they are selling some military equipment from light attack aircraft to medium transports to radar capacity. and they also provide education and training in china for officers and their families. >> very similar to what we do at the war college and the like? >> very similar. yes. >> it's interesting, i remember and have had personal experience with countries, when i was in paraguay, for example, they would say if you guys don't do it, china will. and that's what i think we're seeing around the region. if we don't provide us with that, we will get it from china. so we're seeing that more and more just in the last three, four, five years, is that an accurate statement? >> senator, we have seen increasing interest by china in the region. i don't see it as a zero sum game, though. it's not china or the united states. i see both of us very much engaged in the region and i would see that there's an opportunity for both of us as we engage with our partners in the region to help ensure the security and stability of the region. >> that's another reason for the

state partnership, i believe, in those smaller countries to get that value for the dollar so they can see the interaction and basically hang out with our soldiers and learn and grow and develop that relationship which is critically important. is that a fair statement? >> the relationships we build through training and education programs are critical to the future. we see it all the time around the world. we don't know when a crisis is coming. to have an awareness and understanding and a shared experience with one of our partners is critical to our success. >> i think we saw that in egypt actually when we were able to pick up the phone and say stand down and let this play out a little. general jacoby, fair statement as well? >> yes, senator, very much so. >> general jacoby, i'm deeply concerned about the cuts in the air national guard and how it may affect the mission. i think the army's done it really well in terms of trying to be very strategic with the cuts. i'm deeply concerned especially about the air sovereignty alert mission which we have one at barnes as you're aware of. do you share those same

concerns, because i'm hearing from the folks back home that they had no knowledge that any of these cuts were coming. there was absolutely no communication whatsoever and out of left field, here we go. i'm looking at strategically massachusetts and eastern seaboard, the ability to respond all over our part of the world. doesn't make any sense. >> senator, thanks for the question. the air force had some really tough choices to make, tough decisions. the secretary asked us to turn over every rock as we sought to find the $487 billion that was mandated in the budget control act, and i believe the homeland was treated fairly and is treated as job one. however, we really need to be vigilant and ensure that we continue the programs necessary to defend the country and that includes the air control alert mission. and in terms of defense support to civil authorities, the guard,

the air guard specifically, is very good at that mission. i'm going to count on the united states air force, the total air force, to support our requirement, but all of us had to make tough choices and hated to see some of these cuts happen. >> well, you know, they're not there yet. i'm hopeful that we'll be able to have a conversation because when you're talking about the best value for the dollar, the air guard versus the regular air force, and the reserves as well, the reserve component, it doesn't make sense when you're talking about protecting the homeland. we're not just talking about protecting the homeland. there's one army, one military concept now and a lot of these folks are back-filling regular air force and army units, and like i said, the army seems to have kind of got it right. they're being thoughtful, judicious. the air force, in all due respect, it's not over, i haven't really seen evidence that these cuts make sense. so i just wanted to bring that to your attention. appreciate your input on that. thank you. >> thank you very much, senator

brown. senator udall? >> thank you, mr. chairman. good morning, gentlemen. thank you for being here today. general jacoby, if i could follow up on senator brown's question. so what i hear you saying is that the proposed reduction to the army and air guard will not affect your mission. you believe you can deliver on that mission? >> senator, that's correct. >> let me turn to a specific element in the change that's underway in this area. there's been a decision in the 24-hour alert requirement duluth and langley. did you have a say in that matter and what factors and assumptions went into that decision and again, will it affect the aca mission? >> thanks, senator. the very tough decision was part of the process across every combatant commander, across every service to find the savings required by the budget

act. i believe that we did adequately address the strategic requirements of the homeland but in the analysis as a team effort, there was a decision taken to reduce by two. i took the command took responsibility for identifying those two bases so we did two independent studies, one in my headquarters, one in first air force which is my air force component command under lieutenant general sid clark. both commands came up with the same answer, duluth and langley. now, no bases are closed and this doesn't reflect on numbers of fighter squadrons, and i specifically felt that in the case of those two bases, that i had the authorities and the capabilities already resident under my authority as a norad commander to mitigate on short notice of the loss of those two bases. in fact, i can change on my own authority the alert conditions that could in case of a threat stand that back up.

