[House Hearing, 119 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.A.S.C. No. 119-24]
DEFENSE INTELLIGENCE ENTERPRISE POSTURE HEARING
__________
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE AND SPECIAL OPERATIONS
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED NINETEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
HEARING HELD
MAY 15, 2025
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
61-765 WASHINGTON : 2026
SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE AND SPECIAL OPERATIONS
RONNY JACKSON, Texas, Chairman
AUSTIN SCOTT, Georgia JASON CROW, Colorado
TRENT KELLY, Mississippi WILLIAM R. KEATING, Massachusetts
NANCY MACE, South Carolina JARED F. GOLDEN, Maine
MORGAN LUTTRELL, Texas SARA JACOBS, California
CORY MILLS, Florida PATRICK RYAN, New York
DEREK VAN ORDEN, Wisconsin GILBERT RAY CISNEROS, JR.,
PAT HARRIGAN, North Carolina California
ABRAHAM J. HAMADEH, Arizona DEREK TRAN, California
Alex Igleheart, Professional Staff Member
Will T. Johnson, Professional Staff Member
Austin Richards, Research Assistant
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Crow, Hon. Jason, a Representative from Colorado, Ranking Member,
Subcommittee on Intelligence and Special Operations............ 2
Jackson, Hon. Ronny, a Representative from Texas, Chairman,
Subcommittee on Intelligence and Special Operations............ 1
WITNESSES
Gard-Weiss, Dustin J., Performing the Duties of Under Secretary
of Defense for Intelligence and Security....................... 3
Hartman, LTG William J., USA, Acting Commander, U.S. Cyber
Command; Performing the Duties of Director, National Security
Agency......................................................... 5
Kruse, Lt Gen Jeffrey A., USAF, Director, Defense Intelligence
Agency......................................................... 6
APPENDIX
Prepared Statements:
Jackson, Hon. Ronny.......................................... 29
Gard-Weiss, Dustin J......................................... 31
Hartman, LTG William J....................................... 34
Kruse, Lt Gen Jeffrey A...................................... 39
Documents Submitted for the Record:
[There were no Documents submitted.]
Witness Responses to Questions Asked During the Hearing:
Mr. Mills.................................................... 47
Questions Submitted by Members Post Hearing:
Mr. Hamadeh.................................................. 51
Mr. Kelly.................................................... 51
DEFENSE INTELLIGENCE ENTERPRISE POSTURE HEARING
----------
House of Representatives,
Committee on Armed Services,
Subcommittee on Intelligence and Special Operations,
Washington, DC, Thursday, May 15, 2025.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 3:00 p.m., in
room 2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Ronny Jackson
[chairman of the subcommittee] presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. RONNY JACKSON, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM
TEXAS, CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE AND SPECIAL
OPERATIONS
Dr. Jackson. Good afternoon. I ask unanimous consent that
the chair may declare a recess at any time. Without objection
so ordered.
Today you will hear from our witnesses let me start by
saying really quickly here just to kind of set the room here a
little bit. We are having kind of sparse attendance today just
so everyone knows. There are a couple of factors in play.
We have a couple factors in play here. One is that votes
are cancelled tomorrow so folks are preparing to get out of
town right now. And number two is that we have some other
hearings going on with all the reconciliation stuff, including
several of our members are on the Veterans Affairs Committee,
and they have a full committee right now hearing with the
Secretary. So we will have members that come and go. And I just
want to make sure everybody kind of knew what was going on. But
we have myself and the ranking member, so I think we will be
good to go.
Okay. Today we will hear from our witnesses on the Defense
Intelligence Enterprise, or DIE, and how the DIE is postured
for Fiscal Year 2026 and beyond.
The Department of Defense is focused on strategic
competition, particularly countering the People's Republic of
China and ensuring our Armed Forces have the tools,
capabilities, and the training needed to succeed in any
environment.
But we know the strategic competition is only one of the
many challenges our forces are called to address. We must also
ensure that we are supporting all the geographic combatant
commands to counter whatever threats may arise.
Intelligence enables leaders to make informed decisions,
especially in an increasing complex world, thereby enhancing
their lethality, survivability, and capability to provide for
our nation's defense. Ensuring we have a Defense Intelligence
Enterprise that is capable, robust, and synchronized is
critical to all of us.
This is a challenging task at hand and one we look forward
to working with the Department on to make sure that we are
accomplishing this.
Understanding each of your roles in these efforts will help
us ensure your organizations have the capabilities needed and
the resources required to accomplish your individual missions.
We look forward to hearing from you about Defense
Intelligence Enterprise, the priorities, the strengths, the
challenges, and the ongoing synchronization efforts within the
Defense Intelligence Enterprise.
I would like to welcome today's witnesses from across the
Defense Intelligence Enterprise, Mr. Dustin Gard-Weiss,
performing the duties of the Under Secretary of Defense for
Intelligence and Security. Welcome, sir. Lieutenant General
William Hartman, Acting Commander, United States Cyber Command,
performing the duties of the director of the National Security
Agency, and chief, Central Security Service and welcome,
General. And lastly, but not least, Lieutenant General Jeffrey
Kruse, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency.
In the interest of time, I ask that the witnesses will keep
their opening remarks to five minutes or less so that we have
sufficient time for questions and answers.
I would also like to point out that we have an open session
and a classified session. What we will do here is as soon as we
are done asking questions, which would, based on the limited
number of members that we have here, could go quickly, we will
go immediately to the classified session and get that started.
If we go a full hour, then we will break because we have
votes scheduled at 4 o'clock and then we will come back for the
classified section in the classified area after votes.
With that, let me thank our witnesses again for appearing
today. And now I recognize Ranking Member Crow for any opening
remarks he would like to make.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Jackson can be found in the
Appendix on page 29.]
STATEMENT OF HON. JASON CROW, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM COLORADO,
RANKING MEMBER, SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE AND SPECIAL
OPERATIONS
Mr. Crow. Thank you, Dr. Jackson, and thank you to our
witnesses for their testimony today, for coming in and
answering our questions as well.
You know, the focus of this committee, which is a very
bipartisan committee, is on the products and deliverables to
the folks down range. As a former special operator, and there
are many who sit on this committee, this is a mission that we
take personally that cuts to the men and women who we know, we
serve with, and we obviously have a deep obligation to serve.
And those of you who are in uniform I know share that mission
deeply. You have committed your lives to that.
We also know the global security environment is
increasingly volatile, and we can't overstate the need for an
agile, capable and synchronized Defense Intelligence
Enterprise. Malign actors like China and Russia are adapting
their strategies continuously learning from lessons in Ukraine
and fragile places around the world in conflicts that continue
to rear up day-to-day and week-by-week.
That's why the focus of this committee again is making sure
that we cut through partisanship. That we focus on the
deliverables. And that's why I am also increasingly concerned
by some of the proposals and actions of this administration.
Some reports of politicizing personnel cuts, of slashing
very critical positions, of potentially manipulating
intelligence if it doesn't fit a specific narrative, I want to
try to get to the bottom of that. We are not going to do that
in this hearing because a lot of that is sensitive stuff. We
will take that up under closed session.
But just to let people know, these are important questions
that have to be answered because the men and women who are not
here, who we have an obligation to serve, obviously deserve the
best materials and the best products.
I am also very concerned by some of the proposed cuts of up
to 8 percent in some of your agencies. You know, I am for
government reform. I am a government reformer. And there are
always efficiencies. There is always fat to be found. There is
always ways of doing something better.
But, you know, I've been doing this for a while. And, you
know, I know that your agencies are some of the leanest and
meanest and most efficient within the government. And across
the board, an arbitrary cut of 8 percent goes into muscle and
bone and not just fat.
And the result of that could be an America that is
substantially less safe in operators and military around the
world that don't get the products and deliverables that you all
are charged with delivering for them.
So those are some of the questions. Those are the things on
my mind. Again, we want to be productive. We want to make sure
that we keep the men and women in uniform foremost on our mind
and just make sure that we work together in a bipartisan way,
which is what we always do. That doesn't mean we don't have
tough disagreements sometimes. We are no stranger to that here.
