In ad jigs general tidd talked about combating the Opioid Crisis and improving elicit drug interdiction. The Senate Armed Services committee hosted this four and 45minute event. We will call the meeting to order. Were going to receive testimony from two of my favorite people, general lori robinson. I have to say i taught her everything she knows when she was the Wing Commander at teeinger air force base in oklahoma. And from kurt tidd, the commander for the u. S. Southern command. There is a lot of overlap. We, all three of us talked about this between the north and the south command and i think that is one reason that senator mc cain would want to have these meetings together. The new National Defense strategy, nds, identifies protecting homeland, sustaining american advantages in the western hemisphere as key priorities even as the dod focuses on the rising challenge of great power competitors. As we have seen from increasing economic and military efforts by china and russia to gain footholds in the americas, the boundaries between grout power and are getting blurred. One reason general dunford made the observation that we have, were losing our qualitative and quantitative edge on china and russia. General robinson, you are tasked with the addressing the missile and Nuclear Threats that we face. While i am encouraged by recent efforts to bolster the homeland Missile Defense system more need to be done to address the ballistic and Cruise Missile threats. I think particularly recently we observed others gaining talents we were not convinced they already had. Admiral tidd, in southcom you are on the front lines combating illicit networks, combating smuggling drugs and weapons and money, destablized countries along the way. External actors that present unique challenges in the theater that exist and lack sufficient resources. I think that we have a lot in common and for that reason were having these together and we look forward to your testimony and appreciate the time that each one of you spent in our office talking about the challenges that you guys have. Senator reed. Thank you, very much, mr. Chairman. Let me join you welcome being our witnesses general robinson, general tidd. Thank you for your Extraordinary Service to the nation. Please convey our thanks to men and women in your command we all know do the job every day for us. Thank you. General robinson your mission is to protect the homeland, deter and defeat attacks on the United States. We saw this in demonstrated in dods support to the states and territories affected by hurricanes, wildfires an floods in this past year. We thank you for that. You also dual hat at commander of the north of north American Defense command, norad, opportunities with canada to did heter and defend against threats to our nation. Youre also responsible for the operation of our homeland ballistic Missile Defense system. We look forward to hearing about your priorities for further improvements to the groundbased Missile Defense system this is particularly important in light of the growing threat from north korea. Lastly your relationship with the military leadership in mexico along with your collaboration with admiral tidd and other federal agencies is crucial to promoting security along our southern border. A number of problems at the border originate in the southcom area of operations and efforts to address those problems require a whole of government approach. Admiral tidd, you are on the front lines of the significant threat facing our nation, the Opioid Crisis n 2016 we saw 64,000 deaths from drug overdoses. Increase of 52,000 in 2015. What has made the crisis worse is that more and more americans addicted to opioids are turning to other dangerous drugs flowing into our borders from central and south america and asia. The flow of heroin and cocaine and other drugs like fentanyl into the country is exacerbating this crisis. Cocaine production in colombia is up as we spoke in our country as we spoke in the office and detable sizing the northern triangle as it works its way to our border and destroys lives here. I was encouraged that southcom held an opioid Conference Last Week which brought all the government stakeholders to Work Together on this program. It is important to recognize while our military has Important Role to play in the fight against narcotics in this country, we can only win with adequate resources for domestic agencies, food and drug administration, Drug Enforcement administration and department of health and Human Service i look forward to hearing about the outcome conference and southcoms efforts to stop the flow of narcotics in the United States. Increasingly russia and china are active in central and south america increasing millions of dollars to partner with latin American Militarys. General tidd, as you noted in the written statement, china pledged 500 billion in trade to latin American Country as 250 billion in Chinese Investment over next 10 years. Increased Economic Cooperation and con ebb continued provision of financing and loans have no Strings Attached provide ample opportunity for china to expand to promote fair business and labor practices. Im concerned about the cuts to the state department and usaid were not doing everything we can to position ourselves as partner of choice of neighbors in the region. General tidd i would like to hear how china an russia are investing in central and south america and how they pose a threat in the United States. Were observing the