[House Hearing, 115 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.A.S.C. No. 115-22]
THE EVOLUTION OF HYBRID WARFARE AND KEY CHALLENGES
__________
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
HEARING HELD
MARCH 22, 2017
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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
Catherine Sendak, Professional Staff Member
Katy Quinn, Professional Staff Member
Britton Burkett, Clerk
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Thornberry, Hon. William M. ``Mac,'' a Representative from Texas,
Chairman, Committee on Armed Services.......................... 1
WITNESSES
Chivvis, Dr. Christopher S., Associate Director, International
Security and Defense Policy Center, Senior Political Scientist,
RAND Corporation............................................... 7
Hoffman, Dr. Francis G., Distinguished Fellow, National Defense
University..................................................... 2
Shearer, Andrew, Senior Adviser on Asia Pacific Security,
Director, Alliances and American Leadership Project, Center for
Strategic and International Studies............................ 5
APPENDIX
Prepared Statements:
Chivvis, Dr. Christopher S................................... 59
Hoffman, Dr. Francis G....................................... 38
Shearer, Andrew.............................................. 51
Smith, Hon. Adam, a Representative from Washington, Ranking
Member, Committee on Armed Services........................ 37
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. Lamborn.................................................. 77
THE EVOLUTION OF HYBRID WARFARE AND KEY CHALLENGES
----------
House of Representatives,
Committee on Armed Services,
Washington, DC, Wednesday, March 22, 2017.
The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:00 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 committee will come to order. The
committee meets today to examine the challenge posed by
unconventional forms of warfare. A variety of terms are used to
describe it: hybrid warfare, indirect warfare, the gray zone,
and others. Americans are used to thinking of a binary state of
either war or peace. That is the way our organizations,
doctrine, and approaches are geared.
Other countries, including Russia, China, and Iran, use a
wider array of centrally controlled, or at least centrally
directed, instruments of national power and influence to
achieve their objectives.
Whether it is contributing to foreign political parties,
targeted assassinations of opponents, infiltrating non-
uniformed personnel such as the little green men, traditional
media and social media, influence operations, or cyber-
connected activity, all of these tactics and more are used to
advance their national interests and most often to damage
American national interests.
These tactics are not new. Indeed, as Professor Williamson
Murray has written, the historical records suggest that hybrid
warfare in one form or another may well be the norm for human
conflict, rather than the exception. And this committee has
examined these issues previously, despite the fact that some of
these tactics are much in the news these days.
But I believe these tactics pose a particular challenge for
us and our system. So I think it is helpful to shine a light on
them, but also help develop ways that the U.S. can better
develop capabilities to counter them. That is the topic for
today's hearing.
Before turning to our witnesses, I would yield to the
distinguished acting ranking member, gentleman from Tennessee,
Mr. Cooper.
Mr. Cooper. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As you noted, I am
standing in for the real ranking member, Adam Smith. And I
would like to ask unanimous consent that his statement be
inserted for the record.
The Chairman. Without objection.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Smith can be found in the
Appendix on page 37.]
Mr. Cooper. I have no opening statement. I am here to hear
the witnesses and actually have a real hearing. So I look
forward to hearing the witnesses' testimony.
The Chairman. I thank the gentleman. We are pleased to
welcome Dr. Francis Hoffman, distinguished research fellow from
National Defense University; Mr. Andrew Shearer, senior adviser
on Asia Pacific [Security] and Director for Alliances in
American Leadership Project at the Center for Strategic and
International Studies; and Dr. Christopher Chivvis, Associate
Director, International Security and Defense Policy Center,
senior political scientist, man, y'all got long titles, at the
RAND Corporation.
Really, three people I think who can help shine a light and
help guide us in these challenging issues. I very much
appreciate all of you being with us. Without objection, your
full written statement will be made part of the record. And we
would be pleased to hear any oral comments you would like to
make.
Dr. Hoffman, we will start with you.
STATEMENT OF DR. FRANCIS G. HOFFMAN, DISTINGUISHED FELLOW,
NATIONAL DEFENSE UNIVERSITY
Dr. Hoffman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, acting Ranking Member
Mr. Cooper, and distinguished panelists and members of this
committee. It is an honor to appear before you once again and
talk about the threats facing our country. I thank you for this
opportunity and also the opportunity to appear with my two
expert colleagues here today.
Our joint forces and our country must be able to respond to
challenges across the full spectrum of conflict. Partially
because of the complexity of this challenge, we are falling
behind in our readiness today and in the future.
As the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has testified,
quote, ``We are already falling behind in adapting to the
changed character of war today in so many ways.''
Our tendency as a country to ignore forms of conflict that
are not conventional and kinetic in character has impeded our
performance in the past and will continue to do so until we
grasp the full set of conflict types. Without an explicit
recognition and conceptualization and understanding of these
types, we are going to remain in a perpetual state of reactive
adaptation.
A decade ago, before a subcommittee led by the chairman of
this distinguished committee now, I outlined a concept and
hypothesis that General Mattis and I had developed about hybrid
threats and what we saw as a coming emerging problem.
That threat was based on the expected convergence of
irregular forces with advanced military capabilities due to
globalization and the diffusion of technology. It also
forecasted that states in a unipolar world, the part we got
wrong, would come down from high-end conventional capabilities
and would try to take us on in the middle conflict spectrum
with proxy forces that they would train and equip.
The mixture of irregular methods and conventional tools was
not necessarily new, as the chairman has noted. But we did
think that the toxic addition of catastrophic terrorism and
criminal behavior fused in the same battle space might present
unique challenges for which we are not prepared.
The war between Israel and Hezbollah in the summer of 2006,
the evolution of ISIS [Islamic State of Iraq and Syria] over
the last few years, with encryption, drones, precision
capabilities, and the ongoing bloodshed in eastern Ukraine,
suggest that our forecast of hybrid threats in the middle of
the conflict spectrum, a violent admixture, was not too far
off. Perhaps imperfect, but not too far off the mark.
Today, European military analysts and some Americans pushed
by Russia's examples and behavior, have embraced the hybrid
threat as a feature of contemporary conflict. Yet the NATO
[North Atlantic Treaty Organization] interpretation, which is
pretty predominant now in the literature, is broader and
different than the methods that General Mattis and I had
originally depicted.
They see it as a mixture of military means with nonmilitary
tools, including propaganda and cyber activity directed at
below the threshold of armed conflict. And this mixture of
tools, Mr. Chairman, is what I said is commonly referred to as
gray zone conflicts in this country.
And the distinction between indirect gray zone conflicts
and the violent methods posed by the original depiction of
hybrid threats should be noted as the key distinction, the use
of violence.
The European version of hybrid represents a return to Cold
War tactics as I understood them when I was trained and
educated and was commissioned in the 1970s.
We rely on traditional and legitimate forms of influence
and competition, but our adversaries are applying more
ambiguous, illegitimate, and nontraditional instruments of
statecraft consistent with their culture and previous
practices, going back almost a century with respect to Russia.
Such autocratic states have far more options than
democracies. Mr. Kennan, the architect of containment who knew
something about the Russians, noted decades ago that ``The
varieties of skullduggery which make up the repertoire of
totalitarian governments, are just about as unlimited as human
ingenuity itself and just about as unpleasant.''
So Kennan's understanding of the problem was informed by a
very deep lifelong study of Russia and its preference for
indirect methods, which I think we see today. Kennan himself
used the term ``measures short of war,'' which I think is a
fairly good term to understand where Russia is coming from, and
its expertise in this area.
And I have used the same term now in my research at NDU
[National Defense University] supporting both the intelligence
community and the chairman. And I think measures short of armed
conflict or measures short of war relates very well to Russia,
which has a history of a form of operation they call ``active
measures.'' And it parallels today's activity pretty well.
Measures short of war and hybrid conflict have some
combinations and some common aspects, and particularly the
combination of methods. Where I see hybrid threats in the
middle of the conflict spectrum is mixing active regular
conventional capabilities with irregular methods with irregular
tactics and crime.
Measures short of armed conflict is combinations of
economic corruption, propaganda, disinformation, you know,
nonmilitary kinds of capabilities combined in a time and place.
The hybrid threats also use combinations, but it is mostly
about violent methods being kind of mixed.
I think an historical case study might help eliminate the
distinction between some of the terminology. I see the
competition between Russia, the West, and the EU [European
Union] over Ukraine's independence as a gray zone kind of
conflict, a measure short of conflict from 2010 to 2014.
Mr. Putin attempted to apply indirect forms of influence
including economic tariffs, corruption, political subversion,
and disinformation, but Russia failed to be successful at
intimidating Ukraine's people. And thus Putin had to shift up
the conflict continuum and use more violent means to be more
successful, thereby seizing Crimea and invading Ukraine itself.
The ongoing violence in eastern Ukraine, I see as an
archetype of what I had imagined as hybrid warfare. An
integrated design that has produced a costly conflict by mixing
Spetsnaz special forces, separatists that are basically militia
or untrained military. We see electronic warfare, we see
drones, we see long range rockets, and we see some light armor,
all fused and mixed in the same time and place.
We also see economic corruption, criminality, control over
food and employment in the areas as intimidating and
terrorizing the population. So I see that as a representative
of a hybrid warfare kind of example, as I saw it a decade ago.
But today's challenge is recognizing the competition for
influence that exists in peacetime using measures short of
armed conflict. In Europe and Asia we are now competing with
major revisionist powers that are seeking influence and trying
to undermine the international rules of order and the norms and
behavior that we have come to establish and tried to be the
guarantor of for the last two generations.
We are also competing for the retention of a coalition
network and a basing structure that we have used for two
generations to gain and sustain access to key markets and key
regions of the world and friends, as part of our power
projection system.
