    [House Hearing, 115 Congress]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

                              [H.A.S.C. No. 115-5]

                        THE EVOLVING THREAT OF TERRORISM

                   AND EFFECTIVE COUNTERTERRORISM STRATEGIES

                                   __________

                          COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES

                            HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                         ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS

                                 FIRST SESSION

                                   __________

                                  HEARING HELD

                               FEBRUARY 14, 2017

    [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                                   __________

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                          COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
                         One Hundred Fifteenth Congress

                 WILLIAM M. ``MAC'' THORNBERRY, Texas, Chairman

    WALTER B. JONES, North Carolina      ADAM SMITH, Washington
    JOE WILSON, South Carolina           ROBERT A. BRADY, Pennsylvania
    FRANK A. LoBIONDO, New Jersey        SUSAN A. DAVIS, California
    ROB BISHOP, Utah                     JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island
    MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio              RICK LARSEN, Washington
    MIKE ROGERS, Alabama                 JIM COOPER, Tennessee
    TRENT FRANKS, Arizona                MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO, Guam
    BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania           JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut
    K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas            NIKI TSONGAS, Massachusetts
    DOUG LAMBORN, Colorado               JOHN GARAMENDI, California
    ROBERT J. WITTMAN, Virginia          JACKIE SPEIER, California
    DUNCAN HUNTER, California            MARC A. VEASEY, Texas
    MIKE COFFMAN, Colorado               TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii
    VICKY HARTZLER, Missouri             BETO O'ROURKE, Texas
    AUSTIN SCOTT, Georgia                DONALD NORCROSS, New Jersey
    MO BROOKS, Alabama                   RUBEN GALLEGO, Arizona
    PAUL COOK, California                SETH MOULTON, Massachusetts
    JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma            COLLEEN HANABUSA, Hawaii
    BRAD R. WENSTRUP, Ohio               CAROL SHEA-PORTER, New Hampshire
    BRADLEY BYRNE, Alabama               JACKY ROSEN, Nevada
    SAM GRAVES, Missouri                 A. DONALD McEACHIN, Virginia
    ELISE M. STEFANIK, New York          SALUD O. CARBAJAL, California
    MARTHA McSALLY, Arizona              ANTHONY G. BROWN, Maryland
    STEPHEN KNIGHT, California           STEPHANIE N. MURPHY, Florida
    STEVE RUSSELL, Oklahoma              RO KHANNA, California
    SCOTT DesJARLAIS, Tennessee          TOM O'HALLERAN, Arizona
    RALPH LEE ABRAHAM, Louisiana         THOMAS R. SUOZZI, New York
    TRENT KELLY, Mississippi             (Vacancy)
    MIKE GALLAGHER, Wisconsin
    MATT GAETZ, Florida
    DON BACON, Nebraska
    JIM BANKS, Indiana
    LIZ CHENEY, Wyoming

                      Robert L. Simmons II, Staff Director
                   Mark Morehouse, Professional Staff Member
                          William S. Johnson, Counsel
                             Britton Burkett, Clerk

                                C O N T E N T S

                                  ----------
                                                                       Page

                  STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS

    Smith, Hon. Adam, a Representative from Washington, Ranking
      Member, Committee on Armed Services............................     2
    Thornberry, Hon. William M. ``Mac,'' a Representative from Texas,
      Chairman, Committee on Armed Services..........................     1

                                   WITNESSES

    Hoffman, Bruce, Director, Center for Security Studies and
      Director, Security Program, Georgetown University..............     3
    Jenkins, Brian Michael, Senior Advisor to the President, RAND
      Corporation....................................................     5
    Sheehan, Ambassador Michael A., Distinguished Chair, Combating
      Terrorism Center at West Point.................................     6

                                    APPENDIX

    Prepared Statements:

        Hoffman, Bruce...............................................    55
        Jenkins, Brian Michael.......................................    89
        Sheehan, Ambassador Michael A................................   109

    Documents Submitted for the Record:

        [There were no Documents submitted.]

    Witness Responses to Questions Asked During the Hearing:

        [There were no Questions submitted during the hearing.]

    Questions Submitted by Members Post Hearing:

        Mr. Franks...................................................   121
        Mr. Lamborn..................................................   122
        Mr. Langevin.................................................   121
        Ms. Speier...................................................   123
        Dr. Wenstrup.................................................   123

       THE EVOLVING THREAT OF TERRORISM AND EFFECTIVE COUNTERTERRORISM
                                   STRATEGIES

                                  ----------

                              House of Representatives,
                                   Committee on Armed Services,
                            Washington, DC, Tuesday, February 14, 2017.
        The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:04 a.m., in room
    2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. William M. ``Mac''
    Thornberry (chairman of the committee) presiding.

      OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. WILLIAM M. ``MAC'' THORNBERRY, A
        REPRESENTATIVE FROM TEXAS, CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON ARMED
                                SERVICES

        The Chairman. The meeting will come to order. Following our
    hearings on the state of the world, security environment, and
    the state of the military, today we begin to examine some of
    the specific security challenges facing the United States.
        This week the topic is terrorism. In conjunction with the
    Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities, there will
    be a number of classified and unclassified events this week on
    that topic.
        The United States has been explicitly at war with terrorist
    organizations for close to 18 years. The threat to Americans
    and to American interests has certainly changed over the course
    of that time. Today, we all have hopes the Iraqi military will
    continue to drive ISIS [Islamic State of Iraq and Syria] out of
    Iraq, and that a coalition can reduce its presence and ability
    to operate in Syria.
        But we should be under no illusions. Squeezing ISIS out of
    Iraq and Syria will push some of them into other parts of the
    world, such as Africa and Southeast Asia.
        Al Qaeda has not gone away despite its lower profile in the
    news, and in fact, some believe that it is rebuilding its
    capacity for attacking the West. And while terrorists have
    physically spread out to more geographic locations, some of
    them have also become quite adept at operating online as well,
    challenging our intelligence collection and our
    counterterrorism efforts.
        We are privileged today to have three experts to whom this
    committee has regularly turned for perspective and guidance
    over the years. They will help us step back from the headlines
    of the moment to assess the status of the terrorist threat, how
    it is evolving, and what kind of capability the United States
    must have to defend our people.
        Before turning to them, I would yield to the ranking member
    for any comments he would like to make.

    STATEMENT OF HON. ADAM SMITH, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM WASHINGTON,
              RANKING MEMBER, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES

        Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I largely concur on
    your opening remarks. I think you can rank the threats in
    different ways, but I have always, you know, felt that the
    number one threat was what is presented by Al Qaeda and ISIS
    and all of the offshoots.
        Because whatever challenges we may have with other
    countries in the world, this is the one group, Al Qaeda, ISIS,
    Boko Haram, Al Shabaab, et cetera, that wakes up every morning
    trying to kill as many Westerners as is humanly possible. And
    the only thing that is stopping them is our ability to stop
    them. It is not a lack of will.
        So trying to combat that ideology and combat those specific
    groups, I still feel, is the number one security threat that we
    face in this country. And I think that the chairman outlined it
    fairly well.
        Since 9/11, we definitely had some initial success in going
    after Al Qaeda, knocking out their leadership, going after
    their home bases, and disrupting their ability to plot and
    carry out attacks.
        So the good news is we have done a decent job of
    identifying specific people and specific groups that threaten
    us, and then weakening them by taking out their leadership and
    undermining their ability to plan against us.
        The bad news is the ideology has spread even further, and
    you have people picking up the banner of ISIS who may have
    never had anything to do with ISIS. But nonetheless, they
    commit terrorist attacks that threaten our security here in the
    U.S. and amongst our Western allies.
        So the real big question is, how do we stop that
    metastasizing of this ideology that so threatens us? I believe
    that we have to continue to focus on the specific groups, the
    threats that they have made.
        I think both President Bush and President Obama prioritized
    that correctly, but how do we stop the spread of the ideology?
    That is where I feel like we have been going backwards over the
    course of the last 15 years.
        That regrettably more and more people, typically people who
    have, you know, issues of their own, not happy with their life,
    have mental instability, pick up the banner and commit attacks
    in the name of this ideology. So how we combat that, I think,
    is the most important question going forward.
        Certainly, we are also interested in the details of, as the
    chairman mentioned, is Al Qaeda reconstituting itself? If so,
    where? What parts of the world present the greatest challenge?
        And also, I think, very importantly, who are the partners
    that we should look to be working with or continue to be
    working with who can help us with this in those parts of the
    world where this threat emanates from? And so I look forward to
    your testimony.
        I thank the chairman for the opportunity, and I yield back.
        The Chairman. Thank the gentleman. As I say, we appreciate
    each of the witnesses being here today. We have Professor Bruce
    Hoffman, director, Center for Security Studies and director of
    the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University.
        We have Mr. Brian Michael Jenkins, senior advisor to the
    president at RAND Corporation. And we have Ambassador Michael
    Sheehan, who is currently distinguished chair, Combating
    Terrorism Center at West Point.
        Obviously, more extensive bios are in everybody's
    information. Thank you all for being here. Without objection,
    your full written statements will be made part of the record,
    and we would be delighted to hear any overviews and oral
    comments you would like to make at this time.
        Professor Hoffman, we will start with you.

       STATEMENT OF BRUCE HOFFMAN, DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR SECURITY
     STUDIES AND DIRECTOR, SECURITY PROGRAM, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY

        Mr. Hoffman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Smith,
    for the privilege of testifying before the committee this
    morning.
        While ISIS poses the most serious imminent terrorist threat
    today, Al Qaeda has been quietly rebuilding and marshalling its
    resources to reinvigorate its war against the United States.
    The result is that both groups have enmeshed the U.S. and the
    West in a debilitating war of attrition with all its
    deleterious consequences.
        ISIS, alas, is here to stay, at least for the foreseeable
    future. Some 2 years before the 2015 Paris attacks, it built an
    external operations capability and network in Europe that
    mostly escaped notice. This unit appears to function
    independently of the group's waning military and territorial
    fortunes, and thereby ensures that ISIS will retain an
    effective international terrorist strike capability.
        Moreover, there is the further problem of at least some of
    the estimated 7,000 European foreign fighters returning home.
    They are only a fraction of the nearly 40,000 terrorists from
    more than 100 countries throughout the world who have trained
    in Syria and Iraq.
        And unlike the comparatively narrow geographical
    demographics of prior recruits, the current foreign fighter
    cadre includes hitherto unrepresented nationalities, such as
    hundreds of Latin Americans, along with citizens from Mali,
    Benin, and Bangladesh, among others.
        Meanwhile, Al Qaeda's presence in Syria should be regarded
    as just as dangerous and even more pernicious than that of
    ISIS. This is the product of Al Zawahiri's strategy of letting
    ISIS take all the heat and absorb all the blows from the
    coalition arrayed against it, while Al Qaeda quietly rebuilds
    its military strength and basks in its paradoxical new cachet
    as, quote/unquote, ``moderate extremists,'' in contrast to the
    unconstrained ISIS.
        Anyone inclined to be taken in by this ruse would do well
    to heed the admonition of the American journalist who spent 2
    years in Syria as a hostage of Jabhat al-Nusrah. Theo Padnos
    relates how, ``The Nusra Front higher-ups were inviting
    Westerners to the jihad in Syria not so much because they
    needed more foot soldiers--they didn't--but because they want
    to teach the Westerners to take the struggle into every
    neighborhood and subway [station] back home.''
        Looking to the immediate future, ISIS' continuing setbacks
    and serial weakening arguably create the conditions where some
    reconciliation with Al Qaeda might yet be effected, whether
    voluntarily or through forced absorption. Regardless of how
    that might occur, any kind of reamalgamation or cooperation
    between the two would doubtless produce a significantly
    escalated global threat.
        A quarter of a century ago, British Prime Minister Margaret
    Thatcher described publicity as the oxygen upon which terrorism
    depended. Today, however, it is access to sanctuary and safe
    haven that sustains and nourishes terrorism.
        A depressing pattern has established itself whereby we
    continue to kill terrorist leaders while the organizations they
    lead nonetheless continue to seize territory.
        Indeed, according to the National Counterterrorism Center
    [NCTC], a year before the U.S. launched the current campaign to
    defeat ISIS, the group had a presence in only seven countries
    around the world. By 2015, that number had nearly doubled.
        And as recently as this past August, the NCTC reported that
    ISIS was, quote/unquote, ``fully operational'' in 18 countries.
    Meanwhile, Al Qaeda is also present in three times as many
    countries today as it was 8 years ago.
        Sanctuary, it should be noted, also permits more scope for
    terrorist research and development of various unconventional
    weapons, as Al Qaeda clearly demonstrated with its pre-9/11
    efforts to acquire chemical, biological, radiological, and even
    nuclear weapons in Afghanistan.
        In sum, the U.S. is facing perhaps the most perilous
    international security environment since the period immediately
    following the September 11, 2001, attacks, with serious threats
    now emanating from not one, but two terrorist movements.
        Our Salafi-jihadi enemies have locked us into an enervating
    war of attrition, the preferred strategy of terrorists from
    time immemorial. They hope to exhaust us and to undermine
    national political will, corrode internal popular support and
    demoralize us and our regional partners through a prolonged,
    generally intensifying and increasingly diffuse campaign of
    terrorism and violence.
        Indeed, the three pillars upon which our counterterrorist
    strategy has been based, leadership attrition, training of
    local forces, and countering violent extremism, have thus far
    all failed to deliver a crushing blow to either ISIS or Al
    Qaeda. Decisively breaking this stasis and emerging from this
    war of attrition must now therefore be among the United States'
    highest counterterrorist priorities.
        The current threat environment posed by the emergence and
    spread of ISIS and the stubborn resilience and long-game
    approach of Al Qaeda makes a new strategy and new
    organizational and institutional behaviors necessary.
        The effectiveness of the strategy will be based on our
    capacity to think like a networked enemy in anticipation of how
    they may act in a variety of situations, aided by different
    resources.
        This goal requires that the United States national security
    structure organize itself for maximum efficiency, information
    sharing, and the ability to function quickly and effectively
    under new operational definitions. Thank you.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Hoffman can be found in the
    Appendix on page 55.]
        The Chairman. Thank you. Mr. Jenkins.

       STATEMENT OF BRIAN MICHAEL JENKINS, SENIOR ADVISOR TO THE
                      PRESIDENT, RAND CORPORATION

        Mr. Jenkins. Chairman Thornberry, Ranking Member Smith,
    members of the committee, thank you for again inviting me to
    address this important subject.
        While perhaps not an existential threat to the republic, I
    would agree that jihadist terrorism is the most prominent and
    certainly the most persistent security challenge that we face.
        Terrorism has increased dramatically worldwide, although
    most recent terrorist incidents remain concentrated in the
    Middle East and adjacent regions of North Africa and West Asia.
    The Middle East is also the theater of most U.S. military
    engagements over the past three decades.
        Jihadists have established footholds throughout the region.
    Both Al Qaeda and ISIL [Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant]
    have sent out missions to establish or acquire affiliates,
    often by attaching themselves to rebels fighting local
    governments.
        Now, I think it would be wrong to see this spread of
    jihadist flags as the advance of an occupying army. It is not
    centrally controlled. Loyalties remain fluid, and we will see
    how much attraction ISIS or ISIL continues to have when it
    faces loss of territory in Syria and Iraq.
        But it complicates things by turning one war into many
    wars. The spillover from these contests creates a multileveled
    terrorist threat. First, strategic strikes from abroad; second,
    returning foreign fighters; and third, homegrown terrorists
    inspired by jihadist ideology.
        Now, improved intelligence, greater international
    cooperation, and continuing military operations have made it
    more difficult, not impossible, to carry out large-scale
    operations like Al Qaeda's 9/11 attacks. ISIL itself clearly
    has global ambitions and has assisted some terrorist operations
    abroad, but it has not, at least not yet, attempted to
    replicate Al Qaeda's campaign.
        Instead of escalating vertically, today's jihadists have
    escalated horizontally by exploiting the internet and social
    media to inspire distant followers. Their manuals recommend
    soft targets and simple operations within the limited
    capabilities of these recruits.
        The trend is toward what we might call pure terrorism. That
    is, truly random attacks on people anywhere, often by a single
    individual using any available weapon. Now, the small numbers
    of these attacks suggest that it isn't easy to remotely
    motivate people to action.
        The internet reaches a vast audience, but absent physical
    connectivity, most online would-be warriors do nothing. Still,
    we have to keep in mind that as ISIL faces defeat on the
    ground, it could respond with more ambitious international
    operations.
        Foreign fighters pose another layer of the threat, more so
    in Europe than the United States. The fact is here, however,
    that as ISIL is squeezed territorially in Iraq and Syria, that
    it won't end the fighting.
        It will go underground and continue the contest, but the
    foreign fighters cannot survive an underground struggle. They
    will scatter to other jihadist fronts. Some will return home,
    determined to continue the jihad.
        The principal threat here comes from homegrown terrorists.
    Fortunately, they are few despite constant exhortation from
    abroad. Since 9/11, approximately 150 individuals have been
    arrested or killed plotting or carrying out terrorist attacks
    here.
        The FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigation] and police have
    uncovered and thwarted more than 80 percent of these plots.
    That is a remarkable record. As a result, in the past 15 years,
    jihadist terrorists in the United States have been able to kill
    fewer than 100 people. Every death is tragic, but certainly it
    is a far smaller number than we were worried about in the
    immediate shadow of 9/11.
        But although fortunate here, we still have to address the
    source of the problem, as Professor Hoffman has pointed out.
    There are no easy solutions here. Attacking root causes while
    reducing ungoverned spaces requires major investments and will
    take years.
        We could relax the rules of engagement and increase the use
    of air power, but bombing errors, we see, can create backlash.
    Partnering with the Russians to destroy ISIL, in my view, comes
    at a high political cost and offers very little in return
    operationally. Large-scale interventions by U.S. combat forces
    are best avoided, and any such operations must be limited in
    scope and time.
        Instead of sending more troops in, can we simply withdraw,
    leaving local belligerents to sort things out? That has a great
    deal of appeal. It would get us out of a costly mess and enable
    the country to focus on rebuilding the American economy.
        But the U.S. has achieved a measure of success on several
    occasions, only to see things fall apart when it turned its
    attention to other fronts.
        Still, Americans are reluctant to accept that this is an
    open-ended contest. But whether and how the United States might
    end or substantially reduce its military role remains largely
    unexplored territory.
        Thank you.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Jenkins can be found in the
    Appendix on page 89.]
        The Chairman. Ambassador Sheehan.

