[House Hearing, 115 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.A.S.C. No. 115-92]
STATE AND NON-STATE ACTOR
INFLUENCE OPERATIONS:
RECOMMENDATIONS FOR
U.S. NATIONAL SECURITY
__________
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
HEARING HELD
MARCH 21, 2018
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
30-562 PDF WASHINGTON : 2018
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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
BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO, Guam
K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut
DOUG LAMBORN, Colorado NIKI TSONGAS, Massachusetts
ROBERT J. WITTMAN, Virginia JOHN GARAMENDI, California
DUNCAN HUNTER, California JACKIE SPEIER, California
MIKE COFFMAN, Colorado MARC A. VEASEY, Texas
VICKY HARTZLER, Missouri TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii
AUSTIN SCOTT, Georgia BETO O'ROURKE, Texas
MO BROOKS, Alabama DONALD NORCROSS, New Jersey
PAUL COOK, California RUBEN GALLEGO, Arizona
JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma SETH MOULTON, Massachusetts
BRAD R. WENSTRUP, Ohio COLLEEN HANABUSA, Hawaii
BRADLEY BYRNE, Alabama CAROL SHEA-PORTER, New Hampshire
SAM GRAVES, Missouri JACKY ROSEN, Nevada
ELISE M. STEFANIK, New York A. DONALD McEACHIN, Virginia
MARTHA McSALLY, Arizona SALUD O. CARBAJAL, California
STEPHEN KNIGHT, California ANTHONY G. BROWN, Maryland
STEVE RUSSELL, Oklahoma STEPHANIE N. MURPHY, Florida
SCOTT DesJARLAIS, Tennessee RO KHANNA, California
RALPH LEE ABRAHAM, Louisiana TOM O'HALLERAN, Arizona
TRENT KELLY, Mississippi THOMAS R. SUOZZI, New York
MIKE GALLAGHER, Wisconsin JIMMY PANETTA, California
MATT GAETZ, Florida
DON BACON, Nebraska
JIM BANKS, Indiana
LIZ CHENEY, Wyoming
JODY B. HICE, Georgia
Jen Stewart, Staff Director
Tim Morrison, Counsel
William S. Johnson, Counsel
Britton Burkett, Clerk
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Smith, Hon. Adam, a Representative from Washington, Ranking
Member, Committee on Armed Services............................ 2
Thornberry, Hon. William M. ``Mac,'' a Representative from Texas,
Chairman, Committee on Armed Services.......................... 1
WITNESSES
Breedlove, Gen Philip M., USAF (Ret.), Former Commander, U.S.
European Command............................................... 4
Garnaut, John, Former Senior Adviser to Australian Prime Minister
Malcolm Turnbull............................................... 7
Lumpkin, Hon. Michael D., Former Assistant Secretary of Defense
for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict, U.S.
Department of Defense, and Former Special Envoy and Coordinator
of the Global Engagement Center, U.S. Department of State...... 9
APPENDIX
Prepared Statements:
Breedlove, Gen Philip M...................................... 56
Garnaut, John................................................ 62
Lumpkin, Hon. Michael D...................................... 76
Smith, Hon. Adam............................................. 54
Thornberry, Hon. William M. ``Mac''.......................... 53
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. Banks.................................................... 89
Mr. Langevin................................................. 89
Mr. Scott.................................................... 89
.
STATE AND NON-STATE ACTOR INFLUENCE
OPERATIONS: RECOMMENDATIONS FOR
U.S. NATIONAL SECURITY
----------
House of Representatives,
Committee on Armed Services,
Washington, DC, Wednesday, March 21, 2018.
The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:03 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.
Let me welcome and appreciate our witnesses for being here,
as well as members and guests.
Whether the term used is ``political warfare,'' ``influence
operations,'' ``psycho-cultural warfare,'' ``indirect
warfare,'' ``hybrid warfare,'' or one of the many others that
have been suggested, it is clear that the United States and our
allies are under consistent attack using non-kinetic tactics
designed to undermine and weaken us.
We know that Russia intervened in a variety of ways to sow
dissension during the 2016 election. History and now
declassified documents establish that the former Soviet Union
had a track record of active measures against NATO's [North
Atlantic Treaty Organization's] deployment of intermediate-
range missiles in Europe, for example, and those active
measures included providing propaganda themes to peace movement
groups, as well as organizational expertise, financial
resources, forged U.S. military documents, et cetera, et
cetera.
And according, again, to declassified CIA [Central
Intelligence Agency] documents, that campaign was built upon a
similar campaign they carried out against a proposed neutron
bomb deployment in 1977 and 1978.
The point is it is all part of a standard playbook, and we
should expect more of the same, including against decisions
called for, for example, in the Nuclear Posture Review.
While most of the attention has been centered on Russia as
a source of these attacks, they are not the only adversary
using such methods. China has spent billions of dollars to gain
economic leverage, buy access to infrastructure, and shape
public opinion and perceptions around the world to its
advantage. Iran, various terrorist organizations, and even
North Korea make use of them as well.
These tactics challenge our traditional ways of thinking
about warfare. They challenge our organizational structure on
who is responsible for defending the country in this sphere.
And they challenge our ability to develop and use tools needed
to deal with them in a timely way.
As the National Defense Strategy says, ``China and Russia
want to shape a world consistent with their authoritarian
model--gaining veto authority over other nations' economic,
diplomatic, and security decisions.'' And that was a quote. It
is important for us to identify the motive behind these
efforts, but the question remains whether we have the tools,
the organizations, and the approaches to protect American
sovereignty and national security.
We hope to gain insight into these issues from our
distinguished panel of witnesses, but first, let me yield to
the ranking member for any comments he would like to make.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Thornberry can be found in
the Appendix on page 53.]
STATEMENT OF HON. ADAM SMITH, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM WASHINGTON,
RANKING MEMBER, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I agree substantially
with all of your remarks about the importance of this.
It is a fairly simple process, and we are kind of failing
at every level right now, in terms of our information
operations. I mean, first of all, if you are going to engage in
an information operation, you need to know what your message
is. What is our message? What is it we are trying to convey?
How are we trying to influence people?
Now, I think there are a couple very large issues there.
One, we want to promote economic and political freedom as the
ideal form of government and push that forward. We have not
been conveying that message particularly well.
And I think the second piece is to counter extremism--and
all forms of extremism. Certainly we are familiar with ISIS
[Islamic State of Iraq and Syria] and Al Qaeda, but they are
not alone in their extremist views. And it is not just
peculiarly people who bastardize the Islamic religion; it
happens in other religions and other ideologies as well.
So we need to be against extremism and for political and
economic freedom. How do we communicate that? Well, to begin
with, like I said, I don't think we have even sort of settled
on that message. And then, second, once you decide what your
message is, you have got to decide who your audience is. Who
are we trying to persuade? And I think most important in that
is, how do those people get their information?
So, ideally, if we have an information operation going on,
we have got a message, we have an audience, and we have
delivery mechanisms. And what has become clear is that the
delivery mechanism right now is over the internet, is social
media platforms, whether it is Facebook or YouTube or Twitter.
That is what drives messages out there that get to people.
And, if nothing else, I hope that what the Russians have
helped do is make us aware of how that works. I mean, because I
think there was an understanding that the internet was
obviously a brand-new form of messaging here a couple decades
ago, but we never really figured out how to use it exactly.
The Russians figured out how to use it. They figured out
how to say, okay, this is our message, we are going to get it
on the internet and get it on there in a way that it spreads.
Part of that is setting up the bots, the automatic, you know,
retweeting and sending out of information, but, beyond that,
identifying sympathetic people. So you don't even have to do it
through, sort of, fake or the bot approach; you simply find
sympathetic people and then make sure you get your message to
them and make sure that they spread it. The Russians have
figured out how to weaponize the internet in an information
campaign in a way that we did not.
We now have a template, as they, you know--I don't have any
problem with imitating the Russians in terms of making use of
these platforms. They have shown us how to do it. Now we just
need to do it.
But we are not committed to that. And I think the largest
problem is--there is a lot of commitment in this room. I think
the members of this committee, I think the Members of
Congress--you know, I haven't heard too many Democrats or
Republicans who don't completely agree with all of this. What
is missing is the executive branch. And they are really rather
important in this.
The State Department, as near as I can tell, isn't even
really engaging in an information campaign. And I know the
Pentagon is trying, but this has to be a whole-of-government
approach if we are going to be effective at it. And I think
USAID [U.S. Agency for International Development] and some of
our development efforts are important in delivering this
message. And we are not there.
Now, I will just briefly touch on the sensitive topic
before stopping, and that is it starts with the President. The
President has been unwilling to do this.
Now, we can guess at a lot of different reasons for that.
It seems like he is really worried about admitting at how good
the Russians are at this for fear that somehow it will taint
his election. As a Democrat, I want to say he won, okay? I
don't question that at all, and really whatever any of his
campaign officials were doing, what the Russians did matters
just because they did it, even if there, you know, was or
wasn't any collusion. We have got to engage in that. We have
got to get the White House to decide that this is important and
to engage.
More troubling is that the President doesn't seem to agree
with the first part of that message that I said, that economic
and political freedom matter.
Now, he got a lot of grief here recently for calling up
President Putin and congratulating him on his election, which
as--John McCain said it better than anybody. You know, the
leader of the free world doesn't call up, you know, a dictator
and congratulate him on winning a sham election. But it sort of
undermines the political freedom message.
But more troubling to me was last year when the President
called up President Erdogan in Turkey to congratulate him on
the success of the constitutional referendum that they passed.
And the constitutional referendum that they passed was to clamp
down on opposition, was to consolidate authoritarian power.
So does the President of the United States even agree with
the message that political and economic freedom are things that
we are supposed to promote?
And I understand it is complicated. There are times where
we face threats. We have allies like Saudi Arabia and Egypt and
elsewhere that are not necessarily engaging in what we want
them to. How do you balance that? It is difficult.
But right now it doesn't seem like the White House is
trying to balance it. They seem to be perfectly content to
support the authoritarian approach. That is troubling, and we
need to change that.
With that, I yield back and look forward to the testimony.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Smith can be found in the
Appendix on page 54.]
The Chairman. Let me welcome our distinguished panel of
witnesses.
We have General Philip Breedlove, former Commander of U.S.
European Command and Supreme Allied Commander of NATO; Mr. John
Garnaut, who is former senior adviser to Australian Prime
Minister Malcolm Turnbull; and Honorable Michael Lumpkin, who
is a former Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special
Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict as well as coordinator of
the Global Engagement Center at the U.S. State Department.
Just because I mentioned a few formers doesn't mean these
guys don't have a lot more in their bio, which was provided to
all members.
Without objection, your full written statements will be
made part of the record, and we would be pleased to hear any
opening comments each of you would like to make.
General Breedlove, the floor is yours.
STATEMENT OF GEN PHILIP M. BREEDLOVE, USAF (RET.), FORMER
COMMANDER, U.S. EUROPEAN COMMAND
General Breedlove. Good morning, and thank you, Chairman
Thornberry, Ranking Member Smith, and other members of the
committee, for the opportunity to speak with you about Russian
interference in democratic processes.
The Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. Presidential
election is deeply troubling but not surprising. It is up to us
as Americans to acknowledge the threats that Russian
disinformation provides and to develop the effective strategies
needed to combat them.
This weaponization of information by Russia is not new, as
you have mentioned. In fact, it dates back to the Soviet Union.
In 1983, a pro-Soviet newspaper in India published an article
accusing the Department of Defense of creating AIDS [acquired
immunodeficiency syndrome] in an attempt to develop new
biological weapons. In 1964, the KGB [Russian Committee for
State Security] used similar tactics in an effort to convince
the Indonesian President that there was a CIA plot to
assassinate him.
The primary differences between these disinformation
campaigns and those of today is twofold. First, the internet
and social media, as you have stated, make it so much easier to
spread disinformation. And, secondly, these campaigns are
increasingly targeting first-world Western nations.
Russia took full advantage of this new media landscape by
promoting disinformation to sow discontent among Americans. It
exploited divides in the American populace to promote what many
have referred to as culture war. Surveys have shown that the
U.S. is more polarized than it has ever been on issues such as
gun control, immigration, religion, and race.
And Russian operatives, seeing an opportunity, have
purchased social media advertisements and created profiles in
order to promote partisan instances on their issues to further
widen those riffs. Russian advertisements and profiles did not
have a consistent political position. The only consistent
aspect is that they all promoted partisan positions on
immensely divisive issues.
The details of Russia's interference in the election are
maddening; however, the reality is that we should not be
surprised by this interference. The Russians have interfered
with numerous elections in Western nations recently, including
those in the Netherlands, Germany, and France.
There is increasing evidence that Russia worked to
influence the referendum in which the U.K. [United Kingdom]
decided to leave the European Union [EU], as recently shown in
a Senate Foreign Relations Committee report. It has promoted
anti-immigration sentiment in Europe by creating and spreading
the story of ``Poor Lisa,'' a 13-year-old girl who, as the
fallacious story goes, was abducted and raped by migrants.
Further, we ourselves have meddled in elections in our own
way, and we have to face those facts. In 1953, Allen Dulles
offered $5 million to an agent to sway the Filipino elections.
In 1958, Operation Booster Shot encouraged rural Laotian
farmers to vote against communist politicians in Laos.
Our meddling did not end with the Cold War. In the 2006
Palestinian elections in Gaza, the United States provided
economic assistance in an attempt to bolster Fatah's chances.
The reality is that both the United States and Russia have
meddled, and we should not be surprised if the trend continues.
What is astounding about Russian meddling is how brazen
Russia has been in executing it, as well as the fact that
Russia seems to believe that it can escape this with its
reputation unsullied. Russia appears to be surprised by the
outrage that has been seen throughout the U.S. The U.S. has
been a leader and a pillar of Western democracy, and the fact
that Russia believed that it could interfere with American
elections with no response is what is shocking to me.
However, Russia's interference in the 2016 U.S.
Presidential election is merely a symptom of a larger hybrid
war against the West, in which economic, cyber, and
disinformation tactics are used in conjunction with
conventional forces in order to exert force or pressure on an
adversary.
In February 2013, General Valery Gerasimov, chief of the
general staff of the Armed Forces of Russia, gave a speech
entailing this strategy. He claimed, ``The very rules of war
have changed. The role of nonmilitary means in achieving
political and strategic goals has grown. In many cases, they
have exceeded the power of force of weapons in their
effectiveness. The focus of applied methods of conflict has
altered the direction of the broad use of political, economic,
informational, humanitarian, and other nonmilitary measures,
applied in coordination with the protest potential of the
population.''
This has led to the coining of the term the ``Gerasimov
Doctrine.'' This describes Russia's view that warfare is not
simply a conventional affair but one that uses the
aforementioned cyber, economic, and information tactics. This
is notable because it shows Russia acknowledges that its
election meddling is a form of warfare. While Russia may deny
that it interferes with elections or claim that it is
innocuous, the words of General Gerasimov ring loud and clear:
Disinformation efforts are efforts of warfare.