Our adversaries continue to use illegitimate instruments of
statecraft. Seizing disputed rocks, seizing and disordering
borders, to undermine our credibility, to dilute the cohesion
of our alliances, and to prevent us from sustaining
international order, on which our core interests and economic
prosperity benefit from and should continue to benefit from.
Overall, I think, we are prepared for the violence of
hybrid threats now after 15 years of fighting irregular
warfare. But we are not ready for the more indirect methods
that we need to think about. How do we ensure that forms of
subversion and disinformation here and abroad are neutralized?
Who operationalizes our responses to indirect conflict, and
who counters the propaganda designed to undercut our democratic
institutions? Who designs and integrates strategic approaches
in measures short of armed conflict? The NSC [National Security
Council], the State Department, the CIA [Central Intelligence
Agency], or our theater commanders? In short, how do we
organize ourselves to address this challenge?
We shouldn't underestimate our adversaries. This is not an
existential form of conflict. But it can create the conditions
that if we do actually get into a war with somebody after an
extended period of hybrid threat, that we will fight with fewer
friends in a position of geographic disadvantage, or a
coalition that is not as cohesive and effective as it should
be. So it could set up the conditions for failure in America's
interest.
So again, we shouldn't underestimate our adversaries.
They're full spectrum, we need to understand that conceptually,
and we need to become full spectrum ourselves consistent with
our values and democratic principles.
Thank you again for the opportunity to appear today. I look
forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Hoffman can be found in the
Appendix on page 38.]
The Chairman. Thank you. Mr. Shearer.
STATEMENT OF ANDREW SHEARER, SENIOR ADVISER ON ASIA PACIFIC
SECURITY, DIRECTOR, ALLIANCES AND AMERICAN LEADERSHIP PROJECT,
CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
Mr. Shearer. Chairman Thornberry, acting Ranking Member
Cooper, and distinguished members of the committee, thank you
for the opportunity to testify today. Like Russia and China--
and Iran, rather, China is fusing both conventional and
unconventional capabilities and tactics to waken liberal norms
and institutions to erode U.S. influence and to impose its own
security preferences on its neighbors.
Left unchecked, this trend will undermine the regional and
global order, endangering the security and prosperity of the
United States and its allies. China's hybrid warfare strategy
draws on many of the elements also employed by Russia and Iran,
exploiting the gray zone created, as the chairman said, by the
West's binary notion of war and peace.
Primarily, using paramilitary coast guard and militia
organizations, while keeping regular military forces back over
the horizon and combining all of the instruments of national
power, including sophisticated cyber operations, economic
incentives and sanctions, and legal and political warfare. Or
as the Chinese call it, lawfare.
And over the past decade and particularly since President
Xi Jinping took office 4 years ago, China has ramped up its
assertiveness in the Western Pacific.
By exploiting ambiguity and asymmetry, this incremental
salami-slicing approach has enabled China to achieve much of
its political and territorial agenda in East Asia without
triggering a forceful military response from the United States
and its allies.
Beijing calculates that it lacks the military capabilities,
at least for now, to prevail in an outright conflict at an
acceptable cost. Instead, it uses capabilities where it has a
comparative advantage, such as maritime militia and law
enforcement vessels, some of which are larger than U.S. Navy
cruisers.
And it targets objectives like small offshore islands in
which it believes Washington has little direct stake. Backed by
its expanding suite of advanced access-denial capabilities, the
intent of China's creeping militarization of the South China
Sea is to give itself the ability to restrict U.S. maritime
forces' traditional ability to project power and support allies
within the first island chain running from Japan in the north
through to the Philippines in the south.
The effect is to complicate U.S. military planning,
undermine the confidence of regional countries in American
security commitments, and ratchet up pressure on the U.S.
alliance system in Asia.
Sometimes you hear people say that China's facilities in
the South China Sea aren't such a problem because they would be
an easy target in a major conventional conflict. With respect,
that is not the point.
We are confronting a profoundly different Asia-Pacific
region if the United States has to contemplate fighting its way
back into the South China Sea, a vital international waterway
that carries $5.3 trillion worth of trade annually, $1.2
trillion of it American.
To respond effectively to this complex challenge, the
United States needs to invest in adequate nuclear and
conventional military capabilities to maintain a favorable
military balance in the region capable of deterring escalation,
including attacks against U.S. or allied forces. Credible
military forces are also vital for resisting coercion and
shaping a benign regional security environment.
Rather than reacting piecemeal to each event, the United
States needs a considered proactive counter-coercion strategy
that is part of a broader coherent Asia strategy.
Continuing to deter any further move at Scarborough Shoal
is particularly important. China's modus operandi is to target
weak points. Any further significant change in the status quo
in the South China Sea would feed doubts in the region and
increase pressure on America's vital alliances in Northeast
Asia.
However, an effective U.S. strategy must extend beyond
military might and overcome the bureaucratic and military
scenes needed to match China's comprehensive national approach.
The starting point has to be recognition that the United States
is already engaged in an intense competition both of interest
and values in the Western Pacific.
The outcome will shape not only the future of the region,
but the United States' long term security and prosperity. By
building what Dean Acheson called ``situations of strength,''
the United States can increase the cost to China of pursuing
its gray zone strategy.
It should strengthen existing alliances and network them
more closely, as well as working with allies to build maritime
capability and resilience in Southeast Asian countries. The
United States also needs to continue to champion the rule of
war in fundamental principles, such as freedom of navigation.
Secrecy and deniability are part of Beijing's strategy. So
wherever possible the United States should promote transparency
about China's activities. This in the intention behind the CSIS
[Center for Strategic and International Studies] Asia Maritime
Transparency Initiative.
Implementing this strategy will require carefully picking
and choosing which of China's moves to contest, clarifying how
the United States will respond to deter them, and being
prepared to accept greater calculated risk.
Finally, the United States should not cede nonmilitary
spaces to China either which also seeks to expand its wider
influence, which is why continuing American leadership on trade
and investment is so important.
America's allies are looking for reassurance that America
has the clarity of purpose to develop an effective strategy.
And the resolve to carry it through with firmness and
consistency. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Shearer can be found in the
Appendix on page 51.]
The Chairman. Thank you.
Dr. Chivvis.
STATEMENT OF DR. CHRISTOPHER S. CHIVVIS, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR,
INTERNATIONAL SECURITY AND DEFENSE POLICY CENTER, SENIOR
POLITICAL SCIENTIST, RAND CORPORATION
Dr. Chivvis. Thank you and good morning Chairman
Thornberry, acting Ranking Member Cooper, members of the
committee and staff.
I think this hearing comes at an important moment in our
national effort to address hybrid threats, especially from
Russia. I am grateful for the chance to be here.
I will start by noting that there are many terms for hybrid
warfare. Some analysts refer to it as gray zone warfare, others
competition short of conflict, still others active measures,
and there are other terms as well.
Now of course, each of these terms has a slightly different
meaning, but they all point to one big thing. Moscow has
developed and deployed its own version of the whole-of-
government approach to achieve its major foreign policy
objectives. More often than not, this is at the expense of
America's interests.
The Kremlin is using hybrid strategies to weaken NATO,
undermine European unity as a pretext for military action, and
to influence a range of policy decisions among our allies and
to do so in ways that complicate and slow down our own ability
to respond.
Its use of hybrid strategies is linked to its broader
military modernization program which has been going on for a
decade now, and is itself bound up with President Putin's
determination to challenge and even undermine the American-
built world order.
So what are the main characteristics of hybrid warfare as
practiced by Russia? Well there are at least three that come to
mind.
First of all, it is population-centric. In other words, it
focuses on the people of the countries that it targets.
Second of all, it is persistent. Russian military leaders,
and I am thinking here, for example, of the current chairman of
the Russian general staff, Valery Gerasimov, these leaders have
rejected the idea that a country can be truly at peace in the
21st century. Instead, they think conflict is ever-present,
even if it varies in intensity in different places, and at
different times.
Third, Russia's hybrid warfare strategies economize on the
use of kinetic force. This helps Moscow maintain plausible
deniability, and get inside our decision loop. It is also
because the Kremlin would actually prefer not to get into an
outright military conflict with the United States or with NATO.
So what are the instruments that Russia typically uses for
hybrid war? Well, there are several, including information
operations via outlets like RT [Russia Today], cyber tools for
espionage or for direct attacks on our networks, proxies that
can range from protest groups to Kremlin-funded motorcycle
gangs and other thugs, economic influence of various kinds,
covert action with Russian special forces, military
intelligence or other operatives, and of course, overt
political pressure, and military intimidation.
As we speak, Russian hybrid operations appear to be under
way in several places of significance to American interests.
Russia is widely suspected of aiming to influence upcoming
national elections in two key allied countries, France and
Germany.
Russia has been working to undermine stability and project
power via hybrid strategies in the Balkans. For example, with
an attempt to stage a coup against a pro-NATO government in
Montenegro just last fall, only a few months before Montenegro
was to become the 29th member of the NATO alliance.
Russian hybrid strategies also extend to countries in
Central Europe, where Russia has a legacy economic influence,
especially in the energy sector. Estonia and Latvia are also
potential targets of Russian hybrid efforts, although they have
recently strengthened their defenses against these strategies.
Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, and other countries along Russia's
border all remain vulnerable.
Now, it is true that Russian resources for hybrid warfare
aren't infinite. And many scholars have also pointed out that
the Soviets used similar strategies during the Cold War. It may
also be helpful to draw attention to the fact that Russia views
many U.S. policies as hybrid warfare aimed against its own
interests.
Nevertheless, the reality is that the Kremlin's use of
hybrid strategies has been growing significantly in the last
few years and at our expense.
I think these threats should be treated with greater
urgency. Hybrid strategies may not have the immediacy of the
threat from the Islamic State, but if left unchecked, they can
do equal if not greater damage to American power and interests.
