: Obvi yes.
▶ 2:23:28Sen. Kaine: One of the things that can be a little confusing in this instance that could have led to confusion in this circumstance is as far as I know southern spear is a military operation carried out against targets connected to organizations, the list of whom are still classified. Is that correct?
▶ 2:23:50Sec. Anderson: I believe so, senator.
▶ 2:23:53Sen. Kaine: The operations authorized by the president can be carried out against organizations on a list of designated terrorist organizations that is classified. It has only been shared with congress in a classified setting. It has not been made public. That also means the enemy has not been told you are an enemy. If you declare war against iraq or al-qaida, that public declaration alerts the enemy to know that you are the enemy.
▶ 2:24:23Sen. Kaine: If you associate with a group subject to the designation. If the detail list in southern spear is classified, that means we have not alerted those who the U.S. has determined are combatants that we are in fact engaging in war against them and that can lead to confusion. My time is up but I want to say this, I commend what you guys have done on this preservation force and family initiative.
▶ 2:24:51Sen. Kaine: It is particularly needed among special operators but I think it offers a template more generally for the way we should approach the issue of long-term well-being of our service members. Keep it up and spread the best practices from what you are doing. Thank you.
▶ 2:25:06Sen. Sullivan: Thank you and thank you to the witnesses. I want to add to senators keynes -- to senator kaine's point, we had a classified briefing a couple months ago on the ways in which southern command, nsa go through the targeting in the regard and admiral is in a true that jagged officers are there every step of the way?
▶ 2:25:33Sen. Sullivan: The nsa is a very robust targeting off before anyone is given the opportunity to strike, correct?
▶ 2:25:42Adm. Bradley: That is correct. It is based off of the lessons learned and the process is perfected over the last 25 years.
▶ 2:25:50Sen. Sullivan: That briefing from my perspective. General road we had a good conversation during her confirmation process and it is about how our adversaries take aggressive state-sponsored cyber related actions against us across so many spheres. Elections, infrastructure.
▶ 2:26:18Sen. Sullivan: Nsa and our other services do a great job on defending that but I think the best defense is also a good offense. You probably cannot answer the questions here. Are we also looking at offensive operations from a cyber perspective to keep our adversaries at bay? The one I always think would be good is letting the people of china and russia know just how corrupt their leaders are, how rich they are.
▶ 2:26:48Sen. Sullivan: Putin is one of the richest guys in the world. Xi jinping is a billionaire. I wonder how that happened. Isn't it good to go on offense? We get attacked a lot but to let people know that we can go on offense with exquisite capabilities that you have?
▶ 2:27:05Gen. Rudd: Senator, we absolutely have to be capable of providing offensive options and certainly working in our interest -- working in concert with the honorable miss sutton as she crafts out the strategy for the department.
▶ 2:27:27Sen. Sullivan: When the dictators are using cyber ops to come up for the most important thing to all of us which are the elections, when none of them whatever stand for election because they fear their own people. I think we should flex a little bit of our cyber capability. Do you agree with that madam secretary?
▶ 2:27:44Ms. Sutton: Absolutely. We need to be very clear that militia cyber actors in this space have and will feel the consequences of their actions. We need to look at how we leverage all tools of national power, whether it be military offensive capabilities or other interagency efforts and that is something we will be posturing with the new department of war cyber strategy to make sure we have those capabilities.
▶ 2:28:09Sen. Sullivan: It is really important. We don't have to say it but they want to play with our elections, we can make sure their people know how corrupt they are. Their leaders because a lot of them are corrupt. Their people should know that. General rudd, we are really excited in alaska. Nsa's alaska expansion is the most complete. It is great to see that. My understanding is that the new addition is going to be able to house 50 additional billets.
▶ 2:28:42Sen. Sullivan: The group in alaska does fantastic work. It is not on the front pages. But would you be willing to visit nsa alaska with me soon and meet these great americans who are conducting these missions under your command from my state and work with me on ensuring any additional requirements we need to fully manned that expansion in alaska?
