During a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing prior to the congressional recess, Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) questioned Colby Jenkins, who performs the duties of Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict, about military plans to crack down on drug cartels on the southern border.
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00:00Thank you. The senator had very similar questions to the ones I had about what are the trade-offs of these cuts, right?
00:08And for me, it's hard to miss that Space Force got excluded from having to take cuts.
00:14And I'm happy for them. That's a mission that's extremely important,
00:18but just would hope that if there's someone who's picking and choosing missions that are going to be cut versus protected,
00:25that I know you're advocating, but that sort of we realize that the units that are in highest demand
00:33should not be taking the same haircut as everybody else across the force.
00:39So hope that that's happening, and thank you for illustrating some of those trade-offs that you would have.
00:44I do want to understand what missions you have been tasked to do in recent months.
00:53I am, as someone who is a CIA officer and a Middle East specialist and did three tours in Iraq,
00:58I am 100 percent with you that just because you don't hear about threats in the news every day
01:03doesn't mean they're still, doesn't mean they're not still out there plotting to kill Americans,
01:08attack the homeland, and do really devastating things.
01:12And we, of course, have nation states that are causing all kinds of problems.
01:16But I did see that the president designated Mexican cartels, a number of named cartels,
01:23as foreign terrorist organizations, restricting in a positive way American citizens from providing
01:28support, materiel, leadership in any way to those organizations.
01:33Can you describe what, if any, guidance you've been getting and giving on lethal force against cartels
01:40on the southern border given the buildup of about 10,000 U.S. forces down there?
01:45I can begin with that, and then we can talk the details.
01:47The designation of foreign terrorist organizations does not grant us any new authorities as a DOD entity.
01:55What it really does is it helps us unlock the doors to whole-of-government approach.
02:00Our threat finance analysts can now better provide their target packets to our counterparts
02:06in the whole-of-government approach.
02:08But what we do, what we are doing now is making sure that we provide options,
02:13that we can be ready, lethal, and prepared should the president need us to continue to seal and protect the border.
02:21But to answer your question directly, it does not grant us any new authorities to take direct action or so forth.
02:26So you would need commander-in-chief authority to go, for instance,
02:31and pursue drone attacks inside Mexico against cartels.
02:36I'm just asking, Mr. Musk said publicly that that foreign terrorist designation authorizes drone strikes
02:43against Mexican cartels inside Mexico.
02:46I'm just trying to understand fact from fiction here.
02:50Do you believe you have that authority today, understanding the designation alone may not give it to you,
02:56do you believe you have the authority today to cross over the Mexican border
03:00and use drone strikes to go after cartels?
03:03No, ma'am. The designation of FTO does not grant us any new authorities.
03:07But separate from the FTO designation, do you, as the service secretary, believe you have that?
03:12I'm just trying to understand. I'm not, I have no problem with them being designated.
03:16I have no problem going against them and their financing, right?
03:19Their materiel.
03:20But I think certainly as part of this committee, we want to understand use of lethal force in a neighboring state.
03:26So is there in any way, separate from FTO designation, do you currently have the authority
03:32to shoot down, shoot at Mexican cartels over the border right now?
03:37No, ma'am.
03:38Okay. Thank you for clarifying.
03:40And then, you know, we, I think a lot of us on the committee are very worried about Taiwan
03:46and a potential problem with China over the next few years.
03:52I'm the co-chair of the Taiwan caucus, so we think about this a lot.
03:57Can you give me your best assessment of, you know, what our security assistance activities there,
04:05our training, maybe we have to go into classified session,
04:07but would appreciate, you know, your role in deterrence understanding the role you're playing in that issue.
04:14Senator, I would, we'll absolutely have to go into a closed session to provide details.
04:22What I would offer is that in support of Indo-PACOM,
04:25you would see your special operations forces doing many of the missions you described earlier,
04:30certainly always being prepared for crisis response inside that AOR through our theater,
04:36Special Operations Command, Special Ops Command Pacific.
04:39That is a sacred obligation.
04:41I think you would also see us in a counterterrorism way, making sure that any CT threats,
04:48in this case ISIS East Asia, we're doing in a partnered way with teammates in that region.
04:54And then I think you would see us certainly in deterrence.
04:57And the way we present ourselves is presence is placement and access.
05:01It builds relationships and partnerships and capability and all that,
05:05I think is very valuable to San Pabarro, any COCOM commander,
05:10because it provides options and opportunities they wouldn't otherwise have
05:13and dilemmas and challenges to the adversary.
05:16And I yield back.