We need a strategy to combat this effectively, and I have
laid out some of the bones of such a strategy in my written
testimony. One is strong interagency coordination. Another is
effective counter-messaging. Yet another is ensuring that the
U.S. intelligence community has the resources it needs to get
on top of the threat in the European theater.
A successful strategy is also going to mean giving
America's full support to European anti-corruption and
institution-building efforts, including defense institution
building. U.S. special operations forces clearly have a role to
play here as trainers, but they can also help with counter-
messaging and in other areas.
Finally, European partners and allies are often the first
line of defense, and we have to do everything we can to support
their own efforts to push back against the Kremlin, all while
recognizing that America itself isn't immune. The process of
developing this strategy should be led by the National Security
Council staff.
Congress' role is in ensuring funding for the related
institution-building and anti-corruption programs, as well as
the intelligence collection and analysis requirements. Raising
public awareness with hearings such as this one is also a very
valuable contribution.
We can't necessarily deter Russian hybrid strategies; we
may be able to deter elements of them, for example,
cyberattacks. But the key to dealing with this problem is to
strengthen our defenses and those of our allies. It is
important to get the balance right between conventional
deterrence, nuclear deterrence, and addressing hybrid threats.
Protecting America's interests in Europe calls for strength
on all three fronts. But of all of these lines of effort, I am
least confident about our glide path with regard to hybrid
threats. That is why I am very pleased that you have decided to
have this hearing today, and want to urge Congress and the rest
of the U.S. Government to remain seized with this matter. Thank
you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Chivvis can be found in the
Appendix on page 59.]
The Chairman. Thank you. And I appreciate the fact that
y'all have emphasized--maybe we have the longest history of
dealing with Russia with these tactics, but China is using
them.
We didn't quite get to Iran and I want, as the hearing goes
on, to look at that. Because it seems to me, what is successful
by one will be picked up and used by others.
I just want to ask, kind of going back a little bit in the
history. Some of the press reports recently have talked about
the Soviet efforts to spread a rumor that the U.S. Government
was involved in assassinating Martin Luther King, Jr., that
they spread the rumor U.S. intelligence had created the AIDS
[acquired immune deficiency syndrome] virus up at Fort Detrick.
That they used a web of front groups, secret payments to
activists and articles, to try to prevent our deployment of
medium-range missiles in Europe in the 1980s, Pershing II and
Glickmans and so forth. I wonder about recent leaks that we
have seen from WikiLeaks and others, if that could not be a
part of this web of activities to destabilize.
And then, I think, the Emerging Threat Subcommittee had a
hearing last week, where one of the witnesses had reprinted a
chart from Russian military doctrine that talked about the goal
of disorienting the political and military leadership of the
victim and spreading dissatisfaction among the population.
And you think about that, and you think about their efforts
in the past, and what may be happening now. Is that a part of
the goal of hybrid warfare? To disorient the political and
military leadership, spreading dissatisfaction?
Dr. Hoffman.
Dr. Hoffman. Yes, sir. And, one doesn't really have to go
into either fictional accounts, or even back to the 1980s to
see a lot of this in Europe, where I have been focusing most of
my research of late in the Baltics in the European.
There are efforts by Russian entities to loan money to
political parties. They are funding studies to advance their
interests, to put out issues on climate change, or energy
usage, that benefit them directly.
There are very concerted campaigns going on against the
Swedes and the Finns, to undermine them and separate them from
NATO. There is some very interesting research by scholars in
Sweden that is showing this, one of the new aspects of
disinformation.
In the old days, the Russians would work really hard to
bribe somebody to write an article or get a rumor into a
newspaper in Canada or the United States. And you would hope
that over a series of months that those articles might get some
momentum.
But today with computers and with automated tools and bots,
I mean, you can put an innuendo into a crummy source on Monday,
it can be picked up by three supporting news sites on
Wednesday, and then it gets picked up by 20 or 30.
And by Friday, some mainstream individual is picking this
up as a fact and articulating it. And Sweden has been attacked
on this, and Sweden has been threatened by some aspects.
There are several cases documented by the German
intelligence that show that rumors against Mrs. Merkel or
rumors against German actions with respect to immigrants, have
been picked up and planted by external sources, probably of
Russian origin, to attack the German cohesiveness and the
German political process.
So we see this kind of activity in the current tense and
contemporary conflict right now directed against many of our
allies and all along the periphery. I don't know if it is a
concerted, integrated, campaign. I don't think Mr. Putin is 10
feet tall.
I don't think he is playing three-level chess against us.
But he has got a lot of checkers games going on simultaneously.
The Chairman. Mr. Shearer, do you see efforts from China to
disorient the political and military leadership, and spread
dissatisfaction among the people, whether it is here at home or
with countries around China's periphery?
Mr. Shearer. Mr. Chairman, I think one distinction between
China's use of hybrid warfare tactics and what we are seeing
from Russia, is that at least today, China has been a little
more restrained and a little less aggressive, and it hasn't
crossed that threshold into the actual use of conventional
military force, for example, which Russia has, as Dr. Hoffman
said.
I think China is using--making very aggressive use of
lawfare. So for example, its announcement of an air defense
identification zone in the East China Sea, which it did in
2013; its rejection of the recent arbitration award in favor of
the Philippines, which shed doubt over many of China's legal
claims in the South China Sea; its very assertive use of
economic sanctions and embargoes, and so on, which we are
seeing deployed today against South Korean companies for no
greater offense than the country taking measures in its own
defense.
And then finally, something I have seen in my own country,
unfortunately, which is a more sophisticated influence campaign
with growing Chinese control over the local ethnic media, for
example, and also media reports of China-sourced money making
its way to the major political parties, both sides of politics
in Australia.
So, I think a more sophisticated attempt to influence,
rather than to actually destabilize us, thus far.
The Chairman. And briefly, Dr. Chivvis, and I realize that
I am asking you to speculate here a bit. But, these leaks from
WikiLeaks, Snowden, all of that sort of stuff, it has done such
enormous damage to our national security. Could that be a part
of a hybrid warfare effort by Russia?
Dr. Chivvis. Yes. I mean, it certainly could be.
The Chairman. Okay. I want to come back to what we do about
it in a bit, but at this point I yield to Mr. Cooper.
Mr. Cooper. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I would like to put all three of you on the spot, by asking
a completely different line of questions. I think too often, we
assume what has been assumed in the testimony today, that it is
a U.S. point of view. What if we were to put ourselves in the
shoes of many of our adversaries, and the way they might view
us?
And I do this with intent. I think the first rule of war is
to understand the nature of the enemy. So what are they
thinking about us? I would start by questioning the chairman's
first view that the U.S. has a binary view of war. We are
either at war or at peace.
I don't think I need to remind these sophisticated
witnesses that we really haven't declared a war since what--
World War II. So, these have been varieties of police actions.
And right now, we are failing to even authorize, properly,
through a use of force resolution, our current troops that are
in the Middle East.
So, we have indulged legally in all sorts of permutations
of war, whether the Pentagon has acknowledged these formally or
not. On many other different levels, and I think a lot of this
is probably paranoia on the part of countries around the world.
I don't think I need to remind you that, I think,
traditionally, India even viewed our Peace Corps as a weapon of
war and refused to allow any Peace Corps volunteers in the
country of India. Because they were somehow suspect.
Some countries view our cultural exports as Western
imperialism. Because it is kind of ironic that in the country
of Iran, we are more popular there than any other Muslim
country. Because of the sophisticated Iranian youth, kind of
like our movies and our books.
I think some of these countries maybe attribute to us a
whole-of-government approach which we, in fact, do not have,
and incapable of projecting. But they still see a unified sort
of aspect to our policies. And I am not even counting our
intelligence agencies activities, which have been performing
during the Cold War, and after the Cold War, things like that.
Because it is my understanding that Vladimir Putin tries to
blame us for all sorts of color revolutions, even though we
probably had nothing to do with the Orange Revolution, or the
other varieties of color revolutions. So, to me, if we put
ourselves in the shoes of our adversaries, and of neutral
countries around the world, it is a much more confusing
picture.
Because we may actually be better at some of these things
than we are giving ourselves credit for. Now, there is some
bureaucratic slowness, probably, in the Pentagon, for using
these as formal instruments of U.S. power, but just the lack of
whole-of-government coordination doesn't necessarily mean we
are being ineffective.
So, to me, I would like to try that approach on. And I am
sorry to upend your testimonies. But to me, it is perhaps a
more useful analysis than the ones that you have pursued. I
will start with Dr. Hoffman.
Dr. Hoffman. I would be glad to respond to that just a
little bit, sir. It would be naive of me, as an historian, not
to acknowledge that our actions, say, against Cuba, our actions
against Iran, perhaps in the 1950s, and some actions against
Central America don't represent some activity that would be
considered non-traditional forms of influence operations of our
own.
But I do believe that both, particularly Mr. Putin and his
clique, which are largely from the intelligence community, are
psychologically positioning themselves to look at the color-
coded revolutions that I don't believe we fomented, I don't
believe we supported, we may have encouraged, but we certainly
didn't engage significant resources to push behind.
I think he is just looking for an excuse to justify most of
his own actions. But, I know in the Cold War--I am old enough
to, you know, be a Cold War veteran, and understand that period
of time, that we, too, played this game under the table in the
shadow wars, pretty extensively.
And anybody who has read Mr. Gates' memoirs on shadow wars
would understand the competition. I, as a young man, had the
opportunity to travel in the 1970s in East and West Germany,
and saw the competition between two different forms of
government, and understand that conflict.
I think, overall, for humanity and for the West, and for
the world, that our competition, again, as I close, my last
sentence, our understanding of the opponent, and our engagement
of them, consistent with our democratic principles and values
is the approach that we should be taking. And I think all of
our strategies probably reflect that.