But, again, with the ultimate mission in mind. And with that, I
yield back.
Dr. Jackson. Thank you, Mr. Crow. I appreciate that. And I
share Mr. Crow's concerns as well about some of the budget cuts
and some of the personnel reductions.
You know, we both understand how important what you do is
to the safety, security of our troops and our national
security. And we want to make that we can do everything that we
can to make sure that those aren't impacting your mission.
With that, we will now hear from our witnesses.
And Mr. Gard-Weiss, we will hear from you and the floor is
yours.
STATEMENT OF MR. DUSTIN J. GARD-WEISS, PERFORMING THE DUTIES OF
UNDER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR INTELLIGENCE AND SECURITY
Mr. Gard-Weiss. Thank you, Chairman Jackson, Ranking Member
Crow, and distinguished members of the subcommittee. It is a
privilege to appear before you, along with my colleagues, to
testify on the current posture of the Defense Intelligence and
Security Enterprise to confront the array of global threats and
challenges facing the United States and our allies and
partners.
The intelligence and security experts across the Department
of Defense work tirelessly to collect, analyze, and address
current and future threats in support of the President's
priority to achieve peace through strength.
These experts comprise the enterprise that provides
intelligence informed insights and options to the Secretary of
Defense in support of the Secretary's priorities of restoring
the warrior ethos, rebuilding the military, and re-establishing
deterrence.
To that end, the Military Intelligence Program, or MIP,
reflects the America First Defense policy agenda and strategic
priorities of the President and Secretary of Defense and is
developed in close coordination with the director of National
Intelligence.
I am joined today by General Joe Hartman, performing the
duties of the director of the National Security Agency, and
Lieutenant General Jack Kruse, the director of the Defense
Intelligence Agency.
They each will offer their perspectives on how the Defense
Intelligence Enterprise is aligned to support our warfighters
and speak to the threats that our enterprise must address.
Once it is released in the coming weeks, Congress will see
how the Fiscal Year 2026 Military Intelligence Program budget
request reflects focused investment in capabilities and
initiatives to position the Defense Intelligence and Security
Enterprise to support the Secretary's three priority lines of
effort as outlined in his guidance on the development of the
2025 National Defense Strategy.
Defend the Homeland by providing intelligence support to
seal our borders against illegal immigration and narcotics
trafficking, advance America's interests in the Western
Hemisphere, and enable the Golden Dome, President Trump's next-
generation missile shield.
Deter China in the Indo-Pacific through a new generation of
intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities
matched to the threat in support of combat-credible military
forces in the Western Pacific.
Support increased burden-sharing with allies and partners
to maximize return on investment while ensuring America's
interests always come first.
The Military Intelligence Programs will emphasize
rebuilding our military intelligence capabilities by reviving
our defense industrial base, reforming acquisition processes,
including a greater focus on better informing Department of
Defense investments with intelligence and rapidly fielding
emerging technologies.
It prioritizes investments in American workers and
technology while maintaining strategic partnerships with key
allies. The Military Intelligence Program will develop and
retain critical intelligence capabilities domestically,
focusing on American interests to maintain our position as the
strongest and most lethal force in the world.
I will also note that the Military Intelligence Program
will reflect the Secretary's emphasis on strategic discipline
and fiscal responsibility, including optimizing and aligning
our workforce, and his commitment to passing a financial audit.
These and other priorities reflect the Enterprise's continuing
focus on providing decision advantage against near-peer
competitors.
In summary, the Military Intelligence Program will support
the Department's ability to execute its programs needed to
address these global challenges. And your support is critical
to achieving the President's vision of peace through strength
and ensuring that our intelligence capabilities remain second
to none.
I thank the subcommittee for its leadership and support.
And I look forward to answering your questions here and in our
closed section.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Gard-Weiss can be found in
the Appendix on page 31.]
Dr. Jackson. Thank you. I appreciate that.
And General Hartman, you are now recognized for five
minutes.
STATEMENT OF LIEUTENANT GENERAL WILLIAM J. HARTMAN, ACTING
COMMANDER, U.S. CYBER COMMAND; PERFORMING THE DUTIES OF
DIRECTOR, NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY
General Hartman. Chairman Jackson, Ranking Member Crow, and
distinguished members of the Committee, I am honored to be here
today representing the men and women of the National Security
Agency and United States Cyber Command. Thank you for this
opportunity to testify before you today with my Department of
Defense Intelligence Enterprise colleagues.
At the National Security Agency, our workforce supports our
policymakers by providing unique, timely, and exquisite
insights for the nation's top priorities. As a combat support
agency, we provide critical support to our warfighters in
countering a multitude of threats facing the nation today and
in the future.
The men and women of both Cyber Command and National
Security Agency are the key to our mission success and serve as
our competitive advantage across all of our mission sets.
China remains our pacing threat. Countering their efforts
to challenge the United States as well as their aggression in
the Indo-Pacific is a top priority.
United States Cyber Command and National Security Agency
are focused on using the full scope of our authorities and the
full spectrum capability to counter China's aggression.
We remain ready and postured to contest China's malicious
activities across the globe in lockstep with our allies and our
United States government and industry partners.
United States Cyber Command and National Security Agency
remain focused on achieving mission success across the spectrum
of the President's priorities relayed to us in the Interim
National Defense Strategic Guidance.
In developing our Fiscal Year 2026 budget request, in
partnership with the Department of Defense and the Office of
the Director of National Intelligence, National Security Agency
has focused on administration priorities, including defending
the homeland, modernizing our capabilities, as well as on our
core function of code-making and code-breaking.
As examples, both organizations have taken comprehensive
and concrete actions in support of homeland defense, including
improving our support to United States Government disruption
activities with cartels operating in Mexico and along
thesouthern border and in the development of Golden Dome for
America.
Our nation is confronted with an increasingly complex and
dynamic threat landscape in the cyber domain. However, I want
to assure you today that United States Cyber Command and
National Security Agency are at the forefront of this
challenge, armed with unparalleled capabilities and insights
that place us at an advantage against our most formidable
adversaries.
Our dedicated professionals are actively defending the
nation, including the Defense Industrial Base, from
sophisticated nation-state actors and cyber-attacks. We are not
merely reacting to intrusions. We are proactively identifying
and analyzing the tools and tradecraft our adversaries are
sharing. We share these critical discoveries publicly and with
our partners to empower a collective defense that strengthens
our nation.
I know this Committee is highly supportive of our missions
and our people. And I am thankful for the opportunity to
testify in front of you today.
[The prepared statement of General Hartman can be found in
the Appendix on page 34.]
Dr. Jackson. Thank you, General. I appreciate that.
And General Kruse, the floor is yours.
STATEMENT OF LIEUTENANT GENERAL JEFFREY A. KRUSE, DIRECTOR,
DEFENSE INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
General Kruse. Chairman Jackson, Ranking Member Crow, and
distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you for the
opportunity to present the Defense Intelligence Agency's
assessment of the worldwide threats to our nation and our
posture to address these increasingly complex challenges.
Defense Intelligence Agency is dedicated to providing not
only the warfighter, the acquisition community, and the senior
administration officials with timely and accurate intelligence,
but also to the Congress to assist in your role in countering
threats to the United States.
The men and women of Defense Intelligence Agency in 140
nations around the global are focused every day on delivering
intelligence that strengthens defense of the United States
homeland, enhances warfighter lethality, supports effective and
efficient acquisition and countermeasure development, counters
foreign intelligence entities attempting to steal United States
information or penetrate our networks and supply chains, and
increases mission sharing and interoperability with trusted
United States allies and partners.
Our efforts are more timely and more important than ever.
The current threat landscape is changing more rapidly than at
any time in my 35 years in uniform. Our adversaries are
deepening cooperation with each other across multiple domains
and developing and proliferating advanced technologies which
generate novel methods to threaten our interests.
