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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has directed the military to use its intelligence and cyber capabilities to protect the November midterms from foreign interference.

Getting into it: The one-page memo, signed Sept. 22, orders US Cyber Command and the Pentagon’s combat support agencies to “identify, disrupt, and neutralize” foreign interference in US elections, directs defense intelligence agencies to track foreign threats to the vote, and tells Cyber Command to team up with the Department of Homeland Security to counter cyber threats to election systems.

Officials told Axios the effort will lean on the most sophisticated AI tools the military has used for this so far. The memo builds on President Trump’s 2025 executive order on election integrity and his claim in a July speech that China meddled in the 2020 race, which Beijing has denied. Contrary to what some news influencers on Instagram are claiming, the memo does not send troops to polling places or call for seizing voting machines.

Cyber Command and the NSA have done this kind of work for years, including a similar push before the 2022 midterms under President Biden and a covert operation shortly before the 2024 election targeting Russian disinformation operators.

In a statement, Hegseth said, “Our Nation’s ability to conduct free and fair elections is a steadfast principal of our Democracy. Assuring and protecting this ability is a no-fail mission and the DoW will do its part in supporting this whole of government effort.”