During a House Armed Services Committee hearing held before the congressional recess, Rep. Pat Ryan (D-NY) questioned Military officials about the proposal for the US to step back from being the Supreme Allied Commander of NATO.
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00:00Chairman Yales, Chair now recognizes Mr. Ryan from New York. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
00:05Thank you both for being here. General Cavoli, I want to add to the well-deserved
00:10praise and recognition. Couldn't imagine a more critical time for your
00:15leadership and could not imagine a better leader and the whole country is
00:19thankful to you and I think just want to, on behalf of my constituents in
00:23particular, thank you. Your leadership not only as UCOM commander but as SACUR
00:29has been indispensable and as I'm sure everyone in this room knows that
00:34position has a deep historical significance starting with General and
00:39ultimately President Eisenhower as our first Supreme Allied Commander. In a way
00:46that is truly staggering to all of us including, you know, the chair has weighed
00:53in on this as the ranking member and many others. The plan that was floated in March
00:58to restructure combatant commands and give up U.S. command of that role, I think
01:05would be a massive step backwards. You've talked a little bit about in front of the
01:08Senate last week. One of my colleagues from the other side of the aisle, Mr.
01:12Bacon, has said, quote, it signals a weakening commitment to NATO and I think
01:16it's wrong. Former SACUR Admiral Savrida said for the United States to give up the
01:22role of Supreme Allied Commander of NATO would be seen in Europe as a significant
01:25signal of walking away from the alliance. Can you speak a little bit about, given
01:30your unique view into that role, how would Russia and Putin specifically view us
01:35backing away from that role? Thanks, Congressman. First of all, thanks for
01:42pointing out the role General Eisenhower had as the first SAC year. You might
01:46imagine his likeness, his photographs, busts of him are all over the headquarters.
01:53There's one sitting behind my desk that looks over my shoulder checking my homework
01:58every day. So if you want to feel a little bit of pressure ever, just take a
02:01job that Ike had. Big shoes to fill indeed. Yeah, everybody relies on SAC here. Our allies
02:11want American leadership. Our allies would like to have an American SAC year. From our
02:19perspective, we gain quite a bit of influence from it, right? I have a very
02:24loud voice inside Europe as a result of my position and I think those are to our
02:29advantage. Of course, what the United States decides to do is always going to be a
02:34policy matter and there are other considerations that our civilian
02:38leaders will take into consideration as they think about these things. What do
02:43the Russians see? You know, I think that, I think that of all the nations in the
02:50alliance, the Russians have the most respect for the strength of the U.S.
02:56military. They respect all the militaries and especially the collective
03:00military, but we are the military that stands out as something for them to worry
03:05about. And so an officer who has the ability to command U.S. forces probably
03:11probably is is a bigger problem for them than not. I can only imagine truly what
03:16general and former President Eisenhower would think about us even considering
03:20walking away from that position. I think it's embarrassing and pathetic. Which leads
03:25me to my follow-up question for you, Ms. Thompson. Given your opening, albeit very short and heavy on buzzwords,
03:33posture statement, where you use the term factory reset, which I have no idea what
03:39that means in the context of something so critical and nuanced as what we're
03:43talking about. But given that, I want to ask you what you mean by that. And
03:46specifically, in January of this year, actually, January 2025, Senator Mike Lee
03:51called explicitly for the United States to leave NATO. Is that correct?
03:58Again, I represent... Would you know since you were his national security advisor up
04:03through January? I left on January 20th, 2025. So if it was after that, that was not
04:08something that I would have seen. Well, do you think we should leave NATO then?
04:11Again, I represent the Department of Defense. I can only speak on behalf of the
04:15Department of Defense. And Secretary Hegseth has been very clear we are not
04:18stepping away from NATO. So what does he mean then on behalf of the Department of
04:21Defense by factory reset? Is it us walking away from the leadership of NATO and you
04:25heard some of the consequences of that? Is it us abandoning NATO? At a minimum, if
04:30we're going to make such a major change, I know you're doing your posture review, but
04:35I think we owe the American people a transparency around something that would
04:39be so impactful to our security. So first and foremost, on the SAC here question, if
04:43the question is, is the department considering that change? My definitive answer
04:46is no. Second part, on factory reset, the secretary, in his remarks to the North
04:52Atlantic Council and to the Ukraine Defense Contract Group, was very clear that by
04:55factory reset, what we mean is returning the focus of the alliance to defense and
04:58deterrence of Europe, to the core mission and to be frank, to Eisenhower's original
05:04mission set and call for the alliance, which is conventional defense and
05:08deterrence in Europe. Certainly that's what we are expecting of our European allies
05:12with the U.S. as the nuclear strategic deterrent backstop as well. But factory reset
05:17really does mean returning to the core fundamental mission of the alliance, which
05:20is defense and deterrence D. Gentlemen's time's expired.
05:25Chair