▶ 2:29:11Gen. Rudd: I look forward to that opportunity. We may have a chance to see that site at its ribbon-cutting. I also have a confession to make. I have pledged in confirmation hearing that I would go there first, if confirmed. I hope you all understand.
▶ 2:29:28Sen. Sullivan: Everybody commits to coming to alaska.
▶ 2:29:32Gen. Rudd: It would be my second location in the role only because hawaii has experienced some pretty horrific storms and it caused some physical damage. >> general, all of our witnesses are resolved. It is made by everyone under duress. We understand.
▶ 2:29:55Sen. Sullivan: They are just going to see the most strategic place in the world. Admiral, maybe I will submit this for the record. The university of alaska fairbanks is doing fantastic work on the counter uas strategy testing.
▶ 2:30:16Sen. Sullivan: Diu is going to make an announcement here on a commitment to work with the university of alaska fairbanks on all of the counter uas stuff they are doing which is really needed. I would like to get secretary anderson and you and the admiral may be to answer for the record because I'm over my time to work with me and the committee on those really good opportunities and a critical area for national security and that is the counter
▶ 2:30:48Sen. Sullivan: Drone mission. Thank you, Mr. chairman. >> thank you, senator sullivan and thank you for your question about the leaders of our adversaries. Vladimir putin is not our friend. Not only is he one of the most notorious war criminals of our time, but one of the greediest thieves breathing on the earth.
▶ 2:31:14Sen. Sullivan: Senator warren and I have worked on this issue together. It is a bipartisan issue. They are coming after our elections. We need to make them feel the pain.
▶ 2:31:24Chair Wyden: While we recognize her at this moment.
▶ 2:31:29Sen. Warren: Thank you. I want to talk about what is going on with our troops when they are injured. We have 400 troops at least so far who have been injured in president trump's war with iran. Now the traumatic brain injuries have become the "signature injury" of the war against iran.
▶ 2:31:54Sen. Warren: Research has shown that special operators are at higher risk of blast exposure and tbi which increases the risk of suicide, seizures and memory loss. Several hundred special operators are now deployed in the middle east and I am very concerned about whether or not our troops are getting the care that they need for these injuries.
▶ 2:32:18Sen. Warren: For instance, we know about a soldier who was injured in an iranian drone strike in kuwait and he was promised tbi care when they made it out of the war zone. But even after being shipped to germany and texas, the soldier did not receive care for weeks. Admiral bradley, should wounded soldiers have to wait nearly a month to see a doctor?
▶ 2:32:44Adm. Bradley: Senator, no. I absolutely did not believe that. I don't know the details of the situation.
▶ 2:32:54Sen. Warren: That is the real point. We can agree they need help and they need to be evaluated right away. This committee has worked on a bipartisan basis to help servicemembers with brain injuries. But without records of these injuries, it becomes harder and harder to get care.
▶ 2:33:15Sen. Warren: That is particularly critical for high speed boat and special operators given the exposure to these pounding waves and high caliber weapons. Boat team leaders have described how the damage piles up almost unnoticed for years and then cascades.
▶ 2:33:35Sen. Warren: But dod requires cognitive assessments only every five years and south comm every three. I have a bipartisan bill with others on this committee to make sure that these injuries do not fall through the cracks including five requiring more regular screening and logs to track exposure.
▶ 2:34:02Sen. Warren: Admiral bradley, the effects of tbi's can compound over time as we know. Is it better to catch these injuries earlier rather than later?
▶ 2:34:13Adm. Bradley: It is.
▶ 2:34:15Sen. Warren: Do you support keeping better records so we can do that?
▶ 2:34:20Adm. Bradley: I do. It is critical to understand the mechanisms of harm that come from these various sources that we don't understand very well. That data will help to inform not only treatment but also the means to prevent it in the outset.
▶ 2:34:38Sen. Warren: I appreciate that. The fact that troops have faced long waitlists to get specialty care for brain health within department of defense's military system. One of the ways that department of defense has a tried -- has tried to address the waitlists is by partnering with outside experts like home base in massachusetts.
▶ 2:35:05Sen. Warren: Home base's comprehensive brain health and trauma program has helped get 95% of special operators that it has treated back into the field. Admiral bradley, in your experience have special operators benefited from programs like home base?