I do want to pick up one point that you made about the
binary nature, and I, in my written testimony, include the
little chart. But I don't think it is all black and white. I
think we actually do compete in that space a little bit.
I do think our adversaries emphasize, under the table,
illegitimate forms of influence. We see building partnership
capacity, theater engagement, security force assistance, the
Defense Cooperative Security Agency, mil-to-mil engagements,
interactions that we have at NDU with foreign governments.
You know, we see this, I think, incrementally, and in a
stovepipe manner, but they are forms of influence, interaction
with the world, I think, people benefit from. And we might not
strategically orchestrate that very effectively, but I think it
is a very positive, a very constructive, a very transparent
kind of thing.
So, I think we are involved, but maybe we are not
strategically, coherently influencing the way we want to in
certain regions. And that is an area that, perhaps the joint
world and the NSC can improve our strategic responses, because
we buy things, sometimes, and I don't think we understand that
when we are supporting a particular ally and building up their
military, we think we are stabilizing something.
But Mr. Putin, he likes that weakness. He wants to see
peripheral states along the Eastern seaboard to be spheres of
influence for him. You know, he wants them to be destabilized.
And that is, I think, something that we need to take to heart.
We focus, in the military, much on the hardware of the
Soviet Union, or Russia, today. Its anti-access/area denial
capabilities,
A2/AD, has become a buzzword in defense. And I think that the
A2/RD, the anti-alliance and the reality denial activities that
the Russians are up to, is something we need to, you know, to
push back on.
So, I take your point. I do believe we are competing, we
are just not, probably, competing as strategically and
coherently as I think we do. And we need to understand how the
opponent sees that. When we build up the Philippines, or work
with the Vietnamese, clearly the Chinese see that as something
against their interests, and we need to be transparent and
understanding about that.
Mr. Shearer. Sir, with respect to China, I totally agree.
It is very important to understand their worldview, and what
they are thinking, and of course, they come to this problem as
a country with very significant achievements.
They have dragged hundreds of millions of people out of
poverty, and they have a history of imperialism in their
country and so forth, that they feel very strongly, and I think
there is no question that they feel encircled, if you like, by
American allies, is how they would put it.
And therefore, at one level, it is not unreasonable for
them to look to sort of push back that American influence. What
has changed, I think, most recently, is that China now has more
capability to do that, including very sophisticated military
capabilities.
And seemingly, under its current political leadership, more
intent to do that. And I agree that China doesn't want a
conflict, for the reasons I mentioned in my statement. I think
the problem, though, is that what China does seem to want, is a
traditional, 19th century style sort of sphere of influence,
where the region is organized politically, economically, and in
security terms, according to its preferences.
And the real problem is that, in the region, we have an
order which has worked very well for 70 years, and produced an
extraordinary period of prosperity and peace, in which China
has risen so incredibly successfully. And it is a question
about what sort of region we want in the future it seems to me.
And the problem here is that if part of the deal and the
sphere of influence is giving China what it wants, which is
ultimately an end to the American alliances and the sort of say
that I am describing in the affairs of regional countries, that
is a very different region, and I think a very problematic one
for us all, including for U.S. interests ultimately.
Dr. Chivvis. Congressman Cooper, you raise an important
issue, and there is no question about it that Russia sees many
things that the United States does as hybrid warfare. It said
so on many occasions. You are absolutely right.
It views our support for democracy promotion programs as
hybrid warfare, things like NDI [National Democratic
Institute], IRI [International Republican Institute], our
general support to civil society, it all sees as part of a
broader U.S. hybrid warfare strategy.
The question for me is always, well, okay. That may be the
case, but what is the significance from a foreign policy or a
defense perspective? Because it doesn't change the reality that
Russia is using these tactics in Europe to undermine American
interests.
So whether or not it is true that we do similar kinds of
things around the world, it doesn't change the fact that the
Kremlin right now is actively using hybrid warfare strategies
to work against and undermine things that we have built in
Europe over the course of the last several decades.
So I guess my answer is a yes and a no at the same time.
Mr. Cooper. I know my time has expired, but I would like to
hope that in your answers to other people's questions you can
somehow include these two quick thoughts. One, should we kick
out RT from America?
And two, when we mention South China Sea troubles, I wish
we could hear more about creeping Chinese influence in Hong
Kong, which is probably economically much more significant and
yet somehow it is not as much in the news.
The Chairman. Mr. Wilson.
Mr. Wilson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank each of you
for being here today. And a question I want to begin with, Dr.
Hoffman, and each of you can answer, my fellow Cold War
veteran. So I am grateful to be with you.
In recent weeks North Korea has continued to launch
ballistic missiles off the coast of South Korea in continued
defiance of the international community. How effective are
North Korea's hybrid methods in obtaining its strategic goals?
In addition, what capabilities does the United States and
its partners have, and allies, to confront the hybrid threats
of North Korea? And each of you can answer, again, beginning
with Dr. Hoffman.
The Chairman. Microphone.
Mr. Wilson. Mike.
The Chairman. If you would hit the mike, please?
Dr. Hoffman. Yes, I am sorry. The North Koreans have never
really been much of my research base. The only time I have
explored that was a few years ago after the war with Hezbollah
the North Koreans had a little bit of chatter about how
successful Hezbollah was against the Israelis. And there was
some open source material on how they might adapt their forces.
And so my discussion on, and research on, North Korea has
been limited largely to how they have adapted their force
structure for a post-conflict sort of insurgency. They have
prepared themselves, you know, if we were to invade North Korea
or to be involved in a post-regime stability operation, how
they would conduct a hybrid campaign to attrit us over time.
And I think they perhaps have even exercised that a little bit.
But what we have seen of late with North Korea, you have
got the missile threats, you know, kind of the high-end things,
intimidating both South Korea, forcing us to invest in the
theater area missile defense system. They threatened our
friends in Japan with their missiles.
The recent assassination in Kuala Lumpur using a weapon of
mass destruction is something that is of great concern, I
think, to the security community writ large. It is clearly a
violation of a norm that we didn't want to see anybody pass.
And there hasn't been sufficient cost-imposing actions, you
know, taken yet on the North Koreans.
We have contained a lot of their nefarious economic
activity, money laundering, human trafficking. We have limited
their counterproliferation efforts, which I think is a hybrid
technique that doesn't get mentioned very much. But they have
been successful in the past at exporting some missile
components to adversaries of ours. So that is kind of a
concern.
But I don't have anything more direct or specific than
that. I have been focusing on the Middle East and Europe for
the last years, and Iran.
Mr. Wilson. Well, you certainly have addressed every issue
not being focused.
Dr. Hoffman. Yes, sir.
Mr. Wilson. Thank you.
Mr. Shearer. Yes, sir. Sir, I have spoken mostly about
China, but North Korea is, in my view, the most acute security
threat facing us in the Asia-Pacific region. And the answer to
your question about the hybrid capabilities is, unfortunately,
they are very effective.
We have seen them carry out an assassination using a
suspected nerve agent in another country. We have seen them
carry out a range of similar actions over many years now, and
they are very good at it.
They are very good at acquiring illicit technologies; the
rate of progress in their missile programs and their nuclear
weapons program is very disturbing. And they also are very good
at funding these programs by a variety of nefarious means,
organized crime, counterfeiting.
It is extraordinary some of the activities they get up to
around the world often using their diplomatic missions as
cover.
And then finally they have got very advanced cyber
capabilities, which we saw exhibited in the Sony hack a couple
of years ago. So their capabilities are very strong.
On our side, nuclear and conventional deterrence remains
vital as always. Increasingly important, though, missile
defense has to be part of that deterrent picture and it is
vital there that the United States is networking its missile
defenses more effectively with allies in North Asia especially,
like Japan and South Korea.
The alliances generally will be vital in our response to
the North Korea challenge. I think the idea that we can just
sort of rely on China to sort out the problem is a mistake and
rock solid alliances have to be the foundation of our strategy
for dealing with North Korea.
And then finally, there is a place for effective, targeted
U.S.-led sanctions. They have had some success in the past at
really putting the screws on the North Koreans. And personally
I think we need to go back there again.
Dr. Chivvis. I don't think I have anything to add on North
Korea.
Mr. Wilson. And thank you very much, Dr. Chivvis.
The Chairman. Mr. McEachin.
Mr. McEachin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning,
gentlemen. Isn't it true that international institutions and
alliances take on heightened importance in a context of hybrid
threats? For example, the FVEY's [Five Eyes] intelligence
sharing agreement can only work if there is goodwill and trust
among the parties.
First of all, I would like for each of you all to comment
about the importance of that arrangement, if you would? And
then share with us your impressions about the administration's
attitudes towards these institutions and whether they are
enhancing our alliances or damaging to our security?
Dr. Hoffman. They are excellent questions, sir. I think I
alluded in my comment that I think much of the tactics,
particularly from Russia, but also China are against alliances.
They are trying to find cracks and seams and actually widen
them, separate us from them economically, politically, and from
a security perspective. So I think that is a key commonality,
particularly with both the Chinese and the Russian activity.
In my countering hybrid threat strategy, I have an element
that is about political competition, and it is about
strengthening and employing all regional organizations and
legal mechanisms at our disposal. So I would emphasize aspects
such as the EU, which has an economic, political, and social
integration aspect that I think helps fight off some of the
Russian intrusions.
So I believe that the need to strengthen, sustain
alliances, and work within alliances is kind of critical. Some
of the statements that the administration made or before, at
least maybe in the campaign, I think most of the comments since
Mr. Trump has been inaugurated, such as his comments about
NATO, Mr. Tillerson's visit to Munich and to Brussels, Mr.