The reality is that Russia is using hybrid tactics to
target Western values, democratic governments, and
transatlantic institutions. President Vladimir Putin claimed in
a state of the nation address that the collapse of the Soviet
Union was a major geopolitical disaster in the 20th century.
Russia sees the West, and in particular a unified West, as
an adversary. Waging a conventional war against the West would
be unfavorable to Russia. As such, it has used hybrid warfare
to break up Western unity.
Exploiting divisions in U.S. society and promoting a
culture war is one key element of Moscow's efforts to weaken
the West. Through disinformation, it has plied differences in
Europe to promote Euroscepticism and to grow the notion among
the peoples of Europe that the EU is not beneficial. It has
waged cyberattacks, such as the NotPetya attack in Ukraine in
2017, the Fancy Bear attack of German members of parliament
earlier this month, or the numerous distributed denial-of-
service attacks on the Estonian Government.
It has used economic subversion to exploit the relatively
smaller economies of neighbors to subvert political power.
Russia uses its vast energy resources to promote the dependence
of its smaller neighbors, working to keep them in a Russian
sphere of influence and preventing them from turning to the
West.
The Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. Presidential
election has received an unprecedented amount of media
coverage. However, we should not be so limited as to see this
interference in a vacuum. In order to effectively combat this
interference, we need to understand the scope of Russian hybrid
warfare. We need to view this as a comprehensive problem that
connects the dots of recent Kremlin activity. We cannot simply
take a stance against a specific case of election interference;
we must take a stance against Russian hybrid warfare in its
entirety.
In all the cases of Russian disinformation and election
interference, the West has been slow to see it and even slower
to react. We need to move past simply trying to formulate a
reaction to interference in this election, and we need to move
to a place where we are ready to combat hybrid warfare and get
past reacting.
Hybrid warfare is a form of warfare that the United States
has yet to fully understand, never mind prepare for. The
revelation of Russian disinformation in the election is a wake-
up call that hybrid warfare is occurring, even if we are
unwitting.
Simply condemning the election meddling is not going to
solve the problem, and it is not going to prevent future
Russian hybrid operations. We must treat this with the gravity
that it deserves. We need to take a position, establish policy,
and then execute it.
The Russian hybrid threat is larger than the election and
larger than the United States. It is a threat to the liberal
order that the West has become accustomed to, and it will
continue to be until we develop an effective strategy and
implement the necessary policies to combat it.
Sir, thank you, and I look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of General Breedlove can be found
in the Appendix on page 56.]
The Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Garnaut.
STATEMENT OF JOHN GARNAUT, FORMER SENIOR ADVISER TO AUSTRALIAN
PRIME MINISTER MALCOLM TURNBULL
Mr. Garnaut. Thank you, Chairman Thornberry and Ranking
Member Smith, distinguished members. Thank you for having me
along today.
Is this microphone okay?
The Chairman. If you could just speak directly into it,
because it is directional, and so if it is off to the side, it
doesn't work as well.
Mr. Garnaut. Sure. Thank you.
To understand the mechanics of China's international
influence, we have to look beyond the gravitational pull of the
Chinese economy and the warfighting power of the People's
Liberation Army. That is what we usually focus on, and they are
both important, but, to me, the more interesting and the more
important space is in between those two poles, and that is the
space of influence and interference.
This is the space where the Chinese Communist Party
manipulates incentives inside our countries in order to shape
the conversation, manipulate perceptions, and tilt the
political and strategic landscape to its advantage.
The party works relentlessly to find common interests and
cultivate relationships of dependency with its chosen partners.
The modus operandi is to offer privileged access, to build
personal rapport, and then to reward those who deliver. From
open-source materials, we can see this happening in
universities, in business communities, in ethnic Chinese
diaspora communities, in media and entertainment, and also in
politics and government itself.
But the institutions and ideologies and the methodologies
are so alien to our systems, we are having trouble seeing it,
let alone responding to it. The party has, to use its own
terms, been winning without fighting.
However, under the uncompromising leadership of President
Xi Jinping, China's activities have become so brazen and so
aggressive that we can't ignore it any longer. A reevaluation
is taking place across half a dozen democracies in the world,
including the United States and Australia, and this
conversation is now taking root in many other countries as
well.
I have described the Australian experience in an article
this month in Foreign Affairs magazine, which I have attached
to my written submission. I won't duplicate that here, but I
want to underscore what I think is the most important message
from the Australian experience. And that is the importance of
having analytical clarity, of working with principles, and
responding with strategy.
Our challenge, and the challenge of democracies across the
world, is to work with the strengths and shore up the
vulnerabilities of our open, multicultural, democratic systems.
We need a rigorous and principled approach that is capable of
supporting a broad and durable consensus within countries and
between countries. We need to conceptually separate the black,
the covert, from the white and recognize that there is a large
gray area of ambiguity and plausible deniability that sits in
between.
This process requires a great deal of empirical work, both
in and outside government. But once we have the empirical
baseline and we have worked out which activities we care about
and how much we care, then we can start to formulate and design
a surgical response that manages the risks and targets the harm
without harming ourselves.
In my view, we should continue to welcome ordinary
diplomacy and public diplomacy and economic activity that does
not come with strings attached. But wherever there is covert,
corrupting, or coercive behavior, when the legitimate and
transparent influence processes cross the line into harmful
interference, then we need to be uncompromising, ourselves.
Shutting down the black--the covert, the coercive, the
corrupting--is primarily a counterintelligence and law
enforcement challenge, a very big one, but it won't be enough
on its own. We also have to build transparency and
accountability mechanisms to illuminate the gray. We need to
reinforce and reactivate the natural antibodies of our civil
societies, the natural antibodies that the party, the Communist
Party, has been working to suppress and, in some cases,
disable.
In Australia, the Turnbull government has been developing a
counter-interference strategy that is built upon the principles
of sunlight, enforcement, deterrence, and capability. The
strategy is country-agnostic in that it is designed to apply to
any country that misbehaves, not just China. And the strategy
includes new legislation that is targeted at both the black and
the gray.
One set of laws introduces tough but graduated criminal
provisions against political interference and espionage.
Another set of laws imposes disclosure obligations for those
working in Australian politics on behalf of a foreign
principal. This is an updated transparency regime which is
loosely modeled on your Foreign Agents Registration Act.
Importantly, enforcement activities are also being brought
within a central, integrated hub.
But this is only the very early stages of a long struggle
to reinforce the integrity of our democratic processes. There
is an enormous body of work that needs to be done, and I am
looking forward to this discussion.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Garnaut can be found in the
Appendix on page 62.]
The Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Lumpkin.
STATEMENT OF HON. MICHAEL D. LUMPKIN, FORMER ASSISTANT
SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR SPECIAL OPERATIONS AND LOW-INTENSITY
CONFLICT, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE, AND FORMER SPECIAL ENVOY
AND COORDINATOR OF THE GLOBAL ENGAGEMENT CENTER, U.S.
DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Mr. Lumpkin. Chairman Thornberry, Ranking Member Smith, and
distinguished members of the committee, thank you for the
opportunity today to address you on the topic of state and non-
state actor influence operations.
I believe the Congress has correctly identified such
information operations as an ongoing and persistent threat to
U.S. national security interests. Unfortunately, based on my
previous experience in government, I am similarly convinced
that we have quite a ways to go before we actually get it right
in order to protect and defend those national interests in the
modern information environment.
Since the end of the Cold War with the Soviet Union, which
arguably was the last period in history when the U.S.
successfully engaged in sustained information warfare and
counter-state propaganda efforts, advances in technology have
enabled instantaneous global communications. We are living in a
hyperconnected world, where the flow of information moves
across borders in real time and across traditional and social
media platforms.
The lines of authority and effort between public diplomacy,
public affairs, and information warfare have blurred to the
point where, in many cases, information is consumed by U.S. and
foreign audiences at the same time via the same methods.
While the means and methods of communication have
transformed dramatically, most of the laws and policies
governing how the U.S. Government responds to sophisticated
operations and disinformation campaigns by foreign adversaries
have remained largely unchanged. It is true there has been some
tinkering, there has been some tweaking, but nothing
substantive or transformational. Simply put, our institutions
have not kept pace with the evolving threats.
Antiquated bureaucratic structures and traditional lines of
authority remain a significant impediment to progress. To date,
there is not a single individual in the United States
Government below the President of the United States who is
responsible for managing U.S. information dissemination and
providing strategic guidance for how to confront our
adversaries in the information environment.
While the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act mandated
that the Global Engagement Center, or GEC, lead, organize, and
synchronize U.S. Government counter-propaganda and
disinformation efforts against state and non-state actors
abroad, it failed to elevate the head of the GEC to a position
of authority commensurate with its expansive mission.
The GEC operates at the assistant-secretary level and lacks
the necessary authority to direct the interagency. In practice,
this means that the GEC is considered, at best, a peer to a
half-dozen regional or functional bureaus at the State
Department and numerous disparate organizations at the
Department of Defense. Needless to say, the other departments
have equity stakes in this space as well.
Simply put, although the GEC is directed by law with the
mission to lead interagency, the practical reality is that its
role is reduced to simply suggesting function, which agencies
can choose to follow or not to follow as they see fit. The
result is a significant misalignment of responsibility,
authority, and accountability which will continue until this is
changed in statute.
It is not unreasonable to think that the U.S. will always
be at some disadvantage against our adversaries in the
information environment. We are a nation of laws, where truth
and ethics are expected, and rightly so. Our enemies, however,
aren't facing the same constraints. Our adversaries, both state
and non-state actors, can and will continue to bombard all
forms of communication with their messages in attempts to
influence public perception, create doubt of our actions or
intentions, and recruit people to their cause.
We must ensure that we organize U.S. Government efforts in
such a manner that maximizes desired outcomes through
discipline, agility, and innovation.
Again, thank you for the opportunity to be here today, and
I look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Lumpkin can be found in the
Appendix on page 76.]
The Chairman. Thank you.
I will just mention that a number of members of this
committee are also members of the Foreign Affairs Committee.
And looking at the issue that you mentioned about the
appropriate level of the director of the Global Engagement
Center is something, I think, that a number of members probably
should look at on both committees because it is their
jurisdiction.
I think a lot of the questions that you all are going to
get are going to be about what we do, but I want to just take a
moment to shine a little brighter light on what is happening,
because I think understanding is really critical as a first
step.
A lot of attention, as we all know, to what happened in the
2016 election. And so there are recommendations, even this
week, about shoring up our electoral process.
I don't think there has been as much attention devoted to
these other countries trying to influence our decisions. And I
mentioned, as did General Breedlove, some of these efforts in
the past, to prevent us from deploying the Pershing II and the
GLCMs [ground launched cruise missiles] in the 1980s or the
neutron bomb in the 1970s, that they are continuing to be
involved--have been involved historically in trying to make
sure that we didn't make national security decisions that would
run counter to their interests.
And so that is the reason, when I think about the Nuclear
Posture Review, or various other funding decisions that this
committee has to make, I worry about those attempts continuing
but us not recognizing it.
General Breedlove, could you elaborate just a little bit,
because you have been on the front lines of this, about, in
your case especially, the Russian attempt to not just influence
our elections but influence the political decisions we make,
especially in the area of national security?
And then, Mr. Garnaut, if you could help us think about the
ways the Chinese are attempting to influence not just our
elections or our perception of them but the decisions we make
that affect national security.
General Breedlove.
General Breedlove. Thank you, Chairman.
And I completely agree with the statement before your
question. I would point out, for instance, what happened when
Russia first went into Crimea and then into the Donbass. Russia
clearly had a very localized overmatch when it came to military
forces, but if all of NATO awakened, it could rapidly have
changed. And so what we saw was a campaign that started
immediately with very bellicose talk, to include what I have
called in this room before loose talk about nukes, in order to
try to influence the decisions of the West about how they would
respond to what was going on.
So, very broadly, in cases like the Ukraine, they have
tried to influence us. And I would also say that some of the
actions early in Syria are of the same ilk. The long-range
shots out of the Caspian Sea into Syria had very, very little
tactical effect, and I think they were mainly taken to show the
West, ``Look, we can range your capitals from the Caspian Sea.
Don't mess with us.''
And so I think in every case, as we look at application of
Russian capabilities, we need to have our eyes open to a
broader message, because they are trying to, as you said,
Chairman, influence our decisions in these spheres.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Garnaut.
Mr. Garnaut. Yeah, there are lots of parallels between
Russia and China. They are fascinating, and sometimes they are
illuminating.
One of the parallels is the effort to fragment alliance
systems. So, certainly in Australia and elsewhere, there is a
huge amount of effort to weaken the commitment of allies to the
United States and to each other.
And part of that, I think, is quite a sophisticated
messaging system which is kind of inconsistent when all
together but you can see how it works. And one is the message
that China is inherently and possibly uniquely peaceful; you
don't need to set up your armed forces because they are
peaceful. That is it.
Two, the second message is that China's rise is inexorable.
So, even if you don't like it, there is nothing you can do.
Resistance is futile.
The third message, which is contradictory to the first but
it comes out from different channels, back channels, and is
really important when targeted at certain times, is that,
actually, China is really dangerous, and it is ruthless, and if
you get in the way, it is going to really hurt.
And so it is this orchestra of messages which has worked to
manipulate the public opinion, elite opinion backdrop and the
mental wallpaper of decisionmakers as they are making decisions
about their own force capabilities and build-up and the
commitment to the U.S. alliance system and other security
partners.
The Chairman. That is helpful. Thank you.
Let me yield to Mr. Smith.
Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And I will go where the chairman suggested. What could we
be doing better? Or, put differently, if you were to say,
``Here is the plan,'' and you could walk over and be God for
the moment in the White House in terms of how we do a better
job of countering all of this very aggressive messaging that
the Russians, the Chinese, and the extremists are pushing, how
would you organize that as a starting point? Who in our
government plays the most important role? White House? You
know, NSC [National Security Council]? Pentagon? State
Department? What would the team look like?
General Breedlove. Congressman, so let me take the first
stab at it. And I may or may not actually hit what you are
shooting at, but I want to offer that we are here sort of
talking about the information piece of this conflict that we
are in. And I think, first and foremost, we need to recognize
that we are actually in a conflict.
The second thing I would offer in how to organize our
response is to understand that our opponent is broadly
attacking us. I use that very simple model, DIME--diplomatic,
informational, military, and economic--to describe a nation's
power. There are much more sophisticated models, but for a
fighter pilot that works.
And what we see is our opponent is attacking us
diplomatically at the values that we have and our legitimacy in
the West. It is attacking us, as we have talked about in this
committee, in the information space in incredible ways. In
Europe, Russia is now using force again to change
internationally recognized borders. And then Russia, as we
talked about, is using its economic sphere to influence pricing
and availability of fuel to nations that need it. So----
Mr. Smith. I am sorry, but that is not what I asked. It is
all very helpful, but we have heard that. What would the team
look like?
I mean, if I can just give you an analogy----
General Breedlove. Sure.
Mr. Smith [continuing]. That I think worked for us. After
9/11, General McChrystal kind of led the notion that we are
being attacked by a network, and it takes a network to beat a
network.