       STATEMENT OF AMBASSADOR MICHAEL A. SHEEHAN, DISTINGUISHED
            CHAIR, COMBATING TERRORISM CENTER AT WEST POINT

        Ambassador Sheehan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking
    Member. It is a pleasure to testify in front of you both today.
    By the way, now that I am not in government, I will be able to
    speak a little more frankly. I want to talk a little bit about
    the terrorist threat, evaluate some of our counterterrorism
    measures, and then make a few observations about future
    policies.
        First, let me start off by saying there is good news and
    bad news to this story, and it is important to understand the
    good news. The good news is that, since 9/11, our Nation has
    been very successful in denying Al Qaeda, ISIS, or any of their
    affiliates from conducting a strategic-level attack against our
    homeland in 15 years.
        The bad news is that over the last 6 years the number of
    violent jihadis around the world has increased dramatically. In
    addition, there are a growing number of conflict zones across
    the Islamic world, from top to bottom, from right to left, from
    South Asia to the Levant and across all of Africa.
        These conflicts have provided opportunities for the
    expansion of Al Qaeda and ISIS from their traditional
    strongholds and have exacerbated the anger of homegrown
    terrorists in Europe and in the United States.
        During the past few years, sadly, three armies that we
    armed and trained to the teeth collapsed in front of lightly
    armed militia groups, Mali in 2012, Iraq in 2014, and Yemen in
    2015, providing our enemies with tons of equipment, ammunition,
    and vehicles.
        Let me expand a little bit on the bad news. I skipped over
    some of the good news, and there is lot, but it is in my
    written testimony. Let me focus on the bad news.
        Since the Arab Spring, the Islamic world has been beset
    with these conflicts. Currently, there are four failed states
    in the Islamic world: Syria, Yemen, Somalia, and Libya. There
    are at least five other states with major areas of ungoverned
    space, including the FATA [Federally Administered Tribal Areas]
    in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan, and Mali.
        In addition, there are several other states with conflicts
    brewing of varying degrees of violence and ungoverned space,
    such as Southern Philippines, Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad,
    and also in the Sinai region of Egypt.
        The roots of these conflicts are complex. Many go back
    decades, but all have been exacerbated by the Arab Spring and
    the involvement of radical jihadis.
        Each of these conflicts has its own unique characteristics,
    which I, again, is in my written testimony. They are all very,
    very different, and AQ [Al Qaeda] and ISIS adapt to each one of
    those to expand their influence and pour gasoline on the fire
    and extend their own strategic goals.
        Before recommending any new actions, let me quickly review
    what has worked for the past 15 years. It is very important to
    understand, a lot of what we have done has worked. It is not
    luck that we haven't been re-attacked since 9/11. It is not
    luck. It is a lot of hard work.
        I describe it in four layers of defense, starting with
    sanctuary areas, which I will focus mostly on, because this is
    the Armed Services Committee.
        But the second area is the area between the sanctuaries and
    our border, where most of that action is involved with
    intelligence sharing.
        The third layer of defense is our border. And that is very
    much related, those watch lists, to the intelligence sharing in
    the second layer of defense.
        The fourth and final defensive area is our homeland, and
    that primarily is the work of the FBI Joint Terrorism Task
    Force [JTTF] and organizations like NYPD [New York Police
    Department], that I was proud to be a part of.
        Let me talk a little bit about the sanctuaries again and
    what we have done there and what has worked. In the sanctuary
    areas, we have pounded Al Qaeda's leadership in the FATA,
    Yemen, and Somalia with lethal action from the skies and also
    from the land and sea. This model has now been expanded to ISIS
    targets in Iraq, Syria, and Libya.
        Some pundits call these programs ``whack-a-mole,''
    inferring the terrorists quickly rebound from these attacks. My
    experience in studying behavior of these groups has been very
    different.
        In those regions where we conduct these operations, not
    only do we kill off the most experienced, talented, and
    dangerous terrorists, but those that come after are principally
    concerned about staying alive.
        And they know that it is extremely dangerous for them to
    talk on the phone, send an email, meet with more than two or
    three people, travel in a car, set up a safehouse or a small
    training area. And those that do so, have a very short life
    expectancy, and they all know it.
        And it is difficult to run an international terrorist
    organization when you are under such pressure and your primary
    concern is physical survival.
        But our most important instrument, in addition to these
    strikes, is the training, advice, and assistance of our
    military units in these regions, particularly by the U.S. Army
    Special Forces.
        As advisors, in most of our cases, our soldiers should not
    be involved with what is referred to as ``actions on the
    objective.'' That is the shooting part of it. They should be
    more advisors and allow the host country military forces take
    actions on the objective. Again, I go through more of that
    concept in my written remarks.
        Let me conclude by saying--with 10 points on how we need to
    ramp up our policies in order to respond to this increasing
    threat and some of the problems we have had in the last few
    years.
        First of all, as Mr. Jenkins said, try not to invade
    countries. That doesn't always work out very well. But at the
    same time, we have this allergy invading countries.
        And secondly, I would say don't allow more of these
    collapsed armies to happen: Mali, Yemen, and Iraq. It is not
    necessary. So my second point is if you do have to intervene,
    look at the French model in Mali where they got in, crushed the
    rebellion, and got out.
        They didn't own the problem. They still have small forces
    there putting pressure on AQIM [Al Qaeda in the Islamic
    Maghreb], but they have not owned Mali and they got out after
    they achieved their objective.
        Thirdly we should expand our train, advise, and assist
    programs across the danger areas that I discussed. Advisors
    should be able to move forward. But again, as I said, the
    actual shooting should go to the host country.
        Fourth, Afghanistan and Iraq are very, very important, but
    I caution about creeping troop increases in both countries.
    Thousands of advisors that are there in advise missions, when
    it becomes too big, it begins to look and smell like an
    occupation. And occupations create as many problems as they
    seek to solve.
        When I was a special forces advisor in El Salvador, in a
    compound, by the way, that was overrun three times in 7 years,
    there was never more than two or three special forces advisors
    per brigade. And for 6 months I was there by myself. Sometimes,
    less is more in this type of operation.
        Fifth, aviation is a game changer. Drones collect
    intelligence and target terrorist leadership. Attack
    helicopters, AC-130s, A-10s, are the ground pounders' best
    friend in a firefight. If you want to do more in these combat
    zones, I would expand aviation. Not only U.S. but host
    countries, to the extent that you can, and keep the footprint
    of ground forces to a minimum.
        Troop increases should be done in tens and hundreds. I am
    skeptical about increases in the thousands.
        Sixth, keep your sociopolitical objectives humble and
    limited. These problems are very complex, and even if you solve
    them in a country like Tunisia, which is stable, has rule of
    law, some economic development, they export on a per capita
    basis more jihadis than any other Arab country.
        So even where you have solved all the political social
    problems doesn't guarantee that you are going to eliminate the
    jihadis.
        Seventh, support our key allies in the regions that are in
    the front lines of this fight, particularly Egypt, Jordan, the
    UAE [United Arab Emirates], and others like Niger that are
    hosting our aircraft in Central Africa. They are not perfect
    partners, but they are our partners and need our support.
        Eight, crank up the pressure on Iran. We should no longer
    accept the Iranian transgressions against our soldiers and
    sailors. A swift and determined response should be conducted
    for future transgressions. Failure to do so risks escalation of
    these attacks from this rogue regime.
        Ninth, preserve our troops. Their lives are precious, and
    there are a growing number of requirements around the world. We
    have been fighting this war for the last 15 years. We are going
    to have to do it for the next 15 at least. At the same time,
    they are being asked to prepare for conflicts in Central Europe
    and all the way to East Asia.
        Finally, Mr. Chairman, we are in a long war against a
    determined enemy. The key to our success is going to be
    sustained pressure in a targeted fashion across all the four
    layers that I talked about. If there are weaknesses in any one
    of those layers, we become vulnerable.
        If we keep the pressure on all four, we can prevent
    strategic attacks, like we have for the 15 years, and try to
    minimize the lone wolf attacks, while at the same time allowing
    our soldiers to prepare for the threats that loom on the
    horizon. Threats that you, Mr. Chairman, are very much aware
    of. Thank you very much.
        [The prepared statement of Ambassador Sheehan can be found
    in the Appendix on page 109.]
        The Chairman. Thank you. I guess I am struck by the
    similarities. Each of you basically see or describe the threat
    as having evolved in a similar way, spread out more
    geographically, more groups, but fewer spectacular attacks,
    more kind of lower level attacks.
        I guess I would like to just ask each of you, where do you
    see the threat going next? There are some people, for example,
    who argue that as ISIS gets squeezed in Iraq and Syria, the
    incentive for more spectacular attacks to show that they are
    still there, they are still viable, to be an attraction for
    their followers will grow, and that they will shift, basically,
    to more spectacular sorts of attacks.
        I think a couple of you touched on it. There are
    continuing--we have seen the use of chemical weapons in the
    Iraq/Syria theater. There continue to be concerns that
    chemical, biological, or radiological weapons could be in their
    hands.
        So I would just like to ask each of you briefly, where do
    you see this going next in terms of the threat? How will it
    evolve in your judgment?
        Professor Hoffman.
        Mr. Hoffman. Well, I think you are quite correct that as
    ISIS is continually squeezed, in order to maintain its
    relevance, burnish its credentials, it is going to have to
    strike.
        And I think over the past 2 or 3 years it has built up a
    capability in Europe to carry out, on the one hand, Paris-style
    or Istanbul-style attacks that result in mass casualties, but
    also, to animate or motivate individuals, such as the truck
    driver in Nice last July.
        For me, the big question is how long Al Qaeda will wait in
    the wings? I am convinced, although this is just intuition and
    gut feeling, is that Al Qaeda will absorb ISIS at some point.
        That as ISIS is weakened on the battlefield, it will take
    on those fighters, whether voluntarily or some sort of a
    hostile takeover. Because, basically, when you compare ISIS and
    Al Qaeda now, Al Qaeda is way ahead of ISIS in terms of
    leadership that has largely remained intact and also has been
    dispersed throughout the world, but particularly to the Levant,
    in cohesion, in ideology, and I would argue, in support.
        The one advantage ISIS clearly has is this external
    operations capability, which is in part, because Zawahiri has
    deliberately held back Al Qaeda. So Al Qaeda wants that
    external operations capability. And as I said in my testimony,
    that would, I think, escalate this conflict onto a different
    level.
        And this is why Al Qaeda, I think, has been seeding Syria
    in particular with some of its most valued senior leadership,
    including Saif al-Adel, amongst others.
        In terms of your points about the chemical weapons, I mean,
    think of what the Tsarnaev brothers did in Boston with a
    pressure-cooker bomb that they downloaded from the internet. Or
    think of the considerable alarm that a truck driver caused in
    Nice.
        Even a chemical weapon, some unconventional attack or an
    attack using an unconventional weapon, in a European city. And
    here I agree completely with my former boss and mentor, Brian,
    that the threat is much greater in Europe than it is in the
    United States.
        But an attack with an unconventional weapon like that, I
    think, would have profound rippling, and second- and third-
    order effects, that would catapult the fear level that these
    groups are able to impose, to a much higher level.
        And the fact that ISIS has already regularly used chemical
    weapons, that there has been evidence in the past 3 years of Al
    Qaeda similarly developing sarin nerve gas, for example, that
    this is a potentiality we have to consider. And the
    psychological repercussions that would follow in its wake.
        The Chairman. Mr. Jenkins.
        Mr. Jenkins. I do think there will be pressure on ISIL to
    do something, particularly as it is squeezed in Iraq and Syria.
    That spectacular doesn't have to ascend up to the level of a 9/
    11.
        I mean, I agree with Bruce, that, you know, if you look at
    the Paris attacks or the Nice attack, or even something that
    might be the equivalent of what we saw take place in Mumbai in
    2008 or in Nairobi more recent than that. That is a number of
    shooters, suicide bombers, hostage situations that can
    basically paralyze a city.
        I would also not exclude--because it has been a continuing
    quest of AQAP [Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula], as well as a
    demonstrated capability of ISIL, and that is, sabotage of
    aircraft has to be included.
        Given the state of the world and the apprehension that has
    already been created by 9/11 and by the continuing terrorist
    threat, it doesn't have to ascend to the level of a 9/11 to
    have this major psychological impact, which is what this is all
    about.
        I would also agree that the foreign fighters themselves,
    apart from central leadership, they are going to scatter. They
    either die in Syria and Iraq, or they scatter.
        Some of them went to Syria, I am convinced, initially, not
    to fight and die in Syria, but to gain the contacts and
    training and experience necessary to bring the violent jihad
    back home.
        So as we make progress, and even evidence of that progress
    in Syria and Iraq, could see a burst of terrorist activity
    elsewhere. Europe is more vulnerable to that because of the
    proximity and the physical connectivity of a number of these
    fighters and people who stayed back home.
        The thing that gave the lethality to the Paris and Brussels
    attacks was the fact that foreign fighters were able to come
    back and hook up with people who did not go, but who provided
    an underground, a logistics infrastructure, weapons, and so on
    that could make them operate at a much more lethal level.
        Finally, completely separate from all of this in terms of
    the future, in terms of the trajectory of this ideology, this
    jihadist ideology is becoming a conveyor for individual
    discontents. That is, for individuals who are unhappy with
    their lives, who are aggressive, who are suffering from issues
    of substance abuse, even mental illness.
        This ideology resonates with it, and we are increasingly
    seeing individuals that, you know, if you ask me, are these
    crazy people or are these terrorists, my answer is yes. And
    that is going to be just the continuing phenomenon we are going
    to be dealing with.
        The Chairman. Ambassador.
        Ambassador Sheehan. Mr. Chairman, sometimes in the U.S. we
    theorize about strategies and shifts of strategies by
    terrorists. I actually believe that they have never moved away
    from their intention to conduct massive attacks within the
    United States, for both Al Qaeda, and I think ISIS would love
    to do it as well. It is part of their DNA and what they are all
    about.
        The reason they haven't done it is, quite frankly, because
    they can't. So I believe that if they could tomorrow, they
    would organize a complex and sophisticated attack against the
    United States.
        I remember when I was in New York City after 9/11, I used
    to give speeches around the city, and then people would ask me
    why haven't they conducted another attack since 9/11? I said,
    ``Frankly, if they could, they would tomorrow. But they
    can't.''
        That drove people insane when I said that in 2003 and 2004,
    but it is a fact. It was the truth. A lot of people said, well,
    they have changed their strategy. They are waiting for the big
    one.
        The reason is they will conduct a big attack if they can
    tomorrow. And we have to keep pressure on them, as I said in my
    remarks, across all those layers, and that will prevent them
    from doing so.
        It is very difficult for them now to stroll 19 people into
    the U.S., and take flying lessons and conduct four simultaneous
    cellular planning operations and conduct an attack. That is
    just impossible for them to do now. Not only in the United
    States, but even in Europe, even though in Paris you had some
    dimensions of that.
        But again, after Paris and what happened in Brussels, you
    are seeing a lot of roll-up of those cells, and it is going to
    become more difficult for them in Europe also to conduct
    simultaneous, multicell attacks, which really become at the
    strategic level.
        So they have never lost the intention to do so. They would
    love to do it tomorrow, in my view, either of these
    organizations. I agree with Bruce; they are probably going to
    morph together.
        I wrote in 2006 that the only way, and Brian talked about
    whether they represent an existential threat to the U.S., I
    said then that the only way they could is by creating a WMD
    [weapon of mass destruction], probably an improvised WMD.
        And I do believe they still have that intention, whether it
    be chemical, biological, radiological. I would suggest, and
    then when I was in NYPD, what we tried to do about that was
    number one, always look for the cell.
        Always look for the people that want to do that. And that
    is an offensive strategy of investigations and undercovers and
    informants to try to break up that cell before they have the
    capability to conduct a sophisticated attack, like chemical,
    biological, or radiological.
        And then the second thing I would suggest is you try to
    protect the materials. When I was in New York City, we had 10
    hospitals that had pathogens that were very dangerous. We have
    reduced that to just a few right now and improved the security
    around them. The radiological materials that you find in
    hospitals and engineering firms have to be protected.
        And so in my view, to prevent a WMD, an improvised WMD
    attack takes two lines of effort. One, go after the cells.
    Prevent them from getting any sophistication. And second, make
    sure you have got the materials protected, whether it is
    biological pathogens, radiological materials, or dangerous
    chemicals.
        The Chairman. Thank you. Thank you all.
        Mr. Smith.
        Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, before I start my
    questions, we have two new members of our committee. We are
    still waiting for the third. I apologize. They were both here
    at the start. But now, well, we only have one.
        But we have Tom O'Halleran, who has joined us from Arizona.
    He has served three terms in the Arizona House of
    Representatives and one in the Arizona State Senate, former
    Chicago homicide detective, and a member of the Chicago Board
    of Trade and small-business owner. Welcome.
        And from New York we have Thomas Suozzi, who served for 7
    years as county executive of Nassau County, New York, and four
    terms as mayor of Glen Cove, New York. Welcome to the
    committee. We appreciate having you aboard.
        Mr. Suozzi. Thanks.
        Mr. Smith. The question I have, and following up a little
    bit on what Ambassador Sheehan said, I think you accurately
    described two of the things we have been most successful at.
    And I remember when people were complaining about the ``whack-
    a-mole'' strategy and thinking there are some moles that need
    to be whacked.
        And it also can be effective, in exactly the way that you
    described, as it disrupts their ability to plan and attack. I
    also think the second key thing you said was that we need to
    work with partners. That making it a U.S.-led operation, making
    it any sort of U.S. invasion, you know, in the Muslim world,
    that simply reinforces the message of groups like Al Qaeda and
    ISIS. And we need to do that.
        Going forward, the two things that I would like you
    gentlemen to try--well, you already addressed one. That is the
    issue that Mr. Jenkins raised.
        I don't know what we could do about that is that basically
    every disaffected person in the world is now clinging to this
    ideology as an excuse to do the kind of thing that they
    probably would have done anyway. So trying to track down those
    dangerous people when there isn't necessarily a direct causal
    link to ISIS or Al Qaeda is going to be a law enforcement
    challenge across the Western world.
        But the piece of it we haven't really talked about is the
    religious piece. And the fact that ISIS and Al Qaeda, and this
    is a very controversial subject, because as I think it was
    General Petraeus said, our most important allies in combatting
    groups like Al Qaeda and ISIS are our Muslim friends.
        We need them on our side. These people are operating in
    their world. These people are hijacking their religion. They
    are the ones that are going to need to lead the fight.
        But I guess the biggest question is, well, one last
    ideological point. There are those, particularly in this
    current administration, who view Islam itself as illegitimate,
    that basically Islam is not a religion they have said. It is an
    ideology of subjugation.
        And if you take that approach, basically looking at all
    Muslims across the world and saying that, until you
    fundamentally change, we are going to view you all as a threat.
    That strikes me as a bad approach.
        But what I would like to ask is what Muslim allies--well, I