Mattis' trip to see the Japanese and also to Munich and
Brussels have been about the importance of these alliances and
everybody working together.
The second aspect of my strategy, also though, does require
an enhanced alliance capability investments. And Mr. Trump, Mr.
Mattis, and Mr. Tillerson have been emphasizing to all of our
allies that the burdens of security and their own capabilities
need to notch it up a little bit.
So I think that twin message about the importance of allies
has been part, I think central to the administration's message
and also the need to increase their capability levels and
defense spending levels.
And I think that two-step message is, judging from the
latest reports from NATO, that it is being effective. I don't
know about Asia. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Shearer. Sir, thank you for your question. As someone
who started his career as an Australian intelligence officer, I
have been involved in the FVEY's partnership really for over a
quarter of a century now. And it is a massive force multiplier
for us, and I think it has never been as important as it is
today.
And as you said, it rests on goodwill and trust rather than
a sort of more transactional approach. And that, maintaining
that is critical and it is no secret to anyone on this
committee that the Snowden revelations, for example, did
enormous damage to the FVEYs and really were a blow to that
trust.
But I think the strength of the arrangement is demonstrated
by how well it sort of absorbed that shock and continues to
play such a critical role, really in everything we do around
all those threats we are talking about today.
And your point about institutions is spot on as well
because ultimately this is an normative contest. It is a
contest about who is going to set the rules. And I don't
personally believe that in the Asia-Pacific China wants to
completely demolish the regional order and start again.
It is not a revisionist power in that sense, but nor is it
a status quo power. It wants to kind of selectively pick and
choose rules that it is going to follow.
And just going back to the earlier point about Hong Kong, I
mean, I think that is a really good example where Great Britain
did a deal, if you like, with China in good faith and then over
time you get this crab-walking away from the deal.
And for various reasons, not least all about economic
equities in China, which are very significant, yet somehow we
are not as vocal in defending our values and our principles as
we should be.
So I think strengthening institutions is incredibly
important. That is why it is really vital, I think, that the
U.S. remains engaged in Asian institutions like APEC [Asia-
Pacific Economic Cooperation] and the East Asia Summit and with
ASEAN [Association of Southeast Asian Nations].
And having just traveled to Southeast Asia I can say there
is real anxiety out there about, you know, is the President
going to come to APEC? And will the U.S. sort of drop back its
level of engagement with Southeast Asia?
And those countries are looking for a lead and they are
also hedging. They are also trying to get their minds around a
world with less U.S. engagement. So it is very important that
the institutions respect it and engage with them.
Mr. McEachin. Thank you. My time has expired, and I yield
back. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Ms. Stefanik.
Ms. Stefanik. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Hoffman, in the NDAA [National Defense Authorization
Act] for fiscal year 2016, almost 2 years ago, this committee
noted concern about hybrid and unconventional threats and
directed the DOD [Department of Defense] to submit a strategy
for countering unconventional and hybrid threats.
Unfortunately, to date the DOD has yet to submit or even begin
to coordinate with other government agencies.
In our language in that NDAA we also noted that, quote,
``Most state sponsors of unconventional warfare such as Russia
and Iran have doctrinally linked conventional warfare, economic
warfare, cyber warfare, information operations, intelligence
operations, and other activities seamlessly in an effort to
undermine U.S. national security objectives and the objectives
of U.S. allies alike.''
My question for you is, first, do you agree with this
assessment still and the need to develop such a comprehensive
whole-of-government strategy? And second, in terms of
countering hybrid warfare, are we any closer to linking all of
our tools and capabilities such as conventional,
unconventional, economic, cyber, intelligence, and information
operations in our effort to counter these adversarial threats?
Dr. Hoffman. In short, no, ma'am. We are not as ready. I do
agree that the committee's language was necessary. I was in the
Pentagon working at the time and we actually directed some of
the similar language. But I am not aware of where the status of
those reports are.
There has been a lot of work done by the special operations
community and the military about unconventional warfare, but I
think they have a narrower definition. And this is one of the
problems with hybridity and the Russian approach is that it
transcends this committee's charter. It goes beyond NATO's
capability.
I think one of the reasons I was working with General
Breedlove on hybridity is that he understood that the challenge
to Europe went beyond the narrow military charter of itself.
And I think we need to--one of the advantages of thinking
of this multidimensionally, the way we have with hybrid
threats, is that the economic aspects, the political, and the
informational are more apparent, as they were to General
Breedlove.
He understood that the resilience of Europe, the border
security issues, the immigration challenges, the propaganda,
aspects of European security that were not under his charter
was something that he was trying to pull into the conversation.
And I don't believe we are organized. As I said in my
series of questions in my oral statement, I believe that the
organization and the orchestration of our responses needs to be
more strategically integrated. And I don't believe it is.
And I don't know where that is resonant. And I don't know
enough about the covert activities up at Langley to make an
assessment on that. It has not been my area of focus
academically.
Ms. Stefanik. Thank you. Would the other witnesses like to
add to that?
Dr. Chivvis.
Dr. Chivvis. Sure. As I said in my written comments, I
think the locus for developing this kind of a strategy is the
National Security Council staff.
And I would recommend a regular set of meetings at the PCC
[Policy Coordination Committee] level to establish some kind of
a national-level strategy. That is how I would start this
process rather than in the Defense Department itself.
Ms. Stefanik. Mr. Shearer.
Mr. Shearer. The only thing I would add is that I think it
is important that there is an overarching strategy but also
regional strategies, if you like, because the precise mix of
tactics and approaches and capabilities that is used in Europe,
for example by the Russians, is different from what the Chinese
are doing in the South China Sea and the East China Sea.
And I think we need to make sure our strategies are
tailored to the problem.
Ms. Stefanik. Thank you. My second question is in reference
to a subcommittee hearing I chaired last week for the Emerging
Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee. The subject was
information warfare and counter-propaganda strategies.
One of our witnesses, former Assistant Secretary of Defense
Michael Lumpkin, described the State Department as a 19th
century bureaucracy using 20th century tools against 21st
century adversaries. Would each of you agree with that
assessment?
And since the State Department is so critical to countering
hybrid threats, what are some of the ways that Congress could
help here? What are some of the ways that DOD could integrate
better with State, for example?
Certainly if State faces significant cuts as the current
administration proposes, how can DOD help fill that void? I
would like to get your assessment of what the proper model
would be.
Dr. Hoffman.
Dr. Hoffman. I watched that hearing and read all the
testimonies, and I was particularly impressed with Mr.
Lumpkin's. I am not sure that I agree with him that the GEC
[Global Engagement Center] could be somehow injected with
steroids in the State Department and that was the proper place
for it.
And then when I was preparing my statement I was
considering, you know, the NSC. On the strategic side I agree
with my fellow panelists that regional directors do think about
these matters in a strategic and comprehensive way.
But I worry about operationalizing the NSC to get into
something that involves right now economic activity, which is
difficult the way the NSC is kind of focused on foreign policy
and military aspects. So again, I am not quite sure where to
place this.
We have experimented with a variety of locations and we
have experimented with things like the National
Counterterrorism Center. And maybe there is some need for some
study that some of the studies that you have requested in the
past that haven't been completed should really examine.
But this issue of counter-messaging on the propaganda side
and the disinformation is a key element. It is a major thrust
that we are not well organized on that needs some investment,
some pushing.
It just--whose jurisdiction does all this fit into and a
method that is seeking to avoid hard surfaces and is looking
for all those institutional barriers and cracks to kind of try
to get into. But we are not there and we probably need to push
the government to respond in some way.
Ms. Stefanik. Thank you. My time has expired.
The Chairman. Mr. O'Halleran.
Mr. O'Halleran. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I am sad to hear what you just said about us not being
organized. It bothers me and it brings to mind our intelligence
operations prior to 9/11 and the issues that occurred
afterwards.
And I still don't know that we are fully there where we
need to be in that.
But I am going to take up Mr. Cooper's idea about the South
China Sea. Throw in there if you have any concerns about the
Philippines and what containment strategies we can use?
Start with Dr. Hoffman.
Dr. Hoffman. I have some grave concerns about the
Philippines, whether, you know, Mr. Duarte's actions represent
a change in foreign policy for the Philippines that is
permanent, whether it is a temporary alteration or an
aberration in a longstanding--with the Philippines going back
the better part of this century.
But I do believe that the Chinese are trying to abet that
change and they are trying to institutionalize it as much as
they can, which would limit our ability to have potential bases
or access in that particular region of the world.
I am particularly concerned about China's activities with
the building up of the missile bases and the atolls. I think
they will continue that. They will continue to push on the
threshold. They will continue to seize as many islands.
I think they are going to solve their entire South China
Sea and energy access as incrementally and as illegally as they
possibly can over a period of time.
I think that is their strategy in the region. And to
undercut us and any potential other ally that we might want to,
you know, build in the region.
Mr. O'Halleran. Containment.
Dr. Hoffman. Yes. Well, again we are not--I don't believe
we are imposing costs sufficiently either diplomatically or
economically against the Chinese for the actions they took.
They have made promises and they have continued to not live up
to all those promises.
You know, they have started building up these bases and
said they wouldn't arm them and they have. And I think they are
going to continue to do so.
That is part of, I think, a deliberate strategy of
misinformation and diplomatic doublespeak that they are going
to continue for a period of time. But I will have to defer to
the regional expert in that particular area.
Mr. O'Halleran. And let us go to the regional expert. Thank
you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Shearer. Thank you for the question, sir. So clearly
the U.S.-Philippines alliance is going through a difficult
period and President Duarte has got some very outspoken views.
Myself, I am concerned about the situation, and I think we need
to work very hard at it. But I don't think we need to despair
totally yet.