venezuelan crisis. And perspective how long the regime can survive and how the crisis can affect neighbor be countries. Im concerned about colombia with the disarmment and is ill equipped to deal with a long term es refugee problem in the region. General tidd and general robinson, thank you for your service. Thank you, senator reed. Well go ahead and hear Opening Statements by both of our witnesses and try to confine them to five minutes if you can. Your entire statement would be made a part of the record. Well start with you, general robinson. General robinson, i found out your husband was best friend and fellow f16 pilot with my best friend charles sublet in oklahoma. I was not aware of this i dont know how that went unnoticed. Sir, when you bring him to the witness table he has to tell the truth, nothing but the truth. Thats right. I will share that with charles. Yes, sir, please do, please dough. First of all i would really like to say to, we know that he is a figure here to senator mccain and his family. I know all of our thoughts and prayers are with him. Yes, of course. I wanted to extend that. I think that is incredibly important. You know, senator inhofe, senator reed, all the distinguished members of the committee, im honored to join you today. David and i are honored to join you today to testify alongside my friend, my shipmate, mo importantly my wing man kurt tidd. He and i do things arm in arm. 2017 was a challenging year. Northcom and norad addressed proactive actions by our adversaries while simultaneously providing defense support to civil authorities doing an historic series of natural disasters that required significant military capabilities and military manpower. However, i will say that those challenges were definitely handled by a team of absolute professionals, and i cant tell you, sir, how much im proud to represent all of them here today. In my 21 months of, as commander of nor regard and u. S. Northern command ive been so impressed by the dedication and vigilance shown bit soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, coast guardsmen, civilians, americans and canadians who stand ready to defend our nations and our fellow citizens. Looking forward i see no reason to believe that the threats to our homeland will decrease. Our adversaries continue to extend their operational reach and are developing new capabilities to reach targets in north america and in canada. Our preparations for these threats relies on a dependable budget. We appreciate all that this committee has done to help reach the twoyear budget agreement. In 2018 National Defense strategy recognizes a return to Great Power Competition and lays out a longterm strategy for addressing provocative behavior by china and russia. In norad and u. S. Northern command we understand the urgency of keeping pace with these evolving threats. We also recognize that north korea represents the most immediate threat to our homeland and therefore remains northcoms highest priority. In the past year kim jongun demonstrated several successful icbm tests. We continue to watch their developments closely and are prepared to defend the United States. I want to assure this committee today, that i, am confident that i can defend the United States. While im confident that we can defeat this threat today, it is critical that we continue to improve the ballistic Missile Defense enterprise. With emphasize on the development of improved censor networks, combined with interceptor capability and capacity and reliability. We continue to work with the Missile Defense agency, the Intelligence Community and other combatant commands to insure our collaborative effort in outappraising the threat. Outpacing the threat. The russia continues to modern ize its longrange bombers and its submarines and has developed new Cruise Missiles with the capability to hold targets at risk of ranges that we havent seen before. To defend against advanced Cruise Missiles it is important that we continue to make prudent and savvy investments in advanced censors and defensive weapons systems. This strategic advancements in Russian Submarine fleets to demonstrate their capability to threaten our homelands for the years to come. The threats mentioned are the most serious, however, we remain vigilant against adapting threat of terrorism as well as unpredictable natural disasters. As we review the 2017 hurricane response and prepare for the 2018 season, were working with the Mission Partners to include active guard, reserve, forces to incorporate the Lessons Learned to insure that we provide our best support to lead federal agencies. With respect to canada, we are building inneroperability across domains with a tricommand framework thats comprised of northcom, norad and Canadian Joint operations command. This arrangement allows further planning, integration while preserving our ability to conduct unilateral missions. With respect to mexico, our military, to military relationship with the mexican secretary of National Defense sedena is unbelievable strong. We focus on illuminating pathways to transit illicit good with my partner here, admiral tidd. With our inneragency partners, southcom and socom. Theater Security Cooperation is essential part of strengthening continental defense and builds relationships essential for future cooperates. And by the way, this year we have the 60th anniversary of norad. Throughout its long history this binational command has seen several evolutions in the air domain and were