    am not going to like to ask. I am just going to ask it. What
    Muslim allies are there that we should work with? And how do we
    combat Al Qaeda and ISIS' interpretation?
        I forget the gentleman who wrote the book, but some years
    ago, when the chairman and I were on the what was then the
    Terrorism Subcommittee, we had the author of a book called
    ``The Al Qaeda Reader'' come testify before us and basically
    say, you know, bin Laden has got an argument about his
    interpretation of the religion.
        Now I don't agree with that. There are a thousand different
    ways to interpret just about every religion out there. But what
    is, who are our best messengers for this? How do we best combat
    that, that ISIS and these folks are merely taking Islam to its
    logical conclusion, a view that I totally disagree with?
        But who do we look to counter it? What is the best
    counterargument? And how can we persuade the current White
    House to not go down that ``We are at war with all Muslims''
    route, because I think that is quite literally a dead end. How
    would you wrap all of those religious issues together and give
    us a strategy?
        Whoever wants to take a crack at that is welcome. Don't all
    leap in.
        Mr. Jenkins. We are all going to look at each other to see
    who is going to go down that path first. Look, first of all,
    let me address pieces. You raised several issues, so let me try
    disaggregate those and address a couple of them separately.
        With regard to local allies, I think we all agree here that
    this is key. This is not something that the United States can
    do without allies in the world, in the Arab world, in the
    Muslim world to do this. And these allies in almost every
    single case are going to be imperfect allies.
        And so to put this into an operational question, they are
    not going to necessarily live up to our standards of democracy,
    of social agendas, and so on.
        And while we stand for those things, we want to be careful
    that we don't set an unreasonable bar that prevents us from
    working with locals, as imperfect as they are.
        And so that means in some sense we are going to be looking
    for a way we can work with every single Muslim state, Arab
    state that is willing to work with us on this. There are some
    obvious key ones, the Gulf States to be sure.
        Americans have, especially in recent years, a lot of
    trouble with Saudi Arabia, with the Saudis. But in fact they
    remain a key player, and we are going to be working with them.
        The Egyptians, again, in recent years, that has raised a
    number of problems. We are going to be working with them----
        Mr. Smith. I am sorry. We could go down the road of all
    these.
        Mr. Jenkins. Yes.
        Mr. Smith. I am really interested in the religious aspect
    of this----
        Mr. Jenkins. All right.
        Mr. Smith [continuing]. And how you think we should
    approach it?
        Mr. Jenkins. There, just to touch that one, I am not sure
    we can effectively persuade people to alter their views about
    religion. And I am not sure that that is necessarily a
    productive path. Patrolling ideologies or religious
    interpretations of the Koran or any other religious book is not
    something that we can easily do.
        I guess I am more in the realm of I don't care what they
    believe. What I care about is what they do. So they can believe
    all of these things that may create certain societal problems
    in various societies. My principal concern is operationalizing
    that into violent attacks.
        So just as we are in a court of law, I don't care what the
    motives behind a murder or something else. I am concerned with
    the action, and I am going to go after this organization to
    ensure that these individuals do not have the physical
    capabilities to implement whatever is their vision for the
    world.
        Mr. Smith. Thank you.
        Ambassador Sheehan.
        Ambassador Sheehan. Let me jump straight to one of the
    issues that is related, Congressman Smith, and that is the
    issue of whether we should designate the Muslim Brotherhood as
    a terrorist organization.
        First of all, when I was an ambassador for counterterrorism
    at the State Department, I was in charge of the designation
    process of an FTO [foreign terrorist organization]. It is a
    legal process. After it goes from State it goes to Justice. It
    is a legal process and a complicated one and a specific one.
        Muslim Brotherhood is an ideology. And there are groups in
    various countries across the world. If you were to go about
    designating them, you would have to do it by organization,
    which is what we do already.
        To try to do a sweeping designation, I think, would be
    problematic. And before we were to do that, I would suggest
    that we talk to our key allies, like President Sisi in Egypt,
    and ask him what the implications would be to designating an
    ideology like that as a terrorist when about half of the
    country voted for Muslim Brotherhood in their elections a few
    years ago. I am not sure that would help him.
        Mr. Smith. Yes.
        Ambassador Sheehan. And so what we want to do is help our
    allies. So I think that the notion of trying to broadly brush
    the religion of Islam as the problem is not productive.
        As I mentioned in my testimony, the fact of the matter is
    that across the Islamic world, they are plagued with about 10
    or 12 violent situations, wars, conflicts. In Afghanistan it is
    modernity against a Talibanesque version, all the way to tribal
    issues in Africa, and different types of problems that they
    have.
        And on top of those, you have basically a civil war between
    the Sunni and Shia sects being waged right now, which is sort
    of you could look at it as an Arab/Persian struggle or you
    could look at it as a Sunni/Shia struggle. But either way, that
    struggle is exacerbating the problems across the Islamic world.
        There is not a lot we can do about that except try not to
    make it worse and probably try to stand with our partners in
    the Gulf, in Egypt, Jordan, the UAE.
        And then deal with two of the most problematic of our
    allies, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, which are at the root of the
    problem in many areas, historically, both of them, and
    fundamental to the solution. So we are just going to have to
    work with those two countries through these issues.
        Mr. Smith. Mr. Hoffman, you need to be very quick. I have
    taken too much time already.
        Mr. Hoffman. Sure. Actually, even though since 1989 I have
    written about how religion has motivated and inspired and
    changed terrorism, I don't think it is about religion anymore.
    I think it has much more to do with the very simple message
    that was articulated 60 years ago by Frantz Fanon in Algeria.
        It is about the catharsis of violence, the self-
    satisfaction of violence against what is seen as an oppressive,
    subjugative system. It is really South against North, the
    undeveloped world or the developing world against the developed
    world. And this is why I think our counter-messaging has been
    failing because we have been treating it as a theological
    problem and it has gone beyond it.
        That is what I think accounts for the lone wolves, as Brian
    and Mike have described, but also, too, for these 40,000
    foreign fighters that have gravitated to the movement.
        I would agree completely with Mike that designating the
    Muslim Brotherhood would be counterproductive. This is exactly
    the strategy that terrorists want us to embrace. Terrorism,
    fundamentally, is a strategy of provocation where you provoke
    your enemy to undertake actions that will burnish the terrorist
    credentials, that will support their propaganda.
        In my view, firstly, we should only designate groups that
    are terrorists, ones that are, in fact, terrorist groups.
    Secondly, the Muslim Brotherhood is not a cohesive entity.
    There are elements of it that are violent. We should be tough
    on those individuals and sanction those individuals.
        But at the same time, there are Muslim Brotherhoods
    represented in the Jordanian parliament, in Tunisia, and other
    places. We should be seeking to encourage those moderates and
    those who believe in democracy in the Brotherhood to embrace it
    more, not painting them with a broad brush.
        Mr. Smith. Thank you, that is a very helpful answer. And I
    yield back.
        The Chairman. Mr. Wilson.
        Mr. Wilson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        I am very grateful that Congresswoman Elise Stefanik is
    going to be the new chair of the Emerging Threats Subcommittee.
    And so she will be taking a lead on the issues we are
    discussing today.
        Over the weekend, I visited the World Trade Center in New
    York. It is always going to be a tragic reminder to me of the
    attacks of 9/11 as the Islamic terrorists initiated the global
    war on terrorism.
        Sadly, the largest number of deaths in the war, by the
    terrorists, have been people of Islamic faith. And I agree with
    Mr. Hoffman that we must be ever vigilant to eliminate safe
    havens of terrorists wherever they are.
        I am also grateful for the line of questioning by Ranking
    Member Smith. In a recent hearing from General David Petraeus
    to this committee, he emphasized on the importance of
    discrediting, quote, ``the ideology of Islamic extremism.''
        Taking that statement in consideration, each of you, could
    you describe the importance of counter-propaganda efforts and
    what role it may play in discrediting the ideology of
    extremism?
        Mr. Hoffman.
        Mr. Hoffman. I think discrediting the ideology of terrorism
    or violence, firstly, I think you have to deprive them of their
    allure. And I think the allure isn't so much their religion. It
    is that they are able to seize and hold territory and to
    exercise sovereignty over populations.
        I mean, ISIS has emerged very suddenly as this mercurial
    threat precisely because of its military capabilities. So I
    think first and foremost there has to be a military answer to
    taking down the state. Once that state is destroyed and once
    that allure is removed, then I think, counter-propaganda
    messages and counter-messaging can be helpful.
        Until then, though, I would emphasize less the message and
    more the technological solutions of depriving the terrorists of
    the platforms that they use to communicate those messages. I
    think that is actually, at least in the current situation,
    would be preferable to the counter-messaging. The counter-
    messaging should prevent the resurgence of these groups, not
    attempt to address them right now.
        Mr. Wilson. Thank you.
        Mr. Jenkins. I would agree. The counter-messaging is not
    the leading issue here. The leading issue is dealing with the
    actual threat that they pose. And that means going after the
    asylums. It means dismantling the organizations.
        In terms of counter-messaging, that is extremely, extremely
    difficult to do. We are trying to change people's world views.
    Tough to do. I think our most effective counter-messaging is,
    in fact, not messaging.
        It is what we stand for, ourselves. That is, this country
    has always stood for certain values. These values have
    attracted people from around the world, admiration from around
    the world. And that is what we believe in.
        It is far more effective for us to project our own beliefs
    and to live by those beliefs than it is for me to try to
    discredit how someone else views God and their position in
    relationship to that God.
        Mr. Wilson. Thank you, Mr. Jenkins.
        And Ambassador.
        Ambassador Sheehan. Yes, Congressman, I actually believe we
    are winning the war of narratives, and we are winning by a huge
    margin. And you can see that every day as people stream out of
    the Middle East and risk mountains and seas to come to the West
    and to the U.S.A. when they could go to countries that have
    their own religious faith and language that are much closer.
        We are winning in narrative. Unfortunately, there is a
    small percentage of people that are attracted to this other
    nihilistic, violent narrative. And I, like my two predecessors,
    I think there is not a whole lot we are going to do about
    those.
        To the extent that we are involved in narratives, I believe
    that we could help our partners strengthen their alternative
    narrative. Instead of them trying to get slick talking points,
    or with glossy documents countering Koranic interpretations, I
    think what we--we could help our allies build up their
    narrative, what they stand for.
        And so if their young moderate people are willing to pick
    up a gun to fight for what they believe in, not just the
    jihadis that are streaming in to pick up a gun. And I think
    they are going to have to fight it out at the grassroots level.
        And they do, Congressman, in the villages in Afghanistan or
    in Yemen where the villagers there are opposed, or in Syria
    opposed to the radical views of the Taliban or Salafist-type
    ideologies and will pick up the gun and defend themselves.
        So I think that ideologically we are not doing too bad. The
    fact of the matter is there are a number of these people that
    we just have to get them. I don't think we are going to change
    their minds.
        Mr. Wilson. And, Ambassador and Mr. Jenkins, thank you
    both.
        And in this regard, I have had the opportunity in visiting
    the Middle East, to visit kingdoms like Bahrain, where they
    cite how grateful they are in 1895 that it was the Americans
    who built their first hospital.
        And then we are all familiar with the American University
    system from Sofia, Bulgaria, to Alexandria in Egypt, and,
    obviously, Beirut, that has been positive. And so I hope we
    keep citing that.
        Also I am really grateful when constituents express concern
    to me that people in their region want to live in the 14th
    century. I say, ``No, you need to visit the countries of the
    Persian Gulf. They all look like Hilton Head on steroids.'' And
    so it is much more positive.
        Mr. Hoffman, in your statement, you discussed Al Qaeda as
    ``rebuilding and marshalling its resources to reinvigorate the
    war against the American people and American families.'' Can
    you tell us about the long-term threat?
        Mr. Hoffman. I think Al Qaeda has never changed, and it
    still sees itself in what it conceives as an existential
    struggle against the West and against the United States in
    particular.
        I think that it has taken advantage of our preoccupation
    with ISIS to rebuild its strength, particularly in South Asia,
    where, again, almost completely escaped notice when they
    created Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent which was designed
    simultaneously to reinvigorate its presence in Afghanistan.
        And a year ago October, one of the largest arms dumps since
    9/11 was discovered in Afghanistan that Al Qaeda had been
    preparing to spread its ideology to India which is, of course,
    the world's second largest Muslim population. And we already
    see its effectiveness in Bangladesh and in Burma.
        But I think elements like the Khorasan group are an elite
    forward-deployed special operations unit that is waiting for
    the proper time to take the struggle to the West and to the
    United States.
        Mr. Wilson. Thank you very much.
        The Chairman. Mr. Larsen.
        Mr. Larsen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just a reminder to the
    panel, we are now in a 5-minute rule, total, questions and
    answers. So I will try to be brief with questions and you try
    to be succinct with your answers. Appreciate that.
        Mr. Hoffman, you noted in your testimony, talking about
    chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear, that we should
    be looking out for that. What is new that is happening?
        We have been discussing this and acting on this since 2001.
    So what now in 2017 should we be thinking about that is
    different than what we have been doing consistently through the
    DOE [Department of Energy] and the DOD [Department of Defense]?
        Mr. Hoffman. The threat, I think, is mostly in the realms
    where these groups can develop their own weapons or seize
    battlefield weapons and then deploy themselves. So certainly
    the frequency with which chemical weapons have been used by
    both sides in Syria, by groups like ISIS but also by the Assad
    government, I think, has loosened the restrictions or at least
    the moral restrictions on using these types of weapons.
        The fact that----
        Mr. Larsen. Does that change what we need to do within the
    DOD or DOE to operationalize a response?
        Mr. Hoffman. Well, at least from my perspective, since Iraq
    in 2003, there has been less and less attention paid on the
    terrorist threat using these weapons. And I think it has grown
    appreciably.
        So I think, first and foremost, it is to review what is in
    place now and what is being done and to be confident that it is
    designed to meet this burgeoning number of sanctuaries and safe
    havens which gives more scope for the research and development
    of these weapons.
        Mr. Larsen. Mr. Sheehan, would you agree with that
    assessment?
        Ambassador Sheehan. Yes. I would just add that it is very
    difficult to develop these type of weapons. Even an
    organization like an Aum Shinrikyo, which had tremendous amount
    of scientists, unlimited money, et cetera, you know, tried to
    do a chemical weapon attack in the subway system in Tokyo,
    killed seven people. They could have done better with two 9
    millimeters; very, very difficult to do.
        I believe that the biggest threat, as I said in my remarks,
    would be less concern about them building a WMD overseas than I
    am about an individual within the United States that becomes
    radicalized, so has access to the materials. And I think that
    is where the focus should be.
        Mr. Larsen. Okay.
        Back to Mr. Hoffman. In your testimony, written testimony,
    on page 9, I think I counted five steps or five actions we
    ought to take. But one of those has to do with your suggestion
    that we have strict 90-day rotations of division-size regular
    military in some of these countries.
        It is called boots on the ground. That is what we call
    that. And what I have found here in 16-plus years in Congress
    is that strict 90-day rotations become unrestricted, unlimited
    rotations.
        So are you, in fact, advocating as part of a proposal for
    U.S. boots on the ground beyond special operations forces which
    you also support?
        Mr. Hoffman. I am, sir. And actually you know, Mike Sheehan
    also talked about this in the context of the French
    intervention in Mali. I think the problem is, you know, we have
    tried invading countries, and that obviously doesn't work.
        I would argue, for the past decade or so, we have tried the
    indirect approach, leadership attrition, building up post-
    nation forces, counter-messaging. It is not working. The spread
    of ISIS and, I think, the resilience of Al Qaeda has
    demonstrated that.
        So I was trying to identify the sweet spot in the middle
    where, if our enemies, as I believe, have enmeshed us in this
    war of attrition or this war of exhaustion where they are
    trying to provoke our liberal societies to become more
    illiberal to target these groups that will burnish their
    propaganda and their recruitment, I think it is important to
    try to break that cycle, to break that war of attrition.
        And in that sense, I think, having taken down, for
    instance, Mosul sooner than 2 years would have dealt more of a
    blow to ISIS' allure and would have probably had a greater
    impact on dissuading the 40,000-plus foreign fighters that have
    gravitated to the caliphate from over a hundred countries than
    the efforts we have undertaken thus far, which aren't working.
        Mr. Larsen. Okay.
        Mr. Jenkins, do you have a response to boots on the ground
    and how that plays into a change in operations and tactics?
        Mr. Jenkins. You know, you have two former infantry
    officers here. And the right answer in infantry school is it
    depends on the situation and the terrain.
        Clearly, we do want to avoid large-scale commitments of
    U.S. forces on the ground. It changes the dynamics. It changes
    the narrative. It is unproductive and should only be done in
    circumstances where it appears there are no other options, it
    is the right thing to do.
        And but here I would agree with both Professor Hoffman and
    Ambassador Sheehan. If we are going to go in with anything
    larger than a special operations or small teams of advisors,
    then it has to be a precise mission, achievable within a
    limited amount of time.
        And you go in and you get out fast. Whether that is 60
    days, 90 days or 97 days, that will depend on the nature of the
    mission.
        Mr. Larsen. Yes, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        The Chairman. Mr. Wittman.
        Mr. Wittman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Ambassador Sheehan, I want to go to the points that you
    brought up. You listed the 10 points that you believe that we
    need to continue in order to defeat, through counterterrorist
    mechanisms, these terrorist organizations' effort.
        And it sounds like much of that are existing policies and
    you are only wanting to make sure that we intensify and
    maintain the rigor and vigor of effort in those areas. I guess
    you would call it war of full-court press.
        And I understand your vision within that is to deny the
    ability for these organizations to operate at the strategic
    level. And a secondary effect is to limit the number of lone
    wolf attacks and them being able to organize.
        What I noticed, though, is missing in what you lay out
    there is the endpoint at which you believe we would be able to
    demonstrate either some kind of success or some diminution of
    the ability for those groups to operate, fewer terrorist
    attacks.
        Give me your perspective. Is this something that we are
    going to have to continue in the way you describe it and at the
    intensity that you describe it ad infinitum? Or is it something
    that, at some point, we are going to achieve some level of
    success? Give me your perspective, too, on what the path is
    with this effort.
        Ambassador Sheehan. Thank you, sir, and for better
    articulating my own remarks. I appreciate that and the
    basketball analogy which I used on the full-court press.
        I never use the term defeat because I think, even if we
    could, it would require such a commitment of resources that is
    not commensurate with the level of the threat. We have a lot of
    big issues out here that this committee is dealing with.
        And the U.S. military, I just spent the last few weeks in
    the Pentagon talking to the Army about how they are trying to
    prepare for this wide range of threats from cyber to East
    Europe, East Asia, different types of irregular warfare.