I was in Manila a couple of weeks ago. And my impression is
that the Philippines, like many countries around Southeast
Asia, wants the strongest possible economic relationship with
China, and wants the benefits that come from that particular
investment in infrastructure and so forth, which it needs. But
it also wants the United States.
The very clear message to me was that they value the U.S.
alliance. They know how important it is to them. And their
military in particular know how important U.S. training, and
backup, if you like, is. And I think that is absolutely
critical. Even despite all the noise and the problems, the core
of U.S. exercises with the Philippines has gone on
uninterrupted.
Two or three of them have been cancelled, but more than a
hundred are going ahead, which is good news. And the enhanced
defense cooperation arrangements are still intact.
So, while I don't think we should be complacent, I don't
think we should sort of give up the Philippines yet either. And
I do think, as I said in my statement, that it is particularly
important because of the strategic location of Scarborough
Shoal, about 150 nautical miles from Manila, that China is
prevented from moving ahead and doing its dredging an island
and building another of these 10,000 foot runways which can
basically station a Chinese fighter regiment.
So I think, focusing on maintaining deterrence against that
step is absolutely vital. As is continuing to build up the
Philippines military's own capabilities, especially their
maritime capabilities.
Mr. O'Halleran. Thank you. And I yield back, Mr. Chair.
The Chairman. Mr. Banks.
Mr. Banks. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and thanks to each of
you for being here today and for your testimony. In a few weeks
I will be joining some other members of the committee to travel
to Eastern Europe to gain a better understanding of the extent
of these gray zone strategies as Dr. Chivvis articulates.
And I wonder, based on that, if each of you could
articulate or help me define what you would determine as the
crossing of the threshold of war? And also if you could just
talk for a little bit about what are the best ways that we can
identify and respond to these actions?
Dr. Hoffman. We need to work on the educational basis. This
is something that I included, specifically in figure 1, in
written testimony where I tried to create what we don't have in
the American conceptualization of war. We have this black and
white, or kinds of war. But we don't understand the competitive
conflicts space.
So I try to define a continuum and I make a distinction
between being in conflict with somebody and being at war with
somebody. And I drew a red line in my chart.
When you apply organized violence, when you apply lethal
force to someone, you have crossed over, in my mind, from using
instruments of conflict into using instruments of war. So
irregular war and terrorism cross over that line.
But the activities we see right now where people bump into
boats, where they intimidate air traffic, where they impede
into airspace, where they try to corrupt or penetrate with a
false-front organization, when RT comes in and sets up shop and
starts spewing a series of rumors, innuendos, and false
information, you are in conflict with somebody because you are
contesting and competing for influence and control over either
population or benefits of being in the area.
To me that red line is somewhat important. I do believe
there is a professional domain and jurisdiction for the
military in the art of war that is applied violence for
political objectives.
And then there is broader areas in which other instruments
play. And that is the conceptual problem we are kind of
struggling with. We all use the phrase spectrum of war and we
all use the phrase sometimes continuum of conflict. But nobody
has ever defined it.
U.S. joint doctrine is there are two forms. There is
irregular and there is traditional. And think about the word
traditional. Traditional defined by us, not in a commonly
understood, you know, kind of thing.
So that is the research I have been trying to help the
chairman who has been interested in this conceptualization
problem. The chairman recognizes the problem, intellectually
and conceptually, on how we are educating our officers.
Mr. Shearer. So that is one way to sort of explain how this
works in the South China Sea context, is what some analysts
call a ``cabbage strategy'' from the Chinese. And that is, the
first thing they will do is move in their maritime militia
which are fishing boats, unarmed fishing boats. But they will
coordinate them and sort of convoy them in. They did this with
about 300 at the same time around the Senkakus.
Then, if there is a robust response from the other country
to that, for example their coast guard responds, the Chinese
will move in their coast guard ships, which as I said, are in
at least two cases larger than American cruisers. I mean, very
big; they're warships, except that they are painted white, and
they are assigned to the coast guard. So that is their next
layer.
And then if the other country chooses to escalate again,
they have got naval forces over the horizon. And so each time,
what they are doing, is they are putting the onus on the
Philippines or Japan, either to submit to their move or to
escalate. So that is the thinking.
And then where does that become actual armed conflict? Well
after that there are warships bumping into each other. There
are warships, you know, signaling each other. There are warning
shots.
And a new area is the whole sort of non-kinetics space
using electronic warfare, lasers, et cetera, to, you know,
affect the other. So it is a very complicated question, I
guess.
And in terms of how we should respond? I think it is really
important we don't draw false red lines. I think it is
absolutely critical that we decide where to make a stand and
then we make a stand. I think we have to be clearer about our
commitments.
Sometimes ambiguity is a good thing in strategy. But I
think we are in a phase in these different regions where we
need to be clearer about what we will oppose and how we will
oppose it.
I think we are going to have to accept more risk,
calculated risk. But to impose cost, we have to accept more
risk. We have to tighten our alliances as well.
Dr. Chivvis. When we are talking about responding we are
already back on our heels, which is why we need to be defending
against these things. You can't predict where the next hybrid
warfare operation is going to occur.
There are certain characteristics of countries which are
more vulnerable than others, corruption and historical links to
Russia, divided populace, where we can at least expect that it
might occur.
Mr. Banks. My time has expired.
The Chairman. Mrs. Davis.
Mrs. Davis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to all of
you for being here. Speaking of being back on our heels, when
we already have to respond, I wonder if you could comment on
sort of where we are when we look at the interagency effort or
response on some of the different levels?
It is really clear that Russia and China are pretty good at
hybrid warfare, I think. And excellent in incorporating the
elements of diplomacy, information, military, and economics.
And with some of the proposals right now, which would be
essentially cutting some critical elements--where does that put
us in terms of trying to make greater headway when we think of
these different elements?
And I think you have made a case that, in fact, we do have
interagency that is working in some of these areas. But my
concern is will they stop? Will they be underresourced in those
areas as they have been in the past?
Could you speak to that and what alarms you within that
realm?
Dr. Hoffman. Well the two things that came to mind, the
organization and being on our back foot and where the new
administration has some emerging issues.
I am concerned about our ability to think strategically
about cost-imposing actions. Particularly in the economic
domain. Our desire to back out of the TPP [Trans-Pacific
Partnership] in Asia I think has put us a little bit on the
back foot from a leadership option.
It may have been a bad deal economically. It might not have
been in America's best interest, particularly in a purely
economic or an employment or a transactional perspective. But
it is perceived or misperceived in Asia as a withdrawal from
commitments.
It is perceived as opening up a vacuum for China, for other
actors to step into that void. We may do better economically in
a bilateral arrangement applying our huge market advantages to
a series of deals over time. But that is going to take a period
of time.
So I am concerned that we have lost a little bit of
maneuver space on strategic leadership, on economic action, and
that the administration needs to think about that. And I think,
the new NSC, as it forms up, will have to put that together.
Along with the economic advisors who are outside the NSC
structure right now, which I think creates some interesting
tension organizationally.
And I am still concerned about our counter-messaging thing
that Ms. Stefanik brought up in her hearing. We need to, I
think, respond appropriately both in Asia and in Europe a lot
better than we are doing. I think there is an organizational
dilemma there as well.
Mr. Shearer. As I said in my statement, I think the
military piece of this is very important, though our strategy
has to extend well beyond that obviously as you said in your
question. And diplomacy has to be front and center in this.
So it is not an either/or that you can sort of take from
one and give to the other. We do need robust diplomatic
capabilities and we need to make sure that our diplomatic
capabilities are adapting to a much more complex world,
obviously. So that is very important as part of this strategy.
I completely agree with Dr. Hoffman on the economic point.
There are two elements of this. One is with regard to China,
for example, we need to offer countries around the Asia-Pacific
a compelling economic vision that is not China's.
And of course, the irony is that that is exactly what the
Trans-Pacific Partnership did. And that is why I think it is
such an unfortunate setback. I don't think it is a setback
forever, I think, you know, we can work out and recover from
it.
But it is undeniably a setback because we actually want
these countries to diversify their economic linkages and not be
beholden to China, so that China can, you know, stop them from
entering ports or stop exporting rare herbs to them when China
chooses to do that. Incredibly important.
The other economic aspect is we need a more coordinated
strategy so that we can use the United States economic leverage
more effectively in response to China's efforts to build its
influence through things like the ``One Belt, One Road''
initiative, but also through targeted sanctions when those are
appropriate.
And there may come a time when those are appropriate in the
South China Sea, for example. So that is very important.
And then, I think, the other aspect is the communication
aspect where we have to get our messaging right. And that
obviously is just harder and harder in this sort of world we
are living in. But it shouldn't be impossible.
Mrs. Davis. Did you want to comment----
Dr. Chivvis. The problem----
Mrs. Davis [continuing]. The resources in addition to----
Dr. Chivvis. From our adversary's perspective, from the
Russian perspective, General Gerasimov, who I mentioned in my
comments, sees this as a four to one civilian to military
effort. And I think that is a reality that we need to take into
account when we think about the resources that we are putting
towards this.
Mrs. Davis. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. I am sorry, would you say that one more time?
Sees this as a what?
Dr. Chivvis. Four to one civilian----
The Chairman. Oh, four to one.
Dr. Chivvis. Four to one civilian to military ratio in
terms of the effort.
The Chairman. Okay. I am sorry, I just didn't understand
what you said.
Dr. Abraham.
Dr. Abraham. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Shearer, I will
start with you but certainly the other two gentlemen can chime
in on this.
I read your testimony and certainly the importance of the
deterrence of the South China Sea issue is fore and foremost in
everybody's minds. Heretofore, in the last 18 to 24 months, the
missteps and misinterpretation of intelligence, or whatever you
want to call it, simply has not deterred construction and
militarization of the South China Sea.