Starting in the United States homeland, we face a twofold
threat. First, along our southern borders, transnational
criminal organizations, drug traffickers, and terrorist groups
are attempting to circumvent host nation laws and evade United
States law enforcement, including by exploiting migration flows
toconduct activities aimed at harming United States citizens.
Our longstanding cooperation with United States law
enforcement agencies has enabled Defense Intelligence Agency to
respond quickly. And Defense Intelligence Agency has surged
analytic, collection, scientific, and technical capabilities to
support United States Northern Command, United States Southern
Command, the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland
Security, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Second, our adversaries are pursuing technological advances
to improve their ability to directly threaten the United States
homeland with military capabilities, including expanding the
scale and sophistication of their conventional and nuclear-
capable missile systems.
China and Russia are building a diverse array of delivery
systems to exploit gaps in current United States ballistic
missile defenses. They are developing hypersonic glide vehicles
as well as Fractional Orbital Bombardment Systems, which are
Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles, that enter a low altitude
orbit before reentering to strike targets.
The Defense Intelligence Agency is currently providing the
authoritative intelligence assessments to assist the department
in designing and deploying the necessary defenses to support
the Golden Dome for America initiative. And, during the future
operational phase, Defense Intelligence Agency will provide
collection, sensor networks, data fusion, and operational
support to detect and counter strategic missile threats to the
homeland.
Our priority threat, as described in the Interim National
Defense Strategic Guidance, is China. The Chinese Communist
Party is rapidly developing military capabilities across all
warfare domains, air, land, sea, space, and cyber. And all of
these are designed to seize Taiwan by force while preventing
intervention by the United States or other third parties.
Along its periphery, China is executing multi-domain
pressure campaigns against the Philippines, Taiwan, and others
that resist its territorial claims.
In response, our China Mission Group stood up in 2022 to
synchronize Defense Intelligence Agency and enterprise
analysis, collection, and intelligence operations against the
global China threat. And since then, numerous intelligence
disciplines have increased collection by at least 30 percent
against China. And we have brought new collection and
exploitation capabilities online.
Defense Intelligence Agency has also increased analytic
production by double digits. And through our Machine-assisted
Analytic Rapid-repository System, or MARS, and the Common
Intelligence Picture efforts, we are delivering next-generation
foundational military intelligence to the warfighter and soon
will deliver real-time, authoritative, force tracking data
layers to enable all-domain, Artificial Intelligence-enabled
battlespace awareness, warning, and sensor-to-shooter
capabilities.
Additionally, China's advancements in Artificial
Intelligence, biotechnology, quantum sciences, and
microelectronics are heightening the threat environment and
positioning Beijing to dominate a range of advanced and
emerging technologies that are foundational to military
innovation.
Beijing is working to integrate Artificial Intelligence
into a variety of military capabilities, including uncrewed
systems, decision support systems, Intelligence, surveillance,
reconnaissance, cyber, and influence operations. And to meet
this challenge, Defense Intelligence Agency is redesigning its
collection strategies and enhancing Measurement and Signature
Intelligence, Human Intelligence, and open source capabilities,
ensuring that we stay ahead of emerging threats and
technological advancements.
Regarding other threat actors, Russia remains a
significant, aggressive, and enduring threat to the United
States and its neighbors.
Moscow has remained steadfast in its demands for Ukrainian
neutrality, authority over the size of Ukraine's armed forces,
and is a further partitioning of the Ukrainian state.
Russia will continue its military strategy of attrition,
focused on degrading Ukraine's ability and will to resist,
while facing its own significant losses of equipment and
personnel.
With this threat environment in mind, I want to thank you
for the opportunity to provide our insights and our
perspectives during our discussions today.
It is an honor to join my colleagues, Mr. Gard-Weiss and
Lieutenant General Hartman, before this subcommittee. I am
truly privileged to lead the Defense Intelligence Agency and
represent its talented and dedicated workforce, who serve with
distinction and in harm's way all across the globe.
We are grateful for your support, and I look forward to
your questions.
[The prepared statement of General Kruse can be found in
the Appendix on page 39.]
Dr. Jackson. Thank you, General. I appreciate that. And we
will begin questions, and I will start by recognizing myself.
Mr. Gard-Weiss, I was just going to ask you a real quick
question here. I will just read this real quick because some in
our audience may not fully appreciate this. But the U.S.
intelligence community is statutorily comprised of 18
organizations, 9 of which are elements of the Department of
Defense, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Security
Agency, the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, the
National Reconnaissance Office, U.S. Air Force Intelligence,
Surveillance and Reconnaissance, U.S. Army Intelligence, U.S.
Naval Intelligence, U.S. Marine Corps Intelligence,
Surveillance and Reconnaissance Enterprise, and U.S. Space
Force Intelligence. That is a big piece of the pie.
I would like to ask you, and I won't say, are you getting
everything that you need because the question to that answer is
usually no. But do you think that your piece of the pie, of the
Department of Defense budget, is sufficient to do what you are
being asked to do today?
Mr. Gard-Weiss. Chairman, thank you for the question. I am
incredibly proud of the work that our enterprise does today in
support of the Department of Defense, our warfighters, our
commanders, the Secretary, and the President.
The threat environment that we are facing is increasingly
complex. You mentioned in your opening statement that we are
facing China, the pacing threat, while we are responding to
events around the world.
Right now what I can tell you is that we are postured and
aligned to support the priorities of the Secretary. And I look
forward to having a conversation with you once we are able to
discuss the details of the Fiscal Year 2026 budget about the
areas where we are taking risk and how and where we are
aligning those resources to ensure that we are taking less risk
in priority areas.
Dr. Jackson. Thank you. I appreciate that. And I will do
everything I can, and I know the other members of this
committee as well, to make sure you have everything you need
because our warfighters obviously can't do their jobs without
the support that you provide.
For General Kruse and General Hartman, I just want to ask
you a real quick question. I think you both touched on this or
mentioned this in passing. I know, General Kruse, you did with
regards to China in your opening statement. But with regards
to--you know, and this is partly why I asked this question as
well because we understand that the big focus in the military
for the last few years has been to pivot and to break our
competition away from counterterrorism so on and so forth. But
we also understand, and General Kruse and I recently talked
about this, that the counterterrorism mission did not go away.
It is still there. Support still has to be provided.
But then you have other things that are also, you know,
really gaining--I am sure taking lots and lots of your time as
they become more and more a part of your day-to-day
expectations and, you know, what you are going to have to deal
with regards in particular to artificial intelligence, machine-
learning, and now open source intelligence.
Can you tell me, are we keeping up with that? And in what
ways are you approaching that so that we don't get behind the
Chinese on this?
And what is your biggest hurdle here? I mean, what are you
not getting or what is your biggest concern regarding what I
just mentioned in the day-to-day conduct of your mission? I
will start with either one.
General Hartman, do you want to start?
General Hartman. Chairman, thanks for the question. From
our standpoint, we continue to be laser-focused on China. And
our plan to meet that threat is really dependent on technology
like artificial intelligence.
We know the Chinese force is larger than us. And the way
that we scale to meet that challenge is by leveraging the
talent of our workforce and the technology that we have access
to, particularly our relationship with private industry, which
in the United States, we still have a strategic advantage as it
relates to technology like artificial intelligence. And I
believe that we will continue to remain so.
Dr. Jackson. Okay. Before we go to General Kruse, I was
just going to ask you real quick, so do you think--are you
having any issues with recruiting people? I know that is always
an issue. But are you getting good people that understand these
issues, that want to come into the organization, versus going
off into the private sector?
And are there any authorities that you don't have? I mean,
it is going to cost more money obviously. We understand that.
But are there any authorities that you need from Congress that
you don't have to stay on top of this and outpace the Chinese
on this?
General Hartman. Chairman, we continue to get
extraordinarily qualified young people from the Services and
from the civilian community that are experts in artificial
intelligence and high performance computing and machine
learning.