        We can't expend all our national resources on this threat.
    I believe that what we are doing has worked. That is why I
    spent time on that in my remarks. For the last 15 or 16 years
    it has been working.
        We shouldn't demoralize ourselves. It is so easy to sit
    back and criticize everything. Around the world, things are
    falling apart. But here in the U.S. we have had success.
        I believe, particularly from my experience at NYPD where I
    studied deeply these disaffected, the investigations that we
    had, hundreds of them within the metropolitan area and, across
    the country, the FBI's cases and knowing about the
    international.
        I don't think there is any way that we are going to stop
    these jihadis from attacking us over the next 20 to 40 years.
    It is impossible. So the notion of defeat which somehow means
    we are going to eliminate this threat, in my view, is wishful
    thinking.
        So what I always talk about is preventing the strategic
    attack and minimizing the lone wolves. Over time, this nihilist
    ideology, which does have an appeal--the narrative works--but
    over time, it will wind up on the ash heap of history with the
    other isms of the 20th century: authoritarianism, Naziism,
    communism, and others.
        But it is going to take some time, and it is going to burn
    out from within itself, with its own contradictions. And but
    that is going to take some time. As I say, this is at least a
    generational fight.
        Mr. Wittman. Very good. Thank you, Ambassador Sheehan.
        Mr. Hoffman, in your testimony, you spoke about our
    counterterrorism actions as it relates to ISIS saying, though,
    that there is a re-emergence of Al Qaeda. And you talk about
    what we would need to do there with both air operations, ground
    operations, special operators on the ground, a division-level
    effort there on the ground to be able to do that.
        Give me your perspective on why you, first of all, believe
    that Al Qaeda is in this state of resurgence. And is it based
    on Al Qaeda's fighters and their vision? Or is it based on
    their financial resources and their media networking?
        Give me your perspective about why you think Al Qaeda has
    re-emerged and what you think their effectiveness is in that
    re-emergence.
        Mr. Hoffman. Well, I think the first reason I would argue
    that they have re-emerged is that, I mean, they certainly have
    the global presence. That hasn't contracted. They are very
    quietly--groups have gone over to ISIS but they have cultivated
    new partners and new safe havens.
        Secondly, the appearance of Al Qaeda in the Indian
    Subcontinent, that I think they have pursued a dual geographic
    strategy. On the one hand, they sent some of their most senior
    leaders, Saif al-Adel, Muhsin al-Fadhli, Haydar Kirkan.
    Fortunately, two of the three we have killed, in fact, which is
    certainly an important plus.
        But on the one hand, as I said earlier, to create the
    Khorasan group or to have this forward presence and, I think,
    to groom and cultivate Jabhat al-Nusrah, now Jabhat Fatah al
    Sham, as their Middle Eastern operation.
        At the same time, which to me was astonishing, in January
    2014, while everybody was looking at developments in Syria, for
    example, Al Qaeda announced the creation of Al Qaeda in the
    Indian Subcontinent, seeking to deepen its roots there and to
    use that, similarly, its presence in Pakistan as a launch pad
    to radicalize the region.
        So the movement of its top personnel to Syria who have not
    really engaged in the fighting, that have been hanging back,
    suggests to me not that they have embraced a new approach to
    their ideology that is peaceful coexistence to the West. In my
    view, I hope I am wrong but I don't suspect I am, is that they
    are girding their loins for the next battle.
        They are waiting, again, precisely what concerns me the
    most is that the terrorists, in a sense, are engaging in their
    strategy of provocation. And to some extent, it is succeeding.
    It is causing profound divisions in societies. It is leading to
    nativism and populism.
        This is the best propaganda that they can seize upon. And
    unfortunately, we are falling into the trap. And that is why my
    argument is, like all adversaries, guerillas, and terrorists,
    they seek to enmesh their stronger opponents in these prolonged
    wars of attrition and enervation.
        We have to break that--I don't think--it is a generational
    fight, just as Ambassador Sheehan described. But we can't
    really survive this more than a few generations. So we have to
    start ending it now.
        Mr. Wittman. Got you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield
    back.
        The Chairman. Mr. Garamendi.
        Mr. Garamendi. I thank you very much for your testimony and
    causing us to think seriously about how to proceed. There seems
    to be a common trend of thought through all of your testimony.
    And I would like you to expand on this, and that is that our
    actions cause a counterreaction.
        And that counterreaction might be to more advance the cause
    of radical jihadism. There are some recent examples, and I
    don't want to get too political here, one of which is the
    immigration ban. But there are others that have taken place,
    and particularly military actions.
        And I just want to be quite clear in my mind that we
    should--do I understand you to tell us that we should always be
    mindful of the reaction that our actions will cause, and that
    we ought to avoid actions that would give the ISIS or Al Qaeda
    a propaganda and recruiting and more radical attacks?
        Is that the case? And I just want to be quite clear so that
    we understand that reaction is going to happen.
        So let us just start--so Mr. Sheehan and we would come on
    down from--I mean, Ambassador, if you will, we will just hear
    from all of you on this.
        Ambassador Sheehan. Look, if this is not an existential
    fight, that is, if our survival is not at stake, obviously at
    this moment, that means we get to make choices about what we
    do. In making those choices there are tradeoffs. There are
    benefits that might be achieved, but there are costs that come
    with those, making those choices. That is on our side.
        On the other side, we are dealing, as Professor Hoffman has
    underscored several times, we are dealing with an adversary
    that seeks to provoke us to doing counterproductive things. And
    even without that provocation, simply by our massive military
    power, by our size, we can end up doing things that will create
    backlashes.
        So that is the equation that we are always looking at.
    There are a lot of things we can do. One has to look at each
    one of those things and say what is this going to get me? What
    cost am I going to pay, and what risks I am taking?
        If this were existential, we don't get to make that choice.
    But here, especially since this is a long fight, we have to be
    very, very careful about how we make those choices.
        Mr. Garamendi. I have a feeling that I am going to get the
    same answer from the remaining two of you.
        Quickly, and then we are out of time in 2 minutes, so I
    guess I just want to make my own comment here and then I will
    let it go, is that it seems to me this is the principal point
    and the principal issue that we ought to be looking at as we
    develop policy and the procedures as well as funding for the
    various activities that are going forward and that we ought to
    be very mindful, in every step we take, that there will be a
    reaction.
        And that reaction might actually be negative to us and this
    cost benefit, I think that was about the words you were using,
    Mr. Jenkins. And I will let it go at that. And hopefully we
    will keep that in mind, both here within Congress as well as
    within the administration, and avoid those things that are
    going to be counterproductive. Thank you.
        The Chairman. Mr. Scott.
        Mr. Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Mr. Jenkins, you mentioned two countries in your opening
    paragraph. You mentioned Russia and China. And I wonder while
    we don't share the values with those countries, or they don't
    share our values of human rights and personal freedoms, with
    regard to terrorism, don't we have a shared interest?
        Don't they see this issue of terrorism as a threat in their
    country as well?
        Mr. Jenkins. In the broader sense, we do share an interest,
    more so probably with the Russians than with the Chinese,
    although the Chinese have tried to enlist us in their efforts
    against dealing with Muslim separatists in Western China.
        In the case of Russia, there are very real concerns about
    the threat of Muslims. I mean, in Russia, this goes back
    centuries in their history.
        Having said that, though, having a generalized sense of
    common concern, I was part of an effort in the late 1980s, a
    team that went to Moscow and conducted a series of meetings to
    see if, at that time, the Soviet Union could cooperate with the
    United States in combatting terrorism.
        And getting beyond the general statements, that we agree
    that we are both concerned about this and really getting it
    down to sharing intelligence, to coordinating operations, that
    is difficult because here at the operational level, there are
    serious differences in how we view the world, serious
    differences in how we do things, and a significant level of
    mistrust.
        And it is just very, very difficult what you can achieve
    within that context.
        Mr. Scott. All of you, in your testimonies agree that the
    chaos in the countries in the Middle East, various countries,
    is what creates the ability for terrorists to not only exist
    but to grow and to, in many cases, create their own economies.
        I just wonder if, when we see an area where we know that
    there are, say, 20 to 50 members of ISIS or Al Qaeda, if we
    shouldn't be more aggressive in taking action to eliminate them
    when it is 20 or 50, before it is 200 or 500 and they have the
    ability to take a country or to take a city.
        Would you care to comment on that?
        Ambassador Sheehan. I----
        Mr. Scott. How would you handle it?
        Ambassador Sheehan. I agree, Congressman. In fact, that
    situation happened in Yemen a couple years back. We had
    narrowed our policy in Yemen as to striking only those that had
    an immediate direct threat to U.S. safety and security, which
    narrowed some of our targets.
        But a couple months later, there were a few hundred Al
    Qaeda guys doing a dance in a village in central Yemen and
    later Al Qaeda took over cities and port cities in Yemen. And
    there was some more flexibility in going after, broadening
    that, the aperture of those strikes.
        And I would certainly believe that there are conditions
    wherein that we need to pick up military action to prevent the
    massing of Al Qaeda or ISIS forces when that happens to prevent
    what could come forward.
        Mr. Scott. If I could ask one final question? Obviously,
    the refugee situation that has been created with the war in
    Syria, a lot of humanitarian crimes there. It is creating a
    tremendous amount of pressure on people who do share our values
    and who do share our interests, countries like Jordan,
    countries like Israel.
        Is there a solution in Syria that does not include the
    United States working with the Russians?
        Ambassador Sheehan. I believe there is no solution in any
    country where there is conflict without an agreement with the
    major stakeholders that are willing to put people on the ground
    and fight over it unless you want to take it over and dominate
    every inch of the security equation in that country.
        And if you are short of that interest, which I believe no
    one has the interest in doing that in Syria, means you have to
    sit at the table with those that are going to have that type of
    power. That means Russia, Iran, and all the other actors that
    have a stake in Syria have to be agreed with the solution or
    you are going to continue fighting for it.
        Mr. Scott. My time has expired. But I agree with you 100
    percent. If you have to walk through a pit of rattlesnakes, put
    on your snake chaps and let's get it over with. And the sooner
    we do it, the sooner some people will start to feel some relief
    in that part of the country.
        Thank you, gentlemen.
        The Chairman. Mr. Courtney.
        Mr. Courtney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you to the
    witnesses for your thoughtful testimony this morning.
        Ambassador Sheehan, I want to go to your 10-point plan and
    particularly the fifth point which is a pretty forceful
    statement that, if we are talking about using military force,
    as you just mentioned in the prior question, that it is a
    pretty strong statement that air power should be the, you know,
    the vehicle and also a pretty strong statement that we should
    be extremely frugal about the uses of ground forces.
        I am reminded of Secretary Gates' departing statement that
    any future Secretary of Defense who recommends a large ground
    war to a President ought to have their head examined. And I was
    wondering if you could, again, just sort of embellish a little
    bit that bit of advice.
        Ambassador Sheehan. Thank you. Thank you, sir. On the issue
    of air power--air power doesn't solve everyone's problems. It
    is not a panacea. However, since about 1944, we have dominated
    the airs of the world in most of our combat situations,
    although in Vietnam it was tricky sometimes for some of our
    pilots fighting against those air defense and jets. Generally,
    we have controlled the sky.
        And when you can control the sky, it gives you an enormous
    advantage physically, on the ground, if the condition exists
    when there is massing of the enemy. You can diminish that and
    then give your ground forces a much better chance.
        So I think that aviation gives us a technological advantage
    that can turn a situation. But never kid yourself that it is
    going to be the solution.
        So I believe that, for instance, in Afghanistan, when
    General Campbell was asking for more authority to use combat
    aviation support, the operations there, I think that was an
    important step forward in order to try to keep the Taliban at
    bay. Because the Taliban are expanding in areas. They are
    threatening the stability of that country.
        Yet I would be very, very careful about pouring too many
    troops in there. It is very expensive. It creates its own
    problems. And one way to try to push back the Taliban would be
    by having more liberal use of combat aviation to pound them.
        When I was in El Salvador in the early 1980s, the FMLN
    [Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front] was able to have
    columns of several hundred people. And when they had that
    capability, they threatened the stability of the whole country.
    By the time we brought in helicopters by the Salvadorans--and
    this is the problem in Afghanistan. We need an Afghan aviation
    solution there. And that has been a mess for 10 years.
        When they brought in the helicopters, it forced the
    guerrillas to dissipate, and they could never mass in more than
    a group of 10. And that was so debilitating to them, that it
    was very difficult for them to strategically threaten the
    government anymore, because of that ability from the air.
        It didn't eliminate them, not in any case. That has to be
    done on the ground. But it can be used as a way to at least
    hold people off.
        When the AQIM was coming south and threatening Bamako, it
    was French attack helicopters that came from Burkina Faso, and
    stopped them dead in their tracks.
        It was really just two French attack helicopters. One of
    the pilots was shot and wounded and died later. Two helicopters
    stopped that entire column. And then they pushed them back
    across the river and scattered up in the north.
        And so the judicious use of air power can turn a situation.
    But again, certainly not going to answer all of your problems,
    but it can be a major force multiplier.
        Mr. Courtney. Thank you. I yield back.
        The Chairman. Ms. Stefanik.
        Ms. Stefanik. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        My question this morning deals with the increased use of
    online propaganda and social media by terrorist organizations.
    Whether we are talking about formal magazines like Dabiq or
    Inspire, published by Al Qaeda and ISIL, which have millions of
    readers across the globe. How do we effectively counter this
    propaganda?
        Do you believe we have a strategy to counter this
    propaganda? What have we gotten right, and what do we need to
    do better?
        I will start with Mr. Hoffman.
        Mr. Hoffman. I think we have had a strategy, but it is
    almost like the Dutch boy trying to put his fingers in the dike
    that is burgeoning in on him. They are communicating on
    multiple levels. It is not just theological.
        It is as I described earlier, this appeal to a very classic
    Frantz Fanon wretched of the earth ideology that glorifies
    violence, that sees violence as a catharsis.
        But actually, I have to say, I don't think Dabiq and
    Inspire are the main problems. I mean, those appeal to the
    peripheral, the hangers-on like the Tsarnaev brothers, who
    tragically are capable of killing handfuls of people. What
    worries me is that groups like ISIS in particular, Al Qaeda as
    well, are using the dark web.
        They are using highly secure apps like Tor, for instance,
    to get into the dark web. That is where all of their activity
    that is the most consequential, that is radicalizing
    individuals that best suit their skill sets, not just the
    hangers-on, the losers, the malcontents who are attracted to
    their kind of violence, but people that have skills in the
    computational sciences, that are engineers.
        It is through the dark web. And that is, I think, the
    dimension of the struggle that is really gathering momentum
    now. And we are just coming to grips with understanding the
    Dabiqs and Inspire, and they have already moved on.
        And I think this was demonstrated over the past few years
    where social apps like, you know, Twitter and that type of
    thing, you know, I am not sure about really the impact that
    that has.
        It is more the encrypted communications from WhatsApp or
    Telegram that is facilitating their, both their recruitment and
    their terrorist operations, or at least the most consequential
    forms of recruitment, and the most serious types of terrorist
    operations.
        Ms. Stefanik. Mr. Jenkins.
        Mr. Jenkins. The issue here is not--I would agree with
    Professor Hoffman. The issue here is not the propaganda and,
    you know, that comes along with how to dismantle and clean an
    AK-47 in one of these magazines that is the problem. That is
    going to take place.
        In terms of much of the open web communications and social
    media communications, that has given them some advantages, but
    it has given our intelligence and law enforcement operations
    also a great deal of insights and ability to identify people
    and open investigations. A lot of the success we have had in
    uncovering plots has been because people have been
    communicating on the internet.
        From the standpoint of the most, or the greatest danger,
    operationally, I would agree with Professor Hoffman, it is
    skilled people communicating in a clandestine environment, and
    being able to do that, that is a great concern. And from the
    standpoint of crime other than terrorism, as well as in
    terrorism, that is going to be a future battlefield.
        Ms. Stefanik. And Ambassador Sheehan, I am going to ask a
    follow-up to you. Given your time as Assistant Secretary of
    Defense for Special Operations, what role does the Department
    of Defense play in this area of countering propaganda, and what
    more does the State Department need to be doing? And is the
    Global Engagement Center the most appropriate place to deal
    with this issue?
        Ambassador Sheehan. Thank you, Congresswoman, and
    congratulations on a new chairmanship. That is a great
    committee, by the way.
        Look, I have to admit, I am a skeptic on these efforts for
    counter-messaging. We have been at this for 20 years. There
    have been volumes. They are stacked up in all the think tanks
    and universities around the town. It is not a new thing. We
    have a big effort at State Department, run by one of my
    predecessors at SO/LIC [Special Operations/Low-Intensity
    Conflict].
        Yes, that is important, but I think the effort has to be in
    helping the host nations deal with their problems, as I
    mentioned before. Inspire is a problematic magazine, that you
    brought out.
        And as Mr. Jenkins said, they do assembly, disassembly.
    They encourage people to attack, and once in a while they will
    put a bomb-type instruction on there, which you can get other
    places on the internet.
        So I think that yes, we need to do this at the State
    Department and DOD and my office at SO/LIC. I had a small
    office that was also engaged in that. But I find that, I think
    the most important thing that we can do, in terms of counter-
    messaging, is help give political support to our key allies in
    the region.
        That, I think, is more important to help them establish
    some legitimacy within their countries, and try to roll back
    the movements that are festering within their country. If we
    could focus on helping them, rather than trying to come up with
    some snazzy talking points, I think our effort would be better
    spent.
        Ms. Stefanik. Thank you. I yield back.
        The Chairman. Mr. Veasey.
        Mr. Veasey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        I wanted to ask, and anyone on the panel can answer this,
    what lessons can be drawn from the merger of ISIL and Boko
    Haram in Sub-Saharan Africa, and applied to the potential
    merger of ISIL and Al Qaeda in the Middle East and the Arabian
    Peninsula.
        And I wanted you to kind of expand on what you touched on,
    which one of you touched on a little bit earlier, about what do
    these terrorist organization mergers mean for U.S.
    counterterror strategy, moving forward.
        Mr. Jenkins. Let me just say briefly, I would be a little
    bit cautious about the use of the term merger, because we are
    not really talking about mergers here. We are talking about
    affiliations, which can take place on multiple levels. There
    are shared concerns, there is, to a certain degree, in a
    broader sense, a shared sense of ideology.
        But these on the receiving end of these, or let's say, on
    the Boko Haram side, and the other local sides, being a part of
    either an Al Qaeda network, or an ISIL network, provides
    prestige.
        It elevates you among your local rivals. It may bring some
    modest amount of resources, so it has some advantages in terms
    of affiliation. It makes you more important than you are.
        On the other side, it gives the advantage of you don't