>> if that changes, i'm going to ask you to take the time to notify the committee and notify me, if you would. >> senator, i'm passionate about the air control alert. there's a high standard, high expectation of the american public that we're going to defend the country's air space and i will make sure my views are known. >> thank you. let's turn to critical infrastructure, if we might. and the vulnerability that our infrastructure has to either cyber or physical attack. what do you see, this is a series of questions as vulnerable pieces of our infrastructure, what steps need to be taken to protect those valuable components and what role does north-com have in facilitating those protective measures? >> thanks, senator. there's a number of critical infrastructure protection requirements, principally those lie within other sectors of the government and so north-com's

principal responsibility is to provide defense support to civil authorities and the consequence management of disasters within certain sectors, particularly cyberattack as i mentioned earlier, we would roll in and if requested, provide defense support in recovering from that. critical infrastructure, though, we know we're more concerned now about systems than we are places, and so things like the national energy grid, transportation system, those are being looked at hard and wre ar in support of our partners particularly in dhs in determining ways that we can help. >> of course we have a lot of work left to do and i'm optimistic we're going to work to put in place a cybersecurity policy. you know you will play a key role in advising us, given your perspective and your responsibilities in this area. >> yes, senator. >> general fraser, if i could, i

would like to turn to the report that islamic groups are recruiting in your aor. what are the conditions that are facilitating islamist recruiting and fund-raising in the most troubling areas and what can we do as well as our partners to address these conditions? >> senator, there are groups, violent extremist groups, who are advocating and proselytized in largely muslim communities in latin america. the community is fairly small within the region, about 1% of the total inhabitants of the region but they are still very deliberately advocating. the situations and the conditions that enable that are ones that you see in many of the countries in the region and that's poverty rates, it's income inequality, it's the corruption that's there and it is in some of those cases, it is

an anti-u.s. perspective. >> it bears watching, obviously, and hopefully lessons we learn in other parts of the world can apply. thank you for drawing our attention to this. south america has certainly had violent intervals in its history but has very little history of, of course, islamist or terrorism of any kind. it just shows this is a worldwide phenomenon that we have to be able to respond to wherever it may surface. >> senator, we are paying very close attention to this issue. we're seeing measured success. we don't see great success in their efforts along these lines. >> general jacoby, if i could turn back to you, our good friend general renuart when he relinquished command in 2010 talked about his concerns about our aging air defense systems. we know that he talked about temporary fixes to take us forward, quote, unquote.

what's your current assessment of the modernization efforts in this important area? >> of course, we're very eager to have the f-35 come online. we're eager to continue the service life extension programs for the f-16s. senator, the most important thing we do as combatant commander, though, we conduct frequent periodic inspections of our air control alert squadrons. they continue to do well in these and we'll maintain vigilance but of course, we're a stake holder in capable aircraft stretching out into the future. >> if you had more resources, though, in this area, you could put them to work, i assume? >> senator, i think any co-com you had before you would know what to do with additional resources. >> general fraser, before my time expires, talk a little bit more about iran's outreach efforts in south america.

we know that chavez and ahmadinejad have close ties but have the iranians been making inroads with any other south american countries? >> president ahmadinejad has made six visits to the region in the last six, seven years. this last trip that he took, he visited venezuela, cuba and nicaragua and ecuador. we saw it largely as a diplomatic effort and estimate that we have and throughout the government is that he didn't really get the reception or the support that he was looking for. we need to be vigilant there. it almost feels like it's a throwback to the cold war when the soviet union was traveling the world looking for allies but this is serious and thank you for again, for your leadership in this area. my time's expired. i wanted to do two final things. i want to thank general fraser

for your phenomenal service and i know you and general jacoby go way back. you have worked together in a series of commands. senator begich reminded me of your connection to alaska. godspeed and thank you again for your service. general jacoby, i did want to put on the record that the flow of drugs into our country is significant and substantial and worrisome but it's a symptom of the demand that exists in our country. i know you will go to the ends of the earth to cut off the flow but we as a country have to have a continued discussion about what we do to dampen that demand down. i just want you to know i'm a senator that understands that that's a real challenge that you face. thanks for your service. >> thank you, senator udall. senator hagan? >> thank you, mr. chairman and general fraser and general jacoby also, thanks very much for your service. i couldn't agree more with what senator udall just said about trying to ramp down the desire in our country for narcotics. i wanted to ask a question about

ecuador. the 2009 closing of the cooperative security location at the air force base in ecuador and the ejection of the u.s. ambassador in april of last year has really stressed the u.s./ecuadorian bilateral ties. general fraser, how would you characterize the current status of the counter-narcotics cooperation between the u.s. and the government of ecuador and then what needs to be done to strengthen our cooperation with regard to both counter terrorism and counter narcotics? >> we continue to engage with the military in ecuador. we have good military to military relations with them. they are working closely with their neighbors as well. we have seen an impact, especially from the maritime traffic that now is able and uses ecuador to depart. we have seen an increase in that activity. we continue to have discussions with them and work with them to