We certainly need the resources to provide them the
technology that they need to work the problem. We have got a
great plan for that. I think we will be able to talk about that
plan more when the budget comes out.
But right now I believe that we are very well-positioned.
We have a roadmap thanks to our work with Congress. We have
stood up an artificial intelligence task force. We have
executed over a dozen pilots. And I do believe we are
positioned well.
From an authority standpoint, there are really no
authorities that we don't have right now in order to execute
this plan.
Dr. Jackson. Thank you, sir. General Kruse, do you have
anything to add on that?
General Kruse. Just very briefly, I will just echo what
General Hartman said. The workforce at Defense Intelligence
Agency, we prioritized in the most recent series of personnel
reductions and workforce optimization, the retention of our
younger, probationary, and recently recruited personnel because
of the skills that they bring. And I think that will pay
dividends for us in the long run.
To your earlier question about where are we balancing and
how are we taking risk? What I would offer is as the Department
writ large and as a nation writ large focuses on the priorities
that are articulated appropriately by the administration, there
is a need for a minimum capability to reside in the low
priority theaters against counterterrorism. And I think that is
the intelligence community's responsibility to be able to
continue to collect at a certain level, to be able to give
policymakers the opportunity to address those threats should
they arise.
And so for me, it is--the challenge that we have is how do
you balance the remaining capability on the lower priority
systems while we move out extraordinarily aggressively? And I
think when you see the 2026 budget come forward, you will see
Defense Intelligence Agency and the administration reaching
heavily into the current priorities. And we look forward to
additional conversation about how those will balance in closed
session.
Dr. Jackson. Thank you, General. I will have some more
questions I will ask you in the classified session. And I am
going to yield back now and recognize Ranking Member Crow for
as much time as he would like.
Mr. Crow. Thank you, Chairman. I wanted to start by
visiting this 8 percent cut issue. And again, I am in favor of
efficiencies and trying to find them where we can find them.
And there are places where we could find savings for the
American taxpayer.
But this 8 percent cut, and I understand that some of your
entities, you are able to define that just by expediting
retirements, you know, kind of natural attrition within your
organization. But I would love both of you, General Hartman and
General Kruse, to very briefly talk about what the impact is
going to be as you currently understand it. I know you are
still working through it.
I will start with you, General Hartman.
General Hartman. Ranking Member, thanks. You know, each
year at the National Security Agency, we lose approximately 7
percent of our workforce through natural attrition. The
difference in the 8 percent this year is it will be executed
over a much shorter period of time, really about a 90 day
period. And so that will be impactful.
That being said, all of the personnel that are leaving the
agency have done so on a voluntary basis. They have generally
been retirement eligible. And they have taken advantage of one
of these programs that allow them a bit more advantageous
circumstances to leave.
We are a large agency. We have a tremendously skilled
workforce. And I do believe that we will have senior leaders
that will move into the position and continue to execute the
very important mission that we have to defend the nation at the
National Security Agency.
Mr. Crow. General Kruse?
General Kruse. I think I would relay similarly every year
we have 4 to 6 percent attrition across the agency. So we will
do an accelerated, you know, version of that this year.
Our targets were, as you saw from the Secretary, 5 to 8
percent. We will certainly achieve those percentages. But I
have faith that the younger generation will step into those
leadership positions.
To answer very specifically what is the impact, for those
more senior people that are leaving, what I am losing very
clearly are senior leadership. I am losing expertise. And I am
losing combat experience. But I go back to there are people
that are mid-grade that are going to step into these roles that
also have combat experience from our 20 years of Counter
Terrorism and will pick up the flag and run with the baton as
quickly as possible.
In a closed session, I am happy to tell you where we are
taking more risk than others. There will be impact, but I think
great Americans are going to step into these roles.
Mr. Crow. And I have no doubt of that. I mean, I have no
doubt that these younger talented folks will step up and do
their best. You know, I think about my military time, and you
all have experienced this a lot more than me. There is this
process called the relief in place. When we were in Iraq and
Afghanistan, and I was being replaced by a unit, it's called a
RIP. And you know this. You RIP out the other unit.
And it is essential that those units overlap. And they have
to overlap because the unit that had been there that knew the
locals, that knew the threats, that had learned all the lessons
from the sector, all of that knowledge had to be transferred to
the new unit. And if it didn't, if you didn't have that
overlap, that knowledge was lost. And the new unit had to learn
the lessons the hard way, sometimes with blood.
So when you talk about expedited losses and retirements and
accelerated timelines, to me it seems like we are losing that
overlap that is essential, and there is going to be costs to
it. General Hartman?
General Hartman. Ranking member, thanks for those points.
It will be more challenging, all right? And because of that--
but we do know who is going to lead the organization. And for
the most part, we know who is going to replace them.
And it is my job as the person performing the duties of the
National Security Agency to have a plan and to execute a plan
that ensures we can continue to provide this fundamentally
important mission for the nation.
And I am going to do that. And it will be difficult, but
that is what they pay leaders for.
Mr. Crow. And you are a Ranger--
General Hartman. I am a Ranger.
Mr. Crow. --like me.
General Hartman. Absolutely.
Mr. Crow. So you have been given a mission, and there is no
doubt in my mind you will execute it to the best of your
ability. But now it is incumbent on us in Washington to make
sure that the mission you have been given is actually smart and
makes sense. General Kruse?
General Kruse. One additional thing the Defense
Intelligence Agency has in its arsenal is in addition to the
headquarters and all the centers that are directly reporting to
me, I also man the J2s out of each of the combatant commands as
well as the Joint Staff J2. And that allows me when I have
holes in expertise in very specific areas to move personnel.
So for example, some of the key leadership positions, they
are showing up on the joint staff. We are bringing in personnel
from United States Indo-Pacific Command to fill these roles to
try and achieve exactly what you are talking about. How do you
do a RIP, a replacement in place, when you are not actually in
place?
And so we are working through the lessons learned that we
have done and as we have led our units in previous ways. What
is the modern version of that using modern technology?
Mr. Crow. Well, you all have a very hard task ahead of you.
And I am not going to wish you luck because luck doesn't do it.
We are going to work hard to make sure that we resist policies
that don't make sense and that would put America in danger and
that we support you in that mission.
Thank you. I yield back.
Dr. Jackson. Thank you, Mr. Crow. And Mr. Cisneros from
California, you are recognized for five minutes.
Mr. Cisneros. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate
that.
Lieutenant General Hartman, you stated just a few minutes
ago, right, you continue to get top talented individuals that
come in, but it does take all of these individuals to kind of
get trained up and built up to speed.
And General Nakasone used to always state that, you know, I
get these individuals. They are there with me for like two to
four years, and it is time for them to transfer, right at the
time where they actually start to get good at what they are
doing.
I would like to see how we can change that. I don't know if
you feel the same way. I am going to assume maybe you do,
right, that, you know, you get these individuals built up and
they get good at what they are doing and then it is time for
them to leave and transfer to something else.
But how can we kind of work with you to kind of get it
where maybe we can kind of get out of this mold, which is we do
it this way because it is the way the military has always done
it. You are in a duty station two to three years, and it is
time for you to transfer. But we are losing a lot of that
knowledge and kind of shortening up and building that expertise
before somebody goes on and moves to something else.
But I would like to hear from you how maybe we can kind of
fix that and get to them--instead of getting them to the point
where they actually become good, keeping them there and
allowing them to build their skills instead of transferring
them.
General Hartman. Congressman, thanks for the question. I
100 percent concur with your analysis. We have over the last
couple of years made significant progress working with the
services in order to do really three things.
One is to extend the tour length for an individual after
they become fully mission qualified. And that's really
important because at that point we can employ an individual,
you know, to their greatest capability in order to work the
mission. So that is the first piece.
The second is a number of services for key work roles have
supported multiple tours in either the National Security Agency
or United States Cyber Command.
And then the third piece that we are really working is to
ensure synergy between assignment policies at the National
Security Agency and United States Cyber Command for the same
work role. And so allow a servicemember to move between the
agency and the command in a way that best utilizes their
training and experience for the good of the nation.