So, A, we went to an elaborate effort to understand what
that network was that was attacking us, and then we built our
own network. And all over the world, every morning, all the
different pieces of that--and I won't get into all the
different pieces of it--got together at 7:00 a.m. east coast
time and said, how are we doing, what is going on here, what is
going on there, what piece of it do you have, FBI, whoever.
You know, I think we need that type of comprehensive
approach. And I just want, what is the first step? What is the
building block to build that counter-narrative?
General Breedlove. Slow to get to my conclusion, which was
we have to have an all-of-government response, and that has to
be led somewhere, either an empowered GEC to bring all of
government together or an entity in the NSC to bring all of
government together. But we need to respond in an all-of-
government way.
Mr. Smith. And right now it is fair to say nobody is in
charge, right? There are some people doing a few things here
and there, but there is no person who is like, I get up this
morning, my job is to counter this information campaign?
General Breedlove. I think that is correct.
Mr. Smith. Okay.
Mr. Lumpkin. And, sir, if I could add----
Mr. Smith. Yes.
Mr. Lumpkin [continuing]. I kind of think of the
information space as we have an orchestra; what we don't have
is a conductor. And we need to have a single person that is
held accountable for U.S. Government information efforts.
Mr. Smith. Just quickly on that piece, since there are kind
of, like--there are several different pieces here. One,
obviously, is the, you know, Russia--well, there is Russia and
their efforts to undermine democracy and freedom. There is
China and their efforts to do the same. There are the violent
extremist groups that we are trying to counter. And then there
is what the chairman mentioned, is the collective effort to,
you know, interfere in our politics, not just in the elections
but in our decision-making process.
Is it possible, do you think, to wrap all of that into one
thing and say, ``Okay, you are in charge, here is the
information warfare, you have got to cover it all''?
Mr. Lumpkin. I think what we have done as a nation
correctly is we created the Director of National Intelligence
to get 17 intelligence agencies together kind of marching in
the same line.
And they also advocate for budgets, resourcing,
legislation, people. I mean, again, I always can tell people's
priorities by where you put your resources, your people, money,
and your time.
And I would offer that we don't have a whole-of-government
approach to this. When I took over the GEC, we had a $5.6
million base budget.
Mr. Smith. Yeah. Thank you.
Mr. Garnaut. If I could add just to that, from the China
angle, they are very good at playing off the different silos of
our systems against each other.
So if I can only underscore what General Breedlove was
saying about the importance of elevating this issue and making
it very clear the strategic importance of this issue, and then
decisions flowing down to each part of our system, rather than
the individual bureaucracies and agencies coming up with their
own solutions and trying to sort of horse trade at the top.
Mr. Smith. Okay.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
The Chairman. Mr. Conaway.
Mr. Conaway. Thank you, Chairman.
Our Intel Committee will release tomorrow, we think, our
findings and recommendations of what we thought the Russians
did or didn't do pertaining to our elections and the systems
that we have in place, the voter registration and the tallying
systems. All those kind of things are a little more mechanical.
The real fight is, as the chairman may have said and
General Breedlove said, is between the ears of Americans, and
how do you protect. Jefferson wrote extensively about how
valuable an educated public is to the preservation of
democracy.
And I am looking right now at RT America--RT, Russia
Today--which is a Putin tool to propagandize in America. And
Jesse Ventura has a show on there, Ed Schultz has a show on
there, Larry King has a show on there. I assume they know who
they are working for, but the American people may not.
So we, how do we--and this is more just a statement than a
question, but the real issue for us is how do we make sure that
Americans aren't improperly influenced? In a free society with
a free press where anybody can get access to these channels,
how do we make sure Americans understand who they are listening
to, who they are being influenced by?
Because at the end of the day, Putin's real issue was, can
I get somebody to vote differently than they would otherwise
have voted had I not engaged in this fight?
And that is, you know, probably not an Armed Services
Committee circumstance, but helping the American people
understand where the risks are, looking at--you know, like, RT,
you pull it up, it looks like it is a regular, legitimate
American news source, when the truth of the matter is at its
core is a Putin-driven propaganda machine.
Just a statement, Mr. Chairman. I don't have much of a
question in that regard, because, really, this issue is more
how do we make sure Americans, when they go to the polls, have
in mind the right person to vote for, or against, based on
legitimate sources.
So if any of the three have a comment in that regard, I
would be happy to listen to you.
All right. I yield back. Thank you.
The Chairman. Mrs. Davis.
Mrs. Davis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you to all of you for being here. I really
appreciate your remarks. I think we all do.
You have talked, and certainly Mr. Lumpkin, you have talked
about the Global Engagement Center and you have talked about
the need for a conductor. But where is the executive in this?
How important would the executive be to an elevated and
empowered GEC? And could it actually not be that important if
it wasn't seen as critical to the country?
Where does it stand?
Mr. Lumpkin. Well, I mean, I kind of scratch my head
sometimes, wondering, you know, where is the executive right
now in this process.
I mean, I think what we see is the--I mean, information
operations are military operations, just--you know, information
operations to support, you know, military objectives.
We have the public affairs team out there, you know,
messaging to the American population. We have the State
Department, who is focusing on the public diplomacy, which is
influencing populations abroad. The gaps and seams in those are
massive.
And not only do you have the gaps and seams between them,
but you have the hyper-connected world where what goes on in
the public affairs is reached near simultaneously
internationally. What happens in country X affects--it hits the
American populations.
So the world has changed on how we can consume, manage
information and what flows where, but our silos are still
there. Our silos still exist.
And this committee, in conjunction with their counterparts
in the Senate, have done some tremendous work in the 2017
National Defense Authorization Act. In fact, it took the Armed
Services Committee to legislate in the State Department on how
they manage information, because it wasn't getting done.
So I do think it starts here, to get the executive going in
the right direction. But I think it is time to do a holistic
look as far as how we manage information. It may be time for,
you know, a control-alt-delete and look at new ways to do
business. And I think elevating the GEC or a GEC-like element
may be the right course of action.
Mrs. Davis. Uh-huh.
General, did you want to respond----
General Breedlove. Just----
Mrs. Davis [continuing]. On where do we start?
General Breedlove [continuing]. A small add-on.
I really liked the words Mr. Garnaut used. This should be a
top-down-driven thing. It doesn't have to be the executive, but
if it is not the executive, then the executive needs to empower
someone below them, give them authority, responsibility, and
accountability for the mission and then tell them to move out.
Mrs. Davis. Mr. Garnaut, did you want to respond?
Mr. Garnaut. No, I won't add to that.
Mrs. Davis. All right. Great. Thank you.
As you know, the whole-of-government approach that we tried
to work with after 9/11 was--how do you think that that was
transformative on some levels? What did we accomplish--why did
we accomplish that and not accomplish other things?
Mr. Lumpkin. I think it is, first of all, there was an
immediate call to action because of the event that happened,
because the horrific nature of what 9/11 did to the psyche of
the American people, as well as physically damaging and hurting
families and the American people writ large.
Until we have that--I have learned that policy generally
doesn't make itself. You need a forcing function. I would like
to think that people are awake enough, based on what has
happened and what is happening in the information environment,
that it is time to do something about it before something
horrific does happen.
Mrs. Davis. Uh-huh.
I am thinking also about our relationships with our NATO
partners. And, certainly, General Breedlove, you were very
involved with NATO. We know that, in many ways, it is really
our Western--Western nations are strong, but that also makes us
susceptible, because of our institutions.
How do you think we do address these issues with our
partners without compromising those values?
General Breedlove. So let me agree, Congresswoman, with
something you said which is important. And sometimes our
strengths, which are our freedoms and our values, make us
vulnerable. We are not accountable to the truth in the way we
operate in these public spaces, where--or, we are accountable
to the truth in these public spaces, while our enemies are not.
And so I am not in favor of stooping to the wrong type of
tactics in reply and compromising our strengths. And that is
what I see in NATO as well. Western democracies, Western
values, Western institutions are one of the first targets of
these kind of efforts coming from our opponents.
Mrs. Davis. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Mr. Wilson.
Mr. Wilson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank each of you for being here today. We appreciate
you highlighting such important issues that have been a great
concern of the committee over years.
One issue in particular that I recognize is working on
China's ongoing influence campaign through the establishment of
Confucius Institutes across the United States.
Currently--and this is a question for each of you--there
are 103 active Confucius Institutes that were described in 2009
by Li Changchun, the head of propaganda for the Chinese
Communist Party, as, quote, ``an important part of China's
overseas propaganda setup,'' end of quote.
It is for this reason that yesterday I introduced
legislation, H.R. 5336, the Foreign Influence Transparency Act,
which would require transparency of these institutes through
modifying the Foreign Agents Registration Act for disclosure.
Do you believe it is appropriate to require organizations
like the Confucius Institutes to register under the Foreign
Agents Registration Act?
And, additionally, it has been 23 years since the Foreign
Agents Registration Act, FARA, has been last updated. What
recommendations would you give to the committee on how it
should be changed to deal with Confucius Institutes or other
influence operations that you have discussed today?
Mr. Garnaut. Well, thank you. And I did note those reports
with interest.
Now, Australia has had a close look at your FARA
legislation. We didn't have any before, so we are coming from a
standing start. And I think what we have tried to do in
Australia is to broaden the definitions a little bit to account
for the fact that a lot of foreign interference is indirect.
You know, FARA tends to be focusing on a more contractual
relationship, so you need to have some broader definitions.
And I think that the direction you have taken with that
draft legislation is very encouraging. And leaving aside
whether or not the Confucius Institutes themselves should be
registered, I think that is the right direction.
Because what they do is partly propaganda, but I think even
more important is their connection to the United Fronts Work
Department system. And that is that, you know, they can
potentially be used, or we need to stop them being used, as a
platform within universities for influencing decision making in
universities, as well as having an element of propaganda in
itself.
I think your expansion of the FARA legislation is certainly
a very encouraging thought.
Mr. Wilson. Thank you.
Mr. Lumpkin. I absolutely agree. I think we need to look at
the definitions within the FARA to see what is included and
what is not and maybe take a fresh look at them. But the
legislation at first glance looks really, really good, so I am
pleased you did that. Thank you.
Mr. Wilson. Thank you.
General.
General Breedlove. Sir, just to save your time, I would
just completely align myself with the concept of transparency.
Mr. Wilson. Thank each of you for that.
And, Mr. Lumpkin, given your previous experience as Special
Envoy and Coordinator for the Global Engagement Center, could
you inform the committee as to ways in which this committee can
support their mission, whether it be increased authority,
funding, or coordination with SOCOM [U.S. Special Operations
Command] in their counterpropaganda efforts? Do you believe
more can be done to ensure their success? As I believe their
mission is absolutely critical.
Mr. Lumpkin. I do. Thank you.
I think one of the pieces, as I mentioned, is that they
need to be fully empowered to effectively execute across the
interagency, to include USSOCOM as one of the combatant
commands.
I additionally believe they need to be resourced, not only
with money but with people and with leadership. Since my
departure in 2017, there has been an Acting Special Envoy, and
I would like to see somebody permanently put into that place to
guide that institution.
But I do think that one of the key pieces is to elevate
them to the point where they can have a compelling and
effective voice. I think the other piece the committee could do
is--hearings always assist in transparency, so I think that
hearings on subjects like this one go a long way in moving
forward.
Mr. Wilson. Thank you very much.
And, General Breedlove, the Governments of the U.K., U.S.,
France, and Germany have recognized the use of the nerve agent
Novichok as an offensive use of weapons.
Do you believe that the use constitutes an act of war? If
so, what should the U.K. or allies do to reciprocate?
General Breedlove. Thank you for the question.
And I quickly found, when I was the head of NATO, I
couldn't determine what was an act of war. The NACC [North
Atlantic Cooperation Council] got to do that. But I would
definitely construe it as a warlike action on a friendly soil.
And I think that the more surprising piece of this is,
again, how brazenly and how open these actions were. And I
think that we have seen actions like this in our own capital in
the past, and so these are concerning.
Mr. Wilson. Thank you all.
The Chairman. Just briefly, on the funding for the Global
Engagement Center, Mr. Lumpkin had mentioned $5 million
previously. As I understand, in the omnibus there is the
authority to transfer up to $60 million of DOD [Department of
Defense] money for specific projects in the Global Engagement
Center, and then, of course, what State Department puts in. So
just to let everybody know, again, it is--DOD money can be
transferred as well as the State money.
Mr. Larsen.
Mr. Larsen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Garnaut, first off, congratulations on winning the
Brownlow Award in 1993 as the best and fairest player in the
Australian Football League. Having grown up watching the early
days of ESPN and a lot of Australian football, I didn't know
there was a fair way to play it, and I am glad to know that
there is. So congratulations.
And for you, as well, because of your experience in
Australia, one of the concerns I have about how we are
approaching the relationship with China is that we have a
defensive playbook and not an offensive one. We are not filling
gaps that China is filling, where we can fill those gaps. And
one of them has to do with the Confucius Institutes issue.
And I am wondering--I think another way to approach the
Confucius Institutes is to actually identify these universities
and maybe expand Federal funding for Chinese language and
Chinese culture for students so that they don't have to
outsource that activity to Confucius Institutes.
And I am wondering in Australia what you are doing, since
you mentioned in your testimony that universities, I think,
need new processes and transparency to deal with Chinese
influence on campuses. How are you approaching that there?
Mr. Garnaut. Well, you have hit upon a key vulnerability
here. China is really filling--providing a service that we are
failing to provide, and that is China capability--linguistic
capability, understanding of Chinese contemporary politics and
history. So the Confucius Institutes have found a kind of, you
know, great black hole that they can fill.
So, yes, we do need to work hard on rebuilding our China
capability--I think that applies to the United States as well
as Australia--at universities.
I would just flag one thing about the Confucius Institutes,
which is at least we know about them and people are talking
about them. And, in a way, that degree of transparency goes a
long way to curing the problem. What I am personally more
concerned about is things that, you know, don't have a big flag
over their building. So we see other institutes and research
institutes performing similar functions but without the
attention, and I think that is where we need to pay a lot more
attention.
But transparency is absolutely key. I think we are
unanimous on this panel. Inside universities, I can think of a
couple things to do. And, you know, in many cases, it is up to
the universities themselves, but I think there is a lot more
room for transparency about the sources of funding,
particularly donations. We should be honest about the political
connections of money that comes. We should have more
transparency about who is funding research projects--who
exactly is funding research projects and, also, who is funding
trips to China. You know, the junket trade is rife. We just
need to--we don't want to stop it, but we need to flag it when
it is happening.
Mr. Larsen. Yeah. Great.
And I want to follow up on the point you made about
consistency and really giving that message from the top down.
So, here in the U.S., we have just--one agency has
concluded that the Belt/Road initiative [BRI] is a tool of
domination for the Chinese, while another Federal agency is
actively trying to find ways for U.S. businesses to participate
in Belt/Road projects. That seems to be, to me, inconsistent.
And we can decide which one we ought to choose, but it is just
flat-out inconsistent.