▶ 2:35:20Adm. Bradley: Absolutely, combat that comprehensive program for brain health, is a critical part. We also have partnerships with university of north carolina and southern florida and several others to be able to do the same thing.
▶ 2:35:36Adm. Bradley: They are all the were capable -- they are all very capable in progressing programs and institutionalizing those beyond the pilot that they are something that is part of our mainstream system that can be treated with tricare and the v.a. Systems is a critical next debt.
▶ 2:35:54Sen. Warren: I appreciate your point about institutionalizing. We cannot treat this as a one-off. We know the problem exists. We have to record and document and we need people who can treat it. We need dedicated resources to support our troops who are suffering from brain injuries. The trump administration has plunged us into a war and is asking congress for a record $1.5 trillion for the pentagon.
▶ 2:36:24Sen. Warren: It is outrageous that we would be cutting corners on treating wounded warriors. Thank you, admiral. I look forward to working with you on this.
▶ 2:36:32Chair Wyden: Senator rosen.
▶ 2:36:35Sen. Rosen: Thank you chairman wicker and ranking member read. Thank you for your service and for being here. I want to talk about operational tempo and readiness reporting. Cyber operations forces are always in high demand but they have been an extra high demand since cyber combos established which has been exacerbated by the challenges of getting the unit readiness numbers up.
▶ 2:37:08Sen. Rosen: I have to imagine that the operational tempo of those forces is also increasing dramatically. General rudd, can you give us a sense of what the trend is for the op-tempo of cyber national mission for us?
▶ 2:37:24Gen. Rudd: I appreciate the attention on this topic. As we would expect, very high demand and a very high operational tempo for our cyber warriors. In support 24/7 of the joint force across a number of problems. This really speaks to the heart of one of the attributes of cyber calm to plano that we refer to as optimize unit phasing.
▶ 2:37:50Gen. Rudd: Think of a cycle upon which you rotate, this is where we have a lot to gain from understanding south comm's model for years. Admiral bradley and I were part of a system that had a rotational force effort. Granted there are surges and we account for those but part of that is the size of the force and bring in sufficient capacity to be able to operationally employ the force continuously across a number of problem sets.
▶ 2:38:21Sen. Rosen: You did not know what my next question would be but the status of implementing the 97 recommendations, what is data and the resources needed to implement them especially when standing up three enabling organizations.
▶ 2:38:41Sec. Sutton: Thank you for that question and your focus on the cyber topic over the years. From an implementation perspective as you mentioned there are a lot of tasks. The approach that we are taking is within my office I have built a team that is dedicated to have the implementation process and one of thing that is really exciting about that is it features contributions from all of our service fiber components and we have brought in people who have been in our force for a long time that are now having
▶ 2:39:12Sec. Sutton: The opportunity to build the system that they wish they would have had. It is the unicorns we are trying to build at scope and scale that are coming in and helping to write the details and develop the models of how we keep careers going to build mastery.
▶ 2:39:33Sec. Sutton: From a resource perspective we have included funding for the cyber command 2.0 initiatives from the president's budget including funding the start incentive pay to get mastery incentives implemented as well as for some of the enabling organizations and some of the other service requirements to get this to speed and look forward to being able to execute that upon passage of the budget for fy 27.
▶ 2:39:57Sen. Rosen: I will stick with cyber operations because I want to talk about intelligence capabilities. General rudd, the responses to our advanced policy questions during your nomination process, you mentioned the criticality of foundational intelligence to protect cyberspace operations and the need to keep pace with operational needs.
▶ 2:40:19Sen. Rosen: As we all know the fy 25 ndaa set a requirement for department of defense to establish a cyber intelligence capability to provide that support. General rudd, we have the ability to shape this foundational intelligence capability from the start so can you elaborate based on your experiences what you would like to see incorporated in this foundation intelligence capability, please.
▶ 2:40:48Gen. Rudd: Senator, the reference to my past experience I would tell you intelligence drives ops and ops drives intelligence. It is a continuous cycle. What we have learned over decades of fighting alongside each other in it variety of places is the intelligence apparatus has to be closely linked to understand the operational side of this. I have not had the chance to dive into this yet.