I think we are making good progress. And we have got a plan
to continue to do so moving forward.
Mr. Cisneros. And General Kruse, I am sure the same thing
happens in the Intelligence Agency, so I would love to hear
your response, too.
General Kruse. Certainly. The workforce that Defense
Intelligence Agency enjoys actually gives us a little bit of a
buffer here. Seventy percent of my workforce is civilian and
about half of those are former military. So I have this
fantastic mix of civilian, former military, and active duty
military.
We have worked over the last couple years to start to
extend our civilian tours as we rotate around the globe, and
several of the services are looking at doing the same thing. So
that becomes really important for us.
And then for new mission areas where I have low density,
just small numbers, for example in the cyber realm, where we
man the Cyber Command G2, but we are also building up some
additional capability at Congress' direction, my intent is to
have those career paths actually be from service cyber into
National Security Agency into Cyber Command into us so we can
keep people in the same mission space regardless of tour
length.
Mr. Cisneros. All right. Well, anything we can do to
support that legislation-wise or anything, please let us know.
We are happy to support that fully.
Lieutenant General Kruse, another question for you. We know
during the Trump, the first President Trump Administration, he
was at times kind of very cautious about some of the
intelligence that he received from our staff and even had a
tendency to maybe believe it from somewhere else. And we can
either take this here or maybe take it in the next room.
But, you know, how can you work with the administration to
ensure that what you are giving them is going to be heard and
that it is going to be kind of taken in as for what it is and
that this is actually good intelligence that you are presenting
them?
General Kruse. I think you just hit on both sides of the
coin. I think we owe a candid intelligence assessments, non-
political, the best we can do, the most authoritative
regardless of source and then provide that. And it is building
a trust relationship from all of our stakeholders.
We have done this for warfighters for many, many years. I
have worked with Special Operations Forces. There is a really
dynamic feedback loop. You are either good and you are trusted
or you are not.
And the same thing is actually okay with the
administration. Our goal is to provide the most accurate
intelligence that we can and build a trust relationship over
time. And that is my intent to do so.
Mr. Cisneros. All right. Thank you both for your answers.
Thank you all for being here. And I yield back.
Dr. Jackson. Thank you, Mr. Cisneros. And I now recognize
Mr. Scott from Georgia for five minutes.
Mr. Scott. Thank you, gentlemen for being here. And we all
know that our prior president ignored the advice from his
military commanders with regard to Afghanistan and other key
areas. Fortunately, we have a President now that is willing to
secure the border.
And so my question gets to you, Mr. Gard-Weiss. With the
President's direction to leverage defense capabilities to
reduce the flow of illegal immigrants and fentanyl and other
illegal drugs that are killing American citizens across our
borders, how is the Defense Intelligence Enterprise providing
support to that mission?Mr. Gard-Weiss. Congressman, thank you
for the question. I am incredibly pleased with how the
Department has shifted and aligned rapidly to support the
President's priorities along the border, and that includes the
Defense Intelligence Enterprise.
We have surged defense intelligence analysts to support
both Northern Command as well as Homeland Security CBP in
particular, Customs and Border Protection, in the sectors along
the border.
We have increased the use of, and actually for the first
time, leveraged airborne collection platforms, Intelligence,
Surveillance, and Reconnaissance platforms, to enable these
missions. And we have increased the priority in both of the
agencies to my left and right, increasing both the collection
and production in support of the priority, not just with
regards to migration, but also with regards to fentanyl and the
counter drug or drugs coming from our southern border.
Mr. Scott. Well, I think it is important that we do
anything and everything we can to protect the American citizens
from the flow of illegal drugs in this country. A lot of
Americans die from fentanyl, and we all know people who have
died from it. We had two young people in my area die from it
just a couple of weeks ago. And I hope we continue to increase
the pressure in the intelligence hearing to stop it.
I want to talk with you about integrating space-based
Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance with what we do.
The Tactical Surveillance, Reconnaissance and Tracking Program
provides commercial space-based intelligence to the warfighter.
How is the Department of Defense integrating commercial space-
based capabilities in its intelligence architecture?
Mr. Gard-Weiss. Congressman, we absolutely are. We are
leveraging commercial space-based capabilities across a range
of missions, whether it be for warfighting or for intelligence
analytic purposes, both Space Force, the National
Reconnaissance Office, and others.
I will also say that we are increasing the application of
that. We have seen that play both in terms of commercial,
electro-optical with pictures and radar, both in terms of
augmenting and complementing our national systems and our
government systems, that we have increased the use of that for
sharing broader use.
And frankly in some areas, they are just uniquely
positioned to support from a Department of Defense standpoint,
that includes foundation requirements to support National
Geospatial Intelligence Agency for mapping and a variety of
other purposes.
So, Congressman, we absolutely are focused on a space-based
commercial capabilities and how they can apply to the
Department.
Mr. Scott. I have one other question, and I want to preface
it with this. I know China is the priority right now. But it is
not the only mission that I expect we will have. And one of my
primary concerns is that as we draw down systems that will work
in non-near-peer engagements that we are drawing them down
faster than we are putting up systems that will work in the
near-peer engagements. So my question for you is did the
Department of Defense divest from kind of the traditional
intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance platforms and
more towards space-based sensors? I mean, how are we making
sure that our combatant commanders don't lose their abilities
right now that they need today in favor of future missions?
Mr. Gard-Weiss. Congressman, I believe that relative to
China, we are going to increasingly need to increasingly rely
on space. But also to your point, we need a range of
capabilities to give our combatant commanders options in their
theaters. And we are attempting to balance just that.
I believe that there will continue to be a requirement for
airborne platforms. But we need to balance that with our
investment in space. And I look forward to having a
conversation with you and the committee once we are able to
discuss our Fiscal Year 2026 budget proposal.Mr. Scott. Thank
you. Generals, I have several other questions. I will wait
until we are behind closed doors for that. Chairman, I yield.
Dr. Jackson. Thank you, Mr. Scott. Ms. Jacobs from
California, you are now recognized for five minutes.
Ms. Jacobs. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. And thank you
to our witnesses for being here. So first, the 2025 interim
national defense strategic guidance refocuses our intelligence
posture towards strategic competition.
How is the Defense Intelligence Enterprise aligning with
that new guidance while also ensuring its assessments of major
adversaries like China remain objective and free from
confirmation bias? Maybe General Kruse, you could start.
General Kruse. So the interim national security guidance
that we are all now transitioning to and implementing takes us
down a pathway. I don't know that it changes necessarily who
the threats are, but it reframes a little bit about where the
focus is and where we need to put a variety of our efforts.
So this somewhat ties back to Congressman Scott's question
in my view on the balancing piece. One of the things that the
Defense Intelligence Agency in particular owns is a lot of
other intelligence disciplines.
So for example, on the airborne intelligence, surveillance,
and reconnaissance layers, we pull that and reduce that in
other theaters, Africa, for example. It does become the human-
intelligence, the overt, the clandestine human-intelligence,
the technical collection, a variety of the other pieces, that
if we can stitch together along with commercial and open source
data, we start to fill in the blanks to go down that path.
What that does is get back, I think to your question, about
how do you avoid confirmation bias? It is making sure that you
are willing to go in and check all of the other all source
issues. For me, every problem now has to be an all source and
both an exquisite intelligence and an open source question to
get to the best possible answers.
Ms. Jacobs. Thank you. And Mr. Gard-Weiss, same question to
you.
Mr. Gard-Weiss. I echo General Kruse's comments with
regards to the pacing threat of China and strategic
competition.
I think that the alignment to focus on, as we discussed,
southern border, other priorities, I have every confidence in
our enterprise to ensure that the providing intelligence that
is free from bias in support of any decisions that may be made
by our warfighters and our leadership in the executive branch.
Ms. Jacobs. Okay. Great. Thank you. And then I want to talk
about Syria. And obviously I know we will have to do more of
that in closed session. But I actually agree with the Trump
Administration lifting certain sanctions to ease Syria's
humanitarian crisis.