    control this entity yet, but you may be able to influence it.
    It gives you a new base of operations. It gives you access to
    potential recruits down the road. And left alone, over time,
    you may be able to increase that degree of management and
    control over these things.
        But they are at all different levels. They complicate
    things for our side, but they have these narrow advantages. I
    still think that, in many of these cases, we can look at the
    local groups who are attracted to this and make progress with
    them, both a combination of pressure, and in some cases there
    may be some incentives and tempt them to peel them away from
    these parent organizations.
        But they are not really mergers. Each side sees a tactical
    advantage in these connections.
        Mr. Hoffman. Right now I would say that the biggest danger
    is that these alliances or marriages of convenience or
    affiliations with one another are played out in ISIS' strategy.
        Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has already said to would-be foreign
    fighters, if you can't come to the caliphate any longer, if you
    can't come to Syria or Iraq, go to our wilayets, go to our
    provinces, our branches. So it becomes escape valve, a
    sanctuary, an alternative venue to reengage the battle. So I
    think that is the first thing.
        Secondly, I think all terrorist groups are like the
    archetypal shark in the water; they have to constantly move
    forward to survive. And in that sense, they become
    opportunists.
        And smaller groups seek to hitch their stars to the
    fortunes of what they see are rising stars. And this is a
    constant process. And in that case, usually when a smaller
    group does affiliate or associate itself with a larger group,
    it brings in more recruits.
        It gives them greater access to expertise, which enhances
    their own violent capabilities, and it enables them to engage
    in the stock-in-trade of terrorists, which is even higher
    levels of violence, such as we have seen in Nigeria from Boko
    Haram, where even the most egregious successes of the past are
    now surpassed by this new association, by this new support, by
    the new expertise and new recruits they are able to attract.
        Mr. Veasey. In all of Sub-Saharan Africa, which of the
    newly emergent terrorist organizations do you think pose the
    greatest threat to the U.S., based on scope and influence?
        Mr. Hoffman. I am going to give a counterintuitive answer,
    and say Al-Shabaab in Somalia. And the reason I say that is
    sort of the dominant paradigm of counterterrorism for the past
    decade plus has been that we have done a good job of hardening
    aviation security against terrorist threats.
        But last February, in Mogadishu, Al-Shabaab operatives
    affiliated with Al Qaeda, exactly underscoring my point about
    this exchange of technology and expertise, were able to smuggle
    a bomb inside a computer laptop, and detonate it. Fortunately,
    it was not at cruising altitude, so the plane--it wasn't an in-
    flight tragedy.
        But nonetheless, admittedly, the security in Mogadishu, I
    suspect, is not as good as at other airports. But nonetheless,
    I think that was an important incident for several reasons.
        Firstly, it showed these groups, and Al Qaeda in
    particular, still has an interest in targeting commercial
    aviation; secondly, that their ongoing efforts to effectively
    develop the technology to do so, proceeds; and thirdly, that
    they are willing to use affiliates or associates in far-flung
    places, to potentially to be their foot soldiers in a new
    campaign against commercial aviation.
        Ambassador Sheehan. If I could add, Congressman, I agree
    with Professor Hoffman that currently, right now, Al-Shabaab
    would be the biggest threat.
        Although over the horizon I would take a very close look at
    the North African groups in Libya. And a lot of those folks are
    Algerians that are veterans of some brutal wars over there.
    These are some really violent and skilled terrorists.
        So I think that we have to keep a very close eye on Libya
    and the spillover from Algeria. That they are still operating
    in parts of Algeria and in south of Libya, into Niger and over
    to Mali, as well as through the region. Those are some tough
    geography there, and there are some really, some tough
    customers in that vicinity that could pose a big problem in the
    future.
        Mr. Veasey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        The Chairman. Ms. McSally.
        Ms. McSally. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Thank you, gentlemen, for your insights.
        Ambassador Sheehan, I appreciate your thoughts on the
    asymmetric advantage we have with air power, as an airman
    myself. And I agree, we have got to take advantage of where we
    have those asymmetries.
        And as we are looking at that, all of you have mentioned
    this is a long-term fight. How does that translate to your
    thoughts on force structure? This committee has pushed back
    pretty strongly on keeping the A-10 flying for its unique
    capabilities. It is kicking butt right now, over in this fight
    against ISIS, setting records of munitions expended against the
    enemy.
        We need fifth generation fighters. But if we are asking a
    fifth generation fighter to do all of what we need for air
    superiority in places of denied access, plus all of this, on
    the other end of the intensity of conflict, does that make
    sense?
        You know, you don't need a Ferrari to try and do what a
    pickup truck does. Maybe you need a Ferrari and a pickup truck.
    So what are your thoughts on force structure for this long-term
    fight?
        Ambassador Sheehan. Well, since I am no longer in
    government, I can say, if the Air Force wants to get rid of the
    A-10, then I think the Army should pick it up, in addition to
    the AC-130 gunship as well. The Army, of course, has its own
    aviation assets, helicopters, and those are fantastic.
        But I do desperately believe, as a former infantryman and
    special operator, that we need those fixed-wing assets that can
    hang up. You know, drones can fill a lot of the gaps, but there
    is nothing like a 105, or the mini-guns of an AC-130 that
    change the battlefield.
        Or even a C-47 with a machine gun hanging out of the door
    can change the battlefield, in a scenario, in conflicts like
    this, where you are fighting irregulars that have AKs and
    technicals, you know, Toyota trucks with machine guns in the
    back of it.
        So I believe that these aviation assets are a tremendous
    game changer. We should hopefully keep them within our
    inventory and also look to provide these type of assets to our
    partners. I think that the biggest failure, and I put myself in
    the box of failing, is our Afghan aviation program. It is a
    complete debacle.
        And we have gotten arguments here in the Congress and in
    Washington about whether we should provide Russian-made
    helicopters to them, or Sikorskys, and it just constipated the
    whole issue. No one is in charge of that program over there,
    and it is unfortunate. The Afghan air force is so far behind
    the army in the development over the last 15 years.
        And I think we need to look at that across the board,
    Congresswoman McSally, in terms of looking for security
    assistance for aviation for some of our partners, not the
    really expensive stuff. Old Hueys with M-60 machine guns
    hanging out of the side of them, C-47s with mini-guns, these
    are game changers. And these countries can use those type of
    systems.
        We might have to provide the maintenance for them, and
    pilot training, but they can fly them, and they can shoot out
    of the side of them.
        Ms. McSally. Great. Thanks, Ambassador Sheehan.
        I want to shift focus. I am on the Homeland Security
    Committee, and one thing that we have been looking at is
    jihadists, this new phenomena of young women and girls becoming
    foreign fighters and becoming recruited to be radical.
        Their average age of the Western foreign fighters is 21,
    versus average age overall is 24. The Americans, one in six are
    women. And a very small number of them, who have traveled, get
    out, versus about 30 percent of the men are able to get out. So
    it is a very different phenomena.
        We have been taking a deep dive on this in Homeland
    Security. So they are not just victims. They are hardened
    jihadists recruiting others to come join the fight.
        Do you have any perspectives on that and how we
    specifically target the narrative and the approach to stop the
    propaganda to young women and girls? Any of you?
        Ambassador Sheehan. I can take a quick shot at it.
        Ms. McSally. Yes, sure.
        Ambassador Sheehan. I do believe there is a small
    percentage of women that have become jihadis, and that is a
    problem. The bigger problem is that, and I hate to sound
    chauvinistic here or whatever, but generally speaking, males
    between about 18 and 30, sex is on their mind.
        And one of the great recruitment vehicles of ISIS was, come
    to ISIS, we will get you a wife and a girlfriend if you pick up
    an AK and fight for us. That was a huge incentive for some of
    these folks.
        And if you look at Boko Haram, that disgusting nihilist
    organization, a lot of their most egregious acts were in
    kidnapping women and forcing them into these raping
    relationships that they call wives.
        And so the bigger problem, in my view, is the issue of sex
    as a motivator for these young jihadis to join these groups in
    order to get a wife, which they consider a wife, but we know is
    an absolute aberration.
        And I think that area needs a lot more work. It became
    obvious with Boko Haram. It was a big news issue for about a
    week here in the United States, and it has kind of drifted
    away.
        Ms. McSally. Great, thanks. I am over my time.
        Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
        The Chairman. Thank you.
        Mr. O'Rourke.
        Mr. O'Rourke. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to
    thank the witnesses for their testimony today.
        Mr. Hoffman, I really appreciate your point about one of
    the goals of terrorism being to provoke a response from the
    larger force of a larger country.
        And I think we can all think of ways in which we may have
    been provoked into expected and desired responses by terrorist
    organizations. Can you point out some ways in which we have
    confounded terrorist's expectations, where we have done the
    thing that they didn't expect and where that has been
    successful and how we might capitalize on that?
        And if you can't, can you suggest one?
        Mr. Hoffman. I think where we have confounded terrorism
    expectations is especially Joint Special Operations Command, I
    think is the--I mean I don't have the military credentials that
    my two colleagues do, but from my observations as an
    academician, the operation of the Joint Special Operations
    Command [JSOC], especially in Iraq.
        But in the year since, the way that they have closed the
    operational loop in terms of getting timely intelligence
    through interrogators that are forward deployed on the
    battlefield to get that to the operators, the innovation that
    they have been able to--I mean, JSOC is almost unique in terms
    of the authorities that it has, the ability to fire people, for
    example.
        So they have been on the cutting edge, I think precisely
    because they have been the most innovative and in terms of
    finding solutions and learning the lessons of the past, both
    what worked and what hadn't worked. That to me is I think, you
    know, been the most stellar weapon we have used against
    terrorists, amongst many. But in terms of a force structure
    group.
        Mr. O'Rourke. Thanks.
        Question for Mr. Jenkins. We had a few years ago the leader
    of one of our allied countries in the Middle East say something
    to the effect of, you know, you, the United States, shouldn't
    be leading this fight.
        We should. Muslim majority countries, Arab countries in
    this case, and we certainly want your support and your help,
    but we need to be the ones leading on the battlefield. And of
    course, everyone applauded. It is exactly what we wanted to
    hear. It never came to pass in any real way.
        What are your thoughts on the potential or reality of the
    United States creating a moral hazard in the region? Our allies
    know we will always be there. And there really are no
    conditions that I have seen us effectively set on our help and
    our ability to intervene militarily in that region.
        Is there any way to change that calculus for our allies or
    their perception of our willingness to intervene militarily?
        Mr. Jenkins. Well, you know, your observation that many of
    these high-flown statements when we then leave them to their
    own devices they sort of dissipate. However at the same time,
    we have also had a tendency to stiff-arm some of our allies.
        I mean, they are not going to operate at our level of
    military. I don't mean this to sound like some sort of an
    imperialist statement, but they are not going to operate
    necessarily at the levels of the U.S. Armed Forces in terms of
    their capabilities.
        And I think sometimes, our impatience to get the job done
    fast, our determination that we are going to do this right, has
    caused us to have our allies--in a sense, we have pushed some
    of them aside needlessly, and that hasn't been helpful. I think
    there is a way in some cases where some of these offers have
    been made.
        We know if we just leave them completely alone they won't
    do anything. So the challenge for us is can we work with them
    to put together what they have stated they are willing to do
    without coming in and taking over management of the store?
    Americans are not good at doing that.
        We are pretty good at taking over management. And we have
    got to learn that we have to back off. And we are going to
    accept something less than necessarily our standards, but it is
    going to be more than adequate.
        Mr. O'Rourke. Yes, and recognizing that we are in the Armed
    Services Committee room right now and appropriately talking
    about military strategy, I can't help think about the fact that
    this is the fifth successive administration that has used
    military force in Iraq specifically and in many other areas.
        That we have an Authorization for Use of Military Force 16
    years in that we have used in six countries including most
    recently Somalia. And that we have got to do a better job of
    defining our political goals and aims.
        And perhaps just an appeal to the chairman and the ranking
    member, there is a way to meet with the Foreign Affairs
    Committee, as well, on some of these issues to have a
    comprehensive whole-of-government conversation on this.
        So I yield back to the chairman.
        The Chairman. Dr. Abraham.
        Dr. Abraham. Thank you Mr. Chairman, and thank the
    witnesses for very compelling testimony and answers to the
    questions.
        Mr. Hoffman, I will start with you, but I want input from
    the entire panel. When the Syrian conflict eventually ends, you
    are going to have all of these fighters from Hezbollah, this
    evil terrorist organization, return to Lebanon.
        They will have increased skills, increased experience. If
    there is nobody left to fight in Syria, what happens to all
    those fighters in Lebanon? Mr. Hoffman.
        Mr. Hoffman. We will probably have the third Israel-Lebanon
    war, would be I think one immediate effect. But this goes back
    to an earlier question. I think one of the most appealing
    reasons to cooperate with Russia in Syria is if it succeeds in
    isolating and marginalizing Iran more and weakening Hezbollah's
    military status and forward military position in the country.
        But this is going to be an enormous problem. I would say
    the only sort of positive aspects of that, that Hezbollah
    fighters have been getting now, I think acquiring greater
    expertise in urban warfare on a level that they lacked in the
    past, is that it is controversial amongst the Lebanese Shia.
        And that increasingly it is not the elite Hezbollah forces
    that are going, but more the equivalent of conscripts, in
    essence, young, poor Shia that have no other economical
    alternative and that that is eroding some Hezbollah support.
    But of course Hezbollah also controls the government in Lebanon
    right now.
        Dr. Abraham. Right. Mr. Jenkins, your thoughts?
        Mr. Jenkins. It is Hezbollah is a problem. It is
    particularly a problem, and I agree with Professor Hoffman, for
    the Israelis, as well as for us. But it is part of a larger
    problem in Syria and that is there are lots of armed groups now
    in Syria. And they are not under the control of the central
    government, any central government.
        That is, there has been power shift from a central military
    force to a group of militias, some militias controlled by Iran,
    some of them controlled by the Syrian government, some of them
    autonomous, in addition to the various rebel formations and
    Sunni formations and other formations.
        As a consequence, central government authority in any
    future Syria is going to be significantly diminished, and I
    think we are looking at, realistically, a de facto partition of
    the country in which chunks of the country are going to be
    controlled by autonomous military formations, not under the
    control of anybody.
        I don't think we are going to get--I know that we have to
    cooperate with the Russians. I don't think we are going to get
    a national solution. I think we are in effect going to get a
    series of--a partitioned country and at most some local
    accommodations that hopefully lower the level of violence.
        But there is no government that can come in, in Damascus
    now that is going to be able to restore authority throughout
    the national territory of Syria.
        Dr. Abraham. Ambassador.
        Ambassador Sheehan. Congressman, this is a problem of
    enormous depth in the region and as Mr. Jenkins said, there are
    different types of groups. The ones that worry me the most
    though, are the ones that have been inspired, funded, trained,
    and even in some cases, led by the Iranian IRGC [Islamic
    Revolutionary Guard Corps] and the Quds force.
        The Iranians have systematically, deliberately have
    expanded the militia-ization of the Levant and spreading back
    into Lebanon as well, that threatens the security of the entire
    region. We are going to have big, big problems and increasing
    problems there over the years ahead unless the Iranians are
    directly confronted on this issue.
        And there is where there may be potential to work with the
    Russians on this. I don't know. It is something I think that
    can be explored. I don't have great confidence in it. But it is
    something that we might want to explore if they are willing to
    put some pressure on the Iranians to calm down some of these
    activities, which are inflaming the entire region.
        Dr. Abraham. Thank you, General.
        Thank you Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
        The Chairman. Mr. Carbajal.
        Mr. Carbajal. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to all
    our witnesses for coming today. Professor Hoffman, you talk
    about the possibility of terrorist organizations developing and
    using weapons of mass destruction, WMDs.
        The proliferation of WMDs or materials to develop these
    weapons would be catastrophic and certainly a game changer. I
    believe funding of nonproliferation programs are integral to
    any counterterrorism strategy.
        To all our witnesses, how can we further proactively deter
    the spread of CBRNs, chemical, biological, radiological, and
    nuclear weapons, to terrorist organizations?
        Dr. Hoffman, if we could start with you.
        Mr. Hoffman. Well, first and foremost, one of the most
    straightforward means is to ensure that all those countries
    that have these materials undertake the proper safeguards.
        I am not entirely convinced that that is necessarily the
    case now with certain countries throughout the world in terms
    of safepiling the stockpiles, particularly of strategic nuclear
    material.
        Secondly, I think it is paying close attention to the
    remedial measures that are going to be necessary should any of
    these attacks occur in an urban center. I don't think the
    likelihood is very high in the United States itself.
        I would put it higher in Europe, just because there have
    been instances, for instance in Turkey where Al Qaeda in
    particular has been operating laboratories to manufacture and
    produce sarin nerve gas for example. So while I don't think
    this is necessarily an imminent threat, it is clearly on the
    minds of our adversaries.
        And I think dealing with the psychological consequences of
    such an attack, I mean, Ambassador Sheehan made the point with
    the Aum Shinrikyo attack in Tokyo, had they set fire on the
    subway, for example, and caused smoke inhalation or had they
    used handguns, they would have killed far more people than the
    sarin did.
        But nonetheless, the psychological impact of that use of an
    unconventional weapon back in the mid-1990s was extremely
    profound. And I would argue that those repercussions are going
    to be even greater now.
        And therefore, not just preventing it from happening, but
    being able to very quickly remediate any sort of incident will
    go a long way to restoring public confidence and depriving the
    terrorists of the fear and alarm that they hope to generate
    from using an unconventional weapon that even might have a very
    modest casualty rate.
        Mr. Carbajal. Thank you.
        Mr. Jenkins.
        Mr. Jenkins. We are doing a number of things for obvious
    reasons that addresses nuclear. It is more difficult to address
    smaller scale chemical, biological, or radiological attacks and
    for precisely the reasons that Professor Hoffman has pointed
    out.
        And that is that it is difficult for them to scale up an
    attack to really get into casualty levels that we are looking
    at, at the level of, say, 9/11 or an order of magnitude greater
    than that.
        But the nature of these weapons is such that even a small-
    scale attack is going to set off the alarms and reactions that
    are really going to cause us the difficulty.
        Can we stop them from producing very tiny quantities of
    anthrax or low-quality ricin or some of these things? Very hard
    to do. Certainly we should try to do it. But there it is going
    to be a matter of really how fast can we respond effectively to
    these events that occur.
        With biological, fortunately, there is a way we can spend
    money and get a dual effect on this and that is, we have to
    look to our public health systems and our response systems, and
    say whether this is a man-made event or not, what is our
    capacity for rapid response to save lives?
        And above all to show competence in these events, rather