Again, thinking about going on offense--and maybe Australia
has looked at this question--what can the U.S. do to compete or
at least have a presence in those places where China's BRI has
a presence, as opposed to just saying we are going to try to
ignore it, put on blinders, think it doesn't exist, but
actually have a presence in these same places where BRI is
being implemented?
Mr. Garnaut. Yeah. The policy responses to BRI have been
disjointed all around the world. And, typically, economic
agencies will support it--you know, they see the idea of
building things and making things to be a good thing--and
security agencies don't. And often it is a very messy,
unmediated response that happens. We see that from a lot of
countries around the world.
So, yes, that does highlight the central importance of
elevating China and Russia policy to a higher level and pushing
down the objectives and the strategies.
With BRI, obviously, again, they filled a vacuum. You know,
if we are, between us, no longer supporting development in the
way that we used to in my part of the world, in Southeast Asia
and the Pacific, well, it provides opportunities for others.
So I think that there is opportunity to do more there but,
also, really to focus again on transparency. Because if we can
just empower civil societies to do a better job, to do more of
what they are doing--local communities, local media, local
journalists--sunshine will cure a lot of the harm that we are
worried about.
Mr. Larsen. Thank you very much.
Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Mr. Lamborn.
Mr. Lamborn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for having
this important hearing.
And I am going to make an editorial comment real quickly
before I ask my question of the witnesses. And that is, no
matter what the President does or doesn't do, he is going to be
criticized. If he doesn't congratulate Putin, some people would
say he is not reaching out, he is going it alone, et cetera, et
cetera. So I just want to defend the President by saying it is
important to take some of the criticism with a grain of salt.
Okay. To my questions of the panel.
You have already been asked about China, and you have
talked a lot about that. I want to follow through a little more
on that. What happens to democratic institutions in the United
States and in Australia if we don't push back on the kind of
influence that they are trying to exert on our political
institutions as a democracy?
Mr. Garnaut. I might have first crack at that.
Well, you lose control of the debate.
So, in China's case, one of the things that we have just
failed to recognize and failed to address for decades, and it
has allowed the problem to fester, is the extent to which China
or the Chinese Communist Party has been able to co-opt friendly
voices in the Chinese community, the Chinese media in our
countries, and to coerce and intimidate others out of
participating in the debate. So it rewards and nurtures
favorable conversations and shuts down others.
So we really need to go and protect people and provide safe
spaces for people to have their freedom of expression, which
the rest of us have taken for granted. And now we are seeing
that modus operandi spread out of the Chinese communities into
the mainstream. And so we are seeing major efforts by China to
intimidate publishers, journalists out of participating in the
conversation and to reward others. You know, they help you
succeed. They find a favorable sympathizer, and they help you
succeed.
We need to balance that. We need to protect people who have
been coerced and threatened, and, where necessary, we need to
create safe spaces to have these conversations. At
universities, you are untainted by political money from
overseas. In the Chinese diaspora, we need to create or help or
reinforce independent media platforms, because at the moment
they are being completed drowned out. We are losing--literally
losing sovereignty over the public discussion places in our
countries.
Mr. Lumpkin. In addition to losing control of the
narrative, you lose the audience. You lose that audience to
connect with not on just that issue but other issues.
The attention span for many people is very short. That is
why social media platforms, the early--you know, 140
characters. You can captivate and actually change and influence
people. But what we don't want to do is cede this space to our
adversaries and lose access to the audience.
General Breedlove. So, sir, I would just echo that by
saying, in military terms, we have to take the field. If the
only voice in the fight is that attacking our democratic
institutions, then that is all that the people will hear, and
we will be diminished. We have to purpose to take the field.
Mr. Lamborn. We have talked a lot about information
campaigns by the U.S. and how that is important. But sanctions
in other human rights arenas has been very effective. The
Russians vehemently reacted against the, if I say this
correctly, the Magnitsky sanctions when that law was passed by
Congress and signed by President Obama, which shows that we hit
a nerve. It was effective and continues to be effective.
Do sanctions on high-placed officials in Russia and China
have a place to play in this campaign that we are waging?
General Breedlove. I have been outspoken on this a little
bit, so let me take the first shot.
Of course our sanctions have helped, and they are effective
in many ways. But if the only tool we use are sanctions and if
they are always under sanctions, they become the new normal and
they begin to diminish in effect. And the longer they are in
effect, the longer they have to find out ways around them,
through shell companies and other things that are happening.
So that is why I advocate, as I did in my opening speech,
we need a more all-of-government response. We need to look into
the other silos where they are using tools against us and also
open up our thoughts and imagination there.
Mr. Lumpkin. And if I can, we are not going to message our
way to--it is not a panacea. We are not going to sanction our
way to get where we need. We are not going to kill our way. It
is about having a layered approach in our national policies to
ensure that, from a security perspective, the American people
are safe.
Mr. Lamborn. Thank you.
The Chairman. Mr. Brown.
Mr. Brown. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you to the panelists for being here today.
General, this question is for you. There is a saying that
the best defense is a good offense. This is an adage that has
been applied to many fields of endeavor, including sports and
combat. I recognize that this strategic offensive principle of
war might not be applicable to our nuclear defense strategy,
but when it comes to our cyber strategy and our information
operations, shouldn't this principle be applied? And, really,
the question is, are we doing enough offensively?
I recently visited Latvia and Estonia and Ukraine, had an
opportunity to speak with U.S. and partner officials, both
military and nonmilitary. And I couldn't help but walk away,
you know, with the perception that we are just not doing enough
offensively.
Can you comment?
General Breedlove. We like to say as a fighter pilot, ``The
best defense is your missile on the way to your enemy.''
So, sir, in short, I don't think we are doing enough. We
have sort of ceded the offense. We are under attack. Now, we
have to take a more offensive reply, is the way I would offer
it.
And it goes back to the answer I had for the other
Congressman, and that is that, especially in the information
space, we truly have not taken the field yet. And we don't have
to disinform, but I believe there are a lot of truths about
Western institutions and values that we can use in a more
offensive way.
Mr. Garnaut. Look, I might take a slightly different angle
on this. I think, especially in relation to China, we
underestimate the amount of defensive work we have got to do.
And so I think offense is a terrific conversation, but I would
first want to make sure that we have actually begun our
resilient strategy at home. Because if we don't have that
foundation, we can't get very far. So it is just a sequencing
issue for me.
Mr. Brown. And then let me follow up with you. Is it
``Garnaut''?
Mr. Garnaut. ``Garnaut.''
Mr. Brown. Okay. Thank you. I want to follow up not on this
question or your answer to this question but your response to
Mr. Larsen about the Confucius Institutes. And we have one at
the University of Maryland. They are basically--they are
springing up all over the country and the world.
Just last month, the FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigation]
director testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee
that the Chinese Government uses these nontraditional
collectors, like the Confucius Institutes, to exploit the open
research and development of the U.S. and serve as outposts--
now, I am paraphrasing--of Chinese overseas intelligence
networks.
You suggested that, you know, with the Confucius
Institutes, as long as you know that they are there--
transparency and accountability. My concern is that, number
one, they are paid for by a government that has a modus
operandi of influencing private-sector, nonprofit, and academic
institutions to promote its policies and its objectives. And,
number two, how do you police, you know, so many universities
and campuses around the world?
So I guess my question is, what about a set of standards
that would be applicable? And maybe even reporting? And how do
you balance that particularly with Confucius Institutes on a
college campus, where we invite freedom of expression?
Mr. Garnaut. I couldn't agree more about the need for
standards. There are some pretty basic standards that often get
buried in the top drawer when it comes to Confucius Institutes.
For example, I don't understand the need for secrecy around the
contractual arrangements that are often set up. Of course, they
should be transparent, they should be on the website.
I don't see why Confucius Institutes, unlike almost any
other similar foreign cultural organization, needs to imbed
itself in universities. So, going forward, I would encourage
university administrators to keep them at arm's length.
And where we see problems with Confucius Institutes, it is
almost always because universities have failed to impose, you
know, even the most basic accountability. And you see the
institute kind of moving or seeping into decision making
elsewhere in the university. So if you tightened up management
and you improved accountability, you would go a long way.
But I would just add that there has been such
conversations, there has been such attention on the Confucius
Institutes, I wouldn't want that to distract us from all the
other stuff which is more difficult to see, we have got to work
harder to see.
Mr. Brown. Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Wittman.
Mr. Wittman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Panelists, thank you so much for joining us today.
Mr. Garnaut, I wanted to begin with focusing on the Chinese
One Belt, One Road initiative and the things that they are
doing to make infrastructure investments in places like Sri
Lanka, where they are developing a port there, and in Djibouti,
where they built a military base.
What we are seeing is investment that is being guised as
economic, that has definite strategic implications. And all you
have to do is to talk about neighbors in the area. India and
others feel very, very differently about the intentions of
those efforts by China.
Can you give me your perspective from your--in your
testimony, you said that some of these efforts are about
winning without fighting, so essentially winning by other
means. And that is creating strategic blocks to, I think, take
away the ability for other countries to do certain things and
therefore take away their capability.
And how do these types of what really are influence
operations by China, how do they play into this strategy of
winning without fighting? And can these activities be seen as
tipping points for sites and other activities around the world
that may include further expansions in these areas under the
guise of economics for these particular nations?
Mr. Garnaut. Look, I think the example of Djibouti has been
instructive to all of us--and Sri Lanka. Too often we are
seeing that things that were advertised as just pure economic
investments in infrastructure have ended up being used in this
process of debt-trap diplomacy----
Mr. Wittman. Yeah.
Mr. Garnaut [continuing]. To kind of change a leasehold
into freehold ownership of crucial infrastructure.
So there is a real problem there. The information is now
in; it is no longer an abstract, hypothetical process. And it
is much harder for developing countries to tackle this than
robust democracies, because it is easier for the elite to be
bought off and to actually sell out their national interests
without the same degree of accountability.
So the pattern now is pretty striking. Those two examples
that you mentioned--you could have mentioned a couple of
others, including Pakistan--where, you know, the countries
should never have signed up to that degree of debt, and it
gives China enormous leverage, which it can use for strategic
purposes. So, yes, we are all on notice that this is a problem.
Mr. Wittman. Very good. Thank you, Mr. Garnaut.
General Breedlove, the United States military, I think, has
made a lot of advances along the lines of cyber issues,
establishing some centers for excellence, especially the NATO
Cyber Center for Excellence. And Estonia has been a great
example about how those things have progressed. And, obviously,
your time there with NATO and with EUCOM, you know, was a great
part of that.
But it seems like, though, on many of the other less-
definitive issues, the U.S. is lagging behind somewhat. And I
wanted to get your take on what are the necessary steps going
forward for the U.S. to do more to protect its data, and not
just data in a defense system but also data on the commercial
side; to safeguard the American system from dirty money, that
money that kind of makes its way through and undermines efforts
for us to guard information and to keep a strategic superiority
place for us; and, also, to restrict the influence that nations
like China are having over our universities?
Mr. Garnaut spoke a little bit about these Confucius
Institutes, but it is more than just the Confucius Institutes.
That is one element of it, but there is a lot of other, more
clandestine efforts that are going on there to have influence
but also to gain intellectual capacity back to China.
So I wanted to get your perspective there on those issues.
General Breedlove. Thanks for the question, sir.
And I would just disqualify myself about talking about the
dirty money. I think that the answer there is what we have
talked about a couple of times: transparency in business
practices and standards. And that is about as far as I can go
on the economic front.
I think you really hit the nail on the head when you
mentioned the exfil [exfiltration] of commercial data. One of
our past DNIs [Directors of National Intelligence] said that we
have had terabytes--terabytes--of proprietary data about our
most advanced systems that have been exfil'ed from our
commercial entities.
And so I think we need to recognize that that is a
strategic problem for the United States, to include its
military. And then we probably need to rally around those who
are struggling. And I think, in general, we look to our
commercial entities to do it on their own. And so I would
advocate for sort of increased collusion on how we defend these
very important and valuable things.
And on the restricting influence on universities, again, we
run up against those things we value, which are freedoms of
expression and so forth. But I think Mr. Garnaut hit it right
on the head: Having some standards and setting expectations
before is really important. And that then empowers the
universities to not be seen as an ogre in the business, and
they can adhere to those standards and expectations.
Mr. Wittman. Very good.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
The Chairman. Mr. Panetta.
Mr. Panetta. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Gentlemen, good morning. Thank you for being here.
Mr. Garnaut, kind of going a little bit more into what you
were just talking about, I realize that we have talked a lot
about our country's offensive and defensive capabilities. Talk
to me about other countries' offensive capabilities and our
coordination with those other countries, if you can. How is
that? How are we at that point?
Mr. Garnaut. Well, we are not. So this is the very early
stages of a long, long conversation.
So the answer is that, you know, it only seems like
yesterday we were all woken up to the defensive piece. And I
think there are many countries, you know, in this game that are
actually actively working out the offensive piece, let alone
coordinating between each other.
So the answer is it is all to be done.
Mr. Panetta. Please.
General Breedlove. I would just point out some exercise
experience, not real-world experience.
In an alliance with multiple nations, each nation brings
different levels of restrictions to its use of offensive power.
And sometimes in these scenarios, again, in exercises, we find
that while one government will not approve something, another
might use their tool. And so commanders, who have to deal with
alliances, have to understand the ability to do bilateral work
inside of an alliance to use tools that may not come to the
front.
And I would just say one more time, a third time: In
exercises we have looked at this.
Mr. Panetta. Understood.
Mr. Lumpkin. And I do have one real-world example of where
this coordination has happened, and that is the counter-ISIS
mission among the coalition.
The messaging piece--there was a strategic communications
messaging group that worked hand-in-glove together because of
authorities of different countries' understanding of specific
audiences, where we could synchronize and coordinate the
messaging to make sure we hit the right message to the right
audience at the right time with voices that would resonate.
Mr. Garnaut. Let me stand corrected. On ISIS, that is
right. There is a lot of work to be doing in actually emulating
the work we have already done on ISIS, including working
together.
Mr. Panetta. But it appears that all of you would agree
that, when it comes to these revisionist countries and their
guerilla geopolitics, there is not really a coordination
amongst the other nations in pushing back on them.
General Breedlove. NATO is beginning to have those
conversations.
Mr. Panetta. Great.
General Breedlove. I have been out of NATO for a little
while now, so I can't speak for their most recent
conversations.
Mr. Panetta. Great. Great.
Thank you, gentlemen.
I yield back. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Mr. Coffman.
Mr. Coffman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
In U.S. campaign finance laws, we have provisions whereby
if someone wants to do political ads on radio or TV, they have
to disclose who they are, who the organization is. We have
never updated those laws to reflect social media platforms. Do
you think that that transparency would serve the American
people well?
I am wondering if you all might comment on that, starting
with you, General.
General Breedlove. Absolutely. It is a really short answer.
But, clearly, we did not understand what has happened in our
past in this, and we need to be a lot better at it in the
future.
Mr. Coffman. Thank you.