How do you make sure that you all are getting the most
dynamic picture or the most accurate picture in this very
dynamic situation of what's happening? If you can, anything you
can say in open about sort of how you currently assess the
conditions in Syria following this policy change and what
possibilities, if any, you have seen since the political
opening. Maybe Mr. Gard-Weiss, I will start with you.
Mr. Gard-Weiss. Congressman Jacobs, if I might, may I refer
to General Kruse initially given this is in his analytical
expertise.
General Kruse. So I would offer there is probably two parts
to this. One is how are we making sure we understand what is
going on?
When the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham organization took over the
Syrian government, I would offer that is really the substantive
change. It is not the policy change. It is now what do we do in
response to that?
And we need a good partner that is going to allow us to put
pressure on the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and Syria and
other organizations. And so the policy change is about allowing
the ability to be able to do that.
As far as the ability to collect in there if we have a
smaller footprint or based on the changes we have seen over
time, what I would offer is we are relying heavily on allies
and partners. We are going back to some of the activities, some
of the human sources, a variety of the things that we did
during 20 years of counterterrorism and being able to go back
and try and leverage some of those accesses in intelligence
themes.Ms. Jacobs. Thank you. And to the extent you can talk
about it in open session, can you talk about sort of what the
threat from extremist groups like the Islamic State of Iraq and
Syria currently is?
General Kruse. I would offer that the Islamic State of Iraq
and Syria is getting stronger globally every day in small
areas. It is probably the most competent at external operations
planning and is increasing out of Syria in particular or ISI-K,
The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria - Khorasan, as being the
most likely to present a threat to Western governments. I think
beyond that, I would offer Al Qaeda in particular is more of a
regional threat against United States forces in particular
areas. And I would offer probably a richer conversation in
closed session.
Ms. Jacobs. I will look forward to that. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Dr. Jackson. Thank you, Ms. Jacobs. And Mr. Keating from
Massachusetts, you are now recognized for five minutes.
Mr. Keating. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And it has been a
privilege that I have had being in this committee because
gaining a new window insight over the servicemen and women that
serve our country.
Mr. Gard-Weiss, in the first few sentences of your
testimony, you said it goes to restore warrior ethos. So I
would like to ask General Hartman, General Kruse, have we lost
our warrior ethos? I haven't seen it. A simple yes or no would
be sufficient. Is this lost, our warriors' ethos is lost on our
servicemen and women? A simple yes or no will work.
Mr. Gard-Weiss. Congressman, our force continues to be
laser-focused on the threats before us.
Mr. Keating. General Kruse?
General Kruse. I am very proud of the warrior ethos that my
organization displays every day around the globe.
Mr. Keating. So, Mr. Gard-Weiss, could you do me a favor
and define what you think warrior ethos is? What did we lose
here? What was lost? I didn't think it was missing.
Mr. Gard-Weiss. Congressman, from my perspective, it is
about ensuring that we are foresighted on the needs of our
warfighter. And that in my mind in a simplistic for our Defense
Intelligence Security Enterprise is ensuring that that is
consistent with the Secretary's priorities for the department.
Mr. Keating. So the Secretary defines warrior ethos?
Mr. Gard-Weiss. The Secretary has set strategic priorities
for the Department of Defense. My obligation in this seat is to
ensure that our Defense Intelligence Enterprise--
Mr. Keating. No. One of your first sentences is that we
have got to restore warrior ethos. I didn't know it was lost.
Where is it? What is it?
Mr. Gard-Weiss. Congressman, I think my statement was
referring to the fact that our postured to support the
Secretary's priorities, one of which is being to restore
warrior ethos.
Mr. Keating. What is that? It was one of your first
statements.
Mr. Gard-Weiss. I look forward to--
Mr. Keating. What does it mean to you? What does it mean to
the Secretary, I guess, that is what it is all about? If it was
so important that it was in the beginning and so important that
we lost it, you have to tell us what is gone before we can find
it again. I mean, you said it has to be restored. Please just
enlighten me.
Mr. Gard-Weiss. Congressman, my obligation is to ensure that our
enterprise is postured to support--
Mr. Keating. I know that you said that. What is warrior ethos you
keep talking about? The Secretary keeps talking--I am hearing it all
the time. It is lost somewhere. We have to find it. Where is it and
what is it?
Mr. Gard-Weiss. Congressman, I refer back to my statement, which is
to ensure that our enterprise--
Mr. Keating. I was referring back to your statement, too, sir. The
first thing was warrior ethos. Look, I am going to move on to another
issue that concerns me. It was in all the opening statements, really.
And you know, we are facing an 8 percent mandatory personnel cut. And
so we have got some hard decisions in front of us.
And you all mentioned about the Golden Dome. So Mr. Gard-Weiss, can
you tell me the cost of the Gold Dome, the Golden Dome? I know there is
an Iron Dome in Israel. And I have an idea of what that costs. And
Israel is very small, land area and United States is expansive. So what
is the cost of the Golden Dome?
Mr. Gard-Weiss. Congressman, I am not aware of what that cost is
for Golden Dome. I can tell you that we are postured from a Defense
Intelligence Enterprise to provide the intelligence and options in
support of homeland defense.
May I also just reference back to your comment regarding 8 percent
reduction. I think we have discussed that previously. I would be glad
to have a conversation with you about that as well.
I will also just say in that regard that we have presented the risk
to the Deputy Secretary and the Secretary for their consideration. We
are still waiting for the final budget to proceed. And so to say that
it was exactly 8 percent, we will determine what that looks like as we
bring the budget forward.
Mr. Keating. General Kruse, you mentioned one of the greatest
advantage you have personnel-wise are the young people on probationary
status that you have and the knowledge that they are accruing and what
they learned. Can you just comment on the value of those people on
probationary status?
General Kruse. I had approximately 875 people on probationary
status. And according to the executive orders and all the guidance that
we received, we removed them from service if they had performance
issues. And so there are a handful that we asked to depart government
service.
I was able to retain then a vast majority of those 875. And these
were people that we have intentionally recruited. They have got
Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics skills. They have got
cyber skills. They have got language skills. They have got really, a
passion for service and a patriotism that they want to join the U.S.
government and a Department of Defense organization. And I look forward
to seeing a part of our--
Mr. Keating. I just want to thank you for referencing that because
these are important parts of our entire federal workforce, not just in
the military. And thank you for highlighting that. I yield back.
Dr. Jackson. Thank you, Mr. Keating. Mr. Mills from Florida, you
are now recognized for five minutes.
Mr. Mills. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me first help out some of
my colleagues what warrior ethos is. Warrior ethos is prioritizing the
warfighter so that they can guarantee they have everything they need to
do their job based on meritocracy, not based on diversity, equity,
inclusion.
To go to another one of my colleagues who had made a comment that
President Trump and the first administration didn't listen to the
intelligence that was provided, I would argue that the former Under
Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness also didn't listen,
which is why we have such a recruitment deficit. So we may want to talk
about some of these things in a closed session at any time.
I would like to get to the panel now that we have debunked some of
the nonsense on this committee.
How is Artificial Intelligence going to contribute to our ability
to thwart a lot of the cyber and a lot of the economic resource and
supply chain warfare that China is engaged in? Lieutenant General
Kruse?
General Kruse. So I will leave a little bit of the cyber piece for
General Hartman because that is more of his bailiwick. But I would
offer Artificial Intelligence is the only way we are going to be able
to sift through the large volumes of data that shows what adversary
actors, foreign intelligence enterprise agencies and foreign industry
and research activity, and what they are trying to deliver and what
that technology is trying to deliver.
Artificial Intelligence is critical to help us synthesize that
data. And then tip and cue sort of the experts that we have, the
Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics population that we
have, to start to distill where is China taking their activities and
then how do we get ahead of that either through supply chain work,
through cybersecurity, and a variety of other areas.