So my question is, hindsight being 20/20, we look back,
what could have been done differently and what do we need to do
from this point on if we are going to say ``okay, enough is
enough''? Where do we go from here?
Mr. Shearer. Thank you. It is a very good question. There
has actually--I agree with your broad assessment. We have
collectively failed to deter China from this kind of creeping
de facto militarization. I think there is very little doubt of
that.
There have been tactical exceptions to that though. Last
year the media reported that the U.S. had successfully deterred
Beijing from making a move on Scarborough Shoal through a
combination of very high-level political messaging and military
posturing, deployment of A-10s and an aircraft carrier.
And that changed China's calculations. It ramped up the
cost of what they were planning to do. And I think, you know,
that is a good example of what we need to think about going
forward, including deterring further moves on Scarborough
Shoal.
So I think we need to be thinking about our vertical
escalation options, which we did in that case. And then I think
we need to be thinking about a broader set of other, if you
like, horizontal escalation options. And we need to be engaging
the Chinese and telling them that moving on Scarborough Shoal
with dredges and so forth is not going to be acceptable.
And those other steps could include, for example, the U.S.
making its legal position on claims in the South China Sea less
ambiguous than it currently is.
Dr. Abraham. I don't think China would listen to that very
well.
Mr. Shearer. I think it is about having a cumulative
effect. So, I think as I said, at a certain point economic
sanctions could come on the table if there are Chinese
companies that are involved in the sort of massive
environmental damage that is done when these places get kind of
bulldozed and dredged and so forth. Then sanctions against
those companies is probably an option.
And then I think you need to go to the things that China
values and fears, if you like. And one thing that they don't
want is closer, sort of encircling alliances around them.
So I think sending the signal to China that one of the
United States responses will be to tighten its alliances,
tighten its alliance with Japan and South Korea and Australia
and make those alliances more capable and more able to deter
China.
Dr. Abraham. Dr. Chivvis, Dr. Hoffman, do you want to
comment?
Dr. Chivvis. I will pass on the Asia question, thank you.
Dr. Abraham. Okay. Let me follow up with a question that
Dr. Banks had a while ago. We are talking about hybrid warfare,
using an analogy of they look at it as death by a thousand
cuts, so to speak. Where do we stop the bleeding militarily?
Where do we intervene militarily to stop the bleeding to
prevent the death?
Dr. Chivvis, I will ask you to start with that question.
Dr. Chivvis. That is obviously a difficult question and the
main reason for that is that it is going to be different in
every case. I think it is going to be difficult to develop some
kind of a litmus test for when we deploy military forces into
action, which is again why I emphasize the importance of
building up our defenses against this. This is one of the
things that makes this so hard.
Obviously there is, you can imagine, in any case a point at
which our interests are so threatened that it becomes justified
to use large-scale kinetic military force.
We have spent a lot of time at the RAND Corporation looking
at different kinds of scenarios in the Baltic States, for
example. And certainly you can imagine hybrid scenarios in a
country like Estonia which get out of hand and call for the
deployment of significant military forces into combat.
So that doesn't mean that we will always know when that
comes, which it is good that we are having conversations like
this to think about it in advance.
Dr. Abraham. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Mrs. Hartzler.
Mrs. Hartzler. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So we were talking
about China and Mr. Shearer, I want to build on that. And I
apologize, I have multiple committee meetings at the same time
here. So you may have answered this. But can you expound a
little bit more on China's strategic goals and how hybrid
activities help advance those goals?
Mr. Shearer. Certainly ma'am. I think that the first thing
I would say is that, at least at the moment, one of China's
most important goals is to avoid a major conflict with the
United States. That is not in its plans.
China wants to continue its rise. Its preoccupations are
overwhelmingly internal in the sense that it has an
authoritarian government that is struggling with a slowing
economy, a number of problems stored up in that economy in the
financial sector, in loans and so forth, separatist movements
and so forth, massive environmental problems.
So its focus is very much internal, but at the same time it
is a country which in the last decade or so, and much more so
in the last few years, has been looking to increase its
strategic space.
And the problem, of course, is that that means pushing back
the United States influence and blunting the United States
ability to project military power forward into the region,
which has been one of the lynchpins of America's Asia strategy
for a very long time.
The other problem of course is that China is rising not on
its own in its own hemisphere, I guess the way the United
States once did, but already with Japan, a major power next
door to it, South Korea and a series of other countries, who
are all very heavily invested in the U.S.-led order in the
region and want to see it continue.
And hence based on all of that, China's strategy is to over
time squeeze out U.S. influence using its anti-access and area
denial capabilities to weaken the ability of the U.S. to
project force, to create doubts in the minds of U.S. allies
about whether the United States will be there for them when it
is needed.
And ultimately, it would like to decouple those alliances
and have a region where China is very central, where countries
all around the region have to defer to China's choices about
how the region is organized politically, economically, and in
security terms.
That is their game and the way they are trying to do it, it
has to be said with quite a lot of success so far, is to stay
under that threshold of conflict with the United States.
Mrs. Hartzler. What are some of the hybrid activities that
they are doing with that? I know I came in and heard you
shifting to their coast guard, you know, which is kind of a
gray area.
Mr. Shearer. Yes.
Mrs. Hartzler. What are some of the other hybrid areas you
would say they are employing?
Mr. Shearer. They are very active in the communication
space trying to influence domestic opinion using Chinese-owned
news outlets and so forth. Social media, the internet, they
have a very sophisticated cyber capability. They are active on
that front. We talked about the paramilitary piece of this.
And then economically where, for example, right now they
are using de facto sanctions against South Korean companies to
show their displeasure about South Korea's decision to deploy
the THAAD [Terminal High Altitude Area Defense] missile defense
system in response to the threat from North Korea. I would say
that.
Mrs. Hartzler. Can you build on that as a--we have heard a
lot about them being very forward-thinking and going into areas
where typically our allies and buying up hotels, buying up
areas.
Can you give more examples of some of their economic
activities they are doing to try to project their power and
gain influence?
Mr. Shearer. Certainly. The main one is what they call the
Belt and Road initiative, which is this idea of creating a sort
of network of Chinese-funded infrastructure facilities
stretching all the way from China through to the Middle East.
And examples of their purchasing or investing in ports and
railroads and other critical pieces of strategic
infrastructure, very often with a dual purpose in mind. So,
mysteriously, China now has a de facto naval facility next door
to the U.S. one in Djibouti.
There was in Australia a couple of years ago the Chinese
bought a 99-year lease over the Port of Darwin, which happens
to be the port used by the U.S. Marines to support their
rotations through Northern Australia. So quite a sophisticated
long-term strategic investment plan.
Mrs. Hartzler. My time is up, but is there a map that shows
all of their different spots where they have invested with a
table that lists what those are?
Mr. Shearer. Yes. CSIS actually has a whole project looking
at that, so I could get that information for you.
Mrs. Hartzler. Yes. That would be great. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The information referred to was not available at the time
of printing.]
The Chairman. Let me circle back around to a couple items
that we have kind of touched on, but first one we haven't
touched on. Does anybody have any comments about Iran's
activities that may fall within hybrid warfare?
Dr. Hoffman.
Dr. Hoffman. Sir. We did a study. I believe it was 2009
when Iran was a maritime hybrid threat as opposed to a ground-
based threat. But clearly as an exporter of instability--they
have an organization called the Quds Force, which is, you know,
a special operations force that is basically in the business of
advising foreign military nonstate actors into fairly capable
hybrid threat actors such as Hezbollah.
They are in the business of creating instability through
these hybrid actors that they sustain financially, they give
advice and training to. But I also looked at Iran's naval
capabilities.
They really don't have a conventional navy, haven't bought
a frigate in 40 or 50 years, and I believe they are out of
major missiles, but they have bought small boats. They have
bought foreign boats from Europe.
They have ad hoc'd navigation and missile systems on top of
these capabilities. They have some small submarines with
advanced submarines. They have cruise missiles along the coast.
They basically fight a hybrid war at sea as part of an exercise
that they plan to swarm major capital ships.
They have bought or have acquired a significant number of
Chinese influence mines. So they have the capability of trying
to impose costs on us economically by attempting to close the
Straits of Hormuz and then ambush and raid against any kind of
naval forces and activity all along their coast.
So from a maritime perspective definitely a hybrid kind of
threat in the classical sense, as well as the land projection
capability. Admiral Stavridis has recently written on hybrid
maritime threats as well, both in the Baltics where he and I
were working, and in the Iranian area.
And Admiral Stavridis has published two articles in the
Naval Institute Proceedings and one now in the Royal Uniform
Services Journal in London in this particular area.
Iran I think is definitely an exporter of hybrid threats
and multiplying them, and we see Hezbollah now in Syria getting
some offensive skills that it didn't have in its repertoire
before.
They were somewhat of a defensive force with their missiles
and fighting capabilities in southern Lebanon against Israel.
But now they are on the march. Whether that is a threat
multiplier for Hezbollah or weakens them remains to be seen
what kind of attrition they take over time.
But definitely Iran is definitely an issue that is worthy
of study. And there are a variety of experts that I work with
in the national intelligence community that are focused on
that.
The Chairman. Okay. Let me go back to your continuum for
just a second and where you draw the line, violence,
nonviolence. Where does the little green men fit in? Because
they commit violence. They don't have a uniform. They try to
blend in as, you know, indigenous separatist sort of thing.
Which side of the line are they on?
Dr. Hoffman. Well, Crimea is somewhat of a unique case. I
have actually tried to explore what was the violent count, and
violence in terms of I am looking at lethality in terms of
killed in action kind of thing, not in the movement of military
force.
In one sense, that is a classical coup de main, a descent
of a uniformed, organized military force and leadership. I view
that in somewhat conventional terms, like us rushing into
Panama where we already had forces.