adjust and address this problem. >> d.o.d.'s support to the u.s. law enforcement agencies and the mexican military supports the broader counter trans-national criminal organization's fight. u.s. north-com provides d.o.d. support to both u.s. and foreign law enforcement agencies against this common enemy. general jacoby, what type of mutually beneficial d.o.d. support is provided towards this end and are we doing enough to foster the important relationships with law enforcement agencies, state and the national guard counter drug task forces? >> thank you, senator. in north-com, partnerships are a center of gravity. in the homeland, we do things in support of our partners across dhs, department of justice and

so along the border, that's where you find our efforts is in support of those lead agencies along the border. what we do is we provide them operational support, analytic support, technical support, all of it with the checkmark of mutually beneficial and mainly for us, that means that it's a good training opportunity for the military forces that are partnered up primarily with cbp, customs and border patrol. it is a great relationship. it's grown stronger and stronger over time. just this month, we've conducted nimbus ii in the tucson sector where first armored division soldiers feel they got better training than they've gotten prior to a deployment at any time in the past ten years. so it's a complex environment with a thinking noncooperative enemy and it's a great training experience. it also provides some good

support to cbp which they are very happy with. so i think we have a good relationship. i think it's critical to continue to expand and strengthen our partnerships in the north-com headquarters, we have over 32 agencies represented there and eight law enforcement agencies. we never had better sharing of information across the interagency so i'm pretty proud of that. appreciate the question. >> thank you. that's a lot of agencies to coordinate together so thank you. i think it's very important for us to counter the trans national criminal organizations and their illicit trafficking activities. central to that is building the effective partnership capacity that i know you are working on each and every day with the key governments and security establishments to prevent them from operating in these permissive environments. i do chair a subcommittee of this committee on emerging threats and capabilities and i'm

concerned that central america has become the preferred transit zone for the trans national criminal organizations and which seem to have diversified their portfolios to include not only drugs but also precursor chemicals from india and china and bangladesh, commercial weapons from the u.s. and then obviously, the trafficking of people. the limited capabilities of the central american states have allowed the mexican trans national, tcos, to establish points of entry for illegal drugs coming from south america and then the mexico, guatemala, belize border area is particularly vulnerable. i understand that south-com is working with north-com and the interagency community to develop a regional operations capability among these nations. for both of you, what types of resources does this regional operational capability require and what are the objectives? >> senator, it's a broad whole

of government effort and international community with a group of friends and international donors who also support this effort. from a department of defense standpoint we're a supporting organization. because this is criminal activity, it's not military activity. but we have a role to support those militaries who have been asked by their governments to support law enforcement, to help address this question. so we're continuing training and equipping with our partner militaries, working with them to help them work better with their law enforcement partners, but the real solutions are in the rest of our foreign affairs support. it is really in the u.s. a.i.d. programs, in law enforcement programs, in judiciary programs. it is all of us working together with those governments to solve this problem. >> general jacoby? >> yes, senator. i concur with general fraser. i think truly, we understand this is a whole of government

requirement but the participation of the militaries from belize, guatemala and mexico is very good and improving and there is efforts and a consciousness on the mexican side of the importance of that southern border and i see them taking action. >> together, colombia, peru and bolivia, i understand produce nearly most of the world's supply of cocaine and in recent years, progress in controlling cocaine production in colombia seems to have resulted in an increase in cocaine production in peru and in bolivia. i don't know if you have -- agree with that but i would like to know and what would be your plan to prevent further cocaine production increases in peru and bolivia without losing the progress made in colombia? >> senator, i do agree with that effort. we have seen a reduction in the

cocaine production in colombia and that has as traffickers have worked other places, they have gone into peru and bolivia. most of the cocaine coming into the united states, though, still comes from colombia. that other cocaine heads to other parts of the world. we're working with the colombians to support their effort and again, this is intergovernmental effort because the reduction and eradication of cocaine is, other parts of our government, department of state who really supports those efforts. but we are working with the government of peru, their military especially when you look at the narco-terrorist group in peru, to help reduce their impact in that country. and we're just seeing as you watch brazil, the united states and bolivia just signed a tri-part agreement to address trans-national organized crime in bolivia and that's an ongoing effort. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, senator.

before i recognize senator blumenthal and ask him to take the gavel to wind up because i'm going to have to leave, i just had one additional question, if i could, of general jacoby and that has to do with the anti-terrorism joint exercise with russia that we conduct annually i believe called vigilant eagle. you indicated, general, that the benefits that we realize from this sort of exercise are invaluable. this is what your prepared statement tells us and that you hope over time it will lead to even greater levels of openness and cooperation among our nations referring to us and russia. are you hoping that we can enhance the cooperation militarily, for instance, do you plan to have direct interaction with your russian counterpart as part of that effort? >> senator, yes, i do. vigilant eagle last year was

very successful exercise between russians, the united states and canada, and we exercised a counterterrorist scenario where we shared an air picture that was required to deal with the threat adequately, so i think it was an important step forward in creating trust and confidence on both sides and to ensure that there's transparency in what our military activities are, particularly in the alaska region. so we're going to do vigilant eagle again this year. i'm hoping to meet with my russian counterpart to discuss the tactics, techniques and procedures that will help us do that better. we have areas of cooperation with the russians that i think are important and should be sustained. and i think as we discussed earlier in the testimony, we've got to keep our eyes wide open but i think there's good potential for cooperation here. >> thank you both.