The key for me on Artificial Intelligence though is you have got to
deploy it. You have got to trust it. And you have got to be able to do
independent verification and validation of the outcomes of the
Artificial Intelligence, facts that you can trust and its support data.
Mr. Mills. And General Hartman, if you could just kind of enlighten
me on--
General Hartman. Congressman, thanks for your question. The force
that we face in China is significantly larger than ours, but our
workforce is more talented. And our ability to arm that talented that
workforce with artificial intelligence is the way we get to scale as it
relates to the China problem.
We use it every day. We use it in all of our operations. And I
would look forward to in a closed session to be able to cover that in
more detail with you.
Mr. Mills. Thank you so much. You know, obviously the United States
Indo-Pacific Command fight is one that we are eyeballing heavily with a
potential unification of Taiwan, knowing that that would impact 92
percent of semiconductor and microchip capabilities. Also why it is so
important to eliminate the double taxation on Taiwan and be able to do
more onshoring, which is truly what the America First agenda is about,
is American innovation, American workers, American solutions.
But I am not convinced necessarily based on coastal defense plans,
based on seventh fleet capabilities, based on a hub and spoke strategy
that China is really willing to go all in on this strategy. I think
economically it doesn't necessarily make for a sound strategy. They
have too much to lose, I think, from an economic perspective, knowing
their economy is far worse off than our own.
I think that--one of my big issues that I face is not understanding
how the director of defense trade controls is holding $9 billion,
however, of Taiwanese money for defense stuff that has not ever been
exported.
Is there any reason that you can think of of why these types of
goods and defense materials would be held as opposed to just getting
them there to be more of that porcupine, that spiky sense, to prevent
China from even thinking it is a plausible three-month strategy?
And I will let you, Mr. Gard-Weiss, if you would like to--just
anyone to hit on it. But like you are 100 percent on the warrior ethos
stuff. Regardless of what our colleague might have said, that is
exactly what the Secretary of Defense is doing right now. And that is
exactly what we are getting back to is the old days of be all you can
be, which is what it was during my days in the Army.
Mr. Gard-Weiss. Congressman, thank you. I am not familiar with that
issue, so if I can take that for the record, we would be glad to get
back to you--
Mr. Mills. Please.
Mr. Gard-Weiss. --with a response.
[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix on page
47.]
Mr. Mills. And I would love to see the Pentagon put pressure on the
State Department Directorate of Defense Trade Controls to get those
DSP-5 approvals and make sure we can export the necessary goods because
this wasn't even American. This isn't Foreign Military Sales or Foreign
Military Financing money. This is $9 billion that came from Taiwan to
buy goods, like Harpoon and other things, in an effort to try and
guarantee a more robust coastal defense plan. And so I would love to
see what that looks like.
With that, I think a lot of my other questions are going to be more
for the classified section. But I really appreciate your time and keep
the warrior ethos running. With that, I yield back.
Dr. Jackson. Thank you, Mr. Mills. And against my better judgment,
Mr. Van Orden, you are recognized for five minutes.
Mr. Van Orden. Thank you, I think, Mr. Chairman. I would remind my
colleague that we lost Afghanistan and Iraq. And so when we are looking
for lessons learned, you know, and how we should structure our forces
and do Replacement in Places and everything, we probably should look
somewhere else because we lost those wars. And we fought in them. And I
don't want to do that anymore.
And so when we look at how we gather intelligence and disseminate
it, I think we need to look at it a little differently because we
missed the collapse of Vietnam, the fall of the Soviet Union, 9/11,
Afghanistan being run over by the Taliban in five minutes, we missed
all of that, with over the decades trillions of dollars we invested in
the national intelligence architecture, right?
So I am saying we should take a knee and think about how we are
doing stuff and apply some non-linear thinking to this problem.
As far as my other colleague, who seemed to have stepped out, if he
goes to www.nsw.navy.mil and types in SEAL ethos, he will see a
document that me and 62 other SEALs wrote in 2005. And it describes in
ad nauseum exactly what the word ethos is.
And you are spot on, dude. Listen, Pete Hegseth is a warrior,
warrior. And we need warriors to lead warriors. Enough of this
pantywaist stuff going on. Forget about it.
The goal of the Department of Defense needs to be intimidating our
adversaries to the point where they don't attack us. But if they decide
to, we utterly destroy them and grind them into dust so we prevent
other adversaries from attacking us or our allies. Other than that, the
Department of Defense should be doing nothing.
So I have a question for you, sir. I am the longest serving
enlisted member of the military to ever get elected to Congress, and I
was also--did human intelligence at a very high level.
So are there any authorities that you cats are missing that we can
grant you congressionally to make sure that you can do your job to
protect us?
Mr. Gard-Weiss. Congressman, thank you--
Mr. Van Orden. Yes, sir.
Mr. Gard-Weiss. --for your statement and for the question. I think
we can provide some additional details in the closed session.
Mr. Van Orden. Okay. But suffice it to say for this setting, yes,
there are some additional authorities that would enable us to ensure
that we are able to operate in an increasingly challenging environment,
particularly in one of ubiquitous technical surveillance and others--
Mr. Van Orden. Roger that.
Mr. Gard-Weiss. --to enable us to be able to do what we can to
operate and succeed in that environment and decrease risk to those
individuals who are in harm's way.
Mr. Van Orden. Okay. Check it a notch up. Now here is the one thing
we need to talk about. When the Patriot Act came out, I was all for it.
I wanted to find everybody that harmed my country and kill them, right?
But the problem was, mission creep took place with the Patriot Act when
we started spying on American citizens. And everyone knows this to be
true.
So how are we going to make sure with additional authorities that
you guys don't allow mission creep to take place when we start, you
know, spying on American citizens again? What type of oversight things
do you have internally and what do you need from Congress to make sure
that we are watching the people that are watching people?
Mr. Gard-Weiss. Congressman, as to the additional authorities I was
referring to, they do not fall into that realm of collecting on
Americans. But in terms of the Patriot Act--
Mr. Van Orden. It should not. Listen, dude. I know everything this
sort of stuff about who can do what legally and all that. I am asking,
you know, how do we make sure that there is oversight in place so that
it doesn't happen again because it did happen? Let's learn from the
past. That is all I am asking.
Mr. Gard-Weiss. Congressman, I agree. We absolutely are learning
from the past, have implemented stringent compliance regime. I will let
General Hartman speak to how his agency ensures compliance with intel
oversight and U.S. person concerns in 12333 and the liken.
General Hartman. Congressman, thanks for the question. And I will
tell you that the day after I was put in the position of performing the
duties of the director of the National Security Agency, that the first
thing I spent most of my day on was compliance, right?
I believe we have learned lessons from the past, and we have a
rigorous compliance network that ensures we are accessing legally
collected information against foreign adversaries operating outside of
the United States in that we are doing everything humanly possible to
protect the rights of the American citizens.
Mr. Van Orden. General, that is exactly the right answer. So thank
you. And again, if we need to do something, you know, restructure
something for oversight, just tell us, and we will do it. We want to
eliminate the enemy but not at the cost of sacrificing Americans'
constitutional rights. So thank you for that.
General Hartman. Thanks, Congressman.
Mr. Van Orden. I yield back.
Dr. Jackson. Thank you, Mr. Van Orden. And this is perfect timing.
We are about to have to go to the floor to vote. Before we leave, I
would like to ask Mr. Crow, do you have any closing remarks you would
like to make?
Mr. Crow. I don't, Chairman. I think we can move it along to closed
session. Thank you.
Dr. Jackson. Absolutely. Thank you. And I just want to thank you,
the witnesses, once again for your time today. Thank you to the
gentlemen here in uniform and everyone else here in the room that is in
uniform for your service and your sacrifice. We deeply appreciate it.