Mr. Lumpkin. I think there is something ``there'' there
with that. But I also think that there should be some sort of
credibility rating on the veracity, not just who is paying for
it, but is it true, is it not true. And I don't know if it is--
you know, historically, you get five stars because your truth
over time for 20 years is, you know, at the top 1 percent, or
however it works. But I think we need some sort of veracity
scale to see that what is actually coming out is true and
accurate.
Mr. Garnaut. And if I could add, on China, so China doesn't
yet work the English language social media in the same way that
Russia does. Maybe it is learning; maybe this is all to come.
But where we've really got a problem is in the Chinese-
language social media systems and channels. So the fact that
China has been successfully able to block out the big American
platforms--the Facebooks, the Twitters, et cetera--has given it
a near monopoly of Chinese-language social media, and it
follows the diaspora abroad.
And so we have actually lost--you know, these messages that
are going to most Chinese-language social media users in
Australia and the United States are filtered through Beijing,
so we have actually lost the delivery mechanism. So it is well
beyond just tagging that there is some government involvement
in the message; it is filtered and delivered and created by a
Beijing-sponsored platform.
Mr. Coffman. Thank you.
General Breedlove, as a former U.S. commander for European
Command, you had mentioned in recent testimony--in prior
testimony about the Russian attack against its former spy and
his daughter as not necessarily an act of war but a warlike
act.
In Article V of the NATO charter, it speaks to the
requirement for NATO members to come to the defense of any NATO
member who has been attacked. The problem is what constitutes
an attack.
And what the Russians--I almost said ``Soviets.'' I don't
know if there is a difference. But what the Russians have been
developing is these hybrid tactics. And so, you know, it is
about, you know, information operations. It is about using
covert forces in conjunction or to augment indigenous elements
that they have stirred up within the country. They have
obviously done this in the Ukraine. My guess is they could very
well be looking at the Baltic States as a test to break NATO.
How well-defined is Article V? And what would you
anticipate a European response, a NATO response in something
that may not be a clear-cut conventional attack?
General Breedlove. Congressman, this is a tough question
that is being discussed in NATO when I left and still is being
discussed.
When do these--and I liked--I used that, ``hybrid,'' in my
own testimony. I really like Gerasimov's words because they
illustrate what you are talking about: active measures and
asymmetric methods.
But Article III, defense starts at home. Article IV, we
consult with our allies to determine have we been attacked and
what is the response. And Article V is then the collective
response.
So that process kind of walks through. And at the point
that we are now, most of the nations are using that process
individually to determine, have we had an Article V sort of
response. And so it is hard to draw the line of what is and
what isn't.
And, frankly, I believe Mr. Gerasimov and Mr. Putin believe
they can get away with different things in different countries,
to include our own. They have a line which they think they can
operate to.
And so it is a tough question to answer, and I can't give
you a definitive piece.
Mr. Coffman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
The Chairman. Mr. Garamendi.
Mr. Garamendi. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for
this hearing. In my view, this is an extremely important
hearing, and it is one of a series that I believe we ought to
engage in.
I recall a hearing in the Senate, about a month ago now, in
which the heads of the intelligence agencies, when dealing with
this asymmetric warfare, said that it appeared to them that
there is no risk to Mr. Putin; there has been no pushback.
Last week, the Departments of Energy and Homeland Security
issued a bulletin that clearly said that Russia had hacked into
our electric grid systems, into our power plants, including
nuclear power plants, and various transportation, including
airports, and that they had probably gained control of those
systems. In other words, they could shut down the electric
grid; they could shut down the cooling systems in power plants,
probably including nuclear power plants.
The question that this committee must ask Cyber Command,
who is responsible, as I understand it, for the defense of this
Nation against cyberattack--and, by the way, the Departments
both said it was an act of war.
The question for this committee is to ask the question of
Cyber Command: Are you defending the Nation? And what can you
do to make Russia understand that there is a risk, that they
will pay the price for what they have already done and what
they might do in the future?
So, Mr. Chairman, this is more to you, to ask you to have
Cyber Command in here. I understand they may be here on April
11. And we must ask them the tough question: Are you defending
this Nation? If so, how did it happen--how did it happen that
the Russians are able to gain control of our key
infrastructure? Which would be a pretty good indication that
our Nation is not being defended.
And, furthermore, what instructions has Cyber Command or
any government agency been given by the President to defend
this Nation and to strike back? If there is no risk, then we
are at serious--if there is no risk to Russia, then we are at
serious risk.
This being the Armed Services Committee, Mr. Chairman, our
task is to hold this administration accountable, to find out
what they are doing to protect us or what they have not done
and what they could do. And until we do that, it is very clear,
from the ongoing information war and cyber war, that there is
no risk to Russia for what they have already done, which has
been described by our Homeland Security and the Department of
Energy as an act of war.
Mr. Chairman, we have a job to do here, because this
administration is not doing it.
If any of you gentlemen would like to comment, please do.
You have 53 seconds.
General Breedlove. I would just add that, when we consider
giving Mr. Putin risk, we certainly need to, as you have talked
about, look in the cyber and information spaces, but as I have
said already this morning, we need to also look in the other
spaces. We need an all-of-government reply in these areas.
Mr. Garamendi. If I might, sir, in your initial testimony,
you said that we needed a plan, a comprehensive plan. We don't
have one, obviously. I would be delighted to hear your idea of
what that might be. And, obviously, you won't do it in 16
seconds, but you are welcome to come back to my office or maybe
to another hearing.
The Chairman. Mrs. Hartzler.
Mrs. Hartzler. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you, gentlemen, for this very, very important
hearing.
General Breedlove, it is good to see you again. I am used
to seeing you in uniform, but I appreciate your expertise
continued and your testimony.
And I just want to highlight a few things and then bring it
home and then ask for your advice.
You say that Russia's interference in the election is
merely a symptom of the larger hybrid war against the West in
which economic, cyber, and disinformation tactics are used in
conjunction with conventional forces in order to exert force,
pressure on the adversary.
The American people need to know this, and I am so glad we
are having this hearing today.
You go on and say: Waging a conventional war against the
West would be unfavorable to Russia. As such, it has used
hybrid warfare to break up Western unity. Exploiting divisions
in the U.S. society and promoting a cultural war is one key
element of Moscow's effort to weaken the West.
That is spot-on.
I want to bring it home. I represent part of Missouri, and
I represent the University of Missouri. That is my alma mater.
Here are a couple of headlines that came in my local paper
there.
``Report: Russia sparked fear at the University of Missouri
during 2015 protests.''
Another article: ``Mueller indicts Russian agency cited as
origin of University of Missouri disruption efforts.'' We had
some unfortunate protests, some discord locally on our campus,
and the same people that were involved in the Presidential
election from Russia inserted themselves into our local issue
to make the matter worse.
And there was a really great report done by Lieutenant
Colonel Jared Prier, who did the research and connected the
dots and brought this to light. I just want to read a couple
things that he said.
He said, ``Defendants, posing as U.S. persons and creating
false U.S. personas, operated social media pages and groups
designed to attract U.S. audiences. These groups and pages,
which address divisive U.S. political and social issues,
falsely claim to be controlled by U.S. activists when, in fact,
they were controlled by the defendants.''
He goes on and says, ``The role of the Russian trolls and
bots wasn't to generate a controversy but to feed and amplify
it in an attempt to fan discord.''
And then he had another real quote. He says, ``It is like
when someone gets in a fight and there is someone in the back
of the room saying, `Yeah, punch him. He'll think you're weak,'
egging it on.''
And so we have got to bring this to light. And I think, as
Americans, it is time that we rally as a family. You know, it
reminds me, back home in Missouri we have a lot of common
sense. And sometimes we have our own interfamily squabbles, and
the brothers and sisters may fight a little bit. But, boy, the
neighbor kid or somebody else wants to attack our brother or
sister? Boy, we rally around that family, and don't mess with
my family.
And I think, as Americans, we need to wake up. This is what
our adversaries are doing across the world, whether it be
Russia or China. They are exploiting our own family squabbles,
making them worse, making us not only fight ourselves but fight
other people and weaken the whole thing. And it is time that we
wake up to this.
And you conclude by saying we need to take a position,
establish policy and execute it. And all of you have given a
lot of good advice. And I know we need a strategy.
But I wanted to ask you General Breedlove, specifically on
this issue, where you have social media from the Russians
coming in, interfering with our own family squabbles, what do
you think our policy should be? And what should the execution
of that be? What should we do in retaliation for them
interfering?
General Breedlove. So, very quickly, to pile on, I use this
very example as I speak around the country of what happened at
Mizzou. And it was even multilayered. After they instigated
problems, they went back in and chastised the local press for
not covering their disinformation and further spreading it. It
was really audacious, what they characterized there.
The first thing, ma'am, is that America needs to understand
this. There are other examples equally as bad as Mizzou
surrounding removing Confederate statues, both sides being
egged on by the Russians. In order to try to keep oil prices
down, they are instigating fights on both sides of things like
oil pipelines and fracking in order to cause discord and
disharmony and to hopefully continue to suppress those efforts
to keep oil prices up.
And so the first step, I think, is making Americans aware
that the Russians and the troll factory there in Saint
Petersburg, the Internet Research Agency, is out there
orchestrating these battles in these spaces, and make our folks
aware that when they go into their social media they are
getting an echo chamber of their own thoughts. They are really
not seeing both sides. And in that echo chamber they are being
fed by these people who are trying to incite, again, on both
sides of the issues.
So awareness first. And then to begin to hold responsible
those--and I think we need to start having tough conversations
with those that prepare the social media platforms on what they
allow in their spaces.
Mrs. Hartzler. Thank you.
The Chairman. Mr. O'Halleran.
Mr. O'Halleran. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I guess I am going to make some statements and take up some
time. But I am an old investigator here, and I look for
verification of issues and gaps in issues. And we are dealing
right now with an issue that, if they attack our electrical
grid, we could find some ways of changing the process, but they
are shaping our citizens' minds. They are shaping the values of
how people feel about our government and our country. And that
is something that we just don't turn off. That is something
that we have to gain back the trust of the American people and
be able to do that.
And it is not just social media. I listen to TV also. And
it is ``I think,'' ``I believe.'' There is no verification of
anything anymore.
And I have heard statements of whole-of-government approach
all year long, and I don't see it where it is working. And I
heard it earlier today. This is the kind of stuff that started
after 9/11. So we have been 17 years of talking about whole-of-
government, and it is apparently not working.
It is hard for me to believe--I was channel surfing one
time, and I saw RT on. And it took me about 5 minutes to
understand what it was about. And I didn't even know at the
time it meant Russia.
And now here we are today, and I cannot believe that our
intelligence people have not picked up on this for the last
number of years. And so they either missed what was happening
totally, they chose not to make it a priority, or they did not
understand the consequences. Because if they knew that this was
occurring and they didn't take the appropriate action over the
last 17 years, then we really have a problem. We are behind by
17 years. And I believe all of you made that type of a
statement.
And, Mr. Lumpkin, you said you were scratching your head
right now, and you also said that the world has changed. And I
am shaking--and silos are still there after 17 years. I find it
very difficult to--if I were sitting at home as an American
citizen listening to this, I would be not only shaking my head
but I would have to question the viability of how our
government addresses these serious issues on an ongoing basis.
I am new in Congress, but I have to tell you that, like
many American citizens, I want to be able to believe my country
is going to react in the appropriate way when this occurs, and
I haven't seen that at all, whether it is this hearing or
subjects leading up to this hearing, where the faith of the
American people, in making sure that they trust their
government and trust what they are hearing across the entire
spectrum.
We talked about standards here today. It appears that, in
my lifetime, standards have not only gone down because of
social media, but also because of ratings and the fact that we
don't have much investigative reporting anymore and it is all
quick, 30-second sound bites or 3-minute sound bites and move
on to the next issue.
So having given--I have a little bit of time here, so what
do you think?
General Breedlove. I will be really quick, sir.
I think that after 9/11 we did have sort of an all-of-
government response, but it is my opinion that we are extremely
limited in our all-of-government response on issues since then.
We tend to take very military approaches to Middle Eastern
problems, and we tend to take very economic approaches to
Russian problems.
Mr. O'Halleran. Anybody else?
Mr. Garnaut. If I could just add, essentially we are
talking about intangible harm, and it is very intrinsically
hard to define and to see, so where there is no body bags,
there are no explosions. So it is easy to be disillusioned on
where we are.
But 18 months ago, we weren't even talking about this
problem. At least there is now a conversation. These----
Mr. O'Halleran. I am going to interrupt you because my time
is running out.
Mr. Garnaut. Please.
Mr. O'Halleran. That is the problem. We weren't talking
about it.
Mr. Garnaut. That is right.
Mr. O'Halleran. But I guarantee you we knew about it, and
we weren't working at it. And I guarantee you, because we knew
about it, we should have been working on it.
And the issue of transparency, we have talked about a lot
today. We haven't defined what transparency means. We have said
the word, but we really don't know what that means.
And I yield. Thank you.
The Chairman. Mr. Scott.
Mr. Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I would like to follow up a little bit on what Mr.
O'Halleran was talking about.
When Tom Brokaw was on the news, he was not only the
anchor, but he was the managing editor of his news show. And I
do not believe that Tom Brokaw would have told America a
boldfaced lie. Today, it seems that we don't have anchors who
are also the editors but that the people that are on TV are
simply repeating what is on a Teleprompter, what their editors
are telling them to say. And while I think it is worse on the
television, I think that is also accurate in what happens in
the print media today.
And so, General Breedlove, you mentioned in your testimony,
``Russia took full advantage of this new media landscape.''
And when we are talking about the weaponization of
information, information can either be true or information can
be false. Would it be more accurate to say that it is the
weaponization of misinformation?
General Breedlove. Yes, sir.
Mr. Scott. And then, as you spoke, Mr. Garnaut--is that
right?
Mr. Garnaut. ``Garnaut.''
Mr. Scott. You spoke about how transparency goes a long way
to solving the problem. And what transparency would do is let
the American public know what is true and what is false. And if
it is false, then hopefully it would not have the influence on
our beliefs that it would have if it was true.
Mr. Garnaut. Look, just as a former journalist, let me
defend journalism for a second here. And that is to point out,
in Australia it has been a handful of journalists who have
really pushed the issue of foreign interference to the front of
the agenda. So, over several years, some hard investigative
work has been done to actually illustrate the problem, put it
on the front pages, and start to define the harm and to show
the state connections.
So media still does have a role----
Mr. Scott. That may be happening in your country, but in
America a news outlet is either pro-Obama/anti-Trump or anti-
Trump/pro-Obama. I mean, that is----
Mr. Garnaut. That sounds tricky.
Mr. Scott. It is just the way--it is unfortunate. But most
news outlets in the U.S., if we can call them news--I think
``media'' is a better way to portray them now, because I don't
consider them to be news anymore--give just enough truth in
their story to lead people to jump to the conclusion that they
want the people to jump to, which creates the chaos.
So I am very much in favor of journalism. It is the
editorialism that I think is destroying the credibility that
our news outlets have with America.