proud of that the men and women of the United StatesNorthern Command and norad stand united in a common purpose ready to face the threats of the United States and canada today and we are evolving to face the threats of tomorrow. I need all of you to know that we have the watch but i also need you to know, senators today you will ask about me and our capabilities and the things that we need i want you to know that we couldnt do it without our families. If it wasnt for our families and our steadfast things that keep us grounded, we wouldnt be able to be where we are today. So i want to say thank you to my husband, who is here today representing all the families of the United States norad and Northern Command because without them we wouldnt have the standard. So, senator, back to you. Thank you, general robinson. Admiral tidd. Senator inhofe, Ranking Member reed and members of this committee, thank you for this opportunity to address you today. I join my can league and partner, general robinson, extending the warmest wishes to senator mccain and his family. He is in our thoughts and prayers today. Also in our thoughts and prayers are the victims and family members of yesterdays tragedy in parkland, florida. As you probably know some of our Southern Command teammates have children who were present during the incident but were fortunately unharmed. We greatly appreciate the firstresponders, the faculty members and other students whose actions no doubt saved lives. Now, as i said, im here with my good friend and my teammate, general lori robinson. We are products of the intentions of the goldwaternichols legislation that led to an emphasis on jointness. This is not the first time that we have appeared together. This is not the first time we have worked together. In fact our Partnership Goes back over a decade. So i just like to say that it is absolutely very much appropriate, fitting that we have the opportunity to talk to you today about the western hemisphere security challenges. I look forward to discussing how our two command Work Together and to insure there is an absolutely seamless defense of our homeland. Over the past year, southcom focused on Regional Security networks on principled partnerships. Partnerships throughout the latin america an caribbean are working with each other and us on range of shared challenges. These challenges manifest themselves in our hemisphere in several concerning ways. Criminal and extremist networks threaten regional stability and our National Security. We know of specific cases of individuals who were involved in flats to attack our homeland or our partners. Fortunately they were stopped but this remain as significant, persistent concern. Competitors, like china and russia, seek to exploit the perception that we are disengaging from the americas, and as they succeed in their efforts, comes an increased ability for them to interfere with our security relationships and to hold our interests at risk. These challenges are less overt and sometimes more insidious than in other theaters. They are manageable with modest investment, sufficient attention, and early engagement. For southcom that involves tools that strengthen relationships and build capacity. Were not talking about brigade combat teams or aircraft carriers in our theater. Were talking about small teams of general purpose and special Operations Forces to maintain critical training engagements. Were talking about medium endure rans hits with helicopters and particularly those that are inneroperable with our partners. And with enough awareness to buy down risks against problems early and stop threats at their source, before they become more costly. We appreciate the attention of congress to this region and thank this committee for its support to the mission and men and women of southcom and to our families. I look forward to answering your questions. Okay, thank you, admiral, very much, i appreciate it. You said in your Opening Statement, general robinson, i can defend the United States today. I know thats true. You and i talked about this but at what level of risk . You know when general milley said, quote, before this committee, said the most important of many challenges we face is consistent, sustained, predictable funding over time. Now we corrected that a little bit with our, our 18 budget. It is predictable from now until year 2000. But it becomes unpredictable again. I want you to tell us very briefly, what level of risk are we able to do today that you can tie directly to the unpredictability of budget . So, sir, so sir, i will start and i will turn it over to the admiral. To me predictability is everything. As consumer of readiness. As one that has to use the things that the is chiefs have to organize, train and equip for, for me is important to understand what i have out there in capability as. Im telling you today i can defend the United States of america when it comes to ballistic Missile Defense, given what we did, what we have done from a funding perspective but as importantly, what we did with the atr and adding capability and capacity in alaska. What we continue to do with discriminating radars. All of those things im comfortable for but we have to allow the services to be able to plan because they are oneses that provide us that readiness. Okay. Admiral. Sir you and i discussed anything that challenges the Services Ability to provide forces that we request to effectively secure the southern approaches to the United States is a challenge