▶ 2:41:15Gen. Rudd: It is going to be part of my initial assessment and I'm happy to come back to you for the record as I look more closely at that.
▶ 2:41:21Sen. Rosen: I look forward to that. We have a lot of work to do.
▶ 2:41:25Chair Wicker: Senator slotkin, we are doing everything we can to keep you from asking your questions. Senator banks, you are recognized.
▶ 2:41:36Sen. Banks: General rudd, can you talk about how the pla is using artificial intelligence to enhance its military operations?
▶ 2:41:48Gen. Rudd: That is something we are paying attention to. The details of which I would rather go into in a closed session.
▶ 2:41:58Sen. Banks: You can vaguely talk about how artificial intelligence is used in where fair -- in warfare. Adam think there is anything classified about that. You would agree that they are using artificial intelligence?
▶ 2:42:13Gen. Rudd: It is quite clear that they are.
▶ 2:42:16Sen. Banks: Thank you. That being the case would you agree that a.I. Is a dual use technology?
▶ 2:42:25Gen. Rudd: Senator, dual use in what sense both for nonmilitary and military? Senator, that is a fair way to characterize it.
▶ 2:42:35Sen. Banks: How important is it for the U.S. to have more and better high end chips than china?
▶ 2:42:43Gen. Rudd: Senator, I would take that category more broadly and say I think it is critical that the U.S. has the technological advantage in every aspect of war fighting and certainly as we see an increase in the advent of the application of artificial intelligence, we will have to make sure that we retain and maintain our advantage in that and move as fast as we can.
▶ 2:43:12Sen. Banks: I believe today we have the advantage. I think you have said that, to maintain our advantage. What would happen if we lost that advantage?
▶ 2:43:22Gen. Rudd: Senator, this team will do everything we can to make sure that we don't do that. Certainly we are working furiously to do that. And we will not be complacent. We won't be satisfied. In my opening statement I emphasize four operating principles, speed, scale, innovation and integration.
▶ 2:43:44Gen. Rudd: If we press as hard as we can to apply those principles to everything that we are doing but in particular in an effort to maintain our advantage in the highest tech areas, we will be ok.
▶ 2:43:55Chair Wicker: It would be completely unacceptable if we lost that?
▶ 2:44:01Gen. Rudd: It would be unacceptable and we will make sure we do everything to retain that.
▶ 2:44:06Sen. Banks: I understand there are a lot of things you cannot say in this setting but it is important for the american people to know that the critical nature of us keeping that advantage and the role that high end chips play in all of that, you already agreed that it is important that we maintain high end chips for america and for our own use and to develop our own technologies and how
▶ 2:44:37Sen. Banks: Dangerous it would be if our adversary gained an advantage on those on that front or even that we would give away our chips to our adversaries. Does that make sense?
▶ 2:44:43Gen. Rudd: Yes, it does make sense. That is a critical piece of how we will maintain our advantage and we also have to understand and expect that capability will be distributed and available to others which is why this continuous cycle of maintaining our edge is really important.
▶ 2:45:06Sen. Banks: I will move on. Last week president trump said that "america's aging and constrained electric grid infrastructure poses an increasing threat to national defense is -- national defense -- national defense." what risks do cyber attacks pose to our critical infrastructure?
▶ 2:45:34Gen. Rudd: Certainly a vulnerability. Awareness of that is the first line of defense and making sure that experts in this field know how to get ahead of it, know how to apply the best cyber defenses and certainly to the extent we are able and we have the capacity we want to make sure that we are working with the right folks to protect our critical infrastructure.
▶ 2:45:58Sen. Banks: I assume what president trump is saying about the infrastructure would extend to transportation nodes. Would you agree with that?
▶ 2:46:09Gen. Rudd: I will not speculate on what the president meant specifically. I have not had that conversation with him. It is important that we figure out what the definition of critical infrastructure is, prioritize where to put our efforts to safeguard it.
▶ 2:46:29Sen. Banks: My time has expired.