And if I could, I will quote you from a Pew Research poll.
And Pew does pretty good polling. 2017, this is just over a
year ago, Republicans--``Percent of U.S. adults who trust the
information they get from national news organizations:
Republicans, 11 percent.'' That means that 89 percent of
Republicans don't trust the national news. ``Democrats, 34
percent.'' That means 66 percent of Democrats don't trust the
national news. And 15 percent of independents trust, so 85
percent of independents don't trust the news outlets.
And I would just tell you, I think the loss of journalism
has been one of the real problems in this country, and the bias
that is out there. But if it is not the truth, then it is
propaganda. And as we have seen in Missouri, I think this is
going to get worse, if the journalists are not allowed to tell
the truth.
Which brings me to you, Mr. Lumpkin. You talked about we
have the information but what we don't have is a conductor. And
shouldn't the journalists be the conductors? Shouldn't the
journalists be allowed? What is your thought on the conductor?
Mr. Lumpkin. You said something at the front end of your
statement here, is that if it is not truth, it is propaganda. I
wish it was that easy, from where I sit, and maybe it is just
from where I was sitting, is that, for example, this to some
person is a receptacle; other person, it is a bottle of water;
somebody else, it is a hydration device.
I mean, that, in conjunction with five different pieces of
information, or different stories altogether, can shape
somebody's mental picture of a situation.
And that is where, I think, the key is. You have to
understand your audience and what resonates with them and what
doesn't resonate with them. For example, at the GEC, there were
some messages that worked really well in a small village in
Libya that would have no take in Malaysia. Same message, but
culturally they look at the world differently.
So messages and information and truth are kind of--they are
not an absolute. Because all of those things I just mentioned
about this bottle of water are true. I mean, it just depends on
what is your perspective and how you look at it.
And I think that the key is that you have to understand the
audience you are trying to hit. You need to devise messaging
strategies that will resonate with that audience. And then you
have to have a data feedback loop. Did it hit? Did it take? Did
it move the needle on behavior?
And behavior change is the one of the hardest things to
measure, especially in a short period of time. But you have to
have--it is about data to make sure that you are managing the
process and the information.
The Chairman. Mr. Langevin.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And I want to thank our panel of witnesses for your
testimony today. And, in particular, General Breedlove and
Secretary Lumpkin, thank you both for your service, as well, to
the Nation.
So, Mr. Lumpkin, if I could start with you, I am a big fan,
as you know, of the Global Engagement Center, and I believe
that it really does have a critical role to play when it comes
to countering messages perpetuated by our adversaries.
And I know we have talked about the Global Engagement
Center several times here today, and while I am glad that the
State Department has finally accepted the allocated transfer of
funds from the Department of Defense to assist in the effort,
of course pending congressional approval, I am still worried
that it is not being utilized to its greatest potential and
that there now exists a lack of leadership guiding it toward
success.
I know that we have to make better use of the Global
Engagement Center and we have to figure out how we can better
support its mission. But, domestically, there is no department
or agency of the U.S. Government tasked specifically with
protecting the U.S. public from foreign propaganda, and, of
course, probably rightly so, since we have to be mindful of
First Amendment protections and such. But there is, again, no
U.S. public--no one protecting the U.S. from public or from
foreign propaganda or various forms of information warfare.
What role do you feel that industry has to play here, and
what are their responsibilities?
Mr. Lumpkin. I think that industry does have a role. Again,
I kind of mentioned earlier a--again, I would love to see some
sort of veracity scale on what is going out, based on historic
trends, of whether a news piece or that source is reliable or
not. That is something that could be done by industry.
But because of the diverse nature of media in this country,
whether it is social media, print media, word of mouth, blogs,
it is very, very difficult to control while protecting privacy
of the American people as well as those First Amendment
protections that we have. So, extremely complicated.
But I do think we are at the point where we need to have
some serious discussions about the best way to preserve those
freedoms of Americans but at the same time make sure they are
getting effective and accurate news.
Mr. Langevin. So, Twitter announced that they are looking
to partner with outside experts to improve what they describe
as the health of their content, with the underlying goal of,
among other things, cutting down on abuse and manipulation of
the platform.
This is on top of several other steps that have been taken
to date, which include, from what I understand, their new
initiative to increase transparency of political advertisements
prior to the elections this fall. Much work of course remains
to be done still, I believe, but I am encouraged that this is a
positive step in the right direction.
But how could the government work to better assist
companies like Twitter to identify threats from foreign state
actors who are seeking to engage in information operations
against the United States?
I will start with Secretary Lumpkin, but if our other two
panelists want to chime in as well, I would appreciate it.
Mr. Lumpkin. I think the first step is have the dialogue, I
mean, because you have to understand the privacy restrictions
and privacy goals that each of these social media platforms,
for example, have with their clients.
Mr. Langevin. I think the dialogue is important, but it has
to, I think, go beyond that.
Mr. Lumpkin. Yeah, no, but I think--when I got to the GEC,
we had virtually no relationship with some of these social
media platforms about understanding how they saw the world. I
think that we can work with them. In fact, if you see some of
the things that the private sector has done to regulate
content, whether it is people screening the content or removing
the hundreds of thousands of Twitter handles that have been
removed by Twitter, they are doing things. We just have to make
sure that we are working with them and not against them. Again,
I think it is just about opening the dialogue at this point.
Mr. Langevin. Okay.
Anybody else want to chime in?
General Breedlove. I would just add, I agree. And I think
that part of that conversation with these providers is what is
their intent, what do they see as their responsibility. They
are taking actions, but those actions are in sort of limited
ways. And is it their intent to try to begin to ensure the
veracity of data or content, that would be a good conversation.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I would just say this is really a challenging problem,
because this is a nation-state attack, and they are using our
own private companies to carry out those attacks. And they are
not necessarily the ones that are equipped with being able to
defend against such a nation-state attack, with all the tools
of statecraft and power that can be brought to bear. And this
is a difficult challenge and dilemma that we have to tackle.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will yield back.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Dr. Wenstrup.
Dr. Wenstrup. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you all for being here.
This has been an interesting conversation today, to say the
least. I would like to compliment Mr. O'Halleran on some of the
things that he had to say today. But it seems to me that our
own people sometimes don't know what we have until it is gone.
And today we have an adversary that is a very patient warrior
in all that they are doing.
And I found it interesting--I appreciated Mr. Garamendi's
passionate response to the situation today, but, in my opinion,
he just played into exactly what they want us to do.
And I look at the election cycle. For the Russians, it was
heads, I win, tails, you lose. If Hillary Clinton wins, we have
destabilized her and criticized her, and if Donald Trump wins,
then he is not legitimate. They got it coming and going, either
way.
And then he took this issue today--and he is a friend. I
appreciate his passion. But he turned it into ``this
administration,'' as though this problem just started in
January of 2017. And let's not forget, Mitt Romney said Russia
is our biggest geopolitical foe, and he was laughed at. Adam
Schiff has said the Obama administration response to what was
going on was inadequate.
We have to move forward here, folks. Because that type of
thing, blaming the other administrations or whatever, is not
going to get us where we need to be today. And that is exactly
what they want us to be doing.
And we do need a whole-of-government, Republican and
Democrat, to go after this issue and bring it more to the
forefront and America's awareness. Because, you know, we always
judge a country by how many want in and how many want out. And
America has usually been the place where people want in, to
become Americans. Now we have them wanting to come in to
disrupt America. And I am curious if we are really even looking
at that.
But my concern is, you talked about the new normal,
sanctions would just become the new normal. And my concern is
their way of life, for Russia and China, perceived as the new
standard in the world. My question to you is, how does this
affect our democratic institutions and our rule of law and what
we consider international norms if they become the standard
bearer of what is supposed to be normal, as opposed to
democracy?
Mr. Garnaut. Can I just comment on the importance of
something you raised there? And that is, I think in Australia
we have made some progress in this respect: the importance of
establishing a consensus about the nature of the problem and
the principles that inform and underpin your response.
And so, one, democracy is under attack. You know, that is
the core of our systems, our sovereignty. Two, we will defend
it against interference from all comers, whether it is Russia,
or China, or Iran, or ISIS.
And once you have established, you know, a firm consensus,
then you can start building your resilience strategy. But until
you have your consensus, you are just groping in the dark and
it is all over the place.
Dr. Wenstrup. Thank you.
Any other comments?
Mr. Lumpkin. I do.
I know the name we usually use for this is ``hybrid
warfare.'' I prefer the term ``modern warfare,'' because this
is what we are looking at. This is not just, you know, a slice
in time; this is what we are looking at in a hyperconnected
world. So we have to develop strategies that are layered,
comprehensive, that transcend elections, that do all of these
things to protect, again, our national security and the
American people.
But this is not going away. As social media and new media
platforms iterate, we are going to see this morph, shift, and
change. And we can either be chasing our adversaries--I would
like to catch up with them now, let alone surpass them. But we
need to put some more effort here.
Dr. Wenstrup. General.
General Breedlove. Just very quickly, I am in violent
agreement with the last couple of things you said. It is really
about them attacking Western institutions, democratic values,
democratic nations.
And as was said in a couple of responses, they are in on
both sides in a lot of these, because it is not really about
one side or the other winning. It is about causing disarray and
loss of confidence in the things that our citizens need to be
confident in.
Dr. Wenstrup. Thank you.
I yield back.
The Chairman. Ms. Gabbard.
Ms. Gabbard. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, gentlemen.
General Breedlove, you talked about, in your opening
remarks, a few examples of American interference in foreign
elections in the past. To add to the examples that you gave,
there was a study that was released at the end of 2016
documenting 81 elections in 47 countries between 1946 and the
year 2000 where the United States either overtly or covertly
sought to influence the outcome of elections in these countries
and were successful more often than not. And this doesn't
include any of the CIA or military regime-change overthrows
that also happened in addition to this.
So, you know, as recent as the Iraq war--during the Iraq
war, we paid millions of dollars to plant propaganda articles
in Iraqi newspapers; sought to influence Russia's elections in
1996.
I say all this to raise the question about, if someone
turns on cable news today, and to hear a lot of the
conversations here, one would think that Russia's actions in
2016, this is the first time this has ever happened, and that
the United States does not have the history that we do with the
tactics that we have and may continue to use.
So my question is, how should anyone take the issues that
you are raising and the attacks that you are citing in any
context other than the historical context that exists?
General Breedlove. So, ma'am, you made the point that I was
trying to make in my opening statement, that I am not surprised
and I don't think anyone in America should be surprised that
Russia tried to influence our election, because, as you have
aptly described, we have been into that business in the past.
And I would like to join Mr. Lumpkin's remarks, in that
this word ``hybrid war'' I don't think gets it. It makes it
sound new and exciting, and it is really old tools used in new
ways.
And what I didn't say well in my opening statement is the
thing that surprises me the most is the boldness that Russia
believes it can have in our spaces, that they can do these
things and absolutely get away with them.
Ms. Gabbard. Have we lacked that boldness in U.S. actions
in other countries?
General Breedlove. As I said, I am trying to open the
conversation----
Ms. Gabbard. Sure.
General Breedlove [continuing]. Beyond the election, to all
of the elements of national power: targeted assassinations,
SCADA [supervisory control and data acquisition] attacks,
information attacks, elections.
So I guess what I am trying to say is there is a broader
attack on us than just the election piece. And we need to be
examining that in a holistic view and then, again, I think,
replying in a holistic way.
Ms. Gabbard. Thank you.
You know, Mr. Garnaut, you talked a lot--obviously, you
focused a lot on China, on China's actions, both in Australia
but generally, and in different ways that they are seeking to
influence policies, elections, views, et cetera.
Why--and, you know, whether it is you or General--and any
of you who would like to answer this--why is it that, again,
all we hear about is Russia's actions generally if you turn on
the news, whereas there are countries like China, like Saudi
Arabia, like Qatar, and other countries who, you know, purchase
TV ads, who fund think tanks here in Washington, who, you know,
who fund institutions in our universities, seeking to achieve
that same objective? Why is it that Russia's actions stand out
from all of the rest that have been going on for quite some
time?
Mr. Garnaut. That is a great question. And I think one
answer may be that because China is very good at it. They put
an enormous amount of effort into making sure we don't talk
about what it is doing. So if you look at the pattern of
influence and interference, a lot of it is about suppressing
contrary voices in our systems, you know, shutting down
conversations about the nature of the Chinese Communist Party
and what it is doing, while nurturing others.
And it is quite--and unlike Russia, where Russia seems to
be, you know, as much for a good time rather than a long time,
the Chinese are strategic and patient and they set down
foundations of organizations, very consistent narratives over a
long period of time, so often it is quite incremental in the
way that China behaves, whereas Russia tends to do these kind
of focused, sharp kind of strikes. So very different
methodologies.
But you could argue that--but it doesn't mean that China is
less important. You know, I think that we just failed to
recognize a lot of what activity has been going on, and that
needs to change and it is starting to change, certainly in
Australia, and starting to change in the United States.
Ms. Gabbard. Thank you.
The Chairman. Mr. Byrne.
Mr. Byrne. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Gentlemen, yesterday, China approved a new broadcasting
entity called Voice of China, which, obviously, is mimicking
the Voice of America. And they are doing that to strengthen the
Chinese Communist Party's ability to shape public opinion and
to project a certain positive image around the world.
Do you see this as a tool for China to use to gain
influence globally? Are you concerned by it? If you are
concerned by it, what should we be doing about it? I know it is
pretty new, but it is something we ought to talk about.
Mr. Garnaut. Can I just jump in quickly? So we are talking
there about an overt propaganda platform. So in the kind of the
tri-color spectrum, the black, the gray, the white, this is
white.
Now, on its own, I think propaganda is not the main focus
of our concerns, but when it becomes a problem is when it is
mixed with covert and deceptive work to spread. You know, the
channels of distribution are really important. So rather than
worry about the contents so much, is how is it penetrating our
societies, and then I think you will find a lot of the black
and the gray operations that we should be focused on, if that
makes some sense.
Mr. Byrne. Do the other two gentlemen want to comment on
that?
General Breedlove. No.
Mr. Byrne. One of the things that some of us who have
traveled to China, and certainly are trying to watch it, are
observing is that a country that heretofore had been holding
itself back is now becoming extremely aggressive. Certainly,
there is some tie between that and the recent decision by the
Chinese Congress to give unlimited tenure to President Xi
Jinping.
Should we expect for him and for the Chinese Communist
Party to further these activities to use propaganda, whether it
is white, gray or black, around the world and particularly here
in the United States?
Mr. Garnaut. Well, the short answer is yes. We have seen a
massive intensification of Chinese covert and deceptive
operations, and that has been led by Xi Jinping, so we are in a
new era. You know, I think that this pattern has become--has
been becoming increasingly clear since probably the tail end of
2013. So this is a 4- or 5-year process. And I can't see any
reason why that process of intensification won't continue
perhaps for the duration of his tenure, which might be a very
long time.
Mr. Byrne. There has been some discussion already today
about the Confucius Institutes. In some places, they are
providing some more cultural information on college campuses.