    than allow a small-scale event to become the one that propels
    the public into a panic.
        Mr. Carbajal. Thank you.
        Ambassador Sheehan.
        Ambassador Sheehan. Congressman, I think I divide the
    problem in two areas. One is weaponized WMD, nuclear,
    radiological, biological, or chemical, or an improvised. And I
    think that there are two different approaches.
        For weaponized, which are generally done by a nation-state,
    you might want to look at the Nunn-Lugar process, where we have
    tried to safeguard former Soviet Union nuclear weapons. I think
    that was a very successful program, obviously a big and
    expensive one.
        Maybe on a smaller level we can use those types of programs
    to make sure that weaponized systems by any country that has
    any of these types of systems are controlled. My biggest fear,
    quite frankly, nuclear, is Pakistan. And we can get into that
    and spend hours wringing my hands about that fear.
        But on the improvised side, that is more difficult. There
    you are looking at I think the best way to defend against an
    improvised WMD is to crush those organizations so that they are
    unable to develop the type of sophistication to develop these
    type of weapons.
        If you allow them to sit in sanctuary and give them the
    time in order to develop these things, I think they will. But
    if you keep them on the run, if you keep the pressure on them,
    it becomes very, very difficult to do that. That is why for the
    15 years, they haven't been able to, because of the enormous
    pressure on them.
        So I think the greatest fear I have is if we ever take our
    foot off the neck of some of these organizations to allow them,
    to give them the space to recruit the types of people and
    develop those type of weapons, we will be in trouble. So my
    answer is keep the heat on them.
        Mr. Carbajal. Thank you very much. I yield back.
        The Chairman. Mr. Gallagher.
        Mr. Gallagher. Professor Hoffman and Ambassador Sheehan, I
    would like to dig a little bit deeper on your comments
    regarding the Muslim Brotherhood. And Ambassador Sheehan, I
    take your point that the group is not a monolithic
    organization.
        There are, for example, two factions in Jordan, one closer
    to Hamas, that I am sure the king would like to see less of,
    the other that is less difficult to deal with. But you both
    made the argument that we need to find a way of undermining the
    ideology.
        And this is a group whose ideology celebrates violence. It
    celebrates martyrdom. It has as its highest aspiration the
    establishment of a global Islamic caliphate. The end of its
    credo says, ``Jihad is our way, death in the form of Allah is
    our highest aspiration.''
        So if indeed the violent act is downstream from the
    ideology, how do we get at groups that are espousing the
    ideology short of designation? In other words, is there a
    smarter, more effective way of countering it that you would
    recommend if you are recommending against designation?
        Mr. Hoffman. Again, I worry that this is, you know,
    precisely one of those moves that plays exactly into our
    enemies' desires, that by painting with a broad brush the
    Muslim--I don't disagree with anything that you have described
    about the ideology.
        But again, I think the fact that it isn't a monolithic
    entity means that the repercussions of designating it as a
    terrorist group are going to be difficult to enforce. And I
    think the gains on our side aren't going to be tangible,
    whereas for our opponents I think the gains will be
    significant. It will furnish them with greater propaganda.
        It will, I think, or I fear, have marginalized those
    members of the Muslim Brotherhoods that participate in
    parliamentary democracies that may have extreme views but don't
    share that same embrace of violence as a means to an end, and
    that we will succeed almost in creating the Muslim Brotherhood
    into more of a terrorist group than it is now.
        I mean, admittedly it is a group that is very much in the
    gray area, but we should be focusing on the individuals who are
    advocating violence and not driving everyone else into their
    arms.
        Ambassador Sheehan. I think that I have said this before in
    this testimony. I am very skeptical that American voices
    condemning the Muslim Brotherhood have much traction where it
    matters. And you wind up pissing off more people than turning
    away some from joining the violent groups. I just don't think
    it is a very productive enterprise.
        So in terms of designation, you have to define the group.
    And if you can define a group that calls itself the Muslim
    Brotherhood, and it is a defined organization that has
    conducted terrorist attacks and killed or harmed American
    citizens, then we have an obligation to designate it as FTO.
    But to broad-brush it, it just doesn't work, first of all.
        And second of all, I don't think it is very productive. I
    do believe that the best thing that we can do in terms of
    supporting counter-narratives to the Muslim Brotherhood is to
    support the local nations that have to deal with that. They
    will have the better voice. They will understand the dynamics
    in their particular country and how to face that.
        So for President Sisi, who may perhaps--or King Abdullah
    that have these real problems with the Muslim Brotherhood, they
    have to figure out a way to deal with the political realities
    of their countries and try to focus on identifying the violent
    folks that are adherent to that and deal with them
    individually.
        And they have the best sense of how to deal with that. Back
    here in the U.S., our pronouncements about that I don't think
    are very productive.
        Mr. Gallagher. And just a quick follow-up for Professor
    Hoffman, because I have a minute. So it seems like your concern
    would be that the designation would drive that sort of elements
    of the Brotherhood that are currently participating in the
    political process away from it.
        But wouldn't our experience in Egypt suggest that the
    Brotherhood when allowed to fully participate in the political
    process only uses it to expand power and act in authoritarian
    ways against our interests? I would just be interested in your
    thoughts.
        Mr. Hoffman. That is the problem is that the Muslim
    Brotherhood isn't a monolith and doesn't have a centralized
    command. So yes, you are absolutely right in Egypt. But in
    Jordan, I think you could make another argument and that is
    what concerns me.
        I think groups like Hamas, that are part of the Muslim
    Brotherhood and that are clearly terrorist, that is what you be
    much more specific, I believe than holistic.
        Mr. Gallagher. Thank you gentlemen. Mr. Chairman, I yield.
        The Chairman. Mr. Brown.
        Mr. Brown. Am I on? I apologize. My first question I have
    asked in a full committee hearing. So this is a readiness
    question and each of you seem to agree that there might not be
    an end to our fight against terrorism.
        But rather that the United States will continue to be
    involved in an ongoing effort, perhaps generational effort, to
    reduce the successful, strategic feats of our continuing
    terrorist threat.
        If this is the case, could each of you comment on our
    military readiness from your vantage point and your experience,
    our sustained ability to reduce these terrorist threats.
        And I am particularly interested in your thoughts about the
    strengths and weaknesses of our personnel capabilities, both
    the strength size and the skill sets of the men and women in
    uniform and also the level and engagement of U.S. and non-U.S.
    human assets, intelligence assets abroad.
        Mr. Jenkins. Let me comment quickly. First of all, I do
    think--we have mentioned various figures here, 20 to 40 years,
    two generations. It is going to be very, very long. And the end
    is not clear.
        And as military operations against terrorism become
    routinized then traditional concepts of victory begin to fade
    away. Americans traditionally have looked at warfare as a
    finite undertaking with a clear beginning and clear end.
        We are not going to get that. This goes on indefinitely,
    and upping the investment or resources doesn't necessarily
    shorten the time horizon. But it shortens our time horizon in
    terms of our ability to sustain it, politically and in terms of
    cost.
        As a consequence we have learned that if we try to do
    things with major investments, as we have in Afghanistan and
    Iraq, that this can have a major impact on our military
    readiness.
        I mean we have imposed huge burdens on our military
    personnel. We have deferred decisions about acquisitions, about
    maintenance, about training.
        And as a consequence I am not the one to be able to give
    the precise answer to this as to how many of our brigades are
    really up to strength and combat ready to go at the moment. But
    I suspect that we have paid a heavy, heavy price in terms of
    our overall readiness to deal with other contingencies.
        So we are going to have to conceptually change our model to
    say we have to figure out a way to manage this. And I am using
    the word manage to avoid the word win or victory. That is not
    defined well.
        But to manage this for the long term in a way that we can
    sustain it in terms of readiness and in terms of political will
    and not exhaust ourselves, which is precisely what our
    opponents are trying to make us do.
        Ambassador Sheehan. I agree completely with Mr. Jenkins. I
    will just add that since we have reduced from the big efforts
    in Iraq and Afghanistan, although we are increasing again, it
    going to take us years to recoup, to get those brigades combat
    ready again. But we will get there with the proper investments,
    and if we pace ourselves.
        The biggest concern is going to be in the special
    operations forces, about 70,000 of those folks out there, men
    and women in all of the services. They are going to be asked to
    do a lot of the heavy lifting in these fights. So we are going
    to have to--I don't think we can expand much beyond that.
        And I have had a lot conversations with Admiral McRaven
    about that, and other leaders within the special operations
    forces community. It takes a long time to build these folks, 10
    years to really get them ready. You can't just create them
    overnight.
        So I think that we have to be careful in husbanding those
    resources and carefully deciding where we are going to put them
    because we have to spread them out.
        And I don't think--we may be able to increase force
    structure a little bit, but I think in those areas it is very
    difficult. So it is a matter of setting priorities, and again,
    as Mr. Jenkins said, is designing a strategy that you can
    sustain for another 20 years.
        Mr. Hoffman. Can I squeeze in a comment? We have been
    talking about terrorists and terrorism most of this hearing.
    What concerns me in terms of our military is what we are seeing
    with our adversaries is they are going beyond terrorism. We
    face hybrid adversaries now, whether it is ISIS, Al Qaeda in
    the Arabian Peninsula, certainly Hezbollah.
        Where these groups have conventional capabilities they are
    able to seize territory. They are able to, even in Al Qaeda's
    case, something that they didn't want to do in the past, but
    they are able to now, provide some form of governance, however
    rudimentary.
        They are able to take on even the established militaries of
    our local partners. And this is a trend line that concerns me,
    is that in the future, we are not going to be talking strictly
    about counterterrorism or counterinsurgency or even about
    countering conventional warfare.
        We are going to see adversaries that are non-state
    entities, that get into this whole definitional question that
    Representative Gallagher raised about the Muslim Brotherhood
    where they become very difficult to define, even in this
    military context.
        And we are going to have to have a military, I would argue,
    but I have none of the credentials of my two colleagues, but
    that goes beyond the sort of capabilities of the smaller
    special forces as they exist today, and that have to involve a
    different mix of forces perhaps than we have seen in the past
    in a different model, and sort of the innovation and the
    different kind of thinking I talked about in my written
    testimony.
        Mr. Brown. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        The Chairman. Thank you.
        Mr. Banks.
        Mr. Banks. Thank you Mr. Chairman. And gentlemen, thank you
    for sharing your vast experience with the committee today. As a
    veteran of the war in Afghanistan, I can't help but to start
    there and consider our mission in Afghanistan first when
    discussing the global war on terror.
        Mr. Jenkins, in your testimony, you described the
    military's success that has come from working with locals,
    including irregular forces. My experience in Afghanistan gives
    me grim hope that we will find a long-term success in our
    Afghan partners, given the significant headwinds that prevail
    there.
        Whether their corruption, antiquated systems, or misplaced
    loyalty, it is clear that our work in Afghanistan from an
    advise and assist mission perspective is far from over.
        Ambassador, you described in your testimony the war raging
    between the forces of modernity and the radical Taliban in the
    mountainous regions in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
        And since all three of you described the devastating terror
    attacks of 9/11, I would like to explore with you how to
    prevent the Af-Pak region from returning to a region where
    terrorists can move, organize, and plan devastating attacks on
    the West with relative ease.
        So Ambassador, in your testimony, you expressed the need to
    expand our train, advise, and assist programs, while also
    expressing caution about too many advisors looking like an
    occupying force. This sounds a lot to me like advocating for
    the status quo.
        Yet last week General Nicholson testified in front of the
    Senate Armed Services Committee that we may need a few thousand
    more troops in the train, advise, and assist category. Do you
    agree with the general's assessment in that role?
        Ambassador Sheehan. Thank you, sir. I don't know about the
    exact numbers. I am skeptical about bigger numbers. I think the
    real question is you have to go back and define what the task
    is.
        If he considers his task that he has to pacify vast regions
    of Afghanistan, then certainly he is going to need more
    soldiers to do that. The question is, is that really what the
    task is?
        Is it necessary to pacify all those regions? Is it
    necessary to spend the resources, have the body bags come back
    up to Andrews, fighting over territory that might not be
    existential to our national security?
        What we really need to do in Afghanistan is make sure that
    we have enough capability there to find and kill those
    terrorists that threaten our homeland. To do that is going to
    require a long-term commitment in Afghanistan to stabilize that
    country.
        But in terms of pacifying the whole country, I am not sure
    that is worth the lives of more of our men and women that are
    dying and being maimed over there. And I don't want to get
    emotional about this, but this is what we are really talking
    about.
        So we have to be very focused on what we are doing. And so
    actually, by the way, this is a separate subject. I am very
    skeptical about having field commanders come back to Washington
    and make pronouncements about troop levels. I have never met a
    field commander that didn't want more troops.
        You don't have, Patton didn't come back to Washington and
    advocating he wanted more troops, gasoline, and bullets to move
    forward. Of course he did. But so did MacArthur in Asia. Those
    decisions are not made by the field commanders. They are made
    by people who have the broader perspective.
        Anything that he wants in Afghanistan in a zero-sum world
    which we have in the Pentagon, takes forces and funding away
    from other areas that directly threaten us in terms of
    terrorism and these other emerging threats that you have been
    dealing with in this and the other subcommittees. So there are
    costs and benefits that Mr. Jenkins articulated beautifully.
        So I don't know whether General Nicholson should or should
    not get more forces. I think that we have to ask first, what
    are you trying to achieve here and try to keep our objectives
    fairly narrow so that we don't exhaust ourselves. So that is my
    answer.
        Mr. Banks. So with that, aside from the train, advise, and
    assist mission, how should the international community combat
    issues in the Af-Pak FATA region with a limited troop presence
    on the ground?
        Ambassador Sheehan. Well, what is ironic is that the FATA
    is the home of Al Qaeda central, which traditionally is being
    our biggest strategic threat. They are the ones that blew up
    our embassies in Africa, at least an African arm of that; blew
    up the Cole in Yemen, an arm of Al Qaeda central; and are the
    people that are responsible for 9/11.
        They reside in Pakistan. Some of them are floating back
    into Afghanistan, but it is difficult for them to operate in
    Afghanistan because we own the terrain around Afghanistan. Not
    necessarily every mountainside, but we can reach out and touch
    them in Afghanistan.
        In Pakistan, in Western Pakistan, it is interesting. We
    haven't had soldiers there in over 10 years, yet we continue to
    diminish and degrade the capability of Al Qaeda central to
    reach us strategically.
        I worry about this all the time, that without that presence
    there--and the Pakistani army isn't in there very often either.
    Once in a while they come rumbling through, but that is not
    really that effective.
        They are there in those mountainous regions and we--what is
    interesting is we need Afghanistan almost as much as a base to
    attack the FATA than we need Afghanistan itself.
        Afghanistan has no strategic importance to the United
    States. However, the importance is that Al Qaeda is there and
    blew up the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. We can't allow
    that to come back again.
        And they are in Western Pakistan, and for a variety of
    political reasons we can't put troops on the ground there so we
    have had to come up with a solution to diminish AQ in Pakistan
    without one soldier on the ground.
        So sometimes you have to come up with solutions with no
    troops on the ground. Other times if you have the ability to
    send 100,000 there it doesn't mean you should. So it is a
    matter of finding the right solution commensurate with the
    threat.
        Mr. Banks. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        The Chairman. Ms. Murphy.
        Mrs. Murphy. Gentlemen, thank you for your testimony. I
    represent a district in central Florida that was significantly
    impacted by terrorism in this last June, a gunman who swore
    allegiance to ISIL walked into the Pulse Nightclub and killed
    and wounded over 100 people.
        This is the deadliest terrorist attack in the United States
    since September 11. It is also the deadliest instance of
    violence against the LGBTQ community in our Nation's history.
        Unfortunately, this event serves as a tragic reminder that
    violence motivated by ideological extremism is an enduring
    threat to our security at home and abroad.
        We have seen that ISIL and other groups have been able to
    successfully recruit and inspire adherence through the
    internet, and recently I read an Associated Press investigation
    into CENTCOM's [U.S. Central Command's] program to counter
    ISIL's online propaganda.
        The investigation found that specialists hired to work on
    counter-propaganda efforts had little prior experience and did
    not have sufficient Arabic language skills or an adequate
    understanding of Islam to be effective against ISIL's online
    recruitment efforts.
        What is your assessment of our cultural and linguistic
    capabilities? And how do we ensure that the resources that we
    invest in efforts to counter online propaganda are effective?
        Mr. Jenkins. You know, first of all, it is striking to me
    that in a nation of 320 million people with as many immigrants
    that we have that we have problems in recruiting people with
    appropriate language skills to run programs like this.
        And I cannot--I find it difficult to believe is that we
    don't have those resources, so I think there may be
    bureaucratic things that prevent us from utilizing these
    people.
        In fact, if you take something, and I will trespass in
    Ambassador Sheehan's territory, if you take something like the
    NYPD, the NYPD probably have language capabilities in Arabic
    that rival those of the Federal Government.
        That reflected the diverse population of New York, but it
    also reflected a determination to utilize those resources in a
    very, very effective way. That is one city.
        We have a lot of cities with a lot of communities where
    they speak a lot of different languages and so this is
    something. It is not a resource problem. It is how we are
    putting this together.
        Now, I don't know that everyone that is in one of these
    programs has to necessarily be cleared to a top secret
    clearance and go through all of these things which we have a
    tendency to do. But I would look for myself, and I don't know
    the details of this program--I read the same article--I would
    look for what are the bureaucratic obstacles, the
    organizational obstacles to getting qualified people into this
    as opposed to, gee, we can't find enough Arabic speakers in the
    United States.
        Ambassador Sheehan. Mr. Jenkins is right, Congresswoman.
    The NYPD program had no security classifications for most of
    its Arabic speakers, Urdu speakers, Farsi speakers, et cetera.
    They didn't need it.
        What they did do is they are creative enough to put those
    people operationally in a box so that they did not have access
    to classified information so that they were never a threat to
    the security of NYPD or the city or any of the FBI's programs.
        So we were able to use the linguists that we had with NYPD
    to do all kinds of things, not only on the internet, where we
    were able to establish chat rooms far faster than the Federal
    Government was able to do after 9/11.
        Because quite frankly, the FBI and the CIA [Central
    Intelligence Agency] have a very long and in-depth process of
    making people have top secret highly classified classification
    qualifications in order for them to operate in some of these
    programs.
        What I have long believed that you could put those people,
    and to include undercovers and other folks, you box them off
    from your secure programs, and they are able to operate. And I
    think that we should--other jurisdictions can look to the NYPD
