The Secretary of Defense of the United States, Pete Hegseth, has approved a new directive ordering the deployment of a "comprehensive defense" over the country's electoral infrastructure against possible interference from rival powers in the upcoming midterm elections scheduled for November 3.
In the document, Hegseth instructs the United States Cyber Command and the heads of various intelligence and combat support agencies to prioritize the use of their capabilities to ensure that external actors "do not interfere in our democratic systems." The order details that the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) must focus on gathering information about threats, while Cyber Command will coordinate its cybersecurity tasks with the Department of Homeland Security.
The directive emphasizes the commitment of U.S. President Donald Trump to the protection of the electoral process, recalling that "no country can be great without fair elections." In the same vein, Hegseth stresses that safeguarding the voting system constitutes a "mission that cannot fail" and that freedom depends on "constant vigilance." For this reason, he demands the activation of "all authorized assets, capabilities, and partnerships" to ensure that voters exercise their right without "intimidation, coercion, or foreign fear."
From the Pentagon, spokesperson Sean Parnell has emphasized in a statement that the Armed Forces and other involved agencies are working "in close collaboration with federal, state, and local partners" in order to expose "malicious foreign influence." Parnell has insisted that the goal is to secure the reliability of voting systems against any attempt at external manipulation, while preserving the fundamental freedoms of U.S. citizens.
Likewise, the commander of Cyber Command and director of the National Security Agency (NSA), Joshua Rudd, has confirmed the strong cooperation between both entities to detect and neutralize any threat. Rudd has assured that his teams will continuously respond to the operations of those "malicious foreign cyber actors" seeking to interfere in the country's democratic processes.