We will be adjourning. We will reconvene in Rayburn 2337
immediately after votes on the floor. And with that, this hearing is
adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:01 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
=======================================================================
A P P E N D I X
May 15, 2025
=======================================================================
=======================================================================
PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
May 15, 2025
=======================================================================
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
=======================================================================
WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING
THE HEARING
May 15, 2025
=======================================================================
RESPONSE TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. MILLS
Mr. Gard-Weiss. The Department of Defense (DoD) is working
rapidly to enhance the defense capabilities of allies and
partners so they can effectively contribute to the collective
defense of the Asia-Pacific. Taiwan is a top priority for the
Administration, and DoD is using every tool at our disposal,
including security assistance and security cooperation
authorities such as Presidential Drawdown Authority and the
Taiwan Security Cooperation Initiative, to support Taiwan's
self-defense requirements to deter and deny an attack by China
in the Western Pacific region. Furthermore, DoD has reviewed
its processes and issued guidance to the foreign military sales
enterprise to accelerate arms sales to Taiwan to the greatest
extent possible. These efforts are essential to re-establishing
deterrence and enhancing our collective defense. At the same
time, Taiwan must continue to do much more for itself. This
starts by increasing its defense spending to a floor of five
percent and investing in asymmetric capabilities. [See page
20.]
=======================================================================
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING
May 15, 2025
=======================================================================
RESPONSE TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. KELLY
Mr. Kelly. The University of Mississippi has taken a national
leadership role in advancing narrative intelligence (NARINT) through
the creation of the National Center for Narrative Intelligence, working
with the DoD to analyze and counter malign narratives. Narrative
intelligence-the ability to understand, shape, and respond to stories
and messaging that influence perception and behavior - is a vital part
of information warfare. In light of Russia's use of AI to fuel
disinformation, deepfakes, and influence operations, what are your
agencies doing to cultivate and integrate NARINT to build national
resilience and counter foreign information threats across domains?
Mr. Gard-Weiss. I am not aware of any direct collaboration between
specific DoD intelligence components and the National Center for
Narrative Intelligence Initiative, nor the explicit application of
emerging narrative intelligence concepts. However, the Defense
Intelligence Enterprise (DIE) well understands the concept and engages
in related work critical to national security.
DIE analysts routinely assess adversarial perceptions of the United
States, our allies, and our partners. This includes analyzing how
adversarial beliefs and understanding are shaped by our statements,
operations, and activities. The DIE strives to discern and report on
changes in these perceptions, enabling us to better anticipate and
counter potential threats.
Furthermore, the Intelligence Community dedicates significant
resources to differentiating between genuine adversarial actions and
statements versus those intended for deception or intimidation. This
analysis is crucial for accurate threat assessment and effective
strategic decision-making.
Finally, the DIE recognizes the dual-edged nature of artificial
intelligence (AI). AI provides valuable tools for our own intelligence
analysis and enhances our understanding of adversarial narratives.
Simultaneously, we acknowledge the potential for adversaries to
leverage AI to create and disseminate disinformation, posing a
significant threat to our collective interests. The DIE is actively
monitoring and adapting to this evolving landscape.
Mr. Kelly. The University of Mississippi has taken a national
leadership role in advancing narrative intelligence (NARINT) through
the creation of the National Center for Narrative Intelligence, working
with the DoD to analyze and counter malign narratives. Narrative
intelligence-the ability to understand, shape, and respond to stories
and messaging that influence perception and behavior - is a vital part
of information warfare. In light of Russia's use of AI to fuel
disinformation, deepfakes, and influence operations, what are your
agencies doing to cultivate and integrate NARINT to build national
resilience and counter foreign information threats across domains?
General Kruse. [The information referred to is classified and is
retained in the subcommittee files.]
______
RESPONSE TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. HAMADEH
Mr. Hamadeh. Mr. Gard-Weiss, The threats we face across continents
and domains are unprecedented and growing. Is the Defense Intelligence
Enterprise doing enough to integrate reservists and guardsmen as a
surge force, or specialist pipeline?
Mr. Gard-Weiss. The Defense Intelligence Enterprise (DIE) actively
integrates Reserve and National Guard service members, leveraging
dedicated programs like the Joint Reserve Intelligence Program with its
28 geographically dispersed Joint Reserve Intelligence Centers. The DIE
does so to directly support intelligence training, readiness, and
operational requirements of the warfighter.
Mr. Hamadeh. Mr. Gard-Weiss, the 2025 Intelligence Community Annual
Threat Assessment says that cartels and terror groups are adapting
their smuggling methods and routes in response to the heavier U.S.
presence on the border. Specifically, how are the cartels and
terrorists preparing to counter our new border security? Do our troops
on the border have the intelligence resources to stay ahead of them?
Mr. Gard-Weiss. Transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) and
drug trafficking organizations (DTOs), often called cartels, function
like diversified corporations with various business units. Faced with
increased U.S. border security, cartels are diversifying their revenue
streams by focusing on drug markets outside the United States while
increasing criminal activities such as kidnapping, extortion, and fuel
theft within their own territories. To circumvent heightened security,
these cartels employ a range of surveillance techniques, including
covert observation posts, remote cameras, drones, and monitoring of
U.S. airborne intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance platforms.
Cartels also use advanced cellular telecommunications infrastructure
and exploit the vastness of the Pacific Ocean to dynamically shift
smuggling routes from land to sea.
Furthermore, TCOs and DTOs employ substitution tactics - replacing
regulated fentanyl precursor chemicals with unregulated alternatives to
avoid customs inspections. They also use camouflage and obfuscation,
such as hiding drugs in legitimate corporate shipments, or exploiting
U.S. citizens as unwitting or willing accomplices. Underground
tunneling likewise remains a persistent method to bypass sensors.
Despite these challenges, U.S. armed forces are committed to
adapting and using intelligence, technology, and tactics to protect
U.S. territorial integrity against unlawful mass migration, narcotics
trafficking, human smuggling and trafficking, and other criminal
activities. The Defense Intelligence Enterprise has prioritized this
mission pursuant to the President's Executive Orders on securing the
southern border and has sourced numerous U.S. Northern Command requests
for augmented intelligence support.
Mr. Hamadeh. Gen. Hartman, the Biden-Harris Administration's open
border disaster made our country and communities less safe, especially
border states like Arizona. In addition to the gangs we are all seeing,
are you uncovering more entrenched cartel, foreign intelligence, and
terror networks that flourished under Biden, and which must be
dismantled? As Director of the National Security Agency and head of
CYBERCOM, how do you balance the need to identify these foreign threats
inside America, with protecting the Constitutional rights of American
citizens?
General Hartman. [The information referred to is classified and is
retained in the subcommittee files.]
Mr. Hamadeh. Gen. Hartman, information and psychological warfare is
growing in prominence. How are we protecting our open-source analyst
networks and AI models from adversarial data poisoning, or synthetic,
fake news media manipulation?
General Hartman. [The information referred to is classified and is
retained in the subcommittee files.]
Mr. Hamadeh. General Kruse, the 2025 Intelligence Community Annual
Threat Assessment says that Mexican cartels executed 1600 IED attacks
against Mexican security forces in 2024. That's up from just three in
2020 to 2021. A Texas rancher was killed by one in February while
driving on his property that straddles the border. Some didn't want to
designate these cartels as terror organizations. In other hearings, we
talk about shifting our focus from counter insurgency and IEDs, to
near-peer nations and drones. But President Trump offered U.S. forces
to help Mexico stop these cartels. General, who taught these cartels
how to build IEDs, and how advanced are they? What emerging threats do
you foresee that could pull America into a counterinsurgency conflict
south of the border?
General Kruse. [The information referred to is classified and is
retained in the subcommittee files.]
Mr. Hamadeh. General Kruse, Syria is in a transition period, from
the Assad regime and the Syrian Civil War, to one where President
Sharaa is trying to unite the country. Is ISIS filling some of the
vacuum in Syria? How can we leverage President Trump's decision to lift
sanctions to prevent an ISIS resurgence, and limit more extremist
factions from emerging in Syria's new government? How do you see the
future of our mission in Syria?
General Kruse. [The information referred to is classified and is
retained in the subcommittee files.]
[all]