    model and duplicate those, but on a much smaller scale.
        Of course they have much smaller cities as well, but I
    think there are ways that they can get into the communities,
    get into the chat rooms, get into the internet and help find
    those problems.
        One other issue on Tampa, San Bernardino, Boston, and
    others. One of the things that has happened in those cases is
    the FBI when it opens up a case on an individual it will follow
    them for a long time, but after that person isn't really active
    they are going to drop the case.
        And normally, the local jurisdiction is not notified about
    that unless they have an office within the JTTF. I would
    advocate, like NYPD does, if a case is dropped like the two
    brothers in Boston, the local police should have picked that
    up.
        And they won't conduct that operation exactly like the FBI
    will. They may go knock on the door of the house of the
    neighbor, but at least they will know that people are looking
    at them. And that might deter them from acting.
        Those are things that could be done tomorrow in other
    jurisdictions that I believe can be a great deterrent to some
    of these homegrown folks. So a little bit of creativity with
    the local law enforcement.
        And by the way, I have been down to Broward County talking
    to the JTF down there and some of the police forces. More can
    be done.
        Mrs. Murphy. Thank you.
        The Chairman. Mr. Gaetz.
        Mr. Gaetz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to thank the
    chairman for really the entire hearing schedule we have had in
    this committee. All of the material seems to build on what we
    have learned in our prior discussions, and it seems to be
    drawing into very sharp relief the need to enhance our
    readiness to deal with these very complex challenges.
        Ambassador, you testified earlier that one of the things we
    could do to be most effective in counterterrorism is to support
    those who have more inclusive values at the local level,
    perhaps even at the tribal and community level in some of these
    places of concern.
        Yet in Mr. Jenkins' testimony we seem to have the
    identification of at least five functional failed states in
    Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Iraq, and Libya, and so in these failed
    states, what are the effective tools in the toolbox that we can
    use to support, generate, facilitate some of the civic
    institutions that can be the most effective counterterrorism
    tools?
        Ambassador Sheehan. Thank you, sir. I think even in failed
    states we can work with local militia forces to fight the
    terrorist militia forces. And we are trying to do that in
    varying degrees in varying levels in places like Somalia,
    Yemen, and Libya.
        I think we need to--we can step up that activity because
    really it is a local fight. And I think if I can share this
    with you in Yemen, I think in Yemen we put too many resources
    in their traditional military structures, some of which had
    very dubious allegiances to the government that we supported.
    And that came back to bite us.
        If you really look at who was actually fighting AQAP in the
    mountainsides of central Yemen, it was some of these tribal
    groups that were actually first organized by the Soviet Union
    back in the 1970s in the civil war there.
        But basically what they were were tribal organizations like
    in Afghanistan like our ALP program, the [Afghan] local police,
    where it goes back to the Vietnam models and the 1960s models
    about organizing local militia to defend their villages.
        And sometimes in failed states that is where you have to
    start to work, at the local level working with people that are
    willing to fight for their side and work with them as opposed
    to perhaps trying to stop from the top where a government is
    either broken or falling apart.
        Mr. Gaetz. And Ambassador, there is increasing concern in
    Congress that our work with those local militias can lead to
    perhaps a lack of fidelity with them to our values and to our
    objectives in the region. What are the things that can be done
    to ensure that if we engage some of these local militia forces
    we, you know, our warfighters don't end up fighting against our
    own material?
        Ambassador Sheehan. Yes. It is a very difficult question.
    The first time I ever trained and armed a local militia, a
    month later the guerillas came and shot a few of them and took
    away 40 weapons. So it is a risky proposition because----
        Mr. Gaetz. Is it only case-by-case that we can determine
    where there is this loyalty or are there some best practices we
    have used in other parts of the world, South America----
        Ambassador Sheehan. There are----
        Mr. Gaetz [continuing]. You know, other places that we
    could use in the Middle East?
        Ambassador Sheehan. There are plenty of best practices
    dating back decades and--but ultimately what you have to do is
    decentralize your decision making and allow the operators on
    the ground to make decisions about who actually they are going
    to spend resources on to train and assist. What are the units?
        What are the--whether it be militia or certain of the
    governments, which are the ones that really actually are
    willing to fight and put your resources there. There is no, I
    don't think, a cookie-cutter solution. I think it has to be
    determined at the local level.
        Mr. Gaetz. Are you confident that within our current force
    structure and chain of command that there is sufficient
    devolution on those questions?
        Ambassador Sheehan. I think that we have some really smart
    folks out there working these issues. I do believe, and I
    alluded to this in my testimony, that we are fairly thin in
    some countries that are very problematic. Although we are
    increasing fairly dramatically in Africa the size of our
    forces, the 10th Special Forces Group over there, I think that
    we need to establish a more robust presence in some of these
    smaller countries. And I am talking again in dozens or 50,
    hundreds of people, not thousands to--and they have to stay
    there for a while, at least on repeat assignments.
        And we were talking about this in the anteroom about
    creating cadres that can develop real expertise in the region
    so that they can know the language, know the people, know what
    units to support.
        I am not sure our Army has the proper management systems in
    place to develop, train, deploy, and nurture those types of
    folks and their careers in those faraway places that were
    really at the tip of the spear.
        Mr. Gaetz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        The Chairman. Mr., is it Suozzi----
        Mr. Suozzi. Suozzi.
        The Chairman [continuing]. Suozzi. All right. Thank you. It
    will take me a while to get it right. Welcome the gentleman to
    the committee and he is recognized for 5 minutes.
        Mr. Suozzi. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for keeping the
    hearing open. I think we are some of the last ones here, so
    thank you for sticking around for the whole time. I appreciate
    it very much. And thank you to each of the speakers for a
    fantastic education that you gave us all today.
        I am going to follow up on something that Mr. Gaetz was
    starting to probe there, and Ambassador, you were talking
    about, or maybe it was Mr. Jenkins, you were talking about
    failed states and ungoverned areas, and, you know, not so much
    about the ideology, just this concept that Tom Friedman has
    used in his book recently of control versus chaos.
        The idea of, you know, places that are stable in the world
    versus places that are becoming chaotic because of climate
    change, because of civil war, because of corruption, because of
    incompetence. It is really a battle in the world of control
    versus chaos.
        And I want you to suggest to us where we need to prioritize
    which places that are failed or are ungoverned that we should
    be focusing on trying to get them more stabilized, and where
    should we be concerned are the next places that could become
    failed states or as you said before, you know, armies that have
    gone out of control because there was an army in place and now.
        So what places should we prioritize that we need to--you
    know, you talked about these small states in Sub-Saharan
    Africa. Where should we be focusing on trying to stabilize
    existing places that are unstable and where are the places that
    we have to worry are going to fall next?
        And I will ask you first, Ambassador.
        Ambassador Sheehan. Well, thank you. I ticked them off in
    my testimony there, and I think that in the failed states, the
    four that I mentioned in Syria, Somalia, Yemen, and Libya, we
    have to put a high priority on activity in those four
    countries.
        Mr. Suozzi. Which has the best opportunity of getting
    stabilized of those four?
        Ambassador Sheehan. Oh, I don't think any of them have very
    good prospects at all for years. I was in Somalia in 1994, so
    how many years ago was that, and it was a mess then and it
    still is now.
        Yemen is a disaster, as is Libya. These are going to be
    broken states for a long time. And even when you do get
    governments that are stable, the countryside is going to be out
    of control for decades.
        So I think in those four countries we have to put a major
    effort. In Yemen you have AQAP, which has demonstrated in the
    past its ability. In Libya I am very concerned about it.
    Professor Hoffman talked about Somalia and its challenges.
        So, and Syria is obviously----
        Mr. Suozzi. So there is no argument you would prioritize
    those four?
        Ambassador Sheehan. Those four.
        Mr. Suozzi. Okay. So like, for example, I was speaking to
    some Europeans the other day. They are most concerned about
    Libya because that is the----
        Ambassador Sheehan. Yes. It is close.
        Mr. Suozzi. It's the closest one. So should we prioritize
    that first before going to others or?
        Ambassador Sheehan. Look, right now our priority is in
    Afghanistan if you look at the force levels. And in Iraq of
    course because we are trying to roll ISIS out of Mosul and then
    eventually kick them out of Raqqah. And then we are going to
    have to have pretty substantial forces in both of those places.
        However, I would say some of these others are just as
    problematic.
        Mr. Suozzi. Any place you are worried, the next place that
    could fall that is not on the list now but the next place that
    could go----
        Ambassador Sheehan. Oh, I would----
        Mr. Suozzi [continuing]. If we don't pay attention?
        Mr. Sheehan [continuing]. I would worry about the Central
    African areas like parts of Nigeria. The Nigerian state is not
    going to fall, but areas of the country that could come out of
    control and that would be very problematic.
        But I think North Africa is probably because of its
    proximity to Europe, and once you are in Europe it is easy to
    get to the U.S.----
        Mr. Suozzi. Right.
        Mr. Sheehan [continuing]. Is really somewhere I would focus
    on.
        Mr. Suozzi. I only have a minute 4 seconds left.
        Ambassador Sheehan. Or Jordan, by the way, I would throw in
    there.
        Mr. Suozzi. Mr. Jenkins.
        Mr. Jenkins. You know, the patterns have been pretty stable
    in terms of the real hardcore areas. And even before we get to
    anticipating which ones we should be anticipating, we have a
    long enough list of ones that are on the----
        Mr. Suozzi. To focus on now, right.
        Mr. Jenkins [continuing]. Critical list already----
        Mr. Suozzi. Right, yes.
        Mr. Jenkins [continuing]. That we don't necessarily have
    the resources to be ambitious, although it would be nice to
    anticipate all of these things. So I would certainly share with
    the focus being on these.
        I think the real issue is that when we pay attention to one
    of these, we have to be realistic about what we can do with our
    resources. And therefore are going to have to rely more on Arab
    allies that can field forces and on dealing with local militias
    and not necessarily taking the course that the prerequisite has
    to be we have to restore a functioning central government,
    which gets us into the nation building business----
        Mr. Suozzi. Right.
        Mr. Jenkins [continuing]. Before we take these measures. So
    we may end up working with local irregular forces before there
    is anything called a government or looks like a government.
        And we may end up leaning on some of our Arab state allies
    who have expressed a willingness to do some of these things and
    saying yes, you can put some people on the ground there more
    easily than we can. Because we don't have enough expertise and
    forces and also we are Americans here to deal with all of
    these.
        So it doesn't mean not engagement, but it means a very
    effective management. It does mean getting into the very
    ambitious task, as I think we have in Afghanistan, of, well,
    first we are going to have a big Afghan government, then we are
    going to have an Afghan national army, and we are saying, well,
    we--you know, good luck--that is two, three generations away.
        Mr. Suozzi. Right.
        Mr. Hoffman. Mr. Chairman, could I add very quickly? I will
    answer your questions in reverse order. For me, my biggest
    concern is Yemen because I think Yemen is going to split into
    two and we are going to have a Houthi Shia-based country
    influenced by Iran with now a significant Iranian foothold on
    the western part of the bottom of the Arabian Peninsula.
        And then we are going to have a Salafi-jihadi state, or
    statelet, on the eastern side, and that is going to, I think,
    have profound geopolitical and strategic repercussions up the
    Arabian Peninsula. And Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States must be
    very concerned about that.
        Very briefly, I think the bigger question is that the
    simplest answer is, you know, where are our interests most
    important and where are the best local allies to work with? And
    when those two things converge, I think that gives us an
    indication where the greatest benefit of our attention and
    efforts might be.
        But in one sentence, I think the biggest problem is that in
    some of these regions the World War II borders are being
    reshaped, whether we or anybody else likes it. And going in and
    sort of buttressing borders that have outlived their relevance
    is going to be a fool's errand.
        So we have to think, in this upheaval that has become very
    localized, where we can't put the toothpaste back in the tube
    or we can't turn back the clock, where again between the
    confluence of our interests and local allies is that
    combination best served?
        So just for example, I am not advocating this, but with the
    Kurds in Erbil and Sulaymaniyah, I mean, that is where you have
    something of this convergence. So it may be thinking less in
    stereotypical nation-state terms and more in the new
    constellations of power, local power that are going to emerge.
        Mr. Suozzi. Thank you very much, gentlemen.
        The Chairman. Thank you.
        Last but certainly not least on this topic, the gentleman
    from Rhode Island.
        Mr. Langevin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to thank
    our panel for your testimony today. It has been an interesting
    discussion.
        I know that we have had several questions on counter-
    messaging this morning, and I know that some of the witnesses
    have stated that we are doing okay on the narrative, for
    example, how we are dealing with refugees, but it is not going
    to convince people to change their ideology.
        So I believe it was Mr. Hoffman that indicated that we
    should do more to disable cyber capabilities. So on that topic
    I would like to explore that a little more and what can we do?
    What more can we do on the cyber front?
        Mr. Hoffman. It may be akin to our leadership attrition
    strategy that we use now where it doesn't provide necessarily
    an ultimate answer or deliver the crushing blow that I talk
    about, but it keeps our adversaries sufficiently off balance
    and disrupts their message to an extent that it has just much
    greater difficulty reaching their intended audiences.
        I mean, this is an ongoing problem because of course as
    technology improves, what we have seen is that terrorists are
    able often to seize on that technology faster than governments
    can adjust to it, so that is one of the challenges.
        But, I mean, in my testimony I described 40,000 fighters
    from more than 100 different countries. What common message
    could we possibly direct that is going to push back on whatever
    individualistic or idiosyncratic reason they have been
    recruited? I mean, that is why I think that it is important to
    do these things, but we can't see it as an end in itself.
        And that relying on what we are really good at--we are not
    good at counter-messaging. We were during the Cold War; we had
    the United States Information Service and Information Agency to
    do it, but that is in the past.
        What we are good at now is utilizing technology. And
    harnessing technological disruption I think would be a much--in
    terms of cost effective and beneficial, would be an improvement
    over what we are doing now.
        Mr. Langevin. Anybody else want to offer anything else? No?
    Okay. So one of you in relation to a question that Ms. Stefanik
    had with respect to--the answer was to working more closely
    with the countries in the region in the Middle East. Could you
    expand on that? In exactly what way are you suggesting we work
    more closely?
        Mr. Jenkins, was that you I think?
        Mr. Jenkins. Yes. I mean first of all, we can do more with
    regard to just military operations and this is not a matter of
    attempting to create, you know, the anti-jihadist equivalent of
    NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] or something like
    that. We are not at that formal level.
        But we certainly can try to more effectively enlist and
    assist these local states that do have resources, and I am
    talking about both military resources as well as political and
    propaganda resources to make that work.
        Now, again, we have to be realistic. They are not
    necessarily going to get great report cards on every aspect of
    something we would look for in a NATO ally.
        But we are going to have to be able to do that simply
    because we are the inappropriate instrument. We are the
    instrument of last resort in these things. We cannot be the
    lead instrument in every one of these.
        Second, in terms of our expectations of these, in some
    cases--they don't have to be good enough to match the American
    Armed Forces. They have to be good enough to deal with the Al
    Qaeda or to deal with whatever the local branches of ISIL or
    other jihadist groups.
        In some cases we may be recruiting locally for militias for
    the sole purpose of out-recruiting the other side. In other
    words, not even thinking about them as a fighting force.
        Where simply we have unemployed young men and if we don't
    do something they will end up fighting for the other side
    because they will pay them. And in that sense it is a lot
    cheaper to say, okay, they will be in our militia, and we can
    have them do something useful.
        But at the very least it is far more costly and dangerous
    to take them out when they join ISIL. And ISIL is an example.
    Not every fighter, not every Syrian in the ranks of ISIL is a
    dedicated hardcore jihadist.
        There are a lot of them that have joined this because it
    was there were no other options. So for survival, for economic
    survival, they did this. So we can look for opportunities to do
    that.
        In other words, we are moving away from--I think if there
    is one common message we are sending here is, one, it is a long
    time. We can't shorten that.
        Two, we have to be careful about the kind of things we do
    because they can be costly and counterproductive.
        Three, this is not a war in a sense it is not like we are
    going to land on the beaches of Normandy and liberate France
    and cross the Rhine and head for Berlin.
        This is going to be much more in the realm of managing. It
    is closer to dealing with a law enforcement problem in a
    certain sense with military force than it is waging a war,
    although military force is going to be used.
        And therefore we are going to be lowering expectations, in
    some cases going for the long run, not doing counterproductive
    things, managing costs, making careful judgments. That is
    conceptually so different from the traditional way we have
    looked at warfare and military operations.
        I don't want to use the wrong term, but that is paradigm-
    changing. That is a conceptual change. And our military
    institutions, as splendid as they are, that is a difficult
    change for them to do. And maybe they are not even the right
    instrument.
        Maybe we create a number of ad hoc things that realize,
    look, this is not what you guys do best. And we have to figure
    out other ways of getting this done. And we are going to use
    some military assets, but it is going to be a very different
    way of conducting operations.
        Mr. Langevin. Thank you. Thank you.
        I know my time has expired. You know, I would be interested
    in knowing if you could respond for the record, and in your
    assessment if it is a way that you can quantify it, the degree
    to which the fighters involved in this are doing it because of
    ideology and which are doing it because there were no other
    options? And which is the bigger, too; and I had some other
    questions that I would like to submit for the record.
        But thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
        The Chairman. I thank the gentleman.
        I think that was very interesting, lots of interesting
    conversations. The last one was particularly interesting to me.
    We face a similar kind of situation when we look at the hybrid
    threat that Russia poses. It is not strictly tanks coming
    across the plains of northern Europe. It is much subtle.
        Do we have the right military or other instruments of
    national power to deal with that, not just the Russians, the
    Chinese, the Iranians, as you talked about Hezbollah a little
    while ago, and terrorism has some elements of that where just
    our traditional notions of military power may not be the right
    way to deal with it.
        We will have a lot more conversation about that, but a lot
    of that is the job of Congress to make the reforms sometimes
    that the military has a hard time doing itself. And--but to do
    that in a prudent way.
        That is why we are particularly grateful to have you-alls'
    guidance in thinking about these issues and we will continue to
    rely on you in the future.
        Thank you all again for being here. The hearing stands
    adjourned.
        [Whereupon, at 12:45 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]