thank you for your great service, leadership and general fraser, again, all of us wish you all the best as you take on other chapters and responsibilities in your life. we wish you and your family all the best. >> thank you, mr. chairman. it's been a great honor. >> senator blumenthal, thank you for taking over here. >> thank you. i'm honored to take over from chairman levin for the final questioning. i think that's the good news. very honored to be with us and thank you as others have for your extraordinary service, both general fraser and general jacoby. i will try to avoid repeating some of the questions. i think i know about most of them. but i do have a number that may elicit some of the same testimony. i want to come back to the aircraft that are being drawn

down from the air national guard, a decision that affects particularly connecticut, because we will lose the lift capacity of the c-27j, and 136 aircraft will be lost to the air national guard which i regard as important because connecticut is one of the 27 states that are affected by it, and i wonder if you have done an analysis of what the effects will be of that draw-down. >> senator, thank you for the question. the air national guard is an important partner to u.s. north-com and to norad so in both hats, they're important partners to us. the guard has done invaluable service both in defending the homeland and support to civil authorities. air force had some really tough decisions to make, tough choices that all the combatant commanders had and all of the services had in order to meet

the budget, significant budget reduction. what i do as a combatant commander is i put requirements on the table and there's a requirement to support civil authorities and there's a requirement to defend the homeland. i trust the air force to meet that requirement with their total force, whether it's active, reserve or guard. but the loss of guard aircraft will i'm sure be felt and they're a tremendous asset so it's part of the pain that all the combatant commanders will feel as a result of this very important round of budget decisions. >> can you be more precise about how it will be felt, what the effects will be? >> i can only speak to the air control alert mission. we will be able to mitigate the loss, i felt the loss was of the two standing alert on those two bases was a loss that within my authorities and within the capability of the norad commander, i can mitigate that, the loss of those two bases. it wasn't a loss of aircraft and it wasn't a loss of bases, just

sitting alert at those two locations 24 and 7. >> any other effects that you've analyzed or foreseen? >> senator, no. >> let me go to cyber, if i may. you answered one of the questions earlier about the task of defining criteria that would constitute an act of war in case of a cyberattack. my understanding is those attacks are ongoing even as we speak. not only against the defense industrial base, certain private sector elements, but also our actual defense capabilities. and i wonder if you could be somewhat more precise about where you think we are in defining those criteria. you said there was, i'm using your word, momentum toward that definition. >> yes, senator.

as recently as yesterday, i had a conversation with general alexander. he's walking point with general taylor in strategic command in terms of developing criteria. we'll address that in a collaborative fashion i believe in the very near future but part of the momentum is not just in the department of defense, it's within the broader community of agencies and organizations that are concerned about cybersecurity, both commercial and specifically in the lead element for defending or nation's networks. the department of homeland security. so i would concur as a military professional, i know that we are undergoing malicious activity on the net. the challenge is how do we define that as an attack on our country and i think this is a serious discussion that needs to be had and it ends up being really a policy question on where are the red lines. because that's essentially what we're talking about. where are the red lines where malicious activity transitions into an attack on the homeland

and then what else could it be connected to that might define otherwise just considered malicious activity now a serious threat or attack on the country. >> and would you agree that part of the defense against that attack and part of defining the criteria has to be deciding what the offense should be, what the deterrent should be? >> senator, i believe that the country requires and the department requires full spectrum computer network operations, exploitation defense and attack. >> thank you. i want to ask you a question that i don't believe has been covered and it may be a little beyond the normal purview of what you do, but obviously, over the time that you've been in this job, over the time that we've been aware of conditions in the arctic, there have been

changes to the topography and other environmental aspects, and i'm not going to go into detail because you're much closer to it actually than we could be sitting here, but i wonder whether those so-called climate change, for lack of a better word, issues affect your strategic thinking, your practical approach to that part of the world. >> senator, the opening of the arctic has driven us to a new imperative within the command to consider the arctic in a different way, and so starting with the unified command plan, most recent change which gave us arctic geographic responsibilities as well as directing that we become the advocate for arctic capabilities has opened our aperture and helped us look differently at the arctic.