Mike Rounds Asks DoD Nom About Evolving Threats From Cyber Artificial Intelligence And Space Domain

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During a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing last week, Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) questioned Justin P. Overbaugh, nominee to be Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security, about addressing threats from adversaries in the cyber and space domain.

Transcript

00:00And thank you very much. Senator Rounds. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First of all, to all of you,

00:05thank you for your offer of additional service to our country. Mr. Overbaugh, how would you

00:11recommend addressing the evolving threats posed by near-peer adversaries in the domains of cyber

00:17artificial intelligence in space? It would appear to me that right now there is an overarching

00:26challenge from multiple near-peer adversaries with regard not just to air, land and sea, but space

00:35and cyberspace. The areas that you will be overseeing include both cyberspace and really space

00:42coordinated. Talk to us a little bit about how you see your role in terms of coordinating our

00:47response to those adversaries. Senator, thank you for the question. We've already had a little bit

00:55of experience dealing particularly with a soft space cyber triad. And it's a critical effort

01:02because as we continue to push into new domains to meet adversarial threats across the globe,

01:08we have to stitch those domains together in a way that achieves combined effects for the warfighter

01:14and in defense of the American people. As it relates to cyber threats that you mentioned, I am concerned

01:20about the threats to our critical infrastructure, the disinformation that can come through cyber

01:25threats and also zero-day exploits. And I think some of our solutions in zero-trust architecture,

01:32active cyber defense, private-public collaboration, and offensive cyber capabilities are tools that we

01:38would be able to bring to bear to meet those threats. And space threats, the presence of ever-increasingly

01:47sophisticated ASAT weapons, particularly interested in space-based surveillance of our enemies as well

01:55as jamming and spoofing are of significant concern to me. And so I would look to advocate from the

02:03position that I'm being nominated, resilience and redundancy in our constellations, as well as

02:09ensuring complete space domain awareness and encouraging commercial partnerships to ensure that

02:15we're able to meet those threats effectively. One of the items, Senator Cotton started on this

02:19line of questioning a little bit, and I want to pursue it a little bit more. There clearly are

02:24stovepipes, some intended, some unintended, with regard to the sharing of information between Title 10

02:29and Title 50 participants. But you've also added another item in, which is also critical, and that

02:36is the private sector as well, which adds additional challenges. Could you talk about what your role is

02:42in terms of making sure that appropriate information is shared and that we make the most out of the

02:47information that we do gather? Senator, I believe that the Defense Intelligence and Security Enterprise

02:57has a role in ensuring that we identify the threats accurately so that both public and private entities

03:04can work effectively to design solutions to deal with those threats as opposed to coming up with

03:13solutions that don't match up with the threats that we face. Thank you. Mr. Zimmerman, look, I've got

03:19just one real quick question for you, and that is basically right now we've got the possibility if we

03:26have an adversary, one of our near-peer adversaries, confronting us in one theater, there's a very, very high

03:33probability that we'll have a second near-peer adversary confronting us in another theater.

03:38How do you see your role in terms of coordinating with our partners to make sure that we have the

03:43best advantages to be able to deal with two threats in two different theaters?

03:50Senator, I appreciate the opportunity to talk about this just for a moment.

03:53I think the threat that you've articulated is one that requires utmost attention and underscores the

04:04relevance of this administration's emphasis on partnering with allies and for them to take

04:11greater ownership and take seriously their need to boost defense spending. If confirmed to the role,

04:18one of the principal aspects of the job, as I understand it, is to manage defense relations in

04:25the area of responsibility. If confirmed, I would do all I can to partner effectively with allies and

04:35partners to ensure that their security capabilities are at a level where we can have the right posture

04:42to address the threat you're describing. So partnerships are extremely important and if

04:47if confirmed to the role, I would take that seriously. Thank you. Mr. Lohmeyer, the B-21 Raider

04:53coming online shortly, probably one of the best and finest of the major projects out there on time on

04:59budget. Currently, we're coordinated to have about a hundred of them in. Clearly, that's not going to be

05:05enough. Would you seriously consider any requests out there to increase the number of B-21s that could be

05:11acquired by the Air Force as the needs arise? Senator, this issue is also very important to me.

05:18One of my priorities is going to be modernizing the nuclear enterprise and of course the B-21 is

05:23an important piece to that and I understand that 100 B-21 program of record discussion to be rather

05:29maybe a floor and I'm very open to discussing more. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

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