They have at least a quasi-legitimate role to do that, along
with other countries that do that.
How do we know when the Confucius Institutes go from a
legitimate activity to something that is illegitimate? And when
we know about it, what do we do about it, in a democracy with
rights to free speech, free association, like the United
States?
Mr. Garnaut. Look, I think when we see examples of behavior
in the black, of shutting down free speech, then we actually
have to be really, really tough. And if it is a pattern, then
we should hold the system responsible. At the moment, I think
up until now, it has been a very permissive environment. We
haven't tracked how the responsibility--Confucius Institutes
and other foreign-funded institutions have been used to stifle
debates elsewhere in the universities. I think we have got to
be much tougher when we catch it.
Mr. Byrne. Well, I would just say, Mr. Chairman, I know
there has been a lot of talk in America the last year or so
about Russia and what Russia is trying to do to influence
things in the United States and interfere with the operation of
our society and our government, but I would say that I am
equally concerned about activities from China. And I hope that
in some of our politically driven attention to what Russia is
doing, which is valid that we should pay attention to that,
that we don't lose sight of similar and, I would say, equal
activities on behalf of China to try to influence and disrupt
American life and our American political institutions.
And so I appreciate all three of you and your perspectives
on this. Hopefully, we will continue to study this. And I yield
back.
The Chairman. Dr. Abraham.
Dr. Abraham. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I think we all agree that this hybrid or modern warfare or
whatever we want to call it, is certainly not a new concept. I
would think that the Canaanites would consider the trumpets
that Joshua and the Israelites blew as hybrid warfare in their
time. And I would postulate that in a few years, with quantum
computing and the super computers that I am told China now has
the fastest of, the discussion we are having today about the
hardware, the fiber optics that are being used, will be
obsolete, and we will be talking about a completely different
set of dynamics and metrics as to how to combat this.
You know, I will take exception to some things that have
been said about the President and the present administration
being asleep at the wheel. I think this President has, for the
very good thing, been able to call out what we call fake news,
whether it is domestically or foreign, and this highlights
where we have gone as a country, unfortunately, as to looking
at how we receive misinformation or truthful information.
Secretary Lumpkin, to your statement that that bottle of
water will be perceived differently from Malaysia, Syria,
wherever you want to go, but, in fact, of all the things it may
be, it may be a receptacle, it may be this, it is still to--it
is still at least a bottle of water to everyone when it is
front and center. So that--and I agree with you and to your
statement.
Mr. Garnaut, I also agree with you that, certainly, some in
our media have been co-opted by some nefarious governments,
either state or non-state actors. Unfortunately, I don't see
that changing, unfortunately. I totally agree that we need
transparency in our government. We certainly have, I think,
that, and we certainly need it more in the foreign fields, in
the foreign actors to--I don't think that is going to happen
either, unfortunately. But we have got space wars that are
fixing to happen. We have things that will start occurring that
we couldn't even think of 15 years ago, probably 10 years ago.
So I guess my question is, in my 2\1/2\ minutes left, we in
the United States, we welcome, we actually encourage foreign
development, foreign investments in our products. We have
companies that are now owned by China and other foreign
governments that have knowledge and they have direct access to
some of our most technologically advanced equipment.
So my question to each of you, quickly, can you give me
concrete examples of where this commercialization of foreign
investment has directly hurt us in the national security level?
General, I will start with you.
General Breedlove. Sir, so I alluded earlier to what I
think is the real issue, and that is not through legitimate
means, as you have talked about owning, but the exfil of
commercial proprietary data around our most important systems.
That is what worries me the most.
I do have a little more confidence in committees, in DOD
and others, like the LO/CLO [Low Observable/Counter-Low
Observable] committee that protects our secrets. And I think it
is a fairly sophisticated system. I am worried about what you
said, but I am much more worried about the illegitimate exfil
of data.
Dr. Abraham. Mr. Garnaut.
Mr. Garnaut. Just briefly, I think we have underestimated
the level of sophistication and organization of a lot of
foreign-sponsored technology transfer programs. It is--so cyber
is obviously a big part of it, but also the networks of
scientists, how they link back up with foreign governments. We
just haven't had our eyes on the ball. And I know that Congress
and other institutions in the United States are now kind of
more alert to the upstream technology companies being sort of
purchased by state-driven actors. So I am confident that there
is at least movement in the right direction in this field.
Dr. Abraham. Mr. Secretary.
Mr. Lumpkin. I have nothing to add. Thank you.
Dr. Abraham. Okay. And the only thing I will add in my last
few seconds is that, General, I agree with you that, you know,
a lot of these things are intangible, at least in conceptual
ability. I hope as a Nation we can unite against this.
Unfortunately, unless there is physical damage and physical,
you know, human life at stake, I just, unfortunately, don't see
that happening, and that is very unfortunate.
And I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Mr. Bacon.
Mr. Bacon. Thank you.
Thank you, gentlemen, for being here. And I have got to say
for the record that it was an honor to serve under General
Breedlove's command, one of the finest bosses, commanders,
leaders I have ever met. And so it is great to see you back
here today, sir.
It is clear to me that we are under attack in a different
way, and we have to be clear with our citizens with that. It is
imperative that we not make this a partisan matter. This should
be a unifying thing. We are under attack. And I think we should
just agree on making it clear that the Russians were trying to
undermine our election and our--create discord. They were going
after our election systems. We need to analyze that to figure
out how do we defend better, make it more resilient, to give
our citizens more confidence.
It is clear that they are trying to penetrate our energy
grid and our financial sector. The next December 7 won't be
planes or torpedoes coming into Pearl Harbor, it will be
preceded by rolling blackouts or collapse of financial sector
because of a cyberattack. And we just got to realize this. So
we need to work now to make these systems more resilient.
It was clear they were trying to create discord and divide
us, and I think we have fallen for it. We keep falling for the
bait and beating each other up. And yet we need to know--we
need to be unifying and making it clear what the Russians are
doing. And it is saddening to see that we have been taking the
bait and we take the bait every day attacking each other, when
it is actually what--that is what the Russians want. And I
think transparency and making that clear would help.
I think on the good side, I think the President has made
clear in the National Security Strategy that Russia is a
primary threat. And I think our defense budget that we are
hoping to get done here real soon makes that clear too with our
10 percent increase in spending.
So my question at this point is, what do you think their
goal is? I mean, we know that they are trying to create
discord, but that is a means to an end. So what is their end?
What is the purpose of the discord and the partisan divide?
General Breedlove, thank you.
General Breedlove. Right back at you, sir, about your
experience as a commander. Thank you.
So let me, as I think my colleague tried to do, give the
press some relief. What we do now see is that institutions in
America, and the press, universities and others, think tanks
all around the country, are beginning to speak to what has been
happening for some time. It has been a slow awakening, but
people are now understanding, primarily, what Russia is doing,
less so what the PRC [People's Republic of China] is doing.
But so I think we need to not be hypercritical, because
folks are beginning to wake up to this. And that is the most
important thing. We need to reach my brothers and sisters in
small-town Georgia with this message so that they understand
what is going on. And as I have said just before, I really
believe that while they do have some short-term goals to try to
push forward one or the other of approaches, it is really about
destroying the confidence in America and American democracy, I
think, in the endgame.
Mr. Bacon. Do you think it is also maybe a goal to give
them a freer hand with their neighboring countries? You know,
what they are doing in Ukraine. If we are divided here, it is
harder to come up with a unified response to other matters
internationally.
General Breedlove. So now I would answer sort of in the
role of the former EUCOM and NATO commander. Clearly, they
wanted to find cracks in our alliance, expand those cracks,
live in those cracks, to destroy a unified response by the
alliance.
Mr. Bacon. Would you say we are in a Cold War now or is
that an appropriate term?
General Breedlove. I think we are in a warm war.
Mr. Bacon. A warm war.
Any other comments from our two panelists?
Mr. Lumpkin. It takes time to establish audiences. So you
want to establish an audience well before you need or want to
use it. You need to build the tentacles, you need to have the
infrastructure; it takes time. So I think what we are seeing,
in my view, is that not what is--what today is a prelude to
something in the future, I just can't tell you what that is.
Mr. Bacon. One of the things, it seems to counter what they
are doing. We need to see what are their weaknesses. We know
they are very dependent on the energy sector. They are very
concerned about what we are doing in the Baltics and Poland. It
just seems to me that there are some leverage points that we
also have that we need to be exploring more aggressively.
But any comments with that before I----
General Breedlove. In 15 seconds, I would say we need to be
intellectually honest enough to know that there is two sides to
every story. And we need to understand what is motivating the
Russian leadership, and I am not sure that we are very good at
that.
Mr. Bacon. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
The Chairman. Ms. Cheney.
Ms. Cheney. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And thank
you to all the witnesses. This has been very enlightening.
You know, the first thing I would say is, I think there is
general bipartisan agreement you have heard, for the most part,
on the committee about the threat, but I think it is really
important for us to recognize that the strength of our system
is debate and the strength of our system, you know, the sort of
explosion of different sources of information is not a
negative. And I certainly, frankly, personally, wouldn't want
to return to a time--I am not sure a time ever existed,
frankly, where there was one source of information. And I do
think that our adversaries have been genius in many ways at
exploiting what is a strength, but people ought to have the
ability to choose from different sources of information and not
expect that every single source is going to be some sort of,
you know, approved, verified version of the truth.
My question, though--my first question is for you, General
Breedlove. You know, we are very concerned--I am very concerned
that the administration has not issued--does not have any sort
of a cyber policy, even though this committee has called for
it. It is crucial. I am not sure how we move forward without
that. But it seems to me that we have got to be in a position
where we are not just thinking about what is our response to
these attacks, but we are talking about deterrence, and that
requires some kind of a template. And a template that says,
look, there is a public diplomacy piece of this, there is an
information piece of this. We need to be spreading the message
about the importance of freedom and democracy. But there has
got to be a line someplace where it becomes an act of war
against us, an attack on the power grid, an attack on our
election process.
So my question is, first of all, can you be a little bit
more specific about where that line is? And, secondly, when you
talk about an all-of-government approach, could you be more
specific about the deterrent piece of this in terms of what are
the kinds of things, even from the perspective of a declaratory
policy, that we would be, you know, saying to the Russians, to
the Chinese, you step over this line, these are the kinds of
responses you will meet from us?
General Breedlove. So thank you for the question, ma'am. I
would just say that I don't label just this administration as
not having these policies, these spanned administrations. We
have been crying for certain policies since the first attack in
Crimea, Ukraine, and other places. So these are things that I
think all governments, regardless of which administration is
running----
Ms. Cheney. There is just one in the office now.
General Breedlove. Right. We need these things in the tools
of our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines and others as
they respond.
I have sort of been boring today by saying all-of-
government response. We tend to, as I said, do economic things
with Russia and military things in the Middle East. And I think
that we need to sit down and be more direct about asking our
interagency governmental process to bring diplomatic,
informational, military, and economic tools in each case, and
for each country there are different responses.
Ms. Cheney. But would you be in favor, for example,
General, of saying, you know, that any of our adversaries, no
matter who it is, a particular kind of attack, they ought to
expect that that will be met with a particular response from us
that may or may not be in kind?
General Breedlove. I do believe that we need to understand
how to deter. I am not a huge fan of red lines, because when we
draw a red line and then we don't stand behind it, it is
catastrophic. And so I would be careful in how I did that. But
deterrence is in the mind of those deterred. It is less about
writing something on a piece of paper. And we need to make sure
we understand what gives Mr. Putin cost so that we can deter
him.
Ms. Cheney. Mr. Lumpkin, could you address this issue as
well in terms of what are the kinds of things that would be
most likely to deter action, and do you think that there is a
particular line in terms of the kinds of actions against us
that we ought to be focused on deterring?
Mr. Lumpkin. Yeah, I think it goes back to General
Breedlove's comment, you know, it depends. And it depends on if
we are talking about Russia, you are talking about China, you
are talking about the Iranians, each one has different points
and places that pressure could be applied to have the outcomes,
whether they are broad or very narrow to achieve. But what you
do have to have is a process to make sure that you don't get
locked into something you can't get yourself out of ultimately
as you design these strategies for specific countries.
Ms. Cheney. Thank you. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Mr. Hice.
Mr. Hice. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And welcome and thank
you for this very important hearing.
And, General Breedlove, thank you for your service and what
you continue to do at Georgia Tech, and I welcome the students
as well, although I am a Bulldog through and through. Glad to
work with you.
I want to go back to what you were discussing a little
while ago but didn't have time to get into regarding the
energy. In your written testimony, you stated that Russia is
using its vast energy resources to promote the dependence of
its smaller neighbors and to keep them from turning to the
West. Could you elaborate a little bit more on that, please?
General Breedlove. So if I could just use a few examples
from the Ukraine piece, and it has happened in others. When
Russia is trying to bring pressure on a government, in
Ukraine's case, calling in payments early, raising the price of
the fuel to bring problems, or withholding delivery so that
households would go cold in a very cold Ukrainian winter. So
there are lots of tools they use. Russia has an elaborate, as
you know, pipeline setup in eastern Europe, western Russia, in
order to be very good at this, moving gas around. And so it is
a tool they can use.
And then what I mentioned also in the testimony, in the
Q&A, is that Russia, of course, is very keen on keeping the
price of oil up because it is very much an oil-dependent
economy. And so it attacks into countries like ours to prevent
ventures like pipelines, fracking, other things, that would
tend to suppress the price of energy. And so they are very keen
to try to influence governments like ours in that respect.
Mr. Hice. Okay. So what about our potential ability to
export LNG [liquefied natural gas], wood pellets, that type of
thing? What kind of impact would that have?
General Breedlove. Much talk about how we might in the
West, larger than us, Canada and others, be a big part of
reducing Eastern European dependency on Russian energy. I
believe it would be a great tool.
Mr. Hice. Okay. So a great tool on multiple fronts,
obviously, for the national security of Europe. Is that what
you are refer--when you say a great tool?
General Breedlove. And the United States.
Mr. Hice. And the United States. All right. What other
methods do we need to be aware of and have on our radar to help
combat this hybrid warfare, specifically energy?
General Breedlove. I will get back to you on that, sir.
Right now, I think that the first and foremost on this is to be
able to reduce our dependence, and now I am offering Phil
Breedlove's opinion, to increase our own capacity to create.
And then to offer to our allies cheap energy that we can
deliver to reduce their dependence on those that would use its
course of capabilities.
Mr. Hice. All right. That sounds like a great plan to me.
Do either of the others have comments on this?
Mr. Lumpkin. No.
Mr. Garnaut. No.
Mr. Hice. Okay. Thank you very much. I yield back, Mr.
Chairman.
The Chairman. Ms. Stefanik.
Ms. Stefanik. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am going to go
through pretty quickly because I have seven questions and I am
determined to get through all of them.
So the first one is for you, Mr. Lumpkin. Is the State
Department the correct place to have this conductor? Setting
aside some of the issues with the Global Engagement Center, do
you believe that State is the best place for this point person
to be?
Mr. Lumpkin. I think he needs to be outside of all
departments.
