Source: United States Senator for Nebraska Deb Fischer
WASHINGTON, D.C. – During a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing this week, U.S. Senator Deb Fischer (R-Neb.) questioned General Glen D. VanHerck of U.S. Northern Command about investing in tools to further defend the homeland from threats like hypersonic missiles and high-altitude surveillance balloons, as well as malign activity by Russia and China in the Arctic.
Click the image above to watch video of Sen. Fischer’s remarks
Click here for audio
Following is a transcript of Senator Fischer’s questioning:
Senator Fischer: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, General VanHerck, for your many, many years of service to this country. It is deeply respected and also appreciated. On your unfunded priorities list, you included several requests for programs to strengthen Domain Awareness, allowing us to better detect and also to track potential threats. Can you describe in detail some of the capabilities you’ve requested and why they are so vital for your needs?
General VanHerck: Thanks, Senator. Absolutely, over-the-horizon radar capability acceleration would procure a test asset. It’s $55 million to go faster, to give us the capability. Rather than fielding capabilities in eight-to-ten years, maybe we could shorten that to four-to-five years to enable me to get after the hypersonics that I described earlier, the cruise missiles, etc. By the way, I need Canada to do the same thing. A fielding of a capability in a decade from now is not where we need to be. So, those are some of the dollars there. There’s $55 million. There’s $211 million in nine long-range, mobile radars that would help me plug the gaps when we have radar failures or to get after critical defense infrastructure, if tasked to do that as we move around the country. I can move those radars to give me additional Domain Awareness. That’s a couple of examples.
Senator Fischer: Okay, thank you. I know that NORTHCOM is required to track all kinds of threats to the homeland, from the Chinese spy balloons to hypersonics that you mentioned. Do you have the tools you need right now to be able to defend against them—not just to track them but to defend?
General VanHerck: Yeah, so for the high-altitude balloon, I think we’re in a good place for that. For hypersonics and cruise missiles—hypersonics specifically, the U.S. Space Force’s proliferated low Earth orbit capability, and satellite constellation will get us there—along with the HBTSS that MDA is working on. But we can’t wait decades to field these things. So, any way that we can accelerate those capabilities—let me give an example. We’re stuck in an industrial age process for acquiring, and we field things in serial processes. In today’s digital and information environment, we can virtually test. We can virtually do things in parallel. These are things we should do differently to field capabilities faster. I would also ask for your help here in Congress. When we go faster, we may have some failures. Let’s not take a two-year investigation of those failures. Let’s jump back on the horse and ride and move forward. And we have to be as transparent in the department with Congress as possible and make sure that you’re part of the discussion.
Senator Fischer: We always learn from failures, too. In fact, in many cases, we learn more.
…
Senator Fischer: Thank you. General VanHerck, have you seen any advances or movements from China or Russia in the Arctic lately?
General VanHerck: Absolutely, Senator. Russia has modernized their fleet of icebreakers. They modernized their strategic defenses along there, their submarine forces. China is sailing into the Arctic under the guise of research vessels, and we know they’re doing military operations, surveying the seabed. You’ve seen that recently as Canada released their recovery of a Chinese buoy. Those are all things that are ongoing in the Arctic right now.
Senator Fischer: And General Richardson, do you see China presently working even harder to build access and influence in Latin America?
General Richardson: Absolutely, Senator.
Senator Fischer: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
# # #