Senators hammered two top military commanders Tuesday to define the migration surge on the southern border as a “crisis” despite the officers’ attempts to assess other security threats, including from China — which one warned has “stepped ahead” of the United States on “vaccine diplomacy.”
U.S. Southern Command’s Adm. Craig Faller and U.S. Northern Command’s Gen. Glen VanHerck testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee before later speaking to defense reporters at the Pentagon. The growing influx of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border stole the show.
“There’s a crisis on the border,” asserted panel ranking member Jim Inhofe, waving a photograph of Biden shirt-laden migrants. “All these people coming across illegally wearing their Biden T-shirts. Now, this is going on, you guys.”
VanHerck, whose responsibility includes Canada, the U.S. homeland, and Mexico, oversees some 4,000 National Guard troops supporting a Trump-launched mission on the southwest U.S. border that expires Sept. 30, unless a new Department of Homeland Security request is granted.
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“Border security is national security,” VanHerck said at the hearing. “I can tell you, the numbers of migrants coming across has dramatically increased here in recent months.”
In response, Arkansas Republican Sen. Tom Cotton, a potential 2024 GOP presidential candidate, declared: “I go back to the simple point, if you let them in, more will come.”
VanHerck later told reporters he has seen unsettling intelligence about who is crossing the border. The comments come after four migrants arrested at the southern border were reportedly on the FBI’s terrorist watch list.
“I have seen intelligence that gives me reason to be concerned about what comes across the border,” he said. “We need to know exactly who is coming across that border and what their intent is. And how we get there is a policy decision, but it has homeland defense and national security implications.”
The Northcom commander detailed at the Pentagon briefing a new DHS request that includes a call for continued detection and monitoring support.
VanHerck said the support included information sharing with Customs and Border Patrol, the use of 24 UH-72 helicopters, and ground support for vehicle maintenance.
Faller also declined to enter the fray of politics, ceding only that the spiraling violence in Central America, compounded by COVID-19 and the effects of recent hurricanes, were major push factors for migration northward.
“I’m not going to comment on something that’s out of my area,” he said. “There’s a crisis in Central America.”
Countering China
Faller used the bulk of his testimony to describe how great power competition is playing out in America’s backyard, with China using “vaccine diplomacy” to garner access for its technology companies and negotiating more than 40 port deals for its growing navy.
“China particularly moves in with heavy-handed mask and vaccine diplomacy,” he told senators. “This is indicative of China’s global course of insidious behavior.”
On a diplomatic front, China is steering COVID-19 assistance away from countries that recognize Taiwan. Economically, it is pursuing the port deals and offering predatory loans with aims of increasing its military access.
The result is a China that is outpacing the U.S. in its own backyard.
“China has stepped ahead of us in vaccine delivery, and they’re using it for global advantage,” Faller said, citing America’s total coronavirus support to the region of $230 million as more than any other country.
The U.S. retains an advantage, the Southcom commander said, in the top-notch military education and training it provides to partners in the region. Coupled with humanitarian support, the educational exchanges open doors for intelligence-sharing that allows the U.S. to detect and stop transnational criminal organizations and drug traffickers, he said.
Faller made the case for keeping Southcom’s partner-oriented mission set as a counter to China.
“We look with growing, alarming concern at the expansive massive Blue Water Navy that China is using and question the intent and use of that Navy going forward,” he said. “They’re on a march to do what they need to ensure the Communist Party stays intact.”
‘Concern’ with North Korea
Alaska is home to important missile defense capabilities, including DOD’s new Long-Range Discrimination Radar, a highly sensitive radar at Clear Air Force Station in Alaska, and a missile-defense system to intercept ICBMs from a rogue state such as North Korea.
At the Senate hearing, VanHerck expressed concern that North Korea’s nuclear capability may soon overwhelm the U.S. capacity to respond.
“I remain extremely concerned about the capacity of the ballistic missile defense system going forward,” he told Alaskan Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan.
At the Pentagon later, VanHerck told the Washington Examiner the new radar will begin initial testing in April and come online in September.
“Capacity is the biggest challenge going forward,” he said, referring to the increased capability North Korea showed the world at an Oct. 10 military parade.
Missile interceptors are currently undergoing a service life extension, being pulled out of the ground, inspected, and returned to service, he explained. But the extra time granted will be short-lived.
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“The next step would be a next-generation capability,” he said of the so-called Next Generation Interceptor, which awaits Pentagon brass’s approval.
“That decision has not been made by the department,” he added. “It is currently with the deputy secretary of Defense to bridge between the current capability and adding an additional 20 interceptors.”