The Russians had naval bases, troops, paramilitary. They
had pretty much infiltrated Crimea. It would be interesting in
a classified forum to discuss the previous penetration of
Crimea informationally, cyber, and influence. I believe a lot
of phone calls, a lot of people were sick that day or didn't
attend work.
There was a lot of prep. We missed this in our study at
military. We kind of start with the enemy order of battle on
the day the battle began, but if you looked at, in studying
Czechoslovakia and Hungary, there is a lot of activity there
going on months before that the Russians do. And that case it
can be seen as more conventional.
But they are filling it with some hybrid aspects. The
ambiguity and the paralysis that they intended, to delay
anybody responding, certainly to allow people who want to delay
making a decision, like NATO, to delay and to argue about is it
really a Russian military force?
But I look at the troops. I recognize the uniforms. I
actually know who the units were. I think we even knew who the
commanders were. We know where they came from. They wore
Russian helmets with Russian-speaking individuals wearing
Russian uniforms. They were just missing the patch.
It is not too unique. And it is very hard to replicate that
in other places I believe.
The Chairman. Yes, but, well, I guess that gets to the
deception part of this. If they slow you down in the response
then maybe it has achieved its objectives.
And I would like to ask each of you to comment on the
benefits and the cost of making public more of these
activities, because you always have this balance with the
intelligence community that you don't want to reveal your
sources and methods. You don't want them to know what you know.
And yet if so much of hybrid warfare is based on deception,
shining a light on it and saying the Russians are trying to
push a rumor that U.S. started AIDS at Fort Detrick. Is it not
something that we ought to do more of, I will put it that way,
to shine the light on what they are trying to do on the
deception to bring that out, I guess, is what I am saying.
Dr. Chivvis, we will start with you and go the other way.
Dr. Chivvis. Sure. I would agree that it is probably
leaning in on this. There is always a balance between
protecting sources and methods and making things like this
public. But I think in dealing with hybrid warfare, obviously,
we may want to move the needle a little bit towards being more
liberal in terms of what we put out there.
I think that there is obviously a middle course, which is
to communicate with our allies about this, and this gets back
to the question about FVEYs. I mean, the benefits of
intelligence sharing are both that we gain intelligence from
our allies.
Oftentimes they have that important understanding of what
is happening on the ground that we do not have access to. But
also we have to be able to tell them when something is
happening in their own country that they may not be aware of in
order to get them to take actions that we want them to take. So
it goes both ways.
And I think that at least in that middle space the more
that we can share I think the better.
Mr. Shearer. Mr. Chairman, I mentioned the CSIS Asia
Maritime Transparency Initiative. What I think has been good
about that is it uses commercial imagery and then we show it to
the world and it has had a remarkable effect in terms of
exactly what you are speaking about.
Before we did that, you know, this just wasn't part of
people's consciousness, and then suddenly you can see these
enormous islands, runways, hangars, the whole thing. It somehow
makes it real to people. So I think that is an incredibly
important part of this.
We have to protect sources and methods, obviously, but my
sense is we can lean much further forward than we are in
information warfare, to call it what it really is. And
psychologically I think the point here is, going back to your
opening comment about being at peace and being at war, we just
don't have our heads in this game.
And we have been there before. We have done it before, but
we need to get our heads back in the game quickly, in my view.
Because otherwise we are not going to make all the sort of
bureaucratic and budget investment decisions and so forth that
we really need to build these strategies.
Dr. Hoffman. I really can't add very much to that, sir, but
in my strategy for countering hybrid threats the very first
aspect is an open, transparent, strategic narrative about what
we are about in terms of a rule-based order, normative values
and being up front about that. If we could arm our diplomats,
the U.N. [United Nations] ambassador with some kind of--I don't
think as much of it is classified as it needs to be.
But I have already seen our French intelligence allies and
the German intelligence being very public about the intrusions
and the information and diplomatic space inside those two
countries and their elections. They are getting out in front of
it before the elections.
The Chairman. Yes. Just a side note, Mr. Shearer, I think,
for example, the environmental damage done by this island
building is something that hasn't gotten nearly enough
attention. I have had people suggest it is the largest
environmental disaster the world has ever seen. I don't know
how you measure that, but the point is there is probably more
that could be done.
Last question I want to get back to is back to this NSC
question. You know, part of our concern has been too much
micromanagement by the National Security Council staffers in an
operational sense. I have even been around Washington long
enough to remember Iran-Contra where that was the big issue is
to what extent the NSC was operational.
And yet I take the point if this is not a clear sort of
issue that falls clearly in the Department of Defense, and yet
we turn to the Department of Defense because they are the most
capable agency for solving problems. Even though that may not
be the best way to do.
Dr. Chivvis, what is your view about this? I mean, I got
your point on a strategy for dealing kind of across the board.
That is what the NSC should do. But they shouldn't really be
micromanaging the details, should they?
Dr. Chivvis. No. I completely agree. Again, what I was
recommending was the development of a national strategy for
this, and I think that the NSC is the right place to do that.
A, obviously, because that is its responsibility is to
coordinate, and second of all, because it also signals a level
of significance and importance to this issue to the other
agencies in the U.S. Government. And I think that is what we
need right now.
The Chairman. Anybody else? Yes.
Dr. Hoffman. Sir, I have published a study on the NSC as
advice for the incoming administration, and I was somewhat
sympathetic about the size of the NSC in the past because of
the nature of the problems we face. And not because I wanted to
operationalize the NSC or the White House.
And I come from the same era of having come to town in
1983. I understood that period of time and have worked for
members of the other body who were on the Church Committee as
well. And I am old enough to remember that.
But the nature of the problems we have today puts a,
without the regional architecture that we have in the military,
I can turn to a PACOM [Pacific Command] or a EUCOM [European
Command] and get a staff that, you know, does certain things.
But the rest of the government lacks that regional
architecture, and I think sometimes what happens with the NSC
is because there is no other integrating body to both design,
conduct, assess, and adjust, is that the NSC ends up, you know,
in that supra kind of role compensating for that.
And if we had--in my Orbis essay, I suggest that perhaps
one of our problems is the lack of regional task forces that
are actually interagency is an architectural problem that would
resolve that problem for us.
The Chairman. I will go look at your paper. One of my
concerns is when an NSC is implementing strategy, I mean,
implementing policies and they are not developing strategy. And
unfortunately I think that is what we have had in recent years.
Do you have other questions?
Thank you all. I appreciate your insights and your study of
this very challenging issue for us. With that, the hearing
stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:37 a.m., the committee was adjourned.]
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A P P E N D I X
March 22, 2017
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PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
March 22, 2017
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[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING
March 22, 2017
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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. LAMBORN
Mr. Lamborn. Does DOD have the resources and capabilities needed to
confront the hybrid threat? How well does DOD prioritize responding to
this threat?
Dr. Hoffman. [No answer was available at the time of printing.]
Mr. Lamborn. Does DOD have the resources and capabilities needed to
confront the hybrid threat? How well does DOD prioritize responding to
this threat?
Mr. Shearer. The defense funding cap imposed by the Budget Control
Act impedes coherent defense planning and has a deleterious impact on
U.S. military readiness and investment in future capability.
Nevertheless, neither resource constraints nor capability gaps are not
the main impediment to confronting the hybrid threat. The main
challenges are: 1. Recognizing the nature and scale of the evolving
hybrid warfare threat in Asia, Europe, and the Middle East; 2.
Developing tailored regional strategies to counter competitors'
determined efforts to exploit the ``gray zone'' between peace and war
to undermine the interests of the United States and its allies; and 3.
Aligning and concerting not only DOD resources but the capabilities of
agencies across the U.S. Government to implement those strategies. The
absence of coherent regional strategies makes it difficult for DOD to
prioritize relevant capabilities. Within DOD, greater priority should
be given to the following areas: intelligence, surveillance and
reconnaissance; cyber; irregular warfare, including special forces; and
information operations.
Mr. Lamborn. Does DOD have the resources and capabilities needed to
confront the hybrid threat? How well does DOD prioritize responding to
this threat?
Dr. Chivvis. This is an important question. Although RAND has
extensive analytical experience in assessing the cost implications of
challenges like Russia's use of hybrid warfare, we have not yet been
asked to do so. Here are a few initial thoughts, building on my written
testimony.
Allocation of resources for countering Russian hybrid war
strategies should naturally flow from the strategy for countering
Russian hybrid war. I have outlined the elements of such a strategy in
my written testimony, including:
1. strong interagency coordination
2. appropriate resource allocation for analysis and collection of
intelligence in the European area of responsibility (AOR)
3. support for transparency and anticorruption efforts in Europe
4. strategies to push back against Russian influence operations
5. effective use of U.S. special operations forces
6. support for European efforts to combat Russian hybrid warfare.
Of these dimensions, the DOD has the lead in effective use of U.S.
special operations forces and some elements of support to European
efforts to combat Russian hybrid warfare. It has a role in interagency
coordination and allocation of resources for intelligence collection--
for example, through Defense Intelligence Agency programs.
This being the case, the key to ensuring adequate DOD funding for
countering Russian hybrid war will be adequate funding for U.S. special
operations forces in the European AOR, DOD intelligence activities in
the AOR, and necessary funding for building partner capacity (although
much of the relevant funding in this category is under State Department
authorities). I note that support to North Atlantic Treaty Organization
special operations forces could also be valuable in this regard.
Investments in DOD-related programs needed to counter hybrid
warfare in Europe should not come at the expense of relevant State
Department and other civilian programs, and it is important to recall
that Russian military leaders consider the relevant ratio of civilian
to military activity to be 4:1 when it comes to hybrid warfare.
Similarly, funding for hybrid warfare does not obviate the need for
funding conventional forces in Europe, which are needed to reduce the
risk of Russian conventional war.
[all]