Today, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), Ranking Member of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Intelligence, Emerging Threats and Capabilities, made the following remarks, as prepared for delivery, on the Subcommittee's hearing titled "Fiscal Year 2020 Budget Request for U.S. Cyber Command."
"Thank you Chairman Langevin, and thank you for holding this important hearing.
"Welcome to our witnesses. Secretary Rapuano, welcome back to the committee. And General Nakasone, welcome to your first posture hearing since assuming Command in May of last year.
"It is fitting that we begin our Fiscal Year 2020 posture hearing series with Cyber policy and U.S. Cyber Command given the importance of this topic to our overall national security and indeed our society as a whole.
"The Director of National Intelligence in his most recent World Wide Threats Assessment stated :
"'At present, China and Russia pose the greatest espionage and cyber-attack threats, but we anticipate that all our adversaries and strategic competitors will increasingly build and integrate cyber espionage, attack, and influence capabilities into their efforts to influence U.S. policies and advance their own national security interests.'
"In our oversight role as a subcommittee, we have seen China and Russia aggressively leverage and integrate cyber, information and communications technologies in a seamless way, while also utilizing top-down, government driven agendas and strategies.
"As I have said before, dictatorships have these advantages, and their use of technologies and information is as much about exerting control over their own populations, as it is confronting free societies such as ours.
"Since our last Cyber Command posture hearing, and over the course of the last year – a lot has happened. Given this, I consider us to be at a major inflection point.
"We have seen CYBERCOM fully elevated as a functional combatant command, and the force has achieved full operational capability – or FOC. Recent changes to Presidential cyber policies and strategies – as well as Authorities granted in the National Defense Authorization Act - have focused the mission set, yielded impressive operational results, and postured our Nation for strategic challenges ahead.
"And while we have seen these successes, the DNI's recent testimony reminds us that our adversaries are not giving us any room to breathe.
"Case in point, while many of our recent operational successes have been related to securing our 2018 mid-term elections, I can assure you that the adversarial influence campaign for the 2020 elections is already underway.
"Further, while most of our cyber forces are fully capable on paper, they are not fully ready in practice. Standards and capabilities have yet to be defined and understood across each of the Services. Relationships and responsibilities are still being worked out between Cyber Command, regional combatant commanders, and each of the Services.
"In short, we continue to mature, and the road ahead to true cyber Readiness remains long.
"I am confident that our witnesses before us today fully understand these challenges and I look forward to our dialogue.
"It's worth noting that our military cyber forces are only as good as the technology they depend on; and if we don't concurrently modernize our Information and Communications technologies across the Department - we will continue along with one-hand tied behind our back.
"And when I think about the promise of emerging and revolutionary technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, 5G, high performance computing and even quantum computing, my enthusiasm is unfortunately dampened when I am reminded of our Achilles heel that is the Department's outdated and vulnerable IT infrastructure.
"So, in our conversation today and moving forward as we build the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020 - we must continually keep in mind that IT modernization, cybersecurity, and information assurance are primary prerequisites for the future of warfare, where information and data are strategic resources to be fully protected, preserved and enabled. The Department can and must do better in this area. As before, I trust each of our witnesses here today understand these challenges.
"Lastly, I would be remiss if I didn't mention the importance of Congressional oversight of current operations, including cyber operations.
"Now – more than ever – it is critical that the Department of Defense communicates with this committee early and often, on all aspects of cyber operations and related Intelligence activities.
"This will ensure that we – as your principal oversight committee – remain fully and currently informed, so that we can resource you properly and provide relevant authorities that allow us to stay well ahead of our adversaries in cyberspace and information warfare. I look forward to talking about that in particular in our closed, classified session that will follow this open hearing.
"We have a lot to talk about, so thank you again to each of our witnesses."