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                                A P P E N D I X

                               February 14, 2017

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                  PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD

                               February 14, 2017

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                  QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING

                               February 14, 2017

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                      QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. LANGEVIN

        Mr. Langevin. Lessons learned from Iraq, Afghanistan, and other
    engagements around the world have demonstrated the importance of
    minimizing civilian casualties to winning the ``hearts and minds'' of
    locals and ultimately decreasing animosity towards the U.S. Civilian
    casualties aid in propaganda and recruitment efforts, as demonstrated
    by Al Qaeda's social media use of the inadvertent death of an 8-year-
    old girl in the recent raid in Yemen. I believe precise and quality
    policies, procedures, and guidelines are essential to minimizing
    civilian causalities--both inside and outside areas of active
    hostilities. They are also critical to our broader strategy and must
    remain in place under the current administration. In your opinion:
        How does the loss of civilian life in operations undermine our
    counterterrorism efforts? How does it aid propaganda and recruitment
    efforts?
        How do we strike a balance of effective kinetic and non-kinetic
    activities against terrorists that accounts for the deleterious effects
    of civilian casualties?
        Mr. Hoffman. Minimizing civilian casualties must be an absolute
    critical priority in the fight against terrorism: not because of the
    adverse propaganda it generates, but because it is morally right.
    Success in striking a balance between effective kinetic and non-kinetic
    activities will be predicated upon the best possible intelligence being
    provided to the warfighter, clearly articulated rules of engagement,
    and active and ongoing efforts in planning and operations to prevent
    harm coming to civilians to the greatest extent possible.
        Mr. Langevin. Lessons learned from Iraq, Afghanistan, and other
    engagements around the world have demonstrated the importance of
    minimizing civilian casualties to winning the ``hearts and minds'' of
    locals and ultimately decreasing animosity towards the U.S. Civilian
    casualties aid in propaganda and recruitment efforts, as demonstrated
    by Al Qaeda's social media use of the inadvertent death of an 8-year-
    old girl in the recent raid in Yemen. I believe precise and quality
    policies, procedures, and guidelines are essential to minimizing
    civilian causalities--both inside and outside areas of active
    hostilities. They are also critical to our broader strategy and must
    remain in place under the current administration. In your opinion:
        How does the loss of civilian life in operations undermine our
    counterterrorism efforts? How does it aid propaganda and recruitment
    efforts?
        How do we strike a balance of effective kinetic and non-kinetic
    activities against terrorists that accounts for the deleterious effects
    of civilian casualties?
        Mr. Jenkins. [No answer was available at the time of printing.]
        Mr. Langevin. Lessons learned from Iraq, Afghanistan, and other
    engagements around the world have demonstrated the importance of
    minimizing civilian casualties to winning the ``hearts and minds'' of
    locals and ultimately decreasing animosity towards the U.S. Civilian
    casualties aid in propaganda and recruitment efforts, as demonstrated
    by Al Qaeda's social media use of the inadvertent death of an 8-year-
    old girl in the recent raid in Yemen. I believe precise and quality
    policies, procedures, and guidelines are essential to minimizing
    civilian causalities--both inside and outside areas of active
    hostilities. They are also critical to our broader strategy and must
    remain in place under the current administration. In your opinion:
        How does the loss of civilian life in operations undermine our
    counterterrorism efforts? How does it aid propaganda and recruitment
    efforts?
        How do we strike a balance of effective kinetic and non-kinetic
    activities against terrorists that accounts for the deleterious effects
    of civilian casualties?
        Ambassador Sheehan. [No answer was available at the time of
    printing.]
                                     ______

                       QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. FRANKS
        Mr. Franks. Do you believe we need a 21st century NSC-68 for our
    fight against radical Islam?
        Mr. Hoffman. Yes, absolutely. As I stated in my written testimony,
    the war on terrorism has now lasted longer than our involvement in both
    world wars and has exceeded even our melancholy intervention in
    Indochina. By prolonging this struggle, our enemies have enmeshed us in
    a war of attrition: the age-old strategy of terrorists and guerrillas
    everywhere that seeks to undermine confidence in our democratically
    elected leadership, create deep fissures in our polity, polarize
    political opinion and push the liberal democratic state towards
    increasingly illiberal security measures. In order to break this
    stasis, a new strategy and new approach is needed that harnesses all of
    our instruments of national power in a manner that is coherent,
    cohesive, systematic and sustained.
        Mr. Franks. What happens in the coming months and years as we
    diminish the territorial holdings of ISIS in the Middle East? What will
    happen as we squeeze ISIS and take away their territory? Will there be
    an increase in small-scale terror attacks in Europe and the U.S.? How
    do we combat this?
        Mr. Hoffman. This was explained in my written testimony. In
    summary, ISIS will revert to being a terrorist organization. It will
    opportunistically seek to inspire, motivate, and animate individuals
    (``lone wolves'') in the U.S. and Europe to carry out attacks on their
    own; it will also attempt to activate in-place operatives, mainly
    already in Europe, to carry out opportunistic attacks; and, finally, it
    will likely deploy operatives from overseas on directed missions to
    strike at targets in Europe and elsewhere throughout the world. A new
    additional category is that of the ``enabled'' attack: where groups
    like ISIS provide individuals with suggestions of potential targets
    along with detailed targeting information--including names of person to
    be targeted, home and work addresses, e-mail addresses. ISIS's recent
    publication of some 8,000 U.S. citizens and their addresses is a case
    in point.
        There is also a danger of al Qaeda absorbing whether coercively or
    voluntarily the rump of remaining ISIS fighters once their leaders are
    killed and their command structures collapse. Combatting this threat
    requires a systematic, simultaneous and unrelenting campaign waged
    against ISIS sanctuaries and safe havens everywhere (according to the
    National Counter-Terrorism Center, there are ISIS branches in some 18
    counties across the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia
        Mr. Franks. What is your definition of victory against the Islamic
    State? Is complete defeat plausible?
        Mr. Hoffman. Yes, it is plausible. Victory is when ISIS is reduced
    to an inconsequential number of survivors, is shorn of its territory
    and pretensions of governance, and when its message, appeal and ability
    to attract recruits no longer has the allure and drawing power that it
    once had
        Mr. Franks. Do you believe we need a 21st century NSC-68 for our
    fight against radical Islam?
        Mr. Jenkins. [No answer was available at the time of printing.]
        Mr. Franks. What happens in the coming months and years as we
    diminish the territorial holdings of ISIS in the Middle East? What will
    happen as we squeeze ISIS and take away their territory? Will there be
    an increase in small-scale terror attacks in Europe and the U.S.? How
    do we combat this?
        Mr. Jenkins. [No answer was available at the time of printing.]
        Mr. Franks. What is your definition of victory against the Islamic
    State? Is complete defeat plausible?
        Mr. Jenkins. [No answer was available at the time of printing.]
        Mr. Franks. Do you believe we need a 21st century NSC-68 for our
    fight against radical Islam?
        Ambassador Sheehan. [No answer was available at the time of
    printing.]
        Mr. Franks. What happens in the coming months and years as we
    diminish the territorial holdings of ISIS in the Middle East? What will
    happen as we squeeze ISIS and take away their territory? Will there be
    an increase in small-scale terror attacks in Europe and the U.S.? How
    do we combat this?
        Ambassador Sheehan. [No answer was available at the time of
    printing.]
        Mr. Franks. What is your definition of victory against the Islamic
    State? Is complete defeat plausible?
        Ambassador Sheehan. [No answer was available at the time of
    printing.]
                                     ______

                       QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. LAMBORN
        Mr. Lamborn. Clausewitz said: ``The political object--the original
    motive for the war--will thus determine both the military objective to
    be reached and the amount of effort it requires.'' (On War, p. 80)
        What does winning look like against this threat? What should our
    political, strategic, and military objectives be? How optimistic or
    pessimistic are you that these objectives are achievable?
        Mr. Hoffman. Winning is when a terrorist group is deprived its
    ability to have strategic consequences: when its capacity for violence
    is diminished, when its power is reduced to miniscule numbers of
    fighters, and when its geographic operational locus is constrained, and
    when their messages fall flat, their narratives are shown to be empty
    and they are no long able to recruit new fighters and attract new
    supporters. Winning is when terrorists lose access to sanctuary and
    safe haven and are deprived of the opportunity to re-group and re-
    organize: that is, when they are kept on the run and too preoccupied
    about their own security so that they cannot plan and plot new
    terrorist operations. Our objectives should be: the elimination of
    terrorist access to sanctuary and safe haven along the systematic
    weakening and dismantling of their organizational infrastructure and
    far-flung networks, and effective countering of both their message and
    narrative. If and when we are prepared to use all aspects of our
    national power--diplomatic, military, intelligence, finance, and
    communications--in a coherent, cohesive, holistic and sustained and
    systematic way, all the above objectives will be achieved.
        Mr. Lamborn. Clausewitz said: ``The political object--the original
    motive for the war--will thus determine both the military objective to
    be reached and the amount of effort it requires.'' (On War, p. 80)
        What does winning look like against this threat? What should our
    political, strategic, and military objectives be? How optimistic or
    pessimistic are you that these objectives are achievable?
        Mr. Jenkins. [No answer was available at the time of printing.]
        Mr. Lamborn. Clausewitz said: ``The political object--the original
    motive for the war--will thus determine both the military objective to
    be reached and the amount of effort it requires.'' (On War, p. 80)
        What does winning look like against this threat? What should our
    political, strategic, and military objectives be? How optimistic or
    pessimistic are you that these objectives are achievable?
        Ambassador Sheehan. [No answer was available at the time of
    printing.]
                                     ______

                       QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MS. SPEIER
        Ms. Speier. Mr. Jenkins, I read with great interest your commentary
    from last September, ``Fifteen Years on, Where Are We in the `War on
    Terror'?'' This point in particular caught my attention: ``The United
    States' frightened, angry, and divided society remains the country's
    biggest vulnerability. Progress in degrading Al Qaeda's capabilities or
    dismantling the Islamic State is almost completely divorced from
    popular perceptions. Rather than appeal to traditional American values
    . . . our current political system incentivizes the creation of fear.''
    Unfortunately, our society isn't less frightened, angry, or divided now
    than it was in September. Can you elaborate a bit further on why you
    think this is the nation's biggest vulnerability? What would be your
    advice to our political leadership for how to address this
    vulnerability?
        Mr. Jenkins. [No answer was available at the time of printing.]
        Ms. Speier. Mr. Jenkins, you provided some valuable context in an
    interview last month with the Cipher Brief. After tallying 89 people
    who have been killed as a result of fatal jihadist-driven terrorist
    attacks in the United States since 9/11, you asked ``How many of those
    lives would have been saved had [Trump's Executive Order] been put into
    effect after 9/11 and applied for the entire 15-year period? The answer
    is zero.'' You further noted that none of the 19 attackers on 9/11 were
    from the countries named in Trump's order. Regardless of what ends up
    happening in the courts, have you seen evidence that Trump's Executive
    Order is being used as a rallying cry and recruitment tool for
    jihadists? Has the damage already been done, and is it irreparable?
        Mr. Jenkins. [No answer was available at the time of printing.]
        Ms. Speier. The events of September 11 led to a massive overhaul
    and restructuring of the Federal Government. We stood up new agencies,
    consolidated old ones, and reorganized the intelligence community . . .
    all with the intent of promoting better information sharing and
    improving our ability to connect the dots to prevent the next terrorist
    attack. Did we get it right? What more needs to be done on the
    organizational front?
        Ambassador Sheehan. [No answer was available at the time of
    printing.]
                                     ______

                      QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY DR. WENSTRUP
        Dr. Wenstrup. In February 2015, you signed a letter organized by
    the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress supporting the
    passage of a Congressional Authorization for the Use of Military Force
    directed at ISIL. The letter notes that, in formulating a long-term
    strategy for the region, ``a key first step is to indicate U.S.
    political resolve and strategic aims through the passage of an
    authorization for the use of military force to combat--and ultimately
    destroy--ISIL and to facilitate U.S. assistance to the Syrian
    opposition.'' It goes on to say, ``A bipartisan AUMF can serve as a
    valuable tool for demonstrating U.S. willingness to confront ISIL, and
    will establish a broader strategic framework for this campaign.'' Do
    you still believe the passage of an AUMF is an important component of
    the U.S. effort against ISIL?
        Mr. Hoffman. Yes. Only when the will of the Congress is made clear
    to both the president and the American people, will we have the resolve
    and the resources to prosecute the war on terrorism to the fullest
    extent in a manner that will truly assure victory.
        Dr. Wenstrup. What constraints do the current legal authorities for
    the counter-ISIL mission--primarily the 2001 and 2002 Authorizations
    for the Use of Military Force, in addition to the President's Article
    II authority--impose on our counterterrorism operations? Do you believe
    these limitations are appropriate?
        Mr. Jenkins. [No answer was available at the time of printing.]
        Dr. Wenstrup. Back in May 2013, in testimony before the Senate
    Armed Services Committee, you said, ``At this point, we are comfortable
    with the AUMF as it is currently structured. Right now, it does not
    inhibit us from prosecuting the war against Al Qaeda and its
    affiliates. If we were to find a group or organization that was
    targeting the United States, first of all, we would have other
    authorities to deal with that situation.'' Are you still comfortable
    with the existing authorization, or have the rise of ISIL, its split
    with Al Qaeda, and other recent developments changed your conclusion?
        Ambassador Sheehan. [No answer was available at the time of
    printing.]

                                      [all]