Ms. Stefanik. Outside of all the departments. Okay. So
what--functionally, how would that work? Would it be similar to
the DNI in terms of having all the--you know, setting aside
intel, having the appropriate agencies be a part of that
process?
Mr. Lumpkin. I think so. It is the only concert that I know
that is cross-cutting across all departments.
Ms. Stefanik. Okay. Within DOD, who is the conductor?
Mr. Lumpkin. For--I mean, that is a great question, because
public affairs has a conductor at DOD that it is in the
information space, and you have military information operations
that resides oversight at ASD SO/LIC [Assistant Secretary of
Defense for Special Operations/Low-Intensity Conflict].
Ms. Stefanik. Right. So I ask that question to highlight
something that I think we need to focus on. On the Subcommittee
for Emerging Threats and Capabilities, we have quarterly
briefings when it comes to CT [counterterrorism] and when it
comes to cyber operations. And the briefer is able to go around
the world and say globally what the threats are and what our
operations are.
I fear that if we had quarterly briefings, we would not
have one point person who was able to answer our questions
region by region by region. So are those models that we should
use as we seek to tackle IO [information operations]? So what
we have worked through over the past 14 years on CT, what we
are currently doing in terms of elevating Cyber Command.
Mr. Lumpkin. Yeah. I think that the Joint Staff, J-39,
which is their operation shop that is in information
operations, should be able to give you and represent what each
of the combatant commands is doing with regard to information
operations, keeping in mind that the information operations
piece supports military objectives.
Ms. Stefanik. So do you think that is an important kind of
forcing mechanism in terms of congressional oversight, thinking
about having quarterly briefings on IO?
Mr. Lumpkin. I do, and I would recommend it.
Ms. Stefanik. Okay. What role does Cyber Command have in
terms of IO?
Mr. Lumpkin. I mean, they are--because----
Ms. Stefanik. What role should they have?
Mr. Lumpkin. Because they are largely in the intelligence
community, not in the information space, there is a role, but
it is a narrow niche.
Ms. Stefanik. General Breedlove, you are nodding your head,
I would like you to add to that.
General Breedlove. It was a great question, that is what I
was nodding my head to. In the end, Cyber Command is more about
the medium by which information is transferred and how to
adjust and control and, if necessary, defend and attack in that
medium. So I was shaking my head as I was trying to think
through the answer. There is not a good answer right now.
Ms. Stefanik. All three of you referenced the strategic
communications messaging strategy when it comes to countering
ISIS. Can you specifically talk about how this is structured,
both, you know, who the players are within DOD and State, how
we work with our allies?
And then the reason I am asking that question is, if we
were to identify the top threats in the IO space, I would list
Russia, China, and potentially Iran, as top three. I would love
to get your assessment on the specifics of how that is
structured, what we can learn there, and whether you think
those three threats are--where we should prioritizing having
messaging strategies when it comes to those adversaries.
Mr. Garnaut, do you want to go first on that?
Mr. Garnaut. Look, if I understood your question correctly,
but let me just talk about the--so when you talk about Russia
information operations, it tends to be the military piece or
the cyber piece and a little bit of the astroturfing of protest
movements.
China is in a broader space, and so it doesn't have a
direct bureaucratic counterpart in our systems, and that is
part of the problem, right? So we need to create a place where
it all comes together. And I agree with Dr. Lumpkin, it has to
be above the bureaucratic systems. But who--we have got to have
as part of our law enforcement, you know, capability, an
ability to track united front networking operations, to see it
spread across all the silos of our systems, and it is much
bigger than just the military piece or the cyber piece, it is a
whole of public opinion emphasis.
Ms. Stefanik. So let me rephrase my question. Since we have
what you--the three of you have said is a successful strategy
when it comes to countering ISIS in the information space, do
we need to come up with threat-specific equivalence when it
comes to countering Russia, countering China, and countering
Iran, in terms of our prioritization?
Mr. Lumpkin. Yes. The way the construct was, is in the
coalition against ISIS, we had a communications working group
where we would go and we would meet quarterly, and we would sit
there and hammer out, you know, the messages that audiences,
and what--and how we were going to work it against a single
adversary. And it was an ad hoc group, worked very, very well.
But I think you have to be focused on who is the adversary and
what are the outcomes you are looking for.
Ms. Stefanik. General Breedlove.
General Breedlove. So what made this coalition and this
capability successful is that the leadership of our Nation and
other nations in the coalition gave them the authority,
responsibility, and accountability to take on the mission. And
I would argue that that is what we are missing in the
arrangements with Russia and China. We haven't really given one
entity, like maybe the Global Engagement Center or some other
entity that is uber other entities, we haven't given them that
policy, authority, responsibility, and accountability.
Ms. Stefanik. Thank you. My time has expired.
The Chairman. Thank you.
If you all will indulge me for just a couple of more
probably brief questions. I am sitting here think--as I listen
to all of this, I am sitting thinking about all of the effort
we put into understanding the Soviet Union and the philosophy
behind it and the tactics it was using around the world. It was
enormous. And then it all went away. We are starting to
rebuild, for example, our understanding of deterrence and
thinking about these things again.
My simplified question to you all is, from kindergarten to
Ph.D. level, where are we today at understanding the influence
operation--I kind of like psychocultural warfare myself. Where
are we in understanding what is going on to us?
General.
General Breedlove. I will start with something, sir, I said
to you when I was wearing a uniform. We have backed up, and
probably for right reasons, not at the height of the Cold War,
but when the wall fell in the early nineties, we had over
12,000 analysts on Russia. And when I testified to you in
uniform the last time, we had 1,028. So we had cut our
capability to look into Russia and understand Russia by 92 or
so percent.
And so I would answer that we are back in junior high or
maybe entering high school, and our intel communities are
refocusing harvest. There are other things they are doing, sir,
I think they are on it, but we have work to do.
The Chairman. Okay.
Mr. Garnaut. Look, on China, I am not sure that we are at
kindergarten yet. The amount of analytical capability we have
got is so small. I can count on my hands the number of experts
on Chinese influence operations, one of them is in this room,
up the back, Peter Mattis, Mark Stokes, couple of people in
Australia. It is thought--it is unbelievably thin, and that has
got to be a major priority in building up analytical capability
on Chinese politics, Chinese history, and patterns of hybrid
warfare.
The Chairman. Just briefly, based on your experience, is
there the appropriate exchange between analytic experts here
and in our most valued allies, like Australia, on this issue?
Mr. Garnaut. Well, yes. I think the flow of information
analysis is really quite strong between Australia and the
United States. This is a topic that comes up often. But we just
don't have the depth of capability. We don't have enough to
share at this stage.
The Chairman. Okay. Mr. Lumpkin, what grade are we in?
Mr. Lumpkin. I was going to address the Iran issue, and I
would say we are probably in middle school somewhere.
The Chairman. In where?
Mr. Lumpkin. In middle school, junior high as well, just
because of the number of resources we have against it. It is
very small.
The Chairman. I just want to go back at the end to the
central purpose of this committee, and that is overseeing the
Department of Defense and the U.S. military. Taking all of your
points about whole-of-government, the importance of
intelligence in law enforcement and all of that, can you
provide just a few comments on the role of the United States
military in dealing with the problems that we have discussed
today?
General Breedlove. I don't want to pump sunshine, but I
would offer to you that there are some really brilliant people
working hard on this issue. And I have absolute trust and
confidence in Joe Dunford and in our Secretary of Defense,
because I have watched them, served with them, et cetera, over
the years. And I know that inside of the Joint Staff, General
Dunford is doing some work on trying to reorganize around
Russian issues. I led one of those efforts in uniform. And
Harry Harris, as the commander of PACOM [U.S. Pacific Command],
led a similar issue as we looked at China. And building a
broader rubric under which to address these than just the
combatant commanders, and reaching out in those processes to
other governmental agencies to bring them in.
So, sir, I am encouraged by what I see inside of our DOD
and our uniform military services on how they are approaching
this.
Mr. Lumpkin. And, sir, the Department of Defense is
carrying a lot of water on this front. They are carrying a lot
of water for the interagency. But everything can't be tied back
to a military objective, and that is where we fall short. Our
gaps and seams are massive. And the GEC, frankly, and during my
tenure, would not have been functional at all if it wasn't for
the detailees that came over from the Department of Defense
because the positions themselves weren't resourced within the
building.
So, again, I think the U.S. Government's efforts are
maturing, but the Department of Defense is doing a lot of the
heavy lifting for us.
The Chairman. Mr. Garnaut, in a broader sense, military
role in this space?
Mr. Garnaut. Look, I think military systems and defense
departments have had to pull too much weight here, because--
almost by default because the rest of the system haven't been
carrying their weight.
The Chairman. Yeah. I think that's definitely true here.
Mr. Garnaut. Especially the law enforcement piece.
The Chairman. Okay. All right. This has been very helpful.
Thank you all for being here. A lot of insight is gained. We
really appreciate you all taking the time to be with us today.
The hearing stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:40 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]
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A P P E N D I X
March 21, 2018
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PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
March 21, 2018
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[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING
March 21, 2018
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QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MR. LANGEVIN
Mr. Langevin. The internet has significantly changed propaganda
delivery. Social media platforms have lowered the cost of entry, while
simultaneously increasing targeting fidelity and output. These
activities are not necessarily cyber operations but do occur through
cyberspace. The elevation of cyberspace as a domain of warfare caused
us to rewrite U.S. doctrine, separating cyber operations from
information operations. Our adversaries do not make this distinction.
Instead of cyberspace, Russia refers to the information space. How do
you feel the separation of cyber and IO has affected capability
integration and effectiveness?
General Breedlove. [The information was not available at the time
of printing.]
______
QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MR. SCOTT
Mr. Scott. Declassified CIA assessments from 1983 detail specific
Russian active measures related to the previous generations nuclear
modernization and missile defense programs. For example, one report
stated: ``their campaign covers a whole spectrum of activities--from
overt efforts to create a fear of nuclear war to covert measures,
including forgeries and disinformation.''
General Breedlove, how much have Russian tactics changed from the
Soviet days and adapted themselves to new technologies?
General Breedlove. [The information was not available at the time
of printing.]
______
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. BANKS
Mr. Banks. Mr. Lumpkin, last week, General Mattis met with senior
U.S. and Afghan officials to discuss the military campaign addressing
the Taliban threat. Despite the promising intentions of the meeting and
the note that the Taliban ``may'' be willing to pursue negotiations,
without the entire Taliban leadership on board or firmly engaged, these
meetings continue to yield little in terms of measurable success.
Hon. Lumpkin, how can the U.S. and coalition forces minimize
Taliban influence on the domestic population so we accomplish the goal
of winning the people's hearts, minds, trust and commitment to
democracy?
What does this influence look like? Is it only brute force,
extortion, coercion, and intimidation or are there sneakier, softer
forms?
Despite the U.S. air campaign ramping up, are there ways to
minimize Taliban influence that don't endanger American lives?
Do you suspect any adversarial or competitive states (e.g. Russia,
China, Iran) influencing against us in the war on terror in this area
of responsibility? Please detail, if so.
Mr. Lumpkin. How can the U.S. and coalition forces minimize Taliban
influence on the domestic population so we accomplish the goal of
winning the people's hearts, minds, trust and commitment to democracy?
The lack of infrastructure and strong central government in
Afghanistan makes technical influence methods largely ineffective.
Technical influence delivery methods to include television, radio, and
social media are not viable methods of influence when much of the
population neither has access nor the infrastructure to receive such
means of communication. Highly successful influence operations cannot
be achieved in Afghanistan without a much larger commitment by U.S. and
Coalition forces operating with extended horizons.
What does influence look like? Is it only brute force, extortion,
coercion, and intimidation or are there sneakier, softer forms?
Influence is dependent on the targeted audience. Variables like
audience culture, size, and available infrastructure must be taken into
consideration. Many variables must be factored into creating a discrete
program to achieve very specific goals against a targeted audience. The
most effective methods of influence do not consist of brute force,
extortion, coercion, and intimidation. Subtle influence methods where
the audience does not overtly recognize that they are targeted are the
most effective methods.
Despite the U.S. air campaign ramping up, are there ways to
minimize Taliban influence that don't endanger American lives?
No. American lives will be endangered as long as we continue
operations in Afghanistan. It is the nature of military operations
during open hostilities or low intensity conflict.
Do you suspect any adversarial or competitive states (e.g. Russia,
China, Iran) influencing against us in the war on terror to this area
of responsibility? Please detail, if so.
Indeed there are adversarial or competitive States that are
actively influencing both the Taliban and general population in
Afghanistan. Afghanistan's neighboring States are actively conducting
direct and indirect influence operations in the country. This key
influencing neighbors of Afghanistan are Iran and Pakistan. Each is
conducting influence operation to achieve their own specific goals.
Mr. Banks. Mr. Lumpkin, thank you for your service as well as for
your frank and hard-hitting testimony. I agree that our adversaries
have taken advantage of the U.S. rule of law and order with their
disregard for any adherence to international norms of conduct. Your
assessment of the Global Engagement Center (GEC) is helpful as well.
How do you envision a GEC with the right authorities and
capabilities, works within the law, and is still nimble enough to
outpace strategic competitors, but also doesn't create another
bureaucracy?
While the Director of National Intelligence has a number of
authorities and duties as the principal intelligence advisor to the
President with a well-defined intelligence community, the stakeholders
within the ``information environment'' are not as well defined across
the U.S. Government. How well defined the stakeholders in the
``information environment'' in law? If they are not well-defined, what
is the remedy?
How do you envision this future GEC working in conjunction with the
National Security Council and Staff? How would you delineate
responsibilities between the two?
Mr. Lumpkin. How do you envision a GEC with right authorities an
capabilities, works within the law, and is still nimble enough to
outpace strategic competitors, but also doesn't create another
bureaucracy?
The GEC should be orchestrating the information activities in the
federal government and not actually conducting information operations
themselves. A narrow charter will limit bureaucratic growth and allow
for agility. At the same time, Congress should be actively involved in
providing strong and robust oversight to ensure that the GEC has the
correct capabilities in the ever-evolving information environment.
While the Director of National Intelligence has a number of
authorities and duties as the principal intelligence advisor to the
President with a well-defined intelligence community, the stakeholders
within the ``information environment'' are not well defined across the
U.S. Government. How well defined are the stakeholders in the
``information environment'' in law? If they are not well defined, what
is the remedy?
I strongly recommend Congress conduct an ``information
environment'' review of both the oversight structure and laws
surrounding the key elements to include Public Diplomacy, Public
Affairs, and Information Operations. Each has unique laws and policies
as well oversight structure. The means of communication and influence
have drastically evolved over the past twenty years but the laws and
governance structure have failed to keep pace.
How do you envision this future GEC working in conjunction with the
National Security Council and Staff? How would you delineate
responsibilities between the two?
I believe the GEC Director should be both Senate confirmed and a
member of the National Security Council. Like the Director of National
Intelligence, this would provide a structure for open and full
interoperability between the GEC and National Security Council.
[all]