▶ 2:46:31Chair Wicker: Thank you very much. Senator slotkin.
▶ 2:46:35Sen. Slotkin: Thank you. I want to support everything that senator banks just said and go back to the topic on the classified a.I. Race. We cannot talk about it here but I don't think the american public understands how important it is to win that race, that it is the equivalent of winning the nuclear race. Whoever gets there first.
▶ 2:46:59Sen. Slotkin: If we were healthy as a country, then elected officials from both sides of the aisle would be focusing on this constantly to make sure we win this race. In that spirit, general rudd, congratulations on being in the seat.
▶ 2:47:16Sen. Slotkin: The thing that has caught the attention of a lot of us is the announcement in the last three or four weeks by anthropic and openai of new comment's, the openai product having a long name. They are testing the new product very differently than a commercial product. They are testing it like a weapon.
▶ 2:47:42Sen. Slotkin: They have provided mythos to 50 big companies for them to stress and stress test and figure out the vulnerabilities. Microsoft is one of those companies. They are announcing 270 new patches just last week which we assume mythos picked up.
▶ 2:48:05Sen. Slotkin: I was concerned about this new step we are taking and how it supercharges cyber attacks that I did a big zoom yesterday with I.t. Professionals from our hospitals and schools on how to protect against this threat. It is the nsa or cybercomm testing mythos right now will be this moment to test out our own vulnerabilities?
▶ 2:48:29Gen. Rudd: This is a critically important topic. The way you described it was appropriate. What I do not want to do is speak to one specific model.
▶ 2:48:46Gen. Rudd: What we need to think about is the application and the access to early all future models that we see in terms of the capability that the most current models and the new models potentially implied -- our networks.
▶ 2:49:09Sen. Slotkin: We have two companies, this is public information. They have come out with these products in the past month. It sent to the cybersecurity world and commercial sector spinning that we now have this supercharged a.I. Technology that finds these vulnerabilities. I am asking if the pentagon or the nsa is testing out either of these models.
▶ 2:49:32Gen. Rudd: Senator, we are looking at all models that we think have the power --
▶ 2:49:38Sen. Slotkin: Yes. I want you to be using them, experimenting with them. The pentagon has had a public fight with anthropic. This is public information. I am making sure that the newest hottest a.I. Power to cybersecurity models are being used by the pentagon on cybersecurity. I'm taking your answer is yes and correct me if I'm wrong.
▶ 2:50:04Sen. Slotkin: Let me turn to another c1 we are headed toward a summit with the chinese president on may 14. Huge deal in the world of negotiation and security. And I'm just concerned that there is a topic on the table of allowing chinese vehicles into the united states. I think the chinese have shown themselves to be bad actors when it comes to collecting data on american citizens.
▶ 2:50:36Sen. Slotkin: They hacked the president and vice president's phones during the campaign. Volt typhoon, getting into her infrastructure. They stole a bunch of our reference, probably yours, definitely mine in 2016 from opm. They are not positive factors. This body banned huawei and tiktok because of the data they were taking on americans.
▶ 2:51:00Sen. Slotkin: Can you say aloud, I asked others in uniform this last week, do you believe that allowing in chinese cars with full-motion video, geolocation, the ability to be hacked via bluetooth, do you believe that is a threat to our military bases, or critical infrastructure and generally to collecting on american citizens?
▶ 2:51:23Gen. Rudd: Senator, I think we need to take into account any technical -- any technological application that poses a threat against our bases, our service members, and make sure we do everything we can.
▶ 2:51:42Sen. Slotkin: I would love the chairman's help. I have tried for two years to ban chinese vehicles from our military bases. Our military bases with all of these chinese cars, they can already get on, they have 15% market share in mexico. I would hope this committee could do the banning of them collecting on our military bases. I get back. -- I yield back.
▶ 2:52:03Chair Wicker: Thank, senator slotkin. This concludes today's hearing. I would like to thank our witnesses further testimony, for the information, for the record will be due to the committee within two business days of the conclusion of this hearing. Thank you very much for your information and your testimony today, and we are adjourned.