Committee will come to order. Last week, the Committee Held classified and unclassified sessions on the state of the world or more accurately, the state of the world environment in which the American Military must operate and u. S. National security must be protected. I was struck by the essential point general petraeus made that we face many threats and can overcome any of them except perhaps what we do to ourselves. Today, we turn to the state of the u. S. Military. I continue to be concerned and sometimes even disturbed by evidence that is accumulating on the damage inflicted upon our military in recent years and the stresses our forces are under. That damage comes from a variety of factors including budget cuts of 20 , continuing resolutions, the failure to recognize or at least admit and then address mounting readiness problems as well as the shrinking size of the force while keeping the tempo of operations high. There is certainly plenty of blame to go around between both parties
Services committee is chaired by texas congressman mack thornberry. Committee will come to order. Last week the Committee Held classified and unclassified sessions on the state of the world. Or more accurately the state of the world environment in which the American Military must operate and u. S. National security must be protected. I was struck by the essential point general petraeus made that we face many threats and can overcome any of them except perhaps what we do to ourselves. Today we turn to the state of the u. S. Military. I continue to be concerned and sometimes even disturbed by evidence that is accumulating on the damage inflicted upon our military in recent years and the stresses our forces are under. That damage comes from a variety of factors including budget cuts of 20 , continuing resolutions, the failure to recognize or at least admit and then address mounting readiness problems as well as the shrinking size of the force while keeping the tempo of operations high. Th
Committee will come to order. I would like to welcome our Witnesses Today as the Committee Examines military Cyber Operations. I note that just about exactly two months ago, president obama confirmed for the first time that the u. S. Is conducting Cyber Operations against isis. And as the leadership of the department of defense was discussing this, they said it was the first time that Cyber Command has been given the guidance to go after isis. Just like we have an air campaign, we want to have a cyber campaign. And some of the press went on to discuss that secretary carter was pushing for u. S. Cyber command to have greater freedom to launch attacks and to address tactical Cyber Threats against isi isis. The Department Defense capabilities to fight and win the countrys wars and be prepared and ready to execute those missions remain on solid footing regardless of which domain we are talking about, including the cyber domain. The department has been developing organizations capabilities
Document. When secretary signed the document, he directed the department to focus its efforts on three primary missions in cyber space. One, defend the department of information, department of Defense Information Networks to assure our dod missions. Two, defend the United States against Cyber Attacks of significant consequence and, three, provide full spectrum cyber options to support contingency plans and military operations. Another key part of our strategy is deterrence. Dod is supporting a comprehensive Cyber Strategy to deter attacks on the u. S. And our interests. This strategy depends on the totality of u. S. Actions, to include declaratory policy, overall defensive posture, Effective Response procedures, indications and warning capabilities and the resiliency of u. S. Networks and systems. I am proud to say that the department has made important strides in implementing dod strategy since it was signed in 2015. My colleagues and i look forward to going into greater detail on our
We are integrated in with the private sector well. Were going to continue to grow that, whether its through the Defense Innovation unit, experimental out in Silicon Valley, that secretary carter stood up. How we lerchlveraged the skills that the National Guard and sources bring and we leverage those skills as integrating those folks into the Cyber Mission force or continue to work with the private sector in response to Cyber Attacks through exercises such as cyber guard. So, we already are working with the private sector pretty well, i think. Were going to get better at that. And were leveraging the skills of the National Guard and reserve folks as part of the Cyber Mission force. But you dont see anything in the works like what israel did, for instance, where there would be an actual consolidation into one location . That is a much smaller country, obviously. Right. I would say that i dont see that. No, sir. I think we have good coordination and collaboration through the department of