Mazie Hirono

The consequences could be significant for the United States.

The U.S. does not have enough deployed forces to contain the various VEO networks across the continent.

The current allocation of United States military force on the continent is sufficient to enable our African partners to contain most VEO threats.

Over the next year, do you expect the personnel commitment to AFRICOM to grow?

But we are enabling the Saudis.

What is the opportunity for any kind of U.S. leadership? Because we are enabling the Saudis to continue their battle there.

I would think that a 25 percent cut to the State Department would make it a lot harder for you to work with your partners.

I believe that some of my colleagues have already asked you about basically what I see as a hollowing out of the State Department at a time when we need to maintain that capacity.

Russia and China pose an enduring threat to United States and Allied interests.

Russia is developing an intercontinental-range hypersonic glide vehicle intended to defeat ballistic missile defenses.

We also cannot forget about Russia. The Kremlin now claims a new class of hypersonic glide vehicle under development that will allow Russia strategic missiles to penetrate our missile defense systems.

NATO has undertaken a reorganization to proactively combat Russian aggression.

A reduction of their abilities would not be positive.

Everything we do in EUCOM, we look at it as an interagency activity, generally with State in the lead.

No, there doesn't seem to be any one agency that is taking the lead on this, and that is a cause of concern for many of us.

Have we learned any lessons from Russian interference with European elections that would enable us to counter what they are continuing to do in our country?

What they're doing to--with our elections does have an impact on national security.

I wonder what the Department of Homeland Security, which is charged with countering the Russian interference with our elections--what they are doing.

Can you discuss these energy resilience priorities in terms of both operational fuel and delivery of electricity to your military installations?

Energy resilience and assurance is a vital component to our national security.

Annual pay raises assist in meeting mission critical recruitment and retention goals.

The tightening of the labor market and the increased recruiting missions will be a challenge in the coming year.

I applaud DOD's commitment to defending the Homeland from ballistic missiles.

There is probably a lot more that we will be doing in the future along the lines of the direction we are going right now.

I think it is there. We just have to find it.