Hearings to examine the Department's cyber force generation plan and the implementation plan.
Senate Subcommittee on Personnel
2026-01-28
Source: Congress.gov
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to really focus the department's efforts to achieve these outcomes that are going to be critical to all future conflicts going forward. Thank you. Just in order to make sure that all of our members get an opportunity to speak, and we're going to do several rounds of questions, I'll defer right now to Senator Rosen and... I'm going to defer to Senator Gillibrand because we're here the whole time and everyone has a lot of hearings going on.
So, Senator Gillibrand, you're recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Madam Vice Chairman. General Hartman, since the fiscal year 2017 NDAA, CyberCom has had the authority over the training of assigned joint forces conducting specialized courses of instruction. Monitoring and promotion of cyber operation forces coordinating with the military departments regarding assignment retention training education and special and incentive pays for cyber operation forces The command has been the joint force trainer for almost as long much as cyber comm 2.0 appears to be Tinkering with this space rather than fundamental reimagining Can you speak to why the command did not take these steps before and why you believe this is this is a dramatic transformation?
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Unknown
Senator, thanks for your questions. As you point out, in 2017, we were given certain authorities, but what we didn't have control of at the time was the funding, Senator. And so, as you're aware, in 2023, we were given enhanced budget control. There were a series of issues that actually caused us to not receive that control of that funding until 2024. And so while we had some authorities, we really had no enforcement mechanisms. And we have started to execute those enforcement mechanisms, and we've seen benefit from that. Senator, CyberCom 2.0 does not intend to totally reinvent how we train the force. But what it does intend to do is make sure that the services are held to the standard of 1,000-level training. Okay, the CyberCom J7 will continue to execute 2000 level training. So basic training by the services, qualification through CyberCom, which we've made a lot of progress on the last two years. And then what CyberCom 2.0 is really going to bring is advanced and specialized training. moving at the pace of industry that is really required that will allow us to both compete and really plan to outpace China. That is the construct that we're laying out. Thank you.
Secretary Sutton, while the services largely say cyber is important, It is not a top priority for any of them. Agreeing to a notional plan is easy, but the services are notoriously protective of their control over the recruiting, retention, and talent management. How will your office hold services accountable and ensure they do not steamroll cybercom on career and talent management? And I will just say that this committee, we have had hearing after hearing year after year And we have drilled down to how many personnel you're getting from each service and which services are slower than the other and what level of staff you can acquire. And frankly, it is never good enough. So I just really want to know how you intend to succeed. Senator, I appreciate your question and understand the frustration. I think you're really highlighting what is fundamental about Cyber Command 2.0, which is involvement at the Secretary's level to really coordinate and make sure that the services are all doing things consistently and that we rise everybody to the top bar. We see best practices and pockets across the services, but have historically lacked a coherent effort to bring all those together and rise all levels up It is going to require hard discussions internal to the building. It's going to require prioritization. And we have a clear direction from the Secretary of the War, from Secretary of War when he approved this plan about the importance of bringing up the, of increasing the lethality of our cyber warriors. I look forward to having all those internal battles within the Pentagon because I think it is fundamental to what we owe our cyber warriors that come to work every day and do this mission. is to be able to train them and retain them in ways that allow us to maintain the world's most competitive cyber force. It was just reported that China approved the import of the H200 chips to ByteDance, Alibaba, and Tencent. These companies all work closely with the Chinese military, and just a few months ago, reports indicated a White House memo raised concerns that Alibaba provided support
for PRC military operations against targets in the US. If these sales go through, what impact will this acquisition of H-200s have on their ability to target the US military and US critical infrastructure? Senator, I haven't studied that. and so I'll agree to get back to you with an answer. Thank you. And just my last point. I'd like to hear from each of you. I still don't understand why you don't want a cyber academy. I just don't know why you don't want a service academy that will just train the personnel you need
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